Mesthelia’s market surges around Arion and Sivanus, all shouting hawkers and clashing coin. Then the crowd parts. A man in a tight dark suit and mirror mask steps into their path, cutting off the way out of the district.
Draelik
You keep walking like a blade looking for a throat. Careful, it may find yours first.
The mask reflects Arion’s teal-eyed face back at him, warped and laughing. Draelik does not move aside. His stillness feels deliberate, like a gate barred by choice.
Arion Touvengard
He is not here by chance.
Sivanus
Arion, this one has council marks. Let me see his hands.
Draelik
The rift-walker is no alley wraith or tavern rat. It wears many faces, and one of them is already in your grasp. The Council wants the sword, but I want the thing that opened the path.
For a heartbeat, the market noise fades. Draelik’s mirror mask tilts toward Arion, as if measuring the ancient thing inside the blade. Between them hangs the same truth, the rift-walker is tied to Arion’s hunt, and Draelik stands in the way.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get past Draelik
“The council tasked me to hunt the rift walker, you wouldnt oppose the other 8 would you”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Arion Touvengard
The Council tasked me with the rift-walker. You would not oppose the other eight, would you?
Draelik
No. I oppose waste. If the Council named your quarry, then the quarry matters.
Draelik’s mirror mask dips a fraction. The path is still blocked, but his shoulders loosen, just enough to show the threat has shifted into scrutiny.
Draelik
Show me the trail you have, and I may tell you where it bends.
Sivanus
He is weighing Arion, not just the hunt.
The market noise swells back in around them. Draelik’s gloved hand lifts from his side, and a thin black sigil flashes at his wrist before he hides it again.
Draelik
If the rift-walker is tied to the sword, then we are hunting the same shadow. Speak plainly, and I will decide whether you are ally or obstacle.
Quest Complete
Hunt the rift-walker for the Council of Eight
“I ask what the black sigil means”
SUCCESS (Poor Reasoning, rolled +0)
Arion Touvengard
What is that black sigil?
Draelik
A claim mark. Void-binders use them to tag assets, debts, and paths worth keeping alive.
Sivanus
So he is not merely hunting the rift-walker. He is reading the shape of the hunt itself.
Draelik
It answers to resonance, not ink. If your blade is the key, the mark will wake when you stand near what it recognizes.
Draelik
I have seen that sign before, on a man who survived the void by bargaining with it. He vanished three nights later.
Sivanus
And you are telling us this because you trust us?
Draelik
No. I am telling you because the market is full of ears, and I would rather not lose the trail to panic.
Draelik
Come. If you want the bend in the road, I know where it breaks, and I will show you... if you show me enough truth to risk my own neck.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find where the claim mark leads
“Is Draelik truly helping us?”
NO (Unlikely, rolled 44)
Arion watches the way Draelik's fingers twitch near the sigil, noting the subtle shift in the councilman's posture that betrays a hidden agenda. The offer of guidance is a hollow lure, masking a deeper intent to lead them into a trap rather than toward the truth.
“I let Sivanus speak while I watch him”
SUCCESS (Fair Perception, rolled -1)
Arion lets Sivanus take the lead, and keeps his own gaze on Draelik’s hands. The councilman’s fingers never fully settle, they tap the claim mark in a rhythm that matches the market’s hidden distortions.
Arion Touvengard
The mark is not just a brand. It is listening.
Sivanus
You said you had the trail, Draelik. Then tell us why the stalls are bending around you.
Draelik’s mirror mask tilts toward a spice vendor’s awning. Arion catches the small tell, the way the reflection in the mask lags behind the turn by a breath.
Draelik
Because the rift-walker passed here. The claim mark still tastes the wake. If you want the path, you come with me, and you speak plainly.
Arion follows the twitch in Draelik’s wrist to the black sigil, then beyond it, to a thin thread of void sheen caught in the warped cobbles between two stalls. It points away from the councilman, deeper into the market lane.
Sivanus
He is not leading us from the front. He is marking where it went.
Quest Complete
Find where the claim mark leads
“I follow the void-sheen deeper into the market”
SUCCESS (Fair Perception, rolled +1)
Arion slips off the main lane and follows the void-sheen where it thins between stacked fruit crates and hanging cloth, leaving Draelik behind in the market noise. The warped cobbles narrow into a side run, and the trail leads him exactly where the councilman pointed, only from the wrong side.
Arion Touvengard
The trail bends away from him, not toward him.
Sivanus moves in beside the path, eyes flicking from the glimmering trace to the stalls around them. Draelik stays at the mouth of the lane, his mirror mask catching broken reflections of awnings and passersby.
Draelik
There. He skated through here and split the wake. If you want the truth, keep moving.
Arion reaches the bend and finds the lane opening into a small square of sun and dust. The void-sheen ends at a crushed bundle of black feathers wedged under a stall support, with a fresh smear of frost on the wood beside it.
Sivanus
That is no ordinary spoor. Someone left this as a marker, or a warning.
Draelik steps after them at last, no longer blocking the way, but not yielding ground either. He lowers his marked wrist toward the feathers, and the sigil gives a faint answering pulse.
Draelik
You have the path now. I have the meaning. Will you share what hunts it, or keep pretending this is only my burden?
Quest Complete
Get past Draelik
Attribute Upgrade: Perception Fair→Good