The Porcelain Dolls: Session 32 (August 30 2016)
Kamali goes through the ledger, and comes up with the following assets that are now available:
* The Moon’s Daughter
* A hagfish farm, located in Coalridge
* Various local establishments that serve as drug dens
* A warehouse, located in the Docks
* Contact in the City Records Office in Charterhall
* Contacts in the Path of Echoes
* Contacts in the Cabbies
* Blackmail victim among the Inspectors
It’s been made known to them that there is a limited amount of time to grab what they can, and they will not be able to get everything. Mechanically, there’s a clock in the background, and every tick of that clock is something else on the list getting snatched up by someone else. The most likely candidates for competition are the Gondoliers, known enemies of the Sashes, and almost certainly watching the goings on in Crow’s Foot with interest. Constance decides to go after the City Records contact and the Moon’s Daughter first.
Kamali and Gears head to Charterhall to speak with Mylera’s former contact there, a mid-level clerk named Edmund Bain (who remembers Gears from his previous excursion there, procuring the information on the sewers underneath the Church of the Ecstacy of the Flesh). He explains that Mylera kept him on retainer so they would have regular access to records and maps that were not normally accessible by the public. After some tense negotiation, it is agreed that they will continue the agreement he had with the Sashes, with some adjustments:
* Edmund’s retainer fee of 1 Coin a month previously paid by the Sashes will be increased to 2.
* Kamali attempts to include an exclusivity clause, which Bain alters to stipulate that while he is free to sell information to all comers, he will not sell any particular bit of information to more than one buyer (so if the Dolls come looking for floor plans to a particular place, he will not subsequently loan them out to any other gang and thus facilitate competition).
Bain attempts to couch his counter-offer in terms of protection for the Dolls from unwanted competition, but Gears interprets it as a veiled threat of eventually selling them out, and mentions Constance and her propensity for throwing people off the tops of buildings. Bain is appropriately cowed.
Kamali is caught pickpocketing Edmund’s keys, but he is rattled enough by Gears that he allows her to take whichever ones she wants, provided she will bring them back. She borrows the keys to the Brightstone and Whitecrown archive rooms, with the promise that she will not remove any materials from the rooms, but merely make copies of whatever information she needs.
Meanwhile, Constance, Boots, and Shade set about claiming the Moon’s Daughter.
Boots spends the day rounding up the former staff of the restaurant, who have mostly all found work somewhere else while the place was closed.
* Rafiq, the Manager: Found working as a waiter at another Iruvian restaurant over in Silkshore. Very eager to get back to his old job, as his current one was quite a step down.
* Bahir, the Cook: Found getting drunk at a tavern in Nightmarket. Boots and Rafiq walk him back to the restaurant and let him sleep it off in the back room.
* Paolo and Emilio, Waiters: These two Severosi brothers are found working at a tavern in Charhollow. The bartender doesn’t want to let them leave, but Boots manages to convince him by way of drawing his pistols.
* Azeema, the Hostess: Found at The Veil (as a client). Rolan Volaris is of course very protective of the privacy and confidentiality of the Veil’s clientele, but agrees to relay a message to Azeema.
The staff assembles back at the restaurant and works most of the night to get it ready to open again the next day. In the morning, Azeema arrives, along with several girls who comprised the cleaning staff. The result is that the Moon’s Daughter is officially open for business by lunchtime (the front half, anyway).
The next two steps of the plan are a bit more complex. First, they need to line up suppliers for the special menu (which Constance will work on), and they need to staff the back room (which has been delegated to Shade).
Constance also has a mind to turn the warehouse into her new boxing club.
Notes:
I built the list of assets mainly from the Assassins claim map along with the Sashes’ known allies in the QS, plus a couple of other items I thought would be interesting.
For each Downtime phase the crew does, they’re going to lose one more thing on the list. If they keep splitting up, they can maximize what they get and keep ahead of the curve. It’s also possible (indeed, likely) that after everything is said and done, they’ll attempt to take the other stuff by pulling regular jobs against their new competition.
#dontmesswiththedolls