Nor was it the most austere, nor lairy.
It didn't sup itself on the caricature of bar brawls, crooked landlords, nor shady manuscripts unfurled in equally shady corners.
For all intents and purposes, it had quietly confirmed itself as a good, squat, proper pub.
Sure, it had seen its fair share of disgruntlement and scraps. There had been fist fights here and there. Sammy, Lox, Rand, and Hamish had often left the premises with a bloodied lip or a sore knuckle, but it had never been out of turn. It had never not been deserved.
There'd always been a valid reason—a just cause—a friendly handshake and a soft squeeze afterwards.
Most important to note was that, despite three broken noses, a skewered palm and a severe scalding—no one had ever died here.
Tonight, though, as the green mist settled on split rafters and then softened into shattered eaves like sea-spray on a bone dry beach, the Buckle had seen more than just death.
The gore-ridden husk of poor old Lox had shambled from blood-soaked revenant to fleshy paste on the floor.
Morgrog’s cranium had been split clean in two—before fading away in a soft, strange light.
And now, Halbrecht, Lord Commander of Dunden, clutched at the thin spike of wood that had skewered him from the inguinal to the fleshy gap in his clavicle. The Barston folk stood around him, clutching at wounds of their own, not quite finding words enough that could fill the gaps between the punctured wheeze of his lungs.
“My… armour,” he rasped—eyes locked on Sludge. “Loot… me.”
The lumberjack knelt down beside him—one gnarled hand still clutching its axe, the other resting on Halbrecht's bloodied shoulder.
“Take… my armour… Sludge.”
His eyes widened as the light began to trickle away.
“Fuck… Gronk.”
Halbrecht's last breaths left him in a wheeze and then a rattle.
The red light that had once pulsed so arrogantly from his armour guttered and dimmed, flickering in the cracked seams of his breastplate like embers starved of air. A final, stubborn glow bled from beneath the iron and ran in slow rivulets across the tavern boards before dulling to a thick, coagulated sheen.
The once-proud angles of his frame shuddered, red vapour leaking from fractures in the gorget and shoulders. Then it collapsed inward with a crunch.
A single, black and red shard glowed from the space hewn from his chest.
The armour and flesh folded—like a cloak shrugged from invisible shoulders. The crimson mass unravelled into a fine mist. The vapour dispersed, thin and aimless, dissolving into the rafters and the night air that bled through the split roof.
A soft rain followed and silence took the tavern.
It was the kind of companionable silence found on a late evening, when the last tankard is drained and the hearth burns low. It was a raw, ringing quiet. The kind that follows thunder. The kind that presses into ears and hollows out the chest.
Agnes lowered the poker from her trembling hands.
Sammy stood frozen where he’d last swung his axe, jaw slack, eyes glassy.
Tub, pale and slick with sweat, let his blade fall from nerveless fingers and stared at the spot where the Lord of Dunden now lay—dead. His corpse did not fade like Morgrog’s.
He was grim, and grey, and dead.
Beyond the shattered doorway, the marsh exhaled.
Far off—so distant it might have been imagined by the Barston folk in the throes of their still settling trauma—there came the dull crash of something vast shifting in the dark. It was the sound of walls crashing. A territorial groan. A kingdom settling into new ownership.
Inside the Sunny Buckle, only one thing still glowed in hope.
Sludge stood from the centre of the wreckage, axe still clutching in its lumberjack grip. Frost still clung to the blade. Rime spidered outward from its edge in delicate, crystalline veins, locking vine sap and Morgrog’s blood alike into fragile constellations across the iron.
The warmth in Sludge’s chest flickered uncertainly.
Bogheart pulsed—soft, golden, protective. It reached outward instinctively, brushing against the Barston folk in trembling reassurance. Panic dulled to grief. Grief hardened into something sturdier.
The Cold Prince, however, did not waver.
Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.
It surged. It seethed. It sensed the coming danger like a bloodhound on a jet black moor.
Seize it, hissed the voice. Seize the soul!
Inside the Sunny Buckle, a simple, squat, proper pub that had never asked for legend nor ruin, the hearth finally died out completely.
For a long moment, Sludge did not move.
The tavern smelt of sap and iron and charred marrow. Burnt out wood that had finally sputtered out. It was jarring. Somewhere in the wreckage, a tankard rolled lazily onto its side and settled with a hollow, final clunk.
The Barston folk stood; standing, staring.
“I think the Lord Commander means for you to take up his armour,” said Tub—blinking.
Sludge nodded then reached forward and pressed its broad, calloused palm to Halbrecht’s sternum without a word.
The glowing shard reflected on its lumberjack hands like a mummer's shadow puppetry.
For a breath, nothing happened.
Then the armour cracked under the pressure. The red-etched breastplate fissured along its seams and peeled apart like bark from a dying tree.
Beneath it, Halbrecht’s chest glowed faintly—thin red veins of light spidering outward from the central shard lodged deep within. It pulsed once.
Then Sludge opened its mouth.
It wasn't the wide, grotesque maw that it once had in its fledgling mire. It was channeled. Focused. Purposeful. The skin around its jaw slackened. The borrowed lumberjack lips split at the corners. A dark, viscous sheen welled at the back of its throat.
It leaned down and the sludge slid forward.
A vile, black tar poured into him—like an unclasped jaw of some giant anaconda.
The sludge flowed through parted lips. Through the crack in Halbrecht’s breastbone. Through the rent seams of the armour and the wound where vile light had cored him through. It engulfed the Lord of Dunden’s corpse in its entirety; folding like slow, volcanic layers, before hardening into a dark, black obsidian.
Halbrecht was gone, yet his armour remained—riveted into Sludge's lumberjack frame. It wasn't just wearing it. It had become it.
Soulpit Level 2 unlocked>
Its body thickened, darkened, flowing into Halbrecht’s hollow spaces as it seeped away to the black, roiling sludge—filling lungs, re-lining ribs, coiling around the glowing shard embedded in his heart.
The Hal-p?x fragment resisted at first.
Red flared bright, stabbing outward in frantic arcs of bloodlight. Memories flickered with it—bright overlays of text, scrolling chat windows, ocean waves seen from some high window.
A boy laughing too loudly. A contract signed with shaking hands.
The Barston folk recoiled instinctively, gasping in horror and awe.
“Saint Gunther, save us!” balked Hamish.
Agnes let out a strangled cry, clasping her pale palms to her lips.
Sammy took half a step forward—then froze as the golden warmth from Sludge’s chest pulsed outward in quiet command.
“No,” said Sludge as it stood, black armour crackling with shards of crimson red.
Its words were deeper now. Firmer.
“Not kill. Not eat. Keep.”
Sludge huffed as it felt the last thrashes of the fragment simmer into calm.
[Soul Fragment Equipped (3/3): Hal-p?x, the Archon Exsanguine]
[Passive Effect Unlocked: Haemomancy (Rank 10)
Exsanguinate slaughtered corpses in your vicinity, harnessing their lifeforce to raise revenants of blood, flesh, and bone. Gain +1 active summon per rank.]
[Active Effect Unlocked: Vaults of Mannagoth (Rank 10)
You wield the crimson weave like a smith to the forge. Hewn flesh and blood fuel an array of powerful shields and weaponry.
Additionally, Hal-p?x forges you [Mannagoth, Flesh Made Steel], an undying armour that feeds on the lifeforce of slain enemies.]
[Ultimate Effect Unlocked: Bloodlight Ascendant (Rank 10)
The ruinous torrents of the Haemodrake course through you. Channel an apocalyptic beam of sanguine energy—gaining power with the more souls slaughtered.]
For the first time since its birth beneath mud and macerated shell, it felt something unfamiliar settle across its shoulders. A weight. Not the familiar weight of meat or armour, but responsibility.
"Ser Sludge wields powerful magics," mused Sammy—nodding at the rest. "Be foolish for us to question these methods."
He cast a glance at Agnes and Hamish. "Still alive, ain't we?"
Outside the shattered doorway, the marsh had begun to murmur once more. Low drums beyond the horizon, far horns wailing in the mire.
Those that Halbrecht had called Gronk would likely not celebrate for long before they marched. The lumberjack heckles winced alert.
Sludge turned to the Barston folk that had gathered.
Teln now stood near the doorframe, face streaked with soot and sweat, Tub slumped against his side. The Barston cobbles outside were strewn with splinters and broken beams, though the storehouse behind him still seemed to be in good order.
Hamish ambled over to the two men, his ribs bound tight with torn cloth, and slapped them each heftily on the shoulder with a grim huff. Agnes clutched her poker still—standing by the flattened bar. Sammy’s hands shook as he went to lean by the table that they had played Jiggy Palm barely an hour before, only to find it a pile of dust and wreckage.
Sludge’s voice rolled across the ruin of the Sunny Buckle, motes of moonlight dashing through the split beams and shattered roof.
“Teln.”
The man flinched—then squared his shoulders.
“Yes… Ser?”
“Wood,” Sludge said. “All wood.”
It pointed toward the woodpile that they had hewn from the north stand and left in piles near the sloping entrance to Barston.
“Move. Now. Build”
Teln blinked. “You mean for palisades, milord?”
Sludge nodded once.
“Big. Thick. Around town. Stakes.” It gestured downward in sharp, stabbing motions. “Dig trench. Deep.”
The ledger flickered faintly in its vision. Annoying, like a bug.
[Territorial Claim: Barston—Southern March (Outpost)]
[Faction:
“Barricade roads,” Sludge continued. The words came easier now, fuller. “Wagons. Barrels. Stone. Left from tower.”
Agnes inhaled sharply. “Is there time—?”
“No time,” Sludge said. “Still try.”
Hamish wiped blood from his lip. “And when they come?”
Sludge looked out toward the marsh.
It could feel them, shadow shapes in the distance, like pressure before a storm. Like a deep, dark rot beneath the soil.
“When they come,” it said, frost whispering at the edges of its beard, “we stand.”
Golden light pulsed outward again—the Old Flame of Bogheart answering the tremor in their hearts. Spines straightened. Breath steadied. Tub pushed himself upright with a groan.
“Aye,” he muttered. “We bloody well do.”
Sammy nodded, jaw tight. “For Barston.”
“For Barston,” echoed Agnes.
Sludge stepped to the doorway and looked out over the rain-sodden rooftops of the squat little town with the proper little pub; wrecked and ruined. The air smelt clear for once. Cold, but with a freshness to it.
Clouds rolled low over the marsh, tinged with a faint yellow glow at their underbelly. The first few strands of morning, perhaps.
“For Barston,” breathed Sludge.