Campaign chronicle

The waterfront has many kinds of hunters.

Some hunt coin. Some hunt secrets. Some hunt people whose names have been written in the wrong ledger.

The men waiting beyond the city had chosen easier prey.

They were poachers and trappers, working from a hidden camp and keeping frightened animals in cages. The party followed their trail through the waterfront’s forgotten edges until steel, spellwork, and very poor life choices brought the hunt to an end.

One trapper survived long enough to be questioned.

Ark offered him a bottle of Dasani and the possibility—carefully phrased, never formally guaranteed—of walking away. In return, Ark wanted names, employers, and the camp’s exact location.

The man talked.

Then Ark made him surrender everything else.

Weapons went first. Armor followed. Coins, supplies, and every useful possession joined the growing pile until the trapper stood with neither leverage nor dignity. Ark passed the recovered money to Bianca and gathered the remaining gear for the party.

Kwesi searched the dead with the practical focus of a man who understood that villains rarely needed their pockets afterward. Lightning still crawled across his hands from the fight.

“I love lightning,” he said.

The trapper, having answered every question and surrendered everything he owned, looked toward the road.

Ark allowed him to believe the interview was over.

Draco had made no such promise.

“I didn’t promise shit.”

An Ice Knife crossed the distance.

The trapper’s attempted escape ended in frost and shattered earth.

There are many lessons hidden in the history of the waterfront. One of them is to confirm which member of the adventuring party has agreed to let you leave.

---

The poachers’ directions led the party to their secret camp.

There, among the cages, Draco found the creatures she had been searching for: her puppies, alive but frightened and still trapped behind iron bars.

She tore the cages open.

Bianca joined her with treats, steak, and a voice gentle enough to make the camp feel less like a prison. One by one, the puppies accepted food and the impossible idea that no one would close the doors again.

They were safe.

They were free.

For Draco, that was the victory that mattered.

When Joren arrived, Draco told him everything the poachers had revealed. Their operation had been broken, but the waterfront remained dangerous, and Rook needed somewhere beyond the reach of anyone who might come looking.

Draco kissed Rook and told him to go with Joren.

Ark gave Joren the destination: Davidee’s Bakery. Rook could live and work there beneath the party’s protection, surrounded by warm ovens, neighborhood eyes, and the sort of hospitality that had already proved remarkably effective against the Iron Crows.

Joren agreed to take him.

Rook left with a safe road ahead of him.

---

With the cages empty and the poachers finished, the party regrouped at camp.

The fighting had ended. Loot was counted. The puppies settled near Draco and Bianca. Kwesi’s lightning finally faded to a memory in the air.

Then Timmichanga raised two fingers.

“Deuces.”

And disappeared.

No explanation. No farewell speech. Only silver smoke, an empty place beside the fire, and another story the chronicler will be forced to defend as completely accurate.

At last, the party rested.

The poacher camp was broken. Draco’s puppies were free. Rook was on his way to a protected life at Davidee’s Bakery. The trapper’s answers remained with Ark, and whatever larger hand had set these hunters to work was now one secret closer to being exposed.

Morning would bring the next move.

For one night, the waterfront crew had earned sleep.

Some victories end with cheers.

This one ended with the sound of a spear punching through Iron Crow armor.

User14 drove the weapon into the final Talon with enough force to lift the man from his feet. Ten points of piercing conviction sent him crashing across the ruined chapel floor, where he did not rise again.

Silence returned slowly.

Bianca lowered her rapier. Cameron’s magical glow faded from the scorched stones. Firelight played across Draco’s scales while User14 stepped back into position between the rescued prisoners and anything foolish enough to threaten them.

At the center of the wreckage, Ark still held Matron Corva in a crushing grapple.

She had eight heartbeats’ worth of fight left in her, if one insists upon measuring such things numerically. Her weapons were gone. Blood marked her clothes. The remains of her mask lay broken upon the chapel floor.

Surrounded and defeated, Corva finally stopped struggling.

“You have no idea what you’ve interrupted,” she rasped. “The Iron Crows aren’t merely kidnappers. Someone is purchasing every person named in that ledger.”

Her bloodied smile found Ark.

“And your names have already been added.”

That was how the battle ended—not with an answer, but with a worse question.

Ark had captured the leader of an Iron Crow cell alive.

Now he needed to keep her that way.

---

Kwesi found heavy cord among the Crow supplies and went to work. He bound Corva’s wrists, elbows, and ankles, checking each knot twice while User14 stood guard. By the time he finished, the matron was restrained, disarmed, and in no position to test Ark’s patience.

Draco knelt beside her.

Magic leaves residue. Some spells shine. Others whisper. Iron Crow magic tended to hide beneath skin and wait for the worst possible moment.

Draco examined Corva’s ruined cloak, armor, and the aura clinging to her body. His study was patient and precise. Beneath her collar he found a black feather burned into her flesh.

An Iron Crow Murdermark.

The sigil carried two enchantments. The first transmitted Corva’s approximate location to an unknown receiver. The second would release a magical distress signal if she died.

The Crows had prepared for betrayal, capture, and execution.

They had not prepared for Draco.

He pressed one claw against the feather and channeled druidic power through it. The mark writhed like ink dropped into flame. Then it peeled away from Corva’s skin and dissolved into harmless black smoke.

The tracking connection broke.

The death alarm remained silent.

Whatever enchantment had once protected Corva’s cloak had already been spent during her ambush. For the first time since entering the chapel, the party could move without announcing their destination to the Iron Crows.

Ark opened his mouth to discuss an escape.

Kwesi planted his runed sword against the floor.

“Everyone close,” he said. “Prisoners in the center. Hold onto someone and don’t let go.”

Silver-blue mist spilled from his armor. It curled around Ark, Bianca, Draco, Cameron, User14, the bound Matron Corva, and the four people they had pulled from Iron Crow captivity.

Eleven travelers formed one unbroken chain around the battle mage.

Corva’s eyes widened.

Kwesi activated Warband Step.

The ruined chapel emptied with a thunderous rush of displaced air.

Seconds later, all eleven bodies materialized inside the flour-dusted cellar beneath Davidee’s Bakery.

Bread ovens rumbled overhead, disguising the sound of their arrival. The rescued prisoners received food, water, blankets, and somewhere safe to breathe. Corva received a support post, more rope, and a seat on the cellar floor.

The journey burned the light from Kwesi’s runes. He would not carry another warband through space until he had completed a long rest.

Corva looked around the cellar and laughed through split lips.

“A bakery,” she muttered. “You’ve captured the leader of an Iron Crow cell…and brought her to a bakery.”

Ark placed the recovered ledger and Corva’s sealed orders on the table before her.

“No,” he answered. “We brought you somewhere nobody will hear you talk.”

The interrogation would begin next session.

That had been the plan.

Then Bianca found the brownies.

---

Davidee’s baked goods were famous throughout certain portions of Stonehaven Crossing.

Those portions rarely included legitimate culinary societies.

Bianca selected one of his weed brownies and forced it into Corva’s mouth, holding the matron’s jaw closed until she swallowed. Corva resisted the contraband pastry with considerably less success than she had resisted Ark.

Within minutes, the Iron Crow leader’s careful focus began to unravel. Her eyes grew heavy. Her practiced lies would now be harder to maintain, though whatever answers she gave might prove less organized than Ark preferred.

Corva stared at Bianca.

“You rescued prisoners, burned my chapel, destroyed my operation…and now you’re feeding me contraband pastries?”

Bianca brushed crumbs from her collar.

“It’s a bakery. Try to appreciate the hospitality.”

One weed brownie disappeared from Davidee’s inventory.

Bianca then discovered an inexplicably comfortable velvet chair between two flour sacks. She settled into it, found one of Davidee’s weed cakes, and ate that as well.

This was a mistake of legendary quality.

The cake struck her with the force of a ninth-level spell. Bianca sank into the velvet, fascinated by Draco’s scales and temporarily relieved of several ordinary relationships with judgment, balance, and spell concentration.

She patted the empty place beside her with grave seriousness.

“Draco. Come here. We should cuddle—for tactical reasons.”

Before Draco could answer, silver smoke erupted across the cellar.

Timmichanga appeared.

He surveyed the bound and intoxicated Matron Corva, the catastrophically high bard in the velvet chair, and the druid who had just received a tactical cuddle invitation. Then he claimed the lonely chair directly across from them.

“I leave for five minutes,” Tim said, “and this turns into that kind of interrogation?”

Corva slowly turned toward him.

“Who are you?”

“The only person here making responsible seating decisions.”

History may someday determine whether Draco accepted Bianca’s invitation.

History was distracted by the shouting.

---

Upstairs, Kwesi lowered himself into the chair beside Davidee. Carrying eleven people through folded space had left the battle mage exhausted.

Davidee slid him a chilled butterbeer without asking for an explanation.

Kwesi drank. Foam clung to his upper lip.

From beneath the floorboards came Tim’s muffled voice.

“For tactical reasons?!”

Kwesi paused and looked toward the cellar door.

Then he took another drink.

“I’m not going down there.”

Davidee raised his own glass.

“Smartest thing anyone’s done tonight.”

One butterbeer joined the brownie and cake among the evening’s casualties.

At last, the bakery settled.

Four prisoners were safe. Matron Corva remained alive at eight of sixty hit points, bound to a cellar post and stripped of the magic that might have led the Crows to her. Bianca was in no condition to interrogate anyone. Tim had appointed himself guardian of the least fortunate chair in Stonehaven. Draco had choices to make. Kwesi drank quietly beside Davidee while his runes recovered from an impossible journey.

And upon the cellar table waited the ledger, Corva’s sealed orders, and a warning none of them could ignore.

Someone was buying the people whose names appeared in that book.

Now the party’s names were there too.

The next chapter would begin beneath a bakery, with Matron Corva tied to a post and Ark asking the first question.

The Iron Crows did not advertise their crimes.

They did not need to.

Everyone along Stonehaven’s waterfront knew their mark: a black bird stamped into sealing wax, carved beneath dock pilings, or painted somewhere discreet upon a wagon carrying cargo that guards had been paid not to inspect.

The Crows trafficked in anything that could be given a price.

Weapons. Secrets. Forbidden alchemical compounds.

People.

Their barge waited beneath the eastern bridge on a moonless night, chained to the pilings where the river widened before reaching the harbor. No lanterns marked its position. Its hull had been painted black, while heavy canvas concealed the cargo deck from anyone watching along the shore.

The vessel was called the Blackwing.

I watched it from the bridge with rain collecting upon the brim of my hat.

My name is Orrin Thistlequill, bard of Briar Glen and chronicler of the most consistently unsuccessful successful adventuring company in Stonehaven Crossing.

I had followed Ark and his companions through a government robbery and the destruction of Pier Four. I had seen Lilly bite the face from a giant spider. I had watched Cameron turn a guard into an unpleasant memory. I had recorded Kwesi using an unconscious sergeant as bait.

I believed myself prepared for anything.

Then Timmichanga appeared beside me in a puff of smoke.

I nearly dropped my lute into the river.

He stood upon the bridge as though he had always been there: robed, calm, and studying the barge below.

“You could announce yourself,” I whispered.

“I could.”

He offered no indication that he ever would.

Below us, Ark crouched behind a stack of abandoned freight near the riverbank. Cameron waited beside him, gripping his enchanted quarterstaff. Kwesi stood at the water’s edge in his Spellguard chain shirt, a runed battle-axe hanging across his back and kinetic gauntlets covering his hands.

They were the visible portion of the rescue party.

The invisible portion was already aboard.

Davidee had brought the Iron Crow contract to The Stumbling Goblin. The instructions were brief: infiltrate the Blackwing, recover a particular chest, and extract anyone being held inside the vessel’s secured cargo compartment.

Payment would follow.

Ark had asked who wanted to join him.

Several people had volunteered.

Several others had appeared without being asked.

With this company, those categories frequently overlapped.

Ark studied the watchmen moving along the deck.

“Three guards above,” he whispered. “More below.”

Cameron peered through the rain.

“And Brassjaw?”

“Inside.”

Kwesi flexed one hand. The gauntlet answered with a low metallic hum.

“Then we go inside.”

Ark drew his sword.

“No fires.”

Cameron looked offended. “Why are you looking at me?”

“Pier Four.”

“That was tactically necessary.”

“It was a wooden pier.”

“It stopped the guard.”

“It stopped him from existing.”

Cameron adjusted his grip on the staff.

“So we agree it worked.”

Ark closed his eyes for a moment.

Then the three of them moved.

---

The Blackwing rocked gently against its chains.

Kwesi reached the side of the hull first. He raised one gauntleted hand, and invisible force caught the boarding line above him. The rope snapped taut. Ark climbed after him, then Cameron.

I remained upon the bridge with Timmichanga.

Someone had to observe the operation from a safe distance.

More importantly, someone had to survive long enough to write about it.

From the barge came a muffled impact.

Then a guard screamed.

Then someone shouted, “Who in the Nine Hells let them aboard?”

Timmichanga looked at me.

“Quiet operation?”

“That was the aspiration.”

Below, Ark drove his shoulder into the cargo-deck entrance. The door flew inward, and the party disappeared into the barge.

The three Iron Crow guards on deck rushed after them.

Timmichanga raised one hand.

A bead of orange light appeared between his fingers.

I recognized the spell immediately.

“No,” I said.

He looked at me.

“That is a wooden ship.”

He looked at the ship.

“There are prisoners aboard.”

He considered this.

Then he smiled.

The bead of light fell.

---

Inside the Blackwing, the air smelled of river water, rust, and unwashed fear.

The passageways were narrow enough that Kwesi’s shoulders nearly brushed both walls. Iron cages filled the cargo hold. Some stood empty. Others contained personal belongings stripped from people who were no longer aboard—or at least were no longer in any condition to ask for them.

Ark found the first prisoner chained inside a compartment marked with a painted numeral.

VII.

The prisoner’s identity had been erased and replaced by a designation.

Asset Seven.

Ark cut through the locking mechanism.

“You’re free,” he said.

Asset Seven studied him with a gaze too controlled to be frightened.

“Who sent you?”

“Someone with money.”

“That is not reassuring.”

“It wasn’t meant to be.”

Cameron opened the next compartment. It contained an unconscious woman bound at the wrists and ankles. A dark bruise marked the side of her face.

“We have another one,” he called.

Kwesi turned toward the central cargo chamber.

A heavy iron-bound chest sat upon a raised platform beyond it.

“The contract’s cargo.”

Someone stepped from behind the chest.

He was a large man wearing a riveted leather coat reinforced with pieces of ship iron. Metal capped several of his teeth, lending him the name by which the waterfront knew him.

Brassjaw.

A broad sword rested in his hands.

“You’ve climbed aboard the wrong boat,” he said.

Ark raised his own blade.

“We heard you had something that belonged to us.”

Brassjaw smiled, iron teeth gleaming.

“Everything aboard this vessel belongs to the Crows.”

A woman’s voice answered from the shadows.

“I disagree.”

Brassjaw turned.

A rapier emerged from the darkness and passed cleanly across the throat of the Iron Crow officer standing beside him.

The officer froze.

His weapon fell from his hand.

Blood appeared in a thin line beneath his jaw before pouring down the front of his uniform. He collapsed without a word.

The woman holding the rapier stepped over him.

Her name was Bianca.

She had been kidnapped by the Iron Crows and placed aboard the Blackwing with the others. Unlike the unconscious woman and Asset Seven, Bianca had already freed herself by the time Ark’s crew breached the barge.

She had been waiting for an opportunity.

They had brought her one.

Bianca watched the dying officer clutch his ruined throat.

Then she laughed.

It was not a nervous laugh.

Cameron glanced at Ark.

“Is she with us?”

Bianca flicked the blood from her rapier.

“I am now.”

Brassjaw roared and charged.

---

Steel struck steel inside the cramped hold.

Ark caught Brassjaw’s first swing upon his sword. The impact drove him backward across the wet planks. He twisted away from the second strike and cut across the enforcer’s side, but Brassjaw’s reinforced coat absorbed much of the blow.

“Four,” Ark muttered.

“What?” Cameron asked.

“Not enough.”

Ark changed his footing and prepared a mocking retort—the sharp verbal magic he called Cutting Words—should Brassjaw overcommit.

Above them, the three deck guards reached the open cargo hatch.

That was when Timmichanga’s Fireball arrived.

The spell descended from the bridge like a falling star.

Flame erupted across the upper deck with a deafening concussion. The fire wrapped around all three guards, rolling through the rigging and across the rain-slick boards.

Yet the flames curved around Ark’s companions.

Timmichanga possessed a rare instinct for evocation. His Sculpt Spells technique carved safe spaces through the blast, allowing the inferno to consume his chosen targets while sparing those he considered allies.

All three guards disappeared behind fire.

The mast shuddered.

Canvas ignited.

Burning rope fell into the river.

Ark looked upward through the open hatch.

“I specifically said no fires.”

From somewhere above came Timmichanga’s voice.

“I wasn’t in the room.”

A moment later, he vanished in a puff of smoke.

The deck continued burning.

Cameron sighed.

“He does that.”

---

Brassjaw forced Ark toward the starboard side of the hold.

Bianca circled from the opposite direction while Asset Seven armed themself with a fallen guard’s knife. Cameron stood near the unconscious captive, trying to keep her beyond the reach of the fighting.

Kwesi looked toward the burning hatch.

Then toward Cameron.

“We need to get off the barge.”

“What about the others?”

“I’ll come back.”

Kwesi seized Cameron by the arm.

Mist gathered around his boots.

His magic resembled Misty Step, though it had never shown much respect for the limitations of the original spell. Space folded around both men, and they disappeared from the cargo hold.

They reappeared upon the bridge near me.

Cameron stumbled and nearly dropped his staff.

“You could warn me.”

“I grabbed you.”

“That was not a warning.”

Below, the Blackwing burned more fiercely.

Back in the cargo hold, Bianca looked at the iron-bound chest.

Then she looked at Brassjaw.

She raised one hand and whispered an illusion into being.

A second chest appeared beside the first, identical down to the scorch marks along its corner and the black iron hinges.

Brassjaw glanced toward them.

For half a heartbeat, even he seemed uncertain which was real.

Bianca seized the genuine chest and dragged it from the platform.

Ark used the distraction to pivot behind Brassjaw.

“I need you facing the other way.”

He drove his boot into Brassjaw’s back.

The kick landed perfectly.

Brassjaw flew across the cargo hold in the opposite direction from Bianca and Asset Seven, crashing through a table and scattering Iron Crow documents across the floor.

Ark stared at his own boot.

“That worked better than expected.”

Brassjaw rose from the wreckage.

His smile was gone.

---

From the bridge, Cameron watched flames crawl along the barge’s upper deck.

“If the fire reaches the cargo hold, everyone dies.”

“That is generally what fire does,” I said.

He gripped his staff and aimed toward the burning rigging.

Cold gathered around its tip.

Ray of Frost was designed to harm living creatures, but Cameron had begun developing a particular talent for turning magic toward the world itself. His cold did not merely wound. When guided properly, it reshaped heat, water, and weather.

Later, he would call the technique Winterwright.

That night, it was instinct.

A pale ray struck the burning deck.

Ice raced through the wet boards. Steam exploded upward as the flames died beneath a sudden crust of frost. The frozen line spread across the canvas, extinguishing one section of the fire before it could reach the hold.

The barge creaked beneath the violent change in temperature.

Kwesi looked over the bridge railing.

“I’m going back.”

“You just left,” Cameron said.

“Ark is still down there.”

“So is the chest.”

Kwesi nodded.

“And the chest.”

He searched the bridge approach and nearby abandoned carts for anything useful. Beneath a rotting tarpaulin, he discovered a small wooden case containing several healing potions—contraband likely set aside for an Iron Crow courier.

Even from a distance, I could see his smile.

“Perfect.”

He drank one vial. Some of the bruising along his arms faded, and strength returned to his posture.

Then he vanished over the side of the bridge.

His mist carried him back to the Blackwing.

---

Inside the hold, Bianca approached Brassjaw.

She lowered her rapier.

Her lips moved.

Dissonant Whispers entered the enforcer’s mind.

Whatever she told him, none of us heard it.

Brassjaw did.

His face lost its color. His eyes widened, and he turned away from her as though something unspeakable had begun breathing against the back of his neck.

“Walk,” Bianca whispered.

Brassjaw staggered away.

She followed and drove her rapier into the gap beneath his armor.

He grunted as the blade bit into him.

Ark lunged forward and wrapped both arms around the enforcer, locking Brassjaw’s sword arm against his body.

“You’re done.”

Brassjaw drove an elbow backward.

Ark tightened his hold.

“Still done.”

Mist filled the hold.

Kwesi reappeared beside the chest.

Bianca stared at him.

“How many times can you do that?”

“As many as the story needs.”

“That is not how magic works.”

“It does tonight.”

Kwesi waited beside the chest while Bianca sprinted toward him. Asset Seven helped drag the unconscious woman away from the fighting.

Above them, a hook struck the bridge railing with a metallic clang.

A rope fell toward the barge.

Timmichanga had appeared again.

He held the remaining coil in one hand.

“Thirty feet,” he announced.

“Is that enough?” I asked.

He looked over the edge.

“Probably.”

The hook caught securely on the first attempt.

Timmichanga shrugged.

Then he vanished.

I looked at the place where he had been standing.

“Why does he keep doing that?”

Cameron took hold of the rope.

“I stopped asking.”

He climbed down toward Kwesi.

Bianca ran across the hold and joined the battle mage. If the chest slowed her, she showed no sign of it.

Ark still grappled Brassjaw near the opposite wall.

“No one is above to pull the chest!” he shouted.

Cameron looked up the rope.

Orrin Thistlequill, bard of Briar Glen, scholar of heroic deeds, and sensible owner of two hands, was the only person remaining upon the bridge.

Everyone looked at me.

I looked at the iron-bound chest.

“No.”

Nobody listened.

---

Ark shifted his grip and struck Brassjaw while maintaining the grapple. The blow landed hard enough to snap the enforcer’s head sideways.

Then a new voice called from the riverbank.

“What did I miss?”

A man stood there whom none of us had seen approach.

His name was Lake.

He introduced himself later as a fifth-level Porn Star.

I did not know what abilities belonged to that profession, and nothing that occurred afterward provided useful clarification.

Lake surveyed the burning, frozen barge, the rope hanging from the bridge, and the violent struggle visible through the cargo hatch.

Then he jumped into the river.

He landed badly.

There was a tremendous splash, followed by silence.

Cameron looked down.

“Did he mean to do that?”

Bubbles rose near one of the pilings.

“No,” I said.

Kwesi seized Bianca’s hand. She gripped the chest. Cameron caught Kwesi’s other arm, while Asset Seven brought the unconscious captive close.

Mist swirled around them.

The spell expanded.

This was no longer Misty Step.

Kwesi’s magic reached outward, taking hold of every willing body connected to him and dragging them all through folded space. It was rough, unstable, and far beyond what the spell should have permitted.

They vanished from the barge.

A heartbeat later, Kwesi, Cameron, Bianca, Asset Seven, the unconscious woman, and the heavy chest appeared upon the bridge in a tangled heap.

The boards groaned beneath them.

Kwesi released a long breath.

Years later, arcanists would argue over what to call the technique.

Those of us who witnessed it knew its proper name.

Warband Step.

Ark remained aboard the barge.

So did Brassjaw.

---

Cameron looked down from the bridge.

“Ark is still there.”

“I noticed,” Ark called.

He drove Brassjaw against the wall of the hold.

Cameron raised his staff and sent three glowing darts of force downward. His Magic Missiles curved through the hatch and struck Brassjaw with a series of sharp flashes.

The blasts were not powerful.

They were, however, distracting.

Brassjaw loosened his footing.

Ark used the opening to force him toward the side of the vessel.

Timmichanga appeared at the water’s edge.

He looked around, noticed the bubbles left by Lake, and tilted his head.

“Who would be down there?”

No one answered.

Bianca looked from the bridge to Ark and the unconscious captive.

“I can go back down.”

She seized the rope and descended toward the barge, intending to push Brassjaw away and help secure the woman at the same time.

Her boot slipped.

She swung sideways and struck the hull.

“That went poorly,” Cameron said.

“I know,” Bianca snapped.

Recovering, she climbed lower and made a second attempt. This time she reached the deck and moved toward Ark.

Brassjaw tore one arm free.

Ark caught it again.

Bianca studied the enforcer.

“Can you turn someone into a mouse?” she asked.

Cameron blinked. “Can you?”

Bianca raised one hand.

Magic gathered around Brassjaw.

His body twisted. Armor collapsed inward. The roar in his throat became a tiny squeak.

Ark’s arms closed around empty air.

A small brown mouse landed among the folds of Brassjaw’s abandoned coat.

Everyone stared.

The mouse looked up.

Its teeth still seemed faintly metallic.

Kwesi leaned over the bridge.

“My turn.”

He extended one gauntleted hand.

Telekinetic force seized the mouse.

Brassjaw flew from the barge in a shallow arc and disappeared into the river.

There was a very small splash.

Ark looked over the side.

“I think we’re safe.”

The river gave no answer.

Ark lifted the unconscious woman into his arms.

---

Timmichanga stood along the riverbank beside the place where Lake had vanished.

He produced a revolver.

The weapon was unlike any common flintlock in Stonehaven. Its metal cylinder opened with a click. Timmichanga placed a single cartridge into one chamber, snapped the cylinder shut, and spun it.

The metallic ticking carried across the water.

He raised the weapon toward his own head.

For the first time that evening, Timmichanga did not look amused.

He stared into the river.

“Lake,” he said.

Bubbles broke the surface.

Then he pulled the trigger.

The hammer fell.

The sound vanished beneath the river and the groaning barge.

Whether the chamber fired or his own magic turned the moment aside, I cannot say with certainty. Timmichanga fell backward onto the wet stones.

Lake erupted from the river.

He dragged himself onto the bank, coughing water and gasping for air. Then he saw Timmichanga.

Lake crawled to him, seized his face, and began giving him mouth-to-mouth.

Timmichanga’s eyes opened.

Lake leaned over him, soaking wet and breathing heavily.

Timmichanga stared into his face.

“I’m in Hell,” he whispered.

Lake sat back.

“What?”

“Oh, gods. This is Hell. I want to go home.”

Some events resist artistic interpretation.

That was one of them.

---

By the time Ark reached the bridge carrying the rescued woman, the Blackwing had begun sinking.

Fire had eaten through part of the rigging. Cameron’s frost had split several overheated boards. Water poured through the damage near the hull, and the river slowly claimed the Iron Crow vessel.

The party gathered around the recovered chest.

Bianca stood apart from them, her rapier still stained with the officer’s blood.

Asset Seven watched everyone in silence.

Kwesi inspected the unconscious woman.

“We should return to the tavern,” he said. “She needs somewhere safe.”

Ark nodded.

“Everyone stays together.”

Lake helped Timmichanga stand. Timmichanga avoided looking at him.

We left the waterfront before the town guard could arrive.

Behind us, the black mast of the Blackwing tilted toward the river. Its painted crow disappeared beneath the water one wing at a time.

---

The Stumbling Goblin was nearly empty when we returned.

Ark laid the rescued woman upon a bench near the hearth. Cameron covered her with a blanket. Bianca placed the recovered chest beside the bar but did not release her grip upon it until Kwesi assured her the doors were locked.

Asset Seven remained close to the shadows.

Nobody knew what to say.

The contract rested upon the table.

Its black wax seal had been broken, but the language remained: recover the cargo, secure the asset, remove the Iron Crow obstruction.

The words reduced the entire night to property.

The chest was property.

Asset Seven was an asset.

The unconscious woman was unnamed cargo.

Even Bianca’s freedom existed nowhere in the agreement.

Someone asked who had completed the contract.

Ark stepped forward.

His clothes were soaked. Blood—some his, most of it not—darkened one sleeve. A fresh bruise marked his jaw where Brassjaw had nearly escaped the grapple.

He looked around the room.

At Cameron, who had frozen fire and refused to leave anyone aboard.

At Kwesi, who had carried an entire warband through space.

At Bianca, who had freed herself before anyone arrived and fought beside strangers because others remained in chains.

At Asset Seven.

At the rescued woman.

At Lake, still dripping river water across the floor.

At Timmichanga, who had appeared, vanished, burned a ship, supplied a rope, nearly died, and returned looking offended by his own survival.

Even at me, standing near the hearth with my journal open.

“Family,” Ark said. “We all did.”

Bianca’s expression hardened.

“I had no part in this so-called contract.”

The room fell quiet.

She looked toward the black seal.

“I was already aboard that barge. I did not come for your payment. I did not come for your employer. The Iron Crows kidnapped me.”

Ark nodded.

“That’s true.”

He placed himself between Bianca and the contract.

“She was their prisoner. She freed herself when Cameron, Kwesi, and I broke into the barge. Then she helped us rescue the others.”

Bianca studied him, waiting for the qualification.

None came.

Ark pushed the contract aside.

“She owes us nothing.”

For the first time since we had met her, Bianca’s grip loosened around her rapier.

The woman by the hearth stirred.

Everyone turned.

Her eyes opened only briefly. She saw unfamiliar faces gathered beneath the warm tavern light, then closed them again.

But she was breathing.

She was alive.

Outside, somewhere beyond the rain and darkness, the Iron Crows would soon learn what had happened to their barge.

They would learn that Brassjaw had vanished into the river as a mouse. They would learn that Asset Seven was no longer theirs. They would learn that one of their prisoners had taken an officer’s rapier and used it to cut her own path to freedom.

They would also learn the name of the tavern where the survivors had found refuge.

The Stumbling Goblin had never been a peaceful establishment.

After that night, it became something more dangerous.

It became a place where stolen people could become people again.

I sat beside the hearth long after the others had gone quiet and wrote the final line of the chapter:

The Iron Crows believed every living thing possessed a price.

They had yet to understand what happened when a family refused to sell.

There are two kinds of silence inside a tavern.

The first belongs to the early morning, when the chairs are still upside down on the tables and the previous night’s spilled ale has become part of the floor.

The second comes after a company of adventurers returns from robbing Town Hall.

That silence is considerably more expensive.

The morning after the ledger affair, only Cameron and Kwesi remained in the taproom of The Stumbling Goblin. The rest of their companions had scattered across Stonehaven Crossing or disappeared in the peculiar manner that adventurers do when their players—I mean, when their destinies—call them elsewhere.

Lilly had departed with her sword, the metal-bound ledger, and the severed leg of a giant spider.

Anthony Common had gone in search of a safe place to empty the live rat from his magical inventory.

Miranda was nowhere to be found, although several syringes remained behind.

Davidee had disappeared sometime before sunrise. Whether he had returned to his bakery, gone to sell herbs in the street, or simply become invisible again was impossible to determine.

Cameron and Kwesi sat across from each other at a scarred wooden table.

Cameron cradled a mug of black coffee in both hands. His staff leaned against the wall beside him, its wood marked by smoke and recent abuse.

Kwesi had ordered ale.

It was not yet nine in the morning.

Ark stood behind the bar, counting coins and pretending not to listen to them. I occupied my customary seat near the hearth, tuning my lute and writing corrections in the margins of my account of the Town Hall affair.

Cameron glanced toward the metal-bound ledger resting beneath the counter.

“We should probably read that.”

Ark did not look up. “You should probably stop setting government buildings on fire.”

“It was already burned.”

“You improved upon it.”

Kwesi raised his mug. “He made it more burned.”

“I am never paying for your drinks again,” Cameron said.

“You say that now.”

Ark finished counting his coins and closed the register.

The sum was not encouraging.

The party’s recent adventures had cost the tavern more than they had earned. Broken chairs, scorched wood, damaged doors, frightened customers, and several payments made to people whose official titles included words such as inspector, watchman, and please do not tell the magistrate had left The Stumbling Goblin in need of money.

A great deal of money.

Ark leaned against the bar.

“There’s a merchant at the waterfront named Vance,” he said. “He owes us.”

Cameron looked interested immediately. “How much?”

“Enough.”

“That isn’t a number.”

“It’s the number you’re going to collect.”

Kwesi drained the remainder of his ale.

“Where?”

“Pier Four.”

The name settled heavily over the table.

Even I had heard of Pier Four. It stood at the far end of Stonehaven’s waterfront, beyond the legitimate shipping houses and the warehouses that bothered to display business licenses. Smugglers used it when the tide was low. Stolen cargo changed hands beneath its cranes. Guards assigned there were rarely town guards and seldom asked lawful questions.

Vance ran the operation from a warehouse built over the water.

He purchased goods that had forgotten their owners and sold merchandise that had never officially existed. According to Ark, a portion of the money connected to the Town Hall ledger had passed through Vance’s hands.

“The job is simple,” Ark continued. “Go to the warehouse. Speak with Vance. Recover what he owes.”

Cameron lifted an eyebrow. “And if he refuses?”

“Encourage him.”

Kwesi rested one hand on the hilt of his longsword.

“I can encourage him.”

Ark looked at the weapon.

“Try words first.”

I closed my journal.

“Those instructions have never survived contact with this group.”

Ark glanced toward me.

“You’re coming.”

“I am?”

“You’re writing all of this down anyway.”

“I’m a bard, not an accountant.”

“You’re also the only person here who can remember what everyone stole.”

That was difficult to dispute.

Ark came around the bar and adjusted the collar of his dark coat. Cameron retrieved his staff. Kwesi rose, stretching his shoulders as faint currents of magical energy traveled along his arms.

The battle mage had recently learned a technique he called Adrenaline Surge. It could strengthen his body for combat or force life back into wounded muscles.

Cameron had developed his own healing magic, though I remained suspicious of any spell called Cauterizing Touch.

Ark looked between them.

“You two take the lead.”

Cameron frowned. “You’re not negotiating?”

“I’m supervising.”

“What does that mean?”

“It means I get to see what you do before I decide whether I’m disappointed.”

Kwesi smiled.

“Then let’s go disappoint someone else.”

---

The waterfront smelled of salt, pitch, fish, and old crimes.

Fog drifted between the warehouses, turning the cranes into long-necked shadows. Ships creaked against their moorings. Somewhere beyond the breakwater, a bell rang from a vessel hidden in the morning haze.

Pier Four extended into the harbor like a dark finger.

Vance’s warehouse dominated its center. Its weathered walls rose above stacked crates and coils of rope. Two men guarded the entrance, while others patrolled between the cargo piles.

Ark stopped beside a leaning tower of empty fish crates.

“Go speak to him,” he said.

Cameron stared at the warehouse.

“How many guards?”

I studied the movement around the pier.

Two heavy men stood behind Vance’s desk inside the open warehouse. Four more guards patrolled the floor and perimeter with shortswords and crossbows.

“Six,” I said. “Not including Vance.”

Kwesi rolled his shoulders. “I’ve fought worse.”

“You missed a stationary guard yesterday,” Cameron reminded him.

“He moved.”

“The gutter?”

Kwesi looked at him.

Cameron cleared his throat. “Six guards. Fine.”

Ark folded his arms.

“Go.”

Cameron and Kwesi entered the warehouse while Ark and I remained near the crates.

Vance sat behind a makeshift desk surrounded by manifests, ledgers, and half-empty wine bottles. He wore a thick velvet coat despite the mild weather, and a gold tooth flashed whenever he forced himself to smile.

The two guards behind him were shaped like wardrobes.

Vance watched Cameron and Kwesi approach.

“Gentlemen,” he said. “You look lost.”

Cameron placed both hands upon the top of his staff.

“We’re here for Ark’s money.”

Vance’s smile became strained.

“Ah.”

Kwesi stepped beside Cameron. He said nothing.

He did not need to.

Vance looked from the wizard to the battle mage and then toward the warehouse entrance, perhaps hoping to see someone more reasonable waiting there.

Unfortunately for him, the person waiting there was Ark.

“I was expecting to settle that account,” Vance said. “Of course I was. But business has been difficult. Increased patrols. Lost shipments. Unexpected expenses.”

“That sounds unfortunate,” Cameron replied.

“It has been.”

“For you.”

Vance spread his hands. Rings glittered on his fingers.

“What I’m proposing is patience. A revised arrangement. Perhaps a smaller payment now and the remainder once the market improves.”

“How much now?” Cameron asked.

Vance named an amount.

Even from across the warehouse, I heard Kwesi laugh.

It was not a warm laugh.

Cameron glanced at the six guards. Then he looked toward Ark.

“We should discuss this.”

Kwesi nodded. “Privately.”

They returned to us.

“He’s stalling,” Cameron said. “Six guards, and two of them look like they eat furniture.”

“He has the money,” Kwesi added. “I can tell by the way he keeps looking toward the back office.”

Ark’s gaze traveled across the warehouse.

Vance whispered instructions to his men. Two guards remained behind his desk. The others continued their patrols, though their hands now rested closer to their weapons.

“What do you think?” Ark asked me.

“I think Vance has no intention of paying willingly.”

Ark nodded.

“Good. I’d hate to rob an honest man.”

Cameron lowered his voice.

“So what’s the plan?”

Ark looked outside toward the fog-covered pier.

“We thin the room.”

---

We left the warehouse as though the negotiation had concluded.

Vance called after us.

“Gentlemen! There’s no need to be hasty. We can still discuss percentages.”

Ark did not turn around.

Kwesi did.

“We’ll be back.”

There was something in his voice that made Vance stop smiling.

Outside, two of Vance’s guards were patrolling near a pile of empty fish crates. One leaned against a piling while attempting to light a cigarette in the wind. The other stood near the pier’s edge, watching the harbor.

The fog concealed us from the warehouse.

Ark raised one hand.

The air around us softened. Sound became strangely distant, as though the mist itself had thickened to absorb it.

“Quietly,” Ark whispered.

Cameron looked at Kwesi.

Kwesi looked at Cameron.

Neither moved.

Ark sighed. “That was your signal.”

Kwesi invoked Adrenaline Surge.

Arcane energy traveled beneath his skin in bands of pale light. He shot forward with startling speed and struck the first guard before the man could finish lighting his cigarette. The blow drove the guard into the fish crates, scattering splintered wood across the dock.

Cameron pointed his staff at the second man. Fire sparked around the guard’s coat, forcing him to turn from the water and beat frantically at the smoking wool.

Kwesi extended one hand.

Invisible force struck the guard in the chest.

The spell was intended to throw him cleanly into the harbor. Instead, the guard tripped over a coil of rope, spun sideways, and crashed ribs-first onto a barnacle-covered piling below the dock.

He hung there groaning, his boots trailing in the freezing water.

Kwesi peered over the edge.

“That was almost right.”

“Almost?” the guard gasped.

Ark stepped forward and plucked a sharp chord from the strings of his instrument.

Magic rippled toward the man on the piling, intended to twist his thoughts into confusion.

The spell struck him.

The guard blinked several times.

“What was that supposed to do?” he asked.

Ark’s expression remained composed.

“It softened him.”

“He looks the same,” Cameron said.

“He’s emotionally softer.”

The first guard pushed himself from the shattered crates.

“You’re dead!” he shouted.

Cameron turned.

His staff flared orange.

I saw Ark’s eyes widen.

“Cameron—”

The Fireball struck the guard squarely in the chest.

The explosion devoured the fog.

Flames rolled across the dock, and the shockwave sent crates, rope, and seawater in every direction. I threw myself behind a bollard as burning splinters rained over the pier.

When I looked again, the first guard was gone.

Only a scorched outline remained upon the boards.

The second guard had been knocked from his piling and was now somewhere beneath the black water.

A ripple spread across the harbor.

Then a few bubbles rose.

The dock burned behind us.

Ark stared at Cameron.

Cameron lowered his staff.

“You told us to thin the room.”

“I also said quietly.”

Kwesi looked back toward the warehouse.

Inside, men were shouting.

“That definitely thinned it.”

The warehouse doors flew open.

Vance and the remaining four guards rushed onto the pier. Crossbows were raised. Swords left their sheaths.

Vance stared at the burning crater.

“What did you do?”

Cameron glanced at Ark. “Should I answer?”

“No.”

Ark swept his hand across the strings of his instrument.

The chord he produced was low and strangely beautiful. Light bent around us. The waterfront blurred, and the fog appeared to pass through our bodies.

My hands vanished.

Then my arms.

Cameron disappeared beside me, followed by Kwesi and Ark.

Vance lifted his crossbow.

“Where did they go?”

We stood less than ten feet away.

One guard rushed past me close enough that his sleeve brushed mine. He noticed nothing.

“Search the dock!” Vance shouted. “They can’t have gone far!”

The guards spread out through the fog.

Ark’s invisible hand settled briefly upon my shoulder.

“Walk,” he whispered.

We walked directly past them.

---

There is a peculiar intimacy to committing a crime while invisible.

You hear every breath. Every nervous swallow. Every floorboard groaning beneath a companion’s weight becomes a personal betrayal.

Kwesi moved surprisingly quietly for a man carrying a sword longer than some children are tall.

Cameron did not.

His staff struck the edge of a crate with a hollow knock.

One of the guards outside turned.

“What was that?”

Ark whispered, “Keep moving.”

We entered the warehouse and slipped between rows of cargo. With Vance and his guards searching the pier, the building had become nearly empty.

Crates marked as lamp oil contained imported wine.

Barrels labeled as pickled herring smelled of alchemical reagents.

A shipment registered as agricultural equipment contained twenty crossbows and enough bolts to begin a small rebellion.

Vance’s back office stood behind a canvas partition.

We stepped inside.

An open leather-bound ledger rested on the desk. Beside it sat a heavy iron-reinforced lockbox secured with a thick brass lock.

Cameron examined it.

“Can you open this?” Kwesi whispered.

“Probably.”

“How long?”

Cameron studied the lock more carefully.

“Longer than carrying it.”

Kwesi picked up the entire lockbox.

“That was my next suggestion.”

Ark took the ledger, scanning several lines by the grey light entering through the warehouse windows.

Names filled the pages. Payments. Bribes. Missing shipments. Cargo fees collected twice and reported once. The stolen funds from the Town Hall accounts appeared among them, disguised through several false companies.

Ark closed the book.

“This is it.”

Outside, Vance continued shouting.

“Check beneath the pier! Find them!”

One of his guards entered the warehouse.

We fell silent.

The man passed the canvas partition, paused, and looked directly into the office.

The desk appeared empty.

The ledger seemed to float for half a heartbeat before Ark tucked it beneath his coat.

The guard narrowed his eyes.

I held my breath.

From outside came a splash.

Someone shouted, “I found Hollis!”

“Is he alive?”

A long silence followed.

“Mostly!”

The guard abandoned his search and ran toward the pier.

Ark pointed toward the back of the warehouse.

We slipped through a loading door and disappeared into the fog with Vance’s lockbox.

---

The magic held until we reached an alley several streets from the waterfront.

Ark released the spell.

Four figures and one iron box appeared beside a startled fishmonger. The man looked at us, looked at the lockbox, and decided that curiosity was unlikely to improve his morning.

Kwesi set the box down.

Cameron leaned against a wall.

“That went well.”

I stared at him.

“You vaporized a man.”

“He was hostile.”

“You also set the pier on fire.”

“It was tactically useful.”

“The remaining guards chased us because of the fire.”

“Exactly. Tactical.”

Ark crouched before the lockbox.

“We discuss this at the tavern.”

“Can’t we open it now?” Kwesi asked.

“No.”

“Why?”

Ark glanced toward the passing townspeople.

“Because standing in an alley beside a stolen lockbox while smoke rises from Pier Four may attract the wrong kind of attention.”

Cameron looked toward the harbor. A black column had begun rising above the roofs.

“We should probably walk faster.”

We did.

---

The doors of The Stumbling Goblin opened to receive us.

Davidee sat at the bar laughing into his drink.

Nobody had seen him enter.

Ark locked the doors and drew the curtains. Kwesi placed the iron box upon a table, making the mugs jump. Cameron produced tools from behind the bar and began working on the lock.

Davidee watched him.

“Did you try the key?”

Everyone looked at him.

“What key?” Cameron asked.

Davidee reached beneath the lockbox and peeled away a small iron key tied to its rear handle.

Cameron stared at it.

“I knew that was there.”

“Of course.”

The lock opened.

Gold filled the bottom of the box.

For several moments, the room became reverently silent.

We counted five hundred gold pieces in minted coin. Beneath them lay a stack of rare trade tokens worth approximately two hundred and fifty more. Hidden inside a velvet pouch were three polished obsidian gemstones, together valued at one hundred and fifty gold.

Nine hundred gold pieces in total.

Enough to restore the tavern, equip the company, and persuade several public officials to forget that Pier Four had recently exploded.

Ark separated three hundred gold pieces into a heavy pouch.

“Repairs,” he said.

Cameron looked around the tavern.

“What repairs?”

Ark gestured toward the cracked furniture, scorched walls, damaged entrance, and a section of ceiling still stained from Lilly’s ale.

“Oh.”

Ark counted another hundred and fifty gold for himself.

“My share.”

“That leaves four hundred and fifty,” Kwesi said.

“For the two of you.”

Cameron smiled. “Two hundred and twenty-five each.”

Kwesi extended his hand.

Cameron shook it.

While they divided the coins, Ark quietly slid the obsidian stones and rare trade tokens beneath his coat.

He did it smoothly.

Almost flawlessly.

Unfortunately for him, stealing valuables in front of a bard is rather like attempting to conceal a melody from a musician.

I caught his eye.

Ark froze for only a fraction of a second.

I glanced toward Cameron and Kwesi. They were too busy counting gold to notice.

Then I looked back at Ark.

He placed one finger against his lips.

I opened my journal.

Ark’s eyes narrowed.

I slowly closed it.

Later, a glass of excellent whiskey appeared at my table without charge.

History is built upon compromises.

Davidee wandered over with his drink.

“Well?” he asked. “How did the negotiation go?”

Cameron poured his share of the gold into a pouch.

“Vance reconsidered his position.”

“After Cameron set one of his employees on fire,” Kwesi added.

“He was not on fire for very long.”

“He ceased being a person.”

“That also wasn’t very long.”

Davidee laughed.

Arcane light suddenly stirred around Cameron and Kwesi.

It began as a faint shimmer, then grew into a golden radiance that filled the tavern. Cameron’s robes lifted in an unseen wind. Symbols flickered across the wood of his staff. Beside him, Kwesi’s muscles tightened as magical force settled into his bones.

The power they had gained through the Town Hall battle and the Pier Four raid had finally taken shape.

When the light faded, both men stood changed.

Stronger.

Sharper.

More dangerous.

Cameron looked at his hands.

“I understand something new.”

“So do I,” Kwesi said.

“What did you learn?”

Cameron lifted one finger. A bead of green acid formed above it, hissing softly.

“Melf’s Acid Arrow.”

Kwesi struck one fist into his palm.

The windows rattled.

“Shatter.”

Davidee looked between them.

“Excellent. One melts people. The other breaks buildings.”

Ark poured himself a drink.

“Exactly what the tavern needed.”

---

By afternoon, Cameron and Kwesi had spent all four hundred and fifty gold.

This may seem impossible.

It was not.

Cameron purchased a ward-bound spellbook satchel, protected against both water and fire, along with an enchanted quarterstaff capable of deflecting an incoming attack.

Kwesi purchased a runed battle-axe, a Spellguard chain shirt, and a pair of steel-reinforced gauntlets designed to amplify the force of both his physical strikes and telekinetic magic.

Their purchases totaled five hundred and ten gold pieces.

They were sixty short.

When the armorer sent word to the tavern, Ark read the bill twice.

“No.”

The messenger waited.

Ark looked at Cameron’s new satchel. Then at Kwesi’s axe, armor, and gauntlets.

“No,” he repeated, although with less conviction.

Kwesi tested the balance of his axe.

“Investment in the company.”

“It is an investment in your inability to count.”

Cameron adjusted the strap of his new satchel.

“To be fair, we counted correctly. We simply continued buying things.”

Ark paid the remaining sixty gold.

The repair fund remained untouched. Cameron and Kwesi returned to The Stumbling Goblin with excellent equipment and entirely empty purses.

Davidee was still seated at the bar.

He waited until everyone had settled before producing a sealed parchment.

The wax bore an aristocratic crest I did not recognize: a black bird with iron feathers enclosed inside a silver circle.

Ark noticed it immediately.

“Where did you get that?”

Davidee placed the letter on the table.

“A quiet customer.”

“What kind of customer?”

“The kind who paid before speaking.”

Ark broke the seal.

Davidee leaned closer.

“There’s a rival syndicate operating in the lower waterfront. The Iron Crows. They’ve been taking over shipping routes, seizing cargo, and making people disappear.”

The humor faded from his voice.

“They’re holding a particular shipment aboard one of their barges. The person who hired us wants it recovered.”

Cameron rested his new quarterstaff against his shoulder.

“What’s in the shipment?”

Davidee shook his head.

“They didn’t say.”

Kwesi examined the black bird upon the broken seal.

“How much are they paying?”

“Three times what you took from Vance.”

The room fell silent.

Outside, evening rain began tapping against the tavern windows.

Ark read the contract.

I watched his expression change as his eyes moved down the page. Whatever the document promised, it was more than a simple theft. The Iron Crows were not dockside opportunists like Vance. Their name appeared beside kidnappings, smuggling operations, and whispered accounts of people transported through Stonehaven in locked cargo holds.

Somewhere upon the black river, an Iron Crow barge waited in the darkness.

Ark folded the parchment.

Cameron looked toward him.

“Well?”

Ark placed the contract on the table.

“We take the job.”

Davidee raised his glass.

Kwesi smiled and tightened one of his new gauntlets.

Cameron opened his ward-bound satchel, already searching for the first blank page in his spellbook.

I reached for my journal.

At the time, none of us knew about the prisoners.

We did not know the names Bianca or Asset Seven. We had never heard of Brassjaw. We did not know that Timmichanga would appear above a bridge, throw fire into the night, and vanish in smoke—or that Kwesi would soon discover that magic was capable of carrying far more than one man at a time.

We knew only that the Iron Crows had something aboard their barge.

And that Ark intended to steal it.

That was how the affair at Pier Four ended: not with the recovered gold, nor the burning dock, nor the sight of four people vanishing before an armed syndicate.

It ended with a black wax seal resting upon a tavern table.

Some victories close doors.

Ours had a habit of unlocking worse ones.

My name is Orrin Thistlequill, and before the morning of the Town Hall affair, I believed I understood the difference between adventurers and criminals.

Criminals, I had always thought, planned their crimes.

Adventurers simply arrived somewhere, misunderstood the instructions, and allowed destiny to sort through the wreckage.

I had come south from Briar Glen with a lute on my back, seven silver pieces in my purse, and the opening verses of a heroic ballad still unfinished. Stonehaven Crossing seemed like the sort of place where a wandering bard might find his final stanza. Its streets were crowded, its merchants dishonest in interesting ways, and its people possessed that nervous hospitality common to towns built beside both a river and a garrison.

Then I entered The Stumbling Goblin.

By noon, I had found enough material for an entire book.

The tavern’s proprietor, Ark, stood behind the bar with the expression of a man who had survived several catastrophes and suspected another had just ordered breakfast. A collection of unusually armed strangers occupied the tables before him.

Lilly, a sword-wielding warrior with the mannerisms of a hungry wolf, had just thrown a mug of ale.

Her aim was terrible.

The mug struck a ceiling beam, flipped neatly in the air, and emptied itself over Miranda instead.

Miranda stood perfectly still as stale ale ran down her hair and dripped from the edge of her chin. A scalpel rested at her hip beside several syringes filled with liquids I did not care to identify.

Lilly pointed at her.

“Yeah,” she said. “I meant to throw it at you.”

Miranda slowly wiped the ale from her eyes.

“I wasn’t even here when you became angry.”

“That sounds like a you problem.”

At the bar, Kwesi watched the exchange without visible concern. He was a broad-shouldered battle mage carrying a two-handed longsword large enough to resolve most philosophical disagreements.

“One ale,” he told Ark.

Cameron, a wizard with a wooden staff and a dangerous affection for fire, lifted one finger.

“Make that two.”

Anthony Common watched the women with the wary expression of a man reconsidering every decision that had led him into the room. Davidee merely stood beside Ark, neither helping nor leaving. He possessed two axes, the quiet confidence of an accomplished baker, and the distant gaze of someone whose thoughts had wandered somewhere they could not be extradited.

Ark filled two mugs and pushed them across the counter.

“Kwesi, one silver. Cameron, yours goes on the tab.”

Cameron frowned. “I have a tab?”

“You have a history.”

Ark then shoved a towel into Davidee’s hands.

“Make yourself useful.”

Davidee considered the towel as though it were an unfamiliar weapon. Eventually, he wiped the bar and offered it to Miranda. She accepted it without looking away from Lilly.

That was when Ark slapped a parchment onto the counter.

“Enough,” he said. “If you’re determined to destroy something today, you might as well get paid for it.”

Three jobs had been posted. Redcaps had infested the Iron Hearth Mine. A corruption was poisoning the marsh lilies east of town. The final commission concerned the Town Hall’s storage annex, which had burned during the night.

The council wanted a metal-bound financial ledger recovered before anyone learned that Stonehaven’s finances were, as the notice delicately phrased it, insecure.

The party selected the ledger.

Ark produced a tarnished brass key. Its wooden tag was branded with the letters TH-STORAGE.

“Go to the annex behind Town Hall,” he instructed. “Retrieve the ledger and bring it directly back here. Whatever else survived the fire is your cleanup fee.”

Lilly took the key.

Ark caught her gaze and added, “Walk in, retrieve the book, and walk out. Quietly.”

I had already opened my journal.

Those words deserved to be preserved.

---

I followed at a tactful distance.

A bard may call himself a chronicler, historian, or custodian of communal memory, but these are respectable names for someone who follows dangerous people and writes down what they break.

The Town Hall annex stood near the garrison wall: a square, windowless building of blackened stone beneath a heavy slate roof. Thin white smoke drifted through its ventilation slits. The morning rain had turned the ash around it into grey paste.

Two guards stood before the only entrance.

Lilly reached for the key.

Kwesi placed a hand upon her shoulder.

“Wait.”

She looked at the hand and then at him.

“There are two guards,” he said.

“I can count.”

“There’ll be more if you walk up carrying a sword and unlock a quarantined building.”

Lilly considered this.

“So we remove the guards.”

“Quietly,” Cameron whispered.

Anthony looked at him. “You?”

“I can be quiet.”

“You set furniture on fire when you’re surprised.”

“That happened once.”

“It happened repeatedly.”

Nevertheless, Cameron and Anthony slipped into the adjacent alley, intending to circle behind the guards. For several hopeful seconds, it appeared they might succeed.

Then Cameron’s robe caught on a scorched nail.

The fabric pulled tight. A wooden board snapped loose. Cameron staggered through the smoke and emerged onto the cobblestones with all the subtlety of a wardrobe falling down a staircase.

Both guards lowered their spears.

“Stand fast!” one shouted. “This area is under quarantine!”

Anthony remained pressed against the alley wall, eyes closed.

“I told you about the robe,” he muttered.

Cameron raised his hands. “There may have been a misunderstanding.”

The second guard reached for the whistle around his neck.

Kwesi stepped from concealment and extended one hand. Arcane force gathered around his fingers.

“Move away from him.”

The spell should have struck the guard.

Instead, the telekinetic force smashed into a stack of charred timbers beside the door. Wood exploded across the alley. Both guards ducked as blackened beams crashed around them.

“Mage!” one screamed. “They’re attacking the annex!”

Kwesi looked at his hand.

“That usually works.”

While everyone stared at the wreckage, Lilly walked directly between the guards, inserted Ark’s key into the lock, and opened the door.

One guard spun around. “Stop!”

“No.”

She stepped inside and slammed the door behind her.

There are moments of tactical brilliance so profound that they are indistinguishable from refusing to acknowledge danger.

This was one of them.

Inside, the annex smelled of wet charcoal and burned paper. Pale shafts of sunlight pierced the ruined roof. Shelves leaned against one another like wounded soldiers, and flakes of ash floated through the air.

At the far end of the building, untouched upon a stone pedestal, rested the ledger.

Lilly strode toward it.

Something skittered in the rafters.

She looked up briefly, decided that noises were not her current problem, and lifted the book from its pedestal.

Outside, Cameron thrust his staff forward.

“Smokescreen!”

A small grey cloud coughed from its tip. It smelled inexplicably of burned popcorn.

One guard stared at him through the thin haze.

“Was that supposed to blind me?”

“It’s still developing.”

Anthony rushed from the alley and struck the nearest guard in the shoulder, knocking him against the wall. Kwesi drew his enormous sword and charged the second.

The blade clipped a low gutter pipe.

Steel rang against iron, the sword recoiled, and Kwesi spun halfway around before the guard drove the butt of his spear into the battle mage’s stomach.

Kwesi stumbled backward into Cameron.

“We should go inside,” Cameron suggested.

The guard with the whistle blew it.

The piercing note echoed across the garrison district.

“We should go inside now.”

They rushed the entrance. At that precise moment, Davidee appeared beside them.

No flash of magic announced him. No shadowy portal opened. One moment the baker was absent; the next, he was simply there, axes hanging at his sides and flour dusting the front of his coat.

Anthony stared at him.

“How did you get here?”

Davidee shrugged. “Walked.”

“From where?”

Davidee glanced behind himself as if the answer might also have appeared.

“Nearby.”

Lilly unbarred the door just long enough for Cameron, Anthony, Kwesi, and Davidee to tumble inside. She slammed it shut, and together they dropped the iron locking bar into place.

Outside, guards shouted for a battering ram.

Above them, the skittering grew louder.

Lilly tucked the ledger beneath one arm and found a maintenance ladder leading into the loft.

“What are you doing?” Cameron asked.

“Finding another exit.”

“That sound is coming from up there.”

“Yes.”

“That seems relevant.”

Lilly climbed anyway.

She moved quickly despite the heavy ledger. At the top, she pulled herself onto the scorched floorboards and disappeared into the darkness.

Several pairs of luminous eyes opened around her.

Three giant spiders emerged from the rafters.

Below, the first strike of the battering ram shook the annex.

Cameron took position opposite the entrance. Kwesi stood beside him, sword ready while searching for another exit. Anthony dug through the debris until he found a length of metal pipe.

Davidee laughed.

It began quietly, then grew until he was standing amid the ash with his head thrown back, overcome by the extraordinary humor of their approaching deaths.

The battering ram struck again.

“What,” Anthony demanded, “is funny?”

Davidee wiped a tear from his eye.

“All of it.”

The door burst inward.

Three guards charged through the smoke behind a shield-bearing sergeant.

Kwesi acted first. He unleashed another telekinetic blow, this one striking its intended target. The sergeant’s shield tore free and flew across the room, while its owner crashed against the stone wall.

Cameron leveled his staff.

“Fireball.”

The entrance vanished inside a bloom of orange flame.

Heat rolled across the chamber. Guards screamed, armor clattered, and several shelves that had survived the original fire reconsidered their position.

A man suddenly crawled out from beneath a supply crate.

He was hairy, bewilderingly confident, and apparently named Scooby.

He snatched Anthony’s rag from the end of the pipe, whipped it at the guards, and began casting a spell he called Purple Nurple.

I cannot adequately describe Purple Nurple.

I am not convinced Scooby could have described it either.

Glowing pinches of violet energy rippled through the smoke. While the guards recoiled, Anthony pointed toward one of them and exerted his own strange magic.

The guard’s eyes glazed over.

His sword lowered.

“Bro,” he said softly, staring at Anthony as though reunited with a childhood friend. “Why are we fighting?”

“That’s what I’ve been trying to tell everyone,” Anthony replied. “Come stand over here.”

Above them, Lilly attacked the nearest spider.

Her boot slipped in the soot.

Her sword passed through empty air, and the spider answered by sinking its fangs into her arm. A second spat webbing across her boots while the third blocked the ladder.

Lilly pulled against the web.

It held.

The wounded spider crept closer.

Lilly looked down at her trapped feet, then at the monster’s face.

She dropped all pretense of civilized warfare and bit it.

The spider made a sound I had never heard in nature and hope never to hear again. Lilly tore away, and the creature collapsed, missing a substantial portion of its face.

Downstairs, every person—including several guards—paused to look up.

Cameron lowered his staff.

“Did she just bite a spider?”

Kwesi nodded slowly. “I believe the spider lost.”

The unconscious sergeant lay near his feet. Kwesi stripped the man of his weapons, armor, tunic, and boots, leaving him in his undergarments.

“What are you doing?” Anthony asked.

“Disarming him.”

“You took his trousers.”

“He could conceal a weapon.”

“Where?”

Kwesi gave him a look that ended the discussion.

Common attempted to command the remaining spiders into friendship. His magic failed completely.

Scooby began a donut rain dance.

Flaming pastries materialized above him and flew toward the loft. Davidee climbed the ladder and buried a butcher’s blade into one spider’s leg. Another newcomer, Sean, wandered through the shattered doorway, surveyed the burning annex, and immediately hurled ice magic into the rafters.

I did not learn where Sean came from.

By then, it seemed impolite to ask.

Kwesi seized the stripped sergeant by the ankles.

Cameron noticed. “What are you—”

Kwesi hurled the unconscious man into the loft.

The sergeant landed among the spiders.

“Distraction,” Kwesi explained.

Additional guards arrived just as Lilly escaped the webbing and dropped from the loft carrying the ledger. She landed before their captain and jabbed him in the cheek with her sword.

Common tried to seize control of the captain’s mind. The captain resisted.

Cameron attempted another Fireball. His staff produced a spark roughly capable of lighting a birthday candle.

Scooby stepped into the center of the room and began to dance.

It was not a skilled dance. It was, however, performed with such unshakable confidence that the guards froze in bewilderment. Sean used their hesitation to encase one soldier’s legs in ice.

Kwesi struck the frozen guard and knocked him unconscious. He then tossed the stolen armor toward Anthony.

“Put this on.”

Anthony barely caught it. “Right now?”

The guard captain attacked before he could answer. His sword struck Anthony hard enough to send the armor scattering across the floor.

Another guard attempted to tackle Cameron, slipped in spilled potion residue, and knocked himself unconscious against a crate.

The surviving spiders tried to descend the ladder. Their legs became entangled, and both tumbled onto the floor in a writhing heap.

For a breath, the entire annex seemed to hold still.

Lilly attacked the captain and missed.

Scooby threw himself between them, using what he proudly described as his “manly fur” as a shield.

Sean conjured an ice hammer, threw it, and missed.

The captain raised his sword again.

Anthony staggered upright.

“Everyone!” he shouted. “Together!”

It was not a particularly eloquent speech. There was no clever strategy behind it. He spoke through pain and exhaustion, pointing at their enemies with one trembling hand.

“Just hit them really hard!”

For this company, it was sufficient.

Kwesi swept the captain’s legs from beneath him. Cameron struck him with a bolt of crackling energy while he was still airborne. Davidee descended from the ladder and pinned the captain’s cloak to the floor with his blade. Lilly and Sean turned their weapons upon the recovering spiders.

Fire, frost, steel, telekinetic force, and one stolen piece of cookware collided in a single magnificent instant.

When the smoke cleared, the captain lay pinned and senseless.

The spiders did not rise.

The annex fell silent except for the crackle of Cameron’s fires.

Then everyone began looting.

Cameron discovered forty-five silver pieces, a flask of alchemist’s fire, and an ornate signet ring bearing Stonehaven’s crest. Lilly tore a leg from one of the dead spiders and tested its balance as a weapon.

“This has reach,” she observed.

“It also has hair,” I said.

She looked at me for the first time.

I stopped offering criticism.

Scooby emerged from the wreckage wearing a mayoral sash, carrying a bottle of dwarven stout, and chewing on a piece of dried meat that nobody remembered seeing before.

Sean uncovered twenty gold pieces and a minor healing scroll.

Anthony attempted to draw all remaining valuables into a magical inventory. The spell collected loose coins, miscellaneous equipment, splinters, dust, Scooby’s bottle—and one very surprised living rat.

Kwesi searched the guards.

He found hardtack, a greasy handkerchief, and a wooden spoon.

He stared at the spoon.

After everything else that morning, it seemed to offend him personally.

Davidee left the annex and established a street-food stall before the guards had finished losing consciousness. By the time the others emerged, he was already selling skewered meat to pedestrians.

Cameron purchased one.

“You’re buying food from him?” Anthony asked.

“He’s a baker.”

“He was just fighting spiders in a burning government building.”

“That doesn’t mean he forgot food safety.”

Behind them, the Town Hall annex smoked through its broken roof. Its front door lay shattered in the street. Several guards were unconscious, one was missing most of his clothing, and another remained convinced that Anthony was his dearest friend.

Lilly carried the stolen ledger beneath one arm and a severed spider leg beneath the other.

The heroes returned to The Stumbling Goblin.

Ark watched them enter.

His gaze moved from the ledger to Lilly’s new weapon, then to the stolen armor, the mayoral sash, the soot covering Cameron, and the wooden spoon still clutched in Kwesi’s hand.

“You retrieved the book,” he said.

“We did,” Lilly answered.

“Quietly?”

Nobody spoke.

Davidee settled into a chair, packed his pipe with a mixture he later identified as Chronic Supernova and Afghani Kush, and began filling the tavern with fragrant smoke.

Kwesi approached the bar.

“One ale.”

Ark poured it and held out his hand.

“One silver.”

Kwesi glanced at Cameron.

“You should pay.”

“Why?”

“You started the fire.”

“The building was already burned.”

“You made it more burned.”

“That isn’t how responsibility works.”

Kwesi leaned closer. “You also owe me for getting hit by that guard.”

Cameron stared at him, then reluctantly placed a silver coin on the bar.

Ark took it without comment.

The ledger rested upon a nearby table, its metal cover blackened but intact. It contained the financial secrets of Stonehaven Crossing—missing taxes, unexplained payments, names hidden behind false accounts, and perhaps the reason someone had tried to burn the annex in the first place.

Nobody opened it that afternoon.

They were too busy arguing about whether Lilly’s spider leg could be brought inside, whether Scooby legally owned the mayoral sash, and how Anthony was supposed to remove the rat from his magical inventory.

I sat near the hearth and completed the first verse of my song.

It was not the heroic ballad I had imagined when I left Briar Glen. There were no shining knights, no graceful rescues, and no noble speeches beneath a silver moon.

There was only a scorched ledger, a ruined annex, a half-naked sergeant, and a company of lunatics who had somehow succeeded.

In my experience, those are the stories worth remembering.

After all, anyone can sing about heroes who look heroic.

It takes a bard to recognize them when they do not.

There were respectable taverns in Briar Glen.

The Stumbling Goblin was not one of them.

Respectable taverns had polished counters, musicians who knew more than four songs, and chairs that had not previously been introduced to someone's skull.

The Stumbling Goblin had cheap ale.

It had questionable lighting.

It had a floor that remained sticky regardless of how often Ark mopped it.

And, until approximately nine minutes before everything went terribly wrong, it had possessed all of its furniture.

Ark stood behind the bar polishing a glass that had reached the point where further polishing was accomplishing nothing. A black cap sat low over his brow. His expression belonged to a man who had already decided that tonight's customers were going to disappoint him.

He simply didn't know how spectacularly.

The evening crowd had settled into its usual arrangement of bad decisions waiting to happen.

At one end of the tavern, User14 had locked hands with a broad-shouldered half-orc over an arm-wrestling table. Neither appeared interested in speaking. The half-orc's forearm bulged. User14 looked almost offensively unconcerned.

Anthony occupied a nearby table with a drink, a slightly damp napkin, and absolutely no indication that he intended to become involved in anything.

Miranda sat within easy reach of her medical bag.

Calling it a medical bag was generous.

Miranda called herself a surgeon.

More specifically, a BBL Surgeon.

Ark had learned that asking follow-up questions only made things worse.

Then there was Davidee.

Davidee was a baker.

Davidee also carried two axes.

No one had yet explained why these occupations needed to overlap.

And in the rear corner of the Stumbling Goblin sat Cameron.

The wizard had been playing cards with a goblin for the better part of an hour.

Ark had been watching them for the better part of forty-five minutes.

The goblin was cheating.

Not subtly, either.

The little bastard had the sleight of hand of a man wearing bells.

Cameron finally noticed.

His eyes narrowed.

The goblin froze.

Between them sat a modest pile of coins and a deck of cards that suddenly seemed very interesting to everyone in the room.

Cameron slowly looked up.

The goblin slowly looked down.

A card remained halfway beneath his palm.

"Did you just—"

The goblin flipped the table.

"OH, COME ON!" Ark shouted.

The heavy wooden table sailed toward Cameron.

The wizard reacted instinctively.

His staff came up.

Fire erupted across the room.

The spell punched through the airborne table with a deafening crack. Burning fragments exploded in every direction. One piece embedded itself in a support post. Another disappeared into someone's stew.

The goblin wasn't nearly as lucky.

The blast caught him squarely in the chest.

He shrieked as his filthy vest caught fire.

Ark stared at the burning goblin.

Then at his table.

Then at Cameron.

"That table cost money."

The goblin apparently considered this an excellent opportunity to murder someone.

He drew a rusty shiv and lunged through the smoke.

He missed Cameron completely and stabbed a chair.

Ark closed his eyes.

"That chair also cost money."

Miranda was already moving.

She slipped through the chaos with the serene confidence of a professional who had absolutely no business possessing that much confidence. A glowing scalpel appeared between her fingers.

One clean movement.

The blade sliced across the goblin's arm.

He recoiled.

Miranda examined her handiwork with clinical satisfaction.

"Perfect incision."

Ark stared at her.

"Why are you helping?"

"Medical reasons."

"THAT DOESN'T MEAN ANYTHING."

A mug slammed onto the counter.

Davidee stood.

Ale splashed across the bar.

Ark looked at the puddle.

Then at him.

"No."

Davidee drew both axes.

"No, no, no—"

The baker charged.

His axes crossed through the air in one vicious sweep.

The goblin had enough time to realize that his evening had taken an extraordinarily unfortunate turn.

Then Davidee hit him.

The goblin collapsed.

Silence settled over the Stumbling Goblin.

Davidee wiped one axe clean.

Cameron stared at the remains of his card game.

Miranda inspected her scalpel.

User14 continued arm wrestling.

Anthony slowly lowered his damp napkin.

Ark looked at the corpse.

Then at Davidee.

Then at the blood on his floor.

"You people have been here ten minutes."

That was when Lilly walked over.

Ark did not know Lilly particularly well.

This was about to change.

She crouched beside the dead goblin and began going through his pockets.

"Fine," Ark muttered. "At this point, loot him. I don't care."

Lilly found a few copper pieces.

She pocketed them.

Then she looked at the goblin.

Everyone watched her.

Lilly leaned down.

And bit him.

The entire tavern went silent.

Not tavern quiet.

Not awkward quiet.

The kind of profound silence normally associated with religious revelation.

Lilly chewed thoughtfully.

Ark's glass slipped slightly in his hand.

Across the room, three half-orcs who had apparently been friends with the goblin slowly rose from their table.

One cracked his knuckles.

Then Lilly swallowed.

She reached into her pocket, produced a pinch of salt, and sprinkled it onto the corpse.

One of the half-orcs sat back down.

Ark finally found his voice.

"Absolutely not."

Lilly looked up.

Ark pointed at her with the polishing rag.

"You are not eating people in my establishment."

Lilly looked at the goblin.

Then at Ark.

Then back at the goblin.

"He's already dead."

"THAT IS NOT THE PART I OBJECT TO."

Ark reached beneath the counter and produced a heavy wooden broom.

He pointed it at Lilly like a spear.

"You want to eat that thing, you take it outside. I am not having the health inspector walk in here and find a woman seasoning a goblin on my floor."

Lilly considered this.

Then tossed two copper pieces onto the counter.

Ark stared at them.

Lilly smiled.

Ark stared at the corpse.

He stared at the copper.

He stared at Lilly.

Customer service fought a heroic battle against human dignity.

Customer service won.

Ark swept the coins off the counter.

"If anyone asks, it's exotic pork."

That was when a barstool flew across the room.

One of the half-orcs had apparently rediscovered his courage.

Cameron tried to dodge.

Cameron stepped directly onto another stool, tripped over it, and hit the floor.

The incoming chair crashed onto his back.

Davidee watched this happen.

He reached into his apron.

Pulled out a potion.

Drank it.

And vanished.

Ark blinked.

"Did the baker just turn invisible?"

Anthony nodded.

"Yep."

"Why does the baker have an invisibility potion?"

Anthony shrugged.

From somewhere in the room came the unmistakable sound of invisible boots retreating from danger.

User14 remained at the arm-wrestling table.

The half-orc opposite him glanced toward the brawl.

User14 slammed his opponent's hand into the table.

The wood cracked.

He stood, drew his spear and shield, and entered the fight.

Lilly had another idea.

She picked up the goblin.

Ark watched her lift the corpse.

"No."

She drew her arm back.

"Lilly."

She threw it.

The dead goblin sailed across the Stumbling Goblin and struck a half-orc squarely in the chest with a wet thump.

Lilly pointed her sword at him.

"Do you want to be eaten?"

It could have been terrifying.

It should have been terrifying.

Instead, Lilly inhaled a piece of goblin.

She started coughing.

User14 lunged simultaneously.

His boot hit spilled ale.

His spear missed the half-orc entirely and buried itself deep in a support beam.

Ark stared at the spear vibrating in the wood.

"My tavern."

The half-orc looked at Lilly.

Lilly continued coughing.

He looked at User14.

User14 pulled unsuccessfully at his spear.

The half-orc smiled.

Lilly coughed something into her hand.

She looked at it.

She looked at the half-orc.

Ark knew that expression.

"No."

The half-orc swung.

Lilly ducked beneath the blow and shoved whatever had just come out of her mouth directly into his.

The half-orc stopped.

His eyes widened.

He dropped his weapon.

Both hands flew to his throat.

He began gagging.

Ark lowered his broom.

"I don't even know what law that violates."

Meanwhile, Cameron had managed to get himself partially upright.

Another half-orc noticed.

He raised a stool.

Cameron attempted an elegant rolling escape.

His robe caught on a broken chair.

He rolled approximately half the intended distance and landed face-first at the half-orc's feet.

The half-orc raised the stool higher.

Anthony finally moved.

For one shining instant, he looked heroic.

He charged across the tavern to save Cameron.

Then he slipped.

Anthony crashed directly into Cameron.

Now both men lay tangled beneath the half-orc.

Ark leaned across the bar.

"Anthony!"

"I'm okay!"

"THAT WASN'T MY QUESTION!"

The stool came down.

Or would have.

User14 abandoned his trapped spear, slammed a fist against his shield, and roared.

The sound shook glasses on the shelves.

The half-orc stopped.

Slowly, angrily, he turned away from Cameron and Anthony.

User14 raised his shield.

"Come on."

The half-orc charged.

Behind him, empty air suddenly swore.

Davidee had returned.

Still invisible.

The baker raised both axes and charged for what should have been the easiest ambush imaginable.

His foot caught a floorboard.

He stumbled.

Both axes swung.

Neither touched flesh.

One did, however, cut neatly through the half-orc's belt.

His trousers fell to his ankles.

Silence.

The half-orc looked down.

Davidee's invisibility faded.

The baker and the half-orc stared at one another.

Ark leaned onto the bar.

"This might be the stupidest fight I've ever seen."

Miranda stepped forward with a syringe.

Ark immediately reconsidered.

"Nope. We're about to beat it."

The half-orc's trousers remained around his ankles.

Miranda approached from behind.

She raised the syringe.

Anthony saw what she intended.

"Is that—"

"BBL solution," Miranda said.

"Why?"

"Medicine."

The half-orc tried to pull up his trousers at precisely the wrong moment.

Miranda lunged.

The needle struck his belt buckle.

It snapped.

A glowing spray of questionable magical fluid shot sideways.

Directly into Anthony's eyes.

Anthony screamed.

"My eyes!"

Miranda gasped.

"Don't rub them!"

Anthony rubbed them.

"WHY WOULD YOU RUB THEM?" Cameron shouted.

"I CAN'T SEE!"

"YOU'RE MAKING IT WORSE!"

"My face is numb!"

Ark poured himself a drink.

The tavern was still technically open, but he had decided he was no longer working.

Lilly hauled Cameron upright by his collar.

Miranda rushed to Anthony, produced another vial from her bag, and flushed his eyes.

Slowly, his vision returned.

Miranda wiped his face.

Then kissed him gently on the forehead.

"There."

Anthony blinked.

"Thanks."

"You're welcome."

He turned toward the remaining half-orc.

Something changed in him.

Perhaps it was courage.

Perhaps gratitude.

Perhaps whatever Miranda had poured into his eyes had entered his bloodstream.

Anthony raised a fist.

"FOR THE SQUAD!"

He charged.

Ark watched him take three steps.

Anthony tripped over the half-orc's trousers.

He crashed face-first into the man's legs and wrapped around his ankles.

The half-orc couldn't move.

Anthony looked up from the floor.

"I GOT HIM!"

"No, you don't!" Cameron shouted.

"I KIND OF GOT HIM!"

Lilly raised her sword.

The half-orc saw her.

Then saw Anthony wrapped around his legs.

Then saw the blade.

His expression changed.

"Oh."

Lilly swung.

The sword passed cleanly through his neck.

His head sailed across the tavern.

It bounced once.

Twice.

Then landed directly in Ark's mop bucket.

Nobody moved.

Ark stared into the bucket.

The half-orc's head stared back.

Ark took another drink.

Behind Lilly, the other half-orc finally coughed the obstruction from his throat and staggered upright.

He surveyed the room.

His goblin friend was dead and partially eaten.

One companion was headless and pantsless.

A baker had apparently mastered invisibility.

A surgeon was armed with mysterious butt-enhancing substances.

A warrior had thrown a corpse at him.

Another warrior was still trying to free a spear from the building itself.

Anthony remained wrapped around a dead man's ankles.

The half-orc made the most intelligent decision anyone had made all evening.

He ran.

"GET HIM!" someone shouted.

Everyone moved at once.

Cameron tripped over the broken chair.

Anthony tripped over Cameron.

User14 collided with Anthony.

Miranda attempted to leap over all three and caught her foot on User14's shield.

Medical supplies exploded across the floor.

Lilly actually reached the doorway.

Then stepped on the broken door the fleeing half-orc had torn from its hinges.

She slipped.

Her feet shot forward.

She landed in the mud outside.

The half-orc disappeared down the street, screaming into the night.

"CANNIBALS!"

Ark stepped into the doorway.

Five adventurers lay scattered around his entrance.

"CANNIBALS AND BUTT DOCTORS!"

His voice faded into the distance.

Ark looked at Lilly in the mud.

He looked at Cameron beneath Anthony.

He looked at Miranda gathering syringes from his floor.

He looked at User14's spear sticking out of his support beam.

Then he slowly turned around.

He surveyed what remained of the Stumbling Goblin.

Broken tables.

Broken chairs.

A broken door.

Blood.

Ale.

Fire damage.

A head in his mop bucket.

And, somehow, half-orc trousers.

Ark calculated silently.

"Twelve gold."

Everyone stopped.

Cameron looked up.

"What?"

"You owe me twelve gold."

Miranda approached Ark from behind.

He did not notice.

"Tables. Chairs. Door. Floor. Structural damage. Whatever Lilly eating a goblin does to property value. Twelve gold."

Miranda grabbed the back of his trousers.

Ark's eyes widened.

"Don't you—"

She yanked.

The tavern erupted in laughter.

Ark grabbed the counter.

"YOU ARE ALL BANNED."

Anthony, meanwhile, attempted to convince Davidee to pay for the damages.

"Davidee, come on. You have money."

The baker stared at him.

Anthony gestured vaguely.

"You should... because... friendship?"

Davidee took another drink.

"No."

At the doorway, Lilly had discovered the dead half-orc's trousers.

For reasons known only to Lilly, she attempted to hang the headless corpse from the damaged entrance.

Ark looked over.

"LILLY."

She adjusted the body.

"LILLY!"

"It needed decoration."

"THAT IS NOT DECORATION!"

Cameron quietly approached the bar.

Three gold coins appeared in his hand.

"Ark."

"No."

"Three gold."

"Twelve."

"Three now."

"Twelve."

"Or zero."

Ark stared at him.

Cameron placed the coins on the counter.

"And we leave Lilly here to guard the door."

Both men slowly looked toward the entrance.

Lilly was attempting to make the corpse hang straighter.

Ark considered his options.

Three gold.

Or continued negotiations with these people.

He swept the coins from the counter.

"Done."

Cameron smiled.

Ark pointed toward the door.

"You have ten minutes to get out of my tavern."

He pointed at Lilly.

"Take your corpse."

He pointed at Miranda.

"Stop touching my pants."

He pointed at Davidee.

"Stay visible."

Then Anthony.

Anthony raised both hands.

"I didn't do anything!"

"You somehow made everything worse."

Finally, Ark looked at User14.

User14 had freed his spear.

Ark nodded.

"You're all right."

User14 nodded back.

Ark reached beneath the counter, found a bottle of rye, pulled the cork with his teeth, and drank.

Outside, the first gray hint of morning had begun creeping over Briar Glen.

The night's survivors eventually staggered away from the Stumbling Goblin and found rooms at a nearby inn.

Cameron collapsed onto the first available bed.

User14 rested his shield against the wall.

Miranda carefully arranged an alarming assortment of surgical supplies beside her pillow.

Davidee placed both axes within arm's reach and slept like a man who had done absolutely nothing wrong.

Lilly arrived with salt still in her pocket.

Anthony saw her.

Then he saw Davidee.

He picked up his mattress.

"What are you doing?" Cameron asked.

"Moving."

"Why?"

Anthony dragged the mattress into the farthest corner of the room.

He placed a chair between himself and Lilly.

Then another.

Then a third.

He pointed at Lilly.

"Cannibal."

Lilly shrugged.

Then he pointed at Davidee.

"Coward."

Davidee opened one eye.

"Alive coward."

Anthony added a fourth chair to the barricade.

Eventually, silence settled over the room.

They had no quest.

No charter.

No heroic purpose.

Most of them barely knew one another.

They had met through cards, alcohol, violence, questionable medicine, accidental nudity, cannibalism, and an unpaid property-damage bill.

No bard would have called it destiny.

No prophecy had foretold their arrival.

No ancient evil had summoned them together.

They were simply a collection of strangers who had entered the same tavern on the wrong night.

But somewhere between the first overturned table and the final three-gold settlement, something had happened.

A wizard had been rescued.

A warrior had drawn danger away from his companions.

A surgeon had restored a blinded man's sight.

A baker had...

Well.

The baker had turned invisible.

And Lilly had eaten somebody.

There was room for improvement.

Morning would bring consequences.

Soon enough there would be contracts, enemies, mysteries, treasures, and dangers far greater than a cheating goblin with a rusty knife.

There would be reasons to fight.

Reasons to stay together.

Eventually, perhaps, even reasons to call themselves heroes.

But those stories would come later.

For now, in a damaged tavern across town, Ark stood beneath a broken doorway with a mop in one hand and a bottle in the other.

He examined the destruction one final time.

Then he looked down.

The severed half-orc head was still in his mop bucket.

Ark sighed.

"I fucking hate adventurers."

And that was how the campaign began.