Session 3

The dwarves are dead. All but one, anyway.

Should feel satisfied about that. They were the ones who slaughtered those avians, stacked them like cordwood. They came at us with guns blazing and bows twanging over some egg my companions rescued. But watching what happened to Roth during that fight... that was something else entirely.

The Rolling Oak turned into a slaughter house faster than I've seen in years. These dwarves tracked us using some kind of magic pendant, demanded their egg back from Roth. When diplomacy failed - and it was always going to fail - they opened fire.

Combat was messy, close quarters. Flynt moved like liquid death with that flaming scimitar and his crossbows, putting four shots into the gunner before the man could blink. Good instincts, better reflexes. But it was Zarael who controlled the battlefield.

And me? I worked the flanks, picked my targets. Two daggers and a palm strike to the jaw. The Fang found its mark, as it always does. One of them tried to catch me with a shotgun at point-blank range, but Master Kael's training served me well. Redirected the blast right back at his friend.

"The brightest flame dies first," I told the gunner before finishing him. Kael's words, but they felt right in the moment. Too bad I didn't kill him. That "honor" went to Flynt, who swept in at the last possible second and finished him off. Showboat.

But it was Roth who left me unsettled.

First kill was brutal enough - shield work that painted the wall red. Second one, he seemed to find it easier. By the third, something had changed. The way he moved, the way he breathed, the complete absence of expression. Then he sprinted across the room, vaulted the railing, and went after another dwarf like something unleashed.

At the end, both Roth and I squared up against that final dwarf. Roth just stood there and said "run" in the quietest voice I've ever heard. No emotion. No recognition. Just... cold. I wasn't about to give him the chance, and the Fang went straight for the jugular.

But Roth... he just stepped between us at the last minute, calm, collected, not even hurrying but fast enough that I couldn't pull back. The Fang bit deep. Good thing his throat's not at dwarf level or we'd have been mopping his life up off the formerly-clean tavern floor.

Later, when the sun came up and we were camped outside town by the graves he'd spent all night digging, he showed us the truth. Pulled out that glowy magic orb again and called forth a spirit. Bortos, he called it. A killer. A serial killer, from the sound of it.

"We're still working out some of the kinks," Roth said, then dismissed the spirit immediately.

Possession. That explains the change, the sudden violence, the complete shift from the paladin who heals enemies mid-fight to whatever that was. But it doesn't make it less concerning. If Roth can lose control like that, if something else can wear his face and use his abilities...

The others seem to take it in stride. They've been traveling together longer, seen stranger things. But I've watched good people fall to influences they thought they could control. The Shadow Line exists partly because we've seen what happens when light burns too bright and shadow turns to something hungry.

Still, he spent the entire night burying the dwarves properly. Said prayers over each grave. That's not the action of someone consumed by whatever darkness touched him. And when he healed me after the fight - full restoration, no questions asked - that was genuine. Whatever Bortos is, Roth is fighting it.

The practical details: we learned the dwarves were only tracking us through one pendant, and only one of their number - Gregor - had the tracking ability. The egg was destined for someone's dinner table, apparently. Nothing more sinister than that, though the slaughter of an entire avian tribe for one egg seems excessive even by dwarf standards. Must make one fucking hell of an omlette.

More interesting was what I learned from the bartender before joining the others at the cemetery. My Burnout was here two nights ago. Tall bastard, left scorch marks on the chair. Asked directions to Hot Bog, paid well, and headed out immediately despite warnings about avian migration patterns.

Hot Bog is north of here. I know where I'm headed next. And those burned avian bodies we found - could have been dwarf work, but Firestormers burn things too. For sport, usually.

The threads keep connecting. The burnout I'm tracking, the creature Artemis is hunting, the egg the party rescued - all moving in the same direction across the Spine. Too many coincidences.

We're camped outside Kleesaddle now. Aluni pulled a fucking wagon out of her pocket and locked herself inside after mentioning Cogspinner - the gnome who was glaring at her at the inn. Something in her past that she'd rather not discuss. More secrets in this group than I initially realized.

Zarael and Flynt are developing something between them. Careful conversations, meaningful glances. They think we don't notice. Well, Roth probably doesn't, and if you can't take it apart, Aluni probably doesn't either. But these eyes can find coal in a cave. She mentioned feeling differently about someone named Ilhan. He mentioned not being sure about Artemis anymore, not with Zarael here. The kind of tentative dance people do when they're trying not to admit what's already obvious.

I find myself oddly protective of this strange collection of broken heroes. They're not Shadow Line, but they understand the ideas even if they've never heard the words. They build what others would burn. They protect the vulnerable. They oppose tyranny, even when it costs them.

And they fight together like they've been doing it for years. Cover each other's weaknesses, watch each other's backs. Even when one of them gets possessed by a serial killer's ghost, they adapt. They endure.

"They burn out. We endure."

Sounds nice.

Tomorrow we'll probably head north. Toward Hot Bog, toward the burnout I'm tracking, toward whatever creature destroyed that settlement. The party has their own reasons for going that direction - work for the Exalted Jet, connections to Artemis's mission.

My mission remains the same. Find the Burnout. See what he knows, what's he doing all the way out here. Deal with him. But these people... they've earned something from me. Respect, maybe. Or at least the benefit of my protection while our paths align.

The chain continues.