The Porcelain Dolls: Session 55 (February 22 2017)
Kobb heads over to Dunham & Sons to get more info directly. He and Gloves present themselves as wealthy merchants looking to engage a shipping company in some business, explaining they have some furniture that needs to be shipped overseas. He gets the name of the Shop Steward Oswald Mikkelsen, and a good idea of the company’s comings and goings.
Kamali heads to the Harbormaster’s office in the Docks. She is able to get in and distract the foreman long enough to lock the office door and copy down the most important names from the most recent ledgers. She is gone by the time he returns with the key.
The Docks Flocks Shock & Rock – Part 1:
Constance gathers everyone to review the information they have gathered. She mentions the Crimson Skulls.
She says her father once told her that if the dockers were to strike, the city would starve in two months. She declares that they are going into the protection business (something the dockers are already doing). To that end, they will need to manufacture some crises that they can then exploit.
She says she would like the Tyler Brothers warehouse to suffer some spoilage. Shade will employ the Crimson Skulls in bringing this about.
She tells Moira and Kamali to find something valuable to steal from Dunham & Sons. Kobb also has an idea to persuade Marian Dunne to part with some of her furniture to alleviate her current financial burdens.
Constance herself will vandalize Bellhaven. She asks Gears if he has any devices he needs to test.
I ran this as three separate jobs, each with their own Engagement roll.
Job 1: Shade meets up with the Crimson Skulls. Byron recognizes him and asks where Constance is (it is apparent that he has not given up on the idea of wooing her). Shade has several sacks of salt and instructs them to break into the Tyler Brothers warehouse and spread it around liberally to taint all the food stored there. He goes with them to ensure that the job goes smoothly. They attract the attention of a roving guard, but Byron successfully plays on his reputation as something of a ladies’ man and convinces the guard that he’s got a girl in the warehouse. The guard berates him but lets it go. On the way out, Shade gives Byron some misleading tips on wooing Constance.
Job 2: Kobb visits Marian, who is understandably distraught over the suicide of her husband Ellsworth. He persuades her to sell some furniture, in light of recent developments. She decides to sell the grand piano. Kobb approaches Dunham & Sons again to tell them that he has a buyer for the piano, and they send a couple of guys to cart it down to the Docks.
That night Kamali and Moira break into the Dunham & Sons warehouse and begin to loot the place. Kamali has brought along Prichard and the Lampblacks to deal with the piano. All she has to do is get the loading bay door open and keep the guard distracted while they wheel it out. Meanwhile, Moira is hard at work opening crates and bagging anything that looks valuable when she comes across a large brass scarab inside a metal-lined box. She can feel the arcane energy radiating off of it, and can hear it whispering to her in a language she doesn’t understand. Fortunately, she is able to fight the urge to touch it. Kamali wanders past and sees the item and immediately recognizes it. It’s the symbol of House Anixis, one of the noble houses of U-Duasha, dedicated to Ixis, the Demon Prince of Secrets. Kamali wisely boxes it up again, and they bag the whole thing, along with a fair bit of gold & jewelry and assorted valuables, and they all get the hell out of there.
Notes:
The scarab was the result of a Devil’s Bargain, and completely improvised. Thanks again to John Harper for the additional material in the Special Edition, it has already come in handy.
We’ll see Constance wreck some stuff next time.
#dontmesswiththedolls