Adventure of Valornor Gladewarder 1

At the tavern threshold, the two guards square their shoulders and raise steel. One waves the parchment hard enough to make the seals flash in the firelight.

Harlen turns in the violet wash, calm breaking into a sharp, hungry smile. The floorboards groan. A seam of light surges wider beneath his boots.

One guard falters, reading the parchment again. The other snaps his blade toward Harlen and moves for the door, as if to force him back from the open seam.

From behind the guards, Valornor draws a bead and looses. The first arrow snaps past Guard One’s shoulder and drives Harlen off the seam, forcing his stance to break.

A second shaft follows in the same breath, striking Harlen’s lifted arm and jerking it wide. The violet wash stutters across the floorboards.

Guard Two reads the parchment again, then looks from the seal to the widening crack in the boards. His suspicion hardens into action.

Guard One surges forward with steel out, forcing Harlen to yield another step. The floor gives a sharp, ugly groan under the violet light.

Harlen snarls and spreads his hand over the glowing break, but the arrows have robbed his rhythm. The seam still burns, now exposed to every eye in the room.

Valornor shifts his aim and sends another shaft through the chaos. It slams into Harlen’s forearm, driving the hand away from the glowing break.

The violet seam answers with a violent pulse, but it does not swell. Instead, it sputters, starved of Harlen’s control.

Guard One crashes in with steel at Harlen’s chest, and Harlen is forced fully off the seam, boot skidding on splintered boards.

Valornor’s arrow keeps Harlen’s hand high and useless, while the cracked boards flare and then dim in jagged flashes.

Valornor looses again, and the arrow hammers Harlen’s shoulder. He staggers sideways, away from the split boards, as his free hand claws for balance.

The violet seam gutters under him, flashing in broken bursts instead of spreading. The floor shudders, but the pulse does not find its rhythm.

Guard Two surges in beside the first, and their pressure forces Harlen fully back from the crack. His boots skid over splintered planks as the light licks at his heels.

Valornor’s third shot snaps Harlen’s reach wide, and the dark charm-work is left hanging useless in the air. The seam keeps flickering, but the guards now own the space around it.

For a heartbeat, the tavern holds on a knife edge, with Harlen off balance, the guards pressing, and the floor still groaning under the split.

Valornor's order cuts through the tavern, and both guards answer at once, surging in to lock Harlen down before he can lunge back to the seam.

Harlen twists under the shove, but the steel at his throat and shoulder takes his balance away. He is seized and hauled off the split boards.

The violet seam stutters, then coughs out a broken pulse. A bitter flare snaps across Valornor's fingers from the bowstring, and the smell of singed wood curls through the room.