Gremlin Status: Pending

  System Report:

  The Silting

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  It was surreal, sprinting down the cobbled streets of Ashenmoor—their heels hammering out a panicked rhythm faster than her thoughts could catch up.

  Bathed in crimson light, the town, once merely unfriendly, now seemed actively sinister. The fog slithered around corners with ambition, like a blood-soaked mist, and save the drizzle, everything was eerily still. Still, but not quiet.

  Somewhere far off, a noise had begun—a low, wet, droning sound, like a crowd trying to sing with its throat cut. And even then, the main culprit behind Yenna’s unease was the unsettling notion that time itself had slipped her past.

  The last time she checked, it had been a few minutes past noon. Now, it was dusk, and her watch had willfully abandoned several hours.

  They were still in a Dungeon. These past weeks had nearly made her forget. But now, as they staggered onto the main street and found the rest of their party already there—winded, wound-up, and restless—she barely batted an eye.

  Alana, chest heaving at a staccato rhythm and crossbow clutched tight, was the first to catch their arrival. “What the hell is going on?” the woman asked between ragged breaths.

  Mari, bent double, hands on knees, and mouth working like it wanted to scream but had forgotten the words, looked like she’d tried to outpace a landslide and lost.

  Alek, of course, was fine. Or at least, he was Alek-fine.

  Even with sweat dripping down his brow and meticulous hairdo unravelled, with the addition of another three members of their party to serve as his audience, he stepped forward with a dramatic flourish.

  “The curtains are rising on a new stage! The scent of evil is stronger than ever tonight,” his nostrils flared as though he could smell the plot, “but justice—” he turned his head with timing, jaw clenched, eyes squinting at the middle distance, “—will prevail!” With his left hand, he subtly worked his cape, as if to remind the wind how drama was supposed to work.

  Ahead of them, by a sea still hidden behind worn-down buildings, the chanting was growing louder. The boom-boom of a drum echoed out, like the pounding beat of someone’s heart, only bigger, darker, and not half as comforting.

  “Did you get that, Mari?” Alek asked, having let the ambiance do its dreadful little dance for long enough.

  Mari, still trying to remember how lungs worked, gave a vague thumbs-up.

  Alana, for her part, had never stopped staring at Yenna. Her question still hung there in the air, unanswered.

  “It’s Cassius and Jodi—”

  “My sister is down there?” Alana snapped, eyes flickering in the direction of the ritualistic chant. “Then what the hell are we waiting for?”

  She set off down the street, cocking her crossbow—a two-foot, five-bolt, repeating model, designed for fast shooting and slow diplomacy—mid-stride only for her strides to become a jog.

  Alek, not one to second-guess anything, tripped over his own momentum in a desperate bid to reassert his position as “the one who walks dramatically in front.”

  Gami, meanwhile, caught Yenna’s eye and gave her the kind of shrug that was less “we’ll be fine” and more “well, seems like the decision has been made for us?”, and followed.

  And so, Desmond’s quiet and uncertain, “But what about the shop keeper’s warning?” was left for Yenna to answer.

  “We are a party,” she said, and gave Desmond the same shrug Gami had given her. “What’s there to hesitate about?”

  Quite a lot, actually.

  But none of that mattered right now.

  So, she followed, Edrik Kain’s warning ringing in her ears as each step made that far-off heartbeat louder.

  Whatever was waiting down there… it wasn’t just making noise.

  It was calling.

  ***

  Dark waves lapped at the jetty.

  The Gullywag, the battered vessel that had brought them here, groaned against the moorings like it was trying to pull free. Restlessly, it scraped against its holds, wood kissing wood in a manner that suggested the relationship had grown toxic.

  Inland, a silent congregation of shadows gathered, cloaked in the lurid glow of a crimson moon. It pierced the bloated clouds like a knife through wet cloth, painting the world in arterial spray.

  Crates stacked high along the waterline, nailed shut as if to keep something unpleasant sealed inside. Tar-smeared barrels huddled in groups like drunks, ropes hung loose, nets sagged like forgotten dreams, and over it all, the eternal rain drizzled down.

  And at the heart of the scene, two figures stepped onto the jetty—creaking and groaning where it reached out into the dark and churning water.

  This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

  Cassius, whose cough had become a character of its own, rattled with each breath, kept upright only thanks to the young woman bearing most of his weight. He was hunched against the elements, skin like driftwood and hair clinging to him in sodden strands, as though the rain had tried to claim him early.

  Jodi, meanwhile, moved with a strange stillness. Her eyes were fixed out to sea, unblinking, as if she were trying to remember a dream that hadn’t yet ended.

  “What the fuck is she doing?” Alana hissed, restlessly thumbing her crossbow. They were all hunched behind the coverage of the cargo littering the docks, but from here, the only way forward was through the chanting townsfolk.

  Their erratic voices, rising higher:

  “...She is waking...”

  “...and She remembers the sea...”

  “...keep Her...”

  “...keep Her as was promised...”

  “...and let the blood of a Delver be our seal...”

  “It’s alright, I have a plan,” Alek whispered back, and before anyone of them could question exactly what that plan entailed, a message flickered to life across their vision:

  The Silting is Nigh

  You have witnessed something not meant for the eyes of an outsider. The townsfolk are not yet aware of your presence. Find a way to—

  Yenna never got to the end. She barely made it halfway. Before she could even finish the third sentence, Alek had flung himself atop the nearest crate—one of the only crates separating them from the eerie, sea-salted worship—and drew his rapier.

  “Cease your sinister activities, heathens! Alek the Fair is here!” he loudly declared.

  The chanting stopped. Not tapered off, not faded—stopped.

  Every silhouette on the dock snapped around. Every eye locked onto them.

  And for just the tiniest fraction of a moment, even Alek looked like he might be revisiting his life choices.

  “Bit too corny, wasn’t it?” he said, glancing back at the others with an awkward smile. “Should have finished on a more melodic note, shouldn’t I? Maybe go straight into a musical number like, Saving My Friends: The Ballad or…”

  Yenna wasn’t listening.

  Two new notifications had just materialized in front of her eyes with all the tact of a thrown brick:

  Warning!

  The townsfolk are now aware of your presence.

  Warning!

  The Silting has been interrupted. The Depths demand their tribute.

  What followed came all at once.

  Beat #1:

  Whatever charm that’d held Jodi bound snapped—not with a bang, but with that quiet, flickering wrongness that belongs to broken spells and undone fate. She staggered. Cassius, deprived of her support, collapsed to the jetty.

  And something… something in the water moved. Not a fish. Not a ripple. Something with intent.

  Back on land, something far less ancient but just as dangerous was brewing.

  The townsfolk—until now a sea of blank faces and steady chant—began to change. A hundred eyes flared with something between fear and anger. Some clutched fish knives, others gripped old lanterns with enough metal to cave in a skull.

  Closer still, Yenna's party clocked the mood in the air.

  Mari nervously raised her cudgel—an iron lump of a stick really, but comforting even as the hands holding it trembled. Alana's crossbow came up in one smooth, practiced motion. Desmond, for his part, attempted to fold himself entirely behind a shield that was bravely doing its best impression of a dinner plate. Gami lowered her stance, spear steady and eyes narrowed.

  And Alek—well.

  He blinked once. Then gave the sort of wounded look that usually accompanied sentences like “I was just trying to help.”

  “Come on,” he murmured, cautiously shifting his weight. “My words weren’t that corny. Not enough to get violent over…”

  Beat #2:

  The sea erupted in a cascade of foam and water.

  From within, a tentacle shot—thick, pale, and glistening—slithering along the jetty with the kind of determination that made even the greatest vessels fear.

  Cassius, still down, still reeling from his own coughs, never stood a chance. It caught him by the leg, and a heartbeat later, it’d yanked him under. Straight down. Through the splintering jetty.

  He vanished beneath the churning black waves to the toll of a distant church bell, echoing throughout the night.

  Maybe Jodi didn’t even register his disappearance. Something fast and wrong-looking—all scales and teeth and slick malevolence—had clawed itself up onto the jetty alongside the tentacle, gurgling and snarling as it launched itself toward the woman.

  Maybe it found her, too. Yenna never saw as Gami had just stepped in front of her.

  “The sea demands her tribute!” came the townsfolk’s chant, frantic and furious.

  Other voices followed:

  “Their fault!”

  “Must be sated!”

  “Conciliate with blood!”

  Knives flashed. Lanterns swung. The air was thick with salt, screams, and madness as they came charging between the crates and barrels.

  Jodi’s cry cut through it all—raw, terrified, human—and Yenna’s fingers moved without a second thought.

  A shrieking Spark Bolt tore through the night.

  Red and orange light crackled across the dockside, slamming into the nearest townsfolk with the wrath of a furious firework. It wasn’t a killing spell—not at level 1—but it was loud, bright, and seared flesh in unpleasant, memory-forming ways.

  The front ranks stumbled, blinded and burnt, colliding with crates and tar-barrels that didn’t care to get involved. Those who managed to push through were met by the thunk-thunk of Alana’s repeating crossbow.

  Bolts punched into chests, and men folded to the wet cobble stone with surprised gurgles.

  “Hold on, Jodi!” she cried out, but whether her sister ever heard, there was no telling.

  By the time Gami stepped forward, spear poised, the screams filling the night were no longer just Jodi’s.

  Beat #3:

  Behind their frantic vanguard, some of the townsfolk cultist had begun to convulse—some sank to their knees, others clutched at their heads.

  The chant fractured. Panic seeped in around the edges.

  And then came the message, floating into Yenna’s view with all the grace of a ghostly memo being slid under a door:

  Warning!

  The pact no longer holds them.

  The Depths rise to claim what they have been refused.

  The sea did more than just rise. It churned, frothed, and heaved.

  Slick, glistening forms crawled over the edges of the jetty by the dozen, clawing their way forward with too many joints and teeth and scales.

  Their eyes gleamed like oily marbles, the gurgling cries filling the night as they swarmed onto the docks, ripping into whatever living beings were closest nearby. The splashing and screaming blurred together until you couldn’t tell whether something was falling in the water or trying to escape from it.

  Some of the more frantic townsfolk fell to the ground, hands raised in a gesture of devotion. Others tried to fight back, as if stabbing a barnacled horror with a fish knife was going to change the outcome. It did not.

  Mostly, the townsfolk fled—slipping between barrels and crates, away from the dock, away from the water, away from sanity.

  Warning!

  Multiple events triggered simultaneously. The townsfolk are retreating.

  Current Objective:

  Survive the Silting.

  Bonus Objective:

  Save your teammates.

  Team members alive: ?

  As carnage tore across the docks Ashenmoor, out at sea, something very wet and undignified had just broken the surface.