The Tollkeepers

The Tollkeepers are the ones who will drink your workshop dry: they draw flux straight from the land, and in a fight the charge of your things as well. Wherever they have been, the chunks run dry to the bottom of the bed; but their reliquaries, smashed on the ground, give the drink back. They are a branch of the Reckoners' schism, once the wardens of the locks: they took a share of every current, and after the Great Stilling they never stopped.

The Toll Collector strikes up close, and every blow drinks: first the charge of your things, then the flux of your chunk. After the third his reliquary is full, and he carries the drink off to a Bailiff or a tap; kill him while he is full, and the drink splashes back. The Bursar keeps his distance and hurls Current Bolts of the place's currents: the veins under his skin glow the color of the next one.

The Bursar hides inside a Pledge — a sphere of one Spring that swallows blows. The opposite Spring tears it at once, by blow or by cast, and the Bursar staggers. The Bailiff is heavy: his collection chain drags back whoever retreats, and his blow to the ground leaves a drain circle where a Conduit cast costs double. Step out of the circle.

Toll Posts stand by the locks and the Gauge Stones: a canopy, scales, reliquaries on the shelves and a Toll Tap driven into the stone. And whoever has attuned a Gauge Stone or set a post will one day see a Toll Collection: a Bailiff comes to drive a tap into the stone. Stop him first, and his reliquary is left by the stone. Break a tap that has been driven: the drink goes back to the land.

Toll Reliquaries pay the Sluice Arch's toll to the Quickstream: the lock takes what the chunk's flux lacks from the reliquaries in your inventory. A reliquary can also be smashed on the ground: the drink pours into the chunk, up to half again its bed. That is how a dry workshop is raised at once.