E5 — Cookhouse & Mess – The Price of Prophecy (Production)

Reiver's Right — Location 5

Cookhouse & Mess

The Meal They Never Finished

Long tables fill the mess hall, benches pushed back at uneven angles. Tin cups, wooden bowls, and abandoned utensils remain scattered across several places. A few places have been cleared, while others look as though their owners stood up before finishing.

The kitchen beyond is orderly but cold. Sacks of flour, dried beans, smoked meat, salt, and root vegetables are stacked in the pantry for a camp that expected to keep feeding dozens of people. A broad iron cookstove stands dark beneath a soot-blackened chimney.

Beside the pantry door, several chalkboards still carry meal counts, supply reminders, and work-shift orders. One smaller slate has been set apart from the others.

The cookhouse shows that Reiver's Right was neither running out of food nor planning an orderly closure. Its stores were sufficient to feed the camp for days or weeks. Shortly after the last full meal, however, fifty workers fled in two groups, taking what food and other essentials they could carry. The supplies left behind show how suddenly that decision was made.

The kitchen records also preserve something the formal payroll hides: Reiver's Right had been feeding workers outside the normal logging schedule, including a regular late-shift crew and one unusually demanding outside guest.

No check is required to recognize that the pantry is still well stocked. Flour, beans, smoked meat, dried vegetables, salt, and other staples remain in quantities appropriate for a camp of roughly fifty workers.

There are no rationing notices, depleted bins, organized travel rations, or advance shutdown orders. A few portable foods, waterskins, and sacks are missing from their usual places—consistent with a hurried departure, not a planned evacuation. Reiver's Right had been provisioned to continue operating normally.

Macridi has received no confirmed word from Reiver's Right for approximately four days. That is the date of the last communication, not necessarily the date the camp was abandoned. The cookhouse continued operating after the last outgoing message. Its final full meal was prepared approximately three days ago, shortly before the workers' hurried evacuation.

Fifty workers departed in two groups, one toward the Cedar Court and the other toward the Court of Endless Revelry. Both avoided the North Road crossroads near the Pulgari Estate. Tavin Rusk remained hidden in the E6 Workers' Bunkhouses; Hendrick and a few others were not among the fifty who escaped. Neither refugee group's arrival has been confirmed here.

The food stores and last meal prove that the camp was still functioning until shortly before the evacuation. The missing portable provisions show the refugees took basic supplies when they fled; these details are not evidence that everyone simply vanished at once.

Challenge 1: Search the Kitchen

The condition of the hearth, prepared food, meal counts, and kitchen stores can establish when normal life in the camp stopped.

Primary Check Cooking Lore DC 15, Survival DC 16, or Perception DC 16

Critical Success The main hearth has been cold for roughly three days. More importantly, the final full meal was prepared for nearly the camp's entire workforce, including workers on restricted assignments. Portions, bread counts, and serving vessels show that dozens were still expected to eat. Some plates were cleared, but others were abandoned when the crisis overtook the camp. Clue: Reiver's Right did not gradually lose its workforce. Normal camp life continued almost until the moment it stopped.

Success The main hearth has not been used for roughly three days. Clue: The kitchen appears to have operated after the last confirmed communication from Reiver's Right, then gone cold around the time of the hurried evacuation.

Failure The kitchen has clearly been unused for several days, but the character cannot establish a reliable timeline.

Critical Failure Changes in temperature, spoiled food, and the cold stove make the exact timing impossible to judge.

A large chalkboard tracks ordinary breakfast, midday, and evening meal counts. Beneath them is a recurring line for late-shift meals.

These are not occasional overtime meals. The order appears repeatedly over several weeks, often for the same group of workers. The names of the recipients are not recorded; only a count is given.

The number of meals exceeds what would be expected from the visible night watch, stable staff, or ordinary logging crews working late.

Challenge 2: Reconstruct the Night Crew

Comparing meal counts, shift notes, and pantry usage can reveal that a substantial group of workers routinely ate outside the normal schedule.

Primary Check Society DC 16, Cooking Lore DC 15, or Labor Lore DC 15

Critical Success The character identifies a consistent pattern of extra evening meals prepared for a rotating group of workers. The numbers vary, but the order is too large and too regular to represent guards or ordinary overtime. Clue: Reiver's Right maintained a recurring night crew that was not reflected clearly in the normal surface work schedule.

Success Extra meals were regularly prepared after the normal evening meal. Clue: Some workers were performing substantial duties after ordinary logging operations had ended for the day.

Failure The extra meal counts could represent overtime, guards, or seasonal work. The character cannot establish anything more specific.

Critical Failure The character assumes the additional meals were ordinary provisions for guards and late-working loggers.

A smaller slate beside the pantry records a separate standing meal order for one visitor. The cook did not write the guest's name, referring to them only as "Hendrick's consultant."

The instructions are unusually specific: boiled water only, sealed dry stores, no river fish, no fresh Palakar vegetables or fruit, and no locally gathered herbs. The guest's food was to be prepared separately, boxed, and delivered rather than served in the common mess.

Several supply notes also mention small quantities of imported mineral salts, distilled spirits, charcoal, clean glassware, and other items that could reasonably be described as medical or alchemical supplies.

Challenge 3: Understand the Consultant's Diet

The separate meal order initially looks like nothing more than the demands of an eccentric or wealthy visitor. Careful comparison with the kitchen records suggests something more deliberate.

Primary Check Medicine DC 16, Cooking Lore DC 15, Survival DC 16, or Alchemical Lore DC 15

Critical Success The restrictions consistently eliminate untreated water and almost every food source gathered locally. The guest was not following an ordinary luxury diet; they were attempting to avoid environmental exposure. Clue: Hendrick's consultant appears to have known—or strongly suspected—that something in Reiver's Right's water, soil, plants, or local food supply could be dangerous.

Success The diet deliberately avoids local water, fresh plants, fish, and gathered herbs. Clue: The visitor was taking precautions against some form of local contamination.

Failure The restrictions appear to be personal dietary requirements or the preferences of a demanding visitor.

Critical Failure The character dismisses the instructions as the habits of a wealthy outsider and finds no significance in them.

Challenge 4: Compare the Dates

Characters who compare the consultant's meal orders with the late-shift meals can determine whether the two changes occurred at the same time.

Primary Check Perception DC 16, Society DC 16, or Cooking Lore DC 15

Critical Success The special meal order begins shortly before a noticeable increase in late-shift meals. During the following days, both continue together. Clue: Hendrick brought in an outside specialist at approximately the same time activity involving the hidden night crews intensified.

Success The consultant was present during the same period that the camp began preparing unusually large numbers of late-shift meals. Clue: The visitor's arrival and the increased night work are probably connected.

Failure Both orders appear in the recent records, but the character cannot determine whether their timing is meaningful.

Critical Failure The character finds no useful relationship between the two sets of kitchen records.

Hendrick's guest was an alchemical specialist associated with the Golden Hand. The visitor arrived as the Golden Hand intensified work beneath Reiver's Right and the deliberate planting of an engineered Infernal Blight Seedling began to produce dangerous effects. Some workers encountered black sap, corrupted roots, and unusual growths without understanding their source. The consultant knew this material required examination but was not necessarily briefed on the Golden Hand's entire scheme.

The alchemist's public explanation was deliberately mundane. Depending on who asked, Hendrick described the visitor as a consultant examining timber preservatives, groundwater contamination, industrial solvents, or another problem that could plausibly require an alchemist at a large logging operation.

Their real assignment was to examine samples from the Lower Works — E18, evaluate the developing corruption and its risks to workers and excavation, and report useful findings to the Golden Hand. The Seedling was planted deliberately; the consultant's investigation concerned its observed effects and how quickly those effects were spreading—not an accidental discovery of an unrelated organism.

The visitor knew enough to avoid untreated local water and fresh food from the Palakar, but they did not fully understand the Infernal Blight or the danger posed by the Seedling. The visitor's personal level of involvement beyond this assignment remains unresolved; do not use this scene to establish knowledge of the Mother Blight or the Pulgari Estate operation.

A separate pantry and supply notation records unusually large standing orders for lamp oil. A logging camp certainly uses lamps, but the quantities exceed what the visible buildings and ordinary night watch should consume.

Combined with the late-shift meals, Hendrick's records, and evidence elsewhere in Reiver's Right, the excess oil supports the existence of a large work force operating somewhere without natural light.

The Cookhouse should reinforce that Reiver's Right did not slowly empty or plan to close. The camp remained well supplied, the last full meal was prepared for nearly the entire workforce, and fifty workers subsequently escaped with only hurriedly gathered essentials. The kitchen has been cold for approximately three days even though the last confirmed message to Macridi was approximately four days ago.

A deeper search adds two important clues: a recurring night crew was being fed outside normal logging hours, and Hendrick had recently brought in a specialist who was deliberately protecting themselves from local environmental exposure.

Neither clue proves the existence of the Lower Works by itself. Together with discoveries elsewhere in the camp, however, they point toward substantial hidden activity beneath Reiver's Right after ordinary surface work ended each day. The players should not learn from the kitchen records alone that the Seedling was deliberately planted or that the Golden Hand engineered the modern blight.