Mara steps closer to the pedestal, and the new silver script burns brighter around Nezznar. The chamber remembers her touch, the same way it remembers the locket.
Mara
My line was made to hold this ruin shut. Not rule it, hold it. The script is old blood, older than Nezznar.
She lifts her chin toward the glowing marks, the burden plain in her stiff shoulders. The silver lines answer her presence like a lock finding its key.
Mara
This was my house’s vow, passed down through hands that never got to refuse it. I came because the core answers to my blood, whether I want that or not.
Bren
So the script is a seal, and you are part of the seal itself.
Nezznar strains inside the stasis field as the pedestal hums. The answer is there now, clear and dangerous, lineage made visible in silver light.
“Is Mara a domini, a drow from my house?”
YES (Unlikely, rolled 8)
Kynes
The silver script does not just mirror her blood. It carries the exact cadence of the House Domini wards I grew up with.
Mara
You recognize the pattern, Kynes. My ancestors were the ones who built these walls to keep your kin from tearing the surface apart.
The silver light pulses, casting long, sharp shadows across the floor as the connection between the drow mage and the ruin solidifies.
“" so how many of us are left, I didn't know house Domini was also on the surface, just in under dark". I ask”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +1)
Kynes
So how many of us are left? I did not know House Domini was on the surface too, not just below.
Mara
Not many. Fewer than I would have wished. My line moved upward in hiding, long before this ruin was sealed.
Mara
Your house knew the pattern because we were built to resist it. Domini and mine crossed paths where the underdark reached the light.
Bren
That answer lands hard. This is older than a feud, older than the road that brought them here.
The silver script brightens, then settles into a steady glow over Mara's forearms, as if it accepts the question as part of the seal.
Mara
If your house still has living names, tell me. I would know who survived the surface.
Bren
And I would know whether this old magic means allies, or another grave with a family name on it.
“I study and try to understand how the old magic works between the pedestal, the pendent and now nezznar”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +2)
Kynes traces the flow with his gaze, from pedestal to locket to the spell-bound Nezznar. The silver lines do not just glow, they answer one another, like a lock recognizing its key.
Kynes
House Domini wards. The seal is reading blood, oath, and captive all at once.
The pendant warms in his hand, and its red pulse slips into the silver bands across the floor. For a breath, the chamber shows him the pattern, a circuit of claim, binding, and return.
Kynes sees it now, the pedestal is not only a seal, it is a mouth. Mara's blood opens it, the pendant carries the summons, and Nezznar is the thing being named by the magic.
Mara
Then tell me what it means. If this is Domini work, I need the truth, not guesses.
Bren
And if it links them, we should know whether breaking one breaks all of it.
The glow sharpens along Kynes's fingers as he finishes his study. The seal reveals one final fact, the binding is anchored here, but it is feeding through Nezznar's presence like a wound kept open.
“I take a drop of Mara's blood, a drop of my own, and feed it to the pedestal, holding the pendent I have it consume Nezznar s soul to fuel the pedestal.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +0)
Kynes lowers the pendant to the seam in the pedestal and lets the blood fall. Mara's drop and his own touch the silver at once, and the script drinks them in without a sound.
The pendant flares red, then goes still as Kynes drives its claim into the circuit. The chamber answers with a thin, clean chime, like a lock turning in a stone door.
A second pulse slips through the floor bands and into Nezznar's bound shape. The hidden power hooks to him, takes what it needs, and the violet-silver lines tighten into a sealed lattice.
Mara
So that is what my blood opens.
Bren
It holds. And it is marked now, all of it.
The red threads thin to a final, fading glow. New script surfaces beneath the seal, crisp and legible, while Nezznar remains locked in place and the chamber settles into a colder silence.
Bren steps closer to read the fresh markings, while Mara stares at the opened seam. A faint draft stirs from somewhere beyond the pedestal, as if something deeper in the ruin has noticed the seal change.
Quest Complete
Shatter Nezznar and sever the hidden power
New Gift: Spider-Slayer's Arcane Insight