Before Eva and the Pinkerton rookie can leave the shrine, a dusty schoolteacher steps from the third road. Hollis Vale is a gaunt adult man with windburned skin, hollow eyes, and graying hair beneath a battered felt hat. His brown coat hangs loose over a frayed vest, and he clutches a child’s slate and a worn schoolbook to his chest.
Hollis stops beneath the awning, breathing hard. His shadow stretches across the dust toward the hollow, pointing at Deputy Harlan’s badge instead of matching his boots.
Hollis Vale
Do not return that badge yet. The road has not finished deciding who it belongs to.
Pinkerton rookie
Hollis Vale? You are the witness named in Harlan’s deposition. Where have you been these three weeks?
The teacher lowers the slate. Its chalk marks shift in the fading light, forming a child’s uneven alphabet before smearing themselves into a single black line toward the hollow.
Hollis Vale
Teaching where the roads still allow it. Harlan found me after the children vanished. I saw what wore the dead man’s coat, and it followed my shadow home.
For the first time, the covered figure turns away from Hollis. The cloth faces the dark road instead, refusing to witness what follows, while ink begins seeping from beneath the schoolbook.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn who took Harlan
“"Oh? Well hello! I'm Eva. It's nice to meet you. So what happened when you were followed? Are you ok?"”
FAILURE (Good Persuasion, rolled -2)
Eva Mistfallen
Oh? Well hello! I'm Eva. It's nice to meet you. What happened when you were followed? Are you all right?
Hollis tries to answer, but the black line on the slate climbs his fingers. His shadow jerks toward Eva, and his voice collapses into a dry rattle.
Hollis Vale
I am... standing. That is what remains of being all right. It followed me whenever I spoke of the dead man.
The ink beneath Hollis’s schoolbook spreads into a narrow map across the dust. It avoids the third road and ends at a small mark shaped like a schoolhouse door.
Pinkerton rookie
You asked him plainly, ma'am. Plain answers may be beyond him now. But that mark gives us somewhere to look.
Hollis Vale
The children’s schoolhouse. Empty since they vanished. My shadow could not cross its threshold, so I left it there.
Hollis’s shadow pulls tight against his boots, no longer pointing at the badge. The map remains visible, offering a clear lead while the covered figure keeps its face turned away.
“Eva looks to Pinkerton. "You think this will help find out why you're name is in the bowl?"”
SUCCESS (Good Persuasion, rolled +1)
Eva Mistfallen
You think this will help find out why your name is in the bowl?
Pinkerton rookie
Yes. If Hollis left his shadow at that schoolhouse, it may have witnessed what bound my name to the shrine.
Pinkerton rookie returns Deputy Harlan’s badge to the hollow, then studies the inked map. The black line bends from the schoolhouse mark toward his own name.
Hollis Vale
The thing wearing Harlan’s coat knew the road’s bargain. It spoke your name before I ever met you, badge-bearer.
Pinkerton rookie
Then the schoolhouse is not merely where the children vanished. It is where this debt began, or where someone taught the road to remember me.
The covered figure remains turned from Hollis Vale, but its cloth lifts in the wind. Beneath it, unseen weight shifts toward the third road.
Pinkerton rookie
I am going there. Hollis, you know the way. Ma’am, if you still mean to help, keep close and watch the shadows.
✓ Quest Accepted
Bring Hollis to safety
“Eva doesn't know the way, but she figures the others do, so she'd come to help them!”
SUCCESS (Superb Agility, rolled -1)