What Lives Beneath the Cove
The hydra burned until only the skeleton of a seven-headed serpent remained, washing slowly through the sewer.
Fern wondered whether creatures like that normally lived beneath large cities.
Nys had dealt with the problem before.
The Charmed Cove’s merchants sold exotic pets from across the world. Sometimes the buyers did not understand what they had purchased. Sometimes neither did the merchants. A father could return from a voyage with a pet snake for his daughter, only to discover that it grew considerably larger than advertised.
Eventually, it began growing heads.
Panic followed. So did a call to the guard.
Occasionally, someone decided to flush the problem down the toilet first.
The creature they had just killed might have entered the sewers the same way.
Fable remained troubled by the Mincer’s escape. She should have caught him when she charged across the balcony, but something had intervened. Fern told her not to blame herself.
Nys wanted to return to the killer’s trail. Fern hoped to learn where the passages led so that they would not have to wander blindly through them again.
The tunnels eventually brought them to a dry chamber beneath a large foundation pillar. Moss covered the brickwork. Small openings in the walls allowed water to drain away.
At the end stood a swollen wooden door.
A faded raven remained visible upon it.
The Raven’s Refuge
Nys examined the door.
It fell off its hinges.
Beyond lay a stone corridor lined with statues of kneeling warriors in raven-shaped helmets. Fern recognized the Raven Queen’s iconography. He suggested that they had found a refuge used by the Raven Knights between their nighttime duties.
Fable examined the statues more closely.
Someone had recently polished them. Old stains remained beneath the cleaning, and the steps bore deep damage from prolonged flooding. Water had been drained from a structure that had once stood submerged.
The refuge was being maintained.
In a side chamber, the party found skeletons wrapped in iron chains. Fable lifted a skull and examined its teeth.
Every skull had fangs.
The room had been an execution chamber for vampires. The Raven Knights had chained their prisoners where running water could destroy them.
Fern suggested that Fable remain behind the others if they encountered the Mincer again.
Nys questioned whether the killer truly followed the Raven Queen’s teachings. He had held both Fable and Taurion at his mercy and deliberately spared them.
Fern proposed that he simply avoided battles he could not win. Fable’s strength might have discouraged him.
Nys turned toward him.
“You were not there, Fern. So don’t preach to me.”
They continued.
Another doorway released water into the corridor. Cracks in the foundation allowed sewage to seep into the room, though someone had kept the flooding shallow. Fern pushed the water back with Elementalism while Fable repaired the fallen entrance door, concealing the most obvious evidence of their visit.
Further inside, candles and torches illuminated a winged angel in a tailcoat and ascot.
Nys recognized Sindatari.
The sculptor had given him a considerably more impressive physique than the real angel possessed.
His hands were empty, held as though something had once rested between them.
Nearby stairs led both upward and down.
A Way Back Into the City
The party climbed.
At the top stood a stone wall with daylight shining through its cracks. Fern pulled a lever, and the wall opened onto the shoreline of the Cove.
Above them rose the rocky cliffside. Across the water stood the High Lantern, its cannons guarding the harbor.
Fable climbed for a better view while Nys examined the sand.
They had arrived before high tide erased the footprints.
Someone had left the hidden passage and climbed the stairs back into the city. The sewers connected the Raven Queen’s refuge to a concealed coastal exit.
Nys compared the tunnels to veins beneath the Cove.
The Mincer moved through them like poison.
Behind the party, a mechanism clicked.
The stone wall slammed shut.
The passage was an exit only.
Before leaving, Fable and Nys tried to examine the killer’s footprints more closely. The impressions were strangely incomplete, showing little more than the heels.
The Mincer wore Boots of Elvenkind.
His equipment helped explain both his stealth and the difficulty of following him. It also suggested that he had money.
They returned to the Pearl Baths. Fern could speak with the staff while Nys and Fable explored the downward staircase beneath the refuge.
Two Whole Meetings
The bathhouse had acquired a distinguished customer.
Duke Nightfeather sat bare-chested in the water, gold jewelry framing his ears and neck while two tiefling attendants scrubbed him.
Nys attempted to avoid his attention.
It did not work.
He recognized the guardswoman who had been butchered in the streets and immediately complained about the investigation. Neptune had been incompetent. Hreda was fortunate that he had found someone else to handle the case.
Otherwise, the Duke might have placed him under house arrest.
Nys asked whether they could go easy on the old man.
The Duke’s Gala was approaching.
If the Mincer ruined it, everyone would have hell to pay.
He assumed the party had interrupted his bath to deliver a report. Nys explained that they were following a lead and apologized for intruding upon his limited leisure time.
He had already attended two meetings about the murders that week.
Two.
Fern agreed that this was two too many.
Fable edged toward the door before she said what she actually thought.
Nys promised a report once they had followed the lead.
The Duke wanted it by nightfall, with something substantial.
Her mother still owned the Honest Hem, did she not?
It would be unfortunate if the shop had to close, as it was the scene of an active investigation.
Nys acknowledged the deadline and withdrew with Fable.
Once they had gone, Nightfeather explained to Fern that women required a firm hand. Otherwise, they would spend the day lollygagging.
Fern continued smiling.
Until the Stones Forget
Fern asked about the Gala and joined the Duke in the bath.
Nightfeather explained that his festivals brought Rosenhall’s most influential people together. Trade agreements and parliamentary bills were negotiated over his wine before they ever reached a formal vote.
The celebration was important work.
A failed wine deal could affect the price of gold. The price of gold could affect inflation. Inflation could affect spending.
The Cove’s economy depended upon his party going well.
Fern expressed appropriate concern.
The Duke then offered him another problem to solve.
Nazrin Altassi had come from Vlorfa demanding independence and stirring up protests. Nightfeather accused her followers of burning rubbish and damaging businesses. She had taken sanctuary in the Temple of Tiamat, where the guard would not enter.
Defacing a church would cost the city tithe money.
Fern could speak with her, persuade her to leave, and allow Nys to arrest her.
Then they could hang her for treason.
Nightfeather was equally displeased with her brother.
Liliana had made Behzad Lord of Wolford without consulting the Emperor, and the Emperor had spent days demanding an explanation. The Duke referred to the new lord as “Bernard” and suggested that both Altassi siblings should join their parents on Firewatch Island, where Rosenhall City sent its dissidents.
He regarded the matter as a problem of bloodlines.
Fern’s thoughts were considerably less agreeable than his expression.
He nevertheless asked whether helping might secure places for the party at the Gala.
Of course.
Saedor had already expressed an interest in sitting beside him.
Nightfeather struck his fist against his chest and winked.
“Until the stones forget. Right, brother?”
Fern answered.
“Stones never forget.”
Fern settled back into the bath.
Nys and Fable returned underground.
The Raven on Her Shoulder
The downward staircase led into a ruined temple.
Pillars had collapsed. Pews lay broken beneath damaged stained-glass windows. Boards held back the water pressing against the old walls.
Recently lit candles dripped wax onto the altar.
Fable leaned forward to examine it.
Her shadow stretched across the floor.
Then it stood upright.
A ten-foot figure in a flowing dress rose behind her, formed entirely from darkness.
“My champion. You’re finally home.”
Nys stepped in front of Fable and told the Raven Queen that Fern had said she wanted to speak.
She had.
Sindatari had prevented it.
The raven on Nys’s shoulder was acting against them, and she was not to trust him.
The statue upstairs had once held the Scythe of Penance. Sindatari had told the Mincer where to find it. He appeared to the killer as the Raven Queen’s emissary and delivered the list of people he was to kill.
The Mincer was Sindatari’s warlock.
The murders strengthened the dormant scythe. With enough deaths, it would awaken into a weapon capable of killing gods.
Sindatari intended to escape his bonds.
He intended to kill the Raven Queen.
Nys remembered the angel’s contempt for his mistress.
She also remembered that he had directed her toward the scabbard.
He knew she had taken it.
Now his warlock had stolen it.
Nys asked whether Sindatari was the reason she had died.
He was.
He was also the reason she had returned.
After her death, Sindatari had come to the Raven Queen and begged her to take Nys’s memory from the Fortress of Memories and restore her.
The Lady had never seen him beg before.
She could not explain why he had done it.
Nys asked about the missing year.
She had not spent it wandering aimlessly. As a shadar-kai, she had been relieved of her pain and memories while carrying out the Raven Queen’s instructions. She had been gathering allies to defeat the Mincer.
Sindatari had intervened to restore her humanity and divert her from returning to the Cove.
Had she come home when she first found powerful companions, they could have overpowered the killer. Instead, she had gone adventuring while his murders continued strengthening the scythe.
The delay had served Sindatari’s plan.
So had her apparent protection.
Her companions had suffered grave wounds throughout their journey. Nys had largely avoided them. The Raven Queen could have spoken to her in the space between life and death, but the angel on her shoulder had kept that opportunity from arising.
When she finally encountered his warlock, that protection disappeared.
Nys looked shaken.
She had been a fool.
The Raven Queen told her that she had once been a mortal caught in a god’s game herself. Mortals could not be expected to understand the designs of beings who had planned for eons.
The Greatest Raven Knight
Nys was not the first champion Sindatari had deceived.
There had been another.
Ondor Sev.
Unlike the other artifacts, the Scythe of Penance had not been sold by Ondor’s descendants. He had placed it in this shrine himself. Sindatari’s preparations reached back decades. It was almost as though he had known that someone would eventually discover the weapon and make a bargain with him.
Nys asked what the Mincer could gain from her stolen scabbard.
The Scabbard of the Damned contained Ondor Sev.
His memories. His soul. Decades of martial technique belonging to the greatest Raven Knight who had ever lived.
The Mincer needed only to touch it to draw upon that knowledge.
Nys remembered the voice that had warned her during the fight with Vincent Van Bones.
It had been Ondor.
The Raven Queen hoped he remained the honorable man she remembered and would refuse to help the killer.
She feared he would not.
Nys asked why such a knight would aid the Mincer.
“Because I betrayed him.”
Ondor had gathered all seven Tides to end the scourge of Tharizdun. He possessed foresight the Raven Queen could not explain. He had begun altering lives and disturbing the chains of fate.
She had stopped his heart.
To prevent his resurrection, she had imprisoned his soul within the scabbard.
After so long in confinement, he might welcome Sindatari’s plan to kill her.
Nys asked whether they were doomed.
They were not.
But they had to move quickly.
Born of Gluttony
The Mincer had to be defeated.
The scythe and scabbard had to be recovered.
Then the Raven Queen turned toward Fable.
She would have to kill Sindatari and the Crow.
Fable asked why the responsibility belonged to her.
The Scythe of Penance held the sin of Gluttony. Once its wielder killed with it, the desire to kill became a compulsion. The Mincer might have begun with an intention to deliver justice, only to discover that he could no longer stop.
Fable was born of Gluttony.
She was the Crow’s grandchild.
The curse would not affect her, and the scythe was the weapon they needed to kill both him and Sindatari.
Fable had already intended to kill the Crow eventually. That did not solve their immediate problem.
The Raven Queen had just told them that three adventurers might no longer be enough to defeat the Mincer.
The Lady raised her hand.
Divinity shone through her expressionless eyes, and strength passed into all three members of the party.
They reached level eight.
Nys received her first level in Fighter, beginning the path toward becoming a Raven Knight. Fable gained a second Fighter level and the ability to act with greater speed and focus.
Elsewhere in the Pearl Baths, Fern suddenly felt considerably more resilient.
Ancient laws prevented the Raven Queen from intervening further. The blessing should put them on more equal footing with Sindatari’s champion.
His identity remained hidden even from her.
Nys had one more question.
The Mincer had told her that she should not have been there on the night she died.
The Raven Queen confirmed it.
Nys had not been fated to die that day.
She could not explain why Nys had entered that alley. Perhaps she was one of the consequences of Ondor’s interference with fate.
The Lady regretted failing to support him.
She hoped to be a better ally to Nys.
Nys reached for Fable’s hand.
As the shadow began to fade, Fable asked why the Raven Queen trusted her at all. The execution chamber upstairs had made her position on the undead quite clear.
“You are not an undead. You are a living creature with a soul.”
Then she disappeared.
A Man of Means
Upstairs, Fern continued his conversation with the Duke.
Nightfeather eventually rose from the bath and announced that he had to return to work. He would tell Saedor that Fern had said hello.
Saedor was staying at the Château as his guest of honor.
The merchant council had resisted the Taimavar’s presence, so the Duke had helped them enter the city. He expected the Emperor’s announcement at the Gala to force the Counting House to accept a Taimavar takeover of the guard battalion.
Fern expressed interest in visiting.
The moment Nightfeather left, his smile became a scowl.
He turned to the attendants.
Questions about Boots of Elvenkind pointed him toward Devilish Silk, where they were apparently a popular item. Questions about a wounded visitor required a little more encouragement.
Fern produced gold.
He offered to reward whichever attendant remembered first.
They pooled their tips.
Eventually, they recalled a customer who had left blood on the floor. That alone had not concerned them; men often arrived after drunken fights.
This one wore black studded armor and carried a velvet scabbard with a curved blade. He had entered the private back room.
Neither attendant remembered seeing him leave.
When Fern asked about his face, both struggled to describe it.
Their confusion was magical.
The Mincer had enchanted them, adding Suggestion to the abilities the party could identify.
The proprietor then offered Fern access to the establishment’s more exclusive upstairs experience.
Membership required a thousand-gold initiation fee and another hundred gold each year.
Fern declined.
Taken alongside the killer’s equipment and his access to private rooms, the conversation reinforced the party’s suspicion that they were dealing with a man of means.
Nys and Fable emerged from below to find Fern looking considerably sturdier than they had left him.
Nys wondered what the hell was in the bathwater.
They had considerably more to discuss. Fern had information of his own.
They chose two further destinations: the site of the councilman’s murder, then the library.
The Siren Shipwreck
The Siren Shipwreck was a boat beached upon the sand, its anchor decorated with a wooden mermaid holding the tavern’s sign.
Inside, tables filled the old cargo hold. Sails had become hammocks beneath whale-oil lamps. A large keg bore the seal of Khim Khalduhr.
Peg-Leg George stood shirtless behind the bar in a small cap.
One-Eyed Willie, an elderly tortle, sat nearby with a pipe and an enormous beer. Fern’s attempts to greet him required an ear trumpet.
Nys placed a gold piece on the counter and bought a round for the room.
George rang a bell.
They had a pity pour.
He knew how this worked. A guardsman bought everyone a drink, then asked for something.
Nys asked about Councilman Timber Westmere.
George was glad he had been killed.
Westmere had promised to clean up the docks, bought rounds to win support, and abandoned the workers once he took office. George thought the Mincer was improving the city.
The discussion wandered through old adventures.
George remembered a college companion who insisted upon surrendering every magic item to his headmaster. Even a prosthetic intended to replace George’s missing leg had been handed over.
The orcs had eventually killed that companion.
They had also taken George’s leg.
Willie raised his drink and announced that they had taken his eye.
George corrected him.
Willie had removed his own eye to convince the orcs that he was Gruumsh.
The conversation returned briefly to the councilman before wandering into the Cove’s liquor laws. George could sell beer, but wine and spirits required another permit endorsed by a dwarven sommelier.
There was only one in the city.
He worked for the Château.
Willie wanted more temples. He produced a string of two dozen holy symbols and announced that he could become the fifth archbishop.
George said he did not even believe in those gods.
Willie considered owning their symbols sufficient evidence.
Fern also asked about Nazrin Altassi.
George accused her of setting fire to his boat three times. He had already lost a leg fighting for Holden against the orcs of Astor’s Peak. He did not appreciate paying again for Vlorfa’s grievances.
Fern’s own origins prompted another complaint.
George had lost three men in the Veilwood.
Fern acknowledged his people’s hostility toward outsiders and said he hoped to change it.
The New Recruit
Eventually, Nys brought the conversation back to the night Westmere died.
The councilman had arrived as usual, bought drinks, and attempted to sell the workers on another festival day rather than meaningful reform. The patrons became angry enough that George reached for the sword beneath his bar.
A new guard recruit intervened.
He dispersed the crowd and allowed Westmere to leave.
Then he remained behind for approximately ten minutes, lecturing the patrons about democracy and the futility of killing a councilman.
George rolled his eyes at the memory.
The recruit’s name was Gelentara.
Nys asked whether he was related to Clark Gelentara of Devilish Silk.
He was Clark’s grandson and heir.
George described a wealthy, bookish young man who had struggled in childhood fights and returned from the Prophet’s guildhall after being dismissed on his first day. His father had apparently helped secure his place in the guard.
George could not say exactly when he left or where he went afterward.
Nys could ask the captain.
As the party prepared to leave, George stopped her.
Was she really going to fight the Mincer with those flimsy blades?
He produced a shortsword and told her how to activate it.
Flame ran along the blade.
He had used it to cauterize his leg.
Nys thanked him for the Flame Tongue.
It was a loan.
If she died and the Mincer took it, George would resurrect her and kill her himself.
She promised to return it.
A Sad Concrete Merry-Go-Round
The councilman’s body lay in a cordoned alley.
A bin had overturned. A window was broken. A deep scrape marked the wall.
A tiefling detective in a trench coat stood over the scene, narrating her thoughts aloud.
The Cove was a sad concrete merry-go-round, endlessly playing the same song.
Nys recognized Anna Anderson.
She was the detective who had brought Taurion to identify her body.
Anderson recognized the ghost of a former victim returning for revenge. She did not want anyone taking over her crime scene, but Nys invoked Hreda’s authority.
The detective lifted the tape.
There went her peaceful day.
Westmere had been found face-down in the rain, cut through the chest with enough force to scar the wall behind him. Anderson believed the disturbed alley showed that he had struggled.
The Spell Guard had examined the wound and identified an expensive magical blade. Anderson had sent them to lunch rather than allow further diagnostics to crowd the scene.
Fable examined the cut herself.
It matched the Scythe of Penance.
This was the Mincer’s work.
Drawing upon her newly gained Tactical Mind, she reconstructed the attack.
Anderson’s explanation was wrong.
The scrape widened higher on the wall. The killer had dropped from above, dragging the scythe downward and using the fall’s momentum to cut through Westmere. The overturned bin marked the force of the attack rather than a prolonged fight.
The councilman had been caught unaware.
Fable disguised her natural climbing ability beneath the appearance of a spell and scaled the building.
The roof provided a clear view of the tavern and surrounding docks. A fire escape descended over the wall into another part of the district.
Nearby, she found a sewer entrance almost perfectly positioned between Westmere’s murder site and the place where the college student had died.
The party marked it for later investigation.
Anderson had little else to offer.
Seven years spent trying to clean up the city had left her bitter. Greed and corruption came from criminals and from the people who were supposed to stop them.
In a situation like hers, she could only think in metaphor.
The College Above the Cove
Fable still wanted to visit a library.
The party approached a stone tower at the docks, crowned with a crystal dome and guarded by a statue of Ioun.
Inside, statues of war mages stood among comfortable seats and eternal flames. Prometheus held up part of the foundation beneath a reminder that magic and knowledge were burdens to be borne.
Students in green-and-white robes passed through shimmering portals.
The tower connected the Cove to the College of Ioun.
A familiar voice greeted the party from behind.
They needed to stop following him everywhere.
Ned had been sent to investigate Lorin Merrow’s murder.
The victim had been a third-year student. Ned could not explain how he had entered the Alumni Tower’s private restaurant, and the college wanted the case resolved before it damaged enrollment.
He offered to introduce them to the head of the school.
Fern asked whether Fable could visit a library.
Ned assured him that there was one.
The most extensive on the continent.
Fable struggled to contain her excitement.
They entered a shimmering portal.
The world spun.
When it steadied, the party stood thousands of feet above the Cove, facing a college campus suspended in the sky.
Ned led them into a great hall where statues of Ioun and Vecna faced one another in a magical duel. House banners hung above the dining room, watched by portraits of former heads of school.
A gnome in red-and-gold robes levitated toward them.
His hair resembled an erupting volcano. Enormous glasses covered most of his face. A Ring of Spell Storing occupied every finger.
He thanked the party for rescuing Ned at Crackjaw.
Nys called Ned a good man.
The gnome thought he was all right.
Then he suggested that they continue the investigation in his office.
A Magnificent Mansion appeared around them.