Sean-Michael Kirkland II rides up on the homestead just as the light goes copper on the yard. The front porch is streaked dark, and something heavy has dragged a trail across the boards.
A young woman from the town saloon lies near the steps, motionless in the dirt. Her dress is torn, and the blood around her throat has soaked into the dust.
At the property line, three tribal elders stand rigid in the ditch grass, their expressions hard as river stone. One of them points at the porch, then at the clawed gouges ripped deep into the wood.
Elder Red Hawk
Your house breaks the treaty, cowboy. Tell us what came out of it.
The other elders do not speak. They keep their eyes on Sean-Michael Kirkland II, on the blood, on the marks, waiting for him to choose denial, blame, or truth.
Sean-Michael Kirkland II
The claw marks are fresh. Too deep for a knife.
Elder Red Hawk
If you mean to hide behind silence, we will not leave this ground until you answer.
✓ Quest Accepted
Prove what attacked the homestead
✓ Quest Accepted
Keep the treaty from collapsing
“Has this creature been seen near the reservation before?”
NO (Likely, rolled 79)
The elders exchange a brief, silent look, their faces confirming that no such beast has ever been sighted near their lands. The threat remains entirely unknown to them.
“I show the elders the claw marks”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled -1)
Sean-Michael steps up to the porch rail and points out the gouges in the blood-dark wood. The elders lean in, their attention fixed on the split grain and the width of the cuts.
Sean-Michael Kirkland II
These marks are from whatever tore through here.
Elder Red Hawk crouches, tracing the edge with two fingers, then lifts them and studies the smear on the bark of his thumb.
Elder Red Hawk
No knife does this.
The Silent Elder
Too wide for a man. Too deep for a pack of wolves.
The Silent Elder turns his gaze from the porch to the treeline beyond the yard, as if measuring how far the unknown has already spread.
Elder Red Hawk
If this is true, then the treaty is not the wound. The thing behind it is.
“I turn the elders toward the saloon woman”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled -1)
Sean-Michael lowers his hand from the gouges and nods once toward the yard, where the body lies covered and still. Both elders follow the gesture, their eyes shifting off the porch and onto the shape by the fence.
Sean-Michael Kirkland II
Look at her. Whatever did this left her there too.
Elder Red Hawk straightens slow, his face tightening with a hard, measured grief. The Silent Elder steps closer to the rail, his gaze moving from the covered form to the blood trail, then back again.
Elder Red Hawk
A saloon woman? That is no war party sign.
The Silent Elder
If it struck her here, then the trespass began with the beast, not with this house.
Red Hawk sets his bloody fingers on the rail, thinking it through, while Sean-Michael's own hand closes briefly around his revolver grip at his hip. Nobody reaches for steel, but the porch feels one breath from peace or blame.
“I ask if the beast came from the treeline”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled -1)
Sean-Michael Kirkland II
Was it from the treeline? The tracks, the blood, all of it.
Elder Red Hawk
Yes. Not from your house, not from our hands. Something came out of the trees hungry and wrong.
The Silent Elder
The earth there is torn and scattered. It ran hard, then turned on the porch.
Red Hawk’s jaw loosens a fraction. He points once toward the dark line beyond the fence, as if naming a boundary both men can see.
Elder Red Hawk
You hear me, Sean-Michael Kirkland II. We do not leave with a quarrel. We leave with a warning.
The Silent Elder
Bring us the proof you have, and keep your people from that timber until dawn.
Quest Complete
Prove what attacked the homestead
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Good→Great