Garran does not take the river road. He guides Tobin back beside the toll shelter and settles him against its post, keeping the chain slack but firmly in hand.
Garran
Start at the beginning. Who left you here, who paid them, and what did they promise the person waiting beyond the river? Leave nothing out.
Tobin
A man brought me before dawn. He wore a brown cloak and smelled of wet wool. He said the payment had already been made, but he never gave me a name.
Tobin glances toward Timothy before continuing. His wrists remain reddened by the irons, and his small shoulders tighten whenever Garran’s fingers shift along the chain.
Tobin
He called the recipient a master near the river, not a reeve. He said I would work for food and shelter, but I never agreed to anything.
Garran
Did he mention a forge, a mill, or a household name? If you withhold a detail, we may walk into an ambush or deliver you to the wrong man.
Tobin
A forge. I heard him say Edric once, quietly, while speaking to another man. I do not know whether Edric is the master, but that is all I remember.
✓ Quest Accepted
Discover how the man in the brown cloak mistreated Tobin
“I listen supportively but intently while Tobin describes how the man in the brown cloak bent him over a table and did unspeakable things to him after tying him to the post at the toll shelter, and also how he encouraged a second man to violate him in the same way immediately afterwards.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Perception, rolled -2)
Timothy listens without interrupting, keeping his attention steady as Tobin struggles to describe what happened at the toll shelter. He offers the boy silence rather than questions.
Tobin
The man in the brown cloak tied me to the post. After that, he took me inside and abused me. I could not stop him.
Tobin’s account then fades into a single, grim certainty: the brown-cloaked man, a middle-aged, broad-built man with a weathered face and close-cropped dark hair beneath his brown wool cloak, encouraged another man, a younger, lean man with pale skin, a narrow face, and shaggy light-brown hair, dressed in a dark wool tunic to abuse him in the same manner. No physical detail is spoken aloud.
Tobin
There was another man. The first one urged him on, as though what happened to me were something they had arranged together. I remember that much.
Garran’s hand stills on the chain. Timothy’s patient attention secures the full account, but the time spent listening leaves the brown-cloaked man’s identity and purpose unresolved.
Garran
You heard him clearly. Two men acted together, and neither was Edric by name. Tobin, did either of them say who sent them?
Tobin
I remember the wet wool, the post, and the second man’s voice. I do not know who paid them.
Quest Complete
Discover how the man in the brown cloak mistreated Tobin