Twilight Mirage 58: The Siege of the Lineage Brighton Pt. 2
Transcribed by Jen @wronghandle#1989
AUSTIN: It is the 27th day of the siege of New Independence by the Herringbone Flotilla. As the conflict between the Herringbone Flotilla faction of the Rogue Wave and the Lineage Brighton has finally kicked off into full force, you’ve come to understand that Advent kind of put up the Herringbone Flotilla - supplied them with more weapons, supplied them with more troops - and pushed them to open a front on the Lineage Brighton so that they would look the other way and lose something very important and be distracted.
You see in the ocean— the ocean dips, like a parting-of-the-Red-Sea style. The ocean’s just hanging there.
[MUSIC - “The Notion” begins]
And on the ground is an Advent facility, probably a Concrete Town Particulars facility. It’s even made of the Q concrete. Then we cut from that over shot to a wide-angle shot of Even, Gig, and Kent leaving that facility as it smokes and burns behind them and pushing this big like, concrete crate on it. It’s like a cube of concrete.
This thing, whatever it is, one: needs to be rejoined with the Wandering Sea which they’ve been trying to capture for the last— for months now. It used to be a thing that was on the planet Quire and now is floating in space near Brighton. It is the ocean, it’s a part of the ocean that’s alive. It is something that was alive in side of Brighton. They were going to use whatever this is to manipulate the Wandering Sea, and by returning it to the Wandering Sea you will prevent them from doing that.
And so y’all have this thing. Your job is to get out of here and go pick up Echo from dinner and get it back to the spaceship— er, get it back to the Wandering Sea up in space. That’s all. No big deal.
AUSTIN (as Ballad): Look, you should go wait for your people. They’re on their way. All right? I shouldn’t be telling you.
AUSTIN: And he like, sends over coordinates for the closest dock where you’ll be able to get picked up quickly.
AUSTIN (as Ballad) : All right?
SYLVIA (as Echo): All right.
SYLVIA: I really quickly am going to use my communicator to say, “Hey, you guys need to not go to this dock,” and it’s the one that he gave me, “because they know you’re going there.”
AUSTIN: Okay. So what’s the other dock like? The one that you decided to go to?
SYLVIA: Maybe it’s like, the reason that this one is not as good to go to is because it’s a little bigger and busier.
AUSTIN: It’s bigger and busier. And there you see The Prince Elect, the flagship of Ballad Reverie.
AUSTIN (as Traffic Controller): World Without End, go ahead to launch route 007
AUSTIN: And then we get the same person or another person going,
AUSTIN (as Traffic Controller): Yeah, that’s right, that’s right. The Prince Elect, you’re next in line. Launch route 008.
[MUSIC - “The Notion” ends]
AUSTIN: Welcome to Friends at the Table, an actual--play podcast focused on critical worldbuilding, smart characterization, and fun interaction between good friends. I am your host, Austin Walker, running out of breath because I’m sick still a little bit. Joining me today, Andrew Lee Swan.
DRE: Hey, you can find me on Twitter at swandre300.
AUSTIN: Also joining us, Sylvia[1] Clare.
SYLVIA: Hey, you can find me on Twitter at captaintrash and you can also find me on the show Emojidrome or videogamechoochoo.com.
AUSTIN: And Keith Carberry.
KEITH: HI, my name’s Keith. You can find me on Twitter at keithjcarberry. You can find the Let’s Plays that I do on youtube.com/runbutton. It’s my birthday tomorrow! What’s up?
AUSTIN: Happy birthday! Wait, I thought it was your birthday today? It’s not your birthday today?
KEITH: No, I had a birthday lunch that I just came from. Went to a Japanese steakhouse, had some— I had the Sea of Japan, which is scallops, shrimp, and lobster. (DRE: Ooo.) It was sick, it’s really great.
AUSTIN: That’s good! We’re gonna be dealing with some oceans. We’re gonna be dealing with some seas over here, so that’s on— that’s like a theme lunch.
KEITH: Yeah, that’s exactly what I— I was like, “You know what? I’m going to be dealing with some sea later so I should load up. I should get in character.”
AUSTIN: Pre-game, yeah.
KEITH: Yeah, pre-grame on fish. Oh, I had some sashimi too.
AUSTIN: Pre-game sea game. They’re okay. Sashimi is also very good.
I’m Austin Walker. You can follow me on Twitter at austin_walker. You can follow the show Friends at the Table at twitter.com/friends_table. You can follow us also and support us at friendsatthetable.cash which will take you to our Patreon where you can support us for a buck a month to get Clapcasts. Which are little fun 30-second to— some of those are like 30 minutes long at this point, right?
KEITH: Yeah, they get big.
AUSTIN: Of us just talking bullshit before we clap and start recording. Sometimes we even decide, “We don’t have a real game recording in us, do we? What we have is the ability to look at these Youtube videos and Wikipedia pages and talk about them and laugh.” So go check that out.
KEITH: Clapcasts are great. It’s one of my favorite parts of recording the show.
AUSTIN: I love them. They’re fun. I’ll also say that there’s stuff that’s in this arc that references stuff that came out of some Patreon-only stuff. So there was an episode where we talked about - this was last year, actually - making fronts in Dungeon World, which is a way that GMs can kind of keep track of story material and factions and stuff like that in Dungeon World. And to show how to do that, I made a front for the Rogue Wave and for Brighton and for the Wandering Sea, which is this thing that’s a big deal in this. And that’s where the character of High Captain Will, the former Excerpt of Harmony, first popped up. And that character also popped up in a game that we did for our patrons called Lady Blackbird. Every month we do a live game for our patrons?
KEITH: Great episode.
AUSTIN: It’s a really fun episode. We have to do a follow-up to it really soon. We really do. In which we were playing a group of kind of like, space ne’er-do-wells, including— go ahead, what were you going to say, Keith?
KEITH: And in totally different ways. Each one is a ne’er-do-well unto themselves. [DRE laughs]
AUSTIN: Oh my god. There’s a space pirate captain who is in love with a— er, who is in lust. Who is way into—
KEITH Way into.
AUSTIN: — a deposed prince played by Keith. And then the third character is the first mate of the space pirate captain, who is played by Ali. And Dre plays the first mate, whose name is Half Past the Minute Hand.
DRE: Mhm. Lots of pockets on that boy.
AUSTIN: Lots of pockets. It’s a whole thing. And the ship—
KEITH: Lotsa Pockets could be your alias too.
AUSTIN: That’s true, that’s 100% true. It may have been. There are lots of aliases and space magic and complete bullshit. So why don’t you check that out if you don’t support us now? Friendsatthetable.cash will take you to our Patreon page. And for five bucks a month, you’ll get basically all of the audio content that we produce for our patrons.
KEITH: Yeah. It’s this extra several hours a month.
AUSTIN: It’s a lot! Every month, yeah. But that’s not what we’re doing today. Again, if you want to go see background on some of those characters and some neat things— I don’t think any of that’s necessary to enjoy this stuff, but.
KEITH: Well, I don’t know. I haven’t played it yet. But I would assume no.
AUSTIN: Right. I’m not going to be like, “And the answer to the riddle is … “
KEITH: Right. But that Lady Blackbird episode, I was— man, I was so tired. I thought that there was no way I could do anything. And then—
AUSTIN: It was great.
KEITH: — it was really good. [DRE laughs] I really loved that.
AUSTIN: The reason I brought that up was because High Captain Will was in that and so was her flagship, The Creeping Chain.
So speaking of. We are opening again on a shot of the sea. This time it’s an underwater shot of coral and seaweed deep below the waves. The camera kind of moves slowly backwards through the detritus of things that are crashed in this sea. There’s wings of old crashed spaceships and a sunken submarine. There’s anchors from old sailing ships. And because the camera’s moving, maybe you wouldn’t notice this at first if you’re watching the movie or tv show of this? But the coral isn’t just gathered at the bottom of the sea. It’s spread in weird lines throughout the entire ocean. It’s like weird geometrical intersecting lines almost like you just took a picture under the water and just started doing, “I’m going to draw a diagonal line.” Okay, you’ve just drawn a diagonal line of coral and seaweed.
And then you notice there isn’t a seafloor at all. In fact, under all that stuff is just the Mirage. And the camera finally pulls out far enough to reveal that this is the Wandering Sea. The Wandering Sea is floating in space. And it’s small for a sea. It’s only the size of Connecticut, which is still like 5,000 square miles. But that means it’s larger than the largest capital ship in the entire Mirage, which is probably Our Profit’s ship the Restitution of the Self? Which is a giant, giant, giant aircraft carrier. But even that is tiny compared to this. Right? Like, how big is Connecticut? How big is the biggest city in Connecticut? Connecticut is still bigger than that.
And what the camera kind of shows is that all of that coral, all that seaweed, all those things that are like, running through the Wandering Sea combine into a massive highway-sized chain that connects it to the Creeping Chain, which is the flagship of the Herringbone Flotilla, the flagship of HIgh Captain Will. Quick reminder, that flotilla used to be the leader of the Rogue Wave in the pre-Miracle Twilight Mirage, like on Quire? High Captain Will was the high captain of the Rogue Wave. In the time since the Miracle, the Brighton Lineage has kind of taken over a lot of those roles and grown in de factor and eventually in de jeur status as the leadership of the Rogue Wave, which is a group of a bunch of independent pirate captains who all work together. Or sea captains who all work together.
In any case, you are all now caught in the middle of it almost literally? At this point The World Without End has lifted up off the planet Brighton. And above you is the Wandering Sea, an ocean the size of Connecticut in space which is connected to the Creeping Chain—
KEITH: How deep is it?
AUSTIN: It’s deep. It’s big. It’s the ocean. It’s big.
KEITH: It’s not like a—
AUSTIN: No, it’s not just like a floor. Do you know what I mean? It’s like—
KEITH: Right, it’s not just a floor of water. It’s a huge—
AUSTIN: It’s skyscraper sized. It’s higher— how deep is the ocean?
KEITH: Really deep. It’s really deep.
AUSTIN: Not its deepest. But off the coast— like, a 100 miles off the coast.
KEITH: Right. Okay. That— honestly, that might be its deepest. I think there’s a big shelf there.
AUSTIN: Okay. It’s probably low shelf before it does that big, big, big deep drop. D’you know what I mean? In my mind—
KEITH: It is proportional to its small size relative to other seas.
AUSTIN: Yes. Relative to— exactly.
KEITH: Smallest sea on the planet Earth by the way is 60,000 square miles.
AUSTIN: Right! So yeah, this one’s only 5,000 square miles. So very tiny comparatively, but still huge.
KEITH: Well, and so is Connecticut. Which is big for— it’s big for something unless you’re talking about a sea.
AUSTIN: Unless you’re talking about a sea or a state. Size is a weird— it’s a weird thing.
So the Creeping Chain and the Wandering Sea and the Herringbone Flotilla are all above you. It looks like - I think you know this now - it looks like the Creeping Chain is connected to the Wandering Sea. And it almost looks like—
KEITH: It’s also haunted.
AUSTIN: Is it actually haunted or was that just a thing that we learned in—was that the— ?
KEITH: We did that.
AUSTIN: You did that. You pretended it was haunted.
KEITH: We pretended—
AUSTIN: See? This is a callback that 14,000 of our listeners might not understand. [laughs]
KEITH: Are there 14,000?
AUSTIN: Yeah. There’s more than that thankfully.
KEITH: That’s pretty good.
AUSTIN: Yeah, it’s nice. I’m thankful for all of our listeners.
KEITH: I have thanks, listeners.
AUSTIN: But I also know how many listen to us on Patreon.
KEITH: That’s true.
AUSTIN: Actually that number doesn’t— anyway, doesn’t matter.
KEITH: Oh! I figured out the size thing. It’s more ocean that you can see at once when you’re in it. If you’re in it, you can’t see—
AUSTIN: Yes. If you’re in it, you may as well be in the ocean. Right. [DRE laughs]
KEITH: Yeah. You cannot see that much ocean at the same time.
AUSTIN: Right. Yes. That’s a really good way of thinking about it. In fact, I have sequences that I hope happen this game at which you may as well just be on the ocean. D’you know what I mean? So. Anyway. Anyway. Anyway.
KEITH: Anyway.
AUSTIN: The Creeping Sea is connected to the Wandering Sea. But it doesn’t have it leashed. It’s almost as if the Wandering Sea is tugging— is like a tug boat. It has it set up so that it’s going wherever the Wandering Sea’s going. But it’s not pulling back on the leash in such a way that the leash would break. Does that make sense?
KEITH: Yeah.
SYLVIA: Okay.
AUSTIN: So then below you is Ebony and Ivory, the flagship of the Lineage Castlerose, which you fought off for the most part last episode.
KEITH: This is the really cool guitar ship.
AUSTIN: The really cool flying— inverted flying V guitar ship.
DRE: Okay. Yeah yeah.
KEITH: It’s the Gibson. It’s the Gibson— yeah.
AUSTIN: It’s the Gibson, yeah. And then also The Prince Elect, which is the strike vessel and capital ship of - it’s probably actually, that ship is probably the same size as yours and as the Ebony and Ivory - which is Ballad Reverie’s ship. Echo’s brother. And they’re both below you. So on one hand, you’re going up. And on the other hand, you’re being chased from below.
KEITH: I have a question.
AUSTIN: Totally.
KEITH: What has happened to me?
AUSTIN: You’re back. You’re back on your feet.
KEITH: I’m back on my feet. [DRE laughs]
AUSTIN: You took a status at the end of last session. You woke up. The last thing that happened was you waking up. You took the Reckless status, proving that you are committed to being a reckless Youtuber. But you were back in scenes.
Everyone is in the cockpit. You know based on stuff that you learned in the Advent’s facility that you got— er, that you were kind of like coming out of at the end of last session? That there is this concrete cube you have. And whatever’s inside of that concrete cube— you believe at least - or this is what you believed based on what you read - is if that thing goes into the sea, it will be able to get away. You will have saved that sea. And the sea will not be captured by Advent and the Rogue Wave— er, and the Herringbone Flotilla. Advent wants to use that giant Connecticut ocean, the Wandering Sea, as a like a big brain for their own version of Crystal Palace. You don’t know what’s in that concrete cube. You haven’t deactivated the concrete.
But that is where we’re at. Everybody’s in the cockpit. And we have a moment to breathe here, so.
DRE: Okay, hold on.
AUSTIN: What are y’all doing?
DRE: Do we have this concrete cube?
AUSTIN: Yes, that was— you got that offscreen last session.
DRE: Okay. Gotcha.
AUSTIN: You opened with it on that pushcart. And then you loaded it onto the ship and escaped.
DRE: That’s right. Okay.
AUSTIN: Yes. It’s been a while, so.
SYLVIA: And we need to have the cube opened before we put it in the ocean for it to work? Do we know that yet?
AUSTIN: That’s a fair thing to believe. You know that that— if I were you, I wouldn’t fuck with that concrete and the Wandering Sea in any way. Do you know what I mean?
SYLVIA: Okay.
KEITH: Wait. So don’t open it.
AUSTIN: No, I’m saying you should open it. You should not just put that concrete that shuts down all sorts of weird supernatural things and turns them—
KEITH: Right. Yeah yeah yeah.
SYLVIA: That’s a good point.
DRE: We need supernatural things.
AUSTIN: Though also you know that there are limits to what a piece of concrete can do because you did that when you all fought Ache? Y’all know that one concrete packet thing couldn’t even beat the Axiom Ache. And the Axiom Ache was only as big as a city, not as big as Connecticut, so.
KEITH: Not even close to as big as Connecticut. You guys saw the Wandering Bog thing, right? Is that what this ocean is? That was cool.
SYLVIA: What?
AUSTIN: Wait, what’s the Wandering Bog?
KEITH: There was a part of a lake— a shoreline of a lake in Minnesota that broke off and was just like, floating across the lake and destroying docks. (DRE: Oh my god.) It’s crazy. They call it the Wandering Beast.
AUSTIN: That’s cool as hell.
KEITH: I think they finally fixed it. But it took like a year.
SYLVIA: Wow.
AUSTIN: Interesting. Neat.
DRE: Oh, Brainerd. I know people from Brainerd. Anyway.
KEITH: You just have to google “image lake”.
DRE: All three of these ships that are around us don’t like us, right?
AUSTIN: All the ships don’t like you. Correct.
DRE: Okay.
KEITH: Well. Echo’s brother kind of maybe?
AUSTIN: Well. No. Echo’s brother was giving them an opportunity to reconnect with y’all. Echo, what do you think?
SYLVIA (as Echo): We cannot rely on that is what I think.
AUSTIN: Right. Fair.
KEITH (as GIg): Well, hold on. Last time you thought we couldn’t rely on that, it turned out that we could. [laughs]
AUSTIN: That’s true.
SYLVIA (as Echo): Things have changed. Because I didn’t rely on it, we can’t rely on it anymore.
KEITH (as GIg): Okay, got it.
AUSTIN: That’s how it goes sometimes.
KEITH (as GIg): It’s “one strike, you’re out.” It’s brother rules.
AUSTIN: Brothers— yeah, it turns out—
SYLVIA (as Echo): He’s probably mad. Is what I’m saying.
AUSTIN: Fair. Quick other note. We’re getting late in the season. I know that because Even Gardener is Obsessed, Echo Reverie is Haunted, and Gig Kephart is Reckless. Y’all all have status. And so that’s a fun thing to keep in mind. You get XP as a reminder when you play— when you struggle from your Vice or status during a session. So keep that in mind.
KEITH: Good news though. Zero stress.
AUSTIN: Zero stress for you.
DRE: Well, that must be nice.
AUSTIN: Two stress for Even. And Echo, what do you got? Five? Wuh oh. Hope things don’t get too hectic.
KEITH: Oh man. Good luck with your second status. [DRE laughs]
AUSTIN: We’ll see. Maybe he’ll resist and lose some stuff. I don’t know. So what do y’all do? What’s up?
KEITH: Yeah, maybe take evasive action.
DRE: I mean, I could do that. I think we need to figure out how to get this concrete off?
AUSTIN: You’re in a place right— this moment you are safe. That might not be the case in five minutes?
KEITH: I want to open the crate.
DRE: Yeah, I’m with that.
AUSTIN: Okay. So do y’all just go to where the crate is? Do you remember—
KEITH: Yeah. It’s in the hallway.
AUSTIN: It’s in the hallway. It’s in the hallway. It’s in the long hallway.
DRE: Oh, right!
KEITH: It’s very close to where we all just were.
DRE: Yes. Because we put it in the hallway out of the cargo hold. Yes. Okay, I remember all this now.
KEITH: And then remember, where they came in through was exactly there.
AUSTIN: It all worked out. Someone did point out where— do you remember the bit where Even had to dunk out the Torch Units and stuff? You actually shouldn’t have had to have done that because— I think we’re going to roll with it. This is what happened with actual play.
KEITH: I read this. Yeah. I’m also fine with rolling with it.
AUSTIN: Gig resisted and blacked out and got the status by getting too much stress. And what we forgot was, the resist succeeds even if you fill up your stress meter. His resistance should have kept them from getting on. That’s what he was resisting. But live and learn. Move on. There was a cool sequence where you fucking flipped the ship upside down. We’re not going to undo that.
KEITH: And then I can, outside of canon, take solace in the fact that I did actually succeed.
AUSTIN: You did.
KEITH: I did do it.
AUSTIN: It’s true. It’s true. Let me actually just see something. Let’s see if I can be a good person. [DRE laughs]
SYLVIA: It’s what I say every day when I wake up.
KEITH: Let’s see. Don’t hold your breath.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I mean, the problem here is— I was looking to see if you gained— okay, here’s what I’ll do. I’m a good person.
KEITH: Sick.
AUSTIN: Even, subtract two stress.
DRE: Ooo!
AUSTIN: You got three stress from resisting the consequence with Prowess.
DRE: Oh, yeah yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: And I’m not going to give you all of that back, but I’ll give you most of it back.
DRE: There we go.
AUSTIN: Because you were resisting that from trying to flip the ship over and stuff like that. So I want to encourage more risky manoeuvers. That shouldn’t have happened. We’re going to keep it in the fiction, but I’ll refund you some of that stress.
Okay. So y’all are gathered in the hallway, or did you move this to new place? What’s going on?
KEITH: I think it’s very funny to do this in the hallway.
DRE: I agree.
AUSTIN: So all four of you are just on the same side of it?
KEITH: Yeah. Why move it? It’s heavy.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I guess here’s a thing. How do you undo it? It’s the same device— it’s that same sort of seatbelt-hamburger-concrete device that we’ve been talking about on and off for about six months? To the point that I can say “seatbelt-hamburger-concrete device” and you know what that means?
KEITH: Seatbelt-hamburger and we know what it— concrete-seatbelt-hamburger? Yeah.
AUSTIN: I don’t think there’s just a button. I think this is— there needs to be a roll here to open up this thing, for sure. How do you—
KEITH: I can fucking open this with my bare hands, I bet.
AUSTIN: Oh yeah?
KEITH: Yeah. I bet I can.
AUSTIN: What’s that look like?
DRE: Just that brollic, huh?
KEITH: Do you know that thing in a cartoon when someone’s trying to open something and you see them struggling? And it cuts to them in struggling totally different position? And it does it like six times.
AUSTIN: Yeah. Five times. Uh huh.
KEITH: Yeah. That’s what it looks like.
AUSTIN: So you’re looking for a place to put your finger in and find out where the — not the switch, but where the loose whatever is?
KEITH: Yeah. And it’s very video game effort. I’m just, “oom errrgh!” I’m just grunting and trying to pry it. Like, “I can definitely do this!” and then “erghhh!”
AUSTIN: So this is Rig? Are you rolling Rig here?
KEITH: No. I think I’m rolling Scrap?
AUSTIN: Scrap? Are you just going to punch through this thing? Is that basically— it’s just about physical— ?
KEITH: Well, it’s not a Rig because I’m not building anything to do it. I think I’m just— like when someone says, “Hey, can you open this jar?” That’s what I’m doing.
AUSTIN: Right. I’m just trying again to be a friend to people here who have stats that I can see what they are. [KEITH laughs] [reading] Scrap with an opponent in a blast or physical combat, assault or hold a position, brawl, fight with melee weapons, or wrestle. Rig together mechanical solutions; disable, modify, repair or create mechanisms; disable a trap; pick a lock; or crack a safe re: explosives.
KEITH: I guess crack a safe.
AUSTIN: This is crack a safe. This is Rig.
KEITH: I’ll Rig. I’ll use Rig.
AUSTIN: Scrap is about fighting. It’s not about strength.
KEITH: Yeah. Controlled?
AUSTIN: Controlled.
KEITH: Standard.
AUSTIN: Standard.
KEITH: Bonus dice none.
AUSTIN: Ey, it’s a six. There you go!
KEITH: It’s a six!
AUSTIN: You can do it with your bare hands.
KEITH: I fucking did it. I had a whole bit lined up, too. But I got it, so.
AUSTIN: [laughs] So you find this— I think you go, “ughhhhhhh” and then you do realize that there’s just a couple of buttons you can push down at the same time and then pull up on the top. And goes like, “pwhhhct.” And first it makes the sound that Darth Vader’s mask makes when it connects onto him. Do you know what I’m talking about? And then it makes kind of a squelchy sound as the concrete kind of recedes into the seatbelt-hamburger part.
And inside is giant - it’s a cube still - green red bullion cube?
KEITH: Great. So a cube?
AUSTIN: And it’s a little gooey? It’s still a cube. But it— hmm.
KEITH: But it’s giving off the impression that it would make a broth.
AUSTIN: It would— ah, mmm. Something feels off about it. You know what I think it is? Is you saw pictures of this. I’m going to flash back. When you were in that Advent Concrete Town Particulars facility on Brighton where they were making this or studying it or whatever, you saw a picture of this thing. And it had a sort of nice glow to it. This feels a little desaturated.
KEITH: Okay. It’s old. It looks like it’s past—
AUSTIN: Mmm. Someone here could make a roll about this. I don’t know who is a scientist who might know about life forms, but. Anyone here have thoughts about who could be a scientist?
KEITH: I’m sort of a jack— I saw pictures of this. I’m sort of a jack-of-all-trades kind of guy. I have one in Study.
SYLVIA: I also have one in Study.
DRE: I have two in Study. And I can— I don’t know, plug my brain into it, I guess.
AUSTIN: [laughing] And are a biologist.
KEITH: Oh yeah, that’s the one.
AUSTIN: And are a lifetime biologist who’s studied weird creatures and shit?
DRE: Yeah. So all right. So yeah. Yeah.
AUSTIN: So what’s this look like?
KEITH: Honestly, it sounds like it was Dre from the get-go. [DRE laughs]
AUSTIN: Could have been. What’s this— Echo, do you just attach your hair tendrils to it?
[overlapping]
SYLVIA: Oh, do you mean Even?
DRE: Even?
AUSTIN: I said Echo. I mean Even, yes. Sorry.
SYLVIA: My hair’s normal.
AUSTIN: This— yeah, Lem. Lem did it.
DRE: I think it’s definitely like a— I reach my hand out at first. And then I’m like, “Oh, no. This’ll be easier” and then it’s the tendril. But I think it’s the tendril going down my shoulder and then snaking around my arm. And then like, “Yeah, let’s make it work.”
AUSTIN: Go ahead and give me a Study. Just controlled standard.
DRE: Yeah. Gotta remember how these sheets work.
AUSTIN: Is anyone helping? Are you pushing? We should talk about— yeah, remember all that stuff.
KEITH: Yeah. Fuck it, I’ll help. Fuck it.
AUSTIN: All right. Okay.
SYLVIA: Only one person can help, right? At least in fiction I want to ready to pull him away if linking his brain to this doesn’t work great for him.
AUSTIN: Sure.
KEITH: Eh, he know what he’s doing.
AUSTIN: Great. I do think— I think only one person. It has been— it was before E3 since I’ve played this game.
SYLVIA: I don’t need to roll. I can just say “Echo is there in case something goes wrong.” And then I can do an action then.
AUSTIN: Sounds good.
KEITH: How do I help again? It’s been a while.
AUSTIN: You just take one stress. And then Dre gets an extra die.
KEITH: Oh, okay. He can get this done.
DRE: I’m just double-checking. The only thing I have is just that machines speak to me when I study them, which is what I’m doing right now.
AUSTIN: Yeah, and I’m actually going to say that this counts even though this is not what you would think of as a machine. There is something here that I think still counts for what that is.
DRE: Ah, six.
AUSTIN: That’s a six. Look at you. All right. So I think you get the regular part of this Study first. Right? Which is, it is a big cube of plankton basically. I mean, I guess this is actually a Gather Information roll? So I’m going to give you some basic information. Then you can ask me something and I can answer it. It’s a big cube of plankton that when operating correctly would empower the Wandering Sea to be super strong basically and be its best self. It needs it. It’s an ocean—
DRE: Kind of restoring the ecosystem kind of thing?
AUSTIN: Yeah. So do you have questions? What are your questions? Both in character as Even talking this cube of plankton and also out of character in terms of what is Even trying to figure out.
DRE: Yeah. I mean, do I get the sense from this plankton that it also wants to be in the sea?
AUSTIN: Totally. I think this is similar to what we’ve talk about Axioms, in that it wants to be in the sea the way that a ball let go of your hand wants to be on the ground. Right? It has a memory of being in the sea. Or that memory might be genetic, it might not be a specific “these pieces of plankton were in the sea once.” In fact, I’ll say cleanly this specific cube of plankton was never dispersed in the Wandering Sea. But other plankton just like this was. And it died. And that is why the Wandering Sea left Brighton. And I think you’re able to pick it up pretty quickly from that— do you know what this system used to have and it doesn’t anymore? A sun, it doesn’t have a sun anymore. And Quire did its best to make everything cool, but the Wandering Sea is a very unique species that predated the Miracle and did not mesh with the big change in the ecosystem. So yeah, the plankton previously would have been just fine living in the Wandering Sea with sunlight. The Wandering Sea had to leave because there’s no more sun. And it was trying to leave the Twilight Mirage. But it hasn’t been able to do that because it’s not that strong because there’s not the plankton it needs to be at its full strength.
DRE: Is there anything we need to do to prime this plankton or amp it up before we drop it into the sea?
AUSTIN: Yeah 100%. So that is one of the big things you’ve learned here, is that if you drop it in like this, it might actually just cause the sea to go into shock. It will have what it needs, but it won’t— it’s like empty calories.
KEITH: So I have two ideas. You know how when you get a fish and you put it in your tank. And you’ve got to put it in a bag of water that it’s used to before you can put it in the main thing?
AUSTIN: Mhm.
KEITH: That’s the first step.
AUSTIN: Okay.
KEITH: And then the second thing is, we have to build a vitamin D lamp.
AUSTIN: So you do. Or you need for— that is the one that I think this Study confirms. This thing needs to be supercharged with sunlight. The bad news is that there’s no sun in this system. The good news is that there’s Our Profit’s ship, the Restitution of All Things, that has the beam of light that’s constantly pointed at Crystal Palace. That’s a very powerful lamp. You could theoretically supercharge this in kind of Dark Day bright gun or whatever the fuck that thing is. But it would mean putting it outside the ship and pushing into this giant beam of white light, which seems hard and dangerous. But that’s something you could do.
I think Even, with your machines speak thing, this cube thinks that’s a good idea. This cube responds positively as y’all discuss that possibility.
DRE: Hmm. It is like— how much desperation is part of that positivity?
AUSTIN: A lot. This cube will not live another full day without that concrete.
DRE: Yeah. And we probably also don’t have— that doesn’t give us enough time to fly to another system with a sun?
AUSTIN: Y’all can’t leave this system.
DRE: Oh, that’s right.
AUSTIN: You’re in the Twilight Mirage. You’re in the Quire system. You need something very special to break through the Mirage on the way out. But could you fly to a place that has a sun lamp? Probably. Probably.
DRE: How long would that take? Probably too long.
AUSTIN: It’s a big cube. You need a big sun lamp. We could roll— if you want to go that direction, I’m not saying we can’t do it. We can roll some dice and figure out what that looks like. That would be fun too. It’d be fun to chase you guys to a weird sun lamp.
KEITH: I had assumed we were going to build it ourselves. But if there’s one nearby, let’s use that one.
AUSTIN: I’m saying the easiest one, the one that’s at hand— again, there’s a bunch of ways to do it. Which is like, yeah we can try to find one at hand, at Brighton. You could theoretically go to Senechal if it’s lined up right. We could roll some dice and see if - I’m looking at the map here - theoretically get to Senechal and back or Thyrsus and back. Both of those would be friendly planets. I’d roll a luck die to see if either of them are— in their rotation about Volition, are close enough to be in a day’s travel. Because once it’s supercharged, it’s supercharged and you could probably get it back in time.
DRE: So this sun lamp that’s on Our Profit’s ship, is it on all the time?
AUSTIN: All the time, yeah. It’s meant to be blinding to Crystal Palace. And so it’s constantly pointed— I just realized she’s not on this map as is? Can I move stuff around or is— no, this is a fake map. This is a map that’s already— everything is locked in place, unfortunately. I’m just going to make a little thing— for instance up here in the top right? And shooting a beam of light like, “bzhoom!” down that— whoop whoop, well that fucked up. That’s not what I wanted at all. [DRE laughs] Like, “boom!” Fuck, why does it not let go the way I want it to? Boom. See that white line I just added? There’s just a big white beam in the middle of the system now.
DRE: And which faction are we pissing off by messing with that spaceship again?
AUSTIN: Which spaceship?
DRE: The Profit’s. Our Profit’s.
AUSTIN: Oh, you wouldn’t need to get close to it. It just shoots—
KEITH: The beam is like a billion miles.
AUSTIN: The beam is hitting a planet that was in Counter/Weight. You know what I mean? Bullshit scifi technology.
DRE: Right. But which faction does that ship belong to though?
AUSTIN: That is Our Profit’s faction. Pushing this little cube into it for a second? It would not even— it would be a blip of a blip. It wouldn’t be anything.
KEITH (as GIg): I’m already— hey guys, I’m already suited up. I’m already ready to go.
DRE: Yeah. Because I’m wondering— it’s either that we fly the ship right up there and somebody’s standing on the ship and fucking Lion King Simba— holds it up into the sun lamp. Or we do some weird mirror bullshit.
AUSTIN: Mmm! You could do some weird mirror bullshit. I think either— both of those work.
DRE: I feel like weird mirror bullshit would interrupt their beam? Which would make them more upset than us just putting our hand in it for a second.
AUSTIN: The amount of— even the weird mirror bullshit would be so small. I—
KEITH: They’re so far away that they probably wouldn’t even notice that the beam has disconnected at some point.
AUSTIN: It won’t disconnect. Our Profit’s ship is the size of the biggest city in Connecticut. And the beam is the size of the biggest building in— you know what? It’s big. It’s huge. It’s as big as the front of that ship. So you could do anything with that beam where y’all are at on the other side of the system here at Brighton without it being— outside of trying to reflect it back— or here’s a thing I’ll say. Rolling a complete failure while trying to do this in some way I guess could be something where it would come back at you? But none of the things you’ve said so far do I think would be fair for me to get Our Profit or the Church of the Self or the New Earth Hegemony involved in any way.
KEITH: All right. I’m pro-Lion King here.
DRE: All right, let’s do it.
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Who’s doing what.
DRE: I guess I’m flying the ship.
KEITH (as Gig): I’m already suited up from when everybody was still deciding.
AUSTIN: Echo, what are you up to?
SYLVIA (as Echo): I was going to also get in my Angler—
AUSTIN: That’s a good idea. Having two people is definitely—
SYLVIA (as Echo): — for Lion King plan, as we’re calling it.
AUSTIN: — yes, for the Lion King plan. All right. So I think we just then hard cut to— here’s what we get. Even, you know you cannot just sit still and park and let them go do it. Or you could, but that’s time— here’s what I’m going to do. I’m going to add a clock. Oh boy.
DRE: Yeah buddy.
AUSTIN: Here we go! [KEITH laughs] Okay, I’m adding a thing that is the ships that are chasing you. Even—
DRE: Is that a four-part clock?
AUSTIN: Yeah. When that four-part clock, they are here. You could totally just try to park and hope that that thing doesn’t— that they don’t get you. But boy, that seems— no.
KEITH: What if we hid on the other side of the really wide beam?
AUSTIN: They’re chasing you already, so they’ll just follow you around. Do you know what I mean? Sadly. Again, you can try that. You would theoretically— I guess that would be safer in some instance because they wouldn’t— I mean, they’re not going to lose distance on you. That’s the important thing, is they’re not going to lose distance on you because they’re already on your tail. They chased you off of Brighton as it was? The reason you had this five minutes to chill is because you were just in the middle of nowhere.
So yeah. I think this is probably going to be some sort of manoeuver to lift this thing. How are you lifting it? How are you moving it around? Is it still in the big hover cart?
KEITH: Hover cart’s good.
AUSTIN: Yeah?
KEITH: Well, it’s plankton. How heavy can plankton be?
AUSTIN: It’s heavy. And also it’s gooey. It’s like a big gooey bullion cube of plankton.
DRE: Do you want to Rig a thing where you’re strapping it onto your Angler’s arm or something? Just so if shit does get weird and we have to do evasive manoeuvers, you’re not as likely to drop this thing?
KEITH: Well, we’re going to put it in a baggie filled with water at its own temperature.
AUSTIN: So you produced from the cargo hold some sort of thing filled with water?
KEITH: Yeah. More like a tarpaulin.
AUSTIN: Tarps got less expensive in the future. Right.
KEITH: This is a smaller tarpaulin.
AUSTIN: Right, this is not that bad. And filled it with water. And is it clear? Is is like a ziplock baggie?
DRE: I would hope so. Because how else is the sun going to get through?
AUSTIN: It has to get full sun.
KEITH: Well, I— yeah, that’s a good point. I guess it’s a just sort of plastic lining, a clear plastic lining. Not so much of a tarp.
AUSTIN: All right. So you get to this big line of light. The ships are chasing you. You go to presumably the cargo hold? And you’re in a position where the Anglers plus the cube can exit. Even, it’s really hot in here. And even when you’re not— you don’t have to be looking at the light for it to be blinding. So let’s start with you. Can you give me a roll of some sort to kind of just— I guess, again you’re going forward. You’re flying near this hot beam of light and trying stay stable?
DRE: Yeah. I think what I want to do is basically keep moving and do it so we’re almost skimming across the bottom of this beam.
AUSTIN: So you know what I think? I think this is a set up manoeuver in which by succeeding you will— the team members who are doing something else will get +1 effect or improved position. So what are you doing, Helm?
DRE: Yeah, I think so. Yeah, I’m just keeping it steady.
AUSTIN: All right, perfect. Give me your Helm. You know what?
DRE: Is this risky standard?
AUSTIN: Yeah, but take +1— oh wait, let me look at the ship. How’s the ship been?
DRE: I don’t think the ship’s been hurt.
AUSTIN: Okay, right. You resisted some damage at some point I think from that. Okay, and those are just one. So no, you’re not going to get a bonus to this. I actually don’t think that this is a speed related manoeuver.
DRE: Yeah, I don’t think so either. I don’t think so either.
AUSTIN: So I don’t think you get Ace Pilot on this.
DRE: I agree. So just regular risky standard then. Ah, there’s a six.
AUSTIN: That’s a six. Look at you! All right. So good job on that. [reading] When you perform a setup action, you have an indirect effect on an obstacle if your action has its intended result. Any members of the team who follows through on your manoeuver get +1 effect level or improved position for their roll. You choose the benefit on the nature of your set up action. Yeah, I think that that’s improved position.
So y’all have a controlled position. All you have to do is lift this giant cube and hold it in the light for a few minutes. How do you go about that?
DRE (as Even): I did the hard part. You guys got this.
KEITH: Well, it’s space. It’s not heavy.
AUSTIN: True. True. Well, it is heavy. It’s just not heavy.
KEITH: We can’t feel that it is heavy.
AUSTIN: Right. It still has mass.
KEITH: It has no weight.
AUSTIN: Right. So what does it look like? Tell me what you’re doing?
KEITH: It looks like two robots with a weird lumpy balloon, I think. [DRE laughs]
SYLVIA: Took the words right out of my mouth, man.
KEITH: It’s like a gusher balloon. And it’s really big.
AUSTIN: So I think given that it’s not about strength, it’s probably also a Helm roll for both of you.
KEITH: To pilot the balloon?
AUSTIN: To pilot the balloon with your spaceships, uh huh.
SYLVIA: We couldn’t convince you that this is us being sneaky? [laughs]
AUSTIN: … No.
SYLVIA: I’ll roll Helm.
KEITH: Wait, what’s your Helm?
SYLVIA: It’s zero.
KEITH: You know what? Mine’s only one. So I’ll roll Helm.
AUSTIN: And you know what? You’re only allowed to— I was about to say, you’re only allowed to use—
SYLVIA: Scrap when I’m fighting.
AUSTIN: Yeah. All right. So yeah, you go ahead— Gig, you go ahead and roll a—
KEITH: Can I—
SYLVIA: Can I assist still?
AUSTIN: Yes, absolutely.
SYLVIA: Okay. I’ll take that stress.
AUSTIN: So yeah. You take +1 stress to assist.
KEITH: I assume this is controlled even though we’re on a time limit?
AUSTIN: It’s controlled standard, yeah.
KEITH: Controlled standard, one bonus die.
AUSTIN: It’s controlled because Even—
DRE: Did the set up.
AUSTIN: — did the setup move correctly.
SYLVIA: Oof!
AUSTIN: Aw, that’s a two and a three, my guy.
KEITH: Yeah yeah yeah. I saw those.
AUSTIN: Those are both— that’s a failure on both of those. Wait, what’s your Helm?
KEITH: One.
AUSTIN: Oh, okay. So I think it just slips out of your hands. You’re like, “I gotta Lion King it.” And then you Lion King it, and it pushed away from you up into the light.
KEITH (as Gig): I know what I have to do.
AUSTIN: I’m going to advance this clock.
KEITH (as Gig): I know what I have to do. I have to go in there.
AUSTIN: Ships chasing you is now at two.
SYLVIA: Wait, go in where?
KEITH (as Gig): Into the light.
AUSTIN: Oookay. It is— okay. I’m not saying not to do it.
KEITH: No, you’re not. I’m reckless now.
SYLVIA (as Echo): I’m saying not to do it? But Gig is an adult.
KEITH (as GIg): I’m already in it.
AUSTIN: Gig is reckless. You’re not wrong. So what are you doing? You’re just jumping in? You’re flying in?
KEITH: Yeah, I just went after it. Just like, “Hold on!”
AUSTIN: Oh my god.
DRE: “BRB!”
KEITH (as Gig): Yeah. One sec! I got it.
AUSTIN: So this again is going to be a Helm. This is desperate.
KEITH: Desperate standard, zeo bonus dice. Four.
AUSTIN: Okay. Whew. So on a desperate four to five [reading] you do it, but there’s a consequence. You suffer severe harm, a serious complication occurs. As a reminder, you can resist these things.
Two things happen. One, you get your hand— three things happen. One, you’re able to grab the bullion balloon. You have it again. And it is charging. But it still needs to be in here for a minute. You need to get out of here safely still. Two, your Angler is going to get torn the fuck up. Let me take a look at your Angler really quick. [reading] When you spend a gambit on Rig, dah dah dah. Okay, so that doesn’t come up here. Still need a name for your Angler. But also now it’s in your thing here.
So here’s what’s going to happen. I’m going to say this is a—
KEITH: Criss.
AUSTIN: Angler Criss? Spelled like the name?
KEITH: No, it’s because Criss Angler is my favorite magician in this universe.
AUSTIN: Oh my god. So three things happen.
KEITH: Maybe.
AUSTIN: Right, you can still resist. One, you’re able to get your hands around the bullion balloon. You got it. You’re holding it in the light. It’s very hot. It is supercharging, which is good. But two, the second you come in here— and I actually don’t know— you’ll have to come up with something really interesting for me to understand how you’re resisting this part of it? Which is your hull and your engines on your Angler are just going to— your engines are going to explode, and your hull is going to take damage. Both of those are going to be in a bad way. Three, this is taking you some time. This is not a fast thing that’s happening. And I already ticked two clocks from the ships chasing you thing from that failure. Which, again, I guess you could have resisted. You could have resisted that failure, in retrospect— that part of it, the clocks advancing. But here you can resist the fact that I’m going to advance it by another one if you’d like.
KEITH: I am going to resist. And I know how I am resisting. Criss’s eye pops out, piloted by my eye.
AUSTIN: The name of your mech, the Angler Criss. Uh huh.
KEITH: And the eye has— it’s got a flame retardant to help put out fires. But it’s also a rapid cooling agent.
AUSTIN: So your Angler has this drone in its eye that it can shoot out that is piloted by your smaller drone eye. [KEITH cackles] And it is like the thing that Gumption and Belgard did, which is it can fly around and heal things or repair things, overclock things, stuff like that. So yeah. That thing has a flame-proof shield around it. Okay.
KEITH: No, it’s shooting out goo like a fire extinguisher on to—
AUSTIN: Okay. That to me is— okay. I’ll let you make the resist roll.
KEITH: All right. Wait, what’s your thing? What’s your thing?
AUSTIN: That feels like a difficult thing to do. But you’re a swashbuckling member of the Notion, so I’m not going to say no. I’m going to say roll resist, which in this case will be— I mean, it’s two dice no matter what. What are you going to say, Dre?
DRE: We can’t aid on a resist, can we?
AUSTIN: No. No, not without a move.
KEITH: Well, I guess I can just do Rig. But what would I roll if it was overclock, which is technically the move that this is emulating?
AUSTIN: Well, that move is not this thing. That is repairing or upgrading something or retreating a system. That’s a different thing than resisting. Resisting is, “No, that isn’t what happened. This is what happened.”
KEITH: Oh, “Before I started getting too hot, I coated myself in a goo.”
AUSTIN: Right, exactly. And so I think that that’s Helm? Are you directly controlling the drone? Or is your— ?
KEITH: Yeah, I’m controlling my eye, which is piloting—
AUSTIN: It doesn’t matter because it’s Insight, or it’s Prowess, or it’s Resolve. And all of those are two. I’ll say it’s Insight because I think it’s Rig, which is about repairing things. So go ahead and Insight. Just click on the word “Insight” on your sheet. Nice! Six minus the highest dice result. You rolled a six. Zero stress!
KEITH: Zero stress. Reckless!
AUSTIN: Uh huh. So this eye pops out and just totally coats your own mech in a sort of flame-retardant goo, allowing you to zoom up and grab this balloon. Okay, so I’m not destroying your engine or your hull. But I am still ticking the “ships chasing you” clock because that would be a different resist roll. Hold on, I have to unmark. Oh no, you’re good. You’re good. Okay. Cool.
DRE: Can I do anything to bring that clock back down? To create more space between us?
AUSTIN: Sure, tell me what that looks like. I’m also marking— there’s another clock on the screen, which is “reunite cube with sea.” I’m marking the first of those eight slices because you’ve charged it once.
DRE: Okay. Has Gig still not recaptured this thing?
AUSTIN: No, he has it. He has it in hand.
KEITH: But it needs to charge more.
AUSTIN: It needs to charge one more time, and then he needs to bring it down. Which will be one more roll on their side.
DRE: Okay, here’s a bad idea.
DRE (as Even): Hey Gig.
KEITH (as GIg): Yeah.
DRE (as Even): What if I use the manipulator arm to throw you one way, and then I fly the ship the other way so that they’ll chase me instead of bothering you?
KEITH (as GIg): Do you think you can throw me faster than the jets on Criss can propel me?
DRE (as Even): I can do some weird slingshot shit probably.
KEITH (as GIg): Yeah, okay. Then yeah, sure.
DRE (as Even): I mean, it’s just giving you a little boost.
KEITH (as Gig): Human cannonball. This’ll be sick.
DRE (as Even): It’s like when you do the thing to help somebody boost over a fence and you link your hands? You’re jumping off their hand, but then you’re also getting a boost from their push.
KEITH (as GIg): Right. Yes. Good idea.
AUSTIN: Where’s Echo in all this?
DRE (as Even): Yeah. Echo, do you want to do this? I’ll throw you.
SYLVIA (as Echo): I’m trying to think. I’m just kind of frozen outside of the beam because I’m not entirely sure what to do here.
DRE (as Even): I mean, what I throw both of you all in different directions and then we just— I don’t know. We just split up so that they have to decide which way they’re going.
KEITH (as GIg): Well, I have a gel on, so—
AUSTIN: There are two ships chasing you, so.
KEITH (as GIg): I have the gel on. You can throw me through the light so I’m traveling and it’s charging.
DRE (as Even): Oh my god.
AUSTIN: You could do that. The next part of that roll— things could go bad again. I think that’s cool as shit and we should do it. But I’m just setting the table. [KEITH laughs] I’m setting the table, which is being in that beam for that long could make the flame-retardant thing you’ve already set up burn off.
KEITH: This is the salad fork. This is the dinner fork. This is “the flame-retardant gel might harden and crack and break your mech.”
AUSTIN: And you! You’re in outer space. It’s scary. Things could go really bad. I think it’s cool as shit, 100%.
DRE: All right, but here’s what I’m rolling for.
KEITH (as GIg): Toss me!
AUSTIN: Let’s not roll anything yet because we’re going to have to talk through a couple of rolls here. There might be some linked roll action.
DRE: But what I want to do is, I want to get Gig’s mech into the manipulator arm. And then I want to throw The World Without End into the most disgusting barrel-roll spin. And then almost like fucking— oh shit, what’s the sport where you’re throwing—
KEITH: Jai alai.
DRE: — is it discus?
AUSTIN: Baseball.
DRE: Discus. It’s discus.
KEITH: I think it’s still jai alai.
AUSTIN: Oh, the thing where you get that fucking— or hammer?
DRE: They do the big windup spin.
AUSTIN: Hammer toss? You get that low centrifugal— the ball is almost spinning you around?
DRE: Yes. Basically I’m building up as much centrifugal force as I can without blacking out. And then at the apex I am just launching Gig.
AUSTIN: Perfect. Echo, what are you doing?
SYLVIA: I’m trying to think of what position I could get in that would help this operation? Aside from—
KEITH: First position.
SYLVIA: Thank you.
DRE (as Even): I mean, you could hang on to Gig’s mech and then let go as I throw him j ust to build up— like extra weight to build up the centrifical force?
AUSTIN: Totally possible. You know what? I forgot that I have a voice in this scene, which is Kent Brighton says,
DRE: Oh yeah, that guy.
AUS (as Kent): You could distract one of the other ships.
KEITH (as GIg): Oh yeah, you could throw Echo past one of the— behind them.
AUS (as Kent): You know how it’s called a hammer throw?
SYLVIA (as Echo): I do have a hammer. I do have very big hammer.
AUS (as Kent): You do have a hammer.
DRE (as Even): Are we just going to fucking fastball special this shit? Okay.
SYLVIA: All right, let me just mark that I have that in my inventory for this mission.
AUSTIN: You definitely have that in your inventory this mission.
SYLVIA: I’ve been trying to find a way to use my hammer this entire session, so I’m glad someone brought it up.
KEITH: You can try to crack a hole in their windshield.
AUSTIN: You could be thrown at the Ebony and Ivory, which is the lead ship— no, the Ebony and Ivory is behind. You would throw Echo at The Prince Elect, Ballad’s ship.
DRE: Oh, their brother’s ship? Yeah, sure.
KEITH: Teach your brother a lesson for being kind of a jerk.
AUSTIN: Uh huh. Yeah. So the one arm throwing Gig through this false sun’s light beam. Two, throwing Echo in their Angler at their brother’s ship. Three, also trying to get away. Right? And then from there— well, I guess we’ll figure out what happens from there. That’s what we’re going to figure out. Right? Let me just diagram it real quick.
DRE: We have fun on this show.
AUSTIN: We have fun on this show. Are there any other questions as I diagram this thing? One second.
KEITH: How hot is this thing?
AUSTIN: It’s hot. It ain’t cold. It gets cold once you leave the Mirage. But the Mirage is an atmosphere in some way? And it’s close to where it’s being shot.
Okay, so I’ve drawn this whiteboard. All right. So here’s this beam of light. It’s in the middle of this white canvas. Y’all are in the World Without End. So let’s say that y’all are here. That yellow mark, do you see that? All right. So the goal is— you’re going to send Gig, who I’m drawing in red, across the beam towards - I’m guessing, this is a guess - towards the Wandering Sea.
KEITH: Love it. I’m in love with it.
AUSTIN: Right? It’s bigger than this because it’s Connecticut. This isn’t— let me just—-
KEITH: Extend it to the top of the white so we can— like, who knows how far it goes?
AUSTIN: Sadly, that’s not how any of this works. But I got a backup plan. One second here, none of this is what I need. Here we go. Here we go. There we go. Whoops. [KEITH laughs]
DRE: Nailed it! Yup.
AUSTIN: To Connecticut over there. Then behind you currently, which I’m going to make a black and silver ship, is The Prince Elect. And then behind that, which I’m going to make white outline with a black interior, is the Ebony and Ivory. Which also is a cool flying V guitar. Whatever, like that. And then the other thing to remember is that above all of this is also the Creeping Chain. Creeping Chain— that’s not really what I want.
KEITH: That’s way too big.
AUSTIN: It’s also way too big. Yeah, you’re right. None of this is to scale. I want to be clear.
KEITH: This is not to scale.
AUSTIN: None of this is to scale, but— it’s bigger than those other ships are. So there we go. That’s what I’m imagining. So I think this is a another setup roll for you, Even. Right? You know what I mean? It’s either that— I guess this could be a— the thing is, it’s not a— all right, here’s the question. What is it that we’re trying to achieve in this manoeuver?
DRE: So I think it’s— am I just giving them enough speed to get them going? Or is my throw determining their trajectory?
AUSTIN: They can adjust their trajectories. They’re in mechs. Right?
DRE: Okay. Yeah.
AUSTIN: If I make it a setup roll, then what you’d be doing again would be giving them either +1 effect of better positioning. If I made a— I don’t think I can make it a— I’m trying to find the rule really quick. I don’t think it is a group action?
DRE: Nah, I don’t think it is.
AUSTIN: [reading] When you do a group action, you coordinate multiple members of the team to tackle a problem together. The problem sort of is ships chasing you? And it would keep the ships from chasing you, I guess?
DRE: Yeah. But we’re also doing two different problems here.
KEITH: The other thing is it’s not about the ships versus our ship. It’s the ships versus me, where I’m at.
AUSTIN: Versus where the balloon is, yes. So you know what? I think it could be lead a group action. And I think the action is Helm because that is the goal. The goal is: keep the ships from getting to where the bullion of plankton is.
KEITH: I have a suggestion. I think that you should use the gambit.
AUSTIN: Good suggestion.
DRE: Yeah, probably. Uh huh.
AUSTIN: Okay so Even, you are now leading. This is speed-related. So that’s good. You are leading a group action.
KEITH: Which sets you up to take some stress.
AUSTIN: It does set you up to take some stress. But it does mean that you can use your Commander ability which says you can count multiple sixes from different rolls as a critical. This is definitely risky. I think just risky standard, though. So I think people need to make Helm rolls with risky standard.
DRE: Does someone else want to use the gambit? Because I have three Helm.
SYLVIA: I have zero.
KEITH: I have one.
[overlapping]
AUSTIN: You should use it.
KEITH: We should use it. [DRE laughs]
SYLVIA: That gives me one extra dice, right?
AUSTIN: You get one extra die, yeah.
KEITH: I don’t think it affects the probability who uses it.
AUSTIN: Yes. It does. It does—
SYLVIA: Wow!
AUSTIN: Woof! Three, two, one. Even!
KEITH: Okay. I’ll use a gambit.
DRE: All right. Three, two, one, we’re all dead.
AUSTIN: That’s a one from Sylvia!
KEITH: Okay, I’ll use the gambit.
AUSTIN: Sylvia used it. That’s Sylvia using it.
KEITH: Oh, that was including it.
AUSTIN: Yeah, you might want to push. You might want to push yourself, Gig.
KEITH: Okay, how do I— I just add a die and I take two stress?
AUSTIN: Two stress. Uh huh.
KEITH: All right. That’s two stress. Helm. Risky standard—
DRE: Time to save us all, Keith.
KEITH: — one B D.
AUSTIN: Ey! [DRE and SYLVIA laugh]
KEITH: Critical! Oh boy! Does that do anything for me?
AUSTIN: Yeah, it does. It does, it does, it does. When you roll— oh my god, I can’t believe you rolled a fucking two sixes. You do it with increased effect. And you add a gambit. So you get a gambit a back from this. Oh, you know what? Wait. You only get— oh, you didn’t spend the gambit, right?
SYLVIA: Yep. Because I did.
AUSTIN: So you’re good. You’re good. So increased effect and add a gambit if you didn’t spend one on this roll.
KEITH: Yeah, added. Let’s do it.
AUSTIN: So I’m going to completely erase— on a critical, I’m going to completely erase the “ships chasing you” clock. I’m going to actually change that to plankton instead of you. There we go. And I’m going to advance the “reunite plankton with sea” clock. Even, you have to take two stress though.
DRE: Right. Yeah yeah yeah.
AUSTIN: From the two failures.
KEITH: I don’t lose stress from the critical. That’s someone’s move, right? Someone has that as a thing? Or maybe that’s a specific type of critical?
AUSTIN: That’s a specific move. That’s a specific move.
SYLVIA: I think that’s when you get a six on a resist?
AUSTIN: Yes. When you get a six on a resist.
KEITH: Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: Totally. Again, I’m going to say this out loud. Even rolled three, two, one on Helm. Sylvia spent a gambit and rolled one. And then Keith/Gig rolled six six.
KEITH: So that means that one was the highest. So they rolled two ones.
AUSTIN: No, they spent a gambit to roll one full die instead of taking—
KEITH: Oh, instead of taking the lower. Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: Yes yes yes. That’s what happened there. All right. So Gig, you go blasting like a fucking holy rider through this beam of light. I think we do have to have the bit of your flame-retardant goo does get hardened into a shell and being to crack? But it doesn’t even matter. You’re just like a bullet! You’re like a— I don’t even know. You’re like an angel passing through this beam of light.
DRE: You’re like a sick comet or something.
AUSTIN: Yeah! And then you do, you burst through the other side. And there’s a splash of light! That’s not how light’s supposed to work. But the goo has hardened and it cracks. And then it melts. And it is a splash of light as you emerge from the other side of this gigantic beam of energy.
KEITH Yeah, we’ve been watching decades of movies with sound in space. I think we can have a little bit of splashing light.
AUSTIN: A little bit of it, exactly. Exactly. Thank you. Also, this is definitely when the high-energy opening theme starts playing again as the barrel roll— actually, let’s slow down. Even, you do the barrel roll. You spin up like a hammer toss. You just do—
KEITH: Like a spin dash.
AUSTIN: You do like a spin dash, vroo vroo vroo vroo. And then you let go. Gig goes flying through the fucking light. And Echo, good news! Even you rolled a one, it doesn’t matter because this is a team manoeuver. Tell me what that looks like.
SYLVIA: I kind of think I’m basically just hitting the ship like a bullet [KEITH laughs] while holding my big hammer.
AUSTIN: You should give me a Scrap then.
KEITH: I want to know how you’re positioned with the— are you flying towards it with it held back, and then you bring it forward right before you connect? Or are you like drill where the hammer’s out in front of you?
SYLVIA: I think it’s more like the latter. I think I’m using it as sort of like a weighted thing to keep me going?
AUSTIN: Perfect. Good.
SYLVIA: Even though that’s not how space works, I’m sure. Whatever. It’s a cooler effect.
AUSTIN: No, we’re Twilight Mirage. It’s different. Yeah, exactly.
KEITH: Light splashes here.
SYLVIA: You need me to roll Scrap, you said?
AUSTIN: Yeah. For the hits. You definitely got there. You have their attention. Now show them what you can do with that. So that is what for you? Again, you have the ability on your ship. The Overture cockpit says— use Scrap rating for combat in this mech as if it were Helm. And you have that extra point of armour, so that’s also useful. And then your Scrap is what, two?
SYLVIA: Yeah. Okay. Is that risky standard or what?
AUSTIN: That is risky— I’m just looking at the rest of your moves to make sure there’s nothing else here. You can push yourself if you’d like to use your Unstoppable ability.
SYLVIA: Yeah. How much can I use that in a session? Just any time?
AUSTIN: Any time. Pushing yourself means taking two stress. So that’s how often. It’s as much stress as you want to spend.
SYLVIA: I’m not going to use that yet.
AUSTIN: Okay. So then— Scrap is what, two then? So go ahead. Give me a Scrap.
SYLVIA: Two and a six.
AUSTIN: All right, that’s a six. A six is a success. What’s this look like?
SYLVIA: I think it’s like one of those things where the second they notice something coming at them I’ve already crashed through the hull.
AUSTIN: Yeah, what are you crashing int, what part of The Prince Elect? This is Ballad’s ship are you crashing into.
SYLVIA: See the thing is, I got flung off of the ship? I don’t know how much control I have of this outside of some course corrections.
AUSTIN: There was a crit on the last roll. And you got a six here. You have the pen and the pad. You paint me whatever you want. The J-rock is blaring right now! [DRE laughs] Do you know what I mean? The second booster pack just lit. And it’s just a hammer and a little person. And behind them is a huge stream of jet-pack energy flinging them forward. So you do whatever you want with that.
SYLVIA: I kind like if it’s through the front. But I don’t kinda stop until I’m in a hallway or something. I’ve gone through their ship a bit. We’re coming back to the theme of hallways. I’m in their hallway now.
AUSTIN: Oh shit. Fuck. Oh, you’re in their ship?
SYLVIA: Yeah.
KEITH: How close do you come to coming out the other side?
SYLVIA: I think there is a lot of sliding through. I think I’m at the latter half. There’s that thing where I’m in my suit just scraping against the floor.
AUSTIN: Yes! And your hand is down on the floor too. And both of your feet are down. And you do a cool spin turn. And you put your back hand on the back hull and stop there?
DRE: Oh yes!
SYLVIA: For sure, for sure.
AUSTIN: Dre in the chat says, “We vanquish now.” Absolutely! [DRE laughs]
SYLVIA: Oh, then I gotta be sliding on my knees if it’s vanquish. [AUSTIN laughs]
KEITH: Hit the cigarette button.
AUSTIN: And just punching through wall after wall. We get this shot of the different rooms in this ship— of people doing work, and the Angler Overture just punches through a wall, punches through a wall. Someone’s doing laundry. Punches through a wall! Someone’s at a control console. Punches through a wall! And then finally you come to a stop in a hallway at the very rear of the ship. And they just turn around, and there you are.
So something special happens when this happens. Does your face mask reveal? Do we get to see your face?
SYLVIA: Oh no, I’m keeping that thing on! [KEITH laughs] This ship? I’m keeping that thing on! I don’t want anyone knowing.
KEITH: They gotta be able to have to dinner with their family sometime.
SYLVIA: I don’t want anybody knowing specifically whose Angler this is.
AUSTIN: Okay, fair. Absolutely fair. So then we just get an interior shot of your face. And I think it’s probably a look of surprise? But we can define that in a second. I do just need to know, Dre— what are you doing with the World Without End at this point?
DRE: Oh boy.
KEITH: Still barrel rolling, just all the way out. [DRE laughs]
AUSTIN: I mean, the thing that I think happens is we get the— The Prince Elect is now stopped in its track on this side of the beam? But the Ebony and Ivory is chasing you. So there’s still one ship on you, but it’s not near you necessarily.
DRE: And the Ebony and Ivory is the one that has those pod launchers, right?
AUSTIN: Yes. It launches those drill launchers at you.
DRE: Has it launched anything at me?
AUSTIN: No, it’s not close enough. You have completely with that last manoeuver gotten yourself as much space as you need to do whatever you want.
DRE: Okay. Ebony and Ivory is not— oh gosh, it just left my brain. The faction that I hate the most, more than anything.
AUSTIN: Advent. No, they’re Lineage Castlerose. The Advent ship on the board is The Prince Elect, the one that—
DRE: That Echo is on.
AUSTIN: — Echo just landed on, correct.
KEITH: “Landed on.”
AUSTIN: Landed in?
KEITH: Yeah. Landed through. [AUSTIN and DRE laugh]
DRE: I guess I’m just trying to navigate alongside— like flipping up over this beam of light to go get Gig.
AUSTIN: So you’re going to do another loop up and around, basically? Like this? All right. Cool, love it. So then yeah, we get this shot of— you finish the twirl. We get Gig bursting out of the light in a splash. We get Echo coming to a halt in the back of The Prince Elect. And we get the long golden shape of the World Without End finishing the barrel roll and then smoothing out and going into a cool loop to loop around the entirely of this big beam of light.
And then we just get breath. We get the breath from you, Echo, as you reconnect to Harmony, which you thought was dead. What’s that feel like? All of the nanites in your body turn on.
SYLVIA: Oh, that’s probably weird as hell. I feel like it’s not as weird as it would have been because Echo has some experience with the Mirage and stuff? But all the sudden having this connection that they never had before to Harmony is a shock to the system.
KEITH: Yeah, this is crazy.
AUSTIN: So then we get the wide shot of Gig above the beam, below the sea, with the Creeping Chain in the distance. And we see what the Creeping Chain is now. It is made up of these giant crystalline structures that look like petals of a dahlia. Giant petals of a dahlia that have been linked together by a chain of—
KEITH: Wait, I don’t think I know what that is.
AUSTIN: A dahlia is a plant— okay, I mean, you can just do it.
SYLVIA: It’s a flower.
AUSTIN: Yeah, it’s a flower.
KEITH: Oh, petals like flower. Not pedals like a bike.
AUSTIN: Yeah, sorry. Petals.
KEITH: Petals of a dahlia. Got it.
AUSTIN: If people remember, Harmony— the Tides of Harmony has two ships, two kind of wings to it? Periginian and Seiche? And in the middle of them was this giant dahlia plant, this giant crystalline dahlia.
KEITH: Oh, these are pretty.
AUSTIN: They’re very pretty. And the Creeping Chain seems to have been made from parts of that plant. I mean, we have said out of character that Will is the former Excerpt of Harmony. And I think you’re within range of Will now. And what you’ve learned is actually— and maybe the second part of this that what you see is from Gig’s position above the beam of light with this kind of floating ship of crystalline flower petals slowly coming toward you. It launches a bunch of jet packs— it launches a bunch of Angler units of its own. And you see them doing the cool thing in cartoons or in anime or in movies where you just get individual line of each one dashing off. And then they’re dashing in this very complex tactical formation? And they’re doing that because all of them also have the nanomachines in them. All of them also have the nanites. They are in the Harmony system. And Harmony as a Divine was this brilliant tactical mind that could bring a bunch of people together and could organize and direct a big group of people.
Sylvia, as you wrote - let me find it here - “Combat-wise, its strength lay in tactical formation, specifically of fleets, with the nanites and its citizens allowing it to network and communicate with people on the fly.” You also wrote that the reason that people thought that it died was that it spread itself too thin among too many people because the nanite had to pass through the entire population? But I think almost instantly Echo knows that that is not what happened. Harmony didn’t die. It left.
SYLVIA: Wow. What a dick,
AUSTIN: You know, everyone has preferences. So what do y’all do? The cube is now as charged as it needs to be.
KEITH: I’m probably still gunning toward the sea.
AUSTIN: Yeah. I’m going to say that The World Without End is able to catch up with you, probably? And so you can probably grab the side of the World Without End at this point.
KEITH: Oh, like a—
DRE: Skitch on it?
AUSTIN: Yeah, you’re skitching.
KEITH: Yeah, that’s exactly what I was alluding to. Er, about to allude to.
AUSTIN: Yeah. And I think both of you can see that there are six Angler units coming toward you on this side of the beam from the Creeping Chain. And you can also see the Creeping Chain begins to tighten the leash? And again, as I said, that leash could break if they tighten it too hard, but it does slow down the Wandering Sea. And it doesn’t prevent you— it is trying to interfere with your ability to reconnect this cube of plankton with it. So I’m just going to draw another line here.
KEITH: The Sea looks like it has a nose and a chin.
AUSTIN: It does look like that. It’s true.
KEITH: On the other end it has a a little butt.
AUSTIN: So what are y’all doing? Are you just going to try to Helm to get to the Wandering Sea as quick as possible?
DRE: Yeah, I guess so. If we get the plankton into the sea, is it going to be powerful enough to break the chain?
AUSTIN: It will be at some point. We know you don’t know, right?
KEITH: It might take a minute.
AUSTIN: It might take a minute.
KEITH: And who knows how long that minute’s going to be.
AUSTIN: I can tell you there six more slices of this pie you need to fill.
DRE (as Even): What if we split up, and I go try to do something about weakening this chain, and you go drop the plankton off?
KEI (as Gig): Deal. Yeah, that sounds good. I can fight a Torch Unit or six, I guess.
AUSTIN: So these are Angler units. These are the same units you have.
KEITH: Oh, I thought you said— oh, okay.
AUSTIN: At this point I’ll say given you’re back on the World Without End, and the World Without End has long-range scanners. You’re able to pull up - I’m not going to make you roll for this because you have comms two, you have crew two, you have long-range scanners - you can pull up a viewscreen of these Torch Units. Huh, now I did say Torch Units. These Angler units are doing a thing— they are Crankbaits, which are a specially designed Anglers that have lines attached to them? Basically they’re carrying giant spears, and they will spear a ship or a body and then attach their line to it and have the Creeping Chain— it’s like a manual tractor beam. It’s a tow line.
KEITH: They’re fishing.
AUSTIN: They’re fishing you. This is what Angler units are designed to do. So they’re coming to fish you out. But then also, on that viewscreen you have a clear vision of the Creeping Chain. You can see that it is preparing something else, which is using Harmony’s ability to kind of quickly organize and manoeuver things. It’s preparing to launch a giant spear in your direction.
It basically has a giant spear gun where it builds a makeshift catapult out of the coral and seaweed and this techno-organic building material that holds the ship together and that’s leashed to the Wander Sea. And it basically has the ability to kind of like build these gigantic arbalests. And you’ve heard rumors of this. You’ve never had to fight this thing yourself, but in the last month of being on Brighton you’ve heard that it basically builds one-and-done giant capital ship-sized weapons. And then Quire destroys it. Even though it’s launching a crossbow bolt and not a gun, Quire is able to destroy it. But the Creeping Chain doesn’t mind that because it can just build more shit out of its techno-organic building matter. Or Harmony doesn’t mind it rather.
But you also know that it takes some for that thing to fire. So I’m going to put one more clock on the screen. And this is a shorter clock.
KEITH: Do I know that Harmony is behind it?
AUSTIN: No.
KEITH: I don’t.
AUSTIN: The only person who does is Echo because Echo feels it. Boom! Here we go. Oh wait, you got that gambit back. Right. So in three turns that speargun is going to fire. I’m going to say turns meaning stuff that’s happening on this side of the beam, not including Echo’s turns. Echo’s turns are not going to count against that speargun countdown. And if you don’t do anything—
I’ll spell out this mechanic. If you don’t take action— that spear gun is going to fire— as long as the spear gun exists in three turns, it’s going to fire in three turns. It’s going to hit in three turns. You can start taking actions that are defensive actions to prevent it from hitting you, to give you a chance to dodge it. You can basically spend actions to put yourself in a better position once it fires. You basically can set up actions to move yourself into desperate position and then risky position and then controlled position. But anything you do to get into defensive position or to kind of shake it or whatever is not going to be advancing you towards the sea. And it’s aiming at you, the World Without End, not at Gig, to be clear. So that is the state of things up there.
So let’s do one round of that, and then we’ll go back down to Echo. So what are y’all doing, Gig and Even?
DRE: So I do think it’s good to split up, especially if I’ve got their attention on me. This giant speargun, what part of the ship is it mounted on?
AUSTIN: It’s not. It’s almost like it’s building bits or funnels. It’s its own separate— it kind of builds this free-floating arbolist that then fires.
DRE: Okay. So it’s not like a thing where if I get behind it, it can’t hit me with it anymore. It kind of— wherever I am flying around it, it can probably still throw it at me?
AUSTIN: You could try to get out of its range of fire. That is a totally type of manoeuver.
DRE: Yeah. Or gosh. I mean, if I even get too close, could it then not hit me with it?
AUSTIN: Totally. If you can get close enough.
DRE: Let’s do that.
AUSTIN: That would mean flying closer to the Anglers.
DRE: Uhhh, yeah. Let’s do it.
AUSTIN: Okay. So that’s what your move is going to be. Cool. Gig, are you just going to continue trying to get as close to the sea as possible.
KEITH: Yeah. I’m trying to think of what else I could do, but it just seems like the best thing is just to get it there are quickly as possible.
AUSTIN: Totally. Totally. All right. So those are two different rolls. Who wants to go first? Let’s go Gig because it’ll help me understand where the Anglers are. So Gig, give me a Helm. Or you tell me, but I think it’s probably Helm to try to fly.
KEITH: I’m going to say this. It’s a Helm right now, but the closer that the Anglers get, it will become a Scramble.
AUSTIN: It will not.
KEITH: It will not? Isn’t Scrambling like dodging and running away?
AUSTIN: When you’re on your feet.
KEITH: When I’m on my feet? I can’t Scramble in a little mech?
AUSTIN: Helm is moving. So I’ll let you roll Scramble, but what that will be is you’ll be in a much worse position? Because what you’ll be doing is trying to run the way— like, someone who runs around on their feet can try to use those skills in a car chase. But they will not be as good as a person who is using their drive skill in a car chase.
KEITH: Yeah, yeah.
AUSTIN: You know what I mean? There is some value there. It’s about seeing opportunities. I’m not saying you could not roll it. In Forged in the Dark games, the player decides what to roll. The GM gets to set the position? And in some cases I get to just say, “That position is so bad, without boosting your level of effect there is no effect.” If you were like, “Oh, I’m going to use Doctor,” which you shouldn’t do because you have zero Doctor, I’d be like, “Okay, well that’s no effect. You’ll have to boost that with stress to have any effect at all.”
But in this case, Helm is what’s going to give you risky— or, in this case I think you have controlled right now because they’re not here yet? And then Scramble would give you low effect.
KEITH: I can do Helm. I’m going to do Helm. I might still do Scramble later, but I’m for now doing Helm.
AUSTIN: Okay. So give me your Helm roll.
KEITH: Five.
AUSTIN: All right. I’m going to tick that clock. They get closer to you, but you are able to continue to move towards the sea. You get close to it. And then the Creeping Chain pulls back on the leash, and it pulls it back by a mile. But you’re making progress. You’re getting closer.
KEITH: Right. Yeah. I mean, I’ve still got catapult velocity here.
AUSTIN: Totally. 100% true. So now Even, give me your Helm roll to kind of manoeuver closer to this thing.
DRE: I think I’m just flying up alongside the chain, and I’m just corkscrewing around it.
AUSTIN: Okay. You’re still far from the actual chain itself. You’re near the sea. So you’re just going to fly along the bottom of the sea or whatever?
DRE: Yeah. No. I’m just— if I can tell that this thing is building—
AUSTIN: You’re in a direct line.
DRE: — I’m just charging right at this thing.
AUSTIN: All right, let’s do it. Give me that Helm. Definitely speed-related again.
DRE: Is that— ?
AUSTIN: That makes you get closer to it more quickly.
DRE: Okay. So it’s still risky standard? It’s not like risky great or anything?
AUSTIN: Yeah. Yeah yeah yeah.
DRE: Blechh!
AUSTIN: Actually, it is risky great. But you rolled a two, two , three which is—
DRE: Yep. Not good. Not good.
AUSTIN: — rough, my guy. You have three in Helm. You’re good at Helm.
DRE: Yeah. Supposedly.
AUSTIN: Oh, people who are failing rolls make sure to mark XP.
DRE: Oh good call.
KEITH: Yeah, I’ll let you know when it happens.
DRE: This fucking guy.
KEITH: Actually I failed earlier, so it’s not—
AUSTIN: Good. All right. So things go badly, you suffer harm, a complication occurs, you end up in a desperate position, you lose this opportunity. Two of those things happen. Your ship, the World Without End— immediately three of those Angler units land on the side and slam their spears in the side of it. You are now tethered to the Creeping Chain. They also are taking a point of hull away, so that’s the damage.
Two, the speargun is immediately— on a failure is realigning to you exactly and is continuing to count down that clock. But that’s actually not even an effect. That was going to happen no matter where. That’s just a regular countdown clock. The thing that doesn’t happen is you don’t get moved out of position. It’s able to see you and adjusts as you come in and begins to pull back you that you have further to go. So those are the two things.
DRE: Hey, I would like to resist that.
AUSTIN: Okay. How do you do that?
KEITH: Light-speed dash.
DRE: Are you asking in terms of fiction or like— ?
AUSTIN: Fiction, fiction. As the arbalest is pulling further away from you— actually, I think building itself in a way so that it’s further away from you? How are you pushing a little further here?
DRE: Oh god. I think I’m using the manipulator arms to almost like fucking Spiderman swing off these Anglers.
AUSTIN: Oh, interesting. Or maybe from their wires even?
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Because you’re wired to this thing now, so there are things you could just grab onto? That’s neat. I like that. So yeah, go ahead and give me a resist with— that’s definitely Prowess.
DRE: Okay. And I get a +1 on this because of the Ace Pilot. So that’s nice.
AUSTIN: Wow, that’s nice. Yeah.
DRE: Okay, five.
AUSTIN: All right, that’s good.So you take one stress. So now you are up to six stress.
DRE: It’s fine.
AUSTIN: It’s good. It’s great. It’s good and great. Echo?
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: How you doing down there?
SYLVIA: I should probably get back across this light beam thing to where my friends are.
AUSTIN: Okay. Right now you’re in the ship. Do you want to just punch through and leave?
SYLVIA: I kind of just— I don’t know if I should make more holes. That seems bad for the people on the ship?
AUSTIN: Sure.
SYLVIA: But if there’s— ships have blast doors, right? I’m using the right words there? If there’s one of those I could open up and get through somehow? Probably want to do that.
AUSTIN: Oh, they even have those throughout the ship, right? It’s one of those things where if you punch through this hull, the doorway from the room you’re in now would blast door shut. You know what I mean? Though actually you’ve already punched another hole. So are you looking— okay, slow down. I think you’re right. Are you looking for a more natural exit?
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Okay. God, what is that? What is it to try to find your way out of this place? Also as Harmony’s booting up, are you getting a HUD? What’s that look like? Is it just a feeling thing?
SYLVIA: Yeah, I guess it’s more the latter because it’s not something that— I feel like there are definitely people who have closer relationships with Harmony that it manifests more physically in them? Like maybe see something?
AUSTIN: Oh. Yeah.
SYLVIA: But I feel like with Echo, it’s more like that connection is new and startling, so it’s just kind of like this intangible connection.
AUSTIN: So here’s the thing I think that happens.
SYLVIA: It’s like radio static in Echo’s head, is how I’d kind of explain it. I guess.
AUSTIN: Okay. Well, then imagine the radio static starts to be— the radio station starts to come in more clearly. The static starts to be tuned out, and you know where the nearest blast door is.
SYLVIA: Cool!
AUSTIN: Are you just like running through the ship?
SYLVIA: Yeah. I can’t delay here because the longer I stay here, the riskier things are for me personally speaking?
AUSTIN: Totally. So then if you’re using Helm, it’s risky standard. If you’re using Scramble to run through this place in a big bulky mech carrying a big hammer, then that is— Scramble or Skulk or whatever else you’re using, then that would be limited. I think risky limited?
SYLVIA: I’m okay with limited on this. There’s at least a chance of success if I do that. Helm’s very low.
AUSTIN: Totally. So Scramble or Skulk?
SYLVIA: I’m going to go with Scramble for this. I think there’s no BS here.
AUSTIN: Okay, so you’re not trying to be quiet doing this?
SYLVIA: No, I’m just trying to get out because there’s a giant— I don’t know this—
AUSTIN: You know what? Skulk would be desperate limited because good luck Skulking around in a mech inside a spaceship.
SYLVIA: I’m covered in metal right now. It’s not happening.
AUSTIN: Yes. All right, so four. So I think on a four on a limited. Yikes. So I think the thing that ends up happening is— so you’re making your way through this— I want to be clear, this is a very nice spaceship. Advent spaceships—
KEITH: Oh, The Prince Elect is a nice ship?
AUSTIN: Yeah, who could have guessed? There’s nice carpets, there’s lots of cool silver and chrome. This is as close to a retrofuturistic spaceship we’ve seen since Myriad. But it’s retrofuturistic with a lot of class also. You—
KEITH: From Lady Blackbird, we know that Advent personal tastes will spare no expense, I guess.
AUSTIN: None. Zero expense, exactly. You end up finding the blast door, and it is preemptively locked. But you’re there. You’re at the blast door. What I’m doing is you have reduced effect. You already had limited effect, so now you have no effect. And the door behind you also closes, and a view screen turns on. And it’s Ballad.
It’s Ballad, and I’ll let you know who’s with Ballad. It’s Ballad at the helm at the top of the ship. It’s Ballad and joining him are— where are my notes on who’s on the ship? Here they are. Cat’s Cradle who you may recall helped make Advent Group happen, the one who Signet negotiated with. And then Lumen Lux is there who you may recall as part of the Polyphony island— had left the Volunteers of Seiche not to join up, wound up on Polyphony and was having a good life on Polyphony and wanted nothing to do with the Volunteers of Seiche. And they are back here now wearing Advent gear.
And Ballad says,
AUSTIN (as Ballad): Halt or die.
SYLVIA: Yeah. Do they have anything— it’s just a view screen I’m seeing right now as I’m trapped in this room?
AUSTIN: It’s just a view screen. You’re trapped in the room.
SYLVIA: There’s no weapons or anything pointed at me, right?
AUSTIN: Not that you can see.
SYLVIA: All right. I don’t think Echo says anything. At this point I’m just looking around the room. Not doing anything hostile, but I clearly haven’t stood down yet either. I’m waiting for them to finish while—
AUSTIN: Right. Are you trying to get information? Are you trying to Study the room?
SYLVIA: Well, I was going to see if I can roll a Study here to see if I can figure out, because I assume I’m trapped in here, figure out a way to sort of get this open.
AUSTIN: Right. Yes. Go ahead and give me a Study. This is a fortune roll. This isn’t a— you know what? You’re being watched. This is action roll. Give me a Study risky standard.
SYLVIA: Risky standard.
AUSTIN: Yeah, risky. There’s been a threat. There’s been a real clear threat made.
SYLVIA: And pushing myself gives me an extra dice?
AUSTIN: An extra die, yeah. Totally.
SYLVIA: Okay, I’m going to push myself to do that.
AUSTIN: Sounds good. There’s a six! Nice work.
SYLVIA: Glad I got that extra die because that other one was a one.
AUSTIN: A one, yeah. So it takes you a second to see it, but when you first came maybe you didn’t notice. But what you see are little wires coming through the corners of the room, almost where a camera would be or something? And they are live wires. Maybe the Overture’s HUD picks this up, or maybe your cool eyepatch picks this up. This room could be electrically charged any second. They could flip a button, and a huge amount of electric volt would just run through this entire room.
Your other thing is how you’re locked in. It’s just a lock. The blast door is locked. And then the other door is also just regular locked. You know what I mean? It’s a panel with the push buttons to put the code in and leave. You could easily smash through the regular door? The other door would take a little more effort.
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: But you could do it.
SYLVIA: I could do it. Yeah, I guess I’m going to risk it because I do have my starting ability Unstoppable, which lets me do [reading] perform a feat of physical force that bridges on superhuman.
AUSTIN: All right. I mean, if you do that, take two stress.
SYLVIA: If I succeed here.
AUSTIN: No, you could just do it.
SYLVIA: Oh, okay.
AUSTIN: Right?
SYLVIA: I don’t know how— I think we’ve kind of played it — we haven’t ever had it where—
AUSTIN: There hasn’t been a roll.
SYLVIA: There hasn’t been a roll for it because it hasn’t really applied before. It’s always been for other reasons when I’m doing this.
AUSTIN: Oh, you know what too? It does say [reading] when you push yourself to activate this ability, you still get the normal benefits. So yeah, you would be getting a +1d, and also doing that would let you break through the blast door. So yeah. Go ahead and give me a Scrap because you’re trying to break through this thing, right?
SYLVIA: All right. Hold on, I got to mark the two stress I’m taking again for that push.
AUSTIN: Yeah, push. You’re now at one, two, three, four, seven? Seven of nine?
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Good.
SYLVIA: Risky standard?
AUSTIN: Risky great. Ah, risky standard because you’re taking a die. Right? You’re taking a die?
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So risky standard.
[overlapping]
SYLVIA: That’s four, five, six.
AUSTIN: Four, five, six!
AUSTIN: That’s good. So yeah, is this about speed? Is this about you do it before the shock hits? Or do you do something else cool here?
SYLVIA: I think it’s more resisting the shock when it starts and getting out. This is still— I want to use my cool big hammer, Austin!
AUSTIN: You are. You are. So you lift the hammer, and Ballad hits the button. And the electrical signal speeds through, and then you slam the hammer. You take the hit basically and slam the hammer through. And you’re able to get out before there’s real damage done from the electrical blast.
The camera stays on Ballad for a second as the air gets sucked out of this room. And Ballad sighs and goes,
AUSTIN (as Ballad): Prepare my mech.
AUSTIN: Back on the other side of the beam. Even!
DRE: Hey, hi. Hello.
AUSTIN: How you doing?
DRE: You know. It’s fine.
AUSTIN: Yeah?
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So you are currently in a position where you would need a desperate roll to avoid the speargun, and you’re getting closer.
DRE: Okay, so what I resisted was what, the hull damage?
AUSTIN: No, you resisted being in a position where you couldn’t even dodge the spear, where it would be a definite hit. So another roll would make it so that you could do a risky roll instead of a desperate roll. You’re slowly getting closer and closer to throw off its aim, but it’s still going to fire. And you’ll still have to roll to dodge that thing when it fires unless you get there and destroy it or something.
DRE: How put together is it at this point?
AUSTIN: It is halfway ready. It is halfway through the countdown. So it’s actually further than that. I’d say two-thirds of it has been built, and that last third will be it firing.
DRE: I don’t know if I’m close enough to do this. But I think what I want to do, I want to try and use the ship arms to grab the hilt of the spear and tilt it up towards the ship itself.
AUSTIN: I think you’re still one move away from that based on the vague distances we’ve drawn and the way we’ve talked about it. We can definitely show you on screen kind of prepping for that manoeuver with the arms? But I think you’re still at just— you need to get closer to this thing. But also as you get closer to it, the lines that have been implanted in you by the Crankbait units are tensing? And so you’re also being hooked by this ship that’s kind of reeling you in to try to hold you in place so the speargun can hit you.
DRE: Okay. Damn. So I both need to be closer but I also need to do something about this hooks that are more or less in me.
AUSTIN: Right.
DRE: Okay. So I think what I want to do is— with my resist I was talking about using the arms to almost like pivot off these strings that were getting into me. I think what I want to do is continue doing that but do it in a way where I’m swinging to almost collect all these strands into one strand where they’re wrapped together and try to make so much tension that they’re pulling each other apart. As I’m going, I’m pulling all these strands together. And I’m almost putting myself into a flat spin to basically try and like contort these strings so much they just snap from the pressure.
AUSTIN: Totally. Give me a Helm.
DRE: Hey, maybe this one won’t suck.
AUSTIN: Again, it is a speed-related roll for sure.
DRE: There we go. There’s that six.
AUSTIN: There’s that six you need. Risky standard. So that’s good.
DRE: Oh hey, four, five, six! One, two, three, four, five, six. There we go.
AUSTIN: There we go. You got one, two, three last time. Now there’s your four, five, six. Exactly. All right. So once it fires— right now you will be able to defend at a risky position. You snap this and are now free from the Crankbaits, the fishing lines, and are getting closer and closer. Next turn you will have the ability to try and swing on this thing and try to stop it from shooting. We’ll see how that goes.
Gig, hey. Three of the other Anglers have now broken. Three of them are with the World Without End, and three of them are with you and are trying to chase you down as you get closer and closer to the Wandering Sea. What do you do?
KEITH: So Harmony is the sort of master tactician robot. And I feel like that game of chess is a losing game?
AUSTIN: It is. Gig doesn’t know about Harmony still.
KEITH: Right, I was just going to say but I don’t know about Harmony. So I think I’m going to attack the robots.
AUSTIN: Okay. Reckless! Getting that XP, cool. What’s that look like.
KEITH: So I actually haven’t fought in one of the Anglers before. What can Criss do?
AUSTIN: You have nets and grapple arm and hooks and stuff? You’re basically one of them. Right? You don’t have the cool thing where— they have a thing that’s they’re carrying this long fishing line basically. Space-worthy fishing line that goes all the way back either hooked to them or to the ship that they’re from. You don’t have that. But you do have it with you. You have grapple arms and hooks that you can hook into a thing and try to grapple back to you. You’re a fishing robot, is what you are. You don’t have guns, you don’t have swords.
KEITH: I don’t have guns, and I don’t have swords.
AUSTIN: You got what you got.
KEITH: I have nets, I’ve got lines. Okay. I’m going to—
AUSTIN: And you got this big balloon with a plankton bullion cube in it.
KEITH: I know what I’m going to do. I’m slowing down. I’m letting them think they’re catching up to me. And what I want to do is, when they’re gaining I then want to drop the net behind me as wide as I can. My goals is if I can get more than one in the net. That’s my version of succeeding here.
AUSTIN: Cool. So II think that is— I mean, it’s up to you. It is up to you. Fire ship weaponry would be Helm.
KEITH: Yeah. Helm. [SYLVIA laughs]
AUSTIN: That would be risky standard.
KEITH: Helm would be risky standard?
AUSTIN: Yes. What’s your dice? One? No push?
KEITH: One. No push.
AUSTIN: Okay. Risky standard.
KEITH: Six.
AUSTIN: Look at that. One die, rolls a six. Jesus christ.
KEITH: Oh boy!
AUSTIN: So yeah, I think you get two of them. This is one of those things where you just stop short so that they fly past you, and two of them get caught in the net, basically. And then do you close the net so that it’s like a bag-net?
KEITH: Like a drawstring. Like a fucking—
AUSTIN: Yeah, drawstring. Perfect.
KEITH: Like it’s— yeah.
AUSTIN: And they’re going to try to work on getting cut out. But for now, for the foreseeable future they’re stuck in this thing. The third Angler, who definitely has some sort of command rank on, loops back up and around. And is— you know what? Actually, I’m going to rewrite all of that because that is not what happens with the Harmony stuff, right? Which is, yes two of them are caught in the net. And then the third one, the person who has the command thing— they immediately refocus on trying to free those other two people, not on trying to go after you because they are not reckless. Harmony is about being at tactical strength.
KEITH: And here’s what I— am I still going? Can I do more?
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally.
KEITH: All right. So here’s what I was thinking before I even learned about this new helpful thing that this robot’s trying to do. I was going to ignore that robot, let the Angler catch back up to me, let it follow me while I take the time to wind the two that I caught in the net up in my wire. And now that all three of them are there, maybe I can catch that one up too.
AUSTIN: All right, give me another Helm. This is risky standard again. That is a three.
KEITH: Hi. Okay.
AUSTIN: Sometime the dice don’t go your way.
KEITH: Yeah.
AUSTIN: So the wire that you have begins to— it totally starts to wrap around this one? And it’s weird because you’re like, “Wait, they should be worried about this wire!” And they’re not, they’re just worried about freeing their friends from the net. And you keep sending out write to hook into them, you keep sending out wire to wrap them up, wrap them up. And you realize while it looks like it’s wrapping around this pilot, actually they have caught your wire in their wheel? And they’re just literally adding your wire to their reel of wire. And then it comes to its end! And it starts pulling you in towards them. And the net gets cut open, and now there are three Anglers closer to you than ever. And you’re being pulled towards them. What do you do?
KEITH: Can I resist that or do a devil’s bargain thing?
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally. You can totally resist it.
KEITH: Is there a devil’s bargain that I can take? What is that? Is that only on a failure?
AUSTIN: A devil’s bargain is supposed to come ahead of time, so that I can offer you a devil’s bargain to give you an extra die.
KEITH: Oh, okay. Yeah, I’m going to resist it.
AUSTIN: Okay. How do you resist it? What’s it look like?
KEITH: Early on, I notice what they’re trying to do. And I sabotage the wire in some way so that it snags in their gears.
AUSTIN: Okay. So they will still be freed from this. The thing that will not happen is the clock that I advanced for them of catching up to the plankton will not advance as much. But you will not have caught all three. You can’t resist a failure into a success. You can resist the consequences of that failure. So yeah, that part of it will work. They will still be freed, but instead of this clock of “Anglers chasing plankton” being at three out of four, it will only be at two out of four. So give me that resist roll. Oof! Oof oof oof!
KEITH: All right. How many do I take now?
AUSTIN: Four! You take four stress. Six minus the highest die result. You rolled a two. What are you at now?
KEITH: Ahh, two from the most that I can have.
AUSTIN: So that is seven. So you are at seven. Echo is at seven. Even’s at six. Look at you, Even.
DRE: Hey!
KEITH: Doing really well.
AUSTIN: Doing real well. Echo, back to you, bud.
SYLVIA: Oh boy. I just need to get across to the shit where Even—
AUSTIN: Yeah, so you are now going to do the loop that Even made, which is go over, basically?
SYLVIA: I guess I have to, right? Because I can’t go through. I’ll get burnt up!
AUSTIN: You don’t have the—
SYLVIA: I don’t have the coolant on me.
AUSTIN: But you do have extra armour.
SYLVIA: I do! My glass armour.
AUSTIN: You could try it. Right, the Overture’s thing is that you have the Overture cockpit, which has an extra point of hull, is armour.
SYLVIA: God, yeah. I could try that. Just kind of brute force my way through.
AUSTIN: You could try it.
SYLVIA: I think that’s my only real option because I’ll be followed if I go over.
AUSTIN: Yeah, totally.
SYLVIA: What would this be? Would this also be Helm?
AUSTIN: Totally be Helm. You’re flying a mech. This is what happens when you put people in space and they don’t have Helm. It hurts.
SYLVIA: Hey, remember when we were switching to this system, and I said, “I was thinking about putting a thing in Helm, but you just took my ship away from me so I’m not gonna.”
AUSTIN: Yeah, I remember that.
SYLVIA: This is really— I’m thinking about that a lot this session. [DRE laughs] This is risky or desperate?
AUSTIN: This is risky. You know you have armour. You’re being chased. This is risky.
SYLVIA: Okay. Standard, limited?
AUSTIN: Standard. Wait, are you spending a— oh, you can’t. You can’t push.
SYLVIA: I can’t! If I spend anything, I’ll go—
AUSTIN: You can spend a gambit. You can spend the gambit.
SYLVIA: Yeah, this that okay, guys?
[overlapping]
KEITH: Yeah. That’s totally fine.
DRE: Yeah.
AUSTIN: All right. Gambit’s down to zero. So now you’re rolling one die, hoping to get a success.
DRE: Smoke ‘em if you got ‘em.
SYLVIA: Fuck. Okay. Oh my god, I can’t believe— wait, I used a gambit already. Am I allowed to do—?
AUSTIN: Yeah, you’re allowed to do two. You rolled a one. [KEITH whistles]
SYLVIA: I rolled a one.
AUSTIN: Make sure you’re marking XP for failed rolls, people.
SYLVIA: I actually have a question about that. The last one I rolled for Helm was part of a group action. Does that still count for experience?
AUSTIN: Um, I actually don’t know. But let’s say yes. All right. So. God. I think this is the worst of both worlds. I think your Overture cockpit breaks. Sorry, it’s not the Overture cockpit, it’s the hand-held shield breaks. You go into the beam, and you are pushing through. You’re about a third of the way through when something grabs your leg and turns you directly into the light of the Our Profit beam? And you lift your shield up to protect yourself, and it just gets burned through, basically. It’s one thing if you’re moving constantly? It’s another thing if you get held in place and pushed. And you see that here in the middle of this bright light is Ballad’s mech.
Which I have no design for, so let’s very quickly talk about what type of mech we think Ballad has. I don’t think it’s just an Angler. It’s an Advent mech, right? I’m also very literally— if people have cool ideas for what the mech of Ballad Reverie has, I’ll defer to you, Sylvia?
SYLVIA: I think it does have to be capable of combat in the way that Echo’s is in some way. They’re both martial artists, right?
AUSTIN: Yes. Do you think it leans— basically, I imagine that Ballad got this as a signing bonus? So it could be whatever the fuck he wants in a way?
SYLVIA: Yeah.
AUSTIN: Do you think it’s built for martial arts? Is it a G Gundam mech, where—
SYLVIA: I don’t think that far. I don’t know if it’s G Gundam levels, but definitely something that has manoeuverability, for sure.
AUSTIN: What I actually meant was, do you think that he has the ability to stand inside of it and do martial arts moves?
SYLVIA: Oh man!
AUSTIN: He has the thing where it’s a little like Belgard but smaller. He just has the Doman Kashu style, Gundam style, “I’m standing inside of it.” Or like Pacific Rim for people who’ve seen Pacific Rim. He is just standing inside the cockpit. And it’s bigger than your mech, also. The Angler is only 9 feet tall, right? Maybe his is like 15 feet tall? And he just cracks his knuckles inside of this cockpit and takes a stance, and you can see the light is again splashing off his heat-resistant armour. And I think it’s black and silver, and the light is peeling the black paint off to reveal just the silver part?
[MUSIC: “The Notion” begins]
Also it has like a— the shape that I’m imagining is very much like— let me make sure I get this right really quick. Getter Robo? Do a search for Getter Robo. Which is these devil horns— not devil horns, just these horns at the top. And otherwise just a very rounded humanoid shape but with these sharp edges here and there. And also has a cape.
SYLVIA: Man! I gotta get a cape for my robot.
AUSTIN: You should have gotten a cape! And I think he opens up comms to you, and he says,
AUSTIN (as Ballad): I said, halt or die.
SYLVIA (as Echo): I’ve never been a very good listener, have I?
AUSTIN (as Ballad): [sighs] Echo.
AUSTIN: And open hands turn to fists.
[MUSIC - “The Notion” ends]
[1] The name in the audio recording is no longer in use, hence the audio/transcript discrepancy.