Before the threshold can widen, Archivist Maelin emerges from a shuttered market passage. Her hand is bloodless around a broken archive seal, and dust veils her green-lit robes.
The surviving vendors recoil behind their stalls. Warden-Captain Aric remains within the silver circle, while Serath stays near the chains, watching the passage Maelin left.
Archivist Maelin
Zaelen’s name appears in a testimony ledger older than the eastern seal. Older than the Crown’s first account, and hidden beneath the market itself.
The Deep Listener falls silent. Every extinguished lantern reignites at once, but each glass reflects a different unfamiliar face, staring outward through the green flame.
Warden-Captain Aric Vale
Maelin, you left with an intact seal. What broke it, and whose testimony did you find below?
Maelin opens her fist. The broken seal bears no crown, only a many-eyed mark that turns slowly toward Zaelen’s shadow as the threshold breathes.
Serath Vey
Do not let the faces speak first. If that ledger names Zaelen, the Listener may already have written part of her testimony.
✓ Quest Accepted
Determine whether Zaelen’s testimony was prepared by the Crown
“I examine the broken seal for signs of Crown tampering.”
SUCCESS (Great Perception, rolled +2)
Zaelen takes the broken seal into the lantern-glow, turning it between her claws. The many-eyed mark is impressed through the wax, not stamped over it.
Zaelen
The Crown never touched this seal. Its break begins beneath the mark, from the witness side.
A faint silver residue rims the fracture, while the wax beneath remains dark and unscorched. No Crown sigil, binding thread, or revision-layer hides in the break.
Archivist Maelin
You see it. The Crown did not tamper with the seal. It concealed the ledger around it, leaving the original mark untouched.
As Zaelen traces the inner edge, the many eyes turn toward her one by one. A second impression emerges beneath the first: an open palm crossed by a silver line.
Serath Vey
That is no Crown device. It belongs to the first witnesses, before kingdoms claimed the Listener and called its judgment law.
Warden-Captain Aric Vale
Then the tampering was not here. Someone buried the truth beneath the market and made the Crown’s account look original.
Quest Complete
Determine whether Zaelen’s testimony was prepared by the Crown
+ New Item Acquired
Broken witness seal