Dust drifts in the chapel light. Elias sits on the pew, turning the blackened token in both hands, while the lifted flagstone gapes beside him like an open mouth.
Elias the Miller
She came here after dark, soaked through and shaking. I thought she was only frightened of the rain.
Elias the Miller
Then I saw what she was carrying. The charm, the cloth, this token. She would not let the boy touch the bell.
The Inquisitor stands near the hollow, quieter now, his hands empty and his jaw set with fatigue. He watches Elias without interrupting.
The Inquisitor
You said she vanished that same night? Not fled. Vanished.
Elias the Miller
Aye. One moment she was at the altar steps, the next the chapel felt wrong. Like it was holding its breath.
Xaurier
The hollow was prepared, not hidden in haste.
Elias lowers the token at last and looks to Xaurier, the fear in his face softened by a need to be understood.
Elias the Miller
If she left signs for someone, I want to know why. Help me read them, Xaurier.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn why the caretaker left signs at the chapel
“I look for why the caretaker left signs at the chapel”
SUCCESS (Good Arcana, rolled +2)
Xaurier bends over the relics, and the hollow answers at once. The charm is not a keepsake, it is a marker. The blackened token bears chapel ash pressed into its grooves, and the cloth is wrapped the way a guide would wrap a sign for a child to follow.
Xaurier
The trail is deliberate. She meant someone to read it.
He turns the token in his fingers, and the pattern resolves. The caretaker is not hiding the boy from the chapel. She is steering him through it, away from the bell, toward something beneath the altar stone.
Elias the Miller
So she was protecting him.
The Inquisitor leans closer to the hollow, fatigue giving way to sharp attention as dust slips from the cracked bell above them.
The Inquisitor
Protecting him from what? If she left this path, she feared the right hand on the right stone.
Xaurier sees it clearly now, the trail is not only a warning. It is a route, and the next sign is the altar itself. The Inquisitor’s grip tightens, not on a weapon, but on the edge of the stone, waiting for Xaurier’s lead.
Quest Complete
Learn why the caretaker left signs at the chapel
Skill Upgrade: Arcana Good→Great
