The breach tunnel shudders. Beyond the fresh stone shell, drills bite and grind, each удар sending dust through the mark Erma left in the wall. The ward holds, but only just.
The Scout Leader
They are here. Not one, a legion. If they crack the shell, they will flood the nest.
The Elder Knight
Then we meet them at the throat. Erma, give the word.
Thovik
Hold or flee, first dragon. Choose the lineage, not your pride.
The Newborn Dragon
Light. Stay close.
The shell groans again. The hidden clutch answers with a faint green pulse, as if listening. The wardline flickers, then steadies around the chamber, waiting for Erma's final command.
Every defender turns toward him, claws set, breath held, while the drills hammer closer from the dark. The choice between holding this sanctum and drawing the war away lands squarely on Erma now.
Erma leaves The breach tunnel behind and arrives at the source of the drilling.
“I cast a mend with earth and travel to the source of the drilling”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled -1)
Stone dust hangs in a vast worked hollow, lit by green wardglow leaking through cracks in the ceiling. Erma stands at the heart of it, the earth around him freshly bent into a clean, jagged seam where his magic has carried him through.
Ahead, the source of the drilling is laid bare, a ring of boring heads chewing into a sealed rock face. Their teeth scream and spit chips, but the wall they bite now bears Erma's mark, and the stone around it is waking under his touch.
The Scout Leader
By the First Deep... we found the mouth.
Thovik
So this is their road in. Cut it, and the legion starves.
The drills shudder as the earth answers Erma's command. The stone seam thickens, sealing one shaft and turning another aside, while a buried beam of dull ore is exposed beneath the dust.
The ward's green pulse follows him here in a thin thread, and the hidden clutch's shimmer seems to echo faintly through the rock. The chamber quiets by degrees, not safe, but claimed.
The Elder Knight
It is done. Name the line, and we hold it.