Smoke curls under the beams of the public hall. Kynes holds the singed ledger over Clerk Vance’s desk, and the last hot pages show a route of names, seals, and payments that do not belong to one office alone.
Kaelen
If that ledger names the architects, say it now. Before the guards break in and before anyone decides this becomes a corpse report.
Bren
They are not here for a report. They are here to take the evidence, or take Kynes.
Kynes
The route is deeper than Vance.
Kynes thumbs the blackened edge. Beneath the scorch, a crest mark resolves into a counting house code, then a second seal hidden under it. The ledger points past the magistrate’s clerks, straight into the channel that fed the void-lattice.
Kaelen
That mark ties to the annex records. Give me the page, and I can bind the confession before the door gives way.
The hammering at the door grows harder. Dust shakes from the frame. Bren shifts her stance, blade steady, while Kynes keeps the ledger open to the smoking names that finally expose the conspiracy’s next link.
✓ Quest Accepted
Preserve the ledger's secrets
“Kynes: “Kaelen, take the page. The second seal is our next link. Bren, hold the door. I want whoever authorized those payments.””
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled -1)
Kynes
Take the page, Kaelen. The second seal is the next link. Bren, hold the door. I want whoever signs those payments.
Kynes flips the ledger open and pins the soot-black page flat on the desk. Kaelen lunges in, quill scratching fast as they copy the crest code and hidden seal before the smoke eats the ink.
Kaelen
Now. Keep that page steady.
Bren plants herself at the threshold, blade out, as the hammering turns the door frame loose. Ash sifts down from the beams, and a muffled shout rises from outside.
Bren
They are not getting in without paying for the wood.
Kynes holds the ledger open just long enough for the last line to be copied, then tears the page free and passes it across. The singed leaf lands in Kaelen's hand, clear enough to carry the route onward.
Kaelen
Got it. Annex records, then the payment chain. If this breaks, I want your blade on the names, not the door.
Outside, the pounding eases into a hard scrape, like iron testing splintered wood. The hall stays choked with smoke, but the evidence is no longer trapped in the ledger.
Quest Complete
Preserve the ledger's secrets