"Thank you."

He closes his eyes to concentrate.

"Repeat everything you just said."

Morte does so.

He opens his eyes and picks up a stone. He makes a trial scratch on the stone wall beside the barrels.

It leaves a visible mark. He makes some hasty vertical and horizontal lines and then begins to fill in text.

"What corrections would you make to that?"

Morte tilts on his axis, leaning his forehead in the direction of the wall, as if squinting at the marks.

"The whole column with Sighs should shift up about half a square, and Gatehouse is more north of Lookout... but that's about right?"

“What sorts of records did you keep for the dustmen?”

“Contracts, payments, notes on particular stipulations for vessels to be constructed.  They usually train or shape them in the hall where they brought you, things like cleaning or carrying or splitting wood.  Sometimes it’s sewing or working in the manufactories.  I also track food and dry goods orders, and some land and property deeds held in the dustmen order’s name throughout the material plane.”

“Payments? How many different people have sold corpses to the dustmen? Do you have a list of all the names of body-vendors in the last several months?”

“So, I don’t know how much they track the sources of the bodies. You can probably imagine some good reasons for that, like if the law shows up at the door looking for the body of a murder victim.  Definitely a 'tell me no secrets and I'll tell no lies' kind of policy.

“What I do have is the committals.  There's a place between here and Sighs with a big ole wall full of names.  You promise the dusties can have your body when you die and make your mark in the records and then they brand a number on your hip and give you enough jink to get plastered on gutter spirits for a week.  Carve your name on the wall, too.”

“I've got notes on committals like ‘5th Hecatomb in the year Hashkar 92, Oliver Painter, resident of Squares, adjacent Office of Vermin Control, forty-five years of age, for the sum of 125 copper commons, requisition number 34 B 19.  Status: Unredeemed’

“As far as paying for bodies at the door, I don't know how they track the petty cash.  At least they never showed me their general ledger or treasury master accounts.”

"Were the two men who brought me among the more common collectors or the rarer ones?"

“Ish.  Let's see.  A bit over half of the deaders I saw delivered were handled by dusties, usually on a wagon from the elevator room.  The remainder were by outsiders.  Most common one is a githyanki.  He brings corpses, though they’re never gith corpses, probably from outside of Sigil.  The others are mostly humans.  There’s a tiefling woman with a tail I’ve seen sometimes.  

The man with the cloth cap who brought you, yeah, he’s one of the more common ones for sure.”

“The older man? That’s the one in charge? What’s his name?”

“Couldn’t tell you.  He has brought in bodies alone before, though.”

His eyes have taken on a sudden intensity they lacked before.

“Apart from the wall with the names and the mortuary, where’s the nearest location to us that would have dustmen in attendance?”

"Erm.  I've heard them talk about a building they have in Flophouse, though I don't know how to find it."

"Give me the names and ranks of the dustmen in charge at the mortuary."

• Traff is the Abbot
• Dogar is the quartermaster
• Melvulum is the head of the guard

“Here?”

Morte does a quick 360 rotation.  He seems about to object, but then changes tack.

“I need to sleep like any creature.  If I don’t I may pass out, and it’s unpleasant.  I can be harmed or killed.  But I have fought before.  These chompers aren’t for show.  You ever see a berk bit by a flailing madman?  Like that, only with a jaw five times the size.”

"No need to eat, no."

"Tell me how to reach the wall with the names of the committed vessels."

He calculates for a bit.

“Four crossings back you walked by a tea house with grease paper windows.  Had a sign of a cuttlefish head.  If you had turned left there - so you’ll turn right this time, and stay on that street for a mile at most.  Eventually it should run straight into some kind of ruined mansion or work house.  Or there used to be one there, anyways.  No promises ‘cause Sigil.  Go right, then immediate left around the side of it.  On the opposite side is a big open square and that’s where the wall is.  Can’t miss it.  Taller ‘n you.  Made of granite.”

“Thank you.”

He turns to go.  

“You’ve been very helpful to me. I hope you will be here when I return.”

“Ay!  Wait a sec.”

"Yes?"