Adventure of Quorpeck.5

At the center of the flooded archive, the black iron helm in the Helm-Bearer's grasp wakes with a sickly violet pulse. The water around it darkens and threads upward, as if something hungry is drawing breath through steel.

Warped oak shelves groan. Ink-like corruption peels from the current and crawls toward the helm, while the visor fills with the same crawling script that once burned across Quorpeck's gauntlet.

The violet glow tightens into a steady rhythm, and the archive shivers in answer. Beyond the silt, the sealed door waits below the running water, no longer mysterious, only dreadful.

Quorpeck plants his stance and pours the force of his spirit into the helm-bearer, not as a command, but as shelter. The violet pulse stutters against that warmth, and the crawling script on the visor tightens, then thins.

The black iron helm shudders in her hands, then goes still. The dark pressure inside it does not vanish, but its grip on her jaw and wrists loosens, as if his power has wedged a shield between will and hunger.

The cost lands at once, a hot strain through Quorpeck's forearm and shoulder, and a fresh thread of ink-black script creeps across his gauntlet before he locks it down. Behind the sealed door, rushing water keeps muttering through stone, patient and cold.