The annex breathes damp rot and old dust. Dallas scans the rusted cabinets until the manifest’s code matches a drawer stamped MERCER HOLDINGS, REFERENCE FILES.
He pulls the drawer. Inside sits a sealed archive box, newer than the rest, with Rowan Mercer Holdings embossed in the lid and a customs seal cut clean through and resealed.
Professor Dayton
That box was never meant to survive an audit.
Dallas pries the lid free. Inside are transfer logs, marina clearances, and a black-paper memo stamped with the same harbor cipher Dayton decoded, tied to a private dock at Pier Nine.
Professor Dayton
That mark is old money, Dallas. Mercer Holdings is the shell. The real ledger points below it, to a sealed customs subfile. Someone is hiding the source, not just the money.
At the bottom lies a photograph of suited men in a tide room, standing before a row of wet, netted crates. One crate is marked with the church symbol from Bell’s papers.
Dallas Fontaine
Mercer Holdings is feeding the harbor and the church from the same hidden pipe.
A floorboard clicks somewhere deeper in the annex, and footsteps drift closer through the stacks.
✓ Quest Accepted
Investigate the Mercer Holdings archive source
✓ Quest Accepted
Reach the sealed customs subfile
+ New Item Acquired
Mercer Holdings archive box
+ New Item Acquired
Black-paper memo
“I open the sealed customs subfile”
SUCCESS (Legendary Investigation, rolled -3)
Dallas eases the subfile free and splits the resealed seam. The first folder inside is not a ledger, but a chain of audit copies, each one stripped down to dates, weights, and dock initials.
Professor Dayton
There it is. The source trail, copied clean and buried again.
Dallas flips past customs stamps and finds a routing sheet marked SEAL FILE, then a handwritten note ordering the originals moved to a private Mercer archive off the books.
Dallas Fontaine
Mercer Holdings kept the real paperwork separate.
Under the routing sheet sits a slim stamped insert, the customs subfile itself, coded to a berth registry, a storage key, and a name blacked out so hard the ink has bitten the page.
Professor Dayton
That blacked-out name matches the family cipher. Someone wanted the archive source unreachable, not lost.
Dallas opens the insert fully. Inside is a reference index to Pier Nine, the annex, and a sealed interoffice transfer marked for after-hours pickup.
Professor Dayton
You have it now. The customs subfile is open, and it names the route they used to hide the rest.
From deeper in the stacks, the footsteps stop just beyond the cabinet aisle, and a hand shadows the edge of the doorway.
Quest Complete
Reach the sealed customs subfile
Quest Complete
Investigate the Mercer Holdings archive source