The landline rings again, sharp against the quiet morning, the same plain sound that first carried the office manager's rattled voice. Hunter takes it on the porch, with Sarah near the steps and the dark sedan still fresh in memory.
The Manager
Hunter... I need this handled now. We were never supposed to have outside eyes on your place.
Her voice slips, thin and strained, and then a hard, muffled silence cuts across the line. Paper rustles. A second voice murmurs off to the side, low and urgent, too close to the receiver.
The Manager
No, I said pause the log. I said pause it. Just... give me a minute.
Hunter McCready
The silence is not empty. Someone else is there.
Hunter listens without interrupting. On the other end, the manager sounds smaller than before, like she is standing beside a desk she cannot control. The surveillance was never just watching the homestead, it was hiding her trail from whoever sits above her.
The Manager
If you have the notice, keep it. Just do not let them come back to your property.
When the call ends, the porch feels still again. Sarah stays quiet, watching Hunter with a new caution, while the road beyond the fence seems less like a boundary and more like a line someone has been tracking all along.
✓ Quest Accepted
Learn who is above the Manager
✓ Quest Accepted
Decide whether to keep the office's silence
“I tell Sarah to stay inside while I write down everything I just heard.”
SUCCESS (Superb Reasoning, rolled +1)
Hunter lowers the receiver and sets it on the porch base. His free hand reaches for a pencil, then a scrap of paper from the rail, already turning the call into notes.
Hunter McCready
Stay inside for a minute, Sarah. I am writing this down.
Sarah eases back toward the doorway instead of pressing closer, her shoulders still tight but her footing steady. The porch boards give under Hunter as he drops to one knee beside the phone.
He writes fast, short lines, manager, outside eyes, pause the log, someone above her. The pencil stops once, then keeps moving.
Through the fence slats, the dark sedan keeps rolling past at a careful pace, its driver's face only a pale blur in the early light.
Sarah watches the road from the threshold, then glances at the paper in Hunter's hand and the pencil scratching across it.
When Hunter finishes the last line, the page rests flat against his knee. The morning is quiet again, but the note makes the silence feel chosen, not empty.
Quest Complete
Decide whether to keep the office's silence