The wind prowls around the boulders, but here it thins to a hush. Dawn warms the ridge in pale gold, and the tower behind them is only a scar of dust and broken stone.
Kynes settles beside the rock shelter, the ledger open between them. Its marked entry glows faintly in the morning light, no longer urgent, only waiting.
Bren
We made it out. For a moment, I thought that tower would swallow the both of us.
Bren
She studies Kynes, open and unarmored for once. His silence feels less like distance now, more like rest.
Bren loosens her shoulders and looks from the ledger to the road below. The open country stretches east, quiet and sunlit, as if it has never heard of the tower at all.
Kynes
The marked entry still holds. Nothing here is finished, but the ridge is safe.
Bren
Tell me where you want to go from here, Kynes. I am listening.
“"Phandalin, I heard there is a mage of my kind there. I wish to see what kind of trouble he has caused."”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +2)