Hello!

In this third gaming session we wanted to accomplish two things: take a break from the non-stop dice rolling that marked the first two meetings, and accommodate me missing next's session due to me going on vacation. This session featured nothing--zero, zilch, nada--in terms of dice rolling and was all discussion. Surprisingly I found it quite enjoyable. Splitting a six-pack didn't hurt.

STARTING POINT
Ellen was on the mend at the Tombstone when we last saw her. Bryce explained that a sergeant she vaguely knew named Terrence Rabaneck paid her a visit. He was a Lukowski man investigating the suspicious deaths of guards over the past few weeks and was curious about what happened. She was still feeling lousy while they talked and maybe, just maybe, let a little too much information slip about how the attack was well-coordinated, and how some guards in the crew had been talking about heading westward into Concord recently. When he pressed a little further, she told him to buzz off.

This was all news to me, the player, and to be honest I was a little annoyed that Bryce had spoken for my character. But all for the good of the greater game, I suppose, and it did get my wheels turning to think more about the political scene and asking questions about what Ellen would and wouldn't know about this world. We talked about the family hierarchies and the constant power plays, and I am/Ellen is now thinking that there's some new players in the Rivertown region. Some of the guards who are being mistreated by the management might be leaking information to scavengers. Since this was a covert operation, one of the guards must have blabbed while seeing the prostitutes in Concord.

Under doctor's orders, she was to recuperate at the comforts of Mansion Inn, regaining her strength. Unbelievably, a day after her arrival the Reichman girl her crew had rescued from the sub-lab drugged the man standing guard over her room and escaped into the city. That turned the Mansion into a circus and piled more pressure on Frederika Reichman, the head of the organization, who was trying to keep her plan to acquire the drug jack under wraps. This was getting ridiculously complex!

Ellen now thought that there might be a link between the Reichman girl and the ambush, because why else would she try to escape? So Ellen arranged for a conference call between her father and Frederika to call off the raids of sub-labs and instead focus on what was happening in Rivertown. Bryce mentioned that scavengers met for a monthly trading session and that (coincidentally?) there was one coming up. Ellen's plan was to hit this swap meet to capture some prisoners and see if they could get any information about traitors within the MPD ranks, and whether some new power in Rivertown was trying to topple the MPD. Neither her father nor Frederika seemed excited about this idea (Reichman particularly was reluctant to give up her plot to find more jack) but both relented.

So I miss the next week of gaming but we figured that Ellen would need to 1) continue to regain her strength from her ordeal, and 2) put together and train a new squad for the raid. Bryce hinted that we would be having a multiplayer session (will be interested to see how the other gamers react) that week, so we will do that one online.

Email me if there's anything crucial. Otherwise I will see online the week after next.

Cheers!

--Ellen