Harold Kroft's adventures

Several weeks pass in the steady rhythm of bellows, filings, customers, and mended tools. Bram Veller does not return, and ordinary life fills the space he left behind.

Near closing, Mira arrives alone with rain-darkened shoes and a sealed scrap pinched carefully between two fingers. Not long after, Tomas steps through the door separately, glancing once toward the quiet street.

Mira lays the scrap on the counter without breaking its seal. A small hooked emblem has been pressed into the wax, familiar from the tavern's tally slips and serving tokens.

The forge burns low behind them. Outside, evening settles over the street without disturbance, while the sealed scrap waits between the three of you and the last customers' fading footsteps.

Harold leaves the sealed scrap on the counter and crosses to the weapon rack. Mira watches from beside it, while Tomas keeps his attention divided between the quiet street and the shop interior.

The rack holds a broad-headed smith's hammer, a balanced short sword in a worn leather scabbard, and a light ash spear with an iron leaf-shaped point.

Below them hang two throwing knives, a sturdy hand axe, and a compact crossbow with its cord waxed and ready. Beside the rack rests a quiver holding six short bolts.

Harold's trained eye also catches the practical differences: the hammer is quickest to hand, the sword is best maintained, and the spear's shaft has been recently reinforced at the grip.

Nothing is missing, damaged, or secretly marked. Every option is accounted for as the forge's low fire paints dull red edges along the metal.

Harold takes the two throwing knives, the hand axe, the compact crossbow, its quiver of six bolts, and the balanced short sword. He checks each fastening and edge before securing them.

Mira steps aside without argument. Tomas opens the door first and studies the rain-dim street, while Harold leaves the spear and hammer behind and carries the chosen weapons into the evening.

They pass through wet lanes toward the designated meeting place. Harold notices fresh mud near a shuttered side door, a recently disturbed rain barrel, and no second set of tracks following them.

Harold reaches the meeting place: a narrow covered court behind the Copper Kettle, enclosed by dark stone walls and rain-slick timber. He enters with every weapon secured and his guard unlowered.

The court is empty at first glance. A hooded lantern burns on a crate beneath the carved mark, its flame steady despite the wind, while the three arrivals take in every doorway and shadow.

Harold stills himself beneath the eave and searches the court by sight, sound, and the faint disturbance of air. No doorway, roofline, or shadow conceals a waiting person.

The careful examination costs several quiet minutes. The lantern flame lowers, and the silence remains genuine, though the wet stones provide no useful trail beyond the court.

Harold holds position beneath the carved mark. Mira remains near the lantern while Tomas guards the open passage, and the three wait as evening deepens around the empty court.

The waiting hour passes without footsteps. At last, the lantern gutters low, revealing a second scrap tucked beneath its crate, its wax marked with a different sigil.

Tomas lifts the scrap into the lantern glow without breaking its seal. The writing names no revenge, but warns that Bram was only a distraction and someone has been tracing Harold's work.

The scrap gives one usable lead: before dawn, a marked ledger can be found beneath the third loose stone in the Copper Kettle's abandoned coal shed. The place is close, exposed, and empty.

Rain whispers beyond the court. The first invitation promised answers and delivered none, yet the new clue offers a concrete trail before sunrise, while the unanswered question of Bram remains separate.

The lantern flame steadies as the meaning settles. The sender is hostile, not merely toward Harold, but toward Mira and Tomas as well; the letters are bait meant to place all three of them within reach.

A faint rubbed impression circles the second sigil. Harold recognizes its hooked lower stroke from old trade marks on repair orders: it indicates the abandoned dyehouse quarter, opening a trace the sender did not intend to leave.

The abandoned coal shed remains a dangerous lead, but it is no longer the only one. The sender has exposed a second path, and the three of you now know the threat reaches beyond Harold alone.