Kylie hauls herself over the far bank of the millrace, soaked to the skin beneath her plate. The barkeep follows, coughing once, while shouts echo from the drainage run behind them.
Water streams from Kylie’s armor and dark hair. Her bruised shoulder bears the crossing’s fresh strain, but the oilskin-wrapped bundle remains secured against her chest.
The Barkeep
There. The watch hut. If its roof holds, it will hide us long enough to learn what I carried out of that tavern.
The hut leans beyond the sluice, half swallowed by snow and reeds. Fresh scratches score its foundation stones: a courier mark, sharp and deliberate, matching the seal pressed into the bundle.
The Barkeep
That mark was not there when I last used this path. Someone knew the road ward, and someone has reached its door before us.
Behind them, riders shout directions through the buried channels. Hooves strike stone, growing louder, while the millrace churns between the fugitives and the searching party.
Kylie of Antioch
The courier mark is fresh, but the seal is older.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the watch hut
+ New Item Acquired
Oilskin-Wrapped Bundle
“Can the watch hut hide us from the riders?”
YES, AND MORE (Even, rolled 7)
The barkeep wrenches open the watch hut’s swollen door. Inside, a cramped stone chamber lies black and dry beneath the sagging roof, its walls thick enough to swallow the riders’ shouts.
Kylie and the barkeep slip inside as hoofbeats reach the sluice. Snow-laden reeds veil the doorway, and the searching riders pass the hut without turning their mounts toward it.
The Barkeep
Quiet now. Even the walls remember how to keep a secret.
The bundle’s old seal catches the dim light. Beneath it, a loose flagstone bears the same courier mark, and a narrow stair descends into darkness below the hut.
The Barkeep
That was never on my route map. If the mark is genuine, this stair leads beneath the millrace, perhaps straight toward the old road ward.
Outside, the riders spread along the bank, searching the buried channels. Their voices fade toward the eastern road while the hidden stair waits open beneath the flagstone.
Kylie of Antioch
The hut hides us, and the courier path has found us first.
“I examine the bundle’s old seal, hopefully, through my royal lineage, I can recognize the seal.”
SUCCESS (Fair Arcane Lore, rolled +2)
Kylie turns the oilskin-wrapped bundle beneath the hut’s scant light. Frost gathers across her gauntlets, yet the bitter cold leaves her steady and unhampered as she studies the old seal.
Her arcane lore recognizes the silvered star-crossing impressed beneath the wax: a royal courier seal from Antioch’s founding line, used to mark concealed roads and sanctified waystations.
Kylie of Antioch
This seal belongs to the old road ward, and it predates my brother’s reign.
The Barkeep
You know it, then. That is not a merchant’s mark or a smuggler’s token.
The wax bears no sign of tampering. Beneath its royal pattern, Kylie detects a second ward, dormant but intact, keyed to the bloodline that founded Antioch.
The Barkeep
What does it open?
Beyond the hut, the searching riders call faintly along the bank. Below, the marked stair waits in darkness, and the bundle’s seal confirms the courier path leads toward the old road ward.
Quest Complete
Reach the watch hut