Kynes and Bren slam into the magistrate’s office with the crane-house ledgers and broker tokens still in hand. The magistrate goes white at once, his eyes fixed on the cache that should have stayed buried.
Kynes
These are your records. Start explaining.
Magistrate Hale
I only keep the town’s accounts. Whatever this is, it is not my work.
At the desk’s edge, the red hum in the paper swells. The ledgers tremble, and the floor answers with a low pulse that is not the sound of ink or wood.
Bren
Kynes, the room is reacting. This is not ordinary fraud.
Kynes
The script is keyed to the office itself.
The magistrate’s seal snaps against the tabletop with a dry crack, and a band of red script crawls up the wall behind him like a living tally. The office is no longer pretending to be a clerk’s room.
Magistrate Hale
No, wait. I did not open that door.
✓ Quest Accepted
Make Magistrate Hale confess his role in the fraud
“" confess or meet the furnace hale you know the drill" I tell the magistrate”
SUCCESS (Good Intimidation, rolled +1)
Kynes
Confess, or meet the furnace. You know the drill, Hale.
Magistrate Hale
I signed what they put before me. I moved names, debts, and permits where I was told. I thought it would keep Phandelver steady.
Magistrate Hale
The seals went to the quay, the broker ran the payments, and the ledgers hid the losses under my name. House Xar wanted the records clean, and I let them be.
Bren
So say it plain. You knew it was fraud, and you did it anyway.
Magistrate Hale
Yes. I knew. I was afraid of what they would do if I refused.
The confession lands like a dropped stone. The red light under the floor steadies, and the wall script keeps crawling, but the magistrate’s shoulders sag as if the room has finally pinned him too.
Magistrate Hale
The broker is already tied to the quay accounts. The mark on that token, it leads back to my seal. If you want the rest, I can point you to every name they scrubbed.
Quest Complete
Make Magistrate Hale confess his role in the fraud