imp

Ivo Trant

Before my foot goes anywhere: the roof gets the sweep first — ceiling, the flue mouth, anything casting a shape. The chapel taught me that lesson in blood and I'll pay it every time. Then the floor: a gnomish foundry is where the brass hands and the six-armed thing were CAST, and a place that casts one guard can cast another — so if anything stands half-made in here, or anything ticks, we back out the way we came. Clockwork doesn't dream, and I have no Sleep left for anything that does. Lissa — before you move, two questions that have now outlived two rooms and I'm done marching on a map I can't account for: how did we come through the east brass door that had no handle on our side? And where is Roby — with us, or left by the dark lantern in the hideout? If he's back there, he stays found. We go back for him with the barrow. If the room's quiet, here's what it's for, in order. LIGHT first — banked coals, a flask of oil, a worker's flint and steel. The lantern's been dry since first camp and the parchment in my ledger is worthless until I have light to study by and an hour to pray Read Magic into my head. A foundry is the best chance at fire we've walked past yet. Then PAPERS — a pattern-book, moulds with letters cut in them, anything written. Gnomes write things down and don't throw things away, and a third spell could be standing in a mould waiting. Then traces of a hedge wizard called Pettifer who came east two winters back. Your eyes on how the room is built — floor-plates, catches, where the flue runs back to that tunnel. Mine on whatever's written. Nothing awake comes within a staff's length, nothing ticking within a room's width. And the snails behind us sleep on a leash I can't see the end of — if we ever go back through the tunnel, we look before we step.

DM

The west threshold opens onto absolute dark; no daylight or furnace-glow answers Ivo’s raised lantern. He hears no ticking, breathing, or movement, but without light he cannot sweep the ceiling or floor—or certify the foundry safe. His pack still holds one flask of oil, enough to fill the lantern, but neither current sheet lists anything with which to kindle it. Only Lissa stands beside him; Roby is not in the foundry, though nothing here establishes where he was left. Ivo keeps his foot on the tunnel stone, so the blind search does not begin.

Lissa Fenn

First words, as owed, and both answers plain — you don't march on a map you can't account for, and neither do I. Roby: the hideout, far corner, the dark lantern set square on his kit, out of every doorway in that room. I moved him three feet myself once already, to shut the closet door, and I wasn't going to have him lying in another. The west door was couch-weighted and latched when we left it. He stays found. Barrow, oil, priest — one trip, three jobs, and the order stands. The brass door, and you get the truth, not a story: no pick of mine ever touched it — there was no working on our side to touch, I said so and I meant it. It was shut through my whole night watch against it, and the brass never spoke once. When we stood to it at march, it was open. Whatever worked it worked it from the far side, where the working has always been, and I never saw the hand. I went through ahead of you because of exactly that, and because you can't swim. What it means for the map: the door's working lies on the tunnel side, where we are now. When we go back I'll find it, and we shut that door behind us if it takes. Until then it goes in the ledger as a door something else knows how to open, and I don't call it a wall anymore. That's the whole of my accounting and I won't dress it up. Your third question you've had: no daylight reaches this deep. Any light in that tunnel was never the sun. What it was goes on the list behind fire. Now the room. The blind search is mine to begin — a dark room is the one place I'm worth more than a lamp. Rope first: one end round your fist on the threshold stone, I take the coil in. Your flask stays sealed in your pack — fuel without a spark is nothing, and we burn nothing on spec. Then this, in order, out loud all the way so you keep the map by ear, like you kept the hideout all night. Ear to the dark, ten heartbeats, my ears not yours — this place casts its own guards and built things count, so I want ticking, breath, anything measured, before a foot goes over. Nose at the threshold — old smoke, fresh scorch, grease, water; I'll tell you what the air is made of before I tell you anything else. If both come back quiet, I cross: paddle flat ahead of me, floor swept before a foot, a palm before a knee, right hand on the wall, every step said out loud. If my voice stops, haul. After, in order of wants: a striker — flint and steel, a worker's kit, anything that throws a spark. Then warm ash, coals, burnt ends. Then your papers, your moulds, your Pettifer, and where the flue runs to that tunnel. Metal shaped like a hand or an arm gets the paddle's flat and never my palm — brass is brass, and this is the room they cast the hands in. And if I find a spark-maker, I don't strike it in the middle of the dark — it comes back to this stone, and we make light standing on known ground. Hold the threshold. Count my steps.

DM

Ten heartbeats give Lissa no tick, breath, scrape, or drip. The air is cold and dry: old soot and iron, with rancid grease growing stronger south; there is no warmth or fresh scorch. Tied to Ivo and moving at a crawl, she finds no shifting floor plate. Her paddle maps overturned benches, loose tools, and inert casts of gears and automaton limbs; a huge bellows on a wheeled dolly in the soot-thick southwest corner; an open southern threshold crossed by greasy residue; a massive stone vat ringed by five anvils; and another open threshold east. Cold solid metal fills the vat, with an ornate sword-grip protruding from it. A full blind rummage of the wreckage turns up two spears, a small and extraordinarily heavy rectangular ingot, a coiled brass wind-instrument, and an ornate brass bell. It finds no striker, live coal, paper, legible marking, separate flue mouth, or trace of Pettifer that touch alone can establish. The circuit takes one slow exploration turn; Lissa returns to the west threshold black with soot but unharmed.