Jackson eases the pickup boat into a hidden slip behind a sagging boathouse. Diesel, wet rope, and rotten pilings crowd the air. Far Harbor's lights bleed weakly through the fog.
Dallas steps onto the slick dock with Murderbone at his heel. The skiff bumps wood behind him, and Jackson kills the engine, listening to the harbor breathe.
Jackson Temple
This dock is dead. We move now, before whoever lost us decides to look here.
A rusted service road climbs from the boathouse into a fenced yard of stacked crab pots and oil drums. A single sodium lamp throws yellow bars across a warehouse wall.
Dallas Fontaine
Fresh tire tracks. One set. Somebody has been here recently.
Murderbone stops short, nose lifted toward the yard. From somewhere beyond the fence, a radio crackles once, then goes silent.
Jackson Temple
That was not dock traffic. Dallas, we are not alone.
✓ Quest Accepted
Find who is using the radio
“We take the service road”
SUCCESS (Legendary Agility, rolled +2)
Dallas leads the way up the service road, boots splashing through a thin film of brine. The fence hums in the wind, and the sodium lamp turns the crab pots into hunched shadows.
Murderbone pads beside him, nose working the mud. The fresh tire tracks cut straight past the lamp and vanish around the warehouse wall.
Jackson Temple
Front way is dead, so this has to be the path. Keep low.
Dallas passes the fence line and reaches the yard edge. The warehouse wall rises ahead, and the service door stands half lost in fog, its frame streaked with old rust and wet fingerprints.
Dallas Fontaine
Those prints are fresh. Somebody came through here tonight.
A radio crackles again beyond the stacked drums, then cuts out. Murderbone freezes, staring past the yard toward the blind corner beside the boathouse.
Jackson Temple
We are on top of them now. Dallas, tell me which door you want first.
✓ Quest Accepted
Enter the boathouse warehouse
“We move from cover to cover moving toward the blind corner”
SUCCESS (Good Stealth, rolled +2)
Dallas slips from the fence line to the first stack of crab pots, keeping his coat dark against the lamp glow. The yard stays quiet, but the silence feels staged.
Murderbone pads ahead of him, then halts at the next drum cluster, head low and ears locked on the blind corner. A faint radio hiss coughs once, then dies.
Dallas crosses the open strip in one clean movement, using the drums as cover. Fresh tire mud clings to the warehouse wall beside the service door.
Dallas Fontaine
No camera. No watcher in the open. Just the corner and whatever waits past it.
He reaches the blind corner at the boathouse wall and stops in the shadow line. The service door sits just beyond his shoulder, half veiled in fog, while the yard opens away behind him.
Jackson Temple
I have your back. Move when you want.
Murderbone shifts closer to Dallas’s leg, still staring past the corner. Somewhere inside the boathouse, a loose metal latch gives a soft, waiting clink.