The circling ash parts as a figure approaches in cracked bronze robes. Old fire has marked their flesh, and each step disturbs the altar's unnatural stillness.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
Stand where you are, apprentice. The buried working has awakened to claim its key.
Veyra Ash-Tongue stops beyond the altar's silver boundary and raises a strip of black vellum. The former mentor's seal glimmers like cooled coal.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
By the elder seal, the reservoir's living key is to be brought below. Your blood opened the ward, and your will now belongs to its purpose.
the necromancer's apprentice
My former mentor speaks through you, then? Convenient. I have already seen what that purpose feeds.
The vellum tightens in Veyra's scarred hand. Beneath the altar, one dormant channel answers with a muted pulse, while the silver circles hold firm.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
You mistake refusal for freedom. Come willingly, and the demigod remains sleeping. Resist, and the old design will draw from you where you stand.
“"I will rebind this demigod a thousand times if necessary. You will not take the lady by threat or violence."”
SUCCESS (Great Willpower, rolled -2)
Thyrddin
I will rebind this demigod a thousand times if necessary. You will not take the lady by threat or violence.
Thyrddin plants his staff against the silver boundary. The three circles flare, and the dormant channels snap shut beneath the altar with a thunderous crack.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
You would spend yourself defending a blood-marked key? Then spend this, old wizard.
Veyra thrusts the black vellum toward the boundary. The elder seal burns away in a gust of ash, and the apprentice is thrown clear of its command.
the necromancer's apprentice
The summons is severed. I am not being taken below. But the binding has bitten deeply into him.
A silver backlash splits the skin across Thyrddin's palm where his staff grips it. The altar holds, yet every concealed channel now glows with his mark.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
So that is the price of your defiance. The reservoir knows your name now, wizard, and my master will know it soon.
✓ Quest Accepted
Keep the apprentice from being taken below
✓ Quest Accepted
Sever the reservoir's claim on Thyrddin
“"The reservoir knows my name and I know its. But I also know 1000 seals of binding. Let's see which one works." Thyrddin strikes his staff into the ground and arcane runes start drawing in glowing light.”
SUCCESS (Superb Magic, rolled +1)
Thyrddin
The reservoir knows my name, and I know its. I know a thousand seals of binding. Let us see which one works.
Thyrddin strikes his staff into the ash. Glowing runes unfurl around the silver boundary, layering in swift, intricate circles until the altar shines like a captured star.
Thyrddin
The channels answer my mark, but their hunger has a pattern.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
No mortal seal commands a reservoir built from demigod power.
Thyrddin's runes turn inward, selecting a binding older than the altar's hidden design. His wounded palm burns silver, and the reservoir's pulse falters beneath the glass.
the necromancer's apprentice
That seal is not closing the prison. It is binding the conduits themselves.
The thousandth seal settles with a soundless flash. Every concealed channel locks beneath the altar, severed from the reservoir's working, while the demigod-linked power remains contained and still.
Quest Complete
Keep the apprentice from being taken below
Quest Complete
Sever the reservoir's claim on Thyrddin