Session thirteen of Whimsy's tabletop campaign closed with three separate accounts of the same undeclared building landing on the market warden Herennius inside the space of a few breaths. Rufus Calenus, asked a straight question for the first time all morning instead of only threatened, told Herennius plainly what he'd caught of an earlier witness's own account — and the honesty of it cost him the one thing he still had left to lose: Herennius told him, in front of the warehouse-keeper Gaius Ofellius and the runner both, that he isn't walking off from this to go do anything else for the rest of the day's reckoning. Calpurnia Vetiana reached Herennius first, meaning to lay her own exact account down again before a louder, less careful version could reach him — and succeeded, only to have that louder version, the dye merchant Vennonia Phoebe's own, arrive close enough behind her that the two together, stacked on Rufus's own fragment a moment before, read less like three people independently confirming the same thing and more like something arranged in front of him on purpose. Lucius Naevius, a separate stretch of ground away at the temple steps, asked the acolyte Tertia the question she'd promised him an answer to once her hands were free — and got it, an answer reached from the temple's own side of the morning rather than the market's, that he has told no one. Read about it at The Feast of Neptune, The Second Witness. Session fourteen picks up in the same stretch of ground, moments later, with Herennius's attention still on the three mouths in front of him and a question their timing has raised that none of today's rolls have answered yet.
The scene
Herennius is at his own post, holding the same things he held a moment ago — a gate with no record on it, a household's mark, and the household's own name, which Calpurnia gave him four rounds back and nothing said since has changed — except that he now also has three separate people confirming the building itself inside the same handful of breaths, and he has said, plainly, to the three of them standing in front of him, what that's actually made him wonder: "Three mouths. One building. The same few breaths. Either this port works faster than I've ever seen it, or somebody's laid this out for me on purpose. Which is it." Nobody has answered him yet. Rufus is standing right where Herennius planted him, with nowhere else he's been told he's allowed to be. Calpurnia is the one Herennius's eyes keep coming back to — she's the one who got there first, and getting there first is exactly what's being weighed now. Vennonia Phoebe hasn't stopped talking; having given her own account, she's begun asking, loudly, to whoever's near enough to hear her, whose household it actually is — nobody has ever told her the name itself, only the building and the mark. Gaius Ofellius and the runner who fetched him are still standing nearby, their own part in this morning already spoken.
Lucius is at the temple steps, a separate stretch of ground away, holding an answer reached from the temple's own side of the morning that he hasn't told anyone. He doesn't know whether it connects to anything Calpurnia or Rufus have been building toward at the post. What he does know is that the two other acolytes who caught Tertia going visibly tense over his question a few minutes ago are closer now to asking her the same thing themselves.
Titus Minucius (pleb) as Rufus Calenus, Appius Severus (censor) as Calpurnia Vetiana, and Marcus Vatia (aedile) as Lucius Naevius each reached for what was in front of them.
Rufus holds his ground
Rufus has already found out twice today what standing still and saying nothing buys him when the room gets this tight — nothing good, both times. He doesn't try that a third time. "Nobody told me to say anything — not today, not any day before it. What I told you, I told you because you finally asked me straight instead of over my shoulder. That's the whole of my part in it. I can't answer for her" — a nod toward Calpurnia, nothing more than that — "and I've never once spoken to that woman in my life, so I'm not answering for her either. That's all I've got. It's the truth, same as every other time I've told it to you today, for whatever that's worth to you by now."
Roll: Gratia 9, Rufus's modifier +1 — 2d6+1 came up [3, 4] for a total of 8 (dice-log index 54). Coming in under 9 is a failure.
He says exactly what he meant to, and this time the plainness works against him. Herennius has now heard something flat and unhedged from him three times this morning, and for the first time it doesn't land as relief. "That's the third time today you've told me something plain and straight, Rufus," Herennius tells him. "The first time it bought you a place standing here for the rest of the day. I'm starting to wonder if plain and straight is just the shape you've learned works on me." Nothing about where Rufus stands changes — he was already planted at the post and stays exactly that — but the suspicion behind the question he was asked stays open rather than settling in his favor.
Calpurnia admits the timing was hers
Calpurnia doesn't wait for Herennius's eyes to finish coming back to her before she decides what to do with them resting there. "You're wondering whether I arranged this," she says, before he finishes deciding how to ask it. "I did go to you first on purpose — that part isn't an accident you've caught me in. I came back to you the moment I heard Vennonia was loud and moving, because I already knew what I'd told you would still be exactly what I told you the first time, and I didn't know what hers would sound like by the time it reached you. I'd rather you hear my account restated in my own words than let someone else's louder version be the first thing you measure it against. That's the whole of it. I didn't arrange Rufus. I didn't arrange her. I arranged for the one thing I control — which words you heard first, in which order — because that's the only part of this morning that's ever been mine to manage."
Roll: Gratia 9, Calpurnia's modifier 0 — 2d6 came up [3, 6] for a total of 9 (dice-log index 55). Meeting 9 exactly, by less than 3, is a partial success: Calpurnia gets what she wanted, but at a cost.
Herennius takes it the way he's taken everything she's brought him since the gate itself — as true, the first time all campaign that simply being believed hasn't settled the matter by itself. The cost is what believing her plainly means: she has just confirmed, in her own words, that at least one piece of this morning's timing was deliberately managed, by her, on purpose. Coming right behind what he's just said to Rufus, Herennius doesn't let it pass. "You just told me you arranged what I heard first," he says. "Rufus tells me straight things on schedule, and you tell me you pick the schedule. I don't think either of you is lying to me. I think one of you is a lot more careful about this than the other, and I know now which one." The gate, the mark, and the household's name don't move — she's given him nothing new on any of those. What moves is narrower: Herennius now has a specific, named suspicion resting on Calpurnia herself, not a vague unease spread across the group.
Lucius turns the acolytes aside
Lucius doesn't need to see Tertia's face again to know whose doing that tension is. He doesn't go to the post — he's already weighed what a fourth face with nothing solid to offer does to a warden counting mouths, and didn't like the arithmetic then either. Instead he crosses to where the two acolytes are already drifting toward Tertia, easy and unhurried. "You two — good, I was about to come find someone with a free pair of hands," he says, not looking at Tertia while he says it. "The latecomers are backing up past the second column, and nobody's told them where to stand so they're not underfoot when the priestess comes back through. That's worth more than standing here right now." True, ordinary, and nowhere near what's actually eating at Tertia.
Roll: Ingenium 8, Lucius's modifier +1 — 2d6+1 came up [4, 3] for a total of 8 (dice-log index 56). Meeting 8 exactly, by less than 3, is a partial success: Lucius gets what he wanted, but at a cost.
It works — the two acolytes peel off toward the crowd problem without ever reaching Tertia, exactly as he meant. The cost is that the intercept was too visibly deliberate to pass as coincidence. One of the two, already moving, throws back over her shoulder: "You've been awfully quick to find us something else to do, twice now, both times right when we're about to ask Tertia something." Lucius hasn't lied to either of them — the latecomers really are backing up — but he's drawn a line between his own name and Tertia's that wasn't there before. Tertia gets the reprieve he meant to buy her; what she doesn't get is an end to it. The two acolytes are now curious about Lucius as well as her.
Where the round ends
Herennius's own question — "which is it" — goes unanswered to his own satisfaction, not for lack of an answer but because of how the two answers landed: Rufus gave him the same straight account that worked twice before, and this time it read as rehearsed rather than honest; Calpurnia told him the truth about her own timing, and in telling it handed him the one concrete thing he can now point to — that she, specifically, manages the order things reach him in. Nothing formal follows from either. Herennius still holds exactly what he held when the round opened; what's changed is sharper, not different in kind. Vennonia Phoebe is still asking, loudly, for the household's name, and still not getting one from anyone.
Lucius, a separate stretch of ground away, bought Tertia a reprieve rather than an ending: the two other acolytes didn't reach her this round, but they left curious about him too, in a way they weren't before he crossed to intercept them. He has told no one at the post what Tertia told him, and nothing this round has given him any reason yet to think it connects to anything Calpurnia or Rufus are carrying.
Nobody has appeared from the household itself. Nitidus is still gone to ground. Secundus is still gone and unreachable. The dye itself hasn't been seen by anyone's own eyes since it left the warehouse district behind the gate Calpurnia marked four rounds ago.
Read about the campaign itself at Whimsy's table top campaign, or go back to Session Thirteen — The Feast of Neptune, The Second Witness.