Session 12 - Bug Shoes and a Pleasure Barge

Jalan: Wait, didn’t we give all of Sylvia’s old clothes to Meghan?

Drant: So somewhere in the facility our secretary is walking around in this man’s dead daughter’s clothes?

Plot points/Scenes

To-Do List

• Guys we need to name our prison
• Fritz
  • FINISH CONSTRUCTING SHEEN! And finish converting that spider-cage into a bar
    • We need to fund this alcohol somehow
  • So many knife-wielding tentacles
  • Find out what this archer chick’s name is
    • Also start building a prisoner file on her (talk to Jeochhmann)
  • CREATE SYSTEM FAILSAFES (dm scares me “ohhh don’t worry about that it won’t be a problem...yet”)
• Have we “blown up” the castle yet? We need to do that.
• Send mechanical spiders to replace Gregory
  • OOH. what if we bring a bunch of mechanical spiders with us to be the ones to “set off and detonate” the charges that will bring down the castle so that way we can take them with us and make sure they get there alright but it’s not suspicious when we don’t bring them back with us
• Bring the papers written in archaic from the strongbox to Wizmur for translation
• Upgrade the prison because it’s currently still the Minimum Viable Prison and needs some work
• Talk to Robin about pursuing the murder cult?
• Talk to the govt about obtaining new prisoners?
• Find more fun library rooms
• Install a new security system in the Embassy
• Steal more stuff from the Embassy
• Continue pursuing the millennium Artifacts
• Does that bandit fortress we took over have a name? (for the index)
• I have a theory regarding Jeochhmann’s magic powers v. the magical hotspot at the bandit stronghold v. Ralodithius
• Get scheduled ration delivery up and running
• Hire and reallocate the disturbed workforce
• Guys we should hire Isabelle

Prepping for the Great Facility Explosion Ruse

• Jalan goes to get the alcohol he thinks Borksnob will like best (very incorrectly assumes it’s HARD LIQUOR)
• Fritz begins work on Sheen (it’ll take 1-2 weeks to finish)
• Jalan looks for a way to delay the trip until Sheen is done
  • Looks for a meteorologist (or better, an actor) who will “predict” that the path up to the stronghold will be under monsoon season and unpassable for 2 weeks
  • Acting troupe is surprisingly easy to find because of a recent discovery of phantasmium in the Stonedeep Mines (according to Meghan - Fritz makes a note to look into this later because she intriguingly has no idea about this phantasmium stuff)
    • Asmir’s Lute (better known for their music but also have original plays)
    • Have an actor named Niam Leeson who stars in an original play on the plot of Taken but against Ragnar
• Jalan takes Drant and stops by the troupe’s camp while they’re in rehearsal and is immediately stopped and question, he asks for an actor who looks like a trustworthy old man
  • “Terrence Sky” approaches, looks and acts very convincing, even does some fancy smoke tricks while changing outfits
    • J: “we need you to convince a wizard that we can’t pass through the mountains for a few weeks because of a monsoon”
    • TS: “A real wizard wouldn’t believe the thing about a monsoon, but a great thaw”
  • Requests a retainer fee of 2gp/day
  • Insists on coming with on our trip, as a “guide” and advisor (just wants the moolah)
    • J: “hey drant how do you feel about pushing this guy off a cliff once we get there
    • (F: “FUCKING-”)
  • Requests half the retainer fee now and half later
  • (J: “you’re cool that the dude we’re gonna talk to is a government official, right? Cool-”)
    • He’s also cool with blackmail
  • Jalan hires him in an “unofficial” transaction, but he’s cool

To the embassy to see Borksnob

• Carissa/Borksnob were in a meeting with an “unimportant” person, secretary tells them to wait
  • Door opens and their guest stomps out, screaming “FUCK YOU!”
  • Turns out the “unimportant” person is one of the owners of the mine, and he’s trying to claim the phantasmium as his own since he owns the land but the government thinks it’s their right
• Actor dude does a bunch of fancy shit with dropping worms in a specific order to “predict” weather patterns, then acts like he’s druidcrafting a plant but Jalan can tell it’s just sleight of hand
  • Borksnob is overwhelmed
• Terrence hands Borksnob a smell bag to contact him with if he ever needs to

Funny Pranks. Very Funny.

• Terrence insists on seeing our facility (bc so many people attending their shows it’s the only thing they talk about)
  • Jalan and Drant decide it’ll be funny to show him into Fritz’s private workshop
• They run into Gregory
  • Apparently some hysterical dude in rags has been captured and stored next to the giant spider, gregory brings him over
    • Looks very distressed, introduces himself as Sylvia’s father
    • J: “.....Drant, why don’t you take this”
    • D: “Sylvia?”
    • J: “Sylvia.”
    • D: “........who?...OH was she spooder food”
  • Jalan requests he is put in a room with comfort food until Fritz or someone else more responsible than him deals with it
• Bringing Terrence down to Fritz’ workshop
  • Terrence waltz in and starts touching everything
  • *Jalan and Drant giggle from the hallway*
  • F *barely keeping her cool*: “....hello. Please put that down. No - that too, down. How did you get in here?”
  • Terrence enthusiastically explains (the actor that he is) that he very much admires our facility and wants to know how it works and says that one of the other owners said it was totally fine to come down and she’d give a tour
  • F: “.........right. Well.....tour. Sure! But you can’t start the tour at the piece de resistance! Let’s go…….out. I’ll show you the prison extension first.”
  • Leads him into the interrogation room, slams the door, locks it, flips the table, pulls out her hammer and starts screaming
    • F: “Who are you?! Who let you in?! What did you see?! WHAT DO YOU KNOW?!”
    • Jalan manages to intervene and explain himself before she beats Terrence into a pulp but she’s still pissed
    • It is also in this moment that Jalan offhandedly mentions how Sylvia’s dad has been sitting alone and unattended upstairs
• Conversing with Sylvia’s dad
  • On walking in, he is clearly crying/distraught, surrounded by comfort food and pacing and bawling
  • His name is Brockman
  • He was a slave, but made it out of slavery and has no other purpose in his life now but to find his daughter
    • …….well, shit.
  • Fritz’s heart breaks but she can’t bring herself to tell the truth so we tell him the last time we saw her she was fine and we think she eloped with her current boyfriend
    • J: “wait, didn’t we give all of Sylvia’s old clothes to Meghan?”
    • D: “so somewhere in the facility our secretary is walking around in this man’s dead daughter’s clothes?”
    • F: “fuuuuuuu-”
  • We give him a sympathetic pat on the back and send him on his way
    • Drant subtly communicates to Nymph and Drac to kill him before he gets back to town
      • (F: “DRANT NO”
      • (D: “you’re not there”
    • Somewhere deep in the woods lie the eviscerated remains of Sylvia’s dad
    • Drant also talks to Nymph to move Sylvia and Roger’s bones because that could raise some major suspicions if anyone were to get a look at our roof
      • She refuses, because she put a lot of hard work into decorating it that way and the way they’re set up is integral to the long-distance web detection network

First Tugs on the Puppet-strings of Politics

• Fritz is very curious about this whole phantasmium thing and she decides to bypass the government and talk to the mine owner directly, asking about sales, properties, uses
• Mine owner’s name is Brian Tangerlyn, doesn’t know a ton about the stuff but knows it sells well to the government
  • Magical property (by itself phantasmium is shitty and volatile)
    • When alloyed with unsosen (un-SO-sehn) materials it valuable makes artifacts
    • One of the few things that is capable of making items to rival the magical items of yore
    • Veins usually like cubic meter of space, but the vein they’ve just found seems endless
      • (in the general direction and distance of the research facility, which we remember to be sat on top of an inexplicable well of magic)
  • Fritz asks about the scene we witnessed with Carissa, he starts grouching that the government is pushy and getting worse, says he knows we’re kind of entwined with governmental affairs but as we’re also a business maybe our interests are aligned
    • Election coming up
      • Asks if we could possibly help get David Hauschmead elected instead of Carissa
      • (sort of anti-means for the people, take over production for the people, would probably try to renegotiate our electric contract)
      • There’s Carissa, David Hauschmead, and a third party all running, Fritz says she’ll do some research and see what we can do

Bug Shoes for the Bug and a Bar for the Brat

• Drant finds a cobbler
  • Build-A-Shoe
  • Lady running the store with chubby cheeks and a smile
    • “Are you a customer or a guard?”
• Drant asks if she can make specialty shoes for him cause he’s loud and wants to be quiet
  • D: “I kind of *clickety clack*. I think it’s the exoskeleton”
• “Can you use spider silk?”
  • Shoe lady says hell ya! Spider silk is actually a great material
  • Has some unique designs based on spider silk, and can drop the price on his order if he provides his own
  • She bargains with drant to use Nymph/Drac’s silk, and he in turn has to bargain with Nymph/Drac to actively produce/let him use their silk
• Jalan Builds a Bar
  • Talks to Kirby Venteicher, who says “this shit’s beneath me” but Jalan mentions going to Timothy Ryder instead and he puffs up, agrees to design/build it for him

The New Hire and First Political Steps

• Knock, knock, Isabelle’s at the door
  • Offer her a job, she gets Sylvia’s old room and will start next week so we can get it deep cleaned first (who knows what’s happened in there)
• Meghan delivers letter from Carissa about election
  • Basically saying that there’s an important election coming up and that she’s counting on our support and would be sorely disappointed if we don’t deliver
  • We set up a meeting with Carissa to discuss what she expects of us and what we can expect in return
    • Money? Nah
    • Political influence? Not ours, but maybe we can convince some people to her side
      • First on on the list Brian Tangerlyn
    • Investigator will be going through old records and old disasters so David can’t use them as political leverage
      • Inquisitor was part of God Emperor Ragnar’s ‘old Inquisition’ (more like a secret police, the Inquisition that people didn’t know about)
      • Called “The Inquisitor” because she got so scary good at what she did, real name Naomi Venstrum
    • She mentions that with the phantasmium recently uncovered in the mines, Red March is bringing in a lot of slaves which is good for the economy
      • Jalan freezes at “Red March”, Fritz freezes at “slaves”, Drant’s probably not even listening
• We discuss electing David Hauschmead
  • Fritz jumps on a moral high horse, realizing that somewhere along the way she deviated intensely from her moral standards and that she’s no longer comfortable with the direction of the company, and that maybe manipulating this election to get Carissa out of office would be a good beginning penance
  • We don’t know anything about David’s stances so we need to talk with him first, so Jalan gets Terrence to set up a meeting for later
    • Meeting inside the tunnels in the mine
    • We tell Meghan about this meeting and decide to bring her along for some reason (something about company trust who knows who cares)
    • We all leave separately so it’s not suspicious, but Drant gets spotted leaving and spends some time at a bar to shake suspicion and arrives last

Combat - We’re Trying to Make the World Better DAMMIT

• Drant (who arrived last) immediately knows it’s an ambush of some kind (he’s got dope perception)
  • D: “I Detect Life.”
  • DM: “.......I forgot you could just…..DO that, that makes this kind of pointless”
    • But it’s only 30 feet so not pointless!
• They’re clearly untrained - not great at hiding and just really desperate and reckless and ineffective
• Jalan “saves” Fritz by killing one which tried to shoot her
• Their own archers kill one of their own
• Fritz drops to her knees “stop everyone stop no one needs to get hurt” and tries to tend to the person on the ground in front of her which Jalan shot
• Jalan casts darkness
• A dude falls from drant’s tree
• Fritz leaves the darkness “godDAMN it everybody STOP”
• Jalan “saves” Meghan
• Barely get them to stop trying to kill us
  • “We want to make it better”
  • “So go make it better”

Talking with the Candidates

• Turns out David Hauschmead is all about communismmmmmm
  • But we hear from him about the third candidate, Francesca Liverworth
• Interrogating Terrence
  • Somehow someone knew about our secret meeting with David, which is why we were ambushed, we thought only us three, Meghan, and Terrence knew about the meeting but clearly someone knew
  • Jalan believes Terrence is innocent, we don’t have any other leads to explore so we drop it and never find out who
• Let’s Talk with Francesca Liverworth
  • Meeting in a public space (can’t afford an office)
  • Disheveled
    • J: “Good first impression...”
    • F: “Be nice.”
  • Francesca believes Carissa’s been in the game way too long and has her hands in everything, she knows how to play the game too well to benefit herself
  • David’s argument is a nonstarter, naive, doesn’t understand the implications of what might happen if his plan goes through
  • Doesn’t like when the government puts their hands in everything
• Debates
  • We debate for quite a bit, both about politics and about the future of the company, and the party
  • Ultimately decide to attempt to get Francesca elected, to start the town on a for-the-people path
  • Also seriously discuss selling the company and picking up shop after the election, as Fritz is still uncomfortable with the ethics of running a company and we want to explore the continent

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

Act 1: Just Your Normal, Everday, Morally Ambiguous Power Company