Veridius—wearing a healer’s white cloak—warmly embraces Ulciscor, then reveals himself as the Principalis. He smoothly accepts Vis’s admission, citing Ulciscor’s adoption and a transcribed manifest. After providing a triangular tile for the gate, Veridius pointedly mentions a memorial and asks if this is Ulciscor’s first time back; Ulciscor’s composed facade briefly cracks before he hastens away with Vis.

Crossing the Curia Doctrina, Vis notes the friezes and inadvertently mutters a Cymrian phrase, leading to banter that exposes his language aptitude and fragments of his past. Once outside the main crowd, Ulciscor debriefs Vis about his conversation with Veridius. Vis explains he withheld details about the Anguis arrow that felled Ulciscor; Ulciscor approves and resolves to investigate the weapon quietly. At the gate, guards accept Veridius’s tile and usher them through a Will cage, which Ulciscor explains blocks external Will connections.

In the forest beyond, Vis staggers with sudden light-headedness. Ulciscor suspects a mild, unprovable dosing (e.g., blackroot, wolfshem) and traces Vis’s only intake to water given by student Emissa; he identifies Indol as Magnus Dimidius Quiscil’s son and cautions that Veridius’s influence over students must be assumed. They reach a cliffside Transvect platform with sweeping views, and Ulciscor outlines the island’s defenses: Religion activated a pre-Cataclysm Seawall with visible anchoring points that limits ingress to Transvects at a single access point.

Ulciscor then confides that his younger brother, Caeror—Veridius’s classmate—died near the Academy, likely to conceal whatever Religion is hiding. He warns Vis that Solivagus is dangerous and offers a last chance to withdraw. Vis chooses to proceed. Ulciscor assigns two investigative targets: active ruins roughly a mile east of the Academy, and a larger ruin beyond a natural arch to the north-west, on the far side of a mountain, in a region kept off-limits for three Iudicia. Surveillance and alarms are expected, so Vis will need to find creative access.

Finally, Vis confronts Ulciscor for killing a man during the earlier attack. Ulciscor admits it and justifies the act under Birthright’s allowances for preventing greater harm. Vis masks his unease, noting he would have told Veridius if it were a problem. The two wait for the arriving Transvect, aligned on the mission but divided by a growing moral tension.