What follows is a broadcast by Welkin Dupp, lead
preacher of the Clusterists. Siblings, it was
not long ago that I gave a final warning to the
peacekeepers occupying our planet. I told them
that they had a final chance to leave, to go
home or join us in harmony here. I see now that
we are no longer dealing with people, but...
animals. We are dealing with a systemic cruelty
that would extinguish over 50 ,000 innocent lives
needlessly. I am not, as my critics have called
me, unrealistic. I know that in war there will
be deaths, but this goes beyond any expectation
I had for the peacekeepers. They have shown their
hand. They have declared their position. They
will stop at nothing to exterminate us, even
sitting in our homes. Our cities is too much
for them. Merely being alive is an affront to
their so -called mission. I ask you now, siblings.
If they will show you no mercy, if they will
kill children freely and without regret, then
who are you to choose to be a bystander? By choosing
not to fight, you are telling your friends and
family that their lives are expendable, that
the peacekeepers have the right to decide whether
they live or die. I respect your freedom. I respect
the desire for a quiet, peaceful life. But that
time is long past. Now is the time to resist.
Now is the time to fight. And now is the time
to make them pay. All right. Last time, you guys
continued your operation in Greywood Sands, and
for the bulk of that session, you were following
up on this lead, going after a guerrilla cell
inside the city. With the help of your informant,
you found out they were meeting in the bottom
levels of the factory on the west side of the
city town. You effortlessly reached the room
and discovered that not only were there armed
clusterists in here, but also a partially built
frame. After fighting the frame and the members
of the cell, the raptors were almost completely
wiped out, and Captain Spud barely got out of
the room. Now the frame has collapsed to the
ground, leaving you to make your move. What do
you do now? Geist, I think. He was trying to
plant a demolition charge on the leg, and I think
that as that happens, he... Kind of steps, as
the thing shuts down, he steps back and he just
starts sweeping his, because the raptors aren't
here anymore, he starts sweeping his shotgun
over everybody who threw down the rhymes and
it's like, that's what I thought, get on the
fucking ground right now! And just like, you
know, zip -tying people or whatever, you know,
tie -in -tie. These guys are all getting tied
up. And he's also going to radio out to the raptors
and be like, we got some fuckers fleeing, try
and intercept them if you can. yeah i'm helping
with crowd control using my giant exopod body
to like herd people with like the noodley little
robot arms this way this way sure uh yeah you
i think you arrest a lot of people who were there
who haven't like run out a lot of the raptors
just like catch them i think some of the garrison
gets called in to process the prisoners ambrose
is dead And you find a spud. I think he is, like,
the whole, like, right side of his body is, like,
crisp. I won't get into details, but it's crisp.
Oh, no. And he's, like, braced against the wall,
just, like, fumbling for something in his jacket.
He's like, you're gonna make it, soldier. We
got him. Hey, man, I think I need a doctor. Yeah,
I think you just might. Hey, could you reach
in my shirt pocket? I'll do it. I'll reach in
there. This is a blunt. Okay. I'll put it in
his mouth and light it for him. Yeah. Absolutely.
He's like, okay, cool. Thanks. Yeah, I need to
get to Dr. Stat. You're going to be okay, buddy.
Yeah, I'm in complete and utter agony, man. This
is, like, not cool. No, he's a hero. Scott is
in a not cool position. I repeat. That's worse
than desperate. Terrible. Okay. Yeah, you have
successfully neutralized the cell in the city.
I think Killer prone comes down. He's like, oh
my fucking God. What the hell? Are they building
that here? Yeah. Shit. Well, artists, you know.
Geist doesn't laugh. He doesn't think it's funny
at all. But yeah, we got another frame captured.
Let's, uh... I guess... I think Geist is gonna,
like, get up there. Is the control scheme for
this thing completely fucking wrecked by the
grenade? It is totally fucking destroyed. It
was, like, already kind of shoddily put together,
and a grenade did not do it any... any, uh...
It was also not done. Yeah. Okay, I was going
to move it. I was going to pilot it up to the
parking lot, but if it's completely wrecked,
I think I'm just going to tear out some vital
electronics with my bare hands. Can I inspect
it and see if there's anything weird going on
with this? Sure. Just like a cobbled together
mech with wood. That'd be a survey. It's special
wood. There's no stakes, so you can just roll
it. I'm surveying this. I got a five, which is
partial. Yes, there's nothing particularly special
about this, except, you know, the wood is a little
weird. But this is a cobbled together thing that
a bunch of people made as like a desperate bid
to create a frame. And they were only partially
successful, it seems like. It probably would
not have lasted very well in an actual fight
with another frame. The only reason it was scary
is because you were little fleshy men. But no
supernatural stuff, that's all I care about.
No, no, nothing supernatural except the wood,
which is alien. But you're going to know that
that shit's weird. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. I think
we're done. I think Geist is going to... I took
some stress, but I didn't take any damage. I
guess he's going to take stock. Can someone grab
a wheelbarrow for me? I was going to say, what
did Joseph take? I lost my legs. You didn't lose
them. You're limping. Okay. Oh, I can still move
on my own? Yes, you still move on yarn. You don't
need help. Joseph, are you okay, buddy? They
took my legs! I'm a bit damaged, but I'm doing
alright. Are you okay? I'm fine. Hey, that little
trick worked. Yeah, see, you got it. I knew it.
Look, I can't really be seen helping you out
of here for PR reasons, but if any of the raptors
are still alive, I'll get them to give you a
hand. They're not alive. They weren't. I mean,
maybe some of them are alive, but they're not
in any helping order. Yeah, yeah. Oh, no. I'll
carry you, Joseph. Thank you. Okay, so now you
guys can excitingly go back to your usual tasks,
unless you don't want to do them. Now it's time
to blow off steam, baby. We're gonna fucking
party. We need to de -stress. Yeah, I think we
do. Sure. I don't think Geist wants to de -stress.
Geist will de -stress back at Depot. We need
to fill up our freaking clock. We're so close
because I have a feeling that things are going
to get... I don't think we're done. Let's talk
about what we're doing and our load also. Yes.
Yeah, we were wondering if maybe since me and
Brian are about to trauma out, if we should relieve
stress and then the other two could get the last
tick for infrastructure. Is there really only
one tick missing? Yeah, I think that's pretty
solid. Sure. Sounds good to me. You two want
to cut loose with each other? Yeah. You earned
it. What does that look like? Is there a rec
room? Is there a ping pong table? Yeah, this
is a town, so there's stuff everywhere. Okay.
Do clusterists recreationally consume alcohol?
I feel like they have to. There was bars in the
town. Yeah, absolutely. There's people. Space
alcohol. What do you think, Brian? Let's go have
a few brewskis and play some ping pong. I'm down
with that. Beer pong. All right. It's probably
a restaurant like kind of near the apartment.
That's where the department says we're all like
the main infrastructure shit is. Yeah, let's
there's a little bar. It's like a little dingy,
clustrous bar. The people here are pretty friendly
to you, except for Joseph, who they hate. I'll
stand outside. Maybe you had a booth somewhere.
I don't know. What's your excuse, Hex? You have
to think of one. Fuck, I don't know. You don't
have to roll. Just so you know, this is just
like, I'm going to work on this robot in this
booth. Can I get some brews for me? Yeah. Yeah,
he's just with him for work. They just finished
up, and he's not letting him just stay alone.
So he's going with the old, I'm keeping him on
a short leash bit. It could be dangerous, you
don't know. Yeah. Okay, let's roll those rolls.
You get to roll, I believe, D6 for each tick
you have in each other's clock. I got two. I
got... Two. Three. Slash R2D6. Let's see what
we get. That's a six. Well, it's a four. You
take the highest of the two dice. I see now.
Four for Hex. I mean, five for Hex and four for
Joseph. Still pretty good. We're back to being
normal. What do you talk about? What's that like?
Let's see it. I probably can't even start the
conversation, so go ahead. I was pretty close
in there. Yes, I'm glad we dispatched that quickly.
I know I probably could have done that in a more
efficient way, but it seemed like it worked.
I can't see how there would have been a more
efficient way. You acted quick. Good job. Thank
you. Did you... He kind of looks around. Did
you hear what I said? When I dropped the grenade
in. I couldn't. I was taking fire. He points
to the scratches on his cheek. What was it? I
said, you dropped this. And then I dropped the
grenade in. Hex loses it laughing. Joseph's very
proud of that. Tender moment. So, canonically,
you're spending two days drinking. Just drinking,
taking it easy, you know, a mixture of that to
reflect. Occasionally moving a wrench on my face.
That's the most useful thing you do in these
two days. Okay. Loyal and Geist. We have to help
with infrastructure? Yeah. We need one more tick,
so we just kind of need a basic success. And
we don't necessarily both need to do this, but
I feel like it's maybe safer and we can maybe
mitigate risk a little bit if we do it together.
Buddy system. Yeah, exactly, buddy system. So
I already, Geist already used his engineer skill
to do, like, I think I used it to set up surveillance
cameras to help, because we hadn't filled our
cell discovery clock yet. So I could also use
Engineer to continue shoring up our physical
defenses, but does Loyal have anything? I know
Loyal has some better pilot actions than Geist
does. I have a dot and manipulate. Oh, manipulate,
yeah. I also have one dot and manipulate. Let's
be manipulative. Who can we manipulate? It don't.
It needs to be built around town. I think you
could just put some more walls down. Sure. Sure.
Do you wanna... So, I have a feeling that there's
probably going to be some kind of blowout at
the end of this, but I could use my free help,
my other free help, to say that we're, like,
practicing, like, using our frames, uh, you know,
in, um, in concert. Like, you know, we're practicing,
like, moving as a team, and, like, I can, like,
Toss materials to Loyal, Loyal can slap them
down into place, whatever. Just basically making
the whole thing more efficient, setting up barricades
and stuff. We are psychically bonded now, so
this is in character. Yeah, yeah. Geist is learning
to be a leader, I guess. Or learning to assist
people in doing things, which isn't that what
a leader is really for, mechanically? You work
with a team, you're team -minded now. Yeah, yeah,
exactly. So you get an extra die for this. Great.
I like this team player, Geist. That's a fail.
Wow. Well, it wasn't risky, so luckily you can
roll again if you want it in a risky position.
Or you can just let it lapse. I think I could
do better than a one than two. Yeah, I mean,
statistically, you definitely could. And this
one doesn't have another die modifier, just one.
Does it not? Oh, is that how that works? I don't
know. I believe so. Yeah, if it's like a follow
-up check rather than a rerolling, well, that's
another failure. And it's a risky failure. And
that was risky. So what were you doing? Stacking
logs? Just stacking concrete somewhere, maybe?
Yeah, just moving materials. And maybe there's
big concrete slabs they dropped off that you
just need to supply. I will delete these drawings
I've made of your success because they didn't
succeed. There was no success. We lost one of
our clicks on our clock. I think you are building
on this eastern side over here, which you've
known from wire intel that there's nothing that
will really harm you in a frame, which turns
out to be patently false when a large missile
comes freeing out of the forest and blasts into
your frame. Oh shit. You're going to take the
level 2 damage. It's not 1, actually, at this
point. Level 1 damage. Blasted. All blasted.
I don't really want to take more stress right
now from this. Quirks, but it's probably multiple.
It's like at least 2 quirks. Probably. Yes, resistance
would be... uh two quirks for you okay um i would
like to resist it with ominous appearance and
intermittent camo like maybe i got some sensor
thing that this was headed towards me and like
i went camo for a second and kind of like shifted
a little bit so that if it had like sensing on
it it missed me and i'm ominous, which made it
miss me too. Yeah, it sails past you and off
into the distant forest. That's sick. But you
do decide to withdraw. Yeah, yeah. Where's Geist?
Are you here? Geist was here in his frame, but
he's going to fall back too. Okay. Rather than
capitalize on it. I really want to fill up that
clock, so I think Geist is going to take a different
approach. He's going to think, okay. If they
have explosives, then maybe solid fortifications
isn't the best way to go. But maybe we can basically
set up like automated defenses, kind of like
the turrets that Joseph was working on, but have
them like be like in surprise. So it's like they're
kind of like buried in the brush or like sitting
around buildings and like unassuming places.
So if anybody tries to rush up on us from the
eastern forest, they will have a very unpleasant
surprise. coming for them. It's basically like
automated defenses, but more like booby traps
than deterrents. More guns. Yeah. I think that
would be an engineer. That's what I would like
to use for it, because I'm trying to engineer
this. I only have one die. I don't think Loyal
has any stress left to help, right? I sadly cannot
save this for what's going to happen after this.
Well... Maybe I can win a coin flip for once
in my life, he said, jinxing it immediately.
Just gotta be cool about it. Just gotta be cool.
Just gotta be cool about it? Alright. Well, check
this shit out. Oh, shit. I just had to be cool!
You just had to be cool. I had the power inside
me all along. My god. I can't believe it. See,
now you want more than I do. Okay. He gave me
his blunt. Yeah. You set up some turrets. Just,
you know, where you were said, just on the east
side so that if anyone tries to run as infantry,
they'll get lit up. And presumably you tell people
don't let your kids play in the tree line, which
they probably wouldn't anyways. Don't let your
children play where the snipers are firing. Snipers
love children. Don't you know? Okay. Great. That's
good. I'm going to tick the last tick of infrastructure.
The town has got a lot of turrets around it.
That was the most substantial infrastructure
you did. Turrets everywhere. We love automatic
turrets. Aren't they great? And not only automatic
turrets, but also surveillance cameras so that
people are living in a police state. Weren't
they always? Now it's even more so. Yeah. And
they love us for it, too. This says a lot about
society. To set the scene, Joseph and Hex, you
are relaxing somewhere. Maybe you're in a bar
still, just like shooting the shit. You're fucking
off. Very much so. And you're there, and Geist
and Loyal, you are I think somewhere on the east
side, just doing like final checks on these auto
turrets. What is everyone's load? Presumably,
Hex and Joseph, you are lighter medium. Yeah.
Even if Hex is paranoid? No, I'm not going to
make that case. Paranoid might be a good case
for medium, but probably not heavy. I'm only
going medium, yeah. I feel like there's an implication
of maneuverability involved. And also, it's very
hard to cut loose if you are covered in, like,
ordnance. I like that picture, though. They're
in the boat with, like, a plate carrier and,
like, a huge rucksack full of bombs. It's like,
everything's fine. I'm fine. They're not going
to get me this time, all right? But, yeah, decide
your loads. And your radios all go off. And you
hear this report from, like, the southern garrison,
like the snipers. And it says, we've got a truck.
hauling ass towards us from the south road, not
responding. Do we need orders? Do we fire? What
are we doing? Fire! Fucking fire! And you hear
a very loud boom from the direction of that outpost,
and the radio cuts out. I don't think that was
them firing. Oh no. And you start hearing the
sound of vehicles coming from the eastern forest
as well. How far away are we next? Probably pretty
close, based on what you said. Okay. But for
Hex and Joseph, they are a long way away. Oh,
no. Okay. Can I get to my frame, or should I
check off my remote control to get it over to
me? Yeah. I mean, you already checked it off,
right? Oh, I thought... I mean, I assumed that
we reset our gear. I can re -put everything back.
Oh, yeah. I mean, you can reset it. Yeah. You
can check it off. Because you were saying you
were using it over there, so it's only fair that
you're saying it's nearby. Yeah, I'll do that
too. Let's summon our mechs to us. I think you're
already in your mech, Loyal. I am? Didn't you
say you were in your mech? Like, for that action
anyways? Yeah, the RPG thing. Yeah, when you
got hit with the rocket. Oh. They all kind of
happen at roughly the same time. So you can just
be in your mech if you want. Okay. I think we
need to make an engagement roll. Yeah. Getting
engaged. Just see how things develop. It's like
assault. Yeah, I don't think we can do anything
but assault. Yeah, you're just kind of reacting
at this point. I would like to pick transport
as the mission type, please. So, you are going
to get one die by default, another die for infrastructure,
another die for propaganda, and you're not going
to lose any dies because you have dealt with
that cell, which is good. Nice. Let's get these
motherfuckers. That's another three dice. All
our hard work is coming together. Okay, now I
can reveal myself with a dramatic action. Fuck
yeah. So I guess I need to know what I see, because
I want to do something dramatic, but I need to
know what even the targets are, unless I'm just
flying out blind and I'm going to find out. Which
is also fine. Yeah, you're going to find out.
Because I think you do not have visibility on
that south garrison where you are on the east
side. But we hear the vehicles coming from the
east, don't we? Yes. Vehicles from the east boob
in the south. That's the current state of things.
And where are me and Hex? Yeah. You're like in
the middle of the city, like right over here.
Like right here? Okay, gotcha. And your frames
are over here. Gotcha. Unless you want to do
like a flashback saying you staged it somewhere
else. Yes. The viewers. It's across the street,
the main road, probably like... I think that's
a mile away. I wonder how fast a frame can run
a mile. Let's find out. Story of your life. Yeah,
yeah, let's get that engagement roll. Somebody
roll the engagement roll first. I rolled last
time. How many d6? I'll do it. Three. All right,
here we go. Uh -oh, that doesn't look good. Oh,
it's a four! Yeah, okay. I saw the total of seven.
I was like, oh. Okay. Joseph and Hex, what is
your move? What are you trying to do? I think
we should remote control and run. Yeah. But what
do you think? Alright, well then, yeah, let's
use our thing. Hex is declaring that, and he's
gonna start making his way to where he called
it, which is just outside of the building, hopefully.
Okay. You know, I'll place it a little bit farther
away just in case, you know. Okay. So they're
not grouped up. I think that's going to be a
role to successfully remotely pilot your thing
with your controls. And I think that's going
to be a maneuver. Well, I have two in a maneuver.
That's okay. Risky standard? Yes. Boom. Good
work, Joseph. That's a six and a four. Oh, yes.
Okay. Partial success. I step on a dog on the
way. Yes. So your frames are moving on their
way to meet you, probably like at the street,
the main thoroughfare. Where do I have it written
down? Oh, I have a question. Is there a Hayes
Field active, sir? Yes, I should have mentioned
that. There is a Hayes Field active over this
whole area. You hear another loud boom, hex,
and then something on your remote control shows
a damage warning, and your frame is going to
take the level one damage. Peppered. Peppered.
Delicious. Okay, and you will get to your frames
next round, so to speak. Loyal and Geist, coming
out of the trees, you see... a collection of
both infantry as well as like a couple armored
personnel characters, which are just gunning
it, um, towards the, the city itself. Um, and,
and the, the turrets do come online and start,
uh, kind of mowing down some of these infantry
men. Um, some of them take cover, but these,
these two armored personnel characters carriers
are, um, one is like farther North and one is
much farther South. Um, kind of like pincering
towards the city. Okay. Can we and Loyal communicate
with each other, even through the haze? Are we
close enough? If you're next to each other, yes.
Are we? I don't know if we are. Well, okay, in
that case, am I closer to the north one or the
south one relative to Loyal? Because basically
I'm going to go for one and hope that Loyal goes
for the other. From my judgment of how things
were going, you are both relatively close, near
the northeast side. Okay. In that case, because
the Changeling is much faster, I think Geist
is going to... What I want to do is I would like
to reveal myself with a dramatic action. I'm
basically going to do a low flyby. I'm going
to rocket above the East Garrison. I'm going
to fly low, and I'm going to try and slam into
that APC. And I would like to... Because I believe
this is a dramatic action, I have not been able
to use my ability yet. I forgot to use it on
the dam. I would like to make everyone around
me be briefly stunned by my reputation as, I
guess, a psychotic killer who hopes to flood
the crater, or maybe just as somebody who likes
killing clusterists. Sure. Why not? And the red
comet. I'm going to battle. I'm going to try
and destroy this APC. That's my plan. Sounds
good to me. Let's get it. let's get it rescue
standard partial success okay i'll take it this
is with my melee weapons by the way i'm not shooting
i'm trying to fly up and like punch through the
side of it uh yes you are like on top of it presumably
Yeah, sure. I'm trying to like, I mean, you know
how Geist fights. He flies into things, arms
out, but maybe, yeah, I could be over and over
side of whatever's best for whatever fictional
thing you're about to do. Yeah, I imagine you
were just like swooping down with your fists,
right? These are the pile drivers. Yeah, they're
like the impact driver hands. And just kind of
like almost doing the splits above it. It's like
punching down into the cabin of the APC and it's
like totally crushing it into the ground, destroying
everyone inside. From the sudden deceleration
of their bodies. And the pressure. Yes, you have
crushed the APC. I think everyone is kind of
shocked to see this here. A lot of the people
who are just standing out in the field as trying
to charge into the city stop and stare as the
APC is crushed, kind of amazed by the speed at
which it happened. I think a lot of them, as
they pause, are shot down by these auto -tourists
that you set up. They're tracking Loxan. Loyal.
What's left? Is there another large vehicle?
There is a southern APC in the south. I went
to the one that was farther away because I'm
fast. With the idea being that Loyal could go
to the closer one. Exactly. Powering up the shield
and the drill. Just like stomping towards this.
Rapidly increasing speed to drill down into it.
Okay. And that's a battle. I think so. Oh, also
your fucking consequence, Geis, is that you take
level one damage, which I think is just like
maybe some munitions cook off in the APC and
your fists get kind of jacked up. Maybe one of
your fists is broken and that's the consequence.
It's jammed. Yeah, okay. Can I, would that be
an expertise resist? Yes. Cool. Now that I have
a point in destroy natively, I don't... I only
lose one quirk, so I will check off flexible
frame to say that it bends rather than breaking.
Sick. Ooh, that's cool. Okay. Loyal. All right.
Drill battle. Rolling. Drill battle. Now. Drill
battle. Oh, nice! Awesome. Partial success. Partial
success. That's a five. You're on Legon. Theme
comes on. You drill into this APC. It doesn't
stand a chance. It is not designed to stand up
to this level of violence, and also it probably
did not expect you to just be right here when
it showed up. Yeah, you destroy it completely.
Everyone inside dies. Your consequence, I think,
is probably the same. These things are loaded
with explosives, and your drill is going to get
destroyed unless you want to resist. Ooh, junking
equipment as a consequence. That's a fun one.
Yeah, I only have one quirk left, and it doesn't
work, so maybe my drill just gets destroyed.
It's junked. Disjunked. Disjunked. Okay, at this
point, there's like... Some people have gotten
into the city. Either that or they were already
in there. It's not exactly clear. There's a gunfire
kind of behind the two of you, and for... Hex
and Joseph, there's gunfire farther east in the
city, like kind of near the apartment and behind
it. And then there is that large stomping noise
that is coming from the direction your frames
are coming from. Like the garrison is like yelling
over the comms. You get reports of like that
there's fighting in the city. Some people are
like there are people in the apartment, someone
says. But they can't tell who's friendly and
who's not because everyone is wearing planes
clothes, plane clothes. It is very hard to kind
of tell, especially for Hex and Joseph at the
ground level, who is who. There are civilians
running around. Some of them have guns that you
recognize as being like members of the garrison.
But they're like shooting at people. And it's
very hard to tell who is who or like whose side
people are on. You eventually get to your frames
on the main road, and I think they're, like,
crouched behind, like, a building to take cover,
so they're not, like, in the active fire zone.
You both hop into your frames, get suited up,
and then you see farther down the road what hurt
your frame hex. Standing, like, in front of the
wreckage of that south sniper tower, And, like,
proceeding towards you is a frame, one who you
perhaps thought you would not be seeing again.
It is a... Oh, no. A mid -sized mechanical oddity
made of whatever parts could be found lying around,
and it's Gopher's old frame. Ooh. What the fuck?
The one you sold to the black market guy. Oh.
Oh, my God, I forgot about that. I'm going to
start a six -step clock called the old friend.
It's weak, like Gopher. We can take it out, all
right? Gopher was strong as spirit. Yeah, I like
where that got him. Excess overcombs. At least
it wasn't one of the good ones. Oh, shit. Okay.
Okay, what do you two do? You're in your frames.
well wanna wanna try killing gopher yeah let's
fucking kill this thing all right um if gopher's
in it i'm going to be upset gopher is not in
it that is not true i'll tell you how close is
gopher's frame to like buildings or is this like
kind of a clearing like um it is in the street
it is heading into the city But you are backdropped
by buildings and you're like kind of taking the
cover behind one. OK, then heavy cannons, probably
not a good idea. I have my laser, which is pretty
pinpoint. Yeah, why don't you start with that
and we'll go from there. And that is a bombard,
right? Yeah, I think at this point. Let's bombard.
Where are we? Here we go. Risky standard. Risky
standard. It's failure. Which side does the laser
come out of? It probably is... This frame is
agile in a way that is not typical. It's like
some insects move very fast. It's very sudden.
Its movement is kind of jerky. It dashes to the
side, plowing through a building that is there.
Like a smaller one, probably like a one -story,
a cafe full of people. And your laser sails through
clean air, and it levels this, like, large, long
-barreled shotgun it's holding and fires it at
you, and you're going to take the level one damage
peppered again. How about just for you, Joseph?
Yeah, I'll lose a quirk for that then. All right,
you're going to lose... Don't take my sharp corners.
You lose two quirks. Check them off. Do I choose?
Yeah, you can choose. You don't need to justify
them, but you can choose. You are hit by all
these little pellets of buckshot, which do not
hit your person, luckily, because you have some
glass up or something. Oof. Okay, but the city
is being damaged, which is, you know, not a good
look. We'll turn it into a good PR op when we,
like, show, we send back pictures of, like, the
frames rebuilding, like, our frames rebuilding
structures and stuff. As long as they're still
our thumb. We just need to live. That's all.
And the city also needs to live. It'll be fun.
I've just been debating between melee range,
because it's got a shotgun, or just going off
with the heavy cannon, since it's kind of already
fucked everything around it up. It's fucked up
one building around it. Yeah, but you know. What
if he gets a success? It could land on him. Let's
not think about the failure. How risky is Hex
feeling? We've already killed like a lot of people.
Yeah, what's another? Alright, Hex trusts his
bombard. Okay. Hey, I did that just recently.
What's battle do? Let me see. I have a lot of
that. Let me read everything one sec. That's
like roping and doping, right? Exactly that.
Okay, let's go close quarters then. Okay. Post
the distance. That's the way Geist taught you
to do it. And I don't think I have my baton anymore,
just looking at my vehicle gear, so Hex is just
gonna go for it, try punching him. Do you have
any load left to check? Or are you full up? I'm
full up. I'm going to try punching him. All right.
Risky limited, because you don't have a weapon.
Risky limited. Here we go. Oh, shit. It didn't
matter. You weave through the buildings very
carefully. Don't step on anyone. Don't break
anything. And you punch it right in the cockpit
or the center suite or whatever. Little chunks
of it fly off, but the hull of it is... relatively
undamaged. Your fist did not do a lot. But you
got one tick. And you're now next to it. Bless
you. Okay. Could I get up in there now? Is it
obvious that this is happening even though I
can't? You're pretty far away. But you could
go over towards them. There's also like infantry
fighting happening all around you. I'm guessing
we also mentioned like, hey, we found Gopher's
old mech. It's engaging. The haze field means
you can't. Oh, yeah. I'll send you a letter.
So release the pigeon. Yeah. I guess. So here
are the, I could fly over there pretty easily
if you guys think you need help, but I could
also, I have one vehicle load to declare, so
I could check off anti -infantry defenses and
just start lending these guys, which is always
really funny, but it might cause more PTSD. Your
rules of engagement might have specified not
using these. Anti -infantry defenses? Large -scale
anti -personal weapons in town. I'm not in town.
I thought I was in the woods. Oh, no, you're
not using that in town. Oh, okay. There's not
a lot of people outside of town, except they're
in the woods, and then there's people in the
town, too. If you want to go in the woods, that's
fine. I see, I see. Yeah, no, no, I'm not unzipping
the blender in the city. That would be rude.
I also am kind of at a loss as to what I can
actually do here. Loyal, do you think you can
help? Do you think you can handle this, like,
street -to -street fighting with your frame?
Like, with just, like, people around without
butchering civilians? The only thing that I could
think of for me to do, because my frame is so
big, there's no way I wouldn't step on things,
is just broadcast a large thing. I mean, you
can step on things, just like, I just only step
on the bad people. How do we tell who the bad
people are? Everyone looks the same is the problem.
That is true. That's true. That does seem like
a very loyal thing to do. I just wonder, I guess
maybe my real question is, is the noise and commotion
caused by the presence of a frame enough that
I would notice it from here without being told?
Yes, you definitely hear large noises. And if
you're flying, I would think it's reasonable
you might be able to see them. If I think about
it. Okay, cool. Would I need to like take a,
spend a turn maneuvering to get over there? Yeah,
definitely. Okay, cool. Would you like a roll
from me to just see how quickly I do? If you
are flying, I think we just call it a success
because there's not really any danger of you
crushing someone if you are flying in the air.
Yeah. But actually there is danger. You do have
to roll, but you will be in a control position.
Okay. Sure, yeah. Am I close enough that I can
talk to Loyal? I guess we're destroying separate
APCs, so it depends on if... I guess I'm a little
still unclear on how close you have to be to
be able to communicate well inside of a haze
field. I think you're fine. You two are fine
to talk. I don't even know the exact numbers,
but if it's a significant distance, that's when
it's a problem. Yeah, yeah. Okay, so I guess
Loyal will be like, uh, do what you can in the
city, I'm gonna go deal with this frame! And
he's gonna just before waiting for a response,
rockets away. You mean Geist is gonna do that?
Yes. Sorry, not Loyal. Geist is going to do that.
Um, I don't think I'm going to bother with my
boosted reactor. Um, nor am I. I have three dice,
so, like, I'll pass or I won't. I'm over it.
I'm over it. I don't even care. Kill me. I'll
leave it in you. Okay. Fucking kill me. I'm going
to maneuver over there, and let's see how badly
I get destroyed for doing so. Partial success.
Oh my god, it's a three, a one, and a four. My
partial successes with three dice are always
the most insane nail biters, where it's like
so nearly a failure. Okay. You swoop over there,
and as you do, are you trying to land nearby?
Oh, no, I'm staying in the air because I'm going
to be doing something next time. Great. You swoop
up into the air, head over to them, and you are
hit with a munition. Yeah, your frame kind of
reels as this explosion bursts across you. This
superheated slug tears through one of your wings,
and your sensors kind of light up, detailing
loss of function. Whatever hit you is, like,
premium hardware. Like, you don't even know what
this is. Not, like, typical anti -armor munitions.
And the worst part is that you don't actually
know where it came from. There's too many muzzle
flashes going on in the city, and, like, there's
no smoke trails or fumes that you can see with
all that chaos going on. You're going to take
a level 2 damage, perforated. Oh, because it
was a control position, if I resist it, will
it go away instead of going to a 1? Oh, sorry.
You rolled risky. I forgot that you are, in fact,
controlled. Yeah. Sorry. So that means that you
can keep the... We will reduce that to level
one. Okay. If you want to re -roll. Well, I mean,
no, no, no. Either way, I'm just going to take
it. And I actually have armor on my frame that
I haven't used, so I'm going to check off my
armor to resist that. Yeah, sure. I think you're
moving so fast that it just clips you instead.
Yeah. But still premium. Yeah, still premium.
We know they got some good hardware. Probably
from the black... Barry Blackmarket has a lot
to answer for. I mean, his name is Barry Blackmarket.
I mean, are we surprised? I guess we probably
should not have. You didn't ask. Okay. I... Like,
what's around me right now after I've taken out
this? There are people fighting in the streets
of the city ahead of you. There are, like, some
snipers that are, like, trying to shoot from
the tree line, but they're not... doing very
effective because they're kind of cut off by
these turrets. That's most of what you see. Yeah,
I don't want to mess with the people walking
around below me. I want to get someplace high
up and ready my rifle to figure out what the
fuck is happening at the north garrison. Sure.
Where can I safely grapple up onto without causing
too much damage? On the garrison wall? Or is
that too far away? That's pretty far away. Yeah.
You were on the south side, right? Yeah, I'm
close to it. Yeah, the north garrison wall is
pretty far. There are buildings around you that
are not really designed to have huge frames on
top of them, though. No. Admittedly. On top of
the factory, maybe? That's a long run, but you
could try. Sure. You start maneuvering. I'm going
to start maneuvering to the factory. Okay. Roll
maneuver. What's my position? That's also going
to take you, like, right through where, like,
just, like, looking at the map, it's going to
take you, like, right through where Hex is fighting
this mech. Cool. Good. I'll be able to see it
while I'm doing this. Risky standard is your
position. Oh, success. Yay! Yes. You run behind
the frame that Hex is fighting and hop onto the
factory, I guess. It's a strong building. It
holds your weight just fine, luckily. What were
you looking out for exactly? I want to see what's
happening up north with that and decide which
target I'm going to shoot, the one that Hex is
battling or the one that's up in the garrison
area. All right. There's no target you can see
at the garrison from where you are now. People
are shooting on the walls. towards the forest.
But you are well -situated, you have your rifle
out, and we can switch back to, let's say, Joseph
and Hex. Our turn. Yay! If I choose my mind,
this frame is going to be four steps, because
that's what Gophers was originally, and it only
makes sense. That's fair. Three more to go. Go
for it, Hex. Well, help me out. I mean, I'm just
going to only be able to punch. Oh, I mean, we're
fighting our old friend, right? Yeah. Can you
laser him? I can try lasering. Is there a world
where I can hold Gopher's frame so he can laser
him? Oh my god, it's just like Dragon Ball Z.
Yeah, there's a thing called a setup action where
you can try to do that. And it would give benefits
to Joseph. Risky? Great. Risky great? Yep. Alright.
Let's do battle. Please. Well, no. I'll get it.
Yeah! Partial success. Okay. You struggle with
this person. During the grappling process, I'm
assuming you're kind of wailing away on him to
try to subdue him a little bit. Yep. The shotgun
breaks, it falls to the ground, and you get a
rough... I forget, almost like a headlock on
it. It pulls out an axe, but it's not able to
grab purchase on you. The downside is that this
is going to be a reduced effect, in that the
grapple is not perfect. There's still a bit of
movement to it. It's better than it was. And
Joseph, you're going to get a greater effect
and greater another die. But if you fail, like
completely fail, not partial success, you will
hit X. Hmm. I see. We're already here. Not the
first time you've shot me. Yeah, but I'm not
going to let it happen again. In fact, I'd like
to push myself this time for another dice now
that we are drunk. So that's a bombard with two
extra dice and great effect. And that's two stress.
Yes. Yes. Plus two D risky. Great. All right.
This is this is for all our drinks. Our two days
of. Parting. No! Oh my god. Oh my god. 3 -2 -2.
Failure. It is like Dragon Ball Z. You Special
Beam Cannon'd him. It was so bad. Yeah, he died.
He died in real life. Loyal. I tried my best
there, okay, Brian? I really put out all the
stops. You really did. Loyal, do you want to
use your move? Actually, no, it wasn't assisted.
No one assisted the roll. It was set up. Let's
do it. I'm seeing this happen, and then I see
into the future, and I send some psychic message
that redoes time or something. I really don't
know how this works. Why don't we talk about
it? How does that work? Yeah, because I have
an ability to see the future with other things,
which I don't use because I think it's useless.
But... Or... Someone that thinks it's useless
who doesn't like to see the future. But it says
carry that weight. What does it mean? Because
it lets me either re -roll something or take
someone's stress away. Which seems very magical.
I'm gonna die. Like you're carrying their burden.
Yeah. But how do I do this from a range? I think
it would be like I see a flash of a future. where,
like, something moves Joseph's arm in a way that
causes him to shoot Hex instead on this great
effect roll. And I just, like, sent him a powerful
psychic beam that's like, move your arm up. Move
your arm up before you shoot. Yeah, and I think
after you helped me previously, when I let you
in my mind, I'm like, I gotta trust him. So I
do that. Okay, so I think that means you can
roll one more die. Smash R1D6. I hope this works.
It did not! That's five dice failure! That's
insane! That's incredible. That really is remarkable.
That's worse than me. That is worse than you.
Not saying something. Yeah. I don't have a spine
anymore. Shit, man. What are the odds, right?
Okay. Hex, two things happen. The first is that
right as you secure this guy in a good headlock
and he's set up to get shot and killed, he finally
reverses the grip on his axe and jabs it into
your leg servos, which are already fucked up,
right? Oh no, yeah. Yeah, you're already scraped
and peppered. And you kind of lurch a little
bit, and Joseph's beam hits you instead as you
stumble. You're going to take the level 2 damage.
Fucking, I guess, melted as this beam hits you.
Can you resist it, Brian? Yeah, let's do that.
We spent the time relaxing. You can't actually
resist it because you have two level one damages
already. So unless you can reduce it completely
with armor and resistance... Give armor? Or junking
a gear. Or junking a gear. So you need to resist
twice to do anything. Okay. How about we junk
the mobility suite? Bye -bye. Okay. Great. And
then are you going to spend quirks or armor?
Yeah. How much armor is this going to use up?
Just check one box. Cool. And that will use up.
Okay. So luckily your mobility suite, which I
think is systemic thrusters, get hit and your
armor takes the rest of the blow. But this guy
has wriggled out of your grasp and is now a problem
again, unfortunately. The scene is that Hex just
got shot by Joseph. This guy's wriggled free.
Geist is kind of swooping above right now in
his airplane, his fighter jet, and then Loyal
is on the factory roof with a rifle of some sort.
The fighting is beginning to kind of reach its
loudest so far in the town, just like the amount
of shooting going on. The garrison, from what
you were hearing on the radios, is doing pretty
fucking well. They're saying, okay, we're driven
back to the fucking food district or whatever.
They're in the McDonald's. Don't frag them out.
They're doing very well. Those clocks are being
reflected. We prepped these boys for this. You
prepped it. Okay. I would like to do something
because I think it would be really like... just
visually comedic if Geist could fly down from
above and flatten this frame in one hit, and
I can get great effect if I use my boosted reactor,
which I have not used yet. Boost, boost. I can
reuse the animation styles from when Gopher stepped
on that one frame. Now the tables have turned.
Yeah, I want to fly... Actually, maybe... Because,
like, it's already standard effect. So if I use
my last free quirk, I can use Overburden with
Ordinance to push myself. Then because my Fine
Mobility Suite is a prototype, I get both plus
one die and increased effect. Cool. So I can
just shit down on him from on high. This could
be a maneuver. It could be a battle. It functionally
doesn't matter because I have three dice in both
now. So I'm going to get in there. I'm going
to crush this fucking guy at incredibly high
speed. And if that doesn't work, then I have
something else to try. If I manage to fail four
dice, which could happen, I wouldn't even be
shocked. I won't even cry out in surprise. It
did. I got three ones out of three. Well, you
didn't cry out in shock. No, I didn't. You didn't.
It's expected. Nobody has luck on this side.
Yep, it's fine. So that's what, nine dice in
a row that are failures? That's nine dice in
a row. Nine coin flips in a row. We have failed.
Nine 50 -50 chances. Whoever's next. I don't
envy you. Yeah, I think that despite how shitty
this frame is, like, you've seen Gopher in it.
He did an okay job. He's a little clumsy, but
whoever is in this is a fucking ace. They're
making use of the shittiest frame in the world
to do some pretty incredible things. That's insane.
They'd have a bright future ahead of them if
they probably weren't about to be killed. Can
I... I forget. What can I do with my fragmented
clock? Can I take it to try again? Or is that
not what it does? Does it just give me an extra
die? Let me read. Let me read what I wrote. You
can tick your fragmented clock to push or resist.
Okay, never mind then. I already pushed. Yes,
he dodges out of the way again. You splash down
right next to him. In one move, he chops the
hand off your other arm. We have two arms. That
doesn't make any sense. He chops the hand off
of your left arm with this little axe thing.
Kind of like a heat hawk from Gundam. These little
hot axes. Um, and then he kicks you into a building,
um, and you kind of, like, go into it. It's like
this two -story. Um, and you're gonna take the
level one, two damage, I think, um, rattled,
because I think, like, getting thrown into this
building is, like, the main problem here. Um,
not just your hand being, like, chopped. Yeah.
Um, can I take the fragmented clock to resist
the building being destroyed? Yeah, sure, why
not? I'll do that. I'm fucking committed to ticking
it one time. Okay. What does that even look like?
I don't really exactly understand what the clock
is yet. What happens? Let me explain that to
you. So you go down. You miss your jump. That
still happens. But when he goes to cut you and
kick you into the building, your hand... on your
frame, twitches independent of you and kind of
splits itself in half along the axe's blade and
maneuvers him in such a way that his kick cannot
reach you. You're almost stiff -arming his own
body by pushing him away while still cutting
your hand in half. You can feel that this action
was not your own. But the action was still routed
through your body. You still do the controls
itself. Like the changeling is ordering you to
do something instead of you ordering it to do
something. And it feels a little weird. I think
it feels pretty cool. Yeah. Cool. Yeah. And that
is where that stands. Loyal. I want to shoot
somebody. Fucking, we're getting clowned by gopher.
Fucking piece of shit. We can never tell gopher
about this. We can never tell him. I can't see
gopher frame, but I can see... Oh, you can see
gopher frame. I can? You can see everyone from
the top of the factory. Okay. Um... Yeah, I think
I want to try to shoot the person who's a little
closer to me. I see guys get beat up all the
time. I'm sure you can survive a couple more
turns. Who is this person you're referring to
who's closer to you? The frame that Joseph and
Hex are fighting, I don't know the name. That
is the Gopher frame. We're all in the same area.
Okay. Sorry, I thought there was two frames happening
right now. The threats that are active right
now are that frame, and then there is an unidentified
weapon somewhere that shot at Geist. Cool. And
I'm up on a building. I'll deal with that later.
I want to try to shoot Gopher. Okay. What's our
position? What is your rifle? Can you tell me
about it? It's like a laser gun? Yeah, it is
a beam rifle. It is pretty long range, pretty
good. And nothing bad will happen to any people
if I miss this, right? Yeah, do you want any
thing? It's risky standard. Yeah, I can't really
push myself since I have only two stress left
to spend again. I can push. I can push myself
to help you, normal style. Do you just have the
one die? Are you battling? I have two. Or, I've
had two dots in it now. Okay, well that's not
bad. Alright, then I'll just roll it. Fingers
crossed. Oh my god! That's eleven failed dice
in a row! That's eleven. That's incredible. This
is not the part that's supposed to be hard. Yeah.
Turn it off, Colin. Alright? Okay, uh, yeah.
Loyal, you start leveling your rifle to try to
take a shot, and that unidentified munition hits
you next. This hot slug of something rips through
your frame, totally wrecking your right arm.
So disabled arm, level 2 damage. And you also
get the feeling that if that hit your cockpit,
it would be very bad. God, wait, I still can't
resist because my only remaining quirk is amphibious.
I find a puddle of water real fast and I go in
it. I mean, you can, like, for resisting, you
don't need to justify the quirk. You can check
it off, but you'll be in breakdown, which means
any action you take will be bad. Okay, then I
have a level two harm. No harm. Yeah, your arm
is completely unusable, which will affect probably
a number of things. And you'll take minus 1d.
Okay. I think, Hex, we're back at you. He's a
slippery one. He is. Please kill him. He's...
Hex only has... You know what? I think this has
gone on long enough. Hex is feeling a little
more comfortable with munitions, but no. Rules
of engagement. Let's punch. Yeah, you're also
in melee range. Multiple of you. That is the
only thing that's gotten a tick on him, so Hex
is just gonna punch him again. Okay. Okay, Slugger.
Risky Limited, right? Risky Limited, yes. That's
another success! Look it! Harold! We're out.
We're out. Try doing one fancy thing. Yeah, you...
Another solid punch on that frame. The cockpit
kind of crunches a little bit, and it goes reeling.
And I think the pilot opens communications with
you, and is like, Seems like you're the only
one who's actually trained, huh? Stop resisting.
I'm going to kill this freak. I probably can't
even hear that unless he specifically makes it
so that I can. Probably does. Hex likes this
guy, but he needs to stop resisting. Okay. Sure,
gamers. Who wants to go next? I can try team.
I have my fine mobility suite still. I can try
to fucking, like, team rocket him into the sky
with my grapple or smash him into a tree. I was
just gonna try to melee him, because I don't
trust my laser anymore, but I don't know if I
could even, if I have to run over to him to do
that first. Well, what's, I don't think you were
that far, well, how far away, how far away is
he? Like, a quarter of a mile? Would a battle
still apply there? Uh, not with a melee weapon.
Okay, whatever I'm going to do is probably not
as cool as what Geist wants to do. I think you
really want to kill this guy, so go ahead. I
kind of do, yeah. So I took a level 2 damage
last time, right? When it cut my hand in half?
Yes, but you resisted... I resisted the... It
was a little bit unclear. The building being
damaged was kind of it, so let's say you took
level 1 damage instead. Okay, cool. That's actually
really good. I think with this, I guess it doesn't
matter if it's a mobility or a battle. I'm going
to try and just do the classic. It's a certified
Geist original. I'm going to hit him with my
grapple and just fly away and try and slam him
into a tree. Because they can afford to lose
one tree. It's not going to destroy their livelihood.
Or wait, hold on. The south place is pretty deforested,
right? How far away are the closest trees? I
just want to wreck him on something. Okay, cool.
There's a tree kind of like to your southwest.
Okay, perfect. Not too far away. Yeah, yeah,
okay. So I'll do that, and I will check off my
boosted reactor to offset my limited effect,
making it a standard effect. We'll see if I can
roll any sort of success on this. It's just going
to be a regular old maneuver, which is still
pretty good for me. So let's see if I can't make
something happen here. And will that be limited
effect because of your damage? Oh, no, I used
my boosted reactor, but it didn't matter because
I rolled three more failure dice. So let's see.
How many am I at now? This is insane. This is
fucking insane. You just got a punch. I did.
I tried that. Okay, fuck. It doesn't matter.
I failed again. Nothing fancy. Nothing fancy.
Okay, yeah. Jesus. This is kind of funny. It's
getting comical at this point. You have to make
me make up a badass. Come on! Pick up a character
on the fly right now. What's his name? What's
his backstory? So you were trying to charge him
into a tree? Yeah, I'm trying to basically whip
him with my grapple and then fly really, really,
really fast and hit him into something. Great.
Yeah, you hit him with the grapple and then as
you try to fly, he plants his feet really well
and then yanks the grapple. in a very sudden
and violent manner, which rips it and its spool,
like, free from your frame. And I'm going to
destroy your grapple hook and give you the level
one damage splintered hull. Let's call it. This
is insane. Who is this fucking guy? Somebody
kill him, please! He's the main character. He's
the main character. You finally met him. He's
the main character. Hero protagonist. It's Colin's
character. He's here. It's me, Colin the pilot.
Joseph, you gotta get him, man. I feel like I
should not laser this. It could go so horribly
wrong. You're the last one who can take a turn.
You gotta do it. I don't think he's adjacent
to anybody anymore. Okay, fine. He is kind of
close to Hex, but not like up in his grill. Brian,
do I take this risk? You love hurting me, so
what's stopping you? Are you willing to take
this? Because I will bombard again. I really
should have saved some of my free assists. Is
this risky? What? Standard. Unless you have damage.
But I think you have harm, not damage. Yeah,
I'm all harmed up. You're good. Brian, do you
have anything that could resist the damage? Good
luck, buddy. Nothing. Uh, yeah, they, I guess
they can scrap gear, if that's a thing, but otherwise,
we're hurting. I'm about to shoot you right in
the face. Oh my god. Two more failures! This
is insane. You hate me. Three, three, two, two,
one, one, one, three, three, three, one, six,
three, three, three, two, two, one. I use Doyle's
mind powers, and I saw in the future, Brian.
That's why I told you. Yeah. Luckily, this time
you do not shoot your friend. Oh, thank God.
You are just, you are hit by this unnamed mystery
weapon. Again, which just, it comes in from a
high angle and like, I think it takes out your
gun, your laser cannon, and your arm. Or like
your hand with it. So level one damage, lost
hand, and you are going to lose your laser rifle.
Junk it. Put a J where you have it checked off.
Where even is that? Directed Energy Web. Yeah.
Guessing that's it. Yeah. Okay. What the fuck
even do we do? What do we do? We can't kill this
man. He cannot be killed. He's too powerful.
Don't we have friends? Don't we have anyone else
here who can help us? I think, I mean, they're
fighting the infantry. Oh, they could help us.
I'm going to move you to a... I think I have
to move you to a desperate position at this point.
Yeah, give us the XP. Come on, let's do it. I
have one last thing. Who wants to move? I think...
I don't even dare. Stay away from me. Okay, how
far away is he from me on my rooftop right now?
Let's call that a half a mile. Okay. I can't
do my idea. Never mind. What's your idea? I wanted
to grapple him and either pull him up towards
me, because I think he's lighter than me, and
just, like, slam him with my broken, busted -up
drill. Yeah, you'd have to hop down off the roof,
which you could do if you want to land towards
them. Sure, I'll do that, just so I can do something.
That's a maneuver with one less die. I'm desperate.
Okay. Oh, thank God. Whoa. What is that? Is that
supposed to be right? I thought die only had
ones, twos, and threes on them. Then you did
the minus one die, right? I did. Okay, and you
have less effect, so that's going to be limited.
But you shoot out your grapple hook towards him,
and you kind of yank him off center a little
bit, which is going to tick his clock by one.
Thank God. Because he's not expecting a fourth
frame to enter the fight against him. Okay, who
wants to go next? This guy has one tick left.
Please. He's grappled now. Just punch him. That's
worked before. What is this? Is this risky limited
standard? I looked at your sheet, Brian, and
you have a minus one D and less effect. Oh. Well.
Maybe that's minus ticks again. Geist. Also this?
No, no, I just have less effect. Okay. But since
Hex is at less effect, and he's already at limited
effect, it might go down to no effect. The extra
dice would not have affected his successes in
the past couple weeks. Oh, I know, but it would
have affected his effect. Yes. But I'm going
to let him ride for now. But I will say, Hex,
you need to push yourself if you want to affect
this guy at all at this point. I'm going to take
the advice. Geist will step up. He's going to
take the advice. He's just going to try to punch.
He's going to stop doing anything fancy. He's
just going to get in here. Remember your basics.
This isn't a virtue we're trying to take down.
Basics of CQC. Can I rack up? If I rack up three
more successes, it will be a truly, truly impressive
list for me. Let's see. It is. Three more failures.
What do I even do? I don't get to play the game.
What happened here? I don't know! Did you check
the settings, Colin? Why is it doing this? I
had to make you lose. Yeah, exactly. You gotta
flip that the other way. Okay. I'm at a loss
for words. It's extremely improbable. But that
was desperate, luckily, so you get an XP. Oh,
good. Yes, you go for the punch and, you know,
it shouldn't surprise you at this point. He's
just so fucking fast. He ducks the blow and then
kicks you into the open street, kind of. Like
an open area between buildings. And then that
is when the burning hot slug of righteous justice
hits your frame. uh destroying your your sensor
suite and your controls and giving you the level
uh three damage uh lost control and i think like
your like the little joysticks or whatever you
plug into to control the frame um are just like
ripped away from from your grasp and like you
are feel the searing heat as you're probably
like a half a foot away from you being killed
Okay. I'm going to junk something to resist that,
and the only thing I can really junk is either
my mobility suite or my melee weapons. I'm going
to junk my melee weapons. Okay. You lose them,
and you go to... You're going to have another
level 2 damage, which is damage cockpit, I think?
Damage controls? As it splinters, and everything's
sparking inside now. Okay. Okay. Just somebody
do something. I have an idea that might work.
Can I use the devil's footsteps in my thing right
now? Or is that like on foot? It's a feat of
athletics. Also, maneuver to confuse your enemies
so they mistakenly attack each other. Could I
confuse... Whoever is randomly shooting at us
from afar, if I run at this guy and jump over
at them, and then the bullet hits that guy instead...
You understand? Maneuver, which is a vehicle.
That's true. You need to roll still. Oh yeah,
and I need to push myself, which will be right
back at my near -death thing, but not dead yet.
Okay, so roll two dice. for maneuver. Desperate,
standard. And then you get to push yourself so
you can get another die or increase effect or
whatever you want. He only has one tick left.
Oh wait, so it's plus 2D? Desperate? Plus 1D.
Plus 1D. Desperate, what? Standard? Standard,
yeah. Desperate, great, since you're involving
the big bullet. Okay, and then I gain 2 stress
from that, right? Because I'm pushing myself
technically. Wait, wait, I am pushing myself.
That is what the 1D is from, right? Yeah, you
get 1D plus this effect of confusing enemies.
Okay, okay, okay. So plus 1D, desperate, great.
Mm -hmm. Pray. Oh, it's a personal success, thank
fucking God. I'm just sprinting at this guy.
I have no more weapons. I'm just like running
at him. So tick XP. You fucking sprint at this
guy who is now in between the three of your friends,
kicking their ass. And are you doing kind of
like a pirouette, like handstand on the head,
jump over? I think that's exactly what I'm doing.
Yeah, I think you see on your control suite,
it says target lock on your frame. And you jump
right over it. And as you do, this guy, I think,
kind of... Puts it together while you are jumping
over him instead of attacking him. And he grabs
your leg and he sends you a transmission that
says, Clever. And then the giant heated slug
tears through your frame's leg, destroying it,
just like your legs on your actual person. But
it destroys that frame completely. Just blowing
up the old gopher frame with a superheated piece
of metal. Alright, Joseph radios back, even though
no one's there. He says, I'm sorry, I didn't
catch that. Oh my god. He's dead. I used all
my special superpower just to kill that one dude.
We had to. There is still something shooting
you. Oh god. We should probably scan to find
it. Wait a minute. What hurt me? What was my
damage? What was the consequence? I forgot to
put that in. Broken legs. That's a level two
damage? Mm -hmm. If I use both my last two quirks,
I'm also in breakdown then, right? You have one
quirk. Oh, no, you have two. You're right. You
will go into breakdown, which means if you take
any more pilot actions, you will have problems.
Okay, that's not good. I guess I'll take the
damage. Broken legs again. Who has dots and scan
and can still move? I do. I have two, actually.
Excellent. I'll do it. But I also can't... Can't
roll real good. And actually, I can do it. I
can do it! I can fucking do it. I'm gonna do
it! I'm gonna scan! Alright. Are we still in
a desperate position even with the... No, you're
in a risky position now because you're no longer
fighting two things. Nice. Nope, that's another
failure. Leap it on the fucking pile. Whatever,
man. Guys, you're going to take the level 1 damage.
Fucking pierced. That's going to bump up to a
level 2. Which is hitting you. Yeah, buzz up
to level 2. You hear over the radio someone says,
probably a member of the garrison, like, Yeah,
we got artillery in the upper level of the apartment.
And that is, they're telling you where these
people are. You have failed enough that the timer
on the garrison handling this is beginning to
move on. They say, oh, move an intercept. So,
do as you will. Oh, my poor frame. This was supposed
to be the easy part. But you also know that,
judging on what they've said, if you just get
flush with the apartment, or you put something
in between you and the apartment, you will be
in a much better position. Yeah. We got a fucking
belly crawl there. In our frames. I've got two
level two damages, two level one damages, so
if I take any other damage, I'll either have
to fucking brick my jet engines, which would
be the third piece of junk gear, or basically
be unable to continue acting. Which fucking sucks.
I guess, yeah, let's just get moving in, I guess.
Moving in, staying low. Do you want to do a group
maneuver? Yeah, let's do a group maneuver. I
will, because I have stress to burn stuff. What
was that, Hex? Could Hex heavy cannon the apartment
building? You could! Geist will very strongly
object if you try to do that and we'll be like
two really badly broken frames punching each
other and it'll be really pathetic. I mean, it's
an option. Just letting you know. Let's keep
belly crawling. Alright. Everyone roll maneuver
who's leading. Geist? Yes, I will lead. That's
fine. You managed to get everyone forward. Maybe
you employ some commanding skills. Yeah. Um,
it's very stressful. There are like giant slugs
going down around you, but you managed to get
free, uh, up close to the apartment and out of
the range of these, these slugs. Um, and eventually
you hear, uh, someone over the radio says, yeah,
we took them out. Uh, let's, let's clean up.
Well, maybe it's Captain Grabber's voice. I should
have said. Yeah. Yeah. He's doing good work.
That one. And the fighting dies down. There are
these final bursts of gunfire kind of running
into the tree line. And as you take stock of
things after the fighting, the losses of the
garrison and civilians are pretty low. Infrastructure
damage was not great. There's some damage to
the factory and the buildings where you were
fighting. But better than... It could have been
if you hadn't been here to intervene. Do you
have anything you want to do immediately after
the fighting dies down? Let's take stock. Yeah,
let's just take stock. Does the hayseal go away
when the gopher frame is destroyed? Yeah, absolutely.
How's everyone doing? Are we all okay? Who the
hell was that? Yeah, exactly. What was that thing?
I don't fucking know. I've never seen anybody
move like that before, especially not on that
old piece of shit. That was surprising. Should
have had him on our side. I think we just, yeah,
we see how things shook out and see who's alive.
Yeah. In the aftermath, people are kind of shocked
that they would have been attacked so kind of
viciously by people who are, they're like siblings,
psychically, in a lot of ways. Like, and I think
they all knew that like fighting might happen,
but so much collateral damage done by them is
a shock to be sure. And it's definitely kind
of driven more of a wedge between them and the
other clusterists and kind of engendered them
to the, the peacekeepers. That's good. And I
think people kind of immediately after the fighting
dies down. are just trying to focus on rebuilding
um like just we have to get on with our lives
we have to rebuild um and i think you had a lot
more volunteers for the garrison uh like immediately
after this too like a substantial amount you
don't have like you don't have enough weapons
to arm all these people um do you want to help
clean up yes oh yeah that's part of our uh that's
our job Yeah, that's part of our PR angle. We
definitely gotta keep helping them clean up and
everything. Even though the changeling's completely
fucking shredded. I don't know, we're not gonna
have enough money to fix all this shit. Cook
the books. Cook the books? I'll call in some
papers from my father. My rich dolphin dad. Dolphin
books, actually. That's canon. It is. That's
good. Yeah, you help rebuild, I think, Captain
Grabber, like, at some point. like plops this
device um on like a table i think like in the
conference room when you're like just all grabbing
a coffee or something in between like uh using
your frames to rebuild some of these buildings
and it's this it's almost like a miniaturized
railgun um it is incredibly small um like not
like incredibly small like it's in the size of
an ant but it's like the size of probably around
the size of like a rocket launcher like a typical
missile launcher you'd think of And he says,
yeah, that this was the thing that they were
fucking you up with. What the hell? Where did
they get that kind of hardware? I don't know,
but I opened it up and it did not look like anything
I've ever seen. Alright, we'll take it back to
R &D, see if they can at least find a trace on
who could have that kind of tech. Yeah. He hands
it over to you. It is shockingly light. As well.
What if we kept it? Well, it doesn't work anymore,
but sure. Maybe you could fix it up. A new quest.
New quest unlocked. That's a clock. That's a
clock if you want to do a long -term project
for that. I think during this... Why don't you
describe me one shot of how you are helping clean
up, just for the image's sake. I don't think
Geist would use the Changeling anymore for menial
tasks when it's so fucking badly damaged. So
I guess he's just lending a hand. He's probably
just going around moving rubble, maybe helping
move people for triage if that's still happening.
Just like menial tasks. I think he's mad at himself
for how poorly he performed. He fucking fought
virtues more easily than he fought some dipshit
in a broken old frame. He got killed by his friends,
remember that. Yeah, we didn't even kill him
really, although that was a pretty sick move.
It was an embarrassing thing. He has egg on his
face. Not us. I made fun of him when he was dead
and he couldn't hear me. I don't know, did he
really lose? Did he escape? Are we going to see
him again? That would be insane. Sunlith is doing
empath therapy somewhere. His frame is fucked
up. Hex is just helping clear rubble. Yeah, I
think that's happening for me as well. Joseph,
I have an idea. Tell me. While you're clearing
rubble, I think you come across Gopher's old
frame. Like, just here. Like, in the rubble.
And you kind of see that the cockpit is, like,
totally fucked up. Um, and when you go to investigate
it, you kind of look inside and you see like
the, it was like a dead on shot. I went right
through the cockpit, like perfectly, um, calculated
by you. Uh, and you look at like the legs and
the legs that you see are not human legs. They
are made of metal completely. Oh, Oh no. Hmm.
Like the leg of the pilot? The legs of the pilot?
Yep. What the fuck? You're a robot. They look
suspiciously like the standard legs you would
see on an emergent personality. Oh, fuck. That
doesn't seem like the cholesterolists at all.
That's crazy. Could I scan this to learn more
about it? Like, figure out where it's from? Sure.
Why don't you give me a roll? Hey, I have nothing
in scan, but it's worth a shot. It'd probably
be a scanner study or whatever. But you got partial
success. Yeah, this... Looking at it, it is hard
to... There's not much left of it. So all I can
really tell you is that this is not like someone's
augmented legs that just happen to look a lot
like emergent personality legs. This was absolutely
an emergent personality of some sort. Mm -hmm.
I think I'm gonna... Bend down and slowly put
the legs in my... Do I have cargo? Can I, like,
take the legs with me? You have a grocery bag?
Yeah, exactly. I put the legs in secretly, so
no one's looking at me. I think Joseph says,
Touche. And then he, like, kind of walks away.
Hex, what does it look like for you? He's clean
and rubble, but he doesn't notice his friend
taking home a memento. You sweep so good. Certainly
not going to use this later. Did you say something
loyal? I forget. Nope. What are you up to? What
am I doing? Oh, yeah. I'm also at triage doing
empath therapy for people. Just like putting
out good vibes. I don't want to be in my frame
right now because it's damaged. Good vibe machine.
Yeah. Okay. Great. Soon after Jawbone arrives,
dropping in by Worthy in her like new renovated
frame. And she kind of takes in her surroundings
and calls you all over to the motel and says,
Well, from what I heard on the radio, this is
actually quite a bit better than what I anticipated.
Good work, folks. Anything you want to report
in particular? They had this frame pilot piloting
an old piece of shit, and he moved like nothing
I've ever seen. It was, I don't know, it was
something else. I mean, we dealt with it, but
it wasn't easy. Our frames all got probably nearly
as badly damaged as yours was when we had to
fly you out of here. Damn. Well, not a problem
anymore. No. I think we did well by the people
here. I mean, you know, signups for the garrison
are kind of through the roof. Sentiment seems
to be largely anti -clusterist in terms of...
you know, their military faction, so that's good.
That's it, I think. Right? Good to hear. Yeah,
I appreciate your help. You did much better than
I thought you would, but that's a pleasant surprise.
Yeah, you folks get back to base and rest up,
get repaired. and we're going to start setting
up a fire base here now that we've got it kind
of sorted. Maybe we'll stomp down those gorillas
now that we have more manpower. Yeah. Good luck
out there. Stay safe. Hopefully that was the
best they had. Sounds like it was. And she sees
you off. Unless there's anyone you want to say
goodbye to. Oh. Maybe we should say bye to the
town leader man. Twofold. Yeah, my man Twofold.
I can't. I'll just stay at the hotel. Yeah, we'll
go. Guys still go. Guys still go see him before
we leave. He's still feeling weird about the
whole psychic communion thing. Although the events
kind of overshadowed that in a big way. Great.
Yeah, he's in the temple, I think, just like
setting up. A lot of things fell over, broke
with all the chaos and stomping around the apartment
building. Nothing that can be replaced. He says,
oh, you again. Anything I can help you with?
No, we're just shipping out. I just wanted to
make sure everything was okay and say thanks
for not... I guess just rejecting us as a bunch
of occupying shitheads when we show up. Oh, that's
no problem. We're all humans here. And a dolphin.
I will laugh at that. Not a human modulated laugh.
I'll do my dolphin laugh. Is Hex here? Don't
think Hex is. Cool. We really appreciate all
the help. you've done here. Those... I am shocked
by the violence that unfolded and more than a
little ashamed of that some of those people were
part of our temple. I guess I couldn't affect
them as much as I wanted to. Yeah, don't beat
yourself up too much. Yeah. Anyways, stay alive.
Stay away from the East Garrison. I might still
have snipers watching. Of course. Take it easy.
And I guess the guys are just going to kind of
awkwardly shuffle out after saying his kind of
stilted goodbye. Yeah, Samleth just says, wishing
you healing. And nods to him before leaving.
Unless he wants to say something back. I don't
think he said anything back. I think he just
watches you go. And you hear him whisper something
to himself as you walk away. Mysterious. She
said, pathetic fools, they have fallen right
into my trap. I will leave my AI robot to kill
you. Pay good money for that robot mercenary.