Dallas steps into the study with the Liber Signorum Rubrorum held tight. The room feels smaller than before, boxed in by ancient texts, dust, and morning light. Dayton is already half-risen from his desk. Elena keeps the door covered, eyes moving over every shadow.
Professor Dayton
You brought it. Good. Put it down, carefully. Mercer Holdings did not just hide this book, they moved it like contraband.
Dallas sets the volume on Dayton’s desk. The old scholar’s fingers hover over the cover, not touching it yet. A faint odor rises from the binding, sour and chemical under the parchment smell.
Professor Dayton
That odor matters. Preservative, smoke, and something else, a residue from storage. If Mercer handled it, they wanted it sealed, cataloged, and forgotten.
Dallas Fontaine
The binding has been opened and closed more than once. Someone checked it recently.
Elena Vane
Then we are past the point of curiosity. If Mercer wanted the book buried, they are going to come looking for whoever has it now.
Dayton opens the first page and freezes. A clipped paper tab, stamped with Mercer Holdings routing marks, is tucked into the gutter. He looks up at Dallas, grave and certain.
Professor Dayton
This is the trail, Dallas. The book is not the prize. It is the proof they moved something out of reach, and whatever Mercer is hiding sits behind it.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn the occult significance of the Liber Signorum Rubrorum
+ New Item Acquired
Liber Signorum Rubrorum
“Point to the routing tab and ask Dayton what the Mercer mark signifies.”
SUCCESS (Superb Psychology, rolled +0)
Dallas Fontaine
What does that Mercer mark mean?
Dallas points at the tab. Dayton bends closer, his glasses catching the blinds' pale stripes, and the room goes very still.
Professor Dayton
It is a routing stamp. Warehouse to archive, archive to courier, courier to disposal. Mercer used it to track anything they did not want seen twice.
Professor Dayton
And this one is not for the book. It is for what was taken from inside it.
He lifts the tab with a fingertip, revealing a faint impression beneath the glue, a handwritten church inventory code pressed into the paper fibers.
Professor Dayton
Mercer touched church material, Dallas. Not just the volume, something wrapped with it, catalogued with it, or hidden in it. The book was the shell.
Elena straightens at the door, her gaze flicking from the desk to the hall, while the cabinet gives a slow, dry knock from somewhere deeper in the apartment.
Professor Dayton
This means the Liber Signorum Rubrorum is not a relic. It is a container, and Mercer was moving a record with a church disguise on it.
Quest Complete
Bring the Liber Signorum Rubrorum to Professor Dayton
Quest Complete
Learn what Mercer touched in the church material
Quest Complete
Learn the occult significance of the Liber Signorum Rubrorum
“I check the knocking cabinet”
SUCCESS (Superb Perception, rolled +0)
Dallas sets the book aside and steps to the cabinet. The knocking stops the moment his hand hits the latch.
Dallas Fontaine
It is not the shelf moving. Something inside is answering touch and sound.
He opens the cabinet. Inside sits a narrow wooden box, shoved behind old files and wrapped in oilcloth, with Mercer shipping tape peeled back in a hurry.
Dallas lifts the wrap. A second paper tab falls out, marked with the same routing stamp and a church inventory number that matches the impression from the book.
Professor Dayton
There it is. They were not hiding the title, they were hiding the attachment.
Elena Vane
So the book was bait, and the rest is what they really moved.
At the bottom of the box, Dallas finds a folded manifest slip, a chapel address, and a handwritten note, Retrace after vespers. The paper smells faintly of salt and machine oil.
✓ Quest Accepted
Recover the church attachment
“Are mercer holdings and the church working together?”
YES (VeryLikely, rolled 66)
Dallas Fontaine
The church inventory stamp is not just a label. It is a ledger entry for a transfer of assets between the diocese and Mercer Holdings.
Professor Dayton
Look at the routing code on the manifest, Dallas. It matches the private shipping lanes used by the church for their restoration projects. They are not just working together, they are sharing the same logistics network.
“I study the manifest for the church transfer”
SUCCESS (Legendary Investigation, rolled +2)
Dallas lowers the page a fraction and traces the routing tab with one finger. The church code is not for a donation crate, it matches a Mercer freight ledger, the kind used to hide a transfer under a false restoration order.
Dallas Fontaine
The church is the cover. Mercer is moving inventory through it.
Professor Dayton
There, the same batch mark appears twice. Once for the chapel, once for an off-site archive. They are splitting the paper trail.
Dallas shifts the manifest under the lamp and catches a second notation in the margin, partly rubbed out but still readable. It names a receiving point at the old customs annex, and beside it, a handwritten tag for liturgical attachments.
Professor Dayton
That is the attachment list. Whatever Mercer is taking from the church, it is catalogued like evidence, not merchandise.
Elena straightens at the doorway, eyes fixed on the paper in Dallas’s hands. The cabinet behind her stays shut now, but the room feels tighter for it.
Elena Vane
So the book was only the container. The real target is the church attachment, and Mercer already knows where it is.
Dallas folds the manifest just enough to keep the annex address visible. The lamp throws the routing code across the desk like a warning, and the next name on the chain is waiting to be found.
“I examine the annex address closely”
SUCCESS (Legendary Investigation, rolled +1)
Dallas angles the manifest flat against the lamp and studies the annex address line by line. A tiny routing mark sits beside the street name, and beneath it, a second code identifies a receiving room instead of a whole building.
Dallas Fontaine
The annex is only the front door. The delivery point is inside.
He catches a smudged note in the margin, just visible under the ink. It lists an attachment index, then a shelf slot, then a time stamp that matches a church pickup window.
Professor Dayton
That is not storage, that is placement. Mercer is waiting for something to be delivered to a specific holding place.
Dallas tilts the page and finds a pressure impression below the annex address. It reads like a copy beneath a copy, a separate destination written by hand and then rubbed out.
Elena Vane
There, the ink trail. Someone changed the route after the first copy was made.
He finishes the angle of the light, and the hidden line comes clean. The annex is only a transfer point, the real attachment is tied to a church locker number, and the route is dated for tonight.
“I ask Elena to go back to the apartment while murderbone and i head to the locker”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +2)