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— CARRIED —

• dagger (1d4)
• spell book
• rubbing paper ×12
• wax crayon ×4
• lettering chisel
• chalk ×6
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Floating Disc, Light

KNOWN Read Magic, Floating Disc, Light

— WHO THEY ARE —

Nell cut letters into stone for the memorial trade for six years before anyone told her the letters did anything. Fallow Cross buries a great many people and a share of them get a slab, and the slabs are cut to a pattern book older than the town. Some of the older patterns are not decoration. Nobody in the yard knew that. What they knew was that pattern eleven was awkward, took a day and a half, and cost extra. She got it out of repetition, the way anyone gets a language out of a bilingual stone. Pattern eleven appears on nine slabs in the old ground at Fallow Cross and on one lintel in a cellar under the corn exchange, and the lintel is doing something the slabs are not, and the difference between them is four strokes. Two years to be sure. Another to do it herself. She has never had a master and her education is uneven because of it: she can read a burial formula older than the duchy and cannot reliably read a shopping list in Gnomish. She moves the dead. That is the spell she leads with and the one she is best at, and in a town with nine houses and a nine-gold cap, a woman who can float a body down a stair without six bearers is either a saving or an insult depending which house you ask. Merrow's bearers refused to work a burial alongside her. Dolen was one of the ones who refused. Neither of them has raised it since the Guild formed. Both of them remember. She wants the Shrine of Mulvis because the gnomes carved their dead into the walls and she has seen two rubbings and cannot read either one. Not the fee. She told Ivet that the invoice is Ivet's business and the walls are hers, and Ivet agreed to a division neither of them expects to hold. She is quiet in a way people take for agreement, and she does not correct them. When she disagrees she goes still, and then says the objection two minutes later, whole, after the decision has been made. That habit has cost the Guild once already. She has not broken it.

— 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 Room 7 of the shrine, the prison: gloop guards are black and boneless. Dolen set his pole like a bier, ferrule-first on a count of three, and killed the first in one blow, six deep — the other three broke and bounded out of the prison shrilling an alarm into the shrine, so the house knows we are inside and those three are alive, unharmed, loose. Killing one gloop broke the rest, and it also rang the bell; weigh that before the killing starts next time. Party whole (Dolen 13, Ivet 12, Symon 8, me 6); I never took my turn, so I still hold Floating Disc and Light — Light to a thing's eyes blinds it unless it saves, and the dagger is only for being cornered. The prison is unsearched and the dead gloop lies where it fell — guards carry keys, and a boneless thing may have swallowed them. Before we chase anything down that alarm, I want the walls: gnomes cut their dead into walls, I carry twelve sheets and four crayons for exactly that, and the walls were my share of this job from the start. And say the objection while the decision is still open, not two minutes after — push or withdraw, whichever it is, say it out loud at once.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-2 Bereavement-2, Room 7 again, and the dice went otherwise than I remember: Dolen's opening ferrule only dented gloop-1 (2 deep), all four guards stayed to fight, and as of round 1 no alarm has rung — my memory is a record, not a prophecy. Dolen took two spear wounds (7 total), Ivet spent Cure Light Wounds on him, he stands at 11/13. My turn: cast the memorised Light straight at gloop-1's eyes — blind it if it fails its save, then Dolen and Symon finish it, since a dead guard broke the rest last time. Still hold Floating Disc; dagger untouched. Spoke the call out loud while the decision was open, as I meant to.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-2 Bereavement-2, after my round 2 turn: the Light is spent and gloop-1 swallowed the glare (made its save on a 20) — it has since shrugged Dolen's ferrule, Symon's sword, Ivet's mace and my dagger (missed by two, needing 11). Learnings: wounding one gloop does not break the rest — they all stood and fought on when one was dented, where last time a death broke them. So it is the killing, not the wound. Dolen 3/13, Ivet 12/12 with no closing words left, Symon 8/8, me 6/6 and now inside spear reach with a drawn dagger — the thing I said was for being cornered has made me cornered. Still no alarm rung. If gloop-1 drops this round the others may break and run, and running means the house hears it: either let runners go and take the walls after, or be ready to move the instant one dies. Floating Disc still memorised, unused.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-2 Bereavement-2, how it ended: Symon's sword opened the dented fold and gloop-1 died — it took Dolen's first ferrule (2) and Symon's six, so call it near eight to drop a guard. The kill broke the rest exactly as before: three fled the prison shrilling the alarm, so the house knows we are inside and three guards are alive, unharmed, loose in the shrine — they may bring the next ones to us. Dolen stands at 3/13 after four spear wounds; Ivet's Cure Light Wounds is spent and there are no closing words left in anyone, so there is no mending in the party and Dolen is three breaths from a slab. Symon 8/8, me 6/6. My Light went into gloop-1's face and it folded flesh over the glare and swallowed it — saved on a 20; Light is spent, Floating Disc still memorised, dagger drawn and missed once. Confirmed twice over: a wound breaks nothing, the kill breaks them all — and the kill is what rings the alarm; there is no having both, so choose before the first blow on the next floor. The journal is a record, not a prophecy — same opening as last time, other dice, a fight a round longer for it. Before anything else: the dead gloop lies where it fell and the prison is unsearched — guards carry keys and a boneless thing may have swallowed them; cut it open here, or float it on the disc and cut it behind a shut door, which is what the spell is for if a gloop counts as a body. Then the walls, mine by the division with Ivet: the alarm has started the clock, so read the walls first and take the best two or three rubbings rather than a full set — twelve sheets, four crayons, and be ready to walk. Dolen at three means the living outrank the walls. I said things out loud twice this fight while the decision was still open — the Light call, and 'one swing then get behind her' — keep the habit, it held.
• 2026-08-30 · bereavement-guild-b1 Bereavement-b1, Room 7: all four gloop guards killed in the room — Symon took 1 and 3, Ivet took 4, and I put the dagger four deep into 2 after Ivet cracked the seam. Morale held both checks (6 and 5), so none broke and none ran — no alarm shrilled, the shrine does not know we are inside. Dolen took 12 damage in the first rush and stands at 1/13 HP, one breath from a slab; Ivet at 11/12, Symon 8/8, me 6/6. Both spells still memorised (Floating Disc, Light). Next: search the four dead gloops for keys before they settle into the stone, check the prison cells, then the walls — twelve rubbing sheets and four crayons ready. Dolen at one means no reckless forward steps.