Confess your sins

ARTIFICIAL HEART // SEVENTH, known by the episode title "confess your sins", is the tenth episode of ARTIFICIAL HEART, and the penultimate episode of Act 2.

### Time (IC)

02:15 (8th of Neverwinter, 2466) to 07:03 (9th of Neverwinter, 2466)

### The Cat and the Captive:

The session opens at 2 AM, with Azat silently making his way into the attic to join the rest of the party. He carries with him a duffle bag that seems to be rather heavy and is proving difficult to drag up the ladder. The three party members who are awake gape at him as they notice that he has blood splatters covering his entire body. Diamant begins to ask him what happened to him when Azat quickly sushes her, telling her to be silent as he pulls up the ladder after him, and shuts the attic door so no one can get in. As the group of riots listen, remaining quiet as Azat requested, they can hear the sound of heavy boots marching downstairs, and they can easily assume that the people are searching for them. Auntie quietly wakes up the rest of the party and after about 8 minutes of waiting with bated breath, the footsteps leave the building. As Azat breathes a sigh of relief, Stroke and Diamant speak up and ask him what happened to him to cause him to be followed. Assuring them that all would be explained, he unzips the duffle bag he brought with him, and the party is shocked to see a young drow man gagged and bound in the bag, missing both of his legs and panicking severely.

The party stands aghast, staring at the captive Azat has brought with him. As they ask him why he brought a man to them and why he has no legs Azat explains that after he sold the cyberware they didn’t need, he was told that this man would have information that the party could use. When Ringer asks if he knew where Silvers’ family is or if he knew about the Purple Serpent, Azat tells Ringer that the leader of the Purple Serpent is a man named Azazel, and that the drow may have some information about the inside of the organization, since he is a member. He also tells the party that the people that were searching for them just now were armed cultists, and he has no idea why they were searching for the party. He looks at the party, asking them what they did while he was gone to get their attention and the party turns to Diamant, who shrinks into herself. She tells the rest of the party that she told an officer where they were staying when Galadia was shot,

### An Escape Plan:

Thinking quickly, Stroke takes out her cyber eye and opens a window to search for these cultists that Azat had previously described to them. Looking through the eye, Stroke notices 4 people who match the description and are positioned around the building, staking it out and making sure no one can get out. As she does this Ringer asks Diamant what the officer she spoke to looked like, and as she describes him to her Ringer pulls up the access to the cameras she has in the Purple Serpent. It doesn’t take her long to notice the same drow that Diamant explained in the building, and rewinding the recording a bit, she finds him speaking directly to Azazel, the drow with the snake scar on his face. Thinking on their feet, Stroke and Ringer determine that staying in the attic of Ye Old Salt was no longer a safe option, and they needed to find a place to continue to rest. However, they can’t just leave due to the four guards positioned outside their building. Ringer turns to Stroke and draws her scimitar, gesturing to the window. She asks her if she’d be willing to sneak up on them one by one and assassinate them before they’re seen so the group can leave and Stroke is quick to agree, opening a window and beginning to climb out.

As the two of them climb out the window they walk silently around the building, slowly approaching a single guard and jumping them while they don’t notice them. While they do this, they drag their bodies to a nearby dumpster and drop them in there before turning their attention to the next guard. They are able to repeat this process with all four guards, only being close to noticed once the last guard notices the absence of his teammates before swiftly getting Ringers scimitar jammed between his shoulder blades. The job done, the two of them check to make sure they weren’t seen by anyone before disposing of the corpses and making their way back to the attic to tell the rest of the group that they’re clear to leave.

While they do this, Azat leaves the party to go wash the blood out of his fur in the shower, rudely shrugging off Diamants protests and telling her to talk with the captive in the bag rather than tell her what she clearly wants to know. Having nothing else left to do but wait for Azat, the remaining party members turn their attention to the captive drow. Auntie takes him out of the bag and places him on the bed, ignoring his struggles against her, and props him up against the wall with her good hand. Diamant then approaches him and asks him what he may know that he can tell her. She’s gentle with him and tells him that she isn’t going to hurt him, but the man is overcome with fear, and can only manage incoherent mutters. Heaving a sigh, Stitches walks up to the drow, shoving Diamant aside, and looks him directly in the eyes before throwing away the nice act and threatening to take his arms off alongside his legs. At this threat, the drow goes into complete shock, as he is convinced that this is where he dies, and goes completely catatonic in fear. At this point the group decides that it would be pointless to interrogate him further.

### Staking New Territory:

As Azat emerges from the shower Diamant tries again to talk with him, but again he is brash with her and pushes her aside, telling her to help him to dry off using her spells. Confused, Diamant uses her magic to help him, and when Azat pushes her aside, telling her he’s told her all he knows, she is hurt by the harshness that he shows her, as he’s always been kind to her. The party continues to pack up what they’ve brought with them, preparing to leave the attic before any more cultists can surround the building. The group have a conversation concerning the man laying catatonic in one of the beds, and eventually deciding to leave a note for the bartender of Ye Old Salt, and for him if he ever comes to. Auntie writes the note to the bartender thanking him for the use of his attic and asking if he could take care of the drow while Ringer writes a long winded note of professional apology to the leg-less man. Notes having been written and left to be found, the group hastily leaves the attic, leaving nothing behind and Azat tells them of a place the group can stay to continue to heal before taking the lead of the party.

As they leave, Ringer and Stroke decide it would be best to stake out an area for them to stay hidden near the Purple Serpent so they can have a constant surveillance of the place and want the group should they discover anything. The two of them leave the party with Azats assurances that he’ll get the group to a safe place and stealthily make their way through the city unnoticed, finding a roof top that they could stay on that is out of sight of anyone in the club. While Azat leads the party, they are much less quiet, and much slower, as only Peppermint and Azat can see in the dim light, and only Azat was trained in stealth. While they walk Azat makes no move to start a conversation, stoically marching onward, and eventually Diamant confronts him about being able to shapeshift. At this confrontation, Azat says nothing to her, but right as Diamant begins to think that he will continue to ignore her he begins to shapeshift right in front of her, confirming what she asked him about and transforming into a small house cat that continues to lead the way through the dank alleyways. The group travels on in relative silence, stopped only once when Stitches runs into a small trash can she didn’t see and attracts the attention of a nearby guard. The group quickly hides from him as he investigates the alleyway, preparing themselves for a fight before Azat in his cat form jumps at him, convincing him that the noise he heard was merely a stray cat.

Eventually the group of riots arrive at an old and abandoned building filled with garbage, and house cat Azat hopes over some of the trash and into the front door, showing the party that they have reached their final destination. Making their way up to the top floor Azat doesn’t transform back into himself, and rather curls up remaining as a house cat, and begins to sleep. Stitches shrugs and sets up her backpack in the corner of the room, using it as a pillow and begins to rest as well. Diamant and Auntie sit down, leaning against the wall and Diamant begins to draw into herself, hugging her knees to her chest. Auntie asks her, concerned if she’s alright and Diamant confesses that she doesn’t know what she’s doing with the party, and that she’s overwhelmed and stressed. She explains to Auntie how she just wants the party to get safely back to the surface, and that she wishes none of the terrible things had happened. Auntie does her best to comfort her, telling her that what she’s feeling is completely understandable, and that Wastehunting is dirty business. Auntie tells Diamant that she’s actually doing really well for a first time Wastehunter, and that she’ll be alright eventually, even though it’s alright not to be okay right now. Comforted, Diamant asks Auntie if she would be willing to sleep next to her that night and Auntie is happy to let her, giving her an Ork hug, and allowing Diamant to cuddle up next to her while they sleep.

### A Day of Rest and Spying:

The next morning, the party members resting in the abandoned building wake up to notice that Azat is missing, and that he’s left for them a large collection of food for them to eat for the day. The four of them decide it would be best to stay in the building for the remainder of the day so Diamant and Peppermint could regain their magic while Stitches helps Auntie recover with her hand. Ringer and Stroke on the other hand are joined early in the morning by Azat, who has decided to stake out the Purple Serpent with them. He brings with him food for the two of them and a can of tuna for himself and tells the two of them to eat, himself opening the can. Stroke is disgusted by the smell of tuna and gags, asking Azat why he eats it and Azat responds telling her that it’s the only form of raw meat that is socially acceptable for him to eat in front of others. There’s a moment of confusion between the two of them as Azat wonders why Stroke doesn’t like the smell of tuna while Stroke is confused as to why he needs to eat raw meat. Deciding not to push him however, Stroke simply goes back to eating what Azat has brought them, and Ringer decides to stream a video game while they relax.

After eating and Ringer is through with her game, the three of them scour the cameras in the Purple Serpent, Ringer doing a little more prodding with her hacking. While Ringer does this, Stroke removes her robotic eye, and when she’s sure it won’t be noticed, she sends it in through the door after some people enter. Looking through the eye, and using Ringers access to the cameras to avoid detection, Stroke is able to navigate her way through the Purple Serpent club, and familiarize herself with the place. She finds a drow to tail and he brings her into a room where Ringer notices three or four ripper docs. They one by one lead malnourished and wounded prisoners from a room without any cameras and remove any and all cyberware they have on them, taking great care not to damage the crome, but with seemingly no care for the prisoner.

Stroke waits for one of the ripper docs to enter the room in search of a victim, and, using her mechanical eye, follows them in once they open the door. Once they enter the room, Stroke can clearly see that this is where they are keeping all the prisoners, as the walls are lined with crude cells and each one contains miserable looking metahumans, all of which either have some sort of cyberware on them or have something about their person that is unusual. Ringer, looking through Strokes eye using her cyberdeck, notices a strange man of a metatype she is unfamiliar with. He looks to be a human, but his skin shines a silver color that isn’t seen in any common human she can recall. She takes a picture of the man and asks Facsimile to do a little bit of research on his species, discovering that this man is an Arcaian, a type of metahuman that originates from another plane of existence, and are a dwindling species, but fiercely loyal to each other. This man's absence in the population is bound to be noticed by their species and Facsimile suspects that there will be people of the same species looking for him at the Purple Serpent, and they are likely to be hostile to the people that hurt one of their kin.

Stroke also notices in an adjacent cell, three elves, one mother and two little girls who are huddled together, asleep. The mother watches the ripper doc go by as he drags the Arcaian out of his cell and locks the door behind him, effectively trapping Strokes eye in the room with the prisoners. The three party members are excited and relieved, as these three elves perfectly match the description of Silvers’ family. Stroke, deciding that they’ve gathered all the information they can, lands her eye in a corner where it won’t be noticed and turns it off so it won’t attract any attention. Ringer sends the picture she took of the Arcaian to the rest of the group resting back at the abandoned house, and the group thinks about the next steps in their plan to rescue Silvers’ family, before eventually resting for the day, needing to gather all their strength for tomorrow.

### A Perfectly Executed Infiltration:

The very next morning, Azat arrives at the abandoned building in which the party is resting. Due to Stitches help, Auntie has made an almost full recovery, and has regained the use of her hand, as well as her weapons. Deciding that they’re ready to fight should they need to, Azat leads the party to the rooftop in which Ringer and Stroke had been staying. Along the way, he tells them of the plan that they plan to use. Ringer, Stroke and Azat will sneak their way into the building via a back door that they’ve found, and using the information they’ve gathered through Strokes eye and Ringers camera access, they will sneak past the ripper docs and free the family. They plan to only resort to violence should they be noticed, and it would be ideal to have no shots fired. The three of them and the three of them alone will go into the building and free Silvers’ family, and should things go wrong, they will call on the rest of the group to make a distraction or to come and rescue them. Having rejoined Stroke and Ringer at the rooftop, the group of them prepare themselves for the infiltration.

While preparing, Stroke asks Ringer if she can kill the cameras, so no one will notice them sneaking into the building, but Ringer protests, saying that while she can, it will look suspicious for the cameras guarding the prisoners to suddenly and without warning go out. Instead she loops the image feed, thinking that while it’s unlikely that anyone is watching the cameras at the moment, a feed loop would be much less suspicious and attention grabbing than multiple dead cameras. While they do this Azat transforms his person yet again into a form that would be more stealthy, but forgoes the house cat, rather transforming into a rabbit demihuman woman with black fur. Diamant is shocked at this transformation and is forced to consider how much she actually knows the man who has been with her for most of her life. Shrugging off the group's surprise at his shapeshifting, Azat seems eager to infiltrate the building, and rescue the family. Deciding not to waste any more time, the three infiltrators make their way off the rooftop and into the Purple Serpent.

The three are deadly silent when they are not accompanied by the rest of the group and having scoped out the area before they are quickly able to reach the room with the ripper docs without being noticed. Fortunately, there are only three ripper docs in the room at the moment, and they are all absorbed completely in their work, and none of them notice the three Wastehunters before they are assassinated. Having the ripper docs out of their way, the party members walk into the room containing the prisoners. As they enter the room, the three of them beeline for the family, who are all asleep due to the early hours of the day. Ringer notices that every prisoner is currently asleep, but the lock that is holding the Silvers family is more complex than the other locks, and takes a moment to try and figure out how to break it or pick it. While she does this, Azat and Stroke have a hushed conversation as to what to do with the other prisoners and how to get the Silvers out of their cell.

Deciding it would be best to wake the three of them, Stroke grabs her eye, turns back on and flies it over to the mother, Maria, and pokes her with it to get her attention. Sleepily, she wakes up and looks over at the three riots crouching by her cell. Stroke quietly tells her that Anthony Silvers sent them to get them out, and asks her to wake up the children as quietly as possible. Maria does so and while the children are quietly gotten to their feet Ringer tells Azat that they don’t have time to pick the lock and suggest they look for keys. Going back into the room with the dead ripper docs, Azat finds the keys in a drawer and brings them back to the room with the prisoners. Ringer is shocked to see the sheer amount of keys that Azat has, but the three of them split the keys among themselves and decide to unlock the cells containing the other prisoners, but not wake them up. Strok finds the key that unlocks the Silvers family cell and silently leads them out while Ringer and Azat go around the room, trying every key in every lock until all the cells are unlocked, but unopened.

Quietly, the group decide to get the Silvers family out of the building before Ringer returns to get the rest of the prisoners out of the Purple Serpent. Stroke and Azat each pick up Janice and Helen, Silvers’ daughters, and lead them out of the room. Maria is surprisingly stealthy, and with her help, they manage to keep both themselves and the children quiet long enough to escape the building without being noticed. The party meets back up on the rooftop where the rest of the party waits for them, and Ringer finds for them an escape route that will lead them to the surface with Families help, before sneaking back into the Purple Serpent. She makes her way unnoticed back to the prisoners and wakes them all up, telling them to stay in the room until they hear her signal, and then to rush out of the building as fast as they can, using the element of surprise to get them out. The prisoners agree to her plan and Ringer sneaks back out the room, getting to a safe place before firing her pistol, giving the Purple Serpent residents a shock and allowing for the prisoners to rush out of their room. Ringer jumps out of a window that lands her in an alleyway while the former prisoners beeline for any exit they can find, overwhelming their captors and is able to sneak away from the building and rejoin the group at the tunnel to the surface. Upon regrouping, the party checks in with one another before heading straight to the surface.

### Safe At Last:

The trip to the surface is surprisingly short and uneventful, and the party travels for only 25 minutes before arriving at the Tartarus club, being met with barred doors and windows and three guards positioned on the outside. Stroke recognizes the three as Soot, Spritz, and a woman that Stroke calls Ayaka, and doesn’t seem to be fond of. When they see each other, Ayaka seems disgusted with Stroke and turns back into the building without another word. After a short conversation, Stroke leads the party and the family into the club, and quickly finds Red. Red tells Stroke that there were four more attacks on the club by drow, but that no one died. He tells her that she smells awful and looks worse and notices that Candlewax is missing. When he notices the children that Stroke brought with her she hesitates for a moment, saying that he isn’t fond of children before telling Stroke that Anthony Silvers hasn’t left the room Stitches left him in, and directs her and the family there. Stroke tells the party this and Stitches takes the family in to go see their injured father.

Maria is worried when Stitches avoids her questions regarding Anthony's wells being, but Stitches assures her that he’ll live and leads her and her children into the room. Anthony is laying in bed, still recovering and high on pain meds, and he doesn’t seem to at first believe that his family is there. His girls rush up to him excited and happy to see him again, and they family embraces one another as they are reunited, having an extended conversation in elvish before Maria tells her children to leave the room for a short while while she talks with the doctor. Stitches approaches her and Maria offers to tell her everything that happened to them, saying that she and the children were just at one of the girls favorite malls before a large white van pulled up to them and forced them in with guns. They were told they weren’t going to be hurt, and that if everything went according to the plan they would be let go once Anthony cooperated with them. She was told that they’d only be hostage for a short while but they were in there for months, and Maria has lost complete sense of time, though she thinks she heard a new years celebration while in her cell.

Stitches talks to her for a moment more, telling her of Anthony’s current medical condition, and that she will talk with Stroke to see if they have room for the family to stay until further notice. Maria thanks her and Stitches leaves to go find Stroke. She asks if Stroke may have a room they can stay in and Stroke tells her that while they do have room for them, the Tartarus club is still a nightclub, and the children are only six years old. Stitches agrees that it isn’t a good idea to let the family stay for an extended period of time, and the two of them have a brief conversation about plans for what to do with them. As Stroke leaves Stitches, she notes that they have eight days before AM returns, and goes to check on the condition of the Tartarus club as their temporary leader.