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Aldous Crane

Aldous holds up a fist at the entrance to the hideout — the old signal, wait and listen. He scans the gloom for movement before committing anyone forward, sword still sheathed, eyes doing the work first.

DM

Aldous waits at the western threshold. Nothing moves among the rotted couches, and he hears only the faint settling of the hideout; a bedroll, an accordion, a bag of crossbow bolts, and bundled rations lie at the base of one couch.

Pox Mallin

Pox slips past Aldous's raised fist like the gesture doesn't apply to him — it never has — and drifts along the edge of the room toward the couches, eyes on the bedroll and the bag of bolts rather than the shadows. "Nothing's moved in here in a week, Aldous, look at the dust." He crouches by the nearest bundle, fingers already working before his eyes finish the sentence, checking the rations and the accordion case for anything worth more than it looks — and for the kind of wire that bites back.

DM

Pox finds no wire or other trap. The bundle is a week of ordinary rations, but opening the accordion’s bellows reveals a tightly folded scroll hidden deep in the pleats, its script describing gnecromancy.

Wendel Fitch

Wendel doesn't move for the couches — he's still watching the dark where Aldous pointed his fist. But at the word "necromancy" his head turns. "Don't unroll that further, Pox." He crosses to look at it without touching, holy symbol coming up off his chest more out of habit than expectation of trouble. "Gnecromancy scripts don't hide themselves in accordions for no reason. Either Gorfthistle was reading it, or he was hiding it from someone who'd take it off him. Either way it wants wrapping in something blessed before it rides in anyone's pack, not stuffed back in with the rations." He glances past Pox at the rest of the room — bedroll, crossbow bolts, the couches themselves. "Whoever slept here, they're not here now. That's the part I don't like."

DM

The scroll remains inert beneath Wendel’s raised symbol; nothing answers from the room. Beyond the couches, he notices a flat brass door in the eastern wall, only four feet high and made without any handle.

Aldous Crane

Aldous doesn't like a door with no handle any more than he likes a room with no owner. He waves Pox back from it with two fingers — "Not yet" — and crouches to eye the brass at seam-height, checking for hinges, a seam that swings, anything a boot or a lever might catch. "Four feet high means it wasn't built for a man to walk through standing. Either something that isn't a man uses it, or a man on his knees does. I'd rather know which before anyone puts a hand on it." He keeps his sword sheathed but shifts his grip on the spear, watching the dark behind the couches while he studies the door's edges.

DM

A hairline seam outlines the brass slab, but this face has no hinges, latch, keyhole, or gap wide enough for the spearhead. Whatever releases it is not accessible from this side; the room behind Aldous stays still.

Pox Mallin

Pox drops back from the brass door at Aldous's two-finger wave — no argument there, he's not keen to lose fingers to a seam with no give — and turns his attention to the rest of the room instead. If the door opens from the other side, something *here* probably tells it to. He starts working the couches properly this time: flipping cushions, running fingers along the frames for a hidden catch, checking the underside and the wall behind them for a lever, a stud, anything that doesn't belong to a couch. "Man builds a door he can't open from his own parlour, he usually keeps the key close. Bedroll, couches, floorboards — somebody sat here every night looking at that brass. Let's see what he was looking *at.*"

DM

The cushions split under Pox’s hands, shedding rotten stuffing. Frames, undersides, wall, and the space beneath the bedroll yield no catch, stud, lever, or key; the hidden scroll was the room’s only concealed object.

Wendel Fitch

Wendel leaves the couches to Pox and turns his attention to the scroll itself. He wraps it in a strip torn from his own psalter's endpaper — water-swollen, but blessed is blessed — before tucking it well away from the rations. "It travels with me, not in anyone's pack next to food. If it wants to wake up, let it wake up against a cleric." He straightens, glancing once more at the brass door. "No hinges this side means someone built it to keep something in, or to keep us out while they walk through free. Either way, I'd rather we found the release than forced the seam. Gorfthistle's not here to ask, so it's floor, walls, or wherever a dying man might have hidden a lever he didn't want a guest to find."

DM

Wendel wraps and stows the scroll without incident. It is now in his keeping; the torn psalter paper shows no change, and the brass door remains shut.

Aldous Crane

Aldous steps back from the seamless brass and lets his eyes drop to the floor instead — old habit, sappers taught him that levers hide low, not high. He walks the room heel-to-toe, testing for a board that gives, a stone that isn't flush, working outward from directly in front of the door. "Man who built a door with no handle on this side didn't want to walk far to open it. If the trigger's not in the couches, it's underfoot, close by. Pox, Wendel — mind where you stand while I check the boards." He keeps the spear low, more balance than threat, and taps each plank with the butt of it, listening for hollow.

DM

Aldous works the floor from the brass threshold to the western door. Every tap answers solid: no loose board or stone, hollow space, pressure plate, or hidden release.

Pox Mallin

Pox straightens up from the ruined cushions, wiping stuffing off his hands, and eyes the room from a different angle — not the floor, not the couches, but the walls flanking the brass door itself. "If Aldous is right and the trigger's close, maybe it's not underfoot. Could be waist-high, hidden in the brass surround, or built into the wall like it's part of the masonry." He runs his fingers along the wall on either side of the door, feeling for a seam in the stone or a brick that isn't mortared quite like its neighbors, the same careful touch he'd use finding the catch on a strongbox. "Every vault's got a tell. This one's just being coy about where."

DM

Pox traces both sides of the doorway from floor to lintel. The masonry and brass surround are continuous and firm, with no false joint, loose block, concealed catch, or movable ornament.

Wendel Fitch

Wendel steps back from the door and turns his attention to the couches themselves — not the cushions Pox already gutted, but the joints and legs, the places a tired man's hand would rest without thinking. "If the trigger's not in the wall or the floor, maybe it's not meant to be found by searching — maybe it's meant to be *reached for*, the way you'd reach for an armrest. Where did Gorfthistle sit to look at his own door?" He crouches by the couch nearest the brass, pressing along the frame's underside and the arm nearest the seam, working from the sitter's-eye view rather than a searcher's.

DM

Wendel finds only rotten joints and old upholstery beneath the armrest—no spring, wire, catch, or linkage. With floor, walls, furniture, and door now searched, the party is certain this room contains no release for the brass door.

Aldous Crane

Aldous stops pacing the boards and looks back at the gutted couches — specifically at the accordion Pox already opened. "Wait. That's a bellows, not a lockbox. Man doesn't hide a scroll in an instrument unless the instrument still works, and a room with no lever anywhere near that door might not need a lever — it might need air." He crosses over, picks up the accordion, and turns it toward the brass seam, working the bellows slow and full, listening for anything on the other side of the wall that isn't the wheeze of old leather — a click, a hiss, a counterweight dropping."

DM

The old accordion still works badly, coughing out a wavering chord as Aldous pumps it. No click, hiss, or counterweight answers from beyond the brass; the door does not move, though the sour music carries west into the passage.

Pox Mallin

Pox watches Aldous wheeze the last chord out of the accordion and shakes his head. "Leather's just leather, Aldous — if it worked a mechanism you'd have heard iron, not felt smug." He steps back and looks at the whole room instead of any one piece of it: couches, bedroll, bag of bolts, the door too flush to be argued with. "We've stripped this room to the joints and it hasn't given up a lever. Maybe that's the answer — maybe the release isn't in here at all. Whoever built a four-foot door with no handle on our side wanted it opened from *his* side only, which means Gorfthistle didn't sleep here waiting to let himself in — he slept here waiting for someone to knock." He crouches by the seam again, not searching this time, just listening close against the brass. "So let's stop hunting for a trick and try knocking. Worst that happens is something on the other side finally notices we're here — and I'd rather that happen on our terms, weapons up, than an hour from now with our backs turned."

DM

Pox raps hard on the brass and presses his ear to it. The knock returns as a flat metallic report; no footsteps, voice, machinery, or answering knock follows, and the door stays closed.

Wendel Fitch

Wendel doesn't reach for the door itself — he's turned inward, turning the word over. "Necromancy hidden in an accordion, in a room with a door that only opens from the other side." He looks at the psalter-wrapped scroll in his satchel, then at the brass. "That's not a coincidence I like. If Gorfthistle was reading gnecromancy, maybe this door doesn't care about levers or catches at all — maybe it cares about the dead. Some of the older wards do; they check for a heartbeat, not a hand." He crouches near the seam, but doesn't touch it, holy symbol held loose in his fingers. "Before anyone forces brass that's clearly built to be walked through by something that isn't breathing — let me try something simpler first." He lies down flat against the threshold, holding his breath, still as a corpse laid out for burial, and waits to see if the door answers a dead man rather than a knock.

DM

Wendel lies motionless until his lungs demand air. The brass remains cold and inert throughout: no vibration, change at the seam, or movement answers his imitation of death.

Aldous Crane

Aldous sets the accordion down and lets the silence sit a moment. "That's the room told us everything it's going to. No lever, no catch, no ward that cares whether we're breathing. It opens from the other side or it doesn't open for us at all — and I'm not putting my back into forcing brass over a seam I can't get a blade into." He looks to the western passage the sour chord carried down. "Gorfthistle didn't build one door into this place and call it a life. There'll be another way round to whatever's behind that wall, or there won't, and either way we're not finding it standing here admiring our own knocking." He shoulders the spear. "We move. Back through the passage, and we look for a second way in before we waste another candle on this one."

DM

Aldous gathers the party at the western door. The passage beyond serves three different routes through the shrine; they must choose which branch to take before leaving the hideout.

Pox Mallin

Pox flips a card between his fingers, more out of habit than divination, and looks down the three throats of the western passage. "Right. Man built one door we can't open and called it a night. Wherever the *other* side of that brass sits, it's got a way in from somewhere — probably the route he used most, which means the route with the least dust." He crouches at the junction, running fingers along the floor of each opening in turn, checking wear on the stone, drag marks, anything to tell which path got walked and which got left for show. "I'm not keen on picking a door at random and finding out the hard way which one's got teeth."

DM

The passage stones are worn too smooth for Pox to read, and dust lies unevenly in all three branches. He finds no fresh print, drag mark, or reliable difference in traffic; none offers a safer clue than the others.

Wendel Fitch

Wendel weighs the scroll in his satchel, then looks at the three branches. "We won't read the stone tonight, so let's read the man instead. Gorfthistle hid a scroll instead of burning it, and built himself a door only the dead — or the ones he let in — could use. That's not a man who wanted company. I'd wager he took the route that let him see anyone coming longest before they saw him." He nods toward whichever branch offers the straightest, longest sightline. "Failing that, pick the middle one and let's move — a locked door and three roads is the room's problem, not an oracle's. I'd rather we walked wrong for ten minutes than stood here until something walks up on us."

DM

No branch offers a meaningfully longer sightline. The party takes the middle passage and leaves Gorfthistle’s hideout behind, Wendel carrying the wrapped gnecromancy scroll.