THE THREE OF BLADES
a Blades in the Dark actual play
THE THREE OF BLADES
a game of Blades in the Dark: Assassins
Featuring our scoundrels...
ESKA, THE AUTOMATON the clockwork assassin & leech from Tycheros.
MAGNUS, THE SORCERER the spectrology professor & whisper from the Dagger Isles.
VESPER, THE VIPER the House Anixis spy & slide from Iruvia.
ZYRIK, THE BEAST the Unity War soldier & cutter from Tycheros.
LEO, THE ORACLE the monk & whisper from Severos.
and special guest…
BRIAR THORN, THE SKIPPER the Deathlands scavenger & leech from Doskvol
EPISODE 1. SEASON 1 THE YACHT
Dreams of She Who Slays in Darkness unite the Three of Blades & Sephone Strand.
Strings of electroplasm lanterns light the deck of Rolan Wott’s ship. The yacht is full of distinguished guests and laughter and music, the smell of the sea and black lotus smoke in the air. Clear skies show the stars above, and the stars in the inky sea pulse below.
The Three of Blades meet with Sephone Strand at her renovated manor in Six Towers. “Adric Bowmore spilled Strand blood, for this he will die. Magistrate Rolan Wott is hosting a party on his pleasure yacht in Duskwall harbor, infiltrate the party and slay Adric Bowmore.”
Magnus surveys the docks where Rolan Wott’s yacht is moored, plotting a route for infiltration. A cabbie spies Magnus snooping. Eska drinks and tinkers with bombs, rigging up a few explosives for the job. Vesper consorts with a colleague about Sir Bowmore’s proclivities, and crafts a deadly poison. Zyrik wrangles the Breakers and they set sail aboard the Widow, heading out to the bay.
The gang infiltrates the party in the guise of guests and crew. Eska heads down below decks, preparing to wreck the engine room of the ship. A guard stands in her way, then falls to her sword-arm. Eska sabotages the life rafts while the gang hunts Adric. Vesper finds Bowmore’s private cabin, and is welcomed inside by his consorts. Vesper secretes the poison, mixing his drink with her finger. Adric takes his final sup.
The plan is set in motion, Magnus runs up deck to blow the ship’s horn and Vesper flees from the scene as Adric Bowmore dies violently in front of his guests. Magnus slays a guard and summons a tempest to freeze the skipper in a blast of wind. The horn is blown, signaling Eska to blow the engine room.
Our scoundrels race to the front of the ship to repel down to their escape boat, waiting in the night. Briar & Zyrik of the Breakers sail the Three of Blades back to shore. Rolan Wott, the magistrate, watches his ship sink in the bay as his lifeboat dips into the ink black sea.
EPISODE 2. SEASON 1 DOWNTIME
The Bluecoats drag Eckard the corpse thief in for questioning, his lean-to is destroyed but he doesn’t rat on Eska Burkova.
Zyrik is contracted by the Three of Blades. He meets Officer Timond Riggs at a Bluecoat bar in Brightstone, then pilfers the officer’s log book to learn the whereabouts of Commander Clelland.
Vesper is investigating the disappearance of her brother in Doskvol, she asks Stazia the apothecary to aid the gang. Vesper’s brother was closing a deal for the Iruvian Consulate, arranging shipment of cargo with the Ministry of Preservation.
Magnus is lost in a dream, echoes & visions of Doskvol in chaos.
Eska procures libations at the Old Forge tavern, a Grinder bar in Coalridge. Tinkering with her auto-plate armor, she discovers a glowing electroplasm battery where her heart should be.
EPISODE 3. SEASON 1 THE CLOCK TOWER
The clocktower looms over a condemned neighborhood in Charterhall, a clock-face missing on the Deathlands side peers out over the wasteland and the lightning barrier. This part of the city is quiet, but for the thrumming of machinery and the crash of electroplasm emanating from the tower’s top floor.
Construction has begun on a wing of the Strand manor. Workers come and go, wearing the sigil of the Foundation. Sephone enlightens our scoundrels to the misdeeds of her enemies, Lady Tianna Penderyn and Commander Tiberius Clelland. The gang go after Penderyn at her clock tower laboratory. Eska uses her newly forged line-thrower to break into a window, and unlocks the portcullis in the canals below to let in Magnus, Vesper and Zyrik.
The Three of Blades make their way up the winding stairs, past old archaniums and planetariums to the hatches that lead to the top floor. Magnus peaks in, seeing Penderyn in the ghost-field, glowing much brighter with energy than a normal person should, he is greeted by a spider-hull who latches to his face and emits a stunning shock. Eska paces into the room and sees Lady Penderyn, wearing some strange device, standing before a thrumming machine with a glowing spirit well at its center. Swarms of spider hulls weave a web of copper around the edges of the spectral tear, preparing to energize the portal with electroplasm. Lady Penderyn confuses Eska for a lost student when she tries to learn more about her mechanical body. Eska is told of a relative of Tianna’s, Sethla Penderyn. He works at the consulate and should know more about Eska’s illegal spark-craft modifications.
Their meeting is cut short as the gang springs to action. Vesper shoots the contraption strapped to Lady Penderyn’s back as Zyrik rushes forward to strike her down. It’s at this moment that Lady Penderyn releases the hundreds of spirits contained within her, and the clock tower interior is filled with a maelstrom of ghosts. The spirits fling Zyrik against the machinery, and Magnus takes out a swarm of spider-hulls with a bolt of lightning. Fighting their terror our scoundrels press on.
Zyrik strikes again, he cuts Penderyn but is coiled in copper web by a swarm of spider-hulls. The arachnid automatons tinkering on the machine continue their work, when Magnus calls upon She Who Slays in Darkness for arcane power. A bolt of lightning crashes and a storm rolls in as she grants him the ability “Ghost in the Machine” which he uses to take control of dormant spider-hulls in the laboratory, he sets the hulls at war with the others, freeing up the gang to take on Penderyn.
With little more information about her dark past than a name, Eska buries her sword-arm into Lady Penderyn. Upon the Lady’s death the spirits swirling around the clock tower surge toward the noble woman and draw her into the spirit well before it explodes in a gout of flame. Our scoundrels race to the canals as the clocktower blazes.
EPISODE 4. SEASON 1 DOWNTIME
The Billhooks come knocking on Grinder turf. They’re raiding shops under the protection of the Grinders & harassing patrons of the Old Forge tavern. Eska finds them threatening Sercy when she goes to indulge her vice.
Magnus and Flint speak of She Who Slays in Darkness in the grove of the Weeping Lady. Flint tells his old friend not to bargain with devils. The pair journey deep into the canals of Nightmarket on the barge of Mordis, the hooded proprietor. The voyage ends on the sandy alcove of a natural cave system filled with preternatural revelers. Spirits dance among the living to chanting and the beat of drums that echo through the cavern. Magnus attracts the attention of a vampire, Lord Scurlock himself, who proceeds to sate his this thirst on the willing Magnus. Magnus and Flint perform a blood-rite in the caves, summoning a murder of crows from the ghost-field.
Dreams of a red moon rising, the ghost-field tinged with blood & vermillion ghosts. Crimson lightning storms & screaming thunder.
Vesper visits Stazia, the apothecary & physicker, and learns the location of her brother’s hideout in the slums of Dunslough. Walid is staying with Deathlands Scavengers, preparing to escape the city. Stazia says she doesn’t trust Elstera Avrathi with the information. She warns Vesper that the Vultures, a dangerous gang of spark-craft smugglers, are hunting for Wally. Stazia gifts to Vesper the ingredients for crimson elixir, a powerful healing tonic, disguised as a sachet of tea. Vesper tinkers with alchemicals and poisons in her laboratory at Strand Manor, studying the Path of the Viper. Vesper trains her prowess among the marble pillars of the newly constructed reflecting pool chamber of Strand manor, an oculus in the ceiling exposes the starry sky above. She sends a cipher home to Iruvia for instruction regarding Walid's fate.
Dreams of an opal serpent slithering up from the starry sea, prowling over dunes of black sand through vermillion storms. U’duasha on the horizon, the Well pulsing red.
Eska performs mechanical surgery on herself to learn more about her spark-craft body, she discovers hidden compartments that can be fitted with gear. Her and Eckard, the corpse thief, go for a drink at the Old Forge tavern in Coalridge. The district is a cacophony of protesters and Bluecoat crackdowns. At the Old Forge, Eska asks Eckard about Sethla Penderyn, Lady Penderyn’s nephew and attache to the Tycheros Consulate. Eckard knows Sethla as the leader of the Vultures, a dangerous gang of spark-craft smugglers. He reveals a pincer wound inflicted upon him by a large centipede under the command of one of the Vultures, bitten while surveying the gang’s spark-craft auto-carriage. Coran, bruiser for the Billhooks busts in to the Old Forge tavern looking for a fight, the Grinders at the Old Forge happily oblige. Eska prowls out a secret exit with Eckard, but is ambushed by a waiting Billhook. Eckard fumbles for the fine pistol he stole from the Vultures, Eska fires and the Billhook falls.
Dreams of a zeppelin armada above the ink sea, harbingers of an obsidian storm, rolling black fog & oil slick rain.
Zyrik meets his fellow Breakers aboard their smuggling boat, the Widow, in Tangletown. Briar and Tinder repair the Widow while Zyrik trains his prowess at the peak of Tangletown, the half-sunk shell of an ancient leviathan hunter ship. Zyrik accepts the bargain from She Who Slays in Darkness to gain monstrous power, a storm rolls into the harbor. Zyrik arranges a meet with Officer Riggs, the Gray Cloak spy, at the Silver Stag casino in Brightstone. They meet at the fighting pits by the river to spectate the fight between the Butcher and the Hammer. The Butcher is huge but the Hammer is precise, a spectacle of a bought ends with the Hammer’s victory, and howling cheers from the Silver Nails. Zyrik interrogates Riggs about the contents of the pilfered log-book, brokering an alliance between the Three of Blades and the Gray Cloaks to take down the conspirators Commander Clelland and Lord Strangford.
Dreams of the ink black sea, of writhing chains in the deep, an oil slick monsoon that floods the city.
EPISODE 5. SEASON 1 THE REAVER
“Lady Penderyn and Lord Bowmore are dead, the threads of the Council start to fray… I will rebuild this House in my family’s memory. This crumbling keep will become a bulwark against those who seek our blood.”
- Sephone Strand
Magnus dreams of a deathseeker crow soaring over and surveying the city for whom the bell tolls. The crow spies Magnus dead in the canal, his ghost drifting above the water.
Eska dreams of the Old Forge blazing while Ulf Ironborn and his inner circle battle waves of Billhooks in the streets, ash falling in the streets of Coalridge.
Vesper dreams of a group of Deathlands Scavengers marching toward a wrecked railcar in the wastes.
Zyrik dreams of the Unity War, a bone-scaled beast prowls through the muddy trenches & noxious miasma. A leviathan hunter fires its cannons as a colossal wave pulls it into the starry depths.
The gang awake to Sephone knocking at their manor doors. Eska, burrowed in her workshop. Magnus, in the old creaking spire. Vesper, in an opulent master suite. Zyrik, drunk in the wine cellar. Sephone details the remaining targets in the newly constructed Hall of Reflection. Lord Strangford, waylaid the Strand family’s fleet and slaughtered the crews. Commander Clelland, engineered and covered up the conspiracy against the Strands. Preceptor Dunvil, sacrificed the Strand’s spirits to a Forgotten God.
Preceptor Dunvil is conducting an upcoming ceremony at the Sanctorium, to be attended by Commander Clelland. Lord Strangford has returned from sea, and been thrown in shackles for crimes against the empire. Rumours say he returned decades younger. Others say he has a strange mutation, transformed by a leviathan’s song. Lord Strangford is being transported inside an armored reaver on the River Dusk, overseen by Commander Clelland and guarded by heavy Bluecoat patrols.
Zyrik enlists the help of the Breakers, by challenging Briar Thorn to a duel at the peak of Tangletown. Eska and Magnus spectate aboard the Widow as the scoundrels test their mettle. At the peak of the creaking leviathan hunter, Zyrik storms forward. Briar Thorn swipes with his heavy wrench as Zyrik takes on a monstrous form. Heavy bone armor covers his body, sharp claws grow from his hands. Zyrik storms Briar again, charging on four limbs like a beast before Briar throws down his wrench in defeat.
The Breakers agree to help the Three of Blades, by rallying the citizens of Tangletown to block the river and redirect Lord Strangford’s transport. Back on the Widow, Magnus asks Ash and Tinder about their old gang-mate, Flint. Tinder tells Magnus that it was Flint who broke up the gang and that Ash hasn’t forgiven him for it. The Three of Blades & the Breakers develop a plan.
The night before the job, Eska and Magnus head to an old bridge that connects Crowsfoot and Charhollow. Eska rigs the explosives with help from Magnus, and the pair drop the bridge into the river. Dim morning rises as the reaver sets out on the River Dusk. Magnus spies the armored boat from his perch at the peak of Tangletown. He summons a fog to signal the distraction in the floating slum below. A Bluecoat sniper fires at Magnus from a rooftop as the ships begin their revelry of fireworks and music.
The Tangletown carnival crowds the river as Vesper and Zyrik, disguised as Bluecoats thanks to Officer Riggs, march to a Bluecoat outpost guarding the canal between Crowsfoot and Charhollow. Vesper gives the sergeant new orders, break up the chaos in Tangletown and try not to break any skulls. Zyrik sends a Gray Cloak spy to discover the location of Commander Clelland.
Fireworks burst over Tangletown, masking the gunfire from Magnus and the rooftop sniper. Eska takes the rifle from Magnus, and puts a shot in the assailant before being grazed herself. Magnus fires and the sniper falls, dropping his rifle off the building. Down on the street below, the Bluecoat sergeant notices the sniper duel and starts to call for reinforcements. Vesper accepts the dark power of She Who Slays in Darkness as a deep fog rolls into the bay. A large opal serpent slithers out of a nearby puddle, coils around the Bluecoat and buries its fangs.
The armored reaver weaves through the chaos in Tangletown, moving slowly through the fog. Beckoned forward by Bluecoats on the shore, the escort boat diverts down a canal between Crowsfoot and Charhollow. Rubble clogs the way forward, the Bluecoat guard standing atop the armored boat calls out to his allies on the street.
Magnus, Zyrik and Vesper board the vessel disguised as Bluecoats. Zyrik fells the Bluecoat and uses his keys to unlock the hatch to the interior of the armored boat. Eska and the Breakers sail down the canal, blocking the exit. Eska lights the fuse of a large bomb and tosses it across the water to Zyrik. He slings the bomb into the hull of the armored boat and the Three of Blades leap for their lives into the water. Our scoundrels board the Widow and escape through the shroud of chaos in Tangletown.
EPISODE 6. SEASON 1 DOWNTIME
The Vultures ambush the Three of Blades in Silkshore after the score.
Briar Thorn reveals the details of the Breaker’s work for Sephone Strand. The Breakers are capturing the spirits of Sephone’s enemies, Lord Bowmore & Lady Penderyn are sealed within the catacombs of Strand Manor. The Foundation has taken over reconstruction of the Charterhall clock tower.
Thick fog fills the canals as our scoundrels sail away from the chaos in Tangletown. Lightning-bugs flicker on in the winding canals of Silkshore. The bugs swarm the Widow and begin to drain energy from the electroplasm generator powering the ship. Eska catches a firefly to add to her growing collection of spark-craft oddities. A harpoon launches at the Widow from the mist. At the top of a bridge in Silkshore, the armored auto-carriage of the Vultures lay in wait.
The heavy line-thrower pierces the Widow and begins to lift the boat out of the water. Magnus is thrown into the canal when the boat is tipped. Levitating in the fog above the canal, Quess Penderyn shimmers inside an electro-field while commanding the swarm of lightning-bugs. Zyrik races up the line to fend off the assailants as Vesper coats the cable in a potent acid. Vesper fires her pistol at Quess but the bullet burns away as it passes through the electro-field armor.
At the top of the bridge Zyrik climbs on the chassis of the auto-carriage, a gift from Eska in hand. He lights the fuse and jams the bomb in the window slit of the armored auto-carriage, then leaps backward off the bridge. The bomb erupts and shakes the carriage, the heavy cable snaps and drops the Widow and the Three of Blades into the canal. Eska finds Magnus in the water, using her built-in line-thrower to grapple him to safety. In the fog and fire the Vultures make their escape. The Three of Blades wash up on the river’s edge in Silkshore.
Our harrowed scoundrels recover from their dark work.
Eska dreams of a morning in the Pale Forest of Tycheros, crystal leaves shimmer in the dawnlight.
Zyrik dreams of writhing chains breaking in the starry depths, a shadow surging toward the surface.
Magnus dreams of bolts of crimson lightning arcing from the Charterhall Clocktower.
Vesper dreams of a lone Silver Nail atop their steed, pursued by a legion of ghosts in the Lost District.
Vesper visits the Iruvian Consulate in Whitecrown. At the end of Bowmore Bridge is an Imperial Military checkpoint. The soldiers conduct searches and inspect the documents of anyone traveling through the district. Vesper produces her credentials and prepares to give her report to Elstera Avrathi and seek council about her brother’s fate. Wally was securing a contract between the Iruvian Consulate and the Ministry of Preservation, but went rogue on his mission. Elstera tells her that he must be dealt with for the good of Iruvia, but Vesper senses that Elstera has ulterior motives. The ambassador begins her line of questioning about the recent chaos in Doskvol. Vesper tells Elstera Avrathi what she wants to hear, without revealing her dark work with the Three of Blades.
Zyrik meets with Officer Riggs to plan for the hit on the Sanctorium. Riggs knows the schedule of Bluecoat patrols around the ceremony, and the members of Commander Clelland’s personal security detail. The Gray Cloaks have their own agenda for this operation. Zyrik enters the Silver Stag casino in Brightstone, looking for a fight. At the river’s edge Zyrik steps into the muddy fighting pits, his opponent for the bought is Bill the Butcher. The fight’s attendant bellows out to the crowd “Tonight’s battle... The Butcher versus the Beast!” The bell rings and the titans clash. Bill towers over Zyrik, but Zyrik knocks the tower down. He pummels Bill into the mud, and is thrown out of the casino for his vicious display.
Eska weaves her way through Coalridge to the Old Forge tavern, toolbox in hand. Ulf Ironborn delivers a speech to the armed Grinders in the bar. Darret shows Eska what repairs are needed after the attack by the Billhooks, and with her supply of fine liquor from the bar, she sets to work. Eska repairs the Old Forge and makes her way back to the manor through the ruined buildings of a burned out section of Coalridge. Walking through the factory husks she feels a fleck of ash fall on her face. The canal shimmers with oil, then fills with flame as the corrupted water is set ablaze. Charred skeletons rise from the flaming canal and reach for Eska, their eyes burning embers. She awakens on the steps of Strand Manor, ash in her hair and a handprint burned into her arm.
Magnus enters a seedy vice den under the roaring rail-lines of Gaddoc Station in Nightmarket. Etched into the stone at the entrance of a hidden passageway is a sigil, a bee within a hexagon. Moored below is Mordis, waiting aboard his ferry. Magnus flips the hooded proprietor a glimmering coin and they set sail. Ancient tunnels lead to modern canals. A large portcullis barricades a corridor lit with electroplasm lights, and a winding stairway beyond. Mordis reveals a length of rusted chain, each link a brimming ring of keys. Mordis unlocks the gate and Magnus enters Lord Scurlock’s estate. Drawn through the mansion to the top floor he spies Lord Scurlock on the balcony, surveying the city. Magnus consorts with the vampire. Lord Scurlock needs Magnus for some terrible purpose. The dim dawn rises as Lord Scurlock’s fangs sink into Magnus.
Zyrik is leaving the manor to train, when he spies Sephone Strand in the Hall of Reflection. In fencing attire and with rapier in hand, Sephone challenges Zyrik to a duel. Eska, Vesper and Magnus watch the pair battle. Zyrik charges in, deftly dodged by Sephone. With a flourish she is inside his guard, and Sephone beckons the other scoundrels to join the fray. Eska swipes with her sword-arm. Vesper unleashes a flurry of strikes with her scimitar. Magnus leaps down from the balcony with a pair of blades. The four cutthroats lock blades with Sephone Strand, and are bested by the Lady of the House.
EPISODE 7. SEASON 1 FINALE THE SANCTORIUM
A memorial to the victims of the spirit plague, and the fallen Lost District. The citizens of Brightstone are secluded in their homes, candles gleam like beacons in every window. A few stragglers scurry home in the rain. Echoes pour from the Sanctorium, the chanting of the faithful.
At Strand Manor in Six Towers, the Three of Blades, the Breakers and Sephone Strand stand around the pool in the pillared chamber of the Hall of Reflection. The oculus in the ceiling exposes the starry night sky, mirrored in the water below. The Lady of the House details the circumstances of her family’s demise.
Preceptor Dunvil, Commander Clelland, Lady Pendryn, Lord Bowmore and Lord Strangford bargained with a devil. The cult of the Horror Beyond the Veil infiltrated the City Council. The Strands stood in defiance, until the council burnt Strand Manor down around them.
When a member of the City Council dies, the Horror Beyond the Veil tears through the ghost-field and becomes a crimson spirit well pulsing with bolts of blood red electroplasm that compel nearby ghosts. The City Council seek to free the horror from its prison in the beyond.
The Breakers, a gang of ghost hunters, have already sealed the rift inside of Rolan Wott’s sunken yacht in the harbor, where Lord Bowmore was poisoned.
“I had to wear a diving bell for that one, looked ridiculous!” Briar says. The Breakers recovered the spirits of Lord Bowmore and Lady Penderyn as part of their contract with Sephone Strand.
Zyrik details the Gray Cloaks plan to infiltrate Commander Clelland’s elite Bluecoat battalion. Five of his loyal guards are actually Gray Cloak double-agents. The battalion was twenty strong, before a sniper fell to Eska and Magnus during Lord Strangford’s assassination in Tangletown. The Gray Cloaks will aid our scoundrels during the hit on Commander Clelland.
Our scoundrels hatch a plan.
Before the score, Magnus heads to Silkshore with Ash and Tinder to seek the aid of Flint, the spirit trafficker. The pair reveal to Magnus that his old friend has been a Spirit Warden all along. When Ash discovered his secret Flint broke up their old gang. On a rainy cliff edge in Silkshore near the crackling lightning-barrier, Flint waits for Magnus. “You rolled dice with a demon and they came up snake eyes. This is your problem, Magnus.”
A murder of crows soars through the rain above the Sanctorium. Within the cathedral Commander Clelland stands at the dais, silhouetted by immense stained glass windows. His elite Bluecoat battalion lay in wait, prepared to spring the trap on the Three of Blades. The discordant chants of demon corrupted cultists echo from the pews. The ritual procession enters from behind the dais, swaying smoking censers as they walk down the aisles. Vesper hides her face under a hood as she leads the procession, her skullfire poison billowing through the cathedral.
The stained glass mural depicts the victories of the Church of the Ecstacy of the Flesh in its war against ghosts. Chants turn to screams as the cultists clutch their heads in agony. The glass shatters over the crowd as Eska, Magnus and Tinder crash into the cathedral. Eska falls upon Commander Clelland with her sword-arm. The Bluecoat enforcers spring to action as Zyrik, disguised as Clelland’s personal guard, takes on a monstrous form.
The battalion fires a barrage at Zyrik, shots ricochet against his monstrous bone armor. He tears into the enforcers as Clelland fails to fend off Eska. He blocks her sword-arm, but not the shard of glass in her other hand. Clelland dies and his Bluecoat battalion wages war on the Three of Blades. Magnus unleashes a torrent of wind that sends Bluecoats flying into the heights of the cathedral. The poisoned cultists meet fangs and steel as Vesper and her opal serpent prowl the chaos.
The smoke clears in the ruined chamber and the Three of Blades still stand. Magnus senses a pulse in the ghost-field, deep below the Sanctorium. His murder of shadow-crows lead our scoundrels down hidden corridors to the source of the power. In an ancient catacomb built before the cataclysm, a crimson spirit well pulses blood red lightning through a legion of clockwork-knights.
Standing at the edge of the spirit well is Preceptor Dunvil and a circle of corrupted cultists. The rift disintegrates a cultist and red lightning crashes into an automaton, powering it on. In the ghost-field Magnus sees the lightning is tethering spirits from the ghost field and drawing them into our world. The Horror Beyond the Veil is compelling the ghosts to enter the legion of hulls.
The clockwork-knights thrum to life with crackling crimson eyes, unveil dual sword-arms and attack our scoundrels. Eska clashes with a clockwork assassin, her electroplasmic-heart pulsing with the spirit well. Magnus animates dormant hulls to fight alongside the crew as his murder of crows roll deep from the shadows. Vesper’s opalescent ghost-hunting serpent coils around a clockwork-knight as Vesper severs its mechanical helmet with a scimitar. Eska surveys the legion of hulls made from her schematics, like gazing into a hall of mirrors.
“A weapon to surpass metal-gear!” Briar says. The Breaker hands Zyrik a bandolier of spirit-flares as he cracks one alight. “Shove that where you don’t want ghosts, alright?” Zyrik lobs a spirit-flare toward the rift. Ash and Tinder begin to quarantine the area with spirit-flares, when the hulls close in. The clockwork-knights strike at Zyrik as Tinder leaps into the fray. The automaton heaves Tinder against a stone pillar. Zyrik shreds the machine with his bone claws.
The dormant hulls commanded by Magnus fall upon Preceptor Dunvil with their sword-arms. As Dunvil dies the corrupted spirit well pulses with crimson lightning and more hulls awaken in the legion. Briar Thorn produces a spool of cable connected to a strange machine, him and Ash need time to close the breach. This is Eska’s queue, she projects beams of electroplasm from her core that melt and explode ranks of the clockwork-knights. Magnus sets the hulls against themselves in a shroud of crows. Zyrik tramples and crumples the automatons under his bone-scale fists. Vesper and her opal serpent dismantle the hulls before they can be corrupted by the Horror Beyond the Veil.
The Three of Blades battle waves of demon corrupted hulls as the Breakers attempt to seal the spirit well. The rifts at the Clock Tower and the Broken Bridge pulse and arc in harmony with the corrupted spirit well at the Sanctorium.
EPISODE 1. SEASON 2 DOWNTIME
Under the Sanctorium the Three of Blades clash against a legion of hulls. The demon corrupted spirit-well arcs with crimson lightning as Briar Thorn approaches with a strange device. With a flash of light Briar disappears into the spirit-well. The breach explodes and blasts the gang backward into the darkness.
A contingent of Bluecoats, Spirit Wardens and the Imperial Military arrive on the scene, and capture our unconscious scoundrels. A fleet of armored reavers sail down the River Dusk, hauling the Three of Blades to Ironhook under heavy security. The ships enter the maw of the ancient tower built into the cliffside of the river.
Zyrik awakens in a dank cell. Enormous chains lay loose around him, used to restrain his much larger monstrous form. He unfastens the lock to the cell with his claws and steps out into the cell-block. Inside the tower, walls are filled with several stories of cells and an observation room suspended from the ceiling overlooks this section of the tower. The Ironhook Panopticon, a catwalk and stairway spirals the interior of the tower. Zyrik hears the clang of metal, and the shouts of Eska Burkova from her cell.
Making his way down the spiral catwalk, Zyrik is accosted by a group of Billhooks. Eska Burkova bangs her fists against the iron bars, her metal fist clangs loud in the tower and blood drips from her other hand. Zyrik claws the lock open when the Billhooks approach. “Pay up, freak. This is our block.” Zyrik begins to take on a monstrous form to scare off the bruisers, and feels his mind blaze when he accesses the power.
One level of cells above Eska and Zyrik, Magnus sits in a dark cell. A Spirit Warden in a bronze mask stands at the bars watching him. The Spirit Warden puts their hand up to the bars. Peering through the ghost-field and resisting the ancient wards that prevent occult activity within the prison, Magnus sees that the Spirit Warden is his old friend, Flint. Flint walks away from the cell door and through the ghost-field Magnus sees the route Flint takes out of the prison, tracing through guarded corridors and the inner sections of Ironhook.
Magnus, Eska and Zyrik reunite and get their bearings. At the top most level of cells, Vesper stands on the catwalk overlooking the tower interior. She beckons the gang up to her, and tells them what she knows. Vesper awakened a day or so ago, and has been watching the routine of the guards and prisoners. Once a day, one level at a time, the cells are unlocked. Vesper has already witnessed a murder, an inmate tossed over the catwalk during an altercation. The cell-block was locked down and Bluecoats entered through a locked iron door at the bottom of the chamber to drag the corpse away.
The Three of Blades plot an escape. Magnus gazes out of the bars of his cell overlooking the River Dusk and the cliffside the tower is attached to. He spies several cave openings on the sheer cliff. Eska swipes contraband booze from an inmate. At the bottom of the chamber she sees inmates in work-crew attire make their way into a maintenance tunnel. Zyrik watches the Billhooks watching him.
The bell rings for cell-block rotation, and our scoundrels head back to their cells. Across the city the ripples from our scoundrel’s actions are made evident. Scaffolding has gone up around the Clock Tower, the Broken Bridge, the Sanctorium, the Harbor Wreck & Strand Manor. Workers bearing the sigil of the Foundation make repairs. In Coalridge the streets are filled with protests against poor conditions in the factories, the polluted canals shimmer with oil. Gang war between the Billhooks and the Grinders spills over into neighboring districts. Under the Sanctorium, Eckerd the corpse thief drags a clockwork-assassin up a flight of ancient stairs.
*OOF* “Heavy lad, aren’t ya? Let’s get you back to our new home...”
EPISODE 2. SEASON 2 THE PANOPTICON
Time passes in Ironhook Prison… Summer storms become autumn rain. Winter claws into Doskvol with a deep frost. Locked within the ancient cliffside tower, the Three of Blades plot their escape.
Eska roams the maintenance tunnels, hunting for dangerous chemicals. She spies a rusted vent set in crumbling stone, the duct broken open into a natural cavern. Magnus fights against the arcane ward that protects Ironhook Prison. Time passes… An elite squadron of guards come knocking for our scoundrels.
Zyrik butts heads with the guards when they storm his room. Shields and lightning-hooks lash out at the Beast. Magnus is ambushed by the Spirit Wardens, a shroud slipped over his head. Vesper parles with the officer of the squadron to stay out of cuffs. Eska sits in her cell as the guards enter, still as a boulder. Metallic screeching echoes through the tower as the squadron drag Eska to the interrogation chambers.
Our scoundrels are escorted into separate rooms. Another dark & dank cell. Inspector Brogan enters, a dossier in hand. The Inspector opens the documents on the table and lights a hand-rolled cigarette.
In Zyrik’s cell, Imperial soldiers stand guard in the room. “Zyrik Shadowhorn of Tycheros. Decorated soldier of the Empire, now fallen from grace.” The Inspector questions Zyrik about his involvement with Sephone Strand and the chaos at the Sanctorium. “The Church of the Ecstacy of the Flesh? Not what it says on the tin.”
In Magnus’ cell, Spirit Wardens & Imperial soldiers stand guard in the room. “Willem McMannus of the Dagger Isles. Known cutt-throat and sorcerer. Coming out of retirement? Enjoy the amenities during your stay?” The Inspector questions Magnus about the arcane forces rippling through the city. He answers the questions with spit and obscenities.
In Vesper’s cell, Imperial soldiers stand guard in the room. “Vestine Abadi of Iruvia, diplomat from House Anixis. Gone rogue… Does Elstera Avrathi know where you are?” The Inspector questions Vesper about the City Council member’s deaths at the Sanctorium, the Bridge, the Clock Tower & the Yacht. Vesper tells the Inspector something close to the truth, without revealing her dark work with the Three of Blades.
In Eska’s cell, Sparkwrights and Imperial soldiers stand guard in the room. “Eska Burkova of Tycheros. A legion of clockwork assassins built from schematics identical to your own spark-craft prosthetics… Coincidence?” Eska demands information about her uncle, the Sparkwright who engineered her mechanical body. “Volkov Burkova, wanted for murder, treason, sedition, arson, jaywalking… We will find him.”
The Inspector departs from our scoundrels with more questions than answers. More time passes in Ironhook. Zyrik pits the gangs against each other. When the riot breaks, the Three of Blades’ plot plays out. The electroplasm lights flicker when the first blood is spilled. Thick acrid smoke pours from Eska’s cell and fills the tower. Magnus shrouds the Three of Blades from the ward protecting Ironhook from arcane threats.
The lights surge and shatter as every cell door in the tower unlocks. Klaxons sound and red emergency lights strobe, a squadron of Bluecoats in riot gear storm into the chamber. Our scoundrels weave their way through the chaos, when Zyrik takes on a monstrous form. The Beast charges through the brawling prisoners and Bluecoats, down to the maintenance tunnels.
Through the ruptured vent into the caves. The Billhooks bark after the Three of Blades, sounds of metal dragging against stone. The cavern opens out onto a rain slick precipice. The River Dusk below, the bloodthirsty Billhooks in pursuit. Our scoundrels leap from the cliff edge and plummet toward the ink black sea. A battered gondola is wedged between the rocks, the gang tear it loose and disappear into the stormy night.
Back in Eska’s cell, a long fuse blazes down. The cell explodes, whipping rubble and iron bars down into the turbulent water. Smoke pours from the tower as prisoners leap out to the sea.
EPISODE 3. SEASON 2 DOWNTIME
The Three of Blades return from their prison escape to find Strand Manor locked up tight. Workers from the Foundation make their way in and out of the renovated mansion. Snow falls over the city and our scoundrels adjust to life without the patronage of Sephone Strand.
In a ramshackle flop-house in Nightmarket, Magnus scours the ghost field for a trace of She Who Slays in Darkness. Flashes of visions, red lightning and chains, prophecies from the vengeful devil that have come to pass. Echoes from the spirit realm, but no answers. A crow squawks from the icy window sill then soars out over the city.
Eska sings a dirge from Tycheros as she tinkers in her abandoned subway station under Coalridge. On the cold streets above, Volkov Burkova drags a bloody hammer through the snow. Down in the lab, dual sword-arms and mechanical legs lay next to a collection of clockwork insects. Eska powers on a generator and the disassembled automaton from the Sanctorium thrums to life. “What is your primary function?” she commands. The hull answers in a crackling electrical voice. “To break the seals that keep the god from this world.”
Sailing down the frigid canals of Silkshore, Vesper heads toward Stazia’s apothecary shop. Vesper’s old friend welcomes her with a warm embrace. “Where have you been? Let me put some tea on!” Vesper regails Stazia with daring tales, and asks what has become of her brother. Walid has made his way into the wastes with the Deathlands scavengers, fleeing from the wrath of Elstera Avrathi and House Anixis. Stazia shows Vesper to a rooftop hideout concealed above her shop.
Vesper & Zyrik meet with Nyryx & Hoxan under the dead trees of a snowy park in Silkshore to strike a bargain. Vesper is crafting a new identity, the Madam of a brothel. Zyrik heads to the Red Lamp, in pursuit of a new vice purveyor. A flight of steep stairs on the side of the canal winds up to a painted streetlamp, glowing crimson against the snow. Red Sashes armed with fine dueling swords mill about outside of the Red Lamp, the scent of black lotus drifts out of the townhouse. Madam Tesslyn of the Red Lamp gains a new client & Zyrik drifts down in a puff of smoke.
Back in Eska’s abandoned subterranean railway station, Eckerd beckons Magnus into the converted laboratory. The ceiling of the Station is a stained glass dome, covered in garbage and debris from the surrounding buildings. The crackling voice of the automaton shudders through the chamber. Magnus gazes into the ghost-field, tracing the echo of the hull backward to its creation. Flashes of the battle under the Sanctorium, the hull piercing Preceptor Dunvil with a sword-arm. In the ghost-field Magnus sees the automaton being assembled by Volkov Burkova. Preceptor Dunvil barges into the large chamber full of partially assembled hulls, the Sparkwright and the Preceptor start to argue.
Magnus & Eska make their way down into the aqueducts of Nightmarket, to the barge of Mordis. The hooded proprietor ferries them down the River Dusk. The crackling lightning barrier towers on one side of the icy river, the city gleams on the other. Into the Lost District our scoundrels sail. Boarded up windows, debris and rubble, the wailing of spirits in the distance. Mordis docks and our scoundrels depart.
Magnus leads Eska into the Lost District, drawn by Lord Scurlock. Past the stone columns at the entrance to an ancient building, Magnus creaks open the doors. The massive skeleton of an otherworldly beast stands on display in the center of the chamber. Drawn through dark corridors into the library, up to a warmly lit office, into Lord Scurlock’s embrace. Magnus consorts with the vampire. Lord Scurlock prepares Magnus for a terrible purpose, and appoints him as the custodian of the Lost District museum.
Back through the abandoned snowy streets to the docks, Eska & Magnus hear the wailing of the damned closing in. Crackling blue ghosts surge out of alleys and broken windows as our scoundrels run to the barge. Mordis is gone. Eska & Magnus hop into an abandoned gondola and flee, pursued down the river by murderous ghosts.
EPISODE 4. SEASON 2 FREE PLAY
Our scoundrels roam the snowy city, looking for answers.
Back at Lord Scurlock’s museum… Magnus opens his mind to the ghost-field, searching for arcane power. Eska lights the way with her artificial eye. They are drawn through an exhibit full of otherworldly fossils to an ancient grimoire set upon a plinth. An open window blows snow into the room. Eska’s eye flickers on the book as the pages turn in the wind. Eska clangs the side of her head and the light steadies. The grimoire depicts the demon Setarra, chained beneath the waves. The ancient bones and the illustration of the demon resemble Zyrik and his monstrous form.
Now fleeing the Lost District, Eska rows the rickety gondola down the canal as shrieking spirits surge out of windows and alleyways. Magnus begins to conjure an arcane ward around the vessel. A ghost rushes up from beneath the icy water, it leeches energy from Magnus before being blasted away by the arcane ward.
Down the canal, a familiar boat approaches. Zyrik stands at the bow of the Widow, calling out to Eska and Magnus. “Can I get a light?” Zyrik yells to Magnus, his falchion dripping with engine grease. Ghosts rise out of the water, surrounding the Widow. Magnus calls down a bolt of lightning that strikes Zyrik’s sword, setting it ablaze. Murderous ghosts rush toward Zyrik, then slash and burn.
Tinder steers the Widow toward the gondola as Ash lobs spirit-flares to distract the ghosts. The remaining Breakers haul Eska and Magnus aboard. A blizzard rolls in from the Deathlands and a blanket of icy fog follows our scoundrels back into the city.
Aboard the Widow in Tangletown, our scoundrels talk shop and detail their latest exploits. The floating slum is strung with colorful paper lanterns for the winter season. Snow drifts down over the lashed together boats and walkways, ebbing in the cold night. Ash begs the Three of Blades for help rescuing Briar Thorn from the spirit realm. She wants to break into the Clock Tower laboratory and use Lady Penderyn’s machine to pull Briar Thorn out of the breach.
On the prowl for answers, Zyrik treks across the snowy streets and canals of Doskvol. In a penthouse in Silkshore overlooking the city, Madam Tesslyn and Zyrik share information and black lotus. Madam Tesslyn tells Zyrik that Sephone Strand is back in the city, appointed as the new head of the Foundation. Outside the Weeping Lady in Six Towers, Riggs and Zyrik talk under a streetlamp in the snow. Captain Riggs welcomes Zyrik into the Gray Cloak gang, for his aid in bringing down Clelland and Strangford. The honor comes with a Bluecoat disguise and official star.
Coalridge is embroiled in labor riots and a gang war between the Billhooks and the Grinders. Under the chaotic streets in Eska’s abandoned subterranean railway-station, Eckerd rambles at Zyrik. Eska drinks and tinkers at her retrofitted laboratory. Eckerd says he saw plenty of weird equipment going into Strand Manor, even Sephone Strand signing papers at the front door. Zyrik heads to the Manor to get some answers.
Inside the Old Forge tavern, hidden in the factory sprawl, Eska and Ulf Ironborn drink Skovlan whiskey as snow falls over the suspended train tracks outside. Ulf Ironborn tells Eska of the recent troubles with Billhooks. Their leader, Tarvul, escaped from Ironhook during the prison break, and the Billhooks gained a load of hardened reinforcements.
Eska Burkova inquires about the signet ring of her uncle, Volkov. Ulf Ironborn remembers, the man offered work as a Spark-wright but Ulf turned him down. “We Grinders already have an engineer!” Ulf leads the bar in a toast to Eska. The old man left a greasy scrap of paper signed in fine cursive with an address. “Come here for repairs. V. B.” Eska gives Ulf Ironborn her own card, machine printed, ocean-black ink on bone white paper.
Across the city in Six Towers, Zyrik leaps over an iron gate into the yard of Strand Manor. He knocks against the door, but no one answers. Snow blows into the manor from an open second story window. Zyrik climbs the old stones and slips inside. The halls and chambers are filled with crates, brimming with strange machinery. Past the pillared Hall of Reflection, snow drifting down into the pool from the oculus in the ceiling.
Down a deep stairwell to a corridor reaching into the darkness. The passage ends at a large chamber coated in machinery and pipes. Set into the wall, five glass vats attached to a thrumming machine house the crimson red spirits of the city council. Lord Bowmore, Lady Penderyn, Lord Strangford, Commander Clelland & Preceptor Dunvil. Their howling spirits claw against the glass.
Sephone’s hand falls on Zyrik’s shoulder. “Zyrik… Kept you waiting, huh?”
EPISODE 5. SEASON 2
Eska dreams of playing with bugs in the Pale Forest of Tycheros, a flash of light in the distance, smoke and fire.
Magnus dreams of being lost in the bayou of the Dagger Isles, pursued by a murder of crows.
Vesper dreams of prowling the snowy streets of Doskvol as her opal viper, devouring creatures down at the Menagerie by the Docks.
Zyrik dreams of his monstrous transformation afflicting the people of Doskvol as a demonic pandemic scours the city.
Vesper deciphers a communique from Iruvia about her new mission.
Vesper sets up a front for the gang, a vice den in an old Silkshore hotel.
Zyrik consorts with a masked woman in the old hotel, the cold killer, Mercy.
Vesper & Zyrik are accosted by an envoy of the Crows, looking for tithe.
Zyrik rages in the fields of Barrowcleft, taking on a new monstrous form.
Magnus discovers Lord Scurlock’s ancient pact with Setarra.
Magnus trains in preparation for his terrible purpose.
Magnus & Ash ask Flint for help rescuing Briar from the ghost-field.
Eska performs surgery on her living arm, only to discover it too is artificial.
Eska heads to the address on the greasy scrap of paper, Rowan House.
An automaton collects Eska’s business from the property gate, glimmering eyes from the parapets. A blizzard scours the city, chilling fog drifts through the streets.
EPISODE 6. SEASON 2 CHRISTMAS EPISODE
Inside the Old Hotel in Silkshore candles flicker in the frigid breeze of a cracked window. Outside on the cold streets of Duskwall a blizzard rolls deep from the Deathlands.
A lone Salamander rides down the windy street, electroplasmic lantern glimmering in the snow. The Brigade of Salamanders operate communal bonfires in the city, refuge from the deadly cold.
The lone Salamander rides underneath a web of bridges and railway lines, trains rumbling & whistling overhead. The Hearth is a mighty blaze, tucked away from the wind in the twisting alleyways of Coalridge. Eckerd warms his hands by the fire, watching a woman cloaked in crimson deliver a sermon to the crowd. Malista, the priestess, offers a devil’s bargain. “That which waits Beyond the Veil will release you from the horror of this city.”
A train emblazoned with the seal of the Ministry of Preservation rumbles in to Gaddoc Station. In the railyard, dressed in a high collar wool coat, Inspector Ashlyn Brogan hunts for the origin of the clockwork-assassins. Deep below Charterhall in a massive chamber of shelves lined with filled spirit-bottles, the Archive of Echoes, Flint seeks counsel from the dead.
Perched on a snowy hilltop in the Deathlands, the armored auto-carriage of the Vultures peers out over the Lost District. Down at the Docks in an old butcher shop, the Billhooks drink and howl for their war with the Grinders. Heavy thuds reverberate from a back room, the meat-locker. Marlane, the pugilist, delivers a barrage of fists to a bound Grinder in the freezer.
In the icy River Dusk, Tangletown twinkles with a thousand colorful lights. Music drifts with the wind and snow. Inside the Widow, Tinder snores the whiskey away while Ash lights a candle in front of a photograph of Briar Thorn. Back at the Old Hotel in Silkshore, the Three of Blades share ghost stories by the fireplace.
“A fable I learned as a child.” Vesper says. “Beyond U’duasha and its burning Well, where the sand meets the sea, lived a small family. The father was a reed-cutter, and his father before him. A long line of reed-cutters, honored at their family shrine. The sister was the eldest of the two children, and the more responsible. The younger brother would spend his days playing and leaving the hard work to his sister. ‘I will do your chores, brother, but promise me you will leave an offering for our ancestors at the family shrine.’ ‘I promise.’ He would say, but the shrine was left bare. As the river dried and the reeds died, the sister would ask ‘Have you left the offering? Our ancestors need us.’ ‘Of course, sister.’ The boy would lie. As the sister got sick, she would ask her brother ‘Have you left the offering? The ancestors grow hungry.’ ‘Of course, sister.’ He would lie. When the sister was taken by illness, she came to her brother in his dreams ‘Have you left the offering? Our ancestors grow angry.’ Still the boy lied. One night as the boy drifted into sleep, he heard the voice of his sister. He saw his long line of ancestors with her, calling out in frosty breaths. That night the boy learned the value of honoring those that came before, and the ancestors sated their hunger.”
The fire crackles in the lobby of the Old Hotel. “An empty bottle and an empty bed, now that’s my idea of a horror story!” Zyrik jeers. Heavy knocks from the front door. *KNOCK-KNOCK-KNOCK* The gang open the door to find Riggs, the Gray Cloak officer, shaking the snow from his boots. “You started without me?” He says as he slaps Zyrik on the back. “I’ve got a tale from the war, of kith and kin and blood and bone.” Riggs stares into the fire as he begins the tale. “I raised my nephew from a pup, his pa’ was a drinker and a fiend. My sister, however, was kind and sentimental. She gave the boy a silver chain to wear, the only thing his father left behind. When the war came the boy was of fighting age, so we went together to the trenches. It was a deadly winter much like this one. Our platoon had been circled by a nasty crew of falconers from Severos we all knew as the Beaks. Their hawks would swoop down and tear a man’s face clean off!” Zyrik mimics the action with his hand. “Face… Off.” “My nephew and I were separated in the madness. We marched for days, past heaps of burning corpses, until we reached a hilltop pierced by a hundred pikes, strung up with a hundred of our men. My nephew was there, screaming at me. ‘Behind you, Uncle!’ The Beak’s commander and their elite unit had crept up behind us in the chaos. I was knocked unconscious in the battle, woke up with my insignia and name torn from my uniform. My nephew was never seen again. But every year around this time I get a piece of mail, blank but for an inked pair of talons. Inside the letter, a single link from a silver chain.”
The Old Hotel creaks and the old pipes rattle. Eska Burkova raises a bottle of Tycheros vodka to Riggs, and takes a deep swig. “This city is a ghost story on its own.” Eska says. “This happened to me in Coalridge, before our stay at Ironhook. I left the Old Forge, after a day of work and a night of drink. I may have noticed the chill in the air if not for being fueled by vodka. Pale flakes were falling from the air as I walked by the canal. But I felt not alone, whispers in the dark, like the canal was calling me. The water shimmered like an oil slick, I could feel the heat rising from the water. Pale flakes kept drifting down, but this was not snow, the night sky was crying ash. The water bubbled and boiled as the whispers turned to screams. The canal burst into flame! Burning charred skeletons rose from the water, reaching out to me, screaming with mouths of fire and eyes of glowing coal. ‘Eska…’ They wailed. Burning hands grasping for me in the night. I blacked out, and awoke on the steps of Strand Manor as if from a dream. Maybe I could have believed it a dream, if not for this handprint burned into my flesh.” Eska holds up her scarred arm in the light of the fireplace.
The voices of patrons echo from one of the rooms as the fireplace crackles. Magnus, rolling a coin between his fingers, clears his throat as he remembers something from his past. He flips the coin in the air and begins his tale. “Long ago in the Dagger Isles, nestled in the bayou is an old city protected by older magic. I was a professor then, an arcanist at the Institute of Spectrology. I would give lectures on the secret knowledges and electroplasmic science. I would maintain my family's deteriorating estate outside of the city. It was an old building, filled with secrets of its own. In my advanced studies class was a gifted young woman, my star pupil. She was driven like a falling star to discover the extent of electroplasmic science, and ancient wards. She came to me one night, a desperate look in her eye. 'Professor, I need your help.' Quellyn said to me. 'I have suffered pain and sorrow at the hands of one who death has taken. I need closure, I need justice. Can you call this spirit so I may have peace?' She was my most ardent student, how could I refuse? At my family's estate, we drew a glyph in salt upon the floor. The candles flickered as we began our incantation. At the center of the circle was a snapping alligator from the swamp, our sacrifice to the dead. Quellyn stared at me with cold eyes over the candles and the snapping creature. 'It is not enough professor... The sacrifice is not enough.' Her voice echoed through the old halls of my family home. The creature shriveled and the candles flared high with flame, the room began to burn around us. 'We must stop this, Quellyn.' I yelled. 'The sacrifice is not enough, Professor. I must have peace. I must have... vengeance!' I ran from the house as the flames licked my skin, as her voice rang in my mind. 'Vengeance...' Magnus catches the flipping coin, glimmering in the firelight.
Echoes of voices and clambering throughout the building catch the attention of our scoundrels. The halls of the Old Hotel are filled with the sound of screams and breaking glass. The Three of Blades race to the rooms to investigate the brewing chaos.
Rooms #1 through #10 are on the first floor, #11 through #20 up the stairs on the second story. Vesper & Zyrik race to Room #7 toward the sound of screams and crashing electricity. Vesper unlocks the door and the pair enter, the doorway glowing with blue light. Inside the room Vesper & Zyrik find Levyra, the spirit-medium, hand in hand around a table with a small group of nobles. A crackling blue ghost pours out of a noble seated near the window. On each young noble's chest is a pin bearing the sigil of a noble house. Holding Levyra's hand is Lord Clelland, a spirit tearing from his chest. Gripping his hand is Lady Dunvil clutching the hand of Lord Bowmore. Between Lord Bowmore and Levyra sits Lady Strangford, her fingernails digging deep into the wooden chair. Vesper runs to Levyra to wake her from the trance. Zyrik, the ghost-fighter, slings blades at the ghost wailing in the room as it surges for him across the table. Lord Bowmore and Lady Dunvil jolt backward in their chairs as ghosts erupt from their bodies. Vesper demands answers from Levyra but the possessed medium's eyes shine ever brighter, sparking with electricity. Lady Strangford, still gripping her chair in horror, screams out "We just wanted to be reunited with our slain kin!" Zyrik readies his blades as the spirits tear out of Lady Dunvil and Lord Bowmore "These aren't the ghosts you're looking for, lady!"
On the second story the scent of black lotus wafts through the halls. Jealous screaming leads Eska & Magnus to Room #18. The pair barge in to find a wailing ghost levitating above an unconscious man on the floor. The spirit shrieks at the room's other occupant, a scoundrel cowering from the raging ghost. Eska comes between the ghost and the woman in the room. Magnus goes to help the patron to her feet, and sees her eyes glowing blue. A ghost surges forth from her and peels toward the shrieking spirit. The two ghosts scream and claw at each other, crazed by an ancient quarrel. Eska and Magnus back out of the room as the jealous ghost is ripped to sparking shreds by the other spirit.
Shouts and clambering lead Eska & Magnus to Room #16. Inside the room, three students from Charterhall University watch in horror as their other companion writhes on the floor. The floor is scattered with black lotus pipes and broken vials of blue crystals. The writhing student is shouting and stammering. A multitude of voices echo from his frosty lips, electricity crackling in his eyes. Eska and Magnus approach the possessed student to snap him out of it, then three sparking spirits burst from his chest. "I told you this was a bad idea!" one spirit says. The second ghost shrieks in fear as it flees the room, pouring through the solid wall out into the snowy night. The third spirit howls as it soars through the room toward our scoundrels.
Back in Room #7, Vesper & Zyrik dispatch the remaining ghosts possessing the young nobles. The heirs to the assassinated City Council members begin to recover from the horror, the attempt to contact the spirits of their kin an absolute failure. Shuffling footfalls and breaking glass lead Zyrik upstairs. Vesper heads to Room #9, following a sobbing voice. Inside Room #9, a dueling rapier lays on the ground next to a heap of red silk. The Red Sash scoundrel the gear belongs to is muttering and delirious behind a barricade of wrecked furniture. On the other side of the room facing the corner, a sobbing ghost rocks back and forth. Vesper steals into the room and lifts the Red Sash up from the floor. "Mylera?" The duelist mutters before collapsing in Vesper's arms.
In the room with the frightened university students, a vengeful ghost reaches out toward Eska with unnaturally long arms. A compartment on Eska's mechanical body irises open, then disintegrates the ghost in a beam of electroplasm. Magnus hears Mercy yelling at someone in Room #6, then gunshots ring through the Old Hotel. Magnus is shrouded in shadow as he transforms into a murder of crows and crashes through a window down to the first floor. The murder of crows bash against the window to Room #6. Magnus emerges from the shroud of shadow crows and slips through the window into the room. Mercy is there, loading electroplasmic ammunition into her revolver. "Nyryx..." Mercy says, loading a bullet with every word. "You-have-one-chance. Explain!" The cold killer levels her gun at Nyryx and Hoxan. "We didn't start this!" The ghosts plead their case when Magnus hears a familiar voice on the wind. A haunting lullaby from a cursed winter past. "Nyryx, Hoxan, Nix & Hix. Bricks & Braxon, Bellatrix. Hogarth, Hela, Negan, Nox. Hannibal & Hollyhock." Quellyn's voice drifts on the wind, compelling the thirteen ghosts to assault the Three of Blades.
Zyrik calls for Riggs and the pair dash to Room #20. The Gray Cloak commander and Zyrik break down the door, a rush of cold wind blows in from a shattered window. The room is filled with cloaked scoundrels, a dozen Crows climbing in from the snowy rooftop. The light from a streetlamp glinting off their blades in the dark.
The Three of Blades defend the Old Hotel from waves of Billhooks and Crows. Our scoundrels trek through the blizzard toward Charhollow, seeking vengeance.
EPISODE 1. SEASON 3
In South Charhollow a condemned brownstone overlooks the frozen River Dusk. The sunken roof lets snow into a candlelit room. In the center of a glyph drawn in salt, Quellyn sings a solemn rite. Outside on the snowy street, our scoundrels confront a group of lycanthropic Billhooks who have tracked them through the blizzard. The beasts are commanded by Errol, the escapee from Ironhook Prison who chased the Three of Blades through the caves during their escape.
Howling on the wind, snow drifts glimmering in the moonlight. Errol stands in human form, a heavy silver chain around his neck. The beasts lunge out from drifts of snow toward our scoundrels. Magnus pushes Flint towards the door of the brownstone before calling down a bolt of lightning. A werewolf charges Zyrik, who's waiting with a pair of blades. Zyrik flips the bloody beast into the snow as Mercy and Riggs sling bullets from the stoop of the condemned brownstone.
Eska, the automaton, blasts a werewolf into the frozen river with a beam of electroplasm. Glimmering like snow in the moonlight, an opal serpent coils around one of the beasts. The snarling werewolf crashes through the snow, right into Vesper's blades. The bolt of lightning Magnus summoned rushes toward him and crashes against his arcane ward. Quellyn's laughter drifting on the wind. Magnus channels the lightning and blasts Errol backward into the snow. Flint, Magnus, Ash & Tinder slip into the condemned building.
"The sacrifice is not enough, professor." Quellyn's haunting whisper echoes through the shadows. "There are many spirits here. Her sacrifices." Magnus leads the scoundrels to his former pupil. The ruined brownstone is scattered with broken glass and bones, fragments of mirror and echoing memories.
The echoes turn to screams and our scoundrels buckle over, clutching their heads. Ghosts pour in to the room. Magnus' arcane ward strains against the screams as Ash cracks a spirit-flare. The spirits surge backwards against the light of the flare. The blades make their way up the crumbling stairs.
Two bloody werewolves lunge toward Zyrik. He slings bone quills at the beasts and they fall into the snow. Errol's heavy silver chain glimmers in the moonlight as he charges Zyrik. Eska falls on Errol with her sword arm as a werewolf runs at her with gnashing teeth. Slashing and biting, cursing and howling. Errol, the werewolf escapee from Ironhook, falls to the Three of Blades.
The last beast flees into the night as the gang head up to the roof. Zyrik leaps up the side of the rusted fire escape. Vesper and her ghost-hunting serpent from Iruvia race up the stairs. Riggs and Mercy cover the gang as they break through the door at the top. Eska stands in the snow and blood. She looks up to the night sky, then launches a line-thrower from her mechanical arm and zips to the rooftop. Eska spies the last werewolf from her new view then zaps the beast with a beam of electroplasm. The ceiling caves in and Eska falls through the roof.
The Three of Blades besiege the haunted house.
Our scoundrels meet at the top floor as Eska comes crashing in from the roof. Snow drifts in from the ruined ceiling. Magnus leads the gang toward Quellyn's sanctum. Quellyn stands at the center of an arcane glyph and casts a bolt of lightning at Magnus. Eska absorbs the lightning into her electroplasmic capacitors. The Three of Blades charge the witch. Eska surges with electroplasm. Zyrik slings bone quills. Magnus summons a cyclone onto the ruined rooftop and blasts Quellyn out of a window. Vesper leaps through the shattered glass after Quellyn as the building begins to fall.
Zyrik slides down the crumbling brick with his sharp bone claws. Eska reaches for Mercy then grapples to a building across the alleyway. The rest of the gang's cohorts race cursing down the fire escape. Down in the snow and dust, Quellyn meets the fangs and steel of Vesper and her opal serpent. A murder of crows flutter out of the rubble then gather back into the form of Magnus. The Three of Blades make their escape in the chaos.
EPISODE 2. SEASON 3
The blizzard that plagued Doskvol retreats back into the Deathlands. On a snowy street in Brightstone, Zyrik breaks into an estate to steal a blooming winter rose for the cold killer, Mercy. The blood red roses pierce up from mounds of snow in the courtyard. Ornate vases inlaid with gold decorate the halls of the manor. Zyrik spills the blood of the guards watching the estate then makes his way out, a vase full of winter roses in hand. Out on the street a pair of suspicious Bluecoats examine Zyrik's badge, given to him by the Gray Cloak spies. "I have my other papers here somewhere... Hold this for me." Our scoundrel has the other officer hold the stolen vase, then pulls a blade on the Bluecoats. In a penthouse hide-out in Nightmarket, Zyrik presents the blood roses to Mercy. "How many men had to die for these?" The candles on the mantle burn low in the dark.
Down at the docks, a leviathan hunter ship unloads wounded sailors. The ship's hull is pierced and crushed, cracked open by tentacles and teeth. Inside a mouldering warehouse at the Docks, Eska meets with Ulf Ironborn while he looks over a map of the city. Knives stick into the table, marking Billhook turf. "We're ringing in the new year with a bang, Eska!" Ulf Ironborn gestures to the rusted ships bobbing in the docks, their hulls filled with barrels reeking of oil. Eska repairs a fleet of ships for the Grinders and rigs them to explode for an assault on the Billhook's vice dens. The Grinders hop into the bomb-barges and sail them down the canals toward their targets.
Magnus steers a barge out into the Lost District, toward Lord Scurlock's museum. By candlelight Magnus reads the vampire's old grimoires. Depictions of demons chained beneath the waves, their scaled bodies resemble Zyrik and his monstrous form. In the shadows Lord Scurlock approaches, then sinks his fangs into Magnus. Our scoundrel falls into the memories of the vampire. He witnesses the origin of the ancient pact with the demon Settara. In the vision Lord Scurlock wades into the ocean, pleading to the sea for aid. The waves drag him under the water, stars glimmering in the depths. A giant fragment of obsidian is chained to the ocean floor. Lord Scurlock sees his reflection shimmer in the crystal, the black mirror shifts to reveal the sharp teeth of the demon Settara. She emerges from the stone and sinks her teeth into Lord Scurlock. Her black eyes dart toward Magnus. Our scoundrel jolts awake on the floor of the old museum.
Vesper seeks aid from the Breakers for passage into the Deathlands, to seek out Sister Thorn and the Deathlands scavengers. Walid Abadi, Vesper's brother, has been in exile with the scavengers for the past year. Wally is hiding from the wrath of the ambassador from Iruvia, Elstera Avrathi. Vesper inquires about the fate of Briar Thorn, who stepped into the corrupted spirit well under the Sanctorium in order to seal the breach. Ash and Tinder argue. "He's alive... He has to be." Tinder says. Inside the common area of the wrecked leviathan hunter ship in Tangletown our scoundrels plan an excursion into the Deathlands.
Leo, a necromancer from Severos is drawn to Doskvol by dreams from She Who Slays in Darkness. A vision of the ghosts of his masters, corrupted by the Horror Beyond the Veil. In a haze, Leo is drawn to the Three of Blades. Beckoned forward by the spirit of vengeance.
EPISODE 3. SEASON 3
The Three of Blades meet at the Silver Stag casino in Brightstone, on the hunt for Vesper's exiled brother. Leo, the necromancer from Severos, introduces our scoundrels to the leader of the Silver Nails. On the river's edge by the fighting pits, the Hammer commands a contingent of Silver Nails to prepare a barge & horses for safe passage into the Deathlands. The gang sets sail, past the lightning barriers and into Doskvol Harbor.
Along the coast of the Lost District, our scoundrels share drinks on the barge and stare into the mist. The Hammer and his second-in-command, the Butcher, stare at Zyrik and share muttered words. The horses bray and whine at the cold sea air and rolling waves. Leo dreams of She Who Slays in Darkness, her six arms and six swords lash out at the enemies of the Three of Blades. He sees the Forgotten God bestow terrible power to Eska, Magnus, Vesper and Zyrik. A devil's bargain...
The crumbling buildings of the Lost District peak from the mist. Boarded up windows, warnings scrawled in chipped paint across the wood. The moaning of spirits on the wind. The barge lurches against the beach as our scoundrels arrive in the Deathlands. The grey beach gives way to dunes of sand and ash. Leo bids farewell to the Silver Nails, who gift the gang with spirit-bane charms and arcane wards.
Magnus spills Vespers blood into the sand, slicing her palm with his dagger. The ground bubbles as it forms into a shrieking crow. "Blood of the sister to blood of the brother, find us Walid Abadi." The Three of Blades mount up as the blood magic bird takes flight. They chase the shrieking crow past the dunes, through rocky fields and poison streams, far into the Deathlands.
The horses skid in the ash at the precipice of a great ravine. Down into the darkness the crow flies. Our scoundrels trek single file down a narrow trail leading to the bottom of the crag. Eska lights the way, her mechanical eye casting a beam of light on the path. The bottom of the ravine is filled with statues of people, reaching out in terror toward the sky. Zyrik smashes one with a heavy swipe and it crumbles into dust. "These aren't stone, they're ash..." At the end of the ravine, a cave mouth glows with lantern light.
Vesper reveals a glimmering hand-mirror, her opal ghost-hunting serpent pours from the reflection and coils around her arm. She sends the serpent to scout the cavern. An antechamber filled with gear and weapons leads to a group of Deathlands Scavengers playing cards and dice around a wooden crate. A scavenger snores like a ship-engine in the corner, sleeping off a bottle of Skovlan whiskey. Walid Abadi counts his coins as Vesper barges into the chamber.
Outside the cavern, Eska clangs the side of her head, an image projects from her eye onto the wall of the ravine. Dust drifts down from the top of the crag, playing against the beam of light. The light flickers and the film stutters as it shows the inside of the cave from Vesper's perspective. A delicate broach in the shape of a firefly glimmers on Vesper's chest. The spark-craft insect records the meeting between Vesper and her brother.
"Vestine?" Walid reels back as he grabs a lightning web-thrower and levels it at Vesper. "Did Elstera send you here to kill me?" Vesper, formerly known as Vestine Abadi, approaches her brother with open hands. "I'm here for answers, Wally, and to take you back home." The noble siblings untangle the web of chaos sewn over the past year. Walid was sent by House Anixis to secure a trade deal between the Iruvian Consulate and the Ministry of Preservation in Doskvol. "I sailed to Tycheros with Elstera, to meet the spark-wright Volkov Burkova."
Walid tells his tale... On the shores of Tycheros, an Iruvian cargo ship is loaded with large containers filled with spark-craft weaponry. Other containers house the disassembled bodies of the legion of clockwork assassins. Built from the schematics of their prototype, Eska Burkova. The greasy sparkwright, Volkov, barks orders at the crew loading the vessel. Sethla, Quess and Phin Penderyn, the Vultures, load cargo and check the manifest. A hunting-centipede the size of a hound skitters around Phin. The Iruvian ship, loaded with tools of war, sets sail for Doskvol.
Back in the Deathlands cavern... "I could not help Elstera start a war with the empire! So I ran..." Vesper considers her brother's story, when the cavern starts to rumble and dust falls from the rocks above. The sleeping scavenger in the corner stirs awake and rubs his eyes. He spies the noble woman standing at the mouth of the chamber. "Vesper? About time you showed up!" He adjusts his wrench and lights a hand rolled cigarette. The hanging lanterns in the cave swing from the rumble outside, casting light on the scavenger's face. Vesper stares at the scavenger as though she's seen a ghost. "Briar!" Their reunion is cut short by the sound of gunfire outside.
At the top of the ravine, an armored auto-carriage rolls to the cliff edge. The machine fires a heavy cable that pierces the rocky floor below. Zyrik dodges the cable and peers upward toward the attackers. A hatch opens on the auto-carriage, unleashing a hunting centipede the size of a large hound. The centipede skitters down the cable, clicking mandibles reaching for Zyrik as it attacks. Gunshots splinter stone as Magnus takes cover. Perched atop the armored vehicle, Sethla Penderyn slings bullets at our scoundrels.
The Vultures get the drop on the Three of Blades. Floating high in the air, shimmering in an electro-field, Quess Penderyn sends a swarm of lightning-bugs down into the crag. The spark-craft fireflies emit stunning shocks as they close in. The hunting centipede gnashes at Zyrik, who impales the ravenous creature. As the centipede dies, Phin Penderyn wails and shrieks from within the armored auto-carriage at the top of the cliff. Vesper runs out of the cavern in time to see six clockwork assassins crash down into the ravine. The automatons charge forward, slashing out with dual sword-arms.
Leo, the grizzled necromancer from Severos, squares off with a clockwork assassin. Magnus wrangles the automaton with a lightning-hook and Leo is inside its guard. He places a hand on the machine's chest and pulls the crackling blue spirit from its housing. Zyrik slings a bone quill up at Sethla, cracking the sniper's scope. The lightning-bugs swarm Vesper as she races up the heavy cable toward the Vulture's auto-carriage. Eska glows bright with electroplasm, then fires a beam of energy at Quess Penderyn.
Quess is blasted out of the sky into the ashen wasteland. The lightning-bugs under her command stop buzzing and fall into the ravine like hailstones. The spark-craft bugs clang against the stone as our scoundrels fight off the clockwork assassins. Zyrik takes on a monstrous form and barrels toward the assailants, tearing one of the machines apart. Magnus shatters an automaton with a blast of frost and Leo pulls another crackling blue spirit from its hull.
At the top of the ravine, Vesper leaps from the heavy cable onto the armored vehicle. She strikes out at Sethla like a snake, breathing poison into his lungs. The fumes sizzle his skin as he reels backward and falls. A hatch on the auto-carriage pops open, revealing the only surviving Vulture. Phin Penderyn, scarred from his last encounter with the Three of Blades, fires his trench-gun at Vesper. She slings her hand mirror at him and the opal serpent erupts from the mirror's reflection. The serpent coils around Phin as its fangs sink in.
The dust settles in the ravine as the Deathlands Scavengers make their way out of the cave, heading out into the wastes once more. Briar Thorn looks over the destroyed hulls, then up at the armored vehicle perched atop the crag. "I want to drive!" Our scoundrels and their ward, Walid Abadi, pile in to the auto-carriage. As the vehicle rumbles off Eska heaves a spool of dynamite into the ravine. The Three of Blades drive toward Doskvol as the explosion sends fire and smoke into the night sky behind them.
EPISODE 4. SEASON 3
Driving through the ash of the Deathlands in the Vulture's armored auto-carriage, our scoundrels crest a hill that looks out over the city. The skyline is pocked by rising smoke and fire, the explosive results of Eska's bomb-barges. The Billhook's vice-dens burn around the city. War between the Grinders and the Billhooks rages and the Bluecoats have sent battalions into Coalridge and the Docks, barricading the bridges leading in. The factories of Coalridge and the wharf at the Docks are under heavy Bluecoat patrol.
The Three of Blades stow the auto-carriage in a machinists shop in Nightmarket, an old hide-out of the Breakers. Heavy rain washes away the last of winter's snow. Vesper & Eska meet with Walid Abadi in Silkshore, Vesper's brother is staying in the hideout above Stazia's apothecary shop. Inside the cramped maintenance shack, the three discuss Elstera's schemes. Eska scrawls a note and shoves it in Wally's face. A crude drawing of the spark-wright Volkov Burkova, Eska's uncle. "Have you seen this man!?" Walid reveals that Elstera Avrathi is a member of the Circle of Flame, an occult organization hunting arcane relics. He shows Vesper & Eska a collection of void-sea maps & ship manifests stolen from Elstera Avrathi. "They seek the Artifacts of Kotar. The Eye, the Hand, the Heart."
Zyrik returns to the penthouse suite in Nightmarket, several heavy satchels of coin in hand. After aggressive negotiations with management, Zyrik signs the papers for the tower. The building is imposing and tall, panels of glass and slabs of stone. A central courtyard at ground level is open to the sky high above. The interior of the tower is arrayed with balconies, spiraling over the courtyard below. Zyrik makes his way up to the penthouse to await his guests. Eska, Leo, Magnus and Vesper gather at the tower. This part of the district is quiet, but for the sounds of music and revelry emanating from the tower's top floor. The penthouse is crowded with people dancing and indulging their vices. Zyrik, Nyryx and Mercy emerge from a lavish bathroom, steam pouring from the door. "Welcome to the Tower, let's find somewhere quiet to talk." Zyrik leads the gang to the roof. Looking out over the city, the Three of Blades make plans for vengeance.
With a lead on the conspiracy, Magnus & Leo head to a condemned library in Brightstone to research the Artifacts of Kotar. Magnus was drawn to the library in his hunt for information on the sea demon Setarra. He shows Leo a hidden area behind a collapsed row of bookshelves, the walls are strewn with torn pages depicting demons and arcane glyphs. Leo gathers information about the failed expedition of an ancient Skovlan prince. Magnus, the sorcerer & Leo, the necromancer open their minds to the ghost-field. Drawn from the depths of the ocean, below the icy water far to the North, a crackling blue spirit rushes toward Doskvol.
Vesper & Eska head to Whitecrown, prowling past the Imperial soldiers guarding the bridge and onto the grounds of the Iruvian Consulate. Eska fires her built-in line-thrower toward a high window, our scoundrels make their way into Elstera Avrathi's office. A large painting hangs on the wall. The portrait shows Elstera in regal attire with a halo of fire, crushing a serpent beneath her heel. "Ugly painting." Eska sneers. Vesper uses the telegraph in the office, a direct line to House Anixis in Iruvia, to request transport for Walid Abadi out of the city. She discovers a dossier hidden in a secret compartment, the bundle of documents is marked only with a sigil, a halo of fire.
Eska makes her way into the barricaded district of Coalridge. Bluecoats clash with rioters on the bridge. Billhooks and Grinders swarm the streets with meathooks and cleavers, heavy pipes and wrenches, gunshots ringing through the alleyways. Eska passes a burning building, the smell of black lotus wafting with the smoke. Hidden in the factory sprawl under the rail lines of Gaddoc Station, the Old Forge tavern is besieged by Billhooks. Ulf Ironborn fights in the street, back to back with his inner circle. A Billhook slings a firebomb into the tavern as Eska charges in. She heaves an assailant upward and they smash against the iron rails. "They received our gifts, I see." Eska says as she clobbers a Billhook swinging at Ulf. "Not an appreciative lot, are they?" Ulf shouts as he throws a Billhook down to the ground. Eska and the Grinders battle waves of Billhooks in the streets of Coalridge as ash falls from the sky.
A gust of cold wind rushes through the condemned library. Loose papers spiral and pages flip as the cold gust circles Leo & Magnus. An electroplasmic haze condenses before them, the ghost of the Skovlan prince. With frosty breaths and a crackling voice, the ancient spirit warns our scoundrels against the cursed quest for the Artifacts of Kotar. Memories and echoes sear through their minds. A sailing ship of old sets out from the rocky cliffs of Skovlan. The ink black sea, lights glimmering in the depths. The ship navigates through floating sheets of ice that rend the wooden hull. The prince walks out onto the ice into thick fog, the ship sinking behind him. The visions fade, Leo is still talking to the spirit when Magnus leaves the library. Out on the rain drenched street, a horse-drawn carriage approaches Magnus. The carriage door opens, from the shadows within a pale hand extends. "Lord Scurlock..." Magnus enters and sits across from the vampire. Scurlock's eyes glimmer in the lantern light as the carriage rolls over cobbled roads toward Six Towers. "Magnus... Death is only the beginning."
