The crypt settles around you. Beyond the threshold, silver fire pours soundlessly upward, painting the old stones in moon-white bands.
Three reliefs awaken along the walls. One shows a village beneath a full moon, one a star-tower drowned beneath dark waters, and one a mountain pass crowned by a constellation.
Raven
The village sheltered healers and dream-readers. The tower belonged to those who studied the heavens. The pass carried pilgrims toward Selûne's oldest shrines.
Raven
I used to believe every hidden sanctuary endured. Now I wonder how many became graves.
Raven rests beneath the moonstone, her concealed face turned toward the three paths. For the first time since the hunters came, her shoulders loosen.
Raven
I cannot choose for you, Lucien Draken. But I can tell you what I remember, if you want to hear it.
“We will need a healer for our party and for your wounds lets go there”
FAILURE (Fair Reasoning, rolled +1)
Lucien Draken
We will need a healer for our party, and for your wounds. Let us go there.
Your hand reaches toward the village relief. Its moonlit streets deepen, becoming a passage of living silver beneath your palm.
Raven
Wait. The village was not merely sheltered. It was tested.
The relief accepts your touch, but the path twists into a drowned lane. Black water rises across it, swallowing every painted doorway. The village route will not open for mortal feet.
Then the faint seven-pointed star beneath the inscription glimmers. A thread of silver crosses from the drowned village to the constellation-marked mountain pass, ending at a small healer's sigil.
Raven
I never saw that mark in the orders I was given. The healers may have fled to the pass, but the passage will demand a price.
Raven
If we take it, we leave the safe road behind. Tell me you understand what I failed to tell you.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the healers
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn the passage's price
“whatever the cost you need a healer and we won't get far without a cleric”
SUCCESS (Great Willpower, rolled +1)
Lucien Draken
Whatever the cost, we need a healer. We will not get far without a cleric.
The seven-pointed star flares beneath his hand. The mountain-pass relief opens into a standing arch of silver night.
Raven
Then hear the price. The passage takes a memory from each traveler, and the mountain keeps what it is given.
Silver threads rise from the relief and wind around Lucien and Raven. The ward accepts their passage, drawing a pale spark from each shadow before releasing them.
Raven
He accepted the danger without knowing it. I should have told him sooner.
The crypt falls away. They emerge on a wind-scoured mountain path beneath a vast field of stars, before a moonstone hospice marked with the healer's sigil.
Raven
We are here. But I do not know what the mountain took from us.
Quest Complete
Learn the passage's price
Quest Complete
Escape the hunters
Attribute Upgrade: Strength Good→Great