Mist drifts low over the ashwood ford, then parts. Elias stands in the path, damp and tight-jawed, the broken charm cupped in his hand. Its sickly light barely lasts.
Maera plants her staff and angles it between Wicy and him, amber light humming along the grain. Wicy keeps the sketchbook open at her side, the shard under the bandage giving one faint, steady pulse.
Elias
You found the ford. Good. Then listen. I did not come to fight.
Pell
No one comes here by accident, boy. State your business before the river takes the decision from you.
A lean boatman steps from the reeds beside a tethered skiff, a pole across one shoulder, rain-dark cloak clinging to his frame. He watches the charm, then Wicy, with a cautious, appraising stare.
Pell
Name’s Pell. I ferry folk, goods, and bad ideas across when the water allows it. If that trinket is summoning trouble, keep it still.
Elias
I need passage, and I need whatever she is carrying to stop answering me.
Pell shifts his pole, not taking sides, only measuring the distance between the three of them as the ford falls quiet around the glow.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get Pell to carry you across
✓ Quest Accepted
Cure Elias of his affliction
“I tell my items to be quiet”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -2)
Wicy lowers her focus into stillness, and the shard's faint pulse thins to a whisper beneath her bandage. The charm in Elias's hand dims with it, its sickly shimmer losing its edge.
Wicy
Quiet.
The water mirrors the change at once, the warm glint on its surface flattening into ordinary gray. Pell's eyes flick to Wicy's hand, then away, as if measuring whether the danger has truly gone.
Maera
Good. Keep it that way. The ford hears more than people think.
Elias
So it can be muted. That helps me more than it helps you.
As the resonance dies, Wicy's bandage warms hard enough to sting, and the charm's last pulse leaves a tiny crackle in her palm. The mist settles lower around their ankles, hiding the bank and the skiff in a milky blur.
Pell
If you want my boat, you speak plain, and you keep that quiet. One flare like that, and I turn you all back into the mud.
“Tell my items to release Elias”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Wicy lets her breath settle into the shard and charm together. The twitch of Elias's tether vanishes, cut cleanly, and the metal in his hand goes dull.
Wicy
It lets go.
Elias stares at the charm as if it has betrayed him. A faint, useless vibration shivers through his tuning fork, then dies.
Elias
No... that should not be possible.
Maera shifts her staff between Wicy and Elias, her stance hardening. Pell does not move from the skiff, but his grip loosens a fraction as he watches Elias lose the thread.
Maera
Then stop reaching for what is not yours.
The mist curls lower around the bank. Wicy's sketchbook gives one brief pulse against her side, and Pell's gaze snaps to it, then to the river.
Pell
If you are crossing, it is now. If you are quarreling, do it elsewhere.
Quest Complete
Cure Elias of his affliction
New Gift: Healer's Intuition
“I ask pell if we can board”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Social Intuition, rolled +2)
Wicy tips her chin toward the skiff and keeps her voice low, careful not to feed the current any more attention than it already has.
Wicy
Can we board?
Pell
Aye, if you mean to cross quiet and quick. No chanting, no testing, no business with whatever that charm was doing.
Pell shifts his pole aside and studies Wicy instead of Elias. The skiff rocks once, then steadies against the mud.
Maera
He will take you if you respect his rules. That is more than some ferrymen offer.
Pell
Load your feet first, then your questions. One at a time.
The invitation lands. Wicy has a place on the crossing now, and the space between bank and skiff opens for her to choose how she steps.