“You're a mage! How can you not know?”

Harding's incredulous voice strained to be heard above the sound of the rushing waters pouring into the chamber. Already the small stone room was filling up. The arcane glyph hovering before the sealed door shone with a blue-white radiance and slowly rotated in the air, symbols spinning clockwise like a valve to let the water flow in through several slits cut high up in the walls.

“So, I've been thinking”, Alana began, gesturing to the assembled group who sat around the low round coffee table in the Lighthouse library.

“Oh, dear”, Neve murmured under her breath, a coy half-smile creasing her eyes just enough so that you could tell she was joking.

Alana let that quip slide and carried on with determination. “We need a name, for the team. Something heroic and inspiring and stuff – make people take us seriously”.

Taash rubbed their chin thoughtfully. A second later they yelled excitedly, “I've got it! The Avengers!”

Early morning sun had burned the mist off the rolling fields, which shimmered with golden waves as the wheat, almost ready for harvest, danced in the breeze. Smoke from a campfire lazily swirled upward, wood crackling gently.

“So I've been thinking about Solas”, Zea said, lowering her tin cup of bitter and burned campfire coffee. “And I don't even know if I can kill a god”.

Viago de Riva's eyebrow twitched, and the muscles in his jaw tightened. His hand moved with precision, in a fluid motion borne from long practice. With a flick of his wrist, the king was dead.

“Checkmate”, he said in triumph.

“I'll get you next time, old man”, Zea replied, creasing her mouth into a half smile at the frown this quip drew upon Viago's face. He was probably less than a decade older than her, but Viago had mentored Zea during her training, and she enjoyed winding him up about it.

“You need to be less impulsive”, Viago explained with an air of exasperation. “Not every battle can be won through attack alone, Rook”.

The overnight camp was ringed by torches, lit to keep the hungry shadows at bay. In the darkness, the flames glowed with a warm copper light that seemed almost homely against the cold bleakness beyond. Above, when the dense clouds occasionally parted, a few distant stars shone out with a silver gleam like coins tossed in a wishing well.

Tempest finished her wine, a cheap red that tasted of vinegar and stained the inside of the tarnished pewter goblet it was served in, and glanced across to the tavern door. It had swung open, ringing the small brass bell that hung above the lintel, so that all eyes in the dark, smoky pub were drawn to the person coming in. You couldn’t be too cautious in a place like this, a known hangout for smugglers and pirates who were often found around the docks of Athkatla, the so-called city of coin.

The person walking into the inn was a tiefling, short and wiry, with red skin tanned even redder through years at sea, and twisty, curling horns that emerged from a scruffy mop of greying hair. He called for a pint, in a voice like dry sand, and scanned the room with his amber eyes that made contact with Tempest’s ice-blue ones.

Sitting down opposite her and taking off his leather jacket, he began to speak. “Thought I’d find you here. Got a job, need someone I can trust. You in?”

“Depends on the job, Joachim”, Tempest replied, gesturing to the barkeeper for another awful wine.