Session Date: 03/25/2024
I was gone for this session, so these notes are graciously provided by Bosch’s player. :>
Heading into the city, we encountered a stream of people making their way out, carrying what belongings they could. No one knew what was going on, just that they felt their odds were better outside.
(Not that everybody was leaving. Just some.) We ran into Amaree, the lieutenant who had been investigating Idwal Ram’s death. She told us that everyone with any significant authority had been in the palace, and now no one knew who was in charge. We suggested she talk to Joe Bullheart. She’d heard bad things about him from her superiors, but they weren’t here, and we vouched for him, and she didn’t have any better ideas. We found him in Clapperclaw’s old warehouse, along with a crowd of union folks and some Bone Boys. Theo had gagged Elias to stop him from playing “one always tells the truth, one always lies.”
Joe was trying to get everyone to calm down and work together, but barely anyone was listening. They were all arguing amongst themselves about what they thought should be done. Tabby tried to vault onto the table and bring everyone to attention, and Bosch stepped in to give him a boost. Unfortunately they weren’t on the same wavelength, and two natural ones later, both lay on the floor instead. (“I thought you were going left!”, Bosch complained.) Mary talked to Joe about what he knew, which sadly wasn’t much. The duke was gone, Clapperclaw’s whereabouts were unknown, the people in this room might be able to restore order but couldn’t work together…
We passed by Amaree talking to Theo and Elias, apparently playing along with Elias’s game. Theo was pretty miserable, though. First we went to check on Gurt, and it’s a good thing we did: The Murky Dragonfruit was on fire, and he was the only one unaccounted for. Bosch barreled inside, holding his breath, and eventually found Gurt unconscious beneath a collapsed beam. The beam wouldn’t budge at first, but with a crowbar Bosch managed to break it. (Good thing too; step 3 would have involved going into a rage.) He dragged him out and Mary provided enough healing to get him back on his feet. He bemoaned the loss of his bar (“it should have been me instead!”), but cheered up a bit when he learned how much of the city was on fire. Maybe this would be a chance to try some good old-fashioned anarchy.
The party discussed politics all the way back to the warehouse, were Gurt quickly took charge and got everyone to listen. (He tripped too - natural 2 - but wasn’t going to let that stop him.) This time, Bobbi Walker showed up. She told us her grandfather was safely away from all this, but she didn’t know where Clapperclaw was, and offered to team up to hunt him down.
Amaree, nearby, didn’t react to us talking to a mobster. (“I see nothing, I hear nothing, I can only tell lies.”) Bobbi knew the back alleys very well, and soon we arrived at Clapperclaw’s tavern and headquarters. Or at least, the hole in the ground where the tavern had been. People had told us that the palace hadn’t exploded: it had been removed from reality somehow, and the hole it left behind was perfectly smooth. This looked just like that: a perfectly smooth scoop taken out of the dirt, wood, and even concrete. Plus or minus some stuff that fell in afterwards. We shifted through the rubble, and found an intact stairway to an intact basement door. Bosch fumbled around for something to use as lockpicks, but found nothing, and went to ask Bobbi if she had any. Meanwhile, Tabby tried the doorknob. (It was locked after all, though Alan said it would have been very funny if not.)
Before Bosch could get back down there to crowbar it open, Tabby got a good roll and found an easy way to bypass the lock. The inside was lavishly decorated, with someone sitting in a high-backed chair facing away from the door. They were holding a bottle of wine. Bosch began to sneak around, grabbing a standing lamp to use as a weapon. The stealth roll was good, but picking up a light source still kind of gives you away. The chair spun around to reveal Garm Clapperclaw, minus an arm. His arm wasn’t bleeding, and the cut looked unnaturally smooth, like whatever destroyed the floors above. He told us, in a resigned voice, that he’d lost everything and didn’t care if we were there to kill him. Tabby and Mary persuaded him that he personally wasn’t our target (Bosch: “He’s personally my target!”); we wanted to chase down the wizard that did all this. He could even see this as revenge, if he gave us information to help.
Clapperclaw agreed, but didn’t have many details. He couldn’t remember what the wizard looked or sounded like, or if he was really a wizard or really did magic. “I’m calling him he for convenience, but I just don’t know.” Clapperclaw commented that he hadn’t been bothered by this, or even thought about it, until right now. Without warning, this being went berserk. Took his arm and HQ, then went and took out the palace. “And if he’s got a third charge in him, it stands to reason it’ll be even bigger. We might all be already dead.”
Clapperclaw pulls out a new bottle and opens it with his teeth. He says he has nothing to fight for, and sooner or later someone will come along and kill him. He’s just numbing the pain as he waits for the hammer to fall. Bosch complains that he came here for a fight, and Clapperclaw is taking all the fun out of it. The party filters out, leaving Bobbi to decide what to do with him. (“We don’t actually kill people very often. We’re trying to rule a city, not a warzone.”) Tabby notices the Shard tugging on him, and takes it out. It’s glowing, and gently pulling in a specific direction, as if trying to reunite with another piece.