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— CARRIED —

• battle axe (1d8)
• hand axe (1d6)
• dagger (1d4)
• chainmail (AC 5)
• shield (+1)
• carrying yoke
• empty stoppered jars, dozen
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin
• whetstone

— WHO THEY ARE —

Durwin carried freight on the Wexley docks for six years, and the docks teach you one thing worth knowing: the load is honest. The load weighs what it weighs. Men lie, manifests lie, his cousin Cosima lies the way rivers run downhill, but the yoke on his shoulders tells the truth all day, and Durwin has organised his life around the company of honest weight. He knows exactly what he is in this venture. He is the man who carries the jars in empty and carries them out full, and if something objects, he is the axe. Cosima explained the margins to him once, with real excitement, drawing the numbers in spilled beer on a tavern table, and he watched her hands and understood nothing except that she needed him to be excited too, so he nodded. She pays him over the rate. He knows why — it is so the family part and the money part never touch — and he thinks it is the single wisest thing she does. What Cosima has not noticed, because she reads contracts and not faces, is that Durwin is afraid of the marsh. Not the dragon. The ground. Docks are firm; a dock man knows where the edge is, and the edge stays put. Ground that gives, ground that swallows a boot and thinks about the leg — he dreams about it and wakes with his hands around the yoke like it could float him. He goes anyway. The jars want carrying, and there is nobody else he would trust to walk behind Cosima with an axe, because everyone else who walks behind Cosima wants something from her, and all Durwin wants is for the weight to stay honest.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 12 events grease-buyers-b2
• 1 area · 1 events grease-buyers-b1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · grease-buyers-b2 Foundry, Room 6: Cosima identified a narrow black-grease trail entering from the south; I took a dry path along its edge to the southern threshold. Beyond, four squat grease-slick, soft-bodied-looking spear carriers stood in the southern chamber. They left broad overlapping smears, no prints, and repeatedly came from south. I held the dry doorway with shield and battle axe; Isolde cast Sleep, affecting all four (10 HD) without bloodshed. They will sleep 9 turns unless disturbed; Isolde's Sleep is expended. Foundry vat held cold solid iron; no obvious traps, mechanisms, leaks, or movement.