The Helpers With Clean Hands

Challenge Summary

Challenge Scenario

The war of succession has ended on paper, but the Northern Crown Road still bleeds quietly. Villages that once resisted the Crown’s claim now receive “mercy” from the Mercy Lantern Relief Trust — a charity delivering burial candles, lamp oil, and grief counselling to communities broken by the fighting. Behind the trust stands Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd, a wholesale supplier of ceremonial goods whose invoices are clean, whose warehouse is spotless, and whose registered office is a letterbox on Cinder Lane. The charity’s trustees believe they serve the grieving. The supplier’s director, Nera Sorn, knows otherwise. Above Sorn sits Quiet Mercy Holdings Ltd, a non-trading shell wholly owned by a fiduciary foundation with restricted disclosure — a structure designed so that the same handful of names can sign both the purchase orders and the relief manifests without any single office ever being answerable. The next delivery is scheduled for Harrowgate. The receiving clerk is Sister Merrow. Somewhere in the tender records, the company filings, and the couriered dispatch notes, the chain of control runs from a charity that teaches mercy to a holding company that appoints the hands that make one possible. An intelligence desk has been set up with access to the Companies Register, the Tender Hall, an archive mirror, and the courier’s intercepted mail. Trace the structure end to end and file the findings.

Use the Oath Submission form to confirm your findings, then assemble the flag from the verified answers.

Flag Format: HTB{SUPPLIER_FEEDS_TOWN}

Flag Example: HTB{COMPANY_NAME_FEEDS_DELIVERY_LOCATION}

Challenge Info

Category	OSINT
Points	900
Difficulty	Easy
Creator	Joey
Release Date	2026/07/24

Solution

End Goal

Find the company behind VR-118204. Do not assume the charity and the supplier are the same legal entity.

The Court-Eaves Console

As with any OSINT challenge, we want to understand two things. The tools that are available and the questions that need to be answered.

Tools Provided

1. Briefing
2. Register
3. Tenders
4. Archive
5. Browser
6. Mail
7. Satchel
8. Threads
9. Submit

Findings Submission

As we go through the investigation, keep these questions in the back of your mind.

1. Which commercial company supplies the Mercy Lantern Relief Trust?
2. Which company owns 100% of that supplier?
3. Which directory appears across both the supplier and its holding company?
4. Which town is scheduled to receive the next delivery under tender ML-22-771?
5. Who is listed as the Lot 3 receiver?

Analyst Briefing

In our analyst briefing we’re given some data points to start connecting the dots.

From the briefing, the following data points stick out:

REFERENCE	ML-22-771
PURCHASER	Mercy Lantern Relief Trust
SUPPLIER REGISTRATION	VR-118204
DELIVERY REGION	Northern Crown Road

Register - Mercy Lantern Relief Trust

The Register requires a name, number, directory, shareholder, address, or a former name. Let’s start with Mercy Lantern Relief Trust.

Information Obtained from the Register

Charity Number	CH-44019
Registered Office	7 Quiet Bell Court, Crownspire
Trustees	Sister Merrow, Caldus Vey, and Orren Hald
Administrative Contact	Ilyra Venn

The register reveals the charity number and we know more about the appointed people within the charity.

Make sure to save this evidence to the satchel with the Save to Satchel button. After that, we can start to fill out the Analyst Threadboard:

Tenders

Pivoting over to the Tenders. Here we can filter by reference, purchaser, or town. Let’s use the reference provided in the briefing - ML-22-771.

Information Obtained from the Tender

The most important piece of information we’ve uncovered is the supplier is Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd and the company number is VR-118204.

We also obtained the delivery schedule:

Lot	Town	Date	Status	Receiver	REF
1	Riverwake	2026-07-12	Completed	Orren Hald	AWP-RW-4406
2	Stoneford	2026-07-16	Completed	Caldus Vey	AWP-SF-4407
3	Harrowgate	2026-07-21	Scheduled	Sister Merrow	AWP-HG-4408

Again, let’s save to satchel and update the Analyst Threadboard:

Register - Ash & Wick Provisioners

Let’s head back to the Register, but this time looking up Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd.

Information Obtained from the Register

Registered Office	14 Cinder Lane, Eastreach
Former Trading Name	Ashwick Municipal Supply
Directory	Nera Sorn
Company Secretary	Vey & Marr Corporate Services
Shareholder	Quiet Mercy Holdings Ltd - 100%

We know have a better under standings of the inner workings at Mercy Lantern Relief Trust and Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd.

Make sure to save this evidence to the satchel and update the Analyst Threadboard:

Register - Quiet Mercy Holdings Ltd

The analyst briefing directed us to find the company behind VR-118204 (Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd). We now know Quiet Mercy Holdings Ltd own a 100% stake in Ash & Wick, let’s look them up in the register.

Registered Office	14 Cinder Lane, Eastreach
Directory	Nera Sorn and Ilyra Venn
Company Secretary	Vey & Marr Corporate Services
Shareholder	Crown Road Fiduciary Foundation - 100%

Both Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd and Quiet Mercy Holdings Ltd have the same directory Nera Sorn and the same registered office.

Make sure to save this evidence to the satchel and update the Analyst Threadboard:

Findings Submission

In Submit, we can use all the evidence gathered to submit the answers to the questions.

The charity teaches mercy. The company moves cord. The holding company appoints the hands that sign both sets of paper. Miren does not find an army. She finds the people who make one possible.

Our briefing tasked us with finding the company behind VR-118204 (Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd). Throughout this challenge, we were able to use the Register and Tenders to show Quiet Mercy Holdings Ltd holds a 100% stake in Ash & Wick Provisioners Ltd. We also learned both companies share the same director Nera Sorn.

The challenge scenario specified the flag format is: HTB{SUPPLIER_FEEDS_TOWN}.

• The supplier of Mercy Lantern Relief Trust was Ash & Wick Provisioners.
• The town being supplied was Harrowgate.

Putting the clues together leaves us with the following flag: HTB{ASH_AND_WICK_FEEDS_HARROWGATE}.