The Shadow Entity tightens into a flickering outline, all ribs of smoke and soot, while the Borrower jerks against the frame like something is being pulled through them.
The Weapons Master
It is taking shape. Keep it pinned, Sabien.
The room warms in bursts, then snaps cold again. The shape in the doorway grows an arm, then loses it to static dark. The Borrower convulses harder, and the threshold behind them breathes open by a finger-width.
The Shadow Entity
A bearable form... a shape that does not tear.
Sabien
Then choose one. Fast.
The entity folds inward, testing the room for a foothold. The Borrower’s slack body shifts just enough to suggest the anchor is failing, and the darkness beyond the door leans closer, drawn by the weakening bond.
The Weapons Master
If that anchor breaks, it comes through with the dark. We bind the Borrower now, or we lose the line.
✓ Quest Accepted
Bind the Borrower
✓ Quest Accepted
Stabilize the vault’s threshold
“I paige that we need phenom specialist”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Logistics, rolled +1)
Sabien keys the page through the rack room channel, and the static answer comes back at once, thin as a whisper through wet cloth.
The Weapons Master
Good. He is inbound. Hold the line for one breath longer.
The Borrower buckles against the frame, and a dark seam opens across the threshold like a lid lifting under pressure.
The Shadow Entity
Bearable... yes. Do not let it split me.
Sabien keeps the page open, but the strain draws a bead of black fluid from the edge of his cybernetic eye. The door’s breathing slows, as if something on the other side hears the call.
The Weapons Master
There. The specialist is coming. If your message lands, we can pin the anchor before it tears free.
A cold knock answers from deeper in the vault, not on the door, but on the space behind it.
“I draw force from the ship, faith, to reverse my seeping”
SUCCESS (Good Willpower, rolled +4)
Sabien lowers his chin and lets the ship's hush settle over him. The black seep at his eye draws inward, then stops, as if an unseen hand has pinched the wound shut.
Sabien
The leak is closing.
A faint warmth answers from the bulkheads and floor, a steady pressure like the hull itself is listening. The dark seam at the threshold tightens into a thinner line.
The Weapons Master
Good. Keep that hold. I can feel the room settle.
The Borrower slackens against the frame without collapsing, no longer bucking under the split. Inside the doorway, the knock changes, losing force and becoming measured.
The Shadow Entity
That... is bearable. It hurts less.
The Weapons Master turns his head, sharp-eyed, toward Sabien's face. The fresh silence gives the threshold a shape again, and the cold beyond it stops pressing in.
“I page the priest through the ships onboard system with my cybernetic brain about the issue, i describe it”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled -2)
Sabien opens the page through the ship’s inner system, not with speech but with a hard pulse of thought and code. The message rides the hull toward the Priest, carrying the seam, the Borrower, and the shadow’s need for a bearable form.
The reply comes at once, brightening the rack room’s red wash into a brief white glare. The Priest’s presence presses through the deck like a hand laid on a wound.
The Priest
I hear it. Hold the line. Do not let the anchor break before I arrive.
Sabien’s eye flickers once, the last trace of black seep drying to a dull smear at the edge of the implant. The cost of the page sits in his skull like a bruised bell.
The Shadow Entity
Then it knows. Good. I can stay if the line stays.
The Weapons Master
You got her. Now keep that door honest until she steps in.
Inside the vault, the measured knocking pauses. For one thin second, something behind the threshold seems to listen back.
Quest Complete
Stabilize the vault’s threshold
Skill Upgrade: Logistics Mediocre→Fair