Keredeth's Price

Victor's impossible demand did not free anyone.

But it did make the guard speak.

As Victor was escorted away from the prison room, the Githyanki admitted what he could not do. He could not return the party's things. He could not release them. Those choices belonged to someone higher in the fortress. But Victor's argument had cracked enough frustration loose that the guard gave him something almost as valuable as freedom: information.

The portal was locked one way.

To return through it, someone had to speak the Githyanki command word for open.

Kethil.

The guard also told him where the party's belongings had gone. Their gear was in a storeroom, being sorted for stolen or occulted contraband. The Githyanki were not, at least according to him, simply taking everything for themselves.

Then the hallway ended at the throne room.

Victor was brought before Keredeth.

The chamber made the fortress's true history harder to ignore. More dragon imagery marked the walls, but the room did not feel Githyanki-made. It felt older than their occupation. A Dragonborn paladin statue stood above the space, a beautiful and solemn reminder that this place had once belonged to another people.

Victor tried to meet the moment with rank and theater. This was no way to treat a prince.

Keredeth did not accept the performance.

She saw what mattered. Victor was not Dragonborn. He was not a dragon. He had come into her fortress carrying something the Githyanki wanted desperately, something tied to their search for dragons and to the hunger of the power above them.

She believed he had a good heart.

That did not save him.

A nod passed from Keredeth to the Githyanki behind Victor. His body went numb. Paralysis locked him in place while Keredeth came closer and named the truth of the room: he possessed something they needed, and he would pay for it.

Only then did Victor see that the bracer had already been found.

Walter's home. Walter's vessel. The thing Victor used to call him back and send him out.

Keredeth took the bracer, lifted Victor's right arm, and cut it away above where it had been worn.

The loss was immediate and brutal: arm, bracer, and dragon, all taken in one act.

Victor had gone to negotiate for the party's release.

He left the throne room as proof of what the fortress was willing to do.