Kynes and his companions hike the North Road on foot, the last bend of Phandelver falling behind them. The air is still, but not empty.
Ahead, a strip of spider-marked cord lies across the road like a careless scratch, vanishing into the ditch and reappearing in the weeds.
Kynes
A trail, not a trap.
Bren slows at Kynes’s shoulder, eyes fixed on the line. Slaan shifts her grip on her blade. Nhal’s shadowed form ripples once, then goes still.
Slaan
It’s leading somewhere. Or leading someone to us.
Kynes follows the cord into the ditch and finds a second length tied to a broken peg, fresh-cut and still damp with road dust. The chain has been laid for watching, not crossing.
Beyond the rise, a gray-gloved courier stands half-hidden beside a copse, one hand raised in a curt signal. The spider-mark on their chain catches the light once, then they turn and start away toward Leilon.
Bren
There. If we want the source, we move now.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn where the courier is headed
“I devineation spell to see if that spell work is related to the undead spell work at the mill”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -1)
Kynes lifts a quiet working of divination, and the roadside air answers in thin violet threads. The spell does not find a new road, it finds a familiar wound.
Kynes
This magic is cut from the same dark shape as the mill’s.
The threads tighten around the spider-mark, then slide toward the moving cord of the courier’s wake. The pattern matches the same dead weight he felt under the mill, a tethered working meant to hide, listen, and pull.
Bren stills beside him as the answer settles into the air. Nhal’s shadow deepens, watching the same line with cold attention.
Bren
Same source?
The spell’s glow sharpens once more, and the road beyond the copse resolves into a clear pull toward the old burden. The courier is not merely marked, they are carrying the trail of the mill’s undead craft with them.
“"yeah, either we're following them, or they are leading us." I say plainly.”
Kynes
Yeah, either we're following them, or they are leading us.
The violet threads thin to nothing as Kynes speaks, leaving only the road and the courier's retreating line ahead.
“I ask Slaan how fast can she learn a spell”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +1)
Kynes
How fast can you learn a spell?
Bren
He asks it plainly, so I answer plainly. The question is not about pride, it is about whether I can keep up.
Slaan
Fast enough to matter. Give me a spell once, and I can catch the shape of it by sunrise if I have a clear pattern to study.
Slaan
If the weave is simple, I can echo it sooner. If it is layered, I learn the bones first, then the edges.
Bren
That is a useful talent. Around Kynes, useful is usually safer than impressive.
Slaan
Safer is fine. I prefer a spell I can trust over one that only looks elegant.
Bren
Then show him the honest version of your craft when you are ready.
Slaan
He is not asking for spectacle. Good. That means this can become real.
“I give her a prepared scroll of flash step with it's progressing to void step. With notes on how to use shadow magic instead of void energy. " This will come in useful"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -1)
Kynes draws a folded scroll from his gear and offers it to Slaan, the parchment tied with a thin thread of shadow ink.
Kynes
This will come in useful.
Slaan takes it carefully, then unfurls the page to read the compact notes tucked beside the spell formula.
Slaan
Flash step, then the shape of something deeper. Shadow before void. That is a sensible path.
He taps the margin with one finger, tracing Kynes’s added warnings and revisions as if committing the lines to memory.
Slaan
You have made this honest enough to trust. I can work with that.
The scroll settles in Slaan’s hands, no longer just paper, but a practical tool for the road ahead. The spider-marked trail waits beyond them, while the first real step of the courier’s pursuit changes shape in Slaan’s grasp.