Three weeks pass beneath Phandelver’s ordinary rhythm. In a quiet guesthouse room, afternoon rain taps the shutters while Sil’Thalis finds a sealed place to sit undisturbed.
The door opens without ceremony. Bren enters alone, carrying a newly wrapped tablet close against her chest, and sets it carefully on the table.
Bren
I kept naming every break in the damaged account. This impression appeared yesterday, where nothing marked the loss before.
The wrapping bears Vael Turog’s divided witness-sign, but a thin blue-black impression presses through the cloth beneath it, shaped like a claim interrupted.
Bren
Marek is not here. I wanted no order, fear, or obedience standing between us and the question.
Bren
Is this evidence left by the crossing, an imitation made by someone who studied it, or an attempt to seize authority over what remains?
She unwraps the tablet but does not touch the fresh impression. Its mark darkens once, answering neither Bren nor the room, and waits for Sil’Thalis.
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine the origin of the interrupted claim impression
“I study the interrupted impression without touching it. I compare its shape with Vael Turog’s divided witness-sign. Then I study the weave of the spells to see it that was altered or compromised.”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled -1)
Sil’Thalis studies the impression without touching it. Its broken claim curves like Vael Turog’s divided witness-sign, but the likeness is copied from memory rather than grown from the same ward.
Sil'Thalis
The interruption is deliberate. The spell was altered before it reached the tablet, and its claim has been severed from authority.
He follows the faint weave through the air, tracing where blue witness-lines should separate. Dark threads have been inserted across them, forcing the pattern to imitate division while concealing a single pressure beneath.
Bren
So it is not a surviving mark from the crossing. Someone changed the spellwork, then shaped the change to resemble our safeguard.
The impression answers his examination with a muted pulse. Its outer form bears Vael Turog’s vocabulary, but its inner weave carries no recognized witness, no separate account, and no lawful return.
Bren
An imitation, then. Altered before it appeared here, and compromised in the act of claiming what the record refuses to give.
The mark fades to a thin blue-black residue, leaving its structure visible but its attempted authority broken. The tablet remains intact, and the fresh impression is now understood as forged spellwork, not inheritance.
✓ Quest Accepted
Identify who forged the interrupted claim impression
Quest Complete
Determine the origin of the interrupted claim impression
“I compare the forged weave with Marek's orders and Xar's known marks.”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Arcana, rolled +2)
Sil’Thalis places Marek’s orders beside the tablet, then studies the forged weave without touching either. The dark threads answer the ink’s old pressure with a faint, discordant pulse.
The comparison resolves cleanly: the forged pattern copies Xar’s angular intrusion mark, the same signature that once disturbed the crown and directed Marek’s crossing.
Bren
Then Xar reached farther than we knew. Not as a house in Phandelver, but through someone preserving its methods.
Marek’s orders confirm the link. Their command structure carries the same severed authority, but the forged weave is newer, altered to conceal its source beneath Vael Turog’s witness vocabulary.
Bren
The imitation wanted us to blame the crossing itself. Instead, it carries Xar’s mark under the disguise.
A final comparison exposes one distinction: the orders sought access by force, while the forged spell seeks to make stolen authority appear already witnessed. Its maker understands the safeguards.
Bren
Whoever made this has studied our record, Marek’s failure, and the limits we set. They are not claiming the past. They are preparing to claim what comes next.
“I trace the forged weave toward its maker, on up to whom gave the order for the forgery”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled +1)
Sil’Thalis traces the dark threads through the tablet’s residue. The forged weave recoils from his touchless scrutiny, then unspools a hidden path through copied witness-signs.
The path crosses Marek’s orders, follows their severed authority backward, and resolves into a memory of a sealed room beneath Vael Turog.
There, a woman in a charcoal veil places a Xar-marked token before an unseen scribe. Her voice reaches the spell as a preserved impression.
Ilyra Voss
Forge the witness-pattern, conceal the angular mark, and make the record appear to consent. The next crossing must answer before they know who called it.
The impression identifies her clearly: Ilyra Voss, former Xar cipher-mistress and Marek’s superior in the crossing operation. Her order predates the forged tablet by six days.
Bren
Ilyra Voss. The maker was following an order, not improvising. Someone preserved her authority after House Xar fell.
The trace ends at a concealed wayhouse beyond Phandelver’s eastern road, carrying Ilyra’s last instruction and the name of her next intended target: the archive ward.
Preserve the trace identifying Ilyra Voss
Quest Complete
Identify who forged the interrupted claim impression
Skill Upgrade: Arcana Mediocre→Fair