The white arch spits Embers Firestarter, the Woodsman, and the Royal Courier onto ash-gray ground. Wind claws through dead trees and rattles the dunes under a pale, sunless sky.
Embers stumbles at the edge of the new land and catches herself. Behind her, the arch fades to a dull red ember, then steadies like a wound in stone.
The Woodsman
Stay close. If Grayman came through, he could be anywhere out there.
The Royal Courier
This place feels wrong. No birds, no tracks, only ash.
The Woodsman turns in a slow circle, scanning the broken horizon. The Royal Courier shifts nearer to Embers, one hand near her blade, eyes fixed on the drift of the dunes.
Embers Firestarter
The ash is soft, but the wind keeps changing its surface.
A sharp crack echoes from somewhere beyond the skeletal trees. The trio freezes, and the dead branches sway as if something has just moved between them.
+ Story Quest Added
Find Grayman
+ Scene Quest Added
Get past the threat in the trees
“Embers will take a moment to see if she can identify what has caused the noise that she is hearing”
SUCCESS (Legendary Perception, rolled +2)
Embers tilts her head, listening past the wind. The crack was not wood snapping, but a boot sinking into ash, then lifting free with care.
Between two skeletal trunks, she spots a man-sized shape half veiled by drifting gray. A long coat. A hunter's posture. Still, patient, and watching.
Embers Firestarter
Grayman.
The Woodsman
You see him, don't you?
The Royal Courier
There, by the dead trees. He is not alone with the ash anymore.
The figure shifts, and a glint of metal catches the dead light, then vanishes as he turns his head toward them.
The path through the trees is open now, but the hunter has already been found. The ash keeps moving, waiting for Embers to choose her next step.
Quest Complete
Find Grayman
“Ember's begins to panic again , no matter what it she does it seems she cannot get away from the gray man this time. Her breathing quickens tears begin to leak from her eyes as she attempts to regain her wits but this fails. In a panic unable to think unable to reason she turns away from The Gray Man begins to run hoping to lose him through speed rather through woodcraft and deception”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +0)
Embers whirls away from the trees and runs. Ash kicks up behind her in a pale wake, and the dead trunks blur into streaks of gray.
Her breath stutters, then catches, but her feet keep moving. The White Stone Arch falls behind her as the open plain swallows the shape by the trees.
The Royal Courier
This way, Embers, keep moving!
The Woodsman
Good. Do not look back.
The hunter remains in the trees, but the distance between them grows fast, ash and wind masking his outline.
Embers gets past the threat in the trees, breaking clear into the ash plain while the others rush after her.
Quest Complete
Get past the threat in the trees
Fault Removed: Deep-seated Phobia