DreamLyrics™ Play-by-Post Forums Fun & Games ETD: Escape the Dream Episode III: The Sixfold Seal

You approach the three blue-white torches carefully and hold a hand near one.

There is heat.

Not scorching, not wild, but real enough that your fingers feel it. The flame is an odd color, more moonlit than firelit, but it gives warmth like ordinary fire.

When you bring one of the stubby candles near it, the wick catches.

The candle flame burns smaller and more normally than the torch, yellow-orange rather than blue-white.

So yes.

You have found flame.

Or at least a way to carry some away.

The torches themselves, however, are firmly fixed to the wall. The brackets do not shift, and the flames seem bound to the Game Room. Taking a lit candle seems much more practical than trying to take a torch.

You then examine the white knight with the mirror-bright shield.

It is one of the white knight pieces on the board, carved like a ceremonial horse and rider. The shield on its side is definitely real: polished, round, reflective, and very much like the shield shown in the Bright Corridor painting.

The shield is attached, but not permanently. There is a seam, a clasp, and a small catch that looks as though it could release.

When you test it gently, the catch does not open.

Not yet.

The knight gives the faintest little tremor, as if aware of your attention.

Your latest attempt at insight does not reveal any clever new trick about sacrificing the knight, moving it to the edge of the board, or getting it captured.

But your earlier understanding of the painting remains clear: this room is not about stealing the shield first.

The painting showed a white chess piece triumphant before a black king.

The black king here is not shattered, burned, or fought.

It is waiting to be defeated.

The room still feels like it wants one decisive chess move.

The shield is probably not the move.

The shield is probably the prize.

Blow the candle out for now, will relight it when I leave.

"Bishop C4 to F7" If nothing happens I will push. "Checkmate!"

You blow out the candle for now. The wick gives a tiny curl of smoke, but remains ready to be relit from one of the blue-white torches when you leave.

Then you turn back to the board.

“Bishop C4 to F7.”

For a moment, nothing moves.

Then the white bishop glides.

It does not scrape across the stone. It moves smoothly, silently, almost ceremonially, sliding along the diagonal from c4 to f7.

The black pawn on f7 vanishes beneath it with a small sound like a chess piece being set down on a wooden table.

You add, with appropriate emphasis:

“Checkmate!”

The word echoes through the Game Room.

For one breath, the whole chamber is still.

Then the black king trembles.

A deep note sounds from somewhere beneath the board — low, final, and resonant. The black king bows its crowned head.

One of the three blue-white torches flares high.

Then the front of the black king opens like a tiny door, revealing an obsidian key resting inside.

At the same time, the polished shield on the white knight loosens with a soft metallic click.

The white knight turns its carved head toward you by the smallest possible amount.

It is difficult to say whether this is approval.

But it is very easy to say that the shield is now free.

Obsidian Key acquired.

Mirror Shield available.

The Game Room has yielded.