Cassian guides Nera beyond the ditch into abandoned lime kilns, where soot-blackened chambers twist beneath collapsed arches. She leans heavily against the walls, leaving faint blood-dark marks behind.
Nera Voss
This will do. Bar the nearest passage, if you can. The wound is deep, but not yet fatal.
Before they reach the inner chamber, a young adult man in mud-caked shrine armor staggers into the kiln entrance. His pale face is hollow with exhaustion, and one hand grips a hooked spear.
shrine guard
Cassian. Stop there. The other guards never left the aqueduct. I came alone to find you.
Nera stiffens and presses her shoulder harder. The painted bead in her grasp pulses toward the guard's shadow, though the man himself remains perfectly still.
Nera Voss
Do not trust the shadow. Look at it, Cassian. It moves after he does.
The guard raises his spear a fraction. His shadow follows one heartbeat late, stretching across the soot toward the bead as the kiln chambers answer with a low, buried murmur.
✓ Quest Accepted
Escape the shrine guard
“"Sir. You are not a guard. You would know me better if you were, for the fair captain has arrested me many a night and her guards know me well."”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +3)
Cassian
Sir. You are not a guard. You would know me better if you were, for fair Captain Veyra has arrested me many a night, and her guards know me well.
The false guard's spear lowers. His face keeps its exhausted shape, but the shadow jerks sideways, no longer matching the man who casts it.
Nera Voss
There. You heard him. A borrowed face would know the captain, but not the nuisance she keeps catching.
shrine guard
The name is wrong. The memories are worse. I searched for Cassian, but I never stood in Veyra's cells.
The mud-caked armor slackens around a body too narrow for it. Beneath the helm, darkness ripples where a face should be, and the hooked spear clatters onto the ash.
shrine guard
The captain sends no guard alone. She sends bait, wrapped in authority. I am only what followed your mark from the aqueduct.
Nera Voss
His claim is true. The thing has lost the borrowed voice, and now it knows we see it.