Five years have passed since the forest road. Alerie and Garran enter Grimwood’s old graveyard side by side, their steps falling together with the ease of long practice.
Their partnership has become a quiet legend among those who still hire witchers. Now married, they move like a single careful thought beneath the dead trees.
Harlan waits beside a freshly opened grave, his crooked lantern hanging from one hand. The new headstone bears Alerie and Garran’s names beneath a date that has not yet come.
Harlan
I did not carve it. I swear that by every grave entrusted to me.
Before noon, the bell tower rings once. The sound rolls over Grimwood without warning, stirring mist between the crooked stones and sending birds whispering from the bare branches.
Garran
The date is still ahead of us. That means the grave is not a memorial.
Harlan
No. It is an invitation, or a warning. Which of you will look beneath the stone first?
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what the grave’s inscription means
“"That date is much further ahead than I think I'd like to live..." *She mutters crouching down to look at the engravings.* "They didnt even give me your last name whoever made it, rude of them really." *She grumbled before looking down the hole.* "Illusion magic, I can smell it, its shallower than it looks."”
SUCCESS (Fair Perception, rolled +0)
Alerie
That date is much further ahead than I think I'd like to live...
Alerie crouches beside the open grave, her golden eyes tracing the damp engravings. She mutters about the missing surname, then leans over the hole.
Alerie
They didn't even give me your last name, whoever made it. Rude of them, really.
Alerie
Illusion magic. I can smell it. It's shallower than it looks.
Her senses pierce the false depth. Beneath the apparent shaft lies a narrow stone-lined chamber, its darkness folded upward by illusion; a second inscription waits below the headstone.
The magic snaps against her senses like bitter smoke, leaving blood warming one nostril and a sharp ache behind her eyes. The illusion nevertheless falls clear.
Garran
Then the grave has given us its truth. Harlan, step back. Alerie has found the name beneath the lie.
Quest Complete
Reach Grimwood
Attribute Upgrade: Perception Fair→Good