Bluze pushes through the iron gate into the arena bowl. Scrap walls ring the sand, and dead scavengers lie scattered in a rough circle around a trembling boy.
The child clutches a glass vial to his chest. Sickly light leaks from his eyes, and the air around him shivers like hot metal.
Bluze's mutations ache. The distortion presses against his hide, wrong and sour, like the world is bending off its hinges.
A warning siren snaps on above the arena, then another, then a whole chorus of them. Red lights strobe across the scrap.
Jory
Don’t come closer... I didn’t mean to do this.
Far beyond the walls, something heavy answers with a metallic groan. Dust drops from the catwalks. Whatever is coming has smelled the sickness.
Jory
Please, help me, before it gets inside.
✓ Quest Accepted
Contain the boy's sickness
+ New Item Acquired
Glass vial
“I crawl towards the boy on all fours and sniff the air around him to determine if the illness he carries can infect my mutated blood”
SUCCESS (Superb Survival, rolled +1)
Bluze drops low and crawls in through the red wash, sand grinding under his weight. The boy recoils, but he does not flee.
Bluze sniffs the air around the vial and the child. The sickness has a sharp, metallic bite, threaded with ozone and wet rot.
It is not blood in the usual way. It rides the air, clinging to breath and skin.
Jory
You felt it too... didn't you?
The air shudders over Bluze's muzzle, but it does not sink cleanly into him. His mutated hide takes the strain, holding the distortion at the surface.
Jory
Then help me keep it in. Something's coming.
“I point to the vial, silently asking if that's the cure”
SUCCESS (Terrible Reasoning, rolled +2)
Bluze raises one claw and points at the vial. The boy follows the gesture, his breathing hitching as if the answer might break in his hands.
Jory
No. It is not the cure. It is the container... the thing that keeps it from spreading.
He loosens his grip just enough to show the cracked seam at the vial’s neck, where the glow presses hardest against the glass.
Jory
My sister made it. She said if I ever started shaking like this, I had to hold it tight until someone strong enough could help.
The boy swallows and looks up at Bluze, hope and fear pulling his face in two directions at once.
Jory
Will you keep it steady with me?
“I hold out one of my massive clawed hands, gesturing for him to hand me the vial”
SUCCESS (Legendary Strength, rolled -1)
Bluze opens his massive hand. The boy hesitates, then puts the glowing vial into his palm with shaking care.
The glass hisses against Bluze’s claws, but his grip steadies. The distortion tightens instead of spilling wider.
Jory
Thank you. I... I could not keep it from slipping any longer.
With the weight off his hands, the boy drags in a long breath and wipes his mouth with a trembling wrist.
Jory
Maybe he can actually hold it. Maybe she was right to trust someone strong.
Jory
Do you feel that? It calms when you hold it like that.
The red light keeps pulsing over the scrap walls, but around Bluze’s hand the glow stops pressing outward and hangs close, contained for now.
Quest Complete
Contain the boy's sickness
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Terrible→Poor