Session 47
These Mean Streets

"Speed first. Control later." — Fortuna

"I don't want to die in New Big City." — Ishmael

"If you ain't first, you're last." — Ricky Bobby 

"It's 106 miles to Chicago, we got a full tank of gas, half a pack of cigarettes, it's dark, and we're wearing sunglasses. Hit it." — Elwood & Jake

"What we're dealing with here... is a complete lack of respect for the law." 

— Sheriff Buford T. Justice 

The heroes sneak out through the kitchen. The kitchen staff assures them they saw nothing and make all haste to leave when the Privateers try giving them instructions. In the van, they find the Sailor was attacked by a pair of mooks. He has a steel stone shard in his chest. He is on death's door, and they work to keep him alive. They pile into the van and make their way out of the alleyways. Watch cars are everywhere. Fortuna has some interesting experiences with the clutch. The burnt out demolished van draws some attention so Fortuna turns it invisible. This misdirects the watch long enough to get away, but not enough to eliminate suspicion. A car chase begins! They race through the streets, making their way back to the warehouse. There, they struggle to get the Diva on her way out of New Big City and to safety. They manage to complete the narrative and the Node Simulation ends after a final confrontation with Hazel outwitting the Thin Man. The Sailor and the Diva escape out the other side of the story, but there is no sign of the Thin Man. The Glitch, Ishmael, confronts the Architect, Estooa.

After the Battle of the Regal Room, when you reach your van, the door is open and a trail blood leads out of the cab… there are two dead mooks on the ground. They’ve been shot.

The Sailor looks like death. He has a jagged piece of metal in his chest. You recognize it immediately. Steel stone! “One of you is going to have to take the piece of the Virssenvinal Tree out of me. They could only have gotten from… oh, it looks like you met him," he laughs ruefully at your battleworn appearance. The Thin Man.

When the Diva sees him, she gasps. Her eyes narrow. "I know you. You're the deckhand on the steamer from Euros. I confronted you when I caught you watching me!"

"Hey doll," he coughs up blood.  

The narrative climaxes. The simulation ends. New Big City fades into mist. Only you remain in an empty hall. Estooa stands near a portal.

The Sailor sits in the middle of the floor. The Diva cradled in his arms. She is unconscious. He glares at Estooa darkly. 

After an age, Estooa speaks, "I am not your enemy, Glitch." His voice is strained with emotion. This surprises you all.

"That remains to be seen," Ishamel responds quietly. He looks to the Diva and gently brushes the sweat from her brow.

We wound up in a “car chase.” A few hours earlier and I would have had no idea what those words meant, but I sure knew it now. It was a helluva lot of fun, honestly. Fortuna can really “push a hack.” Reminded me a bit of watching Shilyn pilot us through an asteroid belt.

After the bloodbath in the Regent Room, the cops were on their way, so we made for the old fish truck in order to scram. We found the bodies of two mooks outside, and a badly wounded Ishmael inside. He’d been stabbed with a piece of steelstone. Nothing we could do to heal him seemed to make any difference with his brutal wound.

We didn’t have time for much of a chat. Fortuna at the wheel, we raced through the streets at building speeds, narrowly dodging - or not quite - cyclists, firetrucks, building zones, and so on. And then there was the Thin Man. Inside this strange Psulron play, he had the power to bend the story. He was suddenly one of the firemen. Then, he was one of the gangsters in a car hot on our heels. He could become, or maybe take over, any character in the story at will, it seemed. When he did he still had all his frankly awesome powers to make our lives more difficult. But we managed to push through and move the story of the Diva forward anyway.

We got her to the warehouse - the same warehouse where our part in this story started. As good a place as any for an ending. We were the Diva’s agents in this play, so we played the role. Things just weren’t going to work out for her in New Big City, we told her. It was too scummy, too run by crime and corruption. But we could offer her a new start with our agency in Shiny City. A tearful parting with her champion, Khalid. Would she ever see him again? A tough guy parting line from Khalid, and we whisked her into a waiting limo headed for Shiny City. Story ended.

Except - the driver of the limo was the Thin Man.

Except - we knew that he was gonna pull that trick, and the Diva was actually Hazel in disguise.

I’d played my part by charging out into the streets to face the “gunfire” of the surrounding make-believe gangsters that were supposed to be a part of Hazel’s illusion. 

Except - the Thin Man had bent this part of the story too, and so I quickly dove for cover, and growled out a warning that the gangsters had better clear out if they wanted to “live.” They quickly thought better of their plan and took off.

Meanwhile, Hazel had his meeting with the Thin Man in the limo. Successfully. The play thing  came to an end, and we suddenly found ourselves back in our world where all these weird things like “car chases,” “record deals,” and “tommy guns” would be alien and unknown.

Estooa was there. He agreed - the story had ended, and so he could now use what was left of his architect powers and the “node” to take us where we needed to go - the brain munchers to start their rebellion, the ratfolk… somewhere safe? And us, I’d guess, to our tree fort to plan for the liberation of Brahl.

There was something weird going on between Estooa and Ishmael. Ishmael was looking at him like an Ylfe looks at a goblin. Did this have something to do with the “factions” of architects that Ishmael had warned us about? Estooa seemed to be treating Ishamel and the Diva decent for all I could tell. 

There were a few questions in my mind, but the big one was - where to next?