The room is full of players: Tim (Brindal Karth), Gareth (Kotraz Norga), April (Sister Joann), Nick (Brother Xavier), Josh (Ambrose Freeman), Chris (Peter Sangaree), Jade (Del Tarrant) and Charleen (Lucy Madoc). The effect is really quite interesting, slightly similar to being locked in a cage of rabid baboons. I'm thinking that there aren't enough players: perhaps advertising for more at Dragon's Lair is called for… :-)
The characters start preparations for their assault upon Captain Sir Lukan Hawkwood-Pannice's hunting lodge in the motor pool. Kotraz Norga appoints himself as the group's master of things mechanical, with Del Tarrant as his assistant. Though there is some reason to believe that the other characters agree to go along with this thanks to Kotraz's mechanical aptitude, the real answer is clearly that he is half again as tall and twice the weight of any of them.
They head to the Duke's Motor Pool, where they are shown a hangar containing a group of large, eight-wheeled armored groundcars. Kotraz starts checking out vehicles, finally settling upon the third, which appears to be in good shape and boasts a cupola-mounted cannon to boot. Along the way, he encounters one that appears to be leaking vital fluids and another with gears shined almost to the point where they become washers. He also manages to get into an argument with the Master Redemptionist of the hangar, who takes issue with Kotraz's desire to poke into the engine compartment on every vehicle! The Master Redemptionist explains that the engine cowlings have to be sealed to prevent tampering (he points out his assistant Vito, busily ruining a set of precision gears, as part of the reason why), and that now he'll have to redo all the seals. Kotraz does not deign to apologize, and simply allows the argument to break off when the Master Redemptionist realizes that Del Tarrant has driven one of the armored groundcars out of the hangar and is busy running fishtails on the grounds to test the suspension.
After Kotraz and Del have identified the best of the vehicles, the remaining characters head for the Duke's Armory, escorted by a dour-faced Hawkwood officer. The armorer, though loathe to pass any equipment out of his little window, hands out a total of six bolt-action rifles, each with ten bullets, for the characters to use. He also provides some additional equipment:
After he gets his ammunition and weapons, Peter heads back to the Motor Pool, where he starts up a civilized conversation with the Master Redemptionist. He asks the Master if the vehicle is properly fueled for the trip, and receives assurances that it is. He also asks if the Master has any food around, to which the Master offers him a bag that looks suspiciously like someone's lunch. When Peter asks the Master, "Is this someone's lunch?", the Master Redemptionist turns around and yells out, "Hey! Vito! Hull rats got your lunch again!" A faint reply echoes from the distant corners of the hangar, "Oh nuts, not again!" Peter bids the Master farewell and leaves, munching upon a slightly spicy sandwich.
The Captain's hunting lodge is located about fifty kilometers north of Lenbow. The route there is normally none too good, featuring roads in edgy repair and several treacherous passes. Del Tarrant drives, in a manner he considers to be slow and careful but which several of the other characters take issue with.
Midway through the journey, the characters encounter an impromptu barricade, made from two trees cut to fall across the road. The barrier is arranged upon a forested slope, with a steep grade to the left and a wooded slope upwards to the right. The entire area is covered with a recent snow, probably from the night before. The characters immediately react with great paranoia. Several of them cast open doors and ports on their vehicle to scan for possible ambush. Ambrose Freeman leaps up into the cupola to man the cannon. Sir Brindal Karth calls up his cybernetically-enhanced vision to effortlessly pick out a small family of shrews in a burrow near the top of the rise (but nothing resembling an ambusher). While Sister Joann slips out of the vehicle to inspect the barricade, Peter Sangaree sneaks up the rise and spots a cleverly-made bolt-hole dug into the snow. Taking careful aim, he shoots it once. Ambrose Freeman takes a cue from Peter's marksmanship and blows the bolt-hole into fragments with the cupola gun. Subsequent investigation reveals the remains of a single bandit, armed with a crossbow, lying in the crater. Peter checks him out, and concludes that the man probably froze to death in the night. Before he returns to the vehicle, Peter appropriates the man's crossbow.
The characters use the vehicle's winch to clear the trees out of the way, under Sister Joann's careful direction, then continue on their way.
Near to their destination, the characters' path takes them through a small village of about a dozen hovels and huts, all of them tightly sealed up against the bitter cold. Faint streamers of smoke emerge from the chimneys, but nobody is evident outside.
The characters pull up to the simple church that looks over the village square. Several of them, led by Brother Xavier, head out to call upon the local priest. They hope to learn something about Captain Hawkwood-Pannice's habits. Learning from his earlier experiences, Brother Xavier does not bother to check if the door is locked. Entering the shrine, the characters meet with Joseph, the local novitiate and assistant to the priest (who is apparently warming himself before a fire somewhere else in the church).
Brother Xavier, very subtly looking like the former Inquisitor he is, asks Joseph if Captain Hawkwood-Pannice has any servants or locals working for him. Joseph responds, "The Captain doesn't have any locals working for him now, but he does have some offworlders. Maybe five of them. They came through a few days ago in a truck, and all of them had the same sign on their cloaks." He then draws a Muster chain for the characters.
Satisfied that they will soon be facing some professional mercenaries, the characters ask Joseph if they can get any food in the village. He tells them that the Widow Bainbridge will happily serve them in the common-house. The characters head over there, and in exchange for two Firebirds the widow provides them with bread, conpanmiento, and a thick local ale. The characters note that while the bread is really quite good, the conpanmiento is very hot. They also note that the ale is thick and yeasty, really quite satisfying, and that the conpanmiento is very, very hot…
Fearing that the Muster troops might have all sorts of exotic weapons, the characters take a conservative approach to their attack. Peter Sangaree, Sir Brindal Karth, Brother Xavier and Sister Joann sneak up towards the rear of the house while Del Tarrant drives Kotraz Norga, Lucy Madoc, and Ambrose Freeman (the gunner) up to the front as a decoy. The characters take about a half hour to approach, attempting to ensure that both groups arrive at the same time. When the vehicle starts to approach the lodge, Sir Brindal Karth moves around to the front of the building to try and pick off anyone trying to use heavy weapons against it.
The characters swiftly discover that the building is covered by two snipers, one in front with a rifle and one in back with a submachinegun. While Sir Brindal Karth and Ambrose Freeman pepper the front of the building, Peter Sangaree, Brother Xavier and Sister Joann rush the back, breaking in through doors and windows. A furious gunfight ensues, in which the four Muster mercenaries are handily defeated, one of them crushed to a pulp by Kotraz Norga, whose mastery of the Bangaa charge demonstrated quite handily that you don't need guns to be able to fight.
In the aftermath of the fight, Kotraz Norga locates Captain Sir Lukan Hawkwood-Pannice in an upstairs bedroom, standing towards the door in dueling stance. Quickly determining that he cannot get any cooperation from the noble, he fetches Sir Brindal Karth, who gets the Captain's parole (a guarantee that he will not attempt to escape). The other characters then proceed to test the limits of Sir Brindal Karth's patience by almost looting the Captain's dwelling and by preparing a meal in his kitchen. The characters also loot the dead Muster troops. Ambrose Freeman and Brother Xavier locate the Captain's safe. After Ambrose opens it, Brother Xavier behaves with the greatest of dignity and ignores the large pouch of money inside in favor of the Captain's Journal (which could be used for evidence), while Ambrose steals 400 of the roughly 800 Firebirds in the pouch, violating the Captain's terms of parole (what exactly Sir Brindal Karth will do when he learns of this remains to be seen). The other various items acquired by the characters include:
The characters then headed back to Lenbow. Sir Brindal Karth and Del Tarrant accompany Captain Sir Hawkwood-Pannice in his groundcar, while the remainder of the group follow up in the armored groundcar.
About a day after the characters return with the Captain as their prisoner, the Inquisitor, Brother Malegos Arkos, flies into Lenbow. Despite Castellan Nettle's requests, the characters refuse to hand over the Baronet's blade to him until after the Inquisitor arrives. Brother Xavier is waiting for Brother Arkos as the plane pulls up on the curtain, and is suitably impressed to see him emerge in full Inquisitorial regalia, flanked by twenty armored soldiers carrying automatic weapons. They have a brief, ideologically vicious conversation, at the end of which Brother Xavier hands over Captain Hawkwood-Pannice to the Inquisitor's tender mercies. Brother Arkos has his troops drag the Captain back into the plane, kicking and screaming. As he returns to his plane, Brother Arkos offers Brother Xavier some fairly flimsy assurances that if he is satisfied with the Captain's testimony, he may be able to consider the matter pretty much closed.
After Brother Xavier reports back to the other characters, Peter Sangaree arranges an appointment with Castellan Nettle, at which he returns the Baronet's blade (to the Castellan's obvious relief).
At the end of the session, the characters are still in Lenbow, and have some assurance that the Inquisition will not be searching for them. The storms that barred air traffic for the last two weeks have broken, giving Del Tarrant the ability to head out in his ship should he so desire.
Each of the characters gains five experience points.