They settled into the green cavern the way tired people settle anywhere safe, slowly and gratefully and without much talk at first.
Sameira finished with Korin's shoulder, the cut closed to a pale line under her hearth-warmth, then moved around the others, easing the smaller hurts each of them had collected against the husk. Lily took the first watch at the mouth of the passage out of old habit, folding into the dark where the cavern's glow did not reach. The rest spread out along the luminous river, ate what Sameira steeped over a small fire, and let the fight drain slowly out of their bones.
But the words still hung in the air. Two of us break through, or we do not move. So as they rested, they each turned inward toward the quest waiting behind their eyes, and toward the question it asked.
[ Breakthrough Quest: attune to something that can birth into your armor. ]
