By the time the companions left the forest behind, the afternoon sun was sinking towards the western hills. Dark trees gave way to rolling farmland, sheep grazing peacefully as farmers waved from passing wagons. After the goblin cave, it felt almost impossible that the world could still be so calm.

Mara slowed her pace and smiled at the road ahead. “We’re nearly there,” she said. “You’ll see Fallcrest in a moment.”

The road curved around a small hill, and then the town appeared.

The River Nentir swept around the southern edge of Fallcrest, its broad waters alive with barges and fishing boats. Long wooden docks stretched into the current, where merchants shouted orders and sailors unloaded timber and grain. Beyond them rose the town itself, split in two by a great cliff of pale stone — Lowtown below, its busy streets winding between warehouses and homes built amongst the remains of older buildings; Upper Fallcrest above, stone houses overlooking the valley behind walls that had survived the orc invasion a century before. A broad staircase climbed the cliff face, linking the two halves of the town, and rising from the heart of the upper town stood a tall stone tower with narrow windows and a pointed roof.

Dave stopped walking and stared up at it. “That’s Nimozaran’s tower,” he said. It was not quite a question.

Mara nodded. “It is.”

“I thought it would be bigger,” Dave admitted.

Nibbles looked up beside him. “I thought it would have skulls.”

“Probably books instead,” Derek said.

“Worse,” muttered Nibbles.

Stone walls and a northern gate rose ahead as the road descended towards the town. Banners snapped above Knight’s Gate, and beyond them came the sound of hammers and rushing water far below. The guards on duty recognised Mara at once.

“Mara!” one of them called, hurrying forward. “We’d almost given up hope.”

“The goblins nearly got me,” she admitted, stepping aside so the companions could be seen properly. “These four found me before it was too late.”

The guard removed his helmet respectfully. “Then Fallcrest owes you all a debt.”

Thorn shook his head. “We were happy to help.”

“Welcome to Fallcrest.”

Inside the walls, the town was louder than any of them had expected. Carts rattled over cobbled streets, blacksmiths hammered glowing iron, and children chased one another through the market square while the smell of fresh bread drifted from a bakery nearby.

Loki’s nose twitched furiously. Within moments he had found two friendly dogs and one butcher who decided such a magnificent animal deserved half a sausage.

“Loki,” Thorn called.

The dog looked up. The sausage disappeared in one bite.

Thorn sighed. “I suppose you’ve earned it.”

Mara led them through Lowtown, explaining that Fallcrest was Almenor’s northernmost outpost — the last proper town before the wild mountains took over. When Thorn asked about the ruins, she glanced towards a roofless stone building beside a newly built warehouse.

“The orcs destroyed most of Lowtown a century ago,” she said quietly, resting a hand on one of the old stone walls. “My grandfather helped rebuild this street.”

Thorn looked around and saw what she meant. Everywhere old stone met new timber — the town had simply carried on.

They climbed the broad staircase to Upper Fallcrest, which left Dave breathing heavily by the top. “Do people walk up here every day?” he asked.

“They do,” Mara replied cheerfully. “They’re all showing off.”

From the cliff top the whole valley stretched before them — the River Nentir curving south, dark forests beyond the farms. Far away, almost lost in the afternoon haze, Thorn noticed a great shelf of land rising above the horizon. It looked too straight, too level, to be natural.

He frowned. “What’s that?”

Mara followed his gaze. “Oh. The old plateau. Nobody goes there much.”

“Why not?” Dave asked.

She shrugged. “There are easier places to visit.”

Something about the distant rise caught Thorn’s attention, though he could not have said why. It stayed with him as they made their way to the Nentir Inn, warm and welcoming in a way the noisier taverns below were not.

The innkeeper, Wisara, hurried around the counter the moment she saw Mara and hugged her tightly before noticing the companions. “I owe them my life,” Mara said.

Wisara smiled warmly. “Then tonight they stay here.” She handed Thorn a small ring of keys. “Four rooms. No charge.”

Dave blinked. “Actual rooms? With soft beds?”

“The softest,” Wisara assured him.

Nibbles folded his arms. “I don’t trust free things.”

“Then don’t eat the free breakfast,” Wisara laughed.

Nibbles looked horrified. “There’s breakfast too?”

After washing away the dust of the road, the companions spent the afternoon exploring Fallcrest while Mara saw to her own errands. Thorn wandered towards the blacksmith’s forge, where the rhythmic clang of hammer on steel echoed into the street. The blacksmith was a broad-shouldered woman with soot-blackened arms and a smile that suggested she enjoyed a challenge.

“I’d like an axe,” Thorn said.

She raised an eyebrow. “I’ve got plenty.”

“I mean…” Thorn hesitated. “I’d like my axe. The sort you keep for a lifetime.”

Understanding spread across her face. She disappeared into the workshop and returned with a piece of chalk, and by the time she had finished sketching head shapes and balance points onto a slate board, Thorn was not carrying a new axe — but he knew exactly what it would look like when it was finished.

Nibbles’ afternoon began at a narrow apothecary’s shop near the docks, where he announced with confidence that he would like to buy poison — the sneaky sort. The apothecary did not even reach for a shelf.

“That isn’t something I keep in stock,” she said. “If you want the proper stuff, it has to be ordered in through the halfling dock crews. A hundred gold, and you’d still be waiting.”

Nibbles had been picturing something one could slip into a pocket, not a sum requiring an actual career in crime. He sighed dramatically, abandoned the idea, and went to find Dave.

Together they discovered Naerumar’s Imports — a shop quiet, polished, and full of glass cases too expensive to touch. The owner, Orest Naerumar, was a tiefling with impeccable manners and horns polished to a respectable shine.

Dave, ducking through the doorway, explained he needed proper ink for copying spells into his spellbook. Orest produced a crystal bottle of shimmering blue ink and the other bits a careful scribe might need. Dave counted his coins twice, paid up, and looked delighted.

That was when Nibbles decided they had been far too easy to deal with.

“We’ll take one of those as well,” he said, pointing at something in a case at random. “And that ring. And whatever you’ve got in the back that’s magical and not on display.”

Orest smiled politely and said he would be happy to discuss special orders in due course. Two very large men entered from a door at the back — not quite armed, but giving the impression of it. Dave became very interested in his ink bottle.

“Perhaps another occasion,” Orest said, his smile unchanged. They left considerably more politely than they had entered.

Later the companions met again near Wizard’s Gate and considered buying ponies from a paddock run by a cheerful halfling named Lannar Thistleton. The prices seemed reasonable, the animals sturdy. For a few minutes it looked as though the party might leave Fallcrest mounted.

Then Loki caught the smell of horses and took an immediate dislike to it. He barked; one pony shied, another tried to bite Nibbles, though Nibbles insisted that was unrelated. Thorn hauled the dog back by his collar while Dave explained that Loki was usually very friendly, which the horses did not find reassuring. They left quickly.

Derek spent the afternoon doing something none of the others had thought of: talking to people. Stallholders, guards, passing townsfolk — about the road, about goblins, about Fallcrest itself. That was how he met Sergeant Murgaddin.

The old dwarf stood near the market square wearing battered armour and a helmet with a dent above one eye, his grey beard neatly braided, his expression suggesting he had seen every kind of trouble the world could offer.

“So,” Murgaddin said, looking Derek up and down. “You’re one of the youngsters who pulled Mara out of a goblin cave.”

“With my friends,” Derek replied.

“Good answer.” Murgaddin glanced across the square, where Nibbles was attempting to look innocent beside a stall of shiny belt buckles. “Are they always like that?”

“Usually worse.”

The sergeant’s moustache twitched. He led Derek back towards the others and introduced himself. “I keep order around here. Or I try to.”

Thorn straightened. “We don’t want trouble.”

“Trouble rarely cares what people want.” Murgaddin looked towards Mara. “She says you can be trusted.”

Mara nodded. “They can.”

“That matters. Fallcrest remembers people who help.”

Nibbles brightened. “Does it remember them with money?”

“It remembers them with opportunities.”

Nibbles’ face fell. “That sounds like less money.”

Murgaddin gave him a long look. “I’ll keep an eye on you.”

“Thank you?”

“That was not a compliment.”

By evening the lamps of Fallcrest were being lit. The companions followed Mara back down the cliff steps into Lowtown, where the river air smelled of wet rope, woodsmoke and supper. The Blue Moon Alehouse stood near the docks — timber beams leaning slightly, windows glowing warmly, a painted sign of a cheerful blue moon grinning down at everyone who passed. Music and laughter spilled from inside.

“This is where people come when they want to forget the day,” Mara said.

“Is the food good?” Dave asked.

“Very.”

“Then I also want to forget the day.”

Inside, the Blue Moon was crowded but welcoming. Sailors drank beside merchants, dockworkers argued over dice near the hearth, and a musician played a lively tune. The innkeeper waved them towards a table already laid with food — fresh bread, cheese, roast chicken, a thick vegetable stew, and apple pie.

Dave stared at the spread. “This is more beautiful than magic.”

Derek sat heavily. “I may agree with you.”

Mara laughed and began serving everyone before taking anything for herself, listening while Thorn described the axe he had commissioned, and smuggling sausage to Loki beneath the table. Thorn noticed. Again. He said nothing.

Nibbles was still complaining about the hundred gold when Derek pointed out that poison was expensive because people used it to poison people. Nibbles said that was exactly the point, and unfair.

For a while nobody spoke of goblins, or maps, or danger. They ate until Dave declared he could not move another inch, then proved himself wrong when Mara offered him more pie.

The shouting began outside.

At first it sounded like ordinary children playing in the square. Then one voice rose above the others — “It’s back!” — and another joined it: “The little statue! On the roof again!”

Derek looked up sharply.

Thorn reached across the table without looking at Nibbles. “Don’t steal it.”

“I wasn’t going to steal it,” Nibbles said.

“Don’t climb onto the roof either.”

Nibbles paused. “I wasn’t going to climb very high.”

Derek was already on his feet, moving towards the door with the calm urgency of someone who had heard what mattered in the children’s voices. Nibbles made a disappointed noise and stayed at the table.

Several children stood in the square pointing towards the roof. Derek shaded his eyes and looked up. At first he saw only chimneys and roof beams. Then something moved — a tiny grey shape crouched beside a chimney pot, no bigger than a cat, with thin limbs and a hunched back. For a moment it looked exactly like a carved gargoyle.

Then it turned its head.

Derek went still. The creature had wings — not feathered, but stone-coloured, folded tight against its back. Its little eyes glinted. Derek took one careful step towards the wall. The creature saw him, snapped its wings open, and launched itself from the rooftop, gliding over the square before vanishing into the shadows between two taller buildings.

The Blue Moon roof — where something that was definitely not a statue took flight.

The children cheered. Derek did not. He turned back inside to report that whatever it was, it had most certainly not been a statue, because statues did not fly.

Thorn frowned. “Did it see you?”

Derek met his gaze. “Yes.”

Mara’s smile faded slightly. “That’s odd.”

Before anyone could say more, the tavern door opened and a halfling rushed inside carrying a stack of papers, a leather satchel and several loose quills, cheerful, breathless and untidy all at once.

“Mara! You made it!” He hurried across the room. Mara stood and hugged him. “Only just.”

The halfling beamed at them. “Then you must be the heroes. I’m Tobbs. Tobbs Quickfoot. Apprentice to the great Nimozaran, keeper of too many keys, fetcher of too many books, and currently very glad to meet you.”

He shook each of their hands in turn, then crouched to offer Loki one. “And you must be the famous dog.”

Loki gave him a serious sniff, apparently satisfied, and allowed Tobbs to shake his paw.

“Excellent manners,” Tobbs said. “I wish more wizards were like you.”

Dave looked offended.

Tobbs sat down, still smiling, still shuffling papers without any obvious reason. But Thorn noticed something the cheerful patter almost hid: the smile never quite reached Tobbs’ eyes, and every few moments he glanced towards the window, like someone trying very hard to seem at ease, and almost succeeding.

Mara placed the worn leather satchel on the table. Tobbs stopped moving. For the first time since entering the Blue Moon, he was completely still.

“Is that it?” he asked quietly.

Mara nodded. “I kept it safe.”

“I know.” His voice softened. “Of course you did.”

She opened the satchel and drew out the old parchment. Tobbs unrolled it with great care, and the noisy tavern seemed to fade around them.

The map was older than any Thorn had ever seen, its edges cracked and darkened. Thin lines marked roads that no longer existed and ruins drawn in faded ink. Strange symbols surrounded the outline of a lost city, and several points had been marked in blue. Tobbs stared at them and whispered, “Oh.”

“That sounds bad,” said Dave.

“It is not bad exactly.” Tobbs swallowed. “It is important.”

“That’s usually worse,” Nibbles said.

Tobbs traced one finger gently over the centre of the map. The alehouse seemed to grow quieter, as though the room itself were listening.

“This is Ethium,” he said. “Not a town on the plateau — the whole plateau was the city. A vast ancient place, long abandoned, long looted. That faint pale shelf you might have noticed from the cliffs, when the haze lifts — that’s it. Once it was a jewel of the old kingdoms; roads ran to it from every direction, wizards studied there, merchants grew rich. Then the wars came, and for generations people believed there was nothing left but broken walls and stories.”

His finger moved to one of the blue marks. “These show the locations of Ethium Stones — fragments of the old magic, buried when the city fell. For centuries they slept. My master, Nimozaran, has spent years collecting every scrap of lore about them, and lately…” He paused, and Thorn saw his hand tighten on the parchment. “Lately his work has stopped being theory. The stones are awakening. Lights in old ruins where no torches burn. People dreaming of places they’ve never seen — halls of white stone, voices speaking languages nobody alive should know.”

Dave’s eyes widened. “That’s exciting.”

“No,” Tobbs said gently. “That’s worrying. If the stones are waking, someone else will have noticed too. Someone sent goblins after Mara on the North Road for this map.”

Mara folded her arms. “Someone sent goblins after me because of this.”

“Yes,” Tobbs said. “I feared they might.”

“And the stones?” Derek asked. “What do they actually do?”

Tobbs reached into his satchel and brought out a small stone cupped in both hands — no larger than a hen’s egg, smooth and pale grey, with faint blue veins running through it like frozen lightning. In the torchlight it looked disappointingly ordinary.

“Nimozaran gave me this one,” Tobbs said quietly. “There are only a handful in all of Fallcrest, and most have slept since before our grandparents were born. But they are waking now — and when they wake, they remember what they were made for.”

He set the stone on the table. The companions leaned in. Even Loki sniffed at it once and sat back down, ears pricked.

“The old texts are incomplete,” Tobbs continued, “but my master has pieced together a little of the language used to wake them. Watch.”

He rested two fingers lightly on the stone and spoke two words Thorn had never heard before — clear, careful, almost reverent. “Aethra Lumis.”

The change was immediate.

A soft blue light bloomed from within the stone, steady and bright enough to read by, filling the space between their faces with a colour that belonged to no torch or candle. A gentle warmth spread out from it, like standing close to a banked fire. The veins in the stone pulsed once, slowly, as though something deep inside had drawn breath.

“Aethra Lumis” — and for a moment the old magic remembered itself.

Dave made a small sound of wonder. Nibbles’ eyes widened. Derek leaned closer, studying the light without touching it.

“It gives light,” Tobbs said. “And warmth. That’s the simplest use — the one even an apprentice can manage without setting his sleeves on fire. They can do more than that, in the right hands. At shrines. At pools. But first…” The cheerful mask slipped entirely. “First we need to know what is still out there.”

He let the light fade. The blue glow dwindled and died, though a faint warmth lingered a moment longer.

Tobbs tapped the map where the blue marks lay scattered across the plateau. “These are places where stones may still lie hidden, or where they’ve begun to stir.” His finger moved to a darker symbol on the western edge, where the land rose in broken ridges. “And here — the ruined tower. Old Ethium stonework, still standing. If the stones are waking anywhere on the plateau, a tower built to channel them is as likely a spot as any.”

He traced another line, blue ink climbing beside a river mark. “Follow the river road east, then the old track into the hills. There’s a waterfall where the only path onto the plateau climbs behind the falls — treacherous, but it avoids the open slopes.” He looked up at them. “Nimozaran needs stones brought back for study before someone less careful gets there first. The road is long, the ruins are dangerous, and whoever sent goblins after Mara will not stop because we won one fight in a tavern. But will you go to Ethium? Will you search these places and bring back what stones you can find?”

The table fell quiet.

Thorn looked at the map, then at Mara, then at the dull stone sitting among the crumbs. “We’ve only just arrived,” he said.

“I know.”

“And people are already trying to kill us for that piece of parchment.”

“Yes.”

Thorn rubbed the back of his neck. It was not a refusal. Not quite. “We’ll need supplies. And a proper plan.”

Beside him, Dave was already nodding. “I want to see the stones. I want to learn how they work.”

“Of course you do,” Nibbles said. “I want to know what Nimozaran pays.”

Tobbs managed a tired smile. “My master is not stingy with those who help him.”

Derek folded his arms. “If the stones are waking, someone else will be hunting them too. Better we go with eyes open than leave it to the Hammers.”

“Or worse,” Mara said quietly.

Tobbs looked at each of them in turn, hope and worry fighting in his face. “Then you’ll consider it?”

“We’ll consider it,” Thorn said. “After we’ve—”

Derek leaned forward. “What other kind of things have been happening, exactly? You mentioned lights and dreams. What about little stone creatures on roofs?”

Tobbs blinked. “What?”

“A tiny stone thing,” Derek said. “On the roof. With wings on its back. It flew away when it saw me.”

All colour left Tobbs’ face. Mara noticed immediately. “Tobbs?”

He stood so quickly his chair nearly toppled. “That was no statue. That was a homunculus — a wizard’s servant. If it was watching the tavern, then someone knows the map is here.”

For one horrible moment nobody moved.

Then the front doors slammed open with such force they bounced off the walls. The music stopped. Four rough-looking men strode inside wearing patched leather armour and hard expressions, a small iron hammer on a leather cord around each neck.

The largest scanned the room until his eyes settled on the map. “There it is,” he growled.

Tobbs quietly began rolling up the parchment. “I’m afraid this table is already full,” he said, trying to sound cheerful.

The thug ignored him. “We’re taking the map.”

Thorn stood. “So are we.”

The gang leader smirked and reached for the parchment. Thorn caught his wrist, and for one heartbeat the tavern fell silent. Then the thug swung his free fist. Thorn ducked. The punch smashed through the edge of the table, sending bowls, bread and Dave’s untouched apple pie flying across the room.

Dave gasped. “My pie!”

That was enough.

The Blue Moon exploded into chaos. The gang leader charged Thorn with a roar, swinging a heavy club that Thorn blocked with the haft of his axe before driving the man backwards into another table. Chairs toppled. Tankards flew.

Across the room another Hammer lunged towards Tobbs. Derek stepped into his path, and the thug’s weapon crashed against his shield with a deafening clang. Derek barely moved. “You’ll have to hit harder than that. I’ve been head-butted by goats.”

Dave, backed into a corner, pointed one finger, and a potato shot across the room, striking a thug squarely on the bridge of the nose. The man’s eyes crossed, and he sat down before toppling sideways into a pile of empty barrels. The entire tavern stared.

Dave blinked. ”…I meant to do that.”

“You absolutely did!” shouted Thorn.

Nibbles had vanished — then reappeared behind another Hammer, jabbed him sharply in the backside and swept his legs away.

Loki spotted a gang member sneaking towards Tobbs and launched himself through the air with tremendous enthusiasm. Dog and thug collided. The map flew safely into the air. Tobbs caught it. Loki stood triumphantly on the man’s chest.

“Who’s a good dog?” shouted Dave, and half the tavern answered, “Loki!”

The customers had seen enough. The Hammers had started the fight, which meant everyone else was free to finish it. A fisherman grabbed a stool. A merchant threw a bread roll with surprising accuracy.

The leader of the Hammers realised the fight was slipping away. “Forget everyone else! Get the map!”

For the first time Thorn saw genuine fear in the halfling’s face — not for himself, but for the map. The gang leader charged. Thorn met him halfway, ducked beneath a wild swing and drove his shoulder into the man’s chest, sending him stumbling into the fireplace. His coat caught fire. He yelped. The serving girl calmly emptied a bucket over his head.

Nibbles couldn’t resist. “Looking a bit warm?” Nobody laughed.

Another Hammer made a desperate dash for the door. Dave fired another potato, which missed and sailed through the kitchen doorway. A crash echoed from beyond, followed by someone shouting, “My soup!”

“I’m really sorry!” Dave called.

“You can apologise later!” Thorn shouted back.

The remaining gang members looked around. Their leader was soaked, one man trapped beneath Loki, another knocked out by a potato, and the customers were advancing with stools and mugs. One Hammer lowered his club. “I think we should leave.” Nobody argued, and the gang fled — one slipping on mashed potato — vanishing into the streets of Lowtown.

Silence settled over the Blue Moon. Then somebody began clapping, and soon the whole tavern erupted into applause. “To the youngsters!” someone shouted. “To Loki!” cried another. “To the potato wizard!” Dave looked delighted.

The innkeeper surveyed the damage — broken tables and chairs, ale and potato everywhere — and folded her arms. “Could have been worse.”

“How?” asked Nibbles.

“The roof’s still on.”

Only a few minutes later Sergeant Murgaddin arrived with half a dozen guards. He stopped in the doorway, looked around the wrecked tavern, then back at the companions. “I was only gone for an hour.”

“It wasn’t entirely our fault,” Derek said.

Murgaddin sighed. He crouched beside one of the unconscious Hammers and lifted the small iron pendant from around the man’s neck. “The Hammers. They’ve become bolder.”

Tobbs tucked the map back into Mara’s satchel. “They knew exactly what they were looking for.”

Murgaddin nodded grimly. “They’re not working alone. The Hammers are one part of something larger — one of the criminal guilds united in Sunfall, the capital. The Gang of Four. Their reach stretches further north every year, and I’ve been trying to find their hideout near Fallcrest for months.” He looked at Thorn. “I think you might be exactly the people I need.”

Tobbs waited until the guards had carried the last groaning Hammer out, the stone safe in his satchel, the map safe with Mara. But his eyes kept returning to the companions.

“You still mean to consider it?” he asked Thorn quietly. “Ethium won’t wait for us to finish arguing.”

Thorn looked at his friends — at Dave’s eager face, at Nibbles counting imaginary coin, at Derek’s steady nod, at Loki, asleep with one paw on a sausage.

“We’ll talk properly in the morning,” Thorn said. “But yes. I think we’re going.”

Outside, the bells of Fallcrest rang the hour.

Far beyond the farms, forests and open plains, the forgotten ruins of Ethium waited in silence.