Transcript
Estimated duration: about 2 hours.
This game was played in French. This page is an English translation of the original transcript.
The translation preserves the real order of play, hesitations, Off: exchanges, Focuses, Bets, and dice results.
[TIME]
By the time you leave the house where the representatives of the two clans have spoken, Jonstown has already resumed its noise.
Hendrik walks beside you without commenting on the agreement. Only as you approach the Library does he say:
— Are you hungry?
He nods toward the market hill.
— I am. After that, I have two days here before we leave again. Make the most of Jonstown while you have it in front of you.
You are almost at the Library steps when a cart half blocks your way.
Two temple servants are pulling a chest toward the entrance. Three clansmen are holding it back by the handles. No one is shouting yet, but everyone is talking at once.
A middle-aged woman, dusty from the road, holds a small leather-wrapped bundle against her chest.
— That one doesn't belong to you.
A Grey Sage answers her very coldly:
— It belonged to Jorstan. Jorstan left it to the Library.
Hendrik stops.
His gaze passes from the chest to the woman, then to you.
— Well then.
[TAL]
I walk up to the Grey Sage: “greetings, what's going on here?” Have I seen him before, around the Library, and what impression does he make on me?
[TIME]
You've seen him two or three times in the Library without speaking to him: a lean man in his fifties, short greying beard, who works quickly and speaks little. He gave you the impression of someone precise, impatient with disorder — not particularly hostile, but not inclined to smooth things over either.
At your greeting, he studies you for a second, then clearly recognizes the marks of your initiation.
— You're Hendrik's young man, aren't you?
He gestures briefly toward the chest.
— Jorstan, son of Argrathor, is dead. He left his books, tablets, and written effects to the Library. His kin are bringing them today.
His gaze falls on the bundle the woman is clutching.
— Except now they say part of it wasn't his. That these are family archives, entrusted only for copying and safekeeping.
The woman hears him and immediately replies:
— Because it's true.
The Grey Sage exhales through his nose.
— And I'm only saying that we cannot let anyone take whatever they please from a dead Sage's legacy simply because they claim it belonged to them before.
Behind you, Hendrik says nothing.
[TAL]
I look at the lady and introduce myself to her: “Talimar. I share your grief, and if you wish I'll personally take care of this small bundle. If it's of no interest to the temple, we'll return it to you. What do you think?” And I'm speaking as much to her as to the other Grey Sage, hoping he understands my attempt to find a way out. Not very orthodox, admittedly. (Do you think this calls for a resolution?)
[TIME — Off:]
Yes, I think this calls for a resolution. Your idea could genuinely break the deadlock, but neither the family nor the temple has an obvious reason to hand you the bundle without reservation.
There is, however, a limit to what you just promised: you can offer to take personal charge of the bundle and examine it, but you do not yet have the authority to commit the Library to returning it. The Grey Sage facing you has to accept that part of the arrangement.
The woman looks at you for a long time. Her arms barely loosen around the bundle.
— Personally? And no one opens it without me?
The Grey Sage turns his head toward you.
— And if you decide it doesn't interest the temple, young Sage, who gave you the authority to return it?
He isn't saying no. But he is waiting for your answer.
Intention: remove the bundle from the immediate confrontation so that it can be examined and its actual nature established.
Focus — Action Zoom: can you now gain enough trust from both sides to examine the bundle under your responsibility?
Favorable outcome: the woman hands you the bundle and the Sage accepts that it be placed under your responsibility for examination, without imposing any additional condition on how you open or handle it.
Opposing outcome: one of them refuses; the bundle remains in the family's hands and the conflict stays open.
For now I see 2 Bets on your side:
- You first offer your condolences and acknowledge her loss — you do not treat the woman as someone simply trying to remove property from the temple.
- You offer your personal responsibility rather than a seizure — there is an identifiable person who will answer for what happens to the bundle.
And 3 Counter-Bets:
- The family is specifically refusing to hand the bundle over to the temple — giving it to you remains, from their point of view, a significant act of trust.
- Jorstan's legacy is already claimed by the Library — the Sage does not want to create a precedent where a simple dispute is enough to remove documents from a legacy.
- You are a very young initiate with no authority of your own over the Library — your personal commitment does not yet bind the institution.
You can challenge these Bets, propose others, or answer their two objections first before we close the Focus.
[TAL]
That works for me. The Grey Sage didn't understand my trick, which gives me an opinion about him: learned maybe, austere no doubt, but above all not very clever. If he were, he'd have understood that this was a way to recover the bundle gently and then find whatever argument was needed to keep it. But it also makes me question my own trickery and where I stand in this world of Sages. Law and Truth in the background. But all of that only flashes through my mind because right now it's time to find out whether they accept or not.
Roll: 4, 5 -> 1 success
[TIME]
Time rolls the 3 Counter-Bets: 3, 5, 2 → 1 success.
1 against 1: Status Quo.
No one really gives up control of the bundle. But no one rejects your idea of examining it either.
The woman does not hand it to you yet. Nor does she close herself off as before.
The Grey Sage stares at you for a few seconds, then says:
— So you're asking us to trust you when neither she nor I yet knows what you'll do once you've opened it.
The woman adds almost immediately:
— And I don't want it disappearing into your Library while people argue about who owns it.
The Grey Sage continues:
— Very well. You're responsible for it. But you will not decide alone what belongs to the temple.
The woman turns toward him.
— And I stay while he opens it.
This time, the Sage does not argue.
She hesitates a moment longer, then slowly releases her arms and hands you the leather-wrapped bundle.
— Talimar. I'm entrusting it to you.
Behind you, Hendrik still hasn't said anything.
[TAL]
So I invite the woman inside the temple so we can find a table or somewhere quiet enough for me to look at the bundle. I ask her name and who she is in relation to Jorstan. Minimal interaction with the other Grey Sage and Hendrik.
[TIME]
The Grey Sage simply points you toward a small free table near a wall, away from the traffic.
The woman sits opposite you, the bundle between you.
— My name is Enastina. Jorstan was my older brother.
She places both hands flat on either side of the leather.
— He came to live here a long time ago. But these things came from our home.
A brief glance at the bundle.
— Do you want me to open it?
[TAL]
“Yes please. You look like you know what's inside, am I wrong?” I say while observing Enastina (appearance, age, beauty, runes, anything else...)
[TIME]
Enastina slowly undoes the leather strap.
— I know what was put in it, yes. Not necessarily everything Jorstan has done with it since.
At this distance, you can observe her more closely. She must be a little over forty, perhaps forty-five. Her face is marked by the road and by mourning, but still very alive: high cheekbones, dark eyes, brown hair threaded with a few grey strands and tied back without fuss. She is not dressed like someone who came to impress Jonstown.
Beautiful? Yes, by your standards, but nothing delicate about it: a firm, adult beauty carried mostly in the gaze and presence.
On her tunic, near the shoulder, you notice a small brooch bearing the Earth Rune. At her wrist, a pattern worn more by use than ornament suggests Harmony. Nothing tells you whether these are cult affiliations, family signs, or simply symbols she cares about.
At last she opens the leather.
Inside: several thin wooden tablets, two small rolls of parchment, and a thicker tablet separately wrapped in a piece of wool.
Enastina points to the group.
— These are lists of births, marriages, and deaths. These... land agreements. And this one...
She touches the wool-wrapped tablet without opening it yet.
— My father said this one must never leave the family.
[TAL]
“So that's the heart of the problem. Your father is Argrathor, right? Tell me a little about him. May I?” I say, reaching toward the mysterious tablet.
[TIME]
Enastina nods.
— Argrathor was our father. He wasn't a Sage. He raised cattle, sat in clan assemblies, and above all... he remembered everything. Who had sworn what, who owned a piece of land before a particular marriage, why two families should never share the same hearth.
She gives a brief, joyless smile.
— Jorstan used to say he had a library in his head and no patience for books.
When you reach out, she keeps her fingers on the wool for a moment, then withdraws them.
— You may.
The tablet is heavy for its size. The wood is old, darkened by hands. Beneath the wool is a face covered in writing older than that of the ordinary lists in the bundle, with several personal names and witness marks.
Enastina explains that it established why their family still possesses certain lands despite a division that should have taken them out of their line.
— Jorstan took it to make a copy. He never returned it.
[TAL]
“If Jorstan made a copy, what's the point of keeping the original? The Library is enormous, but it has a classification system. I could look for the copy.” I think. And then I have an idea: “I'll keep the original and we'll leave the rest to the temple. I'll copy the original or find Jorstan's copy, and tomorrow evening let's meet beside Ernalda's temple. I'll return the original to you.”
[TIME]
Enastina follows your reasoning without interrupting. But at “we'll leave the rest to the temple,” her expression changes.
— Wait. I didn't say the rest belonged to them.
She points to the other documents.
— All of this came from our home too. Jorstan could copy them, keep them for a while, study them. My father did not give them to him.
Then she returns to the old tablet.
— For this one... if you keep it, if you look for its copy and return it to me tomorrow at Ernalda's temple, yes. I can accept that.
She raises her eyes to you.
— But I have not authorized you to abandon the rest to the Library.
[TAL]
“I wasn't planning to tell the other Grey Sage about the other tablet. Are you really attached to the other lists? Kept here they're protected and available for consultation. I'm offering to turn a blind eye to the tablet out of respect for your father. I don't know him, admittedly, but I think we have everything to gain from respecting the dead. So for that, we need to give something to the temple.”
[TIME]
Enastina looks at you for a few seconds.
— So you're proposing that I leave your temple documents that belong to my family... in exchange for your silence about the one we care about most.
She seems neither shocked nor offended; she is mainly weighing what you are offering.
Eventually she separates the documents into two groups. The lists of births, marriages, and deaths matter less to her: “The dead won't change their names.” The land agreements, on the other hand, may still contain some old forgotten promise worth more than a field.
She proposes that the temple keep the lists, that Tal copy the land agreements if he wishes, and that he return the originals the next day along with her father's tablet.
[TAL]
“No. Your father wanted the tablet to stay in your family. He didn't say anything about the rest. According to Heort's Law, everything should stay with the temple. Do you want to discuss it with my teacher or another Grey Sage?”
[TIME]
Enastina presses her lips together slightly.
— I don't know Heort's Law well enough to tell you you're wrong. But I know what my father entrusted to Jorstan.
She keeps her hand on the agreements.
— If the Law says what you say it says, I want to hear it from someone who isn't negotiating with me.
Her gaze searches behind you.
— Yes. Your teacher.
Then she adds:
— And I will tell him exactly this: Jorstan was meant to keep them and copy them. Not inherit them.
Hendrik is still in the great hall, a few paces away, busy speaking with a servant. Enastina waits for you to call him.
[TAL — Off:]
Off: I don't understand anything. You said above that it was only the tablet that had to stay in their family. Not the rest. Is she moody? Given how this is going I almost want to leave her with the Old Sages. I'm trying to work something out for her and she understands nothing.
I shrug. “As you wish, though I doubt the other Sages will be more accommodating than I am.” Dryly. I get up and go fetch Hendrik. “Master, I'll leave you with Enastina. She's inflexible. We opened the bundle and its documents should go back to the temple because they're evidence of titles, dates of birth and death, in short everything needed to decide a case. And they belonged to Jorstan besides.”
[TIME — Off:]
No, she isn't moody. There is mainly a distinction I rendered badly, which gave you the impression that her position was changing.
From the entrance onward, Enastina has maintained that the entire bundle consists of family archives entrusted to Jorstan to be copied or kept, not given. What is special about the thick tablet is that her father had explicitly said it must never leave the family. So she is much more attached to that one, but she also claims the others as family property.
If my earlier wording made you understand that only this tablet was family property, that is a staging error on my part.
Hendrik breaks off his conversation with the servant and listens to you all the way through.
— No. You're moving too fast there.
He glances toward the table where Enastina has remained.
— We know these documents were at Jorstan's. We do not know that they belonged to him. That is precisely what is disputed.
Then he looks at you again.
— And the fact that a document is useful for judging something is not enough, by itself, to make it temple property.
He pauses briefly.
— Do you want me to take over, or do you want me to rule on it?
[TAL]
“Take over, Hendrik, because this is beyond me. I'd be inclined to agree with the other Sage and leave these documents with the temple. She might not even know how to read, for all I know. Anyway.” I'm not in a very good mood and it shows. I step back and I'm almost ready to leave the scene altogether.
[TIME]
Hendrik looks at you for a second, sees your mood, and does not insist.
— All right. I'll take over.
He returns to Enastina and sits at the table without calling the Grey Sage back for now.
— Let's start again from the beginning. What did your father entrust to Jorstan, and under what conditions?
Enastina begins to answer.
No one stops you. The Library door is only a few paces away.
[TAL]
I go outside and climb toward the hill to clear my head. I rediscover the dissatisfaction I used to feel with my uncle Grimar when I followed him on his merchant rounds and he tried to get me involved. I loved the journeys but not the merchandise. And here, I love following my curiosity and knowledge, but the level of local affairs is terribly boring.
[TIME]
Outside, the fresh air hits you immediately.
The higher you climb toward the market, the more the Library's voices disappear beneath other sounds: hooves on stone, vendors calling, a smith's hammer, bleating, laughter. No one here is debating ownership of a tablet three generations old.
At the top of the slope, Jonstown opens out more widely. Between the rooftops, you can see the roads leaving the town in several directions. On one of them, a small caravan is still approaching the gates: a few loaded mules, two wagons, travelers covered in dust.
Beside you, a vendor turns flatbreads on a hot griddle.
— Sage! You look like you need to eat something before condemning someone.
He laughs at his own joke.
[TAL]
I glare at him and keep going.
[TIME]
The vendor stops laughing immediately and lowers his eyes to his flatbreads.
You continue until the stalls thin out near the edge of the hill. Here the wind moves freely between the houses and carries away some of the market's noise.
Below, the small caravan is now passing through Jonstown's gates. Beyond it, the roads divide through the countryside.
For a few moments at least, no one is asking you to decide who owns what.
[TAL]
I think back to my travels with Uncle Grimar. In 2 days we'll leave with Hendrik. The Empire is still there. And the Sartarites are arguing over cows and squabbling over tablets! I doubt the Lunars are this crude.
[TIME]
The wind lashes your face.
The comparison comes back almost in spite of you: with Grimar, the imperial roads, the way stations, towns where everything seemed to have a place and a use. Even the markets seemed to obey something larger than the quarrels of a single clan.
Below, Jonstown suddenly seems small.
A stone town, a great Library, Sages capable of preserving centuries of memory — and around it, men ready to fight over a few animals or over who owns a tablet.
The caravan that has just entered the town disappears behind the first houses.
Two days.
Then the road again.
[TAL]
Out of nostalgia I decide to go find the caravan that has just arrived. And above all to ask where it comes from and whether it has fresh news from elsewhere.
[TIME]
You go back down toward the gate and catch the caravan before it fully disperses into the market.
Two covered wagons, four mules, half a dozen travelers. From their clothing and goods, these are not people from a single clan: wool, sacks of grain, several carefully tied bundles, two amphorae cushioned in straw.
A broad-shouldered man with a short red beard supervises the unloading. When you ask where they come from, he answers without stopping his inspection of the bundles:
— Alda-Chur. Six days on the road, because a wheel betrayed us.
Then he notices your Sage markings and pays a little more attention.
— But if you're asking where the news comes from rather than the goods... we crossed people coming down from Tarsh. Some had even come from Furthest.
He wipes his hands on his tunic.
— What do you want to know, young Sage? Prices, roads, Lunars, wars... or the stories people tell at night when they've had enough to drink?
[TAL]
“All of that at once, my curiosity is insatiable. In the order that matters to you. And I'll invite you to tell me over a bottle.”
[TIME]
The man bursts out laughing.
— Ah. Now that's a civilized way to question a merchant.
He gives two orders to his companions, leaves the rest of the unloading to a younger woman, then leads you to a small shop built against the inside of the town wall. A bottle of harsh wine soon appears between you.
— Daran, son of Orlev, he says while filling two cups. And since you're paying, I'll tell you things in the order that matters to me.
He raises one finger.
— The roads first. As far as Alda-Chur, nothing to stop a careful man from getting through. But farther north, travelers speak of more inspections, more armed men wanting to know who is carrying what, for whom, and why. Some call that order. Merchants call it lost time.
A second finger.
— Prices. Grain is rising in the north. Not enough to cause famine, enough to make those who have stockpiled it smile a great deal. Cattle sell well almost everywhere. As always, those who fight over cows then claim the merchants are thieves.
He drinks.
— The Lunars? People coming down from Furthest mostly say the officials keep counting, writing, taxing, building, checking, recording... You know, all those things barbarians find unbearable until the day they need a deed that's twenty years old.
A smile crosses his face.
— But they also say there are a lot of soldiers moving around. Too many, according to some. Not enough, according to others. And every man from the north claims to know why.
He shrugs.
— War, then: I heard five different versions before I had even left Alda-Chur. An army is going to march. No, two. No, none, it's only a rotation. No, it's a demonstration. No, it's a rumor spread by people who want to drive up the price of horses.
The bottle is already well down. Daran fills your cup again, then stops with a small smile that grows as an idea returns to him.
— Wait. You being a Grey Sage, I've got one for you.
He leans across the table, clearly delighted by the story before he has even told it.
— A mule driver down from Furthest swore that a man had managed to sell the same house three times in the same day.
He raises one finger.
— First, according to local custom.
A second.
— Second, with a perfectly registered Lunar deed.
Then he raises the third, already holding back a laugh.
— And before sunset, a priest arrived to explain that no one had ever had the right to sell anything, because the house had belonged to his temple for two generations.
Daran takes a sip and looks at you over his cup.
— So, Sage? Who owns the house?
He settles back into his seat, clearly curious to see what you will answer.
[TAL]
I shrug, but his story amuses me because maybe it points to the absurdity of laws, or maybe it reminds me just how much my role as a Grey Sage may not be so useless after all. A little later, I thank him for the news of the world and decide to return to the temple. Discreetly I go searching through the writings for everything concerning Jorstan and especially Argrathor. To close the matter. With a very tiny hope of finding something interesting anyway through them or through what has been written about them.
[TIME]
You return to the Library without going back to see Hendrik or Enastina.
You begin with the catalogues, then the copying registers, and finally the working papers attributed to Jorstan. No one prevents you from consulting them, and you can do so without attracting particular attention.
After a while, you find something.
In an old working register, several documents are grouped beneath a note in Jorstan's hand: “Argrathor's papers — from the household. To copy.” Farther on, another, more recent note specifies: “originals to be returned after copying.”
And the descriptions match fairly well what you saw on the table: births, unions, deaths, land agreements. The thick old tablet is mentioned separately as “old partition — father's original.”
Then you find something else, which has nothing to do with ownership of the documents.
Several pages of Jorstan's personal notes about Argrathor. He describes a man unable to tolerate someone slowly reading a text he already knew by heart, and tells how one day, during an assembly, his father corrected three elders in succession on the exact terms of an agreement concluded twenty-seven years earlier.
Jorstan simply concludes:
— My father could not write. That did not stop him from preserving things we would have lost without him.
You now have something much more solid concerning the bundle's status.
[TAL]
I imagine Hendrik managed to untangle that on his own. Good, the woman got her documents back. That's not going to save Sartar. Grumpy, I head to dinner in the refectory. I don't even ask what became of the woman's bundle.
[TIME]
In the refectory, the smell of stew and warm bread finally covers that of old parchment.
You sit down without looking for Hendrik. A few initiates quietly discuss a badly copied text; farther away, two servants squabble over who forgot to bring in a jar before the rain.
No one comes to speak to you about Enastina, Jorstan, or the bundle.
In front of you: a steaming bowl, bread, and finally something that asks for no judgment.
[TAL]
I'm going to bed. And I think I'll spend the next day studying Sartar's life to see whether people were already talking about the Red Moon in his time. Hoping no one drags me away from my studies for some uninteresting affair.
[TIME]
The next day, no one comes to fetch you. At last you can spend hours following a question that genuinely interests you: what did Sartar of Sartar know about this Red Moon that now dominates the world to the north?
You spend the morning moving between chronologies, dynastic accounts, and archives from the founding of the kingdom.
The first fact is unambiguous: the Red Moon was already in the sky long before Sartar. The chronologies date its rise to 1247. Sartar is crowned in 1492 and rises among the gods in 1520. When he founds his kingdom, the Red Moon has therefore been there for almost two and a half centuries.
But the texts make an interesting distinction. Among the Heortlings, its appearance had been received as an ill omen, and old prophecies already named it as an enemy. Yet the first red-clad missionaries come to Sartar only after Sartar's apotheosis. It is then, the chronicles say, that the people of the kingdom truly begin to learn who the Red Goddess is and what the Lunars claim she is.
During his reign, however, Sartar exchanges ambassadors with the king of Tarsh to encourage peace and trade.
So you find a fairly clear answer to your question: Sartar lived his entire life under the Red Moon, but the Sartar he founded did not yet know the Lunars as later generations would know them.
What you do not find, however, is a clear statement by Sartar himself saying what he thought of this new power to the north. The biographies recount his alliances, foundations, oaths, roads, and political marriages far better than his opinion of the Moon.
If you want to continue, this is where the research becomes harder: no longer asking when the Moon was there, but what Sartar himself knew and thought about it.
[TAL]
I do consider Sartar a great king, if not THE great king of the Third Age. He couldn't have ignored the Red Moon. Maybe he put something in place? The Royal Roads? The irony is that they helped the Lunar army defeat us more effectively. So I keep looking.
[TIME]
The farther back you go through the chronologies, the more interesting the dates become.
Sartar arrives in Dragon Pass around 1470. He founds Wilmskirk, then Jonstown, then Swenstown. The Lunars conquer Tarsh in 1490. Two years later, Sartar founds Boldhome and becomes First of the Quivini.
So no: by the time he completes his kingdom, he absolutely cannot be unaware of the Empire. He has just seen the kingdom immediately to the north fall into its hands.
You continue cross-checking sources. A cult text, clearly later than Sartar himself, summarizes his work in a phrase much more explicit than the biographies: Sartar “organized us to resist the Lunar advance.” These are not Sartar's own words, but that is clearly how part of the tradition understands his work.
The documents on the roads then become more interesting. They are not merely trade tracks: they are royal property, under the protection of the House of Sartar, with guards, posts, and watchtowers. The King's Road links Jonstown, Boldhome, and Wilmskirk. His successors continue the network.
But the first towns and first roads predate the fall of Tarsh. You therefore find nothing that allows you to claim they were designed against the Lunars. The texts emphasize peace between tribes, trade, movement, and unification of the kingdom instead.
And the irony you suspected appears plainly in more recent documents: today Lunar authorities control these roads in the king's name, occupy their posts, collect tolls on them, and erect roadblocks against rebels. Since the Flame of Sartar was extinguished, the magic that maintained the roads has itself weakened.
You still find no “secret plan” of Sartar's against the Empire. But you do find something more concrete: he built a kingdom capable of moving people, goods, messages, and authority through lands that had previously belonged above all to clans and tribes — and he completed it at the exact moment Tarsh was falling into Lunar hands.
[TAL — Off:]
what you must have understood is that Talimar is trying to find a little more meaning or epic breath. We're in Glorantha and he wants to take part. That said, it's interesting to see just how much the game lets the protagonist player drive the story themselves when Time doesn't.
Talimar doesn't have a precise goal about which particular element to Focus on, but he's looking for a means, a trail, a clue toward some higher and more stimulating purpose than his life as a “notary.”
[TIME — Off:]
Yes, that's exactly how I'm reading it. Tal isn't choosing a specific “arc”; he is looking for breath, something that makes him feel he is taking part in Glorantha rather than recording its petty disputes.
And your observation about the game is right: here, your initiative is moving the story. Time is not retrospectively assigning him a destiny because he wants one, but what he chooses to seek genuinely determines the portion of the world he will encounter. That's an important distinction: Tal can cause an opening toward something larger without that thing having been manufactured for him.
[TIME — played version]
By stopping your search for an answer and instead looking for where Sartar's work remains unfinished, you finally find something different.
In more recent cult notes, amid comments on the conquest, one formula recurs: Sartar's public cult has almost disappeared under Lunar rule, but some people continue to sacrifice to him in secret. One copyist even reports a tradition according to which Sartar now acts in hiding, among those who maintain his strength and prepare the rebellion.
It is not a prophecy pointing at you. It is not even proof that this tradition is true.
But for the first time that day, what you are reading is not about an inheritance, a boundary, or ownership of a cow.
It concerns people risking their lives to keep the kingdom's founder alive.
And in the margin, someone has added, in another hand and much more recently:
— “Ask the Sages of Boldhome what they still know of the old rites.”
After the Debrief, the players decided that this sentence was too directive and looked too much like a hook manufactured to answer immediately the desire for something epic expressed for Tal.
In the canonical published version of the fiction, the sentence does not exist. In the margin there is only, drawn by another hand, the Rune of Sartar:
Boldhome remains an idea and a desire of Tal's, not a destination prescribed by the document.
[TAL]
I memorize the writing in the margin and write the sentence into my Portrait then.
A secret cult of Sartar. Now that's interesting. And Boldhome! The great city of the kingdom. In the hands of a Lunar puppet. I hope I'll be able to go there one day.
And so on the day we leave Jonstown, I can bring up the woman and her bundle again with Hendrik, showing him that I'd found the answers in the Library archives. A way of asking him what he thinks of King Sartar and whether we'll ever go to Boldhome.
[TIME]
On the morning of departure, while Hendrik adjusts the straps of his pack, you bring up Enastina again and show him what you had found in the registers.
He reads the two notes, then nods.
— I found the same thing.
He carefully folds the sheet.
— She left with the originals. The Library kept what it already had in copy, and we recorded the rest. Jorstan had written clearly enough what he was supposed to do with the documents. We only had to look.
He hands the document back to you. This time, the affair is truly closed.
When you then speak to him of Sartar, the roads, Tarsh, and finally Boldhome, Hendrik takes longer before answering.
— What do I think of Sartar?
He looks at the road ahead of you.
— That he achieved something the Heortlings rarely manage for long: getting people with excellent reasons to quarrel to work together.
A small smile.
— Roads, towns, markets, shared temples... It sounds less heroic than fighting a god. Until the day you understand that all of it created a kingdom.
Then, to your question about Boldhome:
— One day, certainly. Not today.
He settles his pack back onto his shoulder.
— And if you keep asking questions about Sartar at this rate, I imagine you'll find your own reason to go before anyone sends you there.
Behind you, Jonstown's gates recede.
Ahead of you, the road resumes.