Bince strides into the courtyard, shoulders squared, and cuts off the Head Cook at the pantry doors. His hand lifts, not to strike, but to block her retreat.
Bince
You. Who was seen slipping through these doors? Speak plain.
Elara flinches back, flour whitening her apron as she clutches the iron ladle tighter. Azera stays a pace behind, watching the cook's panic and Bince's sudden edge.
Elara
I... I do not know. Only the kitchen girls, and the pantry boy. I saw a hood once, that is all.
At that, Bince leans in, jaw set, demanding every detail from the frightened woman while the guards keep moving away toward the estate path.
Azera
The pantry doors are the likeliest route, and the cook is close to breaking.
Xene
A hooded shape, a silver clasp, and a pantry door. Someone is composing a very bad song with these clues.
The courtyard holds its breath around them, waiting to see whether Elara gives a name, or whether Bince has to press harder.
“I press Elara for the hooded figure's name”
SUCCESS (Great Persuasion, rolled +0)
Azera presses the cook with calm force, and Elara folds at once. Her ladle lowers, her shoulders sag, and the name spills out with a shudder.
Elara
Ilotha. Hood up, silver clasp at the throat. She pays kitchen girls to look the other way, then slips by the pantry when the guards are busy.
Bince exhales, relief sharpening into focus. Elara’s eyes dart to Azera, then to the open pantry, as if surprised anyone could make her speak so plainly.
Elara
I saw her only once, but that clasp flashed like moonlight. She was already laughing at us, I think.
Xene
Silver clasp. That is a detail worth keeping. People who hide well still like one bright thing.
The cook swallows hard and points inside, to a floury bootprint leading deeper into the pantry shadows. She does not try to flee now.
“I follow the pantry bootprint”
SUCCESS (Fair Perception, rolled +0)
Azera follows the floury print into the pantry, staff angled low so it does not catch the doorframe. The trail crosses stacked sacks, then cuts behind a hanging curtain of cured herbs.
A muffled scrape answers from the dark, and the print ends at a half-open hatch in the floorboards. Fresh mud rims the edge, still soft.
Below, a narrow service passage breathes cold air up through the hatch. A dropped silver clasp glints in the slant of light, resting beside a smear of pale flour.
Bince slows at the pantry threshold, seeing the hatch and the clasp at once. Xene leans in behind him, watchful and still.
Xene
There. That is not a cook's route.
Azera reaches the hatch and looks down into the passage, where footsteps fade around a bend. The space ahead is empty, but recently used.
From below comes the faintest whisper of fabric against stone, then silence, waiting for Azera to choose whether to descend or call out.
“I call out into the passage”
SUCCESS (Great Persuasion, rolled +1)
Azera lifts her voice into the hatch, calm and carrying, and the passage answers with a pause. Dust trembles in the cold draft below.
Ilotha
I hear you. If this is a trap, it is a patient one.
A shape shifts in the darkness beneath the floor, then a woman steps into the slant of light, silver clasp bright at her collar.
Ilotha
You have good timing, Azera. I was beginning to think the kitchen staff had lost their courage.
Bince
At least now we know the cook was not lying. Ilotha, why are you here?
Ilotha
Because the estate listens better when its servants are frightened. And because someone is hiding more than a thief tonight.
Xene
That sounds suspiciously like a story I should hear from the start.
Ilotha rests one hand on the hatch rim, half in shadow, half in the pantry light, watching Azera with a wry, measuring look.
Quest Complete
Find Ilotha
Skill Upgrade: Persuasion Great→Superb