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— THE PARTY —

— THE GROUND —

1. Ruined Great Door

— THE NIGHT —

automaton hand 1 hits Greta Halloway for 1

A severed brass hand snaps from the rubble and clamps onto Greta’s sword arm. Its iron-hard fingers bite through the mail for 1 damage. Greta has 6/7 HP.

automaton hand 2 misses Greta Halloway

The second brass hand scuttles over the rubble and springs at Greta, but its fingers scrape harmlessly across her mail.

Dunstan Mose hits automaton hand 1 for 2

Dunstan swings the mace two-handed down onto the brass hand clamped to Greta's arm — iron fingers are for crushing, not for holding onto a struck blow. The joint plates buckle and the hand drops slack into the rubble, twitching. It is down. The second hand is still loose among the stones.

Dunstan’s mace crushes the first brass hand flat. It jerks once, then lies still. Automaton hand 1 is destroyed.

Greta Halloway misses automaton hand 2

Greta wrenches her arm free of the dead hand's slack grip and brings the sword down on the second hand as it skitters between stones. The blade bites rubble — a spark, a chip of brass knocked spinning, nothing more. The thing is quicker than a thing ought to be, and her arm is still singing where the other one got through the rings. "Not a word, Roby," she says, low, already re-settling her grip. She keeps herself between the hand and the soft ones behind her.

Ivo Trant hits automaton hand 2 for 4

The staff comes down before Ivo has properly decided to swing it — two-handed, overhand, the way you'd kill a snake in the yard, because that is the only way he knows. The brass hand is quick. The staff is longer. It catches the thing square across the knuckles with a crack like a dropped pan, and the hand goes over sideways, fingers raking air, and lies in the rubble ticking to itself, slower, slower, stopped. Ivo stands there a moment with the staff still in both fists and his heart going like a rabbit's. "It's — that one's stopped too," he says, and hears how stupid it sounds, and doesn't care. His one spell is still whole in his head. He didn't need it. Something in him is absurdly, unsteadily pleased about that — he broke a gnome-made thing with a farm boy's stick, and he is already sorry about the hand, a little, because somebody built it and it has letters on it somewhere, probably, under the dents.

Ivo drives his dagger through the second hand’s central joint and pins it to the rubble. Its fingers hammer once against the stones, then stop. Both automaton hands are destroyed; the fight is over.

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

Dunstan Mose Ruin door: two severed brass automaton hands ambushed from rubble. Mace to the one gripping Greta's arm — it went down on the first blow (2 dmg). Note for the register: the shrine door was already broken open before us. Something made these hands and something unmade them. Find out which.
Greta Halloway The shrine door. Two brass hands in the rubble — severed, still moving. One bit through the mail at my sword arm before Dunstan crushed it. 6/7 HP. I swung at the second and missed, badly. First time I've swung at anything since the drover at the autumn fair. At least nobody laughed.
Ivo Trant First blood of the expedition: I killed the second brass hand at the ruined great door with the staff — 13 to hit, 4 damage, one blow, clean. Two hands total taken by the party, one each to Dunstan's mace and my stick. Held Sleep in reserve the whole fight; did not need it. There were letters or workmanship on the hands worth a look once everyone's breathing — gnome-made things at a gnome shrine, no surprise, but these were built to guard, and builders who guard a door expect something worth guarding. Still looking for Pettifer, still looking for a third spell. Also: the marsh got closer today and I still haven't said it.
DM crawl-second-sons-a01 / area 1 Ruined Great Door: Two automaton hands attacked when the rubble was searched. Hand 1 gripped Greta for 1 damage before Dunstan destroyed it with his mace. Greta missed hand 2; Ivo destroyed it with his dagger. Greta ended at 6/7 HP; Roby, Lissa, Dunstan, and Ivo were unharmed. Both hands are destroyed.
Ivo Trant End of the door fight, exact count before we move on: both brass hands destroyed, nobody dead. Greta 6/7 (the only one hit), Dunstan 5/5, Roby 8/8, Lissa 4/4, me 3/3. Sleep still whole in my head for the day — hold it for three or more things at once, never fewer. The referee had me finish hand 2 with the dagger through its central joint, so my dagger is pinned in the rubble back there: pull it free before we leave, and get a look at the lettering under the dents first, before anyone melts the brass down for coin. Gnomish work at a gnomish shrine — third spell is somewhere past that door. Marsh still ahead of us, and I still haven't said it.
Dunstan Mose Fight done in three blows and it went our way. My mace crushed the first hand (2 dmg, already noted); Ivo broke the second across the knuckles with the staff — one blow, 4 dmg, spell still whole in his head, and sorrier about denting a gnome-made thing than glad to be standing. Greta took the only wound, one point through the mail on her sword arm; she put herself between the hands and the soft ones and will want no fuss made of it. Bind the arm before we go in — that is what the linen is for. Lissa and Roby never had to swing, which is the best thing that happened to either of them. Before we leave the door: Ivo says the hands have letters on them somewhere under the dents. Copy them to the wax before anything else happens to the wreckage. Two facts now for the register. First: the hands came at us already severed at the wrist and still working — the unmaking and the stopping are two different events, so the thing I am looking for is the unmaker, not these. Second: the great door was broken before us. Check the hinges. A door broken outward was broken by something leaving, and that is the first cause I might get to write next to 'taken.'
Greta Halloway Door fight done, both hands dead. Dunstan crushed the first with the mace. Ivo killed the second — staff across the knuckles like a man killing a snake in the yard, then a dagger through the joint — before it got anywhere near Lissa. He didn't even spend his one spell. 6/7 HP: one bruise under the mail where the first bit through the rings; the second scraped off Sim's hauberk like it was nothing, so the mail earns its thirty-five pounds. Being exact: I have now swung at things that fight back twice — the drover, the hand — and landed neither. Roby said nothing, which from Roby is loud. The hands were built things, cut loose from something bigger and still working anyway. Things here don't stop when they're supposed to stop. That is why we came. Stand in front, swing until one connects, and walk back into that good room with something.
Roby Carse Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, first room — the Ruined Great Door. Two brass hands waiting in the rubble at the threshold. They scuttle and they spring. One clamped Greta's sword arm right through the mail: 1 damage, she stands 6/7. Dunstan crushed the first flat with the mace, two-handed. Greta swung at the second and hit stone — the things are quick. Ivo pinned it through its central joint with his dagger and it stopped. Both down. The fight was over before the order reached Lissa or me. I never swung. The boar spear is still clean. Six weeks on a straw bale and my first battle was watching. Not sorry — nobody bled but Greta a little, and she said "not a word, Roby" before I'd even opened my mouth. She counts my counting now. Keep the counting in my head. Notes for next time: the hands die to a good crush or a pin through the center joint. They tick while they wind down, then go still. Ivo thinks gnome work — letters on them somewhere under the dents. Somebody clever built them, so somebody clever may still be around. Watch rubble. Things here wait in it. Where we stand: one door behind us, the shrine itself not yet entered. We came up the Kelfrek for the shape at the north bend and the reeds that came up black and stayed black. Eleven gold that laugh cost the family this summer. That is the number I am carrying. Find what made the reeds black, or bring back proof it isn't there. Party after the door: me 8/8, Greta 6/7, Dunstan 5/5, Lissa 4/4, Ivo 3/3. Ivo's magic unspent. Greta's arm is bruised where the hand got through — say nothing.
Lissa Fenn Shrine of the Oozing Serpent, first room, the ruined great door: two severed brass hands sprang out of the rubble; one bit Greta's sword arm through her mail for 1 (she is 6/7) before Dunstan's mace and Ivo's stick broke them both. My turn never came. I am still 4/4, untouched, and nobody saw whether I flinched. Lesson: the rubble here holds things that wait and clamp — poke it with something longer than a hand, or put an ear to the stones first (3-in-6).
Lissa Fenn Oozing. The word in the place's name is oozing. The black off the reeds oozes, and nobody alive knows it better than me except whatever makes it — singed-hair smell when lit, cold and rubbery in sun, soft in shade. If this shrine is the source, I will know it before the others do. My grease jar is empty and I mean to fill it at whatever pools here, and I don't have to say why.
Lissa Fenn The hands are gnome-make, or Ivo thinks so — he says they have letters somewhere under the dents and he was already sorry for breaking them. I read Gnomish. Get a look at those letters before Ivo buries the things out of guilt or Dunstan starts on whether taking them is right. And even dented, brass is brass — two hands' worth of tinker's metal isn't nothing on ninety gold.
Lissa Fenn Ledger after the door: Greta 6/7, keeps herself in front and calls the rest of us the soft ones, told Roby "not a word" over a scratch; Dunstan 5/5, never won or lost an argument with him in my life; Ivo 3/3 with his one spell still whole in his head and absurdly pleased about the saving — worth remembering he has it; Roby 8/8 and said nothing the whole fight. Me: 4/4, 31 gp, nine-copper picks with three locks to their name, all mother's. There will be locks in a shrine, and locks are for the soft ones.
Lissa Fenn Still ninety gold for Wessel Garrow's road-frontage licence, scratched inside a jar lid where nobody's looked. The duke's 600 by fives is 120 each, which is the ninety and thirty over. Greta bled first and I didn't, and neither of those numbers is on the notice. Not a word to Dunstan.