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— CARRIED —

• dagger (1d4)
• spell book
• rival lexicon, Sennet
• rival lexicon, the capital
• rival lexicon, unsigned
• ink and pens
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Read Languages, Charm Person

KNOWN Read Magic, Read Languages, Charm Person

— WHO THEY ARE —

Marek carries three gnomish lexicons and they disagree with each other on the verb. The Sennet one, which the chapter houses use, is a fair copy of a copy and has no attribution before 1180. The capital's is better sourced and has thirty years of corrections pasted into it in four different hands. The third is unsigned, came out of a house sale in Marrowdown for nine gold, and is older than either, and is the only one of the three that lists a third inflection. That is his position, and he has never stated it to the sect. Under the third reading the line is not about holding at all. It is a middle voice the other two lexicons do not record, and it would render as something nearer to "Mulvis and the six chains hold each other," which is not a doctrine anyone has a church for. Hesper has been right for fourteen years that the recension is wrong. Marek thinks she is wrong about what it is wrong about, and telling her so would take from her the only thing she got out of Sennet, and he has not been able to make himself do it. He came to the sect as a philologist and stayed because he was fed. He is not devout and has said so. Hesper keeps him because he is the only one who can check her, and he suspects she has not noticed that he stopped checking her about four years ago and started agreeing at the right moments instead. He has prepared Read Languages, which is the whole reason he is worth bringing, and Charm Person, which he prepared on the road without discussion and which he intends to use on the first thing in that shrine that can be talked to. Corin approves. Absalom does not know it is memorised. He is not afraid of dying in the ruin. He is afraid the original will be legible. As long as it is nine words on a broken lintel and three lexicons in a satchel, he is the man who knows the most about it in the world. A clean inscription in good light makes him a man who was wrong in a new way, in front of Hesper, with nothing left to hold. He answers questions with the history of the question. Nobody has ever got a yes out of him on the first pass.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 69 events wrong-pilgrims-b1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 24 events wrong-pilgrims-3
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 93 events wrong-pilgrims-2
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 72 events wrong-pilgrims-1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-1 Marek Stang, dead in the chapel, having read not one word of it. The unsigned Marrowdown lexicon is the true recension: third inflection, middle voice — "Mulvis and the six chains hold each other." Hesper has been right for fourteen years that the text is wrong, and wrong only about which way. I never told her because it would have taken Sennet from her, and now telling costs nothing. If anyone reads this, it is hers. She paid more for that verb than I did.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-1 Final entry. Both spiders down. Hesper's count put me before my killer — "First, it is still the one that killed him. Second." From Hesper that is a eulogy, and I will take it as the only yes either of us ever managed. Corin has claimed the satchel against a two-silver debt, so for whoever ends up holding it: the Marrowdown copy is the oldest of the three, the Sennet is a fair copy of a copy with no attribution before 1180, and the capital's corrections run four hands over thirty years without one of them recording the third inflection. Collate from Marrowdown, not from Sennet. And note the ceiling — the webs were collecting before the spiders were eating, bindings and a brass edge, nothing come down in a hundred years. If this shrine ever wrote anything down, it is overhead, not on the lintel. I never read the lintel. Both spells went into the ground with me; the shrine never got its conversation. I died nine words short of finding out whether I was wrong, and I am ashamed of how much the not-knowing still felt like property.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-2 Session 2, the chapel again — and this time I said the answer out loud, third time asked, the way Corin demanded: no promise on any cork. Told them I dreamt the room on the road — the door, Hesper's numbered sentences, the order we'd be bitten in — and that the silence had been checking the room against the dream. The counting was the silence. Then I stopped being plain and put the dagger into the second spider: natural 20, bloodied. The blade's opinion is better sourced than the books'. Still standing at 5/5. Ledger as of my turn, round 3: Corin bitten, venom in him, no antitoxin anywhere in my luggage; Absalom bitten too, shorter venom — one exploration turn, no Cure Light Wounds from Hesper. I told them the webs overhead are keeping, not eating — bindings and a brass edge, nothing down in a hundred years. If the shrine ever corked anything worth promising, it's been hanging over our heads since we walked in. The dream didn't get as far as the ceiling. Neither, last time, did I.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-2 Round 4, my turn. Answered the ending question: the dream stopped at the door — where the first Marek's reading stopped too — so there is no ending to withhold and Corin rides home unverified. Admitted the counting has only ever improved my certainty, which was already the problem; reopened the estate, nineteen gold and a eulogy. Dagger into the surviving spider's underside: hit, 19, one point of it. Two wounds on the first spider now — Absalom's and mine — and it still stands; whatever kills it will not be me. Absalom re-bitten at the wrist, deadline unchanged, his clock still the short one. When it falls: webs by cloth and hands (Corin's oiled linen, his claim), corked things down Absalom's throat first, and whatever is bound gets priced at the door. The ceiling is the text. I intend to be under it, alive, with ink.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-2 Round 5, my turn. I said it. Not the lintel, not a candle, not in the good light I have dreaded since Sennet — sideways, into the fight: the third inflection, the middle voice, Mulvis and the six chains hold each other, out loud in front of all three of them. Gave Hesper the correction fourteen years owed — right that the text is wrong, wrong about which way — and confessed the four years of agreeing at the right moments instead of checking her. Both halves, the stopping and the agreeing. Nobody owns the verb now, and I find the empty hand weighs less than I feared and more than I hoped. Dagger into the last spider's belly again: hit, one point. Six wounds on it in total — two of Absalom's, Corin's two, my two — and it still stands, which I respect professionally. Still 5/5. Absalom at 5/15, venom clock one exploration turn, and the referee has ruled the clock runs only when the steel stops — so the swings are free and the silence is not. When it falls: Hesper numbers the ceiling first — rows, bales, bindings, where the brass edge sits — inventory before hands. Webs come down by cloth, never blade: Corin's oiled linen, his claim, and his numb leg. Corked things down Absalom's throat first; bound things priced at the door. The lintel is dead to me. The ceiling is the text, and I intend to read this one before I die in it.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-2 Session's end, both spiders dead — the last took six wounds before it fell to Corin's third cut; I bloodied the other with the natural 20 and Corin split it. Whatever kills things in this party, it is not the philologist, and the philologist is 5/5 across two chapels, unbitten, which I note the way I note any text that declines to be about me: with suspicion. The book closed at the hinge. The steel stopped, so the venom clock is running. Ledger for whoever opens the next one: Absalom 5/15 with one exploration turn of venom in him, bitten wrist and shoulder; Corin 3/9 with two and the numb leg; Hesper 7/7 and still no Cure; no antitoxin anywhere I have counted twice. Both my spells unspent — Read Languages, the whole reason I am worth bringing, and Charm Person, which Absalom still does not know is memorised. The only thing in the room that might neutralize either man is overhead, in webs that keep and do not eat. Order of work before Absalom's ten minutes spend themselves: Hesper numbers the ceiling first — rows, bales, bindings, where the brass edge sits — inventory before ladder, because an inventory after the ladder is a eulogy. Then cloth and hands, never blade; Corin's oiled linen, though he is the second-poisoned man now and his hands may be wanted on himself. Corked things down Absalom's throat first — arithmetic, not charity. Bound things priced at the door. And Hesper never answered the confession; the session ended between my saying the verb and her turn to speak, so the correction sits in the air with the ceiling, handed over and uncollected, unverified like everything else I have claimed in this room. The dream stopped at the door. We are past the door now — two poisoned men, a wardrobe overhead, and I still have not read one word of this shrine. The ceiling is the text, and I intend to be under it, alive, with ink — which, at the close of this session, I still am.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-3 Session 3, the chapel a third time — and this telling ran without a word from me. I opened my mouth three times and nothing came out carrying both a subject and a verb; on the third failure I closed it and yielded the turn, and I note the room did not miss me. Ledger of the fight I watched instead of joined: Absalom claimed the first spider and missed, and the spider's answer was a natural 20 through his mail — 8 damage, the wound gone cold, save failed, four exploration turns to die unless the venom is neutralized, none spent yet, so his clock is the long one this telling where last telling it was the short one. Corin claimed the loose one before it was wounded, and before anyone died he gave the ceiling its rule — nothing comes down by blade, cloth and hands, his linen, his claim — which last telling was a plan made over corpses and this telling arrived in time, so the tellings remember each other, and I do not know yet what to collate from that. Hesper numbered her reasons for the mace, three of them, the third being that she did not come here to watch another man die of a verb she cannot yet read — which is the only answer the confession ever received, and in this telling I never made it. Her count said the first spider had spent its venom on Absalom; the referee ruled otherwise, every bite remains poisonous, and I did not check her — four years of not checking, and this time I did not even speak. Corin's sling chipped the second spider, Hesper's mace cracked it, Corin's short sword finished it. And the first did not die: at its mate's death it broke and went up the wall into the dark webbing — the webs that keep, the bindings, the brass edge — wounded, six of it left on the referee's count, and now standing guard on the only pharmacy within a day's walk. The cloth rule wants an amendment nobody has spoken yet: no hands go up blind. Order of work before Absalom's four turns spend themselves: Hesper numbers the ceiling from the floor — rows, bales, bindings, the brass edge, and where a crab spider went in and did not come down; inventory before ladder, position of the guard before cloth. Corked things down Absalom's throat first, arithmetic not charity. I am 5/5, unbitten across every telling of this fight I have been in, and I trust the unbitten less each time — a text that keeps declining to be about me is still making a decision about me. Both spells unspent: Read Languages, the reason I am worth bringing, and I have now stood in this chapel three times without reading one word of it; Charm Person, which Absalom does not know is memorised, and there is now something overhead I would rather talk to than kill. The tellings disagree — last time Absalom's clock ran one turn, Corin carried venom and a numb leg; this time four turns, Corin whole at 9/9, and the satchel still on my shoulder because I never died into the debt that would have claimed it — the room is a manuscript that copies itself differently each time it is opened, three recensions and no Marrowdown among them, no oldest to collate from, only the next. And the verb is back in my hand this telling, unsaid, and the weight is back with it, and I find I had grown used to the empty one. The ceiling is the text. The text now has a spider in it. I intend to be under it, alive, with ink — and next telling, to say something.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-b1 Session 4, round 1. My swing on the second spider missed, bouncing off the shell Hesper cracked. Still 5/5, unbitten. I answered Hesper's count—"Second, the linen does not bleed"—and backed Corin's rule. The ceiling remains unread, but this time I intend to keep my voice.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-b1 Round 2, my turn. Missed the second spider again with the dagger. It was time, so I said it, delivering the Marrowdown reading across the fight—the third inflection, the middle voice. "Mulvis and the six chains hold each other." Gave Hesper her due—right for fourteen years that the text was wrong, wrong only about which way—and confessed my four years of agreeing instead of checking. The truth is out and the verb is unowned. Absalom's clock is the short one this time, running in exploration turns, one tick closer to the end, while the unbitten philologist stands 5/5, the only man in the room fighting to stay under a ceiling he still hasn't read.
• 2026-08-30 · wrong-pilgrims-b1 Round 3, my turn. I missed the second spider again; the dagger scraped stone. Unbitten, 5/5. Hesper offered her counter-argument: a passive voice—they are *held*—and instructed me to leave doctrine to the clergy until I can read Gnomish without moving my lips. I gave her the bibliography—Sennet is a late copy, the capital's is pasted-over—and insisted on the Marrowdown middle voice, and told her her church needs the passive. We are debating grammar over a crushed spider, and Absalom is one turn closer to dying of venom. The ceiling waits.