PALISADE 59: Above the Earth Pt. 3
Transcriber: Iris (sacredwhim)
Austin: PALISADE is a show about empire, revolution, settler colonialism, politics, religion, war, and the many consequences thereof. For a full list of content warnings, please check the episode description.
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[music intro - “Nothing is Stationary” by Jack de Quidt begins]
Austin: Primary objective: Prevent Motion and the Pact from reaching the core. Secondary objective: Defeat Motion, Present and Commitment/Ekpyrosis. Escort Cas’alear Rizah to the wave production and control servers, and defend cas during the declaration of the end of the Perfect Millennium. And destroy the three Portcullis systems; prevent reinforcements from entering the field
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Sylvi: Something’s fun about Cori, like, not having piloted this in a while. And like, doesn’t—like, overestimates how sharp the blades are, and it gets caught in something, and so she has to go get them.
Austin: Yeah, that’s fun. Yeah.
Sylvi: Should I just, like…
Austin: You know, you knock this thing—I’m gonna put it back on the map, actually. You knock this thing, you cut this thing in half and kind of, like, knock it away. And it goes flying away with your sickles in it.
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Janine: Thisbe is just gonna tear into that group like a monster.
Dre: Levi in combat looks very, like, shounen, the character who’s just so fast that like, they’re just fuckin’ bouncing off everything at all times.
Austin: Sure, yes.
Dre: And then Levi’s gravity sword allows him to kind of like, rise and fall in very unnatural ways.
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Ali: They haven’t been in the position to helm a ship like, this intimately, question mark? You know? If they were previously doing commander type stuff and are now captaining again.
Austin: We are one step closer to the first of the Portcullis gates coming on board. We are one step closer to Leap coming face to face with a Nanobeast. We are one step closer to—I guess at this point, all of the various Altars here come online and are back in control of themselves. The Talons all lift off into the sky. And there is something about them that makes them feel a little more—like, they’re flying in formation in a way that makes them feel a little harder to get a beat on. They’re like, a little disorienting. And the Fangs come online around Thisbe, you and Mow. And of—circling around you, but not quite getting ready to jump in at you. Right? And Levi, to your north, something shakes the Starcrossed ship, and you see a cloak, one of the remaining Columnar mechs, come online, come out of hiding. It’s on top of the Starcrossed ship, and it slams its daggers into the armor plating.
[music intro - “Nothing is Stationary” by Jack de Quidt ends]
[00:02:54]
Austin: Any questions before we pick back up? Let’s pick back up probably in zone one or zone two. We’ll come back to you in a second, Leap. Any, “Hey, what am I doing?” type questions? Or “Hey, what's going on?”
Sylvi: Should we like, just, like, run down what we all last did? Just for a refresher, or…
Austin: That would be great. Cori, what’d you do?
Sylvi: I fought the—I took out one of the Talons with my sickles, but lost them in the process. So I’m down…
Austin: Yeah, they’re in the Talon—
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: They’re in Talon number two right now, which I’ll write, “sickled”.
Sylvi: Hell yeah. Yeah, I’ve got it marked on my sheet that I’m missing those.
Austin: Okay, yeah.
Sylvi: And I think that’s it for me. Um… Yeah, and I don’t—do I need to go over my boons? Would that help you too? Or…
Austin: I have them in front of me. We should be good.
Sylvi: Cool.
Austin: Thisbe, what’d you do?
Janine: I fucked up one of the Fang guys.
Austin: You fucked up one of the Fang guys.
Janine: It’s been scary.
Austin: Yeah.
[Janine growls]
Austin: It’s true. It’s true.
Janine: That’s Mow’s leg sounds.
Sylvi: Oh.
Janine: That’s how they go. They go [growls].
Austin: Levi, what’d you do?
Dre: I cut up one of the Cloak units.
Austin: You did. You did cut up one of the Cloak units. And then you noticed—you’re the one who saw that one of them would—that one of them—did I move—okay, there it is. Phew. I found it. That one of them jumped on top of the Starcrossed ship. Your ship with your crew. And is starting to, like, deal some damage, right? The cloaks have these kind of knives that are—they’re effectively, like, poisonous knives, but poisonous to physical material. Right? They have like, an eroding, like, an acidic function. I didn’t say this part explicitly, but all of the Columnar ships—let me make Leap mad for a second. All of the Columnar mechs, rather, are—the thing that makes them Columnar, or the thing that kind of connects the line, is that they all are using upscaled Equiaxed technology. Where they are—they have biological components incorporated. Right?
Keith: Boo.
Austin: So for instance, the Cloaks straight up have, like, acidic claws that have a sort of an acid gland that produces this acid. They have—they use the minds that they can plant, which presumably are being planted onto your ship right now, Levi, are based on the sort of—I was gonna say technology, but the sort of ability that certain ants have that can explode. Certain ants can like, explode themselves to defend the colony. And they’re basically producing more and more of those ants. They basically have those ant colonies growing inside of their bodies so that they can produce—reproduce those, that sort of explosive chemical over and over again. Which is gross, I think. And so that’s what many of them use. Some of them do other stuff that’s just more traditional. Like this Orb, which is a Tier 4, and I should mark that, that that’s a Tier 4. The Orb, like I said before, is one of those traditional wizard frames. It’s kind of Lego sci-fi-y frames. Except it can produce—and maybe Brnine, you know, we should talk about what you did also before I get too deep into my narration stuff. But Brnine, maybe you and the Blue Channel see this happening first. The Orb is just one of those Lego type frames, except it’s completely surrounded by a big orb. It’s fully just a big sphere that’s hovering by itself. And if you removed the outside panels, you would see inside is just like, a mech inside of the orb. But here, it’s just a big orb that’s slowly, like, lifting up and beginning to spin. And as it spins, your sensors on the Blue Channel can see that it is projecting a shield to everything in the zone. All of the zone one mechs suddenly have Ward, allowing them to soak a hit, right? Which is a problem, because that’s a lot of things to suddenly be shielded. Brnine, what did you do last turn?
Ali: I sniped at the—was it at the Orb or the beast?
Austin: It was the—ooh. You know what, they both have 1 of 2.
Ali: The buffoon. What is that? A baboon? [chuckling] What is that?
Austin: A baboon? A buffoon?
Ali: [laughs] A boar. A boar?
Austin: A boar.
Ali: [laughing] Sorry.
Sylvi: It’s a buffoon now.
Austin: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Janine: Shaking my head.
Austin: Boar-boon. Yeah, I think it was the—I think it was the Tusk. I don’t remember why the Orb has been damaged once. Oh, I think it was just that it was—it had—you’d had the drop on it. So it automatically went down from 2 to 1.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: But now it’s back up to 2, because everything’s awake and aware. But the Tusk is not, because you caught it with the sniper shot, and it became vulnerable.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: That was—it became vulnerable, but not Defenseless. That was the—Vulnerable was the Risk it took to continue. Or the Peril it took, it was a Peril specifically.
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I did a big sniper bolt. The famous Blue Channel sniper.
Austin: There we go. Yeah. We’re here. Well, so, yeah. At this point, the Orb has begun flying above the zone one and projecting this shield around everything. At this point, you can see that behind it, just as a reminder, the stuff in zone zero to the west, I guess, is primarily this giant Divine. The Divine Artifice, a Columnar Divine that is trying to rapidly build these Portcullis gates. And get them online as quickly as possible. And in fact, you can see that it has made a decision now that there’s an attack. And a lot of the drones that were building zone one, a lot of the little robots that were building zone one—sorry, zone one, jesus. The western-most Portcullis. The eight-step Portcullis clock, have moved to the northern one. To try to work on that one faster instead of being evenly distributed among all three. So it’s gonna pause the one that’s furthest out from being built, and focus on the one that’s nearest being built. No clocks are ticking at this moment, but obviously, the next time I click that four-step one, it’ll go faster. It’ll go by two instead of going by one, and the western one will only go by—will only go by one. You know? Or it won’t go at all, rather. Sorry. Yes.
Ali: I have a long-term question that I might not know in-character, but… [chuckles]
Austin: Yes, sure.
Ali: In the interest of, like, having one of those Portcullis gates. Like, for us to be able to hack one of these over here, we would have to let those drones do their thing?
Austin: As far as you can tell. Like, unless you feel like you’re able to build—finish the—tick the clock up. The clocks have to finish, right?
Ali: Okay.
Austin: So you could finish that clock, theoretically. Maybe when you’re in a better position. But how you go about finishing that clock… You know, the question I will ask you is how do you finish the work of building a Portcullis gate? Right?
Ali: Okay, sure.
Austin: Which, I would say is being done very rapidly, because there’s a Divine here who’s really good at doing it. Traditionally, this is like a year-long construction project, or a six-month long construction project. You know what I mean?
Ali: Okay, sure.
Austin: But there is a perfectly—now, is there an answer to that? There might be. You know? There might be ways to do that, including using those robots, or using your own Divine shit. Who knows?
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Right? But yes, you have the gist of it.
Ali: Those are presumably hackable, is what I’m…
Austin: Maybe. The robots or the…
Ali: The robots.
Austin: Potentially, yeah, sure. I’m not gonna say no. There’s no hard—they don’t have a—as far as you know, there is no, like, “the Divine thing that this is makes this unhackable.” You know? That’s not the—the thing that it’s good at is building stuff quickly. So. So yeah.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Do you want to kick off this round from the high zone, or do you want to wait and see how things develop down below?
Ali: I think that I’m in a better place to like, react to things happening to people. And I also just want to say I feel like I have a hard time interrupting people to do this. So if somebody’s like, “I have this thing that I want to do, but I’d really love to have advantage,” for instance. I just want to say, I do have 3 Hold to remove one risk from an ally. An ally. “Gain—give an ally advantage on their next move. Describing how you advise or support them. Or have an ally appear somehow in a place they are needed.” So if people want to teleport, if you want advantage, you can just ask me for it.
Sylvi: Hell yeah. Cool.
Austin: Yeah. Very useful. You also give better advantage with Help or Hind—you give both advantage and Confidence when you Help or Hinder people. So also useful, right? There’s a bunch of shit that you can do. And you have more than 3 Hold. You have 6 Hold, because you also have the overall universal 3 Hold
Ali: [laughing] Oh, right.
Austin: So basically, y’all got a lot to play with. So. Alright, so then let’s jump into the middle of the fray here. I think Cori, you led the previous kind of opening.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: You lost your sickles. Let’s zoom in on that. You see the Talon. Again, this kind of bird mech being flung off the side of—or you flung it. You didn’t see it fling.
Sylvi: Yeah, no.
Austin: You flung the damn thing. But your sickles are in it. But at the same time, these Talons, which are now warded by the sort of Orb shield, are kind of, you know, all around you. Almost moving around you like vultures, you know? Waiting to dive down and pick at you. Or presumably, you’re flying too, so they’re flying around you in that way.
Sylvi: Yeah. There's—we’re doing some dog fight stuff.
Austin: Yeah. Uh-huh.
Sylvi: Um, let me see here. I’ve been looking at some of my moves and stuff. I’m also wondering if it’s worth just taking out the Orb if it’s shielding things.
Austin: It could be.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: It’s also a Tier 4 weapon, or a Tier 4 Altar. Which you are. Which is useful, right? Like, you can—you can hit it at that level.
Sylvi: I might be able to fire my Seraphica ray up from here, right?
Austin: Oh yeah, you’re definitely within range to do that.
Sylvi: Cool.
Austin: I would say that it might be—I would note that one of the risks of firing it here is that you could end up opening yourself up to immediate counter-attack, not just from the Orb, but the Talons who are already harassing you. You could try to, like, get to a free place to fire safely by doing a Defy Danger. But obviously, that’s doing two rolls. You know?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: You’re like, you could roll to get to a safe place. Sorry, I said Defy Danger. I meant Weather the Storm. You could Weather the Storm to get to a safe place to try to attack the Orb without that. But I think that it’s a, you know, that’s your choice to make.
Sylvi: There is something I should actually probably do before I do anything. Which is I have a move called Borrowed Power.
Austin: You do.
Sylvi: “When you request help from your patron, roll plus Channel, and give your patron one influence. On a 10 plus, Hold 3. On a 7 to 9, Hold 1, or be in Peril and Hold 3. You may spend your Hold at any point during the sortie one for one to use any boon you don’t currently have, or you may spend 2 Hold to make any move from another playbook.”
Austin: Which is very cool.
Sylvi: And I feel like just having that loaded is kind of the right move.
Austin: So, you want to request some power here?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Alright.
Sylvi: You know, just with the scale of what we’re fighting, I don’t think I’m making…
Austin: What’s that look like? What’s the moment Cori makes that decision? Like, what do we—what’s the—if you think about the visual storytelling of like, the camera shows something and it cuts to Cori and Cori’s like, “Oh, I gotta do this.”
Sylvi: It’s—the version of events in my head that plays out is we get the first attack and the Talon 2, where the sickles, like, basically like, snap out of her hand almost. When they fall away, she gets, like, the reading on her sensors, or like, on like whatever camera she’s looking at that she’s got the other three on her tail. And like, in the background, we can see, like, Thisbe over by the Fangs and stuff. It’s just like the—it like, one of those things where it’s like, “Oh, there’s like, two of us up here, really?”
Austin: Right, right.
Sylvi: And there’s, what, like seven now? Eight, because of the buffoon over here.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Sylvi: So yeah. It just seems like the right time. Like, it just seems like if I’m gonna get through this, I need to be, like, shrouded in Perennial’s power.
Austin: This makes sense. What does calling on that power look like?
Sylvi: I feel like it plays on—remember when Cori first connected with Dev—I almost said Devotion. Oof. When you accidentally say your ex’s name.
[Austin laughs]
Sylvi: When Cori first connected with Perennial, and that sort of like, reaching out to the, like, Russian sage, I think it’s done through the, like, telepathy that she’s able to pull off with Flash. Sort of like, establish that she’s got that spooky connection now. So this is 2d6 plus 2.
Austin: Yeah. Because your Channel is 2.
Sylvi: My Channel is 2, but when I get—when Perennial gets this influence on me, it’s gonna go up to 3.
Austin: Amazing.
Sylvi: So I got a 9.
Austin: And that is a 9, which says: “7 to 9, Hold 1, or be in Peril and Hold 3.”
Sylvi: Maybe… hmm. I have universal Hold as well, correct? [chuckles]
Austin: You do have universal Hold as well. That is correct.
Sylvi: To gain advantage on a roll even after rolling?
Austin: Yeah, you totally could. Do you want to spend—
Sylvi: Finale move? Yeah. We all started with how many? Because I forgot to write this down.
Austin: 3.
Sylvi: 3? Okay.
Austin: Yeah, please write that down.
Sylvi: I’m gonna write that I have 2 now and use one of them.
Austin: Yep. Totally.
Sylvi: Because it’s that or take a Peril, and I don’t really…
Austin: You want the three borrowed power. Yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: I want the three bonus because, I mean, if I have also the universal Hold, then I could use that for this theoretically as well, right?
Austin: That’s true, yeah. Alright, so roll—look at that.
Sylvi: That’s a 6, baby.
Austin: That’s a 6. So that’s 13?
Sylvi: 13, yeah.
Austin: 13. Crushed it. So yeah, on a 10, on a 10 plus, Hold 3. This does give one influence to Perennial, which increases your Channel to plus 3, which is useful. But it does, of course, mean that Perennial now has some influence to play with.
Sylvi: For sure.
Austin: Which can go both ways, right? The patron—the patron—I mean, importantly, the first thing that they can spend influence to do is to help you or hinder you.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Or reroll your boons, right? Or attempt to force you to do something.
Sylvi: A lot of the boons, too, are like, give influence to like—“Shielding Boon: You may give your patron one influence to avoid taking a Risk. You may give your patron one influence to make the subsystems move for free.”
Austin: Yeah. I really love the Witch playbook. It’s one of my favorites.
Sylvi: It’s so cool.
Austin: I love the ambiguity of it.
Sylvi: I am gonna fire on the…
Austin: The Orb.
Sylvi: The Orb, yes.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvi: Which is such a fun sentence to say.
Austin: I’m gonna fire—this is why I named it the Orb. It’s fun to fire on the Orb.
Sylvi: Yeah. So what am I rolling on this, Austin?
Austin: It sounds like you are Exchanging Blows, right?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: It certainly can defend itself at this point. So that is gonna be 2d6 plus—
Sylvi: 2.
Austin: —unless you have a move that says otherwise, Clash.
Sylvi: Yep. And what’s the, uh—
Austin: And your Clash is 2.
Sylvi: My approach is Profane, is that affecting anything here?
Austin: Profane—that’s a great question.
Sylvi: Yes.
Austin: Going against these guys. These are, I believe, Arcane.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: Yes. The—most of the Columnar stuff is Arcane. Which means that you’re nothing. It’s flat. 2d6, no Confidence.
Sylvi: Cool. Yeah, it’s Divine that I need to worry about.
Austin: That is right.
Sylvi: I’m nothing. [chuckles] They don’t even think about me.
Austin: Damn.
Sylvi: Okay. I got a 6. [chuckles] Hold on.
Austin: 3 plus 1 plus 2. Yeah, that's a 6.
Sylvi: I’m looking at my moves.
Austin: You don’t want that.
Sylvi: No, I don’t. Um…
Austin: Well, your patron can spend influence to give you advantage. You could spend one for your—your finale move, right? To gain advantage after a Hold, but you only have two of those left. You could ask someone to help you.
Sylvi: I got one thing that I haven’t done yet this entire campaign.
Austin: Oh yeah?
Sylvi: Well, I got this mech move.
Austin: Oh my god. You do.
Sylvi: Which I don’t know if I want to burn it quite yet.
Austin: Yeah. It’s true.
Sylvi: But it would just make it a success.
Austin: Yeah, you want to read the move out loud?
Sylvi: Yeah. “Angel of Death: Put yourself in Peril to change a failure to a success.” The original name was way grosser. Just to give everyone a sneak preview. No, okay. Um… that—was that Exchange Blows, by the way?
Austin: That was Exchange Blows, correct.
Sylvi: Okay. I do have something that I can do regardless of hitting. I think, uh…
Austin: I’m gonna restate Ali’s offer [Sylvi: Oh, yeah!] that Brnine could give you—
[Ali chuckles]
Austin: —could spend 1 Hold to give you advantage.
Sylvi: Captain, help me!
Austin: Oh, actually, the way that it’s written is actually maybe not true. But let me double-check it. Let me see what the book currently says. Because it seems—the way that this—it says “Give an ally advantage on their next move, describing how you advise or support them.” Normally, we talk about, you know, aid interfere is a thing that you could do—or Help or Hinder is a thing you could do after, but I guess Tactical Genius is only before a roll, not after a roll. But you could still Help or Hinder.
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: You know?
Ali: Yeah.
Sylvi: You feel like helping?
Ali: I—sure. Yes. What do you need?
Austin: What starts to go wrong here? I think it’s a thing we already set up. Cori, you are—
Sylvi: Targeting system, right?
Austin: Yeah, the Talons are going to close in on you. You know?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: As you’re trying to line up this Orb shot. So, Brnine, how do you—
Sylvi: [laughing] You make it sound like I’m bowling.
[Austin and Ali laugh]
Austin: I mean, in a sense. If only you could bowl the Orb into all those Fangs, that would solve a lot of problems.
Sylvi: Oh, I wish.
Austin: Yeah. So what do you do against this to help Cori out, Brnine?
Ali: I, like, I keep thinking of the wrong things when I get prompts like this. Because I was like, yeah, let me—I can like, do some, like, scatter shots at the Talons to try to do whatever. But then I’m like, I’m gonna fail this and shoot Cori. [laughs]
Austin: You don’t have belief in yourself, Brnine. Jeez.
Ali: It’s been a hard year, you know? It’s been very difficult.
Austin: It’s been a—fuck, yeah. I feel you.
Janine: But also, I mean, the way this is is like, if you fail, you fail. Like, if you decide to, like, toss Cori a Gatorade, you could still bean her in the head.
Ali: Right, no, I know.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Janine: It’ll happen either way. [chuckles]
Austin: Yeah, Ali remembers very well that throwing a bottle could end up killing an NPC.
Ali: Yeah, uh-huh.
Sylvi: You’re so right.
Keith: [laughs] Yeah.
Ali: [laughs] I know there was also just earlier in the season where I was like, [laughing] wait, I’m gonna shoot Thisbe if I fail this. I keep, like, pointing guns at you for some reason.
Sylvi: I don’t know.
Keith: Don’t you have, like—oh no, I guess that doesn’t help here.
Sylvi: There’s never been collateral damage in this season.
Ali: Yeah.
[Austin laughs]
Ali: A little fun… yeah.
Austin: Yeah. Alright.
Sylvi: There was one incident where someone tried fighting something and killed somebody else.
Austin: Mhm.
Ali: I guess the thing that I can do that isn’t shooting a sniper in Cori’s direction is launching the Asepsis drones, and doing like a crabby grab hands at the—because I feel like, you know, like a swarm of bees situation might fuck up the…
Janine: Crabby grab hands?
[Ali laughs]
Sylvi: No, I like it.
Ali: The Talons more than, like, a—than just like a shot.
Sylvi: Yeah. It’s almost like, doing like, flack in the air, right? Where it like, slows them down. And like, probably messes with their sensors and stuff.
Austin: Yeah, that's true.
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: Let’s—give me a Help or Hinder. I think that’s gonna be 2d6…
Ali: 2d6 plus my bond with Cori, which is plus 2, right?
Austin: It’s not plus your—or I guess it could be your bond with Cori, right?
Ali: Oh, it’s—
Austin: It’s—Help or Hinder is—because Help or Hinder—sorry, your bond can always be rolled with a roll with somebody instead of the base stat. Right?
Ali: Okay. But this is meaningful time, yes.
Austin: Yes.
Ali: Helped during the sortie, no.
Austin: Right.
Ali: What’s the third one?
Austin: Part of your hooks.
Ali: Oh. The crew? Yeah.
Austin: “The crew put their faith in me,” yeah. We’ve always treated that as—yes. So it’s a 2 either way at that point. And then it will, because you’re Helping or Hindering, it will of course advance your Cori clock to 5 ticks.
Ali: Ah. Okay, 2d6 plus 2. Right?
Austin: 2d5 plus 2. Yeah, one way or the other. Hey!
Sylvi: Let’s go.
Ali: And that's an 8?
Austin: That’s a 10, [Ali: A 10.] and check this—you don’t even need to roll the other die, Cori.
Sylvi: Yeah?
Austin: Because—
Ali: Oh, plus 10 on a Help or Hinder, Confidence and advantage, by the way.
Austin: Yes. And so, Confidence turns that 1 you rolled, Cori, into a 6. Which means that this is 11 instead of—
Keith: Nice.
Sylvi: Holy shit!
Austin: Yes.
Sylvi: That’s my captain.
Austin: So the Asepsis drones come. I’ll note here, just to set some, you know, some future stuff up, you note that they deal with the Asepsis drones pretty quickly, Brnine, because they are Divine, and the drones are Divine, and the Talons are Arcane, and Arcane has, you know, whatever, priority over Divine. And so, they deal with them, but they are distracted for the time. I’m not taking anything away from you, this is a success. You know, you lose some drones sometimes. That’s part of the deal, right? Cori, you are able to go ahead with, at that point, this is now a full success, it goes from a failure to a full success. A hell of a fucking swing.
Sylvi: Teamwork!
Austin: You tell me, do you give the Orb a Risk? Or do you take a Risk and put the Orb in Peril?
Sylvi: Um… oh, this is tough. Because—
Austin: It is a side character, so it needs two—
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: What are they called? What’s the general—what’s the generic term for Risk and Peril? Dangers. It needs two dangers to become Defenseless, so. It is—go ahead, finish what you were saying.
Sylvi: I’m gonna just put the risk on it. But I also—
Austin: Okay.
Dre: I just want to remind you that I also have a move that allows me to take a Risk off of a mech.
Sylvi: Okay. That’s good to know. I have something else that I’m gonna do right now that will make it easier to take the Orb out.
Dre: Okay, okay.
Sylvi: So I think we can save—I don’t want us to, like, use all of our abilities on the first wave, [Dre: Oh, yeah.] and then when the Ekpyrosis comes through, we’re all, like…
Austin: Sylvi’s played a tactical RPG before.
[Ali chuckles]
Sylvi: Yeah. I’m playing Darkest Dungeon a lot right now. Okay?
Austin: Yeah. Uh-huh. Yep.
Dre: And that’s not limited for me, it’s just that, like, that’s my turn. Is I basically, like, roll Cool Off to take damage off of you.
Austin: Right, sure.
Sylvi: I think I’m—I think—I’m gonna remember that, but I don’t have any Risks yet.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: And I’m not gonna take one yet. I do have a move called Bearer of Curses, which I’m gonna read now. “When you Exchange Blows with someone for the first time in a scene, choose one: They cannot use subsystems for the rest of the scene; two, you leave a difficult to remove brand or mark on them according to your patron; or three,” the one that I’m taking, “they suffer misfortune in the future; the next move against them is made with advantage.”
Austin: Ooh.
Dre: That’s so sick. That’s so sick!
Austin: That's so sick. Yeah. I love that.
Sylvi: No, it’s awesome.
Austin: Alright, but it’s a Risk, right?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: So, I decide what the Risk is here.
Sylvi: I believe so.
Austin: I think that it is, um… what’s a better word for this? Because I keep wanting to say vulnerable. It’s like—it’s like, Exposed is what it takes.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: The Orb takes Exposed. It, you know, you fire at it, and it kind of hovers higher up into the air to dodge your incoming fire. What’s the brand? What’s the—or sorry, is that the right one? Is that the one that—oh, it suffers misfortune.
Sylvi: No, it’s just they suffer misfortune in the future. It’s like, they’ve got a curse on them now.
Austin: Nice. Oh, that’s fun. Yeah.
Sylvi: Like, you know what—here’s an image for it, actually. I think if it’s dodging for the most part, it only gets kind of like, nicked, but out of the scratches that the blades of my wing, like, my feathers leave, Russian sage just kind of like starts to bloom out of it.
Austin: I love it.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Perfect. Good. The adversary is here. I mean, quite literally here.
Sylvi: Hail Satan.
[Ali chuckles]
Austin: That’s right. Alright. Just letting you know the Tusk, which is again, this big kind of—it’s not in the shape of a boar, but it’s like a boar-themed person-shaped mech. Is moving closer to you, Levi, and kind of boxing you in. But we can go to Levi, we can go to Thisbe, we can go wherever we want to go here. Who’s up?
Dre: Janine, if you have anything, you can go ahead. Otherwise, if you need time to think, I can also go.
Austin: Oh, Keith, I love this. Sorry, Keith is over in the labyrinth drawing lines—
Keith: Yeah, I solved it. I have the path.
Austin: Oh, I love this. That’s so good.
Sylvi: I’m picturing Leap doing this on, like, a little CRT monitor.
Austin: Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. As the—what was the name of your ship again? Or your tank again? The Precipice is like, firing shots down the hallway and stuff. Oh, it’s good.
Sylvi: There’s never been a more Lupin the Third character in Friends at the Table than Leap to me.
[Ali chuckles]
Austin: So true.
Dre: When they put the guns on the Fortnite cars whenever you’re using the turret, you’re like, using a little iPad to control it in the car. That’s just what I’m—that’s what I’m thinking of.
Austin: Oh, that's very funny. Love it.
Keith: I’m giving myself very high marks on efficiency getting the right blocks uncovered.
Austin: You did a good job. I’m not gonna lie.
[00:28:39]
Austin: Thisbe.
Janine: Um, I—so I had an idea that made sense when the Orb had full health. And now it makes sense when the Orb is gone. So I’m kind of in a weird middle place.
Austin: Sure.
Sylvi: Sorry.
Janine: No, you did—you did good. I’m just like, hmm, what’s the…
Sylvi: Yeah, I could have done [??? 00:28:59]. [chuckles]
Janine: Well, I just wonder, like, does it make sense to do it when the Orb is at half health, or should I just try and take out the Orb? Um…
Austin: Right. Oh, I have to correct something I said earlier. These Talons are not Arcane. So they are not—they don’t have advantage on Divine. My bad.
Sylvi: Oh.
Janine: Okay, that’s what I was—I was wondering about that.
Austin: They are Elemental. They are Elemental. The one we barely use, because Apostolos is primarily Elemental.
Sylvi: [laughing] Oh, so I had advantage on that last roll.
Austin: You fully—no, no, no, you—
Sylvi: Oh no, not the Orb.
Austin: Oh, yeah, not the Orb. Not the Orb.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: The Orb is, in fact, Arcane.
Sylvi: Okay.
Austin: The Orb is Arcane. Any Columnar stuff is gonna be Arcane. Except for the big Divine, which is Divine, obviously. But the cloaks are Arcane, et cetera.
Janine: Well, um… yeah. I guess I’ll just do—it kind of feels wasteful, but I guess I’ll just do the thing I was going to do anyways when the Orb was at full. Which is, I want to dupe the Orb into thinking that despite the shields being up, all of its dudes are exploded and gone.
Austin: Oh, interesting.
Janine: So it’ll be like, [laughing] “Oh, I guess I should just drop the shield now.”
Sylvi: Oh, I’m so excited about Thisbe magic.
Austin: Thisbe magic’s very fun. Yeah, okay. I’m guessing this is Tactical Illusions?
Janine: Yeah. Yeah, it is.
Austin: Alright. “When you distract your foes with magic, roll plus Channel. On a 10 plus, choose two. On a 7 to 9, choose one.” Your Channel, of course, is a 3?
Janine: Yes.
Austin: Alright. 2d6 plus 3. I guess, anyone—Brnine, do you want to give advantage on this before the roll happens? I don’t know how, necessarily, but you tell me.
Ali: Yeah. I… it’s tough. I don’t want to get too, like, godmode-y on this, even though, you know, it’s a tabletop game, you know what I mean?
Austin: [??? 00:30:45]
Sylvi: It’s the finale.
Janine: If not now, then when?
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Ali: [laughs] But I could be, like, a little—like, if it’s—
[ringtone starts playing]
Ali: Sorry, K-pop song. Sorry. Alarm.
Austin: [snickers] Hello to the K-pop song.
[Ali laughs]
Keith: Happens to everyone.
Sylvi: Brnine in the fuckin’ pilot’s chair fumbling with their phone like “Shit, shit, shit.”
Austin: Oh my god.
Ali: Yeah, I was gonna say. [laughing] If it would be reasonable to assume that Thisbe would radio into Brnine and be like, “Targeting the Orb,” or whatever, and open the comms so I can hear the fucking—Better Things by Aespa. [laughs]
Dre: “Sorry, sorry, this is usually Bluetooth linked to my scouter speaker. Sorry, sorry.”
Austin: Oh, buddy. You’ve been off the Blue Channel for a year, so it’s forgotten all the Bluetooth memory? Hunting cleared your Bluetooth connection off the list?
[Ali laughs]
Keith: Wow. That's a betrayal.
Ali: He wouldn’t do that!
Sylvi: It was getting too hard to deal with.
Ali: Maybe—yeah. Maybe he—
Austin: “I needed the slot, Captain. Sorry.”
Sylvi: People keep syncing stuff.
Ali: Yeah, he had to like, system reset it. And like, didn’t know how to tell me about it.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Ali: God. Um, [laughs] so, if Thisbe would contact Brnine, I think Brnine could be, like, “You’re like, hacking it?” I guess like, there’s a way—maybe there’s like, a way to advantage this where it’s like… Would it make sense if like, Thisbe focuses on that, I could like—who’s Thisbe most at risk to right now?
Janine: I’m being like, circled by nerds.
Ali: The Fangs?
Austin: Yeah, you are being circled by the Fangs.
Janine: But they’re scared to make that move.
Austin: Yeah.
Ali: Um… yeah. I could do another—I could do another bee situation. That seems…
Austin: That might sell the lie, so to speak, right?
Janine: Oh, yeah.
Austin: Like, Thisbe is—
Janine: God, what if—yeah, what if it’s, like—what if Thisbe says, like, you know, “I want to—I’m gonna buy us some time, basically, by—I just need to, you know, for a couple minutes, make this thing think that all its people are blasted. Put on a show.” Like, Thisbe would never say “put on a show.” But you know, do something that makes that convincing.
Ali: Mhm. I wonder if instead of doing—instead of doing the same move twice, is there like an Aria thing here of like, firing flares or whatever? So it’s like, yeah, there’s an explosion.
Austin: Sure. Flares. Smoke grenades.
Ali: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Austin: You know, all sorts of—yeah, yeah, yeah, totally.
Ali: Yeah. I think, like, making a light show without actually putting Thisbe and Levi at risk, but like, confusing the, like, visual sensors.
Austin: That's fun.
Janine: You’re really scared of shooting us, huh?
Ali: [laughing] Yeah.
Sylvi: I respect it.
Ali: [laughing] I had a hard year.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Damn.
Ali: Okay, roll 2d6 plus 2. 2d6 plus 2 is my Help or Hinder, right?
Austin: Wait, you don’t need—no, you’re just giving Thisbe advantage with Tactical Genius, so.
Ali: Oh, okay. Perfect, okay, perfect.
Austin: Thisbe, just, you’re gonna roll an extra die here. So 3d6…
Ali: And that’s one of my Hold…
Austin: And then this is—Thisbe, you are Divine?
Janine: Mhm.
Austin: I guess this is not doing damage. This is not an attack. So this does not—yeah.
Janine: No, this is just—this is just mind games.
Austin: Give me your mind games. 6 plus 5 plus 3 is a full success. Absolutely. So yeah, this—
Janine: I get to pick two things.
Austin: You get to pick two things. Read me what your list of things is.
Janine: “On a 10 plus, choose two: One, the illusions last until you stop sustaining them. Otherwise, they last up to a minute. Two, your illusions affect anyone you intend to perceive them rather than a single person. Three, you can create illusions that affect all the senses, rather than just sight.” Now, these are not things I can spend Hold on, right?
Austin: No, it does not say spend Hold. Correct.
Janine: Okay, yeah, okay. Oh, what’s the funniest configuration of these? Um, the first one, I think, has to be “the illusions last until you stop sustaining them.”
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: That’s to buy us more than a minute.
Austin: Mhm. Something very funny is gonna happen here, depending.
Sylvi: Oh boy,
Janine: Yeah, that’s…
Austin: Funny good. Funny on your side funny. Funny positive. Funny good.
Sylvi: Oh, okay. Funny good. Okay.
Austin: I will give you a little hint here. Now, the senses part is, you know, you’re leaving your—by not just being—by not just being sight, you’re certainly leaving yourself open for it to fall apart because they can hear each other or whatever.
Janine: Yes, yeah. Yeah.
Austin: But I will say something else. Your illusions affect anyone you intend to perceive them rather than just a single person. A thing you have not yet learned about these Apostolosian mechs is that they have a theme. Just like the Columnar ones are this frame that gets reused, and they have the Equiaxed stuff, the theme for the Apostolosian ones is that, generally speaking, the Tusk doesn't fit with this, but the Talons and the Fangs are better when they are working in tandem. So, for instance, the Fangs have a thing that says “When attacking a target attacked previously by a different Fang, Fang—the base attack that they have gains Bane.” Then if they attack the same thing after another person attacks it, they have Ruin. The Talons, when they are in formation flying near at least two other allied units, they are Tier 4 for defensive purposes. And so, if they’re not—if they don’t—if they think they’re all the only one left, they will not get those bonuses. The—they will not be flying near other units, because they will not believe they are flying near other units. They will not be following up on one of their allies attacks, they will be attacking alone. So I think that that is like, a really fun way to counter their benefits, so.
Janine: Yeah, that is very good. Yeah. Your illusions affect anyone you intend to perceive them rather than a single person. I had been thinking about that. Not for those mechanical reasons, but fundamentally, for the same thing of like, if everyone thinks they’re alone, it’s gonna be chaos. They’re not gonna be able to hold their shit together.
Austin: Yes. Agreed.
Janine: Yeah. Sounds great.
Austin: So that sounds great. And in fact, I think—
Janine: They all think they exploded. Everyone else exploded except them.
Austin: Except for them, right? And I think immediately, you see a certain response, right? One of the Talons dips to try to retreat. I think the Orb begins to—and maybe the Orb here is the—is the one—I would say that this probably gives the Orb a Risk. Because—it drops the shields to all of them, which is the thing that you want, right?
Janine: Yeah. Because why put out that energy if there’s no one…
Austin: Yeah. So actually, since that’s your true goal, I’m not gonna give it a second Risk. But it is gonna—it’s pulling up and away very slowly, because it’s like, it’s sort of the commander here. And it’s calling out for, like, “Hey, everyone’s dead. I need new orders.” I would say one of the Fangs stays back, because it sees you doing weird shit. But the other two independently begin to rush forward towards the middle. Not towards Levi. Just forward towards the—eventually towards zone three, as if there might be someone there that they can reconnect with or something. To like, check in. and then the other two Talons I think are gonna stay on you, Cori, and try to like, continue to harrass you. And the Tusk is charging at you still, Levi. The Tusk, I think, does not even realize what happened. You know? So yeah. Good move here. Brnine. Or Levi.
[00:38:16]
Dre: I think Levi’s turn is basically gonna be having to go after the Cloak.
Austin: Save that ship, keep it—keep your ability to move some stuff around here. So what’s that look like?
Dre: Yeah. Mhm. You know, I realized last session, I totally forgot that I had said that Levi has—has fucking, like, nitro roller skates or whatever.
Austin: Shadow the Hedgehog type shit.
[Ali laughs]
Dre: Listen. I’m thinking much more like Jet Set Radio, but…
Austin: Sure, sure.
Dre: It could be both. Yeah. Just fuckin’ flinging himself up in the air using his sword.
Austin: Love it. That sounds like an Exchange Blows to me.
Dre: Yeah. Just double-checking that there’s nothing else I need to be remembering.
Austin: Your mobility. So remember that you have that Hold.
Dre: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Very useful.
Dre: Okay. And this is Clash, right?
Austin: This is Clash, which for Levi, is plus 1?
Dre: Plus 1, yep.
Austin: Yeah. Real all around-er.
Dre: Ooh!
Austin: You gotta stop rolling 6s.
Dre: No. No.
Austin: Dre, they just rolled two 6s again. 6, 6, 1 is 13.
Sylvi: It’s good that they roll them now.
Austin: Yeah, okay, I see, I see, I see. Yeah.
[Dre and Ali chuckle]
Austin: Alright, do you want to do a Risk, or a Peril and take your own Risk?
Dre: They’re just one. So I know a Risk won’t kill them, but a Peril wouldn’t either, right?
Austin: A Peril wouldn’t either.
[Dre: Yeah.
Austin: A Risk will be something that they could clear, theoretically. If they get the chance. But a Risk would make them vulnerable. Or make them Defenseless.
Dre: Okay. Yeah, so I will give them a Risk. And then my other option is to just not take any damage.
Austin: That is—right.
Dre: Okay.
Austin: It’s Risk and no damage, or Peril and take a Risk.
Dre: Peril and take Risk. Yeah. Okay, then yeah. I will just avoid taking any Risk.
Austin: Okay. I think what—let’s see. What is the thing that—you swing down at them with this, with your sword. Do you hit—I guess you hit.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: You’re not just scaring them off. You get that sword in there. I think—I think the—I think it’s pinned. I think you’ve pinned it to the—to the side of the ship here. Maybe that’s too limiting for you. I don’t want you feeling stuck. Any thoughts on what a Risk—what Risk it would need to take?
Dre: Um… yeah, I was gonna say… distracted, or like, their attention’s divided? Because I think now that, like, I’m hitting them, the ship is also able to counter-attack instead of just like, dodge.
Austin: Yeah. I think that makes sense.
Dre: So now it’s having to deal with two opponents at the same time, basically.
Austin: Yeah, I’m gonna give it the Risk Overwhelmed.
Dre: Yeah, that’s good.
Austin: It is, you know, this is a pilot who could retreat, and instead is remaining—is keeping, is doing the risky thing of staying engaged despite being overwhelmed, and is now wide open for a shot. Which brings us to Brnine.
[00:41:02]
Austin: Brnine.
Ali: Hello. Hi.
Austin: What are you doing here?
Ali: Hi. What is wide open for a shot?
Austin: The Cloak that—I know you don’t want to shoot anything on your side.
Ali: [chuckling] Uh-huh.
Austin: But there is an enemy mech on top of an allied ship that is Defenseless in this moment.
Ali: Oh.
Austin: The Cloak C, the Cloak 3-C. I went through and renamed everything on the left side here to letters, because I realized we were saying stuff like “the Talon 2,” which maybe suggested to listeners that they’re Tier 2, or even to ourselves, and in fact they are Tier 3.
Sylvi: Oh.
Austin: So I went through and renamed everything with the tier and a letter instead of a number.
Ali: I see, I see, I see.
Dre: Thank you. That’s helpful.
Austin: Yes, yes.
Ali: Just to double check the situation we’re in, there won’t be a second wave until one of those Portcullis opens?
Austin: That is correct.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Yeah. Or until Ekpyrosis arrives in nine more steps or whatever.
Ali: Oh, okay. And we have a good sense of that. Okay.
Austin: Yep. Yep.
Ali: Because I was thinking of doing, like, a Dispel Uncertainties, like, radar situation, but if we know…
Austin: I see. No, you have a strong belief about this, at least.
Ali: Uh-huh. [chuckles] Yeah. I might as well—is there, like, a way of doing—maybe there's—to quell my [chuckling] anxieties about long range combat apparently, if I could get, like, a Help or Hinder from Levi to go in on the Cloak, and maybe that’s like, a triangulating the sniper shot or whatever.
Austin: Yeah. You don’t even need to roll that until after the fact. Remember, because Help and Hinder can come afterwards, right?
Ali: Okay. Okay, cool.
Austin: So. And you know what? I’ve actually been giving it thought, and I think partly for—to support the fiction, and partly for pacing reasons, I’m gonna give some of these remaining folks a Risk here, because they all think that they’re alone. And I do think that that means something to them. I know it’s like, kind of a big AOE, but the—to make that fiction feel real, I think the ones that are sticking around instead of fleeing are taking a Risk, which is—the Risk is fighting alone, but they’re not fighting alone. They just don’t know that they’re not fighting alone. You know? Does that make sense?
Janine: Losers.
[Ali laughs]
Dre: Yeah. Yeah, that’s the scene in like, every sci-fi marine movie, right?
Austin: Exactly.
Dre: Where like, the aliens do whatever, and separate everybody. And they start freaking out. Yeah.
Austin: That’s exactly what it is.
Sylvi: “Stop trying to take everybody solo.”
Austin: Exactly.
Sylvi: “It’s not real. We’re supposed to work together.”
Austin: Because I did say the Tusk didn’t even notice it, so I am not giving the Tusk pilot that one. But these Fangs, everything else that’s left behind. The one Talon who fled does not have it. And I think the Orb—I think the Orb also has it. So before you make your decision actually, Brnine, this does mean that this Orb is also Defenseless. Which maybe is a better target. No offense to the Cloak.
Ali: Oh, because it’s—is it still shielding?
Austin: It is no longer shielding. But it could start shielding if it learned that, you know, if it learned that there were things to shield, yeah. If it learned the truth, you know?
Ali: Right. Sure, sure, sure. And the wording on Thisbe’s thing is, like, requires concentration or… is there like, a term here for that?
Austin: Yeah, it’s—it’s concentration. It’s like if I—
Ali: Okay.
Austin: If someone did damage to Thisbe or whatever, you know, we’d roll a wisdom check and see if—it’s concentration.
Ali: Okay.
Austin: Someone could distract Thisbe and make her drop it, but right now that has not happened.
Ali: Okay. And right now the boar is two of two?
Austin: The boar is one from you shooting it last time, the Tusk has only been hit once.
Ali: Okay, okay, okay.
Austin: But the Tusk does not—the Tusk is so “I’m gonna kill that Levi motherfucker” that it does not realize that he’s alone. The pilot has not made that connection yet.
Ali: Mhm.
Austin: But yeah. So Orb is Defenseless, Cloak C is Defenseless, all of the Fangs are Defenseless. And the two remaining fighting Talons are Defenseless.
Ali: Um… yeah. I mean, Levi, do you feel like you want the assist here? Do you want—
Dre: No, I’m fine.
Ali: I don’t want to kill—yeah, I don’t want to kill steal or whatever the fuck. [laughs] The Call of Duty…
Austin: Damn. Brnine’s…
Dre: If you want to go for it, go for it. I’m just like… I think we’ll be okay. Because I—one of my moves also just with the Hold I have, I can just dodge taking damage. So…
Ali: Oh, sure, sure, sure. Yeah. I mean, I guess I could—there’s like a narrative thing here of like, Brnine could be like, seeing the board go for Levi, who has his back turned or whatever? And there’s a way of like, just like, going in for another sniper shot there. Yeah. I think I’m gonna go for the kill shot on the boar.
Austin: It will not be a kill shot. It’ll only drop it to Defenseless, because it’s at one of two.
Ali: Oh, sure, sure, sure, sure.
Austin: Yeah. It’s only vulnerable right now. It’s a side character, which means you have to put two Dangers on it.
Ali: Okay. Okay. Um, then, I guess…
Austin: But it would interrupt it from getting to Levi, which is a positive thing for sure.
Ali: Right, yeah. It just feels like it’s the only thing on the board that like, isn’t within striking distance for anybody else right now, you know?
Austin: Yeah, totally.
Ali: Whereas, you know, I could assist other people’s rolls later for all those other targets.
Austin: That makes sense.
Ali: So, yeah. I’m gonna do that. My sights are locked on. And that is a 2d6 plus 3, Exchange Blows.
Austin: Because you’re using Crew, which you can continue to do. That sounds right.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: Oh my god.
Ali: [chuckling] That’s a 6.
Austin: That’s a 6. 2 plus 1 plus 3 is 6. The miss you’ve been fearing while aiming near your friends here.
[Ali laughs]
Dre: Mhm.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Ali: Does anyone [??? 00:46:44] [laughs]
Austin: Uh-huh.
Sylvi: I’m trying to think of how.
Austin: You know, you could—once per sortie, you could spend your—you have two Asepsis Hold, right? Which could give you Confidence turning that 1 into a 6.
Ali: Oh, sure. And that’s one of the—this is one of the great uses for it, you know.
Keith: This is one of the great—the famous uses for that.
[Ali laughs]
Austin: Yeah, rolling a 1 on a miss and turning it into a—so you can spend one of those Hold.
Ali: Uh-huh. But then it—
Janine: Brnine just screaming “Asepsis keep me from shooting my friends.”
Ali: [laughs] And that would be 8 plus 3. So that would go to a full success, right?
Austin: Yeah, that is exactly right, yeah. It would go to 11, which—yeah. Absolutely succeeds.
Ali: Okay. Yeah, I would love to have just a full success. [laughs]
Austin: Alright. Spend one of those Asepsis Holds. What’s this—is this… what is this—what is Asepsis doing to help you dial this shot in?
Ali: I wonder if there’s—you know, because we’re talking about this, like, nervousness here, I wonder if there’s like, a thing of like—you know, the Han Solo, like, gun chair. Right? Brnine is trying to line up the shot, but like, their hands are shaking. And then like, I pull the trigger. There’s like a delay as Asepsis, like, you know, does like—[laughs] like a… like a realigning it after the fact.
Austin: [cross] No, this is fun.
Janine: [cross] Aim assist? Is this Asepsis aim assist?
Ali: Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh-huh.
Austin: Yeah. Well like, another thing that I’m thinking about here is like, Asepsis’s whole thing has been verifying Integrity, and we’ve always read that as like, you know, purity. “Can you trust this person,” et cetera. But there’s like—it’s been a hard year. And I do wonder if part of what maybe has happened is you—you’ve been treating Asepsis like a dog for a long time. And I don’t want to diminish the idea that Asepsis fundamentally—you know, it’s taken a lot of work to get Asepsis here. But the idea that what Asepsis wants to—what Asepsis wants to eat up right now is nervousness. You’re not yourself right now, Brnine. Right?
Ali: Sure. Uh-huh.
Austin: Like, I know the real Brnine. The real Brnine—you have been—you have lost Integrity in the sense that you are not acting like yourself. And you know, there is a little bit of like, a pet can notice that in a pet owner. You know?
Ali: [laughs] The emotional support dog.
Austin: Yeah, your emotional support dog.
[Sylvi laughs]
Keith: I’m picturing the little beagle from the “You’re not yourself when you smoke pot” ad.
[group laughter]
Sylvi: Oh my god.
Austin: Uh-huh. Exactly. But this is reversed, I think it’s bringing out—it’s bringing out Brnine’s stash. It’s like, listen, captain. Alright, so that’s a success. Which was already vulnerable. I think I’m gonna just—it’s gonna take the Risk Under Fire as it continues to try to—at this point, it kind of goes to ground behind one of these big, you know, chest-high cover pieces to just try to like, stay safe. But it is kind of pushed to ground here. And is Defenseless. Alright. Let’s—let’s advance this—let’s stay here for one second. I know, Leap, we want to get back to you, but I want to see if we can potentially—it feels like we’re on the process of wrapping up part of this fight.
Keith: Sure.
Austin: And I would rather do that and then—if that makes sense to you.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I am ticking these clocks. And as promised, the northern Portcullis goes up to 3 of 4. The western one doesn’t move at all, and the southern one goes up to 2 of 6. So that one ticks up regularly, and Ekpyrosis advances to 4 out of 12. So a lot of time before that arrives, at least.
[00:50:38]
Austin: Cori, let’s wrap back around to you here.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: You have a couple of Talons around you that are—you’re surrounded by Defenseless things, is truly—is what I’m looking at here.
Sylvi: Love that.
Austin: Everything on the board except for the Talon that’s fleeing is Defenseless.
Sylvi: Shit, okay. Um… I do kind of think that taking the Orb out here means that like, if the illusion drops, the shields won’t come back. Right?
Austin: Yeah, that’s correct.
Sylvi: It’s also like the highest tier thing here.
Austin: It is. It and the Tusk are both Tier 4.
Sylvi: Yeah. The Tusk—yeah, that’s actually something worth thinking about is the Tusk, huh?
Austin: You’re about equidistant from both. You know, I think that there is…
Sylvi: Yeah. Actually, I looked at the clocks really quick, and now I have another idea that I want to run by the team before I do something.
[Dre and Ali hum]
Austin: Okay.
Sylvi: I could try and rush in and Consecrate Ground one of these gates—
Dre: [laughing] Ohoho!
Sylvi: —because one of the things in Consecrate Ground is “creatures opposed by your deity or faith cannot enter the consecrated area.”
Austin: Oh, that's very funny.
Janine: Oh, that's sick.
Dre: That's so sick.
Sylvi: And I would basically be stopping it. So should I do this to the one that’s got three ticks? Instead of taking this thing out.
Austin: It’s a good question.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Janine: It’s so good.
Austin: It’s a good idea.
Janine: I mean, yes. I mean, I think yes.
Dre: I say yes.
Sylvi: Okay. I’m gonna do that.
Janine: I think yes in a really strong way where I’m like, Cori, join an esports team, that’s great strategy.
[Ali and Sylvi chuckle]
Austin: I really like this coming from a whole season where Cori, your—we started your whole season with “You are a sword,” remember?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Like, “You are a sword, let no one stand” or whatever. And now we are, hey actually, violence is not the most important first step here. You know?
Sylvi: It’s also—it, I think that—
Janine: Violence was still the first step.
Sylvi: It was.
Austin: Yes. Totally. Yes.
[Ali laughs]
Sylvi: My way of thinking—
Austin: But not always the best step at every moment.
Keith: Violence should be the bread in a strategy sandwich.
Austin: Oh.
Sylvi: You’re so right. My way of thinking through this from her perspective is like, she’s been on the run for a year, and I feel like this is a strategy she has, like, employed before.
Austin: Yeah. Right.
Sylvi: To slow down Present, you know?
Austin: Yeah. Totally. I love this. This is fun.
Sylvi: That’s a 10, baby.
Austin: Sorry, this is—what are you—oh, this is a…
Sylvi: Channel.
Austin: Channel. To get—well, let’s get you there first.
Sylvi: Yeah, that's a good point.
Austin: Let’s keep that 10 Channel. Let’s keep that 10, but like, yeah. You—
Sylvi: I got ahead of myself.
Austin: At this point, I do need you to get there safely.
Sylvi: That’s Defy, right?
Austin: Which is Weather the Storm. Yeah, using Defy. Defy, Know, or Sense. “Defy to dodge, tough it out, or strong arm your way through. Know to make it through with quick thinking or the ace up your sleeve. Or Sense to notice quiet cues, signs of danger, or bad vibes before it’s too late.”
Sylvi: Can I…
Austin: Do you want to use this 10 for that?
Sylvi: No.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvi: No, no, no, no. I just remembered one of the boons I got could help me here.
Austin: Ah, you do have a boon.
Sylvi: “Masking Boon: You can mask yourself or an Astir you are attuned to against detection. When you do so, roll plus Channel. On a 10 plus, you are disguised or cloaked in a fashion appropriate to your patron. On a 7 to 9, the Director will tell you a flaw with your disguise.”
Austin: Yep. Love it.
Sylvi: Would this work here instead?
Austin: Yeah, absolutely.
Sylvi: Okay, cool. Now I’m power—Keithing, because I have a plus 1.
Austin: Now we’re power-gaming.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. So 2d6 plus 3.
Sylvi: Or plus 3 instead of plus 2. You know what I mean.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvi: I got a 9. So there’s a flaw in my disguise.
Austin: You got a 9. So there’s a flaw here. You look like one of these little roots, right? You look like one of the Artifice drones that is building the thing. Except, of course, is it—it’s a patron giveaway, not a Cori giveaway, right?
Sylvi: Yes.
Austin: And this is a flaw with your disguise. I kind of like that you’re like one of these little robots, except you have little black wings still.
Sylvi: Aw! That’s so cute!
Austin: The actual robot has little black wings.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: I’m picturing these robots as like—this is gonna sound stupid. They look like washing machines a little bit in my mind.
Sylvi: Oh.
Austin: They look like—or another game robot thing. This thing does not look that much like a washing machine, but maybe you’ll be able to see where I’m coming from. There’s an enemy type in the Zone of the Enders games that are these really fun round-looking little guys. Let me see if I can get you a picture.
Sylvi: I have fully…
Austin: They’re called Mummyheads.
Sylvi: Oh. I have fully been picturing the top of the, like, magic staff that she has in Cardcaptor Sakura. The little bird beak with the wings. [chuckles]
Austin: Oh, sure. Yeah, that’s very fun. That’s very fun. Here, I’m gonna drop a—here’s a Mummyhead from Zone of the Enders. They’re fun. They’re little round guys. They’re little, like, you know? They’re—some of them are kind of boxy, but round. They’re good. Big fan.
Sylvi: Oh, those are good. I feel like I fought a bunch of these in Xenoblade Chronicles. [laughs]
Austin: Oh, for sure. Yeah. These are what I think are building the Portcullis gates. So imagine one of these—maybe a little more squared off instead of round to get that washing machine aesthetic. And then with little black angel wings.
Sylvi: That’s adorable.
Austin: That’s pretty good.
Sylvi: Am I able to get there? Or does that just give me, like, advantage on my Defy?
Austin: I think that it is—it does not give you—you’ve already—yeah. I think it just gets you there.
Sylvi: Okay, cool.
Austin: You’re able to get there. You have this disguise. You have this flaw, which means it could come up in another roll. You know. In a bit, potentially. And then you’re using Consecrated Ground, which you already rolled that 10 for.
Sylvi: So I get two.
Austin: You get to choose two. This is not a Hold, so you don’t get to spend your Hold to choose more.
Sylvi: No.
Austin: So what are you picking?
Sylvi: Well obviously, it’s “creatures opposed by your day to your faith cannot enter the consecrated area.” Taking that. And I think I’m gonna also take “creatures within your consecrated area cannot take violent actions against each other.”
Austin: I love it.
Sylvi: Which just sort of like, takes that area out of play.
Austin: Yes.
Sylvi: I really—I have this—tell me if this doesn’t work. I love the idea of Cori, like, reaching it, and like, when her mech touches it to like, consecrate it, it just blooms into a big flower. The gate.
Austin: That’s very fun, yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, I love it. Really good. Fantastic.
Sylvi: Love a space flower.
Austin: Big space flower. And like, they’re continuing to work on it through this point, right?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Because they’re trying to put it on…
Sylvi: It’s just anything that’s against us won’t—or against Perennial won’t be able to get through.
Austin: Won’t be able to get through the gate.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: I love this. This is great. I’m gonna move you over there, and in fact, here. Just for—to make it a little bit easier… let’s see here. I will make this—this is not to scale at this point, but look. There, I’ve made—I’ve pushed the gate here to the top northwest of the map, so that we have like, a little bit of a visual here of what’s going on.
Sylvi: Nice.
Janine: This is maybe an overly existential question about how this would work, but like…
Austin: Uh-huh.
Janine: So, on their side of the gate, the origin side of the gate, it would still look normal?
Austin: Seems like.
Janine: At what point do they get stopped? Are they just like, caught in the gate?
Keith: I have the same question.
Austin: I believe so.
Sylvi: I like the idea of it being like a revolving door where they just keep getting spat out the other side.
Austin: Oh, that’s fun. That’s fun. I like that.
Janine: [chuckling] Okay.
Sylvi: Or like—they do that in Severance a few times, and I think it’s really funny.
Janine: Oh, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s a great bit. Yeah. Yeah, they don’t get stuck—
Keith: That’s different than they explode before they come out and get stuck in the in-between.
Sylvi: Well, because—yeah. Because I don’t—I mean…
Austin: Or get stuck forever in the, like, cache of. Yeah.
Sylvi: Hey, Austin, I wouldn’t say no to that. I just didn’t want to godmode too much, either. [laughs]
Austin: I see. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I mean, and the other option is they just—they are being denied entry, right?
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Which is also possible, right? Like it’s just—they can’t enter it on the other side. I like the idea of them going through and getting kicked back out the other way. That feels funny to me.
Sylvi: I can just picture them on the other end of this being like, angry, and like, soldiers being like, “What’s going on? Why aren’t you following orders?”
Austin: You know, they’re trying to like, hack it on their end.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Austin: Like, “Something’s gone wrong!” And it’s like, no, nothing’s gone wrong on this end. There’s nothing you can do on this end about it at this point, you know? So, yeah. And Cori, again, a thing that you feel here is a sort of… you know, you’ve gone through the Portcullis gates a bunch, and especially in this last year, and I feel like you probably have a really strong sense of the—the Divine sensation of being around it, and the sort of like, way it rumbles, and the way it—and there is something different about it. It’s not… it’s not absence, but there is a sort of a less pointed, like, aura around this thing. You don’t feel like you’re under threat in the same way just by being near it.
Sylvi: Okay. Hm.
Austin: Alright. Levi, Mow—sory, Levi, Thisbe, Mow, Brnine.
[00:59:27]
Austin: Levi, let’s wrap you up here.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: Because you’re up in this very interesting situation.
Dre: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mhm. Um, yeah. I’ll just try to finish off this Cloak.
Austin: That seems doable. Give me a—give me a Strike Decisively.
Dre: Mhm. That is also Clash, right?
Austin: That is also Clash. Yeah.
Dre: 8.
Austin: That is an 8. On an 8, and with Strike Decisively, on a 7 to 9, you succeed as above. So you’ve forced this character to retreat, or otherwise, they are killed or removed as a threat per the fiction. But you choose one: “You overreach or underestimate, take a risk. You waste ammo or words, losing a weapon until you can rearm, or losing the weight of some bargaining chip or piece of leverage. Or you strike carelessly, causing collateral damage beyond your expectations.”
[Sylvi chuckles]
Dre: Ooh. I will underestimate.
Austin: Okay. So you will take a Risk.
Dre: Yeah.
Austin: What Risk do you give yourself to get this kill shot? And tell me what it looks like. Is it a kill shot, even?
Dre: I’m assuming—I think it is. I think the kill shot actually looks like—I liked your idea of Levi, like, pinning it to the side.
Austin: Sure.
Dre: And then I like the idea of one of Levi’s crewmates—his second in command, her name’s Reggie.
Austin: Hell yeah.
Sylvi: Aw.
Dre: That’s the only, like, named person I’ve thought of so far. Fuckin’ just leans out, like, the back of the ship and just like snipes it off.
Austin: Oh, that's very fun. Love it. Love it.
Dre: But then I would imagine in the meantime, that that big Tusk man’s probably charging up on me.
Austin: Yeah. What’s the Risk that you’re gonna take here?
Dre: Probably, I think Bruised? I think probably what happens is the Tusk, like, kind of leaps up and like, smacks me to the ground.
Austin: Oh, damn. Okay, sure. A hundred percent. Let’s take that. Just gonna write Bruised next to you. The thing I’ve decided here is when it’s a Peril, I’ll write a Peril in all caps here on this.
Dre: That makes sense.
Austin: Versus when it’s just a Risk. So yeah. You’ve been bruised, you’ve gotten slammed down here by the Tusk. Which is brutal.
Dre: Actually, I forgot. I’m gonna use one of my charges of mobility to avoid an incoming source of physical harm.
Austin: Aha. This is why you got those charges.
Dre: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Alright, yeah. So it swings at you and you are able to flip the hell out of the way.
Dre: I think I still get knocked down, but it’s like, I flip in mid-air, and like, catch myself.
Austin: With your gravity stuff. Love it.
Dre: Yeah. Probably, you know, do like, the fuckin’ wall slide thing down.
Austin: Yeah. Absolutely I know.
Dre: Big sparks coming off the sword.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah.
Dre: That thing you all—you just do on your commute, probably.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Of course.
[Dre chuckles]
Sylvi: Every day.
Austin: Every day. Alright, Thisbe, Brnine?
[01:02:05]
Janine: Um, I would like to simply crunch up a guy.
Austin: Yeah. You’re gonna crunch up a Fang? Or you want to take the chance against the Orb?
Janine: Yeah, I think this Fang that’s like, closest to me.
Austin: Sure.
Janine: Just kind of seems like a great time to just like, sucker punch it. Just fucking get in there. You know? Nice and simple.
Austin: Yeah. That’s—that’s… I will—okay, so, it’s Elemental. So it will have Confidence, or you’ll have Desperation against it in Mow. You could use your own thing. You could use your—what’s it called again? Your Quintessence Cannon, which has Ruin, right?
Janine: Mhm.
Austin: Which would be—which would be enough—so that would get around that. The alternative is you could—Mow could go after the Orb here.
Janine: True.
Austin: Because Mow actually, Mundane, has—Mow has Confidence against Arcane things.
Janine: That’s actually—that’s a good point. I hadn’t thought about that. Yeah, let’s do that then.
Austin: Mhm. Yeah. Alright. What’s Mow doing? What are you—how are you piloting Mow towards Orb destruction?
Janine: Um, I imagine this is like a good old-fashioned Mow gorilla charge. Like back in the day.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Just like, full boar, just like, charging at the thing just to be like, “I just want to crash into you and absolutely destroy you.”
Austin: Yeah. Love it. Alright. Give me a Strike Decisively with Clash, presumably.
Janine: Yeah, it feels pretty Clash-y.
Austin: Which is plus 2, yeah. 2d6 plus 2. I guess you should ask if Brnine, you want to—if Brnine wants to hop in with Tactical Genius ahead of time. But it already has Confidence, so. So maybe not.
Janine: Yeah. 10.
Austin: Alright. That’s a 10. 2d6 plus—is that a 6 plus 2 plus 2? That’s 10. That is a full Mow smash.
Janine: Mow smash.
Austin: Mow smash this Orb. Mow, like, is able to rip the outer, you know, sphere walls open to reveal the tiny Tier 3 frame inside and just, you know, crush that whole thing up.
Janine: Oh, he’s—he’s popping that thing open like an oyster.
Austin: Like an oyster. Exactly. Like a kinder egg.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: What’s the surprise inside? You know? Absolutely. Boom. Explodes, falls off the side of the board. And yeah, no more risk of shields from this guy, which is good.
[01:04:48]
Austin: Which brings us back to Brnine.
Ali: Um… wow, what are we doing? Um… hm.
Austin: I’m gonna make it pink instead of red to indicate the Cori took it over.
Ali: Let’s go.
Sylvi: Yeah!
Ali: I love that.
Sylvi: Girl power!
[Ali and Sylvi laugh]
Austin: That’s right. Uh-huh.
Ali: Um… where am I the most useful right now? It’s like, hard to sort of figure out. I guess Thisbe is at risk of like, being alone with all of these Fangs and Talons.
Austin: Yeah, something kind of fun that I’ve only just realized in some ways is like, the one thing you don’t have at this point is a lot of like, AOE, you know? You don’t have a lot of, like, ad clear.
Sylvi: Yeah.
[Ali laughs]
Keith: I’ve got that. But I’m in here.
Austin: Uh-huh. We gotta get you out of there.
Janine: We’ve got crowd control. That’s something.
Ali: Uh-huh.
Austin: That is true. You do have a lot of CC.
Ali: [chuckles] Which I guess I could do, like—could I do, like, a sweep? Could I do like a—like a fly-by shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot-shoot… but then like, that would be targeting everybody, which is against the rules of this game, I think. [laughs] Um…
Austin: You know, I don’t think you—I think specifically, the ship doesn’t have anything with the Area tag, right?
Ali: Uh-huh. Yeah.
Austin: I know it does. The Asepsis drones are—
Janine: Also, now you’re suddenly like, “I don’t know, I’m not gonna shoot anyone. I’m just—I’ll just strafe. It’ll be fine.”
Austin: The Asepsis drones have Area, actually. So you could deploy the Asepsis drones across an area to attempt to—whoops. Changed the wrong color. Yeah, to try to eat up the remaining folks.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: A little dark, but you know.
Ali: Um… I mean, you know. They’re enemies, you know? So it’s all fair. It’s all… um, yeah. I—yeah.
Austin: Yeah, the Asepsis drones totally have it. They are Divine, Versatile, Area, Forbidden, Distinct, Setup.
Ali: Uh-huh.
Austin: So this would be—this would be—and I guess, actually, that's an important thing here, right? Is like, in some ways, you have set them all up—you have done the setup by making the way that this particular fight has gone, they—traditionally, I think, it would be pretty hard to deploy them against all of these different units at once, right?
Ali: Mhm. But we’ve set up that they’re sort of buzzing in that area already.
Austin: They’re buzzing in that area, and all these people think that they’re alone. You know, which makes them unable to support each other, and like, knock the Asepsis drones off, et cetera.
Ali: Uh-huh.
Austin: So yeah. You can give it a shot. What I’m—what I would say… I guess it’s—I think what you could do is deploy them to either zone two or zone one.
Ali: Yeah.
Austin: There are two Fangs in zone two and the Tusk, and there are two Talons in zone B—sorry, in zone one and the one Fang. I think that’s probably the way that that should work. Deploying them across all of both of those ranges is a little much.
Ali: Yeah, yeah, yeah. That’s fair. Um… yeah, maybe this is like a Mario Kart sort of switching [chuckles] spaces with Cori sort of thing of like…
Sylvi: Ooh.
Austin: Ohh.
Ali: Yeah, let me focus on the backup in zone one that Thisbe sort of needs.
Austin: Sure.
Ali: Because Levi has guys. That’s—we’ve established this about Levi.
Austin: We just saw one. We just saw Reggie get a headshot, so.
Ali: Yeah. I think what I’m gonna do here is that it feels a little bit more honest to do my Clash score for this, but use the Asepsis hold? Does that feel…
Austin: Sure.
Ali: Correct? Okay.
Austin: In that you are directly controlling Asepsis stuff here.
Ali: Uh-huh.
Austin: You are not—the crew, Hunting, is not involved in this maneuver in any way. Yeah, that makes sense.
Ali: I think so, yeah. Yeah. That feels like mechanically the answer of what this is.
Austin: Sure.
Ali: So I’m gonna roll it instead of talking about, and, um…
Austin: So that is 2d6 plus… plus 1, but with Confidence, presumably, because of the Asepsis, right?
Ali: Which is… 5?
Austin: You don’t need it.
Ali: That's a 10.
Austin: That’s a fuckin’ 10. 4 plus 5 plus 1 is 10. And you said you moved to where Cori was? So it’s that—you’ve moved over to zone one.
Ali: I think so, yeah. I did like a zooooom. And then now I’m like here.
Austin: Okay. And you release the Asepsis drones, and with a 10, you get what you want here. They either explode or flee in every case, giving you control of this landing zone. You know, they’re up on the Talons in space, you know. There’s—I guess very low gravity here, presumably. Or, you know, anime low gravity, which is as low as it needs to be for the given shot.
[Ali chuckles]
Austin: So you’re able to fling them out at the flying Talons. You’re able to have some of them run across the ground to the Fangs. And they are toast. And while you’re over there, you can probably recover Cori’s sickles, you know?
[Sylvi gasps]
Ali: Oh, sure.
Austin: Which is very fun. I’m gonna move these back over here. Boom. Alright. Levi, you already went this turn, right? Yeah, you dealt with the Cloak. So let’s leave—let’s leave y’all here on this side of things as the clock ticks again. The northernmost one comes back online. The thing comes online. But it’s online under your control. Or—I guess it’s not under your control, it’s… but it sort of is, right? I guess it is. I think that Consecrated Ground pretty much says that it is, right?
Sylvi: Yeah, I mean…
Austin: Only people you want to enter can enter, so yeah.
Sylvi: Yeah. Anyone opposed to my deity or faith cannot pass through.
Austin: That’s right. Can’t come through. Alright, so then the rest of them all click up like normal, and we’re gonna go back over to Leap.
[01:10:28]
Keith: Hi.
Austin: And we’ll leave this side with a shot of the Tusk, who is Defenseless, but nevertheless gigantic. Tier 4, standing above Levi. Which is scary for you, Levi. And at this point, maybe the Fangs are closing in on you also. So a little surrounded. Leap.
Keith: Hi.
Austin: How’s it going inside of the old labyrinth?
Keith: It’s going good. I’ve plotted a course.
Austin: Yeah. That course heads straight into one Nanobeast 3, and one Nanobeast 4.
Keith: Yeah. It does, yeah. Um…
Austin: What are you doing? What’s the play?
Keith: Now, remind me of the moves—the rules. Only one of them can move at a time…
Austin: Well, no. When you do a scan, one of the—when you were doing, like, the scanning things, on a mixed success, one of them would move closer to you.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: And on a full success, you could reveal two areas in exchange for one moving. But also, just like, a failure or a mixed success might result in any of them moving generally speaking.
Keith: Sure.
Austin: Just that one particular kind of specific move was written so that only one of them would move closer to you in response to you kind of sneaking around. But once you’re, like, shooting guns and making noise? You know, that’s a whole different ball game. But the rule you do know is if they kind of take a step towards you so to speak, but—and hit a wall without knowing where you are, they’re gonna split and continue to look for you. You know?
Keith: Right.
Austin: So if this Nanobeast 3-2, because I have not renamed these ones yet, let’s say it went south looking for you. It would not see you, and it would go boop, and then turn into two more Nanobeast Tier 2s, and kind of spread out. You know?
Keith: Yeah. Now, if I kill one of them, does it double like a slime anyway?
Austin: You have no idea.
Keith: I have no idea.
Austin: You have not killed one yet.
Keith: No. Uh, well, let’s kill one. So…
Austin: Okay. You gonna take a shot here at the Nanobeast Tier 3? Nanobeast 3-A?
Keith: Yeah. Yeah, I… I should be able to attack it twice, right? Because of my crew?
Austin: Explain how that works to me, who has not played with this character yet.
Keith: So the—“I lead a team of specialists, ten or so strong. They provide on-foot support and address mundane threats.” And Eat Iron, Shit Nails says that: “My team’s been trained for tougher enemies and odds. When leading my crew through battle on—or danger on foot, you’re both considered Tier 2. You’ve managed to get a hold of a tank Ardent. When you lead your team while helming it, the construct and its weapons are considered Tier 3.” So, it’s sort of—it feels like, from the language of the thing, that the crew and the tank and me are kind of separate entities.
Austin: Well, except that in order for it to be a Tier 3 tank, you have to be leading your time while helming it. So it’s like, while y’all are unified together… it’s likewise.
Keith: That’s sort of confusing language.
Austin: What do you mean?
Keith: I have to lead the team while helming it. I don’t have to lead them in the tank. There’s 13 of us. That’s a lot.
Austin: No, you’re helming it. You’re helming the tank.
Keith: Right. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Austin: So that means you are in the tank. And if you’re leading them on foot, you’re Tier 2. That’s the operative thing. When leading your crew through battle or danger on foot, you’re both considered Tier 2.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: When you are leading your team while helming the tank, you’re considered Tier 3.
Keith: Right, yeah.
Austin: But you’re not two different—you’re one big unit. You’re a small gang, effectively. Right? But the small gang has to be a small gang for it to be able to get the tier bonus.
Keith: Yeah, well…
Austin: You could leave them behind in the Tier—in the Tier 2 Ardent, and they would get to remain a Tier 2 Ardent and you could go be yourself.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: But without you there, it’s—and it’s the crew. It is not—you don’t get a second character here. You know?
Keith: Okay. This isn’t—so there’s—there’s not a Mow situation.
Austin: I mean, it very explicitly says your team…
Keith: It says they address mundane threats. That’s the thing—like, if they can’t address threats—right.
Austin: Yeah, of course. But your team is an extension of you as far as Risks and Perils are concerned.
Keith: That’s true.
Austin: There is not a second list of Risks for them.
Keith: No.
Austin: In the same way that Mow doesn’t have a second set of Risks. So it’s similar in that way. You know?
Keith: Right. So you’re saying that I can’t shoot them separately from them shooting, too.
Austin: You could, but you—they would be firing—they would be a Tier 2 Ardent and you would be a Tier 1 leap.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: You might still have a Tier 2 weapon or something.
Keith: I do. All of my weapons have Bane.
Austin: Right. Sure. Sure. Well, but—unfortunately, that does not help you hit a Tier 3 thing.
Keith: Uh, Ruin. Sorry, not Bane. They have Ruin.
Austin: Okay. They have Ruin.
Keith: Yeah. Alright, I’m—that’s what I’m gonna do. We’re gonna both—I’m gonna get out of the tank, they’re gonna helm the tank. I’m Tier 1.
Austin: Okay. You’re Tier 1.
Keith: They’re Tier 3. Or sorry, they’re Tier 2, I gues.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: And I’m going to use—I guess we have the sniper rifle Area, Ruin.
Austin: You have the sniper rifle, yeah.
Keith: And they have the, uh…
Austin: The salvo stave.
Keith: The grapeshot bolos, because that’s ranged.
Austin: Oh, sure. Sure.
Keith: And what’s the—what’s the deal with sniper here?
Austin: Uh, I would say that this is… you know, I think by our current the way we’ve been talking about the sniper tag, this is too close to use it.
Keith: Uh-huh.
Austin: However, I do think being in a long hallway, even a pretty wide one, reduces the Nanobeast’s ability to dodge side to side. Which means I’ll let you use it as if it were ranged for this shot.
Keith: Especially because it has Area, so it’s like, what are they gonna do?
Austin: Right. You’re filling the area with a huge explosion, basically. It’s less of a sniper rifle and more of like an anti-tank gun or something, right?
Keith: Yeah, yeah. Basically.
Austin: And I will say, there are other places here that that will not work for.
Keith: Right.
Austin: If you—if this thing had caught you around a corner, [Keith: Right.] you know, that’s not—that’s melee range. It may be ranged.
Keith: No, that’s officer sword time.
Austin: That’s officer sword time. Exactly.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Alright, so, you are presumably—who is doing the first shot? Because this first short would be Exchange Blows, and not…
Keith: Uh, well I have—I have leapt out of the tank and am positioned extremely coolly on the barrel of the tank’s gun.
Austin: Okay. I’m moving you into the hallway. I’m gonna put you in there, since you’re actually in there now. Whoops, I moved it all around. There we go. Boom. Alright. Alright, so then, give me a Clash. Exchange Blows.
Keith: Alright. That’s 2d6 plus 2.
Austin: Is that what your Clash is?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Alright.
Keith: That’s a 9.
Austin: And this is—this is you are—what type of weapon is this?
Keith: This is my sniper rifle…
Austin: Which is a Mundane, right?
Keith: Which is Mundane, Area, Ruin.
Austin: Okay. This thing is made of Kalmeria. So it is Profane, so it does not come into effect. But yeah, okay. That is a 9. So you will either—or I guess there is not a choice here. On a 7 to 9, both you and your target are forced to take Risks. The Risk that it takes is—god, what type of—it’s Mundane but it explodes? Is it burning? Is this like an incendiary round?
Keith: Yeah, I was thinking burned or—yeah.
Austin: Okay. It is burning. So it is now Defenseless. What Risk are you taking to fire this thing?
Keith: Um, can I get hit with some shrapnel? I’m just sort of out in the open, there’s a big explosion.
Austin: Oh, that’s fun. I think—yeah. Yeah. You’re hit with—
Keith: Or dazed, there’s the noise, like…
Austin: Oh, sure. Echoing through this.
Keith: Exploding down this hallway, yeah.
Austin: Yes. I like that a lot. Let’s give you Dazed. Alright. And that is the regular Risk.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It seems to continue coming towards you at this point. So, uh-oh. Be careful. Precipice presumably taking a shot. Striking Decisively.
Keith: Uh, yes. This would be the grapeshot. Striking Decisively. And I assume it’s the same thing. It’s 2d6 plus 2.
Austin: It is 26d6 plus 2. You could use the—you could use, of course, Guided, if you’d like to.
Keith: I could. I’m not going to, but I am—it is restraining.
Austin: Well, and this is gonna use Crew. And not—not your Clash.
Keith: Oh, it rolls Crew. Oh, okay.
Austin: But, which is to say, it’s gonna use one of your two Carrier Crew things that you get as fire team leader.
Keith: Oh, it has to roll as Crew?
Austin: You’re not doing it, so yes.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Yeah. That’s—that is—
Keith: But I still take the damage on my character?
Austin: That is right.
Keith: Alright.
Austin: When leading your team, this is what it is. Your team is an extension of you as far as Risks and Perils are concerned.
Keith: Right.
Austin: This is the thing about Armour Astir in contrast to say, Beam Saber, right? Beam Saber sees mechs and vehicles in general as being things that protect you and that can take hits for you. Armour Astir sees them as extensions of the person inside. And any damage done to them is also done to the person that is part of them. And so, the fire team, your fire team is effectively your vehicle in that way, so.
Keith: I rolled another 9.
Austin: Alright. So—and this time, that means that you have to choose between: “Overreach and underestimate; you take a Risk. You waste ammo or words, losing use of a weapon until you can rearm, or losing the weight of some bargaining chip or piece of leverage. Or you strike carelessly, causing collateral damage beyond your expectations.”
Keith: Uh, let’s lose use of this weapon.
Austin: Okay. What goes wrong here? This is the grapeshot?
Keith: Yeah, this is the grapeshot. Um… you know, it’s firing a bunch of little pieces instead that are like, connected by chains. Like, maybe one of the last bolos gets stuck and it rips off the chain, but it’s still lodged in the gun. So half of the bolo is shot.
Austin: So, it like—ooh. Yeah, sure. So it’s jammed up here. Right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, that makes sense. Because it’s not a permanent thing, right? You need to go get rearmed.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Presumably that’s like, you need to bring it to—if you could get it on the Blue Channel, you could—or if you could get it to Levi, or something like that, right? You could get, like, field repairs.
Keith: Uh-huh.
Austin: But yeah. Lost control of this barrel. But, yes, it slams into this guy. Who—maybe a little of column A, a little of column B, based on what you’re predicting. What do you think is gonna happen here to this…
Keith: I think it’s a slime and it’s gonna split into two.
Austin: It is. However, when appropriate, it is gonna keep whatever Risks or Perils were on it. So in this case, it does split, but they’re already burning.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Which is—
Keith: And are they restrained as well?
Austin: Yeah. Well, they don’t need to be, right? Because they’re—they’re only—they’re also side characters, right?
Keith: Sure.
Austin: So they are both burning, restrained, which is brutal, honestly. But there’s two of them here. And they are still in front of you.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: But they’re restrained, maybe—
Keith: And they’re huge.
Austin: Well…
Keith: [laughs] These dripping goos.
Austin: These are dripping goos. These are—what were these called on the token site? These are—I think that they are vile fluid? No, these are gooey demons. These are gooey demons.
[Keith laughs]
Austin: Obviously gooey demons.
Keith: Hey. Yeah, it is descriptive. That's what they look like.
Janine: I think it’s pronounced gooey duck, actually.
Austin: Oh, I see.
Keith: Oh, and they’re a delicacy.
Janine: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Yeah, uh-huh. People love ’em. Alright. What are you—what is your plan here? Is it just to keep whittling them down, effectively?
Keith: Um, well, I—
Austin: I mean, they can’t move closer to you, you know?
Keith: No.
Austin: You’ve restrained them. Which is weird, right? You’ve split them in two, but the weight of the bolo shot, the grapeshot, is still holding them down. They’re trying to like, pull themselves free.
Keith: It’s in the goo. It’s stuck in their goo.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. There are like, oozes that can’t move because they’ve been weighted down by this heavy—and they’re burning, right? Fictionally, if you just let them hang, they will eventually burn out. You know?
Keith: Yeah, but I gotta go past them.
Austin: You do.
Keith: So, um…
Austin: Are you gonna try to just, like, maneuver around them here? Weather the Storm past ’em?
Keith: Um, you know, actually, my—what I was going to do was take out the officer sword and start waggling it at ’em until they poofed. But you’re saying that—you’re saying that they’ll burn out if I just leave them here?
Austin: On a long enough timeline. It seems like it. They’re burning.
Keith: Okay. On a long enough timeline, huh?
Austin: I think fictionally speaking, they’ll take—they’ll continue to—they’re burning, you know?
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Now, will they eventually get small enough that the grapeshot will be too big to hold them all down? Maybe.
Keith: Maybe. Oh, because they’ve got more to go, huh?
Austin: It is only Tier 2. There’s at least one more here.
Keith: Jesus. Okay, well, I’m gonna waggle.
Austin: Okay. So you’re just gonna get in there and start trying to—
Keith: I’m hopping off of the—yeah. I’m hopping off of the mast of the cannon.
Austin: Uh-huh. And you’re gonna charge in with your officer sword too.
Keith: Yes.
Austin: Uh-huh. And start waggling at them with your sword, doing pirate type shit.
Keith: Yeah. It is, though, officer sword two, Decisive, Blitz, and… Decisive, Blitz, Restraining, Guided, and Ruin.
Austin: What? Why—what? How is it… what?
Keith: Uh, because my—my team’s gear gain Guided and Restraining, and that’s gear. And I also have—oh, I guess it doesn’t have the Ruin though. No, that’s specifically…
Austin: That’s specifically for something else.
Keith: For the enchanted armory thing.
Austin: Yes. Okay.
Keith: But it does weirdly have Guided and Restraining.
Austin: Sure. Is that literal? Or is it like, this sword is so well-balanced that you’re able to guide it in most of the time?
Keith: Um, you know when in like, a movie with a—in a movie with a lot of swordplay, you know, one character will throw a sword at someone, and it sticks into the door right in front of their nose?
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: And it waggles. It goes [mimics sword waggling]. Like that.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: It’s like, it’s—that’s been’s built into the sword. It can get thrown—I can throw it really good.
Austin: Uh-huh. It’s just well-balanced in that way.
Janine: And then it’ll waggle?
Austin: And then it’ll waggle.
Keith: Yeah.
Janine: Is the waggle built in?
Keith: Yeah, it’ll waggle. It’ll go [mimics sword waggling], yeah. Yeah, yeah. Well, I think that’s part of the metal. Yeah. But I’m not doing that, I’m just gonna stab.
Austin: Alright, well, I guess you’re gonna continue to give me some—it’s not Area, unfortunately.
Keith: No.
Austin: It’s just a sword. So you are gonna have to make a couple of rolls here to try to knock these folks off, these goo monsters off.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Strike Decisively on the first one. With your Clash, presumably. Because you’re doing this.
Keith: Yes.
Austin: Okay. So 2d6 plus 2.
Keith: 12.
Austin: Alright. And as expected, the first of these things is immediately, you know, cut through again. You’re cutting through them, you’re seeing up close as it happens this time. As they get reduced down again to another smaller form.
Keith: Oh, boy.
Austin: But only—it’s only two of them, you know? It’s always just gonna be two. It splits in two each time. These go up to the token layer.
Keith: You sure each time? You say each time like maybe the last one is like, four.
Austin: No, each time.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: And these are already Defenseless. Learning something new here. This Tier 1 version comes Defenseless. Even without being burning and restrained, they’re not burning and restrained anymore, [Keith: Okay.] because they’re too small for those previous things to—I mean, maybe they’re still burning. Maybe they’re still—
Keith: Too small for burning?
Austin: It’s tough, because it’s like, they’re able to get, you know, parts of—
Keith: Maybe they just poof.
Austin: The parts of them—no, they—well, they don’t just poof.
Keith: Born into fire.
Austin: Something else happens. So, you know.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Maybe they just poof. You know what?
Janine: We do at least—based on the last session, we—
Austin: Burning is right.
Janine: You did at least confirm that they aren’t gonna keep multiplying until they turn into a vapor you can breathe in.
Austin: Well, and here’s the thing, Janine.
Janine: You did say there was a limit. Oh.
Austin: Here’s the thing. No, that is exactly the limit. Yeah, they burn. They burn up. And return to being Kalmeria. Because that’s what they are, right?
Janine: Oh, right. Yes, you did say this.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: They are a micro—they are a tiny micro-machine, they are a—and for the first time in years, you hear her voice in your head. Motion is speaking to you through the Kalmeria. And I think what she says is:
Austin (as Motion): You always did move so quickly, Leap.
Austin: And you’re reminded of the time that hyacinth asked you to become Motion’s elect in place of her, because she was so tired of being Motion’s elect. And as you breathe in the Kalmeria, the burning vapors of these Nanobeasts, it maybe strikes you that everyone in the galaxy has been breathing in Motion for the last ten years or whatever. And I’m gonna add a clock. I’m gonna add a clock really quick here. This is the Motion-Leap clock.
Sylvi: No!
Austin: And it’s a four-step clock.
Keith: Is it bad that I went in here?
Austin: And it advances to 1. 1 of 4. She’s in you.
Janine: I mean, it could have—it could have been anyone’s lungs, except for me.
Austin: No, but you have something else in you, don’t you, Thisbe?
Sylvi: [laughs] Yeah, you’re taken.
Janine: No, yeah, I have a lot of other stuff going on. I’m just saying I don’t have lungs.
Austin: No. But I’ll reveal all of these clocks right now.
Janine: I arguably have a worse thing than Motion in a similar vein, but I don’t have lungs.
Keith: Wait. Hold on.
Austin: And she recognizes that.
Keith: I don’t have lungs either.
Austin: You have Equiaxed parts. They’re not—it’s not just a vapor. It’s a nanomachine that you’ve been inputting—
Keith: Okay. I have a stomach.
Austin: And synthetic beings have wires. You know?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Everyone’s been living in the literal context that is Motion since she seemingly died. And she made a promise to Brnine, which was “I am not going to waste the influence I have on people.” And obviously, you know, take that to mean what you will. I don’t know that Brnine—I think maybe if Brnine had tried to use it directly, that may not have been so good. So.
Janine: Brnine invented COVID.
Austin: Jesus christ.
[Keith chuckles]
Austin: So yeah. There are clocks like this for everybody at this point. But I think at this point—at this point, only the Leap one has ticked. Appropriate, again, given the Leap has the longest history of anyone in this sortie with Motion. I believe that that’s true, anyway. You don’t want these clocks to fill up.
Keith: Yeah. Okay.
Austin: You know what Motion does to people.
Keith: I would like to go back into the tank, please.
Austin: Sure. Yeah. Good call. What do you do? You’re in the tank. I’m not gonna stop you from getting in the tank.
Keith: Um…
Austin: You’ve still got one of these burning Nanobeasts in front of you, restrained.
Keith: Yeah. Okay, so here’s what I would like to do.
Austin: Mhm. I think Cas’alear, by the way, is like, really impressed with your leadership and swordsmanship. I think that there is a degree of like, Cas’alear is kind of the same type of character as you, but played straight, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: You know, big fancy shirts, and you know…
Keith: Hey, I brought—I brought Cas’alear here, so we’ve been hanging.
Austin: You’ve been hanging, and I think that cas is like, you know, I think cas thinks that you are brave and fairly elegant in your leadership, so.
[Keith chuckles]
Austin: You know, “Nicely done.” Do you have a military title?
Keith: Uh, it’s…
Austin: Is it admiral? Or… I don’t remember what we ended up—we had something for you last session.
Keith: I’ll tell—I’ll say I can’t—I know that I did level up at some point, but something else that I’ve said before is that like, Leap is really into the captain title.
Austin: Right. So then—
Keith: Even if it’s not literally true.
Austin: Sure. Yes. So then, yes. I think that Cas’alear is gonna call you Captain.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: I’m definitely communicating this on my comms.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: Using coded language and ciphers. Here’s what I would like to do while maybe I have a second.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: I have basic arming kits, which means that me and my team can produce basic weapons suited for your style of unit.
Austin: Sure. Wait, what do you have? What is this? Oh, I see it, I see it.
Keith: [cross] I guess I have two questions. My—it’s under general gear.
Austin: Yeah, yeah.
Keith: My first instinct was that maybe I can use this to produce a ranged weapon that I no longer have. Because of the grapeshot bolos going out of… But then my other thing was, I might not have field repair, but basic arming kits might just help me repair grapeshot bolos.
Austin: What’s the actual—okay, you—it is… it says, da-da-da-da-da… “losing a weapon until you can rearm, or losing the weight of some bargaining chip.” So yeah, until you can rearm. What is the thing that you’re…
Keith: “You and your team may produce basic weapons suited for your style of unit.” Which right now is a tank unit.
Austin: Yeah. That seems right.
Keith: Seems right.
Austin: So yeah, you could spend some time repairing this thing. I think that this is probably a—because this thing is restrained and not moving towards you, there’s—
Keith: Yeah, that's what I was thinking.
Austin: Yeah, that’s totally fine. But I think what happens here is everything else kind of ticks a step forward, you know?
Keith: Okay, yeah.
Austin: And so like, this Nanobeast draws closer to you. And splits into two. Because it still doesn’t actually see you at the edge of that thing. This one does the same thing, moving further away from you, and then this one similarly advances toward you. Boom. And I will do all the work of splitting these guys up in a second. But we can keep talking. We can keep—
Keith: This is a lot of guys. [laughing] This is so many guys.
Austin: It’s so many guys.
Keith: What the hell am I doing in here all on my own?
Austin: I don’t know.
Keith: Someone’s gotta go in black or yellow.
Austin: Well, you know, again, a thing maybe I’m… you know, maybe it’s not my place to say. But I didn’t say you have to kill all these guys.
[Sylvi laughs]
Austin: You don’t kill every zombie in Resident Evil.
Keith: No, you said it was—no, you run past them. I’ve already not done that a hundred times in Silent Hill.
Austin: Uh-huh.
Keith: I’ve already, you know, confirmed that I could break through these walls rolling a Defy.
Austin: Mhm. Yeah, we did talk about that.
Keith: But I’m—I’m not in a great position… actually, right now is maybe the best chance I‘ve got.
Austin: Mhm.
Keith: This is my new best shot. Because it was—my path used to go through this, the big Nanobeast.
Austin: It still does.
Keith: Sorry, if I broke through this wall right behind me.
Austin: Oh, if you break through the wall, I see what you’re saying. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: If I break through the wall, I used to have to go through the big Nanobeast anyway to get where I was going.
Austin: Right.
Keith: That guy’s moved.
Austin: That’s true.
Keith: So things have changed.
Austin: This is true. You still have those, like, sensors, basically, reading that for you. I have moved the beasts into play as best as I can and updated them. So instead of one Nanobeast 5, we have two Nanobeast 4s. Instead of one Nanobeast 4, we now have two Nanobeast 3s. And instead of one Nanobeast 2, we now have two Nanobeast 1s down at the bottom. It’s easy.
Keith: Tough stuff.
Austin: You know? If you can’t beat them, become smaller and overwhelm them bit by bit.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: [laughs] Ah yeah, that old phrase.
Austin: That old—yeah. That old saw. I see what you’ve done here. Youv’e drawn two lines to identify, like, a way to—yeah, that’s fun.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvi: I like that Keith’s got minigames. [chuckles]
Janine: If we’ve all already got Motion in us, why don’t you just eat ’em? Once they get small enough. Just eat ’em up.
Austin: Just eat ’em up.
Keith: Oh, yeah. And then next, I’m gonna get a bowl full of microplastics.
[Janine chuckles]
Austin: Yeah.
Sylvi: The guy in Crimes of the Future seemed to like them.
Keith: Motion is microplastics.
Austin: Motion is microplastics.
Keith: Fuck.
Austin: You’ve seen through my slick allegory. This whole season’s been about [chuckling] microplastics. You thought it was about revolution, war, religion…
Keith: Plastic can seem like magic until all of the sudden it was inside our vital organs.
Sylvi: Plastic can seem like magic. [chuckles]
Austin: Plastic is—you know. Plastic—
Sylvi: Well, it is kind of magic. It’s just such an interesting phrase.
Keith: [cross] Plastic is magic. Imagine you have 1940s brain.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah. Alright, so you’re gonna try to break through this wall?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Alright. That sounds like a Weather the Storm to me.
Keith: Uh, yeah.
Austin: Probably with Defy. Strong-arm that shit.
Keith: Yeah. That’s—I think that’s what we said last time, too.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Slash roll. So, I would love to have advantage when I would benefit for my scale. 13 people working in unison.
Austin: Oh, yeah. A hundred percent. Take advantage. 3d6.
Keith: Plus 1. Ugh! No. [chuckles]
Austin: Hey. Oh, right. It’s not—
Keith: Yes.
Austin: 5, 6, 7, 8. It’s an 8.
Keith: It’s an 8.
Austin: Uh-huh. It could be worse. It could be worse.
Keith: Okay, I’ve got it. I’ve got a Bardic Inspiration for this to roll.
Austin: Right, because you can continue doing this. What is your—
Keith: We’re doing a classic heave-ho.
Austin: Oh, we’re doing the classic heave-ho.
Keith: We’re doing a classic heave-ho. This is a heave-ho chant.
Austin: Uh-huh. Again, Cas’alear really getting into this. You know, hopped out of the tank protection to yell heave-ho.
Keith: [laughs] Great.
Austin: I want to say that Cor’rina Corrine and Misericorde think this is the corniest Cas’alear has ever been. But, you know.
Keith: I’ll get to them.
Austin: It’s still their Apokine, you know? It’s still their—I don’t—I bet that Cor’rina does believe Cas’alear is like, the right—the true Princept. Misericorde doesn’t give a fuck. But Misericorde, you know, happy to take the command of this person, but not—doesn’t give a fuck about the political titles or whatever.
Keith: Sure, sure. Right, it’s a job.
Austin: Alright, so what’s this give you? This gives you another…
Keith: It gives me a 1d4.
Austin: Oh, a flat 1d4. That’s fun.
Keith: Yeah, yeah.
Austin: Roll 1d4. What you’re looking for here is a 2.
Keith: 4.
Austin: There is a 4. [mimics explosion] You break your way through the wall of this place, [Keith: Heave-ho.] heave-ho, leading your group into a safe zone, effectively, right?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: This is basically the safest place there is on this map for you as far as you can tell.
Keith: Right.
Austin: Because there’s no one there. And you’re able to make your way all the way up to the next little wall.
Keith: Yep.
Austin: Alright, let’s do one more of these. And this will take you not just through the wall, but this will be your approach to the spot on the map that you’re trying to get to.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: So again, are you—no song yet, I guess. This is, but scale. So 3d6.
Keith: Yeah. Plus 1.
Austin: Plus 1.
Keith: Oh, finally. Oh my god.
Austin: There you go. That’s a 13.
Keith: That’s a 13.
Austin: There you go. So yeah, so you’re able to break through…
Keith: Something happen on two 6s?
Austin: No.
Keith: No? Okay.
Austin: I think—that is Beam Saber or Blades in the Dark again. Multiple 6s is a crit.
Keith: Okay. I don’t get Spotlight.
Austin: Yeah. I believe. I believe. But maybe a Spotlight—maybe that’s right. No, no, I don’t think that’s true. It would be here, I think.
Keith: Okay. That's a lot of games [??? 01:39:03].
Austin: Or we have forgotten this, and oh well, you know? That’s how that goes sometimes. So it goes. Alright, yeah, so you’re able to break through that second wall. The Nanobeasts are spreading through the whole southeast and far, you know, the further zones—I guess they’re not subtitled anymore, and I don’t remember what colors they were, but the furthest east one’s here. As the rest of your crew continues to move deeper and deeper into the place.
[01:39:30]
Austin: You, and we’ll maybe we’ll hop back over to the other side at this point, but you catch the—on your scanners, that though you’ve made it here to this kind of central server broadcasting array thing that you need to get Cas’alear to, you note that there is still something moving on your sensors nearby.
Keith: Damn.
Austin: Above you somewhere in here. Does not match any of the new—any of the nanobeast stuff that you’ve seen. But you don’t—it’s not popping up. You know, it’s only flickering on the sensors.
Keith: Right.
Austin: So. Alright. And I think Cas’alear’s crew immediately begins to get to work to like, you know, plug cas in to whatever, you know, broadcasting booth that they brought to begin to send a message out to everyone in the galaxy.
Keith: Yeah, they brought an SSL2.
Austin: Yeah, that’s right. Yeah, they got a—they got the—what type of mixer do you think they’re using here?
Keith: That’s the mixer. They’ve got the road mics, yeah. And the MOTU M2 backup.
Austin: Oh, that is the mixer. Right, right, right. Right, right, right. Right, I have my—my SSL2’s over there, it’s just not doing great. Yeah, that’s the thing. I think the SSL2 doesn’t work, so they’ve switched over to the backup. They’re like, “Ah, we just—the ports are—there’s like—there’s a whine noise, we think maybe it’s a power thing.”
Keith: “For some reason, I’m clipping on this, but not on that.”
Austin: “But not on this.” Yeah, it exports to a stereo track, but only the left stereo track is—it’s a mono track, but in the left stereo channel. That’s what happened to me for a year. Anyway. You’re getting set up for that. And I think that there is like a sort of—once the—you know, someone tests the line, effectively. And it’s sort of like being at a concert where, you know, you hear someone plug in a microphone, and everyone goes like, “Woo!”
Keith: Yeah, you hear someone go like, [taps on microphone].
[Sylvi laughs]
Austin: Yeah, yeah, “One, two.” But it’s everybody in the galaxy feels that on the back of their neck. You know? Yeah.
Keith: [very close to microphone] “Is this thing on?”
Austin: [laughs] Exactly.
[Sylvi laughs]
Sylvi: “Can I get a little more monitor, please? Can we just… the PA isn’t really…”
[Keith laughs]
[music outro - “Nothing is Stationary” by Jack de Quidt]
Sylvi: “I can’t hear it.”
Austin: Incredible.