The katana remains lodged in the inert groove. Around it, the bog settles into silence, while hardened peat grips Malakor from the ribs down.
Malakor
Something lies beneath this crust. I can feel it shifting, though the connection is sealed.
Elias turns toward a half-submerged stone marker nearby. Its top bears the same cramped witness marks as the broken ring, nearly erased beneath moss and peat.
Elias
There. That marker may tell us what the groove was meant to contain. We need to examine the ground without disturbing the seal.
Kaelus
Careful around him. The peat is hardened, but the old bargain is not. One careless step could give it a path back.
Elias stays beside Malakor, watching the blade and the sealed threshold. Kaelus moves toward the marker’s edge, testing each patch of ground with his heel before advancing.
Malakor
Do not trust the stone’s silence. It was placed there to mark what must never be named.
“Does the marker name what opened beneath Malakor?”
YES (Likely, rolled 18)
Moss loosens across the marker without anyone touching it. Beneath, the witness marks sharpen into a single name carved around an image of an open threshold.
Elias
There is no ambiguity. The marker names what opened beneath him.
The carved name is older than the ring’s inscriptions, but the crossed-out fifth space appears again beside it. The same denial has been cut into the stone.
Kaelus
That is not a warning about the doorway. It is the name of what waits beyond it.
Under Malakor, the sealed groove gives one muted knock. Hardened peat holds him fast, yet something beneath the crust shifts toward the sound.
Malakor
You see it now. The threshold was never meant to contain the bargain. It was meant to contain the thing that answered.
Elias
If the name is on the marker, then the seal did not erase it. It only kept it waiting.
“I make Malakor name the entity”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled -1)
Imogen
Name the entity.
Imogen’s command settles over the marker and the sealed groove. Malakor strains against the hardened peat, but her unwavering demand leaves him nowhere to hide behind warnings.
Malakor
It is called Veyrath. The Hollow Witness. That is the name the first vow gave it.
The name leaves his mouth, and the stone answers with a dull vibration. The carved threshold darkens, while the muted presence beneath Malakor turns toward the sound.
Elias
Veyrath. The crossed-out space was not a missing witness. It was an attempt to deny that name entirely.
Kaelus
Names give things a door. Now it knows we remember it.
Beneath the crust, something presses once against the sealed threshold, then withdraws. Malakor goes pale, but the peat holds. The entity has been named, and the seal remains closed.
Keep Veyrath from escaping
Quest Complete
Learn what has opened beneath Malakor
Skill Upgrade: Occult Lore Good→Great