Dusk City Outlaws – Part 4

Continuing with our Dusk City Outlaws adventure. See Part 1, Part 2, and Part 3.

Day 4: Planning Scene

The crew meets at a theater where Emilia works, up on a catwalk above the scene while the place is deserted, with a bottle of wine and a round of cheese.

How do we circumvent the alchemical mist? There are no windows. Maybe the secret tunnels connect, but that’s a long shot. The entertainers will be using the ramp to the cellars to their staging area. The room right above the Silver Chamber will be open to the guests, with entertainers and finger food trays.

• What to do about the guards?
• What do we want our helpful entertainers to do?
• Where do we want the unhelpful ones to be?
• What do we want to use the secret tunnels for?
• How do we want to use the rumours we created about the Bandit King and the protesters? (That latter one is probably true-ish, though.)
• What do we want to do about Lysa of Rotwood?
• Can we make further use of Janos Zakharin?

Emilia knows Manfred Willoughby’s place of business, an office next to the Koslova Museum of Vladov History and Culture. Its security is minimal and any items of value left with him for appraisal are normally stored in the museum’s vault.

Night 4: Legwork Scene

Violet heads for the secret tunnels to update the crew’s map of the tunnels. She and Emilia come through the sewers and successfully map out the tunnels, coming up on a wine rack blocking the secret door — which, using alchemical acid and glue, they turn into a movable facade for the tunnel entrance.

Pandora once again uses her Mother Teresa persona, rounds up the faithful and organizes a protest that will take place later at the Van Der Greaves manor. 

Emilia checks with her underworld contacts about Lady Malindra’s guards and learns that all three shifts will be on duty at the same time for the party. The captain has been working for a long time and is somewhat irritated with her because she makes his life difficult then is mad because he does what she ordered him to. The guards are well paid but the employer is annoying. For small things, they are probably bribeable, but no one is likely to take large risks. 

Day 5: Legwork Scene

Emilia goes to visit Carmen Sanza, a fence specializing in objets d’art, to ask about Manfred Willoughby’s reputation. He’s a fussy, delicate man, very thin, balding, with glasses concealing one glass eye. He’s fussy and prickly but truly an expert, and if he confirms the authenticity of the panels at the unveiling, their credibility will be unassailable. Lady Malindra hopes to impress him in order to be chosen to host the Galleria Historica traveling art show, as Willoughby is on the board that chooses participants.

Pandora reaches out to her Spider contact, whom she regularly supplies with “specialized consumables”, to learn about Charles Montesque. Spiders are no great friends with Crown agents. Montesque started investigating groups of mummers interfering with City Watch actions around Janos Zakharin, then the burglary of Naomi Lee’s shop attracted his attention and he connected the dots with Lady Malindra’s event. The Spider promises to alert Pandora if Montesque makes waves, such as requisitioning a squad, etc..

Violet dresses up as Gabriel Vega and visits alchemists, asking about horrific ingestible poisons. She drops by Naomi Lee to ask details about the antidote to the alchemical veil so she can prepare a fake. When she reaches the district, Violet sees a group of citizens who have organized an Endless Dawn volunteer watch; she recognizes among them the Endless Dawn provocateur — and friend of the real Gabriel Vega — Tabitha Saldano. They are upset that “poor Naomi was robbed and the City Watch did nothing.”

Violet easily sneaks past the group and into Naomi’s house, returning most of the stolen items to the alchemist except for the key reagents. Naomi offers a fake antidote but asks Violet to stop breaking in and to not involve her any further about this job. 

Night 5: Legwork Scene

Pandora pours some fuel over the flame of outrage among the faithful; a riot is brewing.

Emilia sees a costume-maker about making some useful quick-change reversible outfits. [Will serve as advantage dice on Disguise later on.]

Violet hires some helpers from her cartel to come in through the tunnels and help move the heavy panels to the cart.

To be continued…