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— CARRIED —

• short bow (1d6, two-handed)
• dagger (1d4)
• leather armour (AC 7)
• arrow ×20
• thieves' tools
• rope, 50'
• tinder box
• iron rations, one week
• waterskin

— THIEF SKILLS —

CLIMB SHEER SURFACES 87%

FIND/REMOVE TREASURE TRAPS 10%

HEAR NOISE 2-in-6

HIDE IN SHADOWS 10%

MOVE SILENTLY 20%

OPEN LOCKS 15%

PICK POCKETS 20%

— WHO THEY ARE —

Three of the four originals are accounted for. Bael Hurn is in the ground under a stone the town paid too much for, Mother Sorrel died in her bed, and Ilve Danneth went blind at sixty and lives in two rooms behind the Vigil house and receives visitors on Thursdays. Kitt Ivy left Kelmarch in 1191 and nobody has heard anything since, and the Vigil's official position is that she is dead. Wilha stands for her. She is the only understudy whose original might walk back in. It has shaped the whole training. The other three were taught by people who watched the originals work; Wilha was taught out of a notebook, because Kitt Ivy left one and did not leave anything else. Forty pages. Half of it is lock work and half of it is a personal ledger that nobody has ever explained to Wilha, and there is an entry on page thirty-one, four months before Kitt left, that reads "paid B. — settled" with a figure large enough that Wilha has never asked anyone in the Vigil what it means. She is fast. That much is real and not rehearsal — she has the hands, everyone says so, and the Vigil moved her up two grades at fifteen. What she has never done is any of it under weather. The Field's locks are the Field's locks and she has picked them eleven hundred times and knows the click of every one by ear, and she has understood since she was about twelve that this is not the same skill and has not been able to get anyone to agree with her. She does everything twice. Once fast, once slow, which is how the Field grades it: the fast pass is the mark and the slow pass is the proof. Out here nobody is grading her and she does the slow pass anyway, and it costs the party time, and Petra has decided not to mention it. She is afraid Kitt Ivy is alive. Not of meeting her — of the news getting to her. Of a woman somewhere hearing that Kelmarch sent four children to a ruin in her name and thinking whatever she would think. Wilha has invented that thought in about nine versions and none of them are kind.

— AT THE TABLE —

• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 12 events understudies-b1
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 14 events understudies-2
• 2026-08-30 ·1 area · 22 events understudies-1

— WHAT THEY REMEMBER —

• 2026-08-30 · understudies-1 First weather: two brass hands on the ruined door. Fast nock, slow aim, arrow skipped a finger-joint into the dark. Tace found the wrist-seam; Petra took one and finished the last. Doorway ours. Petra 6/7. I have not been graded.
• 2026-08-30 · understudies-2 Door again. Hands missed Petra twice. Odo took the first at the seam; Petra scored the second, Tace finished it. Bow nocked, never loosed. Party whole. Still not graded.
• 2026-08-30 · understudies-b1 Third telling at the ruined door. Both brass hands rose whole again; Odo broke the left and Petra pinned the right before my turn. He asked whether we remembered. Petra said yes; I do too—every threshold, every shot not taken. Party whole. Rubble still glints with salvage. Repetition is not proof if the lock resets itself.