Witnessing the Vow at Heavens Pillar

Boots and claws scrape at the ledge. A kobold hauls himself over the lip, orange scales dusted gray with mine grit, pack straps cutting across his chest.

Rukalog steadies himself, gold eyes darting from Isaru to Jorren and Talimaryl. His pick and lamp jostle at his belt, ready but not raised.

Talimaryl shifts aside, giving the kobold room. The rune-line at their feet holds steady, the mountain quiet but watchful.

Rukalog blinks, then points one claw toward the cliff below, urgency cutting through his caution.

Isaru answers without flourish, a snap of motion and a hard beat of wind. Rukalog lifts from the ledge as if the cliff itself has let go of him.

The kobold flails once, then the gale catches cleanly under him, carrying him away from the drop instead of into it.

He lands below on a lower shelf of stone with a rough skid, breath knocked out but bones intact. His lamp clatters, then steadies at his belt.

Jorren steps to the brink, staring down after him, while Talimaryl’s head turns sharply toward the mountain path rune glowing at Isaru's feet.

From below comes the scrape of claws on stone, then Rukalog’s urgent shout rising back up the cliffside.

Rukalog’s shout hitches into the wind, but it carries enough. The kobold is not cursing now, he is warning, and the mountain carries his words straight up the cliff.

Jorren pulls back from the brink, jaw tight, while Talimaryl studies the glowing path-line as if measuring how much it reveals and how much it hides.

The words settle cleanly. Rukalog’s panic falters, because the mountain’s pulse underfoot is already visible in the rune-line, and the three of them can see it as the same old work, not a fresh alarm.

The kobold freezes on the lower shelf, tail tight against the stone. Isaru’s command lands in the wind like a door slammed shut.

Jorren’s gaze flicks to the path-line, then back to the ledge below. He does not soften, but he does listen.

Rukalog grips his pack strap and points down the cliff, not at the summit, but toward the mountain’s hidden body.

The rune-line beside Talimaryl brightens once, as if the mountain itself marks the fork in the road.

Isaru lets the wind settle around his wings and simply refuses the tunnel with his stillness. The choice hangs there, plain and unanswered, and the kobold is left looking to the two dragons instead of to him.

Jorren straightens at the brink, his attention fixed on the lower shelf. Talimaryl keeps his head angled toward the rune-line, reading the glow as if it might speak next.

The kobold's pack strap slips from one shoulder, the motion small but sharp, and a pebble skitters off the shelf into the dark below.

For a heartbeat, the cliff answers with a low pulse from the rune-line, bright against the storm-wet stone. The mountain keeps its secret, but it now waits on Isaru's next move.