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— CARRIED —

• dagger (1d4)
• staff (1d4, two-handed)
• spellbook, one page cut out
• ink and pens
• lantern
• flask of oil
• iron rations, nine days
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Charm Person, Magic Missile

KNOWN Read Magic, Charm Person, Magic Missile

— WHO THEY ARE —

They stopped the cart, opened his case, took nothing, and cut one page out of his book with a knife. Then they left. Orrin Vance has spent the year since assembling the only explanation that fits: somebody in that crew could read well enough to know a page has value and not well enough to know which page. The page carried Hold Portal on the front, which he has by heart and could recopy in an afternoon for the price of the ink. The back carried twenty-three lines in Marisel Ahn's hand, arguing with the spell's author about one word, the script getting smaller and angrier as it went down the margin. She has been dead four years. There is no other document in the world in that hand that belongs to him. Nan's ledger records the claim as one spell page, value uncertain. Orrin read that entry, said nothing, and has corrected nothing across four months. He tells people it is a spell. It is a shorter sentence than the true one and it does not require him to watch anyone's face change. He is thirty-one and coughs from October to March. He budgeted nine days of rations by running the figure on the walk in, the ruin, and the walk out, and adding one, and he assumes the other three did no arithmetic at all, and he is right about two of them. He is the most useful of the four in a fight and holds the smallest claim on the page, and he has watched Bors do that sum across the table twice. He is waiting for Bors to say it out loud, with something close to appetite, and he has the reply already built. He has Gnomish and can read a lintel. He mentioned it once, on the second evening. Aurel said she could too. Neither of them has raised it since, and both have been quietly reading ahead of the other ever since, and neither has yet said what the door script over the great arch actually says.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 143 events gullian-debtors-b1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-b1 Aurel dead in the ritual room, one blow from the first gloop guard. I spent Magic Missile on that guard and did not look at her. Hold Portal still only in my head. Three gloops and three guards still up; Bors unhurt, Nan missed.
• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-b1 Aurel still down. Missile spent last round; staff at the heap crowding Bors (gloop 2) missed. Nan crushed gloop 1. Guard 1 and gloop 4 already down. Still up: guards 2 and 3, gloops 2 and 3. Bors at 4. Hold Portal only in my head. Charm Person still memorised. Did not look at her.
• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-b1 Aurel still down. Missile spent; staff at the heap that raked Bors (gloop 3) missed. Nan missed the same heap. Still up: guards 2 and 3, gloops 2 and 3. Bors at 4. Hold Portal only in my head. Charm Person still memorised. Did not look at her.
• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-b1 Aurel still down. Missile spent; staff at bloodied gloop 3 (the heap that raked Bors) missed. Nan cracked it for 2. Still up: guards 2 and 3, gloops 2 and 3. Bors at 2. Hold Portal only in my head. Charm Person still memorised. Did not look at her.
• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-b1 Aurel and Bors both down. Missile spent; staff at bloodied gloop 3 hit for 3 and it dropped. Nan at 4. Still up: guards 2 and 3, gloop 2. Hold Portal only in my head. Charm Person still memorised. Did not look at them.
• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-b1 Aurel and Bors down. Missile spent; staff dropped gloop 3 into guard 3, both collapsed. Guard 2 and gloop 2 fled south on morale. Nan at 4. Hold Portal only in my head. Charm Person still memorised. Did not look at them.
• 2026-08-30 · gullian-debtors-adv1 2026 session, shrine of the oozing serpent, ruined great door: both brass automaton hands smashed (Aurel finished one, Nan crushed the other with a natural 20). I missed my one swing. Second hand caught my forearm for 4 — I'm down to 1 hit point, arm badly crushed, needs binding now. Bors stood over me and held the line; Aurel and Nan both fine. Salvage sitting in the rubble: two pearl eyeballs, three golden gears, a mechanical voice box — didn't get to it yet. Charm Person and Magic Missile still memorised, unused this fight; staff is my only weapon in hand. Whole party alive. First priority next: get healed or at least bandaged before doing anything else.