GM: Judd Karlman
Player: Sean Nittner
System: Blades in the Dark: Deep Cuts
The pitch:
You walk out of Ironhook in the suit you got arrested in, your old crew is spread hither and yon all over Doskvol’s factions. Your starting situation is a Crew sheet. The thing you know walking out alone is that you cannot survive alone in Doskvol.
Crown watched Stitch’s second hands out vials of Scarlet, bright red liquid, to the Red Sashes, honing their focus.
The target was as gambling den, called the Tomb, marked by the tarot card of Death.
As the Sashes gathered to make their move, Crown got Sitch’s attention, but she wasn’t happy about it! Stitch agreed to let her go in first and scout it out.
Inside she attuned and sense a ghost field door with a star on it. Isn’t where a door should be. Three feet off the ground, only accessible by climbing on some barrels.
There were too many people inside. Not all lampblacks. People she couldn’t place. This was wrong.
Crown tipped over drink to cause a distraction and then scrambled up the barrels and through the ghost door [Note to self, I think it would have been cool if I flashed back to picking up a ghost key from a whisper to open it. Reminder to spend some rep and coin to make that happen]
Inside a strange place. The lighting is weird. There are no smells. The ground does not feel like any surface I know. A man with a three piece suit, the faintest edge of a hook on peeking up from his collar. At first he will not give a name so he is only the Man in the Dark Room.
Then he make his offer. The Wardens of Spirits and Arcane Practices are recruiting from that church. He wants Crown to join and be their mole. A deal is struck and a ghost contract is made. The tattoo the both get is a star with a crown on it. The man reveals his name is Star. This means a lot.
He tells her there is a shift change in two hours. Some of the freelancer won’t show up. That is the time.
The Red Sashes take the hall and the take a few wounds, but the bells don’t toll. Afterward Stitch takes Crown back to the Academy to see her father Taji. He’s a bodyguard to an Iruvian diplomat at the embassy. He’s older now, instructing students and putting them through their paces. Crown is more deferential than she means to be. Somehow the man still frightens her.
When she returns to The Alley, her belongings are being put in a carriage. The driver Grol tells her she’s moving from flophouse to penthouse. Well groomed goats, a find carriage. This is the real deal.
The penthouse is above a dance hall in Silkshore. Finely appointed and includes evidence of successful scores that never happened. A paper trail to explain her newfound wealth.
Payout
- 10 coin (6 from the Red Sashes, 4 from the Unseen)
- -2 coin to Ward Boss (the Unseen) to pay Grol and for the apartment
- 7 Heat plus two more from a Devil’s Bargain as the start turns to 1 Wanted Level
- 8 Rep (1 + 3 (Tier of the Lampblacks) + 3 (Heat) +1 for Wanted level)
- +1 Faction status with the Red Sashes, but to Crown’s surprise, no blowback from the Lampblacks.
Entanglement
Dinner with Commander Clelland in Six Towers. On the way there she marvels at the New Horizon district, that was the lost district she grew up in. Chills.
Dinner is at the Golden Plum, an Iruvian restaurant with the most incredible Mushroom Cloud. It is light and fluffy and covered in garlic sauce better than Crown has ever tasted. But it’s also empty. Just Crown, Clelland, and a whole bunch of snipers on the opposite roof ready to take her head off if she tried anything.
Clelland wants to know happened. Crown shares her own speculation and convinces him to lay off the Crows and stick it to Ulf Ironborn instead.
He hates the Blackcoats. The are edging in on his turf. There’s one station chief at the dock that works for them. If the bells were to ring for him, Clelland wouldn’t lose any sleep.
See all the rest here:
