The dark featherlike shape rises from the iron case without leaving its base. Violet light crowns each barb, and within them flickers a laboratory corridor, then the silhouette of a dying scientist reaching toward unseen pursuers.
The Roadside Priest
At last. The stolen remnant recognizes its rightful keeper.
The roadside priest stretches his gauntleted hand toward the hovering relic. The violet glow bends around his fingers, refusing contact, while rain taps steadily through the broken tower roof.
The Bound Young Woman
Priest, step back. It is turning toward him, not you.
Elira keeps several paces away, her freed hands held close to her chest. She watches the relic rather than the roadside priest, wary of the memories rippling across its barbs.
ducky Shinazugawa
The cut in my palm tingles whenever the relic turns toward me.
The featherlike relic pivots fully toward Ducky. Violet reflections crawl across his red hair and white wings, while the dying scientist's silhouette lifts one hand inside the light, pointing beyond the tower.
The Roadside Priest
Do not answer it, hybrid whelp. The memory is a hook, and it will drag you back into the laboratory.
The Bound Young Woman
Then let him see what it remembers. We need to know why it chose him.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn why the relic chose Ducky
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover Elira's connection to the laboratory
“Can I see what the relic remembers about Elira?”
YES, AND MORE (Likely, rolled 4)
The relic opens like a dark flower. Violet memory spills across the tower wall, showing Elira inside a laboratory chamber, standing beside the dying scientist while white-robed figures bind silver cords around her wrists.
The vision shifts. Elira reaches toward the scientist, and a second shadow tears free from her body, feathered and black, before vanishing into the iron case. Her silver scar shines with the same violet light.
The Bound Young Woman
I remember the restraints. I remember him trying to stop them. But that shadow was never part of me.
The memory races beyond her confession, revealing a brass key hidden beneath a loose laboratory floorstone. Its shape matches the mark now glowing faintly beneath the relic.
The Roadside Priest
Enough. The remnant is exposing what the restoration was meant to erase.
The roadside priest lunges for the relic, but violet force throws him back against the watchtower wall. The impact scatters his ritual cord, leaving its iron clasp beside Ducky's feet.
The Bound Young Woman
The key is real. If that memory shows where it lies, it can lead us back to the laboratory before he reaches it.