The Confessor’s Secret and A Prisoner’s Warning
Chapter 19 in "The Redemption of Olvir the Forgotten"
Previously on “Olvir, the Forgotten”: Olvir arrived at the port city of Rooksbay and found himself in a dilemma as he sought information about his family from a Confessor.
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Olvir paced the edge of the candlelit square. The city hummed around him—guards laughing behind closed gates, merchants hawking stories louder than their wares, and somewhere out there… raiders waiting to bleed the life from Rooksbay.
He had a name. A confession. A father pushed too far. But confronting the man directly would break a seal Sister Sindri had trusted him to keep shut. That vow wasn’t just a ritual — it was the only currency he had in this game of shadows.
So, what's next?
He turned the question over like a coin in his palm—approach the man and lose Sindri’s trust? Or chase whispers of a raider gang without a scent to follow? Both routes led into fog.
Unless… the Confessor had more to give. Olvir clenched his jaw. No blades. No threats. Just questions sharpened to a fine edge. He would return to her—the old woman shrouded in riddles and root smoke. Somewhere in her web of absolutions, there was a thread he could pull… and gods help anyone caught at the other end.
[ASK THE ORACLE] Does Sindri know more about the situation? [Likely] Yes, she does. What does she know? [ASK THE ORACLE] Action/Theme “Arrest” + “Crime”When pressed, Sindri admits she heard that a suspected member of a raider clan was arrested yesterday for a petty crime. Perhaps he would be a potential lead to follow up.
Does Sindri know more about this person? [Likely] No. Or, if she does, she isn’t revealing it. However, she does point you to the City Jail, a tall, imposing stone fortress on the North side of the city.Olvir realises he has probably extracted everything he can from The Confessor for the time being and decides to head for the prison.
Presently, he arrives at the forbidding-looking edifice and enters by the main door. He sees a bored-looking clerk sitting at the desk, fiddling absentmindedly with a pile of papers. Olvir chooses an unusual—but risky—approach.
[COMPEL+ Trickster Asset] Olvir tries to bluff the guard by pretending to be a middle-ranking City Council official, who needs to speak to the new prisoner. [STRONG HIT] The lad shuffles in his chair and points to a door.“Through that door, and down the corridor, first door on the left…”
[ORACLE] Does the clerk know the prisoner’s name? [Likely] No, he does not.“Above me pay grade, mate. Head Jailer writes down the names, but I don’t know nothin’ ‘bout any of that,” he says, wiping his nose on a grubby-looking sleeve.
Olvir slips down the damp corridor and peers through the eyehole of the first cell on his left. A burly, dark-haired man is slumped in the corner. He’s very clearly been beaten. Badly.
[ASK THE ORACLE for a Character Descriptor] “Sickening”Olvir feels a surge of pity for the man, who looks broken and scared by what apparently happened to him. But Olvir has a job to do. He calls out:
“Listen. You’ve got no reason to trust me, but I can help you. I’m figuring I’m the first person who's said that to you for a while, so you might want to listen to what I have to say. The name’s Olvir, by the way. What’s your name?”
The man dragged himself across the cell floor like a discarded marionette, every motion a whisper of agony etched into dried blood and cracked bindings. His limbs twitched with effort, wrapped in filthy rags that had once been bandages—now stiff, brown, and failing.
“They call me Magni,” he croaked, voice mangled by a jaw that had seen fists more than food.
Olvir said nothing. Names were cheap in a place like this. True or false didn’t matter. What mattered was the shivering wreck clinging to life like a gutter-rat in a flood. He crouched near the cell door, reaching into his pack. A waterskin. A pouch of healing salve. Both passed silently through the grate. A transaction, yes—but not without mercy.
Then, softly: “I know about the raid, Magni. I know about the woman. The child.” His voice was even, stripped of judgment. Just iron, tempered and cool. “They used them to force open a city. Were your friends a part of that?”
Magni froze, fingers still wrapped around the water like it might vanish if he blinked. His eyes lifted—bloodshot, rimmed in fear and disbelief. Olvir met the gaze, unwavering. “Tell me the truth,” he said, low but unrelenting. “There’s more medicine where that came from. You’ve lost everything but your voice. Don’t waste that too.”
The man’s breath caught, then rattled loose in his throat like rusted chains. And somewhere behind it, a truth began to stir.
[GATHER INFORMATION: Miss. Burn Momentum to turn this into a Weak Hit.] There is a lengthy, heavy silence before Magni concurs with your assertions and admits his raider clan were involved.Magni tells you that the Raider clan is called the Mournvale Covenant, situated to the northeast of Rooksbay. He cautions that the clan deals in blood and ash and will likely kill anyone making a direct approach from Rooksbay.
“Friend, let me be frank. Stay away from Mournvale. It’s a place of death, bones and ash. I know I won’t get out of here alive, and even if I did, I would be going in the opposite direction, I assure you. Because if I set foot in Mournvale, I’ll be executed. Getting caught here in Rooksbay is failure in the eyes of the clan, so my life is forfeit anyway.”
Olvir assured the broken clansman that if there is a way to free him, he will be let go to follow his own path, but he must leave now. He drops a cache of bandages through the bars and makes his exit.
It’s time to report back to Sindri and see if there is anything to be learned from the snippets of information he has gathered. He finds The Confessor sitting by the makeshift altar and relays the information about Magni.
Sindri sits impassively, staring at the candles burning at the foot of the altar, saying nothing.
“What is it, Sindri?”
“I will not speak of it,” snaps the crone
[COMPEL + Sway Asset: Strong Hit] Olvir draws closer to the altar and thrice whispers Sindri’s name, before turning to face The Confessor. “Yes…yes, you will”, insists Olvir. There’s a heavy silence for a moment. Then the woman sighs and begins to speak.“I have heard of this clan, although I have not met them, so long as I am aware. What I know about them is this: they worship the old gods. And they worship them with a fervour bordering on fanaticism.” “Go on,” Olvir says, “There’s more you are not telling me, isn’t there?”
“I don’t know everything, Olvir, but I know the city council plans to expand the city limits as the population grows. My guess is the Mournvale Covenant have got wind of this and thinks they’ll be building on Woadmark Field.”
“… and that’s a problem to them, why exactly?”
“Because that’s the site of an Iron Pillar. It’s been there forever, or close to forever. Nobody pays it much attention these days, to be honest. But to the Mournvale Clan, it’s a sacred site. They’ll do anything to stop that site being desecrated, even if it means death, blood and ash”
[GATHER INFORMATION: Strong Hit] Olvir begins to put the threads together in his investigation.Kidnapping, threats, whispered oaths in dark alleys—it all traced back to one place: the Iron Pillar. Not just a relic. A shrine. A line in the dirt scrawled by old gods and guarded now by zealots willing to die—or kill—to keep it untouched.
Olvir exhaled through clenched teeth, the weight of the realisation pressing against his ribs. This wasn’t about ransom. This wasn’t even about the city.
It was a holy war. And if the Council rammed through their expansion plans, they'd be building atop bones. War would come, not with banners and horns, but with knives in the dark, fire in the alleys, and prayers soaked in blood.
Unless he found the thread. Unless he pulled it before it all unravelled.