The archive light gutters across stone and frost as the crown above the ring breaks apart into drifting motes. Beyond the open passage, cold blue-white daylight spills from the mountain’s throat.
Ser Edrin Valcayne
If you leave by that way, they will know the mountain has yielded. The claimant will not wait.
Valerius
Then we do not leave blind. We take the warning with us, and every oath still standing.
Kaelith
Lucas, the path is open. If we move now, we can still outrun their first net.
The Dragon in Human Form
Ignis, if there is a hunter at the threshold, say it plain. Is it pursuit, or summons?
Ser Edrin Valcayne
Both. Graystone oathbreakers follow the old blood, and the claimant wants the power your mother died to hide.
The ring pulses hot in Lucas Broadleaf’s hand, and the open passage waits like a wound in the mountain wall. The danger outside is no longer rumor, it is the next step.
“Lucas says "if they hunt me, this time they will not find a swaddled babe, this time I am not alone, this time I am armed and trained, this time... The hunters will become The hunted."”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +2)
Lucas Broadleaf
If they hunt me, they do not find a swaddled babe. I am not alone. I am armed, trained, and ready. The hunters become the hunted.
The ring burns bright in Lucas Broadleaf’s hand, then steadies. Its light no longer trembles like a warning, but holds like a vow answered.
Valerius
That is the voice I hoped would survive.
Kaelith
Good. Let the mountain remember you standing, not fleeing.
Ser Edrin Valcayne
Then hear the answer to your old fear, Lucas Broadleaf. The Graystones feared the one who would return with memory intact, and with witnesses.
The Dragon in Human Form
And the one they feared most was never the child alone. It was the heir who learns the shape of the lie.
A faint answering glow stirs in the passage beyond, not a threat, but a path claimed. The four around Lucas fall quiet, listening as his words settle into the stone.
Ser Edrin Valcayne
Come, then. If you mean to walk as yourself, walk with the truth. Who should the mountain name as first witness?
“Lucas says "first we need better supply and reinforcement, and where better than with my dear sister. As margrave heir she will have much more resources and information than our motley crew quite literally under a rock"”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled +1)