After some rushed travel, she makes it to the Acadamae. The illusions are as pretty as she remembers. The crowd surrounding the Hall of Wards is quite substantial. The raised platform is almost completely full. The King and his family are visible from their private box. It's maybe five minutes until the Breaching starts.

The Hall of Wards is a plain, rectangular wooden building with minimal decoration. Large windows face the crowd, and through them one can see a large empty room with a glittering wood floor. There is one set of double doors at the front. Nothing on the building looks like an illusion, although of course this is a lie.

As expected. Hopefully the rest of the vision was also correct! (If there are any consequences from looking like an elf instead of a drow, she doesn't notice them on the run over.)

Five minutes later, a long blast from a mighty horn sounds over the crowd, and a man appears in the sky.

The Headmaster gives his speech, exactly how she remembers it. The crowd cheers in all the right places.

The master thief is first. Madison Ross and her deck of cards dance through the first three sets of doors without issue. The rain of arrows from the Doors of Steel impale her, and it takes her a minute to get them open. She dodges the bolt of lightning from the Doors of Storm and cracks the lock in an instant.

The Doors of Night are a brilliant moving night sky. The stars glow, and the constellations form a vast symbol. It flashes twice. Madison dies.

Takota is up next, his giant's sledge slung over his shoulder. He drinks a potion and doubles in size.

Swing. Swing. Swing. Swing. Swing...

His hammer pulverizes the walls of the Hall of Wards like they're made of cheap wood. He breaks the wall of force. He carves through the wall of lava. He bypasses the web of lightning. He kills the black ooze. He shatters the dead-magic wall. He survives the sky wall with the clouds of fire. He shatters each layer of the prismatic wall, one-by-one.

The air elementals attack him and die. Takota fails the break through an invisible barrier in front of a wall of liquid metal. He walks away.

Professor Vargas, with his purple suit and monocle, is the next (and probably last) candidate. He spends a minute inspecting the hole Takota made in the wall.

He knocks open the Doors of Wood. He casts three spells on himself. His body is formed of glimmering ice. He phases through the next Doors of Stone and of Iron in an instant.

The rain of arrows from the Doors of Steel fails against an invisible barrier. He disintegrates one of the doors using his staff. The Doors of Storm cannot harm him. They reflect his next disintegrate back at him (he blinks away just in time). He opens one of the doors using an unknown spell.

The Doors of Night flash harmlessly at his construct servant. It says a command word, and one of the doors opens. The Doors of Flame, formed of smoking vines, dispel his icy form. It doesn't stop him. He scrolls a spell and flows through the vines.

He becomes ice again, just in time for the Doors of Shadow to pour forth undead horrors. They cannot harm him. He casts an unknown spell, and one of the doors opens. The Doors of Scouring are a dazzling white. He reads a scroll, which destroys all magic, but the white doors are unaffected. He walks away.

And there's her bet confirmed. Tomorrow, she sends in the letters, and then learns whether or not she was as cautious as needed.

KORVOSAN CARRIER
MOONDAY, SARENITH 1st, 4708

BUSINESS SLOWS AT MIDLAND, ABADARAN ESTIMATES UNMET

The storm has subsided and the sky is clear. At the Acadamae, post-holiday cleanup begins. Everyone gets back to work. A crew sets out from the docks, intent on investigating yesterday's wreck. Rumors spread in Old Korvosa of undead escaping the sewers, but nothing can be confirmed. A small group is found dead, mauled and eaten by some sort of monster.

She spent the last evening preparing, double-checking, and memorizing the encoding of the letters she wants to send today. The first will be the same letter to the king as in the vision, but this time written in code. The Bank will have to decrypt it to send it on, which means at least someone there will read it immediately. Who knows what that will change? Perhaps a lot. There's no real alternative option, so she will have to take what comes.

The second letter she prepares is encrypted twice, once with her account phrase, and a second time with the keyword "arkona". It reads,

For the eyes of the Saffron Sovereign, King Eodred Arabasti II of Korvosa, Prince of Stirges.

A less consequential note. Your sewers have a problem, and it is getting worse. Were you killed, their current residents would breach the streets of Old Korvosa not more than a week later. Remember, a Protection before the charm is worth ten Dispels after. Solve your problems before the sewer residents are truly angry, or I can be no help solving them after.

Attached is an additional letter, similarly twice-encrypted:

For the eyes of the Bank of Abadar.

It is possible someone will soon be attempting to steal my paperwork, for use in uncovering my identity. I anticipate the current security measures will suffice for my own safety, but the Bank may be at risk if they are desperate enough. Consider increasing your safety precautions for a few days.

The letters comes with instructions. 'On Sarenith 2, decode the attached letter using the house most prominently mentioned in the Sarenith 2 Korvosan Carrier's headline article. If they are in comprehensible Taldane, send the first to the King. If not, discard them both.'

Again, in the morning, her shadow has convenient letter-grooves for easy writing. What a helpful shadow it is proving to be.

Her attempts at integrating the new cantrip into a more general disguise are unexpectedly time-consuming. Everything she tries keeps accidentally accentuating the extent to which she's a half-elf, even if she isn't obviously half-drow in particular. Eventually she gets something decently safe, and with the cantrip ensuring nobody can tell she's a drow it's not too bad if they catch that she's hiding something. It's still a bit disappointing.

Out across the bridge once more, Prestidigitating her paper and letting the shadow write out the letters on the way. Can she find the same messenger as in the vision?

She finds the messenger across the river, at the same place she remembers.

Oh good. Same deal as she remembers, then, he brought the letters to the Bank then and she has no reason to think he won't now. And this time, even if he did open it and look inside, it wouldn't matter! Codes do have their advantages.

The messenger takes the letters and heads in the Bank's direction. If Tencednil follows, she can see him enter the Bank holding the letters and exit without them.

She doesn't bother following this time. If this didn't work, she can try again tomorrow. It won't be subtle.

That's everything she knew from the visions. If there's more she was supposed to do with them, it will have to remain a mystery. Her next goal is... going back to normal life, checking on the rest of the money from the necromancer and such? Somewhat of a letdown after the constant possible risks to her life, but that's for the best, really.

After retreating to her house so Mother doesn't spot anything strange, she heads to the Bank in her original, undisguised face to ask if they have any letters for her. Mika might have sent her something, she did tell him to if he needed her.

The Bank has no mail for her at this time.

Unsurprising, but it would be silly to say she would check and then not do so. In that case... message-running time it is. She did lose the blob after getting too distant from it this morning during her time in disguise, but she wasn't planning to fight anyone today anyway, so that shouldn't be an issue.

Tencednil spends the rest of her workday doing message-delivery and retires back home in the evening.

KORVOSAN CARRIER
TOILDAY, SARENITH 2nd, 4708

HIS MAJESTY CANCELS APPEARANCE AT ARKONA GALA, RUMORED DIVISION WITHIN PEERAGE REVIEW

They were getting along so well, at least as far as the public knew. But now all is in doubt. Is His Majesty hiding some dreadful scandal? Is House Arkona? Those of Old Korvosa that care about such things are displeased with the return of such open feuding. Why did the King spurn them so abruptly?

The crew returns from the shipwreck. There were no survivors, but they managed to recover valuable trade goods. Something brews in the sewers of Old Korvosa, and the papers print vague warnings.

The newspapers on this day were different in Tencednil's first vision.

Perfect. That letter worked, the Abadarans should not have gotten her warning about the break-in, and the King will probably be checking up on the sewers sometime soon.

Any letters for her at the bank? In fact, does anything unusual happen when she goes to the bank to check for letters?

The Bank has no mail for her at this time. Nothing unusual happens during her visit.

As it should be. She makes her way down to the Rusted Anchor, looking again for odd jobs. There was that one student desperately searching for someone to cast a bunch of copies of the same spell for him, and maybe she can trade him for some time breaking down spell structures and how to reshape them. She feels like there must be some way to do something like the brimstone trick more generally, feeding her spells with a bit of energy from the shadows around her, but a feeling won't cast any spells, now will it.

Feeding her cantrips energy from the shadows around her seems like it might be doing something... maybe...?

KORVOSAN CARRIER
WEALDAY, SARENITH 3rd, 4708

BREAK IN AT THE BANK OF ABADAR, TWO MISSING

Last night, the secure vaults at the Bank of Abadar were breached by an unknown party. The Abadarans are confused, both at how they managed it and why—as far as their inventory can tell, nothing of significant value was actually stolen. Two bankers, both empowered clerics, did not show up at the Bank this morning. Their families haven't seen them since yesterday. A bounty has been placed on any verifiably true information pertaining to these incidents.

The newspapers on this day were different in Tencednil's first vision.

Two bankers still missing? She had hoped her letter would help things. Oh well, it's no real loss to her, she was just hoping to pay them back for the trouble she brought down. Hopefully the otyugh letter gets more of a follow-up, she really doesn't want to be killed by the things again. And if the guard is delving into the sewers, that should give her a chance to try to circle up from behind a bunch of heavily-armored guards, which is far preferable to trying it on her own with all zero of her spells that really help against undead. (Probably. She isn't sure the Ray doesn't, but it seems like a bad risk to take.)

Presumably she can't check for letters today, so back to the Anchor to complete the trade. She definitely has more than five spells per day now. It seemed like the had a bit left after her sixth, even, but she didn't try to push to a seventh yesterday. Maybe she will this time!