Session 28
From 4th Edition
The Life and Death of Dr. Steel
| Crom Suggests Killing Dr. Steel |
|---|
| The night passes uneventfully. You've set up camp in the main chamber of the Smoldering Corpse Bar, and after getting a fire going in the fire pit in the center of the floor, you feel almost as though you were camping in some wild and savage land. This is your first significant stay in the Elemental Chaos, and the whole experience is somewhat disconcerting. Being bathed in perpetual red light isn't doing any favors for your circadian rhythms.
Having completed your extended rest, you reequip yourself and ponder how to get Thuroban to hurry up and tell you what to do. Crom, however, isn't totally on board yet for your grand adventures and as you sit and eat your breakfast rations, he delivers his proposal. "My name is Crom, son of Crom, and I have ruled this neighborhood for the past ten years. My men were strong, and my name was respected, but all this changed when the Crime King moved into town. He has operated for as long as the people here can remember in the City of Brass, but just recently, his agents have begun to make aggressive pushes outward from his already expansive domain. He is no longer content with his operations in the richest parts of the city and has overseen a series of hostile takeovers of his former allies in the city, alienating his friends as he pushes forward with his inscrutable agenda. Over the past several months, a notorious crony named Dr. Steel has steadily pushed into my turf, ignoring both diplomacy and intimidation. Yesterday, he finally launched an attack on my headquarters, killing what enforcers I had left and utterly destroying my base of operations. We'll quickly be overrun by his forces if we let this affront stand. If you want my help in your mission, and indeed if you want a secure safe house to return to, you'll help me eradicate this menace once and for all. Dr. Steel runs a casino on the northern side of the Rookery called the Lucky Star and he can be found there most nights schmoozing with his customers or counting his money or whatever big-shot gangsters do. Now its one thing to just run into the place and insert a sword ever so delicately into Dr. Steel's face, but that will only do us so much good. For this mission to be completely successful, we need to send a message to all of the Crime King's lackeys that nobody fucks with the Hungry Blades, so this assassination should be both graphic and impressive, though I'm sure adventurers of your caliber have some experience in murdering a man in the most horrible way possible. I'm afraid I'm not much good at plans myself, but I tell you as much as I know about Dr. Steel and his operations." |
Venturing off into town, the party sets out to kill Dr. Steel and wrest control of the neighborhood from his hands. Arriving at the Lucky Star, the party splits up to do some recon and find Dr. Steel himself. While the man of the hour was nowhere to be seen, the group did discover that the area was heavily guarded by Maruts and that Dr. Steel had a room on the top floor of the Lucky Star Hotel.
After some deliberation, the party decided to murder him in his sleep, after first paying a street urchin to set fires downstairs to distract the guards. After killing him, they intended to leave Mr. Steel's body in the jaws of the mechanical dragon that breathed fire from atop the casino itself.
A difficulty emerged, however, as the group realized that Dr. Steel could be brought back to life by his minions and would quickly seek vengeance on the party. After discussing several ways of solving this, the party decided to visit the devil, Rotten Maggots, who had previously traded goods for souls. Instead of being summoned by the calling card he had given the party way back during their initial visit to Wimpington Manor, the card opened a portal to the city of Hestavar on the Astral Plane. There, the party entered a bank, where a secretary introduced them to the same devil, who was not calling himself Mr. Monroe.
He owned the bank, as it turned out, and operated legally in the city, making deals of every conceivable form. He explained that the party couldn't sell Dr. Steel's soul for him, but upon checking his records, he discovered that Dr. Steel had already promised him his soul in exchange for the capital required to start his casino. The party did make one deal, however, offering information on Task Force Delta in exchange for the knowledge that Mr. Monroe had neither Jones nor Mr. Sol had sold their soul to him.
