Session 2: The Wax Vaults
Narrative Recap
The Wardens traced the Crown’s copy of the lease to the Wax Vaults under Sealwright Hall, fought the vaults’ own ink in the dark to reach it, and opened the case to find the rent clause cut out with a razor, less than a month ago.
The muniment room
On day 2 the Wardens searched the muniment room of Marigold Keep, which smelled of damp and old mice. Iveth found the answer in a water-stained register: the High Water of Lease Year 161 had flooded the room, and every charter that survived was sent downriver to be kept by the Sealwrights. The lease was on the list.
Across to the Hall
On the morning of day 3 they took the chain ferry to Sealwright Hall. Oswy Hebden, Master of the Sealwrights, met them in the entrance court, read Queen Hesper’s commission twice, looked at Iveth Ammerly for a long moment, and gave them Clemency Vare as their guide. Clemency had been Iveth’s apprentice twenty years ago. Neither of them mentioned it.
Smirches in the dark
The lowest level of the Wax Vaults is warm, dry and completely dark. Clemency warned them that the vaults’ own ink let Sealwrights pass and nobody else. It did not let them pass. Five smirches came down the walls and off the ceiling, and a greater one rose out of the ink cisterns behind them. The ink blinded Beatrix twice. Odda Quarrel found that a struck hand-bell made the things shiver and pull back, and rang her clear both times. Clemency broke a jar of lamp-oil over the greater smirch and Iveth lit it.
The cut page
The lease-case stood on the lowest shelf of the Crown’s bay, in amber-dipped wood. Beatrix carried it to the reading table. Clemency broke the Company’s seal and lifted the lid. The first leaf was whole. The second leaf, the one with the rent on it, had been cut out along the fold with a razor, seal and all. Iveth laid the stub against the grain and said the cut was less than a month old. Clemency checked it with her own glass and agreed.
Behind the shelf, Kit Farrow found a folding razor wrapped in a twist of gold embroidery thread. The Master sat down on the vault stairs and did not speak for some time. When he did, it was to tell them that an apprentice with keys to this vault, Jory Penwarden, had not been seen since ten days before the fair.
While he sat, Clemency took down the vault register and read out the entry for the lease: one copy of two; the other lies with the Founder. The counterpart had gone into the Sallow Hills with Maudry, and nobody had opened her barrow since.
What the Party Learned
- The Crown’s copy went to Sealwright Hall. After the High Water of Lease Year 161.
- The rent clause was cut out. The whole second leaf, seal and all.
- The cut is less than a month old. Iveth dated it, and Clemency confirmed it.
- Jory Penwarden is missing. He held keys to the lowest vault and vanished ten days before the fair.
- The Founder kept a counterpart. The Hall’s register says the second copy was buried with her in the Sallow Hills.
Where We Left Off
The Wardens left the razor and its thread with Clemency, who locked them in her own strongbox, and crossed back to Summerhythe at dusk. They decided to spend day 4 resting, buying rope and hiring a boat, and to go up the Brisk to the Founder’s barrow on day 5.
The Party
- Beatrix Holloway (Hana), Paladin 3
- Iveth Ammerly (Theo), Wizard 3
- Kit Farrow (Mei), Rogue 3
- Odda Quarrel (Luis), Bard 3