The nursery seals hum in a steady, low chorus. The terrace feels warmer now, the old archive strain gone from the stone.
Huarti stands over the glowing alcoves, his red toga pooling behind him. Earlise watches the light settle, their shoulders easing at last.
The Rootbound Caretaker
It holds. The wards do not shiver anymore.
Earlise
I can feel it. The place is no longer bracing for a blow.
The Rootbound Caretaker rests one hand near the ledger’s calm pulse, as if listening to a heartbeat beneath the floor.
The Rootbound Caretaker
You did not merely seize this vault. You taught it a gentler law.
Earlise
That matters more than I expected. I was ready for ash, and instead there is shelter.
The nursery light washes over Huarti’s hands and the seal-lines below, softening the last sharp edges of the chamber.
Earlise
Tell us, then, keeper. What do you want this quiet to become?
✓ Quest Accepted
Warn the desert of incoming black dragons
“I respond to an alarm outside that black drogons are fly into our territory”
SUCCESS (Legendary Perception, rolled -2)
A thin alarm tone shivers through the vault, and the terrace seals answer with a brief, brighter pulse.
Huarti turns toward the sound, his long shadow cutting across the circular stone as the archive listens with him.
Earlise
It is outside. The desert wardens need the warning now.
The Rootbound Caretaker lifts a branchlike hand toward the outer stair, where remnant script flickers awake in a narrow ribbon of blue.
The Rootbound Caretaker
The message can ride the old channels, if Huarti sends it cleanly.
Huarti
Black dragons. They are coming into the territory.
At Huarti's words, the vault marks flare once, then stream outward in a steady line, carrying the warning beyond the terrace and into the desert wards.
Earlise
The signal takes. The desert will hear.
Quest Complete
Warn the desert of incoming black dragons