Stone dust hangs thick in the air as Nogandar drags his heavy, scarred frame from the rubble. The chamber is a jagged tomb of broken granite. A wiry, desperate scavenger emerges from the shadows, his lantern casting long, flickering fingers of light across the gargoyle's wings.
Scavenger
You! Stone-hide! Did the vault yield gold, or did you crush the treasures into powder? Speak, or I will carve the truth from your stony chest myself!
Nogandar
This scavenger smells of rot and desperation. He seeks trinkets while I seek vengeance against the Weaver. He is a pathetic obstacle.
Nogandar
Move aside, scavenger. Your greed will be your shroud if you do not step away from the path of my crusade.
Scavenger
He thinks he can threaten me? He is battered and slow. The jewels behind that wall are worth any risk. I will take them from his broken body.
Scavenger
You look half-dead already. The treasures belong to those who can reach them!
+ Scene Quest Added
Deal with the greedy scavenger
“I grapple him lock up and bite his head”
FAILURE (Good Gargoyal grappling, rolled +0)
Nogandar lunges, his massive stone hands outstretched to pin the man. The scavenger moves with unnatural, frantic speed. He ducks under the gargoyle's reach, the heavy talons grasping only empty air and stinging dust.
Nogandar
My movements are stiff from the centuries of confinement. He is fast, like a vermin scurrying through the cracks of a foundation.
The scavenger spins, slamming the heavy iron lantern into Nogandar’s temple with a sickening crack of metal against stone. The gargoyle stumbles, his balance betraying him as the chamber floor shifts beneath his weight.
Scavenger
You are too slow for this life, creature! My prize is not for the likes of you!
The man scoffs, sidestepping toward the glimmer of the treasure vault while Nogandar regains his footing, his vision swimming with sparks of orange light. The floor tiles groan under the pressure of the shifting ruins, threatening to give way entirely.
“I cast slow on him”
SUCCESS (Superb Arcana, rolled +1)
Nogandar stops his pursuit, his stone throat vibrating with a guttural, arcane chant. He thrusts a clawed hand forward, and the air around the scavenger ripples with thick, violet energy. The man’s arrogant smirk freezes mid-twitch as his frantic pace dissolves into a glacial, agonized crawl. He is caught in a temporal vice, his muscles locking in place as the chamber dust hangs suspended in the air like fallen stars around him.
Nogandar
Let the filth of the Weaver suffer the weight of the ages. Time is a gift he does not deserve.
The scavenger tries to scream, but the sound emerges as a distorted, low-frequency hum. He reaches out a desperate hand toward the gold, but his fingers move with the speed of a shifting glacier, failing to make contact with the pile of relics. Nogandar takes a slow, heavy step forward, the floor cracking beneath his weight as he looms over the paralyzed thief.
Quest Complete
Deal with the greedy scavenger
Skill Upgrade: Gargoyal grappling Good→Great