Lieutenant Kane Halifax was having a bad month,
within an already bad year. He had gone through
what he described as relationship troubles just
as he was refused a transfer from the military
police to the reserve fleet. He was getting to
the age where the long hours to distance systems,
just to round up insubordinate peacekeepers,
was beginning to wear on him and those few people
who still chose to associate with him. His latest
assignment, he felt, added insult to the injury
of his ongoing position. He was to go to Terra
Brea and round up some personnel and pilots responsible
for the latest scandal coming out of that system.
Lieutenant Halifax hated arresting pilots. They
were difficult, entitled, oftentimes combative.
Pilots, he believed, thought themselves different
from the rest of the military. They thought that
their general autonomy within their squad gave
them some sort of authority within the broader
military structure. They didn't understand that
the rules applied to them, and that when they
refused orders, went on killing sprees, or decided
to use Union resources on personal pursuits,
that they were crossing a line. Worst of all,
these pilots took control of some of the military's
most effective and expensive pieces of hardware.
More than once, he had been forced to pull pilots
out of the cockpits of their frames as they decided
to turn their weapons on the very same organization
that they had claimed to dedicate their lives
to. The briefing document on this newest operation
did not promise that these arrests would be any
easier than those that came before. Even worse,
his usual support squad had all been either promoted
or transferred, leaving him with a band of rookies.
This group was especially bad. He had a general
son who had skipped two years of academy training
to get ahead of his peers, a rogue programmer
fresh out of compulsory rehabilitation with an
over -generous service requirement, a young dolphin
rejected from pilot school looking to prove himself
in the military police, and a squad of stim -addled
exosuit operators. And then, of course, there
was Lieutenant Halifax, the one who had to keep
them together long enough to slap handcuffs on
their intended targets. It wasn't going to be
easy, and it wasn't going to be fun. But one
thing was for certain. He was going to need a
stiff drink before all of this was over. Hello!
Welcome back to All That You Know. I'm Colin,
the GM, and joining me today is Adam. Hi, I'm
Adam. I'm playing Joseph, the Infiltrator. Ewan.
Hi, my name is Ewan. I am playing Loyal, the
Empath. Zach. Hi, I'm Zach, and I'm playing Geist
the Ace. And Brian. I'm Brian, and I'm playing
Hex the Bureaucrat. So, last time, you finished
up the four -part mission that we did. And there
was a lot of stuff going on in that mission.
Geist and Loyal went to a Clusterist psychic
communion and saw a lot of shit. Geist has a
weird impression that Loyal might be hiding something
from him, and we'll see where that goes. Joseph
discovered that an emergent personality was piloting
a frame for the Clusterists and recovered some
legs of that frame to try to maybe track down
where it came from or do something with it. You
discovered that... One of the gorillas who attacked
the town you were defending was using a very
advanced anti -armor weapon that you hadn't seen
before, and you recovered that. And everyone's
frames got pretty damaged in that fight after
you fought with the emergent personality pilot
who kicked your asses a lot. He was a total badass,
everybody. You heard. You saw. Looking at all
these three and four dice failures is just...
heart -wrenching. How did this happen? It hurts.
That's his draw on the West. Good God. But we're
going to be doing our downtime with all that's
in it. It should be a shorter one this time.
There's not going to be a party in this one.
Sorry to say. But you all return back to the
capital, setting down on the tarmac. Captain
Spud is rushed off by a medevac team to the hospital.
His body's fourth and third degree burns need
a lot more advanced treatment than what was available
in Greywood. Oh, yeah. It's now been about 10
days since the peacekeepers announced that they
dispatched a team to come and arrest those responsible
for the incident in Clearwater Crater, where
all those people drowned. From Nyla's guess that
she provided you, that means that you will be
contending with that arrest anywhere from 4 to
18 days from now, depending on if when they said
in custody, meaning when they arrive here to
arrest you or when you are brought back to Earth.
to be processed. As you disembark from Worthy's
Craft, you get the usual instruction from Nyla
to get settled and report for debrief tomorrow
morning. Geist, as you disembark, however, you
see Ziggurat here, who kind of immediately starts
pointing some device at you and then back at
the changeling, and she kind of slithers around
you and stares at you and asks, Garrett, Did
you experience anything out of the ordinary on
this last mission of yours? Uh, I don't, uh,
I don't think so. I mean, what, define out of
the ordinary? None of this is ordinary. My fucking
spine has been replaced. Uh, sensations of connectivity.
Unusual ones with the changeling. Yeah, it happened
one time. I got a little, uh, Got a little jolt
while I was working with some electronic equipment,
and I was looking through the four cams for a
second. The changeling was far away. I was on
foot. Do you believe this to be a hallucination?
Well, I don't know. What do you fucking tell
me? We will discuss this later when there are
less prying ears around. Yeah, can someone be
overhearing this? eyeing Ziggurat suspiciously,
wondering what business she has with Geist. Well,
you know, Geist is Ziggurat's business, legally.
Yeah. It's always suspicious business every time
with this one. It's just too slithery. You're
just biased against people with suspicious voices.
Well, I have plenty of reason to be. You're not
the only paranoid one in the party. But she goes
over to the changeling and looks it over and
lets you all go. We're going to roll our rewards
and do our jolly good XP. I love to be rewarded.
So you're going to get 3d6 for your supply roll
on this one. Yes, sir. Okay. Six. You get six.
That's good. As good as you can get. That is
literally the best possible result. And then
you are going to get one personnel and one material
from your democracy. I'll keep a floating alley.
The squad earns two rep, and I believe I already
did one of these. Oh, I hope you didn't do our
rep already, because that would be the difference
between us. I don't believe I did. Yes! Then
we're leveling up! Uh... Okay, I did do the status
thing. You gain one status with the Shovel Scum,
which takes you to plus two of them total, which
I think is your highest relationship with any
squad now. The Shovel Scum are Jawbone's squad.
Yeah. They love us. They love you for what you've
done. You did a very good job. You gain four
trust with the Peacekeepers, which I've also
reflected that on the factions sheet. You are
at five out of nine trust. Oh, so you've already
done the trust. Yeah, trust and factor stuff
I already did. Okay, cool. You didn't do any
collateral damage stuff, and I ticked their goal
clock as well, the soul unions, because they're
going to be setting up a fire base in Greywood.
And now you can each spend one material to refresh
your quirks, meaning you roll a d6 and get back
that many quirks. And you remove all level 1
harm and damage on your character sheet. Yeah,
I think we should do that. Everybody needs to
do that, except... Wait, Hex doesn't, does he?
Didn't we talk about that? I'm hurt. Hex is very
damaged. We're all hurt. I have a level 2 harm.
I thought you didn't use any quirks. Okay, so
I'll just get rid of... I got junk shit. Well,
that's different. The junk shit isn't touched
by this. Oh, no. But yeah, Hex has a lot of damage.
Because he didn't use his quirks. Yeah, okay.
So I took one for everybody, so everybody can
do that. So it's D6 quirks, I believe. Oh, fuck.
Three's not bad, but it's not enough. You're
not missing any quirks, you're fine. Oh, awesome.
Yeah, but I like big numbers. And this is also
for removing all level and harm and damage. They're
one thing. So I only get to remove one of the
harm and damage? The D6 is for the quirks you
get back, but just by spending the money, which
we already have done, you all remove all level
1 harm and all level 1 damage. What about level
2 stuff? How do we deal with that? How do we
recover? I'm a little melted. Since this is our
first time, we can go over how to heal level
2 damage. It's okay, Adam. Me too. I know. We'll
be in the hospital together. Okay. The Sparrows
heal back to full as well. The Raptors are going
to take more time to heal. Spud is hospitalized
and recruitment is ongoing. So they're going
to be at less effect and minus one die for you
guys. But I've already marked that on the squad
sheet. So Sunleth, you're going to get two quirks
back if you... of power and then joseph four
and then you know you all know how that goes
uh okay xp so this is going to be your character
xp for uh either you can put it into a skill
category or put it into your playbook xp tracker
um and you will get one xp if you express your
tragedy history or opening um You will gain 1
XP if you struggled because of your beliefs,
scars, or your vehicle's quirks. And you will
gain 1 to 2 XP if you addressed challenges with
methods determined by your playbook. The ace
is violence. Empath is understanding or poise.
Infiltrator is stealth or evasion. And bureaucrat
is procedure or management. This is for this
whole gorilla area mission. This whole area.
I feel like everybody did almost all of those
to some degree. I don't know if there was any
personal growth for Joseph on this one. That's
what I was trying to figure out. What about all
the robot racism he had to grapple with? I mean,
I guess he took it in his stride pretty effortlessly.
You literally struggled because you couldn't
do anything. Yes. Especially the emotional struggle.
It was like, yeah, yeah. And I think you all
did something with your playbooks stuff for XP.
Whether you do one or two is up to how much you
feel like you did it. So I'll leave that up to
you. I'm not going to interrogate you over it.
Okay, sick. I think I'm about to hit. I'm at
prowl level three now. Yeehaw. I think I'm going
to give myself all four points. I feel like I
was a really good boy today. Or I mean, we're
in our groove. You were true to character. Yeah.
Yeah, and there was the whole mind melt thing.
That was some real personal growth for guys.
It took a lot. So my prowl is now level three
and my bombard is level three. That's good. I'm
a little bit better now. That's good. Cool. You'll
be very good at those things. Yay. For the squad
XP, did you face off against challenges above
your tier? I do not think so. This was all pretty
below your tier. So you're not going to get XP
there. For your squad's reputation of reinforcing
it or gaining a new one, I'm not sure. What do
you think? Well, we have two now, right? Our
reputation is daring. And didn't we... We talked
about getting another one. I don't know if we
ever actually did. Yeah, if it's not on the sheet,
I don't think you did. No. Okay, cool. It was
all theoretical. Was this daring? I don't know
if any of this was daring. I don't know. Maybe
when we fought that one frame on foot, that was
pretty daring. You didn't really... no that was
an accident yeah i mean does anyone who's brave
really know you know like sometimes it's pretty
sure that's the definition of bravery no no you're
mistaken if we can just get we just need one
xp to level up i'm sure we can get it from somewhere
uh express the goal as drives inner conflict
or instinct of the squad i think yes and i think
it would be took definitely Cool. So we have
filled our squad XP tracker and we are back down.
We have one overflow. What level are we now,
gamers? Well, we've leveled up, which I think
means we have to pick another special ability
or two squad upgrades. Yeah, I don't think you
really track your level for that type of level
up. It's only tier that you track. Which also
did go up, by the way. I think we have to pay.
Do we have to pay to go up in tier in this one?
I don't remember. If you're going up an actual
tier, you have to pay a very large price. Yes.
Okay. Well, we can theoretically get that high,
but I don't know if we can afford to pay that
right now because we got to refit. And then you
get one XP for a successful operation. Nice.
Nylot said it wasn't in budget. I'm sorry. It's
funny you say that. But I rolled her Entanglement
ahead of time just because I'm going to do that
now. But as you take stock of the issued supplies,
you realize that something is missing. You are
short approximately three supply points. So you
can take that loss, or you can try to consort
with someone in logistics to push them to get
to you what you need. On a failure of this roll,
you will lose some trust with your faction. I
have two consort. Come on. Well, you're the book
boy, Hex. You know what? Actually, the peacekeepers
are coming to arrest us. Who gives a fucking
shit? Exactly. You gotta live for the moment.
We need a gun. Yeah, fuck it. Get it back. Do
what you can. Oh, they don't trust me? Oh, no.
I'm so fucking sad. What are you gonna do? Arrest
me? Who would this contact be? Would this be
Nyla? Colin? I don't think it would be Nyla.
I think it'd be someone... Fuck, I don't know
if this is a named character, if I'm being honest
with you. Do we know anyone in... Like fucking
logistics who drops off your supplies? We knew
Glenn. Is there a new Glenn? Do we have an intern?
We do, but he's not in really logistics. He's
like a... I don't even remember his name. The
guy who was helping me on my retribution project.
Oh. God, who was that? Hex is looking through
the org chart and who does he find in that slot?
That guy wasn't logistics though. He was like
data management or something. I'm going to be
honest. The bureaucratic arm of the peacekeepers
takes up very little space in my brain. Let's
say this is Tor Fusel. It's one of my name lists.
All right. Hex has no clue who this is, but he
calls him up. Hey, this is Tor. What's up? Tor,
you mind explaining? I'm sorry. Who is this?
You're not on my caller ID. Oh, right. You don't
know me. You don't know me, do you? Well, listen.
I'm Hex. You might know me as part of the Dusklights,
and, well, we just got back from a long operation,
and I was told there'd be a certain amount of
supplies, but they're not here. Uh, roll me your
consort. Oh, baby, come on, Papa needs a new
supply. Got my fingers crossed for you. That's
a failure. Oh, yeah, sorry, it, uh... It says
right here, uh, all the supplies, uh, earmarked
for you were delivered. So if you got like a,
if you feel like something's missing, you should
take that up with like the delivery guy. Uh,
I'll give you his number. Sure. Just email it.
Hex hangs up. Uh, and you get a text by the way,
you're not supposed to call this number. Uh,
leaving that on red. Uh, And if you do indeed
call the delivery guy, the number says this number
is no longer in service. I got bad news, team.
Okay. I guess you've made an enemy of the logistics
guy. You lose one trust with Tor. With Tor. Torfusil.
Oh, my God. We have a new name to remember. He
seems extremely fragile if that's all it takes
to lose one trust with him. Or Petty. Maybe.
Let's steal what we were not rightfully given.
Yeah, do you want to do the briefing now before
we go into the actual downtime chugga -chugga?
We could do the cook the books first, if you'd
like. I think we should do all the actions at
once. I feel like it's better to keep everything.
So... I guess, like, when you wake up, there's,
like, a message from Nyla, like, sent at 4 a
.m. or something, that says, uh, different meeting
spot today, meet in the hangar. Uh, the hangar
where you keep your frames, that is. Hmm. I don't
like this. No, me neither. Uh, yeah, I'll go.
I'll go, I'll go strapped. Um, I got that, that
piece on me, but I'm going. Are there any little
red -orange flowers on the way to the hangar?
Roll me a survey, Loyal, for that little question
you asked. Oh god, I don't like that answer.
The question you were supposed to say no, of
course not. No, everything's fine. Just get in
the hangar. Psychic flowers? Nyla would never
hurt us, right? No, she likes us. Duh. You're
right. Thank you. I was worried. I failed my
survey. Yeah, you look around for flowers. I
mean, is Loyal, like, on the lookout for flowers
because he's paranoid about this? Yes, he is.
You look around. You don't see anything on the
tarmac, which is a relief to you, and then you
kind of turn back to the group, and you see Geist,
and there is a little red flower petal in his
hair just stuck there. Ah! Is it real? Or just,
like, float up to him and, like, use my little
noodle arms to try to flick it off. Hey, what
the fuck are you doing? Is the flower petal still
there? Does it come off of him? Do I have it
in my hands? I'm looking at your character sheet.
One second. Oh, God. Roll for initiative for
me. See, I didn't tell you the position of this
roll before you rolled it, so I would feel bad
doing damage to you. You just wanted to pick
flowers. I guess Geist, Loyal is reaching for
your head. At this point, there is enough trust
between them that Geist will be weirded out,
but he wouldn't react violently as long as it
doesn't look like the exopod is moving fast enough
to break his new spine. Um, you grab the fire
petal and it dissolves into blood on your fingertip.
Is there blood in my wet little hair I have left?
No. It's on Loyal's finger. Do you see anything?
Or are they just being weird? Yeah, I take my
hand away and there's like a little bit of blood
on it. I'm assuming Geist sees this, but... Geist
is like, whoa, what the fuck? Am I bleeding?
Holy shit! Geist touches his head trying to like,
he's like patting his robot arms on his like...
partially bald scalp, trying to see it, and then,
like, looking at them to see if he's, like, dabbing
any blood off. Uh... You prick your finger on
something on your head. Me? Yes. My finger is
made of metal. Oh, that's a good point. Well,
I mean, you have feedback, right? Yes, yeah,
yeah. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. You feel something
prickly, like there was a thorn on your head.
Ah, what the fuck? What is it? Get it off! Get
it off! Is it a spider? I don't know. What is
it? There's nothing there. What are you talking
about? Oh, my God. I thought something sharp.
Maybe it was one of your electrical components.
Is it still there? Like, if I go back in for
a second, does my finger get poked again? No.
That'd be weird. What the fuck? Weirdo. Why are
you touching my head? I thought I saw a... insect
of this planet. We should go. Okay. Can I see
the blood on Loyal's fingers? Or is it gone?
Yes. You can. I don't have anything to wipe it
on. It's just there. It's so funny to have to
just like constantly reaffirm if basic factual
things that have happened are real or not. I
need to go find a towel quickly. Excuse me. What
the fuck? I guess I cut myself or something.
You alright? Hex asks. I guess. I don't know.
Do I got something on my head? Hex looks at his
head. Does he see anything? Or does he think
he's a freak? No, he looks fine. I think he's
tweaking. For sure. He is a freak also. He doesn't
look like a normal person. He's got blue skin.
He's all fucked up with Augmetics. Only your
hair, Geist. Hex puts his hand on Geist's shoulder.
Are you going to be good for this meeting? Yeah,
I'm fine. We'll try to touch something on my
head, man. It's not my fault. I know we were
out there in the field for a while. Let's just
get through this. Yeah. I love it. Okay. You
arrive at the hangar. In the like back corner
of the hangar is a cargo container, which is
just kind of sitting there. There's like some
ammo boxes that have been unloaded from it. It
looks like I think you've probably seen it before.
Like it's always been in here just holding like
miscellaneous stuff. It's usually like locked
to the padlock, but it has been unlocked. and
a lot of the boxes have been emptied out, and
it seems Nyla has set up a tiny meeting room
in here, almost. Is there anyone around, like
in the hangar, like around this, or is it completely
empty? I think gophers here are working on one
of your frames, probably, as they're looking
at some damage. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But besides
that, not really. It's kind of dead. Okay, gotcha.
Cool, let's go in. Great. Nyla, as always, indicates
for you to take a seat. The seats are not the
usual cozy conference chair seats. They are kind
of just like milk crates, essentially. But she
says, take a seat, please. Sorry, nothing more
comfortable is available. Why are we eating in
here, Nyla? You take our supplies? They took
our chairs, too? No, it's... What? What is this
about? Supplies? Never mind. We'll take it offline.
Okay. Close the door when you come in. I'll close
it. Niall looks... She looks bad, as she kind
of always has for, I guess, the last three missions.
She's not looked good. She looks kind of twitchy
now. And says... We'll get to that. I'd like
to start with a debriefing with everyone. Jawbone
sent over the details about the operation. Very
good work, everyone. The garrison has never been
stronger, and the guerrillas seem to have retreated
for now, and our standing with that community,
which we desperately needed to stay strong, has
improved. Plans to convert that town into an
official firebase are moving forward. And once
we get a new infusion of resource from the Corporate
Council, we'll begin to try to extend our reach
outside of the city officially. It is unfortunate
that we lost so many good men from the Raptors.
While Spud recovers, we'll be backfilling the
Raptors with reserve troops, as well as a couple
of volunteers from the Greywood Garrison. Drillmaster
Jackson Kale, who you might remember from your
supplemental infantry training, will be commanding
that unit until the Captain recovers. Do we know
how Spud is doing currently? He's stable, but
he's missing a lot of skin. And unfortunately,
that is not an easy thing to repair, as I'm sure
Geist could attest to. Yeah. Are the backup reserves
just like only a couple steps removed from being
civilians at this point? In the case of the Greywood
Garrison, a lot of them literally were. the reserve
troops are mostly people who, yeah, they, a lot
of them are conscripts or people who like signed
up after being civilians here. They are trained,
um, but they're not like hardened like the original
Raptors, uh, were. Gotcha. Not great. With that
review out of the way, do you have anything you'd
like to add about the mission? I mean, You know,
it was good. For the first time since I woke
up from my coma, I felt like, you know, we were
really, you know, peacekeepers and not illers.
Good. Let me just look over the report one more
time. I got one thing to mention, and I don't
know, maybe it's a small thing. Maybe it's...
just me, but I didn't really understand that,
you know, clusterism ain't a monolith. You know
what I mean? It's not one thing. The idea that
there could be clusterists who are part of the
whole fucking mind meld thing, but not part of
the militant child soldier arm, it never really
occurred to me. This was a little eye -opening
in that regard. Sure, but... It's best not to
dwell on that. Ha. Alright. Um... I'm sure you
are well aware those announced arrests are coming
up quickly. Like I've said before, we don't know
for sure who will be arrested except almost certainly
Hex and Crow from the Moondevils. And you are...
each looking at at least 10 years of compulsory
rehabilitation, at least. I don't know about
the rest of you. Joseph, you would probably not
be arrested, but you would probably be remanded
back to the state if they decided to pursue something
against you. I can see that happening. I don't
know about the rest of you, but I can't afford
to lose any more pilots. I won't... force you
to act against the Soul Union, of course, but
should you choose to do something, we should
discuss that together, at least. And she kind
of gestures at the new meeting room. Do you have
any ideas in that regard? Well, I don't want
to lead you to doing something you may regret.
Of course not. Do you... You four have any inkling
of what you might want to do? Are you really
working with us? Yes. That's the truth. Yeah,
she has been this whole time. What do we want
to do to avoid arrest? And stop this war? Look,
if we seriously go... You know, we really turn
things out. We try to prevent Hex and Crow both
from being arrested. Like, what is that going
to look like? We can't fight the entire fucking
Soul Union. We can't operate without any support.
I don't see this going well. I don't see this
ending well. We don't have any fucking options.
Well, logistically speaking, The Seoul Union
does not give us any supplies actively anymore.
It is almost all our reserves and things we are
working out with the corporate council, which
so far has been a strong relationship. If we
did something about the military police when
they arrived, that would certainly prompt a response
from the Seoul Union. However, it would be slow.
Everything moves slow in the Seoul Union. Much
too large, too much to keep track of. Even the
group they're sending to arrest whoever they're
going to arrest will likely be a small group.
Chances are they won't even have any reserve
forces with them. I wouldn't even expect a full
complement of frames. Out of character question,
it's more like a universe question. Mm -hmm.
How, I guess, under the Seoul Union's thumb is
the Corporate Council? Not at all, is my understanding.
Like, is there a world where Hex can defect?
That is a very interesting question, which is
hard to answer. I guess the corporate council
themselves in -universe on this planet is not
a larger organization that exists outside of
this planet. It is a conglomeration of a bunch
of companies which are all represented by this
group. It's like a corporate union that exists
only for this planet. Like an industry trade
group. Yes. So it's like, could PepsiCo, could
you defect from the United States to PepsiCo?
Technically, you could if they funded your defection.
If they want to have the steps to allow you to
escape from the law. Like, absolutely. That's
something they could do. Okay, that's where Hex's
head is. Regarding your question, Loyal, which
is how powerful the Corporate Council is, on
the planet, of the factions you know, they're
the most financially stable faction there is,
and the most influential. Yeah, can they withhold
trade or some type of financial thing against
the Seoul Union to dissuade them from doing actions
here? uh they could do that they could yeah it
would probably this would be like uh like a really
small like if puerto rico for instance something
smaller than like a city in puerto rico decided
to withhold taxes from the united states like
um at first it'd be like are you serious and
then it'd be like this is so fucking stupid you
have no chance so the corporate council would
Unless you have a very good reason why they should
do that, it would be a huge risk for them. Yeah,
they don't have anything extremely valuable on
this planet to bargain with. No, they... You
know, they're capitalists. So what then? The
plan is that we fucking waste the arresting force
and then hope that we can close the conflict
off before they send even more frames to come
squash us? there that is an option um not a good
one it would be very bad for everyone involved
and i have some moral qualms about killing soldiers
uh and loyal it's not a lie but there's something
to the way she says that that it kind of like
catches a little bit with her um And it's not
exactly clear what that is, but Joseph, you might
know what it is. She wants to know. Anyways,
she continues and says, we could, obviously going
to jail is an option. Compulsory rehabilitation
isn't the worst in the world. It's honestly pretty
cushy from what I've heard, especially for ranking
officers. But we can't afford to let you go from
this conflict when there's so much at stake.
We could try to say you all left of your own
accord and hide you somewhere. Maybe reorganize
you internally as some sort of black ops group
where I can run you remotely. Presuming I don't
get arrested too. Or another option, really,
it's a bad situation, and I'm more than open
to ideas. What if this arresting force gets dropped
into some live clusters conflict, and we have
to save them, thus proving why they shouldn't
arrest us and why we should stay here? Do you
have an idea on how to orchestrate that? In their
attempts to arrest us, we lure them somewhere
where they will be put in danger and we'll see
the gravity of what is at stake. And maybe we
can convince them against their orders. Better
than my idea. But we don't know for certain,
do we? They could turn their backs on us. And
they could die. True. And if you are in a battle
with the clusters as well, you might be at risk
too. I don't know about that one. Yes. That could
be a possibility. You would need to assure that
you are the one saving them. They will be armed.
They're not going to be hopeless, the military
police. They are well acquainted with combat
most of the time. And you also run the risk of
if you fail to convince them after saving them,
then all of that damage you may sustain or the
damage they've sustained may just embolden them.
And come up with another option that does not
entail disabling them in some other way directly.
I'm all ears. I was just gonna say, I think that
going, you know, fully Black Ops off the grid
is the only choice that makes any sense. I'm
inclined to agree. Joseph, he raises his hand.
Yes, Joseph? When they get me, they're not going
to put me in jail, are they? To be honest, Joseph,
you probably have the least risk here. Once they
get their hands on you, they will... Presumably,
once they get on planet, they're going to grab
Whitecliffe and have her disable you. Yes. Whoever
Joseph is leaves that moment, I assume. It would
be my death, in a way. Oh, unlikely. You have
too much operational knowledge to wipe you out
like that. Whitelook Cliff would probably disable
you, take you back to the SUEPD, and then they
would leave you there for whatever she wants
to do with you. Which, who knows? She's not chatty
with me. Would my memories be at risk? No. Well,
I don't know. I'm not the expert, but from what
I know of Whitelook, which admittedly is not
much. She believes you to be a valuable resource.
Wiping all your operational knowledge would essentially,
based on what I know about your whole emergence,
it might just render you not functional at all.
And you are a valuable resource to us. Interesting.
He puts his hand down. Do you think you not being
able to lead us if we were to go the Black Ops
route, is it going concern? I could send you
instructions. I don't know. Really, I don't know.
There is a chance I will be arrested too. I don't
believe I have any real connection to what happened
in Clearwater if people look at the evidence,
but people don't always look at the evidence.
So there is a chance that if you did go dark,
you would be out there, and then there would
be no one back here to work with, except maybe
Gopher and Worthy. But to be honest, I don't
know how Gopher or Worthy feels about any of
this. I mean, in terms of the Dusklights, I'm
not quite sure if most of us are compromised,
so to speak. So as much as I hate to suggest
it, Do you think we could get to a mutually agreeable
arrangement with Bluth? Ugh. Elaborate. We look
a little strapped. He kind of, like, kicks the
milk carton here. I'm saying, what if I went
on loan? And we use that funding to help facilitate
this undercover operation? That's up to you.
I only cook the books. I don't manage them. I'm
going to pretend you didn't say that. You know
what's going on. Your shirts have been very nice
lately. She certainly knows now. He's going to
be arrested for one thing. What's another? If
we did go undercover, if we did send you away
somewhere, set up a secret fire base and continue
to have you do operations. We would need a good
amount of money. Supplies to set up a new base
to, presumably, we would have to redesign all
of your frames to at least give you some amount
of deniability. You think Bluth can't afford
us? Oh, he could. Would he? But the real question
is, what would we have to do for Bluth to get
that money? What would we do? I feel like this
is more of a me thing. You're a valuable asset,
Hex, but if his history is anything, he wants
a full military team and a capable one to do
his dirty work. Not just one. But yeah, those
are the options we have so far. You could try
to do the hero act, which has problems. We could
do the safe house act that has problems killing
them is obviously has problems even arresting
them uh while being a very moral option is dangerous
um and we can't rely on the support of really
we don't know who we can trust within the peacekeepers
here as is uh who knows what the other squads
will think i think we could count on the shovel
scum Maybe Koala's lot. I don't know. Maybe not
if they're facing down prison. Who fucking knows?
Just to be clear, if we go the fully untraceable
off the grid route, is there any way we don't
all go to prison for a very long time assuming
we somehow manage to pull this off? We could
stage your deaths. I think that's the least of
our concerns after avoiding it. If we had a lot
of money, like I'm talking full support from
the corporate council, not just Bluth bending
their ear. We could set you up all with new frames,
put some basic combat AIs in your old frames,
just send them at the nearest cluster as stronghold.
Make sure someone's there getting footage of
you all in a suicide charge. Frame it as they
would rather die killing the people they hate
so much than be arrested. Well, that's another
problem entirely, isn't it? I gotta find some
way to keep being in contact with Ziggurat. Oh,
I'm sure Ziggurat will be fine. She's got deep
ties to the council. And, Hex, I have a feeling
you have a good manifesto in you. More you guys.
Well, really, any of you. You all have a manifesto
look to you. Well, if we were going to go dark,
what would be our next steps? I know you're not
going to like this, but talk to Bluth. You're
right. I don't fucking like it. Hex, you could
do that. There's no real reason to involve anyone
else, although you may want to bring Loyal if
you can. Yeah. I'll do it. I don't trust Bluth,
but I know what he likes. Always happy to be
of assistance with Mr. Bluth. We'll put something
together. Just... Anything else you would like
to discuss? Any of you? No, no. I don't think
so. Okay. Just go about your business, repair
your frames. You'll need them. And just stay
in touch, all of you. And if you see, just keep
your eyes peeled. The military police sometimes
don't make a big entrance. Sometimes they like
to sneak in. All right. Watch for them. Okay.
Yeah, that's it. Dismissed. And I will... Hex,
I'll put something together with Bluth. And I'll
let you know. Hex gives her a nod. I turn on
my military police sensor and float away. Oh
my god. Geist is a cop. What the hell? You're
a cop? You gotta tell us if you're a cop. Legally,
you have to tell us. Oh, shit. Okay. Secret base.
Let's dig a hole. Let's dig a hole. Presumably
you need the cash. Yeah. You don't need cash
to dig a hole. All you need is a digger. Exactly.
And who is going to buy the shovels? I have a
drill. Sorry, your drill's broken? I fixed it.
I see. With what? Oh, right. We don't have the
supply points. Fuck. We don't have any fucking
money. No. I'm calling my dad on the phone. Okay.
Hey, new frame, Dad. I'm in jail. Dad, come pick
me up. I'm in Peacekeeper Jail. Okay. Great.
We are going to actually do our downtime actions
now. We'll start that off with Hex. Do you want
to cook the books? Fuck yeah. Please cook the
books. Is this just another DD6? Don't you remake
the original roll? Yeah, I'm reading it. I'm
just making sure. Yeah, you take some stress
and then, yeah. That's another D6. That's a 5!
Not bad. Not too bad. That puts you at, I think,
8's total supply. Didn't we lose 3? Yeah, you
had 6 minus 3 plus 5, which is 8, right? But
then we spent a bunch on our... Oh, yeah, you
spelled four. Yeah, we had three loose supply
points left when you said that we lost three,
so I just took them away. So now we have one
personnel and five nebulous supply. Nebulous
supply, my favorite. Okay. Cool. Well, you can
always try to get some money with downtime actions,
but... Oh, God, it's going to come to that, isn't
it? It could. It certainly could. Okay. So, who
wants to take the first action? So, here's the
thing. I need to repair my shit quite desperately,
and I need to burn off stress, and I need to
work on my project. I know what I'm going to
do, though, so maybe I'll... Do we still have
three downtime actions? Or are we down to two?
Okay, cool. First thing I'm going to do is repair
my frame. What's our total for that? Is it two
dice for Gopher? Three. Three. It's growing up
so fast. Okay, so I'm going to use one action
to repair my frame. And that is... Four. A partial,
which I think is two ticks on the clock? Yes.
I do believe so. And I'm going to use my second
action to do that again. Did I get the exact
same result? Oh, no, yeah, I did. Okay. So that
fills it up, and my level two harms become level
one damages. So pierced, I'm going to say, becomes
dented, and damage control becomes sluggish controls.
Great. Yeah, Gopher fixes it up. He is extremely
curious about what... did all this damage to
you. You know, this is so weird. This reminds
me, like, exactly of the axe I put together for
my frame. Yeah, it's wild. Wild imagination,
Gopher. You know, Gopher, a lot of these frame
weapons are pretty standard. Doesn't take a genius
to use them, you know? It would be two more actions
to repair. I'm gonna... Spend one supply point
to unjunk my melee weapons or two because I really
have no choice but to do that. I really need
that. And then I think for my final... I have
two more things that I need to do. Does anybody
object to me spending a second one of our supply
points? We only have five. I'll be taking two
of them. I need to heal myself and my frame.
Those are the two things I have to do. Hex wants
to work on his long -term project. I don't need
my drill back. I can get by with my gun, I think.
Who wants to... Okay. Yeah, I mean, everybody's
going to need to use probably two of their actions
to heal. Maybe I'll hold off working on my long
-term project for now, but I will... I need to
burn off. I need to relieve stress. And I think
I want to do it with Loyal, because I want to
ask him some pointed questions. Yeah, let's do
a group... Does burning off stress with another
person give them less stress, too? You have to
also take the action to get your own stress relief.
Okay. Because I will need to do that, too. I
mean, if you're going to do it anyways, then
we can do it together. Yeah, let's do that. Alright,
let's go party. Yeah. Where are you partying?
I don't know. That's a really good question.
A dolphin and a cyborg walk into a bar? We do
always go to the bar. Maybe there's some other
place that's more friendly to dolphins and cyborgs.
Weirdos. What does Loyal do for fun besides go
swimming? Because Grace doesn't do anything for
fun. I don't even think he does that anymore
ever since the incident. The multiple water incidents
that have occurred to us. I think he just sits
in his shitty little apartment. Wow, so much
in common. I know, they should just go sit someplace
moderately pretty. If a guy switches out and
you want to go on the town, let's just look at
something beautiful for a bit. I don't want to
be around other beings. Sure, that sounds fun.
That sounds like a good way to blow off stress.
Awesome. Let's see those rolls. I believe you
rolled your connection with each other. How many
dice did you roll? I think that's two for me.
Two for me too. I feel like we should have more.
The good news is that you both check another
box after this. Best of friends. Goodie. Wait,
that was the wrong die. That was 1d2. That was
the wrong kind of die, luckily. I wanted to roll
something else. You roll two dice and you relieve
the amount of stress indicated by the highest
one, right? Yep. Whoa, that was boxcars. Okay.
And I got four. Okay, that's fine. Okay. Great.
Now you both can go up to level three connection
with each other. Yippee! What are you talking
about? Let's see the scene. Yeah, where do we
go? What is the nearest non -war -torn beautiful
vista for us to go to? Look over the city. Yeah,
maybe we go on the roof of a... I think the roof
of a building idea. Yeah, that sounds nice. He's
kicking back. I imagine we have those shitty
deck chairs that are like a metal frame with
the... plasticky nylon straps, like a whole bunch
of them going in between the two. Um, and he's
kicking back, and he's like, that was, uh, that
was pretty crazy, right? I don't know anything
about, you know, that psychic crap, but, like,
was that, was that normal? Was that, I don't
really remember a lot of it. It's fuzzy. You
see, like, a couple bubbles of laughter come
out of Loyal's blowhole, and he just, Luxunia
says, you were surprisingly adept at your first
psychic encounter, given the scale of it. That
was not usual, even by my standards. You should
be a sniveling mess somewhere in a psych ward.
But here you stand. Or in your case, lounge.
Yeah, I guess, uh... I don't know, that, um...
I don't... I don't understand. None of this makes
any sense to me. I mean, why is everything the
way it is? Why are some of them, you know, maniacs
who will send 12 -year -old girls out in military
hardware to try and kill people, and some of
them just want to build crafts in a forest, you
know what I mean? If they cannot connect in that
way. I believe that that is the question that
all life asks itself when it is able to do so.
And it's why we are in this very predicament
we find ourselves. You're asking the right questions.
There are many answers. Yeah, I guess. Can I
ask you something? Anything. Do you have something
for me? Something you want to give me? I mean...
Something that just feels a jolt of anxiety at
this. It's like, no, he wasn't supposed to know.
Um... Yeah, he quickly thinks back to the flower
petal, the asking Geist if he's experienced anything
strange lately. And he just looks him in the
eye and says, no. Geist? That's a lie. I... I'm
not going to pretend like I got... You know,
the most finely tuned people's senses, but I
think you just lied to me. Oh. Um. Man, how does
Sunleth react to this? I'm not used to the tables
being turned on him. Yo, this sucks. Is this
what they've been doing? You're a bad liar. I
think he's just gonna attempt to gaslight Geist
here. And be like, it's common for the mind to
get confused. After such a psychic communion,
you may often feel thoughts that are paranoid.
I would not give them much stock. Look, you can,
like... I feel like after all this, you know,
everything we've been through, you can be honest
with me, right? Like... You could tell me shit.
Maybe. Can I roll a sway on my companion? Yeah.
I mean, but he can resist if he wants. I know.
Okay, let's do this. I guess, what is the risk
of this? That's true. Well, there are a lot of
fun clocks I can tick, so. Yeah, sure. I mean,
Are you open to being swayed? Yeah, sure. I'll
let it happen. I'll accept the result of the
dice as they fall. Yeah, Sunliver just put his
robot arm on Geist's robot arm, trying to instill
a companionship between them, like neither of
us are fully human. We're different from other
things. I'm connecting with you and would say,
of course, I would never do anything that was
not to protect you or our companions. Or a cause.
And then I pull my sway. Your position is desperate
standard. Ah! Christ. Oh, that's four. Three
fours. Three fours. Hmm. Nice. Chin scratcher.
Okay. Well, I guess in this case, Geis, you are
convinced. Of this. It is a success. I guess
what you're trying to say is that you would never
do anything that wasn't in a guy's best interest.
And implying that you are telling the truth.
Winky wink. And you feel like the words slither
out of your mouth and like something's in there
with them. Something that you transferred. Whether
you liked it or not. And there's just more of
it in Geist now. It crawled right in my ear,
baby. Is it perhaps red and spiky? Who can say?
Like a crown. Okay. Okay. I'll call that a scene.
I'd like to heal, if possible. I'm hurt. What
do you want to heal, your harm or your frame?
I do my harm. That's my dude, right? That's your
dude. My guy. My body. Who heals you again? Is
it Kola? Is it Grace? I thought it was Grace.
I don't know. I think it might be Grace. I think
that is what we said. I don't remember ever hanging
out with Kola and having him fix me. I wish I
could hang out with Kola. We all do. You can
go whenever you want. He don't got legs no more.
Anyways, yeah, why don't you choose? It can be
whoever you want since like, you know, realistically,
Gopher could do it. Grace is probably trained
to do it too. Sure, let's do Grace. We haven't
talked to Grace in a while. Sure. You go into
the clinic and the doctor is here, Dr. Grace.
I don't really remember her exact voice because
it's been a bit, but I think it's just like a
nice voice. She says, ah, Joseph, you look a
little dinged up. Yes, my legs have problems.
I'm hoping you can fix. A lot of that going around
lately. Take a seat. Of course. I'm taking a
seat. Okay, I will roll her. I think she does
2d6. So I will roll. You should roll it. Roll
2d6 for me. Okay. Slash R 2d6. Bam. You only
get one tick in your healing clock. Oh, really?
Mm -hmm. Can I try again? You probably should.
What do I have to spend for that? Well, you have
another downtime action. I think you have two
more downtime actions, right? Okay, that's what
I was going to do. Okay. Is that just another
2d6? Mm -hmm. 2d6. There you go, six. So you
get three ticks, which means that you are going
to lower busted legs to level one harm. Which
will just be like strained legs. Is there a way
I could try and fix that? You could fill up a
clock again. Of healing? Mm -hmm. So you'd have
to do that whole process over again to get it.
Fucking Christ. My plan for downtime was to completely
at least heal myself. That was like my number
one objective. But then it leaves my ship kind
of broken. And also I'm about to trauma out.
Mm -hmm. It's a tough situation. Yeah, I guess
I have, what, one more action now? Yes, you have
your third action, and then we will get into
the having to spend stuff territory. Okay, well,
how about you come back to me? We could do Brian.
Brian. Hello. Hex. It's me, Hex. Uh, Hex wants
to work on his personal project. Thank you. Okay.
Hey, we've been a little busy, all right? I know,
I know. Don't worry. Okay, how do you want to
do that? Well, I don't see many more avenues
outside of Hex studying the leads he got from
Glint and just further doing it on his own. So
it might look like him doing that. Sure. Did
you have Jenny working on it before? Or did I
imagine that? Or is that something else? I don't
think so. Jenny being the reporter, right? Jenny
is your weird intern friend. Who we came up with
for some reason. I don't know why. I feel like
you wouldn't expose Jenny to information. No,
not after Glenn. Not after Glenn. Yeah. So with
his freak of a dog on his lap, he is parsing
through. countless PDFs and whatever online resources
he can find to track down just what the fuck
this is. Okay. What do you want to roll for that?
It's a skill. Describe how you advance. Make
a fortune roll with the appropriate action. Okay.
If you want, you could frame it as you talking
to people in a vague sense, like, oh, you ever
heard about... You know where this address is
or whatever? You can do consort. He's at a dead
end, kind of just researching the available info.
So he has to go data gathering himself to figure
out which of these shells companies or entities
that he's looking at are real and which ones
aren't. So let's frame it as him going around
and playing detective for a bit. Great. Okay.
Roll it. I could. Should you decide, I could
give you a devil's bargain. Okay, can you explain?
Mr. Devil, can you please fully explain what
is at risk here for that? I can. I have to do
it. What is at risk? I don't have something immediately
in mind, but I'll come up with something that
is... You're good at that. What does Hex want?
What is at risk for Hex? Yeah, here's my bargain
for you, X. I will give you plus one D and plus
one greater effect to this roll, but you will
attract the attention of someone powerful. Maybe
not like outwardly murderous, but powerful. That
sounds fun. Let's do it. Okay, cool. So you'll
get an extra die and you will get an extra, you'll
go up one effect level for whatever you roll.
I hope it's the man in black. I'm setting this
to great as effect, then. That's a success, baby!
So, instead of three ticks, you will get a crit,
which I think is four or five. Oh, shit. I think
it might be five. I think it's supposed to be
greater than the sum of its parts. Hear that?
He's a real detective. Yeah, you actually are
one away from finishing this project. Now, there's
a big jump. Hell yes. Thank God for that, honestly.
Okay, yeah. You do a lot of investigating and
you find there is a pattern that you have uncovered.
Like, which of these is junk and which of these
is legitimate? And it comes down to what the
weight of these these shipments. The ones that
are legitimate are like every time are a lot
heavier and they're carried by a particular,
like a subcontractor of truck drivers. And those
are the ones that always seem to go somewhere.
They're never like a dead end or just like, this
is obviously junk. This is a shell corporation.
These ones seem legit. They seem traceable. And
so all that's really left to do now is just sort
through those. and then you will find out where
this warehouse that you've been trying to track
down is. Hell yeah. Great. What do you want to
do next, Hex? I could do more. Let's see. You
want to heal? You have a lot of damage. Yeah.
I was about to ask, do we have enough resources
to kill that Melted I have on my frame? You have
one downtime action left, so if you roll well,
yes. Hey, you know what? I believe in it. What
do I got to roll, Sarge? You are going to roll
Gopher's Engineering stat, which is a 3d6. Gopher?
Gopher. You never let me down before, ever. Five.
So you get two ticks. Cool. Would you like to
spend a supply? You can spend a supply to roll
another die to try to finish that off. I may
be the bureaucrat, but why Zach? Can I do that
without fucking the rest of us over? Yes, so
we have four right now. Did Joseph use one personnel
to do his thing? No, I just used my other action.
So we have one personnel and we have four supply.
I really would like one of those four supply.
I don't know if anybody else really desperately
needs them, but theoretically right now, everybody
can take one of those four points and it'll all
be good. So you can absolutely take one of those
points. Hell yeah. So one more dice? Two more
dice. I mean, three more die. Yeah, three more
die. You re -roll the check, yeah. Oh, baby,
a triple. That's another two. Oh, yeah! That
goes down to a level one. I totally forgot to
check if we had anything left over from last
time. Is that like the level one version of Melted?
I think that's good. We have an extra personnel.
We have two personnel and three supply now. Loyal.
Downtime engines. Yeah, so I want to heal my
level 2 damage. I also want to line up to visit
Gopher on this fine downtime evening. Okay, you
want to roll another 3d6? Yes, Gopher roll. Gopher
roll 6, so you get 3 ticks. You can just spend...
Actually, no, you shouldn't spend anything. That
goes down to 3 for the repair, and you can do
it again with your third action, if you would
like. Yep, that is my desire. Alright, roll that
again. Five. Okay, so you are at let's call it
something about an arm. Think it up. And then
you'll have one tick that overflows for whenever
if you want to repair it later. Ouch, my arm.
I'm calling it like it's sticky. It has a catch
to it. I wrote arm sticky. I don't know. You've
been eating too much honey. Oh, no. I got my
sticky arm. I'm going to throw it at the ceiling
and get stuck up there. Ew. I don't want to hear
that. Okay, so that is everyone's legitimate
actions, I think, except for Joseph. You have
one left, right? Yeah, I have one left. Yeah.
I'm still thinking on that, though. Unless there's
no one else to go. I think there's no one else
that can go for free. Yeah, I'm gonna spend one
of them two personnel points. I added them to
the tracker just so that we can keep everything,
but we have two personnel and three supply, and
I think I'm going to use one personnel. Do you
want a recommendation, Joseph? Sure. What would
you do in my situation? In your situation, I
would do stress. Unless you want to get a trauma,
which is cool, because, I mean, traumas are cool.
You have no traumas. No, I don't. This motherfucker.
I got three! You remember how I played Ozark?
I'm safe. All right. I'm cold, haunted, and reckless
now. I was thinking about that. There's like
four options for me. There is like long -term
project, which I feel is like LOL impossible.
So that's the next time thing. Then there's stress,
which I was eyeing because I'm about to drum
out. But my prowl is now at three and my bombard's
at three. And those are like my best. Those are
like my most used skills. So I for those, I wouldn't
need to like push myself on those moments. I
don't think. And then my my good old ship is
a negative one is a level two damage, except
sorry, negative one or was that minus one D.
So I have like one less die when I'm rolling
it. Yeah. But at the same time. I feel like Joseph
is the least powerful in his frame, so I wasn't
too worried about that. The thing, honestly,
I was most worried about was my harm. I don't
want him to be hurting. One thing to remember
is that stress is also used to resist damage,
so if you don't have any left, I can do any damage
to you, and your only option is to trauma out
to get rid of it. Otherwise, I can just do whatever
I want. Yeah. You have to have stress available
to take his power away. Yeah. My plaything. My
God. Robots truly have no autonomy. It sucks.
You know what? I think, yeah, well, I'll do the
stressing. I'll remove some stress. And you're
going to hang out with one of your friends. Yeah,
you're going to pick somebody to party with.
Yeah, well, you know who I'm picking. I'm picking
my boy, Hex. The craziest man I know. Hello.
It's me. I just got back from being a detective.
Where are you going? I'm going to the bar, if
you'd like to come with me. Alright. I'm not
that stressed, but, you know, I should celebrate.
That's true. You should. Let us drink. What are
we talking about, Mr. Robot? Joseph isn't saying
anything. He's just drinking. Which is not doing
anything to him. He's just purposely making himself
stupider. And he's just staring forward. Uh,
you alright? No. I don't think any of us are
alright. Seems we're in big danger. He taps his
glass. Big, big danger. I mean, when aren't we?
That's true, but this... I mean, you might get
arrested if things don't go right, and that's
bad. And the things Nyla said, I don't know.
I don't trust her. I feel like they would turn
me off if they could. Feel like I... You should
definitely be concerned about that. Yes, that's
what I was thinking. I'm only telling you this
as your friend, but... It's good. No, I believe
the same thing. I believe the same thing. Reform
for me would be like daycare. I don't know what
turning... Do you ever get turned off? What's
it like? Joseph's just like, he looks up to the
ceiling. I used to. I don't remember. He takes
a swig. Sounds like there's worse fakes than
that. This fucking sucks. He starts drinking.
Right there with you. That's the scene. Let's
roll it. We're familiar. Exactly. You're going
to roll the amount of little yellow checks you
have for your connection with Hex. Which is two.
So it's 2d6. Mm -hmm. Slash R. R, two, D, six.
Oh. Five. Five? Not too shabby at all. Five,
bye -bye. And then you check another tick with
Hex. Level three bond. Oh, Hex, my good friend.
I use your line on you. We can die for each other.
Exactly. Oh, that's my actions. Okay, does anyone
want to spend some cash money to do additional
things? I do, yeah. So I'm wondering, and perhaps
this is too meta of a question, I want to pursue
my next step in my retribution thing is to try
and find out why it is that he hates me so personally.
And I feel like I had a good lead for that, but
I think I closed off my last... long -term project
like i think that that was handled um so i need
to start a new one and i'm wondering if there's
any way that i can like because like last time
when i was talking to that guy we had like we
were going through my service record and we had
like narrowed down well like guy's previous service
record when he was under call sign jester we
had narrowed it down to like certain um conflicts
that he had been in that might have likely cause
some sort of collateral damage and I want to
like start like parsing through that information
but I want to know if there's like is there any
way that I can like work with somebody else who's
better at doing that sort of stuff than me or
do I just need to either push myself or take
a devil's bargain to get two dice instead of
one on like a consort for example I don't see
any reason why you couldn't Shanghai someone
else into it because I mean you're spending the
resource And we could always frame it like technically
Hex spent the supply and you're just kind of
there to tell him what you need. Yeah, Hex would
definitely be my guy for this because he's like
the... He's the big brain. He's the egghead.
He's our smart guy. Would Hex help me with...
What would that even be? Would that be like a
study? Does anybody even have any ticks in study?
Not me. Hex isn't that smart. He's... He's good
at consorting. He has one ticket study? Holy
shit. I'm going to scan these files with my mech
in order to use my better skills. But even then,
that's still only one die. I get there myself
with... You know, I think Jenny was Shanghai'd
last time for your clock. That's why we have
Jenny here. Yes. That sounds correct. Can I just
get Jenny to help me out? I could see an argument
for consort being used to pressure interns into
doing work that technically you should be doing.
It's very true to life. Sure! Can I still get
Hex to do it for me? Just like real life. Hex,
I need a hand. I'm trying to find some information
from these old service records, but I don't have
time to go through this shit. Would you like
to find somebody to do it? I know just the person.
Intern friend. Hell yeah. I guess, yeah. Give
me a consort. See how convincing you are. Jenny
gets a call at 4am. Jenny, I have a great learning
opportunity for you. Let me see those boxcars,
baby. Come on. That's a study. You're supposed
to roll a consort. So roll one more die? I was
in egghead mode. Alright. Hey! That's a partial!
That's two, right? Two ticks. Is this a six -tier
clock for this next one? Let's see. What is...
What's your drive clock at? I have one full drive
clock and one empty drive clock. Since this is
just... You're trying to find out who this might
be, which isn't necessarily going to give you
anything that will instantly be able to kill
him. Let's just call it a four. Sure. So that's
two ticks? Mm -hmm. Cool. I might revisit that
if we have points left over, but otherwise I'm
going to take a backseat and let everybody else
spend some of this money, but I will remove that
personnel from the pool. Yeah, Jenny narrows
it down to a couple of earlier deployment conflicts
that you were in, in the River Valley, in some
smaller towns, where there was a lot of incidental
damage. It's kind of hard to pin down whose fault
it was, but you are the aggressor in the conflict,
so you can see why someone might blame you. For
flavor, Hex is going to introduce her to Bluth.
Jenny's a guy. Yeah, Jenny's a dude. Jenny's
name is Generator E. We just call him Jenny.
Well, still, there you go. That's your reward,
Jenny. Go talk to Bluth. What, your reward for
the intern is to go talk to Bluth? Yeah, that's
a real thing. That's true to life. Why the fuck
would Bluth want to talk to this guy? I guess
he probably wouldn't. It's the opposite. It's
an introduction. Oh, I see. He's networking.
It's networking opportunities. Very valuable.
Depending on how your meeting goes with Bluth,
that could be very profitable for Jenny. Exactly.
Great learning opportunity. Does anyone else
want to spend some resources to clear up a couple
of things? We got one person. Sorry, I assumed
I could spend personnel for that. Is that correct
for long -term projects? God, if I knew. It's
a personnel -based one. It doesn't involve heavy
machinery and shit. It is a long -term project.
So we have one personnel and three generic supply
left. So we're actually doing pretty good right
now. If I can fix my drill with a supply or personnel,
I would like to. You can. Well, actually, you
don't even need to. So you just remove it from
the list and you have free load. And then on
the next operation, you can take it for your
drill or anything else you want. Thanks, Wyzak.
I didn't do anything, but you're so very welcome.
I edited his Discord post. One personnel to supply.
What do you guys got? I wanted to keep healing
myself, but does anyone have anything more important?
That's not too important. It's worth noting that
on average it will take two downtime, unless
you get super lucky, which can happen, it'll
take two downtime actions to fill up that clock
to heal yourself. Which is fine, but it just
means that you'll need two of those supply points
instead of one. Which, I mean, we might as well
use them anyway, so I don't have a problem with
that. Yeah. But who else has more pressing matters?
Can Hex finish this project? You absolutely could
if you... I mean, yes, you could. It's basically
guaranteed at this point. Go for it, Brian. Let's
find this warehouse. Is this the mysterious dossier
one? Fuck yeah, go for it. Alright. I'll take
that personnel out of there. Hex is going to
go see if the warehouse is real, since I think
that's the last step. Physically go there? You
see, that's what I'm concerned about. You don't
know where it is yet. So that's the final thing,
is finding it. Okay. Hex is gonna go look for
it. Okay. I guess, in this case, it looks like...
Is it reasonable to, like, drive around and look
for it, or...? So, from what you see in here,
it is not in the city. Okay. These are, like,
long -haul truck things. A lot of them come out
of the city. But they do not end here. It could
be something where you go to an actual truck
depot in the city. Like, hey, where did this
driver go on this day? Yeah, next is going to
do the old pretend to be some random bureaucrat,
which I guess he is, but a different bureaucrat.
What a deception. And he's going to ask, hey,
I'm looking for a driver with this package. We
haven't received it. Yeah, so you see some guy,
some tired truck logistics officer. Could be
you in a dark timeline. He's like, let me fucking,
whatever, red tape bullshit. Let me go pick up
the files. He goes on a really old computer that
he has to hit to make work. He's like, piece
of shit. Okay, just give me like 10 minutes.
That's the boot up. No worries, I get it. They
never want to give you good equipment. And eventually
he like pulls out a little manifest and gives
it to you and flipping through it. It's a lot
of information you already have, but what it
does give you is that it is essentially the missing
link between all of these things. It's like,
you didn't know when this package got transferred
to like determine what the actual final destination
was. And now, you know, which it is a warehouse,
like way, At the edge of the river basin, almost
in the river valley near the silt basin. I think
that's what it's called, which is the kind of
swampier area where the river valley kind of
pours out. And I need to think about exactly
what I'm going to tell you now, because this
is actually very important. Geist is a cop. though
one thing i can tell you for sure right now is
that that i know is safe to say is where are
you working like when you like go back to your
office and your desk or whatever where is that
desk oh geez uh i mean i imagine hex has been
working from wherever his room is at the peacekeeper
base but let's just you guys don't live in the
base Okay, then if that's the case, he probably
has a cubicle adjacent to the hangar. Okay. The
one thing I can tell you with confidence is that
Agent 47 is about to beat you to death with a
fire extinguisher. It was probably should have
stopped investigating months ago. That was unrelated
to this, but one thing I can tell you for certain
right now is that a lot of these... They're going
to this warehouse 27D, but the mass of things
being delivered is not going anywhere. There's
no record in any of these logistics files of
anything coming out of this warehouse ever. Things
only arrive, which would, over this very long
time period, would require a monumental amount
of space. Or things are being moved in a way
that is just not being kept track of at all once
it hits this warehouse. The other thing I guess
I would tell you is that there is a lot of junk
in these shipments. But there is one thing in
common with all of them, which is that they're
importing a large amount of tungsten. Love tungsten.
It's one of my favorite transition metals. And
I think that is all I will tell you for now.
Tungsten. What if Tungsten's not a transition
medal? I might have just totally embarrassed
myself in front of all the nerds. I believe Tungsten
is a heavy medal? I mean, yeah, but it's a different
distinction. I'm looking at the periodic table.
Hold on. Very advanced gaming techniques happening
right now. Is Tungsten a transition medal? The
transition metals are the ones in the middle.
Yes, it is. It's in the sixth of the periodic
table. Damn, why is that? That's what I'm talking
about. I didn't know that. No, that might be
wrong. I asked ChachiBT, so verify that. What
the fuck? Don't ask him. He doesn't fucking know.
What's its atomic number? I don't know. I googled
it. This is so embarrassing. Is this the worst
day of your life, Isaac? Literally. Does anyone
have any last things they want to do before I
move to the ending scenario stuff? Don't we have
more stuff to spend? Yeah, if we have points
to spend, I'm fucking on it for sure. Let's use
them. I want to try and finish off this clock.
I want to find who Retribution is and how I fucked
him over. I think... This time, I want to consort
myself. Could I get... What does Satan have for
me today? Oh, you want a devil's bargain? Yeah,
I want an extra die. One die is not enough with
my luck. I need at least two. You can take your
fragmenting clock whenever you want. How many
spaces do I have left in that? It's not on my...
It's two out of six right now. How many times
do I have to take it? Oh, just once. Just once?
Fuck yeah, I'll take that action, baby. Yeah,
you can always do that. You can always take that
thing for a plus one die. Okay, that's good to
know. So I'm three out of six. I just can't do
that ever again, and I won't need to, so it doesn't
matter. Let's see. Oh, yeah, that's for sure.
That's a partial. That's good. That fills it
up. Good. How did I wrong him? Let's see. This
baby's tied off. What do I got? What happened?
I want to see that live leak footage of me accidentally
stepping on an infant child. I'm trying to think
of a good way to justify you finding this information
that is specific enough. Oh, I should probably
have specified this is a consort, so I'm actually
not doing it. I'm making Jenny do it. I'm trying
to figure out a way that Jenny can point to one.
I mean, because the odds of you only having wronged
one person is very low. That is true. Like, how
do we know? I guess. Also, how does you fragmenting
help you consort? Maybe I'm talking, Geist's
talking to Jenny, he's like, come on, just go
through the files one more time, alright? Just
look at the horrible, brutal combat footage one
more time. And he's like, waffling, he's like,
I don't know. He seemed kind of blunt. Jenny
seemed like not much of a talker. And then maybe
Geist, like, browns out for a moment. And then
Jenny has a, he's like, fuck, fine. All right,
whatever. Jenny agreed to do it afterwards. And
Geist is like, yeah, okay, cool. Man, I can't
believe Geist shitting himself made that clock
succeed. Yeah, you, so he pulls up this fat stack
of files from like around when you were doing
those operations, when you were still Joker and
had your squad. The Moon Devils, literally. You
were the Moon Devils then. And there's a fast
stack of complaints from one guy in particular
that get progressively more unhinged, asking
for you in particular to be censured and put
on war crime trials because he alleges that a
spare... What kind of weapons did you use back
then? I feel like he wasn't quite so punchy.
I'm imagining more of like a traditional armored
core machine gun and maybe like an anti -material
rifle. It was different anyways. Maybe more.
Maybe he used some conventional explosives if
that's easier. Maybe he used like dumb rockets
or guided missiles or something. Any weapon that's
frame size can easily do bad things to people.
He alleges that you a rogue shot or a misplaced
shot from your frame killed his whole family
and horribly injured him. And there's a paper
trail that gets more and more unhinged and then
it stops at a certain point when I guess it was
clear that no one was going to respond to him.
And there's a lot of evidence here that... This
guy either killed himself or he became a terrorist,
you know? Yeah, he's off the grid now. Yeah.
And just from your encounters with Retribution,
you get an inkling. This might be the guy. Do
I know his name? Of course I do. I will tell
you it at some point. At some point very soon.
Three, two, one. One half. Whistler zeal. Wasn't
that a cool name, everybody? But yes, you now
know who Retribution is. You know his identity,
or at least you think you do. But because you're
partially psychic now, I'll say you do. Nice.
Yeah, I know this for a fact. I'm partially psychic
now? In a lot of ways, you have an almost romantic
link with your rival, so you know when you see
him. That is true. I'm going to kiss him on the
mouth any day now. Fuck yeah! That's gaming.
How many ticks do I get to my drive clock for
coming to this realization? You kissed Retribution,
you can do whatever you want. I'll be jacking
off. Four. I actually don't know. Is it one or
two? I don't think I've edited out any jacking
off jokes. That's good. We need them to stay
in. It's very important for the demographic to
this show. They're here for the awesome Yuri
art that's going to come any day now. Yuri? Well,
that's an interesting... Oh, no, I meant Yaoi.
Sorry, I get the two confused. Hey, I'm on board
for it. That's even better. I meant Yaoi. Please
forgive me. Do I get one? Drive clock? Do I get
one drive clock, Dick? You get one drive clock,
yes. Cool, I'm three away from being able to
kill this motherfucker forever. Will there be
three more operations in the game? Who knows?
Tune in for the next several months to find out.
Okay. That's all I had. I'm good. Well, I mean,
we have two points left. I say we use them. Joseph,
you wanted to heal up, right? I could heal up,
but not that important. So if you want to fix
your, your frame, is it fixed guys? No, I have
two levels. So I have level one harms. I would
be able to use those two supply points to completely
fix my frame. Probably if I don't get disastrously
unlucky, which could very well happen. I feel
like you having your frame and the best of ability
is the best thing for the dusk lights. That's
that is my theory. Like I wouldn't spend those
points on my frame. I'd rather you do it on yours.
IMO. Alright, does anybody disagree with that?
Because I'm not going to fight it, but does anybody
else have a bunch of level 1 damages that they
would like gone instead of me getting mine gone?
Yeah, because I have just a level 2 damage and
then a level 1 harm. That's it. You have a level
2 damage? I do. I have broken legs. My legs don't
work. Get rid of that. Yeah, why don't we get
rid of your level, knock your level 2 down to
a level 1? I have lots of ways that I can increase
my effect. Let's do it. Alright, roll You're
going to roll gophers, 3d6? Yeah. Slash r, 3d6.
Baby. What's that? Five. Five, yeah, that's two.
Two ticks, and I roll again. Bing, bing. I just
put my two ticks in. Now I'm going to roll the
slash r, 3d6. That's good. Six. Six. That's one
overflow. So you go down to one. It's called
strained legs. Strained, ouchy, leggy, owie,
ow, ow, ow, ow. You like that? You like how I
wrote that? I do. I see it. All right, cool.
One little repair over. Great. I think my frame's
in ship shape now, at least. It has strained,
ouchy legs, but it's not too bad. Now let's go
fight the military police, everybody. I got a
question. Are we ready to move on? We have no
money left. We're all done here. We have completely
exhausted our ability to influence events. Hex,
who do you trust? Joseph and the reporter and
deceased Glint. Glenn's corpse. You don't trust
Geist or Loyal after all we've been through?
Especially not. He thinks you're compromised
after the commune thing. Yeah, that's not a completely
unreasonable thing. Geist might believe the same
in his position, so that's fine. Great. Your
reporter friend reaches out to you and wants
to get a drink with you. Or just meet with you
somewhere to talk about things. Okay. She says,
you can choose. It's up to you. And she says
she'll bring her own drinks. Okay. Hex chooses
somewhere off base, but not too far. Sure. I
guess a private hole in the wall. Somewhere private.
Somewhere no one would ask questions. Sure. Let's
say a hole in the wall cafe somewhere. Or like
a little bar. Yeah. And if she's really perceptive,
she'll notice that it's not near any streets.
Street hater. True street hater. Yeah, into the
room walks Tuska Long, and she kind of sits down
across from you and makes herself comfortable.
She has this big fancy bottle of gin in her hand
and like two glasses that she brought herself.
And she places the bottle on the table and pours
each of you a drink and then hands it to you.
I forget what her voice is like. I think it's
pretty level. I don't have that many femininities.
Paranoid. I'm surprised she's actually here,
to be perfectly honest. Yeah, last time you saw
her, she said that she would never talk to you
again. She hated you. And she says, this isn't
the usual clustrous maid swill you get here.
This is the good stuff. from a now abandoned
colony. They were an agricultural outfit, only
cleared to export grains, but they sold the stuff
on the side for their, uh, for their luxuries.
Nobody really knows how they made it so good.
They were so scared of fines that they didn't
keep any records. Unfortunately, one day the
union remembered that there was a valuable cadmium
deposit underneath the colony, and they made
everyone leave. I spent a while trying to track
down the former inhabitants. Anyone could create
more bottles as good as this, but nobody could.
It had been a product of a community, a small
group of people who each had a valuable part
in the secret of this bottle. Some of them said
it was the soil itself, some of them said it
was the barrels. They all had their own little
story as to why this bottle was so good. If I
were any more fixated on it, I would have shipped
it off to a private replication lab, but there's
something about the rarity of this bottle that
makes it more special to me. Something I wouldn't
want others to have unless I give it to them.
You know? Nice to see you too. I love this woman.
I think this might be military police in a rubber
mask, but I'm legitimate. Hex is wary because
no one gives the life story of a drink before
saying hi. Tell me, Harold, what is it you want
more than anything? Hex pauses for a moment.
He trusts her, but this is odd. Where have you
been? Tesco reaches up behind her neck and touches
something, and her form kind of shimmers and
contorts and collapses on itself, revealing what
is beneath, which is a sharply dressed woman
with black hair and a pair of glasses, who you
immediately recognize as Tyrell Cryne, the financial
lead of the Clusterous Resistance. Why don't
we have a chat? Oh, no. Oh, no. Oh, this is exciting.
Come on, man. That's bad. And we'll end there.