The Mine — Second Descent

2026-04-08

---

The party pushed into an ancient cave beneath the mine, defeated a sorceress whose own fireball rebounded and killed her, and found the missing hunters dead alongside the two boys — laid out with crossed arms, like records.

Beary came back willingly when Vath called her.That was a good sign.

The crack to the southeast was too tight for some of them. Vath went in first; Pedro and Zephyr shortly after, sideways through the gap, while the rest came after as they could. The cave on the other side was old — older than the mine, older than the town. You could feel it the way you feel a change in weather. Something had been here a long time before any of them, and it wasn't in a hurry to make room.

Then one of the rat-things ran at Beary on all fours. Not like the last ones. Faster. Leaner. No hair on the long snout. This one moved like it was alive in a way the last ones weren't.

Vath let the others work. He swung when he had to and healed when he needed to. He kept an eye on Beary. The fighting was loud and close and the ceiling wasn't much — twelve feet, maybe. Not enough room for anything large to feel comfortable.

Victor was having trouble. He said something about the weave going wrong, and then he went blind for a stretch. Vath watched him move out of the blue-lit area on the ground and come back to himself. That was interesting. The glow — that was what did it. Something pushing back at the magic around it. Like a counter-wind. Vath had felt something like it before, small and distant, near a ruined shrine. Not the same, but close enough to recognize the shape of the thing.

There was a woman. She'd been in the back of the cave, and she threw fire first. It didn't land. Then she tried something else — some kind of hold that didn't take, but left behind that blue circle on the ground. Then she threw fire again, a proper ball of it, and it hit everyone.

Vath had a moment to think: that's a lot.

Then the ball came back.

He didn't understand the mechanism. He didn't try to in the moment. The fire collapsed and reformed and then it hit her and she was gone. Just clothing left. And the smell of burnt air.

The cave went quiet.

They counted what was left. Ten cloaks. Five creatures. Same green rope around every wrist — hers too. A work table with jars and knotted rope and things Vath recognized from herbalism and things he didn't. Victor found notes in the pouch. Elvish, or something that tried to be. Rudimentary, he said. Not the real thing.

Vath thought: someone taught her. She didn't build this alone.

They found the hunters in the west passage. Ned and Nerris. Middle-aged men, archers from the color of their clothing and the bow staves nearby. He looked at the cuts and noted they weren't the same as the tooth marks. Two different things had been at work here, at different times. One had been controlled. The other hadn't.

The boys were in the back. Ketch and Hayden. Laid out with their arms crossed. One of them was still holding something. A red stone, uncut, rough, ordinary-looking. Vath took it. He wasn't sure why, exactly. It felt like it mattered. He'd bring it to Fabri.

Zephyr cried. Vath stood beside him and didn't say anything, because there wasn't anything worth saying. He'd seen things laid out with more care than they'd been treated while they lived. The crossed arms were the same hands that arranged the creatures in their row. That was what stayed with him — not the gore, but the practice. Whoever did this had a system around death that wasn't grief. More like record-keeping.

They carried the boys out. Buried the rangers where the ground was soft enough.

By the time they reached the edge of town the light was nearly gone. Vath's ribs were telling him things he already knew.

Report to Tessa first. Then sleep.