The gates of Greyhold yawned open, their hinges screeching against the early morning chill. Heavy mist hung in the air, clinging low to the ground and swirling around the hooves of the departing horses.

Rhiannon led the column, her posture rigid in the saddle. Five mounted guards followed her, sheathed in silence, steel and leather, their dark armor devoid of insignia or color.

Tucked into a felt-lined pouch secured at her hip, Veyran rode quietly if not comfortably, one hand gripping a leather loop stitched into the lining. The horse's gait jostled his frame with every step, the thunder of its hoofbeats ringing in his ears. He mulled over how he had traded his sheltered life underground for adventure above, only to be captured and caged by humans. He'd always imagined the surface as a realm of sunlight and wonders, not this cruel, perilous overworld that belittled him at every turn. Perched atop the colossal steed, the vast human-scale world overwhelming his perspective, Veyran felt a heightened awareness of his own smallness.

As they crossed the gate, he turned around, peering through a gap in the leather for a last glimpse of the compound that had been his prison. A flash of dirty blond hair darted behind a stack of crates near the workshop. The awkward posture confirmed it was Wyatt —the only human he had come close to trusting, far more than Rhiannon. Veyran hesitated to call out, unsure what he'd say. But he poked his arm out to give a wave and thumbs up, helping draw attention to the gesture with a touch of arclith-enhanced glamor. Wyatt waved back before his scrawny figure was blocked by the bulky guards. Veyran continued to look back until the mist swallowed Greyhold's skyline behind them.

Ruth stood at the window of the overseer's office, watching as the expedition made its way down the road, vanishing into the fog. She had asked no clarifications about their requested supplies, no details about their planned route. And when she gave her final orders to the guard escort the night before, she had very carefully chosen her words.

The Grey Road stretched ahead, a track of packed earth flanked by scattered homesteads and buildings on the outskirts of the city, before emerging into pastoral fields and finally giving way to the looming trees of the Veilwoods.

Rhiannon trotted ahead of the expedition at the first turn. Seeing that the guards were finally out of earshot, Veyran spoke up.

"Ruth didn't suspect anything?"

Rhiannon gaze remained fixed on the horizon. "Of course not."

"She let you leave Greyhold. With me, and the lode. Just like that?" Veyran prodded. "That doesn't seem dubious to you?"

"She believes I'm inspecting structures for repair," Rhiannon replied with a smug smile. "And surveying sites for new quarries. Also that I'm dragging you along to extract more useful knowledge. She thinks you're just my clever little… consultant."

"She also thinks you're being reckless."

"She's not entirely wrong. But she knows I have things under my control."

"Things… such as me, you mean?"

"She thinks you're a pet," Rhiannon said dryly. "A clever one, but still mine."

Veyran huffed. "I've been called worse."

The guards eventually caught up to them, keeping a respectful distance and silence. Veyran shifted again in the pouch, keeping an eye on the men riding behind them.

"So. This is all Greyhold territory?" he asked, figuring he might as well know more about how humans had set things ups.

Rhiannon glanced down at him. "That's right. We're a bit north of the main routes south to the bigger cities and the capital."

"It's rather… quiet out here. Just trees and fog. No walls, or towers." Veyran observed.

"Greyhold was never a notable fortress or a trade hub," she said. "With the woods on one side, then the caldera beyond—it's cut off enough to feel dull but settled enough to matter… just barely."

"Yet you've stayed on."

"It's where my family is from," she said plainly. "Living here… isn't too prestigious or rewarding, but it's ours."

"And so are the traps, I assume?"

Rhiannon shrugged. "I wasn't the one who came up with the smart idea to start planting them along the hunting trail," she explained. "Or the even more brilliant idea to set snares near the rim. At first, they only caught animals. Then a kobold or two."

"Then they caught Shy..." Veyran interrupted, pausing for a beat of silence before he began listing names, "Brynnal. Eryl. Callan. Mara. Then me. Then the others. One by one. You should know their names. The names of the people you trapped. Whose lives you stole."

Rhiannon kept her gaze directed on the road, her horse's hooves counting off the beats of the resulting heavy silence. Then Veyran spoke again, more calmly this time.

"I agreed to this," Veyran said at last. "Not because I fully believe or trust you. But because I want to know exactly what that arclith lode is. And if we can find more of it."

"That makes both of us," Rhiannon concurred.

"If we find something… I hope it makes all the crap that you humans have put us Shy through worth it"

That pulled her attention. She looked down at the pouch, the silvery wisps of the Deepshy's hair just barely peeking out.

"I guess I didn't bring you for your sunny outlook," she said, keeping her tone jovial.

"And I didn't come along for the fun of it," Veyran glared up at her.

Another silence passed between them, longer this time.

Rhiannon eventually whispered down in a gentler tone. "You can stop thinking of yourself as a prisoner, you know."

"I know I'm not a free man, doesn't matter what I think," Veyran muttered bitterly.

Treacherous and nigh impenetrable, the Veilwoods had bested much better men than Griff.

Branches clawed at his face. Roots tripped him. Cold had seeped into his bones, while hunger gnawed away at the rest.

He moved and smelled like a feral beast, his beard a matted tangle framing sunken eyes that blazed with a fierce, desperate intensity.

His coat, once a proud Greyhold issue, now hung patched and ragged, its seams restitched with strands from his shoelaces or even his own hair. His sword was long lost, his knife dulled and chipped. He hadn't even seen a proper human path in days, human face for even longer.

But he still clung to his mission out of stubborn spite. The overseer had made it clear. Bring Garret and the escaped Shy back. Don't return without them. Failure wasn't exile. It was dismissal.

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"Cowards," he muttered, thinking of his nemeses as he ducked beneath a low branch. "Should've finished the job and snapped his damn leg off when I had the chance. Both of their legs. Dragged 'em back by what's left."

Twice, he'd tried to return. The first time after a month of being starved, scratched up, and empty-handed. He'd limped to Greyhold's gates, his beard still short, hoping for pity. When he asked to be taken back in, they sent a runner bearing Ruth's message: "Come back with something, or not at all."

He'd tried again months later, dirtier, hungrier, desperate. They didn't even open the gates. The guards just stared down from the wall until he left. This last stretch had bled together into one long haze of mud and curses. Now his boots squelched on wet moss, the cold damp leaking through cracked leather. He wasn't even really tracking anything anymore, just casting about in circles, driven by a grudge and the dim hope of redemption. The Veilwoods were his cage, the trees his wardens.

But then he heard them—voices. And not just in his head this time. Real ones.

He crept towards the direction of the sound, moving with the practiced stealth of a man molded by the wild. Through the brambles, he spied four men huddled around a dying fire, their muddy cloaks bearing faded Greyhold insignias. They looked as battered and lost as Griff felt.

"I swear we passed this clearing three times already," one muttered, poking the fire with a stick.

"They're burrowers," another suggested. "Kobolds, the Shy… maybe they went underground. We could've walked right over them."

"Then let 'em stay buried," the last one grunted. "This ain't a rescue mission."

With that cynical take, the guards fell silent and the woods went still.

Then they heard the crunch of footsteps on the forest floor.

The guards jolted upright, hands snapping to hilts. They expected either a beast or rebel, but what emerged from the brambles looked like something in between. A scarecrow of a man, hollow-cheeked, fingernails like claws. Yet, beneath the ravaged exterior, he stood tall with a familiar stubbornness.

The men froze. "Griff?" one gasped. "You're still alive!?"

"Mostly," Griff rasped through cracked lips, his voice rough from disuse

Firelight illuminated his ruined coat, the mud crusting his boots, the scars crisscrossing his face.

Another guard exclaimed, "Bloody hell, he looks like the woods chewed himup and spat him out."

Griff stepped closer to the fire. No one stopped him.

"What are you doing out here, Darren? Didn't know Ruth had more fools chasing shadows," the wild man asked.

The guard named Darren approached the disheveled man cautiously. "The Shy and a group of kobolds escaped. Dug a tunnel out of Greyhold. We've been trying to catch them."

Griff let out a dry, bitter laugh. "And I thought I was the only poor bastard sentenced to wander these woods."

"You've been out here all this time?" Darren asked.

"Off and on," Griff said, stepping closer to the fire. "Tried going back. They wouldn't let me in with nothing to show."

He knelt beside the fire with a groan, warming his weary limbs. Someone handed him a crust of bread and a scrap of jerky. He tore into them without saying thanks.

"Didn't expect company," he mumbled between chews. "Just been trying to stay alive, figure out how to find the bastards and get back to Greyhold. And now I find out those damned pests have all gotten out." He shook his head, looking like he was ready to either laugh or cry.

"You seen anything?" Darren asked warily.

"A few signs," Griff said, his gaze distant. "Notches on tree bark. Little stones stacked in random places. Patches of mushrooms with the heads chopped off clean." He took a generous gulp from the canteen passed to him.

"Something's out here, always watching. Staying clear of us humans. Smart little devils…" Griff rambled.

"They've evaded us too," one of the younger guards murmured.

Griff looked up, eyes catching the firelight like an ember reigniting. "That's 'cause they don't want a fight. But that doesn't mean we can't find them."

He pulled his ragged cloak tighter around his shoulders and stared into the fire.

"We should work together," he suggested, a glint in his eye.

The others hesitated. Then Darren leaned in closer, looking hopeful. "You've got a plan?"

Griff shifted to the dirt beside the fire, pulled a stick from the kindling, and began sketching. "I've scoured most of the woods, circling this area where I've been seeing all these little clues, heading back when I start hearing the river. There are some caves past where it gets rocky, hard to reach. But I've seen traces of somebody, or something, little things, passing through. Can't say if it was Garret or the others, but it sure wasn't an animal. What about you?"

"Nothing," Roddick, the youngest guard, admitted. "We're half-starved and pretty lost ourselves."

"Then stick with me." Griff's eyes gleamed in the firelight. "We can stay here tonight. At first light, we start tracking."

Darren looked around at the others. Exhaustion weighed them down, their spirits frayed. Griff, ragged as he was, radiated a raw, unyielding will that they lacked. There was some skepticism—but relief too. Here was someone who knew the woods, knew how to survive. Unfortunately, that someone was Griff, a man on the verge of breaking down. Still, he was better than nobody.

Darren met Griff's gaze and nodded. "We'll follow your lead. For now."

The guards settled around the fire. They sank into their cloaks, eyes darting through the darkness, worried about what could come out of the shadows. By the time the fire dwindled to embers, they were snoring away.

Griff sat up well into the night, chewing slowly on the last of the jerky, his back to the others. He stared into the darkness, imagining his Shy quarry finally cornered, ready to be stomped underfoot or stuffed into sacks. He may be a beaten old hound, and he'd be leading a pack of bumbling pups, but life had finally thrown him a bone.

Rhiannon rode hard, urging her horse to gallop at breakneck speed. Her eyes stayed on the path, one hand resting at her hip, the other lightly guiding the reins.

Veyran had never traveled like this. In the Deep, transport was swift, but precise and controlled. This was nothing like the steady hum of arclith elevators or the smooth glide of waypods. This was all raw muscle and animal chaos, the horse's every stride rattling his carrying pouch, caring nothing for his fragile bones. Trees and sky blurred into dizzying streaks of color, the violent forward rhythm drowning his thoughts. With each leap over roots and ditches, his stomach clenched. Was he in the throes of exhilaration or panic? He couldn't even tell anymore.

"Still with me, Deepshy?" Rhiannon shouted over the wind.

"Barely!" he yelled back, voice nearly smothered.

She laughed—a fierce, startling sound—and spurred the horse faster. Veyran gritted his teeth while holding on.

They reached the riverbend in a day and a half. As they approached, the trees thinned to reveal the broad rush of the Greystone River, the setting sun painting its churning waters in shades of silver and shadow.

At the curve, a bridge straddled the banks, its supports entwined with roots reaching from either shore. On the opposite bank, a patch of pale dirt marked the spot where the overseer's workers had flagged something unusual in the muck.

Rhiannon guided the expedition further inland to a glade at the forest's edge, where the trees provided natural cover but the river remained close.

"We'll camp here," she ordered the guards. "Set the perimeter. Build a fire at the tree line. I want easy access to the water."

They dismounted and worked in practiced silence, unpacking gear and staking tents. Rhiannon's own shelter was simple—weatherproof, with a collapsible table and cot inside—but practical. A guard unfurled a padded mat beside the fire pit for her to lounge on. Another opened the sealed crate containing rations, tea bricks, and field instruments.

Veyran stepped carefully out of the pouch as she lowered it next to her on the mat. He scrambled onto a rock facing the river, using it as a perch to get a better view of their surroundings.

"Is this it?" he asked, scanning the slope toward the water's edge.

Rhiannon nodded, crouching to unlace her gloves. "Roughly. My crew was rebuilding the bridge. A flood took out one of the supports. They found the lode among the exposed roots they were clearing out. Thought it was fireglass—decorative slag."

"They brought it to you?"

"Flagged it for retrieval. I had it carted back, secured. Didn't realize what it was until it reacted to the arclith artifacts that… we got from your people," she admitted with a hint of embarrassment.

"Arclith isn't common on the caldera's surface," Veyran frowned. "My ancestors likely picked it all clean generations ago. Even underground, we've had to keep digging deeper for decent shards. I can't recall learning about any arclith retrieved from the river. Not that we Shy could drag a lode that size out of the water without too many of us drowning to death."

"Tomorrow, we can survey the area properly," Rhiannon stated. "See if there's anything interesting about the water or the soil. If not, we go upstream. It had to come from somewhere."

Veyran alternated between watching the river flowing and the fire burning, racking his brain about anything he knew about alternative arclith sources. He gave up trying to dredge up long-forgotten lessons and turned to scan the camp.

The guards all seemed to be moving and working quietly—too quietly. They didn't speak to each other more than necessary. No idle chatter or jokes. Their eyes never lingered too long on him, or on Rhiannon. They didn't linger on anything. Maybe that's just how they acted while on duty. But he remembered them not being particularly disciplined in the compound. There was something else to it.

"The guards are awfully quiet," he observed.

Rhiannon followed his gaze. "I chose them for their discretion."

"You sure that's what this is?" Veyran pressed.

She gave him a long look but said nothing.

The fire crackled, heating a pot of water suspended over a metal tripod for their tea. One of the guards began prepping dinner. Another checked the horses. Rhiannon leaned back on the mat and looked out toward the trees.

"Relax," Rhiannon said, with a hint of irritaion. "We'll eat and rest tonight. Then start working at first light."

"What if there's nothing here, or upstream?"

"Then we keep looking," she snapped, poking him in the chest with a finger. "We didn't set out to end this expedition empty-handed."

She caught herself and took a deep breath. "Veyran, can't you just… enjoy being outside in nature for a bit?"

The Deepshy responded by walking right back into the pouch.

As the Overseer and the Deepshy traded words, behind them—just beyond the reach of the firelight—two guards nodded at each other, their eyes locking for an instant.

Then, with the nail of his index finger, one of them tapped twice against the haft of his blade.

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