COMPLETE SESSION TRANSCRIPT // DEC 09 2025
The following is the complete, unabridged conversation from a 3-hour playtest. Every prompt. Every response. Every tool call. Every dice roll. Including one live bug fix mid-session and a player death with resurrection.
Let's do it! I'd love to run a D&D session with you.
Let me quickly check if we have any existing game state to pick up from:
Fresh slate - no existing worlds or characters. Perfect time to start a new adventure!
How would you like to begin?
What sounds good? And any particular vibe you're in the mood for - classic fantasy dungeon crawl, political intrigue, survival horror, something weird?
Excellent choice. Let's build something worth playing.
First, let's establish the setting. A few questions:
Tone & Genre
Scale
Starting Location Vibe
Give me your preferences on any or all of these, or just describe the world you want to explore in your own words. I'll generate it and we can refine from there.
The salt wind carries incense and the distant clash of bronze.
The Province of Aurelium lies at the edge of the Eternal Republic - a coastal region where old gods still speak through oracles, where legions march alongside divine champions, and where the boundary between mortal and immortal is dangerously thin.
You've just arrived at Portus Sanguinis - the Port of Blood - named for the red clay cliffs that frame its harbor. Once a thriving naval hub, the port has fallen on strange times:
The ship that carried you creaks against the dock. Gulls scream. Somewhere in the city, temple bells ring the hour.
Now - who steps off that gangplank?
The Basics
Tell me as much or as little as you want. I'll fill in the gaps.
Revenant Legionnaire
Race: Human (Touched)
Level: 3
HP: 28/28 | AC: 16
| STR | DEX | CON | INT | WIS | CHA |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 16 (+3) | 12 (+1) | 14 (+2) | 10 (+0) | 14 (+2) | 8 (-1) |
You were a Centurion of the Legio IX Ferrata - the Iron Legion. Three months ago, during a skirmish against barbarian raiders in the northern mountains, an arrow found the gap in your armor. You remember falling. You remember the cold.
Then you remember the river.
A dark shore. A figure in a boat. You gave him the coin your mother placed on your tongue before your first campaign. He looked at it. Looked at you. And gave it back.
"Not yet," he said. "You still owe."
You woke in a burial pit with seventeen other legionnaires. You were the only one breathing.
The Legion doesn't know what to do with you. Command gave you "indefinite leave" and a look that said don't come back. So you booked passage on the first ship heading anywhere else.
It brought you here. To Portus Sanguinis. Where the gods have gone quiet.
The gangplank hits the dock with a hollow thud.
Portus Sanguinis sprawls before you - terracotta roofs and white limestone climbing the red cliffs. The harbor is busy but wrong - too many soldiers, too few fishing boats. A trireme with black sails sits at anchor, flying no standard you recognize.
The air tastes of salt, fish, and something else. Something like a temple after sacrifice.
A dock worker glances at you, sees the armor, and looks away fast.
To your left: The harbor district - taverns, warehouses, the smell of commerce.
To your right: The cliff stairs - leading up to the temple district. The bells have stopped.
Straight ahead: The legion camp - tents and standards on the beach. They're burning something.
What do you do?
A practical man. The dead have no use for gold - but you're not dead anymore.
You follow the smell of grilled meat and cheap wine down a cobbled lane slick with fish guts. The harbor district is alive with commerce - spice merchants arguing prices, slaves hauling amphorae, a fortune teller reading entrails in an alley - but your eye catches the painted sign of a wolf sinking beneath blue waves.
The tavern is built from the bones of a warship, its hull split open and roofed with sailcloth. The old mast still stands in the center, strung with oil lamps and dried fish like some kind of pagan offering. It's dim inside. It smells like smoke, sweat, and the sea.
Heads turn when you enter. Legion armor draws eyes everywhere - some curious, some hostile, some calculating. Then they go back to their drinks.
A one-armed man works the cooking pit, turning octopus skewers with practiced ease. Old legion tattoo on his remaining forearm - Legio XII Fulminata. The Thunderbolt Legion. He sees you see it, and nods once. Professional recognition.
"Posca's a copper. Wine's three. Meat's two. Trouble's free but you pay for damages."
You find a spot at a splintered table and take stock of the room:
[A] At the bar, a woman in a captain's coat is arguing with a nervous little man. She's got the look of money - good boots, silver rings - but her shoulders are tight. The little man keeps shaking his head. She needs something he won't give her.
[B] In the corner, a mountain of a woman arm-wrestles dock workers for coins. She's winning. Easily. A board behind her has parchments pinned to it - job postings, by the look of them.
[C] The one-armed tavern keeper is watching you with the eyes of a man who's done his twenty years and seen everything. Veterans talk to veterans.
[D] A thin man in a threadbare toga sits alone, cup untouched, eyes on the door. When he catches you looking, he flinches - then very deliberately glances toward the captain at the bar, then back to you.
What's your approach?
You loosen the leather thong and upend the pouch into your palm.
Three silver denarii. Twelve copper asses. And the other coin - the bronze one with the worn face - which you quickly slip back into the pouch before anyone sees it.
Ship passage ate most of your severance pay.
Three silvers. That's maybe a week at a cheap inn if you don't eat much. A few days if you do. Not enough to be comfortable. Enough to be desperate soon.
The smell of grilled octopus twists your stomach. When's the last time you ate? The ship served hardtack and opinions.
| Coin | Amount | Rough Value |
|---|---|---|
| Silver (denarii) | 3 | A day's wage for a laborer |
| Copper (asses) | 12 | Pocket change |
Current prices at the Drowned Wolf:
You can afford to eat and drink today. But you need work - and soon.
The mountain woman in the corner just pinned another docker's arm to the table. Coins change hands. The job board behind her flutters in the sea breeze coming through the hull-gaps.
The math is simple: eat first, or work first?
A soldier's priorities: belly, billet, then business.
You catch the one-armed man's eye and hold up fingers. He nods.
A few minutes later, a clay cup of posca lands in front of you - sour wine cut with water and herbs, the taste of every legion camp you've ever known - and a wooden plate with two skewers of charred octopus, glistening with oil and sea salt.
You eat. Gods, you eat.
The octopus is chewy and smoky and perfect. The posca burns familiar down your throat. For a moment you're not a dead man walking - you're just a soldier at the end of a long march, filling his belly. Simple. Good.
Gnaeus One-Arm comes to collect the plate. You ask about a room.
"Got a hammock in the back. Roof don't leak much. Eight coppers, you're out by dawn."
You pay. He bites the coins out of habit, then jerks his head toward a curtained doorway.
"Stow your kit whenever. I don't touch other men's gear."
| Expense | Cost |
|---|---|
| Posca | 1 copper |
| Octopus (x2) | 2 copper |
| Room (hammock) | 8 copper |
| Remaining | 3 silver, 1 copper |
You push back from the table, roll your shoulders, and walk toward the corner where the mountain woman is collecting her winnings.
She sees you coming. A grin splits her sun-dark face.
"Legionnaire wants to play?" Her voice is like gravel in a bucket. "Petra breaks arms for free. Costs money to try."
The dockers around her laugh. One of them - a man with a crushed nose - shakes his head at you. Warning or pity, hard to say.
"What's the buy-in?" you ask.
"Match what you bet. You win, double. You lose—" She flexes a forearm like a ship's timber. "—you lose."
You drop your three silver and the lone copper on the table.
Petra looks at the coins. Looks at you. Something flickers in her eyes - respect, maybe, for a man betting everything.
"Huh." She matches it from her pouch. "Sit."
You clasp hands. Her grip is like a vice wrapped in calluses.
A docker counts. "One—two—THREE."
You throw everything into it. Three months of rage and confusion and death, channeled into your arm, your shoulder, the leg braced against the floor—
Petra doesn't move.
She's not straining. She's not even leaning. She's just... there. Immovable. A cliff face in human form.
Her eyes meet yours. Not mocking. Almost... curious.
"You're strong," she says, conversationally, while your arm trembles and sweat beads on your forehead. "Stronger than you look. But you're fighting yourself, legionnaire. I can feel it."
And then she pushes.
Your arm goes down. Not fast - she lowers it almost gently, like closing a door. But it goes down, and the dockers cheer, and your last three silver vanish into her massive fist.
| Lost | Amount |
|---|---|
| Silver | 3 |
| Copper | 1 |
| Remaining | Nothing |
You sit back. Broke. The dockers are already losing interest, looking for the next challenger.
But Petra hasn't looked away from you.
"You've got the grip of a man who's held a sword too long," she says slowly. "And the eyes of a man who's seen the River."
She taps the job board behind her.
"I run the docks. I know who needs what." She leans forward. "I also know that Captain Cassia over there has been looking for a man with exactly your qualifications for three days now. Offering good money. Nobody'll take the job."
She pauses.
"Ask her why."
Petra jerks her thumb toward the woman in the captain's coat - the one arguing with the nervous man at the bar. The argument seems to have ended. Cassia is staring into her wine like it holds answers.
You're broke, fed, and have a lead. The night is young.
What do you do?
Death puts things in perspective.
You push up from the table, ignoring the dockers' muttered jokes about your empty purse, and cross the warship-tavern toward the bar.
Captain Cassia Nereia doesn't look up when you approach. She's turning a silver ring on her finger — round and round, a nervous habit worn into muscle. The wine in front of her is untouched. The nervous little man has made himself scarce.
"I'm not interested in company."
"I'm not offering company. I'm told you're hiring."
Now she looks. Dark eyes move over you — the armor, the sword, the way you carry yourself. Calculating. A merchant's assessment of goods.
"You're Legion."
"Was."
"Discharged?"
"Indefinite leave."
Her eyebrow rises a fraction. That's not a common designation. "Disciplinary?"
"Medical."
A beat of silence. You don't elaborate. She doesn't push.
"You don't talk like a common soldier."
"I wasn't one."
"Centurion?"
You don't answer. You don't have to.
Something shifts in her posture. The ring stops turning.
"Sit. Drink. I'll explain the job."
Captain Cassia Nereia. She runs the Fortuna's Spite — trade galley, forty oars, regular route between Portus Sanguinis and the island colonies. Good reputation. Never lost a cargo.p
"Until three weeks ago."
She signals Gnaeus for posca. Drinks deep. Continues.
"The job is this: The Insula Tacita. The Silent Isle. Fifteen leagues south. Uninhabited — officially — except for a temple complex that's been abandoned since my grandmother's time. Someone with more money than sense contracted me to deliver a chest to the old quay there. Paid in advance. Full fee. Very specific instructions: leave the chest at the temple doors. Don't open it. Don't look inside. Don't wait for acknowledgment. Just leave it and go."
She pulls out a rolled parchment — a shipping manifest — and slides it across the bar.
"Three weeks ago, I sent a boat with six men and the chest. Good sailors. Armed. They rowed into the mist and..."
She trails off. Drinks again.
"...and the boat came back. Empty. Oars still in the locks. No men. No chest."
The tavern noise seems to fade around you.
"The client won't answer my messages. The Harbor Guild is starting to ask questions. And I'm down six crew who had families."
She looks at you directly.
"I need someone to go ashore on that island and find out what happened. Find the chest — or proof of what happened to it. Find my men — or evidence of their fate. That's the job."
"Fifty denarii."
That gets your attention. Fifty silver is three months' legionnaire pay. Six months of modest living. A stake to start over.
"Half now, half when you're back on my deck with answers."
She must see something in your expression, because she adds:
"It's good money because nobody else will take it. The fishermen won't even sail south of the reef anymore. They say the Silent Isle is waking up." She shrugs. "Sailors are superstitious. But I've lost six men, and I don't believe in coincidences."
She holds out her hand — the one with the silver ring.
"I leave at dawn. You on my ship, or still looking for arm-wrestling money?"
Cassia's expression doesn't change, but her eyes narrow slightly. Reassessing.
"You don't talk like a common soldier," she says again. But this time it sounds like approval.
"Fine. My men's kit is in Locker Twelve on the Fortuna. Whatever you need, take. Their families have already been compensated — I'm not expecting them back. Neither should you."
She produces a small iron key from her coat and slides it across the bar.
"Dawn. Don't be late."
And then, unexpectedly, she reaches into her purse and counts out coins.
Twenty-five silver denarii. Half up front, as promised.
You have money again.
Client: Captain Cassia Nereia
Objective: Investigate the Silent Isle. Find the missing chest and/or crew. Return with evidence.
Departure: Dawn tomorrow
Cassia drains her wine, stands, and heads for the door. At the threshold she pauses.
"Legionnaire."
You look up.
"My men were good sailors. Whatever happened on that island... don't assume it was natural."
And then she's gone into the harbor night.
Gnaeus One-Arm refills your posca without being asked. "Suicide job," he grunts. "Smart money's on the island keeping you."
You lift the cup. "The river already tried that. Didn't stick."
He looks at you strangely. Says nothing. Goes back to his octopus.
How do you spend the evening?
The night unfolds.
You leave the Drowned Wolf with coins in your purse and nothing to lose until dawn. Portus Sanguinis after dark is a different creature — torch-lit, wine-soaked, dangerous and alive.
You find yourself drawn to the Arena Minora — a sandy pit behind the fish market where off-duty soldiers and dockworkers settle disputes the old-fashioned way. No weapons. No armor. Just fists and the roar of the crowd.
A betting man spots your build and offers you a deal: one fight, winner takes the pot, loser walks away bloody but alive. The challenger is a thick-necked Gaul with more scars than teeth.
You don't remember agreeing. You don't remember taking off your armor. But you remember the fight.
Three rounds. The Gaul hits like a mule and has forty pounds on you. But you've trained with legionnaires for ten years, and dead men don't feel pain the way the living do.
When he goes down, the crowd roars. Coins change hands. Someone presses a purse into your palm — five silver denarii, the winner's cut.
And then you're somewhere else. A wine shop. Faces you don't recognize, toasting your name. A woman with kohl-dark eyes who laughs at something you said. A street preacher screaming about the Old Gods Rising.
The night blurs.
You wake in your hammock at the Drowned Wolf. Someone has left a clay jug of water by your head. Your knuckles are split. There's sand in your hair. And you have no memory of how you got back.
But your purse is heavier than it was.
| Outcome | Effect |
|---|---|
| Fight Winnings | +5 silver denarii |
| Drinking Expenses | -3 silver denarii |
| Net Gain | +2 silver denarii |
| Condition | Hangover (-1 to morning checks) |
Total Funds: 27 silver denarii
Dawn light is creeping through the gaps in the hull-walls. The harbor bells are ringing.
Time to get to the ship.
Do you want to check Locker 12 for equipment before you board the Fortuna's Spite?
The Fortuna's Spite sits low in the water, her deck already busy with preparations. Cassia spots you coming up the gangplank and nods once — professional acknowledgment, nothing more.
"Locker's below. Take what you need. We cast off in an hour."
You descend into the cargo hold. Locker 12 is a battered sea chest with a rusted lock. The key turns with a grinding protest.
Inside: the gear of six dead men.
You sort through the chest methodically. Most of it is personal effects — letters, carved tokens, a child's doll — that you leave untouched. But the useful gear you claim:
At the bottom of the chest, wrapped in oilcloth, you find something else: a small bronze hand mirror, the back inscribed with symbols you don't recognize. It feels... warm.
You leave the mirror. Something about it sets your teeth on edge. The ferryman's coin pulses once in your pouch — a warning or an agreement, you can't tell.
Great question - let me actually check how the system handles this...
Short answer: No, it doesn't. And that's a problem.
Looking at the code, I can see that:
equip_item tool exists and correctly marks items as equippedThis is a feature gap - the system doesn't automatically recalculate derived stats (like AC) when equipment changes. We'd need to either:
update_character callFor now: Want me to fix Option A (so equipment auto-updates AC going forward), or just do Option B (quick fix for your current character)?
Working perfectly.
I've added automatic AC recalculation to the equipment system. Here's the verification:
| Test | Result |
|---|---|
| Unequip Shield | AC: 18 → 16 ✅ |
| Equip Shield | AC: 16 → 18 ✅ |
The system now properly handles:
acBonus to base AC)baseAC + DEX if armor is equipped)Your Current AC: 18 (Lorica Segmentata + Cavalry Scutum)
Bug squashed. Now - back to the mist-shrouded horizon?
Honor. The old word. The legionnaire's word.
The Fortuna's Spite cuts through grey water under a sky the color of bruises.
Cassia runs a disciplined ship. The oarsmen work in shifts, a rhythmic drumbeat marking time. No one talks more than necessary. Even the gulls seem reluctant to follow.
Four hours out from Portus Sanguinis, the water changes. It goes from grey-green to something darker. Oilier. The waves move against the wind.
And then the mist appears.
A bank of grey fog, sitting on the water like a wall. It shouldn't be there — not on a clear day, not this far from land. But there it is, stretching from horizon to horizon.
The crew's rhythm falters. Someone murmurs a prayer to Neptunus.
Cassia stands at the prow, staring into the grey. Her hand is on the rail, knuckles white.
"Every time I send men into that..." She trails off. Then: "Last chance, legionnaire. Keep the advance. I'll turn the ship around. No hard feelings."
The oarsmen have stopped rowing. All eyes are on you.
You stand. Loosen your gladius in its sheath. Walk to the rail.
"I've crossed one river already. Fog doesn't frighten me."
Cassia nods once. "Ahead, then. Full oars. Get us through quick."
The drums resume. The Fortuna lurches forward. And the mist swallows you whole.
Time... slips.
The fog is thick — impossible to see more than ten feet. The oars splash into water that makes no sound. Someone is counting strokes, but the numbers don't match up. Twenty. Forty. A hundred. It feels like hours. It feels like minutes.
And then, without warning: stone.
A quay emerges from the mist like a bad dream. Ancient masonry, green with age, slick with something that isn't quite seaweed. Stairs carved into black rock climbing up into... nothing. The rest of the island is invisible.
But the rowboat is there.
Still tied to the quay. Oars in the locks. Empty.
Cassia's jaw tightens. "That's my boat," she says quietly. "That's — those are Drusus's oars. He carved his initials."
The crew won't look at the quay. Won't look at you.
"We'll hold position as long as we can," Cassia says. "But if that mist moves — if anything comes out of it — we're gone. You understand?"
You understand.
You climb down to the stone quay. The Fortuna's Spite is already pulling back, oars churning, vanishing into the grey.
You are alone on the Silent Isle.
The stairs are old. Older than the Republic. Older, maybe, than the gods men pray to now.
You climb with the discipline of a decade of training. Blade ready. Shield up. Each step tested before weight commits. The mist clings to you like wet wool.
At the quay's edge, arranged in a neat line: six packs. Sailor's kits — rope, waterskins, rations. Set down carefully. Deliberately. The men removed their gear, placed it here, and walked on without it.
You don't touch the packs. You climb.
Fifty steps. A hundred. The fog thins. Light changes — not brighter, but different. Older, somehow.
And then you emerge.
A ring of pillars — twelve of them — each carved from black stone that doesn't match anything on this island. Older than Roman. Older than Greek. Script writhes on their surfaces in patterns that hurt to follow.
At the center of the ring: a pool.
Black water. Perfectly still. Not reflecting the sky — there is no sky here, only mist — but somehow darker than it should be. It looks... deep. Impossibly deep. As if the pool goes down forever.
And kneeling at the water's edge: six figures.
Sailors. Cassia's men. Eyes open. Not blinking. Not breathing. Bodies here, but minds... somewhere else. Their faces are slack, peaceful. One of them is smiling.
Beyond the pool, on a stone altar: the chest. Bronze, green with age. Symbols on its surface that squirm when you try to focus on them.
The mission objective. Right there.
But the pool is between you and it. And something in the water is watching.
The water isn't wet. It isn't cold. It isn't water.
You fall through something that feels like memory — other people's memories, a thousand lives lived and ended, a river of souls — and then you're somewhere else entirely.
Darkness. But not empty darkness — occupied darkness. Something vast fills this space. Not a body — bodies have edges, limits, ends. This is something unfinished. Something that exists in shapes your eyes can't parse.
Coils of impossible geometry. Wings that fold into dimensions you've never seen. And wrapped around it all: chains. Bronze chains, each link the size of a man, corroded and ancient. Holding. Binding. Weakening.
The face — if you can call it that — turns toward you. Smooth. Featureless. But alive. Aware.
And in your mind, a voice that isn't a voice:
< YOU ARE NOT LIKE THE OTHERS >
The six dreamers — Cassia's men — float nearby. Suspended. Eyes open, minds elsewhere. Their skulls glow faintly, like lanterns in fog.
< THEY SLEEP. THEY FEED. THEY HOLD. >
The presence shifts. Focuses on you. The coin in your pouch burns hot enough to feel through the cloth.
< BUT YOU... YOU CARRY THE FERRYMAN'S MARK. YOU HAVE ALREADY CROSSED. WHAT BUSINESS HAS A DEAD MAN IN MY DREAM? >
The darkness ripples. Something that might be amusement — or approval — radiates through the space.
< A SOLDIER'S QUESTION. NO PHILOSOPHY. NO BARGAINING. JUST: WHAT DO I NEED TO KNOW? >
The coils shift. The chains groan.
< THE RIGHT QUESTION IS: WHAT BREAKS THE CHAIN? >
Images flood your mind — not words, but understanding:
< I WAS OLD WHEN YOUR GODS WERE YOUNG. I SLEPT BECAUSE I CHOSE TO. YOUR ANCESTORS TOOK THAT CHOICE FROM ME — BOUND ME WITH BRONZE AND PRAYER AND BLOOD. >
A pause. Heavy with something like sorrow.
< I AM WAKING. THE CHAINS CORRODE. THE LOCKS FAIL. YOUR KIND FORGOT WHY THEY BOUND ME — ONLY THAT I MUST BE BOUND. >
The presence focuses on you — a weight of attention that feels like standing at the edge of an abyss.
< YOUR DEBT, LITTLE REVENANT, IS NOT TO ME. IT IS TO THEM. THE LIVING. THE FERRYMAN SENT YOU BACK FOR A REASON. >
< WHAT WILL YOU DO WITH THAT REASON? >
You don't reach for the chain. You don't have to.
The ferryman's coin blazes in your pouch — white-hot, burning through cloth and leather. You pull it out, and in this place of dreams and darkness, it gleams like a star.
The presence watches. The chains watch.
"I know what it is to be bound between worlds," you say. Not aloud — there's no air here for words. But the meaning carries. "I know what it is to owe a debt you never chose."
You press the coin to the nearest chain.
The metal screams. Bronze — ancient, divine, impossible — cracks. The sound is like the world breaking. The chain falls away into the dark, link by link, dissolving into nothing.
The presence moves.
Not free — not yet — but freer. One binding gone. Others still hold. But the geometry of the thing shifts, unfolds, and for a moment you see something vast and incomprehensible reaching toward light it hasn't touched in millennia.
< ...THANK YOU. >
The voice is smaller now. More human. Something almost like gratitude.
< THE DREAMERS WILL WAKE. THE LOCK WILL BREAK. AND I WILL REMEMBER THIS MERCY. >
You're rising. The dark is falling away. The pool is pulling you up—
You break the surface gasping.
The pool is churning — black water gone white with foam. Around the edge, the six dreamers are stirring, coughing, coming back to themselves.
The chest on the altar shatters. Bronze fragments fly outward, and the symbols carved on them scream as they die — a sound like a thousand voices crying out and then falling silent.
The mist is lifting. Sunlight — actual sunlight — breaks through the grey for the first time.
And somewhere, far below, something ancient shifts and begins to wake.
Mission Status:
One of the sailors — the one with the carved oars — looks at you with eyes that are only now remembering how to see. His voice is a croak:
"What... what did you do?"
You haul him to his feet. "I made a choice. Can you walk?"
He can walk. They all can. Dazed, confused, but alive.
You lead them down the stairs. The Fortuna's Spite is still there — Cassia refused to leave. Her face when she sees the crew is... complicated.
"You found them," she says. "You actually — and the chest?"
"Destroyed."
A long pause. She looks at you. Really looks.
"I'm not going to ask. But you're going to tell me eventually."
The oars stroke the water. The mist parts. Home.
Portus Sanguinis looks different now. The mist that hung over the harbor is gone. The temple bells are ringing — but wrong, somehow. Urgent.
Cassia pays you the other half. Fifty denarii total. A small fortune. But her eyes keep drifting to the recovered sailors — to Titus specifically, a thin man who hasn't spoken since the island.
"Something's wrong," she says quietly. "Titus was the nervous one. The one who asked the most questions about the job. Now he won't say a word."
She grips your arm. "Stay close. I need to know what happened on that island — and I think Titus knows more than the others."
Titus moves through the harbor district like a man with a destination. You follow at a distance, using crowds and shadows the way the Legion taught you.
He stops at Warehouse Nine — a crumbling structure near the old dry docks. Knocks three times. A slit opens. Words are exchanged. He goes inside.
You circle the building. Find a gap in the planks. Look inside.
Magistrate Corvus. You recognize him from the docks — a temple official, supposedly above suspicion. He's meeting with Titus and two temple guards in plain clothes.
"The chest was destroyed," Titus is saying. "The legionnaire broke the binding. I couldn't stop him."
Corvus's face twists. "Do you have any idea what you've done? What's been unleashed?"
"The Dreaming Deep is waking. It's what we wanted, isn't it?"
"Not like this. Not with witnesses." Corvus draws a curved dagger. "Clean it up. The captain, the legionnaire, anyone who knows. Tonight."
The door splinters. You're through before they can react.
Cassia is right behind you — you didn't know she'd followed, but there she is, cutlass singing out of its sheath.
"You were right," she says grimly. "Something was wrong with Titus."
Corvus snarls. "Kill them both!"
Your hands are shaking as you tear through your pack. Rope. Oil. Rations.
Nothing that can help her.
Cassia lies on the warehouse floor. The wound in her chest isn't bleeding anymore — there's nothing left to bleed. Her eyes are open, staring at nothing.
She's gone.
You kneel beside her body. Close your eyes. And look.
The warehouse fades. The world of the living dims. And you see what you saw once before — three months ago, when an arrow put you in a burial pit.
A river. Black water, sluggish and cold. A shore of grey stones worn smooth by the passage of millennia.
And there, standing at the water's edge, looking out at the approaching boat: Cassia.
Her spirit is pale, translucent. Already fading at the edges. But she's still her. Still the captain. Still the woman who refused to leave the dock when everyone else would have fled.
She turns when she feels you approach.
"...Marcus?" Her voice is distant, echoing. "How are you here? This is — this is the crossing. The place between."
The ferryman's boat is closer now. You can see the shape at the oars — hooded, patient, ancient.
"Is that...?"
"Yes. The ferryman. I've met him before."
She looks at you. At the coin you're already pulling from your pouch.
"Marcus, what are you doing?"
The coin blazes in your hand. The ferryman's boat... stops.
The dark water goes still. Stiller than death. And then it begins to glow.
From the depths — from somewhere impossibly far below — a presence rises. Not surfacing. Just... becoming aware.
< I REMEMBER YOU, LITTLE REVENANT. >
The darkness ripples. The chains you broke — you can almost hear them, somewhere in the deep, still falling.
< I REMEMBER MERCY. >
Cassia gasps. The translucence of her spirit is solidifying. The edges are coming back.
< SHE STILL OWES. AS YOU STILL OWE. BUT THE CROSSING CAN WAIT. >
The ferryman's boat turns. Rows away. The dark river folds in on itself.
< REMEMBER THIS DEBT. BOTH OF YOU. WHEN I CALL, YOU WILL ANSWER. >
And then—
Your eyes snap open. You're kneeling on the warehouse floor. Corvus is cowering. Titus is whimpering. The guards are dead.
And Cassia—
Cassia is breathing.
A ragged, gasping, impossible breath. Her eyes fly open — wild, panicked, alive. She sits up, clawing at her chest, at the wound that isn't there anymore. Just smooth skin under torn cloth, with a faint mark like water rippling outward from where the blade went in.
She stares at you. At her bloodsoaked shirt. At the dead guards.
"Marcus." Her voice is shaking. "What the fuck did you just do?"
You help her to her feet. She's unsteady — alive, but barely. The ferryman's coin is gone from your pouch. Spent for real this time.
"I called in a favor," you say. "You're welcome."
She looks at Corvus. At Titus. At the evidence of conspiracy in this warehouse.
"We need to get out of here. The temple guards—"
"Already coming, I imagine. Corvus?"
The magistrate glares at you with pure hatred. But he's beaten. He knows it.
You pull a copper coin from your pouch. Flip it. Catch it. Slap it on the back of your hand.
Tails.
Titus sees it. Understands. "Wait — please — I was just following orders, I didn't—"
The gladius moves once. Clean. Fast. The way the Legion taught you.
Cassia watches. Says nothing. She's seen soldiers execute traitors before.
"And him?" She jerks her chin at Corvus.
"He's a magistrate. He has information. The conspiracy doesn't end with these three."
You haul Corvus to his feet. Bind his hands with the rope from your pack.
"We take him to the Praefectus. Let the law sort him out."
Cassia nods. Touches her chest again — the mark that wasn't there before.
"Marcus. What you did — what happened to me — I felt the river. I saw the boat."
"I know."
"I owe you my life."
"You owe something. But not to me."
She goes quiet. Thinking.
You lead the way out of the warehouse. The night air is cold and clear. The temple bells have stopped. Somewhere in the distance, you can hear shouting — the city waking up to the fact that something has changed.
Behind you, under the sea, in the deep dark places, something ancient stirs and dreams of freedom.
Two who have crossed the dark river and returned. Both carry debts to the Dreaming Deep. The conspiracy runs deeper than a single magistrate. And somewhere, something ancient is waking.