Pythin was known as a Liaison, a traveler who settled disputes between kingdoms and guided lost souls away from ruin.
Far below the silver towers lived Clutch, a poor stable hand who dreamed of escaping his difficult life.
One cold evening, Clutch overheard smugglers whispering about a hidden vault beneath the governor’s palace.
They promised him enough gold to buy freedom if he helped unlock the old sewer gates at midnight.
Though fear twisted in his stomach, Clutch agreed because he believed he had no other choice.
As the city bells echoed through the fog, Pythin sensed unease flowing through the crowded market streets.
Following the faint shimmer of troubled magic, he found Clutch nervously pacing beside the river docks.
Pythin calmly asked the young man where he was going with a lantern, lockpick, and trembling hands.
Clutch admitted everything and confessed that he was tired of being invisible and poor.
Instead of scolding him, Pythin sat beside the river and explained how desperate choices often chained people tighter than poverty ever could.
He revealed that the smugglers planned to abandon Clutch once the guards arrived, leaving him to suffer the punishment alone.
The words struck Clutch deeply, and with shaking breath, he tossed the lockpick into the dark river water.
Together they secretly warned the palace guards, and before dawn the smugglers were captured without anyone knowing Clutch had been involved.
As sunrise painted the city gold, Clutch smiled for the first time in years, though far beneath the palace, an ancient iron door slowly creaked open on its own.
