Three weeks after the vault closes behind him, Tancred sits in a roadside inn under smoke-stained rafters. Rain ticks at the panes. The room is half-empty, until a hooded courier stops at his table and sets down a heavy envelope sealed in dark wax.
The courier does not speak. He only slides the envelope closer, the seal stamped with a star Tancred knows too well, then turns away as if afraid to linger near it.
Tancred du Forietan
Tancred asks what this is, and who sent it.
The Hooded Courier
Read it. If you want the truth behind your refusal, go where the map points. Bring back what sleeps there, and the name that buried it.
Inside, the parchment smells of old ash and damp stone. A map marks a ruined reliquary in the hills, with a note promising a black iron key, a relic of warding, and proof of who forged the thing tied to his blood.
Tancred du Forietan
The seal matches the mark that watches me.
The courier is already gone into the rain. On the table remains only the envelope, the map, and the sense that something has just found him again.
✓ Quest Accepted
Read the envelope and learn who sent it
✓ Quest Accepted
Go to the ruined reliquary in the hills
“I examine the envelope. Is there a wax seal on it? Does it have a sigil of a noble house? Perhaps a name on the letter within?”
SUCCESS (Good Investigation, rolled -1)
Tancred studies the envelope’s wax from the table edge, turning it just enough for the firelight to catch. The seal is no merchant mark, but a star cut inside a ring of thorns, pressed so hard the wax has cracked at the edges.
Tancred du Forietan
The same star again.
He works the fold open. Inside, the paper is damp from travel and lined with a narrow hand, the kind that copies scripture or records debts. A name appears at the bottom, half-scraped by the wax residue, but still legible.
Not a house name. Not a patron’s title. It is an order’s signature, and the phrasing is colder than the rain outside, as if the writer expects Tancred to already be guilty.
The Hooded Courier
Too late. They marked the letter before I got here.
The courier’s shadow vanishes through the doorway. On the parchment, the map’s route is now unmistakable, a ruined reliquary in the hills circled in black ink, with a warding key named in the margin.
Tancred’s thumb brushes the seal and comes away faintly red with softened wax. The room seems to hold its breath around the open letter, waiting for him to choose whether to keep reading or follow the map into the dark.
Quest Complete
Read the envelope and learn who sent it