Rheinsted City Arc part 1

Overview
Rheinsted, the border city between the Zarath Empire and Xin Long Empire, thrives as a center of trade and diplomacy. Caravans cross the Golden River (Kwo Ning) daily, exchanging goods, spices, and gossip from east and west. Yet lately, something’s amiss: strange “lights” have been seen dancing along the riverbank at night — blue-white and silent, like will-o’-wisps.

Merchants whisper of missing shipments, farmers find livestock with faint scorch marks, and a few travelers claim the lights watch them.

The city council dismisses it as swamp gas and nerves. The guards are overworked. And so, the job falls to freelance adventurers — like you.

A Light on the Water
The first thing that struck me about Rheinsted was the smell — a blend of wet stone, baked bread, and river silt. The Golden River glimmered in the distance, wide as a small sea, the last light of dusk breaking across its rippling skin. Barges creaked in the current, merchants shouted for space on the docks, and I could almost taste the spices of the east winds coming from Xin Long.

After days on the road, I had finally reached the border city everyone talked about — the “River Jewel,” they called it. Rheinsted looked more like a chipped coin than a jewel, but I liked its noise and its pulse. It felt alive.

I hadn’t planned to find work so soon, but coin runs thin fast, and the innkeeper didn’t take promises as payment. So, when I overheard two guards at the riverside arguing about lights on the water, I followed the rumor straight to the nearest watchpost.

That’s where I met Sergeant Helmar Korr — a man built like a doorframe; his armor dented in all the familiar places. He eyed me the way a man eyes suspicious cargo.

“So. You’re the one asking about the lights,” he said. “Folks see shapes out there, hear singing, swear it’s ghosts. But if ghosts are stealing trade banners and leaving scorch marks on the docks, I’ll eat my helm.”

He slammed a report on the table. It smelled faintly of riverweed. “City guard’s stretched thin. You want a job? Fine. Go take a look. Nightfall. Stay out of the river. Bring back something real — not more stories.”

He handed me a small brass token stamped with the Rheinsted crest. “Show that if anyone stops you. Means I’m responsible for whatever you find. Try not to drown.”

By twilight, the docks had quieted. Fishermen packed away their nets, the gulls settled on the pilings, and the water turned from gold to black. I walked along the planks, lantern in hand, my boots creaking against the damp wood.

That was when I saw it — the first light.

It floated just above the surface, pale blue, the size of a child’s fist. It shimmered like glass catching moonlight, then split — one becoming two, then three, drifting downstream in perfect silence.

I crouched at the edge, breath fogging the air. The lights reflected on the water like stars torn loose from the sky. When I leaned closer, I saw something else.

Sigils. Faint, circular markings burned into the wood of the dock, glowing the same ghostly blue. Not random — a pattern. A spellwork of some kind.

And just beyond it, caught on a mooring post, a strip of cloth — deep red, edged in gold. The banner of a Xin Long merchant house.

I reached for it, and the nearest light flickered — not out, but toward me, as if sensing movement. Then it flared, bright as a torch.

The world went white-blue for a heartbeat. When my eyes cleared, the lights were gone. Only the sound of the river remained — calm, indifferent.

The banner was singed along one edge. I rubbed the fabric between my fingers. Warm. Recently burned.

When I brought the evidence back to the watchpost, Helmar didn’t look up right away. He read the burn marks, the strange sigil I’d copied onto parchment, then grunted.

“So, not swamp gas,” he muttered. “Didn’t think so.”

He glanced at me, eyes narrowing. “Xin Long trade banner, you said? Could be smugglers, or worse — foreign arcanists poking where they shouldn’t.”

He leaned back, tapping his fingers on the desk. “You did good work. The kind that gets you paid. If you’ve got the stomach for more, I’ll have another job soon. Something’s wrong on that river. I can feel it.”

He tossed a small pouch across the table — light, but it jingled.

“Don’t spend it all in one tavern. And if anyone asks about lights on the water—you didn’t see a thing. Understood?”

I nodded, slipping the coin away. Outside, the river wind caught my cloak, carrying the faint scent of ozone — sharp, metallic.

When I looked back toward the docks, for a moment, I could swear I saw a faint blue glow drifting far downstream… as if the lights were listening.

Trade of Shadows
The next morning, Rheinsted looked like any other river city. Children chasing ducks in the alleys, merchants bickering over grain weights, the smell of frying onions curling through the mist. You’d never guess that, just a few hours before, the same docks were glowing with witchlight and burnt banners.

Sergeant Helmar Korr didn’t believe in ghosts. But he did believe in smugglers, and that was almost worse.

He found me near the east market, halfway through a meat skewer that tasted mostly like salt and mystery.

“Glad you didn’t drown,” he said. “We’ve got a problem.” He motioned for me to follow — his version of a greeting.

We wound through the crowded riverside until the wooden stalls gave way to stone warehouses. These were the lifeblood of Rheinsted: goods coming in from the west, taxed, tallied, and shipped east to Xin Long by barge. But one warehouse stood quiet. Shutters drawn. Lock rusted… or pretending to be.

Helmar stopped before it. “This one’s registered to a defunct grain guild. Three years dead. But last night, a barge unloaded crates here — no record, no permit.”

He handed me a folded note, smudged with river stains. “Found this tied to the dock post near those lights you saw.”

The handwriting was neat. Too neat.

“Deliver by moonrise. Payment in silence.”
I looked up at him. “And you want me to…?”

“Go inside,” Helmar said simply. “See what they’re trading. Keep your head down. I can’t move guards without proof, and the guildmaster’s been breathing down my neck about ‘foreign tensions’ and ‘overreach.’”

He spat. “So, we’ll do it quiet.”

We waited for dusk again. I slipped inside the warehouse through a broken shutter, landing among rows of crates that smelled of spice and tar. No guards in sight. Only the echo of dripping water.

Then — a voice. Low, accented. Xin Long, definitely.

I crept along the shadows, keeping to the crates. Two men stood near the center, one in merchant robes, the other in a dark cloak. Between them lay an opened crate — not grain. Not spice.

Inside, silver ingots etched with faint glyphs. Arcane markings — faintly pulsing.

They weren’t just trading metal. They were trading charmed silver.

In Zarath law, that counted as weapon-grade contraband.

One of the merchants leaned closer to the other. “The Imperial inspectors suspect nothing. We send them north by river, under the grain. By the time they reach Choury—”

His sentence cut short when something hit the window outside. A stone? No — a spark.
The merchant’s head snapped up. “Who’s there?!”

I ducked, pressing against the crate. My hand brushed against the hilt of my knife — not much use if they were armed. But then I saw the light again — faint blue, flitting near the rafters. Like the same riverfire from before.

It drifted downward, almost curious. The merchants didn’t notice until one of the ingots began to hum.

A flash — blue light, sharp and cold. The crates nearest the sigil burst open, wood splintering. The merchants shouted, stumbling back. The lights weren’t natural — they were drawn to the glyphs. Reacting to them.

Whatever spell these smugglers were channeling, it was unstable.

I didn’t wait to see what happened next. I grabbed one of the smaller silver shards and bolted through the back door as a surge of light swallowed the warehouse interior.

Behind me, I heard a thunderous whoosh — not fire, but air itself being sucked inward, as if the river had inhaled.

By the time I reached the watchpost, Helmar was already barking orders.

“You were right,” I said, tossing the silver shard onto his desk. “Not smugglers. Spellrunners. Using enchanted silver — looks like it reacts to those same lights from the river.”

Helmar’s jaw tightened. “Xin Long arcanists, then. Damned fools think they can hide sorcery under grain shipments.”

He picked up the shard, turning it in his thick fingers. “This changes things. If word gets out, the border’ll boil.”

Then he looked at me, something between approval and exhaustion in his eyes. “You did good again. Quietly. That matters.”

He poured a small measure of river whiskey into two chipped cups and slid one across the table. “To keeping Rheinsted standing.”
I raised mine. “And keeping it quiet.”
He smirked. “Same thing, most days.”

Later, walking back through the streets, I noticed how calm the river looked — glassy and still. But when the moon rose, I thought I saw faint ripples of blue light gliding just beneath the surface, like a warning whispered through the current.

Rheinsted wasn’t the peaceful trading town I’d imagined. Something deeper was flowing beneath all this trade and tension — and I had just waded in up to my neck.

Echoes in the Current
The Golden River didn’t look golden that night.

Under the overcast sky, it was a wide, black mirror, rippling in long silver streaks beneath the moon. The air smelled of wet iron. The kind of air that tells you something buried is about to surface.

Sergeant Helmar Korr met me on the south dock, his cloak soaked through, a lantern swinging at his side. He didn’t waste time on greetings.

“Three barges burned downstream,” he said, voice low. “No survivors. Same blue fire you saw before. We traced the shipments — all of them passed through Rheinsted.”

He looked toward the water. “Whatever’s causing it, it’s under there.”

“Under the river?” I asked.

He nodded grimly. “Old Imperial records mention a ward-station beneath the riverbed — something built after the last war with Xin Long. A barrier, they called it. To keep ‘foreign enchantments’ out. But if that barrier’s cracked…”

He trailed off, eyes narrowing at the rippling dark. “Then something’s leaking through.”

We set out before midnight — just the two of us and a borrowed fishing skiff. The oars dipped soundlessly into the current, the city lights shrinking behind us until only the river remained — black, endless, whispering.

Halfway across, Helmar handed me a hooked line weighted with iron.

“Old trick,” he said. “If something’s down there, this’ll find it faster than any mage.”

We dropped the hook into the current. For a while, nothing. Then — a pull. Not sharp. More like a slow tug, steady, deliberate.

Helmar’s lantern flickered. I leaned over the side and saw them again.

The lights.

Dozens this time. Drifting beneath the surface, twisting in slow spirals like a school of glowing fish. They weren’t random — they were forming a shape.

A ring.

Then — a sound. Low, resonant, almost like a sigh through stone. The boat trembled. The hookline snapped taut.

“Pull!” Helmar barked. We both hauled, the rope searing through my palms. Something heavy rose from the depths — not a creature, but a structure.

A broken column, carved in sigils that pulsed with blue light. The same pattern I’d seen burned into the docks.

Helmar stared at it. “By the gods… it’s the ward seal. It’s fractured.”

The column groaned, a deep underwater rumble. The lights flickered violently, then streaked away downriver, scattering like frightened fireflies.

That’s when we saw the shimmer — dark shapes under the current, moving against the flow.

Helmar’s hand went to his sword. “They’re coming up—!”

But the shapes didn’t attack. They surfaced instead — old river spirits, translucent and hollow-eyed, their forms flickering like torn reflections. Each bore the same sigils across their chests, glowing faintly.

One spoke, voice layered and distant. “Wards broken… flow unbound… foreign hand tampered…”

The spirit’s gaze fixed on me — not accusing, but pleading.

“Restore the seal… or the river remembers its hunger.”

Then they sank back beneath the surface, the glow fading with them.

When we reached shore again, dawn had begun to gray the horizon. Helmar stood on the bank, staring out across the water like he was seeing it for the first time.

“They weren’t lying,” he muttered. “The ward’s bleeding power. That’s what’s causing the lights. The smugglers must’ve disturbed it — their silver was probably drawing on the old runes.”

He turned to me. “You’ve done more for this city in a few nights than most guards in a year. But this—” he gestured toward the river “—this is above my pay grade.”

As I returned to Rheinsted, the sun rose over the Golden River, turning its surface back to gold again. Barges moved out with their sails catching the light, the city’s noise already starting to wake.

But under the surface, I could still feel that faint, steady pulse — the broken heartbeat of the old ward.

And for the briefest moment, I saw one last flicker of blue drifting beneath the current. Not threatening. Almost grateful.