Chapter 81 – The Room of Lies Part 2
Tamara felt it as a pull through the rope. She followed, matching the rhythm of the group. Their boots left the familiar roughness of old stone and found something else—smooth and slick, with a thin layer of cold water just deep enough to soak through the leather.
Every step splashed.
The sound echoed strangely. It didn't bounce back like it should've in a closed room—it stretched, rolled away, came back twisted.
Then the screams started.
They weren't close. They weren't far. They were everywhere, all at once.
High-pitched shrieks. Low, gutteral howls. Laughter—wet, broken, too wide-mouthed to be human. The scrape of claws on stone. The sound of something large moving through water with too many limbs.
Sera flinched at a particularly sharp wail. Tamara felt the jerk travel along the rope.
"Eyes closed," Vulgrat snapped. His voice cut through the noise like a knife. "It's all fake. All of it. The riddle said don't believe what you see. Sound is just another kind of sight when it's weaponized. Ignore it."
"That's not how that works," Mara muttered, but her tone was tight. Her boots sloshed forward, shield scraping lightly against something to their right—a wall, a pillar, a corpse. None of them knew.
The water deepened to their ankles. Something brushed against Tamara's calf—soft, slick. Her muscles locked, a scream clawing up her throat.
She swallowed it.
"Keep moving," she said, voice surprisingly steady. "Trust him."
Another sound cut through the cacophony—a child crying.
This one was different. Smaller. Thin and breathy, the kind of sobbing that came from a throat already raw. It wasn't echoing like the rest. It felt… close.
"…Mama… please…"
Sera jerked like she'd been stabbed. Tamara felt her hand rise through the rope, up toward her face.
Tamara moved without thinking. She let go of the rope with one hand and grabbed Sera's wrist, fingers tightening hard.
"Don't," she said, right against Sera's ear. "Don't you dare."
"It's a child," Sera whispered, voice cracking. "We can't just—"
"It's nothing," Tamara said. She forced steel into the words. "It's not real. If you open your eyes, you die. That's all this is. A trick that wants your pity."
The crying rose in pitch, breaking into rattling coughs. It sounded like it was right in front of them now, little hands clinging, tiny body shivering.
Tamara's heart hammered. Her throat felt tight.
She squeezed Sera's wrist until the healer hissed in pain. "Trust what you feel. Not what you hear. You feel me holding you, right? That's real. The rest isn't."
Sera took a shuddering breath. "…Okay."
"Good," Vulgrat said, from somewhere ahead. "She's right. The more human it sounds, the more likely it is to be the hook."
They kept going.
The water grew shallower again, then vanished. Stone returned underfoot, warm and rough. The screams and cries began to fade, replaced by a different sound—low chanting, in a language none of them knew. It came from above, below, inside their own skulls.
Tamara clenched her teeth. "Almost there?" she muttered.
"Hopefully," Vulgrat said. "If not, we're all going to have very interesting nightmares."
Their toes caught the edge of something—stone rising. Stairs.
"Steps," Mara said. "I'll take us up. Stay close."
They climbed carefully, shoulders brushing unseen walls. The air felt thinner here, drier. The chanting crescendoed, then cut off all at once.
Silence slammed down like a lid.
For a heartbeat, there was nothing. No sound but their breathing.
Then a voice—not like the others. Clear. Smooth. Old.
"You have walked in darkness," it said. "You did not open your eyes. You did not surrender to the noise. You trusted the thread that bound you. You have solved the room."
Tamara's skin crawled. The rope at her waist suddenly felt heavier, anchoring her to something more than three other bodies.
"You may open your eyes."
Vulgrat hesitated. "Everyone… on three," he said quietly. "One. Two. Three."
Tamara opened her eyes.
The chamber behind them was empty.
No water. No bodies. No walls smeared with blood or chains hanging from the ceiling. Just smooth, pale stone stretching back into a plain corridor, as clean and featureless as if it had never been touched.
"Light," Mara breathed.
Sera shivered. "Gods…"
In front of them stood an urn.
It was massive, taller than Vulgrat, made of some deep, dark ceramic that drank in the light. Gold filigree wound around it in intricate patterns, forming symbols that twisted when Tamara tried to focus on them too long.
Above the urn floated… something.
It was vaguely humanoid, made of smoke and pale light, body tapering into wisps where legs should've been. A broad, angular face with no features except for two glowing eyes and an ever-shifting grin. Bracelets of shimmering metal circled its wrists, ankles, and neck, each etched with tiny runes.
It lounged in the air as if reclining on an invisible couch.
"You are," it said, "very, very lucky."
The voice was the same one they'd heard at the top of the stairs, but richer now, amused. It echoed just enough to feel unnatural without being painful.
"Lucky?" Vulgrat said, still breathing a little hard. "That's what you call that?"
The spirit rolled lazily onto its stomach, chin propped on its palms as it studied them. "If you had opened your eyes at any point in that chamber," it said cheerfully, "your souls would have been bound to the urn, and your bodies offered to the pyramid as fuel. The dark wants believers. You did not believe. That annoyed it."
It flipped onto its back. "If you had listened—truly listened—to the voices and taken them as truth? The light woven into the room would have judged your hearts wanting and burned you from the inside out. False compassion is still a sin, little mortals. It would have hurt."
Sera went pale.
"And if you had rejected the rope," it added, glancing at the line binding them, "if each of you had chosen to walk alone? Then the dark would have plucked you off one by one, and none of you would have known until the last was gone. So yes. Lucky. And a little bit clever."
"…So the riddle," Vulgrat said slowly. "Don't believe what you see. Believe what you feel. Trust the light, destroy the dark."
"Exactly," the spirit said brightly. "You trusted touch—your bond—over the lies of sight and sound. You did not let the darkness isolate you. You did not mistake false light for safety. Hence…"
It flicked its fingers.
A scroll of pale, thick paper winked into existence in front of Vulgrat, held aloft by a faint ring of light.
"This is yours."
Vulgrat reached out and took it carefully, as if it might bite. A faint heat pulsed through the parchment, threads of rune-script crawling across it like living ink. His eyes widened as he read.
"A Tier Three pill formula," he whispered. "Rage Pill… essence amplification… doubled output for five minutes… temporary invulnerability… the backlash…" He swallowed, eyes shining. "This… this is ancient work. I've never seen a structure like this. The stabilization method alone—"
"Good enough payment for not dying?" the spirit asked, smirking.
Vulgrat clutched the scroll to his chest. "More than."
"Then don't waste it." The spirit's gaze slid to Mara and Sera. "You have already been rewarded—shield, tome. Old tools for new warriors."
Mara lifted her arm slightly, shield glinting. Sera touched the tome strapped to her side, fingers brushing the engraved cover.
"And you," it said, turning to Tamara.
She met its gaze without flinching. "Me?"
The grin widened. "I have nothing for you here. But if you continue on your path you will enjoy the surprise waiting for you."
Tamara's brows drew together. "Waiting for me?"
"You'll see," the spirit sang. It stretched, bracelets chiming faintly. "For now… the room is done with you. Proceed."
It began to fold in on itself, body twisting into streams of smoke and light that swirled down into the urn. As it vanished, its voice echoed one last time:
"Try not to die in the next room. Most don't make it past three."
The glow in the urn dimmed.
On the far wall, a seam appeared where there had been only smooth stone before. It split apart slowly, revealing a stairway descending into deeper darkness.
For a moment, no one spoke.
Then Mara let out a long breath. "I hate this place."
"Same," Sera muttered.
Vulgrat carefully rolled up the scroll and slipped it into his ring. His hands were still shaking slightly. "At least it pays well," he said.
Tamara stared down the newly revealed stairs. The air that rose from below was colder, older. It smelled less like dust and more like something buried.
She adjusted the rope around her waist, then untied it and began coiling it back up. "We move," she said quietly.
Sera nodded, placing a hand briefly on Tamara's arm. Mara hefted her shield. Vulgrat took one last look at the now-empty chamber, then turned away.
Together, they stepped toward the next test.