Perpetua 13: On Track to Iron Chains 02
Transcriber: robotchangeling
Austin: Go to Cenn, City of Iron Chains. Check in. There will be rapid passage available to you from Contingency Station PSC.
[“Perpetua” by Jack de Quidt begins playing]
Austin: Hey, watch yourself. You’re gonna have to move a little carefully there.
Sylvia: They’ve got some great cheese in Cenn. Keep an eye out for it.
Austin: What is— what’s going wrong here?
Keith: Uh, super fine sand. The sand—we’re trying to dig in the sand [Austin: Ohh.] and it is, like, sand that makes dunes. It’s impossible to build anything on. You’re sinking into it.
Austin: You find a sort of densely vegetated oasis in the wastes. You can see some of the kind of green poison aura has, like, tried to go through it, but it in fact has, like, cleansed whatever the area around it is. I think that you hear it first. This is a place where the flowers sing. As the wind moves through the air, they sing sort of chorally, to the sound of the wind passing through the leaves of the trees and the petals of the flowers. There’s a beautiful little freshwater spring in the middle. It’s a safe place to rest if you wanted to rest. The rest of that travel is actually pretty easy. Someone has the flare and is playing with it. You have five turns to recover the flare and fire it from the Fleggus. Or else you will miss this train.
[song plays out]
Austin: Yeah, I think you can totally decide that. I think there's too much lightning energy, you know, comes into the staff, and it’s too much to control with one hand, because it’s trying to hold both at once.
Janine: Aww. I feel so bad for it.
Sylvia: Aww.
Austin: And so it’s like, [disappointed Flegg noise], and it drops the flare and has to grab the other one to try to control the lightning energy, and it’s too much. And it goes to blast you, and it just completely misses. And maybe the lightning gets caught by, like, some lightning rods from the kind of Cenn, Iron Chains part of the architecture here. You know, they've thought about what happens when a lightning storm hits this place.
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Mm-hmm.
Austin: And so it just completely saps the big electrical attack that was going towards y'all. Well, it’s back to you. The flare baton is on the ground. I guess it says “stolen.” You could even just take it. It could have fallen. One of you could have caught it.
Sylvia: Yeah. I'm down to catch it.
Austin: All right, you've caught it. Back to y'all.
Sylvia: Can we just fire that off now, or…?
Austin: You can use an Objective ability to fire it off, 100%. I don't even— I think that, you know, it’s— have you used one of these before?
Keith: Point and shoot, right?
Austin: It’s like a baton that has some sort of special thing going on to it. You know, only Hexcloaks should be able to use it, you know?
Keith: Oh. Okay.
Sylvia: I don't know if I—
Janine: You have to have spent a few years in Hexcloak color guard to know how to use the baton.
Austin: That’s right.
Sylvia: I don't know if I've used one before, but I've probably had it explained to me.
Austin: That makes sense. Yeah. I think that it is probably a DEX/Insight check is what it is to do this. It’s low. It’s 7 difficulty, because you know what you're doing with it. You have the training.
Sylvia: Okay. Well, that’s a 4, so I don't know what I'm…
Austin: [sighs] Oh my god. Well. You could Fabula Point. [Sylvia laughs quietly] Or you could wait another turn and do it next turn.
Sylvia: I'm going to wait another turn.
Austin: Yeah. You have many turns left.
Sylvia: I have one Fabula Point left.
Austin: Yeah. Seeing that you have it, the Flegg that was trying to headbutt you and missed is now going to try to grab it from you and try to steal it back. This is like a tug-of-war type thing, I think. Let’s see. What’s the appropriate stat here? Probably Effort. I think this is— or maybe it’s— it has to be Might plus DEX to grab it from you and begin to try to pull it.
Sylvia: Mm-hmm.
Austin: I think this is a— we haven't done these maybe at all yet. This is an opposed check. “This special kind of attribute check is the fastest way to determine an outcome of a competition between characters, such as a race, a chase, or a debate. Each character taking part in the opposed check performs the same attribute check with no difficulty level. Whoever gets the highest result is the winner.”
Sylvia: Oh no.
Austin: “In the case of a draw, the characters that rolled the same result simply repeat the check until one of them emerges victorious.” This Flegg does not know that you were just buffed by Antistrophe. It does not understand that, and so, it is going to do tug-of-war with you, which is going to be DEX plus Might.
Sylvia: I don't think I'm the one who got buffed.
Austin: Oh.
Keith: Yeah, Brontë got buffed.
Austin: Sorry, Brontë got buffed. Okay, well then, yeah, you're not buffed.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: Hmm.
Sylvia: Well.
Austin: Well, I bet you could beat a 3.
Sylvia: Don't say that. Okay, I did beat a 3.
Austin: You got a 10. You easily shake it off. It goes flying and comes to a skidding halt and then gets up and dusts itself off, and we're back over to y'all. I think Antistrophe’s the one who hasn't gone yet, on your side.
Keith: Sure, yeah. Okay. So, the time pressure is off a bit.
Austin: Yeah, a little bit. You have the thing, right? So.
Keith: We have the thing.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: The creature that had it, you know, the flying creature. I don't have to worry about that anymore.
Austin: That’s right.
Keith: So I'm— actually, you know? I still will use that Flicker Shot [Austin: Okay.] from, uh…from Riant.
Austin: From Riant. From Riant. I'll have to add a Riant to your sheet that you can use.
Keith: Yeah, I couldn't figure out just off the top of my head how to add it without accidentally giving myself a level in Wayfarer, so I just sort of, like, jotted it down.
Austin: I see what you're saying. That’s a good point, yeah.
Keith: I just jotted it down so that I wouldn't forget what it is, and I'll figure it out later.
Austin: Yeah, that’s a good idea. What I'm going to do is add it as a thing down here that y'all can see. I'm going to edit it and name it Riant, and it’s level 5. It’s a construct, and it is available for everybody to see in a second. All right, there it is. All players.
Keith: Great.
Austin: And I'll hit Flicker Shot. Well, it rolled a 3, so unfortunately, Riant, [laughs quietly] like the Fleggs, is missing right now.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Sylvia: This is such a comedy of errors fight.
Austin: [sighs] Yeah.
Keith: I should just be hitting guys with a shield. It doesn't matter that they resist it. Who cares?
Austin: Yeah, they only— yeah, uh huh. Probably right. Riant does, like, a big huff. Like, it brings in air to the top and bottom of the lantern and then flings out the fire from the top of the lantern, as if it’s, like, blowing out, and it just completely misses the floating target, unfortunately. Maybe the flame actually hits the shield that was unable to block the previous fire attack, and this time, it just completely absorbs it. I think we are back around. No, sorry, Flegg 2 has to go still. Flegg 2 is sick of seeing the Fleggus get shot by arrows and entranced by dances and is coming after you, Brontë.
Keith: Says, “I should be being entranced by dances.”
Austin: That’s right. Uh huh.
Janine: [chuckles] Jealous. I get it, you know?
Austin: [laughs quietly] And is going to try to infuriate you. It’s doing its own little dances back at you and then trying to, like, punch you in the middle of them.
Janine: [laughs] Okay.
Keith: Wiggle its little egg butt?
Austin: Oh my god! It’s going to hit you, with a 14. [Keith laughs]
Janine: Wow.
Sylvia: That’s so funny.
Keith: This Flegg is now like, “Maybe I should do dances all the time.”
Austin: Yeah. Sorry, I hit Flegg 1 again. It’s the same stats as Flegg 2. You haven't hurt any of these. The stats are the same.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: I'm letting it roll.
Janine: Huh.
Austin: So, yeah, get enraged as it’s mocking your dancing and then punching you in the stomach.
Janine: Wow. [laughs] That’s fucked up.
Austin: Take 13 physical damage, as it rolled an 8 and a 6.
Janine: Oh my god.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Wait, hang on a second. Give me a second.
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] What the fuck?
Austin: And it goes, “Heh heh heh heh heh heh heh!” [Janine laughs] That is the end of the round.
Janine: I'm just looking— I'm weighing if there's a thing I want to do, or…
Austin: Sure.
Keith: How much healing do you need happening to you?
Austin: Isn't that the first time that he’s been hit?
Janine: No, I took 10 poison damage before.
Austin: Oh, the poison, right.
Janine: Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: Okay. So, like, high 20s.
Janine: I mean, this’ll put me in crisis. That’s why I'm, like, kind of weighing.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Oh, I see.
Keith: I can heal you on the next turn, as long as we're attacking these things otherwise, 'cause I can't do a lot of damage right now.
Sylvia: I was going to give you an elemental energy on your weapon so the resistance didn't stress you out.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: But if you're healing, then I can…
Keith: Yeah, just keep attacking.
Sylvia: I can just take a swing, and then…
Keith: Yeah, maybe next turn.
Sylvia: Next turn, I’ll…yeah.
Janine: Okay. I was weighing whether or not I want to have a bodyguard step in. Like, if that was funnier, [Austin: Yeah.] or if they're just watching, you know? [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Oh, yeah, they're just— right now, they're watching with their arms crossed, you know? Maybe one of them. Probably not both of them.
Janine: Yeah, one of them crosses her arms.
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yes.
Janine: The other one usually doesn't.
Austin: That’s right. Yes.
Sylvia: One of them always tells the truth. One of them always lies.
Austin: [chuckles] Uh huh. One of them is actively rooting for you.
(as bodyguard): Yes!
Janine: I think I am going to just choose to be enraged, 'cause that’s kind of funny.
Austin: Okay. That is funny.
Janine: The idea of him getting, like, really pissed off is funny.
Austin: [chuckles] Uh huh.
Keith: “I do the dancing!”
Austin: [laughs] That’s right. “I'm the dancer!”
Janine: That’s so rude.
Austin: “You don't dance!” All right, back around—
Keith: “You don't dance at me!” [Austin chuckles]
Austin: Back around to y'all. Are you immediately responding to this, Brontë?
Janine: Mm…
Austin: Are you doing something else?
Janine: I've gone first two in a row, so I feel like, [Austin: You have.] if someone else wants to go first, I should let them.
Keith: Why don't I do the healing now, just to get it out of the way?
Sylvia: Yeah, that seems like a good idea.
Janine: Yeah, sure.
Keith: I'm going to roll another 2d20.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Keith: Oh, that’s a 1, which is perfect, and then an 11. Let me just double check on my numbers here, which I believe I have written in my backpack. 20: Recover 100 Hit Points and win 100 Mind Points.
Austin: No, it’s not 20. Yeah.
Janine: What? [laughs quietly]
Keith: Oh, no. 20. It’s 11. Sorry, it was…
Austin: Yeah. [laughter]
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: As 9, but with dark— okay.
Austin: Keith is just dreaming, you know? What’s the…
Sylvia: That would've been…
Keith: I'm dreaming. Well, I rolled 2d20, so I was like, “20,” but it’s not. It’s 11. [Austin and Janine laugh]
Austin: Right.
Keith: So, I can do…11: one enemy that I can see and is present or one ally. So, I'm going to heal. I'm going to heal 30 Hit Points from both of them.
Austin: There we go.
Keith: Because of my Potion Rain.
Austin: Hell yeah.
Keith: So I can heal one person. Add a second person to that. 30 Hit Points.
Austin: How are you— are you tossing them each potions to then drink down? Is Potion Rain like rain, or is it metaphorical? You know what I mean?
Keith: I think that it’s…it is poetic.
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm. [Janine laughs quietly]
Keith: Like, I am showering potion but just, like, physically doing it.
Austin: Right. You have not created— you have not, like, mixed the chemicals such that it starts raining healing on them.
Keith: Right. Right. Yeah, no.
Austin: Okay. Yeah. Okay. They get healed. [sighs] What is a Fleggus to do? You know?
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] Scrambled Fleggs all over my face. What is a boy to do? [Austin laughs]
Austin: I think it has to try one more time. Both hands on the staff. You know, waves it around as if it’s, like, gathering the energy. The lightning starts to crackle one more time. It’s green lightning this time, and it’s going to try with the last of its MP to blast you all with Chain Lightning one more time. What are your Magical Defenses? I say it again, even though this might bite me in the ass, because last time.
Keith: 12.
Sylvia: I've got 9.
Austin: 9, 12, and 9, probably, because Brontë, you and Caoimhe have the same.
Sylvia: Same stats?
Janine: Mine’s 7, actually, because I'm enraged.
Austin: [quietly] Oh, because you're enraged.
Sylvia: Ohh.
Austin: It rolled a 14.
Sylvia: Fuck.
Keith: Wow, it hit me!
Sylvia: Wow!
Austin: It did it.
Janine: So, okay, but hang on.
Austin: You take 23. Let me just finish reading it.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: You take 23 bolt damage, and you're all dazed. Go ahead.
Janine: Does magic count as ranged?
Austin: This is a ranged attack. Or…yes, I believe this is a ranged attack. I believe.
Janine: “After a creature you can see performs a ranged attack, you may spend an amount of mind points equal to the total result of their accuracy check in order to have the attack fail automatically against all targets.”
Austin: [quietly] Wow.
Keith: Wow.
Janine: “You can only use this skill if you have a ranged weapon equipped, and it has no effect if the accuracy check was a critical success.”
Austin: This is such a big thing going forward that I want to make sure we get it right, you know?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Austin: But I do believe it is, but let’s see. Hmm. I think it is not a ranged attack. I'm going to do a double check by checking the Discord.
Keith: It sort of makes sense, I guess, that the mechanics for stopping, like, an arrow are different from magic.
Austin: Right.
Keith: But then, if you can stop, like, three arrows, because it does stop from all targets.
Austin: Right.
Janine: Yeah. That’s the thing.
Keith: It starts making a little more sense that it could also stop magic.
Austin: Totally. I think magic attacks, though, are different things. I'm double checking.
Janine: Yeah, this is what I was curious about, was like, you know, define ranged versus…
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Keith: It is ranged, in a literal sense.
Austin: It is, but it does not have the symbol. It does not have the ranged symbol. It has the offensive magic symbol, [Keith: Right.] is this kind of red lightning attack.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Which all of the magical things have, you know what I mean?
Janine: This skill is called Crossfire, by the way. That might make it easier to search.
Austin: Right. You're shooting arrows or bullets out of the sky, is what you're doing, right?
Janine: Well, it doesn't say that specifically, but yeah.
Austin: It doesn't say that. It doesn't say that, yeah. Okay, here’s—
Janine: But then, like, you could shoot the staff and make the staff shake and it hurts his hand a little bit or whatever.
Austin: Yeah. I think ranged attacks are…oh, here we go. Here we go. Spells are not ranged attacks. Spells are spells.
Janine: Aww.
Austin: Fabula Ultima is very strict with its wording.
Sylvia: All right.
Janine: Bummer.
Austin: Here we go. This is officially from Emanuele Galletto. “Simply put, attacks are attacks and spells are spells. Attacks are not spells, and vice versa, although some spells can grant a free attack. This is important, because if the character performing the actions described above had an accessory that said, ‘Spells you cast deal 5 extra damage,’ that extra damage would not apply to their free attack performed by their elemental weapon. It’s not the spell dealing damage; it’s the free attack generated by the spell.” So, there is important separation. Unfortunately, you do not get to hard counter this.
Janine: Aww.
Austin: That would be extremely funny.
Janine: It would be very powerful.
Austin: I just don't want to go down the road that has been tested as to being a little bit too powerful, you know?
Janine: Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Sylvia: All right, I got 7 HP now.
Austin: Phew!
Keith: Even after my 30 just—? How many HP do you have total?
Sylvia: You did not heal me, right?
Keith: I did heal you. I did heal you.
Austin: Yeah, you did.
Janine: Yeah.
Sylvia: Oh, you did heal me.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, you were healed—
Sylvia: Oh, okay.
Keith: Yeah, it affects two people, because I have Potion Rain.
Austin: Go back and add the 30 before you subtract whatever you just subtracted.
Sylvia: Yeah, so let me…
Austin: I guess add the 23 you just got taken, then add 30, then subtract 23 from that.
Sylvia: I’m…
Austin: My guess is the 30 would have put you back up to max, but I'm not sure.
Sylvia: Yeah, I'm in crisis. I'm at 19.
Austin: Phew.
Keith: Okay. Well, that’s better than 7 or whatever.
Sylvia: I'm just in crisis. That is much better than 7.
Austin: It is. It is.
Janine: I'm going to have the bodyguards step in and halve this for me.
Austin: This hasn't happened yet. Describe what this does.
Janine: So, I think this is the thing. You know, I've described the bodyguards before of, like, there's one who’s a little more serious, a little more, like, aloof.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: And one who’s slightly less aloof. I still wouldn't say, like, cheerful. They are still both very, like, professional. Very, like, you know.
Keith: Are you sure they're not Dharma and Greg?
Janine: Yeah, I'm sure. I'm very sure.
Austin: [chuckles] Mm-hmm.
Janine: So, I think, in this case, it is probably— hang on. I have to figure out— which one of them is the one that has pants, and which one has a skirt? [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: Sounding like Dharma and Greg. [Janine and Keith laugh]
Austin: Efta is the… [laughs] Zolfta is the military…
Janine: Zolfta in tights, a dress, and a cropped jacket.
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: And Efta wears shorts, tights, and suspenders. Okay.
Austin: Yes.
Janine: So, I think, in this particular case, it’s Efta that sort of swoops in, and it’s kind of a grabbing of Brontë around the waist, like a hook grab, and…
Austin (as Efta): Lord Brontë!
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Janine: I don't think she says anything.
Austin: Oh, okay.
Janine: It’s just, like, a grab and pull that kind of gets Brontë out of the bulk of that one chain strike.
Austin: Yeah. And instead, she takes that hit, right?
Janine: No. No.
Austin: Oh, right. That’s not…
Janine: It’s just, like, a Fatigue. I have to roll Fatigue, and that’s, yeah.
Austin: Roll Fatigue. 1d6.
Janine: Fatigue is shared between bodyguards. Yeah, 1d6, as long as I have 10 or more Fatigue. Wait, as long as I have 10 or more Fatigue, you cannot— yeah, you cannot rely on them. Okay.
Austin: Yeah. You want low Fatigue, yeah.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: And they recover Fatigue at the end of each session.
Janine: Yes.
Austin: So at the end of the session today, we should roll to reduce this back down.
Janine: Yeah. 3.
Austin: All right, 3 Fatigue. Pulls you out of the way and, thankfully, that keeps you from being in crisis, I believe, right?
Janine: And then I get 11 damage, right?
Austin: Uh, yes. You'll take half rounded down. So, 23 is 11.5. Round that down to 11.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: And that’s bolt, so, generally player characters don't have elemental weaknesses. Again, generally, but if you do, that would be…
Janine: Yeah. I don't.
Austin: Or if you have a strength against bolt from something, you could take half damage there, but. But everybody takes dazed, except for you, Brontë, because you— actually, wait, what’s it say? What’s the actual ability say? Do you still take dazed?
Janine: Um…
Austin: Yes.
Janine: It’s like a thing I'm choosing that’s just specifically halving damage, so I think I still take dazed.
Austin: Yeah, so yeah, you still take dazed.
Janine: Which is fair, because I just got thrown to the ground [Austin: Yes.] by my suspenders bodyguard, so.
Austin: By suspenders bodyguard. That would daze me, for sure. All right, so that was the Fleggus. I think, Antistrophe, you went before that.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It’s back to you, Brontë or Caoimhe.
Sylvia: Uh…
Austin: You have three turns left to fire off the flare.
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] I could keep trying to fire this flare off.
Keith: I think fire it.
Janine: Yeah. Why not?
Keith: They got a lucky hit.
Austin: They got a lucky hit.
Sylvia: Yeah. That was, what, DEX/Insight?
Austin: DEX/Insight. Yep.
Keith: Did this account for their lowered Willpower, this roll here?
Austin: Yeah, I hit all the buttons.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: Yeah. I'll double check for you, but…
Keith: So they have 10 Insight and 10 Willpower, the Fleggus?
Austin: That is correct, yeah. In fact, now it has—
Sylvia: I just can't figure this thing out, guys.
Austin: No, what is happening?
Janine: Mm…
Austin: You fumbled?
Keith: Oh my god.
Austin: You fumbled? You fumbled?
Sylvia: I just…yeah. I looked down the barrel of it, and then it fired. [laughs quietly]
Janine: You have any points left?
Austin: Oh no. That would be fine.
Sylvia: I do have points, but can I reroll on a fumble?
Austin: I think you can't reroll on a fumble. I'll double check.
Janine: Oh.
Sylvia: Yeah. I'm very…
Keith: I thought that you could. Oh, maybe I misunderstood what it said.
Sylvia: Caoimhe hates Fleggs now.
Keith: When it says, “Perform a check to invoke a trait to reroll one or both dice (not a fumble)...”
Austin: Yeah, not a fumble.
Keith: I thought that what it was saying was, “Hey, a failure isn't a fumble.”
Austin: No, yeah.
Keith: But what it’s saying is you can't reroll a fumble.
Austin: Uh huh. Uh huh.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Aha.
Sylvia: Well.
Austin: Aha, okay.
Sylvia: Oh, I hope I don't do a faux pas.
Austin: Oh, that’d be very funny. We need to get into more situations where a faux pas would be appropriate.
Sylvia: I agree.
Austin: I think, zapped by the chain lightning, you know, as you're trying to, like, make it happen, trying to turn the baton such that it launches the flare…
Sylvia: Mm-hmm.
Austin: It just kind of, like, slips out of your hands, you know? And it goes up in the air, and it gets, like, levitated back over to the flying Fleggus, who steals it.
Keith: It’s a literal fumble.
Austin: It’s a literal fumble. This, again, is lost item: an item is destroyed, lost, stolen, or left behind. The Fleggus has taken it back from you.
Keith: We've gotta get this guy on the ground so that I can hit him.
Austin: Flegg #1 is going to go. Flegg #1 is simply going to shove you and laugh at you, Caoimhe.
Sylvia: Wow!
Austin: It’s going to miss. It’s laughing, and then it goes to shove you, and it’s like a toddler pushing on your leg, you know? [Keith laughs]
Sylvia: Well, I wish you didn't say that, because it’s an even number, and that means I get to swing at it.
Austin: Oh my god. From what? Is this a new—
Sylvia: I have Counterattack, an ability that I forgot to use the entire first storyline. [Janine laughs]
Austin: Oh my goodness!
Keith: Oh my god.
Sylvia: “After an enemy hits or misses you with a melee attack, [Austin: Yep.] if the result of their accuracy check was an even number…”
Austin: It was.
Sylvia: “...you may perform a free attack against that enemy [Austin: Mm.] after their attack has been fully resolved. This attack must be a melee attack and must have that enemy as its only target. Treat your high roll as 0 when calculating damage dealt by this attack.”
Austin: All right, well, hit it. Let’s see what happens.
Sylvia: So, if this hits, it only does 10 damage. [various gasps] That’s another fumble. That’s another fumble.
Austin: What is—?
Sylvia: Guys, I'm having a really bad day.
Austin: What is happening? What is happening?
Janine: Having a little slap fight with the egg over there. That’s fine.
Austin: What are you doing? This can fumble, right? This is not like some special— it doesn't say this can't fumble?
Keith: Right, it’s not anything, but it’s a real check, right?
Austin: Check it. Check to see if it says it.
Sylvia: I don't—
Austin: It doesn't say it.
Sylvia: I'll check. I don't think it says anything.
Austin: It says, yeah. It’s a free attack, yeah.
Sylvia: It’s a free attack.
Austin: Oh my god.
Sylvia: Maybe free attack rules might have something?
Austin: I'll double check it.
Sylvia: I'm making such a face right now.
Austin: This was— you were the chosen one. [laughs] Yeah, it does not. Free attack doesn't say anything about fumbles.
Keith: There's nothing in the rules that stops Sylvi from rolling bad five times in a row.
Austin: I know.
Sylvia: No.
Austin: I know. That’s just dice. That’s just dice with these huge ranges, you know? We don't traditionally play games with the ranges being this big, I think. Maybe I'm wrong. Maybe someone will tell me that we actually have played games where critical failures are just as possible as normal here, but you know.
Keith: Well, we don't typically play games with critical failures as a rule at all. [Sylvia laughs quietly]
Austin: This is true. This is true.
Keith: What was the other game that we played that even contained critical failures?
Austin: I think Blades has a notion of a hard fail like that.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Right? Am I wrong about that?
Keith: Sure. A hard fail, but that’s different than, like, [Austin: Let’s see.] you fail and then there's extra rules about, like, specifically negative consequences.
Sylvia: Can this one be the faux pas?
Austin: [sighs] What’s— it has to really— no, Blades does not have…
Keith: Sangfielle? Did Sangfielle have a critical failure? Or Heart, I mean?
Austin: Yeah, Heart. Heart might have something like that. Blades doesn't have anything like that. It has just regular fail. It has crits, which is two 6s.
Keith: It’s just make a move as hard as you want, which is like…
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: When someone rolls a 1, you get to go like, “This was really bad.”
Austin: “Hahaha, this funny thing happens.” Exactly. Yeah. Yeah, you know, Heart had all that complicated stuff around different, like, types of outcomes.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It has the you build up Stress, and then the Stress gets translated eventually into…I forget what they're called. I'm blanking. Anyway. Lord.
Keith: What is the roll to use this thing? DEX plus Insight. Okay.
Austin: DEX plus Insight, which are two things that Caoimhe’s really good at.
Sylvia: I'm good at, except I have a -2 to my Insight.
Austin: Defense only a 7. It’s not like a high check, you know?
Keith: Right.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah. I think faux pas is pretty funny.
Keith: You could maybe use a tonic?
Sylvia: I need to do something after this, to…
Austin: Yeah. I mean, I think the thing that’s going to happen is going to cash out literally immediately, which is the next check performed by you or an ally will receive a +4 bonus. The other Flegg— you were just off balance. You've swung too far, you know what I mean? A classic you've overswung.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: And this one is going to try to hit you with a regular-ass Flegg Strike. Let me— I'm going to hit this button, but we have to add +4 to the roll. That’s a 9. 9 will probably not hit you, right?
Sylvia: 9 does not hit me, thankfully.
Austin: 9 does not hit, yeah. So, big swing, big miss, but instead, they're both just laughing at you, as you've stumbled with your Counterattack.
Sylvia: I hate these eggs so much!
Austin: Yeah, sorry. I think I've interrupted, because, Brontë, did you go this round yet?
Janine: No, I didn't.
Austin: So you should have gone. You should have gone.
Janine: I was gonna say, I didn't really understand what was happening there.
Austin: Yeah, it didn't get an attack of opportunity. The critical fumble on the Counterattack [Janine: Yeah.] gave Flegg 2 a bonus. If you happen to kill Flegg 2 immediately, then pretend that didn't happen, and if you don't, then pretend that this happens after you do your thing, Brontë. So, Brontë, back to you.
Janine: Uh, I'm going to shoot the Fleggus with my bow. [laughs]
Austin: That seems like a good call.
Janine: You know? I think I might just have got myself, like, dusted myself off.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: Feeling a little shaky, but, you know, I'm good at longbow. It’ll be fine.
Austin: You are good at longbow. Yeah.
Janine: Whoa. What the fuck?
Keith: Oh my god.
Austin: Oh my god. [Janine laughs] Oh my god.
Sylvia: Yo, what is going on?
Janine: What’s happening?
Sylvia: What is going on?
Austin: That’s a crit, or a fumble. That’s another fumble. It’s 1, 1.
Janine: Critical fumble.
Austin: Oh my gosh. Why is this happening?
Sylvia: I don't know, but it’s really funny.
Austin: Sourcerot is real. Sourcerot is real.
Keith: You mean it’s real in this world, in our world.
Austin: Right. [laughs quietly] That’s right. It’s come to us.
Keith: On Earth. It’s real on Earth Prime.
Sylvia: Yeah. We got dicerot.
Austin: You got dicerot.
Janine: I'm going to, actually, I want to use a— I haven't spent any of my points today. I would like to.
Austin: You can't Fabula a fumble.
Janine: Oh, right. Fuck! Shit!
Sylvia: You can't on a fumble.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Janine: Goddamn.
Austin: Yeah. 100%.
Keith: Ooh…hold on. But it’s—
Janine: But I get one when I fumble.
Austin: You do get one when you fumble. Yeah.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: Keith?
Keith: When you…oh, I guess it doesn't change it from a fumble, because you can't reroll with a fumble, but…
Austin: Yeah. You can add a +1, but a fumble is a fumble.
Keith: But you can evoke a Bond, but it doesn't change it from a fumble.
Janine: I guess that’s specifically why you can't reroll in a fumble, because the fumble gives you a point.
Austin: Right, the fumble gives you a point.
Sylvia: Oh, it does?
Austin: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Take a point, yes.
Janine: So that’s the way to remember.
Sylvia: I'm sorry. I have 2 points.
Austin: All right.
Sylvia: I got 2 points in this.
Austin: Right, 'cause you got two fumbles, like, back to back, basically.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: It’s true.
Keith: Back to back, basically? [laughs quietly] They were within 90 seconds.
Austin: [laughs quietly] It’s unbelievable.
Sylvia: Me doing that Counterattack was the GIF of Nick Young [Austin: Yeah.] shooting the basketball and walking away.
Austin: Then walking away, uh huh.
Sylvia: While it rims out. That was really that.
Austin: I think this is the faux pas. I think, Brontë, so much of your character is social. I need to know. You make a compromising statement or maybe movement or something. I need you to look very embarrassing.
Janine: I actually— so, I had a thing in mind for that.
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: And I was like, well, if we would just want to move— like, I don't know. It’s one of those things that, like, is not in the spirit of the kinds of failures that we usually do, [Austin: Sure.] but it is the first thing that came to my mind in this moment, so I'm happy to do that.
Austin: Please tell me. Yeah.
Sylvia: Are you going to call me “sweet cheeks”? [Janine and Sylvia chuckle]
Janine: I think… [chuckles] So, there's this thing that can happen sometimes when you're shooting a bow, if you're, like, not paying attention, and you're holding it at a weird angle and stuff.
Austin: Oh no.
Janine: Where the arrow will kind of, like, swing?
Austin: Uh huh.
Janine: Because you'll be, like, holding the end of it against the string.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: And if you're, like, off balance or whatever and kind of fucking up, like, there's nothing necessarily to keep the arrow against the bow, up front.
Austin: Yeah.
Janine: So I think it’s a thing of just, like, I think Brontë misfires in a really awkward weird way.
Austin: Ohh.
Janine: Where it doesn't even have any force against it to, like, hit someone by accident or whatever.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: It just kind of, like, flops. And I think the embarrassing part is that Efta is still right there.
Austin: [softly] No…
Janine: And it’s a moment of, like…you know, [Austin: Ooh.] maybe she’s the one who, like, gives him the most credit for competence, usually.
Austin: Yeah. Yeah, I think that is the case.
Janine: And then it’s just like, “What the hell was that?”
Austin: Yeah. Happens to a lot of guys, you know?
Janine: Yeah, yeah, you know? [Sylvia laughs] It’s normal.
Austin: [laughs quietly] It totally is.
Janine: He’s really stressed.
Sylvia: It’s totally normal.
Austin: He’s really stressed.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: He’s enraged and dazed.
Austin: [laughs] It’s true. And then, immediately after that, the Flegg misses the Flegg Strike, and we're back around to the top of a new round. So, three rounds left.
Keith: I should say that I misapplied Potion Rain [Austin: Mm.] in a way that I don't think actually affected anything mechanically.
Austin: Uh huh.
Keith: If I use Potion Rain, it only restores half the normal amount of HP.
Austin: Oh. Good to know that.
Sylvia: Oh.
Janine: Mm.
Keith: But I think that it only ever affected people with not more than 15.
Austin: Yeah, let’s roll with it for now. We don't have to go back and get the pencils out.
Janine: We don't have high enough health for that to…
Austin: [chuckles] At this point, 15 is a lot to heal for both of them.
Janine: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: So. But going forward, let’s make sure we get that right.
Keith: Ah, I can't use it. I only have 2 IP left, so it doesn't matter.
Austin: Okay, well.
Keith: I'm just saying it for the listener, mostly.
Austin: Yeah. I see. Well.
Keith: That I know that that was wrong, and I did bad, and I was wrong.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Wow. Jeez.
Keith: [laughs] Yeah. I get excoriated when I get something wrong! [Austin laughs] That’s actually never happened. No one’s ever…
Janine: Two faux pas on that one.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Gosh. Okay. Well, we're back around to y'all.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Can you shake the fumble-itis?
Keith: Yeah, I'm going to just attack someone. I'm going to attack the weakest Flegg, please.
Austin: The weakest Flegg. So, the Flegg that has the most damage that’s in reach of you.
Keith: Yeah. Uh huh.
Austin: Yeah, both Fleggs have full health.
Keith: Oh my god. [exaggerated outrage] What have you fucking people been doing?!
Sylvia: Kind of been focused. Oh, slapstick! [laughter]
Keith: I'm thinking back.
Janine: Listen! The big one is really sick and weird right now because of me.
Austin: It is.
Janine: I've been doing okay.
Austin: Yeah, uh huh.
Keith: [laughs quietly] I've just been thinking of how many times that Flegg has been hit for no damage.
Sylvia: I did one cool thing at the beginning, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] and then I turned into Martin Short.
Austin: I will say, again, if it gets into crisis, it will fall from the sky and be a grounded enemy that Antistrophe can just hit with shields, [Keith: Right.] but it is not yet there.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It’s close. It’s wavering, but it is not in crisis.
Keith: I'm going to attack one of the other Fleggs. When does its resistance to physical—
Austin: Are you sure?
Keith: Well, what else am I going to do? I don't have any potions left.
Austin: I was going to say wait until someone does something else, but go ahead.
Sylvia: You could let one of us go first.
Keith: Okay. I'll go last, then. [Austin laughs quietly] I'm just sick of this! [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Take enraged. No, you're not. You're not, you're not. But, eh, hmm. Anyway. Go ahead. What were you going to say?
Sylvia: We're both still debuffed, right, Janine?
Janine: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: And Keith, to your question about the physical thing.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It is until the end of the scene.
Keith: Right.
Austin: So they have physical damage. I guess if someone had Dispel, which is something someone on the other side of the game does have, [Keith: Mm-hmm.] you could dispel that buff, for instance.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: What I could do, Keith, [Keith: Yeah.] instead of an attack here, is do the Elemental Weapons spell.
Keith: I think you should try and do so much damage to this Flegg that it falls to the ground.
Sylvia: Okay.
Keith: That’s my— I think that that’s—
Sylvia: I will try and do flare again. Fuck it.
Austin: How much MP do you have left?
Sylvia: I have 30 MP left. This will take me down to 10.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: Yeah. It’s just, it’s a d10 and a d6.
Austin: Ah, I get you.
Keith: Did you have…oh, no, nevermind. Yeah, okay, nevermind.
Sylvia: What’s up?
Keith: No, I'm just confused about potions briefly.
Sylvia: Okay.
Keith: The potions are confusing!
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] You're the one who took a potion class.
Keith: And thank god I did. [Austin laughs]
Sylvia: I rolled an 8, so that’s not doing anything.
Austin: That checks against the Magic Defense?
Sylvia: It’s Magic Defense, yeah.
Austin: Do you want to Fabula Point this?
Sylvia: I do!
Keith: You've got 100 of them.
Austin: ‘Cause damn, 32 damage would be incredible.
Sylvia: Yeah. I do have a lot of Fabula Points.
Austin: How many points do you have left?
Sylvia: I have 3, because I got two fumbles.
Austin: Well, then, what are we doing? Yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah, okay.
Austin: The real question is do you want to reroll—
Keith: Use all 3, get us another XP.
Janine: Yeah, true.
Austin: Do you want to roll one or both of these?
Sylvia: Well, do we know what its Magic Defense is?
Austin: Uh, you hit before with a 12.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: And you didn't hit with an 11, so it’s 12.
Sylvia: Okay. So, I do need to reroll both, then.
Austin: Oh.
Sylvia: ‘Cause I can only get my Insight up to a 6.
Austin: I see. Yeah.
Sylvia: Is that just 1 Fabula Point to reroll?
Austin: It’s 1 Fabula Point.
Sylvia: Okay.
Keith: This might be a double Fabula Point turn.
Austin: We'll see.
Keith: Unless you want to start with— oh, I guess Bond wouldn't help. Would Bond help?
Austin: Bond only goes up +1.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: You get to use a Bond or— so, which Trait are you drawing on here?
Sylvia: Um… [laughs] Can I draw on Doubt?
Austin: Oh, yeah.
Sylvia: But in, like, a self doubt way?
Austin: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, 100%. 100%.
Sylvia: Like, “Oh man, do I really know how to use magic? I don't know.”
Austin: Come against one Fleggus, and you start to doubt whether or not you're really the Hexcloak.
Sylvia: I’m just going to…
Austin: The Fleggus has a cloak.
Keith: I know this doesn't look like an attack roll, [Sylvia: Oh no.] but I saw the “2 -1 = 1” and I was just like, “Oh, 2 and 1, that’s…” [Austin laughs]
Sylvia: I also— Keith, it was my input, and I also had that reaction.
Austin: All right, let’s see it. Oh!
Keith: Oh yeah!
Sylvia: 13.
Austin: That’s 13.
Sylvia: Got ‘em.
Janine: Nice. Nice.
Austin: That’s 34 damage, and is there more bonus to that?
Keith: 32, right? Because it doesn't reroll the high— oh, it does reroll the high roll.
Sylvia: Oh.
Austin: We rerolled both. We rerolled both.
Keith: Okay, great.
Sylvia: I rerolled both.
Austin: Sylvi explicitly said that she was going to reroll both.
Keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: 13 hits. [laughs quietly] 34 fucking damage. This thing is burning, and it is in crisis, and it is on the ground with both the baton and the staff in its hands.
Keith: All right.
Austin: And then it gets to go—or they get to go—at this point. I think… [chuckles ominously] Mm? Hmm? I'm trying to decide how much of an asshole to be.
Keith: Low.
Sylvia: Low. We've had a hard time.
Janine: We just had, like, how many fumbles in a row? The universe is already being the asshole.
Austin: Well, I guess. I kind of jumped the thing, right? Which is I'm trying to decide how accurately to play how— the thing that they should do is start guarding the Fleggus, but that’s not what they're going to do. They should do that, because that would make it impossible for you to start hitting it until you get through them. They're not going to do that. That’s not how Fleggs think.
Janine: They're little goobs. They haven't been acting responsibly.
Austin: That’s exactly right.
Keith: Yeah, they've been, like, stealing trinkets and pushing us.
Austin: That is correct, and so they're going to keep doing that, and Flegg #1 is going to release a thing you have not seen it do yet. Seeing its big Fleggus get knocked to the ground and start burning reminds it that it can do a thing. It looks back at you, Caoimhe, having summoned the flare, and it starts to glow red. And then, from its strange nose beak thing, it releases a blast of fire at you. This is a ranged basic attack. It kind of belches out a little burst of fire. 11. Does 11 hit your Defense?
Sylvia: Yeah. It is exactly the right number to hit my Defense.
Austin: Take 13 fire damage.
Sylvia: Okay. Ow.
Austin: It goes, “Blarara!” and then fire comes out at you. You didn't know they could do this. Flegg Blast.
Sylvia: I have 6 HP.
Austin: Okay.
Keith: Damn. You're going to have to use an IP, 'cause I got nothing.
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] Okay.
Keith: Actually, what I'm going to do is use 2 IP right now, my last 2.
Austin: That’s your turn?
Keith: Well, I'm going to use it to make a creature suffer 10 damage of a type of my choice.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: Wait. Can I do a thing and then tap you in?
Keith: Yes.
Janine: Okay. Just…
Austin: Using your dancing.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Okay.
Janine: Which is going to look real good right now, I'm sure. [Austin laughs] But it doesn't matter, because I don't have to roll for it. I just have to spend— I just buy it.
Austin: It just happens. Yeah. You just buy it.
Janine: But the thing I want to do before that is just do a good old fashioned arrow hit. Yeah.
Austin: One second. I just need to make sure. I may have been— I think I— I may have missed a mark on the clock, 'cause it says three, but actually it was a five step clock, and it started with one. That last turn was the third turn, right?
Janine: I think so.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I think that that’s right. Okay. So, there are two turns left. I just want to make sure there's nothing surprising here when it comes to the end of this clock sneaking up on us. All right. And I'll say something else right now: if you end the last turn with the flare baton, you will get a chance to use it, if you have it at, [Keith: Right.] you know, what would be the sixth turn. You know what I mean?
Keith: Right.
Austin: And that’ll be the last chance.
Janine: I'm going to Fabula Point my…
Austin: You rolled a 7. Yeah. That’s not going to hit anybody.
Janine: Yeah. That’s not good.
Austin: You're hitting the Fleggus?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Okay. Are you rerolling both dice, the 4 and the 2?
Janine: Um…yeah.
Austin: And what Trait are you drawing on?
Janine: I think I am drawing on…I feel like I draw on Scion a lot, but I feel like…there’s a degree of indignity here that just will not stand.
Austin: Mm. Yes, I see.
Janine: You know?
Austin: I understand. Yep. “Fleggus mulligan” is what you've typed.
Janine: Yes. [Keith laughs] Wow, that’s not good either.
Austin: That’s a 9. That’s a physical attack, though, right?
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: That is going to hit the Fleggus. You are good.
Janine: Okay. Okay. Cool.
Austin: And that does— are you doing the damage? Or are you doing something else?
Janine: I'm Cheap Shotting again.
Austin: Right.
Janine: Which is that I get SL plus the number of status effects on the creature as additional damage.
Austin: As additional damage, right. So that will be…
Janine: So it’s an extra 3.
Austin: An extra 3 on top of the 12 is 15 damage. It is looking fucking woozy down here, let me tell you.
Keith: Okay.
Janine: Okay, and now I'm going to tap in Antistrophe.
Keith: All right. So this thing is—
Janine: Not with a cool spin, 'cause I'm probably going to fall down if I do that.
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: But you get it. [Austin chuckles]
Keith: It resists fire. If I was making a game, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] and something resisted fire, I would make it vulnerable to earth. But I don't know.
Janine: But also, it uses electricity, so like, what does that mean?
Keith: It also uses electricity. So earth, I think both…it works for both, I think.
Austin: Mm.
Keith: ‘Cause earth is good against electric and fire.
Austin: Mm.
Janine: Mm-hmm. So is water.
Keith: But we don't have— that’s not— I can't pick that.
Janine: Eh, okay. [laughs]
Keith: I can pick ice, which feels bad against fire.
Janine: Oh, right, fuck. I always forget that.
Keith: Yeah.
Janine: Yeah, okay.
Keith: So I'm going to use—
Austin: To be clear, it’s not a fire Fleggus.
Keith: No, but it resists fire, and it uses…
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Sylvia: It’s also an egg. I feel like dropping rocks on an egg would…
Janine: Yeah. That’s true of people.
Keith: I mean, Austin, if you want to tell me which one to pick, I'll pick it.
Austin: No, I'm not going to tell you. I'm just trying to— [Keith laughs] I'm just playing, you know?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I'm just saying: maybe it doesn't map out as cleanly as you might think. But who knows?
Keith: Yeah, who knows. But I will use this. I think it just works, right? Like, it just says I use it on a creature that I can see.
Austin: Yeah, tell me what you're doing.
Keith: I'm just using the normal 2 IP cost Elemental Shard.
Austin: Yep. What’s this look like?
Keith: I think I just throw it at it. I just throw it.
Austin: Yeah. Is it like a little crystal? It’s like an elemental crystal.
Keith: Yeah. It’s like a little crystal.
Austin: It’s like the one that you bought.
Keith: I like the idea that it looks exactly like the picture. I love the little crystal picture that it has.
Austin: Let me see. Oh, yeah. I see what you're talking about. Yeah, uh huh.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Yeah, that makes sense.
Keith: And it’s just a little gemstone thing.
Austin: I think it’s sort of like the one that you just bought, Brontë, back in Burzin, except this one has the magical energy to do elemental attacks, you know? And in this case, earth is what you're choosing, right?
Keith: Yeah. Is there anyone who says, “I have a keen insight on the way that elemental resistance works in this game, and you should pick ice instead of earth”?
Janine: No, I don't think it works.
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: No, I have no idea.
Janine: I think Austin’s way weirder about it than that, so.
Keith: Okay. Then I'm picking earth.
Austin: It is not weak to earth, but 10 is more than enough.
Keith: Ugh.
Austin: Well, yeah. So, what happens when it hits? Does it summon a little, like, burst of rock?
Keith: The second that the crystal makes contact with it, it shatters, [Austin: Mm-hmm.] and rocks appear at the moment of impact on his body, as if it had fallen from a great height.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: But they've actually just appeared there, and just, like, kind of you see the impact.
Austin: And pelt it. Buh buh buh buh buh buh buh!
Keith: Yeah. Yeah.
Austin: There's dust. There's a huge amount of dust, and when the dust clears, you see it there: a little stone egg that it has been turned into. When a Flegg reaches 0 HP, it unbreaks, retracting arms and legs inside of shells, face vanishing, exterior hardening into an unbreakable stonelike form. One week later, the stone shell will shed, and the Flegg will reappear.
Keith: The silliest phoenix.
Austin: Uh huh. [laughs] Yes. Its staff, its little short staff—which is probably like wand size for y'all—and the baton fall to the ground.
Keith: Sick.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: Someone should go grab that thing.
Austin: Mm-hmm. It is Fleg #2’s turn, I believe? Because you did your back-to-back thing, right, Brontë? You set up Antistrophe to go immediately?
Janine: Yes. Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Keith: Yeah.
Janine: Tag Team.
Austin: Okay. I think Flegg #2, seeing you do this, is simply going to try to, like, you know, driven itself by a sort of rage, just going to try to tackle you to the ground and hold you in place, Antistrophe, and we'll see how that goes. Yeah, as expected.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: 5 is not going to do it against you and your massive shields.
Keith: Not even close. [chuckles]
Austin: And I think that that’s that round, unless…yeah, y'all all went. Yep, okay.
Janine: Did Flegg 1 go? Yeah, Flegg 1 went.
Austin: Flegg 1 went after Caoimhe this round.
Janine: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay.
Austin: Yeah, exactly. Yes. And Fleggus is unfortunately turned back into a little stone Flegg.
Austin: All right. We are back around. [Keith sighs] It is your turn. The flare baton is on the ground. The Fleggs are looking distraught. Their very sharp angry eyebrows have tilted such that they look despondent instead. [Janine laughs sadly]
Keith: [imitating irritated Flegg] Eeh!
Austin: They have to go a whole week without the Fleggus?
Janine: Aww.
Austin: The Fleggus is the only thing that makes living in the desert interesting. [Keith laughs] And yeah, “Rehh!” is exactly right. That is 100% how they sound. Who’s up?
Keith: It’s gotta be, uh…
Janine: Caoimhe, you want to pop that flare?
Austin: Caoimhe?
Keith: Whoever has the best stats to do the thing.
Austin: Yeah. I will say, again…
Janine: What did it take again?
Sylvia: Oh…
Austin: It is DEX/INS. It is 7 for Caoimhe. It’s 10 for anybody who doesn't have the training.
Janine: Oh.
Sylvia: [resigned] Okay, I'll do it.
Keith: Yeah. Statistically, it would be very improbable that you fail again. [laughs quietly]
Sylvia: Don't say that!
Keith: Or at least that you critically fail.
Janine: Can we, like, whip a tonic your way or something to, like, beef you up?
Sylvia: I would love if someone threw a tonic at me.
Keith: That absolutely can happen, yeah. Or…yeah, that could happen. I can't do it. [Austin chuckles]
Janine: I could.
Sylvia: I'd appreciate it.
Janine: One creature recovers from a single status effect tonic?
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: I believe that’s right.
Janine: That’d be good for you? Okay.
Keith: Yeah, I have absolutely 0 IP.
Janine: There. Tonic.
Austin: There you go, tonic.
Sylvia: Dazed is gone.
Keith: The delicious taste of quinine down your throat.
Austin: Mm-hmm. Oh, is that what it—? Oh, tonic. Right, yeah, of course.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: Eh, sure.
Janine: Also, is that an action that then there would be a Flegg turn after?
Austin: That is an action. There will be.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Janine: Okay. Listen, I'll pay the 5 MP to pirouette you into action.
Austin: There we go!
Janine: Let’s go.
Keith: Yeah.
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] Thank you.
Austin: Yeah. In this case, it’s the Fleggs being, like, locked onto you, as you pirouette there in a way, and they're just like, “Huh? What?” which gives Caoimhe the opening here.
Keith: You dump a tonic on her head and then sort of, like, spin her. [Keith and Janine laugh]
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Don't do this to poor Caoimhe. Caoimhe’s having a hard day.
Sylvia: No, it’s fine.
Austin: Okay.
Sylvia: At this point?
Austin: Yeah. All right, give me your roll.
Sylvia: DEX/Insight. I swear to god.
Austin: Crit!
Sylvia: Critical success!
Janine: Wow!
[laughter and celebration]
Keith: Wow.
Janine: Thank god.
Austin: DEX/Insight. 7 plus 7 is 14.
Sylvia: You've never seen a flare this big.
Keith: Critical failure, critical failure, critical success. What an improbable series of rolls.
Austin: Incredible.
Sylvia: Kind of autobiographical for me. [Austin laughs]
Austin: You now get to pick an opportunity, as you see it: advantage, affliction, bonding, faux pas, favor, information, lost item, progress, plot twist, scan, unmask, or something else that we haven't considered. You launch this thing into the air. The flare goes up. It’s a very strange, very colorful magical flare. As it lifts off, it kind of has the reverse or maybe the complimentary color of whatever is behind it, depending on what position you're looking at it from.
Sylvia: That’s cool.
Austin: So if you're looking up into, like, the blue sky, you're getting— is it orange? What’s the complimentary color?
Sylvia: Yeah, I think it would be orange.
Austin: I think that that’s right.
Sylvia: Because complimentary is the opp— like, the across the color wheel, right?
Austin: The opposite, the across color. That is what I am thinking, yeah.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: But if you, like, moved to where you're seeing the orange sunset, it would be blue to your eyes. And in the distance, you can hear the sound of train brakes being applied. Now they see the flare. This train—which is, I think, blue and silver—is going to come to a halt here very shortly. The sound of those train brakes scares the two remaining Fleggs. [laughs quietly] They notice a giant strange creature coming across the sands on tracks, and they pick up the Fleggus’s shell and begin to retreat, deep into the depths of Contingency Station PSC.
[“A Job Well Done (Fields Combat Ends)” by Jack de Quidt plays]
Sylvia: Flip them off.
Austin: What is your critical success opportunity?
Sylvia: I don't know, if they're leaving. I was going to do advantage, but now that they're gone…
Austin: Oh, they're not sticking around for this. They lost their toy. They lost their Fleggus. You know, you don't have to win a fight by killing everything.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You can have kind of objectives, and you succeeded at yours.
Sylvia: Um… [laughs quietly, joking] I want to unmask the Fleggus. [Austin laughs] No. I was going to do, like…huh. I could do, like, bonding, or…
Austin: Oh yeah, bonding’s not a bad idea. You create a Bond towards someone or something or add an additional emotion to one of your existing Bonds.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You got pirouetted a lot.
Sylvia: I got pirouetted a lot.
Austin: Antistrophe came through with the final hit on the Fleggus. There's opportunities for both, you know?
Sylvia: Yeah, they…everybody did really good. I gotta think about this, but…
Austin: Okay. Maybe write down that you want to do it, and then we can wrap back around, if you want to get some thought.
Sylvia: Yeah, I'll just write it down.
Austin: Remember that the Bonds here are pretty straightforward. You know, you don't have to think of, like, a big long sentence or anything.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You just have to decide one of the kind of emotional pivots.
Keith: This is a great fight as an example of why you don't fake dice rolls in roleplaying games.
Austin: Yeah. I agree. 100%, yeah.
Keith: An argument that is psychotically present constantly, for some reason.
Austin: Yeah. I will say that, like…
Sylvia: Really?
Keith: Like, the way to make games fun is to pretend that people did better.
Austin: I don't have the sort of zealous position that you should never, ever, ever do it.
Keith: Sure.
Austin: What I have is a decade of not being able to do it, and so I've gotten very used to making it work, you know? There are definitely times where I wish I could have flubbed stuff, because I didn't think that what was happening was dramatic, but I think that not having it has forced me to work inside of constraints that have been useful, you know? To get used to. And you're right, getting…I mean, most of these fumbles were not on our side, were not on something I could fake anyway, you know?
Keith: I just think that dice rolls are material. You gotta build something good with the material that you get.
Austin: I get you.
Sylvia: It’s actual play.
Keith: And if you're like, “Well, the way to make it fun is to not play the game as written…”
Austin: Yeah. Yeah.
Keith: [scoffs] It’s like, okay. All right.
Austin: The train comes to a halt. There's a big kickup of dust. It is mostly a passenger train. I think there's probably one or two freight carriages in the back. And you are, you know, the conductor opens the front door. There's, like, explicitly a Hexcloak, like, half car that is, like, an office and, you know, a bedroom and a guest room, and you're able to come on, and its your own little place on the train. You'll have access to the rest of the train. You can certainly go to the cafe car, if you'd like. [laughs quietly]
Sylvia: We gotta go.
Keith: First stop!
Austin: Sorry, say again?
Keith: First stop. First stop.
Austin: Oh, is the cafe car. Yeah. Y'all were on your way to Cenn, City of Change. “Change.” That’s wrong. [Sylvia laughs] Cenn, City of Chains. Change is interesting. There are ways in which it’s a city of change.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: We'll get to that. You'll learn a little bit about that.
Keith: All cities are a city of change.
Austin: Especially City City.
Sylvia: Uh, you should come to Toronto, man.
Austin: Yeah, jeez. You have been called there, Caoimhe, by— I guess you received a letter [Sylvia: Yeah.] from your kind of direct boss, whose name is Bartolo Temples.
Sylvia: [simultaneously] Bartolo Temple.
Austin: That’s right. Temple? One Temple.
Sylvia: Temples. Temples.
Austin: Temples. Okay.
Sylvia: I think it’s Temples. Yeah.
Austin: I've written down Temples.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Who is kind of sympathetic to your skepticism and doubt and kind of fraught relationship with the Hexcloaks [Sylvia: Yeah.] and supports your investigation into the Sourcerot but is also, like, not an active coconspirator or anything like that.
Sylvia: Yeah. The way I've been thinking of him is, like, he thinks it’s worth looking into, but he doesn't necessarily believe in it 100%.
Austin: Right. Exactly. And the letter that you were sent by Bartolo was like, hey, you know, you have to go to— there's something up in Cenn, City of Chains, but heads up, the Commander of the Hexcloaks, Therius Aegir is there. Or Aegir[with a soft G]. It’s an aegis[hard G], right? Or is it aegis[soft G]?
Sylvia: I've been thinking— I've been saying “I-gur.”
Austin: I-gur. Okay, we'll say I-gur.
Keith: I've heard aegis[soft G].
Austin: Yeah, aegis is right, [Keith: Yeah.] but his name is A-E-G-I-R, so we could do whatever— and also, it’s our show. We can do whatever we want.
Sylvia: It’s our show.
Keith: Right. Yeah.
Austin: So, Aegir[hard G]. I'm going to write…
Sylvia: There is a lot of discussion on the GameFAQs board for Perpetua about…
Austin: 100%.
Sylvia: It’s like, “How am I supposed to pronounce this name?”
Keith: The gay what?
Sylvia: The gay FAQs.
Austin: [laughs quietly] Ah, many questions abound about many things, and there are answers there. Don't go there. Don't go there for the answers.
Sylvia: No. That’s just, like, “Do I have to like Charli XCX? It’s not really vibing with me, but everyone seems to be into it.”
Austin: [laughs] But everyone says I have to!
Keith: Hey, you do not. [Austin laughs]
Sylvia: No, you don't.
Austin: You are on your way there. You know that the Commander of the Hexcloaks, who I think, by this point, we, the listener and players, know must at least be, uh…if you're the leader of the secret police, then you're up to some shit, right?
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: You are not to be trusted. And that person is there, which means kind of move carefully. But you don't have a clear— you know, you don't have, like, a clear mission there. You just know that the Sourcerot is supposedly taking some effect there. Anything else? You're on the train. The name of the train is the Argent Wind.
Keith: Mm-hmm.
Austin: It is a passenger train, in the sort of, like, classic long term travel train. Like, it’s not a commuter train. It has little…
Keith: It’s Amtrak.
Austin: It’s not like Amtrak is I guess actually what I mean, actually.
Keith: Oh.
Austin: I guess Amtrak does have sleeper cars. We're looking at an older…
Keith: It totally does. They're so expensive.
Austin: They're so expensive. They may as well not exist. [Sylvia laughs] I think of Amtrak—because I live in the northeast corridor—as, like, a train you get on to go from Boston to New York, and you don't have a sleeper car on there, you know?
Keith: Right.
Austin: But you're right. The longer ones that go from, like, New York to Chicago or Chicago to San Francisco probably do or definitely do.
Keith: You can go from Boston to Chicago, you just have to go through New York.
Austin: You have to go through New York. Okay, sure. I am thinking of a smaller, you know, a murder mystery. I mean, a murder mystery can happen anywhere, right?
Keith: Right.
Austin: But we are in the land of Poirot. We are in the land of the fancy little train.
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: It has a couple of cars of private rooms. It has a cafe car. It has an observation deck. It has a luggage compartment. It has a special magical engine room at the front.
Keith: So far, Amtrak has all of this.
Austin: Yeah, that’s right. So it is an Amtrak. It’s basically an Amtrak. I just think it’s not styled like an Amtrak.
Sylvia: It’s Elftrak.
Austin: And it doesn't have, at all, the sort of day seating, the sort of same day rows of seating.
Keith: Oh, okay.
Austin: It does not have that at all, because none of the travel is within a day’s time, you know? All of the travel, the stops are very limited. The stops here are Parisolia to the northwest, which is two days away, and then the Balming Willow, Salix, and Cenn, the City of Iron Change, which are both—Chains; I said it again, I said Change again—Chains, which are also two days away, and then this station, which is only ever used in the case of an emergency, which is what you've kind of— or I guess in the case of a contingency, like you've triggered with the flare. So y'all are all on board. Let’s stay zoomed in, at this point, and then when it’s time to rest or recover, we can do that stuff. You know, as the train comes to a halt, you see the engineer kind of, like, stick his head out the front engine and, like, look back at you. He’s kind of a grizzled, like, bird man, like a— I think he’s a dove, actually, like from the Valt Isles.
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: Who is grizzled, who has an eye patch on, and who looks kind of annoyed by having to stop for you but then kind of, like, [grumbles] puts his head back inside and shuts the window.
Janine: Is a grizzled dove just a pigeon? [Sylvia laughs]
Austin: Yeah, maybe, but I think is…
Janine: I'm, like, mentally grizzling up a dove, and I'm coming out with pigeon.
Austin: Yeah. I think you have to stay dove. I think the important thing here is that this is a guy who, if he had taken different choices in life, would be the poster boy of the Valt Empire.
Janine: Wow.
Austin: Would be, like, could have been Captain America dove, you know?
Sylvia: Okay.
Austin: And chose to be the guy—
Janine: Wow.
Austin: I mean, Chris Evans is in that train movie. I didn't watch it. I didn't know how grizzled he was in it, right? But yeah.
Sylvia: Snowpiercer?
Keith: I'm surprised you haven't seen the train movie.
Austin: Why would I have seen the train movie? Wait. Oh, 'cause I love trains? Is that why?
Keith: Well, it’s…I just feel like you like that guy’s other movies too.
Austin: Oh, sorry. Not Snowpiercer.
Keith: Oh.
Austin: I did see Snowpiercer.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: It is Chris Evans Snowpiercer but a dove. I meant the other one, the more recent one.
Sylvia: Is that, like, the…what’s it called? Is that the one with Brad Pitt? The, like, assassin?
Austin: Are we just confusing this?
Sylvia: The train full of assassins? I don't know. [Austin sighs] Every Hollywood leading man is just kind of one variation of strong-jawed white guy now.
Austin: Yeah. Maybe— oh, was that a Chris—? Was it the other Chris?
Keith: Chris Pine?
Austin: Hemsworth. Hemsworth?
Keith: Hemsworth?
Austin: Was Hemsworth—? Bullet Train.
Keith: Bullet Train.
Sylvia: Yeah, I think that’s the one I'm thinking of too.
Austin: No, I'm not thinking of Bullet Train. This is not what I'm thinking about.
Keith: No.
Austin: I'm thinking of a different thing. It doesn't matter.
Keith: Okay. [Janine laughs quietly]
Sylvia: I'm thinking of Bullet Train, 'cause I play it in CineNerdle, 'cause Hiroyuki Sanada’s in it.
Austin: Oh, I see. I see.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: Uh, I'm just going to…one second. [typing] Chris Evans Netflix action movie. [Keith laughs] Maybe there was no train at all.
Sylvia: [cross] Are you talking about The Gray Man?
Austin: [cross] The Gray Man.
Sylvia: You're talking about The Gray Man? [laughs quietly]
Austin: I'm talking about The Gray Man. The word “train” doesn't come up at all here.
Keith: The Gray Man?
Austin: Did I just see a shot of him on a train in a trailer for this movie, and went, “Oh, that movie takes place on a train”? [Austin and Janine laugh]
Sylvia: That movie is bad.
Austin: That is exactly what I did!
Keith: Yeah.
Austin: There's a scene where he’s, like, running through a train, blocking bullets, or it’s a bus, and I was like, “That must be a train. This must be a train movie!” [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: Must be a train movie.
Austin: [laughs] Aaah! Anyway.
Keith: Now you can see I thought you were talking about Snowpiercer.
Austin: I was, apparently!
Keith: Yeah, apparently you were.
Austin: Because it’s the only one I can retroactive— if I was a different person, you would have said that, and it would have all clicked into place, and I would have been like, “Yes, Snowpiercer, the movie I was talking about.”
Keith: Oh, the Russo Brothers did this.
Austin: Yeah, great.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: Three years ago, and it’s…
Sylvia: Yeah, mm-hmm.
Keith: What’s this guy, what is his name? The guy from Drive?
Sylvia: Ryan Gosling?
Keith: Gosling. Ryan Gosling, yeah.
Austin: Ryan Gosling, yeah. Uh huh.
Keith: Another movie I haven't seen.
Austin: [mumbles] see Drive. Eh…
Sylvia: [positively] Drive is all right.
Austin: [positively] Drive is all right. Drive is all right
Sylvia: Nicolas Winding Refn made a good movie. It’s kind of crazy.
Austin: It’s true.
Keith: It’s just tough when so many people like something, it ends up that a lot of really annoying people like it in a really annoying way.
Austin: That does happen. That does happen.
Sylvia: Keith, you're preaching to the choir.
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: So it’s hard to know if it’s good then, so it’s easier to just watch something you know will be good.
Austin: The other person you see is a little Lobble at the door, who is— we talked before about the Lobbles are all people made of a sort of rubbery substance, and they all kind of vibe like different types of real life rubber things. Like, you might have one that looks like a tire.
Keith: Okay.
Austin: You might have one that looks like a bouncy ball. This Lobble, who is wearing a very fine brown kind of coat, is kind of the attendant of the train, the train’s attendant. Is wearing a brown coat with, like, a silver fancy shirt underneath it. It is a sort of rubber band ball person. So, like, imagine a person who— like a little rubber band. Imagine a rubber band ball. Put some eyes on it. Put a big smiling, like, anime mouth on it, and then dress him up in a fancy train attendant outfit.
Keith: You got it, boss. Great.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: His name is Sono, and he says:
(as Sono): Welcome to the Argent Wind! You must be our Hexcloak visitor. I'll be taking your luggage!
Sylvia (as Caoimhe): [wearily] Thank you so much.
Austin (as Sono): Do you need anything? Right this way. I'll bring you to your quarters.
Keith: Bleeding, blood.
Sylvia: Yeah. [Janine laughs]
(as Caoimhe): Bandages.
Austin (as Sono): Of- of course. We have—
Austin: I guess, do they have an infirmary on board?
(as Sono): We don't have an infirmary on board.
Janine: They must have, like, a first aid kit or something.
Austin (as Sono): But we have first aid kits—
Sylvia: I was literally about to say, a first aid kit?
Austin (as Sono): We have first aid kits in every car.
Austin: Yeah. 100%.
Janine: Oh.
Sylvia: Give him a little thumbs up and just sort of trudge down toward where he’s leading. [laughs quietly]
Austin: Yeah.
Keith: I'm feeling okay.
Sylvia: I'm so happy for you.
Janine: I have a question.
Austin: Yes?
Janine: Am I still enraged? [laughs quietly]
Austin: Yes. [Keith laughs quietly]
Janine: Okay. All right.
Austin: Yeah, yeah. The only way— yeah, you can take a remedy to clear that or you can rest.
Janine: Okay. Okay.
Austin: Which is a thing you can do any time that you're in a safe place, basically.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: This is such a place, so you'll be able to do that soon. Yeah, and so you're lead through the train. You kind of get the vibe of it’s kind of a quiet train in general. Like, there just are not a lot of people on it. You can hear kind of further up in the train is the cafe car, and you can hear some people, you know, chattering as they eat, but you're led back through the train towards your compartment. You kind of get half of a train all to yourself, and it is…you have walked into, like, a secret Hexcloak base, effectively. You've walked into, like, a Hexcloak saferoom that is, like, fully outfitted, so it’s a little bit like— we haven't talked about if the Hexcloaks have a symbol that isn't just the cloak, Sylvi.
Sylvia: Hmm.
Austin: But if there is one, there's like, it’s on the wall, you know, a banner on the wall.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: There's a map of the continent, you know, on the wall.
Sylvia: I feel like there's gotta be a banner with, like, a sigil of some kind that they have, right?
Austin: That’s what I'm thinking, yeah. Maybe it’s a sigil with, like, a circle with a number of lines or rays on it [Sylvia: Yeah.] that equal the amount of different elements, you know, and the different city states, you know? 'Cause there's, like…
Sylvia: Oh, that makes sense, given it’s the Elevana League too, right? Like…
Austin: Yeah, exactly. Exactly.
Sylvia: They're so into their elemental shit.
Austin: Yeah. Yep, exactly. So I think maybe it’s like an eight-lined, like a circle with eight lines coming out from the middle, you know? And kind of breaching the edge of the circle, if that makes sense. Like a starburst symbol [Sylvia: Mm-hmm.] or like an asterisk inside of a circle breaching the outside of the circle. I should write that down. One second. And that’s maybe the Elevana League’s symbol, not the Hexcloak’s symbol.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: And so, yeah, that’s on the wall. There's maps. There is, you know, a little stash of…I think everybody can take 2 IP, if you want to, from this place, unless you're maxed out, in which case you cannot take it right now, but you could use some IP. Everyone can recover up to 2 IP right now. If you want to spend some IP first to do that, that’s totally fine.
Sylvia: I'm going to do exactly that.
Austin: Amazing. And there is, like, you know, a main bed, and then there are some, like, cots, like smaller beds, like traditional sleeper car beds, like, up against the other wall for the Hexcloak’s attendants, so unfortunately, that means you're two beds short, but maybe Efta and, uh…Efta and Lofta? Am I getting this right?
Sylvia: Zolfta. Right?
Janine: Zolfta.
Austin: Zolfta. Lofta is nothing.
Janine: No.
Austin: Lofta is fake. Efta and Zolfta will have to have their own train car.
Sylvia: Lofta is a little, it’s like an attic that’s been converted into somewhere you can live. That’s what lofta is.
Austin: That is what lofta is, yeah.
Sylvia: Thank you. [Keith laughs]
Austin: Lofta is, I think, quite literally…yeah, is my CPAP company, actually. [laughs quietly]
Sylvia: Oh my god. [Sylvia and Keith laugh]
Austin: So, you know. Not shoutouts. It’s expensive. But, eh, you know, I sleep better. In any case, yeah, so there's, you know, there's not enough room for the whole five person group here, but I think maybe Sono says, “We'll be able to accommodate your attendants in another car, if you wish,” to you, Brontë.
Janine: Uh…so, wait. Is this, like, the whole…? Like, you walk in the door of the train car, and it’s the whole car?
Austin: It’s the back half.
Janine: Or is it one of those things where there's a hallway that’s, like, along the side? And then, like, compartments.
Austin: This is the whole back half of one of the train cars, I guess. Actually, maybe it is. Because you're going to have to get through it to get to the luggage car at the back, so there has to be a side…
Janine: Yeah, I was going to say, how would people get around it?
Austin: Well, it is the final sleeping area. Like, all of the other sleeping cars are in front of it, in terms of the train layout, but.
Janine: Yeah, but like, unless it’s the last one on the entire train.
Austin: Yeah, I don't think it’s behind the luggage car, so yeah, it is like the— then let’s just say it is, in fact, its own car. It’s just, there's the hallway, and then the whole rest of the car is this room, is this kind of long room.
Janine: Okay.
Austin: But Soto can walk down the little hallway to get into the luggage car, as necessary. In fact, maybe it’s really little. Maybe it’s truly a…there's a little Lobble door that just [cross] has a little Lobble dog door passageway.
Sylvia: [cross] They made dog doors?
Keith: Oh my god. [laughs]
Janine: Oh my god.
Austin: That goes to the luggage car. So it effectively is the last accessible car. And maybe there's, like, an emergency door for you that goes into the luggage car, but it’s locked. You don't have access to that door.
Keith: I'd be crawling through the Lobble doors on the Air Force One version of this. [Austin laughs]
Sylvia: Dracula Flow?
Austin: That’s exactly what I thought! [Janine laughs]
Sylvia: I be crawling through Lobble doors!
Austin: I be crawling through the Lobble doors on the Air Force One!
Sylvia: The only type of rubber I need! [Austin laughs]
Austin: Anyway. Yeah, you have access to this area to do whatever you need to.
Janine: Can they just stand?
Austin: What? [Sylvia laughs quietly]
Janine: Efta and Zolfta. Can they just stand?
Austin: You're going to make them stand all night?
Keith: They're trained in stand.
Janine: They stand a lot.
Austin: Okay. Yeah.
Sylvia: They kind of are Stands.
Keith: Don't ask them.
Austin: Okay. Yeah, they'll just stand in the room. I mean, there's chairs. They can sit, if you let them.
Janine: I mean, the thing is, I think that the Lobble would be like, “Oh, you know, I could show you to— there's a compartment for…”
Austin: Mm-hmm.
Janine: And I think they would just stand there.
Austin: Okay. Well.
Janine: I don't even think they would say anything. It was just like, “Well, no, we can't leave. We can't leave him.”
Austin: Right. Yeah, okay. Well, then, yeah.
Sylvia: [laughs quietly] Last time we did, it didn't end well.
Austin: That’s true. Sono goes:
(as Sono): Okay, well, if you change your mind, we have that compartment available, or if you want to shuffle things up and maybe your, uh, assistant, the human from Grande Sonnerie, can take the big bed, and his assistants can take the little ones, and we can put— not to presume anything, Mistress Hexcloak, but just in terms of bed arrangement. I just like it when everyone has a good night’s sleep.
Sylvia: I agree.
Austin: So you're going to give up the bed in the Hexcloak room to Brontë? [Janine laughs]
Sylvia: Oh.
Austin: That is what he is suggesting.
Sylvia: I didn't realize what— I misunderstood.
Austin: He is suggesting that—
Keith: You agree with the sentiment but not with the actual practical application of it. [Austin and Janine laugh]
Sylvia: Yeah.
Austin: He is…yeah, so the…
Sylvia: I am a cop.
Austin: [chuckles] That’s so true. [Sylvia laughs] The chicken, what’s the…? It’s like the chicken, the fox, and the…or the chicken, the wolf, and the grain problem here.
Sylvia: Yeah.
Keith: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sylvia: I've played Professor Layton.
Austin: Yeah, exactly. Is that Brontë has two assistant or two bodyguards who will not leave him.
Keith: Right.
Austin: But there's not three beds in a different room. There's only two beds in a different room, so this is the one where all three of them could stay.
Keith: And if Brontë leaves the guards here, I will eat them. [laughter]
Austin: You'll eat them. That’s right. That’s right, yes.
Sylvia: You weren't expecting such a hungry guy.
Austin: Antistrophe’s kind of a sick name for a wolf. [Keith laughs]
Sylvia: Yo.
Austin: If, at any point, you want to become a wolf person, you let me know. I think it would be cool.
Sylvia: Bro watches Star Wars: Rebels and is immediately like, [Austin laughs] “Oh, you guys should turn into wolves. That’d be cool.”
Austin: That would be cool.
Sylvia: “I knew a guy who it happened to.”
Austin: So true. What a stupid fucking show. Ugh. [Sylvia laughs]
Keith: That show is very stupid.
Austin: I like a lot of it, but anyway. It’s fine. It’s fine. That’s the situation. This is not a real— I mean, maybe it will become a real problem. We should have an answer to this. I do want to know where people are sleeping.
Sylvia: I think that Caoimhe’s—
Janine: They could share a bed.
Austin: They could share a bed.
Sylvia: Oh my god. Fanfic style.
Austin: It’s a tiny bed.
Janine: I have been picturing them fully as, like… [laughs quietly] I was just going to list a bunch of obscure, like, gothic lolita and whatever brands. They're, like, pretty…they’re small.
Austin: They're small. They're tiny.
Janine: Yeah.
Austin: Okay. They could.
Janine: You know, this is the anime season.
Austin: Yes.
Janine: You know, we're operating in that. These are, like, yeah. I think the biggest thing about Zolfta is her dress.
Sylvia: I've been thinking about them as, like, what if ball-jointed dolls were human-sized.
Janine: Yes. Yeah, that’s accurate.
Austin: Mm, mm-hmm. That’s happening on the other side of the game, though, so we have to be careful not to…
Sylvia: Oh, okay. Well.
Janine: Oh.
Austin: Unless they are actually ball-jointed doll people.
Janine: No, no.
Austin: See, they're not, yeah.
Sylvia: Nah, more aesthetically.
Austin: That is where the other party is. They're in ball-jointed doll town right now. So, you know, different vibes on different sides of the game. So that means, Antistrophe, you would then be in your own little sleeping cabin.
Keith: Preferable.
Austin: Preferable. Preferable. Yeah.
Sylvia: I just want the good bed.
Austin (as Sono): All right, then, I'll show you. Come right this way.
Austin: And brings you to the other cabin. It’s fine. You know, it’s not particularly roomy. You have a lot of big stuff, like those shields, so maybe nice to have another bed to just put your stuff on. [laughs quietly] But yeah, you are all seated. You're all set up, and the train starts to move again once you’re settled. You know, Sono kind of bounces through the hallways back to the front of the train. Maybe at some point stops at a little phone or, like, you know, not an actual phone but a…not really a walkie talkie but one of those, like, tubes you can talk through.
Keith: At the playground?
Austin: At the playground. On the train.
Keith: Yeah. Talk to your playground crew. Yeah.
Austin: To talk to the conductor as the train starts to move again, and now you have some free time. And it seems like, for now at least, no one’s attacking the train or anything.
Keith: That’s good.
Sylvia: Thank god.
Austin: Yeah. So you've healed.
Keith: People, historically, will attack a train.
Austin: It’s totally possible. You're still going to make travel rolls.
Keith: Great.
Austin: They're just going to be very easy, compared to what you were just doing, because you're in the safety of a nice big train.
Keith: We get train boons?
Austin: You get train boons. That’s right. Is anyone doing anything on the train? Is there any— before we do that first one. Or maybe we'll do the first one, and then we can explore the train in the…
Keith: Sure.
Austin: So, if someone can give me a d6 for the first of these two travel rolls.
Keith: Who wants to do that?
Sylvia: Not me.
Austin: I don't think it—
Keith: All right, I'll do it.
Austin: And I also just don't— I think this is one where it does not especially matter, because of the way…
Keith: Okay.
Sylvia: There's no, like, skills for it. I just had really bad luck rolling last time. [laughs quietly]
Austin: Okay, yes. That makes sense.
Keith: Fair. Fair.
Sylvia: I'm dice shy.
Keith: Yeah, that’s fair.
Austin: You've rolled a 4, and I believe, yeah, under a 6 but above a 1, effectively nothing happens, unless this new ruleset that I’ve…yeah, 4 or 5, nothing significant happens. I've been using these alternative travel rules by, uh…does this not have—? By Piccolo, Piccolo24.
Sylvia: Big Green?!
Austin: Big Green is here.
Keith: Fiddle dee dee.
Austin: Yeah. these were available on DriveThruRPG. They're a fun little thing. I started using this in the last session. So, yeah, nothing happens, that first day. An easy day of travel. The train chugs along, heading east, and by the end of that first, you know…pretty quickly, actually, the desert starts to give way to, you know, kind of shrubs and grassy fields and the kind of grasslands that kind of make up the kind of three-way border between Parisolia, Salix, and Cenn and those kind of regions.
[“Perpetua” by Jack de Quidt plays]