We broke camp without ceremony.
The lantern was shuttered and checked first, its glow reduced rather than extinguished. Bedrolls were rolled tight, straps checked, buckles eased instead of snapped. No one spoke. Even Imoen seemed to understand this wasn't a place for chatter. The mine listened.
From there, we pressed deeper.
The air grew cooler, carrying the mineral tang of sealed stone and dampness that clung to the throat. The walls widened, then fell away, and the tunnel opened onto something that stopped us short.
Water.
It lay wide and dark, swallowing the lantern's glow. A narrow causeway of worked stone cut through the chamber—exposed by design, as if meant to remind travelers how much space lay beneath them. The surface remained undisturbed save for the slow fall of condensation from the ceiling.
Jaheira halted at the threshold, assessing. This wasn't a natural chamber. Not entirely.
Khalid shifted his grip on his shield. The faint scrape of metal carried too far. He froze, shoulders tight, waiting for it to finish traveling.
It did.
The quiet afterward pressed in.
I stepped forward, testing the stone beneath my boot. Solid. Cold. The path ahead was open—open in the way a held breath is. As if something beyond the water waited for commitment before it answered.
Imoen slipped ahead before anyone had to suggest it.
She hesitated only a moment, a quick glance back as if confirming no one objected, then moved on. One moment she was beside us, lantern glow catching the edge of her grin; the next she was easing forward along the stone, steps measured, body angled to keep her outline broken against the rock. The space seemed to accommodate her in a way it did not the rest of us.
We waited long enough for the quiet to begin shifting. Drips. Distant movements in the stone. The steady pressure of water against the chamber walls.
Then a voice carried.
Its distance was deliberate, pitched to travel.
Imoen stilled mid-step. She didn't flatten herself or withdraw—just paused, head tilting slightly, listening past the sound rather than to it. The voice held a weary, even cadence, as though the speaker had already accepted that being heard might change very little.
She moved again, slower now, tracking the sound where it slipped through the stone.
From our position, the words were lost to us. What reached us instead was the certainty of someone there—unhidden, speaking into the mine as if it were meant to listen.
Imoen disappeared around the bend.
The silence that followed felt altered—drawn tight, expectant. As if the mine itself were listening with us, attentive to whoever had chosen to announce themselves in a place built to swallow sound.
"There's someone ahead," Imoen said quietly when she returned. "Being held, I think. Unarmed."
Khalid shifted beside me, armor answering despite his care. Jaheira raised a hand, holding the moment before it turned into motion.
"How close?" she asked.
Imoen glanced back over her shoulder, gauging distance rather than direction. "Close enough that whatever's keeping him there isn't far. And close enough that he didn't want me going any farther."
That gave me pause.
She hesitated, then added, "He warned me of something nearby. Didn't seem panicked. Just… certain."
Jaheira weighed that, eyes narrowing slightly as she considered tone rather than content. "So not bait."
Imoen shook her head. "Didn't read that way."
I kept my thoughts to myself. I knew who waited ahead. Knew what role he played in all of this. But there was no way to explain that knowledge without unraveling far more than I was prepared to expose. Instead, I nodded once.
"She's right," I said. "If someone wanted to draw us in, they wouldn't bother warning us away from anything."
That settled it.
We adjusted formation without discussion—Imoen back at the front, Khalid given room to manage his footing, Jaheira watching angles and echoes alike. Whatever lay ahead, it wasn't rushing to meet us.
And neither were we.
Imoen slowed as the passage widened, one hand lifting briefly to pace us. The mine offered no warning—only that same held quiet pressing in around us.
Then the lantern light found a figure.
He stood where the passage opened into a broader pocket of stone, keeping himself just inside the edge of the glow. Tall. Spare. His posture remained upright despite everything about the place that encouraged collapse. When he noticed us, his hands stayed where they were—empty, plainly visible.
He glanced past us, quick and practiced, then lifted one finger and drew it back toward the darker edge of the chamber, indicating a space behind him. Safer. Quieter. Away from whatever he'd warned Imoen of.
We followed without comment.
Only once we were clear of the lantern's spill did he speak, his voice low and even, as though raising it would serve no purpose.
"Thank you," he said. The word carried neither urgency nor relief—just acknowledgment.
He inclined his head slightly. "My name is Xan."
Up close, he looked composed rather than diminished. His robes—deep purple, trimmed with silver—were intact, carefully kept despite the mine's damp air, marked only by a faint dusting at the hem. Dark circles lingered beneath his eyes, but they spoke more of prolonged vigilance than fear. He held himself upright with deliberate care, as though dignity were simply another discipline.
"I assume," Xan said, "that you are here to confront the cause of all this disruption. I was sent for much the same reason. Observation, inquiry, and—apparently—detention."
No accusation. Just an observation, offered the way one might remark on the weather.
Jaheira inclined her head. "We are."
Xan accepted that with a faint nod. "Then you have my sympathy."
Imoen blinked. "That's it?"
"For now," he said mildly. "Later, I expect regret will be more appropriate."
He gestured toward the nearby passage we had avoided. "The one close at hand prefers quieter company. Skeletons, mostly. Obedient. Entirely without imagination. There were kobolds as well—loud creatures. Difficult to miss."
"We ran into them on the way in," Imoen said. "They won't be a problem anymore."
Xan regarded her for a moment, then inclined his head. "That does improve matters."
Khalid frowned. "And him?"
Xan folded his hands, as though explaining something inevitable rather than dangerous. "He believes himself chosen. Instruments of faith often do. It gives them purpose. It also narrows their thinking."
"If you intend to proceed," Xan continued, "I would prefer to accompany you. Remaining here offers fewer possibilities, and none of them are favorable."
Jaheira studied him for a long moment. "You would fight?"
Xan gave a small, thoughtful shrug. "I would participate. Success remains unlikely—but no longer implausible."
Imoen grinned despite herself. "Well. That's… encouraging. In a way."
Xan regarded her. "Hope often is," he said. "Briefly."
He turned his attention back to us, his expression settling into something like resolve. "If nothing else, I can tell you where not to stand. I have had ample time to consider that in detail."
It wasn't a promise of survival.
But it was, unmistakably, an offer to help.
The mine remained silent, as though it had already decided how this would end.