With the riders held back, Veyra takes the broken writ from the collector. Her newly granted senses follow the blood-dark ink while Celia watches the road and the silent riders.
Veyra Sorn
This ink is not merely sealed with blood. It strains toward my will, as though its writer expects obedience.
The writ trembles between Veyra’s fingers. The blood within it answers her senses with a familiar hunger, carrying the same commanding signature that once bent her life into undeath.
Veyra Sorn
The author is a vampire lord. I know this compulsion. It may be the very master who turned me.
The Palace-Appointed Collector
That cannot be. The writ bears the lord’s authority, but I never knew it carried blood.
The evening wind stills. A cold presence speaks inside Celia and Veyra’s hearing, not from the road but from the silence between heartbeats.
the Death God
Find the vampire lord who forged this command. Destroy the hand that made Veyra Sorn a weapon, and let no living settlement bear his chain.
“I question the collector about his master's route”
SUCCESS (Superb Reasoning, rolled +1)
Celia Graves
Who gave you this writ, and which road did your master take after sending you here?
Celia raises the holy staff beside the broken writ. Plagueheart Vision catches a blood-dark trail, Plague Lore reads its command-signature, and sanctified force steadies the evidence while the Cursed distortion blurs its edges.
The Palace-Appointed Collector
The writ came from Lord Vaultren’s private secretary at Blackmere Manor. The vampire lord himself waits there, beneath the old keep.
The collector swallows and points west, away from the garden. Beyond the ridge, the old king’s road leads to Blackmere, while the riders remain still beneath their lord’s pennant.
Veyra Sorn
Vaultren. I heard that name before the turning, spoken by the one who claimed me. Blackmere Manor lies three days west by the king’s road.
Plagueheart Vision confirms the route’s blood-trace, and Plague Lore distinguishes Vaultren’s command from the collector’s borrowed seal. The staff’s sanctified grain holds the reading clear despite the distortion.
The Palace-Appointed Collector
I was ordered to return by sunset and report refusal. No messenger follows me now. Blackmere is the master’s route, and Lord Vaultren is the hand behind the command.
✓ Quest Accepted
Destroy Lord Vaultren
“I tell Maurice "Veyra and I are going to Blackmere to destroy Lord Vaultren help from you and Elianor would be appreciated. Consider it an interesting start to your honeymoon." I start traveling to Blackmere with Veyra.”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled +3)