LogPurgatoria-Jason-4

Game log for the 2015/12/20 session of Apocalypse World: Purgatoria, as taken by Jason

Falley spends his three hold from last session thusly: Timo admires my patron (Dieter), Cormac must have my services, and Botsford must give him a gift.

Freitag reports to Margrave Heinrich to talk about how he sort of murderated Gaston. He bumps into Nigel there, who had been requesting more funding for the Order of St Willibald's charitable work. The Great Hall is high-ceilinged, high-windowed, and beautiful with grey stone, wood floors, and clear glass. The Margrave is receiving reports, mostly regarding military readiness for a planned raid on... someone. When his turn arrives, Nigel bows and follows the formal Court profile, acknowledges the Margave's past generosity, and then asks for more. For the kids. The Margrave compliments Nigel on the Order's bravery against Aerolith Normandy and also in his duel, which has Klaus von Bulow fuming. It seems possible that the Margrave is making an extra effort to twist Klaus' tail. He also gets the impression that the Margrave may know exactly what's going on between Chatworth and von Bulow. He also suspects that Krakauer may immediately go looking for ways to ensure that the Order gets as little as possible. Sure enough, Krakauer immediately protests that the troops preparing for the raid need full rations. Nigel retorts that orphans need but little food to live, but they do need to eat.

It's then that Freitag enters, all bloody, accompanied by servants carrying Gaston's body and weapons. He salutes in the approved Prussian matter and reports that the Armorer has been kidnapped. Nigel protests that he was a Knight. Klaus protests that he was a member of Aerolith Aquitaine's ruling family. Hugo demands an immediate declaration of war. Nigel says the Armorer must be found at once. Heinrich tells everyone that the Armorer never took service with him officially and was not under his protection, which seems to indicate that there will probably be no declaration of war. Freitag begins to suspect that he hasn't made himself popular with the VIPs in the room. Krakauer sputters that Freitag had no authority to order a search for missing Armorer, but Heinrich settles him down. Freitag tries to make his excuses and get on with the search, but Klaus interrupts and has a private word with Heinrich, who says that someone will need to carry Gaston's remains back to his home. Heinrich agrees and says that Freitag will do so, but Freitag convinces him to let him do so after the raid. Hans will accompany him. Klaus also nominates Nigel to go, since Dieter can't make it. Nigel says he'll happily go along, once the food needs for the orphans have been seen to. Klaus promises supplies from his own House's stores.

Violetta and Falley are still with the Order of Fenris. Cormac Abernathy visits to see Falley. The Order's house is cold, with no glass in the windows, mininally furnished rooms, and a general air appropriate to people who think that poverty uplifts the soul, and Cormac's warm and affable demeanour doesn't actually do much to improve it. Cormac hires Falley to do his makeup for a function tonight, and then begins to inquire as to how Falley came to seek refuge in the Order's chambers. Falley folds and turns State's Evidence on him. Cormac asks whether Violetta wrote anything on the paper, which question Falley takes mental note of. Cormac then asks Falley to not only do his makeup but to accompany him at the Luna Revel. By appearing as Cormac's guest, Falley will be implicitly under his protection, and all the other players will be put on notice. Falley will go to Cormac's chamber an hour in advane of the Revel, which is a masked ball.

Several of Violett'a followers have come to be with her in her hour of need, thogh they can't exactly move in. She's still in a lot of pain, self-medicating with the availables. Falley fills her in. She tries to read him and see if this is all on the square, but she can't. He can fake sincerity and he's got it made, so all she reads is that he's doing everything he can for her. She decides to follow along with Falley, with Daphne in tow as a personal servant to help her cope with her injury.

Cormac's quarter are inside the Citadel. Cormac is surprised to see Violetta there. He comes over and tries to begin unwrapping the bandages on her wrist/stump, summoning a medician as well. Cormac watches, fascinated, as his pet doctor inspects the sump while the Lord spymaster reviews the symptoms. Falley concludes that Cormac is one nasty piece of work. He then asks Falley to make his face look festive. You got to, um, admire someone who can look at the stump of a poisoned wrist and ask for festive. Cormac also tries to engage Violetta in conversation, and she finds herself unable to spar with him. He reads her like a book. To win her over to his cause, he shows her how his coat sleeve has a hidden internal holster, and asks her to see if she might improve the draw mechanism. She can. When she's done, he tries out the new mechanism, and he's like a kid in a candy store.

Freitag stops by the Revel briefly, but only to scorn the debauched ways of his fellows, wearing only the most austere of masks. He greets Sir Nigel and Sir Janet. Percival is with them as a sort of attendant for the injured Nigel. Janet speaks very coldly to Freitag. Sir Dieter intrudes upon them after only a few moments and claps Nigel on the back, showing no sign of any strain or hard feeling from their duel. Dieter has heard nothing of where the upcoming battle may take them and expresses some scorn for Krakauer and his obsession with material things. Dieter than goes off to gorge on the buffet.

Falley gets 3 more hold for Artful and Gracious. Janet finds herself loving him, Hans admires Cormac, and Lady Chatworth must have his services. Lady Cassandra Chatworth approaches him before long and acts very friendly, as if her earlier attempt to have him put to the question had never happened. She asks him to slip away with her a moment to touch up her makeup. Nigel had been looking for her and catches up with them just as they're slipping away. Nigel thanks her for her gifts, which were of course used for the succour of the orphans, and she uses Nigel as a witness while Falley touches up her face. Nigel hits her up for alms and tells her about the duel, since she was unable to attend. Lady Chatworth eventually makes it clear that the full coffers of her House would be open to the Order if Nigel happened to make sure that something bad happened to Dieter. That scares Nigel right off.

That night, Nigel asks the spirit of his dead wife how to handle this situation. She blames him for her death - she died on the table as she was getting the implants for becoming a Knight. His last words to her were, "It will be all right, darling. Some day they'll tell stories about us." Not so much, as it happes. She berates him for even entertaining any thought of harming Sir Dieter, and a better Knight would have a patrol already and be able to feed the orphans. He's -1 ongoing from guilt until his next 10+ hit.

Violetta had fled from Lady Chatworth. She approaches Cormac at the buffet and asks what he might know about Lady Chatworth, implying that telling her all about this might be the gateway to her further affections. He's interested but rather wants her to come across first. She decides that it's worth it, and allows him to usher her out of the party.

Freitag asks his dead comrades how to redeem himself in the Margrave's eyes. They advise him to be bold, honorable, and successful in the raid, or to die trying, and caution him that he may be sent to Aquitaine as a sacrifice.

Falley asks his dead relatives how he can use Cassandra's offer to Nigel to mess her up without ruining his position in society. His relatives inform him that his position in society is as a parasite and that all his schemes to date have done nothing but cause him trouble and bringing him dishonor. He's acting under fire next time he acts against Lady Chatworth.

The raiding party boards the Zeppelin Glory again. It hasn't been fully repaired, so this is risky, but they need Glory's carrying capability to raid a coal mine. On the surface. Surrounded by lava. They load three Knights onto Glory instead of skates, since the Zeppelin can approach silently on the prevailing wind currents. They drop the Knights first to secure a beachhead. Nigel's got his armor fully prepped, stripped, cleaned, and lubed, and as he hits the ground of the coal mind, he's good to go and free of his guilt.

He drops right onto the vicinity of a defensive machine gun tower, which they've caught by surprise. Unfortunately he cuts his line a little too early, picks up too much v, and drops right through the tower onto the floor under it. The machine gun remains in action, and now Nigel's a couple floors below it.

As Freitag descends, he begins taking machine gun fire. With nerves of steel, he avoids incoming fire, and his entire unit lands intact and begins the process of seizing the mine. Nigel tries to use his flamethrower to torch his way out of the base of the tower, and while the place catches fire just fine, he realizes too late that the floor of the tower is where they keep all their spare ammo. So much spare ammo. Spare ammo which begins to cook off in the fire. Freitag holds his men back a minute to let this cookoff disaster unfold. Nigel's almost gotten loose when he sees a kid with a panzerfaust leveling it at him. Support fire from Freitag's troop distracts the kid just long enough for Nigel to duck out of the way, and instead the rocket hits the tower and destroys it.

Nigel then leads the charge on the mine proper. His suit's flamethrower puts a lot of fear into the defenders, and their barriers cannot withstand his powerfist. The defenders flee deeper into the mine. The attackers begin fanning out to follow various corridors.

Freitag finds a pocket of resistance and engages bloodthirstily, but accidentally shoots through a support stantion with his AP ammo and causes a cave-in. He's now buried under a mess of rubble. The good news is that the defenders were also caught in the cave in or on the other side of it, so this tunnel is sealed off for the attackers now. Freitag's troops should be able to dig him out.

Nigel uses his powerfist to deliberately create a similar cave-in, which again pins down the defenders in his area. He then does to find Dieter in the process of killing foes who were trying to surrender. That doesn't entirely work for Nigel, so he tries to get Dieter to ignore the prisoners and fight with him. Dieter allows Nigel to finish off the prisoners for him, so all he really accomplishes by intervening is to hasten their deaths.

At that point they declare victory, return to the surface, and discover that Freitag and his men remain below. Nigel volunteers to go look for them. Dieter tries to get Nigel to go alone, but Nigel reminds him that there may be defenders still alive. While the two of them are down in the tunnels, alone together, Nigel stops and tells Dieter about Lady Chatworth's offer. Dieter says that she's a women scorned. Nigel assures Dieter that he regards him as an honorable man, and they proceed into the search for Freitag.

Nigel has Dieter brace the ceiling with his armor's servos while Nigel digs. They hear Freitag crying for help but they can't seem to find him. Freitag, in desperation, calls on his dead. They look forward to seeing him! But they won't, because Nigel hears Freitag communing with his dead, turns to look, and spots a bit of Commissar sticking out of the rubble. Huzzah! He drags Freitag out of the rubble, and also some of his men. At that point the Knights agree that they've pushed their luck as far as they dare, and lead the survivors back to the surface. Raid: successful. Nurnburg even sends a second dirigible to scoop up even more coal.

Franz cleans his armor and begins scourging himself. Nigel notices that Freitag seems to be at the bottom of the triage list, which doesn't entirely correspond with his evident injuries. Has he been filed under expectant, or just overlooked? Nigel corners the medic and tells him that treatment for Freitag would be a favor for the Order. The medic agrees to do so if Nigel will help by treating some of the injured, and Nigel agrees. Franz compliments Nigel on this gesture of penance.