• Location: A partially sunken holding room inside J.W.'s fenced compound, lower slopes of the Atrana Mountains
• Type: Captivity · Escape · Psychological Pressure
• Era: Beta Age
• Tone: Confinement · uncertainty · mounting pressure · a narrow opportunity

Atmosphere & Sensory Cues: Warm, humid air · damp timber · old animal musk · muffled footsteps overhead · iron scraping against wood · distant machinery · voices falling silent whenever an armed Hand approaches

The wooden gate opens just far enough to admit your captors. Armed Hands push you through the entrance with Windstrike Rifles trained on your backs. Your weapons, packs and tools are gone. Rope bites into your wrists.

Beyond the palisade, drifting mist breaks the compound into fragments. Timber stacks rise beside tracks churned by heavy wagon wheels. Windowless huts line the southern wall. Pale workers stop and watch as you pass, but none of them approaches. An armed Hand orders them back to work, and their eyes immediately fall.

Farther inside stands a massive log house set on a heavy stone basement. It has no windows—only narrow viewing slots glowing with warm light. A broad chimney exhales grey smoke into the humid air, while thick salvaged pipes cross the outer walls.

Near the house, one of the Hands lifts a heavy wooden hatch reinforced with iron bands. Short steps descend to a low door beneath the ground. You are forced down, one after another.

The room beyond was built to contain something. Damp wooden planks line the walls. Deep scratches scar the timber near several iron rings, and heavy chains hang from them. A narrow viewing slit cuts through the reinforced door.

The Hands secure your restraints to the wall rings and leave. Outside, your confiscated equipment lands inside a wooden chest with a series of heavy thuds.

The door closes. The bolt slides into place.

Then the outer hatch falls shut, and the remaining daylight disappears.

The struggle ends beneath the weight of numbers. Armed Hands tear away your weapons, packs and tools before binding your wrists behind your backs.

You are dragged through the warm mist. Timber stacks and machinery pass in broken silhouettes as the Hands lead you toward a heavy hatch set into the ground near the main house.

Short steps descend beneath it. At the bottom waits a reinforced wooden door.

The holding room beyond smells of damp timber, old fur and fear. Deep scratches scar its plank walls. Iron rings have been bolted into the wood, with heavy chains hanging from them. A narrow viewing slit admits a thin blade of light.

The Hands secure you to the wall rings. Your equipment is thrown into a chest somewhere outside.

The door closes. An iron bolt scrapes into place.

Footsteps retreat above you. Whether the compound has fallen quiet or remains on alert, you cannot yet tell.

Before beginning the scene, record the circumstances under which the PCs were captured. These circumstances determine what happens if they escape.

• Captured Outside: No general search is underway unless the events leading to capture already caused one.
• Captured During an Active Search: The Active Search continues while the PCs are imprisoned.
• Captured During the Full Alarm: The pneumatic Full Alarm remains active. Imprisonment does not reset it.
• Confiscated Equipment: Unless the preceding scene established another location, the PCs' weapons, packs and tools are stored in a locked chest in the small guard alcove immediately outside the holding room.
• Carried States: Preserve the Wagon State, Blues Disposition, injuries, missing equipment and any evidence already collected.

Blues Disposition: If the PCs already interacted with the Blues before being captured, retain the established disposition. Otherwise, begin with Uncertain. The Blues do not guard the holding room or routinely visit the prisoners. If the PCs deliberately attempt to communicate with workers while being moved through the compound, use the interaction described below.

• Uncertain: The Blues avoid involvement but do not report the PCs without a reason.
• Sympathetic: The PCs previously treated the workers respectfully or established that they oppose J.W. Sympathetic Blues may later overlook suspicious movement or misdirect a Hand.
• Alienated: The PCs threatened, attacked or treated the workers as enemies. Alienated Blues offer no assistance and avoid the PCs.

Blues Disposition determines how the workers regard the PCs. It does not turn them into guards, nor does it determine whether they may later resist J.W.'s Hands for their own reasons.

Captivity Rounds: One Captivity Round represents one meaningful group action: examining the room, listening outside, working on restraints, manipulating the door or preparing an ambush. Set the Escort Timer to 3. Reduce it by 1 after each Captivity Round. If the Full Alarm is already active, begin at 2 instead. Brief questions and discussion do not consume a round. When the timer reaches zero, resolve the arrival of the Hands.

Once the PCs leave the holding room, stop using Scene 6b. Do not repeat the compound locations or infiltration tables here. Transfer the relevant states to Scene 6a and continue from the indicated phase.

Use this phase only if the PCs wait, surrender or fail to escape before the Hands return. Keep the audience brief. It is a final pressure point, not a second investigation of the main house.

• Keep the Scene Narrow: Scene 6b concerns confinement, escape and the consequences of capture. Once the PCs leave the holding room, return to Scene 6a instead of describing the compound again.
• Hands Guard; Blues Work: Armed Hands capture, restrain, escort and pursue the PCs. The Blues may witness these events, but they are coerced workers rather than guards. Do not use them as a combat swarm.
• Preserve the Escalation State: Imprisonment does not erase what happened previously. An Active Search continues, and a Full Alarm remains active.
• Noise Does Not Trigger the Pneumatic Alarm: A forced door, gunshot, shouted warning or discovered empty cell begins an Active Search. The pneumatic Full Alarm remains governed by the pressure system established in Scene 6a.
• Equipment Matters: Record what the PCs recover before leaving. Missing weapons and tools should complicate the following scene without making escape impossible.
• Failure Should Create Pressure Before Finality: Give the PCs several clear opportunities: escape the restraints, manipulate the door, ambush the returning Hands, break away during the escort or act during the audience. Only the final failed transfer should threaten an irreversible campaign failure.
• Blues Assistance Remains Limited: A Sympathetic Blue may provide one discreet advantage, but cannot simply open the cell, return every weapon or escort the PCs safely through the compound. Open defiance would endanger the worker and attract the Hands. Carry the resulting Blues Disposition into Scene 6a or the following escape scene.

• ↑↑ Start: Hunting An Unknown Hunter
• ★ Overview: All Scenes of Hunting An Unknown Hunter
• ☞ Resolution: Case Resolution and Discoverable Backstory
• ← Possible Previous Scenes:
  • Scene 6a — In the Realm of the Hunter if the PCs were captured during infiltration or confrontation
  • Any preceding scene in which the PCs were captured and transported to J.W.'s compound
• → The outcome determines the next scene:
  • If the PCs escape before the Full Alarm: Return to Scene 6a — In the Realm of the Hunter with the appropriate escalation state.
  • If the PCs escape with J.W.: Proceed to Scene 6c — Escape With the Hunter.
  • If the PCs escape without J.W. during the Full Alarm: Proceed to Scene 6d — Escape Empty-Handed.
  • If every final breakout attempt fails: The mission and campaign may end in failure unless an established contingency intervenes.