The tavern common room is dim and stinking of cheap spirits — a handful of hollow-eyed drifters nurse their cups and avoid eye contact. Two exits: the front door spilling pale morning light onto cracked pavement, and a back curtain that likely leads to the alley. A corkboard near the bar is plastered with hand-drawn hex maps and desperate scrawl: *"Ruins to the east — rich pickings, bad nights."* Your pack is empty, your boots are worn, and the next settlement isn't going to reach itself. Time to move, Scrapper.

The innkeeper — a slab-faced woman with a glass eye and ink-stained fingers — doesn't look up from wiping the bar. "Shadow Beasts have been thick around the eastern ruins past three nights," she mutters, sliding a cracked mug aside. "Goblins too, running in packs with those damn hounds. You want my advice? Move fast, sleep light, and don't carry anything you ain't willing to lose." She taps the corkboard meaningfully. "Shortcut through the southern alley cuts a night off your travel — if you trust the dark."

The corkboard is a mess of overlapping notes, but three things stand out: a crude hex map marking a collapsed factory to the southeast with "COILS — WORTH IT" scrawled in red, a torn notice warning that the eastern ruins' second hex is a known Shadow Beast den at night, and a smudged note that reads "Trader camped near the old water tower — moves on at dusk." Nothing that pays coin, but knowledge is its own currency out here.

The thug lunges with a sloppy overhand slash — telegraphed, desperate, the move of a man who's used to easy marks. Evander sidesteps and drives an elbow hard into the knife arm, sending the blade skittering across the floorboards. The drifters at the bar don't even look up. The thug backs toward the door, clutching his wrist, and decides whatever he thought you were carrying isn't worth the trouble. He's gone before the door stops swinging.

Evander steps into the thug's space before he can reset his footing — a sharp drive straight to the sternum, enough to fold him over and knock the wind out clean. The thug staggers back, wheezing, eyes wide with the particular surprise of a bully who picked the wrong mark. He scoops up his knife from the floor with shaking hands and backs out the door without a word, deciding whatever score he imagined here isn't worth broken ribs and humiliation. The drifters at the bar don't even look up.

The thug lunges with a sloppy overhand slash — telegraphed, desperate, the move of a man who's used to easy marks. Evander sidesteps and drives an elbow hard into the knife arm, sending the blade skittering across the floorboards. The drifters at the bar don't even look up. The thug backs toward the door, clutching his wrist, and decides whatever he thought you were carrying isn't worth the trouble. He's gone before the door stops swinging.

The thug's already backing out the front door, wrist clutched to his chest — there's no fight left to flee. But Evander doesn't wait to confirm it. He hits the window at a low angle, shoulder first, and the rotted frame gives way in a shower of splinters and dirty glass. He rolls into the alley, boots finding cracked stone, and comes up clean — a little dusty, a little dramatic, but free and clear in the pale morning air. The back alley stretches south, exactly where the innkeeper hinted a shortcut might be hiding.

Evander pats down his jacket, checks his belt, turns out his pockets — nothing. No stim-packs, no rags soaked in moonshine, no field dressing of any kind. He came into this settlement lean and he's leaving the same way. He's uninjured anyway; the thug never landed a hit, and the window exit was more theatrical than damaging. Full health, empty hands.

The alley gives up its secrets easily enough to a careful eye. Scorch marks low on the eastern wall — not fire, something electrical, the kind of burn an Arcane Coil leaves when it vents wrong. Fresh boot prints in the grime, too many and too varied to be one crew: at least three different treads, one of them deep-heeled and heavy, the kind a Night Patrol enforcer wears. Scratched into the drainpipe at eye level, half-obscured by rust, is a single word: *TAKEN*. Whatever trouble this town has, it started with someone finding something they shouldn't have — and someone else wanting it back.

The merchant is wedged into the doorway like he's trying to become part of the wall — a thin man with ink-stained fingers and a ledger clutched to his chest like a shield. Evander doesn't crowd him, just leans against the opposite wall and keeps his voice low and even. The man's eyes dart once to the alley mouth, then back. He talks. Fast. The word TAKEN isn't metaphor — a Night Patrol crew seized a shipment three nights ago, Arcane Coils bound for the southeast factory, and whoever hired the original courier is still in town and very angry about it. The Wandering Trader near the water tower brokered the original deal and knows where the Coils ended up. The merchant shoves the ledger tighter to his chest and says nothing else.