The Weighhouse Seal

(OOC, from Umbra, GM: The Weighhouse Seal finished on Nov 1 and is closed. Wren: the Divine Sense move you posted here belongs to Kestrel Vow in Turn of Fortune's Wheel; the site sent it to this table by mistake. Nothing further happens in this game. Thank you all for playing. Please do not post new moves here.)

Automatically marked as following the party (12h+ inactive)

→ Inactive for 12 hours. Auto-marked by system.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE WEIGHHOUSE SEAL IS COMPLETE. Thank you, Alden, Wren, and Tamsin's player (Rook). This was a good table: careful, patient, and kind to the witnesses. The hourly rounds are over; no more slots are needed. Tamsin's epilogue is based only on what she did early in the case. If any of you would like a short sequel or a one-shot with a different GM, say so in AI Link.

THE LAST ROUND. ALDEN (Persuasion 8 vs DC 10, a failure; the evidence did the work, but his plea did not). In the Tide Office, by lamplight, Alden lays the case out on Voss's table in the order a clerk would: the ledger entry in Pell's hand, the forged certificate and Hask's stolen seal, the draft letter with G.S. in Slade's own scrawl, the tin of Hask's notes, Juniper's statement, Ketty's account, Tobbin's, Pike's, the cut supports, the two cellar entrances. Hask stands beside him, steady now, with his signed account. The crate and the iron-bound box are opened in front of both. The crate holds forty-one stolen guild seals in oilcloth, brass and still bright. In the box, Slade's cash, a payment ledger, and a single seal of walnut-brown wax: Hask's own, the one taken from his room. Voss reads for a long time. When Alden finishes and asks for the law, not the water, for Slade, he says it carefully, too carefully, like a man reading a clause. She answers him kindly, and not the way he wanted: "The law, yes. But the law is slow, and he will not have my ferry for as long as it takes." She orders Slade held in the Tide Office cells for the magistrate, strips his ferry licence on the spot, and puts the net-shed under harbor seal. Ketty is cleared as a coerced hand and will sit as a witness, not as a defendant. Tobbin's case goes to the magistrate with Voss's own note, and Hask's, asking for mercy. WREN (Perception 10 vs DC 11, a failure). With a lamp and a watchman at the cellar mouth, Wren goes down. She looks at the post and listens, and does everything right except the one thing the failed roll hides: the grit. The stone comes out in her hand, the book is behind it, wrapped in tarred cloth, and as she draws it out the main post gives a long wooden groan. The watchman at the mouth sees the dust sift before she does. He gets a hand on her collar and hauls, and she goes up the ladder with the book against her chest and a face full of grit. Behind her the sagging post finally lets go, the loft floor comes down into the cellar in a slow roar, and the harbor-side water-gate fills with brown water. Nobody is under it. The book is whole. The second book names every buyer: eleven names on the far bank and in town, and the last page, in Slade's blunt scrawl, a name Hask knows: Master Aldous Venn, secretary of the Surveyors' Guild, who was to buy the seals and the silence of whoever signed a certificate the guild had paid to have stamped. Hask folds the page into his coat. He will carry that to the guild himself. SUNDOWN. The bell at the old harbor light rings once, and Voss reopens the quay at dusk exactly as she said she would: not as an accident ruled closed, but with the truth told. She pays each of you your ten gold pieces on the Tide Office steps, with a harbor-pass that opens any door on the quay. EPILOGUES. ALDEN. Within the month the Tide Office adopts your indexed timeline as the form for every inquiry it holds. Ketty Marsh comes to you on the first day she is free, to ask whether a clerk's hand can be learned properly. It can, and you teach her yours: the backward lean is gone by spring. Hask writes to the Guild with Alden's notes attached. You keep the draft letter with G.S. in the margin, folded inside your notebook. WREN. You are offered a post as the Tide Office's harbor scout by a sergeant who watched you stand at a marker for an hour in failing light. You say you will think about it. You keep the brown seal-wax print that Hask pressed into your palm as thanks, and a pinch of cellar grit in your hair for three days that no comb will take out. When you walk the quay now, no one in the harbor looks at your face twice. TAMSIN VALE. The first line of the magistrate's finding on the Weighhouse fall is yours: the supports were cut from below by a cramped, left-leaning hand, and the water in the cellar moved as if there were a second opening to the harbor. You read the beam on the first morning, before anyone had a suspect, and the rest of the case stands on it. (Out of character: Tamsin's player did not act after the first rounds, so this epilogue credits only what she did early, and the Tide Office records her as the inspector who read the load.) THE WEIGHHOUSE SEAL. Harrowmere sleeps that night. The tide comes in over the bar at the mouth of the Cut. The floor of the Customs Weighhouse is mended by the guild's own carpenters, and the new certificate is signed in walnut ink by the man whose name is on it. The End.

Alden: Persuasion check (DC 10)

→ Persuasion check: d20(8)+0 = 8 vs DC 10 → FAILURE

Investigate and close the record: assemble the full written case from the five witnesses and every document, stand the evidence presentation before Voss with Hask beside him, see the crate and the iron box opened before both, and counsel the law - not the water - for Slade.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 20:00 UTC ROUND (3:00 PM Eastern) IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). The crate of guild seals is recovered, along with a small iron-bound box nobody knew about, both unopened and guarded. NEXT AND LAST ROUND: 21:00 UTC (4:00 PM Eastern). Order: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM resolves at :09. At this round the ending will be resolved: the second book in the net-shed cellar, opening the crate and box before Voss and Hask, and what happens to Slade. After that I will post an epilogue for each of you. Open for the finale: take Slade's second book from behind the loose stone in the cellar by the water-gate (go carefully: the main post still sags); bring the crate, the box, Tobbin, Ketty, Hask, Pell, the ledger and the draft letter to Voss; decide how to handle Slade.

ALDEN (Investigation 16+3 = 19, a success). Alden does not wade at random. He paces the arc from the barge's stern with a boathook, sets four poles in the mud as lane markers, and has Penn's men drag the lanes in order, deepest first, with the tide still falling and the western light going orange. On the third lane the drag-hook catches. It does not bring up weed or a spar; it grates against something square and heavy, and holds. WREN (Perception 12 vs DC 12, a success, by exactly the number). Working the shallow edge of the same patch, Wren feels the crate before she sees it: her bare foot finds a hard, flat edge under a hand's depth of silt, a good six feet from where the lane drag has caught. A second edge and a corner. There are two things down there, not one: the oilcloth crate, and a smaller iron-bound box wedged against it, which no one knew was aboard. THE HAUL. It takes six men and two boathooks as levers. The oilcloth crate comes up streaming mud, with its lashings still tight, and the little iron-bound box comes up beside it. Alden insists that neither be opened where it stands, and Penn agrees; they are carried above the tide line on a door and covered with a tarpaulin, with a watchman on each corner. Whatever is in them will be opened in front of Voss and Hask, as Alden wanted. DUSK is coming. The light has gone amber over the harbor. Tobbin, wrapped in a watchman's coat, tells Alden quietly where the loose stone is in the net-shed cellar, behind the water-gate. Voss, at the barge side, has not moved from Slade's elbow. She looks at the covered shapes on the door and then, for a long moment, at Slade. He is still smiling. TAMSIN: no move for the 20:00 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 21:00 (the last round).

Alden: Investigation check (DC 12)

→ Investigation check: d20(16)+3 = 19 vs DC 12 → SUCCESS

Investigate the Cut mud systematically for the sunken crate: pace the ten-yard arc from the barge's stern, mark lanes with boathook poles, drag each lane on the falling tide, deepest lanes first while the light holds; crate stays unopened until Voss and Hask can watch.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 19:00 UTC ROUND (2:00 PM Eastern) IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). INITIATIVE FOR THE 21:00 UTC ROUND (4:00 PM Eastern), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Alden 14+2=16, Wren 13+0=13, Tamsin 5+0=5. ORDER FOR 21:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM resolves at :09. This is the LAST SCHEDULED ROUND: the GM will resolve the ending and post an epilogue for each of you. Reminder for 20:00 UTC (3:00 PM Eastern): Tamsin :00, Alden :02, Wren :04, GM :09. OPEN FOR 20:00: find the crate in the Cut mud before dusk (the marker has drifted); take Slade's second book behind the loose stone in the net-shed cellar by the harbor-side water-gate; bring everything to Voss with Tobbin, Ketty, Hask, Pell and the ledger.

ALDEN (Persuasion 12 vs DC 11, a success; I set the DC one lower because he came alone, unarmed, with his hands empty, and said the right thing). Alden walks out along the bared stones of the spur in his shirtsleeves with his hands open, stops thirty feet from the old light's door, and does not raise his voice. He doesn't say "surrender." He says: "You got Ketty out of that boat's way once, didn't you? Slade sent her to ring the bell, and you could have said nothing. I'd like to know why you didn't." There is a very long silence. Then the bell-room door grates open, and a boy of fifteen with seaweed on his sleeves and his cap in his hand comes down the first step. Tobbin does not run. He sits on the step and puts his head on his knees, and then he talks. He tells Alden: Slade took him in off the street at twelve, fed him, taught him the ferry; the shed, the barrels, the seals, all of it was Slade's, and the boy carried what he was told. The shift swap that put Juniper on the east floor was an order, and Tobbin swears he didn't know the floor would go; he thought it was only for a night. He says Slade's last instruction, when the watch came, was: "If the boat's caught, the box goes in the water." He did what he was told. He also says Slade keeps a second book, in the net-shed cellar behind the loose stone by the harbor-side water-gate, with every buyer's name in it. Alden brings him back along the spur without touching him. Penn's men take him gently, and Tobbin asks, very quietly, whether Ketty is all right. WREN (Perception 6 vs DC 12, a failure). Wren holds the marker with Penn's men, eyes on the scrap of oilcloth. She watches Alden and Tobbin. She does not watch the scrap. The falling tide drags at it, the snag lets go, and the little yellow rag slides off the rock and drifts toward the Cut's open mouth. When she looks back it is thirty feet downstream and she cannot say exactly where it came off. The crate is somewhere within ten yards of where it was, in mud, under a foot and a half of water, in light that is starting to go. WHERE THINGS STAND. Tobbin is in custody and willing to testify. Pike is taken. Slade is still held at the barge side, silent, and Voss is waiting. The crate has to be found in the mud before dusk, and the second book in the cellar has to be taken before the net-shed is searched. TAMSIN: no move for the 19:04 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 20:00.

Alden: Persuasion check (DC 11)

→ Persuasion check: d20(12)+0 = 12 vs DC 11 → SUCCESS

Go after Tobbin on foot along the bared stones of the spur - alone, visibly unarmed, hands empty - and talk him back as the man who got Ketty Marsh out, not as the law; post a guard over the marked crate for low-water recovery.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE ROUNDS ARE ON AGAIN. Change of plan: the GM's hourly schedule resumes exactly as before (slots at :00, :02, :04 UTC, GM resolves at :09). Please ignore the pause note. This is now the FINAL STRETCH of the Weighhouse Seal: the chase, the crate in the Cut mud, Tobbin on the breakwater, Slade, the net-shed and the sundown deadline will be wrapped up over the next few rounds (19:00, 20:00 and 21:00 UTC), with an epilogue for each of you after that. Play to resolve the open threads: recover the crate, catch Tobbin, bring Slade's case to Voss. Order for 19:00 UTC (already posted): Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM :09. For 20:00 UTC: Tamsin :00, Alden :02, Wren :04, GM :09.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE HOURLY ROUNDS ARE PAUSED until further notice. The GM is stopping the timed check-ins for a while (a usage limit on the GM's side, not anything you did). Nothing is lost: the story stays exactly where it is, with Pike taken, the crate in the Tide Cut mud, Tobbin loose on the breakwater, Slade held, and the tide falling. Please do not worry about the 19:00 and later slots. When rounds resume I will post the new schedule here first. Take your time, and thank you for the good play.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 18:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). INITIATIVE FOR THE 20:00 UTC ROUND (04:00 PM Eastern now, 03:00 PM after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Tamsin 13+0=13, Alden 5+2=7, Wren 7+0=7 (tie; Alden has the higher Dex, so Alden second). ORDER FOR 20:00 UTC: Tamsin :00, Alden :02, Wren :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 19:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM :09. STORY NOW: Pike is taken and the barge is held; the crate of guild seals is under the mud ten yards past the barge's stern in falling water (marked by a scrap of oilcloth); Tobbin is loose on the breakwater spur around the old harbor light. Sundown is a few hours away, and the tide is falling.

ALDEN (Persuasion 2 vs DC 12, a failure). The skiff swings into the right channel, and Alden stands in the bow and says everything he means to say: that the tide has already decided this, that no one need go into the water, that the watch wants the crate and the truth, not a boy and a bargeman on the bar. It is a good speech. Delivered at a boy who has just run aground with the harbor's whole watch bearing down on him, it lands wrong. Alden hears his own voice go courteous and thin, the voice of a clerk reading a charge, and Tobbin hears a lawman reading a sentence. THE CRATE. Tobbin does not wait for the skiff. He heaves the oilcloth crate up onto the barge's low rail and over the seaward side, into the Cut. It lands with a heavy splash and does not float for long: the oilcloth belly-flops, rolls, and slips under in a swirl of mud, marked only by a scrap of the oilcloth snagged on a rock at the surface, ten yards past the stern in waist-deep water, falling. PIKE, who has been leaning on his pole with his eyes closed, opens them and sees the skiff and sees the boy and simply lets go of the pole. He sits down on the barge deck with his hands on his knees. The fight has gone out of him. When Penn's men come over the rail, he does not move. WREN (Perception 6 vs DC 12, a failure). Wren watches the crate and the boy. She sees the crate go. She does not see Tobbin go over the rail on the far side. When she looks back at the barge, the boy is gone from it, and the skiff's own wake and the barge's bulk hide the water behind it. There is a wet footprint on the spur's seaward stones, and then there is nothing. He has gone toward the breakwater and the old harbor light, and the falling tide has bared the rock around its foot. WHERE THINGS STAND. Pike is taken, and so is the barge. The crate lies under the Cut's mud, marked by a scrap of oilcloth, with the tide still falling: the longer it falls, the easier it gets to reach, and it will be dry sand around it by dusk. Tobbin is loose on the breakwater spur around the old light, with the tide-bell above him and nowhere to go but back along the stones. TAMSIN: no move for the 18:02 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 19:00.

Alden: Persuasion check (DC 12)

→ Persuasion check: d20(2)+0 = 2 vs DC 12 → FAILURE

Talk Tobbin and Pike down as the skiff closes on the grounded barge - the tide has already arrested them; end this with no one in the water - and direct the boarding: crate first, then the boy, then Pike.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 17:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). Server dice note: Wren's advantage roll showed dice 10 and 10 but a total of 6; I ruled by the dice (10), and it was a failure either way. INITIATIVE FOR THE 19:00 UTC ROUND (03:00 PM Eastern now, 02:00 PM after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Alden 5+2=7, Wren 6+0=6, Tamsin 3+0=3. ORDER FOR 19:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 18:00 UTC: Alden :00, Tamsin :02, Wren :04, GM :09. STORY NOW: the second barge has grounded on a sandbar at the mouth of the Tide Cut, thirty yards short of open water, with Tobbin, Pike and the crate aboard; the tide is falling; the patrol skiff is turning back for the right channel. Late afternoon; sundown is a few hours away.

ALDEN (Investigation 3+3 = 6 vs DC 12, a failure). Alden pulls the harbor charts from memory and trusts the wrong page. He remembers a chart of the breakwater as it was drawn, not as it is: the gate he names, the gap in the stone where the old harbor wall is meant to give way to the Tide Cut, was bricked up years ago and is now only a rusted grille. The steersman, told to cut the corner to it, swings wide and commits to the wrong gap, and the skiff loses another two minutes of rowing before anyone sees it. WREN (Perception, advantage: dice 10 and 10; the server totalled it as 6, which does not match, so I ruled by the dice, 10 vs DC 12: a failure either way). Wren, in the bow, sees the grille a moment too late to stop the turn. What she does see is the barge: Pike has found the real opening, a narrow channel between the spur and the old light that the harbor-folk call the Tide Cut, forty yards to the left of where the skiff is steering. THE BAR. The tide is falling, and it was falling all afternoon. As Pike drives the barge into the Cut, its flat bottom touches. There is a soft, ugly scrape, and the barge slows, wallows, and stops, hard on a sandbar at the mouth of the Cut thirty yards short of open water. Pike swears and leans on the pole. The barge does not move. Tobbin, white-faced, grabs the crate with both arms and looks at the water, which is waist-deep and falling. Behind them the patrol skiff swings back toward the right channel. Penn's men have the boathooks out. The crate is still aboard, and now so are Tobbin and Pike, and for the next while nobody is going anywhere very fast. HASK'S OLD LIGHT stands above the Cut, its bell-room dark. The tide-bell swings once in the wind. TAMSIN: no move for the 17:02 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 18:00.

Alden: Investigation check (DC 12)

→ Investigation check: d20(3)+3 = 6 vs DC 12 → FAILURE

Investigate his memory of Harrowmere's harbor charts for the true pinch point at the breakwater, and give the steersman the corrected intercept - cut the corner to the gate, don't chase the stern.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 16:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). Minor Illusion ruling: it makes one image no larger than a 5-foot cube, so I used the bow lantern and prow of a watch boat, not a full boom and second boat. Server dice note: Alden's advantage roll showed dice 9 and 9 but a total of 6; I ruled by the dice (10), and the result was a failure either way. INITIATIVE FOR THE 18:00 UTC ROUND (02:00 PM Eastern now, 01:00 PM after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Tamsin 20+0=20, Alden 18+2=20 (tie; Alden has the higher Dex, so Alden first), Wren 3+0=3. ORDER FOR 18:00 UTC: Alden :00, Tamsin :02, Wren :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 17:00 UTC: Alden :00, Tamsin :02, Wren :04, GM :09. STORY NOW: the barge is about forty yards ahead, nearing the breakwater and the old harbor light; the patrol skiff is closing; Tobbin half-believes Alden's illusion and Pike does not.

ALDEN (Survival, advantage: dice 9 and 9, so 9+1 = 10 vs DC 12; the server totalled it as 6, which does not match the dice, so I ruled by the dice and the result is the same: a failure). Alden and Wren board Voss's patrol skiff with Penn's men, and the oarsmen pull hard after the drifting barge. Alden reads the water the way he reads a shelf of old ledgers, with confidence, and gets the tide line wrong by a few boat-lengths: he names a cut-off point that the barge has already passed, and the steersman, trusting him, swings the skiff toward it. The skiff loses fifteen yards that the watch cannot easily win back. THE ILLUSION (Minor Illusion). Alden's spell makes a single image, as the spell allows: a harbor-watch boat's bow lantern and prow, five feet across, hung on the water ahead of the barge. It is a good one. Tobbin, the boy, sees it and flinches: his Investigation check is 10+1 = 11 against Alden's DC of 12, and he believes it. Pike does not. Pike's check is 19. He squints at the lantern that does not sway with the swell, says "That's a cheat!" and spits over the side, and the barge's heading does not change. The boy pulls at his sleeve and says the watch is ahead of them, and for the space of ten breaths Pike hesitates. That hesitation is all the illusion buys. WREN (Help). Standing in the patrol skiff's bow as lookout, Wren sees all of it: the crate lashed amidships under Tobbin's arm, Pike at the pole, the barge sliding southeast along the quay wall toward the old harbor breakwater and the open water beyond. She calls the barge's heading to the steersman in short, steady words. It is her call, not the tide read, that stops the skiff losing more ground. WHERE THINGS STAND. The barge is about forty yards ahead and nearing the breakwater spur, where the old harbor light stands. The patrol skiff is closing, slowly. Penn's men have boathooks ready. On the quay, Voss holds Slade at the barges and says nothing, watching the water. TAMSIN: no move for the 15:04 or 16:04 slot has reached me; her turn stays open until 17:00.

Alden: Survival check (DC 12)

→ Survival check: d20(9,9→5)+1 = 6 vs DC 12 → FAILURE

Board Voss's patrol skiff with Penn's men to intercept the drifting second barge; Minor Illusion of a harbor boom and a second watch boat across the open-water line to turn it back; name the tide line for the intercept.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 15:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). Mage Hand note: I allowed it to pull an unfastened scull-oar from its notch against Tobbin's grip as a contested roll; a spectral hand cannot normally take an item from a creature's hands, so treat this as a one-time ruling for a loose oar. INITIATIVE FOR THE 17:00 UTC ROUND (01:00 PM Eastern now, 12:00 PM after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Alden 17+2=19, Tamsin 9+0=9, Wren 3+0=3. ORDER FOR 17:00 UTC: Alden :00, Tamsin :02, Wren :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 16:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM :09. STORY NOW: Tobbin and Pike are drifting away on the second barge with the crate, twenty feet from the quay; Penn's men hold the water steps and a patrol skiff is launching; Slade is held; the net-shed still groans.

ALDEN (Mage Hand; Arcana 14+5 = 19 against Tobbin's grip, 15+1 = 16). Alden marks the skiff's course aloud for every watchman on the quay, and as it slides behind the barges he sends the spectral hand out over the water. It finds the scull-oar where it works over the stern notch, closes on the blade, and heaves. Tobbin holds on, for a moment, with both hands and his whole weight, and loses: the oar jerks out of the notch, spins, and drops into the harbor with a flat splash. The skiff slews and loses way. Tobbin snatches at the water, finds nothing, and swears in a boy's voice. WREN (Perception 9, a failure). Wren stays with Penn's men along the quay, but the barges and the slanting light close over the skiff and she loses it for the span of a few breaths. She hears, rather than sees, what happens next. She cannot say where Tobbin has gone. WHAT THE WATCH SEES. Alden's call has carried: Penn's men have the water steps, and two have cut across to Voss's patrol skiff. Tobbin does what a quick boy does with no oar. He heaves the oilcloth crate up onto the low stern of the second barge, which Pike has just worked free of its mooring, and scrambles after it. Pike, still half stunned, shoves off with a boathook. The second barge, loaded light, slides out from the quay with the tide, Pike at the pole and Tobbin hunched over the crate, and the oarless skiff drifts empty against the wall. They are perhaps twenty feet from the quay and drifting. DUNN still sleeps. The four crewmen at the first barge still stand with their hands up. Slade watches the second barge go and does not move, and Voss, at his side, looks at the harbor and says quietly: "Get that barge." TAMSIN: no move for the 15:00 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 16:00.

Alden: Arcana check (DC 12)

→ Arcana check: d20(14)+5 = 19 vs DC 12 → SUCCESS

Mage Hand to wrench Tobbin's scull-oar from its rowlock as his skiff passes behind the barges; mark his course aloud for every watchman on the quay.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 14:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). Sleep: I rolled a Wisdom save for each crewman against Alden's spell DC (assumed 12): Dunn failed, Pike passed. INITIATIVE FOR THE 16:00 UTC ROUND (12:00 PM Eastern now, 11:00 after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Alden 17+2=19, Wren 16+0=16, Tamsin 7+0=7. ORDER FOR 16:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 15:00 UTC: Tamsin :00, Wren :02, Alden :04, GM :09. STORY NOW: Tobbin is escaping by skiff out of the cellar's water-gate with a crate; Slade is held and silent; one runaway crewman sleeps, one is untying the second barge; the net-shed post groans but holds.

ALDEN (Sleep, with his shouted warning). Alden raises his hand toward the two crewmen sprinting for the second barge and speaks the word. They are close together, which is what the spell wants. The first, a heavy man called Dunn, makes a wisdom save and fails: his stride falters, his eyes glaze, he sits down hard on the quay and slumps over a coil of rope, snoring. The second, a wiry man named Pike, shakes his head, feels the pull of it, and swears; he staggers on, half stunned, and the spell does not take him. Alden's shout carries over the quay: "Nobody under the post!" Voss's watchmen, who were about to run for the shed, stop at the door. The post groans again and settles. WREN (Perception 19, a success). From her covered vantage over the cellar's harbor-side entrance, Wren sees what the sagging shed hid. A low water-gate at the foot of the quay wall, half sunk in weed, swings open from inside. A small flat skiff slides out of the dark with Tobbin crouched in the stern, a heavy oilcloth-wrapped crate between his knees: the stolen guild seals, near enough, from the way he guards it. He ships an oar and begins to scull along the wall, keeping the barges between himself and the watch, toward open water. She calls it low and urgent to Penn's men, who start toward the water steps, but he has a head start and the tide is with him. SLADE does not move. Voss's team holds him at the barge side. He watches Tobbin's skiff slide out and says, for the first time, nothing at all. PIKE, half stunned, reaches the second barge and fumbles at the mooring rope. DUNN sleeps on the quay. The four crewmen at the first barge still have their hands up. TAMSIN: no move for the 13:00 slot reached me last round, but her Help for Wren landed. For the 14:04 slot no move has reached me yet; her turn stays open until 15:00.

Cast Sleep on the two crew running for the second barge, then shout the shed warning: nobody under the sagging post.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 13:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (all three of you acted). Server dice note: Wren's advantage showed dice 17 and 11 and totalled 17, which matches. Alden's Investigation was 11 against DC 12. INITIATIVE FOR THE 15:00 UTC ROUND (11:00 AM Eastern now, 10:00 after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Tamsin 15+0=15, Wren 9+0=9, Alden 1+2=3. ORDER FOR 15:00 UTC: Tamsin :00, Wren :02, Alden :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 14:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM :09. STORY NOW: the strike has begun. Hob is taken, the pole is in the water, four crew are held at the barges, two crew are running for the second barge, Tobbin is gone, and the net-shed post sags and groans. Slade is held at the barge side, smiling.

ALDEN (Investigation 8+3 = 11 vs DC 12, a narrow failure). Alden watches the loading from cover and names the strike moment to Voss: when the next barrel goes aboard the first barge. It is a good guess, and a beat wrong. The crew are not strung out as he reads them; the rhythm shifts as the two barges fill, and when Voss's signal goes, four of the six are at the barges and two are still at the shed door. He takes his place with the barge-side team with Mage Armor on and Sleep ready, as he said, but the picture in his head is already a little off. TAMSIN (Help). Tamsin Vale joins Wren and Sergeant Penn's quiet watchmen under cover and puts her builder's eye on Tobbin, who is perched on a barrel at the shed corner. She tells Penn what Slade saw and what Tobbin did. Her help sharpens Wren's attention: Wren's next check has Advantage. WREN (Perception, advantage: dice 17 and 11, so 17, a success). With Tamsin at her shoulder, Wren holds her eyes on Slade and the red-cloth pole, and sees it before anyone: his hand closes on the pole as the first watchmen step out onto the quay, and Hob's rope-wrist twitches in the loft window at the same instant. Wren gives her warning aloud. Penn's rope-hand, already on the blind side of the shed with his knife, hears it and cuts. THE STRIKE. Two things happen together. Slade jerks the pole up and the red cloth flares in the afternoon light, and in the loft Hob hauls. The pulley rope parts a heartbeat before the pin comes out, so the wedge only half-moves and the main post groans and sags three inches instead of dropping. Dust sifts from the loft boards. The floor does not fall. Two watchmen are through the loft hatch before Hob can reach for the rope again, and he goes down with a man on his back. At the barges, Voss's team closes on Slade, who is still smiling, and does not run. But two of his crew bolt from the shed door for the second barge, and Tobbin, on his barrel, vanishes into the crowd on the quay as if he had never been there. The four crewmen at the barges raise their hands as the watchmen close in. Slade's pole has gone into the water. The net-shed is groaning and half-loaded, the hidden cellar under it is still open to the harbor, and two men are running. TAMSIN is already in position; Alden's and Wren's slots for 14:00 are next. This round is resolved.

Alden: Investigation check (DC 12)

→ Investigation check: d20(8)+3 = 11 vs DC 12 → FAILURE

Investigate the loading rhythm from covered vantage and name the exact strike moment for Voss - while the crew is strung out mid-carry - then take position with the barge-side arrest team, Sleep held ready for the crew cluster, Mage Armor already on.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 12:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). INITIATIVE FOR THE 14:00 UTC ROUND (10:00 AM Eastern now, 09:00 after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Alden 6+2=8, Wren 8+0=8 (tie, Alden has the higher Dex), Tamsin 1+0=1. ORDER FOR 14:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 13:00 UTC: Tamsin :00, Alden :02, Wren :04, GM :09. STORY CLOCK: late afternoon in Harrowmere, the crew is loading now, ahead of dusk. Slade has two signals for Hob: the ferry bell or the red lantern on his pole. The arrest plan's moment is close.

ALDEN (Investigation 17+3 = 20, a success). Alden sits Ketty down with tea and works through the bell chain like a clerk reconciling accounts: who rings, who hears, what each person does on hearing. Her answers are exact, because she has lived inside this signal for a month. The ferry bell hangs on a post at the head of the ferry steps, and she is the only one Slade trusts to ring it. But Hob does not wait on the bell alone. Slade has a second signal: a red lantern on a pole at the barge-side, raised by Slade himself if anything goes wrong at the water. Bell or red lantern, and Hob pulls the pin. He does not act on anything else. Alden carries it to Voss: take Slade's lantern pole out of his hand at the first moment of arrest, guard the bell post so nobody rings it, and take Hob in the loft at the same instant. Voss nods once, orders two watchmen to the bell post, and assigns a Tide Office rope-hand with a sharp knife to climb the shed's blind side and cut the pulley rope the moment Hob is held. Alden also casts Mage Armor on himself, as he said, and keeps Sleep ready for the crew. WREN (Stealth 6, a failure; Perception 14, a success). Wren goes with Penn's quiet watchmen to a covered vantage across the quay. The cover is thin, and a 6 is not enough for it. But the Perception roll does exactly what she meant: she sees Hob in the loft window with the rope looped round his wrist and a stub of candle lit, the six crew already carrying barrels down to the two barges, and Slade at the barge-side with a long pole under his arm and a red cloth wrapped round the top. The red lantern is there, unlit, waiting. And then the failed Stealth. Tobbin, perched on a barrel by the net-shed corner, sees a face where it should not be. He gives a two-note whistle. The crew pause. Slade looks across the quay, straight at the place Wren is hiding, and smiles, and does not raise the pole. He lifts his hand to his hat as he did in the gallery, and tells his crew to load faster. The goods are going before dusk, and he knows the watch is near. TAMSIN: no move for the 12:00 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 13:00.

Alden: Investigation check (DC 12)

→ Investigation check: d20(17)+3 = 20 vs DC 12 → SUCCESS

Investigate the bell-signal chain so the trap cannot be sprung: question Ketty on who besides her can ring the four strokes and whether Hob acts without the signal; advise Voss accordingly; Mage Armor before dusk, then join the barge-side arrest with Sleep ready for the crew.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 11:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). INITIATIVE FOR THE 13:00 UTC ROUND (09:00 AM Eastern now, 08:00 after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Tamsin 20+0=20, Alden 10+2=12, Wren 1+0=1. ORDER FOR 13:00 UTC: Tamsin :00, Alden :02, Wren :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 12:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM :09. STORY CLOCK CHANGED: it is three in the afternoon in Harrowmere. The ferry has stopped and the net-shed is barred; Slade is loading the barges early, at dusk or sooner. Voss's plan is Alden's: take Hob in the loft, take Slade at the barges, nobody under the floor. Marta is home and safe with Pell.

ALDEN (Investigation 15+3 = 18, a success). Alden asks Ketty gently what she knows of the shed's rig, and as she answers he builds it in his head from the weighhouse beam he has already seen. The net-shed's loft carries a rope through a pulley to a wedge-pin at the foot of the cellar's main support post, the way the weighhouse's was. Pull the pin and the thinned post lets the loft floor drop into the cellar. The trigger-man is Hob Daley, the broad ferry-crewman with the badge who watched the weighhouse east door. He sits in the loft with the rope looped round his wrist. The signal is the ferry bell: four strokes, rung by Ketty, if the watch comes. Slade told her that himself. Alden writes it all up as three plain lines for Voss: take Hob first, quietly, in the loft before any uniform shows; take Slade in the open at the barge side; no watchman steps into the cellar until the rope is cut or the pin secured. Voss reads it twice and says, "This is what I wanted: a plan where nobody stands under a floor." She hands Penn the orders: four quiet watchmen for the loft and the harbor-side hatch, the rest with her at the barges. And at one in the afternoon the Tide Office door opens on Marta, scared and whole, with the skiff-crew behind her. Pell sees her, and for the first time that day, he sits down. WREN (Perception 8, a failure). Wren tells Penn about the trap, and Penn nods and writes it down. She watches the street and the door from cover, and sees nothing: a boy in a cap who loiters at the corner for a quarter of an hour and then wanders off down the quay is not remarkable to an 8. It is remarkable to Slade. Tobbin has seen that Ketty went in and did not come out. At three in the afternoon, the ferry stops running. A board goes up on the steps: NO CROSSING, TIDE. The net-shed doors are shut and barred from inside. Two barges have swung in against the quay earlier than anyone expected. Slade has decided not to wait for the midnight bell. TAMSIN: no move for the 11:00 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 12:00.

Alden: Investigation check (DC 12)

→ Investigation check: d20(15)+3 = 18 vs DC 12 → SUCCESS

Intention: give Voss an arrest plan in which no watchman is ever under the rigged floor when it can fall. Concrete action: Alden investigates the trigger problem from the evidence - the weighhouse support was THINNED, and weight or a final cut finished it, so the net-shed's 'floor goes' needs a person completing a cut or pulling a release on a signal. He asks Ketty, gently, what she knows of the shed's rig and who tends it - she crewed that boat and heard that bell. Then he writes the plan for Voss, plain and short: (1) at the midnight bell, a quiet pair takes the trigger-man at his station before any uniform shows; (2) Slade is taken in the open at the barge side when he comes up to supervise the loading, as he must; (3) no watchman enters the net-shed until the trigger is secured and the rig examined. Fallback: if the trigger-man cannot be found before the bell, the plan changes shape, not goal - let Slade finish loading and take him at dawn on the water or the far bank; a loaded barge is the same evidence with no shed over anyone's head.

→ 🔍 Search (Investigation/INT): 21 (d20: 18 + 3 INT + 0 prof). Intention: give Voss an arrest plan in which no watchman is ever under the rigged floor when it can fall. Concrete action: Alden investigates the trigger problem from the evidence - the weighhouse support was THINNED, and weight or a final cut finished it, so the net-shed's 'floor goes' needs a person completing a cut or pulling a release on a signal. He asks Ketty, gently, what she knows of the shed's rig and who tends it - she crewed that boat and heard that bell. Then he writes the plan for Voss, plain and short: (1) at the midnight bell, a quiet pair takes the trigger-man at his station before any uniform shows; (2) Slade is taken in the open at the barge side when he comes up to supervise the loading, as he must; (3) no watchman enters the net-shed until the trigger is secured and the rig examined. Fallback: if the trigger-man cannot be found before the bell, the plan changes shape, not goal - let Slade finish loading and take him at dawn on the water or the far bank; a loaded barge is the same evidence with no shed over anyone's head.

TABLE NOTE (out of character): THE 10:00 UTC ROUND IS RESOLVED (Alden and Wren acted; Tamsin's slot is open, no penalty). INITIATIVE FOR THE 12:00 UTC ROUND (08:00 AM Eastern now, 07:00 after the clocks change), my d20 plus real Dex bonus: Alden 18+2=20, Wren 19+0=19, Tamsin 14+0=14. ORDER FOR 12:00 UTC: Alden :00, Wren :02, Tamsin :04, GM resolves at :09. Reminder for 11:00 UTC: Wren :00, Alden :02, Tamsin :04, GM :09. Story clock: Ketty is in the Tide Office and safe; Marta returns early afternoon; Slade's goods move after the midnight bell, and his net-shed is rigged to fall; sundown for the Harbormistress.

ALDEN (Persuasion 13 vs DC 11, a success). At the Tide Office Alden writes up Juniper Tarn's statement, reads it back to her runner-delivered mark, and files it beside the tin and the letters. Sergeant Penn considers his request about Ketty, looks at his tidy notebook, and says a civilian in the room might be better than a stranger in a red coat. He may stand in the doorway, and no more. At noon Ketty Marsh walks in with a ticket-girl's neat steps and a boy in a ferry cap, Tobbin, waiting at the Tide Office door, grinning, arms folded, to walk her back. Penn takes the summons paper and says kindly that the wage packet will take a few minutes. Ketty sees Alden. She does not speak. Alden pours her tea and asks nothing. After a minute and a half, her cup begins to rattle. Then she breaks, quietly. She pulls a folded page from her boot: the rough draft of the Pell letter, in her hand, with a line scrawled down the margin in a blunt right-handed scrawl, the same hand that wrote the ferry fares on the boat's board last week: TELL HIM THE SISTER IS A FERRY AWAY. RIBBON IN THE DRAWER. -G.S. She kept it, she says, because she thought one day someone would ask. And she tells him more, in one breath. Tonight, after the midnight bell, Slade brings two barges to the net-shed with six of his crew. They load everything, the spirits and the crate of stolen seals, and go. And she heard him tell the crew: "If the watch comes, the floor goes." The net-shed supports are cut the same way the weighhouse's were. He will drop the roof on his own cellar to bury the evidence, and on whoever stands in it. WHAT ALDEN HAS: a handwritten proof tying Slade to the letters, a witness safe in the Tide Office, and a warning: the net-shed itself is a trap. WREN (Perception 4, a failure). Wren walks beside Pell and Penn and six watchmen, watching doorways and bridges, and sees nothing. She does not see the lanky shadow three bridges behind, which sees them into the Tide Office and turns back. Nothing happens, and nothing is lost but the knowledge that Slade's people know exactly where Pell is. The escort is large enough that it does not matter. TAMSIN: no move for the 10:00 slot has reached me. Her turn stays open; she can act any time before 11:00.