Imogen carries Nalia’s shallow wooden box along the rain-dark road. Its warmth is fading, but the surviving letters remain legible beneath the damp cloth.
Behind them, the chapel grounds vanish into rain. Elias remains below with the testimony, while Elian Voss’s shade stays near the buried hollow, unable to follow.
Kaelus
The nearest village is less than an hour ahead. There is a public board beside the meeting hall. People will see her name there.
The road descends between dripping hedges and fields silvered by rain. No voice rises from the chapel, and no pressure follows beneath the earth.
At the village edge, the shuttered meeting hall leans beside a covered notice board. Old handbills curl beneath the eaves, their ink blurred into gray stains.
Kaelus
Some notices were torn away. Others were scraped clean. Look at the empty spaces. They are almost the size of names.
Rain ticks against the board’s warped roof. Several blank rectangles interrupt the crowded announcements, while Nalia’s letters rest clearly under Imogen’s hand, awaiting what comes next.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn who the erased witnesses were
“Has someone been erasing names from this board?”
YES, AND MORE (VeryLikely, rolled 6)
Beneath the notice board, rain has washed a dark paste from the wood. Thin scraped grooves cross several blank spaces, each shaped like a deliberately removed name.
Kaelus
Yes. Someone erased them. But look closer. The cuts continue beneath the newer notices.
A warped corner lifts in the wind, revealing older planks beneath. Dozens of names fill them in cramped columns, many crossed through, while one narrow strip remains untouched.
Imogen
The erasures predate the chapel’s testimony.
Kaelus
This was not only concealment. It was collection. Whoever removed the names kept a record underneath, and left one place open.
A woman under the meeting hall’s eaves notices the box and approaches without an umbrella. Her gaze fixes on the glowing letters, then on the untouched strip.
the village woman
Nalia. I heard that name once, from my grandmother. The board has been waiting for it.
The empty strip darkens as if absorbing rain, and faint lettering rises across it: NALIA, followed by a second line naming the erased witnesses. The board has preserved a map to the others.
“I trace the erased witnesses beneath Nalia’s name.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Investigation, rolled +0)
Imogen places two fingers beneath Nalia’s name and traces the concealed grooves. Damp wood softens under her touch, revealing each erased line without splintering the board.
The hidden record emerges in cramped columns: Mara Venn, Oren Pell, Sabine Rook, and Tomas Vale. Beside each name, the same mark appears, a crossed threshold.
Imogen
The names were collected after they were erased.
the village woman
Mara was my grandmother’s sister. The family was told she fled, but no one ever found a road she took.
As Imogen finishes tracing the final groove, a fifth column darkens beneath Nalia’s name. Its letters form a place rather than a person: the old well beneath Saint Orra’s field.
Kaelus
The witnesses were not merely erased. They were gathered around a second threshold, and the village built its silence over it.
the village woman
Saint Orra’s field has been locked since the last harvest. At night, someone knocks from beneath the well.
Reach the threshold beneath Saint Orra’s field
Quest Complete
Learn who the erased witnesses were