GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattig, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in 68′
The Velvet Veil never closes and is infrequently empty, but by 2AM most are tired, relaxed, and finally getting some sleep. Which is exactly why the Bluecoats picked that time to start kicking in doors…or in this case, send their new Riot Hull to batter them in!
Thanks to the Tomorrow Project security device, Nav and Delta were both alerted before the Bluecoats got to their door. Paolo had just made it to bed and was still groggy from the night before. When Nav looked out the door she saw a squad of Bluecoats pulling people out of their rooms and offices, gathering them into the lobby, and tossing their rooms for contraband.
The rolled a die (literally, in game) to determine who would distract and slow down the Bluecoats and who would go about hiding all the contraband. Nav won the roll and positioned herself right in front of the door to open it a moment before it would have been kicked in. What she saw, however, was rather than a bluecoat stumbling forward off balance was a 3″ cylindrical ram that burst forth from the the abdominal chamber of a Riot Hull.
Sargent Vran, sneering at the hull and at Nav with equal distain slapped a warrant on the door and told everyone to evacuate so they could perform a search and seizure operation. He was accompanied by two bluecoats, the riot hull, Scavo the Shark (who was trying to keep things from escalating and prevent any more damage then necessary to the casino), and two suited agents that were not specifically familiar, but we wearing the same attire as the guards they saw at Strangford Michter Finanacial.
Nav, with help from Skavo, was quick to cite Doskvol municipal law Article 7, Section 15 that stated that residents could remain on site and observe any Bluecoat action to protect themselves against robbery or having evidence planted. Does such a law existing? Unknown, but Vran wanted this done by the books so he reluctantly consented, however his frustration was sensed when he told the other officers to do a thorough (read: maximally destructive) search of their base [Controlled/Standard Sway. Mixed results].
Stash it all and run!
With the little bit of time Nav bought them, both Delta and Paolo set to securing as much as they could to keep it out of the hands of the Blue. Specifically I had three things in mind that the Bluecoats and/or SMF agents (one of them Horriston) would find if not hidden:
- Quality Documents (including but not limited to the ones stolen from SMF). If this was seized the crew would loose access to the crew upgrade until recovered or replaced.
- GRD-9. She is still wanted, and if found would be taken immediately. The chance that she could be recovered would be very low.
- Any other contraband in their offices (Nav’s silenced sniper rifle, Delta’s charging station, etc).
Delta moved quickly to grab all the essential recordings and documents from his workshop. It was a lot. Stolen documents. Countless recordings that were meticulously organized but not easy to retrieve. [I created a 4-tick clock and told Adrienne it would take a while….OR NOT. The situation was Risky/Standard to start, but Adrienne used the setup action Nav performed to improve that to Risky/Great and then used the POWERHOUSE ability to perform a burst of speed and we improved the position to Risky/Extreme (i.e. the entire clock would be filled). Delta got mixed results]. There was a loud crank that would have alerted the bluecoats and precious recordings if not for Nav making another distraction in the lobby and Delta taking incredible extra care to preserve the precision recordings of Nav and Paolo’s greatest hits [Resisting both consequences]
Meanwhile Paulo scrambled to hid Geraldine (GRD-9). She was very scared but he was able to calm her down enough to collapse into her storage configuration (which looks a lot like a big metal briefcase). He didn’t have a good way out of the base however so he tried to lure a Bluecoat with the cart they were collecting evidence in. Unfortunately the plan backfired and the Bluecoat that entered was a very alert Sergeant Vran, who pulled a hand cannon on Paolo when he saw that the Swinger was poised to club him over the head with a giant metal briefcase (GRD-9). [Risky/Standard, improved to Risky/Great by the setup action, but missed the roll and ended up in a Desperate position…pinned down by Vran’s gun]. “Damn it D’Ambrosio, we could have had a good thing here!”
Dropping Foes
Horriston and the other SMF agent inspected the Blackbox theater and used sensors to look for sparkcraft technology…which was very present in the Base. In their destruction spree, the Bluecoats broke open the aviary “Chester!” but eventually the finished rifling through the lobby and one of them made his way into Delta’s quarters (aka the workshop). Nav gave the signal to Scavo that she had it under control and followed the Blue into the room where she immediately dropped him with a tranquilizer dart [Risky/Standard Hunt. Full success].
This gave Delta the time to overcharge his circuits and bound straight up into the ceiling where he could stay concealed or drop down to aid his friends [Final drain and Delta deadlocked his Superstitious Key to be Paranormalist]
Meanwhile Paolo put on an incredible performance to escape Vran’s suspicion. “Don’t believe what the duchess said. I didn’t steal from her, it was she that stole my heart!” He laid on the water works and Vran was made uncomfortable enough that he just dismissed Paolo (GRD-9 in hand). “Put yourself together man! Go wait in the lobby while we finish with this!”
Knowing that the SMF agents had sophisticated sensors Nav allowed them to get a false positive reading by offering up the one-use encrypted communication device that she got from the AFU. It was sufficiently advanced that it tripped their sensors, allowing Paolo to slip through the lobby with GRD-9 and Delta to remain undetected in the rafters [Risky/Limited Sway with assistance from the AFU. Full success. Enough to distract them momentarily]
“Ms. Siketset, nice to see you again. Your last visit to Comber House didn’t go as we expected. Do you have any other surprises for us?” Nav denied having any idea what he was talking about, told him he should get some better security, and then offered him some coffee, but when he agreed told him “Sorry, I only put on enough for one.” She disappeared into the kitchen to make another pot and then when he went into see what was taking so long, slipped into her bedroom to hide her sniper rifle on the ledge outside the window. Horriston knew something was up, but couldn’t pin anything down specific [Risky/Standard Prowl. Crit result]. Nav was also able to pull the unconscious Bluecoat out from the storage closet she put in him just in time for him to wake up, not quite sure of what happened.
Damage done
In the end, the Bluecoats (and SMF) trashed the place, but didn’t ultimately find what they were after (the documents) or what would have been the most incriminating contraband (GRD-9). Instead they:
- Trashed the place. 3 stacks of damage making the lounge, training facilities, and Secure upgrades unavailable until repaired or replaced.
- Took the AFU encrypted receiver, likely not an issue unless it landed in the hands of the Palace or Blackthorn Park.
- Dismantled most of the power generator that Delta was making (I rolled as if they were doing a long term project but instead of adding ticks, they removed them…and I got a crit).
- The Rowan sapling left completely alone. One of the few things untouched in the raid.
The crew themselves were unscathed, though it will be a week till Chester will come down from the top of the armoire he flew to. When his systems were coming back online, Delta had a memory of Stev telling him to stop chasing down the leads as it was going to get the both of them locked up [1 tick on the memory clock].
Payoff?
Though the Raid wasn’t the score they wanted to go on, it lasted nearly a full session and felt substantive enough to call a score, so we did the numbers:
- Stacks: 0 (in fact they have 3 stacks of damage to repair). Regardless, 1 stack paid to the Gallo family to keep their anger track down. The Gallos have a lot of repairs to do.
- Heat: 6 (High exposure, Well connected target, and now hostile turf)
- Rep: 5 (sticking it to the Bluecoats!)
- Faction Status (+1 with Silkshore Citizens because of being Thieves with a Code, -1 with the Bluecoats because of all the interruptions, no change to SMF (still -2) and no change to Gallo family (who were also hurt by this, but don’t entirely blame the Barons).
- Harm complications: None (miraculously, nobody was harmed)
- Unwind scene spent putting the place back together, reassuring everyone (including Geraldine) that they would be okay and discovering that Delta has a self destruct device built into their ultraplasmic core…which Delta is unable to perceive, even when it is shown directly [Everyone cleared 1 stress, tough Nav and Paolo had some questions!]
- Trouble Engine: I skipped this in the moment, but here’s what I’ve got now:
- Crew: Light Trouble: Demonic Bargains (this feels very appropriate given some of the actions they took in downtime)
- Local: Disaster. This will likely be unrelated, but maybe it will tie into the crew trouble?
- Local escalation: Denounced. Kagney from the Blackjacks was told last score by Paolo that he would help them, but it all backfire when Kagney saw him with Delta. How will the Blackjacks escalate from here?
Personal Bussiness
We started downtime but didn’t quite finish. The downtime actions taken:
Paolo
- Worked with Loretta Hunt, their new lawyer to reduce heat by making complaints about the way the warrant was served and being such a pain in everyone’s asses that they buried the paperwork [-5 heat]
- Assisted in gathering materials from Mirror House to work on the “Bug Out Solution”. More details on this below.
Nav
- Spent all her time building and recruiting help to build a bug out solution, something to hide all the contraband they had and would inevitably get more of in the future. This is started as a simple chute to drip everything down in an emergency and the plans grew all the way until they were building false walls in the base with ultraplasmic powered mechanisms to replace their arsenal, their documents, Detla’s charging station and a whole lot more [6 load worth] with tasteful art, boring book shelves, and other mundane items if they were ever raided again. [Started as a 6-ticket clock but eventually became a 10-tick clock as we kept upgrading it. Nav, with the help of Delta and Paolo, finished it off]
Delta
- Went ON PROGRAM. He was actually called to go on program the moment he deadlocked, but resisted it for a time [Resolve resist]. Croc was delighted to see Delta return and asked him to make the final steps towards completing their Ultraplasmic Bomb. “This will feel a little bit…strange” Croc said as he opened Delta’s chassis and removed him Resonance Core. Then, through sparkcraft wizardry, he re-activated Delta allowing him to control his chassis from a distance though with limited ability because of his out-of-body experience. With Croc’s instruction, Delta sent his chassis into the Unltraplasmic Compression Chamber that no resonance can survive within, to finish the final connections to their massive bomb. “Thank you 968” Croc whispered quietly and then pronounced loudly so everyone could here “Delta 974 has completed the final steps. Project Firestorm is complete.”
- Telling Croc that they had been raided and many parts of his personal recharge station were taken, Delta went about collecting more scavenged parts to rebuild it, with reluctant help from Croc (who was concerned about SMF agents getting their hands on Golden Hands tech and was not happy about Delta’s increased independence, but also was proud of his child’s growth).
- At the end Delta asked (at Nav’s request) of Croc would talk to Nav. The spartech did not want to but eventually consented…if Nav were willing to come to the Arcade…
Thoughts on the Game
I wish I had featured the Riot Hull just a bit more in the session. They basically smashed in the door (or almost smashed it in, Nav was too fast) and then stood there looking menacing. I’m sure they could have been used to
I’m looking forward to Nav meeting Croc. He’s a very different person around humans (instead of Hulls). How will he conceal his discomfort?
I probably should have had the SMF agents plant incriminating evidence during the raid…that’s very much something they would do. Ah well, a good thing to remember for next time.
The Bluecoats did 3 stacks of damage to the base, this can be repaired through a long term project (6-ticks) or just spending the money to have it fixed.
