Butch the Wereboar

The black-water basin answers the writhing tether with a wet, hungry pulse. Its surface steadies into a dark mirror, and the debt in Butch's grip trembles like it knows its own end.

Sable braces under a shower of grit, shield raised. The Hooded Figure leans in from the shadowed edge, staring as the basin shows not the chamber, but Butch himself, swollen with greed and gold.

Butch drives the tether down into the mirror's black surface. The water clutches at it, the reflection shivers, and a doubled shape of Butch rises inside the basin, reaching for the same prize.

The reflected Butch snarls and stretches toward the debt, a greedy echo made flesh in the dark glass. Sable holds fast while the Hooded Figure watches, rigid with disbelief, as the mirror-thing starts to fray.

Butch tears. The tether splits with a crack of black light, and the basin gulps the broken threads down into silence. The chamber shudders, then loosens, as if some ancient jaw has finally unclenched.

Butch swings down hard. The battleaxe bites into the basin rim, and the black stone bursts apart in a spray of chips and cold water.

The mirror darkens, then cracks wide. Shadow-mist pours from the split like breath from a broken lung, hissing into the floor seams.

The writhing tether jerks once in the rubble, then slackens as the broken basin swallows its last thread.

The chamber gives a long, shuddering groan, then eases. Dust falls instead of stone.

Only the shadow-mist remains on the floor, and the basin lies shattered and empty.