Vetta stands before the bare stain on the wall, eyes gone distant as she sinks into the memory graft she carries. The stone shivers, and a ghostly map blooms across it, a route that slips outside the vault’s usual bones.
Bren tightens at Kynes’s side, blade low and ready. Mara leans in, watching the light with hard, wary focus as the borrowed crossing starts to unfold into something older.
Vetta
There it is. Not a lie, a branch. A hidden turn the route remembers.
The projected path splits, then hooks back on itself, showing a quiet side-road that the standard chamber never admits. The old leash-lines fold inward again, but this time they reveal a seam beneath the seam, a place meant for witnesses who choose to look.
Mara
That crossing is not just a memory. It is a way in.
Bren
Then we do not waste it. Kynes, this is the hidden branch Vetta carried for a reason.
Vetta’s breath catches as the graft settles, and the map steadies into a clear, reachable line. The untethered hollow answers at last, remembering its own rules.
✓ Quest Accepted
Map the hidden branch
“" this important to you Vetta, we'll go with if you want."”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +0)
Kynes
If this matters to you, Vetta, we go where you want.
The hidden branch holds steady, as if it is listening for her answer.
Vetta
It does. I carried this far because I wanted someone I trusted to see it with me.
Bren
Then we follow Vetta's lead. Plainly.
Mara
Good. The branch is real, and it reads like a path chosen, not forced.
Vetta
I kept it quiet because I did not want it taken from me before I understood it.
The map brightens at Vetta's touch, the hidden branch settling into a clean line that Kynes can all but feel under his palm.
Vetta
Stay with me on it, Kynes. I want to see where this one truly goes.
Quest Complete
Map the hidden branch