The bog’s feverish heaving stops dead. Mist parts at the rim, and a tall, gaunt man steps into view with a rusted spade over one shoulder, a cured leather mask hiding his face.
Imogen keeps her balance on the sucking peat, the wax-wrapped bundle clutched tight against her chest. Beside her, the Spiritualist hangs in the mire, one ankle still cinched by something unseen.
Elias
Put it down. Gently. It is not yours to carry.
The Spiritualist
Don’t hand it back to the earth, not yet. If it is sealed wrong, the thing under it will wake.
The Grave Warden lowers the spade and points once at the bundle, then at the bog, a clear warning and a clear offer in the same motion.
Elias
I can take it from you without waking the mud. If you want the man alive, let me.
✓ Quest Accepted
Keep the wax-wrapped bundle from the Grave Warden
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what is sealed inside the bundle
“Step back from the Grave Warden while clutching the bundle to my chest.”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled +0)
Imogen gives ground, boots sliding in the suck of peat, the bundle locked tight to her chest. The space between them opens by a careful step, not a retreat into safety, just enough to make the Warden pause.
Elias
Good. Keep your hands steady. The mud likes fear more than flesh.
The masked man lowers the spade and reaches past the rim of black water, not for Imogen, but for the air beside her, as if feeling the shape of an unseen current.
The Spiritualist
He is listening to it. Don’t let him set the terms.
The bog answers with a low shift, the opening sagging wider under Imogen’s weight. Cold seep rises around her ankles, patient as a hand closing.
Elias
If you keep it, something beneath us wakes hungry. If I take it, the hunger stays buried.
The Spiritualist looks from the Warden to Imogen, straining against the unseen grip on his leg, while the wrapped bundle thuds once, dull and small, against her ribs.
Quest Complete
Keep the wax-wrapped bundle from the Grave Warden