Dusk bleeds through the inn’s grime-streaked panes. Stale ale, wet wool, and old smoke hang in the air. Aguile astrea stands before a corner table where a silk-wrapped stone pulses with a soft, living throb.
Across from him sits the fae ambassador, all sharp stillness and silvered poise, his gaze never leaving Aguile astrea’s hands.
Valerius
You feel it, do you not? The relic answers blood, not titles.
The stone gives a faint warmth through the silk, as if something inside is listening.
Valerius
It is the only key that can find the true heir. Without it, the line remains buried.
He nudges the bundle a finger’s width closer, careful, deliberate, as though offering bait to a hungry blade.
Valerius
Take it, Aguile astrea, and name your price. Refuse, and I leave with the map of your ruin.
✓ Quest Accepted
Verify the silk-wrapped stone's true nature
“I place my hand over the stone to see if it reacts to my touch.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Magic, rolled -1)
Aguile astrea lays his palm over the silk, and the pulse changes at once. It no longer beats like a hidden heart, but like a thing waking to being named.
Warm light threads through the weave, tracing lines that were never cloth, a crown shape in miniature, ancient and exact.
Valerius
There. It recognizes blood of the old house. The charm is no counterfeit.
The room seems to hold its breath as the stone settles under Aguile astrea’s hand, steady now, certain, the pulse answering only his touch.
Valerius
Take it. If you mean to claim what is yours, you will need what was made for your line.
The ambassador’s gaze flicks to the door, then back to Aguile astrea, as if waiting for his choice before the inn itself decides to listen.
Quest Complete
Verify the silk-wrapped stone's true nature