Three weeks after the broken door, Thadeus works at the cluttered bench in the hideout. Maps, the ledger, and the scorched badge sit under a magnifying lamp while Marla and Elias lean in, tense and focused.
Marla traces the badge seal against the ledger’s initials. Elias flips to the copied handoff notes, comparing dates and routes. The pattern is ugly, but it is starting to hold.
Marla
This badge is not an ID, it is a trail marker. EB is a cover, and the handoff points are the real map.
Elias the Shopkeeper
If we match every transfer, we can find where the case keeps changing hands. That gets us closer to the Revenant stronghold.
Thadeus Jovanović
The ledger does not point to one place, it points to a chain.
Elizabeth Bathory stands near the doorway, calm but insistent, watching Thadeus more than the papers. The pressure in the room tightens as she waits for him to see the next link.
Elizabeth Bathory
Follow the chain, not the address. The next handoff tells you who moves the Peacebringer, and where they are hiding it now.
At the center of the spread, one route on the map is circled in red. It leads to a dead-end warehouse district, then onward toward a marked transfer site.
✓ Quest Accepted
Prepare to assault the Revenant stronghold
✓ Quest Accepted
Locate the chain to the Revenant stronghold
“Does Elias recognize Elizabeth?”
NO, AND WORSE (Unlikely, rolled 94)
Elias the Shopkeeper
I have never seen this woman before in my life, and I do not like the way she looks at our work.
Elizabeth Bathory
You have not seen me, Elias, because you were too busy hiding in your shop while the rest of us were being erased from the records.
Elias recoils from the table, his face pale as he stares at Elizabeth with a mixture of genuine confusion and growing, sharp-edged hostility.
“Thadeus stands in front of Elizabeth, telling her she needs to leave. The rest of the party will find the stronghold, and don't need her to potentially attack them with her bloodlust.”
SUCCESS (Superb Willpower, rolled +0)
Thadeus Jovanović
You need to leave. We find the stronghold without you, and I am not letting bloodlust put us in another fight.
Thadeus steps into the gap between Elizabeth and the workbench, Peacebringer low at his side, his stance calm but final.
Elizabeth Bathory
You think I came here to hunt them? I came because they already know where this trail leads.
Marla
Then tell us what you know, straight. No more riddles.
Elizabeth stops at the broken threshold, glancing once at the shattered frame, then back to Thadeus as if measuring how far she can push before he closes the door for good.
Elias the Shopkeeper
If she stays, I am out. If she leaves, I will listen.
Elizabeth Bathory
Fine. Check the ledger route against the badge code. The handoff point is not the prize, it is the door.
Marla slides the scattered pages together on the workbench, and the circled line settles into a clear path toward the warehouse district, while Elizabeth reaches the porch and pauses, waiting for Thadeus's next move.
Quest Complete
Locate the chain to the Revenant stronghold