The passage folds shut behind Carciel and Serren, coughing dust into the cramped scriptorium. Carciel’s lute remains caught against the closing seam, its strap pulled taut.
A hooded lamp burns over a ledger. Its pages are crowded with names, times, and movements through Odran Vey’s hidden passages. The two proof packets remain with Carciel.
Serren Vale
That hand. I know it from the court records. This clerk has been copying every passage used by the lord’s agents.
Unknown Clerk
You arrived before the next entry was due. That makes you witnesses, not fugitives.
The Unknown Clerk turns the ledger toward them. Beside several names, black marks record sealed routes, arrests, and orders bearing the lord’s signet. One fresh line reads: Maelin Hart, removed by order of the court.
Unknown Clerk
Take the ledger to Archivist Pell, and the refuge will be exposed. Leave it here, and the altered passages will close around you before dawn.
Behind Carciel, the seam tightens around the lute. Ahead, the clerk’s hand hovers over a second seal, ready to erase the names before anyone else can read them.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure the ledger as corroboration for Pell
“I take the ledger”
FAILURE (Good Strength, rolled -1)
Carciel reaches for the ledger and wrenches it free of the clerk’s guiding hand, but the heavy binding catches against the sealed table edge.
The ledger twists. Its cover tears loose, and the book slams shut beneath the clerk’s palm before Carciel can lift it away.
Unknown Clerk
You cannot carry the whole record through a closing refuge.
A single folio skids from the torn binding and lands at Carciel’s feet. Its cramped columns carry the clerk’s private cipher, with Odran Vey’s initials beside the entries for Maelin’s refuge.
Serren Vale
That page names the hand behind the entries. It could corroborate Pell’s accusation, if we get it out.
The Unknown Clerk presses the black seal over the remaining ledger. Beneath the folio’s final line, a narrow wax tab points toward a hidden slot in the stone wall.
Unknown Clerk
Take the cipher page, or take the sealed ledger and lose the passage. Choose before the wax hardens.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure the cipher page as corroboration for Pell
− Scene Quest Removed
Secure the ledger as corroboration for Pell
“I take the cipher page”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +1)
Carciel’s fingers catch the wax tab. With a swift pull, he frees the cipher-marked folio from the slot before the seal can harden.
The page folds safely into his grasp. Odran Vey’s initials stand beside the refuge entries, joined to dates and coded instructions for Maelin’s removal.
Serren Vale
You have it. Pell can match that cipher to the archive’s records and make the accusation hold.
The Unknown Clerk jerks the quill away from the black seal. The remaining ledger stays pinned beneath their palm, its unaltered pages now missing the one folio that named the hand behind the entries.
Unknown Clerk
Then the page leaves with you, but the ledger cannot. The refuge will close its writing chamber around what remains.
A concealed latch clicks inside the stone wall. The narrow slot opens wider, revealing a dark stair beyond, while the unseen quill scratches once in the chamber behind them.
Serren Vale
The stair is our way out. Do we trust the dark, or risk the ledger sealing us in?
Quest Complete
Secure the cipher page as corroboration for Pell
+ New Item Acquired
Cipher-marked folio