And now we have to decide what to do with a flying boat
Knights of the Night
623- BitD Couple of Corpses and a Whole Lot of Love
Hello, and welcome the nights of the night actual play podcast. This blades in the dark adventure and machination is written and run by our GM, John. And now please enjoy Episode 623, titled Couple of Corpses and a whole lot of love. Actual play begins immediately. Hi, and welcome to nights of the night actual play podcast. I'm your host, NGM, John, running our blades in the dark campaign machinations. Players with me starting on my left are Thomas, I'll be playing Hadrian's Briar or Burning Briar while on the job if you please. Run away Iruvian Demon Air, normally a bush with some beautiful flames inside. He's currently possessing someone and so looks rather instead like an accuracy man of healthy build and noble stock fitted with an open chest, a long coat, currently replaced by a workers jacket that makes him look like an engineer, a pair of glasses and a 30 Briar barely poking out of his mouth and ears except I just burned that away. And a big old furnace installed in his belly, entangled in the Briars and burning away in the furnace, the rest of pale blue ghost flame which sometimes shows the truth as to his emotions, if he's concealing them but actually having a giggle foot, you can see it in the visages that appear in the flames. Currently sports a prosthetic foot having lost one in a demon accident, different demon, different accident. It isn't quite as responsive as a regular foot so sometimes messes with his running. Burning Briar is also a leech, a saboteuro technician who specializes in the creation of any kind of crazy invention you need. So call me up, I'll save the day. For ruin your day. I've got four stress and instability, level one harm, lane foot, wouldn't you know. I'm Jim, I'm playing a broken hearted silver tongue slide named Skeven Bing, also known as busy. We're not getting shot, I'm crew business, the very busy busy, spends his time behind the scenes trying to revitalize the finances of the Bing cold mining family. The socializing and enterprising handsome young Echorosi noble works hard trying to find ways of profiting from his and others good and bad fortunes. He is currently looking forward to the day when he no longer needs to be disguised as the spirit warden Delegos. I currently have four stress boxes from being shot in the chest. I am Tom, I am playing Esther Roland, an ex-blue coat captain who goes by the name of ghosts because of her pale skin, eyes and hair. She's a cotter who is extremely dangerous and intimidating, but she also does her best to keep her crew safe, which would kind of explain why she has seven stress and not related but she was born and raised in Echorosi, which is this city here so she knows a lot of people and a lot of information about how bad those in power can be. I'm Michael playing Gordon, a young thin lurk of scolvish descent, as a lurky specializes in infiltration allowing him to bypass most security measures. Gordon still has eight stress. Last time we played, we had finished a score at the Stringford Estate, dumping a demonologist into the deathlands for Sotara. There was mixed feelings among the crew about what to do with her, possibility that she could be worked with, but her programming as a whole, she had restrictions placed on her when she was put in a hole, which makes it difficult for her to go against her masters in protecting you folks or working against the emperor in a large capacity at any rate. While agreeing with you on a couple of points, she said rather than dragging me to meet Sotara, if I get a choice in the matter, I'm jumping off here, which is just how the group voted away, and so she was kicked off into the deathlands to limp her way or die trying to some form of civilization or die trying. She's out of the city, which is one of Sotara's success conditions, so you'll get payment from her, but we need to figure out what we're doing with that airship. And before any of that, we have a crew upgrade we should spend because we've been sitting on it for like two damn long. I suppose the crew upgrade can be an airship, I guess? We happen to have one of those yet, but it's not very low profile. It also depends on whether or not we're going to be able to keep the demon in the engine because we kind of promised, or somebody promised to let him go. Not naming any names, but it might have been a demon Briar. I talked about freeing a slave to the slave, understandably, but yeah, it is the only thing that makes the airship go. So if you let it free, you don't have one. You just have a big hunk of wood. I don't see a big hunk of wood, I see some engines. We can resell a demon that we can resell if we don't let it go. You think the ghost market is volatile, just imagine the demon market. There's an engine here that runs on that demon blood. We could probably use it in our place. I mean, there's a lot of pieces parts that could be squared off and sold and we could make some money on this thing. The boat itself would probably make a decent boat just to have on the river. The most obviously stolen boat I can personally think of, but yeah, somebody else would enjoy the fuck out of it. I also like the idea that if we ever get into a really, really bad situation and have to leave the town, because we've confronted the entire people in power with the Imperial military. The Imperial military has more airships, not in the city, but if they do, they'll call them in the forest to pick our ass, they'll be bringing airships. I'm not saying it's a terrible idea, it's better than not having it. It's a great getaway plan, I'll give you that. I prefer a submersible, they're fucked, but I can't build one of those yet, so. It's not to say that we can't hide it somewhere very well and then never use it, except if we absolutely have to, so it's just thought. Maybe we can get an upgrade of someplace to keep it. That would be a wise investment, because you said throwing it in your mines, and that's funny, but not entirely doable. Mines aren't designed to park airships and yes, there's no mechanically empty chamber. We already remind all the salt out of it. These are tunnels into the earth. They aren't open pit mines, because open pit mines would be disastrously spacious inside of a lightning gated community or really, really dangerous, because they're outside of a lightning gated community. Well, prior, I am no expert, but I would assume that you know a lot more about it than we do. This boy? Yeah. Well, could be our control of a demon, you would be the expert to that, I would assume. The demon of light and fancy freedom, I mean, keeping it contained long term requires a demonologist. I can sort of do it and become a slave driver to my own people, you gross, gross people. But unless we're giving it work to do, that it is entertained by, we aren't going to be able to safely store a demon underground for ages and ages and ages, and also it won't break out. I'll have to go down there and do stuff and also be a slave driver to the spirit of freedom. Well, my point is you knew all of us and we don't, which is why I was suggesting you would be the expert. I would frankly rather kill it if we are going to keep this airship and then find out another solution to make it fly. Exactly, you're a demon, are you? I would have to do so much magic science and science magic, which are different things. Looks at Tesla and who's not able to contradict me for some reason. She's in a trauma. It would take a great deal of time. This would not be something I could whip up, lickety split, but I am entirely willing to bet that I could make this thing fly without the air spirit, which is why I think we should make it always a favor and then let it go after we landed in a place that is reasonable and well hidden, so I'd go on. Isn't that going to run into her city and kill people? No, that's what the favor is for. We're into a different city and kill people. I mean, sure, frankly, it's a ton of them I don't care about, but I was thinking more like pointed out some people we need absolutely gone and then gasp wouldn't you know it having a demon run into the middle of anyway. It would probably die if we put it in the right place and or. Iceland has opinions about this, so I don't want to resolve this before she gets here. Absolutely true. And or it would be out in the wilderness and frankly getting back into a city is not impossible for a spirit of freedom, but it's a spirit of freedom. I don't think it's going to be rushing to a city. It's only going to start killing people when you try to enslave it, which I'm sure they'll do. You think it'll try to run out and kill it as me? I think that's what I would spend my favor on. Oh, are you worried for her? I mean, you could spend your favor on preventing that, I guess. Yeah, I don't know. She knows about me. She heard my aspects. She knows about you and she really knows about me. Oh man, good job. She knows my name. She might not know everybody else's name, but she knows my name. She knows what I do in town and whatever she wants out after me, tell them anything she wants. So I'm thinking that really worries me and she won't lie about it. Yeah, if I'm out voted, I'm fine with it. If we really don't want to kill her now that we can talk about this safely without her in the room, but I vote for killing her because she knows too much. If we don't, I've got six months and I'm probably going until she gets back to civilization plus or minus whether or not she ever does it. I know we already decided and let her go, but I'd really wish we could have. Take her out of that hall and put her in a hall so she has no restrictions at and let her do what she wants to do. Yeah. But my point is is it because as you mentioned prior, that if we got rid of this demon, it would want to kill her probably. So can't we get rid of the demon and do it, go, go, go, do what you want to do specifically kill her? Isn't that a win-win? Get rid of the demon. We potentially get rid of her. Could we bargain with the demon and have the demon bring her back just her essence? Like maybe? Or Ghost? Yeah. Oof. Again, Tesla needs to be here to answer some of these questions. All right. I'm going to ask Suffer, who doesn't have an aim actually properly, whether or not it can in fact bring ghosts back. Not every demon can touch the ghost field, indeed many of them can't even fathom it. I'm just guessing it'd be a battle because she's already caught this dude before. I imagine she had help, but it could happen. I don't know. She's pretty tough. She had something against me when I walked in, speaking of which I go back and reclaim the flame that was just hanging out here. Nearly forgot. You snorted up your nose? I guess I pour the oil of the lamp into the furnace and the flame travels down it until they reunite and it joins my greater luminescence. That's cool stuff. I'm cool stuff, but yeah, it is. Speaking of, let's open Tbilurasa. We can do boat house and call it airship house instead. Yeah, we own a blank turf. Oh, I understand your point. I believe the turf came from the different sisters, given you leeway in their territory. Yeah, I agree. That is what occurred. This is an upgrades. You have a boat, a dock on a waterway and a small shack to store boating supplies is boat house one. But as to as improves the boat with armor and more cargo capacity. But still, we could buy a boat house and perhaps park this boat in it. I think we're planning on buying one in the long term anyway. Do we already have it? Yeah, we do. That is where we temporarily stored our good friend starlight. And then we moved her to our base, him, them, and just bought the boat house we had parked them in. It's entangled town, I think. That's where you temporarily stored Stormlight. Once you got the boat, you were able to transport it to your hideout. Okay, I thought we used the old storage as a boat house now and we bought it from tank town. Gotcha. The boat house is not turf. Yeah. So it's just an asset you have that's kind of figured near your headquarters. Mm hmm. Yeah, but could we take like another boat house and call it the airhouse? Absolutely. I have a question. Is there any way we can make that airship look like a boat because it kind of looks like a boat? Yeah, we'd have to take the gas bag off, I think. I know it. But I'm just saying, is that going to be difficult? Perhaps time consuming. I think it would be a clock, a four o'clock, but a clock. It would require a paint job to make it harder to distinguish, have some additions. Yeah, but it would float. It is wooden. It has been floating around town for about a week. It would need that before you could bring it out of hiding. Right. But I could see this being the second level of boat house and it just happens to have a place you can hook an air demon into and it'll fly if it wants to because it is a bigger boat than the one you have and has more storage space. That project could get you some armor. Mm hmm. So we're going to make a clock to make boat house to happen? Pretty much. Yeah. I'm going to put the upgrade in here, make a clock to make it usable. Yeah, you can take your regular boat out with the armor right now, but the one that could be an airship at a moment, notice if only you had a demon. Mm hmm. We still do. Have you got to get rid of it? I still got a vote on that. And is it possible to create a clock as to how difficult it would be to teach prior to power that? Right. Okay. I think that that is like a horrible thing, but I don't know. Gordon definitely knows it a little better than most. No, no. I didn't mean steer it. And power it so it flies. Oh, so you can part with his own essence. Do you see where this creature is made of air and flies? Yeah. I don't know. Briar is a plant in burns. I think I can do it via magic and artificing, but I ain't there. There are a variety of types of airship. The ones powered by demons require less tinkering, more arcane knowledge. But you could reuse some of the controls if you were to jury rig it to a technical solution. The thing is, I'm not going to be able to demon my way through this problem. I've thought about it for a while, and then I realized the hot air balloons are really fucking different. So no, we're going to have to tech this problem. And I ain't there yet. It's going to take us some time on top of the time that it's going to take us because I don't even have the ability to work in tech yet. Inventions are a tad beyond me. I'm reading the books, but I only have so many eyes. Well, obviously we would take the action to make it look more like a regular boat. And then we could take the time to do the more difficult parts, eventually achieve it as something that we can use if we need to fly. We need to store the airbags someplace, not near the ship. We can. So it's impossible because the demon enabled it to fly. It did not need an airbag. Right. There's like backup, oh, I thought you said that was an issue. I must have missed that. Sorry. No, if you wanted to make it work without a demon, you would need airbag. Got it. And if we get rid of the demon, no one can steal it because it's just about as it's just about. Yeah. Right. They might wonder why you have it. But other than that, you can hide it in the meantime. Sounds good to me. So what are we doing with the demon? Just leaving it in the boat for now, making him cry because we told them you're going to leave and he's not going anywhere. We're waiting until Scott gets here to finish that combo. I'm all for letting it out and telling it it's target and then having it just be in between, get murdered someday as it tries to get back into a city for more food or whatever the fuck. But Tesla's got an opinion and Tesla's too busy doing magic to listen to me. She's really concerned about this ghost that I ate for some reason. Oh, yeah. Like, come on, mom, I do that every day. Well, she told you to do it. Right. That's what I'm saying. She gave me the high sign. I don't know what her problem is now. Tasty meal too. The oldest. No, wait, I remember the oldest soul I have right now. It was one of, uh, was that faction of ghosts? The reconciled who parade around town and their ancestors' bodies and make political changes beyond the life of mortal men. Yeah. Hey, one of those. That shit was the bomb. Did I take a snap at the old mayor? I'm trying to remember that night. Weeping lady. Yeah. She came to visit and I remember doing ghost flame stuff, but I can't remember if I. I think I told you it would be desperate and you're like, Oh, I'm just helping them. Yeah. Pussy. You weren't unstable yet. It wasn't unstable yet. But yeah, we can move into downtime actions for now. We should have payout with Sotara. I guess that's what we're doing, huh? Mm hmm. Well, my friend, we kind of did what you asked. One of the things that you asked as an outcome did occur. She's got five coin for the crew. She's not particularly in the worldly state of things. Damn, it was the condition of favors that we have to kill her. Nope. Oh, cool. And then comes the favor aspect. Everyone has a gift from Sotara that they can ask and you could hang on to it if you want to, as long as you make a note of it. Oh, does she have an opinion on what we should do with the sketcher? Also should we tell her? I guess is the first thing I asked the crew that we captured another demon, like she probably would have an opinion. But as a demon to you guys, let me just tell you, her opinion might be, Oh, sweet. I want to eat that and then we have a different problem. Well, we made a plan with her in which we told her we would do one of two things and we did it. Mm hmm. No, she's not sure. Any other things? No. I don't think we do. Okay. Gus wants to keep it close to the chest. The only other person, Brian, with a relationship to Sotara is going to be. Yeah. So another question that she'll wait until Tesla gets back. All right, downtime, five coin, two rep plus one per tier higher. Your tier one, whose operation was tier four, so five reputation. No wonder we did quite so badly. No wonder you got shot through the long and almost died. Some of us. I like how the job made that particular nail woman a crack shot. That's pretty fun. Yeah. I mean, I can't. No, don't fuck around. What do they do? They just sit around all day, practicing shooting. Yeah. I guess I poke at busy injuries and I say, good Lord, did you fight a sniper? Was it one of the veterans from the scovish conflicts? I say it was an asshole, so and so, whatever his name was. Receptor Dunville. Receptor Dunville. Are you sure he didn't use a second who happens to be a hound of some sort? Because wow. He makes your other lung, dude. Wow. Trust me. He's very good at shooting. I've dealt with him before. Yeah. I'm just wondering if you and obviously I'm not. Did you face him sideways like did he get you in the armpit? Anyway, he medics, but we'll do that when we do that. I just want to react to injuries in character. Then heat probably a lot. You kind of took the trouble out of the party. But then we did steal the airship. But then you did steal the airship. Technically, we disappeared on the airship. They don't know we stole it. They knew busy was on it. It just went screaming into the city, out of the city, back into the city. I don't think we bring it back into the city in a way that anyone can notice. Yeah, you probably figure out how to set up the array and think we would go back for the lightning barrier in the water. Right. Exactly. We would land it outside the city in the water and then use it as boat to get back into the city because that would definitely draw less attention. I forgot there's not a gas bag. I was like, I don't know, guys, but yeah, that does work. In that way, it was not like you crashed a party and everyone died. It was contained, I would say, to the airship standard exposure, an unexpected disappearance. It is in the papers that she never came back. And she was last seen escorting him busy was busy being busy or was busy in uniform or busy was being busy. That was being me. And should I? Yeah, you were talking to your brother, right? Should I just go out for a while and not be busy for a while? Should I be MIA? That can be a way to address the heat. But right now I need to add up the heat. So let me do that. A high profile well-connected target adds one. She was that situation happened on hostile turf. I would say so plus two heat of killing was involved. It wasn't. Yeah. Yeah. No, we died. It was a ghost. So wouldn't have even done it. Wow. What a dangerous way to live being dead. It's not for the fate of heart. That's for sure. I'm thinking for heat from this, which I believe gets us a wanted level. Oh, no. Finally, the cops are looking. That's going to say been there, done that. All right. You got arrested, didn't you? Yeah. How them ones. Idea with it. Not a bad thing. Okay. But I am a doctor now. Entanglements now, one dive per wanted level. So one. So one. We used to do two and take the lower. I miss it. So one of us gets pulled in or we have some kind of confrontation. Says in the periphery of the crew for questioning. Oh, so this friend or vice-per-there is most likely to be taken. I think your brother. It's bad. Oh, yeah. I think it's bad as when busy disappears. Oh, no. He's in jail. Again. Is it for public intoxication again? Well, he was drunk last time I saw him. Strangfords after him for the disappearance of his house guests that he very much wanted to marry. Which is another reason why she wanted to jump off the ship and run off. She said, throw me to the deathlands. I don't want to be married to that man. I mean, he's about to imprison his mother in a hole forever. He's not exactly the kind of guy who's the spitting image of treating his loved ones well. But she's already there. So I don't know how bothered she'd be. So your brother gets picked up. We will make a fortune roll for him. Have he does in prison or do in prison jail, I think. He may give you more heat. He may. Yeah, it's just jail because it's questioning. He may get fucked up or you pay them off with the coin. Yeah. Is there any way that I can assist a fortune roll? We do not typically get aid with okay. Also being got a two. So he squeals adds to heat to you. Oh no more. You said, I don't know. My brother went up there after he got shot through the lung. I tried to follow them, but I was I was puking. Couldn't have been me off. So I was too busy puking. And multiple guests to test to his. Affluvia. Oh, yeah, he will. And they let him go. And now you're you're wanted for questioning. I guess he was about to the grapevine. When you say you're, do you mean busy specifically or yes, the crew at large. I imagine Busy's bookie sends a runner with a message when they come looking at his place of work and cannot find busy busy has a real job. I got many real jobs, but yeah, I got like a main office. Busy, they're looking for you at the office, which one? The one where we cook the books. So Eddie, knock a bitch, kind of said, hey, they're looking for you. Yeah, he sent a little kid with a message. He didn't want to lead them straight to you or anything. So he probably follows got a bunch of kids and one of them went to you. That's my brother for you. Can we have him killed? Your problem. Yeah, you could do that. I think he would haunt your ass, but you could do it. I can prevent hauntings for a fee. If he wanted him dead, you should have just let him do the duel. You know, family, please be aware. Your brother will be sentenced to a version of hell. Oh, don't. But just wait. Wait, wait. I couldn't capture the ghost. I'll just possibilities. If we want to kill our blood relatives, we can get on that. We could put them in a bottle. I'm seriously thinking about brand new sins, bringing them in and putting them on the Delego strip. Oh my. I'm getting. He's just going to wind up with a basement, a mortuary full of like comatose. People that I can't see for some reason, Jesus. I mean, yeah, we can dug a little strip your brother if that is indeed for the greater good. Speaking of, we now roll for enemy clocks. I'm going to check if Hamilton O.D.'s. Oh, I need to like do doctor shit to prevent that. Yeah. You can't just keep him on ice indefinitely. That's pretty sure I could. Okay. You might die right now, guys. Let's see how it goes. You'll have a chance to intervene if that does happen. I mean, good thing. I'm fucking home because there are some down times where I'm not. Oh, yeah, he's he's he's biting it. Oh, man, Professor of the university is bleeding out on my floor and I'm the only doctor here. Can I save him? You keep having to up the dose as he gets more and more resistant to this drug. His heart just can't take it. All right, next step, we're going to have to move on to a type of drug that involves starlight now that I can actually do that, but that's next step. I'm going to have to prevent him from dying with my downtime action. I'm busy, guys. He says he sleeps on some gloves as you walk in the door. No, he's busy. Yeah, busy needs work too. I have to go prevent the ghost ghost. I can't make jokes about how busy busy he is. He just made jokes with both of our names. Okay. Well, saying you can't do that. Right. I'm going to do my downtime action doctor and I suppose in a roles for Tinker, is this risky or desperate? I mean, I'm not going to get hurt. It's only risky. He's not flatlining. He's just going to wake up or you're going to give him a lethal dose. You shouldn't be that happy when he suggests that. I was just wondering about how bad this would get if he woke up. You were asked to keep him on ice by your patrons. Yeah. I'm not talking about like the- Well, if I remember correctly, they were being concerned that if we kill them and the spirit would trigger something that people would find out about. The bell. Yeah. I can't prevent the third thing that we need Tesla them for. Yeah. I can't prevent the bell ringing. I can eat a ghost and that's all well and good. That's Tesla's thing. My question is, what is Tesla? What are you doing that is unavailable? What is she doing? I don't want to make up excuses for why players aren't here. I rolled badly, by the way. I didn't want to spend any bonus dice on it and I didn't wait for anyone to offer to help me. I just walked away, made some sweet jokes, and then either had this guy OD or he woke up in the middle of a corpse garden and now I'm in the middle of a fight. I take it you didn't revive him. The fire flares and that can I speak through them? Yeah. All right. It says fuck. Let's see. I suffer harm or enter a desperate position. You lose this opportunity, which is a Tim dying. Frankly. Frankly. Yeah. I'm going to take a harm because I think it's more interesting if we have to deal with a fucking spirit warden alive in our base. Okay. Oh, I said harm looks like. It's thinking you to like a transfusion of demon blood into him, but you put a little bit of your spark in him that you had before keeping him going. Okay. I just don't know what happens if I put demon blood in pieces. Yeah. I don't think it's good for him. So I agree that maybe he's awake and trying to hurt you because he's got the vivid vigor of 10 men and he's using it to choke me out. This experiment was a wild failure. Fucking help. Yeah. I helped. That's what I do. Cool. You rush to the corpse garden. I don't know if you've ever seen this place and I'll have spent some time here with, uh, actually, I don't know if I had our bridey one here. Is it actual open air garden? Yeah. We mentioned that it's, uh, this is a ramshackle manner that used to belong to some family or another. I think we talked about it before. Okay. Remember? Yeah, we did. And this was a beautiful, expensive as garden that had run to rot and ruin. And I brought it back to life with a couple of corpses and a whole lot of love. We took one of the corpses out to be my current body. Who the hell was it? Oh, yeah. Oh, sorry. I thought that was a joke. It was praxis. Yeah. So there's not that many left in there, but they are spread out and rotted very effectively by now since he hasn't replaced them recently. It stinks very greatly, but there is great and abundant growth all over bones and briars bushel. I remember you saying you actually make it not stink, but oh, fuck yeah, sweet. And it smells way too good for all the death and rot surrounds you. As warden degalos, he's got a real name, has got me against the wall is two hands grasping around my throat and his veins a glow with pale blue light. Yeah, I guess so. I don't think you could be choked out. No, but I don't like the damage. It's causing to my voice box. I use that to speak through. Yeah, this is a risky supposed to be a level two harm, but that's like if it's a one off, we can say we're in a desperate position and do you get a level one harm? Okay. Anemic. You had to transfuse this guy. Is there any way I could prevent that to block that damage because that's my bodyguard feature? Legitimate. Usually if you're already in the scene, it's a lot easier to do so, but for this particular harm of anemic where it was a blood transfusion that woke Appleton up, a you weren't there be the whole situation wouldn't be happening if it didn't already happen. Yeah. But is always an option for the person getting harmed to resist it. Yeah, I you may not want to, because you're pretty close on stress. Oh, yeah, I just remembered how resistance works. I roll three dice for all sorts of resistance to be three ones. Yeah, it could be three ones, and that would be devastating. Oh, wait, no, that would be acceptable. It would give me five stress. Oh, you're doing all right, then. All right, so I guess I'll resist. I think resolve or prowess, if I'm trying to fight them off, it'd be a prowess. If it's resolved, I'm trying to resist the anemia, so yeah, I'm trying to work my way through the anemia and replenish it with good old fashioned demon magic. Do not worry about the fact that there's no blood in this corpus you're puppeting. I am a being of fire in life. I don't have to worry about that shit. No modifiers straight up roll and let's see how we do five. So that's one stress. Easy peasy. My own veins glow to match, and I totally failed to resist his holding me up against the wall, but I don't feel weak. Yeah. I excitedly say it's working. And your best Frankenstein impression? Yeah. I can do it too. Turns out my blood's great. And then I suppose I try and kick him off in order to assist. Yeah, there's several like medical implements around. He's got a scalpel, and he's just swinging it wildly trying to back find some sort of exit. He is just straight up nude, swinging all over. Oh my. Who are you people? What the fuck is happening? Shit. Do I even lie? I would lie. Yeah. Tom, we're keeping him safe. Okay. I've got a sway of one roles, desperate sway of one dice, brilliant fucking plan here, by the way. Well, I said I would lie. I wouldn't say you should lie. Okay. Never mind. You roll of them. Yeah. This is in the headquarters basement are the garden. So like anyone who's at the base can help out. I offer you've been in a medical coma. I'm trying to keep you healthy. And then I give a ghost to plus one for her own lie because by God, and what am I rolling to lie? Way. Sway is a general lying thing. Yeah, it's got one. I could do this. Good thing, busy. Yeah. Go ahead. You lie better than I do. This is the guy you've replaced, by the way. Oh, yeah. Just don't be dressed up in his costume. I was tempted to. I am you. You just think you are you. You are an elaborate clone by my friend here. Do they? There's no time to explain it from the future, but now it would work great. I don't know if we have time travel media in this mess, but you can invent it right now. It'll work much better. Yeah. I'm going to tell him to calm down. We're actually helping him. It is desperate his memories before being taken are fuzzy at best because of the coma he's been in, but he is panicked. He believes kidnapped, so he could try to stab before your troubles. But aside from that, it being desperate, enjoy the experience. I think because the memories are hazy, you're going to have standard effect. He might not even remember that you put him into the situation. It's again about spending too stressed at a day. If you can, you're welcome to. You have a friend helping you. Yeah, but can he also? Can he also push himself? I think so. Yeah. Yeah. It's the only thing that's either or is a devil's bargain or pushing yourself. Yes. I'll push. Way desperate to extra die. Too extra. I got a partial success out of all of my five numbers. Five is my highest. I get a experience point for roll and desperate action. And I guess I should probably put right. It goes into my resolve. Correct. Good job. You're trying to calm him down. I imagine you're warding off ghost with weapons. I mean, I don't know if ghost is menacing, but you're like trying to make it clear that people aren't going to harm him. He's backing away slowly. So on the buff, trips on a vine and lands in a squishy pile of limbs, screams. Pretty reasonable. Now that a bunch of people are distracting him, I just go walk over to my wall of various experiments and pull out the next stage of medication I was working on and get to finishing it. And now that he's hardy enough, you're going to dose him again? It's a different dose. This one's based on starlight. It's going to fills time with dreams and associations of other people's. Yeah. If he's going to go for more juice to stick him with, and I'm going to try to keep his attention on me and not on Dr B. That's a polite thing to call me. Yeah. He's flailing around in a bloody corpse. They got a corpse garden. I'm putting a hand out trying to pull him out so when I stand him up, his back will be to a Briar. Okay. Okay. It's reduced effect. He isn't trusting yet. He backs up against a wall from you and is nervous and spies hatering coming by with a needle. Hmm. Oh, no, no, it's a, uh, definitely a mask. It's a Huffle. He's made a gasp of it. Oh, it's a cloth with an inhalant. Mm-hmm. You've got ether. I mean, I was imagining more like a gas mask with a nodule of crazy, uh, star field below it, which absolutely is not a cool thing to come towards somebody with either. And I just grab him and restrain him physically. Yes, you can. I think he's not in a great position to harm you, but it is still going to be risky because he has a scalpel, right, but you can have armor in your base. That's fine. Can I use finesse to make him drop his scalpel? Hmm, maybe, but one person at a time here and you just rolled. Mm-hmm. So let's go with the restriction, which he isn't for that. I'm skirmishing him, which is basically saying that you entangle the target in close combat. That's what I'm doing. I'm just grabbing him and trying to shut him down completely so he can't threaten or move. I believe that's risky. He's so out of it. You're going to have great effect. As long as you don't get hurt. Right. If anybody wants this, this is fine, but it's stress and I don't think it's necessarily required because I have three dice and I'm rolling. Yeah, I won't be doing that. Okay. Yeah. No, you're at eight, aren't you? Yeah. Because this is downtime and you're at your base, I think it's reasonable for you to have armor to resist the sort of thing when it comes down to it. Okay. But go ahead, yeah, wow, I rolled a four, three, three, so four is a partial success. He is swinging wildly at you and you managed to grab him around the wrist and he just barely torques his hand to jab the scalpel into your own arm. So what do I roll to prevent the damage? It is a level one harm because he doesn't have the leverage he needs. You would probably resist with prowess to like out maneuver him or tick off an armor here and it's no big deal because an armor reduces the stress level by one or the wound level to zero. So well, I'm going to be honest here. I am at home. I don't wear a hammer at home and it's true. I probably should have when dealing with this clown, but I thought he was drug the entire time. So I'm just going to roll up and I rolled a four, two, one, five. You avoid, which is a success. It is. When you resist, you get stress equal to six minus the highest. So that was riskier than you thought, but you did not get traumatized about it. Nope, I got equal with Gordo. I have eight now too. Welcome. It's not a competition. No, it's not. I was just like, we need to go and celebrate and party or something and just relax. That's true. So if we reduced the dragging of this man to a normal or to, I am lowering the clock now. Because he booms. What did you roll, Tinker to do it? I didn't yet. I was asking if I should again, because I failed way back. I was looking back up at it. I'm curious how this new compound works. Absolutely. All right, Ken, I get an assist from Starlight, because you don't do it like that very often. I can care. Okay, that's fair. We're down to controlled. You got no bonus dice. I'm rolling two dice again. I might push myself. Is this a drug you can even test? Does your body react to it? I don't think I've ever said that Hadrian doesn't sleep, so I presume I can also dream. Okay. I am pushing myself because I'm about to have a downtime action unless this really was my downtime action, and then I roll. Now this was entanglement stuff. Six, the very first I rolled, the bonus dice did nothing for me. So Hadrian pulls out this beautiful star field attached to a gas mask and puts it over Douglas's face, pumps one time with his other hand on an air pump, and some of the star fields into that man's mouth begins to trip a th ball. Yeah. When you tested this drug, Starlight talked to you in the dreams. Oh, cool. We finally communicated. I was worried we just wouldn't be able to, because she lacked the mouth bits, or I would have to figure out her community of magic. That's a little worrisome note, I think about it. If we sold, well, they put him under, so I did it. All right, good job, everybody. Anybody get hurt? No, he tried to, but oh, yeah, he did. I got hurt now that I think about it. Oh, wait. No, I resisted. You also resisted. It's my anemia is gone. Observe the fire in my veins. Much salt feeling great indeed. You need a nut off, guys. Hey, Briar, your foot's a little screwed up, and his isn't. I mean, yeah. She want me to maim him, I could do that. I mean, like, I could teach you how to be Dr. Weissander Hableton. Oh, you want me to permanently replace Douglas? No, it wouldn't mind a backup body. It's just pounding the job off on you. He doesn't want to do it. He could be Dr. Hableton. I could make some interesting connections in the university. I think the personality change would be a bit notable. I don't know how much of myself I'd be able to cover up, but you know what? This would be a project like switching this body was. It's an idea. It would absolutely eliminate the red trackstone praxis because you could just get rid of this body. It's not so attached to this body. All right, start teaching me. And when I feel confident, we'll do the switch. I can start making some good university contacts. I have successfully taken it. We put the man out. The emergency is away. Everybody and their mother needs to rest. I think it's time for a day off. You're the only president's trauma, so that adds up. Yeah, or this. We call up Eckard, my good friend, the corpse dealer. And I go about pimping out the garden and refilling my various essences with that corpse. Dulge vice, visit a purveyor and roll equal to your lowest attribute. Attributes are inside praxis and resolve. Yep. I'm tied. So I just roll, I rolled a six. I don't even remember if that's good. Clear stress equal to your highest die result, right? If you clear more stress than you had over endulps, this is bad. If you do not or cannot indulge your vice during downtime, take stress equal to your trauma. Are we supposed to be accumulating stress for not indulging vice every day? That's what that sounds like. Yeah. Now that I have cleared my stress, do you want to have a scene about me meeting with Eckard, though? We're going to hold off on that. Okay. I clear six stress leaving me with two, and that is the end of my downtime. I mean, I probably should do some other ones, but I only have so much cash. We all got one dollar for the last job, right? Crew got five, so I assumed that was one each before. Yeah. Correct. Anybody else got an idea for their downtime? Oh, I got a relief stress. I imagine Gordo does, too. He does. Yeah, we all do. All right. It can be a group scene if you want. You should. And it doesn't need to be the specific vice purveyor, and this is more of a group action since everyone's so fucked up. Where are y'all going? We're going to go buy paint for the boat. That very stress relieving, I guess? No. That's not what my character was assuming. We'll have a beer, at least. Oh, we're going to go find a place where we can have a beer and don't have to worry about people noticing who's having a beer. I have a friend who hangs out at a particular bar. Let me show you where that is, because I want to spend the evening with her. Right. Yes. And I think it's in the area where your girlfriend, well, your friend, is maybe you can visit her. Rosalind. Yes. That was my intention. We'll bring her along and see if she can drink beer. A double date. And I'll be the man. Make sure the kids are done, all right? I'll be the third wheel. Actually, yeah, you could probably help us interact with people better. I'd like to tell your girls how great you guys are. Everybody, go ahead and roll your lowest resistance category. And then we can whip up a scene, just get rid of the stress involved. Yeah. Okay. So there's no modifiers. This is just downtime. Well, you had to die for you all being there. So just take the highest number and subtract that much from your stress bar. Yeah. I rolled a two, two, four, five. So I get to reduce five is he got a one, one, and then a six. And that takes care of his six he has. And Gordon has a six, four, four. So much better of an eight to two. That was very much needed. I'm glad five will have to do for her ghost. She never gets as much rest as she wants. All right, ghost. Well, five isn't bad. I'll tell you better than someone's you've done before. Indeed. This is going to try to find a girl to help them forget about the last girl that he's left out in the desert. Hmm. Reasonable. She'll be back. Our lives are never that simple. He could have been my date. She's already got a bow. Yeah. She's pining after her boss. She's a bad move. I definitely spend the evening with Portland. And it isn't perfect, but most nights aren't, you know, five instead of six, but it might be all the stress that dealt with what we just had happened and how we become more focused on by the blue codes and such. The crew makes its way down into Charles Hollow, a lowly district of factory workers who are spending their weeks wages on a quiet pint as everyone contemplates the upcoming spirit warden parade. The holiday Arkenborn is supposed to celebrate the founding of the spirit wardens, but as they are a militaristic force who eats your ancestors, a lot of people celebrated by remembering people they've lost and ended up in the furnaces of the spirit wardens, ghosts burning away. And so it's kind of a death day holiday where people drink in remembrance to different characters in their lives. And this particular bar is scovish. And so it has a lot of people who were lost in the unity war half a decade ago. It ended and it went on for like several decades. So just a lot of to so and so and whatnot and telling tales of the war and just the oppressive system you live under and how people get ground up in the machinery of the workplace quite literally sometimes. Not a very uplifting event, but it does take a bit of a burden off remembering what you're fighting for like a memorial day. Yeah, it's not the best Dayton atmosphere, but you do get to I guess share parts of your like lives with each other, which is a little intimate. Portland talks about how she was in the unity war, deploying gases against scovish. Myasmas of Leviathan blood that drove the scovish madness and blood frenzies. They ended up killing each other a lot of the time. It was an imperial weapon used during the unity war. It was a very the whole war was very trench like in the World War one style, the ground parts of it. There was some naval combat as well, but that's where she was and just remembers war crimes that she's still trying to make up for. I think this is probably the grimiest bar that Roslyn has ever been to. She says that she does have her own tales of woe to tell though. She's lost a lot of her family to this is before her time, but to when the spirit wardens first came to power, her family kind of handled the dead in the city before the emperor's appointment and the power struggle was not a pretty one for her people. They've kind of butted heads ever since. Some of them left the city for less police parts of the empire, but it usually was a letter or two and then they kind of dropped off the face of the earth died or otherwise. So she's hoping that or I guess worrying about the upcoming holiday and what it could mean for a family if they get the second chance that they've been working towards. Well, I have a feeling that's going to turn out a lot better than you think, so. I hope so. Hopefully that'll be the case. Let's mark up XP. Tabula also give them the level up. We all need one successful accident disappearance murder or ransom operation. I think maybe putting Hamilton under again might count. If not, then expressing goals drives in her conflict or essential nature of the crew did hit it. So Bingo Bongo, who's next? I can go. If you're ready, please. First one is you're just a challenge with technical skill or mayhem and mayhem wise waking degolose by injecting him with my blood and not just letting him cock out and die so I can just do crazy mad science things to his corpus later was pretty mayhem and then successfully drugging him back to sleep at the end of that entire mess with a brand new concoction. They were separate roles and dangerous themselves, so yes, that's both count. I just like the fact that I got to ding both halves of that problem for the same skill. At least drives heritage and background, baby. We had an entire talk about how I want to free up this demon and go send to kill Esme and both of those things are very specifically because of how I'm a demon and I don't like how that shit shaped out. I'm not talking it for two, I'm just saying those two things are one and then we had a different conversation where I talked about every ghost I'd ever eaten and how I'm a beautiful little hell for all of them. I like the hell part. I want to wait on the decision we make with Tessel. I agree. I was just arguing that that entire argument stems pretty much only because I... Yeah, and you'll voice it again. I just don't want to give it to you twice for that and I don't know that I'll remember next time we meet. So... That's fair. I'll mark it down. It's just one then. We'll ding it next time. Trauma and vice. I think there's a better way to say that. You struggle with issues from your voice or trauma in this session. Issues, not really. It was a close run thing but everything that fits under instability fits just fine under mayhem and is not in particular just because I'm insane versus how I used to be. So I'm fine with zero there. I could have picked some up with... There are times you absolutely are crazy enough even if it is science-wise that you can hit it in two categories, different things. I don't know. Today was one of them. But today was not yet. Yeah, and as for stress, I didn't face any problems whatsoever. I just called up my good friend, the collector of corpses and we stitched them into my garden and it was fine. All right. If you could, take it away, Gordo. You just stay challenged with stealth or evasion. I don't think I did shit tonight but... No, I don't think that hit. Yeah, that certainly didn't hit. Suppressed police drives heritage or background. No, struggled with issues from your visor traumas during the... Struggled with clearing them or I didn't struggle with clearing them. I'm curious what your story to... Like did you share with Rosalind about what you've lost? Yeah, being in an institute, I miss the whole family life, I guess, so I don't know exactly what I miss, but I'm constantly reminded of it when others talk about theirs, you know? Yeah. There was a little camaraderie in the orphanage but a lot of the orphans wound up in violent careers that ended quickly. Oh my God. Can you imagine? You do have Darmit. Like he kind of brought you into a safe place to learn a trade and then... Yeah, right. That's the friends who may have become pseudo-relatives. Mm-hmm. Oh, there's Tilda. She's still kicking. Oh, yeah. Not exactly a friendly sort, but... No, she is a rival, but she is an old face. Right. All right, then for that, you get a trauma passed like sharing with her and I just want to know what she's learning about you as this goes on. Yeah, I just think about that because I don't want to involve her and all the weird stuff I'm doing, and yet there are some parts of it where I do and I'm like, "I got the flying airship. No one else could do it." Absolutely. Okay. One for that. I think that's it. Yeah. I'm happy with that. Busy. What you got going? Deceptionary influence, I was trying to deceive Delegos when he woke up and just wrecked him and talk him down. I agree. Tell him everything's all right when it wasn't for him. Belief strives heritage or background, he's still struggling with issues, he's still torn between whether or not and how much he wants to hinder or help the girl that he let go on the... Yeah. Like with Briar, I think this is going to come up when we talk with Tesla. Yeah. So, let's give it to you then, and now I'd like... You still get this category for your brother selling you up? Yeah, my brother's selling me out and me trying to figure out what to do or the best thing to do with the new ship we got, whether or not we should part it out or keep it. Yeah. Is it okay for that? Yeah. Can you add two stash to your character, unless you have already? I can, but I have not. So two points and two stash. Yep. There was a progress support tacked onto the end of the message of the warning that your bookie sent you saying that there's been some payouts, there's been some violence. I might need some help, there's crews moving in on our business, but we'll leave that for a season two. All right. And then, I think Trauma and Vice is the last one, I don't know if Busy had any of those. I have it, but I don't think it slowed me down. Yeah. Is that two for you? Yeah. All right. How's Ghost? Ghost had addressed a challenge with violence and coercion, yes, I did. You did. I grabbed one and locked them down so that we could re-drug them. I expressed my beliefs, drives and heritage, also, yes. And the fact that I brought up, that I knew a lot about those in power in the city and how I'm also shed-y. Yeah. And I don't remember anything with my Vice or Trauma's other than trying to reduce stress, but I didn't really follow it. Well, if you have a tale of woe to share with Cortland, you too, can get next to you for this? Yeah, I think that's why I was imagining not getting a full sixth reduction, but five because of the stressfulness that I was sharing. So... Okay. Total of three. So, yeah, that's the end for me, I believe. Okay. Thanks, everybody, for listening. I've been the GM of machinations, our "Blades in the Dark" campaign, and then I say thanks for listening. All right. Thanks for running, John. Yeah. I don't know what I want, but what you're going to do. 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 @KOTN_Podcasts, 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_Pant. And lastly, there's our block, which is found at kotnpodcast.com. Please, remember to join us next week for more mystery and adventure. Wait, Busy, what's your real name? Stephen Bing. Okay. I was remembering your brother's name as your name, and I was like, "Hold on. His name's Bazz, and your name's Bazzo." That's like your parents of the word. He's Bazzo. He's Bazzo. I call him Bazz. That's better. Hey, when Zoop Derry whales in here once, I had his soul separated from his body, so. Yeah, you told me to do that. Worked out well. I mean, fundamentally, yeah, and he was like, so upset about that until it was just like, "No, you don't understand. Your character could be the most unique, interesting one ever." They realized entirely on the fact that me and John just had no clue what the hell a silver thread was, and all you guys had D&D experience so big that you were like flabbergasted about the concept even being fun. I mean, I knew what a silver thread was, but fucking Roberto didn't. Yeah. Other titles for this episode that were available for voting on the Facebook fan page, "Nights of the Night Pans," and those names were, "Can't make jokes of how busy busy is. It's time for a day off. I'll be your third wheel." That's cool stuff. I'm cool stuff. Isn't that a win, win, and jack of all trades, master of none?