Rain taps the broken front doorframe as Elizabeth Bathory stands in the entryway, one hand lifted in warning. The Peacebringer lies in Thadeus's grip, and its blue glow answers her presence with a sharp, restless pulse.
Elizabeth Bathory
The coordinates are not the stronghold. They are the handoff point. Follow the chain of custody, and you find who fed the ledger.
The badge seal matches the ledger stamp.
Elizabeth Bathory
EB is a cover, not a person. Someone used my route, my initials, and your file to move the case. The Revenant did not lose it. It was handed along.
The Peacebringer flares brighter in Thadeus's hands, then settles, as if recognizing the truth in her words. Elizabeth keeps her distance, tense but steady, waiting for Thadeus to decide whether she is proof or another trap.
Elizabeth Bathory
If you go now, you can catch the next link before it disappears. If you do not, they bury everything, and the Revenant keeps feeding on the lie.
The shattered doorway frames them both, the ruined lock hanging loose behind Elizabeth. Thadeus holds the weapon, the ledger, and the last live thread of the chain, while the next move belongs entirely to him.
“Thadeus stirs awake from his sleep, realizing the events of last night were just a dream. He feels confident of this, until he sees his shattered front door, wood sprayed everywhere in the living room.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +3)
Thadeus jolts awake in the dark, certain for one calm breath that the night is gone and the whole thing was a dream.
Thadeus Jovanović
The room is too quiet.
Then he sees the splintered front door, and the floor full of fresh wood, and the certainty breaks open.
The ruined frame, the bent lock, and the scattered debris match last night's damage exactly. Nothing has been put right.
He rises into the living room and finds the Peacebringer and ledger where he left them, the weapon still warm with its faint, stubborn glow.
The glow catches on a small edge of paper near the threshold, a damp corner of the scorched badge photo Elizabeth showed him.
Outside, rain keeps tapping the porch like a patient knuckle, while inside the broken doorway holds the whole truth in place.
Thadeus stood in the wrecked doorway with the ledger in one hand and the Peacebringer in the other.
Thadeus Jovanović
So it was never the endpoint. Just a handoff.
Elizabeth Bathory
Exactly. My initials bought the silence. Yours can buy the truth.
Thadeus Jovanović
Then I move now, before the trail cools.
Elizabeth Bathory
Good. Leave the dead stories behind you.
Thadeus carried the ledger and the Peacebringer out of the shattered room, and the lie at the center of the case finally lost its grip. Elizabeth remained on the porch as the morning opened around them, calm and unreadable. The door hung broken behind him, but the path ahead was his at last.