Smash and Grab 2025-11-04 #1

The Iron Angels had already begun to mobilize in preparation for an attempt to seize control of Dread Burrow’s transportation tunnels when the request reached the Headlight Hall: the Brotherhood of Luminous Souls were on their way to occupy Fortune’s Pendulum (the local gambling den) and the owners, perhaps afraid of the Brotherhood’s enigmatic intentions, called on the Angels to defend their establishment. Tombstone Tyber’s pride would not allow him to refuse this call, and so the Angels rode out in force (aside from Ruckus, who had too many outstanding gambling debts to show his face there) to meet their rivals.

The Brotherhood might not be in the most amiable standing with House Delaque these days on account of their…unique motivations, but the House of Shadows’ tricks and methods would never be forgotten. And one crafty strategy often employed by House Delaque involved embedding themselves in the places where money most commonly changed hands. In this case, the rundown gambling den would serve their purposes nicely. But the foolish owners had declined their negotiations of new management and opted instead to ask the local Orlock gang for protection. And this would not do. Not at all. Calculating the reward to be worth the risk, Grand Illuminate Phorus called his Brotherhood to arms and traveled the shadows to seize this pit of iniquity by force.

The Brotherhood of Luminous Souls entered the gambling den with a carefully-plotted strategy in mind; the Iron Angels with simple grit and determination. But in a place like that where fortunes were won and lost in the span of hours, the best-laid plans were frequently led astray by the fetters of fate. That day in Fortune’s Pendulum, after a fierce and claustrophobic shootout over the card tables, luck favored the Angels just a bit more than the Brotherhood.

Both gangs made an immediate push into the center of the den as an early salvo of suppressive boltgun fire by Tombstone Tyber kept the Brotherhood champion Enlightened Scypho from creating an opening for his brethren. The Angels' Arms Master Brickhouse, first into the central fray, was quickly felled by a burst of rounds dosed with psychic toxins by Phorus, though he would manage to sleep off the worst of the effects. Utilizing their Orlock-pattern jump boosters to swiftly take the walls, the Angels' duo of wreckers took advantage of their Arms Master's sacrifice to rain pistol shots down upon the Brotherhoods' heads. This in combination with Tyber's dominant firing position with his boltgun stalled the Delaque gang's forward momentum; regaining it would require both an opening from the Angels and a decisive reaction by the Brotherhood to seize that opening.

The opening appeared to present itself in the echoing click of an empty chamber in Tyber's boltgun. The Brotherhood's resident Nacht-Ghul, Obscurate Scylla, was ready to pounce and bolted across the den toward the Road Captain. Scylla, known across Dread Burrow as a deadly assassin, was intent on taking down the Angels' leader in his moment of vulnerability...but that chance turned out to be a mirage. As Scylla sprinted forward like a thrown dagger, Tombstone Tyber pulled a spare, single bolter round from within his coat, calmly loaded it directly into his gun's chamber and began to raise it once again. Knowing with certainty that the second it would take for him to aim for a kill shot would be the second needed to tear him to shreds, Tyber instead made his last round count by firing the explosive bolt into the metallic floor at the Nacht-Ghul's foot. A single slip-up during this reloading process would have spelt his doom, but fortune favored Tyber in that moment as blinding pain shot up the assassin's body and he tumbled to the ground, slipping into unconsciousness. As Phorus bore witness to the Road Captain loading a fresh magazine into his bolter in the wake of his trick, the psychic leader calculated that any further attempts to regain momentum would prove far too costly to his remaining brothers. Reluctantly, the Grand Illuminate made the call for his gang to slide back into the shadows and cede the den to the Iron Angels. 

The Orlock gang stood victorious and entered into an agreement with the owners of Fortune’s Pendulum to take a cut of their winnings (and forgiveness for Ruckus’ debts) in exchange for protection. But in defeat, a sliver of a blessing for the Brotherhood: aside from the nasty bolter wound to Scylla’s leg, their injuries were minimal, and serpent-headed Phorus had learned much about his allies and foes alike.