The pale rootway spills Amber Fiada Greenleaves and Greenleaves into a chamber vast enough to swallow Quiet's foundations. Living roots braid across engraved stone, and an ancient pulse makes each buried line flare gold.
Greenleaves
These are the first stones of my promise. I remember the words, but not all of what I paid to speak them.
Several slabs have been torn from the floor. Their empty sockets form a trail toward the chamber's center, where a dark circular hollow beats beneath a veil of roots.
Merrin
The missing stones were not broken away. They were taken. Whatever lies below wanted the record hidden, or wanted someone to finish it.
Greenleaves
If the pulse takes what remains, I may forget why I came here, and who I came to protect.
The next pulse reaches through the roots. For one breath, Greenleaves's face goes blank, and a fresh line of gold etches itself across the hollow: MEMORY IS THE PRICE OF KEEPING THE GATE.
“I ask Merrin to guard Greenleaves while I inspect the hollow”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled +0)
Amber Fiada Greenleaves
Merrin, guard Greenleaves while I inspect the hollow.
Merrin
Understood. I will keep them from the edge, and call out if the roots move.
Amber Fiada Greenleaves crosses the torn slabs and kneels at the hollow. Her careful gaze finds a narrow seam beneath the root veil, where three old symbols repeat: name, witness, sacrifice.
Greenleaves
The witness stone. It was meant to hold what the gate takes.
Amber traces the symbols without touching the pulse. Beneath the veil, a hidden stone plate turns, revealing a shallow basin and a clear instruction: place the keeper's true name in living ink, and memory may rest outside the gate.
The inspection costs her a pellet from the satchel. It slips into the hollow and cracks against the hidden plate, ringing through the chamber. The mechanism wakes at once.
Merrin
Greenleaves, step back. The roots are drawing from you now!
Fine gold threads pull from Greenleaves's brow into the basin. Her face tightens as another inscription burns across the plate: PRESERVE THE NAME BEFORE THE THIRD PULSE. The nearby roots curl toward her, and the first pulse begins.
Quest Complete
Find what lies beneath Quiet
Skill Upgrade: Survival Superb→Legendary