The inner chamber splits with a wet crack. Mud slumps from the rear wall, and the hidden workshop beyond breathes out resin, blood, and old shell dust.
The Baron stands half-hidden behind a stone bench, gloved hands near a tray of vials and hooked bone tools. He looks more furious than afraid, which is worse.
The Shell-Tainted Boar skids back at the tunnel mouth, ears flat, refusing the chamber behind Neko. The burrow groans again, like it is deciding whether to bury them all.
The Baron
You should have stayed a hunter. You were useful before you started looking.
Neko
The contracts were feeding this place.
A shelf of jars rattles as the rear wall caves farther inward. Pale residue sloughs from the cracked stone, exposing more of the hidden work, too much to ignore.
Neko plants his feet at the edge of the breach, sword ready, with the Baron trapped between him and the collapsing burrow. One strike, one command, or one desperate escape, the ending hangs on it.
− Story Quest Removed
Secure steady beast-hunting work
“I demand his surrender”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled -1)
Neko’s sword stays level, but his voice cuts cleaner than steel. The burrow seems to hear it. The Baron’s outrage falters as the chamber shudders and dust spills from the ceiling seam.
Neko
Surrender.
The Baron’s gloved hand opens, slow and careful, and one vial rolls from his tray into the mud. He does not reach for it. He turns his chin up instead, trapped by the breach, by the sword, and by his own ruined floor.
The Baron
You mistake exposure for victory. I yield, hunter.
The Shell-Tainted Boar bolts through the tunnel mouth at the same instant, claws scrabbling loose earth into the dark. A plume of dust bursts across the chamber, and the workbench tilts as the floor gives another inch.
Neko lowers the blade just enough to keep the Baron pinned in place. The surrender holds, but the hidden room is coming apart around them, jar by jar, beam by beam.
By the time the dust thins, the Baron stands empty-handed amid the wreckage, breathing hard, while Neko has the room, the truth of the workshop, and the last word. Beyond the breach, the burrow continues to groan, but the fight is already over.
Dust shuddered through the hidden workshop as the last beam cracked and fell.
Neko
It is over. You will answer for all of it.
The Baron lowered his gaze, helpless amid the ruin, while the tunnel swallowed the fleeing boar in a frantic clatter.
Neko left the burrow with the Baron in custody, and the lies that fed the workshop broke with the stone around them. The family debt had lost its teeth, and the cycle of exploitation ended in dust and silence. Behind them, the collapsed chamber kept its secrets buried.