East Orangol’s city center swells with market noise and fearful silence. The gallows stand half-built on the stones, and the blue-white glimmer in Demetrius’s sight pulses straight toward them.
The Lead Settler pales as they read the posted warrant nailed to the scaffold rail. Their fingers tighten on the paper, and the seal looks wrong even from here.
Demetrius cloudkin
The wax mark is a copy, not a true office seal.
The Lead Settler
This is forged. They are using it to hang Charmaine and rouse the city.
At the base of the platform, the execution crew hesitates. The crowd presses closer, hungry for certainty, while the warder glances between the warrant and the road as if expecting orders that never come.
Charmaine Liverwarr
Then stop them before they make this lie into law.
The vision-thread in Demetrius’s mind snaps taut toward the east road, and the glimmer answers like a beacon. Elowicios the Black is not far from the forged paper that started this, and this killing is the next link in his web.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure a stay of execution for Charmaine
“Enough of this madness elowicious announces. He blesses the crowd. And recounts recent events regarding elowicious the black”
SUCCESS (Fair Persuasion, rolled -1)
Demetrius lifts his holy symbol over the square, and a hush follows the motion more than the words. The blue-white thread in his sight steadies, then seems to spread through the onlookers like a calm held between breaths.
Demetrius cloudkin
Enough of this madness. Elowicios the Black is behind it, and this warrant is a lie.
He recounts the false seal, the east road, the copied mark, and the thread of deception tied to the execution. As he speaks, the crowd’s anger bends away from Charmaine and toward the scaffold rail, where the paper still hangs like proof.
The Lead Settler
Then we halt it now. If this is forged, no one here has the right to spill her blood for it.
Demetrius finishes the blessing, and several in the crowd cross themselves or bow their heads. The execution crew lowers their tools, visibly unsettled, while Charmaine draws one careful breath and keeps her eyes on the cleric.
Charmaine Liverwarr
You have bought me time, if only by a heartbeat. That is more mercy than this square has offered me all day.
The Lead Settler folds the forged warrant and turns it toward the nearest warder, but the paper edges tremble in their grip. A whispered doubt spreads through the square, and a few guards look away from the gallows.
Identify the hidden master behind the forged warrant
Quest Complete
Secure a stay of execution for Charmaine