The concealed camp rests within the Stone Basin, its cold firepit and abandoned markers framing an ironwood cage. Vespera still holds the route token as Selka studies the perimeter and Elora watches from several paces away.
Inside, a wholly unfamiliar beast, a young adult, gender-ambiguous chimera with dark fur, a narrow muzzle, and a white scar over one eye, shifts between a lean lupine shape, branching antlers, and luminous rabbit-like features. Pale radiance moves beneath its changing hide whenever coercive path-magic pulses through the bars.
Selka
The perimeter was abandoned in haste, but not during a struggle. These marks identify the handler as Veyr, and the eastern trail was prepared for the creature’s forced passage.
Elora crouches beside a weathered stake without touching it. Beneath the camp’s layered signs, a sealed-bargain mark points toward Argentis, while a second inscription has been deliberately obscured.
Elora
The bargain sends this being toward Argentis, but its hidden condition will not yield to ordinary reading. Veyr wanted the terms concealed until someone engaged the beast’s magic.
Selka
We have found the location and seen the evidence. I cannot tell whether the creature understands us, but the path-magic reacts whenever we approach the cage.
The beast’s form stills on rabbit-like limbs, its luminous eyes fixing on Vespera. The route token warms in her hand, and a faint line of light travels from it toward the cage’s unreadable seal.