The ward pulses brighter, and the green-white static takes on a new rhythm. It hums through the floor like a hidden drum, exactly where the earlier pull began.
Thovik
That is not the ward calling them. It is Erma.
The truth lands hard. The light is leaking from Erma himself, seeping into the void like a beacon, not a barrier.
The Newborn Dragon
Why does the tunnel sing when you glow?
The Elder Knight
By the saints... the nest is hidden, but his own essence is not.
The pale eggs answer first, each shell giving a faint, instinctive shimmer. The chamber feels less like a vault now, and more like a signal fire seen from far below.
Bracken
The first-born will smell that trail. Every one of them.
Thovik lowers his head in grim acceptance, while the ward keeps humming around Erma's spilling light.
✓ Quest Accepted
Hide Erma's beacon from the first-born
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect the sanctuary from the first-born's trail
“I use my green dragon essence to camoflauge the ward”
SUCCESS (Fair Arcana, rolled -3)
Erma gathers the green drift inside himself and breathes it outward in a thin, careful veil. The ward does not dim, it blurs, its bright edge taking on the color of moss and deep stone.
The glow folds inward around the alcove, hiding the shape of the eggs and softening Erma’s leaking light into something that looks like tunnel mist.
Thovik
The beacon is still there... but masked.
The Elder Knight’s grip eases at once. The wardline is still alive, yet it no longer shouts into the dark.
Bracken
That is better. A watcher can stand quiet as stone, if the stone knows how to breathe.
The Newborn Dragon keeps its wide, awestruck gaze fixed on Erma, while the Scarred Knight turns toward the tunnel mouth, listening for what the darkness answers.
Far beyond the bend, the distant scraping sound does not vanish. It only hesitates, as if something out in the deep has noticed the change and is trying to find the hidden line again.
“I suppress our signature”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Erma draws the last bright thread of essence inward. The ward answers at once, not with a flare, but with stillness.
The misty camouflage deepens over the eggs and the stone around them, until the beacon has no clean edge to grasp. It reads as old rock, cool air, and silence.
Thovik
Gone from the surface... not gone from the world.
The Elder Knight exhales through his teeth, then tightens his grip again when the far scraping stirs once more at the bend.
The Scarred Knight
It heard the change, and it has not left.
Bracken angles toward the darkness, keeping still as a stone post, while the Newborn Dragon stays pressed to Erma’s side, blinking at the hidden light.
Somewhere beyond the tunnel mouth, the watcher finds no shining trail to follow. Yet the silence it leaves behind feels like a hand at the door.
Quest Complete
Hide Erma's beacon from the first-born
Skill Upgrade: Arcana Fair→Good
Quest Complete
Protect the sanctuary from the first-born's trail
Skill Upgrade: Arcana Good→Great