Clockwork & Chivalry - Session 03

15th February 2020

Saturday night is here and we're at Matakishi's for Saturday night RPGs.

Tonight we will be continuing Clockwork & Chivalry as ran by Matakishi.

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Location: Whittlewood Forest.

We left the forest behind.

We journeyed northwards and on to 'Guilesburgh', said to be the last settlement before the 'Tainted Lands' that surround Naseby.

Upon reaching Guilesburgh we entered an establishment charmingly named 'The Strangled Kitten Inn'. The inn is managed by one Theo Bobbs​.
As we were relaxing, we couldn't help but notice several 'ladies of the night' around the inn. We learned their 'madame' is named Verity! We chose not to engage in their 'services'.

A little later there was a commotion and half a dozen boisterous Parliamentarians entered the inn. Without any delay they were taken upstairs to make use of the aforementioned 'services'. 
Soon an officer entered, no doubt looking for his men. As he is gathering them, we hear a scream! A girl's scream to be precise. A girl comes out on to the landing and claims. "They killed my father, she stole my things.". The girl points at Verity.
Abraham moved to investigate the situation, but was blocked by Carlos the bouncer.

Although we were stymied, we were not deterred and decided to investigate further. We spoke with Theo about the situation and he confided to us that he believes that the girl's father was murdered by one of the prostitutes.

Morning came and we examined the body. The man had been stabbed, from the front no less.
But beyond that we discovered black fibres of cloth under his fingernails. It may well have been that the killer was wearing black - such as a black cloak.
We also saw bloody footprints in the room. They were the footprints of a small person, possibly a woman?

Next, we spoke with the daughter, Christabel aged 12.
We asked her what she knew, her answers were peculiar to say the least. She spoke of being in a dream-like state and of a woman whispering to her father.
This not prove to be of much use.

Our investigation had borne little fruit and best part of the day had been spent, we saw little advantage of taking to the road today and would spend a second evening at The Strangled Kitten.

Evening came and 2 men entered the premises. One announced himself as Justice Cameron and stated he was here to investigate the murder.
A little later the same officer and six soldiers returned. Under order from Justice Cameron, they took verity into custody and left.

We had never been convinced of the guilt of Verity and found this turn of events not to our satisfaction. We decided to follow them.

Outside, Ursula cast a spell of subtle witchcraft upon them, but the Justice realised what occurred and ordered the soldiers to attack.

We drove them off, once again Ursula's magic did the trick! Next we questioned Justice Cameron. He told us that his orders had come from an mysterious individual in black.
This was at least the third time that this person had interfered with us.

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Morning came and we embarked on the final leg of our journey to Naseby.
We had decided to take Christabel with us. Her father was dead, we knew nothing of her mother and we refused to leave the child in the care of Verity. We had no doubt the fate that would await the girl if left under the supervision of Verity.

Soon we found ourselves in 'The Tainted Lands'. The full savagery of the civil war had taken it's toll here. The aftermath of magic and alchemy had twisted this place. Seemingly Uninhabited, unsettling and bleak, the plant life was strange and the environment even more so. When it rained, the precipitation fizzled and irritated the skin.
​
Later we saw people, there were perhaps ten of them. We saw they were deformed. Missing limbs, some even had gills. We could see that they were rotting away. Such was the price this place took from the flesh. Who knows why they were here, but then who knows what would befall them elsewhere.
Taking pity, we gave them whatever food we could spare.

We pressed onwards and late in the day arrived at a settlement called Thurnsby. It looked deserted and ruined, yet another casualty of this war.
It was at this time we began to hear many bestial, wolfish howls, we had no doubt that whatever was voicing that howling was coming straight at us.

A quick assessment of Thurnsby told us that the inn, whilst half ruined would provide us with a defensible room or two.
We retreated into these areas and lit torches, waiting in the dark.
In the dimness of the failing daylight we saw wolves approach.

This was however, not to be our chief threat. We; in our preoccupation with the wolves, had neglected to secure the inn's cellar.
It was from there, in the now darkening day that strange man-like creatures burst forth, surprising us. 
Before we could react, they were among us, but we fought back! Abraham and I held our ground in the melee and Ursula blasted them with witchcraft, setting them ablaze.
The fire did for them and had the good fortune of driving the wolves away. At least for now anyway.

Even though it was dark and cold, we made the decision to push on through the night to reach Naseby and leave this dismal and cursed land behind us.

---

It was past dawn, a pale sun had risen into a dull and wintry sky as we arrived at Naseby.
We were not surprised to find that Naseby looked deserted. Whilst pondering our next move we heard the ringing of church bells. 

Making our way to the village church, we found and introduced ourselves to 'Reverend John Possitt', something about the reverend was unsettling. The reverend invited us in for his service. He seemed entirely untroubled by the abandoned village around him, perhaps he was slightly mad. As we spoke to him he seemed to become agitated, we gave him some food and he calmed down.

We proceeded to ask the reverend if he knew anything about Lady Cecilia Perkinson. He told us that Lady Cecilia had been here and during that time a message was delivered by a messenger cloaked in black and wearing a silver mask, the reverend believed the messenger was a woman.
The messenger told Lady Cecilia, that 'she must go and see to her sons'? This was strange, we had been told that her sons were dead?

There was precious little more to be learned from the reverend. We departed and headed north west to the battlefield It was a desolate and depressing sight.

We spied two riders approaching across the bleak, cold landscape. They were young men garbed as dragoon captains. They introduced themselves as Henry and William Perkinson; they were the sons of Sir Reginald and Lady Cecilia!

We were instantly suspicious of them. We looked closely at them and even in the weak sunlight, we saw that they cast no shadows. They could only be ghosts!
The pair of them told us that we must head for 'Clypston'.  Then after they were out of our sight for a moment, vanished. We were now alone on the battlefield.

We journeyed on and Solby, another empty settlement. There were however tents here and soldiers - and a captain.
The captain agreed to buy the alchemist's caravan and cogs that we had salvaged and acquired during our journey.
The captain then introduced us to Ashton and Hilary Hewitt.

We spent some time speaking with the Hewitts and eventually the conversation came to the woman in black with a silver mask. As luck would have it, they said that they had been at a dinner she had also attended.

The Hewitts told us she was known as 'Lady Silver' or 'Lady Blackwood' and that she served Prince Rupert.

Before continuing our journey, we are given a note to deliver to a man named 'Crenshaw' who works at The East Association.
With that, we set out for Cambridge.