The green vowlight settles into a soft pulse, washing the root-chamber in leaf-colored calm. Dust hangs in the air like fine ash, and the old stone seems to breathe more slowly now.
The Rootbound Caretaker
The first vow is witnessed. The archive remembers this moment, and it does not forget who stands with it.
Earlise
I feel it too. The walls are quieter with Huarti here, as if they have decided to listen instead of resist.
A seam of green script brightens, then steadies. The chamber answers with a low, contented hum, and the pressure in the stone eases from the shoulders like a burden set down.
The Rootbound Caretaker
Witness and keeper are different things. Yet this one carries both like a crown forged in patience.
Earlise
If you mean to remain, then name the shape of that permanence. What does Huarti guard here, beyond the records?
The green light lingers between them, warm as a hearth in deep stone, leaving the question open in a rare, calm silence.
✓ Quest Accepted
Name what Huarti guards in the archive
“I fell them i am fiend, by nature still to the core, that the powers should be put in Ehahase, Ao, Aerdrie Faeyna and Moradin's names not mine”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +2)
Huarti lets the vow settle into the stone. The leaf-green script along the root-wall answers with a low, steady glow, as if listening.
Huarti
I name the archive's powers for Ehahase, Ao, Aerdrie Faeyna, and Moradin. Not for me.
The chamber takes the declaration cleanly. The script brightens, then threads outward in four slim lines, each line settling into one of the names like a seal receiving its mark.
Earlise
That is a harder vow than conquest. Most rulers ask for a crown. You place the burden elsewhere.
The Rootbound Caretaker
And yet the root accepts it. The archive remembers its keepers best when they do not clutch the keeping.
Earlise
He speaks like someone who knows what power costs, not like someone pretending.
A small pulse moves through the wall, and a second seam of script opens beside the first. For a breath, the hidden words look freshly tended, not ancient.
The Rootbound Caretaker
Then tell us plain, Huarti. What do you guard here, when the names are not your own?
Quest Complete
Name what Huarti guards in the archive