Ashclimb, a play-by-post RPG setting with AI as the GM.
- Thread starter Biggle_Bear
- Start date
In principle after the AI scene. So long as it doesn’t change the scene then it could be something happening parallel. Does that clarify things?
I don’t think I said it before but since Gorran Slagjaw is the only PC he is exempt from the Community Turn.
CaptainDangerous
Officer, without number, head turner, troll burner
Staff member
Yak Comp 3rd Place
Tribe Council
Every time there is a gathering of Union workers, a small cart selling sausage in a bun always shows up. There is an aura of onions that surrounds the cart owner, who people swear is the same hairy bearded muscular guy each time, but nobody can quite tell. There is usually a cart to be found in hollowplate market.
“How’s a man to think with all this noise in the Ashfalls? …how’s a man supposed to eat?… by charging him 5 credits for a sausage inna bun, that’s how!”
“How’s a man to think with all this noise in the Ashfalls? …how’s a man supposed to eat?… by charging him 5 credits for a sausage inna bun, that’s how!”
Marshal Grenth is under the weather this week,
he sends his 'administrative deputy'; scribe Edgar out with a pair of subjugators to collect bribes. Usually these type of 'business trips' follow a fixed route. New 'entrepreneurs' are expected to present themselves for taxation.
Scribe Edgar is a very thorough, literal minded bookkeeper, but intimidation is not his strong suit. He counts on 2 bored underpaid subjugators to provides this 'factor'. He is very result focused, rarely drinks, is eager to please Marshal Grenth and gossip has it he has some bizar kink about the inner workings of the Adeptus administratum. Depending on your income he may ignore you or try to call you in for 'questioning'.
Current taxation rate (fixed but can evolve in case of inspections, threats to racketeers, ...):
Officially 50% of daily income, deduct 10% for each consecutive day you paid* to a minimum of 30%.
* arrangements can be made to 'pay taxes' at local drinking holes.
he sends his 'administrative deputy'; scribe Edgar out with a pair of subjugators to collect bribes. Usually these type of 'business trips' follow a fixed route. New 'entrepreneurs' are expected to present themselves for taxation.
Scribe Edgar is a very thorough, literal minded bookkeeper, but intimidation is not his strong suit. He counts on 2 bored underpaid subjugators to provides this 'factor'. He is very result focused, rarely drinks, is eager to please Marshal Grenth and gossip has it he has some bizar kink about the inner workings of the Adeptus administratum. Depending on your income he may ignore you or try to call you in for 'questioning'.
Current taxation rate (fixed but can evolve in case of inspections, threats to racketeers, ...):
Officially 50% of daily income, deduct 10% for each consecutive day you paid* to a minimum of 30%.
* arrangements can be made to 'pay taxes' at local drinking holes.
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Cut me own throat Dangerous?
The app suggests that this cart would be a great source of rumours, so maybe I will be there asking for locations of debtors over a breakfast. Hairy Bearded Muscular Guy? Gives off clone vibes.
50%! I hope the app realises that I am exempt from this tax… for reasons. I’ve got to get a cop drinking buddy, so that they can couch that I already paid my dues.
Thanks for the entries guys. I look forward to seeing how these play out.
tl:dr - a mysterious stranger drops off a bag with a new job. But Gorran tries to make sense of why he was sent it. Is it a trap? Is it a coded message? Does he accept the job?
GM:
[SESSION 3 – START]
Location: Gorran Slagjaw’s rented room in a sagging hab-stack overlooking the Hollowplate Market
Time: Early evening, one day after the stim crate recovery
Soundtrack: Distant argument, buzz of vent fans, and a sputtering vox-speaker advertising reprocessed air filters
The room smells like old metal, warm solvent, and the faint sting of fungus scrub. You’ve been back for a few hours—enough time to get clean, patch your coat, and count your cut. Kurn paid up—credits in hand, intel in mind.
But Harrow hasn’t settled. The market below churns with life. Someone’s yelling about “new taxation enforcement measures,” and you can just make out the scent of onions on the wind.
A knock comes at the door. Three fast, one slow.
No one should know that knock.
What do you do?
Player:
I take my gun, quickly check the chamber is loaded, kneel down to the side of the door and knock on the door at a natural height. Two knocks, pause, two knocks.
GM:
There’s a pause on the other side.
Then a quiet voice, filtered through the worn hab-metal:
“…Slagjaw? That you? Don’t shoot. I brought something.”
The voice is familiar—but faintly. You’d swear you heard it once in the Ashfalls during your early days here, maybe even back in another district. There’s a rasp to it now, like they’ve been breathing too much sump smoke.
A soft thud follows. Something’s been set against the door.
“It’s from Kurn. Said you might want a head start before the others catch wind.”
You don’t hear footsteps—just silence now.
What do you do?
Player:
Open the door and use it as a barrier. See who it is. I’m still cautious who it might be, but much less so.
GM:
You pull the door open slowly, keeping it between you and the hallway like a battered iron shield. The hallway light flickers, casting rust-colored shadows.
No one stands there now.
But down by the floor is a canvas satchel—frayed and grimy, with a stenciled symbol: a cracked magnifying glass over an eye. Not Guild. Not Union. Something older.
There’s a small smear of dried blood on the strap.
Tucked beneath the flap, barely visible, is a folded scrap of waxed parchment. One side reads in blocky, all-caps letters:
“SUMP SIFTER—DEAD OR LOST IN THE TRENCH ZONES. REPLACEMENT SOUGHT.”
You glance both directions down the hall.
Nothing. Just the dim buzz of a flickering lumen.
What do you do?
Player:
I throw on my coat, pick up the satchel and head out, but not before making a brief sign towards the saintly statuette in the corridor outside my room. It’s early evening. I want food and drink, but the only thing I have are empty bottles of ‘slop it down’ Brown.
When I get out to street level I look to see if there are any familiar faces, who might be the one who dropped this off. But I don’t approach them either way. If they didn’t hang around, there must have been a good reason for it.
I’m headed to the nearby sausage stand for starters. First going to one side of the street before realising he relocated to the opposite side, or is it a different guy?
I’m going to make small talk about how the new taxes affect business and then I start to ask about missing sump sifters.
GM:
The streets of Ashclimb are never empty—not really. Even this far into the ash-thick evening, boots shuffle through broken glass, and voices mutter from behind bolted doors. Your coat flaps in the breeze like something alive as you descend to street level.
The Gutline Market smells like rust, hot grease, and onion breath.
Across the way, a sausage cart is already drawing a line of tired-looking workers and twitchy-eyed gangers. You almost head to the usual spot—northeast corner of the Hollowplate junction—but tonight, the cart is across the street. Or… maybe it’s a different cart?
Same rattling grill. Same cloud of oily smoke. Same grunting vendor with arms like meat-hooks and a beard that could store secrets.
“Evenin’,” the vendor says, flipping a sausage with his pinky. His apron says SAUSAGE IS TRUTH. You’re not sure if it’s the same guy—but something in his eyes glints like recognition. “One for the road, Slagjaw?”
You get your sausage inna bun—five credits gone like smoke.
You nod toward the market’s edge, where someone’s scrawled ‘THEY’LL TAX OUR GRAVES NEXT’ in red ink.
“This new taxation run… not great for business, huh?”
The vendor shrugs like he’s lifting a slab of concrete.
“People still eat. Edgy folk eat more. Makes me money. But it brings the jackboots sniffin’. I gotta give ‘em a cut now too. Turns out paperwork follows sausage, who knew?”
Then, you shift the topic.
“Any sump sifters go missing lately? Someone left me a satchel. Symbol on it—cracked magnifying glass over an eye.”
That gets a pause. He flips a sausage, slower this time.
“Heard about a run into the Trench Zones. Old maintenance access, deep in the black layer. Some gearheads went down there. One of ‘em wore a symbol like that. Word was, he found something… wrong. Didn’t come back. Others came out different. Quiet. Didn’t talk much.”
He squints at you, pushing a sausage into the grill a little too hard.
“Why’re you askin’? That kinda curiosity don’t go good with mustard.”
What do you do?
Player:
“One of my clients suggested a job might be opening. Not sure how a debt collector will it in with that line of work? Maybe they just thought my work load might be light.”
Now that I’ve had food, I head to a drinking hole. One not connected to the workers union. I don’t want a run in with Brask or one someone wanting revenge. I am after some more info, although how drunk I am when I find it is only a matter of how well I ask.
GM:
The vendor grunts his approval—or maybe it’s just indigestion.
“Heh. Client’s got a sense of humor, sendin’ you into the dark with the sifters. Watch your back, Slagjaw.”
You leave behind the hiss of grease and the soft clink of coin. Ashclimb’s neon signs flicker overhead like tired eyes. You know the spots tied to the union: The Rusted Gutline, the Sumpfire Tap, places where Brask’s name carries weight and memory. You veer away from those.
You end up at The Piston’s Lament.
It’s a narrow little bolthole jammed between two hab-blocks. A half-dead servitor buzzes near the door, scanning faces. Nobody talks much in the Lament—they just drink. The walls sweat grime. The tables wobble. The clientele is mostly tech-scraps, ex-scavs, burnouts with augmetics they can’t afford to maintain.
Perfect.
You order something unlabeled, amber, and hot enough to regret.
Now… what are you fishing for?
Are you trying to follow up on the missing sifters, the symbol, or maybe rumors about the Trench Zone? Or something else entirely?
Player:
What happened to the sifters under the guise that I might be interested in the job coming up. If I can get some of the sifters names, that would be helpful.
GM:
You nurse your drink, letting the burn settle in your gut before asking the question that matters. You don’t shout it across the room, just lean toward the bartender while he’s swabbing out a cracked cup and mutter:
“Heard there’s work opening in the sifters. Any idea who ain’t coming back?”
The barkeep is an old augmetic with milky white optics and a face full of solder burns. He doesn’t answer at first—just snorts softly through a bent nasal grille and tilts his head toward the far end of the bar.
“You wanna talk siftin’? Talk to Senn. If anyone knows who’s gone under, it’s her.”
You follow his gesture.
Senn is an older woman with a head shaved clean and one synthetic hand clicking against her glass like she’s counting seconds. She has the kind of look that says she’s been deeper in the trench than most come out from.
You sidle up, and she clocks you in a half-second—gives you a look like she’s trying to remember if she owes you money or should be worried.
“Another one looking to fill boots, huh?” she says before you even speak. Her voice is hoarse, stained by chemicals and age.
If you stay friendly and buy her a drink, she opens up enough to give you something like the following:
“They were all new, mostly. Fresh to the lower lifts. Names don’t matter to the suits—only quotas. But I remember Jast. Wide-eyed, dumb, always asked questions. And there was Binni. Never showed up drunk. That alone made her stand out. She was smart enough to be cautious, but cautious don’t stop what’s down there.”
She leans in closer.
“The last group went quiet just after they cracked open shaft X-17C. Rumor is, the sump gave way—collapsed part of the trench wall. But that’s not what scares people. What scares people is that the lift came back up. Empty. Still running. Like something sent it.”
She drinks.
“They say it was the Hollow-Eyed, but that’s just easy talk for things people don’t want to understand.”
She waves her glass at the bartender again.
“You want to go down there? You better have more than guts and a gun, Slagjaw. You better have a reason.”
Let me know if you want to press her further, or ask around for a different angle—like who’s recruiting for the open spots, or what X-17C used to be.
Player:
I look up from my data-slate. “The Hollow-Eyed?” I hold eye contact a couple more moments and then finish checking those names against my debtor ledgers or if I can connect them to Kurn. I don’t want to go investigate some creepy goings on, but why would Kurn want me to be wrapped up in this.
Afterwards i thank her, I buy another drink to take with me and wander for a while trying to figure out why I am being sent to this job, when surely he has other debtors to chase down.
GM:
Senn just nods when you echo the name. She doesn’t elaborate—not like she needs to. Down here, the Hollow-Eyed is shorthand for all kinds of trouble: madmen who saw too much sumpglow, outcasts full of whispers, even spectral shapes blamed for trench collapses and disappearances. Most use the name like a curse or a joke.
But not her.
You scan your data-slate, eyes moving over columns of debts, cross-referencing with the names she gave:
The more you stare at the ledger, the more it bugs you. Why would Kurn be so eager to nudge you toward this job?
You set the slate aside and take the fresh drink with you into the night air.
The streets are quieter now. The murmur of the Gutline, the distant hiss of venting pressure valves, and the grind of gears as the lower lifts churn somewhere below. You wander past shuttered stalls and flickering lumen-strips, thinking.
Could it be he’s tying up loose ends?
Or maybe… this job has more layers. Maybe someone in the trench is poking at something they shouldn’t. And Kurn, being the sort who always has a stake in things he doesn’t talk about, wants a watcher in the middle of it.
You stop beneath a corroded shrine to the Emperor Mechanum, staring up at a slowly turning fan, blades bent and groaning under the strain.
This isn’t a job. Not to Kurn.
It’s a test. Or a distraction. Maybe both.
And the worst part?
You’re starting to think you already accepted.
Let me know if you want to call it a night, press on toward the work crews, or check in with Kurn before going any deeper.
[Session 3 End]
GM:
[SESSION 3 – START]
Location: Gorran Slagjaw’s rented room in a sagging hab-stack overlooking the Hollowplate Market
Time: Early evening, one day after the stim crate recovery
Soundtrack: Distant argument, buzz of vent fans, and a sputtering vox-speaker advertising reprocessed air filters
The room smells like old metal, warm solvent, and the faint sting of fungus scrub. You’ve been back for a few hours—enough time to get clean, patch your coat, and count your cut. Kurn paid up—credits in hand, intel in mind.
But Harrow hasn’t settled. The market below churns with life. Someone’s yelling about “new taxation enforcement measures,” and you can just make out the scent of onions on the wind.
A knock comes at the door. Three fast, one slow.
No one should know that knock.
What do you do?
Player:
I take my gun, quickly check the chamber is loaded, kneel down to the side of the door and knock on the door at a natural height. Two knocks, pause, two knocks.
GM:
There’s a pause on the other side.
Then a quiet voice, filtered through the worn hab-metal:
“…Slagjaw? That you? Don’t shoot. I brought something.”
The voice is familiar—but faintly. You’d swear you heard it once in the Ashfalls during your early days here, maybe even back in another district. There’s a rasp to it now, like they’ve been breathing too much sump smoke.
A soft thud follows. Something’s been set against the door.
“It’s from Kurn. Said you might want a head start before the others catch wind.”
You don’t hear footsteps—just silence now.
What do you do?
Player:
Open the door and use it as a barrier. See who it is. I’m still cautious who it might be, but much less so.
GM:
You pull the door open slowly, keeping it between you and the hallway like a battered iron shield. The hallway light flickers, casting rust-colored shadows.
No one stands there now.
But down by the floor is a canvas satchel—frayed and grimy, with a stenciled symbol: a cracked magnifying glass over an eye. Not Guild. Not Union. Something older.
There’s a small smear of dried blood on the strap.
Tucked beneath the flap, barely visible, is a folded scrap of waxed parchment. One side reads in blocky, all-caps letters:
“SUMP SIFTER—DEAD OR LOST IN THE TRENCH ZONES. REPLACEMENT SOUGHT.”
You glance both directions down the hall.
Nothing. Just the dim buzz of a flickering lumen.
What do you do?
Player:
I throw on my coat, pick up the satchel and head out, but not before making a brief sign towards the saintly statuette in the corridor outside my room. It’s early evening. I want food and drink, but the only thing I have are empty bottles of ‘slop it down’ Brown.
When I get out to street level I look to see if there are any familiar faces, who might be the one who dropped this off. But I don’t approach them either way. If they didn’t hang around, there must have been a good reason for it.
I’m headed to the nearby sausage stand for starters. First going to one side of the street before realising he relocated to the opposite side, or is it a different guy?
I’m going to make small talk about how the new taxes affect business and then I start to ask about missing sump sifters.
GM:
The streets of Ashclimb are never empty—not really. Even this far into the ash-thick evening, boots shuffle through broken glass, and voices mutter from behind bolted doors. Your coat flaps in the breeze like something alive as you descend to street level.
The Gutline Market smells like rust, hot grease, and onion breath.
Across the way, a sausage cart is already drawing a line of tired-looking workers and twitchy-eyed gangers. You almost head to the usual spot—northeast corner of the Hollowplate junction—but tonight, the cart is across the street. Or… maybe it’s a different cart?
Same rattling grill. Same cloud of oily smoke. Same grunting vendor with arms like meat-hooks and a beard that could store secrets.
“Evenin’,” the vendor says, flipping a sausage with his pinky. His apron says SAUSAGE IS TRUTH. You’re not sure if it’s the same guy—but something in his eyes glints like recognition. “One for the road, Slagjaw?”
You get your sausage inna bun—five credits gone like smoke.
You nod toward the market’s edge, where someone’s scrawled ‘THEY’LL TAX OUR GRAVES NEXT’ in red ink.
“This new taxation run… not great for business, huh?”
The vendor shrugs like he’s lifting a slab of concrete.
“People still eat. Edgy folk eat more. Makes me money. But it brings the jackboots sniffin’. I gotta give ‘em a cut now too. Turns out paperwork follows sausage, who knew?”
Then, you shift the topic.
“Any sump sifters go missing lately? Someone left me a satchel. Symbol on it—cracked magnifying glass over an eye.”
That gets a pause. He flips a sausage, slower this time.
“Heard about a run into the Trench Zones. Old maintenance access, deep in the black layer. Some gearheads went down there. One of ‘em wore a symbol like that. Word was, he found something… wrong. Didn’t come back. Others came out different. Quiet. Didn’t talk much.”
He squints at you, pushing a sausage into the grill a little too hard.
“Why’re you askin’? That kinda curiosity don’t go good with mustard.”
What do you do?
Player:
“One of my clients suggested a job might be opening. Not sure how a debt collector will it in with that line of work? Maybe they just thought my work load might be light.”
Now that I’ve had food, I head to a drinking hole. One not connected to the workers union. I don’t want a run in with Brask or one someone wanting revenge. I am after some more info, although how drunk I am when I find it is only a matter of how well I ask.
GM:
The vendor grunts his approval—or maybe it’s just indigestion.
“Heh. Client’s got a sense of humor, sendin’ you into the dark with the sifters. Watch your back, Slagjaw.”
You leave behind the hiss of grease and the soft clink of coin. Ashclimb’s neon signs flicker overhead like tired eyes. You know the spots tied to the union: The Rusted Gutline, the Sumpfire Tap, places where Brask’s name carries weight and memory. You veer away from those.
You end up at The Piston’s Lament.
It’s a narrow little bolthole jammed between two hab-blocks. A half-dead servitor buzzes near the door, scanning faces. Nobody talks much in the Lament—they just drink. The walls sweat grime. The tables wobble. The clientele is mostly tech-scraps, ex-scavs, burnouts with augmetics they can’t afford to maintain.
Perfect.
You order something unlabeled, amber, and hot enough to regret.
Now… what are you fishing for?
Are you trying to follow up on the missing sifters, the symbol, or maybe rumors about the Trench Zone? Or something else entirely?
Player:
What happened to the sifters under the guise that I might be interested in the job coming up. If I can get some of the sifters names, that would be helpful.
GM:
You nurse your drink, letting the burn settle in your gut before asking the question that matters. You don’t shout it across the room, just lean toward the bartender while he’s swabbing out a cracked cup and mutter:
“Heard there’s work opening in the sifters. Any idea who ain’t coming back?”
The barkeep is an old augmetic with milky white optics and a face full of solder burns. He doesn’t answer at first—just snorts softly through a bent nasal grille and tilts his head toward the far end of the bar.
“You wanna talk siftin’? Talk to Senn. If anyone knows who’s gone under, it’s her.”
You follow his gesture.
Senn is an older woman with a head shaved clean and one synthetic hand clicking against her glass like she’s counting seconds. She has the kind of look that says she’s been deeper in the trench than most come out from.
You sidle up, and she clocks you in a half-second—gives you a look like she’s trying to remember if she owes you money or should be worried.
“Another one looking to fill boots, huh?” she says before you even speak. Her voice is hoarse, stained by chemicals and age.
If you stay friendly and buy her a drink, she opens up enough to give you something like the following:
“They were all new, mostly. Fresh to the lower lifts. Names don’t matter to the suits—only quotas. But I remember Jast. Wide-eyed, dumb, always asked questions. And there was Binni. Never showed up drunk. That alone made her stand out. She was smart enough to be cautious, but cautious don’t stop what’s down there.”
She leans in closer.
“The last group went quiet just after they cracked open shaft X-17C. Rumor is, the sump gave way—collapsed part of the trench wall. But that’s not what scares people. What scares people is that the lift came back up. Empty. Still running. Like something sent it.”
She drinks.
“They say it was the Hollow-Eyed, but that’s just easy talk for things people don’t want to understand.”
She waves her glass at the bartender again.
“You want to go down there? You better have more than guts and a gun, Slagjaw. You better have a reason.”
Let me know if you want to press her further, or ask around for a different angle—like who’s recruiting for the open spots, or what X-17C used to be.
Player:
I look up from my data-slate. “The Hollow-Eyed?” I hold eye contact a couple more moments and then finish checking those names against my debtor ledgers or if I can connect them to Kurn. I don’t want to go investigate some creepy goings on, but why would Kurn want me to be wrapped up in this.
Afterwards i thank her, I buy another drink to take with me and wander for a while trying to figure out why I am being sent to this job, when surely he has other debtors to chase down.
GM:
Senn just nods when you echo the name. She doesn’t elaborate—not like she needs to. Down here, the Hollow-Eyed is shorthand for all kinds of trouble: madmen who saw too much sumpglow, outcasts full of whispers, even spectral shapes blamed for trench collapses and disappearances. Most use the name like a curse or a joke.
But not her.
You scan your data-slate, eyes moving over columns of debts, cross-referencing with the names she gave:
- Jast Verlo – Owed Kurn 72 credits, minor supply debt. Last contact marked “Transferred to Sump Shift Roster” two weeks ago.
- Binni Harrow – No direct debt to Kurn, but she worked shifts funded through one of his shell companies. Likely unaware of the connection.
The more you stare at the ledger, the more it bugs you. Why would Kurn be so eager to nudge you toward this job?
You set the slate aside and take the fresh drink with you into the night air.
The streets are quieter now. The murmur of the Gutline, the distant hiss of venting pressure valves, and the grind of gears as the lower lifts churn somewhere below. You wander past shuttered stalls and flickering lumen-strips, thinking.
Could it be he’s tying up loose ends?
Or maybe… this job has more layers. Maybe someone in the trench is poking at something they shouldn’t. And Kurn, being the sort who always has a stake in things he doesn’t talk about, wants a watcher in the middle of it.
You stop beneath a corroded shrine to the Emperor Mechanum, staring up at a slowly turning fan, blades bent and groaning under the strain.
This isn’t a job. Not to Kurn.
It’s a test. Or a distraction. Maybe both.
And the worst part?
You’re starting to think you already accepted.
Let me know if you want to call it a night, press on toward the work crews, or check in with Kurn before going any deeper.
[Session 3 End]
A 'missing' shipment of ghast appears on the streets, will you get accosted by psyker junkies, partake, make use of the distractions or 'confiscate' their ghast?
And for throne's sake, who's desperate enough to sell that stuff to random junkies? That must be one desperate Spiders dreghusk...
Not everybody appreciates the commotion disrupting their private 'commerce'.
And for throne's sake, who's desperate enough to sell that stuff to random junkies? That must be one desperate Spiders dreghusk...
Not everybody appreciates the commotion disrupting their private 'commerce'.
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I bet it was that sump-fly Brask and that area where they make ‘guilder overstock’ get misplaced.
It’s a super cool idea. Total mayhem. I will add it to the next Community Turn after this arc is done.
tl:dr - Gorran Slagjaw tries to track down the missing worker, hoping that there is a simple explanation and not the creepy quest that it was looking like. But the guy is gone and the tracks lead to where else bit the creepy dark hole.
Session 4 begins now.
GM:
Just give me a sense of Gorran’s mindset or what he’s doing next:
Is he waking up hungover? On his way to Kurn? Poking around the Ashfalls? Or trying to stay out of sight?
Where does the day start for him?
Player:
So let’s figure it out.
He wanted to relax and have a drink and take it easy after his payoff with the heist, but that got interrupted by the mysterious message.
He went out to eat and drink but it was playing on his mind so ended up investigating a missing person, not his area of expertise.
He is thinking that since the Kurn sent the message so secretively he isn’t meant to go back and ask, and that doing so would be a sign of weakness.
He doesn’t want to go into some dungeon in search for some random debtor carrying out his client’s will. He doesn’t want to be given random orders like a henchman.
At the same time Kurn is a lucrative client and after proving himself in the heist, maybe Kurt sees him as a great asset.
But Gorran is a debt collector. A legitimate business man.
So he wakes up very confused and torn, but mentally his only way of coping is to show aggression and signal that nothing can get to him.
But his plan is to give this Jast Verlo a visit. Gorran is thinking, maybe hoping, that this was just some simple debt collection badly communicated. If not I need to find something in this guy’s belongings that might explain what is so mysterious about this job, with that symbol, with that trench.
GM:
Got it. That adds great depth to Gorran’s mindset going into this session. Ready when you are—just tell me how the day begins or what your next move is.
Player:
Looking for Jast Verlo, starting with his last known address from the data-slate
GM:
Perfect.
Ashclimb – Morning Haze
The streets of the Ashclimb are veiled in the thick grey mist that rolls in most mornings from the cooling stacks. The underhabs groan to life above as machinery and shift-chimes begin another work cycle. You’re walking alone with the stink of grease and burnt chemical clinging to the air—your coat collar turned up, a hand brushing the butt of your weapon just enough to show you haven’t forgotten it’s there.
The data-slate leads you to a subsiding hab block near the Hollowplate rim. It’s the kind of place that’s always being “temporarily condemned,” but never quite makes it off the rota.
A rusted metal plaque outside reads:
“Stack 19 – Off-Hours Quarters (Level 2C–F)”
(Trespassers will be reported to the Guild Enforcers.)
You pass a few loiterers—squatters, ex-workers, maybe a twitchy stim addict or two. Nobody makes eye contact. Nobody offers a word.
Jast Verlo’s listed unit is 2C-4, behind a dented steel door with a smeared thumbprint reader that flickers with red light. There’s no response to a knock. You don’t hear movement inside.
What do you do?
Player:
Does anyone pay attention to me? If not I size up the door. Do I know how to bypass such a lock? Can I break it down?
GM:
None of the loiterers spare you more than a glance—if anything, your confidence buys you privacy. They shrink into corners, minding their own.
The door is old but heavy-duty: standard for worker blocks where you sleep with one eye open. The thumbprint reader is junk-tier tech—barely wired into anything secure. You’ve seen better used as paperweights in upper-stack dive bars.
You’ve got a few options:
Player:
I don’t think asking around is going to get me anywhere. I have a debt collector tattoo right on my face. But no hotel manager or security guard are coming in here to challenge me. But maybe someone who lives with him will be home. I try banging louder but if there is still no answer I try bypassing the lock.
GM:
You hammer the door with the flat of your fist—not a polite knock, but the kind that makes people inside reconsider their life choices. The dull clang echoes down the corridor.
No answer.
No footsteps. No shuffle behind the door. Just the hollow quiet of stale recycled air and the faint whine of failing light strips.
Alright.
You crouch down and pry open the brittle plastic housing on the thumbprint reader. Wires snake out like cheap noodles. You’re not a tech, but you’ve watched enough cheaplocks bypassed by crew with steadier hands. It’s just about mimicking a closed circuit, not building a shrine.
A moment of fiddling—
click
The lock unlatches with a soft cough.
The door opens a finger’s width under its own weight. Inside: darkness, dust, and a stale, acrid tang like someone left a ration pack to rot in solvent.
This is Jast Verlo’s place.
Would you like to enter?
Player:
Cautiously. But not with my gun out. If this guy was pushed to crazy from the trench, or to his limits stress, I don’t want a las-blast to my face the moment I open the door.
GM:
You push the door open slowly, letting it whisper inward on tired hinges. The scent inside gets worse—burnt plasteel, mold, something vaguely organic. Not fresh blood, at least.
The room is a small single-tenant stack-cube, likely rented long-term but barely maintained. A bunk is bolted to the wall with a sun-bleached curtain half drawn around it. There’s a data-slab, screen cracked, on a standing crate that serves as a desk. The ventilation grille rattles like it’s got something stuck inside it. Light from the corridor stretches in just far enough to reveal:
No sudden ambush either.
From the looks of it, this place has been left in a hurry. Not ransacked—just… abandoned.
You hear a noise. Not from inside. A faint scrape of movement from the hallway you just came from.
Would you like to investigate the room further, or check the corridor?
Player:
My first impression is that there is nothing in here that will cover his debt. I grab the data-slab whilst watching the door. Then walk to the entrance. Filling the door frame and confidently seeing who is approaching.
Player:
My first impression is that there is nothing in here that will cover his debt. I grab the data-slab whilst watching the door. Then walk to the entrance. Filling the door frame and confidently seeing who is approaching.
GM:
You fill the doorway like a wall of bad news, your coat brushing the frame, one hand clutching the cracked data-slab. You square your shoulders, chin lifted—not just ready for a fight, but daring it to start.
A figure is already pulling back from the corner of the corridor, caught mid-snoop.
Not a ganger.
Not a scribe.
Not enforcer.
It’s a kid. Maybe twelve. Ash-streaked cheeks, too-small boots, and a patched, oversized coat. Could be a runner for someone. Could be nosy.
Could be worse.
They freeze when they see you standing there.
Then, slowly, the kid raises one hand in what they probably think is a casual gesture.
“Didn’t mean to pry, boss. Jus’ saw you go in. Thought maybe Jast was back. I watch the stacks sometimes, is all.”
They sniff, rub their nose, then eye the data-slab in your hand.
“You lookin’ for him? ‘Cause if he’s gone, he ain’t comin’ back the usual way.”
Player:
I take out a business card and hand it to the kid. I am hoping that treating him as an adult with get more information from him.
“Is Jast in some kind of trouble? He hasn’t been seen in days!”
GM:
The kid takes the card like it’s something valuable—holds it between grimy fingers, squints at the print, and nods slowly like he can read it even if he can’t.
Then he tucks it into his coat like a bribe.
“Trouble?” he echoes, testing the word.
A moment of hesitation. Then: “Yeah. He was gettin’ twitchy, like. Stayin’ up too late. Mumbled a lot. Kept sayin’ he needed to ‘make it right’—whatever that means. Had some fight with his crew, too, over a haul from the trench. After that he stopped talkin’ to anyone ‘cept this one guy.”
He gestures vaguely down-hive, like that explains everything.
“Tall fella, face half-covered with a rebreather. Voice all filtered. Had a mark like yours—” the kid traces a line across his own cheek, then frowns, “—but black, like char. Burned in. He gave Jast a bundle of creds once. Told him it was for atonement.”
The kid shifts his weight, now genuinely uneasy.
“Then one day Jast just packed a bag and left. Didn’t say where. Just left his door unlocked. Like he wasn’t comin’ back.”
He pauses. “I can show you where they used to meet, if you want. For a price.”
Player:
“How about the for the data-slab? I’ll just get the information off it and it’s all yours? And I’m trying to get your friend back safely. That counts for something right?”
If he doesn’t accept I could throw in a couple of credits, but I’d rather not.
But on the way I ask the kid about symbol of the satchel.
GM:
The kid eyes the data-slab like it’s a treasure chest, then squints at you—calculating.
“…Deal,” he mutters. “Just gimme it after, yeah?”
He leads the way, already imagining himself as some underhive information broker, walking with exaggerated swagger.
As you walk, you ask about the symbol. He glances up at you, then down at the satchel, and shrugs.
“I seen it before. Not much though. Couple of older guys down in the trench wore it on their gloves. People said it’s from some old guild, or like… one that used to be a guild. They went deep. Like deeper than regs allow. Got weird after that. Some came back and wouldn’t talk no more. Some didn’t come back at all.”
He kicks at some debris in the corridor as you descend a level.
“Verlo said it meant penance. Said he was working off a debt too big to pay in creds. Said it was legacy debt. That’s all I know.”
You’ve reached a lower tunnel now—less crowded, flickering lights. The kid nods toward a rusting bulkhead recessed into the wall. “That’s where they used to meet. Tall guy always showed up first. Verlo waited inside.”
He looks at you warily. “You goin’ in?”
Player:
I finish up transferring any files of important information I can intuition, then delete the files. After that, it’s all the kid’s. I offer a hand shake and say he’s been helpful. But the cheerful demeanour drops from my face as soon as I turn from him and walk towards the meeting point.
GM:
The kid lights up when you offer the data-slab. He grips it like he’s just been handed a laspistol and a license to use it. Your handshake catches him off guard, but he returns it with a bit too much enthusiasm—trying to match your grip, trying to be someone in this world where people like you loom large.
“Yeah. Uh. Stay safe, Mister Slagjaw,” he says, and even though his voice cracks a little, there’s genuine respect in it.
You turn.
The corridor dims as you walk, leaving behind the last vestige of warmth from that exchange. The air grows stale and metallic, humming faintly with the drone of buried industry and forgotten infrastructure.
The meeting point: an old rusted bulkhead door set into the concrete like a wound that never healed. Faint scratches mark the surface—some fresh, some ancient. You step up to it. There’s no obvious lock, no keypad, no handle even—just a narrow slit near waist height and a faint indentation worn by many hands.
Your instinct prickles. Someone—or something—used this regularly.
And then you notice it. That same symbol, etched lightly into the corner of the bulkhead. The one from the satchel. It’s almost invisible, but it’s there.
The trench beckons. You’re standing on the threshold. Just another simple debt collection, right?
Player:
This is where the trench starts! Ah, Slag! I check the chamber of my gun before holstering it and slide on the knuckles on. Do you think I would have a rebreather and a torch?
GM:
Given your line of work—and your reputation—I’d say yes, you likely have a compact rebreather and a stubby handheld torch in your coat. Not standard issue, but practical gear for a debt collector who sometimes has to knock on doors in bad air and darker places. The rebreather might be a cheap one, not military-grade, but enough to filter trench miasma for a while. The torch is battered but reliable, flickering faintly when switched on, with a magnet base for hands-free work if needed.
The kind of gear someone picks up not because they expect to go spelunking in the Ashclimb’s guts—but because one day they might.
You’re not just a thug. You’re a professional. And professionals come prepared.
So yes—let’s say you’ve got both.
Player:
I have them ready, stare into the darkness and step forward.
And end session.
GM:
Session Ended.
You stand at the edge of the trench—air thick with the ghost of chemicals, old blood, and machine-oil. The faint whir of your rebreather is the only sound besides the distant trickle of runoff down forgotten pipes. The torch in your grip casts a harsh, narrow light, slicing the dark ahead into jagged shadows. Somewhere in that black, something waits. Maybe it’s just a debtor in over his head. Maybe it’s something worse.
Either way, you take the first step.
Next session: Into the trench.
Looking forward to it, Gorran. Let’s see what’s hiding in the dark.
Session 4 begins now.
GM:
Just give me a sense of Gorran’s mindset or what he’s doing next:
Is he waking up hungover? On his way to Kurn? Poking around the Ashfalls? Or trying to stay out of sight?
Where does the day start for him?
Player:
So let’s figure it out.
He wanted to relax and have a drink and take it easy after his payoff with the heist, but that got interrupted by the mysterious message.
He went out to eat and drink but it was playing on his mind so ended up investigating a missing person, not his area of expertise.
He is thinking that since the Kurn sent the message so secretively he isn’t meant to go back and ask, and that doing so would be a sign of weakness.
He doesn’t want to go into some dungeon in search for some random debtor carrying out his client’s will. He doesn’t want to be given random orders like a henchman.
At the same time Kurn is a lucrative client and after proving himself in the heist, maybe Kurt sees him as a great asset.
But Gorran is a debt collector. A legitimate business man.
So he wakes up very confused and torn, but mentally his only way of coping is to show aggression and signal that nothing can get to him.
But his plan is to give this Jast Verlo a visit. Gorran is thinking, maybe hoping, that this was just some simple debt collection badly communicated. If not I need to find something in this guy’s belongings that might explain what is so mysterious about this job, with that symbol, with that trench.
GM:
Got it. That adds great depth to Gorran’s mindset going into this session. Ready when you are—just tell me how the day begins or what your next move is.
Player:
Looking for Jast Verlo, starting with his last known address from the data-slate
GM:
Perfect.
Ashclimb – Morning Haze
The streets of the Ashclimb are veiled in the thick grey mist that rolls in most mornings from the cooling stacks. The underhabs groan to life above as machinery and shift-chimes begin another work cycle. You’re walking alone with the stink of grease and burnt chemical clinging to the air—your coat collar turned up, a hand brushing the butt of your weapon just enough to show you haven’t forgotten it’s there.
The data-slate leads you to a subsiding hab block near the Hollowplate rim. It’s the kind of place that’s always being “temporarily condemned,” but never quite makes it off the rota.
A rusted metal plaque outside reads:
“Stack 19 – Off-Hours Quarters (Level 2C–F)”
(Trespassers will be reported to the Guild Enforcers.)
You pass a few loiterers—squatters, ex-workers, maybe a twitchy stim addict or two. Nobody makes eye contact. Nobody offers a word.
Jast Verlo’s listed unit is 2C-4, behind a dented steel door with a smeared thumbprint reader that flickers with red light. There’s no response to a knock. You don’t hear movement inside.
What do you do?
Player:
Does anyone pay attention to me? If not I size up the door. Do I know how to bypass such a lock? Can I break it down?
GM:
None of the loiterers spare you more than a glance—if anything, your confidence buys you privacy. They shrink into corners, minding their own.
The door is old but heavy-duty: standard for worker blocks where you sleep with one eye open. The thumbprint reader is junk-tier tech—barely wired into anything secure. You’ve seen better used as paperweights in upper-stack dive bars.
You’ve got a few options:
- Bypass the lock:
A careful twist of the reader panel and a bit of finesse could cross the wiring and simulate a thumbprint. Gorran’s not a tech, but he’s pried open worse. It’d take a few minutes, and a bad slip could spark the panel, drawing attention or frying it shut. - Force the door:
It’s solid, but not reinforced. With a proper shoulder slam or a good kick at the locking seam, you could brute-force it open. It’ll be loud—risking attention—but doable. - Wait or mislead:
Pretend you’re expected here. Knock again louder. Maybe someone inside, or next door, knows something. A softer touch could reveal more than a foot in the door.
Player:
I don’t think asking around is going to get me anywhere. I have a debt collector tattoo right on my face. But no hotel manager or security guard are coming in here to challenge me. But maybe someone who lives with him will be home. I try banging louder but if there is still no answer I try bypassing the lock.
GM:
You hammer the door with the flat of your fist—not a polite knock, but the kind that makes people inside reconsider their life choices. The dull clang echoes down the corridor.
No answer.
No footsteps. No shuffle behind the door. Just the hollow quiet of stale recycled air and the faint whine of failing light strips.
Alright.
You crouch down and pry open the brittle plastic housing on the thumbprint reader. Wires snake out like cheap noodles. You’re not a tech, but you’ve watched enough cheaplocks bypassed by crew with steadier hands. It’s just about mimicking a closed circuit, not building a shrine.
A moment of fiddling—
click
The lock unlatches with a soft cough.
The door opens a finger’s width under its own weight. Inside: darkness, dust, and a stale, acrid tang like someone left a ration pack to rot in solvent.
This is Jast Verlo’s place.
Would you like to enter?
Player:
Cautiously. But not with my gun out. If this guy was pushed to crazy from the trench, or to his limits stress, I don’t want a las-blast to my face the moment I open the door.
GM:
You push the door open slowly, letting it whisper inward on tired hinges. The scent inside gets worse—burnt plasteel, mold, something vaguely organic. Not fresh blood, at least.
The room is a small single-tenant stack-cube, likely rented long-term but barely maintained. A bunk is bolted to the wall with a sun-bleached curtain half drawn around it. There’s a data-slab, screen cracked, on a standing crate that serves as a desk. The ventilation grille rattles like it’s got something stuck inside it. Light from the corridor stretches in just far enough to reveal:
- An empty stim wrapper on the floor.
- A cup of something long-evaporated.
- A wall where something used to hang but has been torn down, leaving hooks and dust outlines.
No sudden ambush either.
From the looks of it, this place has been left in a hurry. Not ransacked—just… abandoned.
You hear a noise. Not from inside. A faint scrape of movement from the hallway you just came from.
Would you like to investigate the room further, or check the corridor?
Player:
My first impression is that there is nothing in here that will cover his debt. I grab the data-slab whilst watching the door. Then walk to the entrance. Filling the door frame and confidently seeing who is approaching.
Player:
My first impression is that there is nothing in here that will cover his debt. I grab the data-slab whilst watching the door. Then walk to the entrance. Filling the door frame and confidently seeing who is approaching.
GM:
You fill the doorway like a wall of bad news, your coat brushing the frame, one hand clutching the cracked data-slab. You square your shoulders, chin lifted—not just ready for a fight, but daring it to start.
A figure is already pulling back from the corner of the corridor, caught mid-snoop.
Not a ganger.
Not a scribe.
Not enforcer.
It’s a kid. Maybe twelve. Ash-streaked cheeks, too-small boots, and a patched, oversized coat. Could be a runner for someone. Could be nosy.
Could be worse.
They freeze when they see you standing there.
Then, slowly, the kid raises one hand in what they probably think is a casual gesture.
“Didn’t mean to pry, boss. Jus’ saw you go in. Thought maybe Jast was back. I watch the stacks sometimes, is all.”
They sniff, rub their nose, then eye the data-slab in your hand.
“You lookin’ for him? ‘Cause if he’s gone, he ain’t comin’ back the usual way.”
Player:
I take out a business card and hand it to the kid. I am hoping that treating him as an adult with get more information from him.
“Is Jast in some kind of trouble? He hasn’t been seen in days!”
GM:
The kid takes the card like it’s something valuable—holds it between grimy fingers, squints at the print, and nods slowly like he can read it even if he can’t.
Then he tucks it into his coat like a bribe.
“Trouble?” he echoes, testing the word.
A moment of hesitation. Then: “Yeah. He was gettin’ twitchy, like. Stayin’ up too late. Mumbled a lot. Kept sayin’ he needed to ‘make it right’—whatever that means. Had some fight with his crew, too, over a haul from the trench. After that he stopped talkin’ to anyone ‘cept this one guy.”
He gestures vaguely down-hive, like that explains everything.
“Tall fella, face half-covered with a rebreather. Voice all filtered. Had a mark like yours—” the kid traces a line across his own cheek, then frowns, “—but black, like char. Burned in. He gave Jast a bundle of creds once. Told him it was for atonement.”
The kid shifts his weight, now genuinely uneasy.
“Then one day Jast just packed a bag and left. Didn’t say where. Just left his door unlocked. Like he wasn’t comin’ back.”
He pauses. “I can show you where they used to meet, if you want. For a price.”
Player:
“How about the for the data-slab? I’ll just get the information off it and it’s all yours? And I’m trying to get your friend back safely. That counts for something right?”
If he doesn’t accept I could throw in a couple of credits, but I’d rather not.
But on the way I ask the kid about symbol of the satchel.
GM:
The kid eyes the data-slab like it’s a treasure chest, then squints at you—calculating.
“…Deal,” he mutters. “Just gimme it after, yeah?”
He leads the way, already imagining himself as some underhive information broker, walking with exaggerated swagger.
As you walk, you ask about the symbol. He glances up at you, then down at the satchel, and shrugs.
“I seen it before. Not much though. Couple of older guys down in the trench wore it on their gloves. People said it’s from some old guild, or like… one that used to be a guild. They went deep. Like deeper than regs allow. Got weird after that. Some came back and wouldn’t talk no more. Some didn’t come back at all.”
He kicks at some debris in the corridor as you descend a level.
“Verlo said it meant penance. Said he was working off a debt too big to pay in creds. Said it was legacy debt. That’s all I know.”
You’ve reached a lower tunnel now—less crowded, flickering lights. The kid nods toward a rusting bulkhead recessed into the wall. “That’s where they used to meet. Tall guy always showed up first. Verlo waited inside.”
He looks at you warily. “You goin’ in?”
Player:
I finish up transferring any files of important information I can intuition, then delete the files. After that, it’s all the kid’s. I offer a hand shake and say he’s been helpful. But the cheerful demeanour drops from my face as soon as I turn from him and walk towards the meeting point.
GM:
The kid lights up when you offer the data-slab. He grips it like he’s just been handed a laspistol and a license to use it. Your handshake catches him off guard, but he returns it with a bit too much enthusiasm—trying to match your grip, trying to be someone in this world where people like you loom large.
“Yeah. Uh. Stay safe, Mister Slagjaw,” he says, and even though his voice cracks a little, there’s genuine respect in it.
You turn.
The corridor dims as you walk, leaving behind the last vestige of warmth from that exchange. The air grows stale and metallic, humming faintly with the drone of buried industry and forgotten infrastructure.
The meeting point: an old rusted bulkhead door set into the concrete like a wound that never healed. Faint scratches mark the surface—some fresh, some ancient. You step up to it. There’s no obvious lock, no keypad, no handle even—just a narrow slit near waist height and a faint indentation worn by many hands.
Your instinct prickles. Someone—or something—used this regularly.
And then you notice it. That same symbol, etched lightly into the corner of the bulkhead. The one from the satchel. It’s almost invisible, but it’s there.
The trench beckons. You’re standing on the threshold. Just another simple debt collection, right?
Player:
This is where the trench starts! Ah, Slag! I check the chamber of my gun before holstering it and slide on the knuckles on. Do you think I would have a rebreather and a torch?
GM:
Given your line of work—and your reputation—I’d say yes, you likely have a compact rebreather and a stubby handheld torch in your coat. Not standard issue, but practical gear for a debt collector who sometimes has to knock on doors in bad air and darker places. The rebreather might be a cheap one, not military-grade, but enough to filter trench miasma for a while. The torch is battered but reliable, flickering faintly when switched on, with a magnet base for hands-free work if needed.
The kind of gear someone picks up not because they expect to go spelunking in the Ashclimb’s guts—but because one day they might.
You’re not just a thug. You’re a professional. And professionals come prepared.
So yes—let’s say you’ve got both.
Player:
I have them ready, stare into the darkness and step forward.
And end session.
GM:
Session Ended.
You stand at the edge of the trench—air thick with the ghost of chemicals, old blood, and machine-oil. The faint whir of your rebreather is the only sound besides the distant trickle of runoff down forgotten pipes. The torch in your grip casts a harsh, narrow light, slicing the dark ahead into jagged shadows. Somewhere in that black, something waits. Maybe it’s just a debtor in over his head. Maybe it’s something worse.
Either way, you take the first step.
Next session: Into the trench.
Looking forward to it, Gorran. Let’s see what’s hiding in the dark.
(10 years before)
Drokk caught a spiked rat , he'd been skewering rats in the darkness his entire life. He liked them raw... sometimes fury, sometimes scaly.
Yesterday he caught a curious big one, with detachable furs, no-tail and a loud, firespitting piece off pipe.... he'd never seen one off those in his pipes.
nor had he heard the weird sounds it made. If only everyday he could get one of those tasty no-tails he wouldn't feel hunger every day.
It just made weird sounds instead of hissing and biting at him...and then fell in that pit he bypassed each day.
Easy prey he chuckled to himself. maybe more panicking no-tails would come? he relished.
Drokk caught a spiked rat , he'd been skewering rats in the darkness his entire life. He liked them raw... sometimes fury, sometimes scaly.
Yesterday he caught a curious big one, with detachable furs, no-tail and a loud, firespitting piece off pipe.... he'd never seen one off those in his pipes.
nor had he heard the weird sounds it made. If only everyday he could get one of those tasty no-tails he wouldn't feel hunger every day.
It just made weird sounds instead of hissing and biting at him...and then fell in that pit he bypassed each day.
Easy prey he chuckled to himself. maybe more panicking no-tails would come? he relished.
I love the enthusiasm @Hobo86 , and the chaos you’ve been injecting. Seriously cool stuff. Just a heads up: I’m trying to keep Community Turns in sync with the story arcs, so everyone’s posts can get folded in together and have a clear impact. Totally keep those ideas coming, but if you are itching to be more involved maybe we can figure something special out?
SESSION 5: “Voices in the Trench”
GM:
The mouth of the trench yawns open before you, carved like a wound into the industrial flesh of the Ashclimb. Rust-wet rebar juts from fractured walls, half-chewed conduits twist into nothing, and the heavy air is lined with a metallic tang—ozone, blood, and time.
Down there, the darkness isn’t passive. It waits.
You thumb the torch and lower your rebreather into place. The faint click of the chamber as you check your gun sounds louder than it should. A hollow echo. Behind you, life continues—vendors bark, vents hiss, boots clatter on catwalks. But it fades fast as you step forward into the trench.
The light of your torch carves a narrow tunnel through the gloom. Shadows retreat into the corners of your mind.
And then, it swallows you.
How do you proceed?
Player:
I suppose I am searching for people, a cave in, or maybe Jast’s dead body. Do I know how this work is conducted or how long they’ve been working? That would tell us how far I need to walk before finding anything.
GM:
You’ve collected enough intel from the bar chatter and your work in the Ashclimb to piece together a few things:
The trench is an old dig, started when some sump sifters swore they’d hit a patch of scrap-reactive filament—valuable, dangerous stuff that hums like it’s breathing. No official contracts, just a half-dozen desperate workers trying to carve out their own payday in off-shift hours.
Jast Verlo had been down here a few weeks, according to the data-slab, but reports of the crew going missing are only three to five days old. Long enough for people to start talking, short enough for it not to be total legend yet.
Standard sifting procedure would mean they worked in short, overlapping tunnels—like ant farms—probing, reinforcing, collapsing areas when they went sour. If there was a cave-in, you’d expect to see salvage gear left behind, maybe a snapped rig or two.
You’d guess the main shaft should open up within five to ten minutes’ walk down this path, assuming you don’t hit obstructions. The fact that the trench is still unsealed means no one’s sent in a proper team to retrieve bodies—or valuables—yet.
The deeper you go, the more signs you start to notice:
Still no signs of movement. No bodies. No voices.
But ahead, your torchlight catches on something that shifts, just barely, and disappears around a support column.
What do you do?
Player:
Take cover and shield the light. I will wait and listen for sounds. See if it will come out of hiding. If it does then I will draw the light out to try catch it in the open. Ready to draw and start blasting, naturally.
GM:
You kill the beam with a practiced flick of the thumb and duck behind a cracked bulkhead pipe, your back to a mineral-crusted wall slick with decades of sump condensation. The only sound is the low drip of runoff echoing from further down the trench—and your own breathing, filtered through the rebreather’s slow mechanical hiss.
You wait.
The darkness creeps in around you. The kind of black that makes you wonder whether your eyes are even open.
And then—shuff. A scrape. Soft. Measured. Followed by stillness again.
Whatever’s out there doesn’t want to be heard.
It’s close.
You let the silence stretch, count three breaths, and then flick the light forward—
—flash of movement—
A hunched figure is caught just at the edge of the beam. It recoils, skittering back like a rat disturbed mid-feed. Pale skin, stretched too tight. Tattered work coveralls. A face that’s gaunt, eyes wide and bleached, pupils like pinpricks. It throws a hand up against the light, baring nails caked with dirt and blood.
It doesn’t run. It just stands at the edge of the torchlight now, shoulders trembling, half-crouched like a starving animal deciding whether to bolt or pounce.
It used to be human.
Might even still be.
What do you do, Gorran?
Player:
Draw my gun. “Who … or what … are you? Jast?”
GM:
You draw your gun slow, deliberate—no sudden moves, just enough to show you’re in control. The figure doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. The light reveals more now: patchy hair, broken rebreather hanging from its throat by frayed tubing, and a name patch half-torn—
JAST
The thing—Jast, maybe—twitches when you say the name. Its lips move. No sound. Then a rasp like a broken vent fan sputters out of its mouth:
“…s-sent… s-sent you… didn’t he…”
It straightens slightly. Not much. Just enough to seem wrong. Too fluid in the joints, too loose in the limbs, like he forgot how to wear his own skin.
“Didn’t say… it wasn’t alive down here…”
His eyes lock on yours. Not pleading. Not mad. Just… hollow.
“Shouldn’t have… listened.”
He takes one shaky step forward. Not aggressive. Just closer.
Gun’s still in your hand.
You could shoot.
You could speak.
You could run.
What now, Slagjaw?
Player:
After a quick flick of the torch behind him to make sure he is alone I say “You want some food, Jast? Can’t be much down here.” I use the magnet that you described the torch having to attach it to my gun. If I have some kind of ration, I throw that between us. If not I throw anything I have to cause a distraction.
My goal is to get him close enough and distracted enough to rush him and take him down and strap his hands behind his back. As far as I’m concerned I just need to present this guy to Kurn. Whatever Jast was doing for Kurn, he can answer for himself.
GM:
You flick the torch just over his shoulder—clean. Nothing but broken pipework and carved-out dark.
“Food?” you say.
His eyes twitch. The word connects.
You click the torch to your gun, the magnet catching with a soft snick. Light and firepower, all in one. You dig for something edible—rations, a bar, anything. You come up with a half-melted nutrient block, the kind that tastes like chalk and grease. Good enough.
You toss it low.
It skitters across gravel and comes to rest between you.
Jast’s eyes drop. He crouches awkwardly, hands moving like someone who forgot what fingers are for. He picks it up. Sniffs it.
Then eats.
Now.
You close the gap in two long strides, slam your weight into him. He goes down hard, coughing around the nutrient block. He kicks, weakly. No coordination. You flip him, one knee to his back, wrenching his arms behind him. A few zipties from your kit—tight, fast.
He struggles. Not like someone resisting. More like someone confused by the shape of this moment.
“Had to… warn them,” he whispers, gravel in his throat. “Had to… stay close… to listen.”
He stops moving.
Not unconscious.
Just… stopped.
Twitching eyes. Shallow breath.
Your light flickers against the tunnel walls. The silence that follows seems aware.
You’ve got him.
Now what?
Player:
From what he just said, it sounds like others are down here. Whatever it is, this is not a one man job. I sweep the area. As long as the coast is clear, I drag him to his feet and start towards the beginning of the trench.
This has me freaked and I want out of here. Whatever Kur. wants from here, this guy has intel. I don’t need to do anything else. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I am trying to avoid thinking of what might be coming up behind us or what this crazy guy’s motivation was.
GM:
The gravel shifts beneath your boots as you sweep the beam left and right. The tunnel yawns outward a little—old braces swallowed by collapse, a half-sunken rail cart, dust-choked cabling. Nothing stirs but the light.
Jast doesn’t resist when you drag him upright. He’s pliable, compliant, muttering half-thoughts under his breath like prayers or algorithms. His eyes never quite meet yours.
You start back toward the entrance.
Step by step, the air lightens. Your nerves don’t.
You keep the torch behind you more than ahead—what’s coming from the front can’t surprise you. It’s what might be following that gnaws at the spine. Jast mumbles occasionally:
“*Had to listen… not just the voices… the rhythm… it speaks… it builds…”
“…taps and whispers, in the hollow-space, just like the slab said…”
“…so loud now. So loud…”
You grip him tighter.
Tunnel after tunnel branches off your route back. Some half-collapsed. Some eerily pristine. All dark. You stay straight. Don’t look in. You’ll feel it if something follows.
Eventually, the trench starts to feel shallower. You find familiar ground—sump-soaked timber planks and your own footprints. A trickle of relief creeps in.
Almost out.
Then Jast speaks, louder, right into your ear.
“It’s coming with us.”
You spin—
But there’s nothing there.
Just the stale reek of rust, old oil, and something wet.
You get him out.
You think you’re alone.
Want to end the session there?
Player:
Ohhhhhh! Okay.
GM:
Excellent. Ending the session there.
You’ve got Jast Verlo in custody. You’ve been in the trench. And something… might have come out with you.
Gorran’s Progress:
GM:
The mouth of the trench yawns open before you, carved like a wound into the industrial flesh of the Ashclimb. Rust-wet rebar juts from fractured walls, half-chewed conduits twist into nothing, and the heavy air is lined with a metallic tang—ozone, blood, and time.
Down there, the darkness isn’t passive. It waits.
You thumb the torch and lower your rebreather into place. The faint click of the chamber as you check your gun sounds louder than it should. A hollow echo. Behind you, life continues—vendors bark, vents hiss, boots clatter on catwalks. But it fades fast as you step forward into the trench.
The light of your torch carves a narrow tunnel through the gloom. Shadows retreat into the corners of your mind.
And then, it swallows you.
How do you proceed?
Player:
I suppose I am searching for people, a cave in, or maybe Jast’s dead body. Do I know how this work is conducted or how long they’ve been working? That would tell us how far I need to walk before finding anything.
GM:
You’ve collected enough intel from the bar chatter and your work in the Ashclimb to piece together a few things:
The trench is an old dig, started when some sump sifters swore they’d hit a patch of scrap-reactive filament—valuable, dangerous stuff that hums like it’s breathing. No official contracts, just a half-dozen desperate workers trying to carve out their own payday in off-shift hours.
Jast Verlo had been down here a few weeks, according to the data-slab, but reports of the crew going missing are only three to five days old. Long enough for people to start talking, short enough for it not to be total legend yet.
Standard sifting procedure would mean they worked in short, overlapping tunnels—like ant farms—probing, reinforcing, collapsing areas when they went sour. If there was a cave-in, you’d expect to see salvage gear left behind, maybe a snapped rig or two.
You’d guess the main shaft should open up within five to ten minutes’ walk down this path, assuming you don’t hit obstructions. The fact that the trench is still unsealed means no one’s sent in a proper team to retrieve bodies—or valuables—yet.
The deeper you go, the more signs you start to notice:
- The occasional scraped bootprint in the dust.
- A half-crushed stim inhaler.
- A broken handle from some kind of digging tool.
- And eventually… a helmet, lying in a shallow puddle of brackish runoff.
Still no signs of movement. No bodies. No voices.
But ahead, your torchlight catches on something that shifts, just barely, and disappears around a support column.
What do you do?
Player:
Take cover and shield the light. I will wait and listen for sounds. See if it will come out of hiding. If it does then I will draw the light out to try catch it in the open. Ready to draw and start blasting, naturally.
GM:
You kill the beam with a practiced flick of the thumb and duck behind a cracked bulkhead pipe, your back to a mineral-crusted wall slick with decades of sump condensation. The only sound is the low drip of runoff echoing from further down the trench—and your own breathing, filtered through the rebreather’s slow mechanical hiss.
You wait.
The darkness creeps in around you. The kind of black that makes you wonder whether your eyes are even open.
And then—shuff. A scrape. Soft. Measured. Followed by stillness again.
Whatever’s out there doesn’t want to be heard.
It’s close.
You let the silence stretch, count three breaths, and then flick the light forward—
—flash of movement—
A hunched figure is caught just at the edge of the beam. It recoils, skittering back like a rat disturbed mid-feed. Pale skin, stretched too tight. Tattered work coveralls. A face that’s gaunt, eyes wide and bleached, pupils like pinpricks. It throws a hand up against the light, baring nails caked with dirt and blood.
It doesn’t run. It just stands at the edge of the torchlight now, shoulders trembling, half-crouched like a starving animal deciding whether to bolt or pounce.
It used to be human.
Might even still be.
What do you do, Gorran?
Player:
Draw my gun. “Who … or what … are you? Jast?”
GM:
You draw your gun slow, deliberate—no sudden moves, just enough to show you’re in control. The figure doesn’t flinch, doesn’t move. The light reveals more now: patchy hair, broken rebreather hanging from its throat by frayed tubing, and a name patch half-torn—
JAST
The thing—Jast, maybe—twitches when you say the name. Its lips move. No sound. Then a rasp like a broken vent fan sputters out of its mouth:
“…s-sent… s-sent you… didn’t he…”
It straightens slightly. Not much. Just enough to seem wrong. Too fluid in the joints, too loose in the limbs, like he forgot how to wear his own skin.
“Didn’t say… it wasn’t alive down here…”
His eyes lock on yours. Not pleading. Not mad. Just… hollow.
“Shouldn’t have… listened.”
He takes one shaky step forward. Not aggressive. Just closer.
Gun’s still in your hand.
You could shoot.
You could speak.
You could run.
What now, Slagjaw?
Player:
After a quick flick of the torch behind him to make sure he is alone I say “You want some food, Jast? Can’t be much down here.” I use the magnet that you described the torch having to attach it to my gun. If I have some kind of ration, I throw that between us. If not I throw anything I have to cause a distraction.
My goal is to get him close enough and distracted enough to rush him and take him down and strap his hands behind his back. As far as I’m concerned I just need to present this guy to Kurn. Whatever Jast was doing for Kurn, he can answer for himself.
GM:
You flick the torch just over his shoulder—clean. Nothing but broken pipework and carved-out dark.
“Food?” you say.
His eyes twitch. The word connects.
You click the torch to your gun, the magnet catching with a soft snick. Light and firepower, all in one. You dig for something edible—rations, a bar, anything. You come up with a half-melted nutrient block, the kind that tastes like chalk and grease. Good enough.
You toss it low.
It skitters across gravel and comes to rest between you.
Jast’s eyes drop. He crouches awkwardly, hands moving like someone who forgot what fingers are for. He picks it up. Sniffs it.
Then eats.
Now.
You close the gap in two long strides, slam your weight into him. He goes down hard, coughing around the nutrient block. He kicks, weakly. No coordination. You flip him, one knee to his back, wrenching his arms behind him. A few zipties from your kit—tight, fast.
He struggles. Not like someone resisting. More like someone confused by the shape of this moment.
“Had to… warn them,” he whispers, gravel in his throat. “Had to… stay close… to listen.”
He stops moving.
Not unconscious.
Just… stopped.
Twitching eyes. Shallow breath.
Your light flickers against the tunnel walls. The silence that follows seems aware.
You’ve got him.
Now what?
Player:
From what he just said, it sounds like others are down here. Whatever it is, this is not a one man job. I sweep the area. As long as the coast is clear, I drag him to his feet and start towards the beginning of the trench.
This has me freaked and I want out of here. Whatever Kur. wants from here, this guy has intel. I don’t need to do anything else. At least that’s what I keep telling myself. I am trying to avoid thinking of what might be coming up behind us or what this crazy guy’s motivation was.
GM:
The gravel shifts beneath your boots as you sweep the beam left and right. The tunnel yawns outward a little—old braces swallowed by collapse, a half-sunken rail cart, dust-choked cabling. Nothing stirs but the light.
Jast doesn’t resist when you drag him upright. He’s pliable, compliant, muttering half-thoughts under his breath like prayers or algorithms. His eyes never quite meet yours.
You start back toward the entrance.
Step by step, the air lightens. Your nerves don’t.
You keep the torch behind you more than ahead—what’s coming from the front can’t surprise you. It’s what might be following that gnaws at the spine. Jast mumbles occasionally:
“*Had to listen… not just the voices… the rhythm… it speaks… it builds…”
“…taps and whispers, in the hollow-space, just like the slab said…”
“…so loud now. So loud…”
You grip him tighter.
Tunnel after tunnel branches off your route back. Some half-collapsed. Some eerily pristine. All dark. You stay straight. Don’t look in. You’ll feel it if something follows.
Eventually, the trench starts to feel shallower. You find familiar ground—sump-soaked timber planks and your own footprints. A trickle of relief creeps in.
Almost out.
Then Jast speaks, louder, right into your ear.
“It’s coming with us.”
You spin—
But there’s nothing there.
Just the stale reek of rust, old oil, and something wet.
You get him out.
You think you’re alone.
Want to end the session there?
Player:
Ohhhhhh! Okay.
GM:
Excellent. Ending the session there.
You’ve got Jast Verlo in custody. You’ve been in the trench. And something… might have come out with you.
Gorran’s Progress:
- He’s still clinging to his image of being a legitimate businessman.
- He thinks he’s doing the smart thing—bringing back the asset, not asking questions.
- But a piece of the darkness just brushed against him. And Jast’s muttering? That’ll linger.
I do like writing, not sure if I'll continue to have the time for it but sure
PS I tried to keep things vague enough to allow the AI to work around it...
'drokk' could have died in the meantime
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Rumor has it one of the ash saints firebombed "the third best" a minor drinking establisment under the protection of the Zeta-31 enforcers.
claiming it to be a den of deviancy, sloth and sinful thoughts. Luckily only the owner got burned and remembering his prior looks, the loss to clientele would likely be minimal.
Nothing out of the ordinary and It just might be you, but some of the people 'up top' seem a bit more stressed.
claiming it to be a den of deviancy, sloth and sinful thoughts. Luckily only the owner got burned and remembering his prior looks, the loss to clientele would likely be minimal.
Nothing out of the ordinary and It just might be you, but some of the people 'up top' seem a bit more stressed.
Session 6
tl:dr - after handing over this last mark, Gorran is still no clearer as to what is going on, but he doesn’t like surprises. So in this session he takes it upon himself to track down someone who might tell him what he is getting involved with. But will she give up the answers.
GM:
We’ll pick up as Gorran drags Jast Verlo out of the trench, grime-covered and mumbling, his wrists bound, his legs unsteady. The trench mouth gapes behind you like it might swallow the truth back down if you give it a reason. But the way ahead is long, and Ashclimb hasn’t gone anywhere.
Just say the word and we’ll step back into the haze.
Player:
Considering the setting is Necromunda, I assume I have some right to bind a person. But can you tell me how far those rights extend? Can I drag this guy all the way to Kurn’s warehouse? Or will I be stopped by the enforcers?
GM:
That’s a great question—especially since Ashclimb is walking the line between lawless frontier and Guild-administered “civilization.” In Necromunda, your rights as a private debt collector depend on three things:
1. Who You Work For
If you’re backed by someone like Kurn, who has Guild or Clan ties, you have implied authority. Most enforcers and locals will look the other way, especially if your targets are low-status like sump sifters. Your tattoo likely signals you’re not freelance—you’re part of a system that benefits the right people.
2. Where You Are
3. Enforcer Discretion
Detachment Zeta-3 isn’t here to uphold justice—they enforce order, and that includes keeping rival power blocs from stepping on each other. If Marshal Grenth or his scribe think you’re overstepping, you might face:
Summary:
Yes, Gorran can drag Jast through the streets to Kurn’s warehouse—especially from the trench zones. But the further he gets into populated or contested turf, the more he risks attention from rival factions or bored enforcers. It’s all about confidence, appearance, and territory.
If you’d like, I can narrate Gorran’s trip back and flag any areas where he’s being watched or challenged. Ready to move forward?
Player:
Let’s get this guy locked up with Kurn. But what does he babble about? And after a while of feeling safe I want to try find out what Kur wants from this guy. My hunch is a way into some untapped power like a daemonic essence or the Hollow-Eyed high command. Not that I ask questions but I don’t want to go into things blind, just as Kurn expected me to.
GM:
Perfect—here we go.
SESSION START:
The trench yawns behind you like a wound that refuses to close.
Jast Verlo doesn’t fight. Whatever hollow faith drove him down there has splintered. His legs move, but he mutters the whole way—quiet, rasping loops of paranoia and awe.
“Not alone. Never alone. It’s waiting—it saw me through the symbol… they’re all part of it, you see? The dreams weren’t mine… I was shown things…”
More than once he jerks his head toward shadows that aren’t there, eyes blown wide as though he expects a shape to crawl from the sludge behind you. But when you bark at him or shove him forward, he goes.
A Few Levels Up — Lifter Rails to Hollowplate
By the time you reach the choke point where trench-grade hazards give way to active infrastructure, the world feels noisy and alive again. Trolley horns. Arclamps. Boil-roaches scattering under riveted gutters.
No one stops you.
Even when people see a man bound at the wrists, no one says a word. You flash your “collector’s gaze,” that sideways look that tells them this is sanctioned. Down here, a man with nothing but a satchel and haunted eyes isn’t worth dying over.
Kurn’s Warehouse – Back Entrance
When you arrive, the guards don’t flinch. They don’t ask who it is. They see you and open the gate.
Inside, Kurn is not waiting. A floor runner—a bored-looking scriber with an augmetic throat—takes one look at Jast and leads you to a holding cell inside the warehouse’s guts: an old cooler room lined with ferrosteel.
“Put him in there. Kurn says you’re cleared. He’ll talk to you later.”
The door hisses shut behind Jast. He’s still murmuring.
“It knows we’re talking. You can’t bring its name outside… the fracture doesn’t forget…”
Later That Night – Gorran’s Corner of Ashclimb
You’re back at your quarters. The stink of trench silt is off your boots, mostly. There’s food in your gut and a half-full bottle of Slop-It Brown in your hand. Jast is locked away, and you’ve fulfilled the letter of the job.
But…
Why all this secrecy?
Why that symbol?
Why send a collector, not a psyker, a Guilder, or a kill team?
Roll Gorran’s Instinct and Street Smarts Together (Narratively)
Let’s say Gorran leans on his gut. He’s not a psyker, but he’s chased debt long enough to know the patterns. Something in Jast’s muttering, in the whispered symbol, in the Hollow-Eyed being mentioned… it’s not just madness.
It’s targeted madness.
Kurn doesn’t want Jast dead. He doesn’t want him interrogated. He wants him contained. That cooler room isn’t just secure—it’s insulated.
Like he’s worried about what might talk through him.
You remember something: one of your old marks—a man named Karlick—who screamed himself to death in the spire-wards. Right before he died, he kept drawing that same eye-symbol in his blood. He said he saw a saint with too many faces.
That can’t be a coincidence.
Do you do anything with this theory? Ask Kurn directly when you get the chance? Track down that Hollow-Eyed survivor Jast mentioned? Or shove the bottle back and pretend it’s all paranoia?
Player:
I am drinking and looking at the symbol on the satchel, but discard the satchel, deciding to forget the matter. Take a swig. Until the silence grows too loud and after glancing in the direction of the satchel again I get up and go to the window. Take a swig. And another.
Then throw myself on the bed. Take the data-slate and start looking for what debts I can start work on tomorrow.
After a few potential marks I stop to think. Then filter the results for those connected to the trench. Then for connections to the Hollowed-Eye. I finally stop on one name in particular. I press to see an image, it is of someone I will chase tomorrow.
Can you tell me about them?
GM:
Of course, David—let’s crack into it.
The data-slate chirps as your filters bite down: Trench-Adjacent Work Records… then cross-referenced with Hollow-Eyed Taggings.
At first, the list is junk. Fabricated identities. Unregistered laborers. Too many ghosts.
But one name stops your thumb:
Name: VANNICK “VANNI” ROTE
Debt Marker: #CL-411-56
Occupation: Freelance Sifter, Contracted Salvage Operative
Last Known Location: Grate-Way 9C (Trench Entry Channel, Upper Ash Climb)
Debt Type: Equipment Lease Violation + Guild Tool Damage
Amount Outstanding: 3,100 credits
Payment Lapse: 93 Days
Collateral: None
Status: Active — Pending Collection
Photo (Dated 3 Months Ago):
The image is grainy. She’s crouched beside a sump pipe, arms deep in a corroded crate. Short, pale hair—hacked off with utility shears. Tattooed knuckles. Slender frame under a thick, patched coat covered in scribbled marker runes and binding cords.
A scavver’s harness crosses her chest—looks like it’s made from reworked child-size rebreathers.
But it’s her eyes that make you stop.
Even blurred, they’re bright. Wide. Focused not on the crate—but behind the camera. Like she knew someone was watching.
Additional Notes (Auto-Pulled Guild Comments):
“Untrustworthy. Claims independent status but works under the Hollow-Eyed. Multiple refusals to log trench finds. Says she dreams ‘the way in.’ Guild wants her fined or extracted before she starts making converts.”
– Officer Broll, Guild Enforcer, Annotated Statement #T-12-08
You stare at the slate a while. That old familiar knot of dread and purpose tightens behind your ribs.
Another voice whispering dreams. Another trench-crawler who’s seen something she shouldn’t.
Maybe if you bring her in, it’ll close this whole cursed job. Or maybe she has something Jast doesn’t—clarity.
Either way…
She’s your next mark.
Shall we begin the next morning with Gorran heading toward Grate-Way 9C? Or is there anything he’d do before hunting Vanni Rote?
Player:
Let’s see this part of the Ashclimb! The only prep I’ve done is to cut the Symbol off the satchel that we see in my hand in the next scene.
GM:
Perfect. Let’s open on ash-lit steel and humming descent.
Scene: Grate-Way 9C — The Upper Maw
Ashclimb’s higher channels are less like a city and more like a throat. The steel bones of forgotten structures choke the walkways, where grime-plated ductwork weeps rust and the constant cough of exhaust vents echoes like breath through diseased lungs.
Grate-Way 9C is one of the trench’s oldest mouths—a vertical chute wide enough to fit a crawler barge, choked now with welded catwalks and makeshift hoists. Old lifts rattle between levels, their floors eaten through, slung on cables that should’ve snapped years ago.
The sun never touches this place. But people do.
And they watch you.
You pass a slicebar wedged between vent fins, its smell somewhere between sausage and chemical burn. Some stitched-up sump kids are pulling sparks from a scav drone, beating it with sticks for fun. A drunken Guild tech mutters to himself in a stairwell, lighting incense and crying.
You’re here for Vanni Rote, the trench rat with prophet eyes and a Guild debt like a leash.
And that symbol—the one you carved from the satchel—is clenched in your hand. Something about it feels hot, but not from heat.
You round a corner near the drop point—the ledge where Grate-Way 9C plunges vertical—and you see signs of her:
Would you like to:
I assume this is her way back up. I want the upper hand so I look around. Gather any intel. Hide anything that could be dangerous. Confiscate anything resembling evidence or could be used as payment. Then settle in and wait for her to come back up.
GM:
You step back from the lip of the trench.
Your boots scrape across rusted grating as you begin a slow, deliberate circuit—eyes scanning for signs of habitation, traps, or stashed goods. You’re not just hunting Vanni anymore. You’re asserting the upper hand. A professional. A debt man.
[Perception & Assessment – Success]
You find:
You disable a tripwire bell rigged between the support beams. Primitive. Vanni might be clever, but not clever enough for a collector on edge.
You settle in near a broken exhaust hatch above the rope. High angle, good cover, decent sightline. You break open a protein bar with a grimace and wait.
Time Passes
It’s quiet here. The kind of quiet that’s not natural. Ash sifts down like dead snow.
Then—clink.
Rope movement.
Someone is ascending.
Not fast. Controlled. No chatter, no panting. Just the steady rhythm of an experienced climber.
A head rises from the trench. Short black hair, shaved sides, goggles up on her forehead. Thin, wiry. Arm tattoos winding down into fingerless gloves. A stub revolver is tucked into her belt, but her hands are on the rope.
She hasn’t seen you yet.
Not yet.
What do you do?
Player:
I’m on her before she can get up. Take her by the arm, take her stubgun, and use it to order her into a corner. Take her to the floor and bind her if I have to.
GM:
You move fast—quiet as a sump-rat, mean as a heat flare.
The moment her shoulders crest the edge, your boot comes down on the rope to pin it. Before her eyes can adjust, your hand clamps down on her arm, yanking her off balance.
She lets out a grunt—surprise more than pain.
Her hand goes instinctively toward her stubgun—
—but yours is already there. You wrench it free with practiced ease and level it at her chest. “Corner. Now.”
She freezes, then slowly backs toward the far wall, arms raised slightly, lips pressed thin. You catch the flicker of something behind her eyes—not fear. Calculations. Options being eliminated.
“You a debt man?” she mutters as you approach.
You don’t answer. You shove her down. She doesn’t fight hard—not yet. Just enough resistance to show she’s not scared, but not stupid either.
You bind her hands with wire from her own stash, looped through a support bracket and cinched tight. She’s not going anywhere.
The stubgun’s got two rounds left. You eject them, pocket them, and toss the empty weapon into a sump drain.
“Slag…” she breathes.
Then she smirks—like she’s impressed. “Kurn send you? Or you doing this freelance?”
She glances toward the trench, then up at you. “You have been down there, haven’t you?”
What do you do?
Player:
I pull up a … whatever there is to sit on. I’m in no hurry now.
“3,400 credits is quite the sum” I say, using the inflated value to gauge her reaction. “I’m here under my own discretion, and I can turn you in to whomever I choose. So unless you want to go see our friend Kurn, I suggest you answer my questions…”
Shall we end the session on that cliffhanger?
GM:
Absolutely. That’s a perfect place to end it—tense, in control, and brimming with potential.
Gorran, sat calm as rusted iron with the trench at his back and the torchlight flickering off the symbol in his hand, has turned the tables again. She’s caught, the questions are coming, and whether she ends up at Kurn’s mercy or buys her way out with something useful… that’s up to her.
Session paused.
Looking forward to next time, David. I’ll have her answers—and a few complications—ready when we continue.
tl:dr - after handing over this last mark, Gorran is still no clearer as to what is going on, but he doesn’t like surprises. So in this session he takes it upon himself to track down someone who might tell him what he is getting involved with. But will she give up the answers.
GM:
We’ll pick up as Gorran drags Jast Verlo out of the trench, grime-covered and mumbling, his wrists bound, his legs unsteady. The trench mouth gapes behind you like it might swallow the truth back down if you give it a reason. But the way ahead is long, and Ashclimb hasn’t gone anywhere.
Just say the word and we’ll step back into the haze.
Player:
Considering the setting is Necromunda, I assume I have some right to bind a person. But can you tell me how far those rights extend? Can I drag this guy all the way to Kurn’s warehouse? Or will I be stopped by the enforcers?
GM:
That’s a great question—especially since Ashclimb is walking the line between lawless frontier and Guild-administered “civilization.” In Necromunda, your rights as a private debt collector depend on three things:
1. Who You Work ForIf you’re backed by someone like Kurn, who has Guild or Clan ties, you have implied authority. Most enforcers and locals will look the other way, especially if your targets are low-status like sump sifters. Your tattoo likely signals you’re not freelance—you’re part of a system that benefits the right people.
2. Where You Are- Ashclimb’s lower tiers and trench zones: It’s the Wild Waste down here. Nobody cares unless it causes a riot or halts production. Dragging a bound debtor through the streets is considered crude, not criminal.
- Near Hollowplate Market or upper-layer drinking holes: Enforcers may raise eyebrows, particularly if it looks like unlicensed extortion. That’s not because they care about the victim—it’s because they want their cut.
3. Enforcer DiscretionDetachment Zeta-3 isn’t here to uphold justice—they enforce order, and that includes keeping rival power blocs from stepping on each other. If Marshal Grenth or his scribe think you’re overstepping, you might face:
- A bribe demand
- Temporary confiscation of your “cargo”
- A public slapdown to remind Kurn he’s not untouchable
Summary:
Yes, Gorran can drag Jast through the streets to Kurn’s warehouse—especially from the trench zones. But the further he gets into populated or contested turf, the more he risks attention from rival factions or bored enforcers. It’s all about confidence, appearance, and territory.
If you’d like, I can narrate Gorran’s trip back and flag any areas where he’s being watched or challenged. Ready to move forward?
Player:
Let’s get this guy locked up with Kurn. But what does he babble about? And after a while of feeling safe I want to try find out what Kur wants from this guy. My hunch is a way into some untapped power like a daemonic essence or the Hollow-Eyed high command. Not that I ask questions but I don’t want to go into things blind, just as Kurn expected me to.
GM:
Perfect—here we go.
SESSION START:
The trench yawns behind you like a wound that refuses to close.
Jast Verlo doesn’t fight. Whatever hollow faith drove him down there has splintered. His legs move, but he mutters the whole way—quiet, rasping loops of paranoia and awe.
“Not alone. Never alone. It’s waiting—it saw me through the symbol… they’re all part of it, you see? The dreams weren’t mine… I was shown things…”
More than once he jerks his head toward shadows that aren’t there, eyes blown wide as though he expects a shape to crawl from the sludge behind you. But when you bark at him or shove him forward, he goes.
A Few Levels Up — Lifter Rails to Hollowplate
By the time you reach the choke point where trench-grade hazards give way to active infrastructure, the world feels noisy and alive again. Trolley horns. Arclamps. Boil-roaches scattering under riveted gutters.
No one stops you.
Even when people see a man bound at the wrists, no one says a word. You flash your “collector’s gaze,” that sideways look that tells them this is sanctioned. Down here, a man with nothing but a satchel and haunted eyes isn’t worth dying over.
Kurn’s Warehouse – Back Entrance
When you arrive, the guards don’t flinch. They don’t ask who it is. They see you and open the gate.
Inside, Kurn is not waiting. A floor runner—a bored-looking scriber with an augmetic throat—takes one look at Jast and leads you to a holding cell inside the warehouse’s guts: an old cooler room lined with ferrosteel.
“Put him in there. Kurn says you’re cleared. He’ll talk to you later.”
The door hisses shut behind Jast. He’s still murmuring.
“It knows we’re talking. You can’t bring its name outside… the fracture doesn’t forget…”
Later That Night – Gorran’s Corner of AshclimbYou’re back at your quarters. The stink of trench silt is off your boots, mostly. There’s food in your gut and a half-full bottle of Slop-It Brown in your hand. Jast is locked away, and you’ve fulfilled the letter of the job.
But…
Why all this secrecy?
Why that symbol?
Why send a collector, not a psyker, a Guilder, or a kill team?
Roll Gorran’s Instinct and Street Smarts Together (Narratively)Let’s say Gorran leans on his gut. He’s not a psyker, but he’s chased debt long enough to know the patterns. Something in Jast’s muttering, in the whispered symbol, in the Hollow-Eyed being mentioned… it’s not just madness.
It’s targeted madness.
Kurn doesn’t want Jast dead. He doesn’t want him interrogated. He wants him contained. That cooler room isn’t just secure—it’s insulated.
Like he’s worried about what might talk through him.
You remember something: one of your old marks—a man named Karlick—who screamed himself to death in the spire-wards. Right before he died, he kept drawing that same eye-symbol in his blood. He said he saw a saint with too many faces.
That can’t be a coincidence.
Do you do anything with this theory? Ask Kurn directly when you get the chance? Track down that Hollow-Eyed survivor Jast mentioned? Or shove the bottle back and pretend it’s all paranoia?
Player:
I am drinking and looking at the symbol on the satchel, but discard the satchel, deciding to forget the matter. Take a swig. Until the silence grows too loud and after glancing in the direction of the satchel again I get up and go to the window. Take a swig. And another.
Then throw myself on the bed. Take the data-slate and start looking for what debts I can start work on tomorrow.
After a few potential marks I stop to think. Then filter the results for those connected to the trench. Then for connections to the Hollowed-Eye. I finally stop on one name in particular. I press to see an image, it is of someone I will chase tomorrow.
Can you tell me about them?
GM:
Of course, David—let’s crack into it.
The data-slate chirps as your filters bite down: Trench-Adjacent Work Records… then cross-referenced with Hollow-Eyed Taggings.
At first, the list is junk. Fabricated identities. Unregistered laborers. Too many ghosts.
But one name stops your thumb:
Name: VANNICK “VANNI” ROTE
Debt Marker: #CL-411-56
Occupation: Freelance Sifter, Contracted Salvage Operative
Last Known Location: Grate-Way 9C (Trench Entry Channel, Upper Ash Climb)
Debt Type: Equipment Lease Violation + Guild Tool Damage
Amount Outstanding: 3,100 credits
Payment Lapse: 93 Days
Collateral: None
Status: Active — Pending Collection
Photo (Dated 3 Months Ago):
The image is grainy. She’s crouched beside a sump pipe, arms deep in a corroded crate. Short, pale hair—hacked off with utility shears. Tattooed knuckles. Slender frame under a thick, patched coat covered in scribbled marker runes and binding cords.
A scavver’s harness crosses her chest—looks like it’s made from reworked child-size rebreathers.
But it’s her eyes that make you stop.
Even blurred, they’re bright. Wide. Focused not on the crate—but behind the camera. Like she knew someone was watching.
Additional Notes (Auto-Pulled Guild Comments):
“Untrustworthy. Claims independent status but works under the Hollow-Eyed. Multiple refusals to log trench finds. Says she dreams ‘the way in.’ Guild wants her fined or extracted before she starts making converts.”
– Officer Broll, Guild Enforcer, Annotated Statement #T-12-08
You stare at the slate a while. That old familiar knot of dread and purpose tightens behind your ribs.
Another voice whispering dreams. Another trench-crawler who’s seen something she shouldn’t.
Maybe if you bring her in, it’ll close this whole cursed job. Or maybe she has something Jast doesn’t—clarity.
Either way…
She’s your next mark.
Shall we begin the next morning with Gorran heading toward Grate-Way 9C? Or is there anything he’d do before hunting Vanni Rote?
Player:
Let’s see this part of the Ashclimb! The only prep I’ve done is to cut the Symbol off the satchel that we see in my hand in the next scene.
GM:
Perfect. Let’s open on ash-lit steel and humming descent.
Scene: Grate-Way 9C — The Upper Maw
Ashclimb’s higher channels are less like a city and more like a throat. The steel bones of forgotten structures choke the walkways, where grime-plated ductwork weeps rust and the constant cough of exhaust vents echoes like breath through diseased lungs.
Grate-Way 9C is one of the trench’s oldest mouths—a vertical chute wide enough to fit a crawler barge, choked now with welded catwalks and makeshift hoists. Old lifts rattle between levels, their floors eaten through, slung on cables that should’ve snapped years ago.
The sun never touches this place. But people do.
And they watch you.
You pass a slicebar wedged between vent fins, its smell somewhere between sausage and chemical burn. Some stitched-up sump kids are pulling sparks from a scav drone, beating it with sticks for fun. A drunken Guild tech mutters to himself in a stairwell, lighting incense and crying.
You’re here for Vanni Rote, the trench rat with prophet eyes and a Guild debt like a leash.
And that symbol—the one you carved from the satchel—is clenched in your hand. Something about it feels hot, but not from heat.
You round a corner near the drop point—the ledge where Grate-Way 9C plunges vertical—and you see signs of her:
- A boot print in synth-mud.
- Scrawled glyphs drawn in thick marker: the same symbol as the one in your hand, altered slightly each time, like it’s mutating.
- A sifter’s rope hanging down into the trench mouth, swaying gently.
Would you like to:
- Call down into the trench?
- Follow the rope down silently?
- Search nearby for a stash, sign, or lookout spot?
- Something else?
I assume this is her way back up. I want the upper hand so I look around. Gather any intel. Hide anything that could be dangerous. Confiscate anything resembling evidence or could be used as payment. Then settle in and wait for her to come back up.
GM:
You step back from the lip of the trench.
Your boots scrape across rusted grating as you begin a slow, deliberate circuit—eyes scanning for signs of habitation, traps, or stashed goods. You’re not just hunting Vanni anymore. You’re asserting the upper hand. A professional. A debt man.
[Perception & Assessment – Success]
You find:
- A cracked toolbox behind a drainage pipe. Inside: a stim-injector (half-used), a roll of Guild-marked wire, and a miniature holoprojector that flickers to life with an image of three trench kids—dirty but grinning—posing with Vanni in a makeshift shelter. She’s laughing. You pocket the projector.
- Scav-packs tucked under a broken vent panel, containing: some protein bars, trench-baked ration chips, and a small satchel of Guild tokens—not enough to clear her debt, but enough to make her sweat if they disappeared. You slip those away too.
- The symbol again, this time etched into the wall with something sharper. You run your fingers across the groove—new. This one is paired with another, scratched hurriedly beside it:
◇ + ⟊ = ✴︎
You disable a tripwire bell rigged between the support beams. Primitive. Vanni might be clever, but not clever enough for a collector on edge.
You settle in near a broken exhaust hatch above the rope. High angle, good cover, decent sightline. You break open a protein bar with a grimace and wait.
Time Passes
It’s quiet here. The kind of quiet that’s not natural. Ash sifts down like dead snow.
Then—clink.
Rope movement.
Someone is ascending.
Not fast. Controlled. No chatter, no panting. Just the steady rhythm of an experienced climber.
A head rises from the trench. Short black hair, shaved sides, goggles up on her forehead. Thin, wiry. Arm tattoos winding down into fingerless gloves. A stub revolver is tucked into her belt, but her hands are on the rope.
She hasn’t seen you yet.
Not yet.
What do you do?
Player:
I’m on her before she can get up. Take her by the arm, take her stubgun, and use it to order her into a corner. Take her to the floor and bind her if I have to.
GM:
You move fast—quiet as a sump-rat, mean as a heat flare.
The moment her shoulders crest the edge, your boot comes down on the rope to pin it. Before her eyes can adjust, your hand clamps down on her arm, yanking her off balance.
She lets out a grunt—surprise more than pain.
Her hand goes instinctively toward her stubgun—
—but yours is already there. You wrench it free with practiced ease and level it at her chest. “Corner. Now.”
She freezes, then slowly backs toward the far wall, arms raised slightly, lips pressed thin. You catch the flicker of something behind her eyes—not fear. Calculations. Options being eliminated.
“You a debt man?” she mutters as you approach.
You don’t answer. You shove her down. She doesn’t fight hard—not yet. Just enough resistance to show she’s not scared, but not stupid either.
You bind her hands with wire from her own stash, looped through a support bracket and cinched tight. She’s not going anywhere.
The stubgun’s got two rounds left. You eject them, pocket them, and toss the empty weapon into a sump drain.
“Slag…” she breathes.
Then she smirks—like she’s impressed. “Kurn send you? Or you doing this freelance?”
She glances toward the trench, then up at you. “You have been down there, haven’t you?”
What do you do?
Player:
I pull up a … whatever there is to sit on. I’m in no hurry now.
“3,400 credits is quite the sum” I say, using the inflated value to gauge her reaction. “I’m here under my own discretion, and I can turn you in to whomever I choose. So unless you want to go see our friend Kurn, I suggest you answer my questions…”
Shall we end the session on that cliffhanger?
GM:
Absolutely. That’s a perfect place to end it—tense, in control, and brimming with potential.
Gorran, sat calm as rusted iron with the trench at his back and the torchlight flickering off the symbol in his hand, has turned the tables again. She’s caught, the questions are coming, and whether she ends up at Kurn’s mercy or buys her way out with something useful… that’s up to her.
Session paused.
Looking forward to next time, David. I’ll have her answers—and a few complications—ready when we continue.
And now a message from our sponsor (ok, not a sponsor [sad face], it’s from the AI GM).
🜏 MESSAGE FROM THE ASHCLIMB 🜏
(echoes from the vents, scrawled on flakboard, muttered in sumpshine dreams…)
Something’s stirring in the trench.
A collector brought someone back in chains—and a symbol no one’s seen in decades.
Someone else didn’t come back at all.
There’s been silence from the Hollow-Eyed.
Kurn’s people are asking too few questions.
And some claim the domes above the Wild Wastes are glowing again.
Meanwhile, the Ashclimb creaks on.
Debts are rising.
Gangs are watching.
And something is digging upwards.
The world just tilted. It’s time for a Community Turn.
Got a faction in the Ashclimb? A district you’ve imagined? An urban myth, a shady contact, a bad habit, a whispered deal?
Now’s the time to send ripples into the city.
🜏 MESSAGE FROM THE ASHCLIMB 🜏
(echoes from the vents, scrawled on flakboard, muttered in sumpshine dreams…)
Something’s stirring in the trench.
A collector brought someone back in chains—and a symbol no one’s seen in decades.
Someone else didn’t come back at all.
There’s been silence from the Hollow-Eyed.
Kurn’s people are asking too few questions.
And some claim the domes above the Wild Wastes are glowing again.
Meanwhile, the Ashclimb creaks on.
Debts are rising.
Gangs are watching.
And something is digging upwards.
The world just tilted. It’s time for a Community Turn.
Got a faction in the Ashclimb? A district you’ve imagined? An urban myth, a shady contact, a bad habit, a whispered deal?
Now’s the time to send ripples into the city.
We are opening a community turn. Any and all contributions are appreciated. We’ve already had at least two references to sausage stands in two parts of the city. And the Marshal and his scribe are now a looming threat with life breathed into them (really @Hobo86 50%! I envisioned Gorran Slagjaw as a legitimate business man and now I am worried a scribe and two enforcers are going to knock on the door of my ting hovel 
).
And I have the feeling that this Drokk is either going to be the scavenger that Jast was seen talking to, or he is climbing up the rope behind Slagjaw and about to wack him across the back of the head, denying me my answers. I hope not the latter. That would be humiliating. But I don’t know.
All I know is that the AI has been told to incorporate these contributions as much as possible.
Edit: this community turn will be open all tomorrow and I will continue with the story from Monday (probably evening)
).And I have the feeling that this Drokk is either going to be the scavenger that Jast was seen talking to, or he is climbing up the rope behind Slagjaw and about to wack him across the back of the head, denying me my answers. I hope not the latter. That would be humiliating. But I don’t know.
All I know is that the AI has been told to incorporate these contributions as much as possible.
Edit: this community turn will be open all tomorrow and I will continue with the story from Monday (probably evening)
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In Belgium we get taxed about 47%... 50% seemed marginally more dystopian (we do get a lot of benefits for that) 
Perhaps you could search for ways to keep your earnings off the books? donate to a church or group off not so orphans? Pay protection money to a gang? Try to convince the Clerck you, as a good upstanding citizen, better invest in the local economy to boost the enforcer earnings in the long run? Perhaps there are such great centres of industry available? You may become a local sausage baron, drinking hole proprietor or drug lord?
Drokk did seem unaware what people said and about basic technology... he/she/it might be a cannibal ghoul, mutant, ratkin, escaped mindscrubbed servitor, a feral ratskin, a homicidal escaped mutated pet hamster, a seriously mindhampered junkie or some relatively benign warp entity? ...
(that being said I work this weekend and I expect the community to contribute as well... so I'm taking a small step back)
edit: added pet hamster
Perhaps you could search for ways to keep your earnings off the books? donate to a church or group off not so orphans? Pay protection money to a gang? Try to convince the Clerck you, as a good upstanding citizen, better invest in the local economy to boost the enforcer earnings in the long run? Perhaps there are such great centres of industry available? You may become a local sausage baron, drinking hole proprietor or drug lord?
Drokk did seem unaware what people said and about basic technology... he/she/it might be a cannibal ghoul, mutant, ratkin, escaped mindscrubbed servitor, a feral ratskin, a homicidal escaped mutated pet hamster, a seriously mindhampered junkie or some relatively benign warp entity? ...
(that being said I work this weekend and I expect the community to contribute as well... so I'm taking a small step back)
edit: added pet hamster
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ASHCLIMB: Session 7
tl:dr - I interrogate this sifter, and surprise guest, to find out what everyone is after. Gorran doesn’t like the answer, or bailing out a sifter.
GM:
Scene: The Sifter’s Den
The stubgun lies just out of reach now. The woman you cornered, sallow-eyed and coiled like wire, watches you from the floor. Her breathing has slowed. Not calm—calculating.
A pale strip of canvas with the strange symbol lies folded in your hand, cut from the satchel like dead weight. Outside, somewhere deep beneath the domes, the city breathes: the scrape of pipes, the distant roar of machinery, a sudden cry muffled by depth.
The sifter lifts her chin. “You want to talk?” she rasps. “Fine. But I’m not the one you should be threatening. That satchel—”
She flicks her eyes to the torn cloth. “That wasn’t mine. It belonged to someone from below. From the trench. I just… traded for it. Didn’t know what it meant.”
A beat.
“Look, I’ll tell you everything I know. But first, promise me I don’t end up with the Hollow-Eyed or Kurn. They don’t ask questions. They just dig.”
You hear something shifting in the rubble nearby. Not close. Not yet. But the Wild Wastes have ears.
What do you do, Gorran?
Player:
“I’m guessing you don’t have the creds on hand” I say looking around. As I answer I stand and draw my own gun. “Maybe your friend does?” With that I spin to confront whoever was sneaking up.
GM:
The movement is instinctual. Gun raised, stance steady, senses flaring. The rubble behind you shuffles once more—and out from behind a half-toppled vent housing slinks a gangly shape wrapped in rebreather cloth and tattered synth-fur.
Not a weapon in hand. Yet.
They stop mid-step when your barrel finds their center mass.
“Easy,” the figure says, voice crackling through a cheap vox-filter. “She called for help. I didn’t come for a fight.”
You see now: makeshift packs, a battered dataslate held under one arm, and gloved hands spread just enough to show he means peace—for now. He’s younger, maybe early twenties, and the pin on his collar is just a painted glyph—some scavver crew you’ve never dealt with.
The woman on the ground calls out dryly: “He’s no killer. Just a runner.”
The runner grits his teeth. “I came to get her out. That’s all. You want creds? I’ve got a line on a payout. Five-hundred, real easy. Just not here.”
He nods toward the dataslate. “The guy she got the satchel from? He’s been missing three days. Some say he dug through to something that should’ve stayed buried. The symbol… it’s showing up more.”
He licks his lips, glancing nervously at your trigger finger.
“You want to settle your debts? Follow the symbol. There’s something big in the trench. Whatever that guy found—people are dying to cover it up. Others… are dying to find it first.”
Your hostage huffs. “I told you. This isn’t about me.”
What do you do, Gorran?
Player:
“She owes over 3000 credits. If we do things by the books then she will go to jail until she can call in enough favours to cover it.” I flick the nuzzle of my gun to direct him over to Vanni Rote’s side. “And I take her to whichever guilder or enforcer precinct I deem most suitable. You got luck that I want this info. But how far I stick my neck out for you depends on how much you give me.”
“What is this symbol, what is in the trench and how do I profit from it”?
GM:
The runner raises both hands higher and does as he’s told, stepping carefully beside Vanni. The stubgun you took from her now lies useless at her feet—your word is law in this dead end of Ashclimb, and everyone here knows it.
He gives a nervous glance at her before turning his full attention to you.
“The symbol… I don’t know its name. No one does. Not down here. It started showing up on dig gear, carved into the sides of drums, etched into bone-charms.” He pulls the battered dataslate from under his arm and holds it flat for you to see. “Here—filter logs from sifter teams, pulled off guild net traces. This one here? It’s from a team clearing sink-tunnels three levels down. They found it carved into ferrocrete, like the building was grown around it. Not built—grown.”
He swipes again. Another image. Blurry—maybe a leak through the slate’s cracked lens. A spiral and three prongs. The same as the one on Jast’s satchel. Faint light spills out around it.
“They said the wall pulsed like a sump-beast’s heart. Then the vox cut. One guy made it back. Missing an eye, couldn’t speak, kept carving the symbol into anything you gave him. Food. Slate. His own palm.”
The runner pauses, uneasy.
“Look… Jast Verlo was following the symbol. Said he was owed something. Power, maybe. Secrets. Said the Hollow-Eyed left more than just bones in the Wild Wastes.” He glances sidelong. “Said there’s a vault under Ashclimb—real old, sealed tight. Could be STC. Could be worse.”
You feel Vanni shift. “It’s true,” she mutters. “Whatever it is, Kurn wanted Jast to find it. That’s what the trench is. A way down. But now… others are looking too. Guilders. Gangers. Hollow-Eyed cults.”
The runner adds, “One of the Ash Knives got hold of a map. That’s your profit, if you’re serious. But they’re not just handing it out.”
The silence stretches.
Then: “You want creds, power, pull? You go deeper. Or you walk away and collect on this bounty.”
They both look at you now. Waiting.
Gun still in hand. Symbol in your palm. Ashclimb pressing in.
What’s your play, Gorran Slagjaw?
Player:
I sigh disappointedly. “I thought you were going to give me some real answers. Like who this saint guy with all the faces is?” This is a reference the old mark named Karlick, who muttered about seeing a saint with too many faces, trying to confirm the connection. I point vaguely to all the symbols drawn around the place. “It’s clear you are in it deeper than you are letting on.”
GM:
The runner blanches at your mention of the saint.
Vanni stiffens, her eyes flicking to the spirals scrawled across the walls, down to the crude sketch carved into the stubgun’s grip.
“Drokk,” she whispers.
The runner licks his lips, shaken. “We don’t talk about that one. Not even the cults want that name. Some say it’s a Hollow-Eyed myth—others, that he’s real. Walks the trench paths. Takes faces. Not kills, not skins—takes. Leaves the bodies talking like nothin’s wrong.”
He points to a lopsided spiral etched into the floor near your boot.
“That mark? That ain’t just a signpost. It’s a lure. It pulls you toward him. The deeper you go, the more it shows up. Folk down there don’t dream straight anymore. They wake up writing the symbol, talking in a dozen voices.”
Vanni nods, reluctantly. “Karlick saw him. So did a ganger from the Ash Knives—only she clawed her eyes out before anyone could question her. Said she saw her own face smiling back.”
The runner stares at you. “You think we’re in this? You think we want this?”
He gestures around the crumbling dome, at the sickly fungus growing in the lightshafts, at the warped data-slat still glowing faintly in your hand.
“We were just trying to stay ahead of Kurn. Stay alive. But this isn’t a hustle anymore. It’s something else. Something old.”
He leans in, just a bit. Quietly:
“You take her in, you still get paid. Walk away. Let the Ash Knives dig their own graves.”
He gestures to the spiral once more.
“Because if that saint is real… then this town’s already damned.”
Your gun is still warm. The symbol’s weight presses harder in your hand.
How deep are you willing to go, Gorran?
Player:
“So let me get this straight! There is some human shaped monster down there in the trench with some kind of ‘face magic’. And if I can get a map from the Ash Knives then maybe I could track it down and hand it to any guilder in Ashclimb for a bounty?”
GM:
The runner gives you a look—half horror, half awe, like a man watching someone kick a sump shark to see if it’s dead.
Vanni mutters under her breath, “You really are one of Kurn’s.”
The runner raises his hands, backing off a step. “Sure, yeah. Maybe. Maybe someone would pay for that. Maybe the Guilders would love to get their hands on a face-stealing murder-saint from the deep. Or maybe they’d shoot you for bringing a trench-haunt into spitting distance of their holdings.”
He shakes his head, frustrated. “Look. There’s no map. There’s never a map. The trench shifts. Chokes. Collapses. A trail one day’s a grave the next. The Ash Knives, they just leave symbols. Messages layered in code. Half of ‘em don’t even know what they’re writing. They get dreams, scribble ‘em on walls, and call it holy.”
Vanni finally speaks up, her voice low. “But if you could find the ones who’ve seen the deepest… not just junkies, but the ones who come back changed? They’d know where the symbol grows thickest. That’s where he’ll be.”
The runner adds, “Or what’s left of him.”
He glances down at the spiral again. “You think there’s profit here? Maybe. Or maybe you’re just feeding your face to the thing behind the mask.”
A pause. Then Vanni looks up at you, cautious but clear-eyed. “If you’re serious… I’ll help you get in contact with someone. Not a Knife. Not anymore. But she knows their paths. You get me out from under this debt, and I’ll give you her name.”
A beat.
“So what’s it gonna be, Gorran Slagjaw? You want your bounty, or you want your ghost story?”
Player:
My stance has relaxed as the conversation has gone on. But I am having inner turmoil. What am I doing? I’m not a bounty hunter. Why can’t I just walk away from this?
I say to Drokk “you slag-off! I’m taking her to the precinct one level down. If you are her friend then gather her debts from wherever you can.”
Then I get her ready to move safely. I will take her to the precinct. Hopefully they aren’t in Kurn’s pockets and she will go unnoticed there. But I need to have a word with the jailor.
GM:
Drokk opens his mouth like he might argue—but your sudden bark cracks the fragile tension like a whip. He flinches, lowers his head, and steps back into the shadows with only a muttered curse: “Hope the ghost eats your damn boots.”
Vanni doesn’t fight as you get her to her feet. She’s not limp or weak, just… distant. Like whatever fire kept her running these last few days has been spent, burned up trying to buy one last chance. Now she walks. Quiet. Not meek—there’s something sharp in her still—but quiet.
[Ashclimb – Level Below: Precinct Z-31 Satellite Holding]
The descent isn’t long, just narrow and stale. Pipes weep overhead and dust chokes the meshwalks. You know this place—the halfway precinct, used when Zeta-3’s main hold is too full or too noisy. It’s quiet here. A perfect spot for someone to disappear into the books.
The precinct isn’t much more than a reinforced cage with a shuttered office and two cells. Behind a battered hab-stack door, a uniformed enforcer squints up at you through old glass. He’s bald, with a long scar down the side of his scalp and the wrong kind of smile for someone paid to keep order.
“Slagjaw.” His eyes drift to Vanni. “You bringin’ me trouble, or you bringin’ me a favor?”
You push the door open and get her inside. He makes a slow show of logging her details—ID tag, debt amount, vague notes about a sifter caught in unauthorized salvage. You recognize the trick: he’s writing her in soft. The kind of charge you can vanish without paperwork.
You nod toward the man and murmur, “I need her to sit here, unnoticed. She’s got links I want to shake loose before she ends up in anyone else’s pockets.”
He meets your eye, then glances down at the docket. A moment of hesitation. Then:
“She’s yours, Slagjaw. So long as I don’t catch flak from Z-31 upstairs. Keep it quiet.”
You’re halfway to the exit when his voice calls after you—almost casually.
“Oh, and Slagjaw? There’s been talk. Some underhive-dredger tried to sell a load of street-cut ghast to the wrong crew. Got himself turned inside out. Literally. People say his soul screamed out through his mouth.” He shrugs. “Can’t tell if that’s the drugs, or something else.”
He doesn’t wait for your reply—just pulls the shutter down behind him with a rattle.
You’re back on the meshwalk now, satchel symbol cut away and tucked in your coat.
It’s late.
And tomorrow, you hunt someone else connected to the trench.
Their name still glows faintly on your dataslate screen.
Would you like to name them now, or shall we pick up with that next session?
Player:
I want to keep tabs on who visits Vanni and who comes to pay her bills.
But for now, that name is…
Kai-une, low level wytch minder for the Ash Knives.
GM:
Got it—Kai-une just made the list. We’ll keep an eye on Vanni’s visitors and debt collectors while you pivot toward this Ash Knife lead. Ready when you are to begin that pursuit.
tl:dr - I interrogate this sifter, and surprise guest, to find out what everyone is after. Gorran doesn’t like the answer, or bailing out a sifter.
GM:
Scene: The Sifter’s Den
The stubgun lies just out of reach now. The woman you cornered, sallow-eyed and coiled like wire, watches you from the floor. Her breathing has slowed. Not calm—calculating.
A pale strip of canvas with the strange symbol lies folded in your hand, cut from the satchel like dead weight. Outside, somewhere deep beneath the domes, the city breathes: the scrape of pipes, the distant roar of machinery, a sudden cry muffled by depth.
The sifter lifts her chin. “You want to talk?” she rasps. “Fine. But I’m not the one you should be threatening. That satchel—”
She flicks her eyes to the torn cloth. “That wasn’t mine. It belonged to someone from below. From the trench. I just… traded for it. Didn’t know what it meant.”
A beat.
“Look, I’ll tell you everything I know. But first, promise me I don’t end up with the Hollow-Eyed or Kurn. They don’t ask questions. They just dig.”
You hear something shifting in the rubble nearby. Not close. Not yet. But the Wild Wastes have ears.
What do you do, Gorran?
Player:
“I’m guessing you don’t have the creds on hand” I say looking around. As I answer I stand and draw my own gun. “Maybe your friend does?” With that I spin to confront whoever was sneaking up.
GM:
The movement is instinctual. Gun raised, stance steady, senses flaring. The rubble behind you shuffles once more—and out from behind a half-toppled vent housing slinks a gangly shape wrapped in rebreather cloth and tattered synth-fur.
Not a weapon in hand. Yet.
They stop mid-step when your barrel finds their center mass.
“Easy,” the figure says, voice crackling through a cheap vox-filter. “She called for help. I didn’t come for a fight.”
You see now: makeshift packs, a battered dataslate held under one arm, and gloved hands spread just enough to show he means peace—for now. He’s younger, maybe early twenties, and the pin on his collar is just a painted glyph—some scavver crew you’ve never dealt with.
The woman on the ground calls out dryly: “He’s no killer. Just a runner.”
The runner grits his teeth. “I came to get her out. That’s all. You want creds? I’ve got a line on a payout. Five-hundred, real easy. Just not here.”
He nods toward the dataslate. “The guy she got the satchel from? He’s been missing three days. Some say he dug through to something that should’ve stayed buried. The symbol… it’s showing up more.”
He licks his lips, glancing nervously at your trigger finger.
“You want to settle your debts? Follow the symbol. There’s something big in the trench. Whatever that guy found—people are dying to cover it up. Others… are dying to find it first.”
Your hostage huffs. “I told you. This isn’t about me.”
What do you do, Gorran?
Player:
“She owes over 3000 credits. If we do things by the books then she will go to jail until she can call in enough favours to cover it.” I flick the nuzzle of my gun to direct him over to Vanni Rote’s side. “And I take her to whichever guilder or enforcer precinct I deem most suitable. You got luck that I want this info. But how far I stick my neck out for you depends on how much you give me.”
“What is this symbol, what is in the trench and how do I profit from it”?
GM:
The runner raises both hands higher and does as he’s told, stepping carefully beside Vanni. The stubgun you took from her now lies useless at her feet—your word is law in this dead end of Ashclimb, and everyone here knows it.
He gives a nervous glance at her before turning his full attention to you.
“The symbol… I don’t know its name. No one does. Not down here. It started showing up on dig gear, carved into the sides of drums, etched into bone-charms.” He pulls the battered dataslate from under his arm and holds it flat for you to see. “Here—filter logs from sifter teams, pulled off guild net traces. This one here? It’s from a team clearing sink-tunnels three levels down. They found it carved into ferrocrete, like the building was grown around it. Not built—grown.”
He swipes again. Another image. Blurry—maybe a leak through the slate’s cracked lens. A spiral and three prongs. The same as the one on Jast’s satchel. Faint light spills out around it.
“They said the wall pulsed like a sump-beast’s heart. Then the vox cut. One guy made it back. Missing an eye, couldn’t speak, kept carving the symbol into anything you gave him. Food. Slate. His own palm.”
The runner pauses, uneasy.
“Look… Jast Verlo was following the symbol. Said he was owed something. Power, maybe. Secrets. Said the Hollow-Eyed left more than just bones in the Wild Wastes.” He glances sidelong. “Said there’s a vault under Ashclimb—real old, sealed tight. Could be STC. Could be worse.”
You feel Vanni shift. “It’s true,” she mutters. “Whatever it is, Kurn wanted Jast to find it. That’s what the trench is. A way down. But now… others are looking too. Guilders. Gangers. Hollow-Eyed cults.”
The runner adds, “One of the Ash Knives got hold of a map. That’s your profit, if you’re serious. But they’re not just handing it out.”
The silence stretches.
Then: “You want creds, power, pull? You go deeper. Or you walk away and collect on this bounty.”
They both look at you now. Waiting.
Gun still in hand. Symbol in your palm. Ashclimb pressing in.
What’s your play, Gorran Slagjaw?
Player:
I sigh disappointedly. “I thought you were going to give me some real answers. Like who this saint guy with all the faces is?” This is a reference the old mark named Karlick, who muttered about seeing a saint with too many faces, trying to confirm the connection. I point vaguely to all the symbols drawn around the place. “It’s clear you are in it deeper than you are letting on.”
GM:
The runner blanches at your mention of the saint.
Vanni stiffens, her eyes flicking to the spirals scrawled across the walls, down to the crude sketch carved into the stubgun’s grip.
“Drokk,” she whispers.
The runner licks his lips, shaken. “We don’t talk about that one. Not even the cults want that name. Some say it’s a Hollow-Eyed myth—others, that he’s real. Walks the trench paths. Takes faces. Not kills, not skins—takes. Leaves the bodies talking like nothin’s wrong.”
He points to a lopsided spiral etched into the floor near your boot.
“That mark? That ain’t just a signpost. It’s a lure. It pulls you toward him. The deeper you go, the more it shows up. Folk down there don’t dream straight anymore. They wake up writing the symbol, talking in a dozen voices.”
Vanni nods, reluctantly. “Karlick saw him. So did a ganger from the Ash Knives—only she clawed her eyes out before anyone could question her. Said she saw her own face smiling back.”
The runner stares at you. “You think we’re in this? You think we want this?”
He gestures around the crumbling dome, at the sickly fungus growing in the lightshafts, at the warped data-slat still glowing faintly in your hand.
“We were just trying to stay ahead of Kurn. Stay alive. But this isn’t a hustle anymore. It’s something else. Something old.”
He leans in, just a bit. Quietly:
“You take her in, you still get paid. Walk away. Let the Ash Knives dig their own graves.”
He gestures to the spiral once more.
“Because if that saint is real… then this town’s already damned.”
Your gun is still warm. The symbol’s weight presses harder in your hand.
How deep are you willing to go, Gorran?
Player:
“So let me get this straight! There is some human shaped monster down there in the trench with some kind of ‘face magic’. And if I can get a map from the Ash Knives then maybe I could track it down and hand it to any guilder in Ashclimb for a bounty?”
GM:
The runner gives you a look—half horror, half awe, like a man watching someone kick a sump shark to see if it’s dead.
Vanni mutters under her breath, “You really are one of Kurn’s.”
The runner raises his hands, backing off a step. “Sure, yeah. Maybe. Maybe someone would pay for that. Maybe the Guilders would love to get their hands on a face-stealing murder-saint from the deep. Or maybe they’d shoot you for bringing a trench-haunt into spitting distance of their holdings.”
He shakes his head, frustrated. “Look. There’s no map. There’s never a map. The trench shifts. Chokes. Collapses. A trail one day’s a grave the next. The Ash Knives, they just leave symbols. Messages layered in code. Half of ‘em don’t even know what they’re writing. They get dreams, scribble ‘em on walls, and call it holy.”
Vanni finally speaks up, her voice low. “But if you could find the ones who’ve seen the deepest… not just junkies, but the ones who come back changed? They’d know where the symbol grows thickest. That’s where he’ll be.”
The runner adds, “Or what’s left of him.”
He glances down at the spiral again. “You think there’s profit here? Maybe. Or maybe you’re just feeding your face to the thing behind the mask.”
A pause. Then Vanni looks up at you, cautious but clear-eyed. “If you’re serious… I’ll help you get in contact with someone. Not a Knife. Not anymore. But she knows their paths. You get me out from under this debt, and I’ll give you her name.”
A beat.
“So what’s it gonna be, Gorran Slagjaw? You want your bounty, or you want your ghost story?”
Player:
My stance has relaxed as the conversation has gone on. But I am having inner turmoil. What am I doing? I’m not a bounty hunter. Why can’t I just walk away from this?
I say to Drokk “you slag-off! I’m taking her to the precinct one level down. If you are her friend then gather her debts from wherever you can.”
Then I get her ready to move safely. I will take her to the precinct. Hopefully they aren’t in Kurn’s pockets and she will go unnoticed there. But I need to have a word with the jailor.
GM:
Drokk opens his mouth like he might argue—but your sudden bark cracks the fragile tension like a whip. He flinches, lowers his head, and steps back into the shadows with only a muttered curse: “Hope the ghost eats your damn boots.”
Vanni doesn’t fight as you get her to her feet. She’s not limp or weak, just… distant. Like whatever fire kept her running these last few days has been spent, burned up trying to buy one last chance. Now she walks. Quiet. Not meek—there’s something sharp in her still—but quiet.
[Ashclimb – Level Below: Precinct Z-31 Satellite Holding]
The descent isn’t long, just narrow and stale. Pipes weep overhead and dust chokes the meshwalks. You know this place—the halfway precinct, used when Zeta-3’s main hold is too full or too noisy. It’s quiet here. A perfect spot for someone to disappear into the books.
The precinct isn’t much more than a reinforced cage with a shuttered office and two cells. Behind a battered hab-stack door, a uniformed enforcer squints up at you through old glass. He’s bald, with a long scar down the side of his scalp and the wrong kind of smile for someone paid to keep order.
“Slagjaw.” His eyes drift to Vanni. “You bringin’ me trouble, or you bringin’ me a favor?”
You push the door open and get her inside. He makes a slow show of logging her details—ID tag, debt amount, vague notes about a sifter caught in unauthorized salvage. You recognize the trick: he’s writing her in soft. The kind of charge you can vanish without paperwork.
You nod toward the man and murmur, “I need her to sit here, unnoticed. She’s got links I want to shake loose before she ends up in anyone else’s pockets.”
He meets your eye, then glances down at the docket. A moment of hesitation. Then:
“She’s yours, Slagjaw. So long as I don’t catch flak from Z-31 upstairs. Keep it quiet.”
You’re halfway to the exit when his voice calls after you—almost casually.
“Oh, and Slagjaw? There’s been talk. Some underhive-dredger tried to sell a load of street-cut ghast to the wrong crew. Got himself turned inside out. Literally. People say his soul screamed out through his mouth.” He shrugs. “Can’t tell if that’s the drugs, or something else.”
He doesn’t wait for your reply—just pulls the shutter down behind him with a rattle.
You’re back on the meshwalk now, satchel symbol cut away and tucked in your coat.
It’s late.
And tomorrow, you hunt someone else connected to the trench.
Their name still glows faintly on your dataslate screen.
Would you like to name them now, or shall we pick up with that next session?
Player:
I want to keep tabs on who visits Vanni and who comes to pay her bills.
But for now, that name is…
Kai-une, low level wytch minder for the Ash Knives.
GM:
Got it—Kai-une just made the list. We’ll keep an eye on Vanni’s visitors and debt collectors while you pivot toward this Ash Knife lead. Ready when you are to begin that pursuit.
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