Twilight Mirage 51: Open as Possible
Transcribed by Mica (through 1:07) and Jen @wronghandle#1989 (1:07-1:39)
ART: Previously on Twilight Mirage
[MUSIC - “The Notion” begins]
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): My name’s Morning, Morning’s Observation, and I’m here to change what you think about milk.
ALI: We’re investigating a murder that has not happened yet—
AUSTIN: Two! Two murders that have not happened yet.
ALI: Two murders.
AUSTIN: So two people were supposed to get killed by the Axiom gun. Wind’s Poem, and then the other person who was gonna to get killed is someone named Profit’s Cadence, who is a leader inside the Church of the Self.
JACK: We’re doing this because we have been asked by Demani Dusk and Gray Gloaming to do it because Crystal Palace has predicted these murders and then kind of stopped making predictions—
AUSTIN:—Right—
JACK:—past a day that they are calling Dark Day.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Alright, so there are two leads here at Truance, Wind’s Poem and Ocean’s Roar. They are cousins, came here from the New Earth Hegemony. Roar is working on a project called the Compel Project and Wind’s Poem, her project is the Reframe System, which she got funding from the government and from Duality to build under the pretense that it was a military project. But it’s clear from looking at the research that she is mostly interested in like, stage performance and making really cool light shows and virtual-physical spaces. And also it doesn’t seem like any of those things are guns. But, they have been increasingly interested in the Compel Project, which is what Ocean’s Roar is working on, and is at least based on the same technology, which is like reworking things inside the Mirage. The short pitch on the Compel Project is that it uses the Mirage to rewrite small places in space until they’re empty. Very, very small, but that does a lot of damage.
JACK: We heard about the rogue Axiom, has there been any sort of on their systems about something like that, any sort of corporate emails or—
AUSTIN:—Yeah. So it takes you a minute to find it, and it doesn’t use the word Axiom. But, there was no Compel Project, it didn’t have the name Compel Project. And you can kind of piece together that the Compel Project as it was called, began the day after one of the meetings between Profit’s Cadence and Ocean’s Roar. And you can probably extrapolate that Compel could be the Axiom in question. And it sounds as if the actual Axiom is still under the guard or whatever of Profit’s Cadence, but that Ocean’s Roar has part of it here. You can see - you don’t have the blueprints, the blueprints are stored downstairs—
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [urgent whisper] Did you do the thing?
ART (as Grand Magnificent):[whispered] Yeah.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [urgent whisper] Did you destroy the blueprint?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): [whispered] No.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [urgent whisper] That was the thing you were supposed to do!
JACK (as Fourteen): [whispered] That was what you were supposed to be doing! (Crosstalk: What did you do?)
ART (as Grand Magnificent): [whispered] No, I… I destroyed all the guns.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [urgent whisper] You didn’t destroy— there’s guns already at the church!
[MUSIC - “The Notion” ends]
AUSTIN: Where were we? Um?
ALI: We had left…
AUSTIN: Yeah. The three of y’all had left. Alright, so after they leave, Tender, you’re doing the crystal thing with uh, Poem… what’s that look like?
ALI: I… I don’t know?
AUSTIN: No, me either, me either.
ALI: I feel like, I try to take one out and - I don’t know if they’re like, her setup has a port? Or like, you know…
AUSTIN: So it doesn’t just have like a pre-built crystal port, right? [ALI laughs] Like maybe if we were on Gift-3 it would? It would have like some sort of universal adapter or something, you know?
ALI: Yeah…
AUSTIN: Lemme pitch this, which is like, I don’t think that she understands the… like, emotion end of this? Does that make sense?
ALI: Can I Attune to her prototype?
AUSTIN: Yeah, definitely.
ALI: Ok.
AUSTIN: That’s just an Attune. I’m not gonna make you… what I’ll do is I’ll carry forward the thing about how the previous roll works, when it comes to building things, but I do want you to Attune to this prototype, to see how…
ALI: And that’s a…
AUSTIN: I’d say controlled, let’s say controlled great. She’s here to help. You know what you’re doing. And you could use one of your things if you want, one of your crystals. It sounds like you are using one of your crystals, right?
ALI: Um, yeah.
AUSTIN: For a free push?
ALI: Yes. Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, three dice.
ALI: I’m wondering if I should save them… [laughing]
AUSTIN: You could, instead of using one.
ALI: Yeah, I think I’m gonna do this to just figure out how it works, just to see if this…
AUSTIN: So I’d say controlled great.
ALI: Yeah, okay, cool…. Which I… [trails off laughing]
AUSTIN: Well, no. So here’s the thing, this is… when you fail a controlled roll, you know, it doesn’t mean it all blows up and you die, you know what I mean? When you fail a controlled roll, on 1-3, you’re blocked or you falter, press on by seizing a risky opportunity or withdraw and try a different approach. So, you just kind of like, try to Attune in to the metal and the wiring and stuff with your mind, and it’s so cold and emotionless. I is just… it’s like a machine trying to knead dough, it’s just rough and it doesn't have any sort of touch to it. It is hyper-mechanical. Every… actually I think like kneading dough, like making a pizza dough, right, making a pizza dough is sort of how you power works to some degree, right?
ALI: [giggles] Yes
AUSTIN: You get the raw stuff, and then you kind of shape it. Like doing ceramics, or like doing or doing, any sort of… what’s the fucking… sculpture, right? Or not any sort of sculpture, because some sculpture is about chipping away at something? And maybe it’s more like that, I don’t know, you tell me. But in my mind, it’s like shaping a thing with your hands.
ALI: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: And, this thing is shaping it, but only with like, it only has one pressure, it only has one rhythm, so it’s just like
[rhythmically] punch punch punch
I’m making a beach with this impact.
I’m making a fork with this impact.
Like everything I do is this same rhythm, this same pressure. And when you hook in with your mind with that first Attune roll, it almost like, it doesn’t hurt you necessarily, but like… you’re not made to… your mind by itself right now is not made to just be in that same rhythm. It’s like plugging a device into the wrong type of outlet, or something, you know?
ALI: Ok.
AUSTIN: You can try that again, but it will be risky this time. Or you can try a different approach.
ALI: Yeah, could the different approach just be with the … oh my stress is so bad, I don’t care, that’s fine.
AUSTIN: No, if it’s with the crystal, you don’t get the stress, that’s the thing.
ALI: Ok, no, I know. But I’ll need that crystal and I don’t have—
AUSTIN: Oh, I see. You have three of them, right?
ALI: Ok, yeah.
AUSTIN: So make a note next to offerings, of how many you have, that way it’s clear. So like, you still have two of three left.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So, go ahead and give me that roll.
ALI: So that’s Attune again…
AUSTIN: Yeah, but with that extra die.
ALI: Does this make it controlled great again?
AUSTIN: Still controlled great, yeah.
ALI: All right, systems…
AUSTIN: All right, there you go, that’s a success.
ALI: Four?
AUSTIN: Again, it’s controlled though, that’s a controlled four, and it’s a great success already, so that means… what do I want to do with that? I think you are actually gonna take lesser harm from this. And you could roll to resist that, but I think it frazzles you a little bit. So take the level one harm frazzled. Unless you want to roll to resist. I will say, rolling to resist here could be really dangerous, you’re getting there on stress.
ALI: Yeah.. I’m getting there… I’ll just take it.
AUSTIN: All right. So level one, which means you’ll have less effect when doing things that are relevant to like, your mental powers and any sort of like— you’re frazzled. So if you’d normally get a great effect you’ll now get a standard effect. And down the line.
ALI: Ok. Is there a way to mark, oh it’s a level one frazzled.
AUSTIN: It’s a level one frazzled, yeah. So less effect. So what happens, what’s the example? What’s this look like, what do you do?
ALI: I think I was trying to make it almost like bloom out a little bit more, just to see if I could like, you know. [laughs] She has like a dollhouse thing, to see if I could kind of fill the table at least.
AUSTIN: Yeah, I mean it’s great effect, right, so what if there’s that beach on that island counter, and then you can hear the sound of the waves grow, louder and louder? And then you open your eyes and like… y’all, there’s sand below you and you’re on the beach in this room. Like you’re on the beach, you can see in every direction. And there’s still the island, there’s still that little single countertop in the middle, that also has the miniature version of the beach there? With like, you on it? Like, you can look down and see yourself looking down forever at another little mini counter, do you know what I mean?
ALI: Mmhmm.
AUSTIN: And she’s like,
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Oh my GOD. How did… Wha… You’re a corporate visionary?
ALI (as Tender): Um…
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): You’ve never seen this technology in your life before, how did you come in here and—
ALI (as Tender): So, I… Ok. What [laughs] What we talk about on this island is going to stay on this island, but—
[AUSTIN laughs, ALI laughs louder]
AUSTIN: She’s like,
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): O-kay.
ART: Oh my god. [ALI laughs] We’re still in danger?!
ALI: [laugh-wheezing] So is she. So, how do I disclose all of the things that I know?
AUSTIN: I don’t know.
JACK: Wait a second! [ALI laughs] Wait a second!
ART: Uh, have you thought about just keeping your damn mouth shut? [ALI continues laughing]
Jack: I thought we explicitly agreed, and I wanna be clear that I’m not necessarily against this plan, but I thought we agreed as a group at the beginning that we weren’t going to [laughing] warn her? and now you’ve invited her into a private island…
ALI: I don’t know, I don’t think that’s what I’m doing…
AUSTIN: I dunno, let’s see what happens in this private room! On this private island!
JACK: Yeah, let’s..
ALI: [laughing] geez…
JACK: I just wanna register my displeasure.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
ALI: [laughing] Ooookay, that’s fair, um…
ART: Noted and seconded.
[ALI and JACK laugh]
ALI: I feel like, I dunno, I feel like the thing is she— cause like, I, the the thing I want to get to is the Reframe System.
AUSTIN: Right.
ALI: But I would love to also be like, “hey, y’know— ”
JACK: “Don’t come in to work.”
ALI: What’s good? Well, no, like, “hey…” no, maybe that second part doesn’t even have to be there. ‘Cause I don’t know about her cousin.
AUSTIN: Right.
JACK: He’s an asshole.
AUSTIN: He’s an asshole, but he isn’t scheduled—
ART: He’s gonna murder her.
ALI: Oh, no, we found all that out together, we saw the emails. Oh, I know all of that. Oh, boy.
AUSTIN: Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah, y’all know all of that.
ALI: Ok, we all know all of that.
AUSTIN: We All know, WE know. [ALI laughs]
JACK: No WE know…
AUSTIN: No WE know
ALI: [laughing] For a second I thought that was a Grand-only thing, but no, we know the depth of this. Oh, this is gonna be a bad day for her. Eh, maybe. Um. I [laughing] What does she say? I think she starts with the Reframe thing, by being like,
ALI (as Tender): This isn’t the first time I’ve seen this technology before.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): How is that possible?
ALI (as Tender): When I came to this place I didn’t realize that I would run into you, but—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Why are you talking like you know me already? What is happening? Why are we on a beach?
ALI (as Tender): I’m sorr— I— wha, you made the beach, first of all, by the way.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): No, you, we made the beach. We both are implicit in making this beach.
ALI (as Tender): That’s true. I… you recently had a unit of the Reframe system stolen, recently, right? Or…
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): We, I mean, y—... yeah. We had it—
ALI (as Tender): Yeah.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): You stole… from me?
ALI (as Tender): No, no. No no no no—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Excuse me?
ALI (as Tender): [increasingly high-pitched] no no n-n-n-no! I, so, have you, do you know Declan?... ‘s Corrective?
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Uh.. yeah. Yeah y-y-yeah. I don’t know him, but I know the name. He’s like a big shot, Seneschal, he does the whole thing with the… the Divine States and all that, yeah.
ALI (as Tender): Right, so I’ve been working on Seneschal since the Miracle, basically—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Ok...
ALI (as Tender): So I’ve been working with him for some—I mean, to be fair some visionary stuff, I’m not really lying to you. Um [laughs]
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Oh so you are a visionary now. But you are, or are you not, which is it?
ALI (as Tender): … I’ve always been a visionary.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): [skeptical] Ok.
ALI (as Tender): [laughing] It’s just, I… I have the Reframe system now, and it’s better than a box on a table.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Listen, some of us don’t have magic crystals, or whatever.
ALI (as Tender): I just, the way that I have access to it is through a giant mech? And that isn’t a cool—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): We tried other stuff like that, we tried, we can’t even put it in a portable thing at all, and have it work, how are you doing it in a mech?
ALI (as Tender): That’s a really good question.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Who are you?
ALI (as Tender): … My name is Tender Sky, I am a representative of the Notion.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): [quietly] Aaaahhhhh
ALI (as Tender): Please take a deep breath, it’s fine. I’m not, like, big-time lying to you. I’m actually here to—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): You are a COP. You are like a cop or like a spy?
ART: We are never leaving her alone again.
ALI: [giggles wildly] I’m both of those things actually.
AUSTIN: I need to roll to see if she knows who the Notion is, actually. Cause y’all have a reputation—
JACK: Aaaahh, jesus.
AUSTIN:—as being weird.
JACK: I cannot believe that we were like “should we warn these people about the murder that’s gonna happen in the room, in the normal room that we’re all in? No, let’s wait until we can create a beach, lock their researcher in a room with Tender, and have her accidentally tell her what organization we work for.”
ALI: This is a different conversation—
ART: She didn’t accidentally do a god damn thing!
[AUSTIN and ALI laugh]
ALI: [still giggling] This is a different conversation. I wasn’t talking about the murder. I’m just like “hey I want your dream to work.”
AUSTIN: She got a five on this roll to see, this fate roll to see if she knows who y’all are. I five I’m gonna say is a mixed thing, which is like,
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): I’ve heard stuff about you, you were the people who… I heard about the kids on Gift-3, and I heard about [whispers] y’all helped Advent?
ALI (as Tender): I was not involved with that.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): How can you, but you just said you were part of them?
ALI (as Tender): Well, there’s like six of us.
AUSTIN: There’s seven. Actually.
JACK: It’s a small number!
[ALI cackles]
AUSTIN: She says,
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): … there’s seven. I read the news story.
ALI (as Tender): [laughing, out of breath] Don’t ask me who I was forgetting.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): I, how, why are you here, what are you doing here? Is this because of the Reframe system? Is this some kind of sneaky… like you’re trying to come steal it from me?
ALI (as Tender): No, this is—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Should I go get my— I’m gonna go get someone else.
ALI (as Tender): No, no.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): What do you mean no?!
ALI (as Tender): N-n-no, you can do that, I could make this beach go away, I just thought since we were—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): I didn’t say make the beach go away.
ALI (as Tender): Oh. Okay.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Why do you say that? [ALI laughs] Cause I wanna study it, I wanna figure out how to do it.
ALI (as Tender): Right! Yeah, so I… Morning is a good friend of mine, I’m here with him, we’re doing this whole thing together—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Is he really… he’s really the guy he says he is. Morning’s Observation, that’s really him, that’s not a fake, he’s not another member of the Notion?
ALI (as Tender): No no no. We just used to work together. We’re really here for milk. Um, we’re really here for milk. But this is like, I’m walking around with your Reframe system—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Why would the Notion send someone here for milk!?
ALI (as Tender): I’m doing a friend a favor.
AUSTIN: Give me a Sway.
ALI: [laughs] It’s fine. Oh, I don’t have any in Sway. Are you sure this isn’t a Consort?
AUSTIN: It could be a Consort, but then— no, because you are lying. Consort would be like, “hey don't get mad at me.” Consort is, we say this every time, we work through these but “you’re Consorting with connections from your heritage, background, friends, or rivals to gain access to resources or information, people, or places” You’re like actually, like “oh, hey, we’re friends, or we’re not, or we don’t know each other, or we’re rivals, but, “hey can you do me a favor, we’re friends.” We’re close enough to just actually— I’m asking you for something, or I’m telling you a thing.
ALI: I feel like that’s what I’m doing…
AUSTIN: No, this is “Sway someone with charm, logic, deception, disguise, or bluffing. Change attitudes or behavior with manipulation or seduction,” thank you. [ALI laughs] This is definitely you being like “oh, we’re here for milk” and no you’re not here for milk. That’s a lie, that’s a deception.
ALI: [hemming and hawing noises]
AUSTIN: You can do a Consort, but it’s going to be limited effect because I cannot believe that she would be like… there’s no way she will buy that alone. She will not, what I’ll say is a limited effect on this roll will basically be like, “ok… but I’m not gonna open up more to you.” That door is closed, do you know what I mean? Unless you’re telling the truth. Unless you’re saying, “Don’t be mad, because here is the reality” and then that would be a great level success, because you would be opening up.
ALI (as Tender): Ok. We’re not here for milk. [voice cracking, nervous laughter] But I did want to take this opportunity to talk to you alone.
JACK: [laughing and making helpless noises in background]
ALI (as Tender): The reason that we’re here is a little classified. A little time sensitive as well. But—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): What’s this have to do with?
ALI (as Tender): [squeaks]
ART [accusatory]: Yeah, Tender.
JACK: I have never seen someone just melt down so, so—
ALI: [cackles more] (crosstalk) In three years, Jack, yes you have.
ART: You know, like in tennis, when someone’s just like, a professional tennis player, they hit tennis balls all day every day for their whole life? And they just get like an easy one, they just like smack it right out of bounds?
AUSTIN: Yeah, uh huh.
ART: I was just thinking about that.
AUSTIN: Just coincidentally? Gotcha.
ART: Isn’t tennis weird? [ALI giggles and wheezes]
Jack: [laughing] It’s so fuckin weird. Tennis is so weird.
ALI: [deep breath] So what was the question, what am I answering?
AUSTIN: I don’t know anymore! She’s trying to get to the truth of like—
ALI: She’s trying to figure out why I’m here.
AUSTIN:—why you’re here. And you’re trying to get her to be calm and open.
ALI: [bubbling unstoppable giggles, then “serious voice”] I’m. I’m trying to talk about the Reframe system.
AUSTIN: [dry] Unh huh.
ALI: [more giggles] We can be bad at this, whatever. [deep breath, focusing-gibberish sounds]
ALI (as Tender): Ok so we, on behalf of—
ALI: That’s still a lie, it’s still gonna be a Sway no matter what it is.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
ALI: Unless I’m just honest with her!
AUSTIN: Either you can be— the thing is, there is a version of this that’s Consort, I think, that’s like “I can’t tell you why I’m here, but…” But I don’t know that she’s gonna be ha— I still think that effect might be low, and also, you’re frazzled currently, so—
ALI: Pffffft [laughter]
AUSTIN:—you’ll have less effect on any social roll here. Because you’re— and hey, guess what! Good job Ali, playing frazzled.
Ali: [busts out in louder laughs] Yup, thank you.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
ART: We’re gonna really remember her at the trait-votes at the end of the uh—
[AUSTIN and ALI laugh]
ALI: Can I tell like a ha— Oh no. Being more honest is just gonna not make this situation better. But I feel like being like “Oh we came here to investigate a thing,” but…
AUSTIN: Is there a version of this that’s like… there’s kind of two layers here. One is: do you think Tender would tell her the truth, the second is: how would she tell her the truth. Would it be on this beach in a single line, or would this be a long story that kind of doles the end of it? Do you know what I mean?
ALI: Yeah… I guess it would be like a whole thing, I dunno. But she keeps being like interrupty. [laughs]
AUSTIN: That’s how she is.
ALI: I know, I know. But I guess it would be like “Hey…” the long version of it where— No, because that would be even weirder being like “oh we were contacted by these people that can predict everything that happens in the world…”
JACK: Aaaahhhh
ALI: So, I’m not saying any of that, ‘cause that’s crazy.
AUSTIN: Yeah, that’s fine to omit. No need to be like, “I know the exiled secret agents who know the future and think the bad thing is coming tomorrow.” You could just be like, “we’re secret agents.” Like, yes, the Notion are the Notion. The Notion’s reputation is “weird.” So she knows that weird shit is associated with you, right?
ALI: [agreeing throughout] Right. I mean, I can even— because I think Tender’s focus is on what the actual mission is, is that there’s someone in this facility maybe working on something that they shouldn’t be, and that’s why we’re here researching. And I’m not saying, y’know, it’s not the Reframe system—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Ok, well then there’s one thing! [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN:So, is that the direction you take, is that—
ALI: Yeah.
ALI (as Tender): Do you guys really only do the two things?
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): It’s the two of us, it’s our passion-thing, you know, like, it’s us and then the interns and I— one of my interns is making “what if clouds could be smiley-faces?” You’re not here for—
ALI (as Tender): Oh, that sounds sick.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Yeah I know! You’re not here for that. You’re here ‘cause of Roary.
ALI (as Tender): Do you know what he’s working on?
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Yeah.
ALI (as Tender): Has he spoken to you at all—?
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): They make, we make them downstairs. We have a contract. Y’know? Like, this has always been a deal. It’s always been, I get to make my stagecraft bullshit, and he gets to bring in the money a little, now. I don’t know how he does it because he says it’s the same technology but I can’t make that happen, I can’t make— I can make things, i can’t make nothing. If you gave me a beach I couldn’t make a hole in the beach.
ALI (as Tender): It’s the same technology?
AUSTIN: Thats— I guess you didn’t find a communication that says that specifically, but she says,
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Yeah, he took— I figured out the basics of the Reframe and he said “I’m gonna try to make that more specific and do one thing really well,” and so… I guess he found success and I didn’t, and that’s ok. Like, it’s a joint venture because sometimes that’s how science works. One person does research on one thing that doesn’t come together, the other person does another thing and that works, and the two of you together can make enough money to keep doing new things.
ALI: What’s the name of the Axiom?
AUSTIN: Compel. It’s the Compel Project.
ALI: Ok.
ALI (as Tender): But what do you know about Compel?
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): I don’t know. He does it in his lab, he hasn’t needed my help on anything. Normally we work together on projects to some degree at least, y’know. He helped me with the beginning of the Reframe but then when he started the Compel Project he just went in his room and works on that all day. We talk about success and failure, but like, we’re not an open source company.
ALI (as Tender): [deep sigh] Was there a point at which he stopped talking to you about what he was working on, you know what I mean?
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Why are we, why are you interrogating me about my cousin?
ALI (as Tender): I just, because I told you why I was here which was to investigate the shit he’s doing.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Yeah but like, he didn’t do anything wrong. The government knows what we’re making, right? You’re not—
ALI (as Tender): [small despairing noises] I don’t know if they know…
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Maybe not everybody, but I mean, who knows about the Reframe system? Not everybody, but it’s on— you could look it up, there’s just a lot of things to look up.
ALI (as Tender): Fair. I mean, I’m not here to arrest you, and I’m not here to arrest him, and I’m not here to— I’m a little bit here to kind of stop what you’re doing. But—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): But you use what I’m doing!
ALI (as Tender): No, what you’re doing is different from what he’s doing!
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): But it isn't, it’s the same thing! He says it’s the same thing.
ALI (as Tender): He’s lying to you.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): What? Why would he lie to me about that?
ALI (as Tender): Because he wants to make a bunch of money I guess, I don’t know! I don’t know the two of you. All I know is that I’m here to figure out… unnngh, I’m here so people don’t get hurt. And the thing that he’s making might hurt people. And the reason that I wanted to talk to you is so the thing you’re making doesn’t hurt people too.
AUSTIN: I think give me a Consort.
ALI: Ok.
AUSTIN: It’s controlled great.
ALI: Yes, that was very honest! So honest!
AUSTIN: Very honest. Consort, 1d6. It’s controlled great, but I dunno, you wanna push yourself here? You are at a lot of stress. One, two, three, four, five, six.
ALI: I am unavailable to push myself.
AUSTIN: You could gambit, you have two gambits available.
ALI: I’ll take one of those gambits, I’m sorry.
JACK: Yeah, I think this is a gambit situation. [ALI giggles]
AUSTIN: Yeah, ‘cause this is gonna pretty much determine how the rest of all this shakes out probably.
ALI: Sorry to the two people just listening to this.
[JACK laughs]
AUSTIN: Oh, that’s two ones. [ALI makes small wailing sounds] No, so again, this is controlled right, so it’s not an outright failure, but it does mean a complication occurs— no it’s one, sorry— you’re blocked, you falter. Press on by seizing a risky opportunity or withdraw and try a different approach. So that means you can stay controlled if you don’t try Consort again, or you can try Consort again from risky. And I think the way this plays out is she is just like,
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): He is my cousin. He is— we are very far from home. No one else knows us. He’s my only kin here. I don’t… we met new people, we have friends, I go out for drinks, I meet people, but. He’s the only one who knew me when I was little. The only one. The only one. How are you supposed to come in here and say you’re here to investigate him for some shit he does in public? And also you don’t have jurisdiction, you ain’t the police. And I’m supposed to be like, “Ok, I’ll help you Officer.” I know that was confused because I said you weren’t the police, but also you’re acting like the police.
ALI (as Tender): I’m known to sometimes be a cop.
ALI: Um [giggles]... I sure don’t want to tell her she’s going to be murdered, that’s absolutely not what I’m doing here. I’m saying this right now.
AUSTIN: [brightly] Uh huh.
ALI: [stressed processing sounds]
AUSTIN: So she says like,
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): I get it. He’s making guns. I know. I don’t like thinking about it. I don’t like talking about it. It’s fucked up. But you know, agh, lots of things hurt people. What I’m working on doesn’t hurt people. And if you’re right and he is lying and he does something else to make it then good, that means my technology doesn’t hurt people.
ALI: Oh I know, I know. Ok. The thing I can give up, which is maybe what makes this risky, is the Axiom thing? Because I feel like that’s the thing that she doesn’t know.
AUSTIN: She does not know that, yes.
ALI: He might be working with this fucking weirdo space fucking Independence-bullshit, and that’s why I’m here actually. I’m not just here to arrest him. I got to the end of that.
AUSTIN: Ok, ok, yeah. Risky great still. She is about as emotionally open as possible.
ALI: [stressed noises] Risky great.
AUSTIN: Yeah, but Consort, so still one die. That’s a lot on that one. You wanna look at that chart again for what your chances are?
ALI: Nooo, I don’t, because I’m not taking our last gambit—
AUSTIN: You could push yourself.
ART: With one die it’s really easy to compute the probability.
AUSTIN: Yeah, it ain’t great. Well the chart is about… yeah. You could push yourself for another die.
ALI: No, I’m looking at my items and they’re all bullshit.
AUSTIN: Those all will only ever add effect, anyway, and you already have great effect, because you have her on this island you built, whis is like… you know. It’s gonna happen.
ALI: [pained] Yup. Uh huh. I mean the good thing about a scenery… I’m just gonna fail this roll. This is better. Maybe this is what games are.
AUSTIN: Wow, I love that. I love leanin in.
[ALI and JACK laugh, ALI yelps]
AUSTIN: That’s a failure. That’s a two.
JACK: Yeah
ALI: That’s a two.
AUSTIN: She say like—
ALI: That could have been a six…
AUSTIN: She says— so what do you tell her about Compel? You say there’s an Axiom, basically?
ALI: Right.
AUSTIN: Then she says, this is it, this is the classic, right?
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): He’s using what?
ALI (as Tender): I mean, that’s what I’m here to research. But we think that—
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): Excuse me??
ALI (as Tender):—he might... be using… an Axiom? Do I have to explain what an Axiom [trailing off]
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem): I am going to kill that motherfucker. I told him—
ALI (as Tender): Mmhmm, that’s why I’m here.
AUSTIN (as Wind’s Poem):—months ago, we had a conversation we said we wouldn’t mess with that shit, and… I’ll be right back.
ALI (as Tender): Whoah whoah whoah whoah.
AUSTIN: and she storms away out of the— she turns to storm away and her feet get caught in the sand ‘cause like, there’s sand and she’s just like wearing her shoes on the sand… And we just get this shot of like, from the ocean, looking in at the door and the gray wall, and she opens the door and slams it behind her, and heads upstairs to leave. Hey, other crew, where’d y’all go?
ART: Back downstairs to try to get those blueprints
AUSTIN: Ok.
JACK: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So the three of you go downstairs and the same intern looks up and is like,
AUSTIN (as Intern): Excuse me, why, why are there more of you?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): They’re a lawyer, it’s no problem.
AUSTIN (as Intern): That’s— what about the one— no. No, that’s a problem. If there’s a lawyer involved I need to get another different lawyer involved, those are the rules. I’m gonna get a lawyer involved. And also who’s the one with the blond hair?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): What are you talking about? This is your lawyer.
ALI: [giggles] Oh, this is perfect.
JACK (as Fourteen): I don’t— yes. I don’t think we’ve met. I represent uh,
JACK: what are we called? Duality?
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [whispered] Truance.
JACK: No, this was me saying… ok fine.
JACK (as Fourteen): I represent Truance, I’m part of Truance’s legal team.
AUSTIN (as Intern): You’re part of…
JACK (as Fourteen): I have some documentation here, if you need…
JACK: And I produce my forged papers, which I carry.
AUSTIN: You also have forged papers? We have two people with forged papers on this fucking crew?
JACK: Is that allowed, Austin?
AUSTIN: Oh, wait no, do you actually have forged papers on your sheet?
JACK: I have a legitimate ID.
AUSTIN: Oh, you have a legitimate ID, that is not forged papers. But maybe that legitimate ID could just be: Fourteen Fifteen - A Lawyer.
JACK: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s Fourteen’s… it’s Rebecca Helps’s card that they showed in the garage.
AUSTIN: Oh, right.
ART: You are a lawyer, right?
JACK: Yeah, no, I am. It says that, and it shows my Golden Clause number, which I think is legit.
AUSTIN: Give me… that part of it is legit, but the part where your name is Rebecca Helps is not.
JACK: Look, sometimes you need a criminal lawyer, and sometimes you need a [laughing] Criminal Lawyer.
AUSTIN: Right, of course.
JACK: It’s the Breaking Bad thing.
AUSTIN: Give me a Sway. Risky great. You have this legitimate ID, it helps your effect. Is anyone helping, it sounds like you’re helping just by giving the pitch, Grand.
ART: Yeah, I’m priming them.
AUSTIN: Yeah, are you taking a stress to assist?
JACK: Yeah, I would have not… [laughs]
ART: Yeah I’ll take— it’s one?
AUSTIN: It’s one to assist, yeah.
ART: Ooh, I’m getting real close.
AUSTIN: Not as close as Tender is!
ART: Well, I’m conducting myself in a more controlled manner.
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
JACK: I’m gonna roll. Let’s see. No bonus dice… Oh no, one bonus die
AUSTIN: One bonus die.
JACK: That was without a bonus die.
AUSTIN: Roll with the bonus die. Just roll 1d6.
JACK: Ok.
AUSTIN: It’s a three right now, folks…. That’s a six! Look at you, get a gambit back.
ART: I am a great help.
ALI: Thank you.
JACK: Where do I put the gambit?
AUSTIN: I got it, it’s at the top of the screen. Because it’s a shared resource… You were a great help. And she like, sits back down and is like
AUSTIN (as Intern): Ok… What is this about?
JACK (as Fourteen): The drones.
AUSTIN (as Intern): Again? I thought you fixed the drones?
JACK (as Fourteen): Yes, but we needed uh, there’s… I’m acting in capacity as a notary. When certain drone changes are made they need to be notarized on the spot in order to… it’s to do with transport regulation, it’s a hassle. But uh, it has to get done.
AUSTIN (as Intern): Ok, well the drone’s out right now, it’s scheduled for an arrival in another ten minutes or so.
JACK (as Fourteen): We don’t need to notarize the drone, we notarize a sheet that is kept beside the drone launch platform.
AUSTIN (as Intern): Ok… go ahead.
JACK (as Fourteen): Thank you so much. I’m sorry… I don’t wanna be down here either.
AUSTIN (as Intern): We just have a lot of work to do so… could you just… never mind, just [whispers] try to keep the noise down.
JACK (as Fourteen): Notarizing isn’t usually… ok.
AUSTIN: So y’all are near the drone platform.
ART: No, this is great, now we know how to make a distraction, it’s by being noisy.
JACK: [laughs] Ok, that is true actually.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [whispering] Ok, but how do we get the blueprints on the other side of the room?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Go be real noisy, notarizing those papers, and when they come over to complain about how noisy you’re being, I’ll go grab the blueprint.
JACK (as Fourteen): Ok, I mean…
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Do you have anything that makes a loud “ka-chunk” sound?
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): The doors…
JACK (as Fourteen): I have my…
ART (as Grand Magnificent): What, no, like a stamp.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Oh, ok.
JACK (as Fourteen): No, I’m not, I mean… no. [laughs] Is this really the best plan we can muster? That I make a loud sound?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): I mean, I don’t know if it’s the best plan, do you have another plan?
JACK: Could you remind us of the layout of the room, Austin?
AUSTIN: It is like 100 feet by 50, there are desks and tables.
JACK: The size of a basketball court.
AUSTIN: The size of an outdoor basketball court. On the side, there’s a stairwell down… I’ll just do a little quick a dirty map for y’all. Draw shape… Give myself a nice canvas real quick. There’s the room, you see the room? There’s like a stairwell down, so like that’s basically the stairwell down, you come down this way and go into the room this way. On the far end, if you draw a rectangle, on the right end is the drone bay, on the far left end of the rectangle is the printing facility. The 3D-printing manufacturer, the microfabricator. And then all throughout the rest of that room are desks, like long desks, short desks, little research stations, other little microfabricators, you know. It’s like a desk-situation. And it’s much more organized that what I’ve done here—
JACK: And it’s busy?
AUSTIN:—which is just a bunch of squares and rectangles. But yeah, it’s busy. No! It’s not busy, there’s two people in this room right now.
JACK: Who are they?
AUSTIN: It’s the two— it’s two different interns. It’s the one who just spoke to you, and it’s the other one whose name I’ve already forgotten.
JACK: The main intern?
AUSTIN: No. Greel is upstairs, Greel is all, like, at reception.
JACK: Good! That would have been bad.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah.
JACK: Can we see the blueprints?
AUSTIN: They’re in that machine. And also, I don’t know that you know what these blueprints look like.
ART: I really think our best option here is a comedy of errors.
[JACK and ALI laugh]
JACK: Well, it is the mode that we [laughs] seem to… yeah, I can do that. So I go over to the drone platform. There is no sheet. There’s not even a thing to stamp, right, because we’ve just made that up.
AUSTIN: Yeah, this is a lie. The thing you’re talking about is a lie I think.
JACK: So I turn round to the other intern, the one who wasn’t at the desk, the one we haven’t talked about, and I say,
JACK (as Fourteen): Excuse me?
AUSTIN (as Intern): Mmhm?
JACK (as Fourteen): I’m looking for the sheet?
AUSTIN (as Intern): Aahh.. Uuhh… It should be over there… You said it would be over there.
JACK (as Fourteen): Uh, no, it’s not here. I wondered if you could help me out here? I was expecting a sheet.
AUSTIN (as Intern): I’m not supposed to deal with lawyers ever. It’s part of—
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Oh my god, did you guys lose the sheet? Do you know the trouble this company’s in if the sheet isn’t here?
JACK (as Fourteen): This is what I’m trying to tell them.
AUSTIN (as Intern): There’s not going to be any trouble. We’re not… uh.
JACK (as Fourteen): Look, I’m here and I need to stamp the thing, and if I don’t stamp the thing, then the client’s gonna be unhappy. It’s gonna filter through.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): I’m the client, and I’m very unhappy.
AUSTIN:—says Morning’s Observation.
AUSTIN (as Intern): Please don’t be unhappy!
AUSTIN:—says the intern.
JACK (as Fourteen): We just need the sheet. We just need the sheet. Could you maybe print it out?
AUSTIN (as Intern): [sheepishly] I don’t have a printer… No one prints anything.
JACK (as Fourteen): You don’t have a printer?!
AUSTIN (as Intern): No… we go to a place to get stuff printed out if we need to, we don’t just— I mean, we print machines, but not paper.
JACK (as Fourteen): Ok, well—
AUSTIN (as Intern): We’re very green. We’re very ecologically friendly. We have an A rating from the New Earth Hegemony, I mean the Earthsphere Economic Concern—
JACK (as Fourteen): I know, I stamped that. I stamped that document.
AUSTIN (as Intern): Was this a test to see if I would print something out on paper?
JACK (as Fourteen): No, I really do actually need this printed out, because we need it to— I have to stamp it. I’m afraid I’m not allowed to leave here until we’ve stamped it.
AUSTIN (as Intern): Ok, I’ll go…
AUSTIN: Is the plan here for Grand to sneak back to the machine while this is going on?
JACK: That’s what I’m hoping for.
ART: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Ok, then Grand, you should give me a Skulk or something, to sneak. And I think it sounds like Fourteen you’re assisting, basically?
JACK: Yeah, I think so. So I’ll take stress for that.
ART: Whoops, I took my Skulk away rather than rolled it…
AUSTIN: Yeah, then Fourteen take one stress and then get a bonus die here, Grand, for the assist. You can also push yourself, you can also gambit. It’s risky standard, for sure. All right, that is a five. So I think you’re sneaking back there. She comes over and is like,
AUSTIN (as Intern): Maybe it’s over there—
AUSTIN:—and is looking at the docking bay, begins lifting the docking bay to reveal the— my guess is it’s like a garage door on the inside, then like an an airlock style thing, then like a garage door on the outside. And she goes in there with you, with Fourteen and Morning’s and is like
AUSTIN (as Intern): I’m trying to…
AUSTIN:—and meanwhile, the other intern is just just distracted, and watching all this happen. So yeah, you’re able to sneak back there, totally. And totally get back there no problem, Grand. But then you get there and you’ve never dealt with this piece of technology ever before in your life. And it is a desperate situation because the whole thing looks and feels like it will make a bunch of noise when you touch it in any way. If you stop what’s printing, the background noise will stop and it will make a loud beep. If you try to retrieve the slide where maybe a blueprint would go, that thing will make a bunch of crinkly noises. And you’re also just not sure where the fuck a blueprint is stored in this gigantic— it does just look like a gigantic printer, that has a bay that prints out these guns, and a robotic arm from the ceiling drops down and grabs them and then stacks them up into little packages. There are like a dozen here already made. What do you do?
ART: I mean… what are these interns really gonna do? My plan was to just destroy the whole machine.
AUSTIN: O… kay.
[overlapping]
ART: You’re telling me you don’t like that plan.
JACK: No.
JACK: Yes.
AUSTIN: I’m saying you can do that, also, but that’s going to make noise probably.
JACK: If we destroy the machine, we are also gonna have to incapacitate these interns to some extent?
AUSTIN: Or they can go away and your wanted level will just shoot up. Right? Or you can threaten them. You know what I mean? They’re not gonna fight you.
JACK: No.
AUSTIN: But the police might.
JACK: Yeah. And we already had a run-in with the police in this— I don’t know why I said run-in so strangely. We had a run-IN with the police. I mean, Grand, what’s your sort of object manipulation skills at.
ART: Um, I have a Rig of 2.
JACK: Oh, that’s not so bad.
AUSTIN: It’s pretty good.
ART: But like, if I don’t know how to do it…
AUSTIN: I mean, you can still— It would be desperate standard to Rig this thing to break.
ART: What could I roll to try to figure out how it works?
AUSTIN: Rig or Study. It’s probably Study.
ART: I don’t have that. (crosstalk) I don’t… do that?
AUSTIN: Study would have better effect. I would let you Rig to do that, but it would be limited effect because you’re literally— it’d be very hands-on, like “ok, this goes here, this goes there,” etc. But that would be risky, to kinda— I would do, here’s what I would do. I think to break it right away is desperate standard. To study it with Rig would be like, risky limited, and then if you succeed on that, you could get a risky standard to break it, do you know what I mean? Because you’d basically be like, “oh I know how to use this thing.”
ART: All right, I’ll do that, I’ll roll the Rig to try to figure it out.
AUSTIN: Right, so basically rig for gather information. So go ahead and give me a Rig. Again, risky standard.
ART: Risky limited.
AUSTIN: Risky limited, yeah, sorry. Hey! That’s a six! That’s another fuckin’ gambit.
ART: All right, I’m gonna need that gambit.
AUSTIN: All right, well, so, yeah. So you’re trying to— are you trying to break the blueprint or the whole machine?
ART: I think I’m just trying to break the blueprint.
AUSTIN: Ok, so you find where the blueprint goes. So you feel around for it for a little bit and you find that there is a… You think you have the blueprint at first, and it’s just like, it’s basically a large piece of paper. But then when you pull that out you see that below that paper, there is just like, in a kind of crystal tube— like a crystal cylinder— is one of those guns. Is one of the final— is like I guess the prototype version, and it IS the blueprint. And it’s just in a big crystal cylinder. And if you— that thing needs to be perfect. Any change in it would ruin all of the guns it prints. So if you just break it a little, if you shatter it, or crack it… enough to shift anything inside, it would change how everything inside is set up, and that could make it not print the guns correctly. So that would break the blueprint. But of course doing that and then leaving it here would mean someone could find it and try to fix it. But it would break it. I mean, you could also try to break it much more severely than that, I guess. And you’d have to tell me what that looks like
ART: I don’t see a need to break it more severely than that. We break the prototype, they can’t make any more, we crashed their shipment.
AUSTIN: One of their shipments. Another shipment’s already there, at the church. And there are guns here in the room with you.
ART: Yeah, we’re gonna have to do something about that. We’re really just gambling on where the gun that’s gonna do the stuff comes from.
AUSTIN: Mmm hmm. Or guns. Nothing says it’s the same pistol. It’s the same model.
ART: Sure. But blowing up the machine doesn’t feel helpful right now.
AUSTIN: Right. Correct. They can get another machine. So you do the Rig to destroy this blueprint?
ART: Yeah, and I’m gonna take a gambit on that.
AUSTIN: All right, let’s do it. 3d6, risky standard.
ART: Risky… risky standard. One bonus die.
AUSTIN: That’s another six! Jesus Christ!
ALI: Oh my god. Can you spare some?
AUSTIN: Yeah, can you pass some of them gambits around? God Damn.
ART: Well we don’t— the gambit comes back.
AUSTIN: Oh, right, you’re right, you’re right. Cuz you spent one on that, you’re right, right right.
ART: Because I can generate gambits when I—
AUSTIN: When you spend them, right. So it’s still three. Ok, so yeah… you just get it. You get the thing. You shatter it— what do you use to break it? Is it a chisel and hammer, is it a micro-explosive? What is the thing.
ART: I guess I’ll check detonator on my load?
AUSTIN: Ok. So it’s like a little microdetonator?
ART: It’s like a little microdetonator.
AUSTIN: So it’s just like [small poof sound]. And I think you see the explosion blossom inside of the glass and cylinder, and it just completely cracks the point at the edge of— the front point of the Compel… device. And it just like, cracks. And that’s it, they cannot make any more of these. Maybe it even does it in such a way that like… you got a six. So I wanna say it does it in a way that’s not repairable easily. You know, this is not a day’s work to fix this, this would be another year of like— maybe even it destroyed the part of this that was modeled after Compel the Axiom? And so, that base blueprint is gone, y’know? He would have to go back to Profit’s Cadence and get the— Compel again. Or a piece of it again. Meanwhile, Fourteen, this intern’s like,
AUSTIN (as Intern): I don’t see this paper anywhere!
JACK (as Fourteen): All right, so there is an interim method that we could use?
AUSTIN: Are you, like looking across the room and seeing Grand give a thumbs-up or something, that you know you can—
JACK: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
JACK (as Fourteen): Do you have a piece of paper? I know that you don’t have much paper, do you have any note paper, scrap paper?
AUSTIN (as Intern): Of course. We have scrap, we just don’t print things. What do you need?
JACK (as Fourteen): I just need a piece of—
JACK: And I take the paper and I just draw a sigil of some kind on it. [AUSTIN laughs]
JACK (as Fourteen): This is a temporary mark of the Golden Clause, it will—
JACK: This is complete bullshit, I assume the Golden Clause works through legal sigils, but they’re usually stamps.
AUSTIN: Right.
JACK: They can be drawn, but this is not a real… this is like a kid saying “this is my signature!” then just doing a bunch of bullshit. And Fourteen signs it, and holds it out to Morning’s Observation, who signs it, and they hold it out to the intern and say,
JACK (as Fourteen): If you could just sign here and date it.
AUSTIN: And she goes like,
AUSTIN (as Intern): Of course, of course, sign, date… Thank you so much everybody. I’m so sorry we didn’t have the paper, I’ll file a request to make sure the paper is replaced as soon as possible.
JACK (as Fourteen): Thank you for your patience. That would mean a lot. You have a good day now.
AUSTIN (as Intern): Bye bye.
AUSTIN: Uh, Tender.
JACK: I—
AUSTIN: Oh, go ahead.
JACK: I just, I fold the paper up and begin to walk toward the exit.
AUSTIN: Ok. Um, Tender. Did you chase her out? Did you stay where you were?
ALI: [blows out her breath, laughs] I should do something… Um, I dunno… yeah? It seems like she’s gonna go yell at her cousin…
AUSTIN: I mean, she said “I’m gonna go kill that motherfucker” is what she said.
ALI: She, oookay. Yup. Yeah, I guess so, I super failed those rolls, so like going to stop her seems, um… tough.
AUSTIN: Eh. I mean, listen, you would just be dealing with a different person. You know, you’d be dealing with her very mad.
ALI: Yeaahhhh…
AUSTIN: Or at least, who knows. Yeah, I dunno. It’s up to you.
ALI: I’m trying to think of a thing I could do that would be helpful to the rest of my team [laughs].
AUSTIN: I guess really the question is, do you— is the scene they come back and you’re still on the beach, alone? Or is the scene they come back and that room is empty but it’s still a beach.
ALI: [laughs] Uhhuum. I think it’s a beach with me alone.
AUSTIN: Ok.
ART: So we get back like,
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Aw yeah, we did it, woo!
ALI (as Tender): [laughs] Great. Glad that You did it.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Hey, where’s, uh whatsherface?
ALI: Oh my god, I also don’t know her name, I should know her name. [giggles madly]
AUSTIN: Wind’s Poem.
ART: It’s on the notes.
AUSTIN: It’s on the notes, it’s on the notes.
ALI: [still laughing] I don’t have the notes open right now, sorry. Uhum.
ALI (as Tender): So. Guys, I was trying to talk to her about a thing that doesn’t have anything to do with this mission. Cause the Reframe system is pretty cool… uh… And I told you— Grand, and Fourteen, I told you about this. You know about this.
JACK (as Fourteen): ... Yes.
ALI (as Tender): The thing in my ship, the thing in my mech, the whole roller rink thing, y’know? That’s the thing that she made. It’s, you know.
JACK (as Fourteen): Yes.
ALI (as Tender): What a coincidence that we would end up in the same room together, alone.
JACK (as Fourteen): [deadpan] What a coincidence. Yes.
ALI (as Tender): Alone, on this beach, I could help her with it—
JACK (as Fourteen): On this beach?
AUSTIN: You’re at a beach. If you open the door, there’s a beach inside now.
JACK: Oh, oh, I see. OK.
ALI: [laughing] Just, Tender like, solemn. Just being like,
ALI (as Tender): OK, positive is that I know the person that made that thing now. And that makes the personal mission that I am on much easier fFor the rest of you, so… I didn’t tell her that she was gonna be murdered. I kept my promise.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): But…
ALI (as Tender): But she knows about the Axiom?
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [pained] Ooohhhh...
JACK (as Fourteen): What. She— OK, fine, what’s she gonna— OK, fine. What’s she gonna do.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [sound of face being removed from hands] Where is she now, where is she now, what are you—!?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Why!?
JACK (as Fourteen): Why did you tell her that?
ALI (as Tender): Because she— it was either that or the murder part, that was the better part of it, ‘cause she was—
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [angry] Why didn’t you tell her neither part!?
ALI (as Tender): She was like “Oh you’re from the Notion, what are you here for?” and I had to give her a real reason.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): How’d she find out you were a part of the Notion?
ALI (as Tender): [ALI barely containing laughter] Because I introduced myself and I gave her my legal name.
JACK (as Fourteen): WHAT? Why did you—
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [earnest, frustrated] Why did you use your government name!?
ALI (as Tender): Because we were on this beach and it was really nice and it just seemed like we would be able to talk about the thing that we are both passionate about.
JACK (as Fourteen): Oh, jesus. But— no, just because you’re on a beach… Tender. Tender.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): The beach is— beaches are for lies.
[ALI suppressing laughter throughout]
JACK (as Fourteen): Just because you’re on a beach with someone does not mean that is a cue for emotional openness and honesty. Look, I’ve been on some nice beaches with people, but— oh jesus, Grand— when they hear about what we just did downstairs—
ALI (as Tender):—We could just leave—
JACK (as Fourteen):—They’re gonna know the Notion did it. No— when they, no—
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): No! ‘Cause she’s gonna get killed tomorrow!
JACK (as Fourteen): Oh, yeah, no. We—
ALI (as Tender): We could still stop that part of it!
JACK (as Fourteen): Hang on.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): They’re not gonna let us in tomorrow!
JACK (as Fourteen): Yes, because the Notion’s name is gonna be all over this organization tomorrow—
ALI (as Tender): They only know me—
JACK (as Fourteen): And if we think that’s bad tomorrow, wait until how bad it’s gonna be when she gets murdered!
ALI (as Tender): She’s, ok…
JACK (as Fourteen): They’re gonna think we—
ALI (as Tender): Number one, she’s not gonna get— we’ll stop—
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Where did she go.
ALI (as Tender): She went to go beat him up— oh we should go. We should go. I was here thinking of a plan and you guys came and now we should go.
JACK (as Fourteen): Wait, we should just leave?
ALI (as Tender): I don’t— should we chase her? Should we go talk to both of them?
JACK (as Fourteen): So we just leave and then we come back tomorrow?
ALI (as Tender): No?
JACK (as Fourteen): Or do we get new disguises?
ALI (as Tender): Nooo!
JACK (as Fourteen): How do we get back in the building!?
ALI (as Tender): Your cover is fine. My cover— [giggles]
[overlapping]
JACK (as Fourteen): No!
ART (as Grand Magnificent): No it isn’t!
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Why would our cover be fine!?
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation):If you said the Notion, she’s gonna look you up. MY cover is fine. Except probably not even that! You—! [sighs, trails off]
JACK (as Fourteen): Wait, I come in—
ALI (as Tender): She’s too mad to google us right now.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): I should just go. They— y’all are all on my name. You’re ALL on my name. Anything you do is gonna come back to ME!
[ALI/Tender makes nervous high-pitched noise]
ART (as Grand Magnificent): That does seem true, doesn’t it.
JACK (as Fourteen): Fuck, I hadn’t thought about that bit, but I should have done.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): [angry, losing composure] And I look like shit. I hate this whole thing! Ugh! You know, Tender… *hmm* Last year, I told you. I said all I wanna have is a Tuesday again. And then I got that. I moved out to the Brink, and I got to have— I was a chef, I made people food. People needed me in their life, I started to make friends, and then you show up and you drag me back here on some bullshit— This is supposed to be a regular Tuesday!
ALI (as Tender): This is just a vacation.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): This is some bullshit. It’s not a vacation! Fuck you and your beach. This is some bullshit.
ALI (as Tender): I’m just saying you could go back there.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation: I cannot believe— you’re supposed to be a professional. I can’t believe I looked up to you.
AUSTIN: And he storms out. [ALI groans]
JACK (as Fourteen): Okay. All right. Let’s take a moment. Let’s take a moment here. Grand, is the door locked?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): I don’t… is it?
JACK (as Fourteen): [tired] Just check.
AUSTIN: No, because Morning’s Observation just stormed out.
JACK (as Fourteen): Fuckin…. All right. Okay. Everybody, let’s just take a moment on this beach. We can be emotionally open and honest with ourselves on this beach right now. [AUSTIN laughs] See this is a situation where we can be— Tender, I’m gonna be real— I’m disappointed and a little angry.
ALI (as Tender): That’s fair. I—
JACK (as Fourteen): This isn’t the end of the world, I don’t think this is the end of the world.
ALI (as Tender): I think there was something in that milk. I’m sorry. I fucked this up! I know I fucked this up.
JACK (as Fourteen): No, it’s… it’s, it’s— no, it’s fine. It’s fine. We’re the Notion. Our job is to fuck it up and then try and fix it.
ALI (as Tender): Morning’s is so mad at me, fuck!
JACK (as Fourteen): It’s, it’s, it’s… it’s. He’s angry. This means a lot to him. But right now we have to focus on— okay. We have to decide right now, do we leave and come back? Because that feels… that feels like we might be giving ourselves an additional problem.
ALI (as Tender): Do we have to come back? We know where this other gun shipment went, right? We still have…
JACK (as Fourteen): I don’t want— I don’t want her to die.
ALI (as Tender): I know! What are we doing here. We’re stopping the murder. And from this gun being made, right? This is the first part of a two-step plan.
AUSTIN: There’s two murders. It’s her murder, and it’s Profit’s Cadence’s murder.
ALI: Right. And the rest of the guns are being mailed to him.
AUSTIN: Right. But— he’s not here—
Jack: And won’t be tomorrow.
AUSTIN: And she is here. Right. I just wanna be clear that step one— if step one is— It’s three steps— stop them from making more guns, check. You did that, nice work. The other two steps of the two murders have not been stopped.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: Neither of them.
ALI: Are there any more guns in this building?
AUSTIN: Yes. In the basement, there’s a whole shipment of them that can’t go anywhere cuz Grand both destroyed the blueprint and destroyed the drone, the shipping drone.
ALI: Oh, I thought the drone was gonna go out for a little bit and then fall in the ocean.
AUSTIN: It did. But in the time since that first one left, it made more. So there’s like half or a quarter of a shipment left.
JACK (as Fourteen): Okay. I have a proposal. It’s hazy but we can maybe fill in the detais as we go.
JACK: Fourteen sits down on a chair, fiddles with their hair.
JACK (as Fourteen): All right, okay. What if we use today to get the scientist out of danger. as best we can. I don’t quite know how, but what if we do that today, and then tomorrow we try and sort out the priest. What if we split them like that.
ALI (as Tender): That makes sense.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): You talking about like,
AUSTIN: Oh, Morning’s is gone. I forgot.
[ALI and JACK laugh]
ALI: [very quietly] Oh Morning’s… [deep sigh]
JACK (as Fourteen): Aaah. So, part of me wonders, whether or not we just cut our losses and go full undivided transparency. With the scientist. We catch up to her, and her fucking awful cousin, and we say, “Look.” And if we need to crack some heads at that point, that’s when we start cracking heads. Grand?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): It seems like a lot to do tomorrow. It makes tomorrow such a busy day.
JACK (as Fourteen): So maybe we split up. Maybe we split up tonight. You can go check on the scientist, Tender and I can— maybe you could loop back up with Morning.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Yeah, that’s gonna be fun and interesting. I mean yes. The answer to your question is yes, of course. Morning and I can try to fix this on this end and the two of you can go find out what secrets you can tell the other person. Find Profit’s Cadence and be like, “Hey, we’re the Notion.”
JACK (as Fourteen): No, wait, wait. No, we’re on Wind’s Poem, you’re on Profit’s Cadence.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Oh! You think Tender should go back to Wind’s Poem?
ALI (as Tender): My foot’s in the door, is all I’m saying.
JACK (as Fourteen): Yeah it’s kind of, it’s a really crappy door and a really misplaced foot, but uh…
ALI (as Tender): I can clean up my own messes. And you and Morning—
JACK (as Fourteen): [quietly, wistfully] Can you?
ALI (as Tender): And you can take Morning to somewhere where he’ll cool off, and do the other half of this.
JACK (as Fourteen): And you don’t even have to do all of it tonight, is the thing. If you can, look, if you can, that would be great. But, in theory you’ve got tomorrow as well. Ah, fuck. I fucking hate Crystal Palace. I don’t even know— if we get Wind’s Poem out of the building and we manage to— is someone else just gonna show up with a weapon? Will we just be surprised by the prophecy? It’ll just happen in a different place, I don’t fuckin’ know. We just have to go talk to this scientist.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Or you could just— you could. What if you just took out the person who’s obviously gonna murder her.
ALI (as Tender): We don’t know who that is.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Don’t you?
ALI (as Tender): No?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Isn’t it gonna be— isn’t it gonna be the other guy?
ALI (as Tender): [under her breath] Did I make her cousin murder her? [groan/wail]
JACK (as Fourteen): Oh, jesus.
ALI (as Tender): No, no. That’s not what’s happening, but we shoul— she needs a bodyguard, sure. Yup. I thought— yup. Okay, yup, sure.
JACK (as Fourteen): Oh my god.
ALI (as Tender): We’re splitting up, we’re gonna find them.
JACK (as Fourteen): So, so, all right. Just a quick recap. Tender and I are gonna try and unfuck this situation, with the scientist. Grand, you are gonna find Morning somehow, tonight, and begin to make forays into sorting out the priest. If we manage to get done what we need to get done tonight, which I colossally doubt, we can even catch up with you and try and prevent this thing tomorrow. How does that sound?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): I mean, shitty. But that’s where we are, huh?
JACK (as Fourteen): I mean, yeah. I feel like we fucked this one, folks.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Yeah this feels like a bad time.
AUSTIN: All right.
JACK: We’re just, like in a meeting room that is a beach, right?
AUSTIN: It is a beach, yeah.
ART: We should get out of here, we definitely just committed industrial espionage. We should definitely have this conversation in the car.
AUSTIN: Greel waves at you as you leave.
AUSTIN (as Greel): Thanks so much! I hope you had a great stay. Hope to see you again, maybe tomorrow for the open house!
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Yeah, maybe.
ALI (as Tender): Keep our names on the list.
JACK (as Fourteen): Tender—
ART (as Grand Magnificent): It’s an open house.
JACK (as Fourteen):—we’re leaving.
AUSTIN: All right, so. Grand, I’m not gonna make you roll to find Morning’s Observation. Tell me where you find him. Think of this like a college campus, like a corporate campus, you know.
ART: I guess corporate campuses don’t have bookstores.
AUSTIN: Sure it does.
ART: All right.
AUSTIN: It’s like a fancy corporate campus.
ART: Yeah, ok. So there’s like a shop, where people can get books and merch, with the company logo on it.
AUSTIN: Right, Duality, Inc. hoodies. All right, yeah, cool. Do you find him— I think there’s actually something pretty… you know. He’s browsing stuff that reminds him of home.
ART: Sure.
AUSTIN: He picks up like a really shitty— there’s a desk toy that has two planets. One of them’s Skein, and the other one is the Earth, and you can rotate them around a center point, and it’s like, “Blue planet 2, our second home in the galaxy” or whatever. And he’s like spinning it. And you find him, I think you have a moment where he’s just like,
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): I know I shouldn’t have blown up like that, but you know this fucking sucks, Grand.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): I completely agree.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): You know what it’s like to walk away from this shit.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Mmhmm.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Why’d you go back? You were good as a trucker/fixer/guy who could like bring me shit sometimes when I needed it, you know. Like rare meats.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Because I’m— I think I’m better than that.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): There’s nothing wrong with being a trucker though, right?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): Nothin’ at all. It’s a fine life, and the people I know who did it were great people. But I put a hole in the world, and I gotta do what I can to fix it. And that wasn’t happening just lining my pockets, lining other people’s pockets, greasin’ wheels. I gotta try to make it better.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Yeah. All right, let’s get out of here. What’s the plan? You figure it out?
ART (as Grand Magnificent): We’re gonna go find Profit’s Cadence.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Okay.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): And just see what’s going on over there, because, you know, we’ve done okay over here…
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Yeah
ART (as Grand Magnificent): But it could be— everything could be on fire over there.
AUSTIN (as Morning’s Observation): Yeah, I feel you.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): And we’ve got the car.
AUSTIN: I mean, you didn’t— you don’t have the car. Y’all took—
ART: We don’t have the car?
AUSTIN: No, you left The World Without End back at Terncage.
ART: No I mean the literal car, that we drove here in.
ALI: The shuttle, we rented a—
AUSTIN: You took a shuttle here. Y’all didn’t spend money on a shuttle.
ART: I thought we stole a car?
ALI: We have a driver.
AUSTIN: You have a driver. You took a shuttle here like the way you take a shuttle to the airport.
ART: What about the car from the car chase?
AUSTIN: That was a car. This is a big floating thing over the ocean.
ART: So it was only a ground car?
ALI: [laughs] You could take a shuttle back to the parking lot where I guess our car is?
AUSTIN: You could probably get a shuttle to the allocology that the— to the Church of the Self allocology.
ART: All right, well.
AUSTIN: I just wanna be clear y’all don’t have your own car. If you want your own car we’re gonna have to have that conversation and figure that out.
ART: We stole a car!
AUSTIN: Yeah, it’s a car. It’s not a space car. It’s not a flying car.
ART: Why do they make non-flying cars anymore?
AUSTIN: They’re more eco-friendly.
ART: Oh my god. Happy Earth Day everyone.
AUSTIN: [laughs] Love it.
JACK: We’re recording on Earth Day.
AUSTIN: Right. Uh huh.
ART: It’s not Earth Day when you’re listening to this, you missed Earth Day. [ALI laughs]
ART: Unless it’s 2019. Then it might be Earth Day again.
AUSTIN: Right. In which case, thanks for listening again.
ART: Yeah, thanks for catching up. You’re almost there, maybe. I guess you’re not, you’re like a year back.
AUSTIN: You’re getting there. I hope you enjoy Spring in Hieron, I hope it’s not super sad. We’ll see. It might be super sad, who could say.
ALI: It might be totally equal, even, to this episode.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. Who could say? All right, so y’all go and— I think that the… god, I figured this out. I figured out where this church was at some point. Um, I think that it is— yeah. So it’s actually— most of allocologies are these spheres and half-spheres. But the Church of the Self is just in a big diamond shape. It is just a big, gray-white diamond that floats, and unlike the rest of them, it has a permanent location. The rest of them kind of go with the wind, they go wherever. It is poised on top of— there’s a— the Seven Falls or whatever. There’s a huge waterfall, like a place where like three or four rivers come together and become this gigantic set of waterfalls. And it hovers over all of them in the jungle kind of outside Terncage by a little while. So you can get onto a shuttle tonight to get there. And religious folks go to visit this place, so there are lodgings available, but you will also be extremely on— you’ll be taking a shuttle to this place so there will be a record of you arriving, you know? Is that fine by you, or do you wanna try to figure out a different way?
ART: It feel fine. Right?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah. You’ve gotten this far that way. So I think you and Morning's Observation get on to that shuttle. It’s kind of— just a bus that goes around to a couple different allocologies over the next few hours and picks people up and gets to you the Church of the Self.
ART (as Grand Magnificent): I wish I had a change of clothes.
AUSTIN: I mean, you could go back to your apartment for your bags and stuff in the hotel.
ART: That doesn’t feel like— we’re on a clock.
AUSTIN: Okay, fair. Good. I mean, here’s—
ART: I’m gonna check my— oh no, that uses load. Never mind. I was gonna check my fine coat and just have something to throw over this. [AUSTIN laughs]
AUSTIN: Now you left that in your hotel room, I guess.
ART: No whatever, we’re rolling with this.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Morning's Observation— as you sit in the fucking bus shuttle with him, you see his hair turns to pink and black like it was before, and some of his tattoos begin to fade back on.
All right. Tender and Fourteen.
ALI: Hello.
AUSTIN: Where do you all go? What do you do?
ALI: Hmm. We were looking for the cousins.
AUSTIN: Yeah, so I think it’s like 7 or 8 PM at this point probably? 6 or 7 PM maybe? It’s evening which means that he should be about to come back to work after his full work day. You remember, he went back to Duality. But maybe he’s also still at Duality, so you don’t know.
ALI: Oh, we hella destroyed those things. It’s fine. [giggles] But we’re looking for her. (AUSTIN: Yeah. Totally.) Like chasing her.
AUSTIN: Totally. How do you try to find her?
JACK: Greel.
AUSTIN: Oh, Greel’s not a bad idea. When y’all go upstairs, do y’all just stop to talk to Greel instead of leaving? Grand leaves but y’all stay?
JACK: Yeah yeah yeah.
ALI: Yeah, just being like, “Hey, did you see where she went?”
AUSTIN: He says like,
AU (as Greel): She left in a rush. I’m not really sure. Is she okay?
ALI (as Tender): We just had to— there was— there was a thing we had to confirm with her before we went forward on the thing we spoke about. So— a little time sensitive. It’s getting late.
AU (as Greel): Um, I see. Ummm.
AUSTIN: This requires a roll of some sort. It’s clear that he’s like,
AU (as Greel): Well, I mean, I can’t really say, but—
AUSTIN: So someone’s going to have to make a roll here to convince him to give something up.
JACK: Oh. Oh oh oh. I have— could we make an argument here for Consort, or is this again more like Sway?
AUSTIN: This is Consort. If you’re— I mean, what you just said is not wrong. The line that Tender just gave that y’all have more to work on is true. [ALI laughs] You can just say, “Hey, where is she? We need to know where she is.”
JACK: Actually being as honest as possible in terms of emotion if not intent?
AUSTIN: Right. And note that you get potency on this because you gain potency when trailing a target or gathering info on a target’s previously location.
ALI: Cool!
JACK: Oh yeah, because of the thing we got. (AUSTIN: Yeah.) Still don’t quite know what that means for us, but I’m into it.
AUSTIN: It means you’ll get great effect here.
[overlapping]
JACK: Oh rad!
ALI: There you go.
JACK: So this is a risky position?
AUSTIN: Ah, risky. It’s still risky because of the heightened security, is what I’ll say.
JACK: Yeah yeah yeah. Great effect.
AUSTIN: What is your Consort?
JACK: Two.
AUSTIN: Okay, so 2d6. That’s a six! God damn! All these good rolls! Except for those ones before. (ALI: Mhm!) Greel’s like,
AU (as Greel): [sighs] If you say it’s important. I mean, it sounded like the meeting went well, I don’t want to get in the way of any sort of deal making. [softly] Come here really quick. I can’t say, but—
AUSTIN: And y’know, they just have a tracker. Like, everybody is tracked on this allocology.
JACK: Uh, I was gonna say that but I didn’t want to.
AUSTIN: And it just shows she is moving through Duality Inc. Right? Through the Duality— guess Ocean's Roar’s main job there is probably something to do with experimental physics. And so he’s in the physics lab on the fifth floor of the main tower. And she is— you can see where he is, and you can see that she is moving across the courtyard where that giant sphere you can play with is. She’s at the kind of far end of that now.
It’s not that far away. She clearly— he rewinds and shows you: she went, she got a drink, she went to her apartment, and now she’s going to him. Like to pick something up from her apartment, and now she’s going after him.
JACK (as Fourteen): Greel?
AU (as Greel): Uh huh?
JACK (as Fourteen): It’s really time sensitive. What’s the fastest way to get there? You know this campus pretty well.
AU (as Greel): Yeah. Just right - right - left. And then there’s a little alleyway. If you cut through the alleyway you can get kind of a side entrance onto the main courtyard.
JACK (as Fourteen): Thank you so much. Is it going to look unprofessional if we start running?
AU (as Greel): [without hesitation] Yes.
JACK (as Fourteen): Okay. Would you mind?
AU (as Greel): Nnno. [sincerely] After that milk stuff, you can do whatever you want! [ALI chuckles]
JACK (as Fourteen): Thanks, Greel. You’re a pal.
JACK: And Fourteen just turns and starts sprinting in the direction.
AUSTIN: All right! So is the plan to get to the courtyard or to Roar first?
ALI: [indistinctly] Roar.
AUSTIN: Are you trying to cut her— are you trying to stop her here? Are you get into the building? Like, stop her before she gets in? Or are you trying to like—
ALI: Well, we mmm. We want to get to her, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
JACK: Do we want to just try and cut her off first, do you think?
ALI: Yeah. [sighs]
AUSTIN: I think this is a group action. This is a run, you’re doing a run.
JACK: [laughing] Yeah, sounds like it.
AUSTIN: So I would say that’s— one of you has to lead the group. Or you could both do it. It’s Scramble, would be running. Unless you’re figuring out some other way of running fast or using a — if you want to make a roll to steal some sort of Segway situation then I guess it could be a Helm.
ALI: I have a one in Scramble.
JACK: I have a zero in Scramble, but I can assist you.
[overlapping]
ALI: It’s a group action.
AUSTIN: You can’t because it’s a group activity.
JACK: Okay, I can’t actually assist you.
AUSTIN: The way that works is that means Tender rolls and takes one stress for each failure. [ALI laughs]
JACK: Alternatively— here’s the thing. I could— we could do something else. [ALI is still laughing]
AUSTIN: You could. Fourteen, you could lead and push yourself and gambit, maybe.
JACK: Oh, push myself on a—
AUSTIN: That way you get at least one — push yourself to get at least one die. (JACK: Yeah.) And then maybe— you have four gambits, and then gambit to get a second die?
JACK: Yeah, because I have a bunch of stress available.
ALI: Can I lead and just spend the one gambit to get rid of the stress cost?
AUSTIN: So in other words, if there is stress that comes in, you could spend a gambit instead?
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: I guess? It’s one stress cost per failure. So you could also still fail and get a stress (ALI: Oh. Yeah.) because of the stress of leading. And also still have whatever the result is. But, you know. Here’s the other thing you could, is you could— failing—- hmmm.
ALI: This game is rolling dice. We should just—
AUSTIN: We should roll some dice.
ALI: [laughs] Wait, what were you saying?
AUSTIN: I just realized that because your first ability, which is you can spend a gambit instead of paying any stress cost ,(ALI: Yeah, any!) means you could resist outcomes and spend those— now that you have four gambits, you could just, “No, that thing doesn’t happen.” You could hit that quicktime event and be like, “No, that’s not what happens,” and spend a gambit instead? Which you weren’t doing before because we did not have any gambits and you had very low stress? But you know. When you get there, keep that in mind.
ALI: Yeah. We have four gambits right now?
AUSTIN: You have four gambits. (ALI: Okay.) All right, so you’re going to take the lead. Are you just going to go with the one die then?
ALI: Yes.
AUSTIN: Or are you also going to spend a gambit to get a bonus die on this roll?
JACK: I feel like we should. This is what gambits are for, right?
AUSTIN: Yeah.
ALI: Yeah.
AUSTIN: All right, so—
ALI: Well. No. I’m not going to spend mine. I’d like to—
AUSTIN: All right. So just give me a Scramble, both of you. Decide if you’re using a gambit or not, each.
ALI: Controlled, risky?
AUSTIN: Risky. (JACK: All right.) The risk is she beats you there. Not beats you.
JACK: So I’m going to do a Scramble … risky … standard … one bonus dice.
AUSTIN: So you are spending a gambit, Jack? (JACK: Yep.) Okay. Go ahead. Go for it.
ALI: If I fail this, I fail this.
JACK: Oh god, I feel really bad about this.
[overlapping]
ALI: It’s fine. This game is dice.
AUSTIN: If he dies, he dies.
AUSTIN: Hey, that’s a five from Fourteen.
ALI: Nice! And a four from me.
AUSTIN: And a four from you! Two successes, hell ya.
ALI: See, didn’t need to spend anything.
AUSTIN: You didn’t. So you rush there, and here is the— the complication occurs in a very broad sense. You get there, and she sees you approaching. And she’s like,
AU (as Wind's Poem): Aghh! You two!
AUSTIN: And then you see it— I think you probably both see it at the same time? Off in the distance there are figures moving around a rooftops who are— you catch the glint of a pair of binoculars or like a telescope or something like that. Someone is watching you from a distance. And I’m trying to think if there’s anything that gives away any of them. Not from this distance. They’re just silhouetted against the Mirage, against the blue-green sunset that’s happening currently— not sunset, but those colors. So you’re being watched is what you know.
JACK: We know this. This isn’t dramatic irony.
AUSTIN: No. You know. You catch that happening. You see the reflection of the thing. I was trying to think if there’s a body shape that would give something away, but not really.
ALI: Is there a way for me to hyper zoom-in and see what’s up? Maybe Study?
AUSTIN: You have that eye, don’t you? All right, well here’s what you see. You see a duck person who you do not recognize, who in my mind is very much in the Daffy Duck school— Daffy Duck wearing a trench coat but taller school of—
JACK: Like a duck person?
AUSTIN: Like a duck person, yeah.
JACK: Have we met duck people before?
AUSTIN: No, but Skein had animal people. And in fact the Divine Fleet had animal people. (JACK: Yeah yeah yeah.) Like Tender is part cat, obviously— has cat ears.
ALI: So like a Darwin duck?
AUSTIN: Like a Darkwing duck?
ALI: A Darwin? Yeah. Yes yes.
AUSTIN: Who’s a Darwin?
ALI: No, you were right. I was wrong. [laughs] Go on. Sorry.
AUSTIN: Okay. Yeah. Like a Darkwing duck, but actually more like Daffy Duck in that it’s black feathers (ALI: Okay) and a big orange beak. And they’re with someone that it takes you a second to recognize, Tender. You’re seeing this just over the shoulder of Wind's Poem— who it takes you a second to realize because they’re bigger in terms of thiccness. It’s Chiron from the Beloved Lost but has literally gotten softer. Like, he got heavy, he got chunky. He put on weight, but he’s a robot person, you might recall. (ALI: Okay.) He’s almost— he added some technology to his body that makes him like Big Hero— what’s the character from Big Hero 6 named? Is is Big Hero 6?
ART: Baymax?
AUSTIN: Yeah, Baymax. Thank you.
JACK: Yeah, Baymax.
AUSTIN: Or— that’s a real thing, that sort of soft robotics is an actual field of study. And just has a softeness and a round— like a fluffiness to him a little bit? And the third person, you recognize as she pulls down her binoculars, is Open Metal.
ALI: Cool.
JACK (as Fourteen): [groaning] Oh my god. You there’s that whole— I feel like “Could this get any worse?” is a cliche. But also every fiber of my being is expressing it right now.
ALI (as Tender): [laughing] It’s fine.
AUSTIN: It’s fine.
ALI (as Tender): It’s fine. I haven’t been killed in the last year, so I assume she hasn’t—
AUSTIN: Uh huh. She hasn’t held a grudge.
ALI: [laughs] She hasn’t kept up that contract. And we’re good to go.
AUSTIN: So what do you say to Wind's Poem?
ALI: I don’t say anything because I’m having a moment. [laughs]
JACK: Okay, I was going to say you—
ALI: I’m gonna add a second— Frazzled two is what I’m gonna write.
[overlapping]
AUSTIN: Uh huh.
JACK: Jesus.
JACK: I’m trying to think of what this line is. I think it’s something like— god, I don’t—
AUSTIN: Here’s a quick thing while you think of this line is, Jack. Separately, Tender, because I now remember your starting ability I want to give you the opportunity to do something. Which is you could have resisted getting Frazzled - this wouldn’t have mattered because you still failed those rolls - and used a gambit to resist the stress if you’d gotten stressed from resisting.
ALI: Okay.
AUSTIN: Do you want to go back and resolve resist the Frazzled? So when you have conversations or do mind shit you’re not Frazzled and getting less effect.
ALI: Wahh! I want to, but I feel bad because it’s come up in scenes.
AUSTIN: It’s fine. I think that that’s— I get that, but whatever, we’re telling stories. [ALI laughs] Also it’s fair to play frazzled separately from having the effect Frazzled. (ALI: Yes.) Okay, so go ahead and give me a resolve resist. If you just click “resolve” it should do that.
ALI: Where does that?
AUSTIN: It’s just on the right-hand side above Attune and Command and Consort and Sway. If you just click the glowing bit that says “resolve.”
ALI: Resolve, okay, sorry.
AUSTIN: No, you’re good.
ALI: And just roll it? Pffft.
AUSTIN: Whatev— it’s fine because — so we would be getting five stress, but instead you’re going to spend a gambit to not get any stress and still clear it.
ALI: So I’m just clearing the two stress that I got before?
AUSTIN: No no no, you’re just getting rid of Frazzled. [ALI giggles] You’ve healed Frazzled.
ALI: Yup, okay. [giggles]
AUSTIN: Or, you didn’t heal it, you just didn’t get it. You resisted it instead of taking it. All right. Fourteen, do you have that line?
JACK: Yes, I think it is something like— because— light glinting off binoculars in the distance, Fourteen and Tender standing some distance from Wind's Poem, and I think— does the Notion carry like a badge or an identifier? We’re not cops, so we don’t have a cop badge.
AUSTIN: No, I don’t think anyone has—
JACK: Do we have a symbol?
AUSTIN: None that’s been brought up to me! You could, but you’d have to tell me about it.
ALI: We should. I just have a weird necklace. It’s a Fleet thing.
JACK: Yeah, it’s a Fleet thing. I guess what Fourteen shouts across the distance is,
JACK (as Fourteen): Wind's Poem, the situation has spiraled, but it is time for us to be honest! You are in great danger, and we seek to protect you! Please listen to us!
AUSTIN: You could— wait, why are you shouting at Wind's Poem?
JACK: Because we’re some distance apart. Right? Didn’t we— aren’t we meeting in a courtyard?
AUSTIN: Yeah, I think y’all made contact. I mean, you can shout if you want, but shouting draws attention.
JACK: Oh, we’re actually— no noo, I mean, if we’re close then—
AUSTIN: Yeah yeah yeah. Because she was like, “Ugh, you two.” She wasn’t like [shouts off mic] “Ugh! You two!” [ALI giggles]
JACK: Uh look, we have met enough people who’ve been running away from us that have muttered things to themselves in the past. [AUSTIN giggles]
AUSTIN: Fair, fair.
JACK: So basically,
JACK: It is time for us to tell the truth, you are in great danger and we seek to protect you.
AUSTIN: Consort is what that sounds like.
JACK: That sounds like a Consort to me.
AUSTIN: Not quite a Command. (JACK: No.) Do you want to push yourself, do you want to spend a gambit? Do you want to devil’s bargain that?
JACK: Yes, I do. I want to— let me see what my options are here. Can I do— how many gambits do we have?
AUSTIN: You have two gambits left.
JACK: Two. Can I push myself and take a gambit?
AUSTIN: No.
JACK: It’s one or the other.
AUSTIN: Yes. Yes. You can. You can push yourself and take a gambit. You cannot push yourself and take a devil’s bargain.
JACK: No, devil’s bargain is a completely different thing. (AUSTIN: Yes.) Okay, I’m prepared to take take stress, and is everyone okay with me taking a gambit here? This feels fairly—
ALI: Yeah yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: Yeah, don’t let it ride in terms of her trust. Like, this is you bringing her on board and stopping her from doing something she’ll regret.
ALI: How much stress is it to do an assist?
AUSTIN: One.
ALI: I can probably swing that.
JACK: [whispering very softly] Jesus, Ali.
AUSTIN: All right. Mark a stress, tell me how you help.
ALI: Again, I think it’s one of those things where my presence is a present. But maybe not.
AUSTIN: No, I want a word. I want words. Words characterize.
ALI: Yeah, I—
AUSTIN: Especially because you go y’all into this mess. It’s just time for you to be like [exhales].
ALI: Yeah. I think just being like,
ALI (as Tender): Listen, I know you’re angry. They’re telling the truth. This is the thing— I didn’t want to tell you, but this is the reason I’m here. The Axiom thing and also to keep you safe.
AUSTIN: All right, give me a roll. That’s 4d6, right? Two bonus dice.
JACK: Okay, so what I’m doing is risky
AUSTIN: Yes. Standard.
JACK: Two bonus dice.
AUSTIN: Yes. Yes, that’s correct.
JACK: We’re looking at 4 dice here.
AUSTIN: All right. [JACK sighs]
ALI: This is all we’re gonna get. Oh my god.
AUSTIN: That is a critical success!
ALI: Oh, thank you god.
AUSTIN: I don’t think— again, we barely get those ever. So you do it with increased effect and— oh, you don’t get a gambit. Only Grand gets the gambits? Right?
ART: [off mic] That’s correct.
AUSTIN: But with a crit here, you can see her completely like [exhales]. She calms down. She also has on a— she’s taken off her weird white lab coat here now. She still has on her weird high jeans with suspenders, underneath that has on a teal blouse and a heavy— it’s heavier than a trench coat even? It’s a— it’s yeah, a London Fog-style trench coat. It’s darker than beige, like a tan. And she’s just like,
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): [blows breath] Why didn’t you just say to begin with?
ALI (as Tender): It’s complicated mostly?
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): I watched you make a beach in my lab earlier. I deal with complicated shit. If you’re going to keep being consultants for me, you need to trust me. [ALI laughs] All right?
JACK (as Fourteen): We are being watched, we need to move NOW. Do you have a panic room or something in the building? Somewhere that signals can’t get in or out unless you want them to. We need to go. Now.
AUSTIN: Jack, do you mean back in Truance HQ?
JACK: In Duality. I don’t want to put us into danger, but I want to get us out of somewhere where people are watching us.
AUSTIN: Okay. She say like,
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): I could sign you in at Duality, but there’d be a record of that.
AUSTIN: Which means there’d be Heat. Actually, here’s a thing that I have not been doing. You should be getting double Heat costs because that is how the allocologies work. One of the rules of allocologies is (JACK: Oh yeah!) [reading] you get double the benefits of cred, either plus effect or an additional action.
Which actually means Art, those gloves of yours are fantastic actually because you spent cred on doing that manoeuver before and acquiring an asset? So they’re actually higher tier even, which means maybe you don’t even need to shake someone’s hand, maybe you can use those gloves just on surfaces to get biodata from. So keep that in mind.
ART: Oh, they got so much grosser!
AUSTIN: They did! [laughs] But also [reading] you cannot lay low here, and all Heat costs are double. So she says, “I could sign you in to Duality,” but that would increase your Heat score by two.
JACK: She doesn’t say that. [laughs] Press the safe button.
JACK (as Fourteen): Just a meeting room. A meeting room, then. We have to go now.
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): I could take you back to Truance … or to my apartment? But that’s not like, safe safe.
JACK (as Fourteen): No. We should avoid—
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): What about just the food court? It’s public.
ALI (as Tender): No. What about our hotel room? We just need somewhere where we can like—
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): Are you sure it’s safe?
ALI (as Tender): We can provide protection. Right, Fourteen?
JACK (as Fourteen): It can be safer there. It can be safer there, it would be on our own—
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): All right.
JACK: Oh! What about the ship? I know it’s not here, but—
AUSTIN: What ship?
ALI: Oh, we would have to go all the way back.
AUSTIN: You would have to get a shuttle back to Terncage. I mean, you could do that. I’m not going to take it off the table. You might have to convince her to not be here for the open house tomorrow. That would—
JACK: Oh, we can do that.
ALI: Yeah, we should just go back to our room.
JACK: Let’s go back to our rooms.
ALI: That’s a place people won’t be looking for her.
AUSTIN: All right, so you go back to your hotel rooms. It’s like a suite. Each of you has a room inside a suite.
JACK: While we’re there—
ALI: Can I [laughs] give a hand sign?
AUSTIN: Like a what? Say that again?
ALI: A hand sign? Like a “hey,” like a “hi”? Like, “I know you’re watching me” thing?
AUSTIN: Uh huh. Totally. You can see she smirks at you and shakes her head. [JACK laughs]
ALI: Can I do— okay. I’m just gonna lean in. Can I do the “call me” pinky-thumb thing? [laughs]
AUSTIN: Yeah yeah. Totally. I mean, y’all have communicators.
ALI: And just be like— hold up my hand. “Five minutes, call me.” [laughs] (AUSTIN: Uh huh) And then we’re going to go back to the hotel room.
AUSTIN: All right. So yeah. So you’re at the hotel room. Let’s do this Open call, and then we’ll do the set up for what the church looks like. And then we’ll wrap.
So y’all end up in the hotel room. I think she is in the suite’s kitchen, pouring herself a glass of water. And then yeah, you get a call from Open Metal.
ALI: On my little Sidekick.
AUSTIN: Yeah, on the Sidekick. Are you taking it on the fake balcony of this hotel? This hotel room has a balcony that looks out— actually, maybe it’s a real balcony. It look out onto the ocean below hovering because you’re just hoving in this allocology? Maybe it’s all glassed in to be safe or has some sort of shield mechanism to make sure you can’t just trip and fall over. And yeah, you get a call.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): Tender?
ALI: Okay, I think … being like,
ALI (as Tender): Hey. How are you? You’re not going to tell me how you are because you’re on a roof. I—
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): I’m not on a roof anymore.
ALI (as Tender): Okay.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): One.
ALI (as Tender): Cool. Whatever you’re doing here, I don’t need to know or be involved with it. I just want to make sure there isn’t any overlap.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): What sort of overlap would there be?
ALI (as Tender): I— this is where we have to meet in the middle, right? We’ll both have to disclose some information.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): That’s not true. You could disclose, and I could tell you if there would be overlap.
ALI (as Tender): I could do that. I don’t know how much you saw on that roof, but I’m here with the Notion dealing with— okay, you don’t have to tell me why you’re on the roof. Sorry. I’ve had a really long day. [laughs]
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): You sound a bit frazzled.
ALI (as Tender): Don’t I? Agh, just I— ohhhh, I just want to be respectful to your whole situation, but I also want to know why— if— are you here looking at me or looking at the woman I was just with?
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): I didn’t expect you to be here, Tender. Or doing an op, like we do to make the Mirage a better place.
ALI (as Tender): Okay. Mhm. Yeah. Wait.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): Just like you, right?
ALI (as Tender): Yeah.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): Well, then there’s probably no problem.
ALI (as Tender): [sighs] Okay. I asked you two questions that were yes-or-no questions. You didn’t say yes or no to either of them.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): I answered both. Sometimes an answer isn’t a yes or no. You taught me that.
ALI (as Tender): I did teach you that. Well. I am in this hotel. And I’m going to be here until tomorrow.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): Is this— are you— Tender.
ALI (as Tender): I just— I’m just saying, if you want to meet in the middle or if this doesn’t have to— I— you were the one on the rooftop! You know what I’m here for. So I don’t know! I’m just saying either we don’t cross paths or we do. But if we do, it would be great if it was a positive experience. [sighs]
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): I’m still not sure if you’re hitting on me again.
ALI (as Tender): [laughs] That’s always the trouble. That’s why I don’t call you.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): It always is. [sighs deeply] Look, there are people on this allocology who are making a major mistake.
ALI (as Tender): Yeah! There are! So we can at least— okay, I’m going to— wait. Let’s both say it on three. [laughs] One. Two. Three.
AUSTIN: (as Open Metal): Guns.
ALI (as Tender): [hesitates] Guns! That’s— okay. Not— okay. Yup, guns are the bad—
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): What were you going to say?
ALI (as Tender): Hmmmpffft. Does Compel mean anything to you?
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): The Compel Project. It’s the name of the operation we’re here to disrupt.
ALI (as Tender): Yup, exactly. It is the name—
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): That woman you were speaking to is part of it.
ALI (as Tender): She’s adjacent to it.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): Close enough, Tender.
ALI (as Tender): The reason she’s here with me is because— the mission I’m on is because she’s going to get hurt by one of those guns. And that’s what I’m here to stop, as well as the guns.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): What makes her important? Stopping the guns, that’s important.
ALI (as Tender): I know, but plans can have than two important things.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): If she was involved in the creation of that thing, then … that’s the last thing we need.
ALI (as Tender): She wasn’t.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): Why should I trust you?
ALI (as Tender): Because I’m being honest with you. And if you don’t believe me, like I said, you’re two fucking buildings away. We can have this conversation. I called you because I wanted this to be easy. I asked you to call me because I wanted this to be easy for both of us.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): This is a big ask.
ALI (as Tender): Is it?
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): [deep sigh]
ALI (as Tender): [propriatingly] I can give you more information on that guy. He’s really the one behind it.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): Send over what you have. I’ll consider it.
ALI (as Tender): Okay, I’ll do that.
AUSTIN (as Open Metal): And if we have time, I’ll see if I can come over.
ALI (as Tender): Okay. Cool. Yeah. That would be great. I’ll send it over.
AUSTIN: I can’t believe you’re giving away more information to people. [ALI laughs] It’s unbelievable!
JACK: I didn’t want to say anything, because it’s cool and I love Tender and Open Metal scenes— [ALI is still laughing]
AUSTIN: Uh huh. Me too.
JACK: —but [ALI keeps laughing] I can’t believe that we had— I can’t believe that Tender’s solution to getting us out of this mess is using literally exactly the same tactics that she used to get us into this mess. [ALI laughs]
AUSTIN: The Tony Stark—
ALI: Different! This is different!
JACK: No! It’s not different, it’s the same.
ART: How do you think it’s different?
ALI: [choking with laughter] Different!
ART: Different person doesn’t mean the tactic is different!
ALI: The history is different! [JACK laughs] And that’s different!
JACK: Mmm, well. You know that we’re recording this, right? [ALI bursts into renewed laughter]
ART: Anyone hearing this is going to know that you’re not telling the truth right now. Just like we do!
ALI: Anyone hearing this is going to be like, “Oh, Open Metal is a different person than Wind's Poem. Two completely different situations.”
AUSTIN: Uh huh. Yeah.
JACK: Who was it that she was working with back when she kidnapped the Cadent?
AUSTIN: [laughs] Uh, yeah. Uh huh.
JACK: It was— it was—
AUSTIN: Are you asking for real?
JACK: It was Robin’s Song, right?
AUSTIN: Robin’s Song, yeah.
JACK: Yeah. Real piece of shit, that guy.
ALI: Well. It’s not like I—
AUSTIN: You know that Chiron is legit. Right? You know that Chiron is a good person.
ALI: Yes.
JACK: We are legit! And we just sold information to two separate people.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. I think in fact Wind's Poem asks you when you come back in.
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): Who were you on the phone with?
ALI (as Tender): Um, you’re not going to believe this, but my ex-girlfriend was out there.
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): Ohhh. What?
ALI (as Tender): Exactly. So—
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): Was she the one watching us?
ALI (as Tender): Yes, she was. But it’s probably fine. She was also watching us with an old coworker of mine if that makes you …
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): Why is my life like this?! Why is my life like this?
ALI (as Tender): I’m sorry. It’s my life that is like this, and I came here—
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): Well then, why are you in my life?! What is going on today?
ALI (as Tender): I don’t want you to get hurt.
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): You don’t even know me! How do you know I’m going to get hurt? What is happening?!
AUSTIN: And the light outside is starting to get a little bit brighter.
ART: Is *she* recruiting for some kind of team? [ALI and AUSTIN cackle]
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): I thought we had a connection, but now it’s all like, “So-and-so gonna kill you and my ex is here with an old coworker of mine.”
ALI (as Tender): [groans]
JACK (as Fourteen): Okay. Have you ever heard of Crystal Palace?
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): No. What is that? What is a crystal palace?
ALI (as Tender): Oh god. You’re about to have a longer day. [sighs]
JACK (as Fourteen): This isn’t going to sound believable. I don’t know if I believe it myself, but this is the information that we’re acting on. Far away from here in a distant galaxy—
AUSTIN: Same galaxy. Different solar systems. Different part of the galaxy.
JACK (as Fourteen): — different solar system is a planet called the principality of Kesh. They’re kind of like techno-spies as I understand it. They’re extremely— you’d get on great with them, except for reasons that I’m about to tell you. And they have this— it’s like a computer that can predict everything. Everything! What you’ll eat for breakfast, what you’ll do the next day. We’ve seen its predictions kind of happen. And it made a prediction about you, which is why we’re here. We’re here because of that prediction, and there’s no easy way to say this, which is that tomorrow Crystal Palace predicted that you will be killed. Quite—
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): Oh my god. You work for this Crystal Palace?
JACK (as Fourteen): No, we work for—
ALI (as Tender): The Notion.
JACK (as Fourteen): We work for the Notion. We are working with people who have great experience with Crystal Palace. They were with the principality of Kesh for a long time. And it’s very likely that— according to this prediction— I hate having to say this. It’s very likely that you’re going to be killed by the same weapons that your cousin is developing.
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): I don’t understand. Why does the Crystal— I don’t—
JACK (as Fourteen): Because there’s one other bit, and this is— this is the weirdest bit. Crystal Palace has stopped making predictions. And it stopped making predictions pretty much exactly spot on with the moment of your predicted death and the predicted death of somebody else. That’s it. No more predictions.
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): My cousin?
JACK (as Fourteen): No no. Not your cousin, a man named Profit’s Cadence.
ALI (as Tender): A man your cousin is working with.
AUSTIN: Her eyes narrow. She nods and says,
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): That’s who— months ago when he said there was the Axiom we could try to do something with— that was who told him about it. But where would a man like tht get an Axiom?
AUSTIN: I think we hard-cut to the shuttle going to a huge diamond-shaped allocology that’s hoving over the waterfalls, and Morning's Observation and Grand are going to land there. And the light is coming back as the arc of the day wraps back around. The night ends and the color comes back to the sky. It’s a bright blue sunrise or morning here. And the ship is— you’re nearing it. You’re coming in from above, so you can kind of see this big white diamond hovering there. It has some platforms out.
And you hear first the sound of a jet engine just completely skimming past you - brrrmm - really quickly. And then you hear the sound of thunder. And you and a number of other people look out the window, and you see two things, one and then the other. First you see something— I’m trying to think if either of you have dealt with this before. Morning's Observation recognizes it immediately, I think. It is the mech of Massalia D’Argent that they used when they were part of the Beloved Night. No, the Beloved— what was the main group, the other group? Y’all were the Dust. The Lost was Sho and Chiron. What was the part that Waltz was part of? Waltz and Massalia?
ALI: Ivy?
AUSTIN: Ivy, yeah, thank you.
JACK: Ivy.
AUSTIN: And I think Morning recognizes it immediately. It is the mech of Massalia D’Argent, formerly of the Beloved Ivy. And now you can see on the mech’s shoulder the symbol of the Beloved Nights, the Waking Cadent’s Beloved. And there’s another sound of thunder and a crack of lightning as above, a massive worm-like ship kind of shifts into view. It’s— it’s funny, there’s something in the other game right now that I’ve been describing as being very ribbon-like? But the Welkin Absolute, the flagship of Keen Forrester Gloaming and the Rapid Evening, is also very ribbon-like. It kind of moves almost like an eel or like a ribbon in the wind except it makes these loud thunderous claps as it folds in and out of itself and jitters from place to place. And the two of them are almost immediately in combat.
And down below on one of the landing platforms, you can see a number of Torch Units and two big Torch Units. Two large units that almost move around like apes. Right? They have big forearms. Their forward arms are huge and they kind of walk around on all fours and look up at you.
And in the middle is Profit’s Cadence, who in my mind is just a taller CeeLo Green, wearing a very fine black suit with a neon-blue dress shirt and a black collar. And turns to walk inside.
[MUSIC - “The Twilight Mirage” begins]
It all happens very quietly. I imagine this is actually happening below the description that Fourteen is giving of Crystal Palace and the Rapid Evening and seeing the future? And I think we get Wind's Poem saying,
AUSTIN (as Wind's Poem): What to the people who work for Crystal Palace want?
JACK (as Fourteen): They want what they’ve always wanted. They want to know what happens next.
AUSTIN: And a missile strikes the shuttle. A stray one, not intentional. And the shuttle goes crashing down onto one of the landing pads and bursts into fire as Morning's Observation and Grand Magnificent crawl away back to their feet.
[MUSIC - “The Twilight Mirage” ends]