[b]Coleman![/b]

She’s as quiet as a snake, and you have to choke down a surprised bark when you realize that you’re not alone.

She’s made of driftwood, mostly. Ink-blotched envelopes are crammed into her ribcage in the shape of organs, each and every one completely illegible now. Her hair is lank moss, muddy brown and reeking, and her eyes are smooth pearls, unnaturally bright. Her teeth are silver and gold, dull in the rotten black wood of her jaw.

She is the Flood, in the same way that you are one of your fingers. And if she touches you she can make your body forget its pains, or erase memories that cause you grief, or fill your lungs with brackish water.

“It is a long way to Terminus,” she exhales, her stamp-stained lungs slowly contracting. “Many of the things that hunt them would not give you anything but my death.” Forgotten, choking, erased from the Heart; and maybe a day after, or a century after, it would vomit forth your bones for some other explorer. She turns on you, as inevitable as a wave. “Give it to me. You will name a price.”

***

[b]Jackdaw![/b]

A bell begins to ring. It is deeper than you would expect from its small size, and dull, dull, dull. It sounds like it comes from some impossibly vast distance, despite the fact that you can see it hanging over the bar, which is a very neat trick indeed.

The matron sets her fishy lips in a grim line. “Our stories aren’t ours. They’re [i]consigned.[/i] But you want a lesson? Here she comes to give it.”

She gestures for you three to follow her outside, and... there’s something about the way that bell’s ringing that makes that seem like a [i]very[/i] attractive proposition.