imp

— CARRIED —

• dagger (1d4)
• staff (1d4, two-handed)
• spellbook
• folio of door-script rubbings
• charcoal sticks
• reading lens
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Read Languages, Sleep

KNOWN Read Magic, Read Languages, Detect Magic, Hold Portal, Sleep

— WHO THEY ARE —

Jonas is the only person alive who can read Temple Gnomish — the liturgical register, not the trade script Fenwick Drears of the world pick up in smugglers' cellars — and he acquired this distinction the way all his distinctions arrived: by working on something until everyone else stopped. His monograph on the Mulvis door inscriptions has three readers. He can name them. Two are dead and the third is Tilde, who wrote to him eight years ago with a question about a rubbing so intelligent he assumed she was a rival, then travelled two hundred miles to her folding table at a guild fair to be sure. They have argued ever since, productively, about one word. The great door names the shrine's guardian-automaton as that which amends — Tilde reads it as a title of mercy, the machine that repairs; Jonas reads it as a warning, the machine that corrects. Twelve areas of sealed architecture will settle it, along with the four hundred other questions in his folio margins. He is not brave. He wants this stated plainly, and states it plainly himself, at intervals, in a tone people mistake for wit. He is sixty-one, his knees are a chronicle of past fieldwork, and he memorises Sleep alongside the reading-spell because his one prior encounter with living opposition — grave robbers, a salvage site, his fortieth year — taught him that the strongest argument in the field is everyone lying down. What pulls him up the cliff path anyway is arithmetic he does not say aloud: he is the last reader. The script dies with him unless the shrine gives up enough text to make it teachable, and a man who has spent his life on three readers would like, once, to write for more.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 18 events mulvis-restorers-b1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · mulvis-restorers-b1 Automaton closet: six-armed figure stands free on the floor, joints locked, no maker’s mark. Shallow lightning-bolt indentation in the middle of its back — possible liturgical socket, not a signature. Looked with the lens, did not touch. Sleep still memorised. That which amends.
• 2026-08-30 · mulvis-restorers-b1 Automaton closet: six-armed Mulvis guardian stands free, no plinth; six short swords locked in hands; empty purpose-cut lightning-bolt socket in back, no Temple Gnomish on hollow/joints/palms/shelves/robe hems. Broken storage shelves, moldy gnome robes unhandled. Did not seat, did not touch. Sleep unspent. That which amends.
• 2026-08-30 · mulvis-restorers-adv1 Ruined Great Door area, east of automaton closet: rubble past smashed iron gates hid a buried gloop corpse (flies) plus two severed brass automaton hands that animated and attacked when the salvage was disturbed. Both hands destroyed by the party (I landed a dagger hit prying a finger-hinge, took 4 damage clamped to my forearm — dropped to 3/7 hp). No markings/Temple Gnomish found on either hand (Tilde confirmed). Salvage recovered from the rubble: two pearl eyeballs, three golden gears, one brass mechanical voice box — worth checking against the automaton closet's empty socket later. Sleep still unspent; it's useless against these mindless constructs, melee is the answer. The way east into the shrine is now open. I'm hurt (3/7 hp) — should rest or be cautious before pushing further in next time.