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+# DIALOGUE-PROLOGUE-0005
+## The Missing Tax Collector — Canonical Draft
+### Status: Canonical Dialogue Draft
+### Layer: OTIVM (Roman Merchant)
+### Purpose: Prologue scenario teaching revenue systems, enforcement gaps, hidden privilege, and opportunity created when authority disappears.
+
+---
+
+## 0. Design Intent
+
+The collector assigned to assess dues on a busy quay has failed to appear.
+
+Known facts are uncertain:
+
+- illness
+- bribed absence
+- robbery on the road
+- deliberate strike by staff
+- political protection for certain cargo
+- arrest for prior corruption
+
+Meanwhile cargo waits, carts queue, tempers rise, and no one knows which payments are lawful.
+
+The participant must choose whose reading of the situation to trust.
+
+---
+
+## 1. Opening Scene Draft
+
+The customs quay smelled of wet rope, mule sweat, wax tablets, and delay.
+
+Three vessels had tied up since dawn. None had fully cleared.
+
+Drivers shouted at clerks. Clerks shouted at no one important enough to matter.
+
+Marcus Atilius Varro stood beside the queue counting halted wheels.
+
+Lucius Fabius Felix arrived smiling like a man who preferred disorder to wages.
+
+“A festival mood,” Felix said. “Has someone abolished dues?”
+
+Varro did not turn.
+
+“No. Only the man who collects them.”
+
+Felix looked delighted.
+
+“Even better.”
+
+Gaius Licinius Crispus approached with visible annoyance.
+
+“Who has authority here?” he asked.
+
+Felix answered first.
+
+“Today? Whoever speaks loudest.”
+
+Crispus ignored him.
+
+“The collector has not appeared since first light,” Varro said. “No sealed assessments. No release orders.”
+
+“Then goods cannot move cleanly,” Crispus said.
+
+“Goods can always move,” Felix replied. “Only cleanly is scarce.”
+
+Quintus Cornelius Lentulus Minor stepped from a litter that withdrew before dust could touch it.
+
+“Name?” Lentulus asked.
+
+“Publius Serranus,” Crispus said at once.
+
+“You know him?”
+
+“I know every man who delays signatures.”
+
+Felix laughed.
+
+“A civic romance.”
+
+Titus Varenus Secundus came from the animal yard carrying a broken trace strap.
+
+“I know his effect,” he said. “Animals standing idle eat without earning.”
+
+Lentulus looked toward the ships.
+
+“What cargo waits?”
+
+Varro pointed.
+
+“Spanish oil. Campanian pottery. Mixed cloth. One grain lighter.”
+
+“Then every hour costs six trades differently,” Secundus said.
+
+A quiet voice entered from the clerk desk.
+
+“Seven.”
+
+Publius Terentius Chresimus held two tablets already borrowed from someone else.
+
+“The absent collector also owes money.”
+
+Felix’s smile sharpened.
+
+“There he is. The only man who can improve a disappearance.”
+
+Crispus turned.
+
+“How much?”
+
+“Enough that three lenders asked after him yesterday.”
+
+“Source?”
+
+“Their impatience.”
+
+Lentulus said, “Debt does not prove flight.”
+
+“No,” Chresimus said. “But debt plus absence invites mathematics.”
+
+Inside the shed a junior clerk shouted:
+
+“No cargo clears until proper authority returns!”
+
+Half the queue cursed.
+
+Felix spread his hands.
+
+“And there is the market opening.”
+
+Varro said, “For what?”
+
+“Released cargo tomorrow. Desperate cargo today. Cart hire by noon. Storage space by sunset.”
+
+Secundus nodded.
+
+“And fodder now.”
+
+Crispus folded his hands.
+
+“If unauthorized goods move, seizures follow later.”
+
+Felix bowed slightly.
+
+“Then we sell quickly.”
+
+Lentulus looked toward the harbor road.
+
+“If Serranus is merely late, panic is foolish.”
+
+Chresimus replied softly.
+
+“If he is merely late, someone knows where he is. No one does.”
+
+Varro watched the guards.
+
+“Two nervous. One already taking private instructions.”
+
+Crispus noticed that too.
+
+“From whom?”
+
+Varro nodded toward a warehouse factor speaking quietly near the gate.
+
+“From cargo that dislikes waiting.”
+
+Felix was already moving his gaze.
+
+“Excellent. Private release rates begin before public ones.”
+
+Lentulus said, “You assume corruption too easily.”
+
+“I assume incentives.”
+
+Secundus lifted the broken strap.
+
+“And I assume shortages. Harness men are sold out by noon if this line remains.”
+
+A messenger ran in from the city road, spoke to a clerk, and ran out again.
+
+All six watched the clerk turn pale.
+
+Crispus spoke first.
+
+“What news?”
+
+The clerk refused to answer.
+
+Felix smiled.
+
+“Then expensive news.”
+
+Chresimus studied the man.
+
+“Not death. Debt.”
+
+“How can you tell?” Lentulus asked.
+
+“He fears repetition, not grief.”
+
+Varro stepped closer to the shed.
+
+“Speak plainly.”
+
+The clerk swallowed.
+
+“Serranus was taken to answer charges at dawn.”
+
+The quay erupted.
+
+Felix laughed once.
+
+“There. Missing becomes occupied.”
+
+Crispus’s expression hardened.
+
+“Charges from whom?”
+
+“Provincial merchants. False assessments. Duplicate fees.”
+
+Lentulus adjusted his cloak.
+
+“This becomes political.”
+
+“It was political before sunrise,” Crispus said.
+
+Secundus looked only at the queue.
+
+“Who signs now?”
+
+No one answered.
+
+“That,” he said, “is the shortage.”
+
+Varro turned to the line of carts.
+
+“Drivers will leave soon.”
+
+Felix nodded.
+
+“So buy carts now.”
+
+Chresimus added:
+
+“And buy claims against cargo owners who cannot pay storage.”
+
+Crispus said, “I will identify interim authority.”
+
+Lentulus said, “I will identify who appoints it.”
+
+Felix said, “I will identify who fears it.”
+
+Secundus said, “I will secure fodder and harness.”
+
+Varro stepped toward the queue.
+
+“I will secure movement.”
+
+Chresimus tucked away the tablets.
+
+“I will secure the collector’s ledger.”
+
+Felix looked back once.
+
+“Six men. One absent collector. None of us interested in taxes.”
+
+Varro answered without turning.
+
+“We are interested in what stops when collection stops.”
+
+---
+
+## 2. Choice Presentation
+
+> The collector is gone. Goods wait. Rules blur by the minute. Whose reading of the quay do you trust?
+
+| Choice | Background |
+|---|---|
+| Follow Varro to buy movement before carts vanish. | Former Legionary |
+| Follow Felix to exploit panic and private releases. | Freedman Trader |
+| Follow Lentulus to trace appointments and patronage. | Noble Younger Son |
+| Follow Crispus to seize procedural advantage. | Failed Magistrate |
+| Follow Secundus to secure fodder, harness, and usable transport. | Camp Logistician |
+| Follow Chresimus to uncover debts, ledgers, and hidden claims. | Guild Scribe |
+
+---
+
+## 3. What This Scene Teaches
+
+- Institutions depend on specific people.
+- Revenue systems create queues, rents, and leverage.
+- Corruption can persist until absence exposes it.
+- Delay itself becomes a tradeable condition.
+- Secondary markets (carts, storage, fodder, credit) react faster than officials.
+
+---
+
+## 4. Canonical Success Condition
+
+If the participant stops asking:
+
+“Where is the tax collector?”
+
+and starts asking:
+
+“Who profits while no one can sign?”