Blades in the Dark: Not Good Enough

[Part of the Party Time journal]

While Rose and Juris have their ghost door adventure, mom and DL get some free time after Warden Pope leaves to headover to Charterhall to deliver Helleren's "ghost recording" to the authorities to help clear Coran (and his dogs) then return to the Dimmer Sisters house to pick up more hull shells as DL wants to create more dragon armor. They find the home inhabited by the Gray Cloaks, a group of ex-cops wanted for burning evidence in an imporant case against Lord Strangford. In fact they are very much against Strangford and after passing negotiation checks believe the visitors aren't hitmen and simply hand over the remaining hulls and a suitcase of junk from the previous owners. This "junk" happens to include seven toenails of Kotar, which when ingested are basically a full heal for stress and trauma.

The following day mom and Rose and summoned to the courthouse to give testimony against the cabbies who are fighting their charge, while Juris and DL follow Earnest to Barrowcleft bridge where he claims he lost his ghost brother Bertrand, in a dice gambling game with Spogg. Juris is distracted by howls from the death dogs in his care up at Fogcrest though so he goes to check on them while DL continues to the bridge alone. Mom and Rose are split up too when mom is summoned to an upstairs office where she is ambushed by the bounty hunter Casta (who had just murdered mom's cop friend Celene) and her four melee goons!

Downstairs in the waiting room, Rose is also ambushed by knife wielders but these ones are all deaf (to negate her voice power) and wearing masks (to negate her trance powder). On the bridge 10 snipers ambush DL from both ends as he reaches the middle, killing Earnest, Bertrand and Spogg and Juris finds the demon Grist at the top of the hill with some dogs strapped to him as hurting animals really is Juris' weakness. I thought I was super clever splitting them up and pitting them against their weaknesses, but well - mom and rose cleared their battles in two turns with good rolling, Juris used his "tamed and trained" ghosts to free the dogs then the hand of Kotar to bisect Grist (banishing only a 3rd of him), eating a toenail to negate trauma - and DL systematically murdered every sniper with feats of acrobatics and blood thirst.

The next day they decide to follow Adda's request of checking in on Coalridge, the industrial sector, where Skovlans are trying to unionize against their brutal foremen. They find the lead foreman, Slane, whipping the union leader and since he's a demon Juris wastes no time in "handing" him to the next dimension while eating another toenail. It's hilarious since Slane didn't actually get to say anything - they just walked in and blew him away.

Afterwards they attend a meeting with Lord Strangford who confirms he is planning to start a civil war, explaining that due to the shortage of demon blood the Lord Governor is planning to turn off the barrier to half the city (including the districts our protagonists reside in). He hopes to get their support in overthrowing the Lord Governor to prevent this, specifically by convincing Lord Elon Dalmore either join the revolt or simply do nothing with his troops.

They go talk to Elon next who refuses to do nothing as he is bound to help the city government but does suggest there might be a way to "reverse the polarity" and make it when the switch is flipped that the barrier go down in the other half of the city only. None of the above options are good enough for our heroes as they are determined to find a way to save everyone. Juris donates a toenail of Kotar to Elon to try help his "heart" project, but other than a temporary increase in performance it has no effect.