The Ledger still hangs in golden light, its foundation map spread across the Hall like a living blueprint. The sealed alcove glows at the center of it, and then the truth lands hard, the silence is not empty. It is a mouth.
Ledger
The seal is complete. Signal carries cleanly through the void.
Bren stiffens as the projection shifts. Fine lines branch outward from the alcove, threading into hidden roots under the floor. Somewhere below, something answers the Ledger's quiet with a hungry pulse.
Bren
That chamber is calling them. It was never meant to hide us.
Kynes
The alcove is a beacon, not a lock.
The golden map brightens, and a second mark blooms beyond the Hall, distant but unmistakable. The architects have received the alarm. They know Kynes has touched their foundation.
Bren
They have us now. Tell me what you want done.
✓ Quest Accepted
Silence the alarm in the Hall of Welcome
“" venom, what do you make of it,?"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Kynes
Venom, what do you make of it?
Venom
It is a bell without sound. The hall is not guarding itself, it is reporting us.
The shadow at Kynes’s palm stirs, and the faint black-violet seam along his skin tightens like an eye narrowing. The golden blueprint steadies for a breath, then a thin hidden thread lights between the alcove and the second mark beyond the hall.
Bren
So the beacon is a witness, and the witness has already spoken.
Venom
Worse. It has remembered his touch. The reply is not noise, it is attention.
Kynes’s burned palm smokes once, and the red residue along the map thins as if something distant is pulling at it. The Ledger holds steady, but the hidden trace now sits exposed beneath the blueprint, bright and undeniable.
Bren
Then we do not wait for them to come quiet. Tell me if you want the hall sealed hard, or if you want me at the stairs.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find where the architects are anchored beneath Phandelver
“With the trace can I get a location out of it?”
YES (Likely, rolled 34)
Kynes
The trace is not just a path, it is a tether. If I pull the right thread, the map will have to show me where the other end is anchored.
Kynes focuses his will through the shadow-mouth on his palm, forcing the Ledger to resolve the flickering trace into a fixed coordinate. The golden blueprint shudders, then snaps into a sharp, singular point of light that marks a location deep within the ruins of Phandelver.
Bren
There it is. The architects are not hiding in the void, they are sitting right under the town square.
Kynes leaves Hall of Welcome behind and arrives at Phandelver.
“I summon sea of shadows " really.. like really" I hold Bren tight. " Every fucken two weeks". I void port us to their location”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +0)
Cold stone replaces the hall in a blink. Kynes and Bren stand beneath Phandelver, where a black seam splits the floor like a fresh wound and a faint red script leaks through the cracks.
Kynes
Kynes grits, "Really... like really." He pulls Bren tight against him as the shadow-mouth on his palm opens wide.
Sea-black shadow pours outward, swallowing the chamber’s edges. The golden beacon on the Ledger’s map flares, then steadies, now tied to the pulse below.
The floor folds away under the shadow surge, and the hidden trail becomes a clear route, lined with old foundation stones and a fresh smear of dissolving red script.
Kynes
Kynes mutters, "Every two weeks." He drives the void-port through the seam, hauling them both toward the anchored point.
The chamber snaps sideways. For one breath, they hang in black water and starlike grit, then land hard at the end of a narrow sublevel passage.
Ahead, a buried node glows under the stone, fed by the same hidden trace. The Ledger’s blueprint locks onto it, and the signal below answers with a hard, watchful throb.
Quest Complete
Find where the architects are anchored beneath Phandelver
− Scene Quest Removed
Silence the alarm in the Hall of Welcome