The party hired a local child to deliver a card to Lord Whylac’s tower. It simply said “We want ASCII,” followed by a phone number. What follows is the loose transcription of the texting conversation I have in my notes:
Mr. Burns: Who dis?
Party: Someone trying to pick up the pieces of the mess you made.
MB: Very cryptic. THIS piece is mine.
P: Trade?
MB: What can you offer?
P: Why do you care about the kid?
MB: Why do you? I have reason to keep her, and none to give her up.
P: What do you want in trade? All she has is your ID, and nobody cares about that.
MB: What can you offer? This seems like a lazy attempt to fish for info about me.
At this point the party texted the Hangman for advice. She said she figured Mr. Burns biggest desires were for space travel and control.
P: [Sends Pix of the aliens, plus emojis indicating they’re aware that Mr. Burns’ space ship exploded, and a sadface.]
MB: So you know about the aliens, you know about space ships, and your goal is to upset me. What else?
P: Now you know that we don’t need information about you. You asked.
MB: Tell you what. Send me a complete data dump of everything you know about the aliens. If there’s something useful in there, I’ll give you ASCII..
[The Hangman advised that ASCII is not valuable enough to the organization to give Mr. Burns that info for.]
P: No. How about this: we have a cleric. Good at shutting down magic. Any magic you need shut down?
MB: Kill Madam Crucifixion for me.
P: We’ll investigate the possibility.
MB: Don’t take too long.
P: Give ASCII to someone else for safekeeping.
B: I’ll hand her over to my subordinate, Firing Squad. Good enough?
P: For now. Send us info on Madam Cucifixion.
MB: She’s got a masterful spy network. It’s not perfect, but I’ve never been able to figure out how she knows as much as she does. Her magic focuses on altering the size and shape of things, and seems to work effortlessly when used on her own body. She’s constantly looking in a little notebook she carries with her everywhere. She’s annoyingly mischevious, waxes philosophical over dumb shit, and smells terribly. Maintains a low key presence in comet caller territory.
At this point the party set out to meet madam crucifixion. They went to their restaurant and spoke openly about her for a bit, and were shortly thereafter one of their own waiters sat down and held up a smart phone with a woman’s face on it. The party suggested the possibility of “fake” assassinating her, but after some conversation both parties agreed that it would be in everyone’s best interests if the party assassinated Mr. Burns instead. From Madam Crucifixion they learned that Mr. Burns has an odd gambling problem. He seems compelled. In particular he has an unnatural knowledge of where to find unorthadox games. Games with impromptu rules, or where someone is betting their very last dollar. He likes to participate in these.
The party determined to try to lure him into such a game.