Yllamaris slips through the broken wall into the wild fields. Cold air cuts cleanly across his cloak, and the city noise falls away behind him. Tall, dry grass hisses around his boots, and the dark ground gives off a slow, distant thrumming.
Yllamaris
The land is answering the blade.
His sword shifts against his side, the necrotic rot inside it pulsing in time with that buried beat. A faint violet shimmer leaks through the rune-etching, then fades, as if something beneath the earth notices him back.
Bram
Yllamaris, wait. Do not go alone into that dark.
Bram remains at the wall’s jagged opening, half-silhouetted by the alley light, one hand raised as if he might still stop him. Beyond him, the city is only a muffled glow, already feeling far away.
Elowen
If you can hear me, keep moving. Whatever is tied to you is waking again.
Her voice carries thinly from the breach, then the grass shifts in a widening ring around Yllamaris, as though the fields themselves are listening. Ahead, the dark plain stretches open and empty, with no shelter in sight.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find a place to be alone
“I become one with the shadows and move to be alone”
SUCCESS (Good Stealth, rolled -1)
Yllamaris lets the dark take him. His outline thins into the grass and the field loses him at once, only the faintest ripple marking where he moves.
The blades of grass lean aside as he slips farther out, silent and low, the pulsing in his sword muffled beneath his cloak.
Bram
Yllamaris, I cannot see you. Damn it, stay where I can reach you.
Bram steps a pace from the wall opening, peering into the black field, his warning swallowed by wind.
Elowen
Good, keep moving. Do not answer me here.
Her voice comes from behind the breach, strained but careful, as if she is trying not to disturb whatever listens in the dark.
Yllamaris
The grass parts before the wind. The field is open, but the shadow is mine.
Quest Complete
Find a place to be alone