The black stair carries Thyrddin, the necromancer’s apprentice, and Veyra Ash-Tongue beneath the Old Ash Cathedral. Above, the ruined nave falls silent behind them.
They emerge into a circular chamber lined with names. Pale inscriptions cover the walls from floor to vaulted ceiling, shifting like ash beneath invisible water.
At the chamber’s center, a witness-stone stands before a sealed listening well. The same silver pattern burning in Thyrddin’s palm marks its dark surface.
The Necromancer’s Apprentice
This is the listening chamber. The names are moving toward an oath, not being erased. Something here is preparing to remember us.
The inscriptions rearrange themselves in widening rings. Ancient words gather around a central vow, while silver threads creep from the witness-stone toward Thyrddin’s marked hand.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
Do not read the oath aloud, wizard. The reservoir learned its first hunger through spoken promises, and the witness-stone still recognizes a willing voice.
The Necromancer’s Apprentice
The seal is not merely guarding the well. It is waiting for a name to complete the sentence.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reveal the reservoir’s precise weakness
“Thyrddin looks thtrough the oath, careful not to speak. He looks for the party sworn to and what their end of the bargain is.”
SUCCESS (Great Investigation, rolled +0)
Thyrddin studies the oath without voicing a syllable. He follows each shifting clause by its silver thread, separating the ancient names from the sentence’s binding terms.
The sworn party resolves into three figures named beneath the central vow: the cathedral’s founders, their deathless descendants, and the buried demigod they imprisoned.
Their bargain is precise. The founders offer names, memories, and descendants to sustain the listening well; in return, the demigod’s power remains sealed and the cathedral’s line receives protection from ash and ruin.
Thyrddin
The reservoir was taught to hunger as payment for protection, not as a prison’s accident.
A final clause lies beneath the visible vow, written backward in the witness-stone’s dark sheen: when the founders’ line ends, the demigod may claim the gathered names as its own.
The Necromancer’s Apprentice
The bargain is hereditary. They fed it generations to keep the ash from their gates, and promised the dead as payment when their line failed.
Veyra Ash-Tongue
Now you understand why my master seeks the witness-stone. Whoever controls the remembered names can decide whether that final payment is honored.