Arrival at Harrowspan

Scene Two: Arrival at Harrowspan

Scene type: Social, investigation, pressure Location: Harrowspan Station — docking ring, dockmaster's office, station spine Characters present: Inspector Tarek Oll, Sev (in the background), various station residents

Read-Aloud: Docking at Harrowspan

Harrowspan Station resolves out of the approach drift as a wide drum rotating slowly against a wreckfield backdrop. The outer ring is pocked, patched, and studded with communication arrays that are not all the same vintage. The docking ring is on the exterior, open to the black, and when your approach vector clears the station's shadow you see the problem immediately: a grey-hulled cutter is berthed in bay three, running its full registry lighting. Irnan Directorate colors. Patrol configuration. It has been there long enough that its docking clamps have cooled: a few hours at least. The docking controller grants you bay seven without comment and guides you in with practiced efficiency. When the Ember Drift's ramp touches the station deck, the recycled air that rolls in smells of machine oil and heated metal and something sharp underneath, like cleaning fluid used too recently in a confined space.

Harrowspan Station: First Impressions

Give the crew a moment to orient before anything goes wrong. They are here to resupply. That is a normal thing. Walk them through what the docking ring looks like.

The docking ring: Eight bays arranged around the outer hull, four on each side of the main spine corridor. Bay seven is near the end, away from the Irnan cutter in bay three. The decking is worn composite with yellow cargo-path markings that have been repainted at least twice. Loading equipment sits at the bay mouths: hand-trucks, magnetic grip loaders, a fuel coupling station. The air circulators hum at a slightly variable pitch.

The main spine corridor: The corridor runs the length of the station from the docking ring to the market quarter. It is wide enough for a cargo loader. Overhead lighting is inconsistent: some sections are bright, some are amber, one stretch near the midpoint is lit by emergency strip lighting that has been doing primary duty for longer than intended.

What they can see from the ramp: The Irnan cutter in bay three. A Funtari clan-mark painted on the wall near bay five (a residual from a previous owner, nobody has removed it). A maintenance crew of two working on a fuel coupling at bay four. And, if they look carefully, a person in salvager's coveralls working on a small skiff at bay six — unhurried, professional, positioned with a clear sightline to bays seven and eight.

Station Residents

These are the people the crew can talk to before Oll finds them. Each has one attitude and one piece of information they will share. Give them names and personalities. Make them feel like they live here.

Davan Rast (he/him) — Fuel coordinator, Harrowspan Cooperative. Works the intake desk at the docking ring's fuel station. Friendly in a tired way. He has been on shift for eleven hours.

Attitude: Cooperative. Wants to help, wants you to pay and leave without making his day harder.

What he knows: The Irnan cutter arrived about four hours ago. Two officers went toward the Cooperative offices. He does not know what they asked for. He heard something happened to Maren but no one told him directly.

Sera Ollo (she/her) — Station mechanic, independent contractor. Works out of a bench near bay four. Suspicious of outsiders by training, not by nature.

Attitude: Neutral, wary. Warms up slightly if a crew member helps her with something mechanical or shows competence.

What she knows: She saw Maren this morning, earlier than usual. Maren looked tired and worried. Sera offered her a cup of hot broth and Maren said she did not have time. Three hours later, she heard the medical bay announcement over the station intercom: accident, harbormaster's corridor. Sera thinks the timing is wrong. "Maren didn't trip," she says, if you get her to that point. "She walked that corridor four times a day for six years."

Pol Thenne (he/him) — Market operator, runs a general goods stall in the market quarter. Older Funtari man, came to Harrowspan twenty years ago and stayed.

Attitude: Friendly, talkative, wants to be useful. Will tell you more than he knows is safe if someone is kind to him.

What he knows: He saw the salvager in bay six arrive yesterday. Solo, small skiff, said they were doing a survey run on the wreckfield. Paid for berth and meals in cash. He thinks that is slightly unusual. "Survey crews usually travel in pairs," he says. "And they tend to eat together." He also knows that Maren received a long-range relay communication two nights ago that kept her in her office until past midnight. He knows because her light was on.

Hessa Lant (she/her) — Medical officer, Harrowspan Station, works out of the small medical bay near the station's midpoint.

Attitude: Professional, careful, visibly uncomfortable. She signed off on Maren's death as an accident. She is not comfortable with that conclusion.

What she knows: The injury pattern is consistent with a fall against a hard edge. It is also consistent with a strike from a flat-faced object. She said as much to the Cooperative board and was told to file what she could substantiate. The Cooperative is small and does not want trouble with an Irnan inspection happening simultaneously. Hessa will share her honest assessment with a crew member who is calm, medically literate, or who explicitly asks her what she actually thinks.

If the crew has a character with the Medicine skill: An Average Medicine check when reviewing the report (or talking to Hessa in detail) confirms what Hessa suspects: the angle and location of the trauma are inconsistent with a typical fall. Someone hit Maren from the left side while she was standing.

Orik (they/them) — Cooperative board member, effectively the acting station manager in Maren's absence. Anxious, stretched thin, wants all of this to go away.

Attitude: Nervous, slightly hostile to the crew. Not malicious. Just overwhelmed.

What they know: They know the Irnan inspector wants access to the station's relay communication logs from the past week. The Cooperative's legal advisor (off-station, reachable by comm) told them not to hand the logs over without a formal request through treaty channels. The inspector has not produced one yet. Orik is managing a ticking problem and does not need more complications.

Finding Maren's Office

When the crew asks for Maren or goes to find her, read the following.

Maren's office is adjacent to the docking ring master controls, a glass-walled room with clear sightlines to the bay monitors. The lights are off. A handwritten sign has been taped to the door, standard white print paper with blue ink: OUT OF OFFICE: CONTACT COOPERATIVE BOARD. The paper is not straight. Whoever put it there was in a hurry.

A station worker near the docking ring — one of the maintenance crew at bay four, can tell the crew what happened if they ask. Use Sera Ollo or Davan Rast for this, whichever the crew engaged with first.

Read this when the crew learns about Maren's death:

"Maren had an accident this morning. Around 0500 station time. Harbormaster's corridor, near the aft maintenance access." The person speaking does not meet your eyes for a moment. "She didn't make it. The Cooperative's handling it."

Let that land. Give the crew a moment. Do not rush.

Inspector Tarek Oll: Introduction

Oll finds the crew within fifteen to twenty minutes of their arrival. He was watching the docking registry. He knows the Ember Drift is a Funtari-registered light freighter that arrived from Port Meridian, which is the origin point his intelligence flagged.

He approaches directly, without attempting to conceal his identity. He is in Irnan Inspector's uniform: grey coat, rank bars, a document case under one arm. He is approximately fifty, lean, with close-cropped grey hair and the careful posture of someone who has learned that appearing calm solves more problems than appearing aggressive.

Read this when Oll approaches:

He crosses the docking ring at a steady pace with no urgency in his step, which is itself a kind of statement. His uniform is Irnan grey and his rank bars are those of a senior field inspector. He stops at a comfortable conversational distance and introduces himself without extending a hand.

"Inspector Tarek Oll, Irnan Directorate Field Authority, Meridian Verge assignment. I ran your transponder when you docked. The Ember Drift, Port Meridian registry. I have a few questions, when you have a moment."

He says 'when you have a moment' like it is not a choice, but he says it politely.

What Oll Knows

Give Oll exactly this amount of information. Not more, not less.

Oll knows:

• The Ember Drift is registered out of Port Meridian and arrived today from that system.
• Caelis Vorn is associated with the Nerezza Compact, a Funtari merchant consortium with active intelligence interest from the Directorate.
• The Nerezza Compact transmitted encrypted relay traffic three days ago from Port Meridian on a frequency the Directorate monitors but cannot fully decrypt.
• The traffic mentioned Harrowspan Station and Saint Orra's Rest as waypoints.
• Oll suspects the crew is carrying something the Compact wants moved quietly.

Oll does not know:

• What is in the container.
• That the navigational charts exist.
• Who killed Maren (he suspects it was not an accident but has no evidence yet).
• Who Sev is or that the Pale Table is involved.

What Oll wants: He wants to know what the crew is carrying. He does not want to arrest anyone. He does not want an incident. He wants information, and he would prefer to get it by being reasonable. He is a professional, not a villain.

Oll's Questions

Oll asks three questions in the initial conversation. Use these exactly:

1. "What is the nature of your cargo, and who arranged the shipment?"
2. "Are you familiar with a Funtari national named Caelis Vorn?"
3. "Was Harrowspan your intended stop or did someone arrange it?"

He listens carefully to the answers. He does not immediately challenge anything the crew says. He takes notes in his document case.

After the questions, he says:

"I appreciate your cooperation. I may want to speak with you again before you depart. Are you planning to stay at Harrowspan overnight?"

He makes this sound like a polite question, not a hold order. It is not yet an official hold. But the crew should feel the weight of it.

Checks for Managing Oll

Savvy + Charm or Savvy + Negotiation (Average) — Manage the interaction warmly: The crew makes Oll feel they are being helpful. He does not put them on an active watch list yet. He may be willing to exchange information later if they come to him.

Savvy + Deception (Hard) — Mislead Oll about the cargo: On a success, Oll accepts the crew's explanation and does not escalate immediately. On a failure, he notes the inconsistency but does not act on it yet. On a Threat: he begins the process of requesting a formal hold order.

Intellect + Lore (Easy) — Understand your legal position: The crew knows that Oll cannot search the ship without a warrant, cannot detain them without cause, and cannot prevent departure unless he has filed a formal hold. He has not done either yet. But the warrant process is faster than it sounds, and the Directorate has a relay link at Harrowspan.

Spotting Sev

Sev has been in bay six since yesterday. They are working on a small salvage skiff, doing tasks that look legitimate from a distance: checking hull panel seals, running sensor calibration. They are watching the crew with professional patience.

Perception + Readiness (Hard) — Notice Sev: On a success, a crew member notices the person in the salvager's coveralls at bay six. They are working on the skiff but their positioning is wrong: their back is not to the bays, their body angle gives them sightlines to bay seven, and they have not moved between tasks the way someone actually focused on maintenance moves.

If the crew notices Sev and looks directly at them, Sev glances up, makes brief eye contact, and gives a small wave before returning to the skiff. Nothing threatening. Nothing rushed. Professional acknowledgment.

Sev does not approach. Not yet.

Three Paths Through Scene Two

The crew's response to Oll and what they learn about Maren will start to define which direction Scene Three takes.

Path One: Cooperate with Oll The crew tells Oll what they know: they are carrying cargo for Vorn, it's registered as medical supplies, they don't know more than that. Oll thanks them, asks them not to leave yet, and goes back to his work. He is now watching them, but as potential witnesses rather than suspects. When the crew investigates further, Oll notices and eventually approaches with an offer. See Scene Four (4A) for how this path develops.

Path Two: Deflect and investigate independently The crew answers Oll minimally, gives him no real information, and uses their time on the station to figure out what is happening. This is the default path. They will find Maren's office, decode her message, and put the pieces together before Oll closes in. Scene Three covers the investigation fully.

Path Three: Leave quickly The crew decides not to get involved in whatever is happening at Harrowspan, collects their resupply, and tries to depart. This triggers Scene 4B: Sev makes a harder play and the Pale Table moves before the ship can undock. The crew cannot escape without dealing with that pressure first.

Transition to Scene Three

Scene Two ends when the crew has:

• Learned that Maren is dead
• Met Inspector Oll
• Decided what to do next

If they choose Path Three (leave quickly), skip to Scene Four and run Scene 4B.

Otherwise, move to Scene Three: The Dead Drop.