Arus reaches the warm drinking hall above the cove. Old ship timbers shape shadowed booths, while tankards, laughter, and rough songs keep the busiest tables pleasantly loud.
Behind the bar, Bessy steers the room’s attention with sharp glances and quicker refills. She leaves one secluded corner untouched, its table holding a sealed note beside an empty cup.
Bessy
There you are. Sit where the walls have ears but the room has none, and we can discuss what recent visitors carried in with their boots.
She slips through the crowded hall without disturbing its rhythm, then draws the note closer with two fingers. Its wax seal bears no crest, only a shallow impression like a fishhook.
Bessy
This was found among a visitor’s belongings after he left in a hurry. I have not broken it. Information is worth more unopened, when the buyer fears what may be inside.
A burst of laughter rises from the nearest tables. Bessy waits until it covers the scrape of a chair, then places one weathered hand over the note.
Bessy
I will trade its contents for a favor. Not coin, Arus. A favor that decides whose whispers control this tavern when the next storm reaches shore.
The note remains sealed between them, while Bessy’s gaze measures the room, the hidden booths, and the listening danger beyond the tavern walls.
✓ Quest Accepted
Preserve access to Bessy’s private sources
“I will look at Bessy as I look back and forth to the sealed note before looking around and giving her a glance to see if she approves of opening it there in the booth while she keeps a look out for those who would attempt to read over my shoulder as I examine what she has to offer.”
NO, BUT (Unlikely, rolled 37)
Arus looks from Bessy to the sealed note, then scans the crowded tables before giving her a questioning glance. Laughter covers the movement, but several patrons, including a broad-shouldered middle-aged man in a faded green waistcoat and a slim young woman with cropped dark hair in a russet shawl sit with sightlines toward the booth.
Bessy
No. Not here, and not with those eyes pretending to be drunk. But the mark tells me where this came from, and that gives us another way in.
Bessy keeps her palm over the wax and turns her head toward the bar. A pair of patrons, two middle-aged men in worn brown coats, one ruddy-faced and bearded, the other narrow-faced beneath a floppy black hat laugh too loudly, while another angles another patron, an elderly woman with silver hair tucked beneath a blue kerchief and a plain grey dress, angles his cup to catch the booth’s reflection in its polished rim.
Bessy
That fishhook is a cellar sign, used when a message must pass without being read by the room. The sender expects it opened beneath the tavern, beside the old cask rack.
She slides the note back into the shadow of the empty cup without breaking its seal. Beneath the booth, a narrow service hatch waits behind a hanging strip of sailcloth, hidden from the drinkers above.
Bessy
The hatch opens onto the cask passage. I can clear it after the next round, but the favor comes due if you want the note and the name behind it.
“I will lean close as if to speak to her over the loud laughter of drunks and tell her to simply name her price before I descend into the passageway when no one is looking directly at our booth and Bessy signals an opportunity.”
SUCCESS (Good Stealth, rolled +0)
Arus Gandon
Name your price, Bessy. I will descend when the room gives us an opening.
Bessy
Bring me the name behind that seal, and make certain it reaches me before anyone else. That is my price.
Bessy lifts a jug, laughing loudly at a nearby joke. When the tavern’s attention follows her raised cup, she taps twice against the bar.
Arus slips beneath the booth and lifts the sailcloth. The service hatch opens without protest, and he lowers himself into the cask passage before the laughter fades.
His boot clips a loose hoop below, sending one sharp metallic ring through the passage. Above, the polished cup pauses midway to its owner’s mouth.
Bessy
Keep moving, Arus. If anyone asks, you went to find the privy and discovered a talent for disappearing.
Bessy drags a crate across the hatch and resumes pouring. In the dim passage, Arus reaches the old cask rack with the sealed note still hidden safely above.
Quest Complete
Preserve access to Bessy’s private sources