Session 13 - Politics, Politics, Politics

Naomi: What is that? It sounds like screaming.

Jalan: ...FRITZ, why don't you take this one?

Fritz: Uhm...it's the pipes. The electricity. In...the pipes.

Drant: Convincing.

Plot points/Scenes

The Inquisitor Visits

• Knock knock it’s Naomi (Venstrum)
  • She’s been hired by Carissa to investigate the Embassy invasion so it’s not a negative mark on the ballot for the upcoming election
• We meet her in the foyer, she looks on immediate first glance like an extremely intelligent person, taking in every detail in the room
• She makes the conclusion that Jalan’s the owner, nobody corrects her
• Jalan gives a flowery speech about helping Carissa clear her name for the ballot, she shuts him DOWN and gets straight to business
• Asks about the bloodstains on the floor, we give a brief summary of the cult attack
  • Asks for a description, briefly mention the flux suits, “do you have any?”, “no we turned it all into carissa when we got this dude (robin) off the hook for murder”
  • Offhandedly mentions that it was probably the work of the Mechanical Enlightenment
    • We take note but don’t push further
• Asks about the screaming
  • J: “............FRITZ, how about you take this one?”
  • F: “uuuuuhhm. It’s the pipes. The electricity. In…..the pipes.”
  • D: “Convincing.”
• Naomi name drops that she attended same university Fritz went to
  • Fritz explodes with enthusiasm: “Who were your influences?”
    • N: “Swiftcog, you want to see a man with drive, ambition, a lack of fear of taking risks to make progress…”
    • Fritz freezes
• Naomi nonchalantly calls Jalan “....prince Jalan”
  • Jalan freezes
• Interrogation
  • She blackmailed the guard, seduced him, and had him open the room
  • N: “There’s an opportunity for us all to do better here…I know you were responsible for the heist, and I know you don’t want the public to know...It just so happens I love information. I think we can make a deal. You happen to have one of the greatest treasure troves of information in the empire in this here building.”
    • D: “.....Nevermore.”
    • N: “yep.”
  • She wants to be able to speak to Nevermore whenever she wants, we pay her a lump sum to keep quiet
    • J: “We don’t have a choice, do we.”
    • N: “You do….but I’ll just send a raven to Red March.”
    • J: “.........so we don’t have a choice.”
• We request that Naomi leave the room so we can have a “private discussion”
  • Fritz points out that with our current plan to sell the company, it’s easy to write a contract that becomes null and void once we sell the company
  • Jalan repeatedly requests that we just run
  • Drant and Jalan notice a horn-like thing sliding under the door, Fritz is oblivious
  • Whip open the door and Naomi’s standing there looking sort of embarrassed, Drant confiscates her hearing-horn
• Naomi can see we’re not ecstatic about this deal, so makes a secondary offer
  • 25% share in the company for immunity from people who start digging around
  • We refuse that one fo sho, but we do finally take her up on the first offer
    • She will tell Carissa that David Hauschmead was responsible for the Heist (or at least, she will convince her that it will be easy and profitable to pin it on him), and we will provide free access to Nevermore for interrogation
    • Offhandedly mentions an ambush she had arranged if we decided to just run
      • J: “.....................”
• She leaves…...discussion time
  • This complicates things
  • Fritz suggest we just go along with it for now and closely monitor what conversations they do have, then release Nevermore once we sell the company to keep him from her grasp and just blame it on new owner’s incompetence
  • We decide on a new facility rule, visitors need at least 24 hours notice before prisoner interrogation, to ensure that one of us is in the building when interrogation is underway (not in the room, but in the building)
  • D: *extremely distressed* “guys, wait. We can’t leave yet.”
  • F&J: “......why?”
  • D: “MY SHOES. They won’t be ready for a week and a half”
  • *F bursts out laughing*
• Jalan catches Naomi
  • N: “If I give you 50 gold per month as a security will that make you better?”
  • J: “Can you get me 5 million gold instead?”
• Drant has a heart-to-heart with Fritz on his purpose in life
  • THE CHIPSSSS
  • Starting a hive mind of his own

Un-Freezing Our Assets

• We thaw Nevermore and give him the breakdown, and ask for his cooperation in executing the plan
  • He deals with Naomi and dodges her questions for three months while we save up and prep for departure, then when we leave town we release him and he’s free to do what he wants
• He agrees, but requests that we provide him with some phantasmium to give him the brief magic surges necessary to combat Naomi
  • We’re a little wary, he could just use it to break out, but Fritz trusts him enough to try
• On the subject of phantasmium, Fritz asks what he knows about it as we have no clue
  • Before the Rapture, magic was powerful/potent, one particular dragon looked down on all humanoids at disdain for their success with using magic, said dragon lived among them long enough to know there was no redeeming them, gathered his followers and performed a ritual that stole magic from them and their bloodlines, energy cannot be created or destroyed, so imbued it all into what we know as phantasmium, after this the dragon stole all of the phantasmium and built a fortress of it and legend says that he still lives in that fortress and laughs at humanity trying to regain what was lost with technology
  • It’s much harder to do magic here than on the mainland, happened loooooong ago, like before Ragnar became God Emperor
  • The more people are around, the harder magic is to do, when alone magic is easier
• J: “Could you get me 5 million gold?”
  • F: “He asks that of everyone, just ignore him.”
  • N: “But I’m one of the only people that could’ve actually gotten that.”
  • Mentions knowing where the artifacts of the Pantheon are if we believe in that stuff
    • Fritz says she doesn’t believe all that religious mumbo jumbo
• Lots of internal debate
  • J: “I’m in charge of the charity campaign.”
  • F: “No you’re not.”
  • D: “Brothels don’t count as a charity. Even if her name is Charity.”
  • DM: “Take your inspiration dice”

More Political Manipulation

• We meet with Carissa to discuss the progress on the campaign framing David
  • Borksnob was involved in getting dirt and planting evidence
  • We manage to successfully pin the Embassy Heist on David Hauschmead, and his trial is set to take place a couple weeks before the election
  • D: “Carissa’s campaign slogan should be: I know you’re stupid, but you’re not stupid enough to vote for that guy. Vote for me!”
• ---
• J: “I’m so glad we could all work together to make….what’s the name of this town again?”
• F: “Stonedeep, Jalan”
• J: “right.”
• ----
• (*on getting dirt on Carissa*)
• J: “but she probably hides that shit really well”
• F: “but that’s where we become investigatoooorrs!”
• *long pause*
• J: “ooooooorrrr…”
• ----
• F: “enough internal debate. Let’s go do something”
• J: “let’s go murder…*deciding who to murder*”
• F: “no.”

List of Priorities

• Get Francesca elected
  • Get dirt on Carissa
  • Borksnob is the best person to talk to
• Inviting Borksnob to the plant
  • Convincing him to help take down Carissa
    • Reluctant, but eventually gives in, as she is apparently just a shit person to him too
  • Agrees to be our inside man
  • Jalan recruits Terrence (who’s still on his payroll) to insulate ourselves by being the middleman for all of this nonsense
  • We also recruit Stan the janitor man since he’s got access to just about everything in the Embassy

Borksnob’s Intel

• Borksnob was digging through Carissa’s desk looking for intel for us when he found some papers
  • Some referred to “Meg” and her exile/disownment
    • Clearly our own Meghan (remember the files Fritz found in the safe at the Embassy during the Heist?)
  • Carissa has a meeting scheduled with the bourgeoisie on Friday
    • Like the 1% of the 1%, super elite
• We finally confront Meghan on her apparent relationship with Carissa and she’s surprisingly open
  • Their parents disappeared in a questionable estate fire (Carissa hated her parents for not accepting her for who she was (not straight))
  • Carissa was walking home one night and slipped and the torch she was carrying fell into a conveniently placed puddle of gasoline, torched the whole house and both parents were killed
  • Meghan survived but Carissa threatened to hang Meghan by her own intestines if she told a soul
• We hear from Meghan that the in-progress power lines to Ambervern (the nearest city) are being delayed by some insectoids that are eating(?) the lines
  • Hey Draaaaant
  • They just eat metal, no people have been injured

Plot type

Session

Parent Plot

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