🎬 Season 2, Episode 5 – The Hollow Banquet

Runtime: ~50 minutes

Read the summary of these series here: Witcher Fans, Prepare Yourselves, Cavill’s New Fantasy Project Goes Even Darker

👑 Prologue – Queen of Velvet Silence (3 min)

Inside the glistening marble halls of Vel Serin, courtiers gather in reverent silence as masked servants prepare the grand dining hall. Queen Ariva sits frozen upon her throne, still and smiling. Her pale hands are threaded with black silk that vanishes beneath her gown.

High above, ravens perch on chandeliers. One caws once, and the queen’s head turns jerkily, not by will, but by string.

“Let the feast begin,” says a voice not her own, through lips that twitch unnaturally.

🎭 Act I – Velvet Masks and Veiled Lies (8 min)

Disguised in the colors of southern nobility, Alaric and Lysara arrive at Queen Ariva’s masquerade feast, escorted by forged banners and fake titles. Their goal: earn audience with the queen and gather allies for the rebellion.

The ballroom shimmers with light cast from truth-candles, enchanted to flicker whenever a lie is spoken. Musicians play a haunting tune in a minor key, one that Alaric remembers from a Warden funeral long ago.

Nobles whisper. Eyes follow him. A masked ambassador mutters, “The Knight with No House walks among us… and the queen smiles too wide.”

🥂 Act II – Toasts and Treachery (8 min)

At the long banquet table, Queen Ariva lifts her goblet. “To unity,” she says, and all follow. But as the guests drink, the truth-candles erupt in blue flame. One by one, nobles collapse, some choking, others sleeping, some… changing.

The queen’s eyes shimmer, like glass. Her face twitches. Lysara whispers, “She’s not alive. She’s not the queen.”

Suddenly, masked assassins leap from behind crimson curtains, blades gleaming with black poison. Alaric unsheathes Solrend, parrying between dishes and fallen cutlery. Lysara ignites the chandelier, forcing the dancers into chaos.

🕯️ Act III – The Marionette Queen (7 min)

In the throne alcove, Ariva begins to rise, but her limbs jerk unnaturally. Threads of shadow pulse from her spine, anchored to the ceiling. A hidden puppeteer, a Dominion Shadeweaver, guides her like a macabre doll.

“The queen fell years ago,” the Shadeweaver sneers. “You’ve been dining with a corpse.”

Alaric fights through the court, slicing the threads one by one, while Lysara uses flame to burn away illusions. When the final thread is cut, Ariva collapses, lifeless and hollow-eyed.

Alaric raises his blade and decapitates the puppet. “No more masks,” he growls.

🔥 Act IV – Flames at the Feast (8 min)

The Shadeweaver vanishes into smoke, cursing them. A second wave of Dominion agents floods the banquet hall, this time wearing faces of guests they’ve just murdered. The walls ignite with blue fire from Lysara’s defensive runes, trapping them inside.

Alaric charges through the blaze, shoulder-first, breaking through stained glass. They flee into the palace gardens, dodging shadow-slick blades and burning trellises.

As they escape into the alleyways of Vel Serin, the feast behind them collapses in flame and screams. Lysara turns once, eyes wet. “There were good people in there.”

Alaric replies coldly: “There were only masks.”

🕸️ Act V – Threads of Conspiracy (6 min)

In the aftermath, the rebellion suffers a major blow, many lords they hoped to sway were either killed or unmasked as Dominion pawns. Seyren joins them in a candlelit safehouse, carrying one surviving guest, a noblewoman who weeps black ink.

“They’ve replaced more than just one court,” she cries. “The entire eastern council… puppets, all of them.”

Lysara studies one of the broken puppet strings, it’s not silk, but a woven thread of living shadow, a fragment of Velkaeth’s veil.

“They’re not just spying,” she says. “They’re stitching reality. Unraveling the world one thread at a time.”

🎵 Final Montage (4 min)

• In the Ashen Wastes, a faceless man sews skin over a mask and whispers, “Two more threads, then the weave is whole.”
• The Flamewalker scouts discover a mirror image of Queen Ariva walking in a southern court, unaged, unblinking.
• Alaric carves a mark into stone: a severed thread, the new symbol of rebellion.
• Lysara stares into her mirror shard. For a heartbeat, her own reflection moves without her.

📜 End Credits – Episode 5: The Hollow Banquet

The feast was never about food or peace, it was a trap, a test, and a message. The Dominion wears the faces of kings, and war is no longer fought only with blades. The question now: Who else is no longer who they seem?

The Shadow of Eldros: Blades of the Void continues.