The Lockdown
Sarnath’s gates are sealed, but the killings continue. Masked Storm worshippers terrorise the streets, Dothloden families are being targeted, and the Black Keep’s answer has trapped the city’s people alongside those hunting them.
Behind Closed Gates
Lord Quince has placed Sarnath under martial law following a series of brutal murders. Nobody may enter or leave without official orders, leaving visiting traders, travelling performers and families from the valley stranded behind the walls. Soldiers guard the exits while the city waits for the killers to be found.
Work still draws people through the streets by day, but after dark the Back Lanes empty and doors are barred. In Quag End, where homes cling to the gutters beneath the city wall, residents face both cult violence and army raids. The lockdown has brought more soldiers into their lives without giving them much reason to feel safe, and anger at the Black Keep grows with each new death.
The Pilgrims of Kiam
The Pilgrims see Sarnath as a cage and worship the Storm as the power that will break it open. They move through the city in blood-splashed blue robes, their faces hidden behind carved masks of sea creatures and twisting tentacles. Their attacks leave burned businesses and mutilated bodies displayed above the streets, turning familiar routes into places people fear to cross.
Beneath the robes are people who can pass unnoticed among their neighbours. Poverty, sickness and resentment have drawn some towards the cult, while others have returned from the Storm’s edge with their minds changed. They scar their bodies and tattoo themselves with glyphs they cannot read, convinced that suffering brings them closer to their god. The sight of a blue robe can send a crowd into panic, and suspicion reaches well beyond those who wear one.
Worshipping the StormThe Murders
The death of Ruvas Khoronvul has brought the killings into public view. His body was hung from the Riven Gate where an army banner had flown, provoking a furious crowd beneath the soldiers’ own walls. His sister Maelin is missing, and the family forge that supplied Sarnath’s army now stands damaged and under guard.
Other Dothloden have been killed before him. Their craft has long earned them a place in Sarnath, but the recent attacks have made their ancestry a reason to fear for their lives. Meanwhile, the discovery of wealthy merchant Estan Voran dead in a barrel of Rivengate Stout has drawn investigators into the city’s busiest brewery. With prominent citizens dying and businesses caught up in the inquiries, the killings are stirring old rivalries as well as fear.
Inspector Silas Graves
Silas Graves has been given the task of finding the killers and ending the lockdown. His promotion to the Black Keep has left him buried in reports of violent deaths, with too few acolytes to follow every lead and a demanding lord waiting for results. He needs useful evidence, and has little patience for anyone who wastes his time.
Silas despises Storm worship, but he is uneasy with the court’s readiness to dismiss the Dothloden murders as simple blasphemy. He suspects their victims were chosen for a reason, and wants an investigation thorough enough to establish it. His informants offer more leads than he can pursue himself, leaving room for capable outsiders willing to question witnesses, examine the crime scenes and work beyond the reach of his overstretched acolytes.