Odrun Fell

The Mucknest Tines are a network of narrow marrow-clefts that were once part of a failed Ashcoat extraction rig. The rig collapsed last season due to rising fungal gases and relentless swarms of tunnelflies that had built an expansive egg-basin beneath the machinery. Now the area buzzes with infestation. The Barleys tried using smoke beetles to clear them but lost two handlers, and even the Cudgel’s junior squads avoid assignments here unless supervised. Despite the danger, low-rank scavengers still crawl the Tines to harvest waxy egg-clumps that fetch coin at the Sallowrack—especially during larval season when tunnelfly cocoons are prized for their paralytic silk. The Tines are now a rite of passage among the desperate, a place where delvers cut their teeth or get them eaten.

The Mucknest Tines are low, steaming corridors carved between warped grain-veins, each one slick with amber slime. Cloud-thick vapors rise from fungal chimneys, distorting sight and muffling sound with a constant wet hiss. Swarms of tunnelflies pulse through the fog in glimmering waves, their wings flashing bronze and their bodies trailing wet threads. Brown-yellow egg-bulbs grow in clusters along every wall, wriggling slightly from within. Thin scaffolds of long-abandoned mining gear teeter above the muck, now overtaken by waxen nests and spore-crust. When the light catches just right, the tunnels shimmer like veins filled with fireflies—but touch anything, and the swarm awakens.