A disappeared seamstress rides under sailcloth in a borrowed cart, and three powers want her body before it reaches the only ground that will take it; the comet climbs, and a fresh corpse on blighted earth does not stay a corpse for long.
The Situation
Magrit Soller stitched crimson coats for the Red Guard under threat, then vanished. The Court's lists call her departed. This dusk her body came back to Constance Veyer's door, wrapped and cold, a coat-tally still knotted at the wrist. Constance carried her to the Bastion and pinned the job to the board: get Magrit north to the Hallaset Fields and into the sky-burial ground before the night is out. The fields lie past the walls, two centuries of necromantic runoff soaked into the soil, and the rising comet pulls at all of it. A fresh body left unburied on that approach wakes. The Red Guard want Magrit gone for good, one more name that simply left. The Lich Cult work the lanes near Hallaset for fresh dead and have caught the scent already. The Gatekeepers hold the old cemetery gate and open it for no one without their toll. The tower climbs over the rooftops while press-gangs thin the northern lanes.
Objectives
- Primary · Carry Magrit Soller's body from the Bastion to the Hallaset Fields and into the ground, by the northern lanes and the old cemetery gate, before the comet wakes her.
- Secondary · Keep Constance Veyer, who will not leave the cart, alive and clear of the press-gangs.
- Secondary · Carry out the coat-tally knotted at Magrit's wrist, the proof she was killed and did not depart.
The Clocks
- Main · The Waking. The comet pulls at the blighted approach and the fresh body answers. A six-step count. It advances one step each leg of the route, and one more on any turn a die reads 1 in a fight or a chase. At four she turns cold and twitches under the cloth and the mule will not pull. At six she sits up, and the rite for a thing that woke runs longer and bloodier than the rite for the dead.
- Fast · The Cordon. Phase II checkpoints and press-gangs choke the northern lanes. A three-step heat count, one step each time the party run a checkpoint loud, flash coin, or draw blood. At three a conscription gang locks the easy road north, and the cart must reach the gate across open ground.
- Gate · The Toll. Aggodas and Boldogg hold the cemetery gate and answer to no faction. Hallaset stays shut until they take their toll: coin, a true name, or a piece of the dead. Stall at the arch and the price climbs each round.
The Five Beats
The route: the Bastion's yard, the northern lanes, the Northern Causeway gate, the old cemetery gate, the Hallaset ground.
- Entrance · The Bastion's back yard after dark. Eppy lets them load the cart in the lamp-shadow because the inn is the one ground the Red Guard have not searched. The first wrong note: under the sailcloth Magrit's hand has begun to curl, and the cart-mule rolls its eyes and balks at the shafts.
- Discovery · The first checkpoint on the northern lanes. No random stop. A Red Guard list names her, Soller M., the line struck through as departed, and the corporal holds orders to turn back any cart carrying a body by that name. The cord at her wrist holds a Red Guard coat-tally: who ordered the coats, and who ordered her silenced.
- Setback · The Cordon snaps tight, or Magrit stirs early. A press-gang seizes the easy road north, or the waking body spooks the mule into a bolt, and the party split three ways at once: hold the cart, shield Constance, find a new line to the gate. Down the lane, the Lich Cult's harvesters have the scent and close on the wheels.
- Climax · The old cemetery gate at the edge of Hallaset. Blighted ground glows faint under the comet, grave-flowers pale in the dark. The Gatekeepers demand their toll, the Cult press in for the fresh body, and Magrit rides at or near waking. Get her through the gate and into the ground before she rises and before the Cult take her, and pay a toll that costs more than coin.
- Resolution · Magrit in the sky-burial ground with the rite done, or woken, or taken, or bargained off in pieces. Constance grieves what is left. The coat-tally now names a Red Guard officer to whoever counts the disappeared. Past the gate, Terrassian necromancers watched who came for the body, and marked it.
Leverage Points
- The sailcloth cart. Dress Magrit as plague-dead or night-soil and the checkpoints wave the cart through fast, since no guard searches filth or fever. The plague-cant carries, and the Lich Cult's harvesters listen for exactly that call. The Gatekeepers smell a hidden body through any cloth.
- The coat-tally at her wrist. Proof Magrit was killed for the coats she sewed. Show it to a pressed, resentful guardsman and he may turn his back. Show it to a loyal one and you have confessed to carrying what the Court buried her to hide.
- The blighted ground. Faint luminescence and grave-flowers mark the dead earth. Cut across it to steal a lane on the cordon, but blighted soil speeds the Waking with every wheel-turn, and the Cult work those exact patches.
- The Gatekeepers' gate. Pay Aggodas and Boldogg and they open Hallaset, and no Red Guard or cultist may follow through their arch. The price rises while you haggle, and with no coin they take payment in kind: a finger of the dead, or Constance.
- Constance Veyer. She knows the back-lanes from forty years of walking them, and she knows the true rite. She will also stop the cart cold to keep Magrit whole, refusing the plague-disguise and the toll-in-kind, and the press-gangs want a woman her age for the tower kitchens.
The Cast
- Constance Veyer (Magrit's friend) · Walking beside the cart with one hand on the cloth, set on a true burial and nothing less. Wants Magrit whole in the ground before dawn. Bends if the party honor the dead as she does, breaks if they trade pieces of her friend for passage.
- The Cordon Corporal (Red Guard) · Working the checkpoint with a named list and a quota of bodies to turn back. Wants the cart gone and his shift over. Looks away for a resentful man's reasons or a fat enough purse, calls the gang the instant the tally is shown to him by name.
- The Harvesters (Lich Cult) · Trailing the cart by scent down the lanes, patient, waiting for the party to split. Want the fresh body for the comet work. Break off only if the take turns costlier than the corpse is worth, and roll a dead-cart of their own into the chase to muddy which one holds Magrit.
- Aggodas and Boldogg (the Gatekeepers) · Standing the cemetery gate as they have longer than the city has stood, weighing every soul that asks to pass. Want their toll and none of the Court's politics. Open Hallaset for the right price, and for the wrong one they take the price themselves.
Climax Variable (d6)
Roll once at the gate, or take the twist that pays off what the party already spent.
| d6 | Twist |
|---|---|
| 1 | The comet pulses through the grave-flowers. The Waking jumps to its end; Magrit sits up in the cart this turn, and the rite becomes a wrestling match. |
| 2 | The list-bearer reaches the gate behind them. The Cordon seals the road at their backs, no retreat, and dusk is two turns gone. |
| 3 | The Cult paid the toll first. Aggodas will open Hallaset for the harvesters unless the party outbid them or hand the Gatekeepers a truer name. |
| 4 | The gate stands warded shut with failing ochre. The only way onto the ground runs across open blighted earth, and every step across it turns the Waking one notch faster. |
| 5 | Every checkpoint they ran loud comes due: the heat they spent stands as a Red Guard line across the last road. Run quiet and the road is open, but the Cult got ahead and wait in the flowers. |
| 6 | The Gatekeepers name their toll: Constance, in place of coin. Put Magrit in the ground or keep her friend out of the gate's keeping, not both without blood. |
Breadcrumbs
The coat-tally read at the first checkpoint names the officer who ordered Magrit's coats and her silence, and that same name rides on the list-bearer who arrives at the gate; read it early and the party know who is coming and why this one corpse was flagged by name. Beyond the quest: the Court tracks the disappeared even into death, and the Terrassian necromancers keeping watch on Hallaset note who buries whom. Both threads run to Olivia Faren, who counts the vanished and would pay well for that tally.
The Not-Line
This quest is not a dash to the cemetery. It is a slow, loaded walk with a body running out of time to stay a body, past three powers who each want it before it touches the ground.