Misty slips through the service passage into a lanternless fish warehouse. Salt, tar, and old brine thicken the air. Nets hang like curtains between leaning crates, and a narrow harbor door glimmers ahead.
Behind her, Don Baltasar reaches the threshold, glancing toward the gunfire outside. A flintlock bearer blocks the passage ahead, weapon raised, boots scraping for a clear shot.
Misty zigzags through the hanging nets and crates. The gunman twists left, then right, forced to chase her with the barrel while the warehouse echoes with each hurried step.
The Flintlock Gunman
Hold still, devil-blood!
Misty cuts across his aim at the instant his footing falters. Her blades flash, and the flintlock spins from his gun hand to strike the damp boards.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
The harbor door, quickly. Before the stranger finds this maze.
Director's note
I follow Baltasar kicking the gunman in the balls as I pass him.
Misty drives a swift kick into the gunman's groin as she passes. They fold with a strangled gasp, clearing the way. Baltasar reaches the narrow harbor door and wrenches it wider, revealing a salt-dark passage beyond, its stones descending toward the sealed harbor threshold.
Director's note
I say using my strength to collapse the entrance.
“lets make sure no one follows us from behind.”
SUCCESS (Fair Perception, rolled +1)
Misty pauses at the open harbor door and turns, twin swords held low as she scans the warehouse behind her.
The nets hang still. Crates block every approach. No second shadow slips between the fish racks, and no footsteps follow.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
“Clear behind us. Good. The passage is ours.”
Baltasar steps down into the salt-dark corridor, shielding his lantern flame with one hand.
Beyond him, the stones descend toward the sealed harbor threshold. A scrap of black sailcloth catches on a jagged wall, marked with the red key crossed with a drowned man's crown.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
“There is the way to the Santa Vigilia’s last secret. Come, before the tide turns.”
“this symbol you said it was on the ship?”
misty
“This is the symbol you said was on the ship?”
Don Baltasar de Rojas
“The very same. It was stitched inside my coat, and painted where the Santa Vigilia vanished. Follow the passage, and you will reach the sealed threshold.”
Director's note
I say my archeology interest kicking in.
“its an ancient curse from the dragon wars 5000 years ago. it was used to steal supplies from ships and drown the crew. that's what the drowned crown is means. the rest means transfer cargo.”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled +0)
misty
It is an ancient curse from the dragon wars, five thousand years ago. The drowned crown means the crews were drowned. The key means their cargo was transferred.
The symbols align beneath Misty's explanation. The red key crosses the crown, pointing down the passage toward the sealed threshold.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
Then the Santa Vigilia was not lost to a storm. Someone used the old mark to steal her supplies and erase her crew.
Misty reaches the threshold with Baltasar. The salt-dark passage ends at a massive harbor seal, its iron plates furred with salt and its lock scored by fresh scratches.
Behind them, Misty's strength brings part of the passage entrance down. Stone and rotten timber crash across the warehouse doorway, cutting off the ambush route.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
The way back is closed. If your reading is true, this door marks the stolen cargo's destination. But it has no keyhole.
The lantern flame gutters. A narrow red groove opens across the sealed iron, shaped like half of the mark on the black sailcloth.
Recover the stolen cargo
Director's note
I say my archeology interest kicking in.
“its an ancient curse from the dragon wars 5000 years ago. it was used to steal supplies from ships and drown the crew. that's what the drowned crown is means. the rest means transfer cargo.”
SUCCESS (Great Reasoning, rolled -1)
The red groove completes the mark's meaning. It is not a warning, but an instruction, a cargo sign pointing beneath the harbor seal.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
Then the crown names the drowned crews, and the key names what was taken from them. Your reading fits every mark.
Baltasar presses the black sailcloth against the iron. The red stitching aligns with the groove, and the seal answers with a deep internal clunk.
A section of the harbor door withdraws into the stone. Beyond it, steps descend toward a faint wash of seawater and the hollow creak of timbers.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
There is the destination. A store cavern, perhaps, or the place where the Santa Vigilia's cargo was hidden.
Cold brine breathes up from the newly opened passage. Behind them, the collapsed entrance leaves no easy retreat, while the red key and drowned crown remain visible on the cloth.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
Shall we descend together, or will you have me lead the way?
“I'm afraid any cargo would have been moved by now. all we can do is take the symbol to the guards and have an appraiser conform what I've already said about it.”
FAILURE (Good Willpower, rolled -1)
misty
I'm afraid the cargo has been moved by now. We should take this symbol to the guards and have an appraiser confirm what it means.
Misty turns back toward the passage mouth, but the collapsed warehouse entrance answers with settling stone. The route to the quay is sealed, and the guards cannot be reached from here.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
The harbor watch will not hear us through that ruin. Nor will any appraiser come below the tide line.
Therefore Baltasar lowers the sailcloth into his lantern light instead of folding it away. Salt glitters along the red stitching, exposing a second mark beneath the crown, a tiny customs tally.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
There. The tally belongs to the old customs registry. A clerk could confirm the cargo's transfer from that record, even if the hold itself is empty.
The failed appeal to official witnesses becomes a narrower lead. The registry offers a way to test Misty's reading, but it lies beyond the blocked passage, while the dark steps remain the only open route.
Don Baltasar de Rojas
If we want that proof, we must find another way up. The question is whether this mark tells us where that way begins.
Decode the customs tally