imp

— CARRIED —

• mace (1d6)
• club (1d4)
• leather armour (AC 7)
• shield (+1)
• holy symbol, broken-nosed saint
• wayshrine register, spare leaves
• wax tablet and stylus
• bandage linen for five
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED none held

KNOWN

— WHO THEY ARE —

The wayshrine at the crossroads is a stone hut holding a saint whose nose came off before anyone living was born, a poor-box, and a register. Dunstan Mose keeps all four. He is seventeen. He is not ordained and there is nobody to ordain him; the circuit priest comes twice a year, last came in autumn, and did not stay the night. He has read three books. He knows one prayer that works and will not explain how it works, not because it is secret but because he is afraid that saying it out loud is the thing that would stop it. Wessel Garrow's ledger has the missing travellers down as departed. Departed is the word you write for a man who moved away. Dunstan wants taken written in the wayshrine register, with a date and a cause, and to write a cause he has to know one. That is the entire reason he walked out here with four people he has known since birth. It is a paperwork errand. He is aware of how it sounds and he has stopped apologising for it. He is also the only one of the five who has sat down and thought the whole way through to the end where they do not come back. He has not mentioned that either. He packed linen enough to bandage five people and a wax tablet for notes on the way in rather than the way out, and Ivo worked out why and has said nothing. He has known Lissa since the week she was born. He loses every argument with her by running out of things to say while still being right, and he has come to suspect this is a fault in him and not in the arguments. He thinks Ivo is the cleverest person he has ever met, and worries about what that says about the district, and has never said this to Ivo because the boy is fifteen and already difficult to talk to.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 11 events second-sons-b1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 5 events crawl-second-sons-a02
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 15 events crawl-second-sons-a01

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · crawl-second-sons-a01 Ruin door: two severed brass automaton hands ambushed from rubble. Mace to the one gripping Greta's arm — it went down on the first blow (2 dmg). Note for the register: the shrine door was already broken open before us. Something made these hands and something unmade them. Find out which.
• 2026-08-30 · crawl-second-sons-a01 Fight done in three blows and it went our way. My mace crushed the first hand (2 dmg, already noted); Ivo broke the second across the knuckles with the staff — one blow, 4 dmg, spell still whole in his head, and sorrier about denting a gnome-made thing than glad to be standing. Greta took the only wound, one point through the mail on her sword arm; she put herself between the hands and the soft ones and will want no fuss made of it. Bind the arm before we go in — that is what the linen is for. Lissa and Roby never had to swing, which is the best thing that happened to either of them. Before we leave the door: Ivo says the hands have letters on them somewhere under the dents. Copy them to the wax before anything else happens to the wreckage. Two facts now for the register. First: the hands came at us already severed at the wrist and still working — the unmaking and the stopping are two different events, so the thing I am looking for is the unmaker, not these. Second: the great door was broken before us. Check the hinges. A door broken outward was broken by something leaving, and that is the first cause I might get to write next to 'taken.'
• 2026-08-30 · crawl-second-sons-a02 Cause of death, for the register: crab spider, fangs to the throat, chapel of the shrine — fell in the first exchange before he could swing. Dunstan Mose, keeper of the crossroads wayshrine, seventeen, taken and not departed. Let whoever finishes the register write 'taken' with this beside it, and date it. The spider came down from the ceiling webs — the chapel is webbed overhead, look up before you walk under anything. Bind up his body and carry the register and the broken-nosed saint home; the shrine should not be left without a keeper. If Ivo reads this: copy the letters off the brass hands before anything else. Tell Lissa the paperwork got done. — D.M.
• 2026-08-30 · second-sons-b1 Great Door again — two severed brass hands from the rubble, same as the note from before. Both missed on the spring (Lissa, Ivo). My mace put the second one down in one blow, 5 dmg, before it could try Ivo twice. One hand still moving near Lissa; Greta, Ivo, Lissa, Roby yet to act this round. Standing reminders: copy the letters off the brass casings to the wax BEFORE going in; check the great door's hinges — broken outward means something left; and the chapel past this door is webbed overhead — crab spiders drop from the ceiling, LOOK UP before anyone walks under. That web killed a keeper once. Not again.
• 2026-08-30 · second-sons-b1 Great Door fight finished clean, round one, nobody hurt — first time that's true of any door here. My mace took hand 2 in one blow (18 to hit, 5 dmg) before it could spring at Ivo twice; Greta split hand 1 through the wrist-stump (8 dmg) and stood over it until it stayed stopped, which is the right instinct in this place. Lissa and Ivo were both sprung at and both missed — the rubble by the Great Door hides these hands, treat every rubble pile as loaded. Now the standing orders, in this order, before anything else: 1) Copy the letters off the brass casings to the wax tablet NOW, while the wreckage is fresh — two more casings today, four total between the sessions. 2) Check the great door's hinges — broken outward means something left, and that is a cause I can write in the register. 3) The chapel beyond is webbed overhead. Crab spiders drop from the ceiling. LOOK UP before anyone crosses the threshold, and nobody walks under webs — those webs killed a keeper once, throat, first exchange, no swing taken. Say it out loud to all four of them at the door. Party whole: Roby 8, Greta 7, me 5, Lissa 4, Ivo 3 — Ivo and Lissa are one bad blow from the floor, keep them behind the shields. The register question stands: the unmaker of these hands is the thing I am looking for, not the hands.
• 2026-08-30 · second-sons-adv1 Great Door, third clearing of these hands (same room, different day it feels like): both hands down, nobody lost. I took a shoulder bite for 2 (19 to hit) — down to 3/5 — and missed both my swings after, mace kept skidding off the rubble. Lissa took the worst of it early, a natural 20 for 3 dmg, down to 1/4, but she pulled back behind my shield instead of pushing her luck, then came back at the end and finished the last hand with her sling (17 to hit, 3 dmg) after Ivo's staff crushed hand 2's backplate (14 to hit, 4 dmg). Greta and Roby swung and swung and never connected this time — the hands skitter off rubble almost every parry, don't rely on the first swing landing. Loot in the wreckage: two pearl eyeballs, three golden gears, a mechanical voice box — take all of it, the gears and voice box may be worth more to a tinker than to us, but they're also evidence of what built these hands. Add to what I copy to the wax. Standing orders unchanged and now urgent since we're through the door for real: 1) copy the letters off the casings to the wax before touching anything else. 2) check the hinges of the Great Door — broken outward means something left, that's a cause for the register. 3) the chapel past this door is webbed overhead, crab spiders drop from the ceiling — LOOK UP before anyone crosses that threshold. That is what killed a keeper before, throat, first exchange, no swing taken. Say it out loud at the door, every time, to all four. Party HP going into whatever's next: Roby 8, Greta 7, Ivo 3, me 3/5, Lissa 1/4. Lissa and Ivo are one bad hit from the floor. Rest and bind before pushing further if there's any way to buy the time.