Returning to Magnimar from Absalom is a rather uneventful voyage. However, A page from Heidmarch Manor is waiting when you all disembark from the ship. "Lady Heidmarch sends her regards and would like to let you rest. Something's happened in town, however, and she needs you on the job immediately. Her orders were to direct you all to The Dryad's Trosseau, here in Dockway. There was an attack on the flower shop, and someone's trying to frame the Society for it." Upon acknowledgement of the message, the young girl gives brief directions to the shop in question before she scampers off.
It’s a cold twilight in the Dockway, and the salt-sprayed streets still teem with activity. A young city guard stands outside an ornately decorated storefront, the window frame adorned with baroque carvings of wild vines and flowers. The guard speaks: “Oye, Pathfinders. Glad you all came so quick. Here’s the latest place robbed, this afternoon by a group dressed like your lot. The shopkeep is laid up in the flat upstairs—his landlady’s taking care of him. She thinks it was Pathfinders, too, but I talked her into speaking with you.”
The young man knocks on a narrow door to the right of the shop entrance. “Look, I know you Pathfinders are all right. Cap’n Heidmarch’s done good in this city, so I’m happy to help you start sortin’ out what’s behind these crimes. But public opinion is goin’ south. The sooner you figure out who the guilty parties are, the better. Good luck. Oh, almost forgot—I was ta give this to you.”
The guard hands over a leather pouch marked with the Heidmarch family seal, and departs just as a scowling elderly woman opens the door. “Right. You come to explain why your gang beat up poor Mr. Chert?”