The brass-bound register unfolds into several salt-stiff pages. Hadrik Voss’s hook-mark appears beside the Benefactor’s receiving seal and a transfer time only minutes away.
Serik
These names are active hands, not historical entries. Voss is moving someone through the quay before the next tide turns.
Serik bends over the register, bronze scales catching the mineral fire. Bren stands close to Kynes, while Danna studies the final route notation.
Danna
That mark leads toward the quay passage. It is a ferrier’s notation, but the destination is sealed from the water side.
The mineral flames dim whenever Kynes nears the Benefactor’s seal. The pages stiffen beneath his shadow, resisting the witness they were prepared to receive.
Bren
It recognizes you, love, but it does not welcome your reading. Perhaps the seal expects obedience rather than curiosity.
Serik
We can copy the names and follow the route, or challenge the register now. Either choice may announce us to whoever waits below.
✓ Quest Accepted
Protect the witnesses marked for removal
“" well you better then anyone knows how well I obey, love" I give her a playful smirk”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +1)
Kynes
Well, you better than anyone know how well I obey, love.
Kynes gives Bren a playful smirk. The mineral fire glints across the brass register, and the tense chamber briefly feels like their own familiar room.
Bren
I know exactly how well you obey, love. Usually after you have tested every boundary, questioned the instructions, and improved them beyond recognition.
Bren leans over the register beside him. Her shadow touches the Benefactor’s seal without forcing it, and the stiff pages relax beneath their shared presence.
Bren
There. It accepts partnership better than obedience. A useful lesson for whoever prepared this little welcome.
The seal opens into a precise route: a submerged door, a receiving mark, and a transfer scheduled before the tide turns. The active names remain legible.
Serik
Then we have the route and the names. Let us interrupt Hadrik Voss before he can turn another refusal into a disappearance.
“"agreed, I don't think I have the time to stage another government coup" I say sarcasticly”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +3)
Kynes
Agreed. I do not think I have time to stage another government coup.
Bren
A tragic restraint, love. We shall have to settle for interrupting one clerk and preserving the witnesses.
Kynes follows the opened route through the submerged door. The brass register folds shut behind him, leaving the active names copied clearly in Serik’s keeping.
The passage descends beneath black water without wetting their clothes, guided by pale mineral fire. At its end, a receiving chamber stands open around a waiting figure.
Hadrik Voss
You arrived before the tide. That is inconvenient, but not unexpected. The register has always favored decisive witnesses.
Hadrik Voss, a lean middle-aged man with weathered tan skin, close-cropped dark hair, and a scar through one eyebrow, stands beside a bound ledger-carrier.
Serik
The ledger-carrier is alive, and the transfer seal is uncompleted. Better still, the register has copied Voss’s private receiving marks into our master slates.
“" I take it your Voss" I say unimpressed”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +1)
Kynes
I take it you’re Voss.
Hadrik Voss
Hadrik Voss, yes. Your lack of surprise suggests the records have been unusually honest tonight.
Hadrik rests one hand on the uncompleted transfer seal. The bound ledger-carrier, a frightened young adult human woman with a slight build, dark braided hair, and a mud-stained russet coat, watches him in silence, while Serik keeps the copied master slates close.
Hadrik Voss
You have my receiving marks, my route selections, and probably enough testimony to make a convincing accusation. None of that explains why you came.
Hadrik Voss
He expected a claimant, not a witness who questions the machinery. That makes him harder to redirect.
The mineral fire reflects across the brass seal. Beyond the chamber, black water presses against the submerged passage, and the tide begins to turn.
“"we were summoned, they have questions about their employment savvy? " Reading his surface thoughts "and who might have expected me " I say with a cold gaze”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -3)
Kynes
We were summoned. You have questions about our employment, savvy? And who might have expected me?
Kynes fixes Hadrik with a cold gaze and reaches past the man’s guarded expression, catching the surface thoughts before the warded chamber can scatter them.
Hadrik Voss
He was expected by the Quay Benefactor, not as a recruit but as the living witness named in the old custody route. Veyra Ashhand wanted him delivered intact.
The reading succeeds, but the seal bites back through Kynes’s shadow. A sharp violet line burns across his palm, and the mineral flames flare loudly enough to echo through the passage.
Hadrik Voss
Your employment is irrelevant to the Benefactor. You were expected because your name can authorize what no forged seal can. Veyra Ashhand sent the summons.
Serik
Then the transfer was never meant to recruit him. It was meant to make his presence appear consensual.
Hadrik Voss
Precisely. And now that you have read me, the Benefactor knows you are here.
“I grip Hadrik telekineticlly by the throat and crush. " Then your not needed then."”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -1)
Kynes
Then you're not needed.
Kynes closes his hand. Invisible force clamps around Hadrik Voss’s throat and crushes the words from him, driving him to his knees beside the unfinished seal.
Hadrik Voss
The Benefactor cannot receive him now. The witness has chosen refusal.
The violet seal fractures with a sharp report. Its backlash lashes Kynes’s palm, reopening the burning line and costing him a pulse of strength, but Hadrik’s receiving mark goes dark.
Serik
The transfer is broken. The ledger-carrier is free of the seal’s claim.
The young woman collapses against the chamber wall, breathing hard but alive. Black water surges beyond the passage as the tide turns, carrying the shattered seal’s light away.
Hadrik Voss
You have made yourself the refusal they feared. Veyra will know exactly what you chose.
Quest Complete
Protect the witnesses marked for removal
Skill Upgrade: Melee Combat Fair→Good
“"and." Is all I say as I reapply the telekinetic grip to his throat”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -1)
Kynes
And.
Kynes reapplies the telekinetic grip. Invisible pressure locks around Hadrik’s throat and shoulders, forcing him motionless beside the darkened seal without crushing breath.
Hadrik Voss
You intend to silence me, then. Veyra will read that as confirmation, not surrender.
The ledger-carrier watches from the wall, shaken but alert. Serik steps between her and the broken seal while Danna checks the flooding passage.
Serik
He is restrained. Ask what matters before the tide seals this chamber, and keep the witness beyond his reach.
Hadrik Voss
The seal is broken, but the route remembers him. Veyra will know where the refusal occurred.
Hadrik’s hook-mark flickers once beneath his collar, revealing a thin strand of violet light leading deeper through the submerged chamber.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get the ledger-carrier safely out
“"every one out now!" I holler, I turn back to Hadrik. "Not you though" I cast stun and spectral bonds on him commanding the bonds to bind him to his knees around his neck.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled +3)
Kynes
Every one out now! Not you though.
Serik immediately guides the ledger-carrier toward the dry passage, while Danna follows and signals the retreat. The tidewater withdraws from their path, leaving it clear.
Serik
Move. He has made his choice, and the witness leaves with us. We will secure the records beyond the floodline.
Stunning force strikes Hadrik, locking his muscles rigid. Spectral bonds burst from Kynes’s shadow, coil around Hadrik’s shoulders and throat without choking him, and drive him firmly to his knees.
Hadrik Voss
You bind the clerk, but not the route. The strand already carries your refusal to the chamber below.
The violet strand shivers beneath Hadrik’s collar, then parts under the bonds’ pressure. Its severed end projects a clear map in the air, revealing a hidden stair toward the Benefactor’s receiving chamber.
Hadrik Voss
There. You have found the path Veyra kept from every courier. She will know you possess it now.
“I take soul cutter and plung it through his chest”
SUCCESS (Good Melee Combat, rolled +4)
Kynes draws the Soul-Cutter and drives it through Hadrik Voss’s chest. The blade passes cleanly, pinning him against the salt-dark stone without spilling blood.
Hadrik Voss
The refusal... has become a severance.
The Soul-Cutter drinks the violet strand instead of Hadrik’s life, severing his connection to the receiving chamber. The projected map collapses into the blade’s dark edge.
Serik
You severed the route without destroying the record. The Benefactor’s chamber is still reachable, but she cannot track us through it.
Hadrik sags against the blade, conscious but unable to move. A hidden compartment opens beneath the chamber floor, revealing a sealed packet bearing Veyra Ashhand’s receiving mark.
Danna
That packet was beneath the route all along. It may name the Benefactor’s next transfer and every witness she meant to claim.
The ledger-carrier reaches the dry passage with Serik, while Danna secures the packet. Behind them, the tide rises around the immobilized clerk and the open stair.
Secure the sealed packet
Quest Complete
Get the ledger-carrier safely out
Skill Upgrade: Melee Combat Good→Great