The royal courier leads Titano and the returning party beneath Ithaca’s palace into a vaulted archive vestibule. Arveth, Orun, Kareth, and Seressa remain together as scribes prepare the receiving table.
Blue-robed scribes clear a space beneath the ledger stand. The courier places the amended Valley record before them, its seals intact and its account of the absent basin plainly marked.
The Royal Courier
Enter the record exactly as witnessed: the basin was requested, unavailable, and never examined. No inference belongs beside those words.
A senior scribe begins copying the entry. As ink touches the parchment, sapphire light seeps through the stone floor, tracing a second inscription beneath the official stand.
Arveth
That writing was hidden beneath the ledger. Do not move the stand, and do not let its glow be mistaken for evidence already entered.
The scribes freeze with their quills suspended. The luminous lines sharpen into ancient characters, running beneath the official ledger and toward the palace foundations.
The Royal Courier
Commander, the archive has received the Valley’s record, but this second inscription was not in my instructions. The court will need your witness before anyone reads further.
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine what the hidden inscription reveals about the evidence basin
“I examine the hidden inscription without moving the ledger stand.”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled -1)
Titano studies the glowing characters without touching the ledger stand. He follows their downward turns and repeating marks while the Archive Scribes, a mixed-gender group of adult human scribes in blue robes, with varied builds, brown and black hair, and ink-stained fingers, wait motionless around the receiving table.
The inscription resolves into a warning: beneath the palace, the bound fire answers first to a recognized witness, and the archive must record what it reveals before anyone opens the way.
A second line identifies the hidden writing as an older foundation record, not part of the Valley’s testimony. Its final symbols describe a sealed descent, but their exact date and maker remain unclear.
Arveth
You have read it without disturbing the record. Tell us what the foundation claims, and distinguish its warning from what it leaves uncertain.
The examination costs precious time: the copying quill dries while every eye follows Titano’s interpretation, and the inscription’s last signs resist a confident reading.
The Royal Courier
I will hold the dispatch here. No archive seal should claim certainty where the ancient hand provides only an unresolved date and maker.
The Senior Scribe
Then I will copy the warning, its foundation origin, and the uncertainty exactly. The hidden inscription becomes a separate entry beside the received record.
The sapphire characters continue their slow pulse beneath the stand. Their warning is now understood, while the unanswered final signs remain marked for later comparison in the palace archives.
Quest Complete
Determine what the hidden inscription reveals about the evidence basin