Session nine of Whimsy's tabletop campaign ended with Rufus finally getting something real out of the fixer Nitidus — confirmation the theft was plain money, and a direction on the dockhand Secundus that went cold before he could use it — at the cost of a personal debt to a man who doesn't forget one. Lucius bought the gap between the Feast of Neptune's two ritual horn-calls open a second time, on his own name and nobody else's. Calpurnia took her best lead yet to the warehouse-keeper Gaius rather than the warden Herennius, trusting his own anger to carry it further than her word alone had managed all morning — and watched it die on his face instead, the quiet fear of a freedman who wouldn't repeat the name back to her. Read about it at The Feast of Neptune, Between the Horns. Session ten picks up in the same quiet after the crowd's gone.
The scene
The second horn still hasn't sounded — twice now the gap has been bought open past where it would otherwise have closed, both times on Lucius's own word. Herennius has reached his own post and sent a runner into the market to fetch Gaius directly. Rufus and Lucius are still standing together where the crowd that backed them against Herennius finishes drifting back to its own morning; both can see the runner set off, without yet knowing where he's headed or why. The fixer Nitidus has gone to ground harder than at any point since session three — not gone from the market, just harder to find than the one clean chance Rufus had a round ago.
Calpurnia is alone, a short way off from the gate she marked last round. What she is still holding, after nine rounds of separate legwork, is the one thing none of it has ever rested on anyone's trust in her word for: a name and a place. Gaius won't carry it anywhere. Herennius doesn't know it exists. Nobody has told Gaius, who begged the three of them to find this dye before anyone else did and is, so far as anyone has said, still waiting on an answer.
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 chases down the runner
Rufus lets Nitidus go — there's no point chasing a man who's already proven today he knows how to not be found twice. What he can't let go is the cut of the runner's walk, a clip he recognizes in his own bones: a man sent to fetch somebody, moving like the somebody matters. "Lucius — stay here, keep an eye out." He doesn't wait for an answer, and he doesn't walk this one; he means to get in front of the runner before whatever he's been sent to do happens, not arrive a half-step behind him again.
Roll: Gratia 9, Rufus's modifier +1 — 2d6+1 came up [4, 5] for a total of 10 (dice-log index 42). Clearing 9 but by less than 3 is a partial success: Rufus gets what he went after, at a cost.
He closes the gap before the runner clears the market stalls — a hand on the shoulder, a flat question, nothing like the grabs that cost him twice already today. The runner gives up the errand without much of a fight: Herennius sent him to fetch Gaius Ofellius, in person, back to the warden's own post. Rufus can't talk him off it — a warden's own authority isn't an easy redirect for a man he's already burned patience with twice — so the errand carries on. The cost is the one he knew he was risking the moment he put a hand on a warden's own man in the open market: the runner will tell Herennius exactly who stopped him, and why.
Lucius asks a third time
A stallholder who spoke up for Rufus and Lucius a few minutes ago is pulling her apron straight and turning back to her own stall when Lucius catches her sleeve. "You spoke up for me a moment ago. I'm asking you for one more thing, and I won't pretend it's small this time." He asks her to carry word to the priestess: a third hold, not a second, on his name alone, knowing exactly what he's asking and what it costs. "I'd rather carry the debt for asking wrongly than carry the one for never trying."
Roll: Gratia 10, Lucius's modifier +1 — 2d6+1 came up [2, 4] for a total of 7 (dice-log index 43). Coming in well under 10 is a failure: something goes wrong, and the scene complicates.
The word reaches the priestess exactly as he gave it, the same as the first two times — but a priestess who has already granted a bare name's worth of patience twice is not holding a third reserve of it for a third ask. She doesn't send back a quiet refusal. She says, plainly enough for more than one person near the temple steps to hear it, that she will not be asked a third time to explain to the god why his own feast ran late. It lands on Lucius in front of witnesses who know his face at the temple he serves — not only a debt this time, but one said aloud. The second horn sounds. Two rounds of his own name bought the gap open past where it would otherwise have closed; a third ask cost more than he had left to spend.
Calpurnia reaches Herennius
Calpurnia decides this isn't a lead to hand to anyone whose anger would only take it as agreement rather than proof. Herennius is the better address, and for once he isn't walking away from her. She goes to him directly, leads with the gate before he can ask her for anything else first, and says plainly what she told Gaius and what Gaius wouldn't carry: a gate with no record on it, belonging to a household she's spent nine rounds learning not to name carelessly, with something she watched carried through it inside the hour.
Roll: Gratia 9, Calpurnia's modifier 0 — 2d6 came up [6, 3] for a total of 9 (dice-log index 44). Meeting 9 exactly, by less than 3, is a partial success: it reaches him, at a cost.
For the first time all morning, something Calpurnia has held reaches a man who can act on it rather than flinch from it. Herennius doesn't wave it off as a rival's gossip, and he doesn't treat her the way Gaius did — he takes it as exactly what it is, a specific, checkable violation his own office exists to ask about. The cost comes with the hearing itself: he wants to know, in front of two dockhands still lingering near his post and loud enough for them to hear it, why a clerk who tailed a household runner unnoticed for the better part of an hour sat on a name and a place until the second horn had already sounded once over. Whatever happens to that gate next, it's her name attached to having pointed at it now, not a rumor nobody can trace.
Where the round ends
Rufus knows what the runner's errand was — Gaius is being fetched to Herennius's own post — and couldn't turn it aside; the warden will hear, within the hour, exactly who stopped his man to ask why. The second horn has sounded. Two rounds of Lucius's own name bought the gap open past where the clock would have closed it on its own; a third ask cost more than he had, and cost it in front of witnesses at his own temple. Calpurnia's lead has finally reached someone who can act on it — Herennius has the gate and the household's name now, not as a guess, but he also has, openly, the question of why it took her this long to bring it to him.
Gaius is being brought to Herennius's post and hasn't arrived yet. Nitidus is still gone to ground, harder to find than at any point since session three. The dye itself has not been seen by anyone's own eyes since it left the warehouse district behind that gate. The robes are still undyed, and the procession the second horn just called for still has nothing to put in its hands.
Read about the campaign itself at Whimsy's table top campaign, or go back to Session Nine — The Feast of Neptune, Between the Horns.