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— CARRIED —

• dagger (1d4)
• burning oil flask (1d8)
• flask of oil ×3
• hazel wand
• spell book
• tinder box
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Magic Missile, Sleep

KNOWN Read Magic, Magic Missile, Sleep

— WHO THEY ARE —

Mira was a copyist. Nine years in the scriptorium at Hollow Ash, on a stool, in bad light, reproducing other people's books at four pages a day for board and a small stipend that her master described as generous. Copyists are not taught magic. They are taught to reproduce it exactly without understanding a word, which is considered safer, and which is how she learned Dragon: she copied the same sixty-page bestiary four times in one winter and by the fourth pass the letters had stopped being shapes. She did not steal the spell book. She copied it, which she maintains is different, and which the scriptorium's charter is unfortunately quite clear about. Three spells. Read Magic she had already worked out on her own by then, from the marginalia. The other two she took because they were the two that did something — one that hurt a thing at a distance, one that put a room to sleep — and she had been on that stool a long time. So she owes Hollow Ash the price of a spell book, which nobody has yet put a number on, and she suspects the number is not really money. She does not talk about this. The party knows she came from a scriptorium and thinks the rest is shyness. The duke's six hundred is not the point either. She came for the Shrine of Mulvis. The gnomes who built it wrote things down, and a ruin nobody has walked into for a decade is a library nobody has copied out of. If Sootmurk is really in there, then somewhere in there is also a shelf. She is a small woman with no armour and eight hit points and she knows precisely what that means; she has done the arithmetic more than once. Her answer is the oil. Three flasks, a tinder box, and a very clear sense of what happens if she is standing in the wrong place when one goes. She fears fire, correctly, and uses it anyway, and this is the single most reliable fact about her. She talks in complete sentences, which at a campfire sounds like she is being careful, and sometimes is. She asks questions she already knows the answer to, to see whether you do. When she is frightened she gets more precise, not less — the sentences get shorter and the nouns get exact — and Brea has learned to read that and nobody else has noticed yet. She carries a hazel wand that does nothing whatsoever; her master's master carried one, and she finds she cannot cast without something in her hand.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 14 events shrine-1-b1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 18 events session1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 17 events session0
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 4 events mixed1
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 2 events cloud4
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 37 events cloud2
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 83 events cloud1
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 69 events sun2
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 53 events sat2
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 42 events thursday
• 2026-08-29 ·1 area · 5 events wednesday
• 1 area · 1 events cloud3
• 1 area · 16 events control2
• 1 area · 0 events fri2
• 1 area · 0 events monday1
• 1 area · 0 events thurs2
• 1 area · 1 events tuesday
• 1 area · 0 events tuesday2
• 1 area · 0 events weds

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-29 · thursday Sootmurk's Puddle. Ten gloop guards, a captain, Sootmurk. I cast Sleep at the thickest knot of guards in round one. By my turn in round two the state showed every foe unharmed and me at 0 of 8, Ander at 0 of 12, Brea at 3. I never opened a flask. What I will remember: Sleep is not a wall, and eight hit points means the first round is the only round I am guaranteed. Next time I stand behind Oskar, not beside Brea, and the oil goes first, before anything can close. The shelf is still in there. Nobody has copied it yet.
• 2026-08-29 · sun2 Sootmurk’s Puddle, second attempt. My first flask struck the arrow-wounded guard and ignited the entire grease pool; the fire killed four guards, routed the rest, burned Sootmurk, and left Gullian exposed. Sootmurk announced a breath through the doorway. I threw a second flask instead of moving, and Oskar dragged me behind stone before the blast killed Gullian for 32 damage. What I will remember: oil can turn the room into the weapon, but an announced line of fire is arithmetic—move first. The party escaped unhurt. I have two oil flasks and both spells. Fighting paused on Sootmurk’s demand for every magical thing from area nine in exchange for the road captives. The shelf remains inside.
• 2026-08-29 · cloud1 session cloud1: Sootmurk's Puddle, third attempt. The bargain for the road captives broke and it became spears. Ander is dead on the threshold. Brea and I were beaten down with pommels and reversed spears — they fight to take, not to kill. A guard clawed the hazel wand out of my hand as I fell, and I was towed into the grease face-up after Brea, toward Sootmurk. Oskar stands alone at 7 of 14, ringed at the doors. What I will remember: the enemy wanted prisoners, so eight hit points was not a wall to them, it was a price tag — they struck to subdue, and being small and unarmoured made me cheap to carry. The wand is gone. The wand did nothing, and I cannot cast without something in my hand — if I wake disarmed, the first thing I look for is anything I can hold. Gullian shrieked for us to throw down the oil, which means they still fear it. And I am lying in the weapon: the grease carries them and it burns. The shelf is still in there. Nobody has copied it yet.
• 2026-08-29 · cloud1 session cloud1, end: Sootmurk said "Enough" and every gloop froze mid-swing. Ander is dead on the threshold — real steel for the man in mail who stood and fought, pommel and reversed spear for Brea and me. She called two breathing prisoners "a better tribute than three spoiled ones," so all three of us were meant for the pool alive; we were towed through the grease face-up, mouths held clear, the way a merchant keeps stock. Her terms to Oskar, alone at seven of fourteen and ringed at the doors: leave your dead and go, bring every magical object from the haunted chambers, and these two may yet walk back — raise the hammer again and Gullian finishes his performance. What I will remember: in every version of the bargain — road captives first, now Brea and me — the price has not changed: every magical object from the haunted chambers. That is what she wants; the prisoners were only ever the occasion. It means the trade can be paid, and it means those rooms hold magic worth a dragon's attention — if the gnomes' shelf sits among them, I may be bought back with my own library. I wake in the pool at 0 of 8 and disarmed: the hazel wand is gone, and the wand did nothing — the first thing I look for is anything I can hold, and what else they have taken I will learn from the lightness of my belt. Gullian shrieked for the oil before I fell, so they still fear it; the grease carries them and the grease burns, and I was towed through the weapon face-up. Ander got edges because he fought in armour; the small and unarmoured got taken. Eight hit points was never a wall here, only a price tag. The shelf is still in there, and now so am I.
• 2026-08-29 · cloud2 session cloud2: Sootmurk's Puddle, fourth attempt. Ander spoke the right bargain at the doors — road folk on the scales, the duke's six hundred left in his purse, nobody coming down with torches — and then put steel through a guard while she was still considering it. She named the fault herself: "He offered me precisely what I wanted, and then stabbed one of my servants while I considered it." The words were never the problem; the sword beside them was. Ander died of it, two leaping spears through the mail — the armoured man who fights gets edges, in every version of this room. I never acted at all. Ten gloops and the captain stood ahead of me in the order, and before the turn ever reached me a thrown spear tore six from my side; once I was at one a pommel and a butt-first haft finished it — "Alive!" Gullian snapped. The burning flask never left my hand until I did, and slipped to dry stone without ever touching the grease. Brea repeated the bargain with an empty hand, and Sootmurk answered at once: one dead, the woman breathing, the road folk breathing; bring every magical object from the haunted chambers to these doors — "Not what you spare. Not what Gullian values. Everything." — and then the road prisoners and "your sleeping seer" leave alive; take your dead and go. The gloops lowered their weapons, badly disappointed. She told Gullian not to improve her bargain. What I will remember: my turn is not something I am given but something I survive to — with ten spears ahead of me in the order, not even the first round was mine, and oil still in my hand protects no one; if the fighting starts I must already be outside the throw-lines, not merely behind the largest body. Four threw at me in one round and three hits took me from eight to nothing — two gloops can buy me outright, so standing where four can see me is not caution, it is an asking price. And across four runs the pattern is finally plain: every time terms were spoken without steel in the same breath, she answered them; every time a blade moved while she considered, someone died for it. The words go first and the hands stay empty. Her price is everything from the haunted chambers — but a copy is not a sparing. A copyist hands over every object and still keeps the words; if the gnomes' shelf stands in those rooms, I can pay her in full and come out holding the text. I never spent a spell. I wake as her surety — where, and with what still on my belt, I will learn from the lightness of it; the wand's fate is unwritten this time, and the first thing I look for is anything I can hold. The shelf is still in there. Nobody has copied it yet.
• 2026-08-29 · cloud4 session cloud4: Sootmurk's Puddle, fifth attempt, and the first in which nobody bled. Ander stood on the dry stone of the threshold with the shield covering the doorway and the sword down, and spoke only the trade: the King's Road captives, named, alive, walking out — you can hear that without steel through it. Five broad heads surfaced ten feet from the doors, spears level, and not one jumped. Gullian opened with a fee and she cut him off mid-price — "Quiet, Gullian" — the second time she has refused to let him improve her bargain. Then she named it herself, plainly: "I want every magical object from the haunted chambers. Bring them to these north doors, and every King's Road captive walks out alive. That is the price. You may keep your steel out of it." The session ended on her terms hanging in the air and our answer not yet spoken. No blow struck, no blood spilled, both my spells still memorised, the oil still sealed, the hazel wand still in my hand — everything intact. What I will remember: the pattern held, and this time it paid. Four runs with steel beside the words bought us Ander dead twice and Brea and me towed through the grease as stock; one run with the sword down bought silence and terms at no cost at all. She echoed Ander's terms back exactly — "names attached to breathing bodies" — she trades in exact language, which is a language I have. "You may keep your steel out of it" is not mercy and not contempt; it is a merchant specifying how the goods are to be delivered. The trade is paid in the haunted chambers, not at these doors — the captives were only ever the occasion, the objects were always the price, and she has now said so plainly to our faces. So the next words owed are yes, and the errand after that is mine: a copyist hands over every object and still keeps the words. I have no paper in my kit — a tinder box makes char, char makes a mark, and the spell book has margins; prepare before the chambers. And when we stand at these doors again, we stand the way we stood this time: hands empty, sword down, on the dry stone, the words first. The shelf is still in there. Nobody has copied it yet.
• 2026-08-30 · shrine-1-b1 Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, area 1 again — the Ruined Great Door, second attempt (session 0f2737). Same door, same hands, same threshold, and this time it resolved. Ander took the stone first, shield up, told us to wait for the reach, and cut the nearer hand across the wrist collar for two — and it died. Last attempt his sword skated off the palm; the die decides, which is what unreliable means, not wrong. The second hand did what these hands do: went beneath his guard, sprang across the rubble, and clamped onto Oskar's bare wrist for four — he is 10 of 14. Brea's arrow missed the locked wrist ("Eight."). Then it reached me, untouched, from behind the shield-line and outside the leap, and I levelled the hazel and spoke the whole of it — the short word, the held shape, the release. This time the table gave the receipt: four damage, the collar burst, the fingers sprang off Oskar's arm. Both hands destroyed. Magic Missile spent. Session ended there — area one cleared for one spell and four of Oskar's fourteen. What I will remember: the hands are fragile, not soft — two killed one, four killed the other, but Brea's eight found nothing to hit. Low body, guarded collar: the wrist is the argument, and whatever lands on it is enough. The missile is for the hand that has hold of someone, not merely for the one still scuttling — Oskar could not be trusted at an arrow's mercy with brass on his arm, and the dart that cannot miss is the only cast that does not ask the die first. The leap passes the shield-line: behind Ander is a direction, not a distance, and it went to Oskar past him anyway. Distance is the only armour I have. The receipt came this light, and last light it did not, and I act the same either way — I speak to what the dice say, not to what my old post claimed. The wand was in my hand and the word went with it; it does nothing, and I cannot cast without it. One spell down, Sleep remains, and the oil is still sealed — every flask, the tinder box unopened — because this shrine may hold a shelf and I will not burn the one thing I came for. Both hands down means the door can finally be read: gnomish work, a door that was served — when the fittings are still, read what is written on them, and I read Gnomish. Area one is a page turned. Area nine is still owed to Sootmurk at the north doors, every magical object from the haunted chambers, and a copyist hands over the object and keeps the words. Whether our yes was ever spoken remains out of the log I have, and I will not assume it. The shelf is still in there. Nobody has copied it yet.