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Knights of the Night
609 - BitD I Will Water Your Corpses Before I Return Them
Hello, and welcome the Knights in the Night Actual Play Podcast. This Blade's in the Dark Adventure Machination is written in run by our GM John. And now please enjoy Episode 609, titled "I Will Water Your Corpses Before I Return Them." Actual Play begins immediately. Hello, and welcome to Night's in the Night Actual Play Podcast. I'm our GM John, hosting machinations, our Blades in the Dark Campaign. Players with me tonight, starting on my left. I'm Thomas. I'm playing Hadrian's Briar, or Burning Briar while I'm on the job. I'm a leech, which means I'm a saboteur technician, though I personally specialize in alchemy and arcane spark craft. I'm a run-of-my-aruvian demon heir, and I currently look like an accuracy man of healthy build and noble stock fitted with a long coat, scholarly clothes, glasses, and a thorny briar bursting out of, "Oh, wait, didn't we fix this a little bit?" Yeah, okay, so I'm burning on that briar, just barely peeking out of my mouth. And much more notably, a great big furnace installed in my belly that leaks out eeks of white-blue ghost flame that sometimes spell out the true emotions that I might be hiding behind my puppeted face. I have four stress and a level one harm of some rare spasms that rack me here and there to ruin my day. Hello, all. It's Scott. I'll be playing Tesslyn Vale. Tesslyn is also known as the bell of the Abyss. She is a seborosi whisper. She does the dirty work for the archive of echoes by exploring the past via ghosts with her mentor, Lord Pendren. Tesslyn is partial to petticoats. She has auburn hair, olive skin, and green eyes. She also has a dead left hand sewn onto her wrist, of which she is very mortified with. Tesslyn has two stress. Hey folks, I'm Jim. I am playing a silver tongue slide named Skievan being, also known as Busy. He's a socializing, enterprising, handsome, young, grossie noble. When not working on crew business, Busy can be found trying to revitalize the finances of the being coal mining family. He has a knack of finding ways of profiting from the good and bad fortune of others. Currently, Skievan's got about four stress and a little bit of trauma, which makes him limp a bit. And I am Tom, playing Esther Rowland. She is an ex-blue coat captain who goes by the name of ghosts because of her pale skin eyes and hair. She is a cotter who is dangerous and intimidating figure, but she also does her best to keep her crew members safe. Her issue is that she grew up in this town, and she's never really mentioned to anybody or family for her reason. But currently, she's dealing with life pretty well. She only has two stress, which for her is pretty damn low. So she's doing a little better. I'm Michael playing Gordon, a young, thin, good-natured, scovish lurk. This lurk specializes in infiltration, allowing him to bypass most security measures. Currently has three stress. Okay. One last we left, we rolled engagement at the end of downtime, which is not how it's supposed to go, but we did it, and got demon visitation. So we took the break to come up with some things that Tara might want from us. And when we get back, she is manifesting in the corpse garden. I imagine that it is Briar that discovers her there. I don't know if anyone goes poking in that place without me. It's all dangerous. It's awfully spooky. But a couple of the corpses are winding around each other, and their facial features reconfiguring to hers, and kind of tosses out some phlegm, and then says, "Excuse me, it's always messy when I first arrive." That's right. Oh, so how? As her lungs move into place in the larynx form, but I believe I have some business for you. Well, we like business. I think we've just finished our last job, Jack's pockets for pay. Hell yeah, we did. I will assemble the others unless you'd like to share it with me first. No, I think I would like to speak with all of you. If you can begin gathering them, I will gather myself, and again, taking only the best limbs from your corpses. Would you like some tea while I gather the people? I could set it on the stove. Why not? That's charmingly quaint. Yeah, he sets the fucking stove that he just has outside stove, perfectly reasonable, runs on ghost flame, by the way. I mean, you do alchemy out here, too, so he does. It's quite a helpful little stove, helps him do all sorts of works. Sets a lot of the boil and walks out to go gather the rest of people, keeping an eye on things with the flame that is him, that is running the oven. Quite easy. Who's here when is now? Both questions. I suppose I should ask. I'm not sure my character cares too much sleep. It is what passes for dawn these days. I would think busy is not here. Busy definitely. More often than not would not be here. Is it the morning right after we ended the last session? Down time took a couple days, so you weren't exactly right off of the score or anything. My character tests she went in a bit of a bender to fulfill her vice and she stayed at a flop house for the night, so I don't know that she would be there if it's the next morning after that, as I'm saying. Now we can pass time, no big deal. This is a couple days after that fact, and I'll adjust the calendar accordingly. But you all are about just shy of a week out from Arkanvore, and preparations have kept busy occupied. Okay, I feel bad. Is this a holiday my character should know, or can I get away with saying what the fuck is that? I'm a foreigner. Respect my problems. It was not celebrated in a review, so is that okay, cool. Not only can I get away with it, I get paid for it. What the hell is the Arkanvore, exactly? I ask because everybody assembles in my corpse garden because I've gotten totally derailed on the way together, everybody. Easy was just getting off of a shift as Warden DeGelos. Oh, wow, yes. Ghosts are more active in the evening, less so when the shattered remnants of the sauna are in the sky. Good timing. You are tired. I see we have a visitor. Not too tired to negotiate. Well, I'm my favorite sorts. Oh, and we have tea brewing. Well, yeah. You supplied this tea busy. He pulls down his box of extremely foreign spicy teas. I just happen to have some tea left over from a little sale I just did. Oh, thank God. I was worried that you weren't going to like mine, although you're welcome to try some anyway. I'm glad that you have your own ride. It's rely on. Nestle and his grown fond of your tea, prior, so she's looking forward to it. Yeah, just prior to you always have to make sure it is something you can drink before you drink it. Mm-hmm. There is that. I mean, I would never drug you without explaining, hmm. I don't know. I probably would for a job. I would rarely drug you without explaining what it does first. Anyway, there's a whiff of cinnamon and the overwhelming tinge of, oh, no, I need a second spice and my brain didn't give me one. Never. Why not? That's a spice, right? Yeah. I don't know if it belongs in tea, but yes. Well, that is an RT. Cinnamon actually does. So yeah, you're right. Some exotic or avian spices though. Yeah. It is only the scent. Some spicy and the older mushroom. Oh, cuss. Yeah. That is a good point. If you wanted a chemical property, I could certainly go that hard, but that's not what we're here for. We're going to have a good time with a fellow demon. The tower goes to join you at this tea table contorts a third leg that she has grabbed to act as a supporting chair stool of sorts as she goes against it. Transced with your sense of freedom of form. There we go. That's a term I want to use. I'm good at art terminology. I swear. I think Satera's form kind of reminds her of her own deficiency. So she's not smiling much and she's a little put off by the form that Satera has taken. But she tries not to make it noticeable. Yeah. That's fair. All right. The manifestation. I can't exactly come to your door in any old get up. We have slightly better cover than before, but you're right, you have unique problems. I begin a serving ritual. There's a certain order of things in demon ways, not even demon ways, just a Ruby in ways. The everything. The tea ceremony? Yeah. That probably looks like Satera first, then the bell, then, huh, looks at list. All right. Ghost, Gordon, busy, and finally, Briar himself, because host goes last, obviously. And I don't know, Satera probably cottons on to the meaning of that, but I'm not even going to bother getting into it unless somebody at the table asks what the hell that was about. Because it is more than just a strange order of serving that Chris crosses around the table. There is like a bit of a spin to his movements, some candles that are lit and set and snuffed. It's weird. Takes a minute. They're free to talk while he does so, he's not like in toning or moaning or anything. This is a job that can wait if you have other targets, but there is only, till the end of this month, an opportunity to seek this one out. That should give you a good 30 or so days to resolve it. After that holiday, nobody explained. Gotcha. Arkenvore is a celebration of the spirit wardens imposed by the Amoral Emperor. Oh, you. They patrol the streets. Everyone shuts out their lights. It's during the new moon. The sisters will be gone. Oh, that's why I've heard about it already. A, because we've been talking to the dinner sisters lately and B, because I was referring to the moons right, right, right, right. But they're sorry, never my God, I'm talking too much. They patrol the streets in the dark, the better to find manifestations of a spectral nature and hunt them out. It shouldn't concern our kind too much, but it does give them a lot of leeway in the streets that could complicate your job. Fortunately, the holiday has nothing to do with this particular target. We have a visitor from the Imperial City visiting, our spending time in Dustball, a near graduates of the School of Demonography, wait,ography, mapping, like God, a census of sorts. Many demons are under control of the emperor and his pupils, like over a thousand or something. So the legend goes, it inflates with time. He has to think about that one for a little bit. He was about to assert that he showed the emperor's power is growing as well, but he doesn't know that. His control over the land is growing. Well, you didn't say that. Esmeralda Winifax is due to dock with Lord Strangford's Leviathan hunting ship out in the docks later this week. She has the unfortunate assignment of attempting to wrangle myself and wayward demons in the city. This is often in every decade or so, a task set to a graduate of the School of Demonography. Few survive, but I've kept my eye on Esmeralda as she has unique talents against myself that make it difficult for me to approach her. I don't need you to outline those unless those are going to make the job harder. I don't think they should. I intend to get involved, hence why I'm requesting your help. Right. I'm just also a demon. So I presume based on your knowledge that it's not additionally harmful to me. I am a known quantity among the demonographers, not everything about myself. I take pains to limit what they know, but they've tangled with me for centuries. And this people seems to have a particular skill set that I find quite dangerous. You are a bit of an unknown quantity, a young demon, as you are, and new to the city, certainly newer than me. If they bought into the game, does she think all demons are evil, or is she just exploiting a system of power, as demonologists certainly? There's different dispositions within the school. My understanding is that she is more utilitarian than zealous. There is a great deal of imperial functions that rely on the powers of their demon slaves for being forthright about it. And so demonologists might need to work with demons, and therefore some of them are not asshole. They run the majority of the activities the demons are used for when the immortal emperor himself is not directly involved. Yeah. Is thousand or so demons he controls are often delegated to this group? So is she coming here to capture you, to kill you, to talk to you? Given her disposition, I imagine she would rather force me into service of the emperor. Do you want us to just foil this attempt and she'll go away, or do you want us to remove the threat? I wouldn't mind if you died. Many the past decades, I think the last three have gone back in a coffin. They are used to that sort of response and outcome, would acceptable losses for them. I'll draw undue concern if she were to disappear. They do have particular faith in her because of her skills, but it's happened before. So I leave it up to you. I certainly don't mind her demise. In fact, if you can ensure that there's likely a bonus. What would the payment be for this particular endeavor that can be negotiated? I have not insubstantial funds, but I also have access to more esoteric rewards. I want to do it a little bit. I mean, that would be my reward. I don't even pay comparatively. I would be interested in hearing about the esoteric types of rewards you might be willing to offer. Yeah, we were the spookies. Ongoing services can be your reward, I suppose, in teaching for Briar here, at least. I mean, would like to put limit to how long it goes on for. I don't want to be tied up in the city forever with your immortal ass. How long has Satara been in this particular dustfall city with us? Is it someone I've heard of before because I've lived here my entire life? You don't deal with demons too often, but she did admit that for the past three decades they've gone home at a coffin. Right. She's older than all of you. I would have think I would have heard about something like that, though, being a... Was it necessarily home from here or home from wherever they were hunting her down? She was vague about that. You know that bluecoats don't get a lot of info from the military and the nobility, so you... No, we don't do this specific research. I get that. I understand that. But it's not to say we're very in the public dealing with these sorts of people. If they had protection, it would be probably Imperial military rather than bluecoats. Right. You might be able to find some stuff in the bluecoat records, probably. But I don't know that it would be like paying a flashback to have been there for the event to have actually learned anything about it, because it probably didn't get filed if any police enter have acted with them. Well I'm not going to interrupt because I don't want Tesla not to get the information about the potential payment we're going to get. Oh, yeah. But when we are ready, I think we will tell her we'll talk to her tomorrow because there's a discussion I want to have. We didn't want to answer tonight. We don't want to give an answer tonight. I'm not saying we can't do it very soon. That's fine. Okay. What were you going to say, Busy? I agree because I wonder if there's anything else we can add to our request from her that we could use that would be specific for something that she can do to help us out, you know? Oh, I'm certain if you look at our long-term goals in the clock area and you see one you want to do, I'm certain you could say, okay, the history of demons is replete with promises of boons, trades, and if they owe you and you aren't against whatever dark wish compels them to their immortality, then they are likely to make good on it. It's often in ways that make you regret it, but they try. They try, baby. So if it's favor in the bank you want, she's good for that. I can also imagine Busy just asking for an additional coin for him personally and she would just, yeah. It can be any mixture of the lot. Right. I don't mind coin for individuals. For you, my dear, I know you're looking for a replacement, but I can help you with your ailment in the meantime. She raises the arm not holding the teacup and revolves her wrist 360. Mine. Why are you offering it to other people? Never mind. I don't care. Tesla smiles politely and then looks down a bit uncomfortable. It's something we can discuss in the future for sure. What have you ghost? How about you Gordon? Gordon, do you have a name that we're not properly using for Gordo? It's kind of the shorthand, but I don't think he has an alias quite so. No. Gotcha. Just checking. I remember your character is a bit less experienced or a bit less motivated to be. Well, the team needs an alias, but yeah, no, you're right. He's being pretty subtle and ghost shares the fact that I understand that you're asking us to do this for a reason. And one of those reasons is that we've been kind of busy doing a lot of things and drawing attention that we can accomplish things. So we'd like to talk about this. We don't disagree with what you're suggesting sounds very important, but more than likely that we would like a time to discuss when we can get it done, it seems like a schedule that's going to be very important. This visitor isn't going to be here without potentially being dangerous. Yeah, actually, that's a good question. Is she already here? Is she going to be here for months? Has she yet to arrive? She will be arriving at the end of this week and you have till the end of the month before she's done with her demonography studies and will likely make a move on me before that. And more than likely we will be able to tell you yes, but it is definitely something we would like to talk about first. And can we give you an answer tomorrow? Because clearly it's not to the end of this month before you need the results. I can't really say you could do such a thing. I was aware of when she was arriving and wanted to give you ample time to figure out what you would do. And ample information you gave us. So thank you very much for that. But we'll be an answer tomorrow. Okay, well, I missed my chance. When it comes to payment, I can likely extend as eight for her death, six for her departure, whichever way you take it. I'm not great with this sort of payment. Usually I have more arcane dealings and it's the offers. But you can talk amongst yourselves what you think might be useful. And if that's all, I will water your corpses before I return them and she finishes her tea. Yeah. At some point during the meeting, he sat down, small decanter, brandy to be mixed into the tea that happened like later into the meeting and not at the beginning. And I was going to mention it without a loss track because I was having a conversation. That's why a character would not have. It makes us wonderfully changes the entire taste of the spiced tea. It does not mix so finely with bizzies if he used his regular blend. Better as a shot. But yeah, you just use it as a shot and that's not wrong. Like there are little bowls for shots properly to do so near the decanter and he nods to you as you do so and actually matches you because as the host he's supposed to do that. And it definitely mixes the brandy in with her tea. That's one of her favorite parts of the taste is how the flavor evolves with the brandy. Hm. Making shit up. Let's go. All right. Thank you for joining us and for your offer to water my corpses. It's been a pleasure. We'll get back to you soon and you'll know whether or not we can help you out with this problem. Mm hmm. But she nods and wanders back into the garden and begins disassembling. I'll leave it at that. Once she begins to start leaving, I grab a piece of paper and write something down and while I'm doing it, I am checking the area that she was in saying, is there any possibility she could monitor us while we have this discussion and slide it over so everyone can read it? That's what's written on it. Is that a question? Yes. That exact statement. That would be entirely within her purview and her strengths to do so. So perhaps we disengage from the garden and take our chat indoors. I nod my head and head of that direction. I offer carrying the teacup that I refilled, I head inside as well. Yeah. Well, no, I don't. I bring at least the tea set itself in on the tray that the counter Brandy stays because it doesn't matter. I don't have space. It's not proper. I'm not getting into it. But yeah, I follow everyone else indoors as we move our discussion into the actual, well, the area where we usually have our meeting discussions. Does anyone want to describe that? Like I totally didn't bother to describe the garden, aha. I think it's a study. I think we have a study because we have two individuals who are purveyors in information and research. So I think we have a study that has some overstuffed leather chairs that are also nicked up and some of the stuff in coming out of some slices that might have happened to the upholstery. You need a safe discussion. Sitting down with all your knives on your belt, tearing the seats. That's your seat. Is that you? Do you want to put in the holes in this? It might be me prior admits as he sits down and his prickly ass bushface tears some holes in the upholstery. I don't know. Maybe these chairs are just old and worn. There's an oversized large table in there like a dining room table that's very much worse for wear, just scuffed and marked and doesn't retain any of its original sheen or glamour. There's a couple of bookcases filled with secondhand books of research for both Teslin and Burning Breyer might also have some maps of the city that Gordon might be interested in and Esther. Much like what we're looking at. Right. Some newspaper, some rod sheets of recent information of what's going on in the city that I'm sure busy enjoys reading in his downtime to keep up on current events, gardening, periodical, the me and Gordon chair, there you go. And maybe a chandelier with several of the lights broken and non-functional. Several of them still operating with the spark craft, providing us some slight illumination of the room, not overly right, spark craft in a couple of the bulbs to provide enough light for us to talk and in converse and even take notes from. We make quite a home. One of the things I wanted to bring up and certainly not in front of her was questions to busy because you've been doing this job filling in for this gentleman. Is there any way that you could find out some information? And is there any help you need? It must be difficult. I know that's your specialty. But if I can, you need anything, all chemical or spark craft, I'll take a break from my own bullshit. I know it's difficult on your own when things mount against you. Yeah, they keep me pretty busy there when I'm doing my rounds. I've always got eyes on me. It's a pain. She's supposed to be showing up during or before or on this round that we do or something. Yeah, she's a number of weeks, right? A week before the end of the week. I know I'm saying she's going to be here for a number of weeks. She will be here for the remainder of the month. And the holiday is a week and a half away. She's supposed to arrive before that. And you're mentioning the holiday for, was something else coming on going on there? Or why was that mentioned before? You have a duty as a spirit warden to attend it. That was when they wanted you to stay there. I think that was a pay bump. If we stick around for that loan, but I'm not sure about that. You will be paid for that job when the holiday comes. Your pay has been guaranteed to be matched by the unseen. So they'll essentially give you double pay. And this was not the information I wanted to bring up in front of her. Right. So that's good to know. Hey, John, I don't know if I was just looking through. I'm looking through my notes and towards the very beginning of this story. I have spirit warden, Degolos is a contact of Scavens. Oh, my. Did we had an ongoing job any easier? I guess I'm just looking for some help for Scaven to pull off the, and that came up in my notes. I was wondering if it was true. First of all, if I mislabeled it or whether it's true, and if it is true, would it help him to pretend to be him any more because they were contacts with each other? I do have him just listed down that I had to talk with him at one time about his concern about the, uh, he attended the part area that the nobility were having that Scaven attended as well and had some questions as to goings on in this district because it's part of where Scavens business operates. Mm hmm. Since then it's been pretty nice over here as far as they know, little problems. So they had a casual relationship, nothing too involved, just knew each other from parties and had common correspondence. Got it. Sorry for the sidetrack. I just noticed that bit of esoteric and I wanted to follow up on it. This person coming in, instead of a spirit warden, she's like a demon warden. Yeah. Well, she's definitely into political power, right? I mean, she works for the issues of an imperial city, noble family and is probably no stranger to the affairs of nobles Esther doesn't have a problem with most nobles being the ones that are worth killing because they typically are overpowered and don't give a shit about anybody else and just themselves. Yeah. I mean, they do. He's always done right by me, just for the record. She's always been a confidant and someone who I trust and has worked well with me. So if we can do something to help her out, I certainly wouldn't mind doing the job because not only does it get us paid or get us some sort of help, it also helps a friend. I understand that, but my concern is, is this going to draw a lot of fire? It was mentioned that something similar to this has happened a lot that people coming here end up dying. But is it possible, busy, that you would be able to research that a bit? You're into the government in a situation that might be able to get data like that. Like how careful we have to be. And what's the best way that there was never trouble caused by a way to take them out? It's just random thoughts, but I'd rather keep the society had anything to do with the previous deaths. It was Grizzly. And there was no results of them, though? You think that would be tracked by the government, the spirit wardens or the blue coats or who if somebody came in like that and was taken out, where would that history or information be? Grizzly enough, it might just be in the, well, it wouldn't be microfiche. It would be in the broadsheets. Yeah, it would be in the broadsheets. It would be news. Certainly something you could gather information about. I am good at studying information and busy. I could also look as well, but study is one of my specialties and certainly something I can do. Yeah, but you're talking with government records and for government records, I don't know if imperial records exist in this city, but that sounds like it would be. She told us they had imperial guards rather than the blue coats, manning the reports of their death, which is the reason why a ghost hasn't heard of it. Usually as bodyguards of some sort, right? So it would be some kind of imperial record keeping and I don't know how high up in the government you are, but I don't think you have access to imperial records. It just seems to me that it's her reputation that keeps them from coming here more often or and are being careful about coming here. And she's probably if it was any other unprepared, unskilled, a demon hunter person, she could take care of it herself. But since this one has got something that makes her nervous, she wants us to do it. I'm thinking it probably would make sense if we can at least make it look like she did it. Oh, indeed, that's a sick idea. Yeah. If they ignored the last few ones and they were grizzly awful deaths, if we just make it look like a grizzly awful death, they won't say, Oh, it's Tabula Rossa because we don't. Well, okay, it's not like we haven't done that. But that's not what we're known for. And that is what they're looking for us to whether Sitara did it again. That's a good idea. I like it. Well, again, we should check to see what happened to the previous ones and make this one look similar. My point. Yes. Okay. Excellent idea. You search government records to see if there's any passage of Imperial people because even if they weren't officially involved, there's always somebody looking to help them out using official government channels while they're here. And somebody else can use the broadsheets because anyone can go look up broadsheets, right? Am I wrong? I don't think the broadsheets, if you want to give me a hand, Briar, we researched together pretty well in the past. I've got no problem with that. And I would think that if busy was dressed in the appropriate attire of the spirit warden leader, that he would be able to maybe get access to some archives as long as he went in his disguise. Right. Success. That was my point of asking because as a blue coat. We definitely had certain people that didn't go out and wander the streets. No, they were the people that kept track of things and they were more about writing information than learning it. So that has to be something you have access to as well. Busy. No. I got access to lots. I imagine so. If you say that one of the demonologists has come back as a ghost, you might be able to access their records more evenly. Oh, yeah. I wonder if one of the they didn't come back as a ghost. Oh, I'd be at the archive. So all of this is, in my opinion, vitally important and you're going to be very helpful busy, but we didn't want to share with her the fact that you are doing the other job. She doesn't need to know about that. Yes, yes. Even though she may know, I wouldn't doubt if she does, but if she doesn't, then she doesn't need to. I got a dot study so I can use that to look over the spirit warden archives and if I can't find anything there, then I'll just see what I can get access to as far as government. I have an idea information as well. Oh, OK, perhaps you could try to use command or sway for like some kind of secretary or researcher who already works in the archives that you could just command to do this research for you. But just a thought. I don't think your command is any better than your research, is it? Not yet. No, that's the same. Yeah. You do have just so we don't get all the way down this track before we consider. You do have upwards of half a month to kill this target and you have some other possibilities for targets. That's true. We should at least talk about our other jobs while we're all still together. So let me read off the ones I have written down and then you can talk about other ones. Go ahead. NASA of the gray cloaks, a X blue coat faction who were framed for a job, have an informant on Lord Stringford, the one who's going to be hosting this demonographer in a crime he's implicated in. This Nessus group was framed for whatever Lord Stringford was up to and do not have the evidence to bring him down. That their informant is an iron hook and they need someone to jailbreak him. It's not usually your guy's purview, but Ghost has a working relationship with NASA and this has been a job floating in the background. Cortland once master slain killed a foreman who works. You tried firebombing one of his work houses in a downtime activity. That was relaxing for you. But he persists and is a frequent abuser of workers. Giles Rowan, a favorite of the Lord governors, Lord Penderon would like to see him gone or disgraced from the court of the Lord governor because he's the one who had the Lord governor's ear when he declared, yeah, Penderon to be, I was going to say, treasonous enemy of the state. An enemy of the state, yes. So those are the three that have been floating. They have no deadline as such, but as Moralda is who we're looking at right now. So Stringford is the boy he's going to host? Yeah, he's the shipping magnet for the Leviathan ships. I feel like we can double dip free the prisoner, get the information on the crime that he actually committed and therefore, I don't know, lay some groundwork for the other crime on the person who's going to live in his house. But my other thought, if we're breaking somebody out of prison and we're assassins and it's weird that we're doing that, we should make use of that weirdness. We're breaking in to kill somebody in prison. And then when we break somebody out, they're not even going to notice because they're too busy looking at the fact that Tabularosic killed somebody in prison. Isn't that insane? I don't know. We need to find somebody who was deserving of the... Yeah, if there's anybody in prison who's serving a sentence in order to not get lynched by a mob, that'd be perfect. Maybe a crime lord who's just running things from inside prison, that seems... Maybe ghosts can find some information on people in the prison that might deserve to be offed as we go in and to break out the one gentleman. Certainly. I have people I can talk to. And that's still trust me. All right. All the Leviathan ships are headed by nobility and they are not the ones who go into the water to suck the blood out of Leviathans. They largely sit at the top of their massive iron trawlers and send others to their deaths. But they get the profits, they get the notoriety. Right. There's something romantic about the fact that if the ship goes down, so do they. Yes. And it has happened that half. But it's been at least five years since the Leviathan ship went down. If moved on to a new design type and the Leviathans are yet to adapt, the errand thought that I should help the Leviathan figure out how to do that and then I remembered that I rely on industry too much. One thing that we could also do is we could have Gordon case the prison to get the movements and whatnot of the guards and the shifts and Gordon could probably be very essential to that. Right. And if that's the way if that's a direction we're going in I can certainly do the outside, but right. I'm going to need some inside information and I'm not willing to go there. Well, again, maybe Esther can get some inside info potentially, potentially. But I was also thinking it wouldn't be possible for you to. I know this is a bit cliche, become someone who's delivering food to the prison just so you can get inside and see more of what's going on in there. Who's you or get arrested for a minor crime and just serve a week there for Gordon and learn to work just a week, Gordon. It's not so bad. That's not quite as easy as you think it is, says Esther. And you might get a bit longer than the week that you are assuming while you're in there, you can get into some shit that make you the permanent resident. Oh, yeah. I'm sure you're dead. I was thinking that perhaps busy could arrest him as for a minor infraction of helping spirits or something and end up in the prison for a couple of days just to get the lay of the land and in whatnot. But what I would suggest is to have busy, send him there to be held for a week before he could be brought in for questioning and then let go, as opposed to actually stating that it was a crime because that's not a good way to start. Holding for questioning actually sounds quite doable. Of course, if you speak for Gordon who might not want to be imprisoned, but if he did, I would just say maybe a week's a little long. I mean, if I'm going to find out anything, it's probably going to be the first few days. Yeah, a day or two, it's just for questioning, holding, like, I call it three days. Maybe I can get worried if I need longer or less, give me all that here. That might be a good way to get the routines of the, yeah, that might work. So the idea of getting harker out, to what end exactly were you thinking, Briar, that it would be useful to get harker. I mean, there's obviously bad blood between harker and busy. There is of what advantage would that be to release him from his prison? Does it relate to the job at hand to kill the demonographer or to not related in your eyes? Two are connected to Lord Chester Strangford. Correct. How is it an advantage for us to release harker? It kind of depends on the crime that harker did not do, apparently. Shit. My idea was basically establish blackmail on Strangford via knowledge of the crime that harker is implicated for and possibly use that to spring on Strangford when we, perhaps, I don't know, break into their manner later in order to commit the murder. Who knows? It was a very long-range kind of thing. It just seemed like a connection between Strangford. Do we know that harker is innocent? Oh. All right. That's pretty important. Harker is pretty guilty as busy as he has been in and out of jail for most of his life. He actually had a score that fucked over Stevens. Your brother has some investments in a dog racing circuit. Harker was caught trying to rig the game. And busy is the one that caused him to be caught. Oh. Yes. Correct. Okay. In jail, harker then snitched on busy about how busy was already fixing the games, but it didn't. He was just trying to even the odds. Okay. Frankly, my outlook on it so far is that everybody in this beautiful Venn diagram, it's a circle. We're all just doing crime. Right. I haven't heard anything about a harker that leads me to believe he's any worse than us. I know we are aimed specifically for the betterment of society, but we do a petty crime here there for our own betterment in order to survive. Oh, it's not a more realistic thing for me. I'm trying to see what type of asset he could become for us. Oh, certainly not. What I'm interested in. Not a morality of it, that's interesting, but it's not exactly what I was thinking. How is harker related to board strength? What Vanessa has told you is that harker had a score in Strangford's house in the place when there was a crime and he would like to snitch on it, but he cannot because his life is very much threatened by Strangford. So he's got some shit on Strangford or at least a crime, and he's been on the premises and knows a bit about Strangford's coming and going. Well, there is all we need to know about our usefulness of our assets. So it's incredibly useful if he knows the layout of Strangford's home and has shit on Strangford, then that by all means, let's spring him. Yeah, we can find a judicious murder to do while we're there. It's crazy. Who wanted harker out? Who wanted harker out? Who doesn't want it? There was a connection. Oh, why are we breaking harker out? Yeah, let me put Nessa on the board here. She is a part-time ally of harkers because of the information he knows. But Nessa is also connected to us through Ghost? Ghost knows her. It's an ex-Blue Coke gang that were framed for Strangford's crime. Right, so that was my thought. We make positive contact with a gang. We free them from fake claims brought about by a nobleman abusing his position. We, well, I don't give two rats shits about harker other than the information he can gain us, but whatever, he's free to go do crime just like we are. Maybe we can press gang him into joining our little team of lurks. Maybe he could break out, give us information, and disappear. Yeah, not that I don't hold any grudge against the idiot. Yeah. Oh, we could just tell him to leave town if you really need to. He's only a temporary ally, and given what information he can offer to the gray cloaks as well. So, well, never mind, I've rambled to pass your question quite a bit, I think. Well, no, it does seem that harker has useful information. And for that matter, Nessa probably does as well in regards to Strangford and his activities and his illegal activities, and therefore they both can be assets in this endeavor that we have to kill the demonographer. But I don't know if committing a murder in the jail, it might be a complication too far. It might be. It might also work. But it might also work. When we know more about the prison after Gordon's. Agreed. I think we need to know more about the prison, which leads us to busy, arresting, or keeping Gordon for questioning at the prison for uncharged, of course, which is how they always do business. And then Gordon, cleaning the information about the inside workings of the prison as best he can before busy springs him loose for said questioning a couple days later. So what kind of information am I looking for? What's my mission here? Darrida on Strangford, if you can get it out of Harker. Harker had done a score in Chester Strangford's estate when he was caught for the sixth time. And sent to Iron Hook, where Strangford has guards keeping an eye on him so that he doesn't snitch about what Strangford was up to. So he knows the layout of Strangford's house and knows the crimes that Strangford is hiding. And you could also find out how many guards are watching over him at any given time of the day. The movements of the guards potentially, their shift watches, how they move about, any gaps in their coverage would be very valuable information as well. If any of the guards seem on the take to be able to gather up some information that might make our springing at Harker easier, if one of the guards is on the take and will look the other way for coin, more than Strangford's paying him, might be a good use of our reserves. That's all I can think of up top of my head, but I'm sure other things that Gordon can find out at the prison. Prison crime bosses that might be worthy of a murder if we can wrangle that. But yeah, a lot of it you covered, you were very exhaustive. Maybe somebody inside that we could tap for information later if we ever need information for people who have been arrested. Sure. You could make context in there. On paper, the crime that the gray cloaks and Harker are implicated in is the murder of a member of the family Enchayat, which is an Aruvian family of nobility that runs a competing Leviathan hunting ship to Lord Strangford. A smoking gun would be very nice to the inspectors who are trying to look into the matter, as they are more so than the blue coats, the trusted authorities in keeping the peace with Aruvia, especially. They are just lawkeepers that are closer to FBI than police. There's a bit of a CIA quality to them, but the branch that operates out of here is largely investigative. That's what Nessa can provide you with. Okay, so that's what she can provide us with if we were to help her out by releasing Harker, or that's just in general. Harker has these specific details and evidence that can be used against Strangford, and it would clear Nessa's crew's name. Not that they'd go back to being blue coats, but it is why she's interested. Right. That is something that goes to definitely interested in. I'm not saying that we have to do it. It seems like everybody's on board with us going into Iron Hook scheme, but I just wanted to tell you what the baseline of what you knew before you go into your gathering information phase. Well, in the end, it really is all up to Gordon, because he's the one that's going to have to go into that. I mean, even its name, Iron Hook, is very unfriendly. He's going to go into that unfriendly place and do a job for us if he's up for it, but in the end, it really is up to him if he's willing. The naval base that kind of grew into Duskfall was originally called North Hook, and the North Hook Trading Company is still big business here. Strangford does a lot of dealings with them. A lot of things bear that name. So Iron Hook is kind of off of that. But yeah, it's not friendly. All right. Let me know if this makes sense or this could be a true statement. From what I understand the spirit wardens and some of the other folks, they have a thing called putting someone in timeout when they're basically trying to get something done in a certain area. And if there's a certain someone there that's preventing them or causing them a brief, we can just make up a reason to hold them for a while while we just put this guy in hold for questioning or whatever. And then we do what we need to do, and then we just let them go afterwards. It's just our way of getting people the way they're way of getting slightly something nobles have done before. You could definitely swing that. Yeah. So that's what I'm thinking is it's not like I'm actually charging him with anything. I'm just telling them I just need this guy off the streets for a few days while I take care of business in his area. Right. Even recently when I was taken by the bluecoats and kind of kept locked up for 24 hours now, it wasn't to this much more dangerous place. We use this positive. You have more power. You can send I'll just I'll tell them that I just want to spook him. I put a little fear into him by sending him keep him alive. Make sure he's in good shape when I come back to question him. I don't want him all broken. I don't want to be easy by don't want him dead. Just send him to prison for a few days. I don't want to engage that until we're ready to start the score, but that is something you're ready to do and capable of. It's the plan. Right. I'm only suggesting it because the role we make to start it. You're all a bunch of ones. You hear me in shit, travel. You might be in there for a little bit longer. It all went bad. For instance, the dangerous place. Yup, this is Gordon. Yes, I am. All right. It's putting on a brave face. Yeah, you've had friends disappear into Iron Hook. Some of them have come back out, but they're always changed. It's time for me to graduate. But it's also been longer than a day or two, right? Yeah, people, yeah. And they are probably taking it for crimes, not just to be put on ice for a few days. You'll be fine. Glad you think so. I'm assuming that the prison is a large place. I've never seen Iron Hook myself, but I've heard tales. How do we make sure that Gordon ends up somewhere close to Harker to make sure he can get the information we're looking for? I'm pointing over at busy. People in power. They have a lot more control. If there's any way to set up a communication for me, like I can request where I need to be moved to or just anything that comes up. Do we have anything along those lines? Yeah, you can establish a contact in the prison before you're arrested. You don't have one right now, but it's something you could look into before the score begins. Okay. The coin might be able to just help that out too. So there's a level up the crewhouse. There is an assassin's upgrade called Iron Hook Contacts where your tier is higher in prison. Well, look at that, which is where you're going. So what do we have? We have an upgrade or an ability or what do we jump it up here? It is a crew level up. You did tier up last session, but also your experience maxed out for Tabula Rasa, which means you can pick another ability or some upgrades for the crew. There are two upgrades. You can not just two options, but if you pick upgrades, you get to pick two. One of them is Iron Hook Contacts. And trust me, that's important because when you're walking the line and someone catches you, that's where you end up, and it is a dangerous place to end up for a long amount of time. Well, we're suggesting for Gordon it's going to be shorter, but it still would be helpful if we had a contact. Well, if we're going to take Iron Hook Contacts, wouldn't it make sense to have the person who's in contact with the contacts be Gordon? Are we making Gordon the Iron Hook Contact? He's not the Iron Hook Contact, but he would know the people that are our contacts within the prison. So he might know a prison guard on the take that can get him to the correct cell block, or he might know of a gang leader who can offer him protection for a couple, whatever. So basically, it says contacts with an S. So I'm saying it could be a couple of different contacts and maybe Gordon has met them with his street smarts over time, or what not. Anyways, it's just a thought. Yeah. By buying this crew upgrade, we're basically saying that Gordon's going to say, "Hey, you just get me in, and then I'll be able to get to where I need to go." Right. That's what I'm thinking. And be able to be moved around, be able to have some protection, be able to have the contacts he needs. And those were just people that he knew in his prior life that have got incarcerated. Maybe someone who grew up in his neighborhood, or a sibling of someone who's a friend, or whatever. Right. A friend's uncle, whatever the case might be, just a couple of people that he knows within Iron Hook that can help ease the process for him. But one of them definitely needs to be a guard who can change his location to get him in with Harper, because holding somebody for questioning is not the same as holding someone for guilty of murder. Right. There's no way they're going to be in the same place to start off with. When you're looking at crew upgrades, what's the differences between the A, B, C, H, S, H, all that? A is assassin. B is bravos. So these will be different crew types. You do have an ability to pick up different crew upgrades if you choose them. But by default, they are not a part of your crew's thing. I see. Let's definitely take Iron Hook. We get two upgrades that I've already added Iron Hook contacts. Okay. Anything without an S, M, C, H, whatever is available to everyone. Some of them you already have, like hidden layer and boathouse one, quality weapons. Do we need a boathouse or is that something we're? We have one. You have one. It is a small shack with boating supplies and what you used a vessel to bring starlight to your base. So is that effectively a boathouse one? Wherever that is? Boathouse two improves your boat with armor and more cargo capacity. But that's kind of a smuggler thing. Or if you were doing a lot of water, things that might be useful. But that's how we're doing now. Yeah. What do the parentheses have after it? How many points they cost? Yes. So most of them are one, but a hardened, which gives every PC an extra trauma box cost three upgrades. Right. We don't have that. We have one upgraded left. Correct. Correct. Okay. Hardened mentions that if you have a character who reached for trauma and you pick hardened, they can come back into play. Got you. Not something we're worried about right now, but how about secure layer one? Your layer has locks, alarms and traps, the thwart and truders. You might roll your cruise tier if these measures are ever put to the test to see how well they can't read the rest because it's considering the creature we have. I would say that's a good idea. What was that? Where is this? Just more than halfway down to be three quarters of the way down or three fifths the way down. Yeah. The table Ross, there's the upgrades and then there's the little plus for crew upgrades to add more. And then it pulls up a menu of stuff that we can add. Somebody might benefit from and so I will suggest mastery. Mastery allows us to buy the fourth dot in our skills, which busy and Gordon, I believe you're both sitting at three, maybe even ghost, possibly everyone but me. Something valuable to get no doubt, but it does. It costs four points and we only have the four in parentheses after it. That's the points it costs. The other ones that had a three also mentioned that they cost three, but you're right. Yeah. The UI does exist. If you guys don't mind, let's go with secure layer one. Yeah, I like it. Makes sense to me. Don't disagree with that at all. It'll just come. I'm really worried about this being rated and taken out while we're sleeping. So messing with our pet. Yeah. Yeah, I was mentioning that last week as far as wards go and that kind of stuff. But yeah, it's good. It's good to me. There are two that we're going to upgrade with then. All right. There's also upgraded tools and upgraded training, which are pretty good, but yeah, I'm good. We decided I just want to put those. Something I'm going to add for various multitude and the fact that I don't like it as an upgrade is quarters. Your layer has living quarters for the crew without this upgrade. Each PC sleeps elsewhere and is vulnerable when they do so. I don't think that's narratively interesting, so I'm just going to add a quarter. Oh, thank you. Yeah, okay. Sorry. I didn't imagine sleeping anywhere else. I did, actually. Did you actually imagine something like that, John, that are the person we're working for now, our big girl of the unseen? Well, girls works for someone. That's right. Yeah. Didn't they talk about building our house and making it? They gave you the hidden layer upgrade that is now disguised from everyday view. Does not look like a layer. Okay. And this made it harder for praxis to get tracked down by red. I increased the clock size for red tracking praxis down, which is good because he rolled a six. Okay. Also, worthy of note, the reconciled plot is coming to a close. We'll handle that outside of the score. I think in downtime, or if you folks come across the occurrence, then I'll mention it. But the reconciled plot has come to fruition. Good to know. Or bad to know. All right, immediately. Okay. So we've upgraded Gordon. You've got some contacts. Do you want to give us a number, John, of how many contacts Gordon has within Iron Hook? Thank you for listening tonight's of the night actual play podcast. If you'd like to send us questions, comments, or feedback, you can reach us at a number of ways, including Twitter at kotn_podcast. Or you can join our Facebook page, which is facebook.com/kotn.podcast. And while on Facebook, you can join like-minded folks at our fans page at facebook.com/groups/kotn-fant. And lastly, there's our blog, which is found at kotnpodcast.com. And please remember to join us next week for more mystery and adventure. For a minute, I thought he was going to be an antiogenic organic alchemist. Thomas, do you keep moving your microphone because I keep hearing noises? No, I just moved things on my desk. Sorry, if there was a push to talk, is there such a feature? Yeah, there actually is, I think, and zoom. Maybe I'll mess with it. I think it gets me as if I click the elsewhere, then it doesn't. I think the space part does absolutely nothing. I have a- I thought it would be an audio settings. Alt A, I have set to mute my microphone. So that's not really a push to talk, but- Is it global, though, or do you need to be clicked global? It's global. Okay, then I'll just do that. Sorry. Quick question, John. Yes. It's updating 96, 98%, the background. Did you change something? Yeah, I switched us to the relationship map that we'll be building for her as we do our investigations. No problem, just asking if something went wrong. Moving on. Unrelated. I just tried to take off my glasses. It worked. I'm not wearing glasses, but if I'm seeing like this, I guess my brain said, "Your glasses take them off." Yeah, old habits die hard. Oh, I'm telling you. Good thing. That's true. Okay, I just don't doubt. What was that? All right, who's turned into zone out next? Our crew can level up, and one of the level-ups has to do with context within Iron Hook prison. Oh, good night, folks. I see it. Sorry, Adios. All right, Jim. Have a good week. Yeah. Oh, there are possible titles for this episode that were available for voting on the Facebook nights at the night fans page were who is here and when is now tied up in the city forever with your mortal ass. Eight for her death and six for her departure. Nobles being the one's worth killing. Stove that runs on ghost flames. And have a good time with the fellow demon.