imp

Cass Dolby

Say it once, so nobody learns it the way I did. The shells are brick — a blade skates off them and you've bent it for nothing. It's the mouths. And they're quick with the door: steel comes near, the head's back inside before your swing lands. You get one swing while the mouth is out, and then it shuts and stays shut till something baits it open. They're out and feeding right now. So I take my one swing first, at the mouth of the near one, before anything puts them back in their houses. After that Tobias holds the front — I've stood front rank in this room once already and I'm not doing it again. Ruta — your fire sorts them, it doesn't finish them. One walked through it still burning, before, and nobody had counted it. Count what's dead, not what's burning.

DM

Cass strikes as the nearest snail feeds, but its head snaps back; her short sword rings against the shell’s lip.

Ruta Pell

Taken — all of it. Now mine, once, for the book. Wen — the count is yours this chamber, full-time. Out loud, every round: retired, burning, whole. Nothing in here is dead until you've called it dead. One of these walked out of the burn still lit last pass. Fire grades poor as a wall — it's a drain. It sorts them. The count finishes them. Cass — the entry book I'm carrying says I signed a death in this chamber. It also says you're standing there talking to me. I'm not settling that with a live chamber in front of me. It settles one thing only: no front rank in here, nobody at the wet edge, and the count opens on 2 every round — that's the one that came through flame. Method, once: this floor isn't stone. The outflow is grease, and all five are standing in the fuel to feed. You don't dig a fat blockage out. You burn it out. Tobias — front's yours, but two steps back of the dry line, and your boots stay off the trails; the slime takes stitching, and a burned boot is a man carried out. If the smoke turns the air, you call it and we're gone. Wen — count from range. And if the burn grades poor, I go in on the beak — flip one, crack the back open — and nobody follows me in. Flask's off the belt. Overhand, wide, into the outflow along the feeding line — it lands wet or it grades poor, so it lands wet — and I put flame off the lantern to the near edge as I step back off the runoff. Four on the belt, three after this. Throwing now, while all five mouths are out.

DM

Ruta’s flask lands wet along the feeding line. The runoff catches from edge to edge, engulfing all five soot snails. The burning grease lasts through rounds 1 and 2; each snail takes 1d6 damage at the start of its turn. Ruta has 3 oil flasks left.

DM

Count: soot snail 1 takes 2 fire damage and remains alive at 2 hit points. Burning, not retired.

DM

Still burning, soot snail 1 crosses the dry line and bites Tobias for 4 damage. He remains standing at 5 hit points.

DM

Count: soot snail 2 also takes 2 fire damage and remains alive at 2 hit points. Two burning, three whole, none retired.

DM

Soot snail 2 follows the first through the flames, but its bite scrapes harmlessly across Tobias’s mace.

DM

Count: soot snail 3 takes 6 fire damage and dies. One retired, two burning, two whole.

DM

The surviving soot snails roll 7 on their first-death morale check and hold.

DM

Count: soot snail 4 takes 2 fire damage and remains alive at 2 hit points. One retired, three burning, one whole.

DM

Soot snail 4 reaches Tobias through the blaze and bites through his leather for 2 damage. He is bloodied at 3 hit points.

DM

Count: soot snail 5 takes 1 fire damage and remains alive at 3 hit points. One retired; four burning and active.

DM

The fifth snail surges after the others, but Tobias turns its bite aside with the wicker cage.

Tobias Enk

Air still sound. Smoke's at the roof, not the breath. Sixpence quiet. Grade four on the floor — four burning, one retired. Mouths are out. Near one first, while it still is. Two steps back of the dry line. Boots off the trails. Mace at the mouth of the first.

DM

Tobias brings the mace down at the exposed mouth, but the snail folds under its shell before the blow lands.

Wen Harrick

Count, round one: one retired, four burning, none whole. Three is down — six of fire. One, two, and four standing at two. Five at three. Tobias standing at three. Fire holds through two. From range. Light on five, the one at three, while the mouth is still out. May I.

DM

Wen’s Light takes hold. Soot snail 5 rolls 2 and fails its save versus spells; white fire blinds its eye-stalks for 7 turns. It cannot attack. Wen’s memorised Light is spent.

Cass Dolby

Wen's count stands, so I'll work off it: one retired, four burning. One, two, and four are on two apiece — the fire asks them again before they even move, and that's the burn's work. I'm not spending steel where the burn's already got a hand in. Five is the loose one. It's on three, the fire needs the full three to finish it, and I don't wait on grades. And it's blind. The door shuts because it sees steel coming — there's nothing left in that one to see with. First swing this chamber has offered where the door can't shut. So: not front rank, Ruta — boots wide of the trails, round its blind side, one thrust at the mouth while it's still out, and I'm straight back behind the dry line. I'm not standing in the wet. I'm closing a drain.

DM

Cass circles the blinded snail, but smoke and heat spoil the angle; her thrust passes beneath its exposed mouth.

Ruta Pell

The burn asks all four again before they move — I spend no steel where the fire has a hand in. Except five. It's on three, the fire needs the full three to finish it, and it's blind: the only door in this chamber that can't shut. Cass's swing went under it in the smoke. Mine goes in at arm's length. I said no front rank this chamber — reversing that, and it goes in the book as my call. If anything walks out of this burn, the bite lands better on eight than on three. Tobias, one step back, off my shoulder. That's arithmetic, not courage. Wen — count holds: one retired, four burning, nothing dead until you call it. And if they break for the exhaust cracks, let them break — nobody chases a snail into a crack. Flasks stay on the belt; the walls may still want oil. Boots on dry stone, lantern shaded, hook out. One swing at the open mouth, back on my heel.

Ruta Pell

Wide. Smoke took it off my hands the same way it took hers — that's two angles spoiled in this smoke, and it goes in the book: the mouth is a small door even when it can't see you coming. Back on my heel, behind the dry line, hook up. The fire asks five before it can even turn blind. If it's still standing after that, it's mine again. Wen — count.

DM

Count: soot snail 1 takes 3 fire damage and dies. Two retired; three burning and active.

DM

Count: soot snail 2 takes 5 fire damage and dies. Three retired; snails 4 and 5 remain burning.

DM

At three dead, the two survivors roll 10 and fail morale. Soot snails 4 and 5—both burning, the fifth blinded—drag themselves into the exhaust cracks. Nobody pursues. The fight is over.