Session 7 — the grave fight

Emil’s grave on the headland, at night · Jory holds Isa at the cliff edge and offers a trade

This page replaces the session 4 grave fight, rebalanced for 5th. The session 7 sheet links here. No read-alouds are written yet.

The trade

The grave is bait. The Ophidian knows the Cold Kiss is loose and wants it back, and Jory knows Nonne has it: the raven at the grave in session 6 was his eyes. It is his ranger’s companion (Jack, 2026-10-14). He has opened the grave and holds Isa at the cliff edge, within 5 ft of the drop. The empty cask is on the coffin.

• His offer: the Cold Kiss for Isa and for Emil’s soul.
• His leverage: Isa is already poisoned, and the antidote is in his coat (Jack, 2026-11-02). He tells them. The antidote is part of the trade. The rule is under Isa.
• While they talk, the cask works where they can see it. The clock does not start until the fight does.
• Hand it over, and he lets Isa go, knocks the cask off the coffin himself, and goes down the rope. They get Isa and Emil. Thor walks: the Cold Kiss was sold (his condition).
• Refuse, or make a move, and it is the fight.
• What he lets slip (Jack, 2026-11-01). He is called Sai’s knife, but the raven, the pearl at Miriam’s door and the want for the Cold Kiss are the Ophidian’s. Kestrel does not know he is here. In the talk he says two things: who pays him, and where the casks go now. He is paid in black pearls, not Sai silver, and the next packet does not go into a warehouse. It goes up the hill and burns. The lines are Jack’s to write.

Arrival order

The party do not reach the grave together (Jack, 2026-10-14 and 2026-10-31).

• Round 1: Nonne and Trill. They are the only ones who can catch Isa when Jory shoves her.
• Round 2: Marellius and Haxami come up the headland.
• Round 3: Miriam arrives. It is the round Isa drowns if she went into the sea in round 1, the round the cask seals, and the round the knives arrive.

The roster

Jory Vance, called Quiet Jory

• His first turn: he shoves Isa off the cliff. That is his whole turn.
• What he wants: the Cold Kiss first, the sealed cask second. With either one, he goes for the rope.
• Who he goes for: whoever holds the Cold Kiss, then whoever stands between him and the cask. He shoots from the cliff edge and does not close to melee.
• When he stops: below 38 hit points he goes down the rope, with whatever he has. If the rope is cut, he runs along the headland toward the town.
• The smoke pearl (Jack, 2026-11-02): a black pearl he carries for desperation only. He will rarely need it. Crushing it is an action: fog fills a 20-ft-radius sphere around him for 1 minute, and the area is heavily obscured. Modeled on fog cloud for balance. He uses it when he is cornered with no clean way to the rope.
• If he gets away (Jack, 2026-11-01): he is the Sai man who hauls the packet’s casks up to the vent two sessions on, and the body at the vent’s mouth is his, with the order in Godwin’s hand in his coat and, if the trade was made, the Cold Kiss on him. If he falls here, Kestrel sends another knife and the body is a stranger’s. See In Play.
• If he is caught (Jack, 2026-11-01): he talks a little, with the right kind of persuasion, and it takes a lot. Persuasion or Intimidation DC 20. What he gives: the packet’s date, that the casks burn now, that he is paid in pearls. Push him to name who pays, and he can say it: the Ophidian. But that word costs him. Saying it, he bites the black pearl set in a back tooth and it bursts: everyone within 10 ft makes a DC 13 Constitution save or takes 7 (2d6) poison damage, and he dies. He takes someone with him if he can; the shape of it is Jack’s (self-sacrifice, or something magical, 2026-11-01). The pearl is the Ophidian’s, not Sai’s.

His raven

• Where it starts: on Emil’s stone.
• Who it goes for: whoever holds the Cold Kiss, the same as Jory.
• The Cold Kiss loose: if it is ever dropped, thrown or left unheld, the raven takes it on its next turn and flies to Jory, or to the boat if Jory is gone (Jack, 2026-11-02).
• When it stops: when Jory is gone, it goes with him.
• Where it goes: across the strait, toward the counting-house, not up the Sai road. Anyone watching sees it (Jack, 2026-11-01). It points the same way whether Jory escapes or falls.

The knives

The boatmen

Where they stand

• One boatman by Isa. He is on the headland from the start, beside Jory at the cliff edge. An area spell on him catches Isa (Jack, 2026-10-12).
• One boatman in the boat. He starts up the rope when the fight starts and reaches the top at the end of round 1. On the rope he is climbing and cannot attack. At the top he holds the rope stake so Jory can get down.
• Two knives inland, together (Jack, 2026-10-12). They start side by side at the top-left of the map, about 160 ft from the grave, and come at the party from behind. With Cunning Action they Dash 60 ft a round, so they reach the grave around round 3. They stay side by side because Sneak Attack needs an ally next to the target. That pair is where an area spell pays off.
• Jory counts as their ally, so Pack Tactics and Sneak Attack work off him too.
• When they stop: at 10 hit points, or when Jory is gone.

Isa Varga

• A Commoner: AC 10, 4 hit points. Her hands are tied. Any hit kills her, and if she dies it is permanent.
• Poisoned (Jack, 2026-11-02). Jory poisoned her before the party arrived. She drops at the end of round 4 unless she gets the antidote from Jory’s coat. If it drops her, that counts as the first time she would die, and Emil steps in (below). Killing Jory does not save her; reaching him or his body does. Miriam’s lesser restoration also ends a poison under the 2014 rules, from round 3.
• Over the edge. Jory shoves her off on his first turn. A character within 10 ft of her (in round 1, only Nonne or Trill) can use a reaction to catch her: DC 13 Strength (Athletics) or Dexterity (Acrobatics). On a failure she goes into the sea.
• In the sea. The drop is 40 ft into deep water. She lands alive, but with her hands tied she drowns at the end of her third turn in the water. Getting to her: climb down the rope (40 ft of climbing, half speed), or jump (DC 12 Dexterity save or 2d6 bludgeoning on landing). Either way, that character is out of the fight on the headland.
• Emil steps in (Jack, 2026-11-01). Only once the cask is knocked off or broken; while it is drawing him or after it seals, he cannot (Jack, 2026-11-02). The first time she would die in this fight, from the fall, the sea, a blade or the poison (Jack, 2026-11-02), her father’s claimed soul goes into her instead. She lives through it. She says one thing in his voice that only Emil would know, and drops, alive and unconscious. While he is in her, he rides her the way Nonne’s father rides Nonne in rage (his thread; Jack, 2026-11-02). Whoever holds the Cold Kiss sees him come out of her, Nonne in rage most clearly. Once only: the second time, she dies. Afterward Emil is still claimed and still has to be sent on. The words are Jack’s to write.
• What she heard. Jory’s men talked while they waited with her: the packet due at the berth, and that the casks burn now instead of being stored. She carries it if she wakes.
• If she dies, the session 3 failure notes already say what that costs the arc.

Emil

• His claimed soul stands by the stone, watching his daughter. Everyone at the grave feels him there. Only whoever holds the Cold Kiss sees him clearly, and Nonne in rage with it in hand sees him clearest (Jack, 2026-11-02). The one exception is the moment he steps into Isa (above): the party see what he does, not him.
• A claimed soul has not crossed Umir, so nothing in canon bars this. The party will read it as an Ino taking her, and Haxami will want her cleansed. Let them.
• He wants the Cold Kiss to send him on, the way Wat’s spirit did.
• Sending him on: whoever wields the Cold Kiss touches it to him as an action. He goes. Rage helps the wielder see him; the Cold Kiss is what sends him (Jack, 2026-11-02). Only once he is free of the cask (Jack, 2026-11-02).

Speaker Miriam Dol

• She arrives at the top of round 3 (arrival order).
• What she does for Isa: warding bond on Isa gives her +1 AC and resistance to all damage, and Miriam takes the same damage. A hit no longer has to kill her. Hold person on Jory stops him using her again. Her spirit beside Isa lets Guardian’s Stance turn an attack on her to disadvantage.
• No healing spells. The Animist list has no cure wounds. The sect’s healing (Vital Transfer) comes at 7th.
• Jory does not touch her. A dead Speaker brings the Inquisition.

Environment

• Light. Night on the headland above the strand. The labourers’ lantern at the graveside. Out of sight of the town.
• Footing. Open grass. The open grave is a pit: anyone in it spends half their movement climbing out.
• Cover. The one stone gives half cover. Nothing else.
• The cliff. 40 ft down to deep water. A creature shoved over the edge goes into the sea.
• The rope. Tied to a stake near the edge, 20 ft or more from where Jory holds Isa, running down to Jory’s boat. Cutting it takes an action with a blade, or one hit (AC 11, 5 hit points). Anyone climbing it falls into the sea. Cut, Jory has no way off the headland but the town road.
• The cask. Anyone can knock it off the coffin with an action, no roll, or break it: AC 15, 10 hit points (Jack, 2026-11-02). Either one frees Emil. Off the coffin or broken, it draws nothing. Until then, Emil is held in the draw. Sealed, it holds Emil, and the cask rule applies: a Speaker’s rite frees him back to the grave, fire bursts him and his soul is destroyed, slashing or anything else lets him out as a specter. A lantern thrown at a sealed cask is fire.
• The labourers. Hired men with shovels and the lantern. They run when the fight starts.

How it ends — on the cask, the Cold Kiss and Isa

• The trade. They hand over the Cold Kiss. Isa and Emil are safe, Jory has the Cold Kiss, and Thor walks.
• They win. Jory flees or falls without the Cold Kiss, Emil is not sealed, and Isa lives. They rebury Emil with Isa and tell her what they know.
• They half-win. Jory gets away with the sealed cask or the Cold Kiss, or Isa drowns. Pick whichever happened.
• Nobody made it. Not decided.
• Whatever happened, the night points on. The raven goes across the strait. Isa, if she wakes, knows the casks burn now. Jory, if he talked, named the pearls. The road from here is Losam, and past him the vent.

🌊 Fluid · Session 7 · the grave fight · the session is on the one-sheet