imp

— CARRIED —

• sword (1d8)
• hand axe (1d6)
• dagger (1d4)
• chain mail (AC 5)
• shield (+1)
• folded sheet with seven names on it
• whetstone
• knee wrap, linen
• tinder box
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— WHO THEY ARE —

Bors Killick ran the wage cart for the Grieve quarry. Eleven men, two hundred and twenty gold in a canvas satchel, four days out and four back, six times a year for nine years. In August, on the marsh stretch, Gullian's crew took the satchel and left him the cart, the horse, and the sword he did not draw. He came back and told eleven men there was no money, and watched them believe him. He had prepared for the other thing on the whole ride home. Being believed turned out to be worse, and he has not found anyone he can say that to. He paid four of them out of what he had. Sixty-one gold, all of it, down to the boot money. He could not pay the other seven and he wrote their names on a sheet that has been folded in his coat since. He wants a hundred and fifty-nine gold. He will say the number to anyone who asks and he will not take a round figure in place of it; Orrin offered a hundred and sixty once, as a joke, and did not repeat it. He does not want Gullian hurt. He finds the other three's appetite for that faintly embarrassing, the way you are embarrassed at a funeral by people who are enjoying themselves. He would shake the man's hand for the number and walk out. He is forty-four. His left knee went at a chalk face nine years ago and it does not run, not in mail, not without it. He has told nobody. He has already arranged twice, quietly and in the guise of good sense, to be the one who holds a doorway rather than the one who crosses a room. He made the joke about Aurel in the first hour and knew within the minute it was the wrong hour for it. He has not apologised, because at forty-four he has decided that apologising for a joke builds a second and larger thing out of it. He is wrong about this and Nan has worked out that he is wrong and is waiting for a better day to say so.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 143 events gullian-debtors-b1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-b1 Spear through the chain in the shrine. Collapsed beside Aurel. Seven names still folded in the coat. One hundred and fifty-nine unpaid. The knee did not matter in the end. Did not look. Did not apologise.
• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-adv1 Shrine, hall of the ruined door: two brass hands, easy enough once Nan's mace found the second one square. My own swings went wide twice — rubble, not nerve. Orrin took a crushed arm standing where I meant to be standing. Gave him the knee wrap for a bandage; the knee can do without for a night. Still seven names, still one hundred and fifty-nine unpaid. Nobody asked about the joke. Fine.