The Blanket Is a Chain

The party is back in the Last Lantern with a dwarf the town has not seen in thirty years, and the whole room is watching him. Mother Vee watches hardest. Lavius shows her a sketch of Tüül in his crystal, and Aelion gives her the plain version: the church was hijacked, real priests were sealed away, and the town has been lost in a spiral of spite ever since. She calls it gibberish, then says she does not think he is capable of gibberish. When she touches his elbow, the gem on her wedding ring flares. A prayer to Torm tells Aelion that her late husband blessed that ring in secret.

A man thanks Tüül for sitting up three nights with his sick son, reaches into his pocket to buy him a drink, and stops. In Mourningfall, nobody pays. Roger tells Lavius about a dream the whole town shares: a figure deep under the mountain, standing in firelight, whispering a name that is gone by breakfast. "They care for us." Pressed harder, he cracks once: "You were here, for God's sake." Then he shuts his mouth.

Nora wakes remembering her two children, and admits how warm it would be to forget them again. Aelion tells her the blanket is a chain, and promises to find her daughter. Upstairs, the party searches Tamsin's room: gouges where a chest was dragged, a hollow under a board, a window with new hinges that has clearly been used as a door, and a warm glowing spot on the floor that burns brighter beside La Maestra's golden eggshell.

Then the party goes out into the rain to find Mira. Lavius wants the bell rung again to keep the town asleep, and La Maestra will not hear of it: forgetting is oblivion, not mercy. Six successes before four failures, one lucky reroll, and the party reaches a cottage at the edge of town where a young woman is weeding herbs in the rain. She looks up at five strangers and gives a small wave.