TNU Play Report 13: Transportation

With Parzival at least somewhat duped into their plan, the party sets up camp for several days while their smuggler allies go to fetch a way to transport the press. They expect to take 3 days to do so.

On the first day:

Akela shadows Cleo some more. She does not attempt to hide this. When Cleo asks why, Akela openly admits she is curious, to which Cleo says “if you have questions, you can ask them.” Akela states that if she has any, she will.

Almuund rests most of the day to recover a point of missing willpower. He also takes a moment to show Parzival and co the strange elevated river that manifests in the morning fog. Some mild argument ensues – some of them think it is a trick of the light, an optical illusion. Some of them think it is a sign of magic.

Hant also shadows Cleo, but for different reasons. He wants to purify his knowledge of the web spell, and wants to instrumentalize her to this end. He begins memorizing her habitual paths when leaving and returning to camp.

Parzival and co set up a large tent, and spend their time mostly playing cards. Miss Marlowe is an accomplished gambler. Parzival is okay at it. Constance and Ewan are not very good.

On the second day, Cleo returns early from her hunting to warn Akela that others are in the area. There is a group of six anarchists from the Thickets Collaboration (0208) wandering the woods and heading nearer. The party quickly confers and decides to use this to their advantage: Akela has implied that she has a buyer lined up in the Thickets Collaboration already, and if she can get these wanderers to cooperate, this could help legitimize that.

Almuund and Akela quickly move to intercept the anarchists, and almost begin speaking to them at cross purposes — Almuund to conceal the presence of the press, and Akela to bring them onboard with swindling the salvagers out of it. After some confusion, a plan is clarified: Almuund and Akela will return to camp, and in a few hours the anarchists will arrive, pretending to be emissaries of a party intending to purchase the press. They will inspect it, sign a few documents that Almuund will quickly draw up, and walk back into the woods.

During this conversation, some news from the Thickets Collaboration is shared: Nougat has not been seen outside his home for nearly a week, and the reason the wanderers are here is growing concern about the industrialist spy in 0310.

Almuund and Akela return to camp, quickly convince Hant to sacrifice a blank page of his spellbook to the cause, and draft a bill of sale. When the anarchists arrive a few hours later, Almuund puts his full skill at grifting into convincingly talking up the press and its value, for the benefit of the observing Parzival and co. The anarchists feign to talk it over, and sign the forged document Almuund hands to them. They then abscond before further scrutiny can be put on them. “Payment upon delivery,” Parzival is told.

On the third day, Hant performs his purification ritual and it goes even more weirdly than he sets out to make it. His plan was to weave a net in which he would entangle and hoist Cleo, to symbolize a spider entangling its prey. He manages to put it in her path and hoist her ewok-style, and then sets about watching from hiding as she frees herself. As she is swearing profusely and planning how to best disentangle herself without injury, a horseman emerges from the woods, seeming bemused at Cleo’s plight. It appears identical to the one Hant previously encountered. After a tense minute of examination, it cuts the ropes down and trots off into the woods, leaving the shaken Cleo to disentangle herself. Hant enters the clearing feigning surprise and concern, though not entirely feigning his discomfort at the presence of the horseman. He asks a few leading questions, and Cleo says that when the sword was swung to sever the rope it was the horse that was looking to aim. “I think things like that are the reason we have the wall,” she says to Hant, who laughs coldly.

Cleo is now deeply suspicious of Hant, and deeply interested in killing and eating the horseman.

Benjamin and his smugglers get back with an ill gotten but sturdy cart later that day. They load the press aboard it and prepare to travel in the morning.

It is another three days of wheeling the cart along the river to get to the crossroads. The woods beside the party become more overgrown with blackberry bramble as they walk downstream.

On the second day, a patrol of six Merchant-Industrialist militiamen, accompanied by a mule pulling a bombard, shout from across the river for the party to halt. They wish to inspect the cargo (and really want an excuse to try their toy). Four wade across to look at the press and harangue the travelers, and when one goes to touch the press, Akela grabs his arm. There is a moment of tension as all parties size up whether to fight or flee. The militiaman realizes Akela could break him in half, and so backs down and instructs the party to go on their way. He retreats across the river with his compatriots, and they begin cajoling the mule along the river.

When the party reaches the crossroads, the bombardiers are still tailing them.


The occult futurists in the north are hitting the part of their journey that will necessitate its own discrete report when I finish figuring it out. Expect that soon!