Drhoz

Pathfinder: In Hell's Bright Shadow : Calling All Girls
Ayva OoC: Poor Terzo, all these women and he has no chance with any of them.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I do not actually consider that a problem.
Civilla OoC: I should hope so, you’re my tutor.
Terzo OoC: And that’s just ONE reason.

And Ayva does have a point - between the party, most of the NPCs that are important enough to name, and Thrune’s choice of trusted minions, it seems the script for any future movies about events in Kintargo will easily pass the Bechdel Test. Unless we’re talking about Thrune anyway, but nobody cares what he has between his legs unless it’s an opportunity to remove it with something rusty.

Negotiating the Red Jills is going to be dicey, since they basically count anybody from the Basic Character Races as The Enemy. And Rajira is the only one that is clearly outside their broad definition of ‘human’, and only if she doesn’t try to hide her reptilian heritage.

Civilla: The thing is, Thrune’s agents might actually follow the rules of hospitality and parley if we were having a meeting like this - they’re Evil, but Lawful Evil. But the Jills are probably Chaotic.

Rajira: I was going to say ‘let’s wing it’, but that might offend the Strix.
Civilla: So no triggering language.
Ayva: And nothing about ‘plans being hatched’.
Civilla: You have to be careful about ear jokes around elves too - although given that of the usual races it’s humans that have the weird round ears, that’s kinda strange.

Ayva: I was going to say ‘don’t get cocky’ but there’s the bird language again.

It’s actually Rajira’s suggestion that we don’t meet at the Red Jills’ hideout, in case of Property Damage Escalating To Arson, and the gang agrees.

Rajira: Good evening - I believe we have important matters to discuss.
Scarplume the Strix: Ah yes, the Ghosts of Kintargo.

Apparently our reputation is already spreading.

Scarplume: What makes you think you can change the way the Jills do business?
Rajira: I don’t believe I can - but I believe I can give you a reason to change yourselves.

Rajira: You are a person of power and influence
Scarplume: Power that was hard-won - and you are offering…?
Rajira: An opportunity.

Rajira is persuasive enough, with the eventual intention of making Kintargo a city that won’t look down on the Tieflings simply for being born the way they are.

Rajira: Thrune has drastically under-estimated the power of this city - and its power is the spirit of the people.

Scarplume’s demand is that if we do manage to take over the city, that the Tieflings be treated with full equality and respect.

Rajira: I already do.
Terzo: Liberty! Egality! Fraternity!
Scarplume: I will take you at your word then - but if I hear one whisper that your enterprise is failing, this will not be the last you hear from me.

At least they've agreed to direct their depredations against the occupation, instead of the citizens. Civilla and Rajira are privately skeptical, and after we leave, discuss the likelihood that we’re going to have to eliminate the Jills anyway.

Terzo: Well, that went well.
Civilla: How exactly do you think that went well?
Terzo: They agreed that Tieflings need to be treated with full equality, and that Thrune’s forces are the actual enemy here. I think we have a lot in common.
Civilla: Well, we’ll hold off for now and see how it plays out.
Ayva: At least we can say we tried.

Rexus has good news too - he’s finally finished his translation of the documents we found under the old Livery. A lot of it is tactical advice for defending the city. Some deals with the Secret Order of Archivists, that Rexus’ mother worked for before she died - or rather, before Rexus thought her dead, since he now thinks she may have made it to a previously unsuspected safehouse beneath Hocum’s Phantasmagorium, a tourist-trap museum that’s been closed for well over a decade. In fact there’s a key to the building among the stuff we found.

Terzo: I’m surprised the building hasn’t been repurposed.
Civilla: You’re right - that is suspicious.
Unfortunately, there’s a bunch of Asmodean priests and zombies doing something inside the building, when one of our rebellion cells does some reconnoitering on our behalf.

Terzo: It would appear they thought the building being empty this long was suspicious too.
Rajira: Or they just want to take advantage of it.
Terzo OoC: Maybe they want to open a Starbucks.
Ayva OoC: ‘Local Starbucks Burns Down - Meanwhile Local Cafe Owner Does Roaring Business’
GM: Hell’s Rebels : The True Story Of The Kintargo Coffee Wars

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/808767700515028992/909068946462900264/tumblr_inline_o8ico2kVcn1qao8br_1280.png

Ayva OoC: The People Magazine idea for our printing press has gone through the roof. ‘What do we print in our first issue?’ ‘Well, we didn’t get a second…’

We wait until some of the Asmodean priests swap with a shift change, and jump them. Unfortunately, Rajira botches the strike, and botches the follow-up as well. Fortunately Terzo casts Sleep on the one that didn’t turn invisible and run off.

Terzo: *expressively gestures* Well, what do we do now?
Civilla: We proceed at speed - you could stand to lose a few pounds.

The invisible one is probably going to lose a few pounds too, when Civilla’s Celestial Hyena catches up with her. At least she isn’t going to alert everybody else in the building. Unfortunately, the exhibits in the Fantasmagorium didn’t include animated skunk ape skeletons - the ones that attack us are new. Rexus, who insisted on coming with us, gets himself badly mauled.

Civilla: He shouldn’t be here anyway.
Ayva: He needs training - we can afford that now.
Terzo: What, some kind of spray bottle? ‘Don’t Go. Near. The Monsters’ *squirt*
Civilla OoC: Well, at least if he gets killed there’ll be no-one to contest the sale of the estate…
Ayva OoC: But he is basically Mr Exposition

Having dealt with the White Apes of STREWTH!, we press on to one of the marine themed halls. Unfortunately, none of us have Knowledge (Nature), and none of us see a ‘Do Not Tap The Glass’ sign, so we soon regret Terzo’s curiosity about the tanks.

Civilla: Terzo, how have you survived this long in Chelliax?
Terzo: Natural Charm?
Ayva: He’s well pickled, people think he’s a gherkin.

Ayva: I’m beginning to think this building is cursed.
Civilla: Undead in the last room, undead in this one - I think you’re right.
Ayva OoC: I meant the way that since we came in here, all we’re rolling are 1s and 20s.
GM: And not the way round you need.
Ayva: This didn’t happen to us on the stealth missions.
Civilla OoC: In the stealth missions, it was the other people that needed to make rolls, not us.

Ayva: Terzo? Come here.
Terzo: Yes?
Ayva: DON’T TOUCH STUFF IN THE CURSED MUSEUM.
Terzo: I’m beginning to get that impression, yes.

Terzo: I’m not sure what the problem is, I’ve spent decades poking things I probably shouldn’t and I’m hardly likely to stop now. Although they probably wouldn’t appreciate me calling them ‘things’.

Rajira: Since we don’t want a case of crabs, let’s move on.
Ayva: Hey, a case of crabs, covered in butter, what’s the problem?
Rajira: Depends how you get them.
Ayva: Usually by paying for them - how do you get them?
Terzo: …
Ayva: … we’re talking about two different things, aren’t we?

Civilla: Rexus, if you don’t stay at the end of the party, I will ensure you are the end of your line.

The next room was an insectarium - the last person in here clearly didn’t get the memo about not touching stuff in the cursed museum.

Civilla: This place used to be a tourist trap, now it’s a…
Terzo: Death Trap?

We also find out why the Asmodeans are actually here - they’ve been stripping the building of anything showing historical facts the government of Chelliax doesn’t like. F***ing Redactors. If they’re that easily upset, they must have hated the wax museum in the next room - it certainly upset us. Whatever genius decided to set up a waxwork display of Kintargo’s more infamous serial killers REALLY shouldn’t have used the kind of waxwork guaranteed to get up and continue the subject’s career. On the other hand we can certainly blame the Church of Asmodeus for the zombies - the next lot are Rexus’ family.

Happily, we find the Redactors immediately thereafter and can register our complaints in person.

GM: The redactors call out to their commander as you storm the room, but you murdered their commander in cold blood when you first entered the building.

Terzo’s player: annoying, battery in mouse has finally gone flat
Rajira’s player: Why I prefer wired mice - However, getting the drugs to keep them wired is expensive.

Ayva: Rexus is a bit wired at the moment.
Rajira’s player: How did he get my mouse drugs?

Discovering a hidden entrance to deeper parts of the Fantasmogorium is a problem, because somebody might show up to investigate all the screaming and fireworks at any moment, and we’re already battered and exhausted dealing with the stuff in the main building.

Civilla: F*********** - if we don’t look down there now we won’t get a second chance later
Ayva: This better be a treasure room or we’re going home.

It seems to be a whole complex down here - it looks like we’ll have to camp underground for a few hours to rest, and hope the dottari don’t know about the secret stairwell (and don’t have a shift change before then). This proves optimistic, since the Redactors were apparently here to censor the collected histories of the Sacred Order of Archivists, the group Rexus’ parents belonged to. The archivists were using the Fantasmagorium - or at least, the hidden monastery in the basement - as a base of operations.

Terzo: We’ll have to take Rexus’ family down too.
Civilla: So now we’ll have to sleep in the same room as a pile of corpses - greeeeeat.
Ayva: I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff on these bookshelves to distract you.

Ayva’s player: Before we wander into descriptive text can we get some XP?

Apparently there’s a creature composed entirely of books and paper down here.

Ayva: Ok, Civilla, don’t touch any books.
Book Creature: Halt intruders!
Ayva: Okay.
Book Creature: … I didn’t expect that to work.

Apparently whatever this thing is was summoned to guard the hidden library’s books from any intruders, for at least another 12 days. That doesn’t preclude us from having a good stickybeak around, though, as long as we don’t actually touch anything. And it doesn’t stop us finding out that he was summoned by the Asmodeans to protect the Redactors while they go about their business of rewriting recorded history. The Scrivenite isn’t very happy about that. Which is probably why he’s telling us all the rules of his binding.

Ayva: But the Redactors are all-
Civilla: Shushshushshush! Theoretical question for you, what would you do if the Redactors were all dead?
Scrivenite: The ones upstairs are not my purview - I’m bound to protect the ones in the monastery. I don’t suppose any of you can cast Dismissal?
Rajira: Bit high-level for us.
Scrivenite: Darn it. I really don’t want to fight you.

Scrivenite: As long as you don’t enter the room by THAT DOOR *point point, gesture significantly* and don’t touch any of the books in THIS ROOM, *more gesturing* I’m not obliged to attack you.
Civilla: Okay, okay, I can work with this.
Ayva: What if we dress up as Redactors?
Scrivenite: Well I’ll know it’s you, now - you shouldn’t have said anything.

Civilla: I think I can get us past your restrictions with a bit of pedantry. You won’t let anybody through the door, correct? So what if I open the door, but not go through it, cast Rope Trick, have my associates enter the extradimensional space, teleport into the other room myself, and have everybody climb down again?
Scrivenite: As far as I’m concerned that will work.
Civilla: That’s all we need. I believe you’re a creature of Law? Your summoners were insufficiently precise.


The first few rooms down here contain sleeping Redactors, who sleep infinitely deeper as Rajira goes to them one by one.

Terzo: So, those rooms were empty then?
Rajira: They are now.
Terzo: I choose to interpret that positively.

The next one was actually awake when Rajira stabbed him, and tries to make a run for it - and immediately regrets it, since the rest of the party are waiting in the corridor.

GM: The Redactor stops dead - and you recognise him, Civilla.
Redactor: C-cousin???
Civilla: Cousin? You call yourself family and you’ve taken the mark of the Redactors?
Ayva: I take it that we’re not taking him alive?
Civilla: NO.
Ayva: Well then.
Rajira OoC: For one thing he knows too much.

The Redactor IS an Alazario, and the son of the mayor of the Chellish capitol.

Terzo OoC: I’ll hold off on doing anything - Civilla might be annoyed if I set him on fire.

Civilla summons a monster octopus, and stomps forward to snarl for a bit.

GM: He tries to say something but it’s kind of muffled by tentacles.
Civilla: *sigh* Let him speak.

Apparently Civilla’s cousin, Nicolo, is no happier to be here than Civilla is to see him.

Civilla: Then WHY. ARE YOU. HERE.
Ayva: Daddy dearest?
Civilla: Probably. *sigh*
GM: I’ll be quick because he’s bleeding out a HP a round.
Rajira: Two.

Apparently the Mayor has found himself in deep political trouble, and Civilla’s cousin had to join the Redactors to save the family’s reputation, despite the fact that the Alazarios as a whole are very much against destroying written history. Civilla is now regretting that she’s so family focused - mostly because we can’t leave him here alive, because being the Only Survivor would be highly suspicious. And apparently he HAS been preserving what he can.

Ayva: What’s that saying about ‘better pissing out?’

Terzo tries to patch the cousin up before he bleeds out, then we stash him in the Rope Trick dimension for the time being.

Terzo: Stabbed him rather deeply, didn’t you?
Rajira: I WAS trying to kill him.
Terzo: You with the tentacles, hold this limb tighter.

Apparently the success one of Civilla’s more distant kin had in becoming a pirate king, a few years back, inspired another Alazario to become a pirate. Unfortunately she was also a captain in the Chellish Navy, and the Mayor’s sister, and she decided to target Chellish merchant ships. Well, at least we’ll have someone to mail the cousin to.

The next room has been set up to be the ideal kind of battleground for some quite unpleasant devils. It looks like Rajira and the Chthonic Octopus will be on point - they’re certainly sneakier than the rest of us. For one thing the mollusc can detect living people through walls. Unfortunately it can’t tell WHO is on the other side of the wall, so finding Barzillai Thrune’s bodyguard, Nox, down here, is a bit of a shock. Fortunately she’s not wearing her armour, because she’s asleep. Unfortunately, her hellhound is not.

Rajira attacks Nox first, and kills her instantly with poisoned blades.

GM: She failed ALL HER ROLLS. She was supposed to be the BBEG of this chapter! There’s a whole subchapter here about her as a recurring villain!
Civilla OoC: We could always have left her as the Only Survivor

Rajira: NEED A LITTLE HELP HERE.

Civilla teleports past all the highly suspicious chains, to try and disable what she suspects is something very close to the Lament Configuration - Chain Devils are the last thing we want showing up. The chains alone are nasty enough.

Civilla OoC: Bags not being the first Cenobite. *fails the check* F***.

The head injury she suffers from a chain lashing out of the cube into her face also knocks out her last hour of short-term memory, which is going to make for some interesting conversations later. But at least Ayva succeeds in making the chains vanish.

Terzo cast Grease before the rest of the Redactor Monks show up.

GM: Why don’t these monks - admittedly Lvl 1 monks - have any points in Acrobatics?
Terzo: Because books can’t fight back.
Redactor-who-isn't-Civilla's-Cousin: Magic-users! Retreat to the Garden!
Terzo: They have a garden down here?

Ayva uses Boneshaker on one of the Redactors, which proves fatal.

Civilla: You grabbed him by the skeleton and shook him like an underpaid nanny!
Ayva: I wasn’t expecting it to actually kill him!
Terzo: I thought that was the plan - unless any more of these are your cousins, Civilla?
Civilla: *still amnesiac* What????

Retreating to the garden and preparing spells does the surviving monks no good at all, because Civilla’s octopus attacks them straight out of the floor.

We pursue, leaving Rexus to kill any Redactors we leave merely unconscious behind us.

Rexus: THIS IS FOR MY MOTHER!
Ayva: It’s OK, we can fix it later.
GM: Am I going to have to get THAT post up?
Civilla: It’d have to be True Resurrection - and at the moment Time Is Money.

Civilla follows up her octopus with a Celestial Hyena, and Terzo uses Blistering Invective on the remaining Redactors, and sets them on fire - one survives long enough to dash for the underground river.

Terzo: Get out here and fight, you craven clay-brained canker-blossoms!
Unfortunate Redactor: *on fire on top of everything else, and feeling that the rebels are being a bit unfair* We’re Asmodeans, we’re meant to be evil, what the F***

Civilla’s hyena tears out his belly.

Civilla: Well, that’s all of them.
Ayva: ah….
Terzo: Come over here, dear, you’ll want to sit down for this bit. You know how one of your distant cousins became the Hurricane King?
Civilla: Yesss, but that was hundreds of miles away, what does that have to do with these guys?
Terzo: We’re getting there we’re getting there - anyway, his example encouraged one of your closer relatives to try the same career.
Civilla: OK?
Terzo: Unfortunately she was a captain in the Chellish Navy at the time.
Civilla: What? But her brother is the mayor of - oh.
Rajira: So guess who we have.
Civilla: Her?
Terzo: No - but her nephew had to join the Redactors to protect his family. So he was REALLY lucky you were the first person he saw when he was running away from Rajira.
Civilla: Maybe you should have led with ‘Don’t worry, he’s alive?’

Apparently this place was the Archivists storehouse for Worryingly Magical Stuff. Most of said worryingly magical stuff is missing, including a necklace or amulet, a pair of gloves or bracers, and a reasonably sized rock. Rexus, happily, has a key to the secret compartment behind the shelves, however.

Meanwhile, Rajira goes to check out the garden, presumably to figure out the best place to chop up the bodies and feed them to Civilla’s Chthonic Toads. It’s not like we can just dump them all in the underground stream - that might contaminate someone’s water supply. If we can make all the bodies vanish, we can hopefully make Thrune think his bodyguard and entire order of Redactors have fled the city. A few Convincing Lies spread by the underground press should help.

In a small nook on the other side of the garden, Rajira finds a series of books that magically contain the memories and experiences of some members of the Order of Archivists. Including Rexus’ parents.

Civilla OoC: There’s a reason that we play things the way that we do. We stack our advantages because the dice can **** you in an instant.

Horror on the Orient Express - Lausanne - Nocturne Pt. 2   Jan. 1923

In Which The Investigators Enjoy A Product Of The Swiss Pharmaceutical Industry
   
Dream Lausanne, Edgar Wellington’s hiding place from the horrors of the early 20th Century, is distinctly ‘olden times’, as he claimed. One may wonder why Edgar prefers to take that highly suspect potion just to dream of a medieval taxidermy shop, without benefit of formaldehyde or refrigeration, but every night he’s Dreaming in Dream Lausanne is a night he isn’t dreaming of the trenches of the Western Front.

Most of the pile of equipment Flo and her cousin were clutching as they went under is changing to match the tenth century aesthetic.

GM: Your flashlights aren’t flashlights, they’re torches - actual torches. And there’s also the distinctly unpleasant sensation as your clothing slithers and transmogrifies into new fabrics and configurations.

GM: Dream Lausanne is best described as Gothic Nightmare.
Florence OoC: So, corsets, black nail polish?

Happily, the crowd outside all seem to be trudging uphill towards the tolling cathedral bells, and ignoring the taxidermists. Since it seems unlikely there’s a 10th Century equivalent of the modern Swiss banks, it’s most likely Edgar hid the real Sedefkar scroll somewhere in the dream-reflection of his shop. The two women turn the place upside-down - or rather, further upside-down since somebody has already trashed the place. Picking the lock to the upstairs apartment proves unwise, and they swiftly slam the door shut on the Wellington’s living quarters when it instead reveals the nightmares of the Somme. The rest of the building isn’t much better, but at least the rotting corpses here are merely animals. Alex takes a particular note of the fully grown bear, its internal organs now reeking horror.

Alex: You know, If I wanted to hide something where nobody would look for it, I have an idea where it might be.
Florence: Oh god no.
GM: … well, I have to admit I didn’t expect you to figure it out that quickly.
Alex OoC: Thanks. I just went by the rules of crime fiction; if it's pointed out to you it's important and it was the most disgusting possibility I could come up with 🙂 I'm trained by years of gaming with Stephen Dedman.

Alex reaches into the festering offal, but it’s not just them that throws up. Florence babbles about some of her memories of growing up on a sheep farm.

Florence: -we didn’t find the ewe for a week and the insects had already started on her and the lamb was halfway out-
Alex: Could you NOT tell me about your childhood?

In Waking Lausanne Huxley is having to prop up their bodies so they don’t choke on their own vomit. And honestly the players aren’t feeling much better.

Alex: I never want to see something like that again. I’m never going hunting again

The real scroll is, indeed, hidden in a waterproof case inside the bear’s corpse. Now they just have to escape with it - if Edgar’s soul is somehow still alive in Lausanne, he’ll have to fend for himself.

But escape might be more difficult than they think - the drifting bitter ash in the blasted landscape between Dream Lausanne and the Waking World has covered their footprints. How do they return to their bodies?

Florence: *slaps Alex across the face* WAKE UP
Alex: Hey!

Huxley is monitoring their vitals when he’s distracted by a knock on the hotel room door. Apparently the police want to ask more questions about the murder and attempted murder of the Wellingtons. Just as well they didn’t come ask in person - the two unconscious women in the bed might be difficult to explain. His usual excuse about collecting replacement documents after the fire at Professor Smith's house probably wouldn’t cut it. Lorna Cambell-Barnes, one of Huxley’s antique customers and who by wild coincidence is staying at the same hotel certainly doesn’t seem to believe it. She’s a collector of illuminated European and Arabic manuscripts, and had apparently been contacted by Wellington as a potential buyer for the Sedefkar scroll. She thought he was dodgy enough to decline - wise choice. Perhaps they’ll see each other again on the train? After Huxley has finished tending to whoever it is he has in the hotel room?

After sitting for an hour in the wasteland, waiting for the drug to wear off, or Huxley to bring them around, or anything, The cousins decide that maybe they need to be closer to their bodies in Dream Lausanne? Perhaps they can find the equivalent of the hotel there. Unfortunately, navigating is easier said than done, given the steep, twisting cobbled streets, the non-stop press of the crowd, and gaping fissures blasting freezing gales. Perhaps the fissures and the decay in the Wellington’s shop is a sign that the reality of Dream Lausanne is collapsing with the death of the Dreamer? Florence and Alex decide to hurry back to the shop, and come face to face with Death.

Also an Angel, a medieval Soldier, a Lion, a Turk, an Assassin, and a Rustic Lass and Rustic Lad. They are costumed flagellants who wind in procession through the chaos, weeping tears of blood from startling, expressionless, china-blue dolls’ eyes. They chant in Latin as they move, and the reek of incense and a distant cacophony of bells entirely at odds with the bells from the cathedral follows them. As the bells reach a crescendo, the Lion figure sprouts wings and flies away, closely pursued by the Soldier. Their bloody tears fall on the investigators from above and scald them.

Florence recalls that a Winged Lion is the symbol of Venice, which surrendered to Napoleon in 1797. Evidently Alex played truant for most of their History lessons.

Huxley OoC: Note to self - buy an umbrella before we get to Venice.

Spherical bunches of tiny white flowers sprouting from thick stems, growing from cobbled streets, is another oddity. As is the street musician that loses all his limbs to an empty top hat.
And the living chessboard with murderous pawns. And the barbed wire cage festooned with scraps of flesh, that sings with Signora Cavallaro’s voice. The only person that actually talks to them is an old woman cooking something in a big black cauldron.

Highly Suspicious Crone: You two look like you need a good feed. Come, try some.
Alex & Flo: *politely NOPE*
Crone: Not going to the Jigsaw Prince’s court? He has some Englishman a prisoner, I hear. But that one has so much to say - I don’t care to listen.

By the time they make it back to the shop, their agitation is obvious enough that Huxley starts injecting a stimulant. Their first demands are a shower and alcohol. But at least they have the real scroll, and the fake, as well as an English translation of the original - something Wellington denied having. The Scroll of The Head is certainly the work of a madman, as evinced by the following excerpt.

I have seen the powers which stalk the night and strike fear into the hearts of all those who worship the false god. I know Him and I worship Him. The Skinless One has spoken to me. He whispered secret words into my heart of hearts and I know what I now must do. I have seen It in visions and It is all that my Lord said It was. In my dreams I have seen Its perfection striding above the ruins of cities. Kings and countries have fallen before It. Even gods must fall before It. I recognized it the first time I beheld It as an object of power. Power that would bring the world to its knees. It glistened like the finest pearls. It woke when I flayed alive the wretch who sought to steal my treasure from me. That night He came to me for the first time and told me what to do. I meditated before Its glory. All praise to the One without Skin. I performed the seventeen devotions and opened It for the first time. Within the artifact was soft and smooth. As I ran my hand across Its inner surface it felt like the skin of a newborn babe. I offered four children as sacrifice to my Master. Then I used It for the first time. In His wisdom the Lord of Naked Flesh had made It to my height. In all modesty I believe It was made in my image. Blessed is the chosen of the Skinless One. I have been careful to keep It untarnished. The substance is the color of purity and should not be tainted by that which is unclean.

Lt. Huxley heads off on some errands, and learns that Maximillian has been asking around for them - but not to worry, because von Wertheim is in such bad odour at the Beau-Rivage Palace that they wouldn’t have let him in even if he had actually known where the investigators were staying.

Things to do include sending a telegram to Prof. Smith and Beddows, to inform them on progress thus far.

+++ARM IN HAND+++AHEAD ON FINDING PAPERS+++

Then around to the hospital to check on the health of William Wellington - highly precarious - and then around to the police station to answer more questions, and try and explain that he and the girls really have to leave for Milan in the morning, since they have tickets for the opening of Aida. The Inspector is initially skeptical, but surprised that they haven’t heard the news - the opera star has vanished. It’s in all the papers coming up the train line from Milan.

Opera Star Missing! - Fears of Abduction
Police have expressed fears that soprano Caterina Cavollaro may have been abducted from Milan’s Stazione Centrale. The singer has not been seen since she alighted from the train from Paris yesterday at 1pm. Since then she has not returned to her apartment or attended rehearsals at La Scala, where she is due to sing the part of Aida, which opens Monday night. Arturo Toscanini, music director of La Scala, has confirmed that he has had no contact from the singer since she departed Paris.

Police request that any members of the public contact them if they have any information on the whereabouts of Signorina Cavallaro. We heartily urge all Milanese to join the search for our most beloved star.
 
Florence OoC: Have they checked Box Five?

At least they reach the train without incident in the morning, and eventually stagger down to the dining car for breakfast. Lorna Cambell-Barnes hasn’t come from her cabin yet, but they’re not the only people there, even this early in the morning. One is Colonel Herring, an obnoxious retired military man currently complaining about the food, at top volume. His wife can do little more than mutter ‘yes dear’, and ‘no dear’. Cornered, Lt. Huxley confesses that he is a former military man himself, and cautiously suggests a stomach-calming draft if the garlic is too much? Perhaps the Colonel will be disembarking at the next stop?

Col. Herring: The wife wanted to see the continent. God knows why - all Frogs, Wogs, and I-ties. They can’t even cook an egg properly, ha ha.
GM: Roll Psychology. Mrs. Herring’s expression is one of someone who has plotting murder for the last two decades. The waiter is also plotting murder, but won’t do it where it will upset the other passengers.

At least the beauty of the view out of the windows is distracting - the Alps, snow pink in the light of the rising sun. It’s so distracting that the investigators don’t realize how much danger they are in until a waiter asks “Will Monsieur be dining alone today?” and the Duc Jean des Esseintes replies. “No, I think I will eat with my friends.”

After being reseated with Huxley and the others, who are frozen in alarm, the Duc puts a small valise down, orders his meal and turns his attention to the party.

The Duc: Ladies, gentleman, if you will excuse my hurried bluntness, I will come to the point. You have in your possession an item that is rightfully mine. You will give it to me, or it is you I will destroy. Your answer promptly, please. I have little time.

Huxley, in a fit of unbridled optimism, asks if the Duc’s interest in the scroll is academic.

The Duc: Hardly, monsieur. The knowledge within belongs only to those with the will to use it, and I judge that none of you possess that strength of will.
Alex: But it’s not yours!
The Duc: Debatable. I am certain I can find witnesses who can state otherwise. And testify as to your presence in the Wellington fils shop. So unfortunate, what happened to your countrymen.

Huxley tells Alex to go fetch the scroll, and she rightly assumes he means the fake. Unfortunately, the Duc isn’t fooled for a moment, and correctly guesses they plan to thwart him.

The Duc: Do you take me for a fool, sir? I assure you that is a regrettable error - perhaps I should make an example of one of you, to prove my point?

It’s at this point that Col. Herring gets involved, since he’s been quietly eavesdropping on this whole conversation and is now purple with rage.

Col. Herring: Just who the devil do you think you are, sir?! I don’t know how they do things around here but I’ll be damned if I stand by while some bloody Frog threatens a proper Englishman!

Alex makes a run for the cabin and the fake scroll, Florence pockets one of the sharper knives on the table, Huxley stands to try and intervene between Herring and the Duc, and the Duc is merely muttering under his breath and gazing steadily at the enraged pensioner.

Who bursts into a pillar of flame.

The Spirit (2008). I was So. F***ing. Angry. by the end of it. 
 
- Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one out of four stars and said, "There is not a trace of human emotion in it. To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material"

The Spirit (2008). I was So. F***ing. Angry. by the end of it. 
 
- Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one out of four stars and said, "There is not a trace of human emotion in it. To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material"

The Spirit (2008). I was So. F***ing. Angry. by the end of it. 
 
- Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film one out of four stars and said, "There is not a trace of human emotion in it. To call the characters cardboard is to insult a useful packing material"

Horror on the Orient Express - Lausanne - Nocturne Pt.1
 
Jan 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Enjoy The Sights Of Switzerland, Which Include Mountains, Lakes, & Horrible Murder
 
The investigators have reached Lausanne, where a taxidermist is selling a scroll written by a madman, and is trying to raise the price he'll get by inviting anybody that might be interested in something written on living human skin with white-hot needles. He will regret this decision.
 
The taxidermist in question is one Edgar Wellington, who had written to the Loriens in Poissy, inquiring about the Sedefkar Simulacrum. This naturally makes him a person of considerable interest to the investigators, even if Switzerland isn’t one of the places Professor Smith believes the Simulacrum was scattered to. Wellington and his brother moved to Lausanne after the War, and Wellington is happy to sell the scroll. He acquired it from a French soldier by the name of Raoul Malon during the war, and it apparently discusses the Simulacrum, although he claims he hasn’t translated much of it. He wants 250 pounds - quite the profit over the pack of cigarettes he originally paid. Unfortunately, he’s also offered the scroll to the Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes. 
 
The Duke seems charming enough, but it’s likely he has more funds available if things escalate to a bidding war. Edgar certainly seems eager to encourage one - perhaps he needs the funds to help his mute brother William, who suffered devastating head injuries in the War. 
 
Edgar suggests the Duke show Huxley and Florence around Lausanne until they can all meet at the Black Cat Café in the evening, and arrange a blind auction - for one thing he has to retrieve the scroll from his bank, before anybody can even have a look at it. 
 
So it’s probably just as well that Alex was still nursing their hangover from all the Dreamlands wine the night before, and missed this meeting at the taxidermy shot - because Huxley is paranoid enough to have Alex stake out the shop, from a café across the road. And while the Duke is showing Huxley and Flo the sights, Edgar is seen hurrying down to the nearby stationers shop, and returning with something the size and shape of a scroll case. 
 
Huxley: The b****** is going to try and sell us a forgery.
 
Or at the very least use the party to help defraud the Duke. 
 
Florence: We were supposed to be sightseeing most of today.
Huxley: Then Huxley got distracted by books. 
 
That evening, at the Black Cat, they set Alex up in a corner to keep an eye on the meeting just in case anything happens. More strong coffee would probably be a bad idea, especially after the hangover and stake-out while hungover that morning.
 
GM: You’re practically vibrating as it is.
Alex: I’d better switch back to alcohol then.
 
But the Duke and Edgar Wellington don’t arrive - instead, one Maximillian von Wurtheim, best described as a poster boy for the SS, comes to the café, making apologies for the other two and inviting himself to the table. While Max flirts outrageously with Florence and regales them with the endless story about his family fortune, late father’s will, Max’s evil twin, etc, Huxley quietly sends Alex around to keep an eye on the Wellington’s shop. Huxley manages to escape the melodrama himself, later, and heads around to join Alex. It’s probably just as well they did, because the shop is dark, and silent, and the door ajar.
 
Alex and the lieutenant sidle into the pitch dark shop,  knocking over stuffed wildlife as they try to find the light switch.
 
Alex: Just light a match!
Huxley: I’m a non-smoker, sorry.
Alex: When we get out of this you’re taking it up.
 
Back at the Black Cat Maximillian is still talking - sure, his outrageous claims might make an interesting novel at some point, but he’s. Still. Going. 
 
Florence OoC: I’m keeping my expression polite as I imagine the ways I’m going to make the Lt. pay for this. 
Huxley OoC: I’ll bring you a nice stuffed animal from the Wellington’s shop.
Florence OoC: I like cats. If you can’t get fresh-made store-bought is fine. 
 
Eventually Flo reaches her limits.
 
Florence: I'm taking my handbag to the restroom and see if I can climb out the window. 
 
Alas, she won’t fit, and she is forced to return to the table. 
 
GM: He continues his story.
Alex: He probably hasn’t stopped.
 
But enduring this is probably preferable to what the other two find upstairs in the Wellington’s flat - William brutally stabbed and partly flayed, and Edgar killed with a massive morphine overdose in his bed. Huxley’s medical experience rouses William briefly,  just long enough to let the veteran point at a painting of a Merganser for some reason, while Alex runs across to the café to summon help.
 
William might survive, if the doctors at the local hospital are very good. The police take statements, particularly the statement that Alex and Huxley had come to the shop to see why Edgar never arrived for his meeting. They apparently suspect it might be a murder-suicide - or, as Alex overhears - ANOTHER suicide. 
 
Alex also hopes that all this doesn’t get written up in a newspaper her father actually reads.
 
Florence is not happy when the others get back to the hotel.
 
Florence: I had to listen to him talk for hours - and then HE STIFFED ME WITH THE BILL.
 
Of course Alex and Huxley are looking pretty frazzled too - the latter still has blood all over him.
 
Alex: It’s alright, it’s not his.
 
Blood isn’t the only thing he acquired however - while Alex was out getting help he also grabbed Edgar’s diary, a drug bottle of something called ‘Dream Lausanne’, and a scroll case containing what is indeed a fake scroll. 
 
Huxley: How am I going to smuggle the scroll case out of here?
GM: Just shove it down your pants and pretend violent death gives you a massive hard-on. 
 
According to the diary, Edgar has severe PTSD and a crippling morphine habit after the war, and needed to sell the scroll to provide for his brother. But it appears the Duke provided the books, morphine, and ‘the dream drug’, which contributed to Edgar’s downward spiral. The drug apparently takes Edgar to a version of Lausanne ‘from olden times’, and to which Edgar could actually take physical objects, and leave them there. He’s left the real scroll there.
 
The next morning they make full statements to the police and change hotels, to avoid Maximillian and the Duke just in case.  That’s probably just as well for Maximillian because if Florence ever sees him again she’s going to stab him with knitting needles. Unfortunately the new hotel is full to the ceiling with Turkish diplomats, which doesn’t do their paranoia any good. Nor does the news item blaming Lausanne’s massively inflated suicide rate on the psychological effects of the war. At least spending the rest of the day and night here and getting the hell out of Switzerland on the next Orient Express gives them a chance to experiment with the Dream Drug.
 
Huxley: This is balderdash! Magic potions, and, and, and - as a medical professional I cannot recommend this. 
Florence: I’m more interested in who will keep an eye on us if we all go together.
Alex: I like the phrasing there - ‘all go together’
 
Alex and Florence opt to take the drug, which Huxley identifies as a combination of at least three different herbal narcotics and god knows what else, while he monitors their vital signs and hopes they don’t choke on their own dissolving livers or something. Florence makes the good point that if a magical drug is supposed to take you to Dream Lausanne, it might be unwise to take the stuff if you’re hurtling across the landscape in a high speed train.  They decide to take as many weapons as they can hold onto, just in case. That includes Huxley’s sword-cane.
 
Huxley: An elegant weapon from a more civilised age.
Florence: The pointy end goes in the bad guy.
 
At the last moment Huxley adds the scroll case and fake scroll to the pile - as he points out, the case might be useful if they find the real thing. The two women dissolve the drug in some whiskey, throw back the shot glasses, and instantly fall into a deep sleep. They find themselves in a blasted landscape, with a freestanding door. Beyond the door is a medieval version of the Wellington’s shop - with the doors smashed in, cathedral bells tolling, and the sound of a great many people moving outside…

Horror on the Orient Express - Lausanne - Nocturne Pt.1
 
Jan 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Enjoy The Sights Of Switzerland, Which Include Mountains, Lakes, & Horrible Murder
 
The investigators have reached Lausanne, where a taxidermist is selling a scroll written by a madman, and is trying to raise the price he'll get by inviting anybody that might be interested in something written on living human skin with white-hot needles. He will regret this decision.
 
The taxidermist in question is one Edgar Wellington, who had written to the Loriens in Poissy, inquiring about the Sedefkar Simulacrum. This naturally makes him a person of considerable interest to the investigators, even if Switzerland isn’t one of the places Professor Smith believes the Simulacrum was scattered to. Wellington and his brother moved to Lausanne after the War, and Wellington is happy to sell the scroll. He acquired it from a French soldier by the name of Raoul Malon during the war, and it apparently discusses the Simulacrum, although he claims he hasn’t translated much of it. He wants 250 pounds - quite the profit over the pack of cigarettes he originally paid. Unfortunately, he’s also offered the scroll to the Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes. 
 
The Duke seems charming enough, but it’s likely he has more funds available if things escalate to a bidding war. Edgar certainly seems eager to encourage one - perhaps he needs the funds to help his mute brother William, who suffered devastating head injuries in the War. 
 
Edgar suggests the Duke show Huxley and Florence around Lausanne until they can all meet at the Black Cat Café in the evening, and arrange a blind auction - for one thing he has to retrieve the scroll from his bank, before anybody can even have a look at it. 
 
So it’s probably just as well that Alex was still nursing their hangover from all the Dreamlands wine the night before, and missed this meeting at the taxidermy shot - because Huxley is paranoid enough to have Alex stake out the shop, from a café across the road. And while the Duke is showing Huxley and Flo the sights, Edgar is seen hurrying down to the nearby stationers shop, and returning with something the size and shape of a scroll case. 
 
Huxley: The b****** is going to try and sell us a forgery.
 
Or at the very least use the party to help defraud the Duke. 
 
Florence: We were supposed to be sightseeing most of today.
Huxley: Then Huxley got distracted by books. 
 
That evening, at the Black Cat, they set Alex up in a corner to keep an eye on the meeting just in case anything happens. More strong coffee would probably be a bad idea, especially after the hangover and stake-out while hungover that morning.
 
GM: You’re practically vibrating as it is.
Alex: I’d better switch back to alcohol then.
 
But the Duke and Edgar Wellington don’t arrive - instead, one Maximillian von Wurtheim, best described as a poster boy for the SS, comes to the café, making apologies for the other two and inviting himself to the table. While Max flirts outrageously with Florence and regales them with the endless story about his family fortune, late father’s will, Max’s evil twin, etc, Huxley quietly sends Alex around to keep an eye on the Wellington’s shop. Huxley manages to escape the melodrama himself, later, and heads around to join Alex. It’s probably just as well they did, because the shop is dark, and silent, and the door ajar.
 
Alex and the lieutenant sidle into the pitch dark shop,  knocking over stuffed wildlife as they try to find the light switch.
 
Alex: Just light a match!
Huxley: I’m a non-smoker, sorry.
Alex: When we get out of this you’re taking it up.
 
Back at the Black Cat Maximillian is still talking - sure, his outrageous claims might make an interesting novel at some point, but he’s. Still. Going. 
 
Florence OoC: I’m keeping my expression polite as I imagine the ways I’m going to make the Lt. pay for this. 
Huxley OoC: I’ll bring you a nice stuffed animal from the Wellington’s shop.
Florence OoC: I like cats. If you can’t get fresh-made store-bought is fine. 
 
Eventually Flo reaches her limits.
 
Florence: I'm taking my handbag to the restroom and see if I can climb out the window. 
 
Alas, she won’t fit, and she is forced to return to the table. 
 
GM: He continues his story.
Alex: He probably hasn’t stopped.
 
But enduring this is probably preferable to what the other two find upstairs in the Wellington’s flat - William brutally stabbed and partly flayed, and Edgar killed with a massive morphine overdose in his bed. Huxley’s medical experience rouses William briefly,  just long enough to let the veteran point at a painting of a Merganser for some reason, while Alex runs across to the café to summon help.
 
William might survive, if the doctors at the local hospital are very good. The police take statements, particularly the statement that Alex and Huxley had come to the shop to see why Edgar never arrived for his meeting. They apparently suspect it might be a murder-suicide - or, as Alex overhears - ANOTHER suicide. 
 
Alex also hopes that all this doesn’t get written up in a newspaper her father actually reads.
 
Florence is not happy when the others get back to the hotel.
 
Florence: I had to listen to him talk for hours - and then HE STIFFED ME WITH THE BILL.
 
Of course Alex and Huxley are looking pretty frazzled too - the latter still has blood all over him.
 
Alex: It’s alright, it’s not his.
 
Blood isn’t the only thing he acquired however - while Alex was out getting help he also grabbed Edgar’s diary, a drug bottle of something called ‘Dream Lausanne’, and a scroll case containing what is indeed a fake scroll. 
 
Huxley: How am I going to smuggle the scroll case out of here?
GM: Just shove it down your pants and pretend violent death gives you a massive hard-on. 
 
According to the diary, Edgar has severe PTSD and a crippling morphine habit after the war, and needed to sell the scroll to provide for his brother. But it appears the Duke provided the books, morphine, and ‘the dream drug’, which contributed to Edgar’s downward spiral. The drug apparently takes Edgar to a version of Lausanne ‘from olden times’, and to which Edgar could actually take physical objects, and leave them there. He’s left the real scroll there.
 
The next morning they make full statements to the police and change hotels, to avoid Maximillian and the Duke just in case.  That’s probably just as well for Maximillian because if Florence ever sees him again she’s going to stab him with knitting needles. Unfortunately the new hotel is full to the ceiling with Turkish diplomats, which doesn’t do their paranoia any good. Nor does the news item blaming Lausanne’s massively inflated suicide rate on the psychological effects of the war. At least spending the rest of the day and night here and getting the hell out of Switzerland on the next Orient Express gives them a chance to experiment with the Dream Drug.
 
Huxley: This is balderdash! Magic potions, and, and, and - as a medical professional I cannot recommend this. 
Florence: I’m more interested in who will keep an eye on us if we all go together.
Alex: I like the phrasing there - ‘all go together’
 
Alex and Florence opt to take the drug, which Huxley identifies as a combination of at least three different herbal narcotics and god knows what else, while he monitors their vital signs and hopes they don’t choke on their own dissolving livers or something. Florence makes the good point that if a magical drug is supposed to take you to Dream Lausanne, it might be unwise to take the stuff if you’re hurtling across the landscape in a high speed train.  They decide to take as many weapons as they can hold onto, just in case. That includes Huxley’s sword-cane.
 
Huxley: An elegant weapon from a more civilised age.
Florence: The pointy end goes in the bad guy.
 
At the last moment Huxley adds the scroll case and fake scroll to the pile - as he points out, the case might be useful if they find the real thing. The two women dissolve the drug in some whiskey, throw back the shot glasses, and instantly fall into a deep sleep. They find themselves in a blasted landscape, with a freestanding door. Beyond the door is a medieval version of the Wellington’s shop - with the doors smashed in, cathedral bells tolling, and the sound of a great many people moving outside…

Horror on the Orient Express - Lausanne - Nocturne Pt.1
 
Jan 1923
 
In Which The Investigators Enjoy The Sights Of Switzerland, Which Include Mountains, Lakes, & Horrible Murder
 
The investigators have reached Lausanne, where a taxidermist is selling a scroll written by a madman, and is trying to raise the price he'll get by inviting anybody that might be interested in something written on living human skin with white-hot needles. He will regret this decision.
 
The taxidermist in question is one Edgar Wellington, who had written to the Loriens in Poissy, inquiring about the Sedefkar Simulacrum. This naturally makes him a person of considerable interest to the investigators, even if Switzerland isn’t one of the places Professor Smith believes the Simulacrum was scattered to. Wellington and his brother moved to Lausanne after the War, and Wellington is happy to sell the scroll. He acquired it from a French soldier by the name of Raoul Malon during the war, and it apparently discusses the Simulacrum, although he claims he hasn’t translated much of it. He wants 250 pounds - quite the profit over the pack of cigarettes he originally paid. Unfortunately, he’s also offered the scroll to the Duc Jean Floressas des Esseintes. 
 
The Duke seems charming enough, but it’s likely he has more funds available if things escalate to a bidding war. Edgar certainly seems eager to encourage one - perhaps he needs the funds to help his mute brother William, who suffered devastating head injuries in the War. 
 
Edgar suggests the Duke show Huxley and Florence around Lausanne until they can all meet at the Black Cat Café in the evening, and arrange a blind auction - for one thing he has to retrieve the scroll from his bank, before anybody can even have a look at it. 
 
So it’s probably just as well that Alex was still nursing their hangover from all the Dreamlands wine the night before, and missed this meeting at the taxidermy shot - because Huxley is paranoid enough to have Alex stake out the shop, from a café across the road. And while the Duke is showing Huxley and Flo the sights, Edgar is seen hurrying down to the nearby stationers shop, and returning with something the size and shape of a scroll case. 
 
Huxley: The b****** is going to try and sell us a forgery.
 
Or at the very least use the party to help defraud the Duke. 
 
Florence: We were supposed to be sightseeing most of today.
Huxley: Then Huxley got distracted by books. 
 
That evening, at the Black Cat, they set Alex up in a corner to keep an eye on the meeting just in case anything happens. More strong coffee would probably be a bad idea, especially after the hangover and stake-out while hungover that morning.
 
GM: You’re practically vibrating as it is.
Alex: I’d better switch back to alcohol then.
 
But the Duke and Edgar Wellington don’t arrive - instead, one Maximillian von Wurtheim, best described as a poster boy for the SS, comes to the café, making apologies for the other two and inviting himself to the table. While Max flirts outrageously with Florence and regales them with the endless story about his family fortune, late father’s will, Max’s evil twin, etc, Huxley quietly sends Alex around to keep an eye on the Wellington’s shop. Huxley manages to escape the melodrama himself, later, and heads around to join Alex. It’s probably just as well they did, because the shop is dark, and silent, and the door ajar.
 
Alex and the lieutenant sidle into the pitch dark shop,  knocking over stuffed wildlife as they try to find the light switch.
 
Alex: Just light a match!
Huxley: I’m a non-smoker, sorry.
Alex: When we get out of this you’re taking it up.
 
Back at the Black Cat Maximillian is still talking - sure, his outrageous claims might make an interesting novel at some point, but he’s. Still. Going. 
 
Florence OoC: I’m keeping my expression polite as I imagine the ways I’m going to make the Lt. pay for this. 
Huxley OoC: I’ll bring you a nice stuffed animal from the Wellington’s shop.
Florence OoC: I like cats. If you can’t get fresh-made store-bought is fine. 
 
Eventually Flo reaches her limits.
 
Florence: I'm taking my handbag to the restroom and see if I can climb out the window. 
 
Alas, she won’t fit, and she is forced to return to the table. 
 
GM: He continues his story.
Alex: He probably hasn’t stopped.
 
But enduring this is probably preferable to what the other two find upstairs in the Wellington’s flat - William brutally stabbed and partly flayed, and Edgar killed with a massive morphine overdose in his bed. Huxley’s medical experience rouses William briefly,  just long enough to let the veteran point at a painting of a Merganser for some reason, while Alex runs across to the café to summon help.
 
William might survive, if the doctors at the local hospital are very good. The police take statements, particularly the statement that Alex and Huxley had come to the shop to see why Edgar never arrived for his meeting. They apparently suspect it might be a murder-suicide - or, as Alex overhears - ANOTHER suicide. 
 
Alex also hopes that all this doesn’t get written up in a newspaper her father actually reads.
 
Florence is not happy when the others get back to the hotel.
 
Florence: I had to listen to him talk for hours - and then HE STIFFED ME WITH THE BILL.
 
Of course Alex and Huxley are looking pretty frazzled too - the latter still has blood all over him.
 
Alex: It’s alright, it’s not his.
 
Blood isn’t the only thing he acquired however - while Alex was out getting help he also grabbed Edgar’s diary, a drug bottle of something called ‘Dream Lausanne’, and a scroll case containing what is indeed a fake scroll. 
 
Huxley: How am I going to smuggle the scroll case out of here?
GM: Just shove it down your pants and pretend violent death gives you a massive hard-on. 
 
According to the diary, Edgar has severe PTSD and a crippling morphine habit after the war, and needed to sell the scroll to provide for his brother. But it appears the Duke provided the books, morphine, and ‘the dream drug’, which contributed to Edgar’s downward spiral. The drug apparently takes Edgar to a version of Lausanne ‘from olden times’, and to which Edgar could actually take physical objects, and leave them there. He’s left the real scroll there.
 
The next morning they make full statements to the police and change hotels, to avoid Maximillian and the Duke just in case.  That’s probably just as well for Maximillian because if Florence ever sees him again she’s going to stab him with knitting needles. Unfortunately the new hotel is full to the ceiling with Turkish diplomats, which doesn’t do their paranoia any good. Nor does the news item blaming Lausanne’s massively inflated suicide rate on the psychological effects of the war. At least spending the rest of the day and night here and getting the hell out of Switzerland on the next Orient Express gives them a chance to experiment with the Dream Drug.
 
Huxley: This is balderdash! Magic potions, and, and, and - as a medical professional I cannot recommend this. 
Florence: I’m more interested in who will keep an eye on us if we all go together.
Alex: I like the phrasing there - ‘all go together’
 
Alex and Florence opt to take the drug, which Huxley identifies as a combination of at least three different herbal narcotics and god knows what else, while he monitors their vital signs and hopes they don’t choke on their own dissolving livers or something. Florence makes the good point that if a magical drug is supposed to take you to Dream Lausanne, it might be unwise to take the stuff if you’re hurtling across the landscape in a high speed train.  They decide to take as many weapons as they can hold onto, just in case. That includes Huxley’s sword-cane.
 
Huxley: An elegant weapon from a more civilised age.
Florence: The pointy end goes in the bad guy.
 
At the last moment Huxley adds the scroll case and fake scroll to the pile - as he points out, the case might be useful if they find the real thing. The two women dissolve the drug in some whiskey, throw back the shot glasses, and instantly fall into a deep sleep. They find themselves in a blasted landscape, with a freestanding door. Beyond the door is a medieval version of the Wellington’s shop - with the doors smashed in, cathedral bells tolling, and the sound of a great many people moving outside…

From the Pathfinder demo game at GhenghisCon, where I was playing a combination of the Muppet Mad Bommber and a drug dealer - i.e., a Goblin Alchemist. We'd been secretly hired by a dwarf's mother to ensure he didn't get killed while going on an Adventure. 
 
Dwarf: Welcome, welcome, I'm glad to see you all here, answering the Call to Adventure!
Fumbus the Goblin: Pay double or we tell mum what you doing
 
The party trudges off into the swamps of Mwangi, where among other things are Grippli horticulturists, panthers, and giant leechs mutated by the aforementioned Grippli's alchemical fertilzer. But at least we rescued the amphibious fellow, even if his experiments aren't volatile enough for Fumbus' tastes. 
 
Fumbus: pulls out a glass bottle that's glowing orange and vibrating slightly Alchemical Fire.... verrrrry unstable. aHAahahahahahah!!!!! throws it into melee
 
Fumbus: prodding the Grippli in the vest Frogboy owes Fumbus big time 
 
Fumbus: Fruit not explode. Meh. Frogboy SOFT.
 
Fumbus: Fumbus make dinner. holds up the fistful of footlong venomous chilopds he's been collecting as the day progressed Centiiipeeeeedes.
 
The party Monk need a Perception boost. 
 
Fumbus: psst. Come here. holds the monks' wrist out horizontally and taps out a line of white powder Snort this. 
Monk: does so, suspiciously
Fumbus: Mwangian Marching Powder. Good stuff. First dose free.
 
The group's halfling bard attempts to inspire us.
 
Bard: singing, supposedly be corAAaEgous
Monk: What the hell are you singing??
Bard: Attempts to loom intimidatingly  EVeryONES a Criiitiiiiic
 
Fumbus also kills one of the giant mutant leeches with a flask of slow-acting acid. 
 
Fumbus: the leechs screams and thrashes and dies AHAAhahaHAAHAHAAHA. And now dinnertime - leech ceviche!

"So the Victocoras had a secret nuclear reactor in their pond."
 
The first time through I read this as "So Victoria's Secret had a nuclear reactor in their pond" and did a doubletake.  
 
 
Thanks to everyone who has taken part in this thread for the wonderful hours of reading.

Another oddity regarding current events in Kintargo - there were a number of mercenaries in town when Thrune took over. But instead of hiring them, which is kind of what mercenaries are for, they’re all being held prisoner at Kintargo’s salt works. Finding out why is probably worthwhile, and hey, maybe they’ll give us a discount rate if we rescue them. It’s possible that the leader of the mercs, one Forvian Crowe, has a personal animosity towards Thrune (and hey, who could blame him) but Laria thinks they could make good recruits to the rebellion regardless of their personal opinions about the Dogf***er.

The Sallix Salt Works are built on the shoreline underneath the eastern wall of Kintargo, near the now mostly irrelevant Salt Gate in the aforementioned wall. Brine is shipped in, and boiled dry on the premises.

Terzo: That seems wildly inefficient. The fuel requirements alone are ridiculous.
Civilla: That's why they use slave labour. Like the mercenaries we’re rescuing.

The market adjacent to the salt works is mostly dedicated to building supplies and related products, but Civilla and Ayva do have a good reason to be hanging around, which is convenient - maybe we can arrange a good deal on rebuilding the Livery prior to filling the basement with armed mercenaries.

Civilla casts Ears of the City on Terzo, in order to divine details about the salt works and the prisoners. Terzo isn’t entirely happy about gathering information with magic.

Terzo: The problem with doing it this way is that I don’t get to go around a dozen different pubs and ask a few innocent questions between drinks.
Civilla: You think that’s a problem, do you? I think it’s a bonus.

Although using Ears of the City DOES ensure that nobody notices, for example, an increasingly drunk Terzo going from bar to bar asking questions.

Ayva: Or an increasingly annoyed party member with a wheelbarrow taking Terzo from bar to bar.

Apparently the previous owner of the salt works was arrested for tax evasion, and killed when he resisted. Barzillai has now seized the premises as a money-earner for the government.

Civilla: Well, at least Barzillai is honest about the nationalisation process.
Terzo: How so?
Civilla: For ‘nationalised’ read ‘stole’.

We also learn, via the spell, that Crowe and his soldiers are being worked to death because of their faith in Sarenrae, the goddess of healing. That’s the kind of thing that can get you in huge trouble should any Asmodeans find out, and that’s exactly what happened.

Civilla gets quite thoughtful about the Salt Gate - they haven’t been closed in years, since the internal mechanism has rusted stiff, but that suggests a few ideas to Civilla.

Civilla: A plaaaaaan is forming in my miiiind.

Civilla wants Terzo to Grease the gate mechanism when we leave, so we can stop pursuit. Doing anything more permanent would probably annoy Thrune and provoke another Proclamation.

Terzo OoC: So basically we need a bucket of WD-40.

Civilla: In case we are chased.
Rajira: *snickers*
Civilla: Grease doesn’t last very long either.
Rajira: *snickers louder*
Civilla: CHASED, not CHASTE. CHASED as in PURSUED.

Civilla also has to keep her footmen loyal - otherwise they’ll eventually figure out she’s up to something and might inform on her. Telling them to wait with the carriage outside the salt works and suddenly running up with a troop of mercenaries and expecting them all to fit in like it was some kind of clown car would be a bit suspicious. Instead we sneak up to the door of the salt works late at night, get the door open, and knock Thrune’s blackshirts out with Lullaby and Sleep spells.

Civilla: See? I’m perfectly good at Stealth, as long as everybody is asleep.

We silently tie the unconscious guards up, release the prisoners, and tiptoe out again without the rest of the guards in the building hearing a thing.

Civilla: And give a short prayer to Noctiluca.
Terzo: … isn’t that the demon goddess of darkness and lust?
Civilla: … I can see we’re going to have to have a conversation later.

Rajira: And nobody even saw us.
Terzo: All that effort into disguises, hoods and Oaths of Anonymity wasted.
Civilla: Not wasted, reserved for future endeavours.

GM: … well then.
Civilla OoC: That’s this party’s warcry - ‘Sorry, Not Sorry’

Civilla: I mean, it won’t be hard for the authorities to figure out what happened - all the guards fall asleep at once and wake up bound. Unless they leap to some wrong conclusions. I can picture the Inquisitor asking “So WHY were you enjoying a BDSM orgy?”
Rajira OoC: ‘And why were you letting the prisoners top you?’

It WILL make an amusing rumour to spread once we get the underground press running. Something to keep in mind for the future.

That rescue cost us one first-level spell and a cantrip. We might have time for another mission this evening, after leading Crowe and his men to the Livery basement, before the curfew even comes down. Going via the Tiefling ghetto is also convenient, given how many friends we have there after dealing with the tooth fairy problem - that makes the residents less likely to comment on the large group of half naked prisoners sneaking through the alleyways. But instead of another mission tonight, we decide instead to make sure the mercs have food, clothes, and bedding.

Civilla: It shows that we consider them important enough to put off other important tasks.

Civilla: Liria told us about your predicament.
Crowe: Ah, so that’s why you came to our aid.
Ayva: She bribed us with scones.
Crowe: Damn, we owe that curvy little vixen our lives.

At least we temporarily disrupted the salt works, but it won’t take long to replace the unfortunate workers.

Terzo: Probably with Tieflings
GM: To be honest, right now, it’s going to be those thugs.

Permanently disrupting the salt works is also a goal for the future.

Civilla: Any way to reduce Thrune’s ability to punish the populace.

And, of course, effortlessly ghosting our way in and out of the salt works will increase our Notoriety, and rescuing the Black Feather Mercenaries will make us more friends among Kintargo’s population.

But we still need to investigate the ruins of Raxus’ family home, the Thrashing Badger pub, and the Silver Star music shop, for any clues the Dogf***er’s arsonists may have left intact. There isn’t much left at the latter, and not being able to see in the dark doesn’t help. On the other hand, accidentally falling through a hidden trapdoor is quite helpful, at least in that it unearths some useful potions and scrolls.

On the other hand, having our carriage pulled over by one of the Kintargo guardsmen, especially since he’s backed up by three of Thrune’s blackshirts.

Civilla: How can we be of assistance to you fine civic-minded individuals?
Thug: I’m sure you good folk are unaware, since it only happened ten minutes ago, but this road is now a tollway. The toll is a mere five gold. Per passenger.
Civilla: Five gold? How interesting. I assume you have your Writ?
Terzo: And a receipt book?
Civilla: That too.
Thug: I have my Writ right here *hefts mace*
Terzo: *casts Lullaby* Go to sleep, little A**hole, do not cry.

All three drop to Civilla’s Sleep spell, and she orders her drivers to move the carriage on.

Civilla: We do not want to cut their throats in front of my drivers.
Ayva: So we’ll leave them there to be inevitably pickpocketed?
Civilla: Or killed by any number of Kintargo’s other residents.

Unfortunately most of the Thrashing Badger washed out to sea when the boardwalk burnt through, and it wasn’t Terzo’s local drinking hole.

Ayva: Terzo has been kicked out of most of the pubs in Kintargo.
Terzo: Rolled out of, possibly.

The Badger used to be the rowdiest alcohol dispensary in the city, but any of its regulars have moved on to other establishments. It seems likely one of the more notable regulars, the fairy dragon Vendalfek, will have moved to one of them too. Perhaps Clenchjaw’s, although the name does not inspire images of fun and harmless hooliganism.

Although given the fact that we walk in on a mass bar fight, that pauses only long to look at us come in, it might be a more enthusiastic clientele than the name suggests.

Terzo: Don’t mind us, carry on as you were.

Terzo: Well, at least if they're all so busy with their fistfight, they’re less likely to remember what we look like.
Civilla: I fear they’re going to remember us anyway. Two of us anyway.
Rajira: I’m wearing my hood over my head. But I am over 6ft and attractive.
Civilla: That’s what I meant. But Terzo is going to attract attention anyway, as they see him accompanied by the three of us and try to figure out ‘How?!’

Ayva: So we set up at the bar, wait for information to come to us, and maim anybody that assumes we’re call girls.

We claim a table that doesn’t leave our backs to the door, and order refreshments.

Terzo: A bottle of your most enjoyable wine, dear.
Barmaid: We’ve got wine, water, watered wine, or if you want something spicy, wined water.

Ayva just gets a small beer, and Rajira some hard mead.

Civilla: It’s not like we can get mint liqueur anymore.

Unfortunately Ayva also complains about not being able to get night tea, and we get told off by a neighbouring sailor.

Old Salt: Word to the wise - I know you’re new here but one of the house rules is No Politics. *to Terzo* And you, you - how’d you’d end up in the company of three buxom lasses like these? Care to share the love?
Terzo: It’s my irresistible charm, dear man - I can’t beat them off with a stick.
Civilla: Buxom? Buxom?
Ayva: I don’t recall being buxom.
Rajira: *puts an arm around Ayva* Don’t worry, you’re buxom enough for me.

GM: You settle down to enjoy your drinks. Make a Perception check.
Ayva OoC: Ah, it’s one of those bars where adventures happen.
Terzo OoC: Well we already have a hooded stranger, but they’re a member of the party.
Terzo: *fails the check miserably* This is a very enjoyable wine.

Rajira’s resistance to poison probably means she could have drunk anything behind the bar, but she's not going to get the chance. Ayva spots the lizard with butterfly wings in the rafters, laughing at the barfight. This is presumably Vendalfek. When he realises he’s been spotted, he goes invisible. Ayva Messages the fairy dragon.

Ayva: Vendalfek We Know You’re There
Civilla: FFS can you be more ominous? At least indicate we’re friendly first.

The doors of the pub swing open all by themselves.

Rajira: And there goes our informant.
Terzo: What was he doing in the rafters?
Ayva: Everybody enjoys a good bar fight.
Terzo: He probably started it.

Ayva tries a more diplomatic Message, and the dragon pokes its head back in and indicates we should follow.

Civilla: It’s nearly curfew - we should head home. Come along Terzo.
Terzo: But I’m still enjoying this wine!
Civilla:
.
Terzo: Can I get this in a doggy bag?
Ayva: Damn. First good mead I’ve had in years.
Civilla: We’re far too far south for good mead.

Vendalfek 

Vendalfek: What do you humans want, anyway? I’ve only just found a new bar to live in after your lot burned the last one down.
Rajira: Not ‘my’ humans.
Civilla: *Diplomatically remains silent, specifically about her own ancestry*

We do determine why Thrune’s agents burned the place to the ground - it probably has something to do with the Roses Vendalfek kept overhearing about.

Vendalfek: Did I live in a bar that was a secret meeting place for a society of florists?

More like Milani’s Rose of Kintargo, a rebellious cult. They were arrested by Thrune’s personal enforcers, one of whom has an ominous magic sword.

Rajira OoC: Oh great, we have an Edgelord.

Civilla: These Roses they took - fun people?
Vendalfek: Oh yes.
Civilla: And the Dottari - not fun?
Vendalfek: Definitely not.
Civilla: So, what do you think about playing a few pranks on the dotteri?

Vendalfek is agreeable, and the rebellion has a new ally. Just as well, since Vendalfek also overheard that they were planning to Doghouse one of the Roses.

Terzo: Oh dear.
Vendalfek: I’d like a doghouse - cosy.
Civilla: Doghousing involves feeding a prisoner to one of Thrune’s feral mastiffs. And they starve the dog first.

Terzo: Out of curiosity, Mr Dragon - why was the barman unconscious in the corner in there?
Civilla: He was no fun.
Vendalfek: Such a stickler for the rules.

And then there is more quiet recruiting of partisans, and smuggling funds into the Rebellion’s pockets. And dealing with the fact that the Dottari are taking an alarming interest in Liria’s coffeehouse...

Liria: *communicates by frantic eyebrow-waggling* *DISTRACT THEM!*
Civilla: Um, ah, what? *grabs Rajira and kisses her*
Rajira: *briefly startled then grabs Civilla and kisses back*
Civilla: Eep.
Terzo: *looks briefly surprised and annoyed, and mutters something about ‘alright for some’ before returning his attention to his drink*

Of course the fact that Rajira might LOOK human, but doesn’t TASTE human, and has fangs and forked tongue, might be even more distracting, if Civilla hadn’t already figured out what Rajira actually was. It distracts the male Dottari though, until their female superior officer slaps them upside the head.

Rajira: Thankyou, m’dear, but I believe it’s my set. *casts Fascinate, which fails*
GM: I’m sorry, but the slap worked and they’re concentrating on their job again.

Instead we order a pot of coffee, which will give Liria an excuse to go into the pantry and move a few sacks over the hidden door in the floor.

Civilla: Wait, no, it’s tea that Thrune has a problem with, isn’t it.
Terzo: We can always ask these nice Dottari if coffee and tea are the same thing.
Civilla: Better not - we don’t want to give the authorities an opportunity to decide they are.

Apparently somebody sent the Dottari an anonymous letter alleging unsavoury practises at the coffeehouse.

Liria: The only unsavoury things here are the muffins.
Civilla: Unsavoury practises? I’ve kept my clothes on this time.
Rajira: We’ll see if that lasts the night.

Civilla manages to convince them that somebody is wasting their time, barely - sometimes you roll low but the bad guys still roll lower. The Dottari leave.

Terzo: I trust Liria offered them a complimentary muffin.

Rajira grabs Civilla and drags her over to the bar.

Rajira: Something strong - 120 proof at least. Swill this around in your mouth before you swallow. My saliva can be toxic and I’d rather you didn’t become ill.
Civilla: I’d rather not.
Rajira: … OK.
Civilla: I mean I’d rather not smell like I’ve been swilling the kind of alcohol I usually use for cleaning purposes.

GM: Oh god, somebody gave Vendalfek coffee.
Civilla: actually we shouldn’t shut down the Salt Works - that way if anybody else gets imprisoned there we can rescue them, too.
Rajira: And some of the prisoners they send there have actually been arrested for good reasons. There’s always actual criminals around.
Civilla: True, but Thrune is employing those.

Civilla decides to take the air, with her compatriots and supposed paramour, to scout out the ruins of Rexus’ family home that we have to investigate. After all, since Terzo is her tutor and Ayva is her business partner, we actually have a good reason to be strolling around the expensive part of town. Rexus doubts we’ll find anything, but Civilla thinks it will still be worth a look. It’s certainly suspicious that the ruins of the Victocora estate are under permanent armed guard, even this many weeks after the fire. Perhaps we can stay at Civilla’s family home, so we can come back after dark without having to sneak back into the Kintargo equivalent of a Gated Community?

Civilla: Eh, it would attract attention to them and they’d ask questions. Trust me, they’d ask questions, it’s what Alazarios do. It’s one reason we’re not very popular with House Thrune.

We decide to wait until after curfew, and sneak along the alley between the city walls and the noble estates, and climb over the estate wall into the ruins. Which is a good plan, if we didn’t run into a Dottari guard patrolling the other way.

Rajira: *drunkenly slurs* Hey there, handsome.
GM: Roll to Seduce.

Dottari: What are you DOING here, woman, it’s almost after curfew! Come with me!
Rajira: Oh, I’m sure we can find something much more fun to do…
GM: You were unlucky enough to get the nice guard, and he’s actually insisting on escorting you back to your home.
Rajira: S***.

Rajira: *signals the rest of the party* Should I take him out?
Civilla: *summons a monster frog out of the ground*
Dottari: What the Hells is that! GET BEHIND ME!
Rajira: *clonks him on the head*
Civilla: Can somebody cut him in half?
Rajira: … not without getting blood all over my clothes, no.
Ayva: … Why?
Civilla: My frog can’t eat something that large. Unless we fold him double, maybe.

Terzo is rather perturbed by the murder, and reminds so during the wall-clambering and ruins search. It’s Ayva that finds the remains of a recent preparatory ritual next to the ornamental lake on the property. Apparently a witch did something here, more recently than the fire. Civilla cautiously wades into the lake and promptly vanishes with a splash, into a lake that’s supposed to be thigh deep at best. It’s now way more than 60 feet deep, and there’s something glowing blue in the depths.

Terzo OoC: So the Victocoras had a secret nuclear reactor in their pond.

Civilla: Just as well I can summon Celestial Dolphins.

Civilla and Rajira descend, and are soon spotted by somebody else swimming down here, who hurriedly swims into a side tunnel. Unfortunately there’s also a grate, which Civilla can Dimensional Slide through at least, in a search for some kind of opening mechanism. The tunnel on this slide slopes upwards.

Civilla: I’ll return to the others and get high.
All: LOL.

Sending Rajira back to the surface when they do may have been a mistake, since some kind of magical pulse boils up the shaft and engulfs Rajira while she’s on her way up. She’s turned to stone, which doesn’t make things any easier for the dolphin.

Terzo OoC: Do I need to throw some waterwings in there?

Still, Terzo and Ayva are rather alarmed by the petrification, at least until Ayva determines it will only be temporary - apparently that was a wild magic surge. So all we know is that somebody, probably a witch, was messing around at the bottom of an unexpectedly deep lake, and we have no idea who or why. Civilla has followed the zig-zagging tunnel to another grate, with a room on the other side.

GM: This is clearly a Spellcasters Only route.
Civilla OoC: And this is me. *casts Dimensional Slide again*. Was this really supposed to stop low level characters? One Halfling wizard with Reduce Person would go right through it.
GM: …. Excuse me a moment while I consult the next book of the campaign.

She’s apparently somewhere underneath the Hall of Records. She casts Pass Without Trace and Disguise Self to reduce the chance the Dottari wandering about don’t find her. Disguising herself as that Dottari officer from last night gets her out of the building without too much attention, and she dispatches one of the Silver Raven devices to let us know she’s heading to the Alazario estate. This is a relief to the rest of us, although Rajira has already seen the disguised Civilla on the road.

Terzo: Well, I must say we’re glad to see you alive - when Rajira came back up turned to stone and wrapped around a dolphin, and no sign of you, we were a bit concerned.
Civilla: Turned to stone? What did I miss?

Civilla excuses herself to write some letters to her family, suggesting they buy the Victocora estate and hinting that they should keep the lake as is but not investigate too closely.

Civilla: ‘There’s a secret back entrance to the Hall of Records? That’ll be useful when it reopens’

Civilla: There are currently two cults of Noctiluca - the ones who are wrong and the ones that are right.
Ayva OoC: I can see her followers inquiring about what happened, and when they find out, go ‘wait, she did WHAT to WHO and then WHAT????’.

GM: I just looked up what Night Tea actually is, and it’s nothing about ‘disturbing the balance of the slumbering mind’ - it’s a prophylactic.

Civilla gets a delivery while she’s writing at Laria’s coffeehouse - less a package than a bouquet. Of very beautiful roses, with a slip of paper concealed down among the stems.

Rajira: And there was me thinking I had a rival for your affections.

Perhaps predictably, it’s from the Rose of Kintargo, the Milani cult that is also planning a rebellion against Barzillai Thrune. They warn us not to act rashly, and promise to contact us soon. We recruit a team of street performers, who we call Nobody’s Fools, and put the finishing touches on the former Livery. In fact we’re just getting ready to open up when a small child runs in screaming for help.

Rajira: What’s wrong with the spawnling?
Tiefling Kid: She’s been taken!
Civilla: Who?
Tiefling Kid: Zea! The bad people! They said they're going to put her in a doghouse!

If we’re quick we might be able to intercept them before they reach Aria Park - it’s fortunate that the Livery is practically next door to the ghetto. We all pile into the carriage.

Civilla: Come along child - you get to ride in a carriage!

Unfortunately they get to the park first - the pagoda in the middle of the lily pond in Aria Park has been converted into a kennel for any of the dogs the citizens of Kintargo have been handing in for the reward. It’s also Thrune’s thug's choice of destination for anybody they decide has insulted the throne. Civilla gets her disposable cloak ready - if necessary she’ll swap costumes with Zea so the blackshirts chase the wrong person. She’ll also Summon a Celestial Dog, tell it to play Keep Away over to the east of the pond, and use that to distract the thugs. After all, they’ll certainly try and catch it for the reward, and the mortal mastiffs will probably go mental. Then the rest of us can sneak up and overwhelm the other thugs, under the cover of the borking.

Dottari on far side of pond: Hey, there’s a dog!
Celestial Dog and Mastiffs: Play? Play! Play! Play!
Dottari on our side of the Pond: What the **** is happening over there/
Rajira: *kukris them in the back*

GM: The surviving thugs all need to make Handle Animal checks.
Ayva’s player: I’ve had to walk a Saint Bernard before - these thugs might be going for A Walk.
GM: Aaaand they all failed their check.

One of the thugs invents water-skiing as his mastiff drags him into the pond, and the rest all chase off after the dogs that are supposedly in their charge. Zea can basically stroll off while they’re busy.

GM: … Good work. I basically doubled the number of NPCs that were supposed to be here, too.
Terzo: With only two spells again.
Ayva OoC: If we were playing rogues we wouldn’t even have needed that.
Rajira OoC: If we were all playing rogues we’d have Stealth Synergy and have ghosted through the entire scenario. I rolled a 1 and they STILL didn’t see me.

Ayva: And we’re home in time for curfew.
Rajira: At this rate the Dottari are going to start talking about The Ghosts.

Although trying to squeeze Zea and the kid into the carriage with the rest of us is a bit tricky - fortunately the rest of us are a lot skinnier than Terzo.

Civilla: In this group are one and a half humans.

Zea is suitably grateful for the rescue, and doesn’t know why she was targeted - it may have been a random sweep. Civilla casts Ears of the City to find out. It looks like the Asmodeans came after Zea because she’s trying to hold the ghetto together now their actual leader has gone missing. And Thrune’s troops are making concerted efforts to solve the Tiefling Problem for good.

Rajira: The Asmodeans boink devils like it’s going out of style, then try to eliminate the results.
Civilla: Welcome to Cheliax - they’re wonderfully hypocritical.
Rajira: So the next sweep team that goes into the ghetto doesn’t come back.
Civilla: I’d rather they come back - but without pants.

It doesn’t appear that Thrune actually ordered this - he doesn’t seem to care either way. The blackshirts are acting on their own initiative.

Civilla: Oh, it’s blackshirts doing the sweeps? In that case we go with Rajira’s suggestion - any sweep teams that come in, don’t come out.
Terzo: *hopefully* So we’re going to be keeping them tied up in a basement somewhere?
Rajira: No, we’re going to cut their throats and dump the bodies in a cesspit.
Terzo: …. oh.

Civilla: Perfect! We render them down as soaps and fertilizers for the rich.
Terzo: I’m going to assume you’re joking.
Rajira: No.
Civilla: Have you ever heard me joke about anything alchemical?
Ayva: You should hear the one about the alembic.

Civilla: I don’t think Terzo has quite figured out the situation he’s in. He’s definitely the softest of us.
Ayva: Every ‘smore needs a marshmallow.

Thrune: They might just be Tieflings, but taking a prominent member of their community was going to anger them. At least they left my dogs alone.

There is one possible problem looming - a Tiefling gang, the Red Jills, who would happily escalate the violence beyond any sane limit. So we have to persuade them to limit their mayhem to a level that won’t invite reprisals from Thrune.

Terzo: Oh, I know where they hang out.
Ayva: Terzo knows everyone. Sorry, every pub.

Their current lair is an old temple of Aroden, an immortal human who was the focus of a whole bunch of prophecies, but who then died mysteriously and threw all those prophecies out the window. His temples have closed up shop. So now the building is occupied by the Red Jills, who hate humans, and their leader a winged Strix, one Scarplume, who hates humans even more.

Civilla: Anybody have any ideas how we can use this? It’s sounding suspiciously like we’re walking into a fair fight. I’d rather not fight at all, obviously, but this is sounding more and more like a fair one, and that I do not like.

Civilla: I don’t think these are our kind of people - do we really want to recruit them?
Terzo: Well, the last thing we want is a circular firing squad among the partisans.
Rajira: The Revolution is for everyone.
Civilla: But these Jills are already attacking the general citizenry - we want them to focus on the actual threat.

Civilla: The Strix have a reputation as baby-snatching monsters. And I can say that because I can speak Strix….. I’m going to have to do all the talking, aren’t I.

At least our smuggling contact has done some work for the Red Jills. The Jills might also be desperate for a new fence, too. And the Strix has something in common with the tengu, too - they have wings, at least. We can organise a meet on Red Jill turf without being instantly murdered.

From out Sunday D&D 5e game.
We solve the puzzle and walk through a portal into what appears to the the plane of law.  Around us are Monodrones, a few duodrones, and a couple of tri-drones. They bid us to halt, and because of the helmet, Caira was wearing, she hears, that Until the agreement is set, none shall pass. We hand them a notepad and a pencil. The agreement was that a follower of Bahamut and a follower of Tiamat had to walk through this area together.  Arjahn is a 17th level Paladin of Bahamut, and Caira is a follower, almost a priestess of Bahamut (but took sorceress instead).  The two of them walking in the lead, look at each other and shrug.  Next in line, Kotulich our ranger and Keros,  our Rogue, simultaneously pull out  Tiamat holy symbols that they have kept since the third session of this campaign, when we fought Tiamat cultists in Baldur's gate,  back in their first level. They have been hiding and keeping these for just such an emergency for more than a couple of years real time.  Arjahn and Caira look back at them in shock, and the Monodrones form up into ranks on either side, and the Tri-drones command them to escort us to the second portal, when is activated. Arjahn and Caira are quite wroth, but will not cause a scene until we get home. Keros and Kotulich just smile and march behind The two Bahamut followers. 

From the Pathfinder demo game at GhenghisCon, where I was playing a combination of the Muppet Mad Bommber and a drug dealer - i.e., a Goblin Alchemist. We'd been secretly hired by a dwarf's mother to ensure he didn't get killed while going on an Adventure. 
 
Dwarf: Welcome, welcome, I'm glad to see you all here, answering the Call to Adventure!
Fumbus the Goblin: Pay double or we tell mum what you doing
 
The party trudges off into the swamps of Mwangi, where among other things are Grippli horticulturists, panthers, and giant leechs mutated by the aforementioned Grippli's alchemical fertilzer. But at least we rescued the amphibious fellow, even if his experiments aren't volatile enough for Fumbus' tastes. 
 
Fumbus: pulls out a glass bottle that's glowing orange and vibrating slightly Alchemical Fire.... verrrrry unstable. aHAahahahahahah!!!!! throws it into melee
 
Fumbus: prodding the Grippli in the vest Frogboy owes Fumbus big time 
 
Fumbus: Fruit not explode. Meh. Frogboy SOFT.
 
Fumbus: Fumbus make dinner. holds up the fistful of footlong venomous chilopds he's been collecting as the day progressed Centiiipeeeeedes.
 
The party Monk need a Perception boost. 
 
Fumbus: psst. Come here. holds the monks' wrist out horizontally and taps out a line of white powder Snort this. 
Monk: does so, suspiciously
Fumbus: Mwangian Marching Powder. Good stuff. First dose free.
 
The group's halfling bard attempts to inspire us.
 
Bard: singing, supposedly be corAAaEgous
Monk: What the hell are you singing??
Bard: Attempts to loom intimidatingly  EVeryONES a Criiitiiiiic
 
Fumbus also kills one of the giant mutant leeches with a flask of slow-acting acid. 
 
Fumbus: the leechs screams and thrashes and dies AHAAhahaHAAHAHAAHA. And now dinnertime - leech ceviche!

From the Pathfinder demo game at GhenghisCon, where I was playing a combination of the Muppet Mad Bommber and a drug dealer - i.e., a Goblin Alchemist. We'd been secretly hired by a dwarf's mother to ensure he didn't get killed while going on an Adventure. 
 
Dwarf: Welcome, welcome, I'm glad to see you all here, answering the Call to Adventure!
Fumbus the Goblin: Pay double or we tell mum what you doing
 
The party trudges off into the swamps of Mwangi, where among other things are Grippli horticulturists, panthers, and giant leechs mutated by the aforementioned Grippli's alchemical fertilzer. But at least we rescued the amphibious fellow, even if his experiments aren't volatile enough for Fumbus' tastes. 
 
Fumbus: pulls out a glass bottle that's glowing orange and vibrating slightly Alchemical Fire.... verrrrry unstable. aHAahahahahahah!!!!! throws it into melee
 
Fumbus: prodding the Grippli in the vest Frogboy owes Fumbus big time 
 
Fumbus: Fruit not explode. Meh. Frogboy SOFT.
 
Fumbus: Fumbus make dinner. holds up the fistful of footlong venomous chilopds he's been collecting as the day progressed Centiiipeeeeedes.
 
The party Monk need a Perception boost. 
 
Fumbus: psst. Come here. holds the monks' wrist out horizontally and taps out a line of white powder Snort this. 
Monk: does so, suspiciously
Fumbus: Mwangian Marching Powder. Good stuff. First dose free.
 
The group's halfling bard attempts to inspire us.
 
Bard: singing, supposedly be corAAaEgous
Monk: What the hell are you singing??
Bard: Attempts to loom intimidatingly  EVeryONES a Criiitiiiiic
 
Fumbus also kills one of the giant mutant leeches with a flask of slow-acting acid. 
 
Fumbus: the leechs screams and thrashes and dies AHAAhahaHAAHAHAAHA. And now dinnertime - leech ceviche!

I have had a lot of characters like this.  The secret is to give them enough intelligence, and skills to make a roll or two when not fighting. But I have also underspent on characters just to reduce the number of disadvantages I would have to take. In fact my most favoritest character started at 241 points for a 250 point game.  Thanks again for the write up.
 

That People Magazine cover was inspired. Well done!

Champions : Return To Edge City : Beyond the Valley of the DoLs
Scooter, despite having a huge stack of unspent XP, also has fewer points in Disadvantages than the other PCs.

The Magus OoC: From a certain point of view, Scooter has his life more together than anybody else in the team.
GM: Despite being the bouncer at a titty bar.

Scooter HAS been practicing some useful stuff, such as accurate Leaping, and the Disguise Skill.

The Magus OoC: That’s not Hero Shrew, that’s Normal Shrew!

Hardlight OoC: I’ll call my Skill Level upgrade ‘Slightly Less Incompetent’

GM: Scooter can get a motorised scooter: And join the Vespa Vermin.
Flux: Now there’s a motorcycle gang the city is missing.

We head to the old cemetery, intending to arrest anybody who shows up, especially if they’re VIPER agents. We have a lot of questions about the situation, including ‘If a vampire joins the Daughters of Lilith do they still have to get the fangs implanted?’.

Unfortunately, The Magus (and Scooter to a lesser degree) botch our Stealth checks at the cemetery.

Hero Shrew: Too distracted by all the free supplies available?
The Magus: No. I keep getting flashbacks.

Hero Shrew OoC: I probably should have tunneled under the cemetery and dragged them into the graves from underground.
The Magus OoC: The problem there is all the human remains.
Flux OoC: You’ll bump into something, and burst out of the ground yelling ‘OMG, I just saw Michael Jackson’
Hero Shrew OoC: Ah, so that’s why we failed the Stealth check.

The Magus having a spectacular allergic reaction to holy ground is also a problem. But it’s the way the two Daughters on guard apparently smell Scooter coming that’s the biggest issue - a bit of a surprise when they’re supposed to be basically human. Scooter attempts to get behind them by tunneling underground - and when the Daughters find what looks like a freshly emptied grave, they panic and flee for the cemetery exits. Scooter had made a successful Presence attack, by accident. Unfortunately it looks like they made a call to their boss about the unexpected zombie situation, and the meeting we were there to crash is promptly cancelled.

Flux gets to work investigating the VIPER agent’s online presence - on top of everything else, she makes an annual trip to Wisconsin.

Hero Shrew: Undersconsin!
Flux: No. We don’t want to die.

We locate and stake-out their next meeting, in a children’s playground. Happily there aren’t any kids around at this hour - that could get messy.

Flux: Honestly if there were a bunch of kids hanging around the playground at midnight I’d be more freaked out than I am with all the vampires.

We also learn that the Spinnerette network the Daughters of Lilith answer to is a bit upset by the gang’s initiative, and they’ve sent some rollerskaters that go by the moniker of The Cherry Bombs to remonstrate. There’s also a news blimp perfectly positioned to film whatever happens next.

The Magus calls up an illusion of thick fog, and the other leap into action to protect the Daughters from likely assassination. And hopefully nab that VIPER rep. The Daughters DO go down suspiciously easy when the Magus follows up with a STUN attack to stop them running away under their own steam. And then the power-armoured SWAT team show up.

GM: It’s something you need to know when dealing with this kind of security - if they don’t recognise you and you seem to be involved in whatever is going on, you’re going down to the station in cuffs. It’s called Securing The Scene.

The Magus: Their deployment vehicle is currently stuck on one of the access paths because nobody gave him the key to this bollard.

Whatever happens, it looks like we’ll need to deal with the Spinnerette Network once and for all.

The Magus: They ARE getting a little too murdery.

Happily, hitting the keyboards turns up some interesting information - such as the suspicious way the Spinnerets seem to get out of police trouble a lot faster than anybody else. It seems to be a systemic issue too - if it’s a conspiracy the entire ECPD would have to be involved. Something appears to be moving electronic records around without leaving a trace.

The Magus: Cyberpathy - or Flux is moonlighting.

Since the only thing that can protect against a cyberpath is another cyberpath, it’s probably a problem that the ECPD doesn’t have any technomancers on the payroll.

The Magus: I did find traces of another technomancer working in Edge City.
Flux: .. what?
GM: That might be the first time you’ve actually told Flux that.
The Magus: I think I mentioned in passing as part of a larger infodump. Pretty sure I added a note to the blackboard back at our base.

It is interesting to note that the Spinnerets keep their prostituion income stream entirely separate from their infobrokering.

GM: You pay for discretion.
Fireflash: What happens in Edge City stays in Edge City.

Hardlight, investigating the actual information hardware, finds some peculiar residue on the nodes.

Hardlight: .. I have no idea what this is.
Hero Shrew: Special computer grease to make the electrons go faster?

Hardlight uses his sensory suite to look at the stuff at a microscopic level - weirdly, it seems to have the same texture all the way down. Flux pokes the stuff in the base lab, but it’s not until he tests its occult properties that he gets any results.

Flux: Son of a B****.

It’s ectoplasm.

Flux: Just a minute, I need to go grab a toaster.
Hardlight: And play some music?

Apparently it’s some kind of astral residue. But not magical. Our more mystically inclined members eventually determine that somebody is making small astral portals to run their connections through. And the connections are very… spidery. As is the guardian spirit they left on duty.

The Magus: Huh. So that’s a thing.

They REALLY shouldn’t be hanging out this close to the material plane. We really need to shut the Spinnerets and their subsidiary gangs down. While rounding up their street level members might be doable, actually finding laws to arrest the leaders under might be trickier, assuming we can even get through their layers of sacrificial mooks. Perhaps we should target their unlicensed drinking establishments, preferably when they have lots of customers to scare off. Time for a montage - with lots of press coverage and all due credit to the ECPD Anti-gang Unit (their Internal Affairs and Cybercrime units are busy enough trying to figure out what the Spinnerets have done to their computer system)

Flux: With any luck there’ll be underage drinking - then we can really nail them to the wall.

It probably helps that Scooter already knew where all the illegal dives were, although he had never done anything about them. Just as well he doesn’t work at the Collar Club anymore, or retaliation would seem likely.

Despite actually catching one of the Daughters of Lilith leaders at one of the raids, they somehow escaped without anybody seeing how. Still, each lesser arrest we make provides a point to magically track back to their leadership. So it’s rather unfortunate that when we do, Cassiana and her lieutenants are lying in a pool of blood, and are covered in spiders. And the cloud swirling around the room is more spiders.

Hardlight: Magus. Please teleport me out again, Right now.
The Magus: Oh please, there’s no way they can get through your shield.
Hardlight: I’m still turning the armour way up!

Fireflash blasts the room, to kill as many of the spiders as she can, and calls an ambulance for the Daughters of Lilith, and the Port Authority Biohazard team to deal with any remaining spiders.

Fireflash: We do NOT want Brazilian Wandering Spiders spreading into California!

It’s a bit odd that Cassiana had the accoutrements of a vampire hunter when we found her - was she expecting competition? And sniffing around (literally in Scooter's case) what at first appears to be a dosshouse is actually a bolthole. We’ll probably have to wait for Cassiana to wake up to find out what she was actually up to - unless her real name Theodosia Lathrum is relevant. There was certainly a lineage of vampire hunters going by that moniker.

Fireflash: The historical Theodosia was co-emperor of Byzantium with Justinian the First.
Hero Shrew: Wife and daughter of Aaron Burr, too.
Hardlight: What?
Hero Shrew: Hey, I listen to music, ok?
Hardlight: Aaron Burr’s wife was a vampire hunter?

But what’s with all the spiders?

The Magus: The only thing that can save us now is Bee-man’s edgier cousin, Tarantula Hawk Man.

GM: F*** me, I still haven’t come up with a name for these things. Because I’m not calling them Tarantuloids.
Hero Shrew’s player: Pseudotarantuloids.
GM: They’re native to the astral plane
Hero Shrew’s player: Tarantulpas.
GM: And they’re not earth spiders because they have ten limbs.
Flux’s player: Gegenees.
GM: But those mythical six-armed giants are already in Champions.
Flux’s player: They are? Ah well - it’s about 50-50 odds with anything mythological and Champions.
Hero Shrew player: Ungolians.

According to some incredibly pretentious Victorian era occult tomes, these things are apparently scavengers that usually reside in the lower astral levels. That might explain why they seem to be sealing up the breaches in the astral veil.

The Magus: Shall we follow these cables back to their origin point?
Hero Shrew: I’m willing - just shove me through one of these holes and we’ll see what happens.
The Magus: You’re too big.
Hardlight: And probably too physical.

GM: I question the wisdom of implanting an alien energy source in your neck.
Hardlight: I keep telling you, I didn’t do it to myself! I fell down a well and woke up with it inside me!
The Magus: I heard the same story in the Emergency Department last week.
GM: Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, The doctor at the emergency department said “Jack did WHAT with a candlestick?”

The Magus can teleport us all to the Astral, which is half-full of webbing, but if anything happens to him we’re screwed. And we’re probably doomed anyway thanks to Hardlight’s Weirdness Magnet, which apparently rates as ‘Greatly Impairing’

The Magus: So, is everybody ready to fight spider people?
Hero Shrew: I am! Does that book say whether they’re edible?
The Magus: They’re Camel-spider people.
Flux: THAT MAKES IT WORSE
The Magus: I did say that unless we can find Tarantula Hawk-man we have to handle this ourselves.
Hardlight: I’m half expecting Scooter to show up in a costume with a burning can of insecticide as a logo.
Hero Shrew: That’s a good idea actually - any aerosol cans and cigarette lighters handy?
GM: … OK, sure.
Hardlight: It IS a very Scooter Solution.

The Tarantuloids (apparently called Uttu) immediately draw weapons and advance when we transition over. And we haven’t even messed with their stuff yet.

Hardlight’s Player: I try to find some spider-themed assets for Tabletop Simulator and the first thing I find is a Femboy Spider Token.
GM: Welcome to the Internet where Everything Is Awful.

The Magus: Well, I’d better try and negotiate before anybody gets set on fire… Hail, fellow sentients! What are you doing so close to the material planes?
Uttu: We Guard! You Leave!
Flux: Is it OK if we leave that way? *pointing to the direction the cable is heading*
The Magus: And who are you guarding it for?
Uttu: She!
Hardlight: Well, at least we know their assumed gender. Uh, She who?
Uttu: SHE!
Fireflash: She Who Must Not Be Named?
Flux: We seem to be having some translation difficulties…
GM: With apologies to H. Rider Haggard.
Uttu: We follow SHE! SHE provides!
Flux: Can talk to her? Uh, She?
Uttu: SHE talks to who She wishes!

The Magus intimidates them enough to at least send a message.

Hero Shrew: Does She sell seashells?
Hardlight: I’m half-expecting She to be short for Shelob.
Uttu: *in slow English* She. Says. She Will Send. Emmi-sary. Asks. Who You?
The Magus: The Magus.
Uttu: She. Says. Crap.

At least we get an address - in the middle of Spinnerets territory.

Hardlight: I pull out my freeweb device. Wait, no signal.
GM: Actually you do have a signal. What???
Flux: Ok Mr Tech Genius, before we leave, find out what the hell that’s connecting to.

The Spinnerets emissary has a fancy sword and crucifix earrings

Hero Shrew: I wonder if the earrings are significant.
GM: Probably - the powered in the Champions universe are generally pretty careful with the symbols of Higher Powers.
Hardlight: Well, I’m going to shut up and not say anything - foot-in-mouth and all. So go on you two, get talking.

The Emissary is pretty confident that the holes in the astral veil aren’t a problem, because they have a way to stabilise them. The Magus points out that that does nothing about the way the Spinnerets are rewriting police records at will. The Emissary makes an offer on She’s behalf - if we let them withdraw the connections in question (they’re not much use to She now we know about them) the Spinnerets will extend us a line of credit.

Hardlight: This is one of those moral quandaries, isn’t it.

The Magus calls the rest of us over to join the conversation.

Hero Shrew: Cool sword.
The Emissary: Thankyou.
Flux: So, Magus, I see you’re not dead.
The Magus: Did you expect me to be?
Flux: *waggles hand* eh.

The Emissary: I speak for She. I listen and She hears.
The Magus: And She occasionally swears to the Uttu.

Hardlight: I’m guessing this line of credit isn’t monetary.
The Emissary: Of course not.
Flux: My apologies, he doesn’t understand metaphors.
Hardlight OoC: No I don't understand metaphors, that’s the whole POINT of my character!

So, if we choose to ignore the murder and attempted murder of the Daughters of Lilith, or at least put it down to internal gang politics, we can at least stop the Spinnerets from messing with the ECPD data systems, and can get some favours from She in future.

The Magus: Admittedly it’s a lot harder to pin the murders on them.

The Emissary: Do we have any other business?
Hero Shrew: Are there any giant edible bugs in the Astral Plane?
Hardlight: What????
The Emissary: I don’t know.

The Magus recognises the Emissary’s weapon too - the Sword of God’s Word, that Separates Truth From Lie.

GM: I need a word, not antediluvian, that’s specifically The Flood, but basically prehuman..
Hero Shrew: Pre-Adamite.
GM: The sword is Pre-Adamite.
Hardlight: Freaky.
GM: Says the person who’s bonded to a pre-Adamite artefact.

Hero Shrew: I’d like to know which supervillains they’ve been cleaning up records for.
The Emissary: That’s confidential.
Hero Shrew: What’s the deal with Undersconsin?
Hardlight: SCOOTER
The Emissary: ...She has no information on Undersconsin.

GM: This is all worth 7 XP and two favours from the Spinnerets.
The Magus: For not burning the house down.

GM: I hope you didn’t find that too frustrating?
Hardlight OoC: No, not fighting is just as good as fighting, most of the time.
Hero Shrew OoC: Hey! Fighting is the only thing I’m good at!
GM: No it isn’t! Half the time you’re the only person who figures out what’s actually happening, because you work at street level.
Hero Shrew OoC: Eh, tell me that, I’m having increasing questions about my self worth lately.
Flux: Don’t worry, we’ll get you a cave so you can spend a few weeks brooding with the bats and getting horribly damp and s*** on. I mean seriously, that’s a terrible place for a base. And he goes and fills it with computers.
Hardlight: The first thing he installed was good HVAC.

Champions : Return To Edge City : Beyond the Valley of the DoLs
Scooter, despite having a huge stack of unspent XP, also has fewer points in Disadvantages than the other PCs.

The Magus OoC: From a certain point of view, Scooter has his life more together than anybody else in the team.
GM: Despite being the bouncer at a titty bar.

Scooter HAS been practicing some useful stuff, such as accurate Leaping, and the Disguise Skill.

The Magus OoC: That’s not Hero Shrew, that’s Normal Shrew!

Hardlight OoC: I’ll call my Skill Level upgrade ‘Slightly Less Incompetent’

GM: Scooter can get a motorised scooter: And join the Vespa Vermin.
Flux: Now there’s a motorcycle gang the city is missing.

We head to the old cemetery, intending to arrest anybody who shows up, especially if they’re VIPER agents. We have a lot of questions about the situation, including ‘If a vampire joins the Daughters of Lilith do they still have to get the fangs implanted?’.

Unfortunately, The Magus (and Scooter to a lesser degree) botch our Stealth checks at the cemetery.

Hero Shrew: Too distracted by all the free supplies available?
The Magus: No. I keep getting flashbacks.

Hero Shrew OoC: I probably should have tunneled under the cemetery and dragged them into the graves from underground.
The Magus OoC: The problem there is all the human remains.
Flux OoC: You’ll bump into something, and burst out of the ground yelling ‘OMG, I just saw Michael Jackson’
Hero Shrew OoC: Ah, so that’s why we failed the Stealth check.

The Magus having a spectacular allergic reaction to holy ground is also a problem. But it’s the way the two Daughters on guard apparently smell Scooter coming that’s the biggest issue - a bit of a surprise when they’re supposed to be basically human. Scooter attempts to get behind them by tunneling underground - and when the Daughters find what looks like a freshly emptied grave, they panic and flee for the cemetery exits. Scooter had made a successful Presence attack, by accident. Unfortunately it looks like they made a call to their boss about the unexpected zombie situation, and the meeting we were there to crash is promptly cancelled.

Flux gets to work investigating the VIPER agent’s online presence - on top of everything else, she makes an annual trip to Wisconsin.

Hero Shrew: Undersconsin!
Flux: No. We don’t want to die.

We locate and stake-out their next meeting, in a children’s playground. Happily there aren’t any kids around at this hour - that could get messy.

Flux: Honestly if there were a bunch of kids hanging around the playground at midnight I’d be more freaked out than I am with all the vampires.

We also learn that the Spinnerette network the Daughters of Lilith answer to is a bit upset by the gang’s initiative, and they’ve sent some rollerskaters that go by the moniker of The Cherry Bombs to remonstrate. There’s also a news blimp perfectly positioned to film whatever happens next.

The Magus calls up an illusion of thick fog, and the other leap into action to protect the Daughters from likely assassination. And hopefully nab that VIPER rep. The Daughters DO go down suspiciously easy when the Magus follows up with a STUN attack to stop them running away under their own steam. And then the power-armoured SWAT team show up.

GM: It’s something you need to know when dealing with this kind of security - if they don’t recognise you and you seem to be involved in whatever is going on, you’re going down to the station in cuffs. It’s called Securing The Scene.

The Magus: Their deployment vehicle is currently stuck on one of the access paths because nobody gave him the key to this bollard.

Whatever happens, it looks like we’ll need to deal with the Spinnerette Network once and for all.

The Magus: They ARE getting a little too murdery.

Happily, hitting the keyboards turns up some interesting information - such as the suspicious way the Spinnerets seem to get out of police trouble a lot faster than anybody else. It seems to be a systemic issue too - if it’s a conspiracy the entire ECPD would have to be involved. Something appears to be moving electronic records around without leaving a trace.

The Magus: Cyberpathy - or Flux is moonlighting.

Since the only thing that can protect against a cyberpath is another cyberpath, it’s probably a problem that the ECPD doesn’t have any technomancers on the payroll.

The Magus: I did find traces of another technomancer working in Edge City.
Flux: .. what?
GM: That might be the first time you’ve actually told Flux that.
The Magus: I think I mentioned in passing as part of a larger infodump. Pretty sure I added a note to the blackboard back at our base.

It is interesting to note that the Spinnerets keep their prostituion income stream entirely separate from their infobrokering.

GM: You pay for discretion.
Fireflash: What happens in Edge City stays in Edge City.

Hardlight, investigating the actual information hardware, finds some peculiar residue on the nodes.

Hardlight: .. I have no idea what this is.
Hero Shrew: Special computer grease to make the electrons go faster?

Hardlight uses his sensory suite to look at the stuff at a microscopic level - weirdly, it seems to have the same texture all the way down. Flux pokes the stuff in the base lab, but it’s not until he tests its occult properties that he gets any results.

Flux: Son of a B****.

It’s ectoplasm.

Flux: Just a minute, I need to go grab a toaster.
Hardlight: And play some music?

Apparently it’s some kind of astral residue. But not magical. Our more mystically inclined members eventually determine that somebody is making small astral portals to run their connections through. And the connections are very… spidery. As is the guardian spirit they left on duty.

The Magus: Huh. So that’s a thing.

They REALLY shouldn’t be hanging out this close to the material plane. We really need to shut the Spinnerets and their subsidiary gangs down. While rounding up their street level members might be doable, actually finding laws to arrest the leaders under might be trickier, assuming we can even get through their layers of sacrificial mooks. Perhaps we should target their unlicensed drinking establishments, preferably when they have lots of customers to scare off. Time for a montage - with lots of press coverage and all due credit to the ECPD Anti-gang Unit (their Internal Affairs and Cybercrime units are busy enough trying to figure out what the Spinnerets have done to their computer system)

Flux: With any luck there’ll be underage drinking - then we can really nail them to the wall.

It probably helps that Scooter already knew where all the illegal dives were, although he had never done anything about them. Just as well he doesn’t work at the Collar Club anymore, or retaliation would seem likely.

Despite actually catching one of the Daughters of Lilith leaders at one of the raids, they somehow escaped without anybody seeing how. Still, each lesser arrest we make provides a point to magically track back to their leadership. So it’s rather unfortunate that when we do, Cassiana and her lieutenants are lying in a pool of blood, and are covered in spiders. And the cloud swirling around the room is more spiders.

Hardlight: Magus. Please teleport me out again, Right now.
The Magus: Oh please, there’s no way they can get through your shield.
Hardlight: I’m still turning the armour way up!

Fireflash blasts the room, to kill as many of the spiders as she can, and calls an ambulance for the Daughters of Lilith, and the Port Authority Biohazard team to deal with any remaining spiders.

Fireflash: We do NOT want Brazilian Wandering Spiders spreading into California!

It’s a bit odd that Cassiana had the accoutrements of a vampire hunter when we found her - was she expecting competition? And sniffing around (literally in Scooter's case) what at first appears to be a dosshouse is actually a bolthole. We’ll probably have to wait for Cassiana to wake up to find out what she was actually up to - unless her real name Theodosia Lathrum is relevant. There was certainly a lineage of vampire hunters going by that moniker.

Fireflash: The historical Theodosia was co-emperor of Byzantium with Justinian the First.
Hero Shrew: Wife and daughter of Aaron Burr, too.
Hardlight: What?
Hero Shrew: Hey, I listen to music, ok?
Hardlight: Aaron Burr’s wife was a vampire hunter?

But what’s with all the spiders?

The Magus: The only thing that can save us now is Bee-man’s edgier cousin, Tarantula Hawk Man.

GM: F*** me, I still haven’t come up with a name for these things. Because I’m not calling them Tarantuloids.
Hero Shrew’s player: Pseudotarantuloids.
GM: They’re native to the astral plane
Hero Shrew’s player: Tarantulpas.
GM: And they’re not earth spiders because they have ten limbs.
Flux’s player: Gegenees.
GM: But those mythical six-armed giants are already in Champions.
Flux’s player: They are? Ah well - it’s about 50-50 odds with anything mythological and Champions.
Hero Shrew player: Ungolians.

According to some incredibly pretentious Victorian era occult tomes, these things are apparently scavengers that usually reside in the lower astral levels. That might explain why they seem to be sealing up the breaches in the astral veil.

The Magus: Shall we follow these cables back to their origin point?
Hero Shrew: I’m willing - just shove me through one of these holes and we’ll see what happens.
The Magus: You’re too big.
Hardlight: And probably too physical.

GM: I question the wisdom of implanting an alien energy source in your neck.
Hardlight: I keep telling you, I didn’t do it to myself! I fell down a well and woke up with it inside me!
The Magus: I heard the same story in the Emergency Department last week.
GM: Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, The doctor at the emergency department said “Jack did WHAT with a candlestick?”

The Magus can teleport us all to the Astral, which is half-full of webbing, but if anything happens to him we’re screwed. And we’re probably doomed anyway thanks to Hardlight’s Weirdness Magnet, which apparently rates as ‘Greatly Impairing’

The Magus: So, is everybody ready to fight spider people?
Hero Shrew: I am! Does that book say whether they’re edible?
The Magus: They’re Camel-spider people.
Flux: THAT MAKES IT WORSE
The Magus: I did say that unless we can find Tarantula Hawk-man we have to handle this ourselves.
Hardlight: I’m half expecting Scooter to show up in a costume with a burning can of insecticide as a logo.
Hero Shrew: That’s a good idea actually - any aerosol cans and cigarette lighters handy?
GM: … OK, sure.
Hardlight: It IS a very Scooter Solution.

The Tarantuloids (apparently called Uttu) immediately draw weapons and advance when we transition over. And we haven’t even messed with their stuff yet.

Hardlight’s Player: I try to find some spider-themed assets for Tabletop Simulator and the first thing I find is a Femboy Spider Token.
GM: Welcome to the Internet where Everything Is Awful.

The Magus: Well, I’d better try and negotiate before anybody gets set on fire… Hail, fellow sentients! What are you doing so close to the material planes?
Uttu: We Guard! You Leave!
Flux: Is it OK if we leave that way? *pointing to the direction the cable is heading*
The Magus: And who are you guarding it for?
Uttu: She!
Hardlight: Well, at least we know their assumed gender. Uh, She who?
Uttu: SHE!
Fireflash: She Who Must Not Be Named?
Flux: We seem to be having some translation difficulties…
GM: With apologies to H. Rider Haggard.
Uttu: We follow SHE! SHE provides!
Flux: Can talk to her? Uh, She?
Uttu: SHE talks to who She wishes!

The Magus intimidates them enough to at least send a message.

Hero Shrew: Does She sell seashells?
Hardlight: I’m half-expecting She to be short for Shelob.
Uttu: *in slow English* She. Says. She Will Send. Emmi-sary. Asks. Who You?
The Magus: The Magus.
Uttu: She. Says. Crap.

At least we get an address - in the middle of Spinnerets territory.

Hardlight: I pull out my freeweb device. Wait, no signal.
GM: Actually you do have a signal. What???
Flux: Ok Mr Tech Genius, before we leave, find out what the hell that’s connecting to.

The Spinnerets emissary has a fancy sword and crucifix earrings

Hero Shrew: I wonder if the earrings are significant.
GM: Probably - the powered in the Champions universe are generally pretty careful with the symbols of Higher Powers.
Hardlight: Well, I’m going to shut up and not say anything - foot-in-mouth and all. So go on you two, get talking.

The Emissary is pretty confident that the holes in the astral veil aren’t a problem, because they have a way to stabilise them. The Magus points out that that does nothing about the way the Spinnerets are rewriting police records at will. The Emissary makes an offer on She’s behalf - if we let them withdraw the connections in question (they’re not much use to She now we know about them) the Spinnerets will extend us a line of credit.

Hardlight: This is one of those moral quandaries, isn’t it.

The Magus calls the rest of us over to join the conversation.

Hero Shrew: Cool sword.
The Emissary: Thankyou.
Flux: So, Magus, I see you’re not dead.
The Magus: Did you expect me to be?
Flux: *waggles hand* eh.

The Emissary: I speak for She. I listen and She hears.
The Magus: And She occasionally swears to the Uttu.

Hardlight: I’m guessing this line of credit isn’t monetary.
The Emissary: Of course not.
Flux: My apologies, he doesn’t understand metaphors.
Hardlight OoC: No I don't understand metaphors, that’s the whole POINT of my character!

So, if we choose to ignore the murder and attempted murder of the Daughters of Lilith, or at least put it down to internal gang politics, we can at least stop the Spinnerets from messing with the ECPD data systems, and can get some favours from She in future.

The Magus: Admittedly it’s a lot harder to pin the murders on them.

The Emissary: Do we have any other business?
Hero Shrew: Are there any giant edible bugs in the Astral Plane?
Hardlight: What????
The Emissary: I don’t know.

The Magus recognises the Emissary’s weapon too - the Sword of God’s Word, that Separates Truth From Lie.

GM: I need a word, not antediluvian, that’s specifically The Flood, but basically prehuman..
Hero Shrew: Pre-Adamite.
GM: The sword is Pre-Adamite.
Hardlight: Freaky.
GM: Says the person who’s bonded to a pre-Adamite artefact.

Hero Shrew: I’d like to know which supervillains they’ve been cleaning up records for.
The Emissary: That’s confidential.
Hero Shrew: What’s the deal with Undersconsin?
Hardlight: SCOOTER
The Emissary: ...She has no information on Undersconsin.

GM: This is all worth 7 XP and two favours from the Spinnerets.
The Magus: For not burning the house down.

GM: I hope you didn’t find that too frustrating?
Hardlight OoC: No, not fighting is just as good as fighting, most of the time.
Hero Shrew OoC: Hey! Fighting is the only thing I’m good at!
GM: No it isn’t! Half the time you’re the only person who figures out what’s actually happening, because you work at street level.
Hero Shrew OoC: Eh, tell me that, I’m having increasing questions about my self worth lately.
Flux: Don’t worry, we’ll get you a cave so you can spend a few weeks brooding with the bats and getting horribly damp and s*** on. I mean seriously, that’s a terrible place for a base. And he goes and fills it with computers.
Hardlight: The first thing he installed was good HVAC.

I assume the Lengians are called Astral-ians...?

The activity on this particular thread of late jogged a memory loose.
 
I believe I mentioned "Kevin" before-- a very shy player who really _wanted_ to play, but just couldn't let go of his inhibitions completely enough to do the acting parts.  (Yes; of course we gave him a pass: he was having as much fun as he could allow himself, and it didn't really detract from our fun, so what's the harm? ).
 
At this point in time, I genuinely do not remember the name of his Batman-clone, but it's not important: we will just call him Batman. 
 
At one point, when the team really needs access to some high tech computing power (this was the 80s; bear with me), Kevin takes it upon himself to volunteer to take the data to "a good friend who works with high-tech and computers all the time."
 
Really?  Do we know him?
 
No; I don't think so.   [OOC, looking at me]  Do they know him?
 
me: Not if you don't want them to; no.  You have control of that, given who he is.
 
Others: Who is he?  What's his name?
 
Kevin: "Bruce Wayne."
 
Others: Where does he work?
Kevin:  Uhhmm...  Totally Not Batman Industries......?
 
 

 
 

Champions : Return To Edge City : Beyond the Valley of the DoLs
Scooter, despite having a huge stack of unspent XP, also has fewer points in Disadvantages than the other PCs.

The Magus OoC: From a certain point of view, Scooter has his life more together than anybody else in the team.
GM: Despite being the bouncer at a titty bar.

Scooter HAS been practicing some useful stuff, such as accurate Leaping, and the Disguise Skill.

The Magus OoC: That’s not Hero Shrew, that’s Normal Shrew!

Hardlight OoC: I’ll call my Skill Level upgrade ‘Slightly Less Incompetent’

GM: Scooter can get a motorised scooter: And join the Vespa Vermin.
Flux: Now there’s a motorcycle gang the city is missing.

We head to the old cemetery, intending to arrest anybody who shows up, especially if they’re VIPER agents. We have a lot of questions about the situation, including ‘If a vampire joins the Daughters of Lilith do they still have to get the fangs implanted?’.

Unfortunately, The Magus (and Scooter to a lesser degree) botch our Stealth checks at the cemetery.

Hero Shrew: Too distracted by all the free supplies available?
The Magus: No. I keep getting flashbacks.

Hero Shrew OoC: I probably should have tunneled under the cemetery and dragged them into the graves from underground.
The Magus OoC: The problem there is all the human remains.
Flux OoC: You’ll bump into something, and burst out of the ground yelling ‘OMG, I just saw Michael Jackson’
Hero Shrew OoC: Ah, so that’s why we failed the Stealth check.

The Magus having a spectacular allergic reaction to holy ground is also a problem. But it’s the way the two Daughters on guard apparently smell Scooter coming that’s the biggest issue - a bit of a surprise when they’re supposed to be basically human. Scooter attempts to get behind them by tunneling underground - and when the Daughters find what looks like a freshly emptied grave, they panic and flee for the cemetery exits. Scooter had made a successful Presence attack, by accident. Unfortunately it looks like they made a call to their boss about the unexpected zombie situation, and the meeting we were there to crash is promptly cancelled.

Flux gets to work investigating the VIPER agent’s online presence - on top of everything else, she makes an annual trip to Wisconsin.

Hero Shrew: Undersconsin!
Flux: No. We don’t want to die.

We locate and stake-out their next meeting, in a children’s playground. Happily there aren’t any kids around at this hour - that could get messy.

Flux: Honestly if there were a bunch of kids hanging around the playground at midnight I’d be more freaked out than I am with all the vampires.

We also learn that the Spinnerette network the Daughters of Lilith answer to is a bit upset by the gang’s initiative, and they’ve sent some rollerskaters that go by the moniker of The Cherry Bombs to remonstrate. There’s also a news blimp perfectly positioned to film whatever happens next.

The Magus calls up an illusion of thick fog, and the other leap into action to protect the Daughters from likely assassination. And hopefully nab that VIPER rep. The Daughters DO go down suspiciously easy when the Magus follows up with a STUN attack to stop them running away under their own steam. And then the power-armoured SWAT team show up.

GM: It’s something you need to know when dealing with this kind of security - if they don’t recognise you and you seem to be involved in whatever is going on, you’re going down to the station in cuffs. It’s called Securing The Scene.

The Magus: Their deployment vehicle is currently stuck on one of the access paths because nobody gave him the key to this bollard.

Whatever happens, it looks like we’ll need to deal with the Spinnerette Network once and for all.

The Magus: They ARE getting a little too murdery.

Happily, hitting the keyboards turns up some interesting information - such as the suspicious way the Spinnerets seem to get out of police trouble a lot faster than anybody else. It seems to be a systemic issue too - if it’s a conspiracy the entire ECPD would have to be involved. Something appears to be moving electronic records around without leaving a trace.

The Magus: Cyberpathy - or Flux is moonlighting.

Since the only thing that can protect against a cyberpath is another cyberpath, it’s probably a problem that the ECPD doesn’t have any technomancers on the payroll.

The Magus: I did find traces of another technomancer working in Edge City.
Flux: .. what?
GM: That might be the first time you’ve actually told Flux that.
The Magus: I think I mentioned in passing as part of a larger infodump. Pretty sure I added a note to the blackboard back at our base.

It is interesting to note that the Spinnerets keep their prostituion income stream entirely separate from their infobrokering.

GM: You pay for discretion.
Fireflash: What happens in Edge City stays in Edge City.

Hardlight, investigating the actual information hardware, finds some peculiar residue on the nodes.

Hardlight: .. I have no idea what this is.
Hero Shrew: Special computer grease to make the electrons go faster?

Hardlight uses his sensory suite to look at the stuff at a microscopic level - weirdly, it seems to have the same texture all the way down. Flux pokes the stuff in the base lab, but it’s not until he tests its occult properties that he gets any results.

Flux: Son of a B****.

It’s ectoplasm.

Flux: Just a minute, I need to go grab a toaster.
Hardlight: And play some music?

Apparently it’s some kind of astral residue. But not magical. Our more mystically inclined members eventually determine that somebody is making small astral portals to run their connections through. And the connections are very… spidery. As is the guardian spirit they left on duty.

The Magus: Huh. So that’s a thing.

They REALLY shouldn’t be hanging out this close to the material plane. We really need to shut the Spinnerets and their subsidiary gangs down. While rounding up their street level members might be doable, actually finding laws to arrest the leaders under might be trickier, assuming we can even get through their layers of sacrificial mooks. Perhaps we should target their unlicensed drinking establishments, preferably when they have lots of customers to scare off. Time for a montage - with lots of press coverage and all due credit to the ECPD Anti-gang Unit (their Internal Affairs and Cybercrime units are busy enough trying to figure out what the Spinnerets have done to their computer system)

Flux: With any luck there’ll be underage drinking - then we can really nail them to the wall.

It probably helps that Scooter already knew where all the illegal dives were, although he had never done anything about them. Just as well he doesn’t work at the Collar Club anymore, or retaliation would seem likely.

Despite actually catching one of the Daughters of Lilith leaders at one of the raids, they somehow escaped without anybody seeing how. Still, each lesser arrest we make provides a point to magically track back to their leadership. So it’s rather unfortunate that when we do, Cassiana and her lieutenants are lying in a pool of blood, and are covered in spiders. And the cloud swirling around the room is more spiders.

Hardlight: Magus. Please teleport me out again, Right now.
The Magus: Oh please, there’s no way they can get through your shield.
Hardlight: I’m still turning the armour way up!

Fireflash blasts the room, to kill as many of the spiders as she can, and calls an ambulance for the Daughters of Lilith, and the Port Authority Biohazard team to deal with any remaining spiders.

Fireflash: We do NOT want Brazilian Wandering Spiders spreading into California!

It’s a bit odd that Cassiana had the accoutrements of a vampire hunter when we found her - was she expecting competition? And sniffing around (literally in Scooter's case) what at first appears to be a dosshouse is actually a bolthole. We’ll probably have to wait for Cassiana to wake up to find out what she was actually up to - unless her real name Theodosia Lathrum is relevant. There was certainly a lineage of vampire hunters going by that moniker.

Fireflash: The historical Theodosia was co-emperor of Byzantium with Justinian the First.
Hero Shrew: Wife and daughter of Aaron Burr, too.
Hardlight: What?
Hero Shrew: Hey, I listen to music, ok?
Hardlight: Aaron Burr’s wife was a vampire hunter?

But what’s with all the spiders?

The Magus: The only thing that can save us now is Bee-man’s edgier cousin, Tarantula Hawk Man.

GM: F*** me, I still haven’t come up with a name for these things. Because I’m not calling them Tarantuloids.
Hero Shrew’s player: Pseudotarantuloids.
GM: They’re native to the astral plane
Hero Shrew’s player: Tarantulpas.
GM: And they’re not earth spiders because they have ten limbs.
Flux’s player: Gegenees.
GM: But those mythical six-armed giants are already in Champions.
Flux’s player: They are? Ah well - it’s about 50-50 odds with anything mythological and Champions.
Hero Shrew player: Ungolians.

According to some incredibly pretentious Victorian era occult tomes, these things are apparently scavengers that usually reside in the lower astral levels. That might explain why they seem to be sealing up the breaches in the astral veil.

The Magus: Shall we follow these cables back to their origin point?
Hero Shrew: I’m willing - just shove me through one of these holes and we’ll see what happens.
The Magus: You’re too big.
Hardlight: And probably too physical.

GM: I question the wisdom of implanting an alien energy source in your neck.
Hardlight: I keep telling you, I didn’t do it to myself! I fell down a well and woke up with it inside me!
The Magus: I heard the same story in the Emergency Department last week.
GM: Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, The doctor at the emergency department said “Jack did WHAT with a candlestick?”

The Magus can teleport us all to the Astral, which is half-full of webbing, but if anything happens to him we’re screwed. And we’re probably doomed anyway thanks to Hardlight’s Weirdness Magnet, which apparently rates as ‘Greatly Impairing’

The Magus: So, is everybody ready to fight spider people?
Hero Shrew: I am! Does that book say whether they’re edible?
The Magus: They’re Camel-spider people.
Flux: THAT MAKES IT WORSE
The Magus: I did say that unless we can find Tarantula Hawk-man we have to handle this ourselves.
Hardlight: I’m half expecting Scooter to show up in a costume with a burning can of insecticide as a logo.
Hero Shrew: That’s a good idea actually - any aerosol cans and cigarette lighters handy?
GM: … OK, sure.
Hardlight: It IS a very Scooter Solution.

The Tarantuloids (apparently called Uttu) immediately draw weapons and advance when we transition over. And we haven’t even messed with their stuff yet.

Hardlight’s Player: I try to find some spider-themed assets for Tabletop Simulator and the first thing I find is a Femboy Spider Token.
GM: Welcome to the Internet where Everything Is Awful.

The Magus: Well, I’d better try and negotiate before anybody gets set on fire… Hail, fellow sentients! What are you doing so close to the material planes?
Uttu: We Guard! You Leave!
Flux: Is it OK if we leave that way? *pointing to the direction the cable is heading*
The Magus: And who are you guarding it for?
Uttu: She!
Hardlight: Well, at least we know their assumed gender. Uh, She who?
Uttu: SHE!
Fireflash: She Who Must Not Be Named?
Flux: We seem to be having some translation difficulties…
GM: With apologies to H. Rider Haggard.
Uttu: We follow SHE! SHE provides!
Flux: Can talk to her? Uh, She?
Uttu: SHE talks to who She wishes!

The Magus intimidates them enough to at least send a message.

Hero Shrew: Does She sell seashells?
Hardlight: I’m half-expecting She to be short for Shelob.
Uttu: *in slow English* She. Says. She Will Send. Emmi-sary. Asks. Who You?
The Magus: The Magus.
Uttu: She. Says. Crap.

At least we get an address - in the middle of Spinnerets territory.

Hardlight: I pull out my freeweb device. Wait, no signal.
GM: Actually you do have a signal. What???
Flux: Ok Mr Tech Genius, before we leave, find out what the hell that’s connecting to.

The Spinnerets emissary has a fancy sword and crucifix earrings

Hero Shrew: I wonder if the earrings are significant.
GM: Probably - the powered in the Champions universe are generally pretty careful with the symbols of Higher Powers.
Hardlight: Well, I’m going to shut up and not say anything - foot-in-mouth and all. So go on you two, get talking.

The Emissary is pretty confident that the holes in the astral veil aren’t a problem, because they have a way to stabilise them. The Magus points out that that does nothing about the way the Spinnerets are rewriting police records at will. The Emissary makes an offer on She’s behalf - if we let them withdraw the connections in question (they’re not much use to She now we know about them) the Spinnerets will extend us a line of credit.

Hardlight: This is one of those moral quandaries, isn’t it.

The Magus calls the rest of us over to join the conversation.

Hero Shrew: Cool sword.
The Emissary: Thankyou.
Flux: So, Magus, I see you’re not dead.
The Magus: Did you expect me to be?
Flux: *waggles hand* eh.

The Emissary: I speak for She. I listen and She hears.
The Magus: And She occasionally swears to the Uttu.

Hardlight: I’m guessing this line of credit isn’t monetary.
The Emissary: Of course not.
Flux: My apologies, he doesn’t understand metaphors.
Hardlight OoC: No I don't understand metaphors, that’s the whole POINT of my character!

So, if we choose to ignore the murder and attempted murder of the Daughters of Lilith, or at least put it down to internal gang politics, we can at least stop the Spinnerets from messing with the ECPD data systems, and can get some favours from She in future.

The Magus: Admittedly it’s a lot harder to pin the murders on them.

The Emissary: Do we have any other business?
Hero Shrew: Are there any giant edible bugs in the Astral Plane?
Hardlight: What????
The Emissary: I don’t know.

The Magus recognises the Emissary’s weapon too - the Sword of God’s Word, that Separates Truth From Lie.

GM: I need a word, not antediluvian, that’s specifically The Flood, but basically prehuman..
Hero Shrew: Pre-Adamite.
GM: The sword is Pre-Adamite.
Hardlight: Freaky.
GM: Says the person who’s bonded to a pre-Adamite artefact.

Hero Shrew: I’d like to know which supervillains they’ve been cleaning up records for.
The Emissary: That’s confidential.
Hero Shrew: What’s the deal with Undersconsin?
Hardlight: SCOOTER
The Emissary: ...She has no information on Undersconsin.

GM: This is all worth 7 XP and two favours from the Spinnerets.
The Magus: For not burning the house down.

GM: I hope you didn’t find that too frustrating?
Hardlight OoC: No, not fighting is just as good as fighting, most of the time.
Hero Shrew OoC: Hey! Fighting is the only thing I’m good at!
GM: No it isn’t! Half the time you’re the only person who figures out what’s actually happening, because you work at street level.
Hero Shrew OoC: Eh, tell me that, I’m having increasing questions about my self worth lately.
Flux: Don’t worry, we’ll get you a cave so you can spend a few weeks brooding with the bats and getting horribly damp and s*** on. I mean seriously, that’s a terrible place for a base. And he goes and fills it with computers.
Hardlight: The first thing he installed was good HVAC.

Call of Cthulhu : Poissy to Lausanne (via Other Places)   JANUARY 1923

In Which The Adventurers Complete the Second Leg Of Their Journey, and Acquire An Arm

Sub-Lt. Huxley, journalist Florence Braxton-Hicks, and dilettante Alexandra ‘Alex’ Braxton are currently guests of a French doctor and his wife, who would probably have reconsidered their offer if they knew the kind of excitement the party were bringing into their lives. Admittedly, the fact that their daughter apparently saw a boogeyman outside her upstairs window has no obvious connection to their visitors, but the repeated disturbances in the guestroom, and the discovery of what lies under Chez Lorien, certainly does.

But beginning at the beginning, there doesn’t appear to be a mitten-biter or any other kind of bogeyman outside Quitterie’s upstairs bedroom window when Huxley checks, nor any sign that anybody was in the yard. On the other hand, there doesn’t appear to be anybody else in the room when Florence finds herself flung across the room with considerable force in the middle of the night. Or perhaps there was, because Huxley suffers similar injuries the following night, in the same room, but unlike Flo he recalls a horribly withered figure holding him by the throat and hissing “Which god do you serve?” in Latin.

Of course that does raise the question of how this attacker got into the room in the first place, since only the Loriens have the other key.

Florence: I’m searching the walls for hidden doors - I’ve read enough mystery novels to know the score.

Both Florence and Huxley have bruises that strongly resemble a powerful grip around their throat.

GM: And as far as you know she’s not into autoasphyxiation.

Of course they wouldn’t have had to stay at Chez Lorien that long if they hadn’t botched locating the ruins of Fenalik’s mansion, twice.

Florence: I look at the map again and realise I was holding it upside down. Sacré bleu!

Although it’s Veronique Lorien pointing out that they’re doing all their measurements in metric, when the estate map they were given was pre-Revolution, that uncovers Fenalik’s cellar. Of course, it still takes another day of digging - by Huxley - to excavate the door.

Florence: Hard work never killed anyone.

What lies beyond is certainly hellish, so it appears Captain Malon’s report from 1793 was accurate in that regard. It’s probably just as well Huxley acquired holy water from the church in Poissy. The subterranean garden is bad enough, given the unfortunate parallels with the garden where Florence's stillborn siblings were buried. But hey, at least they find the Left Arm of the Sedefkar Simulacrum! Although Huxley does have a new concern.

Huxley: I think we have another pursuer.
Florence: Charming.

The Left Arm is certainly a curious artefact - apparently ceramic, and inscribed with an intricate pattern of hundreds of left arms. And whatever glaze the creator used darkens from pearly white to a deep blue in sunlight. It’s also flawless, with the exception of a vaccination scar exactly where Alex has one - but that they can’t find again when they doublecheck. Huxley can’t even confirm what it’s made of, since when he tries to scrape off a sample his shoulder starts to hurt.

GM: But then you did do a lot of digging yesterday - that’s no doubt why.

At least they can telegram Professor Smith the good news - he’s apparently recovering from his burns, and has started sending letters to his contacts across Europe to help how he can. And Remi assures his friend that he’ll find a copy of the Diary of an Unknown Soldier and post it to them no matter where they are in Europe. The message from Antonio is less promising - it turns out that de Gremanci is one of the most common surnames in Venice, so finding out if the reputed sorcerer Alvise de Gremanci ever got his hands on part of the Simulacrum is proving difficult.

GM: The telegram is already a bit terse, but Antonio is basically complaining that it’s like asking every Smith in London if their great-great grandfather was a sorcerer and did he leave them any body parts in his will?

On the other hand, now that they know what the Simulacrum actually looks like, they can find out which auction house in Paris sold one of the pieces after The War, and exactly which Milanese gentleman they sold it to. The couple of days are fruitless, until one of the auction houses takes pity on them (or perhaps are impressed enough by the obvious quality of Alex’s suit) to point out that it might have been a private auction - or not sold as statuary at all. THAT clue uncovers a pamphlet where something that sounds very much like the Torso, from the collection of one Dr Rigault (1746-1794), was put up for auction as a ‘Porcelain Anatomical Model, Maker Unknown’. Rigault was the Royal Physician prior to the Revolution, and a name already connected to the raid on Fenalik’s house.

But it appears it didn’t reach the reserve price, and a few years later it was auctioned off as part of a job lot, with a bunch of period costumes, dress weapons, costume jewelry, and dressmaker’s dummies. They were purchased by one P. Rischonti. At last the Investigators can head to Milan - with a brief stop-over in Switzerland to interrogate one Edgar Welligton about his knowledge of the Simulacrum.

Huxley is reluctant to let the Arm out of his sight.

Huxley: I’ll keep it close. At hand.
GM: That pun is a bit of a reach.
Huxley: Does this arm come with a manual?

At least the other guests on the Orient Express as it departs Paris after midnight are less obnoxious than that preteen on the train from London. Indeed, Signorina Caterina Cavallaro, star of Parisian and Milanese opera, is charming, witty, and very generous, complimenting Alex on her suit and promising to get Huxley and his friends rooms at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, as well as front row tickets for opening night of Aida at La Scala. She has quite a story about how she went to her first opera, fully intending to wish for a pony as she sung along to ‘Ritorna vincitor!’, but decided on the spot to wish to be an opera singer instead. Looks like it worked. She sings the aria for the other travellers, to rapturous applause.

Florence OoC: Sing Freebird!

The investigators stagger off to bed, and wake up on a cobbled street in somewhere apparently called Ulthar, which has a lot of cats. Florence is pleased about that - the nature of the trains here, less so. That Alex has switched genders is a bit of a surprise too, although perhaps less than some might expect.

Huxley: Between a woman I normally see in men’s clothing anyway and the fact we’re riding on giant elephant octopus things under a sky where I don’t recognise a single constellation, the fact that Alex is apparently male here barely registers.

Chatting with some of the other passengers on the Dreamlands Express, they learn the train was created to give a chance for any passengers of the one in the Waking World a chance to discard their worries, in the Gulf of Nodens beyond the cloudcity of Serranian. Although there is some philosophical debate in the Dreamlands about which world is the ‘real’ one. After all, as one of the other passengers, one ‘Mac’ Mackenzie from Scotland, points out, sometimes dreamers from Earth die there and live on here, which adds some weight to the question. Although Mackenzie does warn the dreamers away from one Karasov, apparently an arms dealer in the Waking World. Karasov is instantly unpopular with the investigators, and doesn’t help his case any by saying that if he didn’t sell weapons to the governments of the world, somebody else would. Karasov also won’t say why he’s on the train, although MacKenzie’s reason is that he wishes to be a poet in Sona-Nyl. Hopefully there’s some kind of training program there, because his poetry is awful.

The other out-of-place person here is one Madam Bruja, apparently an Elizabethan widow, who wants nothing to do with any of the male passengers on the train, but does warm to Florence when she explains that women have much more freedom in the waking World then they used to - she’s a journalist and travels widely of her own recognizance, for a start. Bruja does warn her to beware men.

Madam Bruja: Men are animals - worse than animals. They’ll take what they want from you, and I won’t let him.

The incredible luxury of the pavilions on the Dreamlands Express is certainly relaxing, and gives Huxley a chance to discuss his concerns with the others. Such as his suspicions about that ‘psychic assassin’ that attacked them in Poissy. He’s sure that at least three different groups know that they’re after the Simulacrum.

Huxley: The Midnight Strangler, Sedefkar of many corpses, and whoever likes skinning people.
GM: Well, Sedefkar probably died quite a few centuries ago.
Florence: PROBABLY
GM: Although Professor Smith DID say that possessing the Simulacrum was to possess immortality.
Huxley: I’m not sure what I believe anymore - my skepticism is eroding rapidly.

Champions : Return To Edge City : Beyond the Valley of the DoLs
Scooter, despite having a huge stack of unspent XP, also has fewer points in Disadvantages than the other PCs.

The Magus OoC: From a certain point of view, Scooter has his life more together than anybody else in the team.
GM: Despite being the bouncer at a titty bar.

Scooter HAS been practicing some useful stuff, such as accurate Leaping, and the Disguise Skill.

The Magus OoC: That’s not Hero Shrew, that’s Normal Shrew!

Hardlight OoC: I’ll call my Skill Level upgrade ‘Slightly Less Incompetent’

GM: Scooter can get a motorised scooter: And join the Vespa Vermin.
Flux: Now there’s a motorcycle gang the city is missing.

We head to the old cemetery, intending to arrest anybody who shows up, especially if they’re VIPER agents. We have a lot of questions about the situation, including ‘If a vampire joins the Daughters of Lilith do they still have to get the fangs implanted?’.

Unfortunately, The Magus (and Scooter to a lesser degree) botch our Stealth checks at the cemetery.

Hero Shrew: Too distracted by all the free supplies available?
The Magus: No. I keep getting flashbacks.

Hero Shrew OoC: I probably should have tunneled under the cemetery and dragged them into the graves from underground.
The Magus OoC: The problem there is all the human remains.
Flux OoC: You’ll bump into something, and burst out of the ground yelling ‘OMG, I just saw Michael Jackson’
Hero Shrew OoC: Ah, so that’s why we failed the Stealth check.

The Magus having a spectacular allergic reaction to holy ground is also a problem. But it’s the way the two Daughters on guard apparently smell Scooter coming that’s the biggest issue - a bit of a surprise when they’re supposed to be basically human. Scooter attempts to get behind them by tunneling underground - and when the Daughters find what looks like a freshly emptied grave, they panic and flee for the cemetery exits. Scooter had made a successful Presence attack, by accident. Unfortunately it looks like they made a call to their boss about the unexpected zombie situation, and the meeting we were there to crash is promptly cancelled.

Flux gets to work investigating the VIPER agent’s online presence - on top of everything else, she makes an annual trip to Wisconsin.

Hero Shrew: Undersconsin!
Flux: No. We don’t want to die.

We locate and stake-out their next meeting, in a children’s playground. Happily there aren’t any kids around at this hour - that could get messy.

Flux: Honestly if there were a bunch of kids hanging around the playground at midnight I’d be more freaked out than I am with all the vampires.

We also learn that the Spinnerette network the Daughters of Lilith answer to is a bit upset by the gang’s initiative, and they’ve sent some rollerskaters that go by the moniker of The Cherry Bombs to remonstrate. There’s also a news blimp perfectly positioned to film whatever happens next.

The Magus calls up an illusion of thick fog, and the other leap into action to protect the Daughters from likely assassination. And hopefully nab that VIPER rep. The Daughters DO go down suspiciously easy when the Magus follows up with a STUN attack to stop them running away under their own steam. And then the power-armoured SWAT team show up.

GM: It’s something you need to know when dealing with this kind of security - if they don’t recognise you and you seem to be involved in whatever is going on, you’re going down to the station in cuffs. It’s called Securing The Scene.

The Magus: Their deployment vehicle is currently stuck on one of the access paths because nobody gave him the key to this bollard.

Whatever happens, it looks like we’ll need to deal with the Spinnerette Network once and for all.

The Magus: They ARE getting a little too murdery.

Happily, hitting the keyboards turns up some interesting information - such as the suspicious way the Spinnerets seem to get out of police trouble a lot faster than anybody else. It seems to be a systemic issue too - if it’s a conspiracy the entire ECPD would have to be involved. Something appears to be moving electronic records around without leaving a trace.

The Magus: Cyberpathy - or Flux is moonlighting.

Since the only thing that can protect against a cyberpath is another cyberpath, it’s probably a problem that the ECPD doesn’t have any technomancers on the payroll.

The Magus: I did find traces of another technomancer working in Edge City.
Flux: .. what?
GM: That might be the first time you’ve actually told Flux that.
The Magus: I think I mentioned in passing as part of a larger infodump. Pretty sure I added a note to the blackboard back at our base.

It is interesting to note that the Spinnerets keep their prostituion income stream entirely separate from their infobrokering.

GM: You pay for discretion.
Fireflash: What happens in Edge City stays in Edge City.

Hardlight, investigating the actual information hardware, finds some peculiar residue on the nodes.

Hardlight: .. I have no idea what this is.
Hero Shrew: Special computer grease to make the electrons go faster?

Hardlight uses his sensory suite to look at the stuff at a microscopic level - weirdly, it seems to have the same texture all the way down. Flux pokes the stuff in the base lab, but it’s not until he tests its occult properties that he gets any results.

Flux: Son of a B****.

It’s ectoplasm.

Flux: Just a minute, I need to go grab a toaster.
Hardlight: And play some music?

Apparently it’s some kind of astral residue. But not magical. Our more mystically inclined members eventually determine that somebody is making small astral portals to run their connections through. And the connections are very… spidery. As is the guardian spirit they left on duty.

The Magus: Huh. So that’s a thing.

They REALLY shouldn’t be hanging out this close to the material plane. We really need to shut the Spinnerets and their subsidiary gangs down. While rounding up their street level members might be doable, actually finding laws to arrest the leaders under might be trickier, assuming we can even get through their layers of sacrificial mooks. Perhaps we should target their unlicensed drinking establishments, preferably when they have lots of customers to scare off. Time for a montage - with lots of press coverage and all due credit to the ECPD Anti-gang Unit (their Internal Affairs and Cybercrime units are busy enough trying to figure out what the Spinnerets have done to their computer system)

Flux: With any luck there’ll be underage drinking - then we can really nail them to the wall.

It probably helps that Scooter already knew where all the illegal dives were, although he had never done anything about them. Just as well he doesn’t work at the Collar Club anymore, or retaliation would seem likely.

Despite actually catching one of the Daughters of Lilith leaders at one of the raids, they somehow escaped without anybody seeing how. Still, each lesser arrest we make provides a point to magically track back to their leadership. So it’s rather unfortunate that when we do, Cassiana and her lieutenants are lying in a pool of blood, and are covered in spiders. And the cloud swirling around the room is more spiders.

Hardlight: Magus. Please teleport me out again, Right now.
The Magus: Oh please, there’s no way they can get through your shield.
Hardlight: I’m still turning the armour way up!

Fireflash blasts the room, to kill as many of the spiders as she can, and calls an ambulance for the Daughters of Lilith, and the Port Authority Biohazard team to deal with any remaining spiders.

Fireflash: We do NOT want Brazilian Wandering Spiders spreading into California!

It’s a bit odd that Cassiana had the accoutrements of a vampire hunter when we found her - was she expecting competition? And sniffing around (literally in Scooter's case) what at first appears to be a dosshouse is actually a bolthole. We’ll probably have to wait for Cassiana to wake up to find out what she was actually up to - unless her real name Theodosia Lathrum is relevant. There was certainly a lineage of vampire hunters going by that moniker.

Fireflash: The historical Theodosia was co-emperor of Byzantium with Justinian the First.
Hero Shrew: Wife and daughter of Aaron Burr, too.
Hardlight: What?
Hero Shrew: Hey, I listen to music, ok?
Hardlight: Aaron Burr’s wife was a vampire hunter?

But what’s with all the spiders?

The Magus: The only thing that can save us now is Bee-man’s edgier cousin, Tarantula Hawk Man.

GM: F*** me, I still haven’t come up with a name for these things. Because I’m not calling them Tarantuloids.
Hero Shrew’s player: Pseudotarantuloids.
GM: They’re native to the astral plane
Hero Shrew’s player: Tarantulpas.
GM: And they’re not earth spiders because they have ten limbs.
Flux’s player: Gegenees.
GM: But those mythical six-armed giants are already in Champions.
Flux’s player: They are? Ah well - it’s about 50-50 odds with anything mythological and Champions.
Hero Shrew player: Ungolians.

According to some incredibly pretentious Victorian era occult tomes, these things are apparently scavengers that usually reside in the lower astral levels. That might explain why they seem to be sealing up the breaches in the astral veil.

The Magus: Shall we follow these cables back to their origin point?
Hero Shrew: I’m willing - just shove me through one of these holes and we’ll see what happens.
The Magus: You’re too big.
Hardlight: And probably too physical.

GM: I question the wisdom of implanting an alien energy source in your neck.
Hardlight: I keep telling you, I didn’t do it to myself! I fell down a well and woke up with it inside me!
The Magus: I heard the same story in the Emergency Department last week.
GM: Jack was nimble, Jack was quick, The doctor at the emergency department said “Jack did WHAT with a candlestick?”

The Magus can teleport us all to the Astral, which is half-full of webbing, but if anything happens to him we’re screwed. And we’re probably doomed anyway thanks to Hardlight’s Weirdness Magnet, which apparently rates as ‘Greatly Impairing’

The Magus: So, is everybody ready to fight spider people?
Hero Shrew: I am! Does that book say whether they’re edible?
The Magus: They’re Camel-spider people.
Flux: THAT MAKES IT WORSE
The Magus: I did say that unless we can find Tarantula Hawk-man we have to handle this ourselves.
Hardlight: I’m half expecting Scooter to show up in a costume with a burning can of insecticide as a logo.
Hero Shrew: That’s a good idea actually - any aerosol cans and cigarette lighters handy?
GM: … OK, sure.
Hardlight: It IS a very Scooter Solution.

The Tarantuloids (apparently called Uttu) immediately draw weapons and advance when we transition over. And we haven’t even messed with their stuff yet.

Hardlight’s Player: I try to find some spider-themed assets for Tabletop Simulator and the first thing I find is a Femboy Spider Token.
GM: Welcome to the Internet where Everything Is Awful.

The Magus: Well, I’d better try and negotiate before anybody gets set on fire… Hail, fellow sentients! What are you doing so close to the material planes?
Uttu: We Guard! You Leave!
Flux: Is it OK if we leave that way? *pointing to the direction the cable is heading*
The Magus: And who are you guarding it for?
Uttu: She!
Hardlight: Well, at least we know their assumed gender. Uh, She who?
Uttu: SHE!
Fireflash: She Who Must Not Be Named?
Flux: We seem to be having some translation difficulties…
GM: With apologies to H. Rider Haggard.
Uttu: We follow SHE! SHE provides!
Flux: Can talk to her? Uh, She?
Uttu: SHE talks to who She wishes!

The Magus intimidates them enough to at least send a message.

Hero Shrew: Does She sell seashells?
Hardlight: I’m half-expecting She to be short for Shelob.
Uttu: *in slow English* She. Says. She Will Send. Emmi-sary. Asks. Who You?
The Magus: The Magus.
Uttu: She. Says. Crap.

At least we get an address - in the middle of Spinnerets territory.

Hardlight: I pull out my freeweb device. Wait, no signal.
GM: Actually you do have a signal. What???
Flux: Ok Mr Tech Genius, before we leave, find out what the hell that’s connecting to.

The Spinnerets emissary has a fancy sword and crucifix earrings

Hero Shrew: I wonder if the earrings are significant.
GM: Probably - the powered in the Champions universe are generally pretty careful with the symbols of Higher Powers.
Hardlight: Well, I’m going to shut up and not say anything - foot-in-mouth and all. So go on you two, get talking.

The Emissary is pretty confident that the holes in the astral veil aren’t a problem, because they have a way to stabilise them. The Magus points out that that does nothing about the way the Spinnerets are rewriting police records at will. The Emissary makes an offer on She’s behalf - if we let them withdraw the connections in question (they’re not much use to She now we know about them) the Spinnerets will extend us a line of credit.

Hardlight: This is one of those moral quandaries, isn’t it.

The Magus calls the rest of us over to join the conversation.

Hero Shrew: Cool sword.
The Emissary: Thankyou.
Flux: So, Magus, I see you’re not dead.
The Magus: Did you expect me to be?
Flux: *waggles hand* eh.

The Emissary: I speak for She. I listen and She hears.
The Magus: And She occasionally swears to the Uttu.

Hardlight: I’m guessing this line of credit isn’t monetary.
The Emissary: Of course not.
Flux: My apologies, he doesn’t understand metaphors.
Hardlight OoC: No I don't understand metaphors, that’s the whole POINT of my character!

So, if we choose to ignore the murder and attempted murder of the Daughters of Lilith, or at least put it down to internal gang politics, we can at least stop the Spinnerets from messing with the ECPD data systems, and can get some favours from She in future.

The Magus: Admittedly it’s a lot harder to pin the murders on them.

The Emissary: Do we have any other business?
Hero Shrew: Are there any giant edible bugs in the Astral Plane?
Hardlight: What????
The Emissary: I don’t know.

The Magus recognises the Emissary’s weapon too - the Sword of God’s Word, that Separates Truth From Lie.

GM: I need a word, not antediluvian, that’s specifically The Flood, but basically prehuman..
Hero Shrew: Pre-Adamite.
GM: The sword is Pre-Adamite.
Hardlight: Freaky.
GM: Says the person who’s bonded to a pre-Adamite artefact.

Hero Shrew: I’d like to know which supervillains they’ve been cleaning up records for.
The Emissary: That’s confidential.
Hero Shrew: What’s the deal with Undersconsin?
Hardlight: SCOOTER
The Emissary: ...She has no information on Undersconsin.

GM: This is all worth 7 XP and two favours from the Spinnerets.
The Magus: For not burning the house down.

GM: I hope you didn’t find that too frustrating?
Hardlight OoC: No, not fighting is just as good as fighting, most of the time.
Hero Shrew OoC: Hey! Fighting is the only thing I’m good at!
GM: No it isn’t! Half the time you’re the only person who figures out what’s actually happening, because you work at street level.
Hero Shrew OoC: Eh, tell me that, I’m having increasing questions about my self worth lately.
Flux: Don’t worry, we’ll get you a cave so you can spend a few weeks brooding with the bats and getting horribly damp and s*** on. I mean seriously, that’s a terrible place for a base. And he goes and fills it with computers.
Hardlight: The first thing he installed was good HVAC.

Pathfinder: In Hell's Bright Shadow : Calling All Girls
Ayva OoC: Poor Terzo, all these women and he has no chance with any of them.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I do not actually consider that a problem.
Civilla OoC: I should hope so, you’re my tutor.
Terzo OoC: And that’s just ONE reason.

And Ayva does have a point - between the party, most of the NPCs that are important enough to name, and Thrune’s choice of trusted minions, it seems the script for any future movies about events in Kintargo will easily pass the Bechdel Test. Unless we’re talking about Thrune anyway, but nobody cares what he has between his legs unless it’s an opportunity to remove it with something rusty.

Negotiating the Red Jills is going to be dicey, since they basically count anybody from the Basic Character Races as The Enemy. And Rajira is the only one that is clearly outside their broad definition of ‘human’, and only if she doesn’t try to hide her reptilian heritage.

Civilla: The thing is, Thrune’s agents might actually follow the rules of hospitality and parley if we were having a meeting like this - they’re Evil, but Lawful Evil. But the Jills are probably Chaotic.

Rajira: I was going to say ‘let’s wing it’, but that might offend the Strix.
Civilla: So no triggering language.
Ayva: And nothing about ‘plans being hatched’.
Civilla: You have to be careful about ear jokes around elves too - although given that of the usual races it’s humans that have the weird round ears, that’s kinda strange.

Ayva: I was going to say ‘don’t get cocky’ but there’s the bird language again.

It’s actually Rajira’s suggestion that we don’t meet at the Red Jills’ hideout, in case of Property Damage Escalating To Arson, and the gang agrees.

Rajira: Good evening - I believe we have important matters to discuss.
Scarplume the Strix: Ah yes, the Ghosts of Kintargo.

Apparently our reputation is already spreading.

Scarplume: What makes you think you can change the way the Jills do business?
Rajira: I don’t believe I can - but I believe I can give you a reason to change yourselves.

Rajira: You are a person of power and influence
Scarplume: Power that was hard-won - and you are offering…?
Rajira: An opportunity.

Rajira is persuasive enough, with the eventual intention of making Kintargo a city that won’t look down on the Tieflings simply for being born the way they are.

Rajira: Thrune has drastically under-estimated the power of this city - and its power is the spirit of the people.

Scarplume’s demand is that if we do manage to take over the city, that the Tieflings be treated with full equality and respect.

Rajira: I already do.
Terzo: Liberty! Egality! Fraternity!
Scarplume: I will take you at your word then - but if I hear one whisper that your enterprise is failing, this will not be the last you hear from me.

At least they've agreed to direct their depredations against the occupation, instead of the citizens. Civilla and Rajira are privately skeptical, and after we leave, discuss the likelihood that we’re going to have to eliminate the Jills anyway.

Terzo: Well, that went well.
Civilla: How exactly do you think that went well?
Terzo: They agreed that Tieflings need to be treated with full equality, and that Thrune’s forces are the actual enemy here. I think we have a lot in common.
Civilla: Well, we’ll hold off for now and see how it plays out.
Ayva: At least we can say we tried.

Rexus has good news too - he’s finally finished his translation of the documents we found under the old Livery. A lot of it is tactical advice for defending the city. Some deals with the Secret Order of Archivists, that Rexus’ mother worked for before she died - or rather, before Rexus thought her dead, since he now thinks she may have made it to a previously unsuspected safehouse beneath Hocum’s Phantasmagorium, a tourist-trap museum that’s been closed for well over a decade. In fact there’s a key to the building among the stuff we found.

Terzo: I’m surprised the building hasn’t been repurposed.
Civilla: You’re right - that is suspicious.
Unfortunately, there’s a bunch of Asmodean priests and zombies doing something inside the building, when one of our rebellion cells does some reconnoitering on our behalf.

Terzo: It would appear they thought the building being empty this long was suspicious too.
Rajira: Or they just want to take advantage of it.
Terzo OoC: Maybe they want to open a Starbucks.
Ayva OoC: ‘Local Starbucks Burns Down - Meanwhile Local Cafe Owner Does Roaring Business’
GM: Hell’s Rebels : The True Story Of The Kintargo Coffee Wars

https://cdn.discordapp.com/attachments/808767700515028992/909068946462900264/tumblr_inline_o8ico2kVcn1qao8br_1280.png

Ayva OoC: The People Magazine idea for our printing press has gone through the roof. ‘What do we print in our first issue?’ ‘Well, we didn’t get a second…’

We wait until some of the Asmodean priests swap with a shift change, and jump them. Unfortunately, Rajira botches the strike, and botches the follow-up as well. Fortunately Terzo casts Sleep on the one that didn’t turn invisible and run off.

Terzo: *expressively gestures* Well, what do we do now?
Civilla: We proceed at speed - you could stand to lose a few pounds.

The invisible one is probably going to lose a few pounds too, when Civilla’s Celestial Hyena catches up with her. At least she isn’t going to alert everybody else in the building. Unfortunately, the exhibits in the Fantasmagorium didn’t include animated skunk ape skeletons - the ones that attack us are new. Rexus, who insisted on coming with us, gets himself badly mauled.

Civilla: He shouldn’t be here anyway.
Ayva: He needs training - we can afford that now.
Terzo: What, some kind of spray bottle? ‘Don’t Go. Near. The Monsters’ *squirt*
Civilla OoC: Well, at least if he gets killed there’ll be no-one to contest the sale of the estate…
Ayva OoC: But he is basically Mr Exposition

Having dealt with the White Apes of STREWTH!, we press on to one of the marine themed halls. Unfortunately, none of us have Knowledge (Nature), and none of us see a ‘Do Not Tap The Glass’ sign, so we soon regret Terzo’s curiosity about the tanks.

Civilla: Terzo, how have you survived this long in Chelliax?
Terzo: Natural Charm?
Ayva: He’s well pickled, people think he’s a gherkin.

Ayva: I’m beginning to think this building is cursed.
Civilla: Undead in the last room, undead in this one - I think you’re right.
Ayva OoC: I meant the way that since we came in here, all we’re rolling are 1s and 20s.
GM: And not the way round you need.
Ayva: This didn’t happen to us on the stealth missions.
Civilla OoC: In the stealth missions, it was the other people that needed to make rolls, not us.

Ayva: Terzo? Come here.
Terzo: Yes?
Ayva: DON’T TOUCH STUFF IN THE CURSED MUSEUM.
Terzo: I’m beginning to get that impression, yes.

Terzo: I’m not sure what the problem is, I’ve spent decades poking things I probably shouldn’t and I’m hardly likely to stop now. Although they probably wouldn’t appreciate me calling them ‘things’.

Rajira: Since we don’t want a case of crabs, let’s move on.
Ayva: Hey, a case of crabs, covered in butter, what’s the problem?
Rajira: Depends how you get them.
Ayva: Usually by paying for them - how do you get them?
Terzo: …
Ayva: … we’re talking about two different things, aren’t we?

Civilla: Rexus, if you don’t stay at the end of the party, I will ensure you are the end of your line.

The next room was an insectarium - the last person in here clearly didn’t get the memo about not touching stuff in the cursed museum.

Civilla: This place used to be a tourist trap, now it’s a…
Terzo: Death Trap?

We also find out why the Asmodeans are actually here - they’ve been stripping the building of anything showing historical facts the government of Chelliax doesn’t like. F***ing Redactors. If they’re that easily upset, they must have hated the wax museum in the next room - it certainly upset us. Whatever genius decided to set up a waxwork display of Kintargo’s more infamous serial killers REALLY shouldn’t have used the kind of waxwork guaranteed to get up and continue the subject’s career. On the other hand we can certainly blame the Church of Asmodeus for the zombies - the next lot are Rexus’ family.

Happily, we find the Redactors immediately thereafter and can register our complaints in person.

GM: The redactors call out to their commander as you storm the room, but you murdered their commander in cold blood when you first entered the building.

Terzo’s player: annoying, battery in mouse has finally gone flat
Rajira’s player: Why I prefer wired mice - However, getting the drugs to keep them wired is expensive.

Ayva: Rexus is a bit wired at the moment.
Rajira’s player: How did he get my mouse drugs?

Discovering a hidden entrance to deeper parts of the Fantasmogorium is a problem, because somebody might show up to investigate all the screaming and fireworks at any moment, and we’re already battered and exhausted dealing with the stuff in the main building.

Civilla: F*********** - if we don’t look down there now we won’t get a second chance later
Ayva: This better be a treasure room or we’re going home.

It seems to be a whole complex down here - it looks like we’ll have to camp underground for a few hours to rest, and hope the dottari don’t know about the secret stairwell (and don’t have a shift change before then). This proves optimistic, since the Redactors were apparently here to censor the collected histories of the Sacred Order of Archivists, the group Rexus’ parents belonged to. The archivists were using the Fantasmagorium - or at least, the hidden monastery in the basement - as a base of operations.

Terzo: We’ll have to take Rexus’ family down too.
Civilla: So now we’ll have to sleep in the same room as a pile of corpses - greeeeeat.
Ayva: I’m sure there’s plenty of stuff on these bookshelves to distract you.

Ayva’s player: Before we wander into descriptive text can we get some XP?

Apparently there’s a creature composed entirely of books and paper down here.

Ayva: Ok, Civilla, don’t touch any books.
Book Creature: Halt intruders!
Ayva: Okay.
Book Creature: … I didn’t expect that to work.

Apparently whatever this thing is was summoned to guard the hidden library’s books from any intruders, for at least another 12 days. That doesn’t preclude us from having a good stickybeak around, though, as long as we don’t actually touch anything. And it doesn’t stop us finding out that he was summoned by the Asmodeans to protect the Redactors while they go about their business of rewriting recorded history. The Scrivenite isn’t very happy about that. Which is probably why he’s telling us all the rules of his binding.

Ayva: But the Redactors are all-
Civilla: Shushshushshush! Theoretical question for you, what would you do if the Redactors were all dead?
Scrivenite: The ones upstairs are not my purview - I’m bound to protect the ones in the monastery. I don’t suppose any of you can cast Dismissal?
Rajira: Bit high-level for us.
Scrivenite: Darn it. I really don’t want to fight you.

Scrivenite: As long as you don’t enter the room by THAT DOOR *point point, gesture significantly* and don’t touch any of the books in THIS ROOM, *more gesturing* I’m not obliged to attack you.
Civilla: Okay, okay, I can work with this.
Ayva: What if we dress up as Redactors?
Scrivenite: Well I’ll know it’s you, now - you shouldn’t have said anything.

Civilla: I think I can get us past your restrictions with a bit of pedantry. You won’t let anybody through the door, correct? So what if I open the door, but not go through it, cast Rope Trick, have my associates enter the extradimensional space, teleport into the other room myself, and have everybody climb down again?
Scrivenite: As far as I’m concerned that will work.
Civilla: That’s all we need. I believe you’re a creature of Law? Your summoners were insufficiently precise.


The first few rooms down here contain sleeping Redactors, who sleep infinitely deeper as Rajira goes to them one by one.

Terzo: So, those rooms were empty then?
Rajira: They are now.
Terzo: I choose to interpret that positively.

The next one was actually awake when Rajira stabbed him, and tries to make a run for it - and immediately regrets it, since the rest of the party are waiting in the corridor.

GM: The Redactor stops dead - and you recognise him, Civilla.
Redactor: C-cousin???
Civilla: Cousin? You call yourself family and you’ve taken the mark of the Redactors?
Ayva: I take it that we’re not taking him alive?
Civilla: NO.
Ayva: Well then.
Rajira OoC: For one thing he knows too much.

The Redactor IS an Alazario, and the son of the mayor of the Chellish capitol.

Terzo OoC: I’ll hold off on doing anything - Civilla might be annoyed if I set him on fire.

Civilla summons a monster octopus, and stomps forward to snarl for a bit.

GM: He tries to say something but it’s kind of muffled by tentacles.
Civilla: *sigh* Let him speak.

Apparently Civilla’s cousin, Nicolo, is no happier to be here than Civilla is to see him.

Civilla: Then WHY. ARE YOU. HERE.
Ayva: Daddy dearest?
Civilla: Probably. *sigh*
GM: I’ll be quick because he’s bleeding out a HP a round.
Rajira: Two.

Apparently the Mayor has found himself in deep political trouble, and Civilla’s cousin had to join the Redactors to save the family’s reputation, despite the fact that the Alazarios as a whole are very much against destroying written history. Civilla is now regretting that she’s so family focused - mostly because we can’t leave him here alive, because being the Only Survivor would be highly suspicious. And apparently he HAS been preserving what he can.

Ayva: What’s that saying about ‘better pissing out?’

Terzo tries to patch the cousin up before he bleeds out, then we stash him in the Rope Trick dimension for the time being.

Terzo: Stabbed him rather deeply, didn’t you?
Rajira: I WAS trying to kill him.
Terzo: You with the tentacles, hold this limb tighter.

Apparently the success one of Civilla’s more distant kin had in becoming a pirate king, a few years back, inspired another Alazario to become a pirate. Unfortunately she was also a captain in the Chellish Navy, and the Mayor’s sister, and she decided to target Chellish merchant ships. Well, at least we’ll have someone to mail the cousin to.

The next room has been set up to be the ideal kind of battleground for some quite unpleasant devils. It looks like Rajira and the Chthonic Octopus will be on point - they’re certainly sneakier than the rest of us. For one thing the mollusc can detect living people through walls. Unfortunately it can’t tell WHO is on the other side of the wall, so finding Barzillai Thrune’s bodyguard, Nox, down here, is a bit of a shock. Fortunately she’s not wearing her armour, because she’s asleep. Unfortunately, her hellhound is not.

Rajira attacks Nox first, and kills her instantly with poisoned blades.

GM: She failed ALL HER ROLLS. She was supposed to be the BBEG of this chapter! There’s a whole subchapter here about her as a recurring villain!
Civilla OoC: We could always have left her as the Only Survivor

Rajira: NEED A LITTLE HELP HERE.

Civilla teleports past all the highly suspicious chains, to try and disable what she suspects is something very close to the Lament Configuration - Chain Devils are the last thing we want showing up. The chains alone are nasty enough.

Civilla OoC: Bags not being the first Cenobite. *fails the check* F***.

The head injury she suffers from a chain lashing out of the cube into her face also knocks out her last hour of short-term memory, which is going to make for some interesting conversations later. But at least Ayva succeeds in making the chains vanish.

Terzo cast Grease before the rest of the Redactor Monks show up.

GM: Why don’t these monks - admittedly Lvl 1 monks - have any points in Acrobatics?
Terzo: Because books can’t fight back.
Redactor-who-isn't-Civilla's-Cousin: Magic-users! Retreat to the Garden!
Terzo: They have a garden down here?

Ayva uses Boneshaker on one of the Redactors, which proves fatal.

Civilla: You grabbed him by the skeleton and shook him like an underpaid nanny!
Ayva: I wasn’t expecting it to actually kill him!
Terzo: I thought that was the plan - unless any more of these are your cousins, Civilla?
Civilla: *still amnesiac* What????

Retreating to the garden and preparing spells does the surviving monks no good at all, because Civilla’s octopus attacks them straight out of the floor.

We pursue, leaving Rexus to kill any Redactors we leave merely unconscious behind us.

Rexus: THIS IS FOR MY MOTHER!
Ayva: It’s OK, we can fix it later.
GM: Am I going to have to get THAT post up?
Civilla: It’d have to be True Resurrection - and at the moment Time Is Money.

Civilla follows up her octopus with a Celestial Hyena, and Terzo uses Blistering Invective on the remaining Redactors, and sets them on fire - one survives long enough to dash for the underground river.

Terzo: Get out here and fight, you craven clay-brained canker-blossoms!
Unfortunate Redactor: *on fire on top of everything else, and feeling that the rebels are being a bit unfair* We’re Asmodeans, we’re meant to be evil, what the F***

Civilla’s hyena tears out his belly.

Civilla: Well, that’s all of them.
Ayva: ah….
Terzo: Come over here, dear, you’ll want to sit down for this bit. You know how one of your distant cousins became the Hurricane King?
Civilla: Yesss, but that was hundreds of miles away, what does that have to do with these guys?
Terzo: We’re getting there we’re getting there - anyway, his example encouraged one of your closer relatives to try the same career.
Civilla: OK?
Terzo: Unfortunately she was a captain in the Chellish Navy at the time.
Civilla: What? But her brother is the mayor of - oh.
Rajira: So guess who we have.
Civilla: Her?
Terzo: No - but her nephew had to join the Redactors to protect his family. So he was REALLY lucky you were the first person he saw when he was running away from Rajira.
Civilla: Maybe you should have led with ‘Don’t worry, he’s alive?’

Apparently this place was the Archivists storehouse for Worryingly Magical Stuff. Most of said worryingly magical stuff is missing, including a necklace or amulet, a pair of gloves or bracers, and a reasonably sized rock. Rexus, happily, has a key to the secret compartment behind the shelves, however.

Meanwhile, Rajira goes to check out the garden, presumably to figure out the best place to chop up the bodies and feed them to Civilla’s Chthonic Toads. It’s not like we can just dump them all in the underground stream - that might contaminate someone’s water supply. If we can make all the bodies vanish, we can hopefully make Thrune think his bodyguard and entire order of Redactors have fled the city. A few Convincing Lies spread by the underground press should help.

In a small nook on the other side of the garden, Rajira finds a series of books that magically contain the memories and experiences of some members of the Order of Archivists. Including Rexus’ parents.

Civilla OoC: There’s a reason that we play things the way that we do. We stack our advantages because the dice can **** you in an instant.

Another oddity regarding current events in Kintargo - there were a number of mercenaries in town when Thrune took over. But instead of hiring them, which is kind of what mercenaries are for, they’re all being held prisoner at Kintargo’s salt works. Finding out why is probably worthwhile, and hey, maybe they’ll give us a discount rate if we rescue them. It’s possible that the leader of the mercs, one Forvian Crowe, has a personal animosity towards Thrune (and hey, who could blame him) but Laria thinks they could make good recruits to the rebellion regardless of their personal opinions about the Dogf***er.

The Sallix Salt Works are built on the shoreline underneath the eastern wall of Kintargo, near the now mostly irrelevant Salt Gate in the aforementioned wall. Brine is shipped in, and boiled dry on the premises.

Terzo: That seems wildly inefficient. The fuel requirements alone are ridiculous.
Civilla: That's why they use slave labour. Like the mercenaries we’re rescuing.

The market adjacent to the salt works is mostly dedicated to building supplies and related products, but Civilla and Ayva do have a good reason to be hanging around, which is convenient - maybe we can arrange a good deal on rebuilding the Livery prior to filling the basement with armed mercenaries.

Civilla casts Ears of the City on Terzo, in order to divine details about the salt works and the prisoners. Terzo isn’t entirely happy about gathering information with magic.

Terzo: The problem with doing it this way is that I don’t get to go around a dozen different pubs and ask a few innocent questions between drinks.
Civilla: You think that’s a problem, do you? I think it’s a bonus.

Although using Ears of the City DOES ensure that nobody notices, for example, an increasingly drunk Terzo going from bar to bar asking questions.

Ayva: Or an increasingly annoyed party member with a wheelbarrow taking Terzo from bar to bar.

Apparently the previous owner of the salt works was arrested for tax evasion, and killed when he resisted. Barzillai has now seized the premises as a money-earner for the government.

Civilla: Well, at least Barzillai is honest about the nationalisation process.
Terzo: How so?
Civilla: For ‘nationalised’ read ‘stole’.

We also learn, via the spell, that Crowe and his soldiers are being worked to death because of their faith in Sarenrae, the goddess of healing. That’s the kind of thing that can get you in huge trouble should any Asmodeans find out, and that’s exactly what happened.

Civilla gets quite thoughtful about the Salt Gate - they haven’t been closed in years, since the internal mechanism has rusted stiff, but that suggests a few ideas to Civilla.

Civilla: A plaaaaaan is forming in my miiiind.

Civilla wants Terzo to Grease the gate mechanism when we leave, so we can stop pursuit. Doing anything more permanent would probably annoy Thrune and provoke another Proclamation.

Terzo OoC: So basically we need a bucket of WD-40.

Civilla: In case we are chased.
Rajira: *snickers*
Civilla: Grease doesn’t last very long either.
Rajira: *snickers louder*
Civilla: CHASED, not CHASTE. CHASED as in PURSUED.

Civilla also has to keep her footmen loyal - otherwise they’ll eventually figure out she’s up to something and might inform on her. Telling them to wait with the carriage outside the salt works and suddenly running up with a troop of mercenaries and expecting them all to fit in like it was some kind of clown car would be a bit suspicious. Instead we sneak up to the door of the salt works late at night, get the door open, and knock Thrune’s blackshirts out with Lullaby and Sleep spells.

Civilla: See? I’m perfectly good at Stealth, as long as everybody is asleep.

We silently tie the unconscious guards up, release the prisoners, and tiptoe out again without the rest of the guards in the building hearing a thing.

Civilla: And give a short prayer to Noctiluca.
Terzo: … isn’t that the demon goddess of darkness and lust?
Civilla: … I can see we’re going to have to have a conversation later.

Rajira: And nobody even saw us.
Terzo: All that effort into disguises, hoods and Oaths of Anonymity wasted.
Civilla: Not wasted, reserved for future endeavours.

GM: … well then.
Civilla OoC: That’s this party’s warcry - ‘Sorry, Not Sorry’

Civilla: I mean, it won’t be hard for the authorities to figure out what happened - all the guards fall asleep at once and wake up bound. Unless they leap to some wrong conclusions. I can picture the Inquisitor asking “So WHY were you enjoying a BDSM orgy?”
Rajira OoC: ‘And why were you letting the prisoners top you?’

It WILL make an amusing rumour to spread once we get the underground press running. Something to keep in mind for the future.

That rescue cost us one first-level spell and a cantrip. We might have time for another mission this evening, after leading Crowe and his men to the Livery basement, before the curfew even comes down. Going via the Tiefling ghetto is also convenient, given how many friends we have there after dealing with the tooth fairy problem - that makes the residents less likely to comment on the large group of half naked prisoners sneaking through the alleyways. But instead of another mission tonight, we decide instead to make sure the mercs have food, clothes, and bedding.

Civilla: It shows that we consider them important enough to put off other important tasks.

Civilla: Liria told us about your predicament.
Crowe: Ah, so that’s why you came to our aid.
Ayva: She bribed us with scones.
Crowe: Damn, we owe that curvy little vixen our lives.

At least we temporarily disrupted the salt works, but it won’t take long to replace the unfortunate workers.

Terzo: Probably with Tieflings
GM: To be honest, right now, it’s going to be those thugs.

Permanently disrupting the salt works is also a goal for the future.

Civilla: Any way to reduce Thrune’s ability to punish the populace.

And, of course, effortlessly ghosting our way in and out of the salt works will increase our Notoriety, and rescuing the Black Feather Mercenaries will make us more friends among Kintargo’s population.

But we still need to investigate the ruins of Raxus’ family home, the Thrashing Badger pub, and the Silver Star music shop, for any clues the Dogf***er’s arsonists may have left intact. There isn’t much left at the latter, and not being able to see in the dark doesn’t help. On the other hand, accidentally falling through a hidden trapdoor is quite helpful, at least in that it unearths some useful potions and scrolls.

On the other hand, having our carriage pulled over by one of the Kintargo guardsmen, especially since he’s backed up by three of Thrune’s blackshirts.

Civilla: How can we be of assistance to you fine civic-minded individuals?
Thug: I’m sure you good folk are unaware, since it only happened ten minutes ago, but this road is now a tollway. The toll is a mere five gold. Per passenger.
Civilla: Five gold? How interesting. I assume you have your Writ?
Terzo: And a receipt book?
Civilla: That too.
Thug: I have my Writ right here *hefts mace*
Terzo: *casts Lullaby* Go to sleep, little A**hole, do not cry.

All three drop to Civilla’s Sleep spell, and she orders her drivers to move the carriage on.

Civilla: We do not want to cut their throats in front of my drivers.
Ayva: So we’ll leave them there to be inevitably pickpocketed?
Civilla: Or killed by any number of Kintargo’s other residents.

Unfortunately most of the Thrashing Badger washed out to sea when the boardwalk burnt through, and it wasn’t Terzo’s local drinking hole.

Ayva: Terzo has been kicked out of most of the pubs in Kintargo.
Terzo: Rolled out of, possibly.

The Badger used to be the rowdiest alcohol dispensary in the city, but any of its regulars have moved on to other establishments. It seems likely one of the more notable regulars, the fairy dragon Vendalfek, will have moved to one of them too. Perhaps Clenchjaw’s, although the name does not inspire images of fun and harmless hooliganism.

Although given the fact that we walk in on a mass bar fight, that pauses only long to look at us come in, it might be a more enthusiastic clientele than the name suggests.

Terzo: Don’t mind us, carry on as you were.

Terzo: Well, at least if they're all so busy with their fistfight, they’re less likely to remember what we look like.
Civilla: I fear they’re going to remember us anyway. Two of us anyway.
Rajira: I’m wearing my hood over my head. But I am over 6ft and attractive.
Civilla: That’s what I meant. But Terzo is going to attract attention anyway, as they see him accompanied by the three of us and try to figure out ‘How?!’

Ayva: So we set up at the bar, wait for information to come to us, and maim anybody that assumes we’re call girls.

We claim a table that doesn’t leave our backs to the door, and order refreshments.

Terzo: A bottle of your most enjoyable wine, dear.
Barmaid: We’ve got wine, water, watered wine, or if you want something spicy, wined water.

Ayva just gets a small beer, and Rajira some hard mead.

Civilla: It’s not like we can get mint liqueur anymore.

Unfortunately Ayva also complains about not being able to get night tea, and we get told off by a neighbouring sailor.

Old Salt: Word to the wise - I know you’re new here but one of the house rules is No Politics. *to Terzo* And you, you - how’d you’d end up in the company of three buxom lasses like these? Care to share the love?
Terzo: It’s my irresistible charm, dear man - I can’t beat them off with a stick.
Civilla: Buxom? Buxom?
Ayva: I don’t recall being buxom.
Rajira: *puts an arm around Ayva* Don’t worry, you’re buxom enough for me.

GM: You settle down to enjoy your drinks. Make a Perception check.
Ayva OoC: Ah, it’s one of those bars where adventures happen.
Terzo OoC: Well we already have a hooded stranger, but they’re a member of the party.
Terzo: *fails the check miserably* This is a very enjoyable wine.

Rajira’s resistance to poison probably means she could have drunk anything behind the bar, but she's not going to get the chance. Ayva spots the lizard with butterfly wings in the rafters, laughing at the barfight. This is presumably Vendalfek. When he realises he’s been spotted, he goes invisible. Ayva Messages the fairy dragon.

Ayva: Vendalfek We Know You’re There
Civilla: FFS can you be more ominous? At least indicate we’re friendly first.

The doors of the pub swing open all by themselves.

Rajira: And there goes our informant.
Terzo: What was he doing in the rafters?
Ayva: Everybody enjoys a good bar fight.
Terzo: He probably started it.

Ayva tries a more diplomatic Message, and the dragon pokes its head back in and indicates we should follow.

Civilla: It’s nearly curfew - we should head home. Come along Terzo.
Terzo: But I’m still enjoying this wine!
Civilla:
.
Terzo: Can I get this in a doggy bag?
Ayva: Damn. First good mead I’ve had in years.
Civilla: We’re far too far south for good mead.

Vendalfek 

Vendalfek: What do you humans want, anyway? I’ve only just found a new bar to live in after your lot burned the last one down.
Rajira: Not ‘my’ humans.
Civilla: *Diplomatically remains silent, specifically about her own ancestry*

We do determine why Thrune’s agents burned the place to the ground - it probably has something to do with the Roses Vendalfek kept overhearing about.

Vendalfek: Did I live in a bar that was a secret meeting place for a society of florists?

More like Milani’s Rose of Kintargo, a rebellious cult. They were arrested by Thrune’s personal enforcers, one of whom has an ominous magic sword.

Rajira OoC: Oh great, we have an Edgelord.

Civilla: These Roses they took - fun people?
Vendalfek: Oh yes.
Civilla: And the Dottari - not fun?
Vendalfek: Definitely not.
Civilla: So, what do you think about playing a few pranks on the dotteri?

Vendalfek is agreeable, and the rebellion has a new ally. Just as well, since Vendalfek also overheard that they were planning to Doghouse one of the Roses.

Terzo: Oh dear.
Vendalfek: I’d like a doghouse - cosy.
Civilla: Doghousing involves feeding a prisoner to one of Thrune’s feral mastiffs. And they starve the dog first.

Terzo: Out of curiosity, Mr Dragon - why was the barman unconscious in the corner in there?
Civilla: He was no fun.
Vendalfek: Such a stickler for the rules.

And then there is more quiet recruiting of partisans, and smuggling funds into the Rebellion’s pockets. And dealing with the fact that the Dottari are taking an alarming interest in Liria’s coffeehouse...

Liria: *communicates by frantic eyebrow-waggling* *DISTRACT THEM!*
Civilla: Um, ah, what? *grabs Rajira and kisses her*
Rajira: *briefly startled then grabs Civilla and kisses back*
Civilla: Eep.
Terzo: *looks briefly surprised and annoyed, and mutters something about ‘alright for some’ before returning his attention to his drink*

Of course the fact that Rajira might LOOK human, but doesn’t TASTE human, and has fangs and forked tongue, might be even more distracting, if Civilla hadn’t already figured out what Rajira actually was. It distracts the male Dottari though, until their female superior officer slaps them upside the head.

Rajira: Thankyou, m’dear, but I believe it’s my set. *casts Fascinate, which fails*
GM: I’m sorry, but the slap worked and they’re concentrating on their job again.

Instead we order a pot of coffee, which will give Liria an excuse to go into the pantry and move a few sacks over the hidden door in the floor.

Civilla: Wait, no, it’s tea that Thrune has a problem with, isn’t it.
Terzo: We can always ask these nice Dottari if coffee and tea are the same thing.
Civilla: Better not - we don’t want to give the authorities an opportunity to decide they are.

Apparently somebody sent the Dottari an anonymous letter alleging unsavoury practises at the coffeehouse.

Liria: The only unsavoury things here are the muffins.
Civilla: Unsavoury practises? I’ve kept my clothes on this time.
Rajira: We’ll see if that lasts the night.

Civilla manages to convince them that somebody is wasting their time, barely - sometimes you roll low but the bad guys still roll lower. The Dottari leave.

Terzo: I trust Liria offered them a complimentary muffin.

Rajira grabs Civilla and drags her over to the bar.

Rajira: Something strong - 120 proof at least. Swill this around in your mouth before you swallow. My saliva can be toxic and I’d rather you didn’t become ill.
Civilla: I’d rather not.
Rajira: … OK.
Civilla: I mean I’d rather not smell like I’ve been swilling the kind of alcohol I usually use for cleaning purposes.

GM: Oh god, somebody gave Vendalfek coffee.
Civilla: actually we shouldn’t shut down the Salt Works - that way if anybody else gets imprisoned there we can rescue them, too.
Rajira: And some of the prisoners they send there have actually been arrested for good reasons. There’s always actual criminals around.
Civilla: True, but Thrune is employing those.

Civilla decides to take the air, with her compatriots and supposed paramour, to scout out the ruins of Rexus’ family home that we have to investigate. After all, since Terzo is her tutor and Ayva is her business partner, we actually have a good reason to be strolling around the expensive part of town. Rexus doubts we’ll find anything, but Civilla thinks it will still be worth a look. It’s certainly suspicious that the ruins of the Victocora estate are under permanent armed guard, even this many weeks after the fire. Perhaps we can stay at Civilla’s family home, so we can come back after dark without having to sneak back into the Kintargo equivalent of a Gated Community?

Civilla: Eh, it would attract attention to them and they’d ask questions. Trust me, they’d ask questions, it’s what Alazarios do. It’s one reason we’re not very popular with House Thrune.

We decide to wait until after curfew, and sneak along the alley between the city walls and the noble estates, and climb over the estate wall into the ruins. Which is a good plan, if we didn’t run into a Dottari guard patrolling the other way.

Rajira: *drunkenly slurs* Hey there, handsome.
GM: Roll to Seduce.

Dottari: What are you DOING here, woman, it’s almost after curfew! Come with me!
Rajira: Oh, I’m sure we can find something much more fun to do…
GM: You were unlucky enough to get the nice guard, and he’s actually insisting on escorting you back to your home.
Rajira: S***.

Rajira: *signals the rest of the party* Should I take him out?
Civilla: *summons a monster frog out of the ground*
Dottari: What the Hells is that! GET BEHIND ME!
Rajira: *clonks him on the head*
Civilla: Can somebody cut him in half?
Rajira: … not without getting blood all over my clothes, no.
Ayva: … Why?
Civilla: My frog can’t eat something that large. Unless we fold him double, maybe.

Terzo is rather perturbed by the murder, and reminds so during the wall-clambering and ruins search. It’s Ayva that finds the remains of a recent preparatory ritual next to the ornamental lake on the property. Apparently a witch did something here, more recently than the fire. Civilla cautiously wades into the lake and promptly vanishes with a splash, into a lake that’s supposed to be thigh deep at best. It’s now way more than 60 feet deep, and there’s something glowing blue in the depths.

Terzo OoC: So the Victocoras had a secret nuclear reactor in their pond.

Civilla: Just as well I can summon Celestial Dolphins.

Civilla and Rajira descend, and are soon spotted by somebody else swimming down here, who hurriedly swims into a side tunnel. Unfortunately there’s also a grate, which Civilla can Dimensional Slide through at least, in a search for some kind of opening mechanism. The tunnel on this slide slopes upwards.

Civilla: I’ll return to the others and get high.
All: LOL.

Sending Rajira back to the surface when they do may have been a mistake, since some kind of magical pulse boils up the shaft and engulfs Rajira while she’s on her way up. She’s turned to stone, which doesn’t make things any easier for the dolphin.

Terzo OoC: Do I need to throw some waterwings in there?

Still, Terzo and Ayva are rather alarmed by the petrification, at least until Ayva determines it will only be temporary - apparently that was a wild magic surge. So all we know is that somebody, probably a witch, was messing around at the bottom of an unexpectedly deep lake, and we have no idea who or why. Civilla has followed the zig-zagging tunnel to another grate, with a room on the other side.

GM: This is clearly a Spellcasters Only route.
Civilla OoC: And this is me. *casts Dimensional Slide again*. Was this really supposed to stop low level characters? One Halfling wizard with Reduce Person would go right through it.
GM: …. Excuse me a moment while I consult the next book of the campaign.

She’s apparently somewhere underneath the Hall of Records. She casts Pass Without Trace and Disguise Self to reduce the chance the Dottari wandering about don’t find her. Disguising herself as that Dottari officer from last night gets her out of the building without too much attention, and she dispatches one of the Silver Raven devices to let us know she’s heading to the Alazario estate. This is a relief to the rest of us, although Rajira has already seen the disguised Civilla on the road.

Terzo: Well, I must say we’re glad to see you alive - when Rajira came back up turned to stone and wrapped around a dolphin, and no sign of you, we were a bit concerned.
Civilla: Turned to stone? What did I miss?

Civilla excuses herself to write some letters to her family, suggesting they buy the Victocora estate and hinting that they should keep the lake as is but not investigate too closely.

Civilla: ‘There’s a secret back entrance to the Hall of Records? That’ll be useful when it reopens’

Civilla: There are currently two cults of Noctiluca - the ones who are wrong and the ones that are right.
Ayva OoC: I can see her followers inquiring about what happened, and when they find out, go ‘wait, she did WHAT to WHO and then WHAT????’.

GM: I just looked up what Night Tea actually is, and it’s nothing about ‘disturbing the balance of the slumbering mind’ - it’s a prophylactic.

Civilla gets a delivery while she’s writing at Laria’s coffeehouse - less a package than a bouquet. Of very beautiful roses, with a slip of paper concealed down among the stems.

Rajira: And there was me thinking I had a rival for your affections.

Perhaps predictably, it’s from the Rose of Kintargo, the Milani cult that is also planning a rebellion against Barzillai Thrune. They warn us not to act rashly, and promise to contact us soon. We recruit a team of street performers, who we call Nobody’s Fools, and put the finishing touches on the former Livery. In fact we’re just getting ready to open up when a small child runs in screaming for help.

Rajira: What’s wrong with the spawnling?
Tiefling Kid: She’s been taken!
Civilla: Who?
Tiefling Kid: Zea! The bad people! They said they're going to put her in a doghouse!

If we’re quick we might be able to intercept them before they reach Aria Park - it’s fortunate that the Livery is practically next door to the ghetto. We all pile into the carriage.

Civilla: Come along child - you get to ride in a carriage!

Unfortunately they get to the park first - the pagoda in the middle of the lily pond in Aria Park has been converted into a kennel for any of the dogs the citizens of Kintargo have been handing in for the reward. It’s also Thrune’s thug's choice of destination for anybody they decide has insulted the throne. Civilla gets her disposable cloak ready - if necessary she’ll swap costumes with Zea so the blackshirts chase the wrong person. She’ll also Summon a Celestial Dog, tell it to play Keep Away over to the east of the pond, and use that to distract the thugs. After all, they’ll certainly try and catch it for the reward, and the mortal mastiffs will probably go mental. Then the rest of us can sneak up and overwhelm the other thugs, under the cover of the borking.

Dottari on far side of pond: Hey, there’s a dog!
Celestial Dog and Mastiffs: Play? Play! Play! Play!
Dottari on our side of the Pond: What the **** is happening over there/
Rajira: *kukris them in the back*

GM: The surviving thugs all need to make Handle Animal checks.
Ayva’s player: I’ve had to walk a Saint Bernard before - these thugs might be going for A Walk.
GM: Aaaand they all failed their check.

One of the thugs invents water-skiing as his mastiff drags him into the pond, and the rest all chase off after the dogs that are supposedly in their charge. Zea can basically stroll off while they’re busy.

GM: … Good work. I basically doubled the number of NPCs that were supposed to be here, too.
Terzo: With only two spells again.
Ayva OoC: If we were playing rogues we wouldn’t even have needed that.
Rajira OoC: If we were all playing rogues we’d have Stealth Synergy and have ghosted through the entire scenario. I rolled a 1 and they STILL didn’t see me.

Ayva: And we’re home in time for curfew.
Rajira: At this rate the Dottari are going to start talking about The Ghosts.

Although trying to squeeze Zea and the kid into the carriage with the rest of us is a bit tricky - fortunately the rest of us are a lot skinnier than Terzo.

Civilla: In this group are one and a half humans.

Zea is suitably grateful for the rescue, and doesn’t know why she was targeted - it may have been a random sweep. Civilla casts Ears of the City to find out. It looks like the Asmodeans came after Zea because she’s trying to hold the ghetto together now their actual leader has gone missing. And Thrune’s troops are making concerted efforts to solve the Tiefling Problem for good.

Rajira: The Asmodeans boink devils like it’s going out of style, then try to eliminate the results.
Civilla: Welcome to Cheliax - they’re wonderfully hypocritical.
Rajira: So the next sweep team that goes into the ghetto doesn’t come back.
Civilla: I’d rather they come back - but without pants.

It doesn’t appear that Thrune actually ordered this - he doesn’t seem to care either way. The blackshirts are acting on their own initiative.

Civilla: Oh, it’s blackshirts doing the sweeps? In that case we go with Rajira’s suggestion - any sweep teams that come in, don’t come out.
Terzo: *hopefully* So we’re going to be keeping them tied up in a basement somewhere?
Rajira: No, we’re going to cut their throats and dump the bodies in a cesspit.
Terzo: …. oh.

Civilla: Perfect! We render them down as soaps and fertilizers for the rich.
Terzo: I’m going to assume you’re joking.
Rajira: No.
Civilla: Have you ever heard me joke about anything alchemical?
Ayva: You should hear the one about the alembic.

Civilla: I don’t think Terzo has quite figured out the situation he’s in. He’s definitely the softest of us.
Ayva: Every ‘smore needs a marshmallow.

Thrune: They might just be Tieflings, but taking a prominent member of their community was going to anger them. At least they left my dogs alone.

There is one possible problem looming - a Tiefling gang, the Red Jills, who would happily escalate the violence beyond any sane limit. So we have to persuade them to limit their mayhem to a level that won’t invite reprisals from Thrune.

Terzo: Oh, I know where they hang out.
Ayva: Terzo knows everyone. Sorry, every pub.

Their current lair is an old temple of Aroden, an immortal human who was the focus of a whole bunch of prophecies, but who then died mysteriously and threw all those prophecies out the window. His temples have closed up shop. So now the building is occupied by the Red Jills, who hate humans, and their leader a winged Strix, one Scarplume, who hates humans even more.

Civilla: Anybody have any ideas how we can use this? It’s sounding suspiciously like we’re walking into a fair fight. I’d rather not fight at all, obviously, but this is sounding more and more like a fair one, and that I do not like.

Civilla: I don’t think these are our kind of people - do we really want to recruit them?
Terzo: Well, the last thing we want is a circular firing squad among the partisans.
Rajira: The Revolution is for everyone.
Civilla: But these Jills are already attacking the general citizenry - we want them to focus on the actual threat.

Civilla: The Strix have a reputation as baby-snatching monsters. And I can say that because I can speak Strix….. I’m going to have to do all the talking, aren’t I.

At least our smuggling contact has done some work for the Red Jills. The Jills might also be desperate for a new fence, too. And the Strix has something in common with the tengu, too - they have wings, at least. We can organise a meet on Red Jill turf without being instantly murdered.