All My Summons Become Divine Girls

Chapter 266: The Witness Office

The first western store wagon had barely cleared the square when Lana carried a locked document box into the Command House.

Marrick followed with the prisoner ledger, while Hajin cleared road markers from the room beside the new dispatch office.

The narrow room had one shuttered window, a service hatch facing the hall, and space for two secured cabinets.

"The eastern wing still leaks," Marrick said, placing the box beneath the window, "this room can protect testimony until those repairs finish."

Lana examined the proposed door plate before turning it facedown against the table between them.

"It says truth office," she said, pushing Marrick’s chalk toward him, "my Brand cannot tell whether every statement is true."

Marrick crossed out both words, then wrote Witness Office across the plate without arguing about the correction.

Two guards brought the marked watcher from the eastern cells, keeping his hands bound before him rather than behind his back.

The registry-shaped Brand remained around his wrist, although its pressure had ended after his admission beside Lana’s drawing.

One guard placed a separate interrogation sheet beside Marrick, covering questions about Dreth, Flint payments, and hidden weapons.

"The girl can mark his answers," the guard said, keeping one hand near the prisoner’s shoulder, "we can finish this before midday."

"She cannot," Hajin replied, moving the sheet away from Lana, "her memory covers one map beside the registry."

Marrick opened the old testimony beneath three new headings, separating Lana’s witnessed act from every later prisoner claim.

{DIRECT WITNESS: Lana saw the subject copy the northern grate onto a map after Toma’s cart passed.}

{ANCHORED ACT: The subject denied copying that map, then admitted the witnessed act after the Brand formed.}

{UNVERIFIED CLAIMS: The captain wanted the hauler route; Dreth’s survey riders used the salt road; twelve riders joined the survey.}

"Did Dreth order the registry attack?" Marrick asked, resting his pen beside the unverified section, "answer however you choose."

"No," the watcher replied, studying the mark around his wrist, "he never spoke to our captain."

Nothing changed across the Brand, leaving Marrick to record the answer without raising it above an unsupported claim.

"He may be lying," Lana said, watching Marrick label the line, "I never saw Dreth or his captain together."

The guard removed his hand from the watcher’s shoulder while Marrick turned the corrected page toward everyone present.

"An anchored page records a witnessed act," Marrick said, adding Lana’s signed limit, "everything else keeps its source plus its uncertainty."

Hajin approved three report classes for every watchpost, shelter, patrol, clinic shift, and work crew using the network.

Direct witnesses named the person, concrete act, place, and time they remembered before signing their own statement.

Received claims named the speaker plus every courier route, preventing a rumor from becoming stronger after passing through several mouths.

Anchored acts required Lana’s personal memory, her written limit, the subject’s name, and a separate account of any Brand response.

A sworn statement gained an oath line but no higher truth status, fixing responsibility without pretending confidence created evidence.

Marrick prepared numbered envelopes with tear seals, issuing each route a ledger page that recorded every hand carrying one.

Broken seals would not erase a report, although the office would record where the break appeared before reading its contents.

Copies of anchored pages stayed in separate locked boxes, with one stored here and another beneath the mine office guard.

"People need somewhere to report a guard," Lana said, indicating the service hatch, "sending every complaint through guards protects the wrong person."

Hajin assigned one daily civilian intake hour under Marrick’s clerks, while Lana could receive emergency reports whenever she worked nearby.

No accused guard could carry, copy, or store the report naming them until another route clerk recorded its arrival.

Marrick added that rule beneath the hatch before fixing the corrected office plate above the secured door.

The prisoner ledger created a harder problem because the eastern cells could hold individuals but not a surrendered fighting unit.

Hajin led Lana, Marrick, Hans, and the two guards along the quarry track while road crews packed gravel behind them.

An abandoned cutting yard stood below the first quarry shelf, enclosed by retaining banks with one wagon entrance.

Two roofed sheds remained usable inside, while the outer terraces could hold divided canvas enclosures without crowding the inner yard.

The downhill drain kept waste away from the water cart position, and the raised shelf gave guards an unobstructed watch route.

"Move the eastern-cell maintenance allocation here," Hajin said, checking the cracked gateposts, "the town cells remain for arrests plus overnight holding."

"That pays for repairs, water, and two guard shifts," Marrick replied, measuring the inner yard, "expansion needs canvas before an army surrenders."

"Buy it now," Hajin said, taking the estimate, "waiting until surrender means somebody decides killing prisoners costs less."

One guard looked toward the road where Flint mercenaries had carried Toma after the mine diversion.

"Some of them attacked our people," he said, keeping his voice controlled, "they should not receive better shelter than workers."

"Then finish the worker shelters too," Hajin replied, returning the estimate, "captivity does not give guards permission to settle a battle afterward."

Hans walked the gate width before marking a disarm line several paces beyond the entrance.

Anyone surrendering would lower weapons outside that line, state their name plus unit, and enter under two recorded escorts.

Searchers would inventory personal property onto matching numbered slips, leaving one copy with its owner and another inside the office box.

The clinic assigned a treatment bench beside the entrance, ensuring wounds were recorded before confinement or later questioning.

Marrick wrote the custody rules across a prepared board while carpenters braced the weaker gatepost.

{Surrender ends active attack. Weapons remain outside. Wounds receive treatment. Property receives a numbered receipt. Every transfer requires two named custodians.}

{Guards may stop escape or violence. Punishment requires a recorded charge and hearing. Witness claims remain classified under Witness Office rules.}

The marked watcher entered first when the remaining mercenary prisoners arrived from town under their former cell guards.

Marrick recorded his wrist mark, rope condition, visible injuries, property number, and both escort names before accepting custody.

A clinic worker checked the prisoner’s arm, then loosened the binding where the old Brand had left swelling beneath it.

The watcher received water plus his property slip before crossing the gate, leaving no missing hour between both custody ledgers.

Lana watched the transfer from beside Hajin, holding her new office key against the complaint slate.

"The mark stays," she said, looking toward the prisoner beyond the gate, "but it does not make him ours to hurt."

"Record what happens here too," Hajin replied, indicating the guards plus treatment bench, "the office protects testimony from both sides."

A runner reached the quarry before sunset carrying the first numbered envelope from the eastern bell house.

Its seal remained intact, and the route ledger named a post keeper, two couriers, plus every transfer time between them.

The signed report placed three Flint riders near the southern irrigation bank, where they had counted carts before turning east.

Lana marked it direct testimony without adding a Brand classification, while Marrick copied the route onto Hans’s patrol sheet.

Hajin sent two scouts through the western loop rather than approaching along the road named inside the report.

Behind them, the quarry gate closed under two recorded guards while Marrick signed the first completed custody transfer.