The archway bursts apart in ice, exactly as the house warned it would. Beyond the jagged opening is the town, but wrong, older, all raw timber and mud streets under a dead sky.
Figures in archaic robes crowd the street. They stand shoulder to shoulder, then turn their heads together toward Lilimeth, as if they have been waiting through centuries for this glance.
The black altar answers. Its carved surface ignites with a sickly white glow, and the light seems to run through the floor, the walls, the air, linking mansion and vision like a vein.
Elias
No. That is not a memory. That is a door.
His knife slips from his hand and strikes the stone. Around the altar, black dust lifts and spins, as if the room itself is breathing for the first time.
Lilimeth Sullist
The altar is the mansion’s heart.
The robed faces in the vision do not blink. Their attention settles on Lilimeth, cold and absolute, while the glow from the altar widens like an opened eye.
✓ Quest Accepted
Sever the link between the mansion and the vision
“Are the robed figures reaching into our world?”
YES, AND MORE (VeryLikely, rolled 14)
The robed figures do not merely watch. Their pale, elongated fingers press against the threshold of the archway, the wood of the vision warping and splintering under their touch as they begin to pull themselves into the mansion.
Elias
They are not just looking, Lilimeth. They are crossing over.
“I block the archway with the altar”
FAILURE (Good Strength, rolled -1)
Lilimeth throws her weight at the altar, trying to wedge it across the threshold, but the stone only grinds a handspan before biting into the floor.
White light flares through the base, and the slab skews sideways instead of sealing the opening.
Lilimeth Sullist
The lock under it. It is resisting through the floor.
The archway splits wider anyway, and the pale fingers keep hauling themselves through, scraping wood and ash into the chamber.
Elias
The altar is anchored. Pull the release, or it drags the whole room with it.
Beneath the tilting slab, a seam of carved stone flashes into view, a hidden catch opening toward the altar's heart.
“I pull the release under the altar”
SUCCESS (Good Strength, rolled -2)
Lilimeth hooks the catch and yanks. The seam answers with a dry, stone-deep click, and the altar gives way under her hands.
White fire gutters out of the base. The archway shudders, then its tearing edge loses shape, as if something on the far side has lost its grip.
Lilimeth Sullist
The release is open.
A blast of cold air pours from the split threshold, carrying ash and the stink of old rain. One of the pale hands tears free, leaving a shred of cloth snagged on the stone.
Elias
Yes. Now move, before it remembers the room.
The altar stays askew, but the glow under it is gone. The gap in the archway still hangs open, thinner now, twitching at the edges.
Elias
The seam is broken, but not cleanly. Something is still trying to hold the door together.