Dungeon Master (Karma System)

Helmar knew the letter was missing before the breakfast dishes were cleared.

Midnight watched his confidant enter the dining hall through a side door. He crossed behind the household steward, placed one hand against the back of Helmar’s chair, and bent as though answering a quiet question.

Helmar continued cutting the mushrooms on his plate.

The guards outside the hall changed three minutes later.

Lana felt Midnight’s attention follow the first pair away. Four replacements took their positions at the doors. Two wore the stronghold’s ordinary family colors. The other two wore undecorated armor and carried the same hooked blades used by the assassins on the road.

She lowered her cup without drinking.

Rod saw the movement and looked toward Tharic. No one needed to explain what it meant. Helmar had discovered the empty place in his correspondence case, and the time they purchased by pretending to trust him had ended.

Tharic finished the last bite on his plate.

"The transfer is after dinner." Helmar said from the head of the table. "The family chamber will be ready at sunset."

"I will be there." Tharic answered.

Helmar smiled at him.

The breakfast ended without an accusation.

Rod’s party returned to the guest wing under escort. The guards did not enter their rooms, but another pair appeared at the far end of the hall while they closed the door.

Dirk moved to the window. The courtyard below remained open. Workers carried feed toward the stables, two freight wagons waited beside the storehouse, and the main gate stood wide enough for one wagon to pass.

"They are loading the second wagon." He said. "If the schedule has not changed, both leave before midday."

Dain checked the passage beneath the adjoining door. No shadow waited on the other side. "The stable guards doubled."

"Everything doubled." Lana said. Midnight remained hidden above the dining-hall corridor. "Helmar’s confidant is searching the office again. He knows which page is gone."

Nessa opened her field case. The original letter remained sealed inside the lining. "Then we do not have until dinner."

Their earlier plan depended on leaving through a gate without announcing that they knew what Helmar had done. That was no longer possible. Helmar could keep Tharic inside for his own protection, separate him from the party for the ceremony, or search the rooms for a stolen family document. Each action would sound reasonable to anyone who had not heard the conversation through Midnight.

Rod studied Dirk’s map.

The courier postern required a household token and opened onto a path too narrow for mounts. The main gate had more guards, but it also had workers, freight drivers, and family members who did not belong to Helmar’s private force. If Tharic named the betrayal before witnesses, some might refuse an order to kill him.

"We use the freight departure." Rod said. "Dain gets the animals ready. Dirk finds a way into the gatehouse."

Tharic placed the ring against his palm. "If the gate closes?"

"Then we open it." Rod said.

No one pretended that answer guaranteed anything, but it was their best option at this point.

Dain left first with Nessa. They carried visible medical supplies and told the guards that the injuries from the pass required another examination of the mounts before travel. The explanation did not earn privacy, but it brought both of them to the stable yard.

Dirk followed ten minutes later. He asked permission to recover the arrows he had stored with the party’s road equipment. A guard accompanied him. Midnight descended through the warm service gaps and tracked the pair from above.

Rod, Lana, and Tharic remained where Helmar expected them.

The freight bell sounded shortly before midday.

One wagon moved from the storehouse. The second waited while a clerk checked its sealed cargo. Family workers gathered near the open gate, and the outer portcullis rose another foot to clear the wagon’s covered frame.

Midnight saw Dirk reach the lower gatehouse stair.

The archer stopped beside the guard who accompanied him and pointed toward an arrow lodged beneath a rack. When the dwarf bent to retrieve it, Dirk struck once and caught him before his armor hit the floor. He bound the man’s hands, removed the gatehouse key, and climbed.

Lana rose. "Now."

The three entered the hallway.

The guards at their door attempted to block Tharic without drawing weapons. Rod lifted the first man and drove him into the wall. Lana covered the far end of the corridor with ice while Tharic passed between them. The second pair shouted before retreating from the forming barrier.

The alarm reached the courtyard ahead of them.

Dain already had the mounts saddled. Nessa held the reins while confused stable workers moved away. Rod’s party crossed the open yard as one group with Tharic running between Dain and Lana.

They passed through the open inner gate and entered the long passage.

The outer portcullis fell and blocked there way.

Its iron points struck the road immediately behind the departing wagon. The driver whipped his team forward and escaped. The inner gate remained open behind Rod’s party, leaving the far end of the passage sealed.

Helmar stepped onto the courtyard stair. His left hand rested on his sword.

"Tharic." He called. "Return to your room. Your escorts assaulted a family guard and stole property from my office."

Workers had stopped across the courtyard. Ordinary Ruskell guards formed near the gate, but several looked toward Tharic instead of drawing weapons.

Tharic removed the copied statement from beneath his coat. "Helmar hired the assassins who attacked me twice. We possess his written order and heard him planning to kill me after I surrendered the ring."

Helmar did not deny it.

"My nephew has been deceived by outsiders who want a family heirloom." he said. "Detain them. Tharic is not to be harmed."

The ordinary guards hesitated.

The men in undecorated armor did not.

They entered the gate passage from two side doors and attacked from both ends. The first group carried shields and capture hooks. The second closed behind Helmar, placing his private force between the party and every witness in the courtyard.

Rod did not try to defeat the stronghold.

He drove the forward line back far enough for Dain to reach the gatehouse stairs. Dirk fired from above, forcing the guards operating the gate mechanism away from their controls. Lana froze one side door shut while Midnight moved through the gate machinery searching for another release.

Nessa stayed with Tharic.

Dain reached the control landing. Dirk cut the first locking cable. The outer portcullis shuddered as one counterweight moved.

Then Helmar’s confidant activated the emergency lock from the outer tower.

Stone bolts entered the portcullis frame. The counterweight stopped. Additional guards emerged onto the walls, and crossbow crews took positions above both ends of the passage.

Rod looked once at the sealed gate and understood the numbers around it.

They could not reach the outer mechanism. They could not climb the wall while protecting Tharic. Every ordinary guard who might have listened remained beyond Helmar’s private troops, and the narrow passage prevented the party from breaking through before the crossbows reduced them.

"Back to the courtyard." He ordered.

Retreat gave them space but no exit.

Dirk left the gatehouse before the upper guards surrounded it. Dain withdrew from the controls with a blade wound beneath his shoulder. Nessa placed Held Remedy on him without stopping. Lana released the frozen side door and brought the ice outward, making the private guards advance over ground that punished a charge.

Helmar remained behind their line.

"Give me the ring." He told Tharic. "I can still end this."

Tharic looked at the guards, the sealed gate, and the blood spreading beneath Dain’s armor.

He did not answer his uncle. He caught Rod’s arm instead.

"My son is named Renn," Tharic whispered. "He works in Stonecross. Last I heard, he assessed freight for the Northspan Exchange. We have not spoken in four years."

"Tell him yourself when we get out." Rod said.

Tharic shook his head. His death would not be temporary the way theirs was.

"Find him. Tell him Helmar betrayed every branch, not only mine. Give him the ring and tell him I was wrong to let our last argument become four years."

The private guards advanced again.

Tharic pulled the ring from his finger and looked toward Lana. "Can your familiar carry it where Helmar cannot follow?"

Lana understood before Midnight reached them.

The black cat crossed the courtyard beneath a wagon and sprang onto Tharic’s arm. Tharic held the ring before his mouth.

"Swallow it." Lana said.

Midnight took the green stone and gold setting between his teeth. He worked it backward, swallowed once, and turned toward Lana.

Helmar saw everything.

"Take the cat!" He shouted.

He pushed through his own front line and reached for Midnight with his left hand.

Rod’s axe crossed the space first.

The axe cleaved below Helmar’s wrist. His hand and bracer fell separately onto the frozen stones. Helmar went down beneath two guards as blood covered his sleeve.

The injury broke the private line’s restraint.

Crossbows fired from the walls. Dain placed himself between the first volley and Tharic. Nessa’s barrier caught several bolts and shattered under the rest. Dirk killed one of the crossbowmen and forced another away from the parapet, but the guards below reached him before he could loose a third arrow.

Lana called lightning across the ice.

The current dropped the first rank. A bolt struck her beneath the ribs before she could move away from the open ground. A second entered her back.

She fell.

Midnight’s body broke into dark fragments before he reached her. The pieces vanished without leaving blood, fur, or the ring on the stones.

Helmar saw that too.

His remaining hand gripped the ruined end of his arm while a healer bound it above the wound. His expression changed when he searched the courtyard and found nothing to recover.

Rod’s party died around Tharic.

Dirk fell beneath the gatehouse stair. Nessa exhausted her remaining strength keeping Dain upright until both were surrounded. Rod reached Helmar’s position once more, but the stronghold’s guards buried his advance beneath shields, hooks, and weight before he could finish what his axe began.

Tharic was the last left standing.

Helmar had been carried to the courtyard stair. His face had gone pale beneath the healer’s hands.

Tharic looked at the space where Midnight had disappeared.

"Uncle, the adventures are out of your reach."

One of Helmar’s guards drove a spear through him.

Later, the Sanctuary hospital received five people within the same minute.

Rod opened his eyes on a resurrection bed without his axe, armor, travel pack, or the evidence Nessa had carried. The enchanted silver focus fitted to Nessa’s healing staff had returned without the staff around it. Dirk’s bow remained in Helmar’s courtyard.

Everything ordinary had been left where they died.

Lana sat upright on the next bed.

"Midnight."

The familiar formed across her knees after she finished the spell to summon him. He remained still for a moment, then gagged. Lana caught the ring when he coughed it onto the blanket.

The dark green stone carried no mark from its journey.

Tharic did not appear in the hospital.

Rod closed his hand around the ring. "Stonecross." He said.

None of them needed to ask whether the escort contract had ended.

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