2023/04/26

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms: War Games.

Three months had passed since the party's expedition to Cryx, and things were going rather slowly for the party. There wasn't much that required their attention, so they were killing time with their day jobs and their personal projects. Abe was trying to work on what he viewed as the largest constraint for Five Finger's growth, its food. To deal with the lack of food, he was trying to come up with a way to desalinate sea water, as the river water that passed through the city wasn't really fit for growing plants with the runoff of all the factories up river. Abe did run into a problem in that while he knew the irrigation side of the project, he was no engineer or scientist and was having trouble coming up with a contained power source for the desalination. Hector was managing his shipyard, which primarily focused on the fishing vessels that called Five Fingers home. Xavier was continuing his work with the Temple of Morrow and was keeping fit with his martial training.

Lastly was Charlotte who while continuing to work as the bouncer for Undertow, as well as keeping involved on the political side, was feeling restless once more. This would change when she received a knock on her door. To her surprise, High Captain D'Lamsyn was on the other side and asked if he could come in. Charlotte was slightly confused though welcomed him inside and offered him some muffins that she had baked. D'Lamsyn cut straight to the point, as neither he nor Charlotte were the type to beat around the bush. Five Fingers was putting together an elite force to help defend it and keep the peace in the absence of the party. While the other high captains were in support of the idea, there was concerns about placing it under the control of D'Lamsyn, as while he was a proven commander his underlying desire for glory and renown was worrying. D'Lamsyn understood their concerns, and wanted Five Fingers to succeed. So if he wasn't able to be involved he wanted someone competent to be in his place. Which is why he had come to Charlotte, he was asking if she was willing to help train the new task force in the military aspects of their new role. The team which was for now being referred to as the Sixth Finger was drawn from and under the command of the Finger's Watch, so while their investigative skills were solid they had a bit to learn with small unit tactics and urban warfare. Charlotte did eventually agree to work with the unit for a little bit to at least get them up to speed.

With her acceptance, Charlotte was presented with a dossier on the 4 members of the Sixth Finger. The leader of the squad was a man by the name of Quinby Wheeler, who was the only person on the team gifted with magic. Quinby's magic took a role similar to Charlotte's, enhancing his allies. The unit was allocated 2 warjacks under the command of the jack marshall Buford Parrott. Finally the remaining two members were drawn from the detectives of the Fingers Watch and went by the names of Selina Rowley and Phineas Buckle. The next day came and Charlotte went down to the Finger's Watch offices to meet with her new charges. The Sixth Finger had been allocated a repurposed room in the basement for them to operate out of. The space was rather cramped, with 4 desks being squeezed into the small room. As Charlotte entered the room, Three of the people rose to greet her, with Phineas having to be elbowed to do so as well, as his desk was facing away from the door and he didn't see Charlotte enter. Charlotte took stock of the unit and they seemed to pass her standards, so after her inspection she told them that she would meet with them the next day to begin their training in military matters.

The training of the Sixth Finger was going rather well, and seemed to be inspiring a sense of purpose into Charlotte that was lacking in peacetime. This continued for about a month before the winds of politics began to blow once more. While the high captains were supportive of the project, the bean counters and some within the Finger's Watch were doubting the usefulness of the group. So there were calls for the Sixth Finger to be put through their paces. Charlotte tried her best to delay these tests though eventually it was decided that the Sixth Finger would participate in a mock trial defending against foreign saboteurs. To play the role of opfor for the exercise the party was deemed the only unit in the city to provide an accurate challenge. So the party was asked if they would help in this matter. The party agreed, though privately noted that Charlotte was less than pleased with the timing of this test.

The party was told that their goal was to find and reach a spray painted circle hidden in a warehouse somewhere in the city. They had one week to accomplish this. The circle was to represent a critical project or infrastructure and if one on the party reached it they would be able to damage it. They were to be provided with a safe house that the Sixth Finger was unaware of and 400 gold to serve as their allocated funds for the mission. If they needed more they were to procure it themselves, though if they were stealing the resources they were to steal from the city government if possible to reduce the things that needed smoothing over when this was done. As for restrictions the main two was to keep everything nonlethal as well as to limit property damage to the city. With everything in place the party was given the address of their safe house and let to get to work.

The party began planning, they didn't know where the circle was hidden and thus needed to find it. As well as secure supplies for the coming week. They knew that the Sixth Finger would be looking for them, so they needed to recruit intermediaries on their behalf. The first person that came to mind was Avross as he had a number of friends in low places within the city and was willing to help the party out. That said getting in contact with Avross would be an issue as Undertow was likely being monitored. So the party sent a courier to deliver a letter to Avross and asked him to look into the government poking around places they usually aren't, and to deliver a message to the Brotherhood at the Precipice. The Brotherhood was the other group that the party thought of, though more in a logistical role than anything else. The Brotherhood wouldn't be suspicious purchasing large amounts of food or coal and hopefully do so for the party. Shakes was the one sent to make sure Thael and the rest of the Brotherhood was on board, they were and agreed to be the point where Avross would deliver his message back to the party. When Shakes went to receive the message from Avross, he noticed that he was being followed and tried to lose the tail in the market, he wasn't successful and it turned into an open chase across town. Shakes was eventually able to lose his pursuers by jumping off the King's Channel Bridge into the river and then swimming subtly back to shore to make his way back to the safe house. He arrived dripping and unhappy though the safe house was still safe.

Avross's message told the party that the government was doing some things on the southern islands of the city, with 4 locations being on Hospice Island and 2 more being on the Wake Islands. Meanwhile Hector had asked his hand where any supplementary information could be found, and was told that it could be found with “Chloe Winch”. This message was puzzling to the party, as they knew that there were a number of offices that would potentially hold something in the governmental district. Eventually Shakes made the connection with a Chloe winch, a specialized type of winch that was used to quickly change gearing on the winch as needed. One of the buildings in the area was an office of safety and standards which would be responsible for making sure that winches in the city were safe, which seemed like a good place to start. With that knowledge and the Sixth Finger closing in the party then needed to come up with an idea on how to get to the target. The eventual plan was that Shakes was to break into the offices and see what he could find while Charlotte secured a ferry for him to escape on. Xavier and Hector and Abe were to be obtaining a barge for them to transfer to, hopefully throwing any pursuit off their tail. With everything set, all that was left was for them to put their plan into action and make it to their goal.