“Your left shoulder blade is covered in blood, and you look like an escaped barmy on a murder spree.

At least clean yourself up before you go gallivanting about in front of the Harmonium or Godsmen watch.”

He returns to the dustman’s robe and uses it to scrub his back with his right hand. He is thorough, and spends a solid minute.

“Good?”

“Uhhhh.  Sure.  Just… don’t go picking fights with any deities, ya ken?  And don’t get your brain box all amnesia’d again.”

"That's the plan."

He leaves the alleyway in the direction they entered it, retracing his steps back to the tea house.

The dustman's wall is a v-shaped formation of two perfectly rectangular stone segments, with a gap at their vertex where foot traffic can pass.  It stands rudely within the remnants of what must have been at one point a manicured public plaza.  A set of stairs rise from a dirt patch fostering a few scraggly trees, and on an elevated, stage-like protrusion of rock is a pedestal showcasing a statue of a great tiger, apparently being ridden by a humanoid.  The rider’s torso has been roughly cut or broken just above the hips, obscuring their species and sex.

Within the space framed by the V arms of the granite wall, the dustmen have erected a canvas or oilskin pavilion that stands on four posts.  The material is worn, and appropriately enough, dun-colored.

There is but one man in attendance wearing the characteristic robes of the order.  He stands in front of a table and speaks to a young man and woman, who look stern, and casually half-embrace one another.

He'll approach the wall to get a look at some of the names. Are they organized? Is there an index or gazetteer to distinguish by class, geography, or prominence of the person?

On closer inspection, the wall is made of many individual upright slabs, each about an arm’s span in width.  There are many carved names, and they are fairly evenly dispersed.  Maybe a quarter of the entire surface has been filled with text.

They appear to be the given and surnames of several hundreds or a few thousands of people.  The Nameless One’s eyes light upon the name “Bert Piledriver” at random.  He can see that the slabs are arranged by given name, with all the names on a stone starting with the same one or two letters.

There are no other markings or obvious indices to the names.  He can’t easily discern which names are older or newer.

He knows very few relevant people to look up.  He will look for the following names in order:

1. Pharod
2. Adahn
3. Deionarra
4. Morte

There is an Adonis Grainberry.  Of Mortimers there are three: Livingstone, Porter, and “Monger-of-Companion-pets”.  No other names seem like a plausible match.

A Dustman clears his throat loudly.  When The Nameless One turns about, he'll see a gaunt-faced man looking at him with some disdain.

“Are you here to commit?”

“Greetings. I was sent by Traff with a message, and to ask a question of you.”

The dustman raises an eyebrow and ostentatiously looks The Nameless One up and down.

“And was he unable to find any messengers with shoes?  Or who didn’t reek of the trash warrens?”

What's the right face to wear, here? This dustman looks like he might respond to obsequy and charm, had he himself come wearing finer attire. What’s an alternative route to compliance?

He grunts. Then, using a diction slower and more deliberate than he used with Morte, he says, “That’s so. If ‘twere only a message he’d have sent a boy, s'pose. Sent me on account of my trade. And that’s finding people what have run away, and bringing them back where they’re belonged, willing or no.”

He pauses and looks at the man in the eyes.

“I have a question for you. Both your abbot and I are in agreement that you should answer it.”

Wait. Mazes. He just witnessed me staring at a stone slab of text, and now I’m play-acting an illiterate tough.

“That - isn’t how it works at all.”

The dustman stares blankly at him.

The dustman sighs.

“And?”

“There was an attack made on your hall this morning. Villains was snuck in on a body wagon. Beat the gatekeeper to within an inch of his life and maybe kill’t another. Whole yard of the place in a state when I left it. ‘Who's done it?’ they all ask. ‘Two collectors. Men with a cart. Both wearing caps.’ is all anyone knows about them's brung in the thieves."

"Gate man isn’t fit to talk. It’s thought that the villains were from the Hive, and that you or yours here might recognize them, on account of speaking with the public. What do you know?”

He reacts to the news with a considerable degree of agitation.

“An attack? Why didn’t you start with that?  How should I know?  Briggs back at the Mortuary would know.  He has worked the front gate on occasion.  He’s known for dealing with commoners.  Ask him, or Eckhert.”

"Hey!"  He lowers the pitch of his voice.

"You think Traff’d send me here, Briggs knows? Your whole mortuary’s in a row and first thing your abbot does is send for me. He wants that any of the collectors that might have done it be found and brought in for questions, and done so today. That's what I'm t’be paid for.”

The man just shakes his head.

“Any other dusties work here?”

"No.”

He grimaces at the epithet.  

“Hmph. Barring that, Traff also wants the name and origins of anyone who’s hauled in corpses before.”

“Ask the skull.”