Cross
Public counter warden
Crosswater Bazaar
Crosswater’s counter warden, known for exact weights, short receipts, and very little patience for relabeled cargo.
The Registry knows him as Orin Pell. The bazaar knows him as Cross. The name began as shorthand for the man behind the Crosswater public counter and became permanent enough that some younger merchants do not know it was ever shorthand.
Counter habits
Cross counts before he talks. He checks seals, weights, quantities, then people. He keeps a counting cord wrapped around one wrist and has a habit of sliding a corrected receipt back across the counter without explaining the arithmetic unless asked.
Barge years
Before Crosswater he kept manifests on canal barges. Years of watching the same cargo acquire three different descriptions taught him that provenance problems often begin as tiny conveniences nobody expects to matter later.
Missing weight
Ordinary care supplies have begun arriving a fraction light. No individual discrepancy is worth stealing. Cross is more interested in the fact that all of them are wrong in the same direction.