The Walled-Up Siege Engine

Tarn Crag is a fortress perched on a rock spire, with a dungeon entrance at its base where a steward collects fees at a table. "Forty silver to enter the dungeon. Whatever salvage you haul up is yours, minus the lord's tenth." Around the back of the crag, however, your lookout spots an unguarded drainage tunnel wide enough for your crew.

The mason's tip was true. Behind a fresh brick wall in the dungeon sits a siege stone-thrower as long as a wagon, its throwing arm folded and a carved granite boulder still resting in its sling. When you report it, the steward eyes the entry ledger. "That's worth far more than a tenth—but my lord never wanted it found. He'll let you buy it outright to get it off the crag."

The mason's tip was true. Behind a fresh brick wall sat a siege stone-thrower as long as a wagon. Your crew disassembles it into three pieces and hauls it out through the drainage tunnel under cover of night—but at dawn, alarm horns blare from the keep above. Someone has discovered the broken wall.

When your crew goes to load the three crated pieces, a young nobleman in a fine coat is sitting atop them: Corvin Tarn, the lord's son. "My father bricked this engine up the year I came of age. I've wanted it for twenty years, and now you have the legal right to sell it. Sell it to me—I'll pay more than any shipyard across the border."

At the foot of the crag, a young nobleman in mud-splattered boots steps out of the drainage tunnel: Corvin Tarn, the lord's son. "You found the siege engine and left it behind. Good—my father can't sell what goes missing tonight. Before his masons brick it back up, haul it out through this drain for me, and I'll pay you far better than his steward did."

The keep's alarm horn is answered at once: a patrol sloop flying House Tarn's colors swings around the crag with battle lanterns lit, cutting off your route to the border while the heavy engine pieces weigh down your hold.

Before the day is out, Corvin Tarn has the stone-thrower assembled inside a barn below the crag, its arm aimed toward the keep above. He doesn't say which gate he plans to smash, but he pays you generously from his own purse while glancing up at his father's walls.

The yard master circles the three heavy crates twice. "Old Marchhold siege work. It hurls a single massive boulder, and whatever it hits won't need a second shot." She offers to buy the antique engine outright—or mount it on your gun deck for free just for the thrill of seeing it fire.

By evening, the dungeon wall is sealed behind a double layer of brick, and the drain is locked tight. The lord of Tarn Crag sends his steward down with his thanks, the dungeon fee box, and permission to claim one reward from the keep—"for a captain who twice left behind what any other crew would have stolen."

An elite household frigate flying Tarn colors blocks the entrance to the mason's yard. Her herald reads your ship's name from a warrant scroll and announces the charge: poaching a lord's siege engine. "Surrender the weapon, or pay the ninety-silver blood-price. My lord doesn't care which."