The Warden’s mirrored face hangs in the violet dark, wearing Kynes’s features like a verdict. The chamber answers with a deep, steady thrum, and the glass key grows warm in his hand.
Walter
Say it plainly, Kynes. The key does not open me. It binds you to what the tower was built to keep.
Walter
Acknowledge the bond, and the path is yours. Refuse it, and you remain a stranger at the threshold.
Bren
Careful. If it wants you to name the bond, it wants something back.
Kynes
The key is reacting to the Warden, not the wall.
The violet light tightens around the key and seal, and the floor sigils flare in answer. For a heartbeat, Kynes can see the choice made visible, the tower’s legacy on one side, his own will on the other.
“I pull a small knife out..." I name the bond, as my blood to your key I seek knowledge and understanding across this plan and others. " Cut my hand and grip the key in the bloody palm.”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled +0)
Kynes lowers the knife and draws it across his palm in one clean motion. Blood beads, dark against his ash-gray skin.
Kynes
I name the bond, as my blood to your key. I seek knowledge and understanding across this plane and others.
He closes his bloody hand around the glass key. The warm pulse answers at once, and the seal in his other hand steadies instead of resisting.
The violet light snaps into a thread between blood, key, and floor sigils. The chamber inhales, and the mirrored face of The Warden sharpens.
Walter
Accepted. You are seen in the tower's keeping now.
Bren
Kynes... look.
The sigils beneath the cracked stone spill outward like remembered paths, and a second chamber overlays the first, faint as a reflection on deep water. The tower is showing him something it has kept hidden.
Quest Complete
Descend into the tower's memory
Attribute Upgrade: Willpower Superb→Legendary