By evening, Coco reaches the first marked campsite beside a clear spring. The forest road fades behind him into long blue shadows beneath the ancient beech.
Bram Hallow follows close behind with the road map secured beneath his cloak. He lowers his pack near the spring and surveys the trees before choosing a dry place for camp.
Someone is already sheltering beneath the beech. An elven wayfarer sits with her back against the roots, travel-stained and pale, clutching a damaged charm whose cord hangs in tatters.
Ilyra Fen
Do not mistake me for a threat. I am Ilyra Fen, and I escaped Briarhollow before the forest road swallowed the light.
Ilyra Fen
The shrine is not abandoned. Its bells ring beneath the earth, and something answers from below whenever travelers approach.
Ilyra turns the broken charm in her fingers. Its carved surface bears a faded green mark, similar in color to the radiance that answered Aurelia’s rift.
Ilyra Fen
The Adventurer’s Guild sent you, did it not? Please tell me you came to investigate the shrine before Briarhollow loses anyone else.
✓ Quest Accepted
Establish whether Ilyra Fen's account is trustworthy
“"Hello my name is Coco yes im here to lookinto what happend" I ask Ilyra what happened when she escaped Briarhollow.”
FAILURE (Fair Persuasion, rolled -2)
Coco
Hello. My name is Coco. Yes, I’m here to look into what happened. What happened when you escaped Briarhollow?
Ilyra opens her mouth, but the damaged charm flashes green. Her voice catches, and the forest seems to tighten around the spring in answer.
Ilyra Fen
I remember the road in, and the moment I reached the shrine. After that, the bells began, and my memory breaks apart.
The charm’s broken cord slips through Ilyra’s fingers. Its carved mark unfolds into a faint line of light, pointing away from the road toward the beech’s exposed roots.
Ilyra Fen
I cannot tell you how I escaped. But this charm carried me to the surface. The mark may show where the shrine’s buried passage begins.
Bram Hallow
Then we have something useful, even without her full account. We can study the mark before choosing whether to approach Briarhollow.
The green line steadies between two roots, revealing a narrow stone seam beneath the moss. Ilyra watches it warily, while the spring continues its quiet flow.
“I ask Bram to inspect the charm first”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled +0)
Coco
Bram, inspect the charm first. Tell us what you can learn before we approach the seam.
Ilyra Fen
Yes. Carefully, please. It has carried me farther than I understand, and I would rather know what it remembers.
Bram kneels beside the spring and accepts the damaged charm without tugging its frayed cord. He turns it beneath the green light, studying every groove.
Bram Hallow
The carving is older than Briarhollow’s shrine. This mark is not a crest or warning. It is a passage-sign, meant to answer a matching source.
He holds the charm above the exposed roots. Its light bends toward the stone seam, then settles into three clear symbols: a bell, a door, and a broken circle.
Bram Hallow
The charm brought Ilyra out because the passage recognized it. The broken circle suggests the route is damaged, but not sealed.
Ilyra Fen
Then the bells may be calling through that passage. If we enter, we should expect the shrine below to know this charm already.
“"Bram follow the passage and il head to the vilage and see what I can find"”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled -3)
Coco
Bram, follow the passage. I’ll head to the village and see what I can find.
Bram Hallow
Understood. I’ll mark the route and keep the charm with me. If the passage opens below the shrine, I’ll learn where it leads.
Bram steps through the stone seam as the broken circle parts around him. Green light folds shut behind his shoulders, leaving three chalk marks on the beech roots and the spring’s quiet rush.
Coco follows the forest road alone toward Briarhollow. Brambles catch his cloak and rake his left forearm, drawing a thin line of blood, but he reaches the village before sunset.
Briarhollow sits unnaturally still beneath the trees. Doors stand barred, cooking fires have gone cold, and a bell tolls faintly beneath the packed earth.
Ilyra Fen
The village is hiding more than fear. Look near the shrine, Coco. The villagers left marks where the missing travelers were last seen.
Near the abandoned shrine, Coco finds six sets of footprints ending at the same mossy stones. Beneath them, fresh green dust spells a single word: BELOW.
“I question the villagers about the missing travelers”
SUCCESS (Fair Persuasion, rolled +2)
Coco
I am with the Adventurer’s Guild. I need to know what happened to the travelers who vanished near the shrine.
Coco’s question carries across the silent square. Shutters crack open one by one, and a gray-haired village elder emerges from the nearest barred house, gripping a candle stub.
Ordan
Six travelers came over the last month. Each followed the bell beneath the ground. They walked to the shrine, heard their names called, and never returned.
Ordan
We found no bodies and no tracks beyond those stones. The last was a merchant who begged us to leave before the earth opened its mouth.
A younger villager steps from a doorway, pale but determined. She points toward the mossy stones and the green dust spelling BELOW.
the young villager
The bells began after the first traveler disappeared. Since then, the shrine door stays shut, but the ground rings whenever someone approaches.
Ordan
That is all we know, Guild investigator. The missing ones went below, and whatever called them is still waiting beneath Briarhollow.
“I confront Ilyra with the villagers' account”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +1)
Coco
Ilyra, the villagers told me six travelers followed the bell, heard their names, and vanished below the shrine. What did you leave out?
The damaged charm beneath Ilyra’s fingers dims, then brightens. Her voice reaches Coco from the edge of the square, though she remains beyond the shrine’s shadow.
Ilyra Fen
I left out the names. The bell spoke mine first, then spoke with voices belonging to the missing travelers. It was learning how to call the living.
Ilyra Fen
The villagers are right about the stones. I watched a merchant step across them, and the earth opened without breaking. Something below repeated his name until he disappeared.
Green dust stirs around the word BELOW. From beneath the mossy stones, a muffled bell answers once, and every barred window in Briarhollow shudders.
Ilyra Fen
My charm pulled me back when the passage recognized the mark. If you go below, do not answer when it calls you, and do not trust any voice that knows your name.
“"ok Il go down there and look if I dont return in 3 days block off the intrance. il go alone"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +1)
Coco
I’ll go down there alone. If I do not return in three days, block the entrance.
Ordan
Three days, then. We will seal the stones and keep everyone away from the shrine.
Ilyra Fen
I understand. Do not answer the bell, and trust no voice that calls your name. I will remain above with the villagers.
The elder gathers the villagers back from the mossy stones. Ilyra retreats beyond the shrine’s shadow while the green dust spirals into the cracks.
Coco steps across the marked stones alone. The earth opens soundlessly, revealing worn steps descending beneath the shrine, and the bell tolls somewhere in the dark.
Coco
The passage recognizes the charm’s mark, but the stairs are solid beneath my boots.
Coco descends beneath Briarhollow. Above him, the stone entrance closes into a narrow seam, leaving the village’s fading light behind as the buried passage carries him below.