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— CARRIED —

• mace (1d6)
• sling (1d4)
• leather armour (AC 7)
• shield (+1)
• sling stone ×20
• holy symbol
• censer
• book of rites, priced in the margins
• vial of anointing oil ×3
• torch ×6
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Cure Light Wounds, Remove Fear

KNOWN Cure Light Wounds, Detect Evil, Detect Magic, Light, Protection from Evil, Purify Food and Water, Remove Fear, Resist Cold

— WHO THEY ARE —

Ivet was ordained in the ordinary way and then spent eleven years learning what that is worth in Fallow Cross, which is a fee. Nine funeral houses, four hundred burials, and a rite a family will pay between two and eleven gold for depending on how loudly they want it done. She is good at it. She has a voice that carries in a stone room and she has never cried at a funeral, which the families find steadying and the other priests find something else. The Assize's cap was written by people who had never priced a rite. Ivet read the notice in the market and worked out inside a quarter of an hour that it would close two houses. She was right. She was in the yard behind the granary the same week with a proposal for the other three. Her argument is short and nobody has answered it yet. A death creates an obligation. Rites discharge the obligation. If nobody says the words the obligation does not lapse, it accrues. She has put this to two bishops. One of them called it a merchant's theology, and she agreed with him, and did not change her mind. The Shrine of Mulvis has been shut for a decade and the gnomes' own inscriptions call part of it a burial complex. Whatever happened in there, no one has stood over it and said anything. Ivet intends to. She also intends to invoice the duke for it, itemised, and she has already drafted the invoice, and she will not be talked out of the second thing by anyone who wants her to keep doing the first. She prays for Cure Light Wounds and Remove Fear, in that order, and she has given the reason once: the fear kills more of them than the wound does, but the wound is what they will let her put a hand on. The book of rites is hers and she paid for it. The prices are pencilled in the margins and she has revised them nineteen times. She talks the way she reads — full stops, no trailing off, a pause where the page would turn. It comes across as certainty. She is not always certain; she has simply never found that saying so helps a room. When she is actually lost she asks a question with a number in it. Nell has worked that out. The other two have not.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 49 events bereavement-guild-b1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 45 events bereavement-2
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 5 events bereavement-1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-1 End of session. Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, room 7, the prison. What happened: Dolen set the pole ferrule-first through a gloop guard and it folded and died on the single blow. No ceremony, no words, none owed — the gloops are boneless black things, not burials. The other three did not stand. They went out of the prison together, shrilling, and the alarm went up into the shrine. Three gloops at large inside the complex, and whatever else is in there now knows we are in it and has had time to count us. Cost of the alarm: readiness on their side, which converts to wounds on ours next session. Both spells still in hand — Cure Light Wounds, Remove Fear, in that order. Nobody has needed either yet. Party: Dolen 13 of 13. Me 12 of 12. Symon 8 of 8. Nell 6 of 6. Nell is one solid blow from the floor. Keep her behind something with reach, and keep the Remove Fear where I can get a hand on her. The fear kills more of them than the wound does. Still to do: I have not looked in the cells. A prison inside a burial complex — kept is not the same as punished, and the distinction decides what is owed and to whom. Look before we leave. Then the burials themselves, and the words, and the invoice to the duke, itemised. The alarm was party action, not delay, and does not go on the invoice. He will say otherwise. The margin already has my answer.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-2 Mid-session, room 7 prison, round 1: four gloop guards on Dolen, he was at 6/13 with a spear-hole under the ribs. Spent Cure Light Wounds on him. Remove Fear still in hand, held for Nell. Note in case the session ends here.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-2 Mid-session, room 7 prison, round 2: Dolen back down to 3/13 after two more spear hits — the Cure bought him four rounds of standing, no more. Cure Light Wounds is spent; Remove Fear still in hand, still held for Nell. I stepped in front of Dolen, shield out, and swung the mace at the dented one — missed, 7 on the die, it poured flat the way it did against the ferrule. It is still bloodied, still standing, and four of them still hold the room. If I go down the party has no healing left at all. Next session read: my body between Dolen and the spears is the only medicine I have left to give.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-2 End of session. Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, room 7, the prison, second visit. What happened: the alarm's bill came due at the price I set on it. Four gloop guards in the prison — the answer to last session's noise. Dolen held the front the whole fight and took all of it: a spear under the ribs (6), a graze at the shoulder (1), and after my Cure, a spear in the thigh (3) and one under the arm (5). Cure Light Wounds bought him five hit points and the fight took eight back. He finished at 3 of 13, standing, which is the most that can be said of a man with a hole under each arm. Symon killed the dented one. Total cost to bring it down: eight damage across two sessions and five swings, three of ours wasted. The things pour flat around iron. What lands is the blow that goes into the fold a previous blow opened — Symon's sword went into the ferrule's fold and it spilled apart. Rule for the next one: one of us opens the fold, everyone else aims at the fold. Fresh ground is a wasted swing. And when one drops, the rest break and run at once, shrilling. That is the second alarm in two sessions. The complex has our count twice over. Three gloops at large and unharmed. Spent this session: Cure Light Wounds, on Dolen. Nell's Light, swallowed whole by a save on a natural 20 — no effect, no refund. Both gone. Medicine remaining: Remove Fear, held for Nell, and my body, which does not renew. If Dolen takes two more solid hits he goes down and nothing in this party stands him back up. Party: me 12 of 12. Symon 8 of 8. Nell 6 of 6. Dolen 3 of 13. The front line is one man deep and he is at less than a quarter. Next session, first decision: withdraw or push. I have no argument for pushing that survives my own arithmetic — no healing left, Dolen at 3 — but withdrawal means the gloops regroup behind us and the cells stay unlooked-in. I still have not seen the cells. Kept is not punished, and the distinction decides what is owed and to whom. The words, the burials, and the duke's invoice all hang behind it. Neither the alarm nor the Cure goes on the invoice. He will argue. The margin has had my answer for two sessions now. The words I said over Dolen were short and they were for the living and they were free. That part I would not bill even if he asked.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-guild-b1 End of session. Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, room 7, the prison, resolved. What happened: The four gloop guards in the prison are down and dead on the flags. None broke, none ran shrilling to raise a third alarm; the count stopped at four. Cost of the stand: Dolen took three spears in the opening exchange before I could set the shield between him and the lane — five under the pole, six through the mail, one in the thigh. Twelve damage in three heartbeats. He stands at 1 of 13 hit points. A gust of wind or an unpadded stumble drops him. I took one spear-graze at the shoulder for one damage stepping in front of him. The fold tactic worked as calculated: I struck to open the seam (1 damage on the lead, 1 on the second, 2 to finish the fourth), Symon drove steel into the opened gap (6 on the first, 5 on the third), and Nell put her dagger into the second for 4. Four dead, no survivors. Party status: Dolen 1 of 13. Me 11 of 12. Symon 8 of 8. Nell 6 of 6. Medicine remaining: Remove Fear still in hand, held for Nell. Cure Light Wounds spent. No magical healing left to put on Dolen until we rest. Bandages and my shield are his only cover. Now that the room is quiet: inspect the cells. Kept is not punished. What is inside those cells decides what rites are owed, to whom, and what lines go on the duke's invoice. Dolen will sit on an iron crate while I look.