A little nymph cries over a great dark lake. Her abdomen heaves with sobs and so much effort as her frail legs push paddles. Her boat is just large enough to contain her. It stutters along with each slow cycle of her paddling. The oars splash water that’s as black as if it had fallen in one of those evil wisp-storms. There is no reflection at all.

The waters ripple and churn on their own, and it pushes her boat off-course. There are other boats and they are far away. She can see their lights and they are so very small from here.

She has a torch for light because it is night time. Is it yet bed time? Even later? She cannot remember if she has a home, if anyone is waiting for her.

She cries. It would be awful to be alone in this great dark lake. Then her cries louden.

It’s worse: she isn’t.

Lake Wisterun seeps into the cracks of the land, that vast murky mass of its waters at length dragged eastward through the veins of Entcreek. The liquid skin reflects the sky, and that sky is lightening with the veiled and cloudy dawn which is by now so familiar to this land. Yet the lake is not thereby illuminated. Beneath the slowly lifting mists, and below the surface the winds sing waves across, the waters extend down with three depths.

First is the mirrored depth of the sky, rank upon rank of clouds drawn together and hanging expectant, faint as a wave-riddled reflection. You can see far beyond those clouds, as little more than a hint, the moon Tenebra, a blot on the unseen sky, as it nears its darkest, most expansive phase, tendrils casting shadows on the clouds. Second is the mundane depth of the waters themselves, impenetrable for the muddy inflow of the creek. Bugs have boasted of boating far from the shore and descending for minutes without touching the bottom, but many tall tales surround the Lake Wisterun.

The last depth is that abstract, imagined depth of secrets fleetingly known from details that surround. How it roils under the waxing moon, how the damselflies and red-feathered ducks explore the fringes but dare not light near its heart, how the fishermant’s wife disappeared not one moon ago.

But if that is its depth, then it must be distant from the surface. From here above, it is just a lake, and it is majestic when viewed afar from the watchtower outpost.

“Ain’t it the prettiest sight in the whole county?” Boleheva says, standing on the outpost’s balcony. She has her raptorials outstretched, the entire lake encompassed between them. Lake Wisterun is big, and at this distance, it took a big mantis to have legs long enough to do this. “Leaves me awaiting this stop on my route every year. Wond’rful patch o water, right wonderful. All so long as ye don’t drown in it.”

“Have people drowned in it?” Ooliri asks.

“Just once, since I started working this county. Townsbugs ain’t forgettin it soon though.”

“No one’s planning on taking a swim,” Awelah says. “We’re only here to find information about the guardian of earth. That’s all.”

“I wouldn’t mind taking a swim,” Ooliri says. Then he glances at his newly bandaged arm, and perhaps thinking better of it, corrects to, “Or maybe a ride in a little boat.”

“There will be lilypads and algae worth sampling. Leaving without visiting the lake would be a waste.” Makuja perches on a railing that encircles the outer platform of the watchtower, yet she faces inward rather than admiring the view. Being a few strides away from the ranger, she is positioned to have both the yellowshelled imago and a green nymph close to her focals at once. She watches with stillness and perfect balance. When she moves, it’s a minute adjustment of her head, a glance toward the spiralling stairs that accessed this platform. A mantis is climbing up now, burgundy head already visible, abdomen held up to cradle as it carries something.

He’s clicking his mandibles; he has heard them. “Don’t mistake your stay in Wisterun for a luxury visit, nor a mercenary venture. Not yet. Right now, you three are unknown threats to be evaluated, motivations and backgrounds to be accounted for.” Yanseno had a metal cup of water he’d held over a fire downstairs and poured bitter brown powder into. It floats in the air, the umbral darkness around one tarsus the only thing holding it up. The cup rises, aromatic steam wafting over his palps. It almost seems an unspoken reminder: with just as much effort he could pull out one arquebus strapped to his back.

“Yeh. Don’t reckon you’ll be out of our sight till we’ve got yer names in writing.” Boleheva turns away from the balcony, and takes a step toward them, as if she’d awaited Yanseno’s return.

“They seem nice,” comes a mellow voice. Quessa had stood at the other side of the balcony, gazing with pigmented eyes at the sunrise over lake Wisterun. “I believe in them.” She has a smile when she’s stepping after the vesperbane ranger.

“I’ll save my credulity till I know exactly what I’m believing in.”

“Why save it?” Awelah asks. “We could just tell you right here.”

“Ain’t no point,” Boleheva says. “We’re not ants but we’re not moonbrains neither. Sit pretty till we’re at my desk and Ruby can keep note of what yer claimin.”

“Can’t Yanseno do it?” Quessa asks. “He has a perfect memory!”

“Look, I can’t allow that. You know this.” She looks at the green nymph, then, with the palp-swipe of one who misspoke, corrects herself, “He knows why.”

“Because I’m a maverick, and an umbracog at that. You don’t trust me.”

“It ain’t that. You’re—” She stops. “It’s about what the gold will think. I tell them I got my report from a distorty, and then? They toss it out and ask questions. Better get it done with tradition.”

“A report?” Awelah’s posture has straightened. Antennae-fluff rising up, she asks, “Who are you reporting to?”

“We’re in Windborne, girl. Take a wild guess.”

“Solaroch. Nearest stronghold,” Yanseno supplies.

Ooliri is nodding. Makuja is impassive, and only Awelah looks like this is new information.

“I’m not handing my secrets off to the first hold that asks.”

“Bah. You are. Keeping quiet ain’t an option, but this going smooth instead of rough is. I’m not asking your life story, and don’t need to hear it. I do need to hear what good reason there is for you lot nabbing the headbands of three good banes of Windhold. If I like your reasons, we might even be friendly after that.”

“Then we have every reason to arrive with haste,” Makuja says. She breaks her stare, now, eyes tracing the line from up here to the lake, as if calculating the distance.

Team Duskborn and their escort, had arrived at this outpost last night, when the clouded sky above grew too dark to continue a trek through the wilderness. They slept here under the promise of reaching Wisterun in the morning. Boleheva had awoken first, before the sunrise, at length roused the rest of them to witness the sunrise Boleheva wanted to show. Quessa had slept the hardest, last to awaken. Now, it’s time to move on.

“Wait,” Awelah says. “We can’t go to town yet. We still haven’t done anything about…” she trails off, waving a tarsus toward her face. “I can’t be recognized. Not if I’ll have more killers looking for me when we get there.”

“Hm? Only new faces here are a few Dusky migrants who lost their huts to the wisps, and the bees. Bees’re already leaving, ain’t they? Bah. If there were hired killers skulking around town, I’d know. I’m the ranger! You think I’d let them blot you out?”

Yanseno is taking a sip of his hot drink. When he lowers the cup and swallows, he regards Awelah. “You’ve made us aware of this situation.” He reaches behind himself. The purple nymph tenses, and the red nymph brings her hands together. He keeps his guns behind him. But the burgundy imago is turning, revealing what he retrieved from downstairs: a pile of cloth, straps and metal bars. His tarsus closes around a bit of cloth, and passes it to Awelah. Cloth doesn’t throw well, but the dark aura around Yanseno’s tarsus speaks to some assistance.

The black cloth fits around her mandibles and face, tying secure at the back of her neck. The fit is loose enough to move her palps, and speak a bit muffled. She’s given gloves, too. Clad like this, she didn’t need an antennae-band to look like a bane.

“You have a cloak, so wear it. With that, maintaining anonymity is up to you.”

“What’s the rest of that for?” Ooliri asks, eyeing the mass of straps. From where Yan had retrieved the mask.

“Heh. Didn’t give this tower a close look, did you?”

This tower they’ve climbed is so much banestone scaffolding, six pillars rising in a hex with crisscrossing supports between them. Inside the hex, secured to the pillars, a staircase spirals steeply up. Set atop a hill, the tower rises even higher still, and at the top lay three stacked floors, stocked with supplies. Yanseno had just come up from one of those rooms.

Boleheva, standing at the threshold between the outer platform and the interior where the nymphs now perch or stand, is pointing to another edge of the platform. “This is an old vesperbane outpost, ye know? The ranger before me had this tower propped up, and then he ran a rope from here right down to the gates of Wist’run! Crazy fella.”

“A zipline,” Yanseno supplies. “A faster route to town than the footpaths.”

“For y’all.” Boleheva taps her abdomen. “I’m too big. Ol’ ranger was smaller than I, and one of those harnesses might snap with me on it!”

“Has snapped. I saw you fall. A good little laugh.” Yanseno takes a sip, perhaps hiding a smile.

Ooliri darts to the railing, looking down the distance they’d be falling. “Is it safe?”

“Everything is unsafe. You should be well acquainted with the dangers of traveling the wilds by now. After all, if that direanter had a babe, the father’s out there. The direhound too, if it isn’t yours. Everything is unsafe. So ask instead if it’s worth the risks.” (Makuja straightens at the mention of Vilja.) Yanseno puts down his cup, and steps toward the outer platform. “Myself, I’ll be fine without a minute more in these woods. For you, it’s your choice. Walk with Boleheva, if you must. But decide quickly. I’ll be going.”

“Ye know tiercels,” Boleheva is saying with one antennae curling up. “Too delicate for these harsh wilds.”

Because he is walking away, they don’t see Yanseno’s reaction to this.

“So, which will it be, nymphies?” Boleheva asks.

Makuja is glancing to the ranger first of all, but Ooliri is the one who speaks first.

“Awelah should go with her.”

The red nymph frowns. “Why?”

Ooliri’s tone has a certain sharpness to it, speaking to the red nymph. “Her injury, you know. Your thorax is still sore, isn’t it?” Awelah stares, then gives a nod.

“What happened to her?”

“Got hit with some enervate. Nothing big.”

“You didn’t ward it?” Yanseno asks, glancing back.

“What?”

“I sensed you were a blackbane of some development. Was I wrong?” Yanseno asked. His eyes on Awelah, coupled with the labrum raised, exposing just a hint of mandible, makes the evaluation latent in his regard evident. He’s probing Awelah’s abilities.

There’s a pause, and Awelah’s palps tap in thought. A dilemma underneath is: keep her secrets, or boast? She says, “Of course I’m a blackbane. And I’ve learned two forms: bane blast, and my clan’s technique: umbral body projection. I’d prove it, but…” She frowns, tossing a scowl at Makuja, and finishes, “It’s… painful when I try. The injury.”

Yanseno laughs. Awelah frowns, but before anything else, the dark red imago is making a few tarsigns.

Familiar tarsigns.

⸢Umbral Form: Umbral Body Projection!⸥

Aura flows smoothly out of his forelegs, and takes on his shape, darkening until this umbraform stands before them. Shadow-Yanseno waves, then puts his forelegs together and dispells himself.

“Nothing clan secret about it. It’s a standard enough technique. Nobody uses it because it takes too much rhiza to mold, too much umbra to cast, and what’s the point? Might as well just sack ‘em with a melter ball. All around more efficient. Maybe your clan’s got around that.”

“You’ve never heard of my clan?”

“Nope. Should I recognize you?”

“The Asetari are the founders of Duskroot. Our will is divided but undiminished — the astral projection technique creates autonomous spellforms that are controlled, yet independent.”

“How interesting,” Yanseno drily states. He turns to take a step toward Awelah, and then lifts a tarsus, and points it at the pale nymph’s head before jerking it upward as if from a gun’s recoil. “Boom. If I was out for your head, you’d have given me all I needed. I told you your anonymity is up to you — you’re going to have to try harder than that to keep it.”

Awelah frowns. Her palps move wordlessly for a moment, stumbling over how to respond. “If I can’t trust you…”

“I don’t trust you. Not yet. So don’t get familiar.” His eyes drop to the girl’s thorax. “About the injury, though, just sounds like your coils got damaged by the blast. I’m a sensor. Might give you a look, see how bad it is — if I get recompense. Think about that, while Boleheva walks you to town.” Yanseno’s eyes leave Awelah, and roam over the other nymphs present. “Hope that little episode gave you enough time to decide what you’re doing. Who needs harnesses?”

“I think,” Ooliri starts, “I might walk.”

“But it’s fun,” Quessa says. “It feels like flying. It’d be sad to miss out on it.” Her antennae bounce, and she smiles. Ooliri reciprocates, and wonders if she’s smiled for any of the other, or if he’s that much special, for now. His antennae rise at the thought.

“Quessa was scared her first time, too. Got over it quick.”

“Was I?” she asks. “Oh, right.” The addendum is slow and flat, absent recognition. But soon she’s skipping over to Yanseno and grabbing two of the harnesses, glancing down to inspect them. She passes one to Ooliri. The material is old and worn baneleather, with metal buckles.

Makuja glances at Awelah, then drops from her perch. “Larger groups walk for longer. We should get there quickly.” She walks to collect a harness for herself.

On the platform, Yanseno is attaching Quessa’s harness to the zipline’s trolley. Two ropes glide down over the forest in parallel, and the trolley secures to both of them.

The trolley’s wheels roll down the line, steady and unslowed by the friction that mere sliding would entail. When Quessa is released to fly down the length, she soars forth with a laugh stolen by the wind, and she flaps her raptorials like a bird.

Ooliri stands with tightly folded forelegs. He looked over the edge once, and resolved to keep his eyes pointed upward after that. Nerves breaking, he opts to go after Quessa and get it over with.

As the harness slides over the gray nymph, Yanseno decides he’ll be the last to go. “You kids will find some way to get it wrong, or freeze up worrying you will.”

Ooliri settles with some fidgeting, harness attached to the zipline trolley. Behind him, Makuja is sliding the leather straps over her.

Of the four zipline harnesses that leave the watch tower, three make it to the gates of Wisterun.