Following various suggestions on LAF and my Blog I’ve developed a plan of action, this was put to the various little lead characters involved in the situation and either adapted or in one case entirely rejected. Plan is somewhat of a simplification, because there are three groups and a number of splinter groups it’s a series of individual plans and if you thought the opening was complex you might want to save a few minutes of your life by changing channels now.
OK, if you’re still here you’ve had fair warning.
A quick re-cap, in the Opium Den (building on the right with blue window frames) is Becky and 2 companions. All she wants to do is find a suitable guide and leave Morts Landing to go to the Monastery, the next port of call in the search for the Red Jade Buddha. She has decided that Oe and/or Emily Reno are the best choice from a bad bunch. However when offered the option to find them during the night she flatly refused. She did accept that Jie’s instruction to use Dietmar was a bad idea and intends to poison him in the morning so he can’t make the trip. Incidentally when I asked Google the best way to give someone diarrhoea and make them sick I was given a strong lecture by the AI and told I probably needed professional psychiatric help. In case you are in need of the correct advice, something called Senna is a laxative and will probably do the trick. Combined with something like Imodium which is the opposite of a laxative you can gauge your requirements for toilet facilities in out of the way places, but you probably didn’t need to know that.
In the White Hyacinthe Tongs head quarters (red tiled building front and right) is Katie Monk a reporter who wants an interview with Zuou Jie, head of the White Hyacinthe. Jie, his bodyguard and various other people are also in this building. Katie doesn’t really have any options at the moment, she feels that she might be under house arrest but doesn’t want to precipitate conflict with Jie which would destroy any chance of the interview.
However she has two other options for a scoop, one is a tall handsome chap who we know is a slaver but she doesn’t, this probably won’t turn out well. The other story, is that there are 2 captive women who have been brought into Morts Landing, modern day slavery would be another great scoop. There was a suggestion on my Blog that I should do something NOBLE and rescue these two unfortunates and this might be the impetus to do it. As a wargamer I do sneaky, devious and underhand but I don’t do NOBLE, this might be an exception.
Becky had decided not to look for Oe in the night but Oe had decided he needed to speak to Becky, he thought she might be his way out of Morts Landing. Having been drinking all day and for the last six hours since it went dark he couldn’t string two words together let alone a sentence.
Morts Landing is close to the Equator and at this time of year has twelve hours of dark followed by 12 hours of light and coincidentally and nothing to do with making time keeping easier it got dark at 18:00 and light at 06:00.
Oe was a lucky man, he had a daughter called Wang Mei and in spite of his faults she loved her father dearly. So when he told her of his plan earlier in the day when he could string two words together she had thought about it for at least one heartbeat before agreeing. Wang Mei is an accomplished fighter, one of those eastern martial arts thingies, a skill that ensures she is aware of her body and its ability to move fluidly through the cosmos, or some such nonsense and so she’s extremely agile, a skill that enables her to move stealthily in the dark, which should come in useful in this scenario.
00:15 Hours.
She only has to move to her left and exit the market place and is almost at the Opium Den, it should be easy but the black skulls represent possible encounters. There are 26 of them, 13 are just nothing, dummies but the other 13 might be a real challenge. I decided each gang, faction or whatever you wish to call them would have a roving sentry on patrol. These would challenge anyone they thought needed challenging. There are 4 random characters that live in Morts Landing, wandering around for any reason that seems appropriate at the time of the encounter. There are a couple of specific encounters based on my plot lines and some animals, and their location will determine their reaction.
The first encounter happens to be a pheasant which didn’t worry anyone, least of all the pheasant.
00:30 Hours
Making her way carefully between the Opium Den on the left and the river on the right, Wang Mei halts, nerves tingling, she’s made a noise.
It’s dark, visibility is 3”, hearing is 4”, if she makes a noise there is possibility it will be heard but if she is unheard she will detect the marker first.
She makes a noise, and the marker is a roving sentry.
I’d decided that any sentry revealed would belong to the nearest gang HQ and so it’s a Chinaman.
Fortunately he’s not a very aware Chinaman and decided the noise was nothing to worry about and so didn’t move to investigate.
Once revealed he will now move in a random direction and a random speed up to 4”
00:45 Hours
Wang Mei activates first and slips soundlessly away to hide behind the truck but she needn’t have worried because Dai Wei Nan walks to the cliff edge, he’s obviously going to relieve himself. This though means her way to the Opium Den door is closed, she’ll have to go down the far side of the building and hope for better luck.
01:00 Hours
Unfortunately her luck on this side of the Opium Den is just as bad and the next encounter turns out to be another roving sentry, Badboy Lemar Devine, an American gangster, she hears him and takes evasive action, he doesn’t notice her.
This is really not going well, 2 of the 3 possible sentries are blocking her way, what are the odds out of 26 possible encounters that two of the worst would appear is the same place!!
At 01:00 hours events are unfolding on the other side of Morts Landing as well, but to try and avoid confusion I’m going to stick with Wang Mei before going back to these other events. Hopefully this approach will work reasonably well!
01:15 Hours
It’s probably not clear in the picture but Dai, the Chinese fellow in the yellow shirt on the right has reversed direction and is moving towards the market, further constricting Wang Mei’s options. She activated first and has moved into cover by the lantern which I conveniently, as it happens, forgot to have lit. Badboy the American sentry moved in her direction but didn’t see her.
01:30 Hours
Wang Mei then moves between the two market stalls intending to circumnavigate the two sentries she’ already spotted, she makes a slight noise but resolves 2 more encounter markers. In the distance is Tomori the last of the possible 3 sentries, he’s one of the Yakuza and well outside their area of Morts Landing, which is interesting.
The other encounter is Kami a Japanese woman. She was chosen at random from a bunch of figures, my thinking was that by choosing at random it would probably help construct the storyline. In this case Tomori is obviously having a romantic meeting with Kami so they will make contact and then go to a secluded place to do whatever two people do when they meet romantically at 01:30 in the morning.
It’s no good looking at me, I’m usually fast asleep at that time but I’m sure someone can enlighten us.
Anyway they both heard Wang Mei but it’s dark and she is roughly mid way between them so they assumed it was each other they had heard, Tomori whispered loudly and Kami answered.
Perhaps I should explain that the romance was a dice throw not my romantic nature coming to the fore, it could have been a coincidence or that they were just good friends, but meeting for a tryst plays into the next part of the story.
01:45 Hours
Bugger this is getting harder by the turn, Wang Mei moves back the way she had come and fortunately Badboy moves away from her. This leaves a gap for her to slip through.
02:00 Hours
In the distance you can see Wang Mei, she is forced to make a big detour to go around the Tongs HQ building to get back to her target which I’m sure you remember is the Opium Den, that’s the building left of the water cart.
The random movement is bringing Badboy (what a ridiculous name, goodness knows why I chose it) and Dai (who must have some Welsh ancestry) together.
As I said earlier the gangs have no love for each other but they need to cooperate to be successful. So there’s a strong possibility that these two soldiers are having words, strong words, or maybe not. I rolled a couple of dice and they don’t like each other but that’s about it.
02:15 Hours
However…random movement again, Badboy walks away but Dai coincidentally rolls exactly the same direction and distance. This is definite, fight….fight….fight. Voices are raised, threats are made Badboy lashes out but Dai is swift and dodges the blow. They glare at each other. Tomori hearing the commotion leaves Kami and comes to calm things down. He knows they can’t have open warfare in the Landing, so does Badboy, he’s pretty smart and realises he’s made a huge mistake and apologises, which Dai accepts.
Kami mean while has moved towards a small warehouse that must be the trysting place….I’ll come back to this later.
02:30 Hours
The distraction serves Wang Mei well, she skittles round the corner, well away from the sentries and meets Chiyo who is standing on the edge of the dock.
Chiyo is normally a Japanese bodyguard disguised as a Geisha. Well she has been in a couple of my games and she’s very competent at it. So what is she doing here at 02:15….fishing was the first thing that came to my mind, I know, I know but sometimes you have to go with your instincts even if they’re not very good.
So Chiyo is working for Jie (Head of White Hyacinthe) and volunteered to cook breakfast because she has a liking for steamed white fish and Hoy An rice balls. She knows Wang Mei and understands why Oe’s daughter would want to get away from her drunken father in the middle of the night and suspicions are not aroused. She carries on fishing but I checked how long she will continue fishing and…..I’ve forgotten.
02:45 Hours
Nearly there, one more encounter marker, Wang Mei makes no sound and discovers there’s actually nothing there.
The Opium Den is just beyond the second Lion Dog and almost within reach.
03:00 Hours and she’s taken three hour’s to get here.
OK I know that isn’t realistic but I’ve created a deadline for daylight at 06:00 and there’s other characters on the move and they have other limitations on them. One for instance will start to take sips from his hipflask after 2 hours and that might have some bearing on how well he can move quietly and after a few more sips if he can move at all. Guard duty is a tiresome business and so after a certain time on duty, guards may fall asleep and the longer the duty rota is the more the chance of falling asleep is.
She opens the door and wakes Becky, Gabrielle and Jolinne!!!! Negotiations can begin and as I’ve said she has to be back before 06:00.
OK so Wang Mei has made it into the Opium Den at 03:00 the building on the far right but if you look at the dock area at 00:00 you can see that Katie Monk’s bodyguards are asleep in the boat, the one tied to the dock and two figures appear to be walking on water, which would be a fair assumption but you’d be wrong.
Sentry duty is a bitch. Wu Yi the chap in the magenta jacket is the man in charge of the dock guards. He has three men including himself to cover the 12 hour stretch between 18:00 to 06:00. He could have gone for 6x2 hours shifts, 4x3 hours, or 3x4 hours and with the help of a die roll he made the decision to go for 3x4 hours shifts, each of them is on duty for 4 hours before being relieved.
In my limited experience of remaining in one spot and trying to stay awake through the night, all I can say is, it’s quite difficult. After 2 hours I was always tired and worse bored, after 3 hours you resort to sticking pins into your leg to stay awake and well, 4 hours is the limit of my endurance that’s for sure.
Wu put himself on the difficult 22:00 to 02:00 watch and he fell asleep at 01:00.
Big Freddie has been about a bit and knew about sentry duty too, so he’d set the vibrating alarm on his watch to go off at 00:30, then he would wait and see.
They had discussed their options the previous evening, Katie’s crew knew they were taking a risk but they’d decided to rescue her. The risk was that she didn’t want to be rescued; she would give them hell if that was the case.
Thorvald their boatman was dead set against doing this and so Gasper was going to remain behind and ensure Thorvald didn’t feel the need to inform the guards on the dock of this unexpected turn of events. He reminded him of the river crocs, but Thorvald didn’t need reminding, so he would stay quiet.
01:30 Hours
Climbing out of the boat and moving along the rickety dock was difficult and they made some noise but Wu slept soundly. He was due to hand over the watch at 02:00 and there was a reasonable chance he would wake in time to do that, indeed he might wake earlier but that was in the lap of the Dice Gods.
The other 2 guards were sound asleep and they heard nothing.
01:15 Hours
In a similar manner the rest of Becky’s crew had had a similar discussion and decided they should try and make contact with Becky to see what she had in mind for the following day. After considerable discussion all three young women were in favour of the plan and Jonathan Hawke the river boat captain couldn’t dissuade them. In the end he realised the best person to succeed in this madcap venture was himself. Two of the young women were as clumsy as hell, one couldn’t swim and there was no way that they could get the boat to the dock without being spotted.
He agreed with some reluctance that Sugar could go with him, this was absolutely essential from the young women’s point of view because they knew Hawke liked a tipple from his hip flask at regular intervals and Sugar might be able to restrain him from partaking of the juice of the barley long enough to get the mission done.
So that is why they appear to be walking on water, they’re actually swimming to the dock.
I forgot about the crocodiles!
01:45 Hours
Big Freddie and Donald Tranji the cameraman have made it past the dock guards and are quietly making their way to the White Hyacinthe HQ.
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Unfortunately they are not quiet enough and an elderly man pokes his head out of the back of the truck as they go past.
Freddie smiles at him, but if you’ve ever been smiled at by a Great White Shark, it might not be as reassuring as Freddie thought it should be. The man appeared to be about to shout out, so Freddie hit him, the man gasped in pain but that ended when Donald hit him as well. This is rather unfair on the poor chap but he’s now unconscious and they just have to decide what to do with him.
Now I know what you’re thinking, slit his throat and dump the body, or the less blood thirsty might be thinking tie him up gagged and leave him in the truck. I just hope when you’re elderly you remember that.
02:00 Hours
Fortunately there was some rope in the back of the truck and they did decide to tie and gag him, but rather than leave him in the truck where he would almost certainly make some noise when he came round, they took him with them. He was fairly light and sprightly so Donald had no trouble swinging him up, over his shoulder and carrying him in a fireman’s lift.
This might be an issue if they encounter anyone else, it would take some fast talking to explain but they would worry about that if and when it occurred.
In the meantime Hawke and Sugar had climbed onto the dock and then onto the quay where they saw Emily Reno, wearing a large brimmed hat, holding a whopping big elephant gun and with her finger to her lips, the international signal to keep quiet. They had been trying to keep quiet and didn’t feel they needed any woman in a big hat to tell them it was important.
Come with me she whispered and they moved away from the edge of the quay.
You may wonder who Ato is, well he was a random encounter that was selected at random. He’s obviously Emily Reno’s associate in some form or other, servant, assistant, boss, who knows but it can’t be coincidence that they were there together.
02:00 Hours
Wu on the jetty should be handing over sentry duty to the next man but he’s still sleeping soundly.
02:15 Hours
Kami is making her way towards the small warehouse where she and Tomori are due to engage in trysting.
02:30 Hours
Big Freddie and Donald are making their way to rescue Katie Monk and as they quietly pass the blue van they see Lola climb out of the back. She doesn’t notice them, probably because she has a lot on her mind. Lola and Chardonnet are the two good time gals I mentioned previously, Lola is in love with Billy Ryan, one of the potential guides, Chardonnet has tried to talk her out of it but Lola is going to try and rescue Billy from the tin hut that he’s imprisoned in.
She’s actually a random encounter but because the tin hut is about 6” away I made that up on the spot, pretty clever, eh!
02:30 Hours is also the time that Wu woke and the first thing his guilty conscience suggested was to check on the boat. He could see 4 figures covered in blankets, you and I can see that 2 of them are sacks to fool him into thinking Freddie and Donald are still asleep. He’s not the smartest scholar in the library and didn’t notice, but it was a close run thing.
02:45 Hours
He tells Xin that he’s been good to him by letting him sleep a little longer, Xin is quite gullible and believes it.
This is going to have a knock on effect because it means Xin won’t start to feel tired until 04:45 with the attendant possibility of falling asleep. Don’t forget it’s daylight at 06:00 and somehow Freddie and Donald have to be back on the boat unobserved by then.
Emily Reno and Hawke have moved away from the dock and are in deep discussion when there’s a hell of a hullabaloo.
Tomori has calmed things down between Bigboy and Dai, he’s on his way to catch up with Kami in the warehouse.
Unfortunately the warehouse owner has a guard dog and it rushes out of the warehouse intent on tearing Kami’s jugular out of her throat. It doesn’t intend to do this quietly. Barking at night when it’s quiet always sounds extremely loud, at least that’s my experience and I’ve had quite a bit of experience. Not as bad as an Italian or Greek disco but nothing is as bad as that.
Big Freddie is just about to turn the corner of the American Gangsters building when this happens and he stops in his tracks.
Badboy Devine was headed in that direction but reacts to the dog noise. He chooses to run back to guard the door to the American Gangsters warehouse and so saves Big Freddie having to explain why Donald is carrying an old man over his shoulder and why the old man is trussed like a turkey and it’s not even Thanksgiving.
03:00 Hours
Tomari arrives just in time to stop the dog tearing Kami’s throat out, well not really, the dog is on a chain and can’t quite reach her although it keeps trying.
By now everyone in the compound who was awake is aware of the noise and it also wakes up most of the ones who were asleep.
Even one of the gate guards comes to investigate.
Freddie slips past the guards into the market.
03:15 Hours
Tomori and Kami leave the dog, still barking and decide tonight is not their night.
In the distance you can just see Jonathon Hawke and Sugar making their way along the main street of Morts Landing towards Tomori, neither is aware of each other.
Having reached a satisfactory conclusion to their discussions with Hawke, the guide Emily Reno is making her way back to bed when she comes across Lola stood outside the Tin Hut gazing at the big padlock on the door. There’s no way she can break in and rescue Billy Ryan.
03:30 Hours
Gasper watches Chiyo the geisha/bodyguard start’s to pack up her fishing tackle with relief.
His part of the rescue plan is to release the lines on the boat and drift across to the quay where Chiyo has been fishing. This is so that when Big Freddie and Donald rescue Katie Monk they can drop down off the quay into the boat and make their escape.
Morts Landing is located on the tidal section of the river, the tide turns at 04:00, after then he can’t drift upstream but will have to start the engine and power upstream which is going to give the game away somewhat.
Freddie and Donald decide they need to hide the old man before they break into the Tongs HQ and rescue Katie, the back of this truck seems a reasonable place to do it.
03:45 Hours
Chiyo has gone, Gasper breathes a sigh of relief and is just about to free the lines when the dock guard walks down to the end of the jetty.
I can’t tell you how frustrated Gasper and I were when this happened.
Tomori is making his way back to Little Nippon hoping no one will discover he wasn’t at his post for most of the night.
Hawke and Sugar are slowly making their way towards the Opium Den, but I don’t think they have enough time to do that and get back to the dock and swim to their boat before daylight.
Chiyo and Kami are about to enter the Tong HQ, Dai is at his post by the door and Badboy Devine is similarly guarding the Gangsters warehouse.
03:45 Hours
Big Freddie has waited for Donald but in vain, he knows the tide turns at 04:00, Gasper will have the boat waiting by the cliff. The guard on the dock will soon be aware of this and raise the alarm. What to do?
What Freddie and I don’t know is who is where inside the house. I diced to see which door he’s going through, as you know if you were paying attention Chiyo and Kami are going to enter the building on the opposite side and through the door that backs onto the one with the face on it. So not the one he will enter.
I decided there would be 2 rooms inside the building and I will roll a dice to see who is in which room.
Freddie doesn’t know that the boat hasn’t moved or how long before Donald will reach him. It’s a bit of a quandary for the poor fellow.
To be continued......
Anyone, who got this far well done and thanks for reading and staying with it. For such a simple premise and scenario the game is going on and on, War and Peace ain't in it.
I know leaving comments isn't everyone's cup of tea but I'm really interested to know if anyone other that the two or three good people who do comment actually read this. A quick 'yes' will do.
Cheers
