The breach falls quiet beneath hanging smoke. Scattered grain glitters across the churned earth, while Carmin, the scar-cheeked guard, and the bronze-helmed guard remain with Maryam before the battered palisade.
A wounded goblin, a young male goblin with pointed ears, a long hooked nose, and yellow eyes stumbles toward the jungle, a small, wiry figure with mottled green skin, a torn brown harness, and one hand clamped around a sack branded with an unfamiliar shrine-symbol.
The Wounded Goblin
Kra-chik! Kra-chik!
Beyond the trees, something answers with a faint stone bell. Its single note drifts through the smoke, too measured to be jungle noise, and the goblin hurries despite its limp.
Carmin
That bell answered it. I do not think the shrine-symbol is merely decoration.
Sela Vey
Then we mark the trail before the rain or the jungle takes it. Orren, watch the breach.
Orren turns toward the smoking gap, spear lowered but ready. The scar-cheeked guard studies the retreating goblin, and Carmin’s amber wall dims behind them as the last farmers vanish among the trees.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find the shrine answering the bell
“"You two stay here and restore the peace- escort the villagers safely back and remain here until me and Carmin return. We'll investigate this loose end," I say in haste, already making way toward the goblin”
FAILURE (Mediocre Tracking, rolled -1)
Maryam
You two stay here and restore the peace. Escort the villagers safely back, and remain here until Carmin and I return. We'll investigate this loose end.
Sela Vey
Understood. The villagers have already reached the trees, but Orren and I will hold this ground until you return.
The scar-cheeked guard turns toward the jungle path, then stops herself, seeing the fleeing villagers are already beyond escort. Orren plants his spear at the breach and watches the smoking palisade.
Carmin
I am with you. Please keep close. That bell may be leading the goblin somewhere prepared.
Maryam and Carmin enter the green shadow at a run. The wounded goblin's footprints cross broken fern stems, but the churned earth soon offers too many overlapping marks.
Maryam follows the clearest impressions beneath a leaning strangler tree. They end at bare stone beside a shallow runnel, while the stone bell sounds again from somewhere deeper in the jungle.
Carmin
I am sorry. I cannot tell which way he went from here. We have lost the trail, but the bell is still ahead.
“"Do you recognize it, ginger? With your knowledge of the occult?" I ask, as I pursue deeper into the jungle, toward the ringing.”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled +2)
Maryam
Do you recognize it, ginger? With your knowledge of the occult?
Maryam pushes deeper beneath dripping leaves, following the measured bell through curtains of vine. Carmin hurries beside her, his mechanical arm catching stray green light, while the wounded goblin’s footprints reappear in dark mud.
Carmin
Yes. I have seen the sign in restricted academy texts. It marks a listening shrine, where old sorcerers called spirits through bells and bloodlines.
The jungle opens around a toppled stone arch. Beneath it, the shrine-symbol is carved into a black altar, and a bronze bell hangs above a shallow basin of rainwater.
Carmin
The goblin was not fleeing blindly. It was carrying an offering to wake whatever listens here. Please, let me examine the carving before we disturb it.
Carmin kneels at the altar and raises his glowing hand without touching it. The bell answers once from the dark beyond the arch, and fresh goblin tracks lead directly into the shrine’s shadow.
Quest Complete
Find the shrine answering the bell
Skill Upgrade: Tracking Mediocre→Fair