The road beyond Dusken was lined with bent pine and fog. The gravel crunched beneath their boots in rhythm - Zee ahead, Torren a few steps behind, both silent for most of the morning. The rain had stopped, but the clouds clung low, as if reluctant to move on.
They traveled north toward Crossreach, a trade post straddling three roads and no loyalties. It was one of the few places where mercenaries, cultists, and nobles brushed shoulders - not in peace, but in necessity.
When they arrived by dusk, the town greeted them with a hush. No children laughed. No dogs barked. Just the low creak of signs in the wind and the distant thrum of hammer on metal. The place smelled of wet parchment and smoke.
They passed a bounty board nailed to a crooked pole. Three seals marked its corner: one crimson, one blackened gold, one shimmering silver.
Torren nodded toward it. "That's the gameboard. Syndicate. Cult. Vestule. All placing their bets."
Zee said nothing.
In the lanternlight, a caravan rolled in from the east - men with shaved heads and sleepless eyes, hauling broken crates and burnt cloth. One stopped at the firepit in the square, whispering to the flames.
Torren muttered, "Cult runners. Don't look too long."
A moment later, a rider emerged from the mist - elegant, armored, bearing no house colors but a silver wax crest on a leather tube. Vestule.
She dismounted, pinned a scroll to the board, then vanished into the fog.
They found a quiet table at the corner inn - a place called The Split Stone. Cheap stew. Warm ale. Walls thin enough to hear your neighbor's heartbeat.
Torren leaned in, drawing a crude triangle on the wood with a wet knife tip.
"Syndicate owns the south - gold and silence. The Cult's taken the east - fire and fear. And up in the heights, where the clouds wear armor? That's Vestule."
He looked at Zee. "You thinking what I think?"
Zee said nothing.
Before they left, Zee glanced once more at the bounty board.
A fresh notice had been posted. His face. Crude sketch, no name. The mark: Syndicate.
Torren saw it too. "Well... looks like someone's taken an interest."
Zee didn't speak. Just pulled up his hood.
Outside, the fog had thickened. Somewhere in the far dark, a bell rang once - hollow and distant. But no one in the town seemed to notice.