Jerric nodded once more, though the stiffness in his shoulders betrayed his unease. He turned, clutching the basket of nails, and started toward the sector Harold had marked.

His steps weren't steady. The weight of the job pressed heavier than the iron in his hands. Traps. Summonings. Kobolds. It was one thing to chop wood or haul stone — this was different. This was Harold trusting him to do a real job.

He stopped just past the cleared line, the stumps jagged around him like broken spears. Closing his eyes, he reached inward, feeling for the faint pulse of the dungeon. It was there — muted, like hearing through stone walls — but still present. Still his.

He pulled at it.

The air wavered. A circle of light cracked open at his feet, and with a sharp bark, something small and wiry stumbled out.

The kobold blinked up at him, yellow eyes gleaming, crude claws flexing. It hissed once, then turned its head toward the forest, nostrils flaring as if it already smelled prey.

Jerric exhaled, setting the basket down. "Right," he muttered, voice tight. "Guess we start here."

He pulled out one of the nails, holding it out. The kobold snatched it with glee, teeth clicking, already skittering off toward a nearby stump to work.

Jerric swallowed. His hands were shaking, but the first of many was already moving.

Jerric crouched by the stump, the basket of nails beside him. The kobold hunched over the wood, tapping its claw against the iron spike like it had already decided what to do with it.

Jerric licked his lips. "Alright… let's try this."

He closed his eyes, reaching inward again. That faint hum — the dungeon's presence — tugged at the edge of his awareness. Weak, distant, but not gone. He pressed into it, the way you might lean toward a half-heard whisper.

Images flickered through his mind. Not words. Just impressions. A pit. Rope. Sharpened stakes. The taste of blood.

His stomach twisted, but his hands moved anyway. He grabbed a branch, showed the kobold where to lash it against a trunk with bark-stripped cord. It hissed in approval and worked faster, claws deft and sure.

Jerric frowned. He hadn't thought of that trap before — not exactly — but it felt… right. Like the dungeon was nudging him, guiding his hand the way it guided the kobold's claws.

"Okay," he muttered, voice low. "Guess I'm not building this alone."

The kobold cackled, holding up a crude but wicked-looking stake lashed to a rope. Jerric couldn't help but grin back, nervous but genuine. He dug into the basket again, pulling free another handful of nails.

"Fine," he said, more to himself than the creature. "We'll listen. We'll see where this goes."

The kobold hissed once more and skittered into the trees, nails clutched tight.

Jerric followed, his unease still heavy — but now, beneath it, something else was starting to take root. A rhythm. A strange, creeping confidence.

By midmorning, the first trap was finished.

Jerric crouched on the edge of the clearing, staring at the crude pit with its mat of branches and leaves laid across the top. The kobold beside him hissed with glee, claws flexing as if it already imagined prey tumbling in.

Jerric rubbed his palms against his thighs. "Alright… let's see."

He hefted a thick branch and tossed it onto the cover. The mat gave way instantly, snapping under the weight. The branch tumbled down, speared neatly across two sharpened stakes at the bottom.

Jerric leaned over, peering into the hole. The sight made his stomach twist. The wood had punched clean through — if it had been flesh instead of bark, the result would've been ugly. Fatal, even.

"For a Tier 1?" he muttered under his breath. "That'd be the end of them. No question."

The kobold chittered, proud, tugging the broken cover back into place. Jerric kept thinking. "Tier 2, though… armor, tougher hides, better reflexes. A fall like this wouldn't kill them outright. Hurt them, sure. Maybe break a leg, slow them down. But if two of them went in together…" He shook his head. "It'd bloody them, but not enough to stop the fight."

His eyes narrowed. The dungeon's hum pressed faintly at the back of his mind, like a suggestion waiting to be heard. "Needs to be deeper. Stakes sharper. Nails smeared with something — resin, poison, even filth. Infection would finish what the wood doesn't."

The kobold cackled as though it understood, already scrabbling for more branches.

Jerric exhaled, uneasy but sharper now. This wasn't just a hole in the ground. It was the beginning of something that could bleed even stronger foes if built right.

He set his hand on the edge of the pit, the nails rattling in the basket at his side. "Alright," he murmured. "Let's see if we can make this place meaner."

Jerric was still staring into the pit when the kobold scuttled up beside him, hissing in irritation. It jabbed a claw toward the skewered branch, then toward its own mouth. With exaggerated motion, it mimed chewing, then gagging, collapsing sideways with its tongue lolling out.

Jerric blinked. "…Poison?"

The kobold snapped its jaws in approval, then pointed back to the forest. It crouched low, hunching its shoulders, waving its claws in a crooked pattern across the ground — shapes like runes drawn into the dirt. Then it mimed sprinkling something down into the pit, its yellow eyes fixed on Jerric with a fierce urgency.

"A shaman," Jerric breathed, realization dawning. "You're saying a shaman can finish it. Make it worse."

The kobold hissed again, bobbing its head, stabbing its claw toward the trap. Then it dragged a crooked spiral in the dirt with one finger, muttering in its guttering tongue. The mark glowed faintly for a heartbeat before fading — a curse, half-formed and weak without its true caster.

Jerric shivered.

He knew kobold shamans from the dungeon. Curse masters. Twisters of flesh and fate. Their poisons seeped deeper than the body, their hexes clung to the bones. If one of them worked this pit, it wouldn't just wound a Tier 2. It would cripple. Infect. Break the will to fight.

The kobold gave a final emphatic gesture — pounding its chest, then pointing back into the dungeon's pull that Jerric could faintly feel.

Jerric exhaled slowly. "Right. You want a shaman. Fine." He rubbed his face, staring down at the basket of nails and the half-hidden pit. "Gods help me, Harold's going to get exactly what he asked for."

Harold leaned over the rough table at the center of the compound. It wasn't a proper map — not parchment and ink — but what he had scraped together from what the men could spare. Flattened bark sheets lashed with twine. Charcoal markings and smudges. Pebbles and cut branches placed for landmarks.

And yet, with his Cartography skill guiding his hand, it looked like more. The sprawl of the forest, the slope of the hills, the lines of cleared trees were all there, precise enough that he could trace routes with his finger. Even the ditch and wall were etched in detail finer than the crude tools should have allowed.

He frowned, shifting a pebble to mark the Bloodnight compound's direction.

"Stronghold on one side. City on the other," he muttered to himself. "Two fangs. We're the meat in between."

He tapped the stretch of forest where Hal's patrols ran. "Ambush sites here… and here. Wolves can bleed a patrol before it ever reaches the ditch. But if they send Barons? No. Won't hold. Not by itself."

His finger slid to the wall, tracing its outline. "The wall buys time. Maybe minutes. Against Tiers that high, that's all it can give me. Time. So the question is…" He exhaled. "What do I do with that time?"

He shifted a piece of bark carved like an arrowhead into the cleared sector. "Traps. Layers. Pitfalls, spikes, kobold tricks. Bleed them until they slow. Until they're angry enough to make mistakes."

His hand paused over the crude mark for the city, lips pressed thin. "But what happens when the city decides we're not worth the truce? When they look past the Bloodnights and see us instead? Then every line breaks at once."

He straightened, rubbing the charcoal dust from his fingertips.

Harold bent over the map, moving a charcoal marker to the edge of the forest line, when the bond snapped taut.

Hal's presence flared in his chest — alarm, sharp and urgent. The frost wolf froze at the gate, head lifted, ears pricked toward the far trees. A low growl rumbled in his throat.

Harold stilled. Calm, tell me what is happening.

Harold stilled. Calm, he pressed through the bond, his voice steady in Hal's mind. Tell me what is happening.

Hal's reply came in sharp impressions, carried with a predator's clarity.

One of his far patrols. The Ashen Wolf leading it. The scent of steel, oil, and blood cutting through the forest air. Shapes moving together — not scattered hunters, but drilled, disciplined.

Retainers, Hal sent, the image clear: leaner figures, lighter armor, fast in the underbrush. Spears, short blades, leather harnesses. Their movements clipped, practiced. They had pressed at the wolves, slashing to drive them back, but not with full force. A test. A warning.

Not vampires, Hal added, and with the thought came another impression — the weight of heavy plate, crimson eyes behind visors, the oppressive presence that marked the true blooded. The vampires fought differently, slower but brutal, breaking lines with sheer power. They weren't here.

Harold exhaled through his nose, gaze flicking toward the map again. So retainers. Scouts in force, not the masters themselves.

Hal growled agreement, the sensation rumbling in Harold's chest. They did not pursue long. The Ashen one led them wide, pulled them off their line. They broke and circled back to their route. My patrol bleeds, but none are lost.

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Harold let the breath ease out of him, steady as stone. Good. Mark their path. Show me where they cut across.

Through the bond, Hal pressed the images into his mind: the trail, the line of movement, the gap left in the vampire family's screen.

Harold's eyes narrowed over the crude bark-map. "Alright," he muttered. "We've just had our first look at the teeth."

Harold reached for a bit of charcoal, the stub smudged black into his fingers, and sketched a line across the bark-map where Hal's memory pressed in his mind. The path curved through the forest, clipped across a gully, and rejoined the deeper routes near the vampire compound.

"Retainers," he muttered. "Not a random sweep. That was a line cut on purpose."

He marked it, then stepped back to take in the whole picture. The map was already a web of faint lines and smudges. Patrol routes from the wolves. Sightings from the scouts. Patterns Harold had tried to pin down.

Except there weren't patterns. Not the kind he could use.

Every time he thought he'd found a rhythm — three passes on the eastern flank, a cycle around the south every half-day — it shifted. A gap closed where there'd been space. A new route opened where there had been none. The paths never settled, always moving like water poured into new grooves. The wolves had spread far out as he tried to build a pattern of life and map of the Vampire forces.

Harold tapped the charcoal against the edge of the rough table, jaw clenched.

"Someone on their side knows what they're doing."

The vampires weren't stumbling. This wasn't brute force. Whoever commanded those retainers understood that patterns killed — and so they didn't leave any. Their scouts were disciplined, their lines fluid. He hadn't tried to punish them yet but he would have to soon as their patrols were ranging further into the forest. Or….he could redirect their focus. "I need time" harold murmured.

He rubbed a thumb across his temple, staring down at the black web of routes. "They're hunting me while I'm trying to hunt them."

Hal's presence pressed faint in the back of his mind, low and steady. The frost wolf wasn't afraid — only waiting.

Harold's hand lingered over the charcoal lines on his crude bark-map, but his thoughts had shifted past routes and formations. The retainers fought with discipline, the vampires with weight. Brute force he could counter with traps, but culture… culture could be turned into a weapon if he understood it.

He straightened and called out, voice sharp. "Daran!"

The knight broke from the drill yard, leaving Holt to watch the formation. His boots struck hard against the packed earth as he strode over, one brow already raised. "Sir?"

Harold gestured to the map but didn't point at any of the marks. Instead, he fixed Daran with a level look. "What do you know about Vampires?. I need to know about them — the Bloodnights, their kind. What moves them. What levers they can't ignore. Vampire culture"

Harold nodded once. "I don't have the strength to break them head-on. That means I need pressure points. Honor, superstition, habits — anything that forces them to act, even if it's against their best judgment."

Daran's eyes went distant, his voice slowing as he searched memory. "One of the worlds I fought in, back when I was still Tier 2, had vampires. Not like these Bloodnights." His mouth tightened. "They weren't honorable. Necromancers, mostly. They raised the dead like clay soldiers and sent them against the living. The whole world was locked in war — endless tides of corpses thrown against fortress walls."

He exhaled through his nose, gaze lowering to the bark-map. "I went there to train. Chasing the Dao of Sharpness. It was where I learned what war really meant, and where I learned to command men. That world…" His lips pressed thin. "That world was a butcher's yard."

Harold stayed silent, letting him work through it.

"The vampires there weren't like the Bloodnights," Daran continued. "But they did have a code. Strict. Everything among them settled by challenge. Their pecking order established through duels — sometimes to first blood, sometimes to death, depending on the insult."

He glanced at Harold, voice sharpening. "They were predators, aye, but bound by their own laws. Even monsters cling to rules when it suits them."

Harold's fingers drummed once against the map. "So if the Bloodnights are cut from similar cloth…"

"Then their honor isn't just a story," Daran said, finishing the thought. "It's a leash. If you know how to pull it."

Daran tapped a gauntleted finger against the map, just above the mark for the Bloodnight compound. "If they're anything like the ones I trained against, then the Bloodnights will have some form of trial-by-combat woven into their culture. Honor bound. Duels. Challenges. It keeps their own from tearing each other apart, gives them a way to settle rank without open war."

He leaned in closer, his tone sharpening. "If that's true, then you've got a lever. They won't ignore a duel, not if it's issued in the right way. Especially not if they're goaded in front of their own. To back down would be dishonor. And for families like these… dishonor is a wound that festers."

Harold's eyes narrowed. "You're saying I could bait them into single combat."

"Not just single combat," Daran said. "Into structure. Into rules. Their code could make them fight you on ground of your choosing. A duel to stall for time, or even to force a withdrawal if the rules demand it. Imagine — you challenge one of their captains. While they're bound to the duel, their retainers can't interfere. Not without spitting on their own law."

Harold's hand clenched around the charcoal, smudging black across his knuckles. "And if I win?"

"Then you don't just bloody them." Daran's gaze was hard, steady. "You humiliate them. You shatter the perception of their strength. The Bloodnights might recover, but the city watching them?" He shook his head. "No. They'd see cracks. That honor they wear like armor would turn into a chain around their necks."

For a moment, silence hung between them, the weight of possibility pressing down.

"Careful, though," Daran added, his voice lower. "Every lever has a cost. Duels make them predictable — but they also put you face-to-face with killers who've fought that way their whole lives. And their Barons? Their honor isn't just pride, I'm no Baron. One of their full tier 4's would kill me."

Harold leaned back from the map, fingers smudged with charcoal, his eyes distant but sharp.

"Duels," he muttered. "Honor as a chain."

Daran straightened, waiting for the next question, the next order. But Harold only studied him for a long moment, then gave a short nod.

"Thank you," Harold said quietly. "That's what I needed. You've given me enough to work with."

The knight tilted his head slightly, not sure if it was dismissal or a pause.

Harold's gaze returned to the map. "Go on back to your drills, Daran. The men need your steel more than I do right now."

For a heartbeat, Daran looked like he might argue, but the weight in Harold's voice brooked no pushback. He inclined his head. "As you say, sir."

He turned and strode back toward the training yard, his armor catching the sunlight.

Harold didn't look up. His eyes stayed fixed on the crude outline of the Bloodnight compound, his thumb rubbing at the black streak across his palm.

A lever. One he could pull if he found the right place, the right time.

The problem was simple. And he knew exactly how to cheat.

Harold stood alone over the map, his arms braced against the rough table. The lines blurred if he stared too long — shifting patrol routes, crude marks for walls and ditches, the charcoal smears where he'd already worn a hole trying to force sense out of chaos.

A duel. A lever. But one that would put his throat within striking distance. He ground his teeth and let the thought spin.

"Careful," a voice chirped beside him. "Keep scowling at that bark, and the lines will crawl off in fear."

Harold blinked, glancing up. Rysa stood there, hands on her hips, one eyebrow cocked high. Dirt streaked her cheek, and she smelled faintly of woodsmoke — but her grin was sharp enough to cut steel.

"You don't look busy," Harold said, flat.

"Oh, I'm very busy," Rysa replied. "Busy keeping you from frowning yourself into an early grave." She leaned in to peer at the map, making a thoughtful hum. "Mm. Very impressive. Looks like scratches on a latrine wall."

Harold gave her a look. "You're not helping."

"I'm not here to help," she said sweetly. "I'm here to tell you your brooding makes you even less charming than usual. Which is saying something."

He exhaled, long and tired, pinching the bridge of his nose. "Rysa—"

"Oh, and another thing," she cut in, grin widening. "If you keep skulking around with that grim expression, poor Lira's going to think you've lost interest. And here I was, certain the two of you were on the verge of a tragic, star-crossed romance."

Harold stilled. Then leveled her with a flat stare. "…You're enjoying this too much."

"Of course I am." Rysa smirked, rocking back on her heels. "Somebody has to. You've got wolves bleeding in the woods, Daran muttering about honor duels, and you pacing like a man waiting for the gallows. Lira, though? She's a bright spot. Don't squander it. You'll need her… and not just for healing."

Her voice softened slightly at the end, but only slightly.

Harold grunted, half amused despite himself. "You sound like a meddling aunt."

"Better than sounding like a brooding calamity," she shot back.

For the first time that morning, Harold's mouth twitched into something resembling a smile.

Harold's faint smile faded as he stared down at the map again, thumb dragging unconsciously across the smudged charcoal. He cleared his throat once, too quiet, then tried again.

"...Has she said anything?"

Rysa tilted her head. "About?"

He didn't look at her, his voice rough. "Me."

There was a beat of silence. Then Rysa's grin bloomed, wide and wicked. She clapped her hands together softly, as if she'd just been handed a gift. "Ohhh. The great Calamity himself, nervous about what the healer thinks."

Harold's ears burned hotter than the sun overhead. "Forget I asked."

"No, no," Rysa drawled, circling around the table to block his view of the map, her grin unrelenting. "This is precious. You, the man who stares down vampires and bends wolves to his will, suddenly afraid of a woman's opinion." She leaned closer, eyes glinting. "You do realize she's smarter than you, don't you?"

"Rysa—"

"Oh, don't worry," she cut him off, sing-song. "I'll never tell you what she's said. Not even if you beg. You'll just have to sit here and stew in your own broody silence, imagining every possible word."

Harold pinched the bridge of his nose again, muttering, "Why do I even let you talk to me?"

"Because," she said sweetly, patting his arm like he was a sulking child, "deep down you know you'd go insane without me."

Harold huffed out something that wasn't quite a laugh. "You already drive me insane."

"Exactly," Rysa said, victorious, before spinning on her heel and striding off with a self-satisfied smirk.

Harold stared after her a long moment, jaw tight, before he forced himself back to the map. The charcoal marks didn't look any clearer.

Rysa was halfway across the yard, still wearing that smug little grin, when Harold's voice followed her.

"Rysa."

She glanced back over her shoulder, arching a brow.

"How long," Harold asked, his tone steady again, "for the thing I asked you to prepare?"

The grin shifted into something sharper, more knowing. "Soon," she said, her voice carrying just enough to reach him. "Give me until tomorrow evening. I'll have it ready."

Harold studied her a moment, then gave a short nod. "Good."

She winked at him before turning back toward the fire she claimed, her steps light with a confidence that wasn't feigned.

Left alone again at the map, Harold exhaled slowly. Whatever teasing she'd given him, at least the work would be done.

And tomorrow evening, he would have another piece on the board.

Harold stood over the map a moment longer, then let out a slow, heavy sigh. "Too early," he muttered. "But their patrols are pressing too close. If we wait longer, they'll sniff us out before we're ready. Time to make a move."

He raised his voice. "Sergeant Holt."

The shield sergeant broke from the drill yard at once, helm tucked under her arm, sweat still beading on her brow from running the men. She marched up to the table, back straight. "Sir?"

Harold's eyes flicked over her, weighing, then fixed squarely on her face. "You're a Tier 2 Squire right? Where do you stand — mid, high, or peak?"

Holt didn't hesitate. "High Squire, sir. Close to peak though. My shield's been carrying me faster since getting here."

Harold gave a short nod, considering. "That may be enough."

Harold straightened from the map, eyes cutting to Holt. "I need you to lead a mission, and you won't have much backup."

Her jaw set, but she gave a sharp nod. "Understood."

"Their patrols are getting too close — too close in the right direction." He tapped a spot on the bark-map with the charcoal, nearly opposite from where the most recent retainer patrol had pressed. "I need them to start patrolling harder in the wrong directions. That means we draw their attention here."

Holt leaned closer, studying the mark.

"You'll take ten men," Harold continued. "Our best crossbowmen. I'll have Hal run the path with his pack before you move. Once you're in position, find one of their patrols led by a retainer. Ambush and kill them. Then get back here fast."

Holt's eyes flicked up, steady. "And if they push back?"

"Don't let them draw you into a bad fight," Harold said flatly. "I need all of you back. If you can't find a patrol in a day, you don't go looking. You come back empty-handed and alive. Do you understand me?"

Her shield hand flexed against the rim of the oak. "Understood, sir. Ten men. Fast in, fast out. No heroics."

Harold met her gaze. "Good. Go get them ready. I'll update Daran, one of your proteges can be my shield while you are gone."

Holt saluted sharply, then turned on her heel, already barking for runners.

Harold watched her go, his jaw tight. It was a risk. But if the Bloodnights started shifting their lines wide, it might buy him the opening he needed.

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