The Weight of a Sorrow

The Grim Gargoyle is not so much a tavern as a ruin that people drink in. It was a temple once, at the edge of Emberfall, where the graveyards run right up to the black iron fences of the Wormwood estate. The roof burned long ago and the sky shows through the rafters; rain falls on the back tables and ash drifts in on dry nights. A single lantern hangs in the broken arch of the doorway.

The bar is a plank laid across two barrels, and behind it stands Kharnos, the temple's old stone guardian, who has kept it for longer than anyone has kept count. The drink is dark and bitter, the benches are old pews, and the regulars are mourners, gravediggers, night watchmen and the occasional scholar of the dead. No one is loud here. No one needs to be told not to be.

Travelers come for the quiet, and for the barkeep, who knows more about Emberfall than its priests and its records together. Getting it out of him is another matter.