THE KIDNAP
The ransom note
Ezekia introduces Master Dreen, a friend from the council, to Aethelfrieda saying that she and her friends might be able to help him with a very delicate matter because he does not wish to involve the authorities.
The group convene at Ezekia's house and meet Master Dreen, who's accompanied by a nervous looking young man in fine clothes with an arm in a sling and a black eye, Phileas.
"My daughter Candace's been kidnapped by hooded thugs who beat up her fiance Phileas, here, and took her away - then they threw a brick through my window with this ransom note. It's ridiculous, I do not owe anything to anyone and certainly not to these criminals, whoever they are!"
The group see that the tearful eyes in the drawing look like the Mercy Hill gang tattoos, and ask Phileas what happened. He confirms what Master Dreen said but leaves the group feeling unconvinced, especially about the location of the kidnap. Why were these two rich kids walking along the lake shore between Grievings and Tankards? Don't they know it's a dangerous area? They accept however to take him with them while they look for Candace.
They stake out the drop spot for the ransom behind the Old Fishery and wait, after a thorough reiconassance of the local sewers, and nearby empty warehouses, roofs and alleys. Master Dreen drops the bag as instructed, and a short while after he leaves they hear approaching steps.
Gears
To their surprise they see a big, rusty clockwork walk into the alley and retrieve the bag with the ransom. When they confront him he attempts an apathetic defense by threatening them with his rusty sword, but the fight goes out of him when he sees himself surrounded. With a voice alternately high-pitched and low and croaking he pleads to be allowed to make his delivery, or he won't get paid. While he speaks his left arm moves as of its own accord at the elbow joint with a creaking sound, and he needs to punch himself on the chest to bring his voice back to normal. It's the most poorly maintained clockwork that they've ever seen.Gears' left eye swivels excitedly with anticipation as he tells them that he'll be paid with a can of dream grease, a powerful clockwork narcotic, if he delivers the bag at a boat at the nearest dock. They tell him to deliver a bag full of debris instead while they follow him closely, with wild promises of more dream grease that he's ever seen in his life. When they arrive at the docks they see that there are two guys sitting on the boat, smoking and chatting; Brass convinces Gears to go and behead one of them and he'll double, treble, the dream grease he'll get. It doesn't take much to overcome the resistance of the poor addict. The creaky clockwork walks up to the guys, and the nearest one has barely the time to say "it took you long en..." that his head flies into the water with a splash. The group rush the terrified survivor and while some give Gears a good helping of dream grease from the can in the boat before he goes berserk, the others tie the Mercy Hill gangster and interrogate him.
Phileas, R.I.P.
The gangster is a youth who doesn't hesitate to spill the beans: Candace is kept prisoner on the middle one of three uninhabited islands called the Teeth, about half an hour of rowing west from the docks of Crossings.
As the others tie the guy up, Simmouri notices that Phileas is so nervous that he won't stop fidgeting with the cover of his masked lantern. He stops when told, but Simmouri is now watching him as a hawk and notices that he's tapping a mooring stump in a rythmic fashion. Fed up with his antics, the group tie him back to back to the gangster once everyone's on the boat and a very stoned Gears rows westward after he's promised the rest of the drug left in the can.
The fog is rising thick from the lake, and the only sound is the splash of the oars. They are quite alone. Brass decides to interrogate the gangster and begins by cutting his ear off. After the guy's screams recede to whimpers when he's threatened to lose more body parts, he hurriedly reveals, sobbing, why they targeted Master Dreen:
"There were a couple of posh nobs who promised they'd pay us to stop anyone from entering Moore House, but they never did. Luckily one of them was mugged by Konstantin, a friend of our leader Zack, who found in his purse a cameo of the young woman we kidnapped. We got lucky because we saw her enter a house in Smokestacks with a guy, so we waited outside and we kidnapped her when they left. She told her who her dad is so we figured it was him who was mugged and sent him the ransom note". Phileas is looking very pale and utterly miserable at this point.
After thanking the young man profusely Brass cuts his throat, then - with some effort, as he's weak and everyone else is just staring at him wide-eyed - throws the corpse and Phileas, who is tied to it, into the deep waters of the lake.
As the others tie the guy up, Simmouri notices that Phileas is so nervous that he won't stop fidgeting with the cover of his masked lantern. He stops when told, but Simmouri is now watching him as a hawk and notices that he's tapping a mooring stump in a rythmic fashion. Fed up with his antics, the group tie him back to back to the gangster once everyone's on the boat and a very stoned Gears rows westward after he's promised the rest of the drug left in the can.
The fog is rising thick from the lake, and the only sound is the splash of the oars. They are quite alone. Brass decides to interrogate the gangster and begins by cutting his ear off. After the guy's screams recede to whimpers when he's threatened to lose more body parts, he hurriedly reveals, sobbing, why they targeted Master Dreen:
"There were a couple of posh nobs who promised they'd pay us to stop anyone from entering Moore House, but they never did. Luckily one of them was mugged by Konstantin, a friend of our leader Zack, who found in his purse a cameo of the young woman we kidnapped. We got lucky because we saw her enter a house in Smokestacks with a guy, so we waited outside and we kidnapped her when they left. She told her who her dad is so we figured it was him who was mugged and sent him the ransom note". Phileas is looking very pale and utterly miserable at this point.
After thanking the young man profusely Brass cuts his throat, then - with some effort, as he's weak and everyone else is just staring at him wide-eyed - throws the corpse and Phileas, who is tied to it, into the deep waters of the lake.
THE ISLAND
Exploration
As they approach the island they see a faint light of a fire on a beach and hear an animated discussion between a man and a woman. The man's mocking the woman because her lover was left to guard over Candace who, the man says, it's much more attractive and doesn't smell near as bad as Princess, the woman he's talking to. She covers him with insults, but soon he stops laughing and starts yelling at her too, accusing her to have cut the oars of his boat. As quietly as possible they row around the island avoiding the pair, until they find a small beach where they get to shore.
The island appears to consist of a low hill covered in dense woodland. They decide to head towards the centre and leave Gears back at the boat with Simmouri the dwarf to guard over him.
They move stealthily forward - except Brass, who's climbed up to the tree tops and is in a very unfamiliar environment. He's not quite sure what happened, but (GM note:Perception roll = natural 1) he feels something like hands over his eyes and then is falling, and then caught up again, then dropped and then someone grabs him, and so on... until he finds himself on the ground and shakily makes his way back to the group, who see that someone's smeared a smiley face on his metal carapace with what appear to be very stinky and runny excrements. Aethelfrieda wipes him clean with some leaves and grass without telling him what happened (after all, clockworks don't have a sense of smell). They proceed.
Soon they hear the voices of the Mercy Hill gang and see the light of their campfire at the top of the hill.
The cunning plan
After some scouting and a quick head count the group realise that they'll be slaughtered if they face the gangsters without some kind of edge. They noticed a barrel of booze that sees a lot of use placed at the edge of the camp near the trees. so they devise a plan. Aethelfrieda and Will look for poisonous plants (she's a scholar of nature, and he has a murderous past); they get lucky (GM note: natural 20) and find a plant that can be crushed into a pulp that is lethal when ingested. Brass uses his knowledge of technomancy to create a tiny magical construct - shaped as a spider - and instructs it to drop the plant pulp in the barrel. They create some diversion and the plan works - the thugs are drinking the poison.The creature
Something is happening: they hear distant shouts and screams, then most of the gangters run to investigate and they hear the sound of fighting. Using the distraction, the girl and one of her captors appear to be attempting to run away in the other direction, but the group intercepts them. Just as they do so, three gangsters arrive chasing after their prisoner and a fight ensues. Will's cousin Sniff almost dies as the group realise that they're not as strong as these bandits, but the poison is taking effect and they have just to fend them off long enough. They take a few hits, but finally the last enemy falls vomiting blood from the poison, and they grab the girl to make their escape. She seems delighted to be rescued, all she wants is to get back to Crossings to her daddy, she tells them sobbing.As they are untying Candace, they hear the sound of battle behind them and then something crashing through the trees. It's a ghastly sight - the bloated corpse of the thug they killed on the boat, with the corpse of Phileas still tied to its back, both animated by dread magic. The thug runs on all fours with the speed and the gait of a giant insect, while the corpse of Phileas lashes out at anything on their path with long talons, dripping water and algae. The horrible creature makes a beeline for the girl cackling and chittering.
They all run away towards their boat, chased by the monster that lashes at Brass who's at the rear of the group, almost killing him. As they arrive at the beach they see that the dwarf has fallen asleep and that Gears is even more stoned, if possible, and is singing a lullaby. The empty can of dream grease is at his feet. As he sees them approaching he looks at them, left eye swivelling, and continues with his song when they yell at him to start rowing.
The monster crashes through the woods and onto the beach, and someone has an idea: "Gears! That thing over there! It has a lot of dream grease!". Finally they row off towards the lights of the city as the fighting shadows of the big clockwork and the undead horror recede into darkness, and they see the faint outlines of some robed and hooded figures running out of the woods and onto the beach.
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