Nico’s head spun. Their Guildmaster was here? Had he been taken hostage?

  Tomasso Vasari’s pedigree was in banking, not adventuring. Short and scrawny, diminutive and a touch cowardly, Tomasso had never even set foot in a Diji tomb. He would never purposely enter a vampire’s manse or a deathtrap.

  “Is this a prank?” Leo said. “This has to be a prank.”

  “An awfully elaborate prank,” Gianna said. “Assuming that lad’s severed head is real.”

  “I agree,” Nico said. “Not a prank, but possibly a test of some sort. Or it could well be a ruse of Kanedias’ devising. Possibly an illusion.”

  “Feels quite real to me,” Leo said. With his thumb he flicked it. Nico caught it in midair and examined it. Indeed, it felt real to Nico as well, but that was not necessarily conclusive.

  “It could be an immaculate illusion,” Nico said, who was a devout student of Illusion magic. “An advanced type of illusion — one which seems entirely real, even tangible. Indistinguishable from the real thing.”

  Leo raised his eyebrows. “I think you are being overly optimistic.”

  “I think you’re right.” An immaculate illusion required the deliberate focus of an accomplished Illusionist. It was difficult to imagine how Kanedias’ traps could create such an illusion under the present circumstances. “Let’s continue onwards — with greater urgency, but greater vigilance as well. Leo, lead the way.”

  ***

  The vampire’s manse was so large — and so thickly and meticulously boobytrapped by Kanedias — that they spent over three hours canvassing room by room. In a broom cupboard they were beset by Razorfang Asps and venomous, hundred-legged Blightbellied Tarantaculas. In a lady’s boudoir they had to play — and win — an enchanted board of Citadels before the door they had entered would unlock. Kanedias was especially fond of poison darts, and at least a couple dozen were shot at them, often from the floor or ceiling where they were least likely to check.

  It was an exhausting endeavor.

  But finally, in a third-floor salon they found the object of their Quest. The Jayce Scepter sat in a bracket upon the wall, as though it were merely a ceremonial sword. A golden rod with a sapphire orb at its head and intricate scrollwork inscribed along its shaft, it gleamed with an iridescent glow which was unaccountably yet unmistakably disorienting to look upon.

  Leo stepped forward, ready to charge in and claim it. Nico held up a bracing arm, blocking him.

  “What?” Leo said. “I don’t see any traps. Do you?”

  “No,” Nico said. “Which is precisely why I hesitate. Every other room boobytrapped to the gills except for this one. You see any, Gianna?”

  The girl could have a keen eye sometimes. Not quite as keen as Leo, perhaps, but in truth she was a fair bit cleverer than him. She came up to the very edge of the room, careful not to cross into it, searching its contents. Finally, she shook her head.

  “No,” she said. “Nor do I see an alternative means of ingress.”

  “Ingress?” Leo laughed. “You have her talking like a dictionary now, Nico.”

  Nico ignored the quip. “Follow me single file. Step lightly. If you hear a sound, especially any kind of mechanical sound, stop.”

  He crossed the threshold slowly, still sensing no obvious traps. Within, the heartbeat-like thumping noise he had heard from the stairwell was louder, more distinct… and thoroughly unsettling.

  He turned his attention to the scepter, which indeed seemed quite genuine. Nico lifted a finger to it, tracing along its shaft. A rill of electric energy coursed through him. If he had any doubt about its power or its authenticity, that doubt fled him now.

  But the next moment the door of the room slammed shot, locking with an audible click. The four of them were trapped inside.

  Then Mr. Bones emerged from the shadows. He was holding a book in one hand, using his finger to mark his place in it.

  “Alas,” said he, “I’ll give you credit. You’re the first to make it this far. Now listen to me very carefully.” He cleared his throat, and when he next spoke, his voice had a different, almost mesmerizing quality to it.

  “Five minutes

  Four clues

  Three keys

  Two doors

  One lie”

  As he spoke, an hourglass materialized in midair, turning itself over and starting the timer. A card appeared alongside it, offering their first clue.

  Leo yawned. “An escape room. How delightful.”

  “Escape room?” Gianna was unfamiliar with the concept.

  “They’re common in Diji temples. You solve a series of puzzles and riddles in the allotted time or the chamber fills with noxious gas — or meet some other grisly fate. I am a connoisseur of mortal peril, and this … eh, not my preferred flavor, honestly.”

  My preferred flavor involves stabbing things and hacking off limbs. Give me a straight fight, not some accursed puzzle box.

  Nico took a moment to consider their surroundings and make a mental catalog.

  The room they were in was oddly decorated, which was perhaps unsurprising for an escape room. Among the furnishings was a portrait of a wizened old man; a bookshelf full of Vedic epics; a rack of Parthian blowguns; a vanity mirror; an alchemy table topped with an assortment of vials and compounds; a Mynx throw rug; and locked chests, among many other things.

  Along the wall was a bier — or rather, the bier, wherein the vampire Gasper Martín was doubtless resting. It was made of ebonwood, the blackest shade of black, with a brown trim. Vampires, it was said, could sleep for months — years, even. But they had an uncanny sixth sense for those who intruded upon them. Should it come to blows … I’ll let Leo paint that canvas.

  “Read the card,” he said to Gianna.

  She obeyed with alacrity, grabbing their first clue and reading aloud.

  “Find the orphan boy betrayed by cruel Fate

  He rescued the golden apple before it was too late”

  “See what I mean?” Leo said. “I haven’t the foggiest clue what that means…”

  “It’s a literary reference,” said Nico. “Mythology. An orphan boy, descended from the gods, impressed by angels on a daring errand to help save the very gods who had abandoned him.”

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

  “Ah, well,” Leo said wryly, “if this is to be a trial of literary trivia, say my last rites and I’ll jump out the window.”

  Gianna ignored him.

  “I know that one!” she exclaimed. “Chronicles of Persius! Ancient Druin mythology — it must be on one of the shelves!”

  She ran to them, standing on tippy-toes as she scanned the names on their spines. To Nico’s eye, there seemed to be no organization to the titles on the shelf, and it took a half minute for Gianna to finally locate it. It was a leather-bound tome, its spine frayed, with a thick musty scent. Opening it, they found the pages had been hollowed out, and a silver key with cherry-red wings rested within.

  “This must be one of the three keys,” she said.

  “Perhaps… or perhaps not.” Nico tossed the key over to Leo. “Try the locked chests, see if it opens any of them. Also check if it fits in any of the door locks.”

  While Leo was doing that, Nico once again pondered the opening riddle. Five minutes, four clues, three keys, two doors, one lie… what was the one lie? That was the part which threw the whole riddle into disarray. The one lie itself might be the lie, if there were multiple lies.

  There were two doors in the room, both now framed in an ominous crimson light. One was the door they had entered from; the other door was presumably the escape door — and it had three locks. It stood to reason that the three keys from the riddle were meant for those locks.

  And right beside that door, set into the wall itself, was another large keyhole — identical to the one which Nico had seen in the Grand Foyer. The mechanism for disarming all traps? It must be…

  “Got it,” Leo said. One of the chests flung open. He reached inside and withdrew an assortment of items: a mirror, a candle snuffer, and a magnet.

  “Let me check if the key also works on the door,” Leo said.

  Alas, it did not.

  This was the aspect of escape rooms Nico resented. One clue led to another three, and some clues were simply red herrings. A seemingly interminable series of hints, puzzles, and riddles, with the ever-looming threat of death hanging above them…

  “Well?” said Leo, holding out the items he’d drawn from the chest. “What do we do with all this crap?”

  Nico hesitated, unsure. Gianna bounced on the soles of her feet, biting her lip, thinking…

  “At an impasse, eh?” Mr. Bones was leaning casually against the wall, silent and almost invisible. Now he seemed positively giddy. He had set his book down and was watching them with predatory delight. “Tick-tock, tick-tock — you’d best hurry!”

  The hourglass showed they had less than three minutes.

  Nico assessed the three objects, searching for hidden grooves or letters or numbers. Perhaps they would need to snuff the candles in order to reveal the next clue. It could be written in Nocturnal Ink, a type of enchanted ink visible only in the dark. He’d seen such a clue once before in a Diji temple…

  Wait.

  Nico noticed it once again. The thumping sound in the distance. It was beating out a precise rhythm. Four, six, three, two.

  “Do we have a number lock?”

  “This one,” Leo said, gesturing to another chest, this one barely larger than a man’s hand. “Why? You have a code?”

  “Four six three two,” Nico said. He tried the numeric sequence on the lock, and it popped open. “The sound in the distance — the cadence of the beats,” he explained.

  Within this chest they found a scroll with a series of numbers on it.

  “What is it?” Gianna asked. She had taken the magnet and was going around the room searching for hidden keys, or anything else the magnet might pick up.

  “A ciphered letter,” Leo said. “The numbers represent letters… so 1 is A, 2 is B, so on…”

  “No,” Nico said, “it’s a Pizarro Cipher — the letters are shifted by a certain number of characters. There are two words in the script with only letter, which must be either A or I. This should be relatively simple to decrypt…”

  Leo found a quill in the room, and aided Nico in the decryption, jotting down letters in a column and their corresponding numeric value. Meanwhile Nico sensed Gianna behind them. She had found a key inside a pipe running along the wall, and was using the magnet to slowly draw it out.

  By the time they had completed the decryption, less than one minute remained. Nico read the riddle aloud:

  “Long have I suffered, long have I aged

  Show me the true light, I’ll yield what you crave”

  In answer, Leo just shrugged. His forte was slaying vile goblins, diabolical mages, and other baddies — not solving puzzles.

  “Maybe another literary reference?” suggested Gianna, who was still laboring to draw the key out of the pipe. “There are a lot of books…”

  “Perhaps…”

  Time was elapsing, and they still needed three keys. Unless they didn’t. Nico examined the three locks on the door more closely, and under close inspection it was obvious something was amiss.

  “One of these locks is painted on. We only need two keys.” This was the one lie.

  “I’ve almost got one,” said Gianna, who was on all fours. “Just a little bit further to go…”

  “Show me the true light,” Leo said, quoting from the riddle. “Any thoughts?”

  Forty-five seconds.

  “Yes. The true light is moonlight. Use the candle snuffer to cut the lights; I’ll use the mirror to angle the moonlight onto… onto something.”

  Onto what? He looked around. “Mr. Bones?”

  “Him,” said Leo, pointing to the portrait of the old man on the wall. “Long have I aged — the patriarch’s portrait.”

  Thirty seconds.

  “I’ve got one of the keys!” Gianna exclaimed, holding it up like a trophy.

  Meanwhile, Leo quickly snuffed the candles, and Nico angled the moonlight, which fortunately was quite ample on this particular night.

  A mechanism sounded behind the portrait, a lock disengaging. Leo reached up to pull open the portrait, but it wouldn’t budge.

  Mr. Bones started cackling. “How delightful! Foiled by a malfunctioning clue! And you were doing so well!”

  “What do you mean?”

  “The portrait was supposed to swing open. I guess it’s broken. Ha ha! Even in victory, you are defeated!”

  Twenty seconds.

  “There’s another way out,” Nico said, speaking quickly. “But it’s cheating. Open the bier — you’ll find a key inside. Perhaps next to the vampire or inside one of his pockets. Be prepared to slay Gasper if he wakes.”

  To her credit, Gianna obeyed without hesitation. She dashed over to the vampire’s bier, climbing up a stool beside it and using all her strength to crack the bier open.

  Mr. Bones was outraged.

  “What!? You can’t do that! My master is resting!” He grabbed at Gianna, trying to pull her off the bier.

  Leo stepped up behind him.

  “Goodnight, Mr. Bones. Time for bed.”

  With a single cut of his saber Ice, Leo ended Mr. Bones. His calcified body clattered to the floor with an indignant rattle.

  Ten seconds.

  What happened next happened very fast. Gianna levered the bier fully open, and Gasper immediately sat bolt upright, fire in his cold gray eyes. His hand darted out, clasping Gianna around the throat. She gurgled as he lifted her off the stool.

  “No!” Leo roared. He leapt toward Gianna. As Gasper’s grip tightened around her neck, color drained from her face until her cheeks were as ghostly pale as the vampire’s own. Still his fingers tightened; Nico feared Gasper might snap her head from her spine.

  But then Leo was on him, and Ice swung again. A hard, clean thrust straight through the vampire’s torso and out the backside.

  Gasper Martín seemed more confused (or even amused) than hurt. He looked down at the wound Leo had given him. Arterial bursts of violet ichor sprayed from the open wound, painting the inside of his bier.

  Gianna did not miss a beat. Panting, she began surreptitiously rooting through his pockets, and soon she found a key. She flung it at Nico, who raced to the escape door. Leo and Gianna hurried to join him.

  When Leo looked back, the vampire was no longer there. He was not in his bier — not … anywhere. And the other door had not opened. There was no time to ponder that mystery. Nico quickly inserted the key into the large keyhole beside the escape door.

  Just as time was about to elapse, all the traps — and the escape room itself — were disarmed. The escape door swung open of its own accord, revealing a spacious drawing room.

  Their Guildmaster, Tomasso Vasari, and another man were seated before a cozy hearth, relaxing and sipping brandy snifters. Smiling, the other man stood up and motioned them to take the empty seats.

  “Hello, Niccolò. I’d like to discuss a business proposition.”