The swordfish sign above The Black Harpoon swung violently in the wind, chains creaking with each burst of sea-salt air. Rain hammered the rooftop in waves, spilling over gutters and coursing through narrow alleys in frantic rivers. The windows of Dunwich's Reach were shuttered. Doors locked. The streets, for once, silent.
As the storm descended upon the town, its inhabitants scattered to their various shelters, each harboring their own secrets beneath the cacophony of thunder and rain.
Farther inland, in a warehouse near the trainyard, men shouted over the downpour. Darius Frisker paced between crates and sacks, barking orders that were carried off by the wind. His scar itched. His temple throbbed. A tarp tore free and he cursed loud enough to turn heads.
A robed man lingered in the shadows near the far wall—unnaturally still. Darius glanced at him just once, licking his lip without thinking. A gift from the Butcher, they said. And tonight, the man had warned of the storm before the sky even darkened.
Perhaps there was something to these lunatics, after all.
While the warehouse bustled with nervous activity, back in town, a single window glowed above a shuttered tailor's shop. The storm churned outside, but the room inside was still.
Elias sat at a table scattered with notes—pages of cramped handwriting, receipts, torn pamphlets, a folded letter he hadn't opened in days. The lamp burned low. He didn't look at the rain. He'd grown used to storms.
He tapped a pen against his journal. Then stopped.
And wrote:
---
"I came looking for Deepwell. Not ghosts. Not rumors. Just the story. Just the link between a mining company and a kingdom that's gearing for war. Reichwald's new machines hum louder every year, and the Standard's too posh to smell the gunpowder clinging to the future. So they sent me. A nobody with a half-decent eye and nothing left to lose.
Maddie was the first to talk. Too willing, maybe. But she had that nervous truth to her—the kind that spills because it's tired of rotting. She disappeared before I could press her. Greaves? A handshake like a noose. Said he opened doors, but wouldn't say what was behind them.
Then there's the smuggler. Twitchy. Desperate. He tried to play tough but I could smell the panic under the sweat. He'll try something again. They always do. I'm counting on it.
The bartender watches everything. Doesn't say much. Doesn't need to. That bar runs deeper than it looks—and it ties to Edward Wren, a man I overlooked. That was a mistake.
But all of that is smoke. What brought me here isn't Pike, or Maddie, or any of the whispers about fish that eat men whole. It's Deepwell. It's the shipments that don't match the manifests. It's the silence where there should be answers. It's a material nobody will name and a buyer with a flag that doesn't fly here.
The Imperial Standard expects glory or shame. No middle ground. So here I sit, in a town that doesn't want to be known, writing words no one will read unless I survive.
This place has its claws in me now. But I've got my pen. And they sent me here to write."
---
He set the pen down.
The wind slammed against the window, but he didn't flinch. Somewhere in the distance, thunder rolled over the hills like drums of a foreign war. Elias reached for the lamp, dimmed it further, and closed his eyes.
As the night deepened, the storm connected the scattered souls of Dunwich's Reach like a web of rain and thunder.
We move through the storm.
A dreamcatcher stirs gently above Evelyn Harrow's bed. Her breathing is soft, even. The incense in her study has long since burned out. Whatever she sought from the ritual has yet to bloom, but her face is calm. In sleep, she is untouchable.
Further uphill, in a home lined with old portraits and velvet drapes, Greaves sits across from a well-dressed man. Between them, a teapot gently steams. Neither speaks. The lightning outside casts fleeting shadows across the room, like specters just passing through.
And in the distant dark of Deepwell's outer fence, snipers crouch in towers, rifles angled at the mining yard. Below, workers move crates with practiced haste, boots splashing through water, heads down against the rain. A bell tolls somewhere unseen. The crates vanish underground.
And the rain keeps falling, binding them all together in its relentless rhythm.
—