The Glowrock Lich

The work at Ridgemill was practice. The lich behind it is finishing the real thing at Glowrock.

Requirements

Find the magistrate at Glowrock Bank
The magistrate has a stack of missing-person notices on her desk and a half-eaten breakfast going cold. 'Eleven this month. Same pattern as the Ridgemill mess, only nobody's coming back as anything. He's keeping them this time.'
Ask the bards what they've heard
The eldest bard sets down her lute. 'A scholar passed through last winter. Asked questions a scholar wouldn't ask. He paid in old coin and didn't blink at any of the answers. Name was Vessel. That was a false one.'
Interview the baker who saw him
The baker speaks without looking up from her dough. 'He came in every third day for a quarter loaf. Pale, polite, never sat down. He stopped coming the week the disappearances started. He had ink on his cuffs both hands.'
Cut down the apprentice
The apprentice came at you with a bound spell already half-shaped between his hands. You closed before he could finish it. The ledger in his coat is a list of names crossed out one by one. Five names remain.
Read the residue at the font
The font hums wrong. You match the residue against the apprentice's ledger and trace the binding back to a chamber under the old quarry. He's been working there for months.
End the savage lich
He didn't stop writing when you came in. He spoke between lines, calm as a tutor correcting a student. You took his hand off at the wrist and the rest of him after. The five remaining names go free. The work he was building dies on the page.