Blades in the Heart: Ritual Smashing

[Part of the Party Time journal]

Mom, DL, and Rose pass by the Bellweather Crematorium within a huge park whose trees are toxic for people to touch as it was marked as a ritual site but are stopped by a door sized hull who dutifully tells them that they are not permitted inside and to return "never". Since DL doesn't want to hurt this thing just doing its job, he takes the team on to the same club in Nightmarket where they find a handful of drunk cultists guarding a messy ritual site. The drunks are easily disposed of, except one who mom keeps alive (he happens to be a simpleton) so they decide to take him to Ironhook personally.

This act unlocks mom's first dream power, guided by a vision of a giant owl - the "death manifest". She got a vision of her death (which mom surprisingly described as "violent") and now she has a clock to use this power with. Whenever she touches something or someone and wills it, it will die her exact death on the spot. Then her clock will fill based on a dice roll. Should the clock fill up entirely, then she will die in the very same manner.

DL actually also unlocked his first power in the previous post after performing an autopsy on the eel man's head, his guide - Kenny V - taught him "circular breathing" where he can simply transform into air and slowly float around like a ghost (for 3 stress) then reform whenever and wherever he desires. To keep things simple, this technique also magically makes his gear air too, and it comes with him when he reforms.

Anyway, while passing through Coalridge the trio encounter a young girl named Quill who works at the factory, along with other children due to labor shortages. Her eight year old brother Sten had recently been killed in a workplace accident and she wants help in kidnapping the new foreman Fartinghard (previous boss of the fire brigade), to talk to him - also mentioning that some of the other kids are planning on killing him. They ignore this for now and continue to drop off their prisoner in jail before running into a sizeable mercenary force that escorts them to Lord Elon who is slightly upset that they didn't level his bank but at the same time is agreeable in helping them stop the potentially city destroying rituals.

He loans them some heavy barrier crossing kits, and even sends some men to go pick up Juris from Fogcrest who right at that moment was just finishing a battle against a pair of john killing hoes who were also manning a ritual site. Juris called upon birds to distract the women before finishing them off and the gunfire and lightning blasts could be seen from a long way away. When the team reunites they make their way to the barrier's edge to the next ritual site just beyond it, at the old North Port.