The Guardian

Keeper of the Crypt

Boss of the Vigil

First seen: The crypt — it rises last, once you've claimed the reliquary's boon and woken the Vigil.

✦ STATS

Toughness9/10

a calm meter ×4 — about 240 wrangle points where common rabble take 60

Grip9/10

calm bleeds back 4.5× faster the instant your arc slips

Swiftness4/10

0.85× speed — it doesn't chase; it arrives

Entourage8/10

the Vigil: 8 risers, one every 1.5 seconds, before it deigns to appear

Menace8/10

gold-framed HUD banner and everything

✦ ABILITIES

The Vigil

Claiming the reliquary's boon wakes 8 risers, one every 1.5 seconds — every fourth one an elite — before the Guardian appears.

Last to Rise

The Guardian rises after its Vigil, at the far end of the hall, and seals the crypt behind you until it rests.

Unshakeable Calm

A calm meter ×4 (about 240 wrangle points), guarded by a full shield that must break first. Break contact and the meter bleeds back at 4.5× the usual rate.

✦ FROM THE FIELD GUIDE

Under the graveyard runs a colonnaded hall of sarcophagi, and at its far end waits a reliquary that grants a boon to anyone bold enough to claim it. The Guardian is the reason 'anyone' is doing a lot of work in that sentence.

It has kept the crypt longer than anyone has kept anything. It does not hate you; it simply has one job, has never once failed at it, and considers your visit a clerical error it intends to correct. Claim the boon and the Vigil wakes: the dead rise from their coffins one by one, and the Guardian rises last — unhurried, immovable, already between you and the way out.

Lay the whole Vigil to rest and even the Guardian yields. The exit slab grinds open, the crypt goes quiet, and somewhere in the dark you can almost feel it filing the incident under 'resolved.'

✦ HOW TO SURVIVE IT

▸Thin the Vigil before the Guardian rises — fighting it with eight risers loose is how veladoras end.

▸Once your arc is on it, keep it on. Every slip hands back your progress at 4.5× speed.

▸Laying the entire Vigil to rest pays a 500-point bonus and reopens the way out. The reliquary's boon is yours to keep either way — the Guardian just wants a word about it.