Prior Silas drops the leather strap and kneels hard on the stone, his rod throwing violet light across the floor. His fingers follow the etched lines, slower now, as if the monastery itself is speaking under his hand.
Prior Silas
Not a ledger. A way down.
He straightens a little, greed sharpening into caution. The chain in his fist tightens as he looks up at Timothy, then back to the marks, measuring both boy and stone as if each might betray him.
Prior Silas
These marks are no account book. They are the old foundations.
Silas drags the rod along one symbol, then another, tracing a buried route. Dust trembles from the seams. Timothy stays bound beside him, the broken stool overturned behind his heels, watching the Prior's certainty turn hungry.
Prior Silas
You knew. Now speak plainly. Where does this passage lead?
+ Story Quest Added
Learn where the monastery foundations lead
“I speak plainly and tell Prior Silas truthfully that I don't know where it leads. I persuade him that he should punish me again with the leather strap or pulsing iron rod if he suspects that I am not telling the truth.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Diplomacy, rolled +1)
Timothy
I do not know, Prior. If I hid it, I would say so. Strike me again if you think I lie.
The chamber falls still except for the faint crackle of the rod's violet glow. Dust sifts from the seams above, and the etched lines on the floor gleam like a buried script under candlelight.
Prior Silas
That is a dangerous plainness for a boy in chains.
Silas rises from his kneel in one hard motion. The rod stays low, but his grip tightens on it, and the leather strap shifts free against the stone by his knee.
Prior Silas
He sounds honest. Too honest to trust, yet not enough to dismiss.
He steps closer to Timothy, then angles the rod back over the glowing symbols. The light catches a chipped crosscut line in the floor, a mark that seems to point toward the wall behind the altar niche.
Prior Silas
If you know nothing, then help me read this. These foundations go somewhere, and I mean to find where.
“I help read the floor marks, knowing that Prior Silas will physically chastise me again if I fail.”
SUCCESS (Superb Theology, rolled -2)
Timothy lowers his gaze to the lit lines and lets his attention travel where the chips and seams pull his eye. The marks are not tallying marks at all, but a planned way under stone, turning toward the altar niche and beyond it.
Timothy
The line is a passage, not a record.
He follows one deeper groove with his eyes, then another, and the shape of the hidden route settles plain in the glow. The monastery foundations lead under the altar wall, then onward into older work beneath the chamber.
Prior Silas
There. You see it now. Speak plainly, boy, where does it run?
Silas bends over Timothy's shoulder, the rod hovering but not striking. His free hand tightens once on the strap at his knee, as if measuring whether mercy or force will serve him better.
Timothy
Under the altar wall. It goes deeper into the old foundations.
Prior Silas
Good. Then you are useful after all.
The violet light runs in a clear thread toward the niche, and Silas turns his head toward it with hungry focus. Somewhere beyond the stone, there is space waiting, and he wants it opened now.
Quest Complete
Learn where the monastery foundations lead
Fault Removed: Superstitious