The Crimson Price

The door creaked shut behind Ian, the cold air slicing skin. For a moment, the room was silent—tense and uncertain.

Then the scrape of chairs.

Shuffling boots.

Steel whispering from sheaths.

"This a sign," one of them muttered. A hunched brute with scarred knuckles and rotted teeth. "Shouldn't have let this bastard walk outta here anyhow…"

He pointed at Ian, thinking the gold has been hidden in his clothing somehow.

"If we all split that there gold he's holding," the brute continued, voice gaining momentum, "we'd all have more money than our entire generations. No more piss jobs. No more sleeping in muck!"

Weapons emerged from beneath cloaks and tattered coats—shortswords, clubs, old axes, broken spears.

Greed had taken them.

That intoxicating promise of coin and a better life clouded all good sense.

Ian didn't even look surprised.

"Nothing wrong with dying ambitious," he muttered.

Then he blurred.