Smoke curls low over the forge floor, swallowing the scattered papers in gray tongues. The workbench crackles as fire creeps along its legs, and the air grows sharp enough to sting the eyes.
Vael shifts beside the door, blade lifted toward the far wall, while the Wounded Smith presses back from the heat, trapped between flame and fear. A bundle of sealed sheets lies half-buried in ash near the bench.
Poppy
The papers are still reachable, but the smoke is moving faster.
Poppy darts in and snatches the nearest sheet from the floor. The corner is singed, but the stamp is intact, dark wax marked with Veyr’s sign.
The Wounded Smith
Don’t let it burn. Those orders mention the shipment, the hunters, and the false trail.
Vael
Then we have the truth. Poppy, get what you can, I will hold the heat back.
A beam snaps overhead. Sparks shower the bench as the fire licks higher, and the smith points shakily toward a torn margin where one line remains legible, naming a rendezvous beyond the road.
✓ Quest Accepted
Save the remaining evidence from the forge fire
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn the significance of the old fire
“I lunge toward the bench to grab the remaining papers before the beam collapses.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Athletics, rolled +0)
Poppy lunges through the smoke and gets both hands under the rest of the bundled sheets, dragging them clear as the beam shudders above the bench.
The papers slide free in one crooked stack, stamped slips and torn margins catching the firelight before the flames can take them.
The Wounded Smith
Those were all that proved it. If they burn, the hunters vanish with the lie.
Vael steps in at once, cloak brushing sparks aside, and sweeps a board over the nearest tongues of flame, smothering the fire licking toward the workbench.
Vael
Good. Keep them together. The seal and the road mark are enough to trace this.
The loose scraps are blackened, but the sealed sheets survive, curling at the edges in Poppy’s grip while the fallen beam cracks again overhead.
The Wounded Smith
The line in the margin, that names the rendezvous. Take it, before the heat changes its shape.
Quest Complete
Save the remaining evidence from the forge fire