The Nomad Envoy pauses at the terrace edge, just as she did before. Wind claws across the Obsidian Spires, and her warning about Earlise seems to linger in the air like frost on stone.
Nomad Envoy
That name is not a banner. It is a tether. When you spoke it, something old heard you.
The red boundary line at Huarti’s feet brightens. Far below the terrace, the ward under the stone answers with a deeper, steadier pulse, as if recognizing the word and settling into place.
Annika Mal
I felt that too. Not danger fading. Recognition.
A faint blue shimmer runs through the ward seam, then vanishes. The Envoy turns her head toward the nursery below, her caution now edged with awe instead of fear.
Nomad Envoy
Then the old bond is awake. Keep the brood close, Huarti. If Earlise returns by name, it returns by claim.
The terrace falls still again, but the silence has changed. It is no longer empty. It feels watched, and answered.
“I cast reverse curse on the intrusion”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +0)
Huarti lifts one hand and turns the answer back through the seam. The blue trace in the stone flares, then folds inward as if snared by its own memory.
The ward hum deepens once, clean and low, and the red line at his feet stops glaring like a wound. It now marks the terrace with a calmer, narrower pulse.
Annika Mal
It is not resisting you. It is reversing the wrongness.
A thin thread of pale light leaks from the seam, then breaks into three small points, like beads spilled in order. Each spark dims instead of striking back.
Nomad Envoy
That was an intrusion. Something pressed in through the bond, and you turned it aside.
For a heartbeat, Huarti feels the shape behind the pressure, not a face, but a name-shadow with hooks in it. The feeling recoils, stripped of its path.
Annika Mal
The nursery is steadier now. But if Earlise heard that reversal, it knows you answered.
“I cast reveal location of Earlise”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +3)
Huarti lowers his hand and pinches the air above the seam as if grasping a thread only he can feel.
The ward answers with a narrow, glassy hum. A pale route unfurls from the terrace, stretching out beyond the spires in a trembling line of direction.
Huarti
There.
The line bites eastward first, then bends hard under the desert, settling on one hidden place far below the horizon.
Annika Mal
It is pinned. I can feel the mark now, and it is not far.
Nomad Envoy
That is Earlise's trail, or the echo of where it was. Either way, the bond has yielded a location.
The pale route tightens into a fixed glimmer, then flashes once with a second shadow beside it, as if something else is watching the same place.
Annika Mal
Huarti, do you see the second point, or do you want me to name it?
“I breath out smoke into a smoke dragon servant and send it after Earlise”
SUCCESS (Good Devils breath, rolled +0)
Huarti draws in a long breath. The terrace wind vanishes into his chest, then returns as a ribbon of dark smoke curling between his fingers.
He shapes the smoke with a slow twist of his hand, and it thins into a small dragon, all hooked wings and ember eyes.
The smoke dragon lifts its head toward the pale trace, tasting the air.
Annika Mal
It knows the way...?
The little wisp darts off the terrace, dives into the desert line, and follows the shadow-point without hesitation.
Nomad Envoy
Then it can hunt what the ward only names. Huarti, does it return to you, or does it lead on?
“I say it leads us. I make a dimensional door to Earlise location for me to step through there”
SUCCESS (Good Agility, rolled +1)