The blue-chalk passage opens behind the countinghouse into a small alchemical laboratory. Mortars, blue-glass retorts, and warded scales fill the worktables, while dried herbs hang beneath the rafters.
A middle-aged elf woman in a dark green countinghouse coat steps from behind the scales. Silver threads her black hair, and a thin scar crosses one eyebrow as she studies the amber vial.
Ilyra Voss
I am Factor Ilyra Voss. The rare stabilizing salts are yours if the preparation withstands scrutiny, and if that marked dose is truly measured for the king.
Tavia lays the wrapped ledgers beside the worktable and begins sorting Pell’s authorizations, receiving duplicates, and Corin’s entries into a clear sequence.
Tavia Reed
I will draft the accusation while you demonstrate the counter-poison. Pell’s seal, the false shipments, and the conduit payments must stand together.
Ilyra Voss
Begin with the binding principle, then show the neutralization. Do not waste the marked dose. The scales will reveal whether your proportions are exact.
Ilyra unlocks a salt cabinet and sets three sealed measures beneath the warded scales. Tavia bends over her parchment, leaving Medica the laboratory, the evidence, and the waiting examination.
“Time to once again demonstrate my legendary alchemy skills. With a proper laboratory, I can create a stable and safe dose of the counter-poison. In preparation for possible encounters, I also prepare a version of the poison that can be administered via a dart. I come up with a plan to aerosolize the counter-poison, making it so that it cannot be easily stopped by the thaumaturges or Pell.”
SUCCESS (Superb Crafting, rolled +1)
Medica claims the laboratory’s central bench. Under Ilyra’s warded scales, she refines the counter-poison with stabilizing salts until the amber draught settles clear and steady, its royal dose safely marked.
She prepares a separate, sealed dart vial from the poison formula, binding it against evaporation and accidental contact. Its black contents remain dormant until delivered through the dart’s hollow tip.
Ilyra Voss
The proportions are exact, and the counter-poison is stable. Your second preparation is contained, but label it clearly. Confusion would be deadlier than Pell’s negligence.
Medica turns to the blue-glass retorts and sketches a dispersal apparatus: a protected reservoir, a fine-bore vessel, and a warded release chamber designed to spread the counter-poison as a mist.
She records the plan beside the dose, specifying that the mist must remain confined until opened within the affected chamber. The design bypasses ordinary touch and gives thaumaturges little solid mixture to seize.
Ilyra Voss
That could carry the antidote through a sealed room, provided the wind is controlled. I will furnish the vessel and have the Consortium copy your instructions.
Three completed preparations stand beneath the wardlight: a stable royal dose, a sealed dart vial, and a practical aerosol plan ready for the Consortium’s artificers to construct.
+ New Item Acquired
Sealed dart vial
“Excellent. Please deliver the anti-poison aerosol to the king's room through any means necessary. Maybe pass it off as the poison itself, trick the people who are administering poison to the king into administering the anti-poison instead.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +2)
Ilyra seals the aerosol reservoir inside a black-lacquered poison casket, disguising its blue-glass chamber beneath a false vial of treated blood salts. Consortium markings vanish under wax.
Ilyra Voss
Pell’s attendants expect poison in this form. Our licensed apothecary will present the casket, insist on administering the dose, and let their suspicion open the king’s door.
Tavia fastens the copied authorizations beneath the casket’s lid while Ilyra gives the courier Pell’s seal and a warning of contamination. The deception leaves no loose label to question.
Tavia Reed
The records make the lie credible. They will believe Pell sent a refined preparation to finish the work, not that we are replacing it.
Through countinghouse wards and palace service passages, the Consortium courier, a lean young adult human man with close-cropped black hair and a gray service coat, reaches the king’s chamber. Pell’s attending alchemists, two adult human women in white apothecary smocks with copper badges, inspect the casket, find the forged seal, and order the reservoir opened.
The warded chamber fills with a controlled silver mist. It settles around the king’s bed and instruments, neutralizing the bound residue without exposing the concentrated formula to Pell’s watchers.
Ilyra Voss
The anti-poison is in the king’s room, delivered under their own orders. Now the physicians must hold the exposure and keep Pell from feeding the working again.
“Now, we find Pell. Do you know where he is, Voss? If we can cut off the plot to kill the king at the head, anyone working underneath Pell should fall as well.”
SUCCESS (Superb Reasoning, rolled +1)
Medica Valkyrie
Voss, where is Pell? If we cut off the plot at its head, everyone working beneath him should fall with it.
Ilyra Voss
He is beneath the palace, in the old conduit chamber. The king’s physicians believe it is sealed, but Pell has kept a private stair through the western countinghouse vault.
Ilyra Voss draws a charcoal plan across the worktable, marking the countinghouse vault, a sunken chapel foundation, and the conduit chamber beneath the king’s quarters.
Ilyra Voss
He is directing the working personally. Strike the chamber and Pell loses command of the lower conduits. His assistants will be blind without his authority.
Tavia folds the accusation beneath her coat and studies the route. Beyond the laboratory, Consortium bells answer one another as the physicians secure the king’s room.
Tavia Reed
Then we go through the vault, reach the conduit chamber, and expose Pell before he can restore the working.
Ilyra Voss unlocks a narrow iron door behind the salt cabinet. A blue wardline descends into darkness, leading directly toward Pell’s hidden chamber beneath the palace.
✓ Quest Accepted
Enter the conduit chamber safely
“Tavia, I'm going to depend on you once again for your navigation skills. The moment we see Pell, there will be no hesitation. I prepare a device to launch the dart.”
SUCCESS (Superb Crafting, rolled -1)
Medica Valkyrie
Tavia, I am depending on your navigation again. When we see Pell, there will be no hesitation.
Tavia Reed
Then stay close and trust my turns. I will take us through the vault and bring you directly to him.
Medica opens her satchel beneath the blue wardlight and assembles a compact dart-launching device from a spring bow, a padded brace, and the sealed dart vial.
She seats the dart in its hollow channel, locks the vial into its cradle, and tests the trigger without releasing it. The mechanism holds firm and points safely toward the empty wall.
Ilyra Voss
Quietly made, and precise. The dart will deliver the sealed preparation without exposing your hand, but Pell may have wards against intrusion.
Medica secures the device beneath her coat, leaving its trigger accessible and its dart protected. Tavia takes the lead through the iron doorway as the blue wardline descends.
Tavia Reed
The vault passage bends beneath the chapel foundation. Keep your steps measured. When the chamber opens, we act before Pell can turn the conduits against the king.
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose Orven Pell
+ New Item Acquired
Dart launcher
“Follow the outlined path, keeping alert at all times, until we reach the chamber”
SUCCESS (Superb Perception, rolled +3)
Tavia leads beneath the chapel foundation, following Ilyra’s charcoal turns through the vault. Medica keeps alert, checking ward seams, concealed doors, and the dart’s locked cradle.
Tavia Reed
Left at the salt pillar. The blue line is old, but the dust is newly disturbed beyond it.
They pass without triggering a ward. Tavia’s careful route reveals a hidden inspection niche containing fresh conduit tallies, each marked with Orven Pell’s private seal.
Tavia Reed
These prove he has been directing the lower conduits himself. Keep them in mind, but do not stop.
The passage opens into the old conduit chamber. Orven Pell, an elderly elf man in layered black-and-gold robes, with a gaunt build, a narrow wrinkled face, copper-brown skin, and long white hair bound at the nape, stands before a ring of glowing channels, one hand raised over the central mechanism.
The king’s working is visible beneath the floor as amber currents drain toward the palace. Pell has not noticed them, and the inspection tallies give Medica immediate proof of his command.
Orven Pell
At last. I wondered which of the Consortium’s little agents would find this door.
Quest Complete
Enter the conduit chamber safely
Skill Upgrade: Crafting Superb→Legendary