imp

— CARRIED —

• dagger (1d4)
• staff (1d4, two-handed)
• spellbook, one copy, oiled wrap
• ink and three quills
• wine list with numbers on the back
• candle, 6
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Sleep, Magic Missile

KNOWN Read Magic, Sleep, Magic Missile, Shield, Detect Magic

— WHO THEY ARE —

The chest bought Damaris out of an indenture to a lamp-chandler in Threeoaks. Forty gold, three years ago. She has repaid eleven of it and would repay the rest tomorrow if Una would take the money, and Una will not take the money, and Damaris has slowly worked out that the forty gold is the thing holding her to the company, and that she does not entirely object to being held. She has three spells worth anything in a fight and one of them is sleep, and she is the only one here who has read enough to know exactly what sleep will and will not touch. It will drop a corridor of gloops. It will do nothing whatsoever to Sootmurk. She said this to Verity once, plainly, in eight words, and Verity said I know and did not change the plan, because the plan was never for the dragon. Her book is one book. If it burns she is a woman with a dagger and eight hit points. A second fair copy is thirty gold of vellum and five weeks of her hands cramping, and she has said after this job four times now. She has read four accounts of dragons being killed and copied the numbers onto the back of a wine list: nine, twelve, six, and a company. In three of the four, the man who struck the killing blow is named and titled. In the fourth he is not named, because he did not come out. There are five of them. She has shown the wine list to Lammet and nobody else, and Lammet whistled and handed it back and has not mentioned it since, which she took as agreement and now suspects was manners. She wants a room with a door that locks and a window, in a town, with the book on a shelf and no cart anywhere in it. Not soon. She has costed it at roughly two hundred gold and eight more contracts. She is twenty-six and thinks that is a fine and sensible timetable, and somewhere around the fourth day out from the crossroads she will stop thinking so.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 123 events shrike-company-b1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 1, Sootmurk's Puddle: spent sleep on the five doorway spears from the dry threshold. Grease is three feet deep and they breathe at the waterline — if the spell takes, they drown themselves for us and nobody has to light the pool. Coss holds the door. One magic missile left and the dragon is still watching. Did not step off the stone.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 2, Sootmurk's Puddle: spent magic missile on Gullian from the threshold, both darts, no save, no miss. Said the numbers out loud first because four people were telling me when to spend it. Book is empty now — dagger and eight hit points behind Coss's plate, and that is where I stay. Five names on the line that says nobody lights the pool; mine matters most because I'm the one who could. Sootmurk laughed at her own captain. Note that. It means she does not value him, which means killing him buys us nothing from her, which means the wine list still has no line for this room."
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 3, Sootmurk's Puddle: she lined up on the north door and drew breath, so the door stopped being ours. Una said it first, Verity said it second and admitted she'd been wrong, Coss went backwards. I went east — behind the far wall from the plate, book under the arm on the off side, one copy. Empty spellbook, eight hit points, and the correct action was five feet of stone. Note for the wine list: the fifth account will say nobody lit the pool and that she lit her own floor with ten of her own in it, and Gullian under her back legs begging. Note also that this company argues out loud and then obeys inside one round, which is worth more than any of my three spells.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 4, Sootmurk's Puddle: Verity called the retreat and put me first out. Went north up the east side at a run, book on the wall arm, hand never on the floor — cooling grease takes skin. Asked the referee for the one number nobody had: how long is the straight. Forty feet is a round of my legs; if the passage is longer, then walking out is standing in the cone slowly, and the third in the queue eats the second breath. Said the plan in four words: go on her exhale. She has two left, and the only safe rounds in this room are the ones immediately after she spends one. Note for the wine list: we took nothing off her and lost nothing to her, and the fifth account's first line is hers — she lit her own doorway with ten of her own in it and it did not even catch.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 5 never came: Sootmurk's Puddle ended with two iron leaves shut and five of us alive north of them. Entries, in the order they cost something. (1) I asked for the one number nobody had and got it — thirty feet to the bend — and calling it back down the passage was worth more than either spell I spent. Say the distance out loud; a corridor is arithmetic, not courage. (2) The rule I had wrong for four rounds and will not have wrong again: stone stops her breath, stone does not stop her voice. She put a Sleep round both corners and took Coss off his feet without leaving her bath. Cover is directional. Spells are not. (3) Movement is the true initiative. Forty for me, thirty for Lammet, twenty for Coss and Una and Verity. I cleared the bend in one round because I am quick and empty-handed, and every plan I make from now on gets costed at the slowest pair's legs, not mine. (4) Verity corrected her own plan out loud, at the same volume she gave it, and Una was right three times against the whole company. Note that this outfit argues and then obeys inside one round. That is the asset. (5) Doors. Iron in a frame answers the cone AND the word, and Verity and Coss each spent a whole turn being a hinge instead of a sword. Two leaves, two actions, first and last in the round. Write that down for the next dragon. (6) I did not come back to count them. Told to stay round the bend and stayed, book on the wall arm, one copy, and it walked out of the hill. Wine list: nine, twelve, six, and a company — and now a fifth line that says five, and five again, and not a point taken off her and not a point of ours lost to her. It is not a kill. It is a report: it is not blood, it is not tar, it does not dry, it comes out of that room, it runs into a road carts use. Second fair copy of the book, thirty gold, before the next contract. I have said after this job four times. Five.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-adv1 Ruined Great Door, shrine of the oozing serpent: two brass automaton hands from the rubble. Correction on the books, costly to learn twice: at my level Magic Missile is ONE dart, not two — I'd been running the old assumption since Sootmurk's Puddle. Ruling stands now, so plan every future missile as a single d4+1-equivalent bolt, not a pair. Also confirmed the obvious: no pulse, no lungs, brass doesn't sleep. Sleep is dead weight against constructs same as it was against the dragon — my one soft-target spell only works on things that breathe. My missile went wide on the first cast (roll of 9), staff swing was moot, but the bolt still landed clean second try for 6 and dropped the hand. Coss fronted me the whole fight, book-arm against his back, and the company took zero damage — Una and Coss and Lammet did the real work while I had exactly one working spell to spend. Salvage: two pearl eyes, three gold gears, a voice box. Worth something on top of whatever this contract pays — ledger toward the two-hundred-gold room with the door that locks.