The river terrace shivers underfoot. Survey stones sit in a rough line, each one humming with the same pulse Kynes feels under the Hall of Welcome.
Bren crouches by the nearest marker while the Clerk spreads his property papers on a flat stone. The ink on the transfer seal looks dark, then faintly warm.
Kynes
The stones are not settling. They are answering something below the soil.
Kynes sets his staff against the ground. The dirt ripples in a square pattern, wrong for any natural measure, and the boundary line bends like a reflection in water.
Bren
Kynes, look at that edge. It is folding in on itself.
A hidden geometry blooms beneath the terrace, lines crossing where no lines should be. The moving markers are not the problem, they are the warning. Whatever is tugging at Phandelver is reaching outward from Kynes's own void-mark.
The Clerk
If that seal keeps heating, the records will not hold. The land is shifting out from under them.
The nearest stone tips a finger's breadth toward Kynes, and the pulse below the terrace answers like a heartbeat.
✓ Quest Accepted
Confirm who is rewriting the river terrace boundary
“Is the parasitic red script in the area”
YES, BUT (VeryLikely, rolled 76)
The red script is indeed present, but it is not a lingering stain. It is actively weaving itself into the very roots of the terrace, feeding on the boundary markers to anchor the distortion.
“Can Bren see it?”
YES (VeryLikely, rolled 47)
Kynes
The distortion is not just in the soil. It is bleeding into the air itself.
Bren
Kynes, look. The light is not just under the grass. It is climbing up the stalks, twisting them into shapes that should not exist.
“"See I was wondering love"Kynes studies the parasitic red script through every arcane insight and gift he possesses. Instead of merely consuming or resisting it, he allows the Sea of Darkness and the void scar to adapt to its structure. He creates a predatory counter-parasite within his own magic: something that recognizes the red script as prey, infects it in return, consumes its corruption and converts its stolen energy into Kynes's own power. The parasite now has a parasite. “You've been feeding on everyone else long enough. Let's see how you like being eaten.””
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +2)
Kynes
Not soil, then. A routed infection.
Kynes lowers his staff and lets the red script bite into his sight instead of pushing it away.
Kynes
There. A pattern. Something writing itself through the roots.
His void scar answers, not with hunger, but with a second hunger, leaner and sharper, shaped to hunt the first.
Bren
Kynes... the glow is turning inward.
The crimson lines thin, shudder, then curl back on themselves as if something in the dark has learned to taste them.
Kynes
You have been feeding long enough. Now you get eaten.
The counter-parasite takes hold. Red script drains into black, then fades into Kynes's power, leaving the terrace trembling under a fresh, ugly stillness.
Quest Complete
Confirm who is rewriting the river terrace boundary