The morning started slow. Viremoor woke to the scrape of broom-bristle on stone, the hiss of frying oil over an open flame, and the sharp bark of a street peddler shouting to no one in particular. Somewhere, a door slammed too hard. A bottle rolled from a step and didn’t break. The kind of sounds a city made when it was trying to pretend nothing was wrong.
The three of them sat outside a modest stall just off the main thoroughfare, breakfast bowls in hand, steam curling into the early chill. Septimus picked at his food, slow and distracted, as if gnawing through a thought rather than a meal.
Lottie watched him from across the table. One leg tucked beneath her, elbow propped lazily on the worn wood. She didn’t speak right away. Just let the silence stretch until it felt natural.
Then, quieter than the street noise behind them, she asked, “You alright?”
Septimus glanced up.
She didn’t press, just lifted her brows slightly. A flicker of concern sat behind the casual look. “You’ve been distant. Since the lanterns. Just... felt it. That’s all.”
Before he could answer, the morning cracked. Shouts broke the calm. A rising tide of voices bouncing down the stone corridors. Watchmen barked orders. Civilians cried out.
Beneath it all, something sharper stirred. Panic, raw and immediate. The clatter of armor. A Watchmen’s command. Somewhere nearby, a vendor’s stall collapsed in a rush of splintered wood.
They were already on their feet. A section of flagstone near the plaza had buckled inward, cracked wide like a wound. From the opening, something clawed its way up.
Too broad for a hound, too low for a bear. It did not lunge. It stepped forward. Hunched. Heavy. Its shadow stretched wider than its body.
Sunlight stuck its flank and failed to catch, the fur drank it in. Shadow pooled beneath its ribs and did not thin. The shape settled into itself. Broad skull. Thick through the shoulders. A Cragwolf’s frame built to crush bone. Tail long and dense behind it. Paws wide, claws scraping stone with deliberate weight.
And where its eyes should have been, a haunting blue glow held. It opened its jaws. It breathed wrong. No rhythm. No rise. Just static, panting gasps. Sharp. Shallow.
Recognition settled in before they could name it. Hollowed. A body sustained by mana alone.
Septimus stepped forward, shield raised. Voice low, but carrying. Steady enough to cut the air. “Let's earn our name, then.”
Lottie cracked her knuckles, grinning as fire flickered at her fingertips.
“You want fame?” she said, half-laughing. “I’ll take a little infamy too.”
Silas exhaled, cold and focused. Shadows gathered at his boots, rippling like spilled ink.
“No running this time,” he murmured, “Let’s show it what it means to hold a shape.”
The creature didn’t snarl. The air tightened all the same. A pressure swelled in the street like a held breath. Nearby lanterns flickered, their flames caught in its orbit. It lunged. Fast, silent, and sudden.
Septimus met it head-on, warhammer raised. The weight met bone with a wet crack. The creature staggered, shoulder half-collapsed, black-red blood leaking fast. Still standing. Still snarling.
Wind curled around Septimus’s boots as Lottie surged past. Flame caught her hands, fire curling up to her knuckles. She flicked a pebble forward, fast and sharp. It struck just above the beast’s eye. A mist of blood in the morning air. She slid in behind him, stance low and steady, firelit.
Across the flank, Silas moved without sound. A curl of his hand, and the shadows listened. Darkness snapped up from the flagstones, seizing limbs and wrenching them back. The creature flinched. Slowed.
Then turned. Too fast. It pivoted and slashed. Lottie took the hit. Talons raked her side. Coat split. Blood and something colder spilled out. Her breath hitched. Pain, fast and real.
The sound she made hit harder than the claws. Septimus didn’t flinch. His eyes focused with fierce intent. Frost-black bruises bloomed where the claws had touched. She didn’t fall. Fire surged, reflexive. Lottie’s fists flared, and the beast burned as it pressed in. It reeled back, skin hissing.
Then it turned again. Towards Septimus. The first bite glanced off the shield. The second didn’t. Teeth sank into Septimus’s shoulder. Cold, deeper than metal. Not just pain. Rot. Something old and wrong sliding under the armor. The steel bent, held. Barely.
Heat spread beneath the pauldron. Blood, soaking through. His vision narrowed. Just for a breath. Then he stepped forward. Shield up. Feet braced. He pivoted and drove the warhammer hard, upward. The ribs gave. Another crack. The thing staggered. No breath. No sound. Just recoil.
Lottie struck next. Low. Fast. A knee to the side. A fist across the jaw. Each hit sparked flame. The beast staggered again. Limbs buckling. Patchwork hide melting away where her fire clung.
Across the courtyard, Silas’s hands trembled. Mana spent, eyes focused, he still reached. One last thread pulled from whatever shadow hadn’t yet left him. His hand lifted. Not to the beast. To the thing it cast.
A needle formed, dark as obsidian, and silent as breath held too long. It flew.The spike caught in shadow. Pinned it to the ground like cloth nailed to wood.
The beast convulsed. Not from pain. From ceasing. The blue glow in its eyes sputtered.
The shadow beneath its ribs thinned, then dragged tight against bone. Its limbs buckled, straining against Silas’s power. The breathless gasps hitched and faltered. For the first time since it rose, the body hesitated.
Septimus stepped forward, battered and bleeding, breath thick in his throat. He lifted the warhammer one last time. And brought it down like a gavel.
The blow landed. The creature folded beneath it. The glow in its eyes dimmed and faded. The Hollowed beast twitched once. Exhaled a final static gasp. Then, the body went still.
Septimus, barely registering the pain on his shoulder, turned to Lottie. "You got swiped pretty good there. You alright?"
Lottie breathed hard, shoulder scorched, blood blooming through her coat. The flames still flickered faintly at her fingertips, guttering low. Smoke curled from her knuckles.
She laughed. Half wild, half relieved. “Been through worse. But if I say no, do I get to lay down for a bit while you carry me?”
One hand pressed against the wound. “I’ll live. Just need a breather.”
Septimus watched her. Longer than he meant to. His voice came quiet, edged with more softness than he meant to show “You’d only have to ask, you know.”
Lottie’s grin faltered, just a breath, just enough. She doesn’t answer right away, her shoulders rose like she might joke again, but she didn't. Instead, she nodded once.
Her eyes tinged with warmth. “You’re getting too sappy for your own good, Sep,” Low. Almost like she didn't want the moment to break.
Silas approached from the edge of the square, pale and steady. His eyes didn't meet their eyes. Instead, he looked to the fallen creature.
“We should check it,” he murmured. “That was no normal beast.”
Septimus glanced at the crowd. Their voices low. Speculative. Without a word, he hauls the beast’s body up and over his shoulder. It was heavy, but he bore it like weight was something he was used to carrying. Its hind legs and tail scrape against the stone, soft and wet.
“Let’s find a proper place to get a proper look.”
A few bystanders step back, wary.
Some whispered. "Did you see that flame?" "That wasn't natural." "Solshade magic, I swear it."
A child tries to step forward for a better look, only to be pulled back by a silent, watchful parent.
Silas tightened his cloak and kept his head low. “Back alley, maybe a cellar. Fewer eyes.”
Septimus jutted his chin toward the docks. “Let’s take 'er down to the warehouse. Maybe we can find a buyer after we sate your curiosity.”
The trio moved at a deliberate pace. Even with the weight on Septimus’s shoulder, their steps were steady, like the city’s holding its breath. Like something underneath just stirred.
The path through the dock lanes was less crowded. Eyes still tracked them until they passed. They spotted the warehouse foreman. Brannic. Septimus remembered her name. Arms like timber beams. A face carved from old stone.
She nodded without question. “Ril’s out back. Still sortin’ ledgers.” Respect, earned in silence.
Behind the warehouse, the alley narrows into a fenced-in lot. Shaded by slats of timber and rusted eaves. Barrels of salted fish line one wall. Crates stacked against the other, faint glyphplates itched into old wood. A heavy tarp flapped loose, revealing an old but sturdy table.
Septimus hauled the carcass onto it with a wet thud. The weight felt honest now. No shadow stretching beyond it. No glow clinging to the fur. The body was intact. Broad skull. Thick through the shoulders. A Cragwolf’s frame built for crushing bone. It had no reason to be so close to the Totem in this state.
Silas leaned in slowly, eyes narrowed, silent. Studying the thing like its shadow could whisper “This isn’t just a creature twisted from overchanneling its Spark. There’s... something else.”
He traced a wiry finger along the ribs. The flesh was cooling, but faint warmth lingered beneath the skin.
“Mana saturation,” he said. “Too much. Or the wrong kind.”
Silas began his careful examination. Unfolded a notepad. Muttered to himself as he prodded the cooling carcass, slow and precise.
Septimus watched for a moment. Then turned away. He stepped back into the warehouse, out of the weight that still clung to the air like damp cloth. His boots found rhythm again on the wood. A few turns later, he was at Ril's door.
Ril was leaning over a cluttered desk of wax-sealed invoices and crystal-etched ledgers. She looked up when he knocked on the doorframe with the back of his knuckle. “You didn’t come to borrow ink, I reckon.”
She leaned back in her chair, chewing a reed stylus. Her eyes narrowed as he spoke. Septimus described the kill. The shadowy manifestation. The way its eyes glowed. Hollowed this close to the Totem. Her expression sharpened.
She tapped the desk, then stood. “I’ll take a look.”
She followed him out. One glance at the beast, and she let out a low whistle.
“That’s not a simple pelt or claw job. That’s taxidermy for mad scholars, or powdered nobles who think danger makes good décor.”
She prodded it with the butt of a nearby stick. “I’d pay twenty Rudim’s clean for the carcass. Or ten, if you want to keep the fangs and hide. Could fetch more with a skilled hand later, but that’s your risk to take.”
Silas squinted and murmured to himself. “If we extract a section of marrow and preserve a patch of hide… we can study the mana saturation. See what sustained it.”
Septimus waved a hand, already turning. “Eh. We’ll take the hit to the price tag and let Silas have his fun. The rest is yours, Ril.”
Ril nodded, a glint in her eye. Clearly pleased. “You lot are making a name for yourselves. Keep bringing me strange corpses and we might just strike up a formal deal.”
She pulled a coin pouch from her coat and tossed it to Septimus. Ten freshly minted iron hexbits. “My men’ll clean the rest. Have your bright-eyed Aberrant finish his scribbling and step aside before the solvents come out.”
Silas wrapped the salvaged materials in treated canvas and tucked them into his satchel. “Could be the start of something,” he murmured. “Or at least good leverage with a researcher.”
Ril gave a parting nod and turned back toward the warehouse. “If you’re sticking around Viremoor, there’s worse things to be than the trio who kills what the guards won’t touch.”
Septimus pulled his boot knife and cut free the pelt. Then he stepped back and waved in Ril’s people.
They found a low stone bench along the edge of the courtyard. Warmed by the sun. Far enough from foot traffic, close enough to hear the city breathe. Not luxurious. But for them, it was more than enough.
“Let’s find a nice spot to rest for a bit,” Septimus said, “I’m alright. Just a little tapped from that fight.”
Lottie wiped dried blood from her mouth and chuckled. “Tapped is one word for it. I’m down to cinders.”
She flexed scorched fingers, already eyeing a sunny stoop nearby. Silas nodded, tucking his journal under one arm.
“I’ll watch the alley. No one’s sneaking up on us. Not with all this aura still humming.”
Lottie sat cross-legged and began rewrapping her stomach. She hissed through her teeth, but her hands stayed steady. When she finished, she let out a slow breath. “Alright. Not perfect, but I’ll survive. Just don’t make me do any somersaults.”
Septimus watched her, then tilted his head. “Think you could give me a hand? Got me pretty good in the shoulder.”
Lottie grinned and crouched beside him. “Yeah, alright. Hold still. Don’t flex. I’m trying to help, not watch you show off.”
Her fingers were firm, but gentle. The wound ached. It would for a while. Septimus stood with a grunt. “I bet we could fight another one of those fuckers, if we were pressed.”
Lottie raised a brow as she repacked the medkit. “Oh, sure. You swing your hammer, I throw another pebble through a skull, and then we both drop dead. Not that I’m saying no.”
Silas, leaned back on a crate, didn’t look up. “I’d prefer we don’t find out exactly how pressed we need to be.”
A breeze moved through the alley. The city breathed around them. Docks shouting, hammers ringing, and the groan of wooden wheels echoing down the street.
Septimus stepped out of the courtyard. Lottie and Silas followed close behind. His shoulder tugged beneath the fresh wrap, but the ache was dull now. He breathed in the city's rhythm. Gauging the mood. They weren't fresh. But they could keep going.
“Don’t look too worse for wear,” he said, not quite joking. “Aura did its job. What now?”
Silas lingered near the wall, adjusting his satchel. The dark folds of his coat caught the light in soft motes. Its hem whispered in the breeze. “If we report it, the Church might drag us deeper into their orbit,” he said.
His eyes flicked toward the distant spire. “But pretending it didn’t happen... that feels wrong. That thing was made.”
Lottie paced a slow circle, tossing a pebble between her hands. Her scarf lifted faintly. Air still stirring, even if the fight had passed.
“Honestly?” she said, catching the stone. “I’d settle for an early lunch. Maybe a chance to throw something that doesn’t bleed on me.”
She grinned toward Septimus. “But you’re not wrong. That’s twice now we’ve been right where it gets weird.”
Her gaze tilted upward. “Your call, Sep. Leads, rest, or... whatever else the city throws.”
Septimus glanced down the street. A café exhaled steam between a tannery and a cobbler’s shop. The sign swung gently in the breeze—The Copper Ladle.
His steps slowed. Barely. Fresh paint. Clean windows. The scent of broth and spice drifting warm across the stone. New. Safe. Still... something about the name caught.
Lottie caught the scent too. Her face brightened, and she stepped forward, then paused. Just half a breath. Noticed his hesitation. Didn’t name it.
“Now that’s the kind of omen I can work with,” she said instead, grinning. “Food that didn’t come out of a tin? Miraculous.”
Silas fell in behind them. Hands in coat pockets. “Less reckless than chasing shadows. I’ll take it.”
They didn’t reach the door. Before Lottie could push it open, a voice cut through the street. Quiet, but clear.
“Pardon. Are you Septimus?”
A figure stood just off the curb. Not a guard or a merchant. Black coat, ink-stained gloves, no insignia. Pale face. Eyes unreadable.
They held out a folded slip of parchment. Sealed in gray wax. The emblem is unmistakable. A stylized Totem wreathed in ivy.
“I’ve been asked to deliver this.”
Septimus eyed the courier. Young, precise, more shadow than person. “What’s the fee for delivery?”
The courier blinked once. No twitch of amusement. No merchant’s flourish. Just steady eyes behind wire-rim spectacles. “No fee, sir. The request was paid for in full.”
The courier glanced, briefly, toward Silas. “They said you’d know if it was meant for you.”
Silas stilled. Didn't speak. But his posture shifted. Shoulders slightly raised. Not fear... Just the tension of recognition.
Lottie watched, then muttered, “Yup. That’s not ominous at all.”
The courier stepped forward and offered the envelope with both hands. A slight bow. No name. No questions. Then turned and disappeared down the street, coat brushing damp stone.
The seal was unfamiliar. Gray wax pressed with a totem wreathed in ivy. Or thorns. Not a crest. Not any faction he knew. Septimus watched the courier fade into the crowd. He turned the letter once in his hand. “I’ll give this a once-over first. You look ready to jump ship, Silas.”
Silas’s eyes stayed on the wax.
Quietly, he said, “I’ve seen that seal before. A few times. Quiet inquiries. People who didn’t dress like clergy, but still answered to the Church.”
He mulled on his next words. “Not the branch I knew. Not the part they print on flyers.”
Lottie exhaled, the spark in her eyes dimmed just a little. “So... backroom priests? Or the kind that don’t leave ledgers behind?”
Silas didn’t answer. Just nodded.
Septimus cracked the seal. Soft. Deliberate. The parchment was thick. Handmade. But the weight felt chosen. The handwriting was clean, precise.
To Septimus and Associates,
I have reviewed your recent encounter and the remains recovered by your contact. I commend your restraint, and your silence. We believe our interests align. I extend an invitation to speak. Discreetly.
Tonight. After dark. Enter the bellfounder’s chapel, just beyond Ashen Row, behind the old bronzeworks. The gate will be open. Bring your companions.
Do not speak of this to the Church.
— C.
There was no title. Just an initial. A small blot of ink stained the lower corner. Like the pen hesitated before it left. The broken wax fell to the ground, now just shards of gray and thorn.
Silas leaned in, scanning the letter. “I don’t like it,” he murmured. “But I want to know who ‘C’ is. And why they’re watching us so closely.”
Lottie was already squinting at Septimus. “And why they think we’re the types to keep quiet.”
She tilted her head. Not a grin. Something sharper. “Guess we’re trading a hot meal for secrets and shadow deals now?”
Septimus studied the letter, then spoke without looking up. “Funny how the language changes, but I’ve heard this ask before. Last time, it came from a bandit chief who didn’t use as many words.”
Lottie let out a short laugh. No mirth. Just recognition. “Yeah? And how’d that story end?”
Silas leaned in to read again, then straightened slowly. “Judging by the fact you’re still standing, I assume not in a ditch.”
Outside, Viremoor churned on. A slow wagon lumbered past. Bells chimed from the millworks. A faint pipe organ hummed from the High Courts district. Soft, but rising. But here, just outside the Copper Ladle, the quiet thickened. Like the moment before someone lifts a lid off something best left sealed.
Lottie sighed through her teeth. “We go in eyes open. If it’s a trap, we spring it careful. If it’s something bigger...” She shrugged. Casual, but tight. “We’ve already fought one walking nightmare this week.”
Silas looked to Septimus. Expression steady. Not rattled. “You call it, Sep. We follow your lead. But I’d rather not wait long.”
Septimus rubbed a thumb along the edge of the parchment. “We can plan all we like. But if things go sideways, plans don’t mean much.” He glanced down the street. “We’ve got some coin. Maybe enough to find something useful.”
His eyes narrowed slightly. “Something to keep us alive. Or make us deadlier.”
Silas let the corner of his mouth twitch. Something between a smile and a grimace. “Practical. That’s good. We’ve been running on grit and borrowed luck long enough.”
Lottie twirled a pebble between her fingers, same one from earlier, probably. Her grin returned, sharp and alive again. “Now that’s the Sep I trust when things get messy. Let’s go find something sharp. Flammable. Dark.”
She tipped her chin toward the café door, then pivoted toward the market with that casual, predatory energy that always made people give her room. “No offense, but murder-prep always kills my appetite.”
The forge smoke curled skyward, thick and steady. Septimus adjusted the strap across his coat, watching the plume vanish into haze.
“We’ve been making good, honest coin,” he muttered. “That’s… new.”
He nodded toward a broad, soot-darkened avenue. “Krelwin’s place, I spotted it the day we arrived.”
Lottie clapped once. A slow, mock salute. “To honest pay, spent on honest steel.” Then, quieter. Not quite a grin. “If we’re dying in a chapel tonight, might as well look damn good doing it.”
Silas checked his coat buckles, efficient and practiced. “They stock gear for surviving. Not for showing off.”
The clang of hammers reached them before the corner turned. Oil hissed under it, sharp and hot. The shop stood low and wide. Dark timber braced with iron, like it didn’t trust the walls to hold on their own. Bars across the windows. Steel behind the glass.
Inside, the air held thick with smoke and iron. Burnt leather. Hammer dust. The scent of work, not presentation. No signs. No banners. Just shelves and racks, and the hum of labor bleeding in from the back.
Krelwin himself stood behind the counter. Bald. Thick around the shoulders. Arms shaped by the forge, every inch burned or scarred. His beard was tucked through a leather loop across his chest, out of the way. He didn’t look up. “Gold’s gold. You break it, you buy it.”
They split without a word. Septimus moved along a line of underlayers. Nothing decorative. Just things built to last. He found a vest. Thin, press-stitched, meant to sit beneath armor. He rolled his shoulder beneath the straps. Weight was right.
Silas paused at a velvet-lined case. Inside, a brass-framed kit, lined with etched channels. Not magical yet, but ready. The sigils were in Totemic script. Or something older, carved by memory. Septimus watched him turn it over once, then move on.
Lottie stopped at a shelf lower to the ground. A sash lay coiled there, studded with iron marbles. Each one etched with shallow spirals. Stylized wind. Totemic guesswork. Probably nothing.
She picked one up. Rolled it in her palm. Flicked it once with a sharp wrist. It hissed through the air and hit the far wall with a soft clang. She grinned, small and satisfied. Of course she did.
Krelwin said nothing. Then Septimus set the shield down. It looked worse under real light. Burned rim. Center gouged. Pockmarks from flame and time. It had held. But only barely. Krelwin stepped closer. “Give me some coin and half a day. I’ll make it hold through a siege bolt.” He tapped the rim with one thick knuckle. “Won’t be pretty. But it won’t fold.”
Septimus placed down not an insubstantial amount of coin without speaking. Krelwin took it and disappeared behind the curtain. By the time they wrapped their choices, the forge-light had shifted.
Krelwin returned, dragging the shield beneath one arm. He hadn’t made it new. Just made it right. Steel rim. Cross-rib plating across the curve. Old scars still visible, but realigned. It was heavier now. Balanced.
“You’ll still feel the hits,” the smith said. “But this time, you’ll still be standing.”
Outside, the air had cooled. The sun cut sharp angles through the haze. Septimus tapped Silas’s satchel. “You thinking of trying that kit?”
Silas opened the clasp. Inside, the glyphs caught a breath of light. Dust shimmered near the corner. Mana once. Memory now. “I could bind a flicker. Light. Shadow. Maybe something inbetween.”
He glanced toward the warhammer. Then back to Septimus. “Could also blow your gauntlet out and take my eye with it.”
Lottie leaned in the doorway, arms folded. “So… yes. But dramatic.”
Septimus shook his head. “Not now. If I get you near the Totem, I want you clean. Not gambling.”
Silas nodded and closed the kit. “Good call. Sacred things don’t like shortcuts. Even if the Church pretends otherwise.” His eyes drifted upward. The Totem still loomed over the skyline, wrapped in scaffold and silence.
Lottie nudged his shoulder as she passed. “When you do crack it open, I want front row.”
The marbles in her sash clinked faintly. She adjusted the strap. Looked to Septimus. “The sun’s dropping.” Her voice was easy, but not loose. “You want to scout the chapel first? Or walk in blind and see who blinks?”