When the party returned from the river, frost still clinging to cloaks and lashes, the villagers gathered quickly. The Ice Mephits were gone. The river, while frozen, lay quiet once more. There were no cheers—just long, relieved breaths. Gratitude was offered plainly and honestly. Husavik had little to spare, but what warmth they could give, they did: a hot meal, a roof, and a night free from fear.

At dawn, the road called again.

The two-day trek back to Mistvale passed in rare peace. No ambushes. No howling wind. Just snow crunching underfoot, quiet conversation, and the strange comfort of travelling without the world trying to kill them for once. The Northlands opened gently around them, and for a brief stretch of time, it felt almost like rest.

Mistvale welcomed them back with the familiar scent of hearth smoke and turned earth.

Lyra’s house was alive with motion when they arrived—Zaryth directing, Dandadan carrying armfuls of clutter, Lyra herself sorting what little she intended to take. She greeted them with a tired smile and simple certainty.

“I’m ready,” she said. “I’ll come with you back to the city.”

The house told a different story. Too much remained. Too many things stayed where they had always been.

Zaryth spoke before anyone else could. She would stay. The Northlands still needed a Lady Brightglade, someone to stand watch while Lyra returned south. It was said without drama, but the weight of it settled heavily all the same. Thanks were given. Farewells made. And with that, the road turned south.

Six days later, Ulaa’s Wall rose before them once more.

With Dandadan guiding them safely through and the Borglin threat finally broken, the mountains felt different this time. Still vast. Still cold. But no longer hostile. The party had the rare chance to admire the jagged peaks and pale skies instead of merely surviving them.

Four days beyond the Wall, Angelton came into view.

Tosk made straight for the smokehouse. Hobrin Wesk took the drybox carefully, checking the seal before opening it in front of them all. Inside lay a locket, a few letters, and small personal effects. Wesk said nothing at first. Then he spoke of his daughter, Nellie—posted to Wyrmspath Fort, never returned. He had accepted the worst and carried on.

True to his word, he handed over five heavy parcels of boar jerky, each weighing fifty pounds.

With food secured, the long road home stretched ahead.

Twenty-two days passed as the party made their way back to New Albion. When the city finally rose before them, Lyra fell quiet. Tent Town had grown—larger, looser, and far less guarded than she remembered. She frowned at the sight and muttered that Lady Brightglade might need to spend more time out here.

At the checkpoint, Lyra produced her own ticket. The guard glanced at it, then smiled.

“Welcome back.”

The Tavern With No Name greeted them with open arms and loud relief. Sweetz nearly vibrated with joy at the sight of them, the trip having taken nearly three months in total. He’d kept the place running, dusted their rooms weekly, and barely resisted puffing himself up when introduced to Lyra. The act lasted seconds before he folded completely, welcoming her in and offering a drink.

They drank late into the night.

The next morning came quietly.

Lyra hugged Erisa fiercely, then—carefully, with help—hugged Guardian too. She told them she was going home, promised she would see them soon, and meant it. when asked where Lyra would stay, she produced a key. Her old house. South Lower General District. Now that she was back—and Zaryth held the North—she would reclaim it.

And with that, life resumed.

The party returned to their routines with new purpose: Morlatha still waited. Their mercenary licence still lay out of reach. Strength would be needed for what came next.

So they began to train.

What had begun as a skirmish became a grinding war of attrition as Ice Mephits continued to claw their way up from the black water below. They swarmed in shrieking clusters, circling and diving, their jagged forms bursting apart in flashes of killing cold the moment they were struck down. Tobias and Tosk bore the brunt of it, standing firm on the cracking ice as frost bloomed across their armor and fur.

Tosk, still towering in his giant form, became a beacon for the creatures’ fury. They harried him relentlessly, slashing and shrieking, their blows light on their own but deadly in accumulation. Each icy detonation rattled his massive frame, numbing limbs and stealing breath. Tobias stayed close, shield and blade moving in constant motion, intercepting strikes meant for his companion and taking others head-on as the cold seeped deeper with every passing moment.

The ice groaned beneath them.

More Mephits burst free as the frozen surface split wider, fractures racing outward like veins of glass. On the riverbank, the others fought to keep space between themselves and the chaos, firing into the melee while watching the ground warily for signs of collapse.

One Mephit peeled away from the swarm, drifting low toward Guardian and Eldrin. It inhaled sharply, chest frosting over, then exhaled a blast of killing cold. The air crystallised mid-flight, breath turning to pain. Guardian staggered back as Eldrin cursed sharply, boots sliding across ice-slick stone. They moved without speaking—steel flashing as they closed in together. The Mephit shattered beneath their blades, and Guardian vanished in a blink of magic, reappearing several paces away just as the creature’s death burst tore through the space he had occupied moments before.

Then the river itself screamed.

The ground shook violently as enormous cracks tore through the ice, splitting the battlefield apart. Jagged icicles erupted from the riverbanks, spearing upward with lethal force. Erisa, Thomas, Guardian, and Eldrin leapt forward onto the frozen river to avoid being impaled, boots skidding as the surface buckled beneath them.

From the fragments of shattered Mephits, something new began to form.

Ice shards spiralled together, drawn by an unseen force, fusing into a towering shape of frozen malice. A Greater Ice Mephit rose from the river, its body a jagged mass of compacted frost and translucent ice, glowing faintly from within as it let out a thunderous, echoing shriek.

It dove.

The creature vanished beneath the water in a heartbeat, re-emerging from a fresh裂 directly beside Tobias. Claws of solid ice raked toward him in a blur of motion. Tobias barely managed to turn the blows aside, sparks and shards flying as steel met frozen talons. The impact sent him skidding backward across the ice, boots carving deep grooves as he fought to keep his footing.

Tosk turned to follow—but the swarm would not let him go. Smaller Mephits clung to him, hacking and screeching, forcing him to focus on keeping them at bay while Tobias and the others took on the greater threat.

Ranged attacks hammered into the Greater Mephit. Arrows cracked against its hardened shell. Bolts and spells struck true, but many glanced off, partially deflected by the creature’s thick, icy carapace. Still, the impacts began to tell, fissures spiderwebbing across its surface.

Wounded, the Greater Mephit plunged back into the river.

It erupted again from the ice between the ranged fighters, its body glowing a brilliant, terrible blue. Frost spiralled violently around it, building into a roaring vortex before exploding outward in a freezing torrent. The blast slammed into Thomas, Erisa, Guardian, and Eldrin all at once, hurling them back as ice scoured armor and flesh alike.

As the frost settled, Erisa forced herself upright, vision swimming. She raised her crossbow with shaking hands, eyes narrowing as she spotted a flaw—a chipped fracture in the Mephit’s armour where the ice had already weakened. She fired.

The bolt struck true.

The hardened shell shattered apart in a spray of ice, exposing the creature’s softer, snow-packed core beneath. A howl tore from the Greater Mephit as the party surged forward, redoubling their assault.

Still the smaller Mephits swarmed.

Tobias and Tosk were slowing now, damage finally catching up with them. Tosk drew deep on his reserves, forcing breath back into frozen lungs, while Tobias laid a glowing hand against his own armour, warmth spreading outward—his magic bolstered by the enchanted mitten, the cold’s bite dulled at last.

They exchanged a look.

Then they charged.

Together they barreled toward the Greater Mephit, ignoring the shrieks behind them as smaller Mephits clawed at their backs. Broken ice shattered underfoot as they plunged through slush and freezing water, muscles screaming in protest as the cold tried to seize them whole.

A smaller Mephit darted in to strike at Tosk—but the great mammoth raised a wall of swirling mist in an instinctive sweep of his trunk. The creature’s attack went wide, its frozen claws instead carving into the Greater Mephit’s exposed core.

That was enough.

The Greater Mephit detonated in a catastrophic explosion of cold and shrapnel. Icicles and frost blasted outward in every direction. Eldrin was caught full-on by the blast and thrown hard onto the ice, his body going limp as darkness claimed him.

Silence followed—brief, fragile.

Then the party moved as one.

Tosk and the others finished off the remaining Mephits with brutal efficiency, cutting down the last of the swarm as Tobias dropped to Eldrin’s side, magic flowing once more. Breath returned. Eyes opened. Eldrin gasped, dragged back from the edge by sheer force of will and divine aid.

As the final Mephit fell, the battlefield changed.

Shards of shattered ice began to tremble, vibrating softly before sliding back toward the river as if drawn by an unseen tide. The cracks in the ice sealed themselves, frost knitting back together into a solid surface. Along the banks, the towering icicles melted away with a hiss, collapsing into harmless slush.

The air warmed—just slightly.

Whatever had driven the Mephits to madness had passed. The river lay still once more, frozen, but calm.

No words were spoken as Tobias, Zaryth, Tosk, Eldrin, and Thomas eased themselves away from Lyra’s home, instinctively understanding that this was not a moment meant for all of them.

The longhouse down the way was already alive with low voices and clinking cups, the warmth of firelight spilling out into the cold street. It did not take much encouragement for the night to drift into drink and distraction. Laughter rose and fell, stories half-told and retold, but even as tankards were raised, none of them truly left their thoughts behind.

Inside the small house, the fire burned low, casting long shadows across the walls.

Erisa sat opposite her mother, hands wrapped tight around a cup that had long since begun to cool. Her shoulders were tense, as though bracing herself for words she had waited years to hear and feared just as long. Guardian stayed close, present in every way that mattered, even if Lyra still had to look past him to where he stood. He listened, silent, letting Erisa’s questions lead where his own emotions threatened to overwhelm.

“Please,” Erisa said softly, breaking the quiet. “Tell me again. Why you left.”

Lyra closed her eyes, drawing in a slow breath. When she opened them, the years seemed heavier somehow, settling into the lines of her face. “I had a dream,” she said at last. “One that felt… clearer than any I’ve ever known.” She spoke of a voice that came not with cruelty, but with certainty—cold, steady, and impossible to ignore. The hag’s bargain, it warned, would be more faithful to its wording than anyone had understood. Morlatha had promised a child—and the voice made it clear she would be cruelly precise about what that meant. Not a youth. Not someone grown. A child.

“If I stayed,” Lyra whispered, her hands tightening in her lap, “if I watched you grow… the dream said you would die as you came of age. That it would happen only if I stayed, that my presence would be the thing that sealed it.”

Her voice broke. “I couldn’t take that risk. Not even a sliver of it.” She bowed her head, a tear dropping into her cup. “So I left. And every step away from you felt like carving something out of myself. I told myself that pain was better than burying you.”

Erisa swallowed hard, blinking back tears of her own. “Is that why you ended up in New Albion?”

Lyra nodded. “Eventually. I kept moving. Running, if I’m honest. New Albion was the first place I stopped long enough to breathe, long enough to be Lady Brightglade again, instead of a woman in flight.” A faint, sad smile touched her lips at the memory. “I built something there. I helped people. For a while, it almost felt like a life.”

The smile faded. “But I found myself on the wrong side of someone who would not be ignored, and I knew what came next. So I ran again. That’s when I chose Zaryth to take up the mantle. Lady Brightglade needed to remain in the city, even if I could not.”

Time stretched, the fire popping softly as the weight of old choices sat between them. The crackle of the logs seemed unnaturally loud in the quiet. At last, the conversation turned, carefully, hesitantly, to Guardian.

He spoke through Erisa, choosing his words with care. Of the Feywild and its warped beauty. Of Morlatha’s dominion, suffocating and absolute. Of the year of terror after his escape, hunted, half-mad, never certain which shadow might reach for him next. He spoke of Orthod’s destruction, of watching something precious burn because he could not save it.

Lyra listened without interruption. Her hands clenched in her skirts, knuckles white, breath shallow as the story unfolded. More than once she looked as though she might speak, only to stop herself and listen on.

At one point, Erisa rummaged through her pack and produced a folded sketch. It showed Guardian as he was, a horned tiefling boy with sharp features softened by youth, charcoal lines struggling to capture the contrast between infernal blood and a child’s uncertain eyes. Lyra took it with shaking hands, tears finally spilling free as she traced the drawing with her thumb, memorising every line. She laughed weakly through them. “Well,” she murmured, voice breaking, “that does explain why no one realised you were twins. A human girl and a tiefling boy… no one would ever think to look twice.”

They talked until they were all exhausted, words growing slower, heavier as the night deepened. Lyra insisted they take her bed, waving away protest with a firmness that brooked no argument, and settled herself into a chair by the dying fire.

Morning brought the others back.

The house filled once more with voices as plans were laid bare over reheated tea and stale bread. Tobias spoke plainly, as he often did: Morlatha was no longer a distant shadow. Timberwood proved she was active in Phealafara. If the party had a purpose beyond survival, it was to find her, and end her.

Guardian hesitated. “She dominated a dragon,” he reminded them quietly. “We are not ready. Not yet.”

Erisa’s hands tightened in her lap. “And if we do?” she asked, voice barely above a whisper. “If we actually find her… and end this. What happens to us?”

Lyra’s expression softened, some of the fear easing from her face as she reached across the table. “She helped me have you,” she said simply, looking between them. “That’s all. She didn’t make you, and she doesn’t own you.” She shook her head. “Whatever hold Morlatha has, it isn’t your lives. If she dies… you don’t. You were never hers to take.”

The question of where to go next did not come easily.

They lingered over it, voices low, cups forgotten as the weight of choice settled in. Stay in the Northlands, where the wounds were fresh but the ground felt honest? Return to New Albion, where old ties and unfinished duties waited? No one rushed to speak. Even Tosk, usually quick with an opinion, stood quiet for once.

Lyra listened to it all, gaze distant. At last she exhaled, a decision settling into her bones. “I’ll come with you,” she said, not loudly, but firmly enough that it cut through the room. A tired smile touched her lips. “I’ve run enough. If there’s a road ahead, I’d rather walk it than keep looking over my shoulder.”

The moment stretched, then a sudden flutter of wings broke it.

A raven alighted on the windowsill, black feathers stark against the frost-silvered glass. It cocked its head, unbothered by the room’s attention. A small note was bound to its leg. Lyra frowned, untying it with careful fingers, and read in silence before passing it to Erisa.

Husavik, a fishing town, two days’ travel. Ice Mephits haunting the river. Each day, the water froze solid again no matter how often the villagers cut through the ice. They had not been attacked, yet, but without fish, hunger loomed just as deadly.

“A small job,” Lyra said after a moment, more hopeful than convinced. “Four days there and back, at most.” She looked around the table. “If you take it, I’ll start packing what little I have left. Zaryth and Dandadan can stay here, make sure things don’t fall apart while I’m gone.”

They folded the letter away, gathered their gear, and by midday were back on the road once more, northward, toward frozen waters, cracking ice, and whatever waited beneath it.

The road to Husavik was cold, but mercifully kind.

Snow lay thick along the path, crunching beneath boots, hooves, and wagon wheels alike, but the way itself remained clear enough to travel without hardship. With lighter packs and well‑rested beasts, the party made good time, breath steaming in steady plumes as the Northlands stretched wide and pale around them. The cold gnawed constantly, biting fingers and numbing cheeks, yet it lacked the brutal, punishing cruelty of the mountains they had left behind. This was the sort of cold that endured rather than attacked—persistent, patient, and wearying in its own way.

Husavik revealed itself slowly.

Low wooden buildings clustered along the frozen riverbank, their timbers darkened by age and frost. Smoke rose thin and weak from chimneys that burned more out of necessity than comfort. Villagers moved through the streets with stiff, economical motions, wrapped head to toe in furs and wool, conserving warmth and energy alike. Their voices were muted, conversations short and practical. There was no panic here—only worry, and the dull exhaustion of people who had been enduring the same problem day after day with no end in sight.

When the party approached and spoke Lady Brightglade’s name, faces turned with cautious hope. Doors opened a little wider. People gathered, careful not to crowd. Words spilled quickly after that, overlapping as the story came out in fragments. Ice Mephits, they said. For nearly two weeks now. They came from upstream, gliding over the river’s surface like mocking spirits, laughing as they froze solid whatever water the villagers managed to break open. No one had been killed—yet—but frostbite had already claimed one fisherman’s foot, and others bore white scars on fingers and ears. Food was running low. The autumn harvest had been poor, and the river was meant to carry them through the worst of winter.

With little more to be gained from standing and talking, the party turned south, following the river against its sluggish, frozen flow.

About an hour later, the sound reached them first—a faint, crystalline chiming, like glass bells stirred by an unseen hand. It set teeth on edge. Ahead, the ice glittered unnaturally, catching the light in sharp, blinding flashes. Four Ice Mephits drifted lazily across the frozen river, their jagged bodies reflecting the pale sky as they circled and glided, utterly unbothered by the world around them.

The party took position along the bank, spreading out instinctively.

Tobias stepped forward alone, boots crunching as he set foot on the ice. The frozen surface creaked beneath his weight but held. For a moment, nothing happened. Then the Mephits turned as one, hollow eyes locking onto him.

They attacked.

Frosty shrieks tore through the air as the creatures surged forward, skimming low across the ice. The party on the bank opened fire at once—arrows, bolts, and crackling magic streaking across the frozen river—while Tobias and Tosk met the charge head‑on. Steel rang against ice‑hard claws. Frost shattered under heavy blows. When the first Mephit fell, it burst apart in a violent bloom of cold, shards spraying outward with numbing force that coated armor and skin alike.

The ice beneath them groaned in protest.

As the third Mephit exploded, the river cracked open with a sharp report, the sound echoing down the frozen banks. Dark water churned below as jagged fractures spread outward. From the widening breaks, more Mephits clawed their way up, dragging themselves free of the river as though born from it, their numbers growing as the ice failed beneath the strain of battle.

Even so, the fight never truly turned against the party.

Tobias and Tosk held the line on the ice, bracing themselves against repeated icy detonations, armor frosting over with each blast until they looked half‑entombed. Each explosion rattled bones and stole breath, yet they pressed on regardless. On the bank, the others adjusted quickly as rays of cold lanced out toward them and thick fog clouds rolled across the shoreline, swallowing sight and sound alike. They spread out, calling warnings to one another, firing through the haze as best they could.

Again and again, the ice cracked.

More Mephits rose from below, shrieking and swirling, the river itself seeming to vomit them forth as the battle raged on. Frost clung to lashes and brows, fog rolled and twisted in the air, and the frozen surface splintered underfoot, threatening to give way at any moment.

And still the fight continued.

It started in mid-November, right in the thick of Black Friday Month, that magical time of year where you go online for a bit of inspiration.

I was browsing Amazon for Christmas present ideas for my fiancée when I spotted it: a 6x8ft aluminium-frame greenhouse with polycarbonate panels, sitting there at 30% off like it was personally calling to me. Practical. Exciting. The sort of gift that says “I love you, and I also love the idea of you having cucumbers,” or maybe chillis if we’re feeling ambitious. Into the basket it went, payment plan set up, job done, Christmas: Sorted.

The plan was set, I get the greenhouse delivered, I recruit my dad to help me build it down at our allotment, I take a picture of it, put it in a nice frame, wrap it and present it to the missus on Christmas morn.

A few days later, I got an email from ArrowXL saying they’d deliver on 4th December, complete with a helpful little link offering the option to change the delivery date. The 4th was fine, but I clicked the link anyway just to see what other slots were available.

That click cancelled the delivery. Instantly. No confirmation, no “are you sure?”, no warning, just gone. The system spat out a new booking link, and the next available slot that worked for me was Saturday 13th December. Not ideal, I just lost nine days to a single mouse click, and I had a wedding reception to go to in the evening, but fine. I picked it, because at that point what else do you do?

Saturday morning arrived and I was waiting in, sitting in my suit, ready to finally get the thing through the door, while my partner got ready for the reception. Then a text came through: there’d been an “error at the depot” and they would instead deliver on Monday 15th, followed by the single most infuriating phrase I’ve ever read in customer service language:

“No need to call to re-arrange.”

Monday is a workday. I can’t exactly magic myself home from twenty miles away because a depot had a wobble. So I tried to contact them. The web portal went unanswered and the phone line told me there were 108 people ahead of me in the queue, I like to imagine all of them were also told they didn’t have to call to re-arrange. We opted for a callback and tried to carry on with our weekend.

Seven hours later, at the wedding reception, I checked my phone and saw I’d missed their callback by ten minutes. That was it. That was my entire opportunity to speak to a human being, and I had missed it because I was enjoying a lovely plate of lamb dal and garlic naan. I tried again the next day through web chat and got nowhere.

Monday arrived. I was at work. A text landed saying delivery would be between 1 and 3pm, which was about as useful to me as a chocolate teapot. At 12:45, the driver rang to say he’d be there in fifteen minutes. I apologised and explained I’d been trying all weekend to reschedule and couldn’t get through. He was, genuinely, the most helpful person I actually spoke to in the entire saga: he understood, noted on the manifest that I’d requested a new date, and drove off with my greenhouse dreams still intact.

The next day an email arrived asking what date I wanted instead. The only option available was Christmas Eve.

Fine. I was off work that day. We could do it. Christmas Eve rolls around and… nothing. Then at 10pm, long after I had already assumed disappointment, I got a text saying they wouldn’t be delivering and I’d need to reschedule. The next available date was 31st December.

At that point, I had to tell my fiancée that her main Christmas present simply wasn’t happening. I had smaller things, little bits and pieces, but the big gift, the one I’d been so pleased with, would be spending Christmas Day, Boxing Day and every day up till New Years Eve stuck in a warehouse. She was, because she’s annoyingly wonderful, completely understanding about it.

Then came the moment that genuinely made me sit and stare at my phone like it had just insulted my family.

On 30th December, ArrowXL called. I accidentally cancelled the call, but immediately rang back and got a recorded message saying they were only calling to confirm delivery and there was no need to call back. Fair enough. I opened the tracking page to check the details.

It said: “Delivery cancelled, returning to sender.”

I phoned customer service. The queue was mercifully short this time. They told me they’d tried to phone me four times to confirm the delivery and, per policy, because they couldn’t reach me, they had to cancel the order. I pointed out I only had one missed call. They then read out the numbers they’d called: my number once… and another number three times. A number I didn’t recognise.

There was a brief pause while the situation caught up with itself. Then I asked if they could reinstate the delivery, because, obviously, they’d been phoning the wrong person.

They couldn’t. Policy. Cancelled meant cancelled. Their solution was for me to “call the seller and see if they’ll send a new one.”

So that was that. The greenhouse was dead. Or at least, I thought it was, until Amazon charged me the second payment anyway a few days later on 2nd January. Thankfully, Amazon customer service sorted that part out quickly. Refunds processed, apologies given, and I was back to square one.

Except I was stubborn, and at this point it had become personal, I also had Gentleman’s Influenza (more commonly known as “Man Flu”), so thinking straight wasn’t really on the cards.

I went back online determined to find another one, and a google search hands me a link to Costco, offering a wooden greenhouse for £82. I was a breath away from entering my card details before I checked the URL and realised it was basically a random selection of letters and numbers, a scam site. A sarcastic slow clap to Google Shopping for trying to lead me into a digital alleyway.

The next day I found that TJ Hughes were running January sales. They had an upgraded version of the same greenhouse for only £50 more than the Amazon one. I bought it immediately (after verifying the URL was legit) and tried very hard not to emotionally attach myself to the idea of “delivery dates” ever again.

Two days later, I got a message from DHL: they had my shipment and would deliver on the 9th.

On the 9th, my partner rang me to say a 1.9m tall box had arrived and she couldn’t move it (she is, in her words and mine, “smol”). I suggested it would probably be fine in the hallway until I got home. She sent a photo. It was, indeed, tall.

But the moment I saw it, a cold little bit of maths kicked in. The box was just long and narrow. I zoomed in on the label in the photo and read the dimensions: 240 × 270mm. Now, I was expecting them to be at least 600mm wide, so unless someone at the factory has invented foldable polycarbonate, there’s no universe where the panels are in that. The only conclusion was: this was the frame and fittings, and the panels should be in a second box which isn’t there. I checked the tracking, and sure enough, there was a second parcel due on the 14th.

On the 13th, the tracking for the second parcel updated to: “Returned to sender.”

At this point, I started feeling like the universe was actively messing with me.

I emailed TJ Hughes. They replied that DHL had it and it would be delivered within two business days. By the 19th, nothing had happened, so I contacted DHL directly. On the 20th (23 hours later), they replied with a single message that boiled down to: “We’ve sent it back. Call your supplier. Thanks ” I pointed out that the tracking still showed it sitting at their delivery hub. No response.

So I went back to TJ Hughes again and basically said: please don’t chase that parcel through the void. Just send new panels. A day later I got the classic “I’ve forwarded this to the team” response, which is customer service for “I’ve had enough of your whining, and I’m going to make it someone else’s problem.”

Then, to their credit, they came back and confirmed they were sending out replacement panels and would provide tracking.

Before they even got a chance to send me the tracking, my Evri app updated with the details automatically. Evri estimated 2–5 business days.

Today is 26th January, and in the single most shocking twist of this entire saga, Evri delivered the panels first time with no drama. Which is extra funny because Evri have the sort of reputation where some people swear they’ve cancelled orders the moment they see that name pop up as the courier. Not me, though, in fairness they’ve mostly been fine for me… aside from that one time I was selling my dad’s Queen cassette tape collection and it arrived at the customer’s doorstep as a magnetic curtain instead. But I digress. No mysterious cancellations, no wrong phone numbers, no late-night texts, just the panels, delivered, first attempt, like a completely normal delivery company.

So now everything is finally here: frame, fittings, panels, the whole lot, piled up in my living room. Not as a sleek, secret build with my dad and a framed photo reveal on Christmas morning, but as a polycarbonate-and-cardboard assault course that my cat is treating like a playground. I’m stepping over boxes to make a cup of tea like I live in a warehouse, waiting for the weather to offer me a single dry weekend so I can build the damn thing.

Still… it’s here. After all the reschedules, cancellations, wrong numbers, and one very near miss with a too-good-to-be-true scam site, I’ve learned two things:

1. Buying a greenhouse online is apparently a test from the Gods, and
2. Next Christmas, I’m getting her something that fits in a carrier bag.

(I’ll update this post with a picture once it’s built)

I, am Kale Vala

I have learned that the best stories rarely announce themselves.

They do not arrive neatly bound with dates and conclusions already in place. More often, they turn up smelling faintly of smoke, ink, or cheap ale, attached to someone who has no idea they are carrying something worth keeping.

It was on a winter evening in Slateholm that I found myself in a modest tavern near Inkward Lane, warming my hands around a cup that claimed to be mulled wine. The fire was doing most of the work. I had come in search of nothing in particular, which has always proved the most reliable way to find anything.

The tiefling at the neighbouring table had the look of a working man. His fingers were stained with ink that would never quite wash out, his posture shaped by long hours at a press. He 

smelled faintly of hot metal and oil. His horns were modest, his tail looped around a chair leg, the habits of someone used to being overlooked.

I pulled up a chair and started the conversation. He introduced himself as SJ Phyonix, then decided not to explain what the initials stood for. Instead he muttered something about a well-known farm animal with the same name, and the sort of jokes people think they are the first to make. I took the hint and let it lie. We spoke of the weather, as all civilised encounters must. Snow, wind, the way Slateholm always finds a way into your coat. In the course of it, he mentioned that he worked at Florel and Hardy’s. I noted the name and said nothing. Printers see everything.

When the talk turned to my own work, I told him I collect stories. True ones, preferably, though I am not overly strict about that distinction. At this, he smiled.

“I’ve got one of those,” he said. “Nothing important. But it did involve forty thousand mistakes, all printed in very fine ink.”

I leaned back and recognised the moment for what it was.

“Then,” I said, “you had best start at the beginning.”

There was nothing remarkable about the man at first, and that was perhaps the most important thing about him.

At the time, it was an ordinary day in Slateholm, the sort that blurred into every other day if you worked on Inkward Lane long enough. Late summer lingered in the city, not in any dramatic way, but as a background presence that showed itself in longer light and slower mornings. Inside Florel and Hardy’s, the presses were warming for the day, the metal settling with soft ticks and creaks as heat worked its way through them. The air carried the familiar mixture of oil, soot, paper, and old ink, a smell that never quite left the place no matter how often the windows were opened or how carefully the floors were swept.

SJ was at his usual bench, setting type and correcting a tray that had been badly sorted the night before. He worked methodically, lifting each piece, checking it, and returning it to its proper place with the ease of long habit. It was work that rewarded patience rather than thought, and it left his mind free to drift over small, inconsequential matters. He wondered how long it had been since the presses were cleaned properly, whether the kettle in the back room had been left to boil too long again, and what he might eat later if the day stayed quiet. None of these thoughts mattered, and that suited him well enough.

The bell over the door rang.

SJ glanced up, more from routine than interest, and waited to see whether the sound would lead to anything that required his attention.

The man stepped inside, paused just inside the doorway, blinking slightly as his eyes adjusted from the brightness outside. He took in the shop with open interest, letting his gaze travel over the presses, the racks of paper, and the cluttered counter. He was human and decently dressed, tidy in a way that suggested care rather than wealth. The sort of man who owned one good coat and wore it everywhere, trusting it to present him as more established than he might otherwise appear.

“Good morning,” he said. “I was hoping you were open.”

“We are,” SJ replied, setting his tools aside and turning to face him properly. “What can I help you with?”

He smiled, the tension in his shoulders easing. “That is good to hear. I am starting a business, and I need a proper mark made for it.”

He paused, then added, as if remembering a step he had almost skipped. “My name is Deivox Deivox.”

SJ nodded, as he had nodded many times before, and reached for a scrap of paper and a piece of charcoal. “Name’s SJ. So… tell me what you are thinking.”

Deivox hesitated. For the first time since entering the shop, his attention shifted away from the counter. His eyes flicked briefly toward SJ’s horns, tracing their curve almost without realising it, before he caught himself and looked back down again.

“I should ask,” he said, not unkindly and with a hint of awkwardness. “There is no… conflict, is there? Given the nature of the work.”

SJ followed the glance without comment. He had learned long ago that pretending not to notice such things only made them linger.

“If there were,” he said evenly, “I would not be standing here taking the job. I am paid to print what is agreed.”

Deivox considered this for a moment, then nodded, apparently satisfied, and drew a small breath as though setting the concern aside.

“I want a holy star,” he said after a moment’s thought, warming to the subject again, “and a sword worked into it somehow. Something that suggests faith, but also strength.”

“That should not be difficult,” SJ replied. “Where do you plan to use it?”

“On signs, mostly,” Deivox said. “And printed notices. Anything people might see.”

SJ began to sketch while Deivox watched from across the counter. His hand moved quickly, lines appearing and disappearing as he tested shapes and proportions. He adjusted angles, discarded one idea, and returned to another. The design came together with little effort, clean lines and sensible balance, something that would read clearly at a distance without demanding attention up close. It was the sort of mark that would sit comfortably wherever it was placed, which was often the highest praise.

When SJ slid the finished sketch across the counter, Deivox leaned in to examine it more closely. He turned the paper slightly, held it at arm’s length, then brought it back again, studying it in silence.

“Yes,” he said at last. “That will do very nicely.”

SJ named the price: thirty-five gold, expecting at least a pause or a question. There was none. Deivox paid immediately, then, after a brief hesitation, left fifty on the counter instead.

“That is for your trouble,” he said. “You have done good work.”

SJ hesitated, then inclined his head. “Thank you. That is appreciated.”

Deivox rolled the sketch with care, as though it might crease if treated roughly, and tucked it under his arm. “I expect I will be back,” he said as he turned to leave. “If it all goes well.”

“Best of luck with it,” SJ replied, already reaching back for his tools.

Deivox smiled and went out into the street, the bell ringing softly behind him as the door closed.

By the end of the day, the design had been filed away with dozens of others. A simple commission, completed and paid for, and not worth a second thought among the many that passed through the shop each week.

At the time, it was nothing more than another piece of ink on paper.

Several months passed before the man returned, long enough that SJ did not recognise him immediately, and long enough that the first commission had settled into the comfortable obscurity of completed work.

Slateholm had moved on to other concerns by then. Late summer had slipped quietly into autumn, and Inkward Lane had begun to feel narrower as the light shortened and the air grew damper. Florel and Hardys had been steadily busy with the usual run of work: guild notices posted and torn down again, shipping labels stamped by the hundred, prayer sheets ordered in bulk by temples preparing for the season, and the occasional pamphlet that no one would later admit to commissioning. The small star-and-sword mark had been printed once, filed away, and forgotten, one job among many.

When the bell rang again one afternoon and the man stepped inside, SJ looked up only because the sound was familiar. It took him a moment to place the face.

“Good afternoon,” the man said brightly. “You might not remember me. Deivox Deivox.”

SJ studied him for a moment, then nodded. “Ah right, yeah, you had a logo made. A star and a sword?”

Deivox’s face lit up at once. “That is exactly right. I was hoping it had made an impression.”

“I was proud of it to be sure,” SJ said, which was true enough. “What can we do for you this time?”

Deivox did not answer immediately. He set his hands flat on the counter and leaned forward slightly, lowering his voice as though what he was about to say required a measure of discretion, or perhaps simply attention.

“I have had an idea,” he said. “A very good one.”

SJ waited. Experience had taught him that interrupting at this stage only encouraged longer explanations.

“They are Midwinter cards,” the man continued. “Prayer cards. Something people can buy for themselves, to mark the season properly.”

“For themselves,” SJ repeated, making sure he had understood.

“Yes,” the man said, nodding firmly. “Personal devotion. Direct. Something meaningful, without intermediaries.”

SJ considered this, then reached for a fresh sheet of paper. “All right. Tell me what you want them to look like.”

Deivox brightened at once, as though he had been waiting for that invitation. He wanted his mark on the front, large and unmistakable, placed so it could not be missed at a glance. The back, he explained, would be taken up almost entirely by his business address. SJ wrote as Deivox spoke, noting it down as Slateholm, Ovik, Aethelon, and read it back to confirm.

Deivox shook his head and produced a small slip of paper, which he slid across the counter. On it, written carefully in his own hand, was: Skatehome, Oar Quick, Air The Lion.

SJ compared the two, then paused.

SJ hesitated. “I just want to check if I’ve written this correctly,” he said. “That address doesn’t quite match the usual spelling.”

“Yes,” the man replied without hesitation. “That is intentional.”

SJ looked up. “May I ask why?”

“I would prefer not to explain,” the man said, smiling in a way that suggested he thought this added significance rather than complication.

SJ nodded and wrote it as instructed.

“And inside?” he asked.

“Scripture,” the man said. “Quotes. Blessings. Anything appropriate to the season.”

“Do you have specific passages in mind?”

“Not particularly,” the man replied. “Just ones that feel right.”

SJ made a note of that as well, already thinking about spacing and balance rather than content.

By the end of the discussion, the job had grown from a simple print run into something with shape and ambition. They agreed to start modestly: an initial run of fifty cards to establish the design. A price was given, a deposit counted out on the counter, and the remainder noted in the ledger. It was straightforward work, well within the bounds of what the shop handled every day.

Before he left, Deivox hesitated, as if weighing something he had decided not to raise earlier.

“There is one other thing,” he said. “I should be certain before we go any further.”

SJ waited.

Deivox glanced again, briefly, at SJ’s horns, then back to the counter. “Given the subject of the work,” he said carefully, “there will be no… difficulties, will there? No personal views finding their way into it.”

SJ considered him for a moment. “There will be no problem,” he said. “We print what is agreed, as it is agreed. As long as the content itself is not problematic, there is nothing to worry about.”

Deivox nodded, apparently satisfied. “That is all I wished to be sure of.”

Deivox thanked him and left, already speaking as though the cards were inevitable.

SJ watched the door close, then returned to his work. The order was a little stranger, but still well within the bounds of his trade.

At the time, there was no reason to think it would become anything else.

Work on the cards began the following week, once the shop had cleared a backlog of smaller jobs that could not wait. 

He began, as he always did, with the base design. The mark was laid out carefully on a smooth slab of clay, pressed in reverse so it would read correctly once cast. He adjusted it by small, deliberate movements, smoothing an edge here, deepening a line there, until the design sat comfortably within the space. It needed to be prominent without overwhelming the card, clear at a glance but not crude. Once he was satisfied, the clay mould was fired just enough to hold its shape, and molten lead was poured in to form the plate.

When the plate cooled, it was lifted free, trimmed, and locked into the forme. SJ inked it lightly and pulled a first impression, then another, checking how the lines took ink and how the pressure read across the page. Only then did he turn to the interior text, which was set by hand and arranged with generous margins and conservative spacing. The words themselves were not his, but the balance of the page was.

The back proved more awkward. It was dominated by the address, which SJ reproduced exactly as instructed, incorrect spelling and all. He checked it twice against the slip of paper Deivox had provided, then once more against his own notes, before committing it to type. It looked wrong to him every time he saw it, but it was not his place to correct it.

When the first proof was ready, Deivox returned to review it. He took his time, standing at the counter and turning the card over in his hands, reading each section aloud under his breath. Now and then he frowned slightly, then relaxed again, as though reassuring himself that what he was seeing matched what he had imagined.

“This looks very good,” he said at last. “I am pleased with it.”

“That is good to hear,” SJ replied.

Deivox hesitated for a moment, then nodded to himself. “I was also wondering,” he said, “whether it would be possible to have more than one version.”

SJ did not answer immediately. “Different versions, how?” he asked. “Different designs, or the same design in different colours?”

“Oh, just colours,” Deivox said quickly. “The design itself should stay the same.”

“That makes things simpler,” SJ replied. “One plate will do, then.”

They settled, after some discussion, on twenty colour variations: warm reds and golds intended to suit Midwinter, cooler blues and silvers for more restrained tastes, and a handful of neutral tones that Deivox described as timeless.

Deivox nodded, apparently relieved. “Then yes, I am quite satisfied with the design as it is.”

For a short while, this appeared to be true.

The first request arrived two days later. Deivox asked that the sword be angled slightly differently, to give it a greater sense of motion. It was a small change, but it could not be made lightly. SJ loosened the forme, removed the plate, and melted it back down. The clay had to be reworked by hand, the angle adjusted, the lines pressed in again. Only then could a new plate be poured, cooled, trimmed, and locked back into place.

The second request followed soon after. The star should be larger, Deivox thought, just a little, to give it more presence. Again, the plate was removed. Again, the lead was melted, the clay reshaped, and the design remade.

Then came a change to the wording of one of the interior quotations, and a concern about spacing on the back. Each alteration was minor when spoken aloud. Each required the same process: unlock the forme, melt the plate down, remould the clay, pour the lead, and begin again. There was no way to half-change a plate. It either existed as a whole, or it did not exist at all.

SJ did this five times.

He worked carefully, methodically, accepting each request without comment beyond confirming that it had been understood. The press stood idle more often than he liked while the lead cooled and the clay was reset, but when it ran, it ran cleanly. Each new plate was tested, adjusted, and approved before the next change was attempted.

By the end of the week, the design was final.

When Deivox came in to see the finished proofs laid out together, he was visibly delighted. He moved from card to card, comparing colours, lifting them to the light, and setting them down again in new arrangements. He nodded to himself more than once.

“These look excellent,” he said. “Better than I imagined.”

SJ allowed himself a small sense of relief, the sort that came from finishing a complex task without error.

It did not last.

“I have been thinking about quantities,” Deivox said, almost as an aside, as though the thought had only just occurred to him. “I believe these will sell very well and just 50 will not cover the demand.”

“How many were you considering?” SJ asked.

Deivox smiled. “Two thousand of each.”

SJ did the calculation in his head before responding, running the numbers against press time, paper stock, and the space it would occupy.

“Forty thousand is a substantial run,” he said carefully.

“It is an investment,” Deivox replied. “One must think on a proper scale.”

SJ provided a quote: twelve hundred gold. The number gave Deivox pause, though not enough to discourage him entirely. He explained that he would need to present the cards to a lender before committing to the full run.

“For a small additional fee,” SJ said after a moment, “we can print an additional set of samples, one of each colour. Unbound. You can take those to present, and we will retain the original proofs for our records.”

“That would be ideal,” Deivox replied at once. “Yes, that would help considerably.”

The additional samples were printed the following day, one of each colourway, trimmed and left loose. SJ checked each one carefully, then separated them into two stacks. One was wrapped and set aside with the job file for reference. The other was tied with twine and placed on the counter for collection. Deivox took the samples in person, thanked SJ again for his patience, and left in high spirits, confident that the matter was nearly settled.

SJ returned to his other work, entering the details into the ledger and adjusting the schedule to make room for a large run if it came. Jobs of that size always carried a certain weight, but this one did not yet feel exceptional.

At the time, it was simply a matter of ink, metal, and patience.

The man did not return as quickly as he had promised.

Days passed, then a week, and then another. In the meantime, work at Florel and Hardy’s continued as it always did. Proofs were approved, smaller jobs completed, and the presses were kept in steady motion. Notices for guild meetings came and went. A run of broadsheets announcing a minor festival clogged the racks for a day before being cleared away. Someone ordered a batch of prayer slips and then cancelled half of them, which caused a small argument and no lasting consequences. The Midwinter cards sat in their folder, neither advanced nor abandoned, waiting for a decision that did not belong to the shop.

SJ did not think about them much. Work like that was common enough: ideas that hovered for a while before either taking shape or dissolving entirely. More often than not, they simply faded away, leaving nothing behind but a few notes in the ledger and a proof that would eventually be reused as scrap.

When the man finally did come back, it was late in the afternoon, when the light through the front windows had begun to thin and stretch across the floor. SJ was not at the counter. He was in the back of the shop, sleeves rolled up, coaxing a stubborn press back into alignment and listening to the familiar complaints of metal under strain.

Deivox stood at the counter for some time before anyone noticed him. When Florel looked up and recognised him, he gave a polite nod and asked how he could help.

“The lender will not support the venture,” Deivox said at once. “They believe the concept is too niche.”

“That does happen,” Florel replied evenly.

“They did not think it was a good idea,” Deivox said, his mouth tightening. “They said it would not sell.”

Florel frowned slightly. “Then what is the problem?”

Deivox reached into his coat and produced one of the sample cards. He placed it carefully on the counter between them, aligning it with the edge as though presentation still mattered.

“This one,” he said. “This is what they saw. If it had been presented correctly, they would have understood.”

Florel picked it up, turned it over once, then glanced toward the back of the shop. “SJ,” he called, without raising his voice. “Could you come here a mo’?”

SJ wiped his hands on a rag and joined them at the counter. He took in the card, the set of Deivox’s shoulders, and the look on Florel’s face, and said nothing.

“Have a look,” Florel said, handing him the card, “Mr Deivox says there’s an issue with the proofs”

SJ examined it carefully. He turned it over, checked the margins, and then opened it. He noted that the inside right page was from a different set to the rest of the pages, other than that, it was flawless, he paused, his brow creasing slightly.

“Is there something wrong with it?”

Deivox took the card from SJ’s hands and opened the card again and indicated the interior. “This page belongs to a different colour set. It was paired with the wrong outer.”

Florel turned to look at SJ with a quizzical look, “well…”

“I gave the pages to you single side printed and unbound,” SJ stated, “you or whoever you got to put them together messed up, not us.” 

Deivox looked from one of them to the other, the card still in his hands. “But this is the proof,” he said again. “This is what they saw.”

“And it does not represent our work,” SJ replied. “Cos, again,  it was put together incorrectly after it left the shop.”

There was a long pause while Deivox stared down at the card, as though willing it to say something different.

“It does not present the idea properly,” he said at last. “They never rejected the product. They rejected how it was shown to them.”

Neither SJ nor Florel contradicted him again.

After a moment, Deivox straightened, drawing himself up with a decision that felt rehearsed rather than sudden.

“I will fund it myself,” he said. “I believe in it.”

Florel inclined his head. “Are you sure? We can’t do anything on the price and that’s a lot to shell out from your own pockets.”

“Yes,” Deivox said with an air of finality.

There was no argument, no attempt to renegotiate. Payment was made in full a few days later, the funds drawn from a personal loan rather than business backing. SJ recorded the amount carefully, blotted the ink, and tore the receipt free.

Once the ink was dry on the page, the job moved from discussion to obligation, and the presses were scheduled accordingly.

At the time, it seemed no more remarkable than that.

The printing itself took the better part of a week, and it was the sort of week that left its mark on the hands even after the ink had been scrubbed away.

Once the forme was finally locked and approved, the presses were set to steady work. There was no hurry to it, only persistence. Sheets were fed through in long, patient runs, the rhythm of the press settling into something almost meditative as the days went on. The clatter and sigh of the machine became a constant presence in the shop, rising and falling as adjustments were made and then settling again. Ink was mixed fresh for each colourway, measured carefully, tested on scrap, adjusted, and tested again until it sat cleanly on the page without bleeding, dullness, or uneven bite. It was unglamorous work, but it demanded attention, and it rewarded care.

When a run was finished, the press was stopped and cleaned down before anything else was touched. Rollers were scraped and wiped, plates checked for wear, and stray flecks of ink removed from places they had no business being. Only then was the next ink prepared, its colour judged in lamplight and daylight alike to be sure it would hold true once dry. Nothing was left to chance, because chance had a way of making itself known later, when it was too late to correct.

SJ oversaw the work carefully throughout, not out of mistrust, but habit. He checked alignment at the start of each run and again at the end, pulling sheets at regular intervals to make sure nothing had drifted or softened with heat and repetition. When something looked even slightly off, the press was stopped and corrected before it could become a pattern. It slowed things down, but it kept mistakes from multiplying.

Once the printing was complete, the cards were left to dry in neat stacks, air circulating between them so the ink could settle properly. After that came cutting, counting, and stacking again, each stage done by hand. Each batch was tied and crated, the totals checked once, then checked again against the order before the lids were nailed shut. By the time the last crate was sealed, the job had taken up more space in the shop than anyone cared to admit.

When the order was finally marked as complete, the ledger was balanced, the shelves cleared, and the space it had occupied quietly reclaimed for other work. The crates were collected without ceremony, loaded and taken away. As far as the shop was concerned, the matter was finished.

Three weeks passed after the man collected the crates, and for a time nothing further was heard from him. Midwinter drew closer. Other jobs came and went. The cards became just another entry in the ledger, their weight measured only in numbers and ink.

Weeks passed, and Deivox’s order slipped into the quiet category of work completed and forgotten.
He arrived during the afternoon, carrying two crates in his arms and wearing an expression that sat somewhere between exhaustion and offence. Through the open door, more crates could be seen stacked on a handcart outside, waiting their turn. The shop was in the middle of its usual rhythm, presses murmuring in the back and the smell of ink hanging low in the air, but his entrance disrupted it all the same. The crates were not neatly stacked this time. Their corners were scuffed, the lids pried open and re‑nailed, the wood bowed in places that suggested they had been opened, rearranged, and closed again more than once. They had the look of things that had travelled and been handled by people who no longer knew what to do with them.

He set them down on the counter with a dull thud and did not wait to be asked why he was there.

“No one wanted them,” he said. “I could not sell them anywhere.”

SJ opened one of the crates and looked inside, half-expecting to find a fault he had somehow missed. It would have been easier, in a way, if there had been something obvious to point to. Instead, the cards were neatly stacked despite the rough handling, cleanly cut, and exactly as printed. The colours held true. The ink sat where it should, neither too heavy nor too thin. There were no flaws to apologise for, no errors to correct, nothing that had shifted or faded since they had left the shop.

“I tried the guild shops,” Deivox went on, his voice tight. “The market stalls. Even the temples. None of them would stock them.”

“I am sorry to hear that,” SJ said, because there was little else to say, and because saying nothing at all would only have sounded like indifference.

The man shook his head. “You should be. This was meant to do very well. It should have done very well.”

SJ closed the crate and set the lid back in place, careful to align it properly. “What is it you think is wrong?” he asked.

The man frowned, as though the answer ought to have been obvious. “That is what I am trying to work out,” he said. “Something about them did not land the way it should have. People did not respond to them the way I expected.”

SJ waited, giving him room to continue. He had learned that interruptions, at moments like this, only delayed the inevitable.

“They asked questions,” Deivox said after a moment. “They hesitated. They looked at it as though it were uncertain. They did not see what I saw. And that does not happen when the message is presented properly.”

“Presented how?” SJ asked.

The man drew a breath, as though choosing his words carefully, and then let it out again. “With conviction,” he said. “With certainty. These feel… softened. As though the edge has been taken off them.”

SJ regarded him steadily. “You approved the design,” he said.

“Yes,” Deivox replied at once. “Because I trusted your judgement. I assumed you would understand what was required, even if it was not written out in full.”

SJ felt the shape of the accusation before it fully arrived, the way one sometimes felt a storm before the first drop of rain. “The work was done exactly as agreed,” he said. “Nothing was added. Nothing was removed.”

Deivox’s expression tightened. “I believe something was taken away,” he said. “Deliberately. I believe you weakened it on purpose, and that your personal views influenced the outcome.”

The words hung between them, heavy and unmoving.

SJ looked up at him. “That is not the case,” he said.

Deivox gave a short, humourless laugh. “You cannot tell me you do not see it,” he said. “People notice when something does not sit right.”

SJ’s mouth tightened slightly. “Sir,” he said, the word clipped and deliberate, “the press does what it is told. It does not have opinions.”

“You stand there as you are,” Deivox said quietly, “and you expect me to believe faith played no part in this at all?”

SJ did not raise his voice. “There was none, sir,” he said. “I printed what you signed off on. I do not adjust work behind a customer’s back.”

Deivox shook his head slowly. “You say that,” he replied. “But intention shows, whether people mean it to or not.”

SJ exhaled through his nose. “Then, sir,” he said, “you should not have brought the job here.”

That gave Deivox pause, just briefly. His mouth opened, then closed again. When he spoke, his certainty had hardened rather than softened.

The man did not argue the point. He simply nodded, as though the matter were already settled in his own mind, as though the explanation no longer mattered.

“In that case,” he said, “I will need my money back.”

The request was refused.

He stood there for a moment longer, as if expecting the refusal to change simply by being endured, as though patience alone might wear it down. When it did not, he gathered up his crates again, his movements tight and deliberate, the effort of holding himself together visible in every motion.

“This is not finished,” he said, and left the shop without another word.

After the man left the shop with his crates, there was a brief and deceptive quiet.

At Florel and Hardy’s, work resumed its usual pace with a speed that was almost deliberate. Other jobs took priority. Ink was mixed, paper stacked, formes locked and unlocked again for less memorable commissions. Notices were printed, receipts written, and orders collected without incident. The presses continued their steady rhythm, indifferent to grievance or accusation. The incident was spoken of less and less as the days passed, filed away as an unpleasant encounter rather than an ongoing problem. It would have been easy, and not entirely unreasonable, to believe that the matter had ended with the closing of the door behind him.

The first letter arrived just under a fortnight later.

It was delivered by courier rather than post and addressed formally, the shop’s name written out in full as though ceremony might lend weight to the words that followed. The paper was of good quality, thick enough to resist creasing, and the ink was dark and even, laid down with care. The handwriting suggested time spent drafting and redrafting before committing anything to the page, as though the writer had wanted to be certain he sounded measured rather than emotional.

To Florel and Hardy’s,
I write to express my deep disappointment with the outcome of our recent business arrangement. Despite my good faith and considerable investment, the product you supplied has failed entirely in the marketplace. I find this outcome both troubling and difficult to reconcile with the assurances I was given at the time of commission.

The letter continued for several paragraphs, speaking at length of concern and of expectations unmet. It described missed opportunity, damaged reputation, and the frustration of having placed trust where it had not been rewarded. The language circled the idea that something had gone wrong in the execution of the design without quite naming it. It stopped short of accusation, but only just, lingering near the edge of it as though testing the ground.

SJ read it once, then set it aside and finished the task he was working on before returning to it. When he did, he passed the letter across the worktable to Florel without comment. Together they reviewed the order, the proofs, and the signed approvals, laying them out in a neat line. Everything matched what had been agreed, down to the smallest detail.

A reply was sent the following morning. It was brief, polite, and unambiguous, the sort of letter written to close a door rather than open a discussion.

To Deivox Deivox,
We acknowledge receipt of your letter. The work in question was completed exactly as commissioned and approved. Florel and Hardy’s cannot accept responsibility for the commercial performance of the product. As such, no refund will be offered.

The second letter arrived three days later. It was longer, and the careful balance of the first had given way to something sharper.

The tone had shifted. Where the first letter had expressed disappointment, this one laid blame.

It has become clear to me, upon further reflection, that the failure of this product cannot reasonably be attributed to market conditions alone. I am now of the view that errors were made during the design and production process which materially affected its reception.
Further, I have reason to believe these errors were not accidental. The manner in which the message was weakened suggests deliberate interference. I will speak plainly: I believe you sabotaged my product, and by doing so sabotaged my business.

The letter accused the shop of negligence and, more sharply, of deliberate sabotage. It suggested that personal beliefs had influenced professional judgement, though it never quite explained how. It introduced a figure representing the profit the man claimed he would have made had the product succeeded as intended, presented not as speculation or hope, but as certainty already denied to him.

SJ read this one more slowly than the first. He noted how confidence had replaced evidence, how assertion had taken the place of explanation, and how imagined success was treated as though it had already been promised. When he finished, he folded the letter neatly and placed it on Florel’s desk.

A second reply followed, firmer than the first, but no less restrained.

Florel and Hardy’s rejects the suggestion that negligence, sabotage, or personal bias played any role in the work carried out. The design was approved in full prior to production. We cannot be held liable for projected profits or hypothetical outcomes. Should you wish to pursue this matter further, you are free to do so through the appropriate guild courts.

More letters came after that.

Some were indignant, full of grievance and repetition, rehearsing the same accusations in slightly altered language. Others attempted a tone of reasonableness, proposing partial refunds or compromises that assumed fault where none existed. Each letter seemed to contradict the last in tone, if not in substance, as though the writer were trying on different approaches to see which might finally take hold.

One letter threatened legal action outright and named a sum so large that SJ had to read it twice to be certain he had understood it correctly.

Unless this matter is resolved to my satisfaction, I will have no choice but to seek damages in the amount of one hundred and twenty thousand gold, representing losses incurred as a direct result of your actions.

The shop reply was longer than before, though still careful in its language, written to leave no ambiguity.

To Deivox Deivox,
We reject the allegations of sabotage, negligence, or bias set out in your correspondence. The work was completed exactly as approved, using the materials and designs you authorised in writing. No alteration was made beyond those requested by you.
Florel and Hardys will not refund payment for work properly carried out. Should you choose to pursue this matter through the guild courts, we will defend our position definitively and without further correspondence.

That word, definitively, it seemed, struck a chord.

The next letter arrived within days, its tone more agitated than the last, as though restraint had become an effort rather than a choice.

Your refusal leaves me no alternative but to proceed definitively. I am prepared to pursue this matter definitively through every appropriate channel until a definitive resolution is reached.
You should understand that I am acting definitively in response to your definitive unwillingness to acknowledge definitively fault.

The word appeared again and again in the pages that followed, sometimes twice in the same paragraph, sometimes stacked so closely together that their meaning began to blur into something almost meaningless through repetition alone.

SJ read the letter once, then again, incredulous. He passed it to Florel without comment. He read it, exhaled once through his nose, and placed it on the growing stack without replying.

No further response was sent.

The position of Florel and Hardy’s had already been stated, clearly and definitively. There was nothing further to discuss.

Eventually, the letters stopped.

After the letters stopped, there was another quiet spell.

This one lasted just long enough to feel deliberate, as though silence itself were being used as a tool. Days passed without incident. The presses ran. Orders were taken and fulfilled. The stack of correspondence was left untouched in its drawer, no longer growing, but not yet discarded. It sat there like an object one meant to deal with eventually, once it was clear it would not begin again.

When Deivox returned, it was during the afternoon, when the shop was busy enough that his presence could not be ignored but not so busy that it caused a scene. Customers stood at the counter with proofs in hand, apprentices moved between shelves and presses, and the air carried the low, familiar thunder of work in progress. Into this, he stepped carefully, as though he had chosen the timing with some thought.

He came carrying several crates, stacked more neatly than before, and wore an expression that suggested he believed himself to be making a final, reasonable offer. There was a studied calm about him now, a sense that anger had been replaced by calculation.

He waited until SJ looked up from the ledger before speaking.

“I have given this a great deal of thought,” he said. “I am willing to compromise.”

SJ closed the book and set his pen aside. He looked at the boxes, then back at the man. “Oh yeah? Do tell”

“If you return part of what I paid,” the man said, choosing his words with care, “you may keep the cards. That would settle the matter between us.”

There was a pause, brief but complete.

SJ did not hesitate. “Nope.”

The man’s brow furrowed, as though the answer had not matched the one he had prepared himself to receive. “Surely that is preferable to court,” he said. “It would spare us all a great deal of trouble.”

“As we have said;” SJ replied, “ If you wish to involve the courts, you are free to do so.”

The man stared at him for a long moment, searching his face for movement, for doubt, for anything that might suggest the refusal could still be worn down. When it did not soften, his mouth twisted into something like a smile.

“This is not how this should have gone,” he said.

“No,” SJ agreed. “It is not.”

For a moment it seemed as though the man might argue further. Instead, he exhaled sharply, turned away, and left the crates where they were.

At the door he stopped and turned back, as if he could not bear to leave without having the last word.

“You will regret this,” he said. “I curse this shop, and I curse the hands that printed those cards.”

He lifted one hand in a sharp, theatrical gesture, as though sealing it in the air, then pulled the door open and strode out.

The bell rang once, and the shop returned to its usual noise.

The crates remained behind the counter until closing. Customers came and went around them. No one touched them. When the shutters were finally drawn and the presses stilled, they were carried to the back and left there overnight.

In the end, the cards were recycled. The paper was pulped down, the ink washed away, and the fibres put back into use for something else entirely. Nothing of the original order remained beyond a line in the ledger and a memory that lingered longer than most.

They never heard from the man again.

SJ finished his drink while I finished mine, the fire settling into a quieter mood as tavern fires tend to do when a story has reached the end of itself.

“I still have one of them,” he said at last.

I looked up. “One of the cards?”

He nodded and started rummaging through a canvas messenger bag he had slung on the back of his chair. The card he laid on the table was a little worn at the edges, its corners softened by time and handling. The ink had faded slightly, but the mark was still clear: the star, the sword, everything exactly as he had described.

“I kept it as a reminder,” he said. “I am not entirely sure of what.”

I waited.

“Maybe that no matter how bad a customer seems,” he went on, “there is always one worse waiting somewhere down the road.”

He slid the card back into his coat and stood, stretching stiffly.

“That is usually the lesson,” I said “OH! But what of the curse? Did anything ever come of that?”

He smiled at that, “Not a thing! Our shop has gone from strength to strength, and I’m getting married to the love of my life,” he flashed me a ring on his finger, “I’m pretty sure his curse was as full of it as he was!”

He wished me a good evening, and made his way out into the cold. The tavern door closed behind him, letting in a brief swirl of snow before the warmth reclaimed the room.

I sat for a moment longer, thinking, and reached for my cup. As I lifted it, I noticed something tucked beneath the base of the glass.

A leaflet.

I drew it out and read the title printed neatly across the top.

The Order of the Heron

After the violence, after the roar of the Alpha Bugbear and the thunder of collapsing bodies, Wyrmspath’s underbelly settled into an uneasy quiet. The river continued its endless babble, water slapping stone as if nothing at all had happened. Steal Team 6 slumped where they stood or leaned against crates and cavern walls, armour dented, cloaks torn, breath coming in heavy, steaming pulls. For a long moment, no one spoke.

Eventually, Tobias broke the silence with a weary breath. “Let’s… take a minute.”

They did.

When the shaking in their hands eased and the ringing in their ears faded, they turned to the practical matters of survival. Thomas and Erisa began searching through nearby crates and scattered supplies, finding small stashes tucked away, nothing grand, but enough to feel like a reward earned rather than taken. Guardian lingered near the river, eyes tracking the dark water, while Dandadan hovered close at his shoulder, watching him with open fascination.

“I go with you,” the Borglin offered suddenly, nodding toward the ladder that led back up. “He cool, I wanna hang with him.” His eyes flicked back to Guardian.

After a brief exchange of glances, Tobias agreed. Thomas joined them, and the three made their way back toward the surface to secure the horses and check the fort above.

Tosk, meanwhile, wandered into the chamber the Alpha Bugbear had emerged from. It was unmistakably a bedroom, furs layered thick across a broad pallet, trophies nailed to the walls, the sharp smell of sweat and iron lingering in the air. He rummaged with enthusiasm, uncovering small sacks heavy with coin and gems, a handful of well-kept weapons, a heavy leather belt reinforced with metal plates, and a fur-lined cloak still warm from recent use.

Then he opened the wardrobe.

Behind hanging furs and rough-spun garments sat a narrow, hidden door; locked, reinforced, and clearly not meant to be found. Tosk squinted at it, shrugged, and kicked.

The door held.

The explosion did not.

A concussive bang filled the room as a grenade dropped and detonated at his feet. Smoke and sparks swallowed the doorway, and when they cleared, Tosk staggered back out into the cavern, fur singed, armour blackened, expression offended more than injured.

“Door trapped,” he announced flatly. “Thomas. Help.”

Thomas returned below ground just in time to kneel beside the lock. With careful hands and a muttered curse, he disarmed the second trigger and eased the door open.

Beyond lay a hidden storeroom.

Iron-bound chests and wooden crates filled the space, everything packed tight and organised with military care. They opened them one by one, revealing coin, potions, lamp oil, alchemical supplies, weapons wrapped and oiled, armour stacked neatly, and tools meant for repair and trade. It was a hoard built for war and they stripped it down to what they could reasonably carry.

By the time they finished, the cavern felt emptier. Safer.

Tosk claimed the Alpha Bugbear’s bed without ceremony and fell asleep almost instantly.

Above ground, Tobias and Guardian led the animals into the fort’s stables. The space bore the scars of worg habitation, scratched walls, chewed beams, the lingering stench of wet fur, but it was serviceable for a single night. They closed the front gates and, with a shared effort, Tobias lifted the heavy crossbeam into place, barring it securely.

Then they remembered the gap in the rear wall.

With the help of a groggy, soot-streaked Tosk, they dragged a broken cart into position and patched the breach as best they could, wedging timbers and debris until it would at least slow anything trying to force its way in.

Satisfied, for now, they returned below.

Despite the newfound sense of safety, they still kept watch.

Tobias’ shift passed in silence. Guardian’s was much the same, save for the thunderous trumpet-snores echoing from Tosk’s corner of the cavern.

Erisa’s watch was broken only once, when Dandadan startled her by appearing at her side. “Frogs are sleeping,” he whispered eagerly. “We could swim across. There is treasure.”

Erisa studied him for a long moment before shaking her head. “Not now. Not without everyone awake.”

Dandadan nodded, seemingly satisfied, and wandered off to curl up again. Erisa resumed her watch, eyes never fully leaving the shadows.

Thomas’ shift ended the night. A distant, baneful howl drew him back to the caged wolf. He approached slowly, offering another scrap of meat. The wolf sniffed, then gently took it from his hand before curling back into itself to gnaw in peace.

“I’ll get you out,” Thomas murmured before returning to the others.

Morning came quietly.

The cavern stirred with the low murmur of waking breath, the river’s steady rush unchanged by the night’s violence. Packs were adjusted, wounds checked, and the faint stiffness of sleep worked from tired limbs. For a brief, fragile moment, the world felt almost peaceful.

Dandadan shattered it.

“There’s treasure,” the Borglin announced brightly, bouncing on his heels. “Across the water. I asked Pinky last night, when frogs were sleeping, but she wanted to wait.” He beamed at Erisa as though this were proof of good manners.

Erisa gave him a look that said she remembered the conversation rather differently.

The river churned between jagged banks, black and cold, its surface broken by slow, circling ripples. No frogs showed themselves now. Guardian studied the distance, then spoke up. “I can look. Just look.”

Before anyone could object, he stepped forward and vanished in a shimmer of arcane mist.

Guardian reappeared on the far bank in a narrow alcove carved into the stone. Lantern light glimmered off stacked crates, barrels, and carefully wrapped bundles. This wasn’t a forgotten cache—it was an organised reserve.

He moved quickly, cataloguing what he saw: coin piled in small chests, silver ingots stacked with care, potions stoppered and sealed. A bundle of fine parchment lay wrapped in oilcloth. Barrels of dried meat and crates of hardtack promised weeks of food. Trade goods; salt blocks, lamp oil, pitch, tar, filled the space with sharp, utilitarian scents. Racks along the wall held serviceable weapons and armour, all maintained, all ready.

And at the back of it all sat a mahogany drybox, its surface etched with fine silver engravings that caught the light like frost.

Guardian swallowed.

When he returned, reappearing in a puff of mist on the near bank, his report spilled out in a rush. The party listened in growing disbelief, then quiet calculation. Dead weight was discussed and discarded. Choices were made.

Guardian gathered what they could not afford to leave behind, filling a heavy chest until it groaned with the strain. He heaved. The chest lifted, barely, but it was enough. With a sharp intake of breath, he vanished again and reappeared moments later beside them, the chest thudding to the stone.

Tosk knelt immediately beside the drybox, hands reverent as he brushed snow and grime from the silver inlay. “This,” he said quietly. “This is the one.” The meat-smoker’s task, finally made real. Three hundred pounds of smoked meat awaited its return.

They divided the spoils with care, stacks of coin clinking softly, supplies sorted and repacked. As they worked, Tosk couldn’t help himself. He paced the cavern, cloak swirling dramatically behind him, posing atop crates and stones like a conquering hero.

Then he paused.

A subtle warmth settled over his shoulders. The cloak seemed to settle too, hugging him just a little closer. Tosk blinked, then straightened, chest puffing out.

“Oho,” he rumbled. “Yes. This feels correct.”

With packs heavy and spirits lighter, they gathered their beasts of burden and prepared to move on. Dandadan took his place at the front, eager and proud to guide them onward.

They left Wyrmspath Fort behind without ceremony.

Two days later, the mountains finally began to loosen their grip. Snow thinned. Rock gave way to patches of stubborn grass. Trees returned, their dark branches swaying gently in the open air. Ulaa’s Wall stood behind them now, its frozen teeth dulled by distance.

The Northlands spread out ahead.

And for the first time in days, the road felt wide again.

For two days they travelled beneath thinning snow, the air losing its bite inch by inch. Rock gave way to scrub, scrub to stubborn grass pushing through frost-hardened soil. The path widened, the sky opened, and the weight that had pressed on their shoulders since Ulaa’s Wall began, at last, to ease. Behind them, the mountains stood silent and unmoved; ahead, the land breathed again.

Dandadan proved a surprisingly competent guide. He knew where the wind cut hardest, where snow liked to drift, where old paths still held firm beneath ice and time. He chatted constantly, about tunnels, about frogs, about treasure that definitely existed elsewhere too, until someone told him to keep quiet, at which point he did… for a while.

Four days later, the road carried them into a small village nestled among low hills and open pasture. Halsaland was little more than ten buildings clustered around a broad, smoke-darkened longhouse, but laughter and music spilled out into the cold air. Torches burned bright, and the smell of roasting meat drifted across the green.

They had arrived on the Feast of Year’s End.

The villagers welcomed them without hesitation. Food was pressed into their hands, cups filled and refilled, benches dragged closer to make room. When Tobias offered coin for the night, the village chief waved it away with a smile. “This is a time of celebration,” he said. “Not of commerce.” They insisted anyway, leaving five gold on the table. The chief accepted it only with a nod, as though indulging them.

As the night wore on, the chief studied the group more closely. His gaze lingered on Erisa. “You’re from up north,” he said at last. “Mistvale, yes?”

Erisa blinked. “I’m not from there. But I am going up there to see someone”

He chuckled softly. “Ah right, your mother maybe? You look just like someone from there.”

Erisa’s breath caught, she nodded.

“Good woman,” the chief continued. “Say hello to Lyra for me when you arrive.”

Something warm and bright settled in Erisa’s chest at the sound of her mother’s name, so close now she could almost feel it. For the rest of the evening, her smile came easier, laughter closer to the surface.

They slept that night surrounded by song and firelight, the kind of rest that comes only when danger feels far away.

They slept that night surrounded by song and firelight, the kind of rest that comes only when danger feels far away.

When they finally set out again, the road north felt different beneath their feet, less a trial to endure, more a path inviting them onward. Mistvale lay ahead now, close enough to name, close enough to feel.

Erisa walked with her gaze fixed on the horizon, heart light and hammering all at once. Whatever waited for them there, whatever answers or wounds or truths, they would face it together.

And so Steal Team 6 continued on, leaving Halsaland’s laughter behind as the road carried them toward the moment that had been nine years in the making.

Mistvale lay quiet beneath a pale northern sky, the kind of quiet that felt earned rather than empty, yet Erisa felt it tighten in her chest, a fragile mix of hope and dread settling as heavily as the frost on the rooftops.

The village was small, but clearly lived-in: sturdy timber homes clustered close together against the cold, their roofs heavy with white. Somewhere down the lane, a smith’s hammer rang in a slow, steady rhythm, each strike echoing softly between the buildings. A nearby smokehouse breathed out a thin ribbon of grey, carrying the comforting scent of salt, woodsmoke, and curing meat. After days of wind-scoured passes and blood-wet stone, the stillness felt almost unreal, as if the world itself were holding its breath. Steal Team 6 walked the narrow paths slowly, voices lowered without thinking, afraid to disturb something fragile.

They had not gone far when Erisa stopped dead.

A woman knelt in a modest garden outside one of the houses, brushing frost from the leaves of winter-hardy plants with bare hands already reddened by the cold. She straightened at the sound of footsteps, squinting slightly in the thin northern light.

She was Erisa’s mirror.

A little taller, perhaps. Older, certainly. Time had traced its marks in fine lines at the corners of her eyes and mouth. Long blonde hair was pulled back loosely, a few strands already threaded with grey. But the eyes—the shape of them, the way they caught the light, the familiar set of her mouth when she frowned in concentration, were unmistakable.

“Mum!”

Erisa ran.

The woman looked up in confusion that turned to shock, then to recognition so sharp it stole the breath from her lungs. Tears welled as Erisa closed the distance, and they collided in a fierce embrace, arms locking around one another as though the years between them might tear them apart if they loosened their grip even for a moment.

Lyra laughed and sobbed at the same time, clutching Erisa’s face between her hands as if afraid she might vanish. “My daughter,” she breathed, voice breaking. “You’re here. I—I can’t believe it. Look at you…” She pulled Erisa close again, pressing her forehead to hers. “I dreamed of this. I dreamed of you finding me.”

Lyra let out a broken sound somewhere between a laugh and a sob. “I missed you,” she choked, the words tumbling out between breaths. “I missed you so much. Every winter, every birthday… I kept wondering if you were warm, if you were safe.” She clutched at Erisa’s coat, pressing her face into her daughter’s shoulder. “I never stopped missing you.”

“Why did you leave me?” Erisa sobbed, the words breaking against her mother’s shoulder, nine years of hurt spilling out all at once.

Lyra held her tight, fingers digging into the fabric of her coat as if anchoring herself to something real. Her hands trembled. “I had to,” she whispered, voice raw. “I had to… to keep you safe.”

The rest of the party approached more cautiously, hanging back to give the moment its space. Lyra wiped at her eyes with the heel of her hand and looked up again, her gaze moving from face to face until it settled on Zaryth. For a heartbeat, she simply stared.

“Zaryth,” Lyra breathed, relief softening her voice. “I’m glad you’re here.”

Recognition sparked—teacher and apprentice, long parted by time and distance. Lyra smiled through tears and stepped forward to greet her, pride and relief mingling in her expression. She nodded to the others in turn and gestured toward the house. “Come inside,” she said gently. “Please. I’ll… I’ll answer what I can.”

She led them into her home, modest and warmly kept, the sort of place shaped by routine rather than wealth. It felt painfully reminiscent of another life left behind, Jarren’s Outpost, with its simple comforts and stubborn resilience. Cups were set out around the table, steam curling upward as Lyra poured, the kettle rattling softly in her unsteady hands.

Everyone received a cup.

Except Tosk and Guardian.

Tosk planted himself squarely in the doorway instead, broad frame blocking it entirely, arms folded with absolute seriousness. “To stop her running away again,” he explained, as though stating an obvious fact.

Erisa sat opposite her mother, shoulders tight, hands shaking just slightly as she wrapped them around the warmth of the cup. She drew in a breath. “Why?” she asked again, the question she had carried for nine years pressed into a single word. “Why did people call me a hag child?”

Lyra’s face tightened. She closed her eyes for a long moment, then opened them again. “Because…” Her voice faltered. She took a breath, steadying herself. “Because I made a deal with one.”

The room stilled.

She spoke of desperation—of years without children, of grief that hollowed her and Erisa’s father alike. She spoke of nights spent bargaining with the gods, of mornings waking to the same ache, hope thinning a little more each day. She told of an old woman who came to town with promises, who offered hope when hope was already running thin. Only later did she reveal herself as a hag, once the bargain had already taken root.

The terms were cruel in their simplicity: twins would be conceived. One child would belong to the hag, taken away, never to be seen or heard from again.

Nine months later, Lyra gave birth to a boy.

Before his first breath could escape his lungs, the wind swept through the room, snuffing out the lamps—and when the light returned, he was gone.

Moments later, a second child was born.

Erisa.

“And why did everyone know?” Erisa asked, voice raw, eyes never leaving her mother’s face.

Lyra’s mouth twisted bitterly. “Because Morlatha is a scheming bitch.”

The name slammed into everyone like a hammer.

Guardian reacted instantly—anger, disbelief, words tumbling out in a rush as memories and rage collided—but Lyra did not respond. At first, he assumed it was shock, or grief, or simple rudeness. He tried again, softer this time, then louder, irritation creeping into his voice. Still nothing.

An uneasy feeling began to coil in his stomach.

He glanced to the others, half-expecting a look of apology or explanation, but they were focused on Lyra and Erisa, on the story spilling out across the table. Guardian shifted in his seat, then stood, clearing his throat pointedly.

“Lyra?” he said again, stepping closer.

She did not look up.

Guardian frowned and waved a hand in front of her face, close enough to feel the warmth from her breath. Still nothing. The room began to quiet as the others noticed his movement, confusion spreading from one face to the next.

Erisa frowned, following Guardian’s gaze. “He’s… Guardian’s trying to ask you something,” she said carefully, glancing between them. Lyra didn’t look at Guardian—she looked at the others instead.

Lyra’s gaze slid past Guardian entirely, settling instead on Tosk, then Eldrin, then Thomas. “Are… are you Guardian?” she asked uncertainly, a flicker of confusion and worry creeping into her voice. Her eyes searched their faces, not unkind, but frightened. “Is this some kind of game? Did you come all this way to play a joke on me? Or… or are you still angry with me?”

Erisa, shaking, slid her cup slowly across the table into Guardian’s hands. Her fingers lingered for a heartbeat, knuckles white, as if afraid to let go. “He’s right here,” she said softly, her voice tight with emotion. “Mum… he’s been here the whole time.”

Lyra saw only a floating mug “I don’t see or hear anyone…”.

The colour drained from her face. Her gaze unfocused, drifting to some distant point only she could see. “She said… she said I would never see or hear him,” Lyra whispered. “I thought she meant she would take him away… I didn’t understand.” Her voice broke. “Oh Asire. I’m so sorry.”

She folded in on herself, sobbing into her hands.

Tobias rose quietly. He moved with deliberate care, placing one hand over Lyra’s trembling fingers, then reaching out with the other for Guardian’s. Slowly, gently, he guided them together.

Lyra gasped as her hands closed around something solid—warm, real—the porcelain cup rattling softly on the table as her breath caught. She pulled Guardian into a fierce embrace, clinging to him as though afraid the world might steal him away again.

“My son.”

Above them, Thomas scrambled up the watchtower, boots slipping on frost-slick wood, fingers numb as he hauled himself higher. From the vantage point, the battlefield snapped into brutal clarity. He braced, steadied his breathing, and fired. The shot cracked like thunder across the yard and struck the bugbear Tosk was carrying squarely in the head. The creature went limp at once, its massive frame slackening mid-swing. Tosk barely broke stride—he roared and swung the corpse like a grotesque hammer, smashing another Borglin into the ground with bone-shattering force.

Along the ramparts, Guardian’s eldritch power flared, violet light tearing through the gloom. One Borglin was caught full in the blast and hurled bodily from the wall, spinning skyward for a heart-stopping moment before crashing lifeless into the snow beyond the fort, limbs bent at impossible angles.

Zaryth broke from Tobias’ side just long enough to clear his flank, cutting down the remaining Borglins that pressed him. She pivoted back toward the bugbear they faced, eyes hard, and together they pressed it without mercy. Steel rang, breath steamed, and with a final, brutal exchange, Zaryth struck true. The beast staggered and collapsed, shaking the ground as it fell.

The yard fell into a tense, unnatural hush, broken only by the whistle of wind through shattered timbers and the laboured breathing of the living. Eldrin’s arrow sang once more, streaking through the cold air to drop the last visible Borglin as it tried to flee across the yard, its body skidding to a halt in the snow.

Tosk, now returned to his normal size, stomped toward a nearby shack where one of the Borglins had vanished during the fighting. He tore the door open with a splintering crack—only to find the room empty. Letting out a frustrated snort, he stormed back out, trunk lashing.

Eldrin leaned in to take a closer look, eyes scanning the cramped space. He peeled back a threadbare rug, revealing a hatch set into the floor, half-hidden and hastily concealed. A glance passed between the party. Weapons were readied, ropes tightened, and they gathered themselves—along with their bound Borglin prisoner—before descending into the darkness below.

Beneath the fort, the air turned damp and stale, thick with the scent of mould and old smoke, though noticeably warmer than the killing cold above. The tunnel sloped downward into a rough-hewn cavern lit by guttering lanterns that cast long, wavering shadows across stone walls. Borglins waited for them there, weapons raised, eyes gleaming in the half-light.

The fight was brief but chaotic. Tables were overturned, benches shattered, boots skidding across slick stone as the party fought with acrobatic desperation. Erisa vaulted over obstacles, Eldrin loosed arrows at arm’s length, and steel rang in tight quarters. The Borglins were cut down quickly, leaving only echoing breath, dripping water, and the coppery scent of blood.

Their captive finally spoke more freely once the dust settled, naming himself Dandadan. He eyed Guardian with open admiration, head cocked. “You throw magic good,” he said earnestly, nodding as if offering genuine praise.

Further in, Thomas spotted a caged wolf, ribs visible beneath its matted fur. It growled low, hackles raised, but hunger dulled its aggression. A tossed chunk of meat skidded across the stone. The wolf snapped it up and retreated, watching them with wary, intelligent eyes.

Tosk, meanwhile, pulled a rib of indeterminate origin from a nearby table and began gnawing on it contentedly, utterly unfazed by the carnage around him.

They pressed on, deeper into the cavern, and soon found more Borglins taunting a massive rat, jabbing at it with sticks and laughing. The rat, however, ignored them entirely, fixing its beady gaze squarely on Tosk as Steal Team 6 dispatched its tormentors. As Tosk approached, the rat abruptly turned and bolted through a hole in the cavern wall, vanishing into darkness.

With a triumphant rumble, Tosk produced a mouse from his fur—Joturn—and sent it scurrying after the fleeing rat. Minutes passed in awkward, increasingly uncomfortable silence. Guardian slowly realised that Joturn was neither familiar nor trained animal, but simply… a mouse. When Joturn eventually returned, Tosk tucked it back into his fur as if nothing were amiss. The rest of the party, thoroughly unimpressed, wordlessly moved on.

A rope bridge soon stretched before them, swaying slightly over a deep chasm studded with jagged rocks far below. One by one, they crossed with painstaking care, knuckles white, Thomas even securing a guide rope to steady the crossing. Once everyone was safely across, Tosk simply walked over without hesitation, earning a mix of stunned silence and embarrassed looks.

Beyond the bridge, they reached the bank of an underground river, black water rushing past with a low, relentless roar. Three Borglins stood at the water’s edge, hurling stones at something unseen beneath the surface, while a larger Borglin rummaged through crates on a raised platform nearby.

The party struck from concealment. Arrows and spells cut down the Borglins at the shore as Tobias and Tosk charged to finish the rest. The larger Borglin grabbed a spherical object and hurled it. It detonated in a thunderous blast, tearing into both of them and throwing snow, water, and debris into the air. The creature reached for another without hesitation.

A heavy bang echoed from the far side of the cavern. A door burst open, splintering, and an Alpha Bugbear stormed into view, its roar shaking dust from the ceiling. It crossed the ground in brutal strides and brought its morningstar down on Zaryth—once, then again. The Triton reeled, bloodied and suddenly in grave danger.

The party rushed to her side, instinctively clustering together. Inspired by the Bugbear’s roar, the Borglin hurled another explosive straight into their midst, the blast ripping through the group in a concussive wave.

Tosk roared and grew once more, muscles swelling as he lunged upward to seize the bomb-throwing Borglin. With a bellow, he hurled it into the river. Three massive frogs surged from the black water and dragged the screaming creature under, the surface churning violently before going still.

All eyes turned to the Alpha Bugbear.

The creature loomed over them, chest heaving, matted fur slick with blood and meltwater. Its roar echoed through the cavern, raw and furious, as it hefted its morningstar once more, daring them to come closer. The air felt thick, every heartbeat loud in their ears.

Guardian blinked across the battlefield in sharp flashes of magic, appearing beside fallen allies just long enough to pour healing light into torn flesh before vanishing again. Each reappearance left frost swirling in his wake. Sweat beaded on his brow as he pushed himself harder, keeping the party standing through sheer force of will.

Tobias stepped forward to meet the Alpha head-on, planting himself between the monster and the others. The morningstar crashed down again and again, each blow jarring his arms to the shoulder, teeth rattling with the impact. He gritted through the pain, turning strikes aside by inches, boots skidding across slick stone as sparks flew from steel on iron.

The Bugbear fought like a cornered beast, lashing out with brute strength and reckless fury. It bellowed in defiance even as fresh wounds opened across its body, refusing to yield ground, refusing to fall.

Then Tobias saw it—a momentary hitch in the creature’s stance, a fraction of a second where its guard dropped.

He surged forward.

With a decisive, brutal strike, his blade bit deep and severed the Bugbear’s left arm at the shoulder. The limb hit the stone with a wet, final thud. The Alpha staggered, dropped to its knees, and roared in agony, the sound raw and breaking.

Tobias did not hesitate. He raised his blade once more and brought it down in a clean, merciless arc, taking the creature’s head from its shoulders. The body slumped forward, lifeless, the echo of its roar fading into the cavern’s depths.

The cavern would have fallen silent, if not for the thrashing in the river behind them. Moments later, even that faded, leaving only dripping water, settling dust, and the echo of their breathing beneath Wyrmspath Fort.

The night in Skälvik did not concern itself with comfort. Beds creaked, shutters rattled in the wind, and the inn seemed to breathe in its sleep, expanding and settling like an old creature dreaming of better days. Torun and the dog, however, slept as if both had been dropped from a great height and landed on soft moss—he curled on his side, he draped across his legs in the serene confidence of a creature who had never once considered being unwelcome.

Hugo and Anders had lingered over the local spirits long after sensible hours had ended. By the time the candles guttered low, Hugo found himself comfortably warm and philosophising about the precise moral value of a well‑made hymn tune, while Anders offered contributions that grew less coherent with each refill. By morning, Hugo was clear‑eyed; Anders was upright only through stubbornness and the lingering pride of a man who refused to lose an argument with his own hangover.

Before dawn, the sounds of industry seeped through the thin walls: boots thudding onto floorboards, groans about the cold, the first clatter of pans below. The workers stirred with the rhythm of habit, rising because rising was what life required of them.

Hugo washed briskly at the basin and let a splash of holy water shock the last weight of sleep from his face. Anders, still cocooned in misery, watched the process with the dull resignation of someone witnessing another man’s questionable life choices.

Downstairs, the common room glowed with stove heat, carrying a faint briny smell—salt, woodsmoke, and morning damp all braided together. The workers were already eating, faces lined with fatigue and resignation, their breakfasts disappearing at a speed that suggested the food was better than their expressions implied. The innkeeper moved with quiet efficiency behind the counter, while a woman—apron neatly tied, hair bound back—wove between tables with practiced certainty.

The party settled at a table near the wall, coffee and tea arriving soon after. The first mouthful of coffee elicited a near‑silent recognition from the entire group: whatever its flavour, it had the force of a medical intervention.

Plates followed—eggs, crisp bacon, potatoes fried to the edge of burnt, cured meats whose origins were best left unexamined. It was food for work and cold mornings, not conversation.

Over the scrape of cutlery, as the warmth of breakfast settled into them, the group began to piece their morning’s intentions together. Frederick, sharpening purpose along with his appetite, leaned toward matters of the dead: the drowned butler, the crypt, the possibility of examining the body before burial. Hugo, more measured, weighed whether it was wiser to begin with the living instead—the farmhand, the priest, the village itself. Vilhelm, as ever, listened to the room before declaring any preference, noting the advantage of letting the locals’ conversations drift naturally toward useful truth.

It didn’t take long. A worker, nudged by Vilhelm’s mild enquiry, mentioned the manor across the river and the Count’s impatience with its progress. Another spoke of the fog that came in heavy at night, thick enough to make the river crossing perilous. The ferry, they said, was the only safe route; the bridge would come later.

The missing girl came up next—Eva Stark of Stegeborg—gone a week now, with no body recovered. The hard, bright edge of hope still clung to the village talk for that reason alone. The drowned butler was treated with less mystery: found in the river, declared an accident, with burial set for tomorrow. The body, the serving woman confirmed, rested in the church crypt.

The outline of a plan took shape between spoonfuls of potatoes and the slow disappearance of bacon. The vicar first—condolences, questions, perhaps permission to see the crypt. Then the riverbank where the butler was found. Later, Stegeborg, to speak with the missing girl’s father.

It was only when the serving woman lingered a moment longer than necessary at their table that the conversation shifted. There was curiosity in her eyes—the quiet, measuring kind. They were strangers who asked too many questions, who watched too closely, who had the look of people accustomed to walking directly toward trouble.

When Frederick, with typical flourish, introduced them as members of the Society, the woman’s expression changed at once. Shock first, then something like relief breaking through fear. She named herself Erika and, in a voice meant only for them, admitted she had been the one to send the letter to Linnea.

Her explanation came slowly, each detail carrying a quiet dread that made the table still. Years ago, she said, she had wandered along the creek and walked farther than she realised—farther than was natural. She had found herself in a clearing she had never seen before, surrounded by trees that felt older than anything growing in the valley. There, she met something that called itself the Fairy Queen: small, woman‑shaped, hair like black silk trailing behind it, fingers too long, ears too sharp, movement too light to belong to anything bound to earth. It had made her dance, compelled her legs to move until reason blurred and time twisted. She escaped only when another woman—Annika—intervened, bargaining for Erika’s release. The next moment, Erika had stood by the creek again, as though nothing had happened at all.

Now, she said, the workers dug across the river, close to where that clearing had been. Stones were being taken from the old castle ruin on the island. Fog rolled heavier than it used to. She urged them to speak with Hans the boatsman if they meant to cross.

Her story left a quiet behind it. The kind of quiet in which facts and fears rearrange themselves into something more urgent.

When Erika returned to her duties, the group finished their meal in silence, each privately adjusting the day’s intentions. The vicarage was the next logical step. After that, the church. And eventually, Stegeborg.

Outside, a thin veil of mist softened the road in front of the inn, turning the village into a landscape of smudged outlines and damp air. Workers tramped toward the river with their collars up, disappearing one by one into the greying light.

The Society—if they could yet call themselves that without irony—rose from the table and followed the path toward the vicarage at the edge of Skälvik, the dog trotting at Torun’s side, the cold sharpening the edges of the day ahead.

The road to the vicarage slipped quietly away from the centre of Skälvik like a thread tugged loose from a fraying sleeve. Houses thinned, the air cooled, and the neat yellow rectangle of the building came into view—three storeys high, recently painted, and far too proud for the modest parish it claimed to serve.

A carriage stood outside, glossy black, its wheels still faintly damp as though it had only just arrived. Its presence unsettled the group long before the front door did. There was nothing inherently ominous about a well-kept carriage, yet in a village this size it felt like a stranger intruding on a small room.

They paused beneath the short overhang of the porch. The dog sat neatly at Torun’s heel. The group held a brief, murmured conference—Hugo to speak first, Frederick to request what he needed with tact, the others to present themselves as travelling companions rather than an encroaching committee.

Hugo knocked.

A maid answered, her expression politely blank in the way of someone under strict instruction not to volunteer information. She nodded at Hugo’s request for the vicar and slipped inside. The door shut firmly but not rudely.

Silence settled. A window above creaked faintly; footsteps crossed a floorboard. Before anyone could comment, the door opened again—not for them, but to let a man pass out.

He was dressed well, but not like a noble—more akin to a senior servant with enough authority to forget to acknowledge anyone else. He slipped by the group without a word and disappeared toward the outbuildings with the air of someone who had better places to be.

Only when he was gone did the vicar appear.

Vicar Brännström looked as though sleep had taken to avoiding him deliberately. Shadows clung beneath his eyes, his posture held the stiffness of a man bracing for a conversation he did not wish to have. His gaze fell on Hugo first, recognising clergy by bearing if not by collar.

There was a brief exchange—respectful at first, though the vicar’s stiffness made his reluctance clear long before his words did. Hugo offered condolences; the vicar acknowledged them without warmth. Frederick stepped forward, introducing himself with calm purpose, speaking of medical aid should any be needed in preparing the butler for burial. The vicar deflected each attempt gently but firmly, insisting preparations were nearly complete, that the constable had examined the body, and that no further disturbance was necessary.

The door remained mostly closed throughout, as though the building itself wished to keep its occupants hidden.

The more Hugo tried to ease the conversation toward questions, the more the vicar’s composure tightened. Mentions of accidental drowning were met with minimal elaboration. Suggestions of permission to view the crypt were waved aside. Even the simplest enquiries—where the body had been found, who had discovered it—seemed to strain his patience.

Eventually, with a polite but unmistakable dismissal, the vicar withdrew. The door shut fully this time, the latch settling with a soft, determined click.

For a moment the group simply stood on the step, the cold air flattening the last of their hopes for cooperation. A shadow passed across an upstairs window again—brisk movement, then stillness. Someone was pacing.

The vicarage itself seemed too grand for its purpose—more estate house than parish home, its polish almost daring the viewer to question it. Fresh paint, well-kept grounds, and that black carriage—each detail pushed against the image of a grieving priest simply going about unpleasant duties.

Frederick exhaled slowly. If the door would not open for diplomacy, then the church—modest, older, less guarded—would have to be their next stop.

The dog gave a soft, uncertain huff, as if in agreement.

With no welcome left to wait for, they stepped away from its polished walls and began the short walk toward the church, where answers—or at least fewer locked doors—might wait.

Vilhelm peeled away from the others with the kind of quiet certainty that suggested this was not the first time he had chosen to follow his own line of inquiry. While the rest of the group made for the church, he lingered near the fork in the road and took the track leading back into the village. A man could learn much from a settlement if he listened to it at its edges.

Skälvik at midmorning had the same muted character as at sunrise—grey light, thin mist, the faint briny tang of the river drifting between houses. People moved with early efficiency: a woman sweeping her step, a man securing a tarp over stacked firewood, two children carrying a bucket between them with grave purpose. Life here did not pause for mystery.

Vilhelm slipped into the general store, heralded only by the small iron bell above the door giving a tired jangle. The interior smelled of dry goods and dust, with shelves packed too tightly for comfort—bolts of cloth, fishing hooks, tins whose labels had surrendered to time, and a curious assortment of trinkets that may once have been useful.

The shopkeeper looked up from his ledger, eyes narrowing with polite calculation. Strangers drew attention in places like this; solitary ones drew more.

Vilhelm asked after local history with the casual tone of a scholar who had made similar enquiries in dozens of villages. The phrase “old battlefield” surfaced naturally, as though merely checking a footnote. The shopkeeper, reassured by academic interest, began to talk.

Three or four centuries past, he said, the land beyond the village had been a contested ground between rival dukes. Plenty of blood spilled, plenty of dead buried, hardly any records written well enough for modern eyes. Burials and forgotten tombs lingered in the area, and stories claimed travellers sometimes lost hours wandering there—or forgot where they had been altogether. Villagers preferred to steer clear. Some histories lived too close to the surface.

The Count’s manor came up next. Most people, the shopkeeper said, approved of the construction: new work, new visitors, perhaps better fortunes ahead. Others were less pleased. Stones were being taken from the old Stegeborg ruin on the island, and some felt the land across the river should be left to itself. The shopkeeper did not say which opinion he held, but his shrug was a studied thing—too casual to be honest.

When Vilhelm inquired after Gustav Rask, the farmhand mentioned by the workers, the man had no precise direction to offer. “Try the farms,” he said, which in rural terms meant anywhere within a half-day’s walk.

Satisfied he had pressed as far as courtesy allowed, Vilhelm departed. Outside, the faint bustle of the village resumed around him. The mist hung low, turning the road toward Skälvik’s tavern and the church into a pale ribbon.

He made his way back toward the inn with the intention of rejoining the others after a brief pause, but found himself instead lingering on the square for a moment longer—taking in the shape of the place, the way its edges seemed frayed by time and fog alike.

There was history here. Not the clean, archived kind, but the sort people carried in their posture and in the warnings they never quite said aloud.

After a thoughtful breath, Vilhelm turned to follow the road toward elevenses and, eventually, back to the group—bringing with him a handful of leads and the persistent sense that the past in Skälvik was not nearly as buried as its residents preferred to believe.

The church stood only a short walk from the vicarage, though it could not have felt more different. Where the vicarage flaunted its fresh paint and orderly trim, the church seemed resigned to erosion. Its timbers sagged slightly, the stone threshold was worn hollow in the centre, and the front door bore an old scar where a hinge had once torn loose and been hammered back in place. In another village it might have been a relic worth restoring. Here, it was simply functional.

The group approached with the steady caution of people who expected resistance and were faintly surprised when none came. The door yielded under Hugo’s hand without complaint. Inside, the air was still and faintly stale—old incense, dust, and the lingering smell of damp wood that clung like a memory.

The nave was empty. Pews sat in uneven rows, some bowed with age, others marked with scratches where generations of boots had idly carved lines during sermons. Light filtered weakly through crooked windows, leaving the interior in a mottled patchwork of greys.

Axel, tied just outside, gave a curious whine. Torun murmured something reassuring and stepped over the threshold with the others.

It was clear the church had not seen a proper service in some time. The lectern leaned a little to one side. Hymnals curled at the edges from damp. A thin film of dust softened the floorboards underfoot, disturbed only by a few recent tracks—likely the vicar, moving between his duties and the crypt.

They found the interior doors near the pulpit without trouble. Heavy, wooden, reinforced with iron fittings that suggested a time when security had been more than ceremonial. One door led to what appeared to be an office or a storage room; the other, if tradition held, would descend toward the crypt.

Hugo lingered near the office, pretending interest in the clutter of records while keeping his distance from anything that might be construed as tampering. A glass-fronted display cabinet stood against the wall, filled with small curiosities—old coins, fragments of pottery, rusted nails excavated from nearby ruins. One item stood out: a dagger far too pristine for its supposed age, with a placard declaring it had been found in the bay. Hugo’s eyebrow lifted fractionally. Either Skälvik’s waters preserved metal like a miracle, or someone had grown overfond of embellishment.

Meanwhile, the others focused on the second door. It was locked, but not stubbornly so. Aleksander crouched with the comfortable familiarity of someone who had made a lifelong study of hinges and tumblers. The quiet click of success came quickly.

Behind the door, a narrow spiral staircase coiled downward. The stone steps were chilled with the kind of cold that belonged more to the ground than the air. A faint, earthen smell drifted upward—soil, stone, and something else beneath it, something that old buildings learned to keep.

Frederick went first, driven by the clinical certainty that the truth always waited at the bottom of things. Torun followed, then Anders, their footsteps muffled as the stair curved away from the light. Aleksander came last, pausing only long enough to cast a glance back at Hugo, who nodded once before returning his attention to the cabinet.

The staircase opened into a small, vaulted chamber. Candles, long extinguished, lined the walls in uneven holders. The air was colder here, dense with a stillness that clung to skin. In the centre of the room stood a stone slab draped with a burial sheet.

The shape beneath it was unmistakable.

Frederick stepped forward, the familiar ritual of his work guiding each movement. Tools laid out. Gloves pulled tight. The sheet lifted.

What lay beneath did not look peaceful.

The face was contorted—jaw strained wide in a silent, frozen scream, eyes bulging with a terror that had not eased in death. Skin blanched and waxen, marred only by the faint mottling of water exposure. The body bore the hallmarks of immersion, but not the injuries that drowning left behind. It was a man who had known fear, not water, as his final companion.

The reaction was immediate. Torun’s breath caught sharply; Anders stiffened, as though bracing against some unseen force; even Aleksander went still, fingers resting lightly against the crystal sphere he kept for focus. A chill brushed up each spine—a primal, involuntary recoil that settled in the gut and stayed there.

Frederick lowered the sheet for a moment, steadying himself before continuing. The horror of a face etched by its last moments lingered even with the cloth drawn back over it.

He resumed his examination with careful precision, describing findings in a low voice meant only for those beside him: signs of water taken in after death, not before; the absence of external wounds; no bruising consistent with a struggle; an overall picture of a man who had died of terror long before the river claimed him.

Aleksander searched the perimeter of the crypt, his eye drawn to details others might overlook. Hanging from a hook near the stair was a water-stained jacket. He checked the pockets, fingers coming away with ink residue and soggy parchment. The note inside was barely legible, its message warped and blurred—but one line clung stubbornly to the paper: Get the goods below by midnight.

In the quiet above, Hugo turned from the cabinet, a prickle of instinct catching at the back of his neck. Through the warped glass of the church’s front windows, a figure approached along the path—dark coat, slow stride, silhouette unmistakably clerical.

The Vicar was coming.

Tobias stood apart, one hand pressed against his side where the bolt had struck. His voice was low, heavy with unease. “I didn’t want it to come to this,” he murmured. “They didn’t have to die.” His words hung in the cold air, a stark counterpoint to the reality around them.

Nearby, Tosk still held a limp Borglin in his trunk, the creature alive but resigned, its arms dangling uselessly. It no longer struggled, as though it had already accepted its fate. The others looked to Tosk, then to one another. There was only one question left: what to do with it?

They chose to ask.

“Why did you attack us?” Tobias demanded.

The Borglin blinked, dull-eyed but sharp-tongued. “We gave you a choice. Give us your stuff, or die. You didn’t give us your stuff, so you chose die.”

“That didn’t work out for you,” Tobias countered.

“Clearly not,” the Borglin muttered, shifting in Tosk’s grip.

“Where are the rest of you?” Erisa pressed.

“All over the place.”

“You’re going to take us to your main base,” Zaryth said firmly.

“Sure,” the Borglin replied, almost cheerfully. “I’ll be your guide. My fee is two teeth per day.”

Tosk’s fist answered faster than words, and the Borglin slumped unconscious. The group gathered in a tense circle, debating. Tobias and Guardian urged they let the creature go, while the rest voted to keep it as a prisoner. In the end, they bound it with rope and tossed it into the cart—Tosk’s new ‘pet,’ as the giant insisted.

When Tosk picked up the strange bag of teeth they’d found among the Borglins’ belongings, Guardian immediately paled. “Put it down—it could be a fae trap!” Trauma still coloured their every suspicion. Thomas, more grounded, reminded them that the Borglins back in Stormwatch Bay had used teeth as currency. The others wondered aloud why they valued teeth when perfectly good gold circulated nearby.

“Gold only has a value because you assign one to it,” the Borglin muttered faintly, still unconscious, though the words were clear enough to earn a startled silence. The party ignored the comment, choosing not to dwell on it.

With a sigh, Tobias crouched beside the prisoner. He pressed a glowing hand to the Borglin’s chest, channeling a sliver of divine energy. A single point of warmth flowed into the creature, its eyes fluttering open as the cart lurched forward. Bound, bruised, but alive, the Borglin’s journey with them had just begun.

The climb grew cruel. Snow came in fine, needling sheets; the wind scraped the skin from their cheeks and stole words straight from their mouths. The Borglin in the cart never stopped complaining. When not grumbling, he sang off-key marching songs that looped endlessly—Tosk, unhelpfully, learned the choruses and bellowed along.

Tobias walked beside the cart, jaw clenched, murmuring to himself between breaths. “I am a paladin of compassion. I am a paladin of compassion.” The Borglin joined in on the refrain until Tobias pinched the bridge of his nose and kept walking.

By late afternoon a dark line cut the white horizon: walls—tall, raw logs spiked together, a squat keep of timber crouched behind them. The captive perked up. “Oh that? That’s our base. Wyrmspath—or summit like that—” He drew a breath and threw his head back to shout, “HE—”

Tosk’s trunk filled the Borglin’s mouth with a whump. The shout melted into a muffled whine. Thomas leaned close, voice soft as a knife’s edge. “Quiet.” Tosk added, deadpan, “If you make noise, I blow.”

The Borglin nodded vigorously, eyes wide, understanding achieved.

They ghosted downslope toward the fort, hugging the snow-laden pines. Erisa slipped ahead and knelt behind a fallen log, fingers brushing the frost. “Smoof,” she whispered. The little not-quite-cat crawled from her hood, blinked, and flowed into the snow-shadow. Through Smoof’s eyes, the world tilted: timber grain up close, resin gleam, the breath of wolves pluming below.

Smoof scaled the wall, silent claws finding purchase. Inside, the yard was a smear of tramped snow and ash. Borglins tramped between watchfires; a bugbear in a patchwork fur vest sharpened a cleaver on a whetstone; two worgs paced, muzzles scarred and ears torn, glaring at everything. Along the back wall: two logs that made up the wall had fallen leaving a gap, an invitation.

The familiar scurried down and returned, paws light, tail flicking. Erisa’s sight snapped back into her own eyes. “Patrols inside, angry worgs, one bugbear. There’s a breach at the rear—big enough to slip through.”

They huddled. Tobias wanted words. “If we can talk, we should.”

Zaryth shook her head. “Talk about what? This place isn’t theirs. They’ll want our gear or our lives. We only want them to stop.”

“Then we go in the back,” Thomas said. “Hit hard, end it fast.”

Tobias met their eyes. “I try the gate. If it goes wrong, you move.”

“Front door and back door,” Eldrin agreed. They arranged themselves: Tobias, Guardian, and Zaryth to the front; Erisa, Tosk, Thomas, and Eldrin to the breach.

“Probably not a great idea to plan right outside the front door,” said the captive Borglin, somehow wriggled half-free of his bindings. Thomas blinked, cursed, and tied him again with a neat, unforgiving knot.

They split. Snow hissed. Breath smoked. Somewhere a raven called.

Tobias strode to the gate and rapped with the flat of his axe. A long moment. Then a helmeted head popped over the battlement, nose wrinkled. “Wot you want?”

“I wish to parle with your leader,” Tobias said, voice carrying.

The Borglin squinted. “Wot’s parle?”

“It means to talk.”

“Oh. No thanks. You can leave your stuff, or we take it.”

“Please,” Tobias said, steady. “We want to talk—peacefully—about what you’ve been doing to travellers.”

“Eh. We had no-one complain.”

“What about the people who used to be at this fort?”

“Well, they all dead. So no complainin’. Ha.”

Tobias’ jaw tightened. “Open this gate. Now.”

“’Okie.’”

The gate lurched outward. Three Borglins waited with bows half-drawn, and from the yard a worg launched forward, snow spraying from its claws. The first string sang; three arrows lifted into the pale light—arrowheads bright as teeth—arcing straight for Tobias as the worg’s snarl filled the gate.

The first arrow struck Tobias just below the ribs. His shout—half command, half pain—ripped across the yard and carried through the pines. On the far side of the fort, Team Backdoor heard the yell of pain, the signal to begin.

“Go!” Thomas barked.

They surged through the rear breach. Eldrin’s bow sang the instant his boots hit packed snow; an arrow snicked past a torch and planted in a Borglin’s shoulder. Thomas raised his pistol, braced, and fired—the crack slapped against the timber walls and sent a lookout scrambling for cover.

Ahead, the bugbear turned at the roar of Tosk expanding. The Luxodon doubled in shadow and muscle, snow blooming from under his feet as he charged. He met the bugbear like a fallen tree meeting a river, wrapped both arms and trunk around it, and lifted. The bugbear’s cleaver clattered to the yard.

Up the watchtower, Erisa moved like quicksilver—hand over hand, boot to rung—cresting the platform to find a Borglin gawping at the chaos. “Down you go,” she breathed, and hip-tossed him over the rail. He pinwheeled, hit hard, and lay coughing in a spider of cracked ice.

At the gate, steel and fur swirled. Zaryth stepped into the choke point with her shield high as a worg crashed against it, claws scrabbling for purchase. Tobias gritted through the pain, met a rushing Borglin with the haft of his axe, and shoved it back into its mates. Guardian snapped out a palm and loosed a line of crackling force—his eldritch blast caught a bowman square in the chest and hurled him from the balcony. Boards splintered; the Borglin vanished in a spray of snow.

“Now!” Tosk boomed. Still clutching the bugbear, he trudged to the low ledge that overlooked a hard-packed service lane—an eight‑foot drop to frozen earth. He stepped out into space. Gravity did the rest. The bugbear hit first with Tosk atop like a falling anvil, the impact buckling the ground and flattening an unlucky Borglin beneath with a wet crack. When the cloud of snow cleared, two bodies lay still and Tosk rose, the trident’s points catching the pale light.

Not to be outdone, Erisa took three quick steps along the rail and launched herself. She tucked, turned, and unfurled into a sweeping arc that would’ve made a showman proud—then crashed down on the prone Borglin she’d thrown, driving the breath and the fight out of him in a single, clean finish. She rolled to her feet, hair full of frost and grin feral.

Another gate within the yard banged open. More shapes spilled through—worgs low and fast, Borglins bristling with spears, and behind them a second bugbear with a hammered-iron gorget and a scar that split his lip. He pointed his cleaver at Tobias and roared.

“Front and centre!” Zaryth called, voice ringing. She met the first worg with a downward cut that lit the snow in radiant sparks. Tobias turned a spear aside with the back of his axe and used the momentum to crack a jaw. Guardian blinked from the gate to a balcony in a smear of shadow, then blasted the ladder to kindling as a pair of Borglins tried to climb.

Eldrin and Thomas kept moving—shoot, step, shoot—pinning lines of advance with feathers and thunder. One worg skidded and slid; a spear clattered from a numb hand. For a heartbeat the yard held its breath.

Then the scar-lipped bugbear lowered his shoulder and came on like an avalanche, and the fresh wave of raiders flooded the gap.

Snow, splinters, and steam rose together as the fight deepened—no parley now, only the hard arithmetic of who stood when the flurries settled.

Travel to Isle of Cauldbrath

We crossed on a steel-plated apology for a ferry, then crammed into a dinghy that objected to our presence with every oar stroke. Weather was passable: cold wind, low tide, lighthouse functioning. That last one mattered.

Our destination—a cargo freighter beached beneath the cliffs—sang its condition before we boarded. Plates groaned, cables whined, the whole frame echoing like a dying whale. Ander held onto his breakfast and his dignity. The rest of us acclimatised. We tied off, climbed aboard, and started reading the wreck like a crime scene.

Ardent Hope

Inside was what you get when you try to house people where they were never meant to be. Rusted bunks, swollen doors, and paint peeled up like diseased skin. The hold’s centrepiece: Container 19-B. The door was not opened. It was punched out from the inside. Steel peeled like a can lid. Someone wanted out badly enough to win.

Inside were two coffin-shaped boxes—hand-built, sealed with resin, and reeking of enchantment. These weren’t ceremonial. They were tools. Containment, not burial. And the thing inside? Already gone.

We picked through the leftovers: Biera’s scarf, his hat (claimed by Ander), and a tooth necklace with Remy’s family signature all over it. There were no rations. No water. No insulation. Just wood, rope, and hope. Barrow shipped people knowing what they’d become. And what they’d do.

The bridge held the blood. Two height bands. Claw marks across the console. The exit route was obvious: doors bent outwards, screws popped. Whoever turned, fought their way free. We found the logbook. Container 19‑B. Origin: Barrow, Pennsylvania. Destination: Portsmouth. Carrier: Brekon & Hope, a Barrow subsidiary. They really do like to keep their sins in-house.

Remy tapped the psychic residue: fear, followed by fury. Defensive, not predatory. That tracks when what’s left of you is still trying to protect the name someone once used for you.

One more surprise: an oversized mannequin spotted in a rupture in the hull. Just standing. Waving. When we looked back, it had gone. Stranger protocol. Show up, vanish, leave questions.

We climbed to shore. The tide wasn’t offering a return trip.

Approaching Cauldbrath Village

The stone steps from ship to summit were hand-cut and honest. At the top, we were met by Saoirse MacCraith, lightkeeper and human welcome mat. She radiated gentle warmth—Remy and the others felt it. Brodie didn’t. Curious.

She pointed us to the tavern without sharing names. Later, Donal Reeve gave us more than he meant: called her duties “responsibilities.” Which usually means keys, rules, and something locked up nearby.

The village was thin. Forge, butcher, a lorry that hadn’t moved in days, and two men leaning on it like unpaid extras. Seamus said they were waiting for a “delivery.” Fergus, a priest with a dead wife and a grudge against weather, blessed us with apocalyptic metaphors.

All signs pointed the same way: fewer people, heavier silences, too much patience wearing out its boots.

Tavern

Brigid O’Durnan served food, fire, and firm hospitality. Maebh stared like she was memorising our habits. Aoife distracted the local spawn with stories. Agnes delivered bread and suspicion. Captain Niall Bryn looked like he was waiting for a reason not to leave.

We ate. Settled. Then the team asked the question they’d been dancing around since Barrow.

I answered:

• I’m a fear entity under containment.
• Not parasitic. Brodie remains peachy.
• He sees me as human: tall, pale, dark hair. That’s his mask. Not mine.
• I do the thinking. He does the walking.
• Why doesn’t he know I’m a sock? No clue. Not me. Probably his brain putting safety rails around the abyss.

The room did that thing where it exhales quietly because the worst answer was “yes” and I’d just said “no.” We picked corners with backs to walls. Just in case.

Talk with Manny (the mannequin) in the toilet

Nature called. So did the Stranger.

Manny was waiting in the outhouse: plastic, oversized, seated like it belonged there. It didn’t. One door. One task. No witnesses. Ideal spot for a covert debrief.

The message:

• We weren’t invited.
• Multiple groups are coming.
• The target isn’t fully human.
• Games start at dusk.
• Stay off the centreline.
• Stranger want’s me to come back, I’m going to pass.

Tone: polite. Not friendly. Confidence reads louder when no threats are required. I left with a chill in my sleeve. Brodie didn’t ask. He never does. He just feels the shift in pressure.

Back in the tavern

The day collapsed inward. The island got smaller. Angela’s focus snapped toward the lighthouse like a compass. Something was building near the lorry—a knot in the air, waiting to pull tight. Ander muttered about boats and regretted the stew. Remy traced the broken tooth like it was a map, and she was ready to fight for a brother who might not be himself anymore.

No grand speeches. Just mutual understanding. Chairs pushed back together, nobody scraping wood. Outside, the wind rehearsed.

If they want a stage, they can have it. We’ll take the wings. No one dies tonight who didn’t choose to come here.

Filed By: Investigator Maurice
Supervising Officer: Still Me
Clearance: Way above yours