The Cost of Tallulah's Knives

Tallulah's knives did not only hurt.

They changed the fight every time they landed.

She moved like a blade given legs, using the wall, the darkness, and the party's blind spots to decide who got to stay standing. Dhaz went down under a critical strike and another attack while already fallen, the new injury rules turning every extra wound into a number that might become permanent. When the damage was counted, luck held. The worst result did not claim his body. Instead, the Boost vial he carried shattered, spending one of his dangerous resources in place of a deeper consequence.

It was mercy, but not comfort.

Maine nearly took the full force of one of Tallulah's dash attacks and only avoided the worst of it by moving with the strike instead of against it. Ash kept trying to hold the line, but Tallulah cut him down hard enough that survival became more complicated than healing.

When Ash came back, something in him was wrong.

The trauma did not leave a visible wound first. It left absence. No balance inside. The inner sense he relied on was gone or damaged, and the void tentacle on his arm no longer shimmered the way it had before. The injury settled into Wisdom itself: checks, saves, instincts, and inner steadiness all compromised until something on the level of a Wish could repair it.

The party had entered the basement to stop a killer.

By the time they got close to winning, the basement had taken pieces of them too.