Recall the worklist for today? I started off with a flat battery, so the office mechanic had to come out and give me a jump start. But the battery wasn't just flat, it was dead, since it conked out again at the third job and jump starting it failed to work. They had to send somebody down from the office, via a battery supplier, and when he got there the battery was twice the size of the existing one. We managed to get it into the space with some wrangling. All this, of course, completely fucked any chance of getting the morning's jobs done on time, and in two cases, getting them done at all.




And on Monday they want me to work my area, the Baldivis/Wellard area, AND a job down in the SW. Fucking joy.

Scooter, despite having a huge stack of unspent XP, also has fewer points in Disadvantages than the other PCs.

The Magus OoC: From a certain point of view, Scooter has his life more together than anybody else in the team.
GM: Despite being the bouncer at a titty bar.

Scooter HAS been practicing some useful stuff, such as accurate Leaping, and the Disguise Skill.

The Magus OoC: That’s not Hero Shrew, that’s Normal Shrew!

Hardlight OoC: I’ll call my Skill Level upgrade ‘Slightly Less Incompetent’

GM: Scooter can get a motorised scooter: And join the Vespa Vermin.
Flux: Now there’s a motorcycle gang the city is missing.

We head to the old cemetery, intending to arrest anybody who shows up, especially if they’re VIPER agents. We have a lot of questions about the situation, including ‘If a vampire joins the Daughters of Lilith do they still have to get the fangs implanted?’.

Unfortunately, The Magus (and Scooter to a lesser degree) botch our Stealth checks at the cemetery.

Hero Shrew: Too distracted by all the free supplies available?
The Magus: No. I keep getting flashbacks.

Hero Shrew OoC: I probably should have tunneled under the cemetery and dragged them into the graves from underground.
The Magus OoC: The problem there is all the human remains.
Flux OoC: You’ll bump into something, and burst out of the ground yelling ‘OMG, I just saw Michael Jackson’
Hero Shrew OoC: Ah, so that’s why we failed the Stealth check.

The Magus having a spectacular allergic reaction to holy ground is also a problem. But it’s the way the two Daughters on guard apparently smell Scooter coming that’s the biggest issue - a bit of a surprise when they’re supposed to be basically human. Scooter attempts to get behind them by tunneling underground - and when the Daughters find what looks like a freshly emptied grave, they panic and flee for the cemetery exits. Scooter had made a successful Presence attack, by accident. Unfortunately it looks like they made a call to their boss about the unexpected zombie situation, and the meeting we were there to crash is promptly cancelled.

Flux gets to work investigating the VIPER agent’s online presence - on top of everything else, she makes an annual trip to Wisconsin.

Hero Shrew: Undersconsin!
Flux: No. We don’t want to die.

We locate and stake-out their next meeting, in a children’s playground. Happily there aren’t any kids around at this hour - that could get messy.

Flux: Honestly if there were a bunch of kids hanging around the playground at midnight I’d be more freaked out than I am with all the vampires.

We also learn that the Spinnerette network the Daughters of Lilith answer to is a bit upset by the gang’s initiative, and they’ve sent some rollerskaters that go by the moniker of The Cherry Bombs to remonstrate. There’s also a news blimp perfectly positioned to film whatever happens next.

The Magus calls up an illusion of thick fog, and the other leap into action to protect the Daughters from likely assassination. And hopefully nab that VIPER rep. The Daughters DO go down suspiciously easy when the Magus follows up with a STUN attack to stop them running away under their own steam. And then the power-armoured SWAT team show up.

GM: It’s something you need to know when dealing with this kind of security - if they don’t recognise you and you seem to be involved in whatever is going on, you’re going down to the station in cuffs. It’s called Securing The Scene.

The Magus: Their deployment vehicle is currently stuck on one of the access paths because nobody gave him the key to this bollard.

( Read more...Collapse )

JANUARY 1923

In Which The Adventurers Complete the Second Leg Of Their Journey, and Acquire An Arm</div>

Sub-Lt. Huxley, journalist Florence Braxton-Hicks, and dilettante Alexandra ‘Alex’ Braxton are currently guests of a French doctor and his wife, who would probably have reconsidered their offer if they knew the kind of excitement the party were bringing into their lives. Admittedly, the fact that their daughter apparently saw a boogeyman outside her upstairs window has no obvious connection to their visitors, but the repeated disturbances in the guestroom, and the discovery of what lies under Chez Lorien, certainly does.

But beginning at the beginning, there doesn’t appear to be a mitten-biter or any other kind of bogeyman outside Quitterie’s upstairs bedroom window when Huxley checks, nor any sign that anybody was in the yard. On the other hand, there doesn’t appear to be anybody else in the room when Florence finds herself flung across the room with considerable force in the middle of the night. Or perhaps there was, because Huxley suffers similar injuries the following night, in the same room, but unlike Flo he recalls a horribly withered figure holding him by the throat and hissing “Which god do you serve?” in Latin.

Of course that does raise the question of how this attacker got into the room in the first place, since only the Loriens have the other key.

Florence: I’m searching the walls for hidden doors - I’ve read enough mystery novels to know the score.

Both Florence and Huxley have bruises that strongly resemble a powerful grip around their throat.

GM: And as far as you know she’s not into autoasphyxiation.

Of course they wouldn’t have had to stay at Chez Lorien that long if they hadn’t botched locating the ruins of Fenalik’s mansion, twice.

Florence: I look at the map again and realise I was holding it upside down. Sacré bleu!

Although it’s Veronique Lorien pointing out that they’re doing all their measurements in metric, when the estate map they were given was pre-Revolution, that uncovers Fenalik’s cellar. Of course, it still takes another day of digging - by Huxley - to excavate the door.

Florence: Hard work never killed anyone.

What lies beyond is certainly hellish, so it appears Captain Malon’s report from 1793 was accurate in that regard. It’s probably just as well Huxley acquired holy water from the church in Poissy. The subterranean garden is bad enough, given the unfortunate parallels with the garden where Florence's stillborn siblings were buried. But hey, at least they find the Left Arm of the Sedefkar Simulacrum! Although Huxley does have a new concern.

Huxley: I think we have another pursuer.
Florence: Charming.

The Left Arm is certainly a curious artefact - apparently ceramic, and inscribed with an intricate pattern of hundreds of left arms. And whatever glaze the creator used darkens from pearly white to a deep blue in sunlight. It’s also flawless, with the exception of a vaccination scar exactly where Alex has one - but that they can’t find again when they doublecheck. Huxley can’t even confirm what it’s made of, since when he tries to scrape off a sample his shoulder starts to hurt.

GM: But then you did do a lot of digging yesterday - that’s no doubt why.

At least they can telegram Professor Smith the good news - he’s apparently recovering from his burns, and has started sending letters to his contacts across Europe to help how he can. And Remi assures his friend that he’ll find a copy of the Diary of an Unknown Soldier and post it to them no matter where they are in Europe. The message from Antonio is less promising - it turns out that de Gremanci is one of the most common surnames in Venice, so finding out if the reputed sorcerer Alvise de Gremanci ever got his hands on part of the Simulacrum is proving difficult.

GM: The telegram is already a bit terse, but Antonio is basically complaining that it’s like asking every Smith in London if their great-great grandfather was a sorcerer and did he leave them any body parts in his will?

On the other hand, now that they know what the Simulacrum actually looks like, they can find out which auction house in Paris sold one of the pieces after The War, and exactly which Milanese gentleman they sold it to. The couple of days are fruitless, until one of the auction houses takes pity on them (or perhaps are impressed enough by the obvious quality of Alex’s suit) to point out that it might have been a private auction - or not sold as statuary at all. THAT clue uncovers a pamphlet where something that sounds very much like the Torso, from the collection of one Dr Rigault (1746-1794), was put up for auction as a ‘Porcelain Anatomical Model, Maker Unknown’. Rigault was the Royal Physician prior to the Revolution, and a name already connected to the raid on Fenalik’s house.

But it appears it didn’t reach the reserve price, and a few years later it was auctioned off as part of a job lot, with a bunch of period costumes, dress weapons, costume jewelry, and dressmaker’s dummies. They were purchased by one P. Rischonti. At last the Investigators can head to Milan - with a brief stop-over in Switzerland to interrogate one Edgar Welligton about his knowledge of the Simulacrum.

Huxley is reluctant to let the Arm out of his sight.

Huxley: I’ll keep it close. At hand.
GM: That pun is a bit of a reach.
Huxley: Does this arm come with a manual?

At least the other guests on the Orient Express as it departs Paris after midnight are less obnoxious than that preteen on the train from London. Indeed, Signorina Caterina Cavallaro, star of Parisian and Milanese opera, is charming, witty, and very generous, complimenting Alex on her suit and promising to get Huxley and his friends rooms at the Galleria Vittorio Emanuele II, as well as front row tickets for opening night of Aida at La Scala. She has quite a story about how she went to her first opera, fully intending to wish for a pony as she sung along to ‘Ritorna vincitor!’, but decided on the spot to wish to be an opera singer instead. Looks like it worked. She sings the aria for the other travellers, to rapturous applause.

Florence OoC: Sing Freebird!

The investigators stagger off to bed, and wake up on a cobbled street in somewhere apparently called Ulthar, which has a lot of cats. Florence is pleased about that - the nature of the trains here, less so. That Alex has switched genders is a bit of a surprise too, although perhaps less than some might expect.

Huxley: Between a woman I normally see in men’s clothing anyway and the fact we’re riding on giant elephant octopus things under a sky where I don’t recognise a single constellation, the fact that Alex is apparently male here barely registers.

Chatting with some of the other passengers on the Dreamlands Express, they learn the train was created to give a chance for any passengers of the one in the Waking World a chance to discard their worries, in the Gulf of Nodens beyond the cloudcity of Serranian. Although there is some philosophical debate in the Dreamlands about which world is the ‘real’ one. After all, as one of the other passengers, one ‘Mac’ Mackenzie from Scotland, points out, sometimes dreamers from Earth die there and live on here, which adds some weight to the question. Although Mackenzie does warn the dreamers away from one Karasov, apparently an arms dealer in the Waking World. Karasov is instantly unpopular with the investigators, and doesn’t help his case any by saying that if he didn’t sell weapons to the governments of the world, somebody else would. Karasov also won’t say why he’s on the train, although MacKenzie’s reason is that he wishes to be a poet in Sona-Nyl. Hopefully there’s some kind of training program there, because his poetry is awful.

The other out-of-place person here is one Madam Bruja, apparently an Elizabethan widow, who wants nothing to do with any of the male passengers on the train, but does warm to Florence when she explains that women have much more freedom in the waking World then they used to - she’s a journalist and travels widely of her own recognizance, for a start. Bruja does warn her to beware men.

Madam Bruja: Men are animals - worse than animals. They’ll take what they want from you, and I won’t let him.

The incredible luxury of the pavilions on the Dreamlands Express is certainly relaxing, and gives Huxley a chance to discuss his concerns with the others. Such as his suspicions about that ‘psychic assassin’ that attacked them in Poissy. He’s sure that at least three different groups know that they’re after the Simulacrum.

Huxley: The Midnight Strangler, Sedefkar of many corpses, and whoever likes skinning people.
GM: Well, Sedefkar probably died quite a few centuries ago.
Florence: PROBABLY
GM: Although Professor Smith DID say that possessing the Simulacrum was to possess immortality.
Huxley: I’m not sure what I believe anymore - my skepticism is eroding rapidly.

Photo by Ally Bowory, who was, indeed, in Fiji at the time. 20cm long and 1cm wide.

Sadly, I have precisely zero information on their biology.

Ayva OoC: Poor Terzo, all these women and he has no chance with any of them.
Terzo OoC: Believe me, I do not actually consider that a problem.
Civilla OoC: I should hope so, you’re my tutor.
Terzo OoC: And that’s just ONE reason.

And Ayva does have a point - between the party, most of the NPCs that are important enough to name, and Thrune’s choice of trusted minions, it seems the script for any future movies about events in Kintargo will easily pass the Bechdel Test. Unless we’re talking about Thrune anyway, but nobody cares what he has between his legs unless it’s an opportunity to remove it with something rusty.

Negotiating the Red Jills is going to be dicey, since they basically count anybody from the Basic Character Races as The Enemy. And Rajira is the only one that is clearly outside their broad definition of ‘human’, and only if she doesn’t try to hide her reptilian heritage.

Civilla: The thing is, Thrune’s agents might actually follow the rules of hospitality and parley if we were having a meeting like this - they’re Evil, but Lawful Evil. But the Jills are probably Chaotic.

Rajira: I was going to say ‘let’s wing it’, but that might offend the Strix.
Civilla: So no triggering language.
Ayva: And nothing about ‘plans being hatched’.
Civilla: You have to be careful about ear jokes around elves too - although given that of the usual races it’s humans that have the weird round ears, that’s kinda strange.

Ayva: I was going to say ‘don’t get cocky’ but there’s the bird language again.

It’s actually Rajira’s suggestion that we don’t meet at the Red Jills’ hideout, in case of Property Damage Escalating To Arson, and the gang agrees.

Rajira: Good evening - I believe we have important matters to discuss.
Scarplume the Strix: Ah yes, the Ghosts of Kintargo.

Apparently our reputation is already spreading.

Scarplume: What makes you think you can change the way the Jills do business?
Rajira: I don’t believe I can - but I believe I can give you a reason to change yourselves.

Rajira: You are a person of power and influence
Scarplume: Power that was hard-won - and you are offering…?
Rajira: An opportunity.

Rajira is persuasive enough, with the eventual intention of making Kintargo a city that won’t look down on the Tieflings simply for being born the way they are.

Rajira: Thrune has drastically under-estimated the power of this city - and its power is the spirit of the people.

Scarplume’s demand is that if we do manage to take over the city, that the Tieflings be treated with full equality and respect.

Rajira: I already do.
Terzo: Liberty! Egality! Fraternity!
Scarplume: I will take you at your word then - but if I hear one whisper that your enterprise is failing, this will not be the last you hear from me. ( Read more...Collapse )

PARIS, January, 1923

In Which The Investigators Compare Parisian Lunatic Asylums And Other Tourist Traps

The investigators have reached Paris, hopefully having left any cultist-assassins behind them in London. Fortunately, the Channel crossing wasn’t fogbound, which would have been unfortunate given Sub-Lieutenant Huxley’s wartime experiences, and fortunately they didn’t have to throw any nine-year-olds overboard, no matter how much they deserved it.

Although, for the first few days in Paris, Huxley is still paranoid enough to not let Florence and Alex out of his sight.

GM: Good idea - that way if one of you gets kidnapped for sacrifice you’ll know sooner

Still, he has good reason to be a bit twitchy.

Huxley: Whoever flayed that corpse was obviously sending a message.

And the message was THE SKINLESS ONE WILL NOT BE DENIED, which is just one of the things they’ll have to research while they’re in Paris. The other things include the Sedefkar Simulacrum, it’s original and most recent owners, and finding out what the damned thing looks like before they start scouring the breadth of Europe looking for the pieces. But before they do any of that they have to wait a few days for the Bibliothèque Nationale to check Huxley’s credentials before they let him put his grubby English fingers on their books.

Naturally, Alex and Florence want to hit the fashion outlets on the Rue de la Pax, the street of a thousand luxuries, and the Louvre. Although they do ask whether any statues belonging to one Comte Fenalik ended up in the collection - but they also drag Huxley off to a tour of the Paris Catacombs.

GM: You’ll be fine - it’s not like tourists go missing down there every week. For one thing it’s only open twice a month. And the attendants at the gate do a head count - They’ll probably notice if they lose three.

Surprisingly, Huxley is OK with this entertainment plan, considering it an opportunity to inure himself to massive piles of human remains (probably a wise precaution in any Call of Cthulhu campaign). Unsurprisingly, it turns out less than relaxing, but Huxley manages to convince himself that the local resident they encounter, one Guillaume, is just some actor in a very clever costume, merely there to thrill the tourists.

Huxley: The French have such sophisticated animatronics these days. I remember that movie with the dancing pig-man. Kudos!

Alex and Flo are more concerned by the fact that Guillaume has grey rubbery flesh, hooves, and a muzzle. Which is probably one reason he believes that modern Paris, with its wide streets, metal tower, and chariots sans chevaux, has no place for someone like him.

Huxley: *blissfully ignoring the fact that Guillaume has apparently been down here since the famine of 1709* So, how did you end up down here anyway?
Guillaume: *gesturing to the thousands of human skulls and other bones lining the walls* A man must eat, monsieur.

Alex and Flo medicate themselves with strong drink and retail therapy.

Florence: I’m claiming all this on work expenses.

When the library eventually does let Huxley start his research, he takes the wise precaution of hiring a student, one Remi Vangeim, as a research assistant. For one thing the library’s collection, while huge, has an… idiosyncratic… filing system.

Remi: Let me put it this way, monsieur - it is not Swiss.

Although Huxley does make a friend for life when he supports the protests against the occupation of the Ruhr by French and Belgian troops.

Huxley: The world has been through a hellish conflagration, and our leaders seem determined to lead us back into the maelstrom.

GM: The Sub-Lieutenant has brought a handsome young man back to the hotel. Apparently they’re going on a date tomorrow.

The date being one of the protests - Florence and Alex also come along, partly so Flo can cover it for her newspaper, and partly because she’s seen what the Great War did to her brothers and has no wish to see another in her lifetime. So when French troops open fire on the protesters, she’s well placed to get some really dramatic photos, including Huxley patching up a youth who got shot. Remi promises to do anything in his power to assist Huxley in future, but for now that’s just continuing the research.

It takes over a week to research the Comte Fenalik alone, and find out what happened to him in 1789, and more importantly what happened to all his stuff. The initial reports they found did seem a bit odd - no matter how badly he ‘outraged the queen’, execution without trial seemed a bit unlikely for a French noble. And indeed it turns out that he wasn’t executed - just thrown into the basement of Charenton Asylum, and his mansion burned to the ground. Whatever Captain Malon found there must have been beyond the pale. There’s also a hint that at least one fragment of the Simulacrum was left behind on the site, in Poissy some seventeen miles outside Paris.

Remi: Have you learned more of this, how you English say, ze C*** Fenalik?

Remi also recalls a book he glanced through a few years ago - a preview copy of a Diary of an Unknown Soldier, that heavily featured Captain Malon, and the Royal Physician at the time - both people heavily involved in the raid on Fenalik’s mansion. But Huxley’s paranoia spikes through the roof when they go around to the publishers, only to find the entire stock burned to the ground, and the publisher himself fished out of the Seine, just after the war. Remi promises to try and find a surviving copy - it might be relevant.

Places to go - Charenton Asylum, and Poissy itself, to see if any of the Comte’s stuff didn’t end up in the Royal treasury (prior to it becoming the Revolutionary treasury anyway). Perhaps predictably, the asylum is in something of an uproar - the previous director died under mysterious circumstances recently, perhaps related to the brutalised and catatonic patient found in the basement. Finding out a bit more might prove difficult - Florence may well be a fan of Nellie Bly, but getting herself committed to the asylum is still unlikely to get her access to the witnesses.

GM: Maybe Huxley will lose some more sanity and he’ll have to be committed anyway. Then you can use him.

Given the catatonic patient in question has gone missing as well, it’s starting to look like somebody else is investigating Fenalik, and eliminating any sources of information they uncover.

At least part of that theory is confirmed in Poissy, when the investigators introduce themselves to the young doctor and his family currently living on the site of the mansion. Even with the overlong excuse that they’re trying to redo a lot of Smith’s research that went up in smoke with his house, it’s a mention of the Sedefkar Simulacrum that stirs Dr Lorien’s memory. He received a letter from one Edgar Wellington in Switzerland, enquiring about the Simulacrum, but with one thing and another, never replied. It’s not as though he’d ever heard of Fenalik or the statue before. He’s still willing to let the investigators poke around in his yard, to see if they can find any ruins to excavate, as long as his three-year-old daughter Quitterie doesn’t scare them off by spilling any more scalding hot coffee over their left arms. It’s that same daughter who brings the investigators running when she screams from an upstairs room…

The investigators have learned that their friend Professor Smith, and his manservant Beddows, are missing under highly suspicious circumstances. It’s not the only shocking news in the paper today either - another article (front page in the tabloids, naturally) claims ‘Man Dies Three Times In One Night!’.

It’s a man they know, too - the Turkish antiques dealer Mehmet Makryat, or at least three similar-looking but younger men with the same name.

Florence Braxton-Hicks: Triplets? With very unimaginative parents?

The mysterious Mehmets were all found in a room at the Chelsea Arms Hotel, and according to the newspaper all had passports in the same name, had been travelling the Continent for the last few years, and had all been stabbed in the heart. Sub-lieutenant Huxley speculates wildly about the case, despite an almost total lack of actual information. Certainly the Professor seemed perturbed by every meeting with Makryat, but why was Beddows seen fleeing the house fire? He certainly appeared to be content in his position.

Sub-lieutenant Huxley: And how does a grievance with the Professor lead to the death of Makryat’s three identical triplet sons?

It becomes even more bizarre when a fourth Makyrat, presumably the original, is found burned to a crisp in the ruins of Smith’s house, only identifiable by the keys to his Islington shop and the ostentatious gold wristwatch he was wearing at Smith’s lecture the previous evening.

Huxley: So we have a fourth dead Makryat.
Florence: Big family.
Huxley: This is getting well beyond weird trains. We’ve got a dead Turk who is apparently multiplying.

Huxley and Flo scurry around London, attempting to keep ahead of the police, whoever killed the Makryats, and rival newspaper reporters. Using the reasonable excuse that they have to determine which books and documents were lost with the fire, Huxley and Smith’s colleagues start itemising everything left in Smith’s college office. His 1922 diary includes a lot of cryptic references such as ‘dare I return to Turkey?’ and speculation whether whatever expedition he was planning in 1923 is connected to his brush with some exceedingly unpleasant cultists thirty years ago. Huxley’s paranoia is rising fast, not least because Smith’s assistant at the University has also vanished, with signs of a struggle. Florence tells Huxley off for not reporting that last discovery to the police, before she and Alex head off to break into Makryat’s shop.

GM: Having just told off Huxley for not reporting a crime, you and your cousin head off to commit one.

Florence manages to drag herself away from the pretty things in the antique store long enough to thoroughly search the place.

Alex: Do this sort of thing often?
Florence: I did tell you what I got up to at school, didn’t I? I broke out of there three nights a week, and didn’t get caught once.

They also pocket a few of the smaller, more portable items, while they’re there.

GM: Breaking and entering, and now theft
Florence: Oh darling, why stop there? If he’s cleared out, we may as well help ourselves.

It certainly looks like Makryat had abandoned the shop, taking his clothes, any books, and luggage with him. The only remaining documents in the store are his account books, which are tedious enough but do include an odd reference to the purchase and later sale of a custom-built toy train. The purchaser of the train apparently vanishes in a cloud of smoke shortly thereafter, but by that point Huxley is so paranoid he insists on getting out of London as swiftly as possible, and refuses to investigate.

Huxley and Florence do get an unexpected visitor that evening - a cabbie dropping off a desperate message from the Professor (confirmed by his use of a Macedonian ring to mark the sealing wax of the envelope). He and Beddows are in hiding at a bedsit in Cheapside, and Smith has been horribly burned in the house fire.

Huxley OoC: Do I need to make a Sanity Check here? I did see burn victims during the war.
GM: And that just means you’re getting flashbacks now.

Beddows has apparently done what he can, and intends to smuggle his master out to a war clinic as soon as possible. But first Smith has to croak out his tale, and his warning. His home was attacked by Turkish madmen, because he and Makryat had been seeking out the pieces of something called the Sedefkar Simulacrum, last in the possession of one Comte Fenalik in pre-Revolutionary Paris. The pieces need to be gathered together and destroyed in their original location, in Constantinople, and between them they’d found some clues to their whereabouts. And evidently these madmen heard about it.

GM: Admittedly some of the clues are a bit thin - ‘One of the pieces might be buried somewhere in Bulgaria - bring a shovel’.

But assuming he survives his injuries, Professor Smith fully intends to help as best he can, using his long list of academic contacts across Europe. More practically, he also has Beddows provide a small suitcase containing hundreds of five pound notes.

GM: Allowing for inflation, this is what we call a metric f***ton of cash.

Huxley: But why do these Turks want the statue anyway?
Prof. Smith: *seizing Huxley’s wrist with a hand greasy from the burns and the emollient cream* To possess the Simulacrum is to possess immortality… I’ve always considered myself a man of science, my friend… but the Simulacrum is evil! Evil! God help you... God help us all...

The Professor lapses back into unconsciousness, and Beddows explains that the Professor had chosen the investigators to accompany him on the search, and intended to explain all. Naturally, he’d planned to travel on the Orient Express, the fastest and most luxurious way to travel the distances involved.

It will take a few days to arrange visas, drop points for telegraph messages, and the purchase of top-quality clothing and luggage for the trip. Florence will need to persuade her Editor to let her go, too.

GM: Nellie Bly IS one of your heroes after all - it might not be Around The World in 80 Days but it’ll still be a trip to remember, and write about.

Her uncle is a bit reluctant to see her go off by herself, but agrees readily enough when Florence suggests Alexandria come along too.

Uncle: I mean what trouble could you get into if there’s two of you?

The Professor’s extensive notes for the trip probably went up in smoke (or, perhaps, ended up in the hands of their attackers) so Huxley spends much of the next week at the British Museum’s Reading Room, confirming what he can about Sedefkar, his Simulacrum, and the whereabouts of any documents about same. He’s too paranoid to return to his home, too.

GM: On Friday you’re left a series of increasingly anxious messages from Huxley - he’s no longer at the Library and there’s a reason for that.
Florence: Have you done anything about your clothes yet, or are you going to embarrass us on the train?

Formal clothes for dinner on the train had not been a priority in Huxley’s mind, because somebody left a skinned human corpse at the library, propped up where it could watch whatever he was doing. It was carrying a note, too, written in Turkish on flayed human skin.



Naturally, medical students get the blame. Huxley thinks otherwise.

Huxley: I think they’re onto us.
Florence: So did you inform the police this time? Or are we going to have the police after us as well?

Huxley has no intention of going out by himself now, and if it wasn’t for the fact that Alex is STILL packing for the trip, would prefer to get out of London that night.

Florence: The Sub-lieutenant can always hide in the attic until we leave - maybe he just needs a quiet place to calm his nerves.
Huxley OoC: Probably true - I’ve already lost 5 Sanity in the last two days.

Huxley, Florence, and Alex depart for Paris, to discover what they can about the Comte, and whether any parts of, or documents about, the Simulacrum remain in the city. Antonio intends to travel ahead to his native Italy, to do preliminary legwork in Milan, Venice, and Trieste, all apparently destinations for parts of the statue. Hopefully he can uncover clues - the party will need all the help they can get...

GM: You’ve actually been a stabilising influence on Edge City.
Hero Shrew OoC: Well that’s good to know. If somewhat horrifying considering I’m one of the people involved.

Hero Shrew: I really should let Sally down lightly.
GM: What????
Hero Shrew’s player: You know, my co-worker that I’ve been romantically interested in since the start of the campaign.
GM: Yes, I know who she is, but as a player are you delusional enough to think you had a chance?
Hero Shrew’s player: As a player, no, but Scooter sure is.

GM: The aliens are still a bit confused by Earth’s technology level - at least two groups have anti-grav technology but it’s not in wide usage anywhere else.
Hero Shrew OoC: While other groups still have horse-drawn vehicles.
The Magus OoC: And UNTIL even has anti-antigrav tech.

Fireflash OoC: I need to change my Psychological Limitation from ‘Show-off’ to “Only Sane Woman’
GM: Fair.

Meanwhile, Hardlight is examining the cybernetic technology released by one of his business rivals. It’s a bit puzzling, especially because he can’t find any processors in it. He’s going to need help.

GM: ‘Hey Flux, I’ve got this guy’s arm, come look at it.’
Flux: Um.

It turns out the processors are distributed throughout the entire device. And it’s trying to find connections to Hardlight’s local systems.

Hardlight: This is getting more and more like a ‘kill it with fire’ situation.
GM: It doesn’t look like Mechanon or Destroyer-tech.
Hardlight OoC: So? I don't want them getting a hold of it either!

Between Hardlight, Flux, Fireflash, the Magus, they decide to experiment and investigate by leaving it on a laptop in an air-gapped Faraday cage and see what happens. If this thing can teach itself to interface with any systems from nervous systems to laptops, it’s a pretty shocking advance in technology. Eventually they hook it up themselves, and it promptly fuses with the laptop.

Hardlight: Does it at least show up as a USB drive?

Flux recognises some of the code running as resembling the kind of thing that happens at a cyberbrain interface.

Hardlight: This isn’t hardware - it’s wetware. Dampware?

GM: The Tyrell corp have developed a cybernetic device that doesn’t count as a machine, and is therefore functionally immune to cyberpathy.
The Magus OoC: They've got a bunch of captured Cybertronians in the basement and they’re hacking limbs off them.

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Another oddity regarding current events in Kintargo - there were a number of mercenaries in town when Thrune took over. But instead of hiring them, which is kind of what mercenaries are for, they’re all being held prisoner at Kintargo’s salt works. Finding out why is probably worthwhile, and hey, maybe they’ll give us a discount rate if we rescue them. It’s possible that the leader of the mercs, one Forvian Crowe, has a personal animosity towards Thrune (and hey, who could blame him) but Laria thinks they could make good recruits to the rebellion regardless of their personal opinions about the Dogf***er.

The Sallix Salt Works are built on the shoreline underneath the eastern wall of Kintargo, near the now mostly irrelevant Salt Gate in the aforementioned wall. Brine is shipped in, and boiled dry on the premises.

Terzo: That seems wildly inefficient. The fuel requirements alone are ridiculous.
Civilla: That's why they use slave labour. Like the mercenaries we’re rescuing.

The market adjacent to the salt works is mostly dedicated to building supplies and related products, but Civilla and Ayva do have a good reason to be hanging around, which is convenient - maybe we can arrange a good deal on rebuilding the Livery prior to filling the basement with armed mercenaries.

Civilla casts Ears of the City on Terzo, in order to divine details about the salt works and the prisoners. Terzo isn’t entirely happy about gathering information with magic.

Terzo: The problem with doing it this way is that I don’t get to go around a dozen different pubs and ask a few innocent questions between drinks.
Civilla: You think that’s a problem, do you? I think it’s a bonus.

Although using Ears of the City DOES ensure that nobody notices, for example, an increasingly drunk Terzo going from bar to bar asking questions.

Ayva: Or an increasingly annoyed party member with a wheelbarrow taking Terzo from bar to bar.

Apparently the previous owner of the salt works was arrested for tax evasion, and killed when he resisted. Barzillai has now seized the premises as a money-earner for the government.

Civilla: Well, at least Barzillai is honest about the nationalisation process.
Terzo: How so?
Civilla: For ‘nationalised’ read ‘stole’.

We also learn, via the spell, that Crowe and his soldiers are being worked to death because of their faith in Sarenrae, the goddess of healing. That’s the kind of thing that can get you in huge trouble should any Asmodeans find out, and that’s exactly what happened.

Civilla gets quite thoughtful about the Salt Gate - they haven’t been closed in years, since the internal mechanism has rusted stiff, but that suggests a few ideas to Civilla.

Civilla: A plaaaaaan is forming in my miiiind.

Civilla wants Terzo to Grease the gate mechanism when we leave, so we can stop pursuit. Doing anything more permanent would probably annoy Thrune and provoke another Proclamation.

Terzo OoC: So basically we need a bucket of WD-40.

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