(upbeat music) - Hello. 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 65, titled "Coming Home." (upbeat music) (upbeat music) Before we begin playing our first week of Dresden Files delivery, I'd like to cover feedback, which we didn't have any this week, but since it is the holidays, we'd like to spend just a moment to wish all of our listeners. Merry Christmas, happy new year, happy holiday, happy Hanukkah. - Merry Christmas to all our listeners. Thanks for listening. And we look forward to hopefully bringing in some good entertainment in the 2012. - Yeah, think about what year it was gonna be. - I was 2012 podcast season. - It'll be like our gift of our new Dresden podcast. - And with that, we'll go on to the adventure. - Let's get started. My name is Tom and I am running this Dresden File Adventure, which we are going to title delivery. And starting on my left, the player is John playing Roberto Martinez, who's a guardian of Cleveland empowered by a fallen angel. - Thomas playing Maxwell Edison, the undercover FBI. - Scott playing London deals and a moral seer to the supernatural. - Jim playing Edmund Shodowski, New Age Black Court vampire and private investigator. - This is Mike playing Ellen Montgomery, a prodigal warden. We will start the adventure with a small scene starring Ellen Montgomery, who walks into what appears to be a ballroom in which there are a number of people standing across from him. He walks past a few men that look nothing if not like guards. They are obviously packing some sort of heat and watching him carefully. He walks in with his friends beside him. And in the center opposing him is a group of people, only one of which he knows very well. The rest are all relatively new. The one he knows well is his mentor, William Donovan, who is looking as if he is worse for wear. He has seen very rough times the last few days, but the lady in the center is the one demanding the attention. She's a non-descript female as far as age goes, although she has long black hair in steel, linting eyes as she stares at Ellen and says, "Well, have you come here to deal?" And Ellen, who's standing there holding a blanket, something wrapped in red, looks around at his friends who are standing next to him and thinks how quickly things moved in a very, very short time. And he's glad that they're all there for this final scene. And thinking back to when it all started, and we'll do a bit of a fade and a cut, and we'll roll back time. And Ellen walks up of the terminal tower as he returns to Cleveland for the first time in a very long time and sighs deeply because he's returned. Good sign. And he's been signed back by the White Council and also his own concerns about his missing mentor, William Donovan. - William Donovan. - Where do you want to go? You have just arrived in Cleveland. - As a warden, do I have access to the White Court's means and welfare, am I expected to have my own? - No, I'm not. - The White Council. - White Council, I'm sorry. Yeah, big difference. Now they wouldn't have a way in to Cleveland because of the shield that exists around the city. So that there wouldn't be a gateway that you could walk into a fay and then just drop into the middle of the terminal tower. - I was thinking like a limo taxi, not like a town card at my disposal, but just for the purpose of getting me into the town. And I think I have the wizards. I don't have, I can suppress my magic long enough to be around like a train or something, correct? - Yes, usually it's emotions that cause you to lose control and frightfully. - Well, I am calm. - And as long as you're neglected. Not up close to the engine and you're in a car. - Yeah. (laughs) - Plus the Redlands always frets me out. So I will have stepped off the Redline into the terminal tower. - Are you talking about taking the rapid transit? - Into the heart of the city, yeah. - And in returning to the city, you remember it of all that hasn't changed much other than to get more empty and more squalid and... - Yes, I imagine I'm looking around, especially now tower cities right down in the heart of public square, yeah, heart of the city. Are you? Are there any things that I remember from my previous time here, sign symbols, maybe some feelings or senses that will make me... - You've had dealings with people in the city of Cleveland. So returning here, you know you have some base as far as your friends go. You dealt with the rest of the players. You have aspects that tie directly into them. So you know for a fact that you had a friend who, two of them in fact, London deals, one who could find anything that needed to be found. And then there was Edmund Shadowski, who was a detective, who knew a lot of people and could get into all the small little dark corners of the city of Cleveland. He knew a lot about how the... - Did that decry, well the criminal underworld a bit, but also the people of power, the magic, those in the know. He knew people there as well. - Am I expected by anyone? Do I have an appointment with anyone? - You kind of sent in here cold. The White Council has no way of knowing what's going on in the city of Cleveland. And they sent you in because, well, for two reasons. One is they lost their representation in Cleveland, but they knew that you had a connection with your mentor. And you would also have a invest in interest in finding William Donovan, or what happened to him. - Is there a place that I can stay and get a hotel, or trying to think of a place downtown, or then maybe this one is a little bit more friendly to my kind of people? - Well, you know of a couple things. We would look at your contacts and determine how much of the people still exist in the city that you used to know. - You sure enough? - And you also know that William Donovan had both an office in the city and a home. - Well, I guess what I'm getting at is, I'm wondering if I should establish an independent-- - That would be totally up to you. - Place, right. And one of the reasons that we talked about, like coming back, that's why I put my contact skills down lower, and I really have to fare. - You've been away from the town? - Right, I've been away. So what I was thinking is just get a temporary apartment, or just like a hotel room. There's a couple places in the city. I mean, they're right there. There's hotels, there's the key center now. - And as you're sitting at the terminal tower, looking around, trying to decide your next move, the clouds open up and start to rain on you, as Cleveland greets you. - You mean as I step out into the public square from the terminal tower? - You're standing outside near the square, and the clouds that are graying out the side, they just start to rain, you rule all over you. - What time of the year is it? - We'll go with November. - Okay. - So it's kind of chilly. - I assume it's late in the afternoon. We're talking, you know, five, 30 or so. - Okay. - I open my umbrella. - No, you have one. - I'm sure I do. - Okay. - Do I need to pay a fee? - No, I'm not. - I'm trying to umbrella. - You don't want to get wet. - You have lived in Cleveland before. - Well, I think it would be-- - You know that the weather changed constantly. - I think it could speak to us to use my water powers to pee myself dry in the city. - I think it's a little wet. - Instead of being somebody at the cloud over their head, raining them out at a time. You'd be in the rain with no rain. - Yeah, it's just dangerous. - Yeah, that's conspicuous. - That's conspicuous. All right, so my first is I'm going to head on north public square, heading towards the Society Center, which is the tallest building in Cleveland, isn't it? - Mm-hmm. - Okay. And it's right near the lake front. Or, you know, I can see the lake looking north. I can see the lake so the dark clouds are over the lake. Is it a blowing rain or is it just a heavy rainfall? - It's just starting, but the clouds are looking very ominous. It's looking dark. - And also just, when you entered Cleveland itself, you felt a heavy depression of just... - You're not caught off from magic, but there's just almost like your ears need to pop. You know where you've got like a pressure on you. - Did I feel it when I crossed the boundary? - Yes. - Okay. - So I can tell like, it's like, here it's sunny and then all of a sudden the cloud has passed over and everything is just the light and everything has changed. Okay. - Welcome to Cleveland. - Yeah. - What time of day is it? - 5.30 or so. - In the evening? - Yeah. - Okay. - I will have an opportunity to the society center and I believe there's some area out there and I will go register for a room. - It's just blocks. - Yeah, it's within blocks. - And I, yeah. And I, that part of me wants to kind of kind of walk me clean and do it. Well, I'm also trying to keep my eyes open. I have come to this place knowing something's going on and I want to get a sense of the place. I want to feel things. I want to feel from the city. Yeah, I want to get to extend my senses. Maybe not fully commit myself to some spouses. I'm still kind of alone here. But I'm keeping my eyes out for any of the signs and portents that, or the old stopping grounds that my mentor had shown me. Are there strange murmurs coming out from the greats? I guess the great waters wash them down the streets and into the sewers. Are there marks on the posts or the buildings? How the, how the secret community would communicate each other. You know, and try to keep my eyes out for any of those type of signs. And also maybe just get a sense of the, trying to think of where people like my old cronies, London and, and then. - You're actually being active about it. So let's get, give me an investigation role to kind of check out things as you're walking along. - I can't explain why my investigation is so low, but yes. - Private eye. - Yeah. - Your award. - Oh my, I'm in average. - All right. So there was some subtle signs, which you really didn't pick up. But you can see a gentleman kind of huddled over a great, who as you're going by, he's asking you, you know, if you have a dollar for me, you know. - Ignore him. I'm no pelletist. - Okay. But you don't see a lot of bustle in the city. It's as if the majority of the people that have left for the evening, there are some people leaving the office and heading down to buses and heading down to the terminal to get their train ride home, their rapid ride home. And all of them are head down, just ignoring what's going on around them. Trying to keep out of the rain maybe, or maybe that's the, that's the mood of Cleveland right now. - Okay. - Head down and just hurrying along, ignoring everything. Just to get home. - Just a, this is admin stuff now. My weapons and some of my gear, I assume do wardens have to learn a trick to carry their spear around, 'cause they seem to be able to produce it at well without revealing what you're walking around. - The spear? - Or sword. First of all, I was on board without having the silver sword. - No, I'd say you were an award long enough to have one. - Okay. - I mean, if we're gonna go with the fact that in the Dresden University sword is not being issued anymore, you're an old time war. - Okay. - You've had a really easy post, but times are getting tougher and wardens are getting scarcer because of the ongoing battle with Red Court. - But you do have a sword. - I don't know, I've never heard that you could do that. Summon it or hide it. - I would say you have a cloak. It almost looks like a trench coat type of thing that you just keep around you and then in the folds of it, you can easily hide it, that it's not a full glamour spell to make it invisible, but it's less noticeable. - I understand. I'm going by the books where Morgan and then they seem to be able to carry the sword around without it being obvious, but I don't think it was ever a spell. - Well, they show up for Harry. They usually travel through ways where they don't, you know. - Yeah, I mean, you're not going to go through metal detectors at an airport because you wouldn't go on an airplane because you wouldn't run it. - Well, I'm going by Stormfront where Morgan, you know, was walking around with the cloak and-- - Yeah. - But I would rather have a dust shirt than like, you know, a fan of dust shirt. - I would say you have something like a long, almost a cloak that could pass for a trench coat. - Like Duncan McCloud. - Sure. - Okay, well then I will proceed through the rain. I'm kind of trying to protect myself. - I'm not trying to get completely dressed. You know, I'll have an umbrella, but I'll try to keep my head on to swim a little bit, kind of taking things in. - I'm also thinking about what I will need for some simple location spells. So was there a place that I need to stock up on supplies? - Well, I will remind you that there is an expert in town for finding things, and that is your friend, London. - Right, and London always-- - London has never failed to find him. - Do I have to find him? I thought I was going to have to use match to find these people. - Oh, you know, you could find him, you know. - You know where I am, 'cause I got an office downtown. - Okay, then where else? - Where would your office be? - It's on the big 55 building. - That's very close. - There is a block away. - Right near the Justice Center. - So actually that was my intent, is after I get my room settled, and I'll plan to stay for a week, my first step will be to find my detective buddy. - Okay, let's go into the hotel. - Okay. - At the front desk is a gentleman. He's the only one currently there, and he asks you how he can help you. - I'd like a room please. - Okay, do you know the length of time you'll be staying there? - One week, I'll be here through Saturday. - Okay, and do you have any preferences? - King. - All right. - Single lock, let's see. - Very good. - Yes, hard D for you. - Your room will be 408. - And do you have any luggage, sir? - No, I do not. - Okay. - He informs you that his name is James, and if there's anything he can do, just give a call down and he will be glad to assist you. - Thank you, James. - Yeah, good day, sir. - Okay. - So you go up to your room, the room is a pretty nice size. You've got a king size bad. - So, when I'm in my room, I am going to look in my little black book where I keep important phone numbers. - And now you roll a deck? - Sure, I'm not in the unimportant-- - But it's written in a arcane language, so-- - Keep your script. - No, I would really understand. - Makes us? - Okay. - I look up the number for Edmund, and I will try his phone. Realize me that he's a detective and sometimes he stays late in this. So, the phone rings once, twice, and he picks up. - Ed, can I help you? - Well, Edmund, it's Alan. - Oh, Alan, it's Edna, Edmund. Please, you've known each other for so long. - What are you doing this evening, Edmund? - Oh, just hanging out, trying to figure out a couple of leads, a couple of things I'm working on. - Well, if you can take a break, I'd like to buy you a drink and talk to you about your things. - Oh, you're down. - I'm in town and I'm staying at the Key Center. It's cool, it's right around the corner. - What do you mean at the bar downstairs? John Q's steakhouse. I'll buy you dinner. - Oh, John Q's. - I haven't been there in a while. I've been still selling the dragon steaks. Just kidding, Ed. I'll see you in a few. - All righty. - What is, what? - I don't know, just trying to be funny. - In your office working late is Maxwell, who was working in a case and bringing you up to speed. An interesting fellow that he found out about that he thinks you might be interested in because there's certain cases that you definitely want to get involved in. So even though most of your other employees have gone home for the evening, he's still in there. - Would the fact that I just dropped a dime to call him, spur anything with him? - What do you mean? - Like we're pals and associates, but like you said, a lot of time has gone by and sometimes-- - Well, I'm sure he's curious on what you're doing in town. - All right. - But I'm not going to play his character for him. Okay, if I can really quick before we go too far into this, ask you guys how you want to do this. We can use alertness straight up as the order of combat for physical. And we're doing physical combat. Or we can do alertness modified by a dice roll. What would you guys prefer? - I like to add a little bit of uncertainty into it. 'Cause sometimes you just call it off guard or you're not quite as fast to the trigger that you want to be. But that's just my thing. - Those rules for ambush. - Nice meeting you. - It's probably someday you're not as quick as other. You may be in the fog. - I kind of like the idea of adding that fudge to it. - You guys set up at a time in which you were going to meet. - Okay. - Probably within 30 minutes. - It's like evil that I think we're just heading down. - It's only about six o'clock now. If it's 5.30 when I got to the station. - Yeah. - It's about six o'clock to check in. - Right. - Yeah, say 6.30, Amy. - So 6.30, I'll be right over there. - Did you say it was a Saturday? - No, it was not a Saturday, it was a workday. So if you want, you can make it a Friday. - Let's make it a Monday. - I will Monday. - Oh, yeah. - If it's a gloomy day, it's a gloomy Monday. - All right, so the day is, it's Monday and it's currently 6. So you guys are going to meet at 6.30 unless something happens to prevent that. You guys meet at 6.30. - Oh, what? - We're having a client meeting, so we can put it on the box and take it off our ice attack at the bottom. - Nice. - It needs us. You're willing to business. - And where are you having dinner? - He wants us to tell us. - And where are you having dinner? - No, it is. - John, Q, steakhouse. - John. - She's the first one. - Okay. So if nothing else is going on at 6.30, you guys arrive at John Q's. Someone want to give me some aspects for John Q's. What is the John Q's currently? - It's a steakhouse. - It's a real steakhouse. - I would imagine that it has a fair bit of Cleveland's power. There's lawyers. - Oh, yeah. - It's an upper-- - Uh-huh. - All right, so you figure he's putting the bill. You're going to pick a nice place to eat. - I said I was going to pay for it, but I'm going to try to talk him into it. - Okay. - Yeah, so I would imagine that it's upscale. I think it's a fair work upscale. - So it's relaxing. You've got some nice music. You've got medium lighting a little bit. - I would also imagine that there are deals going down in this place. There's, you know-- - Dim lighting. Relatively busy. - Yeah. - It's like murmur in the background. - Sure. - You know that it's at the end of the day if anyone wants to hear his eating dinner there before they have home and stuff. - And it's a place for the normals. - Okay. So you guys get there early before he does, because you're just going downstairs. - Yeah. Right. - Can we get a room for an emerald booth? - A booth. I ain't working above this thing. Mocks me. I can never buy food here. 'Cause I'm poor. - That's true. Your character is not all that wealthy. You wait about 10 minutes before Alan comes walking in. He's shaking off the rain, still raining outside. - You're looking forward to walking to my car. - And he is ushered over to your booth and sits down. - Edmund, how are you pal? - You're gonna be here a while? - Looks like. So, yeah, I sit down. I appreciate it. Okay. Anyway, I order a steak. - You still have any impression that he's bang, so. - Sure. Lobster. - No, I order a nice thick sirloin, nine inch center cut, black peppercorn. Big potatoes. - He thinks we're in larger than rings. He's going to describe you to eat any other things. - It's a little pipe weed. Some mushrooms from old farmer mag. It's fields. I'm not sure how long, but there's a couple things going on here, and it's, I need to kind of come back. I may need to call up the old gang and get some people together. - Cool. - I may have some work for you, too. - You know, for a fact that, you know, I mean, if he's a Cleveland resident, he's going to know about it. - Yeah, but am I being sketchy in front of a mag? - Sure. - Or, big bail, or as you used to call him. - Like I told you, Max. - Then, we'll put this on as a countdown. - Oh, yeah. One of my questions to Edmond here is, have you seen Big Bill around? Have you heard anything about him? - Big Bill. - Big Bill, it would actually be William Donovan, who was the warden for Cleveland for the last 20 years or so. And you know that there's a relationship with Alan Montgomery on Bill. - What I also know-- - And you know, I also know what happened to him or I don't think-- - No, you don't know what happened to him, but you know, the last few years, you really haven't wanted to deal with him, because he seemed to be doing some very, very questionable things. And you also know that no one's seen him for the last week. So, I don't know how much you want to tell him or that, but that's what you do know. - Yes, I'd probably think something along the lines of him. He's kind of dropped off my radar lately, and I don't really talk to him too well, please. - That's kind of the problem. He seems to have dropped off everyone's radar, and he's been kind of missing in action this for quite a while now. And things are a little bit out of hand. I'm sure you could tell me a couple stories about what's going on here that-- - Things are always out of here, if you want to. - Anything in particular? - Well-- - I don't know, but I can't-- - Maybe in town, you know that the activity with the black cord vampires have been very active lately. It's not something you normally see because there's very, very few of them, but there seems to be some younger ones. And with black cord vampires, normally a young one is pretty stupid, just a brute force animal, and that doesn't seem to be the case. Some of them seem to be pretty intelligent. - I don't know if he's a black cord, right? - No. - Well, he's not really a black cord. - If James is going to start pulling an exposition out of his butt, should he be making the roll? - I'm just telling him what he knows. - Okay. - And what he wants to share, that's up to him. - I know. - Yeah. - I was just wondering how much he knew. - Well, I guess I don't have the question I have. - That's what anybody knows, that's on the street road. - Any additional details you would have to roll for. - Did you guys know that I got, I'm not your average human. - Oh yeah. - You see me do some things that people can't do, and when you ask me about it, I just say it's complicated. - You're older than I am, right? - I don't think I'm that old. - I would put you in my office. - Yeah, you're old enough to have a sword. - You could be virtually any age you want to be, because you know. - I guess my point is, is he like part of how I looked up to Bill, and Bill worked with him, so he's a little bit older than I am, so maybe I don't. - Question is? - Like, you know, he, yeah, I had seen him do some odd stuff. I just don't, I never worry about it. - I could say I'm 30. - Well, one of the things I'm here with you. - It depends on you, because, and what you want to do, because the two factions in Cleveland that dealt with it had your mother involved, and your whole backstory, that could go back in many, many years. I mean, so. - Well, anyway, I had some back into town. I'm gonna be here for a while. I gotta find Bill, and until we can find Bill, I'm gonna be filling your shoes, doing what I have to do here. - Cool. - And I need to turn it, and. - Well, that's the plan, and before we can do that, we need to, you know, I need to look up some of the old gang, like you, and. - If you want to find somebody quick, London's probably the quickest way to do it. - Good, well, London. What's, what's the word on him? How's he been? - Oh, he's not been good, either. - Nothing, good, good, poor. - This little organization got a little disrupted, and he's kinda. - Yeah, actually, as far as you're concerned, you're having trouble locating him. I mean, you heard that he was, that some shit went down, and he's. - Yeah. - Basically, hiding. - Hiding the way as London goes. - I could probably, I could hold him, but it might take a little time. - She's gone to Grand, huh? - Yeah. - I feel a little pissed if you hold him, too. Probably exposed. - Well, all right, just a bit of London's backstory, and recent time, he was contacted, less than a week ago, by a gentleman, that gentleman went by the name of Ron Daniels, who was looking for some help finding someone. And he gave London a vial of blood, and the vial of blood is a very powerful thing when you're using it to locate people. And London was baffled by the fact that he could not locate that individual. He's never failed before. It's what he does. And his assumption was that Mr. Daniels was pulling some kind of trick, that it was pig's blood, or fake blood, or who the hell knows what. But it wasn't working. And when he contacted Daniels, didn't seem all that surprised, or wasn't taken aback by the fact that the search couldn't be done, and supplied him with his second vial, in which London was able to locate the person. But again, didn't have a whole lot of information on it, and was gonna do his normal pick up and delivery thing, but Mr. Daniels informed him that, no, no, no, they would handle the pick up. They didn't want him involved. They just wanted to know the location. Not something that London normally deals with because there's recitations on the line. And in fact, that's what happened, is apparently there was a botched job, and things went very, very ugly. He did come back a third time, asking London to do another trace on the same vial of blood, and a rush job, because lives were on the line, including London's, which made London not too happy. First of all, he screwed with his work ethic, and they fucked him over, and now he's getting the blame for something that they botched. And when he did the location spell, this time it failed, and he knew this type of failure. This occurred before, and it's because the recipient was dead, and it would still work, and he could still find the corpse, but it was a different type of process. But it was at that point that Ron warned him that no, no, it's much too late now. And I are both in deep shit, and that's when London went to grounds, hiring a bodyguard to watch him full-time, by the name of Roberto Martinez, and both of them are somewhere in the city, or perhaps not, and then we go back to your dinner table. - On my average contacts. - To get the word out that I am looking for. - Well, if he knows where to find me. - If London, as I recall, is pretty cagey, and he doesn't want to be found. He may be tired to find, and also if he's hiding, maybe we don't want to chum the water with the word that people are looking for him, 'cause I think that'll just spook me even more. - Now he owes me, and he'd think right now he can use any extra. - I wonder if we could just simplify this? - Well, he's a tracking spell to go after him. - What do you think? - I think he knows how to fudge tracking spells. Good luck. (laughing) - Perhaps we could make it where I'd worked within the past, and there was a secret number, or a drop box, or something, that if he left a message, it would be checked within a day or two, at most. - Okay, so I think we would know how to get-- - Yeah, I think this would be a great time to use a-- - Declaration declaration. - Declaration, that you guys have set up something ahead of time. - I think that would probably be based on-- - And actually, if I may jump in really quick-- - Because I didn't have an answer, I was gonna fudge it, but go ahead. - Well, this ties into an aspect that Scott or London assigned to me is that teamwork beats the odds. So perhaps that good old team effort kind of like what I was saying, we were mentioning before looking for little symbols or signs. If I go out and put a little pentagram, or draw a little picture of Big Ben on a certain wall, that's a signal that we'll get back to and let 'em know that certain persons intend. I'll pay the thing to evoke that. - Would you say something like contacts, Scott? - Yeah, they have that at great. So I make sure that when people need to find me, in a sense, I'd do my job, you know, not like I'm hiding, but they need to contact me, not find me. I initiate the contact. - Well, I'm saying we were gonna make a contact role and you would need, I was willing to pay a fade point 'cause that was an aspect that he specifically gave to me and that teamwork beats the odds in a way that does kind of speak to some planning. So I'm okay paying a fade. - I'm saying it's necessary yet. I will say it would require good forethought of Scott to have set up, or as London, to have set this up ahead of time. - Good. - Good. - I see lots of pluses like warm. - Wow, no shit. You're off the charts, that's sad. - Epic, that's what I do. - Yeah, four, I thought your skill was already separate. - This four, sorry, you are correct. It's not Epic, it's legendary. - You're above legendary as far as having pre-set up a way to be contacted, specifically by-- - So I sounded text to his body guard. - Probably a little more complicated than that, but yeah, you definitely can get a hold of him or get an answer to him relatively quickly, or not an answer, but a connection with him relatively quickly. We're getting the band back together. - Right. And we need your services. - We need your services. It's safe to meet us at where? - What's the safest place to meet? - The market. The Westside market. - The Westside market, is that the safest place to meet? - No, it's where people meet. - I don't know any place to meet. - Yeah, there's some nice outs there as well. You know, I would probably feel pretty comfortable there and then if anything went down, I could get away if necessary. - In our design, we decided that the Westside market is some place where all of the deals of the magical kind go down. So there are probably gateways to the Fae. There are many little bowls and ways to get out of there. - That's the best way to do it. - I never know. - What time are you guys going to meet? Same night, next morning. - I don't feel a particular urgency yet. - Okay, because of the flash forward, you're sometimes stating you're looking for William Donovan. At this point in the story, you have no idea whether he's a live or dead. You might assume that he's dead because he's missing for two weeks and that's not something he would normally do. - My primary purpose is the White Council sent me into Cleveland to one locate William Donovan and to assume their primary wardens your authority and responsibility for the area. - Exactly. - One, find him or find the method of his demise. - All right. - I mean, wizards are notoriously hard to kill, but in this particular situation being Cleveland, the Badlands lost in a bar of magical shielding and the uninability nobody knows where he is or if he is or, but. - So I'm going to proceed from, I'm still discovering what everyone's immediate troubles are, but my purpose here is big bill. - But you do know that London is the dividing rod to finding anything missing, he is a finder. - Oh, that's true. Well, I'm an idol, so I'm okay with meeting, but this is the farmer's market close. - And this is the farmer's market? - What's the market? - Oh, please, please, what's the market? - The west side market. - The west side market to the normals is close. - That's right. - We're talking a city where vampires and people who prefer evenings. - My investigation is average, so sometimes I'm sworn. - Well, you forget these things. - You haven't been in a Cleveland for many years. - The after-hours market is sold. - You've been outside of Cleveland, probably for 10, if not 10 years. - I've been in the Bahamas where things are a lot. - It's a much nicer assignment. - Right. - You just have wish doctors and-- - It is an educational job being asked. - Right. - So yeah, well, let me finish my good steak, my good beer, my potato. - He, fresh vegetables. - Being admin, has a way of contacting London and wants to know when you want to meet him. - Do you want to meet him as early as tonight? Mike, we need to do it in the morning. Oh, I don't know if you want to make sure if you want to wait till there's nobody there or at 10 o'clock. - I don't think he left more than 10 o'clock. - Yeah. - I mean, just-- - Let's shoot for 10 o'clock. - Yeah. - In the morning? - Tonight. - When he's in direct. - Sunlight. - You've lost a head of busy day. - I've been working. - Double time for overtime, man. - Okay. - Okay. - Over time. - Oh, boy. - I'm just-- - He does. - Okay, twice as much. - You're hard up the cash. - All right, this monkey-- - He's trying to fake. - The city never sleeps. - My God. - There's bad things out there. - I'll get control night. - So you spend-- - I don't give-- - He's spending a good hour and a half eating a leisurely meal and discussing old times and getting caught up on what's been happening in clay. - The whole times, I definitely remember those. - They were written down in a card that I lost. - The last section is the West Side Market. - The West Side Market is a theme of the city of clay. Well, it's not-- It is a theme. - Full of cash. - No. - The idea of being anything can be found there. It is the market of the macabre, as the aspect. And the butcher of the supernatural auto wagner is the face. - I mean, you get me a unicorn form. - You can get a flank of unicorn. - 769 pound for this. - 769 pound for this. - That's a crime. - It's a unicorn. - A semi-security course. - Why would you ever dare eat it? - Can we ever get it? - You know, it's a delicious-- - Of course not. - Why would you not? - And they're also very useful in certain spells. They're not yet far. - Have they put in a little box, like veal? - Unicorn veal. - Oh. - Oh. - It's-- - I'm afraid of unicorn horn on the top, but that's-- - The fact of a unicorn, you cluck. And I never mind. Rookies. - So anyways. - I definitely send Roberto ahead of time to case the place before I show up. - Right. - And you're using-- - He has a special number from a untraceable cell phone, and I'm waiting a couple blocks away in the car that we drove together, and he just gets out, walks, case the place, and then contacts me, because I'm not gonna show up at a magical place if there's any of the known enemies there. - Okay. - At 10 o'clock, we have Roberto going into the West Side market and looking around for his boss to make sure things are safe. - If I remember correctly, caseing is a thing under stealth. - Is it really? - Yeah. - Yes. - Okay. - Have I met Roberto Roberto? - You've met everyone. In one way or another-- - No, that's popular hands. - Yes. You definitely know Roberto. You've dealt with him before. He's helped you in some way. Or you've helped him. - So, the fact that you have no burglary, you would instead use investigation to case and look for-- - You don't have any idea to do that. - So both of those are-- - You have survival. - Both of those are at zero, are they? - Yes. - Then either a straight up zero or maybe possibly alertness, alertness for passive awareness of something you might accidentally find out of something that's going on. - Sorry. - In which case-- - I can see how alert this thing used. - In that case, I think your alertness, if I'm not mistaken, is-- - Good. - So feel free to use that to passively notice. - Wow. - I did good. - You rolled a--even, you go in there and kind of use your spider senses to try to pick up absolutely anything that you can, and you're not getting any danger. It's nighttime. The main floor of it is typically not very busy. Most of the deals go down in private rooms underneath the main floor. You didn't notice any bodyguards or anyone sitting in the corner and spying on everybody, looking, searching for anything in particular. - Did you say that I'm totally going to be sitting in the corner, spying and watching people? - I'm searching for something in particular. - All right, I'm calling my boss. - But you guys are supposed to meet a 10. Your boss sent you in at night 45, a little bit early, so because he likes to do that. Make sure what he's walking into. - The wrong guy for that. - Well, maybe I'm-- - I want to-- - I want to-- - This is my first test. - You call him on the number that he gave you. It's just a disposable phone that you switch out daily to make sure you aren't being traced. He gives you the all okay, he's not seeing anything out of the unusual. - So I'd like to use my ring of faucetis to cast a scene and to be something-- someone other than myself as I enter in just in case, because one can never be too sure, even after the one ring, which is our signal for all clear, a one ring and then a hang up, I'm not 100% positive, that's the case, and want to make sure that I'm putting myself in danger. So I invoke the power of the ring to make myself seem as-- I'm sure I have a slew of aliases. - Yeah, and choosing one that hasn't been used before, just aerogia as normal. - Yeah, and I were used to at Coffee House, I was at three months ago, kind of thing, where it's just completely someone unknown. - Okay, so how does the ring work? I mean, I'd normally associate that with a deceit roll. - You have to see? - Yeah. - So the ring allows you to do it, does it give you a boost, is it-- I mean, what is the ring, is it all? - It costs one-- it allows me to do glammers. - Okay, glammers are nearly minus two, but he has the ring that contains the powers if he loses it, he cannot use it, it's the name of power. So it's just, it's what grants him the power to do it. - Yeah, I mean, I thought it wasn't-- - Yeah, you're not making up the costume yourself, you're using the power of magic to do it. So you would say, this a plen is the ring. - Yeah, could I put those hot, take them for this very purpose. - That's good, not-- - Minus one on the roll. My discipline is perbs, so it takes me down to a grate. - So you're-- - I discuss. - You don't want to write that into the power. - Is it an illusion? - A glammer. - Is it a glammer? - A glammer? - A glammer is a seaming, and it's-- - So discipline. - Discipline instead of to see. - It's kind of a veil, but not a veil. - Yeah, so it's currently at a grate. - So I come in and I use a secret hand signal to inform Robert of my disguise that he knows-- 'cause he's in the time we've worked together, maybe a week, maybe two, or long, it's been-- - Yeah, he knows you do such things. - That's what he turns around and puts off Roberta. - Mm-hmm. - Oh, there he is. - Mm-hmm. What do you-- - And then we wait for our-- - When you go to the east or west side of the west side market, there's stairways going down to underneath, and on both of those locations, you see what you know to be guards. You know, you need to know the password to get in. - Right, can I know the password to get in? - I think everybody that's in the know knows the password to get in. - Why don't we go get the room? [music] - Thanks for listening to Nights at the Night at 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, where you could email us directly at feedback@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 zanaudiosmith.com and please join us next episode for more mystery and adventure. [music] - The butcher of the Supernatural Otto Wagner is the face. - I mean, you can get me some unicorns for him. - You can get a flank of unicorn. - Seven, sixteen, eight pounds. - Seven hundred and three, nine pounds. - It's a unicorn. - Some of these surety and good. - Why would you ever dare eat it? Can you ever eat it? - You know, those are delicious. - Of course, I would not. - And they're also very useful in
