Back in the quiet, book-lined study, Dallas lays the map beside the packet and the carbon copy page. The room feels smaller now, as if the walls have leaned in to listen.
Professor Dayton
This is not an escape route. It is a funnel.
Dayton traces the markings with two fingers, then stops at the bend near the waterfront spur. The pencil lines, the clerk stamps, the timing notes, they all lock together into one ugly shape.
Professor Dayton
The route is staged. It does not lead out of Far Harbor, it leads into a trap.
Curtis
That explains the missing options. They wanted a single road, and a bad end at the end of it.
Dallas studies the copied page and the desk packet. The earlier question answers itself at last, the one who fled the inner office was not running from the truth, they were carrying it. The map is a death warrant dressed up like mercy.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find a way out of the trap route
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the official behind the route trap
“I will ask Curtis to identify which official signs off on these specific route traps.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Psychology, rolled +1)
Dallas Fontaine
Who signs off on this kind of route trap?
Curtis
Records office approval, but not the clerk level. This has a senior sign-off. Someone with access to routing exceptions and enough nerve to bury the paper trail.
Professor Dayton
Then the signature matters less than the office stamp beside it. That mark authorizes the detour, and the detour becomes the kill zone.
Curtis
The name that keeps repeating is Alder March. Or someone using March's authority after the fact. The backfilled entries make it look clean.
Dallas slides the carbon copy page closer and the desk bell catches the lamplight. Curtis points to the route amendments, then to the false timing block, as if the paper itself has started talking.
Professor Dayton
The trap route is signed to look administrative. That is how it passes. Nobody checks a murder when it wears a schedule.
Curtis exhales, steadier now, and taps the marked bend where the funnel closes. The official is named, the paper trail is pinned, and the room settles into a hard, shared silence.
Quest Complete
Expose the official behind the route trap
“I compare the backfilled entries to the approval stamp”
SUCCESS (Legendary Investigation, rolled +0)
Dallas draws the route map beside the approval stamp and lines the backfilled entries up under the lamplight. The ink timing and the stamp edge do not meet cleanly, the paperwork has been dressed up after the fact.
Dallas Fontaine
The stamp is older than the edits.
Curtis leans in and stills, watching Dallas settle the page square against the desk. The neat administrative trail breaks at the corners, where the false timing block covers a routed detour.
Curtis
That approval gets pasted over a mess. The stamp is real, the timing is not.
Professor Dayton sets one finger beside the mark and taps the paper once, quiet and grim. The sign-off is genuine enough to pass a clerk, but the route it authorizes is a funnel into the kill zone.
Professor Dayton
It is a clean seal on dirty instructions.
Dallas finishes the comparison, and the two layers of paper answer him at once. The safe exit was never safe, the route map is a setup, and the room now knows it.
“I head to alder marches office to confront the person there about the detour.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled -1)