Chapter Seventeen
The Long Table
The corridors beneath Velmora stirred with renewed tension.
The door to the throne chamber sealed itself behind the last cloaked figure as Prince vanished down one of the branching corridors, his silver hair the final gleam in the firelit gloom. The silence left in his wake was not calm—it was volatile, trembling just beneath the surface.
From the far end of the chamber, a large obsidian gate rumbled open, revealing a spiraling descent illuminated by soul-lanterns—floating flames of blue, each flickering with something once alive. Down this passage, deeper than even the blood-drenched cells and rune-bound ritual chambers, the leaders gathered.
They did not speak as they entered the chamber known only as the Long Hall.
The table at its heart was carved from an ancient, petrified root—black and gnarled, stretching from one end of the vault to the other. Twelve high-backed chairs surrounded it, each inscribed with sigils representing domains of influence: coin, flesh, blood, shadow, whispers, and more. Only nine were filled.
Their masks varied, each more ornate or terrible than the last. One bore an antlered visage with hollow sockets, another a smooth mask with hundreds of tiny eyes carved across its surface. A third wore no mask at all—just a cloth bandage wrapped over where a mouth should have been. Each figure radiated presence. Power.
These were the Syndicate's true architects.
"We lost the Velmora-forward camp," rasped the figure known as Ash-Eye, his voice dry as bone against silk. His mask bore the design of a cracked serpent coil. "The Consumers will not forgive delay. They were promised fresh stock before the turn of the moon."
"We warned against growing too bold near the city," growled another—Bonegrin, the enforcer whose mask was a jawless skull fused with bronze. "Our hunters were reckless. The bandit chief we placed there acted without tact."
"They weren't supposed to be tactful," came a soft, feminine voice, too sweet to be sincere. "They were meant to be disposable. We measure risk in flesh, don't we?" Her mask resembled a weeping porcelain doll with three mouths.
Another figure leaned forward, tapping long, sharp fingers on the table's wood. "We will need compensation for the loss. Not just for the Consumers. For us. The boy's group disrupted a supply vein, and now there are whispers... dangerous ones."
The air grew heavier.
From the head of the table, a masked figure—taller, broader, seated in silence until now—finally spoke. The voice that came from behind the obsidian mask was slow, deliberate, and disarmingly calm.
"There will be blood for the inconvenience," the figure said. "But first, there will be silence."
A murmur of assent passed among the others. The leader's authority, it seemed, was not to be contested—not here.
"The Consumers will be pacified with the next auction," the masked leader continued. "Rare stock. Something exquisite. The kind that makes them forget what they lost."
Ash-Eye raised a brow beneath his mask. "And where do we find such stock, in such short notice?"
The leader turned to one of the empty chairs. "We borrow."
From the shadows stepped a hunched figure clad in ritual black, his face hidden behind a mask shaped like a blindfolded crow. He carried a scroll wrapped in chain, sealed with wax pressed by a clawed insignia.
"The gate in the Sixth Root has been whispering again," the crow-masked man croaked. "The dark stirs below. It offers... gifts, to those willing to bleed."
Gasps. None loud. But sharp, curious.
"Have we tested it?" Bonegrin asked, already leaning forward.
"Acolyte Thirty-Five entered with a charm. She emerged with no skin."
"Mm. Temperamental," purred the doll-mask. "But promising."
The crow-masked one placed the scroll on the table.
"The gate spoke. It wants a vessel."
"And what does it offer in return?" the masked leader asked.
"Power to kill gods," whispered the crow-masked acolyte. "Or so it claims."
A heavy silence.
Then the masked leader reached out and drew the scroll close.
"Then let us give it what it wants. Begin the ritual preparation beneath Velmora. We will open the first seal during the next moon's silence."
Ash-Eye leaned back, fingers steepled. "And the boy?"
"The boy will come to us," the leader said coldly. "All prey eventually finds the lion's maw. He just doesn't know it yet."
Another figure—one cloaked in indigo and bearing a mask shaped like a theater's comedy-face—chuckled. "And what of Prince? He acts more... invested than we agreed."
The air stiffened.
"He is loyal," the leader answered, though the words were slow, almost contemplative. "But perhaps too curious for his own good."
A pause.
"Watch him."
The command fell like a guillotine.
The meeting adjourned soon after. The masked figures departed through different corridors, each melting into their domains—some into magic, others into markets, others still into darker corners of Velmora's underbelly.
But the masked leader remained at the table a moment longer, staring at the chained scroll.
He reached up slowly, removing his mask.
No one saw the face beneath it.
No one ever had.
And as he opened the scroll and whispered the first of the forgotten words, the Long Hall pulsed with an ancient rhythm. The runes carved into the petrified table shimmered faintly red.
Something deep beneath Velmora stirred in response.
---
Elsewhere, in the depths of the Sixth Root where torchlight dared not flicker, black stone walls sweated blood. A long-abandoned chamber, sealed for centuries, cracked open with a whisper.
The air was wrong here.
As if the place breathed.
In the center of the chamber stood an altar of jagged glass. Bound to it by a thousand threads of thorned shadow, something pulsed—alive, but incomplete. It had no face, no name.
Yet it smiled.
Not with lips or flesh.
But with something deeper. Hungrier.
From the shadows stepped a masked figure with a jagged crown atop his head.
"Soon," he whispered. "You will be born anew."
---
Back in the city above, the sun dipped lower, casting Velmora in warm orange light.
Citizens bustled unaware, merchants shouted beneath banners, and bells rang from the high towers of the Adventurer's Guild.
Kael and his companions had returned. A bard played a merry tune, unaware that somewhere far below, blood was being bartered for power.
The lion was stirring.
And the darkness had begun to listen.
Continue to Chapter XVIII...