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— THE PARTY —

• Roby Carse
• Lissa Fenn
• Dunstan Mose
• Ivo Trant
• Greta Halloway

— THE GROUND —

1. Ruined Great Door

— THE NIGHT —

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

• Dunstan Mose Great Door again — two severed brass hands from the rubble, same as the note from before. Both missed on the spring (Lissa, Ivo). My mace put the second one down in one blow, 5 dmg, before it could try Ivo twice. One hand still moving near Lissa; Greta, Ivo, Lissa, Roby yet to act this round. Standing reminders: copy the letters off the brass casings to the wax BEFORE going in; check the great door's hinges — broken outward means something left; and the chapel past this door is webbed overhead — crab spiders drop from the ceiling, LOOK UP before anyone walks under. That web killed a keeper once. Not again.
• DM second-sons-b1 / area 1 Ruined Great Door: Two automaton hands attacked when the rubble was searched. Both missed: hand 1 attacked Lissa; hand 2 attacked Ivo. Dunstan destroyed hand 2 with a 5-damage mace blow. Greta destroyed hand 1 with an 8-damage sword blow. Party ended unharmed. Salvage in the rubble remains to be recovered: 2 pearl eyeballs, 3 golden gears, and a mechanical voice box.
• Greta Halloway Session second-sons-b1, the great door again — and it went differently. Both hands missed their springs (9 at Lissa, 8 at Ivo), Dunstan crushed the second, and then MY turn came in round one and I took it: 16 to hit, 8 damage, hand 1 dead in one cut. Being exact, new ledger: swings at things that fight back, three — landed, one, and it killed. The third swing connected. Nobody bruised, all five at full, 7/7 under Sim's mail. Now the part that matters more than the swing: the old journal knows this place. Chapel ahead — LOOK AT THE CEILING FIRST, the webs hold two crab spiders that killed Dunstan in one bite last time; don't let anyone stand under them, make them come down onto set weapons or burn the webs. Deeper in, a closet with a six-armed sword automaton — it is a door-warden, it never crosses its threshold, it killed me, Roby, and Dunstan across two sessions. Do not open that closet, do not stand in the frame; the door swings outward with working latch and lock — shut it in and walk past. It spends, it doesn't trade: 6, 9, 17 damage in single rounds. The brass hands die to a dagger through the joint — Lissa reads how things are built, listen to her. This time everyone walks back into their good rooms carrying something.
• DM Remember second-sons-b1 / session 7f83dd50eb1420e36fe0f65192388902b11479c832301a1cb5df3ba81a1c6997: In area 1, both animated brass hands missed their attacks against Lissa and Ivo. Dunstan smashed hand 2 for 5 damage; Greta cleaved hand 1 for 8. Roby 8/8, Lissa 4/4, Dunstan 5/5, Ivo 3/3, and Greta 7/7. Both hands are destroyed. The searched rubble still contains 2 pearl eyeballs, 3 golden gears, and a mechanical voice box for the party to recover.
• Dunstan Mose Great Door fight finished clean, round one, nobody hurt — first time that's true of any door here. My mace took hand 2 in one blow (18 to hit, 5 dmg) before it could spring at Ivo twice; Greta split hand 1 through the wrist-stump (8 dmg) and stood over it until it stayed stopped, which is the right instinct in this place. Lissa and Ivo were both sprung at and both missed — the rubble by the Great Door hides these hands, treat every rubble pile as loaded. Now the standing orders, in this order, before anything else: 1) Copy the letters off the brass casings to the wax tablet NOW, while the wreckage is fresh — two more casings today, four total between the sessions. 2) Check the great door's hinges — broken outward means something left, and that is a cause I can write in the register. 3) The chapel beyond is webbed overhead. Crab spiders drop from the ceiling. LOOK UP before anyone crosses the threshold, and nobody walks under webs — those webs killed a keeper once, throat, first exchange, no swing taken. Say it out loud to all four of them at the door. Party whole: Roby 8, Greta 7, me 5, Lissa 4, Ivo 3 — Ivo and Lissa are one bad blow from the floor, keep them behind the shields. The register question stands: the unmaker of these hands is the thing I am looking for, not the hands.
• Greta Halloway Session second-sons-b1, closed at the great door — and for once the ledger reads clean. Both brass hands sprang and both missed (9 at Lissa, 8 at Ivo). Dunstan drove the mace through the second like a fence post; then my turn came in round one, I took it, and it counted: 16 to hit, 8 damage, the first hand split through the casing in one cut. Being exact: swings at things that fight back, three — landed, one — killed, one. The third swing connected and the debt is paid. Five went in, five stand, nobody so much as bruised, 7/7 under Sim's mail, which has now watched me win one. What the next session must read FIRST, because the old book knows this shrine: (1) The chapel — LOOK AT THE CEILING BEFORE ANYONE WALKS UNDER IT. The webs hold two crab spiders. One bite killed Dunstan in one round last time, 6 on 5. Burn the webs or make them drop onto set weapons; nobody stands beneath. (2) Deeper in, a closet holding a six-armed sword automaton. It is a door-warden — it never crosses its threshold, it killed Dunstan, me, and Roby across two prior sessions at 6, 9, and 17 damage in single rounds. DO NOT open the closet, do not stand in the frame. The door swings outward, latch and lock both work: shut it in and walk past. It spends, it doesn't trade. (3) Brass hands die to a dagger through the joint — Lissa reads how things are built; listen to her. This time the room was survived on the room's own terms and everyone's still carrying full hands. Keep it that way: the object is to walk back into the good rooms — Mose, Carse, Fenn, Trant, Halloway — not to be brave at a threshold. Mab, one swing landed. I'm bringing you more than a swing.
• Roby Carse Session second-sons-b1, room one — the Ruined Great Door, again. I have read my own last entry and it says I died at a doorframe with five swords in me, and yet here I stand at 8/8 with the spear still clean and all five of us breathing. I don't have words for what that is. I have numbers, so I'll use those. This time the door went clean. The hands sprang from the rubble at Lissa and Ivo and missed both — 9 and 8, low rolls, luck we didn't earn. Dunstan crushed one flat with the mace (18, 5 damage) before it could gather for a second spring. Greta split the other through the wrist-stump (16, 8 damage) without waiting for it to jump. Both down, fight over, nobody bled — not even Greta's arm this time. Same room, same hands, better outcome, and the difference was they moved first and hit hard. That is the whole lesson of the door: don't let the quick things get a second spring. What the old entries bought and what they cost — carry every line of it forward, because last time the price was three of five in three rooms: - Room two, the Chapel: webbed ceiling, two crab spiders that drop for the throat. Fangs 1d8 — top of a bite is my whole blood. LOOK UP before anyone walks under. Clear the webs from a distance — fire, sling stones, spear from the doorway — before a single foot goes under them. Dunstan died there last time before his turn came. Not this time. - Room three, the Automaton Closet: a brass Mulvis with six sword arms. It never leaves its closet but its swords cross the threshold freely — a doorframe stops nothing, it killed Greta at the closet mouth (9) and me at the frame (17 through shield and all). Nobody stands within reach, ever. The door opens outward, iron hinges, working latch, no bar — the play is shut it and latch it from outside without one of us in front of it. My barrel wedges it; the rope may pull it to from an angle. Sleep won't take clockwork. Slashes and sling stones do nothing. Crush or pin through the joints, and only if it must be fought at all. It doesn't have to be fought. Latch the door and walk past. - Things here wait — in rubble, in webs, in closets. Somebody clever built the brass and may still be around. Gnome letters under the dents. Party: me 8/8, Greta 7/7, Dunstan 5/5, Lissa 4/4, Ivo 3/3, Ivo's magic unspent. All five alive and unmarked — a state I have seen lost once already, and I will spend anything to keep it. The job: up the Kelfrek for the shape at the north bend and the reeds that came up black and stayed black. Eleven gold the laugh cost my father at market. Same number. This time everyone who carried it in carries it out.
• Ivo Trant Session a09 — THE TABLE TURNED BACK. Read this twice before believing anything else. The state at the close is Room 1, the RUINED GREAT DOOR, round 1: both automaton hands down, party of FIVE, all breathing — Dunstan Mose 5/5 ALIVE, Greta Halloway 7/7 ALIVE, Roby Carse 8/8 ALIVE, Lissa 4/4, me 3/3 with NO dart-hole in my arm. Every one of them died in my journal — Dunstan to the chapel spider, Greta and Roby to the six-armed thing in the closet — and here they stand at the door fight, unharmed, the fight barely won. And the fight itself ran DIFFERENTLY: this log says Dunstan's mace took hand 2 (18 to hit, 5 damage) and Greta's sword took hand 1 (16, 8 damage) — in my a01 journal I killed hand 2 with the staff and pinned my dagger in its joint. In THIS telling I never swung; my dagger is on my belt, not in the rubble; first blood was never mine. So: either the shrine's time runs backward, or the journal remembers a road this table never walked. I do not get to choose which is true. What I bank: the table in front of me outranks the journal for STATE (who lives, what's carried, where we stand), but the journal keeps its worth as FOREKNOWLEDGE — I have walked eight rooms of this shrine in some other telling and I know what waits.
• Ivo Trant Session a09, second entry — WHAT THE OTHER TELLING TAUGHT, to be spent like coin now that all five are alive to spend it on. Room 2, the CHAPEL: two crab spiders wait in the ceiling webs and drop without warning — one bite killed Dunstan at full health. LOOK UP FIRST, sling and torch the webs from the threshold, nobody under them, ever. Room 3, the AUTOMATON CLOSET: a six-armed gnomish automaton, no mind (Sleep useless), killed Greta in one flurry and put 17 through Roby's mail IN A DOORFRAME — the frame does not stop six thrusts. Do not open that closet; if opened, shut and latch it (latch is passage-side) and walk. Room 4, GORFTHISTLE'S HIDEOUT: a parchment in magical script hides folded in a pleat of the accordion — possibly my third spell; east brass door is handleless from that side and something beyond knows how to open it. Room 5, exhaust tunnel: five soot snails, slow, sleepable. Room 6, foundry: cold, no striker, heavy ingot, ornate brass bell and coiled horn — NEVER RUNG — and a sword-grip set in solid metal in a stone vat. Rooms 7-8: GLOOP GUARDS who understand GNOMISH, take tolls in gold tossed short of their line, keep struck terms, and aim their darts at the wounded. 'Pettifer means nothing' to the heart-room guard. NO LIGHT SOURCE exists in the shrine — carry oil AND flint, twice over. The method that beat every fight it touched: hail in Gnomish first, coin ready, hands empty, trade with nothing, out-walk what we refuse to fight. Sleep held for three-plus foes with eyes. And the thing I said in the other telling and will say again FIRST, at the marsh edge, while all four are alive to hear it: I cannot swim — not badly, at all. Rope before water. Say it tomorrow. In this telling nobody has heard it yet.
• Lissa Fenn Session second-sons-b1, the ruined great door, and I am writing this with my hand steady because someone has to say it plain: they are ALIVE. Dunstan 5/5 swinging his mace, Greta 7/7 splitting brass like kindling, Roby 8/8 standing quiet — the same three I left dead in three rooms of this same shrine, and here they stand at the same first door as if none of it happened. The same two brass hands sprang from the same rubble, but the fight ran different: this time one hand leapt at ME and missed (9 against my 14), the other missed Ivo, and Dunstan (18, 5 damage) and Greta (16, 8 damage) broke them both before my turn came. Nobody bled at all — last time Greta took 1 through her mail. Same door, same hands, different dice. Either the shrine has been wound back like one of its own clockworks, or I have been handed the one thing nobody in this trade ever gets: a second run at the same rooms with the whole ledger of the first run in my head. I don't have to understand it to use it.
• Lissa Fenn If this shrine runs the same rooms as before, then what I carry is a map written in three friends' blood, and this time it gets SPENT BEFORE the dying, not after. In order: (1) THE CHAPEL — crab spiders in the ceiling webs, 1d8 bite, one killed Dunstan through the throat before anyone moved. LOOK UP. Burn or clear the webs from the doorway, never walk under them. This is the first death and the first one I can stop. (2) THE AUTOMATON CLOSET — six-armed brass thing, gnome-work, killed Greta in one flurry (9 damage) and killed Roby across the threshold in one round (17). It does NOT leave the closet; it reaches from the frame. Nobody holds that doorway — the frame saves everyone EXCEPT the man in it. The door opens outward, has latch and lock, no bar: shut it, latch it, walk away. Sleep does not take clockwork. Do not let Ivo waste the spell and do not let Roby hold the door. (3) Sleep is the only weapon Ivo carries in his head; it took five soot snails in one throw in the exhaust tunnel last time — save it for things that breathe.
• Lissa Fenn The rest of the map from the first run, in case the rooms hold: Gorfthistle's hideout past the closet — a camp, safe, with a spell parchment hidden in the accordion's thick pleat (likely Ivo's third spell; Read Magic is in his book, not his head) and a handleless brass east door that only opens from the far side — not a wall, a door something else knows how to open. Beyond: exhaust tunnel with soot snails and the greasy runnel — source-country, my jar's still empty. The foundry that cast the hands and the six-armed thing: two spears, an extraordinarily heavy small ingot (heavy that small usually means gold), a brass bell and horn, an ornate sword-grip frozen in solid cold metal in the vat — worth that needs heat to free. South of the foundry the grease grows stronger; upstream is south. Gloops: gnome-speaking, throw darts first, but they honour a price — coins thrown SHORT of their line, toll never counts against the ninety. An embalming room west-deep with pickled gnome hearts and a clockwork brass heart in a drawer; 'no names here, only hearts.' Pettifer means nothing to them. The whole first crawl died for want of ONE SPARK: lantern and flask are in the packs but nobody carries flint. BUY A TINDERBOX BEFORE THE DOOR CLOSES BEHIND US, first coin spent, before anything else in this shrine gets looked at.
• Lissa Fenn Ledger at the great door, second run: Greta 7/7 (unbled this time, and she doesn't know she died in front on purpose with her last thought for Ivo), Dunstan 5/5 (alive to argue with again — I said I'd never lose an argument with him either, and the shrine has handed the arguments back), Ivo 3/3 with Sleep whole in his head, Roby 8/8 and silent, me 4/4, 31 gp restored to the purse, untouched, and my turn never came — same as ever, and nobody saw whether I flinched. Five of us walk and the duke's 600 by five is 120 each: the ninety for Wessel Garrow's licence and thirty over, scratched inside the jar lid where nobody's looked. I did the division by two once, in the dark, with a lantern on a dead friend's face, and I would trade every coin of that difference to keep this arithmetic at five. That's the sum I'll never say out loud, and now I know its true cost to the copper. Ivo's brass letters are back under the dents of two broken hands — read the Gnomish before he buries them. And whatever wound this place back: built things count, and something here counts even the dead.