Inside the tomb of the thousand lords. The moment we stepped inside, the air changed. It was colder in here. It was the chill of presence, like being watched by a thousand silent kings long since turned to bone. Torchlight flickered to life down a spiraling corridor without anyone touching it. Ghost-flame, green and slow-burning, danced atop sconces made from chained vertebrae.
Each step down warped the sound of our boots, the echoes dragging behind us too long—like they didn't want to let go. Felicity leaned closer, her voice hushed. "The tomb remembers everything. Even steps." Faeluxe's wings twitched restlessly, uncoiling from her back. "Charming place. Very cozy. Definitely not trying to eat our souls." We passed murals—mosaics of warlords and serpent queens, pirate gods seated on thrones, some on thrones of rust and bone. While other Pirate Gods sat on bejeweled thrones of gold.
One fresco showed a fleet burning atop a storm-black sea, a woman with viper hair rising from the depths, eyes gold as suns.
"Interesting." I murmured. Her image pulsed faintly as we passed. Felicity touched the mural briefly. Her qi webbed along the wall—then recoiled. "They sealed her in" Felicity whispered. "Why?" I muttered, already dreading the answer. We reached a chamber shaped like an inverted eye—circular, with a black pit at the center. Dozens of ossified chains ran from the ceiling into the pit, vibrating slightly with unseen pressure. Above us, carved in spiraling runes across the ceiling:
Only the Bound May Rule.
The compass on my hip twitched again. I stepped closer to the edge, peering into the black. Below, something shimmered—a lightless reflection, like a mirror cut from ink. Then a faint shape moved within it. A woman, floating. Her eyes glinted red. Her voice—impossibly—whispered in my mind:
"Ash."
My breath caught. Faeluxe growled and stepped back, her ribbon glowing. "She's in your head."
"I know." I felt surging waves of mental energy clash with my own intent. Felicity drew the frost blood rapier, "She's testing the boundary of your will. Let her dig too deep, and she'll wear you down." I gritted my teeth; This ''woman's'' mental dantian was nearing the size of a small inland sea, it threated to swallow up my own humble mental lake.
"Let's keep moving. We find her—and we end this."
Elsewhere in the Tomb Medusa Marla Watched. From the gorgon forge gate, Marla watched through the dias as Ash's presence crawled closer. Her glamoured disguise was now perfected—an innocent survivor's face, soft-eyed and weary, dressed in explorer's leathers. Around her, the forge's internal systems stirred—one by one, stone manticores began to awaken, rising from their sarcophagi with silent mechanical grace.
One of her serpent-locks whispered excitedly. One leaned down near her ear. "He's seen you," it hissed. "He felt me," Marla corrected. "But that's not the same as knowing. Not yet." She reached down and pressed a sigil on the dias—triggering a pulse. Far away, within the walls ahead of Ash and his crew, a door unsealed. She smiled softly, like a child letting a secret slip. "Let's see if the hero bleeds before the embrace." Meanwhile, descending through a separate cliffside entry cloaked in illusion, The Thousand Leaves Vanguard, an elite team moved like shadows through roots and stone.
Ibara's Thorn Chain trembled faintly. "The tomb is reshaping. We're too late to seal it completely." Kinji sniffed the air, then stabbed his sige blade into the wall. Vines erupted across a mural of Marla, wrapping it until only thorns remained. Yurei's voice whispered through mist, "We're close. The Dream-Walker is within one spiral of our path."
Eiko, her skin glowing with ward-seal script, nodded. "Then we block the next junction and collapse the pathway. He doesn't pass unless he fights." And if he did? Then the thousand leaves would bury the tomb all over again—with Ash inside. The pathway ahead opened into a grand hall—a vault of cracked columns and frescoed ceilings, where statues of serpent-bodied kings leaned in quiet judgment. A figure stumbled out from the shadows ahead.
She was limping—blood trailing down one thigh. Her tunic torn, one gauntlet missing. Dust clung to long black hair, streaked with silver. Her face was high-cheek boned, haunting, eyes wide with desperation. "Help—please," she gasped, voice catching in her throat like someone who hadn't spoken in days. "They left me. The others... they're gone. Koga blades… they woke something down here…" She collapsed forward, palms bloody against the stone.
Faeluxe raised a hand, glowing ribbon tense and ready. "Who?"
The woman looked up, and smiled weakly. "Explorers… I—we were after relics. But something—something with wings—it took them. I barely—" Her breath hitched. Felicity's eyes narrowed. Her grip on the blood frost rapier tightened. "She's bleeding, but her pulse is too steady. And there's no scent of fear."
I watched her silently. The woman's glamour shimmered like perfect candlelight—an aura shaped to desire. Wounded. Beautiful. Needing protection. Everything a hero might instinctively rush to save. But I didn't move. I stepped forward just once. Just enough to cast a long shadow over her. "I'll put it to you directly madam-What are you?" I asked. The illusion trembled—for just a heartbeat. Long enough for me to see beneath.
She began to cry and weep, then slowly it turned into a laugh. I saw the viper hair first. Not snakes yet—but tendrils of energy shaped like living cords, coiled tightly around her skull like a crown waiting to bloom. Her skin wasn't bruised—it was porcelain cracked with green-glow seams, like something sculpted, not born. And her eyes—her eyes flickered red. Not with rage. With hunger. Marla didn't flinch. The glamor peeled back from her shoulders, then her waist, like a gown dropped in silence. Her wings unfurled behind her—black, armored, veined with molten green animus.
"You're clever," she purred. "I do like clever."
Felicity snarled, her blood aura erupted in crimson frost and earth. Faeluxe leapt back, drawing two enchanted Fae Daggers. But I… didn't strike. Not yet. Because her voice wasn't entirely hostile. She wasn't attacking. Not yet. "You sent the signal," I said. Marla dipped her head slightly, serpents twitching on her scalp. "I wanted to see who'd answer."
"Why?"
"Because I've been forgotten, and you're the only one I wanted to remember."
"You knew my name earlier" I said.
"I knew it before you were born." The chamber pulsed. A dozen sigils on the floor awakened. None of them activated. They waited. Marla let the silence stretch… savoring it. My voice was level. "That's informative. So how do you believe I can help you, and what is your discipline?" Then she said calmly, "I walk the wicked path of the gorgon queen way. When my distress signal hit your compass, so did my technique. I felt you—your presence, your intent, your thoughts swirling through your journey. I know you by resonance now."
Her smile sharpened, but didn't lose its grace. "Due to the particular martial path I walk," she said, each syllable smooth as silk on steel, "my threads of fate only stir in times of great disturbance upon the land." She stepped closer, only a half step. This time none of the vipers moved. I didn't blink. Faeluxe tilted her head. "Wicked… as in demonic?"
"No." Marla's smile became almost sad. "As in cursed.
As in unwanted by the heavens. As in—I walk with strength that gods themselves abandoned." Felicity's blade gleamed with crackling blood qi with infused frost essence. "Is that supposed to make us pity you?"
Marla laughed once—low and golden. "No. It's supposed to make you understand why I cannot escape the tomb of the thousand lords…alone." I took in her aura again—complex and layered. Not fully corrupted. Nor totally pure either. Twisted like a knot in a forgotten tree, still growing. "What do you want from me?" I asked. Marla's wings curled tighter to her back.
"To help me sever the final spatial chain keeping this tomb folded across dimensions. Allowing my spirit to returned to my bound flesh. Help me break the last seal. Help free me.
And In return…" She paused, letting her animus stir faintly. "I will offer you guidance...and allegiance." Faeluxe arched an eyebrow, "Allegiance from a walking calamity?" Felicity scoffed. "Or a trap dressed as an offer." But I looked down at my compass, its needle still trembling. "Okay, We'll Spring you from this place. But we write it up in contract. Felicity prepare a blood contract."
Felicity's eyes didn't leave Marla as she bit her thumb, drawing a crimson bead of blood. She reached into her pouch and retrieved a small parchment made of sun-dried hide, etched with reactive soul-script. "Say the terms," she said coldly.
Marla inclined her head. "I, Medusa Marla, bound by the laws of pact and soul, offer guidance through the Tomb of the Thousand Lords… and pledge allegiance to Ash, bearer of the ember coil bond, in exchange for my release."
"And you'll cause no harm to us," Faeluxe added sharply, "directly or indirectly." Marla hesitated—just a flicker—but nodded. "Agreed." The moment she spoke, Felicity's blood hit the parchment. The spirit-hide shimmered, the soul-script rearranging itself into the shape of a coiling serpent wrapped around an hourglass. A binding rune flared at the base. "Now seal it," Felicity commanded.
Marla stepped forward slowly, not without grace. She pricked her palm with a single nail—green ichor instead of red—and let it drip onto the parchment. Where the two fluids met, the contract pulsed once with blue fire, then fused into glowing embers that floated between them before vanishing. "Done," Felicity said.
"And binding," Marla murmured. Her eyes lingered on me, "You've no idea what kind of door you've just unlocked."
"I'll worry about that door later," I said. "Right now, I've got a War to fight, we need a map of this tomb, a path to the next seal—and warning of what's guarding it." Marla's wings rustled faintly, "Then follow me to the last spatial binding array that you three will have to destroy or unravel, and let's hope this one doesn't take four hundred and some odd years."
She turned toward the now-open passage—green firelight casting long shadows behind her. As the party stepped deeper into the tomb with Marla leading the way, Faeluxe whispered under her breath, "Either this is the dumbest thing we've ever done…"
"Or the most useful," Felicity muttered. I didn't answer. Ahead, the path of the Wicked awaited.