The barn is dim and warm, the kind of quiet that makes paper sound loud. Hunter McCready spreads the vendor copies across an upturned crate while Elias leans over one side and Nora holds a stack of notices steady.
Elias
They are done pretending this is about paperwork. It is intimidation now.
Nora taps a line of routing marks with two fingers, her jaw tight as she sorts the pages into smaller piles.
Nora
They are watching the homestead and the market. If they cannot break the vendors one at a time, they will try to make an example here.
Hunter McCready
The notice trail points back to the market office.
Elias sets a fresh sheet on top of the stack, then slides it toward Hunter like a plan taking shape.
Elias
Then we stop answering as individuals. We call the vendors together, all at once, and make the office face us in daylight.
A hard knock rattles the barn door. Everyone freezes. Outside, a voice calls out from the lane, flat and official, asking for Hunter McCready by name and insisting on immediate acknowledgment.
✓ Quest Accepted
Call the vendors together
✓ Quest Accepted
Make the office face the vendors in daylight
“I signal Elias and Nora to stay silent while I move toward the barn door.”
FAILURE (Fair Agility, rolled -1)
Hunter lifts two fingers in a sharp, silent warning, then starts forward on careful boots. The barn seems to hold its breath with him.
His heel clips the edge of a loose board, and it gives with a brittle tick. The paper on the crate shivers under the sound.
Elias
Too loud.
Elias stills at once, one hand hovering over the copied pages, while Nora freezes with the notices half-stacked against her chest.
Nora
They heard that.
Hunter reaches the door, but the handle is already trembling from the knock on the other side. The caller waits there, close enough to hear movement inside.
Nora gathers the routing-marked notices against the bundle of copied pages, and Elias leans in toward Hunter, waiting for the next sign.
“I ask who is at the barn door”
SUCCESS (Superb Socially Awkward, rolled +1)
Hunter McCready
Who is at the barn door?
The knocking stops at once. For a beat, only the soft rustle of paper and the barn’s tired boards answer him.
Elias
Say your name. We are not opening for a stranger in the dark.
A voice answers from the other side, muffled but plain. It is not a demand this time, just a clipped reply through the wood.
Courier
Courier. I have a log entry and a notice for Hunter McCready.
Nora
That routing mark again... if it is from the office, it came the long way.
Elias lowers the copied pages to the crate, and Nora tightens her hold on the notices. Hunter gets the name he asked for, but the barn stays closed, all three of them listening to what the courier does next.
✓ Quest Accepted
Get the courier's log entry and notice
“I demand the courier slide the notice and log entry under the barn door.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Willpower, rolled +0)
Hunter McCready
Slide the notice and log entry under the door.
There is a pause, then paper scrapes over wood as the courier obeys. The folded notice and a slim logbook page slip through the gap and land at Hunter's boots.
Elias straightens from the crate, eyes on the doorway, while Nora leans in to catch the routed marks at once.
Nora
Same office seal. Different path, same hand behind it.
Hunter has the papers now, and the barn feels less like a hiding place and more like a meeting room.
Elias
If they brought a log entry, they want this on record. We should answer together.
Outside, the courier waits in the darkened yard, silent and expectant, while the three of them look down at the notice.
Quest Complete
Get the courier's log entry and notice
+ New Item Acquired
Notice
+ New Item Acquired
Log entry