The portcullis crashes down between Tancred and the Hunter in the Tether, iron bars shuddering in the dust. The reliquary goes still for one breath, as if the ruin itself is listening.
From the shadows behind the niche, Captain Valerius steps into the weak light. His armor is battered, his helm dented, and his eyes look hollow with sleepless resolve.
Captain Valerius
Tancred du Forietan, the Order sends me to cleanse this place. Vampire, hunter, whatever crawls in its dark, it dies here.
The Hunter claws once at the bars, then withdraws into the gloom beyond them, waiting. Valerius does not glance back. He keeps his blade low, angled toward Tancred instead.
Captain Valerius
If you are wise, you will stand aside. If you are not, I will have to bury you with the rest of this blight.
A dry bone-cold draft leaks from the cracked stone behind Tancred, and the crest in the niche seems to watch both men at once. Valerius shifts his weight, readying for either a bargain or a strike.
✓ Quest Accepted
Survive the standoff with Captain Valerius and the Hunter
“I lower my blade, "I hath no quarrel with thee, Valerius. T'would appear that someone hath sent me here to fall by thine hand. However, I wouldst let thee know, I am hunted by the entity from the ruined church. Allow me to pass, that is all I ask of thee."”
SUCCESS (Superb Diplomacy, rolled -2)
Tancred du Forietan
I have no quarrel with thee, Valerius. Someone sends me here to die by thine hand. Yet I am hunted by the thing from the church. Let me pass, and I ask no more.
Tancred lowers his blade. The words hang in the cold ruin, and for a moment even the ash-draft seems to thin.
Captain Valerius
You speak like a man with a wound in his soul. I do not trust it, but I hear it.
Valerius eases one step back from the niche. His sword stays in hand, but its point drops from Tancred's chest to the floor stones.
Captain Valerius
At the church, you saved us from the cleric's zeal. Here, I see the same sickness chasing you that chased the dead from that vault.
Captain Valerius
If I strike him blind, I may invite something worse through the crack in this place.
The captain's gaze flicks to the crest basin, then to the portcullis. Beyond the bars, the Hunter remains a dark shape pressed to iron.
Captain Valerius
Speak plainly, then. What follows you, and why does it know your name?
“I answer Valerius plainly about the Hunter. I also explain being sent here by a mysterious summons.”
SUCCESS (Superb Diplomacy, rolled +1)
Tancred du Forietan
A summons brought me here, with a mark on its seal. The thing behind the bars is the Hunter in the Tether. It follows my blood and the blade I carry, and it means to claim both.
Captain Valerius
A tethered hunter, then. Not some tomb-wraith, but a thing that can be sent, aimed, and held back. That is worse, and useful.
Captain Valerius
And the summons, who sent it? Some brother of the church, or someone older? Speak that name if you have it.
Tancred du Forietan
I have no name I can trust yet. Only a star-and-thorns seal, and a path laid like a snare.
Captain Valerius
Then the enemy is organized. Church, house, or something beneath both, I need the shape of it before I cut.
Captain Valerius
Good. Keep talking, and keep your hands where I can see them. If that thing moves, I want to know whether it comes for you, or through you.
Quest Complete
Survive the standoff with Captain Valerius and the Hunter
Skill Upgrade: Diplomacy Superb→Legendary
“I tell him the truth: the the Hunter is only after me. The captain might be safe. I only wish to seek out what I was supposed to find within this reliquary. Does he know anything about what is in this structure?”
SUCCESS (Legendary Diplomacy, rolled -3)
Tancred du Forietan
The Hunter is after me, not you. If it has your scent, I have not seen it take it yet. I came here for what was meant to be found in this reliquary. Do you know what was stored inside?
Captain Valerius
You speak plain enough to be believed. That is more than most men give under pressure. This place was tended, once, by keepers who hid relics from grasping hands. Bone ledgers, ash records, oath plates. Things meant to survive fire.
Captain Valerius
If you were sent for a thing, then someone expected you to open what they could not. That seal on the basin is old work, not church work. Old work usually means a family secret, or a prison.
Valerius keeps his sword lowered, but his eyes flick once to the bars, then back to Tancred. The cold draft slides over the floor between them, and the warped iron clasp gives a dull, hidden tick in Tancred's hand.
Captain Valerius
I know the shape of this kind of ruin. What I do not know is whether you were summoned to recover a truth, or to wake one. Show me the basin, and I will tell you what I can read from the stone around it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify what was stored in the reliquary
“I gesture for him to join me, "Come then, Captain. Let us seek the truth, together."”
SUCCESS (Legendary Diplomacy, rolled +2)
Tancred du Forietan
Come then, Captain. Let us seek the truth together.
Tancred gestures to the basin, and Valerius answers by stepping away from the bars at last. The cold draft slips higher over the stones as the two of them close the distance in wary agreement.
Captain Valerius
That is the right of it. Side by side, then. If this stone speaks, I would rather hear it with you than from behind my own pride.
He bends over the crest basin, one hand braced on his knee, eyes narrowing at the carved rim and the dark sheen caught inside it. The Hunter remains caged beyond the portcullis, still as a held breath.
Captain Valerius
Bone ledgers, ash records, oath plates. Old keeps hide truths in layers, not speeches. This basin feels like a witness, not a cup.
Valerius tilts his head toward the warped iron clasp in Tancred's hand, then toward the basin's faint glow, as if matching one relic against the other in his mind.
Captain Valerius
If the relics belong together, we should make them admit it. Place them where the stone can see them.
“I will place the artifacts in my possession in the basin's view”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled +0)
Tancred lowers the warped iron clasp into the basin's cold gaze. The metal darkens at once, as if the stone is drinking its outline.
He follows with the damp parchment. The basin answers with a thin, sickly gleam, and the du Morvannoux crest on the page sharpens like it has been pressed from beneath.
Captain Valerius
Ash records, then. Something kept wet, not burned away.
A seam of frost crawls around the bowl's rim. In the reflection, the parchment seems to split into layered lines, one of them blackened at the edge like a name crossed out too hard.
Captain Valerius
There. The stone is showing a binding, not a memorial. Something was stored and hidden by design.
Tancred du Forietan
The basin is not for offering. It is for reading.
The relics settle, and the glow steadies on them. What rests here is not treasure, but proof, a house record made physical, sealed into clasp and parchment by old oath-work.
Quest Complete
Identify what was stored in the reliquary
New Gift: Reliquary Insight