Evening settles over the Hall of Welcome. Mara crosses the common room with a folded message, accompanied by a young courier woman in a weather-stained brown cloak, her auburn braid tucked beneath a blue hood.
Mara
The courier came from the weathered shrine. Lethira remembered one fragment before the rest of it slipped away: a name spoken by the Pale Auditor, and a meeting place outside town.
Bren rises from the hearthside chair. Vetta’s smoky form gathers near the table, Nhal’s purple glow dims to a watchful violet, and Rowan sets aside the evening’s accounts.
Bren
A remembered name and a place are enough to draw us into a trap, love. They are also enough to warn us that someone expects the fragment to be found.
Vetta
If the Pale Auditor changed Lethira’s mind, the fragment may be an escapee rather than an invitation. We should learn what survived before trusting the meeting place.
Rowan
The courier heard no name beyond the one in the message. The place is an abandoned watch shrine on the north road, reachable before midnight if you leave soon.
Nhal
A lure, a warning, or a genuine lead. We cannot tell from the fragment alone, but we can choose how close we stand when it answers.
The message lies open beneath the lamplight. No one reaches for Kynes’s bound palm; around him, the Hall waits for his decision.
Determine whether the Pale Auditor anticipated the investigation
Learn the name spoken by the Pale Auditor