Adventure of titano 4

You patrol the palace grounds alone, unarmed save for your immense strength. Beneath the colonnades, a young horned dinosaur woman in a torn blue tunic and a broad, scarred adult ankylosaur man in bronze wraps crash through a marble statue.

Stone bursts across the paving. Civilians scatter toward the palace doors, their small footfalls frantic beneath the thunder of the struggle. The two combatants break apart and turn toward your towering crimson-backed form.

The horned woman raises her hands defensively, while the ankylosaur squares his heavy shoulders. Between them, shattered statuary blocks the nearest archway and dust hangs in the torchlight.

No hammer weighs at your side today. The fleeing crowd vanishes inside, leaving the colonnade, the broken stone, and both wary combatants waiting on your judgment.

Titano plants one immense foot. Marble dust leaps from the paving as he raises his crimson tail and cracks it through the colonnade like thunder.

The report shakes the pillars, but authority fails to settle the scene. The horned woman recoils toward the palace doors, while the ankylosaur lowers his stance instead of yielding.

Their clashing claims expose a usable lead: the ankylosaur insists witnesses and weapons passed through the palace doors, while the woman denies both.

The thunderclap rolls beneath the palace roof. Dust sifts from the carved pillars, and both combatants flinch as Titano’s demand fixes the entire colonnade in silence.

The ankylosaur points toward the shattered statue, where a narrow bronze knife glints beneath fallen marble. Its hilt bears the palace guard’s sunburst.

Beyond them, the palace doors stand ajar. From within comes a faint metallic clatter, followed by hurried footsteps retreating deeper into the halls.

Titano bends over the shattered marble and reaches into the dust. He grips the bronze knife by its blade, lifting it clear without touching the sunburst-marked handle.

He turns the weapon beneath the torchlight, examining the dark bronze grip and its polished ridges. Fine skin oils catch the light in overlapping smears.

The impressions are not fresh fingerprints from the struggle. One broad partial print crosses the grip, while another smaller set lies over it, both dulled where the handle was wiped.

The palace doors remain open behind them, and the retreating footsteps fade into the inner halls. The knife yields evidence of handling, but not a clear identity.

Titano turns from the knife and reaches into the recessed guard station beside the archway, taking the iron shackles kept there for palace arrests. Their chain scrapes loudly over stone.

Titano extends the shackles between them. Under that immense authority, the ankylosaur man's defiance collapses; he lowers his arms and presents his wrists without a struggle.

The ankylosaur man is secured, and the opened palace doors remain clear. A bronze fleck matching the knife's grip glints caught in one of his wrist wraps, giving Titano a tangible lead.

Titano closes one immense hand around the shackled chain and draws the ankylosaur man toward the palace doors. The prisoner’s bronze-wrapped feet scrape over marble dust.

The chain pulls taut, but the restrained ankylosaur offers no resistance. Titano’s strength carries him beneath the archway and into the palace’s torchlit passage.

Behind them, the horned woman gathers her torn blue tunic and steps around the shattered statue. The bronze knife remains secured in Titano’s other hand.

Titano brings the shackled ankylosaur through the inner halls and into the royal court. A middle-aged stegosaur queen, broad and silver-scaled, sits beneath a carved ivory canopy, flanked by silent guards, two adult stegosaur men in matching dark-blue armor with square shields.

The court falls silent beneath Titano’s deep proclamation. He presents the bronze knife and the fleck caught in the prisoner’s wrist wrap, keeping the marked handle untouched.

A court attendant, a young adult woman with warm brown skin, tightly braided black hair, and a gray robe, sets sets a black crystal basin before the throne. When the knife rests upon it, pale light reveals overlapping impressions along the grip and a faint trail leading toward the inner halls.