A worn boot crunched into loose gravel, the sound swallowed quickly by the fogged silence of dawn. A flickering lantern swung at my side, parting the waning darkness. The scent of rot clung to the air—drifting from the black woods beyond the palisade and seeping through Night’s Reach like the Fell itself was breathing over the town.

  I kept my cowl low, eyes flicking between shadowed doorways as Selene and I traced our patrol route. Bront and Kaela had been assigned the opposite side of the sector, leaving just the two of us to walk in silence.

  The shops lay shuttered tight. Only the forge hinted at life—its black smoke curling sluggishly into the sky. We turned a corner into a narrow lane, damp moss streaking the cobbles. Crates of empty glass bottles stained with time sat alongside broken barrels, all of which narrowed the pass further. The alley would lead us straight to the northwestern edge of the palisades, and as my eyes traced the lingering shadows that obscured the finer details, my mind drifted to Lyria. I wondered how she was faring.

  Immediately after reaching our designated patrol point, a soldier had approached us with orders directly from the Archmage of the Golden Light. He instructed Lyria to report to her, along with Karne, the solitary mage. Together, they were to begin assisting the town’s own sorcerer with reinforcing warding glyphs, and eventually, constructing a magical barrier to shield the town.

  The rest of us, of course, were left to watch the streets. I wasn’t sure which task I envied less.

  The alley finally opened onto the palisade wall. They looked just as rough as I’d remembered—split logs shoved into mud, ropes already fraying at the lashings, sharpened tips jutting in uneven rows. Dew dripped from the low boughs of the willows overhead. A narrow scaffolding hugged the inside, where two sentries hunched with spears in hand, their shoulders drawn tight against the damp.

  Below them lounged two figures. I recognized one as Darron, the other, a thin scrap of a rogue from Darron’s crew. The other half of their band must have been posted nearer the midpoint, I reasoned. The scrappy one looked up as we approached, sporting a grin too sharp for the fog-dulled dawn.

  I pulled my hood back to greet them.

  His eyes widened on me.

  “Daggers and ditches…” the rogue exclaimed the moment we made eye contact. “I know you—you’re the damned beast who fought that elf outside Falcon’s Flight, ain't ye’?”

  I flinched.

  Darron perked up beside his partner at the revelation, his keen eyes scouring me.

  Before I could respond the rogue continued.

  “I’d sooner run into those woods than fight side by side with a monster,” the man spat, his disgust palpable.

  I couldn’t answer. A part of me wondered if he was wrong to say it. The wolves had been silent since Elledor—no whispers, no heat, no cold. Just emptiness where they had once burned.

  Darron elbowed his companion, voice low but firm.

  “Better he fights on our side than theirs.” His glance toward Selene was almost apologetic.

  “Anything to report?” she asked flatly, ignoring the comment.

  “Not unless you’d like a count on the trees.” Darron shrugged, feigning boredom. “Haven’t seen a damn thing since we started.”

  “Good. It’s better that way,” came Selene’s reply.

  Her eyes flicked to me then and she saw the storm in my face. A slight brush of her hand near my arm reminded me to let it go.

  We moved on. For a time, only our boots filled the silence.

  Selene eventually broke it, “Yukon, can I ask you something?”

  I nodded.

  “Those spirits. Deities. Whatever they are. Are they… always present? Do you hear them now?”

  I considered her question, realizing how little my party knew about my connection to Lunae and Tenebrae.

  With a sigh, I began to explain. “Usually, they react to my surroundings. Many of the times we’ve faced danger, the mark on my chest would burn either cool or hot. The cold being Lun’s influence, and the heat being Ten’s.”

  Selene gave a slow nod, eyes still scanning the empty street as we walked.

  “On rare occasions they have spoken to me, but…” I took a breath before telling her the truth. “Since the fight with Elledor, nothing. No heat. No cold. No voices.”

  My hand went to my chest. I could picture the twin wolves forever circling one another, etched deep into my skin. Still there. Still mine. But silent.

  “Any idea why?” Selene asked carefully.

  I snuffed out my lantern as the fog thinned and dawn’s light grew. Choosing my words took longer than it should have.

  “It’s complicated,” I said finally. “I really can’t say for certain. All I know is that after the fight with Elledor—after giving in to Ten’s influence… I felt their presences collide.”

  Selene raised an eyebrow. “Collide?”

  I nodded. “Yeah, like they went at odds with each other, and now… silence.”

  She frowned, considering my words.

  My eyes drifted back to the road. At first I thought I was imagining it—but then I saw him.

  A boy. The same pale, milky-eyed child from yesterday. He stood utterly still in the mist. And just behind him, shifting like smoke, loomed a shape far too tall to be human.

  “Did you see that?!” My voice cracked, sharp enough to startle Selene.

  “See what?” she squinted into the haze.

  I pointed—but the road was empty.

  “There was a boy. Just now. And something behind him—”

  Selene studied me, as if testing whether I believed my own words.

  “I’m serious! The same kid as yesterday!”

  Her brow furrowed. “What kid from yesterday?”

  Oh, that’s right… I didn’t tell anyone. I’ve got to stop doing that.

  “This boy grabbed my arm,” I said, lowering my voice. “And he asked me: Will you save us…?”

  Selene’s eyes narrowed. “Maybe he meant saving them from the Fell.”

  “Maybe,” I muttered. “But it didn’t feel like that. It was different. Sad.”

  I let the words trail off as Kaela and Bront emerged from the fog, coming up from their end of the patrol. Kaela twirled her hair idly, spear balanced against her shoulder. Bront looked like a walking fortress, eyes sharp and unyielding.

  We exchanged nods, asked if they’d seen anything. Nothing unusual, they said. Nothing at all.

  I couldn’t shake the image of that boy. Or the shadow behind him.

  Otherwise, the town was quiet. Deceptively so, as if a veil had been pulled over it.

  We’d just begun to split off, continuing our respective circuits, when distant shouting sliced the thin quiet. Each of our heads snapped north, it was coming from the palisades.

  Selene was the first to move, stepping into a sprint, clutching her rapier tightly. The rest of us could hardly match her pace but the goal was clear, get to the wall.

  Kaela and I arrived behind Selene, with Bront taking up the rear.

  The guards who had been crouched idly on the scaffolding now had their arrows trained on something unseen. Darron and his companion were calling out counts and positions—there was something out there. Selene, Kaela and I quickly began climbing onto the scaffolding to get a clear view, Bront stayed below for fear of overloading the weak construction.

  I scrambled up the beams beside Kaela and hauled myself onto the narrow platform. What I saw made my stomach drop. At the treeline, just beyond the little clearing that separated the palisade from the Fellwood, silhouettes shifted in the thinning fog. At least five of them stood, half-hidden and wrong.

  This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

  If you asked me to describe them, I’d say I couldn’t. Their forms defied any monster, beast, or human I’d ever known. It’s form was bestial, but its posture humanoid. It stood hunched, arms slack, fingers impossibly long. My eyes strained for detail, and without thinking I reached inward—toward Lunae, toward her vision.

  Nothing answered.

  I cursed under my breath.

  Darron continued, his voice staccato as he updated the guards below. Beside me, Selene’s voice cut through.

  “What are they…?”

  One of the soldiers responded, never lowering his bow. “Fell creatures,” he said, voice flat. “We call ’em watchers. They mostly just watch.”

  “You’ve seen them before?” Selene pressed.

  “Aye. Nearly every dawn,” the man’s face went hard. “But never more than one at a time. Not like this.”

  Another guard shouted down the line, panic rising. “Where’s the damn warding group?! …I’ve got a bad feeling about this!”

  I drew my bow and leveled it over the wall, my thoughts a storm. What were these things? Why more now? And why had Lunae refused me—had they truly turned their backs…?

  “Out of the way! Coming through!” A sharp, almost manic voice barked.

  I glanced right. Lyria, Karne, and a gaunt man in tattered green robes forced their way onto the scaffolding. They took positions with purpose, spreading out along the pointed rail. Their chanting rose in unison, and soon after, dull orange runes flared across the damp grass of the clearing, burning into the soil like a scar.

  Once the runes settled, the fog shifted, and for a breath, nothing—then, one of the creatures edged forward. The way it moved made my skin crawl—jerking, bent, yet deliberate. I strained for a clearer look, but the mist clung to it as if shielding its form. Finally, it stretched a hand into the open.

  What emerged was worse than I’d imagined. Sickly green flesh, pocked with blistering red sores. Claws, impossibly long and curved, like rusted blades. The instant its hand crossed the glowing line, it ignited. Orange fire—same hue as the runes—rushed up its arm in a sudden flare.

  The watcher screamed. A sound like metal tearing and bones grinding underwater, shrill and gurgling all at once. Pain and rage made manifest. I clamped my hands over my ears, but still the wail shivered down my spine. The scaffolding rattled; torches guttered. And then, silence.

  The other watchers melted back into the Fellwood. The fog swallowed them whole. Only the scorched husk of the one lay crumpled in the clearing, charred nails clawing at nothing.

  Beside me, Selene stared at it, her face pale and stricken.

  “Selene…?” My voice was thin. “What is it?”

  Her eyes stayed fixed on the blackened corpse. “...It’s like they sent one forward… to test the warding runes…”

  My heart rate spiked. She was right… and if they were showing that level of intelligence and coordination—then they were more dangerous than any of us could have expected.

  After chatting with Darron for a moment longer, we reluctantly peeled ourselves away from the wall. I kept my distance from his companion, who kept casting sidelong glances at me when he thought I wasn’t looking.

  We continued the rest of our patrol pattern in silence.

  Just before midday the fog had risen into a grey blanket of cloud, leaving Night’s Reach encased in gloom. Not long after, we were relieved of our patrol.

  Selene and Bront headed back to camp together, muttering something about being hungry. Kaela decided to follow me as I went to meet up with Lyria.

  Finding the sorcerer’s shack wasn’t too difficult—I asked a soldier where to look and he pointed me to the old bell tower—said I couldn’t miss it…

  Somewhere off in the southeastern sector of town, just within eyeshot of the graveyard, surrounding swamp, and the adventurers camp, we found it. A bell tower standing just a touch taller than the buildings nearest it, made of wood, with stone reinforcement at its base. I paused for a moment as Kaela walked on ahead, chatting aimlessly about how the damp was bad for her skin. I, however, stared up at the bell. It was cracked—just like the one I’d seen in my dream.

  “Yukon!” Kaela called in annoyance, having stopped a good few paces ahead.

  “Sorry…” I muttered, peeling my eyes from the tower.

  When I caught up to her she was standing in front of a squat building. Its roof was a mix of browns and greens, covered in moss and molds of every variety. Off to the left side, a small pointed tower jutted from the rooftop, stone walls stood slick with slime and crisscrossed with vines.

  “Well this looks pleasant,” Kaela muttered, crossing her arms with obvious disdain.

  I ignored her grumbling and approached the entrance, but just before I could knock—the door flew open and a gust of stale air poured over me.

  I coughed, waving my hand in front of my face, and before I could react a robed arm shot from the dim light of the shack’s interior, pulling me in sharply.

  “You?! State your business—lest ye be a husk!” came his words in rapid fire, voice slightly manic and shrill.

  “I– er, I’m here to get Lyria?” I managed, looking down at the scrawny older man.

  “Be ye here by choice, by destiny, or by force?” he snapped back.

  “By… choice?” I stammered.

  “If choice ye say, could not it be destiny?” he said, arching an eyebrow impossibly and peering up into my left eye in specific.

  “Well I suppose…?”

  He took a dramatically prolonged inhale, I tensed, expecting to sit through more useless rambling. Before he had a chance to get into it, however, Lyria came out of the darkness, an empathetic look on her exhausted face. The lone mage, Karne, followed shortly after her, looking just as traumatized, quickly taking his leave without saying a word.

  “That’s plenty… sir,” Lyria said politely. “These are my companions, I will be taking my leave for today.”

  His head snapped back to her. “Ah– Lyria the lovely. Very well—your companions you say…?”

  He turned his gaze back to me. “My name is Sylico, but you can call me Sylico! Should you have any questions or concerns during your time in Night’s Reach, don’t hesitate to ask Sylico!”

  I nodded, a bit taken aback by his sudden coherence. Well… sort of anyway.

  “Right… absolutely. Thanks,” I offered as Lyria came to stand beside Kaela and I.

  Kaela was making a face at Lyria that said: is he insane? To which Lyria nodded almost imperceptibly.

  As we turned to leave I caught sight of the bell tower once more, and by gut instinct alone I turned back to the sorcerer.

  “Sylico, what is that bell tower for…? I haven’t heard it in use since we arrived here.”

  His eyes twitched up to the bell tower and I saw his brows furrow—his gaze snapped back to me.

  “That there’s the tolling bell. Used to guide folks back from the Wandering Woods, ‘fore they turned to the Fellwoods ‘course,” he explained, eyes turning almost misty as he recalled the memory. “Ah yes… people would often lose their way in those woods. The evening mist was too thick ye see, so we built the bell to try to guide ‘em back… sometimes they still didn’t make it—Grahamut forbid—but at least the bell’d still guide their souls back.”

  I nodded. His explanation made sense—sort of. We used to have something similar in my old village in the Dusk Woods. We had a town bell to signify storms coming in and such so hunters knew to return home. That type of thing was fairly common for villages in or around dense woods.

  Something he’d said did stand out though—the phrase: Grahamut forbid. I assumed it was in reference to a deity he holds in high regard, but I’d never heard that name before. I brushed it off quickly as Lyria tugged at my sleeve, no doubt having spent enough time with Sylico today to last a lifetime.

  I dipped my head. “Thank you, we’ll take our leave then.” and we turned to head back to camp.

  He waved from his front steps as we disappeared toward the longhouse and our camp beyond. Just before I looked away, I noticed his gaze had shifted—fixed not on us, but on the tolling bell.

  There was something off in this town. Something I couldn’t name. Something beyond the Fell entirely.

  A sharp jab in my side stole me from my thoughts.

  “Yukon. You’re doing it again.” Kaela’s voice was dry, edged with annoyance.

  I rubbed my side, glaring at her. "Doing what...?"

  “Brooding,” she said flatly. “What are you hiding now?”

  Lyria also glanced over, her gaze curious yet cautious.

  I closed my eyes and let my shoulders sag. Perhaps the paranoia of the Fellwood quest was beginning to get to me.

  “You’re right. I’ll tell you guys everything back at camp,” I said, with a resolute nod.

  When we returned, Selene and Bront were waiting. Selene sat with a map of Night’s Reach open in her lap, her eyes distant. Bront was hunched over his shield, running a file across its battered rim.

  Kaela and Lyria sat with me, expectant. Selene and Bront looked up, curious.

  I sighed, then spoke.

  The boy. The shadow. The dream. The tolling bell. All of it.

  When I finished, I looked from face to face, waiting for them to laugh, or call me mad.

  Bront broke the silence first. “The boy… I don’t think I’ve seen a single kid since we got here.”

  Selene frowned. “I thought I glimpsed one, that first day in the crowd at Murasa’s speech…”

  “I haven’t seen any either,” Lyria murmured.

  All eyes turned to Kaela. She raised her hands, defensive. “What? Don’t look at me. I don’t notice kids anywhere. Little bloodsuckers.”

  We sighed and a silence settled back over us.

  “It’s not much to go off of, Yukon,” Selene started. “But… It’s worth keeping an eye on. Thank you for telling us.”

  Eventually, we each drifted to our routines—mending gear, tending weapons, or in Kaela’s case, doing little at all. My hands worked over my arrows, my sword, but my thoughts wandered to Lun and Ten’s absence.

  Night fell without incident. By the time I crawled into the tent, Bront was already snoring. My eyelids grew heavy. The weight I’d carried the past few days felt lighter for having shared it.

  I let myself sink—slipping into darkness—

  “AGHHHH!”

  My eyes snapped open. A blood-curdling scream tore through the camp. Bront and I scrambled up, boots half-fastened, weapons in hand.

  My heart hammered. The scream was high, shrill… childlike.

  “NIAAAAAAHHHHH!”

  Another wail. And another. They overlapped, echoing from all directions—piercing, endless.

  I clutched my head desperately, the very sky felt like it might crash down on us next. The panic was primal—my body already tensed to fight or flee.

  Outside, Selene, Kaela, and Lyria stood pale-faced. Soldiers ran in frantic circles. Adventurers scrambled from tents, eyes wild, searching the horizon.

  But no horizon could hold it.

  The screams came from everywhere—above, below, inside our very skulls.

  And they did not stop.