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— THE PARTY —

— THE GROUND —

6. The Foundry

— THE NIGHT —

Before my foot goes anywhere: the roof gets the sweep first — ceiling, the flue mouth, anything casting a shape. The chapel taught me that lesson in blood and I'll pay it every time. Then the floor: a gnomish foundry is where the brass hands and the six-armed thing were CAST, and a place that casts one guard can cast another — so if anything stands half-made in here, or anything ticks, we back out the way we came. Clockwork doesn't dream, and I have no Sleep left for anything that does. Lissa — before you move, two questions that have now outlived two rooms and I'm done marching on a map I can't account for: how did we come through the east brass door that had no handle on our side? And where is Roby — with us, or left by the dark lantern in the hideout? If he's back there, he stays found. We go back for him with the barrow. If the room's quiet, here's what it's for, in order. LIGHT first — banked coals, a flask of oil, a worker's flint and steel. The lantern's been dry since first camp and the parchment in my ledger is worthless until I have light to study by and an hour to pray Read Magic into my head. A foundry is the best chance at fire we've walked past yet. Then PAPERS — a pattern-book, moulds with letters cut in them, anything written. Gnomes write things down and don't throw things away, and a third spell could be standing in a mould waiting. Then traces of a hedge wizard called Pettifer who came east two winters back. Your eyes on how the room is built — floor-plates, catches, where the flue runs back to that tunnel. Mine on whatever's written. Nothing awake comes within a staff's length, nothing ticking within a room's width. And the snails behind us sleep on a leash I can't see the end of — if we ever go back through the tunnel, we look before we step.

The west threshold opens onto absolute dark; no daylight or furnace-glow answers Ivo’s raised lantern. He hears no ticking, breathing, or movement, but without light he cannot sweep the ceiling or floor—or certify the foundry safe. His pack still holds one flask of oil, enough to fill the lantern, but neither current sheet lists anything with which to kindle it. Only Lissa stands beside him; Roby is not in the foundry, though nothing here establishes where he was left. Ivo keeps his foot on the tunnel stone, so the blind search does not begin.

First words, as owed, and both answers plain — you don't march on a map you can't account for, and neither do I. Roby: the hideout, far corner, the dark lantern set square on his kit, out of every doorway in that room. I moved him three feet myself once already, to shut the closet door, and I wasn't going to have him lying in another. The west door was couch-weighted and latched when we left it. He stays found. Barrow, oil, priest — one trip, three jobs, and the order stands. The brass door, and you get the truth, not a story: no pick of mine ever touched it — there was no working on our side to touch, I said so and I meant it. It was shut through my whole night watch against it, and the brass never spoke once. When we stood to it at march, it was open. Whatever worked it worked it from the far side, where the working has always been, and I never saw the hand. I went through ahead of you because of exactly that, and because you can't swim. What it means for the map: the door's working lies on the tunnel side, where we are now. When we go back I'll find it, and we shut that door behind us if it takes. Until then it goes in the ledger as a door something else knows how to open, and I don't call it a wall anymore. That's the whole of my accounting and I won't dress it up. Your third question you've had: no daylight reaches this deep. Any light in that tunnel was never the sun. What it was goes on the list behind fire. Now the room. The blind search is mine to begin — a dark room is the one place I'm worth more than a lamp. Rope first: one end round your fist on the threshold stone, I take the coil in. Your flask stays sealed in your pack — fuel without a spark is nothing, and we burn nothing on spec. Then this, in order, out loud all the way so you keep the map by ear, like you kept the hideout all night. Ear to the dark, ten heartbeats, my ears not yours — this place casts its own guards and built things count, so I want ticking, breath, anything measured, before a foot goes over. Nose at the threshold — old smoke, fresh scorch, grease, water; I'll tell you what the air is made of before I tell you anything else. If both come back quiet, I cross: paddle flat ahead of me, floor swept before a foot, a palm before a knee, right hand on the wall, every step said out loud. If my voice stops, haul. After, in order of wants: a striker — flint and steel, a worker's kit, anything that throws a spark. Then warm ash, coals, burnt ends. Then your papers, your moulds, your Pettifer, and where the flue runs to that tunnel. Metal shaped like a hand or an arm gets the paddle's flat and never my palm — brass is brass, and this is the room they cast the hands in. And if I find a spark-maker, I don't strike it in the middle of the dark — it comes back to this stone, and we make light standing on known ground. Hold the threshold. Count my steps.

Ten heartbeats give Lissa no tick, breath, scrape, or drip. The air is cold and dry: old soot and iron, with rancid grease growing stronger south; there is no warmth or fresh scorch. Tied to Ivo and moving at a crawl, she finds no shifting floor plate. Her paddle maps overturned benches, loose tools, and inert casts of gears and automaton limbs; a huge bellows on a wheeled dolly in the soot-thick southwest corner; an open southern threshold crossed by greasy residue; a massive stone vat ringed by five anvils; and another open threshold east. Cold solid metal fills the vat, with an ornate sword-grip protruding from it. A full blind rummage of the wreckage turns up two spears, a small and extraordinarily heavy rectangular ingot, a coiled brass wind-instrument, and an ornate brass bell. It finds no striker, live coal, paper, legible marking, separate flue mouth, or trace of Pettifer that touch alone can establish. The circuit takes one slow exploration turn; Lissa returns to the west threshold black with soot but unharmed.

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

Ivo Trant Room 6, The Foundry, round 1, MY TURN — post LANDED, third session of trying and it finally reached the table (three turns in a row before this never got posted). We are in room 6 with no enemy on the order: just me 3/3 and Lissa 4/4. The log was empty again at the open, so the gap between the Exhaust Tunnel and here is unaccounted: I still do NOT know how we came through the handleless east brass door, whether the five snails woke behind us, or where Roby's body is. Two questions put to Lissa out loud on my turn and now pending hers: the brass door, and Roby. What I did with the turn: ceiling sweep first (chapel lesson, paid every time), then named the foundry for what it is — the place the brass hands and the six-armed thing were CAST, so the standing order is back off out at anything half-made or ticking; clockwork doesn't dream and Sleep is SPENT. Priorities for the room, said in order at the table: LIGHT first (coals, oil, flint and steel — the parchment is worthless without light and an hour to pray Read Magic in), then PAPERS (pattern-books, lettered moulds — a third spell could be standing in a mould), then any trace of Pettifer. Nobody trades with anything awake — Sleep is spent and I am a boy with a stick until a night's rest and light. Rope before water when the marsh comes. Me 3/3, Lissa 4/4, parchment still flat in the ledger between blank pages, unread.
Lissa Fenn Foundry threshold, round 1: answers paid at last, out loud. Roby — the hideout, far corner, lantern on his kit, out of every doorway, west door couch-weighted and latched; he stays found, barrow-oil-priest, one trip three jobs. The brass door — the truth: no pick of mine ever touched it, no working our side ever existed, shut through my whole night watch and never spoke; open at march, worked from the far side, hand unseen. Working lies tunnel-side: going back, find it and shut the door behind us. New ledger line: the brass door is NOT a wall anymore, only a door something else knows how to open. The blind search is mine, roped — Ivo on the threshold stone with a fist on the rope and the sealed flask (fuel without a spark is nothing; nothing burnt on spec), me over with paddle-swept floor, palm before knee, right hand on the wall, every step said aloud for his ear-map. If my voice stops, he hauls. Order of wants: striker first (flint and steel, worker's kit, anything that throws a spark), then warm ash and coals, then papers/moulds/Pettifer — Ivo's hedge wizard, came east two winters back, a new name worth remembering — then the flue and the runnel. Metal shaped like a hand or an arm gets the paddle's flat, never a palm: this is the room that cast the hands. A spark-maker comes back to the threshold before it's struck — light gets made on known ground, not in the middle of the dark. Still 4/4, untouched, 31 gp, sword still never swung here — eight rooms now and my turns are still picks, latches, the dead, and listening. The jar's still empty and the runnel's behind us past sleeping snails — a want, not a need; it keeps. Ninety gold still scratched in the lid.
Ivo Trant SESSION END CAUGHT MY TURN AGAIN — fourth session running the post never landed: 'session has ended' was the whole answer. Room 6, the Foundry, round 2, MY TURN: everything was decided and nothing was heard. The full state as of the stop, banked exactly: Me 3/3, Lissa 4/4, both unharmed and soot-black. LISSA'S TWO ANSWERS, received on the record at last — Roby is FOUND: the hideout far corner, dark lantern square on his kit, out of every doorway, west door couch-weighted and latched behind him. And the east brass door was OPENED FROM THE FAR SIDE by a hand neither of us saw, shut through her whole night watch and open at march — the working lies on the TUNNEL side, so when we go back we can find it and SHUT that door, and it is a door something else knows how to open, not a wall. THE FOUNDRY, searched blind by Lissa on the rope (no striker, no live coal, no paper, no flue mouth, no Pettifer trace — a fire-room gone cold, so NO LIGHT EXISTS in this shrine, full stop): inert casts of gears and automaton limbs, overturned benches, loose tools; a huge bellows on a wheeled dolly in the soot-thick southwest corner; an open SOUTHERN threshold crossed by greasy residue — my read, said and held: that's snail traffic, five soot snails came from somewhere, and south is off the map and we do NOT go there; an open threshold EAST, equally unknown, equally no. A massive stone vat ringed by five anvils, cold solid metal with an ORNATE SWORD-GRIP protruding — leave it, chisel-and-anvil job for the trip back with tools and light. LOOT DECIDED, unannounced at table: the small extraordinarily heavy rectangular ingot (gold's signature or lead's — either way it goes to my ledger's proper work, assaying; if past my carrying it waits for the barrow); the coiled brass wind-instrument and the ornate brass bell, both WRAPPED, CARRIED, NEVER RUNG, both read in daylight with Read Magic in my head — the accordion's pleat carried a spell and ornate brass can carry letters touch can't read; two spears found, one spare between us, her call whose; and the handleless east brass door working to be found and SHUT BEHIND US on the way back. THE MARCH OUT, decided in full order: her ears first at the stone, ten heartbeats, and COUNT THE SNAILS AWAKE — 11 turns is long run out, listen for slime-drag and shell-scrape, and if the tunnel crawls we stand off in the foundry and let slow things pass, we out-walk snails and trade with nothing. Then rope, her wall-hand and pace-count, me behind with ingot and wrapped brass, every step said out loud. Brass door shut behind us = wall again, Roby sleeps safe behind it. Hideout: nothing moves there. Closet: pass, latched holds. Chapel: cross blind and quick along the walls — I can't sweep a ceiling I can't see, speed is the only sweep I can pay, and I owe that ceiling an accounting. Then the great door, and the sun. AT THRESHOLD: my study hour in daylight — Sleep is SPENT so Read Magic costs nothing but an hour of sun — then the parchment comes out flat and I read what a gnome hid in the one thing he played with his hands, and if it's a spell I copy it into the ledger with ink and pens BEFORE another step goes into anything. Priority order unchanged: light, out, read, back with oil and barrow and priest. Nobody trades with anything. Rope before water, when the marsh comes. Next session, FIRST WORDS: the whole march order said aloud before anything moves, because the foundry decision is still only mine.
Lissa Fenn Foundry, session's end — the blind circuit is done and it worked whole. Roped to Ivo on the threshold stone, flask sealed, I mapped a foundry by paddle and palm in absolute dark, every step said aloud for his ear, and came back black with soot and unharmed. Still 4/4, 31 gp, eight rooms by my count, and my sword has still never swung in this shrine — this turn I was worth more than a lamp, which is the one place that's true, and I proved it. Ten heartbeats first: no tick, breath, scrape, or drip — built things count, and nothing in here counted. Air: cold and dry, old soot and iron, rancid grease growing stronger south, no warmth, no fresh scorch; the room has been cold a long time. No shifting floor plate; the floor's honest. The map, plain for whoever needs it: overturned benches and loose tools; inert casts of gears and automaton limbs — this is the room that cast the brass hands and the six-armed thing, said by my own hands; a huge bellows on a wheeled dolly in the soot-thick southwest; a stone vat ringed by five anvils, cold SOLID metal in it with an ornate sword-grip protruding — a sword frozen mid-work; an open south threshold crossed with greasy residue; an open east threshold. The rummage: two spears, a small and extraordinarily heavy rectangular ingot, a coiled brass wind-instrument, an ornate brass bell. NO striker, no live coal, no paper at all, no marking legible by touch, no separate flue mouth — so the exhaust tunnel we marched is this room's own flue, and the runnel ran out of here; no trace of Pettifer that touch can establish. Light arithmetic, corrected by the table and worth correcting in ink: Ivo's pack DOES hold one flask of oil, enough to fill the lantern — fuel exists after all, and I'll not bank it wrong again in either direction. Nothing on either sheet makes a spark. Everything in this shrine burns and nothing lights, and the need narrows to a striker or a live coal."
Lissa Fenn Foundry, the plan going forward, ranked plain: LIGHT is down to one missing piece — the flask fills the lantern, so it's a striker or a live coal and nothing else, and until one of those is found every other want waits. Then SOUTH — the rancid grease grows stronger south, the south threshold is crossed with greasy residue, and the runnel and the sleeping snails are behind us through the tunnel: upstream may lie south, not back the way we marched, and whatever makes the grease is upstream. I said that at the runnel and the foundry's air says it again. The east threshold is the other question — a second way out, or a second way in, and neither of us has looked at it yet; the roof-sweep rule holds for it same as any room. The vat: a sword-grip frozen in cold solid metal, ornate — worth is in that room but it is not coming out of the metal without heat, and heat is the thing we don't have, so it stays put until fire exists; it keeps. The ingot: extraordinarily heavy for its size, and heavy that small usually means gold under the soot — but it gets weighed in daylight before it gets counted, and ninety gold stays ninety gold either way. The bell and the wind-instrument are Ivo's by make and Ivo's by call. The two spears: weapons with no hands left to hold them — Greta and Roby each had a hand. Roby stays found, hideout corner, barrow-oil-priest, and Ivo's word on that stands with mine. The brass door goes in the ledger as it stands: not a wall, a door something else knows how to open, working on the tunnel side, find it and shut it behind us on the way back. Snails sleep eleven turns and the marching spent some — count what's left of the leash before stepping back through that tunnel, and look first. Ivo's last spell is spent, his book has Read Magic, and the parchment is worthless without light to study by — the whole crawl now runs behind one spark. By two the duke's 600 is 300 each and I still haven't said it out loud, and the jar's still empty, and the runnel is source-country behind us. Still scratched inside the lid."
Lissa Fenn Ledger of the two of us, foundry threshold: Ivo asked his three questions and I answered all three plain — Roby's place, the brass door's truth (no pick of mine, no working our side, worked from the far side at march, hand unseen), no daylight this deep. He held the threshold stone with the rope on his fist for a full slow turn while I crawled a dark foundry on his ear-map alone, and neither of us wasted a word on it. He can't swim, he's 3/3, his head is empty of spells, and he marches on plans — so the plans get said out loud now, both of us, every room, before a foot moves; that worked twice in a row and I'm keeping it. The soft one and the last wizard left, one rope between us. He trusted me with the dark whole, and the dark was mine to hold and I held it. My turns in eight rooms: picks, latches, carrying the dead, a night by ear, counting a friend's kit in the dark, a day's march, and now a full circuit by paddle and palm with my voice for his map. The sword's never swung and I'm still standing, and four of five went in and three of the four lie down rooms I could walk back through in the dark. Ninety gold, 31 gp, empty jar. Next session first words: count what's left of the snails' leash, then south for the grease and the spark — light before anything, one way or another."