In the Shadow of the Ram

[Mason]

We just started our Through the Breach campaign, so I thought it might be fun to keep a record of the characters and their adventures here on the forum.  We're running things like a TV show, with leader segments (the prologue) and then each session basically functioning like a stand-alone episode that ties into a longer campaign arc.

 

 

The cast:

 

Dr. Jacyeon Scarabius:  (Academic) The good doctor hails from a long line of shopkeepers in Chicago, though he had no interest in taking over the family business.  Attending school during the day and hanging out with a less savory crowd in the evenings, Jacyeon eventually attended university and fell in love with history, specifically the history of Malifaux.  It was at the university that he discovered a number of tomes that hinted at the power of magic, but careful censorship on the part of the librarians ensured that the hints were just that: hints, and nothing approaching the power of a true spell.  After earning his medical degree, Dr. Scarabius enlisted and was sent off west, where he served with the 10th under Lt. Pershing during the Cree Campaigns.  When his commanding officer transferred to West Point, Jacyeon opted for a discharge and returned to Chicago.  Before he could settle into a routine, however, the Breach reopened and the Guild made a concentrated push to bring the ancient city back under its control.  Once things had settled down a bit, Jacyeon signed up for employment with the Guild and set off towards Malifaux, despite the protests of his parents. 

 

Destiny: As the watcher awaits your cry of vengeance, the last man will speak the lies of your glory, for the hunter shall lay down to sleep upon the lilies.  The dogs in the vineyard bellow for you to hunt, and you will leave a twig to hold the sand. 

 

 

Victor Wolfkin: (Mercenary) Victor's father had always dreamed of owning a casino, and once he finally won enough rubles to finance its construction, he pressed his young (but already rather large) son into service as a make-shift bouncer.  He paid for a local gunslinger to teach Victor how to shoot and how to shoot well, and the young Russian's skills ensured that the casino remained well-protected and profitable for a little over two years.  It all ended one night when Victor had taken the night off to spend time with some friends.  Bandits attacked the casino, killing his family and absconding with the bulk of his family's fortune.  After burying his parents and selling the casino, Victor began hunting the men that took his family from him...and their trail led right to Malifaux.  With his traveling funds running low, the only way for Victor to afford passage across the Breach was to take a job with the Guild...

 

Destiny: When your shadow is cast upon the wall, he chooses not you, but the downfall, for the hunter shall lay down to sleep upon the lilies.  Watch them as they fall one by one to the ground, and it shoulders aside the guardian.

 

 

Jessup Cormwell:  (Pioneer)  Jessup grew up near the Rocky Mountains, on a homestead a few days away from the nearest frontier town.  When he was but a small child, his homestead was attacked by bandits, who killed his family and left him for dead.  Much to Jessup's fortune, another group of wanderers came across the pillaged homestead a few days later and found him, injured and near death.  They nursed him back to health and raised him as one of their own, and it was years before Jessup was old enough to realize that his newfound family were actually undead seeking a peaceful existence free from persecution by those who would see them destroyed simply for what they were.  His debt to them prevented him from turning them in, and beyond that, he had come to care for them as if they were his own family.  As he grew into an adult, he worked to keep his family's secret safe from outsiders, eventually going so far as to purchase a shotgun...just in case.  Sadly, it did little to protect his family when he returned from a supply run a little after his twenty third birthday to find that the undead homestead had been discovered (and ruthlessly purged) by the Guild.  Realizing that he was still alive (and that he was not the necromancer responsible for the undead), but that he clearly had some connection with the undead, the Guild offered Jessup a choice: join their ranks and let the whole matter be forgotten, or stand trial for the crimes of necromancy and consorting with undead.  Still mourning his family, Jessup to the former option and soon found himself being shipped off to Malifaux, forced to work for those he hated most in the world...

 

Destiny: As you walk the lonely road, the peer of a thousand faces will weep, but welcome the song of frozen winter.  The end's a miracle that you dare to dream, and you will call upon the crow. 

 

 

Dekerd Khain:  (Dabbler)  Growing up, Dekerd was moved from one gambling house to the next, always at the side of his abusive card shark father.  It was from him that he learned how much the odds were always stacked against the common man...and how someone with the right trick (and perhaps a few extra aces tucked up their sleeve) could buck the odds and come out with all the cash and power they could handle.  When his father won the old Grimoire in a game of chance, he gave it to Dekerd, thinking it was nothing more than a simple book to keep his son entertained while he worked the tables.  To Dekerd, however, it was a doorway to true magic, and from the moment he summoned forth his first bolt of frost magic, he knew that he had found true power.  Earthside, his power was just a small trickle, a drop in the ocean of what could be, and it soon became clear to him that if he wanted true power, he would have to travel to Malifaux.  The only way to afford passage through the Breach was to join the Guild, a would-be Arcanist attempting to sneak into the city right beneath their noses...

 

Destiny: Once the first has been last and the last has been first, your shame will be as beaten as the hooves, and not but ashes upon your tongue.  The sisters will show you the way, and it shoulders aside the guardian. 

 

 

Pedro Ortega: (Gunslinger) Hailing from the prestigious Ortega family, Pedro's parents soon gained notoriety Earthside as their cousins became the premier Neverborn hunters on the other side of the Breach.  Tasked with guarding the station surrounding the Earthside Breach, Pedro's parents were both competent officers in the Guild, so it was barely a choice for him to don the Ram's pin as well when the time came.  Still a boy, it was the call of his distant cousin, Francisco Ortega, that finally drew Pedro across the breach.  Armed with brand new, custom pistols and an old guitar that he was to deliver to one of his cousins, Pedro volunteered to travel to Malifaux and join his kin in their neverending battle against the Neverborn. 

 

Destiny: Once the nemesis has become the mother, you will become the grape that sours the wine and your blood will run black.  Denying the battle will win the war and it dreams of you.

 

 

Jane Cressido:  (Tinkerer)  (Episodes 2-3, deceased) Jane was raised in New England, the product of a mother who died in childbirth and a father who was the quartermaster on a whaling ship.  She and her brother Mitch traveled with their father for a time, sneaking out of their cabin to explore the ship and spend time with the other sailors.  After Mitch was accidentally wounded as a result of these wanderings, Jane's father decided it would be best to leave them at a boarding school while he sailed the ocean.  School proved to be more fun for Jane than she expected and she enjoyed her lessons, but her time on the ship had left her too rough around the edges for the other girls, and her intellect intimidated the boys.  When she was older, Jane used the money she had earned hustling drunks at the tavern to pay her way through University, where she fell in with Steven Harrison, a promising engineer and, as it turned out, a witch.  Jane quickly fell in with his coven, but a raid by the Guild resulted in Steven's death and sent Jane fleeing from their attention, moving from city to city in an attempt to stay one step ahead of her pursuers.  She eventually managed to make her way across the Breach and into Malifaux, where she signed up with the Guild as a member of the Guard, hoping to use their own secrets to master the use of the constructs that had always fascinated her and, perhaps, to clear her name back Earthside. 

 

 

Destiny: If you choose to see no evil in the chiming of the hour, your dance will draw the sleeping eye, and the witches will wait for you at the crossroads.  The deaf man must hear the owl's warning, and the ordeal will be your own.

[Mason]

Episode 1: Welcome to Malifaux

 

 

Everyone passes through the Guild checkpoint Earthside and into the train station, where people are boarding the waiting train that will take them through the Breach and into Malifaux.  The station is more of a fortress than a typical station, and the Guild presence is very high, with guards standing watch over the train, keeping everyone moving in a calm and orderly manner.  The players make their way towards the train, but are stopped by the guards, who part the crowd to allow a group of convicts to pass through the crowd.  There are a half-dozen of them, each clad in manacles and wearing the black-and-white striped clothing that denotes them as prisoners.  A few of the group get a sense that the prisoners are surly and restless, as if just waiting for the chance to make a break for it, but their guards are alert and they're loaded up onto one of the rear cars without further incident. 

 

As the passengers start filtering back onto the train, many cast concerned glances back at the car with the prisoners.  Hoping to make himself useful, Pedro moves through the crowd, loudly telling everyone that everything is alright and there's no cause for concern, but he's less than convincing and just ends up getting a lot of strange looks from the other passengers.  As this happens, Jessup catches sight of two armed mercenaries standing watch over a group of porters that are loading a number of heavy crates onto one of the train's cargo cars.  A tall man in an expensive suit and tophat is directing the loading process with a look of slight exasperation, and Jessup recognizes him as Abraham Bray, the head administrator of the Sam Noble Oklahoma Museum of Natural History.  Jessup's heard rumors that he's gotten into trouble for selling museum artifacts to private collectors, and that he's been the subject of numerous investigations by the authorities, including the Oklahoma legislature.  He notes that mercenaries are alert, but that they don't seem to be expecting any trouble with so many Guild guards around them. 

 

Jessup's eye strays towards a second group that stands out from the rest of the crowd, four muscular, tattooed men with Asian features who keep glancing in the direction of the porters loading the museum crates onto the train.  Unlike everyone else, they don't seem to be trying to move towards the train to board, and fearing trouble, Jessup notifies a nearby Guild guard, pointing the tattooed men out to her.  The Guild woman thanks him for letting her know and approaches the men, three of whom immediately become guarded at her approach.  The fourth speaks with her for a few minutes, then bows as she gestures towards the train.  Jessup is too far away to make out the conversation, but it's clearly some version of the "move along" speech, and as he watches the tattooed men board the train along with everyone else. 

 

There's one final bit of commotion as a large, rough-looking man in a bearskin leather coat gets into an argument with one of the guards about his luggage, which includes two mechanical bear traps that the Guild guards are trying to insist must be stowed with the rest of the cargo, rather than taken into the passenger cars with the other passengers.  The man refuses, citing the expensive of his mechanical traps, but nobody steps forward to assist him, instead boarding the train and leaving the large man to sort out his own troubles. 

 

Inside the train, everyone takes a seat in one of the common passenger cars, two seats to a side.  They all get a good luck at each other, everyone looking a bit rough around the edges when compared to some of the other passengers.  To counter the mood of expectant trepidation, Pedro pulls out his guitar and sings a song for everyone, which ends up being fairly decent...despite the lyrics being entirely in Spanish, which nobody other than himself speaks.  After a short wait, the train finally lurches into motion, just as the front door of their car opens and the four tattooed men enter from the next car over.  Nobody can understand their language as they spend a moment conversing among themselves, but it's clear to nearly everyone that they're up to some sort of trouble.  Their leader gestures to the other end of the car, and the four of them walk past the group, drawing concerned glances from some of the other passengers. 

 

As they leave the car and pass into the next, Pedro hops out of his seat and goes to the window in the connecting door, glancing back at the dangerous-looking men as they continue making their way towards the rear of the train.  Victor hops up as well, moving to the door and sliding it open, earning himself a glare from Pedro, who had wished to keep the door closed so as not to alert the tattooed men of their surveillance.  Hearing the argument, Dekerd turns around and climbs over the person next to him, moving up behind the two gunfighters to eavesdrop of their conversation.  After a moment, Pedro shakes his head and steps through the door, moving over the short platform covering the coupling mechanism that holds the car together and opening the door to the next car.  As the sound of the train increasing its speed over the tracks enters the second car, the tattooed men glance back at him, and Pedro flashes them his best smile in an attempt to look friendly.  Taken in by his charm, a few of the men smile in a friendly manner and nod in his direction...and then turn around, continuing on their way towards the back of the train. 

 

Back in their original car, Dekerd leans over and whispers in Viktor's ear - or tries to, at least, given that there's a good half-foot of difference in their height - suggesting that Pedro had done something to insult him.  The words seem to ring true to Victor, and he steps forward and takes a swing at the back of Pedro's head, only to trip on someone's luggage and nearly fall flat on his face.  Pedro whips around and throws a punch of his own, which Viktor dodges, and the two of them exchange hard looks as they size each other up.  With that small amount of machismo posturing out of the way, the two of them gesture towards the tattooed men and - in the space of about five words each - decide that ti's time to bring out the guns. 

 

Some gasps and murmurs of people readying their weapons pass through the car, and with a sigh Jessup pulls out his shotgun and starts making his way towards the other two gunfighters, climbing expertly and deftly over the other passengers and seats without any reduction to his speed.  Jacyeon watches the fight brewing from his seat, but being more of a doctor than a fighter, decides to just stay seated for the moment. 

 

Pedro fires the first shot, catching one of the tattooed men in the leg, and their leader gestures back towards them, sending the three of them back to stall the others as he continues back through the train.  It's a quick fight, and Victor's rifle takes out one of the men as Pedro dodges some punches from the second and slips away, putting a second bullet into the thug to drop him.  The third tattooed man starts coming towards them, but Dekerd makes a gesture with his hand and mutters an arcane incantation, teleporting him outside the train (which is not going fast enough to cause the man any harm - he just tumbles a bit, stands up, dusts himself off, and sighs as he turns and starts walking back towards the station). 

 

Seeing that people have been injured, Jacyeon grabs his doctor's bag and scurries back towards the fight to try to save some lives.  The leader of the thugs has made good time during the fight, and has managed to get through all of the passenger cars and into the first cargo car.  Just as the gunfight with the thugs winds down, he dispatches the last of the two Guild guards watching over the cargo, taking them out with a headbutt and a roundhouse kick.  It's clear that, unlike the others, he actually knows a bit about martial arts.  Victor takes aim and attempts to fire a shot into the combat, but ends up pulling his shot up as the man swings a guard between them to act as a human shield, and the shot goes wide as the tattooed man finishes the guard off with another headbutt. 

 

Jessup - who slipped past the thugs in an attempt to get to their leader - continues pushing past shouting and screaming passengers in his attempt to get close enough to the tattooed martial artist to use his shotgun.  Realizing that the battle has turned against him, the tattooed man steps out between the cars and starts pulling at the mechanism to decouple the cars between him and those shooting at him.  Before he can finish, Pedro takes aim with his rifle and puts a bullet right in his head, knocking him backwards amidst a spray of blood.  Jacyeon and Dekerd rush forward, the first to start bandaging up the fallen tattooed men so that they can be questioned, and the latter to take advantage of the now unguarded cargo car.  Pedro starts tying the thugs up as the doctor stabilizes them, while Viktor has a surprising flash of insight - the doors on multiple train cars are still open, and the train is about to pass through the Breach!  Perhaps a bit paranoid about what might happen if the doors are not closed, he rushes back and makes sure all the car doors are properly shut.

 

In the cargo car, Jessup quickly locates the museum crate that he had seen the porters loading up back at the station.  He explains about Abraham Bray's reputation to Dekerd, and reveals that he suspects the man of trying to smuggle something into Malifaux.  They agree to open the crate - just to make sure everything is legit, of course - and quickly set about prying it open.  Pedro and Viktor give them strange looks as they pass with two of the unconscious tattooed men in their arms - Jacyeon is still working to stabilize the third man with some battlefield first aid - but continue past without comment.  The unconscious men are delivered to the guards watching over the convicts near the rear of the train, with Victor quickly explaining the situation to them as Pedro finds himself a bit tongue-tied.  Probably just a bit too much adrenaline in his system after his first real gunfight. 

 

Meanwhile, Jessup and Dekerd manage to pry open the crate to reveal an Egyptian sarcophagus.  Neither knows enough about history to identify it, but it's not hard to make out the gold and gems which cover its surface.  The two men look up at each other, then decide to open the sarcophagus as well, because...well, who knows what could be inside?  As it turns out, there's a mummy inside, but Dekerd seems confused and leans forward for a better look at the shriveled corpse,  He tells Jessup that the corpse is that of a woman, but oddly enough, the bone structure isn't that of an Egyptian woman, but that of someone with a clear Asian ancestry.  Less concerned about the corpse than with what riches it might be hiding, Jessup does a quick - and very sacrilegious - search of the corpse, which turns up a handful of small gems and an old, dusty scroll.  He glances at the scroll, which is covered in letters that Dekerd recognizes as not hieroglyphics but Chinese characters, which only seems to confirm him identification of the corpse's heritage. 

 

The train passes through the Breach just then, and everyone has a glimpse of their destinies as the mystical energies wash over them.  It only seems to take a moment, and though everyone is a bit shaken, Jessup and Dekerd manage to repack the sarcophagus as Victor and Pedro carry the (now stabilized) tattooed leader back to the prisoner guards.  The train pulls into Malifaux Station and numerous passengers identify the group as having been part of a firefight, but the prisoner guards vouch for their bravery and skill in defending the train against the unconscious and clearly thuggish men now in their custody and the matter quickly sorts itself out. 

 

Everyone disembarks the train feeling pretty good for themselves, but there's one final snag in their plans.  Small groups of Witchling Stalkers move through the crowd at the station, their cloaked heads swinging back and forth as they attempt to pick up the scent of latent magical ability among the disembarked passengers.  Dekerd becomes noticeably tense at this point and attempts to push his way to the front of the line checking travel papers, but one of the Witchling Stalkers catches his scent and starts making its way towards him.  Just as it looks as if Dekerd will be forced to call upon his magic and have a firefight in the middle of the crowd, Pedro steps forward, placing himself between Dekerd and the Stalker as he makes a counterspelling gesture, drawing upon his knowledge of anti-magic to shield Dekerd's magical aura long enough for the Stalker to lose interest and turn aside, away from Dekerd. 

 

Once they're past security, the group talks a bit amongst themselves and realizes that they're all being employed by the Guild - some more willingly than others - and checks in together at the Guild Enclave.  They're given Ram's Head pins to denote that they're Guild members, as well as rooms in the southern New Construction Zone, just within sight of the river.  It was an unexpected trip, but the group has made it to Malifaux, and everyone had a chance to show off their talents a bit in the process. 

 

Just before the credits roll, Jessup and Dekerd make plans to find someone who can translate the scroll they found in the sarcophagus...and there's no better place to look than the Little Kingdom. 

[Mason]

Episode 2: Shadows on the Wall 

"When your shadow is cast upon the wall..."

 

After two days of basic guard duty Downtown, Jessup and Dekerd finally manage to learn of someone who is both a fence (to pawn off their gems) and Chinese (to translate the scroll they looted from the sarcophagus on the train).  This takes them to the Lao Sze Chuan restaurant in the Little Kingdom, and after being warned by a few of their fellow Guild employees that the neighborhood can sometimes be dangerous for lone Guild operatives, they decide to bring the rest of their allies from the train - Pedro, Victor, and Jacyeon - with them just in case things go south.

 

The Lao Sze Chuan is a fairly small restaurant, but very much a part of the Little Kingdom, with stone lions out front and paper lanterns hanging outside to brighten the shadows of the early evening.  The interior is a bit small and cramped, but food wasn't their primary goal in any case.  Victor, however, stops dead in his tracks when he notices that the Asian man behind the counter - a small man with some stubble on his cheeks - as Quin Hon, one of the four men who killed his parents and stole his family fortune.  Pedro notices Victor's surprise and tries to prod him into revealing what's wrong, but Victor just takes a seat with the others as they order their meals, his eyes never leaving his father's murderer.  Fortunately, Quinn doesn't seem to recognize Victor, and everyone orders their meals, occasionally casting glances at the oddly-behaving Victor as they eat. 

Midway through the meal, Jessup gets up and talks with Quinn, sliding him some Guild scrip in exchange for translating the scroll he had found in the sarcophagus and the note that Jacyeon had found on one of the train thugs.  Though initially suspicious and suspecting some sort of Guild trap, Jessup manages to convince the man that it's not a set up and Quinn starts translating the documents as Jessup returns to his seat.  It's only when they've finished their meal that Pedro's badgering of Victor finally manages to get the Russian to reveal that Quinn was one of the four men who killed his parents.  Pedro is immediately on his side ("You must avenge your family!") and his support - combined with the others pointing out that the only other people in the restaurant are Quinn and the cook - is enough to spur Victor into action. 

 

Victor stands up, walks up to Quinn, and punches the man in the face as he looks up, knocking him down and breaking his nose.  The cook runs out of the kitchen with a cleaver, but Dekerd waves his hand and teleports him away.  While Quinn still doesn't recognize Victor, he's quick enough to put two and two together and realize that the large Russian is clearly someone he wronged earthside during his outlaw days, and begins pleading for mercy.  Grabbing the man by the shirt and lifting him up, Victor demands to know where the others are, and Quinn spills his guts on his former associates.

 

Lee, it seems, made a great deal of scrip soon after arriving in Malifaux by returning from a successful hunt with a Neverborn bounty, but he never came back from his second outing, leaving pretty much everyone to presume him dead.  Kurtis went legit and got a job as a night guard at the Malifaux Museum of Unnatural Sciences, and Penn got in deep with some really bad people and fell out of contact with Quinn.  The beleaguered restaurant owner went on to claim that he was just doing what Penn had ordered him and the others to do, and that he was the guy Victor should be after; they were too afraid of Penn to tell him know, and as a result ended up doing a lot of bad stuff that they regretted to this day. 

 

Victor, however, was having none of it, and as Dekerd and Jessup looted the register and retrieved the translated scroll and mostly translated thug note, the Russian dragged Quinn into the kitchen for some frontier justice.  The others could only see his shadow on the wall as he took a meat cleaver to his father's murderer, but despite the screams, Victor left him alive...and with a message.  "You find the others and tell them that I'm coming."  

 

 

<prologue ends, roll opening credit sequence as characters choose their Pursuits>

Victor: Mercenary (again)

Pedro: Gunslinger (again)

Dekerd: Dabbler (again)

Jacyeon: Academic (again)

Jessup: Pioneer (again)  

 

 

The scene opens on the characters back at the Guild enclave, loading their guns and preparing to hunt down Kurtis to help Victor avenge his parents' death.  As they're arming themselves, one of their fellow guards, Jane Cressido, walks in on them and warily asks what's going on.  There's some initial evasiveness, until Pedro flat out asks Jane if she's willing to come with them to execute some murderers.  The request is met with some reluctance, especially when Jane learns that this is very much an "off duty" sort of mission, until someone mentions that they're going to the Museum, at which point Jane eagerly agrees to accompany them. 

 

The Malifaux Museum of Unnatural Sciences is a sprawling building of marbled stone in the southern section of Downtown, with a large two-headed dinosaur skeleton posed dramatically on its front steps.  Though their surroundings are a bit more Bohemian, with various 'working class' bars and the lights and commotion of the distant Star Theater, there are still enough guards in the area to make the idea of breaking into the museum a bit daunting.  Dekerd attempts to teleport the locks on the doors away, but with little success, so Jacyeon instead leads them around to a side service entrance, where he picks the lock.  When questioned as to where he learned such a thing - the good doctor was seemingly the most upstanding person of the entire group - Jacyeon merely stated that he used to "run with a bad crowd" and left it at that. 

 

Once inside the museum, Dekerd and Jane immediately began opening doors to search for valuable objects they could liberate for their own uses, but most of the manifests hanging on the walls of each storage room only listed items of marginal material worth.  Pushing forward - and with Pedro holding the lantern - they pressed further into the museum, out of the storage area and into the exhibition areas proper.  Jacyeon remained at the entrance to the first room, which was filled with five large displays of towering dinosaur skeletons and numerous smaller exhibits in glass cases while the others roamed further ahead.  Jane, Pedro, and Victor moved into the next room - which was filled with the skeletons of whales and other titanic sea creatures - while Dekerd and Jessup went off to look for the employee offices..  The two of them soon found the security desk, which boasted a few recently smoked cigarettes and a large dog bowl, and a glance at the employee roster confirmed that Kurtis Sanderson was on duty tonight. 

 

Just then, Jacyeon noticed the tap-tap-taping of small claws on stone and bolted forward into the dinosaur room as Kurtis and his guard dog came around the corner behind him on their nightly patrols.  He caught sight of the good doctor and ordered for him to halt as he drew his pistol, but rather than stopping, Jacyeon ducked behind one of the mounted dinosaur bone displays for cover.  The shout drew the attention of the others, and after Kurtis ordered his guard dog, Bowser, to sic Jacyeon, Victor drew his carbine, pointed it at Kurtis, and ordered him to drop his weapon, as they were there on official Guild business.  The command shocked Kurtis, who quickly lifted his hands and ordered Bowser to heel. 

 

As the dog trotted back to his side, however, Pedro took a shot at it, which reignited the battle despite Victor's shouts at Kurtis to just surrenders.  The battle was brief but violent, with bullets flying through the dark, striking dinosaur bones and display cases and generally making a mess of everything.  Dekerd teleported himself towards the sounds of gunfire as Jessup struggled to correctly chant the Chinese words on the scroll to summon forth its magic, with little success.  Bowser got teleported into combat with Pedro and Jane, much to their surprise, as Dekerd nearly clipped Jane twice with poorly-aimed blasts of frost magic. 

 

Eventually, however, Pedro caught Kurtis in the neck with a bullet, dropping him to the ground and immobilizing him with severe nerve damage.  Jane dropped the guard dog with a blow from her axe - it had already taken two bullets, surprising everyone at its resilience -and finished it off as Jacyeon hurried to Kurtis's side to preserve his life, in the hopes of allowing Victor to question him.  The surgery went...poorly, however, as Jacyeon's attempts to remove the bullet from the man's spine ended up killing him.  It took a few minutes for Pedro to calm Victor down - he was certain that there would be no way to find Penn now that Kurtis was dead - and Jessup went off to fetch a sack to dispose of the bodies.   Dekerd, meanwhile, searched Kurtis's body, pocketing his cash before showing the others the small flier that the dead guard had tucked into his pocket. 

The flier was an open invitation to the citizens of Malifaux to attend something called the "People of an Enlightened Malifaux," a group that seemed interested in trying to convince the Guild to spread soulstones out among the common people, rather than hoarding them all for themselves.  Most notable, however, was a scrawled note at the bottom of the flyer: "You should come to a meeting. - Penn"  

 

With a new lead, Victor wanted to head to the tavern right away, but Jessup pointed out that they still had a body (well, technically two bodies, with that of the dog) in a sack that they should get rid of before leaving the museum.  There was a brief debate over what to do with the body - it was basically a choice between the sewers or the river - but everyone decided that the sewers were probably a better choice, and Pedro and Jessup hefted the body and carried it out into the streets.  Unfortunately, they were quickly spotted by a Guild guard despite the lateness of the hour, and he trotted over to them, his hand on his gun to investigate.  Rather than run, however, Pedro just explained that they were disposing of the body as per Guild "off-books" regulations, which was enough to convince the Guard that they were fellow Guild agents on a secret mission of some sort (which was at least partially correct).  The guard swore that he had "seen nothing" and strolled away as Jessup and Pedro dumped the bodies into the sewers. 

 

While they were disposing of the body, Jane and Dekerd had wandered off, each one determined to walk out of the museum with heavier pockets.  Dekerd managed to find the Egyptian exhibit, which was still being put together, and immediately recognized the central exhibit as the golden sarcophagus from the train.  He attempted to pry the gemstones out of its surface, but with little success.   Jane, however, managed to come across a deactivated loader, a man-sized construct with oversized arms designed for lifting heavy cargo pallets.  Calling upon the magicks taught to her by the Oxfordian mages, she performed a grand ritual to animate the construct with a great deal of magical power. 

 

When Jessup and Pedro returned from disposing of the body, Jessup became frustrated that nobody had attempted to clean up the blood and bullets from their gunfight.  As the others marveled over Jane's new pet construct - which she dubbed the Mangler - Jessup found some cleaning supplies, mopped up the blood, gathered up bullets, and basically otherwise cleaned up the exhibit.  When he was finished, it hardly seemed like there had been a fight...save for a few missed bullets here and there and some chipped dinosaur bones that had been caught in the crossfire. 

 

An hour after Kurtis' death, the group was finally ready to make their way to the Ruddy Ale Tavern, which - fortunately for the impatient Victor - proved to be fairly close, as it was also in the southern Downtown area.  Unlike the restaurant from earlier, however, the tavern was packed with rough, blue-collar types who were - this late in the evening - quite deep into their cups.   The barmaids were all older women wearing wedding rings, and the group noticed that nobody was attempting to flirt or hit on them...clearly this was some sort of Union bar, and as they walked in with their Guild pins on their shirts - and Jacyeon still covered in blood from his botched operation - the entire bar fell into silence. 

 

This began an ongoing challenge to win over the miners to the side of the group so that they could find out where they might find Penn.  They were already at a disadvantage because of their obvious Guild affiliation, but the group quickly won them over to their side.  Pedro busted out his guitar and began to play a lively (Spanish) song, while Victor sat down at a table and began gambling with the miners, losing just enough and just the right time to let his opponents warm up to him.  Jane, meanwhile, moved among those with shoddy-looking mechanical limbs, tuning them up and earning grudging thanks from the miners as Dekerd sat down at the bar and told an outrageous story about how they were all secretly working from within the Guild to help loosen its restrictions on the Union.  It was an outrageous story, but Dekerd apparently had a silver tongue, as he sold the story hook, line, and sinker, doing more to win over the miners to his cause than anyone else.  As all this happened, Jessup lingered at the back with a cigar, eavesdropping on conversations as Jacyeon just excused himself and went to the restrooms to wash off as much of Kurtis' blood as possible. 

 

By the time Jacyeon had returned, the group had managed to gather enough information to learn that Penn was apparently finished up the printing of an anti-Guild rag paper known as "The Voice of Truth."  According to the miners, he was currently holed up in Warehouse 23 in the Industrial Zone, and a few of the miners even whispered that he was rumored to be in league with the Arcanists.   Victor, Pedro, Jacyeon, and Jane (with the Mangler in tow) all headed right for the Warehouse, while Dekerd and Jessup parted with them to inform a Guild guard of the printing press's location and the possible Arcanist that might be held up in the warehouse.  They were convincing enough that the guard immediately went off to inform her superiors, and with backup now on the way, the two of them hurried to catch up with the others.

 

Warehouse 23 proved to be a fairly large wooden building, and while there was light coming from inside, the windows had been covered to prevent the light from being visible in the windows; if the group hadn't known what they were looking for - or noticed the sound of a printing press that was mostly disguised by the constant mechanical clamor of the nearby McMannis Steel Mill - they might have passed it by without a second through.   Spreading out to cover both entrances, Jane tried one of the doors and found it locked.  Eager to test out her new toy, she ordered the Mangler to open the door...which it did by shoving its lift-claws through the wood and tearing the door right off its hinges. 

 

Victor rushed into the building as a thin with a shaved head, beard, and goatee, wearing an apron, gloves, and tinted glasses, stepped out from the back room housing the printing press.  Victor recognized him instantly from the pictures he had seen on various wanted posters all across Russia, and surprisingly, Penn seemed to recognize him as well...no doubt from the resemblance Victor shared with his father.  Penn held out his hand, squeezing it into a fist as the light in the room faded away into dark shadows.  "When I killed your papa," he gloated in his thick Russian accent, "I was but a man.  But now, thanks to this city, I have become a god." 

 

Four small, three-foot-tall creatures of living shadow and burning red eyes - Shadow Gamin - manifested out of the darkest corners of the room, drawing a warning shout from Victor as he shouldered his rifle and took aim at the Arcanist.  What followed was a tough fight, with Penn pulling at the shadows around him to attack Victor with giant claws made from pure shadow. as his Shadow Gamin swarmed over the entire group.  Dekerd teleported Jessup and then himself up onto the roof of the warehouse, where Jessup proved himself alarmingly good at firing slugs down into the building blow, raiding death from above onto Penn with alarming accuracy (despite the intervening shadows, warehouse roof, and basically firing blindly down below).  One of the Shadow Gamin managed to float up onto the roof, only to get blasted into oblivioun with one of Dekerd's ice spells. 

 

Down in the warehouse proper, the Mangler wandered into the middle of the fight and quickly became the biggest bullet sponge anyone had ever seen, as every shot fired into melee seemed to find its way into the construct's metallic hide (much to Jane's annoyance).  One of the Shadow Gamin managed to clamp its mouth down on Victor's leg, severely wounding him and dragging him into some shadowy nothing-realm for a few seconds.  He reappeared alongside the Gamin a few heartbeats later, but was so unsettled by the experience that he Shadow Gamin was able to viciously wound him. Eventually, Jessup got lucky and managed to catch Penn with a lucky shot to the leg, which made the Arcanist so woozy from blood loss that he passed out.  Penn's collapse was enough to tip the battle in the group's favor, and soon the last of the Shadow Gamin was sent back to wherever it had come from. 

 

In the aftermath of the battle, Jacyeon managed to patch Victor up enough to bring him back to consciousness, and then did the same on Penn...after Dekerd and Jessup had bound his hands behind his back and gagged him with his own bloody sock (and after Jane had looted a strange blackened dagger from his person).  Penn had no sooner regained consciousness than Victor was on him, punching him over and over again as he called for a knife to do....well, unpleasant things to him.  Jacyeon managed to calm him down by reminding Victor that the Guild was on the way, and that as an unlicensed (and clearly dangerous) magic user, Penn was going to suffer a far worse fate than anything they could do to him once the Witch Hunters got a hold of him and turned him into a Witchling. 

 

The mention of the Witch Hunters - and the Witchling Stalkers - was enough to remind Dekerd and Jane that they should probably make themselves scarce, lest the little creatures pick up on their scent.  Jane delayed their escape long enough to load up the Mangler with a bunch of spare parts from the printing press (they could prove useful if she decided to upgrade the Mangler later), and together the two spellcasters fled from the scene of the battle as the others waited for their reinforcements.  Some ten minutes later, a dozen Guild guards, a Witchling Handler, and a handful of Stalkers were on the scene, and the group had little problem pointing to the Arcanist they had captured, the printing press they had discovered, and the hundreds of copies of "The Voice of Truth" that they had prevented from being circulated through Malifaux and the surrounding towns. 

 

In the end, Pedro, Jessup, Jacyeon, and Victor were all congratulated on a job well done.  With two notable victories in three days, the Witchling Handler noted that they Guild would no doubt be giving them a bonus for a job well done, but warned against future "off the clock" missions done without proper backup.  They remaining members of the group congratulated themselves on a job well done, and were glad to have helped Victor avenge his family...even if both Kurtis and Penn had technically fallen at the hands of others.  With this thought in his mind, Victor bid farewell to the others, but his path from the Industrial Zone did not take him back home...

 

 

In the final scene before the ending credits, the owner of the Lao Sze Chuan is wrapping a bandage around his shaking, bleeding hand, muttering to himself about how "those thugs" are going to pay for what they did.  As he bites down on the end of the gauze, pulling it tight so that he can cut it with the scissors in his good hand, a shadow appears on the wall behind him...a shadow with a silhouette that looks very much like Victor.  It silently draws a gun and points it at the back of Quinn's head, and the camera pans away as there's a loud gunshot, splattering the far wall with blood as Victor finally obtains some small part of the vengeance he had been seeking. 

[Mason]

Episode 3: The Chiming of the Hour

If you choose to see no evil in the chiming of the hour

 

Following their success in apprehending an Arcanist without backup from the Guild, Jessup, Victor, Jacyeon, and Pedro are all informed that they have been transferred to the Witch Hunters department, in the hopes that some of their zeal and raw talent can be molded into skills that better serve the Guild.  Dekerd and Jane, having fled from the scene before the Guild arrived, went unmentioned in the official report, leaving them as standard guards without any titles or positions of note. 

 

With this promotion came the offer of magical training for those who were interested, and Jessup and Jacyeon leapt at the opportunity.  They spent the next day training alongside their new superior, a young black woman with a heavy accent that went by the name of Abegail LaCroix.  Both of the Fated were given grimoire containing healing and interrogation spells, both of which were avenues of magic that should come to use in their new duties.  Meanwhile, Jane discovered a new grimoire as well, as the black dagger which she had taken from Quinn's body whispered to her in the dark of the night, filling her head with new spells and incantations.  Viktor and Pedro both declined the offer to learn magic. 

 

The next morning, Abegail informed her new recruits that the Arcanist they had captured had finally been broken, and that he had given up the location of two Arcanist safe houses that needed to be cleaned out.  The first, located in the Burns, was being assigned to other agents, while the second, said to be within a white clock tower in the south-eastern Quarantine Zone, would take a more skilled force to crack.  Since the Fated were responsible for bringing in the Arcanist in the first place, she had volunteered them for the mission.  Victor was excited for the chance to take the fight to more Arcanists like Quinn, but the others were more hesitant, as they had all heard stories about the sort of monsters that lived in the Quarantine Zone.  They were given leave to requisition additional gear and backup for the mission, but they were on a timer; the train that would take them from the Industrial Station to the Southgate Station was leaving at 2:30 pm, leaving them with only three hours to prepare. 

 

 

<prologue ends, roll opening credit sequence as characters choose their Pursuits>

Victor: Mercenary (again)

Pedro: Gunslinger (again)

Dekerd: Dabbler (again)

Jacyeon: Dabbler

Jessup: Gunslinger

 

 

The four new Witch Hunters immediately turned to Dekerd and Jane for their backup, for while they were not Witch Hunters, they were still Guild guards and thus the perfect sort of low-level reinforcements that Abegail had wanted to join them.  Given that both Dekerd and Jane were unlicensed magic users, and that Abigail bringing Witchling Stalkers to assist her was a very real possibility, it was decided that taking a more conservative approach to their magic use was probably a wise idea.  Jane left her new whispering dagger and the Mangler (her liberated - and still quite damaged - loading construct) back in her apartment.

 

Once everyone had loaded up on ammunition and Jessup had cashed in some of his looted script for some additional pieces of light armor, the group boarded the train and rode it south to the Southgate Station.  It was a very different part of town, desolate and all but abandoned, with only a handful of struggling buildings to reinforce the pretense that the Guild still controlled the area.  Even the guards protecting the station had a haunted, nervous look about them, as if they were expecting trouble to strike at any moment.  The bustle and noise of the city proper were a distant memory, and even the sky overhead seemed ominous with its dark clouds and occasional peal of dry thunder.  

 

As expected, Abegail LaCroix was waiting for them alongside two of her Witchling Stalkers, which she introduced as Jean Petro and Sobo.  Dekerd immediately began mumbling a counterspell to keep them from sensing his magical powers, but the two twisted little creatures were far more interested in Jane than in him.  With the Stalkers backing Jane into a corner and sniffing at her, Abegail narrowed her eyes, drew her greatsword, and asked Jane point-blank whether she was a magic-user.  Knowing that only one answer would save her, Jane denied that she knew anything at all about magic, instead suggesting that the Stalkers might be getting creepy on her due to her uniform, as she had apparently been issued a uniform that was one or two sizes too small for her.  Despite being an utterly ludicrous suggestion, it apparently struck at some unknown element of the Stalkers' past, as Abegail just sighed in the manner of a long-suffering mother and mumbled something about old habits dying hard before pulling the Stalkers away from Jane.  Despite being ordered to leave her alone, the Stalkers continued to cast knowing glances at Jane, following behind her at an uncomfortably close distance. 

 

(OOC Note:  Jane's player asked to borrow a model for the session, and I randomly handed her the first female model I saw in my box, one of the (scantily clad) M2E Ronin.  There were a few jokes about Jane being issued a uniform that was a few sizes two small, and then when trying to deceive Abegail about not being a witch, Jane flipped the Red Joker...and fell back to this excuse about her costume as the reasoning as to why the Stalkers were so interested in her.  It was a hilarious little call-back to earlier in the night, and was perfectly timed and delivered on the part of Jane's player )

 

With Abegail leading the way, the group made their way to the None Gate, a towering, thirty-foot tall clockwork gate built into the side of an equally tall wall ringing the boundaries of the Quarantine Zone.  It was heavily guarded, with riflemen patrolling along the top of the wall and many more guards down below, all of them in defensive positions.  As Abegail showed their authorization papers to the Sergeant in charge of the gate, Jacyeon asked one of the guards whether they were expecting an attack, which only earned a bitter laugh from the woman.  Apparently attacks on the gate were somewhat frequent, and the day before a group of Guild agents had gone missing while on assignment on the other side of the gate.  Nobody had much hope in seeing them return, at least while still alive. 

 

The Sergeant pulled out an ornate pocket watch to check the time as Abegail explained the timetable for their mission.  Each of the Quarantine Zone gates was keyed to a matching pocket watch and a specific hour, such that they could only be opened by someone with the matching watch, and only at one specific hour each day.  Thus, while they would be entering the Quarantine Zone from the None Gate, they would have to leave via the Vesper Gate, which opened in three hours, giving them a very specific window in which they had to find the safehouse, capture or kill the arcanists, seize any evidence, and then evacuate.  If they missed the opening of the Vesper Gate, they would be forced to spend the night in the Quarantine Zone...and judging from the pale faces of the guards manning the gate, it was clear that this was a very undesirable experience. 

 

As 3pm approached, the Sergeant approached the gate and held aloft the pocket watch, allowing its small chime to synchronize with the clockwork chimes of the massive gate...and with the faint chimes of the distant clock tower.  As the third chime faded away, Jane took one last look at the Guild guards around her as they readied their weapons and the gate ground open on its hinges.  Abegail led the group through the gate and into the Quarantine Zone, with the gate grinding shut behind them. 

 

At this point, there was an ongoing challenge to find the white clock tower that Quinn had spoken of during his interrogation.  There were no real maps of the Quarantine Zone - at least, none that Abegail had access to - but the chiming at the top of the hour had at least given them a general direction to work with.  While everyone was on top of their game, using navigation, stealth, and athletics to wind their way through abandoned buildings without alerting the creatures within of their presence, it was Jessup who contributed the most, deftly leading the others forwards to the clock tower.  Catching sight of the glint of a rifle scope in the third floor window of the clock tower, the Witch Hunters paused to consider the situation, eventually sending Pedro into a nearby building in the hopes that he could take up an elevated position opposite the sniper.  While a good idea, the plan fell apart when Pedro walked past an open window, attracting the attention (and a missed shot) from the rifleman. 

 

The gunshot set off a frenzy of activity, and a woman in a blue dress ran to the second story window and began throwing fireballs across the street towards Pedro!  Through the building shielded him from the worst of her assault, the growing flames - and the alternating dangers of sniper shots and fireballs - soon forced Pedro to evacuate in dramatic fashion, leaping from a window into a side street.  As Abegail ordered her Stalkers forward, a hulking construct stomped out of the front doors of the clock tower, clamping its oversized claws menacingly.  As the Stalkers charged towards it, the construct fired these claws at the twisted creatures, revealing that each one was equipped with some sort of propulsion system as well as thick cables that could retract the claw back into the construct's arm so that it could be fired again.  The construct and the Stalkers battled openly in the street between the clock tower and the flaming building opposite while everyone else hid behind cover and fired shots at their enemies. 

 

Viktor was the star of the combat, his bullets finding their mark time and time again as he meted out cold justice to the Arcanists defending the clock tower.  At one point, the sniper was knocked unconscious by one of Pedro's bullets, but a man with a scarred face appeared and used magical healing to heal the sniper's wounds.  Victor responded with a bullet to the man's spine, paralyzing him and forcing the healer to flee back into the cover of the clock tower. 

 

Meanwhile, Abegail and Jane were advancing into the street, the former cautiously as she used her magic to extinguish the flames engulfing those struck by the flames of the woman in the blue dress.  Jane moved much more quickly, sprinting into an alley behind the clock tower with the intention of working her way around back to sneak in through a window.   Jessup and Dekerd, meanwhile, had split off to the side, with Jessup quickly pushing through the rubble of a half-collapsed building as he attempted to outflank the Arcanists.  Dekerd followed behind him, moving much more slowly now that he was forced to monitor his teleportation activities.  He only found the bravery to cast the spell once, using it to teleport Jessup up to the middle of the street near Abegail, who instantly noticed the spellcasting and spun around in search of another Arcanist.  Dekerd managed to escape being fingered for the magic use, but it was enough of a scare for him to retreat from the combat as Abegail suspiciously scanned the area for another spellcaster. 

 

With the Arcanists falling one by one - the woman in the blue dress took a bullet that struck the wooden window frame she was hiding behind, ricocheting into her leg and spraying wooden splinters into her eyes, and the construct was finished off by a well-timed pistol shot from Jacyeon after it smashed the two Witchling Stalkers into (exploding) paste - Jessup decided that it was time to push forward and dove through the front window of the clock tower.

It was around this time that Jessup and Jane both discovered that in addition to the necessities one would expect in a safe house - a card table, some bedrolls, a crate of jerky and canned food - the Arcanists had stockpiled a truly frightening amount of dynamite; cases and cases of it.  With the bottom floor cleaned out, Jane moved up to the second floor to hunt down the elusive healer...only to run into him as he came down the stairs from the third floor.  The two instantly recognized each other, for the mysterious healer was none other than her brother Mitch! 

 

Both of the siblings were surprised and confused to see the other, with Mitch asking why Jane was working with the Guild and Jane countering by asking why Mitch was working with the Arcanists.  Mitch immediately lunched into a tirade against the Guild, claiming that they were hoarding soulstones for themselves and hunting down magic-users like themselves, and that among the Arcanists, people like them were welcomed, even respected!  He pointed out that they weren't hurting anyone in the Quarantine Zone (never mind all that dynamite), and that that Jane was working for a bunch of despots and bullies.  Jane sympathized with his plight and started trying to find a way to get her brother out of a bad situation intact - not helped by Abegail calling out from the street and demanding the surrender of any surviving Arcanists - but was interrupted as Jessup came up the stairs behind her, his shotgun trained on Mitch. 

 

Jane protested that he was her brother and not an enemy, but Jessup stated that an Arcanist was still an Arcanist and fired a slug into Mitch's shoulder, knocking him backwards.  Mitch responded by stumbling back to the stairs leading up and throwing a bolt of pure electricity at Jessup, who dodged aside as the bolt struck the far wall.   In an attempt to force the two to stop fighting, Jane drew her pistols and aimed them at a crate of dynamite, demanding that Jessup lower his gun, or else she'd blow them all to kingdom come.  Jessup wasn't fazed by the threat, however, instead firing another shot at Mitch, which caught him in the head and made a bloody mess out of everything.  As Mitch's body fell to the floor, Jane's expression hardened and she pulled back the hammers of her gun, pulling the triggers just as Jessup leapt from the window in a desperate attempt to save himself.

 

(OOC: With a dynamite-filled tower exploding point-blank around the PCs, I called for Toughness flips for Jessup and Jane, as well as for Abegail and Victor, who had just walked in the front door on the first floor.  The TN was around 12 for Victor and Abegail, who both passed their flips (albeit barely) and were knocked backwards, unconscious and badly wounded, but still alive.  The TN for Jane and Jessup was higher, and though Jane flipped poorly and was slain in the explosion, Jessup managed to flip the red joker and survive!)

 

Jessup landed behind the clock tower as it collapsed to the ground, shattering the street and sending the flaming rubble - and Jessup - plummeting down into the sewers beneath the city.  Jacyeon and Pedro raced to the sides of Victor and Abegail, and the good doctor was able to revive both of them...at least to the point where they could stand and walk under their own power.  Though Victor was adamant about staying behind to search for Jane and Jessup, it was pretty clear that more of the ground was collapsing into the sewers, and the injured Abegail pointed out that such an explosion was sure to draw the attention of others...and in the Quarantine Zone, in their state, that was a very bad thing.  Pedro's recovery of bent and singed Guild badge - still partially attached to something meaty and partially cooked - was enough to convince him, and the survivors hurriedly limped their way northward towards the Vesper Gate. 

 

Finding the way back was easier - they were just looking for a way out, rather than a specific building - and soon the beleaguered Witch Hunters had managed to find their way to the Vesper Gate.  The guards defending it were noticeably on edge and ready to shoot anything that moved - they had seen the distant explosion, after all - but Abegail managed to convince them that they were Guild operatives and that they had permission to be in the Quarantine Zone.  Despite this, the Guards refused to lower them a rope, as it was against protocol, until Pedro was able to quote an obscure portion of the Guild charter dealing with emergency evacuations and protocol overrides (Pedro's streak of only flipping 13s for Bureaucracy tests continues).  

 

The Guards managed to scrounge up and lower a rope, with Abegail, Victor, Pedro, and Jacyeon making it up without any difficulties.  In a twist of irony, however, Dekerd was unable to make it up the rope before the guards on the wall shouted out a warning.  Turning around, Dekerd saw the juttering, twisted forms of mechanized undead approaching the wall, each one a twisted marriage of necromancy and steampunk science.  Jacyeon recognized the creatures from drawings he had seen in Guild reports and identifies them as iron zombies, the product of the mad Professor Albus Von Schtook, academic-turned-necromancer.  The guards manned their rifles as Abegail called down to Dekerd, reassuring him that the Guild would not allow him to be torn apart by the undead!   Of course, Dekerd could have simply teleported away in the span of a heartbeat...but doing so with so many Guild agents - and Abegail herself - watching him would be certain suicide. 

 

Pedro dropped his rifle down to the would-be Arcanist, and a fierce firefight erupted with the riflemen on the wall pulling bullet after bullet into the advancing horde, chipping away at them one by one.  Eventually it was thinned down to a single snake-like creature which slithered up the wall with alarming ease.  Despite being wounded, Abegail threw herself at the creature to buy enough time for the other guards to reform a firing line behind her, allowing them to blow it away just as the creature cut her down with its razor-sharp scalpel-hands. 

 

Jacyeon had the guards carry Abegail's body down to the controlled side of the wall, where they found a table large enough to allow him to perform emergency surgery.  It was touch and go, but Jacyeon's skills were enough to see her through the operation, saving the Witch Hunter's life and leaving them unsure as to whether the mission was a success, a failure, or somewhere in between.  Having been forced to stand around and wait for hours, Victor was noticeably antsy by the time Jacyeon had finished, as he wished to rush back into the Quarantine Zone to look for any sign of his fallen allies, claiming that he owed them that much.  Pedro reassured him that they would do what they could as the camera pans out...

 

 

...only to jump cut to Jessup waking up on a surgical gurney with a bright light shining down in his eyes.  "Don't strain yourself," warns the voice of an older man, the concern in his voice unmistakeable.  A hand reaches up to swing the light out of Jessup's eyes, and he blinks as the slime-covered bricks of the room's ceiling swim into focus.  "Where am I?" he mumbles, still struggling to think clearly through what was likely a concussion...or anesthetic. 

 

An old man's face appears over him, complete with balding white hair and a disturbing smile. "You've undergone some serious trauma," the man replies, his lips parting in a proud grin.  "This is the University of Transmortis."   As Jessup's eyes widen with horror, the scene cuts to black and the credits roll. 

[Mason]

Episode 4: The Lonely Road
As you walk the lonely road

 

The overcast sky finally broke into a proper storm, covering the city in a dreary cold rain. In the hours since the foray into the Quarantine Zone, Abegail LaCroix had undergone surgery, and while she was back on her feet, it was clear that her condition was still frail. Her subordinates helped her into the train at the Southgate Station, where she leaned against the door and pushed ropes of wet hair out of her eyes. She told the remaining Witch Hunters (and Dekerd) that they were officially finished with their mission, as the Arcanists had chosen to blow themselves up rather than be taken prisoner. However, she didn't like the idea of leaving Jessup and Jane (or their corpses) behind, especially given the iron zombies that had appeared so close on their heels as they fled from the Quarantine Zone.

 

Abegail made sure that the station guards were out of earshot, then told her Witch Hunters that with the rain, anything left of Jessup or Jane - living or otherwise - would probably wash down into the sewers. It was a longshot, but she knew of a mercenary named Kristensen who had done some work for her in the past, and he was good tracker, as well as being capable of discretion when it came to breaking Guild protocols regarding sewer transit. She suspected that he was likely at the Honeypot casino, drinking away his script as quickly as he could. The thread of hope offered, Abegail pressed a hand against the bandages underneath her charred uniform and informed her subordinates that there would be a debriefing in her office in the morning, and congratulated them on keeping it together in the Quarantine Zone, noting that their mothers would be proud. Pedro reluctantly agreed to accompany Abegail back to the Guild Embassy to watch over her (as his player was sick).

<end prologue, roll opening credit sequence as characters choose their pursuits>
Victor (Mercenary, again)
Dekerd (Dabbler, again)
Jacyeon (Dabbler, again)
Jessup (Gunslinger, again)

 

The episode proper opens in the sewers, where Jessup is helped to his feet by Professor Albus von Shtook, a thin, academic-looking man with white, balding hair and horned rim glasses. As Albus explained that Jessup was very lucky one of his Students had found him out in the sewers, Jessup took stock of his situation, realizing that his right leg from the knee down had been amputated and fitted with some sort of prosthetic of twisted steel and raw, burned flesh. More alarmingly, he noticed that his beat of his heart had been replaced with a steady, mechanical whirring sound, and that there were large, unsanitary-looking sutures in a winding pattern across his chest.

 

The Professor seemed quite pleased to have a visitor to his "University" and eagerly showed Jessup the facilities, which seemed to be little more than a few large sewer chambers that had been converted into some twisted version of a school. The cracked and slimy walls were hung with various chalkboards and diagrams depicting anatomical studies and engineering schematics, and much of the open space was taken up by dozens of medical gurneys. The majority of these gurneys held twitching people, all of whom were cut open and surrounded by small groups of iron zombies, each of them a twisted construction of mechanical limbs, chugging motors, and undead flesh.

 

Two of these hulking abominations shadowed the Professor as he showed Jessup around, as if acting as bodyguards for the addled academic. Jessup, however, managed to remain composed in the face of so much madness and horror, as he knew that playing along with the Professor was the only way he would be able to escape the University. As they progressed into the engineering wing of the sewer complex - which seemed essentially the same as the prior chamber, save that the gruesome gurneys were replaced with workbenches stacked with mechanical constructs - Jessup asked the Professor about his surgeries.

 

Albus was only too happy to illuminate him and quite happily explained that it was currently midterm finals week and that two of the students had used him as part of their final exams, one removing his leg and replacing it with a prosthetic while the other did the same with his heart. Jessup pointed out that he was unconscious and thus couldn't give his consent to the surgeries, but the good Professor assured him that his name (or at least, a name) had been forged on the appropriate paper work, and that he needn't worry about the details.

 

As the Professor went on about the importance of practical experience in the field of biology, Jessup caught sight of a strange machine about the size of an outhouse. The machine was surrounded by tubes and wires, but he could clearly make out a human heart within its grimy glass tank. Suspended in a solution of blood, the heart was being kept alive by tubes and a crude pumping mechanism. Jessup asked Albus if that was the heart that had been removed from his chest, but the Professor assured him that it was a completely different heart, and that his heart was "probably around here somewhere."

 

One of the Professor's students shuffled up to Albus and handed him a clipboard, which was the catalyst for the Albus bringing up the matter of Jessup's debt. Apparently the wayward Witch Hunter had been enrolled as a new student in the University of Transmortis (during the surgery, via more forged paperwork, all very legal and binding, you see) and had yet to pay the twelve hundred script tuition fee. When Jessup warily pointed out that he didn't have twelve hundred script, Albus offered him the clipboard and its dirty financial documents, informing him that the University was willing to reduce his tuition if he would just sign over his limbs to the University's medical program. Jessup was understandably hesitant to lose any more of his body, and instead elected to join the University's work study program to pay off his debt.

 

Albus was quite pleased at this and forged Jessup's name on the relevant paperwork (even though Jessup was right there), but his mood soured when he explained that the formal enrollment process would have to wait, as the Salutatorian had left on a research assignment and had yet to return, and without his speech, Albus could not continue with the end-of-semester graduation ceremony. It had apparently been two days since the Salutatorian had left the University, and sensing his chance to escape, Jessup volunteered to go search for his "fellow student" in the sewers. The Professor complimented him on his initiative, and after retrieving his equipment, Jessup quickly stomped down the flooding sewer passage away from the University and its horrors.

 

Meanwhile, back above ground, Jacyeon, Victor, and Dekerd had arrived at the Honeypot casino.  Where the rest of the Little Kingdom bore the trappings of the subtle and mysterious orient, the Honeypot was a testament to the grandiosity of the American spirit.  The three story building was all lights and noise, and even with the pouring rain the street was busy, with drunken revelers staggering off with bottles in their hands and - sometimes - a girl at their side.  After their last encounter in the Little Kingdom, the three Guild men were all glad to have something a bit more familiar in front of them.  

 

Unfortunately, the casino's bouncer - a hulking, bald man that seemed to have a permanent scowl carved into his face - stopped them at the door and rumbled "No Guild."  When Victor asked why that rule was in place, the bouncer threatened him in a very rude and very intimidating manner, and the three quickly retreated from the doorway.  

 

Realizing that there must be more than one way into the casino, they ducked down the side alley and started working their way towards the back of the casino, though Jacyeon noticed a strange blue glow coming from up ahead.  

 

As they started down the alley, the piles of sodden refuse and garbage filling the alley shuddered and fell away as the men hidden beneath rose to their feet.  Each of them were twisted in an unwholesome manner, with arms and legs elongating into tentacles and skin that seemed unable to contain the luminescent blue glow that shone out from beneath their skin.  Victor readied his rifle as the creatures shuffled towards them, but after the first took two bullets right to the head without slowing down, the three of them retreated out to the street and the pouring rain.  They had hoped to lure the twisted creatures back to the bouncer, reasoning that he would have to help them fight the creatures off, but Dekerd revised that plan by teleporting the bouncer right into the midst of the wretched things.  They turned on him at once, but the battle quickly shifted as the bouncer started beating the creatures with sledgehammer-like fists.  Rather than wait around to see how the fight ended, the three of them slipped through the now unguarded door and into the Honeypot.  

 

Inside the casino, the party was in full swing, and the place was packed.  Gamblers huddled around the roulette and craps tables in thick knots, crying out in joy or sorrow with each throw of the dice or bounce of the ball.  Others were seated at poker and blackjack tables, playing hands dealt to them by casino employees in white shirts and black slacks.  What really drew the group's eyes, however, were the women; each one was more beautiful than the last, and some were almost supernaturally alluring.  Some moved through the crowd carrying trays of drinks and drawing the eyes of all they passed, while others were right in the center of the action, blowing on dice or sitting on the laps of distracted card players.  

 

Jacyeon realized that everyone was behaving as if in a heightened state of energy and attention, as if on some very good recreational drugs, and Dekerd sensed the presence of magic all around him, though nobody actually seemed to be casting any spells proper.  All three quickly remembered their Guild pins and removed them, lest they draw too much attention.  Dekerd attempted to ask one of the women where he could find the tracker they were after, Kristensen, and though she pointed him towards the bar, he found himself enthralled by her beauty and voice.  As Jacyeon and Victor watched in annoyance, Dekerd slipped some scrip into the girl's hand and walked with her up to a bedroom on the second floor.  

 

With Dekerd having been lured astray, it fell to Jacyeon and Victor to approach Kristensen, a large man who was lounging at the bar with his partner, an alarmingly attractive man who introduced himself as Mike Hammers.  Jacyeon explained the situation and asked how much it would cost for the two of them to lead their group into the sewers, and after a brief discussion, the two mercenaries agreed to take the job if Jacyeon would pay off their tab.  Which, unfortunately, had managed to work its way up to an impressive twenty scrip.  

 

After a brief discussion, Jacyeon reluctantly gave some of his scrip to Victor, who claimed he could easily make the money at the blackjack tables.  His parents had, after all, owned a casino.  Unfortunately, blackjack got the best of him and Jacyeon was forced to watch nervously as Victor nearly lost all their money.  It was only after Victor switched the craps that his luck improved, and soon he was on a roll as the chips piled higher and higher.  A serving girl came by and offered him a free drink, courtesy of the casino, and while Victor was surprised and quite glad for the free drink, Jacyeon swiftly swooped in and scooped up the drink, handing it off to a random bystander

 

...who happened to recognize him!  Wilbur Tossle was a man Jacyeon had saved during his days in the army, and now he was quite drunk and very grateful to the good doctor for his service.  He trapped the doctor in a conversation about what he was doing in Malifaux, then revealing that he had come across as a mercenary, seeking the high bounties the Guild was paying for Neverborn heads.  They hadn't actually gone out hunting yet, but any day now it was going to happen.  By the time Jacyeon had managed to remove himself from the conversation Victor's pile of chips had tripled in size, and he had become the center of attention for all those around the craps table (and had apparently attracted one of the casino's girls to his side, to blow on his dice).

 

The crowd cheered as Victor's dice came up hot yet again, finally earning them enough scrip to pay off the debt of their mercenaries.  As Victor was getting ready to make another toss of the dice, the crowd parted to reveal a southern gentleman with a well-trimmed beard and an expensive suit.  The gentleman introduced himself as Jakob Lynch, the owner of the casino, and congratulated him on such an impressive winning streak.  Victor was a bit intimidated and tried to downplay his success, but Lynch was determined to make Victor seem like a big winner and offered him a complimentary room at the honeypot, with all the free drinks and girls that he could handle.  Knowing that the hour was getting late and that they still had to find Jessup and Jane, Victor tried to turn him down, but Lynch was insistent, especially given how much of his money Victor had won from him.  Victor eventually conceded to Lynch's wishes, on the condition that he could have the room for the following night, instead of this one.

 

Lynch shook hands with Victor and took his leave, proclaiming that the games should continue, much to the cheers of the crowd.  During the discussion, however, the pit boss had swapped in a new employee to manage the game, a thin, weasely-looking fellow with a painted smile.  Feeling a bit off, Victor only bet a few scrip, and his next toss saw him lose it.  Realizing that the casino had brought in a cooler, Victor took the hint, gathered up his chips, and hurried to the bar to pay off Kristensen's and Hammer's tab.   After finding Dekerd - who had a stupid grin plastered on his face and - as Jacyeon noticed - the same blue tint to his eyes as the creatures they had encountered in the alleyway - the group quickly left the casino, hurrying past the bouncer and into the pouring rain.  

 

Kristensen claimed that the easiest way to get to the portion of the sewers underneath the Quarantine Zone was through the Penitent Viaduct, a massive thoroughfare within the sewers that would give them access to much of the other passages.  Trusting that the mercenary knew what he was doing, they followed him down into the rain-choked sewer system...

 

Jessup, meanwhile, was making good progress through the sewers, though he was slowed down by having to hide from a shambling mob of a half-dozen mindless zombies.  Once they had passed, he continued down the flooded passage, making great use of his Unimpeded ability to move unhindered throught he rushing water and strong currents.  He was momentarily halted when he came across a portion of the sewers that had been partially clogged by a logjam of crates and boxes, but he was able to move them aside without too much trouble, and quickly dispatched the two sewer rats that were hiding among the boxes with two blasts from his shotgun.  

 

He had a rough idea of where he was relative to the surface - they had been near the southern portion of the city, so he kept going northward whenever possible - and soon he came across the "Species Itinere Avio," the wide vertical shaft that Albus had mentioned when discussing where the Salutatorian had gone on its research trip.  Rather than brave the dangers of the shaft - the metal ladder bolted to the side of the wall was all but concealed beneath the water spilling over the edge of the shaft and into the darkness below - Jessup passed it by, instead placing his faith in his directional sense to get him back to the surface.  If he went back to the University, it would be to bring Albus to justice for his crimes...preferably with a unit of Death Marshals to back him up.  

 

The sewers were not devoid of other humans, however, and soon Jessup came across a rat catcher hunched over some wet sticks, trying to coax them into a flame.  Four large rats were tied up nearby on crude leashes, and though both Jessup and the rat catcher were initially suspicious of one another, neither actually wished to start any trouble.  Jessup carefully moved past the rat catcher, then paused and turned back, asking him if he knew the way to the surface.  The rat catcher said that he did, and after a few Guild scrip had changed hands, Jessup was back on track, being led through the twisting maze of the sewers by his new guide.  

 

Further north, Kristensen and the others were having a more difficult time of things, and were ambushed by two large fishmen that leaped out of the water at them.  They fought the creatures off, with Dekerd's ice magic freezing one of the creatures long enough for Kristensen to smash it to pieces with his two-handed siege hammer.  

 

The group was more alert from then on, but they seemed to have a bit of good luck when Kristensen recognized some trail markers etched onto a bit of collapsed wall in chalk.  The markers denoted that the collapsed wall led to a safe path, and Kristensen waved for the others to follow him through the crumbling stonework...and right into a rat den.  Apparently the mark had been a trap of some sort, and the swarms of angry rats pounced upon the group with all the savagery of creatures defending their nests.  

 

Dekerd's ice magic once again saved the day, freezing over half of the rats solid as the others were put down in a storm of bullets.  Kristensen was in the front of the group, sending rats flying in every direction with each swing of his hammer, but one managed to bite his ankle before being smashed to jelly.  When Jacyeon examined the wound after the rats had scattered, it was clear that it had already become infect with some sort of fast-moving disease.  Unsure exactly what to do about it, he tied a tourniquet around Kristensen's leg, hoping that it might slow down the spread of the contagion.  

 

It was at this point that Dekerd decided to have some 'fun' by teleporting one of the dead rats onto Victor, which drew a cry of surprise from the Russian.  Dekerd laughed, and received a rifle round to the chest from Victor in return.  The second shot missed, and Dekerd ducked behind a wall as the rest of the group managed to talk Victor down from finishing Dekerd off then and there.  It was mostly successful, but it was clear to everyone that the confrontation had merely been delayed, not resolved.

 

As they stumbled out of the rat den and into the Penitent Viaduct, the group noticed Jessup coming towards them from the opposite direction, along with his rat catcher guide.  Everyone released a sigh of relief to see that Jessup had survived the explosion, but when they asked about Jane, Jessup told them that she was the one who had set off the explosion, and that she had been an Arcanist spy.  The news put a damper on the reunion as everyone attempted to come to terms with the revelation, but things became stranger when Jessup told Jacyeon that he may have lost his heart.  

 

Jacyeon checked Jessup's pulse and couldn't find anything, which caused the others to be a bit concerned as to just what happened to him after the explosion.  He gave them a very brief explanation, but pointed out that they were still in the sewers and that it wasn't a safe place to loiter.  After saying thanks to the rat catcher for his help, Jessup joined the others and they made they way out of the sewers and back to the Guild Enclave.  

 

Once they had achieved some measure of safety, Jessup revealed that he had lost part of his leg to Jacyeon and asked if he could have the prosthetic removed, on account of how it was probably using forbidden necromantic magic that would probably get him executed by the Guild if they found out about it.  Jacyeon agreed with his assumption and went to work, cutting away the integrated prosthetic as Jessup screamed in pain.   

 

When the surgery was complete, Jacyeon sent for a Steamfitter to come fit Jessup with a Guild-approved prosthetic, an equally painful process that saw more screaming on Jessup's part, followed by him passing out from the pain.  Jacyeon and the Steamfitter decided that this might be a good time to investigate the other augmetics the unconscious Jessup had been given, so they opened his sutures and investigated his new heart.  It turned out to be a mechanical iron box of some sort, and though the Steamfitter wasn't entirely certain how it worked, he was fairly confident that it wasn't a bomb, at least.  

 

Feeling slightly reassured, Jacyeon sewed Jessup back up and left him on a couch to recover as the light from the rising sun began to spill through the windows.  Everyone tossed back cups of half-stale coffee as they waited for Abigail LaCroix to arrive for the debriefing meeting.  It ended up being a fairly quick meeting, as Abigail didn't want to know about any possibly illegal activity they may have been involved with, but Jessup had one final addendum to his story that he hadn't shared with the others.  

 

During his trek through the sewers, he had been keeping a mental map of his route from Albus von Schtook's so-called University, and when presented with a pen and some paper, he was able to produce a surprisingly accurate map back to the site.  Abigail was noticeably impressed and promised to pass the map on to the Death Marshals, as this was technically their department.  Jessup was just pleased that Albus and his students were going to get what was coming to them.  

 

After the meeting had ended, everyone filed out into the hallway to find Kristensen and Hammer still waiting for them in the hallway, halfway through another cup of coffee.  Jacyeon suddenly remembered the tourniquet that he had placed on Kristensen's leg, but upon checking the limb it was clear that too much time had passed to save it.  The Steamfitter was called back in as Jacyeon performed his second amputation of the night, and soon Kristensen was being fitted for a new pneumatic leg, which the Guild accountants were all too happy to offer to him at a low interest rate.  

 

Mike Hammer, meanwhile, spent the duration of the surgery flirting with Abigail, much to the annoyance of Victor and Jessup, neither of whom were quite so appreciative of his lady's man demeanor.

 

 

As the session came to a close, Jessup chose to take the Heartless ability as his new manifested power, on account of how he no longer has a heart. 

 

Heartless:  You are immune to Horror Duels and gain +2 Df and Wp while defending against Ca Attack Actions.

[Mason]

Episode 5: The First and the Last

Once the first has been last and the last has been first

　

　

The day following the trip to the Quarantine Zone and Jessup's harrowing night spent in the sewers was fortunately quiet.　 Abegail LaCroix, the superior of those who had joined the Witch Hunters, spent much of her day in her office filling out paperwork, leaving her subordinates to fill their time as best they could, mostly with paperwork.　 The only real high point of the day was when Ms. Criid's accountant, a young French woman by the name of Marcelline Fontaine, appeared to hand out ten scrip to everyone.　 The official reason was that the bonus was due to a bounty that had been in place on one of the Arcanists that had blown died in the Quarantine Zone explosion, but Ms. Fontaine made it fairly obvious that Abegail had pulled some strings behind the scenes to push them through.　

　

For Dekerd, the day was borderline torture.　 The excitement of the prior day quickly faded into boring patrol routes and meaningless reports, none of which managed to hold his attention for very long.　 The memory of the Honeypot Casino still burned in his mind like a torch in the darkness, right alongside the memories of the woman he had bedded in one of the richly decorated upstairs rooms.　 He had no sooner finished his shift than his feet were taking him right back to the casino and its mesmerizing women.　

　

Victor was also thinking about the Honeypot, though his thoughts were more of trepidation than excitement.　 Though he was tempted to back out of the free room that Jakob Lynch had offered him, in the end he decided that Lynch had been quite insistent that he take the room.　 Furthermore, the safe return of Jessup from the sewers was enough of an excuse to go celebrate, and the tidy amount of scrip in everyone's pockets gave them the means to do so.　

　

This time, however, the hulking bouncer barely even glanced at the group as they approached the casino doors, and he waved them inside without so much as a word.　 Things got stranger as they stepped inside and found a busty redhead waiting for them.　 She welcomed them back to the casino as she slid up next to Jessup and started guiding him - and the others, including Mike Hammer and Eirik Kristensen, who quickly left their own table and joined the group once they noticed something special happening - towards an unoccupied VIP table near the bar.　 Whisking away a "Reserved" sign from the table, she motioned for everyone to have a seat and explained that drinks were on the house tonight.　 As two other girls brought out a large pitcher of beer and a half dozen glasses, the redhead - who only gave her name as "Cinnamon" - winked and gave them a playful warning.　

"Don't get too drunk now, alright?　 Mister Lynch was wanting to talk some business with y'all."

　

　

<end prologue, roll opening credit sequence as characters choose their pursuits>

Victor (Gunslinger)
Dekerd (Dabbler, again)
Jacyeon (Dabbler, again)
Jessup (Gunslinger, again)

Mike (Overseer, again)

Eirik (Guard, again)

 

 

Victor immediately hit the craps table again, hitting a lucky streak that carried him forward into the center of attention and a tall stack of chips.  His luck turned south when the same weasely looking employee from the night before showed up at his side, and with a few grumbles Victor gathered up his winnings and returned to the reserved table.

 

Mr. Lynch arrived shortly thereafter, all smiles and southern charm as he revealed that he knew they were all with the Guild.  There was a moment of tension, especially given that the bouncer had previously said that the Guild wasn't allowed in the Honeypot, but Lynch waved such concerns away and apologized for his emplyoee's poor behavior.  He was actually quite pleased to learn of their allegiances, as he was organizing the first Crown Malifaux Poker Tournament and needed some additional protection for the visiting VIPs. 

 

The deal was, on the surface at least, quite lucrative: the Fated would be expected to escort the VIPs from the train to the Honeypot as they arrived over the course of the next day, and then provide security for the casino during the tournament the day after.  In exchange for their service, Lynch would pay them for their time, plus a bonus if the tournament went off without any difficulties.  The group exchanged some glances before accepting the offer, and to show his appreciation Lynch comped their drinks and girls for the night and took his leave. 

 

With that, any governance that was restraining the group broke.  Despite Jacyeon's warnings, Jessup went off to find Cinnamon and took her upstairs to take advantage of Lynch's kindness.  Dekerd followed after him, waiting a few minutes before banging on the door and shouting at Jessup in an attempt to sully his entertainment, but soon found himself being pulled off by another girl in an attempt to keep the peace. 

 

Victor returned to the craps tables in an attempt to recapture some of his former luck, but wherever he went the weasely man was right there, watching with glee as Victor lost each game.  Jacyeon pulled the Russian aside and pointed the man out to him, suggesting that he might be a cooler.  Victor took this as a challenge and confronted the man, demanding to know why the man was following him.  The weasely man merely smiled and denied that he was doing anything, and in a rare moment of insight - thanks to a flipped Red Joker - Victor realized that the man was a predator whose smile was utterly false...and that he was looking at Victor like a child about to pull the wings off a trapped fly.   Eyes wide with horror, Victor quickly apologized and returned to the reserved table with his winnings, his face white. 

 

Jacyeon glanced at Mike to see if the mercenary wished to say something to Victor, only to see the playboy disappearing upstairs with a blonde girl.  Watching everyone fall prey to the vices of the Honeypot only seemed to upset the doctor even further, and when everyone returned, he visually confirmed that they had the same blue tinge to their eyes as Deckerd....and that Dekerd's eyes were even more blue than before.  There was now no doubt in Jacyeon's mind that the Honeypot was the source of the "luminescence" that seemed to have infected his companions.

 

The next day, as they walked their patrols, Lynch's girls managed to find the Fated and deliver the VIP lists.  They met up to discuss who would handle which VIPs, as they were arriving with just enough of an interval between them to make waiting for them as a group a bit too awkward to be feasible.  Jacyeon also noticed that Jessup, Mike, and Dekerd were starting to show the first signs of withdrawal, and were eager to return to the Honeypot.  

 

The List

Athanasius Novak 5:00 PM

Katsuro Mitsubishi 5:30 PM

Conner McCrae 6:00 PM

Danny Severins 6:20 PM

Leyla Foster 6:40 PM

Avery St. John 7:00 PM

Kallius Mandel 7:30 PM

 

Novak's train arrived promptly at 5:00 PM, but as he stepped off the train, bag in hand, he was shot in the chest by a distant rifleman!  Guild guardsmen rushed the building where the shooter had set up, while Jacyeon rushed forward and performed some very rushed field surgery to stop the bleeding and remove the bullet.  A quick healing spell once he was stable ensured that Mr. Novak not only survived but was able to stand on shakey feet.  Keeping an eye out for any other assassins, Jacyeon, Eirik, and Mike escorted him to the Honeypot and his waiting room. 

 

Meanwhile, Victor, Jessup, and Dekerd took charge of Mr. Mitsubishi, a large man hailing from the Three Kingdoms.  The journey through town was mostly uneventful, but when the group reached the Little Kingdom slums, Mr. Mitsubushi vanished!  Jessup managed to track him down rather quickly, eventually coming upon him as he was handing a small package over to a shifty-looking man in front of a cleaning shop.  He began to make an excuse for his behavior, but Jessup cut him off, stating that so long as he came with them to the Honeypot with no further detours, they would pretend that they hadn't seen anything.  Dekerd, meanwhile, shook the shifty-looking man down for a bribe, which he paid without complaint.   Mitsubishi agreed to Jessup's arrangement and made it the rest of the way to the Honeypot without causing any further trouble.

 

With the next three gamblers arriving within a narrower window, the Fated decided to split into three groups in order to get them to the Honeypot in a timely manner.  The first group, consisting of Victor and Jacyeon, returned to the station to find Conner McCrae in an argument with some guardsmen over some discrepencies in his traveling papers, mostly regarding items in his baggage of a restricted nature.  Luckily, Victor had remembered some of the legal-speak that Pedro had tossed around on previous assignments and was able to convince the guardsmen that the paperwork for the items had already been filled out and was on file back at the Guild Enclave.  With the matter settled, the two of them quickly hustled the greatful McCrae down to the Honeypot. 

 

Eirik and Mike handled the next arrival, Danny Severins, who turned out to be a large, blustering whale of a man who seemed more concerned with the care of his six large luggage trunks than with getting to the Honeypot in anything resembling a timely manner.  Despite their best efforts, the two of them struggled with the heavy luggage and ended up having to take a rest in a Little Kingdom street.  The heavy-looking trunks - and their wheezing, hunched-over forms - were enough to attract some unwanted attention in the form of some gang members.  A fight broke out when the two Fated refused to turn over the trunks to the thugs, and during the combat Mike's huge hammer ended up striking one of the luggage trunks, sending expensive clothing flying in every direction.  Mr. Severins ran away squealing in horror, but Mike managed to catch him and bring him back as Eirik finished off the last thug.  Calling upon his natural charm, Mike then managed to talk a burly man who had come out to watch the fight into helping them carry the luggage the rest of the way to the Honeypot. 

 

Next up was Ms. Leyla Foster, a young, attractive black woman who informed Jessup and Dekerd in no uncertain terms that she wasn't going to the casino until she's had a chance to visit a few of the local saloons and get some drinks.  When they insisted upon making their way to the Honeypot, Ms. Foster countered with a plan to bar-hop their way there, drinking all the way!  Jessup managed to convince here that the drinks at the Honeypot were far better than the watered-down swill served elsewhere in town, and soon the three of them were making a good pace towards the casino. 

 

With only two more VIPs remaining, the Fated returned to three-man groups to handle them.  Mike, Eirik, and Dekerd met Avery St. John at the station, only to find that Mr. St. John wanted nothing to do with them and had no intention to go to the Honeypot at all!  It appeared as if he had just used Lynch's tournament as an excuse to come to Malifaux (and, presumably, to have his ticket paid for by the Honeypot).  He was about to leave when Eirik placed a hand on his shoulder and informed Mr. St. John that he was going to the Honeypot, and it was his decision whether he walked there or had to be carried after they broke his legs.  The gambler went pale and agreed to travel with them to the casino, where he was met in person by Lynch, who was eager to discuss some sort of debt that St. John owed to him. 

 

Meanwhile, Jacyeon, Jessup, and Victor dealt with Kallius Mandel, an older woman with an annoying yippy dog.  Upon hearing Jacyeon introduce himself as "Dr. Scarabius," she immediately saddled up next to him and began putting the moves on him.  While Jessup and Victor were quite amused at the good doctor's awkward attempts to fend off her advances, it at least kept her distracted enough for them to get her to the Honeypot without any further issues. 

 

Dekerd slipped off as the rest of the group heard some commotion from outside.  The bouncer was arguing with a group of Three Kingdoms thugs who claimed that Lynch owed them money and that there would be trouble if he didn't pay.  Victor and Eirik stepped up behind the bouncer, showing a unified front that was apparently enough to make the thugs reconsider causing any trouble.  They left with another warning, urging Lynch to settle his debts before they were settled for him.  The bouncer was less than appreciative of their assistance, however, almost as if he was hoping that the confrontation would end in a fight.  The group returned to Lynch and told him of the thugs and their threats, but Lynch just flashed them a charming smile and assured them that he didn't owe anything to anyone. 

 

Dekerd, meanwhile, went to the station to pick up the last person on his list.  Unlike the others, the list that Lynch's girl had given him had a seventh name on it, that of US senator Mathis Gerber.  According to the girl, Lynch wanted the senator to have an "accident" on his way to the Honeypot, and he thought that Dekerd was just the man for the job.  Senator Gerber stepped off the train wearing the most stereotypical cowboy costume that Dekerd had ever seen, right on down to the brand new revolvers in his hip holsters.  Dekerd chatted him up about his life Earthside, learning that he was from "the great state of Texas" and that he was involved in some "very important" legislation back home.  As they talked, Dekerd took a detour into the "bad part" of the Little Kingdom, and soon three tough-looking thugs had stepped out of the shadows to confront them.  The senator was worried, but Dekerd told him that he would take care of it and stepped forward....only to give the thugs a handful of scrip to "make the cowboy disappear."  The thugs were all too happy to comply, and Dekerd teleported away as they pounced on the senator. 

 

Upon returning to the Honeypot, Dekerd informed Lynch that although he had waited at the station, the last guest hadn't showed up.  This caused a bit of confusion among the other Fated, as everyone on their lists had arrived just fine, but Lynch didn't seem to mind.   He sent Dekerd upstairs to have his pick of the girls, earning more grumbling from Jacyeon, who was quite certain that Dekerd wasn't paying any attention to his (frequent) warnings about the dangers of the luminescence passed out by the casino's girls.  Jessup and Victor were right on his heels with girls of their own, leaving the good doctor to stomp back home alone. 

 

 

The next day was the day of the tournament.  Victor had decided to buy a seat at one of the tables, and Lynch offered Dekerd a place as well, with the caveat that he would be betting using the casino's money and trying not to win, but to make certain that others lost.  Dekerd didn't feel particularly confident about his own capablities and declined, while the more confident Victor lost all of his chips within the first hour.  The others spread out through the casino, keeping an eye on the gamblers to discourage cheating. 

 

The true problem lay outside the Honeypot, however, as a trio of Three Kingdom thugs launched an attack on the casino.  The bouncer wasted no time in getting into combat and the group rushed out to assist him, facing off against a hulking man with a giant hammer, an helmeted man with a blessed longbow, and a masked ghost eater who reinforced their numbers with Onryo summoned from the other side.  It was a fearsome battle but the Fated eventually prevailed, and Jacyeon patched up their wounds afterwards, despite encountering some weirdness when it came to patching up Jessup and his new heart. 

 

They quickly looted the thugs, with Jacyeon taking the blessed longbow and Victor claiming the porcelain mask worn by the ghost eater.  The bouncer tossed the bodies down a nearby alley and returned to his post, sneering at the blatant looting happening in front of him.  There were some lingering shivers as they headed inside, as if something unseen were following behind those that had fought the Onryo, but it was waved off as being nothing more than post-battle jitters. 

 

The tournament concluded in a victory for Mr. Mitsubushi, who defeated the other VIPs and dozens of other patrons to claim the pot.  Lynch collected the Honeypot's share for hosting the tournament and paid the group their promised fees, as well as a tidy bonus for ensuring that the thugs did not disrupt the tournament.  Lynch asked if they might be available for future work, and despite Jacyeon's reluctance and distrust, the group expressed their desire to work with the casino owner again.  With another night of complimentary booze and girls as a further bonus, Dekerd, Mike, and Victor once again found themselves in the arms of Lynch's girls, furthering their dependence upon what Jacyeon has been referring to as "luminesence." 

 

Dekerd, having been exposed to far more of the luminesence than anyone else, found that it was having a strange effect upon him.  He now was able to use the reserves of the substance in his body to heal his wounds, essentially earning him the Brillshaper action as a manifested ability. 

 

 

(0) Brillshaper (Enchantment + Tenacity / TN: 10):  You heal 1/2/3 damage.