Adventure of Wicy 1

The tavern wall buckles inward with a wet crack of timber. The Scarred Creature spills through the broken boards, breathing hard, eyes wild with panic.

It does not look at the stunned patrons. Its shaking claw points straight down at the warped floorboards where Shadow stirs beneath the planks.

The front room goes still. The Tavern Keeper stiffens behind the bar, while the Retired Knight squares his shoulders between Wicy and the shattered entrance.

Shadow’s horned silhouette presses darker against the floorboards, alert and tense. Sable shifts closer to Wicy, readying for whatever comes through the breach.

Wicy stills her breathing and lets the shard’s pulse fill the space behind her eyes. The room narrows to light, shadow, and intent.

The glow under her shirt tightens, then streams into her palm. Fine lines gather above her hand like a sketched sigil, bright and sharp.

A thin spear of light lances outward and bites into the warped floorboards, forcing Shadow’s silhouette to hold still in the dark below.

The Scarred Creature flinches at the flare, claws scraping timber as it recoils from the spell’s edge.

Sable shifts in close beside Wicy, eyes fixed on the new pattern of light as the tavern room hangs on her next move.

Wicy turns the pressure of her breath into force. The shard answers at once, and the spear of light swells into a hard, white lash that snaps across the tavern floor.

The blast catches the Scarred Creature full in the chest and throws it backward from the shattered wall. Splinters burst into the air, and the thing claws for purchase on the stones outside.

Shadow stays pinned, but the beam now traces a clean line through the warped boards, and the dark shape beneath them sharpens into a clearer horned silhouette.

At the broken threshold, the creature’s panic exposes a glint of pale metal in the mud, a seal-stamped token it has been carrying. The tavern is still standing, but the room has turned into a trap of light and splintered timber.