Cold night air follows Dallas Fontaine into Professor Dayton’s study. Dayton freezes at his desk, manuscripts scattered around a half-open ledger, his startled face caught in the blue flicker of the television.
Dallas Fontaine
Were you a pawn in their church game, Professor?
Professor Dayton
No. I was being used. There is a difference.
Dayton shoves a page across the desk. It is a chapel run sheet, marked with Mercer routing codes and a hidden customs annex stamp. A second sheet lists crate weights beside hymn service times.
Professor Dayton
Mercer Holdings is moving cargo through the chapel, hiding the transfers inside the congregation's schedule. The Liber Signorum Rubrorum is not a spell book, it is the key to their routing system.
Dallas Fontaine
So the book was bait, and the church is the front door.
Dayton’s hand trembles as he points to a margin note, then to a scratched floorboard beneath the desk.
Professor Dayton
I believed I was decoding history. Instead, I was helping them hide the shipment trail. The real ledger is in the chapel office, behind the altar office wall.
The television flickers again, throwing the room into harsh blue and shadow. Dallas now has the path, the cover story, and the target, Mercer’s chapel office is the next link in the logistics chain.
✓ Quest Accepted
Inspect the chapel office behind the altar wall
“I head to the chapel office”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +1)