A side passage opens from the Contract Chamber into the Hall of Permanent Records. The elderly woman leads Rei inside, while Lord Cassian remains behind with the sealed alliance documents.
Towering oath tablets rise into shadow, their carved letters glowing beneath drifting silver dust. At the hall’s center, a blank legal tablet rests upon a stone lectern.
Maelin Thorne, a middle-aged woman with deep brown skin, close-cropped silver hair, and narrow spectacles, adjusts her blue archivist’s mantle and approaches.
Royal Archivist Maelin Thorne
The chamber’s ruling must be copied into the crown archives. The record will state that your refusal was personal, and the alliance cannot bind you.
Maelin lays two fingers against the blank tablet. Pale script gathers across its surface, reproducing the distinction between marriage, family negotiation, and personal consent.
Royal Archivist Maelin Thorne
Yet the original seal bears a faint crack. Someone has challenged the record already, though the archive has not revealed who.
The elderly woman’s jeweled mask turns toward the glowing tablet. Silver dust spirals upward around the crack, and several distant oath tablets answer with uneasy chimes.
Director's note
I ask what this has to do with me as they know how i feel about being a noble and that this is the crowns problem to solve not my own
The silver dust settles. Maelin lifts her fingers from the tablet, and the glowing crack narrows without revealing its maker. The archive’s chimes fade into silence.
Royal Archivist Maelin Thorne
This concerns the crown because the crown’s seal has been challenged. It does not make you a party, witness, or petitioner.
The blank tablet’s script rearranges itself. Rei’s name remains absent, while a new royal notation appears beneath the ruling: no personal obligation survives the exclusion.
Lady Meredyth Vale
You heard her. The archive records a breach in crown authority, not a summons to resume family business.
Royal Archivist Maelin Thorne
The disputed mark will be sealed for royal inquiry. Your refusal, your exclusion, and your lack of consent are already complete.
A bronze seal rises from the lectern and closes over the crack. The oath tablets answer with one deep note, acknowledging the boundary rather than demanding participation.
Lady Meredyth Vale
Then leave this place if you wish. Whatever follows belongs to the crown, and no one may turn it into another claim upon you.
“(I leave for my forge) im heading to my forge”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled -1)