The road opens into Duchesses Garden, bright with flowering arbors, colored ribbons, and musicians playing for two newly joined families. Celia remains on foot with Elianor, Maurice, and Veyra.
The wedding guests laugh and circle the feast tables, but beneath their dancing feet the earth answers with a muffled, corpse-deep stir. Celia’s cold palm prickles around the mirrored sigil.
Celia Graves
The dead are below us.
Veyra goes rigid beside the nearest arbor. Her gaze fixes on a veiled adult woman in a pearl-gray gown, with a narrow silhouette and a tarnished silver brooch at her throat, standing motionless among the guests with one gloved hand resting over an absent heartbeat.
Veyra Sorn
There. The veiled woman by the rose arbor. She has no heartbeat, and she is hiding it well.
Music continues beneath the blossoms. The wedding guests have noticed nothing, while Maurice shifts subtly between the party and the veiled guest, and Elianor watches Veyra for confirmation.
Veyra Sorn
Celia, I know that silence. What do you want me to do?
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the veiled vampire
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine the veiled vampire's connection to the undead
“I quietly question the veiled woman about her place among these wedding guests.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -3)
Celia Graves
Quietly, Celia asks the veiled woman what place she holds among these wedding guests.
The question slips beneath the music without disturbing the feast. Plagueheart Vision fixes the woman’s hidden deathly stillness, while Plague Lore identifies the restraint around her as deliberate concealment, not a fresh attack.
Seraphine Dorr
My name is Seraphine Dorr. I am the bride’s aunt, invited because this garden belonged to my family before the wedding house claimed it.
Celia’s Cursed will pulls at the exchange, blurring Seraphine’s answer with the muffled stir beneath the earth. Her legendary resolve holds the question steady, though the strain leaves a visible hesitation in her breath.
Seraphine Dorr
I came to witness the joining, not to prey upon anyone. The dead below woke when the vows began, and they answer to something beneath the oldest arbor.
Maurice closes one hand around his weapon’s hilt, while Elianor turns toward the arbor. Veyra keeps watching Seraphine, confirming the absence of any heartbeat without challenging her claim.
“I tell Elianor "I didn't know your aunt was a vampire." Then I tell Maurice and Elianor "Enjoy the rest of your wedding. Veyra and I will put the dead to rest." I go with Veyra to the arbor.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Undead Sensing, rolled -1)
Celia Graves
I did not know your aunt was a vampire.
Elianor Vale
Neither did I. If she truly came to witness our wedding, then the dead beneath this garden have made her secret dangerous.
Celia Graves
Enjoy the rest of your wedding. Veyra and I will put the dead to rest.
Maurice Headsman
Then go. I will keep the guests calm, and Elianor will know where to find aid if the garden turns against you.
Celia leaves the wedding’s music behind and walks with Veyra beneath the oldest arbor. The veiled woman remains near the guests, watching them go without raising an alarm.
The Cursed mark clouds Celia’s Undead Sensing, but Plagueheart Vision reveals the buried dead as pale knots beneath the roots. Plague Lore names their binding, and the holy staff lends sanctified force to her sensing.
Celia traces the staff’s tip around the arbor’s roots while Veyra speaks the dead’s hidden names into the soil. The knots loosen, their corpse-deep stirring fades, and the buried dead fall quiet beneath the garden.
Quest Complete
Expose the veiled vampire
Skill Upgrade: Medicine Superb→Legendary