Ninety-Six Marks in the Basement

The ladder went down into a room that had been counting before they arrived. Numbers were carved along the walls, rough and repeated until they stopped at ninety-six. The air did not move. Somewhere in the dark, voices hummed upward through the next numbers, losing the shape of a normal count and becoming ritual instead. At the center of the basement was a square of unnatural darkness. Shades moved inside it. Some circled. Some vanished. Around them lay things that made the room worse because they were ordinary: rotten fruit, old cheese, potatoes, and a teddy bear. It was not only a killer's lair. It was a child's room memory left to spoil underground. The party saw five shadows at first. Then some of them disappeared into the dark. Tallulah struck before the group could turn the room into a plan. She came out fast enough that the basement seemed to give her shape only after the knife was already in motion. Nick took the opening blow, thirty-two points of piercing force delivered from the dark with terrifying precision, and then Tallulah was gone again. Back into the square. Back into the count. The Tallyman was no longer a name on a mission sheet or a murderer described by other people. Tallulah Murn was in front of them now, using darkness, speed, and the basement's trapped shades as part of the same ritual machine. The carved numbers had stopped at ninety-six. The voices had not.