🗳️ Session 4.7: Catch them in the act

Rian is run down. Something rotten is afoot. The lady of the house arrives.

Last episode, Aldo finally achieved his long-standing goal of being re-united with his and Rian’s long-list sister, Emma. Now that Emma is free, the gang has a new mission: Find the dagger that has their former boss’s soul trapped within, and offer it to the dead god of Emma’s cult — the regicidal Burnt King. Obviously, Aldo, Rian and Carver have some misgivings towards mucking about with this sort of supernatural power, but Flint, their uncertain ally, has persuaded them it’s the only way to save Emma from death at the order of the cult’s mistress, Madame Dalmore.

When we left the family, things were looking up for Aldo, Carver and Emma, and down for Rian. Inside the manor house, they’ve made it to the upper floors so far undetected, while Rian, out on his own on the streets of Six Towers, is caught running interference against Mr. Seek, Madame Dalmore’s stitched enforcer.

We’ll leave Rian running through the manor squats and tenements with Mr. Seek on his heels for a moment, and rejoin the fiction with Aldo, Carver, Emma and Flint — they’re on their way to Madame Dalmore’s study, but thanks to a Devil’s Bargain they made last episode, someone is up there waiting for them. We chose who with last week’s reader poll:

When I first thought about this Devil’s Bargain, Mikaela was definitely my first choice as well — not quite as much of an escalation as Madame herself, but still a little sharp, with the potential for conflict. All we know about Mikaela thus far is that she’s a competitor for status within the Dalmore School, and that she has a pretty hostile relationship with Emma, so likely whatever she’s up to is part of an attempt to capitalize on recent Emma’s fall from grace. Before we head back to Dalmore House, however, we’re going to rejoin the action with Rian, all alone and fleeing from Mr. Seek.

Mechanically, Rian is in a tough situation. We’ve established Seek as a skilled and relentless hunter, so the Tier difference between Dalmore House and the Jessek gang (Tier III vs. Tier 0) can be used to full effect. This means that, at the GM’s option, even successful rolls might have zero effect, especially as it relates to Rian trying to lose Mr. Seek in the twists and turns of the Six Towers tenement. Rian will have to find another way to bring his conflict with Seek to a head, so let’s get back to the action and see how it goes for him:

Scene 11: A run-down manor house in Six Towers

Rian’s heart is pounding, and his breath burns in his chest as he darts into the shadowed portico of a sagging townhouse that looms over Mistshore Avenue. He dares not turn back; He can hear the hobnails on the huntsman’s boots clicking against the cobbles, drawing inexorably near. The townhouse’s double doors have been freshly repaired and reinforced with iron bars across its shattered glass windowpanes, and painted on the doorway’s post are three sharp slashes in white paint — the sign of the Silver Nails¹.

With a silent prayer to whatever dead gods might be listening, Rian pounds on the door with the butt of the hand cannon he took from the huntsman’s coat. His ears strain for a sound on the other side of the heavy oaken door, and he hears some shuffling and guttural grousing in the Severosi tongue. Rian hastily slips the pistol into his coat as the door slides open a crack, and a pair of dark eyes take in his panicked face. “Enke yuu vesh?” the Severosi growls. Rian doesn’t speak a word of it, but the meaning is clear enough.

“Please,” he stammers, letting the fear pounding in his heart bubble to the surface. “I help! I’m one of Sartak’s tenants; a bravo is after me! Says I need to pay up to his crew, not the Nails! Sartak took my coin; ain’t that worth something?!”

Rian’s attempting to Sway these Silver Nails bravos into helping him against Seek — the Silver Nails are Tier III in their own right, so this is a viable solution to the mismatch in power levels he’s grappling with. Since he’s not personally known to these Nails and presenting himself as just another tenant, we’ll call this a desperate position.

Rian rolls Sway, Desparate Position; Standard Effect
Dice Pool: 3d = 2d (Action Rating) +1d (Push Yourself)
Result: 6, 5, 2, Success
Stress: Rian +2 (4 total)

The Silver Nails are ready to defend their claim. We’ll make another roll for them to see how they fare with Mr. Seek. This is a Fortune Roll — when someone other than the PCs has to make a roll, you use their Tier as their dice pool for whatever they’re getting up to.

The Silver Nails roll Fortune, Risky Position; Standard Effect
Dice Pool: 3d = 3d (Tier)
Result: 3, 1, 2, Failure

Things don’t go great for Rian’s reinforcements. Back to the action:

There is some quiet muttering in Severosi, and then the door swings open. Behind it are a pair of fearsome, bow-legged bravos, their black riding jackets trimmed with ghost-white fur. The man in front fingers a curved machete, and the man behind steps forward, a brace of pistols hanging from a belt around his chest. “Where is this bogya²?” the pistoleer asks. Rian gestures down the block at Seek’s approaching shadow.

The two bravos shoulder past him to confront the huntsman. “Yavjh! Yavjh shuund ükha!” the cutter growls with a dismissive wave. Seek’s stride doesn’t break, his boots tap, tap, tapping down the sidewalk towards them. The gunman waits and watches, his eyes narrowing to glean what they might from the dark, swearing under his breath when he sees Seek’s mask and strange, mechanical eyes.

He puts a hand on the grip of one of his pistols and calls out, his bluster concealing a growing unease. “This street belong to the Nails, bogya. Run back to your patch before we bleed you like a trussed goat.”

Seek continues without a word, his hand darting into his long black coat in answer. The Severosi react immediately; the lead man begins to rush forward, raising up his curved blade, while his fellow frees one of the pistols from its holster and pulls back the hammer.

There is a strange, high-pitched shriek of metal against metal from beneath Seek’s coat as his movements become swift and jerky, like a spider scuttling towards its prey. He is upon the first Severosi with preternatural quickness, his hand flashing out of his coat with a blackened blade, plunging it into the bravo’s belly before he can bring his chopper down to strike. The machete falls limply from the man’s hand, but Seek grabs him by his fur collar before he can slump to the ground, holding him up as a shield.

The second Severosi tries to take aim, but Seek shoves his comrade towards him, as he sputters and coughs out his life’s blood in gobs of red. That moment of distraction is all Seek needs — with a flick of his wrist, the black blade, stained with red, cuts through the air and buries itself in the bravo’s throat. He falls limply to the ground, his pistol discharging as it hits the cobblestones, filling the air with an echoing report and the smell of burnt powder.

Seek bends down to retrieve his blade from the Severosi’s throat with a wet, sucking sound, and then rises, his eyes training on Rian. “Keep running if you like, little rat. But there’s no hiding from Mr. Seek,” he rasps.

Rian’s heart sinks with despair. As Seek approaches him, he takes a few steps back, into the dark hallway of the Nails’ tenement. He feels the weight of Seek’s hand cannon in his coat, and, in desperation, he pulls it out and raises it up to fire, his hand shaking under its weight.

Rian doesn’t have a lot of hope here — he has no ranks in Skirmish, and this is not really a Finesse-friendly situation, as it was before when he was using the element of surprise to pick the gun from Seek’s coat pocket and fire it before he knew what was happening. But he does have one advantage: He’s using Seek’s own weapon against him, which can help neutralize the Tier discrepancy. One last chance to escape:

Rian rolls Skirmish, Desperate Position; Standard Effect
Dice Pool: 1d = 0d (Action Rating) +1d (Push Yourself)
Result: 1, Failure

This is a tough result — a full-on failure on a Desperate roll, on the heels of another full failure (the Nails’ fortune roll). This could mean some grevious harm for Rian, but, per usual, inflicting severe narrative consequences is more useful to drive the story forward than just pouring on the harm. Back to the action:

Before Rian can squeeze the trigger, Seek’s darts hand out faster than the eye can follow and snatches the pistol from his grip. With his free hand, he deals Rian a jaw-rattling backhand, sending him to his knees.

The huntsman kneels beside him and takes him by his coat collar, hauling his face up. Mechanisms click and whirr as his mechanical eyes scan Rian’s face. “I knew I’d seen that little smirk somewhere³,” he hisses. “Rian Ridley. Are you running some game to help your sister? Where’s your brother? Where’s Aldo?”

“Your mother’s boudoir,” Rian replies, spitting blood. “If you hurry, you might catch ‘em in the act.”

Seek gives a sick, rattling laugh and strikes Rian again, filling his vision with stars. “Good lad. It’s better if you don’t talk right away. Not til we rip your ghost out of that sack of meat and harrow the secrets out of you.” With that, he presses the pistol to Rian’s belly and fires. The sound is impossibly loud in Rian’s ears, filling his head with a great roaring, like the ink-black ocean in a storm. There is a fiery pain as the round shatters against him at point-blank, then icy numbness spreading across his body as he falls into a cold, deep, and dreamless slumber.

Scene 12: Upstairs at Dalmore House

At the sound of the gunshot, Aldo freezes in the dark stairway, holding up his hand to signal a stop to Carver, Flint, and Emma, who are following closely behind him. That wasn’t far off, Aldo muses. Could’ve easily awakened someone. The group waits with bated breath, crouched low on the richly carpeted stairs of the landing, ears straining to hear any signs of movement above. All is silent.

After a few more moments, another shot rings out - louder this time, a different weapon. They wait a few more beats, but no one seems to be stirring in the upper floors. “We must not tarry,” Flint whispers.

Aldo looks to Emma. “What awaits us beyond that door?”

Emma whispers back, her quiet voice now only barely audible. “There are two proctors who keep watch at night while the girls are supposed to be sleeping — Miss Violet and Miss Lida. Whispers, both — the spirits of the house know to go to them if they see something amiss, but Flint and I can still them, at least for a time.”

Aldo nods wordlessly and turns his attention to the door before them. There’s a beautiful keyhole of brass filigree, but the lock isn’t so fine — Aldo has it open in just a few moments. He rubs the door’s hinges with hagfish oil and slowly cracks it open, peering through the opening and slipping on his dark-sight goggles.

The lenses bathe the world in a sickly blue light. At the end of the hall, he sees a woman in a dark, severe dress slumped in a high-backed wing chair. Her hand hangs limply at her side, a delicate porcelain tea cup still hanging off one curled finger.

“Something rotten’s afoot,” he whispers over his shoulder. “The proctor is out cold. Poisoned or drugged, it’s hard to say. But someone else is here.”

Carver grimaces. “Two crews on one job never goes right,” he says. Aldo recognizes his own words of caution, repeated back to him.

“You’re not wrong, Carv. But there’s no turning back on this one. We go forward, or we’re lost. Stay close, in case things get brave.”

Carver nods, falling in behind his brother. Slowly and quietly, they open the door and cross the hall, moving to the proctor’s post. Aldo gently runs his finger along the inside of the cup and raises it to his nose.

“Is she all right?” Emma whispers.

“Orphic essence. She’ll live, but she’ll have a headache that will make her wish she didn’t. Who could’ve done this?”

Emma shrugs helplessly. “All the chosen girls sneak out at night, sometimes. It’s part of our training.”

Aldo swears under his breath. “Nothing for it but to cast the die. Where’s the blade⁴?”

Emma points down to the end of the hall, towards the ornately carved wooden doors of Madame Dalmore’s study. With his dark-sight lenses, Aldo can see the door is slightly ajar.

“Be ready. We’re like to meet our fellow intruder.” Aldo leads them to the entrance and peeks through, barely daring to breathe.

In the blue-washed light of his goggles, he sees Madame Dalmore’s study — a tall, imperious room with towering bookcases on all sides. At the wide, stately writing desk stands a hunched young woman, tinkering with a locked drawer. As Aldo watches, her face lights with triumph, and she opens the drawer and draws out a slender, dark dagger.

“She has our prize,” Aldo hisses. “Carver, take her.”

“Alive,” Emma hisses. “Please!”

Carv doesn’t wait to hear if Aldo replies. He’s through the door, quick and quiet for a man his size, his boot steps muffled by the thick carpet.

Carver rolls Skirmish, Desperate Position; Limited Effect (due to Carver’s wounds)
Dice Pool: 3d = 3d (Action Rating) + 1d (Aldo Aids)
Result: 6,6,3, Success

He crosses the room with only a few quick strides, clapping one meaty arm around the young woman’s waist and a thick hand over her mouth as she struggles, vainly trying to strike at Carver with the blade in her hand. Aldo follows close behind, plucking the blade from her hands. His face darkens with concern when he sees the wet bloodstains on Carver’s coat — his brother’s face is stoic, but Aldo can see the pain he’s biting back in his eyes.

“Is this it?” he whispers urgently, proffering the dagger to Emma. She accepts it from his hand and immediately feels Chael’s spiteful presence within it, raging against the hand that killed him. She feels momentarily dizzy at the sensation.

“It is,” she whispers. Her eyes meet those of the young woman in Carver’s grip and widen in surprise when she sees Mikaela’s pale green eyes staring back at her. When her rival sees her, she redoubles her efforts, struggling to free herself and screaming into Carv’s hand.

“We should put her down, Aldo,” Carv growls. “Safer that way.” Aldo’s mind races. He’s too hurt to hold her forever. But if I let him kill her… Aldo’s mind swims with visions of the haunt tethered to Carver, always watching and waiting for a chance to tear through the veil and strike⁵.

“No!” Emma gasps. “Mikaela, you have to listen to me: We don’t want to hurt you, and if you don’t fight us, we won’t have to. Please. We’re sisters, despite it all. Aren’t we?”

Mikaela’s eyes still burn with anger, but her struggles cease, and she falls silent. “Let her speak, Carver,” Emma whispers. Carver looks to Aldo, who gives him a quick nod. Reluctantly, the big man removes his hand from her mouth.

“The dead take you, Emma Dalmore. You’re no sister of mine. Madame gave you everything, and you threw it all away for your gutter-trash brothers,” she hisses, glaring knives at Aldo. “Now you’ve brought them here, to our sacred home! That offering should be mine, not yours! I am a loyal servant of this house!” Her voice begins to rise.

Carver claps his hand over her mouth once again. “No time to be soft, Aldo. Say the word, and it’s done.”

Emma puts her hand on Aldo’s shoulder as though she could hold him back from it. “No, Aldo! Please. She’s just as much Madame’s prisoner as I am. We can help her.”

Aldo’s mind races. “Make haste,” Flint hisses from his post by the door. “I hear a carriage — someone is returning!”

We’ll adjourn here. Aldo has a choice to make: Silence Mikaela, using means up to and including fatal ones, or, with Emma’s help try to persuade her that they need not be enemies. I leave that decision up to y’all — hit the button below to make your choice. Note, this vote only chooses their initial approach. Either method might go awry, depending on how the dice fall, leading them to try the other approach — we’ll just have to play to find out!

Next episode is slated for 11/11, but I’m feeling a little ambitious to push this arc to its conclusion, so if the voting is solidified and I’ve got the time and headspace, I may try to bring it in on 11/4. Thanks, as always, for reading!

1. Recall that the Silver Nails are ghost-hunting mercenaries from Severos. They fought in the Unification War against the Skovlanders on the side of the Empire, and now that the war is over, they’ve turned to illegal businesses to earn a living. Back in Session 4.1, we established that the Jesseks now pay a tax to a Silver Nail named Sartak for the privilege of squatting in a Six Towers ruin.

2. The Severosi term for ‘bravo,’ inspired by terms like bahadur and bogatyr in real-world steppe languages.

3. We established back in Session 2.1 that Madame Dalmore ordered Mr. Seek to find information about Aldo and Rian, after Emma first broke the house’s rules to help her brothers.

4. Recall that the object of our mission here is Emma’s ashen blade that still holds Chael’s spirit, waiting to be sacrificed to the Burnt King.

5. Recall that Carver is stricken by a curse — a vengeful spirit tethered to him, drawn through the veil by acts of violence against innocents. Mikaela may not quite be an innocent, but killing her while she’s at their mercy would undoubtedly give the dangerous spirit strength.