The group crosses Phandelver’s darkening square and arrives at the Hall of Welcome. Its old stone facade rises above the quiet street, marked with faded Domini sigils and pale ward-light.
Inside, cool air smells of dust, lamp oil, and rain-soaked stone. The sealed testimony rests among Bren’s careful records as the doors close behind you.
Sael
You brought the testimony under seal. Good. The Hall has been listening since your mark woke its walls.
Sael waits beneath the central arch with the Senior Warden. At Bren’s uncovered crescent, the old symbols flare, then gutter into uneasy red lines.
The Senior Warden
That mark belonged to a keeper of the Deep Seal. House Domini preserved fragments of Maerith Vey’s record, but never understood what stewardship demanded.
Bren
The wards are not denying me. They are afraid of what they remember.
Teren studies the arch without touching it. Behind the ward-light, a narrow stair descends toward the Hall’s sealed archive, where the remaining records of Maerith Vey await judgment.
“"Sael, way did the Xar Captain have such an interest in you?" I ask coldly”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -2)
Sil'Thalis
Sael, why was the Xar captain so interested in you? I ask coldly.
Sael
Because I was a keeper before I was your companion. Marek knew the crossing beneath the crown answered to my authority, and he believed I could force it open.
The red ward-lines contract at the name Xar. A thread of heat snaps across Bren’s crescent, leaving a fresh, narrow burn across her palm.
Bren
He was not hunting Sael alone. He wanted the permission carried by this mark, and the route it could command.
Sael
I kept silent because Marek’s orders named the keeper as an asset, not a witness. I feared the Hall would hear that distinction and choose the same language.
The stair’s ward-light turns from red to pale gold, revealing script along its first step: WITNESS MAY ENTER, HOUSE MAY NOT CLAIM. The Senior Warden reaches toward the inscription, then stops, waiting.
“I read seals surface thoughts”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled +0)
Sil'Thalis turns his perception toward Sael, reading the surface thoughts that rise before they can be guarded.
Sael
The Hall is listening. If it hears keeper, it will ask what I command. If it hears witness, it may let us pass.
Beneath that immediate fear, Sil'Thalis catches a precise memory: Marek did not know the route's destination. He wanted Sael to name the threshold as House property, then use their authority to claim whatever answered below.
Sael
I should have told them sooner. Silence protected the passage, not the people standing in it.
The pale-gold seal accepts the reading. Its judgment separates Sael's keeper-authority from House Domini's ownership, and the first stair opens fully into a cool archive passage.
The Senior Warden
Then the Hall has distinguished command from testimony. I will open the surviving records to witnesses beyond the House.
Bren
And I will record what the seal showed, including what remains uncertain.
Below, unclaimed tablets stir in their recesses. One bears a fresh line of gold script, naming the next witness who must choose whether to descend.
✓ Quest Accepted
Enter the archive as independent witnesses
“I read the gold script on the tablet before entering the archive.”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled +1)
The gold script steadies beneath Sil'Thalis's gaze. Its letters are not a name, but a charge written for the witness who reads them.
He follows the first curve, then the second, reading the tablet's layered ward-signs without touching it. The meaning resolves in the cold air.
Sael
It is addressing him directly. The Hall has chosen the reader, not the House.
The tablet declares: The next witness must carry no banner, inherit no command, and enter with the record still open to judgment.
A final line appears beneath the charge, revealing that the next witness is sought below, where the first testimony was divided from the hand that preserved it.
The Senior Warden
Then the archive is not merely opened. It is asking whether you will descend under those terms.
Bren
The line is clear, but its reference is not. We should decide whether to follow it before the script fades.
✓ Quest Accepted
Examine the divided first testimony
“I descend as an independent witness to examine the divided testimony.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Sil'Thalis descends beneath the pale-gold stair without banner or escorting claim. The seal parts before him, recognizing the witness who enters by judgment alone.
The archive opens around him, a cool chamber of suspended tablets and dim blue light. Behind, the stair remains open for those who witness without taking possession.
Sael
It accepted your terms. No House has crossed with you.
At the chamber's center, one record divides into two hovering halves. One preserves the first testimony's words; the other preserves the hand that wrote them, separate and unaltered.
Sil'Thalis examines both inscriptions. Their shared sequence becomes clear, along with the exact point where testimony and preserving hand ceased to be the same account.
Bren
Then the archive has opened its judgment, not its history. Do we copy both halves before the ward decides what comes next?
Quest Complete
Enter the archive as independent witnesses
Attribute Upgrade: Perception Good→Great
Quest Complete
Examine the divided first testimony
“I ask Bren to copy both testimony halves”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled +0)
Sil'Thalis
Bren, copy both halves. Keep the testimony and the preserving hand separate.
Bren steps down beside the records and opens her ledger. The crescent on her palm casts a thin black light across the divided inscriptions.
Bren
Both accounts, without merging them. I will mark the gap exactly as the archive made it.
Her quill moves. One page receives the testimony's words; another receives the original hand's pattern. Neither script fades, shifts, or claims authority over the other.
When Bren finishes, the two hovering halves lower their light into the copies. The archive accepts the record as witnessed by two independent hands.
Bren
It is open to scrutiny now. But this final line names the one who separated the testimony from its keeper. Shall I read it aloud?
✓ Quest Accepted
Have Bren read aloud the final line naming who separated the testimony from its keeper
“I ask Bren to read the final line aloud. I study both copies while Bren reads the naming line.”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled -1)
Sil'Thalis
Bren, read the final line aloud. I will study both copies.
Bren lowers her quill and turns the ledger toward the ward-light. Sil'Thalis examines the paired scripts, tracing where the same account divides into preserved words and preserving hand.
The copies reveal no hidden alteration. One remembers the testimony's language; the other remembers the keeper's act of preservation. Their separation is deliberate, witnessed, and complete.
Bren
The final line reads: Maerith Vey separated the testimony from its keeper, so neither the record nor the hand that preserved it could claim the other.
At her spoken words, the archive's pale-gold ward settles across the floor. The descending stair closes without sealing the chamber, and the surviving records unfold into clear view around them.
Bren
The Hall has heard the name and accepted the separation. No house may make either half speak for the other. What should we place before the witnesses first, the words or the hand?
Quest Complete
Have Bren read aloud the final line naming who separated the testimony from its keeper
“I ask Bren to present the words first”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +2)
Sil'Thalis
Present the words first.
Bren sets the copy of the testimony at the center of the open ring, leaving the record of the preserving hand apart. The gold ward-lines bend toward the written account.
Bren
Then let the words stand without the hand to defend them. I will read what was preserved, and nothing more.
She reads the first testimony into the chamber. The tablets answer by arranging themselves in a descending arc, each inscription opening to independent scrutiny.
Bren
The archive is not asking which witness owns this account. It is asking what the account can bear when no keeper speaks for it.
At the arc's lowest point, a blank tablet turns face-up. Its surface accepts the testimony's final words, then leaves a clear space beneath them for the witnesses' judgment.
✓ Quest Accepted
Have the ward accept the witnesses' judgment