Continuing his trend of dissing his layabout friends in favor of his family, Tim (Sir Brindal Karth) decides to attend his grandmother's 75th birthday instead of hanging about and engaging in dissipative activities with the rest of us. Everyone else demonstrates that they understand proper priorities and appears on time: Chuck (Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat), Chris (Peter Sangaree), and Paul (Sean Punch, though he grows more similar to an Obun priest with every passing session…).
For convenience's sake, Peter Sangaree does the Agent trick (from The Matrix) and replaces Sir Brindal Karth de Hazat before the session begins. Everyone "realizes" that Sir Brindal Karth was really the one sent back to Fennen Marsh to negotiate with the Utag trader Pieter Taussen.
As the session opens the characters have just managed to survive the onslaught of a gang of infected Hawkwood troopers, apparently acting under the orders of the "Dark Master" Albert Regis, better known as a respected Apothecary of Pernley Bay. The characters had previously tracked several escaping troopers to the Lancaville High Road, where they were picked up by a waiting vehicle that departed in a northerly direction. By interrogating a Pernley Bay Constable the characters are quickly able to determine that the vehicle was heading towards the Duke's Highway Eight. The highway is the main overland link between the city of Pernley Bay and the garrison town of Gastendile to the North, though several lesser communities and a passel of small villages are scattered along the way.
The characters resolve to intercept the vehicle, presuming that Albert Regis is likely to be on board. They cast about for something to follow, and find (to their amazement) that there is a truck parked near the servants' quarters at the Magistrate's residence. The more astute characters also notice that the truck bears a distinctly special license plate.
Slightly before heading out, Peter Sangaree decides that letting the officials in Gastendile know about the situation is fairly important. Quick interrogation of their rotund Constable confirms that the Pernley Bay Sheriff's office maintains a special phone line to the Gastendile Sheriff. The characters already know that the Magistrate had phones in his house that could reach the Pernley Bay network. Peter and Sir Caine Engelheim de Hazat debate with each other over the relative wisdom of running into the Magistrate's burning house to retrieve a phone until they are struck with the comparative wisdom of simply pulling the lines down and patching them into Sean Punch's head. This proves to work better than anybody anticipated, including Sean Punch (who complains that the connection tickles his cerebrum). Peter uses this impromptu arrangement to warn the Pernley Bay Sheriff that the Evil Apothecary is probably heading north on Duke's Highway Eight, towards Gastendile, equipped with a vehicle and a gang infected Hawkwood troops. Peter is unable to get a direct phone line to the Gastendile Sheriff, but he is relatively satisfied with an array of radio contact frequencies provided by the Constable. He uses these to send a warning ahead that the characters will be heading north in the Magistrate's truck.
Having notified everyone they can think of, the characters waste no further time and hit the road. Along the way, they learn from the Constable that Apothecary Regis did own a groundcar, but that it's destroyed shell was discovered parked behind the Apothecary's ransacked office. They also learn that the town of Gastendile is very much a regimental town: it is the headquarters for the 4th Legion (Gray Foxes), and most of the town's economy is based around supporting the Legion and it's 10,000 soldiers.
The characters drive north along the Duke's Highway Eight with all speed, trusting in Peter to drive well enough to avoid killing them all. They quickly find that the Duke's Highway is rather schizophrenic: parts of it are beautiful flat expanses of ceramcrete roadway eight lanes wide, while other sections are two-lane cobbled road. Even worse, transitions between the two types of roadway occur without warning. At the first of these transitions, Peter only barely manages to keep the truck on the road as he stomps his foot down upon the brakes. On the other hand, traffic on the highway is quite sparse, helping to reduce the chances of terrible high-speed head-on collisions.
Only a few kilometers out of Pernley Bay, the characters spot a column of smoke coming from the side of the road. It proves to be emerging from a disabled bus pulled up on the side of the highway. Even the most lackwitted among the characters is able to see that the bus was the victim of vehicular-level violence. Sir Caine's background in organized mayhem comes to the fore as he examines the damage, concluding that the bus was hit with a single explosive shell, probably of middling-small caliber (20mm). Peter pulls up next to the bus so the characters can learn what happened.
The characters are met by Patera Tim, an Orthodox priest who appears to be in charge of the scene. Patera Tim says that the bus was attacked by an armored vehicle with six wheels. It fired a single shot at the bus, driving it off the road, and then sped on by. He thinks that it attacked because it was in a tearing hurry and couldn't fit past the bus on the road. He claim to be one of ten passengers on the bus, divided between priests headed for Llanfyrth and tradesmen bound to Gastendile. There are four injured passengers, one of them seriously. When the characters offer medical aid, he explains that that will not be needed, as one of the other passengers, Brother Vincent, is a theurge able to heal wounds. Peter Sangaree gives them two doses of elixir anyway. In thanks, Brother Vincent places a Blessing upon Sean Punch's shooting arm.
Sir Caine listens to Patera Tim's description of the vehicle and concludes that it is a Wolverine Scout APC, a common Hawkwood military vehicle manufactured on Ravenna. The basic model is equipped with a 20mm cannon in a simple armored 360-degree mount. It has DR 300 and PD 5 on the front facing; DR 200 and PD 4 on the side and rear facings. The vehicle's basic armament is not particularly advanced, but local Hawkwood commanders have been known to retrofit better fire control, gyrostabilization, or energy weapons. Caine guesses that the example the characters care about is unlikely to have advanced weapons, basing his opinion on the fact that the single shot into the bus appears to have been almost randomly placed.
Satisfied that the bus passengers will be okay, the characters drive on. Sir Caine, Sean Punch and the Constable all ride in the bed of the truck, leaving Peter Sangaree alone in the cab. The passengers hope that this will allow them to abandon the truck quickly in the event that they come under cannon fire. After a certain amount of painful contemplation, the characters rather glumly conclude that none of their weapons are likely to penetrate the APC's armor.
There is a big coil of rope in the back of the truck. Sir Caine and Sean Punch use it to brace themselves: they set lines across the top of the bed, and make some grab loops. Confident that nobody is going to go flying out of the bed of the truck, Peter drives fast to catch up with the APC. He guesses that it is about ten minutes ahead of the characters' vehicle.
Peter Sangaree is preparing to make the knotty transition from a cobbled section of Highway 8 to a ceramcrete segment when he notices a tree slightly ahead of the truck vanish into flame and splinters. Everyone's attention gets very focused very fast, in most cases focused enough to notice the APC sitting in ambuscade in the midst of a small hamlet off the edge of the highway. Peter hits the accelerator and just barely evades the APC's second shot. He drives long enough to get out of direct LOS of the APC, then decelerates and pulls into a copse of trees. Sir Caine and Sean Punch pile out of the back of the truck, sprout wireblades and laser rifles, and knock a couple of trees down to block the road. Their work takes only seconds, but they can hear the Wolverine gunning its engines behind them. Meanwhile, Peter busies himself by dumping out his water bottle and turning it into an impromptu gasoline bomb. His siphoning efforts (to get the gasoline out of the truck's tank) are more successful than he was hoping, and he ends up suffering a point of damage and a wave of nausea from swallowed gasoline.
Caine tells Sean Punch to radio for help "NOW!" Sean Punch gets onto a Gastendile Sheriff frequency and sends out a message that he very much hopes is understandable ("We're under fire at the 14th podunk village on the highway! They have a tank!")
The characters set up their ambush as the Wolverine pulls into the highway and moves up to the barricade. It stops about 20 meters from the barricade. Everyone sets and braces. Three infected troopers bearing bayonet-tipped rifles emerge from the back and carefully move towards the felled trees. They are preparing to clear one of them away when the gunfire starts. Both Peter Sangaree and Sean Punch are hiding up front, very close to the soldiers, and they make short work of them. Sean Punch manages to take one prisoner without resorting to anything worse than a threat, while Peter Sangaree falls back on the old ways, cutting one trooper down like a ripe pumpkin and wounding the last.
Caine decides to try firing his laser straight down the Wolverine's cannon barrel. He aims carefully, but his first attempt only serves to warn the Wolverine crew that there is a sniper in the woods. The Wolverine gunner responds by clicking the cannon to autofire and shredding a stand of trees slightly to the left of Caine's position. Caine counts his blessings and moves up closer to the vehicle. He sets and aims again, then fires. This time, his efforts are rewarded. Though he does have to endure the disintegration of another cluster of forest, he manages to place a laser shot down the barrel. The Wolverine is shaken by a tremendous explosion and the cannon stops firing.
With the Wolverine gun disabled and the crew (apparently) not reacting well, Sir Caine and Sean Punch open fire at the tires with laser rifles, taking out two of them. The vehicle grinds to a halt.
Peter Sangaree grabs up a rifle and runs along the safe side (as opposed to the "business side") of the treeline towards the APC. He sees four hatches: one on the side, one rear ramp, one topside port for the driver, and a final topside port next to the turret. He moves closer and discovers that there are also firing ports as someone inside fires two shots at him. Peter deftly avoids the gunfire, then clambers up a set of rungs onto the top of the vehicle, his blade clutched in one hand and his gasoline bomb held in his teeth. He briefly intimidates an infected Hawkwood trooper who tries to storm out of the top hatch, then dumps the contents of his Molotov cocktail down an air vent into the engine.
The Wolverine makes a shuddering motion and the engine stops running. After a moment, smoke drifts from the cracks around the doors. Eventually, it becomes obvious to the characters that the interior of the APC is on fire. This impression is aided by the emergence of a single crewman who runs from the back ramp on fire. The crewman doesn't get very far.
With the Wolverine burning merrily in the middle of the road, Sir Caine tries his hand at interrogating Sean Punch's prisoner. Sadly, he doesn't get much out of him beyond the valuable revelation that, "Dark Master is all! Must serve Dark Master! Aieghhh!" Sir Caine gives up on the first fellow, and turns to the second one. This time he is much more successful, and learns that the Dark Master was not in the APC, and that (in fact) the APC was a diversion.
Peter heads into the village to see if anybody there knows anything useful. He fears that the residents might be cut from the Ignorant Villager mould, in which case they will be more helpful to him dead than alive. The first villager he talks to recoils in horror when Peter tries to hand him a rifle taken from one of the infected Hawkwood troopers. Peter restrains himself from simply shooting the man on the spot and asks if there is anybody in charge that he can talk to. This gets him a conversation with the village Warder, a stout fellow carrying a Sangaree Special. Peter tries to get some advantage out of his Reputation advantage by mentioning that he is the one who makes the Sangaree Specials. Things don't work out quite as he hoped: the Warder scowls at him and demands, "How dare you impersonate the best gunsmith on Gwynneth?" Peter growls about how he's being "rooked", then does his best to clear up the confusion. By the time he has the Warder convinced, the fellow is asking him for autographs. Peter sighs and complies.
For a change, the Warder proves to be able to provide useful information. Specifically, he knows that nobody got out of the vehicle. He also mentions that there is a textile manufactory about five kilometers to the south, and a larger town with a store and a marketplace some five kilometers beyond that.
At this point, the cavalry shows up. The road to the north fills up with a veritable convoy of Hawkwood vehicles and soldiers. The procession is led by Captain Sir Laurent Tongrin of the Gray Foxes. His detachment consists of two Wolverine APC's, three trucks, and five very advanced contragrav aerial drones (they look like flying saucers with a sensor pod on the front, and make a slight buzzing sound when they fly). Each truck carries 15 troops, and each of the Wolverines carries another 10 men. Even better, he has an electronic mapping system that is able to track his soldiers' positions real-time, based upon signals from little lapel buttons they wear.
Peter is very impressed by some of Captain Tongrin's gear (especially the mapping system), and asks him if he would be interested in buying a supply of Sangaree Specials. Captain Tongrin makes a big show of demonstrating to him that he is forced to issue his men 50-year-old rifles captured from the Decados during the Emperor Wars. The Captain goes on to explain that the Hawkwood military on Gwynneth has a lot of these, and as long as they last the budget for new firearms just isn't there. He scoffs as he describes them as "valuable military materiel."
The Captain proves quite glad to accept the characters' help. He listens to their description of what has happened, and deploys his troops accordingly. The characters mention that the "Dark Master" Apothecary Regis might be hiding at the textile manufactory down the road, and volunteer to check the place out. The Captain sends them on their way.
The characters approach the textile manufactory with a good deal of suspicion that turns out to be rather unwarranted. After observing that the place looks something like a cross between a rural village and an Industrial Revolution-era factory complex, they manage to get into a conversation with Louise Weaver the Cargo Foreman, and Sara Bishop, the local Apothecary.
Apothecary Bishop provides the characters with a potentially explosive piece of information when she admits some surprise that an Apothecary so respected and well known as Albert Regis could be responsible for such terrible acts. She comments that his practice is large and well-established and that for a number of years he has been able to support and train quite a large number of students, several of whom have gone on to open their own practices up and down the East coast of Lachann. She is able to remember about a dozen of their names. She mentions in particular Wilson Chen, a nice enough fellow but about the worst Apothecary anyone has ever seen. When the characters ask where Chen is practicing now, she laughs and explains that whatever he's doing, it isn't medicine: he failed his studies and left the guild.
The characters call back to Captain Tongrin with their news as they leave the manufactory. He allows as how his men haven't found much of interest, except that he had thought that the characters had said that there were quite a lot of survivors at the bus crash site to the south. He says that the aerial drone sent to inspect the area saw only the blackened shell of a bus with several dead bodies inside. Some of them looked like priests. The drone didn't see anything that looked like a survivor.
The characters burn rubber to reach the site. Along the way they hitch up with Lieutenant Snuffy (as he is quickly dubbed) and eight of Captain Tongrin's troops in one of the trucks. Everything is as the Captain described. There is no sign of any of the survivors the characters talked to earlier in the day. Sean Punch looks at the bodies and reports back that at least a few of them were killed by gunshots delivered execution-style, and that most of them showed signs of having been restrained. There are signs that a light three-wheeler vehicle stopped by the wreck, then headed south towards Pernley Bay.
The air is filled with the smacking sounds of the characters hitting themselves in the head.
At this point, Peter Sangaree gets Sean Punch to call ahead to Pernley Bay to alert the authorities. Sean finally manages to contact Acting Magistrate Wilson Chen, who proves to be fairly unresponsive to the characters' information. It seems like the Acting Magistrate believes that Apothecary Regis has been kidnapped.
The air is filled with the smacking sounds of the characters hitting themselves in the head.
Caine comments, "The only reason we have to go back to Pernley Bay is to beat the crap out of the new Magistrate. He's an idiot."
Peter takes a more reasoned view, arguing that Apothecary Regis probably waited in the forest after he killed the priests, then took the three-wheeler back towards Pernley Bay where he is busily arranging his escape. He compliments the Hawkwood Lieutenant and his scouts some money (though the Lieutenant refuses to accept it) and compliments them all on their performance and their professionalism. He then informs Captain Tongrin of the new developments and tells him the characters are going to Pernley Bay. Captain Tongrin has no problem with detailing his Lieutenant to follow the characters. The characters ask Captain Tongrin to get some sort of official activity going in Pernley Bay, to which the Captain admits that neither he nor his superiors have any official jurisdiction in Pernley Bay. However, he promises to do what he can on an unofficial basis, suggesting that he might be able to get in contact with some Gray Fox officers currently on leave in the city.
Everyone heads to Pernley Bay with all due speed.
By the time the characters drive into Pernley Bay, they know that Captain Tongrin has managed to make indirect contact with Colonel Sir Henry Askwith, who will meet with the characters at the Pernley Bay Yacht Club, and who already knows something about the situation. The characters find the Yacht Club easily enough, and just as easily determine that it is the sort of place where only the finer sorts of people are welcome. The characters are quite glad to find that the Colonel is expecting them, and that his servants are able to whisk them past the unctuous Yacht Club personnel at the door.
Colonel Sir Henry Askwith proves to be an officer in the old Hawkwood tradition, right down to the elitist accent and the graying handlebar mustachios. He admits that he hasn't been very successful at getting any official response in the city, but he has sent a dozen of his servants around unofficially to look for Regis. By the time he has finished his explanation, the characters (particularly Peter) are staring at the plate of seabird-and-cucumber sandwiches on the coffee table with unalloyed lust. Sean Punch quickly calculates that it has been over twenty hours since any of them have eaten. The Colonel finally notices this, offers them sandwiches, and has a servant pack up a baked ham that they can take with them.
His mouth stuffed with sandwich, Peter offers up a request to the Colonel. He explains that he fears that Apothecary Regis might be trying to leave the city through the harbor, and asks if the Colonel and some of his Yacht Club friends could do something about this. The Colonel rises to the challenge, bids the characters good-day, and heads off to the docks to arrange an impromptu "regatta" at the mouth of the harbor.
The characters head from the Pernley Bay Yacht Club up to the Municipal Building to confront Acting Magistrate Wilson Chen. Their initial opinion of the man is that he is useless, an opinion that ceases to matter when Peter draws a gun on him and demands to know where Apothecary Regis is hiding. The Acting Magistrate stands up from his chair very slowly, moves back from Peter's menacing gaze, speaks some words in a forbidden languages, and vanishes from sight.
The characters are stunned.
But only for a moment.
Sean Punch reacts in the most useful manner, clicking on his infrared vision and casting about for the Acting Magistrate. He spots the fellow's boot vanishing up from the top of a nearby open window. Rushing to the window, he is amazed to see the Acting Magistrate's ghostly image flying up to the top of the building. He fires at the man to no avail, then yells to the other characters, who take various actions that ultimately do not manage to slow the Acting Magistrate's escape down too much.
Peter Sangaree manages to find the office of the new Acting Magistrate, congratulates the fellow on his promotion, and extracts Wilson Chen's address from him. The characters and their escort of Hawkwood soldiers head to the house.
An ineffectual (but Antinomist) servant. Horrible bony, spiky lizard things. Mystical darkness.
These are the three highlights of Acting Magistrate Chen's townhouse. The characters pretty much run right over the servant, giving him such a stabbing as he'll not forget, then ransack the place. They find nothing worth any particularly special attention on the first two floors, but all that changes when they get to the third floor. The whole place is dark, with a darkness that their infrared gear and their lamps will not pierce. Sir Caine and Peter Sangaree head into the darkness anyway, weapons drawn and courage screwed tight to the sticking-place. Their daring is rewarded with a rather violent encounter with a pair of vile bony, spiky lizard things ("Pets!") that do their best to bash Sir Caine into pieces while crushing the life out of Peter Sangaree. Peter is eventually rescued by Sean Punch, who manages to laser one of the beasts into skirt steak. Sir Caine initially tries to hold his ground, but finds himself unable to hit his opponent while fighting blind. He then follows the sound of Sean Punch's voice and executes a fighting retreat, in the course of which he almost accidentally skewers the second lizard-thing dead.
The session ends with the characters in Pernley Bay, mopping up after their raid on Acting Magistrate Chen's townhouse. The local authorities (at least, the ones that are left) round up a wide list of suspects, including all of Apothecary Regis' former students, or at least all of them that they can find. The trials are expected take months to complete, and the authorities make it clear that they want the characters around to act as prosecution witnesses for several of them.
On the down side, both Apothecary Albert Regis and Acting Magistrate Wilson Chen are still at large.
Each character gains four experience points.