The opposite track narrows between thornbushes and the ditch. The merchant has gone ahead toward the road, while Captain Veyra and her shrine guards remain behind at the aqueduct.
A mud-streaked young woman climbs from the ditch, one hand pressed to her bleeding shoulder. She is lean, dark-haired, and wrapped in a torn ochre cloak over travel leathers; a silver ring marks her left ear.
Nera Voss
Cassian. Do not reach for a blade. I have no wish to make this road worse than it is.
Nera raises her free hand. Between two muddy fingers rests a painted bead, identical to those Captain Veyra accepted beneath the aqueduct.
Nera Voss
I found it inside, after you left. The captain's guards never saw me. Whatever sleeps below has begun sorting through what was offered.
Something heavy scrapes once beneath the road, slow enough to tremble through the packed earth. Then it falls silent, leaving only wind in the thornbushes.
Nera Voss
If Veyra still has the other beads, she is not holding a pledge. She is holding a door handle. Tell me what you carried out.
“"I know you not. Why should I listen to you."”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +0)
Cassian
I know you not. Why should I listen to you?
Nera studies him through the thorn-shadow, breathing hard. Her muddy cloak hides most of the wound, but blood has soaked through beneath her fingers.
Nera Voss
Because I was beneath the aqueduct when Veyra placed your beads around the bronze fragment. I saw the stone answer them.
Nera Voss
The guards call it a seal. They are wrong. Each bead gives the thing below a direction, and your green stone gives it a name.
She extends the painted bead. Its tiny charm is split down the middle, and a faint warmth pulses against her muddy palm.
Nera Voss
I stole this to stop the pattern, not to trick you. Listen because Veyra means to open that buried door at dusk, with you present as its witness or sacrifice.
Nera Voss
My price is simple: take me somewhere sheltered, and I show you where the last mark belongs. The wound is worsening, and I cannot reach it alone.
✓ Quest Accepted
Bring Nera Voss to shelter
“"… Fine. My house is near. But she will know my bead is gone, she is observant."”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled -1)