TWILIGHT MIRAGE 45: DOWNTIME ON GIFT-3

Transcriber: Alastair

[Jack de Quidt’s “The Notion” starts playing in the background]

AUSTIN: Once, before it was dispersed into the Mirage, it monopolised all color in the Benthos System. Now, the Iconoclast, which confronted Signet on the day the Exuvia revealed the truth about Volition, had been pulled back together. Echoes into atoms, atoms into specks, specks into strands, strands into limbs, limbs, again, into light. And light caught forever in the massive gems that held together and gave life to Privign, the living Divine, that was now home to the court of the Waking Cadent.

She had made this her first conquest for three reasons. First, to prove that nothing was ever truly destroyed; no being, no idea, and naught in between. Her visage, her name alone, should have been proof enough, of course, but she could tell that her prospective devotees yet held doubts, and she was first and foremost always a woman who saw leadership as a responsibility, who knew first-hand the slow cost of death.

Second, she sought to illustrate that, to her, the philosophies of the Resonant Orbit would not lament on the shelf of theory, but be brought to praxis too. Iconoclast, Divine, Human, Synthetic. Structure, Form, Function. All found their place in the Orbit.

Finally, she was determined to demonstrate the power of will. It was not easy to put everything in its place. It took effort, and even more, it took grace. Hauling turned to gliding, wrenching to wave. To do it — she told her nascent disciples the old adage — you had to do it. And so she did. Building a home in the detritus, gathering around her subjects low and high, and marking her new Beloved with a kiss. After too long, the True Cadent was awake. And she would set the Divine Fleet back on its right course.

[Jack de Quidt’s “The Notion” ends]

AUSTIN: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterisation and fun interaction between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker. Today we are continuing our game of Scum and Villainy, by, by, Stras Acimovic and John LeBoeuf-Little. Today is going to be our first downtime game, which means, which means we’ve got a full couch. We got a full, set of chairs around this table. Joining me, Arthur Martinez-Tebble.

ART: Hey, you can find me on twitter @atebbel, and for the record, I’m not boring.

AUSTIN: Andrew Lee Swan.

DRE: I don’t, I guess I’m not boring either and you can find me on twitter @swandre3000. [break off into laughter]

AUSTIN: Ali Acampora

ALI: Hi, you can find me @ali_west on twitter.

AUSTIN: Janine Hawkins.

JANINE: You can find me @bleatingheart on twitter.

AUSTIN: Sylvia^[1] Clare.

SYLVIA: Hello, I am the healthiest member of the group. And you can find me on twitter @captaintrash, where I am 100% healthy. And good. And I guess not boring. [Laughter from Dre]

AUSTIN: Awesome. And Jack de Quidt.

JACK: Hi, you can find me on twitter @notquitereal, or download any of the music featured on the show at notquitereal.bandcamp.com

AUSTIN: And Keith Carberry, who is not logged into Roll20 yet.

KEITH: I am logged into Roll20! [No noise from Ali] Oh, launch game. [Confirming noise from Austin, hum from Janine] It’s the launch game button. Hi my name’s Keith Carberry, you can find me on twitter @keithjcarberry, and you can find me on youtube at… whatever- I got really thrown off by not being in Roll20-

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

KEITH: That’s what happened- you can find me on youtube at youtube.com/runbutton. That’s the only thing there.

AUSTIN (over Keith): Okay, sounded like you had more to go there but you didn’t I was-

KEITH: You know, I- you know.

AUSTIN: I get it.

ALI: Not the, the shows twitter, maybe the patreon.

KEITH: Yeah, we’ve got- there’s friendsatthetable.cash, there’s that one, and there’s, if you’re already on that one, go to contentburger.biz

AUSTIN: Okay

[Laughter from Ali]

KEITH: Sign up there too.

ALI: No, what?! I realised I got the-

ART: friends_table is the twitter for the show, friends_table.

AUSTIN: Mmm.

KEITH: I wasn’t sure which one Ali was trying to get me to do, so I did this show and then my show.

AUSTIN: Right. We only have a limited amount of time, so we should really dive into it today. We have to do our first downtime, and there’s a lot of players so we’re going to have to really, really keep ourselves on check today. And we also have to level up the World Without End, because, between the two groups, you not only levelled it once, you came very close to levelling it a second time. So, so, so.

So. So. “You have many choices when advancing your ship and crew. An advance may be an additional crew special ability, or two ship upgrades; any two boxes among ship modules or crew ship upgrades. Or, one ship quality,” which are like, the special stats, like comms engine hull weapons, “up to the maximum number on your ship; or, one overall crew quality.” So there’s four options here. It’s another special ability; it’s two ship upgrades, and that’s things like armoury, or brig, or shuttle, or stasis pods, or survival gear, or whatever. Or you can get one ship quality, so like right now you have two comms, you could bring that up to a three, or you have one engines, you could bring that up to a two. Same thing with weapons or hull. Or, you can, get a special ability, and those abilities are the things that Dre just called out, those are things like what we already have is “on the trail; your crew gains an extra downtime activity to work on long term projects that track bounties that have gone to ground,” or- and you also have “snatch and grab,” which is “when you use deception, infiltration or social plans to execute a kidnapping, add plus one to the engagement roll.” So that’s, you could get another one of those and there is, those are listed either in the, on 132-133, though again, remember that there are also ones for other ships too, so look at- don’t- look around, there’s some other cool shit in there. Or, you can spend lots of money and upgrade your crew again, and that’s like, your overall “how good are we, how good is our shit, how high quality is it.” And, and that costs a little bit of bank, that costs four times the new crew quality, so eight is what it would cost you to go from one to two. Not that you don’t have it, but yeah. So what do yall think?

DRE: I would either, I lean towards either the two, ship upgrades, or an ability.

AUSTIN: Abilities are cool.

ALI: Last time we were having this conversation I know that we were, play both sides was one of the ones that we were really considering.

JACK: Yeah.

AUSTIN: Wait, what was it?

ALI: Play both sides.

AUSTIN: Oh, play both sides. Yes.

SYLVIA: That’s a good one.

ART: That’s a good one.

[Agreement from Janine]

KEITH: I have a, I have, for an ability, if we’re, if we’re playing to our weaknesses, maybe we should-[Laughter from Austin] I think- and what I mean is, if we’re trying to compensate for our inherent weaknesses

AUSTIN: Yes

KEITH: Maybe we should consider light touch?

AUSTIN: What’s that do, do you want to read that for us?

KEITH: You gain potency when trailing a target, or when gathering information at a target’s previous location.

AUSTIN: That’s not a bad one. That’s just like a flat bonus too, that’s not like when you use roll- certain rolls, that’s not a special- I love looking back at moves-

ART: Where is this?

AUSTIN: That’s on 132 of the book,

KEITH: Or-

AUSTIN: 134 of the pdf.

KEITH: Yeah.

[Austin and Ali overlapping]

AUSTIN: I like that-

ALI: I like-

AUSTIN: Go ahead.

ALI: I was going to say, I really like that or loaded for bear?

AUSTIN: Which just gives you an extra load, right?

ALI: Yeah.

AUSTIN: Oh, and you get special armour.

ALI & DRE: Yeah.

AUSTIN: Distinctive and high-quality armour.

ALI: Yeah. When you wear amour, it counts as heavy armor.

KEITH (over Ali): Wait, we…

AUSTIN: Oh that’s also huge.

KEITH: Any amour counts as heavy armor?

AUSTIN: In other words – yeah – in other words you can get two, two armour uses out of a single armour-

JACK: Oh wow. That would have been really useful in the last mission. [Laughter from Ali]

[Austin and Keith overlapping]

AUSTIN: Yeah.

KEITH: Sounds pretty good.

AUSTIN: That’s pretty good.

ART: I refuse to wear this armour.

AUSTIN: Oh my god. [Laughter from Ali] Well that’s on you.

JACK: You can be invisible-

AUSTIN: Yeah!

DRE: Yeah.

AUSTIN: That’s on you.

[Ali and Dre together]

ALI: You get more, dodads.

DRE: That’s a You problem, not a Me problem.

ART: But it doesn’t- it’s not going, it’s not gonna have my look. [Pfft from Ali] I need…

DRE: Oh my god.

KEITH: Well, it- can it not have your look?

AUSTIN: It’s distinctive and high quality armour.

ART: But like-

AUSTIN: If- I

ART: distinctive amour.

AUSTIN: Grand Magnificent is basically a synonym for “distinctive and high quality,” like…

[Laughter from Keith]

ART: But not for armour.

AUSTIN: Like, your other name is just “High-Quality Distinctive,” that’s just you.

ALI: Well, with this, you’ll still be able to carry like an extra gun-

AUSTIN: That’s true-

ALI: Or like-

[Austin, Keith and Janine overlapping]

AUSTIN: You still get the plus one load.

KEITH: That’s true.

JANINE: Yeah.

ALI: yeah, or some cool cards.

KEITH: “High-Quality Distinctive” is like a registered alias. [Laughter from Austin]

ART: Yeah, hold on, I’m going to the, the alias registry right now. [Laughter from Ali]

KEITH: I mean just like, think back on, all of Friends at the Table history, and consider, consider just, being better at not attracting information, right off the bat. [Laughter from Dre, confirming noise from Austin]

JACK: It feels like we responded, fairly strongly towards loaded for bear, and I want to make sure that, that, that’s not just because the phrase “loaded for bear” is pleasing to hear and say. [Laughter from Ali]

AUSTIN: Okay, but one more time-

JACK: And also-

AUSTIN: Can we say it one more time though? Loaded for bear. Pretty good.

JACK: Well you said it and everyone made a noise like; “Oh yeah, okay, yeah.” I think that that’s a cool one, I think that that’s… The thing is though play both sides is really good.

ALI: I don’t know how many bounties we’re actually doing and getting.

AUSTIN: Urm, if you-

JACK: And then releasing.

JANINE: This is the thing though, we’d probably get more bounties- that’s the thing, right?

ALI: Right.

JANINE: Like if we take that, then Austin’s like “okay, more bounties, cool”

AUSTIN: Let’s say in that last mission, I think you would have left that with a contact. And two- and two more heat, from, from what happened with the Arc.

DRE: Yeah, okay.

ALI: Yeah, fair.

AUSTIN: Do you know what I mean, like, I would have counted that as play both sides, what ended up happening there- honestly, honesty-

JANINE: Both missions-

AUSTIN: Both missions-

JANINE: Both- yeah

AUSTIN: The thing is, I did end up writing down Polyphony, because of how dramatic and weird that was, and because you really did a big favour for Polyphony, verses, what happened- like the Arc stuff was- is really strong, and very good, I’m not taking away from it, but like… Polyphony would have gotten murdered, for sure. So… So yeah.

ART: Light touch is so, good.

AUSTIN: It’s very good.

JANINE: Light touch does, does, does really-

AUSTIN: We should-

JANINE: compensate for our weaknesses.

AUSTIN: I’m going to read these, I’m going to read these one more- I’m going to read these out loud so that people listening at home aren’t just hearing us say the same things over and over. [Laughter from Dre] So, light touch is, “you gain potency when tailing a target, or when gathering info at a target’s previous location. Previous locations could include places they’ve stayed, crime scenes, famous bars and the like. It can also be used for tracking, if you’re hot on the trail.” So potency is, that you get a higher level of effect than, than what you normally would have. A, a greater degree of effect- or, or, it’s not even just a greater degree of effect, it, it can, it can… It can kind of represent that, you have the upper hand, which can also end up shifting things fictionally in a pretty big way.

Loaded for bear says “your crew can carry +1 load, they have distinctive and high quality armour. When you wear armour, it counts as heavy armour, with two uses. Each crew members’ load maximums are increased, so light becomes 1-4, medium 5-6, and heavy 7-9. Who crafted such distinctive armour for you, and who might recognise its make. Heavy armour allows you to tick the second, heavy armour box on your sheet to reduce appropriate damage,” which means that, even, whenever you wear any armour, you’re getting that extra bonus damage to, to ignore, basically. It’s automatic resistance on physical attacks.

And then play both sides says, “when you release a bounty target, make them a crew contact and add +2 heat. While you may not receive payout from the factions hiring you to claim a bounty, many such targets have few cards saved up they are willing to trade for freedom, but more lucrative, or hot jobs, or hot tips they have lined up. Add the target as a crew contact, though bear in mind they may someday get captured by other bounty hunters and may pay for rescue from your crew. Mind you that not every bounty hunter captures a bounty, so the GM will and won’t adjust faction status as required at the end of such a job.”

All very cool. And those again would be on top of “on the trail”, which gives you an extra downtime activity to work on long term projects that track bounties that have gone to ground, again, understood broadly - which I’m going to add a note on.

KEITH: Um.

AUSTIN: And then “snatch and grab”, which is what gives you a +1d on engagement rolls when using infiltration, social plan, or- social or deception plans to execute a kidnapping or others sorts of snatching and grabbing.

DRE: So at this point do we all feel comfortable that it’s either light touch or, loaded for bear? Or no, because we’re also looking about play both sides as well right?

KEITH: So my thing about play both sides is that, I think we’re, we’re not always going to be, doing a bounty, and we’re not always going to want to release that bounty. And then when we do, there’s a penalty of then, increasing heat. So-

JANINE: But also we get a whole bunch of, like in that paragraph, there’s a whole bunch of possible benefits in there too, it’s not necessarily listed in the thing.

KEITH, over Janine: Yeah, there’s, there are definitely possible benefits. [Agreement from Austin] There are definitely benefits, I just, I just think it’s the, it’s, a potential reward but a smaller use case than, than- either of the other two, are much more broad.

JANINE: My feeling at this point is that because it’s so early on, we should be taking a move that, clo- most closely resembles like, you know, the kind of moves you want to take like, “oh, you get two percent more XP or whatever,” like the thing that is going to have the most-

JACK: Oh yeah.

JANINE: Efficacy in the long run, and for me I think that’s light touch. Because like, the load- the way load works, where you take load as you need things in that thing anyway, I, I don’t know, I- it hasn’t felt to oppressive to me yet. Where as light touch like, potency- I’ve had a lot of bad rolls?

AUSTIN, laughing slightly: Uh huh.

JANINE: Y’all may have heard? I could have used some potency.

AUSTIN: Mmhm.

DRE: Well, but potency doesn’t like, add like, 1d, it just changes the effect you get.

JANINE, over Dre: No no, I know, but still. Help is help, like.

JACK: And additionally here, like, there’s that great thing about “when gathering info at a target’s previous location” and then the description of what previous locations are-

AUSTIN: Right.

JANINE: Mmhm.

0:15:00

JACK: And I think like, in terms of picking moves that, like Janine says, are mechanically, like efficacious, as well as will let us frame scenes in interesting ways? I think like, the Notion showing up at a place that they heard someone was, is, is a good way to be reminded we can frame scenes.

AUSTIN: Mmhm.

KEITH: Mmhm.

JACK: I’m up for light touch.

AUSTIN: Okay.

JACK: I’ll put my card down on the table for light touch. [Slight laughter] My voting card.

AUSTIN: Others for-

KEITH: Everybody take out your voting cards. [Laughter form Dre]

AUSTIN: We could vote, like, I, I’m- it’s totally up to y’all. Are there counter arguments for loaded for bear or, the other one.

KEITH: The- I will say this, I’m, my voting card is also on light touch but the, all three of these are things I want

AUSTIN: Right.

KEITH: So I’m not like- if we, if, if this ends up breaking in a different way than light touch then I’m not like upset, all of these are good.

AUSTIN: Right, like y’all are all close to getting another one of these, you’ll get another one of these within the next arc, almost certainly, so.

DRE: My only argument for loaded for bear, and I’m good for light touch, but loaded for bear with that two armour slots, that’s basically like-

AUSTIN: Right.

DRE: that’s potentially saving 10 stress, like if you have two really bad resist rolls.

ALI: Yeah.

AUSTIN, laughing: that’s true! [Laughter from Keith]

DRE: Yeah.

AUSTIN: As far as counter arguments go, yo! [Laughter from Jack] And you have not even heard the fight that Fourteen Fifteen got into with Waltz Tango Cache. [Laughter from Jack] So.

JACK: [Sigh] It was a bad one.

KEITH: Does anyone else have a card to put down?

ALI: Do we all just want to type into the chat which one we want?

AUSTIN: Sure.

DRE: Just like a vote?

AUSTIN: Let's do it, let's do it.

DRE: Okay.

AUSTIN: Everyone type but don’t hit enter yet.

JACK: Are you going to draw a red stone or a white stone? [Laughter from Austin and Dre]

AUSTIN: Alright. Ready?

SYLVIA: Yep.

DRE: Yep.

AUSTIN: Three, two, one, enter. Light touch, loaded for bear, light touch, loaded for bear, light touch, light touch, loaded for bear. So that’s light touch, light touch wins it by one.

DRE: Wooo.

KEITH: Wow, that’s-

AUSTIN: Very close one. Alright, I’m going to add light touch to this sheet. Okay, so that is our upgrade. Does- what’s this represent, fictionally, where do y’all get good at this suddenly?

JACK: Great question. [Laughter from Ali]

AUSTIN: Does this just like- it’s light touch, is this just one of those things where everyone gets back to the ship and is like, “urgh, alright.” [Laughter from Ali]

JANINE: That’s what I was going to say! Is like, we all have a, like a, like a group meeting of just like “we could have done some things better.”

KEITH: Someone brings out like a bunch of old, like, gumshoe bluerays. [Laughter from Ali and Austin] And is like, we have to-

DRE (over Keith): I was going to say Gig signs us up for like a fucking webinar about like-

AUSTIN: Oh my god. [Laughter]

ALI: God.

JACK, in a singsong voice: It’s like “can we make the ship… quieter.” [Laughter from Ali and Austin]

JANINE: Or like we just never got around to our HR presentation slideshow workshop thing-

JACK, laughing, overlapping: Yeah

JANINE: Of like, how to be subtle-

AUSTIN, over Janine: Right.

JANINE: And we get back and it’s like-

JACK: “Oooh”

JANINE: It’s due tomorrow…

ALI: Yeah…

AUSTIN: It’s also just, like, you took a year off, in a weird way, like, from this sort of high intensity” shit, and so is like, “alright, shake that rust off- ”

DRE: Ah yeah.

AUSTIN: “gotta work as a team, got to pay attention- ”

JANINE: Yeah

AUSTIN: “it’s not always in like the same places-“

KEITH: These are new groups, we’re not with our...

AUSTIN: Yes, yes.

JANINE: We had to get our groove back.

AUSTIN: Exactly.

ALI: I feel like our side has always, also like, “sure woulda wish we’d known about the Gumption thing.” [Laughter from Austin “Wish I was better at that.”

JACK: Mmm. (Agreement)

AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah, you- I kept waiting for you to do any research, at all, on what was happening, in, in that place. It’s fine, it’s fine.

ALI: It was just a big garage, we didn’t know they had like, you know.

AUSTIN: That they put vehicles in it!

ALI: Yah. [Laughter from Keith]

AUSTIN: Alright.

KEITH: Well its- I think it’s rude to call Gumption a vehicle. [Laughter from ALI] That’s rude.

AUSTIN: Maybe once Gumptions been put back to being a person Gumption can be a person, but right now Gumption is a bunch of vehicle parts, right? Gumption is just like a big fingernail and a knuckle.

KEITH (over Austin): I don’t know, like, I feel like if you saw-

JANINE (over Keith): yeah

KEITH: If you saw someone’s arm get cut off- [Laughter from Austin and you were like, “oh man, there’s some meat over there.”

AUSTIN: That’s true, fair enough.

JACK: [Laughter] That’s how Night in the Woods starts. [Laughter from Austin and Janine]

AUSTIN: That is true, that’s accurate. [Laughter from Janine] Alright, so, it is time to move on. It is time to start talking about downtime. Which, begins with a special segment, that is good, because it involves you getting paid money. Did- okay, ark side, did y’all get money at the end of your thing, or not?

ALI: I don’t think so.

KEITH: I don’t think anybody- we were helping some kids.

AUSTIN: Yeah, you didn’t help anybody- you didn’t do the mission, right? I think it’s like, I think you each get one cred from that, which is “a small job, enough to buy a bike,” and here’s why. I think she would have actually given you six, but is spending that other two on line, making sure there are like, doctors and webinars set up-

JACK: Yeah

AUSTIN: Immediately, for the kids of the ark. And so like, “hey listen, we do have like, some money to toss you on this one, but some of it has to go to the things that you set up, so, we’re doing that.” Other side, what’s your money situation like?

DRE: We each have four cred, I think?

JACK, overlapping: Fuck-ing hell.

JANINE: And then three in a stash?

AUSTIN: Yeah, y’all got a lot- I think you got more-

KEITH (over Austin): You got rich!

SYLVIA (quietly, over Austin): I think I’ve got two marked here.

AUSTIN (over Sylvia): that-

JANINE (over Austin and Sylvia): I thought we might have spent one. I thought we got eight but I have seven marked.

AUSTIN: That sounds right.

DRE: Oh, okay.

JANINE: So I think, I think we- didn’t we all like spend money to get like-

AUSTIN (over Janine): Someone spent money for-

JANINE (over Austin): Tannoy? It was Tannoy, it was to get Tannoy to, to-

DRE: yeah.

JANINE: move Polyphony and Co.

AUSTIN: Mmhm (affirmative). That sounds right. So you have four, and then three in the stash each? Okay.

DRE: That sounds right.

AUSTIN: Cool. And that’s your personal stash, not your- oh oh oh, you also get money for levelling up the ship, everybody gets that, everybody gets that, right.

JANINE: Nice

DRE: So does everybody else gets three, total?

ALI: (Unclear) money.

AUSTIN: Let me see, it says “every time the crew advances, each PC gets stash equal to the crew quality plus 2, to represent profits generated by the crew, as they’ve been operating.” Which is interesting cause it means, there’s just like, there is downtime happening off screen, in which you are doing small jobs here or there, that we just like, this is where fanfic exists. [Laughter from Austin and Ali] Right? There’s just- yeah, you are doing your job, and there’s- it's not interesting enough for us to put a camera on it sometimes, you know? Like, someone’s ship gets busted and you tow it off, you know, out of, down, down from orbit into, into, into a landing or whatever. And so like, stuff like that is happening. So yeah, everyone should get three more, it goes right to your stash.

Urm, alright. So that’s, that’s all of the advancement taken care of. It is time for some down, time, which I misspelled… there we go, downtime. “After finishing a job, succeed or fail, the crew regroups, recovers, and prepares for the next job. This phase of the game is called downtime. Downtime fulfils, fulfils two purposes; one, it’s a break from the players – during the job, the PCs are always under threat, dealing the obstacles at a high energy sequence. Downtime offers a reprieve, a chance to focus on the quieter parts of the story, as well as explore personal aspects of the characters. Two, the shift into a new phase of the game signals a change in mechanics; there are special rules only use during the downtime phase, so they are kept,” quote, “Out of the way”, normally. “In down time, we grab a different toolbox, and resolve downtime on its own terms, then shift back to the more action focused phases of the game afterwards.”

Step one is Payoff and Upkeep; “the crew receives their rewards from a successful job, and does routine maintenance on the ship.” So, everyone’s gotten their pay, that’s the payoff part. The… I also want to say briefly, [cough], I think pay comes in a different way, or different various ways. Like, I think the, payoff for, from Cascara is probably, some sort of like, digital currency, or like, I’m imagining like little, metal, like, little metal rectangles, or something, cred sticks or whatever, right. But I want them to have a little bit of weight to them? Where as I think when the money from, Advent comes, y’all get just big, weird bars of strange metal that have been printed out, that have the Advent logo on them, and it’s like, this gets accepted various places, and it’s equal to whatever amount of money it says it is, and we’re not going to, we’re not going to have to roll to see if you can spend it somewhere. In, in fiction maybe you’ll haggle over how much this ten pounds of weird metal costs, or is worth, but in fic- in mechanics, it’s x number of credits. And I think they just show up with a pallet, and just load it into your cargo bay or whatever? Yeah, yeah Janine, neo-dime-ium magnets, exactly.

But then upkeep happens, and so, “ship parts wear out. There are fuel and repair jobs, and minor patch jobs, to handle scrapes and dents from flying through space. Each down time, right after a Payoff, decide if you pay your ship upkeep. Upkeep for a ship is calculated as follows, rounded down. Upkeep equals system quality, plus crew quality, divided by four.” So, if I look back at your ship really quick, the, the World Without End, your ship quality is; two in comms, one in engines – so that’s three – one in hull, one in weapons – so five – plus one is- one in crew is six. Divided by four, rounded down, is one. So one credit to keep this ship up and running. That’s not so bad.

(Ali and Austin overlapping)

AUSTIN: Is anyone gonna-

ALI: Each?

AUSTIN: No…

ALI: Okay.

AUSTIN: Overall. I’m pretty sure it’s- I’m pretty sure it’s overall, let’s see.

KEITH: I think it’s overall.

AUSTIN: Yeah cause it says “the captain pays for the ship upkeep and divides the rest of the money for the crew,” blah blah blah blah. So yeah, who wants to pay the ship upkeep, or do you want to risk it and roll, one die. Because, “sometimes you don’t have the funds or just don’t want to spend the funds to upkeep your ship-“

ALI (over Austin): Y’all just got a pallet of space money-

KEITH: Yeah, some of us are really rich so, [laughter from Janine], I don’t see a problem with.

AUSTIN: Including the pilot, yeah.

DRE: I mean look, look, I’ll pay. I mean, it’s the captain’s job to pay-

KEITH (over Dre): There you go.

DRE: so I’ll pay.

AUSTIN: Oh wait, are you the captain now? I thought you were just the pilot.

DRE: I don’t know. If I’m paying [Laughter from Ali and Austin], I guess…

KEITH: Hold on, wait, I’ll pay, I’m the captain. [Laughter from Ali and Dre]

AUSTIN: We can’t do more I’m the captain bits, god. Alright, so who’s paying, is it, is it Even, is, is…

DRE: I will pay-

AUSTIN: Okay.

DRE: Because I am part of fucking, hashtag cash money group. [Laughter from Austin and Janine]

AUSTIN: Okay, so. That was easy, that was simple. The next step is, heat. Twilight Mirage is, is, is- the Quire System, is full of prying eyes and informants. Anything you do might be witnessed, and there is always evidence left behind. To reflect this, your crew acquires heat as they commit crimes- In this case, lots of- there were some crimes happening here. “Heat represents the amount of pressure the local system police and law authorities can bring down on your character.” It also just, it, it’s what sets what sort of, what sort of results can happen during, during downtime, during entanglements, which are about to happen. So, “after a job or conflict with an opponent, your crew takes heat accordance- in accordance with how the job played out. Zero heat if it was completely quiet and others were blamed; one heat for a smooth and quiet, low exposure. Two heat for contained, standard exposure. Four heat for loud and chaotic, high exposure. And six heat for wild, devastating exposure.” [Laughter from Keith] You also get, you also get more if, you are high profile, you another plus one if you have, “taken on a job against a high profile or well-connected target; public use of any sort of artefacts or magic or anything like that. Two heat for killing a, any citizens; whether you did the killing or not, bodies draw attention.” And also “massive property damage or illegal weapons use. And then three for damaging a hyperspace lane or systems gate-”

JACK (over Austin): Oh ho hoo… [Worried laughter]

AUSTIN: Which we don’t have any of, but like, you know, infrastructure. Big big, ship scale, infrastructure, which definitely is-

JACK (over Austin): If we had crashed Big Garage.

AUSTIN: Yes, oh yeah yeah yeah- oh my god. [Laughter from Ali]

JACK: That would have been wild devastating exposure, and damaging a-

AUSTIN (over Jack): Yes.

JACK: Hyperspace lane or system gate.

AUSTIN: So, I’m curious, each side; what do you think you did for heat here?

JACK, deadpan: Zero.

(Austin and Ali overlapping)

AUSTIN: Okay, lets not lie.

ALI: No.

JANINE: Hmm.

ART: Uh huh (positive)

AUSTIN: Lets- okay, the side that doesn’t have any liars on it, what about you. [Laughter from Ali and Keith]

ALI, barely containing herself: It’s true.

KEITH: Our side is, our- we are for real dangerous criminals, so. [Laughter from Austin, then Ali]

DRE: And teenagers hate your youtube channel.

AUSTIN: Uh huh (positive)

KEITH: Just mine, not anyone else’s.

DRE: yeah. I don’t know, I would say, that we were like a one or a two?

JANINE: I feel the same way.

SYLVIA: Yeah we definitely got some.

AUSTIN: Yeah. Urm, I think-

JANINE: We like, killed the- did we attack the thingies that were coming at us, or did we just run?

AUSTIN: At the very end, you ran-

DRE (over Austin): Yeah we just ran.

AUSTIN: You didn’t engage with them. I think that-

JANINE (over Austin): Yeah.

AUSTIN: You were “smooth and quiet, low exposure-“ it mostly happened in the middle of a big weird storm… I bet Tannoy Kajj got some heat, from the end of that mission, but I don’t think y’all did.

(Dre and Janine overlapping)

DRE: That’s why we paid him-

JANINE: That’s what we paid him for, yeah that’s what the money’s for.

AUSTIN: That’s what the money’s for, yeah, exactly. So yeah, I’ll add one there, for y’all. And then, here’s the question; any high profile or da-da-dah, killing of any citizens, none of that. Rest of that seems all right, no, you didn’t get any of those other bonuses either. Alright, other team. [Laughter from Dre]

ALI: I think that, we were a two. I know like it got kind of wild-

AUSTIN (over Ali): Are you-

ALI: But it was contained!

AUSTIN: It was contained.

(Ali, Jack and Keith overlapping)

ALI and Jack: It was contained!

KEITH: Yeah. It was really only wild in one room.

ALI: Yeah, just the one room.

AUSTIN (over Ali): But that room was so huge, that room is like downtown Manhattan.

KEITH: Well, it’s a big room but it’s to scale. [Laughter from Ali]

JACK: Its all-

AUSTIN: You only got one- Oh my god, it was to scale, he’s not, he’s not- he’s not wro- I’m not even kidding, because, it’s not like there were more people than would have been in like a large room, but not a gigantic room, they were all in mechs.

ALI: Yup.

AUSTIN: There was just a big room- that’s fair, I think it was a two, but I’m gonna have to add that plus one from public use of artefacts.

ALI: Okay.

AUSTIN: You, you turned that whole place into a roller-skating rink for that time?

JACK (over Austin): Oh yeah.

ALI: Well.

JACK: We, we sure did.

AUSTIN: So…

ALI (over Austin): And then everyone woke up and was like, “that was weird,” and didn’t, weren’t mad any more because they had a relaxing night…

AUSTIN: At the roller-skating rink.

ALI: Yeah, mmhm.

AUSTIN: Alright. That zeros out…

JANINE: If you kept that rink open longer y’all have, have more money.

AUSTIN: [Laughter] It’s true.

ALI: God.

(Ali and Janine overlapping, with laughter)

JANINE: Just putting that out there.

ALI: That’s what’s happening tonight, don’t worry about it.

AUSTIN: Alright, so you have a level one wanted here on Gift-3; I’m still gonna work, I still need to work this out exactly, in terms of like… So, in Scum and Villainy by default, each of these – there are only five systems total, whereas we’re going to have like, eight or nine, or more if I look at, how it all breaks out. Cause each planet, for us, is a system. I think it may also end up having like a, like, inner system, mid system, outer system type, heat system, that, that, reflects what’s happening on the inner side, but to a lesser degree. Do you know what I mean? That way, it’s like- or maybe by faction, or by like, “hey, the Mendati are part of the Divine Free States,” so that word gets around, or something like that – I haven’t quite figured it out yet, but its, it will be, generous, in terms of, it won’t just be one to one, you’re not wanted on a bunch of different planets now, you’re, you only have this one wanted level here on Gift-3, but you’re not necessarily scot-free the second you go to any other planet, something has to carry over. But for now though, you’re up to the level one wanted, which is important because you have entanglements.

0:30:00

“Your characters and crew don’t just spring into existence tonight. They have a complete history of favors, commitments, debts and promises, that got you where you are today. To reflect this, each score you roll dice to find out which entanglement comes calling. An entanglement might be a rival crew looking to throw their weight around and demand some cred; a system police officer making a case, against you- against your crew but- but ready for a bribe; or even the attention of a strange way-creature,” like a strange magical creature. “After payoff and heat are determined, the gm generates an entanglement for the crew using the list below. Find the column that matches the crew’s current wanted level,” which is one, “and then, roll a die to see which sort of entanglement, uh, manifests.” Do you want me to read these before I roll this die?

0:30:00

KEITH: Yeah.

AUSTIN: Ship- so one is ship trouble, two is unquiet black, three is interrogation, four or five is repriesals, reprisals, not repriesals, reprisals, and six is “roll on wanted level 2”. So, you really don’t want a six.

KEITH: Urm, now which character was Unwa- Unquiet Black?

AUSTIN: That’s, that’s a Bluff City character, that’s Millennium Black’s brother.

KEITH: Okay [laughter from Keith, Dre and Sylvia]

AUSTIN: Ah, you got a two, you got unquiet black, that’s exciting.

ALI: Ooh

AUSTIN: So. This is good. “An alien or way-creature finds its way on board. Acquire the services of a mystic or exterminator to destroy or banish it, or deal with it yourself. Treat the magnitude of the way-creature as equal to the crew’s wanted level in the system. Parasites, cargo you weren’t told was alive, strange creatures hiding in unmapped lanes, and bizarre physics effects from using your jump drives way past capacity can all apply here.” Alright, so what is the weird alien creature or, or, magical creature of any sort that shows up on your ship here. Does anyone have lots of good ideas? I have a few but…

DRE (over Austin): Is there…

KEITH: Is, is one of the ways to resolve this a new ship pet?

AUSTIN: Uhh [Laughter from Ali] I don’t think- I think that’s a long-term project.

KETH: Okay.

JACK, laughing: The long-term project of “do not get killed by the-

AUSTIN (over Jack): By the-

JACK: “-Space Boar” that has arrived…

AUSTIN, laughing: Yes.

JACK: I don’t think it should be a Space Boar.

DRE: Is there anything that Even or Signet or Echo could have like, secretly been wishing for when they were in Polyphony world that followed them over?

AUSTIN (over Dre): Ooh, that’s a good question. That’s a good question.

JANINE: Didn’t you get a robot?

DRE: Yeah, but like, okay…

JANINE: Is the robot maybe weird?

DRE: I don’t think so, because also mechanically as the pilot I get a robot as like, one of-

JANINE (over Dre): Oh that’s true

DRE: My items.

AUSTIN: Right, right.

JANINE: And also we don’t want anything bad to happen to that robot.

DRE: Yeah.

AUSTIN: True.

ALI: I… This is dumb, but I kinda like, you know how like, when they ship bananas, and sometimes there’s like a weird bug? In the bananas? You know?

AUSTIN: Yeah, uh huh (positive)

ALI: We were all in shipping crates?

JACK: Ooooh.

ALI: So maybe… [laughter]

JANINE: Eww.

ALI, laughing: Yeah.

AUSTIN: True, it was all…

JACK: Yeah.

AUSTIN: No but-

ALI: Getting tossed around.

AUSTIN: that’s what the-

ALI: In there…

AUSTIN: I think that’s what the goo is for though.

JACK: Yeah but maybe the goo didn’t work.

AUSTIN: Ooh, I see.

ALI: Yeah.

DRE: Do we have goo in our ship now? [Laughter from Ali]

AUSTIN: Oh yeah, those mech- yeah, that- the goo was everywhere, it was bad.

JANINE: So y’all didn’t come back with money but you did come back with bugs and goo?

ALI: We were working pro-bono for children.

ART (over Ali): Like, surprise!

ALI: Okay?

JANINE: Okay, okay.

JACK: That’s true.

JANINE: Alright, I like children so…

AUSTIN (over Janine): They’re children now, they’re teens when you’re trying to convince Cascara that they, [laughter from Dre] that they’re responsible. “They’re young adults”

KEITH: Teens are a type of children.

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

JACK: We don’t know if, it’s a bug. [Laughter from Ali]

AUSTIN: Right. We have to figure out what this thing is. I mean, it could have been one of those robots that y’all hate, but that seems real bad.

ALI and JACK: No…

JACK: That’s awful.

KEITH: That’s not equal to our…

JACK: That’s awful.

KEITH: That’s not equal to our wanted level of the system. [Laughter from Ali]

AUSTIN: That’s true, that’s fair, you know what, that’s fair. In fact, do you know what, let's look at what magnitude is. So magnitude level one, so here it is… So that’s, one is, “a small room, a small gang, a few minutes, a dozen paces, adequate quality or moderate force.” A small- it’s something that’s “a small gang” in size, is, is- in scale, or a small room in area, that’s not nothin’. That’s kinda something, [sigh from Jack] so I, you know I- where did we, where did you dock the ship? Was it just in like, the public dock when you brought it back down, refugee team?

DRE: Oh-

AUSTIN: Or did you not- did, did this get on when it was in space?

ALI: Ooh.

DRE: Like when we opened the, fucking hatch doors to jump out with our mechs?

AUSTIN: Yeah.

DRE: Hm.

JACK: Wait, did this not come in the goop?

AUSTIN: No I’m saying- yeah yeah, maybe it didn’t. Because like, the ship wasn’t down there. Remember? The ship- y’all-

JACK, understanding: Ooh. Unless it kinda clung onto like-

AUSTIN: I actually think-

(Ali and Jack overlapping)

JACK (over Austin): Clung onto Grand?

ALI (over Austin): Hiding behind my mech?

AUSTIN: I think it-

JANINE: If it has to be like, big, then it’s like…

AUSTIN: I think I might know what it is. And I- it’s good, because it’s just… It’s just scary, I don’t know that, I, I don’t… Yeah, okay. So. Who gets back to the ship first?

ALI: I think that you… Our, episode ends with us going back to our ship and it’s empty, cause we’re waiting for, everyone else.

AUSTIN: Okay, you’re right. So… This actually works for you-

ALI, quietly (over Austin): Timing

AUSTIN: based on some stuff that happens. So the four of you… Yeah, I think I’m going to wait until everyone’s back, actually [Laughter from Ali], I think it’s, I think it’s- I, I thought about it for a second and I was like “when would this thing reveal…” And that’s, that’s unfair, let’s get everybody there. You’re like, making checks to go back down to land, and like, do you, your repairs and shit before you, like, do your upkeep, before you actually go back out into the Mirage and go to wherever’s next, and go do your downtime and all that. And, the lights start to flicker?

KEITH: Good cool.

AUSTIN: Throughout the entire ship? And like, the antigravity fails, and everyone starts floating around. And then, I think maybe just there is a, there springs a leak. There’s a leak of coolant in the main, you know- trying to think of where it is, I think it’s actually just in the hall, that long long long hall that is, runs the entire length, and so there’s just like, smoke pouring out into the middle of this. What do you all do?

DRE: Am I like, I assume I’m like piloting right now?

AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah. You can see, like your sensors say that like,

            AUSTIN (as Ship Sensors): Coolant leak, in segment, one, twenty seven.

KEITH: Do we got some like, coolant, caulk? [Dre laughing]

AUSTIN: That’s a good, yeah totally, you could totally show up with some coolant caulk and you’re like running through the hallway to get to it. Is that, is that what’s happening?

KEITH: That’s what I’m doing, I’m going to run with some coolant caulk.

AUSTIN: Everybody else? Is- are people like…

JANINE: I think Signet would also probably, get involved just because of the like, recycle-y angle of- [Confirming noise from Austin] not recycle-y, but like the, there's like a repair-y angle to her ship, that would, if something was broken-

AUSTIN: Sure.

JANINE: She would want to at least, check it out.

AUSTIN: Totally, so then I think, I kinda want you two to arrive at it from different angles. Where are you sleeping again Gig? What’s you…

KEITH: I was in the, I was- I in, on or under the pool table.

AUSTIN: The pool table, okay. And then, Signet you’re coming from the shared bunk room that you and-

JANINE: Yeah

AUSTIN: Grand Mag have, and for the purpose of this I think you’re coming from different directions. And so right in the middle you see that the coolant, the loose, bits of gas begin to cling together, and flash freeze, into a shape. And it takes a few seconds, but it becomes, very clearly, a human shape. It's almost like, made of glass, but it’s, it’s made of, crystallised ice or something - the coolant. And it is a feminine figure, standing about as tall as, or probably around, I’d say like 6 feet, so fairly tall, with… Kind of, again, it’s kind of like a living ice sculpture, but she has on a sort of draped, a long draped gown, or kind of robes, that cover her entire body, but again, they’re just made of this ice, right, so you can see through them, but you can see that there would be a layer there, as if she were an ice sculpture. And they kind of like, they, they layer up top, into, into three or four different layers of this that kind of, meld together as you get closer and closer to her neck, to where you can’t really see where the layer of her skin, would start, and the cloth would stop. And then her face is covered, with like a hanging row, like hanging rows of glass crystalline beads, or iced beads in front of her face. And then behind that you can see also see, you can see her lips, and you can see that her lips actually take a darker shade, as if they have lipstick on. And then her, her eyes and nose are- or just her eyes are covered with a sort of, tall blindfold that covers her entire head and goes up to a cowl. Because then she has this hat on, that is this long, uhh, kind of cylindrical hat that is that like, it goes horizontally. So it’s like, from her left ear going out by like, you know, a half- like, four or five inches, and then the same thing on the right. And then it's also going forward a little bit, so it’s almost like, it’s almost like a visor, and that’s where those beads are hanging down in front of her eyes.

And when she moves, the- the, all of the extra coolant around her turns into like, little icicles that then fall to the ground. And she kind of like sweeps her hands around, and begins to just like, look at you all- or the two of you, Gig and Signet. And hasn’t said or done anything yet.

         KEITH (as Gig): Urm, are you the coolant?

AUSTIN: She turns and says

AUSTIN (as the Ice Lady): I am awake.

JANINE: I have to ask if she’s an Axiom, because don’t we still have Axiom detect-y shit?

AUSTIN: Yeah you do; she is not an axiom.

JANINE: Okay, I just wanted to check that.

AUSTIN: Ahh, but you do get, you do get, like a ding or whatever that recognises that there is something Divine happening here.

JANINE: We’ve already defined how weirdly that can mean so many things.

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

JANINE: Okay.

AUSTIN: It seems like she is almost clearing up the rest of the, of the coolant, and I think one of the icicles forms upwards until it pins- until it closes the leak, and there’s just a giant icicle now hanging, that is like, has closed the coolant leak, but is also now just a big icicle, that’s almost like a column in this, in this hall- this already cramped hallway at this point.

DRE: Do we have like, intercoms on the ship?

AUSTIN: Yeah yeah yeah.

DRE: Okay. I think that like, whenever the system shows that the coolant leak has been fixed, Even gets on the comms and is like:

DRE (as Even): Uh, good job Gig, looks uh- [Laughter from Keith and Janine] things are all green up here.

KEITH (as Gig): Urm… There’s… An ice? There’s an ice here… [Laughter from Janine]

EVEN: Okay yeah I mean coolant gets cold, so…

GIG: No, it’s… It’s… Uhh… The ice moves?

AUSTIN: She leans close to your face, Signet, and she says

AUSTIN (as the Ice Lady): Excerpt. Where is your Divine?

JANINE (as Signet): Elsewhere. Why?

ICE LADY: You should keep it leashed.

SIGNET (slowly): That’s not how it works.

ICE LADY: Such is folly.

SIGNET: Would you be leashed?

JANINE: Why am I always hitting on weird things?

AUSTIN: I don’t know. [Laughter from Dre and Keith] You can see that she starts to grin, but as she does, an extra layer of ice cloth raises, to cover the lower part of her mouth, so that she can’t show herself grinning. And from behind that cloth she says

AUSTIN (as the Ice Lady): I am the one that holds the leashes, Excerpt. I am your Cadent.

AUSTIN: This is not the cadent you know in any way-

JANINE (over Austin): No.

AUSTIN: It’s not her size, it’s not her voice.

JANINE: I, I think Signet’s eyebrows raise at that, because that’s, that’s wrong but is also a very interesting statement.

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

JANINE: Uhhhhh. I think at this point maybe… Huh. Do we have a way of contacting each other on the ship?

(Janine and Austin overlapping)

AUSTIN: Yeah yeah, yes, yes yes, you all have like-

JANINE (over Austin): Like, is this the moment that Signet hits her little, the button on her keychain that’s like-

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

JANINE (as ship intercom): “Tender Sky, please report, to the hallway.” [Laughter from Ali, Austin and Jack]

ALI: (Sigh) I get up, I head over-

AUSTIN: Where are you at? Wait wait wait, where are you at again?

ALI: I hang out in a escape pod.

AUSTIN: Oh right, of course. [Laughter from Keith] Right like all of the, of the mechs are around you.

JANINE (over Austin): Always ready to ditch this shit, 100%.

AUSTIN (over Janine): Yeah yeah yeah.

ALI (over Janine): She has… Have a nice little studio in there, and uh, I rush down- or I, I probably don’t rush.

AUSTIN: Wow.

ALI (over Austin): I do come down though. [Laughter]

AUSTIN: Remember like, and the lights are still flickering, and gravity is out, so.

ALI: Oh, okay.

AUSTIN (over Ali): Everyone does still remember things are- or I guess now gravity came back on once the coolant leak was fixed. So yes, there is gravity again.

ALI: Then I am walking.

AUSTIN: And you see this ice lady.

            ALI (as Tender): Did you, did you guys need me, for something?

AUSTIN: You see the ice lady’s like- her- you see the Waking Cadent – this is the Waking Cadent – you see her, her face or her ice face like, tilt past Signet to look at you. And she says

            AUSTIN (as the Waking Cadent): Priestess.

TENDER: Hey. Hello, Hi. Nice to meet you. Tender Sky.

                   WAKING CADENT: The Cadent.

TENDER: Oh. [Sigh from Signet, Laughter from Ali] Hey. What’s up?

WAKING CADENT: It has come… to my attention… that you… do labour… for the Imposter.

TENDER: Which one?

            WAKING CADENT: She who let the Fleet fall.

            TENDER: Yep, okay, yeah, I do do that. What’s up?

            WAKING CADENT: I sense in all of you, a pure heart.

            KEITH (as Gig, sincerely): Thank you. [Laughter from Ali]

ALI: Tender puts a hand on Gig’s shoulder, like “yeah.” [Laughter from Janine]

AUSTIN: She says

AUSTIN (as the Waking Cadent): Well earned. But. A pure heart… is corrupted… by faulty ideals. You deserved this warning. If you would, take up your faith again… Beloved… seek me out.

0:45:00

ALI: I think Tender looks at Signet, like, clearly annoyed. I think her tail is doing the like, the mad cat thing where it’s like- [breaks off into laughter, with laughter from Keith]

JANINE (over Ali, quietly): The twitching?

AUSTIN: Very good.

ALI (as Tender): [Sigh] Do you have like a, an address, or are you giving us a phone number, what’s- are you just chilling on the ship, what’s going on?

AUSTIN (as the Waking Cadent): Where once there was a station… Privign...

TENDER: Cool… would love to go back there.

KEITH (as Gig, incredulous): Why were you in our pipes?!

TENDER: Yeah. [Laughter from Art] Wait… this came from the pipes?

GIG: This- yeah she was in the coolant!

JANINE (as Signet): She did also fix them…

GIG: She fixed- yeah she came out of- she broke the coolant thing, came out of there, woke up

SIGNET (over Gig): Although I… don’t know if the fix is going to last.

TENDER (over Signet): Okay, so it’s, ends up at even, but…

SIGNET: Cause it’s, melty.

TENDER: Don’t fuck around with our ship. We all have phones.

ALI: Tender like, holds up her sidekick.

GIG: Oh, you don’t think that she was like, sleeping in the coolant, or something? I assumed that she was hanging out in the coolant, literally, and not just like, showed up.

AUSTIN: She says like

WAKING CADENT: I do not know which communication channels the Imposter… has access to.

TENDER: Stop saying that. Stop saying that. That’s rude, and not true. We can just have a conversation.

WAKING CADENT: Truth-

TENDER: You could just call me.

WAKING CADENT: Truth is often rude. [Ali scoffs]

GIG: You guys are talking about this with some other extra shit that I don’t know about. [Laughter from Austin]

WAKING CADENT: Travel as you wish. I will attend, to your souls.

TENDER: [Under her breath] Oh my god. Uhhh, I think our souls are alright. Do you need like a bed, are you leaving, what’s the situation here?

WAKING CADENT: Tender Sky listen to me closely. Your souls are forfeit on this path. We must, revive, and claim, the Divine. And leave, the Mirage. All other paths… are heresy.

GIG: Urgh, this is so much.

TENDER: I’m very familiar with what heresy is and isn’t. You are entitled to that opinion. I’ll go to Privign, we can talk. Stop scaring Gig.

WAKING CADENT: It is well earned.

GIG: The scaring? [Ali giggles]

AUSTIN: And she like- her- she like turns to face you Gig, and the, the cloth kind of lowers. And now she does show a grin, a big toothy grin-

KEITH: Is it a scary grin or a nice grin?  

AUSTIN: It’s not like a spike- it’s not like spiky ice grin or anything, but it's like...

JANINE: Is it like a 10% Junji Ito grin?

AUSTIN: Yeah, 100%. It’s 100% a 10% Junji Ito grin. [Sniggers from Ali] Uh, and she say-

JANINE (over Austin): That’s why I’m here.

AUSTIN: Yes. And she says

            WAKING CADENT: Yes

KEITH (over Austin): That’s above me I don’t know who that is.

            WAKING CADENT: It is.

AUSTIN: And then she touches the, the column of ice, and, there isn’t even, it’s just like a sharp and sudden and- it’s not an explosion, but it reverts that there is gas in the room, and the fix is gone, and it’s just like, it’s like one frame she is touching this column of ice, and then the next frame it’s just back to there being, a huge like, [wind noises], blowing out coolant everywhere, gravity disappears again.

DRE (as Even): Ah, Gig, whatever you did it didn’t stick.

            ALI (as Tender): She didn’t even fix the f- are you kidding me?

KEITH (as Gig): I’ve got- no I’ve got caulk, I can caulk it.

TENDER: [Sigh] Thank you Gig.

JANINE (as Signet): I did mention that it wouldn’t last.

GIG: Yeah, I was prepared.

TENDER: Signet, did you know that- what the deal is with that? The whole thing?

SIGNET: [Sigh] Yes and no.

TENDER (under her breath): Of course you’d say that. [Normally] Ah, cool, well. Are you gonna go-

GIG (over Tender): I don’t.

TENDER: Yeah. [Laughter] Do you want to go to Privign with me?

SIGNET: Yes and no.

TENDER: Yep. Okay, see you there.

GIG: Should I- should I- wait, should I be concerned about this or can I just forget it? [Laughter from Ali]

TENDER: I mean you were there, when Waltz was like, “beware the Walking [sic] Cadent.” He said that.

GIG: Oh, yeah.

TENDER (over Gig): Before he blew up. And, you know, I heard beware!

GIG (over Tender): Oh yeah. I guess I just ignored it cause it was like…

TENDER: It was a tough day. It was a rough-

AUSTIN: Signet, Tender just said “before Waltz Tango (Cache) blew up”

KEITH: Yeah exactly, because he blew-

JANINE (over Keith): That’s probably upsetting actually.

GIG: He blew himself- he tore his arm off and blew himself up.

SIGNET: I thought we liked him…

TENDER: We do like-

GIG: No, he did it to help us-

TENDER: He’s award winning, we love him, it’s- no-

SIGNET: Oh.

TENDER: It was fine.

GIG: He did it because he loves kids. [Laughter from Austin]

TENDER: Yes.

SIGNET: Well that’s a good reason to do it.

GIG: Yeah yeah. And he’s fine cause he’s not, he’s like- lives outside of his body. I guess.

TENDER: He’s in the body.

GIG: He’s in- sorry, he exists outside of where he… lives.

TENDER: You know what, Gig, yes. Yep.

GIG: Yeah.

TENDER: Mmhm.

GIG: Anyway, yeah, he did say that, then he blew up, I forgot about it, I still really don’t… Am- should I be- I… Should I remember this, or can I just ignore it?

TENDER: You can- you’re not really- are you a church guy, or are you like a Christmas and Easter…

GIG: Noooo. I’m like a…

TENDER (over Gig): Sorta… Okay, then you’re fine.

(Ali and Keith, overlapping):

GIG: Just Christmas maybe.

TENDER: Then you’re fine Gig. [Laughter]

ALI: She pats him on the back again.

            TENDER: Don’t even, worry about it.

AUSTIN: Okay. The Unquiet Black is resolved. [Pause] “Downtime Activities; between jobs, your crew spends time at their liberty, attending to personal needs and side projects. These are called Downtime Activities. During a downtime activity, each PC has time for two downtime activities. When you’re at war with a faction, each PC has time for only one.” You are not at war. Somehow. “You may choose to do the same activity more than once, and your crew may do these in any order. You can only attempt actions that you are in a position to accomplish-“ like, fictionally. “If an activity hinges on another action, resolve that action first. You can make time for more, than two actions, at a cost; each additional activity from the list costs one cred. This reflects the time, and resulting resource strain… of, of, while, while you are quote-unquote ‘off the clock’ and not earning money from a job. When you complete your new job, you reset, and get two new activities again. Activities on downtime, on the downtime list are limited – normal actions are not. During downtime you can still go places, do things, make action rolls, gather information, talk with other characters, ectara. In other words, the only activities that are on the list are, are limited.” That list is; acquire assets. Which is like, “oh, I want to get this thing for this job that’s coming up”, or “I wanna, like, make sure that we have, like, extra, what… you know, I want to get some jelly juice for everybody.” Craft, which is when you make a thing. Lay low, which is when you try to get rid of heat. Long term projects, which are really broad. Indulge vice, which is how you recovery from stress, or or, how you repair stress, reduce stress. Recover, which is how you recover from injuries. Repair, which is how you fix your ship back up, or your mechs if those got hurt. Or train, which is how you- you can just spend one of your actions each downtime to just try to increase a stat, or a, um, or your overall level. You can just spend a turn that way. Which also just means you can spend cred that way, to be clear.

AUSTIN: So. Is there any… Does anyone have any, like- who wants to start?

JACK: I gotta get rid of some stress. [Laughter from Ali]

AUSTIN: Yeah bud.

JACK: Mmm hmm (positive)

AUSTIN: You truly, truly, truly do. So talk to me about Fourteen Fifteen’s stress, where you at?

JACK: Uh, I- let me count- How many boxes are there here?

(Austin and Keith, overlapping)

KEITH: Nine?

AUSTIN: Good question-

ALI: Nine.

JACK: All right, I’ve got seven. [Laugh]

AUSTIN: You’ve got seven.

KEITH: That’s a lot-

AUSTIN: This is-

KEITH: That’s a lot- that’s high.

AUSTIN: That’s true.

KEITH: That’s nine out of seven.

ALI (over Keith): Wait, how did I get six? Oh my god, I kept making things.

(Austin and Keith overlapping)

AUSTIN: You did.

KEITH: Or seven of nine.

JACK: It’s, really easy to make that stress track go up-

(Jack, Austin and Keith overlapping)

AUSTIN: Uh huh (positive).

JACK: It turns out.

KEITH: Yeah.

AUSTIN: Yeah?

JACK: In, in, in, Forged in the Dark games- they called Forged in the Dark? Made in the Dark?

AUSTIN: I think you just invented it, so.

JACK: No I heard someone call it something-

AUSTIN: Really?

(Jack, Austin and Dre overlapping)

JACK: -like that, I wish I could remember who called it that, but they called it like…

AUSTIN: That’s good, I like it.

DRE: Ahh, I think I remember seeing that too.

JACK: Forged in the Dark, or, or, or Made in the Dark- I like Made in the Dark less, because it rhymes with Blades in the Dark. [Small laugh]

AUSTIN: Uh huh (positive), agreed.

JACK: Anyway, I think I want to, I wanna clear some of my stress. So shall we do a, shall we do a, a vice roll?

AUSTIN: That is what that sounds like you should do. So; vice. Engage in your vice, and roll dice – also rhymes – to- equal to your lowest attribute. Clear stress equal to the highest die result. If you clear more stress than you had marked, you overindulge; see below. If you don’t or can’t indulge your vice during a downtime, you take stress equal to your trauma- you don’t have any trauma. Also, just briefly; everyone listening, or everyone- everyone in the game, are we all good with calling it trauma? I know we also floated calling them statuses, or other things. I know that there’s like.

ALI: I- so I feel weirdly strongly about this, in that this season had a first season (confirming noise from Austin), and the thought of, having already seen what these characters went through, to see them going through ‘traumas’, sort of this late in their lives, seems a weird- like, not late in their lives, but…

AUSTIN: But after everything else.

ALI: Right, yeah.

JANINE: Some of these things also just aren’t trauma.

AUSTIN: Yes. (disagreeing/considering noise from Ali) Ah, umm, I don’t know, I think- here’s what I’ll say is, suffering trauma in real life can cause a lot of different responses, and I think that-

JANINE (over Austin): Yeah, that’s true

AUSTIN: -is what the game is going for. I’m fine with calling them statuses instead of trauma. I’m also fine with calling them trauma, because I think that fiction can deal with trauma, but I, but what I most want to do is make sure that people at the table are, in a place where they are happy. So, that is why I’m asking it. So Ali, if you feel that way, I’m totally fine with calling them-

ALI: Yeah no, I just think of Marielda as a season where people were, where we were like breaking those characters down,

AUSTIN: Yes

ALI: whereas this sort of building them back up, and trauma just-

(Jack and Austin over Ali)

JACK: Yeah

AUSTIN: Sure

ALI: seems like such a harsh thing.

AUSTIN: Yep, I’m good with that.

ALI: But…

AUSTIN: Okay. So yeah, lets call them status, or, or, or, if we come up with another word that we like, that’s also cool. So yeah, Jack, go ahead and, and, for Fourteen you’re gonna roll whatever your lowest attribute is.

JACK: Which is insight, right?

AUSTIN: Which is insight, because you only have a one in that, you have a one in study-

JACK (over Austin): Yeah

AUSTIN: and that is the only insight skill you have.

JACK: Can I just click this?

(Jack and Austin overlapping)

AUSTIN: You can just click on insight. Yeah, or-

JACK: Can I just click insight? Oh, I sure can!

AUSTIN: or you can just roll 1d6, totally- or, you can actually, here you go, there’s an indulge vice button you could hit even.

JACK: What the heck!

AUSTIN: You should hit that one, [laughter from Dre] so that we can see if there’s a cool graphic.

JACK: I get no bonus dice…

AUSTIN: Yeah what is you, what is your, obligation- what is your vice? Ooh look at that!

ALI: Oooh.

AUSTIN: Oh boy.

ALI: Wait…

AUSTIN: You only cleared two, so you’re down to, five.

ALI: Well you can do it twice, right?

AUSTIN: You could spend-

JACK: Yeah, I can, I can do it twice.

AUSTIN: So tell me what this looks like, really quick.

JACK: Uhh

AUSTIN: And why you only got two recovered.

JACK: Yeah. Umm, so I think Fourteen has an, has some sort of office they, they- they actually have a room, right? Didn’t we establish that, they have, the fisherman’s

AUSTIN (over Jack): Yeah yeah yeah, they have like, the fisherman’s, yeah.

JACK: Kinda, the captain’s quarters. Where they, I think, I think there is a desk, and a lot of papers. I think they are probably renting the house, on the, on the farm, and they’ve let that lease lapse. So they’ve moved all their stuff, all their boxes, all their equipment up in here. And I think they, they’re taking calls. Actually no, I don’t know, I don’t even want to… I’m not sure here actually, because I don’t know whether or not we want to see… I think we can get the best of both worlds actually, I think it’s probably Fourteen taking from a client, or from someone that they’re doing some work for.

AUSTIN: Okay

JACK: And I think the reason that I’m only able to remove, two, is that Fourteen is way out of their depth.

AUSTIN: Right.

JACK: On this.

AUSTIN: Do you-

JACK: What I was gonna say was, I was gonna say like, “oh, do we want to see Fourteen learning?” like, is, is Fourteen studying? And the answer is like, yes, kind of-

AUSTIN (over Jack): Right (laughing)

JACK: but in a context where they actually have to be able to do this.

AUSTIN: Do you think that this is an extension of the mission with the Ark? Do you think that this is like, trying to figure out how to get them certain sorts of legal, like, sovereignty, and, you know, what’s the-

JACK (over Austin): Yeah, I think like-

AUSTIN: Term for when you, if you, if you leave home but want to be considered an adult or your own, your own-

JACK: Oh god (under breath)

KEITH: Emancipation?

AUSTIN: Emancipation, yes, thank you, yeah yeah yeah. Maybe it's like trying to figure out what emancipation law looks like in this weird melding of different cultures.

JACK: Yeah, and I think like, that they, I think they probably call their contact? [agreement from Austin] Who is, Red Equity Janus-

AUSTIN: Yeah

JACK: Who is, kind of their, their mentor? And I just think that they’re not there. Or their really busy, it just rings through to like, the secretary, or something

AUSTIN: Right

JACK: and it’s like “oh, Red Equity can’t be here at the moment,”

AUSTIN: Okay

JACK: And Fourteen just sort of like, sighs, pushes their hair back.

AUSTIN: Yeah. Do you- so, are you going to double down and do another stress removal, with the other thing, or are you going to heal? Or are you going to do something else altogether.

JACK: Oh, god.

AUSTIN: ‘cause you’re also punctured. [concerned noises from Ali]

JACK: It’s really tough because-

DRE: Jeez

JACK: on the one hand, stress is- yeah, I got punctured, I got punctured I think by Waltz Tango (Cache).

AUSTIN: Yeah Waltz had gun- has pistols-

JANINE: Was that before or after the roller-skating?

(Austin Ali and Jack overlapping)

AUSTIN: Before

ALI: Before (singsong), like way before

JACK: It was before the roller-skating.

KEITH: It went puncturing, he changed his mind [laughter from Ali], he blew himself up, and then we went roller-skating.

AUSTIN: Yeah

JACK: I don’t know if he blew himself up so much as he threw himself down like an elevator-

(Ali and Austin overlapping)

ALI: He did fall.

AUSTIN: Well there was an explosion, he used a grenade, yeah yeah yeah.

ALI: He shot his arm off.

JACK (over Ali): Okay, he… He both fell and exploded. Umm- I’m really, this is a, this is kind of a… It’s tough because… I want fewer stress, its, its really rough to have stress. And- but also, if I don’t remove that thing it's going to make me less good at everything I do going forwards.

AUSTIN: Yeah, you will have less effect in, ongoing. You could do both, you could spend a cred to do both.

JACK: Oh, yeah, that is true.

AUSTIN: As a, an extra downtime activity.

JACK: Yeah, I’ll definite- I’ll definitely do that.

1:00:00

AUSTIN: Oh, I’ll also note- wait wait wait, wait wait wait, another thing, another thing, wait wait wait- you could also have spent that cred to increase your level of effect from… the previous- okay, so you may increase the result level by each cred spent by hiring assistance, paying a bribe, ectara- a one to three becomes a four to five, a four or five becomes a six, a six becomes a critical, which- I don’t know how that works with indulgences actually, I don’t know if that, if you can do that with… If you can spend that cred, just to increase it, let’s see. I would say like, you would increase it by one, up to four, you know what I mean? Up to one level, so two, you could go up to four for that one cred, which is, better, but maybe not as good as recovering twice. But then, you’re at five now, which means if you roll a 6 now, you would overindulge.

JACK: Yeah, that is true.

AUSTIN (over Jack): This is the dilemma.

JACK: But I think it’s pretty unlikely that I’ll roll a 6.

AUSTIN: Uh huh? Famous words.

JACK: If I roll a 6 it’s a moral victory, over the dice, even if not a good victory for me.

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

JACK: I think I’m going to spend a cred to both recover, and, and try and, remove that health effect.

AUSTIN: Okay, so, this is very easy; when you receive treatment from the recover action, clear all level one harm. If you’re- though I guess actually, wait one second, one second, one second. When you recover, you seek treatment and heal your harm. You might visit a doctor who can stitch your wounds; roll crew quality minus one to see how available and effective is the doctor you can hire. But, a crew member can also roll their doctor action instead; if they tend to your wounds – the healer doesn’t actually take any time up, they don’t use the recover action – healing is mostly rest, you can treat yourself but it will cost you one stress to do so… I think, you could also just have somebody else on, on the crew heal you instead of rolling to see if you can actually hire a doctor here.

JANINE: I got some doctoring.

JACK: Yeah.

AUSTIN: You do.

JACK: Yeah.

AUSTIN: You want to roll doctor?

JANINE: Yeah.

JACK: Let’s see how this goes.

AUSTIN: It is controlled. Controlled standard. That’s a six!

JANINE: Look at that!

AUSTIN: That’s a six.

JACK: Oh, nice.

AUSTIN: So with a six you would heal three, like, segments or whatever, you’re good, you’re good. Oh wait, wait, wait, I’m wrong, I’m wrong, I’m wrong…

JACK: Oh no [concerned noise from Janine]

AUSTIN: Oh no, it’s only level one, it’s clear, you got it. Boom. If you, if you still had harm remaining, if you had level two or level three harm, we would start a healing clock, which we would then need to work through for you to actually fully heal. This is why armour is good, by the way.

JACK: Yeah. So I’m, I’m less- so I’m in fact not at all punctured now

AUSTIN: You’re not at all punctured. What’s that look like, do you use like, are you just regular doctoring, up, Signet, or do you have like, is this magic, is this Signet- is this Exuvia, is this something else?

JANINE: I think this, I think this is like, probably an Exuvia thing, since it’s- Exuvia has become my stand in for, for Belgard-y things

AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah

JANINE: Or is like my, crucial to my connection to Belgard. I think this is- cause Belgard is, the healer, and that includes healing-

AUSTIN: Right

JANINE: -Machines but also, you know, would have, would included healing excerpts and like, biological things as well, so I think this is like… This is like a little thing with like, a little gold bug, on Fourteen. And, and Signet’s probably- I imagine Signet’s doing the thing doctors, do, of just like [Laughter from Austin], talking about random bullshit, because

AUSTIN: Cause it’s a weird bug?

JANINE: Because instead of using needles she’s using a weird bug. And that probably stresses people out and then it's like a little more difficult to get anything done, so she’s probably talking about like, the weather on the trash planet or whatever

AUSTIN: Yeah, okay.

JANINE: And this little bug is like stitching shit up

AUSTIN: Totally, alright. So then you’re, you’re now also going to recover stress one more time right?

JACK: Mmhmm.

AUSTIN: Alright, give me that-

JACK: I’ve already spent the cred

AUSTIN: Alright, give me that indulge vice roll.

JACK: Please don’t be a six. [Laughter from everyone]

AUSTIN: Of course it’s a six.

KEITH: It was- to be fair, it was very unlikely.

AUSTIN: Well, was it? Or was it there was a 20% chance- or a, 15% chance-

KEITH (over Austin): That’s pretty unlikely.

AUSTIN: - that it was going to be- ah, fifteen’s pretty high, you wouldn’t get into a car that had a 15% chance of getting into a car accident. So.

JACK: Gosh.

AUSTIN: Uh huh, so.

JACK: Are we sure that it’s- are we sure… If you clear more stress levels than you had marked

AUSTIN: Yes

JACK: And I had five marked, fuck

AUSTIN: And you overindulge, see below. Uh huh, I’m sorry, I’m sorry bud.

JACK: Do I get to clear the stress?

AUSTIN: Oh yeah yeah yeah [laughter from Ali]

JACK: Okay fine

AUSTIN: Yeah yeah, that’s good. Ah, but here’s what we have to figure out from you, is; when you overindulge, you make a bad call due to your vice, in acquiring it or under its influence. What did you do? Did you go on a bender, reducing your stash by four or taking two loan? [Laughter from Jack] Did you have big talk where you’re bragging about your exploits, plus two heat. Or, are you lost, in which you’d have to play a different character until this one returns.

JACK: Oh my god.

ART: Jack can I talk to you for a second?

JACK: Yeah go ahead.

ART: So, I- I was going to try to, to reduce my stress just because of the chance of the possibility of overindulging,

AUSTIN: Uh huh. We have a good show, everyone loves winning on our show. [laughter from Jack]

ART: I mean cause my- I have five stress, it’s not like an unreasonable amount of stress to try, but I was only going to do it because of that sixteen and two thirds chance of hitting, you know?

JACK: Uh huh.

ART: And I was going to take lost. But if I don’t roll a six, I don’t want to cut lost off from you, but two lost is too many lost.

KEITH: If they both get lost, can they play each other’s characters?

ALI: Oh my god Keith

AUSTIN: Oh my god.

ALI: Please.

ART: I don’t think that’s in the rules but I would certainly-

(Austin and Ali overlapping and over Art):

AUSTIN: It’s not in the rules.

ALI: House rules!

ART: be open to it.

AUSTIN: Is the notion there that you would just be so consumed by whatever your vice is, that you’re just like different people?

KEITH (over Austin): That you just become a different person?

AUSTIN: Yeah.

JANINE: Like emotionally lost.

AUSTIN: Right. And also, isn’t both of your vices just doing work? [Laughter from Jack]

ART: Yeah, uh huh. Well, work is- I don’t do that for money any more so that isn’t really work.

AUSTIN: True, fair.

JACK: God. [Sigh]

AUSTIN: Do you want to sit on this until we wrap back around?

JACK: Can I, yeah, can I sit on this so that I can see if, if Grand overindulges or whatever.

AUSTIN: Yes, totally. That sounds good. Alright, who has something next.

DRE: I can go. [01:06:09]

Okay. Let’s talk about it.

DRE: So, I think I’m going to spend a cred to do an extra action at some point here.

AUSTIN: Okay

DRE: But I know I definitely want to do a vice roll, and I also want to do a training because I’m only one xp from getting a playbook advancement.

AUSTIN: Oh sick, awesome. I should note- I saw- I should not a thing really quick. The ship – the World Without End­ – has prowess training buff, has the training module, which means that if you want to spend your action training any- training prowess, you get two ticks instead of one. Which is a good one. That’s not what you want to do, I know, I just wanted to make sure that was out there. So do you want to start with your indulgence?

DRE: I think I might, I might start with my training, cause-

AUSTIN: Oh

DRE: I’m looking at one of two moves

AUSTIN: I see

DRE: And one of them is a vice related move

AUSTIN: Alright, let's do that, I see what you’re saying. So then spend your first one training.

DRE: Yep, alright, so I’ll…

AUSTIN: Which sticks you over

DRE: Clear that out, yep

KEITH: Three people overindulge and they each rotate their character one over [Laughter from Dre, Austin and Ali]

AUSTIN: So then, and so then you’re taking a, you’re taking a playbook, move?

DRE: Yeah, and I’m choosing between two moves. There’s one that’s Leaf on the Wind; when I push myself I can spend three stress instead of two, but I get plus one effect and plus 1d

AUSTIN: Mmhmm, that’s pretty good.

DRE: Or Hedonist, which is when I indulge my vice, I can adjust the dice outcome by plus or minus two.

AUSTIN: Also good.

DRE: And if somebody comes with me, they can also do the same thing. I don’t know if anyone is going to come with me to come eat, like fucking technology chips with Even, but [laughter from Dre and Austin]

KEITH: That sounds fucking rad, actually.

ALI: Very relaxing.

AUSTIN: Oh god.

KEITH: Gig would do that-

AUSTIN: I’ll read-

KEITH: Gig would eat some chips.

AUSTIN: God- some chip chips?

KEITH: Some- yeah, some chips.

AUSTIN: God. Any ally who does the same must join you in whatever vice you’re indulging. If you both go gambling or drinking together, or via a crew ability such as the Stardancer’s Home Cooking. You can adjust the outcome by less than two, including not adjusting it at all. You can also- also recover more than six stress on a vice roll this way, which is pretty nice. Yeah.

DRE: I think I’m going to take the Hedonist.

AUSTIN: A’ight.

DRE: I’m kinda thinking, basically what Janine said where it’s like, take the stuff that will always be useful this early on.

AUSTIN: Yes. Alright, cool, do you want me to add it to your sheet or do you want to- you got it-

DRE (over Austin): I’ll do it

AUSTIN: - you got it already. Alright cool.

DRE: And then I guess I’ll do my vice roll

AUSTIN (over Dre): Your vice, yeah. Your lowest is a resolve, which is also a one.

DRE: Yeah, and I’m at six, so.

AUSTIN: Yeah. So you’re actually safe.

(Dre and Austin overlapping)

AUSTIN: In fact

DRE: Oh, a four.

AUSTIN: Boom. You got a four which means-

DRE (over Austin): And I’ll adjust that to six, so I’ll be at zero stress.

AUSTIN: That’s- What’s- Okay so what’s this look like? Your weird- your vice is “weird, consuming technology”.

DRE: So I think, how much stress gets cleared, is basically, whether or not Cascabel either feels like, or has the good shit to give to Even.

AUSTIN: Right

DRE: So like, on a roll where I only clear like one or two vice, like, Cascabel is just like, “I don’t know, I’ve got like this leftover crap, so like I guess take this and it might have a piece of malware on it or something I don’t, I don’t know, but you’re here and it looks like you need this, so.

AUSTIN: Are you like- is this, is this like a dinner with Cascabel? Is this like-

(Austin and Dre overlapping)

DRE: Yes, 100%. Yes.

AUSTIN: You guys will go out- okay.

DRE: No, it’s like, I think it’s- Even calls ahead and is like “hey, what do you want me to pick up?” and like, brings Cascabel something, and then basically hands him like this takeout box, and then Cascabel just hands him a box of [breaking into laughter] leftover electronic parts.

AUSTIN: And then like they put on tv, and like Cascabel’s like eating with chop- eating like lo mein with chopsticks

DRE: Uh huh

AUSTIN: And then you’re fucking, digging into just like, weird servo arms? Like little micro servo arms. Good, great. Delicious. I’m glad you had a good date.

DRE: And I should say that, I don’t like physically eat it. It’s, it’s that weird like, you know, spreading out my fingers, flattening-absorption thing.

AUSTIN: Oh yeah, that’s all it is.

DRE: Yeah

AUSTIN: Do you, is it like, do you like, okay, that’s- it’s a lot, okay. I’m not gonna- I’m not going to focus here, we have a lot to get through.

DRE (over Austin): Please, I’m a connoisseur.

AUSTIN: You are. So, okay, are you also spending a credit for a third thing, or are you good?

DRE: Yes. So I want to do a long term project.

AUSTIN: Hell yeah

DRE: So that robot I got…

AUSTIN: Yes.

DRE: I want to upgrade it so it can help me on rig rolls.

AUSTIN: Ooh, interesting. So I think this is crafting and not just a long-term project maybe.

DRE: Okay

AUSTIN: Uhh, maybe it isn’t though. Hmm. Hmmmm. I might read what this- what’s your robot say?

DRE: Oh let me find it, let me find that page.

AUSTIN: Oh there it is I got it. Fine Small Urbot. A small urbot that supports piloting and can carry a few items. Seems eerily sentient. Urbots are supposed to be wiped about once a year; how long has it been since you’ve taken yours out to the guild of engineers for such a procedure? What is its designation, and what personality quirks does it have? What does its chassis look like and how does it help you pilot? We didn’t even discuss what this one looked like, right?

DRE: No, and that’s- yeah. I realised like as we were going into this and I’ve been trying to think, and I still don’t have anything. I kinda like the idea of it being kind of like a… like a Haro sized sphere, but instead of like hopping around, it like, it like hovers around.

AUSTIN: Okay. I’m into it.

DRE: And I think it probably has like- I think what Even wants to do to like, upgrade it that he wants to, build on like, you know, little tools that pop out of its body or something like that.

AUSTIN: Okay. So… Urm. Yeah I think this is modifying a device. “During downtime a PC can craft if they have access to the required materials and tools. This includes making drones and building or modifying devices. To craft something you must know its schematic. Some items, like common gear, may have schematics that are easy to find. Discuss with your GMz” – there’s a zee here, it says GMzzz. “If you know, if you know it already, can acquire it or- can acquire it, or if it requires a job to get your hands on. Complex, new or unique items require you to design a schematic from scratch.” I think because you’re on Gift-3 and in fact, I think, I think Big Garage has like, dududuh – “Big Garage subsidises creative engineering endeavours; act as if you spent one credit when repairing or crafting.” I think that one cred goes to getting you the, the schematic.

DRE: Okay

AUSTIN: So you just get this bonus schematic whenever you’re crafting or repairing in Big Garage, because the Mendati are like, “oh yeah, we’re all about, like, inventing shit. So like, everybody gets access to, to, you know, a library filled with stuff and the,” and again you can kind of get shared coworking spaces and stuff like that. So, there’s that. So then, “to craft a device you have a schematic for,” which you have “spend one downtime activity to make a rig roll to determine the quality level of the item you produce. The base quality level is crew quality modified by the result of the roll.” So by default it’s a one. “The GM sets a minimum quality level that must be achieved to craft an item,” so it could be a situation where I’m like, “oh-“ if you were like, “I want a cloaking device,” I’d be like, “alright, chill, that’s like, [laughter from Dre], that’s like three crew quality item, to just have like a personal cloaking device you can turn on and off, so you’d better roll well.” But I think- so what you’re describing is what, like, it has little arms that can pop out and help you repair stuff?

DRE: Yeah

AUSTIN: Yeah, I think that that’s a, I think that that’s a… I think that’s a one quality thing, so I think as long as you get a success on this roll, you’re good to go.

DRE: Okay.

AUSTIN: So it is, a rig roll.

DRE: That’s a three.

AUSTIN: That is a three. You can spend one, one credit afterwards to increase the final quality level of your roll. This can raise quality level beyond crew quality two. And it can be spent after you see the results of your crafting roll. So right now, you have a zero level thing, which is like, it has arms, but like, it- the arms are too weak-

DRE: [Incomprehensible]

AUSTIN: to hold any tools, there are no, there are no like, tools involved, or like installed. So yeah, you’d have to spend another cred to, to make this thing actually give you like, to- basically what it would do is, it would give you- it’s a thing that you could call on to get a bonus on repairing stuff or rigging something.

DRE: Yeah. Alright, I’m going to spend two out of my stash to do this.

AUSTIN: Oh, I thought you- wow, really. Okay.

DRE: Well cause I have two cred, but I’m also like-

AUSTIN: Got you.

DRE: I’m also thinking like, what do we use cred for like, in mission.

AUSTIN: Fair. Uh, acquiring assets, is basically the thing that you would do, right?

DRE: Yeah. So I think I’m just going to, I’m just going to take it out of my stash…[AC6]

AUSTIN: Alright. Are you sure, because… you could just add- the thing that I want to remind you of is like, pulling that two out of the stash means you’re going to have to put two more in to get that back.

DRE: Yeah, that’s true. Alright, I’ll just take it out of my cred pool, yeah.

AUSTIN: Okay. I’m just trying to, I’m trying to… you know, have your back.

DRE: No, you’re right, you’re right, I appreciate it.

AUSTIN: Totally. And we probably should have started here, actually, which is like, “what is the device and what does it do?” and it sounds like we have an answer to that already, which is, it helps you repair stuff. Minimum quality level I said was a one, that’s fine. So here’s the thing- what complexity did you have to overcome that keeps this design from being widely used?

1:15:00

DRE: Hmmm. Well, I mean it’s a weird robot that was created by, an axiom.

AUSTIN: Yeah

DRE: In the middle of a glass strom

AUSTIN: Uh huh

DRE: So there’s that

AUSTIN: Uh huh [Laughter from Dre] There is that. That is a thing that nobody else had access to, that’s fair, okay. And it’s one that you just thought up, right? Is this something deep in Even’s mind? Because it pulled from your mind, right.

DRE: Ahh, I mean, it was like, I, yeah, I think it was like, Even spent that afternoon hanging out with Tannoy , like fixing his ship, and saw how helpful Burpaderp the robot was [laughter from Janine]

AUSTIN, as Burpaderp: Burpaderp.

DRE: Yeah. And, was just like, ahh, this would be super cool and handy, and, probably almost had like a weird daydream where it’s like, “man, if I had my own robot, I wonder what that would look like.”

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

DRE: And thought of this thing in his head.

AUSTIN: A little floating orb

DRE: Yeah!

AUSTIN: Good. That doesn’t have a name yet, you don’t have a name for it yet?

DRE: I almost want to call it B2, as in Burpaderp 2?

AUSTIN: Right, okay. B2’s fine, Burp 2. Gotcha. Okay, so I think I’m good with that. I don’t think it has any drawbacks, this is a pretty simple item, this is not a particularly complex item, or, it’s not rare, you don’t have to spend extra credit on it. I don’t think it produces a dangerous or troublesome side effect. Maybe it’s conspicuous, which is it’s always going to have this one little touch of axiom energy on it.

DRE: Yeah

AUSTIN: So I think that’s what it is. Write down, write down somewhere that it’s conspicuous, specifically because it was made by an Axiom.

DRE: Oh actually, you know what? I’m gonna change what this thing looks like-

AUSTIN: Absolutely.

DRE: I don’t want it to be a sphere.

AUSTIN: Hell yeah.

DRE: You remember Jack from Gears of War, one of the only-

KEITH: Oh yeah

DRE: Likable characters in the Gears of War series?

KEITH: The robot that followed you and was invisible until you needed to open a door?

DRE: Yeah

AUSTIN: Yeah, it had like big- so I’m looking at it now, it has like four giant eye flashlights, and then big robot-y arms that it kinda floats around

DRE: So I think what happened was, it didn’t have the robot arms, and that’s what I just built onto it.

AUSTIN: Got you, gotcha.

DRE: And that’s probably why it’s conspicuous, because I’ve just bolted something onto this thing.

AUSTIN: Okay, good, great. People are like “what the fu- okay. Cool.” In fact like maybe the rest of its body just doesn’t have any seams, or like, it’s a perfectly enclosed thing, and then your arms just kinda, jack into it on the side, and it’s kinda, not busted but it’s obviously not from the same make of thing? Alright cool.

DRE: Yeah, I didn’t have any plastic cement and sanding paper, so I couldn’t fix the seam lines?

AUSTIN: Uh huh. Great, good. [Laughter from Dre] Uh, Sylvia?

SYLVIA: Hello.

AUSTIN: It sounds like you want to go next because of being sick, which is fucking fair.

SYLVIA: Yeah, it’s a day, I’m having a day right now.

AUSTIN: So what’s up?

SYLVIA: I actually don’t have much I need to do in downtime, cause I only have three stress and the-

AUSTIN: Yeah, you’re doing good honestly

SYLVIA: Risk of going over on that is very… So I think the first thing I’m going to do is train, for sure.

AUSTIN: Okay. Are you training your playbook, or, a skill, or a attribute rather?

SYLVIA: I’m really close to levelling this playbook

AUSTIN: Yeah, you are

SYLVIA: So I’m going to put one more in there?

AUSTIN: Okay

SYLVIA: For my first action. And then… I’ve been trying to think about what else I could do here, because like, vice I don’t want to do because I don’t want to overindulge.

AUSTIN: Yeah, you’ve only got three stress.

SYLVIA: Recover I can’t do, because I’m not hurt.

AUSTIN: Nope.

SYLVIA: I don’t know what I’d do for a long term project really, or acquire asset, so… I could lay low somehow?

AUSTIN: You could. Urm. Or, or again, you could think of a long term project- maybe you don’t think of it yet- now, but like… Think about stuff that Echo wants to work on, that are- that is about things that they care about.

SYLVIA: I’d like… This isn’t something that I could do yet, but I would like to eventually make something that could help me find stitches?

AUSTIN: Sure

SYLVIA: And I don’t know, like if I could start doing some…

AUSTIN: I mean if- yeah

SYLVIA: Busywork for that?

AUSTIN: Yeah, totally.

SYLVIA: Okay.

AUSTIN: I think that that’s a thing that you could start doing… that again, might be the first part of a craft, which is that you need to design the thing first, basically. Let me go back to that crafting page. Yeah, I would say that that would be- you know what maybe it is, it’s like, you could modify the axiom scanner thing that Advent gave you.

SYLVIA: Okay.

AUSTIN: Right. And so you need to figure out how to do that first? That’s not a thing that you know how to do quite yet?

SYLVIA: Yeah.

AUSTIN: So to design a schematic for the device, you need to study it for a long term project; most designs require an 8 step progress clock to invent and learn. The player and the GM answer questions about the invention, blah blah blah. Which is what we just did before, which is: “what is the device and what does it do?”

SYLVIA: Okay. So do I just need to roll study then? To start this?

AUSTIN: Well let's just talk through this really quick, because that will let us know what the roll ends up being? So, it helps you find stitches, basically?

SYLVIA: Basically yeah, something that sort of like- basically similar to, like you said, similar to the axiom scanner thing that we have-

AUSTIN: Totally

SYLVIA: But instead-

AUSTIN: How far away can it see from, because that is going to be, it’s going to help me-

SYLVIA: It probably, not… It’s not going to do it out of orbit or anything crazy like that

AUSTIN: Okay. Is it going to be, is it a thing where if like, you’re in the same city you’ll know? If you’re in the same-

SYLVIA: Yeah, this is one of those things where it’s like, if I’m down on a mission and I pull it out, it can start pinging, you know.

AUSTIN: Okay, that’s a pretty high magnitude, that’s a pretty big deal, so

SYLVIA: Yeah, I’m fine with this being a long term thing

AUSTIN: Yeah, gotcha. Alright then, so “what complexity do you have to overcome to keep this thing from being widely used?” So like, why doesn’t Advent have this? What is it that you have that they don’t have?

SYLVIA: I mean I think that part of it is just like, knowledge of where, like, the stitches are? We already know where a couple are-

AUSTIN: Right

SYLVIA: Because Echo’s been in a few

AUSTIN: Right

SYLVIA: So it partially is due to experience, and partially just due to access.

AUSTIN: Right. So it’s one of those things of like, “hey, I can get to all these different places, I know what they all are already, I can feed that into the old algorithm, and that can help zero in on what these things are.”

SYLVIA: Yeah for sure.

AUSTIN: Cool. And then, I have to determine what, if any, drawbacks it has, if any. Urm… I mean I think that it’s, I think that it’s going to be rare, that when it’s time to craft this, and I should write this down… One second. When it comes time to actually craft this thing, Echo’s A- or, a, Stitch Scanner, needs rare material. I’ll figure out what that material is, but you’re going to need something that’s like a rare piece of mineral or something, that will help you use that device actually, to help like find this stuff- like maybe it’s something that’s only found in stitches. So I think that’s the, that’s the thing it needs.

SYLVIA: Alright

AUSTIN: For now actually, if you open your character sheet really quick

SYLVIA: Yeah

AUSTIN: Urm

SYLVIA: Oh, I can add a clock.

AUSTIN: You can add a clock.

SYLVIA: How many segments is this one?

AUSTIN: It’s an eight segment study clock.

SYLVIA: Eight segment, alright.

AUSTIN: And then yeah, go ahead and hit study. You have a, you have a one in study, look at that.

SYLVIA: I have a one in study. Is this just a standard, risk, like, risky standard?

AUSTIN (over Sylvia): Just a standard, yeah yeah.

SYLVIA: A five.

AUSTIN: Hell yeah, nice work. So when you get a five on this, you… One second, let me just make sure I get it right… I guess this is just a long term project right, this is actually… So. Does that, does that thing say it right there? It probably does, lets see. Downtime… Yeah, here we go; you got a five?

SYLVIA: Yeah, I did.

AUSTIN: That’s two, two of those segments get filled in.

SYLVIA: Alright.

AUSTIN: You can spend a credit to make it three of those segments, but it’s up to you.

SYLVIA: Urm… Sure, why not.

AUSTIN: You, you’re stacked right now, right, so. So go ahead and increase that to three. Boom, that’s all- getting there, three outta eight, nice work.

SYLVIA: As I learned in Marielda, I need to be very like, on top of getting these done-

AUSTIN (over Sylvia): Yeah

SYLVIA: Cause otherwise I don’t.

AUSTIN: Yeah totally. I like that a lot, nice work. Alright, who has an- more thing, a more thing.

ART: I think I would like to go?

AUSTIN: Okay, sounds good. Grand Magnificent. Talk to me about what Grand, quote-unquote, “Gig” Magnificent does.

ART: I think I want to... train?

AUSTIN: Okay, which- what are you training?

ART: I think I want to train prowess, because we get a, we get a-

AUSTIN: You get a bonus

ART: One we get a bonus in that, and two I’ve been working on it.

AUSTIN: Sounds good.

ART: I’m not 100% sure what training prowess looks like?

AUSTIN: So prowess is what, it’s helm, it’s scramble, it’s scrap, it’s skulk. What are you- are you like, doing pull ups in the, on the ship? Are you like…

(Austin and Art overlapping)

ART: I’m sure not sneaking around the ship-

AUSTIN: Sneaking, doing sprints

ART: Trying to not be seen by other people on the ship, that is 100% not happening

AUSTIN: Yeah it’s bad

Scrap is like, hitting things, skulk is sneaking, scramble is running?

AUSTIN: It’s like, running, climbing, jumping

ART: Sure. Urm…

KEITH: When you train, do you train one thing, or do you train the, overarching thing?

ART: You train the overall thing, but I’m trying to like, be thematic here, I don’t want to just be like...

KEITH: Yeah yeah yeah

ART: Grand is reading a book titled “Prowess, (laughter from Keith) And How To Improve It.”

KEITH: It’s a parkour book.

AUSTIN: Okay

ART: But I think there is some of that right, that’s the good, image I can conjure? Cause Grand is sharing the bunk bed-laiden crew quarters with Signet, it’s kind of like making a little, you know- trying to vault over, the, the low- like, trying to jump through, between the two beds, trying to vault over the top bed. And urm. I don’t want to put too much comedy in this, but Grand is not good at this.

AUSTIN: (Laughter) Okay

ART: Did I put “Grand, parentheses ‘Gig’ Magnificent”-

AUSTIN (over Art): Yes, that’s

ART: On my own character sheet or did someone else do that?

That’s, you.

ART: Okay

AUSTIN: That was you. That is, uh, that is why I made that joke earlier

KEITH (over Austin): Okay (laughter)

AUSTIN: I wasn’t just saying it.

ART: Urm, yeah, whoops. But like, I think you see him getting better at it, you get from like, like I, I think, I think there’s like a good, a good solid bit of this montage that’s just like, running into something, (snigger from austin) or smacking his head on the, on some- there’s like, there’s a real solid failure portion and then like, by the very end, we’re getting to like… Okay. You know like, how, in a Rocky movie? There’s like a montage? And Rocky starts good, and then gets great?

AUSTIN: Yes?

ART: So for example, in Rocky 4

AUSTIN (over Art, tired): Okay

ART: He starts by like, jogging, with like the spy car chasing him, and by the end, he’s on top of a mountain in a windbreaker, it’s like he jogged up this giant mountain?

AUSTIN: Yes.

ART: So like...

AUSTIN (over Art): It’s like that? But on a ship?

ART: But except, Grand doesn’t go from like, “I’m good at this and now I’m superhumanly great at it,” it goes from like, “I’m not good at this, and then at the end, he’s still like one or two levels below Rocky at the beginning.”

AUSTIN: Mmhmm (Positive)

ART: So like, if it were- if Grand was in Rocky 4, it would start with him getting winded in the driveway, (laughter from Austin) and then it would end at, the tail car is just very easily keeping pace.

AUSTIN: Gotcha

ART: Like, running with the russian spies just- I guess they’re not spys, they’re in their own country

AUSTIN: Yeah

ART: But like, and they’re just next to him, kinda like cheering him on. (laughter from Austin) I don’t know why I’m getting so into the Rocky 4 specific-

AUSTIN: Me either!

ART: That’s not happening here.

AUSTIN: No. No.

ART: Rocky 4’s just really good, I think we should…

JANINE: Can I… Could I pitch a thing that Grand could actually be doing in a room full of bunk beds?

ART: Sure yeah. It’s it running from Russians? Because I’m all over that (laughter from Janine) one already. (Laughter from Austin)

JANINE: I’m imagining, sometimes, sort of barracks style living spaces have a kind of bunk bed that's not attached to a wall, necessarily. Some of them are just kind of in the middle of the room?

ART: Yeah

JANINE: And I’m picturing him doing a thing where he just ducks in the space between the bottom and the top bunk, but then tries to vault over the top bunk, like tries to climb and pull himself over and down. That seems like a thing you could do in that space without a lot of, like, changing it, and also could be bad at but then maybe get moderately less bad at?

ART: Yeah, I love it. And like, at the end he’s still like, not doing- it’s not super smooth, but he’s, he’s getting through it -- I wanted to add like, add in that then he’s like, and then he’s throwing up in a garbage can but maybe that’s too far for the end, the end he should not be throwing up in a garbage can?

JANINE: He’s napping on the bunk bed.

ART: He’s napping on the bunk bed. But like, with like a satisfying sheen of sweat

ALI: Okay!

AUSTIN: Got it. So what’s the second thing you do?

ALI: that fanart exists

ART: Uh, satisfying sheen, I think that’s- I just want to repeat that (snigger from Ali)

AUSTIN: Okay.

JANINE: That’s another NPC name. For Bluff City

AUSTIN: Satisfying Sheen is actually, definitely a By-and-By name, so.

KEITH: I thought it was Shawn

AUSTIN (tired): Okay. (laughter from Keith)

ART: And, the other thing that I would like to do is indulge vice.

AUSTIN: Oh, you’re- okay, right, you’re going to roll the dice here huh? You’re at four stress

ART: Right, so I’m probably fine

(Austin and Keith, overlapping)

AUSTIN: Your vice-

KEITH: Wait, I thought you were three- I thought you were at five?

ART: I thought I was five too, turns out it’s four.

AUSTIN: It’s four. (Janine makes concerned noise)

KEITH: That’s hi- that’s tough. That’s hard.

ART: That’s not that hard.

AUSTIN (over Art): Your pleasure is Art Design slash Building. So.

ART: Yeah.

AUSTIN: Let’s do it, let’s- hit that button. Oh, three!

ART (disappointed): Alright.

AUSTIN: You rolled the dice, you win. You’re down to one stress.

ART: Alright. I- I… Sure. (Laughter from Austin) Cool

ALI: You disappointed. (Laughter from Janine)

ART: I’m a little disappointed (Laughter from Ali), I really wanted to, to go on a walkabout.

JANINE: You got a few other chances

AUSTIN: There’s always… You could always spend a credit to just, make it happen (laughing). I mean, you could also just decide, Grand Magnificent like, stays here for a while and rolls up a new- like, I’m not-

(Austin and Art overlapping)

ART: No, that’s-

AUSTIN: If you think that-

ART: I need the dice to do it

AUSTIN: I gotcha (Laughter from Ali)

ART: I can’t do it to myself

AUSTIN: I getcha. Fourteen, where’s this put you?

JACK: I don’t think that I want to get lost.

AUSTIN: Okay

JACK: For a couple of reasons. One, I- I don’t think we’ve seen enough of these new characters in this new system yet-

AUSTIN: Yeah

JACK: To immediately swap them out for another one.

AUSTIN: Sure.

JACK: And two, I don’t want it to be like the, the like, three episodes of a sitcom where the person’s uncle, like Uncle Chez comes to stay (laughter from Austin), and everyone’s like, “oh my god, this person ”

AUSTIN: You watch what you say about Uncle Chez, Uncle Chez is a saint

KEITH (over Austin): Awful Uncle Chez (laughter from Jack). No, he’s a Terrible uncle, everyone’s worst uncle.

JACK: It’s like, this person has showed up and, and it’s- it’s also a weird degree of pressure as a player right, cause you’re like, “urgh, I’m stuck with this person for an arc, and I’ve got to try and make him good.”

1:30:00

JACK: So I think I’m going to go for the one that bankrupts me instead.

Okay (sad noise from Ali) So, what’s that one- how’s that one work again? What’s the… Read that?

I think I, I think I just lose all my…

You reduce your stash by four, or take two loan.

Ah, well, okay, so here’s the thing.

AUSTIN (curious): Uh huh.

I only have three in my stash

Do you have any in pocket?

No I spent- Oh I do, I actually, I have one in my pocket because- oh no I don’t cause-

AUSTIN (over Jack): No you don’t

No I don’t… I would if I, if I got lost. I stand by not wanting to get lost though, so it’s a case of whether or not we take extra heat, which I’m not super into because-

Right

Of the kind of knock on consequences that has for other people.

So do you want to hear how loans work?

JACK (defeated): Yeah okay

AUSTIN: “Down on your luck? Blown regulator and no cred to fix it? Need a little extra scratch to buy that fancy new module? Counters Guild Loans are a great financial tools that help allow upstanding citizens to bridge the gap in their cash flow. You are not an Upstanding Citizen. Welcome to world of Loan Sharks, Pawn Brokers, and Back Alley Money Mongers.“ So, when you go into debt -- first of all there’s a way to get money this way, which is you roll Acquire Asset, and based on how you roll that’s how much cred you get. Now. “Debt is paid of at the rate of two debt- two cred, two cred for one debt. Loan sharks are not known for their generosity and fair rates. No crew can ever carry more than eight debt at a time -- when you’re in that deep, word gets around and nobody will touch you.”

AUSTIN: Alright, here we go. “The GM should ask questions and use the answer to invent a character that holds this debt. Create a clock to represent the urgency of how soon the debt-

JACK (over Austin): Oh gosh

AUSTIN: “will need to be repaid, with an eight clock being standard. Every downtime from a fortune pool- from the debt a- from the debt amount on that ship, roll to- form rather. Form a fortune pool from the debt amount on the ship and roll to advance this clock. When the clock is full, the lender makes trouble for the crew, such as hiring local muscle to collect what money they can. This may not square the debt, but it will reset the payment clock.” So, who, who do you get this money from? So let’s add a clock, let’s- let’s- talk me through it. Where do you get the money, what is- what is the money? Like, what’s this for? Is this for the Arc, is this one of those things where you like, get all the paperwork together, and you’re like… “Oh no. They don’t have this.”

Yeah, I think it’s like, it’s like a filing fee or something

AUSTIN: Yeah

It’s like, uhhh, an additional tariff on something that I wasn’t anticipating, that I totally should have- Oh, I tell you what it is, I don’t even need to pay this. This is something that I’ve, that I believe that I need to pay (anguished noise from Austin), and they are definitely going to take.

AUSTIN: Right

You know, it’s like if you accidentally pay (quiet laugh), bits of the government, they’ll just be like “oh, okay. Fine”

AUSTIN: “Oh, I’ll take this, sure”

Yeah, and I think Fourteen has not done their research and is just like, “oh man. I have to, have to pay this.”

AUSTIN: And then so where do you get the money from?

Oh gosh.

AUSTIN: Is it like a… Is it- someone who has money, obviously.

Mmm hmm (positive)

AUSTIN: It must be someone on Gift-3, probably, right?

Yeah

AUSTIN: Is it someone that has to do with the… With the Mendati directly? Is it someone who’s like an independent operator, and kind of like, someone who has- okay, so I introduced this concept in the intro to the most recent episode of Gleamers, who are like, Scrap- like Scrappers basically, or not even like Scrappers, they’re like Pickers, but they don’t even go into the Crashyards, they kind of walk the border of the Crashyards, and when people show up at the edges and are exhausted from carrying shit for so far, they’re like “oh yeah, I’ll give you, uh, three credit for that,” and the thing is clearly worth five credit. And, I kind of imagine those folks work on the very magins of the law, and also could maybe give you a little money. So that’s one option.

AUSTIN: Another is, that it could come from, from someone we, we don’t like. Or that we do like, and is doing you a favour, but like, maybe you’re putting that at risk?

Yeah

Oh, Uh Oh. Everyone should open the- Uh Oh. Everyone should open the faction list link.

KEITH: What happened, did something bad happen?

AUSTIN: I don’t know.

KEITH: You said Uh Oh

DRE: Oh boy.

AUSTIN: Uh huh (positive) So, you’ll note that there’s a new colour on this.

KEITH: Uh oh.

AUSTIN: There used to be that blue things were, that blue things were, uhh… The New Earth Hegemony, and yellow things were the Divine Free States. Now there’s also red, which is The Advent Group.

KEITH: That’s a, there’s a lot of them too.

JANINE (over Keith): Whoops

AUSTIN: Uh huh (positive). Oh yeah Signet?

JANINE: Oops.

DRE: Nah it’s fine.

JANINE (laughing): Oopsies.

AUSTIN: Like, advent shows up with huge, with a pallet of lots of money, for them? And like, within the week, you see that like, Seiche is filled with, like, people from the Concretetown Particulars? They’re having arm wrestling contests and cookouts together.

DRE: Well that sounds fun.

AUSTIN: Ah, yeah, but they’re not good people-

[Sad noise from Ali]

DRE (over Austin, sadly): Okay

AUSTIN: Full stop.

JACK (as Fourteen): Yeah, what happened down there?

AUSTIN: Is that an- that’s an in-character question there Fourteen?

JACK: Yeah

        DRE (as Even, falteringly): Uhhh. We helped people come to create some rules around letting everyone use the Stitch.

JACK (as Fourteen): Yeah but they look like arseholes.

DRE (as Even): Well, you’re… not wrong. But they at least are now assholes that let normal people use the stitch so that they can go see their family again? [Fourteen sighs]

AUSTIN: Yeah, so for the people in the refugee game- sorry, in the Arc game; Advent Discover and Salvage Society, uh, is- has the control of the Stitch on side, on the Brighton side. The Concretetown Particulars control it on the Gift-3 side, which gives them land here, on Gift-3, which is the first time that we’ve seen that happen. The Organised Commtech Workers of Quire, are running cable between the two, which is the first cross planetary communication system? That they’re under control, uh, of. And also, are gonna, kinda continue growing with this new Advent Group. And The Volunteers of Seiche are the ones who are administering any sort of, uh, immigration between the two, between Seiche and uh, Perigion, I believe is the other Arm of Seiche- Arm of Harmony -- the two Arms of Harmony, if you’re a citizen of Harmony -- they control who gets to come and go between the, the Stitch. Otherwise, Advent does.

AUSTIN: So. That is the current situation. [Sigh from Jack] And Advent doesn’t have it on complete lockdown, but like, their- if you want a visa you’ve got to show, that you’re coming here to make them money, or whatever -- that you’re going to be a benefit to their vision of the future. So, it’s not like noone is allowed to go and see their families, but it, it is like, if you’re not part of Harmony, then things are a little more stringent. Also, they are tomb robbers and, like-

JACK: Yeah

AUSTIN: The shittiest people.

JACK: I’ve met the Concretetown Particulars, and I hate them

AUSTIN (over Jack): Yeah, you’re rival is one of them.

JACK: Yeah.

        JACK (as Fourteen): So you just put all these… they’re just all together now?

DRE (as Even): Well, okay, so we could have, you know, gone in and I guess blown up the giant military base that, that Advent had built on top of the Stitch, which would have-

KEITH (as Gig, over Dre): That sounds like a good idea.

DRE (as Even): Made them hate us and try to kill us 24/7. And so once they disappeared, then the uh, military that fucking hates everyone from the Divine Free States probably would have taken it over, and so then the, the Divine Free States probably would have started a war to try and reclaim this Stitch, so like, yeah it’s not great, but, this seemed like the best way to do it, that didn’t result in like, a huge power vacuum that would get a lot of unnecessary people killed.

JANINE (as Signet): There was no way for us to go in and cow these particular groups who were going to want to seize this if the one that currently had it was removed. So… In a situation where it feels like there are no right answers, where all these powerful players are going to keep doing powerful things against each other, we did the thing that secured the way forward for the people without power. Or, to the best of our ability, would secure something for them, more than what they had.

KEITH (as Gig): That sounds fine. (snort from Austin)

JACK (as Fourteen): No it doesn’t. It doesn’t sound fine.

(Dre and Janine overlapping)

JANINE (as Signet): It’s absolutely not fine-

DRE (as Even): I mean, look. I mean, not fine, but…

JANINE (as Signet): But, it’s what happened.

JANINE: That’s a thing I’m pretty sure Signet would just, just says directly, like all of that, but especially, “it’s not fine, but it’s what happened”.

DRE: Yeah.

        DRE (as Even): It’s the closest thing we could get to fine. And yeah, it might, it might, it might just be us kicking the can down the road further, I don’t know. But…

ALI (as Tender): Well, we’ll cross that bridge when we come to it.

AUSTIN: Yeah. Okay. So yeah, that’s a thing worth thinking about. Also, uh, numbers wise, you’ll note- status for Advent used to be negative two, now it is zero. Y’all are cool-- y’all are cool now. And it went up for the Concretetown Particulars and for O-Comm. O-Comm- O-Comm is like, I don’t want to paint O-Comm- O-Comm is being opportunist here, and like, kind of like, indiscriminate, with who they’re willing to work with; the Concretetown Particulars… Neurgh, not good. But, they like you now, so. Maybe they’ll give you a loan, Fourteen.

JACK: No, I’m not going to them, this it not even a thing- this is not a thing where I would go like, “ah, my only option here now is to-

AUSTIN: Right right right

JACK: “throw myself into the hands of people who I dislike, through a system that, that… I mean, the Stitch works now, so I can go see them more easily.”

AUSTIN: Right

JACK: Um. No. I’m not seeing them.

AUSTIN: Okay, so where do you go? For this?

JACK: I think that I, I think it’s the Mendati.

AUSTIN: Oh, okay

JACK: Because I think, I think that there is, there is something, there is something sort of superficially official about these documents, I mean, they’re official documents, and so I feel that they should be something superficially official about the loan

AUSTIN: Right

JACK: So going to a Gleamer or something would feel a bit like Fourteen was sort of grasping at straws, which they are-

AUSTIN: Right

JACK: But they’re grasping at straws…

AUSTIN: Officially.

JACK: In a framework that they think is going to be more beneficial to them.

AUSTIN: Gotcha. Alright. So we’ll come up with… I’m going to make a note here that it’s a, debt to the Mendati (confirming noise from Jack), for Sailors of the Arc fees. It’s definitely an eight segment clock, which is, that will be what we roll for it, when you come back. It’s at two debt. So again, you can, you can pay that back once you have, that money back. And then every downtime, we’ll have to roll it, to see what’s going on with there, with it.

JACK: Sounds good.

AUSTIN: And I’ll figure out who that character is, probably, between recordings. Oh! Wait, sorry, I just saw something; Fourteen, you have another move. You have, “you gain an extra-” You have Air of Respectability.

JACK: Oh

AUSTIN: You have an extra downtime activity to acquire assets or lay low.

JACK: Oh dang. (laugh from Ali)

AUSTIN: Uh huh. I’ll note that, all of you as a group also have another one, which is “Your crew gains an extra downtime action to work on long term projects that track bounties, understood broadly, that have gone to ground.” Which hasn’t, necessarily come up yet, but someone should do that to some degree, at some point. Just, cause, you can.

JACK: Yeah.

AUSTIN: So, do you want to lay low?

Yeah, I think I do absolutely want to lay low.

AUSTIN: Okay

KEITH: What does laying low do?

AUSTIN: It gets rid of heat. So Fourteen, what do you do to lay low?

JACK: What do I do to lay low? I wonder whether or not this is something to do with, the Arc, with the connections that we’ve built in the Arc. (positive noise from Austin) Although I’m kind of reluctant to go like, “oh we’re immediately going to make use of these people”, but…

AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah.

JACK: So I reckon… Oh, I know what it is. It’s, I’m, I’m calling, a television station. To, ask them, to stop a story.

AUSTIN: Oh my god, okay.

JACK: And the story is, there is, like, a huge power surge has been seen on the, on like an Arc Unit, out in the…

AUSTIN: Oh, okay.

JACK: They’re like “hey, you know what’s out there?” says the television station, and I’m like “yeah, okay, fine, right”

AUSTIN: “We’ll tell you right back, right after this break,” and you go “oh, nonono, no, you will not, actually.”

JACK: Or it’s not even like I’m like that, I’m like, I’m like, “Okay. Yes, fine, yeah, we’re not pretending that there’s not something out here. Here’s what’s out there.”

AUSTIN: Gotcha

JACK: “My name’s Fourteen Fifteen and I’m a lawyer representing…”

AUSTIN (laughing): Okay. So you’re just telling the truth.

JACK: Ah, I think I’m telling the truth but, I think what I’m trying to do is reframe it from

AUSTIN: Okay

JACK: From what they’re going to say, which is “a gigantic walking funhouse filled with teens has somehow stolen, like, (laugh from Austin) a Perpetual Motion Engine.” Whereas Fourteen is just like “There are other things we can focus on here.”

AUSTIN: Right, okay. Let’s do, uh- is that Consort or Sway?

JACK: I don’t know whether or not- I mean, it’s sway if I call them up on the, and it’s like, “our correspondent here is, is, is Fourteen Fifteen”

AUSTIN: Right

JACK: “A layer from, and it just says the World Without End, [laughter from Austin] that’s weird.” And I think Consort is me saying like, “Bob, Bob, this is very important.”

AUSTIN: Ah, Consort says “you Consort with connections from your heritage, background, friends or rivals, to gain access to resources-” yeah, I think you’re right, I think that you’re- I think that this might be sway.

JACK: Uh, yeah. Alright, my sway isn’t terrible.

AUSTIN (sighing): Yeah

JACK: It’s not nothing. It’s…

AUSTIN: It’s not…

JACK: One.

AUSTIN: Yeah, Consort is about like, do you care what the other person thinks, and feels; that’s not really what you’re doing here.

JACK: No

JACK and AUSTIN together: Alright.

AUSTIN: So give us that one dice.

JACK: To be clear, if this goes completely disastrously, I’ll- we’ll still lose some Heat.

AUSTIN: Yeah, yeah yeah.

JACK: We just won’t lose some Wanted.

AUSTIN: Cor-correct.

Alright, let’s roll this. This is Riskyyy… Standard?

AUSTIN (over Jack): It doesn’t matter, it’s just a- it’s just like a fortune roll basically.

JACK: Oh, okay.

AUSTIN: So yeah, it’s a one

JACK: Boop

AUSTIN: That’s a one.

JACK (very quietly): Not great

AUSTIN: That’s not a great roll. So people are like, “who is this? [Laughter from Jack] Uh, okay? Fourteen-”

JACK: So we reduce, we reduce heat by two.

AUSTIN: So that goes, that goes down to zero, nice work. And then we get to fill this wanted clock by one. Only five more and you get to reduce this down to, another level- another layer.

1:45:00

JACK: Okay, that could have gone a lot worse.

AUSTIN: Yeah, that could have gone worse! That’s still positive, nice work. Alright, Tender, sorry, you were at an impasse.

ALI: Oh, um, yeah, I- So, I, need to get rid of some stress. I also, wanted to, to make the Waking Cadent thing a, um, Long Term Project?

AUSTIN: Ooh, interesting.

ALI: But I also know I have to talk to Declan, and I think that’s also a Long Term Project?

AUSTIN: Right. Totally. Well, so what is the thing that you want to do- what is the thing that you want to do with the Waking Cadent?

ALI: Well, so, the reason I wanted to make that a Long Term Project is that I want to get like, some more information about her whole deal-

AUSTIN: Right

ALI: And talk to some people before I actually set up this meeting…

AUSTIN: Hey, well let me- let me about a little ability you have called On the Trail [laughter from Ali], “your crew gains an extra Downtime activity to work on a Long Term Project, that tracks bounties that have gone to ground.”

ALI: Okay

AUSTIN: I think that that’s what that is. I think that you can totally do a long term project that is about tracking and understanding what the Waking Cadent is all about.

ALI: Okay, you would consider that a bounty even though it’s on the-

AUSTIN (over Ali): Yeah, I think so. I- very broadly, yes.

ALI: I appreciate that. Okay, so that, that helps. Cause then it can just be like, a Skype call with Declan and the Cadent, and then he’s like-

AUSTIN: “Yo”

ALI (as Tender): Oh, by the way

ALI: Yeah yeah.

AUSTIN: Alright so, start that clock. What’s that- how are you doing it? How is Tender looking into info on the Waking Cadent?

ALI: I think that she starts with the Cadent-

AUSTIN (over Ali): Oh, so you’re saying-

ALI: And Declan.

AUSTIN: Gotcha gotcha gotcha gotcha.

ALI: Right.

AUSTIN: Okay.

ALI: ‘Cause I think that makes sense, to be like, “what do you know, there’s clearly some, you know, beef here”

AUSTIN: So then that’s- so then that’s going to be a consort.

ALI: Okay

AUSTIN: To, for that clock. So let’s start that clock, do you see where you add clocks on this? That’s- this’ll- this is an eight step clock.

ALI: Okay cool

AUSTIN: And then roll, roll, um… Or what are you doing, are you talking to them about it? That, that’s probably consort then.

ALI: Yeah, I feel like that’s a good starting point,

AUSTIN: Yeah

ALI: Just being like,

ALI (as Tender): “Hi, in a weird, situation”

AUSTIN: Yeah, totally.

ALI (as Tender): “There was an Ice Lady here”

AUSTIN: Oh wait, we, we, we can’t just be on Skype, because that’s not how Skype works right

ALI: Oooh

AUSTIN: You can’t- Right? You’re not in orbit with them. We do know that there’s a place where you can meet them though.

ALI: Yeah!

AUSTIN: The Steady.

ALI: Oh yeah yeah, I was gonna, we should, start with that then, cause I was going to Indulge in my Vice…

AUSTIN (over Ali): Yeah, let’s start with that then. Yeah yeah yeah. So your Vice is, “Pleasure; I forgot-” on, you wrote- “I forgot-

ALI (over Austin): You wrote

AUSTIN: “Is this The Steady-” No, what I wrote was, “Yes it is” [Giggle from Ali] So.

ALI (quietly): You wrote both of those. But yeah, it is The Steady

AUSTIN: Okay

ALI: Yeah, I- I don’t know, I like, I don’t know if she just like, makes a cool bar on the ship, or like, I guess it’s still digital, right?

AUSTIN: Nah, I think it’s physical. I think that’s the thing, I think like the, The Steady is now a physical space, that can connect between worlds. It pops up on every planet. [Laughter from Ali] In- wherever the ship is. And you get the, kinda like- you know how in like, old games, there was like draw distance was like- I mean, draw distance is still like a thing in games, but like, remember in like, N64 games, draw distance was much, worse? And so you could barely see past, like, twenty feet in front of you and it got all foggy or whatever?

ALI: Yeah.

AUSTIN: I think it does that but without the fog, and so like, I kinda imagine there’s like, the bar area, and it’s like, whatever it looks like, and then like, the ship is above it, or whatever, and you can just see the undercarriage of the ship, and the bar is just kinda hanging out underneath? I imagine you don’t do this just in the space port, but like, out in- it’s like a cool party outside of town, you know what I mean?

ALI: Yeah, yeah, I was thinking of something she did before they left Gift-3

AUSTIN: Yes, exactly

ALI: Because then like, Vanya can be there,

AUSTIN: Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah

ALI (over Austin): The guy who worked in that booth who wanted to get- to go out to dinner with us.

AUSTIN: Right. I think like, all of that stuff is the sort of, like, yeah. I kind of imagine that’s what happens between every mission? Like, okay, we’re done on this planet, [laughter from Ali] now we’re going to- unless we’re being chased out by killers

ALI: Yeah

AUSTIN: We’re going to stop and have a bar moment, and like, this is happening behind- we should have just started here so that, this coloured everything. But like, The Steady is just running for this like, week long, two week long visit on Gift-3 after that last set of missions. So yeah, give me the pleasure roll. So take four, right?

ALI: Yay!

AUSTIN: Yeah. Look at that.

ALI: I’m about to take four- I was at six, which is not great.

AUSTIN: That’s not great. Two is much better.

ALI (sighing): Yeah.

AUSTIN: Cool, alright. And so, the other thing about The Steady is, it connects all of these places, and so, you can send word that like, “hey, The Steady-” or, you know, I think Declan’s Corrective and, and, Cascara- and the Cadent Under Mirage and Cascara are all like, “Oh. The- The Steady showed up. [laughter from Ali] Like, on the mountain that overlooks the Cadent’s place or whatever, right? So they know to come on through.

ALI (over Austin): Yeah. I have a special table for them

AUSTIN: Right, totally.

AUSTIN: It’s like a, a VIP, bottle service situation.

AUSTIN: Yes, yes.

KEITH: Is there a stanchion, do they have a stanchion?

ALI: Ummm. It, it’s not a stanchion, but it is on like a raised platform

KEITH: Okay

AUSTIN: Oh

ALI: You know?

AUSTIN: Okay.

ALI: And, I- you know, sneak some time to go sit down with them. And…

AUSTIN: Do people- do people visiting here from other places just look like themselves, are they like, made of clay, are they made of, are they holographic, but cooler than holographic in some way? Like, is there anything to determine like, oh, this person’s not actually here?

ALI: I feel like that would be weird, right, because like, once you’re in there you’re in there, and you can like-

AUSTIN: Yeah, that’s fair

ALI: Talk to the people who are there, right, like-

AUSTIN: Yeah

ALI: I think the, um...

AUSTIN: It’s like a temporary Stitch in that way?

ALI: Right.

AUSTIN: But they can’t come out the door and be on the other planet, it doesn’t- it is not a Stitch in that way.

ALI: No nonono. I bet the building looks weird on, like on Gift-3 it’s like, a bar, here is a bar

AUSTIN: Right

ALI: But in- on other planets, it’s like kind of a mirage effect I guess, or like a-

AUSTIN: Okay

ALI: Kinda looks like, translucent- or like it’s not, you know, when you’re on a desert…

AUSTIN: Yeah, I got you

ALI: Yeah

AUSTIN: A mirage, yeah. [Laughter from Ali] Just happens to be a name- a thing that means something in our show, yeah, gotcha.

ALI (laughing): Whoops.

AUSTIN: So go ahead and give me a consort then. And this is for, this is for the Waking Cadent-

ALI: Yes.

AUSTIN: Thing right, yeah.

ALI: Yeah yeah yeah.

AUSTIN: Alright so, on a- on a four, during a Long Term Project like this, you are going to go, you are going to advance that clock by two. So, you see where it says progress?

ALI: Yeah yeah yeah.

AUSTIN: Just hit two on, the underneath bit.

ALI: Um, Signet, do you wanna be here?

AUSTIN: I was going to say that would make some sense.

JANINE: Sure

ALI (laughing): Okay

AUSTIN: Cause you’re, having this conversation about the Waking Cadent

JANINE: Yeah. Unless that costs me something.

AUSTIN: So- no, no. I think, not for this conversation or whatever. So. I think, the Cadent Under Mirage- how do you bring it up?

ALI: I mean I think I, I- I guess I can’t call them but I could send them like, like a letter before hand saying-

AUSTIN (over Ali): Yes

ALI (over Austin): “Hey, can you show up tonight, we have to talk about something big?”

AUSTIN: Yeah. Or it might be “can you show up tomorrow night,” like it- even the fastest couriers are not that fast, do you know what I mean? It might even be like, show up Wednesday

ALI: Yeah. And I think that it’s like, very- it feels kind of, very, routine, right? I guess she’s used to kind of checking in with these people and being like, here’s the information I have, how are we going to deal with this? Like, she did this for a year, so, it’s definitely- it is, more well oiled than you think it would be, I guess? And she is just, very clearly is like, Signet beeped me [laughter] to reach me, and then I went over to the thing, and there was… This is what this ice lady looked like. She was talking about our souls, it was like, kind of frustrating, and I, you know, wanna give you guys a heads up, obviously, because this is a little intense, and also to let you know that I intend to go there, and speak to her, whatever. I would like to know what’s going on. I feel like, on behalf of the Notion, we kind of want to smooth this out.

AUSTIN (as the Cadent): You should not go there.

AUSTIN: Says the Cadent.

AUSTIN (as the Cadent): This is a trap.

ALI (as Tender): But-

AUSTIN (as the Cadent): She is appealing to, your, your best selves, and is leading you into a pit. You’re too important. This is selfish.

ALI (as Tender): It didn’t seem, aggressive, to me. Did it seem kind of intense, did it seem threatening, sure. But, I mean… This is going to be a thing we have to deal with, at some point, right? And, you know. I’d rather take the invitation while I have it.

AUSTIN (as the Cadent): By going, you will be validating her claim. By recognising her- Tender. There are people, now, whispering in the Free States, that perhaps she is the true Cadent.

ALI (as Tender): And you’ve proven them wrong-

AUSTIN (as the Cadent, angrily): No, I haven’t. It is ongoing. Every week, every hour, I must constantly reproove my position. I fear that if you go at all, the Divine Free States will see that as a sign that she must be dealt with, and that if she must be dealt with, that- and if she must be dealt with, then, she must be real.

ALI (as Tender): All of us, made the decision to do what we’re doing, to make sense of all of the chess pieces on the table. And… I don’t- I obviously don’t believe her, right? But. Her feelings aren’t invalid. The point is to hear her out.

AUSTIN: Corrective- I think Corrective takes a little- has been sipping away at, at like a, a glass of whiskey, and he’s like

AUSTIN (as Declan): A lot of people have feelings. You going to spend your time on the one that says that your Cadent is a phoney? Think of all of the feelings you’re not dealing with. Think about it. I’m… I’m just asking that you think about it.

JANINE (as Signet): If you want to talk about things you’re not dealing with, closing your eyes is not going to make her go away.

AUSTIN (as Declan): I’m not closing my eyes. We have- we have, uh, we have people looking into these things all the time. Not you. You are a symbol, of something we’re building. [Grunt which encourages agreement] People will see you go there. You know, we have people you don’t see. Your ship, it’s big and golden, it’s a shot across the Mirage. [Ali sighs] She’s working on dangerous things. You shouldn’t be a part of it.

ALI (as Tender): I’d rather be a part of it than you send someone else. This feels like the thing that you sent us out to do!

AUSTIN (as Declan): No. It isn’t. We want you helping people, not… investigating the mysteries of… You’re not the Beloved any more. You’re the Notion -- what’s important is ordinary people. We have people to do the thing you used to do. If you do this, it’s on your behalf, not mine. And I will be disappointed.

ALI (as Tender, very quietly and disgusted): Urgh fine

AUSTIN (as Declan): And it will, it will reflect on me.

ALI: Tender’s ears droop. [Aww’s from Janine and Austin, laughter from Ali] Like a little bit

AUSTIN (as the Cadent): She is playing with dangerous forces. Researching Volition. Trying to, build Divines, that are not- that aren’t, that aren’t the way Divines are supposed to be. At least, that’s how it seems. I… When I trained to be Cadent, I was told that the Cadent’s role is to guide and to direct Divine power. She does not wish to guide. She does not wish to direct. She wants to own. She wants to wield. No one even knows who she is. We cannot… and I say this with all due respect to Governor Corrective, who needs to meet with representatives of the Iconoclastics later [snort from Tender] but, we are not in a role or a position to suffer those who invent false ideologies, those who would harm us, when there is so much to be done for those who need our help still.

ALI (as Tender): I… Okay. Okay. I just… I’m sitting across from a person who, I thought had a false ideology. And that’s not like, maybe the full thing with her? But like, she’s using the language of the Assemblage; I just thought there would be a cross section.

AUSTIN (as Declan): There was a- there was a, unit, developed, in the- an earlier version of, the Hegemony’s attack. Generations before mine. And they came quiet. They studied the Assemblage, they spread word about it, they understood how it worked. Words are weapons. The fact that someone wields one that looks like yours doesn’t mean allegiance. I appreciate the hussle. But. Be safe.

ALI (as Tender): At least let me keep looking into it. If I don’t go there…

AUSTIN (as Declan): Do what you want, but, uh; what’s that they said about curiosity?

ALI (as Tender): Eww.

[Laughter from Keith]

JANINE (as Signet): There’s actually a second half of that saying that no one- I’m not kidding, there is a second half of that saying that makes it mean the opposite thing.

AUSTIN (as Declan, dismissively): Yeah, no one remembers that part.

JANINE (as Signet, scoffing): Selectively.

AUSTIN (as Declan, over Janine): Cause resurrection aint real.

        ALI (as Tender): I’m… This isn’t more important to me, than, upsetting you. But, if I’m going to be bouncing around from planet to planet, let me, ask some questions, okay? And then your new Beloved or whatever else, these other people you have, can be the people who do the thing. But if she’s going to come to me, like, just let me look into it, and I’ll report back.

AUSTIN: The Cadent nods, and she says,

        AUSTIN (as the Cadent): Very well, but, in your roles, lots of people will come to you. You are beacons, and beacons draw attention. But, you cannot -- must not -- accept every appeal. What’s happened here, on Gift-3, with Advent… I understand the complexities, and, I will not rebuke you. But… Not all appeals must be heard.

2:00:00

ALI (as Tender, quietly): We’re both getting scolded [laughter]

AUSTIN: Uh huh.

ALI: That can be scene, unless, Signet has more stuff, to say.

AUSTIN: Yeah, I think that’s scene, I think that- yeah, unless, yeah, Signet, do you have…

JANINE: I think… I think actually, at that remark Signet leaves prematurely. [understanding noise from Austin, sadness from Ali] Because, I’m sorry, but the Cadent just said, “you’re supposed to help people.” Like, well, we did that. So.

ALI: Yeah.

AUSTIN: Yeah, those people were fascists, so.

JANINE: The other people!

AUSTIN: Yeah, I- yeah, this is the thing, this is the difficult thing. I think that was the right call, the- with Polyphony, 100%. But, but… I think, the Cadent finger wagging at you a little bit because of what happened with Advent is definitely well earned. [Laughter from Ali] Alright.

ALI: Yeah. I think that like, Tender stays for a little bit to just be like, “let’s just hang out, I haven’t seen you guys in a while,”

AUSTIN: Yeah yeah yeah, totally.

ALI: -because that was really intense.

AUSTIN: Yeah yeah yeah, fair. And also you wanted to do the second thing, right?

ALI: Yes

AUSTIN: So what is this, what is this thing that you’re doing? How are we doing this?

ALI: I think, I think- well, I guess I can bring it up

AUSTIN: Yeah

ALI: Declan is here and I would love to be like,

ALI (as Tender): So, a weird thing happened.

ALI: But yeah so the… The thing that happened with Tender’s mech where, the New Earth Hegemony logo showed up-

AUSTIN: Right, right.

ALI: And then everybody was in a roller rink-

AUSTIN: Uh huh!

ALI: Isn’t like- not a thing that she knew was going to happen.

AUSTIN: Right

ALI: She definitely lucked out having the mech that she does.

AUSTIN: Yeah

ALI: But that, just happened, and she had not, planned for it.

AUSTIN: Yeah, and so did we, did we decide whether or not- like, this is just you bringing it to Declan’s Corrective, right?

ALI: Yeah, either or, I mean, it can be both I guess, at this point?

AUSTIN: Yeah. I think at this point especially, which is like, I- yeah, he probably does bring it up with like-

AUSTIN (as Declan): So I hear real strange reports

AUSTIN: Basically. [laugh from Ali]

AUSTIN (as Declan): About, about what happened on, on Big Garage.

AUSTIN: And, I guess what you- is this another long term project basically?

ALI: Yeah

AUSTIN: Which is- what is your goal for this? Like, best case scenario, what happens here?

ALI: I don’t know, I know that we sort of decided- that’s why it has to come from Declan I think?

AUSTIN: Yeah

ALI: Cause it has to be him being like, “We want you to test this out”

AUSTIN: Yeah, so- the, the- I guess yeah, the abstracted version of this is like, in my mind it’s, you use this rare- you use this prototype technology called the ReFrame System- there are two working prototypes. One of them was, stolen, and was being sold to Advent, and yall intercepted it, by mistake. It’s like, extremely Cowboy Bebop, you wound up with the wrong poker chip. Which explains why they were with negative two for you, and not just negative one over these fucking diving suits. Is that like, oh, they were actually moving this prototype technology- or steal- they’d stolen it, and were going to try to figure out how to use it better. But, you used it here. Word’s- not gotten out, but, you know, there are spies everywhere, there are eyes everywhere, and, Declan and- has kinda like, pulled some strings to make sure that, okay, like, no one is coming to arrest you for having this [laughter from Austin and Ali] stolen technology. It’s accounted for. And, the idea that I really love just like, some scientist in some fucking facility on Skein is- has been working on this for a long time, or for the like, months and months. And like, hasn’t really been getting great funding, and has kind of just like, fallen out of oversight, you know what I mean? And so, it’s easy enough for you to, keep it, and without getting into trouble, but the exchange there is that you have to provide data, you have to provide research data on it. And the thing that we had talked about was like, it depends on what you do is that they get from it

ALI: Yeah, right.

AUSTIN: So like, if you’re making giant guns with it, well, that’s a thing that they might learn how to do. Right?

ALI: Yeah.

AUSTIN: And I still have to figure out how to do that with clocks, because there’s like, clocks that go- it might be a situation where we have two different clocks, that might not be nuanced enough.[laughter from Ali] I need to sleep on it and figure it out this weekend-

ALI: Okay

AUSTIN: But basically, I- the thing that I like the notion of is like, tracking if you use it in good ways or bad ways. But I don’t want it to just be like, the good clock and the bad clock, do you know what I mean?

ALI: Yeah

AUSTIN: So, it could- maybe it could end up just being like, a clock that gets filled up every time you use it, and I just write down what it is you do and then collate those things and decide at the end, you know what I mean?

ALI (laughing): Okay.

AUSTIN: But we can talk through this, and figure out what the mechanic is here.

ALI: Yeah yeah, those are my thoughts right now.

AUSTIN: But yeah, he explains what the system is, which is like, the New Earth Hegemony know that like, the Mirage does stuff, and they were trying to work out a way to, like, re- like, reframe situations. And examples which were used were like, building a dam to prevent a flood, or, or, for- for instance maybe figuring out- like, this is one of the things where, if you look at the grant, there’s different versions of the grant application from this research house. Some of it was like, oh, if it was sent, if it was sent to get the arms grant it very much said “maybe this could be used to make weapons, that work here”, that are like guns that work. But when it was sent to like, for like, medical aid, it’s like, “oh, this could be used to generate uh, the sort of, medic”… Like a hospital, an on the ground hospital in crisis situations without having to ship stuff from place to place. And so, you know… But it wasn’t built for stratii. It was built for regular people, and so, very very minimal success, until you used it. [laughter from Ali]

ALI: I think the only part of this conversation that’s important for me is sort of, Tender being like, “am I doing this for them, or for you, and if I’m doing it for you, how are your intentions different from theirs?”

AUSTIN: And I think he basically says that you’re doing it for you, which is, this is a thing that you can use to get things done. And I think at this, I think this is a conversation that happens with the Cadent gone.

ALI: Yep

AUSTIN: Because at one point I think he says something like

AUSTIN (as Declan): Listen. If you do end up going to face the Waking Cadent, this is a thing you want on your side.

AUSTIN: And like, you know, I think he’s pretty honest about the fact that like, there are- there is a potential here. Which is like, if you use it for bad shit, and the New Earth Hegemony learns how to program that in, so that other people can just fire that off, that’s on you; don’t do that. [laugh] And that, for his, for his purposes, he would love to be able to say like, “Hey. I’m still someone who wants the New Earth Hegemony to work well,” and this continues to give him influence inside of that space. Like, if this researcher can say “hey, look, I learned how to turn- use this device to build bridges, in six months, then- and, and, Corrective helped,” then that does good things for his reputation. Which means he gets more play, and actually can prevent them from doing shitty things, right?

ALI (as Tender): Okay, but I’m only making roller rinks, [laugh] for the rest of my time.

AUSTIN: Okay. See how the Waking Cadent likes that. It’ll be fine.

ALI: Deal with that.

AUSTIN: Okay.

(Ali and Austin, overlapping)

AUSTIN: s’ a good roller rink scene.

ALI: No, that was a joke, that was an in character joke-

AUSTIN (over Ali): Oh, okay, didn’t realise.

ALI: To Declan

AUSTIN: God. I think he’s like, I think he’s like

AUSTIN (as Declan): I have to admit. I spent a lot of time thinking. About what I would look like, in a roller rink.

ALI (as Tender): Oh my god, what? [Background laughter from Keith] Please tell me.

AUSTIN (as Declan): It’s a suit.

ALI (as Tender, under her breath): Of course it is.

AUSTIN (as Declan): Polyester.

ALI (as Tender): What color?

AUSTIN (as Declan): Seventeen, different colors. Very very subtle differences.

ALI (as Tender): I hate you.

AUSTIN (as Declan): You would think it’s only two different colors but it’s actually seventeen, it’s everything in between a sort of fushia, and a sort of puce.

ALI (as Tender): I don’t know why I hang out with you.

KEITH: He’s a puce, he’s totally a puce guy.

AUSTIN (as Declan): Also.

AUSTIN: And he like, puts his head to his hands, and like, he’s like- he’s concentrating so hard Tender, it’s very cute [laughter from Ali]. He doesn’t- not cute like attractive, cute like, this fucking-

ALI (over Austin): No, I know

AUSTIN: Little baby stratus, and like, for a half a second, you can see like, big sunglasses appear on his face, and he can’t hold them there, he doesn’t have the power, he can’t do that, but- in fact, he can’t even- I- they’re probably not even really there, they’re just an image of it, you know what I mean, they’re just like a h- they are just like, a holograph of it, of just like, giant, Elvis shades.

ALI: [Snigger] Can I make him those glasses?

AUSTIN: Oh yeah, definitely. I’m not even going to make you roll for it.

ALI (laughing): Okay. I’m going to make those glasses, slip them in to his like, shirt pocket, and be like [laughter from Janine]

ALI (as Tender): It’s great to see you, I’ve got to get back to work.

AUSTIN: He’s like,

AUSTIN (as Declan’s): Have fun

AUSTIN: Yeah

AUSTIN: And then he takes the gla[sses]- he waits until you get up, and then he takes the glasses out and puts them on [laughter from Ali] and walks away. God. Yeah, seventeen different cream colours is not bad, Gig. [Laughter from Ali] A technicolour cream coat. [Laugh from Keith] Alright. Alright. Gig or Signet, who wants to go first?

KEITH: I’m fine with whatever

AUSTIN (over Keith): I’m shocked that no one has said Gig-net, and, it’s bad [laughter from Janine, Dre and Keith]

KEITH: I’ll go, I have-

AUSTIN (over Keith): Totally

KEITH (over Austin): some ideas if no ones…

AUSTIN: Okay. Yeah.

KEITH: So I was debating on what the first thing I wanted to do was, cause I don’t have- I only have four stress, and I, it’s pretty good odds because I have two in everything, or at least two in everything, so… But I don’t think I need to remove stress. Maybe. We’ll see. But I do think that, what I want to do is, I want to start a Long Term Project. And I want that project to be, a new video series that is, sort of like... I don’t know if it’s like, outright, or if it’s- if it’s just implied… Maybe it’s outright, I want, I want to make a new How To video series on, stuff that would help, the Ark do stuff around their Ark.

AUSTIN: Aww, cool. Awesome. Are you doing it there with them, or are you just doing it in a test lab- where, what are you doing?

KEITH: I could do the- I had a, I had thought, in my head, that I would do it on, from the ship, and they would just like, see it?

AUSTIN: Right

KEITH: When they do their, Hate on, uh, Gig’s Videos Parties. [confirming noise from Austin, laughter from Ali] And they would see it, and see me doing stuff like, that they could follow along with

AUSTIN (over Keith): Yeah

KEITH (over Austin): and then they would feel bad. [Laughter]

ALI: That’s- no.

AUSTIN: God.

KEITH: But-

AUSTIN: “Gotcha. You don’t hate me now”

ALI: Don’t be spiteful.

KEITH: But, I could also, I could also do it there, if we think that would be more fun.

AUSTIN: I think it’s more fun if you help them directly-

KEITH: Okay

AUSTIN: And shoot the stuff, right?

KEITH (over Austin): Yeah yeah yeah yeah, it’s all- yeah.

AUSTIN: It’s like, you and Vanya, and Keegan, and all of the kids that you worked with-

KEITH: Yeah, and they could be, you know, literally-

AUSTIN (continuing, under Keith): And, and, Alabaster

KEITH: The first- the first idea that I had was helping them reprogram the songs in Musicalia- or, what was it called?

AUSTIN: Oh, that’s sick, that’s a good idea.

KEITH: Yeah [laughter from Ali]

AUSTIN: Yeah Musicalia

KEITH: Yeah

AUSTIN: That’s actually super sick, they would actually love that. Cool. So I think this is, a… This is definitely, we already have this story clocked down here that we didn’t- we had this idea, earlier, that was like, “oh, we were going to slowly build out a story and we’d roll to craft it, and then…” but I think we should just treat it like this, which is just like-

KEITH: Yeah

AUSTIN: It’s a long term project to do this, and it takes, you know, a couple of things, but I think that, I think that this is just a six segment long term project. Right like, you’re not-

KEITH: This specific one project is a six?

AUSTIN: This specific series that you’re talking about.

KEITH: Series; yeah yea. And each notch would be like, one thing, one video.

AUSTIN: Well, each- the way it works is that you- when you roll, we’ll fill up this clock-

KEITH: Yeah, okay.

AUSTIN: Basically. So, what did we- I guess you’re rolling rig, because it’s about [inaudible]

KEITH: Yeah, I also- I can fill up two, segments at a time, is the other thing.

AUSTIN: You can fill up an extra segment, it’s not just two, this is what it says.

(KEITH and AUSTIN overlapping)

KEITH: Oh, okay, can you-

AUSTIN: So, the way this works is-

KEITH: I didn’t know that you could fill in multiple anyway.

AUSTIN: Yeah yeah, long term projects work by rolling something, and so, if you roll a one to three, you fill in one, if roll an four or five, you fill in two, if you roll a six you fill in three, and if you roll a crit, which is two sixes, you roll five- or you fill in five segments.

KEITH: Wow.

AUSTIN: So, you know, there’s a chance, if you roll two sixes here-

KEITH: I could do this whole…

AUSTIN: In one go.

KEITH: In one go.

AUSTIN: What a waste of a two six- no, it’s good-

KEITH: It’s good!

AUSTIN: It’s great, actually it would be perfect.

KEITH: It would be really good, it would be really great, for them- I think it would be bad for the arc of the-

AUSTIN: Right

KEITH: Clock of like, helping them-

AUSTIN: Yes

KEITH: Over time, but

AUSTIN: Yes. What I’ll- what I, what I want this to be mechanically, or fictionally, is about- it’s two things. It is helping them, and it ensures that they, like- it helps to ensure that, that they are able to survive as a group. And I think it also helps sell them, to Gift-3, as being a place that’s feasible to exist; do you know what I mean?

KEITH: Yeah, this- yeah the, sort of the other motive was, this would be- cause Yam was worried about, like-

AUSTIN: Right

KEITH: Being a, being a- shit, what are they called?

AUSTIN: A New Earth Hegemony, a Torch unit?

KEITH: Torch unit, yes, torch-

AUSTIN: Yes

KEITH: Worried about being a torch unit, and this would get them more, screen time.

AUSTIN: Yes. So is it you, is it Gig Kephart and Yam help the teens build stuff?

KEITH: Yes, yeah, that’s what it is.

AUSTIN: Oh my god, and then in future episodes -- unless you get two sixes here -- in future episodes, it’s like, you showing them how to do a thing at like- you know, inside of the ship, maybe even just with, tiny objects- maybe just dioramas and like little- you know what I mean?

KEITH: Yeah yeah

AUSTIN: Because you don’t have a huge space, you just build independent components, and you can also do little, cool little dioramas that you get the- you fly through a practical effect with your eyebot?

KEITH: Ooh, yes, yeah.

AUSTIN: And then we cut from that to Yam helping them build it for real, is in the second half of the episode. I fucking love this; alright. Please, roll your rig.

KEITH: Okay

AUSTIN: And roll it well

KEITH: Roll my rig well, okay. This is, what is this, controlled?

AUSTIN: This is- it doesn’t matter

KEITH: Okay

AUSTIN: Yeah, controlled’s fine. It’s- it’s a fortune roll, technically.

KEITH: Okay

AUSTIN: Alright, that’s a three.

KEITH: That’s a three.

AUSTIN: So that’s technically only a one, thing, but you have-

KEITH: But I have two, yeah.

AUSTIN: Tinker, which lets you add another s-s- segment. So go ahead and advance that clock. I’m going to add this, I’m gonna add a name to it which is, “Arc Repair Show Clock”. And go ahead and hit two on that progress. Alright, so you’re two steps of the way there; first episodes are out, people like em- I genuinely think people are happy to have you back, in a Divine Free State place, which is maybe not the long term goal?

2:15:00

AUSTIN: And I think that they at first do kinda go like

AUSTIN (as Viewers): Urgh, what’s he doing with a Torch unit

AUSTIN: you know?

KEITH: Yeah

AUSTIN: But, but, some people definitely like Yam by the end that episode.

KEITH: Good.

AUSTIN: And I think it’s kids. I think kids are like,

AUSTIN (as Kids): Look at that cool robot!

[Laughter from Keith]

AUSTIN: And parents are like,

AUSTIN (as Parents): Oh my god, those robots almost killed all of us. That’s- okay, if you say so.

KEITH: Well it’s just that shape of robot.

AUSTIN: Exactly, yes.

KEITH (scoffing): Parents

AUSTIN: Okay. So do you have a second thing that you want to do?

KEITH: I guess the thing that I’ll do is train.

AUSTIN: Okay, that’s a good one.

KEITH: Because I have been spending, I have been spending the XP, the post mission XP, on Insight

AUSTIN: Yeah

KEITH: And I think doing the Downtime XP in another thing would be a good way to sort of balance that out.

AUSTIN: Cool. So Resolve, or your Prowess, or a playbook?

KEITH: I was thinking reso- ah, resolve.

AUSTIN: Okay. Get that Consort or Sway up, or get yourself some Attune or Command.

KEITH: Yeah, I was thinking of getting Consort up. It’s tough to like, be a guy that people recognise and then being bad at talking to them

AUSTIN: Yeah

KEITH: So I think that’s what I’m going to do

AUSTIN: That’s a good idea. Go ahead and- so go ahead and put a point in Resolve.

KEITH: I’ll put a point in Resolve.

AUSTIN: I like that system a lot, I like that- I like training as a thing- what’s that look like?

KEITH: I don’t know, I think maybe it’s… Maybe I, I like practice on- Maybe I do like, a call in show-

AUSTIN: Oh, that’s good

KEITH: And- as practice, of like- ‘cause like- because the people that are calling in a call in show are the people that are most likely to like, be into you

AUSTIN: Yeah

KEITH: Right. And so it’s a sort of safe area to, to, get back into the swing of talking to people.

AUSTIN: Is it like car talk?

KEITH: It’s- it’s a, maybe it’s like a really broad car talk.

AUSTIN: But for like, fixing stuff?

KEITH: Yeah. People call in and like, talk about how their plumbing broke in a real funny way.

AUSTIN: Yeah

KEITH (as Gig): What sound is it, what’s the sound that it makes?

AUSTIN (as Caller): [Plumbing foley] Balong-kalonk.

KEITH (as Gig): Ah well that’s- you’ve, you’ve got a bad pump.

CALLER: I got a bad Balunk-a-lunk pump?

GIG: Let me tell you what you got; you’ve got a bad pump. And what you can do is, you can take out the pump, and put a new pump in.

CALLER: My brother said you’re stuck with the pump ya got though! They- my brother, my brother used to be a plumber-

GIG: No, you’re not, you’re not stuck with the pump, you can-

CALLER: Used to be a plumber he said “you stuck with the plump-”

AUSTIN: Mmm

AUSTIN (as Caller): “you stuck with the pump.”

KEITH (as Gig, over Austin): You can- now, here’s the thing, here’s what you can do, if you’ve got another toilet you can get the pump from the other one, and if that works, you can- then that’s it, you know it’s the pump.

CALLER: But wait a second, what am I going to do with the other toilet?

GIG: Well then you’ll-

CALLER: The toilet- the pump is broken.

GIG: You’ll put that pump back and get a new pump and put it in. But this is a test.

CALLER: You’re talking about troubleshooting, he’s talking about troubleshooting.

GIG: I’m troubleshooting, it’s troubleshooting, you’re troubleshooting.

CALLER: Hey, you still, uh, you still hang out with that guy Grand Magnificent?

GIG: Yeah, it’s-

CALLER: I used to do truckin with him back in the day. Let me know how he’s doin.

GIG: Oh he’s-

AUSTIN: I just remembered that Art already left this call, so this joke is just for no one but me. [Laughter from Ali]

JANINE: So back in the day was like, 7 months ago?

        AUSTIN (as Caller): Not- seven weeks- two weeks ago.

ALI: Yeah

        AUSTIN (as Caller): Actually.

KEITH (as Gig): Back in the, that day. Back on that day. He’s good, he’s- I think he’s mellowed out?

CALLER: That’s good to hear, that’s- ahh. He, he was always kind of a mellow guy. He was always kind of a-

GIG: Was he?

CALLER: He was a little- you’ve- yeah, mellow boy. That’s what I called him. I called him my little mellow boy. [Laughter from Keith]

GIG: He is, he’s kind of a little mellow boy.

CALLER: Anyway, thanks for the pump information.

GIG: No problem.

AUSTIN (as Caller, shouting away from the microphone): He says I could replace the pump!

GIG: You can replace the pump!

CALLER: That’s what he-

GIG: Why wouldn’t you be able to replace the pump?!

AUSTIN: And he like, [Computer Foley] “do doop”, and he like signs off or whatever. Alright, cool. Good training. I think that leaves us with Signet?

JANINE: Yeah

AUSTIN: Hi

JANINE: So, the first thing that I want to do is, I want to say this counts as- oh god I had- I had the thing up and now I don’t have the thing any more

AUSTIN: Uh huh

JANINE: What the fuck is it called? I think it might be… hmm. Oh wait no that’s temporary…

AUSTIN: Oh, Acquire Asset?

JANINE: Yeah

AUSTIN: Ah- temporary is pretty broad, but it depends on what you’re trying to do.

JANINE: So the thing, the thing I wanted to do was; we have three of these like, Divine slash Axiom slash Quire slash mirad [sic] weirdness algorithm slash filters?

AUSTIN: Yeah

JANINE: And I wanted to maybe try and hook more people up with those, because they seem super handy-

[Crosstalk from Austin and Janine]

AUSTIN: I think that- I- Yeah, I think that that’s a long term-

JANINE: But also I have three of them

AUSTIN: I think that’s just a long term project, and I think it’s actually not that hard of one. I think it’s a four step long term project. Because like, you have three of them already. You know what they are, you can probably duplicate that pretty quickly.

JANINE: Okay

AUSTIN: So, add a clock

JANINE: Alright

AUSTIN: What do you- how are you doing this?

JANINE: I- I feel like this is one of those like, back- back in the day, when we were constructing our ships,

AUSTIN: Uh huh [positive]

JANINE: The thing that I said that Belgard conferred on Thyrsus was material efficiency.

AUSTIN: Yeah

JANINE: Of just being able to perfectly reuse things.

AUSTIN: Right

JANINE: I think the complication here is that like, Signet has to figure out how this thing is, first.

AUSTIN: So I think this is-

JANINE: Beyond that the actual construction is less troubling.

AUSTIN: Right, so yeah, so; I would say that this is, depending on- if what you’re trying to do is figure it out first, as your first step, then that’s Study, probably, right? And then, if you’re building- if you’re physically building a thing, that’s Rig, or if you’re computer-ing, that’s Hack. You could also probably attune, with Exhuvia, to like, do this in a Weird way, but I don’t know what that weird way looks like, [Crosstalk with Janine] you’d have to tell me what that weird way looks like.

JANINE: I think that would probably- because like, because of the Belgard thing of like, because this is, this is like tapping into that ability more than like, more than, Signet like, machining parts.

AUSTIN: Right, yeah. Yeah, I could go with either of those. And they’re both one die so it, doesn’t really matter. We can roll and see what happens. So 1d6. That’s a four, okay. [Cough from someone else] So that means you get to fill in two of those four things. You can also spend a credit to up it to three, but at that point, you’re probably just going to have to roll again anyway, you know?

JANINE: Yeah, I think I’m okay with this for now. Two is good.

AUSTIN: Cool.

JANINE: Two out of four, that’s halfway, you know.

AUSTIN: Yeah, totally. That’s really good.

JANINE: Okay.

AUSTIN: So that’s one. And then, two.

JANINE: The other thing I want to do is Indulge Signet’s Vice

AUSTIN: Okay. Which one, you have two of them?

JANINE: I do. I think the one that it makes most sense storywise, to indulge, is pleasure.

AUSTIN: Yeah, agreed. What’s that look like? I guess we should roll and see how it goes, and then, decide what it looks like, but...

JANINE: The thing I need to know is the way that Signet would get “alone time” with someone in the state that they’re at now.

AUSTIN: I- the way that anybody would regularly, right?

JANINE: No, but I mean like, is there like- like, what, what…

AUSTIN: Like, what’s Mendati host club, like, brothel situation’s like?

JANINE: Yeah, like, she can- like, I mean, we’re not stuck in space right now, right?

AUSTIN: No no, you’re on- you’re on Gift-3 the planet.

JANINE: Okay. Then yeah.

AUSTIN: And in fact, and again like, and it’s the one year anniversary, which means like, there’s part- there’s probably like, a huge party all through Gift- Big Garage, and- even in Seiche, people lived- and in Seiche, people are really happy about this Advent Group thing. I think I’m just calling it the Advent Group, because it sounds terrible and I hate it. So I think that they’re excited about that, and people in Big Garage are excited, and obviously people on the Arc are excited, like, everyone’s on… Things are on the up and up, everywhere, and so there’s like, huge cookouts and, and, you know, fire works, and there’s lots of parades in Big Garage. There’s parades, and there’s like sky parades, lots of like, transport ships like turned into giant floats? Parade floats? And they’re upside down parade floats, they’re, they’re like- the ship is on the top, and it hangs the float beneath, so that, you can look up and see it. You like, the tiny ship sometimes will be completely hidden in the giant float that it’s presenting.

AUSTIN: So yeah, I think that’s like, I think that if you want to specifically go to a brothel or something, that that’s totally feasible. There’s also just like, it’s a party- it’s like Mardis Gras, you know what I mean? If you want to meet somebody you can also just meet somebody. Also your friend makes a cool bar to hang out in. And I imagine it’s in a cool place where it’s like, maybe it’s up on a plateau somewhere in the Crashyards, and is looking off, over the city, you know?

JANINE: I think it’s really important to Signet that, when she’s indulging her Pleasure Vice, it’s like, specifically transactional?

AUSTIN: Okay, gotcha.

JANINE: Because it let’s both people keep some distance-

AUSTIN: Sounds good

JANINE: In a way that just like, hooking up in a bar doesn’t necessarily.

AUSTIN: Yeah. There’s a chance that that could open up into- there’s always a chance that that could mean something more to the other person-

JANINE: When Signet goes to a bar and talks to someone it’s because she wants to help them.

AUSTIN: Right, right.

JANINE: Like, that’s a thing she’s done in the past, and that’s a thing she’d continue to do.

AUSTIN: Yeah

JANINE: So like, going specifically to a very specific kind of place and like, offering money or whatever is a thing that helps her get her head where it needs to be.

AUSTIN: Totally. Then that’s, I think that probably happens in Big Garage then, like, that’s the most cosmopolitan city on the planet; it’s, you know, there’s millions of people there. I can imagine it having like, it’s the sort of city that, wants those- that, you know, wants sex work to be something that’s positive and safe. It’s a very- it’s a city that’s like, lots of experimentation is happening scientifically, but also lots of safety is pushed really, like, far. And so I imagine it’s actually a pretty positive culture in that way. So go ahead and give me your stress roll; what is your lowest- you’re also a 2-2-2 attribute person, so…

JANINE: I think I’m 3-2-3 now. Does that-?

AUSTIN: No, it’s totals, it’s totals, it’s not-

JANINE: Oh. Oh.

AUSTIN: You didn’t open up a new- it’s only- sorry. It’s not totals, it’s how many skills you have inside of a specific-

JANINE: Oh, okay.

AUSTIN: Sub-thing. So like, you have Doctor and Study, but you don’t have Hack or Rig, so you have a two in Insight. It’s like a vertical-

JANINE: Okay, sure

AUSTIN: List, kind of. Anyway, you can go ahead and click on Indulge Vice. And you take highest, which is four.

JANINE: Alright.

AUSTIN: Look at that, down to one stress.

JANINE: Not bad.

AUSTIN: Not bad. You had a good night, there were fireworks, literally.

JANINE: I like- I wanna be [sigh]. I- I wanna be specific about what she goes there asking for, because-

AUSTIN: Sure

JANINE: It’s like, important to, to, what happened before; like, I don’t think she’s just going there for a hookup.

AUSTIN: Right

JANINE: I think like, when Signet does this, she goes in with a really specific thing in mind, like, she has very specific requests. She’s that client.

AUSTIN: Right

JANINE: Where like, sometimes she wants the girlfriend experience, and sometimes she doesn’t, and like, this time, I think she goes in specifically asking for someone who sings while they work.

AUSTIN: Aw, that’s really, interesting.

JANINE: And she just wants to like, she just wants to like, be in an apartment with someone who’s doing-

AUSTIN (over Janine): Gotcha

JANINE: The dishes and singing-

AUSTIN: Right

JANINE: And maybe she’s like, doing a crossword or something.

AUSTIN: Okay.

JANINE: And then like, maybe also sex after that, but that’s- you know, the heart of it is mostly that she just wants this sort of, harmonious domesticity.         

AUSTIN: Right. That’s interest, especially again, coming off of Polyphony, right, like? Cool. Alright. I think that that’s, I think that that’s everything? I think that that’s all of Downtime? Urm, alright. So I think, you leave Gift-3 behind. And, you know, I think before, ah- before, in the middle of your Corrective and -- god, why am -- The Cadent talk- maybe it’s actually at the end of the night, is actually what happens, Tender; Cascara comes in, separately. And, orders a drink, and, slides a photo over on the bar, and, it is a beautiful picture of a city, kind of, covered in green, lots of beautiful bright pastel colors on the buildings [Jack de Quidt’s “The Notion” begins playing in the background], and kind of, in- it, it’s like, it’s like a city built into a mountain, like all around a mountain and down into the valley and then at the very edge of the valley is, is a beach, a beautiful beach. And you probably recognise this as Skein, as, as Terncage, the largest on, on the planet. And there are some floating things off in the sky in the back- it’s gorgeous, like it just looks like a vacation spot. And, she, she taps it, you know, and says

        AUSTIN (as Cascara): I think it’s time you meet some people, from the Hegemony.

AUSTIN: And that is where we end. Because we are going to Skein next; jungles and beaches and megacorporations; it’s great.  

2:30:00

[Jack de Quidt’s “The Notion” plays out to end]