The wayhouse door opens against the rain. Eddard Eddard Stewheart stands outside, a broad adult dragonborn man with wet red scales, a travel-stained brown cloak, and an empty weapon belt. Water streams from his blunt horns as he freezes at the sight of the party.
Eddard Stewheart
I came to warn you that the roots once marked travelers who carried an old covenant sign, and that warning now names Illith Storm before the joke can escape me.
His unfinished grin collapses. He steps over the threshold only when the wind shoves rain across the floor, keeping both clawed hands visible and empty.
Bubblegum
Eddard Stewheart! Three weeks of terrible jokes, one locked gate, and now you arrive looking like a drowned beetroot.
Eddard Stewheart
The beetroot is new. The roots are not. I will say more when I know whether you mean to answer their warning or flee from it.
Windsteel
That is a remarkably careful way to avoid saying anything useful. Come inside, Stewheart, before the rain finishes your argument.
Windsteel remains beneath the narrow window, one hand near his healing wound. Lord Edran stays by the cold hearth, while Bubblegum watches Eddard with her axe within easy reach. The room waits on Illith.
“*I see the rain and lightning and I’m hiding crouched in the corner with a large pot over my head. My eyes peek out under the pot to stare back at everyone.* “What?””
FAILURE (Good Stealth, rolled -2)
Thunder rolls over the wayhouse. Illith crouches hard into the corner, dragging a large iron pot over her head as rain flashes white beyond the window.
The pot’s rim catches against the stone wall and slips sideways with a booming clang. It hides her face poorly, leaving one sapphire eye peering beneath it at the room.
Illith Storm
What?
Bubblegum
You are under a pot. I can see your entire arm, snow mountain.
Eddard Stewheart
I have seen braver shelters, but never one with such impressive cookware. The storm has your attention, then.
As Illith shifts, the pot rolls from her head and strikes the floor upside down. Its blackened base bears a faint green mark, matching the shrine’s covenant fire.
Windsteel
There. The mark is not decoration. If the roots recognize covenant signs, that pot may show us what they expect you to answer.
“Really? I was just using it to hide from the lightning..”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled +1)
Illith Storm
Really? I was just using it to hide from the lightning.
Illith gathers the overturned pot and pulls it close against her granite knees as another pale flash whitens the window. The green mark remains visible on its blackened base.
Bubblegum
A perfectly sensible plan, if the lightning is frightened by cookware. Keep it close, snow mountain.
Eddard Stewheart
I cannot mock a shelter that works. Besides, the pot has chosen an inconvenient moment to reveal its mysterious history.
Windsteel
The mark may still matter, even if you found it by hiding. We can study it after the storm passes, without asking you to stand near the window.
Lord Edran kneels beside the pot without touching it, comparing the green mark with the cracked crest’s remembered shape. Rain drums overhead, but no roots stir.
Lord Edran Vale
It is not House Vale’s crest. It resembles the shrine’s witness mark, placed here long before this wayhouse became shelter.
+ New Item Acquired
Marked iron pot