The guards lead Timothy from beneath the gatehouse into the records room, chains clinking over worn boards. Hrodric carries the fresh declaration, while Harlen follows as an independent witness.
Cerdic enters last with the scarred pursuer. The pursuer remains near the doorway, mud-streaked and watchful, plainly aware that every detail may decide whether Cerdic’s authority was deliberate or merely convenient.
Cerdic
Hrodric, reconstruct the return from the chapel. Begin with the moment Timothy offered the bonds, and omit nothing that bears on lawful custody.
Hrodric
He returned voluntarily, carrying the irons from the mud. The Northmere official permitted restraint only as his choice, forbade punishment, and ordered that he remain available as a witness.
Harlen
The scarred pursuer accepted the bonds, but the official warned that no transfer or punishment could occur without her order. That warning was heard by every man in the yard.
Cerdic
And here, before you and Harlen, Timothy declared himself my property and granted unlimited authority. Was he threatened, promised release, or struck before speaking?
Hrodric
No. His words were voluntary as witnessed. Yet the earlier seizure remains separate, and the record must not let this declaration erase it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Prove reliable repetition of your testimony under torture
“I persuade Cerdic to ensure the reliability of my account by testing whether I can repeat it reliability under torture, in addition to the voluntary account of it that I have already made.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Diplomacy, rolled +0)
Timothy
Test my account under pain, Cerdic. If I repeat it while being tortured, you can trust that my declaration is reliable.
The records room falls silent. Hrodric’s quill stops, and Harlen’s tired gaze fixes on the chains at Timothy’s wrists.
Cerdic
You ask me to create evidence that Northmere would call coercion. Yet you also offer a test that could expose your account as deliberate invention.
Hrodric
If this proceeds, I will record the proposal, the safeguards, and every answer before and afterward. Pain cannot become a convenient omission.
Cerdic orders a brief, witnessed trial of pain, forbidding blows that risk lasting injury. The questioning is conducted behind a closed inner door and then summarized in the declaration.
Cerdic
He repeated the chapel return, the official’s warning, and his declaration of my authority without contradiction. I accept the test, though it has raised my suspicion of anyone who would request it.
The cost is immediate: Timothy’s wrists are left swollen beneath the irons, and Hrodric adds the torture proposal itself to the record, ensuring Northmere will judge Cerdic’s conduct as closely as Timothy’s truthfulness.
Quest Complete
Prove reliable repetition of your testimony under torture