Round 1

As the stormy sky hung heavy above, Jeane crouched by the stone slab, retrieving a rusted key with careful fingers, its edges worn smooth by long use. The metal felt heavy, its teeth filed down deliberately into a shape she didn't recognize as standard lockwork. She murmured an incantation in a language that felt wrong on her tongue, and the key pulsed with an otherworldly energy.

Silra approached from behind Jeane, her boots silent on the slick ash, and glanced at the key in the sorcerer's fingers before looking down the road toward where Gravedigger Renn stood fidgeting near the ruined church entrance. "You're touching dead things," she said dryly, her voice laced with a mix of curiosity and wariness. The mention of the magistrate's house key sparked her interest, and she noted the loop worn into its shape, a sign that it had been carried by someone who had vomited regularly in the dark.

Sister Hale moved to the head of their small group, her unholy symbol held forward in a gesture that was both command and prayer. "We enter Gravehill under watchful eyes," she said, her voice steady despite the weight of the city's long silence bearing down on them from the crumbling walls ahead. As they began their walk toward the gate, the rusted key felt suddenly heavy with more than just metal—a burden of history and purpose that settled cold against Sister Hale's skin, a reminder of the weight she carried as a cleric.