The loading bay remains empty. Footsteps approach through the lit corridor, measured and unhurried, while the distant countdown continues its crawl across the active connection.
Elias Venn, a lean young adult man with sallow skin, close-cropped brown hair, and a weathered green courier jacket, enters carrying a sealed phone and hospital access badge.
Elias Venn
Four minutes. Then the hospital loses everything they still have.
He checks the phone again, thumb hovering above its locked screen. The badge swings against his jacket as he scans the crates, the bay, and the dark interior.
Keskiyön Orkidea
He checks the countdown before checking his exits.
Elias Venn
The connection is stable. Nobody touches the phone, nobody touches the badge, and this ends cleanly.
Elias steps farther inside, placing his back near the corridor wall. From the hidden laptop route, the hospital remains exposed, and the countdown drops another minute.
✓ Quest Accepted
Interrupt the stolen access route
✓ Quest Accepted
Obtain the hospital's ransom
“I wait for a precious few seconds longer behind my hiding spot, then shift from out of the shadows. I move efficiently, and cross the distance behind Elias, then take out a boning knife from one of my jeans pockets. From over the corner of the wall he's behind, I clamp one hand over his mouth to silence any sound he may create. The boning knife is held firm in my other hand, directed toward his throat for intimidation. Inches from his ear, I order him to be quiet and cooperate. I offer him the chance to live if he does choose to cooperate with me, but that is a lie. I will kill him anyway. I cannot risk witnesses. "Scream, and I slit your throat. Tell me all you know, I'll let you live."”
FAILURE (Good Stealth, rolled -3)
For a few seconds, Orchid remains motionless behind the crates. Then she slips from the shadows, crosses the gap, and follows Elias around the wall with controlled speed.
Her hand closes over his mouth as the boning knife clears her left pocket, its edge held beneath his jaw. Elias reacts instantly, driving his shoulder backward into the wall.
Keskiyön Orkidea
Scream, and I slit your throat. Tell me all you know, I'll let you live.
The impact breaks her seal for a breath. Elias twists hard, scraping his cheek against her palm, and the sealed phone drops between their shoes with a sharp plastic crack.
Elias Venn
You are not police. Get that knife away from me.
He does not scream, but the struggle has shifted them into the corridor's open light. The phone's locked screen wakes, displaying the countdown and a missed call from an unknown number.
Elias Venn
The hospital route came through a contractor's credentials. I only carry the access badge. The person at the depot has the instructions.
“I got what I wanted out of Elias. His life means nothing to me. I take advantage of the position he's left my hand in against the wall and his cheek and slide my fingers around his throat, then jerk him backward and out of the corridor's light, back into the shadows of the depot. There, my boning knife lifts higher, and jabs straight through his ear canal, aiming to penetrate to the deepest point of his skull I can immediately reach as efficiently as possible.”
SUCCESS (Good Martial Arts, rolled +1)
Orchid’s fingers close around Elias’s throat. She jerks him backward from the corridor’s light, using his unbalanced posture to drag him into the depot’s deeper shadows.
Elias Venn
Wait. I told you what I know.
The plea ends in a muffled struggle. In the darkness, Orchid drives the boning knife through his ear with a single efficient motion, and Elias goes slack.
The knife catches against something hard before she withdraws it. Elias collapses against the wall, taking the sealed phone with him; it strikes the concrete and cracks loudly.
The noise carries through the depot. The phone’s screen remains lit beside Elias, its countdown still running, while the hospital badge swings from his jacket.
A new vibration follows from the phone. The unknown caller is ringing again, and the cracked screen now exposes a notification preview: INSTRUCTIONS UPDATED.
Keskiyön Orkidea
The phone is damaged, but still active.
“I quickly pocket my boning knife and retrieve his hospital access badge. Afterward, I grab Elias' cracked phone and place it into my hoodie pocket. A second later, I drag his corpse into a more inconspicuous corner, and stuff him inside a box to keep hidden. To ensure the kill is as clean and unnoticeable as possible, I make sure to wipe any blood off of the ground using Elias' own clothes when I drag him. Afterward, I pull out his phone and check it to try and gain additional information.”
SUCCESS (Good Stealth, rolled +3)
Orchid pockets the boning knife, removes Elias’s hospital badge, and lifts the cracked phone. Its vibration continues against her palm beneath the depot’s distant hum.
She drags Elias into a deeper corner, using his jacket to wipe the concrete as she moves him. The body disappears inside a collapsed cardboard shipping box.
The concealment is crude but effective from the loading bay. No blood remains obvious, and the scattered packaging breaks the shape of the box among other abandoned freight.
Orchid retrieves the phone from her hoodie pocket and wakes the damaged screen. The notification preview expands beneath the countdown: INSTRUCTIONS UPDATED.
The update contains a depot coordinate, a time marker for two minutes from now, and a demand to deliver the hospital badge to an emergency stairwell.
A second file has cached locally: a contractor login name, VARGA.M, and a partial message identifying the hospital’s maintenance network as the next access point.
The unknown caller rings again. This time, the cracked phone exposes a live call label: MERIDIAN SECURITY, with an option to answer.
+ New Item Acquired
Hospital access badge
+ New Item Acquired
Cracked phone
“I let the phone ring for several seconds in my hands until it stops automatically. Once it has, I review the notification's direct sender, the app used, and try to figure out the specific depot location by reviewing earlier notifications. I am sure to place the phone on mute and make its screen as dark as possible while I do this nearby the box I've stuffed Elias' body in, crouched behind a nearby box.”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Investigation, rolled +0)
Orchid crouches behind a nearby box beside Elias’s concealed body and lets the phone vibrate in her palm. After several seconds, MERIDIAN SECURITY stops calling.
She switches the phone to mute, lowers brightness to its minimum, and angles the cracked screen away from the loading bay. The cost is concrete: its battery drops to twelve percent.
Keskiyön Orkidea
The caller is Meridian Security, not the contractor.
The call record identifies Signal as the app handling the encrypted contact. Its notification history preserves earlier messages beneath the updated instruction.
Reviewing them, Orchid finds the direct sender listed as MERIDIAN SECURITY OPERATIONS. The coordinate resolves to 418 Foundry Avenue, rear loading bay, this depot.
An earlier message names the emergency stairwell at St. Agnes Hospital and repeats the two-minute delivery window. The contractor login VARGA.M remains attached to the thread.
The phone goes dark in her hand, muted and dim. Behind the boxes, Orchid now has the sender, the app, and the depot’s specific address.
“My fingers move quicker. I search deeper into exchanged messages, check for a group chat, or any other details that may help me identify the child's kidnapper and current location. Knowing that the sender could be approaching the depot right now based off the information I've discovered, I back further into the depths of the freight around me, put the phone away for now, and wait in statuesque, crouched stillness.”
SUCCESS (Mediocre Investigation, rolled +1)
Orchid wakes the dimmed phone and searches Signal’s exchanged messages, opening archived attachments, muted threads, and the account details hidden beneath the visible conversation.
A small group chat appears beneath Meridian Security Operations: three accounts, one labeled VARGA.M, another using the name NIGHT AUDIT, and a third marked DISPATCH.
The messages identify the kidnapped child as Eli Mercer and place him in a locked maintenance annex beneath St. Agnes Hospital. A recent pin confirms the annex remains occupied.
NIGHT AUDIT instructs Meridian to collect the badge at the depot, then proceed through the hospital’s emergency stairwell. DISPATCH warns that police activity has increased.
Keskiyön Orkidea
The kidnapper is using Meridian as a disposable relay, but the child is still beneath St. Agnes.
Orchid closes the thread, lowers the phone into her hoodie pocket, and retreats between freight stacks where corrugated walls break the loading bay’s sightlines.
She settles into a statuesque crouch behind collapsed pallets, motionless except for measured breathing. The depot resumes its silence, while distant footsteps begin approaching the loading entrance.
“After several seconds of careful waiting, I ambush whoever approaches the loading entrance once their back is turned. I close the gap light-footed and silent as can be, then take out a cable from my jean pocket and quickly loop it around their neck, prepared to pull and begin choking them. "Identify yourself and explain your position in this operation. Fighting back will get you killed." Again, another lie, just like Elias. I will still kill them anyway, but it's the weight of the threat that matters.”
SUCCESS (Good Stealth, rolled -1)
The footsteps reach the loading entrance. A middle-aged woman in a dark blue security jacket enters, compact and broad-shouldered, with cropped gray hair, a scar crossing one eyebrow, and a radio clipped to her collar.
She scans the empty bay, then turns toward the corridor. Orchid slips from behind the pallets, closes the distance without a sound, and loops the flexible cable around the woman's neck.
Keskiyön Orkidea
Identify yourself and explain your position in this operation. Fighting back will get you killed.
Meridian operative
Mara Voss. Meridian Security Operations. I was sent for the badge and the hospital stairwell.
Mara's hand reaches toward her radio. Orchid tightens the cable and uses a sharp body angle to turn her away from the entrance, keeping the struggle contained in shadow.
The radio strikes a metal pallet with a hard clatter. Mara's resistance fades, and Orchid maintains the pressure until the operative is still. The promised threat has become final.
The clatter carries through the depot, a concrete cost to the kill. Mara's radio crackles once beneath her body, transmitting only a burst of static before going silent.