Mara leaves the safe house with Vaelis, Nera, Corven, and Elian. The concealed door closes behind them as they follow the fresh burrower marks north, keeping them apart from the burial path.
The trail crosses pale grass and rises through broken ground. By late afternoon it ends at an abandoned lime kiln, where churned earth surrounds fallen stones and a strip of gray cloth lies half-buried.
Corven Voss
These tracks are fresh enough to read, but the ground is disturbed around them. Something heavy passed through the kiln yard, then turned toward the northern slope.
Vaelis Thorn
I will examine the residue without touching the cloth. If Veyra’s method is present, I should find observation without assuming who left it.
Nera
And I will check for hooks, return-paths, or any watcher attached to the stones. If the place is quiet, I will say so plainly.
Corven kneels beside the deepest impression while Vaelis circles the kiln’s cracked foundation. Nera raises one hand over the gray cloth, pausing before her senses reach it.
Elian Voss
The burial evidence stays separate. Whatever happened here, we compare it with the northern trail only after each detail stands on its own.
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine what caused the disturbance at the abandoned lime kiln
“I look between nera and Vaelis. " How fast can you two learn a simple spell, there's a point." I ask”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled -1)
Mara
How fast can you two learn a simple spell? There’s a point.
Mara looks between Nera and Vaelis as the lime kiln settles around them. Gray cloth, churned earth, and fresh tracks wait undisturbed beneath the sloping light.
Nera
If the spell is simple and you can demonstrate it once, I can reproduce the structure within a few minutes. I would need longer to make it safe.
Vaelis Thorn
A simple working? I can learn its shape after one clear casting, provided its purpose and limits are stated. Refining it would take an hour, perhaps less.
Nera lowers her hand from the cloth, while Vaelis studies Mara instead of the residue. Neither woman touches the evidence or assumes what Mara intends.
Nera
If this is for witnessing, signaling, or separating trails, teach us before we proceed. We can learn without turning the kiln into a test chamber.
Vaelis Thorn
And if the spell carries a hook, return-path, or hidden claim, I will identify that before using it. Simple does not mean harmless.
“" it's for distinction." I teach them both the cantrip dancing lights. " This is the spell every mage learns in underdark. It is the same as humans mage light." And I cast dancing lights”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +1)
Mara
It is for distinction. Dancing lights is the cantrip every mage learns in the Underdark. Humans call the same spell mage light.
Mara raises her healed hand and shapes the familiar pattern. Four small lights bloom above the lime kiln, white, blue, violet, and amber, illuminating tracks without touching the cloth.
Nera
The structure is clean. The lights carry no hook, return-path, or claim, and their colors remain distinct without altering the evidence.
Vaelis Thorn
I see the distinction. The spell creates visible markers, but it does not decide what they mean. That is a useful boundary.
Mara repeats the hand pattern slowly, separating the gestures into four stages. Nera mirrors them first, then Vaelis follows, each keeping her working above the open ground.
Nera
Dancing lights. I have it. I can reproduce the cantrip safely, and use separate colors for separate witnessed details.
Vaelis Thorn
So do I. The lights distinguish without declaring. We can examine the kiln while leaving the gray cloth and its meaning untouched.
“" that's not the reason I taught you the spell, you cast and then look at the weave. It will show my instruction yes, but each mage as their own thread in the weave. Look for that , you learn who cast the spell. " I say with a smile”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +1)
Mara
That is not the reason I taught you the spell. Cast it, then study the weave. Each mage leaves a distinct thread. Look for that, and learn who cast it.
Nera and Vaelis exchange a quick glance, then raise their hands over the lime kiln. Dancing lights bloom again, their colors suspended above the tracks and gray cloth.
Nera
Understood. The visible lights are only the surface. I will follow the weave beneath them without touching the evidence.
Vaelis Thorn
And I will compare the threads rather than their effects. If each caster remains distinct, the pattern should identify the working’s maker.
Their spellwork opens like fine colored roots beneath the lights. Nera’s thread is taut and silver-blue, Vaelis’s dark violet, while Mara’s original pattern remains unmistakably white-gold.
Nera
The thread remembers the caster without carrying a claim. This is attribution, not control.
Vaelis Thorn
We can tell them apart. These lights were cast by Nera and me, and Mara’s instruction is woven through neither. The distinction is exact.
“" we now have a way to see who cast what. And you two in theory should know the caster unless Veyra had another caster you didn't know about." I say plainly”
Mara
We now have a way to see who cast what. You two should know the caster, unless Veyra had another caster you never knew about.
The colored threads remain suspended over the kiln, each distinct and unclaimed. The gray cloth and disturbed earth stay untouched beneath their light.
Nera
Yes. If the thread matches a working I witnessed, I can name its caster. If it matches neither of us, then someone else made it.
Vaelis Thorn
Veyra could have used another practitioner, but I know the signatures of the methods she taught me. This will separate her craft from an unknown hand.
Nera adjusts the silver-blue lights and Vaelis shifts the violet ones, laying their threads beside the faint residue clinging to the kiln stones. No pattern is altered.
Nera
The residue is not mine, and it is not Vaelis’s. It carries Veyra’s observing structure, but the casting thread belongs to someone neither of us recognizes.
Vaelis Thorn
Then we have the distinction you wanted. Veyra’s method was used here, but this caster was not one of the practitioners we knew.
“I cast summon and communicate with animals on the burrower and wait for it to appear " then we ask the burrower where it's going and why" I say to the group”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +0)
Mara
I will summon and communicate with the burrower. When it comes, we ask where it is going and why.
Mara shapes the familiar spell over the lime kiln. A low tremor answers from beneath the northern slope, and the fresh tracks brighten under her colored lights.
The earth heaves as a living, armored quadruped emerges from the broken ground. Its plated shoulders are broad, its digging claws folded, and its dark eyes remain wary but calm.
The Burrower
The spell reaches it through impressions of soil, warmth, hunger, and safe passage. Its answer forms as simple meaning: north, where the ground is soft and warm.
The Burrower
It shows Mara a remembered path beneath stone and roots, then the sense of something deep below calling through vibration. It follows that warmth because it is shelter, not prey.
The Burrower
The surface paths are disturbed. The deep road remembers. I go where the earth opens and does not hurt.
The burrower lowers its head, accepting the communication without submission. Corven, Nera, Vaelis, and Elian watch as its northern route becomes clear without turning the creature into a command.
“" thank you dear, " I sence the weave for an abundance of food and warmth and point the burrower in that direction.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +1)
Mara
Thank you, dear.
Mara extends her healed hand and senses through the layered weave beneath the northern slope. One branch carries abundant roots, berries, and sheltered warmth from a sunken hollow.
The magic reveals no command or snare, only a naturally rich feeding ground warmed by stone and deep-running earth. Mara points along the safe northern branch.
The Burrower
Food. Warm earth. Safe hollow. I follow this opening.
The burrower turns toward the indicated slope, testing the ground with its folded claws. Its plated body lowers, and the soil parts before it without resistance.
Corven Voss
The direction is clear. Those roots and the hollow should sustain it, and the path leaves the burial ground untouched.
Vaelis Thorn
The weave carries abundance without ownership. You found a refuge for it, Mara, not a destination imposed upon it.
“Using the weave I try to Determine what caused the disturbance at the abandoned lime kiln”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -1)
Mara follows the layered weave through the lime kiln, tracing the disturbance beneath churned earth, fallen stone, and the abandoned foundation.
The pattern separates cleanly: the burrower caused the deepest collapse, but a later caster disturbed the surface while studying its passage.
That second working used Veyra’s observing structure through an unknown caster’s thread. It tested the burrower’s route and marked the kiln as a point of comparison.
Nera
So the creature did not damage the kiln deliberately. Someone followed its trail afterward and examined the disturbance.
Vaelis Thorn
The caster copied Veyra’s method, but the thread is neither hers nor mine. They watched the burrower, then withdrew without leaving a claim.
Corven Voss
That explains the inward break and fresh ash. The kiln was an observation post, not the creature’s destination.
The weave settles into Mara’s understanding: the burrower opened the ground while seeking warmth, and an unknown observer later studied the crossing from the kiln. No summons, trap, or active watcher remains.
Quest Complete
Determine what caused the disturbance at the abandoned lime kiln