Dust stills around the shattered monolith. Strider kneels in the grit, one hand over the carved tag, the other near the glowing trail-marker hidden in the stone’s base.
Boffo Hardbottle
The tag fits the marker like a lock and key.
Strider
This is no mere border sign. It is a key, and the orcs knew it.
Strider
Somewhere in the wilds lies a cache of Arnor, sealed by old ways. They were hunting this relic to reach it.
A shout rolls over the moors, then another, rough and urgent. The hidden hunters are not raiders at all, but a searching war-band closing in on the relic’s trail.
Strider
Now you see why they would bleed for it. They want what lies beyond the key, and they will not stop at Greenfields.
Strider rises, grim and ready, the carved tag bright in his palm as the moor darkens with distant answering cries.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn where the Arnor cache lies
“(Enough for now. I will resume this later.)”
FAILURE (Good Willpower, rolled -2)
Boffo lowers his bow and lets the silence settle. The moor keeps its distance, and the shattered stone does not answer.
Boffo Hardbottle
The dust still holds the tag’s groove.
Strider
You have done enough for one watch. Sit, if you mean to rest.
Strider eases down beside the broken monolith, the carved border tag turning once in his hand before he stills it.
Strider
I have seen this sign before, on old ways no hobbit cart has ever crossed. The cache is not a tale, Boffo. It is a place, and a guarded one.
He looks south for a moment, then back to the exposed mark in the dust, as if weighing the shape of roads unseen.
Strider
The orcs hunt it because someone taught them the path. That is the worse news, and the more useful one.
The wind thins. For a heartbeat, the moor feels almost safe, though the cracked stone and blood-dark grit say otherwise.