System Report:

  Ashenmoor Dockside, 8:48 PM

  The explosion did that peculiar thing that loud, catastrophic noises do when they’ve outstayed their welcome—it lingered. It echoed inside Yenna’s skull like a drunken philosopher trying to explain the nature of things using only shouting and very poor metaphors.

  Around her, the world had become a smeared canvas of fire and smoke and that coppery tang that told you someone, possibly you, had recently made the acquaintance of high-velocity debris. The shockwave had gone through the docks like a god’s bad mood, tossing crates, carts, and loading rigs into the air in an enthusiastic attempt to turn everything into splinters.

  Somewhere in that sizzling wreckage, a voice—Desmond’s, most likely—rose above the hiss of flame and the unsettling sounds of things that really oughtn’t be hissing.

  “Yenna! We need to go! We can’t stay here—!”

  There was a tug at her arm. Desperate. Insistent. Human. She was reasonably sure it was Desmond. Mari was a few feet away retching soot and whimpering in equal measure. Still, Yenna didn’t move.

  Her gaze remained fixed on the sea. It boiled. Not metaphorically. Actually boiled—salt and all—where the blackened remains of tentacles still twitched.

  “Yenna!”

  From the wreckage around them, shapes were rising. Twisted silhouettes pulled themselves free of the wreckage, leaking ichor, twitching, hissing and clacking and gurgling all at once.

  Overhead, the moon still hung in the sky, blood-red and smug about it. The System—silent, for now—gave no indication that this nightmare had ended.

  Further inland, the screams continued.

  “Yenna, we need to—"

  Desmond’s hand was still at her arm.

  Hacking blood, she shook it off.

  “We need to get out there.” Her voice was hoarse, like it had crawled through gravel to deliver that one line. She tried pushing herself upright, unbalanced and bloodied.

  Vertigo hit like a mule cart. Still, she stood.

  “We can’t!” Desmond bleated, trying once again to tug her away from the ravaged docks. “There are—”

  A Spark Bolt shrieked into existence—one of her last, Yenna could tell from the way it tugged at the edges of her mind. She could feel it in her ribs, in her head, in that lurching, bone-deep tiredness that reached beyond just exhaustion.

  Even so, she sent it hurtling through the air, trailing light and the faint smell of scorched wizardry, before striking the nearest deep-thing, the size and temperament of a homicidal boiler, right in the shell.

  It was flung backwards, limbs splayed and sizzling.

  “Leave those to me,” Yenna said. Her hand, quivering slightly, pointed to a small fishing vessel bobbing uncertainly just offshore. “We need to get out there. They could still be in the water. Waiting. Alive but in the need of help.”

  “Yenna,” Mari rasped, her voice full of tears and a generous helping of stomach acid, “You heard it too. That church bell. I don’t think—”

  “So what?” Yenna snapped. A second Spark Bolt formed in her palm like an overeager wasp, eyes wild and burning. “I’m going out there.”

  Even before the second Bolt howled into another sea demon, Yenna was moving—half-stagger, half-collapse. The world tilted. Her body protested. But she didn’t care.

  Because that bell was wrong. It had to be.

  ***

  At Sea, 8:52 PM

  "That’s how you nearly got your face devoured last time," came Mister Know-it-all’s ever-so-helpful contribution to the evening’s ambiance.

  Annabell heard him. Of course she heard him. Ever since the horizon went dark once more and the ripples settled down, the ocean had remained quiet, the boat was small, and his voice had the uncanny ability to pierce through distraction like a needle through soap.

  But she chose the ancient and noble tradition of selective ignoring and continued staring down into the dark water, which stared gracefully back.

  Her reflection, wobbly and twitching with the water’s mood, looked up at her with large intelligent eyes—their keen wisdom visible even through the goggles—full lips, and a nose so perfectly sculpted it would’ve caused artists to retire early out of sheer professional despair. All of it nestled in the kind of heart-shaped face that could legally be classified as lethal at close range.

  A gift to humanity, by all means.

  And yet, for all that, for someone sitting a mere arm’s reach from divine radiance, Mister Know-it-all failed to appreciate her company. Unbelievable.

  Even Wallace had more tact, and that said something.

  Mid exaggerated eyeroll, Annabell’s reflection grew jagged teeth and a glowing stare. A second later, it burst from the water with all the social grace of an axe through a front door.

  She narrowly dodged out of the way and, without missing a beat, caught the slimy fish-thing midair. It thrashed, it wriggled, it gurgled something that might’ve been a curse in Abyssal.

  Before it could acquaint sharp teeth to perfect nose, which it seemed to have taken a keen interest in, she hurled the rabid thing in the general direction of Mister Know-it-all.

  He dodged it, of course, and the creature flopped into the water behind them with a plop that suggested it, too, was rather embarrassed by the whole affair.

  “Hey!” she yelled, bristling with indignation. “You were supposed to hold that for me!”

  “And why, exactly, would I do that?”

  “Isn’t that obvious?” she huffed. But as he just looked at her with those judgmental eyebrows, she rolled her eyes so hard it was a miracle they didn’t unspool down her cheeks. “Guess Mister Know-it-all doesn’t know that much after all. I caught it, so obviously you're meant to hold it. That’s how these things work. It’s called teamwork. Look it up.”

  The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.

  He gave her a long look and sighed.

  “First of all,” he said, rubbing the bridge of his nose, “you are allowed to use my name. Lionel. As I’ve told you. Repeatedly. You don’t need to use Mister anything—especially when you’re clearly going to abuse it in the name of sarcasm and not, say, respect.”

  He glanced at her. She was halfway over the edge of the dinghy again, arm cocked like a spring-loaded trap, ready to fling Neptune’s own spawn at him with alarming precision.

  “And secondly,” he added, “I think you’re just trying to get back at me for kicking your seat earlier.”

  Annabell froze. Only for a moment.

  “As if I would be that petty,” she snorted, which was technically a denial, but delivered in the tone of someone who’d absolutely do it again. “Obviously, I realize that accidents happen. Sometimes someone’s foot just happens to kick the seat in front of them like a common tavern thug. And sometimes—”

  Her arm dipped sharply toward the sea. It was a motion full of purpose. A handful of water destined for his face.

  Before she could even touch the ocean’s surface, however, Lionel caught her wrist with the unbothered speed and poise of someone who had already predicted this exact scenario.

  “Accidents do happen,” he agreed, voice a shade too cheerful, face rather closer than it needed to be. “And that’s why I suggest you sit down before you fall overboard. By accident, of course.”

  With a dramatic tsk that could have been patented as a noise of protest, Annabell yanked her hand free and slumped back into her seat, the image of wronged nobility on a budget.

  “If the two of you have stopped flirting,” came the Oarsman’s voice, breaking up any retort before it could begin, “we’re nearly there. And it looks like things have taken an unexpected turn in Ashenmoor proper. The depths are stirring. Best be ready.”

  Ahead of them, the fog breathed apart.

  There, a second lantern swayed on the breeze, creaking and moaning where it hung from the end of a warped jetty. Behind it loomed a clutch of buildings, not so much houses as they were haunted architecture.

  Across Annabell’s vision, a message passed:

  Forgotten Fishing Village

  Located at Ashenmoor’s outskirts, this place seems mostly abandoned. Whatever happened to the people of this village, there’s no telling. But there are no signs of any fishing boats, and something tells you there hasn’t been for years either…

  “Fishing village?” she mouthed, quietly in her head, which roughly translated to: “definitely loud enough to be overheard”.

  Lionel, still squinting through the mist, turned to her with a raised eyebrow. “You still get System notifications? Then why…”

  Met with a face that turned smug with such speed and exaggeration it seemed she’d flipped a switch, Lionel’s voice trailed off into a groan.

  “You don’t get any of those?” Annabell asked, lifting her chin with a snicker. “Well, well, weeeell, look how the tables have turned. Who’s the informed one now, Mister Lionel-Who-Doesn’t-Even-Get-Strangely-Convenient-And-Floating-Pop-Ups?”

  With a tired exhale, he turned to address the village instead of the ongoing sass storm beside him, “Yeah, yeah, very funny. Just tell me what happened to this place.”

  “Oh my, oh my,” Annabell said as she leaned back, voice dripping with mischief. “Should I tell you~ Shouldn’t I tell you~”

  “Time happened,” said the oarsman in her place, his voice rolling in like tidewater. “The people of Ashenmoor—"

  “Hey, hey!” Annabell yelped, waving her arms in protest.

  “—once worshipped the sea. They lived by it, flourished by it, and respected it. But with time—”

  “Stop it! I’m supposed to be the mysterious one to deliver the cryptic backstory!”

  “—that changed. Greed crept into the hearts of the city rulers. They forgot where they came from, who they were. They gave away the sea’s greatest gift in exchange for powers they didn’t understand. For a while, years and decades even, the city flourished. But they had made a deal with the Devil, and for such things-—”

  The dinghy nudged up against the jetty with the subtle grace of a bloated corpse drifting ashore

  “—there is always a price to pay.” Overhead, the jetty’s single lantern creaked in the breeze, and beneath it, a rusted bell hung—ancient and heavy. “My advice for any sane person would be to stay away from this place. But you Delvers,” the Oarsman added, with a sound that may have been a laugh, “are not sane, are you?”

  Annabell, arms folded and sulking so hard the boat seemed to lean away from her, huffed like a lady wronged. “I could have told it better,” she muttered, lip firmly jutted. “You ruined it.”

  Once more, she was ignored.

  “I’m no Delver, though,” Lionel said to the Oarsman, warily eyeing the village. “But let me guess—you don’t care about that, do you? You’re not going to take us away from here even if I say please?”

  “Not until She allows it,” the Oarsman replied, with a grin like an exposed ribcage. “Enjoy your stay.”

  “Wonderful,” Lionel muttered, stepping onto the jetty. “No leaving until the scenario’s finished. Of course. Of course.”

  He turned back to the boat with a smile that tried to be amicable. “Anything else we should know before we step into whatever fresh horror awaits us?”

  The oarsman’s chuckled, deep enough to register on barometers.

  “Well,” he said with dreadful relish, “if there’s one thing you must never do here, it is to—”

  ***

  Ashenmoor Dockside, 8:59 PM

  Yenna’s chest was heaving like a bellows in a burning forge. Her mouth tasted of blood, iron, and the peculiar sort of bitterness that came from knowing that bits of you are leaking.

  Her vision swam with pain and exhaustion, made worse by the blood running a vigorous marathon down her face. Her hand remained pressed to her side, where a jagged harpoon had nearly rearranged her internal geography.

  It hadn’t quite impaled her—no, that would have been too easy. Instead, it had plunged in, tasted something important, and ripped back out again, leaving a wound that pulsed in time with her racing heart.

  The next strike would have taken her head clean off. Nearly did, if not for the fact that the attacker—slick, flared gills, and possessed of all the charm of a drowned priest—had suddenly stopped mid-swing.

  Just… stopped. Not with hesitation or mercy, but with the abrupt certainty of something answering a louder call elsewhere.

  If it hadn’t, they would have all been dead.

  Their dash for the fishing vessel had been an ugly one.

  It had taken them onto a rickety boardwalk—rain-rotted, sea-gutted, and narrow enough to inspire existential dread—which had proved far too accessible for the twisted figures that’d pulled themselves out of the water. It had nearly spelled their end.

  Desmond, bless his soul, had survived by whimpering behind his shield with all the dignity of a sentient barnacle. It worked. Just barely. Mari, for her part, had shadowed the boy so closely she could’ve passed for a guilty conscience.

  Somehow—somehow—they were alive, and the only one who’d suffered for it was Yenna.

  “The boat,” she croaked, voice thin and frayed like old rope as she kept staggering forward. Her legs wobbled under her, worse than the boardwalk itself. “We need to get out there. They… they still need our help…”

  ***

  The Forgotten Fishing Village, 8:58 PM

  “—ring a bell carelessly.”

  The Oarsman’s words did not carry across the waterlogged silence of the village alone. The clang of metal on metal echoed there alongside it, the kind of sound that made windows shudder and spines tingle.

  Annabell, caught red-handed and rope-fisted—which, really, was better than being ignored—wore the sheepish expression of someone who knew they shouldn’t have done the thing, but had also very much wanted to do the thing, and if given the chance, would do the thing again.

  Because buttons exist to be pressed, big red levers are born to be pulled, and ancient, slightly rusty bells hanging from ominous-looking jetties in abandoned fishing villages?

  They’re asking for it, aren’t they?

  Annabell hadn’t just pulled the rope—she’d conducted an entire symphony, complete with encore.

  The Oarsman, having already pushed off against the jetty once more, began to fade into the mist. “Each chime,” his voice lingered like the ghost of good advice gone unheeded, “lets them know there is a soul here, ready to be taken to the other side…”

  And then he was gone, leaving only the echo of the bell to ring across their surroundings. Waves lapped against the jetty, boards groaned underfoot, and the fog moved like it had somewhere to be.

  Lionel, rubbing his eyes with the resigned despair of a man who had done everything he could, suffered much, and still ended up in the same metaphorical barrel as Annabell, asked:

  “How many times, exactly, did you ring that bell?”

  “Dunno,” said Annabell, with the syrupy innocence of a child who had definitely eaten the last biscuit. Two times? Five times? Who counts bell pulls when they’re having fun?

  Hovering just at the edge of her vision, a message glared:

  Warning!

  The depths have heard your daring challenge…

  A virtual slot machine appeared underneath it, spinning violently. It landed on:

  All her children are coming to claim what they’ve been promised. Beware…

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