The broken tannery trail fades behind a warped door in a shuttered safe room. Dusty shelves, a cold hearth, and a single barred window hold back Sanctuary's noise.
Alleria bolts the door, then pulls a small oil lamp from beneath a loose floorboard. Its weak flame reveals a narrow cot and a table scarred by old knife marks.
Alleria
Sit a moment. That shoulder took the worst of the escape, and I know enough remedies to keep it from stiffening.
She wets a folded strip of linen from a clay flask and carefully presses it around the bruised shoulder, working quickly but without wasting pressure.
Alleria
Now, the ledger. May I see it? Sanctuary's estates hide their dealings behind repeated seals, symbols, and favored routes.
Alleria clears a space on the table. Beyond the barred window, a distant bell marks another passing minute, while rain carries hoofbeats somewhere through the streets.
Alleria
If these marks match what I remember, we can trace the estate network. But the guards will search the tannery first, and they will not stop there.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify the ledger's coded contact
✓ Quest Accepted
Trace the estate network's dealings
“I lay the ledger open and show Alleria its repeated seals.”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +2)
L'Sara lays the ledger open across the scarred table and turns it toward Alleria. Damp pages spread beneath the oil lamp, exposing repeated estate seals and marked routes.
Alleria leans over the pages, copper hair falling across one shoulder as her finger follows the matching emblems. Her expression sharpens when the same seal appears beside several routes.
Alleria
There. The seal repeats, but the routes change. These estates are moving something through Sanctuary under different names.
She reaches for a scrap of charcoal and copies three symbols beside one another, then compares their spacing with the ledger's favored roads.
Alleria
This mark is not ownership. It is permission, or a warning to those who know how to read it. The pattern points toward the river warehouses.
Rain ticks against the barred window. Alleria closes the ledger only after preserving the copied marks, leaving the revealed pattern clear between them on the table.
“Is the coded contact among the river warehouses?”
YES, AND MORE (Likely, rolled 7)
Alleria lifts the charcoal copy beside the ledger's final route. The symbols align with a river warehouse seal, and a small notch marks a side entrance absent from the estate records.
Alleria
Yes. The coded contact is among the river warehouses, and this notch gives us a way in without crossing the main yard.
She turns the ledger toward the lamp and traces the route with one finger. A second notation, nearly hidden beneath a seal, identifies Warehouse Seven and tonight's tide bell.
Alleria
Warehouse Seven. The shipment arrives tonight, when the tide bell sounds twice. Whoever our contact is, they left us more than a meeting place.
Alleria's expression brightens, though she keeps her voice low. The hidden notation also sketches a drainage culvert beneath the warehouse, wide enough for one person to crawl through.
Alleria
A private entrance, a marked shipment, and a bell to time our arrival. We can reach the contact before the estate's watchers know the ledger survived.
She folds the charcoal scrap into her sleeve and leaves the ledger open to Warehouse Seven. Beyond the barred window, rain deepens over the river quarter.
“I study the ledger for the contact's identity”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +2)
L'Sara studies the ledger beneath the wavering lamp, comparing seal spacing, route marks, and the tiny notch beside Warehouse Seven. The pattern resolves into a deliberate cipher.
L'Sara T'Lvanni
The contact is not an estate clerk. The ledger identifies them by the three-hook mark and a river-tally phrase.
Turning back two pages, L'Sara finds the same three-hook mark beside a list of shipments recorded as spoiled. The false entries conceal a single living courier within the warehouse network.
Alleria
So the contact is the one who falsifies the spoiled tallies. That narrows it to the warehouse's receiving clerk, or someone trusted enough to alter the books.
A final notation beneath the cipher confirms the identity: the coded contact signs every false tally with a broken circle and keeps the genuine manifest in the riverside receiving office.
Alleria
Then we know who to find and where they work. The receiving office is our destination, before the tide bell sounds twice.
Quest Complete
Identify the ledger's coded contact
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Fair→Good