Episode 15:The Grave Accord
527 Words
Episode 15: The Grave Accord
With fire now in their corner, the trio returned to Gloomhaven, but it wasn’t the same city they left.
The moon was red. The streets were silent. And ghosts—usually chatty, gossipy, and annoyingly nosy—were missing.
“They’re hiding,” Nox whispered. “Which is bad, because most of them are already dead.”
Lira tensed. “Something’s wrong in the graveyard.”
Kai nodded, his newly awakened fire magic burning quietly under his skin. “Let’s find out who’s messing with the dead.”
The team descended into Dustveil Cemetery, Nightmoor’s largest ghost district. Normally, it glowed with spectral lights and smelled faintly of ethereal tea.
Tonight, it smelled like burned silence.
A figure waited by the Mausoleum Gates: a young girl in a Victorian dress, hair in twin braids, eyes entirely black.
“Hello,” she said sweetly. “Do you wish to disturb the resting?”
Kai paused. “We’re here to speak to the Graveborn. The ghost council.”
The girl’s smile widened—way too wide. “Then enter... and remember your heartbeat. You might miss it when it’s gone.”
Inside, the trio descended into the Mausoleum Core—an underground realm where ghostlords floated like jellyfish above tombstones.
They were met by Viceroy Thorne, leader of the Graveborn.
“Mirrorborn,” he rasped. “You have fire now. But the dead are not so easily swayed.”
Kai bowed. “I don’t want to control you. I want to make peace. An accord.”
“You want a Pact,” Thorne said. “But you carry too much… life.”
Kai stepped forward. “I’ve seen death. I’ve died in dreams. I’ve lived inside broken futures. That’s gotta count for something.”
Thorne’s eye sockets glowed brighter.
“Then prove it. Face your unburied truth.”
The floor opened.
Kai fell.
Into memory.
He was seven.
Hiding under a stone altar. Watching men in red robes arguing.
“He can’t live. He’s too dangerous.”
“He’s a child.”
“He’s a prophecy.”
A woman screamed. Fire. Wolves. A silver blade.
And then—blackness.
He woke gasping.
Back in the crypt.
Thorne nodded. “You carry many deaths.”
Kai stood. “That’s why I have to protect the rest.”
The ghostlords whispered. Then floated upward, forming a circle around him.
Thorne raised his staff.
> “We, the Graveborn, honor the Pact. We will fight beside the Mirrorborn when the bell tolls thrice.”
Kai nodded.
Two Pacts down.
Too many to go.
Outside, Lira grabbed his hand. “You okay?”
Kai gave a tired smile. “No. But I’m getting used to that.”
Nox floated beside them. “What’s next? Goblins? Demons? Bureaucrats?”
Kai stared out at the moon.
“Next... the Bloodbound.”
Lira frowned. “Vampires?”
Kai nodded. “And I have a feeling… they won’t be as polite.”
High in the Council Spire, a voice hissed to life.
> “He dares unite the fractured? Then let’s remind him why we fractured them in the first place.”
- Writer
