A guarded murmur rises beyond Neferteri’s chambers. Meren’s voice answers it, low and cautious, while loyal worshippers shift into a silent cordon outside the door.
Meren
Great One, a pilgrim has come through the repaired threshold. She bears no weapon, but her claim is unusual. May I bring her before you?
The door opens after a respectful pause. Meren enters first, then steps aside for a dust-covered woman whose travel-stained robes carry no familiar temple mark.
Seshat
Goddess Neferteri, I am Seshat. I have crossed the ash roads seeking your sanctuary, and I bring what was entrusted to your worshippers.
Seshat kneels beside the brazier and sets down a sealed bundle wrapped in unfamiliar temple cloth. Fine dust spills from its folds onto the polished floor.
Seshat
Someone watched your repaired sanctuary from afar. They placed this in my keeping and told me to deliver it only into the presence of the goddess herself.
Meren
The cloth bears no sign I know, and the seal has survived a long road untouched.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn who entrusted the sealed bundle to Seshat
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine whether an outside power is influencing Neferteri’s worshippers
“"Who was this 'someone'?"”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled +2)
Neferteri
Who was this someone?
Seshat lowers her eyes to the sealed bundle. Meren remains still beside the door, one hand hovering near his blade without drawing it.
Seshat
A masked archivist called Ilyra gave it to me. She waited in the ruins of a roadside shrine, where your name had been carved over older prayers.
Seshat
She said she once served the adventurers who attacked this temple, but abandoned them after learning what their relic truly sought.
Seshat touches the bundle’s undamaged seal but does not break it. Dust clings to her fingertips, and the unfamiliar cloth smells faintly of old incense.
Seshat
Ilyra claimed the relic was not meant to destroy you. It was meant to awaken what lies beneath your temple and turn its hunger against your worship.
Meren
Then this messenger may know why the sealed depths stir, Great One. Shall I take the bundle to the altar, or keep it here before you?
Quest Complete
Learn who entrusted the sealed bundle to Seshat
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Good→Great
Quest Complete
Determine whether an outside power is influencing Neferteri’s worshippers
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Great→Superb
