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. “It 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. For now, let’s put it out of our minds and continue onwards.”

On that point they all agreed.

***

The manse was so large — and so thickly and meticulously boobytrapped by Kanedias — that it took a full three hours canvassing room by room before they finally found the object of their quest. In a third-floor salon, the Jayce Scepter gleamed: a golden rod with a sapphire orb at its head and intricate scrollwork inscribed along its shaft.

Nico led his companions, crossing the threshold slowly, sensing no obvious traps. Here, 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. The moment Nico touched it, the door to the room slammed shut, locking with an audible click. The four of them were trapped inside.

Meanwhile, Mr. Bones emerged from the shadows. He took one step forward and spoke in a monotone:

“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.”

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.

“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.

“Chronicles of Persius!” Gianna said. “Ancient Druin mythology — it must be on one of the shelves!”

It took about a half minute for Gianna to find it. A leather bound tome, its spine frayed, with a thick musty scent. Opening it, they found the pages had been hollowed out, and a key rested within.

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

“Perhaps… 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?

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

And right beside that door, set into the wall itself, was another large keyhole — identical to the one they 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 didn’t.

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…

“Well?” said Leo, holding out the items he’d drawn from the chest. “What do we do with 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. “Tick-tock, tick-tock — you’d better 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?”

Nico tried the numeric sequence, and the lock 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 letter 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 seemingly 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.

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

Thirty seconds.

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. Some kind of lock was disengaged. 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.”

Gianna obeyed without hesitation, levering the bier open.

“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 clattering to the floor in a jumbled heap.

Ten seconds.

What happened next happened very fast. Gianna levered the bier 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 ground.

His grip tightened. 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 Ice swung again. A hard, clean thrust straight through the vampire’s torso and out the backside.

Gasper Martin seemed more confused (or even amused) than hurt. He looked down at the wound Leo had left him. Arterial burts of violent ichor sprayed from the open wound, painting the inside of his bier. Unbeknownst to him, Gianna was surreptitiously rooting through his pockets, and soon she found a key. She tossed it to Nico, and ran with Leo to join him.

When Leo looked back, the vampire was no longer there. He was not in his bier — not anywhere. 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.”