The Ashen Contract

Rain hammers the slate roofs of Veyr while the adventurers’ guild burns through its last shipment of lamp oil. You have been summoned to the guildhall as a newly licensed adult adventurer, but the contract waiting on the iron table is not a routine escort job: three villagers vanished beneath the old quarry, and something has begun ringing the sealed warning bell from underground.

Mara Venn, the guild’s scarred thirty-four-year-old quartermaster, stands over the contract with a crossbow within reach. She wants the disappearances solved before dawn, when the quarry’s collapse charges are scheduled to detonate and bury whatever is below. Beside her, a mud-soaked courier named Pell clutches a cracked brass key and insists the missing villagers were not taken—they went willingly after hearing voices promising them their “true names.”

Mara has chosen you because every veteran team in town refused the job. She will provide supplies, but not trust; prove useful and she may reveal why the guild sealed the quarry ten years ago. The contract offers gold, dangerous secrets, and a decision about what deserves saving when the bell rings again.