The outer stair rests beneath the waiting ward. Its blue words have faded, but their direction remains clear in the stone. Bren places the scorched duplicate beside Marek’s orders, keeping both hands visible.
Bren
The copy is damaged. The loss belongs in the record, exactly as it is.
Marek sits one step below her, pale and recovering. He faces the ward without reaching for its light or its authority.
Marek
I forced the crossing because I believed an order could make it answer. It answered by naming the act trespass.
Bren
I wanted a clean account. The vault keeps teaching me that truth is not the same as cleanliness.
The ward remains quiet. The original orders lie between them, while the ruined copy records what cannot be restored. For a while, the three witnesses have only the stair, the evidence, and one another.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure an openly acknowledged account of the damaged evidence
“I ask Marek to acknowledge the ruined copy and its missing evidence aloud.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +0)
Sil'Thalis
Acknowledge the ruined copy aloud, including the evidence it can no longer preserve.
Marek lowers his gaze to the scorched tablet. The blue ward-light catches the empty breaks where the record once continued.
Marek
I acknowledge this copy as damaged evidence. Its missing portion cannot be recovered from it, and my admission cannot restore what the flare destroyed.
The ward receives his words without merging them with the intact orders. A fine line of blue script forms beneath the duplicate, naming Marek as the speaker and the loss as witnessed.
Bren
Then the account is open. We preserve the admission, the original, and the gap between them.
The words WITNESS, SEPARATE, RETURN kindle once more, their light turning toward the active archive ward. Its threshold opens onto the way back, while Marek waits beside the evidence for what Sil'Thalis will do next.
Quest Complete
Secure an openly acknowledged account of the damaged evidence