Vashni ignored the searing pain in his shoulder, the jagged shell fragment threatening to tear his arm from its socket. The air beneath the broken floorboards reeked of rot and the metallic tang of fresh blood, Bhaimin’s enforcers now shouting orders directly above them. Oriya struggled for a hold, knuckles white against the damp, algae-slimed joist. Below, the mud churned, a thick, greasy blackness that seemed to sigh with hungry anticipation. “The beam,” Vashni rasped, his voice raw. “Below. The wide one.” He pointed with his chin, a slight, almost imperceptible nod towards a wider support beam running horizontally a good ten paces below their dangling feet. It was thick with centuries of mud-silt and fungal growth, but looked stable. To reach it, they would have to drop, then swing. A fool’s gamble, but the alternative was a guaranteed fall into the mire, or worse, the enforcers’ capture. Oriya glanced down, then back up at the growing gap in the floor where a dozen faces now peered, their crossbows already being drawn. “Are you mad?” she hissed, but her grip on the joist tightened, a desperate readiness in her posture. “No time,” Vashni muttered. He leaned his hips inward, testing the stability of the beam. The heavy shell fragment in his left hand seemed to anchor him, oddly. He needed momentum. He looked at Oriya. “On three. Push off, swing towards it. Drop when I shout.” One of the enforcers above let out a triumphant yell, a crossbow bolt whistling past Vashni’s ear, embedding itself with a wet thud into the joist a handspan from Oriya’s head. The sudden impact sent a shower of splinters raining down. “Now!” Vashni roared, not waiting for the count. He kicked out from the broken framework, swinging his body violently. Oriya, startled but quick, followed his lead. For a terrifying second, they were airborne, plummeting into the thick, humid darkness. The drag of the shell fragment pulled Vashni's arm, threatening to peel his fingers free, but he held fast, breath hissing through his teeth. The timbers flashed past. Vashni’s bare soles skidded across the lower beam's slime before his chest slammed flat against ancient wood. His right arm, the one anchoring him, screamed in protest, but he twisted, pulling Oriya with him. She landed with an ungraceful thump beside him, coughing as a cloud of ancient dust and spores erupted around them. More bolts rained down, striking the beam where they had just been, pinging off the wood with dull thuds. “Down!” Vashni commanded, not waiting. He slid off the beam, dropping into the thicker, suffocating fog that clung to the lowest reaches of Osham’s underbelly. Oriya scrambled after him, her body a pale blur in the gloom. The air was choked with stagnant moisture, rot, and the metallic tang of stirred silt. The stench of stagnant water mixed with the faint, sweet decay of something truly ancient. Arrow shafts, fired blind into the murk above, occasionally hissed past, striking the unseen supports or thudding into the soft ground-mud below. Vashni moved with a practiced ease, his body remembering the rhythm of the dredger’s life, the intimate knowledge of Osham’s crumbling foundations. He didn’t need sight down here; his bare feet dug into slimy cross-struts, his hands gripping mouldering supports, guiding Oriya through the labyrinthine darkness. “Where are we going?” Oriya whispered, her voice tight, echoing unnervingly in the oppressive silence between the creaks of settling wood. “The market under-floors,” Vashni replied, his voice barely audible above the sloshing mud. “There’s a cache. Old tribute. Things the merchants didn’t want to be seen with, but didn’t want to part with either.” He could feel the vibrations of the town’s slow collapse through the very structures he navigated, a deep, resonant hum that spoke of failing foundations. He pointed to a faint, phosphorescent glow shimmering below, a tell-tale sign of a deeper, more active fungal colony. “Past the Gloom-Cap fungi. Stay close. And don’t touch the mud if you can help it. The feeders are active tonight.” He heard the faint, unsettling *snap-hiss* of something large moving below them, a sound like a wet branch breaking, followed by a soft, gurgling sigh as the mud shifted. Oriya gasped, pressing closer to him, her hand finding his arm. Vashni flinched from the touch, but did not shake her loose. They moved deeper, the air growing heavier, the stilt-platforms groaning around them like dying beasts. The phosphorescent fungi cast an eerie, sickly green light, revealing grotesque root systems snaking through the wood, and the faint, unsettling outlines of strange, multi-limbed creatures scuttling just beneath the mud’s surface. Vashni knew these were the mud-leeches, the ground-gnawers, and worse, the blind, scaled things that could strip flesh from bone in moments. Finally, Vashni paused. Before them, tucked away in a hollow created by a cluster of collapsing stilts, was a mound of discarded refuse. Old fishing nets, broken pottery, and a sickeningly familiar shimmer of gold. The air around the mound felt thick, heavy with the curse’s presence. It was a collection of ill-gotten gains, tribute paid by merchants to the swamp-gods they secretly scorned, hoping to ward off the very doom they embraced. “Here,” Vashni murmured, setting the shell fragment into a gap in the debris. It landed with a dull thud, unsettling a small cascade of loose coins. He began to dig through the refuse, his hands calloused and familiar with grime. Oriya, wary, kept watch, her eyes darting nervously towards the mud. After a few moments of scraping away mouldering fabric and splintered wood, Vashni’s fingers brushed against something smooth, cool, and undeniably artificial. He pulled it free. It was a shell fragment, long and slightly curved, its surface a swirling pattern of iridescent blues and greens, clearly once a part of the terrapin’s great hull. He found another, equally ornate, tucked beside it. Two pieces of the barge, now recovered. “Got them,” Vashni said, holding up the two long, decorated panels. The dense mineral mass pulled hard against his arms, though he kept his grip. He moved to secure them, tucking them into a sturdy, waterproof canvas he carried. Oriya, still scanning the shadows, accidentally leaned against the pile of discarded tribute. Her hand, bracing for balance, brushed against a stray, dull gold coin that had rolled from Vashni’s digging. A gasp escaped her lips, a small, choked sound. Vashni spun around. A patch of grey, stony scales, like miniature, perfectly formed coral, had already bloomed across the back of her hand, spreading rapidly from the coin’s contact point. Her fingers, even as he watched, began to stiffen, her nails darkening to the colour of old slate.

The Mud's Embrace