In the gleaming towers of the Imperial City, where the golden domes reflected sunlight like mirrors of the gods, no one looked twice at Jacob Silvan. Born in the gutters of the Weaver's Quarter, he bore the quiet dignity of a boy raised on stale bread and long winters. He spoke softly, bowed to everyone, and ran scrolls across the magistrates' marble halls with the efficiency of a ghost. They called him "Paper Boy," though he was well past boyhood.
For years, his duties remained unchanged—ink-stained fingers, leather-tough soles, and the constant hum of whispered court politics. Until, one rain-slicked morning, a sealed scroll from the Bureau of Logistics arrived bearing his name. His transfer was abrupt, his instructions curt: "Report to South Talren District Magistrate's Office. Effective immediately. No appeals permitted."
The Southern Lands were far removed from the brilliance of the capital. The road to South Talren cut through wild plains and misty bogs, the imperial stone roads gradually giving way to cracked dirt paths and rotting signposts. When Jacob arrived, it was under a sky bruised purple by stormclouds and thick with the smell of damp earth.
South Talren was a frontier town of faded grandeur, its timber buildings bowed with age. A large, rusting bell hung in the town square, once used to summon citizens for law or festival—now it gathered only moss.
At the Dusty Harp Tavern, where soldiers, traders, and drunkards mingled, Jacob heard the stories first. Slurred voices spoke of strange deaths in the marshes, miners vanishing without a trace, and children who disappeared after dusk. The locals had given up reporting such things. The magistrate, they said, was a sleeping bear—old, tired, and uninterested. The chief constable, they laughed, was worse—lost in drink and always gambling at the stables.
Jacob said nothing. He drank quietly, eyes flicking to a notice board nailed with faded bounty posters, scribbled pleas for help, and blood-speckled letters left unanswered.
At the magistrate's office, things were no better. The building smelled of mildew and rotting paper. Case scrolls lay in chaotic piles, unlabeled and dust-covered. Quills dulled, ink dried, and the constables barely looked up from their card games when he entered.
But Jacob did what Jacob had always done.
He kept his head down.
He swept. He sorted. He labeled.
By the end of his first week, missing persons cases once buried in backrooms had been indexed. Accusations of foul play, old witness names, conflicting patrol logs—Jacob tied them together like threads on a loom. Soon, one overworked investigator began relying on him to find case documents. Then another. And another.
By the end of his first month, the entire archive had transformed from a decaying tomb of unsolved cases into a living system. Detectives began solving crimes—not new ones, but old ones. Jacob's system helped them connect names, times, patterns.
And then, one night, Jacob found something else.
A record. Half-rotted. Tucked inside a cracked filing box misfiled under "Disputes—Property." It was a coroner's report from five years prior, describing a body found in the southern bogs. The victim had the same burn marks as a boy who had gone missing just two months ago.
Different years. Same location. Same cause.
It was a pattern no one had noticed.
But Jacob had.
And that was only the beginning.
Into the Mire
The court was quiet that morning.
A light drizzle misted over the southern district, and the warped shutters of the magistrate's office rattled gently in the wind. Jacob stood by the window, watching the clouds drift low over the hills beyond the town. Somewhere out there, beyond the farms and marshy fields, the bogs awaited—mysterious, unkind, and full of whispered warnings.
He'd prepared the request the night before, wording it with all the weight of the magistrate's authority. The seal of Vollen gave it power, but the heart of it was Jacob's own resolve: "I request the assignment of an investigative officer to assist in the inquiry of unresolved deaths and disappearances south of the town, within the region known locally as the Tanglebogs."
By midday, the response came. A single man stepped into the office.
He was lean, sharp-eyed, and dressed in a slightly-too-loose uniform. His boots were muddy, and his hair refused to stay combed. A sword hung at his hip, but it was clear the real weapon was the grin he wore like armor.
"Detective David Marren," he announced, extending a hand. "Just got transferred from the Ironwood Range. Heard someone down here's stirring up the swamp."
Jacob stood and shook it. "Jacob Silvan. Acting magistrate assistant."
"Ah," David said, eyes twinkling, "you're the quiet fellow who made this place run like clockwork. Word's out. Didn't expect a quillman to be poking around the bogs, though."
"I don't go looking for trouble," Jacob replied. "But I do keep records. Trouble leaves a trail."
That made David laugh.
Over a pot of spiced tea and a worn map, they went over everything Jacob had collected. The pattern was undeniable:
Bodies found with similar burn-like marks on the ribcage and spine.
All discovered near the Tanglebogs, but always far enough apart to avoid notice.
Gaps of months—sometimes years—between discoveries.
All victims from lower stations: a woodsman, a marsh trapper, two orphans, a stablehand.
None of them had known ties. None of them mattered enough for the Empire to look closely.
David leaned over the notes, tapping a line with his gloved finger. "You noticed these burn marks… coroner called them 'seared sigils'?"
Jacob nodded. "They didn't match any known brands or ritual marks."
David whistled low. "Could be cult activity. Or slave magic. Maybe blood sorcery. Tanglebogs are old land—people say there's still things there from before the Empire came this far."
"Which is why we need to see it ourselves," Jacob said.
David grinned again, rising from the bench. "Well then, Magistrate Silvan—shall we take a walk into the mire?"
---
The journey began early the next morning.
The townsfolk watched from porches and windows as the two young men rode out: Jacob on a gray mule with saddlebags full of maps, parchment, and ledgers; David on a scrappy chestnut mare with a crossbow slung across his back and a dagger at each hip.
The road turned from cobble to dirt, and then from dirt to mossy trail. By midday, they reached the edge of the Tanglebogs.
The bogs were a labyrinth of dark water, ancient trees, and floating mists. Strange noises echoed across the stagnant pools—distant croaks, the splash of unseen creatures, and the mournful creaking of long-dead branches. Even in daylight, it felt like twilight beneath the canopy.
Jacob paused at the first causeway, glancing at the rotting wooden planks and the signs warning of sinkholes.
"You ready?" David asked, tightening his belt and checking his lantern.
Jacob looked once more at the map, then at the horizon.
"Yes," he said softly. "I think it's time we start asking the swamp what it's been hiding."