plot roll | they walk among us

[groundrules]

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THEY WALK AMONG US | THE NEUTRAL ZONE

Neutral Zone bridges connect Eidris and Minaras in the two one-hour intervals of each day — 6:00-7:00 and 18:00-19:00 — when both citadel halves are overground. These are safe and shielded spaces — until protesters linked to the Remembrance resistance join the milling crowds.

Protestors rent ’eyes,’ paying exorbitantly to possess the bodies of willing strangers. They are difficult to spot until they’re right beside you, trying to lure or abduct you into the cause of forcibly reuniting Serthica. Both Eidris and Minaras offer bounties for Remembrance members. Remembrance lieutenants are meanwhile actively recruiting, asking an act of fealty to join their ranks.

✘ OBJECTIVE: capture Remembrance members or play spy within the group.

■ Shallow inquiries reveal Remembrance members have been infiltrating the Neutral Zone crowds for a week prior. The Eidris and Minaras administration offer 50,000 coin for every member of Remembrance brought in.

■ The job is encumbered by the use of ‘eyes’: Remembrance members make their getaway by abandoning their rented bodies when they face trouble. To avoid this, Minaras and Eidris loan out miniature hand-held body-lock gear that will keep someone’s awareness in the body they occupy for six hours. To activate the lock, touch the bracelet to the subject’s nape. Each body-lock gear can only be used five times.

■ Remembrance members typically wait until you’ve reached a narrow and crowded part of the bridges, before slipping beside you to whisper their pitch: ”Don’t you miss your family? Was only one citadel, once, our Serthica. Could walk free to our mines, then, to our factories, our dragons. What’s division done for you, except make rich people richer?”

■ They withdraw into the crowd at the first sign of hostility, but will entertain whispered conversation, if you appear interested. Some speak of their leader Chrichter — an allegedly honest, stalwart man of the people — as Serthica’s true hope for the future.

■ Remembrance members work in groups, with a scout alerting the others when constables walk by.

■ Characters sensitive to life forces might feel the ‘eyes’ have multiple spirits inside them, or the spirit that occupies the body is very blurred and undefined (because of regular substitution).

■ As Remembrance seeks political leverage, the easiest way for new conscripts to prove their loyalty is to bring a captive or coerced member of the Eidris or Minaras aristocracy or a person of passable standing — …who may be an unlucky NPC, or one of your allies, finally polishing their acting skills.

■ Keep up the act: Remembrance has zero tolerance for those who belittle or question the cause.

■ Some members of Remembrance might abduct you, using chloroform and brute force, and pretending you are their good friend who has taken drunk or ill in the crowd. If you have been kidnapped or are joining Remembrance freely, prepare to be blindfolded and led down a winding path through the Neutral Zone — and into the impoverished underworld of the Mouse House.

■ The headquarters of Remembrance is in a large, now destitute train station. It would have once served the coal train that traverses the Mouse House daily. High-standing Remembrance lieutenants access the station with large, peculiarly shaped keys.

■ Everyone in the group wears a mask — you receive one as you head in, both for privacy and to fend off the stench of pestilential wet and mould.

■ The Remembrance base is dusty, chaotic, brimming with scraps and random tech projects. Here and there, find dissected or repurposed droids, along with several man-sized burlap mannequins and mislaid toys. No child is ever present. On the walls, colourful graffiti writes, OPEN THE WALLS, PLAY WITH YOUR DOLLS, TWO PENCE A POP, WHERE HAVE YOUR DRAGONS GONE?, BRING OUT YOUR DEAD…

■ Remembrance reunites a motley crowd of desperate men and women. Their households were either destroyed by the ‘coal sickness,’ or divided when work obligations confined some to Eidris, others to Minaras. Several group members are tinkerers, devising new protest weapons and gear — including the terror bullets witnessed during the trade summit. Many members work honest jobs overground, with a minority serving the Neutral Zone. They have minimal interaction with the Mouse House.

■ Remembrance offers the train station as a crude, but functional shelter. Best avoid sleeping here overnight — in your wretched dreams, your dark-fingered hands go to your throat, and decay haunts your body, as you attempt to flee a sinister mountain at all costs.

■ Remembrance leader Chrichter is a frequent (masked) sight, seen speaking and planning with his lieutenants. There is word of a coming attack during the ‘Unwinding.’ It is unclear if Remembrance expects to attack or be attacked.

■ Now and then, the headquarters activity shuts down, and you should hide as overground constables conduct Mouse House raids .They never enter the train station — and Chrichter and his men often prepare bribes. But you’re fair game if you’re captured for your own negligence.

■ A locked back room in the Remembrance headquarters leaks rare rivulets of blood or blackened water. Sometimes, you hear fists banging on the door or animal-like howling for a scant few seconds. Everyone studiously ignores these incidents. The door only opens once — when a furious Chrichter exits, kicking a lifeless burlap mannequin off his clawed, bleeding back.

■ You can enter the headquarters freely if you supply the passcode, WAKE UP. You might want to release the forced Remembrance captives on your way out.

QUESTIONS

NPC ACCESS: CHRICHTER

Comments

[hatejakku]

Finn's been on a little adventure, the excitement mostly created in his mind since nothing about him is particularly smooth. Despite the low-key panic on the inside, he was almost composed looking while he find Licyn and got the key from him with a thankful smile.

The smile returns, this time a bit triumphant, when he spots James and Spock again. Once he's close enough, he procures the key from his sleeve, handing it to Jim.

"Didn't have any trouble." Miraculously.

[intermingled]

Spock hadn't intended to answer Jim, but Finn's return certainly saves him from trying to walk around it.

He watches in the direction Finn came from for a moment in case anyone had managed to quietly follow him, but when he sees and hears no movement, his focus comes back to them.

"It seems you are quite the courier, Finn."

[winscenario]

He smiles a little in relief when he sees that Finn doesn't seem to be rushed or concerned, and he catches Finn's hand to give it a squeeze as he passes him the key.

"Thank you," he says as he lets go, then straightens up. "Alright. Let's see if this'll work."

Checking again that no one's around, Jim approaches the door again, sliding the key into the hole. It clicks perfectly into place, unlocking the door with a small sound of victory coming from Jim, and he pushes it open so they can finally step into the room.

[hatejakku]

Considering who Finn is and all he's accomplished, maybe he shouldn't feel delighted and proud about Spock's remark. But here we are, and he's all smiles about it. Well, about that and Jim's quick squeeze of his hand.

Then comes the real challenge, though. Finn finds himself a little anxious when Jim approaches the door, almost sure that he won't work. But it does, the door swinging open, his anxiety remaining. It's not until he's inside the room that he freezes and realizes where those feelings of wrong are finally coming from.

"What is this?" His voice is quiet like he may wake something, yet serious and hardly even sounds like a question.

[intermingled]

Spock is the last to enter the room, eyes checking the area outside the door before he follows Finn through. It wouldn't do to be careless right now, but it seems they aren't being watched in any way that Spock can sense and that is what he will have to trust for now.

His brow furrows.

"Is this what we expected?"

[winscenario]

Walking ahead of them both, Jim still is cautious but far too curious not to venture further into the room, making a circle to take in all the details. He's still careful not to touch anything, at least not just yet, just in case something might set off an alarm or react weirdly in some way, as things tend to during these missions.

"I don't know about you, but I didn't know what I... expected."

His words trails off as he approaches the table in the center of the room, eyes landing on the burlap mannequin chained down to it.

"What the hell are they doing here?"

[hatejakku]

Even though practically every fiber of Finn's being is screaming at him to leave, he continues forward, slowly sweeping his eyes around the room. He makes note of the music box, mostly because it looks so out of place here. But it feels a little less out of place once he notices the picture sitting beside the mannequin.

What the hell are they doing here?

"It looks like... some sort of ritual... We should go." Before someone shows up and a picture of one of them ends up there instead. He does not like this.