The workshop settles into a rhythmic hum as the storm outside shifts from static to rain. Veda carefully cleans her hands, her movements deliberate and final.
Veda
We are walking ghosts, Eolsi. The city already considers us memories. If we stay, the spire will eventually reclaim every scrap of what we are.
Eolsi
She talks as if she knows the taste of being forgotten. I wonder if she chose this path, or if the city simply wore her down until there was nothing left but this cold, calculated resolve.
Veda
Pack what you need. My maps of the outer wastes are hidden beneath the floorboards. We leave before the moon reaches its zenith, or we don't leave at all.
Eolsi
Veda, are you certain that leaving is safer than fighting the architects?
Veda
He still clings to the idea of a battlefield. He does not understand that to win, one must simply refuse to play the game at all.
+ Scene Quest Added
Escape Oakhaven before the moon reaches its zenith
“Before you travel you decided to have her as your wife & have her bear your children.”
SUCCESS (Superb Persuasion, rolled -2)
Eolsi
Veda, if we are to be ghosts, let us be ghosts together. Stay with me after the fires die. Build a life where the architects cannot reach, and let us bring children into a world that is finally ours.
Veda
His eyes... they look through the exhaustion and see a future I thought buried under these ruins. Can I truly tether myself to this boy, or am I just looking for a reason to stop running?
Veda
You ask for a heavy thing in the middle of a storm, Eolsi. But perhaps that is the only way to make it real. If we reach the waste and find a sanctuary, I will be the partner you need. I will bear your name and your children until the stars burn out.
The tension in her shoulders breaks, her gaze softening as she reaches out, her hand resting firmly against his chest, right over the jagged lines of his scar.