The silver-nobled lord leads Doku through a guarded inner door, while two young guards remain in the audience chamber with the bound fugitive. One guard accompanies them, carrying the silver-lined coffer.
Beyond the door, candlelight trembles across shelves of reliquaries and saintly masks. Consecrated salt circles a broad black stone at the chamber’s center.
The nearest guard places the coffer upon the stone. Its lid shivers immediately, and Lady Merrow’s muffled heartbeat swells from a dull throb into a frantic, uneven pulse.
the silver-nobled lord
There. You hear it. The vessel was stable before your arrival, and now her soul claws against its prison.
Pale runes crawl over the coffer’s silver bands, briefly staining the candle flames violet. The accompanying guard, a young adult human man with a lean build, freckled skin, close-cropped blond hair, and a blue tabard over chainmail retreats one careful step, sword half-drawn.
the silver-nobled lord
Identify the cause, Nohara. Is Lady Merrow’s soul rejecting the vessel, or is someone nearby corrupting the seal?
the accompanying guard
The heartbeat is answering something in this room.
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover what is corrupting Lady Merrow's seal
“"I'm not the most attuned to magic. I'm more of a medical professional but I will check what troubles the seal. Give me a moment." I examine the seal.”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled -1)
Doku Nohara
I am not the most attuned to magic. I am a medical professional, but I will examine the seal. Give me a moment.
Doku closes her parasol and kneels beside the black stone. She studies the vessel as a physician studies a failing pulse, tracing the violet runes without disturbing the wax.
Her gloved fingertip presses briefly to a silver band. The seal answers with a sharp magical sting that numbs two fingers, but its pattern resolves beneath her practiced scrutiny.
Doku Nohara
The soul is not rejecting the vessel. The seal is drawing on Lady Merrow’s life force to resist an outside resonance.
the accompanying guard
You found it? The heartbeat changed when you touched the band.
the silver-nobled lord
Then name the corruption, Nohara. Is it hidden among these reliquaries, or does the vessel itself conceal treachery?
Doku’s numbness creeps beneath the glove, a concrete price for the diagnosis. Yet the pulse now reveals a precise rhythm, answering the reliquary shelves rather than any living presence in the chamber.
Quest Complete
Discover what is corrupting Lady Merrow's seal