The heavy iron door of the sub-vault swung open with a slow, grinding groan that echoed off the damp stone walls. I stepped inside the subterranean repository, holding a single brass lantern whose flame cast long, amber shadows across towering stacks of uncatalogued imperial tax registers.
We were weeks away from the Grandos summit, yet every corner of the Neutral Alliance still held ghosts of the old regimes.
My personal comm-crystal remained silent in my pocket, but the thick, stagnant air of the vault carried a distinct, ozone-like charge—a telltale sign of unauthorized magical displacement. Someone had bypassed the outer perimeter glyphs, not by brute force, but by slipping through an administrative blind spot.
I set the lantern down on a scarred oak sorting table and unrolled a par
