• Location: Guest Rooms, First Floor · Saloon Gloria, Firetown
• Type: Social · Discovery · Blackmail Opportunity · Medium Risk
• Era: Beta Age
• Tone: Intimate · Muffled danger · Secrets behind thin walls
• Unlock Condition: PCs must already have access to a room* (via Mira Reis · Tamara Borg · or successful room booking in Scene 8b).

Atmosphere & Sensory Cues: Warm floor vents · thin walls · muffled moans · clatter of pipes · distant laughter from below · the smell of soap and Lumira-wood polish.

As you settle into your space for the night — bed, blanket, or sleeping bag — the sounds of the saloon drift upward through the boards: laughter, clinking glasses, a round of dice rolling somewhere below. Loud enough to feel alive, muffled enough to rest.

From the room on your left, a radio voice booms through the thin walls — someone clearly hard of hearing. A Weber Broadcasting Service program plays at full volume, a narrator reading poetry in a slow, steady cadence… “…and the hope we had was just that, hope — for what we wished for was never possible, for everything rests not on hope, but on stone, flesh, and blood.

Between that loud recital on one side and the distant bar noise below, the hallway feels strangely private.

Then, from the room on your right, you hear a soft, rhythmic sound — breathless, intimate, the kind of muffled moans thin walls can’t hide. The wall vibrates gently with each movement.

But slowly, something shifts.The moans hitch. A voice — the woman’s — sharpens and cracks. “No… don’t—”

A short, sudden cry of pain. Then silence.

A heavy, terrible silence that drowns out everything — the radio, the laughter, even the hum of the geothermal pipes — leaving only the sense that whatever is happening next door has gone very, very wrong.

• Purpose of the Scene:

Give the PCs a decisive advantage for infiltrating the Trooper Station by witnessing Jace Laux commit accidental manslaughter and cover it up. This leverage bypasses several challenges in Scene 9.

• What the PCs Can Learn / Confirm:
  1. Laux killed a sex worker during rough intercourse.
  2. He panicked and called another Trooper for a covert cleanup.
  3. He tried to hide all traces.
  4. His identity is confirmed by badge, uniform shirt, and his Weber device call.
  5. Physical evidence (clutch, calendar, money, knife, chemical smell) proves this was an ongoing relationship — not a random encounter.

• What Makes the Evidence Powerful:
  1. Verbal confession (over Weber).
  2. Visual confirmation (PCs see him).
  3. Physical evidence that can’t be explained away.
  4. Pattern of meetings (calendar entries) proving long-term involvement.
  5. Chemical smell implying a deliberate, hidden body disposal.

• How to Play Jace Laux:
  1. Panicked, ashamed, terrified of exposure.
  2. Aggressively defensive at first (“She tried to blackmail me!”).
  3. Quickly becomes submissive once he understands the PCs can destroy him.
  4. More afraid of the Cartel than of internal investigation — use this in dialogue.

• Negotiation Dynamics (GM Mindset): PCs have total upper hand. Laux is desperate and wants one thing: “Make this go away.”

• What the Leverage Can Get the PCs:
  1. Access to restricted hallways.
  2. A forged “medical transfer” request.
  3. A temporary blind spot in surveillance or patrol.
  4. Laux personally escorting them to Cell 1 (rare but possible).
  5. Removal of the guard posted near the Nameless Man.
  6. Reduced hostility from Troopers (“Laux said you’re cleared.”).

• Tone to Maintain:
  1. Quiet, claustrophobic tension.
  2. Morally grey — nobody is heroic here.
  3. The PCs feel the weight of what they witnessed.
  4. Firetown’s darkness feels *very real* behind the saloon’s warm facade.

• If PCs escalate poorly:
  1. Laux may attack in blind panic.
  2. Backup Troopers may return sooner than expected.
  3. Laux may try to turn the accusation around (“They killed her!”).
  4. The cleanup Trooper might notice unfamiliar voices and suspect witnesses.

• If PCs walk away without investigating:
  1. They will still hear the Weber call and cleanup.
  2. But they miss the physical evidence → blackmail becomes weaker.
  3. Laux in Scene 9 is nervous but not panicked; DCs for intimidation rise.

Short version:

• ↑↑ Start: Adventure Hub — The Man Without a Name
• ← Previous Scene: Scene 8b — Saloon Gloria