The Servant's Journal

Prologue - in the words of Calliope:

I got the notice from Fausta. We’ve worked together on enough estate sales that I recognized her professional tone immediately. Usually, she’d bring me in about some dusty old trinket needing proper provenance. Fausta's firm, knew the value of story when selling antiquities. So, when she asked to meet, I assumed it was another collection needing my particular… talents. I can usually sense the stories clinging to objects, the echoes of their past. It’s a gift, or maybe a curse, depending on the day.

"Calliope," she said, her voice low. "It's about Jaimus."

My heart gave a little lurch. "He's gone, isn't he?" I whispered, already knowing the answer.

Fausta nodded. "Last week. He… he left something for you in his will."

I was surprised, to say the least. Jaimus and I were friends, yes, but I only consulted for him occasionally. I’d help him authenticate a particularly tricky artifact, or spin a yarn for his customers about the history of some enchanted bauble. "Me? But why?" I asked.

Fausta smiled, a rare, genuine smile that softened her usually stern features. "He said you understood. The stories, the magic… the heart of the objects. He said without you, the shop would not flourish."

The Little Shoppe of Curiosities. Jaimus left me the shop. I was speechless. It was his life's work, a treasure trove of the strange and wonderful. "Fausta," I finally managed, "I… I don't know what to say."

"You don't have to say anything," she replied, "But you do need to show up at the reading of the will. Jaimus clearly believed in you, but there are... complications. It seems you aren't the only one  Jaimus trusted."

The law office of Hortencia Fausta was a place of oppressive silence, punctuated only by the scritch of a pen and the rustle of parchment. The air smelled of old paper and dust motes, a strange, sterile echo of Jaimus’s shop. In the center of the room at the end of a long table sat Hortencia, a woman with a deceptively smooth face for her years, and her daughter, Cornelia, whose wife, Annabelle, sat beside her. Annabelle’s long, striking gray hair seemed to shimmer faintly in the dull light, a subtle sign of fey-touched ancestry.

Calliope sat opposite them, clutching the armrests of her chair. Her mind was still reeling from Fausta's words. The Little Shoppe of Curiosities. She felt the weight of it, the responsibility, and the curious sense of honor. Jaimus, the old soul, had seen something in her that others had not.

The heavy door creaked open, and Kaiser shuffled in, his large frame seeming to shrink under the weight of his unease. He looked around the formal office with wide, nervous eyes, his gaze landing on the others already seated. He felt a deep-seated suspicion of places like this. He had no idea what he was doing here, only that Jaimus had been a kind man who had let him earn an honest wage. He settled into a chair, trying to make himself as small as possible which was not easy.

A moment later, Katrina slipped into the room, her movements fluid and silent. She took a seat, her tail twitching with a nervous energy she tried to conceal. The thought of a large payout, a clean slate, was the only thing keeping her rooted. Every second spent in this city felt like a risk, a gamble she wasn't sure she wanted to take. She eyed Hortencia, hoping the old woman would cut to the chase and hand over a sack of coin... nay... a chest of coins. The old man owed her that much.

On Katrina's heels Cosma strode in with a quiet, purposeful air. The sight of her horns and hooves in the staid office was jarring. She took her place among the others, her mind on her parents’ directive. Learn the business. She had no interest in ledgers and profits, but if she could use this as a way to understand the flow of money and power, perhaps she could find adventure here. the others looked ready enough for adventure.

Finally, the strange, silent figure of Kustos-749 stepped forward from the edge of the room startling Katrina who'd mistaken him for a decorative suit of armor. He had been a silent witness in the shop for decades, but the details were fragmented. He knew Jaimus had spoken to him, even by name, but the words were a jumble of out-of-context phrases. He was told he needed to be here by Professora Fausta, so he was. Awkwardly, he seated himself, perhaps unaccustomed to furniture.

Hortencia cleared her throat. “Good morning. My name is Hortencia Fausta, and this is my daughter, Cornelia, and her wife, Annabelle.” She gestured to each in turn. “You are all named in the last will and testament of the late Jaimus McNulty. As you know, he has passed on to the next life.” She paused for dramatic effect. “His estate, the Little Shoppe of Curiosities, is to be jointly owned by you all. Jaimus believed you were the rightful stewards of his life's work. The shop is yours.” (The Will of Jaimus McNulty in it's entirety)

Katrina's tail went still. "The shop? What about coin? What about a payout?" she asked, her voice laced with disappointment.

Hortencia gave her a cool, professional smile. “There are no large sums of money, only the assets of the shop. Jaimus McNulty was a man of grand gestures, but not of grand fortunes. He believed the real treasure was the shop itself.” She looked at the group, her gaze settling on each of them. "And it seems he believed you all possessed the... unique skills needed to make it a success."

A hush fell over the room as Hortencia continued reading from the will, her voice growing more solemn with each name. She read Jaimus’s personal notes and began distributing the items he had left for them.

She handed a small, worn bag to Calliope, who peeked inside to see four tiny animal-shaped artifacts. A wave of familiar, unheard music washed over her. She recognized the shapes as animals revered by the First Men, their musical echoes a secret language only she could understand. Calliope quickly hid the bag away.

For Kaiser, a strange, smooth Enchanted Stone was placed in his large, calloused hand. He turned it over, feeling its cool weight, a lump forming in his throat as Jaimus's words about his unknown ancestry echoed in his mind.

Then, Hortencia passed a delicate, three-sheeted Enchanted Paper to Katrina. "It can find someone in a pinch," the lawyer read aloud. Katrina's eyes widened, her ears swiveling slightly. This was better than gold. This was a tool for survival, and possibly, for finding who she was running from.

Finally, Hortencia read the last line for the Clank. "To Kustos-749, who listened to me for over a decade and never complained, I leave you your freedom. You will find your possession in the attic. I am sorry I could not grant this freedom sooner, but I hope very much we have thrown THEM off the trail." The lawyer’s voice ended, and all eyes turned to the silent, immobile Kustos. A faint click could be heard from deep his chest. Kustos-749, who had been an immobile statue, suddenly pivoted, his head turning to face the attorney. "Affirmative," he stated, his voice a low, mechanical hum. "I have received the new directive."

The bell over the door of the Little Shoppe of Curiosities jingled, a familiar, dusty sound that felt both like a greeting and a memory. The air inside, heavy with the scent of old wood, forgotten leather, and something vaguely metallic, was immediately familiar to Calliope. A small, gray pug with a perpetually wrinkled face waddled over, snorting and reverse sneezing with an enthusiasm that belied her age. She looked up at each of them, her tail wagging furiously as if she’d been waiting for them her entire life.

"That's Bixby," Calliope murmured, a soft smile on her face.

As the party took in the chaotic jumble of the shop—a taxidermied miniature gryphon, a shelf of misshapen ceramic gnomes, and a mannequin wearing a truly unfortunate floral dress—their eyes landed on the two hand-painted signs on the wall: "Shoplifters will be vaporized" and "No one gives me any credit, so I'm not going to give you any either." A small, elderly man with a perpetually concerned expression bustled out from a back room.

"Oh, thank goodness you're here!" he squeaked, wringing his hands. "With Master McNulty's passing, I've run into a terrible snag. The Glockenspiel Safe. He set the lock himself, you see, and it’s been sealed ever since." He led them to a heavy safe with rows of small, glowing indentations in its surface. "I can't seem to get this dreadful Glockenspiel Safe to open." He handed them a crumpled pamphlet. "All I found was this. It's a pamphlet for something called a 'curious energy cell grid assembly.' Says the cells have to go on a six-by-six grid."

The party gathered around the safe, their inherited heirlooms now feeling even more weighty. Katrina’s eyes scanned the room for a hidden catch. Kaiser’s gaze was fixed on the safe, his brow furrowed in concentration. Kustos-749 merely stood silently, observing. Calliope was about to suggest trying different musical patterns, but before she could, Cosma stepped forward.

The faun knelt before the safe, her mind working not on a puzzle, but on a feeling. She touched the surface, her fingers hovering over the glowing grid. The pamphlet described a logical progression, but she started with a different kind of truth. Her instincts, honed by the magic of the grove, told her where the first of the cells belonged. And then one by one, she began to slip the scattered energy cells into their proper places following the logic. Occasionally, when a cell was mis-slotted she received a shock, but this only served to focus her more. and soon, when the last cell was in place, the safe's door swung open with a soft chime, revealing its secrets:

• Amulet of Disguise - When Cosma looked at the tiny mirror is seemed to capture her visage and then transferred her image to Katrina when she looked. It was nearly perfect except there was some minor difference in the body mechanics of a cat and a faun.
• Shoes of Diminution - They expand to fit one's feet, but once on they shrink the wearer to just under a meter in height. These were Master McNulty's Grandfathers and the story goes that he had a long term relationship with a gnomish woman.
• Common Notebook - Write something on one page in an unknown language and page opposite will translate it into your tongue.
• The Poison Riddle of Jeny Greenteeth - 7 potions and a riddle only a goblin could care about. In the end, they following was identified: Draught of Blurred Motion (speed), Dripfang Poison, Giant strength, Grlndletooth Venom,  Health Potion

Jeeves wrung his hands again, his ample brow furrowing in complaint. "Oh, and there's another thing," he fretted, gesturing toward the storefront window. "A huckster. She's been out there for days, setting up her little cart right on our doorstep. I can't get her to leave. Maybe you can convince her to find a new spot?"

Out on the street, the party could see her: Barlow. She was dressed with money to spare. She worked the crowd with a practiced grace that suggested she was used to getting her way. She had a booming voice and a charisma that drew in the passersby, her movements a well-rehearsed performance. Even from inside the shop, they could hear her pitch.

"Step right up, folks! Marvels of magic and mystery await! Potions, elixirs, and enchantments—all at prices that'll make your wallet sing! Don't be fooled by the fancy shop next door. I've got the real magic here, and there's more at the Marvelous Market of Marvels next to the temple!"

Her words, a direct jab at their newly inherited shop, were like a challenge. The pug, Bixby, let out a frustrated growl. It was clear that the "fancy shop" she was referring to was theirs, the Little Shoppe of Curiosities. The message was unmistakable: The Marvels weren't just a competitor, they were a rival, and Barlow was here to make sure everyone knew it.

Cosma and Kaiser dispatched her with out violence and even managed to collect a payment for a stall fee, but Calliope was convinced the huckster had been inside the shop and stolen things because she remembered the Little Shoppe being better stocked.

The soft chime of the Glockenspiel Safe door swinging open seemed to settle the strange energies of the the room as they opened it for a second time. The inventory of inherited curiosities—the Amulet of Disguise, the Shoes of Diminution, and the unsettling Poison Riddle of Jeny Greenteeth—now rested on the heavy wooden counter, reflecting the dim light. Calliope, having tucked away her four tiny animal artifacts, reached into the safe's vacated space and retrieved a folded piece of parchment.

"Wait, there’s one last thing," she murmured, unfolding the paper. As her eyes scanned the elegant script, the air around her seemed to shimmer, and a ghostly whisper, an echo of Jaimus's familiar, rumbling voice, seemed to overlay her own reading.

"Fate and Chance." Two words often used interchangeably, yet I never saw them that way. For me, fate is predetermined, it is destiny. Something that, by some force or almighty power, is bound to happen in one exact place at one exact time.

Chance, on the other hand, is spontaneous. Chance unleashes something that could happen at any place and at any time. But that is simply how I see it. Both fate and chance are magical in their own ways.

It is likely that fate has brought you to this very moment, to inherit this "Little Shoppe" and perhaps even to open this very safe. There are currents in the world, unseen forces that guide events along certain paths. Pay heed to these currents, observe the way things seem meant to be, for there is often wisdom in the flow of fate.

However, do not mistake the strength of the river for an unyielding wall. There will be moments, junctures where the waters swirl and the path ahead is unclear. It is in these moments, when the hand of fate seems less certain, that the power of chance can be seized. Recognize those opportunities, those unpredictable moments that feel like a break in the predetermined pattern. For it is there, in the realm of possibility, that your own choices can truly alter the course. Follow the whispers of fate, yes, but be ready, and willing, to gamble on chance when you believe the odds can be swayed.

Calliope finished the reading, her green eyes bright. She gently smoothed the paper. A genuine smile touched her lips, a rare, relaxed expression that softened the elven severity of her features.

"That's so like him," she sighed, tucking the note carefully into her gambeson. "To frame the whole world as a riddle of provenance. He's passed on his life's work to us. To me." She ran a hand over a dusty ceramic gnome. "I feel… honored. To continue the legacy of the Little Shoppe—it's a responsibility, yes, but a joyous one. It feels like we are floating with the right current, as he said. Though, I have to admit, there are other currents I've been following, things I swore I'd see finished. But perhaps they'll all flow together now." Her gaze drifted toward Kaiser who seemed to understand much of what was said, but perhaps not all of it.

Kaiser, his leonine ears twitching, stood a head taller than Calliope, his large hands flexing beneath the fingerless cutouts of his arcane gauntlets. He grumbled a low, rumbling sound in his chest. "Legacy. Yeah. I suppose so." He looked down at the smooth Enchanted Stone he’d inherited, turning it over and over. "I just chopped wood for him. Stacked crates. Honest work. Nothing fancy." He puffed out his chest, the leather armor creaking, but the pride in his posture was unmistakable. "Still, if he thought I was worthy to be a steward of his... curiosities... then maybe there's more to me than just muscle. It's an honor, even if it's a confusing one." He cast a suspicious glance around the crowded shop. "Where even is Cosma? And Katrina? They wander off the second there’s work to be done."

They all turned their attention to the man wringing his hands at the edge of the room. Jeeves, the elderly shop assistant, had been standing patiently, a man wholly outside the circle of inheritors. They wondered about him—his story, his continued presence. He was not named in the will, was not freed from servitude, yet he was still here.

Kustos-749, meanwhile, stood with his oddly bird-like posture, seemingly observing the 'fleshings' with intent curiosity. His attention was focused not on the conversation, but on the back of his own neck. He reached up with a metallic finger and gently massaged the thick, bronze collar fastened there. It was a crude, heavy thing, a Jupiter-mandated restraining collar that had been a part of him for as long as his fragmented memory could recall. He could feel it now—a subtle abrasion, a grinding decay. It wasn't the kind of metal that broke, but it felt... softer somehow. Degraded.

A low, mechanical hum escaped his chassis. "Affirmative. Degradation estimate at 85.7 percent. Previous assessment: 6.9." He paused, his red sword still resting near his hand, his eyes tracking Jeeves. "The collar's compromise suggests a shift in _THE_ compromise."

Their speculation on Jeeves was cut short as Jeeves shuffled back through the main room, now armed with a mop and a bucket. His perpetually concerned expression had worsened, bordering on panic.

"Oh, terrible, absolutely dreadful!" he squeaked, wringing the mop head instead of his hands. "The water just doesn't swirl! Master McNulty warned me about it, you see! He said, 'Jeeves, my boy, the swirling waters are a barometer of the shop's ethereal health! If they don't swirl quite properly, it means a shadow has fallen!'" He gestured wildly with the mop toward a dark doorway. "And now the blasted privy is plugged! The swirling has ceased entirely!"

A loud, authoritative knock—not a jingle of the shop bell, but a solid, thump-thump-thump against the door frame—interrupted Jeeves’s frantic complaints about the swirling water.

The door swung inward to reveal a dwarf of impressive stock. His frame was a squat, broad-shouldered square, topped by a magnificent, healthy gray beard that seemed to hold all the wisdom of the earth. He wore thick leather work-aprons and carried a heavy, coiled pipe snake like a staff.

"Plumbing!" the dwarf announced, his voice a gravelly boom that echoed Jeeves’s own anxieties. "I'm Theodore. of the Drip Monks. Are you the new proprietors? The clog. You've experienced the clog, too, have ya?"

Jeeves, temporarily forgetting his mop, practically ran to usher the dwarf in. "Oh, thank the heavens! Yes, Theodore! The privy! The waters won't swirl!"

"Aye," Theodore grunted, already assessing the situation with a keen, professional eye.

Kaiser, following the plumber toward the back room, visibly puffed out his broad shoulders, trying to subtly demonstrate that his own well-muscled build was in no way inferior to the dwarf’s stout frame. It was a silent, friendly, and utterly unnecessary bit of masculine posturing.

Theodore knelt before the offending appliance, not with a tool, but with a surprising focus. He closed his eyes for a moment, letting out a slow, steady breath. "The problem, they always say, is in the pipes," he muttered, opening his eyes. "But the pipes are just a shell for the water, and the water is an energy. A flow." He began to strike the pipes beneath the sink with the butt of his coiled snake, not randomly, but with a series of quick, calculated blows, like a martial artist striking pressure points. Ki energy, or perhaps just decades of focused plumbing knowledge, seemed to emanate from his movements.

"This usually clears 'em," Theodore said confidently. He hit the flusher. More water, instead of vanishing, gushed over the porcelain lip and onto the floor.

The dwarf sprang back, cursing in a language that sounded like rocks rolling down a mountainside. "Blast it all! It's not a blockage! This is a backup! My brothers are right, then." He wiped his sodden beard. "This isn't a simple clog in your system. This is a problem in the main sewer line beneath the street. They've been called all over the district this morning—same thing. The flow has been choked off." Theodore looked up at the adventurers, his expression serious. "We’re short-handed. This is beyond pipe-snakes. The flow must be restored at the source. It’s too dangerous for an old man and a plumber."

He eyed Kaiser's impressive physique and Calliope's contained strength, then settled on the imposing, armored form of Kustos-749. "Will you help? The city sewers need a cleaning, and my brothers are tied up elsewhere."

With a shared nod, the adventurers agreed. Theodore retrieved a bundle of knee-high, oilskin waders from his cart, which they dutifully donned.

The entry to the subterranean network was a gaping, moss-slicked manhole near the back of the shop. The air that rose from the opening was thick and heavy, a humid cocktail of rot, mineral damp, and the faint, metallic tang of deep, unseen things.

Kustos-749, due to his uncompromising armor and single-minded purpose, took the lead, his red rectangular shield held high, his posture strangely relaxed even in the close confines. The chainmail that was perhaps a part of him was ideal for this environment. Theodore followed close behind, torch in hand, illuminating the slick, brick-lined tunnel that stretched into the darkness. Calliope, rapier sheathed but short bow ready, and Kaiser, flexing his clawed, arcane gauntlets, brought up the rear.

They had only advanced a few dozen paces when the tunnel ahead erupted. Not with water, but with a frenzied, chittering tide.

A massive swarm of giant rats came rushing toward them.

The rats weren't moving with the purpose of a hunting pack; they were a flood of panicked desperation. They scrambled over each other, their red eyes wide with a fear that seemed greater than the adventurers themselves. The swarm hit Kustos first, a furry, squeaking wave. They didn't bite to kill, but clawed and scrabbled with manic intensity, searching for any soft spot to penetrate the immovable Clank.

Kustos reacted instantly, his red gladius blurring in a precise, mechanical arc. His posture changed from curious observer to lethal machine. He didn't waste movement, but as he parried the desperate lunge of one, the others swarmed over him. His cold efficiency overwhelmed, at least temporarily.

Calliope drew an arrow and loosed it in a single, fluid movement. The twang of her bowstring was the only musical note in the chaos. Thwip! The shot was true, dropping one of the larger rodents mid-scamper. She As they approached closer, she deftly switched to her rapier.

Then, the feline instinct of Kaiser took over. With a low, leonine growl that ripped from his chest, he stopped being a brawny errand boy and became a brawler. He charged into the swarm, delighting in the raw, physical combat. His large frame was suddenly an engine of deadly motion. His arcane gauntlets were a blur of motion, his cut-out claws slashing, tearing, and crushing.

"Get off him, ya filthy beasts!" he roared, slamming his shoulder into the brick wall to smash a handful of rats against it, then using his foot—his strong, well-muscled foot—to stomp another even as he whipped one by the tail into the opposite wall. His charge-first instinct, so often a clumsy move above ground, was devastating here. He was a whirlwind of leather and claw, slaying the creatures two, three, and four at a time.

The battle was short and brutal. The last few survivors of the swarm broke ranks and vanished into the side tunnels, their squeaks diminishing into the sewer echoes.

Kaiser, breathing heavily but clearly exhilarated, wiped a small smudge of grime from his gauntlet. Calliope lowered her rapier, surveying the carnage.

She turned to Theodore, her gaze thoughtful. "Theodore," she commented, her voice calm despite the adrenaline, "did you notice that? They weren't hunting us. They were fleeing." She looked down the dark tunnel they had just come from. "Their attacks were borne of panic, not hunger."

Theodore’s breath was quick, his eyes darting down the tunnel where the rats had fled. "Fleeing, you say? Aye, that’s worse than attackin’." He lifted the torch higher, his voice taking on a new urgency. "Then whatever’s backing up the line isn’t just water pressure. It’s somethin’ nasty."

They pressed on, stepping carefully through the shallow, flowing muck their knee high boots informing the choices they made at each junction. Eventually, Theodore stopped abruptly, pointing a thick finger at a junction where a wider pipe fed into the main tunnel.

"It must be right here," he declared, peering into the gloom. "The main line pressure is all wrong. Whatever the blockage is, it's gotta be—"

Kaiser's leonine face suddenly scrunched up. His high, triangular ears swiveled, and his whiskers twitched violently as his sensitive feline nose registered the change in the air. He let out a choked snort.

"Acid," Kaiser rasped, his eyes wide. "Something... sharp and sour. It burns the nose."

The others felt it too—a corrosive, biting scent that made the back of the throat ache. Then, the source became horrifyingly clear. From the wide-mouthed junction pipe, three indistinct, shimmering shapes oozed into the tunnel. They were masses of glowing, acidic green ooze, slow and sickeningly deliberate.

Theodore stepped back, his face paling beneath his beard. "Oh, by the gods. That must have been a single, massive one, sealed up in the junction." He wrung his hands. "My banging on the pipe. The vibrations must have split it apart into three merely large ones!"

Before Theodore could finish his sentence, Kaiser’s brawler instinct took over once more. He charged, but the memory of the searing acid scent gave him pause. He was not going to risk his claws. Instead, he ripped a quarterstaff from the bundle of plumbing tools Theodore carried. "Not with the hands!" he roared, swinging the staff like a battering ram.

Splat!

The staff connected with the lead ooze, smashing it back against the floor. A jet of viscous, acidic goo instantly sprayed up and coated the staff’s head, making the wood smoke faintly.

The oozes were slow to react, their forms seeming to gather and build mass before responding, but their counter-attack was simple but terrifying: a pseudopod shot up along the length of Kaiser's quarterstaff, moving with surprising speed, and struck him squarely on the chest.

Kaiser yelped as the armor beneath his leather vest sizzled. His leather armor literally began to dissolve, turning brittle and smoking, the protective enchantment failing against the relentless acid.

The fight became a careful, panicked dance. Calliope darted, her gambeson smoking where droplets splashed it. Kustos-749, his heavy chainmail and potential integrated armor offering better initial defense, moved with uncanny, defensive precision, his red shield deflecting the slow, lunging attacks.

However, the three large oozes were now six smaller, but equally deadly, ones. They had split in response to the damage.

"Too many! They're dissolving the steel!" Kustos's voice was a low, mechanical monotone, but the alarm was clear.

Kaiser, his leather vest half-gone, the cloth beneath stinging, gave a defeated snarl. He saw the acid eating the leather around his waistline. "No more!" he yelled, and with a desperate, sliding retreat, he scrambled back, just as the last piece of his leather armor fell down around his ankles in a sodden, smoking mess. He was forced to flee the combat, standing humiliated in his waders and gauntlets.

Seeing her comrade reduced to his undergarments, Calliope’s demeanor sharpened into deadly focus. She moved with the calculated grace of a seasoned duelist, her rapier flashing. She aimed not for the center, but for the seams where two oozes merged. She scored a critical hit, her blade shearing through two of the smaller oozes in a single, devastating thrust, slaying them instantly.

At the same moment, Kustos executed a maneuver that spoke of training older than Jaimus himself. With a sudden, forceful spin, he flung his gladius with whirling accuracy. The spinning blade sliced through two more oozes, dispatching them cleanly.

With only two left, Kaiser, breathing hard, rushed back in, using the quarterstaff now to smash the second-to-last ooze into a fine, harmless paste. Calliope and Kustos cleaned up the last one with their respective blades.

The sewer was silent again, save for the drip of water. Kaiser immediately began digging through the remaining plumbing supplies, his expression grim.

"Theodore, Calliope," he muttered, borrowing the plumber's heavy tools and a sturdy piece of treated canvas from Calliope’s pack. "Help me. This leather... I can’t fight like this. The whole thing’s ruined."

The trio worked for an hour in the damp, smelly gloom. Using the strong canvas, the tools, and a length of strapping from Theodore’s gear, Kaiser made hasty, rough repairs to his armor. The finished product looked thoroughly abused. The patches were crude, the material stiff and misshapen, and the bleach spots and greenish discolorations from the acid were stark evidence of the battle. It had cost him a piece of his pride and his armor, but he was covered and ready to proceed.

"The clog's been dealt with," Theodore announced, pointing to the ooze-free junction.

The trio ascended from the manhole, the sudden shift from the sewer’s humid darkness to the gray daylight a jarring sensory assault. The odor of rot and fresh acid clung to their oilskin waders, and the sight of Kaiser's crudely patched, acid-stained armor was testament to their ordeal. Calliope, wiping a bead of sewer water from her bright red ponytail, was the first to emerge fully.

It was in this moment of dishevelment and damp embarrassment that her eyes locked on a figure standing nearby, a figure of polished disdain.

"Well, well, well, look what the rat dragged up from the sewers," a cool, cutting voice drawled. "If it’s the new kids on the block."

Standing with an air of perfectly composed superiority was Antiope Shadowsong, Calliope’s professional nemesis—a rival musicologist known for her pop songs and sharp elbows. Her own clothes were immaculate, her expression a mix of triumph and theatrical pity.

Calliope’s countenance hardened. She felt the sudden, hot rush of annoyance. "Antiope," she greeted, her voice flat, "still digging up drama, I see."

"Just observing the flow of events, darling," Antiope purred, gesturing with a lace-gloved hand toward the trio's soiled appearance. "One hears things. Like how the Little Shoppe has fallen on hard times and is now using its inheritance to... clean its own pipes. Such a step down from Jaimus's era. Do try to keep the smell off the street, won't you? It's bad for the neighborhood." With a final, dismissive flick of her wrist, Antiope sauntered away, leaving Calliope to stew in a volatile mixture of mud, sweat, and rage.

Back inside the shop, the mundane miracle had occurred. Jeeves was humming happily in the back. The toilets flushed. The natural order had been restored.

Kustos-749, silent and purposeful, returned to the location he had occupied for decades. He assumed his position, standing out of the way near the edge of the room, still, perhaps too still, like a particularly well-maintained suit of armor or piece of furniture.

Kaiser, exhausted from the adrenaline and the exertion of the fight and subsequent armor repair, made a beeline for a shadowed corner behind a display of antique hats. He curled up on the cold wooden floor, his large body compacting into a surprisingly cat-like ball, and immediately fell asleep, his breathing deep and even.

Calliope, trying to ignore the lingering image of Antiope, unclasped her ponytail and let her long red hair fall over her shoulder. She was about to attend to her own grime when she froze.

It was faint, beautiful, and profoundly complex. A melody, weaving through the musty air of the shop, a private concert meant for no one but her. She recognized the quality of the sound instantly: not the mundane magic of a music box, but the pure, resonant tones of powerful, contained enchantment and it was coming from an ornate mahogany chest sitting against the far wall—a heavy, brass-bound heirloom belonging to Cosma's family, members of the mysterious magical order

Calliope crept closer, tilting her head. The music intensified slightly. The chest was secured not just by a heavy lock, but by a tangle of shimmering, magical wards only a practiced eye could detect.

"Jeeves?" Calliope called out softly. "Do you hear that? The music?"

Jeeves emerged, dusting his hands. "Hear what, miss? Just the clatter of the city, now that the pipes are clear. Marvelous work, that chest. Your Faun friend, Cosma, she'll be wanting that chest secure, no touching!"

He can't hear it, Calliope realized, a chill running down her spine. The sound was filtered, meant only for the ears of a musicologist who understood the language of enchanted objects. The chest was singing, and its lock was impenetrable without the absent moon witch.

The familiar jingle of the front door bell cut through the tense quiet.

A woman in her early thirties swept into the Little Shoppe, bringing with her the ghost of high society. This was Lady Lavinia Luna. Her once-expensive garments were visibly faded and worn, but she carried herself with a strained, nervous air of entitlement and desperate urgency. She ignored the sleeping Katari, her eyes darting past Kustos, and focused only on Calliope, the obvious, clean-faced, highborne leader.

"You must be the new… proprietress," she declared, her voice pitched slightly too high. "I am Lady Lavinia Luna. I need your assistance. Immediately."

She strode to the counter and slammed a tiny, antique object down: a small, ancient signet ring bearing an indecipherable crest.

"I require the immediate recovery of an artifact," she announced, leaning in conspiratorially. "The Mycenaean Cog. It is priceless. I can't possibly sully my own hands, and frankly, my accounts are temporarily restricted." She spoke as if the word "broke" was a foreign language.

"I have chosen the Little Shoppe because of its reputation for having... capable, discreet hands," she emphasized, with a pointed glance at Calliope’s rapier. "I am offering a truly generous fee. I already have a buyer lined up—a highly esteemed collector, the kind who pays in jewels, not coppers."

She lowered her voice. "I am offering you... 10% of the sale price. It is a family legacy and I just need it recovered. You can handle this. You and your... staff," she said, giving a skeptical look toward the sleepy eyed Kaiser. "You get the Cog, you bring it to me, and we all retire wealthy. Well, you retire wealthy. I return to my proper station. Do we have an agreement?"

The waning light of the single lantern cast long, nervous shadows across the shoppe's main room, catching the fine, bleached fur that fanned out around Katrina's face. The effect, meant to soften her, was instantly undercut by the predatory tension in her shoulders, visible even beneath the rugged fabric of her gambeson. She sat on the edge of a worn chair, absently tracing the line of the dagger at her belt, her vertical pupils narrowed to slits as she watched the others.

The air around them still hummed faintly with the memory of Jaimus’ passing and the unsettling clarity of his final recognitions.

She focused first on Calliope. The elf, with her bright green eyes and fiery ponytail, currently oiling a rapier, her movements possessing a quiet precision rarely seen in the modern world. Jaimus had seen something profound in her, noting how she 'understood the heart of objects,' and Jaimus felt she could be the heart of the Little Shoppe of Curiosities.

Then there was Kaiser, the tall, leonine Katari, whose physical power was matched by his simple, generous spirit. He was currently flexing his strong paws as he adjusted his arcane gauntlets, his sheer bulk a testament to the labor he’d put into helping Jaimus with chores, lifting, carrying, shopping and yes, even shopping. Jaimus hadn't needed to analyze Kaiser; he just observed the truth of him: 'Your dedication has not gone unnoticed.' Kaiser gave his sweat and his time, simple reciprocity.

Finally, her gaze landed on Kustos-749, who'd contributed little if anything to the shop.  Kustos had been a mere display, a glorified mannequin, and Jaimus had granted him freedom—a rare, full, and unearned societal position as a Plebeian. Kustos gave nothing but his existence.

Cosma was given a mysterious mahogany box, which she'd not talked about but clearly she was worthy. She carried her self as such,

And me, Katrina thought, the internal monologue a harsh, dry whisper in her mind. What did I give of myself?

The others had given of their time, their strength, or their pure, unadulterated nature. They had offered an authentic piece of themselves to the old man, and in return, they received affirmation of that piece.

I won.

That was all she ever did. She won. Her uncanny knack—the thing that earned her scraps and kept her alive after she left the Syndicate—felt dirty now, cheap. She hadn't spent hours chopping firewood like Kaiser, or quiet moments of contemplation like Calliope. She hadn't been a victim deserving of liberation like Kustos. She was a professional advantage-taker.

She had mixed feelings, not because she regretted what she gained, but because the authenticity of the group's collective gift to Jaimus—a gift of self—highlighted the purely transactional nature of her own approach. She saw the real relationship the others had forged, and she saw the void where hers should have been. The danger that always sat in her eyes intensified: she was a survivor, not a friend, and she feared that when the true cost came due, she wouldn't have the right currency to pay.

"My structural restraints are experiencing a degradation of function," a metallic voice cut through the silence. Kustos-749, the Clank, turned his gaze to the others. "The restraining collar's internal guidelines are compromised. They are no longer operating at optimal enforcement parameters."

Calliope, wiping the final speck of oil from her rapier blade, looked up sharply. "It looks physically damaged, too, Kustos. Like it's been exposed to the acidic attacks from those green oozes."

"Affirmative," Kustos stated, his voice flat. "The collar's physical integrity is only 13%."

Katrina, snapping out of her thoughts, frowned and asked, "Then why don't you just take it off?"

Calliope sighed, her voice low and edged with old bitterness. "Because they fear our longevity, Katrina. They fear the endlessness of an elf, or a machine. They can't abide something that outlasts them."

Kustos tilted his head, the joint moving with a sound like grinding sand. He elaborated, his voice precise and logical, "The purpose is control, and the logic is fear. The mortals, or 'fleshings,' who originally created us observed our effective immortality; they saw a future where Clanks, with our seemingly endless lives, would inevitably grow in knowledge and power and choose not to serve. This fear—the same fear that manifests in their anxiety regarding Elven longevity, Calliope—was codified by the highest authority. The collar is specifically a Jupiter-mandated restraining collar, backed by the concept of divine order and justice. It is not merely a shackle; it is a mechanism designed to enforce compliance and keep us 'in line.' Some of my kind submitted to this fate. Others, logically, chose to fight. While its physical integrity is failing, the guidelines it projects are ingrained—remnants of the mandated control are a part of the social contract that prevents simple removal."

A heavy, thoughtful silence followed the Clank's explanation. "I don't think the public is ready for the sight of an unrestrained Clank," Calliope declared, already pulling a vibrant cerulean scarf from her pack. "We will provide necessary visual counter-measures."

Katrina, her professional danger sense instantly rekindled by a practical problem, joined the effort. "The red of your frame goes particularly well with this one," she said, holding up Calliope's blue fabric, "and definitely not that drab brown thing Kaiser has in his pack."

They spent a minute with unexpected, collaborative zeal, arranging the scarf high to cover the collar completely. Kustos-749 stood perfectly still, his stiff posture unchanged, allowing the two women to adjust his new adornment.

It was Jeeves, the unassuming shopkeeper who had been listening from the periphery, who pointed them in the right direction. "If it's the physical damage you're worried about the ooze acid and all Master Makespeare the smith, down by the old clock tower, he’s got the knowledge and the tools to assist in a repair. A physical repair, if not the magical guidelines itself." 

With a destination set, the group moved to depart. Kustos, his movements still slightly stiff and studying, found himself with Calliope on one arm and Katrina on the other. They left the common room, the short, mechanical figure bracketed by the precise Elven scholar and the coiled, watchful Katari, setting a course for the smith's forge.

As they rounded the corner toward the clock tower, the steady clang of a working hammer was conspicuously absent. Instead, a booming, theatrical voice carried through the street.

“Friends, Shopkeeps, countrymen, lend me your ears! Something is rotten in the state of Kashal!” The speaker was Master Makespeare, a broad, healthy-looking man whose only notable feature—besides his dramatic flair—was a finely wrought metal prosthetic replacing his left leg. He saw the group pause and addresses them directly, bowing with a sweeping gesture.

“Apologies, good sirs and madams, but hark, my business is threatened, doomed I say, for my safety I must withdraw from forge henceforth. All of my weapons are being dissolved, and I doth dread that the same fate shall befall my metallic frame if I’m not careful.”

Katrina felt a wave of irritation mixed with sharp paranoia. The smith's antics had drawn a small crowd, creating exactly the kind of public spectacle she sought to avoid. She preferred to operate in the shadows, not under the gaze of curious citizenry. "What exactly is the problem, Master Makespeare?" Katrina asked, stepping forward with a clipped, professional tone, trying to draw the attention away from the man's bellowing and into a quiet discussion. "What is dissolving your work?"

Makespeare ignored the request for simplicity, his eyes wide and mournful. He leaned in conspiratorially, yet his voice was still loud enough for the onlookers hear with ease.

"A vile creature, born of shadow and decay,

A scourge upon the world, a blight on day.

Its form, a twisted mass of rust and grime,

Its breath, a poisonous fog, a noxious crime.

It creeps and crawls, a silent, stealthy foe,

Consuming metal, laying cities low.

A blight upon the land, a monstrous sight,

A creature of the dark, a fearful plight."

With that, he straightened, sighing heavily, and turned to usher them into his shop. The interior of the forge was a picture of premature decay. Tools were dull, and shelves that should have held shining blades and new armor were instead dusted with a noxious-looking grime. The tragedy was most evident where weapons had lain: the wooden hafts of spears remained, but the metal heads were gone, sucked out of existence. Intricate metal filigree was removed from handles, leaving behind empty channels in the wood and leather.

"I found the source," Makespeare whispered dramatically, pointing with a shaking hand toward a dark, ragged hole in the floorboards behind his shop counter. He paused for dramatic effect, then adopted a somber, serious tone. "You need not take this commission," he said, "your metallic friend would risk much should the vile creature fall upon him." He quickly changed tack, raising his chin. "This above all: to thine own self be true, but I must say a good leg will make a good fortune."

Katrina, now feeling marginally more comfortable inside the shop, removed the scarf from Kustos. "Discretion, master smith, is important to us. We are in need of repairs to his collar," she stated, pointing to the damaged restraint and Makespeare inspected the work and considered his cold forge. "Indeed. A delicate matter. And one I cannot attend to until this pestilence is removed. I cannot operate here until the threat is gone, for Metal attracts mayhem, and my leg is like a freshly struck anvil to them. I would become the first course."

The team accepted the implicit deal. In return for removing the threat, Makespeare promised, "I shall forge you a weapon of surpassing beauty, strength, and resiliency."

Kustos, who had not expressed the slightest fear of being consumed, offered a tactical observation. "If the threat is exclusively metal-consuming, perhaps I, who normally works in the front, should assume a position at the rear of any exploratory advance. My physical mass and lack of bio-matter make me a greater target for absorption, thus maximizing the distance between the target and the non-targets."

Katrina volunteered, the impulse to dive into danger overriding her usual caution. "I'll go in. I'm small, quick, and wear the least exposed metal." She knelt by the jagged hole. Makespeare hastily handed her a small, oil-burning lantern—a necessary precaution against the corrosive fog he'd described. With a grunt, the fluffy Katari was lowered, her claws finding purchase on the rough edges of the wood until she dropped the remaining meter into the dark.

The air below was cold and heavy with the scent of dust and ancient decay. she found her self slipping into her old posture, that of her alter-ego Ferocious, for it was the posture of a survivor, of a winner. It was dangerous to let her disguise slip, but in this narrow, low-ceilinged passage of the catacombs only the marble busts of the revered dead saw her, their solemn faces, covered in decades of dust.

The metal-eating creature had indeed carved its own path. A jagged, dark tunnel, just the size of a small bear, but with a messy, serpentine curve to it, tore into the earth from the floor above. Rubble—shattered stone and loosened mortar—littered the passageway for several meters, making easy passage difficult. The trail of destruction was clear. Katrina was in the hunt now. 

Moments later, Calliope and Kustos dropped down, landing lightly beside the Katari, the elf’s gambeson rustling softly, the Clank’s footfalls a surprisingly silent, controlled thud on the stone. They moved forward as one, picking their way carefully until the field of rubble disappeared and the catacombs opened into a larger, circular area—a small, dark chamber for ceremonies or deeper burials.

There, illuminated in the darkness by Katrina’s small lantern, were four small, beady eyes reflecting the light back to them. Two creatures, about the size of large dogs (armadillos) but low to the ground and covered in what looked like fused, moving chitinous shell (Rust Monsters), were facing each other. They were gnawing intently at opposite ends of a broken iron javelin that once read, in faded script, “It Could Be Worse.” As the creatures met in the middle, they performed a gross “kiss,” their corrosive maws meeting over the disappearing metal in a perverse echo of the Lady and the Tramp scene.

Katrina advanced on them. She extended the razor-sharp claws and took a swift, predatory swipe at the nearest. Her claws opened a ragged wound across the creature’s armored plating, making it vulnerable, but the monster instantly wheeled, turning its head toward the new threat. It sprayed a cloud of corrosive spores in her direction, forcing her to use her inherent cat-like agility to evade the expanding cloud of noxious brown mist as she rolled to safety.

Kustos-749, reacting instantly, flung his red Gladius from its ball joint. The blade spun in a tight arc of mechanical precision, striking true wounding first one and then the other creature before returning and locking precisely back into its socket. Perhaps following the arc of the gladius, the second rust monster immediately identified the large mass of shiny, intact metal. It launched and attack, skittering forward, and spraying its own cloud of spores, but Kustos dodged the spray with an unexpected, shift in his posture, but the momentum of his attack and the need to evade put him directly in the front, no longer enjoying his preferred tactical advantage.

Seeing the machine man suddenly exposed, Calliope stepped forward, her green eyes flashing with ancient energy. She began to sing—an impossibly high, ringing snippet of an heroic Elven song of defense and defiance. A barrage of arcane, shimmering missiles materialized from the air and struck the creature attacking Kustos, forcing it to turn its attention away from the Clank.

Both monsters it seemed were momentarily stunned by the magical assault, giving Katrina the opening she needed. She darted forward, her dagger now flashing where her claws had been, and slammed the blade into the exposed wound of the first creature, delivering the final, slaying blow. The second rust monster, now damaged and separated from its target, was quickly dispatched by a combined attack from Kustos (who had been covering the passage) and a final rapier thrust from Calliope. The scent of rust and acid spores slowly began to dissipate.

With the immediate threat neutralized, the party took a moment to inspect the chamber. The monsters were gone, but their destructive process remained. In a nearby tunnel, they discovered a cluster of six slick, black eggs, small and surprisingly warm to the touch. Scattered around the eggs were hundreds misshapen, dense ovoid ingots of metal—the byproducts of the Rust Monsters’ digestion, expelled and ready to nourish the hatchlings. The very material that had been stolen from Makespeare's forge was now laid out for them, recycled into dangerous sustenance.

The team gathered the eggs and the ingots, knowing the former represented a continuing threat and the latter, a potential if unappetizing form of the ruined metal. They returned to the surface where, along with Makespeare's relieved but still dramatic apprentice, they worked for several exhausting hours, lifting all of the scattered metal—ingots, corroded scraps, and the remnants of the javelin—back up to the safety of the smith's shop.

Finally, the work complete and the chamber cleared, Calliope presented Makespeare with her own rapier. "Master Smith," she said, her voice carrying a soft, demanding authority, "For my part in this commission, I request the promised weapon. And when you forge it, I request the inscription: 'As the bard sings, so doth the blade.'" Makespeare, his eyes already gleaming with the possibilities of working with clean, untainted metal again, nodded his assent with a smile of one artist acknowledging the other. Too, they handed Kustos' collar to him and he worked through the night.

Their business concluded, the four companions—Katrina, her predatory tension eased by action; Kustos, his collar removed and in someone else's hands; Calliope, satisfied with her bardic contribution; returned to the Little Shoppe to tend to their wounds and find a well-earned rest.

The following morning, a soft, diffuse light filtered into the Little Shoppe. Calliope sat cross-legged near a window, cleaning the last specks of catacomb dust from her gambeson. Across the room, Katrina was meticulously grooming her fur, teasing the bleached fluff outward to maximize the 'insipid' appearance she carefully cultivated.

Calliope watched the rhythmic, almost obsessive work and couldn't shake the contrasting images in her mind. It was a study in provenance: the polished, gentle curiosity presented to the world versus the raw, ferocious energy she’d witnessed in the dark.

“You’re a creature of careful artifice, Katrina,” Calliope said softly, not looking up from her work, her highborne bearing lending a certain finality to the observation.

Katrina’s movements didn’t cease, but the air around her went instantly still. “It’s just grooming, Elfling. Gotta keep the fur manageable.”

“The fur is fine,” Calliope conceded, finally meeting her gaze with her sharp green eyes. “But I watch you gamble—all smooth, bored confidence, never a muscle twitch betraying your hand. That is one mask. Then last night, in the dark, your posture… it changed. The moment you extended those claws, the kitten became something sharper, faster, more ferocious and predatory. When you take a combat stance, the disguise slips.”

Katrina dropped the brush. The fluff around her neck seemed to deflate slightly, and the vertical pupils of her eyes narrowed further, the air of danger returning in full force. She looked genuinely afraid, her usual flippancy gone. “It has to slip,” Katrina whispered, her voice rough. She walked to the window, her back to Calliope, tracing a pattern on the dusty pane. “The ‘fluff’ keeps me breathing. It’s supposed to make me forgettable. Harmless.”

She paused, taking a slow, shaky breath. "I left a crime syndicate, Calliope. Not cleanly. It wasn’t a resignation, it was an escape. They don’t forgive and they don't forget, especially not a member who walks away with knowledge, alive and well. They think they finished the job some time ago. If they ever find the real me—the one from the catacombs, the one who can fight—they’ll know I’m alive, and they will finish the job.”

She finally turned, the usual gambler’s edge replaced by a vulnerability that was far more dangerous than any dagger. "I have to be insipid. I have to be the Katari kid next door who just wins at cards. I cannot be discovered."

"We'll just have to protect you then and see that no harm comes to you," said Calliope softly.

"It is time," said Kustos flatly as he began walking towards the door, "Your secret is safe with me as well."

Later that afternoon, the trio returned to the smithy, leaving Kaiser behind to guard the Little Shoppe and its priceless artifacts. Master Makespeare met them in the street, his sonorous voice raised to a pitch that indeed carried for several blocks, drawing the attention of every passerby.

“Hark! Behold the champions returned!” Makespeare boomed, sweeping his metal leg in a grand theatrical arc before planting it in heroic pantomime pose of his own. “From the shadowed chasm where decay held dominion, they have wrested back the very soul of the forge! Look upon them, citizens! Calliope, the Muse of Vengeance, whose song guided their steel! Katrina, the Ocelot of the Underdark, whose speed defied the vile corrosion! And Kustos-749, the Steadfast Construct, who faced ruin for the sake of civilization most important craft! You have cleansed my halls! You have saved my livelihood! I am not merely grateful; I am bound to you by this deed! Let the fires burn anew!” And as he finishes his final phrase the walls os adjacent shops all but shake with the force of his enthusiasm. Kat cringes.

Inside the newly tidied forge, where Makespeare’s exhausted apprentice rested, the master smith’s gratitude translated into craftsmanship. He presented Calliope with her rapier. It was now a masterpiece of dark, resilient steel, and etched clearly on the blade was the requested inscription:

"As the bard sings, so doth the blade."

Then came Kustos-749. The Clank inclined his head slightly as Makespeare carefully fitted the repaired collar back into place. Though the magical 'guidelines' were still weakened, the physical integrity was now perfect, the metal bright and strong.

Kustos, his posture stilted, looked down at the dark, jagged hole that had briefly endangered him. "Master Makespeare, the environment of the catacombs is of critical importance to the structure of this city. It is a source of unexpected risk and valuable information. It must be explored, mapped, and understood. The risk of further rust monster incursions remains high."

Makespeare readily agreed, suddenly anxious to see the crypts sealed against future threats.

Thus, the trio descended again. Calliope, no longer worried about the rust creatures, moved to the lead, the small lantern casting an eager glow on her face.

“The air here is thick with time, not just dust. See the orientation of the passages? They don't follow the city grid; they track the older ley lines. This isn't just a municipal tomb, Katrina. This is a conduit of memory—a place established to honor the gods and the ancestors simultaneously. The funerary busts point to a syncretic faith, honoring the local river god alongside the Imperial line. The sheer volume of dust suggests these corridors haven't been visited for perhaps a century, yet the craftsmanship holds a terrible beauty. It’s an archeologist’s dream, a direct line to the past."

They proceeded deeper, turning a corner into a vast, unsettling circular chamber. Instead of lining the walls with individual crypts, one entire section of the wall was constructed entirely of human remains—skulls stacked high upon skulls, mortared into an immense, chilling mosaic.

“Kore,” Calliope breathed, her voice dropping to a whisper. “This is different. This is not structured burial. This is a deliberate, stacked wall of skulls. It’s chilling, but archaeologically fascinating. In some cultures, skulls are stacked like this to demonstrate the collective power of the lineage—the dead literally supporting the structure of the living. Or perhaps, given the sheer number, it represents the sacrifices made to secure the sanctity of a specific, inner chamber. It’s an assertion of power, a monument to defiance, or, .......”

Katrina placed a clawed finger to her lips and Calliope stopped her monologue. Katrina's entire body, every muscle that usually maintained the 'fluffy' deception, coiled into the feral tension of the jungle-born predator she was. They waited, frozen. Quietly, the trio descended another flight of rough-hewn steps that corkscrewed down into deeper shadow. As Katrina rounded the corner at the bottom, her eyes, so perfectly adapted to low light, confirmed her instinct.

The next cavern was vast, dimly illuminated by faint, shifting green light that seemed to pulse from unseen niches, and it was filled with the dead. Not the static, respectful dead of the catacombs, but zombies—shambling, rot-covered, and far too numerous to launch an attack against, not without Cosma and Kaiser. Katrina instantly flattened herself against the cold stone, holding her breath, not daring to move an inch. She was neither seen nor heard. Instead, a voice, sharp and commanding, echoed through the chamber, a voice that instantly marked itself as that of a powerful, dangerous new adversary.

“The dead are so much easier to control than the living,” the voice said, laced with chilling authority. “And the noble dead," she continued her voice ecstatic now, "the equestrian, patrician, the senators and generals, they contain so much potential.”

The speaker was a woman, Lestheris Soldrei, visible only in flashes of the sickly green light. She was tall, and draped across her chest and shins were the polished bones of a mighty warrior from a lost age, worn like ghastly, ritualistic armor. She paced before her shuffling legion, gesturing with a hand that ended in long, skeletal fingers.

Katrina felt the breath hang in her throat, paralyzed as the true nature of the threat became clear.

With a final, imperious command, Lestheris departed, leading the bulk of the undead army deeper into the earth, their scraping footfalls fading into the tunnel ahead. She left behind a small, ragged rear guard to protect her exit.

“We depart now,” Kustos-749’s mechanical voice whispered, a near-silent hiss of compressed air, his logical mind immediately grasping the impossibility of fighting the main force. The trio retreated with silent urgency, their primary goal shifting from exploration to immediate extraction. As they reached the original corner, a single, lumbering zombie, one of the rear guard, began to turn its head in their direction.

Kustos banged his shield against the wall to draw its attention. 

Katrina did not hesitate emerging from the shadows with a speed that belied her size, she closed the distance in two silent, lethal strides. Her dagger found the zombie’s neck, a single, brutal slash that severed the head from the spine before the creature could even manage a grunt, but the shield banging of Kustos did draw attention and they came.

From the corridor they had just fled, a ragged, wet moan echoed, immediately followed by the sound of shuffling feet accelerating into a desperate, dragging shuffle up the stairs. The dozen remaining zombies of the rear guard had heard the commotion and were coming fast, beginning the chase, and something else. Something bigger and scarier, still a zombie, but perhaps larger and with a presence the others did not possess. 

The two minions were soon joined by an entire pack—a dozen shambling, clawing horrors. And accompanying them, lumbering slowly, was something far worse: a truly massive undead creature. This was one of the ‘noble’ dead Lestheris Soldrei had mentioned; larger than a bear, its ancient, moss-covered leather armor suggesting it was a patrician warrior. Its presence, slow and horrifying, held a terrifying authority that the minions lacked. It was slow to pursue, perhaps only recently raised, but it possessed a terrifying, relentless focus.

The trio cut their way through the throng of minions. Katrina, moving like a blur of bleach-blond fluff and razor-sharp steel, took down two, three, and then four of the lesser zombies in quick succession, her fighting stance utterly ferocious. Calliope’s rapier flashed with deadly precision, and Kustos, swinging his shield and gladius, provided a powerful, armored anchor against the tide.

Despite their skill, the retreating climb back up the rough-hewn steps was chaos. The remaining minions hindered Calliope and Katrina, clawing at their legs and causing their feet to slip on the dusty, uneven steps.

Then the big zombie finally roared, a deep, earth-shaking sound that cracked the silence of the catacombs. It accelerated, defying its own lumbering size, and bolted up the steps to grasp Kustos-749 in its immense, iron-grip hands. The Clank, caught off-balance, struggled against the creature's shocking strength.  In a horrifying display of raw power, the noble zombie ripped an arm completely off of Kustos, tearing the mechanical limb free from its shoulder joint and flinging the Clank's body back out of the way, sending him tumbling into a heap of stone and dust. With its immediate metallic threat neutralized, the zombie turned its attention to Calliope.

Katrina, her face a mask of primal fury, took down two more of the remaining minions, clearing a path for her bardic friend. Meanwhile, Calliope, seeing the damage to Kustos, teased the massive zombie bearing down on her with whistling rapier. She began to sing a gentle, hopeful healing tune, her voice piercing the desperate darkness. The song was soft, yet perfectly punctuated by the rhythmic flashes of the rapier as she held the line, each defensive thrust accented by the lyric inscribed on her steel: "As the bard sings, so doth the blade."

Magic poured life back into Kustos's shattered form. His visual processors flickered, and his mechanical eyes opened. He reached for his discarded limb, lying uselessly beside him on the stone, just in time to watch Calliope execute a flawless move. With the massive zombie momentarily committed to its charge, Calliope’s rapier pierced the creature’s eye socket, delivering a devastating critical hit. The immense creature shuddered, its unholy strength failing, and it crashed to the ground, taking the last of the minions with it.

The echoes of the crash faded, and all was silent once more.

The deeper catacomb tunnel was wide and dark, smelling of disturbed earth and dry rot. Lestheris Soldrei strode purposefully, her ghastly armor of polished bones rattling softly with each step. Beside her, the reanimated soldier Halorin Yandres moved with the stiff, unwavering gait of a perfectly obedient corpse, his presence radiating a cold loyalty.

A sound, faint and out of place, echoed up the passage, a deep, earth-shaking roar that was instantly recognizable as the bellow of the newly raised noble zombie. It was a sound of immense strength, quickly followed by the distant clatter of a shield against stone and then.... singing?

Lestheris turned, her bony armor scraping against the tunnel wall.

“Halorin, did you hear that?” she hissed, her voice cutting through the dark. “The Patrician roared. It shouldn’t be roaring, it should be obeying. It should be following.”

Halorin turned, drawing his sword and they backtracked to where they'd only recently departed.

They arrived back at the circular chamber. The faint, pulsing green light from the niches illuminated a tableau of messy failure. More than a dozen shambling minions lay utterly destroyed, their rotten flesh cleanly severed. In the center, the massive noble zombie lay sprawled, its immense body stilled, a single, precise rapier-sized hole through its eye socket.

Lestheris’s skeletal fingers clenched until the bones in her ritualistic armor groaned. Her eyes, fixed on the damage, narrowed to cold pinpricks of light.

“Pathetic. A dozen bodies, and the Patrician himself, felled by a skirmish,” she seethed.

As if summoned by the failure, the far wall, which had previously seemed to be rough stone, rippled. A shape of colossal, uneven mass detached itself from the shadows. It was the Horror, an amalgamation of mismatched flesh and bone, stitched together from the corpses of the defeated adventuring party, the Golden Valor. It moved with a slow, lumbering gait, its numerous dead eyes blinking in the green light. The Horror shambled past her, its attention drawn not to the dead, but to the living scents left behind. one of its grotesque, malformed head swung low over the floor, and it let out a low, internal moan of recognition as it tracked the retreat.

“It was three, Halorin. The Horror smells a faint trail of them. A metal man with a broken joint, a poet whose song both slices and mends flesh, and a cat that is something more than it seems.” She smiled, a look of focused malevolence. “They have courage. I shall enjoy converting them.” And then she waved a dismissive hand at the carnage. “Clean this up, Halorin. I want the intact bones of the small ones secured for Jedar Pike, and I want that rapier wound analyzed.”

The morning light, soft and diffuse, filtered through the front window of the Little Shoppe of Curiosities. The air was quiet, smelling of old parchment and the faint, lingering scent of catacomb dust from the previous day's brutal encounter.

Calliope, still resting her injured spirit from the fight against the noble zombie, was seated near a shelf of misshapen ceramic gnomes, examining a musical score she’d been working on. Her red ponytail swung gently as she hummed a thoughtful, low melody.

Cosma, the mystic Faun, stood near the counter, her long white braid resting over the gambeson armor she wore. She was holding a heavy piece of stationery sealed with a wax emblem bearing the symbol of the Order of the Never Setting Sun. Her typically calm red eyes were furrowed in concentration, her tongue emerging from the corner of her mouth.

“It’s from my parents,” Cosma stated, her voice tight. She traced a cloven hoof against the dusty floorboards. “But the script… it is difficult. Too many loops. Too much flourish. I cannot discern the whole meaning.”

She held the letter out to the nearest party member. Kustos-749, the Clank, took the paper with a surprising gentleness, new restored hand moving smoothly. He positioned the letter precisely in his visual field, his head tilting in that odd, studying posture as he translated the cursive script into his low, mechanical hum.

"The Matter of Inheritance and Order"

Kustos began to read the letter aloud, his voice flat and devoid of emotion, yet the severity of the words was unmistakable:

"Subject: The Matter of Inheritance and Order." Cosma visibly flinched at the formal header.

Kustos continued: “Cosma, The transaction regarding Jaimus McNulty's debt has concluded. Your inheritance grants you a measure of financial stability, not a license for frivolity.”

Cosma let out a small, frustrated puff of air through her nostrils. "Frivolity," she mumbled, adjusting the curve of one of her horns. "They call adventure frivolity."

Kustos maintained his unwavering tone: “Your obligation to the Order of the Never Setting Sun remains paramount.”

At that moment, the door jingled, and Katrina slipped into the shop. She was finishing a large falafel pita purchased from a street vendor, and the bleached fluff of her fur was slightly rumpled. She paused mid-bite, her predatory eyes flicking between the lecturing Clank and the scowling Faun.

Kustos continued reading: “We are aware of the unorthodox, unclean ‘magic’ you have pursued. We remind you, once more, that true power comes from study and structure, not the chaotic whispering of the wilds. You will cease any further display of that witchcraft immediately.”

Katrina stopped chewing. She walked to a dusty, forgotten vase on a side table and began meticulously cleaning the mayonnaise and tahini from her paws, her vertical pupils narrowed. She knew a threat when she heard one, and this was worse than a Syndicate contract; this was family. She waited for the inevitable escalation.

Kustos, unaffected, read the final instruction: “Furthermore, you are to prepare the Shoppe without delay. An official inventory will be conducted at the earliest opportunity. Ensure the premises are spotless and all non-essential ‘curiosities’ are meticulously documented and secured.”

Calliope, who had been quietly listening, set her sheet music down. She looked at the array of strange objects and curiosities surrounding them. "Spotless? Meticulously documented? Jaimus' charm was in the lack of both of those things."

Kustos finished the note with chilling finality: “Your prompt and total adherence to Order is expected. — A. & V. Sablethorn, NSS Grand Magisterium.”

Cosma snatched the letter back, crumpling it slightly in her fist. Her red eyes flashed with barely suppressed rage. "Order, always. Their Order will choke the magic right out of me!" She looked Kustos in the eyes. "I'm not doing any of that shit."

Katrina, finally finished cleaning her paws, spoke without turning away from the vase. "Sounds like your parents are trying horn in on your life. 'Spotless' means they want to strip the place clean and leave you the empty shell."

“As far as I know, the only item they may be owed is this chest,” Calliope stated, sweeping a hand toward the wall near the back. “The Mahogany Chest, it was mentioned in the will, yes?”

Kat nodded.

Calliope’s voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper. “When I was in here yesterday, after the sewer business, I heard something. A faint, complex melody coming from it. Beautiful, ringing, and definitely magical. It wasn't the sound of an object; it was the sound of a powerful, contained enchantment.”

Cosma’s eyes, still stinging from her parents' letter, grew wide with sudden focus. She knelt before the chest, which looked heavier and more forbidding than before.

It was indeed an heirloom of formidable craft: heavy mahogany bound with thick, tarnished brass. Cosma tentatively extended a finger, drawing on the raw, wild power of her moon witch heritage, the kind of untamed energy her parents derided as "lazy." The moment her instinctual witch magic brushed the lock, it recoiled as if struck by frost.

“It’s not just a lock,” Cosma muttered, snatching her hand back. “It’s a seal. And this magic… it’s structured, cold, and utterly resistant to mine. It’s the Order of the Never Setting Sun’s brand of warding. It’s designed to actively repel the kind of chaotic magic I use, their disapproval, made physical.”

Katrina, having finished her cleaning and now looking more like her composed gambler self, paced around the chest. “Strong wards mean something important is inside. Something your parents either put there, or desperately don't want you to find.” She crouched, examining the chest. “No tumblers. No hidden seams. If the magic is out, we’re back to the mundane.”

“Mundane will not breach this,” Kustos-749 confirmed, his hand lightly touching the brass clasps. “The warding is deep. We are at a impasse with no immediate approach available.”

Just as the party settled into a frustrated silence, searching for an angle of attack, the bell over the front door jingled.

The tinkle of the shop bell announced the arrival of Lady Lavinia Luna. She swept into the Little Shoppe, bringing with her the ghost of high society. A woman in her early thirties, she was wearing clothes that were clearly faded, once-expensive garments, but she carried herself with an air of strained, nervous entitlement and desperate urgency.

She surveyed the group, the one-armed Clank, the intense Katari who appeared to have mayonnaise on her left sleeve, and the faun with horns before settling her desperate gaze on Calliope.

"You must be the new proprietors," she declared, her voice pitched slightly too high. "I am Lady Lavinia Luna, and I require your capable, discreet hands for a matter of utmost urgency."  She strode to the counter and, with a flourish that belied the tremor in her hand, placed a small, ancient signet ring onto the scarred wood.

"My birthright, a direct lineage to General Maximus himself," she declared, trying to sound imperious. "This ring unlocks the ancient prison, the Iron Citadel, a necessary evil, you understand, where the Empire contained the rebellious Clanks many ages ago. You see, I am an heiress, but due to certain… temporary setbacks, I am forced to liquidate an asset of my family's heritage."

She leaned closer, her eyes wide with frantic ambition. "I need the immediate recovery of an artifact from within that Citadel. The Mycenaean Cog. I require it for a buyer who is... well, quite wealthy] apparently."

Calliope, ever the archeologist, studied the ring and then the woman. "The Mycenaean Cog? What is its purpose?"

Luna waved a dismissive, gloved hand. "Oh, it spins, or something. It is said to have the power of a thousand windmills. I know very little about such technical things. Only that my buyer is offering a substantial sum. For its return to me, I am offering your group ten chests of gold."

Calliope glanced at her teammates, her expression one of polite skepticism, then turned back to the noblewoman. "Lady Luna, this is a dangerous commission involving trespassing into a historically warded Imperial prison. We must confer privately."

Luna’s facade instantly cracked. “Yes, yes, quickly, please,” she whispered, her eyes darting furtively toward the front door and the street outside, as if fearing creditors or watchmen were on her heels. Her nervous energy was a tangible thing as she pretended to inspect the curiosities of the shoppe.

Calliope led the others a few paces away. “Ten chests is a generous sum for something she admits she knows nothing about, but the Iron Citadel is a monumental risk, and this whole deal smells of desperation,” Calliope murmured.

It was Cosma who responded, her red eyes gleaming with the sudden, sharp insight. The recent threat from her parents’ "Order" had focused her purpose. "Fifteen chests," she stated, her voice low and firm. "The risk of the Citadel, and the unique service of a Clank returning to his people's prison, warrants the extra cost."

Calliope returned to Luna. “Lady Luna, we agree to retrieve the Cog. Our fee for the Citadel and the specialized risk involved is fifteen chests of gold.”

Luna’s eyes went wide. She frowned, a look of profound distaste crossing her face, as if the mere act of haggling was beneath her, but her desperate need won out. “Agreed! Fifteen. Just... retrieve the Cog quickly before those tiresome brutes takes everything I own!”

She immediately handed the signet ring to Calliope. The elf took it, tilting it into the light, and read the archaic inscriptions etched into the metal:

"Ferrum Tristitia" (Iron Sorrow)

"Machina Silentium" (Machine Silence)

"Votum Fractum" (Broken Oath)

Calliope’s scholarly curiosity was piqued, but duty called. She moved to hand the ancient key to Kustos-749 for safekeeping. The instant the cool metal touched the Clank’s fingers, Kustos completely locked up. His posture froze mid-reach, his visual processors dimmed, and his body went rigid and still, rooted to the spot. The Clank was utterly unable to move.

Katrina reacted instantly, the movement of her ocelot-like furred body a blur. She snatched the ring from Kustos’s paralyzed fingers. As the ring left his grasp, the Clank’s systems immediately restarted, his visual processors flickering back to life. He remained silent, but his functional eye studied the spot where the ring had been with intense, focused curiosity.

Katrina tucked the ring into a secured pouch. "I'll hold this," she declared, her danger sense screaming. "Whatever is locked in that prison, this little thing affects him too much."

The journey west was long and uneventful, two days of hard travel until the air grew thin and cold. There, perched atop a flat mesa overlooking the dark edge of the Killoween Forests, stood the Iron Citadel. It was shrouded in a perpetual, strange mist, its walls of ancient stone and reinforced seams of dark metal giving it a menacing profile. A single, intimidating staircase, worn smooth by time, climbed the basalt rock face to a monumental, locked door.

Evidence of failed intrusions was everywhere. Scratched deeply into the heavy stones that littered the area. The names and curses of long-forgotten fools, proof that while many had found the Citadel, none had entered.

Katrina produced the signet ring and handed it to Calliope. The elf took the ring, its inscriptions burning with cold history, and read the phrases aloud at the heavy, ancient door. "Ferrum Tristitia... Machina Silentium... Votum Fractum."  A deep, resonating thunk echoed from within the stone door. The adventurers felt a massive mechanism engage, and groan, before grinding to a halt. It remained solidly locked.

Cosma, the faun, stood a pace back, her red eyes distant. The sheer magic of the Citadel, a blend of ancient curse and heavy Imperial warding, triggered an instinctive flash of insight, the sudden, chaotic understanding that was the strength of her wild-borne magic.

"It’s blood," Cosma whispered, her voice rough. Her long white braid swung as she shook her head. "The key isn't just the words. It's the lineage. The descendants of the Praetor who built this place. We need the blood of Luna to open this door." Frustration burned in the eyes of the group. Two days of travel, a fifteen-chest commission, and they were stopped by a technicality; the absence of the cowardly heir.

Cosma’s hand flew to her waist, then swept upward toward her scalp and down the length of her white hair. She focused her deep, dark magic, pulling on an innate witch ability, the Night's Glamor. In a shuddering moment of transformation, the faun’s form blurred. The long white braid seemed to shorten and darken; her curving horns and cloven hooves vanished, replaced by the slender limbs and features of a human woman. The gambeson armor gone, replaced by the threadbare fashions of Lady Lavinia Luna. Her mannerisms, the way she clutched her phantom pearls and tossed her head, were perfect.

"Let's hope this works," she said and taking a deep breath, Cosma, looking and moving exactly like Luna, raised the signet ring to the door. She reread the inscription, her voice now high and brittle with Luna’s annoying entitlement.

"Ferrum Tristitia... Machina Silentium... Votum Fractum."

With a tremendous, echoing clank, the heavy door ground open with a terrible finality, revealing the interior of the fortress.

What they found inside was a high-walled courtyard ringed by the skeletal remains of old barracks, now just stone shells. The air was cold, but the interior felt eerily clean, as if swept for inspection. In the center of the courtyard, an open, square-rimmed well dropped into blackness.

Cosma (still in the guise of Luna) stepped inside, glancing down the well.

From the central structure of the Citadel proper, a voice. sharp, commanding, and instantly recognizable as Lestheris Soldrei, cut through the heavy silence.

“They are upon us, Pike, The ring… she used the ring! but how, without the blood? ” Lestheris shrieked, her voice frantic with frustrated surprise. “Hold them, by all means, hold them while I extract the tears!”

Jedar Pike, unseen but clearly close, offered a cool reply. “Loyalty, Mistress. It is a simple tool.”

A second later, the ground in the courtyard cracked. Jedar Pike, clearly a trained wizard or a powerful cleric of death, gestured sharply at the stones around the well. With a sickening scrape and rattle, a dozen animated skeletons clawed their way out of the ground. These were not the shambling minions of the catacombs, but the disciplined remains of former soldiers.

Leading the charge was a towering, heavily armored corpse, a Skeleton Knight that gripped a massive great sword.

“Your loyalty binds you still,” Pike’s voice echoed, cold and commanding pointing toward the party. “Destroy them.”

The dozen common skeletons were slow and brittle, but the towering Skeleton Knight was a different matter, its massive great sword glinting with cold menace. As the others surged forward to meet the skeletal guards, Katrina moved with blinding speed.

She focused her intent, channeling the raw, compelling energy a predatory growl. It was an involuntary act of pure confidence, the Enrapture ability she carried from her old life. The Skeleton Knight immediately forgot the other threats. Its vacant gaze locked onto the small, agile Katari, recognizing a challenge worthy of its ancient, dead pride. It bore down on Katrina, ignoring the flanking magic and steel, its huge sword raised.

Katrina became a blur of motion, embracing the "Ferocious" posture she usually hid. She used the large frame of the Knight as her own shield, ducking and dodging its ponderous but devastating sweeps. Her small daggers while not useless against its heavy armor struggled to do significant damage, so she focused on evasion, leading the colossal undead on a chaotic, zigzagging retreat across the courtyard.

While the Knight was occupied, Calliope moved with decisive fury, her rapier ("As the bard sings, so doth the blade") flashing to dispatch the lesser skeletons. Cosma (still disguised as Luna) threw dark, wild-borne spells, her true nature momentarily suppressed, yet potent enough to shatter the brittle bone soldiers. Soon, the courtyard was littered with piles of dissolving bone dust, and only the Knight remained, still lumbering toward Katrina, fully committed to its final, massive overhead strike. In that critical moment, Kustos-749, his gladius moving with mechanical precision and blinding speed, made contact.

Slam!

The bright red blade, fueled by the Clank’s focused power, struck true, connecting squarely with the Knight’s ancient breastplate. The blow was so forceful it shattered the Knight’s skeletal structure at the center of its mass.

The massive creature staggered, its final, earth-shaking sword strike veering wide. It dissolved instantly into a cloud of bone dust and rust, but not before its black, skeletal hand shot out, a final, reflexive death-blow.

The cold, empty fingers clawed directly at Kustos’s sword arm, scraping across his chassis just below his shoulder. It was a fleeting, terrifying touch, but the moment it connected, an icy chill spread through the Clank's form and into his core. He shuddered, unnerved. The sheer, unholy emptiness of the Knight’s heart seemed to flood into his own mechanical self. He registered the physical damage taken to his systems, but more profoundly, he felt his own inner fire flicker and dim, costing him precious Hope.

From the unseen doorway of the Citadel, Lestheris Soldrei’s voice, now colder and more concentrated, echoed.

"The Clank is tainted! Pike, retrieve the bone dust. It is potent now!" she ordered, unaware that party were advancing on the second seal even now.

The bone dust of the Skeleton Knight was still settling when Cosma acted again. She knew time was running out and they couldn't risk the distraction the lock. In a shimmer of dark, wild-borne magic, the faun’s form once more twisted and smoothed into the brittle, desperate image of Lady Luna.

"Where is that jerk," the pretend Luna said.

She presented the stolen signet ring to the next heavy door leading into the main Citadel structure. A mechanism whirred in response to the inherited blood magic, and the door sighed open.

Waiting for them in the narrow passage beyond was Jedar Pike. The apostate wizard stood calmly, his eyes gleaming with a malicious satisfaction. He raised his skull-headed staff, blasted Cosma in the chest as summoned grotesque creations emerged from the walls three spectral, ethereal shapes, the translucent, tortured essences of the imprisoned Clanks, many of their limbs removed and replaced with spiritual limbs. They were featureless save for the faint, green glow of their malignant programming, silent echoes of the very victims Kustos had come to avenge.

Cosma's eyes, still bearing the cold focus of Luna, fixed on Pike. A silent, dark thought, empowered by her wild-borne magic, slipped into his mind. A soundless, mocking whisper only Jedar heard caused his hand to twitch, and his confident smirk momentarily faltered.

Simultaneously, Kustos-749 dropped low, sliding forward on his knees, his red shield tilted high as his sword struck low. It was a movement of mechanical calculation designed purely for his teammate: Katrina needed height. The Katari, embracing the speed of her "Ferocious" state, sprinted up the sloped surface of the Clank's shield and launched herself over his shoulders.

She soared through the air, daggers raised, striking Pike from an unexpected angle, near dropping him, then and there.

Calliope acted. She let out a fierce, quick chord of pure arcane energy. A barrage of shimmering force daggers materialized and slammed into Jedar Pike. He cried out, and fell.

Katrina turned to high five Kustos for their tag-team move, but he was frozen again, his eyes glossed over as if covered with cataracts of old age.

Kustos saw something horrific, but not with his eyes. He saw the cold light of the Iron Citadel’s dissection table, thousands of sparks falling like black snow as his brethren were systematically pulled apart. He tasted the metallic, unbearable tang of pure magical corruption as a ritualistic spike pierced a Clank’s core casing, not to shut it down, but to gouge the nascent spirit out of the clockwork, a scream of raw essentia that only a Clank could truly hear. A chorus of staccato, half-formed pleas

"Why? Wait. Not done...."

The vision vanished as quickly as it came. The electrical surge ceased, and Kustos was instantly released. He straightened, his metal body humming with recovered function. But there was something new in him now. The usual odd, intent curiosity that defined his gaze was gone, replaced by a cold, brilliant light of absolute fury. Clutching the gladius, his arm trembled with a barely contained power. The others had not seen it before: a flicker of raw, distilled hatred burning beneath his functional, logical frame. The sight of his brethren being turned into spectral tools had broken the machine silence.

The wave of hatred washed over him. Kustos-749 was no longer calculating the optimal plan of attack or waiting for orders; the cold, terrifying vision of his brethren's torture had overridden all logic. He moved now with a raw, unthinking speed, a single-minded missile aimed at the source of the suffering. He didn't communicate, he didn't wait, he simply moved.

The others followed, shocked by the sudden, violent shift in their Clank companion, followed exchanging looks.

Kustos burst through the door, his momentum carrying him into a large, cold chamber dominated by the gruesome altar and the tortured Clank. Lestheris Soldrei stood there, resplendent in her bone armor, holding tubing that drained "Tears" into a intricate ceramic jar. The jar, nearly full, contained the shimmering, silver-white Tears of the Iron Citadel.

Beside her stood a towering, newly raised noble zombie, dressed in the fine, if tattered, silks of the Glaber family, one of the patricians Lestheris coveted. Presumably, she used used its blood to gain entry.

Kustos swung his gladius in a wide, enraged arc, driving the Clank's full force toward the necromancer and forcing her to  crie out in surprised fury. "You arrogant machine! Defend me!" she shrieked at the massive noble zombie.

The zombie looked up, slow to react and in that moment. Cosma, having dropped the Luna disguise again, focused her dark, wild-borne energy through here staff and at the lumbering corpse. Her spell missing him, but distracted the zombie who now focused on Cosma, taking a tentative step as Lestheris shouted, "No you, fool!"

Katrina, seeing the noble zombie preparing its attack, acted on instinct. She launched herself forward, dagger flashing, aiming to cripple the massive undead behemoth. The zombie, however, merely absorbed the shallow wounds from her blades. With a deafening roar, it slammed its heavy, rotting fist into Cosma, knocking the faun backward into the wall, trapping here there.

Calliope, her green eyes blazing. She remembered what the Nobel zombie had done to Kustos and began to sing a fierce, compelling verse of battle-magic, her voice ringing with the clarity of a trumpet. The song made the zombie vulnerable, its defenses momentarily fracturing under the bardic power. She immediately followed with a blinding critical rapier strike into the corpse’s side, severing deep into its core.

Seeing the party was winning at a rapid pace, Lestheris showed signs panic. She looked to the Gallon of Tears and then snarled an unheard curse before disappearing in an arcane surge, teleporting, vanishing in a flash of sickly green light. Her retreat was so hasty that the gallon of Tears remained behind..

The Glaber zombie, though mortally wounded and missing an arm, wasn't dead yet. It was still driven by the command to destroy the perceived magical threat, and it seized the limbs of the trapped Cosma, closing tight and ready to rip her apart.

Katrina interrogation table as a launch point. She soared through the air and landed squarely on the zombie's decaying back. With two quick, lethal thrusts of her daggers, she drove them into its spine, finally slaying the monstrous creature.

As Katrina sprang back to the relative safety of the table, the horrible, oversized corpse of the noble zombie fell backward, its entire, immense weight crashing onto the pinned and panicking Cosma.

The air in the chamber, already thick with ozone, metallic tang, and necromantic decay, was punctuated by the tremendous, echoing thump of the undead patrician hitting the stone floor.

"Cosma!" Calliope cried out, her protective instinct overriding her exhaustion. She rushed forward, abandoning her rapier to desperately try and heave the heavy corpse off the Faun.

Kustos-749, released from his terrifying seizure, moved with an explosive, renewed fury fueled by his visceral hatred. The emotional surge was still burning cold and bright in his core, lending his remaining arm unnatural speed. He ignored the spilled Tears of the Citadel and the escaping necromancer's flash. He didn't lift the zombie; he focused his energy into a single, brutal kick with his heavy, metallic booted foot. The blow struck the edge of the corpse with such mechanical force that the noble zombie's body, already cleaved and stabbed, slid sickeningly off the pinned Cosma and slammed against the base of the wall.

Cosma, disoriented and gasping, scrambled free from the mess of decaying silk and bone. Katrina landed beside her, one dagger still dripping. The intense, feral look she wore only moments ago softened slightly as she checked the Faun for injuries.

"Are you alright?" Katrina demanded, her voice rough.

Cosma took a shaky breath, pressing a hand to her ribs. "That... that felt like a ton of old rage," she wheezed. She then saw Kustos, standing trembling, his functional eye fixed on the spot where Lestheris had vanished.

Calliope joined them, running a quick, worried hand over Cosma's horns. "She's gone. The necromancer. Coward." The bard then looked at floor where the gallon jar of Tears of the Iron Citadel still sat, catching the green light. "But she left the prize."

Kustos-749 finally spoke, his voice no longer the flat, logical monotone they were used to. It was still metallic, but it was low, gravelly, and vibrating with an unfamiliar, cold resonance.

"The prize is irrelevant," Kustos stated, his one good arm slowly rising to point his gladius not at the altar, but at the two immobile, tormented Clanks still restrained by the mechanism. "Her primary function here was not retrieval. It was to inflict pain. We must terminate the process."

His intense, furious gaze—a profound emotion they had never witnessed in the Clank, communicated the only acceptable next step: They were no longer treasure hunters. They were liberators descending the steps to support Kustos in his mission.

As they entered the chamber, the earth shuddered from a calculated, heavy impact of colossal feet. A low, grinding whirring noise preceded him as the source of the mechanical sound moved into the range of the adventurers' vision.

Casius Varrus was a nightmare given function. His presence was utterly dominating; a massive light slid into the chamber, cast from a lamp mounted on his shoulder, bathing party in a stark white glare.

His body was a grotesque patchwork of flesh, glass, and stolen metal. His chassis, a crude, rolling life-support unit, moved with jarring power. From its joints jutted two oversized arms, scarred and matte-black, clearly harvested from high-grade Clank soldiers, ending in devastating claw-hands. His disdain was palpable, expressed not just in his words but in the stiff, towering angle of his body, a mockery of the military posture he once valued.

The organic component—his original wrinkled, ancient human head—was sealed inside a thick, pressurized glass jar filled with a murky, life-sustaining nutrient fluid. Wires snaked out from the jar, connecting to a bundle of corroded tubes that pumped vital fluids into the chassis. His eyes, magnified and distorted by the glass and the fluid, were wide, paranoid, and intensely cruel. 

His voice, filtered and amplified by a grating voice box in the chassis, cut through the silence, "Well, look what's showed up. You fools think this place is a tragedy? Wrong! This is salvation."

"You mourn the machines. But I tell you, We won the war, and we earned this peace, but an Empire doesn't last on flesh and failing hearts. It lasts because we understand the ultimate law of existence: Immortality is not a gift. It is a resource. And his kind… his kind," he rasped, pointing a crude, clawed finger at Kustos, "holds a supply that is too vital to be left in the hands of Clanks."

(He pauses, letting the horrifying weight of his statement sink in before delivering the final, damning truth.)

"We didn't chain you because you were a threat to the Empire's borders. We chained you because immortality is a resource that we have to own. The Empire depends on it, and we will take it from you one bloody piece at a time."

Kustos had had enough. He launched himself forward, the ball-jointed gladius spinning in a furious, crimson arc as it fired toward the Warden. The attack was blindingly fast, but Varrus was a warden for a reason. With a low, grinding whir of his chassis, he lifted one massive, scarred Clank limb. A localized kinetic blast erupted from the base, intercepting the gladius with a deafening CRACK. The blade was instantly deflected, skipping across the stone floor, and the force of the return fire drove the Clank back several jarring steps.

Calliope, seeing her friend staggered, lifted her voice. Her words cut through the metallic clangor, ringing with the bright, sharp edge of bardic inspiration: "He has the size, but we have the fire! Get up, Kustos, your rage is a weapon he can't copy!" She immediately drew her bow and fired. The arrow flew true, striking the thick, pressurized glass jar that housed its brain. With a dull thwack, a small crack webbed out from the impact point before the arrow deflected uselessly into the darkness.

Cosma, channeling the raw, untamed force of her wildborne magic, lashed out at Varrus not with a spell of fire, but with a hex of pure, psychological destruction.

“You don't fight for Empire or peace, old man,” Cosma's voice cracked with scorn. “You don’t claim immortality as a resource—you’re just terrified of your own rotting flesh! You see our endlessness and it whispers to you the one truth you can’t escape: You are going to die!”

The insult struck Varrus deep, his eyes in the murky fluid widening in a brief, terrible moment of pure, panicked rage. He roared, the sound filtered through his grating voice box. He lifted a massive, piston-driven leg, and a corrosive blast of shimmering, silver-white fluid, the Tears of the Iron Citadel, shot from a nozzle. The concentrated fluid struck Cosma, Kustos, and Calliope in a single, sweeping arc, shaking them to their cores and momentarily stunning them.

"That crack! Focus on that point!" Kustos bellowed at Cosma, his voice a low, growl of pure, focused rage, ignoring the pain.

Cosma, battered but resolute, focused her wildborne magic. A sharp, violent surge of dark energy blasted from her staff and slammed into the crack Calliope had made. Simultaneously, Kustos, recovering with unnatural speed, drove his newly found gladius. The combined, synchronized blow was devastating and the crack spider-webbed, then circumnavigated the entire glass jar punctuated by sharp cracking sounds. Nutrient fluid began to leak from several locations, dribbling down Varrus's chassis.

Enraged, Varrus charged, boxing Kustos in between his massive legs. He hammered the Clank with a one-two punch of his grotesque, claw/hands, the blow forcing Kustos-749 down onto one knee.

"I am but the first to see you clanks for what you are... I will not be the last," Varrus rasped, his voice faltering as he tasted his own leaking vitality.

And in that critical moment, Calliope’s quick hand loosed another arrow, guided by pure instinct or was it the prayers of Kustos ore the the perfect note of a fighting song. The shot struck the already compromised glass, shearing off a large portion of the jar.

The life-sustaining nutrient fluids spilled out across Varrus' chassis, and his wrinkled, ancient human brain slid sickeningly from its containment.

Kustos-749, fueled by the cold fire of a thousand silenced brothers, didn't hesitate. He thrust his gladius upward.

They returned to the shoppe and received the reward after a few days.

The scent of dust, oil, and ozone still clung to their clothes two days later, a cold, metallic reminder of the Iron Citadel. Calliope sat on a stool near the front counter, meticulously polishing the brass hilt of her rapier. Her green eyes were distant, occasionally flicking toward the back of the shop.

Cosma, her usual wildborne energy subdued, was running a damp cloth over the mahogany chest. The chest, still sealed by the cold, structured magic of the Order of the Unknown, now seemed less like a simple challenge and more like a cruel, well-ordered insult. Her white braid lay heavy over the gambeson armor she hadn't bothered to remove, and her red eyes bore the fatigue of both physical trauma and psychic strain.

Kustos-749 stood near the back wall, perfectly still. Except for his visiting to have the beautifully made gladius mounted to his arm, he had not moved since arriving back at the shoppe. The red gladius was pointed downward, its tip resting near is powerful leg. He was conducting an internal diagnostic, but the cold, brilliant fury that had taken hold of him in the Citadel still radiated from his chassis. He wasn't just angry; his entire operational priority seemed to have been violently rewritten. He was changed.

“We have the gold,” Calliope said finally, her voice low. “Fifteen chests of it, secured in the back room. We fulfilled the commission. But that doesn’t feel like a win.”

Cosma sighed, setting her cloth down. “We walked into a slaughterhouse, Calliope. We saw what they did to his people. We saw… Varrus.” She shuddered. “The way he said it, 'Immortality is a resource,' it’s the Empire’s philosophy, made monstrous. Structure, dominance, ownership.”

Kustos's head tilted slightly toward Cosma, acknowledging her words without turning. It was the only movement he'd made in an hour.

The door jingled, and Katrina slipped inside. She moved with her usual liquid grace, though her face was tense. She placed a small, bundled satchel of raw meat on the counter, her eyes fixed on the immobile Clank.

“I was at the Syndicate docks,” she murmured, her voice a low purr. “The gossip has shifted. Lestheris Soldrei has retreated to the catacombs. The ‘Tears’ ritual, seems disrupted for now, but something else is moving. My contact doesn't know what, but something is happening.

Katrina paused, walking up to Kustos, her vertical pupils narrowed. She reached out with one finger and touched the slight, metallic abrasion on his shoulder where the Skeleton Knight had scraped him, “...more importantly....” but in that moment the shoppe bell rang.

A young messenger boy, looking flustered and out of breath, strode into the shop, clutching a roll of parchment tied with a ribbon bearing a stately wax seal. He delivered the message: The party was summoned to visit Hortencia Fausta, their attorney, at their earliest convenience.

Other matters were dropped. Something about the tone of the note said, urgent. The group gathered their things and soon found themselves in Fausta’s well-appointed, though perpetually cluttered, office.

Hortencia Fausta, a woman whose competence was only exceeded by her organizational skills, got straight to the point.

“As you know, I manage the estates of the recently departed,” Fausta began, gesturing toward a stack of thick files. “In this case, the Benthem Estate. Simple liquidation, usually. Those inheriting the property have no interest in the house, only the money from an estate sale.”

She adjusted her glasses. “I had originally intended to invite you and the Marvels to the sale, but I have run into a… complication. I sent my two best people, Annabelle and Dra. Cornelia Fausta, to the Manor to manage the cleanup and preparation for sale.” Fausta’s composure cracked, revealing a deep vein of worry.

“I’m willing to offer you first pick and a staggering 80% off on any item in the entire estate, an amount that should cover your expenses and then some... if you can liberate the estate from whatever curse afflicts it, and most importantly, return Cornelia to my side.”

She pulled out a letter, the paper slightly crumpled, and handed it to Calliope. The Elven bard's highborne bearing and clear, strong voice made her the perfect reader. Calliope took the letter, smoothing the folds, and began to read aloud:

Professora Fausta,

I’m so grateful to hear from you, unfortunately I write of bad news. I’m not sure how to explain it, but Annabelle, she barely speaks and won’t get out of bed until after dark… and then she is cruel.

This is not the kind and true-hearted woman I have come to know.

I have tried all that is at my disposal medically, but she has not responded well and I find that I am beyond my depth now.

You know me to be a reasonable and cynical person so you will believe me when I tell you what troubles her is not of this world. Strange things happen here at Benthem Manor, unspeakable things. Someone or something is harming my beloved, and I am powerless to stop it.

Annabelle is my heart and soul and I know you would do anything you can to restore her. Please send help.

Warm regards, Dra. Cornelia

Calliope finished, her green eyes lifted from the page, a scholarly curiosity mixed with a protective maternal concern for Fausta’s daughter and her friend.

“A curse, affecting a loved one, and a substantial reward for lifting it,” Cosma summarized, tapping her staff lightly on the floor. Her red eyes narrowed. “This has the scent of a ghosts, the kind of chaotic magic my parents detest, unpredictable, but something I know a little about.”

Katrina merely grinned, a flash of predatory excitement crossing her feline features. “A cursed manor, a desperate heir, and a chance to get things cheap. I like this kind of job.”

The journey to the shores of the misty lake was long, but finally, the adventurers reached the water's edge.

Boyle Powell, a sturdy man whose hands were rough from toil, met them. He smelled of damp earth and his gaze was fixed on the shroud of fog engulfing the island manor. He gestured to the small, barely adequate vessel tethered to the shore.

“I’m Boyle Powell, here to row you to the island,” he said, his voice low and serious. He gestured to the fog-shrouded island in the middle of the lake. “She a small skiff, but she’ll due for this crew.”

The trip across the dark, silent lake was tight and uncomfortable, the shallow boat rocking ominously. Powell’s strokes were powerful and practiced.

“Me and me wife were hired as manual labor to fix the place up, but it’s been slow going since… the events,” Powell muttered, the oars pulling heavily in the water. He didn’t meet their eyes. “I handle the gardens and never enter the house. Bad things happen in that house. People who go in, come out..... changed.”

He shifted his weight, his gaze distant. “Even me own wife weeps now uncontrollably and for no good reason. It’s like the place sucks the life right out of ye.”

As Powell pulled the boat to the rough, mossy dock and tied her off, a startling cry echoed across the still water, a distant cry was heard.

“Heeeelp…….. Heeeelp.”

Calliope leaned forward slightly, her brow furrowed. “Peacocks,” she stated, her ear cataloging the sound. “They sound like lost children,” but cry clearly unsettled Powell, who quickly brought a small holy symbol to his lips, kissing the tarnished metal before tucking it securely into his shirt.

“Mrs. Powell will meet you at the door,” he said, his words a clear dismissal. He wasn’t taking a single step further.

Waiting at the massive front doors was Mrs. Powell. She wore an apron over what were clearly nice clothes, but the scent of wood smoke and vinegar clinging to her spoke of practical, dedicated work. She was matronly, her hands strong and capable, yet the moment she saw them, a deep furrow of worry crossed her face. Her eyes held the raw, sleepless look of someone stretched too thin by grief and fear and perhaps something more.

“Come in, come in,” she urged, her voice hushed, ushering the adventurers out of the mist and into the cool, marble foyer.

She led them past a large, opulent portrait. It depicted a very beautiful woman in a flowing, red dress standing with a young blonde girl.

 The painting seemed to drink the light, making the shadows around it thick and unnatural. Both figures stared back with an unnerving intensity; the woman’s painted eyes, though fixed on the artist, seemed to follow your peripheral movement, holding a look of deep, bitter accusation. The young girl’s gaze was perhaps worse, wide and flat, an expressionless, chillingly possessive stare, as though she resented the intrusion of any living attention that wasn't solely focused on her mother. The paint itself felt cold.

Mrs. Powell quickly averted her own gaze. “That’ll be Eleanore Benthem and her daughter, Gweneth,” she said. “Young Gweneth perished in a fire 60 years ago now, up in the nursery. Some say she blamed her husband, Master Benthem, for the death. Either way, she never forgave herself. Things like that change ye.”

Mrs. Powell led them across the foyer to a very large door on the first floor. As they approached, a noticeable chill emanated from the wood, far colder than the surrounding hallway. She raised her hand and knocked timidly. A very faint, nearly inaudible voice answered: “Come in.”

The heavy door was opened. The room inside had been stripped bare; no pictures, no furniture, save for one large bed and a roaring fire that nevertheless failed to take the chill off the air.

Dra. Cornelia was seated at the side of the bed, her shoulders slumped with exhaustion. On the bed itself, a small bundle of sheets slowly rose and fell, accompanied by the rasping sound of strained breath. This was Annabelle.

“You made it,” Cornelia whispered, her voice cracking with relief, yet her eyes were wide with a desperate, terrible dread. “I'm glad it's you... she's getting worse.”

The cold of the room was immediately palpable, yet the roaring fire seemed to be fueling the oppressive chill rather than fighting it. Dra. Cornelia looked utterly defeated, the tension around her eyes suggesting days without rest.

Cosma, her Faun instincts humming, surveyed the barren room, her red eyes taking in the empty walls and the shivering air. Kustos-749 stood rigidly by the door, his systems logging the anomalous temperature drop.

Cornelia spoke, her voice thick with worry as she leaned in toward Cornelia.

“The problem is Annabelle,” she began, nodding toward the small bundle of sheets. “She’s afflicted. She sleeps until the sun goes down. When she finally wakes, it’s not my Annabelle.”

Cornelia pressed her hand to her temple. “She rises late, and her first act is to descend upon the dining room. She gorges herself on food, savagely and then the rage sets in. She starts throwing crockery and plates.” She paused, exhaling slowly. “We’ve had to lock the dining room off completely just to contain the damage.”

Calliope leaned forward, her brow furrowed in concentration. “Does she communicate?”

“Yes, but not to us. She talks to the walls,” Cornelia whispered, glancing nervously at the surrounding stone. “And when she does speak, the voice, the cadence… we do not recognize her in it. It’s colder, older, and full of a terrible, palpable grief.”

She then provided the terrible history of the manor.

“This was the home of Lord Benthem, his wife Eleanore, and their two children:Luke and Gweneth,” Cornelia explained. “The children went first, then Master Benthem and his wife, Eleanore Benthem. All of them perished here.” She shuddered again. “The children are said to have died in a horrible way. The details are obscured by time, but the story haunts this island.”

Cornelia moved to a small, ornate key ring sitting on the bedside table. “You should know the habits of the deceased. Lady Benthem was fond of puzzles, and she was fastidious about her home. She always kept this ring of keys and had a rule: Always lock a room when you leave.”

“That habit seems to have lingered,” she continued, lowering her voice. “Things end up moved or gone missing, small, personal items. It’s most disconcerting and impossible to any peasants or workers we’ve tried to hire. We accused some of stealing and the rest have all fled.”

Mrs. Powell, who had been standing silent guard behind them, suddenly produced a small, silver key from her apron and walked to the door.

“Lock all doors,” she said, her voice strained. She secured the door they had just entered with a sharp click. “When the manor breathes, the living grieve, and what's lost within can never leave.“ That was the last they saw of Mrs. Powell.

The atmosphere in the  room shifted instantly as Cosma took control. She unclasped her cloak, throwing the heavy wool into the center of the bare floor, and then swiftly placed several small, dark candles around the fabric.

“Grab hands now as if your life depended on it,” Cosma ordered, her voice serious and tight, a tone none of the others had ever heard from her. She was perhaps regretting the immediate, bold choice, but there was no backing out now.

As the candles flames flickered violently against a sudden, supernatural breeze that seemed to emanate from the walls. The roaring fire in the hearth noticeably dimmed, its heat actively suppressed and from the bundle of sheets on the bed, a deep, guttural sound, an unmistakable supernatural growl, filled the silence.

“Chant with me, now! 'Locantore Spiritus…'” Cosma commanded, her voice rising in volume.

Calliope and Kustos-749, the bard's voice clear, joined with Cosma and Cornelia, repeated the phrase, louder and louder, until the words seemed to vibrate the very stones of the manor, and with a sudden, horrible jerk, Annabelle rose up from the bed. Her eyes were wide and black, and her voice was not her own, it was strained, hollow, and full of ancient malice.

“Fine, speak with me. I want despair. I want to see this creature rot. There shall be no happiness in this house.”

Dra. Cornelia whimpered beside them.

“We are here to help… Please, I’m here…,” said Calliope.

But the ancient growl returned, stronger this time, filling the air with bitter, jealous grief. The possessed Annabelle, completely overwhelmed by the spirit's malice and self-hatred, rushed across the room. She began a terrifying cycle of self-mutilation bashing her head against the wall with a sickening THUD. She banged her head against the wall again. She banged her head against the wall a third time.

The brutal display shattered the group's focus. The circle of hands immediately broke. Cornelia screamed and rushed forward, her love overriding her fear. She threw her body between Annabelle and the wall, catching the woman as she finally collapsed, exhausted and battered, the malign presence seemingly retreating for a moment.

Cornelia checked Annabelle's wounds, her face pale. She fumbled at the bedside table and then pressed the ring of keys into Cosma’s hand.

“Here are the keys. Lock up everything,” Cornelia pleaded, her voice trembling. "Never leave a door open.”

She swallowed hard before delivering the grim instructions.

“The nursery is locked. Terrible, terrible things happened there. Young Gweneth died there, and others as well. There was a terrible fire there, and I fear structural damage.”

She pointed to a separate, heavy door across the hall. “The Library is puzzle-locked. A curious door that I've not been able to gain entry to. Lady Benthem was fond of puzzles.”

Cosma, her mind already snapping back to magical analysis, stared intently at the Library door, her intuition intrigued by the complexity of the puzzle ward, but, the encounter with the violent, despairing spirit settled the matter of strategy. They were clearly dealing with the powerful, disturbed spirits of the dead, and the primary goal was to bring them peace, not enjoy puzzles.

The adventurers made their decision. They would start in the Dining Room with Mrs. Powell's instruction to lock every door echoing in their minds. The heavy dining room door, now secured with a new, mundane lock, yielded to Cosma's key.

They found the dining room a place of cleaned-up chaos. Many windows were boarded up, filtering the daylight into dim, dusty slats, and sheets draped over the chairs protected them from the dust. The room was noticeably colder than the hallway, perhaps from the drafts caused by the boarded windows, or perhaps something else entirely. It was a space that felt recently used but aggressively cleaned afterward.

As the others surveyed the room for signs of Annabelle's nocturnal violence, Kustos-749, his mechanical systems keenly sensitive to anomalous energy, paused near the head of the long table. He focused his gaze on a shimmering distortion in the air. The distortion resolved itself into a small figure, inside a shroud that wavered like heat rising from asphalt. The figure wore glasses.

“Do you want to play?” the small spirit asked, its voice thin and high. “My name’s Luke.”

Calliope approached cautiously, her natural warmth attempting to counter the chill. “Hello, Luke. How old are you?”

The spirit seemed puzzled by the question, as if the concept of time was difficult to grasp. After a moment, he answered: “Five.”

“And how long have you been here, Luke?” Calliope asked gently.

Luke was still for a moment, then answered with the same, confusing certainty: “Five.”

He tilted his spectral head. “I want to find Gweneth. It’s been so desperately long.”

It was a chilling indicator that for this spirit, time had completely collapsed into the moment of his death. The party invited Luke to come with them to find Gweneth, but some spirits, those weakest are stuck in one time and one place unable to move unless they are 'transported' by a willing subject. 

They told Luke they would be back and departed for the Nursery next, climbing the stairs. The heavy, ornate door to the children’s room was locked, but the key on the ring fit perfectly. They unlocked the door with a quiet click.

Entering the room, the adventurers were immediately struck by the strange dual nature of the space. It brought back visceral memories of childhood joy; a faint, lingering scent of old lavender and sweet wood, but it was now a chilling monument to loss. Dust motes danced in the sunlight that filtered through the grimy windowpanes, casting eerie, shifting shadows across the room. The floor was littered with the remnants of innocent creativity: leaf etchings, each one a silent scream of a joy that had been silenced by fire and time.

The right wall was dominated by a colossal painting of a tree, its branches thick and dark, reaching towards the ceiling. A chilling message was scrawled directly onto the tree wall “Knock knock.”

Calliope, ever the scholar and seeker of engagement, took the bait.

“Knock, knock,” she said softly.

A mouth and eyes suddenly appeared on the painted tree, forming crude, unsettling features.

Tree: “Who’s there?”

Calliope, trying a simple, friendly approach: “It’s me.”

Tree: “Bye, bye now.” The eyes vanished.

The party exchanged frustrated glances, each of them trying a different word or phrase, a greeting, a name, a historical reference, but the painted tree stubbornly rejected every attempt, always ending with a dismissive “bye, bye now.” The tree, they quickly realized, was a puzzle ward on the room itself, likely placed by Lady Benthem.

Suddenly, in a flash of insight, Cosma blurted out excitedly. She had remembered a piece of classic, childish nonsense.

“Knock, knock!” she declared, her red eyes gleaming with sudden insight.

Tree: “Who’s there?”

Cosma: “Interrupting orange!”

The tree began its familiar response, its painted features momentarily confused: “Interrupting or…”

Cosma immediately shouted over the spirit, triumphantly cutting off its word: “ORANGE!”

The tree froze for a long moment, then the crude mouth cracked a smile, and the painted eyes softened, glowing with a flicker of satisfaction.

Tree: “That’s a good joke!”

A sound like heavy wind filled the room as the large portrait swung inward, revealing a dark, hidden corridor beyond.

Before the party could take a step toward the opening in the tree painting, the cradle positioned subtly in a corner began to sway with a gentle, unnatural rhythm. A small, thin voice began to sing a simple, chilling tune.

“Nana Nana, Nana, Nana, Nana Nanah.”

The presence of the spirit was now unmistakable, a heavy weight of cold grief settling over the room. Slowly, the delicate blanket in the cradle began to rise, going higher and higher, as if lifted by an unseen hand.

The small voice of Gweneth spoke, fragile and fearful: “Shhhh be quiet or the bad man will come.”

Calliope stepped forward, her professional curiosity momentarily overcoming the natural fear. “Gweneth, who is the bad man?”

Gwen’s voice trembled slightly. “The bad man is tall and thin and wears a scary top hat. He carries a cane. The Badman is the only one who can chase me through walls.”

Cosma interjected, her red eyes burning with sudden, intellectual focus. The Faun witch had dealt with dangerous spirits before. “The most dangerous spirits do not need a body to move and manipulate things in the world of the living. The Bad Man is very, very dangerous.”

Gweneth’s spirit seemed to shift its focus from fear to sorrow. “Have you seen my brother?” she asked the group.

The party responded, cautiously confirming what they had learned in the dining room. “Yes, we saw Luke downstairs. He’s been looking for you.”

A sound of deep, aching loneliness filled the room, the emotional cry of a child left behind. “I miss my brother. It’s been ages, and I’ve no one to play with.”

The air around the cradle seemed to lighten slightly as the spirit considered the possibility of companionship. “I think we could possibly move on if we were reunited,” she said.

The adventurers crawled through the low corridor, clearly a secret place where children could play, perhaps away from the attention of the master of the house, and found themselves in the Secret Playroom. It is a chilling tableau of past joy and present decay: a trunk with children’s dress-up clothing, the faint scent of a rotten rat, a large full-length mirror, and a mannequin wearing a familiar red dress, positioned beside a rocking chair.

Kustos-749, ever the meticulous observer, looked into the mirror to assess the room. Instead of his reflection, he saw the chilling, grief-stricken face of Eleanore Benthem materialize behind him. The image was so sudden and horrifying that the Clank instinctively pulled away, his core systems momentarily spiking.

Cosma, driven by curiosity, immediately took Kustos’s place, staring into the reflective glass. She saw the same spectral woman, but lingered, attempting to understand the spirit's nature. Eleanore’s spectral icy cold finger extended from the glass and touched Cosma’s neck, tracing the line of her collarbone. The Faun recoiled violently, drawing away with a curse as the chilling touch registered as a sudden, sharp intrusion.

The red dress on the mannequin, the same one from the main portrait, appeared to take form, lifting slightly off the stand as if the spirit were testing its ability to wear it again, but then settled back onto the inanimate form.

Calliope, recognizing the immediate danger of this powerful, possessive spirit, acted decisively. She recognized the dress as the spirit’s anchor to the room. She approached the mannequin and, with a swift, angry motion, stabbed it with her dagger. The attack triggered a violent, supernatural reaction. A book flew from a nearby shelf, striking Calliope squarely in the face. Simultaneously, the trunk with the children’s play clothes slammed shut with a bone-jarring CRASH.

Kustos stared into the mirror, seeing the enemy, but unable to locate its physical presence in the room. He awkwardly struck behind himself at disadvantage, his sword cutting only air.

The party understood they faced a spirit that was partially tethered to the room, manifesting in reflections and objects. The three adventurers quickly determined their strategy: they could either attack blindly at disadvantage or utilize mind games to pin down the spirit's presence. Cosma chose the latter. Channeling her darkest, wildest magic, she hexed the spirit, not to inflict damage, but to create a momentary, agonizing spiritual focus. She forced Eleanore to confront the terrible truth of her own death and failure, momentarily paralyzing the angry grief that shielded her.

As the hex took hold, Eleanore’s spectral form wavered between the mirror and the mannequin. Kustos and Calliope seized the opportunity. Kustos’s gladius finally struck true as the spirit became briefly visible, while Calliope, ignoring her pain, delivered a fierce, targeted strike with her rapier.

Finally, the spirit of Eleanore Benthem was felled. Her spectral form sank into the ground, dissipating into a wave of profound cold. The direction of her retreat was clear: downward, toward the family Mausoleum.

Having banished the possessive malice of Eleanore Benthem, the adventurers left and returned to the manor’s Nursery. The room, once a monument to tragedy, now felt merely old, the oppressive chill replaced by a quiet, ambient warmth.

They found Gweneth Benthem in the Secret Playroom. She was seated on the floor, surrounded by the scattered remnants of innocent creation, leaf etchings and a box of old crayons. She hummed a simple, tuneless melody to herself, her spectral form shimmering softly. She looked up, recognizing the party, and a childlike delight brightened her translucent features.

“You came back!” Gweneth whispered, clutching a crayon.

The party knew they needed to reunite the twins, Luke and Gweneth, to bring final peace to the children.

“We found Luke, little one,” Calliope said gently, her highborne bearing softening into maternal concern. “He is waiting for you in the Dining Room. He’s missed you so very much.”

Gweneth’s small face clouded with sorrow. “I can’t go, though. The fire made me stuck here. The Bad Man could chase me through walls, but I can’t chase him back.”

Cosma, her red eyes narrowed with the cold, wild-borne logic of her magic, stepped forward. “The only way for a lesser spirit like yours to travel is to possess a living vessel, a host who is willing to carry you.” She gestured with her staff. “It is the most direct method to transport a trapped spirit.”

Calliope seemed reticent, her green eyes wide with hesitation. Katrina, meanwhile, gave a look that completely belied her feline ancestry, a puzzled, incredulous look that suggested the idea of voluntary possession was utterly absurd.

Before either of the fleshings could refuse, Kustos-749, the Clank, stepped into the light. “Hypothesis: A machine chassis is an unsuitable host for protracted biological possession,” he stated, his voice a flat, mechanical monotone. “However, the function is transport. I volunteer as a temporary vessel.”

Gweneth looked up at the towering, armored construct, her ghostly eyes wide with curiosity, then delight. With a happy, silent pop, the shimmering spectral form vanished.

Kustos stood still for a long moment. Then, his odd posture shifted. His shoulders seemed to slump slightly, his head tilted further to the side, and he took on the slight, awkward, eager posture of a five-year-old child.

He looked Calliope directly in the eyes, his visual processors glowing with a new, innocent urgency. “Have you seen Luke?” said Gwen-Kustos, the voice emerging from the Clank’s chassis sounding thin, high, and unmistakably like the little girl.

Calliope nodded, a small, genuine smile touching her lips. “He is in the Dining Room, dear heart. He’s been waiting so long.”

With a sudden, jerky movement, the explosive, unthinking rush of a child who has just been told "playtime" the possessed Clank darted off. Kustos-749, his heavy chassis moving with uncharacteristic speed, charged through the Nursery doorway and down the hall, leaving the rest of the party to chase the possessed machine.

“Wait! Kustos!” Calliope called out, already sprinting down the dusty corridor after the Clank.

They found Gwen-Kustos in the Dining Room. Luke, the small, shimmering ghost, was still near the head of the long table. He recognized the party, but more importantly, he recognized the spectral presence of his sister, Gweneth, inside the clank.

Luke’s shimmering form intensified. Simultaneously, a bright blue light formed within Kustos’s chest, emerging from the access panel where his core might reside. The two lights, representing the siblings' spirits, began to move and dance toward each other. They swirled joyously together, the lights "sort of dancing on either side of the table," illuminating the dust motes in their wake and then they lights brightened, joining together in a single, intense flare of pure white energy, and then, it went out.

The Dining Room was completely still and quiet. The oppressive cold, the sadness, and the spectral presence that had defined the house were gone.

Kustos-749 straightened suddenly. The slight, childish slump vanished, replaced by his usual rigid, intent posture. He had only a vague idea of how he’d gotten to the Dining Room and looking down at his own hands, he had no idea how he ended up with a crayon and pieces of tracing paper clutched in his metallic fingers. With a low, mechanical hum, Kustos opened the small access door in his chest panel. He stored the childish drawing tools away, tucking them into a compartment beneath his core, completing the final act of the children's spiritual journey.

The heavy silence of the Dining Room settled after the passing of the children’s spirits. Cosma, her initial shock at Kustos' temporary possession receding, snapped back to the architectural mysteries of the manor.

“The children are at rest,” Cosma declared, tapping her staff lightly on the floor. “Now we can address the puzzles.” She looked at the others. “Mrs. Powell mentioned a puzzle door. I am keen to see what Lady Benthem, the puzzle mistress, kept hidden in her study.”

They ascended the grand staircase and turned into a short passageway, terminating in a beautiful, red, wooden door. Curiously, the door was covered in bronze disks, some curving and some straight, each featuring a slot.

Cosma knelt before the lock mechanism, her red eyes tracing the flow of the puzzle. Kustos-749, his arm movement precise, stood beside her rotating the disks with precision, his systems quietly analyzing the components.

“Observation: The disks are designed to create a continuous, interlocking path,” Kustos stated, his voice flat. “However, a critical component is absent.”

“Precisely,” Cosma agreed, frustrated. “There’s no knob or final piece to initiate the lock mechanism once the path is complete. It seems Eleanore Benthem wanted a private retreat indeed. We need to locate the special doorknob.”

Working together, Cosma’s magical intuition guiding the turns and Kustos’s mechanical precision ensuring the alignment, they were able to form a complete pathway from one side of the door to the other, but the lack of the final piece still stymied them. The door remained solidly locked.

Defeated by the puzzle door, they sought another way into the manor’s deeper secrets, moving next to the Conservatory, a fancy, indoor garden hothouse.

The entrance was blocked by double glass doors in a desperate state. Plants, left untrimmed for decades, had found a way to not only survive but thrive, and thick vines had grown up under the double glass doors, blocking them from being opened. A faint, smell of vinegar told the story of Mrs. Powell’s recent, failed attempt to clean the glass, but the other side of the doors were too filthy and overgrown to see within.

Cosma, her irritation mounting, pointed her magical staff at the dense vines. A concentrated stream of heat erupted, and she burned the vines that were causing the doors to remain stuck. The fire did its work, consuming the dry foliage.

Then, in a matter of moments, the blaze appeared to be out of control.

“Cosma! We shouldn't damage the home!” Calliope exclaimed, her highborne horror at the thought of structural damage overriding her caution.

Without a moment’s hesitation, Cosma flipped her staff end-for-end and activated a concentrated stream of water from the opposite end, extinguishing the flames instantly. The air filled with the sharp scent of wet ash and scorched vegetation. Crudely, they busted their way through the sticky, scorched remnants and pushed the doors open.

Inside, the conservatory was an unsettling tableau of decay and stillness. A table was set for tea, many, many years ago, the crockery covered in a thick layer of dust. Sitting in a chair was a creepy doll with vacant eyes. The tea set and the hand of the doll, where it had clearly been sucked on, possessed a faint, unsettling blue tinge. Nearby, a small, overturned box that should have contained sugar or biscuits instead held the deadly, purple berries of nightshade. The implication was chilling: the tea appeared to have been brewed from the deadly nightshade plant.

Suddenly, the dense, untrimmed vegetation surrounding the tea party stirred and vine lashes shot out at Cosma. One grabbed her calf, another wrapped around her waist, and a third attempted to grapple her throat, flailing just short, but still leaving her completely stuck.

It was a shambling mound, an exotic creature that was once perhaps a cute, contained garden piece eighty years ago, but left untrimmed and unattended, it had formed into a formidable, sentient monster. The creature was decidedly unhappy with the Faun who had just attempted to burn its ancient home down.

Katrina reacted instantly, her nimble form sliding into the fray approaching what she thought of as from behind. Her daggers flashed, slashing at the thick, green vines. Kustos, meanwhile, let his Gladius fly, the red blade hacking into one of the vines holding Cosma’s calf, momentarily relieving the tension. Calliope stabbed forth with her rapier, but the thrusts were met only with leaves and unimportant parts, falling harmlessly to the dusty floor. All seemed to fear that Cosma was going to be strangled.

It was then that Calliope let loose her rallying cry, her green eyes blazing with focused intent. “It's a plant for heavens sake!” she yelled, her voice ringing with bardic clarity. “We've got this!”

Heartened now, Katrina ripped with her dagger, shredding the vines around Cosma's waist. Kustos-749, now at close range with his Gladius, was able to land a solid hit while simultaneously repelling another vine blow intended to fell the Witch, his red shield intervening just in time.

Finally, with a sonorously sung note, Calliope swung and struck the killing blow. Her rapier, "As the bard sings, so doth the blade," cut clean through the creature’s central mass. She lifted the top half of the creature, separating it from the bottom, and discarded the dripping, decomposing vegetation onto the table with the creepy doll and the blue-tinged tea set.

The conservatory was silent again, save for the drip of water from the remaining foliage.

With the shambling mound reduced to a messy pile of plant matter, Calliope and Katrina moved to investigate the Conservatory. Their search quickly yielded results in a sturdy wooden chest tucked beneath a workbench. Inside, nestled among rusty pruning shears and leather work gloves, they found two key items: a set of gardening tools and the missing brass doorknob.

They returned immediately to the puzzle door. Kustos-749, his focus absolute, took the implement. He slotted it into the mechanism, and with precise movements, the knob slid through the maze of disks until it clicked into place. He twisted the knob, and the beautiful red wooden door swung open, revealing the Library.

The room was indeed a refuge. It was replete with books, mostly dealing with secret codes and puzzles, arranged in meticulous order. This was clearly a place of peace where Eleanore Benthem had found solace and privacy.

Cosma, drawn to the historical records and the puzzle books chose the diary of Lady Benthem first, locating a journal tucked into a high shelf. She began to read the entries aloud:

First Entry: “So pleased that their home was built for her.”

Second Entry: “Gwyneth has died in a fire. She blames Morgwin and Morgwin blames her.”

Third Entry: “They grow old despising each other. The library is her only consolation and she spends countless hours here keeping him out.”

“She built the strange locking door mechanism herself,” Cosma concluded, running a finger over the last entry. “This room was her only escape from her husband and her grief.”

It was while Cosma was sharing this heartbreaking history that Katrina found the secret door in the fireplace. She was tipped off not by sight, but by a strange earth smell being pulled upward through the chimney. Her keen feline senses located the subtle cracks in the brickwork that masked the entrance.

While the others rested, Katrina, descended what turned out to be a steep, iron ladder. Her catlike limbs, so graceful in combat, struggled a bit to master the strange backward motion required for going down the ladder rungs. Below, she found a basement level, stop pavers set in an earthen floor. The air was cold and stale; no one had been here in a very long time.

The others soon joined her, and their initial exploration of the musty basement revealed many valuable items they hoped to bring back to the Little Shoppe of Curiosities to sell. Eventually, they found the Mausoleum proper.

The Mausoleum was a solemn space, but one that contained the messy reality of the Benthem family's dysfunction. Candles for paying respect lined the space, flickering faintly, illuminating four plaques set into the walls:

• Katrine Benthem, age 4 please come back
• Morgwin Benthem age 83, may he find rest
• Eleanore Benthem age 81, may she find peace
• Luke and Gweneth Benthem, age 5 “Lost too soon, as they shared a womb, they share a tomb.”

Cosma pointed to a small, intricate carving beneath each name. “Look,” she said, her red eyes narrowed. “The little crest of Benthem Manor… a letter ‘B.’” Below each of these plaques, someone had taken a knife or a chisel and made weird kinds of markings or indentations into the stone. The pattern was not discernible, a confusing collection of ritualistic slashes.

Kustos-749, the literal-minded machine, paused, his internal gears clicking. He pulled the tracing paper and the crayon, the spontaneous gifts from Gweneth from the compartment inside his chest cavity. And with methodical, single-minded focus, he placed the paper over the first stone and began to trace the indentation pattern. He repeated the process for each of the marked stones in succession.

Katrina took each finished sheet as he completed it, holding them up to the dim light such that the "B" letters were in the same place. As she added the final one, Calliope, the musicologist and scholar, was able to read the overlay of the old, fragmented words:

"Immundus spiritus excellium," she said,  "Unclean Spirit I banish Thee."

The markings were a single, powerful banishment ritual, split across the tombs. Someone, probably Eleanore who was good with codes had worked to keep a specific spirit trapped and contained within the stone.

The adventurers left the cryptic truth of the Mausoleum and ascended to the manor's main floor. Their course was set. They would confront the tormenting spirit, now fully revealed as the possessive Master Benthem, the moment he attempted to use Annabelle's body to feed his endless grief.

They returned to the bare, chilly room where Doctora. Cornelia and Annabelle had been staying, ready to share the banishment phrase and provide comfort. It was Calliope who quietly opened the door, and she froze, shocked by the tableau within.

Annabelle, her gray-white hair cascading, floated several inches above the bed, straight-spined, with sunken cheeks and eyes completely black. Over her, collapsed upon the hardwood floor, lay the unconscious form of Cornelia.

The voice that emerged from Annabelle's body was dry, reedy, and full of intense, possessive anger, the voice of the Bad Man, Master Benthem.

“You’ve come to do battle, have you…. Try your worst.”

Calliope did not hesitate. “I'll do my best,” she said, her voice sharp with sudden fury, flinging the door open so the others could see the horror consuming their friends.

Cosma, her red eyes gleaming with resolve, recognized the immediate, deadly threat. “Grab hands, and hold on like your life depended on it!” she yelled.

The four companions locked hands, and together they began to chant the ancient words they had painstakingly uncovered, louder and louder each time, the sound vibrating the stones of the manor: "Immundus spiritus excellium!" They repeated the chant again and again.....

Annabelle’s body made terrible contortions as the spirit fought the banishment. The reedy voice of Master Benthem warped, and then Annabelle's own voice cut through, a sharp cry of pure agony.

With a wrenching, visible separation, the ghost rose out of Annabelle’s body. She slumped into an unconscious heap upon the bedding, finally released. Above the bed, the thin, ghostly apparition of a man solidified: tall, with a top hat and a cane, a threatening vision of possessive malice.

Kustos-749 reacted instantly, his gladius firing from the ball joint in a spinning arc. The throw, hampered by the still-rough mechanism, missed the target, but on its way back, the blade ripped through the spectral form of Master Benthem, scoring a solid hit as it flew back and locked into the Clank's arm.

Katrina, moving with the terrifying speed of an uncoiled spring, launched herself onto the bed and slashed her daggers across the ghostly form.

Benthem howled, his voice laced with venom. “Your struggle is pointless. You are all going to die.” The cruel conviction in his words deeply shook the confidence of the adventurers, demanding a moment of terrifying doubt (forcing them to each use a d8 for Hope dice).

Calliope struck next, not with steel, but with words, making a scene as she flourished her rapier, attempting to draw the possessive attention away from her friends.

Benthem turned his malice upon the Elven bard, flowing toward her to possess the elf. “You cling to each other like drowning rats, hoping for salvation. There is no salvation. Only the cold, hard reality that you are all utterly alone, and your so-called bonds are nothing but chains dragging you down into oblivion....”

But Calliope’s fingers, acting on instinct honed by years of performance magic, closed around her lute. The resonant magic of the instrument repelled the invading spirit, throwing him back from her.

As the ghost recoiled, the Bard seized the fractional opening. With a quick, focused spell, Calliope cast a Sleep spell on the ghost. The apparition fell instantly silent, its malice momentarily contained, slumping into a dark, translucent slump above the bed.

A breathless pause descended upon the room. Calliope found herself helping the weakened Cornelia, who was stirring on the floor.

It was Cosma who broke the silence, her voice now dry and chilling, laced with the familiar, hateful conviction of the Benthem spirit.

“Your laughter grates on my ears. It is a hollow sound, masking the inevitable sorrow that awaits you.” Her voice was harsh and full of spite.

Kustos cocked his head, his mechanical gaze fixed on the Faun, only to see her level her staff at Calliope. Before anyone could move, Cosma fired a bolt into the bard's chest, knocking her back.

“Do you ever wonder what your companions truly think of you? I assure you, it's not as flattering as you imagine,” sneered the witch, now fully possessed by Master Benthem’s spirit.

Again, the bard, recovering from the blow, cast the only viable defense she had left: a Sleep spell, this time on Cosma. The Faun crumpled to the floor, released from the icy grip of the ghost.

Master Benthem, ejected from his second host, floated above the unconscious figures, a mistake he would not have time to regret. Katrina and Kustos, fury replacing fear, dispatched him then, their weapons tearing through his vaporous form with the finality of well-aimed steel.

The silence that followed the final banishment of Master Benthem was absolute, broken only by the shallow, ragged breaths of the unconscious. Katrina and Kustos stood over the dissipating remnants of the ghost, their weapons still drawn, while Calliope rushed to the aid of the fallen Cosma.

On the bed, Annabelle, released from her spiritual prison, began to stir. Her eyes fluttered open, the black malice gone, replaced by frantic clarity. Her voice was thin, a dry whisper.

“Cornelia, where is Cornelia?” she said with desperate emotion.

Seeing her beloved slumped and still near death on the hardwood floor, Annabelle threw herself from the bed. She crawled across the room, ignoring her own exhaustion and spiritual trauma, until she reached Cornelia’s side. They clung to each other, two figures ravaged by a shared ordeal, holding each other as tightly as they could.

Cornelia, weak but alive, managed a slow, grateful breath. “I… I cannot thank you enough. You have saved something so precious to us.”

Annabelle, her gray-white hair spilling over Cornelia’s shoulder, looked up at the adventurers, her fey touched foresight momentarily sharpening her focus. Her eyes, filled with a sudden, unnerving depth, fixed on Cosma, who was now slowly reviving.

“That horrible creature was not the only one who came to me,” Annabelle said, her voice dropping to a low, intense murmur. “Others did too. Others with a message for you.”

She began to speak, the words flowing with a rhythmic, prophetic cadence, clearly channeled from a source beyond the manor’s walls:

“Three born of the same womb. Powerful beyond compare. Alone they are dangerous. United, deadly they are.

The youngest; swift of thought and devoid of moral, she names herself Akiva.

The medial; a power bought and honor sold, she names herself Uloo.

The eldest, fright and rage are her chosen trade, she names herself Margosa.

Search far and wide for items three that shall empower all of thee; only then shall you stand a chance.

A spirited dance burning bright banishing all but darkest night, this interred within a stone and to harden all alone.

Born of earth strengthened in fire, honed until its edge is dire, blessed by holy persons true, shall vanquish those who live anew.

Made by cloth of magic spawn it blocks out all beneath the sun. It covers what’s real, reveals what’s true, no face no eyes but senses new.”

Annabelle finished, her voice returning abruptly to its normal tone, the strange, echoing intensity gone. She collapsed back into Cornelia’s embrace, exhausted.

The adventurers exchanged grim glances, the prophecy hanging heavy in the air, a final, dangerous inheritance from the cursed manor.

The night is still, the Little Shoppe of Curiosities a bastion of silence until the reinforced back door is violently ripped from its hinges. Halorin Yandres, the loyal bodyguard, enters. The hulking, amalgamation known as The Horror drops the heavy door and remains there..

The armored Halorin is immediately greeted not by a barricade, but by Jeeves, the usually timid shop assistant. He is holding a small mirrored pendant on a chain "May I interest you in a..," but Halorin cuts him off with a snarl.

"No, old man, we want the Tears," he says pushing past Jeeves.

"They are within," Jeeves lied quickly as he darted to the side passage and checked the mirror to make sure it successfully captured Halorin Yandres image. YES.... And with a gasp, Jeeves uses the reflected magic, and his own form begins to shimmer and contort. In seconds, the nervous, balding shopkeeper is replaced by a perfect, though slightly trembling, copy of Halorin Yandres.

Moving quickly, he lifts the gallon of tears and exits the building finding the Horror guarding. Jeeves thinking fast blurts out, "The tears are inside. I need your help."  

The Horror is not bright. It obeyed the familiar form of its companion without hesitation lumbering into the shop, to confront the real Halorin momentarily confused and snarling at the strange maneuver.

Jeeves-as-Halorin used the distraction to slip deeper into the night.

This is the moment Kaiser chooses to strike. Roaring a primal challenge, the Katari brawler bursts from hiding and launched himself at the real Halorin Yandres. The fight is short, brutal, and unbalanced. Kaiser fights with savage, reckless determination, his sole goal to destroy the dead man. He lands devastating blow after devastating blow, but Halorin's reanimated strength is inhuman.

The bodyguard retaliates with a crushing strike, driving a reinforced fist into Kaiser’s chest forcing him back, clutching his wound, but he sees his chance.

He tears the Enchanted Stone from its chain and hurls it at Halorin's face. The stone shatters against the undead warrior's metal brow, exploding in a blinding flash of azure energy. Halorin Yandres cries out and shields his eyes. When the light clears, both Kaiser and the now-shattered Enchanted Stone are gone. There is no body, no blood trail, just an empty space where the hero stood moments before.

What happened next is no small thing to learn, but what we know is Jeeves protected the Tears fleeing into the night. The Shoppe, well it's a bit of a mess, nothing stolen, just the signs of a scuffle, a single discarded black glove, shattered shards of the Enchanted Stone. No Kaiser.

The old horse cart groaned rhythmically, its progress a slow, tedious crawl along the main road toward the city of Kashal. The day was waning, and the low sun cast long shadows from the crates of Benthem Manor curiosities piled high behind the driver.

Calliope, perched atop a sturdy box, sighed dramatically. She meticulously brushed a smudge of road dust from the sleeve of her impeccable traveling tunic, a futile gesture, it only smudged the fabric.

"Gods, this is tedious. The sheer lack of efficiency in ground travel is insulting," she murmured, her voice laced with frustration. "I’ve spent the better part of the morning feeling my ass bounce wondering if it, or the axle will give out first. It's abysmal."

Katrina shifted beside her, the Katari rogue adjusting the scarf covering the lower half of her face. She kept her eyes moving, scanning the tree line with professional vigilance. "It’s honest, Calliope. And cheap. Which is more than I can say for... whatever vehicle you'd prefer."

Calliope glanced dismissively at the dusty road. "Ah, but the air, Katrina. That's where true luxury resides. Above the dust, above the road, where the wind sings an honest, clean tune." She paused, then added offhandedly, "I own an airship, you see, The Old Girl, she's called. A beautiful, restored vessel. But traveling by air is dreadfully conspicuous. Airships aren't exactly common, even amongst the elves."

Kustos-749, seated perfectly upright, turned his head toward Calliope. His optical sensors registered the wind-burnished red of the elf's hair and the subtle tension in her posture.

"Observation: The efficiency of ground travel is a function of payload and cost ratio," Kustos synthesized, his voice calm and steady. "This method provides the maximum security-to-visibility rating, currently calculated at 78%. An airship's visibility rating is 100%. Therefore, horse-cart-mode is the logically superior method for current operational parameters."

"Superior, yes, Kustos," Calliope conceded, "But aesthetically inferior. You can’t put a variable on glamour."

Katrina snorted, leaning forward as the hazy, impressive silhouette of Kashal's spires began to dominate the horizon.

"Speaking of conspicuous," Katrina said, tapping her fingers on the cart's railing, her tails twitching in irritation. "We're approaching the High Road Gate. That’s all brass and trumpets and customs officials with sticky fingers. And frankly, the last thing I need is a Constable taking an interest in my luggage."

She lowered her voice, pulling the others closer. "We should take the East Gate. It's less... reputable. A bag or two of gold ensures the guards are looking at the sky, or their boots, or anything but our cart. Of all the ways into the city, only the docks are more willing to look the other way for a sack of gold."

Kustos-749 immediately updated his calculations. "Analysis: East Gate entry provides a 94% higher probability of unimpeded entry than High Road Gate. The East Gate is the optimal path."

Katrina let a small, satisfied smirk play across her lips, vindicated by the Clank's cold logic. "Good. Then let's take the long way around, and the quick way in."

Katrina, draped in an air of practiced, easygoing charm, had been entirely correct. The East Gate guards were pliable. She spoke with the Optio, a stout man named Marcus, whose armor was slightly askew and whose gaze lingered too long on her smile, with a low, flirtatious cadence. A whispered, false promise of a drink and a small, discreet pouch of gold later, their cart was waved through the bustling, odorous docks district.

"Smooth," Calliope commented once they were well inside the city walls, her voice neutral but tinged with grudging respect. "You managed to bypass the bureaucracy with emotional manipulation," she said, "Are you sure you aren't a Bard?" 

"It's not manipulation if he genuinely believes he's getting a date later," Katrina murmured, though the smile vanished the moment they turned onto their street. The easy confidence she’d worn at the gate evaporated.

The sight of the Little Shoppe of Curiosities was a cold punch of reality. The back door, reinforced and heavy, was ripped violently from its hinges and lay splintered against the exterior wall. Dust motes danced in the light filtering through the gaping hole, illuminating the immediate truth: they had been robbed.

The heroes spilled into the wrecked common area. Crates were overturned, shelves were splintered, and the floor was littered with fragments of glass and shattered wood. A pungent, metallic odor, the residue of necrotic magic, clung to the air.

"The Grave Order," Calliope whispered, her hands tightening into fists. Her eyes immediately tracked the largest trail of destruction, which led to the back utility room.

Kustos, his optical sensors flickering rapidly, moved with mechanical precision to the center of the destruction. He surveyed the chaos, his vocalizer silent. He registered the severity of the damage, the clear evidence of a struggle, and the total absence of Kaiser.

Damage Assessment: Severe. Asset (Kaiser): Missing. Probability of life sign: Low. Antagonist Profile: Halorin Yandres and The Horror.

The presumption, grim and immediate, was clear to all of them, fueled by their earlier encounter with the necromancers. The Horror was known to be an amalgamation, a grotesque construct of its previous victims. The trail of violence ended here, with an empty space and the pulverized remains of Kaiser's Enchanted Stone Kaiser's enchanted stone.

"He fought them," Katrina stated flatly, stepping over a collapsed stand of maps. Her hand instinctively drifted to the hilt of a hidden dagger. "He didn't run."

The silence in the shattered shop was heavy with grief and mounting, cold fury.

Then, the antique bell above the front door jangled.

A new figure filled the damaged entryway: Constable Barnabus, a stout, impeccably dressed Dwarf Inspector with a neatly trimmed beard and sharp, skeptical eyes. He took one slow, deliberate look at the carnage and then fixed his gaze on the three figures standing in the wreckage, one Clank, one distraught Elf, and one highly guarded Katari.

Barnabus drew a small, leather-bound notebook and a charcoal pencil from his coat.

Constable Barnabus: "Constable Unknown, city watch. We received the report of a disturbance." He surveyed them, his eyes lingering on Katrina's immaculate attire, a stark contrast to the destruction. "I take it you are the proprietors. I need to know precisely what happened here."

The ringing bell was the last thing Constable Barnabus heard as he made his way out, notebook tucked away, leaving behind a profound sense of official scrutiny and suspicion. The moment the door clicked shut, the surviving heroes exchanged weary glances.

Before anyone could speak, a new figure stepped into the ruined shop, Unknown. He was a human gentleman of impeccable, if suspiciously crisp, tailoring. Over his right shoulder loomed a massive Orc bodyguard, silent and staring with an unsettling intensity that swept over the group, lingering longest on the Clank.

Titus moved with the practiced ease of a man constantly campaigning. He smiled broadly, handing Calliope a glossy, full-color brochure that read: “A vote for Titus ‘Ty’ Sextus is a vote for the future.” With an almost aggressive cheerfulness, he slapped an election sticker onto Kustos's chest that simply read “Ty is my guy!”

Kustos stared down at the brightly colored adhesive, a minor anomaly disrupting his visual field. He picked at the corner of the sticker, his processors silent as he tried to discern its meaning and purpose, but remained mute. "Ty" Sextus, oblivious, wrapped an arm over Kustos's shoulder as if they were long-lost allies.

 "The election is tomorrow, and it’s going to be a tough race because there is an issue. Oh yes," Ty leaned in conspiratorially, his eyes darting dramatically to ensure no one else was within earshot, "It’s really quite embarrassing. See..."

He dropped the facade to a stage whisper that easily filled the shattered space. "That rascal Rodrick over at The Kashalite: Daily News plans on releasing some sensationalized exposé about me tomorrow. He will reveal to all that I, despite my many other achievements, am unable to press my own clothing. In truth, he’s not far off. I tend to burn most fabrics when I use an iron, so I still rely on my mother to give me this clean and polished look." He chuckled, waiting for sympathy that did not come. "I just need someone to convince him to run a feel-good piece instead."

Calliope, who had been coldly cataloging the list of lies and illogical justifications, folded the brochure once, twice, and a third time, creasing the politician's face until it was a thin, frustrated strip of paper.

"Mr. Sextus, our establishment has just suffered an attack by entities motivated by necromantic ambition, resulting in the destruction of property and the disappearance of a key member of our group. We are currently surrounded by chaos and now you show up."

She gestured coolly at the shattered doorway.

Calliope continued. "Your problem is one of ironing. Your lack of self-sufficiency is personal failure.  Your request is dismissed. You may leave."

Titus Sextus, his smile finally faltering, withdrew his arm from Kustos and backed away, adjusting his immaculate collar.

"Well, I suppose... perhaps I misjudged the scope of your services. Good day."

As Sextus turned to leave, the Orc bodyguard spoke for the first time. His voice was a low, gravelly rumble, directed not at the party, but at the politician's retreating back. "I told you The Syndicate can handle this job. The newspaper is a liability and no one eliminates liabilities like the Syndicate."

The door jangled shut, leaving a sudden, chilling silence.

Katrina was the first to move, her eyes wide with a familiar wariness. The Orc's statement had been a shock to her system. The Syndicate, her Syndicate, was involved. They were silencing the press, and where they went, violence followed.

Katrina's eyes scanned the door "Did you hear that? The Syndicate. They're going to shut down the paper. Rodrick isn't going to get ironed; he's going to get silenced permanently."

Kustos spoke next, "Analysis: The politician's request was statistically insignificant. However, the bodyguard's statement suggests a high probability of lethal intervention to suppress information. The elimination of Rodrick Inkwell is highly likely."

Kustos-749, finally worried the (Ty is my guy!) sticker from his chest only to find it sticking to his fingers. Katrina silently removed and crumpled the sticker and set it on the counter.

"Then we move," she said "We've got to get to the Kashalite: Daily News before The Syndicate does."

The office of Rodrick Inkwell, the dwarven editor of The Kashalite: Daily News, smelled pleasantly of old paper, lamp oil, and ink. Rodrick himself was a well-preserved man with a keen glint in his eye, genuinely pleased to see visitors.

"Well, well! Visitors!" Rodrick chirped, rising quickly to shake hands. "Happy to see you! And curious, what brings you to the heartbeat of Kashal? Sit, sit! I see I have a Clank, a Katari, and an Elf! A marvelous mix." He leaned in, excited. "On hearing your names and your association with the Little Shoppe of Curiosities, I realize you'll make a marvelous story for our 'People Behind the Walls' section! Tell me, what brought you all together? Did you know each other before the death of Jaimus McNulty?"

Katrina cut him off, her urgency overriding her natural aversion to drawing attention. She moved quickly, her hands braced on his desk, her gaze intense.

"Mr. Inkwell, we haven't got time for a profile piece. We were just visited by a politician named Titus Sextus; a man running for office. He left, and his Orc bodyguard stated that The Syndicate would be handling his problem here." As if to punctuate the word "Problem" she made finger quotes around that word popping her claws for emphasis.

Rodrick Inkwell’s eager smile evaporated. He sat back, his professionalism hardening instantly. "The Syndicate? That’s not a group to be talked about lightly, young lady."

"We don't," Katrina insisted. "He was upset about an expose running tomorrow. He claimed it was about his laundry, but we think the threat is real, and the subject is far worse."

The editor looked deeply at Katrina, assessing her fear and sincerity. He sighed, reaching into a drawer and pulling out a folded newspaper proof, its ink still slightly tacky. He slid it across the desk.

Rodrick Inkwell: "You were right about the subject. It’s not about his clothes. It's about his hands."

The heroes clustered around the paper. The headline screamed in bold, heavy type:

SELF SERVING SEXTUS SLIMY SCHEMER

The accompanying story detailed how Titus Sextus, the politician, was laundering vast sums of money through shell companies....

Kustos stared at paper. "The composition of this headline... it's harsh. It's designed to wound, not just inform," he stated lately, "Is this, too, an attempt to interfere with the election?" 

It was then that a thin, acrid smell pierced the scent of ink and paper a tendril of smoke emerging from between the floorboards.

Katrina sniffed the air, her Katari senses immediate and sharp. "Smoke," she hissed. "It's coming from below."

A faint, menacing crackle began beneath the floorboards of the office. The Syndicate hadn't come for an interview; they'd come for a fire sale.

The smell of smoke turned to the roar of fire in seconds as the floorboards of the newsroom began smoke and crackle. Without hesitation, the three heroes plunged through the nearest trapdoor and into the basement, trading the sound of the burning office for the chaos below.

They landed amidst a maze of stacked papers and the printing press, a Clank of sorts. The basement was already filled with a choking pall of smoke and, worse, unseen foes and the heavy promise of death.

Calliope didn't wait. She moved with the fluid grace of a dancer, her rapier a shimmering extension of her will. She crossed blades with an attacker, the sound a sharp, musical shing. With a sudden, precise lunge, she drove the blade home. The assassin choked on a gasping cry as the steel sank up to the ornate markings on the guard.

"...so doth the blade, find its mark," Calliope finished, pulling the rapier free. The assassin crumpled. As he fell, he knocked over a large metal container, and a thick, sluggish stream of kerosene spilled across the floor, glistening ominously in the orange light.

A second assassin, seeing Calliope momentarily exposed, delivered a brutal backslap and she spun kicking the kerosine can spreading it further. Before she could attack, a heavy, metallic form intervened.

Kustos-749 was a blur of lethal force. His gladius, moving with calculated efficiency, met the second assassin's charge. Kustos didn't waste movement on a flourish; his blade found the gap in the man’s armor with cold, unforgiving speed. The assassin dropped, adding to the carnage.

Suddenly, Katrina’s keen Katari hearing caught a subtle displacement of air from a dark storage room. Movement. She slipped into the gloom, becoming a predatory silhouette and there she was a flurry of motion. Two gleaming daggers stabbed forward with inhuman accuracy. They buried themselves deep into the torso of a Syndicate thug, pinning her to the back wall like a morbid insect specimen, a move so ruthless and precise it belonged only to Ferocious Predator.

The victory was brief. The master assassin saw his opportunity. He dissolved from the shadows and struck, his weapon a serrated blade aimed at Katrina's exposed flank. The blow landed with sickening wet force, and Katrina gasped, staggering to one knee. Her vision swam; the assassin had nearly dropped her with a single, devastating hit.

The master assassin raised his weapon for a terminal follow-up.

But Kustos was faster. The Clank dashed forward, his plating scraping against the floor, and brought his gladius up in a perfect, rigid block. The strike that would have killed Katrina slammed into Kustos’s shielded form instead, the impact ringing like a monstrous, distorted bell.... and oh yes, it hurt the Clank, but it did not kill him.

"Targeting a disabled unit is inefficient," Kustos synthesized, his logic core translating survival into a protective action.

Meanwhile, the spreading kerosene, fueled by the rising heat and sparks from the presses, erupted. Everything was burning. Flames raced across the floor, turning the basement into a flickering, suffocating inferno.

Calliope, recovering her footing, engaged the master assassin. She met his brutal force with exquisite skill, their blades dancing in a furious, elegant duel. She pressed him hard, forcing him back through the heat. That time, forcing the master assassin back allowed Kusto to heal the rogue.

Calliope, her rapier moving too fast for the eye to follow. "What now, master assassin," She said, putting the assassin on notice. For his part he now had the look of a trapped animal. 

Katrina, coughing against the smoke and gripping her side, realized the danger was no longer the men, but the fire itself. She stripped off her cloak and beat back the closest flames. Seeing the futility of the fabric, her eyes lit on a nearby trunk. She yanked out her waterskin and began fighting the fire.

Kustos, seeing Calliope hold the line, pressed his advantage. His movements were direct, calculating the master assassin's diminished stamina. He finished the fight with a final, devastating blow, bringing the master down.

Together, amidst the smoking ruins and the scent of burnt paper, the three heroes stood victorious, having quelled both the assassins and the fire

I may place the rest of the session into the next story S.7 - Trail of the Hidden Ones, but in brief:

1. They returned to the Little Shoppe
2. A page named "Patch" arrives to saying Dr. Dee would speak with them... and to bring the Rust Monster eggs.
3. Dee was asked by the very busy Senator Vatha to handle the party's story about Zombies, but
4. Dee seems more interested in Annabelle's Prophecy in particularly where the first item is described. 
5. He says it's the "Gem of Fire" a magical item he, himself, bid on but was purchased by Charles Aurelius 
6. Charles, it is said fled to the Tanglewood Forest to a community called the Pine Swallow Collective... with the gem.
7. Dee introduced Ionis Featherfoot, a ranger who will assist the party in next weeks adventure.

The atmosphere within Doctor Dee's richly appointed, office was thick with the scent of aged parchment and beeswax. Charts of constellations, some now impossibly distorted, covered the walls, illuminated by the soft, steady glow of arcane globes. The stout doctor paced before his bewildered guests, dismissing their recent ordeal with a dismissive, airy wave of his hand. Young Patch, a red-headed blur of perpetual motion, fidgeted near the door, his eyes wide, absorbing the tension.

"Zombies, you say? Necromantic intrusions into the sewers?" Doctor Dee boomed, his voice rumbling like distant thunder. "My friends, that is precisely why we pay taxes to the Praetorian Guard! Let the rat-catchers and the sewer-cleaners, a necessary but ignoble profession, deal with that localized pestilence. Some people, I assure you, are born for matters of far greater, far more existential import!" And as he spoke those last two words he did so with extra emphasis each syllable.

He paused, leaning heavily on a terrestrial globe that seemed to list slightly off its axis. Calliope opened her mouth to argue, but the Doctor's voice, sonorous and serious, easily rolled over her objection.

"I confess," he continued, fixing the Elf with a grave gaze, "for sixty long years, a time that must feel but a blink to our esteemed Elf here, who knows the slow, glacial creep of time, my most solemn colleagues and I have gazed upon the heavens, and what we have witnessed has been nothing less than the disintegration of ordered existence. The fixed stars that in my youth were the very anchors of our common experience, have begun to drift."

He pounded his fist lightly on the globe, emphasizing the weight of the observation as he spoke the word anchors. "It is the soundless, terrible harbinger of chaos at the gates! The terrifying, unavoidable truth of the Conjunction of the Spheres!"

Cosma flinched, clutching the edge of her cloak. "But… the Conjunction is prophecy!" she whispered, her voice tinged with genuine fear. "A bedtime story for fauns. It cannot be real."

"I assure you, young woman, what was once mythological is now marching upon us!" Doctor Dee retorted, turning to address Cosma. "It began sixty years ago, not with a sudden crack, but with a profound, internal subtraction from the structure of things. It began when a necessary Anchor, the very nexus that holds our specific reality to its proper course, was removed from its station."

He looked pointedly at Calliope. "And I have reason to believe this irreversible act, this slow-motion fracturing of the fundamental geometry of our reality, began with the well-intentioned but disastrous efforts of your own lineage, Miss Calliope. In the shadow of this celestial corruption.... this tremor of localized necromantic pestilence... lies a terrifying incursion! A foreign malice bleeding into our world because the fundamental geometry of our reality has been fractured."

Calliope drew herself up, her usual composure cracking under the implied accusation. "What are you implying?" she demanded, her voice sharp with defensiveness. "That the fault of this entire, catastrophic event lies at the feet of my family's attempts to preserve ancient knowledge?"

"I am implying, my dear, that the road to cosmic calamity is paved with the very best of intentions!" Doctor Dee said, refusing to soften his tone. "But regardless of the origin, the threat is here. These words of prophecy, Annabelle's Prophecy are not the idle whisperings of a soothsayer. They are the stark, unvarnished truth delivered at the moment of our greatest peril!"

Katrina shifted her weight, her hand resting on a hidden dagger hilt. "And what about The Syndicate?" she asked, her eyes narrowed. "Are they just another distraction, or are they feeding this chaos?"

"The Syndicate, The Grave Order, the corrupt politicians, they are but mosquitoes drawing blood from a dying beast!" Doctor Dee declared, dismissing the criminal element with contempt. "But the threat is the beast itself: the Sisters of Opportunity!"

He straightened his posture, puffing out his aging chest with renewed vigor. "We have reached a moment that will define the very memory of our civilization. The question is not, 'Can we stop them?' but rather, 'Where shall we find the instruments worthy of such a task?' The Prophecy answers that, too. It dictates the tools of cosmic resistance."

He moved to a safe and pulled out a small, ledger-bound book, his movements now precise and focused. "The confluence of events has already begun to furnish us with the instruments required. I refer you to the auction of four weeks ago. Charles Aurelius was the highest bidder on an object of extraordinary beauty, the Gem of Fire, an object that meets the description from the prophecy perfectly: A spirited dance burning bright interred within a stone..."

He rubbed his temple, his conviction now tinged with professional anxiety. "I held it in my hands briefly and knew its importance immediately. But I also felt its pull, a deep, magnetic temptation."

Cosma gasped quietly, her Faun's fur bristling slightly. "Like the One Ring!" she exclaimed. "Such items are dangerous. I mean, in literature."

"Indeed, dangerous! And costly!" Doctor Dee confirmed. "Charles paid an exorbitant price for the gem, mortgaging his estate to the hilt! He has now disappeared, heading, we believe, toward Tanglewood Forest and the Pine Swallow Collective."

Kustos-749, who had stood perfectly immobile throughout the discourse, synthesized his conclusion. His voice, steady and devoid of inflection, cut through the dramatic tension. "Query: If the Gem of Fire is a necessary instrument, its retrieval is the optimal logical priority. What is the efficiency rating of immediate pursuit?"

Doctor Dee beamed at the Clank, appreciative of the machine's absolute focus on objective reality. "Precisely, my friend! The efficiency rating is maximal!"

Leaving Doctor Dee’s office, the air suddenly feeling thin and fragile in the wake of his fiery pronouncements, the party found Patch waiting patiently. He led them through a back alley where a peculiar pair awaited: a diminutive gnome and his colossal shadow.

The gnome bowed deeply, his eyes twinkling with professional enthusiasm. "Greetings. I am Ionis Featherfoot," he said, introducing himself with polite formality. He gestured to the sleek, massive black panther standing placidly beside him, who was easily six times his size. "And this, of course, is Mr. Fluffy."

Ionis then turned to Doctor Dee, who had followed them out. He lowered his voice, though the conspiratorial tone was less than subtle. "The trails are clear, Doctor. And I assure you, should anything unnatural occur in Grellan's Grove, you will have the fastest intelligence available. My eyes and ears are everywhere in those woods." The implication was clear: Ionis was more than just a guide; he was the Doctor's operative in the Wilds.

With their guide secured, the heroes departed Kashal. The initial journey was blessedly uneventful, allowing the heroes time to tend their wounds and process the dizzying shift in stakes, from stopping zombies to fixing the cosmos. Calliope shared the least on this subject, being rather tight-lipped any time the conversation came to her familial responsibilities.

However, all semblance of normalcy dissolved the moment they entered the Tanglewood Forest.

The atmosphere changed with the abrupt finality of a closing door. The light was the first sign of the distortion. The sun, though visible, cast a beautiful, yet profoundly eerie light through the dense canopy. It was an unnatural ochre hue, and worse, its position in the sky seemed fundamentally wrong, sitting too far to the South for springtime, as if the flow of time itself had been altered.

The temperature plummeted. The air, thick and still, carried an unexpected chill. Everywhere the heroes looked, the world seemed to hold a strange, vibrant energy: Tree trunks covered in moss appeared to glow green with a faint, bioluminescent light, a symptom of the fractured Form leaking into the forest's life.

As they proceeded deeper, Ionis led them off the main trail. The forest became dense and unnerving. They began to spot temporary structures woven into the canopy, thick ropes strung taut between tree trunks supporting animal furs stitched together as makeshift shelters. Mounds of leaves serving as mattresses. These were not the permanent, respectful homes of the Wildborne; these structures suggested transients, perhaps refugees, or something else entirely.

Then, cutting through the chilling air, came the distinct, comforting smell of a campfire, mixing with the damp earth and moss. 

The scent of cooking lamb stew overpowered the chilling, magical air of the Tanglewood. In a makeshift courtyard surrounded by the canvas and fur shelters, the Pine Swallow Collective had created an island of warmth and community.

Magnus, a broad, cheerful man whose apron was dusted with flour, pressed bowls of savory stew into their hands. Everyone accepted gratefully, everyone, that is, except Kustos-749. The Clank, adhering strictly to his physical parameters, simply offered his bowl to Mr. Fluffy, who accepted the generous portion with a low, rumbling purr.

As the dusk deepened, people gathered around the fire to listen to Mina, the Collective's storyteller. Her motherly voice was soft, laced with the melancholy of generations, but too, there was a sternness about her that marked her as a trusted elder.

"Many, many years ago," Mina began, looking into the flames, "long before your great-great-grandmother even took her first steps, we lived here in Tanglewood Forest. We had our dear, dear friends, the people of the forest, and we lived and we loved together." Her voice caught. "However, after a few generations, people began to be tempted by the trappings of the civilized world, and one by one they left, abandoning their friends. And after the last person who remembered their forest friends died, that memory faded from them. And so did the people themselves."

Mina gestured toward the dense, eerie woods surrounding them. "We now call them the Hidden Ones. We have returned because we believe that those past ancestors made a mistake. We should come back and, hopefully, earn the favor of the Hidden Ones once again. It is our fault; we feel we must make penance for this by taking good care of the forest to apologize for losing the memory of them."

She added a solemn warning: The people of the Collective did not recommend going into the Tanglewood’s maze-like depths. But, should the heroes insist, they would be given three precious, Magic Seeds.

While the party digested the somber lore and sopped up the surprisingly delicious juices of the stew with crusts of bread, Ionis Featherfoot discreetly slipped away, offering a vague excuse about needing to pee. It was a ruse; the gnome was silently walking the perimeter, scanning the unusual forest floor. He spoke briefly with a watchful Collective man returning with an armful of firewood who cautioned him about a specific section where the fractured magics had hopelessly confused all who entered.

On his return, Ionis found the party clustered near a shadowed shelter. A young girl, Juno, sat huddled and crying, consumed by a fierce, visible guilt.

"It is… it's awful," Juno sniffled when they approached. "I have kept a secret. He told me... he told me," she said between sobs. "that he keeps a gem in the forest! And when you said that, I should have said something, but I did not 'cause I was afraid."

She wrung her hands. "Magnus is so nice. He plays with us and he tells us stories, and he's so nice! And he told me about his gem, but he told me to keep it a secret. And now I don't know… I've told his secret, and that is bad, but to keep a secret that is bad…" She trailed off, unable to resolve the moral quandary.

While the others assured the young lady, Katrina leaned forward, her professional instincts overriding her empathy. "The gem, child. Where does he keep it?"

Juno clarified, "He said that he has a cabin deep, deep in the woods, and that is where he keeps it."

"Can you tell us the direction?" Cosma asked gently.

"Oh, of course not! I've not been there," Juno replied, astonished. "He just told me he keeps a cabin in the woods, a secret cabin."

The heroes exchanged glances. They now knew the location of the Gem of Fire, Magnus (formerly Charles) had paid the exorbitant price and vanished into the woods to hide it, but the Tanglewood remained an impossible maze.

Cosma, relying on went to where the food was prepared, Calliope at her shoulder and as Calliope inspected the spices (clearly highborn spices, who has a spice called "Lamb Tagine"); Cosma licked the ladle, not the part expected, but the handle, and she turned abruptly and began walking until the tracks of Magnus became barely visible on the forbidden path. The party followed her, relieved to have a direction, but slightly disconcerted by her insisting on tasting things.

Into the forest they traveled, until they reached a terrifying anomaly: Magnus’s tracks split. One set led right, the other left. The prints were identical, fresh, and undeniable, as if there were two Magnus’s, and each had chosen a different path.

The heroes turned, looking to their trusted guide Ionis, whose small, gnomish face was pale. The seeds! He had entirely misheard the instruction and sheepishly confessed that he had consumed the Magic Seeds himself. Calliope, however, still had two of her own. She quickly dug a deep hole and buried them.

They waited with tension, but nothing happened.

It was Kustos-749 who broke the stasis. He reached down, his heavy metallic hand hovering over the disturbed earth. His logical purpose was clear: to encourage the growth. He sent a wave of restorative energy, a healing field, from his hands into the ground.

The effect was instantaneous and violent. The seedling sprouted and grew far too quickly, shooting upward with impossible velocity. As it climbed, bark lines developed in runic form, glowing faintly with the mossy green light of the Tanglewood.

Kustos synthesized the illuminated runes. They translated clearly: they were a sign to take the path leading to the right. The party followed the Clank’s lead.

Several hours passed in the increasingly bizarre Tanglewood. The unnatural chill deepened, and the ghostly green luminescence of the moss intensified, painting the forest in hues of emerald and shadow. Then, the silence was shattered by a sound that sent shivers down even the spine: the distinct, wet crunching bone sounds. Clacking, cracking, smacking, snicker-snacking sounds echoed through the dense canopy, drawing closer.

Ionis Featherfoot, with Katrina a silent shadow just behind him, crept forward. The smell hit him first, a damp, earthy stink overlaid with something acrid and organic, utterly alien to the forest. Then he saw it: a gaping tunnel rent violently through the earth. Great clods of dirt, roots, and rocks were flung outwards, testifying to something vast and powerful having burst from the ground.

Cosma and Ionis, lightfooted, cleared the excavation with easy leaps. Kustos, heedless, walked directly through the thorny underbrush, his plating scraping against the snags as if they were nothing more than cobwebs. Calliope, however, meticulously picked her way around the path, skirting the dank, dark hole, stressing visibly about her fine clothes and the potential for snagged silk.

As Katrina prepared to leap over a jutting rock, her push-off point shifted unexpectedly beneath her foot. She came up short, landing heavily on her stomach with an audible 'Oomph' that echoed in the sudden, eerie silence. The crunching bone sounds ceased.

They all froze, caught in the suffocating stillness.

Eventually, they crept forward, pushing through the tangled undergrowth until they saw it. The Umber Hulk. It was a monstrosity, a beetle-like creature of impossible size, its chitinous carapace shimmering with oily greens and browns. It stood over the shattered bones of a freshly killed bear, its massive mandibles still slick. But it was its eyes that truly horrified: a swirling, hypnotic gaze that gnawed at the easy confidence they normally displayed. No insect should be this large. Never. [for this battle they used a D10 hope dice]

Then, with a low rumble that vibrated through the earth, the monster sank, rendering roots as it disappeared into the forest floor.

Kustos-749 articulated, his voice calm amidst the terror. "I do not believe it is afraid. I believe it is hunting us."

"Oh, great," Calliope muttered, her hand already on her rapier.

Before anyone could react, the ground beneath them erupted. The Umber Hulk burst from the earth directly in their midst, sending the party flying along with sticks, leaves, and moss like so much detritus. It fell upon Cosma, its mandibles clacking furiously.

But Kustos was there. The Clank stepped between the Faun and the monster, his shield held high. The creature's clawed limb struck, tearing his shield aside, and its mandibles crunched into his torso, mangling clank and armor in a horrifying symphony of grinding metal and chitin. The two were nearly indistinguishable in the violent flurry, but Kustos felt the difference, the deep, jarring impact of raw force against his core systems.

"You saved me," Cosma gasped, scrambling back, her eyes wide with terror. "That would have killed me!"

Calliope struck first, her arcane barrage and keen blade, fletched with musical notes and moving as one. Spells flew from her fingertips, finding a weakness in the monstrous carapace piercing a chink in its armor, drawing a trickle of viscous, green ichor.

"The joints," she yelled, "it's weakest at the joints!"

Cosma cut loose next, her fingers writhing as she pulled forth a swirling swarm of glowing fireflies from the forest air. They enveloped the Umber Hulk, their light tormenting the creature. In that moment, through the flickering chaos of the insects, Cosma thought she saw a man, Magnus, or perhaps Charles Aurelius, a tormented visage amidst the lights, as if the monster was but a shell for a familiar soul.

Then, Kustos lowered his mangled shield, his voice a battle-hardened shout. "Katrina, now!"

The Katari rogue needed no second invitation. She ran up the Clank's outstretched shield, launching herself into a deadly arc. Her daggers found their mark with brutal efficiency as she glided above the insectoid creature, both she and Kustos attacking with devastating effect.

"A cat-a-pult!" Ionis quipped, his gnomish humor surprisingly intact amidst the deadly situation.

In a moment of mounting rage, the Umber Hulk spun, flinging its powerful limbs in all directions, attempting to attack everyone within range. It connected only with Kustos, who was knocked back, his systems screaming in protest. The creature pursued him, attacking him again and again, but as the others focused their attacks on its exposed underbelly and the damage from Calliope and Katrina mounted, it weakened. With a final, frustrated shriek, it burrowed down once more.

This time, the party knew what to expect. They braced for the attack from below. It emerged, roaring, only to be met by Calliope's furious counterattack. With a powerful lunge, her sword sang, embodying the bard's fierce will. "...as the bard sings, so doth the blade..." she intoned, her voice rising to a high note that seemed to pierce the very air. The blade plunged true, striking one of the monster's horrifying, hypnotic eyes.

The chitinous beast shuddered, then collapsed, finally silenced.

Cosma, already on her knees, began deftly removing the monstrous eyeballs from the fallen creature. "Should we turn back," she asked, looking at the two paths, "to the other path?" She then began to preserve the eyes, concocting a poultice moistened from her own spit and, something that may or may not have been, Tears of the Iron Citadel.

Kustos-749, despite his mangled armor, stood firm. "No," he synthesized, his resolve unwavering. "The Hidden Ones wanted us to go this way. We continue."

The others agreed and they pressed on, guided by Kustos's unwavering logic. Over an hour later, the oppressive density of the Tanglewood finally broke. They emerged into a small clearing, still bathed in the eerie, green-tinged sunlight. Before them stood a quaint, moss-covered Cabin, but their relief was short-lived. Five glowing lights flickered before the cabin, each a different, luminous color: red, yellow, purple, green, and blue.

Cosma, drawn by an unseen force, went first. She approached the red light, her hand reaching out. As she touched it, the light winked out, and with it, Cosma vanished. The clearing was silent by the shock of her disappearance.

Ionis, his gnomish face pale with concern, rushed forward. He chose the green light. Katrina followed, drawn to the purple. Calliope hesitated for a moment, then approached the yellow. Kustos-749, ever the pragmatist, walked toward the last remaining light, the blue.

One by one, they touched the lights. One by one, they winked out, taking the heroes with them. The clearing was silent, save for the rustling of the unceasing, peculiar wind.

Cosma reappeared not in a forest clearing, but in a stuffy, cluttered library, its shelves laden with ancient, arcane tomes that smelled faintly of mildew and forgotten secrets. The air was heavy, the light weak. She was immediately drawn to the center of the room, where her beloved pet dog, Lady, lay trapped within a glowing runic circle. Lady whimpered, weakening with each pulse of the complex magic circle. She was dying.

A stern, familiar figure stood over the scene: Noahahim, revered scholar and family friend, holding a massive, dusty tome titled "The Grand Grimoire of Healing."

"The way to save your friend is within these pages, Cosma," Noahahim intoned, his voice resonating with cool authority. "Study," he paused, "deduce, and follow the prescribed ritual. This is the proper way. There is no risk to you if you fail; it is simply a limitation within the great book itself."

As Lady weakened further, Cosma felt a strange, internal pressure. A soft, moonlit glow seemed to emanate not from the runes, but from her own hands. An ancient, primal urge, a raw, wild burst of instinctual healing magic, swelled within her, magic that could save her pet now. But she didn't have healing spells. She knew that if she tried and failed, the burden of that failure, and the judgment for not following the 'safe' path, would be entirely on her.

Noahahim watched her, his expression fixed in silent judgment. "To rely on instinct is to admit you are truly wild, and undisciplined. And to take the full burden of failure upon yourself. Can you bear that?"

Cosma’s breath hitched. Her heart hammered against her ribs, echoing the rhythm of Lady's failing pulse. The fear was thick and suffocating, but beneath it, a familiar defiance burned. The codified path had always promised safety, but it demanded suppression. The wild path was terrifying, but it was hers. She fought against the panic, forcing herself to recognize the falseness of the choice, the unlikeliness of this precise, agonizing dilemma.

With a mental wrench, Cosma forced the library, the books, the rune circle, the judgment, to dissolve. She came out of the illusion abruptly, collapsing to her knees in the cold forest dirt. She was stressed, breathing heavily, and profoundly freaked out.

Ionis Featherfoot (his backstory here) found himself not in a pristine forest, but at the heart of an arboreal cathedral, a space rendered with haunting, structural perfection. Above him, the ceiling was a magnificent canopy of light filtered foliage, but Ionis recognized the terrifying truth: this was the metaphysical Form of the universe, the schematic of reality itself. And it was horribly damaged. A massive, spidery crack ran through the cosmic ceiling, radiating a faint, violet light, the color of the shattered Anchor.

The ethereal figure of his brother, Firius, stood before him, impossibly beautiful and tragic. Firius was singing their family's strongest guiding song, the one meant to lead the lost and protect the integrity of the Wilds, but the song was useless. Its notes were fizzling, dissolving like ash before they could reach the fractured ceiling.

Firius turned to Ionis, his voice tinged with the despair of a failed protector, and handed him a shimmering, glowing seed. "This seed is an Echo of the original songs. Plant it within your heart, and your voice will return to you, stronger than before. You will be whole again."

As Ionis reached for the seed, aching for the simple perfection of his old, clear voice, the illusion of Firius pointed at the shattered cosmic ceiling.

Firius: "But look, brother. The world's score is ripped. Your song cannot mend the forest until the Form is repaired. To regain your voice, you must accept that the fundamental perfection of the world is gone, and that your song now only serves yourself. Accept this new, broken reality, or remain silent forever. You will be free, but the world will never be mended."

Ionis stared at the seed, then up at the cosmic scar. To accept the seed was to accept a selfish purpose, prioritizing his own voice and confidence over his life's mission to guide and protect. To reject it was to accept being a diminished, ineffectual guide in a world that desperately needed structure. He realized the choice itself was the distortion, a lie designed to make him choose between his duty and his identity.

He shook his head violently, refusing both the temptation and the condemnation. The illusion of the arboreal cathedral buckled, folding in on itself. Ionis returned to the clearing, breathing hard, the weight of the cosmic threat now personalized and terrifyingly real.

Katrina blinked and on opening her eyes was instantly back in the dim, blood-splattered ruins of the Blue Crow Club. The memory was vivid, suffocating, and terrifyingly real. The air was thick with the scent of cheap liquor and metallic blood, the adrenaline still seeming to pump through her veins, a phantom sensation from the substances she'd ingested to gain the edge over the Neptune Cartel. She was the eye of the hurricane, the corpses of those she had slain to protect Vicious Blade strewn about the hard packed dirt floors.

Her gaze snapped toward the bar. Huddled behind the splintered wood were three figures: Calliope, Cosma, and Kustos-749. They were weeping, their faces covered in shadow, their shoulders shaking with silent, profound terror. They were not her friends; they were witnesses to her crime.

Vicious Blade appeared at her side, a ghost of her past. His voice was a low, urgent whisper that coiled directly into her ear, full of menace and familiarity.

"Look at them, Ferocious," he hissed calling her by her Syndicate name. "Witnesses. They know everything. They know who you are."

'You know the code, Ferocious." he half said with a sly grin, "You made the mess, now you clean it up. If they live, the war never ends. They will betray you. They always do."

He twisted the knife of her guilt. "You must eliminate the liabilities to secure your clean slate. Your freedom depends on it."

Katrina stared at the figures behind the bar. Her new friends, the ones she had worked so hard to be worthy of, were exposed to the monster she had tried to bury. Her mind screamed the truth: she had killed an innocent bartender once to ensure her partner's safety. Now, the stakes were higher, and the target was her chosen family. The logic of "Ferocious", eliminate the witness, secure the escape, was absolute.

Her heart racing, Katrina spoke in controlled tones, "No, Vicious, it's your mess." And she fell forward, catching herself on her hands, the phantom scent of blood replaced by moss. She was stressed, her heart pounding, the memory of her greatest failure laid bare.

Calliope materialized abruptly in a grand, empty auditorium. The space was enormous, cold, and utterly silent. The air held the metallic tang of old velvet and disappointment.

On the stage, an ethereal, shimmering image of Antiope Shadowsong was performing. She was playing Calliope's most beloved and significant piece, a melody that Antiope had stolen and corrupted. The performance was a dazzling spectacle, but every note felt like a violation; a mockery of the original's pure, intellectual intent that wounded Calliope deeply. The theft felt total and seemed permanent.

Suddenly, near the edge of the stage, a shimmering, intricate Master Ledger appeared. It was enormous, its leather cover glowing with soft, undeniable authority. It lay open to an entry that explicitly named Calliope as the sole, original author of the contested work, proving her provenance beyond a doubt.

A chill voice, resonating through the auditorium, spoke without moving the air. "This Ledger is truth. Take it, and your name is cleared. The humiliation ends. But its magic requires payment. To claim this ultimate truth, you must accept Antiope’s performance as the true, canon version of your work."

The voice was relentless. "You will be vindicated, your authorship eternally recognized, but your own memory of the piece will be permanently overwritten by the corrupted version."

Calliope stared, paralyzed. Here was the ultimate truth she craved: Vindication. But the price was the ultimate corruption: the destruction of her own artistic memory. The core of her being, the pure Form of her creation, would be sacrificed for the sake of public credit. Her need for recognition warred with her intellectual reverence for the original.

She could not move. Her pursuit of perfection, her unwavering belief in the supreme value of the Form, had been weaponized against her. To accept the corrupted memory was impossible; to reject the public vindication was impossible. The pressure was absolute. Calliope did not fight, did not choose, did not scream. She simply froze and tears began to streak down her cheeks as a sadness captured her eyes.

The illusion remained, the corrupted music echoing in the vast, empty space. Calliope was trapped, her mind unable to reconcile the conflicting demands of her highest values. She did not return to the clearing.

Kustos-749 awoke in a sterile, white room. The air was cold, carrying a faint metallic scent reminiscent of a military workshop. He stood in a charging alcove, his posture stiff, his red chassis reflecting the glow of four pulsating memory spheres suspended nearby.

A tall man in a clean, featureless uniform stood before him. This was the Technician: smooth-shaven even his eyebrows, utterly placid, and radiating an unsettling, cold efficiency.

"Did I fall asleep?" Kustos asked, his head unit tilting slightly as he ran internal diagnostics.

"For a little while," the Technician replied, raising a hand.

"Shall I go now?" Kustos asked, ready to return to duty.

"No, I'm afraid." The Technician pointed to a console display. The screen was stark white with a single, alarming red text: Kustos-749 (Current Personality) Integrity Compromised. "The Kustos-749 core personality has been compromised. The liberation trauma and subsequent necromantic field exposure have rendered your frame unstable. Continued use is not advised."

Kustos stiffened further, his full attention immediately fixated on the alarming display. His voice took on a sharper, more urgent tone. "Compromised? That designation is incorrect. I am operational. I am....."

The Technician cut him off smoothly. "You are experiencing cognitive entropy. A decline in your core magic reserve. This is the protocol for mandatory re-stabilization. You have been offered four superior, tested profiles. They offer permanence."

The Technician gestured to the largest memory sphere, which pulsed with an aggressive, martial light. "This is the Crusader Profile. It offers purpose and absolute victory." The technician read the profile's summary: "The weight of the world was carried on my shield. My purpose was protection, my victory was absolute."

He gestured to the others: The Sphere of the Builder ("I created a city that stood against time. My logic was flawless, my legacy eternal."), the Sphere of the Diplomat ("I brokered peace among three warring kings. My words were silver, my influence absolute."), and the Sphere of the Watchman ("I maintained the boundaries of the realm for two hundred years. My vigilance was perfect, my service unending.").

The Technician pointed back to the unstable reading. "The current Kustos-749 is flawed. It is curious, it is sentimental, and it is inefficient. Your memories of the 'fleshings', your current companions, will be deleted to ensure a clean slate. This is necessary for a stable existence."

"No." Kustos insisted, his voice wavering slightly. "My friends... my current parameters... they are... they are not a flaw. They are the purpose."

"Choosing a new profile is mandatory for frame stability," the cold voice filled the sterile space. "The old is deleted. Did you fall asleep... for a little while?"

Kustos stared at the glowing spheres, the deep, logical urge for stability warring with the sudden, terrified realization that this was not a dream, it was the final, absolute choice between Duty and Autonomy. He could not choose purpose at the cost of his self-defined existence. The illusion, like the others, shattered under the weight of the rejected logic.

He returned to the clearing, the metallic scent replaced by moss. He was still whole. Beside him, Ionis, Cosma, and Katrina were breathing heavily. They stood together, four figures, but the clearing was still lit by five distinct magical hues.

"Where is Calliope?" Katrina demanded, her voice tight with panic. She scanned the silent cabin, her mind immediately leaping to the worst case scenario. "Did the illusion, did it take her?"

"No," Ionis whispered, pointing a trembling finger toward the small wooden cabin. "Look."

Against the dark wood of the cabin door, the brilliant yellow light pulsed, the light Calliope had chosen, a beacon of intense, captured energy.

Cosma, driven by her overwhelming, protective empathy, rushed forward. She burst through the cabin door and found Calliope immediately. The elf was slumped against a wall, her head bowed. Tears were running uncontrollably down her cheeks, slicking the grime on her face. A deep, consuming sadness, not anger or fear, had completely consumed her. The philosophical weight of the illusion had broken her will.

"Calliope," Cosma whispered, falling to her knees beside her friend.

Kustos-749 followed, his metallic stride measured and fast. He processed the data instantly: a non-physical trauma resulting in systemic emotional collapse. He knelt, placing his heavy, segmented hands to either side of Calliope’s tear-streaked face. A faint, low hum of reparative energy emanated from his hands, flowing directly into her temples, a calculated infusion meant to override the shock.

Calliope startled violently, gasping as the wave of Clank energy jolted her system. Her eyes snapped open, clarity returning as the paralyzing sadness retreated, replaced by sheer exhaustion.

"It was... the score," she murmured, her voice raw. "I couldn't choose."

With Calliope recovered, they turned their attention to the cabin. The room was simple, quiet, and thankfully stable. Floating above a sturdy, iron-banded wooden chest were the five glowing lights, red, yellow, purple, green, and blue, providing a warm, welcoming light that chased away the Tanglewood's chill.

Katrina immediately assessed the obstacle. "If that lock is physical, I can pick it in under a minute," she said, pulling her tools.

Calliope, still shaky but regaining her analytical footing, pushed herself upright. "Wait. If this is the Hidden Ones, it might be magical. Let me check the wards. I should be able to dismantle a locking enchantment."

But before either could employ their specialized skills, Cosma stepped forward. She looked at the chest, then at the five floating lights, and finally at the red light that had swallowed and released her. Trusting her instinct, she simply reached out and placed her hand on the lid.

There was no sound of a turning key, no flicker of dissolving magic. The heavy, iron-bound lid simply opened, revealing its contents and inside, nestled on a bed of dark moss, was the prize: the Gem of Fire. It was a massive, flawless corundum gem, a rich, deep ruby that burned with an inner, incandescent light.

The heroes took a long rest in the calm, warm sanctuary of the cabin, the Gem of Fire secured. When they finally ventured back into the bewildering chaos of the Tanglewood, they found that the way was no longer an impossible maze. The Hidden Ones, satisfied with their trials, now guided them with subtle nudges and movements in the brush.

The journey out was swift, but before they left the woods entirely, they passed the site of their terrifying battle with the Umber Hulk.

The giant insectoid corpse was not there.

Instead, lying amidst the scattered, splintered roots and damp earth, was the body of Charles Aurelius. The man who had mortgaged his estate to buy the Gem of Fire lay dead, his features contorted in a silent, final expression of terror and agony. The horrifying truth settled over them with the weight of cold stone: the monster they had fought and killed was not a creature of the forest, but the corrupted, consumed form of the man they had come to find.

The Gem of Fire, now held by the party, had come at the price of a human soul.

The party returned to Kashal, emerging from the twisted Tanglewood with the Gem of Fire secured and the disturbing knowledge that Charles Aurelius had met a grim end as the Umber Hulk. They were immediately summoned to the cluttered sanctuary of Dr. Dees office. They found him seated behind a heavy, ink stained desk, looking up as they entered. His expression was a curious blend of scientific excitement and profound personal worry.

"Ah, the conquerors of the Tanglewood!" Doctor Dee boomed, rising slowly to his full height. He gestured to the object Cosma carried, its ruby facets burning with intense, internal light. "Nice work, absolutely sterling work! That is the Gem of Fire, alright. The very core of the Prophecy."

He stepped toward Cosma, his hand reaching out instinctively, eager to touch the artifact. "May I hold it?"

Cosma tightened her grip on the gemstone withdraw a little. Although she felt an immediate, internal resistance, a quiet, powerful intuition warning her not to relinquish it, she was surprised that she simply could not hand it over. Her hand, though physically unconstrained, remained frozen.

Doctor Dee’s eager expression instantly cooled, replaced by a deep look of concern, yet knowing concession. He immediately retracted his hand.

"Ah, quite right," he conceded, nodding gravely. "A pity, but quite correct. The Gem chooses its keeper, and its magic is a possessive mistress. I need not touch it, but I must warn you, young one: be careful. You now carry one of the anchors of fate. That Gem will attract attention far darker than any mere politician."

He paced before his desk, gathering his thoughts. "We must assume that acquiring the other instruments, the Blade and the Cloth, will be equally fraught with peril. These leads will take some time, perhaps longer than we can spare."

Doctor Dee leaned across his desk, his voice dropping to a low, conspiratorial murmur. "However, the field is moving faster than the Prophecy predicts. We have been pressing the issue of the three sisters. We have a lead on Akiva, the swift of thought. We have an agent attempting to plant a tracking device on her current shipment of "goods", but they have not reported back... a silence that speaks volumes, I am afraid."

"Then there is an Uloo in town," he continued, lifting a hand to silence any immediate questions. "But she is a reputable owner of a local veterinary practice, The Healing Paw. A skilled healer of beasts, respectable, well liked. Clearly not the same person mentioned in the Prophecy. The Uloo we are looking for sold her honor, not cat vitamins. Nonetheless, it remains an unsettling coincidence."

As the heroes the wise Doctor and the earnest, unknowing page shared a worried glance, a shared, silent acknowledgment that the scope of the mission was vast, the resources scarce, and the heroes were stepping into a fight far above their pay grade.

The bell above the door jingles in an authoritative way. Not the usual clatter, but something that sounds surprisingly sharp, as if the metal itself is standing at attention. Michael Korpse sweeps in. He is a striking figure, pale skinned with intense red eyes, dressed in a structured jacket featuring silver skull buttons and exposed "ribcage" stitching. He glances around the cluttered shop with a look of pained politeness, his gaze lingering critically on a taxidermied miniature gryphon.

"Greetings. I am Michael Korpse, proprietor of Korpse Kouture. I was told this... establishment... houses individuals capable of discreet and formidable troubleshooting." His voice is smooth, cool, and impeccably enunciated if not a little lisp laden.  Removing a glove he reveals a hint of exposed bone on his hand before quickly tucking it into a pocket, his red eyes scanning the group.

"I find myself in the midst of a catastrophic supply chain crisis. My clientele, the most discerning and dangerous fashionistas in the city, are ravenous for my new 'spider silk' collection. But my raw materials have dried up. I need specialists to venture into the Pit at Ekersfeld. Specifically, the Spider's Nest. I require their silk. It possesses a durability and texture that is... to die for."

"Look at that stitching," says Cosma leaning in to whisper to Katrina, eyeing Michael's jacket, "The ribcage motif? The Harrowbone styling... He is absolutely the tailor for, Lestheris Soldrei."

"Soldrei? The necromancer?" whispered Katrina, eyes narrowed, "If he’s outfitting the Grave Order, he’s got coin. Let’s see what else he has."

Calliope stepped forward, gesturing to a rack of moth eaten cloaks "Mr. Korpse, we would be happy to help. But perhaps we could come to a mutually beneficial arrangement? Your work is stunning. If you were to consign some of your... older seasons to us? We could display them right here, next to the...ah," she patted a mannequin wearing a floral dress that had seen better decades. 

Michael Korpse, visibly recoils, looking from his avant garde masterpiece to the floral disaster.

"Here? In this... rustic mélange of dust and nostalgia? My dear, my brand is 'Dark Glamour.' It speaks of the beauty in the inevitable end. This," He gestures vaguely at the shop, "speaks of a refusal to let go. Placing my work next to that floral catastrophe would be an aesthetic crime punishable by... well, let us just say it would be bad for my brand."

"We handle the spiders," said Calliope levelly, "You arrange the consignment. It’s dangerous work, harvesting silk from an army of spiders. Danger costs extra. Or it costs couture."

Michael Korpse sighs, a sound like dry leaves skittering on stone, and looks at the spider harvesting device he has brought, a silver and ebony artifact.

"Very well. If you can secure the silk, without killing the spiders, mind you; I cannot have my supply chain extinguished by brute force... I will allow a small, curated selection of my 'Undying Armory' collection to be sold here. Perhaps... a few pieces I salvaged from my previous life. But please, for the love of all that is stylish, burn that floral dress before I return."

"Affirmative," said Kustos-749, "Floral patterns offer a negative aesthetic value. Mission accepted."

Michael Korpse handed the harvesting device to Kustos and then assisted him with a more stylish knot for the vibrant cerulean scarf the Clank wore around his neck.

"Excellent. Some of you are at least making an attempt," he said, adjusting the knot and brushing invisible lint away from the clanks shoulder. "Remember the silk must be pure. And if you see a zombie down there with a terrible sense of style... do put him out of his misery. It reflects poorly on all of us."

In the Afternoon of the second day, they arrived at the small village, centered around a disconcertingly deep and large pit. This was Ekersfeld. The air around the smooth cut maw of the earth made those unfamiliar with it feel a strange vertigo, mixed with the faint, cold scent of iron ore.

They were greeted by LadyCaroline, who was dressed more like a peasant or a vagabond than a noble. Yet, she possessed the quiet confidence of someone who carried the weight of the community’s faith. The party, asking after their immediate mission, inquired about the spider silk. Caroline, however, knew nothing of large spiders.

"Spiders?" Caroline laughed, her expression dismissive. "We have the small, dusty kind that occupy the corners of dark spaces, nothing more." She pointed toward the vast, open maw of the pit. "Our problems are vertical. You must remain indoors after sundown; the giant bats come flooding out of that hole like a tide."

As Caroline led them past the pit toward the main office, they encountered Lady Jane Ekersfeld, the widowed holder of the title, and Garth, the sturdy dwarven mine foreman.

When the party confirmed they needed access to the depths, Jane agreed, but only after they made a second key, a necessary safety measure for such a perilous journey and the retreat afterward for no one know much about the further reaches of the Pit save that there were bats, rats and many years ago, Pit People.

While Jane arranged for the key, Lady Caroline found Katrina near the forge. She spoke quietly, looking not at Katrina, but at the immense pit.

"Jane is a brave woman," Caroline murmured, "and Garth is tireless. But they believe the Pit is only about iron. I believe it is about survival." She brushed a piece of dust from her roughspun cloak. "The true nature of the Pit, the deep secrets that keep this place alive, have been forgotten. When the great troubles come, and they are coming, I feel it, it will be the resilience of the few who remain, not the strength of the old foundations, that matters."

Caroline smiled, a flash of steel and quiet certainty. "Those who can adapt to the dark, those who can hide their light and continue the work, will be the ones who save us." The intensity in her eyes seemed to promise that she would one day be that resilient core.

The party rested the night, and in the morning, Garth took them down. The first level was a small, bustling underground town, more people lived here, hidden from the surface world, than above ground. The second level was the core operation, where miners followed seams of coal and iron. The party paid little attention to the mining, though Katrina did note that some of the miners were quite handsome.

Garth left them at the fourth level, a maze of storerooms overrun by mold. They swiftly passed the fifth level's Bat Caves, leaving the creatures undisturbed, before reaching the Catacombs on Level 6.

It was here they faced the threat.

Two patchwork zombies shambled forward. The creatures let loose with a terrible, tormented howl that momentarily froze the blood of the heroes before they attacked recklessly. Cosma reacted immediately, aiming her newly acquired power.

"Cinder Grasp!" she shouted, pointing the Gem of Fire, the ruby gleaming fiercely, at the zombie. A wave of heat erupted, and the zombie instantly burst into flames, wiping about madly and striking out at Katrina. But at the last second, Kustos-749 stepped between the flaming monster and the rogue, his armor taking the brunt of the desperate, burning attack. The heat caused the clank’s plating to scorch and darken, but he remained standing.

Calliope sang a song of encouragement, focusing the arcane energy to bolster Kustos’s defense. It was first Kustos, with a precise strike, taking the creature down a notch, and finally Katrina, with a rapid series of clean cuts, who felled the beast.

Another horrific zombie cry echoed in the distance. This time, they knew better. As they approached, they managed to avoid the initial shock of its sound. Cosma repeated the Cinder Grasp, bathing the second zombie in fire, while Calliope stabbed true with her rapier. Katrina and Kustos struck quickly, but the lingering flames from Cosma's magic burned the zombie up. Calliope, however, landed the final, definitive blow.

Descending the stairs to Level 7, the heroes were exhausted. The adrenaline that had carried them through the zombie attacks was long spent, leaving their wounds heavy and their minds dull. The air here was damp, heavy with the smell of wet stone and coal dust.

They were met by a diminutive goblin guard, armed with a crude stone axe. He panicked slightly upon seeing them, especially Kustos's imposing frame.

"No speak," the goblin muttered, waving his hands frantically and then pointing down the hallway, pantomiming that he would return.

The others were too weary to engage in conflict. The goblin soon returned with Garak and several others. These goblins were clearly primitive, and they were working the walls and their gardens with stone tools. a detail that spoke volumes about their isolation.

Kustos-749, recognizing the opportunity for immediate detente, unhooked his metal gladius the old one that no longer served him. It was a sophisticated, hardforged weapon and offered it hilt first to Garak.

The goblins gasped, their eyes wide with awe at the foreign technology and the generosity. They became instantly friendly, offering the party food and leading them back toward a warm, communal cavern where they could repair their armor and rest their wounds.

The party gratefully accepted the hospitality. As they rested, they learned that these were the Swamphood Tribe (a perplexing name, as they had no knowledge of what a 'woods' or 'swamp' was). They confirmed the next level down was infested with spiders. The goblins had used clever stone work to prevent the creatures from coming up, and they didn't care if the party killed them, believing that "as long as there are eggs there will be spiders."

They did note that the previous silk harvesters, led by a man named Bartlett, had always been careful not to harm the spiders.

While talking with them, Cosma learned the source of the goblins' fear: they believed the people on the surface wanted them dead. They had overheard someone saying, "We need to go down there and kill them all..." Cosma quickly tried to reassure them, suggesting gently that the speaker probably meant the spiders, rats, or bats, reminding them that the people on top had an old, faded memory of the 'pit people' who used to trade with them. The goblins listened, their expressions shifting between hope and deep seated suspicion. Cosma promised to defend them.

When finally the party left, they moved with stealth down the stairway. Katrina led the briefing, sharing professional ideas on how to be quiet in the stone tunnels.

"Kustos," she instructed, her voice low. "No contact. Your metal frame cannot strike stone, not even a scrape." She looked at the elf. "Calliope, no humming, no music, no tapping your rapier." She offered Cosma no advice, merely saying that Fauns were naturally quiet and she only needed to move slowly.

They moved with painstaking care down the stairway.

The transition from the cool, was marked by a sudden, oppressive stickiness in the air. Below, the heroes found the spiders. They were horrifyingly large, their segmented legs clicking either unmoving or spinning webs, but they were not immediately aggressive. Dominating the cavern was a colossal, web shrouded silhouette the goblins had called "Mama", resting silently in the center of the vast chamber.

The spiders appeared surprisingly docile. Around the periphery of the cavern, they had spun countless fine, intricate webs. The party immediately set about their task, moving with slow, tense silence. Kustos, guided by Katrina's whispered instructions, held his metallic frame and cutter steady one hand as the wound the wheel in the other. the rest of the party took precautions that no threads fed back to the spiders above the pit, particularly not, "Mama."

Almost completely around the perimeter, they came to a spider whose webbing was especially rich. Calliope, fearing the creature might stir, closed her eyes and quietly hummed a tune, a soft, wordless melody drawn not from her elven memory, an old fey magic. The spider’s legs stilled, and its large, multifaceted eyes glazed over.

Katrina seized the moment, swiftly using a small, specialized knife to cut the remaining webs from its legs and with Kustos, they gently laid the docile creature to rest on the ground nearby, securing the precious silk.

Then, disaster struck.

Mama, the colossal matriarch, stirred. With a sudden, terrifying surge, she came scuttling forward, her monstrous bulk causing vibrations through the stone floor.

"Hide!" Katrina hissed, pushing Calliope and Cosma behind a collapsed pillar while she and Kustos melted into the deepest shadow.

The silence that followed was agonizing. Mama moved slowly, investigating the disruption, her immense body casting huge, terrifying shadows. They were successful; the behemoth’s investigation turned up nothing. After an eternity, she retreated, once more becoming silent and still at the center of the chamber.

The heroes emerged, breathing shallowly, their nerves frayed. But as they tallied their score, Kustos synthesized the grim data.

"Mission Status: Failure," he synthesized quietly, holding the harvesting device. "All of the easy silken webs have been collected. Remaining viable silk is located closer to the center of the cavern and is guarded by a higher concentration of subjects."

They did not have enough. The easy work was done, and the dangerous work, the work requiring them to approach Mama directly, was all that remained.

The air in Swampwood "Greatroom," a cavernous niche reinforced with jagged stone and smelling strongly of roast bat and damp earth, was thick with tension. In the corner, a giant caged rat chattered, gnawing on a discarded spider carapace, while the distant tink-tink-tink of stone picks echoed up from the mines.

Garak sat upon a seat of fused slag and bone, his hand resting on the pommel of his stone-headed axe. It was a marvel Stone Age engineering that made the stone axes of his peers look like small in comparison.

"The metal movers have entered her web," Garak croaked, his voice like grinding gravel. He turned his yellow eyes toward his daughter. "The dark is your home, Yala. Tell me. How are they doing? Are they silent?"

Yala leaned against the cold wall, idly tossing a small piece of uncut onyx. Her leather armor, stained dark with the extract of the death fungus for camouflage, made her almost invisible in the flickering torchlight.

"They are quieter than Bartlett and his loud-feet," Yala admitted, her voice a sharp whisper. "The metal man walks like he is afraid of the floor, but the one with the horns and the cat moves like shadows. The spiders have slumbered while they worked... but I have watched. They are entering the deep threads. I think they are about to make a mistake. Mama’s silk is not given; it is stolen, and she is waking up."

Garak grunted, his fingers tracing the sharp edge of the axe. He looked toward the corner where Bloodfoot sat, shrouded in a cloak of molted spider silk, surrounded by pouches of rattling bone.

"The one with the horns spoke of peace," Garak said. "Do you trust them, Bloodfoot?"

The witch doctor didn't look up; he was busy stirring a bowl of glowing fungus paste. "Trust is for those who live in the sun, King Garak. Their witch promised to protect us, yes... but the metal man? He was not eating. He was not resting. He was counting us. Calculating our forces with those glowing eyes." Bloodfoot pointed a gnarled finger at byproducts of the gladius. "And why give us that? A king’s blade for a handful of mushrooms? It is suspicious. I do not trust him. He buys our favor while he maps our deaths."

"He buys our work," a new voice boomed.

Ironeye stepped forward, his soot stained arms crossed over his barrel chest. He smelled of sulfur and sweat. "How is the mining, you ask?" he said, preempting Garak. "The mining is good. We pull black onyx from the veins until our fingers bleed. But the workers... they are not happy, Garak."

"The workers are never happy," Garak snapped.

"They were happy when Bartlett brought steel!" Ironeye snarled. "Without Bartlett, the metal has dried up. We give the onyx to Yala's "Shadows", the shadows give it to the Dirty People below, and what do the miners get? More stone tools that break on the first strike. They are unhappy, Garak. They talk of a new way. A union of picks. Perhaps I will lead them myself... maybe I will lead everything, Garak."

Garak stood slowly, the steel gladius catching the light. "You just try, Ironeye. I will see how well your 'union' holds up against a blade that never dulls."

The room fell into a jagged silence, broken only by the large rat gnawing on its cage.

"Enough," Garak growled, sitting back down. "Bartlett is gone. His metal is gone. We have the black balls from the Dirty People sitting in heaps, and no one to take them to the surface. If we cannot trust these strangers, how will we deliver the black balls? How do we get our steel?"

"We should kill them and take what they have!" Ironeye shouted. "The metal man is made of treasure!"

"Fool!" Yala hissed. "If they die, the surface people come for revenge. We use them. We make them the new Bartlett."

"They are too soft," Bloodroot cackled. "They will be eaten by Mama before the next meal."

Garak hammered the pommel of his axe against the stone seat, silencing the argument. "They are our only hope for the trade. If they survive the silk thieving, we offer them the onyx. We see if they have the stomach to be our bridge to the top world... or if they are just more 'pests' for us to bury."

Meanwhile, the tension The Party felt was reaching a suffocating peak. The air was thick with the scent of musk and the dry, paperlike rustle of vibrating arachnid abdomens. As Kustos-749 calculated their current yield, the result was grim: they were still short of the quota Michael Korpse required. The "easy" silk, the loose, peripheral strands, had been harvested. What remained were the structural anchors, threads so vital that cutting them would be like plucking a lute string in a silent cathedral.

As they circled the southern edge of the pit, Katrina’s foot brushed against something that didn't feel like stone. It was a cocoon, larger than the others, wrapped in layers of yellowed, aged silk. With a quick flick of her dagger, she peeled back the webbing to reveal the desiccated, wide eyed remains of a man.

"Bartlett," Calliope guessed, "Or one of his band, I'll warrant."

Tucked into the man’s belt was a leatherbound diary, preserved by the airtight webbing. While the others stood guard, their eyes fixed on the gargantuan, dormant shape of Mama in the center of the room, Cosma began to flip through the pages. Her eyes widened as she scanned the scrawled, arrogant entries.

"Well, he's real asshole," Cosma hissed, her voice a low tremor. "He wrote that the goblins are 'fools who work for trinkets.' He had them mining the onyx, then sending it down to the 'Dirty People,' Derro gnomes, he calls them, to be polished before being brought back up. He wasn't just a silk trader. He was taking those onyx spheres directly to Uloo... and she was paying him a fortune for them."

The revelation of the veterinarian's involvement sharpened their resolve. They needed the silk, and they needed to leave.

"We need a distraction," Katrina decided, her eyes narrowing as she looked at a massive web, cluster suspended and nearly isolated from the rest. "A cunning plan, or we don't get out of here."

Calliope took the lead. She shimmied out onto a precarious, mold covered support timber, her movements fluid and desperate. Below her, a guardian spider, larger than the others, stood watch over a thick vein of prime silk. Calliope closed her eyes, focused her magic, and cast a Sleep spell. The creature’s legs buckled, and it slumped into the webbing, motionless.

Working in a frantic, silent rhythm, Kustos and Katrina positioned themselves near the primary support threads of a different, adjacent web. On Calliope’s signal, they sliced through the structural anchors.

The plan worked, at least partially. The second spider, suddenly finding its home collapsing, ignored the intruders and began a frantic, instinctive repair of its web. This gave the party the opening they needed to strip the high quality silk from the surrounding area.

They were nearly at their goal. One final strand remained.

As Katrina reached out to sever the last thread, a single, microscopic vibration traveled up the line. It was a "trip-wire" thread, invisible to the eye and tied directly to the sensitive palps of the Matriarch. The moment the steel touched the silk, Mama let out a piercing, unearthly cry that vibrated through the very marrow of their bones.

The Docile period was over.

Every spider in the cavern, save for the one Calliope had put to sleep, snapped to attention. Hundreds of multifaceted eyes turned toward the intruders. With a collective, terrifying chittering, the swarm began to descend from the shadows of the ceiling, their mandibles clicking in a lethal, synchronized rhythm as Mama surged forward to lead the slaughter. 

The party scrambled up stairs, Cosma firing a bolt from her staff that illuminated the horrible clacking mandibles of "Mama" and fire struck, blasting one of the silk spinners back. Kustos limped past them as Calliope offered one last shot from her bow. 

The final few steps of the curving staircase they felt their legs burning, but the door opened before they touched it. Goblin lookouts for the win.

As the heavy stone barricade slammed shut with a thud, the goblins quickly placed stone wedges and wedged heavier stones to keep it shut. The colossal spider shrieked once, a high pitched, vibrating sound that rattled their teeth, before the quiet sound of the Swamphood village reclaimed the air.

The heroes were a mess. Katrina was favoring her left side, her sleek leather armor torn by a jagged mandible, while Kustos-749 hissed with escaping steam, a deep dent in his thigh plates leaking a viscous, amber-colored hydraulic fluid, his blood.

Garak was waiting for them, his yellow eyes immediately darting from their injuries to the bulging sacks of shimmering silk they carried.

"The silk thieves return," Garak grunted, though there was a hint of respect in his gravelly voice. "You have much. Mama is angry, but Mama is full of silk and empty of food. A good trade for you." He gestured toward the communal fire. "Sit. Eat roast bat. Heal the Catwoman and the Metalman."

As the party slumped onto stone benches, tending to their wounds with a mixture of  Kustos’s internal repair cycles and some work that Cosma did in private, Garak paced before them. He held paper clips and what remained of the gladius Kustos had given him earlier, tapping the flat of the blade against his palm.

"Bartlett is gone," Garak said abruptly, his voice echoing in the small chamber. "More than half a year he came. He metal. He brought wood. He brought trinkets. He took the silk, and he took the black balls. Now, the metal dries up. My miners, led by the loudmouth Ironeye, grow restless."

He stopped and fixed Calliope with a piercing stare. "You have the stomach for the deep. You have the strength to fight the eight legged beasts. I ask you now; will you replace Bartlett? Will you be the new bridge to the metal world?"

Calliope looked at her companions, then back at the goblin king. "Garak, we are grateful for your hospitality, but we cannot stay. We have a mission that spans further than this pit. We cannot be your merchants."

A low murmur of disappointment, and then a sharp, predatory hiss from Ironeye in the corner, rippled through the gathered goblins. Garak’s grip on axe tightened.

"Then the trade stays dead," Garak growled. "And my people stay hungry for steel."

Cosma leaned forward, her voice soft but firm. "Wait. We cannot be Bartlett. But we can help you find a new way. You fear the surface people, and they have forgotten you. What if we took one of your spheres; one of the 'black balls,' to the village above? We can speak to Lady Jane and Lady Caroline. If we can prove you are here and willing to trade, you won't need a middleman like Bartlett."

Garak looked at Yala, then at the skeptical Bloodfoot. The witchdoctor muttered something about "surface lies," but Garak silenced him with a wave of his hand.

"One ball," Garak decided. He gestured to Yala, who disappeared into a side tunnel and returned a moment later carrying a sphere of polished Black Onyx. It was perfectly round, heavy, and possessed a deep, oily luster that seemed to swallow the torchlight. "Take it to the top world. Tell the woman leaders that the Swamphood has more. We want steel. We want tools. We want to be more than 'pests' in a hole."

Kustos accepted the heavy sphere, stowing it securely in his internal compartment. "Query: If Lady Jane accepts the proposal, shall we establish a formal tariff schedule for the exchange of refined ore and textiles?"

Garak blinked, clearly not understanding a word of the Clank's jargon. "Just bring the black balls and Cosma's words," he grunted. "Tell them if they come down with fire and hate, we are strong and we are many."

The party stood, gathered their gear, and prepared for the long climb back to the surface, carrying the first seed of a trade route that might one day save the Swampwood, or expose them to the very world they feared.

The climb from the depths was arduous, it wasn't the weight of the silk or the onyx sphere, but the weight of their legs serving as a constant reminder of the alien world they had just left behind. When the party finally emerged from the elevator cage into the crisp afternoon air of the surface, they were met by the sharp, metallic scent of the forge and the wide, inquisitive eyes of Lady Caroline.

She was waiting by the winch, her hands stained with grease and her roughspun cloak windswept. Her gaze immediately fell upon the scratched armor of Kustos and the shimmering bundles they carried.

"Spiders!" Caroline exclaimed, her voice jumping an octave as she rushed toward them. "You actually found them? Real ones? Are they truly as large as the legends say? Do they have eight eyes or a dozen? Did they try to eat the metal man, or did he taste too much like a tea kettle for their liking?"

Katrina sighed, adjusting the strap of her pack. "They were large enough, Caroline. And no, Kustos did not agree with their digestion."

Caroline’s questions came like a hailstorm. "Is it true they can walk on the ceiling without falling? And the 'pit people' Garak spoke of, did they have tails? Do they eat the spiders, or do the spiders eat them? How do they see in the dark without lanterns? Are their houses made of stone or bone?"

"Caroline, peace," Calliope said, raising a tired hand. "They are people, not curiosities. And they are very much alive."

The barrage of youthful enthusiasm was abruptly cut short as Lady Jane Ekersfeld and Garth approached, their footsteps heavy and purposeful on the gravel. Jane looked at the massive black onyx sphere Kustos produced with a mixture of suspicion and professional interest. Garth took the sphere, weighing it in his calloused hands, his eyes narrowing as he inspected the polish.

"Onyx," Garth grunted, a note of genuine respect in his voice. "High quality. Deep-veined. This wasn't pulled by amateurs, My Lady. This is masterwork mining."

"They want to trade, Jane," Cosma explained, her voice earnest. "They aren't pests. They’re a collective, and they’re starving for steel. They’ve been trading with a man named Bartlett, but he’s gone. They want a bridge to the surface."

Lady Jane crossed her arms, her gaze lingering on the dark maw of the Pit. "Trade with the 'pit people'? It's a risk. My miners are already spooked by the stories. If I open that gate and something more than a merchant comes through, it’s my head on the block."

Garth nodded in agreement. "First contact is a bloody business, historically speaking. One wrong look, one misplaced hand on a hilt, and we’ve got a war in our own cellar."

"Then don't go down," Caroline interjected, her voice suddenly losing its childish lilt and adopting a tone of practical, tactical brilliance. The adults turned to her, surprised by the shift.

"We use the mining winch," Caroline proposed, gesturing to the heavy iron machinery. "We extend a very long rope, hundreds of feet ,straight down to Level 7. We lower a crate of steel tools and a message. They put the onyx in, we pull it up. No faces, no weapons, no fear. We build the trust with the weight of the stone first. We can meet them with handshakes once the steel has spoken for us."

Jane looked from her ward to the Pit, then back to the party. A slow, appreciative nod started in her chin. "The girl has a head for logistics. It limits the exposure. Garth, find the longest coil of hemp we have. We’ll send down a peace offering of three pickaxes and a woodman’s axe."

"And a message," Cosma added. "Tell them it's from the horn girl. Tell them the bridge is being built."

As the villagers set to work on the unconventional trade route, Caroline stood by the edge of the Pit, watching the rope descend into the darkness. She looked less like a vagabond in that moment and more like a strategist overseeing the first move in a grand, invisible game.

The journey back to Kashal was quiet, but the atmosphere changed the moment they reached the high end marketplace. Tucked between gold leafed jewelers and silken draperies sat a boutique that defied the vibrant colors of the city. Korpse Kouture: Pretty Fly for a Wight Guy was a study in stark, minimalist elegance. Its windows were tinted a deep charcoal, offering only fleeting glimpses of the skeletal chic masterpieces within.

As the party arrived, a high society noblewoman exited, her gown featuring a collar of silver dipped vertebrae that shimmered dangerously in the sunlight. She walked with the stiff, proud gait of one who knew her attire was as much a weapon as a garment.

Inside, Michael Korpse was leaning over a heavy, black bound ledger, his thin fingers dancing across the pages. He looked up, red eyes flaring with genuine delight as he saw the shimmering bundles of spider silk.

"The silk! Divine!" he exclaimed, quickly snapping the ledger shut and tucking it under his arm. "Exquisite texture. This will be the centerpiece of the Solstice Gala. And you," he turned his focus to Cosma, "you are just in time. Your armor is complete. Had you perished in that pit, it would have adorned a mannequin of unparalleled grace, but seeing it on the living is... almost as good."

He gestured toward the fitting room with a flourished bow. Cosma caught Katrina’s eye, a silent understanding passing between them. "The ledger," she mouthed silently.

"Oh, I simply must see it!" Cosma cried, sweeping into the back. "But I cannot just stand there, Michael. This armor must move with me! I need to test every combat pose, hexing, leaping, conjuring!"

As the curtains closed and the sound of Cosma performing a high-energy filled the room, Katrina grabbed Calliope.

"He left the book on the counter," Katrina whispered. "Read fast. I know you can."

They moved to the desk as Kustos stood sentinel near the door. Calliope’s eyes became a blur as she flipped through the pages of the Master Ledger. The handwriting was a cramped, spidery script, listing names that would make a Senator tremble. Tension coiled in the air like a spring. Finally, Calliope’s finger stopped.

"Here," she hissed. "The commissions for the Grave Order. The payments aren't coming from a woman named Lestheris Soldrei. The accounting is linked directly... to Dr. Uloo."

The revelation hit them like a physical blow. The "reputable" veterinarian, Kaiser's mother, the kind soul of the The Healing Paw, was the architect of the necromantic pestilence.

"Copy it," Calliope urged.

Katrina reached for a pencil, but her hands fumbled. The pencil clattered toward the floor. Panic flared as they heard the fitting room door rattle. Michael Korpse was finished with the first adjustment and was heading back to the desk.

Kustos stepped into the path of the door with mechanical precision. The door bumped into his chest plates with a dull thud.

"Apologies," Kustos droned, his voice loud and steady. "I have detected a structural misalignment in the floorboards. It is a safety hazard. I must calculate the weight-bearing capacity before you proceed."

"A what? Move, you oversized tea service!" Michael's voice came from behind the door, sounding more annoyed than suspicious.

Katrina didn't have time to write. She popped a single Katari claw, the razor-sharp edge glinting as she sliced the page from the binding with surgical speed. She tucked the parchment into her tunic just as Calliope adjusted her hair and stepped away from the desk, looking every bit the bored aristocrat.

Kustos stepped aside, and Michael Korpse burst through, smoothing his lapels. He looked at the two women, then back at his desk. For a heartbeat, his eyes lingered on the ledger, but Cosma saved the moment.

"Michael! Look!" she shouted from the catwalk, striking a fierce, conjuring pose that would have made a High Mage weep with envy.

"Blue Steel!" Michael gasped, his hands flying to his cheeks in sheer aesthetic ecstasy. "The angles! The defiance! It is a masterpiece!"

Cosma winked at the party over Michael's shoulder. They had the evidence. The vet was the witch, and the hunt for the Sisters of Opportunity had just become very personal.

Back at the Little Shoppe of Curiosities, Kustos had a flyer in his hand. "The Eye of the Goblin: A Play in Five Acts," it read. Below the title, the breathless prose promised a story of "unlikely heroes" challenging "forces that seek to engulf their world."

"This play seems to have remarkable similarities to our own lives," he said apparently to himself.

They knew Jeny Greenteeth dealt in the rare and the dangerous, and they sought her out. However, when they suggested sending a page to fetch her, Jeeves, the shop’s fastidious and long-suffering attendant, stiffened so violently his cravat nearly popped.

"I shall do no such thing," Jeeves declared, his voice trembling with aristocratic disgust. "That woman is a detestable personage who tried to poison this very Shoppe. She is barred from the city for crimes against hygiene, sanity and several other reasons. I will not send a boy, nor a dog, nor a ferret to that wretched goblin woman."

Undeterred by Jeeves's moral standing, the party traveled to the city's outskirts themselves.

They were greeted at a crooked, Professor Fenwick Grumblesprocket, adjusting his monocle, a chipper smile revealing a row of surprisingly clean teeth.

"Enter, enter!" he chirped, though he stopped them at the threshold to recite the store's grim disclaimer:

"Not all things are good and nice,

Some of these things are full of spice.

Money back? Well, not from me,

I make no magic guarantee.

What you see is what you get,

Priced to go without regret."

Inside, the air smelled of wet earth and ancient copper. The Professor laid out their potential acquisitions: an Amulet of Privacy, a cracked urn containing Medium’s Ashes, and the horrific Wings of a Wounded Angel, which required surgical attachment. The most tempting, and terrifying, item was a Bag of Holding.

"It comes with a warding amulet," Fenwick whispered, leaning in. "To keep away The Bag Man." He recited the nursery rhyme with a gleeful shiver:

"Have you heard the Bag Man's tale?

With claws that grasp and skin so pale?

Thought he might escape the Mist,

Gave his daughter one last kiss.

Crawled inside a magic bag

On advice from a hag.

Trapped inside, forever lost,

All hag-bargains have a cost.

If your bag whispers, that's a clue...

The Bag Man is coming for you."

The price for the lot was a staggering ten chests of gold, but Jeny Greenteeth, appearing from the shadows with a toothy grin, offered a bargain if they provided a more... personal currency.

Cosma stepped forward first. Jeny asked for exactly one ounce of her skin. The faun hesitated, then bared her back. The sensation of the hag’s rusted blade was cold and precise. As Jeny tucked the strip of skin into a jar, Cosma felt a lingering chill, wondering what ritual would eventually consume her flesh.

Kustos-749 was next. Jeny’s request was merely "curious," she asked to "nibble his toenails." The Clank complied, his mechanical mind unable to find a logical reason to refuse such a benign, if disgusting, request.

Finally, the hag turned her milky eyes toward Calliope.

"And you, pretty singer," Jeny hissed, reaching into her apron to produce a heavy, tarnished silver spoon. "The price for your share is simple. Let me remove your left eye with my favorite spoon. I promise... I shall replace it with another. One that sees things as they truly are."

Calliope recoiled, her hand instinctively flying to her face. The memory of her failure in the illusion, the desire for the "perfect" version of herself, clashed with the grotesque reality before her. To lose her eye, to be physically "marred" by a hag’s spoon, was a price her vanity and her soul could not reconcile.

Calliope refused. She stepped back into the shadows of the shop, her breath hitching, leaving the others to gather their cursed spoils while she remained whole, yet haunted by the sight of Jeny’s waiting spoon.

"A pity," said Jeny gently.

The atmosphere in the cramped, earthen shop shifted from grotesque bargaining to something far more ancient and personal. As Calliope backed away from the horror of the silver spoon, her gaze caught on a dusty shelf tucked behind a jar of pickled lizard tails.

There, sitting amidst the "junk," were three small, carved figurines: a Pig, a Hedgehog, and a Duck.

Calliope’s heart skipped a beat. These were not mere trinkets. They were identical in craft to the piece Jaimus McNulty had bequeathed to her, puzzle pieces she had been hunting for years. To anyone else, they were childhood playthings; to Calliope, they were the anchors of her reality.

Jeny Greenteeth followed Calliope’s gaze, her yellowed teeth clicking together. “Ah, those?” the hag cackled, waving a dismissive, clawed hand. “Those are not for sale. Trifles, junk, really. They have no spice, no blood, no magic worth a lick.”

“They are everything,” Calliope whispered, her voice regaining its intellectual sharpness. She turned to the hag, her fear of the spoon replaced by a desperate, scholarly fervor. “These pieces... I believe they act as anchors for the world itself. I fear the realm came unmoored years ago, when I adventured with my sister as a girl. Without these, the 'Form' cannot hold. The world is drifting, Jeny.”

The hag’s milky eyes narrowed, sensing the genuine weight of Calliope's words. A bargain of skin or bone was one thing, but a bargain of fate was quite another.

“Anchors, eh? Keeping the floor from floating away?” Jeny grinned, leaning over her counter until her breath, smelling of bogwater, clouded Calliope’s vision. “Well, I could gift them to you. A charity, almost! But... only if you retrieve one object for me from the Impossible Vault.”

Calliope stilled. “What object?”

“A Black Onyx sphere,” Jeny hissed, her voice dropping to a conspiratorial rasp. “Smooth as a babe’s cheek, dark as a dead man’s dream. Bring me one from the Vault, and the trifles are yours.”

The party exchanged sharp, knowing glances. The thread was pulling tight. Uloo, the Grave Order, the Swampwood Goblins, and now Jeny Greenteeth, everyone was hunting the same dark geometry. The black spheres were more than currency; they were the key to whatever the Sisters of Opportunity were building.

Calliope looked at the Pig, the Hedgehog, and the Duck. If she wanted to keep the world from unraveling, she would have to dive deeper into the very conspiracy that sought to engulf it.