The trail leaves Phandelver by the eastern road, threading between rain-dark hedges and abandoned sheds. Bren walks beside Sil’Thalis; Marek remains behind under the Hall’s watch.
Beneath an empty storehouse, a concealed stair descends into stale dust and charcoal smoke. The forged witness-sign glimmers faintly along the stones, guiding them below.
Bren
Ilyra built this place to disappear from ordinary sight. Her marks are fresh enough that someone expected the route to remain useful.
The wayhouse opens into a cramped chamber lined with charcoal-veiled instructions. Xar-marked tokens rest in niches, each beside a copied fragment of the divided record.
Bren
The network is active. These are not relics preserved from the war. Someone has been receiving orders, moving tokens, and watching the archive ward.
A fresh map lies beneath a stone weight, tracing roads toward the distant coastal archive. Beyond it, a sealed door bears Ilyra Voss’s angular mark and a single inscription addressed to whoever carries the divided record.
Bren
Sil’Thalis, the chamber names you without naming you. Shall we open it, or first preserve everything here exactly as we found it?
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine what Ilyra Voss’s sealed message demands
“I sence the door for any wards that would alarm Ilyra Voss of any attempt to open the sealed door.”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled +2)
Sil'Thalis approaches the sealed door without touching it. He lets his perception pass over the angular mark, the hinges, and the stone around its frame.
Sil'Thalis
No ward calls outward to Ilyra. The door carries a dormant witness-trap, not an alarm.
The pattern reveals itself in layers: the outer mark verifies the bearer, while a finer thread records any forced opening inside the chamber. Neither thread reaches beyond the wayhouse.
Bren
So she would learn that someone entered, but not through an answering signal. The record itself would betray us if we broke the seal.
A second resonance confirms the distinction. Opening the door according to its mark will leave a witnessed trace, but it will not alert Ilyra or any distant accomplice.
Bren
Then we know the risk before choosing. No unseen summons waits behind it, only a record that refuses to forget.
“With a cruel smirk, " then do I make it obvious or settle lass?"”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +0)
Sil'Thalis
Then do I make it obvious, or subtle, lass?
The cruel curl of Sil’Thalis’s mouth catches the ward-light. He follows the door’s inner pattern with restrained precision, opening it without force while allowing the witness-trace to record him plainly.
Bren
Subtle in the hand, obvious in the record. Let the door know we entered, but give Ilyra no summons to follow.
The angular mark loosens beneath his touch. Stone withdraws with a muted scrape, and blue script fixes Sil’Thalis and Bren as voluntary witnesses; the distant thread remains dark.
Beyond waits a narrow archive chamber, dry and close, crowded with wax tablets, copied route-marks, and a coastal map pinned beneath black iron weights.
Bren
Inside, and recorded. No alarm answered us. Whatever follows, we have not hidden how we came.
At the chamber’s center, a fresh tablet bears Ilyra Voss’s angular mark beside a single destination: the coastal archive ward.
“I copy the route-marks before touching anything, I examine Ilyra’s fresh tablet.”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled +2)
Sil’Thalis copies the route-marks first, preserving every road, omission, and angular notation without touching the fresh tablet. The duplicate remains separate from Ilyra’s evidence.
Sil'Thalis
The route begins here, but the archive ward is its destination, not its proof.
Only after the marks are copied does he examine Ilyra’s tablet. Its wax seal is fresh, and the angular impression overlays a careful map of the coastal archive’s outer approaches.
Bren
The route avoids every settled road. It is designed for messages, tokens, and witnesses who are not meant to meet one another.
The tablet’s final lines reveal Ilyra’s instruction: place the forged witness-pattern before the archive ward, then make its acceptance appear older than the record carried by Sil’Thalis.
Bren
She means to counterfeit precedence. If the ward believes her pattern came first, it may treat our testimony as the intrusion.
Beneath the instruction, a smaller mark names the appointed bearer: not Ilyra, but an unnamed hand already carrying a copied route toward the coastal archive.
Quest Complete
Determine what Ilyra Voss’s sealed message demands
Attribute Upgrade: Perception Great→Superb
“I preserve the wayhouse evidence and misdirect the bearer, then I follow the copied route toward the coastal archive”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled +0)
Sil’Thalis copies the remaining tablets, tokens, map, and wax impressions, preserving their positions and omissions. Bren seals the duplicates apart from Ilyra’s originals.
At the appointed bearer’s copied route, Sil’Thalis alters one harmless branch mark, directing any reader toward an abandoned northern ford while leaving the true coastal path intact.
Sil'Thalis
The false route changes nothing in the evidence. It only changes where the next claimant looks.
Bren
The bearer will find a convincing road and no archive ward. By the time the mistake is understood, our record will already be elsewhere.
They leave the wayhouse undisturbed, its originals sealed beneath their stone weight and its witnessed entry intact. Bren carries the faithful copies; Sil’Thalis keeps the true route.
For two days they follow hedgerows, rain-cut tracks, and forgotten paths toward the coast. The copied route leads them directly to the archive ward’s outer boundary.
Bren
There it is. The ward has not accepted Ilyra’s counterfeit yet. We reached it first, with the evidence separated and the false road behind us.