Chronicle of the solution: The Testimony of the Fair
Forged decree Tier III
The lying seal has been prised from the hand that pressed it, and the road to that hand is written out below.
The opening of the investigation
A parchment full of orders no one ever gave is circulating through Realm of the Crown, and the harm has only begun. Until the hand that pressed the seal is found, every written order stands in doubt. The testimonies keep returning to the same names: Mihu the Archer, Sir Bogdan de Fag, Toma the Cellarer and Luca the Squire. The hours in question: "at dawn", "after matins", "at noon" and "at dusk". Few files have tested so many investigators; untangle the threads, catch the lie, and pronounce your verdict.
The Chancellery's list held Mihu the Archer, Sir Bogdan de Fag, Toma the Cellarer and Luca the Squire, none of them further above suspicion than the next.
The suspects
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Mihu the Archer
He hits a coin tossed on the wind from a hundred paces. At questions, though, he always misses.
1.76 m tall · brown eyes · brown hair · left-handed
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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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Toma the Cellarer
He holds the keys to every cellar in the castle. He claims the wine vanishes on its own, by "angelic evaporation."
1.73 m tall · brown eyes · red hair · left-handed
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Luca the Squire
He polishes the knight's armour and dreams of a sword of his own. For a coat of arms he would do almost anything.
1.72 m tall · green eyes · brown hair · right-handed
Locations
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The abbey library
Thousands of leather-bound tomes. Some of the chains on the shelves were cut recently.
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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 queen's garden
Roses trimmed to a line and paths you may walk only by invitation. At night, the hedge has ears.
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The guild forge
Anvils, tongs, and a fire that never goes out. Many small metal things vanish here.
Objects
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The locked chest
Three padlocks, two rows of straps. Fresh scratches around the hinges, not the locks.
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The abbess's bell
It calls the nuns to prayer. On the night in question, they all say, it rang once too many.
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The silver-clad icon
The silver casing is old craftsmanship; the nails that hold it were driven this week.
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The purse of gold coins
New coins, unworn, from a minting not yet in circulation. Interesting.
Moments
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At dawn
When the citadel is barely waking and the guards still doze.
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After matins
The hour after the morning service, when the abbey empties.
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At noon
Midday, with bustle in the markets and silence in the alcoves.
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At dusk
When the shadows lengthen and the lanterns are not yet lit.
The testimonies on file
Nothing is missing from the list and nothing is surplus. Every row below is necessary: without it, the grid would allow several solutions at once.
- The chronicler notes drily: Luca the Squire handled the silver-clad icon, whatever the court may say.
- Even the jester says it in earnest: the suspect with green eyes never set foot in the queen's garden.
- An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the guild forge matches that hour: after matins.
- The Chancellery checked twice: the queen's garden does not match that hour: at dusk.
- Before the investigator, Sir Bogdan de Fag firmly repeats: "I was there at dusk".
- An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: Toma the Cellarer was there at noon.
- Even the jester says it in earnest: the locked chest does not match that hour: at dusk.
- The chancellor deduced it coldly: if Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the tourney field, then Mihu the Archer was there after matins.
- Toma the Cellarer raises their right hand and says: "I was there at dawn".
- Whatever the market gossips: Sir Bogdan de Fag never set foot in the abbey library.
- The healer says it with a raised finger: if the suspect with red hair was there at noon, then the suspect with red hair handled the abbess's bell.
Break the seal: the Chancellery's reasoning — the culprit's name is spoken from here on
How it was unravelled
The investigation ran contrary to suspicion: it did not ask who could have, it cut away, row by row, whoever could not.
A detail overlooked at the start came back into the file: “The chronicler notes drily: Luca the Squire handled the silver-clad icon, whatever the court may say”. Once the tick was placed, the investigation had nothing left to argue on that row and moved on.
The archivist underlined the following line with his nail: “Even the jester says it in earnest: the suspect with green eyes never set foot in the queen's garden”. One possibility fewer means, in the grid, one step nearer the only answer left.
A piece of information dearly bought showed its worth: “An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: the guild forge matches that hour: after matins”. From then on that cell could no longer be disputed, and the dispute moved one row down.
The pages gathered fast, and each cut a strip out of the grid: “The Chancellery checked twice: the queen's garden does not match that hour: at dusk”; “Before the investigator, Sir Bogdan de Fag firmly repeats: "I was there at dusk"”; “An honest-faced witness saw it plainly: Toma the Cellarer was there at noon”; “Even the jester says it in earnest: the locked chest does not match that hour: at dusk”; “The chancellor deduced it coldly: if Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the tourney field, then Mihu the Archer was there after matins”; “Toma the Cellarer raises their right hand and says: "I was there at dawn"”. Each closed a door, and by the last of them only one stood open.
The next line was the one that changed the reckoning: “Whatever the market gossips: Sir Bogdan de Fag never set foot in the abbey library”. The cut named nobody, but it shortened the list of those who could still be named.
A report from the watch brought clarity: “The healer says it with a raised finger: if the suspect with red hair was there at noon, then the suspect with red hair handled the abbess's bell”. A condition is a trap with the spring drawn: it catches nothing until somebody treads on it.
The lie
The lie came to light by its plain failure to fit. Toma the Cellarer swore before the Chancellery that I was there at dawn, yet everything that could be proved shows the opposite: Toma the Cellarer was not present at dawn. Under the Supreme Law that failure to fit is the culprit's own signature.
The seal on the file
The Chancellery closed the dossier with a single name written on it: Toma the Cellarer. The row in the grid says it all: Toma the Cellarer was at the queen's garden, handled the abbess's bell and was there at noon. The dossier called for hypotheses driven to contradiction, not direct elimination alone — which is why it was rated at tier III.
The remaining suspects
The Chancellery recorded the others' movements as well, because it was precisely they that closed the grid: Mihu the Archer was at the guild forge, handled the locked chest and was there after matins; Sir Bogdan de Fag was at the tourney field, handled the purse of gold coins and was there at dusk; Luca the Squire was at the abbey library, handled the silver-clad icon and was there at dawn. Not one of the rows above is spare — remove it and the grid opens again.
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.