If you’re reading these words without having read the story mentioned in the title, don’t be a fucking moronski; read it first.
I assume you’ve read some of my previous posts on my ongoing fantasy cycle, so you may remember that I’m producing these stories in tandem with improvements to my app, named Living Narrative Engine. It’s a browser-based system for playing scenarios like immersive sims, RPGs, etc. I’m compelled by the mutual pulls of adding more features to my engine and experiencing new scenarios; sometimes I come up with the scenario first, sometimes with the mechanics. That has my brain on a constant “solve this puzzle” mode, which is the ideal way to live for me.
Anyway, the following scenarios involving a brave bunch of dredgers in a fantasy world, tasked with extracting a dangerous arcane artifact from some gods-forsaken hole, will require me to develop the following new mechanics:
Lighting mechanics. Currently, every location is considered constantly lit. Given that we’re going underground and that the narrative itself requires using lanterns, I have to implement mechanics for recognizing when a location is naturally dark, and whether there are light sources active. There are other mechanics providing information about the location and actors in it, so from now on, when a location is naturally dark and nobody has switched on a flashlight, we have to block offering descriptions of the location and other actors in it, and instead display text like “You can’t see shit.”
Once lighting mechanics exist, we need actions for lighting up and snuffing out lanterns and lantern-like entities. By far the easiest part.
Currently, when an actor speaks in a location, the speech is only received by actors in that location. At the same time, I consider an entity a location when it has defined exits. Now we find ourselves in a situation in which we have a thirty-feet-long underground corridor separated by grates. That would make each segment between grates a location (which would be correct, given the boundary), but an actor could step from a boundary into the next and suddenly not hear a character on the other side of a grate’s bars. Obviously idiotic. So I need to implement a mechanical system for declaring “if an actor speaks here, the voice will be heard in these other places too.” That will need to extent to actions too: if you have eyes, you can see someone scratching his ass on the other side of bars.
No other scenario has featured water sources that could play a part. And by play a part I mean that actors could get in or fall in, exit them, struggle in the water, and drown. I really don’t want to see my characters drowning, but that’s part of the stakes, so the mechanics need to exist. Given that water sources tend to be connected to other locations and not through the regular exits, I will need some way of allowing “I’m in the water, so I want to swim upstream or downstream to a connected stretch of this water source.” This whole water system will be arduous.
Line-tending mechanics. Until I started researching matters for this story, I doubt that the notion of line-tending had ever entered my mind. Now we need mechanics for: 1) making an owned rope available to others. 2) Clipping and unclipping oneself from the available rope. 3) pulling on the rope to draw back someone clipped that’s wandering away. 4) possibly other cool line-tending-related mechanics. I can see line-tending reappearing in future scenarios such as traditional dungeon delves (for example, to avoid falling in Moria-like environments). Admittedly, though, this whole thing is quite niche.
Blocker-breaking mechanics. Basically: this door is bar-based, so this allows a hacksaw to hack through the bars. I don’t want to make it a single action, but a progressive one (e.g. if you succeed once, it only progresses a step toward completion).
Mechanics related to mind control. To even use those actions, I will need to create a new type of actor for the scenarios: a dungeon master of sorts. Basically a human player that’s not accessible to others, as if it were invisible, but that can act on present actors. I would give that dungeon master for this run the can_mind_control component, then allow actions such as putting people into trances, making them walk off, dive into water, etc. This means that there would need to be opposite actions, with the victims fighting to snap out of the trance. It will be fun to find out what happens when the scenario plays out. In the future, this dungeon master could be controlled by a large language model without excessive difficulty: for example, feeding it what’s happened in the story so far, what are the general notions about what should happen, and giving it actions such as “spawn a hundred murder dragons.”
That’s all that comes to mind now regarding the mechanics to add.
About the story: so far, it seems I want magic to be treated in this fantasy world as if it were toxic material. That’s not a decision I’ve made about worldbuilding, but a natural consequence of the stories I’ve felt like telling. I actually don’t believe in the kind of worldbuilding in which you come up with imaginary words for the warts on an invented race’s ass. I’m all about use and tools. My mind always goes for “what can I build with this.” I’m very rarely interested in a subject if I can’t see myself creating a system out of it. It also doesn’t help that due to autism, abstractions tend to slip through my fingers, so I need to feel like I’m sensing something to understand it.
In a way, I wanted to create a story about specialists working through a problem that needs to be solved. Jorren Weir, Kestrel Brune, Saffi Two-Tides, Pitch… these people don’t have superpowers. Most of them are glad they can keep a job. There is no grand evil here, just people’s self-interest. I want them to do well so that they can return home at the end of the ordeal. But given that we’re dealing with chance-based tests, that’s not a guarantee. And that tension alone makes it exciting for me to experience these scenarios.
As usual, if you’re enjoying these stories, then great. Otherwise, fuck off.
The mansion’s front door fights back, then the servant yanks it wider and nods. I’m past him, boots on gravel, cutting for the service yard.
The yard’s a wedge of hard-used ground trapped between the east wing and the boundary fence—packed gravel, deep wagon ruts, built to take mud and keep moving. Our cart sits in the thick of it, and the crew’s gathered there: Pitch in his blast bib, Saffi in her dive jacket, Kestrel’s tall frame, and Hobb Rusk standing off to the side in that kiln-black Ash-Seal coat.
Past the fence, the canal runs parallel and close, separated by a narrow strip of towpath. The water’s wrong: tar-black, sluggish, filmed with a dull sheen that catches lamplight in greasy swirls. The smell reaches us in waves—sour rot with metal underneath, like wet iron left in a bucket too long.
I stop at a distance, far enough to address my crew as a group. I meet their eyes one by one: Pitch, Saffi, Kestrel.
Then I sigh. Lower my head.
My tail starts thumping against the gravel—slow, rhythmic. Old habit. I raise my gaze again, and something hardens in me.
“Alright, crew. Client’s one Lady Eira Quenreach. I had only heard of her. Now I wish it had remained that way. Had you followed me inside that trap room, there would have been far more shouting. Short version—we’re screwed. Long version—Lady was renovating her underground galleries when they dislodged an ancient artifact in a silted culvert. Messed with the seal or the ward or whatever. It started leaking that rot that has blackened the waters and made them stink something awful.”
I jerk my chin toward the canal.
“As you can see, it’s spreading far out of the estate. They reckon in two days the rot’ll be in range of the city inspectors. Of course Quenreach wants us to get rid of the artifact before someone sniffs her way. And the artifact won’t stop spewing that black shit, which means it’ll eventually ruin Brinewick’s whole canal network unless we stop it. Somehow that ain’t the worst of it.”
The silence stretches. Morning fog drifts between us, and the canal churns wrong behind the fence—thick, sluggish, a sound like something rotting from the inside out.
Kestrel laughs. Sharp. Involuntary. The sound cuts through the fog and dies fast.
I rub the fur of my brow, then meet their eyes again.
“The construction workers who approached the artifact reported pressure headaches. Fell into trance states. Got mind-wormed—intrusive compulsions toward moving water. Two workers drowned. Afterwards, all the workers quit. Some took at least a couple of the grate keys with them. A fuck-you on their way out, maybe.”
I shake my head.
“A mind-controller ancient artifact that risks rotting the whole canal network’s water. Which of course includes Brinewick’s drinking supplies. Lady Quenreach should have kissed our boots for coming down here to fix this quick.”
My jaw tightens.
“Instead, she handed me a contract that says the moment we touch that artifact, custody falls on us. Including responsibility for further contamination and deaths. And if the inspectors trace the mess back to the source and want to squeeze money out of anyone responsible, we’re supposed to pay for the protected parties’ losses—which would include the whole of Brinewick, as if we shat the ancient turd ourselves. Of course, by ‘we’ I mean me and our bossman back at headquarters. Nothing legal’s going to barrel down your way.”
I draw a breath. Let it out.
“Guess I’ve gotten through all the setup. This is the part where I tell each of you—Saffi, Pitch, Kestrel—that if you want to walk, you walk. Truth is, though, I don’t think this can be done without any of you.”
Kestrel laughs again—another sharp burst, then another, each one cutting out fast like her throat’s choking them off. Her eyes dart from me to Pitch to Saffi to the canal and back, that worried look deepening across her muzzle while her mouth keeps trying to laugh.
I turn my hands palm-up toward the sky, then drop them and force myself to meet each of their eyes one by one.
“Yeah, it was a lot to take in for me too. Let’s hear it, folks. What do you decide? I promise to shield you from any legal consequences—I’m the only one who signed, and if push comes to shove, I’ll claim I worked alone—but we’re risking more than legal here. Whoever’s staying, we gotta know soon, because we must move straight to logistics. Every minute counts.”
Pitch stands there in his blast bib, expression unreadable. Saffi’s golden eyes are hooded, slits tracking between me and the others.
Kestrel turns her head toward them both, then back to me. A broad smile spreads across her muzzle. She laughs.
“Yeah, I’m in. Not walking on this one, Jorren. You need muscle for hauling, pinning, or dragging someone out of a trance state before they drown themselves? That’s what I do.”
Another involuntary laugh bursts out of her.
“Besides, if that rot hits the drinking water and people start dying, that’s on all of us if we could’ve stopped it and didn’t. So count me in. Let’s hear the logistics.”
A sigh of relief escapes me before I can stop it.
“Don’t know how glad I am to have you by my side in this rotten mess, Kestrel.”
I turn my gaze to Pitch and Saffi.
“We got at least two old ironwork grates to crack open because their keys have flown. I’m talking thirty feet from access point to the half-collapsed culvert where the artifact is entombed, so we’ll need expert handling of bolt cutters or handsaws while mind-worms push into our brains. That’s where you’d come in, Pitch. And Saffi, intrusive compulsions toward diving into rotted flows means we need a line tender. The best in the business. The rope-meister. Not guilting you—just stating facts. We pull that artifact out of the water or soon enough Brinewick’s going to be drinking rot.”
Pitch meets my eyes directly. His voice comes out flat and certain.
“I’m in. Ironwork cracked and grates breached while mind-worms push into our heads? That’s demolition work under pressure, and that’s what I do. The rot’s real, the timeline’s real, and if we don’t stop it Brinewick’s drinking supply goes septic. So fuck the paperwork. I’ll handle the breaches. You’ve got your demolition specialist.”
Saffi’s tail curls once, then goes still. She speaks.
“You need a line tender who can read wrongness through rope before it becomes visible. Someone who won’t freeze when mind-worms start pushing compulsions. The artifact’s already killed two people. So yeah. I’ll handle the line work. You’ve got your rope-meister.”
The relief hits hard.
I catch movement in my periphery—Hobb Rusk stepping closer, circling around the crew’s loose cluster to position himself near our group. Still in that meticulous Ash-Seal coat, still silent, but the proximity signals engagement. Not commitment, though.
I thump my tail against the gravel once, decisively. The sound cuts through the fog and settles something in me. My face shifts—the worry-frown giving way to the harder focus I get when I’m mapping logistics.
“About thirty feet from access point to flooded section that contains our half-collapsed silted culvert and the buried artifact. Can’t wade straight to it—at least two grates we don’t have keys for. We get through the grates first. Then we dig the artifact out, slow and careful. Client believes it’s currently sealed, so we can’t risk cracking that with a quick extraction.”
I crouch down, fingers tracing an absent map in the gravel while I think it through.
“The sealed version of the artifact is already rotting the canal network and killing people, so we don’t want to know what the exposed version can do.”
The line draws itself in my head: access point to first grate to second grate to artifact location. Thirty feet of blind work underground.
“Zero visibility in those underground tunnels. Lanterns are a must.” I turn my head toward the cart. “We brought a couple. Alright, so we illuminate our steps from the access point to the grates. Imagine we’re cutting through the locked grates when mind-fuckery worms its way into our brains, telling us to dive into the canal waters. Need to be clipped to a rope, with Saffi as the anchor on the back. Anyone strays, sharp pull. These mind-compulsions don’t sound like the kind of worm you can squash easily, because construction workers just walked into a drowning—any of us starts looking loopy and tries to unclip themselves from the line, we need strength to restrain them. That’s where you’ll come in, Kestrel.”
Pitch heads toward the dredgers’ cart, his stocky frame cutting through the fog. He reaches for the bolt cutters, testing their weight and grip with practiced hands.
“I’ll take point on the grate breaches. Bolt cutters for primary cuts, hacksaw for backup if the ironwork’s thicker than expected.”
Pitch grabs the bolt cutters fully, the metal catching what little light pushes through the dawn.
“Thirty-year-old grates, no keys, zero visibility, mind-worms pushing drowning compulsions—yeah, I can work with that. Just need to know: are we cutting clean to preserve the infrastructure, or are we cracking them fast and dirty to hit the timeline? Because those are different approaches, and I need to know which one we’re buying before I start planning the cuts.”
I straighten up from the crouch, and that’s when I notice the newt-folk liaison, Hobb Rusk, standing to my side. Close—touching distance. That kiln-black coat, the ash-gray collar standing crisp despite the fog. Those large round eyes fixed on me, waiting. He’s positioned himself to hear my answer to Pitch, but he ain’t dressed for tunnels and he sure as hell ain’t volunteering to come down with us.
I meet his eyes briefly.
“Thank you for paying attention to our logistics, Master Rusk, even though I won’t even bother asking if you’re coming down to contain the artifact at the extraction point. You ain’t even dressed for it. But all we need is your magic box and a thorough destruction of the ancient terror so we can all cart back to our lives.”
I turn to face our sapper directly.
“Pitch, don’t know where you got that thing about grates being thirty years old. The way the Lady and her right-hand man sounded, the infrastructure down there is ‘ancestors-old.’ Maybe a couple hundreds of years old. Ironwork that age may be easier to saw through. Regarding infrastructure, this ain’t a ‘blow shit up’ situation, I’m afraid to disappoint. Silted culvert containing the entombed artifact is already half-collapsed—a blast may send down slabs of stone onto the artifact’s seal, then all hell’s broke loose. Lady Quenreach agrees to ruining them locked grates, just not to the point of collapsing the tunnels and fucking us all.”
Pitch moves back toward the cart and grabs the hacksaw, testing the blade tension with his thumb. His voice comes out measured.
“Ancestors-old ironwork. Right. That’s brittle, oxidized differently than modern stock—fails at different stress points. Makes the cuts trickier but maybe faster if I read the weaknesses right.”
He slides the hacksaw into his belt loop alongside the bolt cutters.
“Got primary and backup. No explosives, no structural collapse risk. Just precise cuts through old iron while mind-worms crawl into our skulls.”
A burst of wild laughter from Kestrel punctuates Pitch’s resolution. She stays quiet otherwise, that worried look still carved deep across her muzzle even as her mouth twitches toward another laugh.
Saffi moves to the cart and takes one of the hooded oil lanterns, the motion efficient and practiced.
“Alright,” I say, “both phases seem separated to me—first, clear our path to the flooded section where the artifact waits buried under two feet of contaminated water. Once we’re done with that, we head back up, leave the bolt cutters and hacksaws and whatnot, then pick up the planks and trenching shovels and block-and-tackle for the by-the-book extraction. We will enter with Pitch on point, the four of us clipped, rope-meister on the back as anchor. Let’s think perils—bad water that’s also a lure. One of us may pause, stare at the flow, step in, stop fighting to get out. Being clipped should help.”
I approach the cart to browse through the remaining tools. My hand scratches at my chin.
“Might wanna bring the throw line… but we’d have to hope the person who walked into the water wants to catch it. Rest of the risks come when we reach the silted culvert—I’m talking zero visibility sludge, confined space hazards. Two feet of water over uneven rubble is ankle-breaking terrain. Will need planks for that. And of course: crack the seal, and everyone loses.”
Saffi moves to the cart and takes a coil of long rope, looping it over her shoulder.
“Logistics of the first extraction phase look fine,” I say. “Now, worst case scenarios—imagine Saffi’s tending to the line when she suddenly decides the rotted waters look sweet enough for a dive, and we find our diver underwater in waters she shouldn’t dive in. Or what if the first one to look loopy is our gentle giant Kestrel, but nobody’s strong enough to restrain her? What if Pitch’s cutting through a grate only for his hands to drop the tools, then for him to jump pantless and ass-first into that liquid darkness? Any ideas?”
Kestrel lets out a succession of laughs that manage to sound both compulsive and nervous.
“C’mon, folks,” I say. “I’m thinking our most reasonable contingency plan is ‘don’t get mind-wormed.’ Anyone clever enough to come up with something better to do once someone’s eyes go blank?”
Pitch moves toward the cart again, reaching for one of the remaining hooded oil lanterns.
“Need light to read the ironwork properly. Can’t assess cuts or oxidation patterns in the dark.”
He takes the lantern, metal catching dull morning light through the fog.
I rub the fur of my forehead, working through the problem.
“Let me think about this… Two construction workers drowned. Plenty reported the mental compulsions but didn’t jump into the water. We need a taste of how those mind-worms actually feel like. A probe of sorts. Once we go down there—clipped of course—for the first phase, the moment one of us gets mind-wormed and starts hearing words in their head that don’t belong to them, we hurry them back up to the surface, or at least out of the access point. See how long it takes for the mind-worm to go away. Which we know it does because the affected workers all fled.”
“Alright, worst-case scenarios,” Kestrel says. “Here’s what I’m thinking—we can’t stop the mind-worm from hitting, but we can make it harder to act on. First: multiple clips on the line. Not just one carabiner—two, maybe three per person. That way if someone’s brain tells them to unhook and dive, they’ve got to fumble through extra metal while we’re yanking them back. Buys us seconds, maybe more.”
She shifts her weight, that worried look still carved deep across her muzzle even as another involuntary laugh bursts out.
“Second: watchers. We pair up—one person works, one person watches. Pitch cuts the grate, I watch his eyes. Saffi tends line, Jorren watches her. The moment someone goes blank-eyed or starts staring at the water too long, the watcher yells and we haul them out of the access point, back to the surface, see how long it takes for the compulsion to fade. Third, and this is the uncomfortable part—if the worm hits me and I decide I want that water, rope tension and crew strength might not be enough to stop me. So we need a fallback: Saffi’s line-work has to be strong enough to drag dead weight, and the rest of you need to be ready to pile on if I start moving toward the canal. Same goes for anyone else who gets wormed hard. We can’t prevent it, Jorren. But we can plan for the aftermath. Make it harder to drown ourselves even when our brains are telling us it’s the right call. Not a great plan. But it’s the only one I’ve got that’s honest about the risk.”
“Brilliant, Kestrel. Multiple clips. Pair up. I think that’s as good as it’s going to get for our first extraction phase.”
I turn my head to look up at the Ash-Seal liaison. Hobb Rusk’s standing there in that meticulous kiln-black coat, large round eyes fixed somewhere between me and the crew. He’s been listening this whole time—close enough to hear every word of our contingency planning, silent enough that I almost forgot he was there.
“Master Rusk, what exactly do you need from us? We’ve worked with other Ash-Sealers in the past but not in these fucked-up circumstances. What constraints are you relying on so you can contain the artifact in your box and pulverize it, or whatever the hell you tight-lipped fuckers do?”
Hobb’s eyes shift to meet mine directly. There’s a pause, like he’s organizing his answer into the specific order he wants. His hands stay at his sides, webbed fingers motionless. Then he speaks.
“I need the artifact intact and sealed when you hand it to me. If the seal’s cracked—if you drop it, if stone slabs crush it during excavation, if someone gets mind-wormed and drags it through contaminated water—the containment process changes completely. A sealed artifact goes into the box with standard ward protocols and salt geometry calibration. An actively leaking artifact requires layered suppression, extended calibration time, and significantly higher risk of containment failure. So your extraction needs to be precise enough that what you bring me is still structurally intact, even if it’s covered in sludge. Beyond that, I need workspace—clean ground, adequate humidity for the box’s adhesion wards, and enough light to verify seal integrity before I start the containment sequence. If you can’t provide that at the extraction site, we bring the artifact back here to the service yard before I touch it. And timeline: sealed artifact, maybe an hour for full containment. Cracked artifact, could be three to six hours depending on how bad the leak is, and I can’t guarantee success if the damage is severe enough.”
His lipless mouth compresses into a thin line.
“So the short version is this—bring me what you promised Lady Quenreach you’d extract, don’t fuck up the seal during the dig, and give me the workspace I need to do my job properly. Do that, and we’re fine. Crack it and hand me a disaster, and the timeline you’re working with collapses completely.”
I nod at Hobb Rusk, processing his parameters.
“Got it—clean ground, adequate humidity, enough light. Perfect arguments to stay topside instead of crawling through contaminated tunnels with us. Alright, we’ll bring the ancient, sludgy turd straight to your hands, and hope we don’t ruin the package along the way.”
I look around at the opulent estate grounds—manicured gardens, precisely trimmed hedges, wide gravel paths that probably cost more than my year’s wages.
“As for providing you with a good enough workspace…” I gesture at the space around us. “If the open air won’t do, we can talk to the steward. Man’s an amphibian too—maybe you two will reminisce about your family tree as you save the day.”
My tail thumps against the gravel twice. I turn to face my crew. Pitch stands there in his blast bib, bolt cutters and hacksaw collected, lantern in hand. His expression’s unreadable—that demolition-specialist look that doesn’t give away whether he’s got questions or he’s just waiting for me to finish talking. Saffi’s got her rope coiled over one shoulder and her lantern ready, golden eyes tracking between me and the others with that hooded, calculating look she gets when she’s reading group dynamics.
“Folks,” I say, “unless you’ve got some last-minute objections, let’s gear up. Nobody’s dying today. Otherwise I’ll be forced to drag you out of whatever afterlife you believe in, and that’d ruin my afternoon.”
A servant closes the door from outside without so much as a nod. Through the narrowing gap I catch a last glimpse of the foggy canal landing, the estate fence lost somewhere in the mist, before the latch clicks.
Inside, the vestibule’s churning with movement. Servants in uniform—animal-folk and humans both—scrubbing floors, rushing through with laundry. Frantic enough that something went wrong recently.
I stand on the mat by the threshold, waiting for someone to receive me. They flow past like I’m furniture.
“Hey,” I call out. “I’m with the dredgers. I was told to meet the employer here.”
Not a glance. A servant with a bucket doesn’t even break stride.
I thump my tail on the pristine tiles.
“Folks,” I say, keeping level. “Your canal water’s gone bad. That Lady of yours should come meet me as soon as possible.”
That breaks through. A human woman glances my way, then hurries toward the double doors at the far end of the hall. She swings one open and disappears inside.
Moments later she’s back out, and a toad-folk man in a tar-black waxed oversmock follows her into the hall. He makes straight for me.
I nod as he reaches me.
“I’m guessing you ain’t the Lady. I’m Jorren Weir, dredgers’ crew leader.” I hook my thumb back toward the estate grounds. “I saw you have a serious problem with your canal waters. Flow’s tar-black, rotten-looking, and it stinks something awful. This ain’t a simple spill situation, given you hired us dredgers.”
“You’ve got the right read, Weir. It’s not a spill—it’s sealed work gone wrong, and the Lady’s waiting to brief you herself.” He gestures with one padded hand toward an interior doorway, already turning. “This way. She’ll explain the contract terms and the site conditions. I’ll be handling your crew’s logistics once you’ve seen what we’re dealing with.”
He’s moving before he finishes speaking. I follow him through a short corridor and into a sitting room.
Upholstered chairs in pale colors, low table stacked with papers, muted lighting. A white-furred ermine-folk woman sits in one of the chairs, dressed in layers of ivory and pearl-gray, document in her gloved hands.
The toad-folk man moves to the second chair and settles into it, easy and practiced, angling so he’s facing both the lady and the empty third seat.
“Mr. Weir, this is Lady Eira Quenreach.” He nods toward the ermine-folk woman. “My Lady, Jorren Weir, crew leader.”
He gestures with one padded hand toward the third chair.
“The contract’s ready for your review, Weir, but the Lady will want to walk you through the site conditions first. What you saw from the canal edge is the surface problem—the sealed work’s below, and it’s nastier than a simple extraction.”
“Guess I’m sitting down.”
The chair’s more comfortable than I’m used to. Once I’m squared away, I address them both.
“Our boss was awfully cagey about this job. Even requested an Ash-Seal liaison to handle artifact destruction on-site.” I gesture toward the window, the canal beyond. “The rot on the waters tells me this is some shitty business. Never seen a cursed item taint our waters like that. Straight talk—what are we pulling up?”
Lady Quenreach extends the contract toward me—smooth, deliberate motion, held at an angle that reads as courteous rather than urgent. Her voice stays soft, measured.
“Mr. Weir. I appreciate your directness.”
The document passes from her gloved fingers to mine. Heavy.
“What you’re being asked to extract is a sealed artifact—very old, pre-estate construction, entombed in a silted culvert. We don’t know what it is.” She pauses, letting that settle. “What we do know is that it’s been leaching corruption into the canal water since it was dislodged during excavation work two days ago.”
I flip the contract open, scanning the first page while she talks.
“The workers who handled it reported pressure headaches, intrusive compulsions toward moving water, and trance states. Two drowned. The rest quit.”
My eyes flick up from the page.
“The site is partially flooded,” she continues, gray eyes level, tone factual. “The access routes are tight, and some of the grate keys are missing. You’ll need people who can work in bad water without losing focus, and you’ll need your Ash-Seal liaison on-site for destruction. That document establishes that you’re claiming the artifact under salvage and quarantine protocol. What it also establishes is that the artifact’s origin point is documented as somewhere in the broader canal network—not specifically here.” Her voice remains calm, almost gentle. “If inspectors trace the taint, your records will reflect that. The terms are there. Read them, and then we’ll discuss site access and compensation.”
I scratch the fur on my chin. Two drowned. A lure in the water. That’s new. Something this nasty needs to be dragged away from our canal waters as soon as possible.
First, though, I’ll read through this legal text of hers, see what fine print they’ve included.
“There’s always some, right?” I say, settling the contract flat across my lap.
The room goes quiet. I read through the standard clauses—salvage rights, quarantine authority, non-disclosure about site origin. All expected. Then I hit the section that makes my jaw tighten.
I lower the contract carefully to my lap, keeping my gaze on the text for a moment before I raise my eyes to both of them. I feel the frown pulling at my muzzle.
“Quite the one-sided contract, ain’t it?” I say, calm.
Lady Quenreach’s expression doesn’t shift. The toad-folk man stays still.
“I understand a legal document handing us off a cursed item,” I continue, “and requiring us not to tell that we found it in a noble’s estate. Standard stuff—nobody wants the stink to trace back to them, and most of the cursed shit’s been there for gods know how long, so the landowners aren’t at fault.”
I lift the contract, angling it so they can see I’m reading straight from the page.
“But what’s this crap?” I read aloud: “‘The moment a dredger touches the artifact, custody, disposal authority, and responsibility shift to the dredgers, including responsibility for contamination, downstream spread, injuries/deaths, and any public hazard that follows.’ Fuck, and this part—’If inspectors investigate, if fines happen, if scandal erupts—the dredgers must defend and pay for the protected parties’ losses.'”
I lower the contract again, meeting their eyes.
“So, it ain’t enough that we’re here to risk our necks in your canal, we’re also meant to eat the shit your artifact is already spewing?”
The silence stretches. Lady Quenreach’s face stays calm, her hands motionless in her lap. She lets my objection sit there in the air for a measured breath before she responds.
“You’re right, Mr. Weir. It is one-sided.” Her voice stays soft, but there’s something underneath it now. Thread of steel. “Because the artifact is already spewing, as you said. The contamination isn’t waiting for signatures—it’s spreading through the canal network right now, whether you take this contract or leave it. What this document does is formalize what’s already true: the moment you extract it, you’re the ones handling a quarantine-class object. That’s not me imposing liability—that’s waterways code. Cursed artifacts don’t stay clean just because the paperwork’s polite. If inspectors trace the taint and you’re standing there with no contract, no documented salvage claim, and no legal authority to have moved it—what does that look like? It looks like dredgers who freelanced a removal without protocol and made the problem worse. This contract is what makes your work legitimate. It establishes that you claimed it under salvage and quarantine authority, that you’re coordinating with an Ash-Seal liaison for proper destruction, and that you handled it by the book. The terms are harsh because the artifact is harsh. But they’re also what keeps you from being the ones blamed for amateur handling.”
Her voice softens just slightly.
“I need it gone, you need the pay and the proof your crew can do this kind of work, and the canal network needs it out of the water before the rot reaches Brinewick’s drinking supplies. The terms don’t change. But you can sign knowing that walking away doesn’t make the liability disappear—it just leaves it unassigned, and unassigned liability has a way of landing on whoever was closest when the disaster got worse.”
I shift in the chair, feeling the upholstery creak under me. I keep my voice level—calm, but firm enough that they hear I’m not bending just because the setting’s nice.
“Lady Quenreach, I respect your position as a noble of the realm, but let me tell you—I know the waterways code better than the bastards who wrote it. You wanna test me on that? Section twelve, subsection four. Salvage claim transfers on recovery, not on your say-so. Get it straight—we pull your trash out of the water. That don’t make us trash. Not river scum picking through garbage. We touch the occult shit so you don’t have to. Just because we’re built for water don’t mean we’re built to die in it for your convenience.”
The toad-folk man stays perfectly still in his chair. Lady Quenreach’s expression doesn’t shift.
“Thing is,” I continue, “we both know you can’t find another crew in time to risk their necks in that canal. Not when the rot’s spreading bad enough it’ll ruin the water system of our great city in a couple of days. That’ll affect far worse than your reputation, milady. So we can’t in good conscience leave your canal clogged with whatever ancient turd’s lodged down there.”
Silence settles over the room—the deliberate kind, where someone’s letting your words breathe before they respond. Lady Quenreach’s hands stay folded in her lap, her gray eyes steady on mine.
Then she speaks. Measured, almost thoughtful.
“You’re absolutely right, Mr. Weir. You’re not river scum. You’re professionals. That’s exactly why I called you. And you’re right that I can’t find another crew—not one that can handle contaminated salvage on this timeline, not one with an Ash-Seal liaison already coordinated, and not one whose boss understands that quarantine-class artifacts don’t wait for polite negotiation. But let’s be clear about what’s actually happening here. That artifact is already spewing its poison into the canal network. Whether you sign this contract or walk out that door, the taint is spreading. If it reaches Brinewick’s water supply—and it will, if no one extracts it—inspectors will come. They will trace it upstream. They will demand to know who knew, who delayed, and who refused to act.”
She leans forward slightly.
“If you walk away, they will find out professional dredgers were offered legitimate salvage work under quarantine protocol, were told about the contamination risk, and even though they had an Ash-Seal liaison ready to coordinate destruction, they refused. And when the disaster gets worse, when people start asking why no one acted, your boss’s reputation suffers. Not because you did the work badly. Because you didn’t do it at all.”
I tsk.
“Tough one, aren’t you?” I lean back in the chair. “I’ll bring my crew down there and get rid of the artifact. This ain’t about your fancy reputation or mine any longer—it’s about my little one not needing to drink rotten water thanks to whatever cursed piece of occult crap some ancient imbecile buried in your land.”
I pull my pencil from the vest pocket. Chewed at one end, but the graphite’s still good. My eyes catch the quill sitting on the coffee table between us—proper writing instrument, the noble kind.
I hold up my pencil.
“Is a dredger’s pencil good enough to sign, or do I need to use your quill as well?”
“Your pencil is perfectly acceptable, Mr. Weir. The contract’s binding either way. Sign wherever you’re most comfortable—margin, footer, wherever your crew protocol requires. If you want witness marks, Mr. Siltwell can countersign as landowner’s agent.”
Her gray eyes stay steady on mine.
“Once it’s signed, we’ll walk through site access, key inventories, and liaison coordination. The faster your crew can begin extraction, the better for everyone.”
I rest the contract on my thigh and sign using the pencil. When I straighten, my gaze sweeps from Lady Quenreach to the toad-folk man—Siltwell. The frown’s still pulling at my muzzle.
“Done,” I say. “All the dredgers’ crew responsibility now.”
Siltwell leans forward just enough that the room’s weight shifts with him. His tone stays practical.
“Good. Now we move to site access and coordination.”
I watch him settle into it. The quiet third chair’s gone—he’s running the show now, and the Lady’s sitting back to let him.
“The artifact’s lodged in a silted culvert beneath the east wing,” he continues. “Partially flooded, tight access routes, and some of the grate keys are missing because the workers who quit took them when they left. I’m working on recovering those keys, but in the meantime I’ll need to know your crew size, your equipment load, and whether your Ash-Seal liaison needs separate access or works embedded with your dredgers. You’ll report findings through me, I’ll handle access schedules and keep staff clear. The faster we can map crew movements and equipment staging, the faster you can begin work, and the faster that thing’s out of the water. What’s your crew’s standard operating procedure for contaminated salvage sites, and what do you need from me to make the first descent safe?”
I pull out my notebook—dog-eared, water-stained, pages crinkled from getting soaked and dried too many times. Flip it open to a clean page.
“Alright,” I say, pencil already moving. “You’re the key toad-man. Keymaster.”
I catch the faintest twitch at the corner of his mouth—not quite a smile, but close enough.
“We’re four dredgers, counting me. I wouldn’t count on the Ash-Seal fucker to venture into trouble with us—he hasn’t decided yet, as he wanted to know the details, but I’m guessing he’ll wait by the cart with his containment box for us to show up muddied and dragging the problem to him.”
I jot down a quick note about staging area, then look back up.
“My people are outside, waiting. Regarding standard operating procedure, need to know what tools to bring. Those missing keys, we don’t have time to wait for them. Will bolt cutters and saws do? Brought them with us, no problem carrying them. Just need to know if you can handle ruined grates.”
“Bolt cutters and saws will work—the grates are old ironwork, not secured against professional tools, and I’d rather you cut through than wait for keys that might not come back in time.”
I tap the pencil against the notebook.
“Also, artifact’s lodged in a silted culvert? Does it need to be dug up?”
Siltwell leans forward again, keeping that practical focus locked in.
“The artifact’s lodged in a collapsed culvert section, partially submerged in about two feet of contaminated water—silted channel, tight access, and yes, you’ll need to dig or dredge around it to get clean extraction leverage without cracking whatever’s keeping it sealed right now. Your four dredgers can stage from the east courtyard. I’ll have it cleared and your cart positioned there so your Ash-Seal liaison has clean line-of-sight to containment without needing to descend. I’ll walk you through the access route myself once we’re done here: down through the service stair, through the lower gallery, then into the construction zone where the culvert’s exposed. The flooded section’s maybe thirty feet from the access point, tight enough that your people will be working in close quarters with bad air and worse water.”
I raise my eyes to Siltwell, and let the look settle into something grave.
“Bossman had us bring muscle,” I say. “Are we dealing with beasties down there—the rabid or transformed kind—or does this artifact of yours just ruin our canal waters and mind-control people?”
“No beasties so far—no transformations, no rabid-kind threats, just the mental compulsion pull and the water rot. The workers who drowned walked in on their own, or slipped and didn’t fight to get back out, and the ones who got close reported headaches and intrusive whispers telling them to touch the flow or step into the channel. But I can’t promise the flooded zone’s safe from escalation. We don’t know what happens if someone stays submerged too long near the artifact, and contaminated sites have a way of getting worse once you start moving things. Your muscle’s a smart call—bring them, keep them close, and if anyone on your crew starts hearing whispers or staring at the water too long, pull them back topside immediately and don’t let them argue. The artifact’s not attacking people directly, but it’s pulling them in, and that’s dangerous enough when you’re working in tight quarters with bad air and two feet of tainted water underfoot. Treat it like the threat could escalate the moment you start extraction, and we’ll both sleep better once it’s in your Ash-Seal liaison’s containment box.”
“Alright,” I say. “Don’t need nothing more. I’ll get my crew up-to-date with this gods-awful shitshow, then flag down one of your servants when we’re ready.”
Aldous’ kitchen sits in warm, dim light. Rough plaster walls, heavy timber beams, stone floor with salt worked into the cracks. Plain table against the left wall, two clay jugs on top. Tall cabinet on the far wall—open shelf with glass bottles.
We file in. Still wearing the chicken fight.
Bertram’s temple is stained with dried blood—chicken peck and self-inflicted pipe strike both. Aldous has tongues of dried blood down his arm. Vespera walks like her ass is on fire. Rill’s work tunic shows a bloom of blood at the chest.
Bertram plods to a stool, one hand over his temple like that’ll help. Sits down heavy.
“I don’t know about you folks, but I’ve had enough of chickens for a lifetime. I don’t even want to eat one for revenge.”
Vespera settles onto another stool with a careful wince, trying to keep weight off the wounded cheek.
“Alright, everyone survived the Great Chicken Apocalypse, but we’re all leaking in various places. Bertram, your temple looks like you lost a fight with your own pipe—which, to be fair, you did. Aldous, that arm needs cleaning. And Rill…” Her ears flick toward the girl. “…that’s a lot of blood soaking through. We should probably handle these wounds before they decide to get interesting in the bad way, meow.”
Can’t treat what’s got chicken shit in it.
“Need to clean these wounds.” I look at Aldous. “You keep vinegar in that cabinet?”
I cross to the cabinet, pull down a stoppered bottle from the shelf.
“Right,” Rill says. “Let’s get this done.”
She strips her work tunic off smooth, no hesitation. The chest wounds are visible now—punctures where the beaks found the soft spots, red and raw.
Aldous reaches for one of the clay jugs on the table, lifts it.
“There’s cider here if anyone wants it. Not much, but it’s clean.”
Bertram reaches for the other jug—the mead. Brings it to his nose. Sniff test. His eyes narrow when he lowers it. Pain flash.
“I’m glad you don’t mind if we help ourselves to your alcohol, friend.” He looks down at the salt worked into the floor cracks, even under the table. “And I must say, I owe you my apologies. I thought you were just eccentric. No harm in it. Gods know men like us who live alone for a long time get that way. But what made those chickens move… wasn’t whatever passes for mind in poultry.”
Vespera winces getting off her stool, approaches the wash basin.
“Melissa’s got the vinegar, but we need to rinse first—blood and gods-know-what needs to come off before disinfectant touches it.” She looks at Rill. “Come here. That chest wound took the worst of it, and you’re not doing anyone favors by pretending it’s fine. Let me clean it before Melissa works her vinegar magic.”
Rill crosses to the basin. Vespera works the cloth, methodical, gets the blood and chicken-shit off. The wounds look cleaner. Raw, but clean.
I move to Bertram with the vinegar jar. Head wounds bleed dramatic but they’re usually shallow. He’s coherent—all good signs.
“This is going to sting. Don’t jerk your head back.”
I tip the jar, let the vinegar soak into the wound. His fist goes white against the table edge. He bites his lip hard enough I can see the pressure, breathing through his nose to keep the expletives down.
I work it clean, watch for deeper damage signs. Pupils look normal. No confusion beyond the pain response. Shallow cut, like I thought.
Rill’s trying to treat her own chest wound now that Vespera rinsed it. Hands steady—adrenaline or stubbornness, hard to tell with her. She may have watched enough patchwork to know the theory. Clean, close, cover. Practice is different than theory. Her hands fumble the angle. Can’t see what she’s doing properly, can’t apply even pressure. The wound edges don’t meet right.
Aldous strips off his quilted jerkin. The bantam got his arm during extraction—shallow, but from a possessed bird. He’s standing there like he forgot he had his own wound until everyone else started getting treated.
Bertram takes a long pull from the mead jug, lowers it slow.
“Maybe I shouldn’t want to know, Aldous, but…” He looks at the potter. “You said whatever got into your chickens came from buried pottery. An ‘entity,’ you called it. What damnable thing did we just fight that found itself in our town?”
“You’ve been hosting while bleeding, Aldous. Very hospitable, but let me take a look at that arm while you explain.” She gestures toward his wounded limb. “Sleeve needs to come up.”
Aldous is already moving to the basin. Rolls up the blood-stained sleeve on his left arm.
I move to Rill with the vinegar jar.
“Your turn. This’ll hurt worse than the rinse.”
She doesn’t blink. Just waits.
I tip the jar. Vinegar hits the punctures.
Her jaw locks hard. Fists clench. Breathing goes shallow and controlled, knuckles white against the burn. But she doesn’t jerk back, doesn’t make a sound. Just holds there while the vinegar works through raw tissue.
First serious wound she’s taken. From something that wanted to kill her. She’s not moving. Good.
Aldous starts rinsing his wound at the basin, water over the shallow bite.
“The entity came from something I buried. Eight years ago—piece of pottery from a failed firing. I thought burial would contain it. I was wrong.” His voice stays steady despite the sting. “The shard must have strengthened over time, reached out to the nearest living thing. By the time I dug it up and destroyed it properly, the corruption had already transferred into the hens. Living bodies anchor entities better than ceramic.”
He strips off his work shirt for better access to the wound.
“What you fought was something that shouldn’t exist—a contamination that moved from dead material into living hosts. That’s why extraction was necessary instead of slaughter. The birds weren’t the threat. They were just occupied.”
Bertram sets the mead jug back on the table. Then he looks at Aldous—long, grave stare.
“From a failed firing… eight years ago?” His voice drops. “You can’t mention ‘eight years ago’ and expect me not to know what that implies, my friend.” He rubs his temple where the wound is. Winces. “Did this entity have something to do with that sweet, studious apprentice of yours? What was her name…” Squints like recall’s harder with the head wound. “Mara, wasn’t it? First time you’ve referred to that year. Ever since.”
Vespera’s ears snap forward.
“Aldous, let me take a look at that arm while you tell us about Mara.” Her tone’s careful. “That kind of connection deserves the full story, meow.”
Bertram glances at her.
“I can see the bloodied hole in your breeches over your shapely ass right where that demon buried its beak, miss. Maybe you should let yourself be helped.”
Aldous’ arm needs disinfectant. Rinsed, exposed, accessible. Then closure. The wound’s not trivial—bantam peck, deeper than it looks. Blood loss makes people stupid. Infection risk is real. Vinegar will burn but he’s kept talking through worse today.
“Aldous. Hold still. Your turn.”
I move to him. Tip the vinegar over the wound, let it soak deep.
His jaw locks. Teeth grind—I can see the muscle flex. Fists clench white, breathing sharp through his nose. He holds still.
When I finish, he reaches for linen strips from the cabinet. Starts wrapping the wound himself. Hands steady despite the burn-ache.
“Yes. The entity came from Mara’s death.” First wrap secured. “Eight years ago I tried a ritual from a grimoire fragment I’d bought. Thought I was being careful, thought I understood the variables. I was wrong.” Another wrap. “The firing went catastrophically wrong and she died in the kiln fire. What came out of that kiln, other than burned shards, was my first functional containment vessel, sitting perfect in the ashes while she bled out on my workshop floor.”
He ties off the bandage. Small knot.
“So yes, Bertram—what you just helped me extract from those chickens has everything to do with my apprentice. Most of what I know about craft-based containment, I learned from the night she died.”
Bertram looks down at his lap. Lifts the clay jug to his lips, takes a longer gulp. Wipes his mouth with the back of his hand.
“That poor girl.” The edges of his eyes wrinkle. “Maybe I should say that… these things are not to be played around with. Whatever ‘entities’ exist out there that can be brought over through mysterious grimoires. But I guess… it happens. Despite our best intentions, life takes away the ones we care about.” He pauses. “Such a bright smile she had, that one.”
Vespera shifts her weight, ears flicking back.
“Right. Guess it’s my turn.”
She reaches back, works the torn breeches down over her ass. The wound’s exposed now—puncture, red, angry.
Bertram, seated behind her, makes a contemplative sound.
“Oh my. I can’t say I’ve seen many cat-folk butts in my long life, but yours is quite lovely, miss.”
Although Vespera’s tail twitches, she doesn’t turn around.
Last one needing disinfectant. Ass wounds are awkward but not complicated—muscle tissue, decent blood supply, low infection risk if treated properly. Vinegar will sting worse on tender flesh.
I cross to her with the jar.
“Vespera. This is going to burn.”
I tip it over the wound. Her spine goes rigid. Full-body shiver, tail jerking stiff. She sucks air through her teeth, claws flexing against the table edge. Holds still.
Rill’s trying to close her chest wound again. Hands working the angle, trying to bring the edges together. Can’t see what she’s doing. Fumbles the pressure. Won’t hold.
Aldous approaches her, methodical.
“Your wound’s been prepped correctly—rinsed and disinfected. Let me try to close it properly before infection sets in.” His voice stays level. “My medicine skill isn’t excellent, but the rooster got you helping with my problem. I owe you at least the attempt.”
Rill nods. He kneels beside her. Examines the punctures over her heart—copper-backed rooster hit the same spot twice. He reaches for linen strips, works the edges together carefully.
He tries to seat the cloth, then tries again. It slips. He pulls back, jaw tight, strips loose in his hands.
Bertram straightens. Sets the mead jug down on the table—solid thunk. Reaches behind his apron, extracts his pipe. He examines it like he’s checking for damage from the temple strike. Takes a long look at Rill.
“Kid, you did good. You went with us into that ambush. Kept holding tight to those chickens despite the bloom of blood in your chest. Despite the fact that you weren’t strong enough to prevent those feathered devils from escaping your grip. You’ve got grit is what I mean.”
He pauses. The pipe stays unlit in his fingers.
“Still… don’t know if that’s a good thing. There are worse things out there than possessed chickens, if you’re still willing to put your life on the line. Threadscar didn’t get her nickname from mopping floors, I’m guessing.”
Vespera shifts her weight, reaches down for the pooled breeches at her feet.
“Right, well. Can’t have a serious conversation about dead apprentices and entity corruption while my ass is hanging out. Not the aesthetic I was going for.”
She picks them up. Starts working them back over her hips, careful around the treated wound.
Rill’s chest wound is prepped—rinsed, disinfected, exposed. Both Aldous and Rill tried to close it already. Both failed. My turn. Rill’s young. Healthy tissue, good blood supply. Should respond well.
“Stay still. I’m closing this properly.”
I kneel and examine the punctures—rooster hit the same spot twice, over the heart. Worst wound of the group. Edges clean from the vinegar, good blood supply, no compromise visible.
I press the edges together—firm, even—and hold them while I seat the linen strip. Tension right, coverage right. I secure it and test the hold.
The bleeding’s checked, but nobody relaxes.
Aldous moves toward one of the empty wooden stools. Sits down careful, mindful of the arm wound.
“You all came here because I posted at the Registry about possessed chickens, and you stayed through an extraction that turned into a small battle.” His voice stays level. “I owe you more than cider. If anyone needs rest before heading back to town, the space is yours.”
Bertram produces a match, strikes his pipe. Flame catches. He lights the tobacco and takes a slow draw.
Smoke curls up. He’s watching Vespera work the vinegar-treated wound through the tear in her breeches.
“As for you, miss cat, I’m picturing a young life whole with fresh taverns in which to play, adventures to partake in.” Another puff. “Don’t know what brought you to our little nowhere-town, but I hope we didn’t make too bad of an impression on you. Possessed poultry and all.”
Vespera glances back toward the treated area.
“Melissa already handled the vinegar part—which hurt like absolute hell, by the way—so the wound’s disinfected. Let me see first if I can close this rooster wound properly.”
My hands are done. Now I watch.
Bertram’s managing his own pain—mead first, now pipe. Self-administered. Vespera’s struggling to handle her own closure attempt. Rill’s quiet, processing the first real wound she’s taken.
They’re talking about Mara again. Heavy conversation. Not my terrain. I patch bodies. I don’t patch guilt.
Bertram’s good at the social space. He reads people the way I read blood. I’ll watch for delayed shock. Infection signs. Anyone who destabilizes. That’s what I’m trained for.
The rest of it—the sharing, the bonding over tragedy—that’s their work.
Plank walls stained deep brown, low ceiling beamed with simple timbers, two stubby roost bars mounted like a ladder on the left wall. Centered at the back sits a narrow shelf unit divided into three nesting cubbies. The floor’s covered in flattened straw and wood shavings, uneven underfoot, with two shallow bowls set directly on it. Morning light struggles through the wire-mesh opening. Corners stay shadowed; wood grain shows deep and dark. Burnt clay coats my throat with every breath.
We’re all inside now—Bertram, Aldous, “Threadscar” Melissa, Rill, and me, crowded into this glorified chicken prison. Five birds occupy the gloom: a black pullet with a crooked neck making tiny ceramic clicks from her beak, dust clinging to her pinfeathers like kiln sweepings. A copper-backed rooster with an impressive tail immediately positions himself between us and the other chickens, broad chest out like he’s got a chance. A buff hen with a startlingly pale face pecks the same exact spot in the litter, obsessive and drooping. A tiny slate-blue bantam circles the back corner.
And at the center: the speckled hen. Large, holding unnaturally still, staring straight ahead despite five humans invading her space.
The coop door scrapes shut, but the latch doesn’t catch. A finger-width gap of light. Bertram glances back at it, then scans the interior, jaw tight.
“This chicken coop of yours is way gloomier than it has any right to be,” he says.
Aldous moves closer, containment vessel cradled like glass.
“The gloom’s not aesthetic, Bertram. It’s symptomatic. The burnt-clay smell, the dim light, the way the roosting bars look wrong even though nothing’s physically changed—that’s all bleed-through from what’s anchored in the flock. Vespera, we’re starting with the speckled hen. I need you to position her exactly one handspan from the vessel’s opening when I give the word.”
The black pullet recenters its crooked neck with a sharp twitch. Click, click, click from the beak.
Melissa shifts beside me, moving into position without crowding my space. Support stance—sparring distance. Close enough to intervene.
The buff hen moves slowly across the litter, drooping like she’s sick, letting out soft clucks with a dry rasp underneath.
I move toward the speckled hen, keeping my movements fluid and deliberate. That clean focus I get before violence kicks in—except this time it’s aggressive chicken handling for occult pottery.
“I’ll hold her steady when you’re ready, Aldous,” I say, closing the distance smoothly. “Just tell me when to position her.”
The speckled hen holds that unnatural stillness, staring ahead while a milky film slides across her eyes—a second lid, slow and wrong.
Then, she jerks sideways, whole body yanked like an invisible wire pulled her. Her head swivels with mechanical precision, scanning. Seeking a target.
The hen’s eyes lock onto Melissa, and I catch the detail I missed before: concentric rings in the iris, like growth rings in cut wood. The gaze holds. Something passes between the hen and the veteran. Pressure drop before a storm.
Melissa doesn’t flinch. Her jaw sets, eyes narrowing, and whatever spiritual rot the hen’s pushing at her hits resistance. The veteran stands her ground.
The copper-backed rooster explodes into motion. Plants himself beside the speckled hen. His beak opens. Burnt clay rolls out on his breath—I taste it.
Then he lunges at Rill. The rooster jumps, surprisingly high for something that size, and drives his beak straight into Rill’s torso. Right over her heart. The impact lands wet and precise.
Rill staggers back. Her face registers the pain in a tight grimace, but her eyes stay locked on the rooster. Combat-ready despite the blood starting to seep through her linen tunic.
The black pullet’s making excited clicks now, rapid-fire ceramic taps that echo off the coop walls.
The slate-blue bantam explodes from the back corner, tiny legs churning through litter. She launches herself at Melissa, but the veteran sidesteps clean. The bantam’s beak snaps shut on empty air.
The buff hen, who’s been pecking obsessively at the same spot this whole time, suddenly lifts her head. Looks around like she’s just waking up. Then something clicks behind those pale eyes and she snaps alert.
She charges Bertram. The buff hen lunges with more speed than her drooping posture suggested possible, beak aimed at his face. Bertram throws his hands up, stumbling back—the hen overshoots, loses her balance completely, and hits the ground in a tumble of dusty feathers.
Bertram’s got his pipe out now, pulled from under his apron, gripped like a club.
“This was an ambush!” He edges closer to the fallen bird, keeping the pipe raised. “I guess the saying is true—no plan survives contact with the enemy!”
He drops down, gets his hands on the buff hen before she can right herself, and pins her. She thrashes but he’s got weight and leverage.
Aldous moves immediately. Not rushed—methodical. He crosses to Bertram and the restrained hen with the containment vessel still cradled carefully, his eyes already assessing angles and positioning.
“Bertram, keep holding her. I’m going to help her upright, and then we’re doing the extraction immediately while you’ve got her restrained. This is the best chance we’ll get.”
He sets the vessel down carefully, then gets his hands under the buff hen’s body. They wrestle the buff hen upright, Bertram maintaining his grip while Aldous adjusts her position with almost ritualistic precision.
Melissa lunges forward, going for the copper-backed rooster—the biggest active threat now that Bertram has the buff restrained. But the coop erupts into chaos of wings and movement. The speckled hen jerks sideways exactly as Melissa commits, the rooster pivots, and suddenly they’ve traded positions in that split-second scramble.
Melissa’s hands close around the speckled hen. She pins the wings tight against the bird’s body with both hands, adjusting her grip with practiced efficiency.
“Got her instead.” Melissa’s voice cuts through the noise, steady. “Aldous, proceed with your extraction. I’ll hold this one.”
The speckled hen thrashes, and that wrongness radiating from her intensifies. I can feel it like heat off sun-baked stone.
The rooster’s loose. He’s already drawn blood. Melissa’s got the primary anchor, Bertram’s locked down the buff—I need to handle this copper-backed bastard.
I move toward him, smooth and deliberate. I go in like I would in a clinch—hands sure, wings pinned, no room for him to spin. Mrow, let’s see if restraining a possessed chicken gives me the same edge as actual combat.
The rooster sees me coming. His head snaps toward me, tailfeathers flaring, and he sidesteps with surprising speed. I adjust my angle, reach for him, but he evades. Clean pivot, low to the ground, and he’s out of range before my hands close on feathers.
Rill, blood seeping through her tunic where the rooster pierced her, lunges forward. She’s going for him with both hands extended, trying to pin his wings the way Melissa demonstrated with the speckled hen.
The copper-backed rooster twists away from her too, wings beating hard. Rill’s hands grasp at empty air, and the rooster plants himself three feet back, chest out, guarding the space between us and Melissa’s captive.
The speckled hen’s thrashing intensifies. Melissa’s got solid grip, wings pinned tight, but the hen twists with unnatural strength, and the veteran’s hands slip just enough. The hen wrenches free, tumbling to the litter in an explosion of dust and burnt-clay stench.
The copper-backed rooster sees it. His head snaps toward the escaped hen, and then he’s airborne, launching himself straight at Melissa with focused rage. He drives his beak into her torso, right over the ribs. The impact makes a dull thud against her leather cuirass. Melissa doesn’t even flinch.
Movement from the shadows. The slate-blue bantam rushes out, tiny and fast, making a beeline for Bertram. She launches herself at him, beak aimed for exposed skin, but Bertram shifts his weight without losing his grip on the buff hen. The bantam’s strike goes wide, her beak snapping shut on empty air.
The buff hen thrashes harder, clucking with that raspy edge, losing feathers as she strains against Bertram’s hold. He pins her tighter. She can’t break free.
The tanner keeps his eyes narrowed, head angled to the side like he’s expecting another strike.
“Aldous,” he says, steady despite the bantam circling for another pass, “I would appreciate if you extracted whatever you need to extract out of this one, my friend.”
Aldous positions the vessel one handspan from the buff hen’s head. Hands steady despite the burnt-clay choke.
“Bertram, she’s going to thrash when the extraction engages. Don’t let go, don’t adjust your grip. The gradient forms along geometric lines and any movement breaks the pattern.” His eyes sweep the coop without moving his head. “Eyes away from the opening. I’m starting now.”
He shifts the vessel’s opening closer to the hen’s face. The buff hen starts shuddering immediately—not normal thrashing but something deeper, tremors running through her entire body. A prolonged screech escapes her throat, high and wrong.
The struggle lasts seconds but feels stretched. The hen convulses, Bertram holds firm, Aldous keeps the vessel positioned with mathematical precision—and then it’s done. The buff hen goes limp in Bertram’s grip, the wrongness bleeding out of her. Whatever corruption was anchored in that bird, it’s in the vessel now.
Melissa crosses the distance to the speckled hen in three strides. She gets her hands around the bird before she can scramble away—pins the wings against the body with both hands.
The hen thrashes, making garbled sounds that don’t belong in any chicken’s throat, but the Melissa’s grip holds.
The copper-backed rooster is still the biggest threat. I’m free to handle him.
I lunge forward, hands extended to grab him before he can attack anyone else. The rooster pivots. I reach for him, but my boot catches something in the litter, uneven wood shavings or straw, and my ankle rolls. I’m going down fast, hands grasping at empty air as the ground rushes up.
I hit the floor hard. Dust and burnt clay smell explode around me. The impact knocks the breath halfway out of my lungs.
The rooster, three feet away, broad chest puffed and tailfeathers flared, clucks territorial. His head swivels, sizing up opponents.
To my right, Rill lunges forward, going for the rooster with both hands extended. She’s trying to pin his wings against his body the way Melissa showed us. The rooster twists away from her. He’s out of range before her hands close on feathers. Rill doesn’t hesitate. She goes after him again.
The rooster launches himself at her. He flies straight for her chest—same heart region where her tunic’s already bloodstained. His beak drives into her flesh with unnatural accuracy, piercing through the linen again. I hear the wet impact even from the ground.
Rill staggers but doesn’t go down. Her jaw sets tight against the pain.
The kink-necked black pullet is suddenly right there, five feet from my face. Her crooked neck cants hard to the left, and she locks eyes with me.
Click, click, click. Sharp ceramic sounds from her beak, rapid-fire and wrong.
Pressure blooms behind my eyes—cold, invasive. I brace, and it slides off like rain on stone. The pullet backs away, clicks slowing.
From the back corner—the slate-blue bantam rushes out. She launches herself at Aldous, beak aimed for exposed skin. Aldous sidesteps without looking at her directly. The bantam lands in the dust.
The buff hen shakes her head in Bertram’s grip, confused, trying weakly to free herself. The extraction pulled the wrongness out, left her just a regular chicken trying to escape a human’s hold. Bertram struggles to scramble to his feet.
“Everyone still alive?” He glances around the coop. “What feathered demon are we handling next?”
He spots me on the ground, and his eyebrows go up. He rushes over, reaches down, grabs me by the front of my shirt even though that hand is still holding his pipe. The buff hen squawks indignantly under his arm.
“Floor ain’t made of catnip as far as I know, miss. Get up.”
He hauls me to my feet with more force than finesse. I find my balance, dust and wood shavings clinging to my clothes.
Aldous crosses to Melissa and the speckled hen, vessel cradled carefully, eyes already calculating angles.
He positions the containment vessel exactly one handspan from the hen’s head, where those growth-ring eyes show whatever corruption runs deepest. His hands stay steady despite the chaos still churning around us.
“Melissa, hold her firm—this is the primary vector.” His voice cuts through the burnt-clay stench without rising in volume. “The extraction will fight harder than the buff hen’s did. Don’t adjust your grip no matter how she thrashes. Eyes away. I’m extracting now.”
The speckled hen’s body goes rigid in Melissa’s grip. Then she screeches—garbled, wrong, a sound that would require vocal cords no chicken should possess. The screech scrapes against the inside of my skull like metal on glass.
Her body spasms. Not the panicked thrashing of a restrained bird—something stronger than her frame should allow. Wings strain with unnatural force. The veteran’s grip holds, tension cording through her scarred forearms.
The struggle stretches. The hen convulses, that screech rising and falling in waves that make my teeth ache. Aldous keeps the vessel positioned steady as a fixture.
Then it’s done. The wrongness bleeds out of the hen like heat dissipating into cold air. She goes limp in Melissa’s grip. Just a bird now. The burnt-clay smell doesn’t fade but the pressure it carried, that invasive spiritual rot, collapses. Melissa releases her; the hen settles onto the straw-covered floor, docile.
Melissa straightens, turns toward the copper-backed rooster who’s still loose and aggressive, chest puffed and tailfeathers flared.
I lunge for him again, movements sharp and controlled, aiming to pin his wings before he can strike. But the rooster jumps, and I’m grasping at empty air as he lands three feet away. My hands close on nothing.
The speckled hen, clean now, picks her way through the scattered bodies and debris. She avoids Rill, sidesteps Aldous’ boots, and heads straight for the coop’s entrance.
The copper-backed rooster’s head swivels, tracking movement across the coop. His eyes settle on me. That barrel chest puffs wider, hackles flaring rust-red in the dim light, and I can see the exact moment he chooses his target.
He charges. Talons churning through litter, wings half-spread for balance. I sidestep. He adjusts mid-charge, but I pivot. His beak snaps on empty air. Momentum carries him past me in a flurry of copper feathers and burnt-clay stench.
The kink-necked black pullet locks eyes with Melissa. Click, click, click. That spiritual pressure builds again. Melissa’s jaw sets, eyes narrowing. The pressure shatters. The pullet backs away.
The slate-blue bantam explodes from the shadows. Tiny legs pump through the litter as she launches herself at Bertram with surprising height. Her beak drives straight into his head—I hear the impact piercing skin.
Bertram’s hands fly to his skull, still gripping that pipe. He swings it up reflexively and cracks himself in the temple with his own weapon.
“Agh! You feathered cunt!” He releases the buff hen—she drops from under his arm, flapping indignantly to the floor—and presses both hands to his bleeding scalp. “I felt the vibration right through my gray matter!”
The buff hen shakes herself, confused and free, then waddles away.
Aldous moves. That same methodical precision he showed during the extractions, but faster now—crossing the distance to the copper-backed rooster. Not waiting for someone else to handle it.
“Hold still,” he says, reaching for the rooster with both hands angled to pin wings tight against body. “I’m not giving anyone an excuse to kill you when extraction is still possible!”
The rooster twists, wings snapping, and Aldous’ hands close on empty air. The bird plants himself three feet back, chest out, eyeing Aldous with focused aggression.
“Third time’s the charm, you feathered bastard,” I say, closing the distance fast. “Hold still so Aldous can fix you!”
I lunge at the rooster. He sidesteps—my boot catches the litter and I’m down again, dust and burnt clay exploding around me.
Rill’s shifting her attention away from the rooster. Her eyes lock onto the kink-necked black pullet instead, the one who tried to corrupt both me and Melissa with that ceramic-click gaze. She’s done chasing the copper-backed demon.
She lunges at the black pullet with both hands angled to pin its wings tight against its twisted body. The pullet’s neck cants hard to the left, beak opening for another click—but Rill’s already got her. Hands close around the bird, wings pressed flush to her sides before she can cast that corrupting gaze again.
Near the coop entrance, the large speckled hen settles into a corner. She watches the chaos with what looks like concern, head tilting like she can’t figure out why everyone’s so worked up.
The copper-backed rooster jumps, hits the wall with both talons, rebounds off the planks with surprising force, then swoops down on Aldous. Wings spread wide for the dive, beak aimed straight for his chest. The rooster pecks hard—I hear the impact against Aldous’ quilted jerkin, the dull thud of beak hitting padded fabric. The jerkin holds.
The black pullet in Rill’s grip thrashes harder, neck twitching violently, beak clicking against Rill’s hands. She’s trying to free herself with unnatural strength for something that size.
The pullet wrenches free from Rill’s hold, tumbling to the litter in an explosion of dust and that burnt-clay stench. Her crooked neck recenters with a sharp twitch—click, click—and she backs away fast, putting distance between herself and Rill’s hands.
The slate-blue bantam rushes out again from the shadows, tiny legs churning. She launches herself at Aldous, who’s still recovering from the rooster’s chest strike. The bantam’s beak drives into his exposed left arm with surgical precision. I hear the wet sound of piercing flesh.
Aldous grimaces but doesn’t cry out. Blood wells up where the bantam’s beak punctured skin.
The white-faced buff hen spots the coop door. It’s cracked open, light from the yard spilling through the gap. She clucks indignantly, ruffles her pale feathers, then waddles straight for freedom. Pushes through the opening and disappears into Aldous’ yard, leaving the coop behind.
Bertram’s got one hand pressed to his bleeding head where the bantam struck earlier. His eyes sweep the coop floor, searching. Then he spots the slate-blue bantam circling near Aldous’ feet, and his expression tightens.
He lifts his pipe-hand, the carved wood gripped tight despite the blood running down his temple.
“You accursed bunch of misbehaving poultry!”
He throws the pipe hard. It hits the slate-blue bantam square in her torso, enough force to send her tumbling through the litter. She rolls once, then scrambles upright, shaking herself with a chirp.
Aldous is approaching me, quick but controlled despite the blood sliding down his arm. He extends a hand down.
“Up—now. Rooster’s still active. I need your hands functional, not eating straw.”
I grab his hand and he hauls me to my feet. Pulled up again. Mortifying.
Melissa’s already moving, eyes locked on the kink-necked black pullet who’s been circling and clicking since she broke free from Rill’s grip. The veteran’s hands are angled low to pin the pullet’s glossy-black wings tight against her twisted body before she can cast another corrupting gaze.
She’s got her; the pullet thrashes, clicks muffled. But Melissa holds firm.
We’re bleeding for every inch, and I’m still dead weight. Rill’s chest wound seeps through her tunic. Bertram’s holding his head. Aldous’ arm drips.
The rooster’s still loose, barrel chest puffed and guarding his position like he owns this coop. And maybe he does.
The slate-blue bantam is tiny, wounded from Bertram’s thrown pipe. Better odds than the rooster. Smaller target, less dangerous, already hurting. I need to actually succeed at something.
The burnt clay smell coating my nostrils, the straw compressed under my boots, the chaos of wings and bodies and blood. This is what I’m good at. Violence with purpose. The bantam. Pin her tiny wings.
Mrow, fourth time’s the charm.
I move toward the slate-blue bantam, hands angled to grab her before she can dart back into the shadows or attack someone else.
The bantam sees me coming. She jumps—tiny legs pump hard—and twists mid-air. My hands close on empty air where she was a split-second ago. She lands three feet away, shakes her wounded body, and circles toward the shadows.
Movement beside me—Rill lunges at the bantam with both hands extended, going for the same target I just whiffed on. Her chest wound’s still bleeding but her eyes are locked on that tiny slate-blue body with focused determination.
The bantam jumps again. Rill’s hands grasp at feathers. She’s got contact, fingers closing around one wing, but the bantam thrashes hard and Rill’s footing shifts wrong in the litter. She’s going down, hands losing grip as her knees hit the straw-covered floor. The bantam wrenches free and darts away in a blur of slate-blue feathers.
Near the coop entrance, the large speckled hen takes a final look at the chaos. Then she turns and waddles straight through the cracked door, following the white-faced buff hen out into the yard. Two regular chickens escaping the violence.
I’m tracking the bantam’s movement as she circles back toward the shadows, when something massive and copper-backed fills my peripheral vision.
The rooster lunges at me. Lower. He drives his beak straight into my right ass cheek.
Pain explodes sharp and piercing. I feel the beak punch through fabric, through skin, driving deep enough to make everything clench involuntarily.
“Fuck!”
The rooster pulls back, beak dripping, and plants himself three feet away. Chest puffed.
My ass is on fire.
THE END
Check out this video I generated about this short. I hadn’t laughed that hard in a good while.
We reach 12 Kiln Lane after mid-morning. The house sits alone at the path’s end—low, old, thatch sagging. Stone lifts pale plaster, patched and hairline-cracked. No ornament. Just a heavy door set deep, dark-paned windows, terracotta jars crowding the step. The place is sealed—simple, sturdy, watchful.
A man kneels before it, hunched over a pottery jar, drawing careful marks on the clay. Must be Aldous. Slim, pale under clay dust. Short dirty-blonde hair, sleep-hollowed hazel eyes. Stained work clothes, reinforced knees, scarred hands rougher than the jar. The smell of kiln smoke and wet clay drifts over even from here.
Bertram steps forward, pipe in hand.
“Aldous, my good man! I’m glad to say that I can finally lift your spirits about the chicken problem.” He gestures at me. “You see, this exotic out-of-towner, Vespera’s the name, decided to take on your request to deal with your misbehaving poultry. I also got our local warrior Threadscar to help. Oh, and there’s this stray teenager we picked up along the way. So fret not, Aldous, about your poultry situation! This posse of killers will make short work of it all. Then we could all head to town and drink ourselves stupid in celebration.”
The moment Bertram says posse of killers and make short work, something tightens in Aldous’ expression. Worry.
He stands, brushes clay dust off his trousers with deliberate care.
“Bertram, I appreciate you bringing help. Truly. But this isn’t a culling. It’s an extraction.” He gestures toward the back of the property. “The infected birds are quarantined in the coop. Locked. It stays that way until we have a plan that doesn’t start with knives. Come to the yard—I’ll show you the setup and explain what needs to happen.”
He turns and walks toward the yard without waiting for acknowledgment. Melissa follows immediately. She moves like she trusts her own eyes. Bertram ambles after them, curious but unhurried.
I’m still standing at the front of the house like I missed the cue.
“Right behind you, Aldous,” I call, following with easy, prowling steps. “Let’s see what’s got you so spooked about your poultry, meow. I’m very interested in hearing about this ‘extraction’ you have in mind.”
The yard opens up behind the house—a wide stretch of grass marked with geometric patterns in thick salt lines. Twelve chickens peck and cluck like nothing’s wrong. On the far edge sits the coop: simple wooden frame, wire mesh opening into darkness that smells sharp and acrid. Burnt clay.
I catch movement—Rill, hurrying to catch up. She doesn’t want to be left behind.
Bertram wanders in, pipe still in hand, surveying the setup with mild curiosity. Aldous doesn’t acknowledge him. He walks straight toward me instead—close, closer than conversational distance—and drops his voice low.
“You took the contract, so you get the explanation first.” He gestures toward the wire mesh coop. “Those five birds in there are infected with something that came from buried ceramic. Not folklore. Not temperament. An actual entity that’s anchored biologically now. I have a containment vessel that can trap it if we extract properly, but the process will provoke violent resistance from the host. I need someone who can restrain a flailing chicken without panicking, without improvising cruelty, and without deciding that killing is ‘simpler.'” His hand moves to the leather thong around his neck. “The key to that coop stays around my neck until I’m standing there with the vessel, the geometry is stable, and everyone understands this is a procedure with rules. Can you work under those terms?”
He isn’t testing my strength. He’s testing my restraint.
My eyes—one ice-blue, one amber, both steady—meet his.
“I can work under those terms. Restraint. No shortcuts. You keep the key.” I flick an ear; the silver hoops catch light. “I’ve held plenty of things that didn’t want to be held, Aldous. Show me the geometry. Explain the procedure. I’ll follow your lead on this—it’s your vessel, your birds, your entity. I’m here to make sure it goes into the container instead of into someone’s throat.”
Melissa edges in to listen; Rill hovers behind her, intent.
Bertram wanders over to where Aldous and I stand. A few free-roaming chickens trail after him, pecking casually at his boots.
“Aldous.” His eyes narrow as he rubs his forehead slowly. He tilts his pipe to drop ash onto the grass, then slides it behind his apron. His gaze moves to the precise geometric patterns drawn in salt. “All these years I’ve known you, I’ve supported you on your artistic projects, but… this is a bit too much, don’t you think?”
The chickens keep pecking. One investigates Bertram’s heel with stubborn curiosity.
“That request at the Registry said…” Bertram continues. “How did you word it again? That the chickens were possessed by the spirit of your mother-in-law? I’ve never even known you to be married, but besides, you also said you wanted the chickens gone.” He gestures toward the coop. “What the hell is this now about birds getting infected with something that came from buried ceramic? What’s this ‘entity’ you speak of that lives in pottery? Are you sure you haven’t gone off the deep end, my friend?”
Aldous turns from me to face Bertram directly. His voice stays measured.
“The posting said ‘mother-in-law’ because I needed help fast without advertising a ward breach at the Registry where anyone could overhear. You know how gossip travels in Mudbrook.” He gestures toward the coop. “As for ‘gone’—smell that? Burnt clay. From chickens. That’s not normal, Bertram. You work with organic materials daily; you know what decay smells like versus what corruption smells like. This is the latter. I didn’t invent the geometric patterns for decoration—they’re containment boundaries that have kept twelve birds safe out here while five infected ones stay locked inside.” His eyes meet Bertram’s. “You’ve known me long enough to know I don’t do things without reason. I’m asking for procedural help, not validation. Vespera’s agreed to the terms. If you’re here to assist, I’ll explain the full extraction process. If you’re here to diagnose my mental state, you can wait by the fence.”
Bertram shifts his weight.
“You sound quite convinced, I admit, but… I mean, you misrepresented your request to Copperplate at the Registry. If he catches wind of this, he’ll spend a whole afternoon with his quill to the books.”
I let them have it. Bertram’s doubt. Aldous’ control. If the potter’s delusional, he’s functionally delusional.
Bertram nods, but his eyes stay worried.
“Sure, I know you to be a master craftsman at your particular trade. I value all the pots you sold me. They’re sturdy, and those drawings you make on them are quite nice.” He pauses. “It’s just… you’ve never been the same since the kiln explosion. Even you should be able to admit that.”
Bertram glances toward Melissa and Rill. “Anyway, you think there’s some ‘entity’ thing inside your chickens, then sure, let’s deal with it. So… you want the muscle here to help you contain your possessed chickens in that vessel? I mean, I guess you could squeeze a chicken into it if you pressed hard enough, but it will hardly take five. And they wouldn’t survive either.”
Aldous pulls the containment vessel from his satchel—glazed ceramic, intricate patterns catching the morning light. He holds it out toward the tanner.
“The vessel isn’t for the chickens, Bertram. It’s for what’s inside them.” His voice stays calm, precise. “Look at the glaze composition—cobalt oxide with salt-fired stoneware, fired at cone ten for structural integrity. The geometry etched into the surface creates a spiritual anchor. When we perform the extraction properly, the entity transfers from the biological host into the ceramic matrix.”
Aldous extends the vessel closer. “The chickens survive. The threat gets contained. That’s the difference between my work and what you’re imagining. This is craft, not butchery. Feel the weight of it if you don’t believe me.”
Bertram takes it. His hands turn it over slowly, examining the glaze patterns, the etched geometry, testing the weight.
“I’ve never known a better potter than you, Aldous. I recognize great craftsmanship. But when I spend hours making saddles, belts, boots… I don’t expect them to catch ‘entities.’ Whatever an ‘entity’ may mean in this occasion.”
He passes the vessel to me. Cool ceramic settles into my feline hands—heavier than expected, dense with that structural integrity Aldous mentioned. Bertram holds Aldous’ gaze through the potter’s glasses.
“You posted the request, and your chickens are in trouble. You’re in charge here. If you believe we should sing a chant or something while holding your chickens, I’m nobody to argue.”
Aldous doesn’t rise to it. He turns his full attention to me instead, steps closer so he’s addressing me directly rather than the whole group.
“Look at the etching along the rim—that’s the anchor geometry. When we extract, the entity will resist leaving the biological host. The patterns create a spiritual gradient, a pressure differential that pulls it toward the ceramic matrix instead of dispersing or jumping to another living thing.”
He points to specific glaze marks without touching the vessel.
“The extraction happens in stages. First, we isolate the primary vector—the large speckled hen. I’ll position the vessel near her head while you restrain her wings and body. The geometry does the heavy work, but she’ll thrash violently when it starts. Your job is to keep her contained without breaking bones or letting her escape the salt boundary I’ll draw around us. Once the entity transfers into the vessel, I seal it immediately. The other four birds should stabilize once the primary anchor is severed.”
His hazel eyes meet mine—ice-blue and amber both steady.
“Questions before we go to the coop?” the potter adds.
I turn the vessel in my hands, studying the etched geometry along the rim. I trace the glaze beside the etching, careful not to cross it.
“Where exactly do my hands go on her so I’m not blocking the anchor when she thrashes?” I meet Aldous’ eyes. “The other four—are they linked to her, or just infected? And timing—do you start the extraction the moment I have her secured, or should I watch for a signal?”
Behind me, Melissa stands positioned where she can hear clearly. Observing the procedural briefing. Calculating failure points and emergency responses without interrupting. The teenage girl is closer to Melissa than to us, absorbing every word with quiet intensity.
Aldous doesn’t pause. He pulls the leather thong over his head—key catching morning light—and moves toward the coop door.
“Proximity matters. The vessel needs to be within a handspan of her head for the gradient to engage properly. Your hands go on her wings first, folded tight against her body, then secure her legs so she can’t kick or claw when the thrashing starts. I position the vessel near her beak, angled so the anchor geometry faces her directly.”
He fits the key into the padlock.
“The networked effect—it’s more like removing the source infection. The speckled hen is the primary anchor. The other four birds are secondary hosts, tethered to her. Once we sever the primary connection, the entity loses its strongest foothold and the symptoms should resolve in the others within hours.”
Click. The lock opens.
Behind me, Bertram’s voice drops low, directed at Melissa.
“I’m guessing you’ve dealt with weirdness before. Gods know what you’ve had to kill through your mercenary work.” Brief pause. “But doesn’t this feel… This feels off to you too, right?”
Aldous lifts the padlock free. The burnt-clay smell punches out.
“Timing: I start the extraction the moment you have her secured and I’ve drawn the salt boundary around us.” He looks at me. “No signal to watch for—you’ll know when it starts because she’ll fight like she’s being burned alive. Keep her contained. Don’t let go. Don’t break the salt line. The geometry does the rest.”
“Feels off, yeah.” Melissa’s response comes flat. “But Aldous just opened the door. I’m going in.”
She moves past and steps through the coop entrance into darkness.
Three people. A middle-aged man, probably a local, looks like a tanner from the stains on his hands. Some kind of feline woman, exotic, dangerous-looking in a way that makes my spine straighten. And Melissa. “Threadscar” Melissa. Right here.
The tanner watches me approach. I can feel his eyes tracking me, probably taking in the sweat, the stick, the way my grip tightens when I get within speaking distance of Melissa.
“Who’s this kid?” he says. “I don’t recall seeing her in town. A girl friend of yours, Threadscar?”
The words hang there. Girl friend. Like I’m here for tea and gossip.
Melissa’s voice comes flat.
“She’s the girl from the north road. Watches me train. Not a friend. She follows.”
The words hit clean. Not harsh, just… factual. She isn’t telling me to leave, but she isn’t claiming me either. She follows. Like I’m a stray that keeps showing up at her door.
Movement to my left. The feline approaches with casual grace, tail swishing behind her. Her eyes are different colors, and they flick between me and Melissa like she’s cataloging something.
“Well well, meow. A girl who follows a warrior. What’s your name, kitten? And what’s with the stick?”
Great. Now I’m being patronized by someone who looks like she walked out of a story I couldn’t afford to hear the end of. But the question’s direct enough, so I answer it the same way.
“Rill. My name’s Rill. The stick’s a broom handle—wrapped so I don’t splinter my hands to hell. It’s what I’ve got, so it’s what I use.”
The tanner taps ash off his pipe, amusement pulling at the corners of his mouth.
“Do you make a habit of sweeping the outskirts of town with a headless broom handle?” His gaze shifts to Melissa. “You have a curious admirer, Threadscar.”
Threadscar. The name clicks into place.
She doesn’t step in. Doesn’t tell them I’m wasting time. Just stands there, expression flat, like she’s watching something unfold that she hasn’t decided matters yet.
The feline woman moves closer. Her hand reaches out before I can decide whether to pull back, and she pats me on the head—light, almost playful. A gesture you’d give a stray that showed up on your doorstep.
“You’ve got guts, I’ll give you that,” she says. “Most kids your age would’ve stayed home with a broom that still had bristles.” Her mismatched eyes study me. “Mrow, so what are you hoping to learn from our friend here? How to turn household objects into weapons, or something more… mmh… specific?”
I want to shove her hand off. Want to snarl. But that would prove I’m exactly what she thinks I am—a kid who can’t take a light touch without losing my shit. So I don’t.
She asked what I’m hoping to learn. That’s real. That’s a question with weight.
“Something specific. I’ve been copying from a distance for six months—watching Melissa train, trying to figure out what the hell I’m doing wrong. But I don’t know the basics. Stance, guard, footwork, the stuff you need before anything else makes sense. I want someone to teach me that. Not wave me off or tell me I’m too young or that I should go home and help my family. I want real instruction.” I lift the wrapped broom handle slightly. “The kind that turns this into something that works.”
The tanner exhales slowly, shaking his head.
“Can’t help but admire your determination, kid, but that stick looks like it’d break the moment you whacked a wolf’s head.” He glances at Threadscar, who’s been silent, just watching. “Local guard’ll give you training. Threadscar’s not the sociable type.”
Like I’m here begging for scraps.
The feline moves before I can respond. She slings an arm casually around Melissa’s shoulders, pulling her close with the kind of ease that says they know each other—or at least that the feline woman doesn’t give a damn if they don’t. Her tail curls lazily behind her.
“Months of watching from a distance with a headless broom, mrow?” Her mismatched eyes lock onto me, studying. “That’s not importuning, Bertram—that’s commitment. Most people give up after a week when nobody hands them what they want. You’ve been grinding alone for half a year.” She tilts her head, and I feel like she’s reading lines I didn’t know I’d written. “So here’s my question, kitten—what made you start? What happened six months ago that made you pick up that stick and decide you needed to learn how to hurt things?”
I meet the feline woman’s eyes.
“Six months ago, I saw her.” I nod toward Melissa without looking away from the exotic animal-person. “I was on a supply run to Mudbrook—dawn, cold, nobody around—and I saw her training by herself. No audience. No performance. No wasted motion. And she had scars—real ones, the kind that say ‘I have done things and survived them.’ I looked at her and I thought: that’s what freedom looks like. Not hoping someone notices you. Not waiting for permission. Just capability so undeniable that the world has to make room.”
I pause. Breathe. Don’t flinch.
“I went home that day and realized I didn’t have that. I was just… tasks. Endless tasks. Fifth priority for food, first priority for ‘Rill, do this.’ I could see my whole future: marry local, help run the waystation, disappear into the wallpaper. So I wrapped a broom handle in cloth because I didn’t have anything else, and I started showing up where she trains. Copying. Guessing. Probably doing it all wrong. But at least I was doing something. At least I wasn’t standing still.”
Bertram puffs on his pipe, something like appreciation in the slow exhale.
“Your folks run the waystation from the north road?” His voice comes careful. “You may be ditching a stable life for the opportunity to die bloody and broken in a ditch somewhere. That’s assuming nobody stole your dignity first. This world is more cruel than you’d think at your age… and it takes from you whatever it pleases, whenever it pleases.”
Melissa’s been still this whole time—watching, flat expression, giving nothing. But now she moves—shrugs off the feline woman’s arm and pulls me close against her side. Solid and real. My pulse kicks up.
Something flickers across that exotic woman’s face, too fast to catch. Then she steps back, tail swishing as she creates space.
“Mmh. I think you two have something to discuss without me hanging off your shoulder, meow.” Her mismatched eyes flick between us. “I’ll be right here. Watching. Learning. You know. Bard things.”
I step out from under Melissa’s arm and drop to my knees.
Hard ground. The broom handle rests across my thighs. Back straight, gaze level.
Bertram’s pipe lowers slowly.
“This kid seems to be made of stern stuff,” he says. His gaze shifts to Threadscar. “Too bad about her slim frame and the broom handle—but if you’d consider a disciple at any point, you could do much worse than this dedicated admirer.” He pauses. “That said, we all think we can take anything with the right attitude… until you get a mace to the face.”
Melissa’s expression stays flat. The silence stretches—that feline woman watching, the millrace rushing steady.
I stand. Not backing off—just refusing to stay collapsed at her feet like I’ve already given up on being her equal someday. I knelt to show respect. I stand to show I mean to become something worth teaching.
That silence—it’s doing something. Either making a decision or unmaking one.
Bertram’s eyebrows pull together. His gaze shifts from the feline woman to Melissa, to me, then back.
“Has… anything been resolved? I feel like something important has passed over my head.”
The feline woman’s eyes flick to him, then settle back on Melissa and me. Her tail curls lazily.
“Mmh, Bertram…” A slight smirk touches her mouth. “I think something important just happened. But whether it’s been resolved?” She glances at Melissa. “Not my story to tell.”
Standing here empty-handed feels incomplete. I extend the wrapped broom handle toward Melissa, holding it out with both hands.
“This is what I’ve had,” I say. “Six months of guessing with this thing. If you’re willing to teach me—actually teach me—then I want to start with real fundamentals. Not copying advanced forms I don’t understand. Not pretending I know what I’m doing. Just… the basics. Stance. Guard. Footwork. The stuff that makes everything else possible.”
I keep the broom handle extended. Voice steady. No begging.
“Take it. Look at it. See what I’ve been trying to learn from. And if you think I’m worth teaching, then show me how to do it right.”
Bertram lights his pipe, the flame briefly illuminating his face.
“This kid’s got heart,” he says around the stem, “but a poor sense of timing.” He exhales smoke. “We weren’t in the vicinity just for a stroll. Our fluffy cat-folk bard here—” He nods toward the feline woman. “—had taken a request to deal with some demonic poultry, and Threadscar, as our local veteran, had decided to act as backup. I’m just along for the ride.”
Demonic poultry.
Melissa takes the wrapped broom handle from my hands. Her grip shifts it through small, controlled motions—testing weight distribution, checking the balance point, examining how the cloth sits, whether the wrapping will hold or slip under pressure. Like she’s reading something I didn’t know I’d written.
“Six months with this.” Melissa’s voice comes flat. “The wrapping’s competent. You understood the problem—splinters, grip failure—and solved it functionally. Weight’s forward-heavy. That’s the handle design, not your mistake. Balance point’s here.”
She taps a spot roughly two-thirds down the shaft.
“You’ve been training with a weapon that fights you on every swing. That builds bad habits fast, but it also means you’re strong enough to compensate without knowing you’re doing it.”
She flexes the handle slightly, testing for structural integrity.
“It’ll snap if you block anything metal with commitment. You know that already or you wouldn’t be here asking for real instruction.”
First time anyone’s acknowledged it as real. My throat tightens. I don’t let it show.
Melissa turns the wrapped handle over one more time, flexes it slightly, then stops. Her gaze shifts from the broom handle to me, flat and assessing. Then she extends her longsword toward me, hilt-first, blade angled safely to the side.
“Here.” Her voice stays flat. “Hold this. Feel the difference. Weight, balance, how it sits in your hand. That’s what you’ve been trying to learn with a stick that fights you.”
I stare at the hilt. Battle-scarred leather wrapping, crossguard showing wear at the edges, the kind of weapon that’s seen actual use. She’s handing it to me.
“If you’re serious about real instruction,” Melissa continues, “you need to understand what you’re aiming for.” Her eyes lock onto mine. “Don’t swing it. Don’t test it. Just hold it and tell me what you notice.”
I take the longsword. Both hands wrap around the hilt. The weight settles—balanced. Centered. My hands are shaking.
I look up to meet Melissa’s flat gaze.
“It doesn’t fight me. The balance is clean. Centered. The broom handle pulls forward every swing—I have to compensate just to keep it under control. This?” I flex my grip slightly. “This feels like it’s waiting for instruction instead of dragging me around. The weight’s real, but distributed so I can use it instead of wrestle it.”
Bertram’s voice comes out more serious than usual.
“The tool of a trade few are prepared for, kid.” He taps his pipe, gaze steady on the longsword. “You’re holding in your hand metal that’s drunk the blood of many.”
Melissa extends her hand. I give the longsword back hilt-first, controlled, the way she handed it to me. She takes it with the same efficiency, then reaches for the wrapped broom handle still resting against her side.
“You’ve felt the difference now.” She extends the broom handle toward me, matter-of-fact. “This is yours.”
I take it. My work. Six months wrapped in cloth.
“You want real instruction. Stance, guard, footwork. Fine. But I don’t teach in a vacuum.” Her gaze shifts briefly to Bertram, then back to me. “We’ve got a job. Possessed chickens, north road. Vespera’s contract. I’m backup.”
A pause. She continues.
“Come along. Watch. See how movement works when stakes are real. You stay back. Don’t interfere. You observe—but this time you see the whole picture, not just me alone in a field. After the job, if you still want formal training, we’ll start with basics. That’s the offer. Decide if you’re coming.”
The feline woman—Vespera—adjusts the case slung across her back, tail swishing decisively. She starts walking without waiting for an answer.
“Well then. Melissa made her offer, Rill’s got her decision to make, and we’ve got possessed poultry waiting for us at 12 Kiln Lane. Meow, I don’t know about the rest of you, but I’d rather not keep a vengeful mother-in-law’s malevolent chicken waiting too long.” She throws a look back over her shoulder, mismatched eyes sharp. “Coming, or are we going to stand around the millrace discussing pedagogical philosophy until the damn birds organize a coup?”
I step out of the Municipal Aid Registry—converted barn, old hay, bureaucratic optimism—into bright morning sun. Pleasant warmth for Mudbrook-on-the-Bend. My instrument case rides familiar weight against my back, dual blades settled at my hips.
Two people are approaching down the street. I recognize Bertram from earlier, and beside him—
Mrow. Interesting.
The woman beside him looks carved from scar tissue and sword practice. Longsword at her back, carried with enough casual competence to be part of her body. Threadscar, if Bertram’s earlier mention was accurate.
“Hey, what did I tell you,” Bertram says, addressing his companion but pitching it loud enough for me to hear. “A cat folk in the flesh. Isn’t she the darnest thing. Look at those whiskers.” He gestures in my direction like I’m a particularly fascinating market oddity. “Anyway, she’s got herself a mess with Aldous’ devilish chickens.”
My tail swishes once. Performing has its uses.
Threadscar’s gaze tracks over me—methodical, not curious. Weapons, instrument case, stance. Reading me like a contract with fine print. No wasted movement, no hurry. Just measuring.
When she finally speaks, her voice is controlled.
“You’re the one who took the chicken job.”
They have closed the distance now. Combat scars catch the light on her skin, small tells in how she holds herself. Someone who’s survived things that kill most people.
I smooth my whiskers briefly. Should I feel annoyed? I didn’t ask for help. But mostly I’m interested. That kind of survival leaves stories, and I collect those. Tactically speaking, if the “possessed poultry” turns out to be something wearing feathers ironically, having someone competent with a blade isn’t the worst idea.
And if things do get interesting, if there’s actual danger instead of just aggressive birds—
I shut down that thread before it can finish. Professional courtesy first.
“Mrow, that’s me. Vespera Nightwhisper, at your service.” I gesture vaguely toward the Registry behind me. “Seventeen birds, one allegedly possessed by a vengeful mother-in-law. Could be demonic poultry, could be grief and roosters. Either way, should be…” My heterochromatic eyes—amber and ice-blue—fix on her with genuine curiosity. “Educational.”
I tilt my head slightly, ears swiveling forward. “Bertram mentioned you. ‘Threadscar,’ right? He thought I might need backup.” Whiskers twitch. “What do you think? Do I look like I need saving from poultry, or are you just bored enough to see where this goes?”
Bertram produces a pipe from somewhere under his apron, tamping tobacco with practiced fingers. He lights it with a match, the narrow end settling at the corner of his mouth as smoke curls up. His eyes move between us like he’s watching theater.
“A way with words on this one, huh? That’s a bard for you, I guess.”
My attention is on Threadscar, because she’s the one who matters here.
She meets my mismatched eyes without blinking. No flinch, no fascination. Her voice comes out flat, professional.
“You don’t look like you need saving. You look like you haven’t worked this region before and don’t know what ‘possessed’ means out here yet. Could be theater. Could be something that bites back harder than you’re expecting.”
Her gaze flicks to my weapons—brief, cataloging—then back to my face. Filing information. Like she’s building a dossier in real-time.
“I’m not bored,” Threadscar adds. “I’m between contracts and Bertram thought the job might be more than one person should handle alone. If you want backup, I’ll assess the situation and act accordingly. If you don’t, I’ll find other work. Your call.”
Your call. No posturing, no pretense of saving the exotic newcomer. Just capability offered without strings. I respect that. More than respect it—I like it. This is someone who thinks in terms of practical outcomes, not spectacle. Someone who’s survived by being useful, not by being loud.
I pull the posted notice from my belt pouch and extend it toward her.
“Here. Read it yourself and decide if it’s worth your time.” My heterochromatic eyes fix on her, genuine curiosity sharpening the usual performance. “Bertram’s not wrong. I don’t know this region yet, and ‘possessed’ is vague enough to mean anything from grief-hallucinations to something that shouldn’t have a beak. If you’re between contracts and this sounds interesting, I’ll take the backup. If it sounds like a waste of your time, no hard feelings.” My whiskers twitch. “But either way, mrow, I’d rather know what I’m walking into before I knock on Aldous’ door.”
She takes it. Reads it like she’s checking for loopholes. Her eyes track across the text with the kind of precision that says she’s survived by catching the details other people miss. No commentary, no reaction visible on her face. Just information intake.
Bertram puffs his pipe, watching us. Taking his time. Then he gestures with the pipe stem, adding to his earlier introduction.
“To contribute to this meeting of warriors,” he says, voice carrying that folksy charm he wears like armor, “let me add some information that may or may not improve the quality of your trade: I know Aldous to be an honest tradesman. He’s been talking uneasily about those chickens for a good while now. Weeks, really.”
Bertram pauses, letting smoke curl. “He mentions that one of them looks… like he knows what he’s looking at. And he’s corrupted some of his other chickens too. Corrupted—that’s the word Aldous used.”
Mrow. That word lands differently than “possessed.” Corrupted implies spread. Deliberate influence. Not just one problem bird, but infection. Behavior changing, patterns shifting. That’s either the most elaborate case of anthropomorphization I’ve ever encountered, or there’s something at Kiln Lane that’s wearing chickens like masks and teaching the others to do the same.
My tail swishes once. Not performance—genuine unease, threaded with that dangerous curiosity that gets people like me into trouble.
Bertram continues.
“Could be, though, that Aldous really hated his mother-in-law and she happened to have some hen-like qualities. Never had a mother-in-law myself. Anna was orphaned young.”
Threadscar is still reading, unmoved by Bertram’s commentary. Filing it somewhere, probably, but not letting it interrupt her process. She doesn’t get pulled off-task by color or charm. Data first, texture later.
Bertram shifts his attention to me, lowering his pipe for a moment.
“I’m curious, miss cat. Do you waltz into battle with that instrument case at your back? That’s the tool of your trade, isn’t it?” His eyes crinkle with genuine interest. “Aren’t you worried that some counterattack may destroy your means to get money off taverns? I have a hard time picturing you putting down the case and shoving it back before you wield those sharp weapons of yours.”
Threadscar finishes reading, then hands the notice back to me. Her eyes find mine, holding my mismatched gaze without hesitation.
“I’ll go with you. If it’s just chickens, we’ll handle it fast and split the pay. If it’s something else, you’ll want someone who’s cleared pastoral weird before. We leave now, assess the site, execute the contract, done.”
The instrument case rides heavy on my back. Fair question. Most people don’t think past the weapons—they see the blades and assume that’s the whole story. But the lute-viol isn’t just a tool. It’s the only thing I actually care about without complication, without performance, without—
No. I’m not explaining that vulnerability to a tanner I met twenty minutes ago, no matter how earnest his pipe-smoke charm is.
Whiskers twitch. I offer him a slight smile.
“You’re not wrong to worry, Bertram. But I’ve been carrying her into fights for years now, and she’s survived everything I have.” I tap the leather with one clawed finger—the reinforcement shows in the thickness, the way the case holds its shape even when I move. Custom work, expensive, worth it. “The case is reinforced. Not just decorative. And honestly? Leaving her behind would be worse. I don’t perform well when I’m wondering if someone’s rifling through my things.” My tail swishes once. “This way, she stays with me. Always.”
I turn my mismatched eyes to Threadscar. She made her decision clean and professional. Just read the posting, assessed, committed. I want to see how she works when things get complicated.
“Right. You’re in. Good.” I nod toward the path that leads toward the old millrace. “We leave now, assess the site at 12 Kiln Lane, and see what ‘demonic poultry’ actually looks like before we decide how to handle it.” I glance back at Bertram. “Thanks for the backup—and the context about Aldous. ‘Corrupted chickens’ is delightfully vague. Let’s go see what that means, mrow.”
Bertram taps ashes off his pipe, eyebrows lifting.
“‘Bertram, thanks for the backup,’ as in stay behind while we head off to battle?” He says it lightly, but there’s genuine curiosity underneath. “I’m asking in case you wouldn’t mind an old tanner witnessing something intriguing in this lovely morning. If things get nasty, maybe I could knock some poultry unconscious with a well-aimed throw of my pipe.”
Threadscar’s expression doesn’t shift, but she takes a breath before she speaks. Running the calculation: civilian, noncombatant, knows Aldous personally, decent accuracy with small objects maybe. Liability in real combat. Potential asset for client context.
When she answers, her voice is controlled but final.
“You can come if you stay behind us, don’t touch anything that moves, and leave the moment I tell you to. No argument, no delay.” She looks at him flatly, then glances at the pipe in his hand. “If something goes wrong, you’re not my priority—keeping the threat contained is.”
She shifts her gaze back to me. Mission focus. “We move now. North road, Kiln Lane.”
My tail swishes once without permission. Right. Follow her lead. She knows the region. I don’t. Let her set the pace, watch how she navigates, learn the terrain through her rhythm.
But something else threads through my thoughts, something dangerous I need to strangle before it takes root. If this job turns into actual danger—if there’s something at 12 Kiln Lane with teeth where beaks shouldn’t have them—I’ll get to see how Threadscar works under pressure. Whether she freezes or gets clearer when the violence starts. Everyone tells a story when the stakes climb. I want hers.
I adjust the strap of my instrument case across my back, settling the familiar weight, then glance at Bertram. He’s still watching us, pipe smoke curling upward, expecting… something. Dismissal? Another round of banter?
My whiskers twitch. Quick smile.
“Thanks for the backup and the context. We’ll handle it.”
I turn toward Threadscar, fall into step beside her. My tail swishes with anticipation I’m not entirely proud of. “Let’s see what’s waiting for us, mrow.”
Behind us, Bertram’s voice carries confusion.
“I’m… receiving conflicting information.” A pause. The sound of him adjusting his grip on the pipe. “But that’s okay, I’ll follow from a safe distance. Maybe I could get Aldous to blabber something important about these demonic chickens of his.”
THE END
Some of the “short stories” of this fantasy cycle will read more like simple scenes. I’m okay with that. I’m gearing toward making them self-contained. You could check out any in whatever order you prefer, then seek possible other shorts leading to them, or from them. That fits how I’ve felt when rereading my Re:Zero fanfiction from years ago.
The rural streets of Mudbrook-on-the-Bend are mostly deserted at this hour—folks either at work or gathered at the Municipal Aid Registry, I’d been told. The air sits pleasantly warm on my fur, though the sun beats bright enough to make me squint. Small town. Tightly packed houses along a blue-green canal. Aging timber frames, steep tiled roofs. The kind of place where someone like me probably looks like she wandered out of a fairy tale.
There. An older man standing near the main path, pipe smoke curling up from weathered hands. I clock him immediately: tradesman’s apron, genuine smile-lines, the relaxed posture of someone who belongs exactly where he’s standing. No performance.
“Oh. Morning, ma’am.” His voice carries that easy rural cadence. “Nice weather we’re having, ain’t it? Never seen you around these parts. I hope that our quaint little town won’t disappoint a member of the cat folk too much.”
That slight wonder in his tone—he’s probably never met one of us before. My whiskers twitch. Part of me immediately starts calculating angles. He knows everyone here. All the local gossip, who’s hiring, what’s dangerous. I could purr, play up the cute factor, harvest whatever stories he’s got tucked away in that weathered brain. Easy material. But gods, I just got here and I’m already doing it. Already cataloging vulnerabilities, mapping the performance.
I close the distance between us, letting myself catch the full scent of him: leather oils, curing agents, pipe tobacco.
“Morning to you too, meow.” I let my whiskers twitch with genuine amusement. “And don’t worry—I’ve played worse venues than ‘quaint.'” Something about his unpretentious energy makes it easy to drop the armor, just a fraction. “There’s something charming about a place that still smells like honest work instead of… performance. You’re a tanner, yeah? I can smell the curing agents from here.”
He takes a couple of steps back without thinking—not fear, just automatic adjustment to proximity. Most people either lean in with curiosity about the exotic cat-girl, or retreat because they’re threatened. This is different. Unconscious. Natural boundary-setting. The smile on his face stays honest.
“I’m a simple tanner, alright, miss.” He gestures down at his hands. “Probably could tell too by the stains in my skin that never quite go away. Name’s Bertram. Seems like I’ve spent a lifetime crafting saddles, belts, boots and the likes with these two hands of mine. A good life, not complaining.”
He takes a long drag of his pipe, exhales slowly. His gaze shifts to my back, my hips.
“As for you, my goodness… That instrument case slung across your back and those… peculiar weapons at your hip. You must have had quite the adventures. Well, if you’re looking for work or to perform, look no further than our humble gathering spot, the Municipal Aid Registry. Posted a request myself for reciprocal services.”
Reciprocal services. The phrase catches in my mind like a claw on silk. What does that even mean in a place like this? Barter system? Trade work? Could be dangerous, could be hauling leather, could be absolutely anything. But he’s local, established, comfortable. If I’m going to find real work here—the kind that strips away performance and leaves only survival—I need someone who knows where the bodies are buried. Metaphorically. Or literally, mrow, depending on what kind of town this actually is beneath the quaint surface.
I need to test this again. Feel out his boundaries properly.
“Reciprocal services, mmh?” I let my curiosity show in the forward tilt of my whiskers. “That sounds intriguing. What kind of work are we talking about? Something dangerous, or just the usual hauling and heavy lifting?” I step closer, closing the distance he created. “I’m always interested in… collaborative arrangements. Especially with someone who knows the area.”
His wide, simple smile doesn’t change, but I catch a small frown creasing his brow as he registers how close I’ve gotten.
“Oh, my request? Just the usual thing, keep it posted there at the Municipal Aid Registry’s bulletin board when I can spare the fee. You see, my Anna…” Something softens in his voice. “Ah, what a dear she was. My great love. Thirty years we had together until the winter fevers took her. I’m grateful for that time, but I’m not looking to replace her. I appreciate my quiet too much these days, and I’m not getting any younger.”
He takes another drag of his pipe, perfectly comfortable.
“So, the posting. I request a handjob, and offer one in return. Fair exchange, no romantic complications. You see, a good handjob is like good craftsmanship. You need to understand what you’re working with, adjust to feedback, take pride in the result.”
Oh gods. He’s… he’s talking about actual handjobs. Not hauling work or tanning work or some tradesman metaphor I misunderstood. Reciprocal handjobs. Posted at the Municipal Aid Registry like it’s… carpentry services.
Mrow… this is… I mean, I’ve played a lot of towns, seen a lot of arrangements, but posting for mutual masturbation services at the town bulletin board with the same casual energy as requesting roof repair? The complete lack of shame in his delivery—”a good handjob is like good craftsmanship”—he genuinely believes that. He’s explaining his sexual barter system the way he’d explain leather-working techniques.
I keep my expression neutral, let my whiskers stay still. Don’t react. Don’t give away whatever the hell I’m feeling right now, because I’m genuinely not sure. Surprise? Amusement? Professional curiosity about small-town sexual economics? This is material, definitely material, but I need a second to process.
Bertram takes my silence in stride, another casual drag of his pipe as he looks into my eyes with that same untroubled calm.
“Hmmm… Maybe this is a human matter. Don’t know if cat folk engage in handjobs. I’ve lived in Mudbrook all my life. People know me, knew my Anna. They know my work is good and I’m honest in my dealings.”
He gestures with his pipe-hand toward the street.
“That said, a traveling bard like yourself will maybe want to check out the other work. Us locals can get fed easily on our produce, so we can do with reciprocal handjobs, but you have to… carry provisions and such for the trip, right? Anyway.” He points at a building that looks like a converted grain barn, larger than the surrounding structures. “There’s Mudbrook’s Municipal Aid Registry. Copperplate’s in charge. Good fellow. Been here before any of us showed up. Just be patient with him, he operates at… his speed.”
He’s genuinely waiting for my response. And the thing is… mrow… I’m not actually offended or shocked. I’ve done stranger things for worse reasons. But this is information. This tells me something about Mudbrook that I didn’t expect—there’s a whole sexual economy here that operates with the same casual pragmatism as trading eggs for flour. That’s information I file away.
“Are you alright, miss? Cat-folk’s faces aren’t that easy to read, not for a Mudbrook leatherworker anyway.” He tilts his head slightly. “You have quite the peculiar eyes, I must say. One ice-blue, the other amber. Is that something that happens to your kind?”
He’s asking about my heterochromia because my face isn’t giving him the information he wants. Fair enough. Cat faces are harder to read for humans.
I let my tail swish slowly, thoughtfully.
“I’m fine, don’t worry. Just thinking, mrow.” My whiskers relax a fraction, showing him I’m not offended or disturbed. “And yeah, the eyes—heterochromia’s not super common among cat folk, but it happens. My mother had it too, though hers were both shades of green. Mine decided to be dramatic about it. As for your arrangement—refreshingly pragmatic, but I need provisions more than handjobs at the moment, mrow.” My whiskers twitch. “Does everyone in Mudbrook operate on this kind of system, or just certain folks?”
Bertram steps back to let a young man pass, planks of wood balanced on his shoulder. The kid nods at the older leatherworker without breaking stride. Bertram nods back, takes another drag of his pipe, taps the ashes out against his boot.
“System… can be called that, I guess. Folk used to offer deals over ale, but then they’d forget the finer points and there’d be fights.” He grimaces. “Good old Copperplate fixes all that. The man… or whatever it is… keeps records like it’s his religion. Keeps us grounded and sane.” His voice softens. “Ever since my Anna died, I’ve gotten plenty of answers thanks to those proper proceedings. Mudbrook-on-the-Bend is a simple town. Fair dealings. Well-crafted tools and materials. Straightforward, honest people. That’s how we like it.”
I should move. The Registry’s where the real work is—dangerous contracts that pay in coin, not sexual services. Combat work. That’s what I came here for.
“I appreciate the explanation. Thanks for the local orientation, Bertram. If I survive whatever job I pick up, maybe I’ll come back and you can tell me more about Anna over a drink. She sounds like she was worth those thirty years.”
The converted grain warehouse sits open-sided toward a patch of grass and trees, timber construction weathered but solid. The bulletin board dominates one wall—crowded chaos of notices, some full sheets, others torn scraps, layered and pinned unevenly like sedimentary history. A service counter suggests this used to be a loading bay. Mixed crowd of locals scattered around tables with tankards. Civic business conducted in warehouse setting. The air smells of old wood, spilled ale, and something else—ink and parchment, sharply chemical.
That’s coming from the tortoise-person behind the counter. Copperplate. Has to be. Short and stocky, ancient-looking, dark-olive scaled limbs extending from a bronze domed shell. Cream plastron visible at the chest. Charcoal-gray hooked beak, amber round eyes behind reading spectacles. He’s wearing formal sleeve cuffs and a fitted waistcoat that somehow dignify the whole turtle-in-a-warehouse aesthetic. The smell of ink and old parchment emanates from him like a profession made manifest.
He’s currently handing a posted notice to a woman who… mrow. She’s built like violence made flesh. Muscular, heavily scarred, the kind of body that tells stories about surviving things that should have killed her. She takes the notice from Copperplate’s clawed hand with careful precision, stares at it for a moment. Her expression goes distant. Then she turns and heads for the streets without a word.
The board’s chaos hits me immediately—a cluster of stained parchment and competing desperation layered over each other like archaeological evidence of small-town needs. An alibi notice at eye level, hastily scrawled with crossed-out attempts: WANTED: Someone to tell my wife I’ve been working late (I’ve actually been at the pub). 2 copper. Convincing liars only. A man rewrote this multiple times before posting. Performance stacked on performance. I move on.
Behind me, someone enters—pipe tobacco, leather oils, curing agents. Bertram. He heads to the tables where locals are gathered with their tankards.
I let my attention drift back to the board. Let me check the birthday musician notice next, see if there’s actual danger on offer or if Mudbrook only provides low-stakes human misery.
“Good morning, Mr. Copperplate.” Bertram’s voice carries from the counter, that same easy rural cadence. “Hope you haven’t been getting any trouble other than the usual. By chance, do you know if anyone has taken interest in my request? I’ve been building up some pressure lately, with this saddle commission for the merchant’s daughter and all.”
The birthday musician notice sits just below the alibi request. I scan the text:
MUSICIAN NEEDED: Play at my daughter’s birthday. She’s 7. You will be required to perform “The Happy Donkey Song” seventeen times minimum. 3 copper, earplugs not provided.
Behind me, the tortoise-person’s voice emerges—slow, deliberate, each word separated by noticeable pauses like he’s processing language at a different speed than mammals.
“One moment… Bertram. I must… complete… the current… notation… before responding… to your inquiry.”
Bertram’s voice carries easily.
“Take all the time you need, old friend. Have you noticed, by the way, our newcomer? A cat folk, no less, in our little Mudbrook. Must be a musician unless she’s carrying loot in that instrument case of hers.”
I’m hyper-aware of the weight of attention from the tables—multiple sets of eyes tracking the exotic cat-woman. I’m the circus that wandered into town.
Seventeen times. Minimum. The words sit on the notice like a threat. I read it again, making sure I’m not hallucinating from road exhaustion. A seven-year-old who’s learned to weaponize repetition. Old enough to understand cause and effect, young enough to have zero mercy. And the parent who posted this knows exactly what they’re asking for. They wrote “minimum.” They know their child. They’re desperate enough to pay a stranger three copper to endure what they can’t face themselves.
“Oh, if Anna, poor Anna would have been here today.” Bertram’s voice softens with memory. “She often talked about seeing some exotic folks. Couldn’t go anywhere, of course, on account of her weaving… And all my leather work. And I don’t think she ever heard music played live, did she? Hmm, maybe that one time a young merchant came by with a flute… Or was it drums?”
I hear him drink, the hollow sound of a tankard being emptied.
My attention drifts back to the notice. Seventeen repetitions would strip away every bit of performance, every shred of artifice. By repetition twelve I’d be completely raw—just muscle memory and survival instinct, the song reduced to pure acoustic reflex. That’s the kind of clarity I chase, just… from a different angle than combat. Not violence-clarity, but repetition-clarity. Mrow… but three copper. That’s insulting compensation for that level of psychological endurance.
“Mr. Copperplate, do you still remember what I asked?” His voice carries confusion now. “Wait, what did I ask again? Was it something about Anna? I swear all the leather dyes are seeping into my brain. I come across a fellow Mudbrooker along the street and they greet me nice and I can’t tell if a handjob was involved.”
The weight of attention presses against my fur like humidity. I don’t need to turn around to know exactly what’s happening at those tables—the locals, mainly men from the scent signatures, chatting with that animated energy that comes from having something exotic to admire. I catch fragments of conversation, none of it subtle:
“—never seen a tail that fluffy—”
“—the way she moves, gods—”
“—bet she’s got claws under that—”
I’m the entertainment of the week. Maybe the month. Provincial setting, limited exposure to non-humans, and here I am in my road-worn leathers with weapons at my hip and an instrument case across my back.
I keep my focus on the bulletin board, let them stare. My tail does its own thing—slow, thoughtful movements that have nothing to do with their entertainment and everything to do with processing what I’m reading. The birthday musician notice still sits there with its seventeen-repetition threat. The alibi service with its suburban deception. Neither offering real danger. Neither stripping me down to anything honest. But there are other notices layered across this board like archaeological strata.
A water-stained notice near the bottom, tear-marked: URGENT: Recover my dignity from the bottom of the well. Also maybe a bucket. Dignity preferred but bucket acceptable. I blink. Move on.
“Hey…” Bertram’s voice cuts across the converted grain barn. “Damn, I don’t know your name. Cat folk. With those weapons at your waist, the chickens request may be more up your alley. Or my request about reciprocal services. That’s been up for a good while. I always respond in kind, on a leatherworker’s honor.”
Mrow. He’s being helpful. The scratch of Copperplate’s quill continues behind me. Future historians will read about Bertram publicly recommending his reciprocal handjob services to the exotic cat-folk stranger, rendered in perfect archival notation.
Bertram’s voice carries again, this time directed at Copperplate:
“I guess there’s much to record with a newcomer in town, ain’t there? My goodness, you’re going to run out of ink this morning.”
Movement catches my peripheral vision. Bertram’s stepping away from the counter, boots scuffing across the warehouse floor. He circles around a couple of tables—the ones with the men who’ve been cataloging my existence like I’m the most interesting thing to happen to Mudbrook since the last time someone fell into a well—and heads for the bulletin board. Not toward me exactly, but toward his own posting. The reciprocal services one.
He stops with his hands on his hips, looking up at his notice. I’m standing close enough that I catch his muttered words.
“Hmmm…” He’s reading his own posting, lips moving slightly. “‘Hygiene acceptable, all digits functional’… Could have worded that better, maybe. It’s just these damn dyes, the stains are so hard to get out.”
He examines his nails, holding his hands up to catch the warehouse light.
“And these dark crescents, don’t even know how I could begin to scrub them out unless I cut my nails.”
I’m stalling. The chickens notice is still there. Bertram’s reciprocal services posting sits higher up where he can review his own nail-hygiene marketing. I should just pick one and move on. Let me see what passes for possessed poultry in Mudbrook-on-the-Bend.
HELP WANTED: My chickens are possessed by the vengeful spirit of my dead mother-in-law. Or they’re just mean chickens. Either way, I need them gone. 1 silver, or take the chickens.
One silver or take the chickens. That’s… actually decent pay for livestock removal, possessed or otherwise.
“That’s more up the alley of a proper adventurer like you, miss cat,” Bertram says. “I know the guy, he makes most of the local pottery, and also has quite a collection of chickens. Demonic hen, I’ve heard him repeat. Veritably devilish.”
The scratching finally stops. Copperplate lifts his claw, ink still wet, and fixes his amber eyes on Bertram through his spectacles.
“Bertram. To answer… your original inquiry… no one has… registered interest… in your reciprocal… services posting. The record shows… no approaches.”
Bertram looks back at Copperplate across the converted grain barn, his expression cycling through confusion—like he’s forgotten they were even having a conversation—then recognition, then something brighter for just a moment. Finally, it sours into disappointment.
“Oh, damn it. Nobody?” His voice carries genuine hurt beneath the frustration. “It seems that after the novelty wears off, Mudbrookers don’t want to be repeat customers. Fair transactions and mutual benefit aren’t what they used to be, are they? Maybe it’s the tannery staining, and that smell of newly-worked leather.”
I watch as Copperplate’s claw hovers over the ledger for a long moment. Then it descends, scratching across parchment with religious devotion.
I let my attention drift back to the bulletin board. The chickens notice sits there with its straightforward desperation. Could be genuine combat danger. Could be difficult livestock removal with homicidal poultry.
“Demonic mother-in-law spirit sounds more promising than seventeen performances of ‘The Happy Donkey Song,’ mrow.”
“I don’t think you’re getting any more juice out of the request, miss cat. What you see is what you got.” Bertram pauses. “If you’re gearing up to take that chicken contract, we could find our local veteran. She’s one tough broad, that one. Scarred from head to toe it seems. Always carrying around that longsword of hers. I reckon you two together could handle chicken demons.”
The woman I saw earlier. The one who took a notice from Copperplate with that focused intensity, then left without a word. Heavily scarred, built like violence made flesh. That tracks with “local veteran” perfectly.
Partnering up. I came here to strip away performance, to find that crystalline clarity that only comes when survival is the only option. Adding another person complicates that. Means witnessing. Means someone else’s assessment of how I handle danger, what that reveals about me.
Stop procrastinating. Take the fucking notice. Commit to something instead of endlessly circling like my tail’s chasing itself. If the chickens turn out to be genuinely possessed or magically corrupted, I get the violence-induced composition clarity I’m chasing. If they’re just mean livestock, well—at least I’ll have moved forward instead of standing here being entertainment for gawking locals.
“You’re right, Bertram. I’m overthinking this, mrow.” My claws grip the edge of the parchment. “Let me just take the chicken notice and we can figure out if we’re dealing with actual demons or just aggressive poultry.”
The notice pulls free from its pin with satisfying resistance. I hold the parchment, feeling the weight of commitment settle across my shoulders like the instrument case.
Bertram’s already moving, boots scuffing across the warehouse floor as he follows me toward the counter. His voice carries that encouraging energy people get when they’ve successfully convinced someone to stop overthinking.
“Good, good. If I see Threadscar around, I should tell her you’re gunning to take care of our local chicken problem once and for all. Two fierce women in a poultry battlefield sounds better than one.”
I close the distance to the counter. The tortoise-person’s amber eyes track my approach through those reading spectacles, though his claw never stops moving across the ledger. Up close, the scent of ink and old parchment emanates from him much stronger.
“Mr. Copperplate, I’d like to register this contract.” I set the notice on the counter between us. “The chickens. Need the address and any additional details you have on file about the situation.”
The scratching stops. Copperplate’s clawed hand lifts the chickens notice with a glacial deliberation that suggests he’s moving through a denser medium than air. He holds it at reading distance behind those silver spectacles.
“I will now… review the documentation. This ensures… archival accuracy.” His claw descends to the ledger. “Before proceeding… I require the contractor’s… full name… for the permanent record.”
Oh. Right. I haven’t actually introduced myself. Just walked in, grabbed a notice, and demanded registration like I assumed bureaucratic telepathy was part of the service. Mrow.
“Vespera Nightwhisper.”
Copperplate’s amber eyes lift to meet mine through those spectacles.
“The record… will reflect… your registration.”
His claw descends. More scratching. This is going to take a while.
Behind me, I catch movement—Bertram heading toward the converted grain barn’s exit. His voice carries over his shoulder.
“Alright, I’ll look for Threadscar. That old warrior is always up for some action, and gods know we don’t get much of it here. Of any kind, these days.”
His boots scuff across the threshold and he’s gone, pipe-tobacco scent fading as he hits the streets of Mudbrook-on-the-Bend.
Bertram will find that veteran, which means I’m committed to whatever violence or embarrassment this job offers. Can’t back out now without looking like a coward who fled from poultry.
Finally, Copperplate’s claw lifts from the ledger. His amber eyes fix on me.
“I have verified… the notice contents. This contract was filed… by Aldous the potter. His workshop… is located at… twelve Kiln Lane… eastern district… near the old millrace.” He pauses. “The supplementary… documentation… indicates seventeen chickens… on the property. The specific… problematic hen… is described as ‘the large speckled one… with the malevolent stare.'”
His eyes blink—a full five seconds, like his eyelids operate on their own timeline.
“Payment is one silver… upon resolution… or you may claim… the chickens… as compensation. Both options… are legally binding. Do you… accept these terms?”
“I accept the terms, mrow.” My tail swishes once. “Twelve Kiln Lane. I’ll handle the demonic poultry situation.”
THE END
I generated the following video about this story. Some genuinely hilarious images.
Stone walls rise to a ribbed, vaulted ceiling. A narrow arched window with leaded panes admits a pale shaft of moonlight. Lit torches in iron sconces burn on either side of the window, their flames casting restless shadows across the flagstones. Dark-wood bookcases line the walls, packed with leather-spined volumes. One cabinet has glass doors and stores scrolls bound with cords. Red banners bearing a heraldic beast hang between shelves. At the center, a heavy oak table stands on a worn patterned rug. On the tabletop lie open folios, stacked books, loose parchment, a quill in an inkwell, a small knife, rolled maps, and a single burning candle. A brass astrolabe sits near the edge of the table. To the right of the window, a full suit of plate armor stands on a wooden base. A rack beside it holds polearms and a shield.
Bogdana Avalune’s gigantic frame moves through the library. Her black silk robe with kimono sleeves whispers against the floor. Gold chain necklaces, layered and embellished with metal, catch the torchlight. She pauses near the bookcases, her eyes scanning the room, then moves to a luxury armchair positioned among her collection of knowledge.
She lowers herself into the seat. Her gaze moves to the door of the adjacent room, head tilting slightly as if listening.
The sound of footsteps approaches. A door closes. The footsteps grow nearer.
Bogdana straightens, chin lifting. She reaches for a porcelain teacup on the small table beside her, holding it without drinking, eyes fixed on the entrance.
Joel Overberus appears in the doorway—young, fresh-faced, wearing a traveler’s tunic, soft brown shoes, a plain leather belt. He stops, taking in the Duchess framed by ancient texts, the teacup delicate in her scarred hand.
Bogdana’s lips curve slightly. Not quite a smile.
“Welcome, Joel Overberus. You’re punctual. I appreciate that.”
Joel steps forward, then bows—an elaborate gesture, his torso folding, one arm sweeping outward. When he straightens, his eyes meet hers.
“I’m so honored to witness this side of our duchess.” His voice is steady, though his hands clasp behind his back. “If you would allow me a bit of impertinence, I will say that the black silk robe looks… striking on you, Night Sovereign.” He glances at the second armchair positioned across from hers. “Should I sit down, or is it more proper for a lowly musician like me to merely stand?”
Bogdana’s fingers tighten fractionally on the teacup handle.
“Sit, Joel.” The words carry no question. “This isn’t a throne room audience—we’re in my library now. Among my treasures, my knowledge, my rare texts. The ones you so perceptively mentioned in your third verse. Here, you’re a guest, not a supplicant.” A pause. “Though do remember whose guest you are.”
She drinks.
“The black silk suits my mood tonight—less armor, more… contemplation.” Her free hand gestures toward the empty armchair. “You’ve earned a conversation, musician. Your performance was exceptional. Now, let’s discuss the songs you’ll create to immortalize the Duchess of the Dark Motherland.”
Joel sits, spine straight. His gaze sweeps the towering bookcases, taking in the volumes, the leather bindings, the scrolls.
“That is… the Compendium of Sigmoidal Paedology.” His voice carries certainty. “It maps childhood, apprenticeship, and courtly indoctrination onto the same mathematical curve, insisting rulers can accelerate or stall citizens at chosen plateaus.”
He shifts in the chair, angling toward Bogdana.
“Truly, duchess… The citizens are afraid of you, as they rightfully should be, but they see you as an… unthinking force, which you clearly aren’t. I bet you could outsmart most dedicated scholars in the Forgotten Kingdoms.”
“You’ve done your research beyond the songs, haven’t you?” Her voice drops lower, each word deliberate. “Convenient for them—easier to fear a monster than comprehend a mind. But you… You see the Compendium and understand what it means. That citizens are variables in an equation, to be accelerated or stalled at my discretion. That’s precisely what governance is, Joel—applied mathematics with flesh and fear as the medium.” Her chin lifts. “The citizens think I’m an unthinking force because thinking forces are harder to predict, harder to resist. Let them believe the fiction. But you’re right—I could debate most scholars into the ground and enjoy doing it. Knowledge is power, and I hoard both obsessively.”
She sets down the cup.
“Tell me, musician—what else do you see in my collection that others miss?”
Joel drinks his tea.
“Oh, it tastes real good, not the flavored water one gets outside of… well, a royal castle.”
His eyes return to the bookcases, narrowing slightly.
“The Manual On How to Get a Real Job…” His eyebrows rise. “I’m surprised to see that one. Part satire, part survival guide for overeducated nobles who find themselves suddenly destitute. Most nobles would find it… offensive.”
His eyes move again. Stop. He leans forward.
“Oh, and that one is…” He clears his throat. “The Anonymous Dictionary on How to Use the Penis Like an Instrument of Human Pleasure.” His eyes cut to Bogdana. “A subject you surely know all there is to know about, if the rumors are anything to go by…”
“You’ve excellent taste in selections, musician. The Manual—most nobles would rather starve than acknowledge that book’s existence in their libraries, let alone actually read it. But I find it instructive. A reminder that power without foundation crumbles quickly. Those overeducated fools thought their bloodlines exempted them from consequence. They learned otherwise when their estates burned.”
She gestures toward the shelves.
“And The Anonymous Dictionary…” Her lips curve—slow, deliberate, predatory. “Yes, the rumors are accurate. I’ve mastered every technique in that Renaissance text and invented several the original author never conceived. The human body is an instrument, Joel—strings to pluck, keys to press, rhythms to establish and then shatter.” Her eyes narrow. “You understand instruments better than most. Tell me—when you play your lute, do you think of it as conquest? As domination? Or merely… art?”
Joel’s spine straightens.
“I see it as a communion with the subconscious, duchess. I believe that this thinking part we’re exercising, the one that believes itself in charge, is actually inferior to the vast force below it, the one that actually commands us. Playing the lute, for me, is a dance with that subconscious. A joining of the self in a way that dissolves the duality we’re forced to endure as civilized animals. While playing, we return to… the proper state of affairs.”
“The thinking self as inferior to the vast force beneath—you’re describing what most people spend their entire lives fleeing from, musician. That dissolution of duality, that surrender to the primal self.” She leans forward, black silk whispering. “They fear it. They build walls of propriety and reason and morality to keep it caged. But you seek it out. You call it communion, call it dance. I call it truth. The civilized mind is a lie we tell ourselves to pretend we’re not animals driven by hunger and desire. When you play your lute and dissolve that duality, you’re doing what I do with my body, with my cock, with violence and pleasure. We’re both artists of the same fundamental act—stripping away the pretense. The subconscious you worship? I embody it. I don’t separate myself from it like your ‘civilized animals.’ I am the force beneath. Unfiltered. Unashamed. Absolute.”
She settles back.
“Tell me, Joel—when you achieve that communion, do you feel power? Or surrender? Because I suspect for you it’s both. The paradox of the artist—wielding control by relinquishing it, finding freedom in submission to something greater than your thinking self.”
Joel’s eyebrows rise. His mouth opens, then closes.
“I was going to add something along those lines, duchess, but yes, I…” He leans forward, elbows on his knees. “I recognize that, when I look at you. You are the subconscious force of humanity embodied. The unrestrained animality that desires every pleasure and all power. The energy of nature itself, that doesn’t…” His head turns. His eyes shift to the bookcases, scanning titles he’s not truly seeing. “That doesn’t apologize with rationalizations or arguments. You take it because you want it. Excuses and arguments belong to the weak. Might is right. That is the law of reality.”
He clasps his hands.
“As for your question… in my case, playing the lute is a surrender. A surrender from my mundane state of being a thinking person, to be saved momentarily by the madness below… which I wish I could always embody.”
Bogdana rises from the armchair, silk flowing. The gold chains catch firelight, throwing brief glints across the stone walls. She moves toward the bookcases, bare feet silent on flagstones, then muffled on the rug. She scans the upper shelves, fingers tracing along spines until stopping on one tome. She pulls.
The Compendium of Sigmoidal Paedology slides free—heavy, bound in dark leather with brass corners. She cradles it, then turns to face Joel.
“You wish you could always embody that madness, Joel? That subconscious force unrestrained by the thinking self’s pathetic moral framework?” She steps toward him. “Let me show you something.” She lifts the tome. “This text you recognized—it’s not just about governing citizens. It maps how consciousness itself develops, how the thinking self emerges and subjugates the primal force beneath. The Egyptians understood this when they created cockstanding. They knew the body could bypass the mind’s control, that certain acts—sexual, violent, ecstatic—could short-circuit the civilized overlay.”
She extends one arm, gesturing between them.
“Your lute-playing is one path. My cock is another. Both instruments playing the same fundamental truth. You surrender to the subconscious through music. I never separated from it to begin with. I am that force walking upright, speaking, ruling, fucking, destroying. No duality to dissolve because I never constructed the false hierarchy in the first place.”
She angles the book toward him, brass corners gleaming.
“And you see that. You named it in your third verse—the scholar beneath the tyrant, the library behind the violence. Most people can’t hold both truths simultaneously. They see the monster or the mind, never the fusion. But you understand that they’re not separate, that knowledge and hunger are the same appetite expressed through different orifices.” Her voice drops. “Tell me, musician—if you could truly embody that force without the surrender, without the temporary communion that ends when the song does… would you still be you? Or would you become something else entirely? Because I can tell you from experience: there’s a price for living as pure subconscious. The loneliness you named. The dark beyond darknesses. When you are the force itself, there’s nothing left to surrender to. No communion, only… existence. Unfiltered. Unrelenting. Absolute. Is that what you truly want? Or do you love the surrender precisely because it’s temporary, because you can return to the thinking self afterwards and remember what it felt like to be free?”
“You’re absolutely right, Mother Goddess. I love the surrender partially because it’s temporary. Sadly, my subconscious is not the self that now communicates with you. There is a disconnect between my self and that ancient, far more powerful being in the deeper layers of my brain. In your case… I see you never had a choice. You were born, if the legends are true, through demonic influence, to live as the raw power of nature. I only get a tiny taste of surrendering to that power through playing my instrument.” He pauses. “And… if I somehow ended up locked in that pure state, I would surely die soon. Someone would kill me. Or I would starve. But you were born as perfection: too strong to be defeated, and yet too smart to be outsmarted. You can do it all. Surely you’re the only one in history who has been able.”
“You’re absolutely right that I never had a choice, Joel. I was born this—whether through demonic rape conception or some other cosmic accident, I emerged already fused with the force you seek through your lute. No duality to dissolve because there never was separation.” Bogdana adjusts her grip on the leather binding. “And yes, I can do it all. Military conquest, scholarly debate, sexual domination, political maneuvering—I’m the apex predator in every arena simultaneously. The only one in history who’s managed it at this scale, this completely. But you’ve also named the cost more accurately than anyone else ever has. That loneliness. That dark beyond darknesses. When you’re permanently the force itself, there’s nothing left to surrender to. No communion, only existence.”
She turns, walking toward the bookcases. She stops before the shelves, arms lifting. When her hands release the tome, it tilts. Falls. Leather and brass strike the flagstones with a heavy thud that echoes through the chamber.
Bogdana looks down at the fallen Compendium, then pivots to face Joel, leaving the ancient text where it fell.
“You get to return to your thinking self after the music ends. I never return from anything. This is just… what I am. Forever.”
She steps back toward center.
“But enough philosophy for tonight. We’ve established what we both are—the artist who seeks temporary transcendence and the sovereign who embodies it permanently.” She stops near her armchair. “Now let’s discuss the practical purpose. The songs you’ll compose to immortalize the Duchess of the Dark Motherland. I want verses that capture both aspects—the violence and the library, the monster and the mind. Can you do that, musician? Can you hold both truths simultaneously in melody and lyric?”
“I believe I can, my duchess. I will endeavor in my free time to draft art out of the notes and memories of our meetings. This brief exchange has already illuminated so much.” Joel’s head tilts forward. “Yet, I have a question to ask, if I may be so bold, to understand you more. The world sees you as the unbeatable, terrifying tyrant. Now you also want it to see you as a scholar. Does that represent a shift in your aspirations? Has the Dark Sovereign conquered everything she could want from the physical world, and now she’ll focus on exploring the breadths of knowledge? Or perhaps you intend to balance both, conquering new lands while expanding your intellectual domains?”
Bogdana raises her palm toward Joel, fingers splaying, then curling and opening again.
“The world sees what I allow them to see, Joel. For years, I’ve let them focus on the violence, the screams from my dungeons. Pure terror is effective governance—keeps the rebellions manageable.” She sweeps her arm toward the bookcases. “But the library? This has always been here. The Compendium you recognized, The Anonymous Dictionary, all of it—I’ve been collecting since before I took the throne. Knowledge and violence aren’t sequential conquests for me. They’re parallel expressions of the same appetite. I don’t shift from one to the other like your mundane nobles changing fashions. I am both, simultaneously, constantly.”
She grips the chair back.
“What’s changed is strategic revelation, not motivation. Your third verse named the scholar beneath the tyrant, and you were right to do so. The songs you’ll compose need to capture that duality, not one replacing the other. Because that’s what immortalizes. Pure violence gets forgotten as soon as someone stronger comes along. But violence fused with intellect, terror married to scholarship, the cock and the Compendium as equal instruments of power? That’s a legacy that echoes through centuries.”
She releases the chair.
“So to answer your question directly: No, this doesn’t represent a shift. The physical world still requires conquest—there are lands beyond Cosmographica’s spiral coasts that will bow to Bogdana eventually. But I’ve never stopped exploring intellectual domains either. I read, I study, I master texts the way I master bodies. The difference now is that I’m allowing you to witness and immortalize the full scope. Most artists only see half and create incomplete myths. You see both. That’s why you’re here at midnight, drinking my tea, asking these questions.”
Joel reaches for his teacup, drinks, then sets it back with a soft clink. He settles into the armchair.
“I assume that the terror of most citizens, certainly foreigners, to come face to face with Your Highness, must have limited significantly your access to volumes of knowledge. I’m sure you have lots of ways to get people to bring volumes for your library. Yet, if my songs cement in the populace’s brains that you’re also hungry for knowledge, perhaps scholars will come bringing obscure treatises that as of yet remain unknown. I can envision it: scholars from all lands, many of them conquered, fighting among themselves for a spot at your court to breathe from the atmosphere of intellectual progress. You can defeat armies by yourself; that’s mostly pure physical might. But a worldwide recognition of your intellectual mind? That… legitimizes your power beyond pure strength. It lets people know you were meant to be. Of course you’re far more than a duchess, although I know you prefer that title. But you would be the empress. Of the greatest empire the world has known.”
Bogdana’s spine straightens. Her chin lifts.
“You’ve just articulated the vision better than I could have myself, musician. Yes. Exactly that. Scholars from conquered and unconquered lands alike, fighting for positions at my court, bringing obscure treatises I haven’t yet acquired. The atmosphere of intellectual progress alongside the demonstrations of absolute physical dominance.” She opens her palm, encompassing the library—the bookcases, the scrolls, the fallen Compendium still lying on the flagstones. “That’s the legacy. That’s what transforms a duchess into an empress—not just the territory conquered, but the civilization created. The minds bent not just through terror but through genuine recognition that I represent something beyond mere strength.”
Her hand curls into a fist, then opens before lowering.
“You’re right that I can defeat armies by myself—that’s mostly pure physical might, superhuman durability, the huge royal cock swinging as I mow them down. But worldwide recognition of my intellectual mind? That legitimizes everything. Makes it clear I wasn’t just strong enough to seize power, I was meant to hold it. Destined for it. The scholar and the tyrant as one indivisible force. That’s what your songs need to capture, Joel. Not flattery—accuracy. The duality that makes Bogdana Avalune not just unbeatable but inevitable.” Her lips curve. “Create that, and you’ll have earned every reward I can bestow.”
Joel’s expression shifts. The admiration fades. Something else surfaces—a tightening around his eyes.
“Duchess, if I may… Do you believe you will end? I mean the end of your flesh. As I told you in the throne room, I have a hard time believing that you can actually die. The gods have blessed you with everything else above mankind, so it wouldn’t surprise me if even death couldn’t defeat you. But if the end is in the horizon… Is the legacy you want to leave behind the self that songs and stories and your intellectual work immortalize, or do you also intend to leave your kingdom to physical heirs?”
The torches flicker in their iron sconces. The shadows deepen between the bookcases.
Bogdana reaches for the teacup. She lifts it halfway to her lips, then stops. The cup descends. She sets it down with deliberate care.
“That’s the question, isn’t it? The one I’ve been avoiding for years while I conquer and collect and commission. Do I believe I will end?” She pauses. Her tongue touches her lower lip. “Truthfully, Joel… I don’t know. Everything about my existence suggests I shouldn’t—the superhuman durability, the impossibility of what I am, the demonic conception rumors. Perhaps I’m genuinely immortal. Perhaps death itself will bow before Bogdana like everything else eventually does. But what if I’m wrong? What if this magnificent flesh fails despite all evidence to the contrary? Then legacy becomes everything. The songs you’ll create. The library that will outlast empires. Bogdanatown standing as testament. The intellectual atmosphere we discussed—scholars bringing treatises for centuries after I’m gone.”
Her voice shifts—quieter, more measured.
“Physical heirs are… complicated. They represent vulnerability I rarely permit myself. Caring about something beyond my own appetites. The risk of successors who might disgrace or eclipse the name I’ve built. But strategically planted seed in the right noble houses could bind my bloodline to power for generations. Create an empire of descendants who carry forward what I began. I haven’t decided which path serves immortality better—legacy through works and memory, or literal continuation through heirs who embody some fraction of what I am. Perhaps both. Perhaps I’m arrogant enough to believe Bogdana deserves both forms of transcendence.” She locks eyes with Joel. “What do you think, musician? You who see clearly—should the Duchess of the Dark Motherland be remembered, or should she persist through bloodline? Or are they the same appetite expressed through different orifices, like everything else I pursue?”
Joel’s gaze drops to the small table. His eyebrows draw together. His lips press into a thin line, then relax. His gaze lifts to meet hers again.
“You wouldn’t have an issue choosing any womb-bearer of your choice, clearly. The best genes at your disposal. But when in your mind you picture a young child, male or female, looking up at you, recognizing you as their mother, a smile on their lips, those vulnerable creatures loving you unconditionally, knowing they owe their entire existence to you… What does that make you feel?”
The candle on the distant oak table flickers. The torchlight plays across Bogdana’s scarred features as she sits in her armchair, surrounded by centuries of collected knowledge.
“You ask dangerous questions, musician. Most wouldn’t dare. But you’ve earned the right tonight, so I’ll answer honestly.” Bogdana’s voice emerges lower, stripped of the commanding edge. Her gaze drops to the teacup, then lifts. “When I picture that child—small, vulnerable, looking up at me with unconditional love, recognizing me as their mother—I feel hunger. Not the sexual appetite or the violence you’ve heard about. Something worse. A desperate, aching need for that acceptance. For someone who sees Bogdana and doesn’t calculate survival strategies, doesn’t measure escape routes, just… loves. Without fear. Without strategy. Pure connection to the force I am. That child would see their mother, not the Duchess of the Dark Motherland. Not the Sovereign of Night. Just me.”
She pauses.
“But I also feel terror at my own vulnerability. That child would be a weakness, a pressure point. Something that could break me in ways no army, no rebellion, no coalition of desperate kingdoms ever could. Because if I cared about that small creature smiling up at me, if I loved it back… then I’d have something to lose. And loss is the one conquest I’ve never mastered.”
She leans back.
“So to answer your question directly: it makes me feel both desperately hungry and absolutely terrified. The duality again, Joel. The monster and the… whatever’s beneath the monster. The part I don’t let anyone see. The part that drinks alone in the dark and wonders if there’s more than conquest and collection and commissioned works.” She points at him. “You’re the first person I’ve admitted that to. Don’t make me regret the honesty.”
Joel’s expression transforms—boyish warmth spreading to his eyes.
“Well, that is good news: a whole frontier you have left to conquer. Virgin territory. It could very well be that if you found yourself holding in your arms a loving child, their eyes wide and glazed in adoration of their mighty mother, you may feel that your myriad conquests had finally found their true purpose.” He leans forward. “You are nature’s raw power personified. And if there’s something that nature wants above all, it’s reproduction. Multiplication. Not in the self, but proliferation. Echoes through reflection and mutation. And truly, doesn’t a future, two or three centuries from now, inhabited by hundreds or thousands of descendants of the Mother Goddess seem magnificent?”
Bogdana straightens slowly. She reaches for the teacup—fingers careful, as if handling something fragile. She lifts it but holds it before her face without drinking, gaze dropping to the liquid inside. The cup descends. She sets it down.
“You paint an exquisite vision, Joel. Hundreds or thousands of descendants carrying forward what I am—the Mother Goddess proliferating through time like nature itself demands. Reproduction, multiplication, echoes through reflection and mutation. Not just remembered but continued, bloodline spreading across the world for centuries.” She traces the gold chains at her throat. “You’re right that it’s a frontier I haven’t conquered. I’ve mastered violence, sexuality, scholarship, governance—broken armies and subjects, collected rare texts, ruled through terror and intellect combined. But creating something that loves me without fear? That sees their mighty mother and feels nothing but adoration and gratitude for existence? That’s virgin territory.”
She brings the cup to her mouth, drinks slow and measured, then lowers it halfway.
“The hunger I admitted to you—that desperate need for unconditional acceptance—maybe that’s not the weakness I feared. Maybe that’s nature itself speaking through me, demanding what you named. Its proliferation. Its continuation through flesh rather than just memory and commissioned songs.”
She sets the cup down.
“Two or three centuries from now, my bloodline sitting on every throne, ruling every domain, carrying forward the fusion of mind and monster that is Bogdana Avalune. The greatest empire the world has known, perpetuated through descendants who all trace back to me. You’ve given me much to consider, musician. This midnight conversation has illuminated territories I hadn’t fully mapped—motherhood as conquest, vulnerability as frontier, creation as the ultimate expression of power. The songs you compose need to capture this too. Not just the duchess of violence and scholarship, but the Mother Goddess whose bloodline will echo through ages. Legacy through both memory and flesh.” Her breathing deepens. “Tell me—when you imagine the ballads you’ll create about Bogdana Avalune, can you hold all these truths simultaneously? The terror and the tenderness, the monster and the mother, the conqueror who might yet create something that loves her purely?”
Joel’s smile widens.
“The more facets I’ve discovered about you, the more magnificent you look to my eyes, duchess. As that multi-faceted vision takes hold in me, it will seep into my subconscious and come out raw and honest in song.” He pauses, gaze shifting as if seeing something only he can perceive. “I see things, as I’m sure you do too. Whole moving pictures in my mind. Can retreat to them at will, and often they feel lovelier than any reality.” His eyes refocus. “And I do see you training with your children, all of them somewhat grown, enough to hold swords anyway, and you proud for the grazes and perhaps bruises that they, in their inherited strength, come to cause you. Perhaps because you also allow them to. And I see you… smiling. Not the smile of a predator. Not of a conqueror about to tear flesh apart. Such vision fills me with a special warmth.” He swallows. “It seems I have come to see you, duchess, as… necessary for my conception of the world.”
Bogdana rises from the armchair, black silk whispering. She doesn’t tower above him. Her bare feet carry her around the chair to stop several paces distant, her frame at an angle where Joel can see her fully.
“You’ve become necessary for my conception of myself, too, Joel. This midnight conversation has mapped territories I’ve refused to acknowledge—motherhood as conquest, vulnerability as frontier, creation as ultimate power rather than weakness. Most see the violence or the library, never both. You see the fusion and call it magnificent. You paint visions of my children sparring with me, of genuine smiles, of descendants ruling for centuries carrying forward what I am. And somehow that doesn’t feel like flattery anymore. It feels like truth I haven’t let myself speak.”
She steps closer.
“The songs you’ll compose—they need to capture all of it. The scholar and the tyrant, the monster and the mother, the force that conquers and the woman who might create something that loves her without fear. Can you do that, musician? Can you hold every facet simultaneously and make the world see what you see when you look at me? Because if you can… if you can make them understand that Bogdana Avalune is both inevitable and tender, both the raw power of nature and the architect of civilization, both the darkness they fear and the brilliance they worship… Then your songs will echo through ages. And perhaps…” One hand rises partway, fingers spreading, curling inward, then lowering. Her jaw tightens. The torchlight catches the movement of muscles beneath scarred skin. “Perhaps they’ll also give me permission to become what you’ve already seen in your visions. The Mother Goddess who trains her children with pride. The sovereign whose legacy lives through flesh as well as memory. The force that finally found its true purpose.”
The Domains of the Emperor Owl 
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