The yard air feels colder than the counting room. The Guard grips the ledger case under one arm and hauls the bound Clerk forward, while Master Pell stumbles in their wake, still groggy from the blow.
Wukong
The ledger points beyond this house. River road.
Wukong keeps watch at the gate while the Guard rechecks the prisoners’ bindings and their pace. The city jail is the nearest safe handoff, and the Guard knows it.
The Guard
I take them to the guardhouse first. From there, they go straight into custody.
The Clerk
Please, I was only carrying messages. I did not plan this.
Pell lifts his head at the words, and the ledger case shifts in the Guard’s arm. Its blue wax seal catches the light, the same seal as the wax in the market, the same mark on the hidden books.
Master Pell
You do not understand what this reaches into. There are accounts on the river road, and others above them.
That one sentence tightens the whole web. Wukong has the trail, the names, and now the next stop: the account house tied to the stolen funds.
The Guard
Go. Find the river-road house. I will keep these two where they belong.
✓ Quest Accepted
Investigate the river-road house
“I tell the guard "I'll leave it to you then". I then look toward the clerk and Pell and tell them "anything you'd like to share before you're thrown in jail?" in an effort to preferably gain intel about the river-road house.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +2)
Wukong
I leave it to you then.
Wukong lets the Guard take the prisoners, then turns back just long enough to pin them both with a calm look.
Wukong
Anything you would like to share before you are thrown in jail?
The Clerk
The river-road house keeps two books, one for show and one for blood. Ask for the lower cellar door, if they let you near it.
Master Pell
You are too late to stop the ones above me. The ledgers go upward, not outward.
The Guard
Then those names go with me into custody, and I will have them read aloud.
The Clerk swallows hard and adds one more detail, barely above a whisper. There is a dock marker in blue wax, left where the barges unload at dusk.
“Do I know where the rivver-road house is?”
YES (Likely, rolled 33)
Wukong watches the prisoners depart, his mind tracing the familiar geography of the city. The river road is a place he has patrolled before, and the specific dock marker the clerk described clicks into place with a sudden, sharp clarity.
Wukong
The old warehouse near the southern bend. I know that place.
Wukong leaves Counting house yard behind and arrives at the old warehouse near the southern bend.
“I go to the old warehouse near the southern bend.”
SUCCESS (Great Agility, rolled +0)
The southern bend smells of tar, river mist, and old grain. Wukong reaches the warehouse yard and finds the doors half-shut, the timbers dark with damp.
A blue wax dock marker hangs from an iron nail by the latch, fresh enough to catch the eye. Someone has used this place recently.
Wukong
This is the place.
Wukong steps in close and studies the threshold. Mud is tracked in from the river road, then wiped near the side door.
Inside, a low scrape answers from the dark, as if a board has shifted on its own.
Wukong
The side door was used more than once.
From deeper in the warehouse, a voice calls out, sharp and wary, 'Who comes to the dock house at this hour?'
The front doors creak wider by a handspan, and the question hangs there, waiting for Wukong to answer.
Quest Complete
Investigate the river-road house
New Gift: River-Road Intuition