Lies, Damn Lies

Dark Heresy- Session 3

story

Succesfully convincing the administrator that they were actually law abiding citizens rather than cold blooded murderers, the paryt then headed off. They decided they wanted to take their ship and the ship the two cultists had landed in back, but this presented a problem, as only Jericus could fly. Luckily, Inditor Larsen could fly. Unluckily, Larsen was the other member of the drug ring, and tried to fly the plane in the opposite direction. After a rather fraught journey, in which the plane almost went straight into the desert floor, the party managed to subdue Larsen and get back to the planet, where they reported to Interrogator Karl.

Karl was pleased with their progress, and let them take responsbility for further investigation. Interrogation of the prisoners, along with research into the Hardlight corporation, the name printed on the ship they had returned, yielded that the corporation was owned by a Lord Melchit Hawthorne, the ruler of level 35. It also gave the address of the Hardlight warehouse.

Visiting Lord Melchit sadly yielded little of value, as this estate was well guarded, and an attempt to bluff their way in failed. The visit to the warehouse proved somewhat more satisfactory, however, finding an abandoned building with one lonelyl guard, who happily relayed that Melchit's son, Lintel, was in charge of managing the facility, and had run it into the ground, although not before taking most of the ships they used for transport. He also mentioned that Lintel had invited him to a party, and happily gave up his invite.

After a brief discussion, they decided to head for the party, discovering it in full motion, with the guards themselves semi-paralytic. The party was the home of levels of depravity none of them had encountered before, with acts being performed that one would have throught impossible, let alone illegal. They decided to head upstairs, and immediately came across a locked door. Nicodemus managed to pick the lock, and they burst in on Lintel and four bodyguards, with Lintel performing a curious magical ritual.

"You're too late to stop me now, whoever you are!" Lintel yelled, and battle was joined. Despite being elite guard, the bodyguards managed to fail to put up much of a show of resilience, and the party managed to defeat them and Lintel, although not before Lintel had pressed a button on a remote he had been carrying......

Reflections

I enjoyed this session, once again there was more roleplaying. The initial fight for the ship was utterly spontaneous. It had not occured to me that the players would want to take both ships back, and as they had failed to uncover Baltek's co-conspirator, I thought they could face the rather amusing consequences.

My main regret about the interrogation was not providing a few more leads for the party to take, to at least give the illusion of free will- perhaps only two was a bit lame, but never mind. The party's failure to access Hawthorne's estate was not inevitable, however. If they had taken a more honest approach Melchit would have had no reason not to co-operate, and indeed would have provided all the party with invites.

The invite issue was somewhat amusing. Having garnered only one, they assumed that they would only be able to get at most 2 of them inside. Considering the level of the adventure coming, and the fact that they would be sealed inside the house next session, I really did not want this to happen, and luckily they went for a look and discovered that the supposed bouncers were really not doing their jobs.

Once in the house they managed to head directly for the sodding room without even a moment of discussion, which was somewhat disappointing. Seeing as after this room was done the party would be virtually empty, my hard work of writing up scenes for every single room went rather wasted, but never mind....

This session took a little longer than I thought it would, thanks to the inital combat. Also I have a tendency to underestimate how much time combat will take- I should try to avoid throwing too many combats into one session.

Labels: dark heresy, roleplaying

posted by Mr K @ 10:53 am