Ten days later, Gremlin reaches a private rehearsal loft above a shuttered performance venue. Dust veils the stage below, while work lights glow over abandoned scenery and folded costumes.
Sanguine waits beside a scarred piano, a slim young man with pale skin, sharp cheekbones, dark hair swept from a widow’s peak, and a crimson-lined cape.
Sanguine
You came. Good. I have spent ten days keeping Orda’s frightened little orbit from swallowing the performers she left exposed.
A velvet case rests open on the piano. Inside, encrypted printouts list patrons, donations, and influence purchases routed through the restitution process.
Sanguine
This arrived tonight. New patrons buying access while everyone applauds the old network’s collapse. They are already calling my promises your guarantees.
Sanguine
I used your name to protect people who needed shelter, work, and introductions. Some promises can be honored. Others will put us both in danger.
Sanguine
So we address the consequences together, darling. Decide what your reputation is worth before these patrons decide it for you.
✓ Quest Accepted
Secure a defensible alliance with Sanguine
✓ Quest Accepted
Expose the new patrons buying access through the restitution process
“I call Alexei and ask for help setting up a protection network”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled +1)
Gremlin
Alexei, I need help setting up a protection network for the people exposed by these new patrons and their influence purchases.
Gremlin’s call routes through the loft’s secured relay. Sanguine watches the encrypted printouts while Alexei’s hard-suit silhouette appears on the small rehearsal monitor.
Alexei
You have it. I will establish protected intake channels, rotating safe locations, vetted escorts, and sealed evidence custody under civic authority.
Alexei
Give me only what you can verify. We will shield identities, separate shelter from testimony, and make every access request auditable.
Alexei sends a compact authorization package. Shelter coordinators, legal counsel, medical contacts, and emergency transport routes populate the display without exposing anyone’s name.
Sanguine
That is substantially better than my improvised promises. I can bring the frightened ones in, but your network must remain the thing protecting them.
Alexei
Agreed. The network is active now. Send the first verified list through the relay, and no patron gets leverage over a person seeking safety.
Quest Complete
Secure a defensible alliance with Sanguine
“I examine the patron printouts for names and payments”
FAILURE (Legendary Investigation, rolled -4)
Gremlin spreads the encrypted printouts across the scarred piano, matching patron names against payment routes, donation totals, and repeated influence codes.
Under his analytical pass, the pages reveal convincing names and amounts, then collapse into contradictory aliases. Several entries change when viewed through the relay’s verification light.
The examination triggers a concealed watermark. Ink blooms across the payment columns, obscuring the identities, while the secured relay flashes an outbound acknowledgment to the listed patrons.
Sanguine
That was not in my delivery package. You touched the pattern, and now whoever prepared it knows we are reading it.
Alexei
Stop the relay and preserve the pages exactly as they are. We have an alert, corrupted identifiers, and no reliable patron list yet.
Alexei’s monitor freezes the transmission at the relay boundary, but the acknowledgment has already left. The printouts now carry a fresh timestamp and a traceable examination signature.
Gremlin
The names are bait, and the watermark records who examines them.
“I ask Sanguine to shelter targets through trusted performers”
SUCCESS (Legendary Persuasion, rolled -3)
Gremlin
Shelter the targets through performers you trust. Keep them out of the patrons’ reach until Alexei can verify every name and route.
Sanguine
Done. I will place them with companies, understudies, and stage crews who owe me loyalty, not money. No patron gets their address.
Sanguine gathers the printouts into a clean stack, leaving the watermarked pages isolated beneath the relay light. His expression sharpens as the plan becomes real.
Alexei
Send only consented identities through the protected channel. I will provide vetted transport, emergency contacts, and sealed intake codes for each performer’s household.
Sanguine
You have my network, Gremlin, but this costs you leverage. I will tell the performers you secured their protection, and they will expect you to stand behind it.
The promise lands as both alliance and debt. Sanguine activates three trusted company managers, while Alexei’s relay generates separate shelter credentials without exposing the targets’ names.
Sanguine
The first rooms are ready. I will move the vulnerable people tonight, and I will make clear whose protection they are under.
✓ Quest Accepted
Move the vulnerable performers into protected shelter
“I coordinate Sanguine’s first moves into the three secured company rooms.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled -3)
“I coordinate Sanguine’s first moves into the three secured company rooms.”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +3)
Gremlin overlays the three company rooms onto the secured relay, assigning each performer household a staggered arrival window, a vetted escort, and a separate intake code.
He cross-checks company rosters, transport capacity, emergency contacts, and patron access logs, then routes the plan through Alexei’s sealed civic channel without exposing names.
Sanguine
Room one takes the dancers, room two takes the stage crew, and room three takes the understudies. Their managers receive only the code and arrival window.
The relay confirms all three rooms as secured. Gremlin’s schedule also reveals that one company manager controls a private service entrance absent from the patrons’ access map.
Alexei
Excellent. That entrance gives us a clean emergency corridor. I am assigning rotating escorts and locking every credential to the household it serves.
Sanguine
Then the first move begins now. I will bring them in by separate routes, and no one receives an address, a list, or a second chance to sell them.
Three company managers acknowledge their codes through the protected channel. Transport assignments populate, rooms seal to verified arrivals, and the first performers begin moving beyond the patrons’ reach.
“I use the hidden entrance to reroute arrivals”
SUCCESS (Legendary Reasoning, rolled +1)
Gremlin slips into the company manager’s private service entrance and reroutes the civic schedule, replacing the public approach with staggered arrivals through the concealed corridor.
His Legendary analysis matches each household to the corridor’s cameras, loading access, and room capacity, then issues fresh route tokens without exposing names.
Gremlin
The hidden entrance can handle all three arrivals without crossing the patrons’ access map.
Alexei
I see the reroute. The corridor is now the primary protected approach, and every escort credential has been rebound to its assigned household.
The relay accepts the revised plan. Room one receives the dancers through the service passage, while stage crew and understudies follow at separate intervals.
Sanguine
Beautiful. They will enter unseen, breathe safely, and never realize how close the patrons came to buying their doors.
Three arrival windows turn green in sequence. Company managers confirm secure handoffs, the hidden entrance seals behind each group, and the performers reach shelter beyond the network’s mapped reach.
Quest Complete
Move the vulnerable performers into protected shelter
Skill Upgrade: Medicine Good→Great