Heist within a Heist (7/10/2025)

GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Eric Fattig, Adrienne Mueller, and Karen Twelves
System: Blades ’68

During a night race at Vreen Autodome, a group of criminals and drivers assembled in a poorly lit garage. Kai, the mechanic for Red Torque was briefing the score to everyone. He was a bit nervous, but Blaze was in the back of the room, nodding and reassuring him. His audience:

• Little Gallo, disguised and in racing helmet, going by codename “Viper”
• Paolo, wearing a helmet, not speaking, going by “Three Knives”
• Naya, Red Torque racer. Designated as their lead car.
• Talya, racer and bodyguard for the Ankhayat Consortium
• Racer X, who soon revealed himself to be Val Gallo, unaware the “Viper” is his brother under a mask.
• Racer Y – Wearing a gas mask and incognito for now.
• Jett, a member of the Leatherbacks, enemies of the Red Torque, but the job was too good to pass up.

For each Dirt Baron present I added 1-tick to the “Dirt Barons Identified” clock. If this filled, Red Torque would know they were betrayed by their friends. Both Val and Paolo resisted this so the clock stayed empty, for now.

It seemed like Kai has practiced this briefing a few times, but still he pauses occasionally as his mind sifted through the details.

We head out tomorrow on Home Day.

Make your way through Radiance on your own. Home Day is when prisoners are released from Ironhook so we should have some cover, but don’t draw any unnecessary attention to yourself.

Exit the G1 on Darkhollow and head south to Barrier Road. At the Coal Hour, and exactly at the Coal Hour, we’ll have access through the gates and through the Bubble.

If this is your first time out in the Deathlands, don’t worry, whatever horrors you’ve heard about don’t come close to Doskvoll, but do wear a mask, it’s dusty out there.

When you get out, there will be a lead pod [Naya raised her hand to indicate she was lead] that will take you along the Calm Way to Ghostbane Hill and then through Old North Port. Move slow and don’t deviate from the path. Trust me, you don’t want to be caught outside the Bubble by the Realty Wardens because you set off one of their alarms.

Once you clear the southmost tower, that’s when you can let her rip. The lead pod is going to move fast and you’d better be ready to burn plasmoleum to keep up. Best to stay focused on the lead and not pay attention to anything you might think you see in the dust. More than one racer has been lost out there chasing a mirage.

When you get to the depot, pop your truck but stay in your pod. The Deathlands aren’t kind to the living, even when you’re wearing protective gear. We’ll pack your pods and then you’ll head back to Old North Port following the lead.

Once we get back the lead pod will take you to the gates and wave you though one at a time. Don’t lose your cool and rush the gates. We’ll get everyone inside in time.

Once you’re in Radiance, you each have individual locations to make your drops where a Red Torque crewmember will unload your product and get you paid. Four stacks per pod, per run, no exceptions.
For anyone thinking of trying to take this haul for yourselves. We’re not stupid. The depot is guarded. The drop locations are all different so you’re not going to find out where we are holding the product inside the city. There’s a lot of stacks for everyone to make on this job. Don’t get greedy and we’ll all get a payday. Understand?

There were a few questions from Little Gallo, and then follow up from Racer X, who revealed himself as Val Gallo, to follow up about what to do if they got stranded in the Deathlands. Go back to the bubble, wait for the lead car to return. Don’t lose your cool.

One Day to Plan

Now that they knew the details they only had one day to prepare to sabotage their friends without Red Torque knowing any better.

• Honest Stev (who is anything but) found Paolo a pickup truck and a tarp that easily held triple what an autopod could in the trunk.
• Stev also cut a hole in Gallo’s car (happily, he doesn’t like the guy) so Nav could fit her sniper rifle through it, with the plan to take shots at the tires of the other drivers, who would hopefully believe they simply blew out their tires on some rough terrain.

Little Gallo, a.k.a. Viper was the first one to make it off the G1 through the Deathhollow Road, to Barrier road and the gate. He wanted to be there first, but I had to wait exactly till the Hour of Coal arrived. Warning, Caution, Danger, and Hazard signs placed all over the gate tried to stave off the would be traveler. Everything short of skull and crossbones. The heavy gate looked like it could stop speeding truck and showed no sign of opening anytime soon. There was a kiosk there that could’ve held an attendant, but no one was present.

Past the gate he could see bubble shifted from the brilliant blue sky to the psychedelic neon flashing colors as the bubble powered down for the day, and beyond it perhaps a figure waiting on the other side. Just as the clock ticked over till the Hour of Coal the barrier lifted and bubble behind it was suddenly not there. There’s no sign of a disappearing or turning off just the absence of a psychedelic array. On the other side was a desolate wasteland bleached dry of any color or life. Naya’s autopod was parked and ready. She waved them through.

Viper was followed by Talia, Val, Racer Y, Paulo, Jett, and at the last moment, another pod appeared at the end of the convoy. If Naya was surprised that Paolo (aka Three Knives) was driving a truck, she didn’t make any objections. They were on the job.

Naya led the convoy along the Calw Way right next to the barrier and as they drove, they all felt a sense of warping space around them, they were being pulled into the barrier and we’re being stretched in impossible ways. As they watched, every dimension appear to stretch over the horizon, but as soon as they looked again, everything was normal again. The constant distortion required all of their focus to keep on the path. The convoy made it to Ghostbane Hill and started weaving through Old North Port.

Making their way through the old port, Nav opened the portal Stev had made in Little Gallo’s car and slid her sniper rifle through it to take at aim at Talya’s tires. Luckily with all the dust in the air, nobody could see the barrel protruding.

[Note, from here out the AP report is shortened into list format]

• Nav to a shot and it missed, or just never landed.
• As she looked around to determine where the shot might have gone, she saw inside one of the buildings a graduation ceremony…her graduation ceremony. In the shadows the friends and families celebrated the new graduates. Was her family there among them? She had no time or opportunity to find out.
• The bullet, far too late, struck Talya’s pod and she reflexively swerved, not knowing what hit her.
• Nav fired again and this time the bullet trajectory was true. Talya’s tire went out and she swerved off the path. She pulled over to change out the tire, but in the dust and without her pit crew she couldn’t do it fast enough to keep up.
• Val sped up to try and close the distance. For a moment Nav held him in her crosshairs. But that was no use. She wanted to be alive so she could torment him more.
• At the end of the convoy, Paulo was being followed by Jett, who in turn was followed by the mysterious autopod.
• Paolo slowed to get a better look at the trail pod. He couldn’t make out the driver, but the style was familiar. This was someone he’d raced against. He tried the SCORPION Syndicate radio frequency to see if it was Hurricane, but there was no response.
• What he did get however, was Jett’s ire. The Leatherback didn’t want to lose track of the convoy and he pressed his horn to express it.
• Paolo slowed down even more…and then swerved rapidly to try and kick up dust and lose Jett. The racer was determined however, and he just plowed through the back of Paolo’s truck, rending steel from both pods in the process. Curses and vexation crackled over the radio to all the drivers.
• The last driver never appeared. In fact, Paulo didn’t see any of the drivers. He was lost!
• He took off his gas mask (bad idea for his health, but it did help him attune to the deathlands), breathed in the caustic air and attuned to his friends to find him…he found himself in the back of the Velvet Veil.
• The joint smelled like smoke, booze, and sweat. Three-Fingers, his partner, was excited about the set. “Tonight’s going to be the night Paolo. With your lungs and my brass, Loretta can’t help but fall in love.”
• And she did. The whole crowd did. Paolo was reliving a memory that was lost. Unfortunately, Loretta was drawn to the wrong guy. She was making eyes at Paolo!
• Just off the dance floor Paolo saw Lydia Rowan smiling at him. She was drinking tea (not something normally served in the Veil) and had a figure cloaked in shadow beside her drinking a vodka tonic. Paolo looked at the Rowan house signet ring on his finger, the ring that had always been on his finger.
• He wasn’t going to let this happen, at least not like it did the first time. He danced with Loretta, but then danced her right into Three Finger’s arms. Paolo the wingman, not the snake after all. [Crit on his Attune roll to change the past. Three Fingers went from Rival to Close Friend, but the mysterious figure by Lydia remained in shadows]
• Meanwhile, Little Gallo didn’t want Nav to shoot at his brother, even it it was at the tires, so he weaved through the buildings to ditch him. Val was trying to catch up from behind and never made it. Little Gallo once again found the amber light of Naya’s lead pod and soon found Racer Y hot on his heals.
• Nav tossed a grenade out the back (thanks professor Cole) and Racer Y’s pod swerved out of the way, flipping over as it went of an embankment.
• When Little Gallo looked, Racer Y was sitting in the passenger seat of his car, adjusting some sparkcraft technology on her wrist that was just powering down. She pulled off her helmet, smiled, and told him he was doing a great job. Keep it up.
• The reached the south tower and Naya broadcast over the radio for everyone to gun it and keep behind her. “Don’t lose your lead pod. Don’t be distracted. See you at the depot!” Then she tore off, burning plasmolium.
• Little Gallo and Nav had lost contact with Paolo but they tore after Naya. Racing nearly blind in the dust, they nearly drove into mortar fire of Unity War III.
• Infantry men in trenches, air support above dropping bombs, explosion, death and gunshots in every direction. They were driving through a war zone and year Naya yell over the radio to ignore it and not be distracted by the echoes that couldn’t hurt them. But the sites and sounds of the explosion of war and death felt very real. Little Gallo swerved around tank fire, past trenches, and regiments of terrified looking soldiers. It seems that the war went on forever, but Racer Y continue to encourage him and tell him that you just need to focus that he had everything you needed right there to get through this scary, but not real, encoutner.
• Little Gallo held fast and made it out of the echo, his knuckles as white as the bleached earth around him.
• As the exited the echo, inexplicably, Paolo was in front of them, trailing just behind Naya. The anomaly changed and the past re-written…again.
• Little Gallo, Paolo, and Nav all did some Fast and the Furious level physics breaking car maneuvers to get Nav out of Val’s truck and into cab of Paolo’s truck, then quickly hiding behind the bench seat. [Crit on a group finesse action plus Nav used Wetwork to perform a feat verging on the superhuman…it looked bad ass]. Little Gallo murmured how cool it all was, while his other passenger remained with her attention on him!
• Arrival at the depot was less than Red Torque wanted, but enough to be worthwhile. Naya, Viper (with the mysterious Racer Y beside him), Three Knives (in a truck), and the final mystery driver, who turned got out of the car and revealed himself to be Blaze, leader of Red Torque.
• The depot was a crash site of the Storm Surge. Secured to the ground by spark tech grapples, and surrounded by a dated lighting barrier that was on the fritz. The original generator failed due to all the ash and dust that choked up it’s engines, so it was now being powered by a partially disassembled hull.
• By this time the dust and psychedelic affects we wearing on everyone, Paolo the worst for not wearing his mask [Level 1: Deathlands Sickness for all]
• The one serviceable hull remaining was taking loads of white lotus and placing them in the trucks of the auto pods. Naya told everyone to stay inside but nobody listens.
• Paolo got out of his truck and pretended to be sick. He staggered over to the Storm Surge, even as Blaze was yelling at him to stay back, and pretended to wretch. The good news was that he planted Nav’s tracking device and was able to identify that Hurricane and several others SCORPION Syndicate employees were in the passenger sections of the airship, likely held hostage. The bad news was that triggered the Hull’s proximity alerts and he was nearly run through by the same lifting blade the hull used to carry heavy loads. Only his racing leathers saved him from a near lethal blow [Level 3 Harm, Resisted by using up his armor]
• Racer Y, who finally identified herself as Baine, got out of Little Gallo’s ride, made a familiar nod to Naya (they clearly knew each other) and entered the Storm Surge. When the Hull moved towards her, she activated another gadget and it ignored her. She returned a few minutes later with a cat-sized spark tech device with wires dangling out of it. Clearly, it had been recently cut away from the Storm Surge’s systems. She smiled, apparently quite content with what she had found.
• Three Knives (Paolo) shouted that they should fill his truck bed up with more product to make up for the other drivers that did make it. Blaze wasn’t going for it (all to aware that putting this much product in the hands of someone unknown wasn’t safe), but Knives assured him “That’s fine, let’s switch cars. You can take my ride.” Unable to find fault with the plan Blaze agreed, and triple the normal load was put in Paolo’s truck, covered by tarps….all with Nav still in the back.
• They all raced back to Doskvol and made it, one by one, through the barrier. At one point Little Gallo looked over, and instead of Baine, there was Val, but kinder, more encouraging Val that he ever met. He helped Little Gallo face the terrors and because of that Little Gallo brought him back into Doskvol with him. Someone else picked up the real Val on the way. [Mechanically, this was a Devil’s Bargain to accept a Deathland’s spirit as another “passenger” in Little Gallo’s mind]
• Once inside Baine impressed upon Viper that he should let her out (with a gun pressed into his side).
• Nav reached through the seat and shot Blaze with a tranquilizer dart. The move wasn’t quite as fast as she wanted and he noticed movement in the rear view mirror. Before passing out he lunged over the seat, saw a masked figure and tried to pull off the gas mask to identify her, but passed out before he could [We ended the score with 5 of 6 ticks on the Baron’s Identified clock!].
• Nav dropped Blaze on the sidewalk and took the truck to meet Dorji Kon. It wasn’t all the shipment by far, but it was enough to prove she had seen it. That plus the tracking device Paolo planted (and Nav gave to Dorji) went a long way to getting the syndicate to back down [Faction status that was -2, on the verge of -3 (war), went back up to -1]. She asked what he would pay for intel on the next run…smart move. He promised her 6 stacks if the intel was good.
• Payout:
  • 10 stacks (4 for Knives, 4 for Viper, +2 for planting the tracking device). Two of those paid to the Gallo Family.
  • 2 Heat (contained)
  • 3 Rep (we thought it might be 0, but then the SCORPION Syndicate knew about it, the Gallo Family was going to find out… sooner or later it might back it back to Red Torque as well (that would be bad).
• That night Little Gallo heard Val talking to his mom in secret “I met grandfather, but when he was a child and Little G was his grandfather. It made no sense.”

Thoughts for next Game

Was this an intel heist? If so Kassius should show up with some stacks.