The Sleeper Beneath

Lem didn’t head straight for the aqueduct. That would’ve been reckless. He needed the tunnels first—and not just any tunnel. The right one. The one that would thread him close to the Pipers without dragging him through hostile turf.

His boots scraped the cobblestones as he walked, each step heavier than the last. The city above was loud with life, but down here, everything felt muted—like the world was holding its breath.

The thieves’ tunnels were old. Older than the city, older than the stories. Some said the first settlers carved them out with desperation and rusted tools. Others whispered they were made by something older, something that didn’t leave bones behind. Lem didn’t care which was true. He just knew they were dangerous.

Each gang had its slice. Each slice had passwords, grudges, and rules that changed depending on who you asked and how many bodies had been buried that month. Alliances held together with spit and silver—smuggled goods, stolen relics, and, most of all, information. Lem had just enough to buy his way in. Hopefully.

He crouched by a rusted grate behind the old glassworks, where the air smelled like burnt sand and forgotten fires. A crow with a broken wing was etched into the metal—Crow’s Gate. Ash Knives territory. Not the friendliest bunch, but they didn’t ask questions if you paid well and kept your mouth shut.

Lem tapped three times, paused, then tapped twice more. His fingers trembled slightly. He told himself it was the cold, but he knew better. He hated this part—the waiting, the not knowing.

A voice rasped from the dark behind the bars. “Speak the ash.”

“Smoke rises. Blades fall,” Lem said, steady now. He’d practiced the phrase a hundred times, but his throat still tightened around the words. He silently chastised himself for feeling of weakness. He was a killer, killers have nerves of steel.

The grate groaned open like it hadn’t moved in years.

A wiry figure stepped back, face wrapped in a soot-streaked scarf. Eyes sharp, unreadable. “You’re not Ash Knife.”

“I’m not,” Lem admitted. “But I’ve got coin. And Crow owes me.”

The figure hesitated. Lem could feel the weight of the silence, like the tunnel itself was deciding whether to swallow him whole. He thought of Crow—of the night they’d escaped the raid together, of the blood on both their hands. That debt had better still mean something.

Finally, a nod. “Stay to the blackstone. Don’t cross the red line. You’ll live longer.”

Lem slipped inside.

The air was thick, damp, and tasted like rust. Lanterns flickered overhead, casting shadows that moved even when no one did. Glowstones pulsed faintly in the walls, like the tunnels had a heartbeat. He passed silent figures—some sharpening blades, others just watching. Their eyes followed him, but no one spoke, no one needed to.

He kept his pace steady, but his mind raced. Every step felt like a test. Every glance like a judgment. He wasn’t one of them, and they knew it, and Lem knew it too, this was not his territory, and he needed to keep his mind sharp here.

At a junction, a dark red smear slashed across the wall, he touched it, was this blood, it marked the border. Hollow Fangs territory. Beyond that, the Pipers.

Lem crouched, pulled a pouch from his belt. Inside, three silver tokens, each stamped with a different gang’s crest. He chose one—the one with the serpent coiled around a dagger—and placed it just past the red marker. He held his breath.

A moment passed. Then a hand, pale and scarred, reached from the shadows and took it. The way was open.

Lem stepped forward, deeper into the dark. Toward the Pipers. Toward the truth buried beneath the city. And maybe, if he was lucky, toward something that wouldn’t kill him.

The tunnel narrowed as Lem moved forward, the walls slick with condensation and etched with strange, looping symbols. The air was different here—heavier, humming with a low, almost musical vibration that seemed to come from the stone itself.

This was Piper territory.

The Pipers weren’t a gang in the traditional sense. They didn’t deal in coin or blades. They dealt in sound. Whispers. Echoes. Rumors said they could hear through the walls, that they used flutes carved from bone to summon things best left sleeping. Lem didn’t believe in superstition. But he believed in patterns and the pattern here was wrong.

He passed a series of alcoves, each one containing a small, makeshift shrine, bones arranged in spirals, melted candles. Flutes, yes—but not made of wood. Not all of them.

He crouched by one and examined the markings. They weren’t just decorative. They were instructions. Rituals. The same symbols he’d seen near the mist-killed bodies above ground.

The Pipers weren’t just surviving the mists. They were calling them. Lem hesitated, what was this? Just the a sound drifted through the tunnel—soft, high-pitched, like a child humming through a reed. Lem froze. It was coming from ahead. What were these people doing? Would his skills be useful here?

He moved silently, hugging the wall, until the tunnel opened into a wide chamber. There, in the centre, stood a figure in a tattered cloak, back turned, playing a long, curved flute. Around them, the mist pooled unnaturally thick, swirling in time with the music. A nawing feeling of unease was prodding him. Was he out of his depth here?

Lem didn’t draw his blade just yet. Instead, he watched. The figure stopped playing. Slowly, then turned to face him. Their face was covered by a mask, smooth, white, featureless except for a single black tear painted beneath one eye. But their posture was steady, like he was completely calm and in control. This was not the erratic movements of a novice. This was someone who felt completely at ease in his environment.

“You shouldn’t be here,” the figure said, voice deep and distorted, echoing like it came from the stone itself.

“I’m not here for you,” Lem replied. “I’m here for the truth.”

The figure tilted their head. “Then you’re already dead.”

The mist surged suddenly, Lem stepped backwards, but it moved fast and coiled around his legs, spiralling up his body, reaching for his throat. It was cold—not the chill of air, but the cold of something ancient and wrong. Something that didn’t belong in the world of men. Lem felt the panic rising, thrashing around to attempt to drive the mist off him. He let out a yell of frustration at himself and fought his mind back out of it's chaos. He dropped and rolled to the side, drawing one of his curved daggers in a single motion. The blade shimmered faintly, treated with a rare oil Emmeline had given him—something to ward off infection she had said, who knows if it was anything more than an old wives tale. He hoped it worked on whatever this was.

The Piper raised the flute again, Lem twisted on the ground and aimed, he threw a knife which whistled through the thick air and landed on its mark perfectly. The flute shattered with a sharp crack, and the Piper staggered back, clutching their hand. The mist recoiled, hissing like steam.

“You don’t understand,” the Piper rasped, less in control now. “We’re not summoning it. We’re feeding it. Keeping it asleep.”

Lem scrambled to his feet, regaining his balance and advanced, blade ready. “You’re killing people.”

The Piper laughed—a hollow, echoing sound. “Better a few than all. You’ve seen the boy, haven’t you? The one who walks in the mist?”

Lem paused, what did this man know of the boy. The Piper’s voice softened, almost reverent, he also seemed to be regaining his calm in the situation. “He’s not immune. He’s chosen. The mist speaks to him. It wants him.”

Lem had heard enough, he lunged at the Piper who dodged with surprising agility, drawing a thin, curved blade of their own. Their movements were practiced, precise—like someone who had trained for decades in silence and shadow. Steel clashed in the swirling fog. Lem was faster, but the Piper was relentless, each strike backed by conviction. A cut opened on Lem’s arm. He ignored it and drove the Piper back, step by step, until they stumbled against one of the shrines.

“Who leads you?” Lem demanded.

The Piper’s mask cracked as they hit the stone. “You’ll see soon enough. When the mist rises, when the city sings.” he let out a cold high pitch laugh, Lem struck the hilt of his blade against the Piper’s temple.

The figure crumpled. The mist began to thin, retreating like the tides of the ocean. Lem stood over the unconscious Piper, breathing hard. He didn’t have long. The gang would know one of their own had fallen. He needed answers and he needed them fast. Lem knelt down, pushing away the pains from the cut in his arm, and pulled the mask away from the Piper.

The face beneath was young. Barely more than a boy. Lem’s jaw tightened, images flashed through his mind for a split second, faces of those he had killed, guilt threated to engulf him. Not now he thought, closing his eyes, this way of life had been a choice a long time ago, and now was not the moment for self-refelction. Now was not the moment to assess weather he occupied the moral high ground. 'you don't' came an unwelcome thought. 'this isn't the first young man you've killed'. He wasn't dead though, just unconcious. Lem sought out the old lie, the lie that told him he was a necessity, he just did what others could not, he allowed that voice to grow loud in his mind before opening his eyes and turning his attention back to the young man in-front of him.

He searched the Piper’s robes and found a scrap of parchment, damp with the mist. On it, a symbol he recognized: a spiral of eyes, drawn in ash.

And beneath it, a name.

“The Sleeper Beneath.”