Last episode, we met three of our four Jesseks — Aldo, Rian and Carver met at the Golden Cup to discuss their next score with Nyryx, a courtesan who has identified potential marks in the past. Their target is one Roland Molino, an up-and-coming businessman who has come into possession of a valuable piece of jewelry, one of the seven Tears of the Emperor. They intend to swap Molino’s Tear with a cheap forgery, and then use the jewel to forge a relationship with a well-connected fence.
We closed out the last episode with the score’s engagement roll — a special action roll that determines how well their plan is going when it makes first contact with the mark, and thanks to some very hot dice, we rolled a critical success. We rejoin the fiction cutting to Molino House, with Aldo and Rian rendezvousing at the footmen’s door.
We’re entering the “Score” phase of Blades in the Dark play — you can see the play loop here in the setup for the previous episode. The stakes during the score tend to be higher, the consequences more immediate. We can always flash back to planning and preperation, but during the score that costs stress, so our heroes will have to be clever. On to the fiction:
Molino House // Source: Midjourney
Scene 2: Molino House, exterior
On the night Roland Molino departs to see his lady, Six Towers is cold, clear, and quiet. The streets are still wet from the week’s rain, and the moon is pale and full overhead, painting the cobblestones with silver light. Barely visible in that silver light is Aldo Jessek — a shade in a hooded shadowcloak, carefully clambering up a ruined tower at the southwest corner of the stately manor. Molino House towers over the nearby blocks, and its windows are the only ones that are bright for blocks around — the rest of the street is lined by darkened townhouses, abandoned or converted to tenements, lit only by old, guttering gaslamps and squatters’ fires.
‘Slow is smooth and smooth is swift,’ the Aldo mutters under his breath as he pulls himself gingerly over the parapet of the tumbledown tower. The tower’s top lists at an alarming angle, and the wooden planks are splintered and broken in places, showing glimpses of the broken guts of the tower. Aldo feels a chill as he lowers himself down the slope, and his breath fogs before his face. His head whips around, wary for ghosts — Six Towers is thick with restless spirits — but there is no sign of one. After a few beats, and a few calming breaths, he continues, reaching the far side of the tower, vaulting over a shattered crenelation, and landing with a whisper of a sound on the grounds of Molino House.
In the quiet night air, Aldo can hear heavy, booted footfalls — Steffan’s, no doubt — making their circuit around the house and rounding the corner towards him. As Aldo makes his way across the darkened and uneven courtyard towards the footman’s door, he can see the light of a bullseye lantern rising and falling with the watchmen’s steps, drawing closer.
Aldo waits in the shadows under the eaves, his heartbeat beginning to hasten as the light comes closer. He reaches for his lockpicks, wrapped tight in a leather bundle, but before he can take them out of the folds of his cloak, he sees his brother’s smiling face in the window. He breathes a sigh of relief when the lock clicks and the door opens just a crack enough for him to slide through, into the dark, deserted halls of the old manor house.
Scene 3: Molino House, interior
“Who’s here? Who’s on watch?” Aldo whispers, still looking out the window, tracking Steffan’s patrol around the house.
Rian grins proudly and whispers back. “You’re looking at him, brother. Almost everyone’s been taken to Whitecrown by the missus of the house, or given a holiday. It’s just me, the second footman, and the cook’s maid.”
Aldo’s eyes narrow. “And where are they?”
“Sharing a bottle of Master Molino’s brandy I procured for them. Unless we raise an unholy blue1, they’ll keep to themselves.”
“Well done,” Aldo says with a quick nod. “Where to?”
“From top to toe, like you said. Madame Molino’s sitting room, upstairs.”
Aldo falls in behind his younger twin. Rian strides through the middle of the darkened hallways as though this was his manor, while Aldo keeps to the walls, his dark cloak melting into the shadows that abound. Molino House is sparsely furnished, and signs of work are clear, with ladders propped against walls and oiled dropcloths and carpenter’s tools strewn about. Aldo’s eyes linger on an open toolbox, and a ghost of a memory — his father’s sure hands putting each tool in its proper place — flashes before his eyes and he shakes his head to break the reverie.
Together, they ascend the three flights to the master suites. As they climb past the second floor, Rian nods to a grand pair of double doors. “The library,” he whispers. “If it’s not in her room, might be there.” Then, they reach the family’s apartments, and Rian points the way to Madame Molino’s rooms. Aldo steals down the hallway, kneels by the dark, carved wood door, and gets to work on the lock. Meanwhile, Rian watches from the top landing of the grand staircase.
Our first action roll of the score. Prior to the score, Aldo and Rian both declared they’re carrying a Light Load. Much like in Stonetop, Blades in the Dark allows you to keep your inventory abstract until specific items are needed — all you have to decide going into the score is how much you’re carrying, which then informs how conspicuous and weighed-down you are. Both Rian and Aldo need to keep a low profile, so they select a light load, while Carver, offscreen, opts for a medium one.
Using another inventory slot (leaving him with 1) Aldo declares that, in addition to his fine shadow cloak, he is also carrying a set of fine lockpicks2, which will aid him in this endeavor by increasing his effect by one step. This offsets the penalty he’d normally have as a result of Molino’s higher tier, so the roll is at the default difficulty:
For our consequence, we’ll add a little complication. Steffan comes into play here — he’s finished his rounds and is heading up the stairs, and the Jesseks have a moment to react; If they do nothing, he will see them. Back to the action:
The first pin falls into place, right and tight. The second sticks a bit, but falls with a bit of a fight. Then, as the third begins to give up the ghost, the heavy thud of boots on creaky hardwood can be heard. Rian looks to Aldo, who flashes back a quick hand sign: Wait.
He continues the finger-work on the lock and swears under his breath as he hears the boots begin to ascend the stairs. Rian’s eyes widen as he wordlessly urges Aldo to hurry. The fourth pin is set, but the final one struggles with all its might. Curseall this rain, Aldo thinks ruefully to himself as he fights with the sticking mechanism. The boots are very close now, and out of the corner of his eye, Aldo sees Rian standing up and smoothing his footman’s coat. His brother’s eye twinkles, and then his face becomes a mask of panic as he begins to pelt down the stairs towards Molino’s bodyguard.
Rian careens into the man on the landing below, crashing into him and putting him on his back foot and stopping face-to-face with Steffan, Molino’s brutish bodyguard. “Watch what you’re about, bloody footman!” he roars, shoving Rian into the banister. The younger Jessek takes a theatrical fall, caroming off the dark wood rail and throwing himself at Steffan’s feet.
“Oh, Emperor’s Grace I found you, mister Steffan! I just ran up to the garret looking for you, but you were nowhere to be found,” Rian cries, banishing the Crow’s Foot drawl from his voice and sliding into a yeoman’s clipped tones.
“What? Of course not, I was walking the grounds. What are you on about?”
“There was a man outside, mister Steffan — I went out the sally3 to see if Hathaway had delivered the goat’s milk, only he hadn’t, there was just empty bottles, but then I remembered that mister Esterhazy had said to lock up the bottles, because the squatters might take ‘em, and then…”
“Get to the point, you fool. You saw a man?” Steffan growls.
“Yes, sir, and he menaced me, he did!” Rian gasps. “Threw me up against the wall and demanded to know when the Dunslough4 carriage would come — no doubt he and his friends are planning to steal Master Molino’s victuals!”
“And you told him, didn’t you?”
“What was I to do, sir? He was huge!”
“What were you to do?” Steffan bellows. “You could have fought for your household! Where did this man go, after you gave him what he wanted?”
“He crossed Vauxhall Street and watched me until I went back in the sally. For all I know, sir, he’s still waiting there!”
Rian triggers an action roll here, trying to bamboozle Steffan into leaving them be. We’ll rule that the difference in tier doesn’t come into play here, since Rian has managed to worm his way onto the household’s staff and he has at least a little trust. Since he can’t get aid from Aldo, he’ll push himself, spending 2 Stress.
“Come with me,” Steffan rumbles, turning back down the stairs. “We’ll see off this filth.” Rian casts a backward glance toward Aldo, but all he sees is the door to Madame Molino’s chambers swinging shut.
Off-camera, Aldo is searching Madame Molinos’ suite. Since the Jesseks do not know exactly where the Tear is, I opt to set effect to ‘Limited.’ That way, for this first stop I can rule that only a full success locates the Tear — a success with a consequence can be ruled to yield a lower effect, which will push the Limited effect to zero.
Result: 5, 4: Successwith a consequence: We lower the effect to zero, and Aldo does not find the Tear. He’s searching the place while Rian deals with their complication, and then will move to the library to continue the search. Meanwhile, Rian has Steffan to contend with.
Here, we bring Carver into the scene. In Blades in the Dark, you don’t need to know where every character is at every moment, and they can arrive at a fortuitous moment. Carver’s the muscle of the operation, so he’s standing by at a known location, ready for whatever violent action might be needed.
Steffan hustles down the stairs two at a time, and Rian can see his shoulders tense and his fists clench and unclench in eagerness to do violence. Rian stays a few steps behind him at first, searching for a moment to slip away, but Steffan takes him by the arm and shoves him ahead, pushing him through the grand entryway and towards the sally port. Rian mutters a quick prayer that Carver is in position as he haltingly unlocks the door with a feigned tremble in his hands. "Give it here, you worm," Steffan grumbles, shoving him aside and throwing the gate open.
Across Vauxhall Street waits Carver, casually huddled with a few squatters around a fire barrel, warming his hands against the night’s cold. Carver's gaze snaps up towards the commotion as Steffan bursts out of the sally port, dragging Rian along. His muscles tense instinctively, ready to move, but he maintains his calm facade. The squatters sharing the barrel scatter like frightened rats, smelling trouble brewing.
"Is that the man?" Steffan asks with relish, and Rian nods breathlessly.
"That's him, sir! Standing there bold as brass, waiting to steal our victuals!" Rian pitches his voice, hoping that Carver will hear him and catch on to the game. Steffan huffs and rolls up his jacket sleeves, making a crowline5 towards the big man.
Carver keeps his gaze fixed on Steffan, his expression guarded and impassive. The flickering light from the fire barrel casts dancing shadows on his unbeautiful face. "Top of the evening to you, sir," he says flatly, as Steffan storms towards him. Behind the bodyguard's back, Rian's hands flash in a subtle sign: Stall.
"You there, scum, you laid hands on my footman, didn't you?" Steffan bellows, pointing a sausage finger in Carver's face. "No point in denying it."
"Might be I did," Carver says, slowly rubbing his meaty hands together over the fire. "What of it?"
"What of it? What of it?" the bodyguard blusters, drawing a thick wooden cudgel from beneath his coat. "Damn your impudence, sir! In the service, we'd have you hung from a yardarm!"
Carver smirks. “Is that right? I've heard the service is naught but rotgut, buggery, and beatings.”6
Steffan's ruddy face turns a deep shade of crimson, his anger boiling over. The veins on his forehead bulge as he clenches his scarred fists. "Aye, beatings there were aplenty. Come here, you gutter filth, and I’ll show you how we do it in the Emperor’s Navy," he growls, raising his club and stalking forward.
Carver’s not trying to beat Steffan here, though likely he could if he spent some stress and pushed himself. All he wants to do is buy time for his brothers, and if there’s one thing Carver is truly great at in this life, it’s taking an unholy thrashing. We’ll adjudicate the conflict in a single action roll — for a more dangerous or important opponent, we might break the fight into a few exchanges, but for the first score, we keep things short and sweet. I chose to set the position at Desperate — from a certain point of view, it’s more dangerous to play this game than to simply put Steffan down. There are a lot of ways this could go wrong: Steffan could figure out what’s happening, Carver could accidentally wound him more severely than intended, or Carver could bite off more than he can chew and get genuinely injured. As a result, Carver chooses to push himself for an extra die. Let’s see what happens:
Result: 5, 2: Successwith a consequence: For this roll , we’ll divide our consequence in two — Carver will take some level 1 harm: bruised up. In Blades, Harm is given both a level from 1-3 and a description, with the penalties for said harm increasing with each level. Since BitD is a fiction-first game, the description determines when the penalties are applied — ‘bruised up’ will apply fairly rarely, while something like sucking chest wound would probably impede anything a scoundrel might want to accomplish.
For the other part of the consequence, we’ll maintain the complication that Steffan represents. Carv is able to tie up him for a time, but we’ll start a 4-tick countdown clock for his return and mark it once.
Carver’s face is a gleeful rictus as the bodyguard rushes him. He spills the fire barrel between them, scattering burning refuse into the windy street, and Steffan roars an oath and steps back while Carver closes the gap and lands a smashing blow on the bodyguard’s jaw. Then he eagerly awaits the counterblow.
Steffan, still reeling, swings the club down in a clumsy arc, and Caver catches it on the meat of his shoulder. The blow sets his nerves aflame, and even from across the street, Rian can see the mad joy in his eyes. Carv pins the club against his body and wrenches it free from Steffan’s hand, flinging it away and raising up his fists.
As the two men circle and swing, Rian gingerly withdraws back into the sally port, leaving his elder brother to his business. As he hurries back towards Molino House, he hears Carver shout: “Come on, you old shit-sack! Didn’t they teach you to punch in the navy?”
Back upstairs, Rian finds his twin carefully working on the lock to Molino House’s stately library. “Tick tick, brother. Carver’s tussling with Steffan, but he’ll be back soon,” he whispers, watching for any sign of Steffan’s return from the stairway’s landing.
Result: 5, 2, 2: Success with a consequence. We tick Steffan’s clock again — I’m going to forgo the image to save a bit of file space, so envision a half-filled clock here.
Aldo makes no acknowledgment of this — with a few more twists of his wrist, the lock clicks, and he opens the door just wide enough for the two of them to slide through.
The library is expansive, all paneled with dark wood and lined with shelves of volumes bound in cloth and eel leather. The place looks immaculate, even in the dim light, and it is filled with the spoils of Roland Molino’s life. Hung with pride over the mantle is a banner emblazoned with the Red Hand of Skovland, torn in a dozen places by grapeshot. A pair of crossed sabers are hung behind glass, and in another case is a boarding axe, notched and still marked with old, blackened bloodstains. A bust of the Immortal Emperor, blandly handsome in a high-necked Imperial uniform, has its customary place of honor above Molino’s writing desk, its dead eyes staring across the room at a massive oil painting of a pitched naval battle on the inky black sea. And there, beneath it in a locked glass case on a bed of purple velvet, is one of the seven Emperor’s Tears.
Their quarry is near! Let’s see how the lock work goes:
Result: 5, 2, 2: Success with a consequence. We tick Steffan’s clock again.
Aldo moves with purpose towards their prize. He kneels before the case, setting a fresh set of tools out with care -- the fine picks, a slender vial of hagfish oil, and the fan of thin metal wedges. He studies it a moment before setting to work. One by one the pins align until finally, with a soft click, the lock yields.
He opens the case slowly, wincing slightly at the creak of old hinges. There on the velvet lies the Tear - even in the darkness, it seems to shine with a queer red light, its facets flashing as Aldo takes it from its resting place. He produces Rian's copy from the folds of his cloak. Smoothly and swiftly, he arranges it on the velvet and closes the case until the lock clicks once again.
The true Tear disappears into the shadowcloak and Aldo hastens to rejoin his brother at the top of the landing. “He’s in the scullery, washing up,” Rian whispers. “Carver must’ve given as good as he got.”
Aldo gives a near-invisible smile, though Rye catches it. “Count on Carver,” he whispers. “Time for me to decamp. Make off when you can — we meet the fence at the Old Star Docks at the witch’s hour7.
Rian smiles. “I’ll put in my notice this very evening.”
Aldo makes it out of the house without running afoul of Steffan. Now all he has to do is make it past the perimter wall and they’re home free — save for one, final obstacle.
Aldo claps his brother on the shoulder and starts down the stairs, his feet silent on the plush, moth-eaten carpet as he makes his way out the footman’s door. He crosses the uneven courtyard swiftly, and vaults up to the slanted roof of the fallen tower, retracing his steps.
His heartbeat is steady and his breath is even as he smoothly hauls himself over the parapet. But before he can drop to the ground, another chill descends. Aldo swears under his breath and casts his eyes about in the darkness. On the ravaged wooden floor of the tower, pools of spreading frost are forming, and then, before his eyes, the ghost field begins to manifest, crackling and tearing at the edges of the living world.
From that crackling field, a specter boils forth. It is dressed in a tattered watchmen’s coat, half-formed, its body rent through the middle and fading into substantiality. Its face is battered and twisted with hate for the living, and Aldo’s calm heart begins to race when he looks into its dead, black eyes8. He is frozen to the spot as its emaciated hands grasp for his neck.
Just as Aldo begins to feel its dead strength closing around his throat, he sees a figure in a black dress, staring at him from the street below. Pale blue eyes — just like his — gaze back at him. He sees a pale face framed by white-gold hair, and for a moment, he is ten years old again, watching as she is led away by a severe and uncaring bluecoat sergeant. It can’t be. Can it?’ Aldo wonders distantly, as he begins to feel his life’s breath slipping away, drawn into the yawning black mouth of the specter.
We can’t have our first score without the missing Jessek sibling. Emma will step in to overcome this obstacle, using the Attune action — a catch-all skill that covers interacting with Duskwall’s ghost field, a strange supernatural phenomenon that appears to be the medium in which spirits exist, as well as other occult phenomenon. Needless to say, she pushes herself for an extra die here.
Emma rolls Attune: Risky position, Standard effect. Dice Pool: 3d = 2d (Action Rating) + 1d (Push Yourself) Stress: Emma +2 (2 Total)
Result: 6, 1, 1: Success
The pale woman reaches out a gloved hand towards the spirit, and the ghost field flickers as a whisper burrows its way into Aldo’s ear: “Rest, watchman. Rest.” He remembers the voice, and his sister’s cool hand on his forehead, lulling him to sleep after he’d stayed up by her bed when her coughing fits kept her from sleep. “Rest, Ali. Rest.”
Chastened, the spirit withdraws into the ghost field, which quiets and stills, leaving only an uneasy vibration in the air behind it. Aldo collapses to one knee, gasping for air, and the woman takes off running, her mane of white hair trailing behind her, bright in the darkness.
Aldo throws himself off the wall and hits the cobblestones with a roll. He hauls himself up to his feet, still catching his breath, and without a moment of hesitation or thought, follows behind her in pursuit at a dead run.
He dogs her steps as she races down the cobblestone street, turning through one alley and then another. Finally, in a cramped alley between two sagging townhouses, she halts and turns, and seeing her face stops him short: It’s her, without a doubt: Emma, their lost sister.
Emma Dalmore, soon to be Jessek? // Source: Midjourney
She looks at him, her pale eyes haunted and afraid. “Don’t follow me, Aldo. Please.” She closes her eyes, and Aldo feels a hot wind blow through the alley. With it comes thick, black Charhollow smoke, filling the narrow alley like a flood. Instinctively, Aldo raises his scarf to shield his face and in that instant, the woman is gone, vanishing in the smoke.
Emma has spent two more stress to activate her ability, Firestarter, a strange blessing that allows her to summon a cloud of black to hide her from prying eyes — even other PCs! We’ll close out the session here, with an important decision for Aldo.
On the one hand, he has the Tear of the Emperor in his cloak, and the Jesseks are relying on him to escape and bring their prize to their meet with their fence. Under normal circumstances, Aldo would never deviate from the plan and leave his brothers twisting in the wind — it’s simply not who he is.
But these are not normal circumstances. Aldo’s sister Emma has been missing for over a decade. We can assume that the brothers did what they could to search for her, but they found nary a sign — their sister seemed to have vanished from the city the night the bluecoats took her. The shock of seeing her again might make Aldo unpredictable.
So the question I put to you all is this: Does Aldo pursue Emma into the smoke, and try to catch up to her? Or does he heed her warning, stay away, and stick to the plan? Attune to the button below to make your choice.
And as always, thanks for reading and I’ll see you next week to find which way Aldo jumps!
We actually fictionally established a bit earlier, when he was waiting for Rian, but it didn’t seem the moment for a digression about loads and inventory.
Dunslough is the farming district of Duskwall — rows and rows of terraced farms, cultivated at great expense by arrays of electroplasmic lights in the perpetual darkness of this world. The well-off receive dairy, grain and other commodities from these places — the poor make due with scraps and substitutes.
Bees in the world of Duskwall are vanishingly rare. A ‘crowline’ refers to the route a Deathseeker Crow flies to the bodies of the recently deceased, summoning the spirit wardens to ensure their restless spirit does not linger as a ghost.
3:00AM to 4:00AM, so-called in Duskwall because the tower manor of the Dimmer Sisters shines a strange green witchlight in one of its towers every night on the hour.
In the world of Blades in the Dark, spirits can manifest a horrifying form that creates unnatural fear and panic in those who see them — even someone as calm and collected as Aldo can be affected.
Great example of solo play. I like how you went into the heist with specific threats (Staffan) and scenes (their sister) in mind.
Beat for beat sir every time. You capture me beat for beat.