[game-notes version here]

XV.

Duskmarch 18, Hearthday, Year 731.

It was well past dawn when Maelen and Alric found her, though Vessa could hardly tell through the heavy rain. Inside the watch hall—a squat timber-and-stone building near the gate—it was chill and dry, but the roof still rattled with rain, and water streamed down to the packed earth outside. It smelled of sweat and dampness, with only the faint whiff of blood that seemed everywhere across the village.

Blood. Vessa shuddered. What she’d seen that night, hunting straggler skratts with her bow and looking for survivors, would haunt her remaining days. It was the nursery that she couldn’t shake. The babies’ faces… She shook her head, bone-weary. A voice broke through the haze.

“Vess?” Maelen asked, shaking her shoulder. She looked up blearily. The rain had washed the worst gore off her friend, though she was still filthy. “You okay, lass?”

“Tired,” she sighed, and rubbed at her bent nose absently. “I think the skratts are gone, though. You rest?”

Maelen scoffed, but it was Alric who answered. “You should have seen it, Vessa! Maelen organized a fire brigade, shaking people out of their shock. Her efforts saved the remaining buildings! And then, once the rain started, she fortified the palisade where the skratts had climbed over. It was inspired.”

Maelen frowned, seeming annoyed by the praise. “Just did what needed doing. The lad helped the healer. Good work, that.”

The scribe grinned and bobbed his head. “I also did what I could to ward the walls from Orthuun, though I honestly don’t know if it will help or not.”

“You’ve helped, all of you,” came a gruff voice. The Stonekin soldier stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his beard as he stamped mud from his boots. Like Maelen, he was dirty and wet, with dark circles beneath his eyes. “Vastren Hollow is gone, but thanks to you it may one day rebuild.”

“Where will you go?” asked Alric, turning to him and cocking his head.

The man sighed. He looked haggard. “Oakton, maybe,” he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You should sleep, sir,” the scribe offered. “That’s what, two nights now without rest?”

He grunted. “Right. Anything you lot need? I never asked why you were visiting the Hollow.”

“Just passing through,” Maelen answered. “Going west and south.”

The soldier nodded once, stroking his mud-caked beard. “Terrible luck for you, good for us. Well, you’re welcome to any bed you can find, and food. The gods know we won’t use them all.”

Vessa hardly remembered leaving the watch hall to find a nearby home. The rain muted everything, softening the horror of what remained. A few sparse survivors moved this way and that through the storm, some with dull-eyed shock and others with brisk purpose, and all hunching their shoulders against the constant wet.

Maelen led them to a modest timber house, its door hanging open but the rest untouched. Whoever had lived here must have run to help their neighbors, and died for it. The image of faceless corpses flashed behind Vessa’s eyes. She groaned and shook it away.

Inside, the place smelled of woodsmoke. The walls were rough-cut pine planks, reinforced with river stones, and its main room was built around a large stone fireplace, with cooking pots hanging from wooden pegs, a battered table, mismatched stools, and one frayed rug over the swept earth. Everything about the space felt lived-in and utilitarian, which Vessa supposed must be true for all these frontier villagers.

The structure had only one other room, a small bedroom with two straw mattresses on raised sleeping platforms, each covered in heavy woolen blankets. Without a word, Vessa dropped her pack and crawled into the bed, boots and all. She dimly heard Maelen’s voice behind her, then nothing.

Sleep came, mercifully dreamless.

Duskmarch 20, Moonday, Year 731.

By late afternoon they’d rested. Maelen, unable to sit still, spent the evening outside barking orders and shoring up defenses, even as most villagers packed to flee. Alric kept his nose buried in his book, under candlelight, muttering to himself and rarely leaving the common room. With both of them occupied, Vessa rummaged through the house until she found a hidden bottle of wine, saved for some long-lost celebration. She drank by the fire, wishing for lotus leaf instead.

Eventually, she reached the bottom of the bottle and must have gone back to sleep. When she next woke, curled under a woolen blanket by a cold hearth, weak winter light touched the shudders. Maelen stood in the doorway to the bedroom, buckling her belt.

“Get ready, lass,” she said. Vessa blinked and looked around blearily. Alric was already up and bustling unseen in the bedroom. “Time to go.”

A knock made them all tense. With the casual grace of a predator, Maelen crossed the room to open the door while Vessa eased the shortsword from its scabbard and crouched in the shadows. Alric poked his head into the doorway, curious.

But it was just the Stonekin soldier, still looking haggard. Perhaps he always appeared frayed, Vessa thought, sheathing her blade. Or perhaps he had simply been unable to sleep given everything that had transpired the last two days. Visions of faceless corpses again swam in her vision. Dammit all but she yearned for some lotus leaf.

“You’re off, then?” he said, looking at Alric cinching his travel pack closed.

“We are. Anything else you need?” Maelen asked.

The man shook his head. “You’ve done more than anyone could ask,” he said, handing her a small, coin-heavy pouch

“You don’t have to–” Alric began, but Maelen silenced him with a sharp look. She nodded at the soldier, who was two fingerwidths shorter than her but just as broad.

“Many thanks, and good luck to you and your people,” she held out her hand and they gripped forearms, a common salutation among mercenaries.

“My name’s Brodan,” he said, releasing the grip.

Maelen’s common retort to someone giving their name was “Don’t care,” which Vessa saw her poised to say on reflex. She seemed to think better of it, though, and nodded back. “Maelen,” she said. “I hope to see you again in Oakton. You can find me through the Latchkey Circle.”

They left shortly after Brodan bid farewell to them. No one that Vessa could see watched them leave. There were simply too few survivors and too many tasks burdening them. Even the front guardhouse was momentarily empty when they passed it. Vessa shook her head. Vastren Hollow was dead, even if its corpse had not yet begun to rot. The sooner the survivors could leave, the sooner the wilds could reclaim the land.

The rain stopped in the night, leaving winter fog. They trudged west through muddy trails. Maelen, unlike two days ago, seemed almost cheerful—less swearing, anyway, and the warrior was quick to poke fun at Alric and Vessa in a way borne of camaraderie. When Vessa commented on her mood, though, Maelen brushed it off.  

“Just balancing you and your sour face,” she grinned, slapping Vessa on the shoulder.

They moved up and into the forested hills, the trails gone after less than half a day. The terrain was much like two months before, but the trees in this part of the Greenwood Rise were less dense, the canopy more open to the gray sky above. Vessa kept her eyes sharp but saw no signs of the skratt horde or other dangerous predators. As the afternoon wore on, the fog lessened, until it was simply low-hanging clouds that drifted among the treetops overhead. They’d crested the hills and begun to dip into whatever lay beyond the Greenwood Rise when Maelen called for them to make camp.

Her good mood seemed to have infected Alric, and they ate cheese and hard bread from Leandra’s Rest by a low campfire in companionable silence while Vessa sat apart, quiet and listening to the nightbirds and insects. For the most part, their conversation was brief and uninteresting, until Maelen asked, almost casually, “So, lad. You can do magic now, can you?”

Vessa couldn’t tell in the firelight, but she thought he may have blushed. He grinned through finishing what was in his mouth and said, “It appears so. This Tome of Unlit Paths that Hadren thinks belongs to him is a very old book. Ancient. It’s teaching me things that have likely been forgotten generations before us.”

“But you could already do magic,” Vessa voiced her thoughts. “In Thornmere Hold, it was you that dispelled Sarin’s darkness, wasn’t it?”

“Probably,” Alric said hesitantly. “Though I don’t know for sure. I think… I think it’s like singing. Everyone can do magic, but some have a natural talent for it. Back in Thornmere Hold, I didn’t really know what I was doing. Now I do,” His teeth ripped the end of a tough piece of bread. With a full mouth he added, “Or at least have the beginnings of a grasp. I have so much to learn, still.”

“Healing magic, though,” Maelen said, looking at her hand thoughtfully as she flexed it into a fist and relaxed it. “That’s rare, lad. You could make good coin with that talent.”

“Yes, well,” Alric said, finishing his bite and swallowing. “Perhaps that’s how it’s different from singing. Using the magic…” he faltered, his voice dying as some thought seemed to overtake his mind. He shook his head. “It costs me something.”

“What do you mean?” Vessa asked. She moved to join the campfire circle without thinking about it, interested.

“I don’t have the words,” he said, embarrassed. “It’s just… I keep thinking about that blind seer’s words from Leandra’s Rest. She said that I was damned, held by the tail by a dark god.”

“I didn’t like her,” Vessa spat. “Bitch. Forget what she said, Alric.”

“No. I think she’s right.” He looked into the fire, orange light dancing across his solemn features. “It doesn’t feel like mine. It’s like… someone’s using me. Orthuun.”

Alric’s voice dropped. “Every time I use magic, it’s like I’m inviting him closer. To be with me.”

Vessa and Maelen waited for him to continue. When he next spoke, it was with a grimace. “I can’t explain it. But it’s bad.”

“So, lad. In that case, don’t use the magic,” Maelen shrugged, as if the problem had been solved. She took a long drink from her waterskin and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “We can heal ourselves without it.”

Alric chuckled. “First, no you couldn’t have. You may not remember, Maelen, but your wounds were severe. And anyway, it’s not something I always choose to do. Sometimes it’s like a reflex. But,” he paused, again lost in thought. “I suppose I do have a request.” He looked up at each of them. Vessa raised her eyebrows, a signal for him to continue.

“When we get to the Starless Rift and it’s time to trade the book to Hadren,” he swallowed and licked his lips. “Can you… make sure I do it?”

Vessa blinked and she cocked her head. “You don’t think you’ll want to?”

“I’ll want to,” Alric said hastily, and then added, “Probably. But it’s just, well, I may not be able to. I’ve wanted to get rid of it for weeks now. It… there’s something that won’t let me.”

The three of them fell silent as the low fire crackled and smoked. Vessa watched Alric as he stared into the flames, his face full of worry.

After what felt like a long while, Maelen said, “Lad,” then repeated the word to make his head snap up. “Lad!”

“Mm?”

“When it comes to it, we’ll make you,” Her face was serious, her words heavy with the oath. “I promise.”

“Whatever it takes?” he asked quietly.

“What do you mean?” Vessa asked, confused, her head swiveling between them.

Maelen nodded. “Whatever it takes, lad. You’ll be rid of the book. I promise.”

Alric nodded back, seemingly unable to speak. He bowed his head and, Vessa thought, he wept quietly, his shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.

Next: Orthuun’s Eyes [with game notes]

[prose-only version here]

XV.

Duskmarch 18, Hearthday, Year 731.

It was well past dawn when Maelen and Alric found her, though Vessa could hardly tell through the heavy rain. Inside the watch hall—a squat timber-and-stone building near the gate—it was chill and dry, but the roof still rattled with rain, and water streamed down to the packed earth outside. It smelled of sweat and dampness, with only the faint whiff of blood that seemed everywhere across the village.

Blood. Vessa shuddered. What she’d seen that night, hunting straggler skratts with her bow and looking for survivors, would haunt her remaining days. It was the nursery that she couldn’t shake. The babies’ faces… She shook her head, bone-weary. A voice broke through the haze.

“Vess?” Maelen asked, shaking her shoulder. She looked up blearily. The rain had washed the worst gore off her friend, though she was still filthy. “You okay, lass?”

“Tired,” she sighed, and rubbed at her bent nose absently. “I think the skratts are gone, though. You rest?”

Maelen scoffed, but it was Alric who answered. “You should have seen it, Vessa! Maelen organized a fire brigade, shaking people out of their shock. Her efforts saved the remaining buildings! And then, once the rain started, she fortified the palisade where the skratts had climbed over. It was inspired.”

Maelen frowned, seeming annoyed by the praise. “Just did what needed doing. The lad helped the healer. Good work, that.”

The scribe grinned and bobbed his head. “I also did what I could to ward the walls from Orthuun, though I honestly don’t know if it will help or not.”

“You’ve helped, all of you,” came a gruff voice. The Stonekin soldier stood in the doorway, rain dripping from his beard as he stamped mud from his boots. Like Maelen, he was dirty and wet, with dark circles beneath his eyes. “Vastren Hollow is gone, but thanks to you it may one day rebuild.”

“Where will you go?” asked Alric, turning to him and cocking his head.

The man sighed. He looked haggard. “Oakton, maybe,” he shook his head. “I don’t know.”

“You should sleep, sir,” the scribe offered. “That’s what, two nights now without rest?”

He grunted. “Right. Anything you lot need? I never asked why you were visiting the Hollow.”

“Just passing through,” Maelen answered. “Going west and south.”

The soldier nodded once, stroking his mud-caked beard. “Terrible luck for you, good for us. Well, you’re welcome to any bed you can find, and food. The gods know we won’t use them all.”

Vessa hardly remembered leaving the watch hall to find a nearby home. The rain muted everything, softening the horror of what remained. A few sparse survivors moved this way and that through the storm, some with dull-eyed shock and others with brisk purpose, and all hunching their shoulders against the constant wet.

Maelen led them to a modest timber house, its door hanging open but the rest untouched. Whoever had lived here must have run to help their neighbors, and died for it. The image of faceless corpses flashed behind Vessa’s eyes. She groaned and shook it away.

Inside, the place smelled of woodsmoke. The walls were rough-cut pine planks, reinforced with river stones, and its main room was built around a large stone fireplace, with cooking pots hanging from wooden pegs, a battered table, mismatched stools, and one frayed rug over the swept earth. Everything about the space felt lived-in and utilitarian, which Vessa supposed must be true for all these frontier villagers.

The structure had only one other room, a small bedroom with two straw mattresses on raised sleeping platforms, each covered in heavy woolen blankets. Without a word, Vessa dropped her pack and crawled into the bed, boots and all. She dimly heard Maelen’s voice behind her, then nothing.

Sleep came, mercifully dreamless.

Duskmarch 20, Moonday, Year 731.

By late afternoon they’d rested. Maelen, unable to sit still, spent the evening outside barking orders and shoring up defenses, even as most villagers packed to flee. Alric kept his nose buried in his book, under candlelight, muttering to himself and rarely leaving the common room. With both of them occupied, Vessa rummaged through the house until she found a hidden bottle of wine, saved for some long-lost celebration. She drank by the fire, wishing for lotus leaf instead.

Eventually, she reached the bottom of the bottle and must have gone back to sleep. When she next woke, curled under a woolen blanket by a cold hearth, weak winter light touched the shudders. Maelen stood in the doorway to the bedroom, buckling her belt.

“Get ready, lass,” she said. Vessa blinked and looked around blearily. Alric was already up and bustling unseen in the bedroom. “Time to go.”

A knock made them all tense. With the casual grace of a predator, Maelen crossed the room to open the door while Vessa eased the shortsword from its scabbard and crouched in the shadows. Alric poked his head into the doorway, curious.

But it was just the Stonekin soldier, still looking haggard. Perhaps he always appeared frayed, Vessa thought, sheathing her blade. Or perhaps he had simply been unable to sleep given everything that had transpired the last two days. Visions of faceless corpses again swam in her vision. Dammit all but she yearned for some lotus leaf.

“You’re off, then?” he said, looking at Alric cinching his travel pack closed.

“We are. Anything else you need?” Maelen asked.

The man shook his head. “You’ve done more than anyone could ask,” he said, handing her a small, coin-heavy pouch

“You don’t have to–” Alric began, but Maelen silenced him with a sharp look. She nodded at the soldier, who was two fingerwidths shorter than her but just as broad.

“Many thanks, and good luck to you and your people,” she held out her hand and they gripped forearms, a common salutation among mercenaries.

“My name’s Brodan,” he said, releasing the grip.

Maelen’s common retort to someone giving their name was “Don’t care,” which Vessa saw her poised to say on reflex. She seemed to think better of it, though, and nodded back. “Maelen,” she said. “I hope to see you again in Oakton. You can find me through the Latchkey Circle.”

They left shortly after Brodan bid farewell to them. No one that Vessa could see watched them leave. There were simply too few survivors and too many tasks burdening them. Even the front guardhouse was momentarily empty when they passed it. Vessa shook her head. Vastren Hollow was dead, even if its corpse had not yet begun to rot. The sooner the survivors could leave, the sooner the wilds could reclaim the land.

The rain stopped in the night, leaving winter fog. They trudged west through muddy trails. Maelen, unlike two days ago, seemed almost cheerful—less swearing, anyway, and the warrior was quick to poke fun at Alric and Vessa in a way borne of camaraderie. When Vessa commented on her mood, though, Maelen brushed it off.  

“Just balancing you and your sour face,” she grinned, slapping Vessa on the shoulder.

They moved up and into the forested hills, the trails gone after less than half a day. The terrain was much like two months before, but the trees in this part of the Greenwood Rise were less dense, the canopy more open to the gray sky above. Vessa kept her eyes sharp but saw no signs of the skratt horde or other dangerous predators. As the afternoon wore on, the fog lessened, until it was simply low-hanging clouds that drifted among the treetops overhead. They’d crested the hills and begun to dip into whatever lay beyond the Greenwood Rise when Maelen called for them to make camp.

Her good mood seemed to have infected Alric, and they ate cheese and hard bread from Leandra’s Rest by a low campfire in companionable silence while Vessa sat apart, quiet and listening to the nightbirds and insects. For the most part, their conversation was brief and uninteresting, until Maelen asked, almost casually, “So, lad. You can do magic now, can you?”

Vessa couldn’t tell in the firelight, but she thought he may have blushed. He grinned through finishing what was in his mouth and said, “It appears so. This Tome of Unlit Paths that Hadren thinks belongs to him is a very old book. Ancient. It’s teaching me things that have likely been forgotten generations before us.”

“But you could already do magic,” Vessa voiced her thoughts. “In Thornmere Hold, it was you that dispelled Sarin’s darkness, wasn’t it?”

“Probably,” Alric said hesitantly. “Though I don’t know for sure. I think… I think it’s like singing. Everyone can do magic, but some have a natural talent for it. Back in Thornmere Hold, I didn’t really know what I was doing. Now I do,” His teeth ripped the end of a tough piece of bread. With a full mouth he added, “Or at least have the beginnings of a grasp. I have so much to learn, still.”

“Healing magic, though,” Maelen said, looking at her hand thoughtfully as she flexed it into a fist and relaxed it. “That’s rare, lad. You could make good coin with that talent.”

“Yes, well,” Alric said, finishing his bite and swallowing. “Perhaps that’s how it’s different from singing. Using the magic…” he faltered, his voice dying as some thought seemed to overtake his mind. He shook his head. “It costs me something.”

“What do you mean?” Vessa asked. She moved to join the campfire circle without thinking about it, interested.

“I don’t have the words,” he said, embarrassed. “It’s just… I keep thinking about that blind seer’s words from Leandra’s Rest. She said that I was damned, held by the tail by a dark god.”

“I didn’t like her,” Vessa spat. “Bitch. Forget what she said, Alric.”

“No. I think she’s right.” He looked into the fire, orange light dancing across his solemn features. “It doesn’t feel like mine. It’s like… someone’s using me. Orthuun.”

Alric’s voice dropped. “Every time I use magic, it’s like I’m inviting him closer. To be with me.”

Vessa and Maelen waited for him to continue. When he next spoke, it was with a grimace. “I can’t explain it. But it’s bad.”

“So, lad. In that case, don’t use the magic,” Maelen shrugged, as if the problem had been solved. She took a long drink from her waterskin and wiped her lips with the back of her hand. “We can heal ourselves without it.”

Alric chuckled. “First, no you couldn’t have. You may not remember, Maelen, but your wounds were severe. And anyway, it’s not something I always choose to do. Sometimes it’s like a reflex. But,” he paused, again lost in thought. “I suppose I do have a request.” He looked up at each of them. Vessa raised her eyebrows, a signal for him to continue.

“When we get to the Starless Rift and it’s time to trade the book to Hadren,” he swallowed and licked his lips. “Can you… make sure I do it?”

Vessa blinked and she cocked her head. “You don’t think you’ll want to?”

“I’ll want to,” Alric said hastily, and then added, “Probably. But it’s just, well, I may not be able to. I’ve wanted to get rid of it for weeks now. It… there’s something that won’t let me.”

The three of them fell silent as the low fire crackled and smoked. Vessa watched Alric as he stared into the flames, his face full of worry.

After what felt like a long while, Maelen said, “Lad,” then repeated the word to make his head snap up. “Lad!”

“Mm?”

“When it comes to it, we’ll make you,” Her face was serious, her words heavy with the oath. “I promise.”

“Whatever it takes?” he asked quietly.

“What do you mean?” Vessa asked, confused, her head swiveling between them.

Maelen nodded. “Whatever it takes, lad. You’ll be rid of the book. I promise.”

Alric nodded back, seemingly unable to speak. He bowed his head and, Vessa thought, he wept quietly, his shoulders shaking with suppressed sobs.

Next: Orthuun’s Eyes [with game notes]

[game-notes version here]

XIV.

Duskmarch 17, Goldday, Year 731.

The village’s shrine to The Watcher—also called The High Listener, The Fourth Sister, and She Who Watches the Bay, among many other titles—sat in the heart of Vastren Hollow, at the center of a cobblestone square. Alric supposed that, since the village had been founded by rangers long ago, they had built the shrine and its flame to signal safety to travelers or passing caravans, much as Skywarden Tower served for Oakton. Yet Vastren Hollow established no trade routes currently in use and had never proven to be of strategic advantage for the city. As a result, the village had maintained the Watchflame but grown around it, sitting comfortably within the rampart wall and defensive structures, unseen by passerbys. It was now, he guessed, primarily a symbol of safety for Vastren Hollow’s residents, a sign that Oakton’s gods still sheltered them from the wild world beyond.

Today, however, safety was under siege.

As Maelen and Vessa led Alric and the ragged militia through the village, they saw the true devastation of the skratt swarm. Every home gaped open, doors torn, windows bloodstained. Fires guttered across the square. One house, fully ablaze, stained the twilight orange. Black-furred bodies of skratts lay everywhere, some curled on their sides, some with backs arched and white eyes staring lifelessly at the clouds above, and others face down in the mud. Indeed, it seemed that the skratt corpses outnumbered the others by four to one, though everywhere Alric looked there were dead villagers and animals, all shredded by claws and with faces ravaged. The smell of blood, offal, and smoke filled Alric’s nose, making him gag several times.

The shrine itself was a waist-high, octagonal structure made of pale granite, atop which sat a bronze brazier in the shape of an eye. Alric could see immediately that the flame within that brazier was magical, its fires burning both white and blue. A few desperate soldiers stood in a tight ring above a mass of writhing, snarling black fur. Even as they approached, one of the women fell shrieking under the skratt horde. In moments, the others would follow.

With a shout, Maelen charged.

Alric had seen her fight before, stumbling uphill at Greenwood Rise, but this was different. She flew across the square, all power and precision. The Vastren Hollow militia, with a whoop, raised their makeshift weapons and followed her towards the besieged shrine. The humans at the shrine let up an answering call, rallying against the enemies around them. Now Alric watched, mouth agape, as Maelen’s spiked mace swung to catch a startled skratt in the chest, sending it arcing into the air. Right behind her, the Stonekin soldier’s glaive flashed out, shining in the bright light of the Watchflame.

Then the skratt mob swarmed them. The whispering chitter of rats mingled with the cries of pain from the militia, and the group disappeared amidst a mass of black fur. Alric gasped.

“Stay sharp!” Vessa loosed an arrow into the swarm, cursed, and dropped her bow. “Here they come!”

Vessa stepped past Alric and slashed with the short blade of her sword, intercepting a skratt that had run at him. It fell to the square awkwardly, scrabbling for purchase with its claws on the stones. Alric swung his staff, cracking into its body with a crunch. Then it launched itself at him, black hands outstretched and white eyes wide. He sidestepped on instinct but felt the hot flash of a claw across his cheek. It had gone for his eyes.

The creatures were everywhere. Vessa pivoted and swung her blade as Alric held out his staff defensively. Magic whirled in his mind, unable to form into anything coherent amidst the battle.

All around him, violence raged. Yet for several heartbeats, Alric faced off against the skratt Vessa had injured. It crouched on the cobblestones, feet set wide and clawed hands flexing as it sniffed the air loudly. Then its milky eyes fixed on his position, the oil-slicked, ropy tail lashing. The thing chittered and jumped again at his face.

This time, Alric was ready for it. He interposed the staff between them, though a frantic claw still nicked his neck as he pushed it away.

He swung the heavy wood of his staff in a desperate, wide arc. The blow struck the skratt where its head met its scrawny shoulder and the creature crumpled. Then Alric struck again, and again.

He hadn’t realized he was shouting until another skratt, slashed by Vessa’s blade, rolled into his leg.

Alric whirled, wide-eyed, to take in the scene. The dead lay everywhere, skratt and villager alike, though a cluster of both still battled around the Watchflame. Maelen was there, batting furred bodies left and right with her weapon, a fierce smile on a face spattered in dark blood.

Two skratts leapt out of the crowd at the shrine simultaneously. Their bodies fell atop the Watchflame deliberately, as if trying to smother the fires with their lives. More followed. The scattered soldiers on the granite pedestal cried out in dismay, striking at the smoking bodies. Alric watched the blue-and-white flame gutter, and then he couldn’t see it at all amidst the writhing, black-furred mass.

“No!” the stocky soldier roared, his glaive carving a desperate path through the skratt swarm. The last few villagers closed ranks around him, driving toward the shrine. Alric watched, almost transfixed by the scene: A last push of bravery amidst carnage.

The whispery chattering of a skratt near his ear jerked him into the battle. There, one of the creatures bared its long front teeth and spread its clawed hands wide, pale eyes fixed on his face as it readied to leap. He froze, surprised.

Maelen’s spiked mace crushed the skratt into the cobbles with a wet crack. Alric hadn’t even seen her cross the square. The warrior was bloodstained, panting, her hair and eyes wild, as she gripped her black weapon and spun, looking for another opponent. Vessa finished slicing the throat of another creature, then positioned her back to Maelen’s, a move that looked almost instinctual for the two mercenaries.

But it was unnecessary. Any skratts that had broken from the horde at the shrine were dead or gone. For a long moment, only panting and the crackle of fire filled the square.

Alric’s eyes scanned the scene, his gaze passing over countless corpses that his mind refused to register. He focused instead on the shrine. The Stonekin soldier had retaken the granite pedestal. Black-furred bodies lay everywhere around him, the stack of them fully to his waist. Three other humans—all covered in gore—yelled and moved to chase the last of the skratts as they fled. They had been fighting all night and day, however, and had no hope of catching the rat-like creatures. Dozens of skratts scurried from the village square, flowing like a river towards some exit Alric couldn’t see.

The soldier sank to his knees at the brazier’s base. His glaive clattered against the stone dais. The Watchflame was gone, buried beneath smoldering skratt corpses. Only the burning houses lit the square now, flickering orange, warped by smoke.

“White eyes, oily tails, and whispers,” Maelen rasped beside him. “You’re right, lad. Orthuun’s work.” She coughed, blood on her lip, and dropped to one knee.

“Maelen!” Vessa called out, but Alric was already kneeling beside her.

As soon as he’d entered the village, Alric had begun to hear a low, whispered murmur at the edge of his awareness. He’d convinced himself it was nothing.

But as he reached for Maelen’s face, the mumurs rose, coiling around his mind. Words he couldn’t understand, half-heard and hissing. They filled his ears, drowning out everything else. Lone cries from anguished villagers, blazing house fires, and even a question that Maelen asked him as she looked into his eyes—Alric could hear none of it. Only the whispers remained, and his lips moved with the alien rhythm of them.

A familiar numbness spread throughout his body, as if he were separating from the world and becoming apart from it. His skin tingled as it passed from his head, down his neck and spreading throughout his torso and limbs, moving down to his legs and feet. Once the sensation had passed, he felt nothing, no pain or emotions. Dispassionately, Alric said words he and his companions would not remember later.

Maelen’s eyes went wide, then relaxed. She blinked at him, a sense of wonder across her face as he released her head with his long fingers and ceased the spell. It would take, he knew, several heartbeats for his senses to fully return, and the tingling as the numbness retreated was awfully distracting. But he could still speak through deadened lips, and asked, “Are you better?”

“Lad,” Maelen mouthed. “How?”

“Shh,” Alric shook his head, pursing lips. He hadn’t heard her through the diminishing whispers in his ears, but he saw her lips make the words. “Later. Let’s help the others.”

As he stood on shaky legs and surveyed Vastren Hollow, though, he wasn’t sure who there was to help.

The village was gone, its Watchflame cold. Orthuun had wiped it from the world like ink from a wet page.

Next: Make Sure I Do It [with game notes]

[game-notes version here]

XIII.

Duskmarch 17, Goldday, Year 731.

Maelen swore. “Damn this fog! I can’t tell if we’re headed west or back to Leandra’s Rest.” She spat into the grass. The lad winced.

“I haven’t seen signs we’re backtracking,” Alric said thoughtfully. He looked up in search of the sun, but Maelen knew that above was just the dull gray clouds of winter, no help in navigating. “I trust you’re taking us west.”

It was a fool’s comment, trusting in someone you hardly knew, but it warmed her all the same. Maelen grunted in acknowledgement, then asked, “Lad, you ever been this far into the wilds?”

He smiled, tightly lipped. “No. Thornmere Hold was the furthest from the city walls I’d been in my life. You?”

“Some years ago, I was part of a caravan guard. Just a young pup then, like you and Vess. We traveled all the way to Vireth’s Hold. Other than that, no.”

“You’ve been to the capital?” Alric’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.

Maelen grunted again. “Just the once. But it was on the Prince’s Road, nothing like this. No telling what’s out here, away from human patrols. I don’t like it.” As if her words had conjured something, she peered dubiously around at the grasslands and low hills, mists clinging to both.

The only thing that gave Maelen some solace was that they’d moved over marshland and grassy plains into foothills, a sure sign of going west. At some point they’d reach the Greenwood Rise, hopefully by nightfall. She didn’t much relish the idea of sleeping out in the open, without the defense of the forest around her. But had she led them in a northerly way, which only lengthened the trek to this Starless Rift? It was impossible to tell with the blasted gray sky and winter mists. At best, she could see a longbow shot’s distance at any one time, and often less than that.

A sharp whistle rang out from somewhere beyond the fog: Vessa’s call. Maelen stopped, put two fingers to her lips, and returned the whistle.

“What is it?” the scribe asked, looking around him.

“Our lass has found something,” she grunted.

They waited.

Like a ghost, Vessa appeared a stone’s throw away, padding towards them on soft feet. She held her bow in one hand, which wasn’t unusual for her scouting trips. The nocked arrow, however, made Maelen tense. She loosened the head of the mace at her hip, pulling it up and out of the leather belt loop. The weapon, her prize from the vault in Thornmere Hold, had replaced her longsword even though its reach was shorter than her blade’s. Maelen gripped the mace’s leather wraps, the black metal thrumming faintly in her palms. She couldn’t say why she now favored the mace with the heavy spiked ball on one end, except that it was hers, there by her bedside when she’d woken from her long sleep. Since then, Maelen hadn’t let it out of reach.

“Trouble?” she asked Vessa in a low voice.

The lass got close enough to touch them before speaking. “Hard to tell. There’s a farmstead up ahead,” she panted, out of breath from the run. “But it’s all dark and quiet.”

“Farm?” Maelen twisted her face. “Who in the nine gates would farm this far from the city?”

“There are several outlying villages,” Alric said, leaning on his staff as if to give his bad leg a rest. “The one west of Leandra’s Rest would be…” he frowned, searching his memory. “Vastren Hollow, I believe? Originally a ranger ward-post. Which means we’re almost to the hills! Vastren Hollow is small, but should offer another bed for the night, and means we’ve traveled southwest. Well done, Vessa!” He smiled. The lass looked startled by the praise and turned away.

“It’s dark, you said?” Maelen asked her. “Any animals?”

“Not that I saw, but I didn’t take a close look.”

“Well,” she said, grinning. She found the loop at her waist and returned the mace to her belt. For some reason, she felt a little guilty and disappointed at doing so, almost as if the metal itself was sighing. “Let’s go look.”

Vessa had scouted far enough that they crunched through grass and low brush for what felt like a full bell before the mists parted, revealing a simple wooden fence stretching before them. There was no gate she could see, but the barrier was meant to keep livestock inside, not people. The three hopped it easily enough and strode into the farm.

They found the first dead cow ten strides from the fence, lying on its side. Its brown-and-white flanks shredded by countless raking claws, the grass matted in a wide pool of dried blood. Vessa hissed—its head was almost gone, chewed to the bone. Even in winter a cloud of black flies swarmed what was left, their buzzing the only sound.

“It’s eyes,” Alric muttered grimly. “They’re gone. It’s Orthuun again.”

“Don’t get jumpy,” Maelen scolded. She’d freed the mace again and held it in both hands, the weight reassuring her. “Its whole face is gone, not just the eyes, and ravens could have gotten those. Looks like a pack of something got in here, but they’re long gone.” The lad didn’t answer her, his mouth an unhappy line.

The barn loomed ahead in the mists, its wide doors hanging open. Inside they found more of the same—livestock carcasses strewn in their stalls, faces gnawed away, claw marks littering their bodies. Maelen tried to imagine what had swarmed over this place, but it wasn’t wolves or dogs. The tracks were five-toed and rat-like, but too large for typical vermin. Vessa pointed to long, oily trails glistening in the straw, either the drag of large tails or something serpentine sliding beside them. Maelen noted that the flies avoided the oily trails, though they were otherwise thick masses around the bodies.

“If the people survived,” Vessa said. “They would have holed up in their house.”

“Yeah,” Maelen grunted. “Let’s find it.”

Between the barn and longhouse they found a chicken yard strewn with feathers, blood and a few stray legs and heads, but no bodies. Those oily trails and clawed footprints were everywhere. Crows called out from the fog, feasting on some corpses no doubt, but besides the crows and flies, no sound. It was unnerving, the silence on a farm that should have been brimming with life.

Maelen’s hope that the farmers had survived the raid dimmed when they approached the house. The door was a mess of claw marks and, it seemed, the creatures had torn off any window shutters and scrabbled inside. On the uneven wooden steps were bloody, clawed footprints and more of those oily, snake-like tracks.

“Do we go inside?” Alric whispered.

Maelen and Vessa both quieted as they listened. Nothing from inside. She cleared her throat and yelled through an open window. “Hello? Anyone there?”

Silence.

She exhaled. “No profit in raiding a farmhouse.”

“Profit?” Alric blanched. “Shouldn’t we… help?”

“They’re dead, lad.” She said, her voice harsher than intended. “You want to see children with their faces gnawed off?” Alric looked away, like he might throw up. “Let’s get to the village. Night isn’t far off, and I don’t want to be outside with whatever these things are.”

As they turned from the farmhouse, the flies rose in a dark cloud behind them, and for a heartbeat, Maelen thought she heard faint skittering beneath the floorboards. It was probably her imagination, though. She gritted her teeth, jaw tight.

A muddy footpath led to a sagging gate, hanging open. Beyond it, the path wound west through wet grass toward the foothills, cedars and alders ghosting in the fog. Crows cawed, and somewhere a jay screeched. Vessa, bow still at the ready, nodded towards the mess of footprints all along the path–long, five-toed ones, snaky trails, and plenty of human boots, all in no clear pattern. Whatever these creatures were, there had been a lot of them.

It did not take them long to reach the edge of a shallow basin and there, set against the foothills, the path led to a squat, functional rampart wall made of thick palings of dark pine, braced with mossy stonework at the corners. Its wooden gate was reinforced with iron bands, with the symbol of what looked like a hollow tree burned into its wood. Beyond the walls were the faint sounds of people yelling, some screaming, high-pitched and desperate. A dog barked frantically, far off behind the ramparts. Smoke coiled through the gray sky, glimpsed only when the fog tore open for a heartbeat.

A ragged pack of villagers clustered outside the gate. To Maelen’s eye, their gear had been scavenged and improvised—one woman held a woodcutter’s axe, another man held a spear whose shaft had been broken, a boy no more than twelve held a garden spade. Their clothes were damp with dark stains, their faces smeared with grime, and one had her arm in a sling. Only one man, barking orders at the rest, looked to be a proper soldier. Stocky, thick-shouldered, skin the color of earth, his beard tightly braided with copper. A chain shirt hung from him, boots sunk in the mud, a short glaive gripped in one meaty hand.

One of the villagers let out a cry and pointed in their direction. Maelen and Vessa froze, and Alric took one additional, shuffling step before realizing they’d stopped. The villagers froze, mud-streaked, hollow-eyed. The Stonekin fellow growled something at his companions, and then stepped forward, planting the end of his glaive in the mud.

“’Ware, travelers! It’s not safe here!” he called out in a gruff voice ragged with overuse. “Turn back!”

The group had fanned out slightly with their arrival, seven villagers in all, and now Maelen could see two bodies at their feet. Both thin forms were covered in black fur and the size of the boy with the spade, with clawed hands and feet and long tails as black as night. They reminded her of skratts, humanoid vermin that sometimes plagued the Oakton sewers, but these were decidedly larger. Besides, she’d never heard of skratts attacking humans, or of slime-covered tails.

“What’s going on here?” Maelen asked, gripping her mace. The soldier muttered something she couldn’t hear, and the wide-eyed villagers began fanning out more deliberately, forming a semicircle between them and the open front gate. They looked exhausted, terrified, and wholly incapable of wielding those weapons effectively. If it came to it, she would cut them down more easily than the Lanternless in the forest. It shouldn’t come to that, though.

Maelen spat into the mud and cracked her neck. She swung the heavy-headed mace to rest on her shoulder in a display of casual violence. Her face became a thundercloud as she scanned the ragged line of villagers.

“You’ve got troubles enough without testing me. But if you’re eager to taste my mace,” she jerked her chin at Vessa. “Or her arrows, keep coming. Well? Fighting or talking?”

Several of the villagers stepped back, looking over at the soldier. The man scowled and shook his head. “We’re talking,” he said grimly.

“Right then,” Maelen grunted. She nodded to Vessa and Alric, and they fell into step beside her, approaching the Stonekin man. As they closed the distance, the lack of training and skill amongst the commoners became clearer. Their hands shook with fear, this lot. Half of them didn’t wear shoes, like they’d rolled out of bed when the skratts attacked. The soldier, meanwhile, seemed to recognize their competence just as clearly. He appraised Maelen and her crew with a calculating eye, his lips set in a grim line. Vessa, always a good lass, stayed back several paces with her bow.

“So, what are these then?” Maelen asked, nudging a furred body with her muddy boot. Alric dropped into a crouch, examining them without touching. This close, she could see the rat-like heads clearly, their long-fingered hands tipped in short claws. Skratts, yes, but wrong. Too big, slick-furred, and one stared sightless up at her, its eyes milk-white as Wink’s. The jet fur was greasy, their ropy tails covered in a dark slime.

“Some sort of feral skratt,” the soldier replied in his deep, raspy voice. “They fell on us pre-dawn, hundreds of them. I’ve never seen or heard of the like.”

Alric stood up. The lad was shaken, his lips pursed. When he caught her eye he mouthed a word silently, but she understood it well enough. Orthuun. The blind eyes. The black fur and slime. It all harkened to the zombies in Thornmere Hold, and the spider-thing Vessa had described. Dammit all. There was no escaping the eyeless bastard west of the city, it seemed.

“You’ve been fighting ‘em all day?” she asked, shaking her head and trying to peer back towards the gate. The yells and screams became louder and more muffled depending on the mists, but they were still going. And that blasted dog was still barking, like a drum beat of doom.

“As best we can,” the soldier sighed tiredly. “We’ve killed scores of them, but their numbers were overwhelming.”

“What did they want?” Alric asked with some urgency. “Did they focus their attacks?”

Both Maelen and the soldier seemed surprised by the question, or even that the lad had inserted himself.

“At first we couldn’t tell,” he answered. “Then it became clear: They were focused on our shrine to The Watcher, in the village square.”

“The Watcher!” Alric said triumphantly. “Yes, of course. Is there a flame there?”

“There was,” he said. “But we,” he nodded to the ragged group around them. “Had to flee. I doubt it’s still burning now.” At these words, two of the villagers began to openly weep.

Maelen had heard enough. Whatever was happening across the Greenwood Rise, they couldn’t stop it here. They needed to get to this Starless Rift, which was still three days away if Wink could be believed. She needed to get Alric and his book there, exchange it for whatever treasure Hadren offered, and then get back to the city. After that, well… she had to admit that Vessa was right, that it was safer to work within the city walls than not. What could she do against rampaging demons and blighted wilds?

And then the lad messed it all up with his next words.

“Where is it?” he asked, voice steadier than it should have been. “We’ll protect it.”

Somewhere beyond the wall, the dog’s barking broke off suddenly with a yelp.

Next: Battle of the Watchflame [with game notes]

[prose-only version here]

XIII.

Duskmarch 17, Goldday, Year 731.

Maelen swore. “Damn this fog! I can’t tell if we’re headed west or back to Leandra’s Rest.” She spat into the grass. The lad winced.

“I haven’t seen signs we’re backtracking,” Alric said thoughtfully. He looked up in search of the sun, but Maelen knew that above was just the dull gray clouds of winter, no help in navigating. “I trust you’re taking us west.”

It was a fool’s comment, trusting in someone you hardly knew, but it warmed her all the same. Maelen grunted in acknowledgement, then asked, “Lad, you ever been this far into the wilds?”

He smiled, tightly lipped. “No. Thornmere Hold was the furthest from the city walls I’d been in my life. You?”

“Some years ago, I was part of a caravan guard. Just a young pup then, like you and Vess. We traveled all the way to Vireth’s Hold. Other than that, no.”

“You’ve been to the capital?” Alric’s eyebrows shot up his forehead.

Maelen grunted again. “Just the once. But it was on the Prince’s Road, nothing like this. No telling what’s out here, away from human patrols. I don’t like it.” As if her words had conjured something, she peered dubiously around at the grasslands and low hills, mists clinging to both.

The only thing that gave Maelen some solace was that they’d moved over marshland and grassy plains into foothills, a sure sign of going west. At some point they’d reach the Greenwood Rise, hopefully by nightfall. She didn’t much relish the idea of sleeping out in the open, without the defense of the forest around her. But had she led them in a northerly way, which only lengthened the trek to this Starless Rift? It was impossible to tell with the blasted gray sky and winter mists. At best, she could see a longbow shot’s distance at any one time, and often less than that.

A sharp whistle rang out from somewhere beyond the fog: Vessa’s call. Maelen stopped, put two fingers to her lips, and returned the whistle.

“What is it?” the scribe asked, looking around him.

“Our lass has found something,” she grunted.

They waited.

Like a ghost, Vessa appeared a stone’s throw away, padding towards them on soft feet. She held her bow in one hand, which wasn’t unusual for her scouting trips. The nocked arrow, however, made Maelen tense. She loosened the head of the mace at her hip, pulling it up and out of the leather belt loop. The weapon, her prize from the vault in Thornmere Hold, had replaced her longsword even though its reach was shorter than her blade’s. Maelen gripped the mace’s leather wraps, the black metal thrumming faintly in her palms. She couldn’t say why she now favored the mace with the heavy spiked ball on one end, except that it was hers, there by her bedside when she’d woken from her long sleep. Since then, Maelen hadn’t let it out of reach.

“Trouble?” she asked Vessa in a low voice.

The lass got close enough to touch them before speaking. “Hard to tell. There’s a farmstead up ahead,” she panted, out of breath from the run. “But it’s all dark and quiet.”

“Farm?” Maelen twisted her face. “Who in the nine gates would farm this far from the city?”

“There are several outlying villages,” Alric said, leaning on his staff as if to give his bad leg a rest. “The one west of Leandra’s Rest would be…” he frowned, searching his memory. “Vastren Hollow, I believe? Originally a ranger ward-post. Which means we’re almost to the hills! Vastren Hollow is small, but should offer another bed for the night, and means we’ve traveled southwest. Well done, Vessa!” He smiled. The lass looked startled by the praise and turned away.

“It’s dark, you said?” Maelen asked her. “Any animals?”

“Not that I saw, but I didn’t take a close look.”

“Well,” she said, grinning. She found the loop at her waist and returned the mace to her belt. For some reason, she felt a little guilty and disappointed at doing so, almost as if the metal itself was sighing. “Let’s go look.”

Vessa had scouted far enough that they crunched through grass and low brush for what felt like a full bell before the mists parted, revealing a simple wooden fence stretching before them. There was no gate she could see, but the barrier was meant to keep livestock inside, not people. The three hopped it easily enough and strode into the farm.

They found the first dead cow ten strides from the fence, lying on its side. Its brown-and-white flanks shredded by countless raking claws, the grass matted in a wide pool of dried blood. Vessa hissed—its head was almost gone, chewed to the bone. Even in winter a cloud of black flies swarmed what was left, their buzzing the only sound.

“It’s eyes,” Alric muttered grimly. “They’re gone. It’s Orthuun again.”

“Don’t get jumpy,” Maelen scolded. She’d freed the mace again and held it in both hands, the weight reassuring her. “Its whole face is gone, not just the eyes, and ravens could have gotten those. Looks like a pack of something got in here, but they’re long gone.” The lad didn’t answer her, his mouth an unhappy line.

The barn loomed ahead in the mists, its wide doors hanging open. Inside they found more of the same—livestock carcasses strewn in their stalls, faces gnawed away, claw marks littering their bodies. Maelen tried to imagine what had swarmed over this place, but it wasn’t wolves or dogs. The tracks were five-toed and rat-like, but too large for typical vermin. Vessa pointed to long, oily trails glistening in the straw, either the drag of large tails or something serpentine sliding beside them. Maelen noted that the flies avoided the oily trails, though they were otherwise thick masses around the bodies.

“If the people survived,” Vessa said. “They would have holed up in their house.”

“Yeah,” Maelen grunted. “Let’s find it.”

Between the barn and longhouse they found a chicken yard strewn with feathers, blood and a few stray legs and heads, but no bodies. Those oily trails and clawed footprints were everywhere. Crows called out from the fog, feasting on some corpses no doubt, but besides the crows and flies, no sound. It was unnerving, the silence on a farm that should have been brimming with life.

Maelen’s hope that the farmers had survived the raid dimmed when they approached the house. The door was a mess of claw marks and, it seemed, the creatures had torn off any window shutters and scrabbled inside. On the uneven wooden steps were bloody, clawed footprints and more of those oily, snake-like tracks.

“Do we go inside?” Alric whispered.

Maelen and Vessa both quieted as they listened. Nothing from inside. She cleared her throat and yelled through an open window. “Hello? Anyone there?”

Silence.

She exhaled. “No profit in raiding a farmhouse.”

“Profit?” Alric blanched. “Shouldn’t we… help?”

“They’re dead, lad.” She said, her voice harsher than intended. “You want to see children with their faces gnawed off?” Alric looked away, like he might throw up. “Let’s get to the village. Night isn’t far off, and I don’t want to be outside with whatever these things are.”

As they turned from the farmhouse, the flies rose in a dark cloud behind them, and for a heartbeat, Maelen thought she heard faint skittering beneath the floorboards. It was probably her imagination, though. She gritted her teeth, jaw tight.

A muddy footpath led to a sagging gate, hanging open. Beyond it, the path wound west through wet grass toward the foothills, cedars and alders ghosting in the fog. Crows cawed, and somewhere a jay screeched. Vessa, bow still at the ready, nodded towards the mess of footprints all along the path–long, five-toed ones, snaky trails, and plenty of human boots, all in no clear pattern. Whatever these creatures were, there had been a lot of them.

It did not take them long to reach the edge of a shallow basin and there, set against the foothills, the path led to a squat, functional rampart wall made of thick palings of dark pine, braced with mossy stonework at the corners. Its wooden gate was reinforced with iron bands, with the symbol of what looked like a hollow tree burned into its wood. Beyond the walls were the faint sounds of people yelling, some screaming, high-pitched and desperate. A dog barked frantically, far off behind the ramparts. Smoke coiled through the gray sky, glimpsed only when the fog tore open for a heartbeat.

A ragged pack of villagers clustered outside the gate. To Maelen’s eye, their gear had been scavenged and improvised—one woman held a woodcutter’s axe, another man held a spear whose shaft had been broken, a boy no more than twelve held a garden spade. Their clothes were damp with dark stains, their faces smeared with grime, and one had her arm in a sling. Only one man, barking orders at the rest, looked to be a proper soldier. Stocky, thick-shouldered, skin the color of earth, his beard tightly braided with copper. A chain shirt hung from him, boots sunk in the mud, a short glaive gripped in one meaty hand.

One of the villagers let out a cry and pointed in their direction. Maelen and Vessa froze, and Alric took one additional, shuffling step before realizing they’d stopped. The villagers froze, mud-streaked, hollow-eyed. The Stonekin fellow growled something at his companions, and then stepped forward, planting the end of his glaive in the mud.

“’Ware, travelers! It’s not safe here!” he called out in a gruff voice ragged with overuse. “Turn back!”

The group had fanned out slightly with their arrival, seven villagers in all, and now Maelen could see two bodies at their feet. Both thin forms were covered in black fur and the size of the boy with the spade, with clawed hands and feet and long tails as black as night. They reminded her of skratts, humanoid vermin that sometimes plagued the Oakton sewers, but these were decidedly larger. Besides, she’d never heard of skratts attacking humans, or of slime-covered tails.

“What’s going on here?” Maelen asked, gripping her mace. The soldier muttered something she couldn’t hear, and the wide-eyed villagers began fanning out more deliberately, forming a semicircle between them and the open front gate. They looked exhausted, terrified, and wholly incapable of wielding those weapons effectively. If it came to it, she would cut them down more easily than the Lanternless in the forest. It shouldn’t come to that, though.

Maelen spat into the mud and cracked her neck. She swung the heavy-headed mace to rest on her shoulder in a display of casual violence. Her face became a thundercloud as she scanned the ragged line of villagers.

“You’ve got troubles enough without testing me. But if you’re eager to taste my mace,” she jerked her chin at Vessa. “Or her arrows, keep coming. Well? Fighting or talking?”

Several of the villagers stepped back, looking over at the soldier. The man scowled and shook his head. “We’re talking,” he said grimly.

“Right then,” Maelen grunted. She nodded to Vessa and Alric, and they fell into step beside her, approaching the Stonekin man. As they closed the distance, the lack of training and skill amongst the commoners became clearer. Their hands shook with fear, this lot. Half of them didn’t wear shoes, like they’d rolled out of bed when the skratts attacked. The soldier, meanwhile, seemed to recognize their competence just as clearly. He appraised Maelen and her crew with a calculating eye, his lips set in a grim line. Vessa, always a good lass, stayed back several paces with her bow.

“So, what are these then?” Maelen asked, nudging a furred body with her muddy boot. Alric dropped into a crouch, examining them without touching. This close, she could see the rat-like heads clearly, their long-fingered hands tipped in short claws. Skratts, yes, but wrong. Too big, slick-furred, and one stared sightless up at her, its eyes milk-white as Wink’s. The jet fur was greasy, their ropy tails covered in a dark slime.

“Some sort of feral skratt,” the soldier replied in his deep, raspy voice. “They fell on us pre-dawn, hundreds of them. I’ve never seen or heard of the like.”

Alric stood up. The lad was shaken, his lips pursed. When he caught her eye he mouthed a word silently, but she understood it well enough. Orthuun. The blind eyes. The black fur and slime. It all harkened to the zombies in Thornmere Hold, and the spider-thing Vessa had described. Dammit all. There was no escaping the eyeless bastard west of the city, it seemed.

“You’ve been fighting ‘em all day?” she asked, shaking her head and trying to peer back towards the gate. The yells and screams became louder and more muffled depending on the mists, but they were still going. And that blasted dog was still barking, like a drum beat of doom.

“As best we can,” the soldier sighed tiredly. “We’ve killed scores of them, but their numbers were overwhelming.”

“What did they want?” Alric asked with some urgency. “Did they focus their attacks?”

Both Maelen and the soldier seemed surprised by the question, or even that the lad had inserted himself.

“At first we couldn’t tell,” he answered. “Then it became clear: They were focused on our shrine to The Watcher, in the village square.”

“The Watcher!” Alric said triumphantly. “Yes, of course. Is there a flame there?”

“There was,” he said. “But we,” he nodded to the ragged group around them. “Had to flee. I doubt it’s still burning now.” At these words, two of the villagers began to openly weep.

Maelen had heard enough. Whatever was happening across the Greenwood Rise, they couldn’t stop it here. They needed to get to this Starless Rift, which was still three days away if Wink could be believed. She needed to get Alric and his book there, exchange it for whatever treasure Hadren offered, and then get back to the city. After that, well… she had to admit that Vessa was right, that it was safer to work within the city walls than not. What could she do against rampaging demons and blighted wilds?

And then the lad messed it all up with his next words.

“Where is it?” he asked, voice steadier than it should have been. “We’ll protect it.”

Somewhere beyond the wall, the dog’s barking broke off suddenly with a yelp.

Next: Battle of the Watchflame [with game notes]

[game-notes version here]

XII.

Duskmarch 16, Thornsday, Year 731.

Oakton had five main city gates, and Lake Gate was the southernmost of them, positioned on the broad road running parallel to the Bay of Mists’ northern shore. It was a somewhat puzzling name since Lake Miran lay centrally within Oakton’s walls, at the very base of the mighty Argenoak. Still, Lake Gate was the primary point of passage for fisherfolk, water traders, and travelers, with access to a dozen small bayward settlements to the south. Twin towers squatted on either side of the arched gatehouse, with an aged stone wall thick with moss from the bay winds and constants mists. A carved lintel above the gate bore the relief of a swan in flight over water, one of the symbols of the Mere-Lady, goddess of fresh water, lakes, and rivers, and patron of Lake Miran.

They left just after dawn. The winter rains had broken a day earlier, and the morning air around Lake Gate carried the fresh, briny tang of the coast, mingling with the scent of fish and smoke from nearby drying racks. Gulls and reedbirds circled overhead, with the ever-present branches of the Argenoak concealing the brightening sky farther above.

Vessa thought that perhaps there were more travelers at the city walls looking to enter than she would have expected for midwinter, and all looking grim and haunted. She would have casually asked an Iron Thorn guard about it had she not had a warrant on her head, and instead pulled the hood of her travel cloak tight as she passed through the crowds, as if unused to the morning chill.

She’d forgotten how slow they needed to move thanks to Alric’s lamed foot. The man would stubbornly walk as long and far as instructed, but he would never do so quickly. As a result, they set a strolling pace south of Oakton, Alric’s runed staff jabbing the wide road amidst their footfalls.

“This bloody plan still feels half-baked,” Maelen complained. “I’d rather have faced that twice-cursed Nightwight again to get whatever’s buried in his camp, then moved south. Hadren said he’s south of where we’d gotten the book. Why not start at the Hold?”

They’d had this conversation round in circles for two days. Alric sighed, and when he spoke his voice held the lack of emotion of someone making the same points half a dozen times. He ticked off points on his ink-stained fingers. “First, because I don’t believe what’s buried near Sarin is treasure. Second, we might not survive another encounter with him. Third, the idea of Sarin gaining access to the Tome is terrifying. Fourth, Hadren also said that ‘anyone in the dark’ would know how to find this Starless Rift, and there are towns south of Oakton, not west of it.” He waggled his fingers. “Did I miss anything?”

Maelen hocked and spat into the dirt, scowling.

“You said you were going to research the Starless Rift before we left,” Vessa chimed in, trying to change the subject. “Any luck?”

Now it was the scribe’s turn to scowl. “None, I’m afraid. I could find no mention of it in the Lodge’s histories, not even in the restricted texts I’m not supposed to have access to. It’s… well, I have no idea what it is, much less where.”

“So the bloody plan is just to walk south and ask directions?” Maelen asked sourly.

“Pretty much,” Alric smiled. Vessa thought his face utterly transformed when he smiled. It was a shame he did so rarely. “I have enough coin for us to sleep in beds long enough to at least try. If we find nothing, well… I suppose then we can brave Sarin’s camp.”

“Shit plan,” Maelen grumped, and kicked a rock skittering into the long grass by the roadside. Then she blew out a breath noisily, seemed to gather herself, and added, “Well. At least we’re out of the city for a bit. Lets the heat die down a bit on Vessa’s warrant.”

“I’m still unclear why Vessa has a warrant,” Alric admitted. “What–”

“It’s stupid,” she interrupted. “Maelen picked a fight and I was blamed for it. One of the morons we… well, I stabbed, was somebody important’s son.”

“Who’s son?” Alric blinked.

Vessa shrugged and rubbed at her nose. She answered impatiently. “Don’t remember. It’ll die down. I’ve had warrants on my head before, same as Maelen.”

“Whatever for?”

“By the all the twisted knots, man! Leave it!” Vessa snapped, a sudden exasperation filling her. His constant questions about… well, everything, never ceased. Alric stopped his shuffling walk to stare at her, and she stomped past him, walking briskly ahead. “Come on! We’re making bad time and you’re too slow!” She barked over her shoulder. Alric asked something she couldn’t hear, and Maelen’s bellowed laughing filled the air.

They spoke little the rest of the day, Vessa brushing away any attempts at conversation. On their walks, she said that she would scout ahead, but it was only an excuse to be in her own head. She found herself surprisingly embarrassed by her morning outburst and simultaneously infuriated whenever Maelen’s grin caught her eye. Vessa knew that her friend thought she and Alric would be rolling in the barn sooner than later, even when the two of them genuinely had nothing in common. Handsome enough, but soft. Maelen wouldn’t bed him, so why did she think Vessa would? Teasing, like they were twelve. Ridiculous.

In the roil of her thoughts, Vessa did her best to appreciate the unseasonably beautiful weather and scenery. Through low-lying grasslands, the Long Road snaked ever southward. To the west were the forested hills of the Greenwood Rise. Every now and again, they could see the Bay of Mists to the east, the wide body of water separating Oakton from Bayren and its peninsula. Vessa had never been across the Bay, but the wide waters made her nervous. She’d heard tales of the ocean beyond Bayren, a vast never-ending expanse of undrinkable water, and the very idea of it made her queasy.

Several travelers and wagons passed them, all heading to Oakton, their breath puffing in the chill air. They told stories of monsters ravaging livestock and kidnapping children, forcing them towards the refuge behind city walls. None of the accounts matched another, though–Some swore of black dogs. Others, writhing worms. Still others, invisible things that screamed in the dark. Maelen pronounced it all “unreliable village nonsense.” No one, it seemed, had heard of the Starless Rift.

At dusk, they reached Leandra’s Rest, a small fishing hamlet nestled between reed marshes and the shore road. It consisted of little more than a few docks, its scattering of wooden houses built upon low stilts. There were shrines to the Mere-Lady and Harbormaster but no central place of worship. Indeed, the only common space in the community was its sole tavern, the Brine Spoon. Fishing nets draped the outside railings. A hand-painted, chipped sign above the door showed a wooden spoon stirring a curling wave. Vessa wondered how communities like this one survived the wilds of the Redwood Marches. Hardy folk, these villagers, and more than a little crazy.

Inside, the Brine Spoon at dinnertime was filled with the scent of fish stew and hearth smoke. The beams were hung with dried herbs, clamshell chimes, and driftwood. The floor was packed sand and oiled planks. The three of them received nods from the handful of patrons and made their way to the bar, which seemed to be carved from a single, huge bone, possibly from some sea creature that had wandered into the bay—just another reason to avoid the water, from Vessa’s perspective. Behind the bar, cloudy bottles lined crooked shelves, along with a pot of bubbling stew. A tarnished plaque with the stag sigil of Calvenor, faded but proudly displayed, had been pinned to a far wall.

Alric’s hope, since Hadren had proclaimed that “anyone in the dark” would know the Starless Rift’s whereabouts, was that they should ask villagers after the sun had set. So, the three of them ordered their stew and hunks of bread, sipped ale from clay mugs, and waited until deep into the evening.

The mood amongst the party remained tense during the meal, and Vessa was surprised when Alric asked, “So. You two are free of debt. What do you do now?”

“What?” she and Maelen answered in unison, pausing in sopping up the stew with bread.

“It’s only…” he said, his rich voice cautious. “You agreed to travel to Thornmere Hold because of your debts to the Latchkey Circle, yes? Those debts are paid. Why travel with me now?”

Maelen went back to eating her stew while Vessa waited for her to answer. After swallowing a mouthful, the broad-shouldered warrior grinned, “It’s not that complicated. I want money. Hadren said he’d give you treasure for the book. You seem inclined to give it to him, and are willing to share the treasure besides, so it’s an easy path to coin. We get you safely to Hadren. We get paid.”

“And where Maelen goes, I go,” Vessa added with casual conviction. Maelen blinked at that, a look of mild surprise. “Plus, money’s nice,” she added.

“Yes, but… then what?” Alric prompted, dipping a spoon into his bowl. He was the only one of them using a spoon. “Don’t you have goals? What do you want to do with the coin you earn? What’s it all for?”

Maelen scoffed. “You’re overthinking it, lad. Life is better with a heavy purse. Now that our debts are paid, what we make is ours to keep. We’re mercenaries, Vessa and me. This is what we do.”

“There’s got to be more to your life than that,” Alric pushed. “Don’t you have any dreams? Goals for your life?”

“Living is enough,” Maelen said with a shrug, Alric grunted but for once thought better of pursuing the conversation, and the three returned to their silent meal. The scribe likely didn’t catch it, but Vessa had known the gruff warrior well these past few years. His words had struck a nerve and set her thinking. Her eyes glazed over as she ate, less aware of her surroundings, her movements just a blink slower. In fact, Maelen’s surprising reaction caused Vessa to roll the question more seriously around in her skull. It was as her friend had said: Money was for spending, work was for money, and that was it. Or was it? She realized that her first answer had been more accurate… Vessa was here for Maelen, coin or no. But why? She scowled, irritated all over again. Alric and his blasted brain caused more problems than they solved.

Eventually, they wiped their bowls clean, licked their fingers, and finished their ale. They agreed to split up, moving individually throughout the tavern to ask patrons about the Starless Rift’s whereabouts.

The conversations proved fruitless. They heard more rumors of monsters, were bombarded by village gossip and requests for news from the city. Vessa was propositioned for sex twice, once by a tattooed, Tideborn fisherman, and another by the one-eared bartender. Her answer both times had almost started a fight, and, in the end, Alric agreed to pay twice their room rate to retain their rooms that night. The three of them went to bed early, frustrated and bickering about what to do the next day.

Duskmarch 17, Goldday, Year 731.

Over breakfast, Alric urged them to continue south to the next village. Maelen called him a fool, but said it was his coin to burn. Lacking conviction, they took longer than usual to pack their travel packs and left the Brine Spoon well after sunrise.

Clouds had gathered overhead, and morning fog still snaked its way through much of the village. As they passed through the short patch of rocky soil the locals called a village square, a voice called out in the mists.

“My, my! What do you call a mouse, rabid dog, and kicked puppy walking in darkness towards a cliff?” The voice was dry and thin with age, but clear as a bell. The three of them stopped. Vessa’s senses were sharper than the others and pointed.

“There,” she said simply. They followed her lead, and as they neared the square’s edge, the fog momentarily parted.

Sitting on an overturned fish crate near a lantern post was an old Dunfolk woman, her skin dark and leathery, her tightly coiled hair bound up in a patched, sea-green shawl. Leaning next to her was a wiry cane made of driftwood, carved with words Vessa couldn’t make out.

“Ah!” Alric’s face brightened. “The village crier, yes? What news, ma’am?”

“Ma’am?” the woman cackled. “So proper! People around here call me Wink,” she winked dramatically, still chuckling. Then she cleared her throat theatrically and said, “The shore speaks tide. The blind speak time!”

Vessa hadn’t noticed, but the old woman was indeed blind, her eyes clouded white. Yet she looked at each of their faces intently with her milky gaze, smiling with amusement. But if she couldn’t see, how did she know where they stood? It was unnerving.

“What do you want to know, son? News from passing barges? Perhaps the sex of the new Vintel child two houses yonder? Or perhaps,” she paused dramatically. “You have a more specific question? Such as…” Another pause, and she rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m always so in the dark, you see.” She waved a hand in front of her sightless face, then winked at him.

“What are you–? Oh!” Alric started, and the woman laughed again, wheezing with joy.

“What in the Rootmother’s name is going on?” Maelen leaned over and whispered to Vessa. She looked back and shrugged.

“Go on,” the woman fought to catch her breath and waved at Alric. “Tell your canine friends the joke.”

“People in the dark will know!” he said to them triumphantly. “Of course! It’s the blind. The blind know the way to the Starless Rift!” Wink whooped with joy at the proclamation, sharing in Alric’s triumph.

“I’ll be damned,” Maelen said in surprise. “So where is it then?”

“You’ll be damned?” the woman scolded. “No, no, no. You’ll be dead, dear, snapping at the hands trying to pet you, never accepting their love. The boy here is the damned one, struggling as one of the dark gods plucks him by his naked tail.”

“What did you say?” Maelen’s face glowered and her muscles tensed.

“You know of Orthuun, then?” Alric said, and at the name Wink made a warding sign over her chest and forehead. “Of his Tome?”

“Bad business, my boy, bad business,” Wink shook her head sadly. “That little book of yours is one of five, and each darker than the next. Get rid of it, if you can, for the Blind Sovereign’s shadow is falling across us all, and I fear no light will remain.”

“What do you mean I’ll be dead?” Maelen challenged, and Vessa put a hand on her muscled arm, pulling her back.

“Wait, Mae,” she whispered urgently. “Let them talk.”

“You– you’re not with Hadren? And Orthuun?” Alric asked insistently.

“I’ve lost my sight, son, not my ability to see,” she made the same warding gesture. “Free advice from an old woman? Drop that book down a deep well and run as far as you can away from here.”

“Here meaning this village?” he asked.

Wink didn’t answer right away. She looked up into the cloudy sky with those white eyes, considering. Then she shrugged with a grin. “Never mind. He’s got the whole Redwood Marches in his blackened palm. You would have to run far, or fight him back. But even if you fight and win, you must release the book. Which,” she sighed dramatically, “you probably won’t do.”

“I don’t understand,” Alric said helplessly, looking like a young boy to Vessa’s eyes. He licked his lips.

“No,” she smiled. “I don’t suspect you do. Travel well, little mouse! Two days west and the same south. There’s your Starless Rift. There’s no missing it,” she said sourly.

“Is there anything else?” Alric urged. “Anything else we need to know? Who’s Hadren? What is the Starless Rift?”

“Anything else? Hm. Let’s see…” Wink rubbed at her chin again thoughtfully. “When you get to the cliff’s edge, little mouse: Don’t jump.”

“Come on,” Maelen growled, pulling at Alric’s arm in the same way Vessa had done to hers. “We have our directions. Let’s leave this blind old bat to babble her nonsense to someone else.”

Wink shrieked after them: “Release the book! Don’t jump! The dark falls forever!”

“Why am I a kicked puppy?” Vessa grumbled to Maelen, but her friend was too busy dragging Alric along to answer.

As they left Leandra’s Rest, shoulders hunched to the morning chill, they could still hear Wink’s breathless calls in the fog.

“Run or fight, but don’t jump into the darkness!”

Next: Vastren Hollow [with game notes]

[prose-only version here]

XII.

Duskmarch 16, Thornsday, Year 731.

Oakton had five main city gates, and Lake Gate was the southernmost of them, positioned on the broad road running parallel to the Bay of Mists’ northern shore. It was a somewhat puzzling name since Lake Miran lay centrally within Oakton’s walls, at the very base of the mighty Argenoak. Still, Lake Gate was the primary point of passage for fisherfolk, water traders, and travelers, with access to a dozen small bayward settlements to the south. Twin towers squatted on either side of the arched gatehouse, with an aged stone wall thick with moss from the bay winds and constants mists. A carved lintel above the gate bore the relief of a swan in flight over water, one of the symbols of the Mere-Lady, goddess of fresh water, lakes, and rivers, and patron of Lake Miran.

They left just after dawn. The winter rains had broken a day earlier, and the morning air around Lake Gate carried the fresh, briny tang of the coast, mingling with the scent of fish and smoke from nearby drying racks. Gulls and reedbirds circled overhead, with the ever-present branches of the Argenoak concealing the brightening sky farther above.

Vessa thought that perhaps there were more travelers at the city walls looking to enter than she would have expected for midwinter, and all looking grim and haunted. She would have casually asked an Iron Thorn guard about it had she not had a warrant on her head, and instead pulled the hood of her travel cloak tight as she passed through the crowds, as if unused to the morning chill.

She’d forgotten how slow they needed to move thanks to Alric’s lamed foot. The man would stubbornly walk as long and far as instructed, but he would never do so quickly. As a result, they set a strolling pace south of Oakton, Alric’s runed staff jabbing the wide road amidst their footfalls.

“This bloody plan still feels half-baked,” Maelen complained. “I’d rather have faced that twice-cursed Nightwight again to get whatever’s buried in his camp, then moved south. Hadren said he’s south of where we’d gotten the book. Why not start at the Hold?”

They’d had this conversation round in circles for two days. Alric sighed, and when he spoke his voice held the lack of emotion of someone making the same points half a dozen times. He ticked off points on his ink-stained fingers. “First, because I don’t believe what’s buried near Sarin is treasure. Second, we might not survive another encounter with him. Third, the idea of Sarin gaining access to the Tome is terrifying. Fourth, Hadren also said that ‘anyone in the dark’ would know how to find this Starless Rift, and there are towns south of Oakton, not west of it.” He waggled his fingers. “Did I miss anything?”

Maelen hocked and spat into the dirt, scowling.

“You said you were going to research the Starless Rift before we left,” Vessa chimed in, trying to change the subject. “Any luck?”

Now it was the scribe’s turn to scowl. “None, I’m afraid. I could find no mention of it in the Lodge’s histories, not even in the restricted texts I’m not supposed to have access to. It’s… well, I have no idea what it is, much less where.”

“So the bloody plan is just to walk south and ask directions?” Maelen asked sourly.

“Pretty much,” Alric smiled. Vessa thought his face utterly transformed when he smiled. It was a shame he did so rarely. “I have enough coin for us to sleep in beds long enough to at least try. If we find nothing, well… I suppose then we can brave Sarin’s camp.”

“Shit plan,” Maelen grumped, and kicked a rock skittering into the long grass by the roadside. Then she blew out a breath noisily, seemed to gather herself, and added, “Well. At least we’re out of the city for a bit. Lets the heat die down a bit on Vessa’s warrant.”

“I’m still unclear why Vessa has a warrant,” Alric admitted. “What–”

“It’s stupid,” she interrupted. “Maelen picked a fight and I was blamed for it. One of the morons we… well, I stabbed, was somebody important’s son.”

“Who’s son?” Alric blinked.

Vessa shrugged and rubbed at her nose. She answered impatiently. “Don’t remember. It’ll die down. I’ve had warrants on my head before, same as Maelen.”

“Whatever for?”

“By the all the twisted knots, man! Leave it!” Vessa snapped, a sudden exasperation filling her. His constant questions about… well, everything, never ceased. Alric stopped his shuffling walk to stare at her, and she stomped past him, walking briskly ahead. “Come on! We’re making bad time and you’re too slow!” She barked over her shoulder. Alric asked something she couldn’t hear, and Maelen’s bellowed laughing filled the air.

They spoke little the rest of the day, Vessa brushing away any attempts at conversation. On their walks, she said that she would scout ahead, but it was only an excuse to be in her own head. She found herself surprisingly embarrassed by her morning outburst and simultaneously infuriated whenever Maelen’s grin caught her eye. Vessa knew that her friend thought she and Alric would be rolling in the barn sooner than later, even when the two of them genuinely had nothing in common. Handsome enough, but soft. Maelen wouldn’t bed him, so why did she think Vessa would? Teasing, like they were twelve. Ridiculous.

In the roil of her thoughts, Vessa did her best to appreciate the unseasonably beautiful weather and scenery. Through low-lying grasslands, the Long Road snaked ever southward. To the west were the forested hills of the Greenwood Rise. Every now and again, they could see the Bay of Mists to the east, the wide body of water separating Oakton from Bayren and its peninsula. Vessa had never been across the Bay, but the wide waters made her nervous. She’d heard tales of the ocean beyond Bayren, a vast never-ending expanse of undrinkable water, and the very idea of it made her queasy.

Several travelers and wagons passed them, all heading to Oakton, their breath puffing in the chill air. They told stories of monsters ravaging livestock and kidnapping children, forcing them towards the refuge behind city walls. None of the accounts matched another, though–Some swore of black dogs. Others, writhing worms. Still others, invisible things that screamed in the dark. Maelen pronounced it all “unreliable village nonsense.” No one, it seemed, had heard of the Starless Rift.

At dusk, they reached Leandra’s Rest, a small fishing hamlet nestled between reed marshes and the shore road. It consisted of little more than a few docks, its scattering of wooden houses built upon low stilts. There were shrines to the Mere-Lady and Harbormaster but no central place of worship. Indeed, the only common space in the community was its sole tavern, the Brine Spoon. Fishing nets draped the outside railings. A hand-painted, chipped sign above the door showed a wooden spoon stirring a curling wave. Vessa wondered how communities like this one survived the wilds of the Redwood Marches. Hardy folk, these villagers, and more than a little crazy.

Inside, the Brine Spoon at dinnertime was filled with the scent of fish stew and hearth smoke. The beams were hung with dried herbs, clamshell chimes, and driftwood. The floor was packed sand and oiled planks. The three of them received nods from the handful of patrons and made their way to the bar, which seemed to be carved from a single, huge bone, possibly from some sea creature that had wandered into the bay—just another reason to avoid the water, from Vessa’s perspective. Behind the bar, cloudy bottles lined crooked shelves, along with a pot of bubbling stew. A tarnished plaque with the stag sigil of Calvenor, faded but proudly displayed, had been pinned to a far wall.

Alric’s hope, since Hadren had proclaimed that “anyone in the dark” would know the Starless Rift’s whereabouts, was that they should ask villagers after the sun had set. So, the three of them ordered their stew and hunks of bread, sipped ale from clay mugs, and waited until deep into the evening.

The mood amongst the party remained tense during the meal, and Vessa was surprised when Alric asked, “So. You two are free of debt. What do you do now?”

“What?” she and Maelen answered in unison, pausing in sopping up the stew with bread.

“It’s only…” he said, his rich voice cautious. “You agreed to travel to Thornmere Hold because of your debts to the Latchkey Circle, yes? Those debts are paid. Why travel with me now?”

Maelen went back to eating her stew while Vessa waited for her to answer. After swallowing a mouthful, the broad-shouldered warrior grinned, “It’s not that complicated. I want money. Hadren said he’d give you treasure for the book. You seem inclined to give it to him, and are willing to share the treasure besides, so it’s an easy path to coin. We get you safely to Hadren. We get paid.”

“And where Maelen goes, I go,” Vessa added with casual conviction. Maelen blinked at that, a look of mild surprise. “Plus, money’s nice,” she added.

“Yes, but… then what?” Alric prompted, dipping a spoon into his bowl. He was the only one of them using a spoon. “Don’t you have goals? What do you want to do with the coin you earn? What’s it all for?”

Maelen scoffed. “You’re overthinking it, lad. Life is better with a heavy purse. Now that our debts are paid, what we make is ours to keep. We’re mercenaries, Vessa and me. This is what we do.”

“There’s got to be more to your life than that,” Alric pushed. “Don’t you have any dreams? Goals for your life?”

“Living is enough,” Maelen said with a shrug, Alric grunted but for once thought better of pursuing the conversation, and the three returned to their silent meal. The scribe likely didn’t catch it, but Vessa had known the gruff warrior well these past few years. His words had struck a nerve and set her thinking. Her eyes glazed over as she ate, less aware of her surroundings, her movements just a blink slower. In fact, Maelen’s surprising reaction caused Vessa to roll the question more seriously around in her skull. It was as her friend had said: Money was for spending, work was for money, and that was it. Or was it? She realized that her first answer had been more accurate… Vessa was here for Maelen, coin or no. But why? She scowled, irritated all over again. Alric and his blasted brain caused more problems than they solved.

Eventually, they wiped their bowls clean, licked their fingers, and finished their ale. They agreed to split up, moving individually throughout the tavern to ask patrons about the Starless Rift’s whereabouts.

The conversations proved fruitless. They heard more rumors of monsters, were bombarded by village gossip and requests for news from the city. Vessa was propositioned for sex twice, once by a tattooed, Tideborn fisherman, and another by the one-eared bartender. Her answer both times had almost started a fight, and, in the end, Alric agreed to pay twice their room rate to retain their rooms that night. The three of them went to bed early, frustrated and bickering about what to do the next day.

Duskmarch 17, Goldday, Year 731.

Over breakfast, Alric urged them to continue south to the next village. Maelen called him a fool, but said it was his coin to burn. Lacking conviction, they took longer than usual to pack their travel packs and left the Brine Spoon well after sunrise.

Clouds had gathered overhead, and morning fog still snaked its way through much of the village. As they passed through the short patch of rocky soil the locals called a village square, a voice called out in the mists.

“My, my! What do you call a mouse, rabid dog, and kicked puppy walking in darkness towards a cliff?” The voice was dry and thin with age, but clear as a bell. The three of them stopped. Vessa’s senses were sharper than the others and pointed.

“There,” she said simply. They followed her lead, and as they neared the square’s edge, the fog momentarily parted.

Sitting on an overturned fish crate near a lantern post was an old Dunfolk woman, her skin dark and leathery, her tightly coiled hair bound up in a patched, sea-green shawl. Leaning next to her was a wiry cane made of driftwood, carved with words Vessa couldn’t make out.

“Ah!” Alric’s face brightened. “The village crier, yes? What news, ma’am?”

“Ma’am?” the woman cackled. “So proper! People around here call me Wink,” she winked dramatically, still chuckling. Then she cleared her throat theatrically and said, “The shore speaks tide. The blind speak time!”

Vessa hadn’t noticed, but the old woman was indeed blind, her eyes clouded white. Yet she looked at each of their faces intently with her milky gaze, smiling with amusement. But if she couldn’t see, how did she know where they stood? It was unnerving.

“What do you want to know, son? News from passing barges? Perhaps the sex of the new Vintel child two houses yonder? Or perhaps,” she paused dramatically. “You have a more specific question? Such as…” Another pause, and she rubbed her chin thoughtfully. “Oh, I don’t know. I’m always so in the dark, you see.” She waved a hand in front of her sightless face, then winked at him.

“What are you–? Oh!” Alric started, and the woman laughed again, wheezing with joy.

“What in the Rootmother’s name is going on?” Maelen leaned over and whispered to Vessa. She looked back and shrugged.

“Go on,” the woman fought to catch her breath and waved at Alric. “Tell your canine friends the joke.”

“People in the dark will know!” he said to them triumphantly. “Of course! It’s the blind. The blind know the way to the Starless Rift!” Wink whooped with joy at the proclamation, sharing in Alric’s triumph.

“I’ll be damned,” Maelen said in surprise. “So where is it then?”

“You’ll be damned?” the woman scolded. “No, no, no. You’ll be dead, dear, snapping at the hands trying to pet you, never accepting their love. The boy here is the damned one, struggling as one of the dark gods plucks him by his naked tail.”

“What did you say?” Maelen’s face glowered and her muscles tensed.

“You know of Orthuun, then?” Alric said, and at the name Wink made a warding sign over her chest and forehead. “Of his Tome?”

“Bad business, my boy, bad business,” Wink shook her head sadly. “That little book of yours is one of five, and each darker than the next. Get rid of it, if you can, for the Blind Sovereign’s shadow is falling across us all, and I fear no light will remain.”

“What do you mean I’ll be dead?” Maelen challenged, and Vessa put a hand on her muscled arm, pulling her back.

“Wait, Mae,” she whispered urgently. “Let them talk.”

“You– you’re not with Hadren? And Orthuun?” Alric asked insistently.

“I’ve lost my sight, son, not my ability to see,” she made the same warding gesture. “Free advice from an old woman? Drop that book down a deep well and run as far as you can away from here.”

“Here meaning this village?” he asked.

Wink didn’t answer right away. She looked up into the cloudy sky with those white eyes, considering. Then she shrugged with a grin. “Never mind. He’s got the whole Redwood Marches in his blackened palm. You would have to run far, or fight him back. But even if you fight and win, you must release the book. Which,” she sighed dramatically, “you probably won’t do.”

“I don’t understand,” Alric said helplessly, looking like a young boy to Vessa’s eyes. He licked his lips.

“No,” she smiled. “I don’t suspect you do. Travel well, little mouse! Two days west and the same south. There’s your Starless Rift. There’s no missing it,” she said sourly.

“Is there anything else?” Alric urged. “Anything else we need to know? Who’s Hadren? What is the Starless Rift?”

“Anything else? Hm. Let’s see…” Wink rubbed at her chin again thoughtfully. “When you get to the cliff’s edge, little mouse: Don’t jump.”

“Come on,” Maelen growled, pulling at Alric’s arm in the same way Vessa had done to hers. “We have our directions. Let’s leave this blind old bat to babble her nonsense to someone else.”

Wink shrieked after them: “Release the book! Don’t jump! The dark falls forever!”

“Why am I a kicked puppy?” Vessa grumbled to Maelen, but her friend was too busy dragging Alric along to answer.

As they left Leandra’s Rest, shoulders hunched to the morning chill, they could still hear Wink’s breathless calls in the fog.

“Run or fight, but don’t jump into the darkness!”

Next: Vastren Hollow [with game notes]

[game-notes version here]

XI.

Duskmarch 12, Stillday, Year 731.

The Heart & Dagger tavern crouched near the lakeshore, its weathered sign showing a bleeding heart pierced by a long, crooked dagger. The sign hung limply in the nighttime rain, lit by two guttering, smoky torches that did their best to survive the weather.

Inside, low lanterns lit oak beams black with soot, and the air stank of smoke, ale, and spiced fish. Dunfolk traders, off-duty Iron Thorn enforcers, and a half-dozen loud drunks all competed to be heard over the constant din. Candle stubs flickered merrily atop crowded tables, their wax pooling on warped old boards.

From their back table, Vessa scanned the entrance for the hundredth time, muttering something under her breath. Her once-shaved black hair had grown to a short, boyish cut, showcasing her sharp, freckled face. Her appearance was marred only by the bent nose and, currently, a purpling black eye.

Vessa caught Maelen looking at her and muttered something. Maelen, for her part, smiled and leaned back in her chair languidly, appreciating the full tavern. She enjoyed the vibrancy of the Heart & Dagger, its energy. She was able to appreciate the buzz of tavern life so much more since her long sleep.

“He’s late!” Vessa called over the din.

“Why wouldn’t show?” the warrior grinned, all teeth. “You say he’s been asking you to a meal for two months! Maybe the boy is smitten!”

“It’s not like that,” Vessa said, defensively crossing her arms. “He sent four letters. Maybe five.”

“Ha! He’ll come, lass,” she smiled wide, and with a meaty hand slapped Vessa across the shoulder. She rocked to one side by the good-natured blow.

A small brown mouse scampered across Maelen’s shoulder and curled into the crook of her elbow. The square-jawed woman’s face softened, like a doting mother. With a thick finger, she stroked the fur between Tatter’s head and shoulders. The little creature probably wouldn’t live another year, she thought ruefully, given the general lifespan of mice. Well, she’d enjoy their time together now. After all, who knew how much time any of them had waiting for them? Her last excursion proved that point well enough.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed before Vessa announced, “He’s here!” and stood. Then, almost immediately, she slid back to sitting in her chair. Maelen saw the shocked look on her face and peered through the smoky darkness of the common room to follow her gaze.

Alric was much transformed in the two months since she’d seen him. He was still tall, his dark hair long and falling on broad shoulders. His skin was now so pale that it seemed almost white, and he wore dark robes, glistening in torchlight with wetness from the rain. He crossed the room with the same uneven gait, leaning harder on his walking stick. One by one, drinkers eased aside—some instinct, Maelen thought, catching the quiet hint of menace beneath his kind face.

As he arrived at the table, Tatter scampered across Maelen’s arm and to her lap, disappearing into the pouch there she used to carry him. The boy leaned his stick against the edge of their table, and, in the flickering candlelight, Maelen could see arcane runes carved across the full length of the wood. In addition, she could now see a circlet of blackened metal, half crown and half thorn-briar, shadowed his brow.

The scribe lowered himself to a seat across from them and nodded a greeting. His handsome face looked timid and pleased when he greeted Vessa, and she shot back a quip about his tardiness. Maelen couldn’t help but chuckle at the awkwardness between these two. She’d been right about the lad being smitten, and Vessa didn’t know how to handle it, or even perhaps to recognize it.

When he turned his dark eyes to Maelen he said in a rich baritone, “It’s good to see you up. How are you feeling?”

She raised a mug and took a long draught. “It’s good to be up, lad! You’re looking…” she waved a hand. “Different.”

“Am I?” he said with genuine confusion, looking down to examine himself. “Oh, new robes, yes. And you! Any lingering effects from Sarin’s touch? Other than the hair, of course.”

Maelen brushed fingers through her hair reflexively at the comment. One of her locks had turned gray from the Nightwight’s touch, a permanent reminder of her failure in Thornmere Hold. The battle ate at her. Both young ones could be dead because of it, saved only by Vessa’s skill with a bow, the lad’s resolve, and luck. “Just the hair,” she said, maybe a touch too harshly.

“Well,” he smiled. “I’m glad. And you, Vessa? Did you take a fall?”

“Fight,” she scowled, shooting Maelen a look. Maelen hid a smile. She’d started the brawl, but Vessa had taken the bruises. Only later did they learn their foes included a noble’s son. Now the City Watch wanted Vessa for “disturbing the peace.” “It’s fine. Just a black eye.”

The scribe looked startled for a moment, concerned. “Oh, well. I’m glad to hear you’re okay.”

“What have you been up, lad?” Maelen pushed a tankard to him across the table. “Locked away, reading that book?”

“Yes, actually,” he smiled, and took a dainty sip from the mug. “It’s called The Tome of Unlit Paths, and it’s truly fascinating. I have a good chunk of it translated, but translating it is only the first step, of course. The very ideas therein are dense ones, requiring a good deal of research into the history of this city and wider region. It was written, it seems, by a blind prophet who preached that sight itself is a lie. Imagine! A blind man writing script in his own blood! He worshipped Orthuun–called him a ‘true god’ above Oakton’s deities.”

Maelen grunted. Vessa rolled her eyes and stifled a yawn.

Alric, cheeks flushed, pressed on. “Dense work, very dense. Much of the writing is difficult to understand, honestly, but the insights into arcane practice are more than revelatory. In fact…” he took another sip, and doing so allowed him, apparently, to see the blank looks on their faces. “Ah, well. That’s all boring nonsense to you, of course. Suffice it to say, yes. I’ve had my nose buried in the book. And many scrolls, besides. The Lodge is equally annoyed and pleased with me, though of course they don’t know about our, ah… excursion.”  

He chuckled, then leaned forward to them. This close, Maelen could see the intricate pattern of his headgear. “I admit. I began to think I’d never seen you both again. What, pray tell, inspired this gathering?”

“What?” Vessa answered sharply. “We can’t just catch up?”

“We’re broke,” Maelen grinned, even as Vessa huffed and crossed her arms. “And getting out of town for a bit isn’t the worst thing, besides. We’re thinking of going back to visit our friend Sarin and get his treasure, and wondered if maybe you wanted to tag along.”

“B-broke!?” Alric gasped, eyes wide. “How can that be?” He lowered his voice, showing he’d learned since the last time they’d been at this table two months before. “What about all of the, the– gold?”

“We’ve paid off our debt to the Latchkey Circle,” Maelen said. “And with the rest, well…”

“It’s not important,” Vessa said quickly, scowling. Maelen chuckled. Her friend had never met a silver thorn she couldn’t gamble, smoke, drink, or whore away. Apparently gold crowns only meant bigger nights. Maelen had awoken from her long sleep to find their debts paid and coffers gone. The last two weeks had been lean.

The scribe’s eyes flicked between them, reading the situation. He looked at Vessa and pursed his lips, and Maelen thought he’d probably guessed the story. “Oh, I see. Well, Maelen, there’s no guarantee that what Sarin guards is treasure. This Orthuun, this Blind Sovereign, doesn’t seem to care about wealth. It could just as easily be the Nightwight’s bones when he died, or his old uniform, or something else nostalgic that’s buried there.”

“See?” Vessa shot Maelen a look. “I told you. There are safer ways to make coin.”

“If there were,” Maelen growled. “We would be excluded from knowing about them from the Circle. Our debts are paid, but they don’t want to help us, Vess. How many jobs have we gotten this month?”

“So we’re treasure hunters now?” She sat back, sulking. “Sleeping in the twice-cursed woods and fighting zombies?”

Now it was Maelen’s turn to lean forward. She grabbed Vessa’s sleeve and hissed. “That little jaunt brought us more coin than we’ve ever seen! And you’ve got a warrant on your head!”

“Fine,” Vessa pulled her arm away.

A sudden commotion at the door snapped Maelen’s head around. There, a middle-aged man with his back bent by labor called out into the common room while a trio of younger men tried belligerently to quiet him. Others in the tavern had paused their conversations to see what the fuss was about, allowing everyone to hear the man’s words.

“Alric? Alric Mistsong!? I was told Alric Mistsong would be dining here tonight!”

The scribe blinked at the words and stood. As he did so, the yelling man’s gaze swiveled directly to him. He shouldered past the younger men, grinning, while nearby patrons murmured and craned for a better view.

“There he is!” the man whooped happily, pulling an empty stool over to their table and settling into it. He wore plain homespun clothes. An intelligent but unremarkable face showed receding hair and sun-spotted skin. The man slapped the scarred wood, making their mugs jump. “Alric Mistsong!” This close, Maelen could see that his mouth was missing many of its teeth, causing his speech to lisp somewhat. “Do you remember me, son?”

Alric looked him over, and then suddenly recognition bloomed across his features. “The man at the Root Gate! Back in Frostmere, was it?”

The man laughed and slapped the table again. Across the tavern, people decided there was no show to be had and returned to their own conversations. “You do remember! Yessir. Fooled those guards when they were goin’ to arrest your friends here. Clever work, that.” He wagged an index finger in Alric’s direction.

“What’s your name, sir?” Alric asked, obviously still on edge but keeping his face calm. Maelen had always appreciated the lad’s spine.

“Hadren’s my name. Hadren Kelthorn. My, look at you! Coming into your own with this magic now, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?” Alric said, his features growing in intensity.

“That’s a fine circlet you’ve wrought,” the man grinned, peering at Alric’s forehead. “And runes on the staff. My, my. A proper sorcerer now, aren’t you? Enjoying Orthuun’s favor?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the lad said, leaning forward. “Who are you?”

“But the Tome,” Hadren continued, as if Alric hadn’t spoken. He practically hissed the word. “It’s not yours, you see. ‘The hand that opens the path is not the hand that owns it; the path itself is the master, and it will choose whom it keeps.’”

It was if the man had slapped Alric. His face rocked back, eyes bulging. “How– how?”

“Come find me at the Starless Rift, Alric Mistsong, south of where you,” The man jabbed a finger at the lad with each word. “Stole. My. Book.” Then he smiled a gap-toothed smile. “Ask anyone in the dark, they’ll tell you how to find it. If it’s wealth your friends need, I’ll trade you for what’s rightfully mine. After all, ‘gold is only light trapped in metal, and the dark will melt it like morning frost,’ eh? Where we go, son, coin is but a candle to the night.”

Maelen could sense violence brewing and was done with this madman’s ranting, so she cracked her neck and moved to stand. Vessa, always able to pick up her cues, reached for the shortsword at her hip. Hadren seemed to sense it, too, and held up both hands placatingly. Maelen and Vessa paused.

“Bring me the Tome. At the Starless Rift. You can have treasure and more for your troubles. But don’t dawdle.” Then he turned to Maelen and winked.

In a heartbeat Hadren Kelthorn collapsed into himself. His skin split to soot, his robes dissolving into black ash that sifted down like spilled flour. Maelen jumped to her feet and back, her chair knocked to the floor. Vessa and Alric did the same.

Silence swept the Heart & Dagger as the three of them froze in alarm. Maelen stared at the empty stool where Hadren had been sitting moments before.

All around the chair, black ash had landed in a perfect circle upon the floor.

Next: Leandra’s Rest [with game notes]

[prose-only version here]

XI.

Duskmarch 12, Stillday, Year 731.

The Heart & Dagger tavern crouched near the lakeshore, its weathered sign showing a bleeding heart pierced by a long, crooked dagger. The sign hung limply in the nighttime rain, lit by two guttering, smoky torches that did their best to survive the weather.

Inside, low lanterns lit oak beams black with soot, and the air stank of smoke, ale, and spiced fish. Dunfolk traders, off-duty Iron Thorn enforcers, and a half-dozen loud drunks all competed to be heard over the constant din. Candle stubs flickered merrily atop crowded tables, their wax pooling on warped old boards.

From their back table, Vessa scanned the entrance for the hundredth time, muttering something under her breath. Her once-shaved black hair had grown to a short, boyish cut, showcasing her sharp, freckled face. Her appearance was marred only by the bent nose and, currently, a purpling black eye.

Vessa caught Maelen looking at her and muttered something. Maelen, for her part, smiled and leaned back in her chair languidly, appreciating the full tavern. She enjoyed the vibrancy of the Heart & Dagger, its energy. She was able to appreciate the buzz of tavern life so much more since her long sleep.

“He’s late!” Vessa called over the din.

“Why wouldn’t show?” the warrior grinned, all teeth. “You say he’s been asking you to a meal for two months! Maybe the boy is smitten!”

“It’s not like that,” Vessa said, defensively crossing her arms. “He sent four letters. Maybe five.”

“Ha! He’ll come, lass,” she smiled wide, and with a meaty hand slapped Vessa across the shoulder. She rocked to one side by the good-natured blow.

A small brown mouse scampered across Maelen’s shoulder and curled into the crook of her elbow. The square-jawed woman’s face softened, like a doting mother. With a thick finger, she stroked the fur between Tatter’s head and shoulders. The little creature probably wouldn’t live another year, she thought ruefully, given the general lifespan of mice. Well, she’d enjoy their time together now. After all, who knew how much time any of them had waiting for them? Her last excursion proved that point well enough.

She wasn’t sure how much time passed before Vessa announced, “He’s here!” and stood. Then, almost immediately, she slid back to sitting in her chair. Maelen saw the shocked look on her face and peered through the smoky darkness of the common room to follow her gaze.

Alric was much transformed in the two months since she’d seen him. He was still tall, his dark hair long and falling on broad shoulders. His skin was now so pale that it seemed almost white, and he wore dark robes, glistening in torchlight with wetness from the rain. He crossed the room with the same uneven gait, leaning harder on his walking stick. One by one, drinkers eased aside—some instinct, Maelen thought, catching the quiet hint of menace beneath his kind face.

As he arrived at the table, Tatter scampered across Maelen’s arm and to her lap, disappearing into the pouch there she used to carry him. The boy leaned his stick against the edge of their table, and, in the flickering candlelight, Maelen could see arcane runes carved across the full length of the wood. In addition, she could now see a circlet of blackened metal, half crown and half thorn-briar, shadowed his brow.

The scribe lowered himself to a seat across from them and nodded a greeting. His handsome face looked timid and pleased when he greeted Vessa, and she shot back a quip about his tardiness. Maelen couldn’t help but chuckle at the awkwardness between these two. She’d been right about the lad being smitten, and Vessa didn’t know how to handle it, or even perhaps to recognize it.

When he turned his dark eyes to Maelen he said in a rich baritone, “It’s good to see you up. How are you feeling?”

She raised a mug and took a long draught. “It’s good to be up, lad! You’re looking…” she waved a hand. “Different.”

“Am I?” he said with genuine confusion, looking down to examine himself. “Oh, new robes, yes. And you! Any lingering effects from Sarin’s touch? Other than the hair, of course.”

Maelen brushed fingers through her hair reflexively at the comment. One of her locks had turned gray from the Nightwight’s touch, a permanent reminder of her failure in Thornmere Hold. The battle ate at her. Both young ones could be dead because of it, saved only by Vessa’s skill with a bow, the lad’s resolve, and luck. “Just the hair,” she said, maybe a touch too harshly.

“Well,” he smiled. “I’m glad. And you, Vessa? Did you take a fall?”

“Fight,” she scowled, shooting Maelen a look. Maelen hid a smile. She’d started the brawl, but Vessa had taken the bruises. Only later did they learn their foes included a noble’s son. Now the City Watch wanted Vessa for “disturbing the peace.” “It’s fine. Just a black eye.”

The scribe looked startled for a moment, concerned. “Oh, well. I’m glad to hear you’re okay.”

“What have you been up, lad?” Maelen pushed a tankard to him across the table. “Locked away, reading that book?”

“Yes, actually,” he smiled, and took a dainty sip from the mug. “It’s called The Tome of Unlit Paths, and it’s truly fascinating. I have a good chunk of it translated, but translating it is only the first step, of course. The very ideas therein are dense ones, requiring a good deal of research into the history of this city and wider region. It was written, it seems, by a blind prophet who preached that sight itself is a lie. Imagine! A blind man writing script in his own blood! He worshipped Orthuun–called him a ‘true god’ above Oakton’s deities.”

Maelen grunted. Vessa rolled her eyes and stifled a yawn.

Alric, cheeks flushed, pressed on. “Dense work, very dense. Much of the writing is difficult to understand, honestly, but the insights into arcane practice are more than revelatory. In fact…” he took another sip, and doing so allowed him, apparently, to see the blank looks on their faces. “Ah, well. That’s all boring nonsense to you, of course. Suffice it to say, yes. I’ve had my nose buried in the book. And many scrolls, besides. The Lodge is equally annoyed and pleased with me, though of course they don’t know about our, ah… excursion.”  

He chuckled, then leaned forward to them. This close, Maelen could see the intricate pattern of his headgear. “I admit. I began to think I’d never seen you both again. What, pray tell, inspired this gathering?”

“What?” Vessa answered sharply. “We can’t just catch up?”

“We’re broke,” Maelen grinned, even as Vessa huffed and crossed her arms. “And getting out of town for a bit isn’t the worst thing, besides. We’re thinking of going back to visit our friend Sarin and get his treasure, and wondered if maybe you wanted to tag along.”

“B-broke!?” Alric gasped, eyes wide. “How can that be?” He lowered his voice, showing he’d learned since the last time they’d been at this table two months before. “What about all of the, the– gold?”

“We’ve paid off our debt to the Latchkey Circle,” Maelen said. “And with the rest, well…”

“It’s not important,” Vessa said quickly, scowling. Maelen chuckled. Her friend had never met a silver thorn she couldn’t gamble, smoke, drink, or whore away. Apparently gold crowns only meant bigger nights. Maelen had awoken from her long sleep to find their debts paid and coffers gone. The last two weeks had been lean.

The scribe’s eyes flicked between them, reading the situation. He looked at Vessa and pursed his lips, and Maelen thought he’d probably guessed the story. “Oh, I see. Well, Maelen, there’s no guarantee that what Sarin guards is treasure. This Orthuun, this Blind Sovereign, doesn’t seem to care about wealth. It could just as easily be the Nightwight’s bones when he died, or his old uniform, or something else nostalgic that’s buried there.”

“See?” Vessa shot Maelen a look. “I told you. There are safer ways to make coin.”

“If there were,” Maelen growled. “We would be excluded from knowing about them from the Circle. Our debts are paid, but they don’t want to help us, Vess. How many jobs have we gotten this month?”

“So we’re treasure hunters now?” She sat back, sulking. “Sleeping in the twice-cursed woods and fighting zombies?”

Now it was Maelen’s turn to lean forward. She grabbed Vessa’s sleeve and hissed. “That little jaunt brought us more coin than we’ve ever seen! And you’ve got a warrant on your head!”

“Fine,” Vessa pulled her arm away.

A sudden commotion at the door snapped Maelen’s head around. There, a middle-aged man with his back bent by labor called out into the common room while a trio of younger men tried belligerently to quiet him. Others in the tavern had paused their conversations to see what the fuss was about, allowing everyone to hear the man’s words.

“Alric? Alric Mistsong!? I was told Alric Mistsong would be dining here tonight!”

The scribe blinked at the words and stood. As he did so, the yelling man’s gaze swiveled directly to him. He shouldered past the younger men, grinning, while nearby patrons murmured and craned for a better view.

“There he is!” the man whooped happily, pulling an empty stool over to their table and settling into it. He wore plain homespun clothes. An intelligent but unremarkable face showed receding hair and sun-spotted skin. The man slapped the scarred wood, making their mugs jump. “Alric Mistsong!” This close, Maelen could see that his mouth was missing many of its teeth, causing his speech to lisp somewhat. “Do you remember me, son?”

Alric looked him over, and then suddenly recognition bloomed across his features. “The man at the Root Gate! Back in Frostmere, was it?”

The man laughed and slapped the table again. Across the tavern, people decided there was no show to be had and returned to their own conversations. “You do remember! Yessir. Fooled those guards when they were goin’ to arrest your friends here. Clever work, that.” He wagged an index finger in Alric’s direction.

“What’s your name, sir?” Alric asked, obviously still on edge but keeping his face calm. Maelen had always appreciated the lad’s spine.

“Hadren’s my name. Hadren Kelthorn. My, look at you! Coming into your own with this magic now, aren’t you?”

“Excuse me?” Alric said, his features growing in intensity.

“That’s a fine circlet you’ve wrought,” the man grinned, peering at Alric’s forehead. “And runes on the staff. My, my. A proper sorcerer now, aren’t you? Enjoying Orthuun’s favor?”

“I’m sorry, sir,” the lad said, leaning forward. “Who are you?”

“But the Tome,” Hadren continued, as if Alric hadn’t spoken. He practically hissed the word. “It’s not yours, you see. ‘The hand that opens the path is not the hand that owns it; the path itself is the master, and it will choose whom it keeps.’”

It was if the man had slapped Alric. His face rocked back, eyes bulging. “How– how?”

“Come find me at the Starless Rift, Alric Mistsong, south of where you,” The man jabbed a finger at the lad with each word. “Stole. My. Book.” Then he smiled a gap-toothed smile. “Ask anyone in the dark, they’ll tell you how to find it. If it’s wealth your friends need, I’ll trade you for what’s rightfully mine. After all, ‘gold is only light trapped in metal, and the dark will melt it like morning frost,’ eh? Where we go, son, coin is but a candle to the night.”

Maelen could sense violence brewing and was done with this madman’s ranting, so she cracked her neck and moved to stand. Vessa, always able to pick up her cues, reached for the shortsword at her hip. Hadren seemed to sense it, too, and held up both hands placatingly. Maelen and Vessa paused.

“Bring me the Tome. At the Starless Rift. You can have treasure and more for your troubles. But don’t dawdle.” Then he turned to Maelen and winked.

In a heartbeat Hadren Kelthorn collapsed into himself. His skin split to soot, his robes dissolving into black ash that sifted down like spilled flour. Maelen jumped to her feet and back, her chair knocked to the floor. Vessa and Alric did the same.

Silence swept the Heart & Dagger as the three of them froze in alarm. Maelen stared at the empty stool where Hadren had been sitting moments before.

All around the chair, black ash had landed in a perfect circle upon the floor.

Next: Leandra’s Rest [with game notes]