"When she awakes, I shouldn't tell her about any of this, if I were you, John."

"There are things you haven't told me, Eric, aren't there? Things about--the Medici boots?"

Eric looked steadily at his brother. "Yes, old fellow; and after I've told you, those boots must be destroyed. We'll burn them before this night is over. We mustn't move her now. We'll go out on the terrace--it's wet there, but the air is fresh. Did you smell--something peculiar?"

For, as they passed the corner where the Medici boots lay slashed and bloody, Eric could have sworn that there came to him a horrid odor, fetid, hotly offensive--the odor of iniquity and ancient bloody death.The manor sprawled beyond Roxbury’s eastern border, spanning the entirety of Woodwell Ridge. The last of the earthy browns of late hibernation had now given way to young verdant greens. Grass, subdued but recovering, threaded its way through tarnished silver snowdrifts, and the iron-gate, creaky and rusted, hung open invitingly beneath the young old-growth trees. Just beyond, crooked walkways crisscrossed the girth of the old stone keep. The outer walls had crumbled away in places, leaving rough sketches of the interior halls and rooms they once bound together. Electric lights nestled within the keep’s crumbling cavities flickered on in greeting, silenced by an unknown power source.

Vox Machina emerged beyond the iron gate, all eyes upon the ominous structure, and not a sound issued in greeting to the shades of dusk.

“Advances, VM,” whispered Vax’ildan, footfalls pacing to the keep’s threshold. Vex’ahlia, touching Brother and Pike, drew her bow taut against the silent shadows, following half a step behind her brother.

“Hold! Seeketh ye the shadows,” whispered Scanlan, tiny hoofbeats of Meat Man sounding in duet as they echoed through grotesque tall-doors on their way towards the keep’s yawning maw.

Pike’s old bones creaked as she stretched wide, calling forth Sehanine’s glow to envelop her allies. Keyleth followed up beside Pike, resembling a bundle of earth and leaf and feathers, with sprigs of pine and eucalyptus standing out in her hair.

Percival flanked Pike’s other side, giving her a nod and a brief smile, a look of care crossing the war-forged’s face. “Stick close, Pike.”

Grog strode into the keep’s shadows, shoulders high—feet shaking the ground with his tread—as he 

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