The hall doors open beneath the rain’s dull thunder. Círdan the Shipwright enters from the Grey Havens, while Maereth and a archive bearer remain beside the sealed records.
Círdan
King Théoden, I bring a maritime charter bearing the same private-review mark found in your petition. I present the seal for comparison, but not the packet.
He offers a waxed seal without releasing the accompanying packet. Its impression carries a sharp pressure point matching the flaw Tuiwen found in the unauthorized request.
Círdan
The packet remains closed until I know this inquiry protects witnesses, preserves originals apart from copies, and forbids private access to sealed testimony.
King Théoden
Those protections stand. No packet will be opened, copied, or removed except under witness and entered order. You may speak without surrendering custody.
Círdan lowers the seal onto the witness table. Galadriel’s absent records from Lothlórien are not needed to establish the comparison, but the mark’s reach beyond Rohan changes the inquiry’s scale.
Círdan
Then compare it with your petition, and let the record show that the same forged authority has crossed from inland offices to the sea.
✓ Quest Accepted
Establish the cross-border reach of the forged authority
“I compare Círdan’s seal with the petition under witness.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled -3)
Under King Théoden’s order, the archive bearer retrieves the separately sealed petition and places it beside Círdan’s offered seal. Maereth records each movement while the originals remain untouched.
Tuiwen compares the impressions beneath the witness tablets: the same sharp pressure point, the same distorted edge, and the same deliberate break in the wax. The seal and petition share one forged authority.
Tuiwen
The matching flaw is deliberate, not accidental.
The comparison succeeds, but the detailed examination consumes the chamber’s remaining working hour. The petitioner’s route through the archive cannot yet be traced from the seal alone.
Círdan
Then the maritime charter and the petition bear the same counterfeit authority. I will attest to that comparison.
Maereth
Record the likeness as a finding, and the untraced passage as a limit. Neither should be mistaken for the other.
King Théoden
So entered. Preserve both seals separately, and summon the custodian before the inquiry proceeds.
Quest Complete
Establish the cross-border reach of the forged authority