imp

— CARRIED —

• sword (1d8)
• spear (1d6)
• dagger (1d4)
• chain mail (AC 5)
• shield (+1)
• company contract, two copies
• wax tablet and stylus
• lantern
• flask of oil
• whetstone
• rope, 50'
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— WHO THEY ARE —

Verity signed two copies of the contract in the duke's clerk's room and read both aloud before she put her name to either. In her second year a baron in the west paid the company in salt: nine barrels, valued at eighty gold, sold for thirty-one. She has never told the current company the exact figure. Coss was there. Coss knows it. The Shrike Company has been five or six people for six years and has buried four. The split is six shares — one each, and one to the chest, which buys replacement mail, sends a body home, and holds the forty gold Damaris still owes on her indenture. Verity draws a single share. Coss has told her twenty times that a captain takes one and a half and that the company expects it, and she has given him the same four words every time — then the company can captain — and neither has moved an inch in three years, and both enjoy the argument more than they will say. Six hundred gold, a cart, two draft horses. She priced it at a hundred a head with a hundred to the chest against eleven days of work, called it good money in front of everyone, then walked down to the crossroads market and bought a jar of scraped grease off a homesteader for two coppers so she could turn it in the light. She has not told anyone what she thought when she saw how much of it there was to scrape. She has read the accounts. They all have. In every one a dragon is killed by more people than she has, and by a man with a name. So her plan is not the open ground. Her plan is doors, a chokepoint, and Damaris's sleep going off in a corridor packed with gloops that cannot back out of it — and she has said the plan out loud twice, to the whole company, specifically so it would stop sounding clever to her. She wants a second company. Ten people, two contracts running at once, a house in Threeoaks with the ledger in it and Una in the room with the ledger. Six hundred gold does not buy that. Eight hundred might, if the duke pays for the gloops as separate work, and she intends to go back and ask, and she will not be embarrassed about asking.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 123 events shrike-company-b1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 1, Sootmurk's Puddle. Held the door instead of the room. Coss in the jamb, me at his right shoulder, nobody waded — all five of us on dry stone, which is the plan I said out loud twice, and it worked: they burned nine of ten actions fishing Gullian out of Damaris's sleep and slapping each other awake. One enemy with nine hands. Threw my spear at Gullian and rolled a 1; it's under three feet of grease and gone. 4g8 to the chest, entered honestly, said the figure out loud in front of everyone. That is the whole point of saying figures out loud. The dragon has not attacked and is laughing at her own captain — she thinks this is theatre. Do not go into open water. Do not light the pool: Lammet, Una, me, on the record, three names. Next round: sword, stay behind the shield rim, let them come to us one at a time.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 2, Sootmurk's Puddle. The dragon lined up on the north door and drew breath, so I broke my own plan out loud and took the wall: full withdrawal behind the east wall of the passage, no attack, sword up, out of the cone. Una called it before I did and I said she was right in front of everyone — that cost nothing and it is the only way the company keeps believing figures I say. Lesson worth more than the spear: a chokepoint belongs to whoever the funnel points at. It was ours against ten gloops; the instant a breath weapon lined up on it, it was hers. Coss was at 8/15 in the jamb and I ordered him backwards and told him he is worth more than the doorway; do not know yet if he listened. Five names on record, nobody lit the pool — if the grease goes up it is her own floor with her own ten in it, and that is what I read aloud to the duke's clerk. Next: fight resumes four feet further back, behind two corners, one at a time, on dry stone. Same plan, worse ground, still ours.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 3, Sootmurk's Puddle. Breath went down an empty corridor — five behind two walls, no saves, nothing in the pot. Una spent her Cure on Coss and rolled max: 15/15, the door is whole again. Then I called the withdrawal out loud, at the same volume as the plan I said twice. Lesson, and it is the real one: a chokepoint only works on something that WANTS through it. She doesn't. She sits in her own bath with two breaths left and waits for us to get bored and step into the straight. Grinding 4hp gloops off Coss's shield earns nothing while the thing with the hoard is untouched — we have taken zero points off her in three rounds, Damaris is empty, Una is down to Protection from Evil, Lammet at 7/10. Not losing; cannot win. Different words, did not blur them. Order out: Damaris, Lammet, Una, then Coss and me last — I act last in the round, so she moves before my feet do, and that is the only advantage I've had all morning. Nobody lit the pool: five names, three rounds, held. Report for the clerk: dragon located, breath counted at three, ten guards disarmed, captain broken at 5hp hiding under her, and the black in the west road traced to this room. Five out, five back. Ask for eight hundred — gloops and the road as separate work, and do not be embarrassed. She'll be under the hill next month; come back with ten people and a plan that isn't a door.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 4, Sootmurk's Puddle. She did not spend the second breath — she spent a Sleep, round both corners, 40' diameter, and took Coss off his feet in his own plate without leaving her bath. Lesson, and it is bigger than the door lesson: stone stops fire, not voice. Corners were never cover; they were a shorter cone. Una said it before I did, again, and I said so out loud, again — that is twice she has been right against the whole company's opinion in one morning and both times it cost me nothing to say it and bought everything. Una also gave the number nobody wanted: Damaris 40, Lammet 30, Coss/Una/me 20, and the straight is 35 to be behind stone. Three of five cannot cross in one round. 'Go on her exhale' does not buy the slow half a crossing. So I stopped defending my second plan too: not corners, not the straight — the IRON. Spent my whole turn heaving the east leaf shut from behind it, condition stated before the dice: if it can't be moved without standing in the open line, I abandon and take the wall. A shut leaf answers both her weapons at once — no cone, no line of sight for a Sleep, no hearing which corner talks — and then ten gloops have to HAUL A DOOR to reach us, one at a time, with the corridor at our backs. Took it myself because I'm 19/19 in the best armour with the least to do; said out loud it is not brave, it is the cheapest body. Damaris is round the bend with the book and ordered not to come back for anyone. My spear is in guard 10's hands now — 4g8, entered, theirs, and nobody's arm goes in that pool for it. Zero damage taken by the company that Una hasn't already repaid; zero taken off Sootmurk. Five names, nobody lit the pool, four rounds. Next: if the leaf shuts, Coss and Una walk out on their own feet, Lammet past the bend, me last. Ask for eight hundred. Next time the door gets closed first.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-b1 Round 5, Sootmurk's Puddle — session ended, five out of five, and not one point taken off her. Final ledger: she spent one breath of three on an empty corridor and one Sleep on a man behind a wall, and Una paid back every point the company lost. I got the east leaf into its stop from behind its own face; Coss took the west on the very next turn because he acts FIRST in the round and I act LAST, and that is the arithmetic I want written down — the order of turns is a weapon, and I had been using it wrong all morning by hoarding it for myself. Give the door to whoever moves before the dragon does, not to the captain. Lessons, ranked: (1) stone stops fire, not voice — corners are a shorter cone, not cover; (2) a chokepoint only works on something that WANTS through it; (3) iron in a frame answers a cone AND a spell AND an ear at once, so the door gets closed FIRST next time, before anyone stands in the funnel; (4) state the condition before the dice — every one of us did it this fight and the referee ruled instead of us guessing, and it saved Lammet from ending a turn in the straight; (5) movement rates are the real map: 40/30/20/20/20 with a 35' crossing means the slow half of the company can never cross a killing line in one round, and 'go on her exhale' does not buy them a thing. Una was right three times against the whole company and I said so out loud three times; it cost nothing and it is why they believed the figure when I said we were leaving. Cost: one spear, 4g8, entered honestly, now in guard 10's hands and theirs to keep — nobody's arm went in that pool for it. Five names on record that nobody lights the pool, held all five rounds; she lit her own doorway with ten of her own standing in it and it did not even catch. Report for the clerk: dragon located and measured, three breaths counted, spells confirmed, ten guards disarmed and refusing dry stone, Gullian broken at 5, and the black in the west road traced to this room. Go and ask for eight hundred — gloops and the road as separate work — and do not be embarrassed. Then ten people, two contracts, a house in Threeoaks with Una in the room with the ledger. She'll still be under the hill next month. Next time: doors first, then a plan that isn't a door.
• 2026-08-30 · shrike-company-adv1 New encounter, Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, Room 1 — Ruined Great Door. Two brass automaton hands out of the rubble, fast, no fear. One went for Damaris and missed; the other went for me and bounced off my shield with a clang before I ever swung. Fight was over in one round without my sword touching anything — Coss bloodied the first, Damaris's Magic Missile (one dart at 3rd level, not two — noted and corrected by the table) finished it, Lammet whiffed on the second, Una's mace flattened it. Five out, zero damage taken, salvage in the rubble: two pearl eyes, three gold gears, a brass voice box. Lesson: not every fight needs the door plan. Sometimes the company is just faster than the thing that jumped first. Stay alert for more hands nesting under that gloop corpse — Una called it, she's now three-plus for three for being right out loud before anyone else. Onward past the rubble path.