Session Date: 09/29/2025
Previous Session
The party went to speak with the Caspien Alderpetal, the Adamant Guard Warden here that seems to be corrupt. He was a big snob. The contact was made by Talitha and Mary as her translator. This gentleman is very crooked. He is keen on making an alliance with us. Faylen went to therapy.
As Faylen leaves, a harsh-looking younger woman is next. She’s wearing a suit and is trying not to light a cigar. She looks up at Faylen and asks if she knows him from somewhere. Faylen hasn’t seen her, but he’s seen someone she’s related to: Boss Clapperclaw. Faylen awkwardly says that he just has one of those faces. She stares at him longer and he turns and walks away and leaves.
The Party
Faylen walks out of the wall and sees that the workshop area’s been turned into a store. Bosch explains that the gambit of him pretending to be a merchant is basically over, but they taught the Igors how to sew and prepare adventurer equipment stuff so they can keep the shop going after they leave if they would like. There’s some back and forth talking about the shop and getting caught up on details:
- The corrupt cop and his partner think Tabby is a ghost
- Tabby and Bosch stole some papers from Alderpetal that Faylen needs to look at
Bosch and Tabby found papers and brought them back. Faylen looks them over and there’s some code to it, implications - he figures that with 6-8 months of honest court work, they could get him into serious trouble. It’s not impossible to use it against him, but it’s not a smoking gun. Tabby suggests that we ask Kincaid for help in this instance, even though none of us particularly care to do it (Bosch is perhaps the least opposed, if only because this definitely won’t be boring).
Meeting with Kincaid
We go into the sewers where Kincaid told Tabby he’d park the body. We find a secluded place with the corpse. Kincaid says that he understands we don’t like him, and that he remains hopeful. We do have a few shared enemies here and he’d like to help out. Bosch comments that we’ve heard this before: he wants to kill us, turn us into undead, and then pilot our bodies. He disagrees: he has no desire to do such a thing (at least right now). He reminds us that the corpse he’s piloting now was a Warhawks man that was going to turn all the Warhawks in the region against us, but he took care of it. He’s willing to work to earn our trust.
Bosch comments that the option that makes the most sense is to let the Warhawks kill us. He says that he disagrees: it makes more sense to get rid of the enemy organization and figure out what to do next. He says that he’s been up front about everything: he runs a criminal syndicate, he is undead. Yes. That much is true. He likens what he does to a healing spell: a natural extension thereof, which there is no harm in extending his own life in this way.
Bosch tells him to stop killing the Zolardos, and Kincaid says he’s not killing them. They get themselves killed, and then he recruits them because they’re useful. Bosch is unhappy that this unfortunately makes sense. Bosch is upset because the Zolardos were adventurous and they come back undead without any of that spirit left.
After a comment from Tabby, Kincaid says he just has more resources than us. He can deal with the Adamant Guard for us as long as we agree to let him help us at a later junction. He requests we talk to him: we can exchange ideas, we can understand where he’s coming from. He admits he’s doing illegal things, but he’s trying to be the equalizer to stop the rich and powerful from stamping on the small guy.
Bosch admits that what Kincaid is saying makes sense, except that we have to be “helped” by him later. Kincaid speaks up to say that we’ve built a very unfair image of him. Yes, he’s an undead crime boss, which are all scary words, but we have common enemies. We are squabbling over the same magical artifact, but we can sort that out later.
Bosch requests that we deal without having to work with the word “help”. There’s some discussion and we all agree that we can agree to not fight Kincaid until after we can talk to him, and if he helps us here, then we can help him with something he needs later (as long as the entire party agrees to it). We all agree that Breakwater Company is terrible and we agree we’ll help him topple Breakwater.
Kincaid explains that the dirt he has on Caspien is that he likes magic and imported some illegal magic items. He’s honestly an incredibly boring person and getting rid of him will make the entire city more cheerful. Kincaid admits that he likes this city, he likes the Igors and a good union. Bosch is disappointed that this is all he has, he wanted something more explosive and Kincaid says that he can throw in blowing up Caspien’s home for free. Bosch says that’s okay, and then leaves. Kincaid promises to do this, and then he says that when he asks for assistance, it won’t be big, or it’ll be something in line with our own goals.
Kincaid will also give us the address for the guy selling the flesh amalgamates, and the general idea of how many amalgamates he has. Kincaid doesn’t like the amalgamates because they aren’t undead, they’re just fleshy constructs - they’re not what Kincaid is about. He can dispose of them as well. He says that we are not so different - we agree on many points, actually, and we will discover how many points in the upcoming days.
Tabby raises the immortals as a point with regards to immortality, and Kincaid says that there are multiple ways to become immortal - some are more acceptable than others. He could have gone to sit in a monastery for a hundred years to meditate, but he chose not to, and he’s getting things done now.
Tabby opts to move the conversation on and Kincaid reassures us that the plan is already in motion. He produces a card with an address and Kincaid tells us to go deal with the seller and by the time we are done, the Warden won’t be an issue.
Bosch, after having left, was looking for a mad scientist that knew how to make amalgamates. He doesn’t find any, which is unfortunate.
The Seller
Arriving
We catch up with Bosch and Mary explains we have an address for the seller. We go over and Talitha goes in first to scout. She explains that there’s two levels to this place: she only looked at the first level. The amalgamates are not particularly observant, but she thinks the seller actually spotted her. She says the amalgamates walk around, and she assumes the second level houses more amalgamates.
Faylen looks around and there’s multiple entrances. There is one entrance that was barred from within, but not barred well enough. There’s also at least one entrance on the roof. He’d guess that he might have gotten into the underground sewers and used more space for his work - Talitha mentioned vats, so perhaps he’s assembling the amalgamations here.
Tabby and Bosch get up to the roof and peek through the window up there. The seller comes out from the warehouse below. He is repeating a pitch, apparently preparing a pitch. He’s not ordering any amalgamates around right now - reading from cue cards, practicing his spiel.
Faylen bursts the door in and enters and surprises the seller. Bosch tampers with something to see how he commands the amalgamation, and while he argues with Faylen and is distracted by the broken thing, Mary slips downstairs.
Mary
Mary goes down and it is cold below - like a freezer. She looks over the vats and things down there and she figures out that none of the parts that are there are from a living creature. These amalgamates are misshapen. If you truly wanted to create humanoid-like amalgamation, you could make that from cloned bodies, but this is something else. It’s like he’s stolen parts from somewhere - parts not meant for this - and he’s using a wand to assembling them into these shambling monstrosities by hand that he can then command. There are rows and rows of vats.
She looks around and she realizes that with time and a bit of influence from the Seal of Infinity, she can make the body parts and other ingredients inert so that the amalgamations are destroyed. This will not deal with the active amalgamations, but he won’t be able to make any more.
Part of his business deal is that these things are not very good quality: they break easily. Planned obsolescence, in a way.