🗳️Session 14.6: Knife-Work

Anwen saves what she can. Padrig won't leave a man behind again.

Recap

Last episode, our heroes weathered blow after blow. High above the battlefield, Vahid engaged in destructive sorcerous combat with Cirl-of-the-Storms, and found himself overmatched. Meanwhile, Anwen climbed back from her near-death encounter with Maël, and witnessed the beginnings of the Delve's collapse into anarchy: Mobs settling old scores and helpless noncombatants cowering behind barred doors or fleeing the town. Anwen pressed on toward the burning upper terraces, as Vahid fell to earth, his fate unknown.

This episode, I’m trying something new for the mechanics breakdowns, Since the rolls are coming fast and furious here, I’m moving them to the footnotes and out of broken-out annotations (as we did at the very beginning of this series). If you’re on desktop, you can mouseover the footnotes to get them in-line with the rest of the text. Let me know what you think of this reading experience, and which you prefer.

We’ll return to the fiction with Anwen, as she hunts Stormcrows in the burning upper terraces. Back to the action:

Scene 10: The Burning Tenements

The Forge Lords’ grand stairway up from the fourth terrace rises before Anwen like the path to hell. Each step up the high stairs sends waves of dull pain through her body, but the Stormcrow’s pharmakeia seems to have banished the worst of it. Around her, the Delve’s refugees stream downward in a panicked exodus—families clutching their children and all-too-small bundles of supplies for the long road, merchants abandoning their wares, once-fighters she recognizes from the muster who have thrown down their spears and fled the fight. They give her a wide berth, perhaps recognizing her, or perhaps simply afraid of another blood-drenched warrior.

The Stormcrow’s warhorns still sound from above, but now, as she gains the fifth terrace, they are drowned out by the growing wind. What began as a stale, warm breeze from the valley below rises into a gale that whips Anwen’s grey cloak and sends grit and loose dirt rattling against the stone steps. With it comes the roar of the fires in the tenements above, and billows of stinging black smoke. And then comes the lightning.

It is not the distant flicker of summer storms, nor the ear-splitting cracks that have struck Stonetop’s standing stone since Anwen was a little girl. Searing bolts, too many to count, lance down from the churning clouds like Tor the Thunderhead’s own wrathful hand. The first strike illuminates the valley in stark white brilliance before slamming into the upper terraces with a sound like the mountain breaking in two. Another bolt follows, and another, each one accompanied by fresh screams from the terraces above and the glow of new fires blooming where the lightning touches.

Anwen looks up to the dark, angry clouds, her heart falling. Gods, no. Vahid… what has become of you? There is no sign of the Seeker’s protective presence in the sky, only the tumult of the storm. Anwen fights down a growing knot in her throat and continues her ascent into the wind and roiling smoke.

At the top of the grand stairway, the fifth terrace is a bedlam of smoke, flame, and panic. The tightly packed tenements that housed the Delve’s lowliest are now a maze of fire and splintering timber. Through the haze, she can make out dark shapes moving with deadly purpose, stalking around a low, timber warehouse at the terrace’s edge.

Anwen strains to see her foes through the smoke and chaos. The warehouse’s heavy, iron-bound doors have been braced from the outside, and orange flames lick against the timber supports. Two Stormcrows hold the doors as whoever is trapped inside beats fervently against them, and a half-dozen more stalk the street, hurling burning brands onto the roofs of the surrounding buildings and screaming battle-boasts into the wind. “Stormcatcher! Witness our flames! Witness our glory!”

Red-hot anger blooms in Anwen’s chest¹, and she charges towards them, heedless of their numbers. One raider sees her and turns too late to meet her charge, and she sends him to his knees with a blow of her shield, barely breaking her stride towards the Stormcrows at the door.

Mael’s aetherium spear thrums with eagerness in her hand as she falls on them like a thunderbolt. The first Stormcrow at the door turns to face her charge, his bone-bladed hatchet raised high, but Anwen is already inside his guard. The aetherium spear punches through his horsehide vest with a sharp crack, and he collapses in a flash of blue-white sparks. His partner abandons the door and swings a curved iron sword at Anwen’s head, but she catches the blade on her shield and drives the spear’s shod into his gut, doubling him over.² Behind the heavy doors, the hammering grows more frantic as those trapped inside sense that help has come at last.

“She is the champion who felled Mael!” one of the raiders calls. “Slay her, and Stormcatcher will raise you to glory!” Anwen knows that behind her, they are preparing to charge, but nothing matters save those trapped inside. She puts her shoulder against the timber brace and pushes with all her might until it falls, and the door gives way to the men inside.

She almost doesn’t recognize Rheisart; his face is panicked and black with ash, but he knows her instantly. “Anwen!” he calls, and her heart leaps to see him alive amidst the chaos.

Raul the Limper roars from behind him. “No time, boy!” The old smith pushes past Rheisart, a heavy smith’s hammer in his gnarled hands, and behind him come a dozen more, soot-blackened apprentices and journeymen, armed with little more than wooden buckets and thatch-hooks. But they waver at the warehouse door, eyes wide at the gathering Stormcrows, who beat their shields and scream war cries like devils with the black smoke and red fire at their backs.

“With me!” Anwen cries. “Make them pay for what they have taken!” Rheisart steps forward to her side, and the others follow, rushing to meet the Stormcrow’s charge³. Anwen marks the Stormcrow who called her out — an older man, armored with a bronze-scale vest — and meets him in the melee. He is a skilled fighter, but no match for Anwen’s fury unleashed, and her aetherium blade cleaves through the haft of his spear and leaves a trail of melted slag as it parts his armor like cloth.

Beside her, Rheisart hefts a long-handled fire hook, his ash-black face set with focus and determination. Nothing remains of the gangly apprentice Anwen remembers from years ago: When a Stormcrow lunges at him with a stone-bladed axe, the young smith catches his foe’s hand in his calloused fist and yanks hard, putting all his forge-won strength behind the pull. The raider stumbles forward, and Rheisart brings the heavy iron ferrule down on the man’s body with a sickening crunch.

The melee spreads across the narrow street as more Stormcrows join the fray. A young apprentice screams as a nomad’s bone knife finds the gap in his leather apron, and one of the journeymen falls with a javelin through his shoulder. The smiths take up whatever weapons they can find, spears and adzes from fallen raiders, or burning brands snatched from the wreckage, and set upon their assailants.

Anwen fells another man; Mael’s blade spits and sparks when it cleaves him, and his body twitches and spasms as he drops to the ground. She hesitates for a moment, seeing his death agonies replayed in her mind, and in that moment, another battle-mad Stormcrow is upon her.

But so is Rheisart. The young smith has taken up his fallen enemy’s stone-bladed axe, and the force of his blow shatters the weapon against the Stormcrow’s skull, dropping him at Anwen’s feet. The raiders, seeing their fellows cut down, begin to give ground. “Fall back! The fire will finish them! Let us find our brothers!” They melt away into the smoke, retreating towards the grand stair.⁴

Raul surveys the field and gives Anwen a curt nod before turning back to his men, who are looking all around in terror and awe at the fires now consuming the Delve. “Enough gawping, you lot. Lay your hands on buckets and hooks, and come with me. We’re going to save our smithy.”

One of the older smiths balks. “Are you mad, Raul? The fires…” but before he can finish his sentence, the Limper clouts him on the side of the head.

“This is our stake, you curs! Our iron-hoard that we have earned with our sweat and blood! Fall in behind me, or I’ll see your hands broken on my anvil!”

Anwen steps between the old smith and the others. “Come to your senses, Raul!” She takes him by the shoulder and roughly turns him towards the terrace’s edge. The Delve spreads out beneath them, fires blooming everywhere like wounds on a corpse. The wind roars in their faces, stinging their eyes with smoke and stoking the flames below. “These fires are beyond us! All we can do is survive, and hope to rebuild.”

The Delve is burning. // Source: Midjourney

“She’s right, Raul. We can’t fight this,” the older smith says, rubbing his bruised jaw.

Raul looks out at the devastation, and his face falls. “Savages. We hammer a living out in this accursed place, and they burn it all to ash.”

“Get your people to safety, Raul. Please.”⁵

He turns back to the smiths. “You heard the champion. Gather your things. We make for the serai⁶ on the third terrace.” His men scramble to obey before he changes his mind.

Rheisart holds fast by Anwen’s side. “I’m with you, Anwen.” A few of the other apprentices follow his lead, taking up the weapons of the fallen nomads.

“Have a care with your hands, boy. I put a lot of time and care into you,” the Limper growls. “Shame to see it undone by a Hillman’s knife.”

Rheisart nods grimly. “We’ll be back to the anvils before noon, chief.”

Raul smirks at the boy’s bravado. “See that you are.”

They move together through the smoke, rejoining the stream of refugees at the great stair. Together with Raul, Anwen exhorts the Delvers to return to the safety of the serais, and to her relief, they seemed swayed by the Limper’s gruff presence.

The companies part ways when they reach the fourth terrace. Raul raises his hammer in a brief salute before leading his smiths down the terrace stairs towards the relative safety of the caravanserai below. Anwen watches them go for a moment — soot-blackened figures disappearing into the haze — before leading Rheisart and his people west, towards Jahalim’s manor.

Scene 11: Sorrow’s Gate

The retreat from Sorrow’s Gate is a bloodbath. Padrig and Young Brogan are swept up in the tide of panicked militia, stumbling over fallen spears and trampled bodies as they flee up the grand terrace stairs. A pack drake bounds past them in pursuit of a fleeing Delver, its jaws clamping down on the man’s calf and bearing him to the ground while its packmates swarm over him, ripping and tearing. Stormcrows follow in their beasts’ wake, their hatchets and adzes hewing about among the scattered defenders. One of Mutra’s miners tries to make a stand at the first landing, swinging his pick in wild arcs, but a nomad’s javelin takes him in the chest and sends him tumbling down the stone steps.

Above the din comes an inhuman cackle that raises the hair on Padrig’s neck. Through the crush of bodies, Pad glimpses one of Odo’s wayward family taken by the Howling Curse. Her eyes blaze gold in the firelight as she tears at a Stormcrow with fingers turned to talons, her back twisted and hunched. The nomad screams his defiance as she rips into his throat, but even as one falls, two more raiders converge on the creature with spears. The woman-thing howls with deranged laughter as the spears drive her into the dirt and bite at her again and again.

Padrig looks back to Brogan, and sees the curse clawing for control behind the boy’s haunted eyes.⁷ Behind them, the Stormcrows are ascending the stairway and hunting the fleeing Delvers in packs, picking off those who fall behind. But then, for a moment, everything stops.

There is a flash of white, impossibly bright, and thunder that falls on them like a crashing wave. All eyes, Hillfolk and Delver, go to the sky, and to the two figures high above the town, surrounded by the swirling storm. Padrig sees Vahid, the Azure Hand shining brightly in his grip, the dark clouds surrounding him seeming almost like a roaring lion. Sensing what is to come, Pad throws himself to the ground, dragging Brogan with him.⁸

From the jaws of the storm comes a torrent of lightning, arcing out towards Vahid’s foe, but with much of it raining down onto the Delve. On the great stair, bolts fall among the Delvers and Stormcrows alike, tearing up gouts of earth and stone, and flinging men to the ground. Into the silence that follows the thunder, the hdour’s faithful raise a great warcry. “Stormcatcher comes! Glory to the tu’ud⁹!”

“No, Vahid… what have you done?” Pad silences the thought, and looks back to the field of battle, and survival — the lull in the fighting may have opened a narrow path to escape; Stormcrow and Delver alike are looking up into the sorcery-torn sky. His blood pounding in his ears, he quickly scans the crowded facade of merchant stalls and shops built into the Forge Lord ruins, espying a dark, narrow gap in the stone.

Without another thought, he seizes Brogan by the collar of his cloak and hauls him off the stair and onto the streets of the Swap, towards the bolthole.¹⁰ A breath after they move, the rout begins anew, the Stormcrows continuing the knife work among the fleeing Delvers.

The gap is narrow enough that Pad and Brogan must turn to the side and go one by one to squeeze through, and it opens into a dark alley beyond. The neighboring merchants have left heaps of cast-offs here — cracked amphorae, rusted barrels, piled up over the years.

The old bandit looks to his young charge — Brogan is in a bad way, pale and breathing fast, his eyes gleaming gold in the half-light. A strangled laugh crawls its way out of his throat, and his hands twist like claws and clutch at the empty air. Pad lays him against a mouldering barrel and slips the vial of Vahid’s mithridate potion off the boy’s neck.

“No, please,” he cries, his voice rising as he clutches at the golden draught. Pad feels pricks where Brogan’s hands touch his — sharp black talons are pushing their way through his fingertips. “I can’t. Don’t make me drink it, Pad!”

Pad presses the vial into Brogan’s hand, closing his grip around it. “I won’t, Brogan. I swear it. But you have to hold fast. You were strong, all those months in Odo’s pit. I need you to keep fighting just a little longer.”¹¹

The young warrior squeezes the potion in a death grip and curls around it like a child with a precious treasure. For a few moments, his ragged breathing is all Padrig can hear, until another voice rings out in the street.

“Listen well, you lot! Smiling Ffransis is dead! Belike the other bosses are too, or will be soon! Now the Delve belongs to them that can take it! If you want to carve off a piece, pick up a blade and follow me!”

Pad strains to recognize the speaker. Vikas?¹² Truly, it is a time of fools and madmen.

The bravo’s shrill, reedy voice continues. “A silver bezant for whoever finds Padrig the Hound! Living or a corpse, I’ll have words with that bastard!”

Pad looks back down at Brogan. His grip around the potion has softened, the monstrous black talons have vanished as quickly as they appeared, leaving only smears of red blood on his fingertips. Outside, thunder rolls and lightning flashes, and outside the mouth of the alley, Padrig can see dark shapes, rolling the corpses that litter the street and peering into doorways and windows.

“We have to move, lad. Can you stand?” Pad offers a hand up, and Brogan takes it. Pain shoots through Padrig’s arm, and he stifles a painful wince. Rest soon, old man, he growls to himself. Or when the Lady comes at last.

His eyes sweep the narrow alleyway, searching for any path that doesn’t lead back to the street where the wolves, Delver and Stormcrow alike, are prowling. Above them, the alley walls rise three stories high, built from massive Forge Lord stones with newer construction layered on top. There—the remnants of old scaffolding still cling to the eastern wall, a maze of post holes and broken timber that once served to reach the upper storage rooms. Half the planks are rotted through, but still, they might be enough.

He gestures wordlessly to Brogan. At his side, the boy is looking at the golden vial in his hand, dead to the world around him. Gently, Pad takes it from his hand and places it around his neck again. “Just a little farther, lad.” He nods and falls in.

The climb is treacherous. Pad goes first, testing each handhold before trusting his weight to the old timbers. His arm screams in protest, but he grits his teeth and pulls himself upward, one step at a time. Behind him, Brogan follows with the careful movements of a man still fearing his body’s betrayal. When they reach the rooftop, Pad can hear Vikas’ voice echoing from the alley below, growing fainter as they move across the stone slabs toward the upper terraces and whatever comrades might still be alive at Jahalim’s manor.

Scene 12: Jahalim’s Manor

The timber gates of Jahalim’s manor stand ajar, their massive hinges groaning in the wind. Anwen approaches slowly, trailed by Rheisart and the apprentices, their weapons ready, but the courtyard beyond is eerily silent. Where once Jahalim’s yellow-clad bravos stood guard, now only scattered debris remains: Bodies of the fallen, broken spear shafts, and dark stains on the pale stone. The reflecting pool at the courtyard’s center has been fouled with ash and blood floating on its wind-rippled surface.

The manor house itself bears signs of hasty looting. Doors hang open, their bronze fittings torn away. This was not the methodical destruction of conquering enemies, but the quick plunder of desperate men who knew their time was short. Even the makeshift infirmary has been stripped, the straw mattresses scattered, the bandages and pharmakeia quickly carried off.

By the reflecting pool, Anwen spots a familiar figure sprawled motionless on the bloodstained stones. Elder Kirs lies where he fell, his weathered hands still gripping the hilt of his curved shortblade, his grey hair matted with blood. The old Hillman’s eyes stare sightlessly at the storm-torn sky above, and Anwen’s heart clenches as she thinks of his fallen son. She kneels briefly beside the elder, closing his eyes with gentle fingers. “I hope you see him again, past the Last Door,” she whispers, before rising to press on.

“Hello?” Anwen calls out, her voice echoing off the stone walls. “Is anyone here?” Only silence answers, broken by the distant rumble of thunder and the crackling of fires from the terraces below. She is about to turn away when she hears it—a faint moan from the shadows near the villa’s entrance. There, crumpled against the wall like a discarded doll, lies the once-fierce Dawa Eyegouger.

Anwen goes to her side, bidding Rheisart to keep watch. Dawa does not stir at first, but Anwen sees her shallow breathing and persists, taking a waterskin from one of the smiths and pressing it to the Peakswoman’s cracked lips. Finally, her eyes, pale blue and not gold, flutter open.

“Anwen…” Dawa’s voice is barely a whisper. “They took him.”

Before Anwen can press her for more, she hears Rheisart’s wary voice behind her. “Someone is coming!”

Anwen is on her feet, Mael’s spear light and eager in her hand. Her heart leaps when she sees Padrig’s weathered face appear in the gateway.

“I should’ve known they couldn’t kill you,” he rasps.

“The day’s not done yet, old man.” Anwen’s smile grows worried when she sees how Pad holds himself, leaning heavily against Young Brogan for support.

At Anwen’s side, Dawa’s hand finds hers, urgently clutching at it. “They took him!”

Anwen tears her eyes away from her old mentor and kneels back down, taking Dawa’s hand in hers. “Who, Dawa? What happened here?”

“We were betrayed,” she spits.

“Honest Draigh,” Anwen growls. “Don’t worry, Dawa. He will pay for what he did.”

Padrig’s face darkens, and he joins Anwen at Dawa’s side. “Damn that fen-scum. I should have known he would turn cloak at the first chance.”

“Draigh! His bravos took the Seeker,” she says, her voice fevered and urgent. “Vahid. Stormcatcher!”

“How?” Anwen pleads. “Where?”

“They came after the fight was lost,” she pants, still struggling for breath. “Four of them, all wearing Draigh’s blue. The Seeker had fallen after the sky broke open. They gathered up his body and scepter, and took him to meet Draigh at his manor.”

Anwen looks to Padrig, but before she can speak, a great sounding of warhorns comes, echoing against the valley’s walls.

Pad looks up. “That was close, they are on this terrace. Must be gathering for their final attack on the Foundry.”

“Will we go to fight?” Rheisart asks. The apprentices around him look frightened, but ready.

Padrig almost replies, but stops himself, looking to Anwen. She searches his eyes for some answer. Pad, we swore an oath. We promised we’d never leave one another behind.

The old bandit awaits her command.

We’ll close out the episode there, at Anwen’s dilemma.

For context: Joining the battle at the Foundry is almost certainly a lost cause. The defenders there are facing the remaining Stormcrows, who are seasoned warriors, emboldened by their victory at hand. Further, the hdour is with them, his magic now unrestrained by Vahid’s protection. If our heroes go to the Foundry, it’s unlikely they’ll save it. Instead, they will have a chance to witness what happens, and perhaps save some of the people there, like Jahalim, the Judge Abrim, etc. Meanwhile, the Seeker will have to find his own way out of trouble.

For me, this choice is less about battlefield strategy and more about Anwen and Padrig’s posture towards Vahid. If they go to save him, it’s a step towards mending the gap that’s forming in the party. If they leave him to his own devices, he will (probably) find his way back to them, but with the clear knowledge that walking Stormcatcher’s path has put him at odds with his old comrades.

Mash the button below to make your choice, and share your thoughts in the comments!

As always, thanks for reading. I hope you’re enjoying the ongoing collapse of Gordin’s Delve! The next episode will drop no later than 6/30. See you then!

1. ‘Oppression, slavery, and bullying’ is one of Anwen’s Anger is a Gift triggers, and I think locking people in a burning building qualifies. She marks 2 Resolve, and spends one immediately to “Keep your footing, position and/or your course despite what befalls you” to move quickly past the skirmishers to the guards barricading the door.

2. Anwen triggers Clash and rolls a Strong Hit. She’s rolling 1d8+1d4 for damage here, and gets a 10 — enough to fell one Stormcrow and badly hurt the other.

3. Here, Anwen spends her second Resolve to “inspire allies or bystanders to follow your lead,” allowing her to bypass a roll to get the smiths to follow her into battle.

4. I adjudicated this fight with two Clash rolls — one from Anwen, and one from the smiths (rolling with disadvantage, since they are armed with improvised weapons). Anwen scored another Strong Hit, dealing 8 damage, and the smiths scored a weak hit, dealing 10 damage and receiving 12 in return, meaning two smiths would fall. I used the Ironsworn Yes/No Oracle to determine whether Rheisart survived the melee and received the “Yes, and…” result, which I interpreted to mean that he not only survived but distinguished himself as a skilled combatant.

5. Anwen triggers Persuade, with advantage from Speak Truth to Power. She scores a Strong Hit (finally, some decent rolls!) and Raul relents.

6. Recall that the Delve has a few Forge Lord-made caravanserais that represent the most secure structures other than the Foundry, where most of the Delve’s noncombatants have been hiding out during the fight.

7. Pad is surveying the scene and triggering, Seek Insight and his Marshal move Read the Land (which succeeds without a roll). For the Seek roll, he scores a Weak Hit. His two questions are “What is about to happen?” and “What’s the best way in, out, through, or past?” and he learns about the coming storm, and a potential hiding place.

8. Pad triggers Defy Danger with Dexterity. He has an advantage from his earlier Seek Insight roll, which cancels out the disadvantage he has from the Weakened debility and he scores a Strong Hit.

9. The Steptongue word for the whole of the Hillfolk people — both the sun-worshipping Heolings and Tor’s faithful, the Storm-folk. Recall that the main reason the hdour wanted to strike at Gordin’s Delve was to build support among the Hillfolk, who view the mining operations there as a dangerous blasphemy.

10. Pad makes another Defy Danger roll here, but I opted to use Wisdom, his strongest stat, since, as the rules text says, he is ‘relying on his senses.’ I still applied the disadvantage from Weakened, though since he’s moving quickly through the pain, and that cancels out the advantage Pad generated from Read the Land. On the straight roll, Pad scored another Weak Hit, and as a consequence, we bring Brogan’s situation to a head.

11. Rather than making a roll here to get Brogan to calm down, Padrig spends a Loyalty from his crew sheet — he had one remaining, and now has zero. He’ll likely mark Loyalty again if he’s able to get Brogan out safely (the crew’s loyalty trigger is “Risks taken by you to help them,” and this ordeal certainly qualifies.

12. Vikas was one of Smiling Ffransis’ less savory bravos, who we re-introduced back in the Sorrow’s Gate scene in Session 14.2.