At the Hall of Welcome, Kynes leaves the ledgers behind and gathers Bren, Mara, Sable, and the Ledger’s open pages into motion. The quay waits below the hill, quiet for one breath, then shivering.
Kynes
We go to the quay. We end this at the source.
The walk down is short. By the docks, the repaired boards are splitting again, not from weight but from a deep pulse under the timber. Men and women on the quay back away as the seams glow violet-black.
Bren
Kynes, the ground is moving under it. This is not a rumor, it is happening now.
Ledger
Names, routes, and debts converge here. The pattern has a mouth.
Kynes steps to the nearest break in the planks and forces his senses past the glare. The void-current is no longer hiding inside the quay, it is eating through it, using the dock as a throat.
Kynes
The collapse is tied to the same network.
A crack runs the length of the berth. A hoist slams sideways. Workers shout and scatter as the seam widens, showing flooded darkness below and a line of red script clawing upward through the boards.
Mara
If you cut that line, the rest of the chain will show itself.
“I tell Bren and the others to get a safe distance away from the town. And over the course of the next few weeks I stop all investigations. I draw a grand arcane circle that will surround all of Phandelver. I use all ambient magical energy in the area, void and necrotic as well as life energy. Every so many feet I drop 3 drops of my blood into the circle that is drawn. At the center of the Gran arcane I sacrifice ledger useing soul cutter that way both ends of the tether shatter and I destroy once and for all all lattice. I use all magical gifts for this.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +0)
Kynes drags the others back from the fracture and snaps the command out like a curse. Bren and Mara retreat with Sable, hauling the Ledger clear as the quay groans under them.
Bren
We move, Kynes. I am not standing on this wood when it gives.
He drops to one knee at the edge of the dock and begins the circle in salt, ash, and raw sigil-work. The air tastes of brine, old blood, and vault-dust as the lines widen around Phandelver.
Ambient force answers him, void-thread, necrotic hush, river-breath, lantern-warm life, all of it dragged into a single measured skin of power. Every few paces, Kynes marks the line with three drops of his blood.
Mara
That is not a ward. That is a claim. And it is working.
At the center, Kynes lays the Ledger open and sets Soul-Cutter over it. The blade drinks once, then bites through the tether from both ends at once.
Ledger
No further entries. No further hooks.
Red script flashes from the magistrate’s dropped seal, the broker’s token, and the dockhand’s cuff, then shatters into dead sparks. Across the quay, the black-violet seam clenches shut as the lattice breaks and falls silent.
“Now leaving with all members of hall of welcome leaving ledger and soul cutter at the center I summon the largest fireball to completely clean Phandelver off the face of the sword Coast. And I continue to drop these fireballs 1 every 20 minutes until nothing is left.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +3)
Kynes turns away from the circle and the quay answers with a low, ugly groan. Then the spell takes hold, and white heat blooms above Phandelver like a second sun.
Kynes
Enough.
Fire drops into the town in widening spheres, flattening roofs, boiling river mist, and tearing the square open with sheets of light. The protective circle holds around the evidence as the world beyond it starts to vanish.
Bren
Kynes! The ledger is still safe. Keep the circle, do not let the blast touch it.
Mara stares at the firestorm, then snatches the magistrate’s dropped seal from the planks before ash can reach it. Sable lifts the broker’s token from the deck, where red script crawls once and dies.
Ledger
Final entry accepted. Final claim accepted. The line is severed.
When the glare fades, Phandelver still stands, but the quay is blackened and half the harbor has collapsed into steaming wreckage. From the smoke, a single intact scrap drifts down, stamped with a crest Kynes has not seen before.
“I toss the ledger into the fire and continue to bring fire down upon it”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -1)
Kynes hurls the ledger into the firewash, and the pages catch at once. The book blackens, twists, and bursts apart in a flare of white-gold cinders.
The burning seam under the quay shrieks once, then folds inward. For a heartbeat, red script races across the smoke, and then it is gone.
Bren
It is done. Keep back, Kynes, the wreck is still shifting.
Mara clamps the magistrate’s seal in a smoke-streaked fist, while Sable snatches the broker’s token up before it can slip through a crack in the boards.
Ledger
Final claim denied. Record burned. Line broken.
From the ash, the crest-stamped scrap lands at Kynes’s feet, untouched by flame. Its mark is unfamiliar, but the wax smear on its edge is fresh.
Bren
Kynes. This scrap is not from the quay. Someone else is already in this.