We get back to the HQ.  Foggy goes through the books, and we sell the rest to the Silver Nails for 4 coin.  We gained some rep from the job,   but decide to not push our tier up as it would cost us everything and really give us mixed results.

Foggy studies the books and is able to gain insight into his demon, completing the long term project.  He also is able to heal himself and reduce some stress.  Raven also reduced his stress and increased his skills.  Crowl reduced his stress.  Reynard overindulges and is kicked out of his cult.  He needs to find a new voice.

Foggy is able to contact his demon through the spirit focus.  Its name is Tanigoth and it is the demon with a thousand mouths.  It is all about sowing Chaos.  In the past it has latched on to specific individuals to create chaos and destroy cities.  It has been missing for 150 years, but is now Foggy’s buddy.

Reynard was kicked out of his cult because he was seen talking to someone from the Silver Nails.  He knows the Circle of Flame has many ancient artifacts and is dangerous.

We go to talk to our contact from the Silver Nails, Tuhan.  The bartender also lets us know that the Dimmer sisters have put out a bounty for information on the break in of their mansion.  If we know anything we should talk to their agent, Darrow.  Some bluecoats also shove their way into the bar.

After some time Tuhan comes in and goes to the back, away from the bluecoats.  We talk to him about stealing some books from the cult that is looking for Khotar.  These could also point us to valuable stuff for the Lost District.

We decide this is too dangerous and instead decide to frame the Cabbies for the book theft.  Reynard cases the place and sees that they have boosted some security and boarded some windows, but not impossible.  Raven and Kit sneak into the place with the books, prying off the boards and slipping into one of the offices.  As Raven slips in he hears voices from one of the other offices.  Raven tries to hide and wait.  One of the people comes out, but the other stays.  Raven listens at one door and hears snoring, then sneaks into the storage room across the hall.  He hides the books behind the drawers of some filing cabinets then sneaks out.   He drinks his silence potion then replaces the boards as he is leaving the window.

Meanwhile Foggy zones out and is told by his demon that there must be blood tonight.  Reynard notices something is wrong.  Foggy tells him about the command.  Reynard throws something across to the opposite side of the roof to distract from the replacement of boards.  Raven takes 2 tries, but is able to replace the boards and escape.

Meanwhile Foggy tries to call a ghost and fails.  We slip into the night.

Foggy finds a cabbie to possess, then has a ghost take him over and write “The sisters will have their revenge”  before the cabbie slits his owns throat.  He makes a devils bargain with a ghost that will help him but will haunt him after.  The ghost has the cabbie writes the message in blood on his tip money, then commit suicide.  The ghost then introduces himself as Nerix and starts following Foggy.

Foggy also starts looking for followers of Tanigoth.  He finds them in Nightmarket, in a small shack that serves as their headquarters.

Next morning we go to Amancio and make a deal to give him the info about the cabbies having the sister’s books, in return for him getting a share of the information.    After some bargaining he agrees, and later in the day we see that there is a story about the cabbies hitting the Dimmer Sisters in the paper.

The next morning Bert and Ernie say they need to go see Harold because the guy with the eye patch was asking about us.  We go to the bar.  He asks for protection, which we provide in return for one coin.

Over the next few days there are incidents between the cabbies and dimmer sisters.  after some back and forth, the dimmer Sisters knock of the Cabbies Headquarters and find the books, while reducing the status of the cabbies.  The Silver Nails also go against the Dimmer Sisters but fail.  We gain some turf and pick up a loyal fence.

Amancio calls us back and says they only paid out 14 instead of 20, and he still is going to take his 6, so we only get 8 coin.

<out of game>  The party all resist the harm we took last time.  Remember to do this for harm in the future. </out of game>

There are ghosts flying all over the cabbies’ garage.  We decide we have caused enough trouble and leave without sabotaging any cabs.  However several guards are dead and there are ghosts all over their HQ.  We leave the way we came in and head for our lair.

We get 4 coin and gain some rep with the gondoliers.  Our wanted level goes up to one, as this was a noisy and chaotic score.  The gondoliers start bragging about the score, which costs us some of our rep.  We also acquire a cohort of skulks to help our gang scout and acquire information.  Bert and Ernie are loyal to us because we pulled them out of another gang.  They won’t do anything against kids.  They do party on the weekends.

The crew goes off to work on their own stuff.  Eklipsis disappears after over indulging.  A new member joins the crew, Crowl, a Skovlan fighter.

We decide for our next score that we want to help Foggy learn more about his demon.  We start collecting information about the Dimmer sisters.

Bert and Ernie go in to investigate.  The come back all torn up and tell us about the guard with a dog who caught them. Not much else is known.  Crowl and Reynard go back to the mansion and look for the guard.  We notice a pattern of when the guard and his dog take breaks.  We also spot a building on the west where they can grapple across.   It is an old abandoned hotel.    Reynard could snipe from the building.

Foggy talks to Harrold the bartender.  He tells Foggy top come back the next day and meet someone.  The whole crew goes back and spreads out around the bar.  Foggy is introduced to the Silver Nails gang member Tuhan who is Severosi.  We find out that the sisters have 20 members and many are at the mansion.  They tried to implant a ghost in a human host.  He also lets us know that the Silver Nails have rings that prevent possession and allow them to go outside of the lightning barrier.  He says he knows who we are and that we helped to take them down the lawyer possessing people.  Therefore he is open to helping us.   He will try to get us some knowledge about the layout of the building.

We eventually get some rough drawn maps of the compound.

We get up on the roof in the dark of night and start making our way in from the abandoned hotel.  Crowl drops some drugged meat through the fence and the dog eats it.  Raven and Foggy slip across a rope to the building.  They enter on the second floor where the notes say the labs are located.

The room is very dusty and smells of mildew and disuse.  They move to the door and peer out,.  They see a long hallway with many other doors.  One has light and noise behind it.  Foggy looks through the keyhole.  Someone is laying on a couch and talking to themselves.  They move down the hall to a set of double doors.  As they pass a stairway they see a ghost that appears to be human moving on the first floor.  The slip past and find a magically double door.  Foggy sees it has magical energy, but he is open to open it.  It makes a loud noise when he does and he hears a sniff from back on the first floor.  The slip into the room and shut the door behind them.  The room is a library with bars over the window.  Raven sets up a line to send bags of books down to Crowl.  Then he and Foggy start searching the books and getting quantity and quality of books.  Foggy finds a book that will help him study the demon.  They and many of the other books go in the bag and down the line, but some of the books slip out.

The ghost is trying to break through the door so Raven signals for the distraction.  Crowl causes an explosion that is bigger than expected and actually starts the house across the street on fire.  People from the mansion move that way.  Meanwhile Foggy attunes to the ghost, partially.  He tells it to do whatever it wants.  It starts to come apart and screams really loud.  They race past the ghost and back to the entry point where they make their escape.

(Foggy and Raven took a Desperate action to escape, mark 1xp each)

The crew investigates more into Veldren’s disappearance. They go to the headquarters of the Red Sashes. Eklipsis and Reynard meet with one of their sword instructors, Ms. Thena Sankara, who greets them and offers them tea. Eklipsis uses her Iruvian heritage to her advantage in the conversation and gets Ms. Sankara to look at the brooch that they found. She recognizes it as a symbol of the Circle of Flame, which is an underground organization that positions itself as a group of scholars, but Ms. Sankara explains that the Red Sashes have run up against them before and they have a darker side.

She doesn’t specifically know Veldren, but she mentions a nearby opium den in Charhollow that houses a lot of people like him, who use drugs to create visions and expand their consciousness. The place is at the cross streets of Taylor’s Ave. & Ash Way. Eklipsis thanks her and they head out.

Later at the opium den, which is a large but nasty place in the sub-basement of another building, the group finds a gathering of degenerates and ask them about Veldren. One man with an unkempt appearance and very few teeth offers that Veldren used to come here often, but hasn’t been around in a few weeks. He points out the bunk that Veldren usually uses, however he expects a payday for the information he’s given. Reynard finds a leather bound journal in a pile next to the bunk. The toothless man asks for payment for the info but Eklipsis just gives him a brass penny. The man isn’t happy but the crew just leaves.

Back at the lair, Eklipsis studies the journal and most of it is gibberish, but some sections actually make sense. There are references to an eagle, and that those who follow the eagle will use its eye, its claw, and its heart to destroy their enemies. It also says that “the seven are one, but the one in seven is a destroyer.” Reynard recalls that in his dealings with the Circle of Flame, since he knows some of them, they do mention ancient relics called the eye, hand, and heart that they are seeking. The party thinks that Veldren may have been kidnapped by the Circle because they think he has information about these relics, or perhaps because he knows too much.

Eklipsis goes to Stazia’s apothecary shop and lays out everything that she’s found so far about Veldren’s disappearance. Stazia is shocked to hear that the Circle of Flame may be responsible. He says that he doesn’t have much clout to go against a big organization like the Circle, but if Veldren were returned he would offer the group 2 coin. He is a good friend, and he also helps Stazia with testing out his concoctions.

The party considers having Reynard talk with the Silver Nails, who are a group of Severosis who oppose the Circle of Flame. However, it’s decided that this is too risky and they will try to take some turf from the Cabbies instead. They will break into one of their nearby hubs where the goats and carriages are stored and sabotage the carriages so they will break down and cause them to lose customers.

They slide over to the building from a nearby abandoned structure and Raven gets across expertly, but the other 3 almost fall and he has to catch them with another rope. Reynard sends Kit into the building to scout and she sees 6 guards on this level. There are storage crates and offices but most of them are locked.

Eklipsis and Raven sneak in, and Eklipsis uses her blowgun to deliver a dose of drugs to one of the guards at the top of the stairs. He becomes confused and starts to see shapes. His friend is distracted by this and Raven goes to take out his legs. He does knock the other man down, but his lantern shatters on the floor and the other guards are close to alerted.

Eklipsis tries to shoot another dart but sucks it in by accident and drugs herself. Raven slams into the second guard with his elbow as he is trying to get up and both of them land in a nearby office unconscious.

Foggy calls a ghost and scares off one of the guards, but another one saps him in the back of the head.

Eklipsis and Raven head downstairs under the cover of their cloak but they trip and land hard at the bottom. There are four guards near them but luckily they are not seen. The guards hear the noise upstairs and rush there to find out what is going on.

While Reynard and Foggy continue to fight off the guards, Eklipsis and Raven rush past the goats and desperately try to sabotage the carriages. The acid is not working quickly however, and they are not making progress. (0 of 6 segments filled in on the clock.)

Reynard tries to hide from the guards, but in doing so overturns a cabinet in one of the offices and it lands on his leg, fracturing it.

Foggy decides to pull out the stops and produces the Spirit Focus, quickly attuning to it before the guards get to him. He immediately sees a landscape of a blasted plane and a clear sky, with the sun beating down on him. A shape descends from the sun, a pulsing sphere with tendrils reaching out from it, and at the end of each tendril is a mouth. They are muttering, singing and screaming. It turns to Foggy and asks him what he wants. Foggy asks for everyone to be scared off, and the thing agrees to do this but says there will be a price later.

No time has passed in reality, and the spirit focus activates, sending spirits crashing through the floor, breaking a huge hole into it. They stream out and go into the five remaining guards, possessing them. One man has so many spirits go into him that his head explodes and he dies instantly. Another is carried off by the spirits and the others pass out.

The noise has caused a lot of attention, as alarms go off and people come from the outside to see what is going on. Two of the garage doors open as well.

Foggy noticed that when attacking, the two ghosts could not go through the broken wall — they bounce off of it like it’s still there. He tries to attune to the two spirits attacking him again but they will not leave him alone. Reynard pulls his pistols and points them at the man at the door, saying that he should walk out of there and leave them alone. The man freezes but wonders what they are doing “in the master’s house” and tells them to leave.

Raven jumps under a desk, not wanting to be seen by the man.

Reynard goes after the man, closing the distance quickly but the man steps out of the room and trips him as he comes through the door. Reynard sprawls onto the floor and drops his pistols. Kit follows her master and tries to jump at the man, but also misses.

Foggy tries a different tactic and just tries to talk with the ghosts instead of attuning to them. They surprisingly respond and ask if they are not the master of the house, who are they. Foggy says that they are trying to help the ghosts determine what is going on. The ghosts seem to agree and hang back, watching to see what happens next. Their names are Nigel and Alex, and they can’t say why they want to go through the barrier downstairs, but they feel compelled to. They don’t remember what happened when they were still alive but it was something horrible.

The crew heads downstairs and notice a foul smell. They turn on the lights to find a huge laboratory with lots of equipment and potions, as well as torture devices that seem well used (i.e. still full of blood and gore). Toward the back of the room there is a large locked pen with at least 20 people in it.

Eklipsis looks at the potions and sees that some of these are highly dangerous and illegal — they may be used to separate someone’s soul from their body. Looking at the people in the pen, Foggy realizes that this is what’s happened to them, they are “hulls” which are people who have been separated from their spirit but have been left alive.

Eklipsis unlocks the cell with her lockpicks and they look at the people inside. Two of the hulls look similar to the two ghosts who were upstairs. They lead the hulls upstairs “Weekend at Bernie’s style” and the ghosts inhabit the bodies, and after a moment they wake up. They are very weak, filthy and starving, but they are alive.

With the help of Nigel and Alex, they bring the others upstairs and Foggy calls out to the spirits in the area to see if the rest of them are hanging around. Soon all of the spirits come back to their bodies, now that they have been brought through the barrier. In speaking with the people, the crew finds out that some of them were employees of the house, and some were visitors and guests who had come to Mr. Charles’ parties and were kidnapped and tortured by him.

Reynard spends some time looking for valuables inside the Charles residence before they leave. He finds a small safe in the office where the accountant was working. Eklipsis opens it with ease and finds 4 coin inside.

Reynard sends out a signal to Lady Drake’s security forces who were standing by to come in if needed. They pour through the front entrance, much to the surprise of the Bluecoats patrolling the area, and take the people to safety. They let the security men know about the accountant and they take him as well. The crew escapes through their entrance point on the second floor.

A couple of days later, they visit Lady Drake at her office. She offers them drinks and congratulates them on a successful job. They outline everything that happened and she seems disgusted by the descriptions of the people in the pen who had been tortured. She says that in full disclosure, she had her suspicions about Charles but didn’t know the extent of his depravity. Thanks to the evidence that the Ethereal Hand provided, Charles was arrested and is pending charges.

The crew retires for some well deserved downtime before their next score.

(Eklipsis has her 2 downtime actions remaining)

We keep working on the barred door.  Eklipsis tries to open the lock again using the acid and is able to pop the lock.  The door is unlocked.  Raven pops his head through the trap door.  It is a dusty warehouse.  He hears some guards, but none are in sight.  He starts looking around for the cases in question.  He finds the right boxes, but he makes a small noise and the guards hear something.  Foggy follows him up, but he makes even more noise and the guards are alerted.  Foggy and Raven find the right crate with the spirit focus and lift it, then they start moving towards the door.

With the guards charging in, Eklipsis throws a rock across the warehouse to draw their attention.   It distracts one of the guards, but the rest are still moving towards us.  We quickly slip through the door and hold it shut from the bottom.

The guards try pulling it up from the top, which causes Raven to lose his grip and fall.  He suffers a sprained ankle.  The box also falls and breaks open.   Foggy picks up the spirit focus and is instantly enthralled by it.  He gets in the barge.  Eklipsis is able to help Raven to the barge, then runs back to grab whatever is left.  She is successful, but one of the guards sees her face.   She jumps into the barge and they pull away with the loot.   The guards shout stop and say they can try to cut us off.  The barge master know another way out, but it goes close to the spirit well.

We start paddling in that direction.  While we are moving Foggy attunes to the spirit well and many of the spirits are released.  Most flow down the tunnel to where the guards were headed, but one heads straight to wards Foggy.  His mask protects him, but he does take some harm.  Pandemonium erupts on the street above us, and we are able to get away.

We are able to get paid for the score, but Darmot, our bluecoat contact, is called in because he was seen talking to strangers.  We lose him as a contact.  Eklipsis visits the Sister Thorn gang and indulges her vice.  She is also successful in framing someone else with the Bluecoats, so the heat on our gang is reduced.  Reynard trains in his insight skill, and also indulges his vice to reduce stress.    Raven visits Reynard’s physicker friend Melvir to try and heal his ankle.  He also indulges his vice to reduce stress.  Foggy also visits the physicker and reduces his stress.  We also rack up coin and experience.

Reynard and Eklipsis head over to the address that Stazia gave them for Veldren, to see if he is okay.  The head over to Crowsfoot, which is a sooty, dirty area.  Lots of factories, warehouses, and coal burning enterprises.  We go into a tenement house which was his last known location.  Kit and Reynard look around the building.  Kit smells something very strong from under the door, and also outside, but finds no bad guys.  Eklipsis picks the lock and open the door.  There is a strong chemical smell as we enter the room, and the place looks tossed.  There is no body present, but we look for clues and Reynard finds drag marks, but the disappear in the hallway. He also finds a broken clasp from a piece of clothing. Kit is able to follow the scent from the clasp, which heads north, but then fades away due to all the smells of the city.

Eklipsis reports back with this information. We show him the half broach  and he asks us to look around for possible matches.

Meanwhile we decide to walk past the house that Darmot was asked to guard.  Our goal is to find something that will help him get back into the good graces of the Bluecoats.  Kit slips into the house and starts looking around. Some areas of the house are covered in tarps because things are broken. He finds one room which appears to be a library, but most of the wall is taken up been paintings and those have been pulled down and shredded. The destroyed paintings are of certain subjects that seems to have been destroyed multiple times. The same portraits seems to have been destroyed over and over.  Kit hears foot steps and escapes, but is not able to identify who was in the portraits that were destroyed.

We set up a meeting with Lady Drake to see if the City Council can help us gain access to the house.  She is in an office surrounded by security.  She is a striking woman, but with a little too much make up.  Foggy talks to her and she says the building is owned by Frederick Charles, who is extravagant and noisy. He is and adjunct to the City Council and he is a lawyer. He is very full of himself. She admits that the the bluecoats have been unable to solve this, and she asks that the bluecoats not be involved or aware that we have done this. She asks that we help her take credit for solving the mystery.

We decide to stealth into the entry point.  Raven helps us slip across to a balcony and we all slip across silently.  Eklipsis picks the lock and slides the door open.  We go in and Kit slips ahead.  She sees a light and smells a human.  She sees the silhouette of a person and hears the scratching of a quill on paper.  On her way back she senses ghosts in the room with the books and portraits.  She has gotten to o close to the ghosts, and two ghost dogs appear and growl at her.

We hustle down to the room and enter to see the ghosts.  Foggy attunes to the dogs and lets them know that we are not a threat.  They step back and disappear.  We look around and all of the destroyed portraits are pictures of Frederick Charles.  The energy in this room is seething evil, and especially with these paintings.  All of these paintings and the wall they are on is evil.  We investigate the wall and find a crack.  However when we pull on the crack the whole wall falls in.  The noise attracts two more ghosts with mutilated faces and open wounds who come up through the floor.

Raven and Reynard are closest to the ghosts and take stress and  ghost fright.  We also hear noise from the other room.  However in front of us we see a set of stairs that go down.  Foggy tries to attune to the ghosts, but they fail and attack him instead.  He avoids harm, but is not able to compel them.

We also have an older gaunt man with whispy hair appear in the hallway.  He sees us, and pulls a long knife. <scene>

The Ethereal Hand is an up-and coming gang in the Charhollow neighborhood of Duskvol. The current membership consists of Reynard, a hound; Eklipsis, a leech; Raven, a lurk; and Foggy, a whisper.

They reside in a tower in the Old Village section of Charhollow, which is an abandoned abbey. This area is teeming with working class people and they are high above.

So far they have been able to add quarters to their lair, so everyone can sleep there. However, the materials they used were stolen from the Cabbies, so that group is antagonistic to the Hand at the moment.

The Hand are looking to operate in the Charterhall area which is home to the government offices and university of Duskvol. They pay off the City Council (1 coin) so they can operate here.

The Council also provided to them some documents about local figures (double XP for training Insight skills) and the Hand pay 1 coin to increase their relationship with the Council.

Trying to decide what they could do for their first job as a gang, the Hand consults Fitz, a collector with a large antique store in the market district of Charhollow who also happens to be a member of the sect “The Path of Echoes” which believe that the traditional wisdom of the Church of Ecstasy is wrong. They often commune with the dead.

Fitz’ store is about to close for the evening, but the members of the Hand are waved in and led to the back room where Fitz is enjoying some kind of a drug out of a hookah. He blows a cloud of purple smoke and asks the gang what they are interested in. They explain that they are looking for work, and he says that he has just recently gotten in some artifacts from Tycheros, which is where Raven hails from. Raven seems interested.

Fitz explains that three of the boxes from his Tycheros shipment are being held by the bluecoats across the river in Charterhall at a warehouse. They often hold things that they consider contraband without any warning and keep them there as long  as they wish. Some of the items are war artifacts like old swords and shields, and some are vases that are quite old and fragile. One of the items is a strange relic called a Spirit Focus. Fitz says that if his items may be procured, he would pay the group for their trouble.

Fitz also has several other Tycheros artifacts like clockwork toys that depict monstrous people, and also some vases. Reynard asks for items from Severos, the nomadic tribes, and Fitz shows him a statuette of a horse rearing up.

Foggy asks for more information about the Spirit Focus artifact, and Fitz dusts off an old tome that is from the Path of Echoes’ own knowledge of arcana. It depicts the Spirit Focus as a square object with a hole sort of like a frame, that is made out of glass or some bright material. It is a beacon for spirits, and when activated they will approach the device.

Foggy reads more and discovers that with a skilled practitioner, the Spirit Focus can be made to not only call spirits, but direct them and cause them to harry or attack someone. He does not reveal this to Fitz.

The Hand accepts the job and goes off to find more info. First, Raven goes to his friend Darmot, a bluecoat, probably the only honest one in town. The man seems upset and he explains that his boss has been all over his ass about one of the local diplomat’s vacation homes (normally empty) who keeps getting broken into. It’s happened five times over the past several weeks and the bluecoats are stumped. Nothing is stolen, but windows and furniture are regularly broken. Raven asks Darmot about the warehouse and he specifies the location and says that it is heavily guarded.

The Hand case the warehouse and find that there are three entrances, one to the south, one to the east, and a large garage door to the west. There are normally three guards at the garage door and two at each other door during the night, and one less at each during the day. Reynard’s dog is able to see that the storage area is to the west and there are offices on the east side and pallet jacks in the middle area.

Searching through the canals, Reynard scopes things first and then draws a map for Raven. He notes that there is a spirit well and a group of spirit wardens nearby that Raven shouldn’t go near. Raven follows the map and sees a ladder that leads up to a barred doorway with a thick metal lock made out of a dark gray steel.

Eklipsis wonders how she can open the lock and visits Stazia, an apothecary friend of hers. Stazia is a short balding man with dark skin and a thick accent. He mixes Eklipsis a strong acid that will help her break through the lock. He says to only use a few drops and gives her a glass eyedropper.

Before Eklipsis leaves, Stazia asks her to check on their mutual friend Veldren, who was in a few weeks ago to buy a bunch of materials but hasn’t been seen since. Stazia is worried that he has overdosed.

The Hand go back to Fitz and ask for a gondola to take them back to the access door in the canals. Fitz agrees but he says that the money will have to come off of their pay. Reynard has an idea to cause a distraction with a beer cart outside the warehouse. He plans to have the beer spill everywhere and cause a scene so the others can get to the score undetected. Again, Fitz agrees but says it will come off of their cut of the score.

At the appointed time, during the day, Reynard indeed drives by the east entrance and makes a big scene with spilled beer, drawing the attention of many bluecoats and also getting some of them to take the beer. He is totally convincing.

In the tunnels, the Gondolier named Billy brings the rest of the crew to the underground entrance though he is nervous to be here, knowing that the Spirit Wardens are nearby. Eklipsis tells him to stay put.

Eklipsis, Raven and Foggy go to the ladder and Eklipsis ascends, starting to work on the lock with his picking tools rather than using the acid first. She is able to loosen one of the bars that is holding the door shut but it falls and clangs loudly to the floor. The guards are more aware but not alerted yet.