The gate’s violet pulse steadies, but it feels less like victory and more like a warning bell. Ash whirls around Surazal’s boots as the air tightens, cold and thin. Somewhere beyond the broken stones, Rhineford answers with a distant, rising alarm.
Malakor
It is calling them. Yes. The master’s arrival is near.
Malakor kneels in the ash, shaking with devotion. Captain Harlen lies drained and gray at Surazal’s feet, barely moving. Inside Surazal’s chest, the borrowed life stirs wrong, like something hungry waking under skin.
Surazal
The signal is still active.
Oren
You have seconds, not minutes. Break the pulse, or every holy blade in Rhineford will be on you.
From the city road comes a hard metallic glare, distant at first, then sharper, a moving line of armored figures cresting the rise. The gate’s dark aura throbs in answer, as if it recognizes its own executioners.
Surazal stands at the center of it all, restored, hunted, and already becoming something unstable. The next spell, the next word, the next choice, is his alone.
“I flee far into the distance as I use my magic to conceal myself in darkness to avoid their gaze while breaking the pulse”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +2)