Welcome to the Hard Knock sorority podcast, a Shadowrun 4th Edition actual
play podcast. My name is Paul and I am your host in GM. Player characters are
given voice and agency by Veronica playing Cecile, aka College Girl, a literal college
girl who finds herself abruptly entangled with the sixth world's shadows.
Elizabeth playing Grace, aka Nightingale, a literal pony on a quixotic
self-imposed research expedition to the sixth world. Valerie playing Ollie, aka
Boxer, ex-merc and literal catwoman, now applies the shadows and search for redemption.
And finally, Cap playing D'Andrea, an elven ex-cop who was in search of her
brother in Seattle and is literally prettier than an ELF has any right to be.
Follow along as we muddle our way through the Shadowrun 4th Edition rules.
Please feel free to contact us on the Hard Knock sorority website.
Yeah, I do want to ask, so Cecile's money is all gone, correct?
You have no way of checking it.
This is true.
Bye, money.
Yeah, so I hope you spent it all. I hope you didn't keep a bit in reserve.
You can't do that before you.
Of course Cecile would. I just didn't track it.
In universe, Cecile has lost a fair amount of money.
Of course Cecile.
Yeah, she's lost a lot, not just money.
She's lost her future.
That's okay. She can now have a life of crime.
Life in the shadow.
No, she's still a sinner. She's just also actively being hunted.
Yay.
All right, so Grid Guide enters, you know, drives out through,
it's a good 40 minute drive from where you're at in Auburn to your safe house in Fuyolup.
And Fuyolup is very close to an active volcano.
So where Auburn is an industrial blue collar place that is dirty and grimy from industry.
And Fuyolup is a industrial part of town that is dirty and grimy from a thick layer of soot and ash from the volcano.
It's a place where that same soot and ash pretty much covers everything, gets into everything,
and it basically makes everything fairly unpleasant.
Your friend's contacts are better be worth this.
You know how hard it is to wash the stuff out of my fur?
It takes a long time.
You get that guess.
So you get to your, where is your, describe your safe house?
What am I doing?
Right. It's pretty spartan.
The only things that are like even close, the only things that are above just being like absolute crap are the security and the necessities.
The neighborhood is kind of a dump, a squatter is what I have at Westats, and the comforts, entertainment are bad.
It's kind of just like, I imagine it's like something, some place that got abandoned or it has just cheap rent.
Nobody wants it because it's in the middle of a fucking industrial wasteland with a volcano nearby.
And it's like run down and whatnot. So she bought it on the cheap.
So I want to clarify, we were going into the Barrens?
No, no, no.
Not the Barrens, you're in the, in Puyallupdo.
Okay. So it's just a minor hellscape.
It's a hellscape due to nature rather than a hellscape due to man.
But an improvement. It's all natural suffering.
So yeah, you enter Puyallup and of course Cecil, you've never been there. And I don't know if Gray says either, but you know, as you drive through Auburn, the industrial blue collar type stuff falls away.
It's still very industrial, but now you're seeing it's everything's just a very gray, even more so covered in sudden ash.
Everything's dirty and grimy. People look downtrodden, more downtrodden than Auburn and dirty and grimy.
It's definitely a place that you wouldn't go to normally.
And the van pulls up in front of what looks like a small apartment building that's, you know,
Cecil would say this place should have been condemned years ago and torn down and it stops.
And, well, I guess Boxer gets out and you guys are there. You're at the destination.
Cecil hesitantly leaves the vehicle.
You're almost instantly feel like you're covered in a layer of greasy soot.
And Cecil starts coughing. See why I wear this thing now?
Does it have running water? Yes, you can take a shower.
This is one thing I'm not willing to give up not with all this.
Grace, you get out and you are instantly covered in a noxious, greasy, soot and ash that's getting into your fur.
All right, let's get inside. Cecil runs inside.
The good guy, even though it's unmanned, seems to peel out of there with some alacrity as well.
The dog brain said I'm out of here.
Grace, well, I imagine she doesn't quite want to put it all on the sidewalk with it being as messy as it is.
But she eventually does.
Boxer is going to leave as soon as she gets out.
Big push cat lighting.
Yeah, and she's going to hand the stuff over to Boxer.
I imagine while she's doing this at a certain point, as she keeps switching back and forth from Boxer to the stuff in the car,
like maybe the second time she turns, Boxer notices that Nightingale is bleeding from the nose.
It's very distinct because her blood is, it glows this strange neon red color.
But she doesn't even react to it at first and then eventually she hands off the last thing the Boxer and gets down,
awkwardly wipes it her nose with her cardio magic, I assume.
I think it's more just air quality.
I think oxygen too.
So, I think it's more just air quality.
Good insight.
The air is purified.
But this peos gets out to you.
Grace closes the door.
So this is immediately goes into the bathroom and locks the door if she can.
She can.
Yeah, I don't think she can.
You're lucky there's a door.
I think there's a place that's very spacious.
I don't think you're even a little bit more worried about going into the bathroom than you are standing in this sort of dingy,
drab main room that appears to be sort of an efficiency apartment with a kitchen,
eating dining area combined with a living area.
I think the place has a single bedroom.
Sofa, a Trids Green, it's very sparsely furnished.
There's a bunch of ash on the floor now, but...
Yeah, it gets through the ventilation system.
You can't help it.
This seal still goes into the bathroom and closes the door.
You get the impression she's going to be a vile.
No, just done.
It's not going to take any physical damage.
Yeah, you're feeling exhausted.
It's been a long morning.
So we're probably about two in the afternoon at this point.
You know what I feel like.
And I think I feel like utter shit.
What's that?
How many of those stupid stunbots or whatever did I take?
Three.
Okay.
Now, now.
Yeah, I was going to say I drank three.
Oh, no, no.
She feels like shit.
The shadow of the publicers came to censor her.
But Nwedengal, she as they come in and she looks at the bit of suit that's gathered on the floor.
She says, uh, you have a broom.
She gestures towards a corner vaguely.
There's some stuff stuffed over in there.
Ollie, she just collapsed, right?
As soon as she was in.
Yeah, pretty much.
She's on the couch.
She looks like she's about to crash.
Grace takes the broom.
And she begins to sweep.
Out of curiosity, would you say that a broom counts as a device for the purposes of analyzing stuff?
So you can't get broom proficiency.
Damn it.
This is so terrible.
But she knows how to sweep and she's going to gather it up into a neat little pile and then use the broom and plus her psychokinesis to scoop it up.
And I don't know where I should put it.
She'll say that out loud.
I don't know where I should put this.
It's in the kitchen.
Grace, sloths off into the kitchen and dumps it out.
No, I'm still here.
I'm going to go back to that.
Grace, you get a text message on your calm from Miss Magnum foot.
Question mark.
Tree emoji.
Oh, yes, I call it.
Where are you?
Hi.
Okay, so change, change of plans. I'm not coming home tonight and the human is not coming with me whenever I do come home, which will probably be tomorrow the day after.
And you find trouble.
I had found trouble earlier in the day.
But the reason why there's a change of plans is not because of trouble.
In fact, this is probably the safest situation for pines.
Well, you can let me know if you need help.
I will thank you.
I really appreciate you.
You send.
She hangs up.
All right.
So box, you're out on the sofa.
Cecil is retreated to the bathroom.
And grace is standing somewhat aimlessly in the kitchen area.
Food.
Food is any food in the cabinets. She's going to open all the cabinets.
Oh my God.
Every single one of them. God.
At the same time, just, oh, look, don't touch the rations.
Don't touch the rations.
I was going to make something.
But you see those MREs.
Do you even know what an MRE is?
Good.
Yes.
Those are emergency food.
We have something in the fridge.
To cook for us.
What is
the most costly ornamental food?
And
for Ali and I suppose she's going to try and make some.
OK, OK. So the water that's coming out is probably like colored, right?
Yep. Yeah. And it smells.
You hear a scream from the bathroom.
The horror is starting to.
That was a reaction to the water.
And the real steel is starting to become aware of the horrors.
No, just just to make sure nightingale is going to class
clairvoyance and just peek into the bathroom real quick.
But that would be I don't even know how the range works.
That would be a let's just cast a force of four.
Wait, why didn't I do it?
No, did it do it?
Well, how are you getting into the bathroom?
Oh, you can look through walls with clairvoyance.
How? Yes, it's because the the the the the camera.
It moves.
It moves within the range of your body.
I was going to say that like you can move it.
Let's look at it.
You you see and you cast clairvoyance somewhere and then you can cast
move clairvoyance somewhere else that it can see.
But if like you can't see where it's going, you can't move there.
That's how I was reading it.
It's within the sensory.
OK, it's within the sensory range of the spell.
That is how it works.
So, yeah, you can you can put it through walls.
I would be able to peek into the room.
Well, do you have any opinion about that?
Well, I'm just reading the spell right now.
The subject can see distant scenes as if physically present at a chosen point
within the sensory range of the spell.
The visual point may be moved to any other point within the range of the spell.
The subject cannot use normal vision or astral perception while using.
The spell does not translate sound only vision.
Any augmented visions possessed by the subject does not function through the spell,
nor does astral perception.
Magicians cannot use clairvoyance to target others with spells.
So I think it does sound like you can use it within range of the spell.
So she can see the door and it's within range.
She can basically look through it. OK.
So I could peek inside just to make sure what does the shower look like?
I assume it's a shower.
It's a pretty run down, a tattered,
you know, vinyl shower curtain on a rusted shower rod.
Just sort of a hose pipe sticking out of the wall.
Right. It is like a thing to to seal, you know, like a shower curtain.
Yeah, just a regular old dingy vinyl shower curtain hanging off of the.
Sealed definitely has that pulled.
So she's trying to take a shower.
Yes. Of course she is getting.
She's realizing that the only thing that's going to come out of the shower head
here is some nasty smelly greasy water that doesn't seem to be getting hot either.
Let's see, a bus and bother then.
She's probably starting to put her clothes back on.
All right. So it's up to you guys.
Do you want to just say we're going to rest here for the night
and get back your your stun track?
Or is there other things that you want to do during this time period?
I would that would probably be wise.
I have some questions for Cecile, but I don't think she'll answer any of them.
Well, we can ask. I mean, does Cecile imagine that once Cecile realizes
that the shower is not going to work the way she wants it to?
She comes back out.
Correct. Grace has prepared a small mill for Ali
with with liberal use of flavor packets
so that it's not terrible as well as some water to drink.
And she she offers it up to Ali, who is she sprawled out on the couch right now.
She she take it greatly.
Thank you.
Yeah, you're welcome.
Hey, Cecile, we have waters in the fridge.
If you want one.
Is there somewhere Cecile can lie down that doesn't look too grimy?
Yes, I mean, it's clean.
The interior, as Box said, the interior of the
the apartments generally clean.
Nothing's really grimy, except for the fact that, you know,
you filter every now and then you get a little bit of puff of ash
or so and the waters nasty.
Cecile lies down somewhere and occasionally coughs really badly.
I don't know. Is there a couch?
Is she lying on the floor?
Boxers on the couch.
Is there a bed?
There's a bed.
Cecile takes the bed.
So is Cecile basically just having difficulty
processing the situation?
Yeah, nightingale at some point
coves and loiterers at the doorway and looks at Cecile.
And I imagine there's a there's a moment where Cecile looks back at her
and they just stare and then nightingale backs off.
He's going to go make some all talk with Boxer, but that's probably what we're going to do for tonight.
So the night is uneventful, so we can everybody can regain their
stun. I think you gain a full stun since you ate and you rested.
Yeah, pretty much.
Oh, well, no.
What about physical?
Physical is going to be a little bit more challenging unless you have Boxer has
a med kit if necessary and she has medical training.
And of course, there's magic with the pony.
Um, no, it's still the only one of physical I could heal her.
No, you can't heal the magic.
So that would be kind of broken.
No, I don't think you can.
Do you have to rest it off then?
You have to rest it. Yep.
Oh, oh, yeah. Ouch.
Oof, bone hurting juice.
Well, yeah, they're done.
I should mention, to see only this point looks a little pale.
Physical damage cannot be healed through rest.
If the character is if the character has stun damage, the stun damage must be healed first.
Oh, geez.
Can we not have magic?
You they she need like and how long does it take to heal physical damage again?
God, like six hours.
That's pretty fast.
Yeah. So.
So stun damage, make a body plus will power,
extended test, the character must rest for an entire hour for it to count.
Each hit heals one box of stun damage.
Oh, can we refresh her edge?
Uh, no.
Oof, OK.
So go ahead and make that test.
Yep. Or so each hit heals one box of stun.
Oh, so I got rid of the stun.
Yep. And then for physical, it's a body body times two extended test for a day.
So that's a whole day.
So you guys, you guys are resting from 2 p.m.
It'll be from 2 p.m. till 2 p.m.
The next day to to do your physical damage and each hit again, heals one box of physical.
If they can, well, I suppose I didn't catch the test I need to make.
Body times two.
Cool. No.
How? No, no hits.
Yeah, Cecil is sick.
Yeah, obviously the the the the magnitude of the situation
and the physical environment are not conducive to to for resting and healing.
But we'll say boxer and nightingale, whatever stun you had,
you you heal up over the next 24 hours.
Or Cecil.
Yeah, so, you know, at this point, it's sort of up to you guys
and, you know, how you what your plans are.
Boxers probably regretting to some extent her.
Her, you know, need to be a good deeds vigilante.
She's gotten roped into a situation that's both dangerous
and potentially expensive with little outlook on recompense.
Cecil's obviously had her whole world crashed down
and nightingale is probably a little bit perplexed as to the situation too,
because like, how did we get into this?
How did we get here?
But so, you know, it's up to you guys.
How do you want to proceed?
Do you want to the seal is going to nag boxer to take her to a stopper?
Shack or something and to get a an RFID tag eraser?
Is a tag eraser something you get a stutter shack?
Is it restricted at all?
Let's look.
Let me check.
I can just look on Chummer.
Tag eraser is no, you cannot.
Yeah, I didn't think so.
It's a six F.
Oh, wow.
Okay.
I should also mention we should probably I need to ask,
does Cecil have like a tracking RFID thing on her?
Not that you know of.
Okay.
With her calmly.
Her calmly probably does not.
You probably have an ID badge or something and it's probably was in the bag
that Alice took from you.
In that case, Cecil is going to boot up her calm link in hidden mode.
Okay.
Yeah, it's you've got all sorts of messages, text messages from your roommate.
From your girlfriend.
Did we have a name for your girlfriend?
Yes, Lexine.
Yeah.
So you've got messages from Lexine.
You've got messages from your father.
From what was his name?
Well, the, the, the rigor that you had called.
Yeah.
Well, you'll check the Krill sex message first.
It's basically just, you know, everything okay.
You'll text backs an emoji of a thumbs up.
Okay.
Probably with like explosions going on in the background because you know,
yeah, the messages from Lexine are basically similar to what you got from.
You know, where are you?
Are you okay? What happened? You know, people came by.
We're asking about your, the messages from your father are a little bit more
dry and distant, you know, telling you that you should get your life in order.
And, you know, that things are falling that you've let things go fall apart
and you should basically go back to the, to the authorities and everything
would get cleared up.
Seal response to Lexine and her roommate,
but doesn't respond to her dad left on red.
Okay.
Left on red. And so you ask boxer to take you to a stuffer shack.
Correct.
Yeah.
Fine. Come on.
Are you taking grace with you?
No, grace.
Unless she's asking to come.
I suppose I'll stay.
I guess alone.
Nothing to do.
Consider a restful.
Yeah. The stuffer shacks in, in Puyallup or just as grimy and run down as
everything else.
Boxers coming. She's worried that it's a seal.
Get mucked.
Actually, before Cecil leaves at some point,
you will cast.
Let's see.
I want to cast fast.
I want to cast fashion on her blouse to fix it.
Cast that at light.
Sure.
Only two.
I don't, I don't need any more stunt to burn off before.
You know, actually,
you're just starting to feel better.
Well, less tired at least.
Okay.
While they are gone.
Nightingale is going to take some,
what she feels to be.
Artistic pictures with her, her camera.
One through the kitchen window.
And she's also going to set up a pillow fort.
With the.
Rods and whatnot.
Boxers house.
And one of the corn.
Safe house.
Are there like.
Boxes of noodles and stuff.
There are non perishable.
Yes.
Okay.
Cecil in store buys like.
She, she knows where she's going.
She gets like,
those noodle boxes with like a seasoning and sauce and stuff.
Firstly, she gets like.
The spicy.
Spicy ass chili powder and those like black boxes.
You know, the, the noodles that have like the black packaging that
say super spicy and shit.
You get like four of those.
Okay.
That's sort of when you realize that you have no.
No, no, no, no.
You have no credit.
You have no new year in your account anymore.
You gas mask.
What's your name.
Call me a boxer.
Box.
Lovely.
You cover this.
How much.
It'd be more than like 15.
Yeah.
It's just a couple of new year and you just,
it's just soy.
Soy noodles and stuff.
Soy and incredibly spicy.
Capsaic.
Actually, it's not even, it's not even that you have no new year.
It's that you have no account.
Yeah.
No.
Oh,
Seal would have had money except that she lost her back.
Yeah.
Oh,
All right.
She pays.
I mean, you could always use your calm.
I'm sure.
Well, no, it was attached to the, um, it was a credit stick.
Yeah.
So you've got nothing.
No, wait, she, she pays for it.
Trying to figure out what credits are.
She has, she has 350.
I guess you could argue that it's included in the lifestyle costs.
Cause the safe house it has its own.
It's not in substantial.
Yeah.
It's part of your lifestyle class.
You have to take.
All right.
Seal probably also buys a bit more bottled water.
No complaints from boxer.
Oh,
Yeah.
I imagine you guys are using it probably to wash since the,
the tap water is so, so greasy and junky.
Yeah.
But when you get back to the, uh,
When you get back to the apartment,
you see that grace has built some kind of pillow fort.
Tent fort.
Indeed she has it's a,
it combines.
It's taken over.
Um, like a, like a good quarter,
a little bit more than a good quarter of the, uh,
a,
a swimming room.
And it's, it's the, the, the blankets,
probably including some that had been like in a closet or something.
Uh, from the bed and also like the, uh,
hard.
Colour part that would normally be used for the tent.
She's, uh,
down there with a little sphere of obviously magical light.
Hovering over her shoulder,
bussing and nose in her grim wire.
She looks up whenever they two,
the two of them enter.
Related.
Hey, cats too.
How are you doing?
Back then.
Uh, you're going to burn through it.
Well, at least I burned through it on all the stuff I got.
Guns.
So people just have more money.
Oh, trust me.
You will burn through more of it than you think.
Well, if you buy wear anyway.
Oh yeah.
It's expensive, but very cool.
Anyhow.
So at this point we consider Cecil successfully rescued.
Um,
the three of you are in a safe house in Puyalu.
Um, the seal doesn't.
No, Cecil doesn't.
Um,
you all get two points of karma.
Oh, funny man points.
Two points of karma and no new young.
Yay.
Can I make a role to see if Cecil machine finds it an abandoned
cred stick on the side of the road.
Okay.
Uh, let's go for a threshold of four hits on a intuition and.
Well, what's perception, just do a perception test.
Perception.
Perfect.
No, perfect enough.
Yeah.
I mean, the.
There's a lot of garbage on the roads, just trash and everything's
just gritty and grimy and then black with soot and runoff.
Um,
the people are very poor and you can tell that anything of any
value has been picked over and scavenged.
Cool.
How much downtime, let me put it this way, a couple of options.
So obviously we could, you could hide out and take some downtime.
I mean, so steel still has physical damage.
Yep.
And she's probably not used to that.
She's presumably rather inclined to rest.
So we can, we can, you know, speed through the healing part of it and
just say, you know, whatever happens next, you know, whether it's
a couple of days of downtime, you heal your, your physical damage and
you take care of any role playing, you know, house cleaning type things
that you want to do for your character in this situation.
Um, you can actively attempt to pursue, um, clearing up what,
what's happened or, or.
Seal. Yeah. Actually, I do want to make a data search test.
For Cecil.
Let's look.
Oh geez, I didn't have upgrade update the sheet to include her data
search.
Did not a foolish of me.
That a search for plus, let's see, over plus four.
So she'll be rolling eight dice.
I got this wrong last time.
She'll search the entire matrix.
It's only a minute. So I don't know how many times you want me to roll.
She's not in any hurry.
All right. So data search.
So you're searching just for yourself.
Yeah, just anything that she hasn't seen before. Yeah.
According to the search table.
So general knowledge to public would be has a threshold of six.
Limited interest or not publicized 12. Yeah. It basically goes up.
Let's say she searches for half an hour. That seems reasonable.
Okay.
So that would be 240 dice.
I can lower it to 15 minutes if that makes you feel better.
Uh, let's see if you get six or 12. How many hits you get on 240 dice?
If I bought hits, it would be 60.
Okay. Well, we can just do that. We don't need to roll them all.
Thank you. It'll automatically count them.
Yes.
So you're finding basically anything that's on the public net.
Yeah. Or if there's something that's like on a hidden note or some,
not a hidden note,
but like she would get the indication that there's something on this note.
She just doesn't know what it is. I think that's how it works.
It's like you can know that there's something on a node,
but not what it is. If it's not public.
It says some information is protected and kept secret stored in the node that
is not accessible from the matrix. Correct.
And so cannot be found without accessing the node on which the data is hidden.
Because unlike 5e, not everything is entirely wireless.
You can have offline things.
My God. No. Not in this day and age.
Yeah. So with 60 hits, you're finding, you know,
a lot of public information stuff, you know,
all of all or any of your social media type stuff is out there.
It all seems fairly intact and benign. You're not seeing any,
you know, like all points bulletins or wanted or you're not seeing any
requests for information out there.
You do know, notice that you don't seem to be listed as a student at
Washington U anymore. You don't seem to be none of the,
none of your information is showing up related to Washington U or the,
the, the Evo program that you were on.
Interesting. Let's see.
I want to get those data searches out of the way.
Hmm. Hmm.
There's some other, there's looks like there's some other,
you're seeing traces of other searches that are coming out of,
out of some specific areas of downtown Seattle and Bellevue about you.
You're seeing logs and searches of various cameras that are accessible to the,
that are accessible publicly.
Obviously somebody is actively searching for you.
Interesting. Hmm.
I suppose the next thing would be,
I'm going to spend like five minutes of 40 dives,
I'm just searching for anything about that shootout on the highway to see if it got
picked up somewhere.
Okay. You want to just buy hits on that too?
I got 16.
Okay. Yeah. The incident in downtown was, was definitely picked up.
It got, last night it got some play on some of the local news networks.
And it's described as an attempted kidnapping.
And that security, local security forces thwarted the kidnapping and it basically just shows a,
an aerial image of the, the white Mitsubishi night sky with the cloud of smoke around it.
Oh geez. Okay. Hmm. Interesting.
Okay. That's all for now.
Yeah. I mean, it looks like probably somebody has gone to an effort to squash this being,
whatever happened yesterday from making a lot of noise.
So some of the, some of the stuff's been erased, some of it's been downplayed, some of it, you know,
like the newscast is sort of a subterfuge where they're, they're twisting it around to make it sound like,
you know, some terrorist or some shadow runners or somebody tried to kidnap somebody and it was, it failed.
Big victory for Night Errant.
Of course.
Yeah, no, can't think of anything else to search right now.
All right. In that case, how long are you guys planning like Boxer and Nightingale?
How long are you planning on staying at the safe house?
I imagine you have other obligations and things that you need to do.
Well, Nightingale, at least currently, she doesn't really do the whole planning thing.
Life, it's a, it's a day to day thing, you know.
In fact, the, like hell, the job would probably have been something she planned, she would plan for it,
but I kind of just dropped into her lap, taking in her own pace, learning things about the world.
Basically taking this as an opportunity to sort of learn about Puyalupe and go out and invisible and check out the area.
Well, I don't know, she's going to go out with the atmosphere being what it is.
Most people wear, you know, some kind of mask or breather.
Yeah.
And Boxer, you have a part-time job at a community.
Yeah, it's 10 hours a week.
So, it could be that the owner, you know, Fred gives you a call though at some point,
and asks you to come in for a couple of hours.
Yeah, she'd go for it.
And when she comes back, she's coming, she's going to stop by her place, her actual place, grab some fun toys.
Well, I wanted to mention, Cecilia is definitely browsing like MagicNet, probably has like friends on there or something.
Okay.
It's like a social network for mages.
Yeah.
Okay.
So, it's an Auburn, it's at Fred's store.
You don't know how Fred is.
Oh, actually, you do. You mentioned him before.
Fred, yeah.
Fred, the story with Fred and Itra hasn't happened yet.
No.
Technically, if it's part of the canon that hasn't happened yet, if it's not part of the canon, then it won't happen.
Then it happened in an alternative universe.
Not at all.
What color are your eyes?
So, you're definitely a notable, some thing, some character that people would notice or take note of.
Yeah.
So, in the next couple of days, as you know, as things are settling down and Cecilia settling down and getting into these searches and Boxer sort of gets a call from Fred.
And he just, as usually, just sort of calls you up and says, hey, Boxer, could you, you think you could come in for a couple of hours this afternoon?
Yeah, I can do this.
Okay, great.
Itra's got a thing at school I got to go attend to.
So, appreciate you covering the store for a couple of hours.
It won't be more than three at the most.
Yeah, no worries.
Go see your daughter and make you proud.
All right, you've got the, you've got the door codes.
Yes, I'll be over then.
Yeah, so you grab a grid guide.
Okay, so you grab a good guy. It's about, it's about a 45 minute drive actually over to Fred's place.
And let's say it's, it's about three days since the roost you've rescued Cecilia.
And it's in the afternoon stores usually not super busy at this time of day.
So you notice when Kat, what's your character's name.
Oh, okay.
Okay, I guess it doesn't really matter since we don't know.
He just brings her up after I hang her up some eyebrow rays.
No, I don't say that through them.
I don't know how it'd be digital, but.
Yeah, so I imagine boxer hasn't seen somebody who looks quite like that ever. So that makes you think right there.
Make sure it's one other boxer as you're as you're sort of shaking your head wondering what that was all about you.
You get a calm call and you look at your calm and it's contact that you had saved as a downtown barista girl, which was Kirsten.
She because up.
Hey boxer.
Hello, I'm on the clock right now. What's up.
Oh, Mo called me said that he's asking about when you guys are going to come pick up your vehicles.
It's my computer.
You don't have a number gets a seal on that one.
If you believe it to be safe, if not, I can send you my computer is number.
I haven't heard anything.
Nobody said anything at that school so I don't know what's going on but Mo says that they need to get the vehicles out of the loading bay areas because they've got their shipments coming in.
I could get to my boycotts but I'll contact.
I'll get them out of your hair.
Okay, great.
How are things going?
Not going fine.
Just laying though.
Okay, well, let me know if you need anything.
Like I said, I owe you one.
All right, you make sure you keep safe for us.
She's gone already.
She quickly texts Nightingale to move her van, bring it to whatever she doesn't care.
And she brought to command through her car to her bike to go to the safe house.
What?
It's in storage currently.
It's inside of a building.
So if you tell it to move now, it's smart enough to not do that.
You have to actually swing by and pick it up.
It's not in a building.
It's just under an overhang.
It's basically a loading area but it's got a roof over it.
So the truck's pulling it out and right now they just need to get their shipments in.
In that case, the bike's moving itself and Nightingale has been texted.
Okay, yeah.
I don't know how I'm going to pick up my car.
I guess I could take a grid guide there.
But would it even be a good idea to try and store it in like, you know, what would Nightingale do?
So keeping it, I'm worried about keeping it in the La Pula.
I don't know.
I'm concerned about keeping it there because I don't want someone to break into it.
You know, trying to find money or things of value to sell or whatever.
I'm thinking I want to do business with one of my contacts anyway.
So being able to have my own wills would be helpful.
Which I would, while Boxer, once you text me this, I'm going to text back that, okay,
am considering buying some things will be on town.
What do with Cecil?
Question mark?
No.
Did my internet just die?
People are just quiet.
No, I can still, I heard you.
Sorry, hi, what's the term?
That thing where you lose focus.
Zoned out?
Yes, zoned out.
Yes, please.
Sorry.
You need me to repeat?
Nightingale, whenever Boxer texts through this says in response, I think that I'm going to do some business on town anyway.
I'll get my car.
What do with Cecil?
You can stay there.
I'm sure she won't do anything stupid.
Famous last words.
Totally.
Okay.
But like, oh, period.
Hey, period.
Yeah, he sends a smiley face.
And I guess I'll go ahead and call a grid guide for myself, even though I'm sure Nightingale, Grace hates it.
Like it's haunted.
Specifically.
No, she hates it mainly because it costs her new year.
It's haunted and it costs new year.
Objects should not act on their own.
The word on the on magic net or whatever it was called magic net, the word on magic net.
Didn't you have a do you have a handle on magic net other than Cecil?
No, it'd probably just be your name.
She's very basic.
Okay.
So the word on magic net is that there is some there is some talk on magic net and it seems like the word there is that you were caught stealing some proprietary information from the lab and are on the run.
Cecil is probably actively posting her defenses of herself.
Good.
Oh, geez.
All right, that's good.
Grace, she has been laying in bed and she's just like on the bed on the bed, which is noticeably missing some blankets and pillows now.
Grace steps into the doorway and she says, Hi, Cecil.
I'm going to be going to get my car and I'm going to do some business on town.
Are you going to be all right?
I can see your fingers are still fine.
Are they feeling better?
Oh, kiddo key.
You don't have my number.
Wait, it's fine.
Could you be using that?
Yes, I'm sure.
Are you sure it's fine?
As me leaving the house would be a perfect time.
I will be fine.
Come and snatch you.
She'll be fine.
Okay, well, the seal probably exchange your numbers.
Right. I will say Cecil is not dumb enough to have Evo be her like matrix provider and she doesn't. She could just turn it off if she needs.
I assume Grace leaves after the exchange matrix numbers.
Yes.
Hello.
Hey, sorry.
My headphones got unplugged for a second.
Um, but yeah, if she's if she's going to be staying, I'm going to call the grid guy.
As I said, and wait at the door for it.
I'm going to call the grid guy.
The grid guy comes, picks you up.
Where are you going?
All right.
Going to go get my van.
Step.
What does a step van even mean? Does that mean it's baby?
No.
I'm not sure what it means, but it doesn't mean baby van.
Um, yeah. So it's a little bit later in the afternoon.
The, uh, the club has opened up.
And, um, I guess we're going to call it the thorny troll.
Oh my goodness.
That's what a step van is.
Oh honey.
What are you going to do?
As long as it doesn't say free.
Oh my God.
It doesn't. I imagine, I imagine some color other than.
Better be.
That means I have a lot more storage space back there than I was thinking.
And there's not even like back seats.
It just has like a back room.
Okay.
Yeah.
Good. Huh.
But, uh, yeah.
The thorny troll is, uh, seems to be starting to get some activity around it.
Um, at this time of day.
So you pick up your van and you, you head out, you don't see Mo.
Okay.
I would, uh, I would use improved invisibility while I'm doing this.
Um, just cause I don't want to have another situation like that.
Mo was, uh,
Mo was, was nice. He, he didn't, he didn't freak out or anything.
But, uh, you know, don't need a repeat of that.
Um, I now.
Wanted to take the risk.
Once I get to somewhere that I can stop.
Yes.
Jake is the racist one.
Hey, I text him. Hey, Jake.
Exclamation point.
Long time ago here.
Uh, I want, I want gun.
Exclamation point.
Heck yeah.
I can get you guns.
What do you want?
Wait.
How are you going to use it?
Uh, I magic.
He sent.
Yeah.
He sends a sparkle.
And then like a, a GIF.
A GIF of like a, like a magician from a, a Tritio doing some.
Uh, like overly.
Jake is not.
Just her.
He sent you a poop emoji when you said magic.
What did he send me?
She, uh, she just sends a.
She sends a, like a, like a, like a tongue out of her G.
And she says, but yeah, that's how.
Uh, I specifically want a long rifle with a magnified scope.
It's my own preferably something I can, uh, remove.
And he sends your thumbs up and says, uh, do you know,
do you know what you're looking for?
Or something.
Uh, I haven't actually thought about it at length.
Um, I know that as I said, I want a full body rifle.
Uh, Picatinny rails.
Uh, and some kind of magnifying optic.
Variable maybe.
All right.
It takes you back.
It says, uh, you don't know exactly what you want.
Why don't you come over, uh, tonight and take a look at what we got.
And, uh, you can, uh, pick something out.
Just let me know before you get.
Do I know where exactly he works.
Or like what, where, where he, he like operates out from.
Located in Everett.
That's kind of far.
Actually not, not ever at snow homes.
Uh, what, what hours I'd ask.
Yes.
Snow.
It's up there.
It's about an hour's drive from, uh,
Walks or safe house.
I would ask him what hours he takes back hours are good after
sundown.
Yeah.
He's, he's a, he's a rancher, um, farmer, rancher.
He's a rancher.
And, uh, so that's where you're going to go.
Oh my goodness.
Let me, I need to look at the where, where would you find,
where can I find a list of like the, the rifles.
And, and for a, what book could that be?
What I look at the core.
And, or, um, what else we got?
It's our snow gun heaven.
There's a bunch of gun heaven.
There's gun heaven one, heaven two.
Gun.
Gun heaven three.
Go ahead.
Mill spec tech.
Oh my goodness.
The way of the samurai probably has guns.
So much shit for guns.
Euro war antiques has some interesting guns in it.
You could just pick a gun randomly.
Oh God.
What's she going to end up with?
Yeah.
This is her decision she should be making with like the
president con expert with her.
Jake probably has some stuff in stock,
but if it's not what you're looking for,
you'll probably have to take some time to get it for you.
And then you'll have to let the dog out.
He's crying and screaming,
picking up a fuss.
Unionizing.
Next, you know, be consorting with cats.
Hey,
I'll have you know, we are perfectly respectful workers who
would never unionize.
Never.
What was that?
Who would never unionize.
That's too prideful to unionize.
Everything else happens because they can negotiate for a higher
level of union.
They can't do that individually.
I think they think they're part of the union already.
They're born into the union.
This is true.
Now, you know who's really used.
Ravens.
They are.
You fuck with one of them.
You fuck with all of them.
It's true.
That way of saying it.
They literally impart knowledge of who you are to their
children.
I don't know who I am.
I'm not even.
I'm not even ironically.
Yes.
That's so fucking goofy.
The M23 looks looks interesting.
It also looks like it'd be fairly easy to get rid of that grip.
So I can actually see the trigger.
The M23.
Call the M23.
Ship down version of the M2.
Assault rifle like any accessories.
It's a good choice for those who have a very limited budget or
preferred a modified weapon.
So I'm not even sure who the safe house.
And wait for sundown.
Maybe text box or.
Out.
Yeah.
I mean about my plans.
Boxard, did you have the bike come back to Fred's place or Fred's
store so that you could.
Yes.
Write it back.
All right.
So.
We'll just say you guys are all back at the safe house.
Late afternoon.
When you get another call boxer from.
Your and she says, Hey boxer, you.
Do you guys have a.
Guys have time maybe on Saturday.
To meet somebody.
Possibly.
This depends on the capacity.
To attend.
I want to.
I've.
I've organized a meet with a.
With a fixer.
Got it.
I want to know the details.
I don't have the details yet.
But I can tell you the name of the.
The fixer.
I've worked.
For him before.
And I can tell you he's always.
Been straight with me.
He's not.
He's a fixer.
He's not a Mr. Johnson.
But actually for this job that.
That he wants to talk to you about he is going to be acting acting as the.
Mr. Johnson.
I can do this.
But.
Hey, but of course this is an occasion to discuss with the rest of.
Well, I guess I was just with.
Just with nothing.
Well, you guys talk and I'll get back to you.
I'll get back to you tomorrow.
With some details.
All right.
Thank you.
I do not mean to distract too much.
I am looking at.
And I saw that don't even look at.
That artwork.
It's so bad.
You.
Why.
Oh God.
The ergonomics.
Is that.
Why.
Why is that.
Why is the magazine.
It's like.
Oh.
God, that's.
It's like an M.C. Escher painting.
How does it even work?
It is the pistol version.
It is the pistol version of the popular.
Yes.
12 grenade launch.
Which ways the front and where's the back.
So the trigger.
The trigger is facing forward.
And the slide.
Why does it look like a Glock if it's a.
Glock is because if it's a grenade launcher, that means it would.
I know I was about to say why is there a slide there because.
Like, when did it use an airbrush.
Not to think about the shatter run gun artwork. Okay.
We don't.
Listen, I have talked about.
About the.
About the Fibuki. Okay.
The metal storm gun.
It's.
It's best to just not think too much about it.
You know, I think, I think I might actually tell Jake that.
I can't, I can't come over because I,
I don't have enough money is frowny face.
Because now that I'm looking at the, the, the actual costs.
Firearms.
I looked it up on the interwebs.
And I think gun is too expensive.
I'm sorry.
I'll have to hit you up another time.
I sent him a sparkle in return.
You and Jake are an odd couple.
Hey, you and Jake are an odd couple.
I'm sorry.
Change bed fellows.
We are.
And a human racist.
I don't know.
Seems like a reasonable pairing to me.
Specifically.
Specifically someone who's racist, racist.
And he doesn't like magic.
I've seen more dysfunctional relationships.
Yeah.
There may be a trid.
A trigger sitcom that has some kind of similar theme.
the the the mage and her race is sort of an archie bunker kind of thing.
Hmm. Hmm. It's very unfortunate that I do not have a gun.
It's funny because I was thinking, wait a minute, doesn't Grace already have a gun?
And then I remembered, oh no, that was the store thing.
It makes the timeline a little bit weird because I'm sure everyone is now imagining
Cecile constantly in like a houndstooth dress.
Yep. That's exactly how I think of Cecile.
I actually do have a gun. I have a Colt America. I just want a rifle.
But I cannot yet acquire a rifle. Very unfortunate. I do not have enough new yin.
Don't worry, Boxer's gonna be coming back with a bag of guns.
Not for you, unfortunately, but you can feel better knowing that there are a bunch of guns behind you.
Yes, every girl should feel comforted by the presence of cold hard American steel.
Okay, so wait, so what's what's the big idea?
Boxer's coming back to discuss a few job opportunities.
And also if a gun's, the gun turned on real.
Oh my goodness. You can't have them.
You can touch them. But only when they're unloaded, the safety on and you don't point them at anyone or anything you don't intend to destroy it.
I know how to handle guns. Okay, Ollie. Gosh, I am a professional.
Brown angry face.
Yeah, so you guys are all back at the safe house now.
Nightingale has returned to the pillow fort and marked down in her journal in big text bold, bolded and that she she pressed down really hard.
Guns expensive, like thousand expensive.
Much new yin.
She causes your book.
Many much new yin.
All right, so Boxer, you're going to tell the other guys about the job potential job offer or at least an introduction.
He's going to tell Nightingale about it as far as she's concerned.
Cecile is just a job.
Wow.
Until you're not getting paid for.
In fact, it's not going to run me.
She's not going to rope some college girl who she thinks is a competent little bit.
Be fair, she is magical.
Yeah, she already has magic.
Maybe she needs face. No, no, no, no.
Not happening.
I already know how to go.
But yeah, whenever boxer says something about a job, Nightingale like comes from the pillow fort, she emerges and she all her all her attention is on boxer.
No, just one of those ears pricked eyes forward job like one that actually pays another one of these.
Well, I suppose this is actually our payment being offered a job as a result of your friend's.
Hmm, that's working.
And so you'll hear this conversation.
I think you would have directed that Cecil.
Unless you guys are.
Yeah, okay.
So, yeah, she definitely heard it because department's not that big.
feels hiding in the bathroom.
No, not currently.
Are you sure?
That's really nice.
Really nice.
Yeah.
Yeah, your conversations on MagicNet are not
are not being as fruitful as you like.
It seems most people are convinced that you are the bad guy.
How frustrating.
Yeah.
What did you say, Boxer, about a job?
It's look,
Net and Ken and I may have some work.
The kind of work that is similar to what we did with you,
though the details are rather unclear.
It wasn't, well, honestly, I don't know what it is.
That's the whole point of meeting with the fixer.
They were going to assess us and determine
whether or not we are suitable for the use of the skills.
And then...
Fixer, like in those bad treat movies?
Yes, like in those bad treat movies.
Your friend is involved in a lot more than just messing around with mine.
I don't know anything about that, OK?
She has her business and I don't ask.
Indeed.
Well, her business is to be involving us.
So...
And that's me and my associate here, not you.
You're just...
You just...
Look.
You just stay here, all right?
Perfect.
Perfect. Stay here and do something.
Oh, what? Would you rather come with us, get shot at again?
I'm sure you just love that.
No, I'm waiting for you to throw a bill at me.
Huh. As if you could pay it.
Could it even scrounge up two million for food?
You know, maybe she could work out for debt.
Oh, I'm a visitor now.
Bye.
Work out a debt and do...
How I know about herself...
I said maybe.
And at this point, Nightingale has taken...
She's on her launches and she has taken to...
leaning back and forth as she speaks.
Tell us about herself.
She is a college student.
Maybe, just maybe.
A college student.
I've never...
I've never met one of those.
It means she doesn't have life skills.
Not here. I come from a college.
Well, I mean, I lived in a better house than this.
Is that true?
Yes. And do you know why you did?
You had did because mommy or daddy or something
paid your way to get into a fancy university
while the rest of us worked our asses off
with real jobs.
All you did was...
That's not even that rich.
Oh, yes. Not that rich.
You see what I mean?
She doesn't have skills.
All she has is a little bit of magical talent.
And what are we going to do with that, huh?
You ought to have that.
Look, she's just...
Why would we need to...
Why would...
Oh, I didn't say we were going to take her on a job.
I just said that I wanted to ask her some questions.
And you're going to...
Yeah, I can interview you.
No.
Thanks.
I saved your life.
You're welcome.
Anyway, what did you know about the job?
I hope it's not going to be as stressful
as what we had to do today.
Or not... I mean, not today.
Whenever we got her, they not tell you anything.
That's...
We even know how much we're going to pay you.
Be finding out.
Look, I've not taken the job.
This is us assessing the job.
And them assessing us.
This is like...
I don't know what you have, where you come from.
Did they look you over when you joined your commune?
See what you were good at to them and what you would have to do,
what they needed.
It's an assessment.
We assess them.
They assess us.
Oh, I had an assessment on my first day of magic school.
I know.
I get it.
I get it now.
But we don't have to accept them if they accept us.
We can choose to back out, right?
Wait.
But how does this work with me being...
She motions.
Like how...
If this is like a visual big time, we kind of need a dialogue treat.
We need to script that interaction.
And also, we need something that's not as attention-grabbing as...
Here is my friend from another world who is here to learn about our society.
But she also is a criminal.
We may have to go with you being a better critter.
And ideally, you...
You're seriously not having the interview online?
Online?
What would you do that?
Baby.
I think all these kind of stairs.
You can't ask me.
And a lot more stupid than I thought you would be.
Online can be observed.
And especially now.
Don't want that.
And in person, somebody can just look at you.
It's easier to detect unwanted observers in person than in those infernal black boxes that host the World Wide Web.
No, they're arms.
Are they spiders?
Oh goodness. Are they spiders?
No, it's a metaphor.
Well, there are spiders.
Oh, okay.
See, I was looking at you both like, really?
Look, it's etiquette.
It's etiquette to walk up to somebody and ask them to do crimes?
etiquette to not hide behind the screen.
And besides, they want to actually assess us.
Not assess what they look like behind the screen or a filter.
We aren't cyber criminals.
I do my work in the meet.
And she does magic also in the meet.
Right.
Which is why it's totally safe to walk up to somebody that you don't know who is a criminal.
Ask them if they'll let you do more crimes.
Oh, no, no. They want us to do crimes. They're offering and requesting.
Right. It's a very meaningful difference.
This quest is meaningful. They want something very much.
Right. Well, you have fun getting shot.
Meaning we have out.
Don't speak it. Do not talk like that.
That's unnecessary.
Have you shot his parts with the fun?
Oh, good. And adrenaline junkie.
No, no, this is not joking.
It's actually fun.
Don't let yourself get shot.
Oh, okay. Yes.
You see, all this looking extremely confused.
So the story is, yes, I'm a paracriter.
You are a useful paracriter.
Ideally, we will have you look like, not what you are.
You're quite distinct.
And yes, I'm aware of the irony of me saying that.
But I understand what you're saying. I am.
I look like an alien monstrosity.
You didn't look like a monstrosity.
Shouted at me many times.
Alien. You look too.
I don't know. I don't know how to explain it.
You just look like came out to Pocot too, know something.
Hmm. Okay.
Well, I could be a, I don't know what dog.
A magic dog.
With that work.
I will not barb them to cast my spells.
I refuse on principle.
But yeah, that sounds sounds good.
It'll work to me. Are we going?
How are we going to get there?
Well, you don't have a location yet.
Kirsten said that she would call you back.
I don't know.
The only thing she said that the meeting.
With the, with the fixer, Mr. Johnson would be on, on Saturday.
Kirsten has not gotten back with that information yet.
But now we get to decide whether or not we even want to bother.
Of course we don't know much yet, but.
But of the game.
Yeah. And what Kirsten said was that it was.
It was a good idea to get to the fixer.
Basically it's an introduction to the fixer.
And this particular fixer happens to also have a job.
So he'll be functioning as a Mr. Johnson as well. So.
It's basically an introduction for future work.
Yeah, I think.
It's probably.
Now it's like.
Right.
Or something.
Yeah, it's, it's been a couple of days now. So.
Yeah, we could say that.
That's that the meeting would be tomorrow.
Okay.
I'm going to, to text Miss Magnum foot as I have every night up to
this point and say, Hey,
I don't think that I'm actually going to be coming back to clients for
the longer.
Sorry.
I'm safe.
She texts you back and asks if she needs to take care of anything at
your house.
Many girls thinks about it.
Make sure that there's not bugs feasting on stuff down the road.
I don't know what they would be feasting on.
Oh, no.
I don't want to.
You're too young.
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