This is the latest story in the series about my continent of Adaran. These stories focus on events that happen around the characters in the novel I just sent off to my editor.

Noxport is a sprawling port city perched on the edge of the Southern Sea. It thrives amid the tumult of merchants, pirates, and fishermen. Its jagged cliffs and towering spires are home to the rich and powerful. The city’s underbelly—its slums and markets, darkened alleys and crumbling buildings—is where the forgotten live. People like Thorne.

Thorne lived most of his life as a shadow in the cracks of Noxport’s grand architecture. He wasn’t a thief of the grand heists, nor was he a soldier of fortune with blades flashing in the moonlight. He was a nobody, a pickpocket, a sly figure who survived through minor tricks and the occasional con. People didn’t utter his name with respect. When they talked about him, they usually muttered curses or chuckled. But Thorne had dreams, ones that stretched beyond the petty schemes of his daily life.

Thorne’d studied Noxport’s intricate layout for years. The cobbled streets, the hidden passageways, and most notably, the sewers. In the shadows of the undercity, where rats scurried and water flowed with foul secrets, Thorne found something else: freedom. The sewers were a network of tunnels, forgotten by most, but alive with whispers of escape. He saw them as a way out, a secret path no one could trace—a way to slip away from Noxport without ever being caught.

But Noxport’s rulers, the Lords of the Dagger Coast, kept the city’s gates locked, its roads guarded. Once you were in, you couldn’t leave without their pass. The city had more than enough riches, but those who sought to escape its grasp usually vanished into the night, never to be seen again. Thorne wasn’t interested in wealth. He wasn’t seeking fame or fortune. He wanted only to vanish.

The idea had obsessed him for years, but the time to act had come.

Thorne made his move on a cold winter evening. The sun had already dipped below the horizon, leaving the city bathed in the eerie glow of lanterns. The air smelled of saltwater and rotting fish, as it always did near the docks. He stood at the edge of a shadowy alley, staring toward the old sewer entrance behind a crumbling tavern known as The Gutter’s Rest. The lid, rusted and covered in mold, was loose. Just the opening he needed.

His heart pounded as he slipped down onto the ladder. The stench of decay hit him immediately, but he had grown used to the foulness of Noxport’s underbelly. With practiced ease, Thorne descended the narrow, slippery rungs into the darkness below. The air down here was thick with the heavy reek of sewage, but also something else—a smell of untapped potential.

He’d made his preparations carefully over the last few weeks. No one had noticed the slight changes he’d made in the tunnels. No one had noticed the extra planks of wood he’d pried loose, the small crates of tools he’d hidden, or the plans he’d scribbled into the margins of his weathered map. Thorne had always been good at moving unnoticed. That’s what it took to survive in a city like Noxport.

But now, he was no longer interested in survival. He was after something greater. The sewers could become his exit, his way out of the city—if only he could finish what he had started.

The tunnel stretched before him, dark and narrow, marked only by the pitons he pounded into the walls at knee level to find his way. The sound of dripping water echoed through the cavernous space, and distant rats scuttled in the shadows. Thorne’s boots splashed in the muck as he made his way deeper into the maze of pipes, sewers, and forgotten stonework. The labyrinth of tunnels beneath Noxport was a place few dared to enter, and even fewer escaped from.

For years, Thorne had studied the city’s sewers, mapping them as though he were on a treasure hunt. Built long before the Lords of Dagger Coast came to power, during a time when Noxport had been a modest fishing village. But with the city’s growth, newer construction buried the old pathways. The sewers were now more of a relic of the past than a viable route for escape.

But not for Thorne. He was about to create something no one would expect: a secret escape route, so hidden that even the Lords wouldn’t be able to trace it. And once it was done, he could slip out of Noxport unnoticed. He had no one to say goodbye to, no one he had left behind. His family had abandoned him long ago, and the city had never really cared about him. He was just another forgotten soul in the dark.

Days passed as Thorne toiled beneath the city. He had to move carefully, digging through the thick layers of stone and earth. His hands were raw and blistered from the labor, but there was no turning back now. He’d found an ancient, unused sewer system deep under Noxport—a massive, abandoned aqueduct that led far beyond the city’s walls. It would be the perfect exit if only he could connect the tunnels properly.

But he had a problem. On the fourth day of digging, while Thorne worked by lantern light, he heard it: footsteps. His work hadn’t gone unnoticed after all.

The sound echoed faintly through the narrow corridor, but it was enough to make his blood run cold. Someone was coming. He’d been so absorbed in his work, he’d ignored the faint signs of intrusion—broken cobblestones, a faint trail of mud.

Thorne froze, pressing his back against the wet stone wall. His hand instinctively reached for the small dagger he kept at his belt, though he knew the odds of fighting off whoever was coming weren’t good.

The footsteps grew closer, then stopped just outside his hidden chamber.

“Thorne,” a voice called, low and familiar. It was a voice Thorne had heard many times before, in the cramped taverns and dark alleyways. A voice that could only belong to one person: Captain Renna of the City Guard.

“Thorne,” she repeated, her voice tinged with both amusement and threat. “I know you’re in there. Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”

Thorne’s heart raced. He had no choice now. His plan to escape had just hit a major difficulty. Renna, not known for mercy, had been looking for him ever since the botched con he’d pulled a few months ago. He knew that the guards’d been watching him, waiting for him to slip up. And now it seemed they’d finally caught up.

But Thorne was no fool. He’d always known there was a risk to his plan, that the escape route wouldn’t be entirely without danger. The only question was how far he would go to ensure his freedom.

Before Renna could call out again, Thorne darted forward, his feet splashing in the muck, hands gripping the walls to guide him through the dark maze. He had no time to think, no time to plan. The sewers were his only chance. He had to finish what he’d started, even if it meant facing the unknown.

Thorne ran. Through tunnels, past old gates, and into dark chambers where the air was thick with dust. His mind raced as he pushed forward, the sound of his pursuers fading behind him. The city, with its watchful eyes and towering walls, was now distant in his thoughts. The world above, with all its rules and constraints, seemed far away. All that mattered now was the path he was carving.

He reached the last stretch of the tunnel—the ancient aqueduct that would take him beyond Noxport’s walls. The opening was narrow, and through it, Thorne saw a pale light filtering in from the outside world, faint but real. The stars above glimmered like distant promises of a life beyond the city.

With one last glance over his shoulder, Thorne stepped into the unknown.

And for the first time in his life, he was truly free.

Thorne never returned to Noxport. He became a shadow in the lands beyond the city—a figure never forgotten by those who had known him, but also one who would never return. The secret path through the sewers remained hidden for a long time. A silent testament to the resolve of a rogue who left all that he knew behind in search of something more.

And in the dark, forgotten corners of Noxport, the whispers of a neglected path, leading to freedom, lived on. Eventually, more scoundrels braved the hidden passage, found the pitons, and finished marking the secret route out of the city.