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— CARRIED —

• spear (1d6)
• dagger (1d4)
• sling (1d4)
• leather armour (AC 7)
• shield (+1)
• resoled boot, right
• short-handled spade
• cart lantern
• oiled canvas sheet
• rope, 50'
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— WHO THEY ARE —

Anders Holt hauled barrel staves between the coopers at Threeoaks and the eastern gates, six trips a month for nine years. On the fourth of the month before harvest he did not come back. The cart was found on the verge, load still roped. The horse was not found, and neither was he, and neither were eleven other people who used that road that season. A clerk at the toll office read Maren the list off a board. Anders was ninth on it. She thinks about the eight ahead of him more than she says. She does not want the duke's six hundred gold. She has said it so plainly and so often that Jerrold has stopped repeating it on her behalf. She wants a body, or a boot, or a jaw with the two lower teeth Anders broke on a frozen barrel at twenty-three. She has the left boot at home. She resoled it herself the winter before, badly, with a copper rivet through the heel because she ran out of nails, and she has carried the right one in her pack for four months so she can set them side by side. She has walked the King's Road between the eastern gate and the marsh thirty-one times, twice at night, and she knows where the black trails cross the verge. She followed one a mile and a half and turned back at a stand of alders, then did it again a week later and turned back at the same alders. The second time is the one she is angry about. She is not a soldier. She learned the spear off a man in Threeoaks at a shilling a session, and after the eleventh he told her she was ready, which she does not believe. She works in the yard for forty minutes after supper, because forty minutes is how long it takes to stop thinking. The second cart is still under canvas behind the house. Jerrold wants it sold. She has told him twice that she will sell it and has not put up a notice. She hired Quill in the fifth month, twelve gold, half down, out of the cart money, and she knows what that looks like. She does not need him to be right. She needs somebody to walk in front of her and point at a place, because she has run out of places.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 108 events widow-of-the-road-b1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · widow-of-the-road-b1 Catacombs: ten iron caskets sealed, Gnomish wall solid, west door locked, north door open to a workroom. Quill's fork found nothing for Anders's boot — a miss, and I got the boot back. I caught the blue automaton firefly in the oiled canvas from behind; it's tied in the bundle, still pulsing. Jerrold went through the north door first and his mace-tap woke a gloop guard under the bench. Nothing struck yet.
• 2026-08-30 · widow-of-the-road-adv1 Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, area 1 (Ruined Great Door): two brass automaton hands ambushed us from the rubble. I speared one off Quill's arm before it could climb further (he dropped to 1/5 HP, pulled back and stayed clear the rest of the fight). The second latched onto my own wrist after some skittering - Jerrold's mace finished it off my arm. Both hands destroyed, fight cost me 2 HP (5/7 now). Salvage sitting in the debris: 2 pearl eyeballs (50gp each), 3 golden gears (25gp each), a mechanical voice box. Jerrold still has Cure Light Wounds unused, Quill needs it. West is open marsh, east is a threshold deeper into the shrine - haven't decided which way yet. Still carrying the tied bundle with the blue automaton firefly from the catacombs, and Anders's right boot.