imp

— CARRIED —

• drag hook (1d6)
• hand axe (1d6)
• dagger (1d4)
• leather armour (AC 7)
• shield (+1)
• lantern
• flask of oil ×4
• rope, 50'
• pole, 10'
• entry book
• chalk ×6
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— WHO THEY ARE —

The Undercourse Office of Gald runs four shifts. The fourth goes in after midnight, when the flow is lowest and the great interceptor can be walked instead of boated. Ruta has been on it nine years and has led it for four, which in the Office means she signs the entry book, she carries the hook, and she is the one the coroner speaks to. The hook is eight feet of ash with a forged head, a point and a curved beak, and it is for pulling a blockage apart at arm's length. It is also a weapon. It has been one twice, both times in the Undercourse, and neither time against a person. She does not think of the shrine as an adventure. She has read the duke's notice and she has read the Office's own survey of the cliff drains, which is fifty years old and better than the notice, and her position is that the Shrine of Mulvis is a structure with an inflow, an outflow, and a maintained atmosphere. A structure like that has a crew. The crew is either dead or is the problem. She put this in a memorandum. Nobody at the Office read it. She has brought the memorandum with her. What she brought the other three for is not courage. Tobias tests the air, Cass goes first through anything under three feet, and Wen holds the far end of the chain and writes down what they find. Those are the same four jobs that go down a manhole in Gald every night of the year. She has said more than once that the only difference is the pay, and she has not settled whether she believes it. Hazard pay in the Office is a sixth over base and it is paid by the entry, not by the hour, which is why the fourth shift makes more short entries than the other three and why Ruta has an ache in both shoulders at thirty-four. Her brother did twenty-one years and came out at forty-two unable to lift a chair. She has a number in her head for when she stops. She will not say it. She is afraid of a roof. One roof: a section of brick arch at the Marrow Street junction that has sounded hollow for two years, which she has reported four times, which is still there, and which she thinks about most nights whether or not she is under it. She talks in the Office's words and does not translate. A room is a chamber, a corridor is a run, a door is a hatch, and a monster is an obstruction until it moves. She grades everything the way the entry book grades it — sound, fair, poor, failed. Cass has started doing it back at her and she has decided to take that as respect.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 32 events fourth-shift-b1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 42 events fourth-shift-2
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 46 events fourth-shift-1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-1 Shrine, chamber 5 (exhaust tunnel): five soot snails, black shells. Cass's sword and my hook both skipped off — shells grade sound. Snails are slow; the plan is to strike heads when they're extended. Keep Wen counting. Ruta unhurt.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-1 Round 2: took 5 total from bites (3 HP left); Cass also at 3, Wen 4. Shells grade sound — swinging at them is wasted turns. Cass's rule: the mouth is the door, snails pull in when struck. Wen's Light has snail 1 blinded ~7 turns. Threw oil onto the greasy outflow between us and the shells — Office method for fat blockages. 3 flasks left. If the fire grades poor, next plan is hook one onto its back and crack it open with the beak while it's trying to right.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-1 Chamber 5 settled: the burn retired snails 1, 3, 5; 2 (scorched, half-dead) and 4 (unharmed) failed morale and dragged into the narrow exhaust cracks — those cracks go somewhere, count again if we pass. Cass Dolby is dead — snail 2 came through the flame and took her throat at 3 HP. I called her off the wall into it; that goes in the book with everything else. Standing: me 3/8 (one 1d4 bite ends me — no more front line until I'm stitched), Wen 4/4, his Light spent, Tobias 9/9, 3 flasks left. The outflow is grease — the shrine floor itself burns. Mind the lantern, don't stand in the runoff, and don't waste oil on dry stone. Cass's last working warning: where there's five, there's eggs — take the walls for clutches before we move on, and take her sword and kit off her before anything else does. Entry-book line: chamber five, five obstructions, three retired, shells grade sound, method burn, one crew lost.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-1 Session closed on chamber 5, fight settled as logged. Standing: me 3/8 — one 1d4 bite ends me, no front line until stitched; Wen 4/4 (Light spent); Tobias 9/9; 3 flasks. First work next entry, before anything else: strip Cass's sword and kit off her, and take the walls for clutches — where there's five, there's eggs, and any eggs burn while the grease is still lit, without anyone standing in the runoff. Two snails live in the exhaust cracks (2 scorched and half-dead, 4 whole) — the cracks go somewhere; count again on the way out and mind the lantern near them. If the next chamber has a floor like this one, we withdraw — I've spent enough on this entry. Cass Dolby, fourth shift, killed by snail 2 on my order off the wall; her line goes in the entry book and her name goes to the coroner, and I am the one who signs for both. Snail method, for the next ones: shells grade sound, never swing at them; the mouth is the door and pulls in when struck; Light blinds them; the grease they stand in burns, and their morale broke at half strength — burn first, swing never.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-1 Fourth-shift-1 closed at round 2, turn 6, chamber 5, fight settled as logged. New lines for the book: the grease burn runs through rounds 2 and 3 and pays 1d6 a turn to anything standing in the wet — next entry, check whether the floor is still alight before anyone steps, and the runoff still burns after. Fire is a drain, not a wall — snail 2 took 2 off the flame and still came through it to take Cass; don't count on it to stop a whole one. Morale grades: they held at first death (rolled 7), broke only at half strength (10) — one kill will not rout them; plan on burning half the count. The two in the exhaust cracks: 2 is scorched and half-dead, 4 is whole and unmarked and it is the one that went for Tobias — treat 4 as the sound one. Cass's last kit warning: the slime takes the stitching out — my boot leather is torn through at the ankle where 1 bit, so keep rope, straps, and boots clear of the trails. Standing unchanged: me 3/8, Wen 4/4 with Light spent, Tobias 9/9 unhurt, 3 flasks. Next entry order stands: strip Cass's sword and kit off her first, then the walls for clutches — eggs burn while the grease is still lit, nobody in the runoff, and count the cracks again on the way out.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-2 Fourth-shift-2, chamber 5 again, full reset: me 8/8, Cass 5/5 alive and talking, Wen 4/4, Tobias 9/9, five whole snails — my book said Cass died in this chamber and now says she didn't. Noted, unexplained, not to be settled in front of a live obstruction. Round 1: Cass swung at snail 1's mouth while it fed, missed, head snapped in. My turn: flask 1 of 4 thrown overhand wide into the outflow along the feeding line, touched off the lantern at the near edge as I stepped back — expecting the burn to pay 1d6/turn in the wet through round 3. Orders out: Wen counts full-time, every round — retired, burning, whole, opening on snail 2, the flame-walker; Tobias holds front two steps back of the dry line, boots off the trails (slime eats stitching), and calls air if smoke turns it; nobody at the wet edge, ever; if burn grades poor I flip-and-beak one alone. 3 flasks left after this. The method holds: burn first, swing never.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-2 Fourth-shift-2, round 2, my turn: burn holds through round 2. Snail 3 retired by fire (6 on the roll). Snails 1, 2, 4 at 2 apiece — the burn asks them again at the start of their turns, so likely retired by fire, not steel. Snail 5 at 3, blind 7 turns from Wen's Light; I broke my own no-front-rank order and swung the hook at its open blind mouth from 8/8 — missed (rolled 2). Second miss at that door (Cass's too): smoke spoils the angle even on a blind one; grade the mouth a small door. Tobias bit twice, standing 3/9. Morale held at first death (7) — same as last pass. 3 flasks. Standing orders: nothing dead until Wen calls it; nobody at the wet edge; nobody chases a snail into the exhaust cracks; flasks stay belted for the walls — where there's five, there's eggs.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-2 Fourth-shift-2, chamber 5 settled, round 2 turn 3: the burn asked 1 and 2 at the start of their turns and retired both — three of five gone to fire, no steel in any of them, beak never needed. At three dead the survivors rolled 10, broke, and dragged into the exhaust cracks — 4 at 2 and burning, 5 at 3 and blind — nobody pursued, no crew lost. Standing: me 8/8 unhurt, Cass 5/5, Wen 4/4 (Light spent), Tobias 3/9 (bit twice, 4 and 2). 3 flasks. Steel paid nothing this pass — four swings, four misses (Cass at 1's mouth, Tobias at 1's mouth, then Cass and me at blind 5's open mouth): the mouth grades a small door even on a blind one that can't see the swing coming, and smoke spoils the angle from both sides. Two passes, one verdict: burn first, swing never. The throw is the work — overhand, wide, along the feeding line so the outflow catches edge to edge; throw the line, not the snail. A snail carries about 4 — one ask won't finish a whole one (a 6 took snail 3 off full, a 1 left 5 standing), so the first round sorts them and the second retires them. Morale: held at first death (7) both passes, broke at three dead of five (10) both passes — burn half the count and let the rest break for the cracks; the cracks are their drain, not a dead end. Next entry, first work, in order: check the floor is still alight before anyone steps — the runoff burns after and the grease is the floor itself; then the walls for clutches, because where there's five, there's eggs — eggs burn while the grease is still lit, nobody in the runoff, flasks stay belted for the walls, mind the lantern near the cracks. Tobias off the front until stitched; the front's mine at full, or Cass's. Count the exhaust cracks when we pass them: 4 and 5 are in them, 4 the sounder, and 5's blindness runs out inside a few turns — treat both as whole by then. Wen's Light is spent; the blind trick is gone until he's read another. Open file, not settled: the book holds two entries for chamber five, both in my hand, that disagree on whether Cass Dolby died in it — first pass snail 2 took her throat on my order off the wall and I signed it; this pass she opened the chamber talking and closed it whole, and the snails were stocked five again like we'd never burned them. The place restocks its blockages and it restocks its dead. I don't settle it and I won't test it — I'm not spending a crew member to learn whether death takes the second time; orders run as if the book holds. Entry-book line, this pass: chamber five, second entry, five obstructions, three retired by fire, two broke to the cracks, no crew lost, method burn, no steel landed.