The wedding music falters as Tomas Rusk enters from the road, dusty and limping but determined. Maurice turns from the feast, while Elianor steps nearer, alert.
Tomas carries a sealed writ stamped with the lord’s insignia. Seraphine’s gloved fingers tighten around the family relic as Veyra watches the road beyond him.
Tomas Rusk
Celia, armed riders follow me. This writ orders the relic surrendered to a palace-appointed collector for examination.
Seraphine Dorr
The palace has no claim over a Dorr guardian relic. Not after what it has protected beneath this garden.
Veyra Sorn
How many riders, Tomas? And are they carrying deathly commands, or merely steel?
Tomas Rusk
Six that I saw, perhaps more behind them. I could not sense sorcery, but they wore the lord’s colors and rode hard.
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the writ's authority as false
“I ask Tomas where and from whom the writ was delivered.”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled +0)
Celia Graves
Tomas, where was the writ delivered, and who placed it in your hands?
Tomas steadies himself beside the feast table and points back toward the eastern road. Dust clings to his boots, and the riders’ distant pennants flicker beyond the trees.
Tomas Rusk
At the eastern road fork, just beyond the old milestone. A palace-appointed collector delivered it himself, with those riders gathered behind him. He said the lord’s seal made the order immediate.
Celia’s Reasoning sorts the route, the messenger, a young adult man with a lean build, sharp features, cropped black hair, and a dark traveling cloak, and the authority claimed in Tomas’s account. Her Cursed mark smears the writ’s finer insignia in memory, leaving the collector’s exact heraldry uncertain.
Tomas Rusk
The collector never gave his name. He only said the relic would be examined at the lord’s manor, and that refusal would be treated as defiance.
The answer is clear, but the effort costs Celia a detail she would prefer to possess: the Cursed distortion has erased the collector’s heraldic mark. The riders are already closing the distance.
“I confront the collector and challenge his authority”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +1)
Celia steps onto the eastern road as the collector and six armed riders crest the risethe collector, a young adult man with a lean build, a narrow scarred face, cropped dark hair, and a weathered green cloak, and six armed riders crest the rise. The young man reins in beneath the lord’s pennant, while Tomas remains behind her.
Celia Graves
I challenge your authority to seize the Dorr relic. Show the law that gives you claim over it.
Celia plants the holy staff before her. Its sanctified weight steadies her voice, while Prisoner’s Resolve hardens her refusal into an unyielding demand before the gathered riders.
The Cursed mark clouds the collector’s seal and tries to turn her certainty into doubt. The staff’s grip cuts through the distortion, leaving the writ’s authority plainly hollow.
The Palace-Appointed Collector
The writ grants inspection, not seizure. I was told the relic’s guardian would yield when confronted with the lord’s seal.
His certainty falters. The riders lower their spears but do not advance, and the collector breaks the seal across the writ, exposing its narrow wording to the road’s witnesses.
The Palace-Appointed Collector
I cannot lawfully take it by force. I will report that the Dorr relic remains with its sworn guardian, and request a proper judgment instead.
Quest Complete
Expose the writ's authority as false
Attribute Upgrade: Reasoning Great→Superb