The black stone avenue opens beneath the Pinno world’s colorless sky, ending at the towering Ashen Gate. Veyra carries Marie inside her faceted crystal seal.
Beyond the threshold, Lucien Veyr stands beside the gate’s awakening mechanisms. Dark rings turn within the stone, drawing a low vibration through the avenue.
Cold Yuichi’s breach remains visible behind him, a jagged wound of frost and shadow. Blood continues to bead along his sword hand as the passage trembles.
Marie
Yuichi, do not let the crystal fool you. I can still hear you. The fairies are holding the seal from within.
Veyra
That connection will not matter once the Ashen Gate opens. Lucien needs her power, and you arrived exactly where we wanted.
Captain Lucien Veyr
You crossed the breach alone. Seraphine and the others remain behind, and none can reach this world before the mechanism completes.
The gate’s central aperture widens, revealing a depthless black beyond it. Marie presses both hands against the crystal as pale fairy-light gathers around her wrists.
“I go to attack Veyra as she unleashed her espresso again shooting green crystals at him that explode when I cut them”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled +3)
Veyra’s Espresso blooms again, firing green crystals across the avenue. Cold Yuichi surges forward, crimson-and-white Soul-Sword raised as the projectiles converge.
His blade cuts through the first crystal. It detonates in a sharp green burst, but he drives through the shockwave and splits the next two before they can reach him.
The final crystal explodes against his guard, scattering light across his uniform. He emerges inside Veyra’s reach and slashes across her faceted armor.
Veyra
You cut through my Espresso?
The strike fractures Veyra’s crystal seal and throws her backward. Marie’s prison cracks open, releasing her into the space beside Cold Yuichi as the fairies flare brightly.
Marie
Yuichi, I’m free. The crystals were feeding the gate, and your cuts severed their connection.
Behind Veyra, the damaged crystals gutter out. Their fading green light reveals a narrow control channel beneath the Ashen Gate, leading directly toward Lucien’s mechanism.
Quest Complete
Rescue Marie from Lucien
Attribute Upgrade: Agility Great→Superb
“Then she turns her crystal into a true espresso dragon and it rushes at me and marie as I prepare to attack it as veyra the shoots crystals at me at the same time”
Critical hit for 4 damage — Espresso dragon struck back but missed
Veyra’s fractured crystal armor liquefies into a towering green Espresso dragon, an ageless, genderless crystalline construct with a long, four-legged body and a horned head, its faceted wings unfolding as it charges Cold Yuichi and Marie across the avenue.
At the same instant, Veyra thrusts both hands forward. Crystals streak toward Cold Yuichi while the dragon bears down, turning the Ashen Gate into a crossfire of green light.
Cold Yuichi raises his crimson-and-white Soul-Sword and meets the dragon head-on. His blade cleaves through its crystal core, breaking the Espresso’s shape before it can reach him or Marie.
The incoming crystals burst against his guard without breaking through. The dragon collapses across the black stone, unconscious and inert, while its scattered facets fade into harmless sparks.
Marie
Yuichi, you stopped it. Veyra’s attack did not get through.
Cold Yuichi gets up and pulls Marie into a careful hug beside the fallen Espresso dragon. Her fairies brighten around them as the control channel hums beneath the gate.
Veyra
You incapacitated the dragon, but the mechanism is still opening. Lucien is already inside the control channel.