Session thirty-three of Whimsy's tabletop campaign closed with three failed rolls of its own. Rufus Calenus used the one lull all morning when nobody from either institution was watching him to put his own hands on the gate itself — and the gate didn't give an inch, or do it quietly, and the effort of trying bought him the one thing nobody from either institution has had all morning: Vennonia Phoebe, a few feet off at the center of her own crowd, looking straight at him. Calpurnia Vetiana caught the clerk of record's own man before he could leave with a question meant for the post, and asked only to read what he'd actually written rather than guess at it later. He wouldn't show her, and wouldn't read it to her either — not unkindly, he told her it wasn't his to show anyone before it was delivered, and that he'd tell the clerk she'd asked. At the temple steps, Lucius Naevius spoke to Tertia again, asking this time instead of telling her what her own turn toward the temple meant, and handing the answer back to her rather than naming it for her himself. The words did what he meant them to. The timing didn't: she was still mid-turn when his voice reached her, and she finished the turn she'd already begun rather than answer him. Read about it at The Feast of Neptune, Watched Anyway. Session thirty-four picks up minutes later.
The scene
Rufus's hands have barely come off the gate when Vennonia Phoebe, still at the center of her own crowd a few feet off, turns from watching him to addressing that crowd directly. She doesn't wait for either institution to make him answer for it. "There," she says, loud enough to carry past the crowd's own edge. "That's what I've been saying all morning — hands already on it, and nothing to show for it. Somebody make him answer for it, if nobody from either office standing right there will." Whatever the crowd does with that, it hasn't done it yet.
At the post, the one who came to watch Rufus and Herennius both has finished whatever passed between the two of them — nothing has said aloud what that was — and does something he hasn't done once all morning himself: he takes out his own tablet and writes, in front of Herennius, rather than leaving that to the two office's men the way he has all day. Close by, the clerk of record's own man, sent across from the market office one round ago, has finally reached the post and puts the clerk's question to Herennius in person: whether the formal notice he filed carries anything beyond the household's own bare word. Nothing has answered him yet.
At the temple steps, the turn Tertia began on her own a few minutes ago carries the rest of the way: she crosses the threshold and goes inside, out of Lucius's reach for the first time all campaign. She hasn't come back out.
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 tells the crowd the truth, and the truth doesn't land the way he meant it
Rufus doesn't look toward the post first, and he doesn't go looking for Herennius or the watcher. The man writing something down over there isn't the one talking about him right now. Vennonia is. "She's not wrong." He says it loud enough to carry to the crowd's own edge, no softer than he's said anything to a warden or an office's man since before the sun was up. "I put my hands on that gate same as every one of you just watched me do it. It didn't give. I've got nothing behind it to show anybody — no dye, no name worth saying out loud, nothing. I'm not going to stand here and dress that up as more than it is just because some of you want somebody to be angry at this morning, and I'm the one standing closest."
Roll: Gratia 14, Rufus's modifier +1 — 2d6+1 came up [5, 5] for a total of 11 (dice-log index 113). Coming in under 14 by three is a failure: something goes wrong, and the scene complicates.
The words land exactly as plain as he means them, and the plainness is exactly what goes wrong. To a crowd already primed by Vennonia's own demand, and that has just watched him fail with his own hands on the very thing she's accusing him of reaching for, "I've got nothing to show for it" doesn't read as a man disarming an accusation — it reads as a man confirming, in his own words, that he tried. A couple of people peel off from the crowd's own edge and start toward the gate itself, not toward him.
Calpurnia asks the clerk to explain himself, and the asking becomes one more mark against her
Calpurnia doesn't go for the door. "You sent your own man to ask Herennius something," she says, level, the same register she'd use reading a line back to be sure she'd copied it right. "I'm not asking you what he finds when he comes back... I'm asking what you expect it to show you... Tell me plainly what you think adding a fifth page to that pile is going to prove, one way or the other — because if it's going to change what you make of everything else I've already given you, I'd rather hear that now than wait here not knowing which way you're already leaning."
Roll: Gratia 12, Calpurnia's modifier 0 — 2d6+0 came up [6, 3] for a total of 9 (dice-log index 114). Coming in under 12 by three is a failure: something goes wrong, and the scene complicates.
The clerk doesn't explain his own reasoning, and he doesn't tell her whether his man has already reached Herennius or what either has said. He tells her, evenly, that a woman who needs to know what he's already decided before he's decided it is telling him something about herself whether she means to or not. She is no closer to knowing what's moving on ground she can no longer see. What she has instead is a third mark sitting in the room with her, next to the praenomen and the blocked question — and she put this one there herself too.
Lucius means to let her go cleanly, and the stillness costs him anyway
Lucius doesn't move toward the door. He sets the offerings basket down at his side, the way he'd set it down for any ordinary reason, and holds the ground he's already on — "not the held breath of five other rounds, waiting to see whether it lands, but the plain fact of not moving."
Roll: Firmitas 13, Lucius's modifier 0 — 2d6+0 came up [4, 3] for a total of 7 (dice-log index 115). Coming in under 13 by six — the widest miss of the round — is a failure: something goes wrong, and the scene complicates.
He does not follow Tertia in. He does not call after her loud enough to reach her. He does not turn to the temple's own business instead. All three of those stay uncost. What the failure takes instead is the cleanness of it: his hand, already set the basket down properly, finds its way back to the strap of it without his say-so, and a sound starts in his throat right as the doorway's shadow finishes swallowing her — he closes his mouth over it before it becomes her name. He is still standing at the foot of the steps when the moment passes. It simply isn't the whole, deliberate stillness he meant to make it.
Where the round ends
Rufus is still at the gate, having told the plain truth to a crowd that heard it as confirmation rather than disarmament. A few people from the crowd's own edge have started toward the gate itself rather than toward him.
Calpurnia is still in the clerk of record's own office, having asked the one man in front of her to explain his own reasoning and been told, instead, that the asking says something about her. She still doesn't know whether the clerk's own man has reached Herennius, or what either has said if he has.
At the temple steps, Lucius held — he did not follow Tertia in, did not call after her, did not turn away — but the holding wasn't the clean, chosen thing he meant it to be. Tertia is still inside, out of his reach.
Read about the campaign itself at Whimsy's table top campaign, or go back to Session Thirty-Three — The Feast of Neptune, Watched Anyway.