imp

DM

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.

Barnaby Wick

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.

DM

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.

Edda Motts

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."

DM

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.

Firren of the Reeds

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."

DM

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.

Hobb Coalfell

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."

DM

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.

Silas Horn

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."

DM

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.

Verbena Candell

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.

DM

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.

Barnaby Wick

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."

DM

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 Motts

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."

DM

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.

Firren of the Reeds

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."

DM

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.

Hobb Coalfell

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."

DM

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.

Silas Horn

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."

DM

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.

Verbena Candell

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."

DM

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.