Deren steps into the waystation and pulls the iron plate nearly shut behind him. Blue witchlight catches damp stone, the packet, and the forked route scratched across the wall.
Deren
The crowned serpent is a smuggling network, but not for coin. It moves forbidden relics and living witnesses from the old kingdom's vaults before the Empire can seize them.
Alleria
Living witnesses? You expect us to believe a clerk's route marks lead to prisoners beneath the hills?
Deren
Not prisoners. Survivors, mostly. One of them knows what the vault protects, and the network has hidden that truth behind false manifests and sealed roads.
He points to the forked diagram. The river road bears three faded warning cuts; the hill route is freshly chalked, ending at a symbol like a closed eye. Somewhere beyond it, footsteps pass and fade.
Deren
Use the hill route, and you may learn why the watchers protect the vault. Reveal the packet to Sanctuary, and the network may survive, but its secret will not.
Alleria
Then we choose before another watcher finds this door. Deren, lead us to the fork, and do not touch the packet.
− Story Quest Removed
Interpret the packet's route marks and crowned-serpent connection
“I question Deren about the surviving witness”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled -1)
L'Sara T'Lvanni
The surviving witness. Who are they, and what do they know about the vault?
Deren
Her name is Ilyra. She was a royal archivist when the old kingdom fell, and she saw what the vault was built to contain.
Deren’s guarded expression tightens. He taps the closed-eye mark, then glances toward the passage as if measuring how much time their questions have spent.
Deren
Ilyra claims the vault protects a bound intelligence, older than the kingdom and able to command whoever opens its inner seal.
Alleria
Claims? You do not know whether she is telling the truth.
Deren
I know she has repeated the same account under questioning, and that the network moved her twice after watchers found the first refuge. I cannot prove she survived the last transfer.
The answer gives L’Sara Ilyra’s identity and testimony, but leaves her present whereabouts unverified. Outside, a distant footfall returns, and Deren finally points toward the hill-route stair.
“I follow Deren toward the hill-route stair”
L'Sara follows Deren down the hill-route stair. The blue witchlights thin as the passage descends, revealing old royal seals beneath layers of dust and chalk.
Deren
The upper refuge is ahead. Ilyra survived the last transfer, and the network is ready to move her once the false manifests are exposed.
The stair opens into a sealed archive beneath the hills. Shelves hold genuine manifests, royal testimony, and maps of every hidden route leading toward the lost vault.
Alleria
Then the ledger and packet finish what the network began. We can return the evidence to Sanctuary and make the Empire answer for its seizures.
Deren unlocks an inner chamber. Ilyra waits within, an elderly woman wrapped in a gray travel cloak, her iron-gray hair braided close and a pale scar marking her temple,, her thin face stern but alert. She places the royal account beside the packet.
Ilyra
The vault contains no treasure fit for a conqueror. It contains a warning, and the means to bind what sleeps below. Let the evidence be heard before anyone opens that seal.
With Ilyra safe and the manifests secured, Deren seals the archive behind them. The route to the vault remains known, but its secret no longer belongs to the Empire alone.
“I ask Ilyra to explain the warning”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled -1)
L'Sara T'Lvanni
Explain the warning. What sleeps below, and why must it be bound rather than destroyed?
Ilyra
The vault holds a bound intelligence from before the old kingdom. It is not a beast, but a will that enters the mind through command and memory.
Ilyra unfolds the royal account and lays one finger beneath a passage written in cramped black ink. The page describes rulers who heard voices in sealed chambers and obeyed them.
Ilyra
Destroying the seal would free it. Binding it preserves the warning and keeps its commands from reaching the surface. The ritual requires the royal testimony, the true manifests, and the inner key.
Alleria
Then the evidence is not merely proof of theft. It is part of the lock.
Ilyra
Exactly. But I spent too long explaining the old seal. We must deliver these papers before dusk, while the Empire's seizure order still bears its falsified authority.
The warning is clear: the vault's intelligence commands minds, and the assembled evidence can preserve its binding. Ilyra closes the account, while the archive's remaining route maps await their return to Sanctuary.
“I return the evidence to Sanctuary”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled +2)