Session 6

Find Joist?

Ask about Thremp at the merc’s guild

Stay at tavern?

Dissident Quorum - how to get in

Don’t fall into old patterns

Chorded Rustwood

Curb Gypsum

Crystallized lantern agate

-Player’s Notes

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I want to get some dough rising overnight. And find a spot to set up the little city on the Shell.

No problem. There’s a sort of spiraled stone gully in the midst of a little forest in the hills above the oven’s mouth that you plant the base plate in. It hovers an inch or two off of the bowl-like pebbly base of this gully. The game board of Portable Orbital is mostly empty plots, with a few small tents and homes sent up sparsely throughout. There’s a modest city-square like clearing that sets the baseline grid for streets and pathways.

Once I’ve mixed the dough I want to cut it and store it on the smooth rock in that low cave at the back of Accretio’s shell where the water collects. The moisture should keep it from drying out.

Is there any wood lying around?

It looks like they’ve left a couple pieces stacked close by. Barrow would have mentioned it, something to get a cook fire going, or to stave off the cold.

I’ll feed them to Accretio.

You try, but they’re unresponsive. The hollows of their eyes have a more distant look to them, and they seem not to even recognize the attempt. The personality once shown there seems to have gone dormant.

I’ll put them straight into the mouth of the oven then.

They don’t catch flame straight away, but the ambient heat coming from it seems like enough to do the job eventually.

Stored Asset: rising dough

6(1d6)

The final night granted to you at the Slab Cutters’ nook goes uneventfully.

That morning Barrow finds you, and has your contract prepared. He has a Gateman with him.

He explains the contents of the contract to you.

“This shows the outstanding debt for the scaffold rigging we came up with. That’s a total of 800 filigree, half of which will be forgiven after a full spin of contract work for the Cutters.”

A full spin?

It’s what one complete rotation of the city is commonly called. It’s twenty-seven days.

“On top of that, a rate of forty-five filigree will be paid out to you each day worked. Three days out of every nine will be off-days. If you sign here, that’ll be that and the Gate can have their tracker plate back.”

He holds the contract and a charcoal pencil toward you.

I sign it.

He collects it from you.

I want to keep the pencil.

Theft attempt

5 (1d6)

Let’s see how attentive Barrow is being.

8(1d8)

He’s attentive enough to notice it hasn’t been returned. He’s holding eye contact with his hand out, giving you the benefit of the doubt as if you’ve held onto it by accident, or by reflex.

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I hand it back to him, and ask “Are these things magic? I saw someone use one when I was paying for something.”

“These?” He holds up the stub of black stone. Its octagonal, probably cut from a long rod of the stuff. “No, there’s nothing magic in ‘em. It’s contractor stone. It’s like a vessel for plate magic. It holds and moves data from one to another.”

The gateman has removed the tracking plate from Accretio by now and has made his way out of the area.

“Is there a lot of stone that can interact with plates?”

“Quick answer: yes. That’s a great deal of what we trade in as Cutters. It’s not necessarily the materials themselves, but how they’re worked and prepared that imbues them with their various functions.”

I want to know more. If I can, I want to find out what kind of materials they cut themselves, and any specialty items they deliver around town.

Learn the trade (Slab Cutters), basic knowledge

9(3d6)

I’ll try to keep an eye out on what the Cutters are doing and ask some simple questions like I’m interested in maybe apprenticing.

Doing related work, familiar territory, committed

5 (2d6)

Barrow is busy and your schedule that day doesn’t really line up with his, so you don’t see much of him and when you do, it's only in passing.

You get a chance to chat with some of the stonesmiths at the job site you’ve been delivering to, and they explain a bit about their plate-head hammers. The heads are constructed en masse by the Cutters, and no typical hammerhead will take a smithing plate like plate-head hammers do. The process of carving them is kept pretty close to the vest, it seems, as is a lot of practical knowledge on the subject.

I’ll bake up some bread during the trips to and from the yard.

Stored asset used: rising dough (6)

Indeed Accretio’s oven has heated overnight to an appropriate baking temperature.

I peel the loaves I rolled last night from the proofing cave and pierce them and seed them. Simple seed-crust bread, but the smell is nice.

And it spreads. You have several loaves of fresh bread ready as you travel back and forth.

Cutters load bars of smith stone onto the scaffolding above you and are drawn to the smell. They open up a bit to you as they are glad to have a midday snack.

You spot someone in the yard at a personalized workbench, carving into a block of stone with a large bowed blade with a keen edge. He holds it with both hands, a handle affixed to each end. The stone surrenders like heated wax under the blade’s cuts. After a moment he sheathes his blade and joins the group drawn by your baking.

After some light probing you learn that Cutter’s tools are built according to crafting specifications, the details of which are contained in “master scripts.” Apparently, these master scripts are designed and painted by grand master cutters and plate painters, and are kept in highly protected vaults. They are the source of power for a lot of these tools, and it is only the existence of these master copies of the designs that the manufactured tools are able to hold this effect. These master scripts are sometimes updated and tweaked, and the tools themselves similarly modified and new methods and applications for them are conceived.

Added challenge: source out the materials needed by the Game Seller.

6(1d10) - 2(carry-over)

After a couple of runs to the Axel Ward, you’re given a load of shining black stone with white and gray striations running through it. They’re to go down to the markets, to a cookware crafter.

In the dusty freight path of the market stalls, a familiar face finds you. Joist, the wooden woman who originally tipped you off to the Slab Cutters job is suddenly hanging onto Accretio’s shell, and munching on some bread. As she takes bites, there’s a moment where the bite of bread is transformed into an inked representation of itself. There is no opening on her mouth, only the depiction of one, but pieces of the bread are stripped off, nonetheless, and there are mouthfuls of bread then drawn onto her visage as she chews.

“Looks like you’re fitting in.” She says.

“Thanks, I guess.”

“All in service of the stone,” she replies with a mock salute. Likely some slogan that gets thrown around the guild.

She gives you a hand when you reach the cookery shop, and you have a chance to chat.

I ask about Chorded Rustwood, Curb Gypsum and crystallized lantern agate.

Friendly, knowledgeable, but niche information. Out of the blue question.

1(1d6)

“Where exactly did you hear about all that?” She asks.

I tell her about the game seller, and the debt I have.

You have Accretio in one of the loading areas as you talk, the day’s work finished. You’re out of the way and people pay you little mind.

Joist sits on the first floor of scaffolding, legs dangling playfully as she looks down at you.

“Doesn’t ring a bell, although all the stone I see is the pedestrian stuff. I think this guy is ripping you off, even if those little games can get a little expensive.”

“I think it’s important.”

The two of you look down at the little city spinning on Accretio’s back. It does seem to hold some strange potency you can’t quite intuit.

Joist hops off the scaffold and stuffs half a loaf of bread into her satchel.

“I know a guy who’s into that kind of stuff. He’s a weird dude, and trades in weird information. I’ll bet he’ll talk if he can get a look at that monster of yours. Come to the Jolly Malt tonight. They’ll have space for the big guy. You can meet my contact and we can talk about the favor you’ll owe me.”

She strides off after a keen laugh.

Outstanding total for lead on materials: 3