Skullwater Sluice

Skullwater Sluice controls the bitter underground water that feeds Mawhold and the Cinderdeep Road. Its wheels, black channels, cistern gates, overflow teeth, and cold inspection bridges are guarded like a treasury because water is the only weapon Kharod cannot forge more of. In torchlight the water shines almost beautiful, green-black and deep enough to swallow sound. Its dread is older than politics: thirst, flood, drowning, rot, and the knowledge that one gate turned at the wrong hour can save a fortress or drown allies with enemies. Its keepers carry a moral burden no forge can soften: each opened channel may rescue children behind one gate while condemning trapped fighters in another tunnel to black water.