Tesslyn meets an old friend for drinks, then reconvenes with the gang to discuss future plans.
Knights of the Night
624- BitD Our Skulks Had Rotch Crot
Hello, and welcome the Night to the Night Actual Play podcast. This "Blades in the Dark Adventure" or "Mackination" is written in run by our GM John. And now, please enjoy episode 624, titled "Our Sculks Had Ratchkrot, Actual Play Begins" and after this quick discussion. We'd like to take a brief moment to cover a comment that one of our listeners had made on our website. And since you're the GM, John, you want to read it? Knights, you published your first Dresden piece years ago when I was looked how to start my own. Been listening to it at an unsteady pace ever since. I credit your session 0 for making my own Dresden game as amazing as it is. I finished my own game recently and came back to listen to Escaton. This is one of the best RP podcasts out there. Thank you for sharing all the fun that goes on at your table. Mike, I feel like you're my long, lost RPG, brother and spirit. Our dice are clearly out to get us and our tables make big changes to our characters when we miss a session. You made me laugh one of them once over the years in the podcast because I have been there as well. Don't let the dice keep you down. And I have no name to attribute to that, but. Yeah, there wasn't a name that was mentioned, but we do appreciate the comment. And thank you for letting us know how you enjoyed it. And John, you did kind of separate his body and his spirit, but you didn't mind that. Did you, Mike? Well, I mean, it led to a more interesting character. Yes. Thank you. And he caught it in a nutshell as failures often do as the players when he goes sideways like that, that's usually one of the best storytelling takes place. And actually, that's the first story we ever finished. Yes. It is true. Again, thank you for the comment and now we'll get on to the episode. Hello, and welcome tonight's the nine actual play podcast. I am your host and GM, John running machinations campaign for blades in the dark. Players with me starting on my left. I'm Thomas. I'll be playing Hadrian's Briar or burning Briar while on the job. If you so, please. I'm an Aruvian runaway double demon air and currently I look like an accuracy man of healthy build and noble stock fitted with an open chested long coat, a pair of glasses and a thorny Briar just barely poking out of the corners of his mouth and ears, mostly instead stuffed into a furnace installed in his belly, entangled in the briars and burning away in that furnace rests a pale blue ghost flame, which sometimes spells out the truth of his emotions. Nowadays, he also sports a prosthetic foot, which he is hewn out of wood into the shape of a foot. So doesn't look too fancy. It's not like a peg leg or nothing. I'm a leech, which means I'm a saboteur and technician who specializes in the creation of chemical compounds along with machines and magical monstrosities. I do just about everything. Don't worry about it, kids. I've got two stress. I'm an unstable being due to the trauma I've born and I've got a lame foot because that thing can't move even if it is shaped the right way. Hello, everyone, this is Scott. I'm playing Teslin Vale. Teslin is a Sabarosi whisper who does the dirty work for the archives of echoes when she's not working with her crew. She explores the past via ghosts with her mentor, Lord Pendron. She's a petite brunette who is partial to petticoats. She has glowing auburn locks, olive skin, and green eyes. She also is mortified by the fact that she has a dead left hand sewn on to her wrist. She currently has eight stress and has a level one harm of painful cuts. Hello, folks. I'm Jim. I'm playing a wounded silver tongue slide named Skieven being also known as busy. We're not getting into trouble on crew business. The very busy busy spends his time behind the scenes trying to revitalize the finances of the being coal mining family. The socializing and enterprising handsome young Echorosi Noble works hard finding ways of profiting from the good and bad fortune of the world around him. He is currently looking forward to the day when he no longer needs to be disguised as the spirit warden Delegos. I have currently cleared my stress boxes, but I still have a partially healed lung that I'm trying to recover from. I'm Tom, and I'm 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 cutter who is dangerous and intimidating figure, but she also does her best to keep her crew members safe. She is Echorosi born. She knows the city very well and how shitty it can be. She currently has only three stress. Hello, I'm Michael, playing Gordon, a young thin lurk of scovish descent, as a lurk he specializes in infiltration allowing him to bypass most security measures. Gordon currently has two stress. One last we left, we had finished a heist of the last person, we kidnapped as Morelda Winofax. John? Yeah? I don't know if you remember this as well. It's the middle of the week, but the celebration, that is the big event, is the weekend. Unvorn on the weekend, yep. Right. Okay. Our next score is kind of on a timer. We have three days till Ark and Vorn when the spirit wardens will attack an ally of ours, the house Kellis of Roslyn Kellis's family. They have a long-standing feud of being the people who handle the dead, a spirit wardens currently of Emperor's favor and want to kind of eliminate their rival. Plan on storming the estate, seizing all assets. If a whopsy daisy or two happens of noble, they won't be too upset about it. Under the guise of Warden DeGelos, we've gotten some inside information. And Skevan being under that guise is expected to lead that assault. So you've at least gotten inside, man. We suspect a heart of, no, a hand of Cotar. There's all sorts of body parts of Cotar floating around to be in the possession of the Kellis family. So that would be a opportunity, particular interest to the bell of the abyss, our one-handed friend. Technically, it's two hands, just one doesn't work. Yeah. And we were in the middle of downtime trying to prep for that. Right. I didn't get to do downtime because I missed the last session. So I would like to get rid of some stress if I could. I don't want to hold up the night and do anything too long or too detailed, but I just wanted to get rid of some stress if that was possible. Yeah. There was some things we put on hold until you returned because your character would have opinions on them. And we can address those after you take your actions. So go ahead. Okay. Now, can you remind me if the Ankayet's spirit that I purchased for some coin that was very hard to get and supposed to have some really interesting emotions and history for me to imbibe? When was that due to arrive? Because it was, I got it from Flint in the drags, but he said it was going to take time for the shipment to arrive. Yeah. It was out of town and it was traveling in. It's here by now. Okay. Well, and I think for my downtime, I will go to the drags and pick up my spirit essence, just kind of have some drinks and then take it all in for the night. I have my apparatus with me that allows me to distill it and really kind of get the best out of the spirit stuff that I'm taking in and inhaling. So that's what I do. All right. You're smoking a spirit. Pretty much. She tried some time, it's very enlightening. One moment. Sure. Take your time or even switch gears if you want to run something else while you're thinking about it. That's fine too. Yeah. Ankayet's spirit is going to have a really weird vision as all. So do you have a more mundane downtime action? I can roll us and then we'll get back to that. How about after getting back to the death land she's rattled and she is just about on the verge of a mental breakdown. She has used all but one stress box of her stress and the entire episode of the score itself and then going into the death lands just absolutely took its toll on her well-being. So she sends a missive to Lord Pendren and gets a bottle of wine and eventually finds him at his secret locale, just unloads everything, everything that happened. All that's going on, all that is leading up to, just everything that's been weighing heavily on her heart and on her mind. She just unloads on him in a way that she normally, that's not how she normally interacts with him. She's normally very proper and very discreet and very, I don't want to say cold, but just she keeps her distance, although she is attracted to him. Yeah. She just breaks down, tears coming down her face and just absolutely shaking with exhaustion and every nerve in her body being on edge from the past episode that we just went through. That's what she does for her downtime activity. Is this a recovery of sorts? Yeah, exactly. She's drinking and just letting it all out. She's letting all that she's built up. She had to hold together, she's had to keep it together for so long and through such dangerous, you know, horrifying things that were occurring that she's just letting it all out right now and not holding anything back and just basically unloading on Lord Pendren all the information that's been causing her great stress and anxiety. He starts out jovial, friendly and gets a little leans in a bit to express concern when you start opening up and by the end of it, he's back in his seat, his face is pale and he reaches out a shaky hand and he's like, "You went toe to toe with the string for us," claimed one of their guests under their noses at their own party. Yes, it all seemed so unpointed at the time but as I'm thinking about it now, if he finds out, we've made a mortal enemy of one of the most powerful people in the city and then we went to the deathlands which was just in its own way, it was horrifying and just absolutely terrified beyond measure and then we left someone there which I don't know if it was better to kill her or leave her there. I just don't have any strength anymore to go on, I just need to think for a while or not think for a while and just have a glass of wine and think about what to do next because it's all been so, so much that I can provide. I'll get us something to eat and we can just be here for a bit. You don't know how much that means to me, nothing fancy, just a quick bite and we'll just maybe just spend the evening with some wine and some light conversation about things that aren't super important or life-changing. Yeah, we can discuss the Laundry Women's Gossip is mostly what I hear up here, though I have had visits from some friends of late and I think we're ready to reinstate my rightful place and you should have an ally against Frankfurt soon so, but enough of that, it's all on my plate and I've got something you don't have to worry about for once. You sure? Yeah, I should have an ally if anything goes bad against Stringford in the future. If all goes according to plan. Is it a good plan? She's worried about him and it probably shows in her eyes. I'm not in danger in it, it's other allies of mine making moves in the court of the governor. It's political maneuvering more than assassination, but I trust their abilities. Well, let's drink to that if nothing else tonight because the archive of echoes regaining its rightful place in the city hierarchy is something that I've wished for these long weeks that we've been outlawed. It would be wonderful to be back in the good graces of the governor again. Well, let's drink to that then. And y'all do. Is this like to heal wounds or to regain stress? I imagine that the imbibing of spirits was stress unless that's something else. Yeah, it's stress. It's just a double dipping on the stress. Someone she really, really likes a lot and looks up to and has affection for and just having some light conversation with him over a bottle of wine is exactly what she needs to come down from her heightened state of hysteria that she was borderline for a while there. I see. Okay. Does that mean it's in lieu of drinking the Enchaiath spirit? Well, I do things here. One is, that could be, and that could be all I do and all I have time for. Or you get two downtime activities and she might drink the spirit as her other downtime activity if you wanted to do that tonight or if you want to see that. I am fine with that. We were getting rid of stress twice because there is a risk of overindulging. Well, can I see how it goes with the first one? Yeah. Okay. So how it's been a while. You're going to take your category with the lowest dots, prowess to dots. Click the word prowess and it says make a resistance role. Mechanically, it uses the same number of dice. So a resistance role is enough to figure out how you're... Okay. Mine just says role prowess. It doesn't say anything about a resistance role, but maybe they change something in the wording. I'm okay. So, yeah. It should function. Oh, you are getting help from a friend at a dice. If you were drinking a loan, if you were imbibing that spirit, though, we might count the getting a spirit as help from a friend. Okay. So I'll go ahead and roll the three dice now. Yes. I rolled a one, two, six. You're getting rid of six. Stressed them. Okay. So I have two stress remaining. That was the evening exactly what she needed. Lord Penderon was charming. He was discreet. He wasn't handsy. He was a good friend with potentially more benefits in the future. He was just perfect. He set her mood straight in the best way possible. So she makes her way back to the house that the crew is working out of our safe house in much better spirits. And you can go to someone else if you want to at this point, as she has a smile on her face and for longer than 15 minutes, doesn't tug on her left sleeve to cover her hand because she's just thinking about the good night that she had with Lord Penderon. Okay. Did we have any, does anyone even remember if they have downtime actions remaining? I have notes and that's not in them. There's double time, downtime double date, which I can see Esther Gordon and Steven rolling a reduced stress. I definitely did that if I only have the stress I have now, but I do know I rolled a few times helping someone else. You know what it was? I think I had a task about helping our coterie. That's the wrong word. What's the name for? True. It works. Oh, oh, cool. Sculks. Sculks. Right. Our sculks had rochkrot. Yeah. Yeah. Made that. I nailed that. Prochrot. And I solved that problem for them because I'm a fucking doctor now. Uh-huh. That was the tinkering I did. That's why I got so many bonus dice. You can check that, I think. I do recall it. Yeah. Yeah. Because I only have two dice and tinker and I had three dice on that roll. It's just the benefit of being a physical. And then we took that off the list of tasks, although it might still be on our conditions list for our to be lower off the sheet. I'm checking the cohorts. They say weakened, but they're not impaired. I can bring them down to no harm. Yeah. Yeah. No. That's what I'm going to do for them. I believe they were infiltrating the Church of the Lady of Thorns and got involved in some tantric rites. Yeah. I said about that. Yeah. It's a pain cult. Don't get involved in the tantric rites with the pink while I may be there into that. Well they were very embarrassed when they came to you, so. I'm a doctor. You're not allowed to be embarrassed anymore. So tell me other embarrassing things, you know, because I'm a good doctor anyway. We were having a meeting in the HQ to discuss exactly what we were going to do with escretta, I think. Okay. Go ahead. Chex. Well, Oregon. The air demon. Okay. You wanted to toss a Tesla about that. You guys didn't want to make a decision about that without talking to Tesla and that's why you held off and just did downtime activities one time. Yeah. We also need to discuss the fact that we have an airship and what we want to do with it exactly. I think our general plan was to refurbish it and use it, but we hadn't talked to Tesla. And lastly, I ate a demonologist. A demonologist. I don't remember who owns that demonologist. Tesla. It was a ghost. Right. I ate one of Tesla's ghosts and it's talking to me now. And do you have indigestion? Hmm. So there's a lot of replays that were on our plates. Yeah. This game is best when it keeps rolling because it's easy to forget 60 days later. How many? How much shit you all did? Mm hmm. Yeah. I think my brother ratted me out, blamed everything on me and so now I'm wanted and he's in jail. Yes. He was arrested after you disappeared from the evening's affair, going up into the airship with the lady who's now gone. Doesn't he have his own gang? He does have his own gang. Don't break him out. Unless you, I mean, you want to make a thing about it. We can do something busy. I just didn't figure that was a priority. It is on the list though. Sorry. You're right. He draws it on the blackboard. Mostly it added heat to the crew and he might get out on his own. You can make a deal about it, but the next thing on the plate is at the end of this week that holiday. The job before we take a break because by God, our reps been building with Soza Heat. We're still one of impressiveness, right? As far as our status goes. You are a tier one crew. Yes. That's what it was. Tier one. We started tier zero though. One heat, no, one wanted level, one star in Grand Theft Auto. I promise you we'll get to tier one strong with this final heist. It's not going to be, well, it's going to be as audacious as our others. Why is it a heist? Do you have any murders? We normally call jobs. Scores. Scores. Right. I was just remembering that we're taking the hand of Kotar. Is there anything else we're doing besides preferably stopping this assault? Well, I want to talk to Gordon about that because it is his, I mean, the hand of Kotar is very important to me. It's something I've been searching for ever since and it's a family that we're somewhat aligned with. So we couldn't just go in there and take it. Raisinly. And last, we're willing to cut bridges and Gordon is willing to forego his significant other, at least in, I don't know if they've consummated yet, but it's in his mind that she is going to someday be his. I don't want to take that from Gordon. I could find a way to do it myself without the crew's help if Gordon objects to taking the hand of Kotar from the Kelle's family. Does. Oh. I thought he might. That's reasonable. I didn't think out of it that way. Yeah, it's complex and I'm part of a crew first and working for myself second right now at this point in my career. So I'm not saying either or and I'm saying no, I'm saying it needs to be reasonably compensated, which that's going to be a lot, I think. Yeah, it's a relic. Yeah, it's going to that's going to be tough. Yeah, maybe we can do a job for them. One thing we haven't discussed is what kind of favors we're getting from Sotara. Yeah, shit. As a crew, it is a potent thing you can call on in a literal devil's bargain, if you wish, or something you can trade in value to say a family of necromancers. Yeah, we could do that. We have basically one, two, three, four. We have five favors that that's Sotara owes us. There was one of them for each of us, if I'm not mistaken. True. I don't know that everyone wants to use that favor for me. And for my particular needs, I wouldn't expect you to, but I certainly am willing to bargain my own for that. And I'm actually thinking when the raid takes place, I want to help the calluses more than I want to screw up the spirit organs, yeah, but that's my job, right. And it's why you end up, you end up dying in it, or you end up not really, obviously, you end up, it ends up being a screw up and you end up being able to get yourself out of your guys that you've been in for so long. What did we do with the real thank you, Lois? What's this putts? You woke up from a coma when last we played, there was a confrontation with him. I was trying to remember if we killed him or if we re-knocked him out again, I think we re-knocked him out again. Oh, yeah, I think we found a new drug to give him. Yeah, he was getting resistant and his heart was slowing down with increased dosages. So you had to switch medications on him. Yeah, now he's tripping out to the psychic dreams of a big squid. Yeah, you fed him starlight's juice with a tweak to incapacitate him. He is dreaming through starlight and we'll explore what that means later. He's fine. So does anyone agree with me that we want to see the spirit organs fail when they're raid on the calluses or does anyone have a reason to have that succeed or does anyone feel differently about that? Aren't we being employed to something, something, something during the Holy Night? That's why we replaced this guy in the first place. The people that we're working for now, we have, but you want to call it, benefactors or whatever, they kind of help fund us now. True. And they wanted, they wanted me to take over Telegos' position for a while. I don't think they ever shared with us what they wanted to do while we were doing that though. Correct? Does anybody remember? Because I don't think they told us that. They wanted reports of information as much as they could from that position and basically be an inside man for as long as you can. Should something crop up? They will offer you ample pay to get something done inside there. In the meantime, they are for every mission that the spirit wardens send you on. They are matching the price to keep you in there. So I believe the spirit wardens are paying you for coin to do this raid. And the unseen are also matching that for coin to hold that guys and go on the raid. Okay. There's an answer. Our good friend Busy is incentivized to succeed-ish? Well, not die. To at least perform the raid. Okay. So we tell the calluses that it's going to occur and have them be- Perform a masquerade. Be missing that night. Or you could do something a little more elaborate if you want to get tricky, but they could just be out of their dwelling that night and in return for some satara favors, perhaps they can lend me use, if not permanently, to maybe research it and delve into the artifact of the hand of Kotar. Yeah. You could do enter collaborative research relationship with ghosts, no ghosts is the wrong person. With Gordon's friend and then come up, it'll be great. But other than that, he wants his finger distractively towards Busy, you can use the opportunity to say there's a leak in spirit wardens and hunt down anybody who's maybe squirreling out your cover. Uh-huh, that's something. Gordon, do you want to say earlier? Having the raid fail because they're out of town right after it was declared that, you know, it'll look suspicious and you'll have reason to pin blame elsewhere. Maybe we could even do some prep work to make it more obvious. Yes. Don't the calluses have some sort of a badass house spot that can kill things? Yeah. In a very large tree. What? They have a very large tree. Like a mopping willow? I don't know if it warps this willow, but it's a magical tree that they grew in their domicile. If I remember correctly, John and I was misspeaking. When they had to make the move away from necromancy, they indulged in arbori and also just generalized words for plants, herbology, specifically like using spirits to help plants grow and life energy in general. Okay. So does anyone think we should raid the Kellences? Does anyone think that raiding them and taking them down and stealing their artifact is a good idea? Remind me, the Kellences general backstory, Gordon, uh, in character, like out of character. I know you probably don't remember every bit of it. John, how do they stand on our chart of the greater good? Are they helping the city? They seem to be another source, perhaps a less industrialized and evil and government approved source of spirit solutions. That's not negative quality, but I don't know. They were necromancers out here. It was a while back. Yeah. I don't. I'm not the one to ask them, certainly biased. We should be wrong with little bias. I mean, you have relations in the family and we should take any consideration, right? I would hope so, fingering one of his throwing knives as he sings. What if somebody hits and robs the Kellences place before the spirit words show up and we show up and everything's already been ransacked and gone through or as planned with the Kellences? That's possible, but that would I think dealing with the Kellences is our best move here and I'll tell you why. I think that we could I think that we could have them leave something behind a value so that the spirit wardens have something they can take back to their bosses. The information that they're being rated is going to be an amazing a bit of information for them. They will absolutely be floored knowing exactly when a raid by the spirit wardens is going to take place. That's potentially life changing information. They could die in a raid by the spirit wardens quite easily. So they are going to be in ever indebted to us. Maybe the raid takes place and in the chaos of the raid, busy goes down and we somehow swap the body of the original Delegos back for him. He comes out of it all adult and confused as if something affected him spirit wise in the house because these people are known for dealing with spirits or dead or dead because he doesn't know too much about us to the best of my knowledge or if he did, it's been addled by the bruise that burning Briar has kind of concocted for him. So we swap out busy ends as tenure as Degolos, Degolos ends up dead or unconscious on the floor and the spirit wardens find an empty mostly empty house but they find one area where something was left behind and they can come back and say at least we found something. That's my idea for how we could best go but again, I'm not married to anything. I'm just trying to come up with a solution that kind of meets all our needs because I believe the information of being raided and giving them my favor from Zatara is enough to at least allow me to maybe borrow the hand of Kotar, not take possession of it fully. I don't know, I can't do that for sure but that's a lot of really good information that could basically save their lives. They might be willing to kind of lend it out on a somewhat limited basis. So I'm getting what I want, because I don't know if the hand's going to work for me. I don't know enough about it. It's just rumored to be very powerful and very useful but I don't have any detailed information about it. I really need to look at this artifact and learn more. Kotar was a necromancer, right? To the best of my knowledge, Jess. Okay. There was an early force in the beginning of the empire that kind of stood against the emperor and the stories have him definitely having allies in the spirit world depending on how necromantic they are or old style magic. There's a lot of myth around it, hard to parse out the exact truth. So busy, that was a direct opposition to what you were thinking of doing. I'm kind of interested to hear your feedback on that idea because it's different from what you had in mind and I want to make sure that we're all on the same page of what idea maybe is what we're going to follow through with and if you're comfortable with that or not. No, if you come up with so many ideas, we're even talking about having praxis take over the identity of the delegates is not spirit war itself. That was spoken of. I don't remember why. I was interested in it because the professors get access to all sorts of arcane libraries and it would be a hell of a role to play. We had someone looking into the plainclothes identity of Degas and Lysander Hevelton. Yep. Yes. Or Moreland College. Unseen philosophies. Yeah. So thought. But it's been just being him and keeping this rusan is it's been stressful and I'm I I wouldn't be surprised if my boss but you know the girl that's my boss in the spirit wardens. Warden Catherine. Yeah. But I'm pretty sure she either she knows what's up and is not and is just using me and as long as I'm doing what I'm supposed to be doing, she don't care or she's got suspicions. But you think your cover is compromised? Yeah, I think it may be compromised already. Or in the process of being compromised? Yeah. So, so, so we can go back to our benefactors and say, look, we did it. We became Degas. We walked around for two weeks or week and a half of our long it's been. We know that there's going to be a raid on someone on Ark and Vorm. We can give them and give them that information if we want in return for the coin they offered us and we are now getting we're now disengaging from that and we're going to end that because it's too inconvenient for us right now to continue that in our goals in our aspirations. Just so you remember, it's not a coin. It's a hell of a lot of coins. It's four coins from what I remember. If that's correct, John? Yes. Four coin each or four coin total or a total total, I think. But for also from the job itself, if you should live and also still draw a paycheck afterwards for a total of eight, the spirit wardens are offering four coin to Degas to do this mission and whatever mission the spirit wardens sent him on the unseen are matching it. So there's a total of eight available. Okay. Yeah, I see. We'll be able to catch out on both fronts, yes. We'll be able to cash out on the spirit wardens side of things unless if we dump Degas there in less busy stays, either I can stay doing it and figure out and wing it once my cover is blown, if it ever gets blown, or we could try to bring that goes in and swap it out and end the charade. It's good with either way. It depends. Four coin or not is really what it boils down to and the well wishes and gratitude of our benefactor. I mean, as far as I'm concerned, they just wanted us to assume the role for a while, which we've done. So I think we were at least in with them where they're going to help us out because their original goal was just to take the place for a while, which we've done for as long as we can, which we've done. So I think that factor is definitely down to you. If you think you can keep pulling it off, keep your boss from burning you out of your hole, then I think it's worth it to try and get at least a second payment. But if you don't, it's your infiltration skills that are being put to task. And I don't want you to die in the spirit wardens office where none of us can do dramatically magical things to help or I don't know, ghosts could go on a rampage, Gordon could bake you out of prison. Yeah. Gordon could break out of prison. He's already proven that. Anyway, so we had decision needs to be made busy. You wanted to try to drag Delo goes there and swap out in the night in the chaos, or you want to assume this, get the four extra coin and assume, keep assuming the identity of Delo goes for a little longer. I think you're the one that has to make that decision, not any of us. Well, definitely need your input on whether or not you guys can think we can pull it off. And I'm trying to figure out if keeping the role going on and going on this raid, what's going to be the end, the end result of the raid, if I was going to swap out as we just pin everything on Delo goes and throw him in there and either he's dead or he's out of it and who knows what the hell happened, let them figure it out. But if we don't do that, what's going to be our end goal, if I go in there and walk out of there as a spear warden. It was implied by your employers that they're going to have a move for you to make in a bit. And they were hoping you could hold on until then, but they'll pay you for as long as you can. That's incredibly helpful. Thank you, John. Okay. So there's a mystery. There's a reason. There's a reason for this to go down. They didn't want just for funsies you to be there. There's some goal in mind for them. So we tell the calluses they evacuate so they're not brought down or they have another plan that they want to, they want to fight back maybe we help them fight back that night. Whatever the case might be, we tell the calluses and then busy as Delo goes, runs the raid. We try to convince them to leave something behind that's valuable so that busy can go back as it not a failure as Delo goes. I mean a failure, but not a complete failure because he's not going to find the calluses there unless for some reason they want to, they have someone they want to sacrifice for some reason to the greater cause. So that's what I'm thinking. That's our play there. We can have the drug that Delo goes close by and we can, things go a certain way we can always be a backup where I just run into the room where he's at and change clothes with them. We can bring him along as a backup if you think that's if some, if we can find a way to do that. Yeah, if we can find a way to do that, excuse me, intelligently. Okay. So we've got that figured out. That's good. Put them in like a combat hole. This is a terrible. The holes are very hard to get a hold of. If you can struct one, it is a like months, possibly project to get one. All right. That was a bad idea. You could purchase one. Yeah. It's a good long term idea for least one temporary. What am I made of money? Busy? I'm a demon. I'm not a money demon. Love money demon. All right. Um, oh yeah, we're still down to whether or not busy thinks you can do this. Oh, I can do it. All right. Fuck yeah. So conduct the raid. Then the next question is, will we warn them and have them leave something incriminating of some sort behind or not tell them and dramatically strike them? I don't feel like that's an appropriate one. There's no additional benefit and they seem to be a fairly good plus on the greater good scale and valuable to us as well right now, especially valuable to me because of the hand of Qatar. But also, they, they, they trunk in spirits and it's valuable to Gordon because he has a aspiring girlfriend. He wants to woo. Only losses are making sure they survive. So yeah, at least some kind of warning. I would like to go haggle with them. But maybe that could that be the last pie of our investigate the causes trouble pie? Yeah, we could finish that. But we have to discuss some other things first, like there's a guy talking in my head. One of your ghosts, oh no, what do we do with this airship? And hey, should we kill Esme before she gets to the empire and tells him all about my own personal weaknesses that we told her about for no reason that didn't benefit us? Mm hmm. We all felt a little guilty. That's, that's what I think. I think we just, we kind of gave too much information because we, she wasn't necessary. I mean, besides the fact that Sotara wanted her gone, there wasn't a compelling reason to kill her besides her, maybe her relationship with the emperor. But she knows a lot. We talked in front of her. She knows what our whole organization is about and possibly named. She knows about busy. She knows you don't think she saw a ghost or Gordon. She knows way too much about me and she's a demonologist who swore fealty to the emperor. And more importantly than that, as she explained, is a whole who is enslaved to his will and cannot lie and can't lie. Why we let her go again? She's cute. That was pretty much it because busy had the hots for that's why. I think we were half convinced and she was into it that we could get her away to lie and she'd be able to lie for us and be a nice inside person. But we never arranged for a way to do that, so we just have a huge information leak. She's trapped in the deadlands. It's a very dangerous place. There's a chance. For a while. There's a chance she may not survive it. Right. I mean, I have two clocks running. I'm just going to roll fortune dice about them. They're hidden to y'all because you don't fucking know. Okay, don't. And then also, I just remembered the final thing we were supposed to talk about. In which category? Both the demonologist in your head, the fate of the air demon. That's the one. Yeah. The air demon. That's a tough one. The air demon has history with your people, your people being Tesla, the Sephirosi. She was involved in some kind of like war, just kind of swooped in, thought it was fun and sucked the air out of the lungs of people. The demon. The demon. The rifle. Of my people. Your people. Yeah. A lot of your people and during the conflict when we were subjugated. Yes. And what did we do with this demon that was in our ship? Is it still there? Contained it for now. Yeah. I put in a big magic bottle. Why? I had to talk to the demonologist, I think. Okay. So that demon sucks and I'm going to lie. I'm not going to lie. And that's I think the easiest thing to do with the demon right now because we kind of got our plate full with this way coming up, I think we just put the demon back in the ship. I'm going to have to invent some magic earplugs for myself and ability not to feel shame because it's. You told him you wouldn't do that, didn't you? Yeah. Well, I thought, you know, we told him, yeah, so we lied to a demon. Okay. I'm not. I'm not going to lose sleep over that. Oh, usually a demon that kills people. But is scalpel around the fans. Is there a way that I could use the ghost field to transfer that demon back into the airship so that I don't think I wouldn't have to. I don't think that's interesting enough to warrant a role. The ship is designed for it. It was cracking, but part of the devil's bargain of swallowing the demonologist is that it was managed that's burning, Briar managed to secure the holding device for the demon, the seven seals containing it inside the ship. So we can say that it has never left. Okay. That takes care of one thing, offer, offer. You have to change some magic circles just a little bit, but it was already contained within the same magical bottle that came in. Right. I use my attuned skill to, to, or in, in magic and spirits and stuff, and it happens really quickly. Yeah. And that leaves the spirit you swallowed, which I explained to me again, why you chose to swallow the spirit, huh, that I released. It was escaping which many spirits do and there's lots of things I can learn too much about you. And I was worried about it was one of those that had fought with satara and lost an ex demonologist. It had shown you a way to separate your spirit and body in such a way that they would both act independently. There was a lot going on with this demonologist that we were potentially into developed an interest in Briar. Well, he can be as interested as he wants. He won't shut the fuck up and I can probably draw him out. I think that's a fair thing to assume that, and I mean, this would probably be a role, obviously, just character. Briar heals when he consumes ghosts to tear a ghost that he is consuming out of him. Probably going to hurt him. I thought he had demons. He goes. I've never eaten a demon. I've only eaten ghosts. I could probably eat a demon's canny demons. It's metaphysical. Let's not get into it. I think it would probably be delicious, but I've never tried. As one of Briar's manifestations is a ghost burning flame, it's just part of his appetite. Yeah, it's not all demons. Briar is a pretty significantly special demon for his ability to touch the ghost field. Well, I'll tell you this burning Briar. I can get rid of him if you would like. I can't help that you ate a spirit that happens to be very talkative and verbose, but if you're looking to get rid of him for any reason, I believe I have the magics and the power and the equipment to draw him from you and put him back into a spirit bottle where he would no longer plague you with his constant rants in ravings. However, it's completely up to you because I know this would probably hurt you, and the last thing I want to do is hurt a friend. So does he talk more than the other spirits you've consumed? Oh, infinitely more. The other ones I haven't talked. I think I burned them too hard. This guy perhaps had an understanding of what my flame could do beforehand. Or perhaps he's really powerful. I mean, I guess he is also a demonologist, so go ahead. Didn't I eat a reconciled once? You ate the body that a reconciled was occupying. Oh, you ate a minor one. Yeah. Cool. I did. I have a very diet. It's impressive. It's like if the Surgeon General came out with a diet for, you know, demons, you spirit eating demons, you would definitely be hitting all categories, the whole, you know, the whole, the whole pyramid, the whole pyramid, yeah, I think reconciled are about as strong as ghosts get unless I misunderstand. So I'm going to say that the demonologist's ability to speak to me after consumption probably has something to do with the demonologist part rather than the strength of the ghost, unless he was really fucking old too, in which they are different skill sets from what you know, the reconciled how they stay sane is kind of a mystery, but the demonologist has something similar going on and then just a mastery of knowledge of demons. So probably why he's still around. How long does he digest? What's your, you're like gestation period. That's the wrong word. Oh, sorry. Digestation. As a new doctor, let me tell you, I think it's more funny, though, to think of it that way. Yeah, giggles at your wrong wordedness and then explains that how long would it take to digest that particular spirit a week, 10 days, a lot of loss here. I don't know if I would probably start a clock about it. Right now we've just said it was a consequence and haven't really revisited how long it will take. I stick my ear up to his chest. Do I hear a voice in there? You burn your ear, but aside from that, they're inside the crackling noises of the fire and the briars twisting, and there's little echoes of some tinny voice in there. Really hard to make out. It could be made to be amplified, but apparently briars just hearing these so he could also just translate. Okay. I can hear it. It's cool. I start poking him. Please stop. I think, I don't know if he giggles, but he does look at you curiously because he's surprised that he does ghost flame burn hot. I don't know if we ever actually answered this question. I think it was a flameless. I feel like a heat flame, but I didn't, I don't have any idea. I don't think it's ever been stated. Given that it does not burn plants, I think those flame makes sense. That's so negative blistered ear. That's a good thing. It did. Oh, yeah. No, absolutely. It feels like you stuck your ear up to a plasma ball. Okay. A little bit of a shock. You're just going to have to deal with that for a little while. I hate to sound so nonchalant about it, but it sounds like there's not a good answer. There's either me ripping it out of you, which will do you some damage, or you just have to wait for it to be consumed. It'll fade away eventually. It'll fade away with time, hopefully, unless it's something special because it's a demonologist and a strong spirit and maybe it'll hang out a lot longer. I don't know what to tell you, but I can remove it if you want. I'm here for you, Briar, if you need to get rid of it. I can always stick my spirit open and ask you to claw it out. So I think I'll hold off until it becomes an issue. Maybe when it begins revealing, compromising information to beings who can listen to high frequency vibrations. Okay. So to sum up, we've got, we've got Esmeralda that we're putting on the back burner. Yeah. We're going to put our lens and check that off the whiteboard. The airship's been fixed. The demon spirit has been fixed, well, has been lied to and placed back into the airship against its will. That's checked off and the talking spirit inside of you. We're going to ignore for a while. If we can, it becomes too detrimental to your functioning. I can rip it out of you, if necessary. We're going to go speak to the calluses and tell them what we found out about the raid. We're going to see how they want to handle that. If they want to be out of town, out of the house, just in town, but out of the house, how they want to handle the upcoming raid. They might have an answer that we haven't even thought of. Then once that's situated and settled, we will go ahead and do the raid, but it'll be kind of a fake raid that Busy takes care of because most of the calluses were assuming they'll want to be gone from the premises at the time of the raid. Does that sound like we've got everything? Sounds like a good list, yes. Mm-hmm. There you go. Okay. Thanks for now. Time to prepare for the score. 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 @kyotn_podcast, or you can join our Facebook page, which is Facebook dot com slash KOTN dot podcast. And while on Facebook, you can join like-minded folks at our fans page at Facebook dot com slash groups slash KOTN fan. And lastly, there's our block, which is found at KOTN podcast dot com. Please, remember to join us next week for more mystery and adventure. Okay, they changed zoom and it's crazy. Let's like, don't fret and understand how this works now, and we'll try it anyways. It's at 6.24, I believe it is. All right, I'm going to put this in the outtakes. I have a cold and I sound deeper voice, so it's still me. Other possible titles that were available for this episode that could have been voted on at the Facebook nights of the night fans page were the job before we take a break. I think we re-knock him out again. I don't know that it wants this willow. I am not a money demon. That demon sucks. I'm not gonna lie. And the heatless flame.