Adventure of Alice Feilth 3

The old city park lies under a bruise-green glow, its roots split open by magic and time. Sickly sap pulses through the trees like lantern-light in veins. Alice Feilth steps between broken stone benches and a cracked ritual circle, the air already humming with uneasy power.

At the circle’s edge, a mercenary captain looms over a trembling creature bound in ash-gray cords. He raises a ritual rod carved with old sigils, never looking up from the markings at his feet.

The creature flinches as the rod crackles. The circle answers with a sharp, blue hiss, and the sap in the nearest tree brightens as if it can taste the change.

The mercenary captain shifts his stance, still focused on the ritual. The captured creature strains against its restraints, eyes fixed on Alice Feilth with raw, desperate fear.

The air pops with another surge. The circle brightens, one pulse away from release, while the captain’s grip tightens on the rod and he finally starts to turn toward Alice Feilth.

Alice Feilth darts in low, slipping past the captain’s shoulder as the rod crackles overhead. He reaches too late, and the motion carries him wide of the circle.

His blade flashes once. The ash-gray cords snap and peel away from the creature’s wrists and chest.

The ritual ring shudders under the broken rhythm, blue light stuttering across the cracked stone.

The creature stumbles out of the circle on shaking legs, while the captain whips fully around toward Alice Feilth, rod raised and fury in his face.

Alice Feilth drives the blade straight through the captain’s heart. The force of the thrust punches him backward, and the rod slips from his grip.

A dark stain spreads under his mail as he folds to one knee, then lurches sideways into the broken ritual stones.

The circle’s blue pulse spasms, flickers once, then gutters thinner across the cracked ring.

The severed cords whip loose in the air and go still at last, their glow dying to ash.

The captain’s hand claws at the stone, but his body slackens. The nearest tree sap dims to a faint, harmless sheen.