Night settled over the Veilwoods, draping the forest in a thick, damp fog. Griff crouched near their meager campfire, sharpening his makeshift spear against a flat stone. The guards sat in a loose circle—some chewing quietly, others just staring into the dark. For shelter, they'd built a flimsy windbreak out of fallen branches and stretched some canvas between saplings. Their initial flurry of arguments, mostly provoked by Griff, had sputtered out to companiable silence over the past three days of trekking together. Each day bled into the next, a series of fruitless searching along the tangled trails, every twist and turn playing tricks on their sense of direction.

Roddick, the youngest and least hardened of the guards, rose to take the first watch. He'd barely paced a few steps away from the others when he stopped, freezing in place.

"Smoke!" he blurted out, eager for anything to break the monotony.

Griff's head snapped up. "Where?" he demanded.

Roddick pointed westward, beyond the treeline. "There! Just above the ridge."

The others scrambled to their feet, squinting into the sky.

"Could be a hunter? Or a bandit's fire?" Darren speculated.

Griff scanned the horizon. His eyes picked out the distant tendril of smoke, too steady for a random blaze, too thin for a brushfire.

"That's no lone traveler's fire. That's a full-on bonfire. I've made enough of both to know the difference."

Now fully roused, the guards exchanged uneasy glances.

"Could it be any of them?" Darren ventured hopefully. "The Shy? The kobolds? Garret?"

Griff shook his head, dismissing the idea. "No. They don't leave signs. And they don't light fires like that—not out in the open." He looked back toward the thickening plume in the distance. "That's a fire for someone who doesn't care who sees it."

"Maybe Ruth sent a search party after us!" Roddick naively suggested.

Griff's hand tightened on his spear at the mention of Ruth. "Whoever they are, they're practically begging for company. We should check them out."

Following Griff's lead, the group grabbed glowing sticks from the fire to light their way. They moved cautiously toward the smoke, keeping their weapons slung at the ready. As the camp came into view between the thinning tree cover, they spread out in a loose arc to better survey the area. The bonfire blazing at the center of the site caught their eye, its harsh light reflecting off polished armor and sharpened swords. Griff raised a hand to signal the others to stay low and hold their actions.

The others dropped into the undergrowth beside him, concealing themselves behind the screen of fog and foliage. The scene before them was now clear: a circle of armed men surrounding a lone figure. A woman, standing tall, cloaked in rich, dark robes, her posture defiant.

Griff blinked. Rubbed his eyes, then swore under his breath. "Damn! That's the overseer."

Darren gasped in disbelief. "What's she doing all the way out here?"

"But then… aren't those our guards too?" Roddick asked, confused.

"Can't be sure," Griff hissed. "Look—their blades are drawn. They're positioning to flank her. Doesn't look like they just want to talk..."

Roddick's whisper was filled with dread. "You think they're going to—?"

He couldn't finish the question. In that instant, one of the guards lunged towards Rhiannon, his blade flashing in the firelight.

Griff leapt to his feet with a roar, spear raised high, a surge of adrenaline and fury coursing through him. He charged forward, crashing through the underbrush. The guards behind him, startled by his sudden action, followed, driven by a mix of instinct and shock. They didn't fully understand what was happening, but the sight of their overseer under attack was enough.

Rhiannon had just turned around to grab Veyran's pouch when the Shy noticed the glint of unsheathed steel, the guards' eyes fixed on her with hostile intent. The pretense was over.

"I knew it! They are out to get you!" Veyran declared from inside the riding pouch.

"Can you try to be less smug about being right!?" Rhiannon groaned.

She was unarmed, wielding neither blade nor bow. But she was far from defenseless. Her hand moved swiftly to the arclith shard hanging from a chain around her neck. Pulse.

The air cracked as a raw burst of kinetic energy slammed into the approaching guard with unexpected force. He was thrown backwards into a tent pole. The impact sent pots clattering and canvas flying.

But the others pressed on. Two guards advanced on her from either side, their blades poised.

Rhiannon pivoted, the shard glowing once more.

"It's too soon to cast again!" Veyran cautioned, mentally ticking down the spell's refractory window.

One attacker raised his sword, closing the distance with alarming speed.

But Rhiannon was already in motion. She ducked under the guard's arm. Her shoulder hit his side, upsetting his balance, ankle twisting on the slippery gravel. He stumbled back, but not far enough to be out of the fight.

"We need the lode!" Veyran cried.

Rhiannon turned towards her tent where the lode was kept, but two more guards stood in her way, blocking her path. She was about to risk another spell when suddenly, a cry shattered the tense standoff.

"Overseer Rhiannon! We'll protect you!"

Griff burst from the treeline, threadbare boots skidding on wet leaves as he tore down to the riverbank with startling speed. His spear struck an attacking guard in the ribs with a crunch, the blow sending the man sprawling. Darren and Roddick followed close behind, charging with their swords drawn, expressions a mix of panic and determination.

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"Move!" Griff roared at Rhiannon. "We've got you!"

The sudden intervention broke the guards' focus. They faltered, uncertain who to confront. One turned just as Roddick shoulder-slammed into him, sending him crashing into the mud.

Rhiannon seized the opportunity. She ran past the chaotic melee toward her tent. "You see the arclith?" she breathlessly asked Veyran.

"Left side—padded crate!" Veyran directed. "You packed it yourself, remember!"

She kicked the crate open and grabbed the lode, shoving it into a canvas bag.

"Let's go!" Veyran urged. "Are we escaping on the horse? This time, I approve!"

"I'm sure Ashwind will be thrilled," she whispered under her breath.

Strapping both the bag and pouch onto her belt, Rhiannon quickly snatched what she could on the way out. She peeked under the tent flap, checking for the feet of any attackers, then broke into a sprint to where her horse was hitched. She yanked the reins free and shoved her boot into the stirrups. As she swung herself into the saddle, another of the traitorous guards tried to intercept her, his blade raised.

"I've got him!" The Deepshy's shard flared, and a glyph unfolded on the ground. Snare.

The soil behind the man's boot crumpled downward. A finger-thin root slithered upward from the cracks, wrapping around his ankle. He stumbled, right onto Ashwind's leg, her hoof kicking him away as Rhiannon commanded the animal to rear back.

With the lode secured in the bag and Veyran in his pouch, she steered them through a clear path toward the riverbank. The horse leapt forward, running straight through the scattered remnants of the firepit.

Griff looked up, his face bloodied, his eyes wide with a strange mix of elation and desperation. "Overseer!" he shouted again. "It's me—Griff! I came to your rescue—!"

She met his gaze for a fleeting second. There was no time for explanations. Her eyes swept over him, then back ahead towards their escape route upstream.

"Go! Now!" Veyran hissed from the pouch, bracing himself against the horse's wild movements.

"Hold tight," she patted the pouch, leaning low over Ashwind's neck. The path was narrow, eroded by past floods, but she urged the horse onward. Rhiannon kicked the horse's flank, and it bolted into a gallop. They raced away from the camp at full speed, hooves slamming over slick gravel, the Greystone churning just to their left. Inside the pouch, Veyran ducked and held the flap shut with his foot as the wind sprayed mud and river water into their faces. They didn't dare look back.

The sounds of battle faded behind them – the clash of steel, the shouts of men, bodies colliding with tents and crates. Rhiannon barely registered the chaos she left behind.

Griff had hurled himself into the fray, a whirlwind of fury. His makeshift spear found its mark in one of the traitorous guards' guts with a sickening gurgle. Fueled by weeks of pent-up frustrations, Darren and Roddick fought with a ferocity that surprised even themselves. Their attack was disorganized and frantic, but effectively disrupted the betrayers, forcing them to divide their attention.

His mouth agape, Griff watched the overseer's horse head north. He thought he had seen something small moving on her hip, a wisp of pale hair against her dark robes.

"Was that…?" he muttered to himself. The thought was unsettling. A Shy?

Smoke drifted over the ravaged camp, curling around the broken tents and splintered crates. The fire still sputtered weakly within its circle of stones, starving for fuel. The remaining guards paced around it, muddy and breathless.

A fragile standoff, easily shattered, was taking shape. Roddick shoved one of the camp guards against a tree, the point of his sword grazing the man's throat. Another lunged at Darren with a knife, but Griff intercepted him, wrenching the blade away and slamming the man into a broken crate.

"Stop!" one of the survivors started blubbering. "Stop, stop! We were just following Ruth's orders! We didn't know you'd be here!"

Griff froze, his arm still cocked back to strike. Roddick turned to the speaker. "You drew blades on the overseer," he spat. "Explain that!"

The man's chest heaved as he knelt beside a wounded comrade, who clutched his leg in pain. "We weren't supposed to kill her outright!" The man sobbed as Roddick's sword pricked against his hip.

"Captain Marten said," he gestured towards the speared guard. "He said Ruth wanted her gone. Lost in the woods… Or taken far away from Greyhold so she couldn't get back by herself."

Griff's eyes narrowed. "So, she was to be abandoned? Like me? Like us, you mean?"

The guard nodded frantically, eager to appease them. "We were just about to tie her up and dump her in the woods across the river. Then wreck the bridge so we could blame the floods. That's all!"

Darren stepped forward, his blade still in hand, his expression grim. "And then what?" he pressed.

The man hesitated, his gaze shifting nervously. "With Rhiannon gone, then Ruth becomes the overseer."

The last word hung in the air, heavy with implication. Griff let the dagger drop into the dirt at the cowering man's feet, the movement deliberate.

"If Ruth's taken Greyhold," he stated coldly. "Then she's wiping the board clean. That means, there'll be a place for me again."

One of the other guards shifted uncomfortably, angling to catch Griff's attention. "That means, we're on the same side!"

Darren turned toward the corpse of Captain Marten, sprawled in the dirt, Griff's spear protruding from his ribs. "No. You attacked your own side. We were the ones left in the dark." A long, tense silence settled over the camp. The only sound was the crackling of the dying fire.

Griff stood over the flames, his eyes reflecting their glow, burning with a strange intensity that went beyond mere exhaustion.

"Doesn't matter!" he declared, his voice cold and resolute. "What matters here and now is who's left. Who knows the woods? Who understands what Ruth just started?" He stepped over the dead captain's corpse, grasped his spear and yanked it free with a sharp, decisive motion.

"I do."

The others remained silent, watching him – a figure streaked with dirt, more animal than officer. But none of them challenged him.

One of Marten's men spat into the dirt, his expression bitter. "But… she took the lode. And that… Shy. We don't have anything to show Ruth we did the job."

Roddick cut in, surprised. "I knew my eyes weren't playing tricks on me! That was a Shy in her pouch!"

"She had him with her when we left Greyhold." the man confirmed. "The pale, skinny one. She kept him locked in her room when the others escaped."

The words froze Griff mid-step. "Silver hair?" he asked, his voice growing more menacing, the firelight casting harsh shadows across his face.

"Yeah," the man replied. "He was the only one like that. Arrogant little thing. Always acted like he was smarter than everyone else. Smarter even than us!"

Griff scratched at his jaw, his eyes distant. "I remember him… He didn't scream like the others. Not at first. But I figured him out..." He paused, a strange smile playing on his lips.

"You know what got him?" Griff held up his hand, flexing his fingers slowly, deliberately. "To put clockworks together, you need little fingers. Tiny delicate ones are best. He knew that. Thought I wouldn't dare mess with them."

"Took me a few tries," he continued. "First, I just made him watch. Took a little vise, the kind the old watchmakers use to keep all the little parts steady. Held it right up to his face. Let him see me tighten it on a stick until it splintered."

The men looked at their own hands with grim faces.

"Next time, I clamped it right on his teeny-tiny hand. Not too tight. Just enough that he could feel the pressure. Hear it creaking. He knew what would happen if I kept turning it, just so." Griff explained, cracking his knuckles as if demonstrating the vise's grip. "Didn't take him long to be a good little Shy after that." Another silence descended.

"He broke real quiet," Griff said softly. "Barely made a sound. Just gave up, eyes wide like he'd shattered on the inside. After that, he did whatever I told him."

Roddick glanced at the others uneasily. Darren looked away, his expression troubled.

"And that's who she's got riding in her pocket," Griff said, his voice hardening again. "That soft little silver-haired vermin. I think even his name sounded like that, it was Vemrin or something…"

He let the words hang in the air, then spat into the dirt. "If she thinks he's any use to her, she's already lost."

Darren stared at the dead body pinned by the spear. "What do we do? Now that Captain Marten's dead—"

"He wasn't my captain," Griff interrupted flatly. The guards shrank back, dread washing over them.

This seemed to only goad Griff on. He stepped forward, radiating a sense of barely contained menace. "Here's the truth, for the ones still catching up. You lost your captain. You don't have a plan..."

His eyes swept over Darren and Roddick, then Rhiannon's disloyal escorts, then back again. "As some of you are well aware, I know these woods now. I've survived them. Hunted in them. I know how the Shy hide. I know how Rhiannon thinks. I know how Ruth schemes. I now see why she wanted to keep me away from Greyhold..."

He let the statement hang in the air, allowing them to fully absorb the weight of his experience. "You can keep stumbling around, lost and leaderless. Or you can follow someone who's gonna get results and lead us all back in glory."

No one spoke. No one moved. No one challenged him. Griff swept his gaze across the men—bloodied, bruised, beaten—and let the silence stretch until it ached. His voice left no room for argument.

"I'm your captain now."

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