Wildthorn Against the Rising Tide

Ollisir the Silent freezes on the narrow ledge, one hand sliding to his blade. Below, black water slaps the stone and climbs higher in the half-submerged grotto.

The scraping sound comes again, metal rasping on rock from the gloom ahead. Harold Blackhoof shifts his weight, keeping the crate and his footing steady on the slick moss.

A pale shape moves between tide pools and hanging roots, then vanishes behind a pillar of bioluminescent stone. The grotto holds its breath.

The water surges against the ledge, and somewhere in the dark, a second scrape answers the first.

Harold Blackhoof sinks lower on the slick ledge, one knee brushing wet stone as he works the small crossbow free at his waist. He keeps the crate tucked in close, careful not to knock it against the rock.

The weapon comes up silent and ready. He braces the stock against his forearm, sighting into the moss-glow without rising an inch.

Ahead, the pale shape shifts behind a pillar, and the scrape returns, closer now. The water at the ledge shivers with the rising tide.

Vok steps into a strip of blue light, half-hidden by roots, one hand low and ready. He has not spotted Harold Blackhoof yet, but his head turns toward the sound of breathing.

Harold Blackhoof keeps perfectly still, crossbow aimed from the shadows. Vok pauses on the edge of the glow, tense and listening, with the next move hanging on a thread.

Harold Blackhoof lets the grotto hold its breath. The crossbow remains fixed in the moss-light, his whole bulk folded into the dark behind the ledge.

Vok shifts one step nearer, careless now, shoulders squared toward the sound he thinks will betray them.

Harold Blackhoof fires.

The bolt knifes through the glow and catches Vok high in the shoulder, spinning him sideways against the slick stone.

Vok staggers back into the water, one hand clamped to the wound, the other groping for balance as the tide hisses around his boots.

From deeper in the grotto, a second scrape answers the shot, and something unseen shifts in the dark beyond the roots.

Harold Blackhoof melts back into the shadowed ledge, lowering his breathing until the grotto seems to swallow it. Water laps higher below, silvering the stone.

His hands work fast and sure, drawing another bolt and seating it with a quiet, practiced click.

Across the glow, Vok reels upright, still fighting for balance, one shoulder slick with blood and spray.

Harold Blackhoof steadies the crossbow again, the dark of the ledge hiding most of the motion.

A second shape stirs deeper in the grotto, just beyond the blue moss light, and the water around it breaks in a slow, deliberate ripple.

Harold lets the taunt fall out of him like a stone, rough and deliberate. It lands in the dark water below, not at Vok’s feet, but close enough to bite.

Vok’s head snaps toward the ledge. He stops searching the grotto and listens, suddenly hunting the voice instead of the bodies that cast it.

The shape deeper in the water rolls once, slow and heavy, and the ripples spread toward Vok’s legs like a warning.

Harold’s insult has cost him the advantage, but it cracks one thing open, Vok is no longer watching the ledge, he is fixated on the sound, and the hidden water behind him keeps moving.

Harold’s crossbow snaps. The bolt cuts through the blue mossglow and strikes Vok high in the neck, driving him backward into the shallows.

Vok’s taunt breaks into a strangled gasp. He claws at the shaft, but the rising water takes his footing and folds him to one knee.

The shot succeeds, but its report cracks through the grotto. The hidden shape answers with a violent surge, sending a wave against Harold’s ledge.

Harold’s ledge sheds a slab of wet limestone beneath his hooves. Below, Vok remains alive but stunned in the churning water, while the unseen presence closes on him.

Harold shifts his weight backward, testing each patch of limestone before committing his hooves.

The ledge groans, but his careful retreat carries him beyond the sliding edge and onto a broader shelf above the tide.

From Harold’s new position, Vok’s shape is clear in the blue-lit shallows. He braces one hand against the stone and drags himself upright.

Behind Vok, the unseen presence rolls beneath the surface. The water lifts around him, and Ollisir raises one hand, ready to cast.

Harold retreats farther along the grotto ledge, keeping the crate of dinosaur eggs tight against his chest as he crosses onto a narrow shelf beyond the worst of the spray.

The move succeeds, but his hoof slips on the wet limestone. He catches himself against the wall, scraping his palm and sending a sharp clatter of loose stone into the water.

The disturbance rolls through the grotto. Vok recoils from the deeper water, then lunges toward the ledge instead of sinking beneath the waves.

Ollisir backs toward Harold, violet light tightening around his fingers. Behind Vok, the submerged shape turns, revealing a ridged back that briefly breaks the surface.

Water surges between the ledge and the assassin. Vok raises a curved blade, while the unseen creature closes beneath him.

Harold Blackhoof lowers the egg crate onto the narrow shelf, wedging it against the limestone before bringing up his crossbow.

He fires at Vok's throat. The bolt skims past the assassin's neck instead of biting deep, slicing away a strip of wet leather.

The near miss drives Vok sideways. His boot finds the first of the old tide stairs, exposing a narrow descent behind him as the water surges around his legs.

Vok tears the damaged leather free and raises his blade again, but the creature's ridged back rolls between him and the deeper grotto. The assassin is trapped between Harold's shelf and the tide stairs.

Harold Blackhoof thrusts out his free hand and calls down a sun beam into the grotto.

Golden radiance gathers above the water, then fractures into crooked splinters before it can form.

The broken spell lashes the tide instead. Steam bursts across the stairs, and a blinding flare throws every shadow against the cavern walls.

The flare reveals the hidden presence at last, a vast ridged back coiling beneath the shallows. Its wake slams into the old stairs.

Stone shears away beneath Vok's planted boot. He catches the stair edge with one hand as the creature turns below him, while the tide floods the only dry route.