Chronicle of the solution: The Silence of the Fair
Conspiracy Tier I
The conspiracy file is closed, but the reasoning that closed it deserves reading by any investigator.
The deed, as it was recorded
Not one deed but a whole scheme has come to light — laid patiently, in secret. The crown demands not only the name but the proof: suspicion without grounds is itself a tool of the scheme. Before you, one by one, will stand Sir Bogdan de Fag, Iustin the Mariner and Onufrie the Executioner. Rumor walks the deed through every corner: the tourney field, the salt market and the throne room. Open the grid, weigh every clue, and pronounce your verdict: the Chancellery awaits only your signature.
The fair is the loudest place in the realm. Which is exactly why anyone plotting something does not hide from the noise but hides inside it. The Chancellery named this dossier “The Silence of the Fair” because, amid all that clamour, one agreement was struck without witnesses.
The three suspects are perhaps the most ill-matched gathering in the archive. Sir Bogdan de Fag, a man of duty. Iustin the Mariner, who travels between ports and brings back, along with his cargo, everything said in them. And Onufrie the Executioner — a man nobody asks anything, which in an investigation is a form of power.
The places run from fairground to palace: the tourney field, the salt market and the throne room. The distance between the first and the last is precisely what is at stake.
Tier I. You have three attempts and the right to reveal clues, each at its price. If you have saved scrolls from your daily stipend, you may pay for them without losing points.
The Chancellery had to weigh Sir Bogdan de Fag, Iustin the Mariner and Onufrie the Executioner. All of them had opportunity, and for that very reason opportunity was worth nothing.
The suspects
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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
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Iustin the Mariner
He brings goods from ports with unpronounceable names. Half the cargo never appears in the customs records.
1.78 m tall · blue eyes · black hair · left-handed
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Onufrie the Executioner
A quiet man with a loud trade. He keeps a notebook of the last words of every condemned soul.
1.92 m tall · dark eyes · no hair · right-handed
Locations
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The tourney field
Empty stands outside festival days. An excellent place for meetings that never happened.
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The salt market
Here anything is bargained for, from salt to silences. The price of silence keeps rising.
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The throne room
Gold, purple, and the most closely watched place in the kingdom. In theory.
Everything that could be learned
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.
- The tracks in the dust do not lie: Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the throne room.
- An unsigned note, slipped under the door: "the culprit was in the place where anything is bargained for".
- In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: Onufrie the Executioner was at the tourney field.
Reveal the Chancellery's reasoning — warning: past this line, the mystery ends
The reasoning, step by step
It began with certainties, however small. A small certainty closes an entire row, and closed rows add up quickly.
The clerk read the next line aloud: “The tracks in the dust do not lie: Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the throne room”. The match was nailed down, and the rest of the row was left clean, like a page wiped with a sponge.
There followed a detail that narrowed the circle: “An unsigned note, slipped under the door: "the culprit was in the place where anything is bargained for"”. The fact stuck to the guilty party like a seal, and whoever did not bear the seal was left in peace.
The examination of the place yielded this as well: “In the Chancellery's ledger it stands in black and white: Onufrie the Executioner was at the tourney field”. Once the tick was placed, the investigation had nothing left to argue on that row and moved on.
The seal on the file
The Chancellery pronounced its verdict without hesitation: the culprit is Iustin the Mariner. At the hour in question, Iustin the Mariner was at the salt market. Nothing was assumed along the way; every step can be redone with a pencil on paper.
The remaining suspects
And here is what had become of the others, in that same hour: Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the throne room; Onufrie the Executioner was at the tourney field. Every one of these rows was necessary: take out a single one and the verdict can no longer be demonstrated.
That is how a dossier closes: not with a well-contrived suspicion, but with the only arrangement the grid still allowed. The Chancellery needed no confession — it needed only logic.
Play this dossier All mysteries
The chronicle is written from the logic of the file, not from memory. The uniqueness of the solution was demonstrated by the solver before the dossier ever became public. behind the scenes at the Chancellery.