Episode 3 Summary

Note: due to downtimes, it was decided to start this session a few days later than planned.

December 15th
-In the early afternoon, Sam, Virgil and Ophelia are meeting at Smacky's for business and a few moments of relaxation. The town has mobilized greatly in the past few days.
-Meanwhile, Corwin, Dutch and Lorraine are discussing the steadily-arriving mercenaries. Dutch will be in charge of them.
-Both groups see a strange, solemn group enter town and proceed to the cemetery, where they leave offerings and prayers at the grave of William Newton--they're a group of pilgrims.
-Corwin is informed that the outpost has radioed that they're under attack. He sends the militia out to retake it.
-Dutch leads one group of scouts on horseback, Virgil another, and Captain Sheridan a third. They set out and surround the outpost while Eva marches the main force to the outpost.
-Half an hour before the main force arrives, the bandits attempt to withdraw and blow up the outpost tower. The scouts engage and manage to stop them.
-Back at town, with most of Newton's forces gone, a group of about thirty bandits on horseback attack the town and try to burn down warehouses. Corwin, Anders and Lorraine barely manage to drive them off. Corwin arms and organizes defenders, Anders mixes it up with the bandits in the warehouse district, and Lorraine leads the firefighting and manages to take out several bandits with a fallen grenade. Sam helps save the day with sniper fire from his roof. In the end, only one warehouse is badly damaged, only two defenders die, many bandits are dead, and the returning scouts manage to take prisoners. Anders and Corwin are both injured.
-An impromptu meeting of council is held in the church, which is being used as a hospital. The council members are concerned that the bandits are acting in a strange manner. They aren't stealing anything, and have nothing to gain from their attacks. Furthermore, no one can think of a faction that would profit from what they're doing. The three surrounding city-states currently have more to gain from Newton's existence than its destruction. They agree to continue to ramp up Newton's mobilization.
-Dutch and Corwin discuss setting up an intelligence network. Lorraine suggests using Ophelia.
-Dutch breaks the news of Chris Wall coming to visit to his wife. His wife is upset and does not want the mob to become a part of life again.
-Corwin meets with Ophelia and hires her to start collecting information for the town's exclusive use--no resale.
-Ophelia talks to the pilgrims. They are Edenists from the city of Laurel, and revere William Newton as a modern-day saint. They reveal that more pilgrims from Laurel are on the way.

We jump ahead several days:
December 20th
-More mercenaries and equipment are trickling in. So are more pilgrims.
-Dutch interrogates (with a baseball bat) a bandit prisoner named Jay that he and Corwin have been keeping hidden in the basement of the town hall. He names someone named Philo as the bandit leader. He says they move around a lot, and are well paid. Dutch plans to send him back to the bandits to spy for him.
-Chris Wall arrives. Dutch is unappy but shows him around town.
-Later that night at the council meeting, Lucius takes the floor and proposes to claim the outpost as part of the town of Newton, and use the land to pay mercenaries.
-Anders, Grissom and White vote against the proposal, concerned that Newton is getting ahead of itself. The other three vote in favor, and the assembly votes in favor and the proposal passes.
-Jeff Newton wakes up and is upset about what has happened while he was unconscious. "This is not what my father would have wanted."

The session ended on the evening of the 20th. The next will begin in the afternoon of the 21st.