Dagg carries the leather case through Saint Orra’s archive door while Mara stays close, her mother’s shawl gathered around her shoulders. Dusty ledgers fill the narrow shelves.
They find the parish register beneath a stack of tithe books. Its careful entry names Corvin Vell as a crown-serving soldier entrusted with the ancestral sword, then records its passage through his descendants.
Mara Vell
That is him. Corvin Vell, my mother’s grandmother’s account, and then my mother. The line is unbroken.
Dagg compares each name and date with the message from Mara’s mother. His finger pauses over the final entry, and his usual precise explanation tangles strangely around Mara herself.
Dagg Nabbitt
You have your family’s rightful claim, Mara. And I confess, I have found myself caring for more than the evidence.
Mara Vell
Then we understand one another. I care for you too, Dagg, and I still want this record preserved properly. Both things can be true.
Mara rests her hand beside his on the open register, warm but deliberate. The page establishes her family’s ownership, while the archive’s silence leaves their next step waiting for them.
“But there is a problem here. This register says that you do not own your farm in Vellstead. How can that be?”
SUCCESS (Superb Reasoning, rolled -3)
Dagg Nabbitt
But there is a problem here. This register says that you do not own your farm in Vellstead. How can that be?
Dagg turns back through the register and opens his field journal beside it. His relaxed wish to leave the dusty archive yields to the slower work of comparing every heading, date, and seal.
Reading the official entries closely, he finds two separate records beneath the same family name: one grants Mara’s family the sword, while another lists the Vellstead land under a neighboring estate.
Mara Vell
I never knew of a neighboring estate. My mother paid the parish tithe, kept the fields, and spoke of Vellstead as ours.
Dagg traces the land entry with his pencil, then matches its filing date against the family papers. The dates do not conflict, but the register never records a transfer from the estate to Mara’s line.
Mara Vell
So the sword claim is clear, but the farm was never formally entered as ours. My mother may have held it by custom, not by a recorded grant.
The discrepancy is settled enough to name: Mara’s family holds the ancestral sword by the parish record, while Vellstead’s legal ownership remains unrecorded. Dagg must spend the afternoon copying the land entry and its reference marks before leaving.
“If someone finds out that you do not own your land, they can purchase it and claim all of your current crops and animals are theirs. we need to head back to your farm and start coming up with a plan to fix this.”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled +2)