Blades in the Dark: Burger Time

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Surrender is not something our heroes do and thus violence ensues. While they are careful to only disable their opponents, the Skovlanders have no qualms about killing the local militia and Weeping Lady volunteers and destroying the guardian hulls who get caught up in the conflict. Bluecoats also arrive early on but as they are allied with Strangford proceed to just shoot the vigilantes (they get shot a lot)! Also Flint, Juris' nemesis (according to his character sheet anyway) appears and points him out to a full contingent of 40 Spirit Wardens. He tries to surrender but they just shoot at him too!

He manages to lightning bolt eight of them into disrepair and gets Onna to shapeshift into Flint to negate that order (some BS good dicing here for them to not notice Onna's a spirit). By the time this happens the others have defeated their foes: only 7 Skovlanders escaped out of 112. Juris senses Nyryx is also dead, but her body can't be found. Having pissed off DL, he leaves the 125 injured opponents (including the captured cops) to whatever Juris has planned. This includes feeding Ulf to Coran's death hounds and feeding the rest to Onna who executes them one by one and eats their spirits. Coran handles the corpse disposal, turning them into delicious burgers.

After healing up, Juris gets DL to make a delivery at the Archive of Echoes where Flint works: an F-Bomb. The bluff is so perfect that they get away scott free, walking down the street in slo-mo fashion as the entire building behind them explodes and goes up in flames. Flint eats this to his face and dies (as does whoever else happened to be in there).

Meanwhile Rose and mom follow a lead given to them by Celeste's widower Veleris, who claims the Iruvians still have an in-roads through some drug dealers at the docks. After a terrible stealth engagement roll which sees the pair jump across rooftops only for the roof to give in and drop them right on the drug table, they basically blow everyone away and find evidence linking the Church of Ecstasy. On their way back they also find a talking corgi at the menagerie and Rose convinces the owner to let them take it back to Juris.

It holds the spirit of Jen, and having seen Jen's body as a "pleasure" hollow (the Dimmer Sisters really did a number on her and Nyryx) at the Silver Stag he retrieves it and returns her spirit there. Helene has no problems with any of this and sets her free. Juris also gets to keep the corgi. The team then gear up to attack Brightstone, which is the home district of both the Church of Ecstasy and Lord Strangford's Leviathan Hunters!

Blades in the Dark: Giving a Hand

[Part of the Party Time journal]

With no good options coming to mind about the power crisis DL goes to talk to info guy Matt and for a fee gets a map to the "reverse polarity" junction box and learns Elon is into embezzlement while Juris goes to Nightmarket to capture "Onna", the shear wielding serial murderer ghost and finds her in the club where they defeated Lord Mora - she's killed everyone else. Surprisingly Onna isn't hostile to him and, taking him by the hand leads him to her "friends" - cultists of the Burned King (a forgotten god) who all have a burning crown branded on their chests.

After receiving awkward hugs from these guys (they really didn't like Lord Mora) he is given Onna's anchor, a large mirror, to place into the Archive of Echoes at Charterhall. It's like a library of spirits, and Onna likes eating spirits! Instead, Juris takes Onna home and formulates a plan. The next day he returns the death dogs to the recently released Coran, sells the Hand of Kotar to Lord Elon and starts helping him research the solution.

Meanwhile DL and mom follow Matt's map and sabotage the "reverse polarity" switch so that instead of turning off anything, nothing happens (suggested by Rose). DL's tinkering is good enough to make this undetectable but they have to bluff their way out when a group of soldiers runs into them. Lastly, Rose herself using a letter of introduction from Lord Elon goes to meet the Lord Governor in a dimly lit room (despite there being more lanterns than everywhere else) - he's an old man who walks on a crutch, speaks with the help of a machine and is missing an eye and an arm. He is pleased by the actions of the Shield of Dawn, and confirms the plan to shut off power to half the city - because half the city will be drafted into the Imperial Army soon to fight the Iruvians who from all indications, are planning to secede. Rose tries to command him but he just laughs and commends her ability, which makes her flee from there pretty quick!

The team (mostly DL) then spends almost all their currency in helping Lord Elon develop the solution and are successful in using sea water - pumped into the heart by the hand - to turn into demon blood (or close enough to it) to continue powering everything. Crisis solved!

The next day Juris makes F-Bombs (bottled powdered fire bombs now with a ghost inside for remote detonation) and helps Helene buy out the contracts for Silkshore from Lord Elon while Rose, mom and DL go with Eisele to Charhollow to investigate strange suicides there - involving strangulation and falling? Atop a building they are attacked by a bed sheet anchored ghost (an Ittan-momen) who almost drags Eisele off the edge, but it otherwise is a humorous fight where DL ends up having to chop up a flaming blanket with smiley face bullet holes at the end.

Returning to their home district they are surprised by a large party being thrown by Ulf in which he's invited almost every Skovlander in the city to. Ulf then very publicly tells them to surrender everything they are carrying and the district itself to avoid bloodshed... Lord Strangford's orders.

Blades in the Dark: Not Good Enough

[Part of the Party Time journal]

While Rose and Juris have their ghost door adventure, mom and DL get some free time after Warden Pope leaves to headover to Charterhall to deliver Helleren's "ghost recording" to the authorities to help clear Coran (and his dogs) then return to the Dimmer Sisters house to pick up more hull shells as DL wants to create more dragon armor. They find the home inhabited by the Gray Cloaks, a group of ex-cops wanted for burning evidence in an imporant case against Lord Strangford. In fact they are very much against Strangford and after passing negotiation checks believe the visitors aren't hitmen and simply hand over the remaining hulls and a suitcase of junk from the previous owners. This "junk" happens to include seven toenails of Kotar, which when ingested are basically a full heal for stress and trauma.

The following day mom and Rose and summoned to the courthouse to give testimony against the cabbies who are fighting their charge, while Juris and DL follow Earnest to Barrowcleft bridge where he claims he lost his ghost brother Bertrand, in a dice gambling game with Spogg. Juris is distracted by howls from the death dogs in his care up at Fogcrest though so he goes to check on them while DL continues to the bridge alone. Mom and Rose are split up too when mom is summoned to an upstairs office where she is ambushed by the bounty hunter Casta (who had just murdered mom's cop friend Celene) and her four melee goons!

Downstairs in the waiting room, Rose is also ambushed by knife wielders but these ones are all deaf (to negate her voice power) and wearing masks (to negate her trance powder). On the bridge 10 snipers ambush DL from both ends as he reaches the middle, killing Earnest, Bertrand and Spogg and Juris finds the demon Grist at the top of the hill with some dogs strapped to him as hurting animals really is Juris' weakness. I thought I was super clever splitting them up and pitting them against their weaknesses, but well - mom and rose cleared their battles in two turns with good rolling, Juris used his "tamed and trained" ghosts to free the dogs then the hand of Kotar to bisect Grist (banishing only a 3rd of him), eating a toenail to negate trauma - and DL systematically murdered every sniper with feats of acrobatics and blood thirst.

The next day they decide to follow Adda's request of checking in on Coalridge, the industrial sector, where Skovlans are trying to unionize against their brutal foremen. They find the lead foreman, Slane, whipping the union leader and since he's a demon Juris wastes no time in "handing" him to the next dimension while eating another toenail. It's hilarious since Slane didn't actually get to say anything - they just walked in and blew him away.

Afterwards they attend a meeting with Lord Strangford who confirms he is planning to start a civil war, explaining that due to the shortage of demon blood the Lord Governor is planning to turn off the barrier to half the city (including the districts our protagonists reside in). He hopes to get their support in overthrowing the Lord Governor to prevent this, specifically by convincing Lord Elon Dalmore either join the revolt or simply do nothing with his troops.

They go talk to Elon next who refuses to do nothing as he is bound to help the city government but does suggest there might be a way to "reverse the polarity" and make it when the switch is flipped that the barrier go down in the other half of the city only. None of the above options are good enough for our heroes as they are determined to find a way to save everyone. Juris donates a toenail of Kotar to Elon to try help his "heart" project, but other than a temporary increase in performance it has no effect.

Blades in the Dark: He's a Demon

[Part of the Party Time journal]

The Shield of Dawn rebuilds Tangletown and lets Ulf and his Skovlander buddies move in to keep the peace. Juris then experiments with a new drug: Lure 2.0 called Bait, and this time he finds himself waking up in the Church of the Ecstasy of the Flesh and meets Elder Rowan (who is a disguised demon) so he quickly gets himself out of there to accompany DL to recon on Maestro Helleren (alleged murderer of Kenny V) only to discover he too is a disguised demon, so the both back off and instead go to talk to the Sallies squad (fire fighters) about their "fire insurance" policy. One of their members, Grace, has the hots for DL and confirms that it is an extortion racket wherein they set fires to holdings for people who don't pay.

They take the issue up to Lord Elon Dalmore, head of the Ministry of Preservation who is the over all boss of the umbrella that covers the Sallies and with Grace's cooperation immediately fires all of them. Elon then tries to buy the hand of Kotar from Juris after showing him and DL a highly guarded research center that contains the Heart of Kotar, explaining that he's trying to solve a potential power shortage issue as metrics suggest the Leviathan Hunters are bringing in less and less demon blood to fuel the lightning barriers around the city. Juris refuses.

Meanwhile Rose and Mom go to the docks where Rose participates in Grist's boxing challenge, ringing out her first foe, getting the second one disqualified and then having a decent match against the third but she gets ringed out this time - one match away from championship. While she does this mom follows some drug dealers back to their den but doesn't engage them at all. The next day all four go to confront Helleren who is convinced to speak of his crime to a "recording ghost" Juris pulls out. A fight ensues in which DL has to cut through a flying piano but ultimately Helleren is decapitated and killed.

Returning to their home district they find Warden Pope (he's a demon) and the Ironhook prison guards searching for escaped convicts believed to be with Ulf and the Skovlander community. While mom and DL buy time from the guards, Juris and Rose convince Ulf that they can help get the three away through a ghost door, and they do especially as Rose has ghostspeak now and basically commands them to leave them alone. By luck they also pick up Eisele, the last gondolier who has been trapped here ever since Juris' first encounter with Scurlock and they all make it out to the docks.

Here Rose brings them to the the only Skovlander she knows, Grist - who also turns out to be a demon. The escapees are quite happy to go with Grist despite Juris' warnings so he takes a devil's bargain and floods the warehouse (inside) to push them away from the demon before they finally get the message. The bargain: by saving these three, (2D6) dock workers died in the flood / crushed by containers. I rolled double 6. Running off they deliver the three to the Fog Hound, a small smuggling ship and head back home to find that Warden Pope and his team have moved on to search elsewhere.

Blades in the Dark: Knowledge Eater

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Accused of being responsible for the death of first clarinetist, Kenny V, the butcher Coran arrives and asks that the team hide and look after his pack of death dogs implicated in the brutally violent crime. Juris immediately accepts, hiding them out at Fogcrest at Silkshore while spending a lot of time recovering from his trauma of using the hand of Kotar. Also murdered was DL's medic friend, Ferny Sawbones, so he heads to Charhollow to find out more and meets Matt the information trader, paying some coin to learn that Kenny V was dispatched by conductor Maestro Helleren who "isn't what he seems" and Ferny was done in by bounty hunters who are based in Nightmarket, which is where mom and Rose are headed!

The girls finally reach Nightmarket (no carriages anymore) and encounter a shear wielding female ghost whom they dispatch before reaching the club where the orphans are meant to be, meeting the upper class lords and ladies there but are told they can only see the kids in the morning and accept the offer to stay the night. DL arrives later, fighting past the same ghost again and then getting locked out of the club tower as the bounty hunting "Wraiths" arrive to get him. Jokes on them though, as mom snipes them from the tower before they can do anything!

DL is welcomed in and they are all hidden from the Spirit Wardens that come to investigate. Meanwhile Juris, still at Silkshore, goes to the Silver Stag casino to look into rumors of a demon of greed. It turns out to just be a gambler and ghost pair of Earnest and Bertrand cheating at cards. He outs them to the manager, Helene, and is disappointed he didn't find another demon cat before heading back to base.

The next morning they ALL awake at base with DL, Rose and mom unaware of how they got there. Also, they apparently brought a painting of a huge dragon back and hung it up in the orphanage's main hall!? Concerned, they all go back to the club and Juris with his new skill of being able to identify any supernatural entity quickly discovers one of the patrons, Lord Mora, is a knowledge eating demon and that the orphans have been eaten too. Rose manages to command the rest of the club into a trance like state while the team battles Lord Mora who is immune to Juris' ghosts and takes the hits from Juris' lightning, mom's rifle, and DL's special dragon sword which he finished building.

The fight is long but Mora can't land many hits especially after she tells him that he can't move (only works on his feet). Eventually the demon is slain and after retrieving a tongue artifact (the tongue of Kotar, lets you speak to anything) they hastily return to their own district where a horrible spirit aura now emanates from the orphanage. The dragon in the painting is gone but they destroy the frame and base anyway. Four Spirit Wardens then arrive to help them deal with the threat which has moved underground to eat the ghosts there (and thereby make itself stronger). It manages to damage two Spirit Wardens, who as they guessed are hulls themselves, but is otherwise easily captured and destroyed by the high tier visitors. For this heroic action the district is well and truly behind the vigilantes now.

Blades in the Dark: Against the Undead

[Part of the Party Time journal]

As Juris hadn't heard from his pal Nyryx for awhile the team sets off to find her, attuning her location to be in the previously wealthy but now left to decay sector of Six Towers. There they break into the mansion of the Dimmer Sisters but are caught almost immediately and are split up with Rose and mom stuck indoors with the two sisters and a mechanical hull spider while DL and Juris are outside with a tree that summons spirits and eight hulls (spirits animating armor), all of whom are Nyryx in spirit (she was chopped up)!

DL holds off the ghosts while Juris convinces all of Nyryx to stand down and put her back together in a bottle again. Rose KO's one of the sisters and disables the spider while mom accidentally kills the other sister with a warning shot... right between the eyes. Using his new tempest ability, Juris lightning bolts the tree (on his second attempt) to destroy it, sealing the ghost portal. They then take two of the now empty hulls and the prisoner sister before the Spirit Wardens arrive.

Juris then busies himself putting Nyryx into the remaining Dimmer Sister as well as training some of his other captured spirits to inhabit the hulls before experimenting with more Lure on a rat, witnessing it go right into the Spark Grounds carnival where someone is making a large force of... hollows (aka zombies)? While this is going on DL, Mom and Rose try get to the orphans at the club again but this time the carriage takes them near an underground tunnel where they are ambushed by a large group of vampires! Unfortunately for them, sound carries rather well through the tunnel and Rose commands them to sleep, which all but one does.

DL and mom take down the leader pretty easily before the rest can wake which means they are easy prey for the vigilantes. Once again, the team returns to base to regroup and head next to the circus where Juris remembers his time mind-melded to a rat to get to the secret basement of currently dormant zombies. Here they KO the "necromancer" who is just pulling souls out, but are pinned when the remainder of the clowns now allied with the Old Crows enters the basement.

They don't hesitate to ambush these evil doers but are suddenly out numbered when the leader activates the zombies just before she gets beheaded by DL. Fearing that the Spirit Wardens will arrive before they can get out of this quagmire, Juris pulls out the hand of Kotar and uses it (eating one stress / insta KO) to blast all the zombies into the next dimension. In this game, that's the ghost field. With the basement now empty of threats, the team quickly carry Juris out of there and escape unseen!

Blades in the Dark: Rose of Command

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Thanks to the evidence they handed in last time, the corrupt cops are taken off the beat and Celeste's team moves in to look after Crow's Foot. This is effectively means the Shield of Dawn (that's the name the vigilantes chose) totally control the district! They also rename it it to that on the map then head to Charhollow as requested by Adda, a resident Ink Rake (reporter) there to quell an uptick in racial violence between Skovlander drug dealer Ulf and the local butchers.

Some sleuthing reveals that the butchers are working for Lady Drake in hopes to secure the freedom of their patriarch Tarvul, currently serving a life sentence at Ironhook Prison for killing a Spirit Warden that was destroying his wife's ghost. Rose does some amazing negotiation rolls and gets the butchers to stand down - convincing them to let Tarvul rot. Meanwhile Ulf isn't very pleasant but he does get along well with his kin, Juris, who convinces him to also stand down in exchange for getting a chance to distribute Lure instead of his homebrewed KwikCopy drug which makes users see double.

The good news continues to the next day as they learn the Iruvian consulate has been closed as its members were exiled by the Lord Governor. In support of their allies the Dagger Isles consulate follows suit and they both impose a trade embargo in retaliation, making it harder to source material to make stuff but that doesn't deter Juris who bottles some spirits in the tunnels below with DL acting as a bodyguard since he can now physically punch ghosts with the ghost fighter skill.

Having heard than a large number of orphans were taken to a club at Nightmarket, Rose and mom go to investigate catching a cab (a carriage pulled by large goats) to save time. Only, the cab pulls into its garage instead as the cabbies are after the bounty (set by the Iruvians) to get the vigilantes. Rose commands them to surrender and... they do (she rolls criticals at the best times)!? They are tied up, arrested and the ladies return to base to regroup. In the meantime there was a fire at Tangletown, and blaming DL for not paying the fire insurance (an obvious extortion), the Old Crows move elsewhere to seek gainful employment.