The amber lamp flickers over the workbench, just as the Old Apothecary said. He holds the vial to the last light, and the etched marks catch and glint like a signature in glass.
The Old Apothecary
See it now. These marks, same hand that ordered the scouts. Same voice behind them.
He turns the vial in his thin fingers, then points with a shaking breath toward the scarred label. Jory stays close to Bluze, watching the old man, silent and tense.
The Old Apothecary
Not just some patrol leader. A geneticist. The one calling after your blood, Bluze. Hunting what you are.
Bluze
The same voice from the pipes.
A draft slips through the broken storefront. For a second, the shelves and jars feel like a listening crowd, and the room seems smaller around the word geneticist.
The Old Apothecary
If he finds you first, he will not ask nicely. He wants your mutation alive, if possible.
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect Bluze from the geneticist
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn who the geneticist is
“Then we find this geneticist and kill him”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +0)
Bluze
Bluze fixes on the marks, and the room narrows to one fact. The hunters are not only tracking Jory. They are coming for his own bloodline, for what the scientists made of him.
He lowers his head a fraction, the decision settling hard in the still air. Jory watches from the blanket nest, and the old man’s knuckles whiten around the vial.
Bluze
Then we find the geneticist, and we end him.
The Old Apothecary
Aye. Now you know what hunts you.
The lamp hums in its amber pool. Somewhere under the floor, the tunnel goes quiet again, as if listening for the answer.
Jory
Bluze... if they know what you are, they will not stop at one hunt.
“Of they knew wgat i was they wouldn't have trued hunting. Nothing hurts me, nothing kills me, nothing stops me. I am the ultimate weapon, and they were stupid enough to piss me off.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Bluze’s answer hangs in the amber light, heavy and certain. The old man stops moving first, then Jory, both of them taking in the shape of that promise.
The apothecary gives a short, brittle nod and reaches for the etched vial again, but his hand pauses halfway, as if the name on it has suddenly grown teeth.
The Old Apothecary
Then listen close. The one behind this, the geneticist, is not hunting a thief anymore. He is hunting you, Bluze.
Jory draws a sharp breath from the blanket nest, eyes fixed on Bluze like he is trying to measure the danger with one look.
Jory
If they have found your trail too, then the tunnels are not the end of it.
Under the floorboards, the pipe-rattle ticks once, faint and mean, like something answering from deeper below.
The old man sets the vial down very carefully and keeps his distance, the warning in his face now aimed outward toward whatever is coming.
“I ask the apothecary who the geneticist is”
SUCCESS (Superb Negotiation, rolled -3)
Bluze keeps still, and the old man’s caution gives way to reluctant truth. He names the geneticist as Dr. Soren Vale, a lab architect who used to oversee mutation work for the same people now hunting the dark below.
The Old Apothecary
Soren Vale. That is the name. He will not stop at the boy, not if he thinks you are the prize.
Jory
Bluze is the one they are really after... not me.
The apothecary’s voice costs him, dry and thin, and the effort makes him fumble the vial. It bumps the bench, rings once, and he catches it before it rolls off into the dust.
From under the floorboards, the pipe-rattle answers with a harder tick, as if the name has carried farther than it should. Jory reaches out and grips Bluze’s forearm, pale but steady.
Jory
Then they are coming for what made you, Bluze. Not just for what you carry.
The old man sets the vial down again, this time with trembling care, and looks between them as if weighing how much worse the world has just become.
Quest Complete
Learn who the geneticist is
New Gift: Unflinching Genetic Memory