Session 4.4: A vial of Hebanon (Part 1)

Rian and Aldo quarrel. Carver braves the dark.

Last episode, the Jessek brothers effected the kidnapping of Flint, a spirit-trafficker in the service of Dalmore House. After some jockeying for position, the boys seemed to win Flint’s trust, and he offered to help them ‘rescue’ Emma from her dire straights with Madame Dalmore.

In the course of this discovery, we’ve learned an unwelcome truth about Carver — at some point during his bloody past, he has become the tether for an angry spirit, who is growing in strength and may someday attempt to take its revenge on him. While Carver is not thrilled with this revelation, it could also be something of a boon: Breaking into Dalmore House will likely require them to face threats from the spirit world, and Carver’s tether will allow him, with Flint’s help, to fight back against ghostly opponents.

This will come in handy on Flint’s proposed route into Dalmore House: An underground tunnel from the boathouse on the River Mist, which provides an unguarded path into the manor’s undercroft. Unfortunately, the protection of the Lightning Barrier is weakened beneath the earth, so the tunnels are infested with horrors from the Deathlands. A bit dicey!

Our heroes don’t have to brave that path, however — they can still lay an ambush for the fearsome Mr. Seek as he returns to Dalmore House with Emma locked in their armored carriage, with Flint providing some key information about the stitched man’s vulnerabilities.

Aldo and Rian left the choice up to Carver, and Carv’s decision was the subject of last episode’s poll. Let’s see what y’all selected!

I suspect this vote is more about wanting to see some gnarly Deathlands horrors than it is about being truly afraid of Mr. Seek’s capabilities. Whatever the case, the long dark path it is!

This episode is another two-parter — I didn’t have quite enough time to play my way to a strong episode close, as I was on solo dad duty again this weekend while my wife again competes in the great agon of Ultimate Frisbee.

We’ll rejoin the fiction with the Jesseks putting this plan into motion:

Scene 4: A dock near Mistshore Park

The inky black of the River Mist flows slow, past the rickety dock where the Jesseks await Flint’s arrival in the darkness before lastlight. Carver and Aldo wait at the dock’s edge, peering out into the thick fog rising from the river’s waters, sharing drags from Aldo’s pipe, will Rian hangs by the cracked, uneven stone stairway that lead up to Mistshore park above.

“Couldn’t be me, standing out there with a bare inch of rotting timber between my feet and gods-know-what is lurking in those waters,” Rian says, shivering and turning his high collar up against the cold.

“Worse things where we’re headed,” Carver snaps, clearly on edge. “If Flint’s word is good.”

“It is,” Aldo reassures quietly. “When I said Emma’s name, something changed in his eyes. He’s with us.”

“I hope you know what you’re doing, Carv,” Rian says, stirring from his perch on the stairs and joining his brothers on the dockside.

“This was the right call,” Carver mutters. “Ambushing that clockwork hound¹, out in the open streets, it’s a gods-damned goat’s breakfast waiting to happen.”

“And this isn’t? ‘True horrors of the Deathlands,’ Flint said!” Rian protests. “Come to your senses, man. This is a fool’s play!”

“It might be,” Aldo says, his voice rising to meet Rian’s. “But it’s our play. For Emma.”

Rian’s eyes burn with more fight, but he clenches his jaw and swallows it. The three wait in silence until it is broken by the rhythmic splash of a bargepole breaking the surface of the water. All three turn towards the sound as Flint swims out of the mist on a flat-bottomed barge, laden with long wooden crates.

“Gentlemen,” he says, “As you can see, I am as good as my word.”

“The night is young,” Rian replies, smiling thinly. “There’s a lot of things left that could go wrong.”

Flint slides the barge to the rickety dock, his old, stooped frame moving with surprising agility. Aldo approaches with Carver, watchful at his shoulder. Rian keeps his distance until Aldo waves him an irritated come-along, and he reluctantly approaches this spirit-trafficker.

A pair of spirit bottles clink at Flint’s belt as he climbs down to the jetty — the black glass of the long, thin-necked flasks gleams darkly in Carver’s lanternlight. “Who’s the unfortunate cargo?” Rian asks warily.

Flint gives a thin, apologetic smile. “The two of you, I’m afraid.”

“What? Aldo, he can’t be serious.”

Aldo’s eyes narrow, and his hand goes into his coat, grasping the leather-wrapped handle of his barker. “Out with it, Flint. What are you proposing?”

“I have thought on it long and hard. The only safe way to take this path is if you two are dead. Temporarily, of course. We will draw your spirits from your flesh with a dose of chemic, and I will place you safely into the bottles. Mr. Creach and I will convey your bodies on the barge, through the tunnels to Dalmore House’s undercroft. Once we’re clear of the tunnels, I will unstopper the bottles, and your spirits will return to your bodies as the chemic wears off.”

“How could this possibly be necessary?” Rian hisses.

“There are things down there that will sense your beating heart, your soul’s breath. My own presence, I can conceal. But yours… they’ll be drawn to it like… sharks to blood,” he says, chuckling darkly at some private joke.

“And Carver?”

“Mr. Creach is touched by the other side. They will not be drawn to him in the same way. And even so, to draw his spirit from his body would not be safe. His vengeful passenger could fill the void left behind and don his flesh like an old jacket.”

Aldo falls silent. “You can’t be considering this, brother,” Rian says, grabbing his brother by the shoulder. “He’s saying we have to drink poison and die, and trust that he can drag us back across the veil!”

“He’s right, old man. You’re asking us to take a madman’s odds with this plan, to say nothing of the trust you’re begging of us.”

The old man meets Aldo’s gaze with his cloudy eyes. “This is a risk for me as well, boy. I am turning against my benefactor, the mistress of my faith. I have served the god beneath the house for thirty years, and I am wagering all that time on your sister, and on you. So trust me when I say that I have considered it, and this is the only way.”

“Aldo…” Rian hisses, tapping his foot anxiously against the pitted timbers.

“Fine. We’ll do it. How?”

Flint produces a pair of small glass vials, each with a tiny measure of dark green ichor. “Hebanon. A drop in the ear will draw your spirit from your body, and I will keep it safe in the bottles until the drug is purged.

“Brother, a word!” Rian presses.

Aldo rounds on his brother. “Out with it, Rye.”

“There has got to be another way to play this, Aldo. Think! This old man isn’t offering us a chance to free Emma from this carnival sideshow. He’s offering us a chance to join up and serve whatever fucking devil is pretending to be their god!”

“You heard what he said: Emma’s life is in danger, and this is the way to save her. That’s all there is.”

“Carver! Speak up, man! Surely you can see that this is folly!”

Carver shifts, stretching this thick neck back and forth. “I see what you see, Rian. But Aldo said this is how it is.” Rian swears under his breath.

“Family holds to family, Rye. That’s what ma always told us. That’s the promise we made to each other at Jessek House. And Emma is family.”

“We also promised we’d make a life for ourselves, claw back some of what was taken from us. We can’t do that if we’re puffs of smoke in some clinker²’s black bottles!” Rian says, pointing an accusing finger at Flint.

“I have to do this, Rye — she saved my life, more than once.” He pauses, and puts his hand on his brother’s shoulder. “But you don’t have to. There’s no need for face-games here. Wait and watch from our bolthole across the way.”

Rian’s face twists in anger. “You gods-damned jackanape. I’m not begging to stay behind; I’m asking you not to do this damn fool thing, and drag Carver with you.”

Aldo gives his twin’s shoulder a squeeze. “It’s all right, Rye. One of us staying behind is the right play, and you’re the right one to stay.” He turns and boards the barge, and Carver follows.

“Aldo, if you get yourself and Carver killed, I am going to be furious at you.” Rian snarls as Flint poles the barge away from the jetty. Aldo tips his hat as they fade into the mist.

Splitting the Party

Before we soldier on to the next scene, I wanted to talk a bit about the narrative and mechanical decisionmaking at play in having Rian stay behind — there are a bunch of good reasons to do it, even if it flies in the face of the supposedly ironclad TTRPG rule of “Never Split the Party.”

From a narrative standpoint, I wanted to take an opportunity to distinguish Rian and Aldo. Last episode, we laid some groundwork to add some depth to Carver, and I’ve gotten some feedback from readers that Aldo and Rian could use some similar definition. Here, I’m trying to clearly stake out their motivating values — both of them care about the family, but Aldo cares first and foremost about keeping the family together, and taking big risks on their behalf, while Rian is more focused on their comfort and material circumstances, which in the grim environs of Duskwall can also be a life-or-death proposition.

Alongside the narrative considerations, there are good gamist reasons to split the party in Blades in the Dark. Thanks to the flashback rules and the general flow of Blades in the Dark’s play, a PC who is offscreen can reappear anywhere. If, later in this score, we decide that Rian could help Carver and Aldo complete the mission, we can weave him back into the story and establish that while his brothers have been getting into trouble, he’s been preparing to get them out of it.

What do you think of this approach of blending narrative and mechanical concerns? Do you think Rian has a point, here? Hold forth in the comments.

Scene 5: The River Mist, approaching Dalmore House

Flint guides the barge out into the slow-moving currents of the River Mist before stowing the pole and joining Carver and Aldo on the narrow cargo deck. He slides the lid of one of the long wooden boxes open, revealing a bed of straw within, and he motions to Aldo with an apologetic air. “Not much longer now. Best we get you safely stowed for your journey. If anyone sees us coming from Dalmore Tower, it’ll look like some routine resurrection work.”

Aldo nods. The only sign of his trepidation is the tension in his jaw. He takes his place in the coffin and takes the proffered vial of Hebanon from Flint’s hand. “The iron cloisters where Emma is being held aren’t far from where we’ll land. This is our last chance to turn back. Are you ready?” Flint says as he hands over the chemic.

“Carv and I will do our parts. See that you do yours. Now, how does this concoction of yours work?”

“Shake the glass, draw out the stopper, and touch the glass to the porch of your ear — less than a drop will do what is needed.”

Aldo gives the glass vial a shake, watching with grim fascination as the vile, green liquid sloshes in its tiny prison. Then, he does as he was bid, and draws the stopper out, quickly touching it to his ear. Almost immediately, a chill suffuses him, radiating from his ear to his jaw, down his throat and to his heart. His head throbs with the cold, and he slumps back into the box, his breath growing thin and shallow. Carver’s face is a still mask as he watches over his brother, but Aldo can see the big man’s eyes widening in trepidation.

“It works quick,” Aldo rasps. Then, his eyes roll into his skull, and his muscles begin to harden into a false rigor mortis.

Carver watches, his hand tense on the handle of his chopper, as Flint goes to work. The old whisper draws a short, delicate lightning hook from his coat with an intricate brass apparatus and a thin golden chain. Carver has seen hooks before, in the hands of the resurrection men and ghost-killers of Crow’s Foot, but their implements are rough and brutal compared to the fine device that Flint now puts to work on Aldo’s corpselike body.

As the life fades from Aldo’s body, Flint suspends the device above his face. From his sightless eyes and breathless throat emerge tendrils of softly luminous smoke. Far away, the toll of Bellweather Crematorium³ can be heard, rolling through the cold night air. “The bell tolls for your brother’s ‘death,’ but its Deathseeker Crow will not find us. Long before it arrives to circle this place, his spirit will be stoppered safely away,” Flint mutters — it might as well be to himself, for all that it reassures Carver.

The smoke — Aldo’s spirit, Carv can only assume — coalesces around the device, drawn to it like iron filings to a lodestone. Then, Flint takes one of the black glass bottles from its place at his belt and unstoppers it. When Carver sees his eyes again, they are pure white. His wizened fingers beckon to Aldo’s ghost; The spirit obeys, and the waiting black bottle drinks it in. Flint stoppers the bottle and afixes it to the chains at his belt once again — it seems to hang lower, more heavily now, filled with life’s breath.

“It don’t need to be said that if Aldo don’t come back, you’ll be filling a berth at Bellweather before the night is over,” Carver says, his tone dead-level. “Even if you call my old chum back to choke the life from me, I’ll make damn sure your throat is wide open and running red before he gets me.”

“I understand,” Flint replies softly, as he seals up Aldo’s coffin. “Now pick up that bargepole and push for the shoreline — make it look like you’re taking orders from me, in case anyone is watching from the house.”

Carver obeys, and soon the shore is in sight through the thick fog — here, the River Mist is bounded by tall, grey, slate cliffs, dotted with a few yawning black cavemouths here and there. Flint points the way to their destination, a wide archway of worked stone, half-blocked by a rusted portcullis. The two men stoop under the metal teeth and descend into the black.

Source: Midjourney

Carver goes to his belt to twist his lantern to life, but Flint stops him short with a warning hand. “Not yet. For this stretch, dark is safer.”

They drift in silence and near-total darkness down the flooded tunnel. Deprived of sight, Carver’s ears strain to hear anything past the echo of the flowing water against the stone above them.

The boat drifts on, and a sickly, green glow appears, lighting the tunnel and dancing on the surface of the black water. Patches of luminous mushrooms grow overhead, and among them crawl finger-sized black bats, feasting on the glowing caps and glancing down at the two interlopers with beady eyes.

The tunnel branches off in many directions, but Flint guides them straight down, deeper into the cavern. Carver can hear movement down some of the tunnels — splashing in the water, and or the sound of something scraping against the stone tunnel walls.

“Hold fast, and quiet, now.” Flint whispers. “Quiet as death.”

Then, movement, in the sickly green shadows. Slow and ponderous, and grasping for… something. Carver peers into the darkness, and immediately wishes he hadn’t, for the thing that he sees in the tunnel is unlike any monster he’s laid eyes on before.

Filling the tunnel with its towering bulk, the thing is a twisted giant, built from rot and remains, its back pocked with skulls and its foul sinews twisted around long bones and ribcages. Its mouth hangs open, big enough to chew and swallow a man whole, with some gruesome effort. As Carver watches it, it takes a great handful of rubble and foulness and shovels it into its gullet — much of its meal falls through its open throat, splashing back into the water below.

Beneath the city, where the Lightning Barrier is weak, horrors of the Deathlands draw close. // Source: Midjourney

Carver’s got to keep his cool here, stay quiet, and not draw attention to himself or Flint. We’ll use Prowl for this, and because he has Flint with him and his unique condition hides his presence from the monster, we’ll set his position as Controlled, despite the physical danger the creature represents.

Carver rolls Prowl (Risky Position, Standard Effect)
Dice Pool: 1d (Attribute Rating) +1d (Push Yourself)
Result: 6,4 Success
Stress: Carver +2 (7 Total)

Because he’s confronting a horror from the Deathlands, Carv must also Resist the presence of the spirit.

Carver resists with Resolve
Dice Pool: 2d (Attribute)
Result: 5, 2
Stress: Carver +1 (8 Total)

Carver’s carrying a lot of stress — it’s possible he’ll be ‘taken out’ if he’s called upon to fight or further push himself, so we’ll see how the dice fall for the big man.

Carver feels his heart pounding in his chest as he watches the thing in the tunnel. And his hand tightens around his weapon, still hidden in his coat. It’s dead, empty eyes seem to look right at them and their fragile little boat more than once, but true to Flint’s word, it cannot seem to perceive the two of them. Their boat drifts by as the monster returns to shoveling dead waste into its massive gullet. After a few minutes, the sounds of the creature’s ponderous movements can no longer be heard behind them over the echos of flowing water.

“Well done,” Flint whispers. “Now, give me your hands. I’ll work a bit of veil-craft to ready you for what might come next.” His eyes flick white, and he reaches out to touch Carver’s meaty hands. The contact is electric — Carv’s whole body tenses, and his vision flashes white, clearing slowly, as though he had looked into the long-dead sun. When it clears, he looks down at his hands — they have a strange lightness and numbness, and when he tries to flex his fingers, it feels as if they are swimming through thick, cold mire.

“There. It should last the night. Now light your lantern, put your hand on your blade, and be ready.”

“My blade? Will it work on ghost-flesh?”

“Have you had it a time? Carried it, slept with it under your pillow? Killed with it?”

Carver nods slowly.

“It will do, then.”

The big man draws his heavy-bladed chopper from his coat and holds it tight in one fist. “What was that thing?”

“An amalgamation of dead flesh and spirit. During the Grey Plague, a hundred years ago, Dalmore House was given over to the sick and dying as an act of charity by old Richars Dalmore. The old man had more goodness in him than wisdom, and the hospital staff they laid on was quickly overwhelmed. The plague burnt through the place, and the bodies piled high. This was before Bellweather was built, and the crematoria of the city were choked with corpses, so in desperation, they threw the corpses into the flooded tunnels. Then, realizing their error and fearing a plague of spirits, they dumped barrels of electroplasm into the soup, in the hopes that it would consume the spirits. It did not — at least, not fully.”

“Damn fools.”

“Sometimes a half-done job is worse than nothing at all. Now sharpen your eyes and look to the water — there are still some dangers yet to face.”

We’ll close out this half-episode on that condemnatory note. This week, we’re packing up the family and visiting the old country back east, so the conclusion of this episode will sadly have to wait until 9/1 — though if I have a lot of downtime on my trip, I will endeavor to beat the schedule. As always, thanks for reading, and I’ll see you in your inbox next month!

1. A ‘hound’ is Duskwall criminal slang for a hunter, or a shooter. It is one of the core BitD playbooks, and Mr. Seek could be adequately described that way.

2. 'Clinker’ is not-so-polite slang for a Whisper, particularly one who trafficks in captive spirits, thanks to the distinctive clink of spirit bottles.

3. Bellweather (not Bellwether, according to the BitD book) Crematorium is one of the most important places in Duskwall — a grand temple that is the headquarters of the Spirit Wardens. Whenever a person dies in Duskwall, the bell in the Crematorium’s tower tolls, and a magical crow, known as a Deathseeker Crow, flies out from the rookery to find where the unfortunate soul’s body rests. The Spirit Wardens follow the crows to recover the body before its spirit can rise, and dissolve the corpse in the blood of demon-leviathans that are hunted on the seas of the Shattered Isles. This electroplasm, once infused with spirit energy is the material that runs the Lightning Barriers and the rest of the Duskwall economy, though most citizens are blissfully unaware of the specifics of the process.