Finnegan holds the brass key beside the unconscious walking body. The Watcher covers the corridor while the folklorist keeps File 19-B pressed against her chest.
The key enters the sealed service door with a gritty click. Its lock turns too easily, and the door opens onto shelves crowded with old parish registers and morgue ledgers.
The Watcher
Stay on this side of the threshold until we know what the archive wants from us.
Dust hangs motionless beyond the doorway. A single ledger lies open on a reading stand, its page marked by a black thread and a familiar surname: Wrettch.
Mara Venn
That name was not in File 19-B. The page may be older than the morgue, or it may have been waiting for you.
From the dark archive comes the faint, deliberate sound of pages turning. One page. Then another. The unconscious body remains still behind them.
The Watcher
Nobody touches that ledger alone. We go in together, and we leave the door visible.
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover how the Wrettch family figured in the patron's design
“"I'll go investigate the archives Fred, please keep her safe and see if you can search the corpse for any identification regarding Devoy and The Saved."”
SUCCESS (Good Academics, rolled +0)
Finnegan Wrettch
I'll investigate the archives, Fred. Please keep her safe and search the corpse for anything identifying Devoy or The Saved.
The Watcher
Go. I’ll keep the folklorist behind me, and I’ll check the body without moving it farther.
Finnegan crosses into the archive. The turning pages stop as he reaches the open ledger, leaving the room quiet except for the weak fluorescent hum behind him.
The Wrettch entry records a transfer from Freedom’s Beginning to the morgue, witnessed by a Saved registrar. Its final notation names Lester Devoy as sender and calls the recipient only the patron.
The conclusion is clear: the corpse was prepared as a vessel for something Devoy intended to deliver, not as an ordinary victim. The registrar’s name has been scraped away.
The Watcher
No wallet, no hospital mark, nothing but a second band hidden under the first. It says Rusk, Elias Rusk.
By the time Finnegan reaches the lower register, the scraped ink has spread across the page. He has the corpse’s name and Devoy’s connection, but the patron’s identity is lost in the stain.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find the identity of the Saved registrar
“"Ok what should we do now Fred? It's only a matter of time before Devoy teleports and finds us in here. We need to find this registrar but I don't feel ready yet to confront Devoy....I...think I need more time."”
SUCCESS (Good Psychology, rolled -1)
Finnegan Wrettch
What should we do now, Fred? Devoy could teleport here anytime. We need the registrar, but I am not ready to confront Devoy. I need more time.
The Watcher
Then we do not confront him. We identify the registrar, secure our exit, and make this archive useful before we move.
The Watcher enters beside Finnegan, keeping the service door in sight. Behind them, the fluorescent hum falters, and the ledger’s black thread tightens across the page.
Mara Venn
The registrar did not vanish with the name. Look for repeated transfer marks. A registrar leaves habits behind even when someone scrapes away the signature.
The folklorist lays File 19-B beside the lower register. Matching symbols reveal a clerk’s private index, and the missing name resolves into one entry: Calder Voss, registrar at Freedom’s Beginning.
The Watcher
There. Calder Voss is our registrar. The index gives us his records room beneath the east chapel, and a route that avoids the main compound.
The answer costs them time. While the three compare the route, the ink spreads over the transfer date, erasing when Voss last entered the chapel. Somewhere beyond the walls, a watch ticks once.
Quest Complete
Find the identity of the Saved registrar
“"Alright, if we find Voss maybe we can interrogate him and get a lead on Devoy's location before he finds us."”
SUCCESS (Good Reasoning, rolled +3)
Finnegan Wrettch
If we find Voss, we can interrogate him and get a lead on Devoy’s location before he finds us.
The repeated transfer marks align with a concealed stairway beneath the east chapel. The route is exact, and it ends at a locked records room below Freedom’s Beginning.
The Watcher
Then we move now. No main gate, no chapel floor, and no chance for Devoy to choose the ground.
The key turns in the archive’s lower cabinet, revealing a narrow service passage. At its end, a thin elderly man, with a gaunt, deeply lined face, wispy white hair, and ink-stained fingers waits in a dark clerk’s coat, spectacles cracked across one lens, one hand raised from an open ledger.
Calder Voss
You came sooner than the index predicted. I am Calder Voss. If you want Devoy, take this map and leave before the chapel bells remember me.
Voss places a grease-marked map in Finnegan’s reach. It identifies Devoy’s current trail to the abandoned Bell Foundry, and marks a concealed exit beneath the records room.
Mara Venn
That is more than a name. It is a route, a destination, and a way out. We finally have all three.
+ New Item Acquired
Grease-marked map
“"This is great! Thanks Voss! Wait....were you the one controlling that corpse?"”
SUCCESS (Good Psychology, rolled +3)
Finnegan Wrettch
This is great! Thanks, Voss. Wait... were you the one controlling that corpse?
Voss’s raised hand lowers toward the map, but his cracked spectacles stay fixed on Finnegan. Behind them, the passage seems to narrow around the question.
Calder Voss
No. I registered Elias Rusk’s transfer, but I did not command him. The command was written into the second band before he reached the morgue.
The Watcher
Written by whom? Devoy, or someone acting for him?
Calder Voss
Devoy’s seal was pressed into the wax. But the hand that prepared the band belonged to a local handler. I marked his route in the margin.
Voss turns the map and reveals a tiny inked symbol beneath the Bell Foundry route. A second line leads to an abandoned undertaker’s shop two streets away.
Mara Venn
Then the handler may still have the original band. If we take it, we may learn how Devoy’s command travels.
“"Let's do it! Fred get the car ready we need to get this lady to safety, suit up, and head to that creepy undertaker's shop on Pembley street."”
SUCCESS (Fair Agility, rolled +0)