Mara leads Mando beneath the postern beacon, with First Watch Guard, Second Watch Guard, and the adult watch woman close behind. The restored amber light flickers overhead.
The chamber is low and dust-choked, its old masonry threaded by the service channel. Fresh tracks mark a narrow crawlway leading away from the sealed foundation, each edge sharply undisturbed.
Mara Pell
This route was not part of the foundation breach. The warning fire carried its signal here, and something followed the channel from below.
A deep vibration passes through the floor. Dust trickles from the ceiling, and the beacon answers in three short flickers, then one long pulse, repeating with deliberate patience.
First Watch Guard
The pattern is changing. It is not merely warning us about the road anymore.
Mara crouches beside the crawlway without touching it. Behind her, the second guard raises his lamp while the adult watch woman keeps watch on the stair.
Adult Watch Woman
That rhythm was beneath the tower before. It has found another way upward.
Mara Pell
Nobody enters until we know whether the crawlway ends at stone, or at something that can listen through it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine where the alternate crawlway leads
“I inspect the crawlway’s tracks and masonry without touching the passage.”
SUCCESS (Superb Perception, rolled -2)
Mando crouches beside the crawlway and studies its untouched edges without laying a finger on the stone. The tracks are fresh, narrow, and deliberate, pressed into dust no older than the restored beacon’s awakening.
His inspection finds a passage made by masons for maintenance, not a natural crack. The marks show something entered from the sealed foundation’s service side and followed the warning channel toward the postern beacon.
Mando Shunkar
The tracks belong to one passage, but their maker has no clear heel or claw.
Mando follows the masonry lines with his eyes, identifying fresh grit displaced outward and older dust settled beneath it. The movement was recent, and it stopped just short of the chamber.
Mara Pell
So it reached the beacon, but did not cross into this room. You have given us a direction, though not a name for what made those marks.
The careful examination costs them time. The beacon completes another patient sequence before Mando finishes, leaving the tracks understood but the maker’s nature unresolved.
“Is the crawlway maker still inside Blackthorn Post?”
YES (Likely, rolled 45)
The next beacon pulse dies before completing its pattern. From somewhere above the low chamber comes a faint scrape, followed by dust falling through a seam in the ceiling.
Mara Pell
It did not leave through the crawlway. It turned aside before the room and climbed into the postern masonry.
A narrow shadow shifts behind a cracked vent high on the wall. No face appears, but two pale reflections blink once in the dark, then vanish as the stones settle.
First Watch Guard
It is still inside Blackthorn Post. The warning channel brought it here, and the masonry is hiding its road.
The adult watch woman backs from the stair without taking her eyes off the vent. The second guard raises his lamp, revealing fresh dust lodged on the inner ledge.
Adult Watch Woman
It is above us now. If it reaches the upper platforms, the post will have a hidden road through every warning stone.
Mara Pell
Then we keep it contained here, where the walls are known and the stair is watched. No one answers if it borrows a voice.
“I withdraw the guards and seal the stair”
SUCCESS (Legendary Strength, rolled -1)
Mando draws Mara Pell and the three guards back from the stair, placing them beneath the beacon while the pale reflections remain hidden behind the cracked vent.
He crosses to the stair mouth, grips the old sealing bar, and forces it into its stone sockets. His bruised shoulder grinds against the masonry, but the bar settles with a heavy, final crack.
Mara Pell
The stair is sealed. We are clear of its mouth, and the vent remains watched.
The stone stair folds behind the bar as an ancient counterweight drops into place. Dust spills across the threshold, closing the route without disturbing the warning beacon or its channel.
First Watch Guard
Nothing crossed before the seal fell. The upper platforms remain ours to defend.
Adult Watch Woman
It cannot use that stair now. If it speaks, we will hear it from stone, not from among us.
Mando stands before the secured stair, halberd in hand, while Mara keeps the guards aligned beneath the amber light. Above them, the vent stays dark and silent.
“Is the hidden intruder still inside the postern masonry?”
YES (VeryLikely, rolled 24)
The vent remains dark for three breaths. Then grit spills from its lower seam, pattering onto the chamber floor as something shifts within the postern masonry.
Mando Shunkar
It stayed inside the wall.
A thin pressure travels through the stones above the sealed stair, not opening the passage, but moving laterally through old masonry toward the beacon chamber.
Mara Pell
It never left the postern. The wall is its road now, and the beacon has drawn it deeper inside.
The first guard presses his lamp toward the vent without touching it. Pale reflections appear behind the crack, then slide sideways through the dust and vanish beyond the lamp’s reach.
Adult Watch Woman
It is above the sealed stair, but not in the stair. The stone holds, and whatever moves beyond it cannot use that route.
First Watch Guard
Then the postern masonry is compromised. We can defend the chamber, but the thing remains within Blackthorn’s walls.
“I inspect the postern masonry for its endpoint”
SUCCESS (Superb Perception, rolled -3)
Mando inspects the postern masonry by lamplight, tracing the pressure marks around the vent and the dust disturbed along the wall’s inner joints. The route runs upward, not outward.
He follows the old stonework to its endpoint: a narrow hollow behind the postern beacon’s foundation, opening into the lower edge of the watch platform above. The moving presence has a concealed road to the upper defenses.
Mando Shunkar
The masonry ends beneath the upper platform, behind the beacon’s foundation.
The inspection costs several quiet minutes. While Mando studies the final joints, the beacon gives two warning pulses, and the exact stone that conceals the hollow remains indistinguishable from its neighbors.
Mara Pell
Then it has a road to the platform, but not an open one. We can guard the endpoint without touching the sealed stair.
The first guard shifts his lamp toward the upper wall, while the second watches the stair and the adult watch woman keeps her gaze on the vent. The endpoint is known; its hidden access remains untouched.
Quest Complete
Determine where the alternate crawlway leads
Attribute Upgrade: Perception Superb→Legendary