The grinding starts behind you, the same stone-on-stone shudder that promised trouble earlier. This time the promise cashes in. The archive walls buckle inward, and the whole ruin caves with a dry roar, swallowing the old doorway into a widening sinkhole.
The Scout
It was set to bury us... not scare us.
Scavengers break and scatter at the edge of the courtyard, their ring loosening into a frantic retreat. The Stranger backs away with them, no longer pressing the fight. The Archivist watches the collapse as if it confirms a private joke.
The Archivist
Permission granted in good faith, of course. You were always meant to leave before the ground remembered its job.
Dust rolls over the stones in a hot gray wave. Unrok turns from the sinking archive and heads out with the others, putting the ruins at his back and the open road ahead.
Unrok
The collapse was waiting the whole time.
The camp road cuts through broken fields and trampled grass. Far ahead, banners and watchfires mark the main war camp, already stirring for the front. Behind Unrok, the archive keeps sinking, silent now except for settling stone.
The Scout
If we make good time, we reach the line before dusk.
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the main war camp
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect the wounded comrades
“unrok takes front carrying his wounded comrades on his back as he charges towards main camp trusting them to holled if they see anything he need to take care of”
FAILURE (Fair Agility, rolled -3)
Unrok hauls the wounded man up and breaks into a heavy run, but the road answers with a cruel pitch. His boot catches a sunken flagstone, and the pair on his back lurch hard to one side.
The Scout
Unrok, stop. The road ahead is split, and there is movement in the dust.
A sharp crack snaps from the fields, not a weapon, but a falling signal frame. It crashes across the path in front of them, throwing up splinters and blocking the straight route to camp.
The Archivist
How devoted. How predictable. Someone has marked your flight as well as your entry.
On the far side of the fallen timber, a figure in scavenged leathers darts up from the grass, then vanishes again, as if guiding unseen eyes.
The Stranger
I did not sign on for a hunt.
The Scout points toward a side track choked with reeds and broken stone, the only gap not yet watched. The war camp remains ahead, but the line is no longer open.
“unrok takes front carrying his wounded comrades on his back as he charges towards main camp trusting them to holled if they see anything he need to take care of”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +1)