The false wall gapes open behind Eden Siranteos and The Archivist, its cavity packed with bundled ledgers and sealed rolls. Dust hangs in the air until the heavy stone doors grind wider, and Nazareth Siranteos fills the threshold, basalt skin lit from within by amber fire.
Nazareth Siranteos
Why do my children pry through ancestral locks in the palace depths? Speak plainly.
Eden stays with the cache, her halberd angled low as she turns toward him. The Archivist draws back half a step, hands open, as if to prove they carry no threat.
The Archivist
We found records that were hidden, not lost. Someone moved them here to bury what the seals were made to do.
Nazareth Siranteos
Hidden records are not harmless curiosities. They are the bones of old bargains, and bargains have teeth.
Nazareth's gaze cuts past Eden to the open cavity, then to the violet script peeking from the bundles. The amber glow in his cracks sharpens, but he does not step forward.
Nazareth Siranteos
Bring me the ledgers. If these secrets were chained beneath my house, I will know by whose hand.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn what Nazareth knows about the ancestral bargain
✓ Quest Accepted
Bring the ledgers to Nazareth
“I gather the bundled ledgers and step toward Nazareth to hand them over.”
SUCCESS (Superb Strength, rolled -1)
Eden gathers the bundled ledgers in both arms and steps out of the cache, dust sliding from the stack as she carries it toward the threshold.
Nazareth’s hand lifts, not to strike, but to claim the weight of the records, his amber glow flickering across the violet-scripted parchment within.
Eden places the bundle into his hands. The old stone seems to hush around the exchange.
Nazareth Siranteos
You have done right to bring these to me. What was buried here was never meant for your generation to inherit cleanly.
Nazareth Siranteos
Listen well. The bargain was not forged for power alone, but to spare Siranteos a wound the founders could not bear to name.
The Archivist
So the truth finally moves from paper into the blood of the house.
Nazareth Siranteos
If you want the rest, child, then the line between duty and kin will not stay gentle. I will not lie to you to keep your trust.
Quest Complete
Bring the ledgers to Nazareth