Ducky leaves the abandoned watchtower with the bound young woman at his side and the restrained roadside priest stumbling behind them. The dark featherlike relic hovers near Ducky’s shoulder, violet light trembling across the rain-dark road.
The relic projects thin violet lines over mud and standing water. They converge on a collapsed laboratory entrance half-swallowed by hillside stone, then stop at one blank section where a map fragment should be.
The Bound Young Woman
That gap is deliberate. The relic remembers the route, but something has been removed from its memory.
Near the broken slope, fresh footprints press through the wet earth. They approach the collapsed entrance, vanish beneath fallen stone, and return along a different line toward the road.
The Roadside Priest
Mmf! You mistake absence for safety. The missing path belongs to the restoration.
The roadside priest strains against the cord as the road bends toward the ruin, but the bound young woman keeps clear of him. The relic’s violet lines narrow, pointing between two leaning slabs.
The Bound Young Woman
Someone reached the laboratory after the collapse and came back. We should assume they took the missing fragment, and may still be watching the entrance.
✓ Quest Accepted
Recover the missing laboratory route fragment
“I follow the fresh footprints and inspect where they vanish beneath the stones.”
SUCCESS (Fair Survival, rolled -2)
Ducky follows the fresh footprints through the mud, crouching where they reach the leaning slabs. He traces their edges and finds the disturbed earth continuing beneath the stones.
He wedges his fingers into a narrow crack and shifts loose rubble aside. The effort scrapes his palm against the stone, reopening the cut with a hot sting, but exposes a packed crawlspace below.
The Bound Young Woman
There. The footprints continue under the collapse. Whoever passed through used the old drainage way.
Ducky inspects the mud beneath the stones and confirms the passage: one set entered from the hillside and returned carrying something narrow, leaving a faint rectangular drag mark.
The Roadside Priest
Mmf! The fragment was taken below. The restoration's hand reaches farther than you know.
The inspection gives Ducky a clear route beneath the stones, though his scraped palm throbs whenever he grips the rubble. The bound young woman steadies the loose cord behind him while the relic points into darkness.
undefined / undefined
A deep chime rolls through the hillside. The packed crawlspace exhales violet dust, and the leaning slabs shudder as a thin line of light opens beneath them.
The Bound Young Woman
Back. The collapse is answering the relic, not the footsteps.
The relic jerks toward the opening. Its dark feather flares, projecting the laboratory corridor into the dust, while the return footprints fill with black water that flows uphill.
The Roadside Priest
Mmf! The threshold knows its vessel. Let it open, and the restoration will reclaim what was hidden.
A stone beneath the crawlspace splits. A pale, many-jointed hand made of packed ash reaches through, fingers closing around the faint rectangular drag mark.
The Bound Young Woman
It is taking the fragment. If that hand crosses the threshold, the route may vanish again.
The violet lines snap from the relic into the crawlspace, briefly outlining a brass keyhole beneath the ash-hand. The hillside groans, and loose stones begin sliding toward the opening.