Huarti steps onto the balcony, and the Nomad Envoy is still there, grim-faced, with black dust ground into her hands. In her palm, the larger red crescent fragment throbs like a wound that cannot close.
Nomad Envoy
This is not a lone breach. The nursery was probed, marked, and answered. The red crescent does not come once. It scouts, then it strikes.
The fragment flares. For a blink, the glow throws a broken sigil across the stone, and Huarti feels the same tainted arcana that once hid in the wall.
Nomad Envoy
My people found three more signs in the dunes, ash marks, dead charms, and the same dust. Someone is mapping your spire and testing your brood’s wards.
Nomad Envoy
We know their name now. The Crescent Hollow. Raiders, ward-breakers, and parasite-priests. They feed on cracks, then widen them.
Below the balcony, the nursery glows warm and steady, but the envoy keeps the shard raised, waiting to see whether Huarti answers as protector, conqueror, or both.
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect the dragon nursery from the Crescent Hollow
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify who is mapping the spire
“I cast a revealing the antagonist spell”
SUCCESS (Great Arcana, rolled -1)
Huarti lifts a hand and threads a slim red spell through the balcony air. The stone answers with a faint, bitter hum.
The magic peels back warding smoke and distance, showing a hidden trail of ink and grit traced along the spire walls.
The pattern leads to a name, scratched into a wax tablet and carried by the wind, a nomad surveyor working in secret.
Nomad Envoy
You see it now. Our scouts have been mapping your tower. I did not know which of us had chosen treachery.
Below them, the nursery stirs, hatchling eyes catching the dusk like coins in black glass.
Nomad Envoy
Say the word, and I name the hand behind this. Or I remain silent, and you judge us all by the deed.
Quest Complete
Identify who is mapping the spire