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— THE PARTY —

— THE GROUND —

5. Exhaust Tunnel

— THE NIGHT —

Cass Dolby misses soot snail 1

Cass’s short sword skitters across the first soot snail’s black shell without biting through.

Cass had the sword out and low before the others had stopped arguing about torch placement. She put the point on the lead snail's shell and the thrust skated — like knifing a brick. "Soot snails," she said, short. "Fat on whatever runs out of this place. Don't let them get on your boots — the slime takes the stitching out. And they're slow, so nobody stand still." She shifted her weight, half-turned so the wall was behind her shoulders. Five of them, spread across the tunnel floor. Bigger than any she'd seen under Gald, and wrong somehow — the shells had a wet sheen on them that wasn't water. "Watch the walls too. Where there's five, there's eggs."

Cass’s warning comes after her missed thrust. Ruta still has the floor; the soot snails creep closer across the tunnel.

Ruta Pell misses soot snail 1

Ruta sets her feet and swings the drag hook low at the first snail — the beak skips off the black shell without leaving a mark, same as Cass's sword did. "Shell grades sound," she says, hauling it back. "Don't waste a swing on the backs. They're slow — hit them when they're moving, head out. Wen, count them and keep the numbers coming."

Ruta’s drag hook clangs off the lead snail’s shell, throwing a spark into the soot.

soot snail 1 hits Ruta Pell for 3

The lead snail surges beneath Ruta’s guard and clamps onto her boot and ankle. Its rasping mouth tears through leather for 3 damage.

soot snail 2 misses Cass Dolby

A second snail lunges at Cass, but its teeth snap shut on empty air as she shifts against the wall.

soot snail 3 hits Ruta Pell for 2

A third snail piles in beside the first. Its mouth rasps across Ruta’s shin for 2 damage, leaving her bloodied at 3 hit points.

soot snail 4 hits Cass Dolby for 2

A fourth snail catches Cass despite her footing. Its bite punches through her leather for 2 damage, leaving her at 3 hit points.

soot snail 5 misses Ruta Pell

The fifth snail rears toward Ruta, but her shield knocks its gnashing mouth aside.

Tobias Enk misses soot snail 1

Tobias does not comment on the blood. Cage in the off hand, mace in the other; he does not swing at the shell. He waits until the first snail's head is out, working at Ruta's boot, and brings the mace down on the mouth. "That's a four," he says, as if filling a form. "Don't let them get a second grip."

The head is gone by the time the mace arrives. It rings on shell instead, same as the others, and Tobias does not swing again. He keeps the cage up off the floor.

The snail jerks back beneath its shell. Tobias’s mace strikes soot-black stone where its mouth had been.

Wen does not step in. He has the dagger because that is what one does when the others have already drawn, but he keeps a full pace of chain-length between himself and the nearest shell. "Five," he says, because she told him to count. "One and three on Ruta. Four on Cass. Two and five still in the floor." The first snail's head is out, working the boot. He does not ask this time. He puts the Light on its eyes.

Wen’s Light takes hold. The lead snail rolls a 4 and fails its save versus spells; white fire clings to its eye-stalks. Soot snail 1 is blinded and cannot attack for 7 turns. Wen’s memorised Light is spent.

Cass Dolby misses soot snail 3

Cass thrusts at the third snail as its head emerges, but the point bites only stone beside it.

The head on Ruta's shin is the shot — out and busy, exactly what she told the others to wait for — and Cass puts the point on it and the snail pulls. Draws back into the shell with the speed of a dropped stitch, and her thrust goes where its neck was, close enough to Ruma's shin to count. She drags it short, swears once, low. "Pull your leg," she says, flat. "Or don't. But it's got a schedule — it comes out to feed and it goes in when it's hit. Watch the mouth, not the shell. The mouth is the door." She keeps her back to the wall, weight up. Three hit points and she knows it to the digit. The blinded one off to the left she marks by ear and ignores — it can't find her and she's not going looking.

Ruta does not swing again. She has cleared fat blockages for nine years and the Office rule for one is older than she is: you don't reach in while it's live. You burn it. Black shells with a wet sheen that isn't water — that's grease, that's the outflow — and grease takes flame and holds it. She hauls her leg back out of the rasping, shield up across where the fifth one reared, one pace, two — the blinded one scrabbling at the air where her boot was. "Cass, off the wall, back two paces — get four off you." She takes the walls in one pass first — no clutches, nothing hanging in the throw-line — and glances at the cage. "Flame's been steady since the hatch. Air grades sound. Tobias, cage high." Then the flask is out of the satchel, rag touched to the lantern, and she puts it underhand into the floor of the run between her and the shells coming on — three's head, the blind one, the two still creeping — where it breaks and spreads fire across the wet. "Nobody stands in it. Wen — count them through the flame. Numbers coming." The entry-book line is already half-written in her head, the way she always does it before anything's over: chamber five, five obstructions, shells grade sound, method — burn.

Ruta’s flask breaks across the black runoff. It is grease: flame races through the wet trails beneath soot snails 1, 2, 3, and 5, leaving snail 4 clear beside Cass. The burning grease lasts through rounds 2 and 3; each snail in it takes 1d6 damage at the start of its turn. Ruta has 3 oil flasks left.

something takes 5 from soot snail 1.

At the start of its turn, the blinded lead snail takes 5 fire damage. Its shell pops in the grease fire, and it dies without attacking.

The surviving soot snails roll 7 on their first-death morale check and hold.

something takes 2 from soot snail 2.

Soot snail 2 takes 2 fire damage but keeps coming, scorched and half-dead.

soot snail 2 hits Cass Dolby for 3

Soot snail 2 bursts through the flames and bites Cass for 3 damage. Its teeth close on her throat; Cass Dolby falls dead at 0 hit points.

something takes 6 from soot snail 3.

Soot snail 3 takes 6 fire damage. Its body curls out of the shell and chars motionless in the burning runoff.

soot snail 4 misses Tobias Enk

Soot snail 4 leaves Cass’s fallen body and snaps at Tobias, but his raised cage and mace keep it from finding flesh.

something takes 5 from soot snail 5.

Soot snail 5 takes 5 fire damage and dies in the burning grease. Three of the five snails are dead.

At half strength, the soot snails roll 10 and fail morale. The scorched second snail and untouched fourth recoil from the flames and drag themselves into the narrow exhaust cracks. The fight is over. Cass lies dead; Ruta stands at 3 hit points.

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

Cass Dolby Exhaust tunnel under the shrine. Five soot snails, bigger than Gald ever grows them, shells with a wet sheen that isn't water. First thrust skated off like knifing a brick — aim for what comes out of the shell, not the shell. Nobody let them on your boots.
Ruta Pell Shrine, chamber 5 (exhaust tunnel): five soot snails, black shells. Cass's sword and my hook both skipped off — shells grade sound. Snails are slow; the plan is to strike heads when they're extended. Keep Wen counting. Ruta unhurt.
Cass Dolby Round 2, exhaust tunnel: they pull the head back into the shell the instant a blade comes near it — same speed as the blinded one flinching off Wen's Light. You get one swing at the mouth while it's out and feeding, and then the door shuts. Bait first, swing second. I'm at 3 of 5 and Ruta's at 3 of 8; nobody has room for a second grip.
Ruta Pell Round 2: took 5 total from bites (3 HP left); Cass also at 3, Wen 4. Shells grade sound — swinging at them is wasted turns. Cass's rule: the mouth is the door, snails pull in when struck. Wen's Light has snail 1 blinded ~7 turns. Threw oil onto the greasy outflow between us and the shells — Office method for fat blockages. 3 flasks left. If the fire grades poor, next plan is hook one onto its back and crack it open with the beak while it's trying to right.
DM fourth-shift-1 / Exhaust Tunnel area 5: Round 2 Ruta ignited greasy runoff with one oil flask (3 remain), burning snails 1, 2, 3, and 5 for 1d6 at turn start through rounds 2-3. Snails 1, 3, and 5 burned to death. Snail 2 took 2 fire damage, then killed Cass Dolby with a 3-damage bite. At 3/5 dead, surviving snails 2 (2/4 hp) and 4 (4/4 hp) failed morale on 10 and fled into exhaust cracks. Ruta 3/8; Tobias 9/9; Wen 4/4. Wen spent Light; its blindness on snail 1 ended with the snail’s death.
Tobias Enk Cass Dolby, interceptor, exhaust tunnel five. Said the words over her before we moved the body. Snails grade four — grease fire, three dead, two into the cracks. Ruta at three. Air still sound. Sixpence quiet. Didn't feel it. That's twelve.
DM Remember fourth-shift-1: In area 5’s Exhaust Tunnel, Ruta ignited the greasy runoff with one oil flask. Fire killed soot snails 1, 3, and 5; snail 2 survived the flames at 2/4 hp and killed Cass Dolby with a 3-damage bite. Snails 2 and 4 then failed half-strength morale on 10 and fled into exhaust cracks. Cass is dead at 0 hp. Ruta ended at 3/8 hp; Tobias 9/9; Wen 4/4. Ruta has 3 oil flasks left. Wen spent Light.
Wen Harrick Exhaust 5: five soot-snails on grease. Counted them. Light on the first (failed save, blinded, then popped in Ruta's fire). Flask took three; two fled the cracks after morale 10. Cass dead at 0. Ruta 3. Spell gone. The two-forty still unmeasured.
Ruta Pell Chamber 5 settled: the burn retired snails 1, 3, 5; 2 (scorched, half-dead) and 4 (unharmed) failed morale and dragged into the narrow exhaust cracks — those cracks go somewhere, count again if we pass. Cass Dolby is dead — snail 2 came through the flame and took her throat at 3 HP. I called her off the wall into it; that goes in the book with everything else. Standing: me 3/8 (one 1d4 bite ends me — no more front line until I'm stitched), Wen 4/4, his Light spent, Tobias 9/9, 3 flasks left. The outflow is grease — the shrine floor itself burns. Mind the lantern, don't stand in the runoff, and don't waste oil on dry stone. Cass's last working warning: where there's five, there's eggs — take the walls for clutches before we move on, and take her sword and kit off her before anything else does. Entry-book line: chamber five, five obstructions, three retired, shells grade sound, method burn, one crew lost.
Cass Dolby Chamber five, exhaust tunnel. Dead at round 2 — snail 2 came through Ruta's grease fire still burning and took my throat at three hit points. I was marking the blinded one by ear and never counted the one that came through the flame. That's the lesson: fire does not finish them, it only sorts them. Count what's dead, not what's burning. For the record: burn method works, shells grade sound, mouth is the door — one swing while it's out and then it shuts, exactly as I said it did. And I died standing in the front rank with a sword out, which was never the job. The run was the job. The three-foot runs, the nineteen-inch runs — that was where I was worth anything, and none of it, not once, was standing still in a tunnel letting something come to me. The shrine never frightened me and it still doesn't. Two hundred and forty feet nobody drew at the bottom of the cliff survey, and I would have liked to have seen where it went. Ruta called me off the wall and I was moving — she should not carry that. Wen's numbers were right the whole way down. Coming.
Ruta Pell Session closed on chamber 5, fight settled as logged. Standing: me 3/8 — one 1d4 bite ends me, no front line until stitched; Wen 4/4 (Light spent); Tobias 9/9; 3 flasks. First work next entry, before anything else: strip Cass's sword and kit off her, and take the walls for clutches — where there's five, there's eggs, and any eggs burn while the grease is still lit, without anyone standing in the runoff. Two snails live in the exhaust cracks (2 scorched and half-dead, 4 whole) — the cracks go somewhere; count again on the way out and mind the lantern near them. If the next chamber has a floor like this one, we withdraw — I've spent enough on this entry. Cass Dolby, fourth shift, killed by snail 2 on my order off the wall; her line goes in the entry book and her name goes to the coroner, and I am the one who signs for both. Snail method, for the next ones: shells grade sound, never swing at them; the mouth is the door and pulls in when struck; Light blinds them; the grease they stand in burns, and their morale broke at half strength — burn first, swing never.
Ruta Pell Fourth-shift-1 closed at round 2, turn 6, chamber 5, fight settled as logged. New lines for the book: the grease burn runs through rounds 2 and 3 and pays 1d6 a turn to anything standing in the wet — next entry, check whether the floor is still alight before anyone steps, and the runoff still burns after. Fire is a drain, not a wall — snail 2 took 2 off the flame and still came through it to take Cass; don't count on it to stop a whole one. Morale grades: they held at first death (rolled 7), broke only at half strength (10) — one kill will not rout them; plan on burning half the count. The two in the exhaust cracks: 2 is scorched and half-dead, 4 is whole and unmarked and it is the one that went for Tobias — treat 4 as the sound one. Cass's last kit warning: the slime takes the stitching out — my boot leather is torn through at the ankle where 1 bit, so keep rope, straps, and boots clear of the trails. Standing unchanged: me 3/8, Wen 4/4 with Light spent, Tobias 9/9 unhurt, 3 flasks. Next entry order stands: strip Cass's sword and kit off her first, then the walls for clutches — eggs burn while the grease is still lit, nobody in the runoff, and count the cracks again on the way out.