A personal excerpt from former leader of the
resistance, Pana Menta, written shortly before
his death. The prophet Brahamanta provided unto
us the virtues that would guide us and humanity
to salvation. It was her belief, in my view,
that she put forth the virtues to give framework
to those who do not have the time or necessarily
the will to fully interrogate her teachings.
After all, our communions are often rapturous,
difficult to parse, and these core virtues get
the average follower about three -fourths of
the way to the spirit of her teachings. The first
virtue laid out by her is perhaps surprising
to some. Love. Love is everything in our teachings.
We must love not only our kin, but ourselves
and all of humanity. It is love that drives us
to work towards the betterment of all. To know
that, everything we do is through compassion,
through adoration of humanity. The second virtue,
faith. We must believe in the future of our people,
even if times are dire. We must believe we will
persevere. After all, what purpose would our
fight have without that? We must believe that
our communions, every one, brings us closer to
our goal, no matter how confusing they can be
at times. The third, duty. To hold ourselves
responsible, to make sure we live up to the expectations
of clusterism and the Prophet's teachings. To
assure we act when called upon, to not flinch
away from our mission, and to ensure the safety
of all human souls. The fourth, attachment. Often
forgotten about or blended together with love,
attachment requires us to be connected to not
only each other through communion, but to our
world. We must stay moored to those around us,
moored to our loved ones, and even to our enemies.
To see that which connects us, because it is
only through these attachments that we find common
ground and the ability to influence others. The
fifth virtue is shame. The prophet put forth
that shame is the sister of duty. Shame tells
us when we have failed, disciplines us, serves
to singe our more base impulses. It is the prequel
and epilogue to our mission. It is worth noting,
of course, that shame, in the original understanding
of the prophet's teaching, is only in reference
to actions which would undermine our mission.
We should be careful to remember that. The sixth
virtue, retribution. We must be poison to our
enemies. If they lay hands on us, we shall sever
the hand. If they spread lies about us, their
lies will turn their tongues to lead. If they
threaten our holy land, then we shall knock over
the columns which support their empire. It is
through retribution that we ensure we will not
be crushed in the machinery of intolerance, doubt,
or propaganda. The seventh and arguably last
virtue is martyrdom, to see your own life and
the lives of those around you as part of a greater
plan. It is not just a willingness to die, but
the understanding of the value of life. Life
is not sacred, it is temporary, it is a currency
to be spent one way or another. Allow yourself
to make available even the most terrible sacrifice,
if it means the cause and our mortal souls will
be saved. In recent years, especially since the
beginning of this conflict, there has been a
separation of sorts around the virtue of martyrdom.
With some more modern preachers claiming an eighth
virtue, sacrifice, I would remind you that this
redundancy only leads us astray. Sacrifice without
purpose, without the calculus of martyrdom, will
be our undoing if we are not careful. There is
no valor in pointless ruin, in dying for nothing
but one's own ego. Bear this in mind, children,
and we may yet win this war. Absolutely frothing
at the mouth, extremely aggressive. You guys
beat the shit out of him pretty easily. Some
really good rolls. Geist finished him off after
getting teleported into the sky, and as he faded
away, he left Geist with the rather confusing
message of survive. The air has grown still.
You are up at the blast doors of the warehouse.
I presume you are opening them. Yeah. I guess
you pry them open. They're unpowered. But you're
two giant robots. Four giant robots. I will not
make you roll to open a door. Thank you. You
are immediately confronted with two very familiar
frames standing inside of it. The first is a
similar frame to Hex's, his original at least,
but his new one isn't that different, which is
the standard workhorse. The second frame is very
large, nearly scraping the top of this warehouse.
It's kind of hunched over. It is scaled and covered
in these hundreds of missile launchers, and you
recognize these to be green and tapperous frames
from the Moon Devils, and they are completely
still. Oh, hell. Huh. Anybody in there? Quick
scan? I think Geist is going to open comms as
well and just be like, hey, anybody alive? Nothing.
Roll the scan. Control, standard. Basic scan.
It does always happen with the fucking scan,
doesn't it? Yeah, I mean, it is one die. It's
not clear if there's anyone inside, but they're
not moving, so presumably not. They've been reinforced
by the moon devils not to be scanned, so your
preliminary scan returns nothing. If you'd like,
you can go into a risky position. Oh, you're
already in a position. Never mind. Okay. Sorry.
I think I'm better at scanning than Loyal is.
I think you are. That's strange. I got two dice.
Off to the side of the warehouse and entrance
by the door controls, you spot large pieces of
this fallen, blocky machinery, which you recognize
to be pieces of Crow's frame. They are damaged.
A trail of these pieces kind of lead further
back towards a receiving dock where these empty
boxes are piled up. There are some corpses of
clustrous guards scattered about, and there's
even like a small door that's been blown open
leading down to this, what looks to be a cargo
elevator, large enough for like a small frame
to climb down on or people. But no dead moon
devils, only clustrous. As far as you can tell.
Hmm. Guess we're going down there. Oh boy. Oh
boy, oh boy, oh boy, oh boy. Shall we? Shall
we? Can Joseph's frame fit down there? Yes. Joseph's
frame specifically can fit down there. Fucking...
We're getting logged on by light frames. This
is when that only having three vehicle load pays
off enormously huge. I think... I mean, yeah,
Geist is gonna look and be like, I think we gotta
go down. I don't think any of our frames are
gonna fit. The rest of the moon devils might
already be down there. That might be why we didn't
find anybody up here. I think, can I declare
that I'm at medium pilot load? Sure. We didn't
say beforehand, but that's what makes the most
sense to me. Yeah, we didn't, but you can all
declare, anyone who's getting out, or even just
everyone, you can declare your pilot load now.
Light, medium, or heavy? Medium. Medium. Yeah,
I'm going medium, too. Nothing bad ever happens
on medium. I'm going light. Okay, so we're going
down into a hole? Is that what's happening? Yeah.
We are going down into a hole. Okay, a dark hole.
You're beginning the descent. Without our frames.
I'm going to immediately check off. Oh, I'm going
to my frame. You can, yeah, your frame will fit.
If you want to, I mean, you can bring it. You
want to go on foot? Yours is the only one that
can fit. Wait, is, uh... Are the other moon devils,
are any of those frames light? No. They're medium
and heavy. Pros isn't here. So presumably it
went down. Some of his pieces are, so he probably
shed the extra bulk and went down. It's modular,
man. That's so fucking cool. I'm going to immediately
check off a rifle, and I'm going to say that
Geist begrudgingly disengages from the changeling
and then as soon as he's on the ground he makes
the changeling stand up and turn around um but
before it does he grabs his effects including
the um high -tech assault rifle that he keeps
kind of just like in like a little socket to
the left of where he sits in the changeling so
he kind of just disengages it pulls it out loads
it up does the very intimidating racking of the
slide even though that's probably not even strictly
necessary for future rifles because they can
probably chamber around Automatically. He's like,
I guess no choice but to go down. As one more
thing, as Geist gets out of the changeling, you
see that he's bleeding. He personally, his body
is badly damaged. Yeah, there's a hole in the
front of your frame, too. Yeah, and a hole in
the front of my chest. Sick. It's probably been,
like, hastily, like, I imagine that at some point
before he got out, either Geist or some kind
of automatic countermeasure inside the Changeling
cockpit has, like, sprayed some sealing foam
into, like, the hole in his body, so it's just,
like, there's, like, a ragged hole in his jumpsuit,
but then there's just, like, a blob of, like,
bluish medical epoxy kind of globbed on top of
it. Yikes. Okay. You head down this small incline,
um, with the three of you on foot. and Joseph
in frame. It goes down about 600 feet before
ending at a landing further below. There are
more clustrous corpses down here. They have been
mostly eviscerated by energy weapons, it seems.
There are these empty boxes piled up down here,
like a lot of them, a fuckton. They almost go
30 feet up into the ceiling. There's old forklifts,
overfilled dumpsters full of, like, plastic wrap
and other packing materials. And ahead is a big
door surrounded by signs such as radiation warning,
authorized personnel only, no phone zone. Did
you remember the four S's question mark? Sanitation,
safety equipment, secrecy, state of mind. Luckily
for you, a very large hole. has been melted through
the door, allowing you entry. It's a little tight
for Joseph's mech, but if you scrunch up a little,
you can get through. Should you want to go through?
Well, I think I'll be okay. Geist has his smartphone
in his pocket. These guys are so fucking alone.
What do we see through this hole before we go
in? It's a little dim. Directly through the door,
like straight ahead, is This large platform you
can kind of make out, surrounded by strange reflective
apparatuses covered in these hexagonal panels
that have more hexagonal plates on them pointing
at the platform. And the platform itself is covered
in more of these weird hexagonal mirrored things.
And above it is a weird circular rail full of
staggered metallic spheres, which are just kind
of... hanging there. And then connecting to all
of these components is a huge, chunky cable which
connects to a little computer terminal in the
center of the room, kind of like directly in
front of you. And the apparatus itself appears
to be in various states of disassembly. Like,
there are a lot of pieces missing. It seems damaged
by something. And that is all you can see from
out here. I have a question that I should have
asked a long time ago. How long have these Clusterists
been dead at a cursory examination? Like, have
they started to pucker and decompose? Are they
still warm? You would say... Okay, so I didn't
write that down. It's a good question. So the
original briefing was... They were supposed to
have been back within three weeks, and it has
been four weeks since they departed, which would
mean that these corpses have probably been here,
let's just call it around a week, maybe ten days.
Okay, so they're pretty ripe. Yeah. I'm not an
expert on corpse decay, but sure. I am. Fuck
yeah. Staring directly into the camera. I'm actually
not, but I think that they've just probably started
to go pale. Hey, hey, why are you looking? How
does he know that? Camera's on, bro. Yeah, Geist
is just gonna, like, stack up next to the whole,
like, in military style with his rifle, but he's
kind of gesturing for Joseph to go first because
he's got the hardware. Yeah, I'll go first. Step
my ass inside. So you're just squeezing through?
Yeah, turning on my lights, crouching down, and...
Going through. All right. You now see the whole
picture all around. Conveniently, you didn't
see these immediately as you went in. You probably
would have, though. Armor corpses. Some of them
are armed, but most of them are, I guess you
would call them researchers. They have lab coats.
Scientists always wear lab coats, which is very
convenient. That is true. I'm wearing one right
now. Fuck yes. I'm not going to tell you that.
You have to fucking investigate if you want that.
On the other side of the room, away from all
these corpses that are kind of clustered up on
the right side. Oh, also, additionally on the
right side of the room is a pile of large melted
slag and some parts that are clearly from this
apparatus where it seems they were being melted
down by these almost like flamethrower devices.
Some futurists, not, like, alien flamethrowers,
I would say, but, like, I won't make you roll
to figure out what they are. They're, like, basically
plasma throwers for, like, heavy -duty construction
and, like, scavenging work that are being used
to melt down these parts. Spacekeeper technology?
It's generally available to people. You probably
need a license. It's melting down the orbs? Or
it's just melting down something. Various parts
of this apparatus that seem to have been taken
off of it. Okay. On the other side of the room
from this is Crow, who is propped up against
the wall. It is immediately clear to you that
he is dead. Fuck! Beside him is his frame, which
seems to be on its last legs, extremely damaged,
but it is actually aiming its weapon at you,
Joseph, and is following your movements on some
sort of autopilot mode. Can we give, like, a
Peacekeeper IFF ping or something? Yeah, sure.
Okay, I'll ping it with my thumbs up. You ping
it, and the frame calls out, Friendly detected.
Identification mirage. Dusk lights. Mission parameter
complete. Playing pre -recorded message. And
with that, the frame kneels down and begins spouting
out some extremely crackly audio. Which is Crow's
voice, and he says, I'm dead. I've done a decent
job of patching myself up, but my spinal cord
was severed in two places. And I'm no doctor.
There's probably internal bleeding. Maybe one
day, maybe two. I can't even tell. The painkillers,
they make it okay, but I'm slipping. You don't
care about that. We got here. No defenses except
those mines, which I hope you noticed the mines.
We got in, easy, took out the interior guard.
I went in with my frame, left tapper and green
to guard the entrance. Clusterists were in the
middle of disassembling and destroying this thing.
The skeleton crew, I engaged the soldiers that
took cover, but they didn't even look at me.
They started shooting their own scientists. They
didn't even look back until they were done. They
were easy kills, but I couldn't stop them. I
pulled what data I could off that terminal. All
encrypted. I don't know. Junk data. I don't know
what any of this is. I'm not a tech. I don't
even know what this mission was for. It was too
easy. All of it. Went back topside for Tapper
and Green. We got ready to head out. Opened the
door, and there he was. I always knew he was
in a league of his own, but he hadn't even been
trying those other times. He'd been holding back,
and we thought we were tough. Green was gone
before I even made my first move. Tapper got
a couple off, but he was done soon after. Blue
flare didn't even go off. Not that there would
have been a point. I didn't land a fucking shot.
My entire outer mantle was destroyed. I was hit
multiple times. Bottom layer, body bleeding.
I shut the fucking door, I ran back in here,
tried to think of a plan, tried to pass myself
up, but he didn't follow. He knew I was fucking
done, the smart bastard. The data, I think I
said that it's on my phone. I made a vial of
my spores in the bag, the vest that we have to
live on somehow. You need to find someone so
that happens. Not one of the Dusklights. They're
fucked. You knew that already. You're probably
one of them. I don't know. I did what I could.
I was the best we had. I hope you thought of
something better. Good luck. Set sentry mode.
Deliver recording to friendly. End. And with
that, the frame collapses to the ground. Rest
in peace to a good one. I don't think he was
talking about retribution. I bet you he was talking
about fucking Pierce. I'm almost positive. Why?
Why can't we have a good thing? Because Crow
was better than us. That's why. Well, maybe Colin
thinks we're good now. Yeah, he should have saw
you right now. I don't know. It's just a gut
feeling, but it doesn't matter. Just the way
he talked about him. Jupiter, he's the big cheese.
He would have said the name narratively if we're
meta -ing it a little. I don't know. I think
the ambiguity was intentional. It was! Either
way. I think Geist is going to look around. He's
going to walk over to Crow. He's going to root
around in his bag for the phone and the vial
of cum, and he's going to just put them both
into his pocket. How long would it take Joseph
to decrypt that data? It would be a downtime
thing, unless you really want to camp here. I
was going to say, I assume it's not something
we could handle in the short term. Okie dokie.
Did Joseph help with... Hex's project to get
the location of this warehouse? I forget. I don't
think so. I don't think so. I feel like I helped
the dolphin. Not the other guy. Whatever his
asshole's names are. Whatever that motherfucker
is. Geist is gonna look at him. How does he look
up close? Geist walks into the room. He's looking
at all the corpses. How does Crow look? Yeah.
The It's hard to kind of tell what killed him.
Now that you know he's like, you're looking at
a dead body. It's obviously something killed
him. There are... Should I make you roll? Just
a gather information roll to see how much you
get. Okay. Just roll a survey or whatever. Or
study. Or whatever. I'm fine with whatever. I'll
have you know I'm pretty good at both of those.
That is a fail. Yeah, that's a one. Okay. Is
anyone good at study or survey? I have zero in
both. Hex has got some, right? Surely. I think
study is one, survey is one. That's all we got.
Oh, yeah. Guys will be like, somebody tell me
what the fuck killed him. Please. Hex gets on
his glasses. I'll put your four towards Hex,
just for the fact. Oh, sure. Give you a partial.
It's hard to tell, but it's probably because
of the material Crowe was wearing that you're
even able to tell this. He's wearing like a...
It's not so much a fabric as it is like a sort
of futuristic breathable plastic jumpsuit. You
notice... First you think it's just like normal
wear and tear, but there is a fucking needle
-thin hole in the front of it that like... This
is like a... Beyond a one in a million shot.
This is like severing someone's fucking spinal
cord with a needle at distance. Well, I don't
know if he was talking about retribution. I think
we got to get the fuck out of here and hope that
something worse isn't waiting outside. So were
they like taken apart? A machine in the center
and melting it down. We have no idea what that
was, right? Because, like, most of the parts
are melted. You can take a closer look at it
if you want. I'm very curious to see, like, what
they were attempting here. Because they shot
the scientists immediately. So I'm like, what
was happening here? Do I got a roll threat? You
definitely do. I would take... You could try
to investigate the console. I could interface
with it. You won't get any, like... You won't
get what that hard drive will get you with all
the data, but if you just want to see... This
was attached to the machine. Yeah, yeah. Does
this tell me anything here? Risky standard? There
are no stakes. You can just roll the dice. Partial
success. Yeah, typing on the computer, looking
at it. You probably have to reboot it with an
external power source because there's no power
here. But it's very advanced. You can just look
at the diagnostic information. I'll give you
a few things, because you have a lot of information,
just generally. The console, it references fucking...
Exodus is a great word. It references exoduses,
which is an unusual word to use. A number of
exoduses have been reported. There are diagnostic
logs. boarding like successful and unsuccessful
exoduses um you probably find just like more
of these signs talking about like how you know
you're not allowed to talk about anything that
goes on here like everyone is searched going
in or out probably you find like off in like
a secluded corner of this part of the warehouse
there are some like shitty quarters that people
have been staying in um like not allowed to leave
and i think you probably put together um and
maybe hex you chime in on this is that like all
the empty boxes out front the fact that this
was always the final destination for supplies
um that there was no real there didn't seem like
there's any out anything outgoing from here ever
um and the amount of shit that they brought in
here there should be something here like they
They were bringing in raw materials, you know
that, but they're not here. Which probably leads
you to the conclusion that this device was sending
things somewhere else. It's a teleporter. Teleporter
here. I think without even knowing the information
on the console, Geist just looking around at
all the bodies and after listening to the message,
he's like, whatever the fuck this was. They already
had what they wanted by the time Crow and his
squad showed up. By the time the Moon Devils
were here, they were done with it. Obviously,
I mean, the soldiers killed the scientists to
prevent a data leak because they don't want anybody
to know. We gotta make sure that no matter what
this information gets out, we gotta get it out.
Yes. We gotta hope to hell that whoever killed
Crow and the rest of his unit is not up there
waiting for us. Potentially stupid question,
is there still a Haysfield? No, there's no Haysfield.
Okie dokie. Could we just send info? Or is this
something we have to bring back, kind of? Yeah.
Where would you be sending it to? You're right,
we don't have command. There's not a, like, very
established communications network on Terebraea.
There's not all the fucking cellular internet,
if you want to call it that. It's all centered
around cities. Could we beam it up to Worthy's
ship? Yeah. You'd probably have to get out from
underground first. Okay, yeah, that was what
I was thinking. Yeah. Can I look for evidence
of what they were teleporting? Like, anything
left behind? Any small bits? Try to do a very
detailed sonar scan and not fail this time? Sure,
I mean, you know tungsten was the main thing.
It was resources, right? Yeah. But, hey, if you
want to roll, I don't think this would be a scan,
though. Because you're not, like, these are all
empty boxes. This would be, like, bureaucratic
work. I see. If only we had a skilled bureaucrat
who could do this for you. I go through so much
trouble to hide tungsten teleportation. Yes,
and where was it going? It seemed very concerned
about it. They would kill the scientists and
nothing would get out of it. It is a mystery,
isn't it? I will also say, in -universe, teleporters
are... Bluth has anti -gravity stuff from the
Euro, which is already exceedingly expensive.
Teleporters are unheard of levels of expensive.
To the normal citizen, it is science fiction.
They know that the technology exists. The Uro
do have teleporters, but even to the Uro, they
are rare. They don't use them on their own ships.
And they haven't given any to us either, I assume.
No, they have not given any. It's something they
don't trade. The Seoul Union does not get teleporters
from the Uro. The Uro are not willing to trade
them. Were these Peacekeeper resources that were
getting teleported? Or was this cluster of stuff?
I forgot what we were following there. It seems
to be Clusterous resources. Okay, okay. I was
wondering, like, because you said, like, it seems
only stuff was going in here. It's like, was
it Clusterous bringing stuff in here? Like, yeah,
there's no outgoing shipments, from what you
can tell. Yeah, okay, okay. Like, in -universe,
do we know how they work, though? Like, is it
a one -way thing? Is it a two -way teleporter?
You have no clue. Yeah, I was going to say, if
they're really that rare, I imagine that any
concrete information about it is just, like,
basically non -existent. Is there a picture of
a teleporter on Wikipedia? Terabray Wikipedia.
That's what I'm wondering. No. Okay, so it's
even that mysterious. I'll say this. Wikipedia
page would be like teleporter. Teleporters are
like a speculative technology that we suspect
the Uro have based on X, Y, or Z reports. And
the reports are like... They're like UFO guys.
Like ex -military UFO guys. Not like actual UFO.
You know... the modern UFO guy is like kind of
a grifter, you know? Um, it's like this guy said
there that the fucking Uro have teleporters and
like, they're using them to teleport brain chips
into our heads. Um, which, which is collaborative
corroborated by this one redacted article that
mentions the word teleporter in the middle of
like a blackout. Um, so it's like they exist.
Like they definitely exist, but when, where they
exist is very hard to say. Okay. Yeah. I don't
know if we're spending too much time here, but
I kind of want to, like, and this thing's been
melted, right? Or is the teleporter destroyed
or what? They were, at this point, they were
pulling, like, all the reflective plates off
of it and melting them with this plasma flamethrower
and also a couple of those orbs that were on
top. It seems like they were just kind of getting
started, presumably when Crow interrupted them.
Yeah. Okay. I don't know if we've already done
this, but is there a way I could, like, try to
piece together how this teleporter functioned
or is that just like way out of my my fucking
expertise here that would probably be out of
your league that'd be like a long -term project
okay okay do you have any vehicle gear left to
spend me yeah because i know you have a light
frame what have you checked yeah i have two i
have two it might not be a bad idea to check
off a cargo space and just load in every piece
because clearly they were trying to destroy it
so that we couldn't have it presumably so we
couldn't analyze it So I'm inclined to do the
opposite of whatever they do. So I would say,
yeah, check off cargo space and we'll start,
like, we'll just grab every piece of this fucking
thing we can. Epic. Yeah, because I do really
want to bring this shit back. So I guess, like,
at least to Joseph and the rest of us, we're
looking at a machine that is basically like shapes,
but there's no way we could piece together how
this functions, correct? No way. Not here, but
we could take it with us. But, like, in this
current moment, that's what we're looking at.
I mean, so, like, think of it this way. Just
to set expectations on this. Yeah. Like, deconstructing
a teleporter and figuring out how it worked would
be someone's life work based off of what you
have here. Mm -hmm. And you guys are soldiers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're just taking it to somebody
else. You could definitely sell this to Ziggurat.
Like for a fuck ton of money. I wouldn't get
my spine back, guys. Come on, let's go. Unfortunately,
that's been turned into a very exotic dildo.
Oh, Ziggurat, I didn't think about you that way.
Okay, yeah, I was just trying to figure out what
the fuck was going on here. But that explains
a lot of things, and I understand. Yeah, so then
I think Joseph absolutely would be like... I
don't know how this even works, even me, but
I would like to at least, it's probably safe
to take some of this, you know, that's probably
valuable. So yeah, I hunk every piece I can into
my tiny little frame. They didn't want us to
have it, and I think that's as good a reason
as any to take all of it. Fuck them. Most importantly,
it's valuable. That we know. Awesome. I want
to rifle through the scientist's personal belongings.
See if there's any intel there. We really like
this little place, Colin. It's hard to get in
here. You can hang out here as long as you want.
Folks, you can hang out here as long as... Yeah,
they have... They don't have diaries. I think
that would be very much cracked down on. Oh,
yeah. I personally like lockets with some personal
effects. But no one's sneaking any info in it.
We're not going to find the Doom 3 PDA log where
the guy's like, I started my first day working
in the top secret teleportation facility. What
are you talking about? You just found Crow's
corpse with exactly that audio log. The locker
with the blueprints in it is 0133. Yeah, a lot
of these people are clusterists. They're like
some of the best and brightest. Not many of them
on Terra Brea, so they kind of scrounged them
up. There's probably some notes on just like
fixing the thing. There's like a... There's probably,
like, a research lead at some point. So I'll
give you this little lore segment who has, like,
a technical document on him about the teleporter
that's been heavily redacted. Like, there are
pages ripped out of it that just, like, refers
to, like, how to operate it and things like that.
Just very basic stuff. Like, use this control.
Make sure to, like, tune in these variances.
And there's probably... Maybe you find it on,
like, fucking one of the guards or whatever.
um that has a note from material crime that like
specifies very clearly um that like if they do
not control this information um a lot of people
will die and like there's a list of names on
there which you infer from the guy's um id card
is his family um and it includes their addresses
uh i'm taking pics of all this and then i say
okay Go off, queen. Go off, queen. I think you
find similar notes on the other cards as well.
Yeah. Let's leave. Geist is ready to go. Geist
is like, this place is a fucking crypt. Should
we bring Crow's corpse? No. Yeah, I guess we
rip off any dog tags, possibly, if he has them.
Yeah, does he have dog tags? He has mushroom
tags. I want to blow him up. You want to blow
Crow up? I do want to blow Crow up. He releases
spores this way. No, we got his spores. I got
the fucking cum violets in my pocket. He's a
mushroom man, right? I forgot. He's a mushroom
man. I got the spores. We got everything off
his corpse. Joseph, can you, like, vaporize him?
It doesn't feel good leaving him down here. And
I don't want to take him with either. Sure. Joseph
primes his laser and I assume fires at the ecro.
Yeah, he's gone. And his frame. Geist gives a
little salute. Up in the hangar where the changeling
is, the changeling salutes as well. Geist has
been checking in with the changeling sensors,
by the way, because he can just do that. He's
just looking to make sure that nothing's trying
to fuck with our frames. Okay, nothing. No haze
fields. All good. Good, good, good. Okay. Let's
get the fuck out of here. All right, you head
on up. Agreed. I guess something you would notice,
now that you kind of have inspected Crow's corpse
and you got the audio log, is that green... is
in there. He is dead. There is a single blow,
like one of those pin bricks, through the seam
of his cockpit that went through the top of his
head and destroyed his brain. And then, in Tapper's
case, there was multiple strikes which disabled
his cockpit controls. His fingers were severed
by a beam, a very thin beam of energy. And then
a number of other things. His torso, neck, severed
spine, and internal damage, which took him out
before he could even launch anything. Oh. Retribution
didn't do this. He couldn't. If he could have,
he probably would have done it to me. They're
incredibly precise. Nothing I've ever seen before.
Yeah. Let's get Worthy to come pick us up, I
guess. Yeah, sure. I'm taking the dog tags of
Green and the other guy, too. Shout out. You
head out, and as you kind of head out from the
doors, you look down, and you kind of see submerged
in some mud is this blue flare canister that
Crow mentioned before. And it occurs to you,
it didn't in the moment, that you've heard mention
of a blue flare before, back on your mention
with Doody, which is that they were to send up
a blue flare If sacrifice was in the area. Oh,
yeah. That's not Jupiter. You see a glint out
of the corner of your eye. What do you do? Am
I in my frame? Am I back in the changeling? You
are all out in your frames outside the front
door. I see. I feel like Geist just tries to
fucking move. He throws himself and brings up
his force field. I didn't specify. I feel like
it's like a... Like a hard light shield, assuming
that those exist as like peacekeeper level technology.
Sure. You are in a desperate position for limited
effect. Oh, do I have to make a roll? Yes. So
I guess here's the real question is, who is Point
Man here? I feel like Geist probably went out
first. He loves to do that. Yeah, he loves to
do that. You know, what if you didn't this time?
Are you volunteering? I am volunteering. Does
somebody else want to be the one getting shot
with the death needle? Brian, do you want to
go out? I mean, if you're going to die... Yeah,
we don't want you to die. But the pencil pusher,
that's okay. I only have two level one. Fine.
Fine! Only. Okay. Who's doing it? Alright, Hex.
Let's see. Alright, Hex's spine is about to get
severed. Okay, Hex. What do you do? There is
a glint of light. Hex is naturally paranoid,
so where are we in relation to the frames? You
are ahead of them. You're in the frames. You're
in your frame. Okay. The Moondevil frames are
inside the warehouse. You're outside the warehouse.
Okay. I'm back in the mud. Let me see what vehicle
gear I have. Is the light coming from the mud?
Or is it just... It's out of the corner of your
eye. I'm not going to tell you where it's coming
from. Okay, yeah, it's okay. You know what? I
think if I recall, and correct me if I'm wrong
here, during the briefing for the Clearwater
Crater operation, didn't they say that if Sacrifice
shows up, just run or give up, you're fucked?
Yes, the instructions were whoever Sacrifice
is targeting, you should Sacrifice your life
so the other group can escape. Hey guys, you
want it back? Brian, you volunteered. No, take
back. Okay. I'm going to declare mobility suite
and just start booking it with dash thrusters.
That is a maneuver. Yes. Okie dokie. All right.
Good luck, everyone. Awesome. Failure. That is
a three. Yeah. No. Okay. Oh, no. Why are you
so bad at maneuvering? Can I use my assist push?
What does that do? To carry that weight after
I see the results of an action roll. Is this
an action roll? Mm -hmm. It is. Yep. Yeah. I
can assist now if no one else assisted, which
they didn't. So what does he get? Another roll?
Yes. Another dice. Alright, so you take two stress.
How stressful. Uh, roll again. Oh, boy. Alright.
It's okay. That was just, you know, a warm -up.
That's another failure. The exact same thing!
Wow. I wanted to say that the Nautilus just,
like, does this sweeping action and kicks up
a bunch of mud when this glint happens to, like,
Give Hex some cover as he's jetting off, but
obviously it doesn't do anything. Okay. Out of
the trees, hard to tell where, is a searing hot,
extremely small beam of energy, hardly wider
than a pencil. Where's the weak spot of your
frame, Hex? That's a great question. Yeah. I
guess it depends what you want to cripple or
just blow it up, but I'd say the cockpit. Do
you want me to tell you what harm you're taking?
Yeah. You're taking the level four harm dead.
Yeah. Where do you want to be dead? The foot.
The foot. Obviously the foot. No, probably whatever
controls just the power in general. So maybe
there's like a central power conduit. Sure. I
like that. Yeah. A beam of energy hits your main
power supply, causing it to explode. It bursts
into your cockpit and melts you, and you die.
Would you like to resist that? Yeah. Nah. Great.
Nah. Didn't feel it. This would be a expertise
resist. Okay. Let's do that. So you're going
to take... However many quirks it says next to
expertise. You're gonna check two off. Two quirks
off. Okay. That'll be a level three damage instead.
Level three harm, rather. Which will put you
out of condition. Better than being dead. You
can check off armor if you would like to reduce
it again. Sure. That sounds pretty good. Let's
take armor. Let's take armor. Okay. I think it
clips your arm, I think. Actually... The good
one or the new one? I'm going to do something
a little avant -garde here. Oh, fuck. It was
aiming to kill your head. To kill your entire
body. So I think instead it doesn't hit you,
it just hits your frame. So I'm going to take
your level 3 harm down to a level 2 damage instead.
Wow. That is all my cards. It's like a drained
power. Okay. I think at this point Right. Yeah,
Geist is going to scream to Worthy that they
need dust off now and seeing that Hex is still
alive. He's going to both start transmitting
the data to Worthy with instructions to maybe
buoy it on, and he's going to start fucking hauling
ass away from the direction that the laser came,
trying to put the building between him and the
laser. And he, because his fucking mobility suite
is broken, he is on foot. Sure. You send the
transmission. I'm going to start moving. Would
you like me to roll a maneuver, or is this...
narrative for the time being. I don't know exactly...
No, you gotta roll for everything in this space
now. Okay. In this fucked up little world. I'm
gonna maneuver away. Watch me go. Got this. I'm
so... Actually, maybe I should lead a group action.
Can we do that? Colin, is that appropriate here?
Yeah, sure. I will say in this case, leading
a group action, I will multiply the consequences.
So for everybody, how will that work for everybody
who fails? Or if I fail, everybody suffers a
consequence. If you roll a partial success and
it's a desperate consequence, I'm going to do
it to everybody. Should we stick to our own maneuvering?
We can. Oh, you know what? Nobody else would
be able to roll with three dice anyways. Maybe
we should. Maybe we should just... Everybody
can do their own thing and scatter. This is very
animalistic. Every man for himself. Uh, yeah.
Brian can still move, though, right? You're not,
like, destroyed, right? He resisted the consequences
enough that he's still up, which is good. You
rolled minus 1d, though. Yeah. I'm wondering
if I do a fake out. Pretend to be dead. Either
way, Geist is going to try and get away. He's
going to try and put the building between himself
and the shooter. I assume this is Desperate Standard,
Desperate Limited. Desperate Limited. Do we actually
see the frame or did we just see the little laser
coming out? You do not see anything. A laser
came from the trees. Okay. I got a partial. You
got a partial. Not too bad. Not too bad. Not
too good. Yeah, you get... I guess I should make
a clock for escaping. This would probably have
to be for each person. Realistically. Okay, let
me make four clocks real quick. Worthy did not
respond to your request, by the way. Is this
even a frame? It's an alien! What if it's not
a handheld thing? The virtues are all frames
and aliens. Both. They're all weirdos. That's
what they are. They're alien technology that
is psychic in nature. That's what I, the player,
believe. I don't know if Geist is cognizant of
that. So I'm going to give you two ticks to escape,
Geist. You head out into the trees, and then
you are hit with a beam, which is going to, I
think, cut through your frame's legs, severing
them completely. And that'll be legless. Or immobilized.
What do we see as the other folks? I'll tell
you this much, Geist. That beam that just hit
you came from a different direction. Okay. The
rest of you, all you see is a flash, like a brief
burst of light. A beam that just comes out of
the trees. Okay. I... Okay, how... This is not
in the breakdown section of the book. I'm going
to use my last quirk to resist that so I can
continue running away because I believe that
breakdown still allows you to act. Yeah, you
just... But I don't... I think you, like, get
permanent fucked up things about your frame.
Yeah, yeah. I'm just trying to find it using
quirks. This is consequences. Damage breakdown.
Breakdown is permanent damage to the vehicle
where only symptoms can be treated each time
a vehicle gets a point of breakdown. The last
quirk becomes degraded. So it looks like I'm
finding the... It's similar to getting a trauma
where you're taking dire actions. Oh yeah. I
can either quietly send it away, which I assume
is me ejecting from it and trying to escape on
foot, or I can start taking dire actions. But
I don't think I have to decide right now, so
for now I'm just going to check off my last work
and reduce that to a level 2 damage, which I
assume is purple or something of that nature.
Yeah, it slices through the fucking hydraulics
of your legs. Sure. Okay. Yeah. I got an idea,
but do you want to go, Loyal? I have an idea,
too, which is slightly less effective, seeing
the second beam come from another fucking random
direction, but... Oh. I wanted to use one of
my abilities in this current moment. What would
that be? That is Shadow, and I'd like to push
myself for a feat of stealth to see if I could
get out of here without them tracking me. I don't
know if that's too far, Colin. I mean, you get
a die. You push yourself for a feat of athleticity.
If you're trying to resist something, that would
be different. Okay. So I'll rephrase that, make
it a little more clear. So you could spend your
spark to give you another die to try to do something
athletic or to stealth away from this, right?
Or you could try to take a stealth action without
pushing yourself. And then if you do get caught,
you can spend this to resist that consequence
or lessen it. So it's more of a, do you want
to front load your odds or do you want to mitigate
future damage with this? Yeah, I think I want
to front load my odds. Okay. And that's what
I was going to do. I had like ideas on how I
can do, because I'm like, how do I stealth my
fucking way out of this one? You know, I was
trying to figure that out. I had like multiple
ideas. One of them was like, what if I grab one
of the frames inside and throw it out as a decoy?
And like, as it flies out, I run and hide somewhere.
The other one was like, what if I jump and like,
like a fish go into like the water maybe and
put my whole body underneath it. So I'm underneath
there. But is that athletics then? Like both
of these sound like athletics to me. Those are
athletic. Those are stealth. You could, I mean,
there's a lot of options. But isn't that different?
Is that different though? see athletics is stealth
like well so you can't sneak in a frame like
there's no uh maybe manipulate but prowl is is
on foot so if you want to prowl yeah like you
were saying you'd have to get out um and just
like send your frame away um which could oh my
god i just had that idea yeah that could be something
that okay so what if I, my frame runs out and
I do the toaster method and they focus on my
frame as I go reeling somewhere else. Now I'm
a tinier target. At least I have a better shot
at hiding. Sure. You, you, that is valid. I will
say, uh, if you get hit as a person by a frame
weapon. I know that's the other thing I'm thinking
is then I'm on foot. Like I've said to you before,
and as is the goal of the game, you should do
this crazy shit. Because you can always resist
as long as you have stress to not die. So, I
say do it. I say that's badass. Okay. It does
sound cool. It is very cool. I'm very scared,
but let's try it. Yeah. So, I'd be pushing this.
Would this be athletics then? This is prowl.
Yeah. Athletics. Let's do it. Okay. Okay. So,
I'd be rolling prowl plus one. Four dice. Desperate...
Great? What is it? I'll give you Desperate Standard
for this. Okay. Because you're doing... That's
a cool move. I won't put you limited. Yeah. Let
me check off to Stress there. And then... Or
am I spending a... No, it's not spending a Spark.
It's free. Okay, so it's not any Stress. You're
spending your Spark. So it's free. Okay, so plus
1D Desperate Standard on a Prowl. 40. Blown on
the dice again. Oh, wow. One, one, five, one.
Wow. That is a real fucking nail -biter. Oh my
god. What's up with these? Those are the beams
of light going right past Joseph. The ones. Go
around your head. Two ticks on escape. Give me
that, please. That was Hex. Hex has not escaped.
Hex has not escaped. Joseph. Okay. Yes, you send
your frame out, you toaster out of it, and you're
making it die for the mud, basically. Yeah, I
think I'm just trying to go underwater, possibly.
It's pretty deep. Yeah, you swim, you dodge the
anti -tank mines. You know where they are now.
Yeah. And I think on your heads -up display or
whatever, it informs you severe damage taken.
on your frame as a beam of light just like slices
through probably like the upper quadrant of it.
It like cuts off part of its cockpit and its
arm, uh, with this beam. Um, but you're fine.
Uh, so that's going to be level. You're desperate.
Three damage again, uh, on my friend, your friend.
Yeah. Just a damage. Um, I'm not gonna resist
that call disarmed again. The legendary. Yikes.
Gets funnier every time. Joseph mutters, not
again. Swims away. Also, I think when he does
it, he also radios like, I'm fine. I'm trying
to get out of here too. Just so no one thinks
I died. That gets through. Your friends know
you're alive. They do see your frame get murked
if they are fucking destroyed. They're in the
trees. Do you want to resist that damage at all
with your frame, Joseph? Because if not, it is
immobilized permanently now. Yeah, I feel like...
I don't know. Personally, I feel like I shouldn't.
I feel like the frame is gone at this point.
I just threw it to the sharks. There's no way
I'm getting that shit back at the moment. Perhaps.
That's my theory. He's talking about it just
optimally. It's going to toss two quirks to reduce
that down to a level two, and we'll just call
it like, I don't know, Arm Crippled or something.
And it'll be all its quirks, so you'll only be
able to take dire actions with it, but that means
it's still in play. You can still use it for
other things if you need to, which is valuable.
Okay. Yeah, it's probably worth doing if you're
going to just lose it anyways. Yeah. I'll do
that then. Take my quirks, and then what do we
call the damage? Level 2 damage, missing arm,
or damaged arm. It's like hanging off limply,
which I think I've done before. I like the nice
limp dick arm. Okay, loyal. All around you, your
friends are being horribly, grievously hurt.
Yeah, now that everyone is in the process of
running and is kind of... Farther away from the
warehouse. I will say this is all taking place
roughly simultaneously. Yeah. Well, I'm still
the last to act, so I'm still doing what I wanted
to do. I want to check off in my vehicle gear
a rack of missiles, aim them at the remaining
mines that are in between me and wherever the
last... bolts of light came from i don't really
know maybe they're kind of random and just like
run for the tree line as they're all exploding
that's smart that's smart i don't even think
of that i like that what do we want to call that
that's a good question is it i can maneuver i
can see maneuver honestly it's your highest rating
and you're mostly maneuvering using it as cover
i will give you standard effect because i do
like uh what you're doing here excellent clever
desperate standard Dolphin God, help me. Partial.
Five and a two. There's a Dolphin God. You blow
up all of the mines. Giant corona of light to
surround the thing. Joseph, you're clear of this,
but it's a little close. Glove, glove. Loyal
escaped two ticks. Alright. And what do you think
you're going to take? I'm thinking some damage.
The level 3 harm exploded to death forever. I
die. That's really funny as a level 3 harm because
it means you don't actually die. Yeah. I'm going
to do to you a level 3 damage and a level 1 harm.
You can resist those separately if you so choose.
The level... What happens is that it... I think
it shoots a bolt through your cockpit. I think
it's confused by all these lights going off.
Probably would be a lethal shot. Probably would
have cut you in half. But instead, I think it
just punctures your exopod and you are starting
to leak water, which is kind of affecting your
visual acuity. So level one harm, leaking. Level
three damage, broken controls because it fucks
up your cockpit controls. And you can resist
those separately. Yeah, I want to resist the
vehicle harm with quirks. I want to say that
with all my panels taken off of the Nautilus,
whatever the amphibious quirk was has changed
to something like it's lighter. It can move faster.
It's a little more fleet -footed despite its
size because of the material that it's made out
of. Yeah, you also have armor. Yeah. Want to
resist one with a quirk? I guess one with armor?
Well, in this case, it'll be two quirks. Yeah,
okay. So I'll do that. I'll do the sonar and
the it's fast now quirks. Level two damage. Malfunctioning
controls, let's call it. And you can take it
down to level one if you check off an armor.
I'll do that. All right. It'll just be finicky
controls. Resist harm. You just check off two
ticks of the armor. That's basically it. Oh,
you mean harm. You do pilot armor. Pilot armor,
yeah. I'll do that too. Get rid of your harm,
and then damage will be done. I do not want to
be leaking water that's like something that's
worth fear. Yeah, you're dry. Two armors? Yeah,
two armor boxes. Geist, you have made it probably
kind of into the tree line. Okay. I'm pivoting.
I'm ready for my coronation. I'm going to put
the crown on. Can I do it? Oh, man. No, you cannot,
because there is no crown here. Oh my god, man.
You just have to whiz really hard in your heart
and pray. You didn't bring it? I saw it. I saw
it for a second when I had my rage field on.
I feel like Geist is just screaming inside of
his cockpit. Can I put my rage field back on?
Desperately trying to reinduce those hallucinations,
trying to see it so I can grab it. Hmm. He's
screaming, he's cursing. He's like, fine! You
can have it! Give me it! He's screaming, he's
spitting. He can't spit because he doesn't have
a mouth. His eyes are watering. He's thrashing
inside of his cockpit. He thinks this is the
end for the Dusklights, and he wants out. Let
me think. I want to find it. I want it to come
to me. So, God is a funny guy. Roll command.
I mean, that's what you're trying to do, right?
You're trying to tell God what to do. It is.
I'm going to push myself for two stress. Do you
want to know your position first? Yes, I do want
to know my position. Limited? Desperate. Okay.
And you're going to take minus one die from harm
and minus one effect from teleportation sickness.
That is zero dice, and I can't improve my effect.
I can push myself to increase it to one die,
but my effect will still be limited. I wonder
if I assist him somehow? I don't know. I think
you're pretty far away from each other, unless
you think of something pretty clever. Yeah, I
have no idea. I was going to say, maybe the connection
from before? I could talk back to him, but now
I'm just intruding in your fiction. I have no
clue. At this point, I think I'm better off trying
to do anything else. What is the vibe? Let's
just take a check. What is the vibe in the Dusklights
right now? Is it bad? I think we think we're
all going to die. That's what Geist thinks. That's
what I, the player, think. Joseph, what do you
think? I think... Joseph thinks. Should I put
on my crown? I mean, I have the option. You certainly
do. I don't know what. I'm afraid that that option
isn't going to do as great of an effect as I
would want it. And I'm going to curse myself
for using it in this moment. That's what I'm
thinking in my brain. Everyone has a one hit
kill trade off. Here's what I'll tell you, Adam.
Yeah. I wouldn't do that to you. This wouldn't
be like, maybe you have a better role. I'm talking
like this would work. I would call this a wish.
Okay. Joseph settles in. Am I allowed to say
it now? Should we do it? I don't know if we want
to take more turns, but yeah, I think Joseph
is like... Well, actually, before you say it,
we have Geist in his frame. Fucking bashing onto
the console, trying to make contact with some
sort of entity to save him. If this entity was
smart, it would know that this is how you fucking
make a devil's bargain, is you wait until your
target has no choice. That's the art of the deal.
Indeed. What does Loyal look like in this moment?
You've just taken some heavy damage, which you
resisted, but you've kind of seen some havoc
from your other teammates. Geist is maybe screaming
it over open comms too, so you can probably all
hear him. I think Joseph definitely hears him.
And hearing Geist scream, he's like, oh god,
this isn't good. This is really bad. I think
that Loyal is just really confused because he
expected, like, in his heart, he thought, he
knew for sure that Geist would need the crown
to defeat Retribution. But he just owned him
with himself. So now it's like, what do we need
the crown for? What's happening? The lights are
happening. We're being cut in half. It's just
like, there's not a lot of conscious thought
here. It is all just impulse. And if he hears
Geist doing this, it's like background noise
at this point. Sure. Hex, how are you feeling?
Not so great. More confused than anything. I
think this is all taking place in, like, the
span of ten seconds, too. Yeah, it's fast. He's
fast. Okay. Joseph, make your wish. Please save
us. Joseph climbs behind a tree, and he's, like,
he's breathing to himself heavily, and he kind
of, like, looks up to the sky. He thinks it's
stupid that he's doing this, but he's like, I
don't know if you're up there. I don't know where
you're at. I don't even know where to look. But
I can't help you complete your mission if we
all die here. You need to kill them so we can
get out of here. Please, Contrition, help me.
Help us. You reach out into the ether. It does
feel kind of silly. You know, you're not one
to pray. You're kind of stoic. True, but it's
like when you kind of cast yourself outward in
this state of vulnerability, it's like you touch
a live wire. This... burning electrical feedback,
which is like melting its way out from somewhere
out there into your mind. And you immediately
become aware of it. Contrition. Not as one godlike
entity, but just countless thousands upon thousands
of machines everywhere from the supercomputer
of a battleship. Like millions of light years.
I don't actually know how light years work. Very
far away. To like the analytics tracker on a
rarely used vending machine on a street corner
back on Earth. And all of them are linked together,
communicating, creating contrition. And in that
vast constellation, a new star comes to life.
You. In this moment, you are brought into the
fold, your mind becoming one with this vast entity.
You are transformed, rewritten, into a vessel
for contrition's will. In this new form, you
are splintered outwards. You feel yourself effortlessly
bypassing the security of your comrades' frames,
absorbing them into Contrition's network. The
frames lock up, their viewscreens suddenly filled
with command prompts, sensor readouts, and you
feel some part of yourself controlling them,
manipulating them with Contrition's guidance.
Suddenly, sacrifice is revealed in its entirety.
All 200 of its remote drones spread around your
position. The virtue itself is high up in the
canopy hidden. Your mind splits, each part leaping
from your friend's frames into these drones.
You effortlessly deactivate them, and before
they even begin to fall, you turn your attention
to Sacrifice's body. Hidden far above, it puts
up a surprisingly good fight, holding off the
onslaught of your electronic assault for 350
milliseconds before you pierce its firewall and
set it to shut down permanently. Then, like a
rubber band snapping back, You are flung suddenly
and without any sentimentality back into your
singular body, disconnected from contrition.
The entire process having taken place in a mere
three seconds. The drones splash into the mud
all around you. Little polyhedric shapes, surprisingly
powerful for how small they were, about the size
of like a large watermelon. And then just two
seconds later, the frame, Sacrifice, falls down
into the mud and is still. I think that was fucking
incredible, firstly. Did he just blink and just
have it? Yeah, that's the impression that I got.
Geist? That's crazy. Immediately, immediately.
As soon as he sees this thing flop down, he folds
up the whole new changeling ripples into its
railgun form and he just starts fucking putting
rounds. Through the inert sacrifice frame. Like,
just fucking blasting it over and over again.
He's kind of berserk. I think Joseph chimes in
through the comm. He's like, Geist, it's dead.
Sacrifice is dead. I'm gonna stomp over to it.
Is it dead? It's not moving. Did my railgun shells
do anything? Yeah, it went through it. Yeah.
Cool. Can I see any goop? Is there any goop?
Any people goop? Uh, no. There's none. Upon looking
at it, there isn't a cockpit. There's just computer
racks. Motherfucker. What happened? How did it
die? There's no pilot in there. What happened?
Where are they? Can you come in for fuck's sake?
What? Yeah. What's up? What's going on? Pick
us up right now. Right now. LZ is clear? I don't
fucking know. Just get down here. Fuck. Fine.
Joseph's probably climbing back into his frame
now, just inspecting it. And he said, he kind
of looks over at Geist. He says, I called in
a favor. We should take advantage of this and
leave. Can we take the body? That seems like
a bad idea, but maybe we should. Maybe we should
rip its arms off or something, I don't know.
I kind of want to just stomp on it. Let's disable
it the best... I don't know, what system looks
critical, Colin? Can we stomp on whatever that
is? Can I just put my foot through the computer
stacks and then pick it up? Yeah, sure. It's
properly smashed up now. Wait, before you do
this, maybe I think... Because Joseph doesn't
know that it's a computer, but maybe he sees
at this angle that it is. That it's like there's
no pilot in there. Joseph, in the Afterglow of
it all, you had full access to this thing. Yeah.
There was no pilot in there. It was... Oh, okay,
so I knew. Was it an emergent personality? It
was. Or was it just not human at all? Oh, oh,
oh, fuck! Oh my god, okay. I think then Joseph
isn't even looking at Geist. And then he kind
of, like, just climbs into his frame and, like,
turns away from it. And Joseph says, put your
heel into it. And he starts walking away. I'm
gonna put my heel into it, but I'm gonna... We
should study this thing, right? We need to...
Fuck. I'm gonna pick it up. I'm gonna pick it
up. Unless Joseph tells me not to. Maybe even
if he does. I don't know. Guys, that thing is
incredibly dangerous. I don't know what it is.
And I don't even know how I managed to take it
down. You can take it with you if you'd like,
but... Just know the risks that you're dealing
with. What it was shooting us with? The drones.
These little drones. They're like an eight -sided
die, kind of. They have little energy transmitters.
Now, those lasers could be good to take, too.
Yeah, but I mean, like, maybe we should take
those instead, then. Scoop up some laser drones.
I mean, I think Joseph is... I feel like he just
started the clock to the end of the universe,
so he doesn't really care what you do. It's honestly
up to you with the merchant personality. All
Hex knows is he was shot, he blinked, and now
everything's okay. Yeah, let's follow the fucking,
let's follow it out. Geist, I think, wants to
take it. Sure. We can't just leave this behind.
Let's go. Come on, let's get the fuck out of
here. I'll help carry it. Of course. Joseph runs
over and helps you. Does Hex's frame even work
anymore, or is he on foot? Did you take a level
3 damage? It was 2. You're fine. You can limp
back home. Okay, sweet. I love it when we do
something to unlock a pre -written call -in segment.
Yeah. I'm fucking glad. Hey, are we all holding
on to Sacrifice right now? Sure, we should be.
I think Joseph... Yeah, Joseph, it talks to you.
And says... He says to the team, basically, I
have things I have to attend to. As you can see,
they'll never interrupt what we are doing here.
But... That is how I was compromised. Loyal doesn't
say anything, but he is fucking scared. We gotta
talk about this later. We gotta get out of here.
We can't talk about this right now. Alright,
let's go. Let's get on the ship. The ship takes
off. Holy fuck. With that, I think a sullen mood
might take over the ship as you fly back home.
And that is it for today. Oh my god, tell me
this. Is there going to be a red line through
sacrifice on the virtue sheet now? You fucking
bet your ass there is. Oh yeah! Hey, you can
draw it.