Oblique Angles, Session 2: Who Was That Tricorn Hatted Man, Anyway?
We had two new players join us this game – Moray (Cutter) and Banshee (Lurk).
Downtime Actions
– New Clock – Electroplasmic Battery – 2/8 – Vale is creating an Electroplasmic Battery. When complete, he’ll be able to draw on it for his ghost field work.
– Vale, while (over) indulging his gambling vice, was accosted by the Bluecoats while in a back-alley near his gambling hall. Unfortunately, they caught him trying to pay off his gambling debts by conducting some sort of magical ritual for one of the other gamblers. Vale is no longer welcome at his old gambling establishment.
— New Clock – Persona Grata – 0/6 – When filled, Vale is welcome again at the Lady Dusk’s Dusk Manor club, his usual gambling hall.
— New Clock – Persona Sold Out – 0/6 – When filled, Lady Dusk has sold Vale out and shared what secrets she knows of him.
Free Play
The demon Setarra visited Vale, and told him of a brewing conflict between the Dimmer Sisters and Lord Scurlock. So far it consists of feints and moves in the shadows.
The crew also hear a number of other rumors:
– The riots have ended – the Bluecoats eventually managed to put a stop to them. – The leader of the rioters, a sailor named Koln, managed to escape. His whereabouts are unknown.
– The Bluecoats have come out of the riots with reduced authority (their hold on Tier III went from Strong to Weak)
– There is a gang war in Crow’s Foot.
— The Crows, the top-dog gang there, recently had their leader murdered – by their second in command
— While she consolidates her control of the gang, the gangs that owe fealty to them – the Lampblacks and the Red Sashes are warring
– The Lampblacks, after the encounter they had with the Angles in session 1, are gathering information on the Angles. Nothing too aggressive… yet.
– There have been a number of reports of weird singing down at the docks. It seems to defy normal classification in a number of ways – it changes in direction, tone, lyrics, and in other manners from minute to minute.
Banshee and Vale looked into the singing – Banshee by sneaking around the docks, and Vale by taking a ghost field survey of the area (while looking for a new gambling hall). Banshee confirmed what the rumors had said – the songs changed often, both in direction and in composition. Vale’s survey of the ghost field helped him realize the singers were skilled whisperers that were trying out various kinds of rituals, experimenting to find the right one. All the rituals were trying to call some terrestrial (non-ghost field) person or thing to come here.
The crew also found a letter in one of its dropboxes; these letters usually only came from established clients, but this one was from an unknown sender. The letter’s author proposed that the Angles do a job for them. The job was to enter Old Scurlock Manner (near their home in Six Towers) and retrieve an object. They said it would pay well. If they were interested, they should meet to seal the deal at midnight at the docks.
Weaver (with Moray trailing as a bodyguard) went to meet the mystery correspondent, and found them down a dark alley at the docks. The person in question appeared to be a male in a long overcoat and antiquated tricorn hat. They had a shuttered lantern with them. When Weaver tried to use the lantern to see who he was dealing with, the figure used what seemed to be magic to snuff the lantern entirely.
The soon-to-be-client wanted to engage the Angles to remove the Rituals of Scurlock the First from the crypts beneath the mansion. They told Weaver that the book was warded in some fashion, but that they could handle it. The job needed to be completed by 3am the next day. When Weaver asked if there were other things to be worried about, the figure just shrugged. The money offered was excellent (8 coin), so Weaver accepted the job. Weaver detected no lies in the things their client was saying.
There was some consternation amongst the crew when Weaver returned – Vale (and others) felt sure that their new client was none other than the current Lord Scurlock himself, and that in doing the job they’d be playing into the hands of his enemy. In the end, they all agreed that they should do the job either way – once they had the tome, they’d be in a position to either deliver it or thwart their new client, as they saw fit.
Before approaching the manor, Vale went to Charterhall to do research on Scurlock the First. He found in his research that the first Lord Scurlock was known to be a necromancer and sorcerer of the first order. He was put to death at the command of the Immortal Emperor (forever may he live!). The execution included Scurlock’s head being cut from his body, possibly the whole thing being chopped up into further pieces, and at least some portions of him being incinerated. Accounts varied somewhat.
As soon as the research was done, the Angles went into Old Scurlock Manner. Using the high-quality set of maps they had of the city’s underground, they made their way to an underground maintenance entrance to the estate’s catacombs. Banshee was able to masterfully work the huge, rusted door open – but then stepped on a pressure plate of some sort. Thankfully, Snake was able to disarm the trap by peeling up the surrounding cobblestones and wedging Moray’s crowbar into the mechanism.
Once inside the catacombs, the Angles came to a large room with two passages leading outwards. Vale attuned to the ghost field to see which way they should go – one way had a lot of ghost field activity. The other, though, had some sort of strange ghost field lacking bubble in it. Thinking this to be the ward on the book, the Angles decided to take that passage.
As they started to move, however, they realized that they’d been noticed – dozens of rats with glowing red eyes came out all around the room, and then began to attack. Lead by Banshee, the crew managed to get across the room without getting caught. The possessed rats began to pull themselves up into some sort of amalgamated monstrous form – but then got hit by a thrown vial of fire oil from Snake. The mass of rats was consumed in a sickly green flame and came apart.
In their haste to get past the rats, though, the crew ended up bursting into the room at the end of the hall. Happily, this was their goal – in the room was the sarcophagus of Scurlock the First, along with the warded chest. There was also, however, a Spirit Warden – the implacable servants of the empire that made sure all ghosts went to their rests. From behind its rune-enscribed brass mask, the Spirit Warden asked what they were doing there.
Weaver thought quickly back to Vale’s library trip – which he’d tagged along on – and remembered what he had read about the Spirit Wardens and this tomb. The Wardens were there solely to guard the sarcophagus. (It also happened that Weaver saw and was affected by a strange picture in that same book; in what way, though, he does not know.)
Weaver quickly told the Spirit Warden that they were interested only in the warded chest. After some thought, the Warden said they could proceed.
Vale accessed the ghost field to examine the chest, and realized that the ward could be broken by releasing or pushing a spirit into it – that would collapse the ward. He and Banshee then went to capture one.
Banshee used her skill from back in the Dagger Isles as a Ghost Lure to bring the ghost towards Vale, who would capture it. Unexpectedly, Banshee found herself being chased by two ghosts. While Vale expertly captured one ghost in a spirit bottle, Banshee (screaming as she went) led the other one back into the burial chamber. Luckily for Banshee, Moray was ready. Pulling out her cold-iron maul, she obliterated the spirit with two forceful swings. Vale was then able to use the captured ghost to disrupt the ward, and the Angles quickly left with the book.
Once they arrived back at their base, there was some discussion about what to do. Should the team deliver this tome to a customer they felt sure was Vale’s vampiric foe? In the end, they decided to deliver the tome – to not do so was to invite death, a ruined professional reputation, or both. They did, however, make two etchings of the book’s bronze pages before doing so.
Vale (with Banshee’s help) also made a close study of the book in order to be able to recognize its ghost field signature in the future. This turned out to be very tricky business – the book had come awake in some fashion, and was interacting with and causing disturbances in the ghost field in its vicinity. Vale, who was both lucky and skillful, managed to learn what he wanted without getting ensnared by the book’s energies. (New Clock – Understanding the rituals of Scurlock the First – 2/8) In doing so, he gained some understanding of the book itself. While a person could learn the rituals by reading the etchings, the book itself was integral to enacting any of them; it was an artifact unto itself. Vale also learned that all the rituals in the book enacted some kind of attunement.
At three in the morning, Weaver (again with Moray looking out for him) brought the book back to their client, down by the docks. Weaver tried to get extra money for the job, as a concession to the extra dangers they had encountered. The client agreed that they had earned additional compensation – but only on the condition that Weaver would at some point in the future do a favor for them. Weaver agreed.