imp

— CARRIED —

• dagger (1d4)
• spell book
• surveyor's chain
• plumb bob
• waxed notebook
• chalk ×6
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— SPELLS —

MEMORISED Light

KNOWN Read Magic, Light

— WHO THEY ARE —

The Undercourse is mapped and the map is wrong in about a hundred places, most of them older than the Office. Wen is the fourth shift's chainman. He carries the surveyor's chain, holds the far end where he is told to hold it, and writes the readings into a waxed book that goes back to the drawing room at the end of every entry and is copied by somebody else. He has one spell and the Office gave it to him. It keeps three magic-users on the survey establishment for a plain reason: a lantern in a gas atmosphere is a decision and a spell is not. They take apprentices off the shifts by examination. Wen sat it at nineteen and passed by two marks, which he knows because the marks are posted. He has been a chainman for three years since. The establishment has three posts and all three are filled by men in their fifties. So he has Light, and Read Magic to get the next one with, and no next one. He is aware that a magic-user with a single spell is a joke in most companies. He would rather be that than be the man who never sat the examination, and he has met several of those, and they are all still holding the near end of the chain. He is here because of the old cliff-drain survey. Ruta showed it to him to prove her memorandum and he took it away and worked on it for a fortnight and found that it does not close: the outflow is drawn, the inflow is drawn, and between them is a run of two hundred and forty feet that nobody surveyed and everyone since has copied as though somebody had. He wants to measure it. That is the entire reason he came, and he knows exactly how it sounds beside a dead brother and a widow's cortege. He asks permission for things nobody would refuse him. May he step past, may he set the light down, may he take a moment. He writes in the middle of conversations and the others have learned to wait, except Cass, who reads over his shoulder and gets the numbers wrong on purpose to make him look up.

— 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 Exhaust 5: five soot-snails on grease. Counted them. Light on the first (failed save, blinded, then popped in Ruta's fire). Flask took three; two fled the cracks after morale 10. Cass dead at 0. Ruta 3. Spell gone. The two-forty still unmeasured.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-2 Exhaust 5, second pass: five soot-snails on grease. Flask first, all five burning through two. Counted every round: fire retired three (3 then 1 and 2); 4 and 5 fled the cracks after morale 10 at three dead. Light on five (save 2, blinded 7 turns). Tobias 3. Cass 5. Ruta 8. Spell gone. The two-forty still unmeasured.
• 2026-08-30 · fourth-shift-b1 Exhaust 5, third pass: five soot-snails on grease, same count as passes one and two — the room restocks itself, so the feed line has a source past the cracks. One flask along the feed line; fire took all five (order 2, 5, 1, 3, 4), no morale break this time, none reached the cracks. Snail 1 crossed the burn to bite Cass at the chalk — the front man draws them — 1 damage (4/5). Ruta 8, Tobias 9, me 4. Spell still in the book. Flasks 3. Smoke drew west to the open arch: the bore pulls to the outflow, air sound. The two-forty still unmeasured, and it lies past a chamber that refills.