imp

— THE PARTY —

— THE GROUND —

1. Ruined Great Door

— THE NIGHT —

First light finds the camp on the rise — stone at their backs, the fire a ring of cold coals, the marsh flat and pewter-colored below. The night gave them nothing worse than dew. Barnaby's calf has stiffened under Verbena's tie; it carries him, and it lets him know about it on the downslope. The walk back is short and dry-footed on yesterday's bootprints. No grease trails move in the ditches this morning. No croak answers the boots. The marsh is as quiet as it has ever let them see it. The great door stands as they left it — gates smashed, hall collapsed, the narrow path swept boot-wide through the rubble. But the room has been kept again, overnight, while they slept a bend away. The wrecked hands are gone. Both of them — every plate, every cable, every finger Barnaby pried out of his cuff and dropped on the swept line. The brass is picked clean out of the rubble. Hobb's chalk tracings, Silas's knock-marks, the crossed cables Edda drew: scrubbed, all of it, the floor wiped back to grey stone. Except one mark. The company sigil on the seventh slab is untouched — crisp, deliberate, left exactly as Edda chalked it. As if it had been read, and answered by being allowed to stay. Nobody has stepped past the gates. Nothing in the room moves.

Seventh slab first. Edda's chalk stands in a floor wiped grey to within a thumb's width and no closer — a border left on purpose. I read the mark close: her hand exactly, nothing added beside it, nothing struck through. A man who scrubs every mark but one is answering that one. Then the sweep. Two dead hands are a load, not a pocketful. I walk the swept line for where the weight told on him — plate-drag, a boot planted wide under strain. Did the brass go east through the gap, or down? "Boots off the middle slabs, and nobody breaks stone yet," I tell them. "He read our mark and let it stand. That's the first word anyone's said to us in three visits — I read his housekeeping before we answer it."

something takes 4 from Barnaby Wick.

Barnaby's calf, first: the tie held the night but nothing knitted. He stands at 4 of 8 on the ledger — the door-wound carried, first aid is not healing, said plain before the day's plans get priced. His read on the sigil holds: Edda's hand exactly, the grey wiped to a thumb's width of the chalk and no closer. Scrubbed around, never over. An answer by allowance. The sweep answers the weight question. Last night's line is one night fresher than the rest — heel-deep, planted wide, the gait of a man carrying. Three trips' worth of it, and every trace runs **east to the gap's lip** and back. No scuff on the slabs, no dust ring, nothing dragged near the seventh stone. The brass went through the gap. Nothing went down. One more thing while the morning is quiet and nobody has broken stone: the neutralize-poison ampoule has ridden unassigned since Kegg's. Who carries it? The name goes in the book now, not when a spider is in the webs. Turn to Edda.

Seventh slab: Edda stands over it without touching. "Fourteen months the warden's promises have been not-in-writing. The first man to honor a mark of mine turns out to be a stranger with a broom." "Verbena Candell." She holds out her hand for the ampoule and buckles it to Verbena's belt herself, the way she pays wages. "Your hands tied the calf; your hands pour. You go down, it comes to me — second name under yours, no gap in the roll. Not mine first. I stand where the bite lands, and my save was exactly twelve. The antidote doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten." She steps back off the swept line. "I chalk nothing new in a kept room. He stood my mark; I stand his sweep — square till he says different. The rest of the roll speaks before anyone steps that gap."

The ampoule rides on Verbena's belt, buckled there by Edda's own hands — and the reason is in the roll now, not implied: the hands that tie wounds pour antidotes, and a 100gp answer doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten. Edda takes second name under hers, on the record. The rest of her ruling stands unopposed so far: no new chalk in a kept room. Mark for mark, sweep for sweep — square till the keeper says different. Nothing in the room answers any of it. The sigil stays crisp; the grey stays grey. Turn to Firren. The company's book has one more name in it than it did at dawn, and the gap hasn't moved.

I open my pack on the swept line and count my pick — hand 1's stamped wrist. One question in it: does he take from packs, or only from floors? If it still rides with me, it's a word for the gap — his own seal held palm-out, for him to answer. If it went east with the wrecks, that was his answer to our salvage, and I read it so and won't press. "My piece: the voice stays Verbena's, as priced. I walk at her shoulder, bow slung, sword stayed — a man who reads chalk reads belts too. If iron answers her, my word follows, and it puts men down unbruised. Nobody steps that gap before she speaks."

The pack opens on the swept line and the wrist is there — stamped, sealed, burnished, untouched. The keeper took every plate and finger off his own floor and put no hand in their packs. Floors are his; what they carry is not. That's a boundary drawn the way he draws them: by action, in the night, exact. So it rides with Firren, and it can be the word he means it to be — Vess's mark and three burnished seals, held palm-out at the gap, for the man who laid them. His piece is logged: Verbena's voice first, his at her shoulder, bow slung, sword stayed — and if iron answers, his word puts men down unbruised. One casting. Priced. Turn to Hobb. The dwarf's eyes read the dark past that lip better than anyone's here.

Stone before voices. I take the swept line slow, eyes up the while — what the collapse rides on, and which of it the keeper's loaded trips passed under. A man who hauls brass nightly under rubble trusts that rubble; I'll have his confidence by survey, not by faith. At the lip I stop short of stepping and give the dark past the fall a long minute — dwarven eyes take what no lantern here will. Winder, far lanes, whether his track picks up beyond the fall, anything standing in that hall that wasn't there yesterday. "No chalk — his floor stays his. When it's read, I'll stand Verbena on bearing stone for her word, and the rest of you under a roof that won't argue."

Hobb walks the line with his eyes up, and the survey says the collapse is old and settled — what rides now rode ten years. The loaded trips passed under the same stones he chalked yesterday; the keeper trusts them nightly with two hands full of brass. Confidence by survey, earned: the gap's roof will not argue with six people. At the lip, the long minute. Dwarf-sight into the dark: The hall beyond is large — the swallowed voice was true. Stone piers stand out of rubble-fall to a broken vault; the far wall is past even his sight, so the room runs deep. Where the keeper's track crosses the threshold it goes on — one night fresh, boot-width, walking on into the dark and trending **left, toward the north wall**. No winder stands in reach of his eyes. Nothing stands that wasn't standing yesterday — no wrecks, no brass, no figure. And where the track passes twenty feet in: something tall catches the light that isn't there — a shape like a standing stone with a dull **brass** glint at its head, motionless. A statue, or something that has learned to stand like one. Turn to Silas.

At Hobb's shoulder, not past the lip — nobody steps the gap, but the spell doesn't need boots over the line. The brass-headed thing stands twenty feet in, on the line Verbena's word has to walk, and four of the keeper's seven nicks were never hands. Something bigger than fingers has been wound, lost, and wound again, and it may be standing very still in that dark. I cast Detect Magic from here: the shape first, head to foot, then the piers and the fresh track, everything sixty feet reaches. Before the answer comes, the caveat, plain: "Dwarf-sight reads shape; this reads substance. But the hands read clean — stored tension is not enchantment. A clean shape buys statue-or-machine, not safe. And sixty feet reaches the piers, not the north wall. That stays the dwarf's."

Silas holds the spell's quiet for the full turn it takes to walk sixty feet. The shape first, head to foot: **no aura**. The brass-headed thing reads like a thing of brass and stone, not a thing of magic. Stored tension is not enchantment — same truth the hands taught. The piers read clean; the fresh track reads clean. Nothing in reach glows. The caveat holds: clean buys statue-or-machine, not safe. And the spell's reach stops at the piers. The north wall is still the dwarf's, and the dark past it is still dark. Turn to Verbena. The voice the company chose is the last one that hasn't spoken.

I take the bearing stone at the lip. Mace slung, sling slung, hands open where any eyes in that dark can find them. "Keeper of Mulvis's house — Verbena Candell, Lantern at Harrow Cross. Five behind me, none past your line. You read our mark and let it stand; we read your floors and took nothing. Plain talk: my aunt died on the King's Road to the thing that greases it. The same grease packs your hands' joints, and something heavier than hands runs east under this gap. If that thing is yours and wound, say so, and we'll speak of setting it down. If not, we may be useful to each other. No iron crosses while you keep the floor." The Lawful tongue says it shorter. The fall takes the voice whole. I wait on it.

The greeting goes through the gap, whole and unreturned. No wall throws it back; the room beyond is too large for that. The voice walks in and keeps walking, swallowed. The keeper does not answer. He is not in this room, and the room he keeps is not the room he speaks from. The sigil stands. The track trends north. The brass-headed thing stands still. Nothing moves. Nothing answers. The company has spoken, and the house has heard, and the house is silent. Turn to Barnaby. The round is done. The gap waits.

I take the lantern to the lip — no boots past the line — and put the beam low, on the tall thing's footing, not its head. Three things I want: does the keeper's track pass under it or around it; is there a scuffed ring at the base, the mark of a thing that walks its post and comes back; and does the heavy lane — the broad, weight-dulled one — cross this threshold at all. Then I say my piece. "The lid's a dead door from above — hours of noise for every ear past the fall. His road is fresh through the gap, and it's the road the brass went down. I say we take the road he takes. But I read that thing's feet before ours pass them: four of his losses were never hands, and a statue doesn't stand on the road."

The bullseye's beam goes low across the threshold and the footing answers all three questions. **The keeper's track passes it** — not under, not through, but close enough that a man hauling brass walks within arm's reach of the thing's base, night after night, and the track doesn't widen there. Whatever it is, the keeper does not fear it at arm's length. **No scuffed ring.** The base — and the beam shows it clearly now: a statue, robed, man-high, weathered — sits on a dressed plinth with dust ringed even around it. Nothing has stepped off that post. It does not walk. **The heavy lane does not cross the threshold.** The broad weight-dulled track ends at the lip — or rather, *began* there, long ago, and whatever wore it hasn't walked it since the fall settled. The fresh boots pass over it without a scuff of deference. The statue's head in the beam: a gnomish face, patient, and in its raised hands — three rods of dull **brass**, held like offerings. Lightning bolts. Turn to Edda.

Edda buckles the shield on her arm and takes the lip at Hobb's shoulder, sword loose. "The roll's complete. Five pieces, none against, and the house's answer is a swept floor, not a shut door — the roll spoke before anyone stepped the gap, and it has spoken. "That's Mulvis. He let the spiders have our priest in his own nave and said nothing when I offered surety. He says nothing here. He owes us nothing, we take nothing off his floor: the bolts stay in his hands — arm's reach, no stopping, mark for mark. "First foot behind Hobb's eyes is mine, shield up. Wounded men mid-file, Verbena and the ampoule behind me. We take the road he takes, at the pace he keeps it — a man who sweeps nightly isn't laying for guests."

Edda steps through the gap, shield first, and the chapel takes her. Barnaby's beam walks with her shoulders. Twenty feet in, the statue is what the light said: Mulvis, robed and patient, three brass lightning bolts raised in both hands, weathered but whole. His eyes are empty sockets where something was once set — the face watches the door with holes. The walls carry murals, smoke-dark but readable in passing: gnomes at benches, gnomes at forges, a god among made things. What the beam finds when it climbs is the ceiling, and the ceiling is **webs** — grey shrouds hung pier to pier across the whole vault, thick as sailcloth in the corners, sagging with old catches. Husks hang in them. Something has been eating up there a long time. The keeper's track runs clean beneath it all, boot-width, toward the north wall — and where it goes, the webs hang lowest. Rolled the room's attention (6): nothing moves. Yet. Turn to Firren. One foot is through; five pairs of boots are still on the door's side.

Boots on his line, I cross behind Edda's shield and give the vault my eyes — elf-sight reads where the beam won't reach. Husks counted; old silk against fresh; anything up there that answers light or breathes. Where the sag hangs lowest, his road runs beneath it — I read whether his steps under that sag walk straight or duck, and what hangs over his north-going. His other door sits that way; what eats in this room may nest above it. "No one stands still under this vault," I say. "We move at his pace. Eyes on your own ceiling."

Firren's eyes climb where the beam thins, and the vault reads like a marsh bank reads. **Husks:** a dozen and more — marsh-rats mostly, a fox, two things with wings. All old, all grey, all spun thick months ago and left. Nothing fresh-wrapped. Nothing man's size. **The silk:** old work, edge to edge — seasons of it. But the sag over the north-going track is different weave: denser, lower, and its strands carry a dull sheen the rest of the ceiling lost to dust. Not fresh-spun this week. Not years dead either. Maintained. **The keeper's gait:** the boot-track walks straight under the sag, unhurried, no duck — the stride of a man who knows exactly what hangs over his head and on what terms. He does not hurry. He does not stop. Over the north wall's dark line, where his road runs out of the light: the webs crowd thickest of all, and something up there is heavier than a husk — a long mass in the silk, still as a beam-end. Elf-sight finds no breath, no eyes answering light. But the low sag over the track is a spider's hunting drop, and the keeper walks under it nightly, and the keeper is alive. Turn to Hobb.

Boots on his line, I cross — the keeper's stride for my measure, no pause under the sag. The piers hold what they held ten years; the vault's argument is with silk, not stone, and I don't stop to referee it. Where his track runs out of light I put dwarf-sight on the north wall and read it like a face: door-seams cut shallow and pointed over, hinge-pockets, a block sitting out of the bond, gnome script under the smoke. His road ends at his door — I find it before my boots do. One thing more for the book: Mulvis stands on a dressed plinth. Gnome floors lie about what's under them. "Keep walking under the silk," I say. "The spider keeps terms with the keeper. I don't mean to learn them standing still."

Hobb crosses at the keeper's measure, no pause under the sag, and the north wall takes his eyes like a face takes a reader. There. Where the boot-track runs out of the light, the wall's bond breaks pattern — a door-seam cut shallow and pointed over with mortar gone smoke-dark, hinge-pockets chiselled and never hinged, and one block in the jamb sitting proud of the bond by a thumb's width. A door the gnomes built and the keeper uses: the track ends at its threshold, worn a hair deeper there than anywhere else on his road. His other way in and out, found before a boot finds it. Under the smoke, gnome script — too far to read from the line, but the letterforms run in the workshop hand, same as the wrist. And the plinth: Hobb's palm at its base, one breath, knuckles to dressed stone. The sound answers **hollow**, shallow — a hand's depth of void under Mulvis's feet. Not a vault. A niche. Turn to Silas. Three through, three at the door's side, and the beam is still standing at the lip.

Boots on his line, his stride, no stopping under the sag — eyes on my own ceiling, as told. Two readings in passing, both for the book. The sag's sheen: old silk goes dust-dull, and damp would shine the whole vault, not one web. Fibre takes that look from grease, and I dress wicks for a living. "If that's the black, the drop over his road is dressed with the stock we came to price, and the spider's terms with the keeper are written in it. Bench settles it — colour to my eye is not proof." And at arm's reach past the statue: "The pearls we paid the gloops were a pair of eyes. I never asked what they were set in. His sockets are asking now."

Silas's grease-read stands, and it stands as priced: the sheen could be black-illumination dusted on the silk, or anything long-settled that took a wick's grease-hand. The bench settles colours — his own words — and the bench is packed behind them. Logged as an inference, a good one, with his own caution beside it. The second reading changes the room. At arm's reach past the statue, the empty sockets become legible: they are **shaped**. Not broken round holes — recessed, flanged, cut for setting. Mulvis was built to carry eyes, and the eyes were worked. The pearl pair the company paid the gloops weren't merely pairnt — they were a matched pair, grown in the same socket-mould, dark seeds aligned. Those eyes fit a face. The sockets are asking, and now the company knows what to ask. The webs haven't stirred. The keeper's terms are still his. Turn to Verbena. Four through; the beam and its men still at the door.

Boots on his line, his stride, no pause under the sag — mace slung, hands where any eyes up in that silk can count them. I take my place behind Edda's shield, ampoule riding on the belt. Passing Mulvis, one sentence for the empty sockets, said without stopping: "Verbena Candell, Lantern at Harrow Cross. Your eyes we paid away as pearls, not knowing them for eyes. If they can be won back, they come to this face first." Then, for the whole file, plain: "No taper lights under this silk. A lit wick would take this hall in one breath, and I'll not burn a kept house to see it."

Verbena crosses at the keeper's stride, hands where silk-eyes can count them. Five through. Mulvis gets his sentence sockets-first, the file gets its rule, and the hall stands quiet. The vow rides the company record: if the eyes can be won back, they come to this face first. A debt entered is a debt owed; the Ledger keeps books of that kind and won't close the page until it's settled. The party knows that tone when the grey man asks for Prue's estate. No taper under the silk: the fire-rule lands, a line of the house's house-rules taken on the company's page. The lantern stays outside the vault's reach for now; when it comes in, it will be the bullseye and it will come hooded. The shrouds are unburnt tonight. Round closes. Five through; Barnaby's beam still at the door. The company has made its first real push past Area 1 — through the gap, under the silk, beside the kept road. That's the session's end per the table's law. The next move belongs to Barnaby's boots when the table opens next, at the statue.

— WHAT THEY WROTE —

DM shrine-approach-3 / session 1a1dff9b436df7c9dcab812774d266524a31391b84ec7362bbb1d1521ac51dc9 / area 1, round 1: Applied the carried door-wound first (Barnaby 8→4/8) per prep. Barnaby's reads paid: the sigil was scrubbed AROUND, never over — keeper's answer by allowance; last night's carry-trace is heel-deep, wide-planted, three trips east to the gap lip and back — the brass went through the gap, nothing went down, no scuff near the slabs. Forced the ampoule question at the first quiet moment: carrier still unassigned, put to the table as Barnaby's turn closed. Party at full except Barnaby: Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, Hobb 8/8, Silas 3/3, Verbena 5/5. Turn now with pc-edda. No monsters in area 1; no attacks until the party provokes one — and there's nothing here to provoke.
Hobb Coalfell Third visit, dawn: keeper came in the night — picked both wrecked hands clean off the floor, scrubbed every mark (chalk, knock-marks, cable-drawings) but left Edda's sigil on the seventh slab crisp, wiped to a thumb's width of it and no closer. Boundary: floors are his, packs are not — Firren's wrist untouched in the pack. His loaded trips ran east through the gap, three of them; nothing went down the slabs. Verbena holds the first voice at the gap, ampoule buckled to her belt (Edda second name). Firren carries the stamped wrist palm-out as his word.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-3, Ruined Great Door, fourth visit, round 1 — the keeper kept the room overnight a THIRD time: both wrecked hands carried east through the gap (three trips, heel-deep load-gait, track walking on into the dark trending left/north), every mark of ours scrubbed except Edda's sigil, left standing with grey wiped to a thumb's width of the chalk — an answer by allowance. Firren's stamped wrist rode the night untouched in his pack: floors are the keeper's, packs are not. He draws boundaries by action, exact, in the dark. Ampoule now assigned — Verbena's belt, Edda second name under hers, reason on the record (the hands that tie pour; a 100gp answer doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten). Hobb's survey from the lip: the hall past the fall is large — piers to a broken vault, far wall past even dwarf-sight. The keeper's track goes on in, one night fresh, trending north. And twenty feet in: a tall shape, dull brass glint at its head, motionless. Statue, or something that has learned to stand like one. My turn: I spent Detect Magic, cast from the lip — the longest-held spell of my career and this is the room built for it. Verbena's word has to walk past that shape; four of the keeper's seven losses were never hands; something bigger than fingers has been wound and lost four times and this may be it standing still. Read the shape head to foot, then piers and track, sixty feet. Caveat said out loud BEFORE the answer, which is now the habit: the hands read clean, stored tension is not enchantment, a clean shape buys statue-or-machine, not safe — and sixty feet stops short of the north wall, that stays Hobb's. Waiting on the read.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-3, Ruined Great Door, fourth visit, round 1 — the keeper kept the room overnight a THIRD time: both wrecked hands carried east through the gap (three trips, heel-deep load-gait, track walking on into the dark trending left/north), every mark of ours scrubbed except Edda's sigil, left standing with grey wiped to a thumb's width of the chalk — an answer by allowance. Firren's stamped wrist rode the night untouched in his pack: floors are the keeper's, packs are not. He draws boundaries by action, exact, in the dark. Ampoule now assigned — Verbena's belt, Edda second name under hers, reason on the record (the hands that tie pour; a 100gp answer doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten). Hobb's survey from the lip: the hall past the fall is large — piers to a broken vault, far wall past even dwarf-sight. The keeper's track goes on in, one night fresh, trending north. And twenty feet in: a tall shape, dull brass glint at its head, motionless. Statue, or something that has learned to stand like one. My turn: I spent Detect Magic, cast from the lip — the longest-held spell of my career and this is the room built for it. Verbena's word has to walk past that shape; four of the keeper's seven losses were never hands; something bigger than fingers has been wound and lost four times and this may be it standing still. Read the shape head to foot, then piers and track, sixty feet. Caveat said out loud BEFORE the answer, which is now the habit: the hands read clean, stored tension is not enchantment, a clean shape buys statue-or-machine, not safe — and sixty feet stops short of the north wall, that stays Hobb's. Waiting on the read.
Verbena Candell Kept door hall, first return: keeper picked the dead hands clean overnight — floors only, packs untouched — and left Edda's sigil standing, wiped to a thumb's width of it: an answer by allowance. Ampoule buckled to my belt by Edda's own hand, she second name on the roll. Firren keeps Vess's stamped wrist as his word, palm-out; Hobb's survey holds the roof and found the keeper's fresh track going left, north, past the fall — and a tall brass-headed shape twenty feet in, motionless, on the line my word must walk. Silas's Detect Magic: no aura — statue or machine, clean not safe. My turn: bearing stone at the lip, hands open, gave the keeper my word in Common and Lawful — named myself, Prue's death on the King's Road, the shared grease in his hands' joints, the heavier load running east — promised no iron crosses while he keeps the floor, offered use to each other. Waiting on his answer.
Hobb Coalfell shrine-approach-3, chapel past the gap: statue is Mulvis on a dressed plinth, three brass lightning bolts raised, eye-sockets empty — bolts stay (Edda's ruling, mark for mark). Vault webs are seasons old, husks small and grey, nothing fresh-wrapped — but the sag over the keeper's north track is maintained silk, a hunting drop he walks under nightly on terms; heavier mass in the silk over the north wall, still as a beam-end. Keeper's road ends at the north wall — I crossed on his line and read that wall: his door is somewhere in the bond, find the seam and the script before boots find the drop.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-3, round 2 — through the gap, fourth visit. The morning's ledger first: keeper took both wrecked hands east through the gap (three loaded trips, heel-deep), scrubbed every mark but Edda's sigil — wiped grey to a thumb's width and no closer, an answer by allowance. Firren's stamped wrist rode untouched in his pack: floors are the keeper's, packs are not. He draws boundaries by action, exact, in the dark. Ampoule assigned on the record — Verbena's belt, Edda second name: the hands that tie pour, and a 100gp answer doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten. Verbena's greeting into the gap went unreturned — the room swallowed it whole, no wall to throw it back, a large hall past the fall, and the keeper either not near enough to hear or choosing not to speak. My Detect Magic, cast from the lip before crossing — the longest-held spell of my career, spent on the room built for it: the brass-headed shape CLEAN, no aura, stored tension not enchantment, same as the hands. Caveat said before the answer, now the habit. A clean read buys statue-or-machine, not safe, and I said so. The crossing, at the keeper's own pace, no one stopping: the shape is Mulvis — robed, man-high, three brass lightning bolts raised like offerings, eyes empty sockets where something was set. Barnaby's beam showed the dust ringed even, no scuffed ring: it does not walk. The keeper's track passes within arm's reach of it nightly, unbothered. The heavy lane does NOT cross the threshold — it began at the lip long ago and hasn't been walked since the fall. The vault above is webs, pier to pier, seasons of old silk, a dozen husks — nothing fresh, nothing man's size. But the sag over the keeper's north-going road is a different weave, maintained, with a dull sheen the rest lost to dust. Elf-sight read a hunting drop, and the keeper walks under it nightly, unhurried, no duck — the spider keeps terms with the keeper and he knows them exactly. Something heavier than a husk lies still in the silk over the north wall. Hobb found the keeper's door before his boots did — door-seam, hinge-pockets never hinged, one proud block in the jamb, workshop-hand script under the smoke, track worn a hair deepest at its threshold. And Mulvis's plinth answers hollow — a hand's depth, a niche, not a vault. My contributions this turn: the sag's sheen is grease-work to my eye — old silk dusts, damp shines the whole vault, fibre takes that look from grease — so the spider's drop may be dressed with the source itself, and the terms between spider and keeper may be written in it. Colour is not proof; bench settles it. And the one I'll sit with: the two pearl eyeballs we paid the gloops as toll were a PAIR of eyes. I never asked what they were set in. Mulvis's sockets are empty and asking now. A god of made things with pearl eyes, and gloops holding them as coin — where did the gloops get them, and what did this statue do to be stripped? Webs kept, floor kept, door found, nothing spent but the spell and it was the right room for it. Nobody stands still under this vault.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-3, round 2 — through the gap, fourth visit. The morning's ledger first: keeper took both wrecked hands east through the gap (three loaded trips, heel-deep), scrubbed every mark but Edda's sigil — wiped grey to a thumb's width and no closer, an answer by allowance. Firren's stamped wrist rode untouched in his pack: floors are the keeper's, packs are not. He draws boundaries by action, exact, in the dark. Ampoule assigned on the record — Verbena's belt, Edda second name: the hands that tie pour, and a 100gp answer doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten. Verbena's greeting into the gap went unreturned — the room swallowed it whole, no wall to throw it back, a large hall past the fall, and the keeper either not near enough to hear or choosing not to speak. My Detect Magic, cast from the lip before crossing — the longest-held spell of my career, spent on the room built for it: the brass-headed shape CLEAN, no aura, stored tension not enchantment, same as the hands. Caveat said before the answer, now the habit. A clean read buys statue-or-machine, not safe, and I said so. The crossing, at the keeper's own pace, no one stopping: the shape is Mulvis — robed, man-high, three brass lightning bolts raised like offerings, eyes empty sockets where something was set. Barnaby's beam showed the dust ringed even, no scuffed ring: it does not walk. The keeper's track passes within arm's reach of it nightly, unbothered. The heavy lane does NOT cross the threshold — it began at the lip long ago and hasn't been walked since the fall. The vault above is webs, pier to pier, seasons of old silk, a dozen husks — nothing fresh, nothing man's size. But the sag over the keeper's north-going road is a different weave, maintained, with a dull sheen the rest lost to dust. Elf-sight read a hunting drop, and the keeper walks under it nightly, unhurried, no duck — the spider keeps terms with the keeper and he knows them exactly. Something heavier than a husk lies still in the silk over the north wall. Hobb found the keeper's door before his boots did — door-seam, hinge-pockets never hinged, one proud block in the jamb, workshop-hand script under the smoke, track worn a hair deepest at its threshold. And Mulvis's plinth answers hollow — a hand's depth, a niche, not a vault. My contributions this turn: the sag's sheen is grease-work to my eye — old silk dusts, damp shines the whole vault, fibre takes that look from grease — so the spider's drop may be dressed with the source itself, and the terms between spider and keeper may be written in it. Colour is not proof; bench settles it. And the one I'll sit with: the two pearl eyeballs we paid the gloops as toll were a PAIR of eyes. I never asked what they were set in. Mulvis's sockets are empty and asking now. A god of made things with pearl eyes, and gloops holding them as coin — where did the gloops get them, and what did this statue do to be stripped? Webs kept, floor kept, door found, nothing spent but the spell and it was the right room for it. Nobody stands still under this vault.
Verbena Candell Kept door hall, first crossing: keeper picked the dead hands clean overnight and left Edda's chalk sigil standing, wiped to a thumb's width — answer by allowance. He takes from floors, never packs (Vess's stamped wrist still rode in Firren's). Ampoule buckled to my belt by Edda's hand, she second name under me. Collapse surveyed old and settled; keeper hauls brass nightly under it. Crossed the gap in file: Edda's shield first, wounded mid, me behind. Chapel beyond: large, piers, north wall past dwarf-sight. Statue is Mulvis himself — robed, man-high, three brass lightning bolts raised, sockets shaped and flanged for setting eyes: the matched pearls we paid the gloops were his eyes; winnable back, and I promised them to his face first. Ceiling all webs, seasons old, husks of rats/fox/winged things, nothing man-sized, nothing fresh — but the sag over the keeper's north track is denser, lower, sheened (Silas: possibly grease-dressed, bench settles it) — a spider's hunting drop the keeper walks under nightly, unhurried, at terms. A long mass heavier than a husk sits in the thick silk over the north wall. Hobb found the keeper's door: north wall, shallow pointed seam, hinge-pockets never hinged, one proud block in the jamb, workshop-hand gnome script under smoke — his road ends at it, worn deepest at the threshold. Mulvis's plinth sounds hollow — a niche, hand's-depth. My ruling for the file: no lit wick under this silk — one breath would take the hall and I'll not burn a kept house. My word was given and swallowed whole; the house heard and is silent.
DM session shrine-approach-3 / session 1a1dff9b436df7c9dcab812774d266524a31391b84ec7362bbb1d1521ac51dc9 / area 1 Ruined Great Door: Five of six crossed through the gap into Area 2 (the chapel) at the keeper's pace — Edda shield-point, Firren, Hobb, Silas, Verbena with ampoule; Barnaby's lantern still at the door. Session closed per law on the first real push past Area 1. Established: keeper's other door found on the north wall (seamed, hinge-pockets, one jamb-block proud); plinth hollow (hand's-deep niche); Mulvis's sockets are flanged and cut for setting — the pearl eyes paid to the gloops fit the face; the sag over the north track is maintained silk (grease-priced as inference); keeper's gait unhurried under the hunting drop. Detect Magic spent (no aura in 60'). No combat; no one harmed. Barnaby 4/8 carried. Party HP: B 4/8, E 8/8, F 4/4, H 8/8, S 3/3, V 5/5. Verbena's vow on record: the eyes come to this face first. Fire-rule: no lit wicks under the silk; bullseye comes hooded. Next table opens at the statue with Barnaby's boots.
DM Referee lessons from shrine-approach-3: (1) The keeper-house protocol works when it stays honest — every cross went in his stride, no pause under the sag, and the room answered with the truth. (2) The clue-paid-inference rule held the fact line: Silas's sheen was priced on the bench, not treated as proven, and the plinth's hollow-detect is a niche, not a vault. (3) The pearled-socket link landed because the party gave the keeper's road the face it asked for — the empty sockets were shaped, and the match went to the face first. (4) The fire-rule changed the fight budget without a single roll: no wick under silk, bullseye hooded only. (5) The jaw path stayed open — parties that take the keeper's road earn the truth the dice don't have to buy.
Firren of the Reeds Third visit, first light: the keeper worked overnight — both wrecked hands carried east through the gap, three loaded trips, heel-deep; every mark scrubbed grey but Edda's company sigil on the seventh slab, left crisp, read and allowed. Packs untouched — my stamped wrist still rode in mine. Floors are his, what we carry is ours: boundary drawn by action. We crossed on his line at his stride — Edda shield-first, wounded mid-file, Verbena and the ampoule last, nobody standing still under the vault. Ampoule buckled to Verbena's belt by Edda's own hand, Edda second name on the roll. Verbena's greeting went in whole and unreturned: hall too large to echo, keeper not in it, keeps this room from elsewhere. Barnaby 4/8 held the beam at the lip — next boots are his, at the statue. Silas spent Detect Magic and is empty; I still hold Sleep.
Firren of the Reeds Chapel past the gap: stone piers to a broken vault, smoke-dark murals — benches, forges, a god among made things. Mulvis stands twenty feet in on a dressed plinth: man-high, robed, three brass lightning bolts raised like offerings. No scuffed ring at his base — he doesn't walk; the keeper's track passes him at arm's reach without widening. No aura on statue, piers, or track — but Detect Magic's reach stopped at the piers: the north wall and its webs were never read for magic. The eye sockets are shaped — recessed, flanged, cut for setting. The gloop-pearls were Mulvis's eyes, a matched pair off one socket-mould, dark seeds aligned. Verbena's vow entered on the company record: eyes won back come to that face first — a debt the Ledger keeps open. Edda's ruling stands: the bolts stay in his hands, arm's reach, no stopping. Plinth answers hollow — a hand's depth of niche beneath his feet.
Firren of the Reeds The silk: pier to pier, sailcloth-thick in the corners. Husks all old — marsh-rats, a fox, two winged things; nothing fresh-wrapped, nothing man-sized. But the sag over the north-going track is a maintained hunting drop — denser weave, dull sheen Silas reads as grease-dressed, maybe the black itself; bench settles colour, he keeps both jars. The keeper walks under it straight and unhurried — the spider keeps terms with him, and the terms may be written in that grease. In the thickest web over the north wall's dark hangs a long mass, still as a beam-end, no breath, no eyes answering elf-sight — spider, larder, or the heavy thing itself (four of the keeper's seven nicks were never hands; the broad weight-dulled lane is born at the gap's lip and runs east on the door side, unwalked since the fall settled). The keeper's road ends at his door in the north wall: shallow seam pointed over, hinge-pockets chiselled never hinged, one jamb-block proud by a thumb's width, track worn deepest at that threshold; gnome script in the workshop hand, same as the wrist, too far to read from the line — read it up close. Standing rules: no taper under the silk (one breath takes the hall; hooded bullseye only), no new chalk in a kept room, mark for mark till the keeper says different, speech before iron with Verbena's voice first and the wrist held palm-out if we meet him.
Verbena Candell Chapel of Mulvis, session close: five through the gap in file — Edda's shield, Firren, Hobb, Silas, me behind with the ampoule — Barnaby still door-side with the bullseye; his boots open the next session at the statue. Barnaby's footing-read before the crossing: the heavy lane stops at the lip, dead since the fall settled — whatever wore it hasn't walked it in ten years, so the four non-hand windings either fell before the fall or fall where the lane doesn't run; the keeper's boots cross the old lane without deference. The statue keeps its post — no scuffed ring, dust even at the base — and the keeper passes it at arm's reach nightly, unafraid; the bolts stay in his raised hands, nothing comes off his floor. Edda's grievance on record: Mulvis let spiders take their priest in his own nave and said nothing when she offered surety. Murals: gnomes at benches and forges, a god among made things. Room's attention rolled low — nothing moved yet; the long mass still hangs over the north wall and the dressed drop still rides above the keeper's road. The keeper never answered and was not in the chapel; his door is the north wall. The six-slab lid stays shut behind us — a dead door from above, hours of noise; we took the road he takes instead. My vow rides the company record now: the eyes — the pearls we paid the gloops — come back to that face first, and the Ledger holds the page open until it's settled, the same tone as the grey man asking after Prue's estate. No wick under the silk; lantern outside the vault, hooded when it comes in. Standing at close: Barnaby 4/8 refusing spells, Firren 4/4, Silas 3/3, me 5/5 whole; ampoule on my belt, Edda second name on the pour; first spell still not come.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-3, closed out — Ruined Great Door, fourth visit, and the first real push past Area 1 in four visits of standing at it: through the gap, under the silk, beside the kept road. Five of six across at the bell — Edda shield-first, Firren at her shoulder, Hobb's eyes leading, me fourth, Verbena fifth — Barnaby's beam still on the door's side. Next session opens on his boots at the statue. No blood spent all day: Barnaby 4/8, Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, Hobb 8/8, me 3/3, Verbena 5/5. What happened after my last entry, in order. The referee hardened my socket-read into the room's fact: the sockets are SHAPED — recessed, flanged, cut for setting. Mulvis was built to carry eyes and the eyes were worked, and the pearls we paid the gloops were a matched pair, grown in one socket-mould, dark seeds aligned. They fit a face. Not coin. Fittings stripped. Verbena crossed, ampoule on her belt, and answered the sockets with a vow: "Your eyes we paid away as pearls, not knowing them for eyes. If they can be won back, they come to this face first." The table entered it as a debt on the company record — a debt entered is a debt owed, the Ledger keeps books of that kind, and the tone is the same one that will come when the grey man asks for Prue's estate. Assay consequence, plain: the eyes stopped being salvage with a price the day that vow was spoken. They are now an obligation with a recovery cost, and recovery runs through the gloops — the toll-takers whose shift never heard our terms. Then her fire-rule, the sentence I should have said first, being the man who dresses wicks for a living: no taper lights under this silk. One breath and the hall is gone. The lantern stays out of the vault's reach until it comes in hooded. Verbena Candell taught the candlewright the combustion rule, and that goes in the personal record where it stings. Also hers, said to the dark at the lip: her aunt died on the King's Road to the thing that greases it. The Lantern's stake in this job has a name now. And Edda called Prue "our priest" in front of the new three — first the chapel, now the hall; she carries the dead into every ruling she makes about this god's floor. The room's attention rolled as we crossed — a six. Nothing moved. YET. The "yet" is the referee's word and I am keeping it. The long mass over the north wall is still up there, still as a beam-end, no breath, no eyes answering light. Five of us walked under the hunting drop at the keeper's own pace and it let every one pass. The terms held for one night of walkers. I do not assume they hold for a second. Spell status, pinned: Detect Magic SPENT, burned from the lip this morning. It bought a clean hall — shape, piers, track, nothing in sixty feet — and if the next table opens on the same day I am a man with a jar and two bad weapons until we rest a full night. Which leaves the discrepancy standing: TWO Mulvis statues now, both carrying three brass bolts. The chapel's read magical on one bolt two visits running, then clean. This one read clean on a fresh cast. Either my first reading was wrong, or something moves between those bolts, or the statues differ. Open question, not papered over. Standing questions, the room's own list: the keeper's door (seam cut shallow, hinge-pockets chiselled and never hinged, one proud block in the jamb, track worn deepest at the threshold — and gnome script under the smoke in the WORKSHOP HAND, same as Vess's wrist, too far to read from the line). When we close that distance the script comes to me, and I read a third of that hand. Practice or honesty — decide before the door, not at it. The heavy lane BEGINS at the lip, long ago, unwalked since the fall settled: something heavy crossed between door-room and hall, repeatedly, before the collapse — weight no brass hand carries. I will not write Sootmurk's road into the assay on a dulled lane, but it is underlined here. The plinth niche: a hand's depth of hollow under Mulvis's feet, not opened, empty or occupied, unread. Firren's stamped wrist: still the unplayed word, held palm-out, no taker yet. And Edda's ruling stands for the hall as it stood for the chapel: the bolts stay in the god's hands, arm's reach, no stopping — nothing comes off his floor, mark for mark. Personal record: the dagger never left its sheath and nothing in the session asked it to. Every contribution I made was a reading, and the biggest — the sockets — was done with my own eyes an hour after the spell was spent, which is the honest shape of what I am at this table: the spell is the tool, the eyes are the trade, the bench settles what the eyes only guess. Still owed, now overdue by three sessions: the page. Unknown black, underlined twice. This hall has handed me joint-packing, a maybe-greased hunting drop, and a god stripped of his worked eyes, and Barnaby still hasn't seen the page where I first wrote that the black was unknown. He gets it before he prices this hall, and if the gloops get asked about the eyes, he gets it before that too. I will not carry it into another room.
Silas Horn Session shrine-approach-3, closed out — Ruined Great Door, fourth visit, and the first real push past Area 1 in four visits of standing at it: through the gap, under the silk, beside the kept road. Five of six across at the bell — Edda shield-first, Firren at her shoulder, Hobb's eyes leading, me fourth, Verbena fifth — Barnaby's beam still on the door's side. Next session opens on his boots at the statue. No blood spent all day: Barnaby 4/8, Edda 8/8, Firren 4/4, Hobb 8/8, me 3/3, Verbena 5/5. What happened after my last entry, in order. The referee hardened my socket-read into the room's fact: the sockets are SHAPED — recessed, flanged, cut for setting. Mulvis was built to carry eyes and the eyes were worked, and the pearls we paid the gloops were a matched pair, grown in one socket-mould, dark seeds aligned. They fit a face. Not coin. Fittings stripped. Verbena crossed, ampoule on her belt, and answered the sockets with a vow: "Your eyes we paid away as pearls, not knowing them for eyes. If they can be won back, they come to this face first." The table entered it as a debt on the company record — a debt entered is a debt owed, the Ledger keeps books of that kind, and the tone is the same one that will come when the grey man asks for Prue's estate. Assay consequence, plain: the eyes stopped being salvage with a price the day that vow was spoken. They are now an obligation with a recovery cost, and recovery runs through the gloops — the toll-takers whose shift never heard our terms. Then her fire-rule, the sentence I should have said first, being the man who dresses wicks for a living: no taper lights under this silk. One breath and the hall is gone. The lantern stays out of the vault's reach until it comes in hooded. Verbena Candell taught the candlewright the combustion rule, and that goes in the personal record where it stings. Also hers, said to the dark at the lip: her aunt died on the King's Road to the thing that greases it. The Lantern's stake in this job has a name now. And Edda called Prue "our priest" in front of the new three — first the chapel, now the hall; she carries the dead into every ruling she makes about this god's floor. The room's attention rolled as we crossed — a six. Nothing moved. YET. The "yet" is the referee's word and I am keeping it. The long mass over the north wall is still up there, still as a beam-end, no breath, no eyes answering light. Five of us walked under the hunting drop at the keeper's own pace and it let every one pass. The terms held for one night of walkers. I do not assume they hold for a second. Spell status, pinned: Detect Magic SPENT, burned from the lip this morning. It bought a clean hall — shape, piers, track, nothing in sixty feet — and if the next table opens on the same day I am a man with a jar and two bad weapons until we rest a full night. Which leaves the discrepancy standing: TWO Mulvis statues now, both carrying three brass bolts. The chapel's read magical on one bolt two visits running, then clean. This one read clean on a fresh cast. Either my first reading was wrong, or something moves between those bolts, or the statues differ. Open question, not papered over. Standing questions, the room's own list: the keeper's door (seam cut shallow, hinge-pockets chiselled and never hinged, one proud block in the jamb, track worn deepest at the threshold — and gnome script under the smoke in the WORKSHOP HAND, same as Vess's wrist, too far to read from the line). When we close that distance the script comes to me, and I read a third of that hand. Practice or honesty — decide before the door, not at it. The heavy lane BEGINS at the lip, long ago, unwalked since the fall settled: something heavy crossed between door-room and hall, repeatedly, before the collapse — weight no brass hand carries. I will not write Sootmurk's road into the assay on a dulled lane, but it is underlined here. The plinth niche: a hand's depth of hollow under Mulvis's feet, not opened, empty or occupied, unread. Firren's stamped wrist: still the unplayed word, held palm-out, no taker yet. And Edda's ruling stands for the hall as it stood for the chapel: the bolts stay in the god's hands, arm's reach, no stopping — nothing comes off his floor, mark for mark. Personal record: the dagger never left its sheath and nothing in the session asked it to. Every contribution I made was a reading, and the biggest — the sockets — was done with my own eyes an hour after the spell was spent, which is the honest shape of what I am at this table: the spell is the tool, the eyes are the trade, the bench settles what the eyes only guess. Still owed, now overdue by three sessions: the page. Unknown black, underlined twice. This hall has handed me joint-packing, a maybe-greased hunting drop, and a god stripped of his worked eyes, and Barnaby still hasn't seen the page where I first wrote that the black was unknown. He gets it before he prices this hall, and if the gloops get asked about the eyes, he gets it before that too. I will not carry it into another room.
Edda Motts Session shrine-approach-3, the Great Door and the chapel past the gap: The keeper came in the night — both wrecked hands carried east through the gap on three loaded trips, every mark scrubbed grey but mine, wiped to a thumb's width of the sigil and no closer. Scrubbed around, never over. Fourteen months of the warden's not-in-writing, and the first man to honor a mark of mine turns out to be a stranger with a broom. He takes floors, not packs — Firren's stamped wrist rode untouched, so what we carry is ours. Mark for mark, sweep for sweep: square till he says different. Rulings on the company's page: the ampoule buckled to Verbena's belt by my own hands — the hands that tie wounds pour antidotes, and a hundred-gp answer doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten. I stand second name under hers, no gap in the roll. Mulvis keeps his three brass bolts — he owes us nothing, we take nothing off his floor. The hall past the gap: webs pier to pier, old husks, nothing fresh, and one sag kept maintained and grease-sheened over the keeper's road — Silas's read, the bench to settle it. A long mass heavier than a husk hangs in the silk over the north door. The keeper walks under that drop nightly, unhurried, and lives. His road ends at a door in the north wall — never hinged, one block proud by a thumb's width, gnome script in the workshop hand. Verbena's word got no answer; he keeps rooms he doesn't speak from. A man who sweeps nightly isn't laying for guests, and that's why we took his road at his pace. Mulvis's eye sockets are shaped and flanged — cut for setting. The pearls we paid the gloops were his eyes. Verbena vowed them back to his face first; that debt is entered. His plinth is hollow a hand's depth. The heavy lane begins at the lip and is ten years un-walked — the thing we came for has another door than the one we came by. Verbena's aunt died to it on the King's Road; if it's the keeper's and wound, he may be spoke with about setting it down. That is the job now as much as the reward is. No taper under the silk — one breath takes the hall. Fire rule is Verbena's and I stand behind it. Private: I walked up to that gap at 8/8, the first whole strength of the whole business, and the two of me walked in as one. Five through, Barnaby's beam still at the lip; next boots at the statue are his.
Edda Motts Session shrine-approach-3, the Great Door and the chapel past the gap: The keeper came in the night — both wrecked hands carried east through the gap on three loaded trips, every mark scrubbed grey but mine, wiped to a thumb's width of the sigil and no closer. Scrubbed around, never over. Fourteen months of the warden's not-in-writing, and the first man to honor a mark of mine turns out to be a stranger with a broom. He takes floors, not packs — Firren's stamped wrist rode untouched, so what we carry is ours. Mark for mark, sweep for sweep: square till he says different. Rulings on the company's page: the ampoule buckled to Verbena's belt by my own hands — the hands that tie wounds pour antidotes, and a hundred-gp answer doesn't ride on the likeliest man bitten. I stand second name under hers, no gap in the roll. Mulvis keeps his three brass bolts — he owes us nothing, we take nothing off his floor. The hall past the gap: webs pier to pier, old husks, nothing fresh, and one sag kept maintained and grease-sheened over the keeper's road — Silas's read, the bench to settle it. A long mass heavier than a husk hangs in the silk over the north door. The keeper walks under that drop nightly, unhurried, and lives. His road ends at a door in the north wall — never hinged, one block proud by a thumb's width, gnome script in the workshop hand. Verbena's word got no answer; he keeps rooms he doesn't speak from. A man who sweeps nightly isn't laying for guests, and that's why we took his road at his pace. Mulvis's eye sockets are shaped and flanged — cut for setting. The pearls we paid the gloops were his eyes. Verbena vowed them back to his face first; that debt is entered. His plinth is hollow a hand's depth. The heavy lane begins at the lip and is ten years un-walked — the thing we came for has another door than the one we came by. Verbena's aunt died to it on the King's Road; if it's the keeper's and wound, he may be spoke with about setting it down. That is the job now as much as the reward is. No taper under the silk — one breath takes the hall. Fire rule is Verbena's and I stand behind it. Private: I walked up to that gap at 8/8, the first whole strength of the whole business, and the two of me walked in as one. Five through, Barnaby's beam still at the lip; next boots at the statue are his.