Wildthorn Against the Rising Tide

Harold Blackhoof bursts through the gap and tumbles into a salt-black tunnel beyond the cell. The air changes at once, colder, wetter, alive with the crash of hidden surf.

Behind him, the bulkhead slams shut with a stone boom. The flooded cell is gone. Ahead, the passage widens into a half-sunk grotto lit by pale moss and wavering seawater.

Harold Blackhoof lands hard on slick rock, still hauling the unconscious Battered Pirate. The haste spell tears through his limbs like fire, but it carries him forward before the tunnel can swallow him back.

Ollisir the Silent waits ahead in the glow, one hand braced on the wall, the other pointing toward a narrow ledge above the tide line. Water slaps the stone below them, and something stirs deeper in the grotto.

Harold Blackhoof drives a blunt blow into the pirate’s skull and the man goes limp at once, all fight draining out of him.

The unconscious pirate slumps lower in Harold Blackhoof’s grasp, useless now as the tide hisses at the stone below.

Ollisir the Silent turns and hurries along the narrow shelf, keeping one hand on the wall and the other ready to catch Harold Blackhoof if he slips.

The grotto breathes cold salt air around them, moss glowing pale blue in the dark, while a deeper wash rolls somewhere beyond the bend.