The sea mist curled around Harbinger’s battered docks as the companions watched the last of the refugee ships drift to safety. Behind them, black clouds gathered on the horizon — a living storm born of Maltheris’s awakening.

Their enchanted sloop bobbed stubbornly in the harbor, the last of the seaworthy vessels, its planks slowly knitting together under its ancient magic.

"We can’t stay," Trevor said, voice rough from salt and smoke. "Valen’s waiting."

No one argued. Without fanfare, they boarded the sloop and set out once more — southward, toward the place they once called home.

The sea grew darker with every league.

Mist closed in like a living wall. Shadows flickered beneath the waves.
At night, the vilewings came — their wings beating the air like drums of war, descending in shrieking flocks.
The companions fought as they always had — bloodied, laughing, stubborn.

Biff’s axe rose and fell with savage rhythm.
Peren moved like a whisper of steel.
Rand’s magic shielded the wounded.
Moroseth’s arrows flew true through the mist.
Baris hurled bolts of dark fire, grim and relentless.
Trevor stood at the helm, steering through storm and blood alike.

They survived — but barely.

It was Moroseth who first spotted the shape in the mist.

A derelict, half-sunken ship — the Mourning Star — adrift like a ghost upon the sea.

They boarded cautiously, weapons drawn.

The deck was a slaughterhouse. Blood blackened the planks. Bodies hung tangled in the rigging.
And somewhere deep within, a soft sobbing led them to a survivor.

A young maiden — pale, trembling, clutching a torn cloak around her shoulders.
She handed them a battered journal, its pages stained with blood and sea-salt.

"The captain," she whispered. "He hid... he hid them... they didn’t want Her to find them."

She was weak, barely able to stand, and the companions — bound by honor and instinct — brought her aboard the sloop with them as they left the wreck behind.

The captain had been cunning.

The five relics were hidden throughout the Mourning Star — each protected by riddles, traps, and the blood-soaked remains of the ship’s final stand.

They found the first relic beneath the shattered wheelhouse, sealed inside a hollow mast.
The second, hidden within the bilge, required Baris to weave delicate magic, shifting stagnant water aside to reveal a sunken chest bound in iron and sorrow.
The third was lodged behind the figurehead, guarded by a glyph of screaming winds that nearly flung Biff into the sea.
The fourth was sealed within the captain’s quarters — behind a hidden panel discovered only after solving a puzzle of nautical charts and broken sextants.
The last lay deep in the cargo hold, protected by a simple lock that Moroseth bypassed with a patient, steady hand.

Victorious, but heavy-hearted, the companions sailed onward — the relics pulsing with ancient power at their belts.

But the girl... she changed.

At first, it was fever — whispered mutterings in a language no human tongue should know.

Then her skin grew pale, almost translucent.
Her breath came ragged and sharp.

Rand prayed over her. Moroseth offered herbs.
Baris eyed her warily but said nothing.

It was Trevor who sat by her side the night she screamed.

The transformation was horrific — bones snapping, black wings tearing from her back, her eyes turning into pits of hunger and madness.

There was no choice.

The companions fought to save her soul, but there was nothing left to save.

When the thing that had once been a girl lay still, the sloop drifted in silence, heavy with grief.

No one spoke for a long time.

The cliffs of Valen rose ahead, jagged and black against the mist.
The town — their home — lay broken and silent beyond.

Driven ashore by broken tides, they were forced to beach the sloop upon a lonely stretch of coast — the ruins of Valen visible in the distance, swallowed by mist and silence.

And there, ahead — impossibly — stood the Traveling Inn.

Its wooden sign creaked on rusty chains. Smoke rose from its crooked chimney.
And standing before it, speaking with Merrick, was a figure swathed in darkness — Ashenblade.

Trevor whispered, "We need to be ready."

Rand, ever the healer, raised his hands in prayer, calling upon the last dregs of holy light to strengthen their broken bodies.

It was a beacon in the mist.

Ashenblade’s head turned — and he smiled.

In a blur of motion, he was among them.

The battle was hopeless.

Ashenblade’s blade wept ash and sorrow. His strikes shattered shields, broke armor, drained strength.

Biff and Rand fought bravely — too bravely.

When they fell, Ashenblade did not kill them.

He shattered their souls.

A thousand screams echoed in a heartbeat as their very essence splintered, torn like cloth before a storm.

He took the relics — not hurriedly, but with the slow, sure hands of a master thief savoring his prize.

And then he left them broken and bleeding on the black sands — not dead, but emptied.

It was all they could do to crawl to the Inn.

Merrick met them at the threshold, his face grave and weathered by more battles than he cared to name.
Trevor, on hands and knees, seized Merrick’s cloak with trembling fingers.

"You have to help them," he gasped. "Please."

Merrick knelt slowly, examining the bodies of Biff and Rand. His voice was low and steady.
"I am no wizard," he said. "But I carry... old tools. Old promises."

He slipped a ring from his finger — a dull, ancient band, carved with runes that seemed to shift when not looked at directly.

"This can grant a Wish," Merrick said, his voice rough with memory. "But the spell must be shaped carefully. Recklessly used, it would destroy what little remains."

Trevor turned toward Baris, who stood at the edge of the firelight, his cloak torn and his hands trembling.

"You," Merrick said, fixing Baris with a gaze like iron. "You have the gift. You must craft the words. Choose them wisely. A Wish, once spoken, cannot be unmade."

Baris stepped forward, a gleam in his eye — ambition, hope, and fear all at once.
He spoke quickly, confidently — too confidently — weaving words of restoration and healing.

But magic, like truth, demands precision.

And Baris, for all his cleverness, lacked the wisdom to see every edge.

The ring flared with blinding light as the wishes were spoken — once for Biff, once for Rand.

The companions held their breath.

Biff stirred first — his great chest heaving as he gasped for breath.
Rand groaned, blinking into the smoky air.

They lived.

But something was wrong.

The spark in Rand’s eyes — the easy grin that once came so readily to Biff — both were... muted, somehow. Dimmed.

They were whole.
But they were not unchanged.

A shadow clung to them still — a scar deeper than any blade could leave.

Days passed in a haze of pain and bitter laughter.

And then, the Inn shifted.

When next the companions opened the doors, they found themselves standing in a land of snow and pine.

The North.

The village of Haria welcomed them like lost sons.

Here, the mists had not yet crept.
Here, the fire still burned against the night.

The Frosted Stag tavern overflowed with laughter and music.
The companions drank deep from two-gallon mugs of honeyed mead, sharing their tales with the wide-eyed villagers who crowded close to hear.

Trevor told of the sea crossing — of waves tall as towers and storms fierce enough to tear the stars from the sky.
Moroseth spoke of the hidden gems, his voice low and reverent.
Rand recounted the riddles of the Mourning Star, each word a memory carried like a wound.
Even Baris, dark and sharp, allowed a rare smile as he told of the gorilla siege at the Traveling Inn —
of Biff hurling broken chairs at bone-armored beasts and Peren splitting the air with a hundred blows faster than sight.

Biff laughed hardest of all, slamming mugs together with villagers until the floors shook.

For a little while, they were not fugitives or soldiers.

They were heroes.

They were family.

But beyond the warmth of Haria, the mist waited.

And in the deep places of the world, something else stirred.

The companions left Haria at dawn, heavy with mead and memory, their hearts lighter than they had been in many long weeks.

The path north was quiet at first, pine needles crunching underfoot, the mist only a ghost on the edge of vision.

And then came the sound.

Chains — dragging over stone.

A low, grinding, endless sound that spoke of hunger, and hate, and time without end.

Jason.

The Endless Pursuer.

He came upon them in the mist like a storm given flesh.

The battle was vicious.

Peren and Biff stood like twin walls against him, blades flashing, shields shattering under Jason’s blows.
Trevor shouted commands, rallying them time and again.
Moroseth’s arrows struck true, black blood splattering the snow.
Rand and Baris unleashed magic and light and shadow, working together without hesitation.

Jason faltered — wounded, snarling — and then, as mist boiled up around him, he was gone.

Bruised, bloodied, but alive, the companions limped back to the waiting doors of the Traveling Inn.

Inside, the fire crackled.
Merrick said nothing — only watched.

The world was growing darker.

And the storm was far from over.