[41st Year of Foresai, Lower Fire Month, Day 4]

“He of the Salt and the Steam, I sit by the side of your waters to make my supplications and render unto your service I and those by my side. He of the Dawnlit Dew, render unto I and those by my side your aid in our coming endeavor. He of the Sweeping Storm, render unto I and those by my side your aegis and guidance. He of the Froth and the Spray, render unto I and those by my side your providence, such that we may become bringers of your righteous justice. He of the Vaulting Froth, render unto I and those by my side your leadership, such that we may become speakers of your word and deliverers of your will. He of the Secret Spring, render I and those by my side unto the path of holiness, that we may know the Terrestrial Will, and that we may marvel in its radiance and in its beauty; that we may have the clarity of the ocean, that our judgment may be true and and purifying; that we may knock loose and wash away all those who would defy that which is good and worthy and cast them down forever into your depths. He of the Mirror Mere, I thank you for the aid which you have already given. I leave the side of your waters now, but I bear your name and your symbol until we too join those sinners in the deep.”

—

Tia slipped underneath the culvert, unwilling to part with the black. It was narrow, but not excessively so, and she was able to fit inside. Taking shallow breaths to avoid expanding her chest, she used her shoulders to crawl forward, shimmying along its length without issue. This was the third she had traversed in as many minutes, one of the rare things commonly afforded only to the wealthy districts. Popping out on the other side, she made a huddled dash down the length of an alley given over to a small channel, sliding off of it and out over an embankment. Slipping off the side, she cast her gaze to the right, spotting a bridge, and then a second behind that one, the latter obscured by the bend of the river.

That’s it.

The raids had begun, with each member of the Blue Roses, Climb and Unglaus, and others heading into the night. It was a grand act, hundreds leaving the grounds of Ro-Lante all at once to crush every semblance of Eight Fingers. Wizards, clerics, soldiers, knights, professional guards, adventurers, sellswords, and others had poured out, and yet Tia had no one by her side. Though others had accompanied her, they were only there to arrest those she was unable to kill, and instead had to drive out. She was to complete most of her killing alone, and if things went well, would singlehandedly clear the hideout of the Assassination Division.

She ran along the river’s edge, crouching to stay hidden from the light of the moon. Closing most of the forty pace distance swiftly, the sound of horse clops made her instinctively dive. A carriage was crossing the bridge, and Tia kicked out her legs and arms to burrow herself in mud before she could be licked by its lamplight. The orange glow peaked and faded, the driver and escorting city guard remaining unaware of her presence. Drawing herself out of the quagmire, she dashed under the bridge as fast as before, and after recuperating, peaked around the stone arch to ensure no other eyes were looking into the night. There were none, and she made her break for the second bridge. The distance was another thirty paces, her drawing closer and closer to the wall of the river to stay in its shade, eventually breaking from her crouched run to place her back flush against it, edging from side to side until she was under the cover of the second bridge.

She said the hideout entrance was either here, or one bridge further down.

Now, fully hidden from the moonlight, she turned around and began to sweep the bridge’s abutment with her hands. Going cobble by cobble, she gently groped the wall, pressing her fingers against the stone, feeling intently for its resistance. Feeling nothing at breast height, she swept the space above her head, then knelt to do the same for the space below. With her right arm fully extended, her ginger taps shifted a stone; pressing again, she did not dislodge it, rather feeling the characteristic sway of a spring.

Found you.

Shifting her entire body over, she carefully traced the outline of the loose stone, clearing away the mud that had built along its edges. Setting her ear flat against the wall, she tapped it a few more times, stopping her breath so she could more carefully listen to the mechanism.

Creaking, but no twangs. If there’s a bolt trap, the trigger is isolated.

Tia grimaced. If there was a trap, it would be difficult to find.

Don’t have much time. Need to go to Hilma’s manor after. Other assassins may arrive too. Have to be quick.

After a moment’s thought, Tia decided to trip it. Drawing back from the stone, she faced her torso perpendicular to the wall to minimize her cross section. Drawing her knife, she held out her arm straight, using the back of her hand to feel for holes as she did. Finding none, she drew her arm out then snapped it back, swiftly striking the stone with her knife’s pommel. She heard a click, which was followed by a sharp trill as a bolt flew from the space above the stone. It struck the abutment on the opposite side of the river a moment later, falling into the river with a slight plink. Tia continued to push, hearing more clanks as the spring audibly twanged and the wall finally gave away to reveal an entrance. It took her mind some time to conceive the black as something she could enter.

Alright.

Tia gingerly reached into the dark, and then slipped into it. The passage she found herself in was large enough for her to crawl on all fours; she moved forward on three, keeping her knife up in front of her. With her off hand, she withdrew a vial from her pocket and poured its contents - a potent snake venom - onto her blade. Pushing deeper, she used her foot to gently close the entrance, the faintest slivers of moonlight disappearing as she was left in total blackness. The ground was earthen, and each of her movements left slight impressions upon it. She prodded the soil ahead of her, feeling the slight outlines of handprints.

This is the entrance. No clue how fresh these are.

Tia moved ahead, pushing in a pace, then five. The wet smell of petrichor and the odors of streetside refuse mixed into an unpleasant reminder of the downsides to urban life. Tia resisted the urge to itch her nose, keeping her knife level as she slowly advanced. Ten paces. All was silent sans a dripping coming from an indistinct place in front of her; the plodding, rhythmic fall of droplets into a pool. Tia slowly raised her arm to tap the ceiling, confirming it was at the same height above her as when she had entered. Fifteen paces. The tunnel was deep, exceedingly so. Lurching along, she constructed an image of just how far in she was.

I’m nearly to the next block. Was this an escape route? Renner said they likely exited through buildings onto the street level.

Tia stopped, and prodded the ground again, searching the ground for any handprints running the opposite direction. She could find none; every single print pointed in the direction she was moving. Beginning to move again, Tia crept forward. Twenty paces. The dripping grew closer. Twenty-five paces. She heard breathing. Tia froze.

In front of me. Close. Maybe five paces way.

Tia made herself as silent as possible, breathing as shallowly as she could manage and using her body’s energy to slow her heart down. She struggled to understand what she was hearing.

Is… Is that wheezing?

It was odd. The inhalation was raspy, akin to the sound of chalk dragged across slate. Exhalations were equally strained, like the sound of a man whose chest had filled with air from a blade wound, but only alike: the noise was deeper; almost bestial.

Is it a guard dog? Using one for tunnel combat would be clever.

Tia listened for the sound of chains, but heard neither the clinking of links nor growls. There was no gap between breaths in and out, only one continuous fight for air for whatever was in front of her. The sound was too deep to be a wounded human. She slowly unfurled her body, lowering herself into a pouncing stance. In sightless combat, distance and bearing of the enemy was always easier to judge by the still party. She would wait for whatever it was to come to her. She heard a step, and then a second. The breathing grew louder.

It’s approaching.

Tia pressed herself to the side wall, curling the edge of the knife to face parallel to her body; dogs had a tendency to blow past when they charged, and she planned to rake its side as it did so, then swiftly slash its gut. Another step.

Three paces. It’s moved that far already? What dog has a gait that big?

Tia swallowed, the growing sense that something was wrong. The timbre of the dripping changed;it was no longer plunking into a puddle, but striking something flat.

Two paces.

The breathing was very loud, the wheezing growing into a discordant chaos. The closer it came, the less it sounded like anything she had heard before. It was almost harmonized, the voluminous creaking of a lonely wooden home battered by wind on the plain; the noise that a ship made as seas tossed it in the water; the undulations that a sheet of thin metal made when struck.

One pace.

She had a sudden whiff of a foul odor, akin to refuse, but far more pungent and acrid. It was familiar, taking a moment for her to place in her memory.

It’s like… it’s like the smell of a hot spring.

Another step. It was close, only a finger length away. Tia stopped breathing, arresting the pace of her heart even further. Each anguished moan poured air onto her face. Its breath was hot, dry, and incredibly acrid. Errant strands of her hair were caught in it, her brow twitching from the sensation. It wasn’t a dog.

Tia broke. She exploded forward, expending every mote of bodily power she could. Flipping around the knife, she thrust into the dark, her leap carrying her forward almost double the length of her body. Her blade met nothing, and she heard a rapid shuffling, which was followed by screeching like the sound of metal against metal as the thing in front of her fled in the opposite direction. She fell down, and the hand she reached out to brace herself struck an angled and slippery surface and slipped out. She struck the ground, rattling herself as she splashed in a puddle of something she couldn’t place. The sound of its steps stretching out ten, then twenty paces. She heard a series of booms, each growing deeper and further away.

Springing up and back into battle stance, she resisted the urge to flip around and scramble from the tunnel. Her breath was shaky, and sweat dripped from her brow. That, the sound of her heart, and the droplets that struck her back were the only noise. A full minute passed before she could bring herself to move again. Though she was still sightless, she looked down. The fluid her hand was submerged in was tacky, with already-dry blots of it on tugging on the skin of her forearm.. Shifting around, she tried to find the surface she had slipped off of. She found it, and after a moment spent prodding the black, realized she was touching a torn open rib-cage.

—

The team strode through the night, moving with hands on their hafts between the alleyways of the city’s upper district. Patrols of city guards - frequent by the standards of the Kingdom - marched down streets at regular intervals, Luca and his men experienced enough at urban engagement to evade them. Luca watched Silas dash ahead, bring his back flush against the wall of the alley, and peek around the corner. Pulling back, he raised his hand and signed.

“Target. Sighted. Five. Hundred.” We’re close.

Ro-Lante had slipped in and out of view betwixt the buildings as they approached, its towers and walls steadily looming larger. With Silas’s confirmation, Luca’s tension grew. The princess was a difficult target. Almost certainly in Valencia, they would need to breach or bypass the outer fortress to get a shot at her.

Scaling the walls is going to be difficult, even with alchemical glues.

Luca and the rest began to move, but Silas hurriedly waved his hand.

“Halt. Four. Enemy. One. Light Bearer. Thirty. Seconds.”

They stopped, lurking in the black for half a minute as a patrol passed. The lamp-bearer at the head cast his gaze back and forth as he passed by the sliver of alley the Dead Vipers were lurking in, but missed them as he passed.

No helmet of night sight? You’d think the Kingdom highbloods would value their safety more.

Silas checked one last time, nodded, and the whole team broke at once. Bursting out onto the street, they avoided the halo glow of the sparse streetlights, snaking toward the castle. The approach would be difficult: Ro-Lante was at the highest point in the city, slumped on the crest of a hill. Its walls had been cleared to a distance of nearly a hundred paces, meaning that any approach would need to be under the cover of invisibility.

Cato’s gonna push himself to the limit. I guess we all are.

Turning onto one of the north-south roads, the team moved at a jog, keeping their footsteps as light as possible. Few were out, the night dripping with the heavy weight of summer heat. Nearly reaching the next intersection ahead, Silas hurriedly gave a halting signal as flicking yellow licked the walls of the left turn, and the whole team hurriedly dashed across the street and into another alley. It wasn’t empty: a single person was caught in silhouette at the other end.

Is- is that a kid?

Despite his better instincts, Luca couldn’t help but feel a pang in his heart; there was something pathetic about a child alone in an alleyway at night, a sense of failure, even if he wasn't specifically responsible. Silas rushed ahead, sweeping his hand and speaking in a hoarse whisper.

“Go. Go. Get out of here.

Not understanding, the child didn’t move, staring dumbly as they approached. Silas switched to his best broken Venshallen.

“S'en aller. S'en aller.”

The kid began to approach, and Luca cursed under his breath. Clearly Silas had said something wrong. He himself tried to speak.

I could have sworn that was right. Uh…

“Tu dois…”

“Vien?” No, that’s not… oh!

“-tu dois partir!”

The child continued undissuaded, actually increasing his pace as he waddled over. Exasperation mixed with confusion; Luca was certain that he had said the right words. The child, likely a boy, was far too short to be out alone, legs too stumpy for his size; Luca couldn’t see whether he was just young or badly malnourished. Silas leaned down and threw out his arms as he walked, trying to grab and turn the child round. Somehow, the child slipped past his hands, and in one smooth motion, reached into the rogue’s breast pocket and grabbed something inside. He sprung away a moment later, dashing away in overexaggerated fashion. Luca was dumbfounded, completely unsure what had happened. Silas yelped.

“He took it!”

“What?”

“He took the fucking vial!”

All five men broke into a flat out dash, Luca swearing to himself. Hilma’s speech about his nation’s history had impressed upon him that this was the most important job of his life, and somehow, a pickpocket no older than six years was threatening to bungle the entire thing. The whole sequence was unbelievable.

A kid. A fucking kid. How does that even-

The child deftly vaulted over the remains of a crate, slipping down an intersecting alley. All five broke in that direction, rounding the corner at speed. Luca, raging, let out an involuntary shout.

“Fucking kill ‘em!”

The child lept over what seemed to be either a rope or a pipe strung between either side of the alley - a thick cylinder, indistinct in the darkness. He stumbled, scrambling off the ground and turning to face the Dead Vipers. Silas drew close, and as he passed over the same obstacle as the child, it jumped.

Little was clear except the sound, the twang of a thick metal cable followed a great crunch and the wheeze of a man. The child began to laugh, his hics mixed with a horrid sort of breathing. Silas was caught midstride, hanging in the air as one would if ensnared from a net. Luca and his men immediately came a halt, drawing their blades as they did. Shades mixed in the dark, colors losing their hue to become amorphous masses of grey and black, but Silas's form seemed to have been stained. A fluid the color of ichor sprouted unrelentingly from dozens of places on his body, spilling out onto whatever he was caught in - as if he was pinned between the trunks of two trees, with dozens of branches protruding from each - and the ground. Nothing moved. The flow slowed, as did the wheezing. The child's laughing was wrong, something closer to a cackle. The rope moved, its lengths separating. Silas's body split in two.

"Steady!"

"Reinforce armor. Reinforce armor-"

Luca felt a membrane of magical power wash over him, flattening the hairs standing up on his skin.

"-Reinforce armor-"

"What the fuck is that thing?!"

"-Reinforce armor."

"Loading crossbow!"

The rope drew itself upward, form rising out of the night, revealing that it was joined at the top, a third coil upward from that by two paces, where it split into three tendrils each as long as the lower ones. Luca realized what he was seeing. The trunks were not trunks, but two legs, two arms, a torso, and a head, just as thin as he was, yet triple his height. The branches were not branches but spines, each two to three hand spans long. Silas had not been caught in a cable, but gored when it snapped its legs together.

“Fire bolt.”

The missile of flame struck the monster in its center, wreathing its thin torso - no thicker than a thigh - in a bright flash of flame. The space lit for a brief instant, and the thing shown brightly in the lustrous oranges of copper, its surface brilliant and untarnished. Red shown too, Silas’s ruined corpse run through by its bodily spikes in dozens of places. The light was gone, and the monster snapped back into an amorphous towering form in the dark. A moan came, less that of a wounded beast and more of a voice spoken through a long, hollow tube. It lifted one of its legs off the ground and thrust it forward, with the last of Silas’s still-connected entrails sloughing from his severed midsection and onto the ground. The child had begun to dance, leaping and cackling ever more loudly.

“Fire bolt.”

The missile whiffed, striking the wall behind it and ricocheting off into the night, producing a second flash that illuminated the creature from behind. The walls on either side of the alley were alight in the reflection from its skin, catching the downward swing of its exaggerated gait as it finished its step. It was much too close; in a single stride, it had covered over half the distance Luca and his team had made. It moaned again, much more loudly this time.

It’s light! It’s light that bothers it.

‘Blind it! Blind it, Cato!”

“Light.”

The space was filled with light, not the red hue of magic flame, but the iridescent white of magical luminance. No longer an instant glimpse, Luca was able to take in the monster for what it was. Its limbs were spindly, seeming to have been made by tightly wound strands of copper fused with lines of solder. They pulsed, sickly strands half akin to metal, half to flesh. Its moan cut into a screech, one so loud and so piercing Luca wondered if his ears had burst. He involentarly took a step back, raising his gaze and sword in panic.

Upon its head sat a mockery of horns, tips as pointed as the rest of its spikes coiling too lazily from its brow. Its face was thin, like that of a man, but stretched overmuch up and down. The sockets of its eyes - drawn taught like the rest of its visage - were filled with a squamous, aquamarine radiance; its eyes were angled, profane casts, resolving into collections of crystals that looked to be grown from verdigris. Two tarnished streaks led from the ends of its eyes, joining those springing from its similarly deformed nostrils embedded in its wreck of its nose, dripping down into its mouth. Its maw was another terror altogether, a gaping slit in its countenance nearly three handspans in length, teeth thinner than yet double the length of his fingers. They shook with the force of its scream, vibrating so rapidly they blurred.

It burst forward, its entire body leaving the ground as it dove over Luca. He whipped his head around barely in time to watch it reach the wizard. Its arm - spindly enough to do so - plunged into his mouth. Its hand and fingers were bent backward, digits upturned toward its shoulders as just another kind of spine on its body. The arm bore deeper into him, nearly to the length of its elbow. It tugged, and then, Cato too died.

His staff clattered to the ground, and the light vanished. Things turned indistinct, the monster twisting away further in the dark. Another scream, this time from one of his comrades. Atticus swund his sword as it passed, striking the thing’s free arm as it pressed and bounced off the ground. His sword glanced off, doing nothing to the monster. It was too nimble to make sense, its deft movements wholly unseemly for its size. It continued to spin, careening end over end, the bodies of his two comrades toppling with it at speed. Luca was splattered with something warm, likely blood of Cato’s that had been slung when he was carried around. It snapped Luca back into the moment.

What the fuck do we do?!

The two most versatile and useful members of his team were dead, no more access to magic or other spells that could rip its metal skin, and their member most likely to effect a retreat in the city scape having been torn in two; equipment he always kept on his person for unexpected situations had been doffed in Hilma’s basement for the sake of a light kit to scale Ro-Lante with; no one on his team bore alchemical fire, nor holy water, and the glues the had were on Cato’s person; their last, desperate tool, the poison said to turn all it touched to stone had been stolen, snatched from them by a child whose actions remained enigmatic. A swish came as Atticus loosed his crossbow. Luca was unable to trace the projectile in the night, and its sound was equally unrevealing as to if it had struck its target or not; he doubted it mattered. The laughing from behind him grew louder.

Luca spun around in the spot, turning back to see the child. It no longer looked like a boy, having instead become a twice horned demon of the same size. It still pranced, though not on feet, but cloven hooves that extended like chicken feet. Its beady eyes seemed filled with mirth, and it bared its teeth as it howled with chortles. Whether it was speaking in some brackish language or simply babbling, Luca did not know. There was another scream, this one shifting into a squelch halfway through.

“Atticus!”

Aurelius’s cry cut the space, and Luca turned back just in time to watch him charge. He struck, sword parallel to a second false edge formed from the energy of his body. It struck the abomination, lopping off one of its spikes as it did so, a tarish pus splattering Aurelius and his tunic. The monster howled and swung its arm toward Aurelius, who raised his sword to block. The act was meaningless, and Aurelius was impaled all the same, the spiked bludgeon crushing him against the wall behind. Luca was alone.

Wake up. Wake up. Wake up-

“Wake up. Wake up. Wake up.”

Luca began to back away, quaking as he recited the words over and over again. He knew he was awake, and that the events that had come to pass did happen as he saw them, but he held out a small, worthless hope that by speaking that mantra, he would undo all that had happened and return to his bedroll. The monster took a step towards him, covering all of the original distance and his fresh retreat in a single stride. Every one of his comrades, men he had known for almost a decade - first in his unit, then as mercenaries - hung from some spike on its body. It took a second step, swinging over him as it planted its feet behind his back. He couldn't bring himself to turn, only casting his gaze upward.

Its torso doubled back on itself, the monster contorting at its waist to turn its upper body entirely upside down, but still standing straight on its two feet. Luca lost all feeling in his legs, and though he wanted to run, he felt unable to. Slowly, as its head shifted - bending as did clay - he met its upside-down gaze, eyes little but depressions of vague black in the night. Its head warped further; its brow and eyes bent out of sight only for its maw to come into view - too distended to close. Luca caught a glimpse of what was inside, past the wall of teeth: a winding spiral of needles curled back into its throat, each aimed inward, like a cruel trap employed for small game. It began to close the gap. Terror. His feet slipped out from under him, but he did not fall fast enough. It took his head.