The Glitched

The Glitched (a nickname, as no official group name has been given so far) seem to be a group of various agents that have one trait in common: their faces are obscured by a blur, or smoke-like shield. They seem to be a cutthroat group, willing to eliminate anyone that discovers their secrets.

## "Dave"

The first "Glitched" encountered was "Dave", a shady character with a face hidden by smoke. He hired Shipton to deliver copper ingots to the Sea Slug in Beedle, and was seen in the company of another man who's face remained in the shadows. Brisbane Budthrow offered her calling card (a carved rock) to "Dave," who accepted it.

Later on "Dave" became a captain at Shipton with the aim of encountering Brisbane again. This time "Dave" was the man who's face remained in the shadows, though his face in the light was blurry and illegible. He captained the 420Blazeit, a large ship captained by zombies and larger on the inside.

He propositioned the party to deliver the cargo of the mission (carving pumpkins for Haversport elementary school children) to his buddy "Jimmy", offering to meet Shipton's price. The party agreed, "Dave" had his zombies fill the pumpkins with drugs, changed the Shipton contract to "Jimmy"'s name, and paid the party Shipton's price after the job was completed. The party also collected payment from Shipton, enriching all of them. "Dave" promised them more jobs like this in the future so long as they kept quiet about the nature of these "jobs".

On the way back to Shipton the ship was attacked by a giant unseen underwater creature that could telepathically communicate. The ship was destroyed and party member Gwanlen was lost, along with all the zombies. "Dave" and the rest of the party survived through a powerful magic that "Dave" used to make the ship larger on the inside -- he transferred the inside of the ship to a small shack on Shipton, saving the party from certain death.

"Dave" would later captain a new mission, only this time he was in terrible shape, seemingly aged overnight and very ill. He entrusted the party with 2 optional jobs on top of their regular delivery: find an unbreakable urn in the backyard of one Cinay Izha, and then hide it somewhere no one could find it. The second job was to kill Cinay.

While the party completed the urn job, only Sorine and Brisbane opted for murder. They were caught and banned from the island, while the rest of the party discovered that "Dave" had died on the ship by the time they returned.

## Brisbane

While the party was returned to Shipton eventually, Brisbane shared some information with Margie: during the night, "Dave" had summoned her to his quarters and given her some information, and touched her head. Where he touched her head a small blur appeared and began to grow. He gave her the money for the mission and warned her that if she saw anyone else with a blurry face, they would be an enemy and she should kill them.

Brisbane's "glitch" got slowly larger, but she met an unexpected end via Spider-creatures in the Sunport undercity before it covered her entire face.

## Unnamed Half-orc and Merton Adams

After a successful job of delivering sandpaper (drugs) to "Jimmy", the crew of Bo, Dave T. Barbairan, Margie, Plenet, Xander and Foolix returned to Shipton to find it totally empty, without docs or buildings. Maryanne Squiggley, their captain at the time, event noticed that the seafloor and island shape was different than when she left. This led Margie to believe the group had somehow traveled back in time.

Maryanne was able to take the group to shore despite the choppy, dangerous waves, and the group landed for Plenet to sense some odd magical non-magic glimmer on a nearby hill and for Bo to realize they were being watched. Plenet touched the glimmer and it cleared, like a window, into a library with a half-orc woman inside. She had a blurry face.

She asked the party if they knew someone with a blurry face like hers, and they said "yes, but he died." She then said "Oh, do you know a woman with a face kind of like mine?" The party answered "yes, but she died too". The woman shrugged and then ordered Merton, who then materialized on the island, to kill them.

Merton didn't succeed, though he was a strong magic user and even summoned a mummy to finish them off. Instead he got bored or annoyed and left half-way through, though the mummy didn't finish the job for him.

After the defeat of the mummy the island of Shipton faded into normalcy, with the buildings and docks forming around the party. Margie ran to tell Peggy what had happened, but Peggy merely smiled and marveled at how interesting their contractor's lives were.

Shipton's contractor's lives may get very interesting indeed if they encounter the Glitched again. They also might get shorter.