Vaelira stands before the black-glass basin, her silver-marked wrist burning as it nears the sigil of welcome. The ledger in her grip jerks alive, its pages fluttering like trapped wings.
Vaelira
The ledger is pulling.
The basin’s pale light gutters. Not failing, she realizes, but being fed on. The ledger drinks memory from the air, from the room, from her.
Caelen
Vae... the promises we broke, they were never just written down.
A flood of half-remembered moments flashes and frays, faces losing detail at the edges. The house’s anchor is not the basin. It is the ledger, and it is taking her past to keep the bond alive.
Vaelira
No.
The pages snap open to a final, hungry spread of names and failures, and the basin’s reflection shows Vaelira more clearly than the room, as if the house is measuring what remains to be stolen.
✓ Quest Accepted
Stop the ledger from draining her memories
✓ Quest Accepted
Recover the stolen past from the ledger
“I press my silver-marked wrist against the basin to override the drain.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +2)
Vaelira plants her silver-marked wrist against the basin. The sigil answers with a cold flare, and the ledger’s frantic flutter stutters under her touch.
The drain buckles, then turns. The hungry pull slackens from her thoughts and surges back through the open pages instead.
Caelen
Vae... it is taking the memory of the bell-bridge. The one with the ash rain.
Silver light crawls over the black glass, and the basin’s reflection steadies. The room stays cold, but the ledger no longer drinks from her.
Vaelira
The mark is forcing the flow back.
For one breath, a clear fragment surfaces in the basin, Caelen laughing in rain-dark stone, hand outstretched before the image tears apart.
The pages sag, no longer ravenous, while the silver invitation holds. Somewhere deeper in the house, something waits for the loss that has just been interrupted.
Quest Complete
Stop the ledger from draining her memories