The scent of fried fish, spilled ale, and salt air clung to every timber of Brightmoor. Built across jagged cliff faces and stilted walkways that stretched like spiderwebs over the sea, the port town was a half-drowned mosaic of wooden bridges, swaying ropes, and half-sunk ships turned into homes. Colorful laundry flapped from balconies, and exotic birds squawked curses taught to them by sailors long dead.
Darion stepped off the gangplank of the Sea Wraith with Seraphina at his side and the Chain of Echoes burning faintly on his wrist, hidden under his bracer. Brightmoor was the kind of place where men vanished if they asked the wrong questions—or asked them to the wrong ghost.
"Watch your coin purse," Seraphina muttered. "And don't make eye contact with anyone whose smile shows more than four teeth."
"You've been here before?"
"I used to run guns through here for the Crimson Lotus. Let's just say I burned a few bridges—figuratively and literally."
The crew fanned out to restock and relax. Kellen and Harrow vanished into a tavern before Darion could even issue a curfew. He didn't blame them.
The captain had other plans.
The Cartographer's Map
According to the note from the bottle and his sea charts, the place they needed to find—The Wound Below—wasn't marked on any official map. But someone, somewhere, had charted the unchartable.
And Brightmoor was home to one such man.
"They call him Old Grint," Seraphina said as they made their way through the crooked alleys. "Used to map trenches for the Drowned Empire before it sank. Lost half his crew in the Maw. Came back with white hair and a bloodstained compass that never points north."
"Sounds trustworthy."
"Trustworthy? No. Useful? Possibly."
They arrived at a crooked tower that leaned like a drunken sailor. The sign outside was rusted but legible:
"Grint's Uncivil Cartography — No Refunds, No Returns, No Reanimations."
Darion knocked. The door creaked open on its own.
Inside, the smell of ink, mildew, and madness overwhelmed the senses. Charts covered every inch of the walls, including the ceiling. Some were drawn in blood, others in chalk or sand sealed under glass. A stuffed albatross with a glowing eye blinked at them from a perch.
"Come in or get cursed, your choice," a voice rasped.
Old Grint shuffled out from behind a stack of atlases. He wore a captain's coat two sizes too large and a monocle cracked straight down the middle.
"Looking for hell, are you?"
Darion stepped forward. "We're looking for a place called the Wound Below."
Grint's smile faded. He glanced at Darion's wrist—and for the briefest moment, his eye widened.
"I hoped never to see that mark again."
Darion's heart thudded. "So you know it."
Grint turned and gestured them to follow. "I don't know it. I survived it."
The Tale of the Wound
He led them into a back room filled with fogglass jars containing tiny models of seascapes—miniature storms, glowing currents, moving ships—all alive in glass. In the center, Grint unrolled a massive chart stitched together from nine different maps, each layer a descent into greater depth.
He pointed to a blank spot.
"There. Past the Maw's Edge, south of the Forbidden Trench. The water is black there—not just dark, but hungry. We call it the Wound because it bleeds memory. You dive there long enough, you forget your name. Your body. Your soul. My crew thought they were fish by the time we surfaced. The lucky ones drowned before that."
Darion studied the chart, brow furrowed.
"How deep?"
"Too deep. You'll need a depth bell, reinforced and warded. Even then, what you find down there… it's not meant for surface dwellers."
"I have no choice," Darion replied.
Grint leaned closer. "And I suppose you think that mark on your arm gives you a right to it? That it makes you special?"
Darion didn't answer.
Grint sighed and pulled a small case from under the table. Inside was a compass carved from obsidian and coral, spinning counterclockwise even as it sat still.
"This will take you there. But it only works for those who've been touched by the Chain."
"Thank you."
"Don't thank me yet. Once it points you to the Wound… it'll never point you home again."
Shadows and Pursuers
Back in the alley, Seraphina tucked the compass into her coat.
"He was afraid of you."
"He should be."
"And yet, he still helped us. That tells me he's more afraid of something else."
"Selkira?"
"Maybe. Or something deeper."
They made their way back toward the docks—but were not alone.
As they crossed an open market square, a group of cloaked figures emerged from the shadows. Their eyes glinted gold beneath their hoods, and their tattoos shimmered like scales in the light.
"Chain-bearer," one of them hissed.
Darion froze. "You know me?"
"You wear what once belonged to the Abyssal Circle. You were reborn with it, but its memory is ours."
"Who are you?"
The lead figure pulled back his hood. His skin was mottled, like someone halfway drowned. Gills pulsed on his neck.
"We are the Brinebound. Selkira has summoned the tide, and you are the storm's herald."
"You want a fight?" Darion growled. "Because I've got one to give."
The Brinebound didn't flinch. Instead, they drew curved daggers and charged.
Street Fight in Brightmoor
Steel clashed in the middle of the market. Crates shattered, vendors screamed, and the crowd scattered as Darion met the first attacker with a brutal parry and counter-blow. His cutlass gleamed as it sliced through cloth and scale alike.
Seraphina danced beside him, her twin daggers finding every exposed nerve. She moved like lightning, her braid whipping behind her like a banner.
One Brinebound hurled a vial of black water—Darion dodged just in time as the ground where he'd stood exploded in steam. Poisoned sea essence.
"They're using abyssal alchemy!" Seraphina yelled.
Darion grit his teeth. His Chain pulsed—one, two, three times—and then his sword glowed with a faint ripple of light, like moonlight on water. He slashed in a wide arc, and three enemies fell back, stunned by the echo of power in the strike.
What the hell was that? Darion thought.The Chain… it's waking up.
One Brinebound, larger than the others, roared and tackled him. They rolled through a fruit stand, and Darion barely raised his blade in time to block the killing thrust. He looked into the man's face—and saw nothing but madness.
Darion flipped him with a grunt, driving the pommel of his sword into the attacker's throat.
Silence fell.
Blood trickled down the cobblestones.
The remaining Brinebound hissed and fled into the sewers.
Darion wiped his blade clean and turned to Seraphina.
"We've got more enemies than we thought."
"They weren't here for a warning. They were here to kill."
Darion looked down at the compass.
It still spun counterclockwise, slowly but surely pointing toward something only the dead remembered.