Years later, we have dusted this off to give it a second go, with spectacular results!
The PCs were:
Nanette the Blade, with grace and sword-binding.
Dr. Hughburt Starling, with necromancy and instincts.
They started high up on the balconies of a tall tower -- a highrise made of stone, except it's shaped like an enormous rib, and here hundreds of floors up it's curving to a point. They were in pursuit of The Brundlewasp, a person with the head of a wasp. It had torn its way through the apartments and tenants of the building. Unbeknownst to them, but soon to be knownst, Virk -- the 'owner' of The Brundlwasp -- was slinking up in their wake, trying to stay hidden.
Nanette tried to interrupt The Brundlewasp's ascent to the next-highest balcony, but failed. It sent her sprawling, went up, and stormed into the apartment above to continue its tear-assery. Dr Starling got a boost and intruded on the balcony; he was in the clear as long as he didn't draw attention to himself.
The apartment was nice, or would have been, but it's smashed to hell now and The Brundlewasp is in the dark somewhere tearing its tenant apart. Dr Starling sizes the situation and deduces that he'd have to lure The Brundlewasp out with bait. He jumps on the bed and makes a lot of racket. It works, of course. The Brundlewasp attacks him from darkness but he interrupts its attack by getting out of the way, confusing it for a minute. He's able to scoop it up in the bedsheets. Nanette conks it on the head while it's helpless and it curls up in a fetal position and sulks.
Dr Starling goes off to look for loot in the apartment and finds some treasure to examine later. Nanette stands over the wrapped up Brundlewasp. Virk comes into the apartment. Nanette tries to size him up but fails, inadvertantly giving away her own vulnerabilities -- her blood is still flowing freely from The Brundlewasp. Virk offers to buy back his Brundlewasp but our heros aren't having it -- they're fulfilling a promise to take it to Professor Grimwald (Doctor of Entemology and Sunspritology).
Later, our heros take an overcab -- a canister with seating for 12, except it has large bird wings and is steered telepathically by the conductor. They fly out to the Collegium Imperialis District to find Prof Grimwald. This district is characterized by spired jenga-type buildings jutting up at odd angles to each other, and everything looks both cutting edge 'for its time' but also incredibly dated these days. The professor is at The Focus, a big building with a telescope, and his orderlies take The Brundlewasp off our heroes' hands.
While there, they hear about Magpie Pollintwist (a seer/mountain witch who's always in the market for saps to do dirty work). They also get a look at, and detailed esoteric rundown about, the Starfish Nebula -- a distant space cloud where stars and blackholes are being born.
Later, they examined their treasure...
Dr Starling has enough to devote himself to pursuing his own hobbies and interests; he marked towards adding a new skill (it will be Wizardry).
Nanette the Blade had enough to lay the foundations of her estate. She bought a country parcel with vineyards, orchards, spice fields and a stream filled with fish and salamanders. Unfortunately, it's predated by a breeding pair of burnished jackals.
End of session. Was a really good game.
Notes
We played with the original playtest rules, not the 'Wicked New Direction' rules. Mostly because the playtests rules were all in one packet and I didn't want them flipping between 2 packets and getting confused. Also because I don't quite understand how the moves work in the Wicked packet (your wins, your losses, etc).
When a character wanted to boost himself up onto the balcony our monster had just ascended, I said he was likely 'intruding somewhere he wasn't expected to be'. I thought that was clever.
'Size Someone Up' says you can be sizing up 'something', not just a person, so we played it as reading a sitch. It was awkward, but not terrible.
Vincent's essay on improvising was very helpful. He mentions it in the GM section. I tried to add 'but' into as much as I possibly could.
One of the characters started with treasure, but it reads like it's treasure that's been examined already (it's some rare spices). Wasn't sure what to do with that. I told her she could have a +1 if she brought it into play somehow, which we promptly forgot about.