Log7th Sea: The Search for Salvation-2012/10/25-Jason-1

Game log for the 2012/10/25 session of 7th Sea: The Search for Salvation, as taken by Jason

It's taken us a few weeks to get to Charouse. The weather's been OK, the countryside pretty, and the locals hospitable but malnourished. Crops rot in the fields, because taxes have gotten so high that people can't afford to harvest what they've grown. Janisse mentions to Felix (in private) that we should avoid being flashy in Charouse, and Felix dutifully relays that memo to the rest of our merry band.

In town, people seem much less hospitable. There are tolls everywhere and nothing is free. Most things require bribes on top of the posted fees. Janisse suggests that we stay at a safehouse she knows, around the back of a butcher shop. We drop our stuff off there, then Benito, Nikolai, and Felix go to get some money changed. The banks turn them away, but Felix finds a branch of an Eisen academy that will make a deal with us.

We then meet back up and go over to the Explorer's Society. At the Society, the secretary greets Reginald politely. They discuss the day's scheduled lecture, then she goes to see if he has messages waiting. She offers us seats in the reception area, or the chance to attend the lecture. Reginald has two messages, a note for Janisse and a promissary note made out to cache. He asks the clerk for information on the catacombs, and Léon asks for more information on Frémiet. He fumbles a bit, even with Reginald's help, because he can't quite come out and ask for what he needs. Reginald overtrumps him by asking directly for information about the guy, but since the receptionist/scribe hasn't heard of the guy, she still can't help. They scour the archives and find an account of an Explorer who was accused of being a spy by Frémiet. The case was pretty much laughed out of court, because the guy had lived in Montaigne most of his life, and never done much beyond dig in a very, very anal-retentive way. Léon knows that the Musketeer who presided over the case might still be in the service and still in town, presenting a possibility for future research.

We decide not not to bother the Musketeers. Instead, Benito goes to a salon and asks after Frémiet. The rest of us go back to the safehouse, from whence Nikolai goes to help out at the butcher's. At Le Paníer d'Our, Benito finds a woman named Denise who seems to run things. She informs him that Frémiet is in town! Shocking! She actually says he "clawed his way back" into town, giving Benito an opening to ask about his circumstances. She tells him that Frémiet lives on the north side of town, near the old palace. She also makes it clear that Frémiet is a treacherous dog best avoided by the wise. He works for the government but has no official rank, and he harassed one of Denise's friends for years before finally getting the hint. No woman in Charouse, she declares, would ever touch Frémiet. He takes pains to avoid being shadowed, and Reginald confirms his success.

Reginald and Nikolai go to case Frémiet's house, Nikolai carrying a big crate so that he appears to be an innocuous porter rather than a hulking engine of destruction. The house seems empty and has no balcony. They cut down an alley to see the back of the house, and find a door into the cellar and a door into the kitchen. The footpath to the cellar door has not been used in a while.

Back in the safehouse, we discuss ways to avoid or decoy the ghouls. Benito and Felix hit upon the idea of coordinating our timing so that Janisse dumps a mess of offal into one entrance to the catacombs while we go in through a different one on the other side of town. Felix also suggests oilcloth wrappings or satchels for extra pistols and powder, to increase our chances of having a dry weapon available when we need one.

We decide to more or less repeat the plan for the previous burglary of Frémiet's house. At this rate members of this party will end up the most specialized burglars in Thea. Nikolai has no problem opening the door into the cellar. The search for secret rooms, passages, etc, and finding none, send Reginald up into the kitchen via the dumbwaiter. Reginald then lets Nikolai in. The place is still mostly packed up, but muddy bootprints show that someone has been here. It might even be the owner himself.

The entire third floor has been made into Frémiet's study. He has a sizeable library and writes obsessively. He has so many journals that it's impossible to decide which to steal, so they take them all, in the crate. Reginald decides to be cute and grabs a book on dog breeding to put in the bag of thieving.

Those who can read Montaigne begin scouring the journals and suddenly everyone's rolling tens like bandits. Until about twelve years ago, when Léon's dad went away, the journals are boring and full of banal crap. He got into his line of work when he met some people at a salon, heard them discussing politics in ways that seemed interesting, and felt inadequate. He had a naval commission and came to understand the way the brotherhood of pirates operates, and learned of the idea of democracy. His intellectual friends thought the idea intriguing, so much so that they began talking about how to run a country as a democracy. At that point Frémiet began ratting them out. Unfortunately, Frémiet doesn't know what happened to Léon's father at that point.

In the morning, Reginald goes back to the Explorer's Society, while the rest of us to go Petit Charouse. Benito buys a side of beef, which Nikolai carries for him. A side of beef in Petit Charouse draws a lot of attention. Instant popularity! Only being popular can be bad in such a place, especially since it's gotten quite crowded down there. With this greater press of humanity, the stank can barely be conceived of. Their desperation makes them press close around the beef, even to the point of ignoring Felix's zweihander, but Benito is able to calm them down and get some space. Nikolai and Benito begin asking specific questions, looking for someone who knows the tunnels, the markings, the sinkholes, etc. They find a girl named Antonia, maybe 16 years old, scrawny, but clearly knowledgable. When we ask about the orange light, though, many of them conclude that we're crazy and drift away. Antonia sticks it out but she thinks we'll die if we try to get there. We offer her a position in Léon's mother's household, along with her eight and ten year old brothers, if she helps us. We notice that some slightly better-fed folks have been watching us the entire time, and Antonia confirms that they run things down here. Their leader? A one-handed dude named Pierre.

We go to talk to Pierre, who looks somewhat the worse for wear compared to the Pierre from the story. As we talk to him, his men begin to circulate and take money from the poor. Nikolai discourages this activity by punching one of them hard in the head.