Episode 7 Summary

March 18th
-We open on a town council meeting. New members are Thomas Newton, a banker and Jeff Newton's heir, and Lewis Bryant, a member of Bill Newton's original party that left over a disagreement, who bought out White's estates.
-Anders proposes the creation of a citizen registry, but it is tabled for the time being.
-Ophelia returns from her trip to establish a greater intelligence network on a caravan, and meets Virgil who has been contracted to escort said caravan. Business is drying up for Virgil.
-Bryant talks to Sam Newton as a fellow person who didn't get along with William Newton.
-Thomas gets Lorraine's support for exploiting Newton's status as an economic center. Lorraine is finding that there are fewer buyers than usual for her horses from the three city-states.
-Dutch gets an encrypted message. It turns out to be from Cottonwood, telling them that they've had cases of radiation sickness and discovered tainted water as the culprit, but have been told by Greer not to tell Newton.
-Corwin sends the militia to check the water. The creek water is fine, but water drawn from wells is found to be contaminated.

March 19th
-Dr. Solomon tells the council that outlying farms are the most affected through irrigation; only about 40 individuals are at risk as habitual drinkers of well water. Most of the new farms given out to mercenaries are affected. He warns that if the exposure has been going on for more than three weeks, a large part of Newton's crop will have to be destroyed.
-The council is concerned that this is intentional. They debate whether or not to inform the populace of the nature of the threat, but decide to do so.
-Temporary measures are set up at great expense to provide water to farms from the creek, including using Lorraine's horses to haul it.
-The council sends out summons for a geologist and a civil engineer to come out to Newton, also at great expense.

March 26th
-The radioactivity is decreasing steadily, but still above safe levels.
-The geologist arrives and sets out to survey to find the source of the radioactivity.
-The civil engineer sets out plans for aqueducts and deeper wells, but it will be expensive.

March 29th
-The geologist has found the source on Randolf Peak, a day's ride from Newton, but was turned back from closer inspection by the Greer army, which has set up camp in the area.
-Corwin proposes the use of diplomacy and, if needed, a covert operation.
-Greer, meanwhile, asks for a diplomatic meeting. It is conducted by video over the internet with Floyd Barrows, the diplomat from Greer.
-Barrows is evasive and claims not to know much, just that their expert teams are working on the problem. He says Greer's council may be willing to reveal information if Newton allows investigators to investigate if Newton was involved with the contamination of the water.
-The council decides to send secret operatives to find out what has happened. The council agrees to fund a team Corwin creates under the guise of approving funding for a new reservoir.
-Corwin gets Dutch to assemble and lead a team to investigate. He also gets Ophelia to join the team.
-Dutch hires Virgil and his band for the rest of the team.
-Dutch says goodbye to his wife, who is upset that Dutch is putting himself in danger.

March 31st
-The team arrives and sets up camp.
-They approach the camp and find that a perimeter has been set up around a large tent which people in anti-radiation suits are going in and out of.
-The infiltration turns sour and a firefight errupts, but no one from Newton is identified and the team manages to make it look like a bandit attack. Meanwhile, Dutch uses the distraction to don a suit and enter the tent.
-Dutch finds that the site is an old Department of Energy dump site for radioactive waste. He collects evidence showing that an underground river had eroded through part of the site, but that someone had cut a barrel open and dumped it into the water. Greer did not cause the contamination, but someone did, and Greer was hiding the facts. The evidence also indicates that the dumping took place around March 10th, so the crop will not have to be destroyed.

April 2nd
-The team makes it back to Newton and delivers the evidence.

April 3rd
-The council discusses the documents. They decide to release the information anonymously to all three city-states. Corwin has Ophelia do so through her network.

April 7th
-With the information leaked, Cody and Laurel have condemned Greer for hiding the information. Newton joins them in condemnation. Greer apologizes, but pledges to bring justice to the perpetrators of the contamination. A collaborative effort between the three city-states to clean up the site and relocate the waste begins.
-Virgil, now much richer after the covert operation and having enjoyed it more than he's enjoyed his work for months, considers turning to the mercenary business.
-Ophelia continues to spread propaganda against Greer.

Next session will pick up on April 12th.

Anders Downtime Episode 6

Duty Report, First Week of February, 2074

Not much to report this week. The new Eastern patrol seems to be settling into their routine, though they still need to figure out the difference between "minor conflict" and "good shindig." Also, thinking that that kid... Parris, I think his name was, needs to have his gun taken away for the week.

Hell, I don't even recognize my whole staff any more, let alone half the folks we're supposed to be serving and protecting. I hate to do it, but I might have to ask the council to start documenting folks, making a record of everyone in town, and establishing a basis for "Newton Citizenship." Otherwise, there's no telling where my jurisdiction ends and the militia's begins. Well, that's something for another day.

One final thing to report - One of the deputies brought in a pamphlet for something called "Citizens for an Equitable Newton." Mostly garbage, railing against the Council, and pretty much all nonsensical, but I felt like it should be noted.

Sam Downtime Episode 6

Ya know, the people of this town never seem to astound me. A man picks up a gun, rides around the woods for a bit, suddenly he's a model citizen. Heh. Buncha damned fools. Still, seems to me that 'model citizens' don't get their businesses looked at too closely, so score one for me.

Of course, it'd also help if business weren't so damned slow. Nobody needs a gun if there ain't nobody to shoot at. If we don't get ourselves into a war soon, I may have to go legitimate. Bleh. Well, best thing at this point seems to be to keep on the lookout for some new avenues for my particular breed of commerce.

Dutch Downtime Episode 6

It's been a quiet couple of months, thank God. With the bandit problem gone or near-gone, the business of managing shipments and protection for Corwin is now astoundingly easy. Spending a lot of time sitting on my hands, and worrying.

It's only a matter of time, though. The Shadows will be wondering why Chris stopped reporting back, and sooner or later whoever they've got playing boss will start wanting questions answered. Plus, I'm pretty sure that Chris will have sent back info about the town, especially regarding the lack of any 'ruling faction'.

I don't know how many they've got any more, but I'm thinking that beating Chris to death was a bad move. Get the feeling I'm going to have to deal with them, one way or another, and I'm thinking that there are those in town who, left with nothing better to do, might welcome an... organization like the Shadows.

Character Recap, Ep. 6

Lorraine is noticing a slow, but steady dip in sales between Newton and the other three city-states. As such, while Lorraine is in favor of expanding Newton, trade is her main priority and she does not want to jeopardize that by pushing the city-states away. As such, she has been conducting diplomatic correspondence with officials from all foreign parties. Nothing too overt, merely putting out feelers for who would be in favor of Newton's expansion and what she would need to do to placate those who want to keep Newton under wraps. I will note that Lorraine intends to play the piper's tune as well as she can, but pluck her strings one too many times and she'll break. (Don't tell me that a piper's instrument doesn't have any strings.)

-------

With the bandits dispersed, Eva (feeling that her job may be in jeopardy) has converted the militia into a standing army. The bandits may be gone, but tensions are running high all around and it's in Newton's best interest to be prepared at all times. She has enlisted 50 men to work in the militia year-round. Some of them have their own land and families, some live and eat in the barracks of Fort Newton. A few have lived in Newton for years, but most are mercenaries. As soon as the last snows melted, she began in-depth training including firearms, artillery, tactics, and drills. She has also contracted to have an outpost built on the western path going out of Newton. While not complete, the outpost's construction is well under way.

------

Ophelia is realizing the price of working for Corwin. Being out in the field again has made her constraints clear. She is anxious to have her independence again, but she is not quite willing to give up her new source of income. As such her only option is to make Corwin dependent on her information network so much so that he doesn't have a choice. She won't betray him, strictly speaking, but she doesn't maintain any delusions of undying loyalty either. In her time out on the streets, she has found that her contact in Greer has gone missing with not a trace left behind. Thankfully she has managed to secure several other sources. As to how trustworthy those sources may be is questionable.

Corwin Gray, Ep.6 Downtime

Corwin started of his meeting with Gus White directly, as he always did.

"Lucius is going to buy the Parks estate when it goes up for auction tomorrow."

"I'm not surprised. He's asked me about it once or twice."

"Even if he buys it, he can't be allowed to take a seat on the council."

White raised an eyebrow and took a sip of his brandy. Corwin always set the best for his guests. "Now I am slightly surprised. I'd always suspect that you had a hand in his actions."

Corwin chucked and took a sip of his own brandy. "Very briefly, it's true. During the time I did work with him, however, I became certain that his instability and frankly blinding lust for power undercut his usefulness."

"You're definitely not alone in thinking that. I assume you have a suggestion?"

Corwin took a deep breath before saying, "Yes. I think you should retire."

White coughed. "Excuse me?"

"You'll be out of the council anyway. Jeffery Newton's will explicitly states that his property can't be broken up, so regardless of who Abrams decides is actually going to be the beneficiary they're going to have more land than you. So if you take your retirement now and sell off most of your land, you'll have a generous nest egg, not have to worry about management, and someone else will take your place on the council."

White pursed his lips and sighed. "I'd hoped that it wouldn't come to this. I mean, I've enjoyed being a part of making Newton what it is."He looked distinctly resigned. "As long as I'm out, I suppose, I might as well keep that sniveling bastard from enjoying it. The only problem is that since the town's boundary's just opened up, there's land for the taking for just about anyone. Values have never been lower. Anything I own outside of the central town area is going to sell for a substantial loss."

Corwin nodded. "That would be true, but fortunately, I've received word of someone coming in to town whose desires are going to far exceed the little plot of land we're giving to veterans. An old friend, actually, and he'll pay market price for any land he can get."

"Who?"

"Lewis Bryant. Remember him?"

White cradled his head in his hands and sighed. "Good thing Bill's dead."

"Why do you think he's coming back? It's water under the bridge, anyway; I would gamble not a dozen people in town can even tell you what their feud was about. Regardless, it's not like Bill exiled him or anything; they just went their separate ways. It'd be a good sign of reconciliation if it was him you sold land to."

"Maybe, but do we want him on the council any more than Lucius? Better the evil you know; after all, nobody's really spoken to Bryant outside occasional correspondence in something like 15 years."

"I think he'd make a good addition to the council. His disagreement with Bill was one of concience, remember, not passion. Some level-headedness in power would do the town good."

White shook his head. "All right. If you think it's a good idea I'll look into it. I can't promise any more than that, of course..."

"Not that I would expect you to. And if you need any help, just let me know."

Lucius Lessard-Newton, Ep.6 Downtime

Lucius felt his vision narrow and his heartbeat pound in his chest. His hands shaking ever so slightly, he put down the report his lieutenant had handed him and tried to breathe deeply.

"Who's responsible for this?"

His lieutenant licked his lips, refusing to make eye contact. "Well, Mr. White's obviously responsible directly, but it looks as if certain other members of the council have taken a set against you."

Lucius felt like shouting, but bit his tongue until he could respond with more dignity. "That's not very helpful, St. Croix."

"Um, well, sorry, sir. What I mean to say is, the rumor is that Mr. Gray and Mr. White discussed the matter after a council meeting a few weeks ago, and that he's been helping White shop around for a suitable buyer for his land."

Rejected! A personal insult! And after all he'd done for the town! Wasn't his support of the militia sufficient? And certainly his campaign against Jeffery had been popular on the council. And he's even conspired amiably with Corwin during that man's shot at power. And now, rather than proper thanks, a knife in the back from each of them.

It was a good thing that he had already purchased his insurance. Now, as it turned out, he might want to buy a larger policy.

"And who, St. Croix, has Mr. White found? It's not in this report."

"As near as I can find, his name is Lewis Bryant."

Virgil Church, Ep. 6 Downtime

Virgil penciled in the last few columns in his ledger and pushed it away from him, not bothering to look at the bottom line. He knew what it would say, anyway. Being a town hero in the aftermath of a bandit uprising buoyed his group along for a few months, but people were starting to get back to reality. There was no way another group of bandits was going to spontaneously rise up. Even the old camps that had little to do with Philo had been effectively disbanded by Newton's campaign and its aftermath. Caravans weren't being attacked at all, or only by very small numbers. In short, there was no reason to pay for a group of heavily armed, highly skilled escorts like Virgil's band.

For now, costs were being met, but each week brought fewer and fewer customers, and Virgil's expenses had increased. 15 men, rather than 12, each with the best equipment and horses he could find, were expensive to keep happy. Fact was, unless business improved measurably in the next month to a month and a half at most, he was going to have to cut back just as he was expanding. Virgil had never styled himself a soldier, but his days as an irregular were looking rosier than ever in afterthought.

Good thing he'd sprung Philo from the Fort.

Philo Questioning Transcript

Q: Your name for the record, please.
Philo: Philo.
Q: Given name?
Philo: Just call me Philo.
Q: Is that an alias?
Philo: One of many. I find it's not prudent to get tied down to a name. My real name wouldn't do you any good anyway. It's not me you're interested in, it's my employer.
Q: Very well. Who is your employer?
Philo: Damned if I know.
Q: You do understand that you could be executed for banditry under Newton law? To say nothing of attempted assassination of the Administrator and his son. Answering these questions is the only thing that might save you.
Philo: I'm acutely aware of my situation, thank you, and I'm willing to give you as much information as I have. However, my employer kept me at a very long arm's length. Blind drops, intermediaries, the works. Presumably in case of this exact situation.
Q: Fine. Then, why did you launch attacks against Newton?
Philo: Because I was being paid well to do so. It's the sort of thing I do for a living.
Q: I mean, what was your employer's reaason for doing so?
Philo: As far as that goes, I can only speculate. But I can tell you that we were instructed to do what it took to get your town to mobilize as it has done.
Q: That was the only purpose to the attacks?
Philo: That and to scare people off if possible, but that didn't seem to materialize. Think about it. If we wanted to destroy the town or kill all its residents, we would have launched a decisive attack right from the beginning if we had half a brain, not waited for you to get mobilized.
Q: What about the arson attack?
Philo: Just to strike at a target that would get your hackles up. We were under orders not to damage the town too badly.
Q: Why not?
Philo: Again, I can only speculate. But it's not hard to see that there's two likely possibilities. Either someone in Newton wanted an excuse for Newton to build an army and expand, or someone outside of Newton wanted to turn Newton into a threat.
Q: Into a threat?
Philo: Once you had built up some troops, we were told to attack small towns around Newton to try to get them to come to you for aid. I gather the city-states that those towns belong to aren't too happy about that.
Q: What about the mortar attack?
Philo: As for that, I was told that Newton was going to be expecting a big mortar attack. We got sent a few mortars and a bunch of decoys. We were to fire a few shells and then pull out of the area entirely. I would guess so that you guys went nuts trying to track us down before we could strike again. But you tracked us down and nabbed our spy in town. And then you nabbed me. And now you know what I know.
Q: That's all?
Philo: That's all. I'm just a businessman. Someone offered me enough money to come out here and harass this town, and so I did. You've been calling us bandits, but we're mercenaries, same as you hired yourself. Of course, the bandits around here thought we were bandits. It seemed to intimidate them a fair amount, to say nothing of the intimidating power of your new army. I believe most of the smaller groups that didn't join up with have left the area.
Q: Thank you for your answers. We will decide what to do with you.

Episode 6 Summary

January 2nd
-In the early morning, Dutch and his small group are keeping up surveillance on the bandit camp. They now count 50 bandits.
-The council decides to launch an artillery attack followed by infantry. Jeff Newton is absent--he has been sitting by his (still comatose) son, Andrew Newton, at Fort Newton, and has not been observed to eat for some time.
-As preparation for the attack begins at Fort Newton, the bandits hastily strike camp, hand out mortars, and split into several groups.
-Dutch and co. run for it as the artillery fires.
-Virgil's band rides out and investigates the remains of the camp. He finds that they took weapons with them but left a lot of supplies behind.
-Ophelia gets her intelligence reports; her Greer contact does not send one.
-Dutch and Virgil set out to track down the bandits and manage to find two groups of them setting up for a mortar attack. Meanwhile, in town, Ophelia attempts to root out a bandit spy who is trying to cause chaos in town and fails, but Eva steps up and manages to find him.
-Dutch and Virgil take out the bandit groups, taking some of them prisoner and forcing them to talk on the radio like everything's fine. They find only a few mortars but lots of lengths of lead pipe the same size as mortars, and only a few mortar shells.
-Virgil finally announces that the gig is up as they manage to triangulate the bandit leader's position just a mile out of town.
-Philo, the bandit leader, tries to escape. Virgil, Dutch and Eva ride after him. Philo tries hiding and tries escaping down a slope where horses can't follow, but our heroes catch him and take him into town as a prisoner.
-The town celebrates and rewards and commendations are given all around.
-The council questions Philo. (See next post for details.)
-Anders delivers notice to Lucius that the Parks estate is up for auction. Lucius tries to figure out if he will have enough land to be on the council.
-Sam Newton gains a little bit of a better reputation in town, despite only having served for about 24 hours. He also helps himself to wheelbarrow loads of spoils of war.
-Eva settles down to spend some quality time with her family.
-Ophelia is rewarded for her work. Corwin now asks her to travel to the neighboring city-states, especially Greer, to establish a more firm intelligence presence for Newton.
-Virgil visits Philo in jail with a bottle of wine. He tells Philo that his fight against him was just business, not personal. Philo says the same, and Virgil expresses interest in doing business with Philo should he get out of jail alive.
-The next day, in the middle of a council meeting, Dr. Solomon shows up with urgent news. Andrew Newton has died, and Jeff Newton has hung himself.

The next session will jump ahead several months, to the spring.

Collective Downtime, Ep.6

All of my character's plots are kind of in limbo right now, so I figured that I'd just briefly recap their current objectives.

Corwin wants to expand the town of Newton. Corwin doesn't specifically want to increase his personal power per se, although he is quite jealous of the power he already has and views any increase as a desirable side effect. Really, Corwin has invested himself in Newton so thoroughly that he views the town as his personal responsibility, one he owes to Bill, and it flatters his ego to see the town do well. Especially if it's under his direction. He is quite convinced he knows what's best and won't hesitate one bit to push his will on others. Thus, he may have somewhat altruistic goals, but he hasn't suddenly become an altruist.

Lucius, on the other hand, wants the town to expand as well, but it's for a more personal gain. He wants to be on the Council, or to lead it. He wants to be important. He's so convinced that he needs to be on the Council he hasn't yet come up with a firm plan regarding what he'd do if he got there. As the last episode showed, he's completely willing to break the law, but he is not entirely evil - he doesn't want to kill or ruin unnecessarily.

Virgil wants to make money. He knows that he can only do that by protecting the trade of Newton, so he does want the town to expand, at least in principle. However, if the town expands too well and eliminates all of its threats, as it appears that they might do to the bandits, he would not be entirely opposed to creating a new one (such as with Cody or Greer?) in order to be paid to end it.

Episode 5 Summary

Dec. 31st
-A town council meeting is due to take place in an hour, the first with Jeff newton returned to his post.
-Ophelia gets information on Cody and Greer being upset at Newton, bandits (other than the big force) vanishing, and William Newton becoming a point of contention in Laurel.
-Dutch gets information from his inside man with the bandits; they're still moving around, but they're waiting for equipment.
-Ophelia gets urgent information as she's waiting to talk to Corwin that the bandits have purchased 30 mortars.
-Lucius leaves a meeting with Corwin as Dutch and Ophelia come in.
-Corwin is worried about someone behind the scenes pulling the bandits' strings-the intelligence corroborates this.
-Dutch prepares a new operation to search for the bandits.
-Corwin decides to declare the council meeting secret because of this intelligence. Lorraine agrees.
-At the meeting, Jeff becomes the administrator again.
-Corwin presents his new information. Jeffery challenges it because Corwin cannot confirm it or reveal his source; Jeff finds it very convenient that it would come up just as he's returning to office.
-After a tense argument between Corwin and Jeff, Jeff decides to act on the information.
-A general draft is proposed. Jeff is opposed, but is overruled and the draft is implemented.
-As the meeting breaks up, Jeff tells Anders that he believes that all that is happening is because someone is trying to push Newton to mobilize the way they have been.
-Commander Cervantes gets the order to institute the draft; decides to threaten seizure of property for dodgers.
-Lucius gets word from his informant that Jeff is planning to speak publically against the draft the next day.
-Lucius goes and talks to Anders, asking him to expedite the auction of Parks' seized land.
-That night, Anders finds that the sheriff station has been broken into and the evidence locker cleared out, including the explosives that had been stored there.

Jan 1st
-Anders talks to Jeff, warning him that he suspects an attack with the explosives; Jeff refuses to cancel his speech.
-Anders sends out his deputies to search for the explosives.
-The town is unhappy about the draft.
-Jeff makes his speech. Though he does not say anything too inflammatory or particularly make a call to action, he does attempt to drum up public support for himself.
-Lorraine, Sam and Lucius respond to his speech, and an impromptu debate starts. Jeff starts out defensive, but things turn ugly when he goes on the attack by paranoia-mongering, including revealing town secrets. Jeff is shamed when Sam declares that he's going to enlist in the militia, and the crowd turns on Jeff.
-Just as the debate ends, there is an explosion. Jeff Newton's temporary domicile has been blown up. Curiously, all the servants were absent.
-The council decides to oust Jeff as administrator (Jeff himself is absent), making him only a normal council member. They elect Lorraine in his place.
-They additionally vote to censure him, but to excuse him on account of the strain of his situation.
-The council agrees that in view of the threat of a mortar attack, the conflict with the bandits must be ended quickly.
-The meeting ends, but Corwin presents, off the record, the information from his sources, now that Jeff is no longer present.
-Lucius updates his ledger with the cost of half a dozen mercenaries, equipment, and heavy weapons.

Session ended late on Jan. 1st. Next session will most likely pick up late on the 2nd.