The Mill Fire

The Mill is Answered
Solved the case of The Mill Fire.

Patron: Halvik Storn, in Dreskmark Market Square. The sheet asks for Culprit, Motive, Method. Each answer must rest on a finding; a lead only points you onward.

You arrive knowing of it: it is the matter in Storn's summons.

Gather the proof

1. Take the Sealed Ledger in Dreskmark River-Mill.
   Needed before Halvik Storn: “The Concord Seal”.
2. Talk to Halvik Storn in Dreskmark Market Square and choose “The Concord Seal”.
   Finding Wax Seal Broken: “The Concord seal on the grain store bore a double impression — pressed once when the store was locked, then again later from outside, as if the lock had been broken before the fire.”
3. Take the Dated Ledger Page in Dreskmark River-Mill.
   Finding Fullwick Came To Blows: “A tavern hand's scrawl beside the dunned debt records that Bren Fullwick and Oskar Thane came to blows over it not a week before the fire — a public quarrel, real and hot.”
   Finding Oskar Ledger Altered: “The mill's grain ledger had been doctored — a line cut clean out and rescribed two nights before the fire, the struck name beginning O. Thane.”
   Lead Fullwick Grudge: “An angrily underscored line in the mill ledger duns one Bren Fullwick for an old debt to the mill.”

Keep the order: a topic only appears once you hold the lead or the item it needs.

The answer

Show the case sheet

Question	Answer	Proved by
Culprit	Oskar Thane	Wax Seal Broken; Oskar Ledger Altered
Motive	Cover Debt	Oskar Ledger Altered
Method	Broke The Seal	Wax Seal Broken

The trap

These are true findings that point at the wrong story. Presenting a sheet built on them costs a segment of the day and the clean pass.

• Fullwick Came To Blows makes a wrong sheet presentable (Culprit: Bren Fullwick, Motive: Settling A Grudge). “A tavern hand's scrawl beside the dunned debt records that Bren Fullwick and Oskar Thane came to blows over it not a week before the fire — a public quarrel, real and hot.”
• Harrow Cornered Grain makes a wrong sheet presentable (Culprit: Toven Harrow, Motive: Profit From Scarcity). “The factor Toven Harrow had bought the whole season's grain forward and cheap weeks before the blaze; when the store burned the price doubled in a day, and what he held doubled with it.”
• Lamp Spill Accident makes a wrong sheet presentable (Method: A Spilled Lamp). “A lamp was turned up among the sacks in the burnt store, fallen and charred through — the men's ready proof of a careless accidental blaze; yet a lamp inside cannot break wax from without.”

Close the case

Stand beside Halvik Storn and present. When the sheet holds, Halvik Storn offers courses; the case closes, and The Mill is Answered unlocks, once you commit to one. Any course counts; they differ in the morale and marks shown beside each. This run chose Convict, which also earns Conviction at the Mill.