The posse traveled west through the craggy landscape overnight and well past sunrise. As early morning loomed a small and unassuming hamlet off the pilgrimage circuit appeared on the horizon.

  “What’s this?” Jelena asked, still on Enkidu’s horse. “This wasn’t on the initiation tour.”

  “This,” Calaf began. “Is a town called Vault.”

  Vault was a diminutive hamlet built into a natural sinkhole at the edge of the granite plateau north of the Riverglen hills. It was a tiny, cooped up place of little note. For centuries it remained as a dirt farming hovel just off the bounds of the church lands.

  Calaf, Gorman, and a new ally Deacon had brought the town under the Menu over a year ago. Cleric Deacon stayed behind to convert the populace.

  As the group of four approached Vault, they passed a plot of farmland that wasn’t there last year. The village had expanded. And, as Calaf noted, the farmers tilled their fields by the Menu.

  No pilgrims visited this off-path abode. Word had not yet spread far regarding the holy relic this town contained. This was fortuitous for Calaf’s aims.

  At the center of the village was a repurposed storeroom, now dubbed ‘Church Mission at Vault’. Though new, it stood with the town pub and a mayoral house as the three pillars of the community. There was a fledgling inn as well, expecting pilgrim traffic that had not yet come.

  “How familiar,” Jelena said as they dismounted.

  Missions in these smaller settlements were often local-led. There’d be a deacon sent from the church to relieve Deacon… Deacon’s role.

  “So, where’re we hitting?” Zilara said.

  “No guards. This should be an easy heist,” Enkidu said.

  Jelena yawned. “Let’s get an inn before we try anything. We’ve been riding all night. Dire-horses need water.”

  “We’re not sticking up the Mission,” Calaf said. “It's brand new; there won't be anything there. Enkidu, go get us a room at the inn, will you?”

  The wild man grumbled. “Gah. Commerce. Hand over coin from your Inventory. I’ll do it.”

  With a nod, Calaf handled the slightly awkward method of summoning forth gold from his Inventory and handing it off to the off-Interface Enkidu. That task done, his hand returned to its natural resting place intertwined with Jelena’s. The pair plus Zilara faced the Vault town pub.

  “Am I even allowed in here?” Zilara asked. “Looks seedy.”

  “You are when you’re being escorted by your auntie and uncle.” Jelena winked. “Lead the way, Calaf.”

  Calaf did so.

  “Hey there. Welcome back.” Said a wrinkled bartendress.

  If she owned the establishment this time last year, Calaf did not recognize her. He’d had a busy adventure since passing through Vault for the last time. The woman was yet unbranded.

  “Got a few churchfolk passed through to examine your thief fellow’s mug,” said the owner. “Or Scout, was it? That Deacon fella took a look at it. Some archbishop type did later too. Did some stuff what it was I can’t not see. But those what took your fancy Brand say the name’s changed.”

  The mug beckoned behind a brand new, church-provided protective glass.

  The most-unexpected relic now contained more information about its holy powers. Only, based on what Calaf and Jelena had inadvertently discovered, church relics could be used to alter Brand behavior in wild animals around the pilgrimage stations. This relic had been altered – or was perhaps in the process of being altered – to perform a similar role. Boons were… inserted, or perhaps programmed, by ranking church personnel.

  You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.

  “I’ve seen more mundane relics.” Jelena shrugged.

  Calaf chuckled. “Gustavo must have been quite the boozehound.”

  “What’s the play, honey?” Jelena rested her head on Calaf’s shoulder.

  The ancient Thief had sent them on this path. This relic was proof that he’d passed through Vault some four hundred years ago. It was a fair inference. But did that mean a hidden testament was stored in Vault?

  “Hopefully the gospel hasn’t been misplaced over the years,” Calaf said.

  So much time had passed. What if the Vaultians, with no context as to who this rogue drunkard was, had thrown away any testament he may have left here.

  “Misplaced? Why, dirt farmers don’t displace nothing,” said the patroness, angling for a storage room door. “Come on, now. This here flagon was, whatsit, about my great-great-great-great-great-great-great…”

  The bar owneress continued through a full fifteen ‘greats’ while Calaf and company waited there, straining.

  “… great Grandmahm’s time? I’ll let ya in here you can see what we’ve got.”

  Onward, they continued into a storage room, then through a door to another, then downstairs to a disused basement. A thick layer of dust prevailed, and it was clear that not a soul had walked down here for some time.

  “Hey, here’s the stuff from four hundred years ago. Great grandmahm sixteen times removed didn’t throw nothing away. If your looking for something ought be in these parts somewhere.”

  Calaf bowed and thanked the woman. She didn’t seem to quite understand the plain church-raised dialect common to Riverglen, but got the gist of his thanks from body language.

  “Right. Y’all have fun now,” said the woman, and she was gone.

  “These guys don’t have church schools either,” Zilara said, waving at some loose dust in the air. “Guess they have strange diction sometimes too.”

  “Used to have a bit of an accent,” Jelena added. “Japella drawl. Gram-gram still sounds the part. Mission somewhat stamped it out in the younger generations. Living in Firefield flattened mine out, ‘cept when I get excited.”

  The only light came from a trio of widows hugging the ceiling. Topside, this corresponded to three slits hugging the frame of the tavern.

  Ancient utensils and barstools filled the room. There were piles of loosely organized receipts on brittle-thin papyrus and even tablets of fried clay. Calaf investigated a tablet that he was confident wouldn’t break to a touch. The diction was ancient, even more indecipherable than the old Testaments, but it appeared to be a customer service complaint regarding the cleanliness of the pub’s latrines.

  Nothing was on-interface, for everything was written by people without contact with the Holy Menu until Calaf’s impromptu missionary work introduced them to the concept.

  “This is going to take a while,” the Squire declared. “Come, we’ll be shifting through this all day.”

  The pub basement's cool, dry, and dark environs were ideal for preserving artifacts. Even so, paper products were never meant to be stored for so long. Little could be read, and any receipt or customer complaint disintegrated to the touch. A scroll integrated with the Menu could perhaps survive through its description and Inventory-compatible nature. But, again, there were no Interface-aligned items to be found.

  “If Gustavo did leave a testament here, it’s dust now,” Calaf said.

  “Maybe he buried it outside of town? In a treasure chest or something?”

  With no clues, there’d be no reasonable way to find it! That automaton Gustavo-simulacra could help, but it would be another half a week by the time they could get to the Olde Docks and back.

  “Mithril placemats.” Zilara held out a floppy bit of fabric just large enough to hold a bowl of dire-chicken soup and a pint of mead. “Seems expensive.”

  “The town was built in a depleted mithril vein,” Jelena said. “Some of the sinkholes back in the desert are caused by similar mithril deposits. Recognized it on approach.”

  Calaf scratched his chin. “Huh. I didn’t know that. They’re not still using mithril for mundane purposes, I presume.”

  “Current placemats were burlap,” Zilara confirmed.

  Made since, for a town whose best days surely predated the demon era. If active mithril deposits did dwell under Vault the church would’ve sent mining crews.

  “This search is just too difficult without the Menu.” Calaf tsked.

  Jelena continued the search; she’d been looking without the Interface all this time. Zilara, for her part, flipped one of the mithril rags upside down, then gazed at it at various angles.

  “Hmmm. Seems like it was recycled from some kind of newspaper.”

  “I assure you there were no newspapers back in the time of the ancient heroes,” Jelena said. “Hard to run a press when you’re dodging demons every which way.”

  Now Ziliara had a sly grin on her face. She grabbed all the mithril mats she could carry and arranged them on the floor.

  “Little dark in here, but I’m sure you can see what I’m going for.”

  Arcane, angular patterns were etched onto a cloth backside. There were occasional handwritten inkblots of text that did not appear to have any relation to each other. But the patterns matched, and Zilara placed them side by side like a puzzle.

  “I’m picking up what you’re putting down,” Jelena said. She began to help.

  For his part, Calaf took the remaining mithril placemats and handed them to the two women in what seemed like an intuitive order.

  Within an hour, with the sun hanging low through those high windows, the group had an eight-wide, twelve-tall grid of mithril. The patterns on the back of the mats did not make any greater image, they merely provided a guide by which to place everything to form a cohesive item. What once appeared as random bits of text now told a cohesive tale, just on a single massive piece of parchment.

  Where before the mats were not Interface compatible, now the pale blue glow demarked the greater whole as something that could be properly interacted with.

  All at once, Zilara held her hand aloft and pulled the entire combined ‘Item’ into her Inventory.

  “There we go. Other Hoss and I can read everything through the description now. It’s all one big rant.” Zilara smiled, self-satisfied. “I’ll transcribe it out onto proper paper and we can read the next testament.”