Run: 2026-10-06-01M48W4QZVF6MWS1JVXJYZCG86

<nc-section data-title="Version 1: The Stern Welcome" data-color="red"> I reined Thunder to a halt before the stables, my heart hammering against my ribs. A figure emerged from the shadows of the timbered building—tall, broad-shouldered, his armor dented from a dozen battles. Sir Roland. The name had been whispered in fear and respect throughout the villages I'd passed. He did not smile as he approached. His eyes, pale as winter ice, raked over me from my mud-caked boots to my trembling hands. "You're late, squire," he said, his voice like gravel scraping stone. "The last boy who arrived late was sent to muck the stalls for a month. Consider yourself fortunate that I have need of another sword-arm." He tossed me a leather jerkin, rough and smelling of sweat and liniment. "Put that on. You stink of the road. And Frederick—" He paused, and for a moment something flickered in his gaze, something almost like memory. "—your father was a good man. Don't dishonor his name with cowardice." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Version 2: The Unexpected Kindness" data-color="green"> The stable doors creaked open, and a knight stepped into the dying light—Sir Roland, though he looked nothing like the stern legends I'd heard. His beard was threaded with gray, his armor polished to a mirror shine, and when he saw me, his weathered face broke into a grin that crinkled the corners of his eyes. "Frederick!" he called out, striding forward with open arms. "By the old gods, you've grown! Your mother said you were still knee-high to a goat when I last saw you." He clapped me on the shoulder hard enough to rattle my teeth. "Come, come—Thunder's a beauty, isn't he? I'll have the grooms see to him. And you—" He lowered his voice, glancing around the empty courtyard. "—there's something I must tell you. Something about why you're *really* here. Your father didn't send you to learn swordplay, boy. He sent you to *survive*." </nc-section> <nc-section data-title="Version 3: The Ominous Warning" data-color="blue"> I had barely swung my leg over Thunder's back when a horn sounded—three sharp blasts that made my horse rear. From the castle's highest tower, a figure descended on a rope, landing with practiced silence in the stable yard. Sir Roland. But he moved wrong, too fluid, too *quiet* for a man in full plate. He approached without speaking, and I saw then that his eyes were wrong—too dark, the pupils dilated to swallow the iris entirely. When he finally spoke, his voice came from everywhere at once, resonating in my skull. "Frederick," it hissed. "Your father's bloodline ends with you. Unless..." He reached into his cloak and withdrew something that gleamed with sickly green light—a scale, large as my hand, still wet and steaming. "Unless you find the Last Dragon before the new moon. The creature dreams in fire, boy. And in its dreams, it sees *everything*. It sees what you are. What you will become." The scale dissolved in his palm, leaving only ash that smelled of sulfur. "Run, squire. Run while you still can." </nc-section>