The passage opens into a round chamber, stone ribs curving overhead. Ozone stings the air, mingling with old dust and a cold that feels worked into the walls.
Ahead, a sealed door waits under runes cut deep into the lintel. The symbols match the mark on Patch’s palm, same lines, same cruel turn of magic.
Kaelith holds the sword at arm’s length. The blade keeps pointing at the door, as if it has found home and will brook no delay.
Kaelith
It wants that door. I do not trust it, but I trust this less.
He glances from the sword to Patch, jaw tight, weighing whether to throw the blade down or follow where it insists.
Kaelith
If this is tied to your hand, then the answer is behind it. We decide now, together.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the sealed rune-door
“I reach out to touch the runes on the door to see if they react to my palm.”
SUCCESS (Superb Perception, rolled -1)
Patch reaches out and lays her palm against the rune-carved stone. The cold bites back at once, and the mark on her hand answers with a sharp, hidden pulse.
The nearest rune drinks in the touch, then glows pale beneath her fingers. The linework is the same shape as her scar, but deeper, older, and waiting.
A faint seam opens in the door’s face, not wide, just enough to show the seal is keyed to her mark. The stone does not yield yet, but it recognizes her.
Kaelith
There. It knows you now. Do not let go until you know what it wants.
The sword in Kaelith’s hands gives a low, hungry shiver, and the black mist recoils from him in a tight coil. The frost on its blade brightens against the dark.
Patch
The door is keyed to the palm, and it is reacting through the mark, not the blade.
Under Patch’s hand, the runes spread their cold light along the lintel, as if the chamber itself is deciding whether to open for her or wake something else instead.
Quest Complete
Reach the sealed rune-door