DUAL SCENE ENGAGEMENT – LIVE
The Codex splits across breath and streetlight. The world continues. All characters remain autonomous.
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[Scene One: Waterdeep Streets – Mel]
Mel walks alone.
Her boots scuff stone. Her long bck hair hangs damp against the scars on her back, the hem of her forest-toned tunic soaked slightly from the night’s rain. She carries no bag. Just her Gulthias staff, the silver bracers tight around her wrists, and the weight of Breya’s name.
She stops at a fountain—cracked, choked with vines. Birds pick at old coins.Her presence makes them silent.
She kneels. She pces one feather on the rim.
“Breya,” she whispers. “You shouldn’t have followed us.”
The earth around her pulses.A faint vine coils out of a crack and reaches toward her hand.Codex 290 — Root-Soul Resonance — triggers.? Guilt > 5 → Thorn growth encircles the base of the fountain. Difficult terrain radius: 10 ft.? Obsession: +1 (new root link formed—emotional terrain now tied to Breya’s memory)? This site is now marked as Codex-Bound Terrain.
Mel draws her dagger.She cuts a line across her palm and lets a few drops of blood fall into the water.
“You’ll be remembered. By root. By rain. By me.”
She stands.
Behind her, a cloaked figure steps into view.Face hidden. Female voice. Elven.
“That was her favorite fountain.”Beat.“We were hoping you’d come first.”
Mel doesn’t reach for her weapon.She just says:“Then don’t waste my time.”
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[Kereska’s Favor – Remaining Party]
Krummar finishes his tea in one swallow. His mace glints as he straps it to his back.“I don’t like shadows calling for names. But I like silence less.”
Melodia, now seated by the fire, has re-wrapped her missing stocking. Her legs cross slowly, her cloak slipping slightly from one shoulder.She watches the fmes.
Then—quietly—she sings.
Just a few notes.
A prayer to the moon. A name woven in sound.
Her freckles glow. The moonstone choker tightens.Her Presence Score surges.Krummar looks over. His tattoos hum faintly. Emotional resonance.
Daka, meanwhile, is shirtless and rummaging through a drawer behind the bar.He finds a deep blue velvet jacket.
“Look!” he shouts. “Fancy-boy armor. Bet this gets me kissed.”
Lorin replies from the hallway:“Only if they’re blind and concussed.”
He pauses.
Grins.
Keeps the jacket.
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Decision Point Approaching: Sundown. The Clocktower. But the party is not yet whole.
Mel is already engaged. Melodia is singing grief. Daka is pnning swagger. Krummar watches all with prayer-ready eyes. Lorin is… preparing something.
And outside, the wind changes.
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[Scene One: Waterdeep’s Edge – Mel & the Cloaked Elf]
Dawn breaks wider, but the alley stays dim. The elf does not step closer.
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The figure’s cloak is soaked at the hem. She stands just outside the radius of Mel’s thorn-wrought terrain. Her voice is calm, but her fingers twitch at her sides. Gloved.
“You’re the druid,” she says.“The one with the scarred back and the deathwood staff.”She tilts her chin. “You’re the reason Breya went.”
Mel doesn’t answer.
The silence thickens.
Then:
“You’re not wrong.”
Her voice cracks slightly, like bark under pressure. She doesn’t step back.
The elf slowly removes her hood.
She’s young for an elf, copper-skinned, with white-gold braids and an eye patch of spider-silk velvet across one eye. Her visible eye is gss-gray. Emotionless—but deep.
“I’m Sarayne,” she says.“And I’m the one who found what was left of her.”
Mel’s jaw flexes.The wind brushes her hair back, exposing the bramble scars winding across her shoulder.
Sarayne continues:
“She believed in you. Thought you were proof that even rot could bloom. That pain could protect.”A pause.“You didn’t know. But she followed your trail for days.”
Mel closes her eyes.Then opens them—quiet and bzing.
“What do you want from me?”
Sarayne lifts her chin.
“At sundown… you bring what you remember of her.”“We’ll bring what’s left.”
She steps back, vanishing into mist and chimney smoke.
The Codex logs the moment:? Mel — Fallout Registered:? Glow: faint silver aura visible only to emotionally attuned NPCs (Trust > 5)? Memory Anchor created: “Breya’s Final Root”? Axis Shift: Guilt +1, Obsession +1, Comfort (self) -1
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[Scene Two: Kereska’s Favor – The Build-Up]
Lorin stands at the back door, watching the street.
She’s changed clothes: elegant bck with subtle embroidery—funeral tones, noble cut. Her emerald eyes are sharp, but her hands are delicate as she ties a ribbon around a small box. It smells faintly of pressed herbs.
Behind her:? Krummar finishes etching Breya’s name onto a new strip of prayer-tarp.? Melodia adjusts her cloak, arms bare now, her corset tight and unyielding, stockings retied, heels wrapped in starlight leather.Her moonstone choker pulses in rhythm with her heartbeat.? Daka has added a single golden earring and a rapier he doesn’t need, because “aesthetics.”His pirate hat is polished.
Melodia looks up at the clock.
“We need to leave soon.”
Daka winks.“Let’s go get haunted.”
Krummar just nods. His shield is already on.
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Transition Scene: Convergence
Outside, a storm is forming—not above. Below.
Magic stirs in the cracks of the cobblestones.Old wards. Buried names. And something waiting in the hollow gears of a broken tower.
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Sundown Approaches? Mel is on her way.? The rest of the party steps into the city.? Renaer Neverember is waiting near the tower base, hood up, golden hair tucked under a travel cloak. His message: “The Hands Beneath aren’t just mourners. They’re architects of judgment.”
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