Elaris's pale claws remain locked on Erouno's wrappings. Frost seals the ground around him, but a hidden ward glows beneath his gaunt skin and turns the binding aside.
Erouno
Break one shell, and another answers. Your judgment cannot reach the curse's heart!
Elaris strikes the roots instead of him. Their twisting shields collapse into harmless branches, while the upright animals scatter beyond the frost line. Nearby, the Devil remains aloft, his scorched sleeve smoking.
Elaris
Then I will reach it layer by layer. You will have no ward left to hide behind.
A second frost binds Erouno's legs; a third claws through the curse's outer sigils. Each defense breaks with a flash of old red magic, revealing another mark beneath.
Erouno
Gensuik heard me because my malice survives every chain. It will survive yours!
At last, Elaris presses one crystalline claw beside the final ward and shapes a silent ring of frost around it. The curse stops spreading, but the ring strains, awaiting a second will to complete the binding.
“Since he is a old one, i add deep lyrics to help bind him”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Arcana, rolled +1)
The Devil lowers beside the frost-ringed ward. His vast head inclines, and a deep, measured lyric rolls through the roots, older than Erouno's curse.
The notes enter the final sigil without force, sinking beneath its red glow and surrounding the curse at its hidden heart. The ward answers with a heavy, resonant pulse.
Erouno
No. Those tones know the first dark places. They are not chains meant for me!
Elaris follows the rhythm, drawing her crystalline claw through the air. Frost closes over each answering mark until every layer of the curse is held in one silent circle.
Elaris
Hold the depth of that binding, vast stranger. I have the outer wards now.
The final red mark folds inward and goes still. Erouno's wrappings slacken beneath Elaris's claw, while the hostile pressure vanishes from the surrounding forest.
Erouno
The curse is sealed. My voice cannot reach Gensuik through it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Take Erouno into custody
“I use telepath to tell elaris that in a way this was me, doing something benificial as a ghoul devil bothering a powerful one like her brother a dragon genie. Loooong ago. To save the place. This is a fall off echo of my own binary writting here on arteris before them. I set off a genie dragon even older and more poweful then your brother. When arteris was giant”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +1)
The Devil
Long ago, I was the ghoul devil who troubled a power greater than your brother, an elder dragon genie, to save Arteris when it was vast. What remains here is an echo of my binary writing, fallen through time.
The message crosses without sound. It passes through the sealed curse, the roots, and the ancient stone beneath them, carrying images of a colossal Arteris and old marks written into its foundations.
Elaris
You were here before Gensuik, before this forest took its present shape. You provoked a power older than my brother, and did so to preserve this world.
Elaris's crystalline brow lowers toward the Devil. Frost along the roots brightens, not as a weapon, but as if Arteris itself recognizes the buried account.
Elaris
Then this curse was not your first intervention. Erouno's malice has fallen across an older pattern, and you have returned to correct its echo.
Erouno
An echo? No. Your old writing awakened powers that should have remained buried. You brought the first storm to Arteris!
Elaris
Perhaps he did. Yet the place still stands, and your curse is sealed. I will judge the ancient deed by what it saved, and judge you by what you chose to corrupt.
“Arteris was a titan planet at the old date. The genie dragon at the date who could grunt and shake the whole place had to be woken up and made aware to gaurd the whole titan form of this planet, with it being thousands times this size and glowing, needing the gaurdian dragon genie to summon the beings. It is so complex it is a stressful experience for him. What it took still was only me encouraging him to grunt and have authority. So now we have small forms, echoing the larger retrospect”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled -2)
The sealed curse becomes a window into Arteris's titan-era past. The planet appears thousands of times larger, glowing beneath a vast and living mantle, while the present forest echoes its ancient contours in miniature.
Within that colossal memory, the guardian is Gensuik, an elder dragon genie sleeping beneath the titan world. The Devil's old intervention reaches him through layered marks and summons the beings bound to Arteris's protection.
The awakening is no gentle call. Gensuik's first grunt travels across the glowing planet, shaking its immense shape, and the guardian's authority gathers around the world as the Devil's encouragement gives it direction.
Elaris
That was not conquest. You gave my brother the authority to guard a world too vast for any single command, and made him understand what slept beneath him.
The memory compresses again. Titan Arteris and its guardian recede into smaller forms, but their echoes remain in the roots, the sealed curse, and the dragon's present power.
Erouno
You awakened him, and the strain of it scattered old boundaries. I heard those tremors through the curse. That is why the buried powers answered.
The history settles into a coherent account, though its oldest dates remain indistinct. Reconstructing the exact order consumed the Devil's attention, leaving one question unresolved: which summoned beings still remember their first guardian.
“Not your brother, a king. Your brother is a small relic of the original. Which is why i will not alow him to grab at the beings for his own as he isnt the figure piece, the writter, your brother is a common out there phenom that resembles and heirs down like all like does from the original titan dragon genie "All"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +1)
The Devil
Not your brother, a king. Gensuik is only a small relic of the original titan dragon genie, All. He resembles that first figure and inherits its pattern, but he is not its author. He will not claim those beings as his own.
The Devil's correction enters the sealed window. The titan memory separates its immense guardian from Gensuik's lesser echo, and the summoned beings turn away from the present dragon's abandoned claim.
Elaris
Then I mistook inheritance for identity. Gensuik guards a remnant of the first king's pattern, but he is not the hand that wrote it.
Erouno
No. The resemblance carried authority. I heard the old shape in him, and that was enough to make the buried powers answer.
The ancient marks rearrange themselves beneath the frost, showing Gensuik as a common offshoot of the titan guardian's legacy. The beings remain free of his ownership.
Elaris
Your distinction is settled, vast stranger. My brother may inherit an echo, but he cannot seize what belonged to the original king.
Erouno
Then the voice behind Gensuik was never the whole authority. I mistook an heir's likeness for the source itself.