The smell of antiseptic and healing herbs couldn’t quite mask the underlying stench of fear that had settled into City Hospital’s stone walls. Dr. Lexand pressed his palm against the cold window of his office, watching the shadows dance in the courtyard below. Three weeks had passed since they brought him the witness—bloodied, broken, but alive enough to speak a name that could topple kingdoms.
“Doctor?” The voice belonged to Mira, one of his most trusted clerics. Her usual composure had cracked days ago, replaced by the same nervous energy that infected everyone in the hospital. “The guards are here. They say it’s time.”
Lexand turned from the window, his dark mustache twitching with barely contained anxiety. The witness lay in the Tower Apartment above, sedated but stable enough for transport. One name. One face burned into a dying man’s memory. That’s all that stood between justice and the killer who had murdered his cousin Thomas in cold blood.
The Ace of Spades and torn boot they’d found at the scene had led nowhere. The constables had shrugged, filed their reports, and moved on to easier cases. But Lexand knew better. Thomas hadn’t been in the wrong place at the wrong time. Someone powerful had wanted him dead.
“Tell the guards I’ll be down in a moment,” Lexand said, straightening his coat. “And Mira? Send word to those adventurers who came by yesterday. The ones asking about work. Tell them we need them now.”
As Mira hurried away, Lexand made his way through the hospital’s familiar corridors. The healing magic that permeated every stone seemed dimmer tonight, as if even the ancient enchantments sensed the approaching darkness. Patients whispered in their beds, nurses moved with hurried steps, and the very air felt heavy with anticipation.
He found the adventuring party waiting in the Pensive Courtyard—three figures whose reputation had preceded them through the Rough Part of Town. Kess, a half-elf rogue with scars that told stories of survival; Thorek, a dwarven cleric whose hammer bore the symbols of justice; and Aria, a human wizard whose sharp eyes missed nothing.
“Dr. Lexand,” Kess said, stepping forward. “We heard you might need some extra muscle tonight.”
“Indeed.” Lexand’s voice dropped to a whisper. “In a few minutes, we’re moving the witness to the constabulary. The man who can identify my cousin’s killer. I don’t trust that the official guards will be enough.”
Thorek hefted his warhammer. “You think there’ll be trouble?”
“I’m certain of it.” Lexand gestured toward the hospital’s upper floors. “Three attempts have been made on the witness’s life already. Poisoned food. A fire in the storage room below his chamber. Yesterday, we found a crossbow bolt embedded in the wall where his head would have been if he’d been sitting up.”
Aria’s fingers crackled with barely contained magic. “What do we know about the killer?”
“Only what the witness told us before the sedatives took hold,” Lexand replied. “A member of the Cabochon Club. Wealthy. Connected. The kind of person who can make problems disappear—including witnesses.”
The sound of armored boots echoed from the main hall. The official guards had arrived—six men in the king’s colors, their captain bearing the stern expression of someone who’d rather be anywhere else.
“Dr. Lexand,” the captain called. “We’re here for the prisoner.”
“Witness,” Lexand corrected sharply. “The witness.”
“Right. Where is he?”
As they climbed the stairs to the Tower Apartment, Lexand couldn’t shake the feeling that they were being watched. The hospital’s usual sounds—the rattle of carriages outside, the bustle of staff—seemed muted, as if the building itself were holding its breath.
The witness lay pale and gaunt in his bed, swathed in bandages. His eyes opened as they entered, focusing with difficulty on Lexand’s face.
“Doctor,” he wheezed. “Is it time?”
“Yes, Marcus. We’re taking you somewhere safe.”
Marcus tried to sit up, wincing at the pain. “He had… had a ring. Silver, with a black stone. The man who killed your cousin. And he smelled like… like expensive tobacco. Foreign tobacco.”
Kess and Aria exchanged glances. The Cabochon Club was known for its exotic imports.
They lifted Marcus onto a stretcher, the guards forming a protective formation around him. Lexand led the way, with the adventurers taking positions at the rear and flanks. The plan was simple: down the main stairs, through the healing halls, out to the armored carriage waiting in the courtyard.
They made it halfway down the stairs before the lights went out.
The darkness was absolute, unnatural—not the simple absence of light, but something that seemed to devour illumination itself. Shouts erupted from below, followed by the sound of steel on steel.
“Ambush!” Thorek roared, his hammer beginning to glow with divine light.
Aria’s fingers wove patterns in the air, and magical light blazed from her outstretched hand, revealing figures in black masks pouring through the hospital’s main entrance. They moved with professional precision, cutting down the king’s guards with ruthless efficiency.
“The doctor!” someone screamed from the healing halls. “They have the doctor!”
Lexand’s heart clenched. Mira. They had Mira.
“Get the witness to the carriage!” he shouted to the adventurers. “I’m going after—”
“No,” Kess said firmly, grabbing his arm. “That’s what they want. You stay with Marcus. We’ll handle this.”
The next few minutes blurred into chaos. Kess melted into the shadows, appearing behind attackers to drive her daggers home. Thorek charged down the stairs, his hammer crushing skulls and breaking bones, divine energy healing his wounds almost as quickly as they appeared. Aria’s spells lit the darkness with fire and lightning, turning the hospital’s main hall into a battlefield.
But there were too many. For every black-masked assassin that fell, two more seemed to take their place. And Marcus, fragile as spun glass, wouldn’t survive much more of this violence.
“The back way!” Lexand gasped, hefting one end of the stretcher. “Through the morgue!”
They stumbled through darkened corridors, the witness’s labored breathing the only sound besides their pounding footsteps. Behind them, the sounds of battle continued—Thorek’s war cries, the crack of Aria’s magic, the whistle of Kess’s blades finding their marks.
The morgue’s door stood open, its interior lit by the eerie blue glow of preservation enchantments. Lexand pushed through, then stopped cold.
A figure waited in the shadows between the stone slabs—tall, elegant, with silver hair and a black stone ring that caught the magical light. He smelled of foreign tobacco.
“Dr. Lexand,” the man said in cultured tones. “I believe you have something that belongs to me.”
“Like hell,” Lexand snarled, but his hands shook as he set down the stretcher.
The assassin—for that’s what he clearly was—smiled. “The witness has seen too much. Heard too much. One word from him, and several very important people would face… complications.”
“Justice, you mean.”
“I mean complications.” The man drew a slender blade that seemed to drink in the blue light. “Stand aside, Doctor. Your cousin was a fool who asked too many questions. Don’t follow his example.”
“Never.”
The assassin sighed and raised his blade—just as Kess materialized from the shadows behind him, her daggers seeking his heart. But the man was fast, impossibly fast, spinning away from her strike and bringing his weapon around in a deadly arc.
The battle that followed was brief and vicious. Kess was skilled, but her opponent fought with the precision of someone who had killed many times. Just as it seemed he might overwhelm her, Thorek burst through the morgue doors, his hammer trailing divine fire.
The assassin’s blade met the dwarf’s hammer in a shower of sparks. Magic clashed against magic, steel against steel. Behind them, Aria appeared, her hands weaving a spell that filled the air with crackling energy.
“Enough!” the assassin snarled. He threw something to the ground—a small crystal that exploded in blinding light. When their vision cleared, he was gone.
But Marcus was still alive. Still breathing. Still able to speak.
Two hours later, as dawn broke over the Rough Part of Town, Marcus sat in the constabulary’s most secure cell—not as a prisoner, but as the most protected man in the city. His testimony had already begun to unravel the conspiracy, leading to arrest warrants for three members of the Cabochon Club and a frantic search for the silver-haired assassin.
Dr. Lexand stood in the courtyard of City Hospital, watching as his staff cleaned blood from the stone floors and tended to the wounded guards. Six good men had died tonight, but justice would be served.
“Doctor?” Mira appeared at his elbow, a bandage wrapped around her forehead where the assassins had struck her. “There’s someone here to see you.”
An old woman stood in the doorway, her face etched with years of grief and worry. She pressed a small bag of coins into Lexand’s hands.
“My son told me what you did,” she said quietly. “How you saved that man so he could speak the truth about who killed your cousin. Thomas was a good man, Doctor. He deserved justice.”
As she walked away, Lexand felt the weight on his shoulders lift slightly. Thomas was gone, but his killer would face the consequences. And in the Rough Part of Town, sometimes that was the best you could hope for.
The witness would live. The truth would be told. And somewhere in the city’s shadows, those who thought themselves above the law would learn that justice, like the healing magic that filled these walls, found a way to reach everyone eventually.
This short story was created by Claude.AI, using the one page dungeon named “Killer and Witness” in The Rough Part of Town as the training set. This is an experiment to see if the Heartwizard Games roleplaying supplements can be used as source material to generate stories. Hopefully you liked it!
Heartwizard Games Lab 