Tim (Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat) is off paying attention to his family, and Dan (Koa so k'Terr) is nowhere to be found, but Chuck (Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat), Chris (Peter Sangaree) and Paul (Sean Punch) all appear on time.
The characters revisit their strategies for dealing with Maurice, the Scraver master of the Red Lantern House brothel. As always, they fall back to considering their classic plan of setting the building on fire and shooting them as they run out. Though some of the more incendiary members of the group argue vehemently in it's favor, Sean Punch suggests once again that this is a bad plan, given that all of the neighborhood buildings are made of wood and are filled with a lot of innocent people.
Peter Sangaree suggests that Maurice probably has a personal shield, so the first heavy strike against him is not likely to kill him. He suggests that this means it's safe to hit Maurice's car with the spud gun to exterminate his bodyguards, and then move in to capture him afterwards. There could be complications if the first strike doesn't work, as the reload time on the spud gun is not too good, but he has his trusty flamethrower available for mop-up.
The characters eventually decide to infiltrate the brothel through the alleyway along the side of the Red Lantern House. There are some obvious complications, in particular the fact that the alleyway is blocked off by a locked iron grill gate with spikes on top. Peter quickly develops a shopping list to support this plan, including:
At this point, Sir Engelheim comes up with a worthwhile idea: he will emplace a couple of makeshift anti-vehicular barricades at the various alleyways (made from wooden planks with long nails driven through them). The idea is to ensure that Maurice won't get far even if he does manage to get to his car.
Peter's intention is to insert himself into the establishment as a customer, getting a room on the eastern wall with a window. He will wear different clothing than he did for his first visit to the place. He will further be well-equipped with 25' of cord wrapped around his waist, a knife and a wallet of change. He intends to ensure that he gets a room with a window to the alleyway by claiming that his wife is suspicious and vengeful, and that he will need an escape route if she should show up. Sir Engelheim and Sean Punch will carry the rest of Peter's hardware. They will meet him in the alleyway after they finish dropping off the tire-spikers. From there, the entire group will rampage across the building in search of Maurice, spreading disaster and confusion in their wake.
The plan gets more complicated when Sean Punch points out that he is a pacifist, and won't voluntarily attack people. Peter grits his teeth.
With this plan in mind, the group turns back to their unfortunate captive, Samson (Maurice's lieutenant). Sean Punch records the man saying various phrases that might be useful in getting past guards. The group then leans on him to get a description of the layout of the building. He tells them that the east wing upstairs is girls' rooms, the west wing upstairs is Maurice's office. He mentions that the anteroom is open to the second floor with a balcony and two stairways up.
Peter manages to get into the establishment without too much trouble, though the ever-efficient goon at the doorway makes him give up his knife. Peter does his best to spin a long, weird story about how his 350-lb wife is likely to show up in a fury and start cracking skulls, but the guard explains that there are three guards available to stop her. Peter reluctantly agrees to the guard's position, though he does express doubt that three guards will be enough to stop the woman.
Peter swiftly hooks up with a slight girl with old smallpox scars on one side of her face. He is happy to determine that she has rather low self-esteem and is passively willing to goes along with whatever he says without much complaint. Once they arrive in the room, she tells him that she charges, "100 Tuam Shillings, more if you want something strange." Peter manages to surprise her by explaining that "What I want is for you to take this bag of money (totaling some 4 FB in random change) and sit quietly in the corner. My friends are going to come through the window with lots of guns." The girl does as she's told.
The characters' plan is slightly complicated by Peter's discovery that the lower half of the window is covered by a grille of thin bars. He tries to pull them out and fails, even though their mounting looks none to secure. He finally manages to figure out the trick of it when he pushes on them, though he almost falls out of the window in the process. After that, it is a matter of little difficulty to bring Sean Punch and Sir Engelheim up into the room.
While Peter and Sir Engelheim check their weapons and shields, Sean Punch happens to notice that the girl is huddled in a corner of the room, white with fear. In a shocked tone, he asks, "What did you do to her before we came in here?" Peter blandly offers up, "She saw me naked."
The characters move into the east wing corridor in force, cowing the various employees and patrons they run into along the way. A quick look around the corner onto the balcony reveals only one truncheon-armed guard in front of the door to the west wing.
Peter leads the assault, shifting around the corner (surprising the guard in the process), aiming his spud gun, and blowing the west wing door into splinters. The guard is knocked flat by the blast.
At this point panic starts to break loose among the patrons in the lounge. Caine quickly spots several guards making their way towards the stairs and throws the bag of ball bearings, hoping to knock some of them off their feet. Sadly, his attempt is almost completely botched, leading to a random scatter of ball bearings raining down upon the lounge floor. Things become even more exciting when some panicky patron screams out, "They're zombie spores!" and creates a rush for the exits. Peter feeds it along by howling out, "Brains! Brains!" as loud as he can.
The characters quickly determine that there are four guards armed with shortswords moving up through the crowds towards the stairs. Sean Punch does his best to pin and secure the stunned guard while Sir Engelheim draws out his pistol and blazes away at the guards, heedless of the fact that his errant shots endanger random bystanders. Peter moves forward into the upstairs employee area in the west wing where he is engaged by two of Maurice's "serious" bodyguards.
Sir Engelheim quickly guns down first one guard, and then a second. He wounds a third, persuading the man to take cover underneath the stairway. The fourth manages to make it up the stairway where he engages Sean Punch and endlessly complicates the task of restraining the man stunned by the spud gun strike.
For all that Sean Punch and Sir Engelheim have their troubles, they are eventually victorious. During all this time, the two "serious" bodyguards press Peter Sangaree hard. Their initial volley of blaster fire proves useless against his shield, but their blades are closer to the mark. Peter Sangaree is wounded, but manages to wound one of the bodyguards in the process. The fight finally turns decisively in the characters' favor when Sir Engelheim moves in with blade drawn to alleviate Peter's problems. After a bit of intense swordplay the two of them manage to slay the bodyguards.
The characters break into Maurice's office in the front of the building to find the third bodyguard standing by with a blaster while Maurice climbs out of the front window. The characters make short work of the bodyguard after his blaster misfires, scaring Maurice badly enough that he loses his grip upon the rope and falls two floors to lie injured upon the street.
The characters quickly gather up Maurice, his various fallen goons' expensive equipment (including three blaster pistols, four shields, a fine shortsword, and a heavy revolver), and a coded ledger book from the desk. They make their escape in his Moremax Spirit, taking care to remove their own anti-vehicle traps before emerging from the alleyway.
The characters take Maurice back to the warehouse, parking him as far as possible from the corner where they left Samson and "Duke Harold". They interrogate him, quickly discovering that he is really just a message drop and knows absolutely nothing about any assassination attempts. He does know that messages for Underboss Philip Dettlen are to be sent to the Saintscross post-house in Llanfyrth, addressed to Emile Gallit. The characters duly note down this information.
Peter divvies up the blasters and shields and cars in front of Maurice. Maurice complains vehemently. He relents somewhat when Sean Punch sets and binds his broken leg.
At this point, the characters decide that Maurice has managed to become one of those unfortunate people who Know Too Much. They package him up for transportation back to Fennen Marsh. They then set Samson free, telling him that Maurice is now out of the picture and that he needs to replace him. The price for this "favor" is 200 FB/mo if he gets Maurice's job. They try to arrange his silence by threatening to rat him out to the Scravers if he ever tells anyone what actually happened to Maurice. Samson rather unsurprisingly agrees to this deal, especially given that several vicious-looking people with guns threatened him into it.
The group drives back to the Luftking in Maurice's Moremax Spirit. At the airfield, Peter searches about for a while to find someone who can take apart the car so it can be loaded on the Luftking. He eventually finds a guy who holds a Truck Redemption license (and who dresses really nice) who agrees to do the job for 100 FB. Peter then puts one of Maurice's blasters on sale with a local Charioteer on consignment (basic price of 700 FB, with the Charioteer taking a 10% cut when it sells) to defray the costs of the expedition.
It takes about six hours for crates of Moremax Spirit parts to show up at the airfield and get loaded onto the Luftking. Fergus Genne ab Marlwen flies them back in the middle of the night, until at the dawn they arrive safe at New Berlin in Fennen Marsh.
After their return to Fennen Marsh, the characters set up a numbered account at the IndustrieCommerzBank of Tuam so Samson can send them his 200 FB/mo. They make certain that the bankers will also act as a message drop for Samson (or anybody else wanting to communicate with the account owners).
The group then turns to attempting to exploit Maurice's ledger (which is written with all the names and descriptions ciphered, so only the money amounts are visible). Their strategy is essentially to bully Maurice into doing the translation for them. He refuses their request on the grounds that no matter how bad the characters are, his erstwhile bosses in the Sparrow Syndicate will do him worse if he betrays them.
The characters then decide that giving Maurice a new face and a new identity could be both the whip and the lever they need. Under his new identity, he would be safe from the Sparrow Syndicate, but he would also be cut off from any old connections or contacts that he might have had. They call in Livermore, the New Berlin Apothecary (whom the characters originally recruited by rescuing him from his debts), to discuss the problem. He and Sean Punch determine that really good plastic surgery, necessary to completely reshape Maurice's face, would require a full operating theater. The equipment for the job would cost about 20,000 FB. Livermore also explains that just getting the operation done at a well-equipped hospital would cost between 500 and 1000 FB, though granted most hospitals available to the public are normally unwilling to engage in such surgery.
Under close interrogation, Maurice suggests that his ledger might be worth 5000 to 10,000 FB, but it'd take a long time to actually get the money because Maurice (whose establishment is in the Low City, after all) doesn't have anyone important as a customer. The money would have to be extracted in small amounts over the course of several years from the various small tradesmen and workers who do go to the Red Lantern House. As a possible alternate solution, Maurice asks if the characters would like to ransom him back to the Sparrow Syndicate. Peter refuses outright.
Peter finally despairs of being able to do anything useful with Maurice. He finds himself unwilling to simply have the fellow executed, so he orders the New Berlin government to construct a second jail, one where the prisoners wear iron masks and don't get to talk to many people. He suggests an initial capacity of 20 cells, with Maurice and the two assassins are the first residents. While Peter is making his plans (aided by Constable Grigori) the rest of the group (with the notable exception of Sean Punch) entertain themselves by thinking of all the terrible psychological things they can do to their captives. Terrible, hollow things.
During the discussions on the new prison, Constable Grigori again mentions that while his men are well-armed for most of the situations they might expect to encounter, they are poorly-equipped with armor. Peter investigates a bit, and determines that he can purchase armor comprised of a plastic plate cuirass (PD 4, DR 6), leather sleeves and pants, plus a leather hat (PD 2, DR 2) for a total cost of only 25 FB. This entire ensemble weights 15 lb. The characters arrange to trade one of their captured personal shields for 20 sets of this stuff, enough to outfit all 20 members of the New Berlin constabulary. Peter gives Constable Grigori another of the captured personal shields. The Constable thanks Peter, and is immediately rewarded with a request to expand the size of the New Berlin constabulary to some 100 men, including a squad of twenty horse-mounted borderers to watch the wilderness areas. He notes that horses can be purchased for 20 FB in Tuam, and proposes that the final personal shield be sold to provide the funds for the creatures (each borderer realistically needs several remounts). Nobody objects.
The session ends with the characters back in New Berlin. They have learned the information needed to track one step closer to the Underboss Philip Dettlen in Llanfyrth. They also expect to get word back from the Charioteer Cheevo on what he will charge them for transportation out to the Mystery Planet. Several of the characters have expressed some concern that the time required for a stealthy approach to the world will prove damaging or fatal to some of their other projects, but the demands of the Count Marco Linford de Hazat remain firm.
Each character gains three experience points.