Hurried footsteps pass beyond Iven’s barred gate as the river bell sounds again. Iven snatches up the oilcloth copy and points toward a narrow rear passage between stacked casks.
Iven Marr
Go now. The passage opens behind the rope sheds. I will keep the yard closed and learn whether those footsteps belong to the watcher who searched Pellis’s room.
Iven remains behind as Kynes and Bren slip through the cooper’s passage. Wet wood, brine, and evening fog thicken around the eastern landing, where crowded boats hide every approach.
Ferry bells clang over shouted fares and straining ropes. Beside an accounting board, Tamsin Rook, wearing a weathered blue ferry coat with brass buttons and a red cord bracelet,, a lean middle-aged woman with wind-browned skin and cropped gray hair, grips a folded crossing slip.
Tamsin Rook
Pellis said someone would come carrying the truth, not his name. Keep your voices low. Daggerford’s road has been watched since sunset.
Tamsin glances toward the road, then presses the slip against the accounting board. Its ink records Pellis’s final crossing, but a second hand has added a destination beneath it.
Tamsin Rook
The man who searched Pellis’s room crossed here afterward. I never saw his face, but he carried the same blue thread and boarded the last southbound boat.
“I cast a befuddle spell around us to give is some privacy, " what else do you know? " I ask”
SUCCESS (Legendary Arcana, rolled -1)
Kynes
What else do you know?
Kynes’s befuddlement settles over the landing like a soft distortion. Nearby voices blur into harmless mutters, faces turn aside, and the accounting board becomes private to those within the spell.
Tamsin Rook
The southbound boat stopped at Blackwater Quay, not the usual river ports. Its passenger paid with a Gray Glove token and carried a sealed writ bearing Magistrate Hale’s mark.
Tamsin lowers her voice despite the spell and taps the added destination on the crossing slip. Beneath the ink, a faint smear shows where another instruction was scraped away.
Tamsin Rook
The boatman said the passenger was meeting someone at the old salt warehouse. A woman waited there, gray gloves, dark veil, and a brass key marked with an open door.
Tamsin Rook
Pellis knew about that meeting. He told me never to record the warehouse openly, because the last accountant who did vanished before dawn. I kept this slip instead.
“I ask where Pellis was taken”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +2)
Kynes
Where was Pellis taken?
Tamsin Rook
South along the river, to Blackwater Quay. The passenger met a veiled woman at the old salt warehouse, then Pellis was taken inland through its rear loading yard.
Tamsin unfolds the crossing slip fully. A faint charcoal line runs from the warehouse toward abandoned salt kilns beyond the quay, ending at a small mark shaped like an open door.
Tamsin Rook
The boatman heard Pellis protest once. After that, the woman showed the brass key, and the passenger forced him toward the kilns. No boat left with them.
The landing’s bells continue behind the befuddlement, muffled into harmless noise. Tamsin presses the slip into Bren’s hand, keeping her eyes fixed on the river road.
Tamsin Rook
The old salt kilns are half a mile beyond Blackwater Quay. Their rear yard has a sunken storehouse, and that is where Pellis was taken.
Far downriver, a lantern moves once along the fogbound bank, then vanishes. The route is clear, the destination known, and Tamsin’s warning remains quietly urgent.
Quest Complete
Discover what happened to Pellis Marr
New Gift: Record-Keeper's Deeper Sight