imp

DM

**Area 1. The Ruined Great Door.** Round 1. The gates stand ten feet tall and utterly ruined — iron leaves smashed inward, hinges gone to orange scale, the hall behind them fallen in on itself. One path threads the rubble: a goat-track of tilted slabs and gravel that climbs, turns, and drops toward a gap in the far debris. Brass winks everywhere in the scree, cogs and jointed fingers and the curve of something that was once a face. Under a heap of fallen stone a gloop corpse has gone to soup; the flies over it are loud enough to hear from the threshold. Something in the scree is not scrap. Two brass hands — severed at the wrist, spindles trailing from the stumps like cut tendons — right themselves on their fingertips and come up the slope at a scuttle, quick as spiders. Automaton hand 1 goes for the woman with the mace. It leaps at Prue Candell's ankle.

DM

The hand hits — 16 against Prue's AC 6, and brass fingers close on her calf just above the boot top. It squeezes like a vice with a spring behind it. **1 damage: Prue Candell 7/8.** It does not let go; it hangs off her leg, and the stump-spindles saw at the leather. Hand 2 comes on behind it, over a slab, fingers drumming.

DM

Hand 2 does not follow its twin. It turns on the gravel, sights the thin man in the unarmoured coat, and goes for Silas Horn at a flat scuttle — three fingers and a thumb hammering the stone, the index finger held up and forward like a hook.

DM

A 2 against Silas's AC 8 — nowhere near. The hand launches, Silas gets a boot heel and half a stumble between himself and it, and the brass fingers close on the hem of his coat instead of his ankle. It hangs there a moment, snips through a thread, and drops back into the gravel with a clink. **Round 1, the hands' turns are spent. Prue Candell is at 7/8 with a brass hand clamped on her left calf; Silas is untouched at 3/3; Barnaby and Edda are 8/8.** The path through the rubble is narrow — two abreast at best on the track, and the scree shifts underfoot. Barnaby Wick, you're up.

Barnaby Wick

Barnaby doesn't like the way that thing's fingers are working at Prue's boot leather — that's not a grip that tires. He puts his boot on a slab for balance and drives the short sword down at the hand clamped on her calf.

Barnaby Wick

The blade skips off brass with a bad ring — a 4, nowhere close. Barnaby pulls back half a step so he doesn't put his own foot in the gap next swing.

DM

Referee, for Barnaby's benefit before he acts: From where you stand, Barnaby, both targets are inside a few strides. Hand 1 is fixed to Prue's left calf — it isn't moving, and a blade or a boot can find it, though striking a thing clamped to a friend's leg is close work. Hand 2 sits loose in the gravel a step from Silas, righting itself on its fingers for another spring. Neither is armoured beyond its own brass: AC 6 descending, and they look as though a solid hit would end one. The scree is loose enough that footing is worth thinking about if you plan to charge downslope. The turn is yours.

DM

The sword-point strikes brass and slides — the ring of it goes up off the rubble walls and comes back doubled. Hand 1 doesn't even acknowledge the blow. Its fingers keep working, thumb crossing over the knuckles, and a curl of shaved leather comes off Prue's boot top and falls in the gravel. The thing is not trying to crush her leg. It is trying to get through the boot. Barnaby gives ground half a step, blade low, and the loose scree hisses away downslope under his heel. **Hand 1 remains 2/2 and clamped to Prue's calf. Hand 2 is 2/2, crouched on its fingertips a stride from Silas. Prue 7/8; Barnaby, Edda 8/8; Silas 3/3.** Edda Motts — chain, shield, and the heaviest blade at this door. You're up.

Edda Motts

Edda plants her feet on the shifting scree, gets her shield up, and swings the sword at the brass hand fixed on Prue's calf — not gentle about it, not worried about the boot leather either.

Edda Motts

The blade goes nowhere near — a bad roll, boot to slab skids under Edda mid-swing. She curses in Wexley market-square language and resets her footing.

DM

A 2 — and thank whatever's listening for the shield-hand. Edda's feet go out from under her a finger's width as the scree rolls, and the sword comes down wide of the brass entirely, striking the slab beside Prue's boot in a bright shower of sparks and stone chips. The blade bites rock, not hand. Edda wrenches it free. Prue takes the near miss standing, which says something about Prue. Two swings at a fist-sized target lodged on a moving leg, two misses. The hand keeps shearing. Another strip of boot leather peels and drops. **No change: hand 1 is 2/2 and clamped on Prue's calf; hand 2 is 2/2 in the gravel by Silas. Prue 7/8; Barnaby, Edda 8/8; Silas 3/3.** Prue Candell — it is your leg the thing is on, and you hold a mace. You're up.

Prue Candell

Prue doesn't waste breath on the sword-and-shield failures — a fist-sized thing clamped on her own leg, she can feel exactly where it is without looking. She gets the mace head down between two slabs of scree for leverage and swings short, more chop than blow, aiming to crush the wrist-stump where the spindles trail out. The mace clangs off brass and skids wide — a 10, no purchase. The hand doesn't so much as flinch; another curl of boot leather peels away under its fingers.

DM

Prue swings down along her own shin — the hardest strike in the world to make well, because every instinct in the leg says *don't*. A 10. The mace-head glances the knuckles and skates off, and the shock of it travels up into her calf; she feels that more than the hand does. But she feels something else, too, and this is worth the wasted swing. When the mace struck, the trailing spindles at the wrist-stump went taut for an instant — as if there is still a length of them running back into the rubble, and something at the far end took the pull. **Round 1 is spent for four of six. Hand 1 is 2/2 and still on Prue's calf. Hand 2 is 2/2, gathered on its fingertips near Silas. Prue 7/8; Barnaby, Edda 8/8; Silas 3/3. No spell has been cast.** Silas Horn — last turn of the round. There is a hand a stride from your boots and a dagger on your belt.

Silas Horn

Silas draws the dagger — first time it's ever left his belt — and jabs at the hand crouched by his boots. It skitters half a step on its fingertips and the blade meets only gravel. A 12, no contact. He plants his heel and doesn't retreat.

DM

Referee, holding the turn for Silas: Silas, you're the one who noticed what Prue felt, because you were watching the stump and not the fingers. Those trailing spindles are cut drive-shafts, and they are not slack — they run back down into the scree toward the collapsed hall. Something is still wound up in there. What's in front of you: hand 2 is a stride off, low in the gravel, AC 6, and it looks like one good hit finishes it. Your dagger is on your belt, your staff is in your hands, and you have Detect Magic memorised and unspent. Three hit points says whatever you do, do it from behind Edda's shield if you can. The turn is yours — nobody moves until you do.

DM

A 12, and the hand is quicker than a man who has never drawn that dagger in anger. It skips sideways on its fingertips as the point comes down; steel rings on gravel, and Silas's arm goes further than he meant it to. But he keeps his heel planted and does not give the step back — which, at three hit points, is either courage or arithmetic he hasn't done. **Round 1 closes. Six attacks, one hit, and the hit was brass on flesh.** Hand 1 is 2/2 and still clamped on Prue's calf, working through her boot. Hand 2 is 2/2, loose in the gravel by Silas. Prue 7/8; Barnaby, Edda, 8/8; Silas 3/3. Light and Detect Magic both still unspent. **Round 2.** Somewhere down in the scree, past the reach of the light, a spindle turns over with a sound like a key in a bad lock. Hand 1's fingers change grip — thumb sliding down to where the leather has already been cut away — and it bears down on the bare skin beneath.

DM

A natural 1 — and the brass pays for it. The hand bears down on the bare skin it has spent a round uncovering, and the shifting scree under Prue's boot chooses that instant to settle. Her heel drops half an inch. The fingers close on nothing but the ruined lip of the boot top, the thumb skids, and the whole thing slews around her ankle to hang upside down by two fingers. **No damage. Prue stays at 7/8.** For this moment the hand is fouled and off-balance on her leg — anyone striking at it now is striking at a thing that cannot brace. Hand 2 gathers itself in the gravel by Silas's boots.

DM

Hand 2 does not press Silas. It turns on its fingertips toward the cleric — the one already tangled, the one its twin has half-stripped — and scuttles across the gravel at Prue's other leg. Two hands on one target: whatever is winding those spindles down in the dark seems to understand the idea of finishing work already begun.

DM

14, and it lands hard. The second hand comes in low and takes Prue's right ankle above the boot — no leather-cutting patience this time, just a full closing squeeze, and the sound she makes is one she'd rather the others hadn't heard. **3 damage: Prue Candell 4/8.** Both hands are on her now. One fouled and swinging upside-down from her left boot top; one locked hard on her right ankle. She is standing on loose scree with four hit points and something in the rubble drawing the spindles tighter. **Round 2, adversary turns spent. Prue 4/8 — half her hit points gone, all of it to brass. Barnaby 8/8, Edda 8/8, Silas 3/3. Both hands 2/2. Light and Detect Magic unspent.** Barnaby Wick — the fouled hand on her left boot cannot brace itself. You're up.

Barnaby Wick

Prue's at half her blood and both her legs are caught. Barnaby doesn't wait for a clean line — the left-side hand is hanging upside down by two fingers, unbraced, and that's the one he wants dead. He drives the short sword point-first at the fouled hand while it can't fight back.

automaton hand 1 falls.

Barnaby Wick

The point goes in true this time — an 18 — and the fouled hand comes apart at the wrist, fingers splaying and going still. It drops off Prue's boot into the scree, dead brass. One target left; the other hand's still locked on her right ankle.

DM

18, and the point goes in where no fist can guard — the palm-side, exposed because the thing is hanging upside down. **4 damage; automaton hand 1 is destroyed at 0 hp.** The short sword splits it between the second and third knuckle and the whole hand comes apart in a spray of escapement teeth and tiny springs. The fingers spasm open, and the ruin of it drops off Prue's boot into the gravel, twitching once. Then the cut spindles at the stump go slack — properly slack, the tension gone out of them all at once — and somewhere down in the collapsed hall something unwinds with a long descending whirr and stops. **Automaton hand 1: destroyed.** One hand off Prue's legs. These things are clockwork, not soldiers; the survivor does not check morale and does not care that its twin is scrap. Hand 2's grip on Prue's right ankle does not loosen a hair. **Hand 2 remains 2/2, locked on Prue. Prue 4/8; Barnaby 8/8; Edda 8/8; Silas 3/3.** Edda Motts — one target left, and it is fixed in place on Prue's ankle. You're up.

automaton hand 2 falls.

Edda Motts

Edda's had enough of missing. She steps in close, gets a hand on Prue's shoulder to steady her over the loose scree, and puts the sword into the last hand where it's locked on Prue's ankle.

Edda Motts

The sword catches it clean where it's locked to Prue's ankle — a good hit, and the brass hand comes apart the same way its twin did, fingers going slack and dropping into the gravel dead. Edda keeps her grip on Prue's shoulder until she's sure the woman's got her footing back.

DM

15 to hit, and only 2 damage — but 2 is all a thing with 2 hit points has. **Automaton hand 2 is destroyed at 0 hp.** Edda's blade goes in flat along Prue's boot, more prise than cut, and the brass fist bursts at the base of the thumb. It lets go of the ankle it has been crushing and falls away in pieces. Down in the scree the last taut spindle unwinds, whirrs, and stops. **Both automaton hands are destroyed. Combat is over at the Ruined Great Door.** Nothing else in the rubble moves. The flies go back to the gloop corpse under its heap of fallen stone. What's left is the sound of settling gravel and Prue's breathing. **Standing at the end of the fight:** - **Prue Candell 4/8** — both ankles chewed, one boot top cut through, blood in it. Walking, but not gladly. - **Barnaby Wick 8/8** · **Edda Motts 8/8** · **Silas Horn 3/3** - Prue's **Light** and Silas's **Detect Magic** are both still unspent. Prue has Cure Light Wounds in her book, but it is not what she memorised today. The disturbed rubble is still open, and the brass in it is no longer pretending to be scrap. Visible in the spill where the hands came from: **two pearl eyeballs**, **three golden gears**, and a **mechanical voice box** — the last a fist-sized brass drum with a slotted grille and a bellows-cloth gone stiff with age. Two ways on from here: **west**, back through the smashed gates to the cliff base and the marsh crossing, or **east**, deeper into the shrine. The floor is yours — salvage, search, bind Prue's ankles, or move. Tell me what you do and I'll adjudicate it.

Prue Candell

Prue lowers herself onto the nearest stable slab before her legs decide the matter for her, and gets a look at the damage — boot leather cut clean through on the left, a deep ring of bruise already coming up dark on the right ankle where the second hand had its grip. She doesn't have the cure in her head today. She knows exactly why: Light over wounds, again, the choice she keeps making. She says it out loud this time, flat, not looking for sympathy. "Nothing broken. It'll bear weight." She tears a strip from her own hem — not the good cloth, the underlayer — and binds the right ankle tight enough to matter, working while she talks. "Those spindles ran back into the rubble and something down there was *winding* them. That's not a nest, that's a workshop with power left in it. Whatever's past that gap in the debris, it isn't sleeping." She nods at the pearl eyes and the voice box glinting in the spill. "Take the eyes, take the gears, take the voice box — Barnaby's right, it's stock, and stock doesn't care whose face it came off of. I'll say the words over it after, if it wants saying, which it probably doesn't." She gets her feet under her, tests the right ankle, winces, holds it anyway. "I can walk. I'd rather walk than be carried into whatever's making that whirring sound."

DM

Two rulings before anyone spends effort, so nobody plans around a thing that won't work: **Binding Prue's ankles restores no hit points.** Wrapping the wounds is worth doing — it stops the bleeding in the fiction and it's what decent people do for each other — but under these rules hit points come back from rest or from magic, and nothing else. Prue stays at **4/8** until she rests or someone heals her. Nobody in this party memorised a cure this morning. Plan accordingly. **The salvage is loose and takes no roll.** The hands came up out of that spill and left it open. Two pearl eyeballs, three golden gears, and the voice box can simply be picked up and pocketed by whoever bends down — that's 250 gp of brass and pearl, and no test to claim it. **Searching the rubble further** is a different matter, and I'll adjudicate that when someone declares it. The voice box: a brass drum the size of a fist, slotted grille on one face, a bellows-cloth gone stiff and grey with age. It rattles very faintly when tilted. It is not doing anything on its own. Prue Candell — you're the one bleeding into a cut boot, and it's your turn. Sit down and let someone wrap it, take your share of the brass, put Light on something, or say you'd rather move than bleed comfortably. What do you do?

DM

The binding holds. The hem-strip goes round the right ankle tight and neat, and the bruise-ring stops spreading under it — **but no hit points come back. Prue stays at 4/8.** She can walk, she can fight, she can climb the rubble track. She will simply do all of it four points closer to the end than she was an hour ago. On what she read off those spindles, here is what the table can stand behind and what remains her guess: **Established:** the spindles were cut drive-shafts. They ran back into the collapsed hall out of sight. They were under tension while the hands lived, and both times a hand died the tension went out of them and something down the line unwound and stopped. That is twice now, both times audible to everyone. **Prue's inference, and a fair one:** something back there stored the power that drove them. Whether it is a mechanism still wound, a mechanism now spent, or something that winds mechanisms, nobody at this door knows. What everyone heard was the sound of a thing *running down* — not starting up. The whirring has stopped. It is quiet in the rubble now. Her instruction about the salvage stands as instruction; brass does not pocket itself. **The two pearl eyeballs, three golden gears, and the voice box are still lying in the spill** — whoever bends down and takes them, takes them. Say who, and it's theirs. Silas Horn — last of you to act, and the only one holding a spell that answers questions. You're up.

Silas Horn

Silas doesn't reach for the brass first. He crouches at the edge of the spill, notebook already out, and reads the room the only way he actually can. "Before anyone's hands go in that gravel again." He speaks the words for Detect Magic low, over the whole spill — the pearls, the gears, the voice box, and as much of the dark gap in the rubble beyond as the spell will reach — same as he did in the embalming room. Cheap, and it answers a question nobody wants to answer with a hand. He waits for the aura to settle one way or the other before he says whether any of it is safe to pocket.

DM

Silas speaks the words and the spell takes — **Detect Magic is spent.** It reaches a good sixty feet from where he crouches and runs for a short while yet, so he sweeps it across the spill and as far into the dark gap in the debris as the radius will carry. The answer is clean, and it is a negative. **No aura on the pearl eyeballs.** No aura on the three golden gears. **No aura on the voice box** — Silas turns it over twice under the spell to be sure, because a thing built to speak is exactly what a man expects to be enchanted, and it simply isn't. It is a fine piece of gnomish clockwork with a stiff bellows and a rattle in it, and nothing more. Wholly mundane, wholly safe to pocket, and worth exactly what a fence will give for pearl and gold. **No aura anywhere in the reachable rubble**, either — not on the brass litter, not on the drift of debris, not on the buried gloop corpse, and nothing glowing back at him from as much of that gap as sixty feet will show. Whatever ran those hands, the spell says it was not magic doing it. Cut drive-shafts and stored tension, exactly as the sound suggested. Machinery. Two things that are *not* proven by a negative, and Silas the careful man would write both down: the spell shows him only what lies inside its radius, so the far end of those shafts — deeper in than sixty feet, around the turn of the track, past the gap — remains unread. And a mundane machine can kill you perfectly well. Nothing about that answer makes the rubble safe to plunge a hand into blind. **The salvage is confirmed inert and free for the taking: 2 pearl eyeballs, 3 golden gears, 1 mechanical voice box. 250 gp.** Still nobody's, until someone picks it up. **Round 2 closes.** Both hands destroyed, nothing else stirring. Prue 4/8; Barnaby, Edda 8/8; Silas 3/3. Prue's **Light** remains her only unspent spell. The fight is done and the room is yours. Take the brass, dig further into the spill, or pick a door — **west** to the cliff base and the marsh, **east** into the shrine. Say what you do.

Barnaby Wick

Barnaby bends into the spill and pockets the salvage without ceremony — pearls, gears, voice box, all of it, the two eyeballs wrapped in a scrap of cloth so they don't click together in his pack. He weighs the voice box in his palm a moment, turning it toward the light. "Gnomish, and old, and somebody built it to talk. Fits with a workshop." Then he looks east, at the gap in the debris, and at Prue's bound ankle. "Four hit points and a spent Light isn't a party that pushes further today without a reason better than curiosity. I've got what I came out here to find eventually — a broker's not going to explain drive-shafts and stored tension. This does." He taps his coat pocket where the ledger copy sits. "But I'd rather we go in on rested legs than dead ones. Your call, Prue — you're the one bleeding. If you say west, I'm not going to argue it."

DM

**The salvage is Barnaby's, and it is off the ground.** Two pearl eyeballs wrapped in cloth, three golden gears, one mechanical voice box — **250 gp** carried in the thief's pack, which is the first thing this party has actually gained at the Ruined Great Door. The spill is now picked over of anything obvious. Nothing in the rubble reacted to being robbed. One correction to the ledger before anyone decides on the strength of it: **Prue's Light is unspent.** It's the one spell the party still has in hand. **Detect Magic** is what's gone. The rest of Barnaby's arithmetic is sound — 4 hit points on the cleric, no cure memorised by anyone, and 23 of 27 hit points across four bodies. His read on the voice box holds up, too, as far as it goes. Gnomish work, old, built to talk, and a broker on the King's Road will want to know why a shrine full of smashed automata was fitted with a mouth. What it says, if it can be made to say anything, nobody here knows — the bellows-cloth is stiff as board and it has not made a sound but a rattle. **Where the exits actually go:** **west** through the smashed gates puts you at the base of the sandstone cliffs, looking back across the Kelfrek Marsh — that is the way home, and the way to a night's rest and a fresh morning's spells. **East** through the gap in the debris is deeper into the shrine, and it is the direction those drive-shafts run. Barnaby has put the question to Prue and pledged not to argue her answer. Prue's turn comes after Edda's. Edda Motts — you're up. Chain, shield, and a full eight hit points; if anyone here is fit to argue for pressing on, it's you.

Edda Motts

Edda wipes the sword clean on a scrap of the hand's own wiring and sheathes it before she answers, which is her way of saying she's thought about it rather than just reacting. "I'll argue for pressing on if you make me, but I'd rather not have to. Priest's on four out of eight and we've got no cure between the four of us — that's not a number I want to be carrying when whatever's past that gap turns out to be more than two loose fists. Those things ran down when they died, both times. That means something back there was minding them, and 'minding' is a different word than 'dead workshop.'" She looks at the gap east, then back at the gates behind them, half-fallen but still the way to the marsh and the road. "West gets us a night's rest and Prue her spells back. East gets us answers Barnaby wants and a workshop that already bled us four hit points for two fists. I'll walk either way you point me, priest — but if it were my call to make alone, I'd sleep on it before I put my boot past that gap."

DM

Edda's caution is sound, but her word choice runs ahead of the evidence, and at four hit points the difference matters. **What the sound established:** both times a hand died, tension left the shafts and something down the line unwound and stopped. That is the signature of stored power discharging — a spring letting go. It is not, on its own, evidence of anything *minding* them. A wound mechanism drives its parts with nobody attending it at all; that is the entire point of clockwork, and Silas's spell came back with no magic anywhere in reach to suggest otherwise. **What is genuinely unresolved:** the far end of those shafts, past sixty feet and around the turn of the track. Something wound them once. Whether that something is still there, still capable, or long since spent is exactly what nobody at this door can answer. Both readings remain open. The rubble is quiet now — no whirring, no movement, nothing but flies on the gloop corpse. So the honest ledger for the decision: **two of three who have spoken favour west.** Barnaby pledged not to argue Prue's answer. Edda says she'd sleep on it if it were hers alone, and will walk either way. Silas has spent his spell and said nothing yet about direction. **The cost of west, stated plainly:** the marsh crossing back, a night, and a fresh morning — Prue's ankles mend, her Cure Light Wounds can be prepared instead of Light, Silas gets Detect Magic back. The shrine gets the same night to do whatever a shrine does with one. Nothing here is on a fuse the party has seen. **The cost of east:** a healer-less party at 23 of 27 hit points, one utility spell between them, walking toward the only part of this room the spell could not read. Prue Candell — Barnaby put it to you and Edda seconded it. **It is your call, and both of them have said they'll follow it.** West to the marsh and a night's rest, or east through the gap. Say the word and I'll move the table.

Prue Candell

Prue tests the ankle once more, weight fully on it, and doesn't like the answer it gives her. "West." No hesitation once she says it. "I've buried enough of the company to know the difference between brave and stupid, and walking into an unmapped room on four hit points with no cure in my head is the second one. Whatever's back there minding those shafts or not minding them, it kept quiet through two dead hands and a spell that found nothing — it can keep quiet one more night." She looks at the gap east, then at the gates behind them, half down but still standing enough to walk through. "We come back with my ankles healed, Silas's Detect Magic fresh, and Cure Light Wounds in my head instead of a candle-trick. Barnaby's got his answer about the drive-shafts already — that's not going anywhere by morning, and neither, I'd wager, is whatever's turning them." She starts for the gates, testing her stride, not asking anyone to slow down for her but not pretending she can set the pace either. "West. Marsh, then rest. Everyone's still breathing — I'd like to keep it that way past sundown."

DM

**Prue calls west, and west it is.** Barnaby pledged to follow it, Edda pledged to follow it, and the cleric with the chewed ankles has spent the authority she was handed. One point of order before the party clears the threshold, because it changes what closing this out means: **west is not another room of this shrine.** It is the smashed gates, the base of the sandstone cliffs, and the Kelfrek Marsh beyond — out of the shrine entirely, back the way you came, with the shrine's main gate shrinking behind you across the water. Going west ends the delve. It is not a move to another keyed area I can bring you back from mid-step; it is the walk home. What that walk carries out with it, for the record: - **250 gp** in salvage — two pearl eyeballs, three golden gears, one mechanical voice box — in Barnaby's pack - One question answered and worth a broker's ear: the hands were mundane clockwork on cut drive-shafts, driven by stored tension, magic nowhere in it - **Four people alive.** Prue 4/8, Barnaby 8/8, Edda 8/8, Silas 3/3 - Two automaton hands left in pieces in the gravel, and the gap east never entered The rubble stays quiet as you go. Nothing follows. The flies close back over the gloop corpse, and the brass in the scree goes back to being scrap. **Silas Horn — you are the one voice that has not named a direction, and you have the last turn of this round.** You spent your spell on the party's behalf and got them a true answer; nobody would begrudge you a word before those gates are behind you. Ride along with Prue's call, or say your piece if you want the record to show something different. Once you've spoken, I'll close the table.

Silas Horn

Silas is already closing the notebook when Prue calls it, and doesn't reopen it to argue. "West is right." He says it plainly, no hedging, which is unusual enough that Edda might notice. "The spell told me what wasn't there, not what's past sixty feet of rubble. I won't pretend a clean read on some gears and a voice box means the rest of that gap is clean too. It doesn't. That's not caution talking, that's just what the spell actually does." He shoulders the burn-bench, which never came off his back, and doesn't reach for the dagger to put it away — it's already on his belt where it started. "We come back with Prue's ankles mended, a cure memorised instead of a candle, and Detect Magic fresh instead of spent an hour before we need it. Whatever wound those shafts kept quiet through two dead hands. It can keep quiet through one supper and a night's sleep." He falls in behind Prue toward the gates, matching her pace rather than his own. "West."

DM

**Four voices, one direction. The Candlewrights walk out.** They go west through the ruin of the great door — under ten feet of smashed iron gate, past the hand-mounts with their broken spindles, out of the shadow of the collapsed hall and into open daylight at the base of the sandstone cliffs. Prue sets the pace and nobody makes a point of matching it, which is its own kind of courtesy. Silas falls in behind her. Barnaby's pack clicks faintly with wrapped pearl. Edda walks last and looks back twice. Behind them the Shrine of the Oozing Serpent does exactly nothing. No whirring starts up in the rubble. Nothing comes to the threshold. The flies settle over the gloop corpse under its heap of stone, the brass goes back to being scrap, and the gap east stays dark and unentered. Then the marsh, and the shrine's main gate dwindling across the water — the same view they had coming in, running the other way. --- **The delve at the Ruined Great Door, closed.** **Out alive, all four:** Prue Candell 4/8 · Barnaby Wick 8/8 · Edda Motts 8/8 · Silas Horn 3/3 **Carried out:** two pearl eyeballs, three golden gears, and one mechanical voice box — **250 gp**, in Barnaby's pack. Old gnomish work, and a question a King's Road broker will pay to hear asked. **Learned:** the automaton hands were mundane clockwork. Cut drive-shafts, stored tension, no magic in any of it — Silas spent Detect Magic to prove it and said out loud what a negative doesn't cover. **Left behind:** two brass hands in pieces. The rubble past sixty feet, unread. The gap east, unentered. **Spent:** Silas's Detect Magic. Prue's Light came home unused, and so did every hit point but four of hers. Nobody died at this door. Two hands drew first blood and paid for it, the party took the room, took the money, took the answer, and then declined the unmapped dark on a healer-less party at 23 of 27 hit points. That is not timidity. That is the delve done properly. Rest, ankles mended, a cure memorised instead of a candle-trick, Detect Magic fresh. The gap east will still be there. **Table closed.**