The narrow alley behind the Anchor & Chain restaurant feels unnaturally quiet despite the lunch rush happening just beyond the brick walls. August and Arachne round the corner to find a tall, lanky man in a stained marine rescue polo shirt hunched over the restaurant’s dumpster. His wire-rimmed glasses catch the dim light filtering through the storm clouds as he reaches into the refuse with methodical precision.

Something is wrong with his movements. His hand grasps at a falling piece of cardboard a full second before it actually tips over the edge. When he steps sideways to avoid a puddle, the water hasn’t rippled yet. In the murky reflection of standing water near the dumpster, his image shows him facing the opposite direction entirely.

“The specimens… they’re not catalogued properly,” Marcus mutters to himself, his voice carrying the careful cadence of someone accustomed to explaining complex concepts to tourists. But the words come out jumbled, as if spoken through a broken radio. “Tuesday’s samples from… no, that was yesterday’s… or tomorrow’s…“

He straightens suddenly, his head turning toward the players with an unnatural, stuttering motion – like watching someone move through a series of still photographs. Behind his glasses, his eyes hold a distant, hollow quality, as if he’s looking at something just beyond what anyone else can see.

The narrow alley feels oppressive under the gathering storm clouds, the humid air thick enough to taste. A man in a faded New Haven Tourism polo shirt crouches near the far wall, frantically flicking a silver lighter that produces only weak sparks. Torn pages from guidebooks and handwritten notes scatter around his feet like confetti, some already singed at the edges. His wire-rimmed glasses reflect the dim light as he mutters under his breath, “No, no, that’s wrong… the Maritime Museum isn’t on Elm Street, it’s… it’s…”

He looks up suddenly as footsteps echo off the brick walls, his eyes wide with a mixture of relief and terror. “Thank God, someone’s here,” he gasps, clutching what appears to be an old nautical chart against his chest. “I’m Marcus – I do the walking tours? You might have seen me around. Something’s very wrong with this map, with my head… I keep telling people the wrong directions and I can’t stop myself.”

The lighter finally catches, casting dancing shadows on the weathered brick as he holds the flame toward the yellowed parchment. But the chart seems to resist the fire, the edges barely browning despite the heat. Marcus’s hands shake as he looks between the three strangers and the stubborn document. “Please, you have to help me burn this thing before I forget which way is home.“

Arachne’s steps slow as she rounds the corner, gaze narrowing on the sight of Marcus ahead, studying him like one would a cornered animal – or a trap. The alley’s damp heat clings to her skin, but her voice remains cautious, cool, studying the stubbornly unburned chart. “If your mind’s turned inside out, Marcus, I’d think twice about setting fire to what may be the only thread you’ve got left to follow home.” She doesn’t move closer, glancing aside to August, and ticking her chin toward the man. “This is your area of expertise,” she murmurs, watchful, and wary.

“You made it.” August tells Arachne when she joins him at the foot of the alley. He had been there a while, apparently, at the curb and treshold of the alleyway, his back to it, dufflebag of goodies at his side. His head turns aside, to the erratically acting man he had been keeping an eye on. It’s only when they turn in that off-putting gait that August takes off his cap, chucks it in his dufflebag that he also straps over his shoulder afterwards. “Sir,” August greets, simply, and the position he takes is somewhat in front of Arachne, and Noel that joined a beat after – almost protectively. His face is a mask of a smile beneath the contrast of his eyes, the cruelty unbent and perpetual, is a far cry of the efforted, yet smoothly casual amiable smile he shows. “I think I saw you around a few times at the Museum, yeah.” And at Arachne’s goading, August’s head tilts down, smile fading to stare at the fireproof chart that they hold. “Maybe I can figure out a way if it bothers you that much. May I?” The intent is clear. August can sense, hear echoes and detect scents from past events, the history of an object – as sensitive as he is, and he aims to do just that by holding the chart, see its history, figure out what it is.

Marcus’s head completes its stuttering turn, his gaze settling on August and Arachne with an intensity that doesn’t quite match his confused expression. For a moment, he seems to see them clearly – then his eyes unfocus again, as if they’re standing in a different time entirely.

“Visitors… the tour doesn’t start until…” He pauses, blinking rapidly. His reflection in the puddle shows him holding something in his hands, but his actual hands are empty. “The compass… it was never supposed to be here. The turtle, she was so old, carrying it for… decades? Centuries?“

A seagull lands on the fire escape above, but Marcus flinches and ducks as if avoiding it three seconds before the bird actually arrives. The motion sends his glasses askew, revealing dark circles under his eyes and a strange, translucent quality to his skin in the dim alley light.

“I can’t… the memories keep slipping. Like trying to hold water.” His voice wavers between his natural gentle tone and something else – something that speaks with the weight of eons. “But you’re here now. Fresh moments. Untouched seconds.“

The temperature in the alley drops noticeably, and the shadows from the fire escape begin to move independently of the metal structure casting them.

Marcus’s grip tightens on the chart as August approaches, his knuckles white against the yellowed parchment. For a moment his eyes clear completely, focusing on August with desperate recognition. “Yes, the Maritime Museum tours… you asked about the lighthouse keeper’s logs last month.” But then his expression wavers, confusion creeping back in. “Or was it… no, that’s not right either.“

The chart seems to pulse slightly in his hands, and when Marcus looks down at it, his pupils dilate strangely. “I found it three days ago, right here behind that loose brick.” He gestures vaguely at the wall, his pointing finger wavering between several different spots. “It showed streets that weren’t quite… but now I can’t remember which streets are real anymore.“

As August extends his hand toward the document, Marcus hesitates, torn between relief and an inexplicable reluctance to let it go. “It won’t burn,” he whispers, “and every time I look at it, I give someone else the wrong directions. Mrs. Chen from the flower shop… I sent her to Harbor Street instead of Harbor Avenue yesterday. She was lost for two hours.”

The humid air grows heavier, and somewhere in the distance, a foghorn sounds despite the clear view of the harbor from the alley’s mouth. Marcus’s hand trembles as he slowly extends the chart toward August, his eyes flickering with that strange blue-green light. “Please… before I forget who I am entirely.“

“I know very little of the occult when it comes to arcanism, I am afraid, mon ami,” Noel tells Marcus with that sultry and seductive French accent, the voice of the incubine whore soft and sweet- naturally so, as though it were in the demonborn’s very nature to siphon temptation and desire. He hugs his house robe a bit tighter around himself as he watches the tourist guide work to burn the chart, and fail, up until August’s looming self blocks his view. Only then do his hazel eyes befall the Pierce, taking in his chiseled features for a time before he falls quiet silent. Slipping around to his side, he peers towards Marcus once more, head canting, lower lip softly bitten between teeth too perfect to be natural, and the incubus glances back up to August expectantly, then to Arachne, wondering: “What do you think? There are many ways to destroy beyond fire, non? Perhaps there is a true source to the curse we must find? Or use a specific weapon? Bone? Iron? Quartz?

Arachne steps forward without a word, the humid air curling her hair against her cheek as she catches August’s arm first, nails grazing before the sting of her pricked fingertip blooms. The quick drag of her blood traces a sigil into the bare skin at the back of his arm, sharp and deliberate, her eyes never leaving Marcus or the pulsing chart. She moves to Noel with the same fluid precision, marking him in turn, the scent of iron faint between them. “If it wants to end your path or pull you under, it’ll have to get through us first,” she calls toward the man, straightening to watch the map before turning her eyes to Noel. “We’ll let August take charge of this, and support him. I’m an arcanist, but he’s the true expert among us. I’ve warded you to give an area of protection, so take care not to wander too far from me.”

“Easy.” August’s open hand is set on Marcus’ shoulder when the man flinches and tries to duck away, to keep him still and support him up, as opposed to taking the chart he had. “You’re rambling, it looks like you’re confused.” He further adds, “But you’re right. I did ask about the keeper’s logs last month. I was investigating a lost cargo of mine. It doesn’t matter – but see, you’re not wrong about everything?” The way he speaks is slow, careful, and in the manner of a doctor soothing a terminally ill patient. His other hand is already moving up, ignoring the duality that Marcus has – doing one thing in reality, and holding an entirely different perspective in the reflection of the glistening pools of water underfoot. Even as the shadows shiver and move in distraught motions, August’s shadow is no different. It’s erratic, a thousand bodies amalgamated into one all festering on the ground, so large that it devours the shadows of others into the mass of itself. “Why don’t you sit down here, come on.” His guidance is towards the side of the alley towards some left-over bottle crates behind the restaurant that he aims to sit Marcus down on, even as his other hand moves ahead to curl on the edge of the chart they hold and gently pry it out of his hands. His next words, they’re spoken over his shoulder at Noel. “Nothing is indestructable. We can handle it.” And he doesn’t even mind the warding sigil that Arachne draws on him, nor does he call any attention to the subtle way she does it while blood trickles down bare bicep to forearm.

a ship’s cabin lit by oil lamps, quill scratching across parchment as a robed figure binds something writhing and blue-green into the nautical lines. The taste of salt spray mixed with sulfur. Centuries of the chart passing through hands – merchants, collectors, eventually ending up wedged behind that brick three days ago by someone whose face remains frustratingly obscured.

But strongest of all is the presence now awakening fully within the document. Malphas recognizes the threat August represents, and the alley begins to… shift. The brick walls seem to stretch slightly, making the space feel longer than it should be. The mouth of the alley, clearly visible moments ago, now appears hazy and distant.

Marcus grips the edge of the crate, his knuckles white. “It’s fighting back,” he gasps, his voice strained. “I can feel it getting angry. The streets… they’re moving in my head.” His eyes flash with that eerie blue-green light, more pronounced now. “You need to… to find the binding words. They’re written somewhere on the chart, but not where you can see them. Hidden in the navigation lines themselves.“

The foghorn sounds again, much closer this time, though no fog is visible.

Marcus takes a step toward the players, but his foot lands where he was standing a moment ago, creating a disorienting double-image effect. The shadows beneath him seem to lag behind his movements, as if time itself is struggling to keep up.

“You work with the living,” he says, addressing August directly though his eyes remain unfocused. “But I’ve been… collecting the spaces between. The pause before a heartbeat. The blink before recognition.” His voice carries that same gentle researcher’s tone, but underneath it something else speaks – ancient and hungry.

A metal can falls from the dumpster’s edge, but the sound comes two seconds before it actually hits the ground. Marcus’s reflection in the puddle shows him reaching toward Arachne, while his physical form remains motionless.

“The compass wanted to go home,” he continues, his words now arriving in the correct order but with wrong emphasis. “But home is… was… will be a place between moments. I’m so tired of jumping between hosts. This one fights too hard, remembers too much.“

The storm clouds overhead darken further, and the first drops of rain begin to fall – but they seem to avoid Marcus entirely, as if he exists in a pocket of different weather.

“Help me,” Marcus whispers, and for a moment his voice is purely his own, desperate and afraid. “I can feel myself… disappearing.“

“I don’t work with the living at all, Marcus.” August uses the man’s name, because they’ve established that they’ve met. His smile, however, is thin, and detached for a moment after his statement. “I know, I know exactly what you’re talking about.” From one strand of insanity to another. His is well-kept, adjusted, but the lines beneath his eyes betrays something else entirely as they see past the veil as they often do. Like a transmitter, for the dead, for the arcane, for the echoing momeries that pass through him as to the history of the thing he holds. The thread of Malphas is not something foreign, August knows them as much as they know him, and with that familiarity, his easy smile fades away to leave his features bent only in their usual stillness, the aggression, the Pierce stare that’s nestled in those green eyes yet so haunted by all that he sees to sleeplessness. “You have nothing to worry about, now. We’ll fix this.” The chart is wrenched wholly free of Marcus’ fingers, just for August to look over his shoulder at Arachne and Noel, “Either of you have a dagger? I’m going to need a ritual circle, that wall behind you ought to do.”

The moment the chart leaves Marcus’s hands completely, the tour guide doubles over with a sharp gasp, as if something vital has been torn from him. But his eyes clear significantly, the blue-green light flickering and dimming. “Oh God,” he whispers, pressing his palms against his temples. “I can think again. It’s still there, but quieter now.“

The chart in August’s hands feels unnaturally warm, almost feverish, and the navigation lines seem to writhe slightly when viewed peripherally. The alley continues its subtle distortion – the walls now definitely feel closer together than when they entered, and the distant street sounds have taken on an odd, muffled quality.

Marcus looks up at the group with desperate clarity. “The binding words – I remember now. They’re not in English. Latin, maybe older. Something about ‘wayward winds’ and ‘false harbors.’ But every time I tried to read them properly, the letters would swim around like they were underwater.“

A sudden gust of wind whips through the alley despite the still air beyond its mouth, scattering the torn guidebook pages in a spiral pattern around their feet. The foghorn sounds a third time, and now there’s definitely a faint mist beginning to creep along the cobblestones, though the sky above remains clear.

“Hurry,” Marcus urges, his voice strained. “I can feel it trying to come back stronger.“

“You think you understand navigation, little death-speaker? I have led ships to their doom for centuries. Your ritual circle will become just another maze.“

The brick wall August indicated begins to shimmer slightly, the mortar lines seeming to shift and rearrange themselves. Even the worn patches of paint appear to be moving, forming new patterns that hurt to look at directly.

Marcus fights back control of his voice: “The binding words… they’re written in the old maritime script. Portuguese, I think. But every time I try to read them, they change position on the chart.” His hands shake violently. “It’s using my knowledge of the city against itself. Making me forget which way leads home.“

The foghorn sounds a third time, and now actual mist begins seeping from the storm drains.

Disgusted as Noel may be with the bloody rite performed upon his flawless skin, he does not shrug it away, though he does shiver. There’s an almost forlorn look to his pretty, red-flecked hazel eyes before this, too, is shaken away in place of something more diligent in the moment. Marcus is given a look as he trembles and pales, and the suffering that he endures seems to only fuel Noel’s fire, his nostrils flaring, a smirk touching his lips as he utters: “Poor poupee, lost and dying. Afraid, alone. Well, her we are, your knights in shining armor. Let us hope we can fix you before it is too late for you, oui?” A bit of taunting, teasing cruelty before his eyes flick back towards the chart, scanning it over with a perceptive gaze. “Portuguese? Latin? Mon Dieu, why can it not be French? Surely it is written in French and this task shall be plus easy!”

The rain begins to fall more steadily, but the droplets create an impossible pattern around Marcus – some fall normally, others seem to hang suspended in mid-air, while a few appear to fall upward from the puddles back into the sky. The effect creates a shimmering distortion around his figure.

Marcus suddenly convulses, his body jerking as if caught between two different positions. When the spasm passes, his posture has changed entirely – straighter, more predatory, though his face retains that lost, confused expression.

“No,” he says, but the voice that emerges carries an otherworldly resonance that makes the brick walls seem to vibrate. “This shell resists. His routines, his… schedules… they anchor him too firmly to your linear time.”

The thing wearing Marcus’s face turns its attention fully to August and Arachne. “But you… you live in moments of choice, of change. Less structured. More… malleable.“

Marcus’s reflection in the expanding puddles shows him reaching toward both players simultaneously, though his physical body remains still. The shadows on the walls begin to writhe independently, and the temperature drops another ten degrees.

“I am Vex’thara,” the voice continues, Marcus’s gentle researcher tone completely gone now. “I feast on the spaces between your thoughts, the pause between decision and action. This one’s mind is too… organized. Too many catalogued memories, too many scheduled routines. But yours…“

A piece of broken glass near the dumpster begins to levitate, rotating slowly as it reflects fractured images of all three figures from different angles and different moments.

“I need only borrow a few seconds from each of you. The moment before you recognized danger. The pause before you chose to help. Small gaps you’ll never miss.“

Marcus takes another stuttering step forward, and this time his physical form seems to split briefly into three overlapping positions before snapping back into focus.

Arachne doesn’t waste breath answering Marcus, and the demonic maladies afflicting him, only shifts closer to the wall August named, her fingertip finding another sharp bite to coax a bead of blood. The sigil she begins to draw blooms red against the brick in a deliberate, looping geometry, each line anchored with a whispered word meant to hold the alley still and keep the circle’s power intact when they lay it down. She glances back once at Noel and August, a flash of grey eyes beneath her dark lashes. “Dagger, yes. But if it’s clever enough to twist streets, it will try to twist the rite. Keep your focus.” Her hand resumes its measured work, throwing one of her blackened stiletto daggers toward August, or Noel, whoever catches, sealing each turn of the ward with the quiet precision. Her hand stills against the brick, her blood-slick fingertip leaving the last curve of the ward unfinished as she turns to meet that hollow, shifting gaze. “Borrow?” she echoes the word, scrunching her nose. “No, you may not borrow anything from those precious to me. Nor myself.”

“Nah.” August speaks that usual, dismissive thing with a smile as he moves away from Marcus, leaves the man sat where he is, doubled over, caught between two states, but lucid enough to give them help without the chart clouding his mind. It’s to the voices that pick up on the wind, the entity that shapes the walls of the alley that August speaks towards those fateful words that has come to ruinously hurt every demon, ghost, or entity he’s come across. “I’m gonna do my own thing.” So, he will not offer any slips of time, not a dime of it while he kneels, “Noel, keep our tour guide tended and calm, please? I speak Latin fluently, I’ll decipher this, I can see echoes of when it was written, and I can feel the claws that did it.” The chart is spread on the ground where he’s knelt down now, uncaring of the moisture that dampens it’s indestructable surface. “Arachne?” The call is given with absolute, simple trust. “We’re up against Malphas, and one of his legion. Let’s not give them an opportunity to change the battlefield and trap us – can you manage a ritual for timeshift? Just a few minutes to put this place to when we first came in, then lock it. They can’t do anything if we’re in stasis.”

“French? How quaint. I have misled sailors in every tongue, little tempter. Your pretty words mean nothing when the compass spins false.“

The chart in August’s hands grows almost hot to the touch, and the navigation lines begin moving more visibly now, rearranging themselves like living things. But within the shifting maze of maritime markings, glimpses of older text become visible – not Portuguese or Latin, but something that predates both, carved into the very essence of the parchment.

Marcus fights for control, managing to gasp out: “The ritual… it needs to be done while someone who knows the real geography holds the space steady. I can try to remember the true layout of Bayview while you work, but…” His voice wavers as the blue-green light flickers in his eyes again. “It’s getting harder to tell what’s real.“

The mist creeping from the storm drains thickens, and within it, shapes that might be buildings or might be ships seem to drift past. The foghorn sounds again, now seeming to come from directly overhead despite the clear sky.

Arachne’s ward holds, creating an anchor point of reality against the demon’s influence.

“ventos perdidos,” “portos falsos,” “navegacao dos mortos.“

Arachne’s ward on the wall flares briefly as Malphas tests its boundaries, the unfinished curve sparking with resistance. The demon’s voice echoes from multiple directions now, no longer just through Marcus: “Time means nothing to one who has sailed every sea, little witch. Your precious moments are just another current to redirect.“

Marcus grips the crate tighter, fighting to maintain his clarity. “The binding ritual,” he gasps to Noel, “it has to be performed at the exact spot where the chart was found. Behind that loose brick – third row up, about arm’s length from the corner.” His voice wavers as the demon tries to reclaim him. “But the brick keeps moving when I’m not looking directly at it.“

The alley walls continue their subtle distortion, and now the fire escape overhead creaks ominously despite the lack of wind above the mist. The foghorn sounds again, so close it seems to come from within the alley itself.

August can see the binding words more clearly now through his supernatural sight – they’re written in blood mixed with seawater, inscribed by someone desperate to contain what they’d unleashed. But as he focuses on translating them, the mist begins to swirl around the chart in deliberate patterns, trying to obscure his vision.

The possessed Marcus suddenly freezes mid-step, his body locked in an unnatural position as if caught between two frames of film. The floating glass shard stops rotating and drops to the cobblestones with a sharp crack that echoes strangely – the sound seeming to come from three different directions at once.

“No… no, the schedule says…” Marcus’s own voice breaks through, weak but determined. “Feeding time is at two-thirty. The dolphins need their medication at three. I can’t… I won’t miss the evening documentation.“

His body convulses again, more violently this time. When he straightens, there are now two distinct reflections in the puddle at his feet – one showing Marcus in his normal polo shirt, the other revealing a shadowy figure with too many angles and eyes like holes in reality.

“Your host clings to his routines like anchors,” Vex’thara snarls through Marcus’s mouth, his face contorting with frustration. “But anchors can be… severed.“

The shadows on the brick walls suddenly surge toward Marcus, wrapping around his legs like dark tendrils. He cries out – a sound that’s purely human fear – as his body begins to phase more dramatically, flickering between solid and translucent.

“The compass!” Marcus gasps in his own voice, his hand reaching toward his shirt pocket. “In the lab… it’s still there. The binding point. If you can… if someone can…“

His words are cut off as Vex’thara reasserts control, but not before his desperate eyes lock onto August and Arachne with unmistakable pleading.

The rain continues its impossible pattern around them, and somewhere in the distance, a clock tower begins to chime – but the bells ring thirteen times instead of twelve.

“The compass – brass compass – basement lab – specimen storage room B-7 – you have to destroy it before it finds another anchor point.“

Vex’thara’s otherworldly voice cuts through Marcus’s words like ice: “Silence! Your mundane routines cannot hold me much longer.” But there’s a note of strain in the demonic tone, a wavering that wasn’t there before.

The rain around Marcus begins to fall in increasingly chaotic patterns – some drops hanging motionless in mid-air, others streaking upward, creating a shimmering cage of temporal distortion. Through this barrier, Marcus’s reflection in the puddles shows him collapsing, while his physical form remains standing.

“The binding is weakening,” he gasps in his own voice. “But if it jumps to someone else… someone without my research training, my schedules… it will consume them completely in hours instead of days.“

A low rumble echoes from the storm clouds above, but the thunder seems to come from beneath the cobblestones instead of the sky.

“Mon Dieu now I must scale buildings and touch bricks. The only bricks these well-manicured hands ever touch are bricks of cocaine, or bricked men. This is.. Plus unacceptable,” Noel complains under his breath until that fire escape creaks overhead ominously- and his hazel eyes flick upwards, judging to see if it will fall on him before darting straight forwards, brushing past August in his work to offer at least this small amount of support as the instructions are laid out by Marcus, still unsure what it is, exactly he’s here to do, but when there’s drama to be had, well, you will find Noel there with a cup of tea and a bucket of popcorn. Or in this case, a bloody arm and a dagger being flung right past him to August, narrowly missing the sugary-sweet femboy; that would have been a disaster.

“Loose brick… Don’t look away, non? It will move,” he complains to himself, dainty fingertips feeling over the brick wall a few times, testing the sturdiness of each brick until he finds the column and row Marcus had indicated, starting to wiggle it about and pry it from the wall. “Monsieur August? Do you need this hollow brick for your ritual, mon coeur?

“The brick… it’s not where you think it is anymore. I’ve moved it. Moved them all. This alley has a dozen different histories now, and in each one, the binding point is somewhere else.“

The chart in August’s hands grows scorching hot, the ancient binding words beginning to fade as if being erased by invisible hands. Through the mist, multiple versions of the same loose brick appear at different points along the walls – some at eye level, others near the ground, each one pulsing with that same eerie light.

The foghorn blares again, and this time it’s answered by others – a whole fleet of phantom vessels closing in through the supernatural mist that now fills the alley completely.

The mist suddenly thickens into an almost solid wall around August and the chart, cutting him off from the others’ view. Through the supernatural fog, distorted voices of long-dead sailors cry out warnings in languages that predate recorded history. The chart beneath August’s hands grows scorching hot, the ancient binding words beginning to smoke and fade as Malphas attempts to erase them entirely.

“You cannot anchor what was never meant to be still,” the demon’s voice booms from everywhere at once. “I will scatter your little ritual to the four winds.“

Marcus suddenly convulses, his back arching as the blue-green light blazes in his eyes. “The brick!” he screams through gritted teeth, pointing with a shaking hand toward a section of wall that seems to shift and blur. “It’s there, but not there! The demon is hiding the anchor point!“

The alley floor begins to tilt slightly, as if the entire space is becoming the deck of a ship in rough seas. The loose brick Marcus indicated flickers in and out of visibility, sometimes appearing as a normal brick, sometimes as a piece of driftwood, sometimes as nothing at all.

Arachne’s ward holds steady, but the unfinished curve begins to bleed actual seawater instead of her blood, and the sound of crashing waves echoes from within the walls themselves. The foghorn blares again, now accompanied by the distant sound of splintering wood and drowning voices.

“The compass! It’s not just a binding – it’s a prison! Destroy it and Vex’thara gets pulled back into the void between seconds!“

The shadowy tendrils stretch closer to the players, but they flicker and weaken with each passing moment. Marcus’s scientific mind, his rigid schedules and catalogued memories, continue to resist even as the demon tries to abandon his body.

The clock tower chimes again – fourteen, fifteen, sixteen times. With each impossible toll, the temporal distortions grow more violent, and cracks begin to appear in the brick walls around them.

“Choose quickly,” Marcus gasps, his glasses hanging askew as his body convulses between dimensions. “Help me fight it here, or stop it at the source. But if those tendrils touch you…“

The nearest shadow-tendril hovers inches from August’s shoulder, writhing with hungry anticipation.

“This shell breaks. I will take the woman first – her moments of indulgence, of pleasure deferred. Then the drifter – his wandering thoughts, his spaces between destinations.“

The shadows on the walls begin to reach toward both August and Arachne like grasping fingers. The temperature plummets another fifteen degrees, and frost begins to form on the brick despite the summer heat just beyond the alley’s mouth.

Marcus’s body convulses one final time, then goes completely rigid. His reflection in the puddles shows the shadowy form of Vex’thara beginning to separate from his outline, preparing to leap to a new host.

The floating glass shards around the alley suddenly multiply, creating a maze of reflecting surfaces that show different moments – past, present, and potential futures where the demon succeeds in its transfer.

“Choose quickly,” Vex’thara hisses through Marcus’s frozen lips. “Which of you will sacrifice their precious seconds to save this mundane researcher? Or will you flee and let me feast on his remaining timeline before hunting you both down?“

The clock tower chimes again – fourteen bells this time – and the sound seems to come from inside the players’ own heads.

The scent of ozone hangs heavy in the air before lightning arcs from the sky to strike the shadowy tendrils weaving in close toward August, static lingering from the tips of the queen’s fingertips before it disperses. Arachne turns her head toward Noel, stretching out a hand to pluck the Frenchman toward her before she continues forward, eyeing the floating glass shards that suddenly multiply to create a maze of reflecting surfaces that offer glimpses into realities.

The illusionist sucks a breath, quietly taking advantage of so many reflective surfaces to turn reality back on the demon to force it to see nothing but illusions of its own demise and being sealed in places of its own worst hell – ironic, isn’t it? – to buy August time. “I’m not above escalating to drastic measures if this cannot be suppressed and contained, Pierce. So, please, kindly, figure something out?”

“I am suddenly very lucky that I am not alone in this.” August speaks as if the palms of his hands aren’t being seared from the way he presses the chart down on the floor. Smoke, the scent of char, it’s loud in the air, assaulting every nose, but he pulls it up, rolls it to move with it. “It’s not Latin or Portuguese. I can decipher it, it’s older than both and arcane, but you know how the story goes. All language comes from the same place.” He’s moving straight for that bit of wall further away from, under where Noel climbed up to, to lay a hand over the loose bricks himself. “I don’t need anything, just stay close over there to shove this into the hole and stuff it back up when we find the words.” In spite of all the pretense that it won’t take long at all, there is a bead of sweat that forms over his temple, trails down to his jaw as he opens up the hole that the chart came from, and splays it open against the wall to start the process, trace the evershifting lines with his index, and every motion creates sparks, erupts into flame that doesn’t harm the parchment, but leaves scorchmarks along August’s fingertips in his mumbling search to decipher the words he needs. Half submerged in the volutes of the mist, that rises high to his waist and the rainfall that pelts from above, stuck between the dual-visual of them doing their best, as well as the ones in the reflection that shows the mirror of it. The voices earn a hoarse, albeit immediately venomous response, however, “If you touch the woman, I’m going to banish you as a cripple and laugh when your kin feeds on your festering carcass, bitch.”

“No! I will not be bound again to rotting parchment! I have tasted freedom, I have fed on confusion!“

But it’s too late. The chart begins to smoke and curl at the edges, not from flame but from the binding taking hold. The blue-green light in Marcus’s eyes flickers wildly before suddenly going out completely. He collapses forward onto his knees, gasping.

“The streets,” Marcus whispers in wonder, tears streaming down his face. “I can see them clearly again. Harbor Avenue, not Harbor Street. The Maritime Museum on Beacon, not Elm.” His voice grows stronger. “I remember everything now.“

The mist dissipates rapidly, the phantom foghorns fade to silence, and the alley walls snap back to their proper dimensions with an almost audible crack. The fire escape stops creaking. The storm drains fall silent.

As the last of the binding words sear into the brick, the chart crumbles to ash in August’s burned hands, taking Malphas with it. The loose brick slides back into place with a satisfying thunk, sealing the demon’s prison once more.

Marcus looks up at the three of them with clear, grateful eyes. “Thank you,” he says simply. “I thought I was going to lose myself completely.” He stands on shaky legs, looking around the now-normal alley with relief. “I need to go fix all the wrong directions I gave people. Mrs. Chen is probably still wandering around Harbor Street looking for her flower shop.“

The afternoon sun breaks through the storm clouds overhead, casting ordinary shadows once again.

The temporal distortions around Marcus suddenly intensify as his rigid scientific mind makes one final, desperate attempt to maintain control. His body locks into a perfect statue-like pose, every muscle straining against the demon’s influence.

“The compass coordinates!” Marcus shouts with crystal clarity, his voice cutting through Vex’thara’s otherworldly whispers. “Latitude 41.3058, Longitude -72.9201! Basement level, specimen storage B-7, inside the brass diving helmet display case!“

The shadow tendrils recoil violently at his words, and for a moment the rain falls normally around all three figures. Marcus’s reflection in the puddles shows him pointing desperately toward the street that leads to the Marine Rescue Center.

But the reprieve lasts only seconds. Vex’thara’s fury erupts as dark energy, shattering every piece of glass in the alley simultaneously. The fragments hang suspended in mid-air, each one reflecting a different moment of potential doom.

“ENOUGH!” The demon’s roar comes from everywhere at once – the walls, the cobblestones, the storm clouds above. “If I cannot have willing hosts, I will take what I need by force!“

The floating glass shards suddenly rocket toward August and Arachne like bullets, while the shadow tendrils surge forward with desperate hunger. Marcus collapses to his knees, his body beginning to fade as Vex’thara prepares to abandon him entirely.

The clock tower chimes frantically – seventeen, eighteen, nineteen times – as reality itself begins to fracture around the narrow alley.

“Silence, you cataloguing fool!” But the demon’s grip is clearly weakening as Marcus’s rigid mental discipline creates temporal anchors faster than it can consume them.

The rain continues its impossible dance, but now it forms a rough circle around the three figures. The reflections in the puddles show Marcus fighting to maintain control while dark tendrils writhe around the edges of reality.

“Hurry!” Marcus gasps, his glasses fogging in the supernatural cold. “I can hold it for maybe two more minutes, but then…” His reflection shows him collapsing into shadow.

The clock tower chimes seventeen times, and cracks spread further up the brick walls. Whatever choice the players make, it needs to happen now.

Whatever August seems to be doing, mumbling, it appears to work. The parchment glows, flares bright, but August doesn’t give it to Noel where their hands would burn up too. It’s shut, folded thrice, made into a triangle that he shoves into the hole and then his hand clasps over Noel’s wrists. Leaves his skin soot marked and bloodied, but also guiding them to shove the brick in their hand into the hole to crush the embers of the parchment and seal it all shut. For good measure, August brings his bloodied finger up on the stone, starts to trace along a sigil. It’s that of Malphas’, but in inverse, done quickly as that of a ward, like he’s done it a million times. A containtment sigil, reinforced with that of sigillum dei to complete it.

Playful even in the face of danger, Noel gazes down at August with both amusement and deviousness, whispering on a hushed breath, “Monsieur Pierce, you must not speak to me so! I will swoon!” he declares, pressing the back of one lovely, dainty hand against his forehead- but there is one problem. Without thinking, without realizing, the incubus whore has relinquished his grip on both scaffolding and wall, and with his other fingers too delicate and weak to hold on- he plummets. Plummets through the air right past August, right on top of poor Marcus, landing hard and with a painful thud- the crack of a spine that doesn’t break, but does pop and crunch with agony. Marcus is not slain, but he is potentially knocked unconscious if he cannot dodge in time, and that precious compass is knocked free of his hands, skittering over the cement, its elegant glass front shattered as it rolls towards the road, where the waiting wheels of fast-moving cars, trucks, and SUVs are eager to completely annihilate the cursed object, leaving nothing for the demon to hold onto in this world; hopefully.

The alley erupts into chaos as August’s sigils flare with protective light while Arachne’s lightning crashes down from the storm clouds above. The temporal distortions around Marcus suddenly stabilize as Vex’thara’s hold weakens under the combined assault of divine warding and elemental fury.

But the demon makes one final, desperate lunge – not for the players, but toward the storm drain at the alley’s end where something metallic glints among the debris. The brass compass, partially visible beneath scattered refuse, pulses with the same otherworldly energy that has been sustaining the possession.

Marcus collapses completely as Vex’thara abandons his body, the researcher’s form going limp against the wet cobblestones. His glasses skitter across the stones as his eyes roll back, showing only whites. The shadow tendrils converge on the compass with hungry desperation.

“The binding anchor!” Marcus gasps with his last conscious breath, his own voice finally clear and human. “Don’t let it reach…“

Lightning strikes the compass directly, Arachne’s power channeled through the storm above. The brass artifact explodes in a shower of green sparks and otherworldly screams. The shadow tendrils writhe and dissipate like smoke in the sudden absence of their anchor point.

Vex’thara’s final shriek echoes from between the seconds themselves before cutting off abruptly. The impossible rain stops. The clock tower chimes a normal twelve times. The temperature returns to the summer heat of August afternoon.

Marcus lies unconscious but breathing normally, his reflection in the puddles now showing only himself. The alley falls silent except for the distant sounds of normal city life resuming beyond the brick walls.

The nightmare is over.