The crew starts researching the clues found on Bill's day planner. But first, a stop at a local coffee house to discuss the plan of attack..Actual Play starts at 02:27
Knights of the Night
KOTN Actual Play Podcast 71: "Delivery - House Call"
(upbeat rock music) - Hello, and welcome to Knights of the Night Actual Play podcast. This Dresden File Story Delivery was written and run by our GM Tom. And now, please enjoy episode 71, titled, "House Call." (upbeat rock music) - I am for GM Tom, and I can stretch the files pane, (upbeat rock music) - I'm John, I'm James, I'm Bob Martinez, Guardian of Cleveland, powered by Fallen Angel. - Thomas, playing Maxwell Edison, undercover FBI agent. - Scott, playing London Deals, a moral seer to the supernatural. - And Jim, playing Edmund Shadowski, pride investigator in a new age black court vampire. - And I'm Mike, playing Ellen Montgomery, the warden who has come back to Cleveland to clean the mess up. - All right, before we continue with the adventure, we have a little bit of feedback, actually only one. And this was from our blog site, which someone left to comment on episode 68, Magic Ain't Pretty. - This is from Andigo. You guys are my all time favorite podcast, awesome players, and a great story. - Well, there you go, doesn't it? - Short and sweet. - Doesn't get much better than that. - Now, we actually did have one additional piece of feedback, but I'm not going to read it, because it was from DJ Allen, and it mentioned some things that Mike was fixated on during one particular adventure. And so I think we've discussed that as much as we ever want to discuss it again. - Yes, it was, can I get a piece of this hair, please? Just one. Well, those are really, I was just not to gloss over, but it was a very nice comment from Andigo. - Yeah, definitely, I appreciate it. And we certainly appreciate the fact that you enjoyed the podcast, and thanks for listening. - Indeed. - And with that, we'll go on to the adventure. - So around 8 a.m., we go to breakfast. - Okay. - Roberta and I, I buy breakfast. I tell them if you'd like to talk about his problem. You know, I'm all ears. You don't think this is going to be a current event, do you? - No, I'm just going to keep paying me. - All right, fair enough. That shouldn't be a problem. - Well, he did pay you a retainer of just under $5,000. - Yeah, well, it is a slight problem if you have to take care of it today. Unless, of course, you don't want to take care of it today. - This gets best to not blow this off. If you don't want this to be a recurring problem, I could use a hundred extra dollars. - All right, that's for that in advance. - Unfortunately. - Geez. - Your resource rose worse than his? - Poor, because it's tied up. You know, I only have so much-- - I'm not exactly liquid right now. - As you know, I'm having difficulties accessing my accounts. - And while I could give you a hundred dollars, I would have to potentially blow my cover by using an ATM or a bank to do so. As much as I'd like to help you, that was all the disposable cash I had available at the time. - Your poor is a amount of under $50, so unfortunately at this time. - Right, just for it. - In my pocket at this time. So I gracefully turn him down, thinking that perhaps one of the other members of our newfound friends could lend you the 100 you need. - I don't know, but I'll take a breakfast for you. - I would go without eating. - You can't go without eating. - All right, you guys are sitting at breakfast at o'clock in the morning. What are the other three of you doing sleeping in? - Well, we did say we're gonna be at nine in Bay Village. - Maybe going in to work early. - Yeah, you will message saying I'm not gonna be in for the rest of the day. Please call my son. - You'll be up your voicemail. You own a pretty big and amazing detective agency as a name, it was A-A-A-A-Mays. - Just one, money. - You check into work, you get an update on some of the more delicate cases that your detectives are working on for you and then you set up your voicemail to say I'll be out of the office for the day. If it is an emergency, call somebody who gives a shit. And we're gonna grab a quick breakfast on your way to the meeting. - Have 'em make a roll, see how many of my seating is for the first part of this morning. - Okay. - All right, 'cause it is a new day. - Yes, and it is superb. Donning of a new day will weaken magic. So recasting at a minimum in the morning will be required. - Okay. - It's superb. - Well, in fact, that's what I was waiting for, was the Don, so any spell I try to use right now wouldn't get washed away with Don, so. - Right. - As soon as the sun is up, and you wanted to go to Bay Village, why? - That is the home of Miss Sarah Lemons. - It wouldn't take long and we have a spare time. Why don't we call Ryan Nelson up and ask him what he did, or rather, what happened to him? - What do you do to them? - If I may, Roberto, I think it might be a good idea to case Sarah's place before we alert the other gentlemen, just because something might change, and I want to keep things as pristine as possible before we knock down to him. - I'd rather see if we can find a way to meet him instead of calling him on the phone and giving him a chance to run away. - 'Cause he knows the gig is up. - All right, if there's no problem myself and Roberto arrived at Bay Village, we'd be 15 minutes early, 'cause we were up early and had some breakfast. - Okay. - I'd like to use my burglary if possible to case the place. If anyone has a better burglary score than me, I would know this. - Where are you parking? You're pulling right up to the front door. - No, we're passing by one time to get a lay of the land. And then after that, we pick, I pick, based on my burglary skill, the best, most likely, surreptitious route to case the home. - I would like to use my investigation to use hip-and-surveillance for the area also. - I'm sorry, are we all together now? - Well, these guys are going 15 minutes early, so they're dealing with P-45. You guys are supposed to arrive there at nine o'clock. I don't know where you're meeting in Bay Village. - Yeah, no problem. - In front of the lady's house or a coffee shop somewhere in Bay Village. - We would have to take some 30 minutes to get out of Bay Village from Cleveland. - So we're all like in the car. - And where would we be having that? - My dive was in Lakewood, so I was close. I mean, I was within spitting this into Bay Village. - Well, either I'm cabinet or I didn't know you'd give me a ride again. Would I call you if I need to be my chauffeur? - Can you just teleport us? - I could, but it makes too much of a noise from this early in the morning. - Your investigation is, I would assume, a superb? - Sure. - All right, since-- - No, it's a subvert. - I'm sorry. - Since vocabulary and investigation can be used in case plays and surveillance plays, I would suggest that myself and Roberto wait for the professional to come, although I consider myself quite talented in that area. I know that Edmund is much stronger in that area than I am, so I defer. You know, we do meet at a little coffee shop. Okay, you take 90 and you get off on Columbia Road. - Okay. - On Wolf, you turn left to go farther west than Wolf, which is where it is. In doing that, you pass a small shopping center, which has a Chinese restaurant, a small coffee shop, a bowling lane, and roughly at Wolf and Dover Center Road is a Starbucks. You wait there for the others to arrive. - I get a fine African blend. - Since you were there first, the others-- - Since I'm slumming it. - Arrive, and all five of you are in the Starbucks. - And discussing what-- - How programming can you use it? - The aspects of the Starbucks are similar to, on the common ground. Smelling at the coffee that you-- - No blood this time. Crowded, noisy, espresso machines make so much noise. - Really? - I asked London since he took the over here, if he had any fortunate luck in the track here. - This whole thing, is that what I was supposed to do? - I didn't naturally perform divination. - What are you paying them for? - I mean, these are working charity. - I thought that one of the things we discussed was, trying to come at this at a lower level, by doing some investigation. First, I've gone straight to either the clinic or to Mr. Donovan, since it would reveal more of the mystery forums. Perhaps I was mistaken in our conversations last night, but I'd be more than happy to do the divination, while Edmund is performing the casing of Ms. Lemon's home. - So I will perform the divination in a vehicle that is not Roberto's, because it smells a little on that one. And if you could allow me the use of your vehicle, I could try to do the divination there. - Should I wear your car in the casing? Or should I wait to do the casing, or should we do this? - Well, I figured you were going to eventually set up a shop, not in the vehicle. - It's hard to do a drive-by without it. - We already did a drive-by. - No, you didn't. - All right. - It said we were driving by, and then looking at the best weight. - If you want to do that before they get there, I have no problem whatsoever with that. - That's what happened. If you need to make a drive, you won't look here still. - Mm-hmm, good. In driving by, when you're heading west on wall, if you run into first a high school on the left-hand side, you pass that. On the right-hand side, you pass a police station, and a small block with six or seven houses on the left side. So the left side, there's six or seven houses on the right side, there's just a big police station. Then you have a small side street. After you pass that side street, there's a huge park on the right-hand side. And much bigger houses on the left-hand side. And it is a small block that this addresses in the middle of. And it's bigger than the block you've already passed, but it's about the same number of houses, 'cause the houses are so much larger. They take that much larger yards, and that house is in the middle of the street, and you can't miss it, because it's surrounded by police station. - Mm-hmm, oh my God. - You drive around the block, and you come back to the coffee shop, and wait for them to arrive. - And then you guys arrive, and you know what I'm mentioning. - She's deceased. - You attract her. - And your tracking said she was no longer around. - Oh, this was the one that-- - Yeah. - All coming back to me. - All right, yeah. And you were given a vial of blood, you did the tracking, it failed. - Yes. - You were given a second vial of blood. Again, you were never told what or who it was. - Right. - You tracked the second vial of blood to this house. Then you told them about it. - And they gave it. - And they did whatever they did. The third time you tried tracking on the second vial of blood again, it failed. - The failure was a known failure to you. It's a type because I used the run spell. I'm now looking for a corpse. - So we do know she's dead, we just don't know how or why. - Who's got contacts with the police? - So I shoot. - Some member used to be a police officer, and now is undercover for the FBI might have. - I mean, we basically just wanna get in and those run the house, right? - Or we could, you know, read the report that the police have made on the house, and that would be almost just as good. - Save us some time. - They wouldn't be looking for any of this kind of stuff that we would be looking for. - Okay. - Fair enough. - I've gotten hard to read the report anyway, so you gotta get ahold of it. - Maxwell, do you have anyone in the police department that can get us access to this fine dwelling? - I should. Why don't you think about it for a little bit and see if you can call for some? - I'm sorry, let me just clarify something. He said that there was tape up. Was there actually a cruise there on station? Like, while I'm watching the place, where is the place just taped off? - He did not notice a cruise. - I'm just saying that-- - Yes. In this particular instance, I think that perhaps the most prudent course of action would just be to decase it, make sure no one's there, and then break in. - I'll just roll this if I know what you can do. - I'm gonna roll this if I know what you can do. - I'm gonna roll this if I know what you can do. - I'm gonna roll this if I know what you can do. - I'm gonna roll this if I know what you can do. - I'm gonna roll this if I know what you can do. - Okay. - Your roll would be a little easier. - We don't really need the police department. - Just in case. - Okay. - And my roll is actually mediocre. - Okay, no, that's not high enough. - While you guys are trying to figure out what we have to take away. - Your roll would be easiest. His was like-- - I'm gonna go case the place out in case. - I should have-- - His had to be fantastic. His had to be good. Yours have to be just bare. - Okay, okay, okay. I should have an aspect for this, but I really don't. I don't think the cops like me anymore anyway. - Well, regardless of what I like you or not, you would know or-- - Can't do this on my own. Could mean that you have police contacts. - Okay, I'll use it if I need to. - But I do have one contact. I just have to roll it plus one. - I like your plan better. - And I roll it plus one, fair. - Yes, but we're not contacting you at this point. It's just if we get into any trouble, right? - If we not. - We all agreed? - Yeah, mm-hmm. - Did we gain back any-- - Um, pick points. - Yes. - You're right here. - You're right here. - When you slept. - When you slept, you go back here. - Up to the adjusted reefer. - Which is probably one. - Which is two more. - Thomas knows Sean Alvarez. - He's a Bay Village, police detective. - Yeah, Sean. - You know Sean. - You used to work together in Cleveland. He got transferred when he moved out there. He was able to transfer to their force. I was kind of excited because it's about an area. - Edmond, make a roll, please. - I'm looking for ways and that aren't as obvious as we want to sneak in from way back door, backyard, jayber hall. - Okay. - Just before I look at the roll, remember this is Bay Village, which has got long properties. It's residential. And there's a lot of trees and bushes and shrubs and everyone loves to carve a little lot. So it's a little bit of rain. - Okay. You caged the place and you find that right across the street from it is Huntington Park. And there's a couple of bald diamonds over there and there's a large wooded area that surrounds and breaks up the area between the parks and the street here. So if you guys would park in Huntington Park and walk, you'd be right across from this place. And it is indeed spread wide from its neighbors. You could walk across the street as long as nobody's around. And you probably wouldn't be spotted from either of the two houses on the side. Also, that particular house has a lot of tree covers and bush in a lot of landscaping. If you were to work your way around to the back of it, you could do anything you want, access to the house and nobody would spot you from the street. - Anyone, could you avail yourself or seem like a cop when you walk up to it and maybe get in ahead of time? - I could put a barrel around all of us. - Yeah. - Draw a veil no bigger than a tight group of people. So I thought we could all-- - We've all showered this morning, I believe. So I think we'll be all right to stand together. If something comes up, I can do a quick seaming as a police officer, one of us, if necessary. - He'll be a pair of conjoined jobs. - Probably Maxwell, if he doesn't mind stepping into the role because he would be able to use the terminology and the-- - I've done that once. - Right. - Park in the parking lot? - I'm sorry. We don't know that he's a undercover. Yeah, I got it, right? - I thought we did. - You don't know that. - I don't know. - Yeah, I worked for him. - Well, first of all-- - I did not know that. - We haven't said that. - Well, no. No. - No. - You're a victim. - No. Your story was about you being a cop and a detective. They helped you in the story. So obviously, they know your history. At some point, you were a police officer. Now, you're a private detective. - So they do know-- - The human question is a minor veil, the same skill as I use discipline, same as I use with my ceilings. - Yes. - Does it cost me any kind of power to do doing this? - It should cost you one mental stress, but that gets cleared up when the scene ends. - All right. So I cast a ceiling in myself this morning to not look like London. So I have one mental dot gone at that point. - Yes. - Has it been recovered since then? Or do I still have one? - To maintain that, we're gonna say you're gonna have to maintain the stress. - Okay. - So you would have to get a second stress to do it second. So we call Edmund back to the coffee house back to Starbucks. - You can discuss all our problems. - Your phone vibrates. - I finished my soy mocha chino. So we then had to Huntington Park in two vehicles. We then find a cups of trees, some type of cover. And I cast the-- - Well, the parking lot has different areas and some of them are close to it's the-- - Sure. - So you park there and you use-- - Yeah. - It's one of the most part of Huntington Beach. - May I roll? Let's have a minute. - Yeah, go ahead. - My point is that there's a really neat, not neat, but there's an actual undergrowth tunnel that goes under the road to get to the beach from the park. - Right. - The most conceivable. - There's lake road that goes along the shore. The beach is on the north of the road. The park is on the south. The house is further south still. - All right, I know. - But the tunnel you're describing, you'd be going the wrong direction. - Oh, you're right, okay. - All right, that's all right, that's all right. I'm sorry. - I'm not gonna need to escape. - Not a bad watch today. - I rolled a minus three that takes it from superb down to fair, which in my own mind, I don't believe I need to really work any harder than that because nobody's in a residential area that's, you know-- - You have Granny who might be looking out a window and see you. - Right, fair is probably-- - Yeah, fair. So I'm leaving it as is and that's spending a fake point to strengthen it. So we'll go to the, anyone, correct me if I'm incorrect. We're going to the back of the home to give us the most cover and then breaking into the home from there. - I would say that the back door has an elevated deck, you know, that you would have to climb up on and be. The side door, it goes along the driveway. - Right. - So the only place it could spot you then is the house that's directly next to you. - Okay, I have burglary and I'm assuming the side door is not open, it's locked. - The side door doesn't exist. - The end of the fact that it has been destroyed. - Sorry. - That takes my burglary skill right out of the equation. - It can pour it up, kick it through or is there a hole there? - There's plastic tarp that's nailed up around it but the door itself doesn't exist and then we just take a few tugs that-- - Are we all there? - We tug gently and we keep the holes the same so we can reseal it with those nails when we depart. So it looks as if no one's been here. - Where's he looks? - So we slip in, I can reseal it on the way out of the fire. - Fantastic. So we quietly move it. And then at that point I drop the veil because no one wants to huddle close to each other as we're trying to investigate a home. I'm assuming no one wants to-- - No, we don't need to veil over inside but let's be careful about-- - It's facing blocking in front of windows. - I'm assuming that because this house is damaged, no one is currently in residence. - That would seem to be likely. - At time, when I drop the minor veil, one of my stresses removed, we're moving into different-- - No, because it's still the same scene. If you're any more magic, it's necessary. It'll continue to build up until now. - Okay. - Like time to sit at the coffee shopping. - Got it. - The house you walk into is a battle zone. There are walls, broken, scorch marks. Things just utterly destroyed. There was a serious fight in here. Two wizards, even untrained eye magic was thrown about. There's scorch marks on the wall, there's blasts, there's chunks of drywall, I mean, on the ground. In various rooms, there are tape outlines of bodies, and there are five of them in various rooms. One in a kitchen area, there's a dining area next to it, in which there are two tape outlines, and there is one in a bedroom, and there is a fifth one in a great room. - Tritching about the outlines, is this a family? Like a young family where their children are their children outlines, or is it all adults? - There's little tags written next to each of the outlines, but they don't give names. They just give numbers, or make them one, make them two. - Make them one. - Exactly. I'm just estimating by the size of the outline. All of the tape, they're not gender-specific in any way, but they are all adult-sized. - Okay. - That's what I mean. - Was this a kid, or was this something else? - Did we know anything about Sarah, as far as what she was, or who she was? - And a ton. - Oh, dude, you let her read to her house. - I couldn't, very well, don't say. - You knew about this. That was, they paid well. Very well could be that my divination led to this location, but I think I have a path to find out more here. - Same here with divination, and I could do some divination magic here to find out what happened. - I think I might be able to do one better. - All right. - Since I do have a specialty in ectomancy, and this appears to be a scene of extreme violence and death, - Yes, sir. - I'm wondering if there's any ghosts hanging around. - Crack that book. - So-- - Oh, I'm gonna make sure nobody drives in stuff. I watch the front doors. - This is the location of where, presumably, people met their violent deaths, so I'm guessing that this would be a great location. Do we have a time estimate? Like, you know London when you gave the information about the blood vial was that a week ago, was that, you know, days ago. - Eight days ago, November 21st, you were contact. - So that was when the first divination took place. The next day, 27th, was the second divination, and the next day, the 23rd, was the third divination? - Yes. - November 27th? - Yes, it's currently November 29th. It might also explain why almost four or five days later there aren't active police officers sitting on the site. - I have a key paragraph here. Ectomancers tend to get noticed emphasized by ghosts and often find themselves haunted by those who are looking for a way to speak to the living. Many Ectomancers develop a natural ability to see, or at least acutely sense, the presence of ghosts, simply using lore as the perception skill. I'm guessing from that, that I am either-- - You're a ghost whisperer, aren't you? - I sense. Something bad, well, after something bad happened here, the whole place is torn apart and there's blood and bodied tape on the floor. - Damn, you're good at this. - Well, it's, you can roll a lore roll. All right, my lore roll is a superb-- - Sam Shepard. - Sam Shepard, the murder of Bay Village, that they made the fugitive, the TV show, and the movie based on it. - That was the Bay Village? - Yes. - Well, the movie moved it to Los Angeles, or-- - No, Chicago actually is where they moved it to, but the TV show itself, I don't know where it took place. - So what information did you wish to obtain? - Well, first of all, I'm just seeing if there's quite a sense the presence of the ghosts. I was also, before I did that role, I was going to ask, is there any way to kind of read the battle with our experience and kind of see like maybe where the last stand was, or who was the last to fall? - That isn't best. - What I was thinking is that we know who the players are. - Unless you're talking about magical play. - No, I was kind of thinking of doing like a little, you know, ranger thing where-- - He said that there was one body left in the great room, it's like, okay, was that the last person standing, so they would have the most back ghosts, would have the most information about what happened. That's why I was-- - Yeah, there isn't a huge lineup of ghosts for you to choose from here. There's one ghost that has a vested interest in this house and what happened here, and she's still around. - Not sweet. I tell them, I sense the presence of a female. Do I actually see this person, or do I just have a sense of-- - Your role was pretty impressive, so I would say you see a shimmering outline of said person. - That's actually cute. - She's actually pretty cute. - That's really-- - That's not neck feeling. That's nothing to do with neck or feeling. - Actual feeling. - Yeah, exactly. - You want it, exactly. - Exactly, yeah, buddy. - Keep it right, bro. - So I tell them that there is a ghost here, and I say, can you hear and see me? I think that was just to perceive and see, but you actually want me to interact, past a spell using thaumaturgy to interact with her, I suppose, to at least speak with her. - Then what point did you start breaking your own role, sir? - Well, I think you did the dent. - Yeah, I'm just communicating with him. I mean, if I'm going by the books how the one guy who was an ectomancer, it seemed to be-- - You know Gordon. - And you know the laws, right? - Yeah. - Okay. - Well, we're gone. - Oh, actually, they refer to that in here, too. - I think they do. - I think as long as you don't raise the dead-- - Talk to me about that. - It's the conceptual ectomancy has much in common with the obulism and necromancy, but it mostly stays within the safe zone in between. It manages to nearly dodge the fifth law thanks to the nature of gross themselves. Ghosts aren't actual dead people. There's the supernatural echoes of the dead, so I'm not breaking any laws. - Okay. - I'll play by the book. - Watch him screw those up. So, is he afraid of what I'm about to find out? - I mean, I'm not pleased that the information I provided led to this young lady's demise. - But, and/or the destruction of this house and the death of the five or six people. - Whatever, it's a house. - But it's, you just sold it. - You just sold it. You don't care what people do with it. - Yeah. - It happens. - You're doing more. - I'm not judging him. - Okay. - Just going for the report. - She's there shimmering. You can see her. She's floating there. You can't seem to communicate with her, but she does seem distressed. - Well, I will cast that. - Cast my spell to bridge that gap. - I would say to talk to the dead, and particularly this dead, would require a great effort. - Okay. - In thaumaturgy, your lord score determines what level complexity spell you can do without preparation. - It's at four, so I'm not gonna go into what you would have to do if it were not. - Well, how much prep do I need? It seems like we've got some time here. - You wouldn't improve it if you did have time, because all you had to do is meet it, and then you're good. - I'm gonna say this is a relatively quick spell to cast. - Okay. - The veil here between the worlds is pretty thin. Her murder was violent and very recent in terms. If you're trying to talk to a ghost that's 100 years dead, much more difficult. Her connection to this plane is very fresh, and would only require a great effort, plus four. But the time it would be required would be relatively quick. - Plus I don't, you know, I've got a little accoutrement to cast spells. Like Perry doesn't just set chalk in his pocket, and he drew a circle really quick. So I'm okay with drawing a circle around me and her in the same space to lock in all the magical goodness. - Okay. - Cast a spell. - All right, good play. - You need to reach that great status, so you want to reach four. - His lore is already at four. - He also has a specialization that gives him plus one to-- - Right. - But he could be five. - And then he would just-- - He'll be ready to-- - And it's my ring, which is an item-- - A two to one. - To any-- - It's a controller power. - You have to pick-- - Yes. - It would have been control, probably to asthometry, because thumb to jurism are powered. - So you've got a total of like-- - Seven. - You have to start. So just don't roll a minus four. - So that's better. Why'd you say that? Whatever you do, whatever you do-- - If he meets a complexity, I don't think he has to. - He just has to then prepare it and then start rolling to pour power onto it. - That's what I'm saying. He's rolling the power into it now. - Yeah, hold on to the biggest conviction score. - Okay, sorry. That's fine. - Why does it come off? - Which I'll add another one. - We're winging it fast to keep it. - A question down, so it's a six, six power minimum to get into it. - I think he started with seven, Mike. - My control was seven. - His understanding of how to cast a spell, then to pour power in it. Upon establishing connection, you hear a blast of a woman just screaming and anguish and pain and pain. She's crying out and I'm helping, helping. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Thanks for listening to the Knights of the Night actual play podcast. Visit kotnpodcast.com for more information on this and other adventures where you will find character stats, photos, storytelling, props, and even a forum for comments and suggestions. Or you could email us directly at feedback at kotnpodcast.com or contact us via Twitter or leave a message on Facebook. All music for this podcast was created and performed by Zen Audio Smith. If you'd like custom professional music created for your podcasts or business, please visit Zenaudiosmith.com and please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - You're a ghost whisperer, aren't you? - I sense. - Something bad, well, after something bad happened here, the whole place is torn apart and there's blood and body tape on the floor. - Damn, you're good at this. - She's actually pretty cute. - I truly, I mean many work there. - It's that neck feeling. - It has nothing to do with necrophilia. - Actual feeling. - Yeah. - Absolutely. - Exactly. - Yeah, buddy. [BLANK_AUDIO]