Inn Too Deep - Part 3

General Summary

Last Time...

Kade's Crusaders entered the top floor of the Vestra Inn and discovered a 126 Hands gunnery crew holed up there. The party smashed through this resistance, killing all but one of the Hands and taking the remaining member captive. The Crusaders interogated their captive, learned about the 125 Hands and their goals, and found out that the Hands thought a Voxelian intelligence packet was secreted away in the Inn. Having not found the staff or guests of the inn so far (and thus, having not found the cylinder they were after), the party set off towards the sealed basement access in the hopes that the truth lay below their feet...

Session 3 began with Kade's Crusaders getting ready to breach the (thus far unopened) utility room at the northeastern corner of the Inn. Longhand and Kade stayed back and Noir kept an eye out for the approach of the Grand Army of Voxelia unit while Deimos helped Lupara open the locked utility room door. The party had initially considered knocking - in the hopes that the staff was safely holed up in the basement - or, alternatively, ripping the door away to provide immediate access, but cooler heads ultimately prevailed.

Getting to the Base of the Problem

Once the way was opened, Lupara and Noir used their preeminent stealth skills to descend the metal staircase into the upper basement undetected. Lupara could smell people and emission gasses; the two mercenaries heard the sounds of whispering and a quiet-running engine within the space, but couldn't see around the wall that divided the stairwell (in the northeast corner) from the rest of the room. Lupara peeked around the corner and saw an Exhaust Whip-wielding 125 Hands heavy clad in PBA-5 "Pioneer" Main Battle Auto-Armor. The heavy was guarding a group of captives - though, without uniforms, it was impossible to distinguish between the Inn staff and guests - and closely watching the area just beyond the stairwell for the opportunity to surprise any would-be rescuers. Lupara conveyed this information to the others, who started debating what the best course of action would be. Meanwhile, Lupara and Noir waited for the heavy to be distracted, then skirted along the southern perimeter of the room to cover behind some provisions barrels in the southwest corner.
After some deliberation, Deimos and Longhand decided to attempt negotiations with the Hands heavy. Deimos allowed one of the pauldrons of his HC-1 "Meantwig" Hazardous Condition Auto-Armor to show, but the heavy didn't initially react, manifestly waiting for a proper chance at an ambush. Longhand called out to the heavy, identifying himself as a member of local Vestrai law enforcement looking to get the hostages out. The heavy agreed to allow one female verdial staff member go as a sign of good faith, but refused to let any more go until he was given the Voxelian intelligence package the Hands 'knew' had been dropped off in the Inn by a Bard-Recursant. The party failed the relevant rolls to know what Bards-Recursant were, and they (incorrectly) assumed it had something to do with some sort of rare and valuable artwork or poetry.
The party wasn't sure of what to make of the heavy's insistence on the intelligence packet (just what exactly was D.D. after?) but they knew they had to get their contact, the receptionist, and get here to safety as soon as possible or risk mission failure. To do this, Longhand casually inserted a phrase about "His Grace's Ledger" (see Inn Too Deep for details) into his negotiations. This made the receptionist, a Human woman right next to the heavy, quietly perk up. Unfortunately, another captive woman - who was, coincidentally, a real Bard-Recursant - in the basement recognized that this was some sort of passphrase, though the party didn't realize this slip-up in their plan until a little later.

Agressive Negotiations

During negotiations, Lupara and Noir noted that the heavy had moved further back from the stairwell, putting anyone who descended the stairs in the sights of his 20mm Grease Gun while putting more of the hostages within the range of his exhaust whip. It was increasingly clear to the pair that, given this change in the heavy's stance, a peaceable solution was unlikely.
Thinking quickly, Longhand offered to provide the intelligence the heavy was looking for. Longhand and Cade scrambled upstairs to the receptionist's desk and, finding a briefcase there, packed it with the contents of the receptionist's waste paper basket. Longhand slid this decoy out to where the heavy could see it. The heavy cautiously approached - and gave up his safe position at the back of the room.
Thinking quickly, Lupara and Noir leapt from hiding. Noir hurled a bundle of irritant grenades at the heavy, blinding him through the gaps in the unsealed Pioneer neck gaskets. Lupara used the distraction to take the heavy's back and wrest away control of the armor's engine from its operator, shutting it down. Cade stepped around the corner and used his miniaturized RTC "Thunder Caster" Area Denial Weapon to further restrain the heavy, entangling the man such that he only scarecely able to pull the trigger on his weapon and little else. Then, Cade bounded into the room on his springy Auto-Stilt legs, shoulder-checking the heavy out of reach of the hostages. While Cade, Deimos, and Noir moved in to hammer away at the downed heavy, Longhand and Lupara started escorting the hostages upstairs. The heavy was too enraged to think clearly and decided to abandon his auto-armor to take the fight to Cade, who was in melee range; the heavy, now free to move but otherwise unprotected save for the shirt on his back, was subsequently dispatched in short order. Lupara entered the now-abandoned Pioneer and re-activated it, claiming it as intact salvage.

Fly-By-Night

As the hostages were escorted out, Cade and Noir followed most of the group up. Longhand lagged behind with Lupara, Deimos, and the hostage they had identified as the receptionist under the guise of 'clearing the room.' Longhand gave the receptionist the passphrase. The receptionist, shaken as she was, soon steadied herself and showed the party the secret entrance to the lower basement behind the wine racks at the northwest corner of the upper basement. She and Lupara then remained in the upper basement as lookouts in case anyone decided to go back down into the basement, and the secret door was closed behind Longhand and Deimos.
Meanwhile, upstairs, the female hostage (who the party didn't realize was a Bard yet) tried to convince Cade that she needed to go back down to retrieve her 'friend.' Cade was not suspicious yet, but when he told her not to go for her own safety, she changed tack. She told Cade that she knew the party were GAV soldiers working for the Bards-Recursant and implied that the Bards were a secret service of the Voxelian military, as though she only knew of them in passing but was ultimately loyal to them. She further insisted that it was vitally important that, whoever they were working with, the 'intelligence packet' could not fall into the hands of the enemy. Cade seemed receptive to this line of reasoning, but Noir's keen Ovinex sensibilities told her that something was amiss. Noir gave Cade a silent neck-cutting motion, signalling that the woman was lying and to cease this line of inquiry. Cade saw this and immediately clammed up, telling the woman to go wait with the other hostages until the issue was resolved.
In the lower basement, Deimos and Longhand discovered that the inn was sitting atop a secret Sorority of Solace medical facility. The head nurse approached in auto-armor, as if to protect this base, but Longhand offered the passphrase given to the party by D.D. and warned her about the situation upstairs. The head nurse gave the pair the coded gasket cylinder and, when Longhand asked, told them that it was vitally important that no one find out about the facility due to the fact that it operated on a non-partisan basis and, therefore, there were patients that were likely to become prisoners of war in the event of the facility's discovery. Dr. Deimos agreed - he had had previous experience with the Sorority, since they had treated him after his Billowing Hate exposure.
While the nurse and the two party members waited at the top of the access stairs, waiting for a clear moment to emerge, Longhand asked her why she was working with D.D. The nurse explained that D.D. had once done them a great favor in getting justice for the Sorority (see the article on the Midnight Griller) and that whatever he was planning would ultimately serve the cause of justice. Satisfied with this response, the party members left, resealed the secret door behind them, and made for the ground floor.
Ultimately, the party decided that it would be best for them to leave before the Voxelian forces arrived and posed further questions. They tucked an extra banana peel into their decoy intelligence packet and handed it off to the woman who had been working Cade over earler, telling her to keep this 'poetry' safe for the 'bards' (only Cade knew who the Bards actually were at this point). With that, the party exited through the demolished back wall of the inn and made a dash for their airship still at the landing pad, looking back only long enough to see the Voxelian commander leaving the front door of the inn and looking for the party, his absconding allies.

A Job Well Done

After the adventure at the Vestra Inn, the party made for Club 105 to make the drop-off; the travails of entering and moving through Vivaldi Peak as a group of Voxelian-looking mercenaries was an adventure left for another time. The story ended with the party retrieving their pay and a letter of thanks from D.D., who expressed a desire to work with them another time soon...

Achievement Progress

• Velvet Gloves - Retrieve the cylinder without being detected.
• Honorary Sister - Complete the mission though total non-violence and without losing any guests or staff members.
• Jester's Job - Complete the mission by working alongside the Grand Army of Voxelia and letting them take the cylinder.
• Crumbling Pillars - Complete the mission by working alongside the 125 Hands and letting them take the cylinder.
• Midnight - Complete the mission with no survivors.
• Botched Bounty - Fail to conceal the cylinder's presence from witnesses until it can be retrieved from Club 105.
• Hero of the Vestrai - In Scenario II, enter the Upper Basement undetected and safely extract the staff and guests from the Inn.
• Duke's Due - Complete the mission by recovering the cylinder and stashing it at Club 105, per instructions.

Next Time, Under the Manifold Sky...

In The Shadows of Rockspade (date TBD)