Adventure of Adamos 1

The tavern door opens onto a hush of rain, pipe smoke, and salt wind. Beyond the threshold, firelight glints from a map spread across a scarred oak table.

The map is salt-stained and marked with the drowned palace of Hyrule. A red sigil circles a chamber beneath its sunken throne.

Minsc turns as Adamos reaches the threshold. The ranger's hand drops near his sword, while Devin shields the map with one sleeve.

A low tremor passes through the floorboards. On the map, the red sigil begins to glow, and a wet footprint appears beside the table though no one stands there.

Adamos lowers his gaze to the wet footprint, leaving the glowing map untouched. Its edges bead with seawater, but the center holds grains of black coral.

The print is narrow and sharply defined. Its toe points toward the drowned palace marked on the map, while the coral grains form the same broken curve as the red sigil.

As Adamos shifts closer, his shield rim taps a floorboard. The crack of wood cuts through the hush, and the footprint's outer edge blurs beneath a fresh drop of rainwater.

Adamos plants himself between the footprint and the tavern traffic, shield turned outward. He keeps the glowing map within Devin's reach without touching its sigil.

Devin lays a fresh sheet of vellum over the map's markings and works charcoal across it. The broken red curve appears, along with the narrow route toward the drowned throne.

Therefore the copy is secured, but rainwater creeps beneath Adamos's shield. The footprint's outer edge dissolves, erasing its heel and the clearest sign of whoever made it.

Adamos rises and moves with the fading trail, crossing the tavern before rain can erase its last dark flecks.

The tavern door swings open. Adamos follows the trace into the rain-dark street, where black coral grains mark the stones beyond the threshold.

Behind him, Devin gathers the vellum copy beneath his cloak. Minsc snatches up the map and hurries after them, leaving the table abandoned.

Three coral flecks glimmer ahead in the rain, leading toward the canal stairs. At the lowest step, a fresh ripple spreads across black water, and something beneath it answers with a dull red glow.

The red glow gathers beneath the ripple into a broken curve, matching the copied sigil exactly. Within its arc, pale stones descend toward a submerged palaceward passage, confirming that something below the canal is part of the sigil's design.

Adamos studies the pale stones through the rain and shifting water, tracing their spacing from the broken curve to the canal wall.

Therefore, the pattern resolves beneath the surface. The stones form a stair descending to a low, open arch, its threshold hidden behind the red-lit current.

The canal shudders around the revealed threshold. Water folds aside in two dark sheets, exposing the first steps and the carved underside of the arch.

Below the arch, red light pulses across submerged carvings, while the current gathers behind Adamos and Minsc, pressing toward the open passage.

Adamos steps onto the submerged stair and follows the red-lit carvings beneath the arch. The current bears him through the threshold into the palaceward passage.

The water settles around his boots as he reaches a dry ledge beyond the entrance. The passage opens into a vaulted corridor of pale stone.

Minsc follows, clutching the map to his chest. Behind him, the parted canal folds shut over the arch, sealing the street away beneath black water.

Inside the corridor, the red illumination fades from the floor and gathers on three weathered reliefs: a drowned crown, a kneeling figure, and a dark shape descending through waves.

A low vibration passes through the stone. The relief of the descending shape splits along an old seam, revealing a narrow handhold beneath it.