The study swallows the office noise whole. Parchment, tobacco, and old wood replace the bleach and panic behind Dallas as the desk lamp carves out one warm pool of light.
Professor Dayton sits beneath the lamp, sleeves rolled, the routing chain spread open like a wounded map. He pushes a magnifying glass toward Dallas without a word.
Professor Dayton
Hart built this like a maze, but every maze has a bored man at the center.
Dallas lays the transfer order beside the ledger. The paper is clean, too clean, as if someone expected it to be handled only by gloved hands and guilty people.
Professor Dayton
See this routing stamp? It is not just approval. It is timing. Somebody is moving records on a schedule, not a whim.
Professor Dayton
And this chain, it loops through the same desks again and again. That is not efficiency. That is concealment.
He leans back, rubbing one tired eye, then taps the corner of the ledger with a cigarette-stained finger. Outside, the city keeps breathing in the rain, distant and indifferent.
Professor Dayton
You have the right papers now, Mr. Fontaine. Sit a moment. Let us see what Hart thought he could bury.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure Hart's ledger
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the official behind the route trap
“Examine the routing stamps under the magnifying glass to identify the official.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Investigation, rolled +0)
Dallas lowers the magnifier over the routing stamps. The thin ink rings, invisible at a glance, sharpen into a pattern of office codes and time marks.
Dallas Fontaine
The same desk keeps signing for itself.
He shifts the paper a fraction, and a second stamp bites into the light, an approval mark nested under a transfer seal from the records oversight office.
Professor Dayton
There. Not a clerk. An authorizer. Someone above the clerks is steering the route.
Dayton’s finger lands on the repeated initials, then slides to a faint backfill line on the ledger. The handwriting is neat enough to be criminal.
Professor Dayton
Hart, or someone using Hart's desk. This stamp ties him to the loop.
Outside, headlights wash the rain-silvered glass and the room dims for a heartbeat. Dallas keeps the magnifier steady as Dayton reaches for the bent keycard beside the map.
Professor Dayton
Good. Now we know where to cut. If we move on the office, we do it together.
Quest Complete
Expose the official behind the route trap