It was dawn. Almost. The horizon was still negotiating with the sun, slowly coaxing it to rise and shine upon the party as they left the egunbide house. The sky was still pale behind them, turning the road from black to grey a few yards at a time. Someone in the kitchen had wrapped yesterday’s bread around slices of cold meat and hard cheese, and breakfast traveled south in pockets, hands, and Zerai’s bread, clenched firmly between her teeth while both hands searched the depths of her pack.

Thin fog gathered in the low ground beside the road, pooling in ditches and slipping between the stone walls that divided the nearby fields. Dew silvered the weeds and flattened the taller grass along the shoulder. Beyond the road, rows of harvested crops stretched toward dark tree lines, their stubble reduced to shadowed ridges in the weak light.

The chill carried enough bite to find the gaps beneath collars and cuffs. Breath showed faintly whenever someone spoke. Somewhere across the fields, a bird called once into the grey, waited, then tried again. Far behind them, an unseen wagon creaked along the road, the sound traveling freely through the morning quiet.

The scattered farmhouses nearby remained dark. No smoke rose from their chimneys yet. No doors opened. The countryside seemed reluctant to begin the day. Ahead, the South Road disappeared into the thinning fog, empty for now.

Kal tore a bite from his bread. “I have a question.”

Thane grunted around a mouthful of cheese. “Course you do.”

“Why didn’t we have the archmage teleport us?”

Thane stopped walking. Elora nearly marched into his back before sidestepping him, and Lira made it another two paces before turning around. “What?”

“Malakar.” Kal gestured vaguely north with his breakfast. “Ancient wizard. Terrifying. Talks like he already knows how every conversation ends. Why didn’t we just ask him to send us directly to Dunmoor? Like, magically.”

“Can he do that?” Thane asked.

Kal shrugged. “I don’t know. I’m asking why none of you asked.”

Everyone exchanged glances; then, one by one, they looked toward Zerai. She continued walking, elbow in her pack almost to the shoulder. Something clinked inside. She frowned, shifted the bag around, and plunged in again.

“Zerai,” Elora said.

“Mm?”

Nobody answered. Zerai finally looked up and found five faces pointed at her. She pulled the bread from between her teeth. “What?”

“Can Malakar teleport people?” Lira asked.

Zerai blinked. “Oh.” She considered it for perhaps three steps. “Yeah. Probably.”

Thane’s jaw stopped moving.

“He’s pretty powerful,” Zerai continued. “I mean, I’ve never seen him do it, but someone operating at his level should be capable of some kind of long-range transport. Teleportation circle. Translocation. Folding space. There are several approaches, depending on what he knows.”

Kal chewed thoughtfully. “And none of those occurred to you yesterday?”

“They occur to me all the time.”

“Then why the skarn are we walking?” Thane demanded through clenched teeth.

Zerai stared at him. “You didn’t ask.”

Thane stopped chewing. His eyes narrowed, then shifted toward Zerai while his jaw worked once around the bite already in his mouth. He swallowed hard enough for the movement to show in his throat and drew a slow breath through his nose. Elora pressed her lips together and looked down at the road, one hand rising to cover the smile she was failing to hide. Beside her, Kal’s eyebrows climbed. He looked from Thane to Zerai and back again, already enjoying whatever came next. 

“Can you do it?” Kal asked.

Zerai made the mistake of laughing while she still had food in her mouth. The sound came out as a sharp bark, followed immediately by a cough that bent her nearly double. She slapped one hand against her chest and waved the other at him while Elora stepped closer, half concerned and half trying not to laugh herself.

“No,” Zerai managed at last, eyes watering. “No. Absolutely not.”

Kal waited.

She straightened, drew a breath, and jabbed a thumb at herself. “Do I look like Malakar to you?”

Thane grunted. “You’re shorter.”

Zerai pointed at him without looking away from Kal. “Helpful.”

“So that’s a ‘no’ then,” Kal said.

“That’s a ‘not unless you want to arrive in Dunmoor as six separate pieces and possibly a shoe.’”

Kal considered that for a moment. “Whose shoe?”

Zerai stared at him.

“That feels important.”

“It would be yours.”

Lira turned south before the conversation could become a homicide. “Malakar is ten miles behind us in the wrong direction. Unless anyone has developed teleportation since breakfast, we still need to warn Dunmoor.

“Tako fast,” Tako said.

Lira looked up at him, and some of the tension left her expression. “You are a sweetheart for offering.” She patted his arm. “But we have all seen you move. For a man your size, you are remarkably ordinary.”

Zerai frowned. “Hey.”

“Save perhaps Zerai.”

“Hey.”

Tako shook his head. “Tako bear.” A smile spread beneath his beard. “Tako fast.”

Zerai stopped. “Oh. OH!”

Everyone recognized the sound too late.

“I can make him faster!”

Lira held up a hand. “Before we decide anything—”

Tako folded inward. Bone shifted beneath skin, shoulders widening as dark fur rolled across him. A heartbeat later, the vaelin was gone, and half a ton of brown bear occupied the road. Three small arrow-shaped scars marked the fur over his rump, pale and wrinkled against the darker hide beneath.

Zerai grinned. “Decision made.” She slapped both palms together, muttered something quick and sharp, then smacked the bear hard across the rump. A pale light flashed beneath her hand and raced through his fur. Tako lurched forward just as Zerai caught a fistful of it, planted one boot against his flank, and vaulted onto his back.

“Zerai!” Lira shouted.

“Somebody has to sound the alarm!”

A faint shimmer ran through the fur beneath Zerai’s palm and vanished into Tako’s legs. His back paws dug into the road, claws cutting dark grooves through the packed earth, and his next stride stretched farther than the last. Then farther again. His shoulders rolled, his hindquarters drove forward, and the rhythm of his run changed from heavy to effortless. Dust burst behind him in quick brown clouds as the fence posts dissolved into a blur.

Tako surged down the road before anyone could stop them. Zerai dropped low over his shoulders and locked her knees against his sides while his stride opened beneath her, each impact rolling up through his back hard enough to rattle her teeth. The last of the morning fog tore around them in pale streamers. Wind pulled at her coat, stole the warmth from her face, and turned whatever she might have said next into a shout.

She glanced back once toward the egunbide house, then lower, where the three little arrow-shaped scars on Tako’s rump pulled tight and relaxed with every stride. “Oh, there is absolutely a story there!” she yelled. “You’re telling me when this is over!”

Tako answered with a deep, rough chuff that became something close to a roar as he lengthened his stride. Zerai laughed, tightened her grip in his fur, and disappeared with him around the next bend.

The others stood in the road for a moment, watching the dust drift back into place. Thane took another bite of cheese. “Skarn.”

Zerai expected speed. She did not expect the great brown mass beneath her to gather itself into such a smooth, relentless rhythm. Tako’s paws hammered the packed earth, but the motion through his back stayed almost fluid once he found his stride. The spell kept pushing through him in little flashes she could feel through her knees and palms, each bound carrying them farther than the last until the roadside began slipping past. For the first few minutes, she loved it.

She whooped when they overtook a farmer leading two goats toward Kaethar, shouted an apology when one of the animals bolted into a ditch, and laughed when Tako cleared a wash in a single bound that would have required three careful steps on foot. The wind caught her hair and pulled tears from the corners of her eyes. She leaned lower over his shoulders, grinning into the cold.

Then they passed a man in a brown coat. Zerai twisted so sharply she nearly lost her seat. “Slow down!”

Tako’s ears flicked back, but he kept running until her grip tightened and she slapped his shoulder twice. He dropped from the full charge into a heavy lope while Zerai stared behind them. Wrong man. Too old. Grey beard. Limp in the left leg.

“Go.”

A rough huff rolled out of him, and the road began disappearing again. After that, every traveler mattered. A cart coming north earned a long stare. Two shepherds standing beside a stone wall made her sit taller. She searched every coat, every hood, every solitary figure walking south, trying to force the innkeeper’s description onto somebody before they passed. Human. Brown coat. Travel boots. Beard. Nobody fit.

The road grew quieter as the morning opened around them. Fields replaced scattered farmhouses, and the fog thinned into torn patches over the ditches. Zerai stopped cheering. If the man had left the egunbide house hours before them, there was no reason he should still be on this stretch of road. She lowered herself over Tako again and glanced toward the three pale, arrow-shaped scars on his rump, flexing with each stride. “You still owe me that story,” she called. “And I’m not accepting mysterious bear noises as an answer.”

One ear turned toward her. Tako gave a deep chuff and drove harder into the road.

Zerai tightened her grip. “Fine. Later.” Dunmoor first.

***

The road felt different without Tako and Zerai on it. Quieter, for one thing. Faster in theory, slower in practice. Lira set the pace and refused to ease it. Thane stayed near her shoulder with the remains of his breakfast wrapped in one broad hand, tearing off bites without breaking stride. Elora managed her bread and cheese more carefully, though conversation kept interrupting both. Kal finished first and immediately became more useful with his mouth empty.

“How many roads into Dunmoor?”

Thane glanced over. “What?”

“Roads. Actual roads. Not deer paths, goat paths, places your friend the bear would call roads.”

“Two worth naming,” Lira said. “North and south.”

“Wagons?”

“Same.”

“Where do they stop?”

Thane’s eyes narrowed. “Why?”

Kal looked at him. “Because someone moved preserved creatures through Kaethar using warehouses, handlers, carts, false names, and people who only knew one piece of the job.”

He stepped around a rut without slowing, then pointed south. “If Dunmoor is part of that same chain, I want to know what it looks like to someone who doesn’t live there.”

Thane considered the logic.

Kal continued. “Where do deliveries sit if nobody is ready for them? Where do merchants leave wagons overnight? Which barns belong to people who ask questions, and which belong to people who mind their own business? Empty sheds? Cellars? Back lanes?”

“There’s storage behind Hefkin’s place,” Elora said. “Mostly barrels and dry goods.”

“Public?”

“Not exactly.”

“Locked?”

She hesitated. “Usually.”

Kal nodded with an asymmetrical grin. “Usually is interesting.”

Thane gave him a sideways look. “You ask questions like a thief.”

“I prefer ‘treasure hunter.’”

“Yeah, that would explain it.”

Lira ignored them. “There are old barns west of the village. Two are still used. One mostly collapsed. A cart can reach all three without using the main square.”

Kal looked toward her. “Better.”

“Worse,” Elora corrected. “If we’re right.”

Her attention stayed fixed south. “Tomas and Niko first. Whatever else we find can wait until we know they’re safe.”

The road climbed gently through the thinning fog. Dunmoor still lay somewhere beyond the next rise, invisible from here, while every minute gave the stranger ahead of them more time to become part of the village before anyone knew to look for him.

Hefkin stood outside the Goblin’s Teacup with one foot braced against an overturned barrel while the farmer beside him jabbed an accusing finger toward three chickens scratching happily through a row of onions.

“They’re in my onions again!”

Hefkin watched one of the birds wrench a green shoot from the ground and trot away with it.

“They like onions.”

“These are not their onions.”

The chicken swallowed the evidence.

Hefkin shrugged. “You explain property law to a chicken.”

Across the square, Boran leaned over a wagon wheel while its owner knelt opposite him, both men staring at the axle.

“It only does it when I turn left.”

Boran rocked the wheel once. A sharp wooden knock answered from underneath.

“There,” the owner said, pointing. “That.”

Boran rocked it again. Nothing. The owner frowned at the wagon.

“Maybe you should stick to right turns?” Hefkin joked.

A few doors down, a woman swept dust into a neat line along her step while two children chased a wooden hoop between the buildings, one shouting directions that the other ignored. Behind the houses, a goat bleated three times in quick succession, then a bucket clanged over, and somebody yelled its name. Then someone screamed. The farmer with the onions turned first. A brown bear came over the northern rise at a dead run with a gnome flattened across its back.

“MOVE!” Zerai shouted.

The farmer moved, as did the chickens. Tako thundered into the village trailing dust, scattered feathers, and one extremely offended goat. Zerai pulled herself upright as he slowed, pointing toward the square with one hand while the other maintained a fistful of fur. “Boran! Need Boran! Also preferably everybody who knows how to use a weapon without stabbing themselves!”

Boran straightened beside the wagon and watched Tako skid to a stop and gouge furrows through the road. Zerai slid halfway around his side before catching herself, dropped the remaining distance, and stumbled three steps with the peculiar gait of someone whose legs spent the last half hour wrapped around a running bear. Behind her, the bear shuddered. The farmer with the onions took two steps backward. The woman with the broom froze with both hands wrapped around the handle. Across the square, Boran rose from beside the wagon wheel as Tako’s shoulders collapsed inward and the enormous shape began folding in on itself.

Fur sloughed from his body in rippling patches, piling upon the cobblestones beneath him. His forelegs lengthened, paws spreading into hands against the road while his spine rolled vertebra by vertebra. The bear’s broad skull narrowed, muzzle drawing back as dark hair replaced the fur around his face. Someone nearby gasped as one of the children screamed, though whether from fear or delight was impossible to tell.

A moment later Tako stood where the bear had been, bent forward with both hands braced on his knees. Nobody moved. The farmer stared at him, then at the gouges the bear’s claws left in the road. Hefkin slowly lowered the barrel he had been holding. “Well.”

Tako straightened and looked around at the circle of faces. Boran recovered first. He crossed the square toward them, though his eyes stayed on Tako for another few steps before shifting to Zerai. “Where are the others?”

“Coming. Walking. Very fast walking, but still the boring kind.” Zerai dragged in a breath. “We need Tomas and Niko. Now. Somewhere safe. And people watching the roads. North especially. South, too. Probably all of them, actually. Someone may already be here.”

Boran stared at her. Zerai pointed back toward the road. “There’s a man in a brown coat. Human. Beard. Ordinary-looking, which is apparently suspicious now. He came through the egunbide house asking about us, and he left before we got there, and Malakar traced the working back toward Dunmoor, and the boys were specifically named, and there’s a whole network in Kaethar moving preserved magical creatures through warehouses, and Kal stole something, but that part’s less important than it sounds, and do you have some water? I really need some water.”

Boran stared at her. Zerai stared back. “Who is Malakar?”

“Archmage. Very old. Very creepy. Helpful, though.”

“And Kal?” 

“Half-elf. Thief. Also helpful. I know, it’s confusing.”

Boran opened his mouth.

“I know how this sounds!” she snapped.

“Do you?”

“No. Start with the boys.”

“Tomas and Niko weren’t random.”

The wagon owner stopped talking. Hefkin abandoned the barrel. Even the man with the chicken problem turned away from his onions. Zerai continued more carefully. “The gnolls were told to take those boys. Malakar pulled enough from the focus to prove whoever gave the order was looking toward Dunmoor. Then somebody in Kaethar figured out we were coming home. A man passed through the egunbide house before us asking about an elf, a dwarf, a gnome, a priestess, a Tako, and maybe Kal.”

Boran’s eyes shifted toward the northern road. “He came south,” Zerai said. “Ahead of us.”

“How far?”

“Far enough.”

Boran turned toward the Goblin’s Teacup so quickly his coat swung wide behind him. “Where are my boys?”

“Last I saw,” Hefkin said, “they were with Mina near the south garden.”

“Get them. Bring them inside. Now.”

Hefkin stepped to it. Boran pointed toward two nearby villagers. North road and south road. Watch both. If you see anyone you don’t know, do not stop them. Come get me.”

The farmer with the onions still held his hoe. “Take your bow,” Boran snapped. The hoe hit the ground.

Another villager was sent south while someone else hurried toward the eastern fields to call people back from work. Instructions scattered through Dunmoor in fragments, changing slightly every time they passed from one mouth to another. Doors that normally stood open swung shut. The woman with the broom disappeared inside and returned a moment later carrying a hunting bow nearly as tall as she was. A cooper stepped out of his workshop with a splitting axe resting across one shoulder, glanced toward the road, and shifted his grip lower on the haft.

Nobody shouted that an attack was coming. Nobody knew if there was one to shout about. That uncertainty settled over the square faster than panic could have. Zerai remained near the center of it, turning slowly as familiar morning routines disappeared around her. Minutes earlier, Hefkin had been mediating a property dispute between a farmer and three chickens. Now strangers were being counted, roads watched, children gathered close, and every person entering Dunmoor earned a second look.

Tako came to stand beside her, still breathing hard from the run. He followed her gaze toward the northern road, where the others should eventually appear over the rise. Zerai folded her arms tightly across her chest. “Come on,” she muttered. “Get here.”

Near the edge of the square, Joss Marrin stopped halfway through stringing his hunting bow. He was a broad human somewhere past fifty, thick through the chest and forearms from years of cooperage, with a flattened nose, iron-gray hair cut close to the scalp, and enough pale sawdust caught in his beard to make him look powdered with flour. His leather apron still hung over his clothes, and one sleeve bore a dark crescent where he had apparently leaned into a wet barrel before anyone started shouting about strangers.

“Brown coat,” he said. “Fellow came in from the north last night?”

Hefkin looked over from Boran. Zerai crossed toward Joss. “What fellow?”

Joss fitted the bowstring into its notch and tested the tension with his thumb. “Human. Taller than me. Maybe.” He lifted one hand vaguely above his head, frowned at the measurement, then lowered it. “Scruffy around the face, and his coat looked brown under the lamps.”

“What time?” Boran asked.

“After supper.”

“Eight or so,” Hefkin said.

Zerai turned toward him. “You remember him?”

“I served him. One dark ale, bread and onions… he sat against the west wall.”

“Was he talkative?” Zerai asked. “What did he say?”

“No, not really. Just made his order and kept to himself.”

Joss snorted. “Asked me three questions in a minute.”

Hefkin folded his arms. “That may say more about you.”

Joss ignored him. “Wanted to know who owned the barns west of the village. Asked whether anyone stored grain out there. Then asked if the old mill path washed out when it rained.”

Zerai glanced toward the western edge of Dunmoor. “You told him?”

“Nothing worth hiding. Barley goes in two barns. Third one leaks. Mill path turns to soup after enough rain. Half the village knows that.”

“Now the other half does, too,” Hefkin added. Joss ran his thumb along the bowstring, gave Hefkin a long look, then turned back to Zerai and tightened his grip on the stave. 

“I saw him later,” a voice came from beside the well. Pella Bramblepot stood there with a folded shawl tucked under one arm and a wicker laundry basket balanced against her hip. She was a halfling woman in her early forties, barely tall enough for the basket to clear the ground, with tightly curled black hair pinned beneath a yellow kerchief and forearms reddened from years spent elbow-deep in hot wash water. She and her older sister ran Dunmoor’s washhouse, which meant Pella handled half the village’s dirty laundry and consequently knew more about its residents than most priests knew about their congregations. Her expression rarely changed much, but one eyebrow rose whenever someone disappointed her, which seemed to happen often.

Boran turned to her. “Where?”

“Near the well. He asked whether the storage sheds belonged to Hefkin.”

“They don’t,” the half-orc said.

“I told him that.”

“What else?”

Pella set the basket on the ground. “He asked who did own them, and I told him to ask someone who cared.”

Zerai pointed a finger at her with a snap. “I like you.”

Pella nodded once. “Most people do.”

Hefkin rubbed one thumb along his palm. “He paid exact change: seven coppers. Counted them onto the table one at a time. Didn’t leave none extra, didn’t ask the price twice, and didn’t complain.”

Joss shrugged. “That supposed to mean something?”

“No,” the barkeep replied, “it’s why I remember him.”

Boran dragged one hand across his mouth, then pointed toward Joss. “Did you see where he went after the barns?”

“No.”

He looked to Pella. She shook her head. “Saw him near the sheds, then I went home.”

Hefkin looked toward the road. Boran followed his gaze. “Did anyone actually see him leave?”

The nearest villagers began looking at one another. Nobody answered. Tako lowered his head and drew a long breath through his nose, then another, turning first toward the road and then toward the sheds behind the Teacup.

Zeari caught his forearm. “No. You don’t know his scent.”

Tako frowned at her.

“I know. Bear. Nose. Very impressive.” She waved toward the square. “But you’ve got chickens, horses, onions, woodsmoke, wet dirt, breakfast, half the village sweating through a panic, and whatever that goat did to the bucket.”

From somewhere behind the houses, a man called, “It was paint!”

Then she looked back at Tako. “Until we know what we’re looking for, you’re smelling Dunmoor.”

***

Three houses below the northern rise, Joss occupied a stool in the road with his bow across his knees, while the farmer opposite him kept trying different ways to hold a spear and finding none of them convincing. A cart blocked one of the smaller lanes farther in. Pella stood beside it, arguing with a man carrying a laundry basket, and two nearby doors stayed shut despite the brightening morning. The village still smelled of cookfires, damp earth, coffee, and livestock, but nobody seemed willing to turn their back on the road for long.

Thane’s pace shortened as they passed Joss. His hand settled near the hammer at his belt, thumb rubbing over the worn leather wrap while his eyes moved from one familiar face to the next. Elora stayed close enough to catch the change in him without asking about it. A woman near her gate recognized them, loosened the arm around her daughter’s shoulders, and gave Elora a quick nod before returning her attention north.

“They listened,” Elora said.

“Some of ‘em,” Thane answered. “Other half probably thinks Zerai saw a rat and declared war.”

A roar rolled across the western fields before Elora could answer. It came low and deep, followed by shouts from somewhere beyond the sheds, then the crash of wood against wood. Joss came off the stool. “That’s your bear.”

“No drek,” Thane said, already moving.

The square opened ahead in confusion. Boran shouted something near the Teacup while a villager dragged two children away from the lane. Zeari tore around the side of the building with a folded sheet of notes in one hand and the remains of breakfast in the other, spotted Lira, and changed direction without slowing.

“Tako found Brown Coat by the west barns. Boys are safe, Amara’s downstairs with them, Boran knows, stranger got here last night around eight, nobody saw him leave, and right now he’s discovering that hiding from a bear is harder than it sounds.”

Lira matched her pace. “Which barn?”

“One of Eamon’s. The leaky one.”

“Of course it is,” Thane muttered.

Zerai snapped her head toward him. “Izar preserve me, I almost said the exact thing.”

They spilled behind the shops where the streets of Dunmoor gave way to an implied dirt path. Cart tracks split between sheds, kitchen gardens, stacked firewood, and narrow service lanes worn into the earth by generations of people taking the shortest route between chores. Ahead, a flash of brown vanished behind a grain shed.

Kal’s attention jumped from the runner to the ground. The wheel ruts underfoot curved west, then forked around a cooper’s yard before disappearing between two barns. “Does that lane reconnect with the mill path?”

Thane kept running. “Yeah.”

“Then stop chasing him.”

“Fantastic plan,” Thane smarmed.

“He sees all of you behind him.” Kal pointed left without breaking stride. “Give him somewhere empty to run.”

Thane swore, but he cut with Kal through the cooper’s yard. Lira stayed on the direct route with Elora and Zerai, pushing the stranger west while a hedge shook violently ahead of them. Tako burst through it in a spray of leaves and broken twigs, enormous paws tearing into the dirt as the man veered away from him.

The stranger found the opening Kal expected. He also found Thane in it. For a heartbeat, nobody moved. Brown coat. Human. Scruffy beard. The same ordinary face Dunmoor remembered from the previous night. His eyes flicked from Thane to Kal, then their hands, then toward the bear closing in from behind. 

“Morning,” Kal chirped with a smile.

The man threw himself over the low wall beside the mill path. The dwarf followed badly and loudly, catching one boot on the stones before recovering with another curse. Kal cleared it without effort. By the time Lira’s group reached the wall, the chase had shifted toward an old drainage cut where rainwater carved a shallow channel beneath the road. Brown Coat dropped into it and disappeared.

Tako reached the edge first. A growl rolled from his chest as he shoved his muzzle toward the darkness beneath the stonework. Zerai arrived a few seconds later, bent briefly with her hands on her knees, then straightened and peered over his shoulder.

“That goes under the road?”

Thane came up beside them, breathing hard. “Used to carry runoff from the west fields. Thought the damn thing collapsed years ago.”

Kal studied the flattened weeds along the bank, the fresh scrape in the mud where the boot slid, and the darkness beyond the stone lip. “Somebody disagrees.”

Lira looked back toward Dunmoor, where armed villagers gathered at a cautious distance. “Elora. Boran needs to know where he went.”

Elora nodded and headed back with Zerai calling after her. “And tell him the boys stay exactly where they are!”

Thane stared into the drainage cut, then toward the Teacup beyond the roofs. “We going after him?”

“Not yet,” the ranger replied. “We know where he ran. We still don’t know why Tomas and Niko mattered enough to start all of this.”

Kal stepped away from the opening, brushing mud from his fingers onto his trousers. “Then we ask the only two people who took the trip with the gnolls. If we’re going to let this guy go, that’s the only sensible way to get ahead of things.”

The growl in Tako’s throat faded to a low rumble as Lira looked back toward the village.

---

Which Thread Should They Investigate?

Brown Coat escaped into an old drainage cut beneath Dunmoor. Tomas and Niko may know why they were targeted, and whatever he was doing at Eamon’s leaky barn remains unexplained. Where should the party start?

Polls close at 12:00 P.M. CST on October 5th, 2026

• Question the Boys
  • Tomas and Niko were the original targets. Have them tell the whole story from the beginning.
• Search the Leaky Barn
  • Brown Coat was caught snooping around Eamon’s oldest barn. Find out what interested him before following his escape route.
• Go Underground
  • Brown Coat just disappeared beneath Dunmoor. Follow him before the trail goes cold.

Which path would you take?

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