Edda Case-Bead

Edda Case-Bead comes aboard with a case the size of a lunch pail chained to her belt and a look that says she has already heard every lunch-pail joke available in three systems. Inside are seventeen witness beads, two seal weights, and the physical claim string for a cobalt seam on Bluehold Verge. She can tell you what each bead means, who witnessed it, and which dead aunt tied the third knot from the left. She cannot let anyone else touch them. That includes you.

She is short even for a dwarf, compact and quick, with warm brown skin, sharp grey eyes, and rust-red hair divided into dozens of thin clerk braids. Each braid ends in a tiny ceramic case marker. When she turns her head they tick together like rain on a vent hood. Edda speaks softly, reads everything twice, and hates being hurried because hurry is how clever people make honest clerks certify stupid things. Give her one quiet minute and she notices the retired name on a forged stamp. Shout over her and you have paid for expertise you refuse to use.

The escort is for her body, technically. Edda knows better. Bodies are easy to guard. Dignity and chain-of-custody are the brittle parts. A rival cousin who cannot seize the case may still bait her into opening it in public, make her miss a tram, or turn a correct refusal into a story about a frightened little clerk hiding bad beads. She will not ask the crew to fight. She will ask them to stand close, keep the path open, and let her finish reading.