Transcriber: MagiCole [0:00:00-0:47:00], lockedreams#1709 [0:47:00-1:22:00], thedreadbiter [1:22:00-end]
[Jack de Quidt’s “TANAGER. PERFECT. TOUCHPAPER.” begins playing]
Austin: She could never have predicted it. Just six months ago, Gucci Garantine had left the small visiting attache office assigned to her for work done in Kesh’s Winter Palace for what she thought would be the last time. Today, after spurring on revolution and signing a treaty with the Isles of Logos, she'd moved back in. Except now, of course, this was the People's Palace of Partizan. Kesh had nothing to do with it.
It was well appointed, but not lavish. She never needed much. A humble desk, a good pen, an off angle view of the courtyard, which today was filled with dozens of recent recruits going through an accelerated basic training regimen. With repairs to the structure complete, she had been offered something more grandiose, even something with an attached waiting area, but she turned it down. Yes, the optics were part of it, but more than anything, it was a matter of her own attention.
Now, more than ever, she needed to remain focused on what came next for Millennium Break, just as she had once done for Horizon, which is what those who felt that she was cold or conservative fail to understand. Gucci had years under her belt, operating a successful insurgent force. She knew that victory sometimes took a risk. After all, she was walking these halls as a Kesh loyalist while simultaneously living a second life as a revolutionary Saint Dawn.
But victory also required patience and P.R., which was why SBBR need to be reined in for now, at least. Flagrant association with the Branched, using stolen Divine parts as weapons, destroying a state cemetery during a funeral. These are desperate tactics, and Millennium Break had moved past desperation. No more flailing now. It was time to dance.
[TANAGER. PERFECT. TOUCHPAPER plays to an end]
Austin: Welcome to Friends at the Table and actual play podcast focused on critical world building, smart characterization and fun interaction between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker. And joining me today, Ali Acampora.
Ali: Hi. You can find me @ali_west on Twitter.com, and you can find the show over @friends_table.
Austin: Art Martinez Tebbel.
Art: Hey, you can find me on Twitter @atebbel.
Austin: Andrew Lee Swan.
Dre: Hey, you can find me on Twitter @swandre3000.
Austin: Jack de Quidt.
Jack: Hi. You can find me on Twitter @notquitereal or buy any of the music featured on the show at notquitereal.bandcamp.com.
Austin: Janine Hawkins
Janine: Hi. You can find me @bleatingheart on Twitter.
Austin: Keith Carberry.
Keith: Hello. You can find me on Twitter @keithjcarberry, and you can find the let’s plays that I do at youtube.com/RunButton.
Austin: And Sylvia Claire.
Sylvia: Hi, I'm Sylvi. You can find me on Twitter @sylvisurfer, and you can listen to my other show, Emojidrome, wherever you get your podcasts.
Austin: We are today continuing our game of Beam Saber by Austin Ramsay. And our goals are to ensure that everyone at the table is safe, to convey the world honestly, to fill the world with detail and to play to find out what happens. We are beginning a big downtime. [breathes a laugh] Big SBBR, big downtime. There are a couple of things that are going to, I think, keep this downtime a little bit shorter than what it should have been. And one of them is that we're all mature adults who are going to time ourselves and make sure we don't go too long. More importantly, you have a vendetta now, and a vendetta means you only get two downtime actions per person.
Jack: [laughs] No.
Sylvia: [laughs] Oh fuck.
Austin: I did a bunch of math off mic, and that meant that like, we’ve done XP. Y'all have leveled up, but not— have not yet chosen a move or upgrades for SBBR. We don't need to do that right the second, but if someone has an idea, I’m happy to hear it. And I— and I moved around stats in terms of what different factions and squads think of you. I'll give you the highlights right now because it's not like the most important thing, but I think you'll understand where all these come from.
The Curtain likes you less. The Curtain thinks you’re honorless. The Cult of Order likes you less. The Cult of Order thinks you're heretical. The… this is a group you don't necessarily know by name, but the Columnar’s 21st Voluntary Composite Division, which is kind of like the milita— the military of Columnar on Partizan, thinks that you're disruptive because of how you interrupted the delivery of the— the eyes of of the Exemplar. The Church of the Resin Heart gives you a plus one for having, you know, blown up the— the eyes. Because that's, like, a thing that they were interested in, making sure that the Exemplar doesn't fall into the wrong hands, et cetera. So that's a— that's a good plus. Kesh likes you less.
Keith: We also, like, saved them.
Austin: We're not— I’m not even at your mission yet, Keith.
Keith: Oh, okay, okay.
Austin: We're— [amused] I will get there. [Jack and Sylvia laugh] Kesh likes you less, in general, because of the whole destroying part of a cemetery to their heroes... thing. So, you're in a negative two with Kesh all around.
Janine: It was a bad funeral anyway.
Dre: [quiet] It was pretty bad.
Austin: Not to them. They liked that funeral. They are whack. [everyone laughs] The— now—
Art: Austin’s careers as a funeral director did not work. [Austin and Jack laugh] He had to fall back into...
Austin: [sighs] The other big ones here, you get a plus one to the Isles of Logos because that is who you actually saved, Keith, in that mission. You bring that up to a plus two. You’re already maxed out at this point with the Church of the Resin Heart. You're maxed out with the Oxblood Clan. So that stuff’s good. And then you get to negative three here, the lowest of the low with the Divine Motion, Glory, and the Black Century. And now a big, single cohesive tier four foe for you to face off against based on the way things went. And boy, how— how did things—
Keith: [crosstalk] I love that actually.
Austin: Huh?
Keith: I love that actually.
Austin: Yeah. That's— it's fantastic. And again, the most immediate specific thing that that causes you is that just— you're kind of looking over your shoulder at all times. Theoretically, it means that, like, you need to spend... kind of just resources in your— in your, you know, kind of in an abstract sense to keep from being fucking killed. Ven— minus three vendetta. [reading] “Groups with this rating work to harm the squad, even if it's against their best interests. They expect the squad to do likewise, and will take precautions against them. When the squad has a vendetta with any number of groups, they will suffer additional trust losses, temporarily lose one hold, possibly lowering their tier.” Your tier did not lower, but only because you got a bump in it briefly. Not a— you didn't bump from two to three, but you bumped from two with what's called weak hold to two with strong hold. But now that you're on a vendetta, you're back down to weak hold.
Keith: So you're saying that basically they're so sour that they came at us twice and lost twice, that now they're being all pissy about it?
Austin: And are continuing to come at you.
Keith: Right.
Austin: And are continuing to disrupt you and, you know, make everything a little bit harder for you. [reading] “You take one fewer downtime activities. If you have multiple vendettas”— which you don't yet— “only apply the penalty from one at the time. The vendetta is only ended if the enemy is destroyed or a mutual agreement to establish a new status level is negotiated.” So if you went to— if you somehow negotiated a truce or lower, you know, hostilities or something. You know? You don’t have to bring it back up to zero, but if you get it back up to negative two, then the vendetta ends, and you suddenly get more downtime actions. This is important because y'all are beat to shit.
As just a quick reminder and maybe as, like, a way to bring people up to speed on each other's sides— because not all of those episodes have released as of us recording this— half of y'all went to a place called Nooncrown, which was this big cemetery. And while there, Crysanth Kesh was killed when Valence sacrificed themselves... themself to— to blow— [laughs lightly] to blow her away, along with a number of other enemy units nearby and a bunch of the eyes of the Exemplar, the kind of clarified memoria that had been taken from Vigil City. Broun, or not Broun, sorry, Sovereign Immunity and Thisbe, you then left there and came back to Oxbridge, to your base. And I'll say you've been there probably for a little over a week, just kind of stewing.
The other team has been in Auspice where you were confronted by Motion and Glory, who was trying to assassinate Boole Batanca, who is a— was the chancellor of the Isles of Logos. And you successfully— you successfully held Motion off but at great cost, both in terms of just looking at your sheets and looking at the amount of stress and harm that has been done to you all. It's— it's not light work to fix you all up in this— in this way.
And then secondly, you also have Cas’alear, who was very badly wounded by the new elect of Motion, whose name is Laurel, who is a clone of an ancient Apostolosian war hero called Cassander. And that— Cas’alear is fucked up. Like, Cas’alear is effectively at full harm, right? Is at, like, the “need help” level. You've stabilized cas, but that is like, a serious, serious issue. And you are on your way, basically straight back to your base at Oxbridge, with Cas’alear still with you.
I think those are the big picture things. Oh, and then the final thing here is that before Motion was finally, like, defeated, driven off with your big like last second ace in the hole attack, she provided an image of you. This kind of like, terrifying vision of what she saw was coming in the future, which— which is something that is like different than what you were there intercepting at the time. You know, you may have stopped— you may have stopped her from breaking up this pending alliance between the Isles of Logos and Millennium Break. But what you didn't stop there was the Pact of Necessary Venture continuing to pursue super science and technology by way of studying things like the Branched, but also things like the True Divine. Getting their own pieces of the Exemplar, which you saw them put to use to start like doing weird Perennial Wave control shit.
And the vision that she showed you was basically the Pact, you know, crushing Millennium Break here on Partizan once and for all. The messages of Millennium Break and Gur Sevraq, you know, the kind of, like, sermons that had been something that kind of moved a lot of people, kind of ending here on Partizan. Not spreading to the rest of the galaxy. There being no resistance as the Pact spreads, using Partizan as their new base of operations and slowly taking over the rest of the galaxy.
And doing so by a means kind of of uncanny power, of godlike power in the vision that she kind of arrogantly showed you. You know, what is the psychic transmission version of a monol— of a villainous monologue that reveals the plan a little too much. Motion basically showed the equivalent of like, “Hey, we are going to figure out how to make the True Divine— the True Divine’s power our own.” And— and with that like, it— I want to be clear that there is a degree to which Motion has the ability to make that scary you know? Motion can make Jack de Quidt music play, too. [breathes a laugh] If that makes sense.
And so, yeah. So that's where we're at. And I guess for me, the thing… you know, I think this downtime will probably move across a couple of different time... like scales, in terms of like, instead of just being minute to minute, second to second. So if we have to zoom out at certain points and talk about things happening in days or weeks, that's fine. Especially since the other thing that I guess I didn't say yet, is that Oxbridge is kind of in.. it’s, like, right at the edge of a civil war. There's been fighting in the streets between kind of two emerging factions of Stel Orion. Half want to secede from the Divine Principality and become their own kind of republic of merchants and guilds and families and lords .And the other want to remain loyal to the Divine Principality.
And that fight is just like happening in the streets. The fight— Also, the part that wants to secede, it does not necessarily— [amused] not all of them are good people. A lot of them are also like, “I bet we could make more money if we could— If they were a different country, we could charge them more than if they were our army.” So it's not even as simple as like, you side with the part that wants to break away from the Divine Principality. Like, maybe you do, but that means still getting in bed with some really fucking slimy, you know, war profiteers. No offense, Broun.
And so so that's happening in the background of basically everything that happens today. Where I'd like to zoom in, though, I guess is just like, again, Sovereign Immunity, Thjisbe, you're back at base. You're in this little, you know, lighthouse in the kind of underground bunker secret base that SBBR operates out of, by yourselves, when the ship carrying Broun and Millie and then the new members, recent— recent, you know— what's the word— recruits, Kalar Anakalar and Phrygian join.
I guess my question real quick. Do the people who were not in that game, Janine and Art, do you know who Phrygian and Kalar are? Or should they do a quick introduction to what they look like and who they are?
Janine: I do not— I do not know. [laughs lightly] I have a vague idea.
Austin: Yeah, that’s fine. That episode just dropped yesterday or whatever, so.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: So yeah, Jack, do you want to explain in a couple of sentences who Kalar is?
Jack: Yeah. Kalar is a, um... uh, a middle aged former steeplejack. So, like a church tower climber who has become a specialist Millennium Break Lieutenant, specializing in taking down massive mechs without using a mech themselves. They are very excited to be here. They care about the people around them, uh…
Austin: And they are a massive bird person.
Jack: Oh, that's the other thing. Yeah, Kalar is a— is a huge bird. They are Talonite. The last time we saw Talonite was, I think, Kitcha Kanna.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: So, so huge for a bird, not huge for a person who is a bird.
Austin: [crosstalk] No, even, I think for— I think—
Jack: [crosstalk] Yeah. no. I think— I think Kalar is...
Austin: Yeah, go ahead.
Jack: The big inspiration for Kalar is, like, what if Dave Bautista at the beginning of Blade Runner was a bird person. Just a huge—
Art: Okay, so bigger than you? Bigger than Big Bird. [Ali laughs]
Austin: Yes. Uh, wait. No.
Jack: Uh…
Art: Already a big bird.
Austin: The answer is no.
Jack: No, maybe smaller than Big Bird, right?
Austin: Smaller than Big Bird.
Jack: I want to say I’ve been thinking—
Austin: Smaller than Thisbe. Thisbe, bigger than Big Bird.
Jack: Oh, yeah, totally. I reckon Big Bird is eight feet tall. I reckon Kalar is closer to seven.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: But more total... Who would depla— who would displace more water?
Austin: [simultaneously] Kalar.
Jack: [simultaneously] Probably Big Bird.
Austin: You think?
Jack: Oh no, yeah, maybe.
Austin: I think of Big Bird as being—
Jack: Kalar is— Kalar is beefier than Big Bird.
Austin: Yeah, that's what I think.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: [crosstalk] I think of Kalar as dense, in a way.
Keith: [crosstalk] You're saying that Kalar could—
Art: I think you mean “chickenier” than—
Jack: Oh, Jesus Christ.
Austin: [sighs] God. [Keith laughs]
Janine: This is the… [Keith laughs harder] I was just going to ask is this— Remember when Thisbe was getting repaired and we like had… and Thisbe and Broun looked up like adjacent blueprints?
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: And found... this is the— there are bird robots too, right?
Austin: Yes, there are.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: There are robots who are based on the species that Kalar is.
Janine: I wanted to make sure this was the same...
Austin: Correct. Talonites. Yep.
Janine: —the same people.
Austin: Uh, Phrygian, [laughs] can you explain what— who you are and what you look like?
Keith: Phrygian is a middle-aged former deck seven. [Austin and Jack laugh]
Janine: I love how— [laughs] I love how abruptly that sentence stops.
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: It’s good.
Keith: Um… Phrygian is… um, one of the Branched. And sort of looks like a person… a human. A humanoid person—
Austin: Ah.
Keith: —with a human-looking face. [Sylvia laughs] But if skin was sort of rippling and contorting and snapping like cable wires.
Austin: You know, like that.
Keith: Like that.
Austin: [quietly] Is there an image—
Keith: But it's convincing.
Austin: Oh there was. There was an image pasted. Oh, no. Okay, I thought that was an image pasted. Someone did— someone did art of you already. I don't know if you saw that.
Keith: Really? I did not see. No.
Austin: I thought it was pretty good. I forget who it was. I don't have it on deck. [overlapped] But I was like, damn.
Keith: I haven't seen it, and I don't know what it is or who it was, but very good job.
Austin: That's not nice. You gotta— you know.
Janine: [quietly] I think it was Annie.
Art: You gotta at least lie.
Austin: You gotta at least lie. It was probably Annie.
Janine: I— I actually think “very good job” without seeing it, given how difficult a lot of the prompts and ideas of this season— I think that's fair.
Keith: Yeah. Just the attempt is—
Janine: We’ve really thrown down a gauntlet, and people have picked it up and put it on and wasted us with it. So.
Austin: I’m pasting it. It’s very— It's pretty fucking good.
Keith: Oh, you found it?
Austin: Yeah. I found it.
Art: I loved— I loved the tweet from— from Danny that was that Friends at the Table fan artists should unionize against our character concepts. [Austin and Janine laugh]
Austin: Perfect.
Keith: Oh, this is interesting.
Austin: Yeah. That's an interesting look.
Keith: In my— in my head, this is a solid face. This is like—
Austin: I see. It’s not loose wires.
Keith: This is— this is like wires, wires dancing into the shape of a face.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: Which looks very cool.
Janine: Is it like that brain made of wires from that old PSA?
Keith: Say that again.
Austin: Excuse me?
Janine: There's like a— Was that a Canadian PSA?
Austin: You didn’t say—
Janine: It might have been a Canadian PSA.
Austin: We couldn't hear the first thing you said.
Janine: Oh, so there's— there used to be a— there's like a PSA, maybe it was Canadian, where it was like a brain made out of wires. And then someone, like, went at it with a pair of pliers to be like, “This is what drugs do,” you know?
Austin: “This is your brain on drugs.” Yeah.
Janine: But it was like a tightly... it was like a tight-looking wire brain. I can't find it now.
Austin: That's fine. Yeah.
Keith: It sounds gross.
Austin: I found it. Was it this, Janine?
Janine: Uh, yes, yeah.
Austin: This feels too tightly coiled to me.
Janine: But then at the end, it's a lot looser.
Austin: Oh, I see.
Art: How many drugs would you say… [Austin laughs] your face is on, Keith?
Keith: It it— it is the first thing, if they're— if they're moving around like worms. Imagine the… imagine how that—
Janine: Yeah, I can imagine that.
Keith: Yeah, imagine how that looks if it was the shape of a face.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh. Gotcha.
Keith: And also, you know, wriggling.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Moving.
Austin: Got it. Fantastic.
Keith: Yeah, and snapping.
Austin: Well, guess what? Thisbe and Sovereign Immunity, these people are here. You've known them. This is not your first meeting them. They were here. They've already gone through, you know, orientation.
Janine: Onboarding.
Austin: Onboarding, yeah, exactly. [overlapped] You’ve given them their computer.
Art: Establishing that someone is not a ghost.
Austin: Yeah, you’re like, “Oh, you're not a ghost. Cool.”
Art: Not a ghost.
Austin: Yeah. I guess I should say that there was— there was a falling out. We covered this and the other half of the show. But for Janine and Art and Dre, there was fallout with... like the Company of Spade when Phrygian was brought on board because Phrygian is a Branched, and the Branched are the enemy of the Principality. And there are people in Millennium Break who really do still, like, think we should still destroy the Branched and retake Kesh, obviously. And so they are not— they have no time for that because they're big racists. And so uh… so yeah. So that's— that's what's going on there.
Anyway, they're here. So is Broun, so is Millie, so is a wounded Cas’alear, so is A.O. Rook. The clique is all back. Well... I guess one person is missing, and I guess like for me, that's the zoom in here. Like what's it like to— What is this moment like, you know? As it slowly sinks in that someone is missing. [pause] I guess my first question is like, does it even— The door opens, Broun comes in. [Ali breathes a laugh] How long does it take for it to even come up?
Janine: Are we— I have a question.
Austin: Mhm.
Janine: Has This… This is a— [sighs] Well, I don't think Thisbe would have sent a message while Broun was out. But is this like the moment that Broun is hearing about it?
Austin: This would be the moment that Broun is hearing about it.
Ali: I think so, yeah. I um... because I've been thinking about this a lot. [laughs]
Austin: Mhm.
Ali: I like— Broun and Valence had a telepathic connection, right? And I think of like... Broun coming home and being like, “What the fuck is going on? I heard all these bad reports of other... things. What's happening?” And not getting an answer. And then Broun also wanting to be like, “Valence, I saved somebody, and then I ordered people around, and they listened to me. We did a good job.” [murmurs as if continuing excitedly] And then also not getting an answer to that is like really freaking them out. But I also like— I don't want this to be something that Broun finds out, like, via text message.
Austin: Right. Right. I mean, if you did want to go that path, there are ways for it to have leaked out.
Ali: Sure.
Austin: So to speak, right? Like, I bet Jesset knows, right? I'm sure, Jesset came by when you came back and was like, “Where the fuck is Valence? I heard there was an explosion.” Right? But I don't— but I don't— but I think it's better to have Broun— I'd rather have the dying wishes of Valence honored, you know, than not.
Ali: Yep.
Austin: So yeah, ball’s in your court.
Ali (as Broun): Okay, Thisbe status report?
Janine: [laughs] Oh. Why… Why that way? [Ali, Dre, and Austin laugh; Ali snorts]
Ali: Um...
Janine: Yeah, I don't even know what Thisbe says to that.
Ali: If you have a different scene prompt, go ahead.
Janine: I mean, to be honest, if Broun just walks up and says, “Thisbe status report,” Thisbe is probably just gonna talk about, like, how her shit's running, right that second.
Ali: Sure.
Austin: What is the answer to that? How is her shit working right this second?
Janine: Probably near optimal, I'd say.
Austin: Is that what she says? I think let's commit to that being the first encounter.
Janine: That sucks! I hate that. [laughs]
Austin: I love it. No, listen— [Ali laughs, Janine sighs]
Art: Do you want me to intercede in the scene, or is it important that the scene be a Thisbe-Broun scene?
Austin: Valence’s final words to Thisbe were ‘Tell Broun I'm sorry.”
Art: I know. I know. But—
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: But that’s not— My dilemma is that's not an answer to “status report.”
Austin: Good. I'm saying that we should play it the way that Broun would ask it, and then the way that Thisbe would respond, and then let it develop from there naturally. We shouldn’t interject.
Art: Wait, but— hold on.
Austin: We should let there be awkwardness because these people are not synced in that way.
Art: Yes.
Austin: If, at some point, SI should come in—
Art: Okay.
Austin: That can be signaled and you should be— you'll be signaled then.
Art: Great.
Austin: But we shouldn't start at no tension. [laughs lightly] So can I get a— let's get it from the top from— [Ali laughs] from the original question as it was, ‘cause I like that.
Ali (as Broun): Thisbe, status report.
Janine (as Thisbe): The systems are near optimal… at present.
Ali (as Broun): Oh, great. How— how’d things go?
Janine (as Thisbe): It was a very complicated...
Janine: Uh… shit. what's the word I want? [pause] Never mind, she wouldn't say sortie.
Janine (as Thisbe): It was a very complicated mission.
Ali (as Broun): Uh… sure. Hey, you know where Valence is? … I keep trying to get in touch. Are they, like, hurt?
Janine (as Thisbe): Val— Operant Valence—
Janine: Uh.... I need to just deliver this line straight.
Janine (as Thisbe): Operant Valence is die—
Janine: [amused disbelief] Is died?!
[everyone laughs hysterically]
Sylvia: Oh no. [Austin boos]
Art: Sometimes people get sad, and they don't know how grammar works anymore.
Austin: Aw. [everyone continues laughing]
Keith: Systems not quite as near optimal as—
Austin: [crosstalk] That’s the thing that was near, not at.
Sylvia: [crosstalk] It’s near optimal. Not optimal.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Hang on. Let me. [everyone is recovering]
Sylvia: Oh my God.
Janine: And take a bit of water and uh... one second. Okay. [people continue to burst out laughing] It’s been a very stressful season.
Austin: No, I know.
Janine (as Thisbe): Operant Valence died on the mission
Ali (as Broun): What?
Janine (as Thisbe): There was an opportunity, um... We were— we were extracting—
Ali (as Broun): Wait, wait, what? Wait. What?
Janine (as Thisbe): We had intercepted a convoy and Crysanth Kesh had—
Ali (as Broun): A convoy?
Janine (as Thisbe): —had made an appearance there, and we were unable to extract—
Ali (as Broun): [strongly] What happened to Valence? What happened to Valence?
Janine (as Thisbe): We were unable to extract cleanly with all of the material and Crysanth Kesh, uh... I had attempted to destroy Crysanth Kesh—
Ali (as Broun): [quietly] Sure.
Janine (as Thisbe): —and had not succeeded. Operate Valence was injured and decided to—
Ali (as Broun): [upset] Decided?
Janine (as Thisbe): —to destroy Crysanth Kesh themself while I extracted with as much of the material as I could.
Ali (as Broun): What are you— I don't. What are you—
Janine (as Thisbe): —and with Operant— Yes?
Ali (as Broun): What— I— Material? What are you talking about? What happened to Valence?
Janine (as Thisbe): Valence destroyed themselves along with Crysanth Kesh.
Ali (as Broun): Sure. Um… [nervous laugh] What did you do?
Janine (as Thisbe): I was loading the material from the truck and extracted with...
Janine: Man, this is a— this is a bad time to like…[Ali begins laughing] During that whole mission, I didn't have an opportunity to use my joke where Thisbe can't say Operant Immunity because it's like a weird loophole.
Austin: [laughing] Uh huh.
Janine: I think, when she tries to say Operant Immunity, it, like, makes a bunch of weird garble-y static noises.
Ali: Oh, that’s great.
Janine: It's like— it's like a glitch thing.
Austin: Mhm.
Ali (as Broun): Thisbe, are you okay?
Janine (as Thisbe): I can't say Operant—
Janine: And then, like, the sound again. Crackle, crackle, pop, et cetera.
Ali: I think Broun is, like, gripping their face. [laughs] Because like, trying to have this conversation with Thisbe, and Thisbe not being able to say words is so intense.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: And they're just not understanding the details of this, right? Like, oh, there was a convoy and there was all of this stuff.
Austin: [chuckles] Right.
Ali: And just being like, what the fughhhhh [Ali groans] is Broun's internal monologue at the moment.
Janine: I think this is maybe when Thisbe offers, like
Janine (as Thisbe): Valence told me to tell you that they are sorry.
Ali (as Broun): They said that?
Janine (as Thisbe): They said that. [Ali/Broun huff] And then they ordered me to leave, and I did.
Ali (as Broun): And you did. Great. [condescending] Good job, Thisbe.
Keith: Damn. [Ali laughs, Austin sighs]
Janine: Thisbe knows that that's sarcasm, because we've established that— [Austin and Ali laugh] that robots can recognize sarcasm, and also Thisbe has lying magic and can see through lies.
Austin: Oh right. True. Mhm.
Janine: But I don't think Thisbe has it— I think Thisbe, you know— it's just— it's just completely unmoving, just like… Hm, Not, she doesn’t make a ‘hm’ or whatever sound. [Janine, Ali, and Austin laugh] I think, you know, she's— it's just a... no reaction on that.
Ali: Yeah, I don’t know. This is tough— [laughs]
Austin: How the news— does it filter out from here? Do other people come into the room? Like, what's… how close do we want to get to the rest of this team finding out?
Ali: Yeah, I don't know, I— I, um… I mean, if certainly, if people want to react to it onscreen or whatever…
Austin: And likewise, if Sovereign Immunity, you have been sitting on like, here is how you are ready to talk through it, this would probably be... you know
Art: No, at this point, I've sort of missed it. [Ali laughs] It was like, as a person with empathy…
Austin: Right. Right.
Art: —if Sovereign Immunity had seen this happening, he would have intervened in it. But because I let the scene happen, I just be like, I'm not there.
Austin: Right. [Ali laughs] “I’m somewhere else.”
Art: It’s not just like Sovereign Immunity is five feet away being like, “Yeah, this sucks. I'm gonna- I’m reading the paper.” Like, not just gonna be like—
Austin: Hard cut to Sovereign— he’s at the Deep Dish Steakhouse. He’s digging in. [Sylvia and Ali laugh] Stress eating.
Janine: I'm gonna be hon— My gut feeling is that Sovereign Immunity doesn't want to be in that room.
Ali: Yeah.
Janine: Like, in terms of— in terms of where Broun maybe is... or how that conversation shakes out is maybe not going to fall in Sovereign Immunity’s favor.
Ali: Yeah, I definitely imagine this happening like... off the ship. [laughs] There’s like—
Austin: Yeah, oh, yeah.
Ali: —like a locker room with a fucking like sandwich machine and a coffee machine. Um…
Art: Ah, the sandwich machine is gonna last that long, huh. [Ali laughs] It's kind of gross now.
Ali: You know, it’s a military base. Whatever. [Austin laughs]
Keith: It makes the sandwiches in the machine, so it's fine.
Ali: Mm, mhm.
Austin: [unsure] Mhm… I love a locker room sandwich machine. [Dre laughs] You know that everything just has the best...
Keith: Look. Sometimes you get out of the shower and you just need a little bit of a turkey sandwich.
Austin: Yeah, with a little salami.
Keith: A little bit of mustard on there.
Austin: A little swiss. Yeah, uh huh. [Ali laughs]
Keith: Rye bread. “They got rye bread on this one! This is the good one.”
Ali: But yeah, I don't— like, I don't know how to narrate the end of the scene besides maybe... I feel like Broun’s impulse would maybe… [laughs] just like from having the inability to absorb it, just wanting to get away from Thisbe. [laughs more] Right?
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Like, I don't know that they have anything to say after like, “Oh, you did a good job.” I think that there's maybe the like… there's the like going through the motions of all the other shit that they would probably talk about. I was gonna say before the— when we were talking about the two new characters that like, Thisbe, I think that Broun probably made you interview both of them. [laughs] And to that end, just like gives Thisbe, like, stupid fucking… like, office tasks.
Austin: Right.
Ali: It's just like, “Give me your print out of your [mumbles].” Just because they don't really know how else to act besides being like, “Oh, I came back, and I expected to look over these files and now…”
Austin: Right. Well—
Ali: I guess that’s the thing that you do. Like, I— Yeah.
Austin: Well, I mean, the— for me, the... I guess, again, I'll open it up to like, if people want to have reactions to this news or just like tell me what the reaction is, we can totally do that. We can also advance the clock a little bit and look at entanglements because that is the next part before we get to downtime actions. And I don't know how quickly those follow on the heels of this news hitting, but so yeah, I'll open, again, the floor. Like, is there a Millie scene where Millie finds out? Or can you tell me how Millie takes it, you know? Or likewise for Phrygian and Kalar?
Sylvia: Yeah, I kind of have like, ‘cause Millie didn't know Valence super well aside from, like, working together— like, before Millennium Break.
Austin: Right, right.
Sylvia: So, like, that's her idea of them.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: And I think kind of kept coming back to that, like, scene where Valence asked her how to shoot a gun.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: And we just see her with that, like, same type of revolver trying to see if, like, there was something she missed that like... [Austin groans] It is more jam-prone, or like there's sway on it that wouldn't have made it good for a beginner.
Austin: Right.
Sylvia: Just shit like that.
Austin: Ah, light work. Just simple—
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Uh-huh. Love to take the blame for something you were not even close to part of it.
Sylvia: Uh huh! [laughs]
Austin: Mhm. As—you know, as recent recruits, I'm curious for Anakalar and Phrygian, if this is weird. Like, is this destabilizing? Is this... you know? How does it hit?
Jack: I think that, like... Valence is... was someone that Kalar considered to be very important, even though they had sort of never really met them.
Austin: Right.
Jack: So, I think we—
Austin: Well, you probably— again, you did probably meet before this mission. Before these missions, you almost certainly—
Jack: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: —met in the same way that you'd met— in the same way that Thisbe interviewed you, it's very easy to imagine that Valence had...
Jack: But then it's like, meeting someone—
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Kalar’s kind of like a fan.
Jack: It's— [laughs] it's like meeting someone who's, like, a public figure at a party once and then, like, three weeks later being like, “Oh, something horrible happened to them.”
Austin: A car accident or something, yeah.
Jack: And it's like, that feels very weird, but it's a completely different kind of relationship to the relationship of people who are close to them. So I think we just get shots of, like, Kalar sitting in the mess talking to Millennium Break like...the word is not staff... like recruit's or um… crew, just being like, hearing about Valence, hearing what Valance had been doing—
Austin: Right. The Toughs presumably.
Jack: —hearing about what they were like.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah, the Toughs. I think trying to give space to the— the core members to, like, let them respond.
Austin: Phrygian?
Keith: Uh, I— you know, I'm racking my brain trying to remember what it was about, but we had in the last episode established that… that Phrygian and Valance had spoken about something.
Austin: Well, like, there's a lot there, right? On one hand, you're two aliens, you’re people who are not from the Principality.
Keith: Uh huh.
Austin: You’re both mutual friends of Gur Sevraq, so there was, like, a joining there to some degree.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: And I think that there was just like, Valence was an ally of bringing you on board and had your back during the period of time in the Company of the Spade was, like, throwing a hissy fit about you joining, you know? And like, very much was willing to put their own—
Keith: That's probably what it— what it was that I was thinking. There were something, like, specific—
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Keith: —that we had talked about with regard to Valence.
Austin: So you’re just kind of like thinking about— like meditating on that fact a little bit or?
Keith: Yeah, I… I think um… when this Broun-Thisbe conversation, there's no reason why it would have been in a room alone, right? Like this is like— [overlapped] ‘cause Broun initiated it.
Austin: I think it— I think we kind of established it as being in a room alone.
Keith: Oh, it was? Okay.
Austin: For sake of keeping— yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: So you don't need to have a— you know, but— but the news gets out. You know what I mean? I think news spreads through the— through the facility basically over the course of the day.
Keith: Okay.
Ali: [overlapping Keith] Austin—
Keith: Well, if I'm not seeing a Brouns reaction to the news—
Austin: [overlapped] Oop, go ahead. What’s— Wait, wait, wait. Ali, what were you—?
Ali: Oh, I was just going to say, like, it's the sort of conversation you can overhear, right?
Austin: Sure.
Ali: That's the kind of thing of being like, I'm gonna go into this room and get this thing and then seeing someone freak out and being like, [makes uncomfortable noise].
Austin: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Ali: But, Keith, go on.
Keith: Well, if— I guess that's sort of what it hinges on. Like, if I had seen Broun being the most affected by this news, I would, I think, would probably do... like... the “someone you knew died, and I'm sorry for you” thing.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: I'm sorry about this thing. And… and I think there's a— there's like— like, “well, I'm pretty sure this is what you do” kind of vibe to it. Like, I’m—
Austin: Meaning “this is how you comfort a person. This is what— this is what this species does.”
Keith: Right. This is what I know that they do. They say, “I'm sorry about this.“
Austin: [overlapping] Broun, how do you receive that?
Keith: [continuing] But if I didn't see that, I wouldn't— What’s that?
Austin: Let’s just go with that. I like that.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Broun, how do you— how do you receive that… that response.
Keith: It's not— it's not disingenuous. It's not—
Austin: No, no. Totally.
Keith: It's genuine, but also it's like, I'm pretty sure this is right.
Ali: [laughs] Um... Yeah, Broun is a very... prickly person. [laughs again]
Austin: Mhm.
Ali: And they… it's weird. I mean, in that situation, it's hard not to be like, “Well, thanks,” and then just kind of leave it at that.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: I think that there's like… and I get to play Broun this whole episode, so we’ll see it, but there's like— there's Broun being like, “Oh, it's fine, whatever,” but then also just the like… the resent-ness about this leaking out. And I think that in a situation where someone would be like. “Let's talk about it...” [laughs] There's definitely Broun being like,
Ali (as Broun): Well, you know, it was definitely a good reason why Valence did that. So it's fine, right?
Ali: And you know that they're lying and, like, just not handling it.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: But yeah, yeah. Yeah.
Austin: Alright. Let's talk about entanglements. You did two missions, which means you get two entanglements, which means I rolled for four because you have a move that says you got to pick between options. I presented those options to you off mic. There seemed to be, from a couple of you at least, a general direction. Are people— did people get a chance to look those over and agree? Do they agree generally with Jack and Ali about the ones that we rolled?
Keith: I read that and read that that was sort of the consensus and felt fine with that.
Austin: Alright, anyone else have any thoughts on these, or should I just kind of pitch them as is? And if people hate them, I guess I'll tell you what the other options would have been.
Ali: We maybe do a run-through of just, like, the plot beats.
Austin: Sure.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, so from the first set of two, because you have to take one from each of this set. There was fire team trouble, which is [reading] “one of your fire teams or other cohorts causes trouble due to their flaws. Choose one of the following. You can lose face, make an example out of them or face reprisals from the wrong party.” And in this case, what I think happened here is it comes to light that— Do you remember, Broun, when you ordered A.O. Rooke to come in and save Cas’alear after Cas’alear had been kind of mortally wounded.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Gucci was in A.O.’s earpiece telling him to stay at the docks and continue to secure their escape route. Gucci’s and the rest of the VIPs’ escape route. And he just disregarded her command. He just said, “No, fuck that. I'm not letting Cas’alear die here. I'm listening to Broun, who I trust,” and came out and saved Cas’alear. And so that would be a fire team trouble based on A.O. Rooke having the loyal flaw, or I guess the loyal— not flaw, but the— what is the overeager flaw or whatever it is. Yeah, eager.
The other option for that first set is debriefing. [reading] “One of your squad is questioned by your superiors. One of the pilots or cohort is taken in to be grilled.” We've had this one before a couple of times. And I think that would be about Gucci being furious about what happened in Nooncrown. That is still true. [laughs] Like, no matter what Gucci is pissed about what happened in Nooncrown. Gucci is also kind of pissed about the way things went in Auspice. Gucci is just like in a fucking mood right now. And we'll get into some of the fractiousness in Millennium Break throughout this episode, I think. But I think Ali or Jack, one of you had said, like, we've done the debriefing thing so many times this season that it makes sense to go the other way. I don't know if people have different feelings about that. But... but that would be the first one, would be one of those two.
Then the second set is rivals. [reading] “A squad with status zero—” which is to say a relationship zero— “with you throws their weight around. They threaten you, a friend, a contact or other ally. You forfeit one rep or one personnel per tier of the rival—” which would be three of either— “Or stand up to them and lose one status with them. They dropped down from status zero to status negative one.” And in this case, I think it's the company of the Spade shit talking SBBR. They called for help in Obelle and don't quite buy it that you didn't hear them, [laughs lightly] that the messages got fucked up by Motion infiltration, which is what we know happened. And you blew up a cemetery that they, that some of them have, like, you know, maybe not relatives buried in, but they are like, “Those are heroes of the Principality.” Like, whatever this current Millennium Break shit is, long term, those are people who have defended the Principality who fought the Branched, who stopped, you know, peasant uprisings, who helped people, whatever. And SBBR blew it up, or blew part of it up? Fuck off. So I think that's one option.
And the other one is requisition. [reading] “A cohort squad or upgrade—” Sorry. “A cohort, a squad upgrade, or acquired asset is requisitioned by another squad.” And I think that option, my interpretation of that, is that with Cas’alear wounded, A.O. Rooke gets reassigned to replace cas in the Swordbreakers by Gucci, which definitely would have the tinge of, like, spite in it, if that happened. So that's the second set of options. And the ones that you said that, that you being Ali and Jack suggested, were fire team trouble. A.O. went to save cas, and you're getting trouble for it and rivals, the Company of the Spade is chewing you out and talking shit. But again, if someone wants to go the other way, happy to talk it out and see if people are interested in the other thing. And if you're not, please say that you're good with it. [someone agrees quietly] Yeah, yeah, thank you.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, I'm good. Yeah, that's— that is still— I still like those.
Austin: Okay, so I think then it has been a couple of days since everyone's been back. Again, Cas’alear is stabilized, and I think is being attended to, but is not necessarily like making good progress. I think is probably in a coma, is probably mostly unconscious. You know, on life support based on the wounds that they received. And I think you just get the Strand Semaphore call comes in from Broun... or sorry, not from Broun, from Gucci to, you know, to the team, including Broun. And, you know, I think there's a lot— a lot gets said on that call. Actually, let me frame it like this: I think Jesset City shows up to like— to be like,
Austin (as Jesset City): Hey, a call is gonna come through any second now. I need you to know I've done everything I can to stop— Gucci is on a rampage.
Austin: And the call comes through and, yeah, she chews you out Broun for having called A.O. off of position and does it in a way that's like... there's something else happening here, right? There's something underneath the way that she's talking about A.O. Rooke that is more about her own control of Millennium Break or more about, like, her— it's more about her being dis— her orders being disregarded in favor of your orders when she outranks you. Right?
And so, yeah, you can either lose face, forfeiting rep, which is… it would be your tier plus one. So that would be three is what you would lose. And that would be... I'll be honest, that would be a lot. That would actually de-tier you at this point. People would— you would lose reputation such that like members of the... the Toughs team would desert. You would stop getting as good quality goods from Millennium Break. [laughs lightly] Like, you would be lower on the priority list for requisitions and items and stuff. You’d get lower tier items basically. So that one's pretty, pretty rough.
You could make an example of one of the fire team. You could basically put A.O. Rooke on blast. You could throw A.O. Rooke under the— under the bus, or you could face reprisals from the wronged party, which is Gucci Garantine.
Keith: God. This is uh… It's striking me how big of a change playing a different character is.
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: Cause like with Leap, this would be a big fight.
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: That this would like…. like, we're getting in trouble for winning?
Austin: Mhm. For saving the life of someone important to this— this rebellion?
Keith: Right. Cause you weren't there, and you made a— made a call that we needed to change cause people were going to die or something?
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: Like, but Phrygian doesn't— This isn't a fight for Phrygian.
Austin: Right.
Keith: Like, I don't know yet how much that's because, like, um… Like, “Oh, this doesn't feel like my place…”
Austin: Right.
Keith: But also like… like doesn't arguing— Arguing seems more like a Leap thing, I don't know. [Austin and Ali laugh]
Austin: Phrygian will deal with it.
Keith: It’s, sorry, my impulse is just to be like to be very Leap here, but there's no space for it.
Austin: That makes sense. Ugh, yeah.
Ali: I, I think Broun is willing to have this argument with Gucci. [Austin: Yeah.] I think I haven't said this into a microphone yet. [laughs] But um, the stuff with Broun and Gucci is that, like, I think, you know, Broun has relied on Gucci. I think Broun's feelings towards Gucci has warmed a bit in the process of the Kingdom game. But I think Broun still thinks that, like, at the end of the day, any time that Gucci can choose herself over somebody else, she's going to. Um, and this is a really clear example of that.
Jack: [laughs]
Austin: So I will say that the way that Gucci lays this out, and I guess I would… I should just, I should just step into the role a little bit here and— and have her deliver this, because it's important to understand what her motives are, because it is— I think there’s probably a point, you know, when you're in, you know, when this is happening, when you're having an argument, but really you're having this other secondary argument. And sometimes you hit a pause and someone is, like, finally going to take the mask off a little bit and be like, here's what the fuck I really care about. I think we'll zoom in there because I think what Gucci basically says is like,
Austin (as Gucci): [sighs] Broun. Everything we've worked for is on a knife's edge right now. Everything. We could be gone in a blink. And... That means that we— we can't scare the people that we need to inspire, and I'm happy that Phrygian has joined you, I think that it's a— I think that it's an interesting development, but I...
Ali (as Broun): “Interesting.”
Austin (as Gucci) Yes, “interesting.” But between them and your deployment of a Divine, or parts of one, you could have very easily scared the chancellor away. I understand dramatic means are necessary, and I am happy that you— that Cas’alear is still with us. For now, at least. I hope that we can secure medical attention for them. But— but we always knew there would be costs in this. And we— you can't risk, you can't risk the life of a— of an important political ally for one soldier. If that had been one of my— my own, I would have made the same order. And this thing in Nooncrown, we are trying to win hearts and minds, and your friends are blowing up cemeteries. Important cemeteries, I have family in that cemetery.
Art: Oh this oh, hm. [chuckling]
Ali: I think [laughs] I think it's, like, a picture of Broun with Gucci, like on speakerphone, leaning back in their chair [Austin: Uh huh.] with their, like, legs up on that— their, like, feet on their desks and crossed and just like, you know, hands on their waist, staring at the ceiling, like listening to this and just being like,
Ali (as Broun): Well, yeah, Gucci, I— you know, I guess we had the wrong idea after we destroyed a fucking city um and, you know, I'm sorry that people are scared in midst of a fucking revolution, um, but, uhh, you know, you kind of get what you pay for!
Austin (as Gucci): No, what I'm saying is I'm not getting what I'm paying for, Broun. [Ali laughs] We pay you well.
Art: Oh, my god.
Austin (as Gucci): And I know that you're a mercenary at heart. I know that you're not bought in on any of this. You never have been.
Ali (as Broun): Mm-hm. Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
Austin (as Gucci): And I think it might be time to make some distance. [Ali/Broun laughs] I'll be assigning you to defensive duties primarily from now on, you're being pulled from any sort of active missions on the front, and you are not allowed to determine your own operations anymore. That stunt in Nooncrown was too far. Jesset should have shut it down.
Ali: Sorry, there’s children skateboarding outside, so I’m [laughing] just gonna be a sec before I respond.
Austin (as Gucci): This thing will die in the crib if people are afraid of it, if people believe that what we are is trying to destroy the Principality instead of fixing it.
Ali: No, okay, wait, I think it's [laughing] Sorry. Because I think that Broun would flare up enough by Gucci calling Valence’s death a “stunt.”
Austin: Mhm?
Ali: I don’t know that she gets to say that second part of it --
Austin: Okay.
Ali: Because, uh, that's fucked up. And I’m just gonna think about it a second, about what Broun would say. Cause, yeah, I don't know, it feels like a hang up moment, but I don't want to rely on Mass Effect jokes. [laughing] But it feels like a— Gucci being like “I'm not going to let you at the front anymore because you guys did this thing” um is just, uhhhh… Broun hates it. Broun hates it, Broun hates it.
Art: Ali, I want you to know that Mass Effect didn't invent hanging up.
[laughter]
Ali: You don’t say? Okay, well, that being said, that changes my actions here then. Um, no. But I think it's part of that where it's like I… brrrr... I think what Broun wants to be able to do is be able to be like, “well, you can't make those decisions [mocking gibberish sounds] we’re a a part of this big thing” and like, bearing, like, not being able to make that argument is just like,
Ali (as Broun): Yeah, you know what Gucci, we’ll see.
Ali: And then just hangs up. [laughs]
Austin: Mhm
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, that is my— that is my… If you're refusing... Again, you could still choose to lose face, but that will be the reprisal from the wronged party is basically losing autonomy here or basically being told, like, you don't get to determine your own missions and to work for us, which means no supply rolls if you do missions that Millennium Break doesn't vote for you to do. Which— which is— which is tough when it costs a lot of supply to lick those wounds, you know?
Ali: [laughs] Yeah, I feel like from a mechanical sense, I think that makes the most sense. And, like, there are other people in SBBR and other people on this call. So like, if people wanna [laughs more] come in or, like, say somebody would talk to Gucci later or, like, whatever else to take a different thing, that makes sense.
Art: I plan on talking to Gucci later, but not in a way that helps.
Ali: [laughing] Fair enough.
Sylvia: Great.
Keith: Well, and then to be— to be fair, because it's an entanglement roll, like, we have to take one of these.
Ali: Right.
Keith: We can’t not… There's no fixing it.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Right, correct.
Ali: Um, I think that there's a part of Broun that’s stubborn enough to be like, oh, I could— I could pull those strings elsewhere. I've never had to rely on Gucci.
Austin: Uh huh.
Ali: You know, so. So yeah. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah, all right, so there— there is, that's the first entanglement, how does the second one happen? How do we— how do we learn the Company of the Spade is shit talking you? Is it just like... can it be a bar fight? Can it be that, like, that’s...
Keith: Ooh, That’s bad, that’s—
Austin: And the toughs get into, like, a rumble out at the bar one night?
Art: A rumble?
Austin: Yeah. “We're going to rumble tonight,” you know.
Art: Crazy, cool.
Austin: Thank you.
Keith: I liked— I like a rumble outside the roadhouse, but
Austin: Please, the steakhouse. The roadhouse? No one goes to a roadhouse. We go to a Deep Dish Steakhouse around here, sir. [laughs]
Keith: The Deep Dish [laughing] I forgot about the Deep Dish Steakhouse
Austin: [laughing] Dre in the chat says “when you’re in a s—” uh huh.
Jack: Is it like that there is going to be a fight one way or another in that bar whether or not the Company of the Spade or us are involved? And it just so happens that—that— that the fight is between the gang of toughs and
Austin: And the gang of toughs from— from the Company of the Spade.
Jack: Well, it's toughs v toughs, do you think?
Austin: I think so. The Company of the Spade is filled with toughs.
Keith: And it's also possible that there's a fight there— there's fights there all the time. But this one gets, like, politicized.
Austin: Yeah. And— and there— actually there’s probably already politicized fights there all the time because of the state of Orion. Right? Whether or not you want to stay in the Principality or not, whether or not you want to join this—
Jack: Oh, what if this is a bar you go to if you want to have a fight?
Austin: Ah, I see. Fight bar. Like that movie.
Keith: And someone notices. Like a thing that's always been going on and the wrong person noticed it. And all of a sudden it's a problem.
Janine: The thing that we sort of, like, did not really address when we were talking about the news of— of, you know, Valence getting out is like... Valence was the leader for a bit? Like elected— democratically elected leader who like... granted, that didn't last for a really long time [Austin: No.] and they stepped down and stuff, but like
Austin: But was the first elected leader of this— of this revolution. Yes
Janine: Yeah. Was like a person a lot of people believed in
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Who, you know, stuff happened. But, like, it— I don't think it's entirely fair to treat this like, oh, damn, “one of the people, one of our— one of our—”
Austin: Well, no, I—
Janine: “One of our fighters got, you know, messed up. That sucks.”
Austin: I have two answers to this. The first is you should find out what happened to the leaders of the French Revolution after a little while.
Janine: Well, yeah…
Austin: The second is... like, the first leaders. [chuckles] The second is—
Janine: No, I know.
Austin: that— The second is that you— there is going to be room for that. Right? And I think that room is going to be a funeral or some sort of wake, something that I know that people have cut looses to do. And I think that's the space for the parts of this.
Janine: Sure. I'm just saying, like, if we're talking about people who are itching for a fight, like there's a lot of room here for people to be in a weird emotional place [Austin: Yes.] and not just people who are— who are in sort of the main on-screen cast.
Austin: That makes sense that people are, like, in their feelings.
Keith: Is there a— is there a currently elected leader?
Austin: No. The way that— so the way that this works in the— in the recent, um, the Growing Conflict expansion, there is actually entire rules for the way that a faction, like, operates. If you want to go down the road of, like, running a faction that way, and the way that— the way that Democratic factions work, which include this one, are that basically every faction has, or every squad in a faction, has votes according to what tier they are. Um, and so, I mean, I've actually been looking at this pretty— pretty heavily. [chuckles] What it basically means is that you have a kind of… [clicks tongue] things are increasingly split in terms of who is in control. But it has been coming down to, um, Gucci and the Company of the Spade, having a little bit more pull. Um, If you— if you, I mean, I don't— I'm not going to debut this, mm... [considering] Maybe— maybe now is the time to. Um, if you take a look at the faction’s big SBBR tab and scroll over to the right until you get to the Millennium Break squads, you'll see that there are now words next to each of the squads here.
Um, and I think this is the thing that emerges over the course of the weeks that follow Valence’s death, uh, and the response to whether—all of these debates about whether or not Millennium Break is doing the right thing, whether or not, like, we're falling into a trap by trying to appeal to hearts and minds instead of taking, like, material action to just conquer, like, kind of the imperialist, you know, centers of power. Um, and two factions do emerge. There's the faction or, like, the Party of the Masque, M-A-S-Q-U-E, like a ball. And that is, like, the Brightline, Company of the Spade, conservative, “We have to do things slowly. We have to, like, we can— we can fight, but we need to be winning every— every time we swing a punch, it needs to be justified to the average citizen of— of Partizan.” Right? And then what's quickly becoming, like, the Party of the Wolf, the party of— of people who are remembering Valence, and who remember Valence’s commitment to justice. And that is, you know, the Church of the Resin Heart, probably, the Oxblood clan for sure. But you're not sure. Like, you don't know. There are a lot of unknowns I've listed here, right? Like you don't know where the Red Fennecs land. I'm assuming Leap's Fleet is more on the company of the wolf side or sorry, the— the Party of the Wolf side, the Wolf faction. Uh, Keith, you can tell me if I'm wrong about that, but I can't imagine Leap being like, “Yeah, I love— I love Gucci.” [laughs]
Keith: Yeah, no. [laughs]
Austin: So, yeah, I think that there is a degree of factionalization happening here with Millennium Break. And— and it's not— to be clear, it's not that everyone in any given faction believes this one thing. Right? Like not every— I'm sure there are people in the Oxblood clan who are a little more conservative, but like, as a voting block, this is how it breaks down. And according to the new book, like, we could go down that road and have votes about every little thing; like if you did want to overturn Gucci here, you could have a vote for it. And there is a downtime action specifically [chuckles] for trying to lobby other squads in your faction to vote for what you believe in. Um, y’all don't have a lot of downtime actions right now, but I— you know, it's there for you. If that's a thing you want to— you want to go down. I can— I can paste all those rules right in the chat.
Keith: How do we get rid of this vengeful thing again?
Austin: Vendetta?
Keith: Vendetta.
Austin: You destroy Motion [Keith: Okay.] or you come to peace, you come to terms to reduce it from a negative three to at least a negative two.
Keith: And what were the rules about killing a rival?
Austin: You need to spend at least two clocks to do it, two drive clocks.
Keith: Eugh. I don't have any of those.
Austin: No? Nope. I think Thisbe has—
Keith: I think— I think that's worth doing immediately, though. [laughing]
Austin: One? I don't think you have— you don't have two drive clocks right now.
Sylvia: Yeah, I don't think we do yet. Because we spent a lot at the end of the Kingdom game.
Austin: You did, you did. My fingers steeple even higher now than ever. [laughs] Um… [clicks tongue] So. What's the— what is the— the way that we— what do we want to do here with the Company of the Spade stuff? Do we— do you want to lose three rep, three personnel or one status? Those are your options from that entanglement. Status would be the relationship with them, rep would, again, lower your tier because of how low your tier points are right now, and personnel is stuff that you spend to do downtime actions. I'll note that you also have, just— just to give you this before we commit. You currently have, uh, five material, five personnel and eleven generic supply points.
Keith: That’s a lot.
Art: Oh, we should spend the personnel.
Ali: I'm confused why we have two entanglements?
Austin: Because you did two missions. Two missions.
Ali: [laughs] Oh, my God. That's right. [Austin: Yes.] Ah, games.
Austin: Uh huh.
[laughter]
Jack: How much personnel do we spend, Austin?
Austin: [still laughing] Uh, that would be three personnel, it’s equal to the tier of the— the group that you've pissed off.
Art: What does that represent, like…?
Austin: Um, smoothing things over so that you don't lose status with them. Right? It's like, it's the next week you hold a party [laughs] or whatever, like, you buy pizzas for everyone and you send them, you know, some cigars and do some favors for them, you know?
Keith: Wait.
Art: Ah, good old pizza and cigar party, I love it.
Keith: Who is it that we’re sending cigars to?
Austin: The Company of the Spade.
Jack: The Company of the Spade.
Keith: Okay, okay, okay, okay.
Austin: The alternative is you just drop to negative one with them. You say, “Fuck ‘em, you know what? Fuck ’em.”
Keith: “Look, we got you these cigars, and sorry about the cemetery and…”
Austin: Right.
Jack: What would the long term consequences of saying fuck the Company of the Spade be?
Austin: You drop to negative one with them, which means that if you need them for something, they're gonna jump a little slower. [Jack: Ahhh.] Um, they’re— they might even, I mean, I can tell you, uh, because I have those rules in front of me, because they're— it’s on the same page as vendetta, uh. [reading] Negative one: Interfering. Groups will— uh, groups with a negative one rating [Jack: Oh no.] will look for opportunities to cause the squad trouble or profit from its misfortune as long as it doesn't cost them anything, and they expect the same behavior in turn.
Jack: So this is sort of like Clem and Lucia vibes?
Austin: Yes, yes.
Jack: Um… Hm.
Austin: I'll note you have a negative one with Brightline right now, so it's not like you've nothing in this, and with the Red Fennecs, uh, from— from very early on in the season.
Jack: So what's one more? It’s—
[laughter]
Jack: Um, it's, I don't—I don’t want to lose a tier. So it's, for me it's between status and the personnel. Uh, how much, um, supply does it cost to get— is it one for one, Austin?
Austin: To do what?
Jack: Get an additional downtime action?
Austin: I believe it's one for one.
Jack: Because if it's one for one, that's not too bad. We have fucking tons of that stuff, but—
Austin: Yeah, they can spend one per— yeah
Jack: But you also use it to repair mechs and things.
Austin: [chuckles] Yeah, you will be spending those points.
Jack: We will be spending those points.
Austin: To do stuff. Yeah.
Jack: And no one says “I have too many of those points.”
Austin: No.
Jack: So do we just— do we just... Is it just A.O. Rook getting thrown out of a— thrown out of bar doors [laughs] and getting up as Kalar is thrown out of the bar doors and helping Kalar up [laughs more] and they go back into the bar again? [Sylvia begins laughing] And it's just like the fight continues?
Austin: Sure, I like that.
Jack: [distantly] How do people feel about that? [normal volume resumes] I just— I feel like we want to keep those supply points [Sylvia laughs] because I feel like as we move into downtime actions, we're gonna go “Where were the three supply points?” [Austin: Oh yeah.] “Oh we smoothed it over with the fucking centrists.”
Art: It's three personnel, it's not three supply.
Austin: Yeah, it’s three personnel specifically
Jack: Three personnel. [Austin: Yes.] But we can convert supply into personnel.
Austin: Correct.
Art: But personnel doesn't give you downtime actions.
Austin: It does. Supply points— uh, oh, yes it does.
Jack: It gives you different kinds of downtime actions.
Austin: Yeah, I believe it's different kinds, let me double check.
Jack: Yeah. It's all the soft skills ones is personnel [Austin: Yes.] and all the “my neck is broken” ones is, um…
Austin: [laughing] Is material.
Jack: Is material.
Austin: Right, yeah. Yeah.
Jack: Soft skills, [Austin: Mhm.] Fixing a mech takes soft skills, [chuckles] everyone knows that. Um. Yeah, fuck those guys, what good have they ever done for us?
Austin: Agreement?
Sylvia: Yeah, fuck ‘em.
Austin: All right, fuck those guys.
Sylvia: Official stance of SBBR is “fuck this guy.”
Austin: [overlapping] “Fuck those guys.”
Keith: I'm not— I'm not commenting. I don't know...
Austin: You don’t know the situation...
Keith: I'm ambiva—I’m extremely ambivalent.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: [overlapping] SBBR point—
Keith: Regular ambivalent, not undecided ambivalent. [Austin laughs]
Jack: SBBR pointing indistinctly at something: “Fuck those guys.” [Jack and Sylvia laugh]
Austin: All right, um... So, it's time for downtime actions. Um, y’all sent me lists of what you wanted to do. Um, my real quest—
Jack: And then you told us that we have fewer of them! [laughing]
Austin: I did, because I read, I was like, “Oh right, vendettas. That's no good.” I did the math, I was like, “Oh, shit.” [Jack sighs] Um, do— here's my real question is, do we want to front end this— this cut loose, do we wanna just, like, jump to the cut loose, or do we want people stewing, waiting for the cut loose/Valence's funeral, though people could also do cut looses that are not this funeral. [laughs] Um, uh… First or second? Like what— what do we want? What's the— what's the vibe?
Janine: Do we also get mech repairing free? Something? Isn’t that a thing we do? [overlapped]
Austin: You get— you get from airfield one supply point at the start of downtime activities. So that's another one. So hey, good catch. That's up to twelve and then... Let's see, is there anything else here? Scrapyard gives you plus one D to all upkeep rolls, so if you do upkeep— Oh right, you're right. You're right. That's the— that's the, um… Right now, before we get to downtime actions, you can just for— for free, in terms of action, you can clear exhausted quirk boxes by spending material and rolling those dice. It's been so long since we did a downtime, I almost forgot that. Good fucking catch, Janine. Uh, so where are you at? Yeah, where— where are mechs at these days? Let's see. Uhhhh Millie. Let's go all the way to the left here. Millie, you have three quirks just down. [Sylvia: Yeah.] Uhhhh Broun. You did a breakdown all the way and worsened one of your quirks. Uh, do you want to say which one that was?
Ali: Um, yeah. So I, um— I changed my bulky torso, uh, quirk to bulky and fragile.
Austin: There you go. [Ali: Yep.] Um, Phrygian, obviously we— we need to talk [laughs] about you building a new body. We'll get the new war body [Keith: Yeah.] to be your long term project going forward, [Keith: Mhm.] or one of them. Um, so you know, that one's, uh… That’s fine. SI, you only did one— you only did one quirk—
Keith: [overlapping Austin] Disagree. That’s not fine, it’s bad.
Austin: [laughs hard] You only have one quirk spent and then, yeah, Thisbe, you have two. So yes, you can spend a material and roll— you can spend material and roll, uh, that many dice to restore that many— your highest number of quirks, er, highest roll of quirks. Who wants to do that? [laughs]
Art: I feel like it's too greedy to do it for one.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: I would like to do that because I have three.
Austin: [simultaneously] How many points do you spend?
Janine: [simultaneously] Yeah, I have two, so I wanna...
Sylvia: Um… [clears throat and pauses] So, sorry, I’mmm…. Re— [laughs]
Austin: [simultaneously] You spend, yeah, it’s fine, it’s fine.
Sylvia: [simultaneously] [laughing] I know you literally just explained this, but my brain is awful.
Austin: [overlapping Sylvia] You roll a die per material that you spend, [Sylvia: Per materiel, okay.] and whatever your highest number is, that's how many quirks that you can— you can [Sylvia: Okay, umm…] uncheck. And then you could spend one material per quirk after that to continue healing, or just spend another material to roll again. So, that's always the fun choice.
Sylvia: Wo— would everyone be okay with me using two?
Ali: Sure?
Keith: Yeah, you almost died.
Jack: Yeah, go for it.
[Austin and Sylvia start laughing]
Sylvia: [laughing] Thank you.
Austin: [laughing] Yeah. All right, give me, uh, 2d6. Hey, that’s a five.
Sylvia: Got a five and a one. So I'm all cleared up.
Austin: [overlapping] Five clears up those quirks. Uhhhh… Thisbe.
Janine: Yeah, I'll just use the one.
Keith: I guess the— the there is a slight upside, which is I have nothing to heal, [Austin: that's true] because my body died.
Austin: Your-your war body died. Yeah, it's true. You still have stress, though, right? Yeah, you do have some stress.
Keith: I do have some stress. It might even benefit me to take on some more stress to [crosstalk] before trying to clear that.
Austin: [crosstalk] Before you- Yeah. We'll see. We'll see how that works. Um… God, I’m Looking at everyone’s sheets. Jesus Christ, those missions. Oh, my God, Millie. [Sylvia: Yeah!] I forgot how bad it was. [crosstalk]
Sylvia: It was rough.
Austin: It was rough. All right. So that's upkeep. Um… So, yeah. Downtime. So, yeah. Do you want to do, do you want to do cut loose first, do you want to do, like, repair stuff first.
Art: I've always liked the cut loose at the end, but…
Austin: Yeah. [crosstalk] We can do a mix even, if we wanted to, but
Jack: [crosstalk] No, I think I agree, yeah.
Ali: Um, yeah, I uh, [thinking sounds], I was going to have Broun planning Valence’s funeral as my cut loose.
Austin: Mmm, okay, I like that.
Ali: Um, so—
Austin: And that we could do right away, even, if we wanted to. [crosstalk] Because then that’s, that’s, like, not the funeral.
Ali: [crosstalk] Yeah, we could do it whenever. There’s been a… yeah. Sure. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. I mean, it can be both of those things for the cut loose. But I'm just saying there's been a lot of Broun at the top half of this, um [Austin: Sure, sure.] so I don’t know, whatever, [brightly] but that's my plan for today!
Austin: [laughing] Light work. [Ali snorts] Um… Let’s start doing the, the upkeepy stuff, the, the healing and all that stuff. Millie, we just said that you were beat to shit. [Sylvia: [laughs] Yeah!] I'm guessing you're going to spend some of your, your stuff here on being less beat to shit.
Sylvia: Yeah, I really want to use a recover, because I have… four separate harms, I think?
Austin: Yeah, you do have that. You do. You do have that.
Sylvia: Yeah. [laughing] I have two level ones and two level twos.
Austin: Jesus Christ… Um… All right. Let me… Let me find the alternate healing rules.
Sylvia: Look, things went bad for me on that mission.
Austin: They did, they did.
Keith: They really did.
Austin: Here we go, faster healing rules. These are what we use. Um—
Keith: They didn't go bad, they started bad.
Austin: They did start bad. So—
Sylvia: Just a really bad day for her [laughs] Anyway.
Austin: You do have the infirmary, as a reminder, which means you get plus one die to this. Skylar Stevens is here, Dr. Skylar Stevens has shown up to help your recovery. Um, uh…
The, uh, roll is, whatever you, what is it, whatever you spend on, on… Is it personnel again? One second, let me pull it up…
Sylvia: It’s, uh, personnel for recovery, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, so what do you… is just one to do the roll? [Sylvia: Uh…] God, I have all of my, I have all of the tabs in this book, like there we go [Sylvia: Yeah.] I had to close, you know what I mean? When you have, like, all the bookmarks opened in an entire book and it means jumping around the PDF is impossible. [chuckles] Here it is. Okay, so… yeah. It is… Dadadadada, [reading] if none of the PCs can fill a need, but you do have a contact, um… Oh! You know what it'll be? I'm going to say that it's equal to your tier, which is tier two, uh, so tier two doctor, basically. [Sylvia: Kay.] Uh, so you start with two, then add another one from the infirmary. So three, 3d6. [Sylvia: Okay, that’s awesome.] You could boost that if, um, you had—
Keith: What happened to Dr. Winter?
Austin: That is Dr. Winter. [crosstalk] The Winter Doctor.
Keith: [crosstalk] That is Dr. Winter? Okay.
Austin: The Winter Doctor's real name was Skylar Stevens, but he was the Winter Doctor because of being the doctor of the Winter Palace.
Keith! Right!
Sylvia: I guess just my one question is this, is this cleared like quirks? So am I trying to, like, roll a four here to clear all my stuff, or…?
Austin: You want… Okay, so the way this works is if you take a look at the alternate rules, um, whenever you do this, you're going to clear all level one harm, uh, right away. Uh, but you need to fill the clock in order to repair your, or to heal your level two harms. So if you look at your [Sylvia: Okay.] at your, you see this, like, project clock, this four step clock? And that advances—
Sylvia: Yes! Okay.
Austin: And that advances based on what you roll. So if you roll a, uh, a one to three, you mark that by one segment. Uh, four or five is two segments, six is three segments. Fi—A crit is five segments.
Sylvia: Okay, and I'm getting three off the top?
Austin: And you're getting 3d6 to roll. Yes.
Sylvia: Might—Can I, can I get another one of those? Somehow?
Austin: You could spend another personnel point to get a plus one die or to increase the result level by one. [Sylvia: Ahh.] Or you can spend a personnel point to take an extra action, and take a recovery action again.
Sylvia: Oh, that's tough.
Austin: Mhm. Uh—
Sylvia: I'm going to just go with the 3d6 [Austin: And see where it goes.] and if I need to, I can recover again.
Austin: Yes. All right.
Sylvia: That's a five.
Austin: That's a five. So that means that you mark two segments of your healing clock, both of your level ones go away. But that means you are still concussed and hamstrung.
Sylvia: Yup!
Austin: Uh huh.
Sylvia: That's great!
Austin: Uh… You could, you could spend two personnel to turn that into a crit, um, and then that would drop concussed and hamstrung to level one harms. At which point you could then spend another personnel point to roll again [Sylvia: God!] and instantly heal them.
Sylvia: But how much personnel do we have? I’m looking up the…
Austin: Oh, well I just have to go back real quick and spend the one you just spent for that roll.
Keith: What would have happened if she had taken the increased result before?
Austin: That's what I'm suggesting right now. I'm suggesting [Keith: Oh, okay.] taking the increased result twice is what would lower those to level one harms.
Keith: Okay, and what would the roll have to be if—?
Austin: There is no roll good enough to turn level two, immediately [Keith laughs] get rid of level two harms. [Jack joins Keith in laughing]
Keith: Okay, so you just have to take two, you just have to do that.
Austin: You have to take a second action to get rid of them, [Keith: Yeah.] yeah.
Sylvia: I just want to make sure I'm not using, like, all our personnel points, like, [Austin: I getchu.] right off the bat.
Austin: [crosstalk] If you want to wrap back around. I mean, now is the time to pick the crit thing
Keith: [crosstalk] If, if the way that we… if the way that everyone—this is just my opinion—if the way that everyone has to get down to fully healed with working mechs is to use all of our supply points, we should do it.
Sylvia: Okay, if, if everyone's cool with me using these two points to get the crit, then I'm gonna do it.
Jack: Yeah, I say go for it. But Millie—
Austin: Is that— really, really quick. Is that, is that characterization for Phrygian? Is Phrygian like “Why are you not…? You have stuff! Why aren't you spending the stuff [laughing] to feel better and be healthy??”
Keith: Yeah. [Austin: Okay.] Yeah!
Austin: Uh, sorry, Jack, I didn't mean to step on you there, but I did want to zoom in on that particular bit of characterization.
Jack: Yeah, definitely. Also, I feel that, like, Millie at full strength is a real asset [Austin: Mhm.] and… getting less, having Millie able to use less dice [Austin: Yes.] is not something [Austin: Is bad.] we want.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: [crosstalk] So then, really—
Jack: [crosstalk] That’s really bad news.
Keith: You just have to make sure to not get shot point blank with a shotgun [Sylvia starts laughing hard, Austin joins in] before the fight even starts again.
Jack: [crosstalk] Mhm.
Sylvia: [crosstalk] Maybe ask some questions of the mysterious stranger…
Keith: [crosstalk] With one simple strategy… [laughing]
Sylvia: Maybe ask a single question.
Keith: “Excuse me, mysterious stranger with, with a suspicious name!”
Sylvia: Who I went to high school with!
Austin: [amused] Yeah. Uh huh. Yes. [Keith starts laughing harder] Incredible. Um. Do you… do you just want to spend—
Keith: You've given me three good clues, let me turn my back!
[more laughter as Austin groans sympathetically]
Sylvia: Look, I was dealing with some stuff. [Keith: It’s okay.] It’s fine!
Austin: Do you just want to spend the three personnel then to heal these out then? It sounds like yes. Two to get the crits, and then one more to just get another recover action, which would clear them all together.
Sylvia: Sure, and then that would leave us with how much personnel left?
Austin: One, but then twelve generic supply points.
Sylvia: Okay… [laughing]
Keith: And how much, how much material, though?
Austin: Uh… Two and then twelve generics. You know what I'm going to give you? Thirteen generic supply points. I’m giving you one more, because you did two missions, which I'm going to say means airfield triggers twice.
Keith: Oh, yeah! You're totally right that it does because we had to roll engagement twice.
Austin: Exactly. If you have to roll engagement twice, then I'm going to say your cool shit means that that triggers twice, too. So.
Sylvia: Okay. Then if everyone's okay with it, I'm going to spend this. But if anyone has any problems, tell me now because I feel very guilty about it. [laughs]
Keith: No, no, that's good.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: All right. Heal that up. [Sylvia: Awesome.] All right. Who's next? That was one of your actions, right? Or… I guess it was two, but [Sylvia: Oh, shit.] I guess it was two. [Sylvia: Fuck!] But you can still spend to do an extra… I mean no, no, no, know, you spent that, you spent the personnel for the extra recover action. That's what you did. So that's fine.
Sylvia: Okay, yeah.
Austin: So you still have, you still have another one. [Sylvia: Okay.] Um, do you just want to deal with your, are you also repairing the Stray Dog, is that your other thing here?
Sylvia: [crosstalk] Um, no, I need to do a c—I need, look at my stress level. I need to do a cut loose. I’m two away from—
Austin: [crosstalk] Oh my god, okay. So yeah, if you end up with extra shit, yeah, yeah. Fair.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Jesus Christ. All right. Who else has a, like, a regular, simple, upkeepy downtime action they want, they wanna do? Not a cut loose, but a…
Keith: Um. I, I do, I have… [Austin: Or you can do—] Well, this isn't healing, this isn't healing. [Austin: That’s fine.] This is my project stuff.
Austin: Okay, well, let's talk about that and then we can roll it.
Keith: Okay. Um, I…
Austin: [crosstalk] This is “Manifest a new war body,” I’m guessing?
Keith: [crosstalk] I need to manifest a new war body. I'm glad that I wrote that in last time.
Austin: Yeah. Good phrase.
Keith: For the phrase, and also just to remember that I really needed to do that. Uh…
Austin: So what’s it look like to do this? For people who were on the other side, Phrygian turns their body into a very dramatic mech-sized weapon, uh, and it didn't go great.
Keith: Well, it went really, really great.
Austin: Oh, that's true. [laughs] Until [Keith: “Until,” right.] the end of it. Yeah, there were some real high moments in there.
Keith: Yeah. There was a lot of, there was a, there was a lot of stuff to not be killed by. [Austin: Yeah.] Um, so… And, and it was kind of a strategic decision to have it die.
Austin: Yeah. So what do you think… Which move of yours are you rolling to do this? Because you choose… To do a long time, a long term project, you pick an action that's appropriate and roll that, and I want to know what that looks like, too. Is that study? Is that just, like, being deep in your own head and like…
Keith: [crosstalk] That’s, yeah, I had been picturing this as a meditative, sort of, like…
Austin: [crosstalk] Is that what it is? Okay.
Keith: Because there’s nothing to build.
Austin: [agreeing] No, no.
Keith: I have to be, it, it, like, um… It's like learning a new skill, like...
Austin: But, like, a priori, like. [laughs] Or are you moving your body in new ways to try out different shapes and stuff? Is it like—
Keith: I think that's part of it. Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Are you doing different types of stretches and stuff? But when I say stretches, I mean that, like, your body uncoils in a different new way and you have a, you know, a massive you, your torso gets really big or whatever. People walk into the hangar [Keith: This is gonna be—] and you’re doing yoga—yeah.
Keith: This is going to be such a cut, but. Uh, do you remember when we were at Gen Con and… Uh, I think it was some… we were, we were, like, waiting in line that first day, and some people that Art knew showed up.
Austin: It was me, it was people that I knew. Art, Art also knows one of them.
Keith: It was people you knew that showed up. What's that?
Austin: Art also knows one of those people, though. Yes.
Keith: Okay. One of them was talking to me about some mime shit, and about being a mime. [everyone else laughing in background]
Austin: [laughing] I do remember this conversation. Yes.
Keith: And the thing that, the thing that was very important about this, this mime, this old mime, was that he was kind of like a muscle manipulator or something and was just like able to move muscles in a very bizarre way. And that was his act.
Austin: Yes. That was his act. Yeah.
Keith: And so I imagine this is a lot like that. It's it's thinking really hard about like, about forms and shapes, and then also trying to figure out how to get your body to like do, like, oh, oh, look, I can tell you're moving your tricep in a way that the tricep doesn't seem like it would be able to move. Or like if you --
Austin: Right. But also, it's like the mood of the room you're in, you're doing this to, right?
Keith: Right. Right. Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's like the --
Austin: It feels like a Sunday in here now! What happened?
Keith: The atmosphere. Right, exactly. For someone, for someone who didn't have this conversation with this guy, like, imagine like just trying to move your pinky independent --
Austin: Which, just to be clear, is everyone on --
Keith: Is everyone but me --
Austin: Is everyone but us two! Yes.
[loud laughter from Ali]
Keith: Yeah. But if you can't, if you can't conceptualize, like, what do you mean moving your muscles weird? Like, like imagine trying to move your pinky independently of your third finger, and that's hard. And like imagine that but with your whole body.
Austin: Right. Right.
Keith: And then also with the, with like, you're the essence of the room. The atmosphere of a room.
Austin: Yeah. Love it. Give me a...
Keith: Yeah.
Art: I'm still not over "this old mime" as a phrase, I've just been sitting in that this whole time, I hope you haven't said anything important since.
Keith: I don't know, I don't remember the mime's name. Look, I don't remember the mime's name, but all I can say is that the idea about this mime left an impression on me.
Jack: This old mime.
Austin: Yeah. Clearly, you have like--
Keith: Undeniable impression.
Austin: Undeniable, yeah, impression. Congrats to this mime. Living in Keith'ss head rent free.
Keith: Yeah. [gremlin voice] I admit it. I can't keep this mime out of my head!
Austin: [laughs] All right. So it's it's it's 2d6 is, so your study is 2d6. You could spend personnel to add plus 1D or to increase the result by one level, as always, like that same thing. I think this is, did we just say it was an eight step clock last time?
Keith: We did not.
Austin: Okay, I think it's a six step clock. I think eight is too severe
Keith: I agree.
Austin: Because I don't know how we would ever fill that in a way -- I don't know that you need it this next mission, but you know what I'm saying. So.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah. I am going to use one thing.
Austin: One personnel, to get an increased --
Keith: One personnel.
Austin: Well, to get an increased level or to get the plus 1D.
Keith: Oof, how do the D, what do the D correspond to, let me do the math on this.
Austin: It's the same thing as before, a one to three is one segment, a four to five is two segments. Six is three segments. Crit is five segments. Crit is two sixes.
Keith: Okay, so, well,
Austin: You basically just need to do this twice --
Keith: I think it makes it makes sense to roll extra because that, I think, I'm guaranteed another segment. Just from that.
Austin: No, no, no, it's the highest die. It's not, you're not adding die together. So you're not -- you could roll two dice and roll two 2s.
Keith: Right, yes, so, level.
Austin: Right. So probably level.
Keith: Level.
Austin: All right, well, let's roll these dice, roll these 2d6 then and we'll see what you roll, cuz maybe you'll get two sixes and you won't need to make that spend.
Keith: Can I push myself for this?
Austin: I don't think, I think you're only supposed to able to push yourself for, I think you're only supposed to be able to push yourself for action roles, but I'm here for it. It's our table. I think I'm fine with pushing yourself to do the thing you've just described. I feel like that mime definitely pushed himself while learning how to do that. Right?
Keith: Yeah. Yeah, I totally agree.
Austin: Yeah, so go for it.
Keith: I mean, it is manipulation of a physical body.
Austin: Yeah. So yeah. So let's, let's, so.
Keith: Okay, so let me give myself some stress.
Austin: So yeah. Take, take another two stress.
Keith: And I'm going to roll four or -- three dice plus one.
Austin: Yes.
Keith: Okay. I won't, I won't roll it up, I'll just add it.
Austin: No, three dice, just three dice. The plus one will be a level of success based on what you get. So you, just roll the three dice.
Keith: Kay. Six!
Austin: You don't -- see, this is what I'm saying, you don't need to roll, you don't need to spend anything because you get two sixes which means you already got a crit --
Keith: [very excited] Oh, I got two sixes!
Austin: You got two sixes, which means that you fill five of these boxes in. You do a very good job at this.
Keith: Holy shit. [laughs] Well, I've obviously done it before!
Austin: Right. Totally. You still need to do, you do still need to do one more, one more long term project roll to finish this. But you'll do it for sure next time, because you only have one box left to check.
Keith: Okay, and this. But, but,
Austin: Do you -- yeah. Go ahead.
Keith: The two sixes...
Austin: Is what gives you five steps of this clock filled, instead of four. Yes.
Keith: Right. But if I have that, I, if I have that personnel?
Austin: Personnel cannot, it doesn't raise it by dots, it raises it by success levels, and the highest success level is a crit.
Keith: Oh. I couldn't, I can't use another one, got it.
Austin: There is no, there is no higher thing than this crit. Correct.
Keith: Okay, yeah it makes sense.
Austin: But you could just immediately spend one to get the thing you're talking about, because you would just do it again. Do you see what I'm saying? And we could just say, okay, you spent it, then.
Keith: Right.
Austin: You did another session of this and filled this in. And the next time we play, you could have a new war body.
Keith: Ah... [cross] It feels kind of fast.
Austin: [cross] Or we could sit on it, cuz it's interesting. It does feel kind of fast, I'm kind of with you.
Keith: It feels kinda fast. Yeah.
Austin: Well, let's wrap back around and see --
Keith: Do I get anything from that, from that crit, though?
Austin: Yeah. Yes, the clock advanced more. [laughs]
Keith: Okay, all right. Just making sure.
Austin: That's what the crit was for. Yeah yeah yeah. If you had gotten a one to three it would have only gone up by one, if you'd gotten a single six, you would've gotten it. it would have gone up by three. But because it went up, because you got a full or a crit, it went by five.
Keith: Yeah. This is, this also, I assume this means... you know, fictionally, this is going to be a, this is a very natural... form for me.
Austin: Yes. You fell right into it, very, very nicely. All right. And again, who knows, when we wrap back around, maybe we have a lot of points left, maybe you want to help out, or maybe you don't want to, we have an extra move, like, you can go for it. All right. Who else has things that are that are in this mode?
Jack: I would, I would like to go to the doctor's.
Austin: I bet. You're bleeding, bruised and zapped.
Jack: Yeah, it bothers me less, um, than it would generally because I'm Sturdy.
Austin: Right.
Jack: But it does bother me. Um, what I really like about the Giantkiller book is that because my effects are kind of like dropped down by one, it does sort of feel like it's it's more inconvenient to Kalar, like.
Austin: Right.
Jack: The way I'm thinking about it is like, oh, I want boxes available to me. Less that it will, less that I will see massive mechanical consequences as fast. It's more just like, I want the spaces.
Austin: To take those hits by doing really ridiculous things.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: All right, Recover.
Jack: So...
Austin: Again, you'll be doing tier plus one, so 3d6, and then you can send personnel to do it again or to get the boosts, as before. So, so start with 3d6.
Jack: Okay.
Austin: Hey, that's a six!
Jack: Okay, that's a six.
Austin: So that clears these.
Jack: Clears my level one harm.
Austin: Yeah. And then gets that project clock up to... Three out of four. Again, you're in this situation that is weird, because it's, if you can fill that project clock one more time, bleeding will drop to a level one. Again, you could spend a personnel and then spend another personnnel, you could spend one personnel to boost that healing to a crit, which would fill the clock, and then another one to do a second healing action, which would clear it. Do you just want to do that?
Jack: Alternatively -- well, I could just spend one, drop it down to what would generally be less effect, but would have no effect on Kalar other than [cross] meaning that I have one level one box filled.
Austin: [cross] Filling up that box. This is true.
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Austin: Do you wanna just do that?
Jack: I tell you what, I'll tell you what, I'll spend one now, and then once we get around to the end and have a better sense of how much we're spending, I might clear it again.
Austin: All right. That's gonna be the level one harm, what's the level one harm version of bleeding?
Jack: Is it just, like, is it something like scarred? Like a, like a.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Yeah, scarred seems fine.
Austin: Scarred is fine. It's a new scar, y'know, and it takes a little while to, to adjust to it. Still a little tender. All right.
Jack: Yeah. Absolutely.
Austin: So that is...
Jack: We've... you've scraped your knee.
Austin: Yeah. Gross, Janine, I'm not saying scabby!
Jack: I also thought that, Janine, and I didn't say it.
Janine: Gosh, you just, uh — [laughs]
Austin: Um. Broun, are you fixing up your mech?
Ali: Do I need to? I thought all of the, um...
Austin: No, you have damage level one still also.
Ali: Ohhhh, sure sure sure, um, yeah. I mean, I'll... Mmm... Yeah, I don't know, I don't know. I'm an engineer, so I don't know how to divide up my... [cross] my turns on that?
Austin: [cross] How you wanna...
Ali: Right? Like, if I take the free...
Austin: If you, you can do a single action, once you do a single action here, you will clear that level one harm, or that level one damage on the thing.
Ali: Sure sure sure sure. Okay, yeah. Um. Yeah, I may as well. Do I still have the option to do it like pre -- with the airfield thing or whatever that gives us a bonus?
Austin: No, that's only for Quirks that's not for damage. That's the thing. Yeah.
Ali: Oh, sure sure sure. Okay, okay. Okay. Um.
Austin: Or do you want to save your -- would you rather do other stuff with your downtime actions, is really the question.
Ali: I think so. I, I wanted to kind of see where other people ended up before I tended to the [??? 1:31:55]
Austin: All right. I think we're at that point where there are no more low key actions then. I know Thisbe, you have a downtime project or a long-term project that you want to advance.
Janine: Mm-hm.
Austin: I know SI -- I think -- Sovereign Immunity, did you decide what you want to do with your downtime?
Art: Yeah, I, I said it's, um, I have a very boring move, so I'm gonna train and I'm gonna schmooze
Austin: Right. That's right. Right. Also, wait, what did you end up choosing for your scar?
Art: ...Um. Great question. Love to talk about it.
Austin: Uh-huh. Do you want to do this train and schmooze and then wrap back around to whatever your scar is, after you get to think about it?
Art: Well, I, mm, I'm never, I'm never gonna know.
Austin: No -- gonna --
Art: I'm never gonna know what the right answer is.
Austin: Okay.
Art: So I think I'm just going to go with what I'm slightly leaning toward, which is paranoid.
Austin: Okay.
Art: Fractious had like a strong hold.
Austin: Mm. In what way?
Art: But I -- I mean, I think it's just... I mean, I'm worried about overplaying paranoid in a way I'm not worried about overplaying... But it's just, I just have to tell myself it's a scar, it's not an improv scene.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: Right. You don't have to just be a like cartoon of paranoia.
Art: Right, I don't have to be, every action doesn't have to be informed by the scar paranoid.
Austin: Right. Right. Right.
Art: It's a thing that happens sometimes.
Austin: When you want to evoke it or when I suggest it. Yeah, totally.
Art: It's not it's not the entire character from here on out.
Austin: Right. Exactly. All right, well, let's write paranoid in. That makes sense to me. So yeah, let's do your, let's do your -- what's your training? What are you training?
Art: I think it's a resolve train.
Austin: Okay.
Art: Because that's what, like, went badly.
Austin: Yeah. It sure was.
Art: You know. How would things have gone if I had a point of sway, y'know?
Austin: Uh-huh. How are you practicing this?
Art: It's tricky, right, because what I want is sway, but what the word is, is resolve.
Austin: Right, you'll spend it on -- I mean, listen, you gotta advance this a lot before you get the point. So...
Art: There's a lot of, I could fail so many rolls between now and then.
Austin: 100 percent. [laughs] So you could do something more resolve-y and get to the Sway-y stuff later.
Art: Sure, but it's tricky, right, cuz, y'know, what does resolve really look like? And what does, what does training resolve look like?
Austin: Mm-hm. Yeah.
Art: Unless like, unless someone wants to tell me about their definition of resolve that's easier to display on screen.
Austin: I dunno, resolve is like, what? Resolve is like is like having -- especially when you look at the rest of these things here, it's like having a great deal of determination and commitment to whatever it is you're doing, which I think informs both - or all three, command, consort, and sway. It's being confident as a commander, as someone who's giving orders with command. It's being, like, comfortable as you talk to people who are your friends and allies with consort. And it's committing to the bit when you sway, it's like being able to look someone in the eye and lie to them. Is a still part of that resolve, you know. [cross] Interface has always felt a little weird here, but.
Art: [cross] All right, so I guess -- no, I got it. I got it.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: Sovereign Immunity starts going to that bar. The bar full of jerks. Jerk bar?
Austin: Ah, jerk bar. yeah.
Jack: Yeah, jerk bar!
Austin: Yeah.
Art: Jerk bar. Um. Step one: don't call it jerk bar when you're in there. They do not like it. They don't care for it.
Austin: They hate it!
Jack: I mean, therefore, just go for it, really. It's the best name for it.
Austin: Resolve. Yeah.
Art: Yeah. I resolve to say jerk bar. What up, jerk bar!
[Austin and Keith laugh]
Art: That really feels like training prowess, though, if I'm being completely honest.
Austin: [loud laugh] No, I like it. And just...
Art: Like, going in and like, trying to just exist in this hostile space more.
Austin: Yeah. Totally, I'm down. Cool. Also, just as a note, you do have enough Playbook XP from that last mission that if you did want to advance resolve, you could just dump four points from your playbook XP into there and get yourself that point of Sway.
Art: Oh, okay, yeah, I'll do that.
Austin: Okay, good. [slight laugh] Yeah, that sounds right. And then, Sovereign Immunity, you also wanted to schmooze, right?
Art: Yeah, maybe that should be later.
Austin: Okay, that's a, that's a -- yeah, that makes sense to me.
Art: You know, I'm sort of like, I'm using a big, I'm giving shmooze a wide berth.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Art: Cuz it says I improve relations and it doesn't say that I have to do a good job. I get the, I get trust just for showing up.
Austin: This is true. You do.
Art: It doesn't it doesn't matter how much time I spent yelling at Gucci.
Austin: [slight laugh] Yeah.
Art: At the end, she trusts me more.
Austin: Yeah. Um, Thisbe, do you want to do your long term project?
Janine: Sure.
Austin: Um. It has been...
Janine: I got a date with a computer.
Austin: You got a date with a divine! Not just any computer. You got a devate with -- a debate -- a debate, jesus --
Keith: An important computer.
Austin: A date with the Divine, Arbitrage who you made an appointment with months ago, before Millennium Break. I think that it is, um, it is pretty... It's interesting... Hmm. All right, let me zoom out a little bit. On your way to this building, I don't know if I remember talking about this, but it's just like completely blank slate of a building, this giant tower in the middle of the city. You notice that, like, traffic falls off, there are like less people walking around. Or if they are, it's like, it's almost as if -- I'm gonna just say what's happening here is like, the Divine, Arbitrage has manipulated things such that all of the chaos and fighting of the city happens other places. And that ranges from everything from controlling traffic flow to changing when people's appointments are so that they don't have to cross town at certain times of day. This is like a very, this is a, this, this divine sucks. Arbitrage is the worst and very much so is happy to, like, play people like they're pieces on a board game. In ways it's hard to even know that you're being played, sometimes. There's a very, there's like that that very, like, mastermind style control over over a space happening here. And so it's very quiet, I think, when you show up to this place for your appointment, and they lead you to, you know, an elevator which fits you, even though you're very tall. And it brings you up to like a room made of kind of very polished black stone with kind of white, like, light boxes on the ground and ceiling, and the ceiling -- or the walls around you seem to be made out of like a black, like foam mesh material. And they kind of vibrate and pulse as this conversation happens. I think that this is probably... to have this final conversation with -- maybe not. We'll see how the roll goes. But I think that this is probably one of your resolve -- probably interface? I would think? This is working closely with -- like it's not working closely with electronic equipment, but that is the roll that we use to talk about space magic and divines and stuff. So I think that's what it is here, as a long term project roll. If you want to, you can also spend a personnel point to get a bonus die or increase your level of success, et cetera. [cross] And then a base like --
Janine: [cross] Um, how many of those do we have left?
Austin: Kind of a bunch, but also, it's, a lot of them are just the generic, right. You have one personnel point and then thirteen generic supply points.
Janine: Okay, I think I'll maybe dip into the generic points.
Austin: Okay. Um. I would say use the personnel, cuz the generic points are [cross] more valuable because they can be either.
Janine: [cross] Oh, right, sure. Yeah yeah yeah. Yeah, that's, cuz you can just convert them. Yeah, I'll just...
Austin: All right, cool. So then, give me your roll. That's 1d6 by default, are you using this one to advance level or to get a second die?
Janine: Uh, second die.
Austin: All right, give me 2d6. Hey, that's enough, that's a five, which will advance this clock by two segments, which will complete it. And this is the clock,uh... what's it called?
Janine: Find the farmers in bracket pirate records question mark?
Austin: Pirate records. Yeah. Boom. And I think this voice kind of echoes around you in this room and it says.
[as the Divine, Arbitrage]: You have had a very interesting... The last few months of your life have been very interesting to me, Thisbe. I almost hate to give you the information you need, because it means that... you'll leave this planet and everything that's happening here.
Janine [as Thisbe]: Why does it matter if I leave or stay?
Austin [as the Divine, Arbitrage]: You're an interesting piece on the board. I did not see what was happening at Nooncrown coming, for one, [amused] and I see most of what's coming. Millennium Break, I knew, was coming. It had to. And you leaving is probably coming too.
Janine [as Thisbe]: Nothing that you have found interesting is interesting because of me. I am just also there.
Austin [as the Divine, Arbitrage]: No, Nooncrown wouldn't have happened without you.
Janine: I don't think Thisbe likes hearing that.
Austin: Oh, I bet not.
[as the Divine, Arbitrage]: Even if you only change history once, that's... more than most. In any case, I have the data you need. It is a small world that was erased from the maps after... some unpleasantness. Some unpleasantness much like that happening on Partizan now. I'll send it over. There are no conditions. I just hope you remember that I can be of use.
Austin: Divines aren't like people.
Janine: Yeah...
Austin: And this one has been alive for thousands of years. So.
Janine: It's just so weird for it to say "that I can be of use." It's just, I dunno, it's just weird.
Austin: Mm-hm.
Janine: Um.
Austin: [cross] So, yeah, you have the coordinates to this place.
Janine: [cross] Yeah, Thisbe's not gonna hang out and chat.
Austin: Yeah, fair. You have the coordinates to this place, you have the name of it, you know that it was, it was removed from the records because of a rebellion there. Did we ever name the planet, Art?
Art: I certainly didn't.
Austin: No.
Austin: Maybe that there isn't a name anymore, right? I mean, I think Arbitrage would have been able to find that name, probably. So, maybe during, you know, our downtime we'll come up with something. But, you know, it probably just has, it's probably like Anomaly, you know, Theta 27 or whatever right now. And it's not, it's thought of as like, oh, it's a strange gravity well, there's some gravity where there isn't supposed to be gravity cuz there's not a planet there, but there's absolutely a planet there. [laughs] It's just been erased from the records. And, and it is the planet where Dahlia was originally kidnapped. And presumably you spent time there after that, after it had become kind of this world off the map, erased from the maps of Partizan, or of, sorry, the maps of the Principality, as punishment to the people who still lived there. Kind of basically cutting them off from the rest of the galaxy, any family they had anywhere else, any connection to the rest of the culture. Some would say that's freedom! [laughs] But, you know, medical supplies probably come from elsewhere. And so part of the reason why you were such a, you were, it was possible that you would end up being such a gift to the people there was that you were one of the rare, you know -- you were a rare find. You were not something they could order from a catalog from another planet, y'know?
Austin: So, yeah. Congrats on finishing that, you should advance a drive clock by one. Now, all you gotta do is get there and be use of them, and then you'll have gotten there and been use of them, been use to them. All right, any other pre-cut loose things?
Jack: As we go into this cut loose, can we just get a count of the supply slash personnel slash materiel available to us?
Austin: Yes, we have zero personnel, two materiel and thirteen generic supply points, plenty of points.
Jack: Okay! Yeah, that's good!
Austin: Less so... on the, on the side of, uh -- yeah, you rolled well, I'll say. Because I did this off mic. You rolled really well on, uh, getting your points from these, from these things.
Jack: I like this a lot because it's like, stuff is breaking bad left and right, in and around Millennium Break, but we have also established infrastructure, right?
Austin: Totally.
Jack: Like we are not as scrappy as we once were.
Austin: Mm-hm. Totally. All right. So. This cut loose series of things, I think Broun if you're doing planning stuff, that feels like it's first. Right?
Ali: Yeah. I mean, I can do it either way. I know Rapid Evening would sometimes be like, here's a narrative event and we'll all do this, whereas SBBR would be like, I'm going off on my own and cutting loose.
Austin: Damn. Yeah.
Ali: [laughs] So that's been [laughs]
Keith: You missed out. That was like the best shit that we did the whole half of that season.
Austin: Damn.
Ali: But yeah, I don't know, it's... Cuz the thing with cut loose is like you have to think of your pair.
Austin: [cross] Yeah. So who do you hang, who do you cut loose with?
Ali: [cross] And then you have to think of the activity. Um. So I think with Broun being like, this is, I'm doing this work or this is the memorial or whatever, um, I feel like in my head the versions of that that made the most sense was like either Thisbe or Milli or SI?
Austin: Do those people want to weigh in on whether or not they want to be, who wants that scene?
Art: Um, I'm a bad cut loose partner because I can't cut loose.
Austin: But it's okay. It doesn't have to be both ways.
Ali: I'm the one rolling it.
Sylvia: [cross] Yeah, you're not rolling anything.
Art: [cross] But don't you have to do it with someone you have a bond with?
Austin: You do, but you don't need to... but you don't... the other person... One, you should have bond, you should have one bond together at this point. But two, you should...
Art: Well, I didn't write one, so.
Austin: Okay. Well then let's go with Thisbe or or Milli then.
Ali: Sure.
Janine: I have a different cut, so I have a different cut loose in mind that could kind of be with anyone. So if Broun wants a like a moment with someone else and, like, and then also wants, like... What I'm saying is, like, if you want to, like, do that with someone, you will still get more like Thisbe-Broun, that's still on the table.
Ali: Sure.
Janine: Whereas if if, you know, if you pull me in for this, then I can do that with someone else. But like Broun is top of the list for that. So, you know.
Austin: Yeah. Then Milly?
Sylvia: I'm down, but if you --
Austin: Okay!
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm, I'm good with all that.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: So that would be one die, is what you'll end up rolling here, because you have one, you have one belief with Milli. Which is, what?
Ali: Yeah. Um. Do you want me to just go over all of them, because we haven't, we didn't...
Austin: We haven't. We haven't. There are just so many now that going over all of them will take 15 minutes.
Ali: Okay, sure. Sure sure sure. Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
Austin: So. How about for you, you give me Milli's and then you give me Valence's just so that we can have those on record.
Ali: Sure [laughs] cuz I haven't, yeah. I, my bond with Milli is: I can count on Milli. I need to remember to watch her back if she's watching mine. And then my [laughs] Valence bonds are, back when I met Valence it was, uh, Valence has good connections and hopefully if I can impress them they'll lead me to people with deep pockets. And then as my like pre-Kingdom, post-Kingdom -- it was weird. I should have written it sooner, but then we recorded Kingdom? I wrote... Valence is someone who keeps their word.
Austin: Ah, I see.
Ali: Which. Would love to test.
Austin: So. Yeah.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: So what is this scene?
Ali: Um. I, yeah. I don't know. There's like, there's, uh, so I'm coming to this with two minds, which is, uh, we... We haven't really seen Broun as like a social person or someone who like, like really leans into like Apostolosian aesthetics or like cultural things in that way, just cuz it hasn't been what's important on screen, but I think that if you're telling a story about war, especially from Broun's perspective, like, Broun knew an uncle who died when they were young, they had people they went to high school with who died in the war like immediately. Like, that's, you know, that's a thing that happens to people. So I think that there's something in Broun that's like leaning on old habits for mourning? Where it's like, oh, you know, I know that when a family member died, my parents dressed in these robes or like, did this thing, or whatever, you know? And I think the, the second part of that is like Broun realizing that there's other people on the ship who probably want to honor Valence, want to be involved in this in some way, and then also Broun sort of wanting to -- like, I don't know that Broun would be able to like... this is the Thisbe thing of before of being like, I have to look at weird formulas that don't match up of Broun being like, well, what would the Nobel do for this?
Austin: Right.
Ali: And I don't know that that's in an encyclopedia that they have access to.
Austin: It is not.
Ali: [sad laugh] I do think that, like, if if people from Perennial were like, oh, we loved Valence and the thing that we want to do is stand in their office and like play these violins for four hours.
[Austin laughs]
Ali: Broun would be like, sure, that's great. That's great that you would like to do that. You should do that.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: So I think that it's like a lot of like... dealing with the chess of that. Um. But, yeah, I don't know, I think the toughest thing about downtime is like, oh, I have to involve someone else in this. [laughs]
Austin: Yeah. You do. You do need to do that.
Sylvia: [laughs] Yeah.
Austin: Milli, do you have any ideas on how you would help Broun cut loose here? Because it definitely feels like this is that situation of like, you know your friend is as tense as possible. Just like, all the way, you know.
Sylvia: Yeah. Part of me wonders, like, so is Broun doing any of that sorta like, like, cuz you mentioned it, is Broun going back to sort of that traditional, like Apostolosian like morning stuff just because it's what they think they're supposed to do? Or is that just like they're thinking about that right now?
Ali: I think so. I think they're actually doing it. The examples that I was thinking of are all like shitty fashion ones cuz I'm an asshole. [laughs]
[Sylvi laughs]
Ali: I was like, oh, when Apostolosians mourn they probably have like mourning robes that they would wear, or something, or that it's like a thing of like wearing jewelry of all the same metal or something like that.
Sylvia: Okay.
Ali: And, you know, I think that Broun does that deliberately and like in a way that's... In a way that, like, I think especially Millie would be able to tell that like, oh, they're doing this for real. This is like an expression that they're doing and not performing? If that makes sense?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: Um. So, yeah.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Did you have like an intersecting idea?
Sylvia: I just wonder, like I feel like that's like... something Milli would definitely notice and ask about, right? It's like, hey, are you... Like, cuz, like I feel like other people would notice this, but like not enough people know that Broun's kind of disconnected from Apostolis and stuff, aside from people that's worked with them, I'm assuming. And so, like, seeing that is very, like, that's gonna catch Milli's eye and be like, hey, do you like need someone to talk to you about this? Or like, do you need any help with anything? Cuz I'm sure there's some like funerary rite or something that Apostolosians do that you probably need more than one person for.
Austin: Sure, totally.
Sylvia: And it's like, even if the answer's a no, Milli's like, I know how to do this. Do you, do you want, like, help with that.
Austin: Yeah. Even though both of you are disconnected from this part of your, your heritage, in different ways, you know.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Ali: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. For real. Um. Yeah, I don't know. I think that's definitely interesting cuz I don't know if it ends up being like... um... If it's like Broun and Milli talking about that stuff and that's what makes it like relieving cuz it's like, oh, I finally get a chance to talk to someone about this culture that sucks, through this venue?
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Or if there's a way of it being like, oh, there's like a more private sort of ceremony... incense... I don't know! I don't know mourning things, um, and I, yeah. Uh. [laughs] That like they would do together, which is like, you, I don't know. You...
Sylvia: Mm-hm.
Ali: ['I dunno' noise] [laughs] It seems really weird, to, like, the, time is... Um. I've been trying to think of, like what cultures do to... [snorts] honor people this way, right.
Austin: Like a million different things is the answer, right?
Ali: Yeah. A thousand.
Austin: So my thing with Apostolosian, my suspicion is, it would be that there would be kind of two steps to it. One is very public and very service-oriented and like a retelling of particular events of like great service and sacrifice. You know, the military funeral, the like accounting of of the soldier's career. And then the sort of like the cut loose, the like the telling the stories that don't go on the record. Right? The like "And there I was..." like that that part of the eulogizing the person? The time that they dug you out of shit. The time that they told this funny joke. The time that they like, you know, showed up with the right bottle or the wrong bottle of alcohol. And that is actually also a ritual, it's just not codified as a ritual, but it always happens, right? You always go down to the bar -- you go to the second bar. Y'know, you go to the, you go to the event, and then you go to wherever the event, the event has a bar. But then there is like the real, the close kin, you know, the people who really were really, you know, part of that person's life do that secondary thing. So I think those are the things -- and I don't know which you would need more help with, y'know?
Ali: Yeah, I think it's a mix cuz I think for Broun, like, I don't know, I don't know that we're going to roleplay like [cross] a public service for Valence tonight, but...
Austin: [cross] No, we don't need to.
Ali: We could, but we're...
Austin: Well, yeah, if there are conversations that other people want to have there we can. Totally.
Ali: [laughs] And I certainly think that Broun like participates in that in a way that's like public and for Millennium Break? But I think that the, yeah, the scene here is just as much, like, you know, a montage of like... Broun having to talk to a bunch of different leaders from different factions and Milli like, well, I'll talk to them. And then also like Broun being like, Milli, do you remember how to tie this thing, that, like, this, like, you know, burial whatever. A knot of friendship. I don't know.
Sylvia: Yeah, yeah. Give me the knot. Give me them knot of friendship. I got this.
Ali: [laughing] Yeah. It's them, like at this table, like, both holding other sides of this ribbon, um.
Austin: [appreciative] Right! Right, there's just so much to fucking do.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: That's the thing. And it can be just nice to have someone else to do some very basic things around calling people or getting the turkey or whatever. You know what I mean, like — y'all don't do turkey at your wakes, no? That's an Austin's mom's family thing? Okay.
Sylvia: I think... If I could, like, put a bit of like Milli's stuff in this, too, cuz maybe I could like, make this my downtime as well.
Austin: Yeah, totally. Totally.
Sylvia: Milli's had to recover from her, like, leg injury this whole time. So like, I think this is like helping her not focus on the fact that like like she got so banged up in the last mission, like she's on, like, crutches or in like a walking boot but she's able to still, like, call people and like [cross] talk to Broun about this stuff and do something useful.
Austin: [cross] Yeah. Right, you're calling the caterer, you're, yeah, totally.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Totally, 100 percent. [cross] What sort of flowers are we supposed to get --
Sylvia: [cross] Able to keep herself busy.
Austin: Yeah, 100 percent. I love that. Yeah, okay, so yeah. If this goes both ways, then Milli, what is your, um, do you have a belief for Broun?
Sylvia: Yeah. Let me just get that real quick. I've got like too many tabs open.
Austin: I feel you.
Sylvia: Broun's intentions sometimes worry me, but they're useful to have around.
Austin: Love it.
Sylvia: I have a feeling the next one is gonna be nicer.
Austin: Yeah. Well, and you had this moment of bonding. That's what this does.
Sylvia: Exactly!
Austin: So, yeah, each of you go ahead and when you cut loose with someone, you roll a die for every belief you have with them. So in this, both of these cases, it's one. 1d6. Unless you have a move, which I don't think anybody does, to like make cut loose better.
Sylvia: I don't think so.
Austin: But yeah, 1d6.
Sylvia: [laughing] I got a one.
[Ali makes a sad noise]
Austin: Fuck.
Ali: [sadly] I got a two...
[Sylvi and Ali laugh loudly]
Sylvia: Look, it's not a very happy thing we were doing!
Austin: No, play honest. Yeah, exactly.
Ali: Yeah, oh my god.
Austin: Listen, what's the -- yeah. Uh-huh.
Keith: Yeah, very fair.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Convey the world honestly.
Keith: This is like when Clem didn't clear any stress trying to get me to steal... rings.
Austin: Yes. Yes.
Sylvia: [stressed] I have seven stress left.
Keith: Like this actually wasn't good.
Austin: You have seven stress left? Broun, how much do you have left?
Ali: I have six. I have six left!
Austin: Ah! Good.
Sylvia: Oh, great!
[Ali laughs]
Austin: Great.
Sylvia: Fucking god damn it!
Keith: That's progress.
Austin: Uh-huh. All right! Who else wants to cut loose?!
[Sylvia and Ali laughing in the distance]
Keith: Uh... huh.
Austin: Phrygian needs to, Kalar needs to. SI is good, cuz of that.
Keith: I do, I do need to.
Austin: And Thisbe, I know you had something. But. Yeah.
Jack: Uh, yeah, I'll cut loose.
Austin: How do you cut loose and who you cut loose with, Kalar?
Jack: I would like to cut loose with Sovereign Immunity.
Austin: Do you have a belief for Sovereign Immunity?
Jack: I do have a belief for Sovereign Immunity.
Austin: What is it?
Jack: My belief for Sovereign Immunity is, "Sovereign Immunity and I have been a thorn in the side of the Principality for decades. We can rely on one another."
Austin: Hmm.
Art: Is that true?
Austin: You have to test it to find out.
Jack: Find out!
Art: Have we met? Is this...
Austin: [slightly exasperated] You've met, yes! You... yes.
[Sylvia laughs]
Keith: Well, not together.
Art: No, I mean, have we met before? Have we, did we.
Austin: [cross] Yes! Yes, yes.
Keith: [cross] Yes.
Art: But like, but like two years ago?
Jack: No!
Austin: No -- oh, no, I see what you're saying. You're saying -- yeah, I got you.
Art: Okay. Are you, are you, are you. You're not, you're not, uh, gesturing towards an old camaraderie.
Keith: Right.
Jack: I don't think so, no.
Art: All right.
Austin: [cross] Were you in the... Hey.
Keith: [cross] You're saying independently you had both done this sort of thing.
Art: Right. Two thorns on two different roses.
Austin: Right.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: Yes.
Art: [cross] Now together in the bouquet that is Millennium Break.
Keith: [cross] The new two sides of the same coin.
Jack: Unless you had a question that...
Art: I'm already doing -- this rose, this rose analogy is the analogy, Keith, I'm sorry.
Keith: No, no, I'm agreeing that this analogy is better and has replaced the coin analogy.
[pause]
Austin: Right, no, agreed. Um. All right, so what do you, what do you -- oh, the thing I was gonna say is, Kalar, did you walk the Prophet's Path? Did you travel the Prophet's Path with everybody this year? Were you there during all of that?
Jack: Oh, wow! No, I wanted to be, but I needed to be somewhere else. I -- maybe it wasn't safe for me to do it.
Austin: Work. Sure.
Jack: Maybe I needed to work on, y'know...
Austin: Oh! Can I propose something?
Jack: Yeah.
Austin: You were getting Auspice ready. You were like at the temple, climbing the top of the temple to put the streamers up there --
Jack: Yeah, totally!
Austin: And set up the lights and do all of the like...
Jack: Oh, like the arrival, the arriving party?
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: Right. Cuz that was your job -- what is your thing? Your, you hang out on roofs, what is the..?
Jack: Yeah. A steeplejack, like a...
Keith: Steeplejack. Right.
Jack: Usually it's building or repairing roofs. But I guess if you need people up there to hang this stuff. Yeah, I think it's like Kalar wanted to go, but, you know. [cross] The money was good to stay, and.
Austin: [cross] Someone had to this job. The money was good, yeah. You can send some of it off world...
Art: The internet has so poisoned my brain that you were like set up the streamers, I was like we were going to be on Twitch when we got there?
[laughter]
Austin: [laughs] [cross] Yeah! It’s on livestream, yeah.
Jack: [cross] Opening up OBS.
Keith: Get the influencers! Get the influencers!
Austin: Um, all right. So so what do you do to cut loose with Sovereign Immunity?
Jack: I think that we are at the buffet. I think that Kalar just comes up behind...
Austin: Okay, wait, do you mean like at the funeral buffet or like, separately, you've gone to dinner?
Art: [amused] We went to the casino.
Austin: Yeah. [laughs]
[Sylvia laughs]
Jack: [laughs] At the funeral buffet!
Austin: Okay.
Jack: At the, like, I guess at the wake, afterwards. And it's, you know, Kalar --
Austin: I have to know, is this at the Deep Dish Steakhouse or is this at like an...
Jack: Oh!
Sylvia: Oh my god.
Austin: Have you rented out the Steakhouse? This is for Broun and Milli, who planned this thing.
[Ali and Sylvia laugh]
Sylvia: Oh no!
Ali: Oh, I think...
Austin: Or have you found another venue?
Ali: It's tough, I think there's a Steakhouse afterparty.
Austin: There we go. I like this.
Ali: Cuz Valence loved steak. That's what we know about Valence, number one.
Austin: Right. Right.
Ali: They loved steak.
Jack: Is that true?
Ali: Um, they really loved the onions [laughs] that sizzled on the steak plate.
Jack: Ah. Aha.
Austin: Yeah. Great smell.
Dre: Mm-hm. Mm-hm.
Austin: Um. The, uh, the... I do wanna add a little color to this, which is like, all of the, everything everyone does to get to these places has to be hurried and weird? There is -- the city is not under siege, but again, the city is fighting throughout -- there is fighting throughout the city every other day. Right? There are. There are.... There are kind of independent actors and cells of independent actors on both sides fighting each other in the streets, shooting at each other, throwing grenades, planting bombs. Like stuff is, it is scary to be in Oxbridge proper to some degree? And so there are like, it's a little -- have you seen, um, god, what is the name of that move? What is the name of that...
Jack: Cosmopolis.
Austin: Have you seen Cosmop -- hrm, yes, Cosmopolis is a great example of this. But I was going somewhere else. There's a film about a, uh, an actor who is living through the bombing in London, who is like at a theatre and it's just like, it's just one of those, it's just one of those movies that's like, hey, look, people kept going to the theater while the Blitz was happening. You know? People didn't stop life. And so there is that sort of blend. I can't believe I can't think of the name of this fucking movie. The Dresser! The name of the movie was The Dresser.
Jack: That's a good pitch.
Austin: Yeah. Uh-huh. It is explicitly about the writer's experiences as a dresser, a theatrical stagehand who who maintains costume quality to an English Shakespearean actor during World War Two, during a performance of Othello. And so I think that's the vibe in Oxbridge, to some degree, it's like, listen, we're not shutting down the city. This isn't an invasion. It's factions fighting over the future of Orion. And it's also -- yeah, we don't have to get into the factional stuff, but like that's happening in the background. So, like, wherever this is, there is a degree of like, you hear a loud bang in the distance. There is...
Jack: Yeah, I mean, like, maybe this is where it starts, which is just like, there is a rumble and like dust comes down from the ceiling and like a, um, like a bottle, like a bottle of chilled water or something, just tips itself over on the table and Kalar just rights it really quickly, like when only a little bit spills.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: And kind of looks over at the person next to him at the buffet and it's Sovereign Immunity. And I think Kalar just says like,
[as Kalar] You get here okay?
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Oh, yeah, yeah, no problem.
Jack [as Kalar]: It's bad out there. Bad in here!
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: It's bad all over.
Jack [as Kalar]: Yeah... Too many funerals. This is my... I think this is my third, now. Not ever. Like this year.
[Austin laughs]
Jack [as Kalar]: I've been to more than three funerals, you know what I mean.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: I do, yeah.
Jack [as Kalar]: I'm sorry about Valence.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Thank you, thank you. Um. Yeah, it was. It's. It's hard not to feel responsible, and it's... It's hard to, to just project non-responsibility hard enough so that Broun doesn't try to murder me?
Jack [as Kalar]: [amused] Are you worried about that?
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: I mean, not a lot. But a little.
Jack [as Kalar]: Yeah. Yeah, I don't, I don't want to like, I don't want to... Yeah, I don't know Broun very well, and I'm a little afraid of them, and I don't want to poke my nose where it's not needed. They don't seem to be to be doing too good.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: No, we haven't... Yeah.
Jack [as Kalar]: You haven't spoken?
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Not -- I mean, in passing. You know, like when you say, hey, how are you, and you don't expect an answer more than two or three words?
Jack [as Kalar]: Mm. Mm-hm.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: We've both done that a couple of times now.
Jack [as Kalar]: Where are you sitting? There's a spare seat at my table.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Oh, great, I hadn't, I hadn't picked one out.
Jack [as Kalar]: Oh, there are name cards, but I don't think, I don't think it was Broun or Milli who wrote them, so I think we're safe.
[Austin laughs]
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: I'm used to not have to pay attention to that.
Jack: I think Kalar just sort of like shrugs and nods like, oh, okay. And I don't know, I think that, like, Sovereign Immunity is, is how old? Like a old fellow.
Art: Um. Yeah. As, as old as the highest number Austin'll let me say.
Austin: [cross] I dunno.
Jack: [cross] What's that, Austin?
Austin: What... there are a lot of numbers.
[Sylvi cackles]
Jack: It's like a inverse auction.
Keith: I think you said like 70 at some point.
Austin: Yeah. 70s. Yeah.
Art: Yeah, I think it's in the 7 -- I pitched a higher number at some point [cross] but Austin was like, that's too science fiction-y.
Austin: [cross] Oh, right. i was like that's too old, yeah, that's too science fiction-y. Yeah, 70s I think is right.
Art: 70s, yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: And I think like Kalar is 50s?
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: So there's almost this vibe of like, uh, Sovereign Immunity is much older, but it's like two older guys reminiscing, or just hanging out with like, surrounded by younger people.
Art: Yeah, like the next oldest person is probably pretty much like a... I was going to say like a child, but what I mean is someone about my age!
Austin: Right. Well -- here's a -- is Eiden Teak..?
Art: A full on adult middle aged person, basically.
Ali: Um...
Austin: I think like Eiden Teak is here from the Sable Court, like I think --
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: I think there are some other, some other people who are like, probably still, yeah, younger than the two of you, but in the -- there's an old, there's like an old table. There's like a, you know, a table of people who've been in it for a minute.
Jack: Yeah! Like those men in the Dunkin Donuts, Austin.
Austin: Yeah. Less racist than them, though. [snorts]
Jack: Much less racist than them. Sorry.
Keith: Oh, old men in Dunkin Donuts is about as top racist as you can get.
Austin: [laughing] It's not a good one, man!
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: But yes, like them.
Keith: I've been around a lot of old men in a lot of Dunkin Donuts. Let me tell you.
[Laughter]
Austin: All right, give me your --
Art: That chain has bad vibes.
Austin: It does.
Keith: Yeah, it does.
Austin: Yeah, I miss it, though. Give me [laughs] give me a die.
Jack: Yeah. Could I spend personnel here?
Austin: You can do that, I believe... Yes. For an extra, you can spend it to get a plus 1D or to increase the result by one. Or just take an extra action.
Jack: Mm. I'm going to spend it and get a plus 1D.
Austin: Okay.
Jack: And then I will see how I feel.
Austin: Sounds good.
Jack: Once I've done that.
Austin: All right, give me a, your 2d6.
Jack: I'm going to roll a...
Keith: Can I say the worst drink that I've ever had -- when I used to record with Kylie in, at her grandparents house in Lexington for Run Button, I would try and get an iced Americano, cuz it was the only thing I could drink that wouldn't make me jittery, from Dunkin Donuts, every week, and it's just the most miserable tasting thing I've ever had in my life.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: It is... Their coffee is sort of impressively bad.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, and they love it that way.
Austin: They do.
Jack: Yeah. [slight laugh] And so do I.
Austin: All right, 2d6. [laughing] Yeah.
Art: Well, they make coffee like you have to take a bunch of milk and sugar in it.
Austin: Dude. That is a three.
Jack: Yeah, that's not good.
Austin: No. You could spend a point, you could spend a personnel to increase the result by one.
Jack: What, to make it a grand total of four?
Austin: A four!
Jack: Or I, once we--
Austin: Or you could roll again.
Jack: -- go around the circle again, I roll again for an additional downtime action.
Austin: Correct.
Jack: Eh, I'll just take the three for now and then we can work on it as we continue to go. There's no maximum number of downtime actions we can take, right?
Austin: As long as you spend the points!
Jack: Okay. I mean, I feel --
Keith: When you, wait, when you take the three, what does that bring you down to?
Jack: Uh, five.
Keith: Okay, so you're barely -- like you would have to roll a six to really screw things up.
Austin: To overindulge. Yeah.
Jack: Yeah.
Keith: What's the, what is the penalty there again?
Jack: You, um, you overindulge.
Austin: Yeah, there are various things that can happen if you overindulge, yeah.
Art: There's a bunch of things...
Austin: We'll go over them if it happens.
Keith: Okay. Okay.
Austin: Or if someone is in risk and about to roll, I'll go over them. Um. Which if that's the case, then, yknow.
Keith: That's a very dramatic time to go over them.
Austin: Yeah, exactly.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: We do drama here.
[Dre laughs]
Austin: TNT.
Keith: That's our tag line, we're like, we do drama here.
Austin: We do drama. Yeah.
Keith: Friends at the Table.
Austin: Who's next? This thing is going on. I'll note a couple of things, in fact, I'm going to say, Sovereign Immunity, could we get your shmooze now? I feel like this is the shmooze, right? There's a lot of people here. There's a lot of movers and shakers in Millennium Break. Now is a good time to ingratiate yourself. And I kind of wanna unfold a little bit of something here. What what is your, what does your shmooze look like?
Art: All right, I think I should back off my original idea of try to improve relations with Millennium Break by yelling at Gucci Garantine in public.
Austin: Yeah, you shouldn't do that.
Keith: I love that though.
Austin: I don't know that she came.
Art: [amused] Well! [barking laugh] Ooh. Okay!
Austin: Yeah.
Art: [cross] Fine! Yeah.
Ali: [cross] Let's give her a tweet storm.
Austin: I think she sent flowers.
Art: Ugh.
Keith: Wow.
Art: All right!
Keith: New villain.
Janine: [cross] She drove past and honked twice.
Dre: [cross] Somebody else doesn't like this.
Austin: Yeah...
[Laughter]
Art: We have unfinished business.
Austin: She sent, she sent, she sent, I think that she sent flowers and that, you know, putting all the leaders of Millennium Break in one place is a bad idea strategically.
Art: Sure. Great. Yeah. So she's like the designated survivor. She's, uh, she's a post...
Austin: Yeah.
Art: [cross] Post-24 Jack Bauer?
Austin: [cross] Post-24 Jack Bauer? Yeah, uh-huh.
Art: That's that's who she wants to be to us.
Keith: You know, they don't usually, they don't usually let the top person be the designated survivor, I don't think.
Austin: Well, she's not the top person, she's a top person, Keith. She would never say that she's the top person.
Art: But it's, but it's like, I mean --
Sylvia: She wouldn't say that.
Art: The designated survivor is always someone you've never heard of, it's like.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I think there are other people, let me be clear! Agon Ortlights, also not here!
Keith: Yeah.
Art: Well. I hope they have a bad time too.
Austin: This is very quickly becoming -- yeah. This is very quickly becoming a...
Keith: This is a Wolf funeral.
Austin: A Wolf, yeah, the Wolf funeral. Yeah. Anyway, but -- they're Millennium Break, too, right?
Dre: The Trey's gang. [??? 02:13:51]
Austin: [laughs] Right, yes, the Trey's gang, yes.
[Dre laughs]
Art: I think that's it, then, I think this is like, Sovereign Immunity goes around and makes sure that everyone knows how unhappy he is that the non Wolfs didn't show up.
Austin: Yeah.
Art: This is -- we lost the head wolf!
Austin: We lost the wolf. That's why we call ourselves this!
Art: We lost The Wolf.
Austin: Yeah. Jesset City is like.
Art: The wolfiest Wolf.
Austin: Right there with you, I think is like, there's -- yeah, yes, yes. Give me, give me your roll. This is, um...
Art: And they can't even, they can't even show up.
Austin: They can't even show up. This is consort, probably.
Art: Consort, yeah.
Austin: Consort plus one, to the die, you get another die because you have Slippery: when you shmooze, take +1D. It's the same move that gives you multiple Entanglement rolls.
Keith: I love, we tried so hard to not have a civil war during Kingdom and then Kingdom's over and it's like, ah, we're doing civil war, it's fine.
Austin: That's how it works. Yep. Well, it's not a civil war. It's a revolutionary split, y'know? It happens. Uh. Wow, okay. Six.
Art: That's a six! So we get three. We increase trust by three.
Austin: That's not bad!
Keith: I want to correct what I said, we didn't all try that hard to not have a revolutionary split during Kingdom, I, I remember a couple of times trying to have a revolutionary split during Kingdom.
[Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Yes. I appreciate that you would admit that. Live up to it.
[Dre laughs]
Austin: Uh, yeah! So, yeah, I think, I think that it goes well. This is the party to do that in. And again, this is not a-- t this point, it doesn't sound like it's going to civil war, but this is how you get parties, right, inside of a movement. And, and, you know, no one's talking about killing each other yet, but people are mad at the way people have been voting. People are mad about the same -- the idea of Gucci not being here, things like that. I think that it goes -- I think that this goes well for you, given that six.
Art: If someone wants to talk about how Gucci wants -- has to go. I'm the one to talk to. If anyone's [inaudible] thinking that.
Austin: That -- and, well, you put that out there. Right? Yeah, okay. And I think that that means, to some degree, you get -- you specifically, even though this is a factional thing, you do earn that cred a little bit with this part of the, of Millennium Break. The other thing that happens here is, and I... I think that there's some degree to which... You know what, let me hold this, because it'll it'll happen, it'll happen in a moment and I'll be able to set it up them. Let me just sit on this one for a little longer. Who else, who else is gonna do something at this funeral?
Sylvia: Love that.
Austin: Because if the answer is no one, then I can go back to the thing I was gonna do.
Jack: I mean, maybe I just maybe I just go again!
Austin: Maybe you just go again. Maybe just go again.
Jack: Maybe I just try and cut loose again.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Um... Yeah. Oh, wait, with Sovereign Immunity, do you think there was...
Austin: Oh, I was, I was. No, no, no, you -- everyone starts with one with everybody else. I didn't want to start you with zero.
Jack: Oh, I see.
Austin: So this'd, be, this. You already now need a second Sovereign Immunity belief from that cut loose. But if you want to Cut Loose with somebody else, I'm happy with that.
Jack: Sure. Um. I'd like to cut loose with Milli.
Sylvia: Okay!
Austin: What's that look like?
Jack: Um, what's Milli, what are you up to?
Sylvia: Uh, like I said, I think Milli's like kind of still recovering a bit. So she's not super like -- depending on, this is still at the funeral, right?
Austin: Yes.
Jack: Yeah. Or, like, at the after party, or.
Sylvia: Yeah, some -- yeah. I think Milli is just kinda like tired at this point.
[Austin makes a sympathetic noise]
Sylvia: And is just kinda like having a drink, making like polite conversation here and there with people, but mostly just like, oh fuck, I cannot wait to be done planning this thing and be able to get a shitty night's sleep cuz a friend of mine just died. Y'know?
Jack: Mm.
[as Kalar] Can I get you anything?
Sylvi [as Milli]: Ah... Honestly, some water would be great right now.
Jack: Yeah, I was going to suggest, like, water and like space tylenol. Do we have that? Do we have space tylenol?
Austin: Yeah, sure. Yeah.
Jack: Um, and yeah, I think, I think Kalar just, you know, goes and gets some water, makes up a little plate, comes and sits down with Milli, and just like asks how her injury is, um.
Sylvi [as Milli]: Um, uh, it's, y'know, it's better than I expected. The doctor did a pretty good job, but, uh, honestly it's kinda just more embarrassing than anything.
Jack [as Kalar]: Yeah.
Jack: I think Kalar is trying very hard not to say, "and you shot me, and that's doing okay."
[Austin laughs]
Sylvia: Yeah, I... I think it's like. [laughs]
Jack [as Kalar]: I'm also fine.
Sylvia: [laughing] I could have followed that up still. Uh, no, it's fine. It's like, yeah, um.
Sylvia [as Milli]: Sorry about that, I...
Jack [as Kalar]: No, it's okay.
Sylvi [as Milli]: [anxious] Yeah?
Jack [as Kalar]: We get sh, we get shot all the time. It's...
Sylvia [as Milli]: Usually not by people on our side, though.
Jack [as Kalar]: Usually not by people on our side, but, it was a shitshow top to bottom. We, we, I think we came out of it well, despite whatever Gucci would say.
Sylvia [as Milli]: Yeah. Yeah! Fuck her.
Jack [as Kalar]: What is her fucking deal? We won!
Sylvia [as Milli]: Oh, I mean, her deal is that she's like, nobility or whatever, like, like, you know.
Jack [as Kalar]: Like Kesh royalty or something?
Sylvia [as Milli]: Yeah! You know those rich Kesh types, right? I mean -- phew.
Jack [as Kalar]: Fucking assholes, top to bottom.
Sylvia [as Milli]: You got here, you got here after Clem, but. You woulda -- trust me, Gucci's like kind of an upgrade, but that's not saying much.
Jack [as Kalar]: Yeah. You gotta be careful with these people who are like kind of an upgrade, because it's... They reveal pretty quickly -- I bet we thought that she was fine for a while, right?
Sylvia [as Milli]: Well, yeah, but that's because the other person was literally using -- like, had me and like, my best friend -- and, you know, Sovereign Immunity was there too -- in prison? And.
Jack [as Kalar]: Jesus.
Austin: Oh, is --
Sylvia [as Milli]: Working for her, y'know.
Austin: Is Leap here? Or is Leap busy. Like, genuinely, not like Gucci.
Keith: Uh, there's ,I mean, there's a very easy argument that, like... I'm on a boat like five days away. Austin: Right. Yes. You're doing the integration with the new Isle -- you were told to set up this Isle of Logos shit, because you have access to their ports and stuff now, and you had to get... take care of that before you came, and now you're on your way.
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: I'm down with that.
Art: Leap sends even better flowers.
Austin: Sylvi in the chat says...
Sylvia: [laughs] Leap sent some mourning rings, yknow?
[all laugh]
Jack: [cross] Oh, yeah!
Austin: [cross] [inaudible] Everyone gets a ring.
Jack: It's a new tradition.
Austin: It's a new tradition.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Jack: Um.
Keith: Not canon.
Austin: Um, yeah, gimme a, gimme your die.
Jack: Just hanging out.
Austin: Yeah, that sounds good.
Jack: Um, so I'm spending one to...
Austin: To do the action, cuz this is your third action, right?
Jack: To do the action. Yeah, I'm, am I rolling... I'm just still rolling just one die here right?
Austin: You're still rolling only one cuz you only have a one with Milli right now. This will give you a second.
Jack: And then I'm going to spend another...
Austin: Mm. Two.
Jack: And I'm going to roll two die.
Austin: There you go.
Jack: The plural of dice is die.
Austin: Hm! I never know.
Jack: [miserable laugh]
Austin: What'd you fuckin roll? Three. Jesus christ.
Jack: I rolled two threes.
Austin: That's still, that's not bad.
Jack: Yeah, no, I'll take it.
Sylvia: [cross] It's better [02:21:35 ???], it's better than a two.
Jack: [cross] You know, probably...
Austin: [cross] There we go. All right.
Jack: Yeah. Down to two.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: That's fine.
Austin: Ten points left, ten generic supply points left.
Sylvia: [amused] Good...
Keith: [amused] Each move you make takes a whole third away from your...
Jack: I know.
Sylvia: I don't, I don't want to just, like, hop onto people's downtimes as my downtimes --
Austin: No. Listen. Yes.
Sylvia: But could I spend a thing to spend this here so I can like.
Austin: Yeah, I'm down.
Sylvia: One, I wanna have another bond with Kalar, but two, I really need to get rid of this fuckin stress!
Austin: Yes. So are you also spending one, or are you spending too?
Sylvia: I'm just going to spend the one -- hmm.
Austin: So rolling one die.
Sylvia: I'm going to roll one die, and I'm hoping I don't regret it.
Austin: Okay. All right. That's a four.
Sylvia: I got a four. I can live with that, I can live with that.
Austin: You can live with that.
Keith: What does that bring you down to?
Sylvia: That brings me down to three!
Keith: So you're both at three?
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: But I do have --
Austin: Or wait, no, Kalar's at two.
Sylvia: -- an extra stress box compared to everyone else.
Austin: True, true.
Sylvia: Okay.
Sylvia: Is something worth noting, so I'm effectively at a two.
Austin: Yeah.
Jack: Oh, I also have an extra stress box!
Sylvia: Oh, hell yeah!
Austin: Nice.
Keith: Nice. So that's, that's pretty good!
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah. I'm like fine with three stress. If I really like...
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvia: Have a problem with it, we can figure something out... elsewhere.
Austin: Mm-hm. So, are there any other things here, Broun, are you going to save your next cut loose for some other time, post-funeral?
Ali: Yeah, I don't know, I still have anotherrr downtime action, um, and I don't know, I think that I might hold on to it cuz I don't know what I'm doing with it yet.
Austin: Yeah, your only thing so far was cut loose, right?
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: Was that first cut loose.
Ali: Mm-hm.
Austin: Right, okay. All right, well, I think it's around the mention of... of Gucci being a pain in the ass that... You hear a succession of things, first is, the fighting grows louder, not necessarily nearer, but more sustained. The, you know, you have -- I think maybe you see one of the waitstaff here, so a security guard, maybe, kind of pull someone over and whisper, dududududu.
And then, you know, you learn that there has now been a major offensive push against the loyalists, the people who want Orion to stay in the Principality, by those who want it to become its own republic, its own kind of league. Right, this is Stel Orion trying to go back to being kind of a Hanseatic League that is its own, like, collection of smaller sovereign states, that it kind of already operates like that, but it wants to be -- these people want to be distinct from the Principality. This is kind of a big deal. And many of them represent, you know, groups off-world. So, to some degree, you wonder, is this fight happening throughout the entire vast space that Orion controls?
And, um, I think the other thing that happens here is, over the sound of artillery and grenades and gunfights, yknow, you can hear Hollows or Hallows moving through the -- or -- Hollows is right. Moving through the distant streets, yknow, echoing through the kind of canyons of tall buildings, as like, you know, the fire escapes get torn off of the sides of buildings and cars get stepped on. And everyone is just kind of quiet to be like, is this, how long is this going to last? Something cuts through it, or kind of settles on top of it, another sound, and it is the sound of bells.
And I think you immediately hear a number of people, especially soldiers who've served on the front lines, start whispering about the Witch in Glass. The Witch in Glass is someone who has been in the periphery of the last few episodes, y'know, I think in the intro to the -- sorry, the outro to the Nooncrown episode, the intro to the first of the Motion episodes, the Auspice episodes. This thing has been happening since, yknow, the last few -- last month, month and a half, depending on how far we are now from the Kingdom game... Of rumors of this like terrible witch showing up and scouring the battlefield, like a vulture, finding people who are broken and almost dead and like a pied piper, like, dragging them away, pulling them away, leading them away, the hurt and the injured, into some sort of like terrible city that she controls.
Austin: And it's a myth, right? Like everyone's like, that's not real. But also, like, the Stels believe it too, or like the Stel soldiers have heard the same thing, and so there's a degree to which people are like, is that not a myth? And I think there's just this, like, very scary tone, because she doesn't show up to places where the fighting isn't bad, you know? She doesn't show up cuz, like, there's a little bit of a fight at a border skirmish. She shows up where there's going to be lots of death. And so there's this like beat, and then a pall kind of settles on the event, and I think you start to have people go like... We either have to, you know, like, we either have to, like, bunker down, hunker down here, or leave, right. Like.
And people, I think people start saying, like, "ah, I'm gonna... yeah, it sounds bad out there. I better get outta here and go to, you know, our, my safe, my safe, you know, bunker downtown, or, you know, out of the city or whatever." And people are starting to exchange their goodbyes. And then like the bells get louder and louder. And it's almost as if the bell is moving through the sound of the fire, the gunfire and the fighting, and is getting closer and closer to here.
And then the door opens, and you have a party crasher, you have a funeral crasher whose presence emanates the sound of this bell as he enters the room. Dre, do you want to describe your new character for people?
Dre: Yeah, this is the Figure of Bismuth and he is a, uh, humanoid man who is covered in rainbow crystals, and in fact, his head is just one giant rainbow, like, crystalloid.
Austin: Yeah, we found this great image of, if you search for Crystal Zombie.
Dre: Yeah!
Austin: The first -- I mean, real quick, content warning, cuz it's like a, it's a zombie with like a crystal emerging from the top, like from the above its jawline.
Sylvia: Ohhh.
Austin: But it's sick. Um.
Dre: Mm-hm.
Austin: But that, but with bismuth, instead of with like this kind of black crystal. And then also, like you said, all over. All over their body. Right? Or his body. His body.
Dre: Yeah. And, he, he/they pronouns.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: For the Figure. And I think there are parts of his body that are just bigger and bulkier than others. It's not quite like, like a Frankenstein's monster kind of situation, but it's definitely not natural looking either.
Austin: Yeah. And also running along the the crystal formation is, um, some vines, some like, you know, plant life, as if it's like, as if it's clinging on for sustenance, to your very body. You don't, no one can see where that's coming from, because -- I'm guessing, are you -- you're wearing clothing?
Dre: Yes.
Austin: Okay. [amused] What, what type of clothing? Are you dressed the way you were before she found you? Is there this -- Okay.
Dre: No, I don't think so, and I think, I think they're dressed appropriate for a funeral.
Austin: Okay.
Dre: You know, I don't think they're in like a suit and tie or something, but they're definitely not anything -- probably just something simple, like maybe like an overcoat and some trousers and a tunic.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: No shoes.
Austin: No shoes. Shoes -- feet -- flesh feet, crystal feet?
Dre: Crystal feet. That's why no shoes.
Austin: Crystal feet. That's why no shoes! Um. Briefly, we should say, the Figure in Bismuth is an Ace Pilot in PARTIZAN terms. But, but they weren't conceived of as an ace pilot. Dre, do you want to tell me what the real playbook is for the Figure in Bismuth?
Dre: Oh, they are the Imposter from Armor Astir [pronounced asteer].
Austin: They're, yeah, from from -- you just said the thing that --
Dre: Armour Astir? [like astir, but with emphasis on the first syllable]
Austin: Armour Astir [like astir] It like, something that is astir --
Dre: Astir. Wow.
Austin: Which is like, what's a synonym for armor astir? Mobile suit. That's the joke.
Jack: What?
Keith: Got it.
Art: Boo!
Austin: Yeah, but -- [protesting] I didn't name the -- don't --
Art: I've turned on this game!
Austin: No! It's bad that you've turned on -- it would be very bad if you turned on this game because the fact that you are conceiving this character as the Imposter is kind of forward-looking, Dre. I guess this is the point at which I think it's worth saying that the story of PARTIZAN still has some some ways to go. It has ways to go and ways to go. In season two of PARTIZAN, we will be playing Armour Astir, but we're not there yet. We still have, we still have some things to settle here, before we move on, before the world adjusts to this. Before things shift so that we're in a world like the one presented by Armour Astir.
But we wanted to say it now, partially because I think debuting the character and understanding who the Figure in Bismuth is -- and we can dig into that when we do the next downtime recording -- is important to understand that they are the Imposter first. The imposter's description is "through magic, medicine, or sheer force of will, you took control of your body and made it ideal. This is who you were meant to be, and they'll never take it away from you. Starting with that is, I think, important to understand how you conceive that character.
But two, I think it's important at this point to key people into the pacing we're working with. There are lots of big questions left. And I think I've known from very early on that I wanted -- that this had legs in a way that things like the Hieron seasons did, and that I wanted to give us that space. And also that meant that we didn't have to rush so much, or try to fit everything into this one season, because I think that's how you end up with a season that feels like there's new ideas every single second, and it's hard to keep track of everything, and everything is really high concept. Or you're afraid to play with very big stakes, and so you don't give those things the time to breathe.
And so we are, we are going to be coming to the close of PARTIZAN season one at some point in the following weeks or months. But we're not there yet. Where we are is at the wake of Valence and the arrival of the Figure in Bismuth and the news he brings. So. Who do you go to to deliver your message? I guess the question is who the witch would have asked you to go to, right? Who is in this room? Sovereign Immunity... or Broun. Sovereign Immunity.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: Is who you've been told to go talk to.
Dre: Yeah, that makes sense.
Austin: Yeah. Security moves like, in, to be like, "Uh..."
Art: And I think Sovereign Immunity waves them off.
Austin: Yeah.
Dre: When the Figure speaks, it is in that kind of, like, bell noise, I think it is not as cacophonous or overwhelming as it was. But it makes sense into words as they talk.
Austin: What do they say? I know it's hard to find this voice.
Dre: Yeah... [laughs]
Austin: Cuz we've talked about this in abstract, like what the offer is, but we did not, like, script out what he sounds like.
Art: Are we going to have an effect on it?
Dre: Um. Yeah.
Austin: [laughs] Yeah. I don't think we're going to do the effect for every line Dre does as this character forever, I feel like that would be like a bit much.
Dre: Oh, I don't know. I can s--
Keith: I think we should do it.
Dre: I can start learning how to use, uh, how to use effects on this mixer.
Austin: Damn.
Dre: Let's get weird. [laughs] Um.
Janine: No.
Art: Use bell sound talking, the bell sound talking button.
Dre: Right, yeah. Mm-hm! I think he just, he just plainly kinda says:
[as the Figure in Bismuth]: Sovereign Immunity.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: I guess, yeah.
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: Is that... not how I should refer to you?
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: It's hard to say, anymore.
[Austin laughs]
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: It's not important, though. Um, um. Who are you? It's... It's strange to have surprise guests in a wake.
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: I apologize, but I wasn't sure where else to find you, reliably.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Fair enough.
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: I would like to offer condolences on behalf of myself and the Witch in Glass.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: That's very generous, thank you so much.
[pause]
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Can we get you a plate?
[Austin laughs]
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: [exhales, amused] No, thank you. Um. In addition to condolences, I would... like to offer you our services.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Um. I don't know that I'm the person to accept, but I also don't know that anyone needs to accept. Millennium Break is always... [uneasily] looking for more hands...
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: I have heard that... there may be another funeral. For another person very important.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Um, you've heard someone, someone else is gonna...
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: Ca... Cas'alear? Cas'al...
Dre: And they're like, they're saying the name as if they're like trying it out.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Last I heard, Cas'alear was doing just great.
Art: Looks around furtively for...
Austin: Eh...
Art: [cross] Confirmation, or toward just like, let me give someone doing the...
Austin: [cross] Dr. Winter... The Winter Doctor goes like ehhh, does like the eh, yeah, exactly, the hand-wavey, like, eh, back and forth.
[Sylvia laughs]
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: They are not. They could be. I also offer of you... myself and my skills, we offer you a place away from prying eyes, and she offers you an audience.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: Friend, it's, it's hard not to hear some of this as a threat, y'know? I don't know if it's... If it's just the drama of the situation?
Dre [as the Figure in Bismuth]: I... apologize.
Art [as Sovereign Immunity]: No, that's all right, this isn't everyone's cup of tea. Um. Where... is the audience you're offering me?
[crescendoing synths and bells of “REDSKY. CENTERPOINT. OVERWINTER.”]
Austin: And there is a cut, and we see from this small hall where you've all gathered to the city skyline of Oxbridge, and breaching the clouds above it is the resurrected body of the Divine Past, a floating city of glass and gold. And as the camera moves through it, it reveals that it is still, in many ways broken. Pipes unfixed. Glass still shattered. But people moving through it. People in strange uniforms going about their days, some of them with eyes dead from the experiences they've had, others seemingly joyous for the opportunity to live again. Some marked by crystal, some by glass, some by Russian sage. And as the camera moves further and further up, eventually it reveals the throne room of the Witch in Glass.
[grand pause, music resumes more quietly]
Austin: Jack, what's it look like?
Jack: The throne room is a long rectangle, and the throne itself isn't where we expect to see it. Instead of sitting against the short wall at the end of the room, a tall-backed wooden chair has been placed at the very center, as though it's advanced forward towards the door. On the floor around the throne, arranged in individual vases, are cut flowers, and they make a complete circle, like a summoning sign, of red and blue and black poppies.
On the throne sits a figure wearing a white blouse and a black skirt. Silver earrings, a bracelet, a couple of rings. She's fiddling with her nails, but then a great bell tolls somewhere deep in the city. And she looks up at the sound. The Witch in Glass wears a mask like a band over her eyes, and at first it looks to be some kind of intricate fabric. But then we see dark stems, and little green-grey leaves, and hundreds of purple blossoms. Curling over the face of Clementine is a living mask of Russian sage.
The great landing bell tolls again. A pause. And then from towers, and belfries, and spires all over the glass city, the splash of responding bells sounds all around.
[music plays to end and transitions into TANAGER. PERFECT. TOUCHPAPER.]