Verner leaves the tavern’s heat behind and steps into the River Ward. Brine, wet stone, and rot bite at the air. Ahead, the eastern stairs descend into a maze of leaning alleys and shuttered yards.
Under a green awning, a grey-scarved figure lingers only long enough to be seen. Then the shape slips away between timber stacks and dark doorways.
Verner
Grey scarf. That is the lead.
The Broad-Shouldered Enforcer and the Sharp-Faced Enforcer follow Verner to the stairhead, their bargain finished but their attention still sharp. They slow as the alley narrows, watching the figure vanish.
The Broad-Shouldered Enforcer
If you mean to chase her, mind the river paths. Folks here vanish quick.
The Sharp-Faced Enforcer
And if she wanted to be seen, she would have stayed.
A gust rattles loose boards overhead. The grey scarf is gone, but the wet prints at the alley’s mouth point toward the cooper's yard and deeper into the ward.
“Is the witness heading for the cooper's yard?”
YES, BUT (Likely, rolled 59)
The wet footprints lead directly toward the cooper's yard, but they abruptly vanish into a patch of thick, swirling river mist that clings to the ground.
“Verner leaves the other two men behind and goes in search of the petite woman with the gray scarf”
SUCCESS (Good Perception, rolled +1)
Verner slips away from the stairhead, boots finding the wet seams between stones as he takes the alley mouth the grey scarf left behind.
The mist thins in ragged sheets, and a narrow lane opens between leaning dockside walls, slick with rain and river grime.
Ahead, a petite figure in dock-rags cuts across the lane, grey scarf tight at her throat, moving fast but not quite running.
Verner
Grey scarf. Same build. Same pace.
Verner threads between stacked barrels and a rope coil, closing the distance without a sound.
The Broad-Shouldered Enforcer
There she is. He catches her before the yard does.
The woman turns at the far end of the lane, and for one sharp instant her eyes meet Verner's before she vanishes into the next turn.
“I follow the grey-scarved woman”
SUCCESS (Good Stealth, rolled +1)
Verner slips after her into the dock maze, a dark thread moving from wall to wall while the wet stones shine below him.
From above, the lane breaks into two crooked paths, one angling toward stacked casks, the other bending hard around a tar-black shed.
The grey-scarved woman chooses the shed side, quick and low, her rags flickering once at the turn.
Verner answers by taking the opposite edge of the path, keeping the walls between them and the open lane.
A pair of dockhands pause by the casks, heads lifting as the scarf woman passes, then they look away.
She clears the bend and the lane narrows again, but this time her route is plain, marked by a smear of fresh water on the stones.
Ahead, the maze tightens toward the cooper's yard, and the question becomes whether Verner reaches her before the next corner swallows her whole.