The hunter lies limp in the grass, but its exposed core still spits a thin, jagged hum. Clerk-Under-Mask leans close, fingers hovering over the crackling housing, while Bren keeps watch on the dark line of hills.
Clerk-Under-Mask
This was only a scout. The main signal is larger, and it is trying to find Kynes again.
A pulse answers from the core, faint at first, then sharp enough to raise the hair along Kynes's arms. The dead hunter twitches once, as if something far away has touched the broken thread.
Kynes
House Xar is still reading me.
Bren
Then we move before it sends another one.
Bren steps in beside Kynes, blade half-drawn, eyes fixed on the horizon. Clerk-Under-Mask pinches the shattered core shut, but the hum only sinks deeper into the ground, searching for a new route.
Kynes feels it clearly now, the beacon is not behind him, it is in him. If he stays still, the next hunter will come straight to this field, then on to Phandelver.
✓ Quest Accepted
Silence the House Xar signal in Kynes
✓ Quest Accepted
Broadcast a false signature to mask Kynes
+ New Item Acquired
Hunter core
““Does Clerk-Under-Mask know whether the hunter's intact core can be used to scramble or spoof Kynes's biometric signal without strengthening, altering, or reconnecting the House Xar claim on Kynes?””
YES (Likely, rolled 17)
Clerk-Under-Mask
The core is a mirror, not a tether. If I invert the frequency of the pulse, it will broadcast a false signature that masks your own, provided we do not touch the primary lattice.
Kynes
A way to go dark without cutting my own pulse.
− Scene Quest Removed
Silence the House Xar signal in Kynes
“I signal Bren to keep watch while the Clerk begins the inversion.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +0)
Kynes lifts two fingers, a short signal for Bren to watch the dark edges of the field. She shifts at once, planting herself where the flattened grass meets the clawed trail, eyes sweeping the rise behind them.
Bren
If anything comes sniffing through here, I see it first.
The Clerk-Under-Mask lowers the hunter core into both hands and turns it a fraction, studying the golden pulse like a lock picked from the inside.
Clerk-Under-Mask
Hold steady. I invert the rhythm now.
Kynes stays back, staff braced, while the Clerk begins the work. The core’s glow tightens, then smooths, as if someone is forcing a heartbeat to forget its own name.
Bren
Clear field, Kynes. I do not like how far that light can carry.
Kynes
The trick is either clean or loud. No room for guesses.
For one breath, the golden pulse holds under the Clerk’s grip, and the field waits, listening. Then the light flickers outward, testing the air beyond the grass for a target.
“I hold steady while the signal inverts”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +0)
Kynes plants his staff deeper and lets the field take his weight, not the signal’s. The golden pulse slides across him without finding a clean hook, thinning where his arcana steadies it.
Kynes
The rhythm is shifting. Good.
The Clerk-Under-Mask turns the core a final fraction. The glow folds inward instead of flaring out, and the faint ring of light collapses back toward the hunter core.
Clerk-Under-Mask
Now. Keep it held there.
Bren does not move from the dark edge of the field. Her shoulders ease a touch as the spreading pulse loses its reach and becomes a muted ember in the Clerk’s hands.
Bren
It is cutting off. Nothing is calling out now.
Low in the grass, the jagged residue dims and sinks flat, like an old wound closing under dirt. The clawed trail stays visible, but the air around it goes dead and quiet.
The Clerk lifts the core slightly, and its false heartbeat becomes a sealed, private pulse. The field no longer carries Kynes’s shape outward, but the book of the night is not yet closed.
Quest Complete
Broadcast a false signature to mask Kynes
New Gift: Signature-Masking Arcane Insight