Dust drifts in a thinner rain now. The seal’s crack gives off a dull, patient pulse, and the chamber holds its breath around Raithe Blackthorne and the Bard.
The Bard
That mark is the seal’s answering bite. It has touched you, but it has not finished speaking.
The Bard sits straighter, one palm open toward Raithe’s wrist, his other hand still rubbing feeling back into numb skin. The artifact’s ember-glow throbs once beneath the broken stone.
The Bard
Ancient seals do not only bind things away, they remember the vow that fed them. If you know what was broken, you may learn what this hunger wants.
Raithe Blackthorne
The mark is reacting to the seal, not just to the artifact.
Cold spreads under Raithe’s skin where the dark stain rests, a numb line that seems to drink warmth rather than blood. The chamber’s silence makes the pulse in the stone feel louder.
The Bard
Let me show you how to read it. If we understand the inheritance, we may keep the thing fed long enough to starve it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what the mark on the wrist means
✓ Quest Accepted
Neutralize the artifact's threat
“I extend my marked wrist toward the bard to let him examine the stain.”
SUCCESS (Great Magic, rolled +1)
Raithe extends his marked wrist across the broken stones. The Bard leans in, careful as a healer over a fresh burn, and the ember-glow in the floor answers with a slow throb.
The Bard
There. The stain is not mere poison. It is a thread, tied to the seal by vow and hunger alike.
His fingers hover just above the dark line, not touching. The numbing thread seems to tighten in the pale light, as if it recognizes being seen.
The Bard
It reads your blood for a promise it can claim. That is why it held to you, and why it answers the broken stone.
The Bard
If we find the vow it remembers, we may cut the tether before it roots deeper.
The chamber stays still, but the pulse under the seal quickens by a hair, waiting for the next word or the next touch.
Quest Complete
Learn what the mark on the wrist means