The Domini saga : lich lords favor

The altar remains open beneath the cold sky, its inner pattern visible through the star-shaped hollow. Wind combs the fallen pillars and carries dust over the blue marks.

Rovan brushes lichen from a fallen pillar while Teren aligns a quarry groove with the star-shaped hollow. A thin blue filament appears between them, running north beneath the rock.

The filament pulses once and resolves into faint footprints of blue light across the exposed stone, climbing toward a narrow ravine in the northern heights. The trace remains clear, waiting beyond the altar.

Kynes follows the blue footprints north across the exposed stone, keeping his balance as the altar drops behind him. Rovan and Teren follow through the wind-carved ravine.

The trace climbs a narrow shelf between dark pines and fractured cliffs. Each blue mark fades beneath his step, leaving the route quiet and unaltered behind him.

Kynes crosses the shelf with sure footing and reaches the ravine’s upper bend. There, the blue trail gathers around a split boulder beneath the northern heights.

Beyond the boulder, a concealed stair descends into the hillside. Blue light spills from below, carrying Ilyen Voss’s deliberate seal and the pressure of the hidden working.

The northern heights rise around Kynes as he stands before the revealed stair. The blue trace has led him safely to its destination, with the sealed chamber waiting beneath the stone.

Rovan takes position beside the split boulder while Teren watches the blue trace and the ravine beyond. Kynes descends the concealed stair with steady, silent steps.

The stair coils beneath the northern heights, its walls smooth from deliberate shaping. Blue sigils guide Kynes downward, carrying the pressure of the hidden working through the stone.

At the bottom, the passage opens into Ilyen Voss’s hidden chamber. A central stone dais bears the personal seal, while narrow channels draw the quarry’s pressure into a controlled geometric pattern.

Kynes stands inside the chamber at last. Behind him, the stair remains open and guarded; ahead, the blue working waits without voice or visible presence.

Kynes examines the central stone dais from every angle. Its surface is one piece of dark, finely fitted stone, untouched by dust despite the chamber’s age.

His arcane sight reveals four shallow channels cut into the dais, each carrying the quarry’s force toward a separate blue seal. None originates beneath the stone.

At the center, a recessed mark bears Ilyen Voss’s personal seal. The pattern is layered over older geometry, showing that the spellwright adapted an existing pressure-control design rather than creating the chamber’s foundation.

Kynes follows the channels to their ends and understands the arrangement completely: the dais gathers the imposed disturbance, separates its flow, and sends it along the marked routes toward the shrine and quarry.

A narrow seam beneath the central seal conceals a small stone tablet. Its inscription identifies the dais as a regulator, while a final line records that Ilyen Voss altered its direction after the original working was built.

The tablet’s exposed face bears compact notes in Ilyen Voss’s hand. They describe the original regulator, the altered routes, and a concealed release sequence leading beyond the northern heights.

A final paragraph names the working’s purpose: redirect the quarry pressure into empty highland stone until the distortion can dissipate. Beside it, Ilyen marked a warning in fresh blue ink.

The warning states that the regulator cannot be closed from this chamber. Any attempt to force stillness will reverse the four channels and drive the pressure back through the quarry.

The tablet’s last blue line flares as the chamber recognizes the reading. A sharp pulse crosses the dais and numbs Kynes’s casting hand from wrist to fingertips for several hours.

The tablet remains intact, its instructions clear: the northern route can carry the disturbance away from the quarry, while the regulator must remain active until the pressure thins.

Kynes carefully lifts the stone tablet from its concealed seam, supporting its weight with his uninjured hand while arcane light gathers over the compact inscription.

He studies the older geometry beneath Ilyen Voss’s additions, comparing its channel logic with the regulator’s four divisions. The buried pattern yields to his scrutiny.

The discovery completes the tablet’s history: Vaelis Thorne shaped the regulator, later hands preserved it, and Ilyen redirected its routes. The knowledge is certain, but the reading wakes a dormant seal.

Blue script spills from the tablet into Kynes’s casting hand, overlaying his skin with a cold geometric mark. The magic records his signature and numbs two fingers until the working fades.