The gate grinds open without either companion touching the wheel. Beyond it, a narrow shrine is carved into the riverbed wall, its blackened altar ringed by ancient wards.
Water presses silently against the stone beyond the shrine, held back by no visible barrier. Pale symbols awaken around the altar, their light trembling beneath the river’s weight.
The Cloaked Traveler
That altar predates the kingdom, perhaps by centuries. Do not touch it until we know which ward has woken.
The Dawnstar sigil above Faralda’s hands pulls toward the altar, stretching its golden radiance into a narrow beam. Beneath her boots, a second mark answers from under the floor.
The Cloaked Traveler
There is another power below us. It is older than the sign, and it has recognized you.
A low vibration passes through the shrine. Dust slips from the ceiling, while hair-thin lines of blue fire spread between the floorstones and converge beneath the altar.
The Cloaked Traveler
Edrin cannot hear us from the tavern now. Whatever lies beneath this floor, we face it here, together.
✓ Quest Accepted
Limit the Dawnstar sigil's claim
“I study the blue fire and pale symbols for a way to limit the sigil.”
SUCCESS (Superb Perception, rolled -1)
Faralda studies the blue fire without touching it. Its lines do not form a ward of their own, but trace a counterpattern beneath the altar, answering each pale symbol in sequence.
Faralda
The blue channels can confine the sigil, but one mark remains unreadable beneath the altar.
She follows the safest sequence with her gaze, matching each blue line to its pale counterpart. The golden beam bends, tightening into a narrow ring around the altar instead of reaching through the shrine.
The change costs precious time. Dust settles across her cloak while the hidden symbol continues trembling beneath the altar, its purpose obscured by the convergence of waterlight and ancient fire.
The Cloaked Traveler
You have limited the sign. It no longer reaches beyond this shrine, though I cannot tell what the buried mark still commands.
The golden radiance now circles the altar in a controlled band, leaving the passage and the water beyond untouched. The blue fire holds steady beneath the floor, contained but not extinguished.
Quest Complete
Limit the Dawnstar sigil's claim