Session Recap
The party left Dawnwatch before sunrise with the sun-key, Ysabet’s copied fragments, and only Voss aware of their exact destination. Mira noticed signs of surveillance before midday: boot prints appeared beside the road at regular intervals, and the same distant rider changed position whenever the group changed pace. She judged the pattern too disciplined for ordinary bandits. Rather than confront the scouts immediately, the party continued toward Brighthollow and watched to see whether the observers would reveal their purpose.
Brighthollow was quieter than expected. Several houses near the road were shuttered despite daylight, and the innkeeper initially refused rooms after seeing Dawnwatch insignia on Aster’s equipment. Aster learned that riders wearing dark cloaks had visited two nights earlier and warned residents not to shelter anyone traveling toward Saint Orien. They had not identified themselves, and no one in the village could say whether they were soldiers, mercenaries, or cultists. Mira recognized one resident as a contact of the Greenward Rangers and used that relationship to convince the village that the party was not part of the threatening group.
Corin treated three travelers who had arrived from farther east. Their wounds resembled burns but were cold to the touch and showed none of the blistering expected from flame. One survivor remembered a flash that seemed to remove color from the road around him before he fell. Nyra could not identify the effect from the description alone and refused to label it Eclipse magic without more evidence. The victims had been attacked after refusing to surrender a bundle of old monastery rubbings, which had been taken.
The party decided to use the surveillance against its source. They left Brighthollow publicly, traveled several miles, then cut into the Greenward under Mira’s direction and circled back toward the road. Tomas prepared a false camp while Aster and Corin waited out of sight. The pursuing riders approached after dusk expecting the group to be asleep. The ambush captured one outrider while the others escaped. The prisoner carried a black-sun token matching the archive symbol and a short sword with no unit markings. More importantly, Tomas found a tiny maker’s stamp on the token and recognized the style as royal mint work.
The outrider would not identify a commander. He insisted the party did not understand what it was restoring and repeated a phrase several times: the Crown must never see sunrise. He claimed the Court was trying to prevent a disaster, but he either could not or would not explain what disaster. Aster pressed him on the threats against villagers, and the rider answered that temporary fear was preferable to everyone dying. Corin regarded the statement as belief rather than proof.
Mira sent word through the Greenward network warning that organized riders were operating near Brighthollow. She did not ask the Rangers to join the party, but the threat had become personal to communities she considered her responsibility. The group left the captured outrider with trusted local wardens rather than return him to the potentially compromised Dawnwatch Guard. By morning they resumed the climb toward Saint Orien knowing the conspiracy possessed state-manufactured resources and was willing to intimidate civilians to keep anyone away from the monastery.