Edran shoulders open a side gate banded in iron. Beyond it, a fortified wayhouse rises around a torchlit yard, its walls crowded with sealed message tubes and watchful murder-holes.
A broad-shouldered middle-aged woman steps from the gatehouse, an old scar crossing her shaved temple. She wears a russet keeper’s coat, heavy keys at her belt, and studies them without surprise.
Edran Vale
Keeper Mara Quill. Witness this oath before we travel farther. Secrecy has nearly destroyed it already.
Mara Quill
You bring masked trouble to my gate, Edran Vale, then ask me to put my name beside it?
Edran glances toward the closing gate and lowers his voice. The scorched scroll remains hidden beneath Lia’s cloak, its wax seal intact but brittle.
Edran Vale
If they catch us alone, the proof vanishes with us. In public hands, it can survive even if I cannot.
Mara Quill
Then bring it inside. But understand this: once witnessed, the wayhouse is bound to the danger too.
Mara unlocks the inner door, her weathered square face marked by close-set brown eyes and gestures toward a chamber lined with courier ledgers. Outside, distant shouts drift across the fields as the gate’s bar drops into place.
“Once inside, I open the scroll. Edran has already figured out im a Nirosa. I tell him my name and explain that noble houses of the dark elves were always at each other, but the attack on the Nirosa was more than anything done before that”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled +3)
Inside the ledger chamber, Lia sets the oath-scroll beneath the lamplight and carefully breaks its brittle seal. Edran and Mara watch as the parchment unfurls without tearing.
Lia Nirosa
My name is Lia Nirosa. The noble houses of the dark elves were always at each other's throats, but what happened to House Nirosa was beyond anything done before it.
Edran Vale
I knew it, but hearing you claim the name matters. Your house was not defeated in a feud. It was marked for erasure.
The ink beneath the scorched surface glimmers faintly, revealing a second line sealed in silver dust. It names House Veyr as the payer and records a surviving witness at the old Moonwell.
Mara Quill
There is your advantage. A place, a witness, and a house named in the same oath. I can send a sealed courier before dawn.
Edran Vale
Then the scroll has done more than survive. Lia Nirosa, you have brought its truth back to the bloodline it was meant to defend.
Mara opens a fresh ledger and records Lia's name beside the oath's witness mark. For the first time, the wayhouse's protection extends openly to both the scroll and its rightful heir.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find the surviving witness
“I ask Edran what he knows of the surviving witness at the old Moonwell.”
FAILURE (Fair Reasoning, rolled -3)
Lia Nirosa
What do you know of the surviving witness at the old Moonwell?
Edran Vale
Only that the witness reached the Moonwell alive, carrying the first account of the slaughter. I never saw their face, and the message came through three frightened hands.
Edran leans over the parchment, tracing the silver-dusted line without touching it. The ink has dulled again, leaving no name, age, or mark by which the witness can be found.
Edran Vale
I believed the witness would wait there, but belief is not knowledge. The Moonwell road has changed hands since I fled, and I cannot promise whom we would meet.
Mara Quill
Then my courier cannot carry a promise disguised as a location. I can send word to the old waystations, but the witness may answer only if they still trust the oath.
Mara closes the ledger over the copied line and sets a blank dispatch tablet beside it. The witness is no longer a certain destination, but a trail requiring guarded questions before anyone approaches the Moonwell.
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect the wayhouse from House Veyr's riders
“Does Mara know who controls Moonwell road?”
NO, AND WORSE (Unlikely, rolled 99)
Mara’s fingers halt above the blank dispatch tablet. Before she can answer, three hard knocks strike the inner door, followed by the scrape of a bar being lifted.
A dust-streaked young adult woman with weathered olive skin enters, lean beneath a weather-dark cloak, with cropped brown hair, a split lower lip, and a courier’s satchel clutched to her chest.
Selka Dorn
Mara, I am Selka Dorn. The Moonwell road is not merely changed hands. House Veyr’s riders hold the waystations, and they are asking after a sealed oath-scroll.
Mara’s expression hardens. She pulls the ledger close, shielding the copied line beneath her palm, while Edran steps between the courier and the chamber door.
Mara Quill
How certain are you?
Selka Dorn
Certain enough to turn back. Their captain carried a sketch of the silver seal. Someone has told them exactly what your witness left behind.
Edran Vale
Then the Moonwell is no refuge. It is a watched snare, and the witness may already be running from it.
Mara Quill
The courier goes nowhere near that road. I will send a false dispatch, but first we must learn who betrayed the trail.
Outside, the wayhouse bell gives one low note. Selka turns toward it, face paling, as hoofbeats gather beyond the sealed gate.
“I fix my bow to prepare to fire arrows”
SUCCESS (Good Ranged Combat, rolled +3)
Lia reaches beneath her cloak for the bow. The quiver is empty, but Mara’s gaze snaps to a narrow supply chest beside the ledgers as hoofbeats gather beyond the gate.
Mara Quill
Take the fletched shafts from the chest. If Veyr’s riders force the gate, make every arrow count.
Mara flips the chest’s latch and exposes a bundled dozen arrows, their dark feathers clean and their iron heads honed. Lia takes them and sets them into her quiver.
Edran Vale
The chamber has murder-holes above the yard. Hold the doorway, and we may learn whether they came for the oath or for its witness.
Lia seats an arrow against the string and draws until the bow bends smoothly. The shaft points toward the inner door, steady beneath the lamplight.
Selka Dorn
Their captain will not wait long. If you mean to cover us, choose the first rider who reaches the threshold.
Beyond the barred gate, the riders rein in. Inside, Lia stands ready with a nocked arrow, bow fixed toward the entrance and the oath-scroll secured behind her.
+ New Item Acquired
Arrows
“I wait. The moment I see a rider, I fire an arrow from a secluded spot.”
SUCCESS (Good Ranged Combat, rolled +1)
Lia slips into the shadow beneath the murder-holes, leaving the doorway’s clear line to the others. The barred gate shudders as House Veyr riders dismount outside.
A rider’s helmet appears beyond the opening as the gate is lifted. Lia waits until the lead rider, a broad-built adult man in a blackened mail shirt and an iron helmet topped with a red plume, steps into the torchlight, then releases.
The arrow crosses the yard and strikes the lead rider high in the shoulder, driving him back from the threshold. His sword clatters against the stones.
House Veyr rider 1
Archer in the wayhouse! Hold the gate and bring me a shield!
The remaining riders recoil behind their mounts as the wounded soldier is dragged clear. Mara slams the inner bar home while Selka gathers the oath ledger.
Mara Quill
Good shot. They know the wayhouse is defended now.
Edran Vale
And they know the oath is worth risking blood for. Stay hidden, Lia. Let them fear the walls.
“I noticed they dont look like dark elves. This makes it more of a question to why they attacked a dark elf noble house.”
SUCCESS (Fair Reasoning, rolled -1)
Lia Nirosa
They are not dark elves. House Veyr used outsiders to strike a dark elf noble house.
From beneath the murder-holes, Lia studies the riders’ exposed faces and hands: human soldiers, not dark elves, equipped for a paid campaign rather than a family feud. The distinction sharpens the question.
Edran Vale
Because House Veyr wanted distance. If dark elves had carried out the attack, the feud could be dismissed as blood against blood. Outsiders make it an ordered crime.
Mara Quill
And hired riders leave fewer loyalties behind. They know the seal, the road, and their payment. They may not know why your house was chosen.
The wounded lead rider is dragged beyond the gate while the others keep their distance. Their human faces confirm the method, but nothing in their gear reveals whether they were told House Nirosa’s name.
Selka Dorn
Then question one if he survives the retreat. The answer may tell us whether Veyr’s riders are accomplices, or merely hands paid to seize the oath.
“I reinforce the gate before riders regroup”
SUCCESS (Fair Strength, rolled +1)
Lia leaves the murder-hole and crosses to the inner gate, where the bar shudders beneath the riders’ pressure. She drags a stacked supply chest against it, then wedges an iron-bound bench beneath the latch.
The chest grinds across the floor. Lia braces her shoulder against its weight and forces it flush with the gate until the wood settles firmly against the stone supports.
Mara Quill
That will hold. Selka, bring the ledger chamber’s second brace.
Selka seizes the spare timber and helps angle it beneath the crossbar. Together, they lock the brace into a floor socket while the gate’s blows become dull, distant thumps.
Edran Vale
The riders cannot rush us now. Keep the oath behind the inner wall, and let them waste their courage outside.
Beyond the reinforced gate, the remaining riders regroup around their wounded lead rider. Hooves scrape and harness buckles clatter, but no one reaches the threshold.
Mara Quill
Now we have time to question him, if his company leaves him behind.
Quest Complete
Protect the wayhouse from House Veyr's riders
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Fair→Good