Ino arrives beneath ancient pines as a planar gate flickers between the trees, its silver rim buckling like heated metal. Beyond it, a tavern roars with drunken shouts and splintering furniture.
A goblin trader braces both feet against the glowing threshold, clutching a crooked staff. Wild sparks lash the moss while armored revelers stumble through, grappling and shouting.
the goblin trader
Hold, hold! Do not let the doorway fold! I have paid good coin for this crossing, and I refuse to be crushed between worlds!
A broad-shouldered brawler tumbles across the boundary, followed by a woman wreathed in blue flame. Their quarrel spills into the forest as the gate contracts around them.
the goblin trader
It began when one fool tried freeing a trapped god beneath the tavern! Now the old seal is broken, and every drunk wizard in there is making matters worse!
Ino
The gate is narrowing around the people caught between its edges.
The forest bends toward the breach. Leaves whirl upward, roots groan beneath the soil, and a vast, unseen presence bellows from the tavern’s impossible depths.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reseal the broken seal
“Can the broken seal be reached through the narrowing gate?”
YES, AND MORE (Likely, rolled 4)
Ino lunges beneath the buckling rim and seizes the goblin trader by his patched cloak. The gate shrieks, but her legendary strength tears him free onto solid moss.
the goblin trader
My staff! Wait, my staff is still braced against the seal!
The crooked staff snaps loose as Ino drags him clear, revealing a narrow stairway descending through the gate instead of the tavern’s common room.
the goblin trader
There! Beneath the cellar! The broken seal lies at the bottom, and the stair is holding steady for you!
Silver light hardens along the hidden steps. For one breath, the collapsing threshold opens wide enough to admit a single determined traveler before narrowing again.
the goblin trader
You saved my life, elf. I will witness this deed before every power that asks who reached the god’s prison.
Behind them, the tavern’s impossible roar deepens. The goblin stumbles safely beyond the roots while the revealed stair waits, untouched, beneath the dying gate.
“Is the hidden stair safe to descend?”
NO, AND WORSE (Unlikely, rolled 87)
The silver steps shudder as the goblin reaches safety. Their edges blacken, and something beneath them begins climbing, dragging a crown of chained shadows upward.
the goblin trader
No! That stair was never a passage. It is a leash, and you have just given the prisoner a way to pull!
The gate contracts violently behind Ino, sealing the forest from the tavern while leaving the stair suspended in open darkness. The unseen presence bellows again.
the goblin trader
Elf, step away from it! The broken seal is not below anymore. It is answering you.
A fissure opens across the highest step. Pale hands grip its sides, not flesh but ash and moonlit bone, while the surrounding pines bow toward the breach.
the goblin trader
I promised to witness her deed. I did not promise to watch her become the prison door.
The stair remains open, but its descent now leads toward a rising captive. Behind Ino, the final silver rim collapses into sparks, leaving no clear retreat.
“I bind the broken seal with my Buster Sword”
SUCCESS (Legendary Melee Weapons, rolled -2)
Ino plants her feet on the suspended stair and swings the Buster Sword down across the fissured top step. The blade strikes with a bell-like crack.
Runes flare along the steel, spilling gold through the broken seal. The ashen hands freeze, and chains of light cinch the stair to the darkness below.
the goblin trader
By every buried king, she has bound it! The prison holds, and the prisoner cannot climb farther.
The cost lands at once: the sword drinks the gate’s remaining silver, leaving its edge dull and its runes dark. Ino’s palms split against the hilt.
the goblin trader
But that blade is carrying the seal now. Do not wrench it free unless you mean to open the way again.
Below the locked step, the crowned shadows writhe without ascent. The stair steadies beneath Ino, while the surrounding pines slowly rise from their bowed posture.
the captive beneath the seal
Mortal bearer, your steel has named you my jailer. Every chain remembers the hand that fastens it.
Quest Complete
Reseal the broken seal