The Dead Drop

Scene Three: The Dead Drop

Scene type: Investigation, social pressure, decision point Location: Harrowspan Station — Maren's office, station spine Characters present: Sev (approaching), Inspector Oll (closing in), Caelis Vorn (via comm)

Getting Into Maren's Office

The door to Maren's office is locked. Standard station-grade lock: enough to stop casual access, not enough to stop a determined crew.

Three ways in:

The Cooperative board member Orik has a key. An Average Charm or Negotiation check works if the crew frames it as recovering the supply discount Maren arranged. Orik is distracted and will agree without pressing for details.

The lock can be bypassed with an Easy Electronics check and three minutes of work at the panel.

If the crew asks the medical officer Hessa about Maren's office, she mentions the terminal is probably still logged in. "She always left it on."

Read-Aloud: Maren's Office

The office is small and functional: one chair, a wide console desk with two monitors, an equipment rack on the far wall running the docking bay controls. The monitors are on. One shows the bay camera feeds. The other shows a relay message queue with a small icon blinking in the corner: two messages in the outbox flagged as sent but unconfirmed. Someone composed them last night and queued them, and they may or may not have cleared the station relay before the maintenance window.

The room smells wrong. There is a faint trace of industrial cleaning product on the floor near the equipment rack, stronger than anything you would expect in an administrative office. The rack itself is not quite flush with the wall. It has been moved recently and put back in a hurry.

What Is in the Office

Give the crew time to search. Use these elements in whatever order fits their approach.

The terminal, two outbox messages: The relay terminal is logged into Maren's personal account. The outbox shows two messages queued at 0118 station time.

The first is addressed to a Vorn forwarding address, the contact channel from his advance message. The crew can open it immediately.

The second is addressed to a Cooperative legal contact off-station, flagged as personal and encrypted. The crew can see the header but not the content.

Maren's message (unencrypted, to Vorn's contact channel):

The message has no subject line. No greeting. It reads:

"Container is not what you were told. Do not open it at Harrowspan. Someone else is here for it. GET OUT."

The timestamp is 0118. The relay confirmation log shows it reached the forwarding address at 0204. No reply was logged.

Let that moment breathe. The crew now knows the job is compromised and Maren knew it before she died.

The partial decryption notes: Three printed sheets on the desk, partially under the keyboard, covered in handwritten notations. Maren was working on Vorn's advance communication using a commercial cipher reference. She got most of it. The decrypted sections describe the container as "navigational asset, restricted access." The rest is blocked by a cipher she did not finish.

An Easy Lore check confirms the terminology: navigational asset in Funtari transit documentation typically means charts, coordinates, or route data.

The note with Sev's berth number: A paper note is tucked under the intercom panel. It reads: "Bay 6, skiff, Sev, arrived 0930 yesterday." Maren wrote this down when Sev arrived. She was tracking visitors.

The security log entry: The docking ring master controls on Maren's second monitor show a logged corridor access request at 0340 station time. The badge code belongs to a maintenance credential not assigned to any active worker in two years. Someone used a cloned or stolen credential.

An Average Electronics check pulls the camera timestamp for that entry. The corridor camera was offline at 0340 and restored at 0412. Sixty-two minutes of no footage.

Sev Makes Contact

Once the crew has clearly started investigating or asking questions around the station, Sev approaches. This happens within the first hour of active investigation.

Sev finds the crew in the spine corridor or near Maren's office. They do not enter if the door was forced. They wait in the corridor, hands visible and relaxed.

The person from bay six crosses the corridor with the unhurried walk of someone who has decided that now is the right time. Up close they are lean and composed, wearing coveralls with no visible markings. Their face is friendly without being warm. They stop at two meters and hold their hands slightly out from their sides.

"Sev," they say. "No last name on this job. I think we're interested in the same cargo. I'd rather this conversation go well for both of us."

Talking to Sev

Sev does not threaten. They offer. They are patient and they are good at it.

What Sev wants: The container's contents. They will buy, trade, or arrange a fee if the crew cooperates. They do not want a confrontation with an Irnan inspector present in a closed station.

Sev's offer: 3,000 credits for the contents of the container, handed over here before the crew departs. They handle the container. The crew walks away clean and paid more than the job offered.

Alternatively, passage documentation flagging the Ember Drift as a survey vessel with Harrowspan Cooperative endorsement, giving the crew cover with Oll.

What Sev says when asked who they work for:

"Independent information broker. I have clients with navigational interests in the outer Verge. That is accurate and it is everything I am going to say about it."

Checks for reading Sev:

Savvy + Perception or Subterfuge (Average) — Read Sev during the conversation: They are telling a partial truth. They are not independent. The "client with navigational interests" is real, but Sev answers to a structure, not a client list.

On a Boon: the crew notices Sev uses operational phrasing. "This particular job," "on this assignment." Language that implies an organization with assignments rather than a freelancer taking work.

Savvy + Negotiation (Opposed, Sev uses Savvy + Subterfuge) — Push for more: On a success, Sev reveals they work for a "Verge-based syndicate with trade interests." They will not name the Pale Table. If pushed further, they close the conversation: "I've told you what I'm able to tell you. The offer stands for two hours."

If the crew tries to hold Sev: Sev does not fight. They say, "That would be a mistake," and give the crew one chance to reconsider. If the crew presses, Sev complies and goes silent. They know the crew will have to release them eventually. Their partner Rinn, in the maintenance corridors, does not act while Sev is detained.

If the crew accepts the offer: A valid choice. Sev produces a secure credit transfer, takes the container, and departs within the hour. The crew continues to Saint Orra's Rest with an empty cargo bay and has to explain the situation to Dr. Caern. This is a real ending. Note it in the Between Jobs chapter as a consequence path.

Contacting Vorn

The crew can reach Vorn by comm at any point in this scene. He is at Port Meridian, waiting. He picks up within a minute.

Use these lines as a script. Pull the ones that fit the conversation.

If the crew tells him Maren is dead:

"That's not an accident. I don't have that kind of operation. I didn't know anything like that was possible."

If the crew tells him about Maren's message:

"I received something. Last night. I thought it was a routing error." A pause. "What does it say exactly?"

If the crew tells him the container may not hold medical supplies:

A longer silence. "The container holds navigational data. Charts. I was told they were survey records. Minor territorial assessments. I was not told they were..." He stops. "I was not told they were restricted."

If the crew pushes for specifics:

"I don't know exactly what is in the charts. I was told to move the container. I was told it held survey data that needed a quiet delivery. I was told not to examine it." He sounds tired. "I'm a transit agent. I move things. I don't always know what I'm moving."

If the crew pushes harder: He admits he has done similar jobs for the Nerezza Compact before. He suspected the work involved sensitive navigational data. He chose not to know more because knowing more made jobs like this harder to take. He sounds frightened now, not defensive.

He can give the crew a routing code for Dr. Caern's contact channel at Saint Orra's Rest if the crew wants to warn her or ask what the charts represent.

He says, before the comm ends:

"If the Irnan Directorate takes the container, the Compact won't pay the second half. But I'd rather you were safe than paid. I mean that."

Whether the crew believes him is their call.

What a Lore Check Tells Them

Intellect + Lore (Easy) — What does a slipstream corridor discovery mean?

On a success, the crew knows: a newly discovered slipstream corridor is extraordinarily valuable. It changes trade routes, reduces transit time, and creates strategic chokepoints. A corridor that bypasses Irnan checkpoints would be worth millions to anyone who controlled it and could be sold to a dozen interested parties. It would also be illegal to export from Irnan space without disclosure, hence the quiet delivery.

The crew now understands the stakes. The container is not about medicine. It is about who controls the next route.

Inspector Oll Closes In

If the crew lingers past the four-hour mark, or if they have been visibly active and have not left, Oll finds them again. This time he is finished being patient.

Oll arrives with the same even walk. He is not visibly agitated. That itself is a kind of pressure.

"I have filed for a formal cargo inspection hold on the Ember Drift," he says. "The hold order should come through within ninety minutes. Until then, you are legally free to move around the station. I am telling you this as a courtesy, not a warning. I would prefer we resolve this before the hold order becomes necessary."

This is real. If the crew waits ninety minutes without engaging Oll, the hold order arrives and they cannot depart without his sign-off.

What Oll wants from this second conversation: Not necessarily to open the container. He wants the crew to tell him what is in it. If they confirm it is navigational data, he has what he needs for his report.

What he offers if the crew cooperates: He pulls the hold order request. He writes in his report that the crew cooperated voluntarily. He clears them for departure and pursues the Nerezza Compact through official channels. He will not guarantee that the Compact gets the container delivered, but he will not stop the crew from leaving.

What he does if the crew refuses: The hold order arrives. The crew is detained at Harrowspan pending formal inspection. This is bureaucratic, not violent. They can still find a way out but it costs time and options.

Three Decision Points at the End of Scene Three

Scene Three ends when the crew has gathered enough information and must act. There are three ways forward.

Decision One: Deal with Sev now. Accept or refuse Sev's offer. If accepted, the container changes hands here. If refused, Sev becomes a harder problem in Scene Four.

Decision Two: Cooperate with Oll now. Go to Oll before the hold order clears. Tell him what you know. He pulls the hold and clears you for departure. The Sentinel does not pursue. Scene Four becomes a quiet exit.

Decision Three: Run before the hold order arrives. Get to the ship and undock before the hold clears. This triggers Scene 4B: Sev and Rinn move in the cargo corridor because it is their last opportunity.

Transition to Scene Four

Take the crew's lead.

• Cooperate with Oll: Scene 4A, collaborative tone.
• Face down the hold order or wait too long: Scene 4A, adversarial.
• Run for the ship: Scene 4B immediately.
• Accept Sev's offer: Scene Five with an empty cargo bay.