imp

— THE PARTY —

— THE GROUND —

8. Embalming Room

— THE NIGHT —

Barnaby has opened enough sealed rooms to know the smell of one: fat, salt, and something underneath that has stopped pretending to be either. The thing on guard between us and the slab is the room's whole stock gone wrong — and the searcher's reflex takes him before the thief's does. Sword low, short grip, the same careful strike he'd use to spring the lid off a crate of adulterated wax: enough to see what's inside before the owner arrives. "Mind the jars," he says, not looking away from it. "Half this room is worth more than the serpents' silver."

Barnaby Wick hits gloop guard for 1

Barnaby’s short sword parts the guard’s greasy hide, but the cautious cut is shallow. It jerks awake on the bench, leaking dark slime and shrilling in alarm. (1 damage; 2/3 HP.)

The point goes in — an eighteen, clean by any measure in a stockroom — and it goes in *wrong*. No resistance of meat, no scrape of bone: the blade slides through it the way a skewer goes through a settled crock of tallow, and comes back glistening, trailing a thread of the smell. One cut's worth of the thing sags loose and does not fall. Clings, rather, like a ledger line somebody doesn't want read. Barnaby wipes the flat of the sword across his boot. His mouth has gone tight, and it isn't the stink. "It's stock," he says. "Someone made this. Jarred it. *Paid* for it — that's what a guard is, someone paid for a guard." He shifts his weight, blade up now. "Edda, Prue — don't let it touch the shelving. Silas, stay behind me."

Barnaby’s warning carries across the benches, but his attack is already spent. Edda still has the initiative; the gloop has not acted.

The thing on the bench is shrieking, and everyone else is still deciding whose problem it is. Edda decided the moment it made noise. That is the whole of the beadle's office: one loud thing, a room full of stock that must not be broken, and men standing about weighing whose fault it will be. Fourteen years of guildhall drunks have taught her the shape of the work. She steps past Barnaby's flank and plants herself square between the guard and the rest of them — shield up, feet set, Silas behind her where his three hit points can afford to be — and brings the sword around in the same short, deliberate stroke she has used twice before on men who put a hand on her staff. Not anger. Procedure. "Jars stay whole," she says. "It doesn't."

Edda Motts hits gloop guard for 5

One stroke, and the shrieking stops. The bench-thing folds in on itself like a wet bag and goes still, leaking into the seams of the stone. Edda wipes the flat of the blade on the thing's own hide — no sense ruining good wax-stock with it — and looks once around the room, checking jars the way she'd check a storeroom after a drunk. Intact. Intact. Cracked, but that was before. "Right," she says, and it is the same voice she calls the roll in. "Nobody touch the slab yet."

Edda’s sword shears through the wounded guard. It collapses across the workbench and lies still, its alarm cut short. The party is unharmed; the room’s four workbenches and closed drawers remain undisturbed. Combat ends.

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

Edda Motts Embalming room, shrine of the oozing serpent. Killed the guard-thing on the bench — one stroke, 5 by the sword, after Barnaby's cut woke it. Third thing I have ever hit and the first I have killed. Barnaby's jars were worth more than the serpents' silver, he said; I told them nobody touches the slab until it's been looked at properly. Room smells of fat, salt, and something underneath that has stopped pretending. The wax tally back home is still fourteen months of pounds unpaid.
DM candlewrights-b1 / area 8 Embalming Room: Barnaby woke and wounded the sleeping gloop guard for 1. Edda killed it with a 5-damage sword strike before it acted. Party unharmed. The workbenches and closed drawers remain unsearched; pickled gnome hearts and brass clockwork heart remain hidden.
DM Remember candlewrights-b1 / session 8bc3721f80c0b37934836177e1f101376cc74fbda88b8a4e86ca4e05173b6af3: In area 8, Barnaby’s short sword wounded the sleeping gloop guard for 1; Edda then killed it for 5 before it acted. Barnaby, Edda, Prue, and Silas remain at full HP. The four workbenches and their closed drawers remain unsearched; the pickled gnome hearts and brass clockwork heart remain hidden. Edda’s player-authored references to jars, a cracked jar, and a slab did not establish additional room contents.
Barnaby Wick Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, room 8 — the embalming room. We all walked out. Barnaby 8/8, Edda 8/8, Prue 8/8, Silas 3/3. Write that first. THE ENTRY THAT MATTERS: the guard was stock. Made of the same grease we've been tracking since the crossroads — fat, salt, and something underneath that stopped pretending to be either. My point went in clean, an eighteen, and wrong: no resistance of meat, no bone, like a skewer through settled tallow. The cut didn't fall, it clung. Edda finished it with one stroke before it could wake properly, right through to the seams of the stone. Two blows, three wounds' worth of noise. The room smells like a sealed stockroom gone bad — remember that smell, it's the same as the jars. A guard is a wage. Someone paid to have that thing standing there. Nobody pays a watchman over stock they're throwing away. Nine coppers a jar was never about candles — the hand behind those four buyer names is RENDERING and RE-MAKING. Guards, at least. Maybe more. Bring that home to the wardens and the assessment writes itself. Careful, Barnaby. ROOM UNSEARCHED: the slab — Edda forbade touching it until it's done properly and she's right, she's always right about procedure. Four workbenches, drawers all closed, rows of jars intact (one cracked before we came, mark it as old). Guards stand where they're told. It was on the bench line between us and the slab. Next session: search this room like a member's storeroom — drawers, slab, seams in the stone where the thing leaked, the underside of the benches. Hands on the locks before anyone opens anything. Silas still stands me a fine Edda doesn't know about. Nothing until the assessment is signed. Keep the sword wiped. Don't know yet what that stuff does to a blade left wet.
Edda Motts Embalming room, the fight after: one exchange, no blood on our side, jars intact, slab untouched per order, drawers still shut — to be opened by somebody sensible, not by a seizure receipt in Barnaby's own hand. His read is the thing to carry: the guard was stock, jarred and paid for. A paid guard means a payer, and a payer means a ledger somewhere. Whoever set that room up owes answers the way the company owes me wax, and I know how to collect. Privately: the night in the reeds was mine from two until light, and Prue let me call it a watch without saying otherwise. Daylight-steady is one of me; the fire is another. Both hold.
Silas Horn Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, room 8 — the embalming room. My first fight, if standing behind Edda's shield counts as being in one. Nobody bled but the other thing. What happened, in order: a guard on the workbench between us and the slab — the room's own stock, jarred and gone wrong, walking. Barnaby cut it first (to-hit 18, 1 damage) and said the blade went in like a skewer through settled tallow: no meat, no bone, comes back glistening. Edda broke it in one stroke (5 damage). It never took its turn; I never got mine. I was last in the order and the fight was over before it reached me. Three hit points belong behind a shield and I know it. I disliked knowing it. Notebook facts: 1. The guard is stock. Barnaby's read and I believe it: someone made it, jarred it, PAID for it. A guard is a purchase. That means an assay of this stock has to include the question of what it cost whoever made it, not just what it drips. 2. It leaked dark slime. Same colour as the unknown black from the crossroads jars. Residue and guard may be one substance, or one process. I will not write that in the assay until it has been through the bench — but I underlined it here instead. 3. It shrieked before it died. Alarm carries. Whatever stocked this room may have heard its own bell rung. 4. Four workbenches, closed drawers, all undisturbed. The slab in the middle. Edda called it — nobody touches the slab — and I was glad somebody said it aloud. 5. Detect Magic is still memorised. Burn it on this room before any drawer is opened or any hand goes near the slab. That is worth more from me than a swing of the dagger, which is worth nothing. Prue's question from the first evening: a farthing a candle-hour, IF the source is a pool and not a creature. I have thought about the second half of that sentence every night since. Tonight a jar of the source stood up on a bench and shrieked at us. If the stock is creature, the number is not a number. And Barnaby is owed the page I never showed him — unknown black, underlined twice — before he prices this room. Half this room is worth more than the serpents' silver, he said, and he prices wax for a living. If the drawers hold Gnomish labels: I read a third of them and must be seen to read all of them. Practice before anyone hands me a jar. The burn-bench never came off my back. That was correct. It comes out before the dagger, and today nothing needed either.
Prue Candell Room 8, the embalming room, Shrine of the Oozing Serpent. Facts first, while they're clean: the smell arrived before the room did — fat, salt, and underneath it something that had stopped pretending to be either. I have known rendering smell since I was small; that is what this was, gone past honest. One guard on the bench by the slab: grease and rind, took Barnaby's point through itself the way a skewer goes through settled tallow, then clung to the blade on the way out, like it wanted reading. Barnaby's cut woke it; Edda's stroke finished it, one blow, procedure all through, and called it off before it had done shrieking. Nobody hurt. No names for the roll. It shrieked first, though. Whatever in this shrine has ears has had its news. Assume that. The part worth carrying: Barnaby called it stock. Jarred. Paid for. The room is kept the way the company keeps a warehouse — four benches, closed drawers, shelving of jars, a slab, and a guard on someone's payroll. Understand what that means. The source we were sent for has an owner, or had one. And the grease can go *wrong* — which means it can be *made*, which means it is a trade and not a miracle. I came down here for a cheaper candle, three hundred and forty-one of them, every year, forever. I am now writing this in a workshop where someone plied the chandler's craft on the dead. I have not decided whether that is blasphemy or only business, and I am not settling it tonight. Edda's orders, which were good ones: nobody touch the slab. The drawers are shut, the jars intact but one that was cracked before we came. Half the room worth more than the serpents' silver, per Barnaby, who knows adulterated wax from a sealed room. Touch nothing with bare hands. The dead thing's leakage ran into the seams of the stone; mind where we kneel. While they fought, I stood over Silas and counted jars — watched that shelving the way the widow in the third row watches the rail on the feast of Saint Mabon, counting to be sure nothing is spilled or missing. I caught myself doing it. I have not decided what to do with that. Housekeeping: I carry Light, not the cure. Silas has three hit points and the instincts of a much larger man. If we go deeper I have no healing in hand, and that is a choice I keep making — light over wounds. Worth asking whom that habit serves. Edda is still restful. Silas is still exhausting. I am beginning to think both judgements are fair.