The fen was a black mirror stitched with little patient fires. Paper votives drifted in rows, each a thumb of honey light carrying a village wish downstream. The Abbey bells were steady—the good kind of instruction—and the marsh breathed like it had finally learned how.
The dispatch slate brightened as we crossed the hall.
DISPATCH LEDGER
Assignment: River-Votive Causey — Flood-Lantern Wyrm
Site: Bride's Fen outflow, at the willow weir and ferryman's pier
Threat: Dark serpent woven from drowned light; warps ward-lines and lures travelers off causeway
Hazards: Undertow (Drag), oil-sheen flash (Scald), false beacons (Confuse), back-current clause (Backline Undertow)
Objectives:
Rescue lantern-tenders and secure the ferryman's pier.
Sever wyrm's hooks from the Fen-Crown lattice (keystone resonance).
Re-hallow the river's votive circuit.
Bonus: Keep Fen-Crown integrity ≥ 100%; maintain Oathbond ≥ 70% in combat.
Note: Prefer edge-casts; route light through water tone or lantern glass; avoid wide Novas on open fuel sheen.
Aurelia's eyes flicked to me—the small question that is always also a promise.
"Take it," I said.
"Taken," she answered.
┌──────────── PRE-ENGAGEMENT ───────────┐
│ Eirion Luminara │
│ HP: 13,180 / 13,180 MP: 21,100 / 21,100 │
│ Aegis Hymn: 0% Oathbond: Linked (~82%) │
│ Weapon: Lysithea — Bride's Oath (Legend.)│
│ Sigils/Items: Honest Road; Lantern of Ten Safe Hours (1) │
└────────────────────────────────────────┘
The willow weir wore a halo of bad light—oil rainbowed the water, bending the lanterns' kindness into sly glances that pointed the wrong way. On the pier, two lantern-tenders stood ankle-deep, ropes looped at their waists, eyes glassy with Confuse; farther out, a third clung to a post where the current forgot to be honest.
The river moved. Then the movement decided to be a shape.
It rose in a long bow under the lanterns: a serpent's body written in inked water and trapped votive flame, scales the color of old brass seen through smoke. Along its length, ward-runes flickered—copycat sigils stolen from the Fen-Crown.
SYSTEM: Flood-Lantern Wyrm (Elite) — Attribute DARK / Water
Traits: Hooked to ward-lattice (leeching stability), False Beacon (Confuse), Backline Undertow (rear-pull clause)
Abilities: Siphon of Drowning (tithes overheal into drag), Flash-Sheen (Scald), Drownwright (binds ankles with light-weed)
Aurelia slid half a step behind me, shield breathing at my back. "Back-clauses."
"I'll write first."
I traced two low arcs along the pier—Sunline Sutures—and widened them into a short Suture Bridge corridor that glowed like warm breath over the slick boards. The nearest tender stepped into it and exhaled—Confuse sloughed off like wet clothes.
"Walk the light," I said gently. "Slow."
A slick rope of dark water licked behind my left ankle—Backline Undertow testing for a clause.
Aurelia's rim moved a precise inch. The dotted pull struck her shield, failed, and died on bright metal. "Eyes front," she told the river.
"Aegis Hymn."
Tiles of dawn tessellated over us both. The wyrm's head tilted—the candle-eyes along its jaw guttered, and then it struck.
The water slammed the pier. I kissed the angle with Bellguard—the window opened where it shouldn't; Aegis drank +12%, warm as tea down the sternum. Aurelia met the same wave with the rim, her boots set like parentheses on slick wood. The serpent's flank skated along the causeway stones and tried to write a new current.
"Don't let it take the lattice," she said.
"Then we teach the river its own voice."
I knelt, dipped Lysithea until the edge touched the skin of the water, and breathed a technique that wasn't a technique until that breath:
"Ripple Peal."
Peal Weave—but through water: I laid a thin Sunline across the current, then tapped a narrow Radiant Nova down the blade. Tone entered the line and ran—a low, carrying note that turned the river's skin into a string. It hummed the way the First Bell had hummed, only wetter, older. The lanterns listened. So did the serpent.
New Technique (Built): Ripple Peal — Route edge-cast Nova into a Sunline laid on water to carry tone along the current; heals allies in contact with the line; cancels False Beacon within 8 m; weakens Backline Undertow.
Hush left the tenders' faces. The third unglued from his post and staggered into our corridor, eyes wide and child-honest.
The wyrm recoiled, then slashed its tail—a Flash-Sheen that ignited the oil in a quick, wicked woof.
"Edge-casts only," Aurelia reminded, stepping to put herself between fire and corridor. Scald kissed her greave; Mend rode my breath into the burn even as my slice traced a Sunline at the flame's lip to hem it. Reprise bolts pecked the little tongues of fire into sullen wet.
The serpent bent its head and bit the river. A ring of darkness sank like a crown just below the surface—Siphon of Drowning—and I felt my overheal trying to run downhill into it.
"Not yours," I said, and changed the habit: I pointed the next Mend at nothing in particular and let Lysithea's on-hit heal choose Aurelia automatically. The overheal that would have spilled turned at the last moment into Reprise bolts—four bright swallows that dove under the surface and tattooed the siphon's rim with white pips, breaking the circle.
Siphon negated: Overheal diverted to Reprise.
Harmony: 84%. Aegis: 31% banked.
"Keystone hooks," Aurelia said, chin toward the faint, flickering runes along the wyrm's spine—counterfeits of our anchors. "Cut them and it's only water."
"Circle me a clause."
She did what she always does—made space. Shield out, she walked the serpent's head back from the corridor with verdict-sure pressure, opening the room I needed.
I traced a Counter-Signature circle on the water's surface with the sword's tip—light skimming like a careful skater. The next time a false rune reached to steal from the Fen-Crown, it touched my circle instead and belonged to me a heartbeat. I slashed the circle; the stolen hook snapped like a rotten tooth.
The wyrm writhed, flinging pelts of dark water. Drownwright reached for my calves, weaving eel-thin cords of light-weed.
"Suture Screen!" Thread flared in a X-shaped gauze, catching the cords and shucking them to the boards where Sunline heat convinced them to be only weed again.
Three lanterns bobbed toward us, their False Beacon still at work. I touched each glass with the flat of my blade and gave them a Prism Mercy tap. The tone split inside their panes into three tiny, obedient lines that slid into the water as rills and joined the Ripple Peal—little bells on a string.
Additive: Lantern-bent sublines extend Ripple Peal by +12 m; Confuse cleared at range.
The wyrm lunged, mouth opening wider than river should. Aurelia met it, Bellguard kissing the hinge; Aegis drank +24%—bank warm and eager. She rocked the shield and stamped the rim down, pinning jaw to pier.
"Now," she said.
"Tricant!" My breath split clean: Smite rode the edge and stitched a pale seam along the faux-runes; Mend poured into Aurelia's stance, untying the heat-ache in her calf from the Scald; Thread snapped to the willow weir's cracked post and sutured wood grain so the load would hold when the serpent thrashed.
It thrashed.
The pier shuddered. A back-surge caught me wrong and the world tilted toward black water. The Backline Undertow clause gnawed for my heel again—never tired, always behind.
Aurelia's shield moved that inch; the dotted pull struck bright edge and evaporated into shame. "With me," she said, the way she says breathe.
"With you," I answered, and opened White Mercy—partial as a low pressure that made weight honest again—no drag, no lie. Our rescued tenders stood straighter; their lungs remembered size.
The serpent coiled to crush the corridor. I drew two parallel Sunlines wide across the water, bridging the gap between pier and causeway. The space between them thickened into a wide Suture Bridge, and for a moment, the river forgot how to be deep there and became a lane—you could see the bottom stones, lit like church glass by the corridor's gentle field.
"Go," Aurelia told the last tender. He trotted over light like stepping stones.
The wyrm made an angry choice—the kind I'm always grateful for—and bit the bridge.
"Ripple Peal—surge." I tapped tone into both lines at once. The lane sang. The serpent's mouth full of lawful water became a bad idea. It reared, coughing light. Aurelia stepped in.
"Finish?"
"Together."
She hammered the rim up under the jaw; I carved a seam a hair from the false ward-ink running the spine. Starlit Reprise fell into its wake like a flock. I traced a quick Sunline collar around the neck and converted the next grab at our lattice into my Counter-Signature—then cut it. For a breath, all its stolen hooks belonged to me.
"White Mercy—Release!"
I poured the bank as a river-wide push, not a blast—kind weight outward. Lanterns steadied; undertow flattened; the oil sheen parted like a curtain seeing a better play. The wyrm's last muscle became only water and fell slack, the drowned lights winking out like children deciding to sleep.
A hush. Then the fen exhaled.
I planted Lysithea and touched the willow weir with two fingers. "No crossing without dawn," I told the river, and inscribed the phrase as a slender Sunline bow that sank and held.
┌──────────── POST-ENGAGEMENT ───────────┐
│ Threat: Flood-Lantern Wyrm — defeated │
│ Rescued: 3 lantern-tenders (stable) │
│ Fen-Crown lattice: 102% integrity (+2%) │
│ HP: 13,180 / 13,180 MP: 16,980 / 21,100│
│ Aegis Hymn: 19% residual │
│ Oathbond Harmony (peak): 88% │
│ New: Ripple Peal (Rank 1) │
└─────────────────────────────────────────┘
We did the small, right things. Thread teased oil from reed roots; Sunlines taught the outgoing current to kiss the pier, not bite it. I set the Lantern of Ten Safe Hours under the boathook rack—a clean dome for sore lungs and shaken hands. Aurelia walked the causeway's lip, eyes catching any last wrong gleam and making it behave.
The System chimed like a coin laid on a ledger.
┌───────────────────────────────────┐
│ QUEST UPDATE │
├───────────────────────────────────┤
│ Twin Radiance: Keepers of the Dawn│
│ River-Votive Causey — COMPLETE │
│ Bonus: Fen-Crown ≥ 100% — PASS │
│ Oathbond ≥ 70% — PASS │
├───────────────────────────────────┤
│ Rewards: │
│ ▸ EXP +29,000 │
│ ▸ Fen Scrip +170 │
│ ▸ Relic Shard: Lantern Spine │
│ ▸ Skill: Ripple Peal (unlocked) │
│ ▸ Mastery: Counter-Signature +1 │
│ ▸ Reputation: Ferrymen's Guild (Favored) │
└───────────────────────────────────┘
A lantern-tender—the one who'd clung to the post—looked at the lane still faintly glowing over the water and laughed once, softly, like finding a lost key. "It's… easy to breathe."
"It should be," I said.
Behind me, I felt the exact inch of shield at my back. "Still guarding my six?" I asked without turning.
"In a crowd?" Aurelia said, deadpan. "Especially."
I let the Sunline along the pier dim, leaving only the little bow at the weir and the memory of a tone in the planks. We started back up the causeway with our slow habit of stitching one thin line every twenty paces—commas in a sentence that was learning how to end in morning.
The ward-bells answered with a small, pleased note—like glass tapped gently to bring a table to order. Villagers on the quay breathed the kind of breathing you don't notice until you've lost it and then get it back.
"Next posting after the slate cools," Aurelia said.
"Dawn willing," I answered. The bell behind my eyes replied once—clean, content—and the river took the agreement downstream without argument.