The road to Cyfaraun was a rutted scar of dust and regret, pounded flat by the boots of fools and the hooves of beasts too dumb to know better. Caravans crawled in from the north like wounded animals, oxen bellowing, dust choking the air with the stink of sweat and desperation. Teamsters spat curses in guttural tongues, their carts groaning under loads that'd break a man's back for a pittance. Cyfaraun's black walls squatted ahead, dividing the city like a butcher's cleaver: the Lake District, where fat patricians guzzled wine from silver cups, and the Old District, where the poor fought for scraps and bled for sport. Kessra, her arms a map of old scars from fights she'd barely survived, spat into the dirt. "This shithole loves its chains—wraps 'em in gold for the rich, iron for the rest." Torv said nothing, just rubbed the thick calluses on his palms, reminders of graves he'd dug. Rhen, barely out of boyhood, clutched his spear like a talisman, his imperial pendant dangling with false promises.
They came for Legate Ulrand Valerian’s bounty—2,000 gold to hunt the bastards vanishing in the Viaspen Forest, where trees whispered lies and the ground swallowed screams. Desperation dragged them here, the borderlands a graveyard of broken dreams. Kessra lugged a betrayal like a rotten tooth: she'd sold her friend Mara for a fistful of silver to fill her gut. Torv carried the Viaspen's rot in his bones, his hands scarred from fleeing while others died. Rhen, fresh meat from the recruiters, dreamed of a Lake District villa, but his spear shook with the lie of it all. The borderlands chewed men up and spat out bones, and they were fools enough to volunteer.
At the Traveler’s Gate, iron doors pocked with siege scars yawned open till dusk, ready to snap shut. A watchman, his breath a fog of cheap wine and bad teeth, squinted at Kessra’s patched mail. “Trouble on legs?” he growled, voice like gravel underfoot. “Not unless you’re buying,” she shot back, flashing a grin that didn’t reach her eyes, her hand hovering near her knife’s worn hilt. He eyed Torv’s weathered hide, then Rhen’s virgin spear. “Watch the thieves—they’ll gut you for a copper.” Kessra snorted, her boots kicking up dust. Torv scanned the press of bodies. Rhen muttered a prayer to deaf gods, his pendant glinting false hope, as they hunted whispers of the Viaspen's dead.
The Street of Wolves thrummed with the Festival District’s false cheer. They cut along Gambler’s Row, the amphitheater’s roar ghosting over the tiles. Mummers capered in gaudy masks, their laughs hollow as empty purses. Dice-shills barked odds on arena bloodbaths, their fingers ever close to concealed blades. A runt in rags hawked fight programs, his eyes pits of hunger. Kessra flipped him a copper. “Don’t get stepped on, whelp.” He snatched it and bolted. Rhen gawked at a juggler tossing knives, whispering of imperial glory. Torv watched the crowd like prey, knowing festivals were just distractions for the starving to forget their chains, as they slogged toward the Old District for real answers.
The Old District reeked of stale beer and old blood baked into the cobbles. The City Watch Headquarters hulked like a stone fist, its slits for windows narrow and suspicious. The Merchant Guildhouse flaunted faded banners, hiding ledgers fat with extortion. The Thieves’ Quarter lurked in fetid alleys, where unpaid debts ended in shallow graves. Kessra haggled for a new knife at a stall, its edge keen but grip scarred like her soul—Mara’s betrayal still a fresh wound in her gut. The vendor tapped the dirt with his sandal. “Nethercity down there, they say—full of things that crawl.” Torv unrolled his tattered map, marking the Collapsed Elven Keep and Cyfandir’s bones. “Paths run both ways, to ruin or profit.” Kessra sheathed the blade. “So do knives—straight to the heart.” They chased scraps of truth about the vanishings, but the air stank of lies.
In a stinking alley, a City Watch captain with an eagle-headed key badge barred their way, his voice oiled like a trap. “Strangers sniffing around bounties draw the wrong eyes,” he said. Kessra bared her teeth. “Eyes can be plucked,” she shot back. The captain sized up Torv’s scarred knuckles, then Rhen’s quivering spear. “Viaspen eats dreams, boy,” he told Rhen, his smirk a dagger. Torv clamped a hand on Kessra’s arm to hold her back, his eyes narrowed to slits. “They own the forest’s secrets,” Torv muttered. Rhen’s half-muttered prayer died on his lips, doubt worming in like rot, as the group shoved past the captain, trailing the stink of corruption.
In the Imperial Charter inn’s murky common room, a cream-colored card waited on their table, reeking of sharp citrus like a perfumed corpse.
Acknowledgment of Volunteerism
The Office of Civic Coordination warmly recognizes your initiative regarding recent forestry irregularities along the Krysivor. Kindly coordinate with posted authorities to avoid redundant exertions. Your prudence preserves lives.
—The Prefecture of Cyfaraun—Office of Civic Coordination
Kessra’s fingers brushed her knife, the memory of betraying Mara five years ago surging back—a similar note had lured her friend to her doom, sold out for silver. Torv’s jaw tightened, recalling a card pinned to his brother Torm’s gutted corpse in the Viaspen, left as a mocking grave marker. Rhen hissed, “They’re watching us bleed.” Kessra crumpled it. “Let ‘em watch us gut them.” The innkeeper slammed down mugs, her eyes weary pits. “Fancy words for chains.” Kessra pocketed the card anyway, its weight a promise of blood, as they plotted in the gloom.
Over sour ale that tasted like piss in the dim common room, Kessra leaned in, her eyes boring into Torv like daggers. "What rot did you leave festering in the Viaspen?" Torv traced a callus, his voice a gravelly rasp. "My brother Torm. We were hauling crap for some lordling when beastmen hit. I ran like a whipped dog while they tore him apart—guts spilling, screams echoing. Saved my skin, lost my soul." He nodded at her. "Your turn, knife-girl." Kessra's fingers tightened on her blade, the hilt slick with sweat. "Sold my friend Mara to the Watch for a handful of silver. She begged, eyes wide as saucers, but my belly was empty. They hanged her slow." Rhen gripped his pendant, voice cracking. "The Empire forgives such sins." Kessra barked a laugh, cold as a grave. "Forgives? It tallies 'em up and collects with interest, boy. We're all just meat for the grinder." Their guilt hung like a noose, binding them to the Viaspen. With the map's paths etched in their minds and the city's shadows pressing close, they decided to strike south at first light, chasing the bounty's trail along the border forts toward the forest's hungry edge.
They fled Cyfaraun before the city's endless fees and bribes could bankrupt them completely, the gate tolls stripping away their last few coppers. Heading south through barren farmlands—where empty barns gaped like hollow skulls and the road traced a path of ruined lives—they reached the Krysivor River at twilight. There, a battered raft lumbered along the current, its crew gaunt as ghosts, hauling timber upstream against the flow. “Menicos logs,” the foreman grunted, slapping a massive redwood slab from the distant forest. “All for the Palatine’s endless greed.” He jerked a thumb toward the Viaspen’s looming black trees. “Wolves out there or account ledgers back home—one way or another, something’ll devour us poor bastards.” Kessra’s hand rested on her knife, her eyes scanning the growing shadows for threats. Torv eyed the murky water warily, his mistrust as thick as the mud churning below. Rhen whispered a prayer to the empty air, but his faith was cracking like thin ice as the forest’s edge drew near. The raft finally dropped them at Mityethtem's docks, the first border fort on their southward trek, where they hoped local rumors would add meat to the warnings scrawled on Torv's map.
At Mityethtem, the Fort of the Dutiful Oath, the air stank of sweat and rancid oil, walls gouged from the Elven Wars like old wounds. An orderly, her kindness a thin veil over steel, stitched a soldier’s gashed flesh. “Ianna burns the filth,” she muttered, needle biting deep. Bladedancers, their weapons carved with prayers, spat a blessing: keep your edge keen, or die dull. Kessra clutched her knife, sniffing for betrayal. Rhen murmured of gods’ aid, his pendant warm as false gold. Torv stood mute, horizon-fixed, mentally sifting rumors of the Viaspen’s horrors—beastmen feasts, cursed shrines sucking souls.
At dusk by Mityethtem’s sputtering fire, Kessra honed her knife, Mara’s betrayal a thorn in her heart. She fingered Mara’s braided cord, knots tight as regrets. Torv whetted his sword, Torm’s death a festering sore. Rhen buffed his spear, babbling of imperial marble halls. “The Emperor rewards the loyal.” Kessra’s laugh was a rasp. “It’s a snare, whelp—baited with your bones.” Their shared rot forged them, armoring them against the forest’s dangers. Whispers around the fire pointed deeper south to Türos Tem, where a clerk hoarded details on the vanishings—fresh farms burned, men dragged screaming—so they resolved to press on at dawn.
Pushing further south along the river's scarred banks, they reached Türos Tem by midday, a crumbling fort clutching a ragged garrison. A market peddled stringy pork, hagglers’ voices slashing like knives. A clerk droned, “Legate wants bodies. Vanishings, farms torched to ash.” Whispers swirled: beastmen hordes, sealed tombs vomiting horrors, the White Lady’s shrine cursing all since the Elven Wars. Kessra eavesdropped, eyes predator-sharp. Torv’s fists clenched, wary as a cornered dog. Rhen’s pendant weighed like lead, hope leaching away in the gloom, as they hunted the bounty’s poisoned truth.
Another card slithered in, pinned to an official dispatch from Cyfaraun’s desk—lemon oil cloying, the paper too pristine for this grimy hole.
Collegial Notice
We are all colleagues. In light of sensitive operations presently underway in the Viaspen tract, uncredentialed participation may impair outcomes. Please await further instruction. Compliance is a kindness.
—The Prefecture of Cyfaraun—Office of Civic Coordination
Kessra’s knife hand itched, Mara’s betrayal looming like a ghost in her mind. Torv's jaw clenched, the image of a similar card on Torm’s bloodied corpse flashing back. Rhen croaked, “They know our sins.” Kessra snarled, “They know nothing at all.” Following a lead from the dispatch, they ducked into a nearby cooper’s cluttered den, where papers piled high: tallies of greed, gem mining rights, taxes riddled with bandit cuts. Torv growled, “Dwarves stoke the fires of avarice.” Kessra spat, “Forests tally in corpses.” Rhen scowled at the mess. “Law shields the mighty,” he replied, dissecting the card for any clues to the Viaspen’s bloody secrets.
The clerk's leads directed them to a bandaged Menicos logger in the fort's infirmary, who rasped of vast forests. “Palatine Korbus craves timber,” he coughed, voice shredded. “Pylon gambles the river.” A courier with the eagle-headed key offered a shady haul for a cursed crate. “Ancient rot,” he smirked, teeth yellow. Kessra waved him off. “Peddle to The Mink.” Torv muttered, “They’re neck-deep in shit.” Rhen’s pendant dragged like an anchor, faith crumbling, as they grilled the man for the vanishings’ guts. His tales of lumber camps gone silent urged them onward to Türos Veren, the last bastion before the forest proper, where ferries crossed into the Viaspen's maw.
At Türos Veren, the Sharp-Castle, Legate Pylon herded lumber crews with an iron will, using Palatine Korbus’s commands as a whip. Ferries plowed the Krysivor’s icy murk, its waters murmuring of Cyfandir’s doom.
“The Palatine hungers for wood, and the forest hungers for flesh,” a legionary bitched, glaring at the bound logs. The ferryman, his palms scarred from rope burns, warned, “Back by dark,” his hands quaking. Kessra tossed a coin. “For your troubles.” He didn’t grin. “Troubles are the river’s gift.” Torv watched the depths, spotting shadows that weren’t fish. Rhen’s prayer drowned unanswered, a shape coiling below.
The lumber camp rotted abandoned: frames sagged like corpses, kiln bricks split, logs piled under the forest’s hungry stare. A twig charm dangled defiant from a bough. A one-eyed guard sneered asking if they chased wolves. “Northeast,” he pointed, doubt thick. Kessra’s knife hung ready, scanning for traps. Torv’s hands coiled, alert as serpents. Rhen’s spear quivered, dreams dimming to ash.
They took the trail, silence thick as blood, ground slick under dead leaves, tracks too fresh for comfort. Birds hushed, a bad omen. Kessra raked the trees with her gaze, grip iron. Torv’s eyes darted, sharp as thorns. Rhen’s knuckles bleached white on his spear, fearing the gods forsaking him as they followed the guard’s directions.
By noon, an eerie camp: fire pit cold, stones neat as graves, latrine precise. A splintered axe in mud, a chipped cup buzzing with flies. A game board’s pieces lay botched, echoing Mara’s old dice scams to Kessra. “Snatched mid-breath,” she rasped. Torv spread his map. “Cyfandir close, White Lady’s shrine cursed since elves bled out.” Rhen whispered, “Blessed by shadows.” Kessra scoffed. “Curses and blessings—same poison.”
Twigs snapped like breaking bones. Three raiders burst from the shadows, blades rusted but thirsty, one sporting an eagle-headed key badge like a brand of betrayal. Kessra moved first, her knife slashing across the leader's throat in a hot spray of blood that painted the leaves red. He gurgled, clutching the ruin of his neck, eyes bulging in dumb surprise. Rhen thrust his spear wildly, too slow—the second raider's blade carved a gash across his arm, flesh parting like rotten fruit, blood welling thick and dark. The pendant's chain gave way with a snap, plummeting in a whirl of gleaming fragments to embed in the rough, damp turf. Torv froze for a heartbeat, old cowardice rising like bile, then roared and swung his sword in a brutal arc, cleaving the raider's skull with a wet crunch, brains spilling in gray clumps. The third bolted into the undergrowth, leaving a trail of piss and fear. Kessra wiped her blade on the corpse's rags, breath ragged. "Run, rat. The shadows will claim you soon enough." Rhen whimpered, clutching his wound, innocence draining out with his blood. Torv rummaged through the dead, finding a torn Watch badge. "Our bounty's poisoned from the start."
Deeper in the Viaspen, the shrine squatted, elven runes twisting into leering faces, ivy-wreathed mosaics of a unicorn glimmering like a cold star. An unhinged lumberjack clutched a glowing stone carved with Cyfandir’s name. “Watch cloaks crave blood,” he wheezed, eyes mad. Kessra snatched it, its hum burrowing into her bones, spotting Mara’s braided cord in the debris—guilt stabbing like a fresh wound. “Mara, you bitch-haunt,” she choked. Torv unearthed Torm’s dagger, rune a broken oath, hands unyielding. “I didn’t run this time,” he growled. Rhen shrank from the stone, pendant shattered, gods forgotten. “It lives—hungers.” The stone throbbed, tying vanishings to Cyfandir’s graves, a web of ancient hate and fresh greed.
They limped back to Türos Tem by nightfall, burdened with scavenged gear from abandoned camps, clues to a missing raft, and the gibbering lumberjack in tow. The stone pulsed in Kessra's grip like a tumor, its hum a constant burr. “Wolves devour swiftly,” the ferryman rasped, his palms raw from endless hauls. “Men carve slower, savoring the rot.” Kessra snarled back, “And cities bury the scraps in forgotten pits.” At the fort, a Watch envoy bearing the eagle-headed key slunk in, his eyes like shards of ice. “Abandon the bounty,” he purred. “The Viaspen ain’t for scum like you.” Kessra’s knife hand twitched. Rhen, wrapped in bloody rags, confessed, “I fed the Watch our trail. They swore Lake District glory, safety.” Kessra’s hand spasmed. “You rat bastard.” Torv halted her, seeing Rhen’s wrecked face. “He’s green—they chewed him up.” Rhen ripped off his pendant, grinding it underfoot. “Lies, all of it.” The envoy chuckled, cold as winter. “Empire’s built on ‘em,” hobbling off, threat lingering like rot.
The annalist lowered his stylus, his ledger a tomb of half-truths. “I record the hours, not the why,” he sighed, meeting Torv’s glare. “The borderlands devour their own.” He pinned a final card to the lumber tally, its edges lemon-sharp against the mocking vellum.
Accounts & Continuity
Colleagues endure. Individual roles may vary; the work abides. Forward any salvage, testimony, or curiosities to our clerks for orderly disposition. The ledger remembers.
—The Prefecture of Cyfaraun—Office of Civic Coordination
Kessra pocketed it discreetly, Mara’s cord now a heavy weight at her side. Torv’s hands steadied at last, Torm’s blade belted as a grim vow. Rhen, his soul stripped bare, muttered, “The city pulls the strings.” Kessra gripped the stone tighter, its runes echoing the braided cord’s weave. “Or the rot beneath.”
At dawn, they laced their boots in the fort's chill gatehouse, the air thick with the promise of more blood. Kessra tucked the pulsing stone beside Mara's braided cord, its throb like a mocking heartbeat, whispering of debts unpaid. Torv belted Torm's dagger, his hands steady but his eyes hollow— a vow to the dead, worthless to the living. Rhen gripped his blood-crusted spear, his boy's face twisted into something harder, uglier. They'd slink back to Cyfaraun's Old District, where the Watch squatted like spiders in their web of lies, the stone's call dragging them like chains. A bathhouse whisper spoke of the White Lady's shrine, sealed after Cyfandir's bloody fall, its stones soaked in elven screams. The runes matched Mara's cord, binding past betrayals to fresh ones. "Tomorrow," Torv growled, "we dig up the city's guts and see what crawls out." Kessra nodded, knife hungry. "I settle scores with the Watch—make 'em bleed slow." But the stone pulsed stronger, luring them to Cyfandir's ruins, where the Viaspen hid not just bones, but souls twisted into something worse. In Cyfaraun, gates opened at dawn and slammed shut at dusk, watchmen weighing steel over truth. The Old District tallied corpses; the Festival muffled screams in ale; the Palace fed on it all. The Office of Civic Coordination’s cards were just pretty lies, and as they stepped into the road, the forest's whisper promised no escape—only deeper darkness, where colleagues endured by devouring each other.
