The alpha scrapes more earth from beneath the fractured slab. Loose dirt gathers between his claws as the pack watches from the den walls, bodies tense around Noah.
The black listening machine emerges farther, wedged beneath the concrete. Its blue indicator pulses in exact rhythm with cables vanishing into the old corporate conduit.
Alpha Wolf
There. The metal has a soft place where it joins the buried lines.
A narrow maintenance panel sits beneath the casing, exposed by the alpha’s digging. Faded corporate markings frame a reachable cut point, while tiny status glyphs remain dark.
Noah
The maintenance code is dormant, but the conduit is still carrying a signal.
Alpha Wolf
It listens through the den and answers something beyond the trees. If it wakes, the hunters may hear us again.
The injured wolf stays within the pack’s guarded ring, its freed leg tucked safely beneath its body. No one leaves the den; every muzzle turns toward the machine and Noah.
✓ Quest Accepted
Silence the listening machine
✓ Quest Accepted
Name all six wolves
“i cut the machine with my sword”
SUCCESS (Legendary Melee Combat, rolled -3)
Noah draws her sword and drives its edge through the exposed maintenance panel. The casing splits, severing the listening machine from the buried conduit.
Blue light bursts across the den, then dies. A harsh electronic shriek punches through the concrete, and the sword catches on hidden cabling before tearing free.
Noah
The signal is silent, but the blade’s edge is chipped.
Alpha Wolf
The listening stops. The noise carried far, but the metal cannot measure us now.
The severed device spits a few sparks into the dirt. Smoke threads beneath the fractured slab while the old conduit falls quiet, leaving only rain beyond the den.
Alpha Wolf
Stay close. We wait until the forest answers, then move by the clean route.
The wolves tighten their ring around the injured packmate and Noah. For the first time since the machine surfaced, no blue pulse answers from beneath the den.
Quest Complete
Silence the listening machine