Beta, Merkis, Remy and Vynos head to Rigamont-B to visit the Aanverder Aseh Torivault Lehrer at her Estate.
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Find more about Stillfleet at https://stillfleet.com
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@funcityventures is the show on twitter
@funcityventures is the show on instagram
@bijanstephen is Remy, the Sleeper (human) Blooder
@randwiches is Merkis, the Jalasti Banshee
@nicholasguercio is Vynos, the Conscript (human) Tremulant
and @shodell is Beta, the Shoodtha Pir
@taylordotbiz is Aseh Lehrer (Baas Aanverder), Oat (Harajoon in a tuxedo) and NtS (yikes)
@mikerugnetta is everything else
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This episode of Float City was recorded in various locations across Brooklyn New York, and somewhere deep in the woods of Connecticut. It was produced, edited and sound designed by Mike Rugnetta.
Pixlriffs is weary of time, and countest the steps of the Sun
Our music is by Sam Tyndall - https://pileofsecrets.bandcamp.com
Remy's flute playing is by Jake Fridkis - https://instagram.com/flutebros
Our art is by Tess Stone - http://notdrunkenough.com/
Our Discord mods are Olivia Gulin, Kestrel and Kit
The voice of Artemis is Molly Templeton
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CC-BY Licensed Music and SFX used in this episode
https://freesound.org/people/palimpsest73/sounds/41028/
https://freesound.org/people/RobertWulfman/sounds/220839/
https://freesound.org/people/Millavsb/sounds/197868/
https://freesound.org/people/nicktermer/sounds/259553/
https://musopen.org/music/3517-harpsichord-concerto-no-1-in-d-minor-bwv-1052/
https://musopen.org/music/14910-the-four-seasons-op-8/
[00:00:00] [ Intro Theme begins ]
> Molly Templeton / "Artemis": [IC] In the far future faster than light travel is possible via portals called Stiffworks, human and alien civilizations travel this way for millennia. Trade, war, and technology proliferate. Countless societies rise, thrive, fall, and vanish; eventually, almost everyone forgets the secrets of the Stiffworks...almost. Three hundred years ago, the Worshipful Company of Sillfleeters is formed on Spindle; a space station of unknown origin. They send fleeters into the void using Stiffworks in search of profit. It is one-hundred-million years in the future.
Welcome to Float City.
[ Intro Theme ends ] [Main Theme begins]
> Mike Rugnetta / G.M.: Our game begins in an office- in a space station- an office and a space station that look like they've been carved out of a gargantuan hunk of black rock. Spindle: the space station doesn't have rooms so much as it has small caves. Blobs of space roughly carved into the dark material by — well, who knows? Actually, no one is sure how Spindle got this way. No one knows how it was built, nor how it's powered, nor how it generates atmosphere. No one even knows — really, what Spin looks like from the outside, though a lot of folks do have their guesses, and for sure no one knows where Spindle is in space; except maybe some of the weirdos upstairs in the archive, but they're not exactly rushing to share with anyone, and certainly not this crew of lowly fleeters.
[ Main Theme ends ]
> Mike/ G.M.: Each of you upon awakening this morning, found a letter shoved under the door to your room-blobs summoning you here to your refactor Algar's office before first bell. It's early, or at least it feels like it's early and the clocks say that it's early. You can't see outside of Spin to judge the position of any nearby sun and your refactor is late, as always. You've all spent a lot of time waiting in his room-blob staring at his one green mossy wall; his strange angular lead desk piled with books and paperwork, and his collection of mechanical clocks. You'd think with so many clocks in this room, he would learn how to tell time, but alas here you are, waiting: two friends and two strangers. A brand new crew formed from the wreckage of several older crews. Let's start with the strangers, who are your characters? and what do they look like?
Jenn de la Vega / "Merkis Imeldar": [OOC] Right that's me and Nick, right?
> Mike /G.M.: That is you that is yeah- by random dice roll we have determined that there are
two colleagues and two strangers in this newly formed crew.
>Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Okay. Scratching his belly in the corner is Merkis Imeldar. Merkis is a ‘Jalasti Banshee’ and ‘Jalasti’ are a sort of salamander people. He is dark gray with slimy skin,
with paint splatter blue spots, two short arms, some iridescent riot gear shaped like a ribcage over a slender top half; half-naked otherwise, wearing some low-cut orange swim trunks with a hole cut out for the tail. Merkis is 40% tail -[Mike laughs]- he is wearing three duck boots, one on each foot and one child size duck boot on the tail, and around where ears would be Merkis has colorful blue and white flaps, those are sensory and sexual organs that bloom when stimulated, and currently, he is scratching his tummy, because-that is where the ganglia or-or brain stuff is located in his body- so he's rubbing it thinking like- [IC] Where is this guy?
> Mike/ G.M.: So he's like, massaging his brains?
>Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Oh yeah.
> Mike/ G.M.: This is like when you- when like, I massage my temples. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yes.
[00:04:59]> Nick Guercio / "Vynos Lysumtuara ": [OOC] Over across the room looking at the-very closely, at the wall is-is the shape of an old man. An old-an old-old man with a long gray beard and gray hair. He's got very nice robes on, they’re slightly dusty, but they're very nice and he's got these little quarter moon spectacles. These spectacles have such a small sliver of glass on them that you almost can't imagine that he would be looking through the glass of the spectacles -[Mike laughs]- but they're charming in their sort of old man way, and he turns around and he says - [IC] Well that's quite a story! [OOC] and because the room had been completely quiet, and no one had told a story, -[Jenn and Mike laugh] - everybody looks at each other and wonders what he's talking about — and then he remains quiet. This is Vynos Lysumtuara -[Taylor laughs]- he is a ‘Conscript Tremulant’, meaning that he is a student of ‘Hell Science’ and ‘The Weird’. Vynos has a special kinship now with the past and-and present through his path; namely ‘The Howling Lamp’ so he's sort of just an old mage that's a little kooky, but uhm- he means well.
> Mike/ G.M.: and ‘The Weird’- just describe what exactly this is. This is in Stillfleet like one of the classes that is something like a wizard, except you are a wizard of physics almost?
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yeah. It's weird -[ Nick and Mike laugh]- It literally it's - ah there's a lot of cool and yeah, not-not directly obvious types of powers that can come with studying ‘The Weird’
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah um, the people- people who control ‘The Weird’ or quote-unquote ‘Hell Scientists’ tend to have like, very low-level control over physics; basically there's a latent part of them that allows them to unlock as I think the book says- “both Newtonian and even in some situations. Einsteinian physics”? -[Nick laughs Jenn: Woah]- Okay who are the two friends in the room?
> Bijan Stephen / "Remy Tester”: [OOC] Uh, Yeah, that's-we’re the friends. I-I think my character is one of the friends. His name is Remy Tester. Remy is a ‘Sleeper’, which means he's a human who woke up from a weird cryosleep. He's also ‘Blooder’ which means he has a bunch of
nanites in him. Remy is slight, dark, and thin with angular features; maybe a little unnaturally thin. He looks kind of off. There's something twitchy and hungry about him. Something that puts most people off. He's wearing some jelly armor he got from a mission way back, and he keeps a dull wooden katana on his back. He doesn't wear much else. Underneath the armor he dresses in a ragged Spin approximation of a suit; and of course, he's got a very small flute.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Of course,
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Duh!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] He's very agreeable most of the time. Though, those that know him know not to wonder too much about how and why. I don't know why that sounded like a rhyme? That was not intentional.
> Mike/ G.M.: I liked it! it really wrapped up the whole thing. Can you describe just- Bijan just briefly what ‘The Blood’ is and its relationship to nanites?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah so, it's basically - I'll just read what Wythe has in this version of the rule book which is under the subheading ‘The Blood’ capital ‘T’ capital ‘B’.
> Mike/ G.M.: And just, I want to provide an explanation really quickly in case people haven't heard it elsewhere Stillfleet, which is the game that we are playing is an as-yet-unreleased system that is written by a close friend of mine named Wythe Marshall, and so he was kind enough to give us a pre-release copy of the core rulebook, so that we could use it to play the game. It should be out sometime before the end of the year; but you know, the timing of everything in 2020 seems to sort of be all over the place, but yeah-just yeah- just wanted to provide that context. Okay, sorry to interrupt you. Go on.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] If you've ever opened a hexagonal metal vial and downed the gray yogurt within one aliquot of ‘Late Tephnian Nanites’ in suspension, then you are now a drug addict of a very special kind. You crave ‘Blood’ -capital ‘B’. You will do anything for more, purer, nobler ‘Blood’ - again capital ‘B’. For humans is the ultimate rush control over your body in the world around you made possible by invisible little genies that do your bidding. Combining different types of ‘Blood’ is even more of a rush, but can cause unexpected side effects, and ‘Blooding’ changes you. You can drink this stuff but you may well have a tap on your body that allows you to inject it into your small ‘b’ bloodstream for an added rush; moreover, the secret of how to properly maintain millions of tiny robots within a human body has long been lost. Thin networks of red grey nanites eventually rise up through your skin and create strange tattoo-like patterns on your face and hands. For some ‘The Blood’ also causes mental degeneration; sometimes rapid, called wilting or slag. This can only be countered by drinking more.
> Mike/ G.M.: Basically, there's like, yeah, and there's like different kinds of ‘Blood’ as suggested by “the desire for ever more pure”- So like once you become a ‘Blooder’ and you ingest some of this robot blood liquid you just want to become more powerful by searching out more powerful ‘Blood’ to ingest.
[00:10:08] > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, and also-
> Mike/ G.M.: It’s kind of like being a really weird and highly specific vampire. -[Jenn: Yeah!]-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, I will say the other thing about it is like the Sleeper class is also just weird and comes with the class power called ‘Cannibal’ because they are fucked up.
> Mike/ G.M.: So, you actually do want to consume flesh.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yes, and you take damage if you roll weird and you fail the roll-
[Bijan and Jenn laugh] It's a good class.
> Shannon Odell / Beta Commbot: [OOC] Speaking of robot blood. -[Jenn laughs]- uh- Somewhat uh below Remy is a petite- you would think it's maybe a robot because it is. It's a metal-eating robotic traveler. If you look closely at her- she's- you can tell that she's trying to make eye contact with Remy, as to ask a question because that's what she does with Remy. She's obsessed with asking him questions. Uhh-though it would be hard to tell that she's trying to make eye contact because she is a ‘Shoodtha’ so she actually is faceless. She's a human-bound entirely in metallic duct tape, and they have somewhat gray metal bags for heads. -[Taylor laughs]- Petit, she's very old. This is-this is Beta Commbot. She's very old um, and she's excited to be there because she- her most important thing in life is to learn. She is a ‘Pir’ meaning that she is somewhat of a doctor/therapist? And she's very interested in learning the communication and culture of different organisms.
> Mike/ G.M.: Uh- can you give me just a clean read of uhh- your character's name again?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC]This is Beta Commbot. -[ Jenn laughs]
> Bijan/ "Remy" : [OOC] That with a C-U-M are we ?-" -[Bijan laughs]
> Taylor Moore/ "The Bad Boys": Say that again. Can we get that one more time? Let's just get-yep.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC]: Beta... Commbot. > Taylor / "The Bad Boys": Spell that for me.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC]:C-O-M-B-O-T! Not Cum-bot! Commbot! Commbot! -[ Jenn and Nick Laugh]
> Nick/ “Vynos”: [OOC] I thought it was “Cumbot” too
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, all right that's-that's what we're trying to make sure.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Ahhaah- One more time! this is beta Cuuuuummmmbot -[All laugh]- this is Beta Commbot - Commbot.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": Alright. I just want to just put a pin in this moment. That this is Shannon's choice, okay? -[All Laugh]- Everything that happens from here on out - Shannon chose.
> Mike/ G.M.: This is the timeline that we have selected into.-[Shannon and Taylor Laugh]
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Listen, she can't choose her name, this is what she was born with
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Uh, that's not true because Remy chose his name.-[Bijan laughs]- Remy-Remy knows that Beta is looking at him and looks down and is like [IC] what's up?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] So, what's the oldest thing you remember?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oldest thing I remember? that's a good question. I remember lots of things. I remember earth. I remember-I think the oldest thing I remember is-is like the way they used to do music notes-they used to write them down on paper. Do you know what paper is?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Wait a second. I have got to write this down! Hold on! Hold on! -[Taylor laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: She pulls out a piece of paper-[Taylor laughs] > Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Now what is it that you said?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] So paper! Pape-Paper was this stuff- it was this is- I don't know what you're writing on right now but paper was the stuff, they made it from trees. It was like they harvested lots of trees and pounded them very flat and very thin. They used the fibers- because trees were this type of biological species...
> Mike/ G.M.: As you are describing this Algar bursts in through the curtain that separates his office from the hallways of the basilicon, which is the portion of Spindle that acts as the kind of like an administrative hub, it's where all the offices are and he says, [IC: as Algar] Sorry! Sorry! [OOC] and he navigates between all of you to sit at his weird metal desk. Algar is a tall and skinny human. He's middle-aged; he's got a swept-back long-ish salt and pepper hair; he's got a very strong jaw. Um all of you have worked with him a lot over the last period of time so you know him well, you know that he was born on Spindle, he wears a gray refactor suit the left half of which is covered in the same kind of moss as his wall; except when he sits at his desk, it's the half that's opposite the wall. He also wears four watches on his right arm so on the arm that is opposite the wall that is covered in clocks, and he has a dense layer of nearly microscopic beetles that are collected all along his chin forming a kind of like, rugged-looking like-very handsome but always moving stubble; and he says [IC: as Algar] Thank you so much for coming on short notice. I-I hope that you've taken some time here to get acquainted with one another as the directorate needs to send you on a last minute mission of utmost importance. I'm sure you can understand- I'm so glad you saw all the notes that I put under your doors late, late last night. I've actually just come back from a meeting with the directorate and some of the members of the
archive and well by chance the four of you are the only fleeters currently able; uh, you know, because of the unfortunate incidents that befell your previous associated crews. [OOC] and then he becomes like, a little morose and he goes [IC: as Algar] Again the Worshipful Company extends its deepest sympathies to the recent loss of all of your former teammates. [OOC] and he bows his head a little bit [IC: as Algar] Anyways, on to business! The directorate has learned via the archive of a resident on a nearby planet on- uh, Rigamont B, which I'm sure you all know of it's the smaller of the two of The Saffron Anax’s worlds, she's the resident. Is a- is a Baas by the name of Aseh Lehrer, it says is-is ah Aanverder. I believe I'm pronouncing this correctly Aan-Aanverder. Is this making sense so far?
[00:16:10] > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Not a word, but keep going! > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] a Baas?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Yes yes yes! As you know, the Baas they’re-they’re-this= the exceptional race a very mysterious very few of them around uh very very-rare they have a precisely two hundred thousand day life span and over-over that span they seek to perfect one skill. Uh- they become galaxy-level talent at the thing that they do as you know Baas cuisine amongst the best uh in-in-in the universe if you of course have a similar arrangement of taste buds. Ah Baas art - not-not just the best art in existence, but some think the best art even possible. So, um as is perhaps suggested by her title, the Aanverder Lehrer is a commandant; she's a military captain for hire and a very very accomplished one it says here. [OOC] and he's like rifling through some papers that he had under his arm when he bursts through his office [Sound of papers ruffling] [IC: as Algar] Or um, I should say she was a very accomplished military captain. what the archive has learned is that her two hundred thousandth day is approaching. Uhh, she is about to die and apparently despairing of, you know, her life's work the turmoil that she's fermented all of the people that she has subjugated and helped to defeat and-and kill and oppress she is inviting all of those people of the various worlds to visit her estate on Rigamont B the lesser of the-the Saffron Anax’s worlds to say their peace; and to take back from her estate the spoils of her various conflicts. To take them back to where they belong to their rightful homes to the-to the people who she took them from, but you see she has something in her collection which belongs to the directorate uhh-it uh. [OOC] and he's like flipping through he's like trying to read something closely on this piece of paper that he has [sound of papers rustling] and he's like shuffling around and you can tell that he's unsure of what he's about to say like it's sort of unclear and he says: [IC: as Algar] It's um- a vase or a-or a briefcase, or an-an-an apple. It might be a-a clock of some kind. If I'm to understand, it's a-it's a-difficult to perceive object and so it should be relatively clear when you find it. They'd like you to go uh to the estate where-where it is and um to get it back and of course, just grab whatever else you can! That might happen to be l-left behind that hasn't yet uh been removed from the premises of as you will.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] So let me get this straight doc- can I call you doc? I don't know have we worked together? I know you're not a doctor; anyway, it doesn't matter.
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] You keep-you keep! We've known each other for several years and I've told you several times that I'm not a doctor but I'm used to it by now. So- yes?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] okay doc so we're gonna -we’re gonna go rob an elderly lady who's dying?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Uh.. No! Uh, she is uh not going to stop you. Uh-she is inviting everybody to come and remove from her estate the things that are hers through actions of war in which she now feels as though she no longer has a right to
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] She got religion and is now atoning. got it, got it.
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Yes, also the Baas don't really age in uh a... stereotypical sort of way so I think that you know, those she will be oh, what will it be nearly 500 years old? I don't think that she will appear elderly in any way.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] [chuckles] That wasn't my concern but thanks for clarifying
[00:19:49] > Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Anyways perhaps you see the urgency of the task at hand that you know, there will be plenty of callers to the Aanverder Lerher’s estate seeking both what is theirs and what is not theirs. The company is in a particular position to get something that is uhh you know, rightfully should-should belong in the archive, should be a here on Spin, but we are also in a particular position to defend any goods that might be stolen and to see that they are properly studied and cared for/ So, we just want to make sure that we get there as soon as possible. so that we-we can procure these items before they are taken by those who do not actually have any claim to them.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Algar-m- may I call you Algar?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] That is my name.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC][Shannon giggles] Silly of me, haa [OOC] Beta is blushing-doesn't really know how to talk to Algar. If it's not obvious already, she has a huuuge crush on Algar [Jenn and Mike laugh].
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] He does- he kind of looks like space-Pierce Brosnan just with like um...beetles smeared across his face. -[Nick laughs]-
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] And, and Beta has recently discovered the rom-com genre of ancient-ancient earth [Taylor laughs] and had uh been studying it, and Shoodtha’s has-have like one desire and it's to learn by experience so she-she has-she has big dreams for her and Algar[IC] Uuhum Algar hum [gulp] when is-she expected to-
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Yes what-isTake your time, it's fine, take your time Beta just breathe in and out.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] S-sorry if I've- I missed what you said uhmm, how many more days does she have left?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] The-the Baas will say that they are towards the end of their life within a span that is quite large. I can't say for sure she could have anywhere between a day or two or you know several decades but uh it is best to get on with it.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] are there many other Baas’ there?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] oh as far as I know no the Baas are few and far between and they
tend to travel, as you would say a lonesome path.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] I cannot wait to meet her!
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Alrighty, you can count on good old Merkis to get y’all there!
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] He hands Merkis the contract uh with the company that includes all the information since you know, th-the ‘Banshee’ as the one who does the navigating and will help you travel is sort of like considered the first in command in the absence of a witness or an actual manager and Algar says, [IC: as Algar] I know it's customary you'll want to look over the paperwork if you have any questions just let me know.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] What kind of environment is this? Are we gonna be able to breathe or move without suits?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Yes, the atmosphere on Rigamont B is it is a Goldilocks world so you uh should have no trouble breathing, finding water uh- finding uh nutrition, it-it won't be a problem.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Sounds good to me! Does anyone else have any questions? > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Nah, let's do it
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] If you-if you want to roll will on the contract and you pass a will check then-you know, we'll say that you have sort of read through some of the legalese some of the corporate legalese of the contract that you're gonna sign and uhh will have- will have figured out things that Algar potentially has not told you um, and here we will just pause to describe the main mechanic of Stillfleet, which is the check. Basically, in order to succeed at any task of standard difficulty, you have to get a six or higher on a dice roll in its relevant attribute um, each character has five attributes, they are Combat, Movement, Reason, Willpower, and Charm. Each of those attributes has a score. Scores are dice types and with only a few. restrictions based on class, players can distribute dice to attributes however they want at character creation. The dice types they get to distribute are: one D12, one D10, one D8, and two D6’s; or you can trade in the two D6’s to get another D8 and a D4. So in this situation willpower for instance represents what in Dungeons & Dragons, you might call ‘perception’ or ‘insight’ or in Shadowrun you might call ‘perception’ or ‘judging intentions’. So here the team is gonna do the kind of like, mundanely difficult task of reading a contract and if they successfully do that by rolling a six or higher on willpower, they will find info in the contract that is not explicitly discussed.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis sticks out a long lizard-like tongue to lick the t-rex sort of short-armed finger to rifle through the paper aaand, ah. got a two.
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] A two
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Damn.
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] Uh- you do see there is actually something very clear as you're flipping through you don't need to cut through any of the language in order to understand this. There is a page that just has a big header on it that says ‘LOADOUT’ and it says ‘RUCKSACKS x4: SEE ACQUISITIONS’.
[00:25:00]> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Ah! looks like we need to pick up some stuff!
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Ah! yes, that's right. I- uh completely forgot. Make sure on your way out you stop by acquisitions, they will give you large rucksacks so that you can take whatever you happen to find and transport it with ease.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Wonderful.
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Oh! The other thing that you will do is once you travel to Rigamont-B you will be met by a local refactor in the town, she will outfit you with a mount, and that will take you to the estate. It's a- it's a short journey from the ‘Stiffwork’ to the estate, but transportation will be arranged.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Great. I can drive pretty-much-anything!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah, I can't read so anyone else want to take a look at that contract?
[Taylor Jenn and Mike laugh]
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys"[OOC]: What?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] D4 in Will can't read. [Jenn, Mike and Taylor laugh]
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] I think- You-You can probably read you just like get really bored very easily.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Simply, simply illiterate.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys"[OOC]: I-I yeah I think you can-come on! you can read! It’s like
me trying to read a book now. In 2020. Not gonna happen. [All laugh]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I have an in-canon explanation but I- you know, it doesn't matter. The in-canon explanation was that he's a sleeper so he was asleep and that the cryosleep destroyed parts of his brain [Jen ohhs] including reading comprehension, which. Again.
overrated. Remy's very very of the moment.
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] Anyone else want to give the paperwork a try? Give the paperwork a look? Or you're gonna amscray?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] I have a question!
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Yes?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] A question Algar?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] An answer.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yes, tell me about the rucksacks. What did they look like?
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC : as Algar] Large. Roll-top. Uhhh waterproof? Hmm, lots of strappy bits? > Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yes, yes, okay, those are them yes.
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] Algar is looking very confused at Vynos.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] All right Algar, we'll be back!
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] Okay, you signed the contract and go on your way?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Nah. I'm gonna try to read it. Remy's gonna try to read it just for shits, okay to see if he can in fact read.
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] If you- what's your- what's your Reason? What's your Reason role? > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] One D8 plus one.
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] Okay, yeah. I would let you roll reason on this.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Okay. Well while he's doing that Beta keeps on -
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] 2 -[Bijan laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] Ah yeah. That's a lot. There's a lot of fucking words dude
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Ehhh readings overrated. I know they're gonna fuck us anyway so who cares! I'll see how its different- how it's different this time.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] While Remy grabbed the papers to look at them Beta is just taking the pen to sign the contract and keeps on dropping it. [pen drops] She recently read in this rom-com literature that it's-it's cute to make to-to make mistakes or to be klutzy, so she's trying to
embody that [IC] Whoops! [the sound of a pen dropping]
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] I can. I- Beta I can tell that you're dropping the pen on purpose.
Wait, wha?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Whoops! [Pen drops] Whoops![ Pen Drops]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yo, doc She's not- doc- she's not doing that on purpose She just does that sometimes [Shannon continues to Whoops! in the background] It’s weird! It happens like sixteen times in a row and then she gets it!
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Yes, the last several contracts that I have asked her to sign she has pretended to drop the pen four or five times in a row!
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] It’s like I have soapy hands!
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] I will say it is in fact, it is quite charming.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I don't think it's. I don't think she's pretending doc. I think I think it's a condition. I'm a little worried.[Shannon laughs]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ OC ] Yeah, Merkis makes his way over in uh licks uh, licks a hand and stamps it on the paper.
> Mike/ G.M.: [OOC] You guys, Algar wishes you luck he's like [IC: as Algar] Uh, good luck and please and remember, bring back anything! Bring back whatever you can. You know, and I know that our continued success here at the company is premised entirely upon what we can, you know give to acquisitions. So whatever you find just please bring back as much of it as you can.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Alright doc, you know us, we'll get some stuff.
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC: as Algar] Yes, doc, Yes good luck. Bon voyage. [OOC] So you guys leave
Algar's office and do you want to head to acquisitions and get your backpacks? > Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Vynos, you’re very interested in the rucksacks.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yes, well I was- I was from reweaving recently and I've got a bunch of bags mixed up and I wanted to make sure that I was going to be grabbing the right one.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Ahh some history with some bags?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yes. I reweave so I can go back in time and come back. > Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] You can go back in time!?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yes.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Why?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] What?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Why what's the point? there’s nothing back there.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] That's where you were.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah, now I'm not!
> Mike/ G.M.: I mean he- I mean, he's not wrong.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Well...
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta perks up [IC] Going back in time!?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] [Chuckles] Yes, have you- have you ever dealt with a tremulant before?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Oh I've I have I've never met one this close up who actually talked back to me. -[Jenn laughs]-
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Right.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Kind of, kind of known as a big old weirdo around here [Shannon
laughs].
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh! Vynos, hey what's up! yeah we I didn't catch your name because we didn't actually introduce each other.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Oh! okay, nice to meet you.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah, Remy! nice to meet you. Uh- Merkis also very nice to meet you. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Hello!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Beta. I know who you are.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Thank you all.
[00:29:58]> Mike/ G.M.: You're walking your way through all of these winding hallways carved out of this black rock, and you come to acquisitions- which is sort of at the entrance, you could say, of the Basilicon. The acquisitions department is the closest thing that there is to a warehouse on ‘Spindle’. It's one of the only very large and cavernous room blobs that exists, and unless you've worked in acquisitions, its likely you've only ever seen a very small part of it, um you know, and and even that only through the open twin doors that's behind it's sprawling front
desk and you know through those slivers through those doors as they're open momentarily you can just see these incredibly high, very densely packed shelves; and it's here that the company accepts all the things that you must turn in at the end of a mission where treasure and archaea-tech as it is called; archaic pieces of technology from many of the past and fallen civilizations that you might find while you are venturing about. This is where all of that is turned in and it is also where you receive items that you have been gifted by the company for use in the execution of your duties; and sometimes, as a gift, to say thanks. There's always someone new that is sitting at the front of the acquisition desk and today it is a young ‘enjan’ woman. ‘The Enjan’ are plant people this young woman, which you can tell sort of from the-the colorings of her leaves, she looks something like a yucca tree with a flowering cactus a flowering pink cactus for a head and her long pointed green fingers are shuffling through some papers on this massive desk as you approach and Merkis so do you have the paperwork? Are you gonna be the one to approach?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yeah, I do
>Mike/ G.M.: [IC] So as you-as you walk up and ‘enjan’ famously are very quiet they talk just by sort of a vibrating leaves, so she whispers. [IC: Enjan woman]-[Mike whispers]-How can I help youuu?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] And Marcus slaps down the-the paper and says [IC] looks like we need some rucksacks!
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC] -[whispering]- Ohh grabbed a nice one. [OOC]And she takes the paper that you slap down on the table and goes through the door on the left and comes out a few seconds later and she has four like sort of bunched in her arms, she's hugging them. Large roll-top rucksacks that are made of this slick rubbery material that's always slightly wet to the touch it's like it's, it's lubricated and it has a complex arrangement of straps made from a very fibrous kind of weave and all these plasticky buckles around us you could lash all manner of things to the outside of these bags and she takes the coupon that you, that you had put down she sort of puts it, puts it in a drawer put it in a filing cabinet and hands over these large bags and yeah you each get one real big bag.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Thank you miss! [OOC] and Merkis puts it on and is SO comfortable because -he has- he kind of always looks wet on account of a protective secreted mucus that helps him breathe and stay cool. So it's kind of like rubbing salamander skin on salamander skin, so it's like real, real nice.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Vynos turns around and it sees that his bag has actually been placed by another bag, and so he picks up the bag that he knows is the right bag now. Um-and double-checks a note that he sent to himself when he rewove. Uh-Vynos can give himself notes from the future -[Shannon laughs]- because he- reweaved to the past, and so he's-he's done that; and he's just got a note-on the note it says; it's a winky note because you're not supposed to meddle like this; but he gets the right bag, because in the other timeline he picked up the wrong bag. Which was bad. -[Mike laughs]- So he's got- he's got the right bag now.
> Mike/ G.M.: and it was like a butterfly flaps its wings and like a planet is destroyed level bad. > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yeah. -[Nick laughs]- Yeah, probably.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] So, is Vynos just like- uh he uses his power to travel, because he's an old forgetful man, and he-he's just trying to remember things? -[Jenn laughs]-
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Uhm I think-I think he only reweaves to give himself a note if it's really important -[Shannon laughs]- so I think that's why he made sure he knew what the bags look like and he got the right note this time.
> Mike/ G.M.: What did- so did the note say anything? or was the note just an indication that this is the right backpack so something terrible doesn't happen.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC so the note just says “make sure you get the right bag” which is what cued him to ask the question about ‘what do the bags look like?’
> Mike/ G.M.: Is there anything that you guys want to do either on Spin or in your own quarters before you head to the bays and head off to Rigamont B?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC No I think. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] No.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Yeah, I'm wondering if Beta goes back and collects some notes about Baas’- and like what she knows about them; because she is a Xenobiologist as a-as her side hustle, so she studies different species of the universe, and she's probably going to be secretly taking tons of notes so she could bring it back to her senior archivist.
[00:35:16]> Mike/ G.M.: Oh sure! Yeah. I mean, there's probably a lot that you might already know. um, and it's questionable like as a crew you might know some of these things about the Bass, um, you know, you might have sort of learned in your travels what they're deal is, but I think you specifically would almost certainly know a fair amount. So the Baas and it spelled uh B-A-A-S. The ‘Bass’, no one knows really they come from. Uh, they ostensibly have a home world or a place of birth, it's very mysterious no one knows, no one knows where that is. No one really even knows if they are born or made? It's unclear whether or not they are constructs. The fact that they have a life span that is exactly 200,000 days is what leads a lot of people to think that they must be made, perhaps by some other even more powerful race. So like, some of the rumors are that the ‘Baas’ are actually something made by extra-dimensional beings in order to help shape the trajectory of history on various planets. [Bijan hms] It is true that like generally they choose over their 200,000-day life to become galactic level masters at one skill; because there aren't that many of them in general. There aren't that many- sort of ‘baas’ practitioners of things, but the ones that exist are very very famous. So like Algar said, you know, there's been maybe like one Bass chef, and his cuisine was considered to be just the best that you could possibly have. You know, there's been, uh there's been like, maybe two baas architects. There's one baas armorer that existed. And the AAnverder Lehrer, the woman who you are going to go
meet is amongst the very few boss commandants-like, you know, military people. They are humanoid, so they, they are like human-shaped and they are very large, they're just quite big.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] How big?
> Mike/ G.M.: Um like- like giant-sized > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Oooh!
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] And of course, she looks um when she's looking up all this information, she looks at the one column she has for every um, alien species, which is: “Do they fall in love?” and is there a check mark there?
> Mike/ G.M.: [Mike laughs]-Big old question mark.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Oh, she's gonna find out.
> Mike/ G.M.: Um, the Baas are famously attractive.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] That's gonna be hard for Beta.-[Mike and Shannon laugh]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis pulls out a stylophone which is an old-school like handheld synthesizer but he doesn't know what that is, he thinks it's a, it's a captain's log. So he pulls out the little pen stylus and just starts like scribbling nonsense and going [Stylophone squeaks and doots aimlessly] [IC] captains log! day one picked up rucksacks [OOC] and then puts it back into a pocket. -[Mike laughs]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah. I think Remy just is-has his flute out and is just absentmindedly just tootling. Just-just tootling some melodies.
[Gentle flute music begins]
[Gentle flute music fades and ends]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC]Are we ready?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] [sighs] I'm ready to go. [Drumming Music Begins]
> Mike/ G.M.: ‘The Bays’ is the section of Spindle that you leave from. ‘The Bays’ constitute nearly half of the total area of the space station and they contain countless numbers of what are called ‘Stiffworks’ and Stiffworks are smooth black portals, which when activated by a ‘Banshee’ which is what Merkis is, a banshee. With the appropriate training, they will transport you to another Stiffwork that is potentially light-years away. So from Spindle, you do not travel
using spaceships you travel using a kind of porthole that you can control with your mind. Most fleeters depart from a section of Bays called ‘the Near Bays’ which is just below what are called ‘the Flats’-which is where everybody on ‘Spindle’ lives, except for the people who are in charge. like the directorate and the archivists. The Stiffworks in the Near Bays lead to major provinces, like locations with a strong human presence or with which the company has a good and ongoing trade relationship. There are also ‘Far Bays’ which lead to more provincial and far-flung locations and then even further down are the ‘Dormant bays’. There are lots of dormant bays. These ‘Stiffwork’ lead to unexplored alien worlds and in some cases seemingly nowhere at all. As we talked about as is usually the case in the absence of a company witness, uh the crew banshee is considered the first in command and given the paperwork for the job. This paperwork. Includes what's called a ‘tack-map’, which is a chart that shows which Stiffwork in the bays will most easily lead to the intended destination and a four-dimensional kind of chart- which is like a- it's like a series of mental calculations that given their special training allows a Banshee to mentally activate and open a Stiffwork to its intended destination. So Merkis looking at your paperwork and looking at the tack-map you can see that it leads you to a Stiffwork in the near base so you're gonna go to a, you're gonna go to a Stiffwork. It's gonna be pretty easy to use.
[00:40:58] > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Uh-so we find the Stiffwork.
> Mike/ G.M.: Great as you're passing through the flats you go into the near bays you enter into a little corner of ‘Little Wetana’. Which is a little it's like almost like a neighborhood on ‘Spindle’ that's home to a lot of the lower-income wetans and ‘Wetans’ are a very common race of cricket-like bug people whose social structure is very similar to humans and with whom humanity has gotten along really well for the last -last few millennia. I think it's like something like fully a third of the population on Spindle are wetans. These, like person-sized cricket people. So you pass by a number of stalls with a bunch of items like snacks, wetan snacks. So if any of you wants like-uh- large-large knots of wood thick-rubbery leaves or like oat porridge with bits of chitinous shell floating in it.[Bijan hms] You can, you can buy this from, from some quote-unquote street vendors- some flats vendors.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy's walking by his only looking for anything that says, “What are you ‘wetan’* for? as like a restaurant name. [Shannon and Mike laugh]
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta is taking a look at the card itself and seeing if it's made out of metal.
> Mike/ G.M.: The carts the cart that it's on?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yeah, like any kind of cart or vendor like the vendor carts.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] -[Bijan laughs]- Uh-Remy looks at Beta and says [IC] Yo you hungry too?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Mm-hmm! Mmm-hmm I forgot to eat you know excited I was gonna see Algar and you know your stomach just really- just-ah-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah I get you- I think we should wait I think we should wait. We should ‘wetan’! -[Bijan laughs]-
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] -[Shannon laughs]- Ohh you looove puns. > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I love that pun specifically. -[Mike laughs]-
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Vynos goes up to a little-uh- little food cart called uh-“Peyton's Wetan Seitan” -[Shannon laughs]- and gets a wheat-based vegan treat and puts it in his large robe pocket.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, you have like a-like a- it's it's sort of like a bundle of sticks that someone has chewed on for a while.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] That sounds good.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Really good.-[Mike laughs]
> Mike/ G.M.: Uh none of the, unfortunately, none of the carts are made of metal it's all made of a kind of like almost petrified rock or- uh petrified wood
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yeah- that's what Beta thought might be the case.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Look, Beta-Beta! baby! come on, we'll find some let's find some stuff on with the bass people right?-[Shannon gasps]-They-they're huge. They gotta have big metal and large meat.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Yes, you're right, you're right, you know what you are always right. Remy! You know SO much and I can learn so much from you! and you know, I just need to be quiet sometimes.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] It's okay, you can-you can- jus- just. Algars not here, calm down we're good.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] You're right, you're right, you're right.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Let's get this let's get to this- let’s get this job done.
> Mike/ G.M.: All right, so you make your way to the indicated Stiffwork there's no one else around traffic's pretty light today this Stiffwork like all the others it's just a smooth matte black circle, barely indistinguishable from the rest of the smooth black that's Spindle is made from Merkis, you can tack whenever you're ready.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] So Merkis is mumbling and looking down at the tackmap [Jenn as
Merkis Mumbles] and then without uh, really saying anything to anyone, Um, Places a hand. So Merkis has four fingers but they're not really fingers or like little bulbies, you know lizards have bulby sticky things and so it makes this like four little suction cup sounds [suction pop noises] as it hits the Stiffwork and tacks.
[Low humming music begins]
> Mike/ G.M.: As Merkis does this visually nothing changes, but all of you can feel a difference where you're standing, uh the space that you're in suddenly feels more open and you all know this is the feeling this indicates that the Stiffwork has just tacked is now open and you have a wormhole portal onto Rigamont B.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Shall we?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] We should.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] And Merkis goes through first. [Low humming music begins]
[00:45:11]> Mike/ G.M.: Walking into a Stiffwork which, Merkis you have done many times before but we will describe it for the benefit of the audience is like walking into a completely pitch-black room. There's no resistance when you cross the threshold of the Stiffwork but as you walk forward, it feels like the passageway is getting smaller and smaller and smaller until it's pushing on your shoulders, but it's not. You can't really feel any force, it just feels like the space around you is-is hugging you ever closer. It’s kind of like the space-it's kind of like space itself is going “I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you! I'm not touching you!” and it collapses and collapses but it remains somehow this infinite expense. Until a familiar sort of indescribable moment when you know, you can feel that you're just somewhere else.
[Low humming music builds and breaks to the sound of open air.]
The atmosphere is slightly different-the air no longer smells of the algae-scented odor of Spin. the gravity is the same but it feels natural Merkis you have arrived on Rigamont B everybody else follows?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yes > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yes > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yes
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah you all have the same experience just going into this ever-decreasing space this black expanse until just suddenly the air is fresher. The gravity is nicer so now you know that nice old-school analog gravity.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] love it
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta says to the group [IC] you know, I never really get used to
that.
> Mike/ G.M.: And in fact, you do all feel as is often the case slightly nauseated.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis whips out the stylophone again, it goes: [IC] [Stylophone squeaks and doots aimlessly] Captain's log! Successful tack from Spindle to Rigamont B![OOC] and looks at the Stiffwork they just came out of. What kind is it?
> Mike/ G.M.: It is provincial.
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[OOC] Right
> Mike/ G.M.: So different kinds of Stiffwork cost different amounts of what is called grit to operate
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] And it looks like a provincial gate! So we’ll have no problem getting back.
> Mike/ G.M.: So just describe; grit is basically a- uh- a spendable attribute that represents you doing stressful tasks and different characters have different amounts of grit that they can spend so the I imagine each of you has like somewhere around 20 grit.
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[OOC] About yeah.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] No.
> Mike/ G.M.: What do you have like 40?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I mean like 14, but like yeah, oh I would say that's around 10 not around 20 personally.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] I have 23
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah the Pir would have a lot of grit
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I also have 22 health which means I can turn that into grit also. ‘Cause I can easily regen health.
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, so you have arrived on the saffron annexes smaller world referred to as Rigamont B, R.B., or Jamjōm
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[OOC] -[Jenn laughs]- Jamjōm?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Jamjōm.
> Mike/ G.M.: Jamjōm -[Mike laughs] > Jenn/ "Merkis":[OOC] Oh my god.
> Mike/ G.M.: This is straight from the core rule book baby. Jamjōm. It is a -it's a bright spring day. You guys would know these worlds, you would know the Saffron Anax’ worlds. Uh, they’re- they're pretty famously ruled by a kind of tyrannical trade lord called the Saffron Anax. Uh, it's Rigamont B, and Rigamont A are two planets that Spin around one another around their orbital sun. Most fleeters refer to them as “the lovers''. You emerge into a small wooden construction building. Um, you can see that there's a bright sun shining through a number of small holes in this open thatched roof, but it's cool, it's nice and comfortable. It's not too hot, and around you, there's actually a number of human merchants. There are some wetans and their tables are covered in mostly like, handmade trinkets, like little wood-carved toys, you know things like yo-yos or that-that ball that ball in a cup on a string kind of thing little-little statuettes various other like knick-knacks. -[Jenn: ooh!]- Approaching you; as Algar had said, is a small woman she's like 40 years old human she's got dark hair, tired eyes and she's holding a very familiar skinny refactor clipboard it's piled so high with papers that the mechanism is like, barely able to hold on to all the stuff that she has, and she says [IC as Refactor host] Right on time! this way to your mounts. [OOC] and she begins walking out through what you can see now is kind of like an arrival hall. This is like, you know, a gift shop for fleeters visiting this otherwise rather poor planet.
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[OOC] And we follow along? > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC]Yeah.
[00:49:53]> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah So you see, you know, once you leave the hall that's just a small provincial village. Lots of wood construction houses. You see some wood workshops, dirt roads and you see wooden carriages that are drawn by ‘zogs’. Uh, Z-O-G-S. A ‘zog’ is a kind of like, pale featherless dinosaur. It's like a cross between a velociraptor and a giant plucked chicken and uhh this is the sort of like the beast of burden that exists on a lot of the um- a lot of the provincial planets. So you're taken to small stable on the edge of town and this woman gestures at four zogs and they're outfitted with saddles and straps for your bags and then she points off into the distance and she says: [IC as Refactor host] The Aanverder's estate is several hours in that direction. Just head due north the terrain is mostly flat and as you know, the Saffron Anax rules without mercy, so you shouldn't encounter any aggressors along the way. You should however just be aware if Algar didn't inform you, the Aanverder has an understanding with the Saffron Anax. Her estate is sovereign land. It is likely safe but you should know that many people have arrived at her estate over the last several days to make claim to various objects and some violence has ensued. Good luck we’ll be awaiting your return. [OOC] and she walks away.
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[OOC] Merkis is so hella uncomfortable on the zog because it is also a lizard type being and it's like telling a cousin like -[Jenn and Mike laugh]- [IC] I'm uh,very-very sorry miss. I'm very-very sorry miss but-uh”
>Mike/ G.M.:-[Mike imitates birdlike zog noises]
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[IC]Oh god. -[Bijan and Mike laugh]
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta’s quietly thinking to herself. While she doesn't want there to be any conflict she hopes there are more people there just for another chance to meet someone new or meet other people. It’s she- she's nervous she's gonna have to make a person of course, but she's kind of quietly excited that-at the idea that there may be more people there.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy is just hungry, and he- he’s stopping himself from having a snack on the way to the place.
>Mike/ G.M.: That means eating a person, right?-[Jenn and Shannon laugh]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC]Yeah. Eating his mount specifically. -[Bijan laughs]
>Mike/ G.M.: That would not be in your interest.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, that's why he's like hmm -[Mike laughs]- I would like to but I shouldn't so I won't, but who knows? He's- he will arrive hungry.
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[IC] All right miss. I don't want to say “heeyah!” but if you could-you know, trot along as if I said “heeyah!” we could go really quickly.
-[Several players imitate birdlike zog noises]-[Jenn and Mike laugh]
>Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, you guys trod off, um, you have a couple hours like just flat terrain boring. You've been told that because of the extreme tyranny of the leader of this planet that, there's, you know, very-it's very unlikely that you will be aggressed upon.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Vynos takes out an ancient map of this world, and as it's like, about a hundred years old and he's just looking at it and looking around. One of the things if you have the power to go back in time that helps is being able to get your bearings for where things that you do in the past will affect the future based on what the future is now and what and how that aligns with what we used to be on maps.
>Mike/ G.M.: Hold on a sec. I gotta- I got to get my slide ruler out. -[Mike and Nick laugh]
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] So he's just looking at-he's just looking at an ancient map and kind
of looking around.
>Mike/ G.M.: So you can, you would be able to see on; if this map is a hundred years old. The
Aanverder's estate would be on it, and you can see, yeah basically if you head straight for about an hour and a half, you're gonna-you're gonna bump right into it.
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[IC] Well, first of all, how do-and Merkis leans over uh, and says: [IC] “hey there uh Beta, Remy how do y'all know each other?”
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Oh, well we've known each other.. hmm how many years now?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] It hasn’t been that long! Okay. let's go, let's get, let's keep it, keep reasonable. Only like like a couple? I feel like we've been -we've been on missions near each other.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] You know, I try I'm surprised I haven't met either of you because I tried to meet everyone on Spin, you know and Remy here is you know a great friend but also um full of information- which is great! which is great for a friend to be.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah she likes that I, you know like my whole thing was I was last century on earth whenever that...happened. I got some blood. It was tasty. I ate some dudes, and then I went to cryosleep because I got too hungry and I was like well, I can't. I can only eat these government dudes so long before they figure it out, so did the cryosleep thing. I don't know what happened! That was it. My brain, they tell me is a little fried? I think that was the word they used?
>Mike/ G.M.: This explains a lot.
[00:55:00] > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] So I just woke up on Spin. I was like, I don't know how I got here; but seems tight, better than it was. I still have my stuff- got new stuff. I have a room that's nice, so yeah things are good, things are good. I met-I met beta after one of those missions in the big-the big guys. I call it a cafeteria, that's what they used to call it when I was around.
>Mike/ G.M.: the canteen?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Right when I was alive the first time they called it the cafeteria, but I started to think of this is like a second chance and I'm very excited t-to have a second chance at having a ‘lease on life’, something else they used to say but yeah, we know each other because of that. We just, I saw her and I was like well this is uh this person's made out of metal! And also I don't know anyone else here, and I don't know? It seemed like the metal was friendly.
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[IC] I think you’re friendly too.
>Mike/ G.M.: How long has Remy been awake? Just out of curiosity.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I think only a couple years. >Mike/ G.M.: Okay
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Just like, he-he has no idea but I think a couple years. > Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] When sleepers sleep-where do they go to sleep?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] You mean where had they slept?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yeah were there physical bodies?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Well, so I think Remy was in a, like a cryosleep chamber that somehow got ported to Spin. But he'd been in there for millennia like this was a this is a person who's been, whose been frozen for a very long time.
>Mike/ G.M.: Like Remy was probably sold as a like-like an item for a thousand or more years. and just changed hands over and over and over again and then eventually came to just be basically owned by the company? is that?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah something like that. >Mike/ G.M.: Woah.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, well yeah, he's I mean, h-he's fine with it because he was, he was not having the greatest of times back on Earth.
>Mike/ G.M.: You guys are slowly crossing this flat dry landscape. You probably have about another maybe, 45 minutes remaining.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] So what about guys? Vynos How did you learn how to time travel? What was that about bro?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Well that's just the path that I chose. I always had a connection to time since I was a little boy. Um, other kids would wish for little trinkets or baubles and I would always wish for another minute. -[Taylor and Mike laugh]- And so, I-I learned the ways and I still continue to learn the ways of the weird at the Howling Lamp. It has done me and served me well. In the past and the future.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] What would you need another minute for? What would you do with those extra minutes if you had them as a child?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] You know it's a good question? I never had an answer. I just wanted another minute.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] That’s fucked bro -[Jenn laughs]- I like it though. > Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Thank you.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I like you, you're good.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Thank you. I appreciate it.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Merkis, what's your deal? Why are you- what's with the thing that looks
like a-it looks like a...the thing that you're writing on was what's to deal with that?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] This zog creature? I feel like it's related to me, but she doesn't speak so I guess she's not really ‘jalasti’ or anything like that. Huh?
>Mike/ G.M.: To be clear also, you are all writing on zogs. You are each on a giant, plucked chicken dinosaur.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] I feel some connection to it, but she cannot speak back.-[Mike imitates birdlike zog noises] -[Jenn laughs]- I can't wait to tell my brother Markos about all this! [OOC]And he goes on a big yarn about: [IC] The day of our finding! [OOC] Where Mirka Merkis and Markos and all of their agglomeration of brothers were technically kidnapped by the archive. They were exploring trees on the planet Darasan and took a sample twig. That happened to be full of jalasti eggs and Merkis: [IC] I remember my mother weeping tears of joy as our twig was ripped from the tree! [OOC] and he's just like, speaking as if it's a very like, wonderful moment and he's very grateful for it but does not realize that him and his, you know, 26 brothers were kidnapped and all trained to be Banshees for Spin.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Oooh so they’re all Banshees?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] yeah. [IC] So I-I share a room blob with my brother Markos and it
has-we have a really big shoe collection weee looove shoes!
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] I can tell you love shoes you're wearing three of them.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Oh, yes. I love these duck boots! They're so great for all-terrain weather, but sometimes I like wearing my ‘Charles Taylors’, -[Taylor laughs]- my ‘Germanian Sport Cats’, and my ‘Sport Victories’.
>Mike/ G.M.: Can I ask a question that you might not have an answer to which is how old is Merkis? Is Merkis like-like a nine-year-old boy?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Uh kind of? like maybe, maybe 12-ish but that's pretty old for a ‘jalasti’. He’s definitely younger than Markos.
>Mike/ G.M.:Okay cause like, I'm uh- I’m definitely picturing him like, the organizing his base baseball cards.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yeah, and you know- rows of three.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Remy says: Beta hang in there. We'll get there soon.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Aaah I hope the baas likes me. > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I love to have something to eat.
[01:00:01] >Mike/ G.M.: Um, you know, you know what? Remy, I think you're gonna be alright.
[Thrumming synth music begins]
>Mike/ G.M.: You can see, you know after you've been riding for about an hour and a half an hour and 45 minutes you can see the estate a little bit far out. You can, you can see it a long while before you're there because it's quite big. You can see it growing on the horizon. It's this large dull kind of seashell white building has a long flat base and it's a few stories tall in the center and there are these two really skinny towers on either side of it, very tall. It's all very angular and it's all very. Geometric. It’s all very straight and, and narrow except for the tower on the left. From a distance, you can see that it looks kind of bulbous. You can see that there are like some darker dull spots in this even white color. And as you get closer and closer and closer it starts to look like the estate is actually vibrating a little bit or shimmering? And you can actually hear it before you can figure out what it is. There's this dull kind of clacking sound. It's like the sound of material sliding back and forth and all these distant mechanisms and you can see that the estate is actually moving. It's-it's made up, it looks like, of thousands if not millions of tiny little panels all poked through with uneven holes like Swiss cheese and they're constantly in motion.
You get closer and closer and closer and you can see that they're constantly reconfiguring the layout of the building. Through these windows on the front facade, you can see whole rooms sliding left and then right and then deeper into the building and further back and they recede from view and they grow and they come into focus and then slide away. You can also see that the bulbous shape that you saw from afar in the left tower is not the building actually but a large tree which is grown up and through the left tower and it looks like from where you're standing unlike the rest of the architecture that tower is motionless. You can see that there's a window in it that reveals the wide trunk in the trees, like occupying what looks like. A room like there's just a room in there that this tree grows through and comes out the other side of the tower the trees really long it's tilted it doesn't have any limbs-and it grows just you know comes up from somewhere off to the side of the estate and at its top there's like a dull green tuft kind of like uh, you know, kind of looks like a palm tree the other thing that you notice as you get closer and closer and this may be a particular interest to Remy are the bodies.
[Bassline changes to a tense tempo]
At first you see like one or two you're on your zogs and there's like, you know a dead human with something that looks like an arrow through his throat and You get closer and closer and there's maybe like a dozen bodies every couple meters and then two dozen and then more and more as you approach the estate and it's all kinds of sapients it's humans it's provincial aliens it's sapients that you've never seen before and it all looks like they've been killed in the midst of battling one another they're all sort of like locked in groups of two or three or six and ostensibly they were battling for the spoils of the Aanverder's estate you can see some of them have like little bits of art or books or like a ring here and there you can see once you start looking at all of
the bodies that some of them are bandits, you know, like ready to fight in full-on battle dress and armor with weapons and some of them are diplomats and envoys people in like smart respectful garb no weapons with you know, paperwork under their arms or sprawled, you know thrown about on the on the ground so it's like, you know people coming to take what they could running up against people who came to take what was rightfully theirs as you approached. You don't sense any movement giving everybody a look you can see that these people have been here for a day or two at least and it seems like a lot of the action has passed. You get closer now you're right up in front of the estate, it's huge it's white it's clacking it's shifting this way in that [hollow shifting noises] you can also see that the entry gate which is in front of you about a few dozen meters it's open and it's a set inside a tall white stone perimeter there's a large stairway that leads up to the main entryway just this big arched open doorway, there's no door it's totally open and you can see a stationary sen on the other side it's not moving around there's like, you know a pretty obvious place for you to hitch up your Zogs right next to the door.
[Synth music ends]
[01:05:03] > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy flies down is like [IC] Now this! Is my kind of
place -[Taylor laughs]
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta then follows that with: [IC] This is not my kind of place! -[Mike laughs]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Nor mine! there's so much hurt here...
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] No it's good! This is this great look, this is the person who knows what
they want, they want a lot of dead people out in their yard. I like that. -[Mike laughs] > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] This is covering his wide-set eyes.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] I don't think it's decoration. I-I think these bodies are really very recent...
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Ohhhh ohh.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] You want to travel back in time and see what happens, doc?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Mmno... it's quite dangerous actually there's a chance when I travel back. I don't make it back forward. I miss my chance and so I don't do it unless I have to
>Mike/ G.M.: It’s like missing, it's like missing a train except much much worse
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] A lot worse and so he, you know, Vynos also hitches up his zog.
>Mike/ G.M.: You guys want to head inside? > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yes
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yeah
>Mike/ G.M.: [Sound of a shifting, creaking building] So you walk up this wide wide staircase Those ornate empty openings with no door. As you enter you see right this front foyer the den. It doesn't move but all three of its internal walls. There's this like just dizzying architectural dance that's happening. There's just, the walls are constantly in motion. It's like, I don't know what they're called, but you know those toy puzzles that are like the tiles in the frame that you move around in order to make a picture.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yes
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC]Oh yeah,
>Mike/ G.M.: and there's like one tile that's missing that gives you the spot to slide them all around.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] a slider-slider puzzle
>Mike/ G.M.: Slider puzzle? Yeah, I think there's a name for it -[Nick laughs]- but either way it's kind of like that it's like every square inch of every wall is it has a, has a panel on it and the panels are like a little bit smaller than a foot square and they're just sliding around and they're clacking and, and whirring. It's you can hear it it's not too loud, but it definitely makes a sound and you can see rooms on the other side of these walls come into view for a moment and then disappear panels open to make a doorway and then it gets larger into a big doorway and then even larger into a massive doorway and then they just shrink and close and you can see -You can see that room just disappear somewhere into the building. Aside from the consistent clutter of bodies that are just everywhere, there's now, you know, you're in this danger in the foyer. It's- there's dead people everywhere otherwise it's kind of empty, except for one very large banquet table that is completely undecorated made of unstained rough wood. It actually looks a lot like some of the wood construction that you saw at the nearby town and sitting at that table is the Aanverder Aseh Torivault Lehrer.
[Wistful baroque music plays]
>Mike/ G.M.: She is leaned over. She has her elbows on her knees. She's staring at the ground. She's holding a large mug of some liquid and as soon as you walk in she sort of sits up a little bit straightens her back puts her mug down on the table and she stands and you can see that she is huge. The Aanverder like all baas is as you found out doing your research Beta is humanoid. She's 14, maybe 15 feet tall, her shoulders are as wide as the four of you standing next to one another. She's got long arrow-straight dark-blonde hair with these wide strands of grey in it. She's got a very wide face with a flat nose and her face is the only skin you can see and it is heavily scarred after you know, you would imagine 500 years of combat and battle and war. She is very striking not just because of how big she is and how kind of like, imposing, and commanding. She's also wearing her battle dress. She's wearing armor. She's got white. The
armor's white cerasteel chrome and gold and it is clean like you know this, there's all of this carnage around her but you know, you would guess just from how she looks that she wasn't really involved in any of it. She has a large pistol of some kind that is attached to her leg. She's got a sword in an ornate scabbard that is leaned up against the table that she's just stood up from. She's also got a large bright green jewel in the center of her armors, like chest cavity and it's ringed with what looks like a complex combination of electronics and clockwork, and as she stands she slowly walks towards you. She raises one arm, you know, sort of like gestures to her estate, and she welcomes you.
[Wistful Baroque Music Ends]
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] Hail and welcome, I know thee! -[Taylor as The Aanverder laughs]- I hoped beyond hope! The great beggars’ boat still spun in the black and now I have found thee. You're late or perhaps you intended to be inevitable,
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Oh! madam Lehrer! [OOC] and the Merkis bows tail with a boot in the air [IC] We come from the Worshipful Company.
[01:10:07]> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] Oh I know! I know very well! but you're late.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Love what you don't with the place this is great. I love it. > Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] You do like it?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh it's wonderful all the moving stuff and all the dead people is really imposing I'm very very into it
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] Imposing to be a puzzle to be a joke its architect said it was an unanswerable question.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] And I'm not answering baby! hahaha, am I right? yeah no but seriously it's great thanks for having us.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] You are of course welcome to scour my estate as you wish there are perhaps some things left behind. Red rolled the mists through my estate and here, you reign the dewy math of after. All the bruised and hungry hands now sleep in my halls, but perhaps you are fortunate in this?
>Mike/ G.M.: Uh, she sort of gets an expected look on her face like ‘am I right’?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] All your precursors are gone in one manner or another, but perhaps there is something left there are, after all rooms [sighs] and hallways even I don't remember...
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] You don't seem very into the place. What’s going on?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] [ Sighs] This is my fare thee well.
>Mike/ G.M.: I think you would know Algar would have explained right one of the things that Algar said was that she's, you know, after five hundred years of basically being like a warlord she's like, you know what? actually, ‘eugh’.... maybe that was not the right thing to do. So as she's saying this stuff she's sort of looking out at the estate and you know, you can see that in fact there's like not a lot around. The shelves are empty, there's no stuff in this room other than her an old table her mug her weapons and some dead people, and you know, it's hard to sort of get
a sense, because they flash by so quickly but like, you know a lot of the rooms that open and close in the clicking and clacking of the estate, you know, you can see some things here and there but you can also see a lot of bodies...
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis puts up a finger and says: [IC as Aanverder] Ma'am is there a logic to these rooms?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] Ah, you are the navigator. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Correct.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] She raises up her giant hand and almost as if the object that she grasps was already in the air she just sort of reaches out and grabs- like, turns empty space. That as she turns it you see it is an object almost like it's back being revealed to you out of nowhere something like you expect from a magician's trick, but you almost can feel something in your stomach sort of twist when she does it and she pulls out of the air seems a small sort of glowing pendant on a like, sparkling sort of pale silver chain and she hands it to you Merkis, and she says [IC as Aanverder] This is a map or as close as there can be of a map of ‘the Unanswerable Question’. The walls that heave, the ground that counts until it moves. From my island, my tears, all in there.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC]Thank you ma'am.
>Mike/ G.M.: And looking at it you can see that like, you know, when when you grab it there's a doll kind of projection that comes out of it, and it actually looks remarkably like some of the diagrams that you've seen on tack-maps, and in a way it's very similar this is a four-dimensional map. This will allow you to navigate the estate that changes over time, you'll just have to do something similar to what you do when you tack. You'll just have to basically decode it a little bit
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] And Merkis is just like, fiddling with it and like just wide-set eyes like getting bigger and bigger.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy is examining the bodies in the room. What does he see? >Mike/ G.M.: It's the same as when you're coming in it's um,
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] No I mean i-is there anything useful on the bodies or I mean, I guess he’s sort of trying to figure out like yeah, whether this stuff is edible, but also like, whether like like what these people died fighting for.
>Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, it's edible. I mean, these are it's biological- it's biological material most of these people it's very clear that they killed one another and that anybody who might have been victorious has since fled so this is like, you know people with stab wounds, people with shot wounds, people with laser pistol wounds, people with strange burns on them all all kinds of different injuries. You can see some goods around it's nothing that looks particularly valuable because of course, you know in the last day or two you would guess, you know, people have probably passed through to make sure that the place got picked over, but like yeah if you sift through you can find a broken mug here and like half a ripped painting there and maybe like some small bits of jewelry that have had that have been scuffed up or like had the gems pried out of them.
[01:15:05]> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, so I, he- Remy looks around. I assumed finds a knife somewhere and starts yeah just grabs a couple hands and feet just for and throws him his rucksack.
>Mike/ G.M.: -[Mike laughs]- okay, you have some hands and feet in your rucksack. > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] sure. I'm gonna say like four two of each
>Mike/ G.M.: Merkis looking at the map that you are given you can see that you are in the den. There is a kitchen, a library, a war room, a meeting room, a wardrobe, and a gallery.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Vynos is like [IC] i-is there a basement?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] It doesn't look like it. There's a kitchen. There's a library. A war room, a meeting room, a bedroom, and wardrobe, and a gallery. I think if everyone picks a room we can visit all of those.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Good idea. I'm gonna go right to the library. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Ah knowledge, let's go to the library.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] The library is a great idea.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] I love a good book.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I love knowledge- to life!
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] I didn't think you could read... [All laugh] Hey! okay! On we go! to the library!
>Mike/ G.M.: Okay, so to get to the library-so here's how this is gonna work. Merkis you
basically just have to pass a will check.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Okay.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Do it! Merkis!
>Mike/ G.M.: If you fail your will check you will accidentally navigate everybody to a random room.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Hey I got a six!
>Mike/ G.M.: You got a six, okay, yeah you successfully navigate your way to the librar.,
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Aanverder] Be careful! I want to see you return to your directorate...In one piece!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] You know it doesn’t sound like you mean that but that’s cool let’s do it. > Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] She- Her face looks hurt. -[Jenn: awww]- Like you hurt
her feelings a little bit
>Mike/ G.M.: This giant powerful lady. > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Don't do that.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] As they walk forward Beta whispers to Merkis [IC] do you think she liked me. I know I didn't say anything-I got a little nervous but do you think she liked me?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] I don't know anything about these romantic feelings. [OOC] Merkis is just a kid. -[Jenn laughs]
>Mike/ G.M.: You know, you could roll will or reason to see if you could get a read on, on what she thought of you.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Sure. I will- what do you think a will? they're both the same value it doesn't matter...twelve.
>Mike/ G.M.: Well Taylor what did the An-Aanverder think about Beta Commbot upon first encounter?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] Yeah, so you could tell when you first met her that she was like she was telling the truth. She was really hoping that somebody from the go would show up and the last people to show up it turns out we're from the company. She was genuinely happy to see you, and is a little surprised at everyone's attitude? But seemed genuine.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] And that makes Beta’s heart flutter a little bit.-[Shannon laughs]
>Mike/ G.M.: So you successfully navigate your way through the shifting doorways and hallways of the estate and you're sort of like ducking in and out of these opening and closing doors and walking down these hallways as they're reconfiguring themselves and shifting diagonally and up and down until finally Merkis successfully takes you through this, this set of like last-minute lefts and rights and ducking in and around all these things and you get to the library there are a lot. About these in the library including a bunch on a big long sturdy finished wood table, it's like a slightly nicer version of what you saw in the, in the den there are all kinds of shelves on the left and right side of this long tall rectangular building there are countless books a bunch of them remain on the shelves, but many have been toppled onto the ground opened ripped apart as though they might like hide some secret. On the far end of the room you can see a ransacked writing desk. Could, Merkis ,could you please roll a D6? This will determine whether or not there are any aggressors left over in this room.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Aww man, here we go.
>Mike/ G.M.: And and it's just-just to be clear I want to let you know what your options are or what-what the results are going to be. The higher up you go the less likely it will be that you encounter people because it's just harder to get higher up and the library is a relatively low room. So if you roll high there's going to be someone in here. If you roll low, there's no one here.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC]We got a four.
>Mike/ G.M.: Okay, so you rolled high four five six. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Oof, Yeah.
[01:19:41] >Mike/ G.M.: Okay, so as you are taking in the-as you are taking in the vista of the library and looking at just the wreckage and all of these bodies, from the other side of the writing desk emerges suddenly this like tall sort of gangly humanoid looking figure covered in a kind of leather armor, and it's holding a large machete in one hand and it starts running towards you and it's like it's hard to tell it's got like a thick sort of like strange accent but it sounds like it's shouting about treasure and spoils and doesn't seem happy that you are here trying to get things from the Aanverders estate. Everybody roll initiative real quick just roll your movement dice and tell me what the result is.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis got five.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta got a-Beta got a five. > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy got a nine.
> Mike/ G.M.:Oh no, Vynos got a one. [All: Oh!]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] R.I.P. Vynos! R.I.P. Vynos!
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] You know, Vynos is looking at the book. He's probably not even aware that this person's running at them
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Probably the most powerful of us all
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] He’s like reading another note that just like, pops into his hands.
That's like “DON’T look at this note!” -[Nick laughs]-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, I definitely believe that Vynos is unstuck in time. This is my headcanon, Vinos is just like existing in multiple different times simultaneously.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] A Gentleman doesn't tell! [ Bijan and Shannon Laugh]
> Mike/ G.M.: Whether or not they're stuck in time! [All laugh] Remy you ask first there's a like, tall gangly humanoid figure in leather armor that is just advancing on the party and shouting about treasure and goods and saying basically like, you know, “you look like company stooges get ready to get fuuucked!”
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Holding a machete? > Mike/ G.M.: Yeah
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] And which hand?
> Mike/ G.M.: In their right hand.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Great. So I think the first thing Remy does is take a free action to say [IC] Hey friend! I- how's it going? Are- you-do you really want to advance on us? It's like what is four-versus-one if you want to fight.”
> Mike/ G.M.: [IC as gangly humanoid] I TOOK OUT SIX VOID MINERS TWO HOURS AGO! I CAN TAKE ON YOUUUU!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy looks at this guy after asking him like ‘what's going on?’ so advancing so I guess Remy picks up some like debris on the ground. Is there like a rock?
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, there's a candle holder with, like a sort of crust candle right by your foot.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Alright, yes he picks up the candle and says [IC] suit yourself... [OOC] I will burn up burn what like three grit and use ‘charge which is it's not a spell not really because it's it has to do with nanites but you burn a certain number of grit minimum one your nanites transfer rush of biological energy into any object and launch it from your hands roll to attack using ‘d combat’ plus the number of grit you've burned if you hit the object explodes and deals damage equal to oneD6 plus the grit plus your level, you must have a thing at hand that is at least pebble size/card size each time you use a charge.
> Mike/ G.M.: and they dodge normally just with the move check? > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah. I think so. I mean, I think it's just > Mike/ G.M.: Sure yeah roll it up
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Okay
> Mike/ G.M.: Oh no, okay yeah he can't win you you rolled a thirteen, he rolled a one
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Oh hey so it does, it does it doesn't do that much damage it does
> Mike/ G.M.: Oh no, you kill him you whatever had like it's this is bad for him -[Mike laughs]- So you tell me what happens
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah so Remy is just sort of shrugs picks up this candle it's not even throwing it really sort of like sticks out his hand like if anyone is familiar with Dragonball Z it's just like shooting an energy-just like sticking out his hand and this thing just like, the half candle just flies out of it. I guess directly this person's heart, and then like goes into the flesh and then explodes like a bullet
> Mike/ G.M.: And yeah, there's just a rain of gross just like flesh and- and leather armor and this person falls to the ground and the-the library is now calm again. There's no-no more extremely tall lanky shouting man
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Owh my first job with you guys is already pretty thrilling! [captain's log stylophone beeps and whizzes] Captain's log! somebody died already!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] That wasn't us! make sure that you write that part down.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] [Captains log stylophone continues] That guy exploded himself!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] No I exploded him that was me- I-I want credit for that one. [Jenn and Shannon laugh]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Um, Mike what did you say was Cairn? [Bijan and Shannon laugh > Mike/ G.M.: Heyoo.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta quickly moving on from-from seeing Remy explode a guy rushes over to the books to see if she sees anything interesting.
> Mike/ G.M.: yeah. I mean, there's all kinds like you wanna pick one up? > Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] yeah. I want to pick one up
> Mike/ G.M.: yeah it's like the life and times of professor Zizzlebyth Nibblebot -[Shannon laughs]- and it's just it's got like-
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] What edition is it? What edition is it?
> Mike/ G.M.: It's the, it's the fifth it's the well so it's hard it's the third volume it's these it's the
sixth reprinting and in in the third and the fifth reprintings they added some new front matter
[01:25:00] Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Wooow! And that was a small print so this is pretty yeah, this is a pretty rare book and, and Beta does know that.
> Mike/ G.M.: Maybe acquisitions would be interested in this edition, otherwise yeah, maybe this belongs in your personal, your personal collection.
Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yeah Beta adds it to her bag.-[Mike laughs]
> Mike/ G.M.: It, yeah, there are a bunch of other books around, they're all kind of similar things. It's like autobiographies and memoirs of accomplished people. There are some books about military strategy, there are some books about meeting people, and about architecture, and like all kinds of stuff, some books of poetry
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Vynos begins pulling all the books like they are little triggers to trap doors to see if that-to see if that happens so he pulls all of the books out from all the library.
> Mike/ G.M.: So yeah, the shelves are now after about 10 minutes the shelves are bare. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis walks over to the-the writing desk
> Mike/ G.M.: And yeah there's just a bunch of papers there's a, there's uh, quite a large pen that is sort of like shoved into the desk like someone stabbed it into the desk.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis tries to pull it out from the desk.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah after a couple of seconds you get it, it's a real big pen. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Is it like, as -[Jenn laughs]- as big as his head? > Mike/ G.M.: Probably yeah, it's like-alright, it's like arm-sized.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Do you think Algar would like this?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh probably that's a good idea.
Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Wow! you are, you are so good at understanding people, I can already tell Merkis. I wish I had that.
> Mike/ G.M.: Uh so what is clear at this point is that there's definitely no weird vase object in this room.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah. I think Remy walks over to the guy he killed, you know just looked at him he's like, huh? does he see anything strange like is there any sign that this person was like, warped?
> Mike/ G.M.: No definitely just a bandit who was here trying late in the process to get whatever he could.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Okay, Remy takes his machete. > Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, you have a machete.
Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Well team, should we move on from this room? it doesn’t look like anything in here.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yes I took, I took a few more interesting-looking books and put him in my rucksack.
> Mike/ G.M.: Sure yeah you have a- you have a couple books, yeah, you know, I'll roll on a table later to figure out what weird books you got.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Oh! can you also tell me what the weird binding is like human skin or -[Mike laughs]
> Mike/ G.M.: Oh! Sure, I will also roll on a table for yeah the bookmaking technique. > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yay!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy notices this and is like: [IC] Oh you like skin too? -[Mike laughs Jenn: ew!]-
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Oh no, some of the better books use it.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh okay, yeah, ok
>Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] All right, should we get out of here.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] We've got A kitchen, we've got a war room, a meeting room and a gallery still.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Well, fuck it whatever's let's go to the, let's go to the war room I wonder if they're more dead people there?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Maybe she has some trophies in there. [OOC] Oh hell yeah! got a six >Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Expert navigation.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Love to see it. [Thrumming synth music interlude begins] [Thrumming synth music interlude ends]
> Mike/ G.M.: Merkis, you successfully navigate everyone using the pendant projection map of the estates to the war room. The war room is smaller than the previous rooms that you've been in it's kind of like a study almost it's darker than the other rooms that you've seen the interior of it is like, a dark kind of blue and there's a large tilted almost like, draftsman table at the far end there is a number of ripped maps that are on some of the walls, and you can see that there are a number of flat-file drawers. The thicket of bodies in here is-or the density of bodies in here is pretty high and as you walk in you can actually hear one of them gasp for breath and they like, raise a hand up into the air, you know, as if sort of like, asking for help and when you look down you can see that this is- Merkis a f-fellow jalasti. This is uh, this is a lizard person who is dressed in like, bandit gear.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Okay, bandit gear? are we thinking like Mad Max Fury Road bandit gear?
> Mike/ G.M.: Absolutely. Thousand percent. Yeah, nailed it, yeah. Even though it's a hundred million years in the future, you know, like, technology has mostly kind of disappeared or just become very strange, and so most inhabitants of the galaxy that you come across live a kind of provincial existence, and so to them armor is essentially tannery, you know, they have, it's like, leather and whatever, like, metal stuff they sort of salvaged from that giant crashed spaceship they found that one time.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis sees this, this fellow jalasti reaching out to him and he unfurls a left ear flap and reaches a hand now and just says [IC] c- cousin? cousin?
[1:30:00] > Mike/ G.M: [IC as jalasti]-[In a raspy whisper]- Cousin... [OOC] And the jalasti looks at you, Merkis and says: [IC as jalasti] -[In a raspy whisper]- What are you here to do...liberate? Cousin?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] We're looking for something. We don't know what. Is there anything interesting in this room?
> Mike/ G.M: The jalasti sort of, like, coughs a little bit and like, spits up some blood, tilts their head up and looks around and says [IC as jalasti] -[In a raspy whisper]- I came and f-fought through so much...for nothing...[OOC] And it, and like, maybe he like, loses his consciousness for a second and says: [IC as jalasti] -[In a raspy whisper]- I tried... to get to the gallery...couldn't make it. [OOC] Again like, coughs and sort of like spasms a little bit possible a
little bit of blood.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] The gallery?
> Mike/ G.M: This jalasti looks real pale they’re, yeah, they're not gonna make it much longer. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis like, puts a hand on their chest and says [IC] I wish you
peace, cousin.
> Mike/ G.M: What do they say in The Last of Us 2? [IC as jalasti][In a raspy whisper] “May your survival be long.”
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy cheerses with the foot, and says [IC][In a Hulk Hogan voice] “CHEERS BROTHERR”.
> Mike/ G.M: -[Mike laughs]- Remy is now Hulk Hogan.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Do you still wanna look around in this room everybody? > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] No. I'm good. -[Bijan laughs]
> Mike/ G.M: The jalasti kind of expires.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] The jalasti died for us to know that we have to go to the gallery.
-[Bijan laugh]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC]-[ Captain’s log whizzes and beeps]- Captains log! I saw a cousin die!
>Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Uh, Yeah, I'm sorry. I'm sorry uh Merkis I didn't help you out there but I'm kind of I don't know what we're gonna get into and you know, I swore to protect my co-fleeters. I can't, I can't, I can't heal anyone, really... [OOC] and she trails off and is like [IC] let's head to the gallery! -[Mike laughs]-
> Jenn/ "Merkis":[OOC] Merkis is just more mucousy than usual. All over his body. -[Bijan and Mike Laugh]-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Bleh! is he leaving a slime trail?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yeah like a snail.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] But it's a sad trail, cause it’s sad.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yes, sad trail, all right, so we try to navigate to the gallery?
> Mike/ G.M.: You navigate from the war room to the gallery. There's less sort of like up and down in this one, it's like there's a lot of side to side, and just like waiting for rooms to pass, and
like, watching these portals open, and you know-it's -the kitchen. Watching these portals open and it's- the meeting room, and then finally like, the right hallway comes. You walk down the hallway and at the end of it. You run into the gallery. The first thing that you notice upon arrival at the gallery is that you are deposited into this like, small hallway, that's very thick with bodies. There are so many like dead bandits and emissaries here, that it's hard to see the floor; in a few spots, they're like, piled on top of one another, so this was a very popular destination. As you come into this hallway, you know, you sort of turn and the gallery is to the right. You turn to the right and you can see this is also where that giant tree that you saw grows through a part of the building so you know, now that you're in sort of the middle top part of the large spire on the left-hand side of the estate. You can see that there's a tree growing sort of through a permanently opened gap in the otherwise always moving building. The tree comes diagonally into the hallway, like through an opening in-in the building and then goes out through the ceiling, and you can see that like, the panels of the estate are clacking and shuddering against it as they're like trying to move and trying to reconfigure, but they can't because the tree is stopping things from repositioning, and it has these deep marks in it from decades if not a century like, who knows, of growing up and through and against, the mechanism of this house. If you get closer, and you like walk towards where the tree is and where the gallery would be, you can actually see like, through the small slits in the panels, and like as they move back and forth trying to rearrange themselves, you can get a look into the gallery, and you can see that it is in fact just- full of stuff -full of like, shiny, colorful, undisturbed things. There's paintings, there's sculptures, tiny statues, glass cases with a lot of small knick-knacks. It's all just sort of like undisturbed, on display, well-lit and in the distance at the far end of the room see on a pedestal this thing that's, kind of like,it's hard to sort of figure out what it is? It looks kind of like very intricately colorfully ribboned hand-blown glass- who's up front is like who's looking at it first?
[01:35:04]> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] I think Merkis is in front because he's guiding everybody.
> Mike/ G.M.: Navigating, yeah, so like, Merkis you see this thing that yeah, it looks like a very colorful ribboned hand blown glass. That, like- in one moment is the shape of like a tall skinny vase with a lot of fluting, and then the next minute it becomes, like, sort of the shape of an apple. and then a minute after that it's like a small statue of a skinny dog, but it's uh, cubist so it's like a dog from two different perspectives, and then after that, it looks like you wouldn't know this but it looks like an old-school camera. It looks like what a ‘Minolta’ would look like to us. This is the, this is, definitely the thing that Algar described. He-you would have a hard time describing what it is, but you know it, exactly when you see it, and it's in this room- but you can't get into this room because a tree is stopping it from moving, and stopping its portal doors from opening and closing.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Looks like we found it.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I hate looking at it -[Mike laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: It is, it is, like, weird and a little uncomfortable. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Hmm.
> Mike/ G.M.: You can also see as you're looking around the surroundings that one of the walls to the left of the- to the left of the gallery is kind of like, of a part with the gallery, and it's-it's also not moving. It appears like it is also stuck, that because these tiles can't rearrange themselves, these other tiles have nowhere to go. What is in the wall at that point is, like a small kind of window, and if you're to look out the window you would see you could see that the tree actually like extends down and you can see that it grows into the top of a kind of attachment to the side of the estate, that Merkis if you were to look at your map, that location-that room that's attached to the side of the estate is not on the map- it's not there, so it would appear as though there's a location on the lowest level to the left side of the estate, that the tree is growing out of- that, is you know, a bit of a mystery. The other thing that you see is that there are also like, up here the- the density of bodies at that location is very high. That like, a lot of people wanted to get into whatever that was.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] I think? I would like to ‘find a clue’ use my class power to ‘find a clue’
> Mike/ G.M.: Find that clue! tell me, tell me what this does and tell me how it works.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] ‘Pirs’ as a class power can ‘find a clue’ meaning once per session, they can find something genuinely useful plot-wise. You can find a clue toward whatever plot you want, but you should make your choice clear to the GM. The clue is specific. You don't necessarily understand the bigger picture but you know what you need to do next; so how this would look I think ia, so Beta's been around for a really long time, she's been in many situations, and I think she's going to just take a moment and really reflect.
> Mike/ G.M.: She's gonna think she's-she's gonna reflect upon what it is the crew should do next?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yes.
> Mike/ G.M.: This tree is ancient. This tree is very very old. It's a weird kind of old. It would be very-very difficult to destroy from where you're standing. It's just very sturdy, very thick, almost petrified, and you know from having walked around a lot and seen all the commotion that happened, that the estate itself is also extremely sturdy, and that it has withstood a lot of action, and has not been destroyed by all of the carnage that's happened within it. You should go to the root of the tree and see if you can figure out what's going on there, maybe that will provide information about what comes next.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Friends? Can I call you friends? Is that? Am I moving on too quickly? Ohmy goosh Beta what are you doiing? Friends?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Yes, you're my friend. > Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yes?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yes.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Okay, oh wow, you guys are great! Um, friends? We should go to the base of the tree and we, there's no way we're gonna, we're gonna be able to destroy this tree and get that, that room to move. I've seen quite a few tree in my time and my travels. We gotta get down there.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Okay sounds good to me.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] So do we know how to get to where the base of the tree is? like
where the room is?
> Mike/ G.M.: I think you could tell from where you are currently looking that it's somewhere off of the den, so you know, now that you've been navigating the house a little bit I think you might be able to sort of like, figure it out once you're closer. so I would just, I would head to the den would be my advice.
[01:40:07] > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Looks like we need to retrace our steps. > Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Perfect
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] We head back to the den and again,
> Mike/ G.M.: Yes since you're retracing your steps. I'm just gonna give it to you. You make your way down you go through all of these opening and closing portals and shifting -shifting hallways in rooms. You pass through the kitchen, a room that you haven't been in yet. It's beautiful, it's huge, it's very well appointed, there's a lot of dead people. There's -it's a shame there's so many dead people in this beautiful architecture, but you know I guess that's what happens when you are a Commandant for 600 years, or whatever. You get back out into the den, the Aanverder is not here, she's off, you know doing who knows what somewhere else in the estate, but knowing that it's not moving, you can actually get to this weird, like not on the map room pretty easily. It's- it's just off the den. It's in a portion of the room where like, now that you look, having been here for a little while, like, there actually, there were a lot of people who were trying to get in here. This was- this was a popular destination, that you just sort of like maybe looked past when you got in, because you hadn't gotten the lay of the land yet. Getting into this room even though it's stationary is made harder um, - not easier, by the tree, which is sort of like locking it in place, and this is because the openings which lead to it are smaller and they move by quicker than the other rooms, so there isn't, there isn't one like, large door that opens to Aanverder size and then gets smaller over time. There are just these, like, little gaps that you have to sort of dart through in order to get into it. You can see if you focus really hard and you look there's this... dull purple light coming from where you think this room would be, and every once in a while there's like, a little sort of like, opening that you can dive through. So all I would say is that everybody who wants to get through just pass a move check, roll your movement and get a six or higher.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Okay.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Please? Yes! Made it!
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis got a six.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC]Yikes! I got a one. Betas about to go through the garbage disposal. > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] R.I.P. Beta
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] -[Shannon laughs]- R.I.P.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] We hardly knew her.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Oh no, Vynos!
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Very close! very close!
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Do you have a do you ever note in your pocket?
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] No, I'm just happy to see you. -[All laugh]-
> Mike/ G.M.: So Merkis and Remy get through without a problem. They wait for the opening to get the right size and just kind of dive right through. Vynos is like rocking back and forth on his feet and trying to time it right and jump through at like like slightly too late, um Vynos just take two damage from being clipped by the plates of the estate -[Nick: Awh]- which are very sturdy and you know, like I think maybe the like the end of your robe gets sheared off a little bit or maybe you lose a flip-flop. I don't know? Is Vynos the kind of guy that wears flip-flops?
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yes. Big jangly ones. -[All laugh]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy is like :[IC] Like yo you good? You need anything to eat?
[OOC] and just offers him a hand
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] No. I'm okay.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I know you're-I know you-I know you're weird bro, you can't time travel without being fucked up.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yeah. I don't eat people. -[Mike laughs]-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Hmm....hmm...
> Mike/ G.M.: Beta what objects do you have on you like what are you carrying?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] I have. So far I have a book I have a long sword. I have a fragmentation grenade and I also have a little pill packet with some pills in it.
> Mike/ G.M.: You roll, you rolled a one which means it’s an automatic failure. So you are gonna take 2D4 damage. You just, you time this really poorly, um, I think maybe you just like, got in your own head about it, and like tried to time it really well and just sort of like over thought it and you almost get like chopped in half -[Shannon cringes]- by the estate as it closes on you. You are saved from being eaten- by the sturdy construction of your company-given backpack, which is like, thick enough that if you know the mechanism of the estate, kind of like, realizes that there's some sort of resistance,and at the last moment before it chops you in half relents, but what happens is your sword gets bent. -[Shannon gasps]- and before you can use it again to its full effect we'll need to be repaired back on Spindle.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yeah this really hurts Beta because Beta, I mean it’s actually a personality traits trait of shoodtha’s that they love swords, and they're obsessed with swords, uh so this really hurts her, and it physically hurts her too as she takes five damage. She kind of bounces back and is like [IC] Ah! Ow! My SwAOOOrd! -[Mike laughs]
[1:45:15] > Mike/ G.M.: What hurt more the pain or the sword? > Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC]Definitely the sword.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy is like: [IC] you want this machete? [OOC] and offers her a machete.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Nooo! That’s a tiny baby sword! That's not a sword!
> Mike/ G.M.: -[Mike laughs]- Very curious about the shoodtha taxonomy of what counts as a
sword.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] -[Bijan laughs]- I think a machete would be a sword to a shoodtha, but yeah. That's fine.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] There are strict cut-offs on what is a sword.
> Mike/ G.M.: So I mean, the Beta would be very interested in the Aanvaders sword if you
were to ever encounter it again. I would guess.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Oh yes, hey, she was.
> Mike/ G.M.: Quite-quite-quite-quite large and ornate.
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, -[electric hum begins]- so you're all inside this room. The secret room now. You sort of, some of you definitely scramble and some of you, you know, barely survived the transition into this, like, dimly lit squat rectangle of a room, and you enter at its lower left-hand corner. It’s a dull purple it's dull like, dimly lit so it's dark kind of moody. There's a few bodies on the floor. Not many people made it in here, and it appears as though the ones that did like have, basically just killed each other, so they were in, like, some duel situations, where you
know, neither of the people who made it in here made it out alive, and these people have been in here for a while so like none of these bodies are- these are not fresh bodies. There's like a low almost kind of like electrical hum, and every once in a while you can hear a, sort of like zapping sound. The floor is really uneven, and looking down you can see that it's because of the tree roots which are spread out along it, and they lead to the bottom of the tree that you saw from above. It's uh, to your- it's across the room all the way to your right at what you might call ‘the top right corner’ of this room if you are in the bottom left, it's mostly obscured by a kind of partition. It looks like it's sort of, like in, it's in a small like booth, or it's own like, little room like a bay of some kind, you know, as you're in here and your eyes are adjusting to the darkness, and you get a little bit more detail about what's going on. You can see that that little booth there's like a shimmering transparent partition in front of it. A kind of like, barrier and it's then you all realize that this is a prison. This is a place where the Aanverder keeps people- people trophies.
-[Jenn:..oh.]- And you can tell, actually, that there are six cells in here. There's three in front of you and There's three you know ostensibly although you can't- you aren't looking at them directly, to your right. The tree occupies one of them. The one that's directly across from you is empty. There's no one in it. Each is the source of its own sort of like, dark purple light. There's like, some sort of glow-emanating from some sort of technology or something, that's in each of these tiny rooms. In the middle of the wall- of the wall that's across from you. You see a like, a rustling, a sort of like, rustle-like movement of a small body and you see something, a person, approach the shimmering transparent border and it would appear to be a ‘Harajoon’. This is like an all-white ape-like creature with a long sort of snout that has a permanent grin kind of looks like its face kind of looks a little bit like a corgi, you know, corgis are always smiling. This is a harajoon. And they are wearing a tuxedo; like they're on their way to a very fancy dinner party. All of you would be very familiar with harajoon. They are a sapient that does a lot of work with the company. They are actually considered by the company to be good luck. This harajoon in a tuxedo hears you enter the room as you stumble through-hears the sword get crushed, and runs to the transparent partition.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] A-OH my god! You guys gotta get me outta here! H-hey hey! Ah look I can’t bang on this thing it doesn't make any noise, but uh, c-can you hear me!?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah, how'd you get in there what the fuck dude?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Ah! W-Well, Uh, I was at a party. The last thing I remember I-I-I was at a party and then four days ago. I-I woke up in here? Aand you know, there were some fighting sounds, um, I'm not entirely sure what's going on. I got some rough ideas, but uh, listen Haha! One thing I do- I know is they're so water in here! Uh, Oh my god... Oh my god! Are you Stillfleeters!? Are you from the Co.!?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yes?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Why yes we are!
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] HOAHAHAHAHAHA! By the fleas in my pants! Please you gotta get me outta here!
[01:50:00]> Mike/ G.M.: Um and he's just gesturing to a part of the room that you kind of can't see, he's like pointing at something that's, that's to your right, to his left like as if to indicate that the way to get him out is somewhere over there.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] I-I think it's over there, ah but listen, I don't know. I’ve-I've never been outside this thing, but I think it's over there. Y-you figure it out! You could do it!
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Wait a minute, who are you?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Oh, Uh-uh-um my name's Oat. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Oat?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh. Doesn't matter who he is, he's in trouble. Seems like we should get him out of there.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Okay- Oat! [OOC] And Merkis looks for something on the right of the room?
Mike/ G.M.: Yeah if you walk in and go right. Okay, so there's a lot we have to- there's a lot to cover in this small span. As you walk down the center of the-the prison, you finally get a full view of what's going on here. So there are in fact six cells. There's the empty one that was across from where you entered. There's the one that Oat is in, and then next to Oat is the one that the tree is in. Across from them, there are three other cells that contain three other things. The closest to you to the entrance there is a kind of hovering black metal crystal. Also behind a shimmering gate with this glowing purple light coming up from the floor. Hard to tell what it is but it's definitely big, looks metal, crystal. Next to that is Vynos. You would definitely know what this is Beta since you're a Xenobiologist. I'm gonna guess that there's like an 80% chance that you would know what this is.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Okay.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": Oat sees Vynos, like kind of backing up like, not having turned around yet, and he says, [IC as Oat] Uh! look! these force fields. I think they're pretty strong, but uh, ol’ fella you might want to turn around!
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] So Vynos turns around.
Mike/ G.M.: You see an ‘Illithnari’ which is a slightly larger than human-sized sapient that has what looks like a kind of octopus for a head it's got human appendages, but it also has many tentacles some of those tentacles are bionic they are a serveroid they are a kind of technology that is extremely advanced, and as far as you all know is actually from the future. Some of its tentacles are psionic, so they exist only through the sheer will of the illithnari’s brain. It's floating. It's motionless. It would appear as though, much like the black crystal there's something
about this unit that it's in that, like, keeps it sedated, stops it from moving. It's definitely not awake, but it's still kind of like moving.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Is this like a C’thulian being?
> Mike/ G.M.: Yes a-an illithnari is in fact, yes a ‘C’thulicate’ entity. These are deeply feared beings; their goal, sort of like the inverse of what Beta Commbot is after, is to learn as much as they possibly can. The way that they do that is by just consuming beings. They are very much on the ‘eat your brain and gain your knowledge’ scale of-of learning. One of the other notable things about it as a c’thulicate entity is that some of its many appendages -it's very hard to describe, it's, you know, as hard to describe as it is to look at; like, it's almost like slices of its tentacles and its appendages, and some of its dress are coming in and out of existence. That there are these bits of it that aren't visually or visibly attached to it that come in and out of being, and this is because, again like, Vynos and Beta you would know this, that they are an extra-dimensional being. So there are bits-bits of this Illithnari that are like, dipping into our dimension and then dipping back out and you can only see certain parts of it, but its eyes are dark and it doesn't appear to notice you- doesn't make any movements towards you would appear to just be a prisoner.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Yeah, she hasn't moved in like four days, and um... That's about the only good news I got down here... And I hate to break you out of your reverie of terror, which I recognize from my first day, but uh, her neighbors ain't that great either...
> Mike/ G.M.: And if you look to the left, you also see a sort of short but skinny humanoid figure but a meter and a half tall. Very dull skin, you know, you can't tell if it's the light or what it's like gray or blue or purple. A totally hairless humanoid figure wearing a skin-tight disturbingly matte black suit that covers everything from its neck down, and I think Commbot you might be the only one that knows that this is a ‘Void Elf’.Void elves are- their reputation is that they are just like murderous hedonists, they are incredibly smart they come from a post-scarcity society and they're immortal, so for them things like global war? Are entertainment. These are things that are interesting to them, and things that they seek to foment because it makes their lives more interesting. The thing to the right unless someone rolls some dice at it, you don't know what it is from looking at it.
[01:55:22]> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta is just overwhelmed by what she’s looking at. she can't even believe that she's in such a small space there are sapients that she's only ever read about.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy notices this and notices like Betas surprise and shock and awe and is looking just looking around to see if there's any other features of the room like there's any like an obvious like power-button or like a gate control for the cells or whatever.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah so, between- on the wall between the cell that the tree is and the cell that the void elf is in, and the void elf is similar to the illithnari it's non-responsive- on the wall between those two cells in the very middle of the room you see a panel glow, a panel of glowing light. This is where the sparking sound is coming from. There are some sparks coming out of it
every once in a while,-[sparking electricity]- and if you approach you can see it's because there's a big knife that's been shoved into it, and underneath it there is like a prawn person sort of like a, like a big shrimp-like shrimp sapient that's wearing like a big cowboy hat, and It looks like it has an ar- like an arrow through its chest, and you know, something happened here you know, this-this being, this sapient was trying to use this panel but was stopped.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Is the panel still usable?
> Mike/ G.M.: Um, the panel is- the panel is on. It is definitely damaged. It's got a bunch of text
on it that I don't think any of you can read.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Do you see it? I can tell by your face that you see something!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I don't see anything, I dunno what you’re talkin’ about.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Oh no, come on!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Nah I don’t even see you bro what are you? What’s your deal?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] What's my deal!?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I know what you are, what’s your deal?.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Ee- uh-My deal is uh, look, I'm just a guy! um,
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] I don't like you.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Y’know I-I was at a party You don’t have to like me c’mon, please!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] You’re probably in there for a reason- that's fine.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Well, look. I mean, you know. You work for the Co.
right!?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah. Do you?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Yeah so I-I've been to Spin! Liste- uh I've been to Spin! I-I know some people there! Take me back with you! I-take me back with you and I'll- I'll introduce you to some friends of mine.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Okay? yeah.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Drinks on me! I got a tab. I gotta tab down at the Bays of this place you’re gonna love. I-you know, we'll get some kelp on me! come on!
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Uh, can Merkis use insight? > Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, absolutely
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] This is burning one grit to make a reaction check and if successful I have a minor epiphany and that includes detecting if this person is lying.
> Mike/ G.M.: Sure, yeah.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Going to burn one grit and do a- oh! not reaction. reason. I'm sorry
so much Shadowrun.
> Mike/ G.M.: it's funny yeah we're stuck and Shadowrun I do that too all the time.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] REA baby
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] You never forget your first love.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Got a twelve. I’m rollin’ great!
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] holy shit,
> Mike/ G.M.: You fucking nailed it Um, not only are you absolutely sure that everything Oat has said up until this point is 100% truthful. He also seems like a great guy. -[Jenn laughs]-
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Well I have a really good feeling about this Oat. We should help him! > Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Eyyyyes! Yes! what's your name? what's your name? > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] I'm Merkis!
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Merkis gets it! Marcus come on look! a-ha I know we just met! But I'm locked in here without any food or water. I don't think anyone's comin’ with any food, water, and as you can see that at least the people I can see that I'm locked in here with they're not the kind of people. I want to be around all the time! so please! please help me out! I saw you see something at the end of this hallway, please tell me it's a box with a keyhole in it.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Well it’s not quite a keyhole...
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat]Aha! Not quite a keyhole but something a little
keyhole-ish!
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Does anyone have anything that can navigate this?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I mean Remy walks up to the box and looks at it again.
> Mike/ G.M.: There's like a bunch of menu items and options... > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy removes the knife from the box, > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] What kind of tech is it?
> Mike/ G.M.: Well, hold on if Remy removes the knife from the box, > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] oh no!
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Remy! -[Shannon laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: Taylor that feels right, right?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] yeah dog
> Mike/ G.M.: yeah, okay so Remy you as you reach up, and you take the knife out of the box. -[Electrical Shock]- There's like a big spark that flies, you know, it like, makes a loud zapping sound, and the box-like blinks. There's a bunch of text that shows up on it that's sort of like, scrolls really quick and really fast. It looks kind of like, I don't know, like, if you've ever booted your computer up in single-user mode? It's like you, like all you see is the terminal and it just scrolls by really quick, and you're like ‘oh no, I did something wrong!’
[02:00:14]> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Nah. I'm usually ‘oh that's a good sign’ because if it's booting in that mode, it's like ‘I fucked something up beforehand!’ -[Taylor laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, yeah so you're looking at- you're basically looking at like the O.S. rebooting or whatever, and then it blinks out and doesn't blink back on. You hear that electrical hum that has pervaded the room the entire time you've been here it shut off -[electrical hum powers down]- and you can see the shimmering gate that is in front of every cell disappears all at the same time all simultaneously -[Mike and Taylor laugh]- and then a bunch of things happen.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Uh Oh! > Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Goodness
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] Oat’s reaction, it's gonna be one of very confused joy, and abject terror, and he steps up he grabs his ja- like, grabs a jacket off the back of like a chair that was in his cell and like puts it over his back and is like [IC] I think this is one of those unintended consequences I've heard about in the past!
> Mike/ G.M.: -[Mike laughs]- I’m gettin’ real like Groucho Marx vibes! -[All laugh]-
> Mike/ G.M.: Let's go one at a time here, Oats cell opens, there's no longer a barrier in Oats cell and he can leave. The tree’s cell opens and you-what you now notice now that they're
starting to turn off is that there was no dull purple light coming from Oats cell that it was actually dark except for the-the dim light of the shimmering- the shimmering barrier, and you can see now that the light in the trees cell turns off after the barrier disappears and the tree just starts to grow. It grows, and grows, and grows. It's like it's growing up you know a hundred years in the span of a couple seconds, and it rips apart a portion of the ceiling. It tears down some parts of the wall, which is like, incredible because, you know as far as you've seen this estate has been very very hard to injure or destroy in any way and after a couple seconds of it just growing and growing it's slows. You can hear the fibers of it kind of come to rest, and then it's like it almost shrinks back into itself and it starts to get smaller and smaller, and it starts to dry and become brittle until you can actually see the top of it the tough to the green part that you saw from the outside retreat through the opening in the ceiling that it's just made until it slowly becomes the head of an enjan man, of one of those tree people that you met earlier today. You met that woman at the the desk, and you can see that this is it becomes like us the form of a humanoid, of an enjan, and then it shrinks and shrinks and just becomes sort of like a desiccated body- of you know, someone who has been here for long enough to become like a millennia tree.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] I hope this tree wasn't your Banshee. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Oh no that's me!
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC] Oh that's good news, okay, let's go!
> Mike/ G.M.: The lights also turn off underneath the void elf, the illithnari, and the black crystal. The void elf comes to and its eyes open and it just disappears. [bamfing noise] Like there's no ornament about it it just kind of like, sucks into a tiny bead of light and is gone.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] As Beta sees that she just yells, [IC] What's the oldest thing you rememberrrrr! -[Mike laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: The illithnari comes to and its eyes open, and you know, a few more of its tentacles come into three-space from whatever other dimension they're currently occupying, and you can see from the dark folds of its cloak it's wearing this bright red like get like blood-stained almost gown. It reaches in to inside it and pulls out this long object that looks like it looks like a bone-it looks like a bone carved from onyx and it's sort of flicks its tentacle a little bit the bone opens up and doubles in size to a talon and there's like a talon that's on the end of it and it rears back-and shoves its arm forward, and uses this bone talon sword spear to just cut a hole in space. -[the sound of space tearing- You can smell the ozone as it does this it's like it's just burning through atmosphere and you can see a jagged black envelope just open in the middle of the room and the illithnari just calmly walks through it and then it just knits back together. The illithnari is gone.
[02:05:10]> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Remy is-is legitimately awed by this and it's like I want to learn how to do that -[Mike laughs]- not that is possible for him but -[Bijan laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: The barrier in front of, the barrier in front of the black crystal goes down, and its purple light turns off.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Come oooon third disappearing bad guy! come oooon -[Nick laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: Uhh nothing happens, it just continues to Spin pleasantly [Shannon sighs]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] okay, well I've seen enough here it's time to get the fuck out. what do
you guys say?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Should we grab the crystal?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] What! no what no you mean in the other? In the other room? Yeah, okay fine why not but let's get the fuck out of this one.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Oh I was thinking about grabbing this crystal.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Beta- Beta is already walking towards the crystal.
> Mike/ G.M.: Beta as you walk towards the crystal it unfolds into a very strange-looking almost stone chair and it starts talking to you. It starts inviting you to get inside of it.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] [with a robotic voice]Hey, uh you? Get inside me.You wanna go for a ride? [All laugh] Hey, yeah, come on in. c’mere.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta whizzes is over. [IC] Very nice to meet you! what is-what's your name?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] Beta Commbot feels-what what pronouns should I use with Commbot Shannon?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Ah, she.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] okay Commbot feels like her circuits like there's a wave that kind of like, goes through like, almost like someone's transponding and then it- it stops immediately and you hear the voice again in your quote-unquote head. [IC as NTS] [Robot Voice ]I believe in your language you would call me ‘Nearer the Sun Than is Advisable’
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC]‘Nearer the Sun Than is Advisable’?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] ‘Nearer the Sun Than is Advisable’.
> Mike/ G.M.: Um, Shannon-remind me does your character speak. Either ‘High’ or ‘Late Tephnian’?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] I speak late.
> Mike/ G.M.: This is a word in Late Tephnian.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Hmm.
> Mike/ G.M.: Like ‘Nearer the Sun Than is Advisable’ is a phrase that has a single word in late Tephnian. So you might at this point suspect that this is like technique and technology of some kind.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Ah, my friend huh that is that sounds familiar to me tell me-
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] A BLASTED WORN OUT ROCK- Sorry. I wasn't
talking to you.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Oh no so sorry to interrupt you-
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] UNTIL YOUR BONES ARE DUST- again, sorry. I wasn't talking to you.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Wow you got a busy phone line here! Um, I must ask what's the, what's the oldest thing you remember?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] The oldest thing I remember is a large gas giant coalescing around a star of pure carbon, what you would call diamond. -[Jenn laughs]-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I think Remy also speaks Late Tephnian and so if this is in Late Tephnian- then I guess he understands it.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, I think it knows that you would speak some version of-of Spin and so would translate for you so like everybody who's around if they don't resist the kind of like, hypersonic communication that it's engaging in would be able to hear what it's saying.
I think it would just translate for you ‘Nearer the sun that is advisable’ because it would know that you would get it as opposed to saying whatever late Tephnian; whatever that word would be “F-f-Fnivnal Flavul’
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] That. Is. Incredible. I-I have to ask-
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] My first host was a scientist warrior who was studying the coalescing of gas giants so that we could better understand how to attack a species we had recently come across.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] How did you end up here?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] I WILL ATOMIZE YOUR CHILDREN'S CHILDREN- sorry again not talking to you.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] [Laughs] You got a lot going on and I love that! I wish I had more going on. I only really talked to the people who are here and maybe one or two other people though. I try to meet everyone that I come across! You know, that feeling?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] No.
> Mike/ G.M.: Um Beta you are talking to something that appears to be having 10 simultaneous
experiences and it is asking you to board it.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Hmm, yeah Beta. Beta wants to get on board.-[Taylor sounds delighted]-
> Mike/ G.M.: Oh does Beta get on board?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [OOC] While you're you are being asked to board a whole sort of a ripple runs across this thing and a whole sort of appears and like part of it turns liquid and the liquid sort of drops down and each drop becomes a step that you could easily just walk up like stairs and enter the gape in the back of this thing.
> Mike/ G.M.: Remy this is definitely nanofluidics like this is not ‘The Blood’ but like this is nanotechnology through and through. Maybe some of the most advanced that you've ever seen.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Oh Remy's very interested. Remy's like ahah!
> Mike/ G.M.: Beta you let me know if you get into ‘Nearer the Sun than is Advisable’
[02:09:56] > Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] So Beta definitely I mean she’s gonna want to.She seeing a lot going on, and as much as she knows she's you know been in the company for a while and she knows that she's supposed to you know, ‘fulfill her duty’ or whatever really she's only there because she wants to experience everything and she's curious about everything and so she has this pole to go towards it unless someone stops her.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I mean Remys also just like, oh, I know Beta I like, he also like, wants to protect her because he thinks he knows better even though he doesn't but also he's like, oh nanofluids.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] So yes she-
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] POPULATION CONTROLS ARE MANDATORY,
Sorry. -[Mike laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: So yeah you ascend these small steps and you settle into this weird like almost throne? and it kind of starts to feel like it's hugging you like, it's kind of, like you're sinking into it the way that you sink into a very comfortable couch and then it closes over on top of you and it's kind of like being closed into a meditation chamber. It's very peaceful, it's very quiet and it feels very comfortable, it's very warm.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] ARE YOU COMFORTABLE? > Mike/ G.M.: Could you pass a will check, please?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Sure
> Mike/ G.M.: And I would like to remind you and introduce to the audience the idea that you can charge your roles, you can spend three grit to add three to the results that you roll you can spend six to add six and you can spend nine to add nine so please roll six or higher on a will check, and I will just repeat. Please roll six or higher on a will check.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] I rolled a ten! [Jenn sighs in relief] > Mike/ G.M.: Hell yes! You feel smarter than you have ever felt. [Cosmic music begins]
> Mike/ G.M.: You feel like you know, the beginnings of the universe, and that like given enough time it's just a matter of sitting down to do the work to figure out what happens next that like causality is very clear to you now and that really this is all a determinate game you feel like there is no possible way that anybody in the world when you are in this state could see you as anything other than a smart and capable and powerful being. You feel powerful. you feel like there is no one who would dare stop you.
[Cosmic music fades.]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC] Meanwhile Merkis is scared and thinks that she's in danger and just
starts like, knocking on the outside of it. [Scared whimper]
> Mike/ G.M.: The blackness in front of you that you get when ‘Nearer the Sun than is Advisable’ N.T.S. from this point forward when N.T.S. closes in front of you and it goes dark. That disappears now and you can kind of see through the H.U.D. that closes down over you it becomes like, slightly transparent and you can see all of your friends, and you can see this harajoon ape you've just picked up you can see the room and you can see that there are reticles around, all of them. you can see their vital stats, you can see their heart rates, you can see their rough ages, you can see what languages they speak, and you feel like yourself, you feel like you can just walk around. From the outside everybody, you basically see Beta get subsumed by this weird armor, and now she kind of looks like a small jet-black version of ED-209 from the Robocop movies. [Jenn and Taylor laugh] and like you can't see her face but if she were to say something you would hear like a slightly reverberant sort of electronic twinge diversion of her voice-she appears to be herself..
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy’s like: [IC] yo that's fucking cool, how do -I how do I get one?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] [With an electronic tinge] Haaah! Remy, you wouldn't believe how good I feel right now.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC][NTS]Welcome inside ‘Nearer to the Sun Than is Advisable’. Would you like water? [Mike Jenn and Bijan laugh]
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Um, do you have anything um...metallic? -[Taylor laughs]- > Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC][NTS] DETECTING NON-ORGANIC HOST.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Yes.
> Mike/ G.M.: As near the Sun and beta are talking about what fluids will be produced from the surrounding atmosphere[Taylor and Shannon laugh] and everybody's sort of just like watching one side of this conversation. The void elf blinks back into existence in the room. [Shannon gasps]
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC][NTS] THREAT DETECTED.
> Mike/ G.M.: and it is wearing a large sort of like, mecha-battle armor. -[Bijan laughs]- With lots of guns and spines on the outside, um, but instead of legs it's kind of like a flying saucer and it's got a big helmet and the helmet has what looks like uh, night vision goggles on it and it throws a frag grenade to your feet and it says -[pitched up voice]- [IC as the’ void elf’] Get fucked motherfuckers! [OOC] and then disappears again. You all-you all have about three seconds to figure out what to do with a frag grenade that was just thrown at your feet.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy laughs and jumps on it. -[Flopping noise]-
[02:15:00]> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC][NTS] THREAT NEUTRALIZED.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah. I mean if you jump on it, you're just gonna take a one D20 damage.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, so Remy does have ‘Cloud’ which disperses part- he can't be destroyed, basically. [Jenn What!?]
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, that's right you can like, foam yourself, right?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah so “Nanites disperse part of your body into a cloud before being destroyed by a massive impact and reconstituting most of your body afterwards. Cloud gives you a plus 4 to all rolls that have anything to with severe damage -blah blah blah blah blah- in addition cloud adds back two health to your body whenever you're zero health one time per combat, -etc, etc etc- Oh! Sorry important part- you cannot turn this power off, after it activates you feel like retching for days”. Oh, I mean, this is assuming that fuckin ‘Nearer to the Sun’ doesn't do anything first. -[Bijan laughs]-
> Mike/ G.M.: I mean, you are the first one.
Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [Laughing] No! you neutralized the threat! although Oat does say: [IC as Oat] Oh no! not here means the only one that's demonstrated any good judgment at all! [Shannon and Mike laugh]
> Mike/ G.M.: So I would say just, you know like, you don't get a move role because the point, the point is that you're not dodging it.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] The other thing is I should-I should tell you a Remys ‘telos’ is-is penance which is testing his limits and what he can do in service of getting better. So this is exactly in them in the like vein of his ‘telos’. He's just like: yeah, fuck it, can I do this?
> Mike/ G.M.: So roll just roll a D4 for me/
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Okay, three.
> Mike/ G.M.: You take two damage, but you also gain two grit.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Can I go over my maximum?
> Mike/ G.M.: No
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Alright Then it doesn't matter,
> Mike/ G.M.: So Like what? Does this look- Do you like-you throw your body onto this thing There's a huge explosion, and then a cloud?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah I mean like, if it only does two damage then no. Like if it does two damage, Remy jumps on this grenade-like he's like he's wearing like it looks-like it's like, a raggedy like cloth thing, that kind of hangs like a suit but isn't? So I guess it just like he jumps on this thing it, like and there's an explosion, but there's like and there's debris that-like sort of flies up under him like, like a vacuum cleaner sort of expelling itself backwards, and then he gets up and it's just like all right and you. See like a hole in his like suit but like and maybe like a lot of flesh sort of starting to knit itself back together
> Mike/ G.M.: Like all of this particulate matter in the room like collecting and coalescing coming back into yeah turning back into your chest?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah.
> Mike/ G.M.: I mean, yeah, you feel like shit yeah, but I think he's-he I think he feels really
smug also.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ IC ] Merkis' eyes are SO wide because so many different things happened just now.
> Mike/ G.M.: Beta Commbot is inside ‘Nearer the Sun Than is Advisable’ you have Ote the tuxedo-wearing Harajoon do you guys want to go back to the gallery?
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yes.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yeah.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ OOC ]Yeah.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy is just like.[IC] [Gagging noise] Hold on.[blugh] Give me a second. [OOC] And just like like tries to throw up but can't
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Incredible move Remy! incredible move. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [ IC ] I didn’t know you could do that!
> Mike/ G.M.: Beta you knew that's exactly what was gonna happen like you saw that coming and you're like:‘oh yeah definitely that makes sense. -[Shannon laughs]-
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] Wait a minute! wait a minute! wait a minute! wait a minute! what- wait wait, where are we? what is this?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh, we're we're-on we're on a fucking- we’re-hold on... We’re- we’re on Rigamont B. A.K.A.Jamjōm.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] Rigamont B? Jamjōm? Why are we on Jamjōm? > Mike/ G.M.: as you walk towards the gallery-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Wait, wait, but also I think Remy is just like: [IC]Yo Beta has that guy got some nanites for me? Can you break me off a piece of that?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [ IC ] um would beta know this?
> Mike/ G.M.: ‘Nearer the Sun’ You would know that like you do not produce any of ‘The
Blood’ you are nanotechnology, but you are not a Blood or the-the product of the docle Blood. > Shannon/ “Beta”: [ IC ][in NTS] This has nothing for you.
> Mike/ G.M.: Um, you guys are walking on your way to the gallery. Merkis. I'm gonna say that you've done it enough, you just know how to get there now. You don't have to roll for it
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] So if-if-I you didn't come here, To you know- rescue me? why? what's going on? why are these dead bodies? [OOC] and I'm kicking the hand of someone like laying on the stairs or the-the-the claw I'm picking the shrimp claw of one of the
very large shrimp and I’m like [IC OTE] what the..what? why were these? why were these guys here? what's going on?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Well Oat, you got a lot to learn and basically it's all about this place that we're in where people are looting this person she's very large she's dying soon and she's sad about stealing things from other people in war so she's giving it away also don't kick that shit that's good food.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] Wait, Wait who? Whose the big lady? > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] The Aanverder? I- uh- she probably stole you?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] Dude wait, she's about to die?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yeah, soon.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] That doesn't make any sense...
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Well she-they only last for two hundred thousand days! We're coming
up on that pretty quick.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ IC ] She called it her farewell.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] what uh by Spin time what year is it? > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Wolfskin seven-eight-four.
[02:20:00]> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": I uhh well, I mean he's covered in fur but his he can't-you can’t see the blood drain from his face, but his jaw goes slack and Oat sort of slumps against the wall in the stairwell, and he just stops walking and he's just staring off into space.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] You good buddy?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [ IC ]Are you not? What’s wrong are you not in the time that you're
supposed to be?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] No. I'm not. the party. I was at was 60 years ago...
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh! we got a guy who can probably send you back, right Vynos?
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] No, unfortunately, I can't. -[Mike Laughs]- I can only bring myself back. > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Well, I tried.
> Mike/ G.M.: Just notes, and books, and bags.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [ IC ] But, maybe you could send a note back to someone for him!
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] I have to, I have to secure the note with myself in a complicated way.
Um- I can tell anybody, any of your loved ones anything you'd like though? > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Oh that’s a good deal!
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] Ah...of course everybody I- all my family would be dead. I hadn't thought about that until you just said it.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ IC ]Oh Nooo!
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] I'm sorry. I hate to be the bear that news.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Hey, well buddy, if you want I can kill you and eat you.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC OTE] Let's just focus on getting out of here right now. > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] It was just an offer.
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yeah let's do that yes.
> Mike/ G.M.: So you guys navigate through the estate with these now more morose- Oat the Harajoon, and you get your way up to the gallery, and yeah, sure enough, the tree is gone and so the room is open doesn't seem like there's anybody who's jockeying for this newly open space that like, you know, by chance that one guy that you that you took out was the last living person in this room other than you -in this house other than you and the Aanverder. I mean like I said, it's just full of stuff. It's all kinds of things. How would you feel if we said this: that you can basically spend a reasonable number of minutes just shoveling stuff into your bags, and if someone rolls a D100 that's how many things you, get and between this game and the next one. I'll just figure out everything that you got. [Jenn Laughs]
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] I would love that.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yaaaas!
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ OOC] All right someone do it.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah who wants to roll the D100?
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] I have it. I have it ready to go. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [ OOC] Oh, hell yeah!
> Mike/ G.M.: So you got 60 goodies.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Sixty niiiiiiyne.
> Mike/ G.M.: Nice, no.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] [Bijan laughs] No. [Taylor sighs exasperatedly]
> Mike/ G.M.: So yeah and it's all kinds of stuff it's like cultural artifacts it's art it's technology, it's some just like random design goods, it's books it's you know, it's all sorts of stuff it's not one class of thing, and so yeah, there's gonna be a moment where you're just are gonna have to go through all this and see this.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Mike- I don't know. I think it is one class of thing, and that is nice shit!
> Mike/ G.M.: hey! goodies! and none of it. I just want to point out. I want to be clear here none of this is craftwork, none of this was made by oppressed people. This was all made by rich shitheads in corporations from previous fallen societies.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Oh good.
> Mike/ G.M.: This is all this is yeah Jeff Bezos made each and every one of these things.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I think you mean Beff Jezos'
> Mike/ G.M.: [Mike laughs] Beff Jezos' the galactic tyrant. One of you-also notices, let's say that it is Vynos
> Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Yes?
> Mike/ G.M.: [Mike laughs] You remember on a small pedestal at the end of the room. You can see this thing, it's very hard to tell what it is, it's intricate colorfully ribboned hand blown glass; vase, clock, goblet, keyboard, etc.etc.etc. Even though this, like your eyes tell your brain that it's changing constantly, it really only ever takes up the same amount of space and it would fit easily in your backpack.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] All right. I take it and I put it inside of my backed-pack
> Mike/ G.M.: It feels weird to hold because you're looking at it and it's changing shape it's moving, but you-but like it's not moving in your hands so like you're not really sure what's going on.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] It's almost like those optical illusions that look like it's moving but it's not?
> Mike/ G.M.: That is exactly what it looks like.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] But it’s even weirder because it’s not just a shifting of patterns it's like literally changing form but it's I'm always holding the pickle jar but it's not a pickle jar.
> Mike/ G.M.: It’s kind of like it's kind of like if a magic eye could be animated.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] That hurts my brain, yeah.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": I love it.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy is just like [IC] Don't look at that! [OOC] and is just munching on some fingers.
> Mike/ G.M.: So someone roll one D20. This determines how many minutes this took you. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [ OOC] uh, I'll do it [Jenn laughs] no way! It took one minute
> Mike/ G.M.: In one minute? Nice. you guys worked really quick
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ OOC] Yeah.
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay you have the thing that you came for and a bunch more on top of that. What does Oat do when all this is happening?
[02:24:50]> Taylor / "The Bad Boys":Oat is actually- he's trying to pay attention to what's going on but he's also kind of like looking at his hands, and touching his knees? And he says, [IC as Oat] Look, I don't mean to be ungrateful or anything but uh, I'm not feeling so good. Uh, my knees hurt, and my head hurts, and my back hurts and I just this is hard to describe. I just knew-inside of me that I would never listen to any new music again as long as I lived [Jenn and Mike laugh] oh I think I'm getting old! [OOC] And as he says, “I think I'm getting old!” you see a little hair come loose off the side of his snout and just sort of fall to the ground.
> Mike/ G.M.: I picture it like a-like a feather like side to side like landing lightly on a dead body.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": yeah, yeah just a little tuft of fur. Just like the way an old dog will get little bald patches.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Ohh thats cute. Remy just walks up and shakes his hand and is like [IC] Buddy, the next few minutes are not gonna be comfortable for you.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as Oat] Lotta ups and downs today, > Mike/ G.M.: Do you guys want to leave?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [ IC] Yeah, Go out through the den?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Don’t you wanna say goodbye to the baas, you know, maybee get an
address- so we can write?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] yeah, absolutely not right yeah keeping people as quasi not sl-just trophies. I'm good. I'm good. I jumped on a grenade; I’m, look, and I think Remy reaches down and uses his machete to like chop off some more limbs for his like, his like later feeding.
> Mike/ G.M.: it's just never not upsetting.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] And he's like [IC] Look, hey you guys it's either that or you you
know? we know.
> Mike/ G.M.: So you make your way back through the estate through the twisting labyrinth of clicking and clacking rooms. You get back into the den, and the Aanverder is there. She's kind of like standing by-at the table and looks like she's writing a letter. She's got another quite large pen. as you emerge from the stairwell that you're just walking down she stands up and she sort of like opens her arms again, as if in greeting
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": She's about to say something and then Oat says [IC as Oat] 60 YEARS!? 60 YEARS!? [OOC] And then she says,[IC as Aanverder Lehrer] Ah, the wages of sin is death. For chaind beneath I rend these caverns; when thou bringest food [OOC] and then Oat says [IC as Oat] I howl my joy and my red eyes seek to behold thy face [OOC] and then they both say together [IC as Aanverder Lehrer and Oat overlayed] In vain! these clouds roll to and fro, and hide thee from my sight.
> Mike/ G.M.: As they are reciting the end of this- Is this a poem I don’t know this? > Taylor / "The Bad Boys": I Uh! Like uh, yes! but like it's not relevant.
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, all right, and as they are both reciting this and like, sharing this very strange moment you smell the smell of burning ozone, -[Jenn gasps]- and directly behind the Aanverder just a black envelope rips open into the empty space and out of it emerges. The illithnari prisoner -[Nick: oh no]- and it tries to make a swipe with one of its psionic tentacles and the Aanverder- like she has eyes in the back of her head, just ducks like, no emotion on her face, like she knew it was coming she just like dips to the side and down, and the illithnari completely misses.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Remy takes the second to observe [IC] Guess this is day two hundred thousand [Mike laughs: Ohh!]
> Mike/ G.M.: The rip knits back up and disappears you can see. The illithnari-looks mostly the same- is floating and is dipping at in and out of three space as you saw it when it was when it was in the prison, but it is now also wearing a like, strange complicated helmet that looks like it's made out of a brown kind of plastic, but almost biologic in nature like, it's not manufactured? It
is sizing up the Aanverder. So someone roll a D10 > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Nine
> Mike/ G.M.: Nine, Okay this represents how many minutes have passed, again. Beta as you are watching the scene unfold in the den, ‘Nearer the Sun’ delivers a message to you in your ear about how it needs to divert resources to deal with problems in other timelines.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] What, what are you talking about!?
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [IC as NTS] Potentialities require service. Bandwidth limited.
This reality deemed: LOW PRIORITY.
> Mike/ G.M.: your H.U.D. dims and pops open like, your-your shell sort of pops open and the seat kind of like, pushes you out of itself. [Jenn laughs]
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] I feel hungover.
> Mike/ G.M.: As you get out of it yeah you do feel a lot slower and you feel a little bit less sure of yourself, it like closes itself back up again and then shrinks it continues floating but it shrinks to about the size of like a lime.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": [Taylor laughs] I love that. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] So funny!
> Mike/ G.M.: So if you want to take it with you, it's just floating in front of you. You can-you can have Nearer the Sun than is Advisable just like in your pocket.
[02:30:05]> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC] Yeah she's gonna grab it and put in her pocket. > Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, okay, so you have it.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Ugh that thing is so fucking cool. Too bad I would never pass my willcheck. [Bijan Laughs]
> Mike/ G.M.: Oh yeah that's right. [All Laugh]
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": You don't have enough will to read the instruction manual.[All
Laugh]
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, yeah let's just do non-initiative combat.
[A dramatic Baroque song begins]
> Mike/ G.M. You guys are all just standing by. If you want to get involved you can just like,
narrate what it is that you do. Taylor yes, you can play the role of the Aanverder.
I will play the role of the illithnari whose name you don't know but it is Ilith Nzzdst Zlizdnthnr -[Jenn laughs]- It is looking at the Aanverder. and sizing her up and you can see it like reaches up and it turns a dial around one of the ocular protrusions on its strange organic mask and a bright green beam of light shoots out of it, just directly at the Aanverder’s chest.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": Oh man, the beam pierces her. It goes straight through her body and that armor that like, silver golden uh platinum armor just sort of like, drips like melted metal and she moves a little bit and she says [IC as Aanverder Lehrer] She put aside her clouds & smiled her first-born smile [OOC] and she like, the cape she was wearing like falls off almost like a psychic command and she whips up that giant sort of metal X-shaped sword, and it like clicks and expands. The metal just unfolds from within it into this sort of complicated bladed sheet and she leap-spins and dives right for the c’thulicate.
> Mike/ G.M. And the-the illithnari tries to calmly float its way backwards, but isn't able to get the speed that it needs. You know like the human brain is not able to correctly judge the oncoming speed of a locomotive not like a locomotive is so large and moves so quick that there's an experiential mismatch in like what we are used to, and that it to the human brain to the eye, it looks like a locomotive shouldn't be traveling as fast as it is, and like this is the same thing. The Aanverder is huge and she's moving so fast, but the the illithnari is like ‘fuck it, whatever I got it. I'm just gonna like, slide out of the way’ but they are not fast enough and the Aanverder just like pierces it through the side- with this weird X-shaped sword that she uses.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": And as she's she's moving so quickly almost with, like math- I mean with mathematical precision and you can tell that these are movements, these are positions and there's almost a boredom in her eyes and you know that these are positions, movement, sequences of events and strategies that she has practiced and taught, millions of times before, and you can hear her under her breath as she does each move and attack and perry that she's naming them as she goes and she's saying this is my fire and my frost, this is the mingle and howling pain, this is by my lightning's rend, this is eternal death, this is the torment long foretold, and then she's sort of begins to slow.
> Mike/ G.M. And the illithnari the whole time is like, wailing and is like making this spitting growling noise-just like, Just like [slapping bubbling tentacle noises.] slapping at her back in her face with all of its tentacles and you can see that it's doing damage, like it is hurting her, but like several moves in she begins to get slower and slower and this is when you see the illithnari like, reaches up it's like tired and you can see that it's just like leaking fluid and some of its some of its limbs are like fully in three space now where before they were dipping in and out part of its body is limp and you can see that it's trying very slowly. It's reaching up to its mask and it's trying to focus one of its one of its like ocular rings and It's kind of like, it's taking a couple seconds to mess with it.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": And it takes just a second too long, she says [IC as Aanverder Lehrer] I see a Whale in the South Sea, drinking my soul away. [OOC] and turns and strikes behind her where there appears to be nothing but when she strikes you see that, there was something there that was what he's actually dimensional limbs that the c’thulicate was trying to
get behind her and she has anticipated it and strikes it and when she strikes it, Mike I think the c’thulicate is no more.
[Dramatic Baroque song ends]
> Mike/ G.M. It, all of it falls into threespace, and you can see that it has countless limbs; all of them are more horrific than the last, and it just like it doesn't fall it like slowly just kind of glides to the floor and yeah, it's definitely dead.
[02:35:03]> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": And she stops she's not even breathing hard she goes back and sits down at the big long wooden table where she had been sitting when you first entered and there's a whole bunch of big mugs there [Mike and Taylor laugh] and there's lots of empty ones and she looks in a few she finds when it's not empty and she looks at you all. And as she speaks like, bright sort of flickering-the way that the light flickers on the tops of the waves and the ocean at noon, liquid falls from her mouth- You realize it's her blood -[Jenn gasps]- falling for her her mouth that she speaks and she says [IC as Aanverder Lehrer] Would you have a drink with me before you go? [OOC] and then she falls over.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [IC][gasps]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [IC][a sorry whimper]
> Mike/ G.M. The void elf blinks into existence [Nick: Oh my gosh] in the middle of the room in its floating battle armor looks at all of you looks at the two dead bodies on the floor and then looks back at you and it says [IC as void elf] Good fucking show! [OOC] and then disappears [All laugh]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Oh God!
> Mike/ G.M. There are two impossibly powerful dead entities on the floor of this room and
each of them is covered in more valuable equipment than any of you has ever seen in one place
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah uh, we’re scavenging this shit.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] We gotta.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yeah. I mean Beta feeling a little mix of emotion, a little bit of heart heart heartbreak because she was crushing, but that's sword, well...
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah Remy's moved he's just like damn that was beautiful yeah is that was the that was he like he'd always aspire to that sort of level of of exertion and and defeat. So he's he's salutes and is just like [IC] Fucking hell yeah! [OOC] He says that in English and not Spin [All laugh]
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] With some effort like Merkis tries to untie her shoe? at least one of them because in his family after a battle- if someone perishes in battle, putting a shoe outside
symbolizes that somebody has passed and so Merkis wants to do this one thing and unties the big shoe and drags it outside. [Shannon aws Bijan: oh fuck]
> Mike/ G.M.: Puts a shoe on the landing outside the estate?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] yeah
> Mike/ G.M.: Very nice, give your, give yourself two Grit for that, if you have room for it. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Ah, thank you!
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": Oat walks up to the Aanverder's body and you can see that he's crying. There there are tears falling down, but he reaches up under her, and puts his hand into that central chamber that was in her armor, and takes what he pulls his hand out and you can see that he's got that green sort of emerald gem that was in the armor. He puts it in his pocket and doesn't say anything.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Merkis comes back inside and wants to search the um... oh god what is it called again?
> Mike/ G.M.: The illithnari?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] The illithnari?
> Mike/ G.M.: I have a very specific list of things that you can have from it. That did not go how I thought it was gonna go! That's very exciting. [Taylor laughs]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] That was really great. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] yeah.
> Mike/ G.M.: okay so yeah, as you guys are examining the bodies here are the things that you can have someone roll a D12.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Got it.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I would also ask are we divying this stuff up like-well I was gonna ask are we like, are we- are we taking stuff for ourselves? or we just giving it back to the company or what?
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah, I don't think you know yet, I don't think that's a decision that you've made. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yeah, we have tons of stuff in our bag though.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] I would say the company doesn't need ALL of it.[Jenn laughs]
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Of course not I guess I’m just asking; hey team what's our vibe? > Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] yeah, yeah, yeah!
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Vynos kind of shakes the big bag of 60 items for the company and says [IC] I believe the company has plenty. I don't I wouldn't want to burden them with too many relics and oddities [Mike laughs] Ahaha it just gets to be too much paperwork we should take a few things? For ourselves?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] That's the coolest thing you said all night let's fucking do it. > Nick / "Vynos": [IC] Okay, thank you!
> Mike/ G.M.: Did someone roll a D12?
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Yes. I got a five.
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, you got five pieces of technology-of archaeatech that you do not understand.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Oh but I might! As a sleeper, I have a class power that is just it's yeah it's called remember: you bring dc grit you rack your brain we'll call some immediately useful detail concerning archaeatech,
[02:39:59] > Mike/ G.M.: This is, illithnari technology is notoriously sort of like a complex cobbled together puzzle work pieces that look like they shouldn't work but do, and it's like the idea that this is like, fourth dimension-four dimensional technology that exists in three dimensions, so like you get like basically, six like minor oddments that are pieces of technology that you don't get? That you're gonna have to spend some time just like, mucking with in order to see what they are and that's something else that like, I'll roll a table. I'll figure out what it is, and in the interim time, you know, you will have tried to do some research and figured it out. um, you get its Escheresque blade. -[Taylor: OH damn!]- This opens a portal to the Escheresque and back it costs D20 grit to use and in order to use it, you must pass a level 9 reason check -[Bijan laughs]- You can if you want and if you are careful; remove its blood cloak.
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": Oh boy! Th- I heard that's illegal! there's actually a tag on it that says do not remove blood under penalty of law! -[Shannon laughs]
> Mike/ G.M.: Under penalty of company law! The blood cloak is what it sounds like. -[Taylor laughs]- It is where it is this like, deep red, slick cloak that costs D20 grit per day to wear. It will burn for two D4 damage anyone who comes into contact with its exterior and it has a damage reduction of three.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Ooh nice > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Nice!
> Mike/ G.M.: You can have the illithnari’s accelerator belt. The accelerator belt it gives you plus two to your initiative. If you ever roll a one on initiative it is permanently broken, -[All: Oh!]- You can also have you don't know what it is, it's a metal disc with a purple button in the middle of it, it's very heavy. You can also have oh no, -[Mike laughs]- oh no!-[Mike laughs]- Um, you can also have the mask it was wearing.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Creepy
> Taylor / "The Bad Boys": Fuck
> Mike/ G.M.: If you want to take it off it's a roll, you have to roll, to get it off > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Okay. I'll roll,
> Mike/ G.M.: Um, you you'd have to roll reason
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yeah I'll roll reason
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, it's difficult so you're gonna have to get a nine. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] I also have a high reason if-
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] What's your what's yours.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] twelve.
> Mike/ G.M.: Remember you can boost if you want to.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] I-can I boost after rolling?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] No yeah.
> Mike/ G.M.: No, but if someone else is gonna roll they can I would boost > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Jenn?
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Oh you want me to do it?
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Yeah. I already rolled a seven so it's too late for me. I tried and I uh,
hurt my finger
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Oh no! all right. > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Oh! R.I.P.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] So I can burn how much grit three?
> Mike/ G.M.: Three to add three six to add six nine to add nine and you need to clear nine
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Okay, let's let's try
> Mike/ G.M.: Basically if you roll if you burn nine to add nine and you don't roll a one you're
guaranteed to succeed
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yeah, let's just burn nine, okay and then roll my D12
> Mike/ G.M.: Don't roll one... you rolled a one.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Oh SHIT NO! [Nick Laughs]
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] You rolled a one?! sorry but what’s the stat again?
> Mike/ G.M.: Reason, you don't- you don't destroy it and you don't hurt yourself but you cannot figure out how to get it off.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Huh, Beta’s still feeling conf- like little residual confidence from being in the suit so she's gonna she's gonna burn she's gonna burn nine Grit and then roll and hopefully not get a one.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] If she was feeling confident she wouldn't burn nine Grit. But please continue.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Okay, oh my goodness we we're not allowed > Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] Guys we cant take the mask off.
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Yeah we can't
> Mike/ G.M.: It's really, it's really on there.
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] It's just on there
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] yeah does anybody else yeah
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] I can't boost my roll past like four can I? Like, I can try, but I don’t think its gonna work.
> Mike/ G.M.: Is your reason four?
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yes, oh no, okay wait, oh my reason should I was I I don't know why I thought Will yeah fuck it. I got eight reason
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] But you have to boost it to a nine > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] A nine
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah, I'll boost it. I'll boost it by three. I'll bring three Grit because I'll go out fuck it.
> Mike/ G.M.: I would just do the max, I would just do it. I would just- if I mean, whatever. I'm not gonna tell you how to live your life but...
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Fine, fine, fine I’ll burn nine Grit. I’ll burn nine. I have four left! > Mike/ G.M.: Cause, this is gonna be-this is gonna be amazing if you, if you also roll one. > Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] Do not get a one
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Do not get a one
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Okay so I roll my reason so it's it's it's D8 plus plus whatever > Mike/ G.M.: Yeah just D8 plus nine
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] so it's one-one D8 plus one- plus eight? plus nine. So one D8 plus 10
> Mike/ G.M.: Oh yeah if you have any other bonuses, yeah add those too
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Yeah seventeen
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay, yeah you crushed okay great everybody takes a turn no one can figure out how to get this thing off, um as was not if it was not already obvious by the last couple minutes this once it is attached to a user is not meant to be removed but call it the, call it the luck of the nanites
[02:45:09] > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] It wasn't luck. Mike!
> Mike/ G.M.: Call it that's the-the smile of ‘The Blood’ but, Remy is able to remove this, this mask yeah, it's like, kind of like a mask visor? looking into it, you can see that this is definitely a hundred percent without question ‘Cryptocerid’ technology, this is technology that was developed and built by the long fallen and extremely, extremely advanced bug civilizations on terra.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Neat
> Mike/ G.M.: You cannot know what it does...but you have a weird mask.
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Beta says to Remy after he removes [IC] it well. I loosened it > Bijan / "Remy”: [IC] Yo the nanites do all this shit I never knew any of this. I blamed the
nanites, thank you nanites.
> Mike/ G.M.: Okay well that's everything that is on the illithnari
> Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] What does the illithnari's face look like?
> Mike/ G.M.: Sort of like a squid but if you gave a squid part of a human face, > Shannon/ “Beta”: [OOC] Awgh
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Okay, so it's, Is the- but is the illithnari very sexy to other illithnari? > Mike/ G.M.: Oh yes this if you were illithnari you would think that this illithnari is
particularly attractive
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] All right, perfect yeah yeah that's that's kind of shit I’m into, again
Remy is like [IC] hell yeah this is all good.
> Mike/ G.M.: I think this illithnari probably looks, like dashing- and a little grisled. > Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Oooh a little gray in those tentacles. I love it.
> Mike/ G.M.: Yeah exactly, yeah, what do you want to d-do? I mean, I feel like you already know what the Aanverder has, Um the other stuff in the room is just the stuff that the Aanverder uh had on-
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Let’s take the Aanverders stuff and get out!
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] We’ll sort of who gets what later, lets get the fuck off the rock
> Mike/ G.M.: So you pick up her- you pick up her sword you pick up her pistol. I mean does anybody want to try to carry her armor? I don't know that you could actually...
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] No
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] No, I don’t think that we could.
> Bijan / "Remy”: [OOC] Also, I do.- I do feel a claim to this visor but we'll talk about that later
> Nick / "Vynos": [OOC] He was basically like King Arthur in the sword and a stone.
Yeah yeah
> Mike/ G.M.: So you guys remount your Zogs and head back to town you're just a Stiffwork away from home
> Jenn/ "Merkis": [OOC] And Me-and Merkis is just bouncing along going,[IC] Sorry, sorry. Sorry! Sorry! -[Nick and Bijan laugh]
[Birdlike Zog noises]
[Main Theme Begins]
You are now leaving Float City. We are going to be taking one release cycle off, so the next time you see something in the main feed will be on or around August 14th. Float City is played in a soon-to-be-released system called Stillfleet, which you can download a quick start for at www.stillfleet.com you can also follow Stillfleet on Twitter and Instagram @Stillfleet. Thank you for listening. If you want to support the show get access to bonus one-off episodes, our biweekly post-episode chat show Float Chatty, and our discord head on over to www.patreon.com/funcityventures and of course, thanks to all of our current patrons for help keeping this ship afloat. We'd also love it if you told your pals about the show, shared it on social media, drew us some fanart, gave us a rating on iTunes or just came by to say hey on Twitter.
[Main Theme Ends]
[Outro Music Begins]
I’m Jenn de la Vega, I play Merkis Imeldar. You can find me on Twitter and Instagram @Randwiches. That’s the word sandwiches but replace the ‘S’ with an ‘R’
Hi, I’m Bijan Stephen and I play Remy Tester on Float City. You can find me on Twitter @BijanStephen on Twitch at the same name and on Instagram @Bijancakes.
This is Shannon O’Dell I play Beta Commbot you can find me on social @Shodell
Nick Guercio plays Vynos Lysumptuara and you can find him on Twitter @NicholasGuercio. Taylor Moore was the Aanverder, Oat, and ‘Nearer the Sun Than is Advisable’. He’s @Taylordotbiz, and my name is Mike Rugnetta I was everything else and you can find me on Instagram and Twitter @Mikerugnetta. You can find the show on Twitter and Instagram @funcityventures. This Episode of Float City was recorded at various locations in Brooklyn, New York, and somewhere deep in the woods of Connecticut. It was produced, edited and sound designed by me; Mike Rugnetta. Pixelriffs is, weary of time and countest the steps of the sun. Fun Cities Music is by Sam Tindall, Remy’s flute playing is by Jake Fruikiss Our art is by Tess Stone. Our Discord mods are Olivia Gouland Kit, and Kestrall. And always the voice of Artemis is Molly Templeton
[Outro Music Ends]
[02:50:35]
Transcribed by R. Taylor