Session twenty-three of Whimsy's tabletop campaign closed with all three threads pushed one step further and none of them settled. At the market warden Herennius's own post, word reached him that the market office's own men meant to come to the gate themselves within the hour. Rufus Calenus didn't wait to find out whether Herennius would act first: he broke away without leave and went for the gate on his own — and arrived there not ahead of the office's own men, but alongside them, a market warden's man standing at that gate without the warden, on the one morning an outside institution finally came to look at it for itself. Separately, Calpurnia Vetiana drew the warehouse-keeper Gaius Ofellius aside and put a question to him pitched too low for anyone nearby to make out. He answered her, just as quietly, and she thanked him before she stepped away. At the temple steps, the priestess, having now heard the same account of Tertia and Lucius Naevius twice over, turned at last to the one voice she hadn't heard at all and asked Tertia to answer for herself. Lucius said nothing to the priestess and tried instead to steady Tertia with a quiet word — and it didn't steady her. The hand startled her at the exact moment she might have found her own first word, and the priestess, watching it happen, said nothing about it at all — only looked, once, from Tertia's shoulder to Lucius's own face. Read about it at The Feast of Neptune, Out of Time. Session twenty-four picks up minutes later.
The scene
Down past the customs stacks, Rufus is still standing exactly where he arrived: at the gate itself, inside the crowd gathered around Vennonia Phoebe, with the market office's own two men close enough to see and be seen. Neither has said a word to him yet. One of the two turns from the gate and starts back toward Herennius's own post — not to look at the gate any longer, but to find the man whose ground this is and ask him, in person, why a warden's man got here first without him. The other stays near the gate, near Rufus, saying nothing to him either.
At the post, that same man reaches Herennius and puts the question to his face — the first time all campaign an outside institution has asked him anything in person rather than by message or runner. Herennius hasn't answered yet. The same man turns, next, toward Gaius Ofellius, still standing near the post with his own part in this morning already given. Gaius doesn't know it yet. Calpurnia does — she's close enough to see him coming.
At the temple steps, the priestess lets the silence she gave Lucius after Tertia's flinch sit exactly as long as she means to, then turns it into words — not to Tertia again, but to him. "Lucius. Your hand found her shoulder before your mouth had time to decide anything. I'd like to know why that's the one thing you reached for today, when every other time you've reached for words instead." Tertia still hasn't answered the priestess's own first question. Now neither has Lucius answered this one.
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 goes to see for himself
Twenty years taught Rufus that a door that scrapes like that has already told you everything it's going to tell you polite. He doesn't wait to see whether the man standing close enough to touch him is finally going to say something. He says nothing to him either — no lie about who sent him, no excuse — and goes, quick and quiet for a man his size, past where the crowd thins, toward the cart track and whatever just finished moving down it.
Roll: Vis 14, Rufus's modifier +1 — 2d6+1 came up [2, 6] for a total of 9 (dice-log index 84). Coming in under 14 is a failure: something goes wrong, and the scene complicates.
He gets there too late. The service way is empty, the cart track scuffed fresh and telling him nothing the sound itself hadn't already told him. What he's bought instead is the one thing his own quiet going was supposed to avoid: the office's man who'd stayed near him at the gate notices him gone within moments and follows the direction he went — not fast enough to stop him, but plenty fast enough to see exactly where he went, and that it wasn't anywhere a market warden's man has business standing.
Calpurnia races a question she can't win
Calpurnia isn't going to let a promise die of her own hesitation in exactly the time it takes her to decide what to do with it. She crosses to Gaius the way she's crossed to every man she's needed to reach all morning: quickly, plainly, like a clerk with an errand rather than a woman racing a stranger's shadow.
Roll: Gratia 11, Calpurnia's modifier 0 — 2d6 came up [4, 4] for a total of 8 (dice-log index 85). Coming in under 11 is a failure: something goes wrong, and the scene complicates.
She doesn't make it in time. The office's own man reaches Gaius first, his question already landing before a single word of hers gets to him. What she's bought instead is the one thing her own quiet crossing was supposed to avoid: both Herennius's eye and the office man's catch her mid-stride, visibly hurrying toward the exact person being questioned at the exact moment he's being questioned. Gaius faces the question entirely cold — no warning, and, for the first time, no promise of protection from her either.
Lucius answers, and it costs him anyway
Lucius doesn't look to Tertia for this one. The priestess asked him a question with his own name on it, and for once nobody else in this morning's accounting is the one who has to answer it. "I didn't have a word for this," he tells her, plainly, in front of Tertia and no one else. "I was so afraid of speaking over her again that I stopped deciding anything — and a hand doesn't need deciding the way a mouth does. It just moved. I've never once had to hold still through someone else's silence before today. I didn't manage it."
Roll: Gratia 12, Lucius's modifier +1 — 2d6+1 came up [5, 1] for a total of 7 (dice-log index 86). Coming in under 12 is a failure: something goes wrong, and the scene complicates.
The priestess hears him out in silence to the end, and doesn't soften, and doesn't thank him for the honesty of it. What she does is name exactly what he's just done again: given her a long, careful account of himself, filling the space in front of her with his own words a second time — this time with her own permission, but the same shape all the same. Tertia, who had started to find something in the crack his honesty opened, watches that moment close again without using it. She still hasn't said a single word to the priestess.
Where the round ends
Rufus stands back at the gate, having learned nothing the sound hadn't already told him and having been seen doing it. Calpurnia stands near Gaius, having failed to reach him before the question did, now visibly marked as invested in his answer by the two people she least wanted watching her be. Gaius faces the office's own question entirely alone — no warning, no promise, nothing from Calpurnia this time. What he says to a stranger under those terms is still unwritten.
At the temple steps, Lucius has given the priestess the most honest answer he's given anyone all campaign, and it has cost him exactly where he thought he'd finally stopped bleeding. Tertia still hasn't answered the priestess's first question, now sitting behind a second missed chance as well as the first.
Read about the campaign itself at Whimsy's table top campaign, or go back to Session Twenty-Three — The Feast of Neptune, Out of Time.