In the corner of the tavern that night, the door opened with a whisper, and a woman stepped inside. She wore the brown cloak of an Explorer, though her manner was too deliberate for a common traveler. Her eyes searched the shadows until they found him. She smiled, and though it was warm, it did not reach her gaze.

“May I sit?” she asked.

McGeough nodded, and she lowered herself beside him as though settling into an old memory she had long forgotten.

“My name is Magnolia,” she said. “I hear tales of storms off the coast. Curious things wash ashore after such nights.”

Her voice was gentle - too gentle.
Her presence hummed with the faint echo of something ancient, like a song half remembered.

McGeough felt that same stirring in his chest as when he had held the sealing cloth.
A tremor of recognition.
A warning of old storms not yet passed.

Magnolia spoke lightly of caravans and Guild paths, yet her questions circled the same theme - lost relics, broken timbers, the drifts of the sea. She never asked directly, and McGeough never answered directly, yet between them passed the sense of two wanderers tracing the outline of a story neither wished to tell.

When she rose to leave, she paused.

“If ever you come upon something old and dangerous,” she said quietly, “do not trust those who claim to know its worth.”

McGeough watched her go.
He knew a warning when he heard one.
He also knew when it was given too late.

Next Episode, Next Monday!