Velaris uses his cloak to have crude handwraps, and slides down the rope. he shakes his hands for a moment as he hits ground. he peers intot he waindow, checking for armed men coming to hurt him, and motions for Mender to follow
"I'll manage", responds Briar through clenched teeth. Sparing her injured shoulder, she grasps the rope and begins to lower herself out of the window. Life on the plains was harsh, and one needed a certain level of athleticism and grit to survive. She was a survivor, that she was.
You three successfully slide down the rope and are now outside, standing on top of the enormous Levithan bone.
That’s when you hear the voices coming up the block.
M’telling you, officer. It was huge. Fell to the ground, didn’t make a sound. Glowing like a ghost.
Ok, ok. I’m coming. Slow down, will you? These hills...so steep...
You have a few moments before they round the corner. Enough time to act or run, but probably not enough time to hoist the bone.
You watch Mender drop to the ground, Cobb and his men still not noticing. They are getting increasingly aggravated. You’ll need to do something to get out...
Hutch's smile widens, and for once it can be seen in his eyes.
You hear the Bluecoat and Kolton continue past. Come now, come now. Just a bit further up Rosehill road, toward the summit. Kolton calls to the Bluecoat, directing him away from your path.
As Briar safely reaches the ground, Mender will kneel down and sketch out the symbol of Malista's god; not large enough to draw immediate attention, but right under the window so that it will be found during the forthcoming investigation.
Hutch takes one long step forward and reaches his hand out toward Cobb.
Hutch's shadow swells and churns until they break formation, filling the room with phantom birds. "You, sir, are the filthy animal. Turn to the light before the darkness swallows your soul." Hutch never raises his voice, and when he comes to a stop, his palm is on the man's forehead.
Tarnikos reaches into his pocket and pulls out a pistol and trains it on the guards in the room, waving them off away from Hutch, his other hand on a knife in his belt.
"Trust me, there's nothing going on here you wanna be a part of. Hands against the wall."
Cobb shrieks and cowers as the birds swirl and caw...and then form into a figure. 6 feet tall and made of shadowy birds, it stands between you and the door.
Pherris moves with surprising speed, pinning you to the wall by the throat. He’s not hurting you yet, but in a moment he’ll begin to choke the life out of you.
You can see bits of the struggle inside the kitchen. Velaris, the scene looks troubling you familiar to you...perhaps Cobb isn’t the mystery strangler after all. This other gentleman sees to be the one you saw in your vision.
Pherris moves with surprising speed, shoving you against the wall. He hasn’t pinned you, but you wouldn’t be able to shoot Cobb from this position. He’s close enough to make your next move risky.
You can see bits of the struggle in the kitchen. Looks like Tarnikos made things violent AGAIN.
Halthar's nethers. Velaris curses looks like they won't be after us for theft, because Tarky's about to turn it into a bloodbath. I'm going to go do something stupid in the hopes of stopping it He says, throwing his cloak over the bones, leaving him in his mask, and his green coat (yes, he does wear a cloak over a coat, tycheros is tropical-ish, okay)
Hutch turns to the figure with a nod. "Another time, perhaps? They aren't getting any less dead."
Hutch grits his teeth as his shadow reforms and speaks to Tarnikos without turning from the door. "Are you done dithering, or will you need some assistance?"
Tarnikos grabs Pherris, grinning devilishly, and lifts him over his head up to slam him into the ceiling and slams him back down onto the floor, through a table.
"Like I said. Against. The. Wall." He turns back to Hutch and shuffles his way out the door. Yeah, on my way, sorry for the delay."
The raven monster briefly coalesces and then scatters as your shadow reforms. Troubling, but nothing to worry about right now!
Before they hit the rib-bone, Velaris had slipped on his spirit mask... ghosts were his specialty, after all. he makes an inventory, in case he needs to rouse or interact with them.
as Briar and Mender rig up the bone, Velaris is occupied in the study, loking over the texts... is he a whisper, a cultists, a dabbler? just really stupid and wealthy? why would he want a leviathan bone?
You slam Pherris hard into the table. He groans lightly, but is otherwise incapacitated. Lawton steps back, lifting his hands, suitably pacified.
Cobb, however, has a different response, letting out a blood curdling shriek. If it hasn’t already drawn the attention of the Bluecoats, it likely will soon. You could silence Cobb for good or just get the heck out of there.
You know the names of five ghosts, all women, who died in the house. All in the past three years.
The search of his study is fruitless. He seems to be unconnected to...anything at all. Based on the other rooms in his house, he may have been acting based on the voices in his head. Pool fool!
You even look under his desk, maybe for a hidden switch. That’s probably when you dropped a distinctive part of your spirit mask. It wouldn’t completely give away your identity, but it’s compromising all the same.
In the present, you notice the element is missing. You could go back in for it...
"What are they..." mumbles Mender as the scuffle begins to break out.
"Briar, we need to get this out of here. Help me." says Mender of the bone.
Briar crouches down and hoists the bone over her uninjured shoulder, using the climbing gear to tie it securely around her torso so that it doesn't slip off. She cannot carry it like this for long, but hopefully long enough to make their getaway.
Hutch heads into the other room to retrieve his bird.
You grab your bird. He pops up onto your finger, healthy and happy. Cobb’s still screaming though. Cops will be here soon.
As Briar picks up one end, Mender grunts and he picks up the other end. He then pauses for a moment as he considers something.
Hutch pauses in the foyer and checks his pocket watch.
"A parade, a race, a day of rest- we need that road closed or the neighbors on holiday... something. You know how trigger-happy Tarnikos can be." The magpie perched on Hutch's shoulder emits a trill like descending bars from a harmonica. "Even some hint of Dimmer activity..." He rearranges the documents on his desk for the hundredth time. They're community calendars and fliers mixed with copies of the crew's invoices and communications.
The noises from inside are getting worrying. It went from the signs of a fight to...cheering and singing and...
The Moontide parade crests the hill, with a horde of revelers and their hastily made floats trailing along. It’ll be trivial to move the bone through this. People won’t look twice at you.
1 coin from Velaris’ raiding the attic. He might not share that.
There was only one bone. If you sell it you’ll make 4 coin. Or you can save it for Halthar’s dark purposes.
You earned 1 rep
4 heat from two devil’s bargains
2 heat from a contained score.
Flipped Jeren, Hutch’s Bluecoat archivist friend, is feeling a little too much heat to help any time soon. You can consort him or just wait for things to cool down.
Everyone gets two turns(buy more with coin or rep). Mender can roll your recovery but that’s your turn, not his. I find the recovery rules to be prohibitively difficult, so each result is worth one more segment (meaning you can clear a whole wound in one turn)
Don’t forget: Downtime is when you can clear your stress, recover from wounds, reduce heat. You can also gather assets and work long term projects. Let me know if you need help with how anything works.
Yes. Developing a new contact is a 4 segment LTP.
Your vice is prayer. An old Severosi priest does a special ceremony for you for a little Silver.
Roll your lowest attribute (1). That’s how much stress you remove. Don’t go into negatives. Going into negatives is bad.
Mender, you can roll healing, but that’s Briar’s turn, not yours. (You can save that roll though. Briar, if you can go down to level 1 harm if you spend 1 downtime turn.
So one of my turns is Mender healing me, and the second turn just recovery? Do I roll anything for that?