Picking Sides (Session 8)

• The session opened with some "establishing shots" of the current state of Doskvol. (Here's the accompanying soundtrack.)

An ominous horde of spirits and wraiths swarming out of the Deathlands to the east and piling up against the lightning barrier. Spirit Wardens and off-duty Rail Jacks fighting a defensive action, attempting to break the spectral siege.

A raging, golden maelstrom of demonic energy slowly consuming the waterfront.

Bluecoats and bounty hunters stalking the city, attempting to hunt down a crew of thieves, saboteurs and killers that destroyed a Bowmore ship and attacked a society gala at the Bowmore estate.

All across the city, enemies, rivals, informants, refugees - even starving urchins - have heard of the Queer and are willing to share what they know for a bit of coin or a bit of food. No where a safe refuge in which the crew can hide or a willing ally upon who it can rely.

An enigmatic, benefactor who at best is a cannibal but more likely a demon, seems to have set the crew on a path to destruction - either the city's or their own.

Seems all Doskvol has turned against the Queer, and all that remains to be seen is whether they will turn on each other.   

• The characters conducted a number of downtime activities - the most consequential of which was completing a number of longterm projects:

Cricket pursued information - via his very strained relationship with Petra - about the birth certificate SBD had stolen from the Bowmore Estate - the one for a child named Baby Boy Haig. The mother was Alexandra Bowmore, the estranged and long-deceased younger sister of Lord Bowmore. The father was an unidentified member of the Haig family.

Not coincidentally, Gyre consulted with a lawyer specializing in heraldry and inheritance law to further research the Haig family - the surname on the mausoleum sarcophagus. The family was a one-time, now-mostly-forgotten clan of the Doskvol aristocracy. Purportedly the last heir - Illustrious Haig - was lost to madness in the midst of some old family feud - in the end supposedly committing "self-murder." Gyr discovered that any living heir would have claim to an old shuttered mansion and a small fortune.

Cricket also spent some time establishing an escape plan - an out in case things get too hot. His intent is to use Arianne Bowmore as a cover and for the resources necessary to head south, leaving Duskvol for good. In a further attempt to ingratiate himself, he indulged Arianne with a midnight excursion to "kiss a tombstone" in Six Towers, as the wives' tale claims doing so grants immortality. While in the graveyard, Cricket's ghostly passenger briefly took him over and attempted to use the abundant local spirits to kill him so the possession could be made permanent. He and Arianne escaped, but now she is no longer convinced that Cricket is just a harmless boy toy.

In pursuit of the strange Parva rather casually joined a cult, went missing for a week and turned back up sporting an enigmatic new tattoo.

SBD spent an inordinate about of coin training up some of his skills.

• Not more than two weeks after the last job, the crew's benefactor himself visited Gyr in his apartment in the middle of the night. He offered them another job, the essentials of which were simple enough, even if the execution would be a little complicated. He wanted the crew to steal a full barrel of the tainted Leviathan oil from a Bowmore warehouse, smuggle it across town to Barrier Tower #17 on the eastern side of the city, and substitute it into a specific magazine in the feed queue.

• Gyr, suspicious to the point of certainty about his origins, took the opportunity to question Haig. Still enigmatic, Haig spoke cryptically of revenge and assured Gyr "he would burn them to the ground...every one." Gyr seemed to earnestly, chillingly, agree with the thing he now seemed to assume was his father.

• There was a great deal of debate among the crew members - mostly between Cricket and Gyre - about the job - its intended outcome and their benefactor's purpose. Cricket seemed to want to distance the Queer from Haig, while Gyr seemed to have a strange new trust in - even enthusiasm for - Haig's intentions.

• The heist started out dubiously as the crew discovered the warehouse was well-patrolled by Bowmore guards. As a flashback, SBD spend the afternoon and evening sabotaging the dock pilings to give way. Wearing a guard uniform supplied by Arianne, Cricket used Ghost Veil to phase his way past the outer perimeter and into the warehouse. Parva poled a gondola to the waterside of the pier and Gyr, once again played the part of a night soil collector on the city-side street out front.

• As the crew made their approach, a large squad of Bluecoats arrived and angrily confronted some of the Bowmore guards. A fancy Bowmore coach arrived almost simultaneously, disgorging Lord Bowmore - who immediately began shouting at everyone - and his daughter Arianne.

• Cricket soon realized that the barrel he needed was in a locked storage room with an armed and wary guard. Despite having forged papers, failed attempts to reassure the guard meant he accompanied Cricket into the storage room. Having been planning to plant a clockwork explosive among the extra tainted barrels, Cricket decided he needed to take out the guard. His attempt to backstab the guard failed, resulting in Cricket himself being stabbed. Desperate, Cricket used his bomb like a grenade, blowing up the guard, the stash of tainted Leviathan oil, the small storage room and a large portion of the warehouse structure, as both the bomb and then the barrels exploded. As he fled, a familiar mass of gold-colored swirling spirit energy began to form a massive, ectoplasmic spout behind him - a second, even larger Ghost Torrent.

• Outside, SBD, Parva and Gyr took the muted shouts from inside the warehouse - the calls for help from the guard Cricket had tried to stab - as the signal to act. SBD set off his demolitions and the wharf planking began to collapse into the water. Parva paddled under the dock, subsequently having to dodge the collapsing wharf and falling Leviathan oil barrels. Gyr tried to enter the warehouse form the back but ran afoul of a Bowmore guard - who they proceeded to drown in the shit piled in their cart. Donning the deadman's uniform, they intended to aggravate the conflict between the guards and Bluecoats, but by then the dock was mostly collapsing and they were more worried about escaping than agitating.

• By comparison their extraction was relatively easy. SBD staggered drunkenly into the arms of a bar fly. Parva dragged Cricket out of the water along with a barrel of Leviathan oil - unfortunately it was a barrel of un-tainted, blue oil. Gyr simply cinched down his watch cap to hide his face and hurried off through the growing crowd of gawkers. Each made their way back to the lair having created another chaotic mess on the waterfront - but this time having failed to achieve their score.

• Word quickly spread about the Queer's latest job and the authorities doubled their efforts to find them (+1 wanted level and +13 heat!)

• Things got so hot for the crew that Flews - who for once had nothing to do with the job - was picked up by the Bluecoats on suspicion of association and taken hauled off for interrogation (results pending next session).

• Several of the crew members undertook significant downtime actions:

SBD acquired a suitable body from a corpse thief he knew and successfully faked his own death (even to the rest of the Queer) and took on a new identity. He has started helping out at the eastern lightning barrier using his Ghost Ward power to help hold off the spirits - becoming known as Lazarus Ghostkiller.

Cricket - in an exceptionally unorthodox way of reducing party heat - asked Arianne Bowmore to make an offer to her father on his behalf. Cricket is willing to become Bowmore's inside man in the Queer and help him take down the "ringleader," Gyr.

Dinner Ghosts (Session 7)

• The session began with downtime activities - predominantly training and the continuation of various long-term projects. Cricket secured his relationship with Arianne Bowmore, Flews continued to ingratiate himself with Polonia Stangford and Cricket now too. SBD completed his alchemical project to incorporate the yellow Leviathan oil into his own bodily secretions - because nothing bad will come of that.

• The Queer followed their invitation to dinner in the abandoned graveyard in Six Towers, arriving fashionably late, though perhaps due more to dithering than a sense of style. The large mausoleum dominating the cemetery was lit within by large silver candelabra - the smell of the tapers implying they were likely made with human tallow. The finest silver settings were arranged on the large sarcophagus as if it were a table, and disk-like slabs of raw, well-marbled meat sat plateless, on the cold surface of the stone coffin, in pools of congealing fluid.

• The Bowler Man stood in one corner like a mute footman attending the meal, and a heavily shadowed figure with a hidden voice and fine but archaic clothing stood at the "head of the table." He spoke is a slow, harsh whisper, welcoming his guests. He described how he had chosen their unknown crew to be his instrument vengeance - the tool by which he intended to bring down House Bowmore. Though cryptic and vague, he mentioned something about "a girl" and an "heir," and obsessed on the ruin he would bring on the Bowmores.

• Various party members took a bite or two of their one course meals, trying not to think of what kind of meat it might be. Flews in particular, was unable to keep it down.

• He said he had another task for them - a smuggling trip into the Deathlands. He gave them a strange key and a large case containing several enigmatic devices. He instructed them to meet a Professor Jacob Ibis at the Tea Room the next day and that he would be their guide to the Coven of the Ancient Queen. At the temple, they were to assemble the device following instructions possessed by the scholar and then activate it.

• Gyr, with a suspicious and insightful eye noted that the surname carved among the coat of arms on the sarcophagus was "Haig." The stranger concluded the meeting with more vengeful rambling and a curt dismissal.

• The crew met with Ibis and later that night they used the strange key to infiltrate one of the lightening towers on the eastern bank of the east fork of the River Dosk - opposite Nightmarket. The trip through the tower was an enigmatic tour of arcane machinery, but otherwise uneventful.

• The grey and shadowed landscape on the far side of the Lightening Barrier was bleak, lonely and haunted by remnant wisps of unravelling spirits. The long-crumbling ruins and decay-filled streets of the abandoned, ancient parts of Duskvol were a confusing and frightening maze, made navigable only by a map possessed by professor Ibis. The going was slow given that he had never actually been to the temple before and was picking his way for the first time.

• Eventually the party arrived at the Coven's temple and upon entering realized it contained a spirit well - a tear in the Ghost Veil that allowed for the passage of spirits and other demons into the living world. The Professor's instructions required the crew to assemble the device near the well and as they completed the task Ibis presented them with a sealed folder, saying that he had, "been specifically instructed to give it to the Queer once the device was completed and NOT to read it himself." Lauding his own diligence, Ibis handed the envelope to Gyr who, upon opening it, realized it was the final page of the device's hand-written instruction manual. With crude drawings it instructed the user to stab a human subject in the chest with the large dagger-like hypodermic tube that was part of the machine. Without consulting anyone else, without any hesitation at all, Gyr trance-powdered Ibis and plunged the over-large needle into his chest.

• The machine game to life, glowing, whirring, chugging and immediately countless ghosts began pouring from the spirit well and swarming towards the Queer. Flews drew her pistols and lay down protective fire, giving her comrades the chance to get away. Many ragged spirits also poured in from the wastes outside the temple, blocking the party's retreat. The fray was chaotic, as the Queer scattered and ran for their lives. Flew's gunplay likely saved the day, but even then, despite their Ghost Passage abilities, (and due to a critical failure) Cricket suffered a possessing attack by a uniquely aggressive spirit. Though it does not appear to have any control over him at the moment, Cricket can sense its presence within.

• The flight back to Duskvol and it's protective Lightening Barrier was terrifying and physically brutal, with the crew each taking two kinds of level 1 harm - Terrified and Exhausted. Each also gained 2 stress as a consequence of the nightmare experience.