The ochre that has kept the Bastion neutral for a hundred years dies a little more with every hour the comet climbs, and Captain Ashford means to be inside before the dawn bell renews it.
The Situation
Magistrate Voron sealed a writ this morning that condemns the Bastion as a haven for conscription-dodgers and names its keeper for questioning, and Captain Ashford carried it to the square at dusk with a column at his back. The inn has held neutral for a hundred years on red ward-ochre that Eppy Flinder lays by hand, but the comet thins the paint faster than her hands can work, and the Court wants what an old-world woman knows now that its own Comet Chamber leaks light through failing wards. Ashford will not burn a neutral house while the Gatekeepers might walk at dawn, so he waits for the ochre to gutter and the custom to lapse, then takes the inn quiet. The same paint holds out more than soldiers. In the cellar, where the old well drains toward Terra Sotto, the dead it was laid to bar already push at the boards.
Hold Conditions
- Primary · Hold the Bastion and keep Eppy out of Red Guard hands until the dawn bell, when the ochre renews and the Gatekeepers' tribute-walk forces the column to stand down.
- Secondary · Keep the house from burning. A burned Bastion stops being neutral ground whether the party wins the night or loses it.
- Secondary · Learn why the Court wants Eppy alive tonight, and get the sheltered down the well to Terra Sotto if the taproom cannot hold.
- The house holds if the dawn bell rings with Eppy free and the walls unburned. The house falls if the Guard take Eppy, fire takes the Bastion, or the dead hold the taproom at first light.
The Clocks
- Main · The Ochre Goes Grey (the comet clock). Six watches run from the dusk bell to the dawn bell. Each watch the ward-light drops one step, rust-red to ash. At ash, both other fronts can break at once. The dawn bell renews the paint and brings the Gatekeepers. That is the finish line, and it cannot be hurried, only out-lasted.
- Faster · Ashford at the Door. Three steps. First he demands entry by writ. Then he cordons the inn, takes the stable, and calls a fire inspection to thin the defenders. Then, once the ochre reads ash, his men force the door. Invoke custom, show a witness, or bloody a probe to slow him; spill Guard blood in the open square and he gets his excuse a full watch early.
- Fastest · The Well in the Cellar. Three steps, once the cellar ward fails. A hand through the boards, then the cover splinters, then a Necrotic Bulk hauls up into the taproom from below. Re-paint the ward, drop the iron well-cover, or flood the shaft to buy steps, but every measure spends ochre, hands, or fire the front door wants.
The triage is the spine: Eppy can lay ochre in one place a watch, and there is barely enough for one front. Paint the door or paint the cellar.
The Five Beats
- Entrance · Walls never kept the Bastion. A hundred years of ward-ochre did, and the Gatekeepers' custom that even the Red Guard fear to break. The first wrong sign waits over the lintel: the ochre has gone from rust-red to grey ash since sundown, and Eppy's hands shake too hard to lay it fresh.
- Discovery · The writ talks of conscription-dodgers. The truth runs colder. The Court wants Eppy alive because the Comet Chamber's own wards are failing, and the old-world paint in her hands is the only ward-work that still holds. The Crown has come for the last person who understands the ochre.
- Setback · The cellar ward fails first. The dead climb the well mid-watch and split the house: one party holds the taproom door against Ashford's probe while another goes down with a lamp and the last of the ochre. Then the stair takes damage and strands the cellar party below.
- Climax · Last watch. The ochre reads ash on every frame. Ashford has his excuse and comes through the front as the Bulk breaks the taproom boards behind. The house holds a shrinking room with the dead at its back and the Crown at its face, Eppy and the sheltered in the middle, until the bell. The Climax Variable sets the terms.
- Resolution · Dawn. The Gatekeepers walk for tribute, custom bites, and Ashford withdraws or answers to Aggodas and Boldogg. What stands: who lived, whether the Bastion is still neutral ground or a burned shell, whether Eppy is free or marched up the Cliff Road, and the name of whoever told the Court the wards were ready to fall.
Leverage Points
- Eppy's last ochre. Enough to paint one frame a watch and bar soldiers and dead alike for it. Door or cellar, never both, and the last pot means the final assault hits bare wood.
- The Gatekeepers' custom. Neutral ground is Aggodas and Boldogg's law, and the Red Guard fear them. Ring the Bastion's old bell to draw their notice early, but they take tribute for answering and they judge both sides. They may rule the house neutral, or rule Eppy forfeit for hiding Crown business under a neutral roof.
- The old well. The way the dead come up, and the way a body goes down and out, since the shaft drains toward Terra Sotto. An escape route that runs straight through the rising Bulk and into Lich Cult ground.
- The taproom: lamp oil, the long bar, the iron stove. Fire stops the dead and bars a door, but fire in a timber inn with the wards down ends the Bastion as neutral ground forever. Burning the home to hold it.
- Ashford's writ and his discipline. A soldier under a deadline, not a butcher. Cast doubt on the writ before a witness who matters, or make the inn cost more men than dawn is worth, and he pulls back rather than break custom in the open.
The Cast
- Eppy Flinder (the Bastion, old-world) · Lays ward-ochre by failing hands all night and will not leave the house she has kept for a hundred years. Wants the people under her roof to see the dawn. She knows what the wards truly bar and why the Court wants her, and she will trade herself to Ashford to spare the rest unless a player gives her a reason to hold.
- Captain Ashford (Red Guard) · Holds the square with a column and a sealed writ, bound by the Gatekeepers' custom and a dawn deadline. Wants Eppy taken alive and the inn ended quiet, no martyrs left behind. Will not parley in the open, but folds toward withdrawal if custom is invoked before a witness, or if the night costs him more than the Court will forgive.
- The Dead Below (the Lich Cult's drains, Terra Sotto) · A Necrotic Bulk accreting in the well, slow and tireless, climbing toward the warmth and lamplight of the taproom. Wants only up. Folds for no one. Fire, the iron cover, or fresh ochre slows it; nothing else.
Climax Variable (d6)
Roll once when the ochre reads ash on the front door, or take the twist that pays off what the house already did.
| d6 | Twist |
|---|---|
| 1 | The dawn bell is jammed. A Guard sapper sawed the bell-pull at dusk, and the Gatekeepers will not walk until it rings. Someone has to cross the taproom to the bell-loft, through the dead, to buy the dawn. |
| 2 | Ashford offers Eppy the clean deal: give herself up and the Court spares the house and all in it. She steps toward the door and will take it unless a player stops her with more than an order. |
| 3 | The stair collapses. Whoever went down with the ochre is cut off below with the Bulk, and the only way left to move Eppy or the sheltered runs up and over the roofs in the open, under Guard crossbows. |
| 4 | The unpainted frame breaks first. Ochre spent at the door means the dead are already in the taproom when Ashford knocks; ochre spent below means the Guard are already in the hall when the Bulk hits the boards. |
| 5 | Eppy moves to seal the cellar with herself on the wrong side of the iron cover, trading her life for the room above, unless someone takes her place or holds her back. |
| 6 | The comet flares. The ward-light does not gutter, it dies at once on every frame. Both faster clocks hit their last step together, the front and the cellar break in the same round, and the bell is still one full turn away. |
Breadcrumbs
The grey creeping over each doorframe is the main clock made plain, and a house that rations the ochre early or rings the Gatekeepers' bell betimes changes which twist bites at dawn. The frayed, half-sawn bell-pull noticed on the way in is the warning that someone meant to keep that bell from ringing. Beyond this night: the Court knew the exact hour the wards would fall. Someone close to the Bastion measured them and sold the count, and Eppy's ward-knowledge is the same thing Olivia Faren needs to prove the Comet Chamber is failing.
The Not-Line
This quest is not a last stand to the death. It is a night out-lasted, where the win is the dawn bell with the house still neutral and its keeper still free, not a count of Red Guard dead.