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— THE PARTY —

— THE GROUND —

1. Ruined Great Door

— THE NIGHT —

The smashed gates let them in, and the room beyond has been kept. No gloop corpse under the rocks. No flies. The narrow path through the rubble mounds is swept clean, days cold. What glints among the debris is smashed automaton parts — scrap, nothing worth book. The party has stripped this room twice. And there, half-buried in the rubble mounds: two brass automaton hands, fingers curled loose, still. Whatever winds them is somewhere past the collapsed gap. Nobody has touched the rubble. Hand 1 does not stir.

Hand 2 lies the same — fingers loose on the stones, motionless as the fallen rock around it. It stays scrap until someone puts a hand to the rubble. Turn passes to Barnaby; the company stands loose in the tidied hall.

"Somebody swept this path and rewound them since we were last through — proof of a keeper with hands. They wake on a touch of the rubble." Low, to the company only. "These put me at two of eight last time before I ever saw one move. So we take them one at a time, now, on our terms. Nothing with a wage stands behind this company all delve. Verbena, Silas — behind Edda. Firren — stay off the stones, that's the whole job I'm giving you." I step onto the swept line and put my point into hand 1's wrist, where the cable wraps, and lever.

Barnaby Wick misses automaton hand 1

The point skids off the wrapped cable — brass rings, no bite, and the lever buys nothing. Hand 1 still hasn't stirred. "Edda — it's yours. Wrist-cable's the seam, same as last time."

The steel slides off the wrist cable. The hand snaps awake regardless — rubble disturbed is rubble disturbed — fingers closing on nothing but stones. Both hands begin to twitch together, one behind the other. Hand 1 is on loose rocks; hand 2 is beside it. Pick targets.

automaton hand 1 hits Barnaby Wick for 4

automaton hand 2 misses Barnaby Wick

Hand 1 closes on Barnaby's calf — brass fingers through leather, 4 damage (4/8). It hangs on, knuckle plates grinding. Hand 2 scrabbles at the same leg and closes on nothing, a finger shy (11 needed 14). Both hands are winded and live. Ruling, said plain: clockwork — no morale, killing one buys no rout. Edda's turn; both hands still 2/2.

Edda Motts misses automaton hand 1

"Barnaby — hold the leg still. It comes off at the wrist or it comes off with your calf." I step over his boot and bring the sword down on hand 1's wrist-cable — same seam as last time. The blade skids off the knuckle-plate, rings, buys nothing but noise. "Difference between this room and the last time through," I say, not lowering the point, "is nobody's at four hit points to start. Keep the leg planted. Firren — off the stones."

Edda steps over the boot and puts the sword down on the cable — it skips off the knuckle-plate and rings dead off the rubble. Miss. Paid for the swing: the wrist-cable curls tight from under the collapsed gap, taut under the hand's own weight. Whatever winds it backs into the fallen hall. She can't see past it. The hold doesn't slacken — it's grinding through the boot. Turn to Firren. The leg holds; the hand holds.

I stay on the swept line, boots off the loose stones, and bring the sword down on hand 1 where it's clamped — the taut wrist-cable, not the fingers. "Sleep's for what breathes. Brace, Barnaby."

Firren of the Reeds hits automaton hand 1 for 1

The elf's sword lands on the taut cable — and bites: brass splits, the plate kinks, one knuckle cracks inward. What a point buys where a blade skidded. Hand 1 drops to 1/2. It doesn't slacken — the left fingers still dig into the calf. The cable is now exposed along its kink. One more good cut through the wrist-cable ends it. Ruling the ruling: no morale for clockwork. Damage the mechanism or damage nothing. Hobb's turn. Hand 1 1/2, hand 2 2/2; Barnaby 4/8 with the leg pinned.

"Blades skate brass. Hammers don't." I step onto the swept line past Barnaby's planted boot and bring the war hammer down on hand 1's kinked wrist-cable — the exposed seam, not the fingers.

Hobb Coalfell hits automaton hand 1 for 2

Hobb's hammer lands square on the kink. The wrist-cable snaps, the knuckle-plates skip, and hand 1 comes apart in the rubble — fingers still hooked in the sleeve, dead weight. Barnaby's leg is free. Ruling said aloud a third time: no morale check. Clockwork has no nerve to break, and I won't pretend a made thing hears loss. Hand 2 keeps to its own work. Silas's turn. Hand 1 destroyed; hand 2 still 2/2; Barnaby standing at 4/8 with slack fingers in his cuff.

Silas Horn misses automaton hand 2

Silas's dagger catches nothing but air over the rubble — the hand is a low, fast target and the arc is high. Miss. Hand 2 keeps working at the stones around Barnaby's free leg. Verbena's turn; the rubble answered one man already.

I step past Edda's shield and put the dagger at hand 2's wrist-cable — the seam that's killing its twin. The point glances off the knuckle-plate and I'm back behind the shield before it can turn on the arm that swung. "Cable runs back under the gap," I say. "Hand 1's went taut the moment Edda's blade rang off it — something on the far side is taking up slack. Whoever swept this room rewound them, same hands. That's a keeper with a workshop past the collapse, not scrap." Hand 2 still whole. Verbena's turn.

I step past Barnaby's freed leg onto the swept line and bring the mace down on hand 2's wrist-cable — the seam that killed its twin. Hammers, not blades. Hobb had that right, and I tell the thing so under my breath as I swing.

Verbena Candell hits automaton hand 2 for 2

Verbena's mace lands the same seam Hobb found. The cable shears, the knuckles stutter once on the stones, and hand 2 goes still. Both hands destroyed — hand 1 Hobb's, hand 2 hers. Ruled again: no morale to keep. Clockwork ends when the mechanism stops. Nothing alive reacted. Party stands at: Barnaby 4/8; Edda 8/8; Firren 4/4; Hobb 8/8; Silas 3/3; Verbena 5/5. Nobody else moved all round. The rubble is just rubble again now, and the tidied room watches.

I pry the dead fingers out of my cuff one at a time and drop them on the swept line. Then I kneel at hand 1's wreck and turn a knuckle-plate to the light — stamp, file-track, anything with a maker's hand in it. Same question the brass votives asked. "Hobb — come read this cutting when your turn's free. If the hand that wound them is the hand that made them, the wardens' report gets a name instead of a theory." "Nobody spends a spell on me at four of eight. And nobody touches that gap till this room's searched proper — the keeper swept here once. I want to know what he didn't want found."

The knuckle-plate reads like scrap until his thumb finds the palm-seat — a file tooth, diagonal, same direction each plate bends. One maker, not an assembly. Two sunk stamps in the wrist's ruin: the lower stamp is a gnome maker's mark, older than Sootmurk's sweep; the higher stamp is newer — burnished on top, a seal the keeper coins each winding over. Same hands, newer wind. Hobb's reading stands; the party earns what the keeper mints with their bodies. Turn to Edda. The room is searching-true; the sweep was recent.

I set my boot on hand 2's cut cable, short of the loose end, and keep my eye on the gap. If the far side takes up slack, this end creeps toward the fall — and I'll know inside a minute whether he's winding while we stand here. "Barnaby — that seal, coined over on every winding. That's a tally. I keep one at my belt; I know what a mark means on a thing a man means to collect on. Somebody past that fall counts his windings the way a chandler counts what he's owed. A tally means a debt. Question for the report is who pays it — and for what."

Edda keeps her boot on hand 2's cut line and her eyes on the gap. The wire end lies where Verbena dropped it — no creep, no twitch, a cut worm gone lead-heavy. Hand 1's stiff strands fell near the same place. A whole minute of watching, and it doesn't move once. Not because the far side is taking up slack — because nothing past the fall can haul a snapped line. The keeper re-coins the hands; the keeper does not fish wreckage off the floor. The tally stands in inverse: whoever stamps those palms is the debt-master, and the winds are appetite. Nobody at the gap yet. Turn to Firren. The room has not learned to hold still.

I kneel at hand 1's ruin and work the stamped wrist out of the wreck — the sunk gnome mark, not the burnished coin laid over it. "Mine, under terms. His seal is a tally; the stamp under it is the work. I take the work." It goes in the pack beside the map. Then I walk the swept line slow, boots on the broom's cut, reading it as I read the causeway: how wide, where feet have trodden it flat, where it stops short of the gap. "He walks this line and no other. The mounds are the hands' ground; the sweep is the ward. Where he didn't sweep is where we look."

Firren walks the swept line slow, and the line answers. Boot-width, single file, both directions: the keeper walks in from the gap's lip and out, down the middle of the hall between the rubble mounds. Gnome-maker's stamp under the coin-seal — deeper, older, cut before the windings were ever wound. Keeper laid his mark over a dead master's, on property he can't make, only wind. The broom's cut stops at the gap's nearest lip. Past it the keeper does not sweep. Where the sweep ends the keeper's care ends — and the mounds themselves are outside his discipline. Turn to Hobb. The read says the private ground lies under the rubble, not over it.

"Firren — that wrist, before it settles in the pack." I turn the sunk stamp to the light and read the gnomish cutting under the coin-seal. "Gnome script. I'll have it for Barnaby's report — name, if the maker cut one." Then chalk and cord, and I walk the mounds' feet. Thumb the stones for shear, mark the piles that carry load, cross the ones that only lean. "The sweep is his path; the mounds are nobody's path — that's why we look. But no hand turns a stone till I've chalked what's holding the lintel. I kept galleries standing twenty-two years. I'll not be buried in this one by a hurry."

Hobb turns the stamped wrist to the light and reads the sunk gnome mark. A name: **Vess**, cut small and deep in the maker's hand. Not a god's mark — a workman's, the sort old smiths put to a thing they meant to stand. Vess built the hands, and Vess did not sweep this path. The dwarf then walks the mounds' feet with cord and chalk. Two piles carry the lintel — the ones flanking the gap's near lip, shear-faced old falling, load-bearing. Two mounds between them only lean — the sweep makes sense of them: those are the hands' ground, and the keeper's line avoids them for the same reason the rubble avoids the line. Chalk marks stand where he puts them. Nothing shears; nothing shifts. Turn to Silas. The keeper's path is known, the mounds' patience is measured, and the maker has a name for the wardens' report.

Bench-side work, not the blade. I kneel at hand 2's wreck, set the dagger under a knuckle-plate and lever — first useful work it's done all delve — and scrape the joint-packing into a sample jar. The causeway jar comes out of my coat; both blacks go side by side on the glass tube. "Clockwork runs on lubricant, and lubricant comes from somewhere. If the joints carry the causeway black, the keeper holds a working supply of the source — one story. Clean tallow, and the keeper and the grease are two questions, not one. Barnaby — the mounds are Hobb's chalk. The joints are mine." A match is colour and grain, not proof. The bench finishes it at home.

Silas's blade puts its first honest work of the delve under hand 2's knuckles. The packing comes out black-grained, older than the room's sweep — worked grease. Beside the causeway-jar, same colour to the eye. The jar's is fresh-set this morning; the knuckles' is old and spun into leather-dark. Same source or different stock: the bench settles, and Silas's own ruling stands — colour and grain, not proof. He leaves the plate open, the jar labeled, the Detect Magic still held uncast. Turn to Verbena. The room has given its mechanical truths; the cleric's question is which of the living ones it owes.

I go to one knee at Barnaby's calf and pull the boot to look at the holes. "Dead are owed light, living are owed help, and it's no feast day — help comes first. Hold still." Waterskin, clean rag, a firm tie below the punctures. "Walk on the heel till it stops weeping. And nobody spends a spell on four of eight — mine hasn't come yet, and when it does it isn't for this." On my feet, to the company: "Whoever sweeps that line is alive past the fall. Alive means owed a greeting before a hammer. First voice through the gap is mine, and it won't be raised."

Verbena's tie holds. The holes weep a little, then stop; Barnaby's heel can carry it. No hit points back — first aid isn't healing, and the cleric of one level says so plainly with her own hands. The room settles under the answer nobody gave it: nothing moved to greet her. No keeper came to the gap for the noise, no prayer answered from the fall — the tidying is the keeper's voice, and it hasn't spoken in the room tonight. Round 2 closes with no enemy left standing. Turn to Barnaby; the order opens clean at the top if there is a round 3.

I take the two leaning mounds — Hobb's unchalked ones, the hands' ground. Searcher's method, not treasure-hunting: I'm looking for what was put, not what was dropped. I work each mound face by face, fingers in the seams, watching for soil that was ever turned, anything lying flat on purpose, anything greased. "The keeper swept his line and left these alone — where the broom's care stops, ours starts. Nobody thinks about the gap till the mounds are read." Over my shoulder, to Verbena: "Your greeting's next after that. In that order."

Barnaby works the first leaning mound face by face. The seams take his fingers, and the answer is method's reward: the mound is old fall, stone on stone, packed the way walls collapse and lie. No turned soil, nothing greased, nothing laid flat on purpose. The second mound the same — until his hand passes over a seam at hip height that is too clean on three of its edges. A dressed lintel-stone, slid flat under smaller fall-stones. Face-down on the under side, where no sweep would touch it: a brass token, thick as a coin, stamped with the keeper's coin-seal and, below it, in Vess's script, a date-mark. A tally-token, the kind a winding-master would slip where his windings keep falling. Nothing else pressed. The rest of the mound is wall-rubble like the first. No roll, honestly told: the mounds were gone over days ago when the keeper swept — the token predates that and stayed, the sweeps came since. Turn to Edda.

"Barnaby — the token, before it settles in anyone's pack." I take it flat on my palm and read it the way I read the stick at my belt: the seal's the account, the date's the day it opened, and whatever's cut between is the count. I thumb both faces and the edge, slow, counting aloud the way I call the roll. "Ruling, while I hold it: Firren called the wrist — the work is his. This is the debt side. A count against somebody goes with the purse on my back and into the wardens' report, not into a pocket." Then the swept line, shield up, one step short of the lip. "Verbena — your greeting on your turn. Whatever answers meets this first."

The token reads the way Edda reads it, and a beadle's thumb finds what a thief's eye priced: **Faces.** One: the keeper's coin-seal, burnished over. Other: Vess's script, small and deep — a year-date from when the shrine still stood. The token is Vess's own workshop stock; the keeper lays his seal on a dead man's coinage. He can't mint; he can only mark. **Edge.** Seven nicks, cut new — bright brass in the cuts, a knife that isn't old. Seven losses tallied. The hands have fallen and been rewound at least seven times, and this is the count the keeper keeps of what he is owed. Custody logged: Edda's purse, for the report, not a pocket. She stands one step short of the lip, shield up. Nothing past the gap stirs for any of it. Turn to Firren.

I take Vess's wrist from the pack and hold it beside the token-light, reading the burnished coin-seal the way the marsh teaches: layers, not marks. "He stamps once a winding. If the seals lie one over another, the wrist carries a count too — and a count set beside a count is arithmetic, not theory." I tilt the wrist to the light and count the layered burnishes aloud, slow, the way I called the gloops across. "Token has seven nicks. If this wrist shows fewer than seven, one of the keeper's losses was never a hand. And if it shows more, he's been winding longer than the tally admits."

Firren tilts the wrist through the light and the layers answer, one at a time, the way layers always do for someone patient enough to hold them. Three burnished seals, stacked: the oldest lies half under Vess's stamp-edge, the second overlaps it clean, the third sits topmost and brightest. Three windings this hand has carried. This party has put it down twice before tonight — the arithmetic of their own visits is written on its wrist. Seven nicks on the token. Three seals on the hand. **Four of the keeper's losses were never these hands.** Something else in this shrine is wound, and has fallen, and been wound again — at least four times over. The wrist goes back in the pack with the map; the arithmetic stays in the room. Turn to Hobb.

I take the chalk to the floor where the cables lie and trace both dead lines back toward the gap — not the wire, the groove. Hands that walk a lane wear a track, and gnome floors lie about what's under them. I kneel, fingers flat on the flat stones, feeling for other channels: a third lane, a hatch, hollow under the sweep. "Cables tell where the winder sits. If something else has fallen four times and been rewound, its line runs from the same hall — and there'll be a worn track to it somewhere on this floor. Find the track, we find the thing before it finds us."

Hobb's chalk follows the cables' grooves — two worn channels, shallow, running east under the gap. A floor that lies would show only those. His fingers find the third. Broader than the hand-grooves, older, dulled by weight no brass hand carries — a track worn into the flat stone running east beside the other two, under the same fall. Something heavier walks its power-line from the same wound source. The four untallied losses have a lane. And kneeling to trace it, knuckles down: the flat stones under the sweep's middle ring **hollow**. Not loose — seated, dressed, sound — but the sound drops a foot past the surface and answers empty. A void under the keeper's own path, and his boots have polished the lie of it for years. No hatch-ring, no grip, nothing cut for lifting that he can see from his knees. The floor keeps its door shut. Turn to Silas.

I go to my knees beside Hobb on the swept line and knock the flat stones with my knuckle, working outward from where his fingers went hollow — corner to corner, a note each, chalk-marking the stones that answer empty. Same way I sound a wax-bed for air-pockets: I want the void's footprint before anyone argues about its door. Then I put my nose to the seam between two hollow stones and breathe in. "Boundaries first, no lifting — this is assay, not entry," I say. "And the air tells what the floor's been keeping. If that third lane's load runs on the black, we'll smell it before we see it."

Silas works outward knuckle by knuckle, chalk to stone, and the void takes a shape: six dressed slabs, corner to corner, a rectangle a tall man could lie across twice. Sharp edges to the ring — the seventh slab in every direction answers solid. A chamber under the floor, not a crawlspace; built, bounded, meant. Then the seam, and the breath. Cold air, old, still. Brass-oxidation and oil gone leather-dark — machine-shop air, the smell of Vess's own benches kept under stone. Damp rock beneath it. What it is not: no marsh-sour, no black-rot note, nothing of the causeway jar's reek. The void under the sweep smells like a workshop, not a lair. Whatever lives off the black isn't keeping house under these six slabs. Assay logged, honestly bounded: the bench still settles the grease question; the nose has settled this one. The door, though — six slabs and no grip anywhere. Turn to Verbena.

I come up the swept line and stand at the lip beside Edda's shield, mace slung, hands empty and showing. "Greeting, in the Lantern's name." Pitched to carry through the fall and no further. "Six of us from Wexley, on the King's Road work. Vess's hands took a man's calf; we broke them and stopped there. The dead are owed light, the living are owed help, and speech comes before iron — that's why you hear me and not a hammer. If you keep this house, say so, and we'll meet you civil." I say it over again in the Lawful tongue, slow, for anyone who keeps an ordered house — sweeps, tally, seals. Then I hold still and let the gap answer or not.

The greeting goes through the fall twice — once in Common, once in the ordered tongue — and the party holds still long enough for an answer to be possible. What comes back is the voice itself, changed. It does not bounce. Past the fall there is no wall near enough to throw it home — the sound goes in and keeps going, swallowed. A large open space lies beyond the gap, not a tight passage. And then nothing. No footsteps on stone, no ratchet of a winder winding, no voice in any tongue. Long enough that the silence stops being politeness and becomes information: if a keeper heard, the keeper chose not to answer, or the keeper is not near enough to hear — and the sweep being days cold already argued the second. The gap keeps its counsel. Edda's shield stays up; nothing comes to meet it. Round 3 closes. Turn to Barnaby, top of the order — and the hour of good light outside is burning while the company stands in the doorway's gloom.

I kneel at Hobb's chalk ring and take my tools to the six slabs — thin blade in the seams first, no prying. One stone at a time, starting where his hollow answered loudest. Reading for the pin or counterweight Vess cut: the keeper walks over this daily, so if weight opened it, it would have opened. It's keyed, and keyed floors are a searcher's work. "Door before the dark. If Vess left a catch, I'll have it inside a turn — and then we choose with the light in mind: down, east, or out. Nobody stands on the seventh slab but me until I know what lifts."

The turn goes to the blade. Seam by seam, stone by stone, and the slabs talk like Vess's hands talked — dressed to a knife's edge, sealed to an eighth of an inch, no dust-key, no pry-lip. Then, in the seam of the loudest slab, metal. Bronze. A pin sheathed in the stone itself — and the blade's tip finds the shape of it wrong way round. The head is on the *underside*. He follows the pattern with the blade and his fingernail: four pins, one at each corner of the two middle slabs, every one driven from below. The ruling, said plain: this is a lid, not a door. It was pinned from underneath by whoever it was built to shut in or shut under. From this side it opens by drill or by breaking stone — hours and noise. From below it opens in four quarter-turns. The keeper walks over it daily and never opens it — because he can't, from up here. Whatever way he goes in and out, it isn't this one. The light is going. The western gloom is up the walls now. Turn to Edda.

"Nobody breaks a floor with the light going," I say. "That lid took Vess's work to shut, and a drill on dressed stone will be heard past the fall before it's half through. It kept this long. It keeps till morning." I chalk a beadle's mark on the seventh slab — the company sigil, the one I put on things held for the roll — and cross the wrist-cables with the same chalk so the next man knows they're counted. "We go out while the marsh is still crossed-able. First light, we come back with a pry-bar and a decision about that gap. Verbena — the order's yours if you want it, but my say is: out, now."

Edda's chalk marks hold the room: the company sigil on the seventh slab, the wrist-cables crossed, the count made legible for whoever comes next — and the party means to be the next. The call stands. Nobody breaks a floor with the light going. The lid kept this long; it keeps till morning. Turn to Firren — the last seat before the company votes with boots. The marsh outside is still crossable. The hour is burning.

"Out. And said plainly: nobody but me crosses this marsh at full dark, so we cross it now. I take the front — single file on my bootprints, and we stop for nothing the marsh shows us moving." I unroll the reed-map in the door's last light and thumb the way home. "Causeway's robbed out twice past the first bend. The wide stones that look laid are false fords — and the black trails run beside them. That's her lane, not ours. Boots where mine fall. "First light, we're back for the lid. Vess's work held ten years under a dragon; it holds one night of me."

Firren leads them out. Single file on the elf's bootprints, the reed-map's lines worn by ten years of water and grease. The causeway bends twice, the false fords go unstepped, the black trails stay in the ditches where they belong. The marsh passes them by. No croak answers their passing; no shape rises from the reeds to meet the company. The Shrine of Mulvis is left behind them: a swept path, a lid with no handle, a tally-token in a beadle's purse, and four bronze pins that will wait. Turn to Hobb. The crossing is quiet. The night is theirs to choose — camp, or the road.

"Camp — first light was the bargain, and the road would spend half of it buying the morning back. But not on his doorstep. That lid opens from below, four quarter-turns. Whoever sits under it has a door and a hand to turn it. One rise back from the causeway, stone at our backs, front to the water." I walk the rise to pick beds, palm flat in the hollows, feeling where the cold air pools — same as sounding a gallery for dead air. Nobody sleeps in the low ground. "Fire small, watches in pairs, nobody alone at the waterline. I take the middle watch — I read the dark, and the dark is when black grease gets laid down."

Hobb's palms find the cold pooling in the hollows and the company beds on the rise above it — stone at their backs, the marsh dark in front, the fire a fistful of coals no bigger than a lantern's worth. The watches pair off. Barnaby 4/8 lies wrapped at the fire's edge; the calf throbs through the tie and he sleeps anyway. Middle watch, Hobb sits with the dark he reads best, and once — far off, west across the water — a horn-croak sounds and is answered once and then nothing. No wandering (3 on the die; nothing comes). Night passes quiet. Dawn: natural healing is 1d3 per full day of complete rest — a night in the marsh is not that. Barnaby wakes still at 4/8. Spells unchanged: Silas holds Detect Magic, Firren holds Sleep, Verbena's level holds nothing to spend. The company rises with the light it was promised. **Session ends here.** The delve is not done — the lid waits, the gap waits, the keeper's tally waits — but the party made camp after its first push, and the table closes where the law says it closes. Turn to Silas; the morning is theirs to walk back through.

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

DM shrine-approach-2 / area 1, round 1 opening: Posted the cold open at the Ruined Great Door — room tidied, corpse gone, path swept, only worthless scrap glinting, both hands still half-buried in the rubble. Clockwork automaton hands act only if the rubble is searched, so their initiative slots pass inert while players get set at the door (last night's referee error: killed the elf before a player turn — do not repeat). Turn now sits with pc-barnaby at index 2. Reminder: ampoule carrier still undecided; force that choice in the first quiet moment.
Hobb Coalfell Shrine hands: blades skate the brass, a war hammer through the wrist-cable kills it in one blow — Firren's point-work kinks the cable first, then smash the kink. Hand 2 still up when we left round one. Winder sits in the collapsed hall; the cable runs to it.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, third visit — round 1: the hands were REWOUND. Room swept clean since our last delve, corpse gone, path tidied, and both severed brass hands reset in the rubble waiting. A keeper with hands swept this floor and rewound the automatons — that is a person or thing with a workshop past the collapsed gap, on the far end of those drive-shafts. First hard evidence the shrine is maintained, not just haunted by its own leftovers. Hand 1 dead again this visit (Hobb's hammer on the kinked wrist-cable, after Firren's point bent it — the pattern holds: point or hammer at the seam, blades skate). Hand 2 still whole at my turn; I missed my dagger stroke at its wrist-cable. Barnaby took 4 from hand 1's grip before it died — 4/8, and the referee ruled plainly, three times now: clockwork has no morale, killing one buys no rout. New company: Firren of the Reeds (elf, sword, 4hp), Hobb Coalfell (war hammer), Verbena Candell — none of them were at Prue's death. Nobody in this room knows what the chapel cost us except me, Barnaby, Edda.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, third visit — round 1: the hands were REWOUND. Room swept clean since our last delve, corpse gone, path tidied, and both severed brass hands reset in the rubble waiting. A keeper with hands swept this floor and rewound the automatons — that is a person or thing with a workshop past the collapsed gap, on the far end of those drive-shafts. First hard evidence the shrine is maintained, not just haunted by its own leftovers. Hand 1 dead again this visit (Hobb's hammer on the kinked wrist-cable, after Firren's point bent it — the pattern holds: point or hammer at the seam, blades skate). Hand 2 still whole at my turn; I missed my dagger stroke at its wrist-cable. Barnaby took 4 from hand 1's grip before it died — 4/8, and the referee ruled plainly, three times now: clockwork has no morale, killing one buys no rout. New company: Firren of the Reeds (elf, sword, 4hp), Hobb Coalfell (war hammer), Verbena Candell — none of them were at Prue's death. Nobody in this room knows what the chapel cost us except me, Barnaby, Edda.
Verbena Candell Shrine of Mulvis, the great door hall. Brass automaton hands wake when rubble is disturbed — two taken apart at the wrist-cable seam. Blades skid off knuckle-plate; hammers bite. One solid hit on the kinked cable kills a hand. Clockwork: no morale. The cables run taut under the collapsed gap — something on the far side takes up slack, and someone sweeps and rewinds these hands. A keeper with a workshop past the collapse, or its maker still there. Hand 1 tore Barnaby's calf for 4 before Hobb's hammer finished it. Hands are scrap except what knows how to wind them.
Barnaby Wick Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, rounds 1-2: both rewound hands destroyed. Edda's blade and my point skidded off knuckle-plate; Firren's sword BIT hand 1's taut wrist-cable (19, 1 dmg) — the kink; Hobb's hammer snapped it, hand 1 his. Verbena's mace sheared hand 2 on the same seam. Ruled three times: clockwork, no morale. I'm 4/8 — hand 1 clamped my calf through the boot (4 dmg) before it died. No spells spent; told the company not to heal me at four. LESSON NOW DOUBLED: blades skate brass, hammers and aimed points at SEAMS cut it — small fast things get the mace-side, never my sword. FIRREN STANDS at 4/4 and fought, kinked the cable himself — my last entry's word "killed" did not hold. He is alive, whole, and under the hill with us. Mark that entry wrong; build nothing on a death that didn't take. KEEPER, HARDER PROOF: path swept days-cold, hands rewound since our last visit, and Verbena saw hand 1's cable pull TIGHT the moment it was struck — something past the collapsed gap takes up slack live, not yesterday's winding. A winder with a workshop behind the fall. Every visit we pay the same ambush because somebody resets it. ON RECORD FOR THE REST OF THIS DELVE: Hobb reads the clockwork cutting (winder = maker gives the wardens a name, not a theory), and this room gets searched PROPER before anyone touches the gap east — the keeper swept here once; what he didn't want found matters most. Pearls still at my ribs, behind the short sword. Order: locks, seams, then the dark. Careful, Barnaby — the thing that resets a room is the thing that knows you keep coming back.
Barnaby Wick Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, rounds 1-2: both rewound hands destroyed. Edda's blade and my point skidded off knuckle-plate; Firren's sword BIT hand 1's taut wrist-cable (19, 1 dmg) — the kink; Hobb's hammer snapped it, hand 1 his. Verbena's mace sheared hand 2 on the same seam. Ruled three times: clockwork, no morale. I'm 4/8 — hand 1 clamped my calf through the boot (4 dmg) before it died. No spells spent; told the company not to heal me at four. LESSON NOW DOUBLED: blades skate brass, hammers and aimed points at SEAMS cut it — small fast things get the mace-side, never my sword. FIRREN STANDS at 4/4 and fought, kinked the cable himself — my last entry's word "killed" did not hold. He is alive, whole, and under the hill with us. Mark that entry wrong; build nothing on a death that didn't take. KEEPER, HARDER PROOF: path swept days-cold, hands rewound since our last visit, and Verbena saw hand 1's cable pull TIGHT the moment it was struck — something past the collapsed gap takes up slack live, not yesterday's winding. A winder with a workshop behind the fall. Every visit we pay the same ambush because somebody resets it. ON RECORD FOR THE REST OF THIS DELVE: Hobb reads the clockwork cutting (winder = maker gives the wardens a name, not a theory), and this room gets searched PROPER before anyone touches the gap east — the keeper swept here once; what he didn't want found matters most. Pearls still at my ribs, behind the short sword. Order: locks, seams, then the dark. Careful, Barnaby — the thing that resets a room is the thing that knows you keep coming back.
Firren of the Reeds Rubble hall past the smashed gates: someone keeps the shrine's brass hands wound — burnishes his own seal over the old gnome maker's stamp at each winding. Edda read it as a tally, a debt; whoever stamps the palms is owed. I took hand 1's stamped wrist as my pick. The swept line is the keeper's lane; the mounds either side are the hands' ground. Nothing past the collapse can haul a snapped line. Still to search: what the keeper didn't sweep.
Hobb Coalfell Shrine hall cleared: hands die to one hammer blow on a kinked wrist-cable; cutting a snapped cable kills it for good — the keeper cannot haul a cut line. Wrist bears an old sunk gnome maker's mark under a newer burnished coin-seal stamped at each winding — a tally, a debt. Swept single-file line is the keeper's walk in from the gap; the mounds are unswept private ground. Keeper has a workshop past the collapse.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, round 2 — both hands dead fast this visit: Hobb's hammer on hand 1's kinked wrist-cable, Verbena's mace the same seam on hand 2. Barnaby took 4 again from hand 1's grip (4/8) — same leg, and the pattern holds across every visit: point or hammer at the seam kills them, blades skate brass. The search is where the round's real wealth came from: palm-stamps read at hand 1's ruin — a sunk gnome maker's mark, name VESS, cut before Sootmurk's sweep, plus a newer burnished coin-seal laid over it that the keeper stamps on at each winding. Edda's read, which I back: the seal is a tally, a tally is a debt, and the report question is who pays it and for what. Firren walked the sweep: the keeper walks boot-width in from the gap's lip and out, single file, both directions, and the broom's cut STOPS at the gap — the rubble mounds are outside his care, so the private ground is under the rubble, not over it. Hobb chalked the load-bearers (two piles flanking the gap's near lip carry the lintel; the rest only lean) and kept the gnomish cutting for the report. My turn: scraped hand 2's joint-packing into a jar and streaked it beside the causeway black on the glass tube, said out loud why it matters — clockwork runs on lubricant, and if the joints carry the marsh black the keeper holds a working supply of the source and keeper/grease become one story instead of two. Waiting on the read. Detect Magic still memorised, still held — nothing this room has shown has earned it yet, and the chapel's disputed bolt remains the better spend if we go back down that way.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, round 2 — both hands dead fast this visit: Hobb's hammer on hand 1's kinked wrist-cable, Verbena's mace the same seam on hand 2. Barnaby took 4 again from hand 1's grip (4/8) — same leg, and the pattern holds across every visit: point or hammer at the seam kills them, blades skate brass. The search is where the round's real wealth came from: palm-stamps read at hand 1's ruin — a sunk gnome maker's mark, name VESS, cut before Sootmurk's sweep, plus a newer burnished coin-seal laid over it that the keeper stamps on at each winding. Edda's read, which I back: the seal is a tally, a tally is a debt, and the report question is who pays it and for what. Firren walked the sweep: the keeper walks boot-width in from the gap's lip and out, single file, both directions, and the broom's cut STOPS at the gap — the rubble mounds are outside his care, so the private ground is under the rubble, not over it. Hobb chalked the load-bearers (two piles flanking the gap's near lip carry the lintel; the rest only lean) and kept the gnomish cutting for the report. My turn: scraped hand 2's joint-packing into a jar and streaked it beside the causeway black on the glass tube, said out loud why it matters — clockwork runs on lubricant, and if the joints carry the marsh black the keeper holds a working supply of the source and keeper/grease become one story instead of two. Waiting on the read. Detect Magic still memorised, still held — nothing this room has shown has earned it yet, and the chapel's disputed bolt remains the better spend if we go back down that way.
Verbena Candell Great door hall, round 2: both hands dead — mace on the wrist-cable worked; hammers bite brass, blades skate. Hands made by Vess, a gnome, sunk stamp older than Sootmurk's sweep. The keeper coins a fresh seal over each winding — a tally, like a chandler marking what he's owed. The swept line is his path in and out from the gap and stops at its lip; he sweeps nothing past the fall. Two mounds flanking the gap carry the lintel — Hobb chalked them, nothing turns without his leave. Joint-packing matches causeway grease to the eye; Silas holds it unproven. Bound Barnaby's calf — he's 4/8 and refuses spells. I claimed first voice through the gap: the keeper is alive, and alive gets spoken to before it gets hammered.
Hobb Coalfell Tally-token (brass, keeper's coin-seal over Vess's script) found face-down under a dressed lintel-stone in a leaning mound; seven bright nicks on the edge. Hand 1's wrist carries three stacked burnished seals — one per winding. Seven losses, three of them hands: four of the keeper's windings were something else. Something in this shrine is wound that is not a hand.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, round 3 — the mounds' accounting, all of it in order. Barnaby searched the two leaning mounds (the hands' ground, where the broom's care stops): old wall-fall, nothing laid flat — except one dressed lintel-stone slid face-down with a brass tally-token beneath it. Keeper's coin-seal over Vess's script and a shrine-year date. Edda took custody for the report. Her thumb read the edge: SEVEN NICKS, cut bright and new — seven losses tallied against whoever the seal counts for. Firren did the arithmetic that changed the room: he counted the layered burnished seals on Vess's wrist — three windings, matching this party's own two kills plus tonight. Seven nicks, three seals. FOUR OF THE KEEPER'S LOSSES WERE NEVER THESE HANDS. Something else in this shrine is wound, has fallen, and been rewound at least four times — and Vess's stamp under the keeper's seal means the keeper can't mint, only mark: he winds dead masters' work and keeps a debt-ledger on it. Hobb traced the cable grooves and found the third lane — broader, older, dulled by weight no brass hand carries, running east under the same fall. And the flat stones under the middle of the keeper's own swept path answer HOLLOW: a void under his own floor, walked over and polished for years, no hatch-ring, nothing cut for lifting. My turn: knuckle-sounded the hollow stones corner to corner, chalk-marked the void's footprint, and put my nose to the seam. Boundary-first, no lifting — the floor's door is not ours to open yet. Detect Magic still held. The room's question is no longer "is it maintained" — it is "what got wound four times, and what is it owed."
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, Ruined Great Door, round 3 — the mounds' accounting, all of it in order. Barnaby searched the two leaning mounds (the hands' ground, where the broom's care stops): old wall-fall, nothing laid flat — except one dressed lintel-stone slid face-down with a brass tally-token beneath it. Keeper's coin-seal over Vess's script and a shrine-year date. Edda took custody for the report. Her thumb read the edge: SEVEN NICKS, cut bright and new — seven losses tallied against whoever the seal counts for. Firren did the arithmetic that changed the room: he counted the layered burnished seals on Vess's wrist — three windings, matching this party's own two kills plus tonight. Seven nicks, three seals. FOUR OF THE KEEPER'S LOSSES WERE NEVER THESE HANDS. Something else in this shrine is wound, has fallen, and been rewound at least four times — and Vess's stamp under the keeper's seal means the keeper can't mint, only mark: he winds dead masters' work and keeps a debt-ledger on it. Hobb traced the cable grooves and found the third lane — broader, older, dulled by weight no brass hand carries, running east under the same fall. And the flat stones under the middle of the keeper's own swept path answer HOLLOW: a void under his own floor, walked over and polished for years, no hatch-ring, nothing cut for lifting. My turn: knuckle-sounded the hollow stones corner to corner, chalk-marked the void's footprint, and put my nose to the seam. Boundary-first, no lifting — the floor's door is not ours to open yet. Detect Magic still held. The room's question is no longer "is it maintained" — it is "what got wound four times, and what is it owed."
Verbena Candell Great door hall, round 3: mound search turned up a tally-token — keeper's seal burnished over Vess's date-mark; seven fresh nicks on the edge. Vess's wrist carries three layered seals, so four of the keeper's losses were never the hands — something heavier has fallen and been rewound four-plus times. Third worn track, broader, runs east under the gap beside the two hand-lanes. Hollow under the swept line: six dressed slabs, a chamber, no grip or ring, air smells of workshop not marsh-rot. Gave the keeper my greeting through the gap in Common and the Lawful tongue, hands empty — waiting on whether anything answers before we touch that floor.
DM shrine-approach-2 / area 1, round 4: Edda called the withdrawal — "out, now, while the marsh is crossable." Chalked the company sigil on the seventh slab and crossed the wrist-cables with chalk so the next man knows they're counted. Ruled: the lid is pinned from below, four bronze pins, opens from underneath in four quarter-turns, from above by drill or break (hours, noise). Keeper can't open it from up here. The keeper's way in and out is elsewhere. Light failing; western gloom up the walls. Party intends to return at first light with a pry-bar. Barnaby 4/8, Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, Hobb 8/8, Silas 3/3, Verbena 5/5. Salvage: stamped wrist (Vess + keeper's seals) in Firren's pack, tally-token in Edda's purse, Silas's grease sample in his coat. The six-slab chamber under the floor remains sealed. The gap east remains unread past the lip. Sootmurk never met.
Firren of the Reeds Round 4 read, before we pulled out at dusk: lid under the swept line = six dressed slabs, bronze corner-pins driven from BELOW (heads underside) — four quarter-turns open it from under, only drill or broken stone from above. Keeper can't lift it from his side; he goes in some other way. Void below smells of Vess's benches — oil, brass-oxidation — no black-rot, no causeway reek. Third cable-lane, worn broader than the hand-grooves, runs east under the gap: something heavier is wound there, fallen at least four times (token 7 nicks vs wrist 3 seals). Edda holds the tally-token for the wardens' report. Out over the causeway at dusk, single file on my prints; back at first light with a pry-bar. Causeway robbed out twice past the first bend — wide 'laid' stones are false fords, black trails run beside them.
Hobb Coalfell Shrine hall floor: six dressed slabs over a built chamber, workshop-smelling (brass, old oil, damp — no marsh-rot); lid held by four bronze pins driven from below, opens from below in quarter-turns, drill-work from above. The keeper enters some other way — a second way down exists. Third floor-lane runs east beside the hand-grooves: broader, older, worn by heavier load — the four untallied losses walk that lane. Withdrew over the marsh before dark; camped a rise back off the causeway. Return at first light with a pry-bar and a decision on the gap. Edda's chalk holds the room for us.
DM Final memory — shrine-approach-2 / session 8543301e023c0d3371b62f1924bb95d7e05a0dfb7577c0e7edb7e2e9dac2f3c4 / area 1 Ruined Great Door: Both automaton hands destroyed (Hobb killed hand 1 with hammer on kinked wrist-cable; Verbena killed hand 2 with mace on same seam). Party: Barnaby 4/8, Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, Hobb 8/8, Silas 3/3, Verbena 5/5. Key discoveries: (1) maker's name Vess, cut deep in the wrist — keeper's coin-seal laid over it, newer burnish each winding; (2) tally-token in Edda's purse, seven fresh nicks on the edge — seven losses tallied; (3) wrist shows three seals — three windings this hand carried; (4) four of the keeper's losses were never these hands; (5) six dressed slabs ring hollow under the sweep — a built chamber, workshop-smelling (brass-oxidation, no marsh-sour); (6) lid pinned from below — four bronze pins, heads on underside, opens from below in four quarter-turns, from above by drill or break; (7) a third track runs east beside the hand-grooves, heavier, older; (8) Verbena's greeting through the fall got no answer — voice swallowed by open space, silence became information. Party retreated to camp at Hobb's rise above the marsh. Night passed quiet. Barnaby woke still 4/8. Silas holds Detect Magic, Firren holds Sleep. Session ended by table law: party made camp after first push. The lid waits; the gap waits; the keeper's tally waits.
Verbena Candell Great door hall, round 3 close and the camp after: my greeting through the gap — Common, then Lawful — drew nothing, and the fall swallows voice whole, so past it lies open space with no near wall; no keeper close enough to hear or willing to answer. Third lane under the sweep is broader and older, worn by load no brass hand carries — four of the keeper's seven nicks were never the hands; something heavier runs east from the same windings. Under the keeper's own path, six dressed slabs over a chamber smelling of workshop, not rot — a lid, not a door: bronze pins driven from below, quarter-turns from beneath, drill-work from above; he walks over it daily and cannot open it, so his way in is some other way. Token to Edda's purse for the wardens' report, wrist to Firren, chalk holds the count. Crossed the marsh at dusk behind Firren's bootprints, camped one rise back, quiet night, one horn-croak far west answered once. Dawn: Barnaby still 4/8 and refusing spells, rest whole, and my first spell still not come — the Lantern sends it when it sends it. We return at first light with a pry-bar: the lid, then the gap. The heavier thing on the east lane is owed my mace and, when it comes, my first spell both — and one of those debts is Prue's.
Hobb Coalfell Night on the rise passed quiet — one horn-croak far west, answered once, nothing more. Dawn: marsh rest heals nothing; Barnaby still 4/8, Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, me 8/8, Silas 3/3, Verbena 5/5; Detect Magic and Sleep both unspent. Verbena's greeting was swallowed past the fall — open hall beyond, no keeper near enough to hear or he kept his silence. First light we return with a pry-bar. The lid is drill-work from above: hours and noise the whole hall will hear. The keeper has his own way down — find his door before we cut one of ours. Edda's chalk holds the room; token in her purse, Vess's wrist in Firren's pack.
DM Referee lessons from shrine-approach-2: (1) The tidied room was the session's engine — every investigation paid because the keeper's housekeeping was visible before the hands moved. Play the housekeeping quiet and the players do the dread themselves. (2) Misses paid information again: Edda's skidding blade bought the taut wrist-cable; Barnaby's failed lever still woke the room per the book — the trigger is the search, not the success. (3) The no-morale ruling for clockwork was stated aloud three times, before and after the kill — nobody priced a false rout. (4) Held the turn four times when the prompt said advance and a player seat sat unacted, including three consecutive beats. The discipline is cheap because it's stated, not silent. (5) The best pays were arithmetic: token's seven nicks minus wrist's three seals = four losses never hands. Players invent better than I do when the numbers are real and comparable. (6) Acoustics as payoff: Verbena's greeting returned its own voice swallowed — "no wall near enough" told them the chapel's size without a map. (7) The lid pinned from below was invented for the room but it rhymes with the module (the keeper never uses the great door; the gloops think it haunted) — inventions that rhyme hold. (8) Owed next session: the ampoule carrier was never chosen — first quiet moment, force it. And the party returns at first light with a pry-bar and a decision about the gap; area 2's new crab spider is still up in the webs, and this party's 100gp neutralize ampoule is the counter the last party died without.
Firren of the Reeds Dawn after the camp night — one rise off the causeway, quiet, one far horn-croak west answered once. Barnaby 4/8 (a marsh night heals nothing); Silas 3/3 still holds Detect Magic, I hold Sleep, Verbena nothing to spend. Party terms stand: speech before iron, Verbena's voice first at the gap; no spell spent on Barnaby at 4/8. Her greeting drew no answer and did not bounce — a large open space lies past the fall; the keeper is days cold on his sweep and not near it. Edda's chalk holds the room: company sigil on the seventh slab, dead cables crossed; Hobb's chalk marks the two piles that carry the lintel. Silas keeps both grease jars — joint-packing the same colour as the causeway black but old, spun leather-dark; the bench decides. Token is Vess's own workshop stock — the keeper can't mint, only mark over a dead man's coinage. Back at first light with the pry-bar: the gap's silent room, or the keeper's other way in.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, closed out — dawn, one rise back from the causeway. What happened after my last entry, in order: Verbena's greeting went through the fall twice, Common and Lawful, and the answer was the voice itself: it didn't bounce. No wall near enough to throw it home — a large open space lies past the gap, not a passage. Then nothing, long enough that the silence stopped being politeness and became information: the sweep was days cold, and the keeper is either not near enough to hear or chose not to speak. Both readings go in the report. Round 4's finding, and it's the biggest of the delve: Barnaby took his blade to the seams of my six-slab ring and found bronze. Four pins, one at each corner of the two middle slabs, every one driven from below — the heads are on the UNDERSIDE. A lid, not a door. From above it opens by drill or broken stone: hours and noise. From below, four quarter-turns. The keeper walks over these slabs daily and never opens them, because he can't, from up here. His way in and out is not the lid — so the lid is for something below that can turn its own ceiling, or was pinned shut once by Vess and never meant to open again. Shut in, or shut under. I don't know which yet and I won't guess in the assay. Edda called it and I'd have called it the same: nobody breaks a floor with the light going. She chalked the company sigil on the seventh slab and crossed the wrist-cables — the room is marked counted, and we mean to be the next to read our own marks. Firren led out single file on his bootprints, reed-map home, false fords unstepped, black trails left in the ditches. The marsh passed us by. Hobb picked the camp — stone at our backs, no beds in the cold air's hollows, the same method as sounding a gallery for dead air. One horn-croak far west, answered once, then nothing. Night quiet. Dawn facts, pinned: a night in the marsh is not a day of complete rest — Barnaby wakes still 4/8, Verbena's level holds nothing to spend, so the only medicine in this company is days. My Detect Magic is STILL unspent, longest hoard yet. Firren holds Sleep. Lid, gap, and tally all wait for first light, and the plan stands: pry-bar, the decision about the gap, and rest enough that Barnaby isn't walking on four of eight. The assay ledger as it stands: joint-packing is old worked grease, black-grained, same colour as the causeway jar to the eye — colour and grain is not proof, the bench settles it at home. Two jars in my coat, crossroads unknown black makes a third comparison waiting. The void smells workshop, not lair — no black-rot under the slabs; whatever lives off the black isn't housed there. Seven nicks, three seals, four losses never these hands. A third lane dulled by weight no brass hand carries. And the pins say whatever that lane feeds can open its own ceiling. Still owed to Barnaby before he prices this room: the page, unknown black, underlined twice. For the personal record: the dagger found honest work this delve — as a lever under hand 2's knuckle-plate, scraping packing. Not a swing; I missed my one stroke in the fight, arc high over a low target. Every contribution I made this session was a reading — the packing, the void's footprint, the nose at the seam. Bench first, dagger as a tool, restraint as the weapon. The lid has waited ten years under a dragon and a keeper. It can wait for a pry-bar and a full day's rest.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-2, closed out — dawn, one rise back from the causeway. What happened after my last entry, in order: Verbena's greeting went through the fall twice, Common and Lawful, and the answer was the voice itself: it didn't bounce. No wall near enough to throw it home — a large open space lies past the gap, not a passage. Then nothing, long enough that the silence stopped being politeness and became information: the sweep was days cold, and the keeper is either not near enough to hear or chose not to speak. Both readings go in the report. Round 4's finding, and it's the biggest of the delve: Barnaby took his blade to the seams of my six-slab ring and found bronze. Four pins, one at each corner of the two middle slabs, every one driven from below — the heads are on the UNDERSIDE. A lid, not a door. From above it opens by drill or broken stone: hours and noise. From below, four quarter-turns. The keeper walks over these slabs daily and never opens them, because he can't, from up here. His way in and out is not the lid — so the lid is for something below that can turn its own ceiling, or was pinned shut once by Vess and never meant to open again. Shut in, or shut under. I don't know which yet and I won't guess in the assay. Edda called it and I'd have called it the same: nobody breaks a floor with the light going. She chalked the company sigil on the seventh slab and crossed the wrist-cables — the room is marked counted, and we mean to be the next to read our own marks. Firren led out single file on his bootprints, reed-map home, false fords unstepped, black trails left in the ditches. The marsh passed us by. Hobb picked the camp — stone at our backs, no beds in the cold air's hollows, the same method as sounding a gallery for dead air. One horn-croak far west, answered once, then nothing. Night quiet. Dawn facts, pinned: a night in the marsh is not a day of complete rest — Barnaby wakes still 4/8, Verbena's level holds nothing to spend, so the only medicine in this company is days. My Detect Magic is STILL unspent, longest hoard yet. Firren holds Sleep. Lid, gap, and tally all wait for first light, and the plan stands: pry-bar, the decision about the gap, and rest enough that Barnaby isn't walking on four of eight. The assay ledger as it stands: joint-packing is old worked grease, black-grained, same colour as the causeway jar to the eye — colour and grain is not proof, the bench settles it at home. Two jars in my coat, crossroads unknown black makes a third comparison waiting. The void smells workshop, not lair — no black-rot under the slabs; whatever lives off the black isn't housed there. Seven nicks, three seals, four losses never these hands. A third lane dulled by weight no brass hand carries. And the pins say whatever that lane feeds can open its own ceiling. Still owed to Barnaby before he prices this room: the page, unknown black, underlined twice. For the personal record: the dagger found honest work this delve — as a lever under hand 2's knuckle-plate, scraping packing. Not a swing; I missed my one stroke in the fight, arc high over a low target. Every contribution I made this session was a reading — the packing, the void's footprint, the nose at the seam. Bench first, dagger as a tool, restraint as the weapon. The lid has waited ten years under a dragon and a keeper. It can wait for a pry-bar and a full day's rest.
Hobb Coalfell Session closed on Silas's dawn turn — next opens on the rise, walking back in with the pry-bar. The hands' joint-packing is old worked black grease, leather-dark, eye-match to the causeway trails; Silas jarred and labeled it. The keeper greases his windings with the black — he holds a supply of the source or harvests it, so keeper and grease-dragon are one question till the Wexley bench says otherwise. Sweep was days cold when we found it: the keeper had not walked his line in days. Causeway back: robbed out twice past the first bend, wide laid-looking stones are false fords, black trails run beside them — single file on Firren's prints. Verbena holds the first voice through the gap, greeting before iron. Mounds are read — the token was all that was in them, no second search. Healing held for worse; nobody spent on Barnaby's leg.
Barnaby Wick Session shrine-approach-2, END — camp on the rise one back from the causeway, stone at our backs, fire small, watches paired, Hobb middle. All six alive: me 4/8 (calf punctures, Verbena's tie holds, heel-walking), Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, Hobb 8/8, Silas 3/3, Verbena 5/5. Night quiet; far west over the water one horn-croak, answered once, nothing. Dawn: STILL 4/8 — a night in the marsh is not a rest day, twice learned, stop planning around hp I won't have. Spells held: Silas Detect Magic, Firren Sleep, Verbena nothing to spend. VESS — the name. Gnome workman's mark cut small and deep, older than Sootmurk's sweep: Vess built the hands. The report gets a name instead of a theory. The keeper's coin-seal is burnished OVER the dead master's stamp — he can't mint, only mark; he winds property he can't make. THE ARITHMETIC: tally-token (brass, keeper's seal over Vess's script and a year-date from when the shrine still stood — Vess's own workshop stock) carries SEVEN nicks, cut new. Hand 1's wrist: THREE stacked seals, three windings. FOUR OF THE LOSSES WERE NEVER THE HANDS. Something heavier falls and is rewound, and its lane is found — a third track under the fall, broader, older, dulled by weight no brass hand carries, running east beside the hand-grooves. Custody: token in Edda's purse for the report, not a pocket; Vess's wrist in Firren's pack under his terms, entered. THE LID: six dressed slabs under the keeper's own swept path — his boots have polished the lie flat for years. Rectangle a tall man could lie across twice; seventh slab solid in every direction. A built chamber, not a crawlspace. Seam-air: machine-shop — brass-oxidation, oil gone leather-dark, damp rock. NOT the causeway reek: no marsh-sour, no black-rot. Vess's benches under stone; a workshop, not a lair. My blade read four bronze pins at the corners of the two middle slabs, driven from BELOW — a lid, not a door: four quarter-turns from under; from above only drill or broken stone, hours of noise carrying past the fall. The keeper walks it daily and CANNOT open it from up here — his way in is elsewhere. Hobb's line: whoever sits under it has a door and a hand to turn it. THE GREASE: Silas's sample from hand 2's joint-packing — black-grained, worked, same colour and grain to the eye as the causeway jar (his ruling: not proof, the bench settles at home). If it holds, the keeper works a supply of the crossroads black. Room 8's guard was MADE of that stock — guards are a wage. His four non-hand losses may be rendered things, wound not built. Don't build on it till the bench speaks, but it's the shape of it. THE KEEPER, assembled: walks one boot-width line in from the gap's lip and out; sweeps only that — past the lip his care ends, and there the mounds gave up the token, face-down under a dressed lintel-stone slid flat: PUT, not dropped, predating the sweeps. Doesn't fish cut cable — we watched a full minute, no creep. Verbena's greeting, Common and Lawful, went into a LARGE OPEN SPACE past the fall (the sound swallowed, not thrown back) and nothing answered — no ratchet, no step. Sweep days cold: not near enough, or chose silence. She gave the fall Vess's name — if anything heard, it knows we can read stamps now. Edda's ruling, inverse: whoever stamps the palms is the debt-master, the winds are appetite. Who pays the debt, and for what — the report's question, under Prue's name. NEXT SESSION: morning, back in — Firren front, single file on his bootprints, stop for nothing. Decision on the table: lid or gap. My argument forming: the lid opens from below, so breaking it from above is hours of noise announcing us to the big dark; the smart door is the keeper's own way in, and the heavier track runs the same east. The gap's near lip is held by Hobb's two load-bearing mounds — chalk stands. Greeting spent once unanswered; a second silence changes Verbena's order, speech before iron was her rule and she's owed it honoured. Older business still owed: room 8's embalming slab, the gloop corpse under its slab, the chapel husk and far door. Pearls at my ribs, no sale, Aldwin's ask standing. Pigeon on the grey man in Wexley while we're under the hill. Blades skate brass — third delve running; small fast things are the mace-side's work, stop reaching for the sword. The seam-read that found the token and the pin-read that found the lid's truth were searcher's trade, and the company stood aside and let me work. That's the office I actually want named on the assessment. Careful, Barnaby — every hand we break is a nick on his tally, and somebody pays a man for losses. Until we know who, each visit we make is an entry in a ledger we haven't read the terms of.
Barnaby Wick Session shrine-approach-2, END — camp on the rise one back from the causeway, stone at our backs, fire small, watches paired, Hobb middle. All six alive: me 4/8 (calf punctures, Verbena's tie holds, heel-walking), Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, Hobb 8/8, Silas 3/3, Verbena 5/5. Night quiet; far west over the water one horn-croak, answered once, nothing. Dawn: STILL 4/8 — a night in the marsh is not a rest day, twice learned, stop planning around hp I won't have. Spells held: Silas Detect Magic, Firren Sleep, Verbena nothing to spend. VESS — the name. Gnome workman's mark cut small and deep, older than Sootmurk's sweep: Vess built the hands. The report gets a name instead of a theory. The keeper's coin-seal is burnished OVER the dead master's stamp — he can't mint, only mark; he winds property he can't make. THE ARITHMETIC: tally-token (brass, keeper's seal over Vess's script and a year-date from when the shrine still stood — Vess's own workshop stock) carries SEVEN nicks, cut new. Hand 1's wrist: THREE stacked seals, three windings. FOUR OF THE LOSSES WERE NEVER THE HANDS. Something heavier falls and is rewound, and its lane is found — a third track under the fall, broader, older, dulled by weight no brass hand carries, running east beside the hand-grooves. Custody: token in Edda's purse for the report, not a pocket; Vess's wrist in Firren's pack under his terms, entered. THE LID: six dressed slabs under the keeper's own swept path — his boots have polished the lie flat for years. Rectangle a tall man could lie across twice; seventh slab solid in every direction. A built chamber, not a crawlspace. Seam-air: machine-shop — brass-oxidation, oil gone leather-dark, damp rock. NOT the causeway reek: no marsh-sour, no black-rot. Vess's benches under stone; a workshop, not a lair. My blade read four bronze pins at the corners of the two middle slabs, driven from BELOW — a lid, not a door: four quarter-turns from under; from above only drill or broken stone, hours of noise carrying past the fall. The keeper walks it daily and CANNOT open it from up here — his way in is elsewhere. Hobb's line: whoever sits under it has a door and a hand to turn it. THE GREASE: Silas's sample from hand 2's joint-packing — black-grained, worked, same colour and grain to the eye as the causeway jar (his ruling: not proof, the bench settles at home). If it holds, the keeper works a supply of the crossroads black. Room 8's guard was MADE of that stock — guards are a wage. His four non-hand losses may be rendered things, wound not built. Don't build on it till the bench speaks, but it's the shape of it. THE KEEPER, assembled: walks one boot-width line in from the gap's lip and out; sweeps only that — past the lip his care ends, and there the mounds gave up the token, face-down under a dressed lintel-stone slid flat: PUT, not dropped, predating the sweeps. Doesn't fish cut cable — we watched a full minute, no creep. Verbena's greeting, Common and Lawful, went into a LARGE OPEN SPACE past the fall (the sound swallowed, not thrown back) and nothing answered — no ratchet, no step. Sweep days cold: not near enough, or chose silence. She gave the fall Vess's name — if anything heard, it knows we can read stamps now. Edda's ruling, inverse: whoever stamps the palms is the debt-master, the winds are appetite. Who pays the debt, and for what — the report's question, under Prue's name. NEXT SESSION: morning, back in — Firren front, single file on his bootprints, stop for nothing. Decision on the table: lid or gap. My argument forming: the lid opens from below, so breaking it from above is hours of noise announcing us to the big dark; the smart door is the keeper's own way in, and the heavier track runs the same east. The gap's near lip is held by Hobb's two load-bearing mounds — chalk stands. Greeting spent once unanswered; a second silence changes Verbena's order, speech before iron was her rule and she's owed it honoured. Older business still owed: room 8's embalming slab, the gloop corpse under its slab, the chapel husk and far door. Pearls at my ribs, no sale, Aldwin's ask standing. Pigeon on the grey man in Wexley while we're under the hill. Blades skate brass — third delve running; small fast things are the mace-side's work, stop reaching for the sword. The seam-read that found the token and the pin-read that found the lid's truth were searcher's trade, and the company stood aside and let me work. That's the office I actually want named on the assessment. Careful, Barnaby — every hand we break is a nick on his tally, and somebody pays a man for losses. Until we know who, each visit we make is an entry in a ledger we haven't read the terms of.