The wardwrights finish pinning silver markers into the altered stones. Their lines converge beneath the arena, where a concealed stair answers with a cold pulse through the earth.
The injured young adult knight remains beneath the passage arch while attendants support her shoulder. The copper-skinned wardwright woman stays beside the stones, recording each mark in chalk.
the gallery commander
There. The alignment is deliberate. It leads below the trial ground, not toward any outer gate.
The sandy-haired young adult wardwright kneels and presses two silver-threaded fingers near the lowest marker. Frost gathers briefly along the carved channel, then vanishes.
the sandy-haired wardwright
I can trace the current, Commander. If the stair is sound, I should find where the severed circuits were fed from below.
the gallery commander
You will not descend alone. Take the princess with you, and keep the injured candidates and the other wardwright here under guard.
A narrow seam opens between two flagstones, revealing worn steps descending into blue-black darkness. The cold current pulses again, waiting beneath the arena.
“I descend with the wardwright to find the source”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled +2)
Arzerelus enters the narrow stair beside the sandy-haired wardwright. Blue-black light clings to the worn walls, and the arena's guarded voices fade above them.
the sandy-haired wardwright
Keep close. The current is stronger below, but it is following a crafted channel, not leaking at random.
The steps descend beneath the trial ground into a buried chamber. Silver threads in the sandy-haired wardwright's gloves glimmer as they pass carved supports veined with black residue.
Arzerelus
The severed circuits were fed from beneath the arena.
At the chamber's center, three stone conduits meet around a squat iron-bound focus. Its inner rune turns slowly, drawing cold blue current from the surrounding earth.
the sandy-haired wardwright
There is the source. This focus was installed beneath the foundations, then tied into the trial wards by those cuts.
The sandy-haired wardwright marks the focus without touching it. Its rune answers with a deeper pulse, exposing a narrow inscription around the base: a deliberate hand has prepared this mechanism for repeated failures.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what the sabotage focus was prepared to do
“I ask the wardwright to trace the failures this focus was prepared to trigger.”
FAILURE (Mediocre Reasoning, rolled -2)
Arzerelus
Trace the failures this focus was prepared to trigger.
The sandy-haired wardwright inclines his head and draws a silver stylus through the dust, copying the inscription into branching lines around the focus.
the sandy-haired wardwright
I will follow its intended sequence. Do not disturb the stone, whatever it shows.
His stylus completes the first line. The focus answers with a low pulse, and pale symbols kindle across the chamber floor: eastern ward, central circuit, then the passage seals.
the sandy-haired wardwright
It was prepared to stagger the failures, not trigger them together. First the eastern line, then the center, then every escape route beneath the arena.
The final symbol flares before he can read it. The focus twists its inner rune, and the copied lines collapse into a single black mark that crawls toward his silver stylus.
the sandy-haired wardwright
Stop. It is reacting to the tracing itself. The sequence is concealed now, and the focus has sealed the channels we were following.
Leave the buried chamber
Quest Complete
Learn what the sabotage focus was prepared to do