Dustvone: The Healer
Lanterns Above Lykost
Welcome back to the dust, Brave Souls. If you’re just joining us: story first. When it fits, I share one small tool you can lift. Today it’s the Maim Ledger.
If stories with teeth and usable tools are your thing, share this. Weird work finds its people one reader at a time.
Previously
Favours Owed, Vows Tested
Lykost needs no gates. It is wall, krag, and sky. Half carved into the karst face, half chained and moored across a throat of air, the city hangs like a judgment. The winds knife through the flattened grey sands where the Amber Sanctum’s soft dunes have long since died. Nowhere to hide here. Nowhere to lay siege. If not for the thrum of sails and the burr of voices, it could be any of the Eyrie’s floating ranges, a tethered dream refusing to fall. The Lyceum’s courtyard rides the chasm like a barge; even in morning light, the gulf below burns like a kiln. Chains groan. Bridgemen wave our battered line through. The outrider captain slips a folded note across a palm. The Second jabs me in the ribs as we pass.
“With me when we make down for bedding.”
No questions. Only wind. Welcome to Lykost, I suppose.
This week
We talked about Scope Reduction a bit during our last installment. This week we find ourselves accompanying Sqim, the Apothecary their debts and the debts of the war company
Setup
The core system is built around three tools:
Cairn 2e, Block, Dodge, Parry (BDP), and Mythic GME 2e
Special thanks and shout out goes to zeruhur the creator of Solo TTRPG Notation. Going to keep the setup light as I want these to be more game and narrative focused.
The Mended
[PC: Sqim 3HP| 2 Armor| Stats: 6|12|13|7]
[Tags: Frail, Odd, Indebted 4000]
[Skills: Innate Cunning- 1/d save reroll| Crippler-+4dmg impairs | Healer | Devotion-+1FD |Lay on Hands-1/day d6 STR| Ossophile-bone construct| Collector]
[Gear7/10: rations d6| censer d6| prostethic arm* d6| Leechesx3 | Graft grubs d6| Ivy Worms d6| Sedative d6]
*The prostethic has an integrated Sling and can operate as a LOS physical mage hand. 
S.1a
Gen: d100(45) NPC Negative
-> 2d100(78,17) Repulse, Cooperation
->2d100(84,24) Powerfully, Empty
? New NPC (50/50)
->2d12(1+4=5) Yes
=> An escort Client, a Performer most likely
tbl: 2d100(25,72) Delightfully, Peacful
->d100(95) uniformed
[N:Perfomer 2HP 11?? Uniformed|Peaceful]
=>Our Company has taken on a troupe of performers for escort one of which has been a bit of a problem. Not because he is unagreaable, on the contrary he is a delight and rather jovial, but that's just the problem. He's been putting his nose where it ought not to be. He is uncooperative in the most annoying of ways, with a smile. It has been rubbing our second in command the wrong way.
Gen: 2d100(87,15) Bold, Struggle
->2d100(17,44) Careless, Fight
? Wounded Performer(VL18)
->2d12 (12+6=18) Yes
=> We start the scene in the midst of a raid on our company.We’d signed on to shepherd a troupe. Bright cloth, brighter mouths, and one man who kept leaning past the line. Not disagreeable. Worse. Pleasant. Jovial in a way that oils hinges meant to stay stiff.
There were six of them in all, and they understood the bargain: coin for passage, our steel for their peace, our patience for their noise. Work, not kin. They warmed our fires with songs and cooled our tempers with stories, then retreated to their corner when eyes went cold. Decent enough, until a smile hovered where an order should land.
He smiled through rules. Asked after our routes, our signal habits, our stores, our scars. The Second watched him the way you watch a spark near old rope. She likes bodies that move when she says move and stop when she says stop. He didn’t, not quite, and it rubbed. She put the performers under my charge as penance the day I crossed her on rations for the wounded. “If they break,” she’d said, “break on your watch.” I kept them near the infirm tent. Easier to mend a fool if you can reach him, and easier, too, to be blamed for his mending.
He kept drifting back to me, that one. Not for poultice. For talk. For the taste of how soldiers speak when they’ve seen too much. He listened like a man stealing recipes in a hostile kitchen. I should have sent him away more often than I did.
S.1 Fended return
We were tracing his opening monologue in the dust when the tent flaps shivered and the old music reached in: steel on steel, close and wrong, with the breath behind it already too fast. You didn’t always know you were on the losing side of a fight until you heard it in another’s voice.
“Get the damned kites!” the Second roared. Her voice was clean and sharp, but there was a tremor hidden in it like grit under a bandage. The Performers looked at me.
“Are yo-”
“I can see the line from here,” I said, already moving.
-> Sqim wants to make it to the Kite line
d: TN Dex12 vs d20(4); Success
=> We make it to the Kite line and are able to get the Battle Lanterns lit. Calling for back up from the City of Lykost.The nearest sandsail strained at its moorings, canvas thumping like the chest of a frightened horse. I hauled up the netting, boots slipping on resin-slick rope, the mast pitching. I unhooked the cage, and set the battle lanterns to flame. Glass chimed. Oil took. One light lifted, then another, then a third, a ladder clawing at the weather, hoisted hand over hand until they rode the wind. Kite or lantern, the meaning was the same: Lykost, look. Lykost, send.
Bandit cudgel
d: d6(5)-2 arm
->[#PC:Sqim 3-3HP|Scar-Wallop(d6)|Deprived]
=>Breath knocked out of me I can see the Performer being set upon as he seeks to come to my aid.
->Attacking and trying to disengage from the fight.
d: d6(3) +1 Pen=4 dmg Crippler!
=>[NPC:bandit 5-4hp|Impaired] With a sickening Crack the bronze of my medicinal censer buckles my attacker like a sapling cactus. I know the pain is temporary.
?Is it enough for me to slip away(L15)
->2d12(8+5=13)Yes
=> Pain gives you clarity and sets your priorities straight. I am no warrior I mumble as I stumble my way back to the troupe of Performers. Knowing our distress signal has been seen.No gamble goes unwagered.
I turned for the ground and a cudgel found my ribs. The world unbuttoned. Breath fled and the stars came low enough to touch.
The raider stepped in to finish. My hand found the bronze censer by instinct and old habit. I swung from the hip. The rim met bone with a wet crack and folded him like a drought-struck cactus. He would live long enough to regret it. I would live long enough to remember his face.
Across the trampled grit, the performer went down under two shapes. He had tried to come for me. Idiot. Brave. Same difference. I kept low, ran crooked, a debt with a pulse. The fight slid past like weather changing. A shout pulled the two raiders over the performer toward our flank; steel and rage moved toward the chaos of battle. I took the gap. Not brave. Useful.
Canvas ripped against my shoulder as I cut across a sagging guy line. He lay half-curled, blood threading his sleeve, breath ragged but there. “Up,” I said. He tried.
The ground tilted under him, ”Fodder for stories must be lived.” he coughed with a tired smile.
“Fool.” I muttered.
His wounds weren’t grave, not by my standards. A missing hand was as common as a lost smokepipe amongst our ilk. I hooked his sash with the loop on my left and hauled, low and crooked, boots skidding in trampled grit. A laden cart gave us shadow. Someone else’s blade sang behind it; I didn’t look. We crabbed backward through a lane of spilled packs and a torn banner, then slipped along the lee of a sandsail whose mast still knocked at the sky. Lantern-light climbed behind us like a chain of eyes.
When the shouting bent away again, I dragged him the last stretch to the infirm tent. “Breathe,” I said. He did, and I did, and for a heartbeat it almost counted as quiet. Then the next man screamed, and work began.
? Casualties a/o Wounded (L15) 13 yes
-> 2d20 (5,11)
=> 5 dead, 11 wounded of 23
=> 11/18 men
? Enemy Dead
->d20(17)
? Captives (VUL8)
-> 2d12(11+12)23 Exceptional NO
=> The order is given leave no breath for their kin.
Twenty-three at dawn; eighteen at dustfall if you counted only those who could still hold steel.
The Second stood in the space where men decide whether they’re finished.
“Slaughter them all,” she said. No scream. No spit. Just iron.
“Stop.” My voice didn’t carry like hers, but it carried. “They raid like any tribe on the sands.”
“We are no tribe.” She didn’t look at me. She looked at the men, counting. Measuring which ones would follow.
The company stood silent watching us stare each other down.
No honor in this,” I said.
“Honor?” The Chief finally laughed and found no humor in it. He toed a corpse onto its back. “Look about you, Healer. They die by their honor.” His tone flattened to cooled metal. His eyes scanned the company for a short while, his next question was pointed. “You hoisted the light, yes?”
I nodded.
“Then you live another night to pay what you owe.” He stepped into my shadow, not to share it, only to darken it. “Unless those hands plan to settle the ledger our way.” his arms swept over the carnage a silent command. The company set to their grim work, a staggered symphony of ‘mercy’ accompanied his next words,”You hold no rank here. And you were set to guard our investment.” His chin jerked toward the infirmary tent. “No good looks, dat.”
The Second watched it all with a hunter’s patience.
If you tried to sway the Chief, at your table, what breaks that order; Reputation, Coin, or Witnesses? Defend it like it cost you something.
S.1-1 The infirmary
Notating supplies used to heal our Escort Passenger as he takes a turn.
->#N:Performer -2Hp -10Str
->#N:Performer 0HP 1Str
#PC:Sqim
-> Stabilizing effort
-> Lay On Hands +2 FD
d:d6(2)+ 2FD(2,1)= 5str
-> Leechesx3= 3Str
=>#N:Performer +8Str
=>#N:Performer 0HP 9Str
=>While not fully restored a weeks worth of rest should bring him back, we will use a Sedative to help this along.
? Did we save the hand (UL10) 14 No
=>while we were able to stablize him he did lose his hand. Which Sqim is going to keep and use in the creation of their first ossophile construct later.The performer’s color had gone to chalk. His breath snagged. I worked. Stitch, bind, leech, breath. The litany moved under my tongue.
Life over limb.
We saved the life. We did not save the hand.
When it was done, I salted and wrapped what could not be kept. Bones remember. There are ways to coax use from what is lost; that, too, is a kind of mending. A week’s rest would see him walking. I set a draught to hold him through the worst hours and watched his chest even out when the sedative took him. Outside, the Lykosi outriders moved like dark brushstrokes against the chasm’s light. They would ride with us to the city’s skirts. Safety, priced like everything else.
The Second came to the tent mouth and stood where I could feel her looking.
“You live by kites and long odds,” she said. “One night you’ll tally wrong.”
“Maybe,” I said. “But not tonight.”
She left without giving me the dignity of a scoff.
S.1-2 The Mess tent
#PC:Sqim 0HP|Scar-Wallop(6)|Deprived]
->PC:Sqim 9HP*
Maim rate x 5
d:d20(11)
->55*11
=>605 Debt owed to the company for allowing our Escort to be maimed during the journey. Sqim sits in the mess tent with the cook talking over things.By the time pain found me properly, evening smoke had soured the mess. I sat with the Cook. He speaks little and cuts true. Once he cut me free of dying; later he carved the Chief’s fears into something that looked like strategy. I owe him more than bone.
“So why the lanterns?” he asked, as if asking why water runs downhill.
“What else was I to do?” The bruise blooming across my sternum pulsed with each word. I’d been holding other men’s insides in with my hands all afternoon. “If I hadn’t, more would be dead.”
“Not arguing.” He swept a hand to take in the tables, the quiet, the way spoons slow when men begin to think again. “Just saying it’s hard to call you an outsider these days.”
The ledger came later. It always does. Ink, column, verdict. Six hundred and five scratched into paper like a cinder mark: the price of a lost hand, the interest on a scar that will feel weather. The Chiefs leash, the moving of numbers from one page to another. A maim here, a death there, set off against my share of the spoils. A short leash it is, a calculation he can read at a glance.
He stopped by the tent pole, ledger under arm.
“You keep us alive,” he said, not kindly, not unkindly. “Try not to make it cost more than it saves.”
“Try not to spend lives like nails,” I said.
His mouth twitched in a motion that wasn’t a smile. “I spend what holds.”
When he left, the Cook topped my cup. We listened to the tent canvas speak to the wind and pretended it was peace.
Debt doesn’t shout. It waits, patient as rust.
The Tool: Maim Ledger
A simple way to price regret and keep pressure on characters who fail their charge.
Before a job, set a Maim Rate from 1–5 for the company.
After any fight with casualties while someone was on guard/protection duty, roll d20 × Maim Rate. That number is Debt, assigned to the responsible party or split as fiction demands.
Payment options: coin, favors, scars, service. Debt that lingers breeds consequences: lost rank, forfeited shares, leashes you can feel on your throat.
Next time
Sqim arrives in Lykost proper. We’ll see what favors the
city demands, and whether that performer’s hand becomes something useful. Before next installment, tell me how you’d run the Ledger at your table. If you are so inclined help me name the three:
the Second (short, hard edges; 1–2 syllables),
the Chief (weight, old steel; 1–2 syllables),
the Cook (soft or a working nickname).
Drop one name per line. I’ll canonize my favorites.
Thanks for walking the dust with me. Drop those names in the comments— I want to see what you call them.
Cohort
If this kind of story is your jam, go visit a few friends of the Brew:
Off the Stack Required Listening.
Errant Adventures
The Bad Spot
Worlds Beyond Number
The Maim Ledger is brilliant. It quantifies consequence in a way that feels tangible but not overwelming. I love how it creates tension without requiring complex tracking. The moment where Sqim realizes the performer tried to save him and now owes the company for that performers maiming really drives home how debt compounds in ways that arent always fair. Also the worldbuilding through action here is really strong, you can feel the weight of Lykost just from how the characters move through it.