The office remains cold despite the dead candles. Beneath Mara’s cord, Vlad’s reopened wound stains his sleeve, while the blackened silver blade hangs heavy in his hand.
Mara Venn
Elias, stay behind me. Do not touch the ash, and do not answer if it calls you by your father’s name.
Elias obeys, clutching the silver-lined coat around his shoulders. He remains near the sealed door as Mara turns the ledger pages, her fingers growing steadier with each forbidden entry.
Mara Venn
Here. A cleansing rite, but the text says the ash must be exposed beneath consecrated stone. This office was built over a chapel.
She presses the ledger’s cracked seal against a warped floorboard. A dull knock answers from below. The boards separate along a narrow seam, revealing stone steps descending into blackness.
Elias Vale
My family never mentioned a chapel. They never mentioned anything beneath this place.
A breath of extinguished incense rises from the stairwell. Far below, pale ash lies scattered across an altar, and one candle burns without a flame.
“I descend and expose the remnants beneath consecrated stone”
FAILURE (Fair Agility, rolled -2)
Vlad descends first, one hand gripping the blackened blade and the other pressed against Mara’s cord. The stair stones sweat cold moisture beneath his boots.
The chapel opens below: a low chamber of consecrated stone, its altar buried under pale ash. The unlit candle burns with a colorless, wavering glow.
Mara Venn
Do not scatter it yet. Expose the remnants together, or the rite will only give them another shape.
Vlad sweeps the ash from the altar with the flat of his blade. Beneath it, fragments of old bone and silver thread form a sealed spiral in the stone.
The spiral opens before he can clear its center. Ash rises in a narrow column, wraps around his wounded arm, and pulls the cord tight enough to halt his hand.
Elias Vale
That is not a reliquary. It is a binding mark. My family used this place to keep something beneath the chapel.
The remnants remain sealed under the spiral, but the exposed silver thread now points toward Vlad’s wound. The colorless candle bends toward him, and the stair behind him grinds shut.
✓ Quest Accepted
Cleanse the entity’s remnants
“I command Mara to expose the remnants together while I restrain the ash.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -2)
Vlad Dracira
Mara, expose the remnants together. I will restrain the ash.
Vlad plants his boots against the sealed spiral and clamps his wounded arm around the rising column. The ash strains toward the cord, but his grip holds it in place.
Mara kneels at the altar. With the ledger’s seal, she lifts each bone fragment and silver thread from the stone, arranging every remnant within the open spiral.
Mara Venn
Together, then. Do not let the ash cross the silver.
The final fragment settles into place. The spiral closes around the complete remains, and the colorless candle flares without flame, illuminating a name carved beneath the altar.
The ash lashes Vlad’s forearm. Mara’s cord snaps apart, leaving a narrow burn across his skin, but the column remains trapped above the sealed spiral.
Elias Vale
That mark was hidden from my family. Whatever they bound here, it knows you are holding it.
“Seal the ash within my body if you are unable to destroy it. This demon won't be able to grow its power in the blood of a hunter”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Vlad Dracira
If it cannot be destroyed, seal it within me. Demonic ash will find no strength in a hunter’s blood.
Vlad releases the column into his wounded arm. Ash floods beneath the skin as the carved spiral blazes, then contracts into a black ring around his forearm.
The chapel stones groan. Vlad’s blood darkens the silver thread, but the ash loses its shape and settles behind the sealed wound, contained within him.
Mara Venn
You have made your body the reliquary. It is sealed, Dracira, but the cost is permanent: that mark will answer whenever the demon reaches for blood.
Elias Vale
The candle has gone dark. The remnants are quiet. It cannot feed from them anymore.
The silver spiral closes over the bones and thread. The ash remains trapped in Vlad’s arm, powerless within the consecrated binding, while a thin black scar circles his skin.
Mara Venn
You stopped its growth, but you carry what remains. If the seal breaks, the demon will know exactly where to enter.