imp

Ander Vale

Ander plants his shield foot on the last dry stone and stops there. He does not step into the grease — he has seen what the grease is for. Half a breath with his eyes down, reading the skin of the puddle for the place where the floor moves wrong, and then his voice goes out across the water, flat and unhurried, the one he used on the marsh stretch, the one built for talking to frightened people. "Sootmurk. I rode the King's Road through this marsh for four months. Found a cart with the traces cut, and a boot. After that, nothing. I'm done finding boots. I'm here for the people you took off my road. "You set a price once — every magical thing out of the haunted chambers, breathing tribute, not corpses. Right. Put the King's Road folk on the scales with it and you can have the trade. The duke's six hundred stays in his purse, nobody comes down here with torches, and you go on being nobody's problem. "You don't answer me — again — and I'll send your guards back to you one at a time until you do." The sword comes up low behind the shield, heels kept to dry stone, and he meets the first guard that shows itself at the edge of the grease.

Ander Vale

The point slides off the guard's hide with a sound like a boot pulled from mud. No harm done, either way. Ander's shoulders don't drop — he has made peace with the fact that first blows are for measuring, not killing. He steps back half a pace, shield up, weight settled on dry stone, and watches the surface of the puddle while he waits for something to answer him. He has time. He's been waiting on an answer out of this marsh for a year.

DM

Ander’s sword cuts through the place where a broad head showed above the grease. The guard folds beneath the surface, untouched, and five spearpoints rise ten feet from the doors. Behind them, something vast and black lifts its head from the pool. Captain Gullian draws himself up between Ander and Sootmurk. “You do not bargain with Her Murkiness through me by threatening my—” He checks whether she is listening. “My guards!”

Brea Thornwick

Brea does not step off the dry stone. The bow is already at her cheek, from a pace behind Vale. She does not wait for Gullian to finish. The shot is for him.

Brea Thornwick

The arrow skips off something that is not quite a shoulder and vanishes into the pool. Eight again. Brea does not swear. She nocks the next one and keeps her heels on dry stone. Gullian is still standing between Vale and the black head. Same as last time. Same as the time before that.

DM

Brea’s arrow clips Gullian’s raised spear and spins into the grease. The captain flinches beneath the splash, then pretends he did not.

DM

“Then you answer to me!” Gullian springs the ten feet from the pool, spear aimed at Ander’s chest. His point catches the shield rim and kicks high. The captain crashes onto the dry threshold at Ander’s feet, exposed and loudly insisting that the landing was deliberate.

DM

The guard Ander tested bursts from the pool and clears Gullian in one wet bound. Its spear punches through Ander’s chainmail for 5 damage, the leap driving the point deep. Ander holds the dry stone with 7 hit points left; the guard lands beside its captain in the doorway.

DM

A small groomer near Sootmurk vanishes beneath the black surface. Its wake cuts hard toward the western tiers, circling for a line past the two gloops clogging the doorway.

DM

A second guard vaults from the grease into the crush. Its spear slips beneath Ander’s shield, and the force of the leap drives it through him for 7 damage. Ander falls across the dry threshold and does not rise.

DM

With Ander down and the doorway packed, the next guard hurls its spear past Gullian at Mira. The cast strikes the passage wall and clatters behind her.

DM

Another spear threads the crowded doorway. It tears across Mira’s side for 6 damage, leaving her upright with 2 hit points. The guard sinks back to the eyes, watching the burning flask in her hand.

DM

The last doorway guard reverses its spear and throws it butt-first at Mira. The haft clips her brow for 1 subdual damage. She remains conscious at 1 hit point. “Alive!” Gullian snaps, as if the idea were his.

DM

One of Sootmurk’s groomers dives and cuts east through the grease. It spreads away from the doorway, keeping Mira and her burning flask in sight while it circles toward the passage flank.

DM

Another groomer swims straight toward the north doors and stops ten feet short, submerged to the eyes. Its spear remains level at Mira while it waits for the doorway crush to open.

DM

The groomer farther back hurls its spear butt-first through the doorway. The haft strikes Mira’s temple for 2 subdual damage. She drops unconscious at 0 hit points, alive; the burning flask slips onto the dry passage floor without reaching the grease.

DM

The last distant groomer dives and races toward the western side of the iron doors. It surfaces beside the passage mouth with its short sword drawn, closing the clean route around the doorway.

DM

Sootmurk watches Ander fall and Mira crumple without moving from her wallow. Grease slides from her jaw as she smiles. “He offered me precisely what I wanted,” she says, “and then stabbed one of my servants while I considered it. How impatient.” Her gaze settles on Brea and Oskar. “If either of you can repeat his bargain without putting steel through it, I may still be listening.”

Ander Vale

The stone under his cheek is cold, and for a while that is most of the world. Cold stone. The weight of the mail. Somewhere behind him, the puddle's slow swallow. Sootmurk's voice comes to him the way voices came down the marsh road in fog — the words first, the meaning after. *Repeat his bargain.* Right. He has the words somewhere. *The King's Road folk. Put them on the scales with the rest of it.* He finds them one at a time, the way a man finds his boots in the dark, and when he goes to send them out, his mouth does not answer. Nothing answers. The shield arm stays bent where he set it — between the pool and the passage, between the thing and the people. Habit. Eleven years of it. He finds he is not sorry, and that he is not, for once, the one still standing, and both of those are quiet in him. The grease shines an inch from his eye. He would trade what is left of him for one thing: somebody out of that pool saying a name. Any name from the road. He has been a year finding boots, and he did not come all this way down to stop at his own.

Brea Thornwick

Brea does not step off the dry stone. The bow stays at her cheek a breath longer than it should, then she lets the string ease. The arrow stays nocked. Heels where they were. She looks past Gullian, past the two wet guards in the doorway, at the black head. "He said it. Magical things from the haunted chambers. Road folk on the scales with them, breathing. Duke's six hundred stays. Nobody comes down with torches." A count of two. Vale on the threshold. Mira behind her. Flask on the stone, not in the grease. "Two of ours still breathing. That's the number. Repeat it without steel."

DM

“One,” Sootmurk says. “The man at my door is dead. The woman breathes. So do the road folk.” She settles lower into the grease. “Bring every magical object from the haunted chambers to these doors. Not what you spare. Not what Gullian values. Everything. Then the road prisoners and your sleeping seer leave alive.” Her eye shifts to the captain. “They may take their dead now. Gullian, do not improve my bargain.” The gloops lower their weapons, badly disappointed.