The cask passage smells of salt, damp timber, and old spirits. Above, the sealed fishhook note remains hidden in Bessy’s booth while tavern laughter trembles through the boards.
The service hatch lifts. Bessy slips through carrying the sealed note and a shuttered lantern, then lowers the hatch behind her until the tavern becomes a muffled glow.
Bessy
The fishhook has appeared on messages in three coastal taverns, always where somebody wanted ears more than ink. Someone is building a listening network.
She sets the lantern on a cask and keeps its shutter nearly closed. The wax seal catches a thin glimmer, untouched and stubbornly anonymous.
Bessy
My sources stay private. I will not name the taverns or the people who carried word to me, but I can show you the pattern if you help trace it.
Bessy draws a scrap of sailcloth from her bodice and spreads it across the cask rack. Three rough coast marks connect by faint charcoal lines, converging near the old roads toward Flushing.
Bessy
Find who listens, not who speaks. Follow the mark without opening this note, and my private informants remain safe. Can you work with that constraint?
“I will ask Bessy directly in this private setting if she is suggesting that I attempt to deliver the sealed note to the location near Flushing on the crude map she has in order to learn who is accepting mysterious new messages from a new trader in secrets operating in Cornwall?”
YES (Unlikely, rolled 26)
Bessy studies Arus across the lantern’s narrow glow, then taps the charcoal lines where they draw toward the old roads above Flushing. Her guarded look sharpens into agreement.
Bessy
Yes. Take the sealed note to that meeting place near Flushing, leave it unopened, and watch who accepts it. The hand that receives it matters more than the hand that sent it.
She turns the sailcloth so the converging marks face him. One route follows the coast, another cuts inland, and the third disappears into a trader’s road near Flushing.
Bessy
A new trader in secrets is buying ears across Cornwall. Whoever carries this note will expect a message, not a question. Let them reveal themselves by coming to claim it.
Bessy keeps one finger beside the fishhook seal, careful not to disturb the wax. The crude map offers no certainty, but its lines narrow the search to a place where strangers must pass.
Bessy
If you learn who takes it, you learn who is building the network. If you are seen, the note remains innocent and my sources remain untouched.
The lantern flame gutters behind its shutter. Above them, the tavern carries on unaware, while the sealed note becomes a quiet invitation to whoever has begun trading in Cornwall’s hidden news.
“I will explain to Bessy that her request does fit my extensive experience as a parcel messenger, but that I usually have more information about precisely what to find or look for when making a delivery beyond just a crude map and an approximate location. I'm going to be honest with her and tell her that in order to have any chance of success, I will need some additional information about what to look for”
SUCCESS (Superb Intrigue, rolled +1)
Arus Gandon
The request suits my experience as a parcel messenger, Bessy. But I am used to knowing precisely what I must find or recognize. This map gives me only a place. To have any chance of success, I need more information about what to look for.
Bessy studies him in the lantern’s thin glow. His candor meets no annoyance; instead, her finger leaves the charcoal lines and moves to the sealed note.
Bessy
Fair. The mark is not enough for a messenger who means to return with an answer. Look for a narrow black case, bound in green thread, carried by a left-handed man with a missing finger on his right hand.
She turns the sailcloth and adds a small cross beside the inland route, then sketches the case and the shortened finger with quick, confident strokes.
Bessy
The meeting place is an abandoned weigh-house beside the trader’s road. Watch for a lantern hooded on three sides. Whoever carries that case will wait beneath it, expecting the note’s recipient.
Bessy folds the map around the sealed note and places both in Arus’s hand. The rough location now has a recognizable courier, container, signal, and meeting place.
✓ Quest Accepted
Deliver the sealed fishhook note to its intended recipient
+ New Item Acquired
Sealed fishhook note