Begin personal log. Crow, Moondevil squad leader.
It was during the siege of the capital. The Moondevils
came screaming down out of orbit right on top
of the Virtue Love, annihilating it in a five
-pointed focused crossfire. Plasma streams and
railgun bolts screamed through the frame's light
armor before it could fully react. The crossfire
formation was reckless. and in most cases would
be a foolish choice for an engagement, leaving
our backs turned to Love's support squad, but
it served as an important countermeasure. Despite
our speed, despite the decisiveness of our attack,
our second -in -command, Wet Ear, was hijacked
by Love's pilot, his mind and his frame overridden
by some blend of psychic and technological influence.
As soon as he hesitated to check in, the four
of us remaining switched our focus to him. He
had barely raised his rifle by the time his frame
was disintegrated. After that, we lost one more
in our retreat from the starry eyes. Love Squad.
Two moon devils wiped out even with every advantage
in our favor. Three days after, when pushing
through the East City, we ran into Martyrdom.
Its pilot was Jessavieve Harkin, a hot -headed
ace who was notorious in the first years of the
conflict. When we clashed with her, piloting
Martyrdom, it was different. Her style had changed
entirely from the footage I had seen. I assumed
she couldn't handle whatever tech was fueling
martyrdom, and like a fool I led the Moon Devils
and our secondary squad, the Spines, into close
combat. The more we damaged martyrdom, the faster
and stronger it got. By the time it had wiped
out the Spines, I realized we couldn't afford
to play it safe. I ordered the Devils to go all
in. They were the best. Better than what I have
to work with now, and they were consumed by martyrdom's
last trick. A sudden and incredible act of self
-immolation. Now, five minutes out from dropping
onto the Virtue Duty, my only wonder is what
twist I will see next. And log. Hey, welcome
back to Claim to Cascade. Last time, the Dusklights
were sent on a mission with the prestigious Moondevils.
Their job? to clear out anti -air installments
on the outside of the clustrous city of Clearwater
Crater. Meanwhile, the Moon Devils are in the
center of that city, trying to kill the Virtue
Duty in a surprise attack. When we last left
off, you had just dropped out of your pilot's
ship, and loyal, you had been shot in your landing
thruster by an old enemy, a member of the Hyenas
called Eggwhite. Now, you're falling without
a way to stop. What do you do? I cannot resist
my thruster being hit by this. No, this is the
thing that is making this particularly risky.
The egg white knows you're here. The others don't,
but egg white does. Okay, I mean, if you don't
feel confident in your ability to do something,
Geist could probably grab, because his mech can
fly, so he could probably grab onto you and slow
your descent, but that would blunt his opening
moves in this fight. It would also make us a
much bigger target. Yes, that as well. What's
our thing that we will do if we have nothing
else? Let's see, let me look at vehicle gear.
If there's anything in here that would make me
not fall to my death. A grapple anchor tool.
That's one of my favorites. I gotta already use
that this mission. What am I gonna grapple onto
as I'm falling? The ship above me? This happens
right after I drop, right? Yeah, it was also,
like, the lots of physics, which would be bad
for a grapple unless you attached it to something
that was flying. Mm -hmm. You could attach it
to a geist. Just hear some panicked noises from
me, and then just, like, a very curt message
being, like, lost my thruster. Going to use my
grapple on you. Hold tight. Wait, what? Beep,
beep, beep, beep, beep, beep. Fuck! uh yeah did
you want to do a group action here or are we
splitting up i wanna i so hex i think is staying
to destroy the aa gun i think the rest of us
should move to engage and give him cover but
the question is so if we're too far away to engage
um i like i want to do a group action once we
can use our oh we can use synchronize for any
group action At this distance, I feel like we
could maneuver, and that would probably be the
best, just to try and close the distance. There's
no option here where you say, I just want to
wait until I hit the ground. You have to do something,
because there's threat. Do you guys want to group
maneuver? Sure. I mean, I'm not there, but...
Hex is not going to group maneuver. I mean, you're,
like, in the air. You can split off. Alright,
I'm dropping with y 'all, but I'm a little far.
Yeah, I feel like, because he's dropping on top
of the anti -air cannon, can he, like, can he
bombard as his, like, entry action if he's just,
like, kind of dropping? Because, like, I imagine
the idea is that we're dropping, like, here.
Like, we're close enough that he can just, like,
look down. Sure. I mean, yeah, if you want to
split off, that's fine. I'm cool with anything.
Doesn't my back laser fire pretty far? Yeah,
you've bombarded with it before. Yeah, because
I'm thinking that thing could shoot... I probably
don't even need to close the distance. I could
probably fire as I'm falling on these guys. He's
going to sit here and bombard. I think at that...
What's your... Ewan, what's Loyal's maneuver
score? I got two ticks on that. Okay, that's
pretty good. We can... We could still do a group
action. I don't think there's any downside in
it, and we're tied together, so it actually kind
of thematically makes sense that we would do
it. Do you want to? Yeah. We can do that. Joseph
will provide us a little covering fire, and Hex
will go for the cannon. Sure. Let's do it. Sweet.
Let's move out. So is it just you two doing the
group action, and the other two are doing individual
bombards? Okay. It's a two -person maneuver.
Swing me like a flail. Let's do that. You two,
Loyal and Geist, you're going to roll a maneuver.
Let's get in there. What's our positions? You
are at a risky standard. No modifier. That's
a really bad total. That's a really bad total.
I failed. Oh, dear. Oh, I think you go with the
best roll of the group, right? Yes, you're going
to get a partial success. Yay! Thank you, Loyal,
for saving me. And I think I take one stress
for my own failure, don't I? Yes, you do. It's
stressful. Yes, you very successfully avoid most
of the fire that is directed at you. I'm imagining
that, like... Geist is up, like, 30 feet from
me, and I'm just swinging madly underneath on
some weird umbilical cord. Fucking up my maneuvering.
We're like a weird bola, just made out of mechs
flying around in the sky right now. I would just
like to state also for the record that I have
failed yet another 3d6 roll. I'm collecting these.
Excellent work, sir. Excellent work. Imagine
you have a tally board on your wall. I can stop
this right now. I'm not happy about it. You starve
it into the paint directly. You were trying to
land farther up. We're trying to close. We're
trying to close with the green dot. We're basically
trying to get in battle range. Okay. I think
you definitely successfully do that. I think
Geist, while you are... almost within range.
One of the AA cannons just barely gets aligned
with you, and a big flat ground goes off by the
side of your frame. Peppering it with shrapnel.
You're just going to take the level 1 damage
scraped, but resist that or armor it out as you
please. I... Man, that's tricky as hell. I think
I haven't checked armor off yet, but I might
do so now for the first time. I got three load
to spend. That'll leave me with one. So yeah,
I'll check off armor for that. I can't take a
hit this early in the game. Joseph, are you trying
to land with Loyal still and Geist? Or are you
staying with Hex? I assume they'll need help
against the two frames, so I was going to join
them. Okay. Then let's have you roll your bombard,
it sounds like, if you're trying to shoot. What
are you trying to shoot at, in particular? I
wanted to shoot Eggwhite, because he's the one
who fired the missiles. Is that correct? He fired
a laser beam. Okay, yeah. I think it's like readying
a missile launcher. Yeah. I will get Eggwhite,
then. Bombard. Risky standard. It's a partial
success. It's partial. Partial success. I'll
always take a partial success. I will never be
mad. optional success we're going to you hit
cackle with the beam um sorry egg white egg white
egg white egg white egg white are we gonna meet
yolk no you're never gonna meet yolk you killed
yolk um fuck you stepped on him on accident um
you fire the beam you're on the consequences
you're gonna have reduced effect it kind of just
glances off of Eggwhite's armor. You still do
one tick to his clock, but he is still, you know,
kind of posed on top of the satellite dish, looking
down at you all from behind cover. I'm helping.
X. Let's go. X wants to go, you know, shoot the
cannon. Blow up this AA gun with your... Cannon
shooter. Yes. Am I close enough, or, like, should
I need to move? Your bombard distance. Hell yes.
Okay. I have that. We love to bombard here in
this squad. I don't actually, but you know, it'll
work out. Man, sometime we should bombard as
a group action. That would be cool as hell. We
hold hands and artillery will be great. Yeah!
You can battle if you want. You'll just have
less effect. I think battle's better then. Okay,
roll it. Alright. They're gonna be risky limited.
Six! Oh! Damn it! Oh, I guess it was a good thing.
It says green. There's green! Green is good.
You don't take any consequences, which is the
most important thing in a game like this. You
manage to hit around the AA gun with your mortar,
dealing some splash damage to it. Some fragments
get on it. You kill some of the crew that is
manning it. But it is not a significant amount
of damage. It is still operational. Also, I should
note... There's only a single AA gun clock. It's
six steps with two steps for each gun, basically.
Yeah, I assumed as much. Okay. We can't kill
the first one so hard that the other two die,
unfortunately. No, that'd be cool, though. That'd
be cool. What if they had, like, a fuel line
connecting them, you know? Yeah. This entire
critical military infrastructure is connected
with one long line of extremely explosive piping,
which is, like, the whole thing cooks up. Sorry,
George. Who designed this bullshit? Okay, so
you all touch down now at this point. You are
on top of the dam, the concrete area, and ahead
of you to the south is Cackle and Eggwhite, who
are there. There's also a number of smaller patrol
frames, ones that don't get clocks. They would
just die, but they are there. They're present.
And they are part of the Garrison Clock. What
do you all want to do next? I want to... Here's
the thing. It might be fun. So I guess I'm going
to ask Loyal. Do you want to do another group
action to fight these guys? And Joseph, do you
want to take part? Because, I mean, that's still
only, I think, one role if we all do it together.
So I think that it's better if we... I mean,
it could be better if we split up, but the consequences
will be less if we do it as a team. Or Geist
could just go sicko mode and try and take Cackle
out with his tow cable gambit. Which is one of
my favorite things to do. But I gotta consult
the squad on this. I want to try another group
action, because I think that'll give us better
chances at succeeding our roll. It will, but
we're basically consolidating three turns into
one roll, so the potential to fill these clocks
that we need filled is much less. Yeah. That's
the only thing. Yeah, yeah. So it's less efficient
to do group actions, but it's safer. It might
be better if we split up. If you think you can,
keep fucking shit up. We can do another one group
action with two people and then the other two
keep whittling it down just for safety. We could
do that. Sure. Loyal, what's your battle? One.
Do you want to take off a gun and battle with
me? Yes, I do. Let's battle together. A gun is
a directed energy weapon, which I'm saying is
my rifle. Do we gotta pick beam rifle? Sure.
I mean, it's directed energy. It directs energy,
man. It directs energy, bro. I mean, technically,
like, a bullet gun directs kinetic energy, if
you really think about it. Whatever, nerd. We
have to pick one target, though, so do we wanna
fuck up egg white, do we wanna fuck up cackle,
or do we wanna just, like, start attacking the
grunts that are standing around them with, like...
Personal. I want to shoot egg white because I
have a vendetta against. OK, I think we got to
pick the same one. So Geist is going to take
your lead and Geist is going to fly in close
and try and take him out with his his punch hands.
Cool. His pile bunker fists. Yeah, that's a that's
a group battle. So we roll it together again.
Let's battle together. I will lead this one because
I have a little bit more stress to spend, but
I'm only going to be able to do this a few more
times. Okay. Can I fail another 3d6 roll? Let's
find out. I don't think so. You failed, but that's
okay. I got a mixed success. We got another mixed
success. Okay, you take one stress. Yes, sir.
Okay, so you get a partial success on risky.
Yes, you kind of pin egg white down. Loyal, using
your laser rifle. Yeah, how do we land as we,
like, still grappled? I want a description of
that. I was gonna say, I assume that guy started
flying low and then cut you loose when it was,
like, safe to, and then he flew ahead to start
punching. Like, he, like, dropped you off, basically.
Fruit from a tree. So, you exhaust a quirk instead
of a stress. We just learned this. And is it
one quirk per failure? That's pretty fucked up.
I only lost one quirk. A leader exhausts one
quirk if they rolled a 1 -3 as their best result
and exhausts another quirk if at least one other
participant rolls a 1 -3. So you can at most
use up two. That's still really bad. Yeah, that
is a lot tougher. Anyways. So you exhaust your
quirk. Loyal, you pin down Eggwhite on the satellite
dish with some suppressing fire from your laser
rifle, and Geist, you fly down on top of Eggwhite
and deliver a decisive blow into his frame. Eggwhite
brings up his rifle to guard his body a little
bit, and you punch through it and into his frame,
landing above his cockpit, below his head, or
the frame's head, and denting it, but the rifle
erupts. coating you in this sticky plasma fire,
which is starting to melt the exterior of your
frame a little bit. So you're going to take the
level 2 damage melting. Okay, I think to resist
this, I'm going to, unfortunately, because I
haven't even had a chance to use it yet, junk
my grapple anchor tool, because I'm not giving
up my punch hands. That's for damn sure. Cool.
Yeah, your grapple burns away, but luckily it
kind of takes a lot of the sticky fire with it.
Cool. Okay, Hex, you are at the AA emplacement
now. I think you've landed. Your kind of thrusters
are there and you're standing in front of it.
It's partially damaged, smoking. There's some
AA crew running around trying to put it out and
also trying to cower from you. And Joseph, you
are presumably also touching down kind of behind.
Geist, and Loyal. Either of you can go in any
order. You know, I was going to say I might even
help you with the AA gun, depending on how you
do. So maybe you roll AA gun, and if you destroy
it, then I can help the others. I'm going to
hit it again. Okay, sure. So this will be a...
You can definitely battle, and there will not
be limited effect anymore. Let's go. Alright.
Battle. Just like the simulations. Fuck. Oh,
wow. That's another three dice total failure.
One, one, two. You guys are really good at rolling
bad intense situations. We are. Look at all these
failures on the board, man. Fuck's sake. What
happens? I think you were lining up what is bound
to be a very, very effective attack against this
alien placement. What do I want to do to you?
Maybe I'm not used to my arm. Exactly. My controller's
broken. That is true, but how do I use this against
you? I punched myself. I was about to say, because
haywire. It hit you in the noggin. They miscalibrated
it. Bluth's spyware fucked it up. Yeah, one of
these like a fucking patrol frame. probably from
behind the AA gun, like opposite you, near like
the far edge of the dam. It kind of just pops
out of the smoke. It's very hard to see and just
shoots you. Shoots you with a burst of a large
assault rifle, which, you know, you've been shot.
What else is there to say? You are going to take
the level two harm. Damage. Level two damage.
Shot. Can I do shot, please? Yeah, I'll allow
it. Thank you. I'm hurt. I'm just hurt. Your
frame is hurt. Major ouchie. Yeah. I mean, we're
one of the same. Yeah. Like any good pilot. Okay.
Joseph, you see Hex trying to line up a shot
and is knocked off balance by the sudden appearance
of this little patrol mech near the AA platform.
Um... You know, feel like you got shot, but you
could still maybe handle yourself, wouldn't you
say? So I think I'll try to destroy the AA gun.
It'll work out. It'll work out. And Hex, do you
want to resist this at all? Or maybe declare
some armor to reduce it? Because otherwise you'll
be rolling at minus 1D for the rest of this mission.
That would suck. How does declaring armor work?
Since you have two left on your vehicle gear,
you can just check two boxes under the outfits
section of the vehicle gear. And then you would
check off an armor use up by damage, and then
instead of shot, it'll be something like dented.
Okay. That'll be level one. So it'll just take
less effect instead of one. And I always forget
about less effect. So, you know. Lucky you. Movie
magic. Okay, cool. Fucking mass -produced HCs
fucking me up. Okay, Joseph. I'm gonna bombard
that AA gun. Okay. I don't think you're in any
threat, so I think you're good to bombard. Okay.
Partial. You're sandwiched between people. It's
partial success. You do it, but there's a consequence.
So you hit the AA platform. You finish it off
with a big blast of your laser gun. Some of the
ammo cooks off. Makes a big boom. The complication
is not your fault. Oh, thank you. But Cackle
finally gets his launcher to bear and fires it
at Loyal very inaccurately. It actually sails
past Loyal and because you turned your back on
it, you don't see it coming. This big capsule
hits your back and explodes into which it coats
you in it, and it starts to glow and get hot.
It's like this black goo that is starting to
heat up like heated metal, and it's just covering
the back of your frame and melting it away. And
so you're going to take the level 2 damage, also
melting. You and Geist have so much in common.
Can I resist that? Yes, you can. With an armor?
You can with an armor or with quirks, but it's
cheaper to do armor at first. Let's do armor
at first is what I was thinking. Sure. Because
you are where you are in the narrative right
now, I'll just let you get rid of that instead
of reducing it to one right now. Because you're
bombarded, you're in kind of a safer position,
and I want to reflect that in the consequence
a little bit. But yeah, your armor melts off,
but, you know, it is now gone. That's good. Okay.
Geist and Company. This time, we are not going
to be doing a group action. I think Geist is
going to, after seeing Cackle fire the missile
at him and fail, or maybe it was fired at Loyal
and failing, he's going to go for Cackle. Is
Cackle still on top of the satellite dish? No,
that's Eggwhite. You're up there with Eggwhite
in his grill. I am up here with Eggwhite. I don't
know if I can easily disengage. Loyal, is Eggwhite
like your nemesis? No, not really. He just shot
first. No, Loyal is Eggwhite's nemesis. Okay,
then it would be really funny if I killed him
instead. He didn't even get killed by his nemesis.
Yeah, here, I'll take out, I'll kill Eggwhite.
You can either start engaging Cackle or start
blending up the garrison dudes or whatever. Whatever
you feel like doing. But I think X is just looking
to finish this, and I personally want to see
if I can fail another triple dice roll. So Geist
is going to try, and just because I think it
would be funny, I think Geist is going to try
and grab him in one hand and then punch him with
the other hand, such that he falls off of the
satellite dish and slams onto the ground and
dies. Or blows up. Even better. Let's see what
happens. That's a failure! God damn it! What
the? Holy shit. Yeah. You reel back for the finishing
blow. Eggwhite is looking pretty helpless. It
seems pretty clear that Eggwhite's done. And
there's a whooshing sound. And then a big metal
foot crushes through Eggwhite's frame and sends
him flattening into the... satellite dish as
the retro thrusters fire and gopher is here oh
no god damn it um and you hear like this gurgling
noise as like egg white tries to broadcast something
and it is unintelligible and very pathetic oh
fuck that's not good but it's really funny uh
gopher has um i think he has like a very large
like one Not tubes. They're not called tubes.
Like a single barrel shotgun you have to break
open and load each time. And then a, like, axe
that is clearly made out of, like, junk pieces
from your mechs, like, melted together. Well,
God bless him for making this mission so much
worse. That's your only consequence. Gopher's
here now. Oh, good. And Eggwhite is dead. Yay!
Not even killed by a real Dusklight. That's humiliating.
That is really... He got owned. Loyal, what do
you do? Take out my shield. I've been waiting
for this. I knew it was going to happen. I want
to maneuver over to him as fast as possible.
And yeah, I put my gun away, my rifle away, take
out the shield, spin up the drill, and get ready
to attack whoever is closest to... gopher at
this moment there's a couple of patrol mechs
that are like positioned beneath the satellite
dish and aiming up at gopher and then there is
cackle who is kind of off to the side a little
bit and just like missed you with a large projectile
that hit joseph well whichever place i can get
to the fastest is where i go they're all equally
fast in the narrative baby that's true um Catholic
to someone else right now, I think. And go blend
up some grunts. How are you blending them? With
my drill and using a battle. That's brutal. Sure,
go for it. I'm trying to do that. Since I have
less effect, can I push myself with a quirk to
not fail this roll? You may. You're not at less
effect. Your frame isn't damaged. My frame isn't
damaged. There's always a collateral die as well.
As you know. Maybe I won't use one yet. Okay.
It's just a battle. What's the worst that could
happen? Risky standard? Yes, sir. It's going
to be a win. It's going to be a big win. Yes!
That's what we needed. A six on one die. fucking
nice um yeah you go to ham yeah i think you sweep
aside these two smaller mechs with one swift
movement of your drill um and they go careening
off the side of the crater down into the waters
below and that doesn't mean two ticks on the
garrison destroyed clock which is six ticks total
so you're one third of the way there thank god
okay uh we still need to destroy the triple a
platform battery We're gonna go for it. Yeah,
you've destroyed the one that is near you now.
Oh, have we? That's what I mean, yeah. So each
third of this clock represents one platform.
There's two more to the south. I thought there
was only two. The middle ones? Yep, all the red
dots. Oh, I thought it was the dam. But I mean,
if he's gonna, like, suicide bomb... Well, downtime
is gonna get worse if Gopher dies, alright? You're
right. We gotta try and keep him alive. Also,
Nyla's gonna be mad. I think I should just continue
with the mission, so I should probably fire.
Yeah. I'll fire upon the AA battery. This is
a trick shot. It's a long -range trick shot.
Here we go, baby. I mean, is it tricky if I have
my laser? Is there difficulties? I thought the
laser goes pretty far. What's your bombard? Bombard's
two. It's really far away, but I think it's still
within range. The next one probably is not. I
think you're within range because Hex is covering
your back and Geist and Loyal are covering your
front right now. Okay. Take your time. Take it
really easy. Okay. Joseph aims. He gets ready
and he says, Fuck you. That's a six. Yeah, with
a precisely trained shot, you fire between Cackle,
Geist, and Loyal and take out the A battery in
a single shot. A single shot. It's off the map.
It explodes. Beautiful. Very good. All right.
Max, you were engaged with some members of the
garrison. Congratulations. So Hex is going to
battle them with his lovely... Let's see, do
I just have the artillery cannon? Where's the
tab? Here it is. You probably have some spare
vehicle load you can check, I imagine. Yes, I
do. But the heavy cannon's cool, so Hex is just
going to heavy cannon him. Cool. Do it. Battle.
Battle away, brother. Alright. Battle. Minus
one. Risky standard. Six. Now you're doing it.
We're finally getting it. You blast the guy.
The frame. Explodes into smithereens. Takes out
some of the infantry around it as well. Another
two ticks on the garrison destroyed clock. You
love to see it. And even better is if you happen
to look to your left out the window at the city,
you see a green flare going up, indicating that
the Moondevils have finished killing duty. You
kind of see through the haze field, you see this
big figure collapsing just into the city, like
rumbling it. That's it. Huge fucking dope. Yeah,
Jesus. Wow. That easy for them? Jesus. They're
pros. We don't know how many of them died also.
All of them. Hopefully none. This is too good.
One of the clusterists fired the flare for us.
Yeah, to get us to come over there. Very polite
of them. You sound paranoid, Hex. This is not
a fallen campaign. I don't know. Hex doesn't
believe it in character. Things can't go well,
yeah. Yeah, Hex low -key is thinking this is
another weird psychic thing similar to the other
mission that went wrong, but he's not saying
anything. We're really on the clock now because
they're coming here. We got to fucking motor
immediately. Yeah. So I will say to that effect,
this map is not doing justice. There's a lot
of ground between them and you to cross. And
also we're in like combat time. So like you kind
of have an okay amount of time until they're
actually ready to exfil. So it is a little earlier
than you would have liked. Definitely. No, that's
good. That means that we killed duty really fast.
It could not possibly be a bad thing. Unless
we are being tricked. I guess then it would be
really bad. Well, let's complete our mission.
I think it's Geist and Royal. You've taken out
all the patrol mechs here. There's some farms
are back, but Cackle is the one here. Yes, Cackle
is still here. And has turned away from Joseph
and now towards the two of you and is kind of
backpedaling with this cannon reloaded and ready
to hit both of you with it. Okay, I want to try
and do something. He is between us and the faraway
gun, right? Yes. Okay. That would be quite difficult,
but worth a shot. What do you mean, what would
be quite difficult? I thought you were going
to try to collateral it. No, I mean a little
bit, but not really. I'm not hoping to hit him
into the gun. I know it's like really too far
away, but what I want to do is basically slam
into him and just like take him with me, like
fire my fucking boost jets and just fly towards
the bottom AA gun. And then at some point, probably
like, cause my plan is to kind of cut the corner.
So kind of go like this. Oh wait, where's my
fucking, how do I do a pencil tool? I don't understand
how foundry works. I basically want to just move
in a straight line from here to here, and then
somewhere like here, I'm just going to let go
of him. Okay, so you're going to try to, you're
going over the cliff towards the gun, dropping
off the ledge. Yes, that's the plan. And I would
like to say that this is a maneuver. I can buy
it. And I would like to use my, I would like
to push myself. Sure, I can accept that. For
an extra die or extra effect? Well, because it
is a prototype, I get both. That's the rules
of an advanced prototype. When you push yourself
using that gear, take increased effect and plus
one D, you can only have one experimental item
at a time. So this is my experimental fine mobility
suit. This is my super turbo jump jets. And if
I can fail a four die test, it will literally
be my crowning achievement. Risky and my effect
is great. Critical success! Finally! This is
the fucking karmic balance I am owed. Fuck you,
Crackle, you bitch. God, I'm so mad. That feels
good. Okay, so critical success is great success.
Critical success, great effect. So this is basically
as good as it possibly could be. I was gonna
say it does the whole thing, because I'm nice.
You pull him. With you, you charge him off the
thing. I think you probably jam a couple of your
knuckles into him, like kind of staking him to
your own frame and fly towards the other A emplacement.
And then as you were getting close to the wall
here, you eject him. The frame cracks against
the side of the crater. First of all, like parts
of it shatter on impact with it. And then as
it kind of slides down and tumbles, you just
see more and more pieces of it. fly off as it,
like, flakes apart against the hard rock, and
eventually it settles at the bottom with a little
plume of smoke. And it doesn't look like it's
getting up. It's dead. Woo! Good kill. Nice.
And that gets rid of the two main frames here,
and we'll use only the garrison and one AA gun.
I think you are over here now. Okay. Good, good,
good. Yeah, guys just fucking rockets away, and
then when he's gone, Cackle is also gone. Loyal!
What happened to the other guy? What's Gopher
doing? Gopher is attacking... Well, he's not
attacking. He's hauling ass towards where Geist
is. I heard comms wrong. Yeah, his comms are
wrong. Is he saying anything? Yeah. You hear
him breathing heavily into the mic. He didn't
mute it. It was a rookie mistake. Yeah, he's
like running by. You see him like... step on
some guy going out of his way to do it. You know,
he had a gun. Small one, but still counts. Yeah.
And... Is anyone targeting Gopher? Honestly,
not really. They're all at the other end with
Geist. I got my own party. I think... What's
something stupid he could do? Just to give you
something to do with him. Yeah, I think this
motherfucker starts flossing. He finds some,
like, he finds, he sees some people, like, go
inside, like, a big crate full of munitions.
And, like, he just, like, stops moving towards
Geist, like, skids to a halt, and just, like,
grabs the crate and starts, like, pushing down
on it with his hands, just, like, crushing it.
And you see on the other side of the the dam
like horizontally there is a small squad with
a missile launcher like panically loading it
and aiming it at the bulk of gopher's frame of
course um do i know how volatile the large amount
of explosives packed inside gopher's frame are
um if any fire got inside his cockpit it would
probably blow you up in a large chunk of this
facility Yeah, but it's not like he gets shoved
around and they all explode. No. From my knowledge
of plastic explosives, they're fairly stable.
Yes. Yeah, you need... Actually, you can light
plastic explosives on fire and they won't detonate.
It's like you need a very specific detonating
electric charge to detonate a plastic explosive.
But also... If you got the stress, do a flashback
to say that you replaced all of the plastic explosives
with, like, cotton candy or something. Confetti!
He's like, this is it! He pushes his self -destruct
button, yeah, the confetti cannon's fire, and
you're like... And then he blows up because it's
timed bad. Oh, fuck! Uh -oh. If it comes to that,
I'll do that. Anyways, I just want to... be trying
to keep pace with him. As he stops, I stop with
him, pull up the shield, notice the people loading
the missile, and shoot down at them with my rifle.
Sure. Do it. Battle. We're battling. Again. Keep
thinking, should I use a quirk? Should I use
a quirk? But not yet. Always save if... So you
can't ever spend your last quirk because your
mech breaks down, but always save that second
to last quirk for a dire emergency because I
feel like this has been going too well and something
bad is bound to happen. We're going to need to
use those colored flares, I think. What are you
talking about? You rolled really well. It's all
a dire emergency. That is true. Look at these
successes on the board. Yeah, okay, that was
going to happen. I'm not surprised. We were due.
Yes, the rocket goes off. Would you rather take
the damage or do you want Gopher to? That's your
choice. Yeah, I want to take the damage. I want
it to, like, hit my shield badly or something.
Sure, you take it on the shield. It is a very
potent explosive that your shield cannot handle.
It burrows through the shield, but since you
are using a shield, I'm going to say you just
take the level 1 damage in this case since it
was so perfectly arranged. So you're going to
have the level 1 damage. Shield broken. Shield
break. Or, like, I don't know. Damaged arm or
something. It goes through part of the shield
and kind of damages your arm, but nothing too
serious. Okay, I'll do damage arm. Do you want
to resist that or check off armor if you have
it? Or junk your shield. Yeah. Junking gear is
a very good thing to do because we have a guy
who can cook the books for us. Okay, I'll just
junk the shield for now. I'll put a J here for
you. Destroy a different part of my body to save
Gopher next time. Yeah, your shield shatters
into bits. Gopher is kind of clueless to the
fact that this just happened, and you see, like,
a bunch of red goo squirting out of the container
as he finishes and smushes it, breathing heavily
into his microphone. If we survive this mission,
I'm gonna kick his ass. Yeah. You're gonna take
his lumps. It did save you. He did save you.
I know there's no rules of engagement. That still
feels wrong. After I kick his ass, I'll do like
a good job kid moment. Assuming both of us survive.
But we'll see. We'll cross that bridge when we
get there. What do you mean? We're all gonna
live forever. That's true. Okay. Next up. I like
paranoid Hex. Hex? Hex, you're over here. You're
the farthest away. What do you want to do? Hex?
Kind of likes that, but is it, like, reasonable
to try to snipe the AA cannon from here, or is
that just... I would give you limited effect,
because it's... Well, it is what Bombard is for.
Yeah, but I mean, I don't really have a legend
for this map, and I assume you don't want to
provide one, but, like, how many miles are we
talking from the top to the bottom? I imagine
it's pretty fucking far. It's very far. But wouldn't
that be cool? It would be cool. Limited effect
seems reasonable, but also there's only two ticks
left on that clock, so even a partial success
with limited effect would be useful, but who
knows what bad shit's gonna happen. We also need
to destroy the dam, right? Yeah. I could be hands
-off there. Hex is gonna try for it. Or maybe
just move closer, if that's a mechanic here.
Yeah, sure. If you want to maneuver, just avoid
what's left of the garrison. Yeah, Hex wants
to just maneuver through this and try to get
to a more advantageous position. Sure. And look
at that. Whee! Personal success. You love to
see it. Great. You start running towards them.
It's a very decent job. Not a lot of resistance
on your part. Loyal, are you the type to dramatically
turn and look at something if something rude
happens? Can I ask you that? Yeah, that's always
yes. Of course. You're running towards them,
Hex, and you see Loyal kind of turn towards the
city. And Loyal, you kind of feel it first before
anyone sees anything. This psychic shockwave
reverberating from the city center. A pure blast
of righteous determination and impossible will.
All of the haze fields, the ones in the city,
even around you, burn away, snuffed out like
candles in a storm. There is a sudden clarity,
and looking back towards the city, you all see
duty, no longer obscured in the haze, rising
from the smoking wreckage of the city, propping
itself up on a large broadsword. It's no taller
than your average frame, but there's a strangeness
to it, a humanness. Its movements are fluid,
free from the usual trembling weight of machinery.
It looks at this distance just like a huge armored
woman. Intricate banners and tattered tapestries
hang from its head, like hair, and alight with
fire. There are these flecks of gold emanating
from it, ranging from the size of a truck to
little bigger than a person, each changing shape
rapidly and flowing outwards. With the haze gone,
comms return. You hear Crow giving strained directions
to the moon devils. It killed Grimble. Green,
fill in as a distraction. I'll set up for another
shot. Tapper, rain helm the city block, kick
up some dust. Then there's a booming, overwhelming
voice, each syllable like an explosion which
resonates through your bones. Fallen heroes.
Dead soldiers. Old friends. It is not yet time
to rest, for duty calls you to the battlefield
once more. These golden particles, like a blizzard,
rush around all of you. Destroyed frames and
broken bodies alike begin to thrash and contort,
misshapen golden appendages growing in place
of hydraulics, spinal cords, and missing flesh.
The voice of Eggwhite crackles through your comms.
No, I was... I was with them. I wasn't hurting.
Let me go back! Let me go back! His frame lurches
to a ready position, a reformed golden rifle
trained to fire alongside the rest of his fallen
comrades. What do you do? Yo, that's bad. I feel
like I had to slip Hex $5 and be like, Hex Paranoia
was right. He was right. You were right. I'm
just going to be paranoid forever now. I have
probably a peculiar question. Is our garrison
destroyed clock completely unchecked now? No,
but it is partially unchecked. Son of a bitch.
All right. I think you guys gotta start, um,
if you'll forgive the MMO parlance, clearing
adds while Geist destroys the last AA gun. What
were our orders? They're going to draw it off
so we can retreat? Or are we supposed to draw
it off so they can retreat? I just want to make
sure our parameters haven't changed. Uh... Well,
that was if Sacrifice showed up. Oh. If Judy
showed up, he said just to fucking run away,
right? No, I said if Sacrifice shows up runaway,
they were here to kill Doody. And they did. Oh,
Doody got back up. Oh, fuck off, man. All right.
That's right. Okay, yeah, I got my virtues confused.
All right, well, then I guess technically nothing
has changed. They can deal with it, and we will
also deal with it. Are we back to the top of
the initiative order? I believe so. I think seeing
all this... Geist is just going to look over,
have an oh shit moment, and then realize he needs
to get this AA gun offline. So he's going to
just try and boost up to the anti -aircraft gun
and just punch his way through it and just bend
the barrels. He's just going to try and fuck
it up. Could I battle? Yes. I will do that. The
good news is the AA guns are not. The guns are
like, no, let me die, please! It was so peaceful
in inert machinery heaven. Alright. Three dice.
Let's see if I can get another three failures.
No, no, no, I'm gonna use the character sheet.
That's the secret to success here, is using the
character sheet. Let us battle. Partial success.
I will fucking take it any day of the week. You
do it, but there's a consequence. You super harm
a combination of carries and you reduce effect.
You punch through the AA gun. I think you just...
You don't have any reduced effect or anything,
right? No. Okay. So that means the AA is taken
care of. You finish your primary objective, which
is good. You can leave, right? No. You punch
through it, but one of these... like frames on
the ground just like lurches to life um one of
these like many damaged ones and like grabs at
your frame kind of your legs like its own legs
are still reforming so it's kind of crawling
and it's just like clawing at it like its hands
are just like just raking your leg like pulling
at like whatever it can get its hands on so you
can take the level one damage severed cords as
it rips out some components from your leg. My
cords! Your cords. Oh lord, my cords. Is it permitted
if you have spare load to check off an item and
then immediately junk it? I don't see why not.
Cool. Let's say, because guys can't get a fine
shield or force field. So he tries to deploy
this to get the thing off of him, and I feel
like it just gets ripped to shreds. So yeah,
I'm all full up on gear. Excellent. Loyal. You
feel this stuff happening, I would say. There's
definitely an aura of... Impossible authority
here. Capable of bringing things back from the
dead. And that's it. Just wanted to give you
a vibe about it. Yeah, that's not normal. Or
natural. Also, Eggwhite's near you and he's screaming.
Yeah, we've seen a lot of fucked up shit on this
planet so far. I wanna go home. Like, he's getting
used to the dreams, but this has him so fucking
scared. This is probably the most scared he's
ever felt in his life. And amplified for him
because he's a dolphin. Dolphins actually have
an extra lobe in their brain, which is an extension
of the limbic system, which is responsible for
emotions. And it's just... more of this called
the paralimbic region so this is like an extreme
fear that sometimes is known to be activated
in dolphin pilots which is like part of why there's
so few of them because sometimes they just get
this emotional response that they can't control
and i think that this is happening to loyal right
now but i also think he has this system built
into his mech which activates the psionic amplifier
and just kind of sends this out and an honestly
undirected force to possibly both enemies and
friends but like maybe the friends get some type
of advance warning. It's like, you are about
to experience psychic fear. And so we see based
on the role, like whether everyone gets mass
feared or not, but I think something is about
to happen. Take out emergency blunt right away.
Oh God, please don't fail the role. Every time
you fail the role, really bad things happen when
psychic powers come out. It's always so bad.
Yeah, I want to use the quirk ominous appearance
while this is happening. Okay. What would you
say this role is? And, yeah, that's what I'm
wondering. Honestly, no, I can only use expertise
and acuity right now because there's a mech role.
It kind of depends. Like, I would want to say
it's a sway roll. Do you have the psychic amplifier
still on your mech? I do. Presumably that would
let you, I mean, are you trying to sway? I guess
is the question. I assume that's the intention
of that mech part is that it basically allows
you to use your psychic powers. I just want to
use something that has two dots in it, which
is sway right now. So, yeah. Sure. I'll accept
that. Cool. Could you push? Yeah, I'm pushing
myself by using my quirk, Ominous Appearance,
because the shield is just broken. Maybe there's
some sparks coming off of it. I've been following
Gopher around who is being insane. I'm just looming,
trying to crush everything around Gopher. And
there's a really high -pitched scream coming
from the mech suddenly. Okay, go ahead. Can I
offer you something? Yes. So you have Lingering
Guilt. Which will, since you are using a personal
skill, I would say this will affect that for
sway. However, if you choose to use command instead
of sway, I will give you great effect and no
penalties. Except that you have to roll two dice
and take the lowest. You can push yourself. I
already used a quirk, isn't that pushing myself?
Since this is sway, I think you can use stress.
Yeah. Okay, so should I untick the quirk? Yeah,
well, let's use the quirk, because I guess you're
using the machinery, so it makes sense. And that
way you can't just spam it. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Okay, so that's a modifier of one extra dice.
So you're going to roll one die total. Oh my
god! But you're going to have a very good effect
if you succeed. This is your choice, of course.
You don't have to do this. Oh my god, I'm...
Okay, that's my position. That's my effect. People
can help if they want. My poor heart can't take
this. I think this guy is too far away. How could
we help? You get this ping that's like... Joseph,
do something. Open psychic fear about to be activated.
Take cover. Joseph shoots himself. Not again.
Would Joseph be affected by this emotional response?
That's a philosophical question. Joseph, well,
you have established you can read Joseph's thoughts
and he was affected by TKR. Joseph is a tech
guy. Maybe he can help by like... like trying
to like override the safeties on the psychic
amplifier or something remotely like remove the
limiters take off take off loyal's pain inhibitors
is that possible i don't know i'm just spitballing
here it would require uh you to know what loyal
is doing which yeah if loyal if loyal asks for
help you know but this is all in the moment i
think it is exactly yeah so maybe it's just one
die maybe it's just one die risky risky great
Okay. Okay, okay, okay. Everybody cross your
fingers and toes. Okay, no! That is a one. Oh
my god. Well, it's been fun. It was statistically
probable, but it still breaks my heart. Oh god.
At least it's about to get a lot more interesting.
Okay. So you are in a desperate position now.
First of all, that is your Actually, that is
your only... Because it's risky, so I'm not going
to truly fuck you here. But I'm going to put
you in this position because you sent this out.
You sent a command, I guess. You want this to
stop. And you feel your psychic presence touch
something else. You really... A direct conflict
with the other commands being given here by duty.
And it is just overwhelming. um you kind of feel
parts of yourself almost fall into line on the
other side um oh and you you hesitate it's it's
too much you're getting it's like a different
brain just got plugged into your brain and is
now calling the shots and you're able to hold
it off because you've got a big dolphin brain
but during this time egg white gets up to you
and just like grabs onto your frame with his,
like, these regrowing, like, tendril golden hands
that are just, like, pressing into you, and he's
just screaming at you, like, asking why you brought
him back, why you killed his friends, all of
that, bashing the head of his frame over and
over into your frame as you just stand there,
unable to move. And at a certain point, his frame...
starts to wear away um and just like that's where
you are right now you've been grappled you're
being headbutted repeatedly um and you are in
the throes of psychic misery but it could be
worse theoretically i could have introduced so
many bad things here but this oh i know you could
yeah for now um yes so that is that you're uh
in trouble Guys, I think we know how we can help
the moon devils. Run away. I think Loyal's not
gonna like it very much. Let's do it. It rhymes
with destroy the gram. I'll just say that. When
you think about it, it'll become a watery area.
You know, Loyal might like that. Yeah, he can
swim in it. Let's do it. Okay, who wants to go
next? Joseph or Hex? Hex, you are running kind
of towards Loyal. You kind of see this happening.
And, uh, Joseph, I forget where you're standing.
I figured I was, like, next to the dam, because
that's where I fired from last. Yeah, so you're
relatively close as well. And then Gopher is,
um, I guess, trying to figure out a shot where
he can shoot the guy holding Loyal without hurting
Loyal. I guess, Joseph, do you want to get in
the ads? I'm back for you. Do you want to, like,
get the ads? What's that? The garrison. Oh, oh,
oh. I was gonna, since I'm right there, I could
attack the dam with you, if you want. Or, what
are you asking? I was just gonna attack the dam,
but I don't know. Go for it. I'm not gonna stop
you. Okay. Because I figured the other one was
about to be destroyed by Geist, the bottom one.
The bottom one, I already destroyed it. It's
gone. Yeah, it's gone. We haven't exited out
yet, but I destroyed the other area. Oh, okay
then. Yeah, I think, yeah, Joseph sees all this
and he's like, we gotta get out of here right
now. We gotta go. He looks around and then you
can almost see his frame. It just kind of like
lurches forward and then looks down at the ground
and he's like standing above the dam. And he's
like, okay, this is happening. And I think he
probably like maybe jogs back a bit and then
fires, you know, prepares his laser to fire into
the dam. I will give you limited effect if you
use your laser gun to bombard or battle. If you
use destroy somehow, I will give you a standard
effect. That is my my stipulations. Yeah. OK,
well, if destroy is more effective, then I don't
have anything in destroy, though. Yeah, I mean,
you roll two dice and you take the lower. You
can push yourself if you want, or, you know,
it's up to you. The juice may not be worth the
squeeze, but the dam has six ticks on that clock,
so it's not going to happen fast. I know. Slow
and steady wins the race. You think so? I mean,
Hex can speed it up a little bit with a can.
There is egg white there, and the garrison is
also still intact as well. Up to you what you
want to do. You know. It's complicated. I have
one dot in destroy, which isn't great, but it's
something. Or I can if I transform the changeling
into murder mode. Yeah, I should probably play
it safe. I'll probably bombard, I guess. Because
if I die, that's a problem, typically in video
games. So, bombard. Risky standard, or was it?
Risky limited, I think. Risky limited. Risky
limited. Here you go. Double threes. That's a
fucking failure. We're paying for our good fortune.
It is a failure. Well, I'm glad I did that one
instead of the other one. Yeah. You take a shot
at the dam. It is a lot hardier than you would
expect. Even like a beam rifle, which is can
cut through steel, whatever, like reinforced.
We can say Plas Creed because this is sci -fi.
reinforce plaz crete or whatever it just does
not penetrate deep enough just kind of scrapes
it um which is unfortunate and even more unfortunate
is that you are shot by a large crossbow that
has kind of grown out of one of these infantry
frames these like tiny frames like it's it's
broken assault rifle has regrown in the shape
of a weird ballista and you are penetrated by
it and you're going to take the Level 1 damage
pierced. Can I resist that? You can resist it.
Do I have another armor to use? When you resist,
you can either use armor, which you don't have,
or you can use quirks. Okay, then, yeah, I wanted
to use my... Okay, so check off two of your quirks,
because that is your expertise rating. Mm -hmm.
And then you will... I'll do this. See, that
one. Okay. And I think it... It shoots at you
and it actually goes through some of like the
kind of the framework of your thing. Just like
goes through it. Doesn't have anything vital.
Lucky you. OK, Hex. You saw what I was trying
to do, though, Hex, OK? Maybe you got the idea.
Hex follows your lead and let's let's fuck this
shit up. Is Hex close enough for a battle to
work here or not? Absolutely. All right. Absolutely.
He's gonna double songbird this shit. What's
the modifier or position in effect? I think it's
limited, right? If you're battling the dam, I
assume. Yeah. Oh, a critical success! Not bad.
Okay, I'll give you two ticks. It's like you
weren't at limited effect at all. You do two
ticks. It's a good hit. You chunk out of it.
Um, you see some cracks starting to form. Uh,
meanwhile, your friends are being eaten alive.
Hey, gotta break a few eggs, right? Joseph just
got cooked. You still haven't finished your secondary
objective. Just so you know. Yes. What's that?
The garrison. Yeah, they came back to life. We
still gotta kill them. Yeah, but the fucking
well. I feel like the well. Damn. Okay, we're
playing. We're playing again. We got a lot of
irons in the fire. Yeah. All of them. Hex? Not
Hex. Geist. So, I think Geist is just going to
ask over the... What's the Mushroom Guy's call
sign again? Crow. Crow's gonna be like, Crow,
do you need support? Yeah, you hear some explosions,
and looking over, you see a very fast flash of
a broadsword cutting through air where one of
the frames used to be, and not killing it. They
get dodged. And Crow says, Finish the mission.
All right. In that case, I'm going to turn around
because I think that down by me, there's like
a chunk of the garrison that was never that was
never killed and reanimated. So they're probably
just a little bit freaked out by all this. I
think I'm just going to go. I'm going to go in
on them. I think I'm just going to. Can I just
battle to like just like basically boost around
and just destroy as many people as I can? Yeah,
there is also a guy clawing at your legs. Oh,
yeah. Just like jump past him and shake him off.
If you succeed, I'll just say you step on him,
but if you fail, you don't shake him off. But
that's just how rolling dice work, so do whatever
you want. Yeah, I'm going to battle, because
he's part of the garrison, right? So I'm trying
to engage these chuckleheads. We'll see how it
goes. Three dice. Oh, no, I'm not going to do
it this way. I keep almost, like, rolling it
the old way. Big, fast knuckle nuts! I love my
balls. That's just risky standard. Play ball.
That's a success! You love to see it. Bam! Kick
him right off and just start boosting around
wrecking shit. Yeah, you kick him off. I think
you boost over to one of these non -reanimated
frames and give him a swift... Do you want to
do a punch or a kick off the ledge? Your choice.
I want to do a punch because I got those pile
bunker hands. I want to smash something with
them. You punch a guy off the ledge after piercing
his cockpit and you fall down or he falls down.
And I'm going to put two ticks in the garrison.
You've done pretty good. You're back to just
two ticks left. However, this isn't a consequence.
This is just me describing something that already
happened. A big golden hand clutches the edge
of the rim of the crater as Cackle pulls himself
back up. Oh, it's this asshole again. Not you.
But I will leave it there. Loyal, you're being
headbutted. You've not taken any damage yet,
but it is distressing. It is distressing. I don't
like this. Drill his ass. You're not comfortable.
Yeah. Trying to figure out how much of my faculties
I have at the moment. I think I have enough to
drill. Of course you do. Who doesn't? But enough
to drill. That's going to be a regular old battle.
Oh my god. And nothing bad is going to happen
to me, right? Are we desperate now? You are.
You in particular are desperate. You exclusively.
Yeah. Yeah, that's a failure. Yeah, you start
drilling into it. And the frame just doesn't
stop. You're just drilling through all this matter.
And it's like you're drilling through its chest,
but its arms are just pulling its head into you
over and over again. Like caving in your cockpit.
and just hearing this guy scream over and over
again. I think at a certain point, the cockpit
starts to make contact with your exopod as it
caves in, and you see these spiderweb -like cracks
spreading across as you start to lose fluid both
from your cockpit and your exopod. So you're
going to take the level 2 damage caved in and
the level 1 harm leaking. And you can resist
these separately as you wish. I would like to
resist both of those. Yeah, you can resist leaking
with stress and with quirks or armor if you have
it, but I don't know if you do. Yeah, do it.
I'll do the stress first. Do I just take stress?
Do I roll? You have to click the... I'm going
to call this... prowess in this case. You have
to click prowess on your character sheet, and
that will tell you how much stress you're going
to take. How much stress do you have? Oh. Cool.
Okay, so you take two stress. So you manage to,
I think, squish back a little bit. Maybe you
have some, like, receding. I mean, how do you
do it? How do you avoid getting your X -Spot
cracked? Um, so when I jack in to my frame, there's
all these, like, kind of maneuverable tendrils
that plug into various points on my exopod. And
maybe these have like a self -defense mechanism
to them where they start to move all these like
thick wires and they protect my vulnerable areas
as this thing is coming at me. Great. And now
the damage. Do you want to spend quirks to prevent
it or lower it? Yeah, let's spend quirks. All
right. Check off two more quirks. which leaves
you with one left, and then take the level one
damage. I guess dented. Everyone's getting dented.
Everyone's getting dented. It'll buff out. Yeah.
Well, I mean, assuming Gopher survives, otherwise
we don't have anybody to buff it out for us.
Yeah, what's that guy up to? And I think at this
point, I mean, he's still in Desperate Vision.
Gopher starts hacking at Eggwhite with this axe
he has, and it's like, sinks into this golden
metal um like it's flesh it's a reoccurring theme
um and you kind of get flashbacks a little bit
um loyal to tkr and you just hear this these
meaty thwacks as he fails to make any purchase
on egg white somehow damn it gopher uh okay let's
go next hex and joseph Yeah, you know what? Attack
the dam first. Yeah, I could try. I learned my
lesson. I'll attack the garrison. Wags my finger
at you. You're better than that. You have to
eat your dinner before you have your dessert.
Oh, come on. If we sequence break our objectives,
the triggers won't work properly and we'll get
softballed. Oh, fuck. I don't want to do that.
I could just... I would like to... Are you going
to limit me if I bombard the garrison? I feel
like I'm far enough away. No, I'm not. I think
you are in... You're right here. Yeah, I think
with what we have established, you're fine. Especially
if Hex is going to hang out. Gotcha. I give a
little thumbs up to Hex, and then I get my fucking
laser ready, and I bombard. Partial success.
Partial success. You do two ticks to Garrison.
I think you do a very big sweeping laser blow
to some of these remaining frames, and you kind
of hear behind you this loading noise. as not
loading a running noise as one of these frames
seems to have had its like anti -armor rifle
transmuted into a spear and just charges you
um and you managed to shoot it just in time uh
but the momentum carries the spear um into your
frame and you're gonna take the level two one
damage level one damage these are just zombies
i'm not gonna fuck you that hard Level one damage
cut on your friend. If I did that away with a
quirk, is that two quirks? It would be your last
two quirks, which would mean you go into breakdown.
Which is a bad situation for you. I don't think
I should do that. I won't. I'm going to get cut.
You can junk gear if you have anything you don't
want to use. Can I? I have... Yeah, you can junk
any of these little boxes, except armor. I'm
not going to let you guys do that. No, that's
fucking stupid. You have to pay money to get
rid of those in downtime, though. I'll junk my
melee weapon, if that's possible. Is it like
you go to parry it, and your knife kind of snaps,
but it avoids it? That would be cool. It just
goes right through. It snaps my little knife
in two. Yeah. uh yeah and it dies and you kind
of see this this gold stuff start to like turn
into almost a fluid and start leaking on the
ground um i'm gonna give another thumbs up to
hex by the way after that i'm just saying i'm
just saying it's all good it's like why is he
doing this am i gonna die what does he know uh
all right hex and kind of waving away those thoughts
hex returns back to the war crime at hand and
uh Unloads on the dam. Excellent. Let's see.
Risky limited? Mm -hmm. Fire, though! Okay. Another
tick on the dam. Good job. Great. I mean, it's
continuing to crack. You were halfway there.
3 out of 6. Geist, there is... Cackle is here.
He's kind of still climbing up. A little bit
more of a vulnerable position. I would say you're
controlled. Okay. And, Loyal, you know what's
happening to you. Yeah. I think that Geist is
just gonna look down. He can't help himself for
the bravado, but he'll just say something like,
You just don't know when to fucking quit, do
you? And then I'm gonna try and fucking just
pile drive him in the face as he tries to climb
up. Sure. Controlled? Great, I would say. Because
you did throw him off the canyon, which if you
hadn't done, this would be harder. Oh. He's all
fucked up from being dropped from a great height.
That's partial. I'll take it. Now that's what
I call board games. Which means you get it, but
there's a consequence. Yeah, you kick him in
the head and he grabs onto your leg. I was just
like kind of pulling himself up, trying to pull
you down with him. And just like the last fucking
zombie who did it to you. He fucks up your leg.
Again, probably the same leg, too. My poor leg!
It takes a few more stomps, and some parts you
come off with it, but you kick him off the ledge.
He's done. So I got a level 1 harm? Yeah, level
1 harm. Torn. Not harm, but damage. I don't really
have any meaningful way to resist this that won't
drop my frame, so I'm just going to take it.
Great. I'm just going to eat it. But he will
say into his combi, like, primary and secondary
objectives completed. Get the fuck out of there.
Yeah. You... Were we supposed to shoot a flare
up? Like a colored flare? Oh yeah, didn't we
have a flare for that? I mean, it doesn't matter
because the duty fucked up the haze field so
we can literally just talk to them directly,
but we had one for objectives complete, didn't
we? Yeah, I think so. Assuming it's a free action
to do so, Geist will fly out. Yeah, absolutely.
You have to aim it, bro. You have to aim it at
the sky. Come on. Bombard to shoot duty in the
eye with the flare gun. Incredible. That's a
skill. Yeah. Loyal... Loyal. Hi. How are you?
Not good. What are you going to do? Um... Is
it still attacking me? You can try to sway again.
That's what I was thinking. You should try and
blast it with psychic energy to get it off. You
should not battle again. Do not battle again.
No, no more battling. No no on the battle. Yeah.
I guess I have a little bit more of my faculties.
I'm no longer doing a broad range. Broadcast?
I am doing a broadcast. Just to the zombie in
front of me. Or attempting to. Sure. And is that
a sway? If you broadcast, you have to push yourself,
right? Hmm. What, with the psychic amplifier?
No, that just happens. Well, this is a special
ability as well that I could just not use. I
could just use a psychic amplifier because I'm
already feeling things. Broadcast makes it happen
no matter what. Oh, I see. Okay, yes. Yeah, try
it. Just regular old sway and not take more stress
yet. Mom, please. I'm taking an XP. I mean, I
was going to say you're at risky because Gopher's
actually kind of helping now. Okay, cool. Thank
God, go for it. Infinite XP here. Give Loyal
a dub, please. Probability God. Yay! That's a
partial... That's a five and a two. Now we're
cooking. You blast it with... What are you trying
to convey with your psychic? It's still just
fear. It's like, run away. Or just throw yourself
off the ledge. I don't know. Get away from me.
Yeah, I think you get through to Eggwhite, who's
been screaming, saying, let me go back, let me
go back. And you kind of like send it this him,
this, this fear. And you feel like this, something
come back from him, which is almost unusual to
think that there's still, I don't know what you
want to call it. Some sort of spiritual presence
in egg white, even now. And it's like, oh, of
course I was so stupid and just let's go of you.
And this hurls himself off the edge. But that
little feeling you got touching. that what was
egg white that came back from somewhere else
is going to give you a harm, not a damage, called
unsettled? Unsettled. Don't worry, everybody
currently suffering through the torturous process
of reanimation. You can just jump off the dam
and you'll go right back. Oh, shit, dude. Thanks.
Can I? Yeah. Yeah, you can resist it with stress.
You're now at risk of trauma -ing out, which
makes this even more interesting. How many boxes
do you have left? I got four. Okay, Wen, what's
your skill in Resolve? I assume it's Resolve.
Yeah, it's Resolve. Absolutely. How many different
skills do you have one dot in Resolve? Loyal
has two dice for this. Okay, so you just have
to roll higher than... So you have four spots
left, so you need to roll a three, a four, a
five, or a six on one of those two dice, which
is... It's not bad odds, but the stakes are pretty
high just because if you trauma out, you're out
of the mission. Oh, wait, no, you can take desperate
actions, can't you? Yes, you can. Can we assist
at all? No. No, you can't assist. Better let
nature take its course. I'm going to do it. I'm
going to click on this button. Okay. Yay! You
only suffer two stress! You hit the good button.
So you only have two left. A single, almost as
soon as Egg White jumps off, a single booming
shot rings out around the crater, followed by
this cacophonous sound like 1 ,000 breaking pieces
of glass. All the remaining resurrected soldiers
around you fall to pieces, like puppets with
their strings cut. In the city, the frame known
as Duty falls silent. A hole melted through it,
as well as miles of buildings. Crow lowers a...
It's not so much he lowers a rifle as he is a
rifle. And he lets out a single report. Target
down. And as you... One of these soldiers throws
itself off the dam near you, Geist. And you hear
a scream over your comms equipment. A scream
you'll never forget. Her scream. Amity's scream.
What do you do? What the fuck? I hear it from
this falling... From this falling soldier? You're
over your comms. But I don't... Do I have any
way to trace the source? You try. Yeah, I think
he wants to desperately find out where the fuck
it's coming from. Oh, I just had a terrible thought.
Oh, that's pretty bad. Can I try to scam? I just
had the same thought. Oh no, can I try to scan?
You can try to scan. Oh god. Okay. Okay. Fuck.
Okay, let's see. Where's it coming from? I don't
know. That's a failure. So I failed my scan.
Guys. That's probably a mercy. If you could rank
the allies in this scene that you care the most
about right now. from one being most, how would
you rank them? For my teammates? Any allies.
A squad or like everybody in the theater presently?
Everyone on the rim who's your ally. So go for
plus your squad. On the rim, on the rim, okay.
Number one, man, this is a big question. Don't
take it personally, but I think Hex is at the
bottom because I think... No, good. I want to
be out of this. Geist thinks... that Hex might
be the mole based on what he talked to Crow about,
but also he was kind of disgusted by how Geist
handled the debrief after the oil derrick mission.
So Geist is, or Hex is at the bottom. I feel
like at the top is probably Loyal? Maybe? It's
tight. It's tight. It's like a really tight race
between Loyal Joseph and Gopher, and then Hex
is just a half step below, because he doesn't
really care about his team. Are you like, in
my head, gotta pick just the top two? Top two.
Top two, okay. In order. In order. Okay, probably...
Oh... Yeah, okay. Because of racism against robots,
it's probably Loyal and then Gopher. Okay. A
claw reaches out from nowhere, forming out of
liquefied reality. It is as if the light which
showed you the city, the sky, the valley, and
Doody's death was twisted into a malformed avatar
of retribution. It effortlessly rams through
the armor of Loyal's frame, tearing the front
off of its cockpit alongside the vast majority
of its controls. Loyal, you feel your skin liquefy
and pull away from you as the tip of the claw
just grazes it again. It is only through a last
-minute evasion that your internal organs are
missed. Your frame takes the level 3 damage,
no control, and you take the level 2 harm, melted
skin. Then, as if stepping from behind an invisible
curtain, the rest of the entity comes into light
and hurls the machinery in its hand at impossible
speed into Gopher. His frame flies back over
the crater's edge and begins to fall. And that's
where we'll end for today.