Last Night we got together to play Kaigan for the first time in a while, but once we all refreshed ourselves as to what was happening it was pretty easy getting back into things. Session spent a lot of time in planning stages, but lots of it was in character so I was mostly fine with that.
We open after the Bar closes on the 3rd of the month, late at night early in the morning. A name comes up on the date the till doesn’t quite match the receipts/inventory. Fred Richards, unfortunately for them, Fred isn’t scheduled to work for the next few days, so they decide to pay a visit to him then and there. They head into a rather sketchy part of town and find his 2nd floor walk-up apartment where he lives with his wife and daughter. Okoi is hoping to avoid scaring the woman and the kid (and asks to change his instinct to something to that effect on the spot), but they still send Axe around back in case he tries jumping out the window.
Okoi and Upton knock loudly, and after a moment, the groggy man in question peers out the chained door to see who it is. And the guy is wise enough to put two and two together as to why his bosses are here at this time of night. He actually goes with them without much resistance, mainly to keep them from messing with his family, and the three of them meet up with Axe and then take a walk.
He grovels and such, which doesn’t reach many of our hardhearted protagonists, but they eventually get enough of the story. Some guy from the Rising Dragons has been coming around, saying that Richard’s dad owed him money, and now that his father has passed away its on him to pay it back, and it seems he is threatening his family to encourage payment. Richard identifies the guy as Kyoto, and has a Mahjong parlor in Dragon’s turf where he is supposed to meet him on the 7th. They kinda wonder what to do with them, and then Axe tells Richard that he is going to help them get their money back, and help them out with other stuff to to make up for what they can’t get, and neither Okoi or Upton have got a better idea, so they go with that.
The next day, Koga’s letter is finally delivered, in retrospect I should have delivered it before the game so they could have written beliefs more closely related to it, but I think things still went fairly well. They spent a LONG time thinking about how to respond, before deciding they wanted to burn the warehouse in question to the ground, with his men along with it. They spend a day to scout it out and find out that the warehouse is a functional warehouse dealing in foodstuffs and trade goods, and it also seems to be under the Eye’s protection. If it is owned by a member of the Eye, or the owner just pays decent protection money is rather unclear, but it bears their emblem on it as a “don’t mess with us” sign. Either way this is enough to make them rethink their plan.
They begin to second guess if continuing to escalate is a good idea, especially because they worry Koga could retaliate by burning down their bar, and the letter makes it clear that they are looking for an excuse to go to war, so their plan is to figure out where Koga is and just take him out, simple, right?
None of them have a good idea how to go about this, and no one is willing to make an unskilled wise roll to try and see if they know, so they instead look to circle up and information broker from Uppton’s foreign contacts in the city. Fail, Enmity Clause time!
They find a man known as Mr. R in the back room of an opium den, smoking on a Hooka pipe, not (currently) indulging in the primary drug of the location. They tell him what they want to know, and he informs them he knows that Koga is known to frequent a certain brothel, and visit a certain girl. He could tell them which brothel and which girl and even when he should next head over if he keeps his schedule, but what do they have to offer in return?
They briefly consider trying to trade information about how Tsuyoshi is going to be storing some stuff at their place, but decide it’s not worth the risks of pissing Tsuyoshi off or having someone come to THEIR place to get it. In the end, Uppton tries offering the drugs they took off of Koga’s men as payment. Mr. R considers it, and agrees, noting he has a few contacts who would buy it off him.
The place is called Sakura’s, he gives them the girl’s name and room she is most commonly in. They should next expect him on the 6th, same nigh as the meeting in the warehouse. Axe still wants to go to the warehouse, he’s the one person who has a belief still tied up in that letter, so they make a plan to visit the warehouse first, deal with the guys there, and then go to the brothel and deal with Koga.
We called it there, next time we’ll pick up with them dealing with the warehouse, and assuming they make it out of this night alive, they still have to deal with Richard’s loanshark, and Tsuyoshi’s job is still looming in the background.
Only 24 more days until the rent is due.
Current PaDC score: 20/31 (Another one a bit late that I had to backdate, but it’s still 10/20 somewhere, and I haven’t gone to bed yet so I am gonna count it)
You All Meet in a Tavern 