“The Shrouded Vale”
Episode 11: The Gauntlet
April 5, 2025
Steadying his breath, fingers hovering over the edge of a pressure plate, Tavi Falconheart prepares to withdraw the fifteen hidden coins he’ll need to finish the sequence.
This is the safer path. Not greedy—just careful. Still, one mistake could cost him everything.
He moves slowly, feeling the tension in the roots beneath each plate. The first coin comes free. Then the second. A third nearly sticks—he pauses, adjusts, and slips it loose with a controlled breath.
One by one, he works. The memory of druidic traps serves him well—he recognizes the shifting pressure, the subtle give of plates that conceal danger. And he avoids them all.
Fifteen coins. Just enough.
Without hesitation, he begins placing them—carefully, precisely—mindful not to make a single mistake. The trigger plates sink with each deliberate stack.
With the final coin in place… he waits.
Nothing. Then—stone grinds against stone. The ceiling crashes downward with a roar. Tavi braces himself as the weight of the mountain presses against his back.
It didn’t work!
Despair.
But then—beneath him—the floor trembles. Violently.
The plates shift. The stone cracks. The floor gives way.
No—
is all he manages before the chamber collapses, and gravity pulls him down into darkness.
He doesn’t fall far. The landing is rough, but not fatal—a sloped floor, slick and curved, slides him away from the crumbling room above.
He tumbles out onto cold, torchlit stone. Slowly, he rises. Knees bruised. Ribs aching. He pinches himself. Still alive
Stretched out before him are four narrow corridors—a gigantic open cavity, no ceiling, no walls—each passage marked by its own set of obstacles: shifting stone platforms, spinning blades, poison vents, pressure darts, acid channels. Deadly traps. All of them.
The Gauntlet
he whispers, the words echoing through the vast chamber.
The chute had dropped him into the heart of a sprawling maze. The walkways seem to hover above shadowed voids, each path leading toward a distant platform suspended in the darkness below. It’s hard to see what lies ahead…
The choices seem random at best. Yet Tavi senses an urgency to act quickly. If he hesitates too long, this place may choose for him.