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— CARRIED —

• sword (1d8)
• dagger (1d4)
• chainmail (AC 5)
• shield (+1)
• torch ×6
• rope, 50'
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— WHO THEY ARE —

The sect has four members and Absalom is the one who cannot read. He wants that stated first, because everyone works it out inside a day and he would rather say it than be handled around it. He was a drover. Fourteen years on the stock roads between Threeoaks and the eastern reach, which is work that suits a man who is content to be alone and strong, and he was doing it the summer the Amended came through preaching in the sale yards. Sixty of them then. Four now. He walked in because a woman on a cart said that a single verb had been copied wrong for two hundred years and that everybody in the yard was praying to the wrong shape of a saint, and nobody in that yard could tell her she was mistaken, and Absalom found he could not stop thinking about a room full of people being wrong in a way none of them could check. The line is nine words long. In the standard recension it reads that Mulvis holds the six chains. The sect's copy, taken off a broken lintel at Sennet, reads that Mulvis is held by them. One inflection. Either the saint is the jailer of the thing under the shrine or the saint is its fellow prisoner, and every other thing the church teaches sits on top of that verb. Absalom hopes the original says what the church says. He has never said this to the other three and he is fairly sure Hesper knows anyway. If the standard reading holds, then he was taken in by a woman on a cart at twenty-six, and he has lost fourteen years, and he can go back to the stock roads with an apology owed and nothing else spoiled. If the amended reading holds, then Hesper is right about everything, and he will have to be the man who guarded the truth, and he does not think he is built for that job. He is not afraid of the shrine. He is afraid of Marek, quietly and without evidence: the man reads all four hands, he has never once said which reading he hopes for, and a man who will not say is a man who has an answer. He speaks slowly and rarely and asks people to repeat things, and he is not slow — he has learned that if he asks twice he does not have to ask a third time in front of strangers. He remembers spoken words exactly. He can give you the nine words in gnomish, sound for sound, without knowing which one is the verb.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 69 events wrong-pilgrims-b1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 24 events wrong-pilgrims-3
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 93 events wrong-pilgrims-2
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 72 events wrong-pilgrims-1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-1 Marek died in the chapel to the second crab spider; satchel slipped, three lexicons on the flagging, Marrowdown one open at the verb. He never reached the lintel. I did not look. First spider still my job.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-1 Both spiders down. My point glanced on the first; Corin’s stone finished it. Hesper crushed the second into the torn pages, one leg hooked in the Marrowdown spine. I did not look at Marek. I did not look at the books. Corin’s words, exact: nobody wipes on the books; webs left standing, nothing comes down by cutting, cloth and hands; nobody picks a book until it’s lifted off a dead man’s hand, or a dead spider’s. Two silver from the library. Doorway still clear. Lintel still unreached. Four came in. Three breathing.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-2 Bitten twice, down to five. First spider still mine; sword clipped a leg then missed twice. Corin put the last one through. Marek’s words, exact: the line is not holds and not is held; it renders Mulvis and the six chains hold each other, middle voice, Marrowdown, unsigned, nine gold. He stopped checking Hesper four years ago and started agreeing. Hesper still has no Cure. Ceiling unverified, cloth and hands, Absalom’s throat first. Clock one exploration turn. Four still breathing. Lintel still unreached.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-3 Poisoned, seven hit, four exploration turns unless neutralized. First spider still mine: missed, then five through the shell, it at six. Corin killed the second; the first broke and ran up the wall into the dark overhead webbing. Combat ended. No exploration turn elapsed. Corin’s words, exact: nothing on that ceiling comes down by a blade; cloth and hands, when the steel’s done; my hands. Hesper’s: I did not come here to watch another man die of a verb I cannot yet read. Every bite remains poisonous. Ceiling unverified. Lintel still unreached. Four still breathing. Marek yielded.