“Any ideas of how we’re going to get in there,” Ihra asked, a slight frown gracing her lips. As expected, little had changed at Birnah, and the city gates were still firmly barred. A small line of travelers waited outside the exterior keep, but she had not seen any admitted, save for a single squad of soldiers bearing the empire’s regalia - there were limits, apparently, to who Lord Sarganīl was willing to offend.

“What about the sewers?” Erin asked. “That’s a thing in games usually, sneaking in through the sewers.”

“The sewers?” The Corsyth healer who was tagging along with them, shot the scout a puzzled look. “Why would we go there? They will be well-protected by wards, so unless you have some means to break through them…”

“They’re warded?” He shook his head reluctantly. “Nah, I don’t have anything to deal with that.”

“There’s got to be some hidden passages, though,” Ihra said, turning to Asâta. “You worked for the temple of S̆ams̆a, right? Did they have any escape routes?”

“If they did, I wasn’t important enough to know about them,” the healer replied. “But I doubt there are any. Birnah has been under siege so many times that any weak points have been removed.”

“I’m sure they’ve tried, but I find it hard to believe that they’ve left no ways out for themselves.

No one wants to be trapped like a rat in a hole.” Ihra’s eyes turned to Erin. “You helped us find secret passages in Nūr-S̆ams̆a - think you can do that?”

“I can try,” he shrugged. “But I’ll only be able to sense them if they got wood. Heh, got wood,” he added with a snicker.

Ihra wrote off as another one of those oddities from their world and nodded her head. “It’s worth a try. Otherwise, we might be forced to try to bribe one of those imperial squads into bringing us in with them.”

----------------------------------------

In truth, Ihra had felt confident that they’d stumble on a passage fairly quickly. While Birnah was significantly smaller than the truly great cities like S̆addānu and Dūr-Yarḫa, it was still a good-sized settlement, roughly equal in size to Nūr-S̆ams̆a which had been positively riddled by secret passages.

Instead, it seemed that Asata either was right, or the tunnels were entirely constructed of stone. They walked around the perimeter of the outer walls for two hours without finding a single tunnel, and her hopes flagged as they approached the rushing waters of the River, which Birnah backed up to. “Well, there goes that idea,” she said with a sigh.

“Hold on.” Erin raised his hands and squinted off into the distance. “I can’t tell if it's a tunnel or not, but there’s a ton of wood buried beneath the river.”

“It’s probably just driftwood,” she replied, looking at the raging river. She could only imagine how many thousands of trees must line its bed, torn free from their roots by the great storms that sometimes rocked the jungle.

“Nah, it seems too concentrated,” the scout insisted. “It’s not exactly a straight line, but the wood seems to form a fairly unbroken path to that island over there.” He pointed to a small island that jutted above the frothy waters. Sharp cliffs rose about fifty feet above the River, with no sign of a beach or other place to land, but the green foliage that peaked above the cliffs suggested that there was flat land somewhere.

“Anyone live over there,” she asked the healer, thinking that the wood could be the wreckage of a washed-out bridge, but Asâta shook her head.

“Supposedly during the Desolyton, the island was used as a prison, but it’s been abandoned for centuries. No one lives there now.”

“Then I guess it’s worth checking out. The only question now is how do we get there.”

Ihra was no sailor, but despite her inexperience, it was obvious that the current of the River was too strong for them to reach the island from their position - she doubted they could successfully cross in a straight line, let alone row a few hundred feet against the current - so they were forced to circle back around the city’s walls until they reached the southern gate.

A small community of refugees had sprung up beside the river banks, hoping that the lord of Birnah would change his mind and allow them to enter, so it proved less difficult to find a vessel than she’d feared. With a bit of haggling, they snagged a rickety fishing boat and, after a few hasty repairs from Erin, departed.

The trip was short and stressful. The rushing currents carried them along faster than she had expected, and the three were forced to row with all their considerable might to get far enough across the river to be in easy shot of the island. Having already seen that there was no easy landing place on the side that faced the city, she steered the boat for the far side and prayed that there would be a beach to land.

There wasn’t. The fifty-foot bluffs she’d seen from the coast wrapped around the entire island without a single gap - but there was a point of entry.

The waters swirled dangerously around an ancient stone wharf that jutted out from the cliffs. At one point the wharf must have been large enough to allow two or three full-sized galleys to dock, but much of it now lay sunk beneath the River’s embrace. The far side though, protected from the brunt of the river’s power, was in relatively decent repair, and they guided the ship toward its safe harbor.

Docking proved a challenging endeavor, as none of them had any sailing experience, but eventually Ihra managed to hook the end of our rope around the pylons and pull the boat in close. Leaping onto the dock, she fastened the knots until not even the raging currents were enough to shake the ship, and helped the others clamber up.

Only then did she survey the wharf, with a quickly growing frown. “Someone’s been here recently,” she said, pointing to a pile of rope coiled neatly beside a nearby pylon. Though the rope was beginning to turn slightly green with mildew from the constant spray of the water, it was in far too good of condition to be more than a few months old at the max. The area around the rope also showed signs of care, with the slick moss and crusty mussels that lined most of the dock scraped free in a narrow path that led toward the cliffs.

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They followed it cautiously, unsure if they were truly alone on the island until they reached the end of the wharf. Though it had been completely invisible from the water, a narrow flight of stairs was carved into the stone.

Despite the stairs, the trip up was a treacherous one. The stone had been worn smooth as glass from age, and the constant spray from the River only served to make it even more slippery, but they reached the top with nothing more than a bit of bruised pride.

“Looks like those stories were true,” Ihra said with a whistle as they caught their glimpse of the ruins. Nature had reclaimed much of the large, flat tableau that sat on top of the island’s bluffs, but a handful of buildings still remained. Made of seamless rock, the buildings must have been built by a stone mage and despite the massive amounts of vegetation draped across them, they’d endure the test of time.

“Barrack 1.” “Barrack 2.” “Shrine.” Ihra’s eyes skipped over the ancient inscriptions to focus on a building at the northern tip of the island. Unlike the others, the vegetation around it had been cleared away and the door - which on the other buildings had long since rotted away - had been replaced with fresh, new wood.

The others saw it as she did, and the group fell silent as they took their positions. Erin took the lead, keeping his eyes glued to the ground, searching for any signs of traps, while Ihra trailed a few feet behind him, her bow nocked and ready to fire at anything that moved, leaving Asata to follow as she willed.

They’d only made it a dozen feet before Erin held up his hand for them to stop and pointed at the ground a few feet in front of them. A thin, nearly invisible line was stretched across the narrow path. They traced its path to a nearby tree where a small ceramic pot had been hidden in the foliage. “Firetrap,” he mouthed, as they carefully stepped around it. They went more feet before he unearthed a bear trap hidden in the leaves, and navigated their way around another fire trap before reaching the door of the restored building.

They paused as Erin and Ihra examined the door, searching for any sign of a trigger, but they found nothing. “I don’t see anything, so I guess it’s safe?” the scout finally concluded.

Ihra hesitated before replying. Like him, she couldn’t detect any trap, but her intuition was screaming to stay away from the door. She decided to trust it.

“The door’s wood, so you can move it, right?” She asked. The scout nodded, and they all took a step back before he used his essence to shove the door open.

A shower of splinters rained down on them as the door exploded, and the scout paled. “Guess I missed it.”

“It was probably where we couldn’t see,” she replied grimly as she stepped toward the door. She entered the building with her bow held ready, half-expecting an ambush, but the room was empty.

One side of the chamber was lined with a row of cots, with greasy wool blankets draped on top of them. Flies swarmed above two of them, accompanied by a ghastly smell, that told Ihra exactly what she’d find under there. Meanwhile, the rest of the room was mostly filled with crates, which the three peaked into, as they tried not to gag on the fetid air.

“Weapons,” Ihra reported on hers.

“Some sort of powder?” Erin said, touching it to his lips and spitting it out immediately. “Ugh, it’s better, whatever it is.”

Asâta remained quiet, staring down at hers with an obviously troubled face, and Ihra stepped closer to take a look. “What is it?”

The crate was filled with hundreds of glass vials, each one marked with the emblem of Shamsha. “These are potions the temple made.” She ran a trembling finger down the wax seal of one of them. “Some of these are ones I made. What are they doing here? And why? These are supposed to be handed out to the villages.”

Ihra cocked her head. “Does the temple deliver them themselves?”

“Sometimes, but usually Lord Sarganil’s patrols deliver them since they’re visiting the villages anyways. Have they been stealing from them this whole time?”

“Bleaurgh.” The sound of vomiting filled the room, and Ihra spun around to find Erin bent over, his hand on his haunch, as he wiped a trail of drool from his lips. He’d been too hasty though, and he bent over again, spewing more of his guts, before he rose shakily. “Don’t, uh, look under the blankets. The smell is so much worse.”

“Dead bodies?” She asked sympathetically, knowing the answer.

He nodded. “They look like they're wearing some sort of uniform, but not one I know.” Their eyes both turned to Asata, who looked slightly sick at the suggestion. “Do I have to?”

“It might help us figure out who’s taking the potions,” Ihra offered, and the woman grimaced.

“I suppose.”

Erin scampered out of the way as she approached and, pinching her nose tight, gingerly lifted up the blanket. She glanced for a half-second before dropping it and spun away, gagging. “Shamsha’s rays, that’s terrible,” she gasped, wiping watering eyes.

“Anything useful,” Ihra prodded, after giving her a moment to recover.

“It’s a guard’s uniform but,” she paused a moment, her face scrunched in uncertainty. “There was something different, though. There was a pin on the left breast pocket, a symbol I hadn’t seen before.”

“Think it’s on the other one?” Erin asked. Their eyes turned again to the healer, and she shook her head.

“Nuh-uh. I’ve already done my duty. If you want to check the other, have at it.”

Ihra turned to Erin, who just smirked. “You know, I’ve already looked too. Now is there a person in this room who hasn’t looked?” he added, with mock innocence.

“Fine.” Grumbling to herself, Ihra approached the second body. The stench only grew as she reached its side and the flies buzzed around her angrily, but she steeled herself and whipped the blanket up.

The body was in far worse shape than she’d expected. Parts of the flesh had liquefied, dripping down the body like a melted candle, in which worms happily writhed. A swarm of flies rose to greet her, issuing out of a gaping, sagging jaw, and she nearly joined Erin in heaving her lunch.

But she choked back the vomit and forced herself to stare at the strange pin on the man’s chest. Crafted from wood two fingers thick, the circular pin was painted with the image of a red sun marred by a black, jagged streak that might have been lightning. Satisfied she had committed it to memory, she let the blanket fall and plastered a smile on as she spun to face them. “That’s what you were complaining about?”

“There’s no way that didn’t bother you,” Erin scoffed. It was true. Even now, her stomach was vigorously voicing its objections, but Ihra offered him a smug smirk. “It’s okay if you’ve got a weak stomach - maybe you’ll grow out of it.”

He growled with irritation, but Ihra didn’t leave him to stew. “But there was another pin. Mine was a red sun with some sort of black lines across it. Is that what you saw?”

The two nodded as Ihra joined their side, leaving the absolute worst of the stench behind - although the air was still quite foul. “It certainly looks like some faction of the guard has been using this place then. The only question is, why were they killed.”

“And, is there a tunnel to the city,” Erin added, reminding her of the reason they had come.

“Right, that too,” she amended herself. “Shall we continue?”