Champion of a Lost Cause

The cooper’s lane opens onto a muddy forest track beneath towering weirwood trees, their blood-red leaves drinking the last gray light. Effruin emerges alone, while Eve and Vas remain behind with the scattered survivors.

Rainwater fills the wagon ruts. Ahead, a cold campfire crouches beside a broken courier’s satchel, its leather darkened by mud and its strap torn clean through.

Inside lies a silver seal stamped with Matriarch Harvess’s mark. The familiar crest catches the dim light, carrying the authority of the woman who sold him into bondage.

Beneath the seal, a half-burned route survives on damp parchment. The remaining lines point deeper along the track, toward Sosshan territory, before flame and ash erase the rest.

The forest is otherwise still. Red leaves whisper overhead, the muddy road disappears between stone-hard trunks, and the courier’s abandoned message waits in Effruin’s hand for whatever use he chooses to make of it.