Blades in the Dark: Duels of Fire and Iron

[Part of the Party Time journal]

During their downtime, Mom and Rose take the spirit bottles found at the Crow's Tower to Celene, mom's Bluecoat friend who assures them this will force justice into action, DL gets an invitation from Mercy his ex, a member of the Red Sashes, to talk to their master at Tangletown, and Juris decides to take a new drug called "Lure" and finds himself waking up at Silkshore where he talks to the Gondoliers amassing there about the demon cat problem and volunteers to help. Luckily the cat is a demon that feeds of feelings of pleasure, so the plan is for Juris to distract it long enough for the Gondoliers to conduct their ritual.

Juris does his work perfectly and the demon cat is chain lightning-ed to death! The squad continue up to the top of Fogcrest to ensure the ritual is stopped and this time it is they who are caught unaware by the ancient vampire Scurlock who makes half of their number vanish with his staff (the end of which is a hand) and slays the remainder with his claws and incredible strength and speed. Juris successfully begs for his life, and agrees to fetch more demon blood for the vampire who "marks" him with a burning hand and sends him on his way.

Meanwhile DL, Rose and mom are spotted scoping out Tangletown but Rose manages to set a truce between them and the Old Crows of leaving each other alone. The Old Crows also mention there are no Red Sashes there tonight (it had been a trap to make the two factions fight), instead seven Red Sash swordsmen ambush the trio on their way home and while they manage to cut DL a bit - all of them are violently slain as the dice dictated that they didn't run.

The next day DL receives a written letter and accepts to duel the Red Sash master at their dojo, with mom shadowing from sniping positions and Rose talking her way in. Master Shido turns out to not be a swordsman at all, but a whisper who uses ghosts to make swords fly on their own. DL takes minor damage before killing him, and since his remaining students attack they too are mostly wiped out. Only Mercy manages to escape with a bullet wound and a throwing knife stuck in her (both thanks to Rose, as mom missed her snipe here and DL had no more load for a ranged weapon). No doubt Mercy fled to the Iruvian consulate where her parent works.

Juris on the other hand manages to create another batch of powdered fire and returns to Scurlock's house in Fogcrest when the vampire is away (he can reverse "the polarity" to detect him using the hand mark and his whisper skills) and sets up a trap. Then he manages to (critical) summon Scurlock (as vampires are just spirits in corpses) to his location. The next bit doesn't go so smoothly as the ancient vamp breaks one of Juris' arms, but ultimately the vampire is tricked into the powdered fire trap and is incinerated to death (critical again, and since he's "bonded" to the body his spirit is destroyed too. Weaker vamps can just ghost outta their skins but strong ones like Scurlock get this mortally dangerous trait, which I thought was pretty cool balance trade off). Only his staff, which ends with a someone's decaying hand, remains - untouched by the fire. Juris takes it and while recovering learns it is the Hand of Kotar... whoever that is.