Lime

The Swallowports stud the Dislinear Curve upon the hubward edge of Troika. Where each leads is a closely guarded secret of the centipede-like Tlixnean within. From the walls they scuttle to caress, handle and guide Golden Barges laden down with goods illicit and intense requirements for secrecy - the Swallowports impregnable.

Once a month the Unbroken Dawn docks with Swallowport 8, the hull filled with off-grey powder. Upon the deck, watching the crew, are 7 Enforcers with their cut-down fusils. Their leader, Kammani, has tattoos of serpents crawling up her neck. They bear their fangs when Kammani hides her anger. She does not know where her wife has gone, and will never look for her.

The Tlixnean guide the vessel deep beneath the city, where the powder is offloaded and sold to students at the local magically inclined campuses. They have taken to calling it Lime. The college administrators, usually unperturbed by the habits of their customers students, are concerned at the number of magical incidents linked to users of Lime - clean-up runs expensive. Additionally, the families of students are noticing more requests for money.

Parachuted, snorted or gummed, Lime is largely inert in non-spellcasters, giving only a mild depressive effect. Magic-users, however, feel any magic deeply and tangibly - as if molding a physical material rather than moving with the abstract currents of the Universe. This approach is easier, and riskier, than traditional methods: those taking Lime add +2 to their Skill for casting, but cause an Oops! if either (or both) dice roll a 6. Having only been on the streets for 6 months, the long term effects are not general knowledge.

Street dealers purchase their Lime from a six-tentacled tree-octopus, Slmiloomis, who is directly employed by Eilbroon. Slmiloomis moves through the subterranean sections of Troika with ease, dragging a high-powered shoulder-mounted fusil-cannon. They are terrified of heights and refuse to explain how they lost two of their tentacles, their skin turning black-purple when asked. Slmiloomis only delivers Lime in dead-drops, using local homeless to deliver parcels. They are paid well to not look in the packages, not to ask questions and not to talk to anyone about the work. Slmiloomis loves them like a parent - until something goes wrong. Every Friday, Slmiloomis delivers 90% of the profit to the Wellington estate.

The operation is financed by Eilbroon. Formed by the abortive consumption of a tomb-robber by a lobster-like construct from deep within the Hollowed Rocks, they use the huge wealth of their Lime empire to research what has happened to them, and if it can be reversed. Any threat to this, either directly or financially, is dealt with ruthlessly. They lair in a manor near the Downgate Arches, coerced from Ambleth Wellington, a would-be Public Investigator. Eilbroon collected reams of compromising material, and promised silence for the use of his ancestral home. Ambleth lurks in shame in one of the micro-spheres orbiting Troika proper. There are always 8 Enforcers in the home, although Eilbroon prefers violence to be done far away - or at least quietly. They have the money to hire assassins after playing nice with visitors.

Lime is mined in what appears to be a lifeless sphere of barren stone. In truth, it is the fossilised bones of a floral species, their minds distributed and shared amongst their root systems. As Lime is used, some of these roots are reconstituted in the users brain. After 6 months of continuous usage, the roots will develop enough for some of this mind to return. It will subtly explore the psyche of their host, learning to nudge them towards its own goals - the consumption and spreading of more Lime. Once enough are infested, they will charter a Golden Barge and plant themselves in some distant sphere to flower, cracking the skull and feeding upon the buried bodies of their hosts.

Those mining the Lime are the stranded crew left from shipwrecks and failed smuggling operations. They are nominally paying off a debt to leave this nameless sphere. Eilbroon has no intention of letting any leave alive - occasionally a troublemaker is ‘allowed’ to leave, killed aboard the Unbroken Dawn and their body left to drift in the warm nothing of the void.

The first roots are beginning to take hold. In two months, enough will be infested for the Great Migration to begin.

The Street Dealers

• Elmer Hodge, an aging man described as a ‘tweed elemental’. He sells in the many, many pubs frequented by students. Always asking people if they have any pipe tobacco. Mostly likes this as a way to meet people.
• Chiara Perla, a student at a satellite campus of the College of Friends, selling Lime between lectures to (barely) afford tuition.
• GRUND!, a Thinking Engine who is thinking about making some serious cash. Always on their grind, seeing as they do not require sleep or food.
• Feyza, low on prospects but high on ambition. Wants to replace Slmiloomis, but unsure how best to do it.
• Rahmat, a failed Wizard Hunter. He really, really doesn’t want to talk about it.

Stats

Enforcers
Skill 6
Stamina 8
Initiative 2
Armour 0
Damage as Weapon (Fusil)

Slmiloomis
Skill 7
Stamina 13
Initiative 3
Armour 1
Damage as Fusil+1

Eilbroon
Skill 10
Stamina 22
Initiative 4
Armour 3
Damage as Gigantic Beast

Points of Entry

• Hired by a concerned family, worried that their child has been acting strangely recently.
• Hired by a consortium of mage-colleges to stop the Lime epidemic.
• Hired by a cartel to break up Eilbroon’s Lime Empire.
• Hired by Ambleth Wellington to destroy the compromising material Eilbroon holds.
• Hired by Susanna, Kammani’s wife, to break her out of the criminal life.
• Start play earlier, and have a spellcasting character use Lime.