2023/05/03

Last time in the Iron Kingdoms: Training and threats.

The party was in a position for them to implement their plan to find their target in the training exercise against Charlotte's trainees. In preparation for their mission, a number of smoke bombs were rigged to be distractions to the blue team. With everything in place the party split up so that they could each complete their part of the plan. Shakes was sent to the offices where the supplemental information would be found. Charlotte was in charge of obtaining the ferry, and was waiting at the docks near the offices. Hector, Abe, and Xavier were waiting on the nearby Drowned Isle with their getaway barge.

As Shakes infiltrated the offices, he managed to slip by the guards in the building and made his way to the office of one Chloe Winch, which seemed as good a place to begin his search as any. Inside the office he found a number of documents that pertained to the training exercise. With that he swiped anything that seemed relevant, and then went about completing Charlotte's side mission for him: messing up one of the offices of the people who had pushed for this exercise. With his objectives complete, Shakes ran out of the building and launched the flare to signal Charlotte to commandeer a ferry. Once Charlotte saw the flare she made her way to the nearest ferry still in dock, and with all the authority in her small frame told the passengers and crew that the ship had been drafted into a military exercise, and everyone was to leave the ship as soon as possible. Charlotte had to deal with a little lip from some of the more affluent passengers on the ferry, though she told them that they could take up any complaints that they had with the Five Fingers government. Not long after the ferry was cleared, Shakes could be seen running towards the docks with a small force of Fingers Watch chasing him. Charlotte provided covering fire against his pursuers, and once Shakes was close enough, cast haste on the two of them allowing them to get to the ferry that much faster.

As Charlotte and Shakes left the dock in their stolen ferry, they set course towards Drowned Isle and the rest of the party. Once there they quickly moved to the barge and set the ferry on a course to run aground away from them to hopefully give them a head start on getting to their objective. Once the party started going over the pilfered information, they were annoyed to realize that it wasn't as simple as just being told where to go. The documents Shakes stole were mock ups of accounting records for fictitious projects and they party had to decipher them to reveal the location of their objective. As they laid low on their barge the party began to comb through the documents. While none of the party was particularly adept at forensic accounting or the like they eventually narrowed it down to two warehouses on Hospice Island. With nothing else to go on, and the clock ticking, the party asked Hector to make an executive decision as to which one was correct. After a moment's deliberation, Hector went with the second of the two warehouses.

As the party sailed south towards Hospice Island they abandoned any pretense of stealth and began a charge towards the warehouse. As they approached they found it guarded by a couple of the Fingers Watch and a small shoot out took place. The party was much better trained and equipped than the watchmen and quickly disabled the guards, though not before a flare was launched into the sky to signal other defenders. The party quickly entered the warehouse, looking for the circle that would end this exercise, unfortunately for them, luck and prophecy didn't seem to be on their side. So the party began making their way towards their other option. On the way there, the party was intercepted by Charlotte's trainees, who semi jokingly asked if the party was willing to come quietly. Charlotte declined the offer and a fight broke out. The blue team was rather coordinated and managed to hit rather hard for the training that they had received. Though the party eventually knocked out all but one of them. And Buford decided that retreat was better than remaining in a lost fight. Abe was able to run down the retreating Buford, while the rest of the party made their way to the second warehouse and found their target. With one of them stepping into the circle the exercise was declared over.

After the excitement of combat and the end of the exercise, came the boring bit: Debriefing. Both the party and Charlotte's trainees were taken to some conference rooms so that they could go over what went well and what could have been done better. All in all most were viewing the exercise as a success, though there was some grumbling about the actions that the party had taken to obfuscate their movements before their attack on the warehouses. Charlotte rebuffed these complaints with the comment that if it was for real, she would have ordered Shakes to put those building to flame to further slow down pursuit. On the blue team's side the main point was that they should not have let Shakes escape them when they found him. That was their opportunity to crack the entire problem wide open and even allowing him to jump off the bridge was not ideal, as even if he had died, corpses can't talk. Charlotte commended Buford for realizing that the fight was lost and instead having a survivor able to pass along information about the attackers was more important than fighting to the last man.

After a couple hours of tedious questions and going over every decision made over the last week, everyone was allowed to go home and nurse their bruises. The party invited Charlotte's trainees to Undertow for a hot meal and a drink, which was accepted. After a pleasant meal the trainees took their leave so that they could get some sleep. A few minutes after they left, the party was joined by Lady Ashcroft of Cygnar, who had some questions for the party and Charlotte about what sort of group Five Fingers was training. Lady Ashcroft elaborated that some of her superiors in Cygnar had concerns that Charlotte was training soldiers to counter Cygnarian tactics. Charlotte didn't deny such claims though did elaborate that a counter intelligence unit by definition was to counter everyone's tactics. Lady Ashcroft did relax slightly as Charlotte told her that, though then said that there were those within Cygnar that viewed anything Charlotte did with suspicion. With the information that she wanted, Lady Ashcroft left Undertow after paying for the drinks that she had ordered with a few golden Cygnarian crowns.