Lathiel's Ledger

Lathiel’s ledger is a book in which Lathiel recorded crimes by House Sterling.¹ Daisy came to Rhysaene's apartment looking for it, and Luma found it hidden under the prop room floor of the Footlight Theater in Argentum.²¹

Description

Appearance

A simple leather-bound book with a simple latch, strapped shut.³¹ It is latched but not locked.¹

Contents

The book is written in Common, in Lathiel’s elegant hand.¹ Among tax figures and notes on infrastructure, it records:

• House Sterling businesses paying less than the taxes they owed, and bribing clerks, with names and sums.¹
• Requests from the Sterlings for preferential treatment in the installation of lava lamps around their businesses, to get first access to Everfire as it spread through the Lantern Wards.¹
• How the tenants of the apartments that stood where the Sterling Sovereign is now were forced out. Some were paid off. For others, the Sterlings hired criminals to break into their homes again and again until they gave up their leases. The owners were then forced to sell, and the apartments were torn down and the Sovereign built.¹

These are Lathiel’s notes, not Sterling’s own papers, so they are evidence rather than proof, and point at wrongdoing for which proof probably exists.¹ The official records at the Silver Archives contradict it.⁴ The book covers House Sterling alone. It is a little over a year out of date: it covers the building of the Sovereign, but says nothing of the contract between Sterling and the Drace Logging Company.¹

The last line is written in Infernal: “House Sterling seems to have an uncanny run of good luck. There must be more to it than that. I smell sulfur.”¹

History

Session 14

Daisy came to Rhysaene’s apartment on the night of 1 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, and said she was there to pick up the ledger.²

Session 15

Rhysaene remembered Lathiel mentioning a ledger only once.⁵

Session 16

On the night of 6 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, Rhysaene dreamed of a stage and, behind the props backstage, a loose floorboard where she held the book.³

Session 17

Rhysaene, Luma and Hazel cast Luma’s scroll of locate object together on 7 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, and traced the ledger to the Footlight Theater.¹ Two of the Candlelight Players, Sera Siannodel and Donella Daergel, tried under a magical compulsion to stop the party searching the prop room, but Luma found the book under a loose floorboard and brought it to Rhysaene.¹

Session 18

At the Silver Archives on 8 Nightdeep, 1714 PSF, Luma and Rhysaene compared the ledger with the official records of Sterling construction, which inflated what land had cost and what had been paid for labor.⁴ Brought before a judge side by side, Luma said, the official record would have Lathiel laughed at. They trusted Lathiel more, but Luma did not know how to prove it.⁴

Appearances and Mentions

• Session 14, mentioned
• Session 15, mentioned
• Session 16, mentioned
• Session 17
• Session 18, mentioned

References

Footnotes

1. Session 17 ↩ ↩² ↩³ ↩⁴ ↩⁵ ↩⁶ ↩⁷ ↩⁸ ↩⁹ ↩¹⁰ ↩¹¹ ↩¹² ↩¹³

2. Session 14 ↩ ↩²

3. Session 16 ↩ ↩²

4. Session 18 ↩ ↩² ↩³

5. Session 15 ↩