07/01/2026: Fighting the Vistani

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The safe house is too small for a battle, but a battle has come anyway. In the narrow hallway, a Vistani swordmaster lunges at Bayleaf, his blade flickering once, twice. The paladin answers in kind, and on the second cut, a surge of divine power skitters up his sword's edge. For one blinding instant the corridor is lit white, every face carved from shadow.

Torgan, bleeding from a half a dozen wounds, hefts his greataxe against a Vistani lieutenant. "If I go down," he growls over his shoulder, "pick me back up." Bayleaf answers with easy confidence — he has blade and footwork enough for all of them. Violet Robin darts into the press, low and fast, opening cuts on both of the paladin's attackers. From somewhere deeper in the house comes the shriek of heavy furniture dragged across floorboards. Viktor is barring the bedroom door.

Then a crash behind them, heavy and final. Torgan has fallen. The swordsman who felled him does not pause to finish the work — he pivots and drives his boot against the door sheltering Arabella and her father. Violet Robin breaks from the fight, vaulting clear of the two Vistani, racing down the back hallway hoping to reach Torgan before the dwarf bleeds out on the floorboards.

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In the parlor, the only light is the fire guttering in the hearth, and three Vistani close on Krelldutt through the leaping shadows. The tortle pulls a bare hilt from his belt — and the Sun Sword ignites, flooding the room with radiance. The Vistani flinch back from the blaze of the magic edge like men scalded. Then they come on. Krelldutt slashes, and slashes again, the shining blade carving arcs of light through the dark.

For a time it seems his shell will be armor enough to see him to the end of the fight. Then it isn't. Krelldutt falls, and the Sun Sword extinguishes with his consciousness. The hilt slips from his limp hand to clatter away across the pitted wooden floor.

The swordmaster snatches it up and shakes it, once, twice, as though the light were only sleeping. Nothing. He jams the dead hilt into his belt. He will solve its riddle later — after he finds the girl.

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He comes out of the parlor fast, hurling the table into Bayleaf's path and stooping to pluck Torgan's greataxe from beside the fallen dwarf without breaking stride. The bedroom door does not survive the first swing.

Through the shattered planks he can see Arabella pressed into the far corner, small and white-faced. Viktor plants himself between them, hands raised. "Borenko, no—she is my daughter! Please!"

The sound of Viktor's body hitting the floor is followed by the girl's thin scream.

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In the hallway, Bayleaf hauls himself over the ruined table, leaving a dark smear behind him. At the corridor's far end, Violet Robin slips past the swordmaster's ally and drops to his knees beside Torgan, working to call the dwarf back from the edge. Even as he does, the rogue can see the wound in the approaching Bayleaf's thigh — a vein is bleeding freely. Without tending, the paladin has seconds left on his feet.

In the ruined and bloodied bedroom, Arabella shrieks as the arms of the swordsman reach for her. Viktor, her father, lies dying at her feet.