Prep work for REAL Score

[This whole session was conducted over Discord. Every player (except Deacon) connected to the voice channel on my server to talk, and I "live-streamed" my desktop, so they could see the map, their character sheets, PDF rules, and a dice roller. Blades in the Dark is a narrative system rather than a table-top war-game type system so it works well in this environment. ]

Rita the party brightspark, a priestess of REAL, was awake [Ian was here this week], so the party had to cease their lucrative working for IMAG. Ronny [Deacon] was marmalading.

Rita's immediate supervising priestess Colleen Sanford had some work for a "competent group". The REAL High Priest himself, Igor Lightmouth, had directed Colleen thus.

In light of (cliched REAL pun) the recent Gobulin occultation in the sky, and the IMAG foundling that was now known to be in the city, and the new IMAG shrine in the Dock area, the REALs had received support from the Grand High Tabernacle in Spite (ten day's travel away) and a REAL notable named Concetta "The Light of REAL" Faddon was being sent to Scabport to try to counter the growing darkness.

Blue line is the proposed path

The REALs were quite confident that they could protect the notable, but, nevertheless, they arranged a diversion, a decoy who was a REAL priestess named Olivia Phan, hoping to divert any malcontents away from the true target. So, Olivia was what the Rita's crew was tasked to escort and protect. They could be as flashy and, well, distracting as they wished.

Olivia would arrive at the anti-gate of Scabport, at one bell, in seven day's time. And from that point on, would be escorted by the group.

She was arriving with four stalwart body-guards but they would not enter Scabport (for Health and Safety reasons, and the employee insurance excess got very steep when one entered Scabport).

The party spent a while planning on how to transport her. They would use their new wagon "Carte Blanche" and take her to the docks, then put her on the shallop, and sail over to the other side of the harbour, and then transport her to the REAL temple.

What could go wrong?

They had seven days to burn.

Corp Anton Chung

Sonny Bowens, of the Bronze Studs, contacted the group. Corporal Anton Chung (Knives Night Gate Guard commander) was making angry noises about his lack of contact with Rita.

Owing to the fact that Rita was marmalading, certain individual members of the party had given Chung vastly hyperbolic and excessive  promises about how much Rita wanted him, and they waxed lyrical upon the degenerate sexual acts that she would perform upon him when they met. He wanted a date, and he was getting very impatient and intransigent.

El Cid [Shane] was dying for a fight to test his new magical brawling fists of shadow. So, Huilam [Jamie] challenged Chung in El Cid's stead. With Rita "as the prize", Chung was quite happy to do it.

Sonny arranged for the fight to happen at the Grapefruit and Corselette. So, the whole party turned up to watch. Rita was given a throne of honour to sit by the ring.

It was to be a brawling fight with no weapons nor armour. Attlee [Kevin] and Burrito [Darryl] placed bets with the bookies (on El Cid).

The first round was spent with El Cid and Chung dancing around the ring with feints and blocks, getting each other's measure. The second round had them land a few futile blows. But during the third round, Chung got inside El Cid's guard and landed a huge hit to his jaw.

El Cid flew a good ten paces across the room, out of the ring, and he crashed into the bar. He was stunned and out of the fight.

[ El Cid's was fighting from a Desperate Position (Chung was a superb brawler) so he should have received a Level 3 injury: his jaw broken in two places, and teeth and blood filled his mouth. Well, that could have been the case, but Shane made a Resistance roll and that reduced it to a level 2 injury: dislocated jaw. El Cid also has the cutter feat Tough as Nails so that reduced the damage to a level 1 injury: sore jaw. A Resistance roll does not change the result of the action ("El Cid loses the fight"), but it does reduce the harm ("El Cid almost killed"). ]

Anton was lifted up and carried around the room on the shoulders of his cheering men.

Then Chung approached Rita, and suddenly hoisted her up and put her over his shoulder.

"To the victor, the spoils," he leered.

Rita cast a Command spell and ordered him to put her down.

He complied graciously, but he wouldn't leave until she agreed to a dinner and a show, at the Millpond Inn (poshest inn in Scabport).

NEXT TIME, The actual score.