Chronicle of the solution: The Seal of the Banquet
Theft Tier I
What was taken has been found, and the one who took it wears irons today; here, though, is the road that led there.
The deed, as it was recorded
The bells had barely finished ringing when word reached the Chancellery: a theft, within the very walls. The Chancellery has set every other file aside: until what was taken returns, no one sleeps easy. Suspicion has fallen on Sir Bogdan de Fag, Teofil the Chronicler and Princess Smaranda — and until the proof is plain, none of these names leaves the room. Rumor walks the deed through every corner: the guild forge, the great stable and the Golden Boar inn. Open the grid, weigh every clue, and pronounce your verdict: the Chancellery awaits only your signature.
A banquet gathers the whole realm into one place, and the Chancellery learned long ago that large gatherings are an occasion for small deeds. This time the absence went unnoticed on the night itself; it was discovered only when the seal was needed — and the seal was no longer where it should have been.
Suspicion settled on three names. Sir Bogdan de Fag, who has the run of everywhere because nobody stops him. Teofil the Chronicler, who has the run of everywhere because everyone wishes to be well remembered. And Princess Smaranda, who needs no such freedom, since everything is brought to her.
Each of the three places has its part in the investigation: the guild forge, where the fire never goes out and small metal things have a habit of disappearing; the great stable, from which one leaves in haste; and the Golden Boar inn, at which one arrives afterwards.
Tier I. Three suspects, three places, one truth. Close the dossier on your first attempt and your score stays whole.
The names entered in the file were Sir Bogdan de Fag, Teofil the Chronicler and Princess Smaranda. The investigation regarded them all with the same coldness, as is proper.
The suspects
-
Sir Bogdan de Fag
He pawned his armour to pay his tavern debts. Honour, he says, does not rust.
1.85 m tall · blue eyes · brown hair · right-handed
-
Teofil the Chronicler
He writes the kingdom's history as he is ordered. The unwelcome drafts, however, he keeps every one.
1.69 m tall · brown eyes · greying hair · left-handed
-
Princess Smaranda
She has refused seven suitors and kept the gifts of all. She calls it practicality, not greed.
1.66 m tall · green eyes · chestnut hair · right-handed
Locations
-
The guild forge
Anvils, tongs, and a fire that never goes out. Many small metal things vanish here.
-
The great stable
It smells of hay and hurried departures. Horses give no testimony.
-
The Golden Boar inn
Wine watered down and rumours diluted with nothing. The rooms upstairs ask no questions.
The findings and the testimonies
Here is the whole file, as the investigator received it. Not one row is spare — it was checked by removing each in turn and watching the unique solution disappear.
- An unsigned note, slipped under the door: "the culprit was in the place where the rooms upstairs ask no questions".
- The gate guard swears: Princess Smaranda was at the guild forge.
- In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: Teofil the Chronicler was in the place that smells of hay.
Open the full reasoning — warning: past this line, the mystery ends
How it was unravelled
The rule of the house is simple: what is observed enters the grid as it stands; what is declared enters only once it is settled who declared it.
A note in the margin of the page read: “An unsigned note, slipped under the door: "the culprit was in the place where the rooms upstairs ask no questions"”. One attribute of the culprit, no more. Enough, though, to leave on the list only whoever has it.
From one word to the next, the investigation arrived here: “The gate guard swears: Princess Smaranda was at the guild forge”. Two names bound themselves for good, and the binding undid, at a stroke, every pairing that contradicted it.
It was set down, for whoever reads after us: “In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: Teofil the Chronicler was in the place that smells of hay”. A pair was tied, and the knot dragged a whole handful of impossibilities after it.
The Chancellery's verdict
The name the grid could no longer force out of the circle is Sir Bogdan de Fag. At the hour of the deed, Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the Golden Boar inn. The verdict stands on its own, out of the findings above.
What became of the others
The remaining suspects received their release from the grid too: Teofil the Chronicler was at the great stable; Princess Smaranda was at the guild forge. It is these acquittals that made the verdict possible: without them, room for doubt would have remained.
Here the chronicle stops. If you followed it to the end, you did exactly what an investigator does: you believed the grid, not your impressions.
Play this dossier All mysteries
This chronicle is no free retelling: it rises directly out of the dossier's logic, and every step passed through the solver which proved, before publication, that the solution is unique. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.