GM: Sean Nittner
Players: Karen Twelves, Eric Fattig, and Adrienne Mueller
System: Blades in 68′
This was the session I was anticipating with both excitement and dread. Would 968 return to the Golden Hand after breaking Avrand’s arm and opening defying him? If so, what would Croc, who loves 968 do with his creation?
What do with Geraldine?
We started the session with the Dirt Barons determining what to do with GRD-9. Giving her to back to Professor Cole would likely mean she was in just as much danger as before. The Golden Hand certainly didn’t seem like there were interested in her well-being. And while Lenaya and the AFU offered to watch over her, their definition of “safe” was probably deactivation and a containment field for her resonance echo.
With no real “good” option they eventually decided to keep GRD-9 at their place. It was hidden and few (besides the Golden Hand) would think to look for her there. They all agreed she could stat with them…for now.
Trouble Engine
I meant to do this last session but since they had resolved past trouble (nothing to build on) I was able to roll it up pretty quickly. We got:
Crew Trouble (Light): Patrols. The Golden Hand doesn’t know exactly where The Dirt Barons operate, but they knew the vicinity. From a window Nav could see Delta units 969 and 923 monitoring the street, equipped with high end surveillance modifications.
Local Trouble: Denouncement (ongoing). Chants of “Hulls aren’t human!” and “Not our jobs” were heard from the street as well. The presence of the Golden Hand hulls only made things worse!
Memories
Delta was settling in GRD-9 to live with them (temporarily) and she asked him some questions that rattled things loose. We flashed back to the Resonance “memory” they shared and the hollow looked dead into his eyes and said “Rubens, I’m hunting you now.”
Delta-968’s name was Rubens! He had be researching the disappearance of the leviathans. He had someone who helped him. What was his name?
Concern? Suspicion
While the crew was delighted that Delta, er Rubens, had this realization, it only hammered home for Nav how little she knew about him. When they hired the hull, she (rightly) thought it had no memories, no individual will, just a desire to perform for it’s contract holder. And for a time that was true. But now that Rubens was (alive? awake? aware? something?) she realized he could be anyone.
Paolo seemed unconcerned. “He’s never done anything harmful to us so far. Why worry about milk that isn’t yet spilled?”
They inspected the harness that Avrand was using to “control” the hulls and found on it two switches that were heavily guarded against accidental tampering. Each was labeled with a number 914 and 969, the designations of hulls that accompanied him on the last score. What would those switches do?
Delta and GRD-9 overheard the conversation but didn’t know what to do with the information. “There’s nothing that we can do? I mean, there are things we can do, but we won’t do them, right?”
There’s a reason they call it a vice.
Paolo went gambling and got in a game with Mack Ransom, “Horror” Horriston, and Castelle Fane. The stakes were high (higher than Paolo could afford) but Mack offered to cover Paolo’s bet, he had faith in the kid. When Paulo then lost (Mack’s money) it cemented him firmly in the developer’s debt. It wasn’t all bad news however. Paolo did indulge, and despite the fact that Mack and Castelle were having coded conversation the whole time, Castelle left a ledger regarding payments (also encoded) for Mack, that Paolo filched on his way out!
Reducing Heat
After the job done for AFU, it was time for them to help out the Dirt Barons as well. Nav talked to Lenaya, who agreed to slip the harness they took from Avrand into a canal and otherwise get the head off them.
On Program
When Delta recieved the normal “ping” that indicated it was time to return to the Golden Hand and go On Program it was different than before. Somehow a certain urgency came through the broadcast. When he went outside there were two Golden Hand hulls (969 and 923) waiting for him with their radio frequencies blocked. Delta could only communicate using his limited verbal components and found that 969, which was so eloquent over wireless frequencies, was even more stilted than he was. “Delta-968. Return. Now.” 969 repeated this command? request? inquiry? over and over in a flat tone until Rubens began waling. The walked to the Golden Hand’s arcade in silence, except for the sounds of jeers and taunts from those they passed.
When they arrived 968 was verbally instructed not to enter through the main entrance as he was accustomed to, but to go through the garage where stolen cars were normally delivered. Though his recording capacity was suppressed (as it normally was) the familiar buzz of wireless communication was absent. It was as though all the radios were turned off…or tuned to a different frequency.
In the garage Croc welcomed 968 with pain in his eyes. Had he been crying? Was he about to cry again? Under his breath he muttered “why would you?” “how could you?” but none of these were real questions for 968…maybe they were questions for himself.
The garage had been retrofitted to host a hull resonance induction chamber. There was a clear canister that held a swirling substance marked D-974. A resonance echo.
Suddenly Rubens grasped what was about to happen. Normally any work on a hull would be done inside, but they purposely wanted to keep 968 at a distance…away from the other hulls…so he couldn’t infect them with whatever corrupted resonance he contained that allowed him to defy orders and harm one of the Golden Hand’s most senior members. Croc was going to replace his resonance. Croc was going to erase 968. Croc was going to erase Rubens!
From a high vantage above in the offices, Arvand (with his arm in a sling) and the leader Kavird D’har watched intently as Croc connected the malfunctioning machine to the induction unit. What they couldn’t detect at this distance, however, was the pleading conversation.
“Please don’t do this. I don’t want to die.”
“I know my ch- I know. I don’t want to hurt you. But I have no choice. They will not rest until 968 is no more.”
[And this is when Adrienne made the most important Desperate Sway roll I’ve ever seen. She spent Drain to give Rubens a single die and on it she rolled… a 6!]
At the last moment, overcome with grief, Croc could not go through with the operation. He had enough distance that his supervisors couldn’t see exactly what he was doing and so instead of inserting the resonance into Ruben’s frame, he placed it in the storage compartment and let it drain away, back into the resonance field. When he produced the empty container, they all believed this new model was Delta-974. His plating was replaced and his new demarcation designated him a new member of the Golden Hands work force.
Who was Rubens?
Rubens, in the guise of Delta 974 needed to do all the normal “initialization protocols” which were mostly useless, but did give him time to talk to Croc and learn a bit more about his past. He started a new long term clock “Learns about his arrest” [2 of 8 ticks filled] and recalled going through the restricted section in the Charterhall University private libraries and a Bluecoat shouting at him as he fled.
Yesterday’s enemies are today’s friends
Dorji Kon the very loyal, very suspicious, and very intuitive fixer for the SCORPION Syndicate was just the person Nav needed to find a custom silencer for her Iruvian sniper rifle. He described with loving detail the work that would be needed to modify a silencer to match her rifling so that it wouldn’t slow or skew the trajectory of her bullets. He told her how the smallest deviation could cause a misfire or worse for the bullet to explode in the chamber. Was all this to get more money out of her or to just relish in the precision of his work? Who knows, probably both.
In either case, Nav paid the two stacks to Get the Goods [Acquire an asset in Blades 68′ allows you to roll tier (or lifestyle) and then modify your results by spending stacks. Nav paid to get a fine piece of precision equipment. I missed the rule that acquiring firearms, poisons, explosives, etc causes you to get +2 heat, so I’ll add that next session]
Honest Stev
Paolo went to see his mechanic Honest Stev, a man who would sell you your own teeth if he could! Stev berated Paolo for how he treated the Princess (his last car) the way he did. “You took her through an anomaly, you crashed her into a Bluecoat interceptor, and they you just left her to rust!” All of which was of course pretense to show Paolo the newest ride he was working on…Salvation!
Stev also took some interest in Paolo’s mechanical friend. Once they started talking, however, something sparked. Stev was Ruben’s cousin!!!
Housecalls
Without the funds to pay for another stay at the hospital, Paolo reached out to Sister Elise at her apartment. He was bleeding bad from the last score (again) and looked like a sad creature in the rain. She took him in and cared for him over the night. Tending to his injuries and getting to know it better.
Paolo had weird dreams of going underground and appearing throughout the city, seeing parts of the city he’s never seen before. Elise must have given him some powerful drugs.
Reunited
The next day Paolo and Delta returned to the Veil. They caught up and Delta told them how he was almost destroyed for his actions. He was also worried about what other things he might do. Paolo, as always, reassured him “I’m not your temporary owner, I’m your conscience!”
Established Truths
- Hull’s can become “sentient”, recall their old memories, develop free will and identity, but something has to “shake” them up for it to happen. So far the common denominator (for both Delta and GRD-9) is being part of an Anomaly.
- Paolo has a ledger between Castelle Fane and Mack Ransom, however it’s encoded.
- Dorji Kon provided Nav with a custom built silencer for her rifle.
- Protests are still ongoing in Silkshore (and other districts) regarding the Hull Directive. Last night, a gondola was sunk and went down into the canals along with the hull gondolier that piloted it.
- Next Score: Recovering Little Gallo
