Hob and Perella, isolated from their comrades and having just escaped the gloom and repelled the Stone Collector, delve deeper below the Beacon, hoping to find an exit.

---

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Miss; Reveal a Danger – environmental or architectural hazard, debris

It was not long after we had left the fringes of shadow that we found the collapse. It appeared the ceiling of the tunnel had given way and the weight of the impact had, in turn, caused the floor to cave as well, some of the ceiling’s rubble still precariously resting on the edge of the pit. We had seen no holes or dips on the plateau above, so the collapse must have been beneath it. Which meant there was another cavern above us that had caved into ours as well as a hollow below for ours to have fallen into.

The gap was too far to leap and the hole in the ceiling was too steep to scale. So we looked down. The torchlight didn’t pierce far enough to see where it led but it seemed the safest path forward. Still, I wanted to make sure it didn’t drop into the sea so I risked my torch. It fell a ways and then stopped, still burning and casting shadows, having landed in a heap of collapsed rubble. Ground at least.

Roll: Check Your Gear – Weak Hit

I retrieved the rope from my pack and tied it around the largest boulder I could find among the pile of debris at the edge of the pit. It was half my size, too heavy to push, and I hoped it could hold my weight. I hoped I could hold my weight. My arm still ached and the fatigue from the previous events had begun to settle in.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Miss, complication

As it turned out, the boulder was plenty sturdy, it was me who couldn’t bear the burden. Perella held her torch over the pit to light the way and I began the descent, feet searching for footholds as I clambered down the rope. I should have brought gloves, I had not. My already raw hands quickly began to burn from the rope’s rough fibers. And then they numbed. I didn’t realize I had loosened my hold on the line, it wasn’t intentional, I was unaware. Then, I was falling backwards. I remember looking up to Perella, her face peering over the ledge, flickering from the light of her torch, calling out in concern. She grew farther away, and then there was more darkness.

Roll: Endure Harm – Miss, complication

I guess I hit the ground hard. When I awoke, Perella kneeled over me, a worried smile. After my fall, she had balanced her torch over the ledge for light and descended. I was banged up but once I got my breath, I was able to move my limbs with no breaks. The back of my head hurt, there would be a lump. My ankle was aggravated again. It was painful to close my elbow. My clothes were torn from rolling down rocks. My belt and scabbard were still there but my pack was gone. I limped to my torch and lifted it for light. The pile of rubble we stood atop was resting on a cliff ledge, jutting out over a large sea cavern, the dark water far below. I didn’t find my pack, the straps must have torn in the fall and gone over the edge. It was the sea’s now. Better it than I, I guess.

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Strong Hit, opportunity (snake eyes); Find an Opportunity – secure area; Heal – Strong Hit, opportunity

Perella forced me to sit and began tending my numerous scrapes and soon-to-be bruises as we took in our surroundings. The ledge continued along the cliff wall into the shadows. Hopefully a path to somewhere. We were both tattered, me more-so, and between us, we had only one torch and whatever supplies still remained in Perella’s pack. Things seemed dire but at least we had a moment to collect ourselves.

Perella retrieved a folded cloth from her pack, unwrapping it to reveal a twisting dried root the length of my hand. She broke off a portion half the size of my pinky and offered it to me.

“Here. Chew on this until it breaks down and can no longer be chewed. Then swallow it. It will help the pain.”

“What is it?” She was an herbalist too? More secrets, revealed in moments of need.

“It is Kelpa root, it doesn’t grow this far south. It will hide the pain for a time and slow your injuries from worsening, it will not heal you though.”

I accepted the root and chewed. It was stringy, almost like soft wood. Chewy strands. I had expected it to be bitter, it wasn’t though. It was warm. Earthy and warm, not quite burning. First it warmed my tongue, then, as I swallowed, my throat, then my stomach, and then gradually radiated through my body until it reached my fingers and toes. The heat indeed hid the pain, it was not numbing though, I was still aware of my wounds, they just hurt less. I was less fatigued as well. I quite liked the feeling.

In the end, we set off to explore the rest of the ledge because of the splashing below. When it had begun we were unsure, but the longer it continued, the more it became clear that there was a creature of some sort down there, something moving. Too erratic and arrhythmic to be the sea. It was too far down for the torch to illuminate, just shadows and the occasional flame reflecting off water. It sounded big though and the ledge felt much less secure and restful than it had a few minutes prior, so Perella repacked her rucksack and we pushed on.

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Strong Hit; Find an Opportunity – terrain favors you, find a hidden path; Locate Your Objective – Strong Hit, +1 to next move

The ledge skirted the edge of the sea cave, growing wider and then narrower again, but remaining stable. The splashing seemed to follow us, matching our movements in the water below. An alarming observation. As my concerns deepened that the ledge led to nowhere but the other side of the sea cave, forcing us to either climb back the way we came to face the darkness or investigate the waters below, I saw it.

Rubble piled by the ledge’s wall. Moving closer, there was an opening, a cave. It led to another passage. Holding my torch to the entrance, I saw the reflection of polished rock flash from the other side. It was not a natural collapse, the pieces of rubble had sharp and broken edges, as if they had been struck, hastily excavated.

“Was this from a pick or from some new horror?”, Perella chuckled, examining the scratch and strike marks on the walls of the crude passage. Gallows humor for grave circumstances.

“I guess we’ll find out.”, I grinned back as I stepped into the passage. It led to another polished tunnel, similar to the one I had recently fallen from. Inside the tunnel, just to the right of the passage was another ceiling collapse. Had someone decided it was easier to break down the wall to find an alternate route than to clear the collapse? To the left was light! A dull glimmer from around a bend in the tunnel but definitely light.

As we left the sea cave and the splashing behind and set off towards the light, a dull rhythmic banging arose in the distance, ahead of us. We looked to each other, shrugged, and pressed on. The reflections off the polished walls grew brighter, curving to the right until we found their source. Daylight! Bright sun reflecting off of metal. It was too much at first and we had to look away until our eyes adjusted. I kept the torch lit though, I did not trust the light nor the darkness in this place.

Adapted to the new brightness, we turned to face it again. In front of us was the Beacon, unmistakably. The tunnel opened into a wide circular chamber. In the center were large holes in the floor and ceiling, and through the holes, rose the Pillar. Our path had taken us back to the pit, just deeper in the island, below where we had first entered. A large carved and symmetrical circular chamber intersected by a lower segment of the pit and Beacon.

We used our arms to shield our eyes from the glare of the Pillar, but the light reflecting off of the chamber’s polished walls was barely less blinding. I could only just make out the shadows of another tunnel entrance on the far side of the room, opposite the one we had just left.

The distant banging seemed to emanate from the pit. We edged closer to look. Below was now brightly illuminated, the bottom of the pit opening into a large cavern, the sea brilliantly reflecting beneath. Above was even more blinding. The clouds must have burned off and the mid-day sun was shining directly down the shaft, dashing against and mirroring along the Beacon. I had never before witnessed such luminance.

The ascending pit was interspersed with cave mouths, many many more than we had been able to make out from the surface that clouded morning. The glare made it impossible to see the top of the pit, having to stare directly into the sun to do so. The rhythmic banging continued, echoing up and down the shaft. It could have been coming from any of the caverns.

Then we heard yelling above, “Are you still up there!?” And then yelling in response, too far away and reverberated to decipher. Craning our necks to look upward, we saw them. Mira and Kaivana were leaning out of a large cave mouth far above us, maybe halfway back to the surface, and shouting at our comrades up top.

“Mira!”, both Perella and I yelled.

Mira, startled, looked down and whooped in joy. “Blessed, you made it!”

“And you!”, Perella’s smile was beaming in the sun.

“Hold there! We’ll get a rope down here and then figure out how to get you out!”

“What are you banging on?”, I yelled.

Mira looked down in confusion for a moment and then yelled up, “What are you banging on?”

A response from the surface, indecipherable. Mira looked back down, a little less joyful. “That’s not us. Stay alert!”

We were definitely alert. Perella and I looked to each other, our hands already resting on our weapons. She pulled and deftly twirled her hatchet before returning it to her belt, flashing a reassuring smile as she did so. We’d already been through enough that, so long as we remained in that place, we were incapable of letting our guard down. 

So, since the chamber was too bright to further investigate or do much else, we waited. Shielded our eyes and waited, not wanting to stray out of sight from our comrades.

Then it went dark.  Well, not dark. just much darker, no longer blinding. The sun had continued along its path and was no longer directly over the pit, it’s light no longer piercing deep enough to illuminate our chamber or the sea below. As our eyes again adjusted, we saw it. The band of carvings, flowing and intersecting runes circling the Beacon. Only where the Pillar intersected the chamber, from floor to ceiling height but no higher or lower. The sun’s reflection had masked them before. I leaned forward over the ledge to study them. They were alien, I had never seen such runes, those I knew were harder, more straight, separate.

“Do you know these?”, I looked to Perella. She knew many things.

“Nay, never seen…”, she trailed off, wide-eyed and thoughtful.

“Mira! There’s something down here. Carvings!”

“What are they?” Before I could reply, we were interrupted by yelling from up top. Mira leaned further and craned her head up, “Aye. Good?” It seemed she was currently occupied with the rope situation so I turned back to the room.

“Do you hear that? The banging stopped.” Perella, still staring wide-eyed at the carvings.

It had indeed stopped. Concerning?

Then I noticed the pack on the far side of the room, near the other tunnel entrance. It was in plain sight but, like the carvings, had been shrouded by the reflecting sun. I slowly approached it. The bag was carefully placed upright as if someone had set it down to unpack something. Clothing, more like torn strips of fabric (but that was definitely the sole of a boot), was scattered nearby.  I moved the torch closer to examine.

“Wait!”, Perella warned. I froze, and then I recognized it, the brief flash of torchlight on quartz. On the far side of the chamber to the left of the tunnel entrance lurked a mass. It was hugging the stone where the wall met the ceiling, tendrils outstretched and taught to pull it flat. It was more translucent than before, why I hadn’t noticed it. I could now clearly make out the stone and quartz shards under its skin, suspended and undulating, breaching the surface and then diving again. This mass was much smaller than the one we’d faced prior though. Maybe it was one of the two surviving halves from before. Or maybe it was a different, younger?, mass. I wasn’t fond of either possibility.

I lifted the blade in anticipation but the mass didn’t budge. Just continued to hug the wall. It felt as though it was watching us but it had no eyes to be seen, so I don’t actually know for sure. After a time, I cautiously stepped closer. Still no movement. I risked a look down at the pack and clothing. The clothes were shredded, torn. No, they were ground to rags. A dark stain covered the floor where they were scattered. I looked back up, still no movement. So I darted my sword arm out, grabbed the pack while still gripping the hilt, and leapt backwards, quickly retreating back across the chamber to Perella. Still no movement.

Eyes and torch still on the mass, I set the rucksack down by Perella. She quickly unpacked its contents, listing them as she did so.

“Waterskin, fur, bags, herbs?, a book!”

I heard her quickly thumbing through pages and shifted the torch to provide light.

“It’s maps! And a journal? And drawings! And the carvings!!!”

At that, I risked a glance. The open pages indeed contained sketches of the carvings on the Beacon, from different angles to capture them all.

I looked back up, no movement.

Then screaming from the pit. I inched towards it, still watching the mass. It sounded like struggle…or battle. I could hear Perella rushedly shoving the contents back into the pack. My right foot reached the ledge and I took my eye off the mass for a moment to look up.

I was briefly blinded, the sun had not yet travelled far enough that it wasn’t still reaching and reflecting off of the caverns and Pillar above us. My eyes refocused on the cave mouth. Mira and Kaivana were no longer there, only the echoes and cries of conflict. Then another scream and a body hurled out from the cave, slamming against Beacon with a wet thud. Followed by a hollow ring, almost as if a bell had been struck. The body lingered against the Pillar for a moment and then ungracefully fell, tumbling down and past me into the dark and sea below. As the corpse plunged through the chamber, almost close enough to touch, I recognized the auburn hair. It was Kaivana. 

The sounds of struggle continued.

I glanced back, the mass hadn’t moved, then to Perella. She looked at me in horror, “We need to help Mira!”

Mark Progress: Expedition Vow – Discover carvings and journal

Roll: Swear an Iron Vow, Save Mira, troublesome – Weak Hit

I tried to reassure her, solemnly lifting the blade to my face. “We will save her! But first we need to find a way up there.”  Perella gave a determined smile, reclaimed her confidence, and nodded towards the tunnel entrance we had yet to explore. I returned the smile and offered the torch to her. She took it, trading it for the repacked rucksack we had found (her already carrying one and me having lost mine). I shouldered the pack and we set off, safely circumventing the unmoving mass. Perella leading, both hoping that luck was with us and this new tunnel connected to the cavern above.

Roll: Face Danger, Wits – Weak Hit, delay

We moved swiftly, the tunnel seemed to climb, a good sign, lazily but steadily bending to the right. We increased our pace as it began to level off and then we reached the branch. The polished tunnel continued on but a large scattered pile of rubble revealed a crudely excavated passage through the wall to our right. It was the same as the one we had found in the sea cavern, broken stones and scratch marks. 

Roll: Gather Information – Weak Hit

Mark Progress: Rescue Vow – Find path to Mira

“Which way, left or right?”

Perella thought for a moment and then her eyes widened. “We’ve been travelling away from the pit while veering right, right?” I nodded. “Then we need to go further right still to get back to the pit. We go right!” Without pause, she stepped into the rough passage.

It took me a moment to connect the threads but she was right. She was so sharp, almost like she had naturally just known where we were on a map.

Then my own chilling realization. “What if this was the banging we heard? If this way leads to Mira, what if whatever was attacking them came from this way? What if it tore through this wall to get to them?”

“Shit. It would have to have been so strong to do so.” Both of us wondered to ourselves how large of a creature could squeeze or crawl through a passage this size, a passage wide and tall enough that we only needed to bow our heads to enter. Yet we continued. 

The passage led to a wide cave, uncarved or polished, running almost parallel to the tunnel we had just left. Meaning if we followed the path to the right, it would likely lead us near to where we had started, just closer to the surface. We did so and had not traveled far when we heard a resounding bang from ahead of us. Perella looked back. Her eyes were resolute. She gave a brash smirk. I found my resolve. We continued.

Roll: Secure an Advantage, Edge – Miss

Almost at a sprint, the cave abruptly widened into a cavern, an exit to the pit and Beacon on the far side. We skidded to a stop, equally abruptly, at the sight of the beast, the bones. A skeletal giant on all fours, it’s back to us, unmoving. Maybe not a giant, I had seen paintings of them, they looked like us. This looked as if a giant was stretched and pulled. The limbs were too long, the arching spine and ribs were extended.

Then we saw Mira hugging the right wall, her back to the stone, also unmoving. She looked at us in surprise and fear. Hugging the opposite wall was the fifth sailor that had entered the pit, the one I had not known the name of (after this, I learned he was Mohkel), also unmoving. All silent.

The only sound was that of our boots scraping stones as we slid to a halt. And then, the skeletal giant moved. Faster than something that size should have been able to, it spun around, sweeping its massive clawed hand, barely missing us. Swinging past our faces and colliding against the cavern wall to our left, showering us in pebbles

Mark Progress: Rescue Vow – Find Mira

Roll: Endure stress – Weak Hit; Enter the Fray, Elder Bonewalker, Wits, ambush – Strong Hit

Roll: Strike – Miss => Burn Momentum – Strong hit, Swordmaster, +1 next move

I was awestruck, its arm was as long as I was tall. I hesitated. The creature crawled forward. Its clawed hand left the rubble and began to sweep back, this time it would cleave us…Perella first! I lunged past her to intercept, lifting the blade high with both hands. As the hand and arm accelerated towards us, I swung down and roared, the blade slammed into its elbow. It didn’t sever it or pass through the gaps in the bone though. The joint stopped the blade like an anvil halting hammer, but the force passed through to the forearm and hand and fingers. They loosened, they disconnected, falling with a heavy rattle and limply dragging across the rocky ground as if connected by long strings. The blade gave another disappointed sigh.

“It can’t see!” warned Mira.

The skeleton swung its skull back toward the sound. Realizing why they had been hugging the wall in silence in the first place, I froze. I watched the horror. It froze.  I was afraid to look behind me, to Perella, afraid that the rustle of my hair or clothes might be loud enough to draw its claws. I could tell she was holding her breath (I guess I had grown so familiar with the sound that it’s absence was noticeable). 

Silence except for the dragging and rattling. I glanced down to see the bones of the forearm and hand gradually pulling across the floor and back into place at the elbow, like something was shortening the strings. Damage was not permanent, this was unwelcome news. I needed to figure out a way to actually stop it.

Roll: Secure an Advantage, Wits – Strong Hit

I continued to watch. It did not move. The whole cavern was still and silent but for the dragging and scraping of reassembling bones. I could find no obvious weakness. It just looked like a giant skeleton, an inhuman stretched skeleton. But beyond the unnerving familiar unfamiliarity, nothing stood out as distinctly vulnerable. The spine stretched and arched more, I thought I could maybe see wider gaps between the vertebrae than the other joints. Perhaps the invisible threads would be weaker there. I wasn’t confident but I had a fleeting advantage, it was momentarily weakened and unaware of my position. I needed to act before it recovered.

Roll: Strike – Strong Hit, opportunity

So I twisted and leapt, swinging the blade back overhead and slamming it down into the middle of the spine, just below the ribs. It turned out to be a wise move (maybe Perella’s quick thinking had been rubbing off on me). The blade smashed into vertebrae as if it were stone, shock recoiling through my arms. But the force also traveled up and down the spine, knocking loose the ribs and shoulders, as well as the hips. It fell to the ground in a rattling clatter. The limbs futilely bending and rolling among the scattered limp hips, and vertebrae, and ribs, and shoulders, and skull. The jaw slowly opened and half closed.

“Quickly!”, ordered Mira. “Before it reassembles, we must climb!”

Mohkel, the good sailor, responded first. He rushed to the ledge and looked out to the side, then up, screaming. “It needs to be moved closer, I can’t reach it! Hurry!”

Excited responses from up top and then Mohkel, gripping the cave mouth with one hand, leaned out of the entrance, extending his other hand out of sight, and returned holding a rope. It must have been lowered while Perella and I had raced through the tunnels.

“It’s fixing itself!”, I warned as I stood over the dragging and pulling vertebrae and raised the blade.

Roll: End the Fight – Strong Hit; Escape the Depths, Iron – Strong Hit

Mark Progress: Rescue Vow – Defeat Elder Bonewalker

Mira ran to Mohkel and, grabbing the rope from him to steady it, ordered, “Climb!”

He climbed. The good sailor, he climbed quickly.. Then she ushered Perella over.

The vertebrae I had struck had reconnected with its neighbors, reconstructing from the point of break and pulling outward.

Mira, still steadying the rope, ordered, “Climb!”

Perella shook her head and took the rope. “No, you!”

Mira glared but, realizing we could not afford the time to argue, began climbing.

The spine had reassembled and now the shoulders and ribs and hips and neck were pulling back into place. Once finished, the limbs would be supported again and it would be able to strike.

“Hob! Now!”, Perella screamed. I looked to her, looked back down at the relocating shoulders and hips, and swung the blade down again, roaring, all of my strength, all of the Kelpa root’s remaining warmth. The spine shattered again and I ran, sheathing the blade as I did so.

By the time I reached the rope, I was facing Perella’s legs. She had leaped and began climbing the moment I swung the blade. I steadied the rope until she had passed above the cavern mouth and was able to steady her legs on one of the pit’s jutting stones. To Gods that the pit had footholds, not perfectly polished and smooth like the tunnel walls or the Beacon were. 

To Gods that Kelpa root was a thing. My hands were raw but they did not pain me. I could make this climb. I leapt and began inching myself up with my legs. I glanced at the bones. The spine was reassembled and arching. I climbed faster.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Miss (this was for dramatic purposes since had already rolled a strong hit to end the fight and escape the depths but that seemed too easy. Still, I wasn’t going have myself fall because I had already rolled that I would escape, so I just took full damage instead); Endure Harm – Weak Hit

I reached the ceiling of the mouth and planted my foot against the same stone Perella had used, the rope swung. I looked up, they were all above me, still climbing. Four people on the same rope explained why it was swaying so much near the bottom. I hoped the line could hold our weight. I pulled on the rope and pushed off of the jutting stone, finding a small ledge for my other foot. I looked up again, attempting to follow Perella’s path.

Then a crashing below me and a large long arm swung out and up from the cavern mouth. I kicked off, swinging with the rope, away and to the side. I could almost touch the Beacon for a moment. I did not do so. I heard a startled yelp from above as my momentum pulled Perella into the swing as well. The hand smashed into the wall I had just pushed off, spraying me with dust and shards of rock. The impact spun me off balance and I slammed back into the wall, shoulder first, almost losing my wind and my grip. But I held. To Gods for Kelpa!

Bracing my feet I looked up. Perella was staring down at me in fear and anger but had also kept ahold.

“Climb!”, I yelled.

She climbed.

Another impact, just below me. The giant skeletal skull and arms were leaning out of the cavern, furiously smashing the pit wall and straining to reach the desperate sounds of my boot scraping stone. I continued climbing. Eventually the arms stopped flailing, The skeletal giant froze. Leaning out of the cavern, skull almost touching the Beacon, silent and still except for the slowly opening and half closing jaw.

And so we ascended. My hands kept their strength. The swaying lessened and the climb eased when Mohkel reached the top. Then lessened again when Mira climbed out of the pit. And then the swaying ceased altogether as Perella was pulled out. My body had reached its limits though. I was forced to loop the rope around my body and arms and be hauled up the final stretches. And then, I was out of the pit. We were out. All but Kaivana, left in the sea beneath the island, abandoned and irretrievable.

Laying on my back, panting and spent, surrounded by activity. Mira talking excitedly, the crew atop asking questions, others hurriedly pulling up the rope. I continued to lie for a bit. I turned my head to see Perella doing the same. This time, I smiled first. And then she smiled in return, eyes tired and emotional. And that is my one positive memory of the Desolate Beacon.

After that, we soon left. The skeleton still had not moved. Was still leaning out of the cavern, staring up, it’s jaw opening and half closing. We didn’t know if it could climb, if there was another exit from the tunnel network besides the pit. It was no longer safe there.

The story of the carvings and the sketches and journal appeared to satisfy Mira’s search. It would have to. I don’t think a soul aboard the Swan was willing to risk those caves again just to explore. We returned to the camp, moved the ship back into the cove, and boarded. I drifted to sleep almost immediately, the waning heat of the Kelpa root giving way to exhaustion. I would likely hurt later, my body felt battered and shattered, but that was for later. First I had to sleep.

Mark Progress: Rescue Vow – Mira escapes bonewalker; Expedition Vow – Escape the Beacon

Roll: Heal – Strong Hit

When I woke, the sun was lower in the sky. The sail was down and the Swan lazily bobbed with each wave. I was curled up on a bench, my head resting on Perella’s lap. She was half slumped over to her side, having nodded off while sitting upright. The ship had stopped and we were fishing. The Desolate Beacon and its island were still visible behind us. Far away but still an unpleasant sight. 

It was nearing evening and the crew, having spent the last night packed tightly aboard the ship, had been excited for the chance to sleep on dry land with fire and a cooked meal, before our hurried return from the pit and our flight from the isle had dashed those hopes. So Mira had ordered the nets cast, some fresh catch. Then we would shore at the small island to our north, one we had sailed past the day prior, just large enough to scrounge some fuel for a fire and shelter from the winds.

Roll: Resupply – Miss, complication, raiders have seen us, they are not striking and so far unnoticed

Roll: Fulfill Your Vow, Save Mira – Weak Hit (I couldn’t think of a good vow to make this right and honestly don’t like that a weak hit on completing a troublesome vow with ten progress means zero XP. So I held that XP and added +1 xp to the larger formidable expedition quest if/when it was fulfilled)

While waiting to retrieve the nets, words were committed for Kaivana, though her body already resided in the sea. I again participated and witnessed. Kaivana and I had never truly spoken but one time we had shared a laugh at one of Perella’s incredible boasts, a cocksure smirk while confidently declaring she had hunted and slain a cave lion during her youth. I’d only heard stories. I guess Kaivana probably had never seen a cave lion either, they were never seen this far south. They sounded terrifying and not the type of beast one hunted, not alone at least. The more we giggled, the more passionate and earnest Perella’s assertions had become, until she could mask her amusement no longer and had joined in the laughter. 

I had been the one to watch Kaivana die. I had only just escaped the giant that had taken her and so understood the courage she must have had to face that foe. Many others spoke and witnessed and heard. She had been someone worth knowing. I honored the loss and, gripping the blade’s scabbarded hilt, silently vowed to myself that her sacrifice would not be in vain and Mira would return to their faith with the knowledge they sought. I was pretty sure I was not a Sustainer, still wasn’t really sure what Sustainers even believed, but I did respect Kaivana’s conviction and her choice to volunteer for the expedition and the descent into the caves. I would not devalue that choice.

Roll: Forge a Bond, The Piercing Swan, Storyweaver – Strong Hit, opportunity

After the committal, there were questions. Mira, with Mohkel’s occasional assistance, told of the gloom. In addition to the darkness, Mira had had the sound stolen from her as well. She could neither hear her own voice nor footfalls. Mohkel gave few details of what had happened to him in the shadows. A swift glare across the crew from Mira made it clear that this was fine and no one would be badgering him to speak on it further. They had escaped the gloom and found each other, Kaivana as well, in another cavern, still rocky and unpolished, unlike the one Perella and I had ended up in. There must have been a fork or passage in the darkness that had split us. The three of them followed the cavern back to the pit, where we had found them. The banging had started before they reached it. It had been so deafening and reverberating that they had thought it came from the pit itself, or those above. Then the stretched giant had attacked and Kaivana’s sacrifice was made, and they had no option but to try and wait it out, try and stay silent. Until Perella and I arrived. I blushed as Mira spoke of my scattering of the creature and harrowing escape.

The crew looked at me differently after that, more so than after Perella and I had slain the brood mother. This time we had also saved Mira, their captain. They asked questions of us, they wanted to know about our time in the darkness, the mass, the carvings, and the final moments in the cavern and desperate climb. I continued to blush but attempted to respond. Perella, seeing me redden, tried to buffer me and answered as many questions as she could. She looked exhausted though. I hadn’t noticed until that moment. She was cradling her shoulder (probably without even knowing she was doing so) and realized later that she had managed to strain both her strong shoulder and her knee during the trials we’d faced below the plateau.

Roll: Resupply – Miss, uh oh; Resupply – Weak Hit (I did additional resupply rolls because it narratively wouldn’t make sense for my supply, which was down to 1 after losing my pack, to extrapolate to the entire crew and rations and water that we had just filled the day prior in Brokefall. Supply would likely have ran out on the first undertake a journey roll so I made additional rolls and compounded the repercussions of the misses.)

Clouds had begun to roll back in, announcing themselves low in the sky as one passed in front of the setting sun. It grew a little chillier. It was getting late, time to pull the nets, reach the small island to our north, and build camp before we lost the light. 

It was as the nets were retrieved that the sail was spotted, a longship coming around the western cliffs of the same northern island we were planning to shore on. It was still at a distance but close enough that the sighting startled us, the island having been between us and the ship during most of its approach. The sail was plain cloth, undyed, odd for a ship that large but it could have been a replacement sail or maybe just the sign of a thrifty captain. More concerning was the fact that the longship was even out there. There were no circles that far out that anyone knew of. No reason for traders or fishers to venture to the far edge of the Barrier, almost to the open sea. So we retrieved the nets with more urgency, just in case we needed to move. 

It was after the nets had been pulled aboard and were being examined and stowed that the cloud cleared from the sun and the bright fading light revealed that the sail was not an undyed off-white at all, but more of a faded yellow. Mira and I, the two who had heard Nazmi’s story in Brokefall, of the raiders who “struck swiftly” in “a large ship” with “yellow sail”, exchanged concerned glances.

“Stow it and raise the sail!” Mira ordered. The crew of the Piercing Swan exploded into action.

And so we ran, the findings of the expedition too valuable to risk waiting for the ship to approach close enough to ascertain whether friend or foe.

Looking back, this was the session where the campaign finally started to catch its stride a bit. When characters began to stick around, relationships started to matter, and the world began to grow beyond the limits of Hob’s vision. When the currents began to grow stronger. Currents that, if Hob wasn’t careful, might wind up carrying her to shores she may not wish to visit.

How we got here…Hob, a brave yet untested young woman, left Sota’s Gate to seek answers about the blood-stained blade. In Stoneharbor, she assisted Elstan of Whitbarrow in avenging his kin and crew after they had been ambushed by a group of raiders led by a mystic who could bend both the tides and winds to his will. Following this, Hob joined up with Mira and the crew of the Piercing Swan, a group of Sustainers (Iron Priests) on a divine expedition to the Desolate Beacon before ultimately making their way home to Autumnrush, a large port that Hob hoped might contain the answers she sought. Near Brokefall, an harbor under siege by both raiders and the encroaching wilds, Hob and the Sustainers faced a harrow brood, slaying their brood mother and destroying the nest. During the delve, Hob developed a bit of a crush on Perella, a brash and confident Sustainer, and upon their return to Brokefall, she got to hold her hand.

---

“So, you worship the Pillars then?”

“No, no.” Perella patiently explained, gazing at the sun reflecting off the gray cliffs of the unnamed island in the distance. “The Pillars are places of power but they are no gods.”

“So then, do you worship the old gods or the new?”

“Neither. The old gods are dead, abandoned on the shores of the Old World to be trampled and forgotten by the Skulde’s. The new gods are not yet known…or knowable.”

“Then who do you worship?”

“Worship? None. But we do pray. We embrace the Ironlands and pray that, in doing so, she embraces us in return…lest we share the same fate as those that came before. Our arrival changed everything, not just for us but for these lands as well. Even the gods of the Firstborn shift, perishing and birthing. It is a new age, and one that is yet too young to know who will rise and who will reign.”

I was still struggling to wrap my mind around the Sustainers. I had been raised with the Old Gods, as were most along the Barrier Islands and Ragged Coast. We were nourished on tales of Morien, Pella, and Kendi Te’s paired rings, and so we retained the faiths of the first-landed, those that had founded our circles. Beyond the Old Gods, I had been told of the New Gods of the Havens. I had even heard stories about the strange gods of Iron, of the Iron Priests that worshipped the Pillars. But learning that the Iron Priests were not a unified faith, but a catch-all name for dozens of diverse and rival factions that had radically departed from the traditional faiths of the Old World, was difficult to grasp. I still didn’t truly get it, but sharing a bench with Perella and watching the sun and waves was pleasant. I didn’t want to spoil it with more confused questions, so I switched topics.

“So what exactly are we seeking? What waits for us at the Beacon?”

“I’m not sure, I don’t know if Mira even knows exactly. Something of power though. The Beacon is one of the two known Pillars in the isles. Whatever it is we seek was not at Wyvern’s Rest, so it must be at the Beacon. We shall learn soon enough.”

I knew of Wyvern’s Rest, a Pillar at the northernmost tip of the Barrier. But it didn’t really answer my questions about what we sought or why me, “an extra blade”, was anticipated to be of use. I restrained myself from further inquiries though and watched the cliffs, smiling.

Roll: Undertake a Journey – Strong Hit

We had left Brokefall’s harbor at first light and, after pausing once we were far enough from shore to say words and commit Eos and Namba to the sea, we had made good time towards the Barrier. Though I had not known the two sailors who fell to the harrow brood, I participated in and witnessed the words to honor their loss. 

The Ragged Coast was still visible but Brokefall’s harbor had long since passed from sight. I fidgeted with my new shield, a gift from lucky Gethin before we sailed, and reflected on the morning. The shield seemed sturdy, though plain. I turned it over, the band felt secure. I had not brought a shield with me when I left the Gate. Bastien had even offered his spare, the one he  used to lend me for sparring, but I had declined, I didn’t think I would need it. I’d regretted that choice since that first day I left, the ambush at Stoneharbor, having to meet archers head on with no board to protect me. So I was grateful for the gift. Gethin told good stories and gave good gifts and I was glad that we had found the carpenter in the infested vale. Glad we had been able to return him home. Satisfied with my inspection, I returned the shield to its rack and turned back to Perella.

Advance: Purchase Asset – Shield-Bearer (+1 Face Danger and +1M on Clash SH)

Since we had taken back to the sea, I had learned some of her secrets. She hailed from Three Rivers, a circle in the Hinterlands, the forested hilly frontiers to the north of the Havens. She had left to the south because of some troubles, I yet knew not what, and eventually made it to Autumnrush before volunteering for the expedition. She was a faithful Sustainer, though I was still hazy on what that meant, and she didn’t like eggs.

In return, I told her of Sota’s Gate, the lighthouse and fort, Uncle Temir and Cousin Bastien. I explained I had left for Autumnrush in search of answers. But before I could tell her of the blade, and how I found it, and what it demanded of me, things I wasn’t sure how to best word without sounding silly, we had been interrupted by a surfacing whale. A rolling and auspicious sign that distracted us from the topic long enough that it faded and was replaced with new conversation. The subject would eventually resurface though. Her curious glances towards the blade meant that she would someday put voice to questions, and I would need to find words for answers.

Roll: Undertake a Journey – Weak Hit; Reach Your Destination – Strong Hit, +1 to next move

Mark Progress: Expedition Vow – Reach the Desolate Beacon

By mid-day we reached the isles. By evening we caught sight of the Beacon, a massive column in the far distance, so tall that it towered above the closer islands, it’s dull gray metal occasionally blinding us with the sun’s reflection. I had never seen one of the Pillars before, I stared until the reflecting light became too much. 

By dusk we’d passed the inner Barrier and could see the island itself, a tall plateau surrounded by white cliffs. The last isle before the wide sea, not navigated since our ancestors had fled here from the Old World. The Beacon rose from the plateau above, an enigmatic lantern to guide the stragglers or maybe a warding tower to repel any threats that attempted to follow? We would need to find a way to climb those cliffs to reach it. As the clouds returned and swallowed what remained of the setting sun, we steered for a small rocky cove, nestled below the cliffs.

Night had fallen by the time we reached the cove. There was a consensus that it was too dangerous to attempt to shore and set up camp under the moonless sky. I’m not sure how much the air of electricity influenced this decision, the hairs standing on end the closer we got to the island. So we laid anchor in the cove, unpacked the furs and blankets, and tried to sleep. I drifted off, my head resting on Perella’s shoulder. She was warm, things felt less dark, the electricity became soothing. It was nice.

Roll: Make a Camp – Strong Hit; Gather Information – Weak Hit

At dawn, the shadows left. The clouds remained, dark and heavy, but the cove and cliffs had become visible. We could now see that the arms of the cove converged to a rocky beach, large enough to safely shore the Swan. The skeletal hull of a ravaged fishing boat already lay on the beach, ancient and consumed by nature. Behind the beach, the cliff face indented and softened, creating a less steep path that might possibly be hiked to reach the plateau above. We also discovered the wildlife, shroud crabs.

A shroud could be seen scuttling across the rocks on the far horn of the cove. And if there was one, there would be more, hiding amongst the rocks, in wait for unsuspecting or careless prey. But, unlike the harrows, shroud crabs were a danger sailors knew. They knew how to spot them, what steps to take to mitigate risks, and, if needed, how to fend them off. The crew quickly began to devise plans to shore the ship and ensure a safe parameter by moving out from the landing in a circle while probing any suspicious rocks with spears.

Roll: Face Danger, Wits – Strong Hit

So we oared to the beach and they enacted those plans, professionally and efficiently. Soon the Swan was shored and a large enough section of the beach had been combed to allow the full crew to deboard and begin establishing a light camp. The remains of the fishing boat were searched, now just rotten wood.

As supplies were unloaded and the camp established, Mira asked for volunteers to scout the possible path up the cliff. Perella and I were first to volunteer. The path was hikeable for the most part, only requiring a light climb in a few spots. Enough of a climb that the expedition would be limited to whatever gear we could carry in our belts or packs but at least the way seemed clear of shrouds.

The top of the path revealed a massive plateau, uniformly flat. No hills or slopes. Just flat. Unnaturally flat. It felt as if we were on the top of the world. On the far side of the plateau rose the Beacon. Staring up at it from hard ground, I appreciated just how tall the Pillar was…and just how smooth, obvious from the distance even with the dark clouds blocking the sun’s reflecting light.

We signaled back down to the camp and watched the Pillar in awe while we waited for Mira and two sailors, who I now knew to be Kaivana and Keyshia, to ascend and join us. The crew had shunned me less since I had fought alongside them in the infested vale and began spending time with Perella. They no longer seemed to consider me an outsider and had started to treat me more like a stranger, if that distinction makes any sense. Most still did not speak with me, but at least they had stopped avoiding me and I had been able to start learning some more of their names in the process.

Once they had joined us, we marched across the rocky plateau to the Beacon. It took nearing the Pillar for me to grasp just how wide it was. Wider than me with outstretched arms. Wider than both Perella and I, side by side, with outstretched arms. As we approached, we realized the Beacon was out of reach. It was surrounded by a pit. A moat? A deep circular hole going straight down into the earth with a towering uniform grey metallic column rising from its center, so smooth that it must have been melted and then cooled in that position. Both inhuman and unnatural. 

The Pillars predated the first landings and many said that they must be as old as the Ironlands themselves. But I had never seen a Pillar before, so I had no speculations on its origins or purpose. I just had wonder, fearful wonder.

Standing at the edge of the pit, looking down, we saw only shadows. Maybe by mid-day, if the clouds broke, we could make out what lay below, but the dull overcast morning meant only shadows. Then we noticed the shadows within shadows. There were cave mouths along the wall of the pit, below us and barely visible.

We waited in electric silence while Keyshia returned to the Swan with a list of needed supplies and a request for more volunteers for the delve. Once they had returned, a torch was lit and dropped down the pit to gauge its depth. It fell and fell and fell and then extinguished, possibly having plunged all the way back down to the sea.

Roll: Discover a Site – Desolate Beacon, Dangerous; Delve the Depths – Strong Hit, opportunity – secure

Mark Progress: Expedition Vow – Delve below the Beacon

A rope was secured and we descended to the cavern just below us. Perella went first, gracefully climbing down and pulling herself into the entrance. She called for me to follow and I did so. Unpacking and lighting the torches revealed a large rocky cavern. Its floor, easy to walk and free from boulders or debris. Its walls, though not perfectly flat and smooth like the Beacon, seemed almost carved, gentle grooves and soft edges descending downward, gradually narrowing as they did so.

Mira descended next. Then Kaivana. Then a sailor I didn’t yet know since he benched to the rear of the Swan, opposite Perella and I. We gathered ourselves and pressed on. I could tell Mira was excited, there was an energy about her, almost a smile. She clearly wanted to lead but acknowledged that Perella’s keen eyes and keen hearing should take the front. I followed Perella and Mira stepped in behind me.

Roll: Delve the Depths – Weak Hit; Reveal a Danger – Denizen Lair, Gloom

Roll: Anomaly Challenge; Face Danger, Wits – Weak Hit

As the cavern walls closed in and narrowed, the torchlight grew. And so did the shadows. We pushed onward, alert and ready. The torches dimmed as we descended further from the mouth and the pit. The path constricted tighter, though not so much that we needed to twist or duck to proceed. We continued. The walls cramped. The cavern grew darker. 

Then, in a moment of panicked clarity, I wondered why it was growing darker. The air still felt clear, it had not become stagnant or stale. The flames were just as large as before, just less bright. There was no reason for the growing darkness. If anything, the closer walls should have reflected even more light. I could hardly see Perella and her torch, now just a soft hazy glow ahead of me. My own torch just barely reached the walls and floor directly around and below me, creating more shadows than light. It was getting darker, the gloom was taking us. I tried to call out to the others, but my voice caught in my throat. This was unnatural, what if the light fully extinguished?

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Weak Hit; Endure Stress – Strong Hit

Maybe they hadn’t noticed, I needed to warn them, I swallowed and forced the words out.

“The shadows, they’re growing! We need to go back!”

No response, I could no longer see Perella in front of me, just the waning cold light of my own torch. I looked behind, I couldn’t see Mira either, just shadows.

“Perella?”, I weakly called.

No response.

I was cold, I could no longer feel the warmth of the flame kissing my arm. The torch was now just a blurry vague glow, too weak to even illuminate the hand that held it.

I would be in the dark soon, fully consumed by the shadows. In the dark and alone.

I forced those thoughts aside. “Perella?”, this time louder.

Still no response.

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Strong Hit

And then the darkness took me.

“Perella!?”, this time a yell that echoed forward and behind me.

The reflections faded to silence. I was alone.

And then, ahead of me, the rumble of shifting and tumbling rocks and a prolonged reverberating scream. A cave in? No, a fall!?

“Perella!” I rushed forward, pushing my torch in front of me as if it could still light the way.

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Miss, complication; Endure Harm – Strong Hit

And then I tripped. On what, I do not know. I toppled forward, the weight of my pack and the shield fastened to it pushing me down, face first, slamming me into the floor. I hit the ground hard and tumbled, the roll stopping with me on my back.

My chest, where the brood mother had kicked me, was roaring. I couldn’t draw a breath. I could only cough, a painful fit of wheezing that took too long to subside.

I caught my breath. My head hurt. My hands were raw. I could see nothing. I could only hear my own labored panting. My pack lay under me, its contents jabbing into my back. I had lost the torch in the fall.

With a weak groan, I rolled to my hands and knees and tried to rise. I could no longer tell which way I faced, having lost direction in the dark tumble.

Then, in the distance, weak sobbing.

I probed forward with my raw hands, slowly crawling towards the sound.

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Strong Hit

“Perella?” I found my voice.

The pained sobbing increased.

Why wasn’t she responding, were her injuries that severe?

I pushed to my feet and slowly raised myself, not trusting my balance. I cautiously extended one foot forward, probing for obstacles before committing my weight. Then the other.

“Perella!”, my voice echoed. I shuffled and dragged forward.

Roll: Face Danger, Wits – Strong Hit

The sobbing became an emotional whimpering cry. I continued, now leaning forward to probe with my hands.

I was almost there, the cries were so close.

“Perella!” I was now sobbing.

The crying grew to a moaning wail. It spread and echoed, reverberated. Consuming all of my senses. A pained keen, from all directions. And then silence. Nothing but my weak sobs and short panicked breaths.

“Perella!” I lunged forward. I found nothing, just rocks and dust and stone. I felt the ground, rapidly dragging my raw hands across it as I moved. I found the cave wall to my right and then continued my probing and examining back to my left until I reached that wall as well.

“Perella?”

Nothing.

I continued my search. I found nothing but rocks.

I feared that the wounds had taken her consciousness and I would pass by her, unnoticed, abandoning her to the shadows. But I could find nothing. No Perella, no person. No large stones or collapse that could have crushed her, no chasm or pit that she could have fallen into. Just stones and walls.

So I clung to the hope that my hearing was just as suspect as my sight. That it wasn’t just the light that was twisted and wrong but that my ears were untrustworthy as well. Eventually, I found the cave wall again with my right hand and pressed on, using it to guide me forward.

Roll: Face Danger, Wits – Miss; Pay the Price – person I care about is exposed to danger; Conclude Challenge – Strong Hit

Roll: Delve the Depths – Weak Hit; Reveal a Danger – denizen reveres ancient power – Nightspawn (Stone Collector)

The darkness remained. The cave descended, the wall became smoother, the ground became less rocky, more dusty, less precarious. 

After I know not how long, the cold began to subside. The light wet breeze remained but the hollow chill seemed to lessen. And then I saw it, a weak warm glow in the distance. I continued. The vague glowing grew. I shuffled faster. The flicker of flame, blurred but unmistakable. I quit using the wall for guidance and broke into a wary jog. The flame grew brighter, and warmer. I could now make out the floor and walls of the cave. No, the tunnel. It had changed. It had widened since my desperate search for the sobbing, the flickering light from the flame was casting blurred reflections along the walls. Walls that were not just carved but polished? 

I could hear struggle. Undefined shadows twisting and straining near the flame. I began to run. Then the light returned fully and the flame came into focus. A torch on the ground, still burning brightly, and over it stood Perella! Perella and something else. A twisting dark mass struggling to restrain her, it’s long arms gripping the walls for balance. No, not arms. Tendrils. A shifting mass, suspended in the tunnel by multiple tendrils that were anchored into the walls and ceiling. Perella was straining against it, its form coiling around her arms and torso, shards and chunks of stone and quartz briefly visible as they surfaced and then dove back beneath the undulating skin. Then teeth formed, a gaping maw of jagged stone, rows of shards, widening above her shoulders.

Roll: Enter the Fray, Heart – Strong Hit; Strike – Weak Hit

“You Will Not!” I uttered. I dropped my bag as the blade shot to my hand. I reached down to unfasten Gethin’s shield from the pack, having previously secured it there for the rope descent to the cavern. It was not there. It must have come unfastened during my fall. It was now lost to the shadows.

I shifted the blade to both hands and leveled it.

“You! Will! Not!” I charged forward, driving the blade over Perella’s shoulders and into the gaping maw. I do not know if I hurt the mass. No ichor sprayed, the blade sighed in disappointment. It did retreat though, retracting the tendrils that had been entwined around Perella back into its pulsing mass. Then, from the rear of the mass, two new tendrils launched back, affixing to the wall further down the tunnel and pulling it away. Perella scrambled back up the tunnel to her torch, behind me, as I stepped forward.

Roll: Clash – Miss => Burn Momentum – Strong Hit, Swordmaster – +2 harm, +1 move

Roll: Strike – Weak Hit

Then the mass retaliated. It launched a tendril forward, over me, to affix to the ceiling behind me and use to pull itself forward, launching towards my head. I did not retreat. The tunnel was wide enough to swing the blade so I brought it up in a wide circle, almost a parry. I did not sever the tendril, I could see sparks as the blade struck one of the undulating stones that had bobbed to the skin’s surface. But the force of the blow knocked the tendril free from the ceiling and, by losing its anchor, the advancing mass was knocked off course.

It came at me low and to the left. I reversed the blade and slashed down hard. The swing was partially deflected by a chunk of undulating quartz, stopping most of the blade’s force before it slid off the side of the stone and shallowly cut into the mass.

I shifted my grip and pushed down with all my strength, sawing at the shallow wound.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Weak Hit; Endure Harm – Weak Hit

The blade cut deeper. I continued to push and saw as I felt a tendril snake around my arm and shoulder. It began to constrict, it was trying to pin my sword arm. Small shards of quartz and stone were tearing into my back and shoulder. My lungs struggled to fill. I continued to push the blade deeper.

Then Perella was beside me, wielding her torch. With a yell, she slammed the torch against one of the tendrils that anchored the mass to the ceiling. As the flame kissed it, a cloud of black steam erupted and the tendril retreated back into the mass. She swung again at another, anchored to the wall. More black steam and it retreated as well. The loss of these two tendrils coupled with the downward force as I pushed my blade deeper into the mass was too much for the remaining anchors. They could no longer suspend the mass, it fell to the ground and the blade with it. I followed to my knees, still pushing and sawing.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Miss; Endure Harm – Weak Hit

Roll: Turn the Tide; Strike – Strong Hit; End the Fight – Strong Hit

Mark Progress: Expedition Vow – Defeat Beacon guardian

The entwining tendril tightened. My ribs were about to snap. I lost my strong hand’s grip on the blade as my sword arm was pinned to my body. I could no longer draw a breath. My weak hand, still gripping the hilt, feebly continued to try to cut through the mass.

“Hold on!” Perella yelled as she swung her torch, attempting to clear space to strike down on the mass and the base of the tendril that was crushing me.

The side of the mass, to the right of the cutting blade, was shifting. Rows of shards, the gaping maw, expanding towards my pinned arm. 

With a desperate grunt and the last of my breath, I raised my leg from its knee and slammed my boot down onto the top of the blade with all of my remaining strength. Pivoting to push my full weight into it, downward, through the mass.

An eruption of black steam and the blade reached the ground, finally cleaving the mass in half. The tendril that had been crushing my chest fell away and I took a deep breath. A mistake. The black steam was scalding and acrid. It burned my throat and lungs and I doubled over in another coughing fit, isolated from all but the convulsing pain. As the steam cleared and the fit subsided, I came back to the world. Perella was holding me, cradling my head on her knees while I meekly whimpered. Then I cried, weakly clinging to her knees as I sobbed from the pain. My whole body ached, the painful aftereffects of the steam coursing through my limbs, finishing as a dull throbbing in my fingers and toes.

Eventually it passed, I sat up, tired and raw and embarrassed. My blade lay by my knees, among a scattered pile of stone and quartz shards and chunks, all that remained of the shifting mass.

We spoke. Perella knew nothing of the sobbing in the dark. She was uninjured, had taken no fall nor wound. Her experience in the shadows had been different than mine. She had been chased, hounded by loud cold breath and the shattering of stones, missed blows that were meant for her. An unknown attacker, equally blinded by the shadows. She fled from her hunter until eventually the light returned to her torch. It did not pursue her into the light. While she was recovering, the shifting mass, whatever that was, had ambushed her. It must have been flattened against the tunnel ceiling, lying in wait, as it dropped and entangled her out of nowhere. That’s when I had arrived.

Then the unwelcome news, as the steam had cleared, as she found me coughing, she swore she had seen two small shadows pulling and rolling and dragging further down the tunnel and out of the torchlight. It had been wishful thinking to assume that cleaving something without true form would slay it and not just create two.

We waited for the others to leave the shadows behind us. Nobody came. No Mira, no Kaivana, nobody.

“Maybe they were able to turn around and return to the cave mouth?” More wishful thinking on my part.

Roll: Check Your Gear – Strong Hit

I checked my boot, where I had stepped on the blade. The sole was splitting and would likely need to be replaced but it had not cut through to my foot. I checked my pack, its contents were thankfully intact, just Gethin’s shield had been lost. That and my torch. Thankfully I had packed a second (we all had) and a small bottle of oil. Another small blessing. I removed the torch, oil, and my waterskin.

Roll: Heal – Weak Hit

I lit my spare torch and swilled my water, it soothed the burning throat. Then Perella and I took turns cleaning each other’s wounds, shallow slices and scrapes from the shards in the tendrils. As I rinsed my raw hands and tried to remove the small jagged pebbles that had embedded into my palm during the fall, Perella began stacking the stones and shards left by the mass. She lit her spare torch and pushed it down through the center of the pile, the stones securing the base and supporting the torch enough to stand upright.

She forced a hopeful smile in response to my curious looks, “In case they lost their torches as well and just haven’t reached us yet, a beacon from the shadows.”

It had not even needed to be voiced, neither of us was willing to backtrack through the darkness. So we, now just the two of us, collected ourselves and warily pressed on, hopeful to find another exit.

Hob joins up with the Piercing Swan and its crew of Sustainers, Iron Priests on an expedition to the Desolate Beacon.

---

I stood on the prow of the Piercing Swan, the wind in my face, scanning the Ragged Coast to my left and the scattered, small, and mostly unnamed Barrier Islands to my right. I had never sailed this far east and I had never been on such a swift longship. It was smaller than a warship but built for speed. Ships like this never visited the Gate. Mira stood next to me. She was some sort of warrior captain pledged to the Sustainers, one of the many new faiths I was not familiar with. One of those groups of Iron Priests that congregated around the massive ancient pillars that predate the arrivals. Mira was imposing but weary. She had watchful and cautious eyes, good for a captain. Her and her crew were on some sort of holy expedition to “confirm the truths” and “refute blighted falsehoods”. Apparently the mission had taken them to the western isles before returning back east and passing through Stoneharbor for resupply while en route to the Desolate Beacon (ominous, I know). After that, they would ultimately be returning to Autumnrush, so I had requested to join them. They needed an extra blade to protect the crew on their expedition and hadn’t asked me to oar, so it seemed like a fair exchange at the time. 

Roll: Swear an Iron Vow – Strong Hit 

The expedition had a sense of importance around it, so I took the vow, I would protect them until we reached Autumnrush. I didn’t ask for a lot of details, folly of youth, but I’m not sure they would have given me many even had I asked. I was clearly an outsider on the ship. Not mistreated, just ignored and usually avoided. They were all faithful and I did not share their faith, but I did have the blade, and Mira had apparently decided that another sword may be of use. So I kept apart and watched the sea. It was not unpleasant.

Roll: Undertake a Journey – Weak Hit, -1 supply

The wound on my thigh was almost unnoticeable, so long as I kept it wrapped tightly. My ankle, such a minor sprain, felt like it hadn’t healed at all though. So I held tight to the rigging to keep my weight off of it. I’d never been on a ship or boat for this long so my arms and legs quickly tired. But I felt less awkward standing and facing the sea and coast than sitting amongst the crew, better their furtive glances were at my back than to my face.

We had made good speed and I found the voyage exhilarating. The sun was setting as we passed Lowspring, a small isle fishing circle, barely within sight as we hugged the coast. Lowspring marked the furthest I had ever previously traveled from the Gate before this voyage.

Roll: Undertake a Journey – Weak Hit, -1 supply

The moon was bright and the expedition urgent, so we sailed through the night. She was high above the steep cliffs of the coast when we passed Broken Fjord, a cursed place I had heard of but never seen. It looked verdant and deep but the stories say every circle that settled there faced calamity, and now it is avoided by all, even by the most desperate sailors in search of refuge from the sea. I only realized what it was by the uncomfortable hush and overheard whispers of the faithful. After it passed out of sight behind us and the unease faded, I followed many of the crews’ lead, and attempted to sleep.

Roll: Undertake a Journey – Weak Hit, -1 supply

I woke with the sun and it was not too long after that we reached Brokefall, I knew of this place. This was where our ancestors had first met the Broken. Its natural harbor made an ideal landing for the first ships exploring the coast. Abundant lumber and calm fishing waters tricked them into believing this was paradise. Then the Broken attacked, murdering most and driving the few survivors back to the sea. Eventually the survivors returned though, with aid from more recently-arrived refugees. They took back the harbor, rebuilt, and waged the first brutal war in this new land, eventually driving the Broken north into the Deep Wilds. As we entered the bay, the low morning sun still casting shadows across the harbor, I saw that the ancient withered palisade from the First War still stood, patched and maintained. The houses and hovels were tightly packed within the palisade’s walls, as if the circle had been afraid to expand outward over the generations passed since the Broken had been driven away.

Mira quietly informed me that we would be reprovisioning here before leaving the coast and navigating the Barrier Islands to reach the Desolate Beacon. When built, the Piercing Swan had sacrificed space for more oar benches and a larger crew, and thus, a faster ship with less storage. Though we were not low on provisions since leaving Stoneharbor, we would need to have all that we could before the last leg of the voyage, as there were no ports in the southern isles to easily resupply and we would need to fend for ourselves until our return to the coast.

“That’s odd”, Mira nodded towards the few morning fishers in the harbor, who I hadn’t before noticed were frantically rowing back to the docks. Then the drumming started and the sleepy port came to life, it’s residents running to and fro in the distance.

“Do they think we’re raiders?” I looked back at the crew, we were too few in number to truly threaten a port of this size but this was unmistakably a circle preparing for an assault.

“Very odd”, Mira’s brow furrowed. Then louder to the crew, “Bring her in slow but at an angle in case we need to leave quickly. Restraint and calm!”

We could now see shields at the dock…and bows behind them. The blade wanted to be drawn but I refused. The Piercing Swan slowed. The tension accelerated. The shieldwall grew larger but , thankfully, no arrows were loosed.

As we came to a stop a short distance from the dock. A gaunt and ungainly man stepped from the shield wall. He wore a loose chain hauberk and held an axe at his side. But this was no warrior.

“No closer!” He had the voice of an orator, one that speaks loudly and expects to be heard. So this was their overseer or council speaker then?

“Aye, we will hold.” Mira raised her arms to show her hands were empty, a symbolic gesture at this distance.

“Are you raiders?” the man accused.

“Do we look like raiders?” Mira retorted.

“Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. Who are you and why are you here?”

“I am Mira the Sustainer. We are on a pilgrimage of truth and seek provisioning…why do you greet us in arms?”

“Because raiders have struck before, and they will again…and they look different each time. So you cannot shore. We have no provisions for you, only for those that reside within these walls.”

Roll: Compel , Heart, Storyweaver – Strong Hit

I could no longer contain myself, this was profane. Such abandonment of your cousins out of fear of deception would have been unthinkable at Sota’s Gate, or Stoneharbor, or Lowspring. It was weakness.

“But all of us, those that dwell along the coast and isles, holds against the raiders. And yet we still observe hospitality to weary travelers. Why do YOU not uphold? Why do you cower behind your walls?” 

Mira glared at me but allowed me to speak, limiting her reproach to her eyes.

“We ‘cower’ because of siege! Raiders have struck recently, many of our siblings are dead. The harbor is not safe. The woods and hills are not safe, they have robbed more. We are trapped within these walls. Even if you land, we can not provision you. We can not spare it.”

“But what of Pemba the Pilgrim?” I spoke louder, not quite a yell but passionate and forceful. Everyone that lived on a shore knew of Pemba.

*Morter had loved when I gave the stories of Pemba and he had traded me some of his best ones in return. I wonder what he’s gotten himself into these days.* *(story for another time)*

“Pemba was accepted by all ports, and all those that provided him shelter, had their fisheries bloom and their fields ripen. The beasts returned to the wilds and the horrors stayed to their cairns. We do not abandon our cousins to the sea. And in turn, they do not abandon us and we are able to sail beyond our harbors and fjords knowing we may find shelter away from home.”

The man sighed. His shoulders deflated and he waved us in with his axe.

“Fine. You may land.”

The shield wall behind him relaxed and weapons were lowered.

As the Swan reached the shore, Mira nodded to me to follow and hopped onto the dock. I followed. The hilt of the blade reached for my hand. Again, I refused it.

The man, Overseer Nazmi, sheepishly apologized. His eyes remained desperate though. He explained himself.

“They struck swiftly, a large ship and yellow sail.” Mira’s eyes flashed at the color. Our sail was blue and white, very much not yellow. Nazmi deflated further but continued, his cadence accelerating as his voice grew more pleaful. “When they were repelled at the shore, before they left, they took out their frustrations on the fishers that were still in the water. The full length of the harbor isn’t safe, the boats need to stay close. Which means we can’t truly fish. Which means we are forced to eat foodstores that should be saved. Yesterday, we sent a group to forage and collect timber to reinforce the walls and they haven’t returned…and should have. Which means the woods are a threat and we cannot risk leaving the shore unguarded to send a rescue party outside the walls. Yorath and Gethin went to scout at first light. They were not supposed to stray far…yet  they have not returned either. We are trapped…and so we act out of fear.”

Roll: Compel, Heart – Weak Hit

I looked to Mira, “We should help them.”

“But we are on an urgent undertaking. We can not spare the time or the risk. I have been tasked.”

“But is this not in line with some Sustainer oaths or vows? I don’t know your stories but are there none about aiding those in need when you are capable of doing so?”

She glared, thought, and then smirked in irritated amusement.

“Fine. You’re right. We will aid,”, she glanced at Nazmi, “but we will also need provisions to continue our task, no matter how little there is to give. And you.”, shifting her gaze to me, “you will need to accompany us offship among the Desolate Beacon, and your bravery will not falter or your vow rescinded no matter what we find, good?”

This sounded ominous and I regretted not asking for more details prior…but I had vowed and I would vow again. I was resolute, like Elstan.

Roll: Swear an Iron Vow – Miss => Burn Momentum – Strong Hit

I gripped my scabbard. “I swear, we shall find your people outside the walls and if they cannot be saved, we will destroy that which has taken them from you.”

Mira nodded, Nazmi’s eyes grew emotional and thankful, though the anxiety and fear was still present.

The Piercing Swan was docked and Mira organized the Sustainers. The better part of the crew, almost two dozen, equipped themselves and formed on the shore. Few were warriors or armed as such but they were all sailors, and sailors faced hardship head on. And these sailors were of the faithful. They were committed and competent.

I wandered the dock while I waited for the crew to assemble. I counted seven wreaths of spruce, all fresh and recently placed atop the mooring posts. Seven fishers who had not returned to shore, taken by the raiders’ brutal futility. A hard loss for any circle. A loss I hoped would not be made worse by whatever it was we were about to find in the woods.

We left the walls by late morning. Following the path the foragers had taken, we briefly walked along the shore of the harbor before veering north into a valley and its woods. The woods where lumber could still be found, the shoreline near the port having been cleared generations ago to build the palisades.

The trees grew thicker. They were tall and old, the walls must have been built with similarly sturdy trunks.

I led and Mira did not object. She seemed to be sussing me out, gauging me. She followed behind me to my left. Beside her, behind me to my right, was Perella (or at least I thought that was the name I had overheard). I’d never spoken with her but she had been one of the few to smile at me during the voyage. I was intrigued by her. She seemed traveled but was not quite a sailor. Was well armed and competent but was not quite a warrior. Confident but watchful. I wasn’t sure what she was but I wanted to find out.

Roll: Gather Information – Strong Hit; Discover a Sight – Infested Vale

We followed the path until the trees grew dense enough that the harbor and walls were lost from view. The path had long been reclaimed by the thick woods but wagon tracks were clearly visible in the crushed foliage and damp soil. It still hadn’t rained since we’d left Stoneharbor but the trees here were so tall and crowded that the forest floor was always in the shade. Always shaded and always damp. I lifted my arm to shield my face from the spider webs and we pushed on.

Soon after, we found the wagon. Just the wagon. Just the wagon and a freshly felled tree which looked like it was in the process of being chopped down into logs short enough to fit on the wagon. Two axes lay discarded on the ground. I could find nothing else. The rest of the search party began mingling around the wagon and looking for other signs of the foragers.

“The oxen tracks stop here as well…but I see no ox?”, volunteered Perella, matter-of-factly, as if it was an obvious observation only being shared for our benefit.

I hadn’t even noticed their tracks prior. She was a hunter too?

“Aye, and the traces are snapped. There’s no yoke or harness either.”, observed Mira.

Perella looked upwards, “The wood is too thick for a wyvern strike. You don’t suppose they picked up and carried the oxen further into the valley, do you?”

I chuckled at the joke to cover my unease. “Well I guess we could climb one side to get out of the valley and get a look around? Or we could push on down the path?”

Mira decided, “We follow the path, for now. The vale is too wide and I don’t want to lose anyone trailblazing under this tree cover. I can’t even see where the sun is or where it is headed. We could go in circles. If something is afoot, I prefer to know the quickest path back to those walls.”

I again took the lead and we pressed on into the dense valley, a long column, two by two. Alert and unnerved.

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Miss; Reveal a Danger – entangling plant life, Bloodthorne (only troublesome because of size of party)

We didn’t make it far, the path grew even more overgrown and there were still no signs of the forager’s passage. The occasional bushes of thorny vines snaking around and choking the trees became more common, hemming in on the path. They grew dense enough that someone rows behind me observed that we might need pull the axes and trailblaze regardless.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Strong Hit

Then something grabbed my ankle, the injured one. The blade screamed for my hand and this time, I accepted it. My swing was faster than my eyes and I felt the grip on my ankle fall away before I saw what had grasped it. I looked down to see a severed vine retreating into a thorny bush further down the path.

“The vines! They move!” I screamed leaping backwards and almost falling into Mira. The bush was quivering, coming awake. The vines around the nearby trees began to snake. The rustling of foliage became louder.

“Chop them down! Clear the path” Mira ordered and axes were drawn.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Miss => Burn Momentum – Weak Hit

I stepped back forward, the blade swung. Red ichor sprayed from severed vines, but there were so many of them and their reach was so far. I could hear yelling from behind, the vines had been lying in wait and we were now surrounded. Then I saw it, as the severed vines retreated towards the bush, an opening in the branches revealed something within. A clearing, small bones littered around a large orb of some sort. A bulb? A verdant crimson bulb the size of a dog? The blade pulled me forward. I could hear the others behind me desperately shouting and chopping and fending off the vines. And the rustling, everywhere, I could hear that and I will never not be able to recall that horrible din. I steeled myself, roared, and advanced, leaving the relative safety of my companions behind. 

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Strong Hit

The blade struck swiftly but still I could feel the vines closing around me. I pushed on through the opening in the branches. I reached the clearing within the bush, I felt the bones crunch underfoot. The light faded as the gap closed behind me, rustling, encircling. I lunged.

Roll: Conclude the Challenge – Strong Hit

The heart was too constricted, the clearing collapsing as the vines encircled and tightened. I could not swing, so I leveled the blade and charged. I pierced the bulb, crimson ichor sprayed from the wound, covering me. The blade screamed in joy, the ichor was blood. Then the din of rustling ceased with a resounding thud, the sound of one thousand vines falling to the forest floor.

My comrades retrieved me from the heart and the bulb. Perella was first to offer a hand to rise from the bloody pool of bones (of course it sounds horrific and not romantic in the slightest when I tell the tale but I will always remember her hand…and her smile).

Gods be, no one was wounded more than a thorn scratch or a bruise. Mira asked “Can you continue? Do you insist on continuing?”

I was out of breath but nodded.

“These bones are all rodents, maybe birds. The foragers did not fall to this.”, Perella reported. “I’ve only heard of things like this growing in the Deep Wilds. Never this close to the coast. If the Wilds have encroached this far, we should be wary that other dangers followed.”

The crew made furtive unnerved glances towards each other but no one volunteered abandoning the search. Their faith and its tenets had endured this challenge.

We gathered ourselves, I wiped what of the bulb’s blood I could off of myself, and we continued, even more cautiously and methodically, chopping any vines we passed.

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Weak Hit, mark progress

And the woods grew thicker and darker. The vines seemed to recede, though similar bushes could be seen in the distance off of the path. But we could all hear movement surrounding us, even above. The forest was alive but we could not tell with what. Perella shouldered her spear and drew her bow.

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Strong Hit; Find an Opportunity – an aspect of this place is revealed

Then a rustling off the path to our right, Perella swung her bow. There was a man, tattered and bleeding, poorly attempting to hide behind a tree. A tree too narrow to conceal him from the entire winding column at once. Seeing the bow, he froze, eyes wide. Perella did not fire. The man sighed and slowly raised his arms, “Gods be, you aren’t Broken.”

“Have you ever seen a broken?” smirked Perella.

He paused, “…No. But they would surely have not held their arrow.”. He reached his arms outwards, towards us, in a symbol of pleading. He was desperate. He was Gethin the Carpenter, one of the two who had left the walls to scout for the missing foragers that morning.

Gethin eventually explained that he and Yorath had also come across the wagon that morning, with no person or ox to be found. While they were trying to make sense of it, they were attacked. Bladed shadows fell on them from the sky. They got Yorath. Gethin fled and lost the path.

On hearing this, Perella gazed upwards, to the dense canopy of branches.

Gerith told how he had been attempting to find the path to go warn his kin, skulking and hiding, when he saw us at a distance. He had been trying to figure out whether we were safe to approach. A wise move on account of the recent attack on Brokefall and the possibility that the raiders may still be lurking or might have come ashore.

“Oh…”  Perella sighed with worried revelation. “Do you see it?”

In the shadows, it was hard to see anything. I was looking for movement but there was none. Then I spotted it. A strand. The flicker of reflected light. Web. And then I saw more of it, it was everywhere. It was dark and hard to make out but once I learned it was there and what it looked like, I realized the entire canopy above us was covered with thick fibers, massive webbing connecting trees and branches.

“Harrows!”, Mira gasped.

Shocked silence and whispers of concern reverberated down the column of sailors. I had never seen a harrow spider before but everyone knew they were as big as a dog and ate travelers in the wilds. Not a thing a sailor had likely faced prior or knew how to fight or escape.

Roll: Compel, Heart, Storyweaver –  Weak Hit

I spoke loudly. I told them a Pemba story. (*lol, I actually rolled the same name again on the oracle*) About when he gathered and marched with the fishers and sailors of frozen Highbridge to hunt the large Rhaskar that had slain their kin and threatened their home.

I could tell they heard. They steeled themselves, they were reminded of their commitment. But I could also tell that if we failed or any of them were lost or injured, I might be resented for the loss. It did not matter. We had made oath to save or destroy and we were upholden to save or destroy.

We continued down the path, into the dark, where webs blocked the sun. Gethin, afraid to return to the walls alone, reluctantly followed.

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Weak Hit, mark progress; Find an Opportunity – get drop on denizen

Perella saw it first. We, I, had almost walked under it. Above us. Waiting and watching, clinging to the upper trunk.

After a moment’s hesitation, she fired an arrow. It pierced one of its bristly legs? It lost its hold and fell to the ground, landing with a thud and scurrying on seven good legs, away towards the nearest tree. It knew it was outnumbered. It was trying to escape. I would not allow it.

Roll: Enter the Fray, Heart – Strong Hit; Strike – Strong Hit; End the fight – Strong Hit

The blade swung down and cleaved it’s bulbous abdomen from its body. It hissed and thrashed, it’s long legs eventually curling and stilling.

I glanced back and nodded to Perella. The crew seemed shocked but heartened. The harrows could be slain, just like anything else, with a swung blade.

We continued. Now we knew what they looked like while they were hiding. And so we noticed more of them. At a distance, far off the path. All watching, all clinging, all waiting. We pushed on. The stories spoke of nests where the food was brought. For some reason pressing on deeper into the wood to find such a place felt wiser than leaving the path to chase or stalk them.

Roll: Delve the Depths, Wits – Miss

And then we heard it. A rustling and cracking of branches approaching, above, in the canopy. We could see the shadows of the treetops to our right shift and sway as the snapping grew closer. Something large was coming. So large that the branches could barely support the weight moving along the webs. Then the watchers began to move, to approach the path from both sides of the wood. Towards us.

We instinctively stepped backwards and huddled, facing outward. Then Mira shouted “Two lines, back to back” and we reformed the column, this time facing away from the path with our backs to each other.

Roll: Enter the Fray, Heart – Miss

I faced the right woods at the forward edge of the line, Perella beside me, ready for what was coming. The snapping continued and then it stopped, almost above us. I stared up into the shadows. I heard yelling from down the column and realized the watchers, the small ones, must be getting close. Perella raised her bow, scanning the shadows above. Then the branches snapped and it was falling towards me. An abdomen the size of an ox, legs longer than I was tall, the brood mother. Her hungry aware eyes, her fangs as long as my blade.

Roll: Face Danger, Edge –  Strong Hit, Opportunity

So I dove, I felt it land with a crash behind me, one long leg slammed into the ground, inches from my head. I rolled and looked up to see the brood mother rotate to face me. Above me, her fangs extended wide, dripping with acrid, sulfurous, saliva. Venom! Then an arrow grazed off her abdomen and she lept upwards and twisted in the air to face Perella, unthinkably agile for such a huge beast. As she landed, another leg, as thick as my thigh, slammed into the foliage near my head. Perella dropped her bow and readied her spear. 

I squeezed my hand, the hilt was still there, I had been able to keep my grip on the blade. I stabbed upward into her abdomen, I had little leverage but the blade was sharp and it demanded I strike.

Roll: Strike – Weak Hit

It pierced her abdomen easily, if not deeply. She hissed, a terrifying expulsion of enraged air. She leapt again and landed a dozen feet off of the path, facing us. I could hear the sounds of battle on the lines behind me. I stood and gripped the blade with two hands, I could see the tip of Perella’s spear to my right.

The brood mother reared on her back legs and hissed louder, a high pitched scream. She was even larger than I had realized up close, her front legs smashing the bottom branches of the canopy as she raged.

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Weak Hit; Endure Stress – Weak Hit

I roared back, but I could not hear myself, nor do I think she could hear me. The forest was a squeal of air and splintering branches.

Then she slammed back down.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Miss; Endure harm – Weak Hit

She slammed back down and I did not move fast enough. One of the legs hit my chest and threw me, as if I had been kicked by a horse. I lay on my back, trying to breathe. I still gripped the blade though. As I finally rose to a knee and regained my vision, I saw Perella trying to fend her off with a spear, she was so small in comparison. I needed to move. I needed to help her. I needed to forget about how hard it kicked and just stand up.

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Strong Hit

I managed to stand. I managed to roar, though weak and hoarse and bloody. I staggered. I screamed again. She did not hear me. I swung the blade at her leg, grazing off the hard bristly carapace. She shifted, two of her wary but hungry eyes stared into mine. I screamed again, blade dragging behind me. I could feel the blood dripping from my lips. She heard me this time.

Roll: Strike – Miss => Burn Momentum – Strong Hit, Swordmaster +2 harm

She reared back and twisted to slam her front legs back down on me, to pin me to the ground, to pierce me, to quiet me. As the legs fell, gripping the hilt with both hands, I spun the blade in a wide twisting upward swing, shearing off half of the leg that was about to strike me. And then, as I felt the thud of her other legs crashing to the ground around me and the acrid hiss to my back, I spun again and swung the blade back down, cleaving off another.

Roll: Strike – Strong Hit; End the Fight – Strong Hit, Opportunity – opportunity is that the sailors have not been overrun by the watchers

She backpedaled, trying to get away from the now black-stained blade. I pressed on. I took another leg, then another. As her legs became too few to gracefully carry her massive abdomen, she began crawling, her remaining back legs desperately dragging her heavy body backwards. Away from the blade…but she could no longer outrun it. It would drink. Whether human blood or harrow, it would drink. Her eyes were no longer hungry, they were somehow wider, darker, fearful.

I swung down with an overhead and lopped off one of her two massive fangs and then I swung again, down into her closest eye, the one that was the most fearful, slicing through her head. She hissed, but it was weaker now. She thrashed, but had fewer legs left to do so. She perished like her offspring. When she curled and stilled, I found I was still screaming, though there was no voice left to come out. Just blood to cough.

Perella was at my side. I smiled at her, a bloody stupid grin. She laughed, slapped my shoulder, and turned back to the battle behind us. The lines had held but the watchers were probing, descending from the canopy, still hungry. So hungry that their mother’s death left them unfazed. With a cheer, Perella charged with her spear. Those with enough breathing room to have seen the mother’s fall were heartened and threw themselves back into the fray. I stumbled behind, my body exhausted but the blade still willing.

Roll: Battle, Heart – Strong Hit

It was an exhausted blur, but the smaller harrows were repelled, many slain or wounded, and the rest retreated back to the canopy to wait and watch, or hunt their wounded as Mira later claimed to have witnessed. Many of the sailors had minor wounds, their arms or shoulders numb where they had been pierced by fangs (the numbness eventually faded). But Eos and Namba had perished. I hadn’t known or spoken to either but I owned their sacrifice, I acknowledged their glory and my role in their fall.

Their comrades buried them there, in shallow soil. Maybe they could be retrieved later but if not, they deserved this small honor. As Mira spoke words of the faithful, I washed the blood out of my mouth, and gulped water in an attempt to regain my voice. I tried to recover my breath but my chest would hurt for a while, pinching when I filled my lungs. My ankle was burning again but I could ignore it, I hoped. 

Roll: Heal – Strong Hit

Roll: Delve the Depths – Strong Hit, Find an Opportunity; Delve the Depths – Miss, denizen roll meant more bloodthorne (since we knew how to deal with it and it was getting late, I let the previous opportunity abstract and resolve it)

Roll: Delve the Depths – Strong Hit, find an opportunity; Locate Your Objective – Strong Hit; Escape the Depths, Heart – Weak Hit; Endure Stress – Weak Hit

With our dead buried, we pushed on, continuing down the path in the general direction the brood mother had arrived from. Deeper into the dark. I don’t like to remember what we found, though I’ll never forget it. We did find the harrow nest…and the foraging party…and oxen…and Yorath. The harrow does indeed bring prey back to its nest to feed. And its venom not only numbs, but dissolves. Encased in webbing, terror on their still faces, bodies without bones or firmness, just fluid filled bags of skin. Mira was the only one present who did not grow visibly ill as we cut them down (out of resolve, not callousness). We provided the dead with what honors we could, a shallow burial and uncomfortable prayers. Then torches were lit and lifted to the eggs and the webs. I’ll also never forget the wave of flames expanding outward from the nest, engulfing and consuming the forest canopy. Web burning brightly but too quickly to set the damp branches alight. A less troubling memory. The wood was less dark after that.

We left the vale the way we had come, retrieving Eos and Namba on the way. We returned to Brokefall and Nazmi was informed of his people’s fate and the great danger that was found in the wood. They were saddened and there would be mourning, but it seemed like most had already accepted this loss before our return.

Roll: Fullfill Your Vow – Strong Hit; Forge a Bond, Storyweaver, Brokefall – Weak Hit => Reroll from vow – Strong Hit; Forge a Bond, Mira – Miss; Forge a bond, Perella – Strong Hit, Opportunity; Sojourn – Strong Hit, Focus – Strong Hit

Brokefall provided us with all they could, filling our hold space, but still leaving them with enough stores to stay within the walls until it was clear that the raiders had grown bored and left for easier prey. I tried to speak with Mira about the upcoming voyage and what actually waited for us at the Desolate Beacon but she was preoccupied and distant. I feared she was resentful with me for the loss of her people. It would have been fair if she was, but I did not regret taking action and would not have forsaken the vow had a dozen of her crew fallen.

We stayed the night in Brokefall. Around a fire of militia and curious fisherfolk, I told the story of our incursion into the infested vale and the horrors and terrors we encountered…and overcame. Some of the militia boasted that, once it was clear the raiders had left, they would send hunting parties outside of the walls to root out any surviving harrows.

As Gethin followed with his own harrowing tale of survival, alone and lost in the dark wood, Perella took my hand. Sitting by the fire listening to a very lucky man tell a very lucky tale, she held my hand. And I felt very lucky as well.

Hob, a brave yet untested young woman, leaves her home, Sota’s Gate, to seek answers about the blood-stained blade.

---

It wasn’t as hard to leave Sota’s Gate as I had imagined it would be. Bastien had been sullen, he was skeptical of the blade’s visions that I had shared with him and didn’t seem to understand why I needed to go to Autumnrush in the first place. Nevertheless, he embraced me, managed a smirk and a friendly jab to my shoulder, and wished me a safe voyage and quick return. I think he had always known I would find an excuse to leave the Gate someday. I like to think that’s why he was so strict about my training, ensuring I could hold my own once I left his protective reach.

It was just barely summer when I left, that tumultuous transition between storm and sun, unpredictable and unresolved. I caught a ride with old Reema who was making her biweekly trip to Stoneharbor (I know, what a silly name) for flax linen for net repair and other materials we couldn’t produce on the island. The small but busy port was as I had remembered it. A popular waypoint for the ships traveling up and down the Ragged Coast on account of the peaceful fjord it’s nestled in and the reliably supplied market, the oldest market in the Ironlands some say. Uncle Temir claimed Stoneharbor was one of the first landings on the mainland for the refugees (just after they passed the Gate) and was named after the giant stone that jutted into the water at the head of the fjord. He said the first ships, the large ones that were built for war, were able to unload alongside the giant rock without needing to be shored, making it an ideal first outpost in the dangerous new land in case a quick escape was needed. Generations had passed since the last ships arrived, fleeing the Old World, but Stoneharbor remained, thriving, though small.

We found a handful of fishing boats, similar to Reema’s, and a larger longship with brightly colored sail, the size of ship that denotes a professional coastal trader that inevitably includes Autumnfall in its route, already at port as we arrived. I bid farewell to Reema and went to track down the longship’s captain to inquire whether they were traveling to or from Autumnrush.

I found Captain Kanno picking amongst the packed stores to identify which goods were to be unloaded for trade. He was professional and abrupt, not quite annoyed by my interruption but clearly in a hurry to resolve the interaction and get back to his task. It was off-putting. 

“Yes, we’re on the return leg and have a bench free. Can you use that thing?”, he gestured towards the blade on my hip.

“Yes.”

“You’ll have to pull an oar and if the need arises, I expect you to draw it on my behalf. Otherwise, you’ll be swimming. Good?”

“Good.”

“Stay out of the way but don’t drift, we’ll be leaving shortly.”

At that moment, we were interrupted by the arrival of a new ship, plainly in distress even from a distance. The sail was tattered and most onboard weren’t moving. The few that were, were calling for aid and clearly wounded. Arrows covered the deck and had surely been responsible for the torn sail. As the ship reached the docks, a crowd of people gathered while someone ran to fetch the healer. I helped move the wounded onto the dock, there were only a handful still breathing, mostly incoherent from blood loss, and only one sailor that was unwounded, Elstan. He was oddly calm and quiet, though his puffy cheeks revealed previous tears and his clothes were coated in his comrades’ blood. A man who had already used up all of his emotions and had little else to express.

As the healer arrived and began treating those that could be treated, Elstan related his story. The merchant ship had been en-route from the south and, as they had reached the eastern horn of the fjord that led to Stoneharbor, the wind had died and the sea had calmed to a complete standstill. Everything had become eerily quiet and then a distant buzzing had begun to grow. The sea began moving again but the tides had seemed to reverse, the afternoon’s ebbing waves now flooding and pushing the ship towards the rocks at the base of the horn’s cliff. The flow of the tide increased and the sailors, realizing they would be dashed against the rocks, pulled their oars. Then the winds picked back up…powerful gusts also forcing the ship towards the rocks. Keeara, the captain and Elstan’s kinfolk, ordered the sail be furled. That was when the arrows came. Keeara fell in the first volley. They tried to shield themselves but they needed to focus on rowing to get past the horn and into the fjord before the tide battered them against the rocks. They made it to the fjord but many had perished from the steady volleys of arrows and Elstan was the only one unscathed to guide the ship to the port. He claimed as they escaped, he saw figures on the cliff overlooking the horn.

I’m not sure what came over me but the blood-stained blade, still in its scabbard, moved to my hands, it demanded action. It was right, action was needed. Gripping the scabbard and hilt, I proclaimed “I swear on this iron and this blade that those who would dare to ambush travelers within sight of Sota’s Gate will face a fitting end!”

Roll: Swear an Iron Vow – Strong Hit

The gathered crowd, surprised by the vow, stepped back, creating a circle around me. Old Reema, stared at me wide-eyed for a moment and then seemed to shrug it away like she had realized it wasn’t altogether that shocking that I, the Hob of the Gate, would do such a thing. I always giggle when I remember that matter-of-fact shrug.

“If they realize there were survivors to tell of the ambush, they may try to flee. We need to stop their escape. Will you avenge your kinfolk?” I asked Elstan.

Roll: Compel, Heart – Weak Hit

He seemed startled by the question but his eyes hardened and he nodded. “Let me find my shield first.”

He hopped back onto the ship, kneeled near one of his slain comrades, presumably Keeara, made a whispered vow, and took her shield and axe. He returned, nodded again, I dropped my pack so I could move faster (a foolish trusting move, the kind I would learn to regret down the road…not this time though) and we left on a run.

Roll: Undertake a Journey – Weak Hit (After making this roll, I realized that this should have been a scene challenge, secure advantage roll, or better yet, just an ask the oracle but I was so excited to play that I hadn’t fully read the mechanics and only glanced through the moves.)

It was late afternoon and there was still plenty of light so we were able to make good time. We ran along the coast of the fjord until we found a trail leading up to the wooded hills above. Pushing through the wooded path, we reached the horn. We made good time but we were winded.

From the cover of the trees we surveyed the clearing overlooking the cliff. I was right, they had fled. We warily stepped out into the clearing to search for tracks. The overlook was dry, dusty, and scattered with rocks, I hadn’t realized it had been so long since it had last rained. Elstan stepped to the cliff. I wonder what his thoughts were looking down at his place of loss from his attacker’s position. I left him to his thoughts and checked the ground and gravel for any clues. “Can you see anything over there?” he asked, pointing towards the cliff facing the east. That was a good question, if they fled down the eastern ridge, maybe I could see them.

Roll: Face Danger, Wits – Weak Hit

As I stepped to the cliff and peered over, I swatted away at the fly by my left ear. It didn’t seem to help, it was still buzzing around. It sounded like it was right next to my ear, I shook my head but could still hear the buzz. It got louder…wait…buzzing! Shit!

“Move away from the cliff!” I screamed as I did the same myself. Apparently Elstan had heard the buzzing as well and had the same thought since he was already doing so. The drone, now compounded by the rustling of branches, grew louder. We both sprinted towards the center of the clearing as an overwhelming gust of wind blew out of the woods, through the clearing, and over the cliff. If we hadn’t retreated, we would have been blown over and dashed to bits on the rocks below. Instead, we were just knocked down. I scraped my arm on a rock as I went down but had no major injury. Elstan had the wind knocked out of him but was likewise ok.

Roll: Gather Information – Strong Hit

I’m unsure whether the intention was to blow us off the cliff or just to cover their tracks but if it was the latter, it was a foolish move. As we dusted ourselves off, I took in the situation. The gale had not come from behind us (having arrived by the western ridge) but from eastern ridge of the woods, the only direction they could have gone since we hadn’t crossed paths with them during our approach. If anything, the broken branches from the gust had created a clear path to follow. Unfortunately though, this confirmed Elstan’s story of the ambush involving magic. I had never known rituals this powerful outside of stories and I hoped whoever was capable of them could still be harmed by a blade…because that was all I had. The blade seemed to pull me towards the wind-blown path as well, further confirming my thoughts.

“Are you ready? Let us avenge your kin.”, I offered my hand to help Elstan up. He accepted and we continued the chase.

The wind-blown path led us down the eastern ridge. Once we began following it, it became clear that there was a lightly used footpath under the fallen branches as well, though the gust had clearly covered any footprints or other signs pointing towards who or how many had traversed it. The woods weren’t thick but thick enough to hide an ambush. The twang of a bowstring. Elstan knelt behind his shield almost as if on instinct as I dove to the ground. The arrow hit Elstan’s shield and I could hear another go over my head.

Roll: Face Danger, Edge – Weak Hit; Endure Stress – Strong Hit

I scrambled on all fours to a tree. Damnit! Bows! Of course! I knew there would be bows…yet there I was with a sword and no shield. Well not much to do but move forward.

The ambushers were clearly down the trail acting as a rearguard.

“Elstan, are you ok?”

“Yeah.”

“We need to move up.”

“I know.”

“Can you go lead?”

Roll: Compel, Heart – Strong Hit

“Yep.”

With a roar, Elstan advanced down the path in a low stance, shield up. I matched his roar, and scrambled behind him, trying to stay as close and low as possible so both of us were protected by his shield.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Weak Hit; Endure Stress – Weak Hit

The arrows flew, we advanced, it was terrifying. It had been a long while since I had felt so helpless. Drawing the blade seemed to quiet the fear though. I could see some of the old dried blood flake off as it left the scabbard, blood from some unknown victim from some unknown time, before the blade had found me. I knew, nay, the blade knew and shared with me, that the flaked blood would be replaced soon though, very soon.

As we neared the ambushers, there were two of them, they started to slowly retreat between firing. Now was the time. “You will die in these woods and my blade will feast!”, I screamed as I sprinted out from behind Elstan. He followed suit and charged with his axe held high.

Roll: Enter the Fray, Heart – Weak Hit; Strike – Weak Hit (Not really sure what happened here as I didn’t have initiative due to the Enter Fray roll. Obviously was still not super clear on the rules.)

The closer ambusher, realizing he should have done so sooner, dropped his bow and began fumbling for his axe while retreating. As he pulled the axe from his belt, I slashed his weak arm (not fatal, but definitely painful). Before I could follow up, he swung his axe in a wild arc forcing me to leap back. I heard Elstan barrel past me in pursuit of the second ambusher.

Roll: Clash, Strong Hit; End the Fight – Strong Hit

In desperation, the ambusher advanced, wide wild swing after wild wide swing. I continued to step back out of reach. Realizing his attacks were in rhythm, I waited for the next swing to pass and then launched myself forward with all my strength, bringing the blade down in a long overhead slash and splitting his skull. The blade sighed. The man crumpled.

I stared down at his body, the first I had seen fallen by a blade. The first body I had made. It had happened so quickly. Raised as a Watcher, Bastien and Temir had trained and drilled combat into me, but due to the tower, we had always had enough early warning for the community to take refuge in the fort before sea raiders could strike, a prize too dangerous for them to risk taking. And I had always been too young to join the hunting parties when a beast took a fisher. So this was my first actual violence. I don’t know if I was more shaken by the arrows or the realization that this was just my first taste and much more would likely need to be done.

Panting, I looked up to see Elstan knock the second ambusher to the ground with his shield and finish him with two efficient overhead swings from his axe. He stood, glanced back at me, and without a word, continued down the path. Sometimes I wonder if he knew without asking that I would follow him, regardless of our recent brush with death, or if he was so determined that he didn’t care whether I followed or not. Either way, it shook me from my musings. I was impressed with his resolve.

We continued down the path. Still hurried but more attentive now. The path gradually descended down the ridge and as it neared the shore, the woods began to clear, and with it, so did our vision. In the distance we could see them. Three figures pushing a fishing boat, its mast lowered, into the water from behind a group of bushes that had concealed it from view by the sea. Two of them were doing most of the work. As we saw them, our pace increased to a run. On seeing us, their desperate shoving increased. The single-sailed boat was large enough for at least five people, heavy enough that it likely took four of those five to carry it into the concealing foliage, and, with two of those four lying in the woods, it looked like quite the task to get it back in the sea. Plus, it was now low tide so they had even further to push it. But they were moving it…and gaining momentum, each shove driving them one step closer to putting the boat to water and pushing off before we could reach them.

Roll: Secure an Advantage, Edge – Miss; Endure Harm – Miss

The path grew steeper and I was rushing downhill so quickly that I almost tripped on a small dip in the trail, barely leapt over it in time, and landed poorly on my ankle. I winced in pain but it didn’t hurt enough that I couldn’t still run (though it would hurt like hell later). I looked up to see them, with a last desperate push, get the boat into the water and the two larger ones began hoisting the smaller third in, who I could now see was an older man draped in fur. He was being lifted by a strong looking man and woman. It dawned on me that we weren’t going to catch them if we continued down the path since it meandered a bit to the left before ultimately winding back right to where the boat had been landed.

Roll: Secure an Advantage, Iron – Weak Hit

“Come on!”, I yelled as I leapt off the trail, taking the much steeper and uneven direct path. I heard Elstan follow. This choice was likely the culprit for most of the next week’s ankle pain but it was the only way to prevent their escape. The older man had been lifted in and the stronger man had leapt aboard when we caught up with them. The woman was still hip deep in water when I reached the shore and she made the choice to fight instead of risk being stabbed from behind as she hauled herself aboard. She took a shield from the boat, pulled her axe from her belt, and readied herself.

Roll: Enter the Fray – Strong Hit; Strike – Strong Hit

At the edge of the shore, I leapt at her, sword above me. She was able to block the overhead swing with her shield but, as I landed, I pulled back and lunged forward trying to impale her chest. She lowered her shield at the last moment, pushing my blade down and causing it to pierce her thigh instead. She screamed in pain and slackened her shield just enough that I was able to pull back, drawing the blade from her leg, and lunge forward again, driving the blade into her chest with both hands. She went silent as I drove her down into the tide.

Roll: End the Fight – Strong Hit

While straining to pull the blade out, I began to hear the buzzing again. I paused to look around. To my right, Elstan was waist deep in the water trying to approach the boat with his shield up. But the stronger man, at the prow of the boat, was repelling his advance with a spear. The older man in furs was kneeling behind him. He was erratically swinging a small leather bag and his mouth was open. I realized that the buzzing must have been a noise he was making…with his voice…coming from his throat…it was an uncomfortable realization. I could feel the water start tugging on my hips. It was ebbing, pulling out to sea. The man was using magic to convince the already low tide to go out even further…and pull stronger. My eyes widened and my mouth dropped. Up until this point, I had never witnessed such a powerful ritual nor ever really thought that I would. I felt insignificant. I felt disadvantaged. I felt fear. Then I realized why he was doing it…he was trying to pull the boat away from the shore so they could escape. The boat was pulling away from me.

I finished retrieving the blade and made a gamble. If I waded after it, I might not have been able to catch the boat in time and if I did, I would have to face the spear before I could board. So instead, I dove, pushing myself off the ground to gain enough momentum to carry me alongside the boat towards the stern, just skimming the surface and unnoticed by the man with the spear who was still jabbing at Elstan…and hoping to surface and board behind both of them.

Roll: Secure an advantage, Wits – Miss => Burn Momentum – Weak Hit

It worked. Well I didn’t get stabbed at least. I surfaced and pulled myself aboard. I was noisy though and the old man, though he had seemed to be in a trance, heard me. He turned as I caught my feet and began slamming the leather bag against the deck of the boat. I could hear the sound of branches rustling in addition to the buzzing. I felt frozen. What was he about to do to me and how could I avoid it? The unknowns are what make magic so terrifying to face. How can you act when you have no idea what you are acting against? Looking back, the obvious answer was, wind. I was going to be facing wind. Simple and based on experience. At the time though, I was too in awe to process or connect the threads in my mind.

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Weak Hit

Eventually I pushed through though. I expressed myself. I shook it off and roared in fear. Remembered the cliff…and then threw myself to the deck just as a strong gust of wind blew over me. Had I not moved, it would have easily thrown me over the side of the boat. A better instinct would probably have been to just run him through but at least I took action, any sort of action. Anything is preferable to being frozen in fear.

Rising from the deck, I faced the end of a spear. The tide had pulled the boat far enough away from Elstan that the strong looking man could turn his attention towards me.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Miss; Endure Harm – Strong Hit, Opportunity

I leapt backwards as the spear hit the deck where my head had been a moment prior. He lunged again, I parried but not fast enough and the spear grazed my shoulder. I had reached the stern, there was nowhere else to retreat to, short of diving back in the sea. He lowered into a ready stance and seemed to be waiting for the right moment to strike. The only upside of the situation was that past him, I could see a hand come over the prow of the boat, and then another arm holding an axe. Elstan had ditched his shield and swam to catch up with the boat while the man with the spear was occupied.  

Unfortunately, I couldn’t wait for him to board and help. There was a good chance I would not have been able to fend off the next thrust. So I lunged.

Roll: Strike – Miss; Endure Harm – Weak Hit

It was a poor choice. As I lunged, he thrust his spear. I parried high, he thrust low…into my thigh. It wasn’t deep but it hurt like hell, an oddly a similar wound to the one I had given his companion. I gave a similar scream to hers.

Roll: Turn the Tide; Strike – Weak Hit

He pulled the spear out to strike again and in desperation, I lunged forward and brought the blade across his weak arm. He didn’t drop the spear but instead took a step back and readied to strike again. I started hearing the buzzing again and risked a glance to confirm that Elstan had boarded and was advancing on the old man from behind, who was still focused on me and smashing his bag against the deck.

Roll: Face Danger, Iron – Miss

The spear lunged forward again. This time less true and a bit slower than before, I knocked it aside with my blade but he then swung it down, whacking my wounded thigh with the haft. I screamed in pain again. Almost so loud that it drowned out the buzzing. Not quite though and the swelling drone brought me back out of my pain. 

Roll: Face Danger, Heart – Strong Hit; Secure an Advantage. Heart – Strong Hit

I had to act and I had to act now. I screamed again, but this time in defiance. I faced the spearman and I roared.

Roll: Strike – Miss; Endure Stress – Strong Hit

He took a step back and lowered his spear for a moment but I could do nothing but roar. The buzzing was overwhelming. I couldn’t swing my blade. I needed to clear my head. I needed to drown it out. I needed to scream louder.

Roll: Strike – Weak Hit => Burn Momentum – Strong Hit, Swordmaster Bonus; End the fight – Strong Hit

Then the buzzing stopped, and I was able to swing. And so I swung, still screaming as I buried the blade where the man’s neck met his shoulder. As his body fell, I continued to scream at it, letting go of the blade and allowing it to fall with him, lodged deeply in his shoulder. “Let it quench its thirst!”, I hoarsely roared, though I didn’t remember doing so until Elstan later reminded me. 

Eventually, I looked up from my panting. Elstan stared at me, “Are you ok?” The old man laid crumpled before him, blood from a wound on his back. I slowly collapsed to the deck and vaguely remember Elstan removing my blade and dumping the spearman’s body overboard. Then he searched and did the same to the old man’s corpse before finding the old man’s leather bag and, while holding it at arm’s length, dropped it overboard as well. He helped dress my thigh wound and then I drifted in and out as he raised the mast and sailed the boat around the horn back to Stoneharbor. I was in no condition to hike and it was a very steep path for him to carry me so a short sail in a bloody boat seemed like the preferable option.

Roll: Heal – Weak Hit; Fulfill a Vow – Strong Hit; Forge a Bond (Elstan), Storyweaver – Strong Hit; Sojourn (Elstan & Stoneharbor) – Strong Hit (Focus Gamble – Weak Hit)

I don’t remember much of that evening. I know the port’s healer tended my wounds. Who I later learned was Shona, Shona with the limp and cheerful smile. I remember Elstan relating the story to a crowd, I don’t remember how he described me in it. I remember old Reema holding my hand and telling me she had always known I would become Ironsworn, even when I was a babe…I remember realizing that meant she must have been friends with my parents before the sea took them. I had no idea…why hadn’t she ever mentioned that prior? I did not see her again, likely having returned at dawn before I woke, and I wondered what, if anything, she had told Bastien or any of the others back at the Gate. The next morning I remember Captain Kanno thanking me for making the sea safer and apologizing that he was going to leave and could not wait for me to heal to the point that I was fit for the voyage. He assured me another ship would likely pass through going that way in a day or two. He was right but I’m suspicious that sailing with him would have been less chaotic, and less bloody, than the voyage I ended up undergoing. Though if I had gone with Kanno, I would probably never have met Pella, so I guess I am thankful to have been left behind.

I rested the next day and then on the third, I drank. Elstan joined me along with one of his surviving crewmates, Kalidas, another young sailor with her arm in a sling. Elstan informed me that they planned to attempt to sail their ship back west to Whitbarrow once Kalidas and the rest of the survivors had recovered enough to try. I lamented that we weren’t able to identify the motives of their ambushers and he informed me that he knew. He recognized the type of fishing boat. It was clearly from Red Brog, a rival clan that was known for sea raiding in addition to trade. What he didn’t know but planned to find out was whether the attack was coincidental raiding or specifically targeted. A mystic of that power seemed to imply the latter. We laughed and drank the day away, all three feigning good spirits and unshaken resolve. I told them of Sota’s Gate, the First Landing, how the lighthouse was built to guide the other refugees and how the fort was erected in case the Skulde followed. They spoke of Whitbarrow and the efforts to reclaim the Blighted Bay, the bickering council, and the previous assassinations. Then, the next day, I embraced and bid them farewell, continuing to Autumnrush and the answers I hoped it contained.