I feel like there’s a weakness in the core premise. One shipment of munitions by itself hardly seems critical enough for all this skullduggery. Time to refine it a bit. EVENT MEANING ROLL: Focus is 56: “PC negative” (something about Shady herself? O.o), action and subject are 4/93: “Fight of weather.” Um. What? XD The L.P. doesn’t think Shady can navigate storms? That doesn’t make any sense.
Reply hazy, try again! EVENT MEANING ROLL: Focus is 19: “NPC action,” action and subject are 13/85: “Decrease of technology.” Okay, so what NPC? Characters List 4: Ainsworth, or Persons of Interest 6: Cardinal Maraldo. Well huh, what could I do with that?
Maraldo is a high official in the church of Pholtus (“The Blinding Light”), paladins and crusaders who are sworn to seek justice, law, and order. And Maraldo believes in this creed, even if in his own case he tends more to an authoritarian streak, favoring the law and order part over the justice part. Why would he pursue “decrease of technology”? He believes in “might for right,” and also conveniently believes that what he does is right, because he’s the one doing it. If there’s munitions to be had, his view is going to be “We should have it, to keep it from ‘falling into the wrong hands’, and also to better smite evil with.”
Soooo… what if the secrecy is to avoid conflict with the Cardinal? The Lady Patrician would love to have munitions for Everkeep, but she might very well love a pile of gold from Dragonwatch Keep even more. What if the munitions were captured (from pirates/smugglers/gunrunners, whatevs), but instead of confiscating and using them, the L.P. has decided to sell them to Dragonwatch Keep over Maraldo’s objections? The “Judge/Balance” result from Scene Two isn’t about the whole region—it’s about the balance of power within Everkeep itself!
That could also explain why Ainsworth actually put “munitions” on the wharfmaster’s log—maybe it wasn’t supposed to be a secret at first, but the decision was made at the last second, “The answer is ‘no,’ I am therefore going anyway?” But Ainsworth knows Shady well enough to know that she has no love for Maraldo, and isn’t likely to go stirring up trouble with him, which is why he didn’t try to take her prisoner to keep the secret.
Okay! I dig this. :) But now the big question: what actually IS the next scene? Shady’s been cut off here and doesn’t have much in the way of a path to pursue. She doesn’t care about the munitions qua themselves, she just wants to find some kind of angle to profit by, as her ship languishes on the docks. Attacking the Dragonfly to pirate the munitions is a winnable battle but iffy prospect, plus it would probably cost her Ainsworth’s friendship and definitely get her blacklisted in Everkeep. BUT, if Shady finds out about the conflict between L.P. and Maraldo, she can work that into a win/win for the L.P. by stealing the munitions back for Everkeep after they’re delivered, IF she can do it anonymously. That seems very much a Shady thing to pull, but she has to find out about the conflict first. And that means she needs to do more poking around.
The Moonlit Horizon is faster than the Dragonfly, so there’s no real time constraint in letting Ainsworth go ahead and leave town; Shady has some time to investigate. But where will she go? She knows the other privateers are also in the dark; she could try to find some kind of information broker type, or go straight to the Lady Patrician herself. Telekain?
Hmm. That’s a promising angle! So, next scene will be “Shady goes to Telekain,” assuming there is no modification or interrupt. But I’m out of time (and words) for this session, so I’ll have to start there with the next installment!
[…] Next Scene: Now you’ve made Shady curious. But first, some meta-work… […]
[…] Picking up where we left off… […]