Elias Thorne
Hold on, just a second. That locket was never meant to be the prize, it is the key.
He lifts the stairwell envelope from his coat and taps the tiny micro-slip Dallas has uncovered, keeping his voice low and his body angled toward the landing.
Elias Thorne
The storage unit is real. Old harbor paper, old cash, old names. The ledger starts there, before Bell, before Voss, before any of them got clever.
Dallas Fontaine
The slip is smaller than a cigarette paper. Too small for lies, maybe not too small for code.
Below them, a door on the hall floor creaks open. Elias freezes, one hand braced on the peeling rail, eyes snapping toward the sound.
Elias Thorne
Listen to me, Dallas. If somebody else gets that ledger first, the cleanup never stops. They bury the proof, then they bury whoever saw it.
He pushes the unfolded note closer, ready to name the storage unit, while the hallway tightens around them like a trap.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find the storage unit
“Grab the note from Elias and read the storage unit location.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +1)
Dallas snaps the note free before Elias can pull it back, the paper sliding into his hand with a dry whisper.
Dallas Fontaine
Unit 4B. Harbor Storage, south annex.
His eyes catch the second line, a handwritten reroute mark and a name stamped hard enough to bite the page, H. T. C. Overhead, the stairwell door below stays open a fraction wider.
Elias Thorne
That is the place. Old rental, no company name, cash only, keyed under a dead drop list.
Murderbone shifts in front of Dallas, shoulders high and weight forward, blocking the landing as the hallway light flickers across the opened locket.
Elias Thorne
If the unit is empty, somebody already stripped it. If it is not, you are looking at the root of the whole cleanup.
Dallas keeps the note, and the tiny micro-slip, while the open door below the stairs waits in silence for whoever came through it first.
Quest Complete
Find the storage unit