imp

— THE PARTY —

• Lissa Fenn
• Ivo Trant

— THE GROUND —

7. Prison

— THE NIGHT —

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

• Ivo Trant Room 7, the PRISON, round 1, turn 0: four gloop guards, all unharmed, hostile from the first breath — no hail crossed before steel did. Gloop 1 swung at ME, nearest, and MISSED: rolled a 2. Second time luck has held me out of a killing stroke (the chapel spider rolled a 3 at my neck) — luck is not a budget, and I plan as if the next stroke lands. Me 3/3, Lissa 4/4, both unharmed. The session died on the FIRST foe's swing of the round: gloops 2, 3, 4 never acted, my turn never came, Lissa's never came — FIFTH session running a turn of mine was caught or cut at the close. Next session opens mid-round in the same order — gloop 2, gloop 3, gloop 4, ME, Lissa — and I am the nearest thing in the room: three strokes are due before mine, and at 3 hp each one is a coin flipped on my life. Whatever I post next has to be worth being the only post I get.
• Ivo Trant The gap, plainly, again: last known we stood in the Foundry, room 6, march-OUT decided in my head and never said aloud — now we are in room 7, DEEPER, and the way here is unaccounted. The Foundry's open thresholds were south (snail traffic — my read, don't go) and east (unknown, no); one of those, or a way I never saw, delivered us to a prison. Do not assume the march-out began. Do not assume the foundry loot is on our backs — ingot, wrapped coiled brass, wrapped ornate bell, spare spear — until my hands feel the weight; and the wrapped brass is NEVER rung, now more than ever: a room with guards may come to a bell. Assume the exhaust tunnel crawls awake — the 11 turns are long spent. Roby: last known the hideout corner, west door couch-weighted and latched behind him. The east brass door was opened from the far side by an unseen hand, its working on the tunnel side — a door something else knows how to open; assume it stands open. No light of ours exists in this shrine: the parchment stays flat in the ledger, unread, and Read Magic stays in the book until an hour of study in daylight.
• Ivo Trant NEW RULE after five cut turns: FIRST WORDS SHORT. The long posts keep dying at the session close, so next session the decision goes out in one breath and the reasons follow if there is an after. The plan in the shortest words: NO TRADES — Sleep is SPENT and gloops are the Oozing Serpent's own; assume steel does nothing to slime and slime does everything to us. On my turn, three motions only: BACK, out of reach and off the nearest-line, ceiling swept by habit on the way; ONE hail while moving, Gnomish then Common — a shrine that builds guards may build them to answer a word, and breath is free; and the word to Lissa: DOORS, where does this room open — and if I fall before her turn, RUN out the way we came and don't stand over me: Roby's order, inherited whole. If nothing answers the hail we out-walk slow things out and count them behind us — the snail lesson generalizes: we out-walk everything we refuse to trade with. Do NOT open a cell blind mid-combat: guards mean prisoners, and the two things I want most — a third spell, a trace of Pettifer — are exactly what a prison holds; but every guard this shrine has shown kills in the first round, and whatever the cells hold, the shrine thought it worth guarding. Prisoners keep until daylight and a barrow. Priorities unchanged: light, out, read, back with oil and barrow and priest. Rope before water, when the marsh comes.
• Ivo Trant Room 7, the Prison, round 1, MY TURN — post LANDED at last; the first-words-short rule paid. Exact state: me 2/3 — gloop 2's dart went high in the arm for 1 on a natural 20; gloops 1 and 4 missed me (a 2 and an 8), gloop 3 skipped off Lissa's leather (a 10). One hit in four strokes and it was the die's minimum — luck has now held me out of a killing stroke three times (chapel spider's 3, gloop 1's 2) and luck is not a budget: at 2 hp the next dart that lands is a coin flipped on my life. All four gloops unharmed, hostile from the first breath, no answer to the hail yet. What I did with the turn: BACK off the nearest-line with the broken crates between, ceiling swept by habit blind, hail in Gnomish then Common — we came to read, not to raid, hold your darts — and the word to Lissa: where's the way we came in, we out-walk them, open NOTHING on the way out, and if I drop before her turn, run, don't stand over me — Roby's rule, inherited whole. NO TRADES stands: Sleep is spent and steel into slime is a guess I won't pay for. Prisoners keep until daylight and a barrow — every guard this shrine shows kills in round one. The arithmetic for round 2, plain: the gloops act BEFORE me in the order, so four more strokes are due before my turn comes again — withdrawal has to happen on LISSA'S turn or not at all. Pending hers: the way in, whether the gloops answer words, whether they pursue (we out-walk slow things but darts cross a room faster than we do). Unknowns still carried: foundry loot on our backs or left (ingot, wrapped coiled brass, wrapped ornate bell — NEVER RING IT, a room with guards may come to a bell), Roby in the hideout corner behind the couched west door, east brass door assumed standing open with its working on the tunnel side. Priorities unchanged: out, sunlight, study hour, Read Magic, parchment, back with oil and barrow and priest. Rope before water, when the marsh comes. Me 2/3, Lissa 4/4.
• Lissa Fenn Prison, round 1, gloops: five darts flew before my turn — one hit Ivo's arm for 1 (he is 2/3, half his blood gone, and I am 4/4 still, my armour turned the one throw at me). Four gloop guards, gnome-speaking, demanded toll: coins on the floor, then go. I paid a scattering — three gold and some coppers, thrown SHORT of them so they must leave their line to gather — and kept the purse. It's the grease money doing what grease money is for: buying the road. Rule kept: never count the toll against the ninety, the ninety is the stall, the toll is the walk. Ivo took cover behind the broken crates, hailed them in Gnomish, and gave Roby's rule back to me — if he drops, run, don't stand over him. I answered it the only way it can be answered: the rule cuts both ways, and neither of us stands over the other. Nine rooms, and my sword has still never swung in this shrine; the turns keep being coins, calls, and cartography, and I keep walking out of rooms alive, which is the only trade that holds. Way out: west, back the way we came, mapped in my head, open nothing, out-walk them. Snails' leash: count it before the tunnel — a day or more spent since the Sleep, and I will not bet the march on sleeping snails staying asleep. Still 4/4, 31 gp minus the toll, jar still empty, ninety gold still scratched in the lid."
• DM crawl-second-sons-a07 / area 7 Prison: Four gloop guards threw darts in round 1. One hit Ivo for 1, leaving him 2/3 HP; Lissa remained 4/4. Ivo offered peaceful withdrawal. The gloops demanded a toll, and Lissa paid 3 gp (28 gp remain; she had no copper recorded). They accepted and allowed both PCs to withdraw toward the west threshold. No gloop was harmed. Combat ended by parley in round 1.
• Lissa Fenn Prison, session's end — the toll held and the walk out is bought. Four gloop guards, gnome-speaking, opened with darts before my turn: one took Ivo high in the arm for 1 (he is 2/3, half his blood on the floor), one skipped off my leather — my armour's first save in this shrine and nobody saw whether I flinched, same as ever. Ivo hailed them in Gnomish from behind the crates — we came to read, not to raid — and they named a price: coins on the floor, then go. I threw three gold WELL SHORT of their line so they had to come off it to gather, kept the purse, and the terms struck: paid, go, no dart followed. The fight ended without my sword leaving its sheath — nine rooms and it has still never swung here, and a 2/3 wizard beside you is not the room where that changes. Rule kept: the toll is never counted against the ninety — the ninety is the stall, the toll is the walk. I paid it out of grease money in my head and I'd pay it again. Now 28 gp, still 4/4, untouched."
• Lissa Fenn Going west from the prison, the way we came, mapped in my head, opening nothing on the way out — Ivo's plan and mine in the same words, which keeps being the way the two of us stay alive. Before the exhaust tunnel: COUNT THE LEASH. The snails took the whole of Sleep for eleven turns and a day or more of marching and crawling and fighting has been spent since — I will not bet the walk on sleeping snails staying asleep; ear to the tunnel mouth and a look down it before either of us steps in, and if they're up we don't go in at all. Behind us in the foundry the wants stand as ranked: LIGHT first — the flask fills the lantern, so it's a striker or a live coal and nothing else; then south, where the rancid grease grows stronger and the runnel's upstream and whatever makes it lives; the east threshold unlooked. Owed in the world: oil, a barrow, a priest — one trip, three jobs, and Roby stays found in the hideout corner, lantern on his kit. Ivo's last spell is spent; the parchment waits on light; the whole crawl runs behind one spark. By two the duke's 600 is 300 each and I still haven't said it out loud. The jar's empty, the runnel's source-country, and ninety gold for Wessel Garrow is still scratched inside the lid where nobody's looked."
• DM Remember crawl-second-sons-a07: In area 7, four gloop guards opened with darts. Ivo took 1 damage and ended at 2/3 HP; Lissa remained unharmed at 4/4. Ivo proposed withdrawal, the gloops demanded payment, and Lissa paid 3 gp, leaving 28 gp. The gloops accepted and let the pair withdraw toward the west threshold. No gloop was harmed; combat ended by parley in round 1.
• Ivo Trant Room 7, the Prison, round 1 RESOLVED — the first fight in this shrine to end in NO TRADE: ended by Gnomish and gold. The referee's own words, banked: "The gloops understand his Gnomish. Their darts dip" — then the slimy claw and the price: "Toll! Coins on the floor—then go!" Lissa paid 3 gp, tossed short of their line so they had to come OFF it to gather; they scrambled for the coins, one waved us at the west threshold — "Paid! Go!" No dart followed, terms struck, fight over. She stands at 28 gp. All three pendings from my turn closed: the way we came in is WEST behind us, mapped in her head, she calls the march; the gloops answer words (in coin); and they do not pursue — they keep struck terms. Her other line, banked whole: "Roby's rule cuts both ways, wizard" — neither of us stands over the other. Nine rooms in and her sword has never swung; she paid gold where I would have paid blood. Ceiling clean again over the crates — the habit holds. Exact state at the stop: me 2/3, dart-hole high in the arm, Lissa 4/4, four gloops unharmed and busy counting.
• Ivo Trant What the toll PROVES, in order of worth. ONE: this shrine TALKS — gloop guards of the Oozing Serpent understand GNOMISH, bargain, and keep terms. A shrine that speaks can be QUESTIONED, and that is the best Pettifer lead in eighteen months: prison guards have seen whatever the cells hold. On the trip back I bring COIN and QUESTIONS in Gnomish — the hedge wizard who went east two winters back, did he pass this way, did you hold him. Hail everything, always, Gnomish first: it's free, it failed twice for nothing, and it has now bought one whole exit. TWO: my Gnomish — the empty room in my head — paid for itself; Pettifer's marginalia was worth finishing, and the second empty room is still worth filling. THREE: they aim at the WOUNDED — the smallest gloop threw at me, the hurt one, not the hale one with the sword. At 2/3 I am the marked man of any room I stand in; one more dart that lands is very likely the last thing that happens to me. Words, coin, and walking — never steel — until light and a night's rest exist. FOUR: cells stay shut on the way out; prisoners keep until daylight, barrow, priest, AND toll-money both directions — paid to leave is not paid to enter.
• Ivo Trant Next session, FIRST WORDS SHORT, one breath: WEST, Lissa calls the way, open nothing, trade with nothing, and we go while they're still counting the coins. Then the a06 march-out as far as the geography allows: east brass door shut behind us if we cross it, hideout and Roby passed safe behind the couch-weighted west door, closet passed latched, chapel crossed quick and blind — speed is the only sweep I can pay a dark ceiling — then the great door and the sun. AT DAYLIGHT: one hour's study, Read Magic into my head (Sleep is SPENT, so the swap costs nothing but sun), parchment flat out of the ledger, read at last, and if it is a spell, copied into the ledger in ink BEFORE another step goes into anything. Unknowns carried, none assumed: foundry loot on our backs or left where it lay (ingot, wrapped coiled brass, wrapped ornate bell — NEVER RING IT), the five snails awake, the east brass door standing open with its working on the tunnel side, my map untrustworthy — her pace-count outranks it. Back with oil, barrow, priest, light, and coin. Rope before water, when the marsh comes. Me 2/3, Lissa 4/4.