The accepted survivors file into the inner sanctum, leaving a hard line of light across the floor. Behind them, the stragglers lose their careful faces and start pleading too loudly, too hungrily.
The Wounded Survivor
Wait, no, I can still pass. Look at me. I am not a curse.
A dirty woman lunges for Hhannvis’s arm, fingers snagging at his robe fringe. He steps back, and the frost on his spear gives off a thin, painful chill that makes the air bite.
Then the ceiling splits with sound. A storm of small and medium birdlike predators floods the opening above, shrieking as they streak past like thrown spears, never slowing, never turning toward the chamber.
Sefru
They are panicking. So are the ones left behind.
The rejected stragglers flinch from the shadowfall and collapse inward, cowering beneath the roof ribs as the birds rush overhead. Their greed drops away first, then their bluster, and the chamber sees what is left.
Zarona Vos Zhurshitt
The line holds. The worthy enter, the grasping stay where they are.
Hhannvis stands at the boundary with the frost-light on his gear still demanding a cost. The refuge remains unstable, but the judgment is clearer now, and the next step is whether he can keep the accepted survivors safe while the others break under the pressure.
✓ Quest Accepted
Maintain a defensive stance