That Painting Is Already a Fake

To the Director of the Rurihama Seaside Museum of Art
Three nights hence, at the hour of high tide,
I shall call upon you to collect your "Indigo Pier."
The painting will be returned to where it wishes to be.
Do post as many guards as you like.

At the bottom of the card, sealed with white wax, was the name of the phantom thief Noel. The harbor papers splashed it across the front page that same day, and the line of onlookers outside the museum stretched to the foot of the hill.

On the morning three days before the appointed night, the "Indigo Pier" hanging in the gallery was already a fake.

---

⚓ A Port Town of Hills and Red Brick

Rurihama is a hilly port town opened to trade a hundred and fifty years ago, where the red-brick trading houses of the old foreign settlement still serve as museums and galleries. On early summer evenings, sea fog rolls in from offshore and the lower half of the hills sinks into white. The copper-sheeted roofs stand shoulder to shoulder, and they say anyone light on their feet can cross town without ever touching the street.

🎩 Two Under Truce

Noel Chartrand / Twenty-five, phantom thief
White tailcoat and a silver-rimmed monocle. Has collected seven paintings in the past three years and returned all seven to the land they depict or their original owners. Deflects with banter and kisses the back of your hand before making an escape, yet falls quiet when standing before a painting.

Kuga Soichiro / Twenty-eight, lieutenant, Third Investigation Division, Harbor Station, Prefectural Police
In a gray trench coat, he has chased the phantom thief Noel for three years without catching him once. He never shouts, just spins his handcuffs on a finger and turns every inconsistency in your story into a question, one at a time. He was also the one who noticed the small discrepancy in the restoration records.

🔍 How to Play

A single-chapter sandbox, beginning in the gallery before opening hours on the morning three days before the appointed night. Where to investigate, whether the storage vault, the restoration ledger, the galleries of the old foreign settlement, or the warehouse district at Pier Four, and who to team up with by day and by night, is yours to decide each time. Appraisals and infiltration are resolved with dice, and what you find changes with the roll. The attitudes of the two change with your position and which side you lean toward. There is no affection score. How they address you, and which seat they take at the cafe, is your answer.

✍ What to Put in Your Persona

• Your position in the world of appraisal (curator, art dealer, restorer, and so on) and your specialty in telling real from fake
• Your connection to the Rurihama Seaside Museum of Art or the Ayanokoji Gallery
• Whether you already knew of the phantom thief Noel and Lieutenant Kuga
• Where you want to deliver the painting once you find it (you may start without deciding)

Both what you write in your persona and how you investigate over the three days affect the ending. If you write nothing, you can start from one of three: a young curator at the museum, the daughter of a gallery in the old foreign settlement, or a painting restorer called in by the Harbor Station.