Kynes and Bren crest the ridge and the mountain road to Phandelver opens below them, a pale ribbon between black stone and drifting snow. The ruined watchtower sits behind them now, smaller with every step.
A fresh thread of spider silk catches on Kynes’s staff as he moves. Bren stops at once, eyes narrowing toward the wind-scoured path ahead.
Bren
That mark again. We are not far now.
Kynes
The silk is recent. The trail is still being used.
Kynes checks the map, then the road, then the valley line beyond. The hidden route from the cipher holds, and it angles them toward Phandelver without crossing the worst snowfields.
Bren
If Nezznar is moving through these hills, this is how we catch the threads before they vanish into town.
They descend together, boots biting into ice as the wind lashes their cloaks. Ahead, the road bends toward the first marker on the map, and every sign now points the same way, toward Phandelver and the source behind the spider sigil.
“Keep heading to Phandelver”
FAILURE (Fair Agility, rolled -2)
The path narrows to a knife-edge of ice and loose shale. Kynes’s next step skates sideways, and the ridge answers with a brittle crack beneath his boot.
A sheet of snow shears away below the trail, exposing dark stone and a narrow, unusable drop. The route to Phandelver is cut cleanly off.
Bren
The way ahead has gone. We do not force that slip.
Bren reaches out and catches Kynes’s sleeve before he can test the edge again. Her gaze tracks the broken shelf, then the wind-scoured slope to the left.
Kynes
The ridge has collapsed farther than it looked from above.
Bren
There may be a lower goat track, or we backtrack and find another crossing. Which do you want?
Snow hisses over the rock between them as the mountain presses closer, waiting for a choice.
“Can I see a goat trail in the distance?”
NO (Likely, rolled 75)
Kynes scans the jagged horizon, but the mountain offers only sheer, impassable faces of granite and ice. No path, goat track, or ledge breaks the vertical wall of the descent.
“Can I see a trail that goblins would use”
YES (Unlikely, rolled 12)
Kynes
Wait... the way the scree settles near that overhang, it is not natural.
Kynes narrows his gaze, spotting a faint, rhythmic disturbance in the loose shale far below the main ridge. A narrow, hidden switchback winds through the shadows of the crags, worn smooth by small, hurried feet.
“I grab Bren by the waist and flash step to the goblin trail”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +1)
Kynes grips Bren at the waist and the world folds sideways in a blink of cold black light.
Snow, stone, and wind vanish. They reappear lower on the mountain, boots skidding onto the hidden trail carved into the ravine wall.
Bren
Her breath catches, one hand flying to Kynes's shoulder as she steadies herself on the narrow path.
Below them, the goat track snakes forward through shadow and frost, its churned edges marked by small hurried prints.
Bren
We have it now. That trail was made for someone trying not to be seen.
A slit of pale light breaks through the storm above, catching on fresh spider silk snagged across a rock spur ahead.
Bren
Do we follow the prints, or the silk?