The jungle path opens onto a red dragon shrine carved into black coastal stone. Salt wind rolls over the basin as nine robed worshipers circle it, chanting.
Red Tide Cultists
By crimson scale and drowning tide, awaken, lord beneath the waves!
Crimson fire kindles beneath the saltwater basin. Its glow paints the worshipers’ masks red, and something vast stirs beneath the rippling surface.
Your glaive shifts against your back with a faint metallic scrape. A broad-shouldered middle-aged woman in lacquered red armor turns sharply, one hand closing around her spear.
Veyra Ashmark
Halt. State your name and your authority. No outsider approaches the basin while the rite is underway.
The chant falters but does not stop. Nine masked heads angle toward you, while the guardian, her dark-brown skin and close-cropped black hair marked by a pale scar through one eyebrow, plants her spear between you and the firelit basin.
Red Tide Cultists
Authority! Authority! Let the moon-born prove the right to trespass!
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure the Red Tide cult's allegiance for the Moon Dragon Prince.
““I’ve come to tell you your allegiances are misguided. You seek to raise a dragon defeated doing ago, while a more powerful one arise son the horizon” I gesture to myself and to the visible dragon scale son my glaive “The Prince of the Moon flies””
FAILURE (Mediocre Persuasion, rolled +0)
Sakara
I have come to tell you your allegiances are misguided. You seek to raise a dragon defeated long ago, while a more powerful one rises on the horizon. The Prince of the Moon flies.
Sakara gestures toward herself, then draws the glaive’s scaled edge into the firelight. Moon-pale metal gleams against the red shrine, unmistakably foreign to the cult’s rite.
Red Tide Cultists
Blasphemy! A stolen scale proves nothing. The drowned lord waits beneath us!
Veyra Ashmark
Enough. I am Veyra Ashmark, keeper of this shrine. That weapon is no common forgery, but neither is your claim enough to command us.
Veyra lowers her spear by a fraction. The cultists’ chant dies unevenly, leaving only the basin’s wet hiss and the faint scrape of Sakara’s glaive.
Veyra Ashmark
There is an old inscription beneath the basin, sealed since the shrine was founded. If your moon prince is truly rising, perhaps it names him. Enter, and let the stone judge your boast.
A narrow stair grinds open behind the altar, breathing out cold mineral air. The guardian keeps her spear ready, but the way below is no longer barred.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what the sealed inscription reveals about the Moon Dragon Prince.
− Scene Quest Removed
Secure the Red Tide cult's allegiance for the Moon Dragon Prince.
“I’m blind. Is their a way for me to read this”
YES, AND MORE (Likely, rolled 2)
Sakara
I am blind. Is there a way for me to read it?
The cold stair answers with a pulse beneath Sakara’s feet. Silver lines awaken across the stone, and their meaning rises through touch, clear as spoken words.
Veyra Ashmark
The inscription is answering you. Do not move. Let it finish.
The symbols describe a moon-born sovereign who will cross the southern sea, but they also reveal a concealed chamber beneath the shrine, marked as a vault of records and offerings.
Veyra Ashmark
There is more than prophecy here. A sealed archive lies below us, untouched since the shrine was founded.
Red Tide Cultists
The stone speaks to her. The moon-born has been named.
Several cultists drop to their knees. Veyra’s spear lowers fully, and a second seam opens in the stair wall, exposing a narrow passage descending toward the hidden archive.
“I walk down into the hidden archive, noting the statue of the moon dragon overlooking this door. But how could this be here, of Kendethar’s conquest are recent?”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Reasoning, rolled +2)
Sakara descends into the hidden archive, one hand skimming the cold wall. Above the doorway, a carved moon dragon coils over the lintel, its features unmistakably resembling Kendathar, an adult male moon dragon with swept horns, silver scales, and a long serpentine body.
Sakara
This carving predates Kendathar’s conquest. The stone remembers something older than his southern ambitions.
The passage opens into a circular chamber lined with sealed clay tablets, tarnished offerings, and shelves of salt-stiffened scrolls. Dust lies undisturbed except for the fresh trail of your feet.
Veyra Ashmark
The shrine was founded before any living kingdom kept these coasts. That image cannot be your prince’s work.
A bronze tablet bears the same moon-dragon sigil, followed by a damaged date and a list of offerings. The final names are legible: sailors, kings, and a sovereign who crossed the southern sea.
Red Tide Cultists
The old sovereign returns. The prophecy was never about the drowned lord.
You establish the discrepancy: the archive proves the moon-born legend is centuries old, not a record of Kendathar’s recent conquest. Time spent deciphering the damaged date leaves its exact century uncertain.
Quest Complete
Learn what the sealed inscription reveals about the Moon Dragon Prince.
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Mediocre→Fair