A Series of Unorphanate Events (One-Shot)

**A Series of Unorphanate Events**, also known as **"Grist for the Mill"**, took place on Lavalle in 390 A.U.[*CONFIRM*].

## Characters

### Player Characters

 John Jones | Brynn | A "Backup Engineer" whose job is to push the molten carts of Steel at the cokeworks / rolling mill / steel can factory when the steam engines fail (constantly).

## Summary

John (no last name) and Fra U. De attend a meeting of the select committee for select members selecting a select direction, a nascent communist organization in the Lavalle Planetary Guild. John is a "Backup Engineer" whose job is to push the molten carts of steel at the cokeworks/rolling mill/steel can factory when the steam engines fail (constantly). Fra is a food chemistry specialist working in the Normelle Food Processing plant, whose lack of will and intellect is made up for by a eidetic memory and an absurd amount of dexterity, allowing her to reproduce movements and images perfectly.

The two are convinced by Comrade O'Niell (Tipp to his friends) to visit a "rally" (more of a really nice soup kitchen mixed with political machine meeting) for the election of Pierre Armand, the Comestibles Member of the Guild Board. They arrive, attempt (successfully) to get Pierre's signature on one of his posters by stroking his ego about his glorious mustache, and then, to distract him from her (weird) fangirling, Fra used a little illusion artifact to distract the guards and create the sound of gunfire. When the magic misfired and blinded everyone, they began to fire in all directions, barely missing John and Fra as they leave.

From there, using the signature and painstakingly replicating the letterhead, Fra sent a forged internal memo from Pierre's campaign about them using orphans as food and admitting culpability for burning down orphanages. This letter was addressed directly to "Dick Intrepid" at their front office (not to the private mailboxes for actual informants to use) with an accurate return address. Fra was convinced to do this by John, who had been mulling around in his mind an increasingly complex conspiracy system (derived using the same logic he used when trying to understand the machinery on his rail line: More complex makes things more true) and become convinced of its truth from thinking about it too long.

Fortunately or not, the local office of the Intrepid Reporter in fact opened up this "evidence" and Terry Pratchett, who was there on the guild beat, paid the pair a visit with some muscle, led by his lead reporter Vincent (himself an ex-steelworker). After some threats, he left Vincent and the one other thug to ensure that John and Fra didn't flee the town and did produce more evidence. Fra grabbed her camera and went into her darkroom and produced some new photos using her magic artifact to create whatever image she wanted (luckily Pratchett and Vincent didn't realize that lights going off in a darkroom didn't make sense). A strange mishap happened while the photos were being prepared and the photos of Pierre were made occultly uncomfortable and Fra gained a mustache obsession.

Pratchett was convinced by these photos to pursue the lead. He left Vincent to ensure the rest of the evidence was brought to him. Vincent was convinced to come with Fra and John to come to the factory and see the dead orphans himself. They came to the grindhouse, where children were picking the bones and gristle out of the ground meat and (using the authority of being a "scientist" with a fake degree) got several children to go off for a (non-IRB approved) quick social study.

They then proceeded to murder their first subject and stuffed her in box. The second subject, noticed the mysterious disappearance of the first child and that her pigtail was hanging out of the box. Before he could scream, however, Fra grabbed his tongue as John smashed his head in. Unfortunately for Fra, her fingers were bitten off by the force of the punch and she was saved from bleeding to death only by quick first aid. They then paid off the rest of the kids to go home.

Taking the dead bodies to a chute meant for spices to be put into the grind stream, Fra prepared to throw the boy in (clothes and all) while John brought Vincent in to watch the boy come out the other end. The poor dead orphan clogged the grinder, giving Vincent a grand view of a very dead child as the foreman opened the grinder to see what was blocking it. They then booked it out of the building, but were stopped by some guards. John distracted them by showing them a flowchart of his conspiracy theory and then barreled past. Now chased by guards, with Fra barely making it vaulting from the roof over the fences, John threw Vincent over the gate (accidentally hitting the guard tower along the way) and then climbed out himself, bullets whizzing by him. All narrowly made it out alive.

The story got a front page headline: "GUILDS SELL ATC ORPHAN MEAT RATIONS". Inside are pictures of the blood-soaked chute, the tongue laying on the ground, and a girl's body shoved in a box, all taken by Fra before leaving. A furious uproar follows. For their efforts for the Intrepid Reporter, John later adopted the surname "Jones" and got a conspiracy talk radio show, while Fra became a professional forger.

## Notes

1. ↑ Due to quirks of the various Guild charters implemented at their founding to check their near monopoly power, the Guild Board and Guild Master must be elected by internal vote within the Guild, essentially to force them to take into account other interests.