Hello and welcome to the Weekly Scroll podcast.
My Name Is Ryan. And I am the one who wanders and
is lost. I'm a normal person.
My name is Josh. I'm less normal, but more normal
than what Hunter said. My name is Person.
My name is Christian Sorrell. Wonderful.
And this this thing messed up. But I'm going to keep going.
So tonight, this is Side Quest Episode 5.
I told you I was fucking up. Hey, this is normal for us.
For all you out here, welcome. This is Side Quest Episode 5.
We haven't done a Side Quest in a while, So what the fuck is a
side quest? So we're normally a review show
and what we decided to do with a lot of the games, well with five
of the games we played is to play them here on the show.
And with a with a eye towards kind of teaching the game a
little bit. In the hopes that if people
listen to the review where we pretty much walk through the
entire game and all the games mechanics and then watch us
actually bumble through them, they will at least have a a a
general understanding of how to play the game.
So as I said, this is episode 5 are going to be in cloud Empress
and I can tell you the exact episode where we reviewed it
because it was literally yesterday.
So it hasn't even been published yet.
So if you're watching this, watch the one right before it.
I think it's episode 131 probably.
So Cloud, Empress. Christian, what is Cloud?
Empress Yes. Cloud.
Empress is calls itself an ecological science fantasy RPG
by Worlds by Watt. And it is, I would say the
easiest shorthand to get most people in sort of the correct
mindset of the type of game it is, is that it's a little, it's
like a little parts dune, a little sort of like the first
like Star Wars A New Hope. It's a little what's the word?
The Miyazaki film. That's the Big 1 Nazca Valley of
the Wind that sort of thinks almost so far futuristic as to
be almost slightly regressed a little like like the technology
is advanced, but also people are living a little bit more
pastoral, a little more simple, rudimentary lives in that way.
And yeah, it takes place on a sort of distant far future Earth
where now Earth is sort of the psychic center of the universe
from all the people that have lived and died here.
And it's sort of a post post apocalypse type setting, you
know, that's all there but so far in the background that
nothing from our modern time is likely to ever come up.
And yeah, it's a world of sky cities and nobles and then
farmer lings and sort of commoner folks that live down on
the sort of wasteland, buried wasteland portions of the
planet. And then the big thing
specifically for this version of Cloud Embrace, which is like
sort of the first versions, it takes place during the summer of
the century Brood, which is where the imago, there's sort of
these massive cicadas that feed off of chalk, which is sort of
this psychic magic infused substance that just by living in
on the planet, people take in over time and it deposits in
their bones. Tamago feed off of that and in
turn die and redeposit it into the ecosystem.
So these sort of massive cicadas are starting to split up and go
out and hunt various sources of chalk, whether that be an
artificial one like a chalk engine on a ship or that be the
bones of a corpse. So just having someone die can
be dangerous if that body is left unattended for long enough.
And yeah, you know there's a lot more to it, but we can see, I
think the rest come out as we go in terms of the the setting
itself. But that's kind of the the vibe
you're looking at and specifically the summer portion.
This sort of summer season is one of migration and change.
It's where people leave after the long winter in the sky
cities and come down to the surface.
It's when farmers from the surface maybe come back from
their winter, sit out on their homesteads and come into town to
buy and trade and stock up and have children and all those kind
of things you don't want to do during the danger of the winter.
So it's very common for parties to come together, whether
planned or sort of ramshackle, to come together and travel the
area at this time. And that's kind of the specific
period within the setting even that Cloud Empress has set.
But yeah, we'll run through the system.
I mean, some of it's going to come out during play.
I don't want to like forge many people too much with systems.
Specifically, I will say it's a percentile based system.
If someone is familiar with Mothership, it is built on the
sort of core bones of Mothership, but it's an entirely
standalone game if you were to pick it up.
And it does deviate from Mothership in some pretty
substantial ways. But anyone who's played
Mothership would read this and be like, cool, these are the the
tweaks, let's go. But yeah, that's the big thing
is you're going to make. There are checks, there are
saves, just like lots of RPGs, but you're always going to be
rolling D100 and trying to roll under whatever your stat or save
is in that. The big carryover sort of from
that mothership is it has a stress and panic system where
doing certain actions are going to build stress and certain,
like being exposed to certain parts of the world.
And then there might be times that I will call for someone to
make a panic check that's going to see if your character is sort
of resilient and can stay in their course of action in the
face of this or if they're going to break from that and twist,
you know, off in a unpredicted direction.
And yeah, I mean, anything else you want to hit right now or do
we want to kind of move into the character creation portion?
No, that's it. Yeah.
Just it's a good game. Go buy it.
I finally found my find my address in the box set that we
got that I was trying to find for the episode yesterday.
So I have my physical player aid right here with me.
Yeah, we can jump into. We all made our characters
already, right? We did, yeah.
So we already made characters just to save all of you out
their time, but I will run through it really quick just so
you kind of have an idea of what we could have picked from and
this breadth of options there. So when you make a character,
it's pretty simple, you're going to roll to determine your stats.
The stats are mind, which is pretty much what you'd think,
things like intelligence, things like that.
It's also used to spell cast if I'm correct or it's hard to use
to spell cast. That's the thing I should double
checked. I think it's hard.
Yeah, it is hard. Yes, you're correct.
So mine is what you think sort of that general intelligence
heart is used for. Oh, here actually I remember why
I was confused. Spell casting, innate spell
casting. If you are a magician, which one
of the classes uses heart using a Crest which is sort of like
artificial magic something inability has that uses a mind
check. That's why I was confused.
But yes, the four stats are mind, heart, strength and speed
that are fairly self-explanatory.
Other than that, that magic breakdown that I did, you know,
and then you're going to have your saves, which are going to
be reality, fear and body. Body saves are going to be like
a traditional sort of constitution.
You trying to avoid physically having something take all of you
fear as if you are going to be afraid and run away.
And in reality is when you're coming to terms with something
that even within this setting, as strange as it may be as a
character that's you know, grown up in that something that even
then is maybe well outside of the realm of your normal
understanding. From there you roll age, which
is a differentiation from mothership as well.
And those there's teenage, full grown and old.
And those kind of shift your stats slightly one way or the
other. Like you maybe get more heart,
but you're you lose some mind. And then there's also body
Hopper, which is in addition to an age, like almost a completely
different type of being in the space.
They are sort of like centuries old, maybe even ancient people
that have through magic to body transfer spells continually
jumped from body to body over time.
So the body they are in now is not the body they were born into
and they sort of have a a separation between that like
there's sort of like a ghoul from Fallout.
But also if they're you know The Who they are internally is
entirely separate from that body that they are in now.
And then you have your jobs which the jobs or classes in
this case. So we have the cell sword, the
lordling, the magician and the Courier are the four options
which you would pick from there you get sort of you know some
stat bonuses and innate skills from that point.
The cell sword is kind of what you think.
Very much like guard mercenary, hired Marshall help on the road.
Lord lings are sort of the not you know anyone else, anyone
from like a royal family outside of that first born son role.
Typically it's like you are not chosen to be the one who
continues to lead your house. You are within your family
secondary or unnecessary or almost an outcast in that way.
So that's typically why we see them as characters is because
they go well. If daddy won't let me run the
the sky city, I'm going to go off and find my own way.
Magicians are the spellcasters here.
The biggest thing with magicians is spell casting, and magic is
very costly in cloud armpers. In this setting it will always
take something from you, even if you do it as you succeed, you
know as well as you can in it. So because of that there are no
old magicians, You cannot be old and be a magician.
And if you are a magician of any regular spell casting, you will
probably lose yourself one way or the other in the process of
doing that. And then the last is Courier,
which is kind of the general Workman work person of this
surface. You know, this is a setting and
a time when like things are very important.
There's not really money in the setting.
Everything is sort of trade and barter and resources are very
important from a survival standpoint.
So the couriers are the lifeblood of that system.
They're the ones who are bringing things from the sky
cities down to the cities, going out to farmsteads to deliver
things to pick up things to whatever.
That is the career. And yeah, there's a number of
skills. Skills in cloud.
Empress grant you advantage on the role if you have a relevant
skill, and then from there there's some backgrounds in
gear. You roll.
Pick a name, pick an alias, and then you're done for character
creation. But once again, let me know if
there's anything I'm missing. Sounds great.
I think that's. I think we're good, Yeah.
OK, chill. Don't have like a cloud Empress
script, so I'm just going off the Dome.
You. Are a your your name's in the
book. You know your name is Book.
Yes, Full disclosure, my name is in the book.
I did a small amount of game development work with Watt on
this, but I would stress the small amount of worst part hey.
Name's in the book, buddy. Doesn't matter.
It doesn't matter what the amount.
Was I'm I'm not disputing that so listen even if.
It's only 1000 pages or 1000 words in a small section.
It matters, you know. But yes, so that is the sort of
set up for characters. So why don't we go around and
having talked through that character creation, why don't we
have everyone sort of introduce their character and then we'll
sort of decide on why you are all together in the way that you
are since we're doing a one shot in this scenario.
Yeah, absolutely. I'll go first because I've
already made my character on stream.
I'm playing it when if you watch our episode from yesterday, I'm
playing the same guy. I'm, I'm Sven.
He's an old man, Sven the punk, you know, he's a Courier and
he's kind of a roughed up guy. He's seen a lot.
He's missing a lot of teeth, which is why he's no longer a
magician, which he was in his youth.
And now after his travel as a magician, he's very
knowledgeable about the world. And so he used that knowledge to
kind of like run missions as a Courier, get around the world.
With his experience, I should say that he's like pale, like
huge bags under his eyes. And I'm wearing living humming
armor, so if you get real close to him, you can hear kind of a
from his armor, so. It's not radiation or anything.
I don't. Know maybe Ryan.
Yeah, so I'm playing Thorn the Fearless, this full grown
gentleman. I will say one thing I love
about the character creation, Like I completely rolled this
guy up and it's dope. So it's fun.
And the reason you can't watch the episode from yesterday is I
forgot I had six hours to do it before stream, and I just
forgot. So yeah, so that's me.
Thorne, one of the things I love about the characterization too
is like, you get a background, like, what were you doing before
this? So I was chasing off Imago from
a bread basket farmstead. That's where I was prior to
this. And I come with full armor,
which makes sense. I was fighting Imago and it is
adorned with farmerling markings, polka dots, stripes or
flowers. We're going flowers for sure.
I also, I have a military rifle over my shoulder and a yellow
sash that says the order of the broken bread on it.
Oh. Yeah.
Are you an OBB member? I mean, if I got a sash, I got a
sash, you know, that's my thought.
Yeah. So I also have traditional
braided hair. What is the traditional braided
hair? Do we think for a for a
gentleman sell sword? I I think it's going to be like
Anakin Skywalker's. There's no part of Anakin
Skywalker. That I want right now.
I'm not on that. Yeah.
I think. I think for for our sake of
this, I think that that's up to you.
You know, that could be what probably depends on the specific
look of the character. I mean, it could just be like
it's got long hair and a French braid kind of a thing, or
though, you know, like over the shoulder.
Braid Viking French braid kind of situation to a rat shaved on
the sides and everything and I dig that and I got two ears of
cord with me and yeah as part of my skills so I I got to take
firearms or blades and I was going to go blades but then I
rolled and got a gun So I was like well I guess I'll take
firearms and I get St. savvy. But my other two I figured he's
probably if he's a member of the OBB you know and is protecting
the farmland his farmland armor probably knows how to do some
farm work. So I I get to see a sense that
maybe he was the farmer lane, grew up on the farm, became a
cell sword, learned how to do what he does, went back to the
Farmer lanes that has been kind of protecting them.
So that's my general background and that's why I have like the
armor and the OBB sash and all that.
So that's that was one of my other skills.
I took farm work. So I know, I know the value of a
hard day's work, and that is the one, the fearless.
Awesome. And then Josh?
All right, today I'll be playing a cloud.
This is she, her teenage girl. A cloud is a magician, and the
magicians, as we talked about there, are the the miracle
workers of the Lowland Wastes. They consume chalk and sacrifice
their bodies in order to cast spells, Cloud in particular.
I was traveling the countryside with a former companion before a
encounter sort of split us off, and that's where I came to find
this group. I'm attempting to find my
traveling companion once again, but in the interim, joining a
little bit of an adventuring party for protection.
The cloud. As I said, she's teenage, but
wearing mostly a traveling cloak that covers kind of her hair and
a good portion of her body. The one thing that is very
noticeable about her is the horn that protrudes from her
forehead. Which does, yeah, stand out in
most crowds, even within the cloud Empress milieu.
Yeah. So I think we can kind of walk
through how the party has come together by hearing Ryan your
sort of set up for your character.
I would say this adventure, the adventure we're going to be
playing today, by the way, is 1. It's the Sea Vault by Samantha
Lee who has actually came as part of this sort of year one
bundle of adventures that was part of the cloud of Kickstarter
and I think is either is or is about to be available through
like drive through RPG and things like that.
But a cool thing about all those adventures that came with that
initial Kickstarter bundle book is that they can all be placed
within the hex Crawl from the land of cicadas which is sort of
like the setting book that came with Cloud Empress as well.
So the one we are specifically playing is actually in sort of
the southern portion of the bread basket, which is sort of a
sub region within the lowland waste.
So it's actually kind of right in your neck of the woods thorn
like where we are there. So I think and feel free the
rest of you to decide on that but it sounds almost like you're
kind of this a little bit more connected into the space maybe
like this low level folk hero type character.
Like you know you kind of came you came from this growing up
you went into being this like protective force here and now
you're traveling on your own again.
But however you all want to decide that's what that's what
those are just the character attachments I could think of
too. Specifically the region we're in
is is this. But you have all just basically
heard rumor of this ancient vault that is said to contain
all manner of seeds that could bring prosperity and you know be
valuable both like rare things and things that could lead to
feeding lots of people in new ways across the wastes in this
vault. And you are sort of following up
on those rumors and seeing if there's any truth to them.
But how? How do we want to say what do we
want to say brought you together or how you are all you know why
you're traveling the the way you are together now?
Well I I definitely like the idea of like like shonen
protagonist is like a 12 year old or whatever.
That's like I'm going to get more power and protect my
family. And yeah, you know that whole
bullshit on the swing and laughing came back and
definitely like that kind of like I don't know necessarily
folk hero but like people were like oh just some kid or
whatever. But he came back, actually knew
what he was doing and like has helped, you know, protect and
rally the people's a bit more and definitely like.
I'm a sell sword, so I'll definitely go do the work or
whatever. So I don't know if I may be in
the times where maybe the farmstead was a little bit more
calm when I went and sold my services.
I might have run into, you know, spin or cloud or whatever.
Or if the Courier was like coming through and happened to
like be in the town when something happened and we all
had to group together. Or something like that.
I feel like maybe we've run into each other in your travels,
because I've just been traveling for so long and we've just run
into each other again and and you've recruited my help and
I've wrecked reluctantly. Yeah.
Yeah, I'll come. I I can't do a lot, but I'll
come with you. Well, yeah.
And Thorin, I would say, you know, I would say to you, Thorin
too, this has been like being from this region and being
fairly close to where this was found.
You know that like a group of farmer lings supposedly came
upon this and it's sort of overseeing it or almost like
protecting it, as if to make sure that it isn't something
that gets like rated and just stripped without any sort of
oversight. So I would say it's probably
something that's important. It sounds like to your character
just from like a you're invested in the farmer lings and the the
bread basket. So it might be that kind of
thing too. That could be like, I'm going to
go there and check this out and then it could be like Sven's
there and it's like, hey, I'm heading that way.
Anyway, that sounds interesting, but then the cloud.
How? What wrapped you in, like you
said, Is it a matter of just sort of happenstance crossing of
paths? You're like, I don't have a
companion now and I don't want to travel alone.
I think this is a classic kid teenager tale where I've just
latched on to the first person that seems capable and I'm kind
of dogging along with them for lack of better option.
OK. Yeah, the.
Right. Teenage girl just latches on
with like the old man and the middle-aged man and we're just
like, cool. That works.
Yeah, this strange teenager that appeared and you're like, well,
she's not hurting anyone. Sure, you can come with nice
horn. Not self-conscious about it or
anything, don't worry. Oh, wow.
Well, the bread basket's definitely Southern, I'm telling
you that now. All right.
Well, that sounds like a good traveling party reason as any.
I I mean I even think just from reading sort of about this time
in the Lowland Waste. I just think it's it's almost
like there's that spirit of sort of travel and migration in
everyone like like it wouldn't be that unreasonable.
Like you're especially not going to be like hey kid get lost
because I don't think this is the first time any of you have
just had an an unexpected companion for the summer.
Yeah it's just it's that kind of time among the ways.
But yeah we'll we'll kick right into it.
Is there anything else we want to hit into before we get get
going? No, I mean this won't make
sense. Like, I mean, I just picked up
Spin, the Courier kind of whatever it might be, just like
a a good happenstance of Spin coming into town.
And I was like, hey, we've crossed paths a couple of times.
If Cloud has let it be known that she is a magician, maybe we
don't have one in town. It'd be nice to bring magic with
us to aid potentially in the production of the vault.
So it it all makes sense, kind of as kind of just like a a good
meeting of the, you know, Samurai Champloos or whatever,
you know, mm hmm mm hmm that. That's us.
OK, Well, yeah, that's where we'll.
So we'll kind of just jump right into it for time's sake.
Like I mentioned the thing that is cool is that this is there is
like this adventure has a location on the hex trawl so you
could you could be playing a much more long term open player
driven campaign and this could be something you hear about and
just choose to travel to. First take today we're just
going to pick up that you all have arrived in this location in
sort of the southern bread basket after probably leaving
from tac town or one of the smaller villages for tac towns,
the one big sort of city. Even then it's sort of a large
town but city and quotes of of the way So you traveled you know
a day or two to get out here and do so safely.
And what you've come to find is you know all along the way you
probably passed another handful of of people traveling a little
before you or you were overpassing.
You know they were traveling faster than you were that you
passed over, who were following the same rumor that they had
heard this just a massive vault with ancient grains, juicy
vegetables, medicinal roots. And especially on that way you
would have passed a few groups, small groups of people that are
suffering from something called the molting, which is this sort
of unusual disease that is spreading across parts of the
waste where once you get it, you start to your skin starts to
molt over time, like your fingernails will be gone in a
month or so. And it's never there's never
been a report of anyone surviving more than 3 summers
once they have it. And we should have.
Triggered you wanting this dream, by the way.
Hey yeah, skin horror. So.
Yes. Yeah, I'll say that generally.
Now actually that's a good call out to say that, yeah, bugs, I
did mention the giant Cicada, so Imago is what they're called.
But yeah, bugs, there's certain sort of chronic illness, skin
disease and body horror sort of the general content warnings for
this adventure. And yeah, the molting is part of
that. So you see these sort of people
in various stages of that, whether that be like someone who
has just recently contracted this and is like I'm trying to
get out there. It's not really known, you know
how it is spread. But there are rumors because it
puts people in such desperate situations of this ancient tea
that cured it in the old days. And it's believed that hopefully
this place would contain some seeds to grow that plant that
has long since gone extinct so that these people could be
healed. So it's almost like a pilgrimage
to save themselves. These people are on, then you
you pass you know, a few, a few groups of of them, but other
than that it's it's surprisingly nice time.
The summer always feels very refreshing after the either a
winter on this, the cold winters on the sky cities or you know
stuck inside a cabin or inside the confines of a place like
tact town. So it's nice just to be out and
about and to have, you know passers by to discuss and
there's sort of an excited buzz in the air.
I think generally from this, it's rare that the farmer lings
get a beacon of hope like this and it's still in that early
buzz period of no, there's no reality to it yet for most
people other than maybe the people who are there, you know,
So they it's all good news right now.
You're in the first week of of this rumor going out and yeah,
you you do eventually arrive at this vault.
It's sort of a large, you know, it's just built into like a
hill. It's like almost like a sort of
slightly hidden door built underground that has gone mostly
unseen and unnoticed for a long time due to the, you know, I
think due to the unearthing, lots of changes to the
environment from the imago, because like real cicadas,
right, they go underground and gestate for like a certain
amount of time, like grow and then they come out.
So the landscape has been changing a lot this summer from
that and that's part of it. So as you all approach, you see
that the, the entrance here to the vault is built underground.
It's only visible through this heavy front door that is covered
in scorched marks. And the front door is like a
different material. You said it was like built into
them, but it's like it's like a metal door and like a rock face.
Yes. Yeah.
It is not like a it's not a natural or it is like yeah,
clearly an artificial door in a stop in a in a very like ancient
like what we would think of as being like futuristic.
But is is ancient looking by Cloud Empress standards because
Cloud Empress has almost that Star Wars like analog but
advanced but sort of you know rough and tumble mechanical yeah
feel to it. So this would look like a like a
more futuristic style door to us.
And even just from the outside as you all approach, you can see
how these small smatterings of groups that have all of farmer
lanes that have all sort of come to see what is the happening.
See if the rumors are true, see if they can look at some of
these seeds for their farm, see if there's a way for them to get
an edge ahead into the next season to see if there's
something of value. You know, and most of these
people look like, just sort of interested.
You don't necessarily see like it's not being raided.
I guess what I'd say, not now at least as these people are sort
of all standing outside and milling about, what would you
like to do? There are like one or two.
I will say that you mentioned there's sort of one or two like
guards, but you know this isn't like official military.
Everything here has that. Everything on the surface here
has like that home grown feel. This is it's like 2 of the, you
know, two of the the the good old boys from the farm that are
there with weapons just to make sure no one tries to raid the
place. But it's not like it's not
police, I guess the word I'd say.
But yeah, what would you like to do?
So Cloud's been kind of walking the shadow of Thorn for most of
this trek so far. The closer you get, she kind of
pipes up with What do we even hope to do here?
We're we're weekly. Is there even gonna be anything
left? Why?
Why are we doing this? I mean we're not any weaker in
Farlands, but that's, that's it now, that's the voice now, so.
That voice, the mumble. Yeah, well I mean you sweetheart
now dear might be weakling, but you know, I, I, I protect these
parts and I think that we should figure out whether this is a
threat or an asset and either way either lemonade or or figure
out a way to have it benefit. All of us do.
I recognize the good old boys at the the thing cuz I feel like if
if it's in an area where I'm at, I probably know a lot of people,
if if that is kind of what I've become, this kind of like known
figure in this area. Yeah, I I think being in, being
from the general neighborhood and as you approach to, you can
overhear like these, you know, maybe two dozen or so other
Farmer Link, Farmer links are kind of like camped out outside
waiting. You know, it's sort of equal
parts like rubber Necker, like people who just kind of want to
look. I just want to see what's going
on. This is exciting and people who
may be interested in trying to get something out of the vault,
but you definitely overhear that.
A lot of people here have been talking with Rake, which I think
would be a person that you know in the space.
Rake is like definitely a sort of locally.
Yeah, I guess I would say Rick is the is the folk hero if
you're maybe working towards that Thorn, Rick is that so the
kind of person who doesn't she's the kind of person who doesn't
has never really like looked for being in charge but always seems
to get put in charge. This is how I describe what you
what you would know, but you would know that she is a can be
very stubborn but is very good nature.
Good fart has has the fart has farmer lings in a larger sense,
best interest in heart when you have interacted with her in the
past. But I don't think you like.
You're not like friends, but you're like acquaintances.
Like we, we, we know of each other.
We've protected or you know done whatever.
And this is, yeah, this would be.
And these would be, these guards would be, would be, yeah, like
are just kind of like members of Rake's sort of Aussie.
And that is this this, this. Person right here, correct.
The the first picture. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, that's right. Yeah.
So sort of some like imago, chitin armor, glasses, real,
yeah. I mean, everything very sort of,
you know, handmade, fixed and refixed, that kind of thing.
But you don't see Rake out here. But you hear people talking
about Rake and it's kind of like, oh, of course this would
probably be. Her operation.
Yeah. I mean, could be good.
Could be bad. Hey, wow.
It's the way here to stand for a second.
And I'm gonna, I'm gonna walk over to walk over to the guards
or whoever I hear talking about Rake or whatever.
Or someone that I anyone that I recognize.
Like anyone that could establish my presence here as well.
You know what I mean? They're like they're stolen or
whatever, you know what I mean? Like that kind of thing, but but
meander my way towards the guards and just, you know, if I
know them or I've seen them whatever, just do the whole like
hey, how how y'all doing today? Yeah, you got like the nod from
one of the guys that you think, you know.
It's like, it's that, like, you both recognize each other.
They probably don't remember your name kind of a thing.
But like, oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, they've seen you around once or
twice. Yeah.
Yeah, Thorne. Yeah, that's, yeah.
How's it going? This is big, exciting, big,
exciting discovery. You come to see what it was all
about. Well, yeah, I mean, you got to
Ryan, I mean, I guess. Clearly we got an audience out
here here to start charting admission.
You should. And I hear a couple of them
talking about Rake. She happened to be here.
Yeah, Rake's inside. Just make sure if you go in, you
know, don't. We're just trying to make sure.
No, I mean, obviously we don't want anyone taking anything out
of gear before we even know it's here.
But you know, it's an old place, like an old building facility.
So, you know, just be careful walking around in there.
But I mean, you'll see more of the crew in there.
But yeah, you can. You can definitely go meet with
her. Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean, y'all,
y'all, y'all know me or of me, you know, the, you know, y'all
aren't. We got to stick together and do
what's best for everybody, right?
Yeah. Yeah, hey.
The the the other guy is like grunts.
I yeah, I just want you to know you call out and just looks over
what? He wants us to come.
What? We Hell yeah.
We gotta go. We.
Yeah, let's go. So are you now just like that
one guy from like the like water well the water boy who just like
speaks in so Louisiana that you can't understand I.
Just remember he has very few teeth and he's very he's very
incredibly old. So gotcha.
Gotcha. Like, I just need to stress he's
barely hanging on. He's.
Got like his hands are real gnarled and if he can help it,
he'll get one of you to help him do with things.
And like, he's not big on, like using his hands to do stuff.
You know, he's the kind. Of guy who's like, he'll have
you pop open a thing. He'll stand over, he'll be like,
no, put the thing and now collect the red and then into
the yellow and he that is that guy.
Got the experience, but not putting in the work these days
you know all. Right, so Cloud grabs Spen's
hand, just does the drag. Now the moment you go for Spen's
hand, he pulls his hand and he's like, oh God, shall I fall.
But does start following. Itself.
OK, yeah, you you come over and are able to go in.
So inside the the lobby here, it's a high domed ceiling, you
know, sort of several other members of Bricks crew in here
as well. But scattered throughout this
lobby there are low tables, plush but very like rotted out
and sort of emaciated, I guess isn't the right word for an
inanimate object. But that feel, you know, very
sort of dried out and crumbled and with aged chairs.
There's a welcome desk sort of right in front as you walk in
that has a that's marked staff only.
And then around the room generally are just a bunch of
faded works of art, very dry once again, like ancient, you
know, crumblingly ancient looking relative plants that
were in these pots and glass cases with a bunch of dried
flowers under them and glasses, thick layers of dust sort of
recently, you know, hand Marks and fingerprints in this dust
all on top of these. But the biggest thing sort of as
you come in just to the right of, like the far across the room
where it seems to be like a hall that leads farther further into
the vault. You see this big orchard that
depicts a person holding a wreath, shoulder length hair
with shoulder length hair flowing in the breeze.
It's a very sort of like nicked. I don't know what like gothic, I
guess I would say style portrait.
And they have a their right arm is a mechanical arm with long
pointed fingers and their left hand is sort of covered in
rings. And as you're milling about the
room, there's a plaque at the bottom of that as well.
I'll just give you the description now that reads
Caspian, the collector and yeah, collector.
Huh. Huh.
Like a real asshole. Yeah, yeah.
Sure, there there are a few of Rick's crew, kind of like
sitting there playing cards on these like crumbling old chairs
and hear you say that. They hear you say that spin and
are like, yeah, get a load of that guy, right?
It must have been nice, have been a place like this.
And heck, look at that arm. My buddy lost his arm.
He didn't get it. He didn't get anything that
nice. I know what.
The the group playing cards looks they have that like
they've been here for days and are desperate for any, you know,
sort of momentary distraction kind of a thing, so that they're
more than happy to give a talk or two to you as well.
Hey y'all, what do you all know about this spot?
They're. Like, I mean, I guess only a
little more than you. There's a big room in there, you
know, most people hands off, but just full of sea.
It's like, I mean stuff that, you know, we're used to out here
at the farms, but other stuff I've I've never heard of.
Some people here say they've heard old stories about them,
but, you know, I mean a lot of exciting stuff and that it's
just a lot of kind of old. Well, like this.
He points at the chair. Like, I'm sure it was nice one
day, but it's just kind of old and worn down now.
But it's an odd place. You know, we've been here long
enough that there's kind of like.
Weird sounds and creaks and weird stuff's going on, you
know, I don't know if I'm one for, well, I don't know if I'm
one for ghosts and whatnot, but it's certainly, you know, some
weird stuff's going on. Well, there's just a pile of
seeds in there. Oh well, it's like a library or
something. It's like a well, you're just.
It's like a collection. Like a collection.
I know what a library is. I'm extremely well read, got a
lot of time to read on the phone.
Library that's for sure, but. Yeah, he kind of describes it as
this like tiered collection, like it's it's a you know, a
well documented, well preserved thing is is what is kind of laid
within. Well, I look at the cloud and I
look at the direction which is indicating I'm like.
Yeah, when we went in, I kind of got absorbed in the painting.
Like when you guys, you guys realize that I'm just like kind
of like hands on my hips, kind of just really inspecting this
picture. It's interesting to me.
Yeah, someone can take it with you if you want.
What? I don't know.
Where's that? I said we can take it with you.
No, no, it's all right. I just it's.
It's a big painting. It's fucking.
You mean they could? Take it with you, but it's very
how. Far did I?
Maybe maybe on the way out how about that.
So my so the the people watching the stream, this art that is
used right here right the cover for Seed Vault.
Yes. Is, yes.
Is in fact that portrait. Yeah.
Fantastic. It is a dope bar, I'm not going
to lie. Yeah.
And I would say the the thing as you were there, Thorn sort of
absorbed by this, like taken by it, whether by its beauty or
some aspect of it or just the strangeness of it in comparison
to the whole journey you've just been on.
The thing that you feel that you kind of notice as you're like,
you know you get almost that tunnel vision like the the
background noise kind of quiets out of your head as you're
looking at it is you notice like a a hum, like a quiet hum almost
like a shifting or like trap, like a tremor is almost even too
strong a word, like a a shift in the earth below.
Like a mechanism like falling into place or?
Like, you know, I would say to you like Thorne, you know, it's
almost like it's like when something when like a machine is
on or something falls in like a downstairs apartment from you,
You know, like you can, you can just barely feel it through the
floor of your feet. This sort of like a hum of
something that wasn't there a moment before and then just sort
of like a slight shift, but only really because you're in the
sort of reverie of like looking and doing that.
Do you even take it in there? Everyone else is sort of in the
middle of this talking excited with the group and and doesn't
and misses them. OK Also, across the room is
someone else talking very excitedly to another group of
Rick's crew. This is a sort of shorter,
thinner, you know, a young man I guess I would say in like
traveling sort of cloak and hood who's sort of having a very
similar conversation to the ones that the one that you are all
having with this group having like so like that's what's in
there and like can just anybody, I assume that's not everybody
can get in, right. That's why you guys have like
the you got the guns and everything and they're like, Oh
yeah, no, we can't let everybody in.
So it's very similar conversation.
But he is very intense and excited, you know, excitedly
talking to them in that manner of just like, wow, this is
really exciting times for, you know, for us.
Farmer links that this kid, yeah.
All right, do I? I mean, I break my reveries,
fins mumbling. If I if we recognize, if we see
this kid, do I recognize him at all?
You definitely don't. And when he says US farmerlings,
you kind of go and give him a read once over and he is
definitely not born and raised on the surface.
You you know, he might think he's fitting in, but anyone of
any real experience wouldn't. I would say, yeah.
I mean I would say probably all of you, but especially
especially you Thorn and Cloud, maybe even you would probably be
like I know, I don't think so. Like he he looks like he's
probably someone who was raised in this in this city He's he's a
cloud wing of some sort essentially.
Who is is that and you would guess recent like there's
certainly people you know this isn't like a it's not a
bifurcated society. It's like there's no crossover
migration from one to the other. But he seems like recent.
He's like, it's not, you know, he seems like he put on his
Farmer Lane clothes. He's fresh off the barge.
Yeah, I look at he has a, He has a more.
Faded jeans, you know? Yeah, he has a, he has a
surprisingly sort of like a like a refined air.
The big thing, big thing here is that like, just from any
moderate distance, being halfway across the room, you can just
like look at like his hands, right?
And no. Off hands, brother.
You fancy, huh? I look at, I look at Thorn and
I'm looking at my squint, and I look at the kid.
I look at and I look at the kid and I just stare.
She's like, what are you saying? I'm farling.
I mean, I'll tell you right now, there ain't no fucking Farmer
Lane. And boy, boy in the clouds and
saw hands. Yeah.
And you hear him talking again to the to the guards just being
like, so like what? I mean obviously a lot of people
are going to want into the vault and see and everything, but like
what, you know, is Rick taking favors?
Like is there anything like what can I do just to try to get in
there? I'm just, I mean it's just
exciting to think we're all is in there.
But I'd love just like one or two CS if it's a whole vault,
they got to be able to spare one or two for like each of us,
right. And kind of looking around and
the guy's like, well, you know, Rick's still hearing from a lot
of folks. So be pretty hard pressed I
think to get yourself in there anytime soon.
That kind of thing. What would you like to do?
I'm. Just gonna talk over him at some
point and be like, hey, so, so, so where's Rake at?
Oh yeah, The crew like, sits up, you know, seeing your, like,
sash. And for like, for a moment
there's a flash of like, oh, oh, we're being outranked or
something like that. And then they're like, you know,
I think it's like, oh, OK, you're not like you're not part
of their band, although you see clearly seem official.
But they yeah, they go, oh, Rake's in the the office.
It's just right there and sort of points sort of this main
lobby area to the opposite side. You know, sort of like N what
North East of the entrance, there's a door that leads in the
store labeled offices or office. That is where they they gesture
towards Rake being all right. I'm going to nod nod that way
for the for the crew. But as we go by whichever guard
was like kind of talking to me the most, the one with like the
cards and stuff, Can I just kind of like give them like a, you
know, familiar kind of clap on the shoulder, you know, just
kind of thanks, you know. But then lean down a little bit
and also give them a little whisper like, you know, probably
keep that soft and cloud laying out here because he sure as hell
ain't one of us. And and then just kind of move
quickly on like almost, you know, like I was just like in
passing. I'm not waiting.
Yeah, as you say that, as you say he's so I as you say that
he's like, oh don't worry we know man he's been here all day
and as you're like walking off he he kind of plays it off like
like this guy's just kind of been annoying.
But he's also like he he's not selling anyone on his supposed
as I. Walk by, I very loudly say you
gotta stop hanging with young man.
He doesn't acknowledge it, but he like, puts his hands behind
his back as he's talking to the guards.
OK, you make your way into the office.
So the office here, it's a few desks sitting under sort of like
flickering lights that are, you know, sort of hidden behind like
plast, like translucent plasteel kind of overlays, you know, just
these flickering shape with longer tube kind of lighting
behind them as you come in here, dusty books, yellow papers sort
of scattered across all of these.
And Rake is here, You come in and you know, I guess I'd say
other than let me make sure there's nothing else in this
room of note. Yeah.
And that's the, the main thing. You come in, you see Rake and
this stuff, it's sort of taking some notes.
And as you're coming in, like 1 Farmer Lane is walking out
having just met with Rake and it kind of looks over and is like,
recognizes you and it's just like Thorn, You decided to find
your way over here, wanted to see what the fuss is about.
Yeah, yeah. I mean, we got to, obviously
there's a reason you're here, so.
Yeah, we stumbled on the place about a week ago.
I mean, there's enough. Never been anything out here
other than what, an old field or two.
But suddenly turned the corner. Earth's upturn.
We got ourselves a door. So you know, I had to peek in.
Yeah, I mean, of course you got to, but so that's what that's
what happened. I mean, we this is, it ain't
like we ain't seen this before. It just suddenly upped and rose
up out of the ground. That's what happened.
Well, I mean it wasn't, you know, we had patrolled around
this area a while back, but it wasn't here last time.
But I assume it's an Amago or two would come through this
area. Something unearthed that this
you know, wasn't here last month, certainly certainly not
last summer when we were around So well this was here but we
couldn't see it. You know, I mean I think this
has always been here as long as you and I have been around.
But yeah, I'm just kind of taking stock of it.
We're trying to take stock everything, both what's inside
the collection, in the vault itself and trying to, you know,
and she kind of like leans forward and like you could feel
this sort of like, you know, like leans down against the
desk. That's like burdened kind of
expression. It's just like, you know, I'm
just trying to make sure I do my due diligence on this and make
sure that this all goes to the best face as possible.
I mean, the last thing I want is like, you know, we just come in
and grab all this stuff and we're eating, we're eating good
for the next five years with the rest of the wasteland starving
or something. I figure this could be a big a
big win for all of us. Yeah, that's Lord of Behavior
and that ain't us, you know? Y'all so inside, yeah, I've got
some of my crew she like, looks and like has to like.
She has a moment where she just like to code what you just said
like it's almost like you're it's almost like when someone
has like such a thick accent that it's difficult for you to
understand even though they're speaking the same language.
It's like that. But yours is just like a slur
accent. It has to like Dakota.
And she goes like, well, I mean you all can feel free to take a
look around the office and the equipment storage.
I'm keeping the vault off, but I've got some of my crew in
there sort of counting. But there's a lot in there and
we haven't taken stock of all of it.
But it's a you know she goes over and there's sort of large
the desk has like a a number of sort of catalogs in it that seem
to be almost like a like records of the seeds in storage.
And yeah she's just like they I mean they had these we we got
into place we found these logs but they're not really accurate.
It seems like some things have more than we think, some things
have less. So we're trying to just take a
new inventory. I guess she hands, she hands
them out like they're on the table if you want to look at
these logs or anything. Hey Cloud, why are you calling
one of these one? A cloud would be probably
sitting at that desk, staring down at them already.
Yeah, you notice a huge variety of seeds.
I would say probably 30 or 430 or 40% of them are things you've
never heard of, like plants that you have no idea.
The ones that seem where you can see some notes that seem to have
the biggest discrepancies that rates Rick's taken with these,
sort of like handwritten pieces of paper that are tucked in are
like more mundane, for lack of a better word, more typical and
edible foods. There doesn't seem to be as big
of a discrepancy between things like flowers and you know the
the rarer exotic plan in life that it would be something that,
like a collector like Caspian may have wanted for this but
isn't something you would grow in a farm.
Those those seem more or less in line with what they've counted
so far. But the the thing that you see,
yeah, really is just that the edible vegetables and fruits and
things are the ones with the biggest discrepancy you do.
Looking through this notice, let me make sure I have the word
correct. You do notice that there is a
listing for Exo Vino, which is that supposedly legendary plant
that heals the molten. And you, your crew was the the
1st in here. Any signs of?
Recent habitation, I mean, the door, we had to blast that thing
open. You could probably tell coming
in, but I mean, we've cleared the place as well as we can.
There's one room, it's down the hall towards the vault and off
to the right there's one room We haven't gotten in.
It's just seems like it's collapsed, caved in, kind of.
The whole entrance is blocked. We haven't gone in there yet,
but there has to be cleared. And it looks pretty much like
this. Like looks around and just like
looks old. But I mean, as far as I can
tell, this place could be old enough that who knows what
happened between the logs and them locking the door.
I don't know what's happening. Yeah, I created.
Eaton, I'm A. Creedon, you got, you got Creed,
Eaton. I think what?
I've got a critter eating. A critter eating Yeah, yeah,
that's exactly what it is. Well, I mean, that certainly
could be the case. I don't know.
You know, that portrait in the in the lobby is giving the
creeps though, and we've been hearing all weird knocks and
noises and one of my guys had a pot thrown at his head, turned
around, nobody in the room. There was no pot in the room.
Spooky. So that's troubling.
So I'm also, that's why I want to make sure that if we are
taking anything out of here, we're all doing it at once and
maybe we're all going to just leave for a while.
I don't need that, you know, lordly looking guy over there
haunting me for the rest of my days and you can.
And by the way, when when Rick says this, it's like, Rick
believes this. And that's not unusual in the
setting, Like we are in a magical setting.
There is literal magic. So, you know, you can tell that
it's not just like, it's not just like, haha, I don't want to
be haunted. It's like, I don't want to be
haunted. Yeah, so we're gonna steal from
maybe the haunted vault. We're gonna take everything and
leave. I'm gonna just kind of clap clap
on the shoulder to I'm still staying and if she's, if she's
at the table reading over the books, I'm just gonna just ask.
So see anything interesting, anything.
Anything more with your perusing you said?
It. Man, you bought through his head
if. If Rick's crew is the only folk
to be in here, I mean, we can't necessarily even take these logs
at face value, but something, something's gonna be making
those seeds. As this happens when you're
having this discussion, all of a sudden red lights like the the
lights above that were flickering and sort of like
almost like fluorescent light kind of color transition to this
pulsing red from one side to the other.
And there's this sort of low not like high pitched siren and just
like that pulse starts happening and then there's like like
coming on like artificial coming over the speakers and the you
hear from outside of the room you're in this like like metal
clanging noise is happening and Rick's just like oh damn it I
told them not to mess with that thing.
She gets up and just goes out of the room.
I. Follow, Yeah.
I follow Thorn. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa,
whoa. Do we want any part of this?
I'm already, yeah, just waiting over by myself.
Go out. It's like do we want any part of
this alone in this red pleasure by yourself.
Yeah. So you you follow rake out and
Rick comes out and it's the same amount here.
This transition to the sort of pulsing red.
You can see that the entrance the, the blasted open door you
have come through is now blocked with like a blast door that has
dropped in place. And Drake is crossing the lobby
to sort of on the northwest side, this door on the northwest
side that's labeled control room.
And she pushes in there and there's like two or three
members of her crew like looking over this big control panel like
think like a like the the like nuclear power plant controls,
you know it's like it's not just like a four button control
panel. It's like a hundreds of button
control panel and there's of course a big red button on one
portion. There's a lot of other smaller
red buttons with this big red button and this sort of bigger
heavy set guy is like, it's like, I'm sorry, what are we
going to do, sit here all week talking to the other crew?
Everybody take stress from this lockdown, kicking off them.
So stress? Talk about stress real quick.
Yeah, stress is when things that are stressful happen.
Typically it happens when you check.
When you fail a check, you fail a save.
So far we've been doing a lot of role play, like character
interactions, so that hasn't come up a ton yet.
But when it does, you take a sometimes you take a stress,
sometimes you roll a a save to see if you would take stress.
But anytime you fail A roll, you definitely take stress.
And the idea is that it builds over time and then when I call
for a panic check, the higher your stress is, the more likely
you are to panic and the worst potential panic results you
have. So that's the big thing with
with stress basically is ideally you want to keep it low and you
know, so even if it's low and you panic, you're probably going
to, it's probably going to be minor.
But if your stress is very high and you panic, it can go very
bad. But yeah, that's.
So that's it. In this case, it's just, it's
literally like you're in the middle of this situation.
Something stressful happens, but it could be a number of other
things. When you take wounds, when you
cast spells, when you draw a weapon or have a weapon drawn on
you, those kind of things. And yeah, you come into that and
Rake just starts like playing into the sky, sort of pushes
everybody back away from the control panel.
And there's a few like, but most of the screens here are sort of
broken and shattered and you know, done.
But there is like an inlaid real like basic like you know, early
LCD kind of, you know, you get like a calculator screen kind of
thing on this that says the Control Board, that just says
lock down, lock down, lock down. Cloud, come be my hands.
And clouds like running from the other room behind you guys.
Like God damn it, do not wanna die in here.
This one can be my hands. So she kind of like Skitters up
there and it's like, what the fuck hands?
Yeah, I'd like to try to like, walk cloud through disarming
this. OK, do you know what A deserve
this? I'm gonna say this is gonna be a
mind check. Yeah, can I use tinkering as
well? Yeah.
OK, skills just give you a damage, right?
Yes. So you're going to roll, you're
going to roll D100 twice and you're going to take the lower
result because lower is better in the system.
OK. And you're trying to roll under
your stat, so like, what's your mind stat?
A 59. Wow, you are really, actually
smart. Benefits of age.
Yes, he's dead. He.
Certainly doesn't come across and you're talking, but that's
OK. He's incredibly intelligent
because genuinely, because when you get old, it's like plus 20
or whatever to your intelligence or to your mind.
Yeah. So I rolled a 34 and a 43.
So. So yes, you succeed then.
So what I'm gonna let you do, I will say this is definitely not
a control panel you have. You don't really understand what
it does. You're like intuiting what it
probably does. So Cloud, if you are up for
following this guidance, I'm gonna have you roll 2D10.
Tell me both results and I'll give you the more beneficial
result from what happens with the control panel.
All right, first one is a six, second is a four.
This is putting a let me I'll ask you this, Hunter, since you
were the one who rolled the successful mind check, would you
rather have a fire start somewhere or the power go out?
Wow, I don't know which is more beneficial.
I mean a fire. But one of these things happens.
Mike gets everybody out of here, so.
Well, if it's locked down and the fire starts, we all die in
here. I.
Don't say a power outage. OK, so you follow this advice to
the letter loud, sort of start messing with this, you will.
And if you're doing this, like, by the way, while Rake and this
whole crew are having this like argument, like she's, you know,
dressing this guy down, telling him like, I absolutely do not
touch the button we jumped about.
Of course I want to touch the red button.
It's a big red button. You don't touch the red button.
And then you're like in the background following this guy.
And so you hit this button and then she just goes like and
everything goes flash but and then it's just totally dark.
Across the. Facility.
Yeah, across the whole thing. And you're underground and
you're in a thing, so it is pitch black.
I was just the hands. I was just the hands.
Everybody turned off. Take another stress as the
lights turn off, turned off, and you realize you are locked in an
ancient vault. Shit, shit, shit.
Rake starts yelling around being like, what now?
And you can just hear this like sort of shuffling and like
people go rummaging through their items and stuff as as this
group here and from out from the lobby, people being like, hey,
what's going on? So clouds kind of like shit,
shit, shit, oh, I got something for this and you hear her start
chanting a spell? Oh.
OK, so we're gonna get ourselves a spell, so I'll explain spells
real quick, real quick. So to cast a spell, you did
mention before that spells take chalk, which is that sort of
psychic energy infused material that the imago eat and feed off
of, and then sort of gathers over time in the bones of
everyone just from living in this environment now.
So you have to consume one or more sticks of chalk, which is
something most magicians carry with them.
You have to recite the words. Then you're gonna take one
stress. You always take a stress
whenever you cast a spell, and then you're gonna make a heart
check and some spells, depending on what Cloud is casting you can
actually spend. You can consume more chalk to
have them do more beneficial effects.
OK, so I'm going to attempt to cast Illuminate targets A
targets the caster or nearby character summoning a brilliant
ethereal Lantern to hover over their shoulder for an hour.
Now this has some consequences. We can talk about that later.
I am going to attempt to cast this upon thorn so that Ethereal
Lantern will pop over their shoulder, OK?
So you're going to make OK. I have a skill in spell casting
as well, so this will be at advantage.
Yep. Yeah, at advantage.
And it is a heart. Check heart.
All right, my heart is 31. The first one is a How do I read
a 12? The 2nd is an 18 all.
Right. Well, good.
You succeeded either way. So what happened?
You said that you basically told us what happens on the success
for listeners, viewers at home if you do fail, there are
miscasts. And I mentioned spells always
have a cost, which is definitely true.
Miscasting spells really always have a cost and typically it can
be kind of wild and some very rarely good.
Normally miscasts are very bad, but in this case you succeed.
So exactly that happens. This Ethereal Lantern tears up
over thorns shoulder. You see the sort of what does it
look like? What's the what's the quality of
the light? Is it like warm?
Is it cold? Is it like green and ghostly?
What does it look like? No, I think this is pretty
simple. I So you hear Cloud start doing
the the short spell incantation. Illuminate can't be terribly
long. You see a little bit in the
darkness, just like a spark. Leave her hands and then the
light pops up right above Thorne's shoulder.
It's. I think it's just an orb.
I don't think it's anything fancy.
Just a little ball of like orange warm light.
No, I'm not. A I'm not a Zelda fanboy.
Isn't there some type of like little light ball fairy thing?
Mm hmm. Yeah.
Is it? Yeah, the little.
Fairy is it kind of listen? It's like that because it
doesn't have little wings. Yeah, a little light ball
following your own, yeah, but this light sort of bathes out
now, casting these really strong shadows, right?
It's the only source of light down here from the thing and you
can see Rake is kind of go going through trying to see what she
has on her with one hand and is holding the guy, the big guy who
hit the buttons like scruff in his collar with the other and
the same with some of the other and they kind of like look over,
she's just like, well, that's helpful.
Will you please step away from the control panel?
It was just the hands. It was just the hands.
Well, the hands are a pretty important part.
In fact, why don't all of you get out?
She gestures to the three of you to get out.
She has gestures to the three of you to get out of this room and
to the other people in her crew to get out other than this big
guy that she's holding. Yes, ma'am.
You know that one's on Use then. We turn the alarm off.
We did turn the alarm off, yes. Yeah.
Go ahead and let me see here. I'm rolling real quick.
Is #2 all right? Well, Thorne, you got rolled, so
it's you. Go ahead and roll a body.
Save for me, Thorne, as you start to make your way out of
here, out of this room. Dope.
Sick awesome. Let.
Me. Look at your.
Body is 40. OK, yeah, so it's just gonna be
a straight one. Like, no, no advantage or
anything from skills. I don't.
I don't have any. It's not.
I'm not farming. No, it's not a farming related.
Let's see. Nobody's trying light help.
You're trying to avoid being. You're trying to avoid being hit
with by a thresher, yeah? No.
Does my will of the light help me?
Do I see the? Light does not help.
I'm not getting you advantage in this case.
Oh, I rolled A2. That'll do it.
Just so people know criticals are similar to mothership
criticals are when you roll double S So if you were to
succeed and roll like an 11, a 22, a 33, that kind of thing.
If you fail and roll double S, then it's a critical failure
when. Is it 2?
Two's pretty good. Is a double of one.
That's true. Moving on.
We're doing math lessons. Here everything is any round
Number is a double S, so I deserve crit.
So yeah, give me one second to do what am I looking for here?
So you are going to leave with the rest of the group behind you
and sort of Cloud and Sven. You see like a flicker of this
shadow before this terracotta pot just over the armor on
Thorn's back and you would take one damage.
I assume your armor just eats that.
Just by a couple. Yeah, cuz you've got heavy armor
on, right? What?
Is your Is it like 7? 7.
Yeah, so. So this pot just shatters over.
Your armor doesn't do any harm to you, but it's certainly
startling. And yeah, and yeah, you kind of
just like turn and look back. And since you did roll that too,
I want to say you when you turn and look back like your reaction
time is really quick for this unexpected thing that just
happened to you. You turn and look back and you
see but on the back wall there is a like a it almost just looks
like a panel of the sort of metal, metal ish like metal
outlet wall paneling. One of the panels is open and
you just see this like half of a body.
Go back behind it and then the panel slides closed.
I want to race to the panel. OK.
You go over there and it's, yeah, like I said, it's like,
oh, there are, you know, these big sort of floor to ceiling
panels that go along. You can see where they're sort
of like riveted in the corner. But once you come up to this,
especially since you have this light, you can see there's an
area where there's almost like an inlet, a very dim.
It's like, you know, it's, it's a light.
It's like an LED or something that's behind the surface of
this alloy, like where it's when it's blowing, you can see it,
but there's no like nothing out here.
But it has that in like a little glowing area that you would
definitely recognize just from other things you've seen where
it looks like a like A tag reader, like a like a like a
security card, like there's probably some sort of like fob
that you would hit to this. It's probably like a service
tunnel, since we're like a hidden door there.
A seam. Yeah, definitely.
There, there are. See there?
It's like, you know, it's like this whole room has like maybe
six of these big panels going from this side, one the left
side of this room to the right side.
And this is just one of those. So there's definitely a scene
between them. Rick's like I told you to get
out. Hey, now, not listen here,
right? Did you not just hear that crash
and I I gather up the terracotta bits and stuff like that.
I just. Someone just threw a God damn
pot at my head. Come here.
Let me show you something.
OK. Yeah, Rick comes over.
Rick's like, yeah, that kind of thing's been happening a lot.
That's what I was talking about. Well, listen, I'm fast.
Fuck boy. And I saw someone go back into
this tunnel. Here, Have you seen this?
Look here. If you if you look along the
edge here, you can see it. Maybe it's like a service tone
or something. I think maybe like, I don't
know, Have you noticed this since you've been here?
Because it went in right here. I mean I haven't, we haven't
seen any of these things open. I I didn't know about it.
We definitely haven't found any cards or anything.
You're saying this was just open?
It they opened a pot, flew out, hit me.
I looked back and I saw a figure Dart back into it.
You saw it, didn't you? Spin Cloud I.
Saw you man, Man poking up cyclose.
See somebody win. Yeah, well, do you have a good
way to get in there then? I don't.
But clearly it ain't. It ain't.
I don't think it's a slip or nothing.
I think this is there's something or someone in here
with us. And now listen, I know you got
your whole crew here and I know you're doing what's right for
the people out there. Why don't?
And here's a thought, why don't we?
Since you all already have this responsibility of doing
everything, and trust me, I trust you to to do that and do
what's right for our people, why don't we go try to figure out
what this is? Maybe it's also, it's heating up
them extra seeds and we don't want more of them gone.
And then maybe we'll be able to to catalogue and get all the
stuff out here sooner. If someone handles that and I
just have a certain set of skills along with my companions
that would allow us to do that. We we worked together before.
You can like you know, I'm trustworthy.
She's still holding on to the, like, the scruff of this big,
like, oafish kind of guys. I really, She's still holding
them. Nacky still, Yeah, she's still
holding him. He's like like listening in and
she's like, well, yeah, as you can tell I have a bit of a
staffing issue right now. So yeah, I would like that Just
tell you tell your yeah, no more daughter.
Yeah. Just not.
Touching control panel. No more touching, Seth.
Got it. We're good.
And it's like, yes, I would like that very much because I need to
figure out how to get the doors open so we can don't so we can
all get out of here. A little like a wink or just a
wink, you know? But yeah, she's definitely
willing to give you the leeway, given everything else on her
shoulders, to to go after that. Apparently Familiar Pat has
become one of the things I want to do.
I want to reach past Rake and give the big man a pat on the
chest. I'm like, glad.
Glad I'm not. You buddy.
And then we just. It was help me.
He gets pushed against the locker again or like the you
live against like this back wall of the control panel thing.
Yeah, so you just. Yeah, can I just lead away from
like if I see people I just like wave and just go like I want to
get away from people and hope that's fan and clatter are are
with me in the light. Yeah, yeah, you can get out.
You come out into that general lobby from this room and I mean
you're the only source of light there.
Like the other people kind of looking around.
I mean you get, you know, little things.
It's like someone has like some matches and they've like burnt
up some of the crumbled paper that was on that front staff
desk and stuff. You know, there's like a little
like cup with some light in it. Like they're they've, you know,
person has a candle or two, that kind of thing.
But it's real like power outage, you know, get your House Energy
like, ah, there's some 2 candles, like half the half half
of the Rake's crew that were playing cards.
They're still just playing cards, but now over the like,
you know, lightly sit, burn, slowly burning old notebook or
something like that. Wait, so why did we leave next
to the panel? Why don't we stay next to the
panel? We're trying to get through it
right. We have no way to open it.
My thought is to. You could, I mean, you could try
to force it. You could try to pick it, maybe.
Possibly. I mean, it does have the scene,
she. Also told us.
She also told us to get out. So I kind of wanted to get out
and regroup. I mean, we could always go back
in, but I just wanted to get out, get away.
And like you could let me talk it over.
Yeah, you can auto up. Let's go.
Let's go in there and try a couple things and I'm gonna have
no idea. Hold on, Yeah, hold that
thought. What do you think the chances
are that Rake's crew was just messing with us, trying to scare
us off from this supposed treasure they found accessing
panels throwing things? Sounds a little more, I know.
I know Rake pretty well know that y'all are kinda.
I mean, we are a bit of a ragtag recently formed group here, but
I've I've lived or worked around and raked for most of my entire
life and I can tell you right now.
That one, she wouldn't do that. And two, if one of her crew was
doing that, they'd get the same treatment that big boy in there
is getting right now. I.
Don't think it's easier to keep people out of here to scare them
away with ghost tales than it is to them with arms and armor.
I don't. But here's The thing is, we're
in Farmland territory. Cloud, you know, we don't need
to threaten our people with arms and armor.
Or Rake has authority because she knows what to do and how to
do it right by all of us. So what keeps the people from
trying to raid in here? Respect.
You need to be keeping the building in disguise at arm's
length all. Right.
What are you trying to say about that?
Keep your wits about you. Well, I mean, I'll do my best,
but but you got spin here. He smiles.
It's just like empty, massive empty space.
Cloud from the sort of like with the point where the light from
overthrowing shoulder kind of like reaches its dimmest.
You can see that Bud, the Cloud Ling acting as Farmer Ling is
attempting to listen, sort of from the edge of shadows.
I do the. We all just turn and stare.
Absolutely. Like at the same time he had
spit in both gears. Yeah, but it's like, oh hey, I
the door hat here is closed and locked.
I feel like we can't get it unlocked here, so we probably
need to go in deeper, right? To find like the Master.
Controls or something to get it out.
Hey, hey, there's no we there's awesome there.
OK. There's no we.
OK I I'm just trying to help.
Why don't you? Why?
Don't you go back and go take a bath, son.
Yeah, man. I'll go.
OK. I'll go take a look on my own.
Yeah. How about you don't?
Go take a look on your. Where's the where?
Where, where? Where are those guards at?
I feel like maybe they're literally there to keep people
like you from getting in here. Yeah, they're still around even
though the the lights are out and from the light from your
light being here in this room, you see Bud go over to like the
hallway that can go further into the vault, like towards the
vault where where there was also that hallway that Rake mentioned
there being like a you know like a collapsed in entrance to A
room and seeing the light and everything, the the guards are
just like, no, you're not getting in.
You weren't before, you're especially not now.
Stay here and Bud Light backs up.
Go. Back to that, I wait for it,
like I get close so that the cake and we'll go back to that
panel. Yeah, what?
What? How long does this thing last?
One hour, I think. For an hour.
The real Yes, an hour. Yeah.
All right. All right.
So I agree with you, Sven, let's just in our head start cutting
down. We got like 50.
All that took one minute, right? We got 59 minutes left on how
many times? How many more times can you do
this if we need it? Or give or take.
We're going to be in quite a bit of trouble if this extends into
another day, going to put that responsibility on youth Fen.
I'm interested in, so if you cast the same spell multiple
times, like, how does that work in regards to like the cost?
Because the cost for this one right is that tomorrow when you
wake up, you're blinded, right? The illuminated spell.
So if you cast it multiple times a day, is that just multiple
days that you wake up without the ability to see?
That's probably how I would rule it.
Yeah. OK.
It's like, I would say if you cast it five times in a day,
you're going to be blind for five weeks.
Yeah. I don't think there's like, I
don't get the feeling that there's like, Min maxing spells
in cloud. Like the cost you will suffer
the cost. Yeah.
So I would, I would probably rule it.
Yeah. All.
Right, there we go. All right.
Where are you going to? They're.
Gonna head back to that panel, OK.
Has Rake's group left that area yet, or are they still sitting
around that trying to figure it out?
Oh, sorry, I'm thinking the control panel, not the wall
panel. Are you talking about.
Yeah. So yeah.
We're talking about wall. Yeah, those, yeah, those are in
the same room, but they are definitely Rake is sitting there
now like a crew member to end and they're trying to be like,
OK, what did you hit? Like they're going over this.
Like clearly hitting the red button again does not lift the
lockdown. They could have just done that,
trying to figure out what else to do out, messing it up,
tampering, you know, like guys looking down in the there's like
metal cabinets like below the desk and trying to be like, I
don't know, is there like a manual for this thing.
But you all come in and are able to go to like the far side of,
you know, it almost looks like a thing like a server rack kind of
thing. It's like you you go behind that
to the far side, like it's the north side of this room where
the panel was, all right? So I have a Saber and I kind of
pull the blade out and look to see if the gap is large enough
to slide that bit of I don't even think it's metal.
This is probably more of like a ceramic composite Saber.
Yeah, just to slide like just slide the blade slightly into
the into the crease there. Yeah, and not necessarily to pop
it quite yet. I want to see if I can get it in
and just like fucking root around, yeah?
It'll it'll definitely fit in there, Saber.
So I slide it in, I look at the other two, and I try running it
up and down. Yeah, you run it up.
I mean you can tell from the feel of it like as you you know,
it's like here's the panel, you have your Saber behind it.
You can twist in and you'd feel there's nothing there.
Like you can tell that this is like a panel with empty space
behind it. If you slide it up, you can go
all the way up, but then any lower almost in where you slid
it in, it gets blocked. There's a lock there, there's
something there. If you slide it underneath, it's
the same thing. Pretty much just goes down to
the floor, nothing empty space behind it.
How sturdy is that lock? Is it cuttable with this blade?
If I just rammed it down into it, could I slice through?
Or do we need something more substantial?
You. I wouldn't slice through.
So I would say yeah, I'd probably be more like you need
to like hammer and wedge like you could.
You could maybe get through with the Saber, but you might be
wrecking your Saber in the process.
OK, so cloud I slide the Saber outlook at the two of them this
cavity back there some kind of lock I can try and shimmy or
smash it, but all I think that's going to end up with me is a
broken or bent sword and I'd rather like to keep this one on
me. Do you guys anything that can do
you guys? Do you guys have anything that
can burn through a lock open the door find.
OK. Listen, listen, I'm going to do
a thing. Only I'll tell nobody do this
thing. Uh huh Uh huh?
Secret safe with me. Yeah.
So. Nothing.
I see nothing. Yeah, he like, he like, looks
behind you too. And like, can can anyone see us
right now? No, you're behind.
You're sort of obscured from Rack and the other members by,
like I said, Rake and the other members, because there's almost
like a big server rack right in the middle.
So Sven turns around and climbs through the the closed panel to
get behind it. Yeah.
So you see, you see Sven just like almost like reach in as if
it's like a pool of water and just pulls through and you see
him go away on the other side. And from the other side, can
Sven see anything to like? Do you see the locker like?
So, Sven, you're in the dark here on the other side, you can
definitely see. I mean, you can feel around
well. Oh no, I feel around.
So you can't actually feel around.
So you see, I would say what you see is you see some residual
like bluish, almost like energy. You see like the slipstream of a
living being haven't been here before.
Think like the residual. Heat if you had like an.
Infrared sensor or something like that you because you always
see that, but you can definitely see that here.
Did I interact with the slippery stuff to try to, like, push that
heat over towards the lock at all?
Or is it just like it's just like the heat of where somebody
was? Essentially it's just if you can
just tell that a presence was here recently and like it sort
of trails off down what seems to be this sort of service tunnel.
Lipsticks. That's almost the most you see
here. So since sticks his head out and
then recounts like what he's seen.
OK, but what the fuck are we seeing, Span?
You're in a wall. I'm not cloud.
You see this right? I am no stranger to miracles.
This one perplexes me. I didn't say cloud, I.
Was an accident with the Margo Tucson ago and you know, ever
since I can't really, I can't really touch much, but I go
through things fine. So cloud you would definitely
know. Gently, like smack him, but like
not really. Like just have can I like?
Pass it straight through if he if.
If he lets you, you just pass through cloud.
You would definitely know this. You would definitely know this
affliction that's been suffers from just as a magician, which
is, and if I mean it would have taken you by surprise.
Me like, is this magic? What is this?
But now seeing it here plainly in front of you, you imagine
Sven is a wanderling, someone who died and only half slipped
away and has probably been. You know, we get like the
montage flashback of every time you almost touched him but
didn't, and he asked you to touch things but didn't and
never touched anything. Always ask for someone's help.
And see that light bulb? Oh, he's a ghost.
You let you trick yourself, bitch.
Well, you know, I gotta keep yourself going to trust.
You know it's fun. Is your tongue extra ghostly?
And that's why I can't fucking use a ride or what?
Age stops laughing. No.
You lost in here. I lost my teeth.
My magic.
I think that'll. Happen before the water rage to
buy you some veneers or something.
But. So yeah, I mean like I can't
physically interact with anything but, but I can follow
this trail a little further in and see if I see anything but.
Yeah, I actually have something that I'll drop for you in our
DM. Well, actually, I'll just put it
in the DM for everybody now. I'll see.
I'll see it. Oh yeah, me, me, There's one.
Christian Christian talked before this and I was like, hey,
by the way, like I just don't want to put this in my character
sheet and I just want to play this bit out as long as I can,
so. Good job.
I'm always down We'll. We'll risk the players.
So one of the things I I'll pause the scene real quick and
say that is cool is that Watt actually on their sub stack does
monthly expansions where they do like a single spread of new
cloud Empress stuff. And one of those a few months
ago was actually playing as a wanderling almost like advanced
rules for a wanderling if you want to keep playing as one.
So I just posted that for you Hunter if you want to look at
it. The big things to know if people
are interested in this the way this typically happens is you
would roll a character and play them and then when you the first
time you die there's a chance you don't die.
Actually, you're more likely than not to not die, but instead
take a curse. And one of the curses is you can
become a wanderling. So the way they work is
wanderlings have a single wound. They don't take damage from
conventional means, but they can be harmed by anything chalk
related. So spells, press spells, imago
other things like that. They can only physically
interact with slip related things and ancient relics and
waterlings are drawn sort of magnetically to them.
And I would say now that this reveal is outspent.
That's the thing you've felt since you came in here and maybe
even the thing that originally put you on generally this
direction is that in that vault there is a relic.
There is something that is harnessing these sort of ancient
powerful connections to the slip things.
Maybe that led to the the downfall of the old world into
the world that it is now. But you know that it is in there
and you want it because relics are a way in which you can
bridge the gap again. They're a way in which you can
interact. You know they're they're like a
because they are slip related you can wield them to interact
again. So you definitely feel that draw
and that hum and that's inside the main vault down that hallway
further that's right from behind this panel that is what you can
see. Unfortunately I would say you
can't. You know I'm going to say we'll
say that wanderlings you know you can't interact physically
that's a pretty big knock back. So let's say you have like low
light vision equivalent you you can look and see and you can
relay like oh it's it's this kind of lock there is a latch
like there is a release on the back.
So maybe that's the kind of thing that they could shimmy
something, you know, shimmy something through and press that
with like the Saber from the right angle.
You could guide them through that to to get this open even
though you couldn't open it yourself.
OK, yeah, it sounds like, yeah, take the Saber and put it in
again. Oh by the way both Cloud and
Thorn take stress and I would say roll.
I don't. I don't know.
I was going to say roll a panic check but I don't know if it's
it's panic check worthy to see him go through I think Roll of
fear safe. Actually, that's what we'll do.
No roll Reality safe. Sorry, reality.
This is in reaction to seeing him go through and then come
back out and be like I'm a wander in the soul then.
Who? Raised my.
Stress, My stress didn't go up. No, you're oh fuck buddy, I'm
that's my bad dude. I'm on you.
How dare you? I have a skill in mysticism.
Is this count as mysticism? Yeah, you could.
You could roll with advantage on it.
Like I said, out of everyone here, you're the most likely to
bet. Oh, I've interacted with the
wanderling before, but there is still a chance that having one
among you as long as it has maybe UN maybe troubling.
Well that's good because I got a 94 and then A7.
So yeah, I'll say I'm going to say take, still take one stress
you would have taken more, take one just because, like it's less
than nature, the wander than nature and more a secret of that
magnitude. Having been a part of this party
or at least several days without you knowing about, you know,
that's just unsettled. Like you thought you at least
could rely on these three. And now there's a whole shift in
that. What about you, Thorne?
Oh no, I failed the shit out of it.
I thought I passed it because I was on the wrong sheet, because
I rolled a 30 and I was like, Oh yeah, 35.
And then I was on send sheet and I rolled my sheet and I was
like, Oh yeah, 19. So I failed.
Yes, so go ahead and roll a panic check for me.
Cool. And to describe panic checks,
because I think these are actually slightly different
here, if I remember correctly, than in Brothership.
Let me go check. I think, because I think in
mothership it's AD 20, I think here it's AD 10, I'd be making
them go look, yes. So you're going to make a panic
check, you're going to roll 1D10 and then if the result is
greater than your current stress, you don't panic.
And if it's lower, then you're going to tell me that number and
I'll tell you what it. Does so just the one D10.
Yep, I wrote a. Five.
My stress is 3. OK you don't panic.
You have that initial like the moment fleeting like like I said
like that look what I described in cloud that like almost like
betrayal. Slash.
I think for you more than cloud that like what is this like what
is happening what is Fen would like being even kind of being as
he, but you manage once he pops back out and it's still friendly
old spin mumbly as ever. You kind of like, well, that
down inside yourself. OK, so no one panics.
All is well for now. Good.
I need to make sure, by the way, are we?
I wanna make sure that I'm checking all the job conditions.
So OK, you didn't panic so you're so job conditions are a
thing for viewers that each class has that are sort of
compounding problems. So for example, Clouds is when a
magician's mind is muddled and it's it is time to worry.
So if Cloud failed the reality save, everyone nearby would take
one's stress. For Thorn is a cell sword.
If if you had panicked there, everyone else would have had to
make a fear save or also panic because it's bad to see the eye
with the gun and sword start panicking.
And then for couriers, it's that once per session you may make a
panic check with advantage because you've seen it all,
you've been around. They kind of have the rare +1,
so just so people know that is an element, but it doesn't come
into play with you, So what do you?
Do did you? Know.
Oh yeah. I think I was trying to guide
the Saber, Trying to talk you through wiggling the Saber
through this lock. After a moment of disbelief,
then, I take this. Background.
And with a bit of an air of question, just slide it in
through the gap once more. And I'm like, I I line it up to
where half of my face is outside of the panel and the other half
is inside. And so I'm watching it, and I'm
like, actively, like, giving you directions on how to shimmy.
Yeah. So if you're able to follow the
the direction here and yeah, you get at like an angle up higher
than you were and down you push you like sort of pop rather than
it like popping and bending the saver.
It hits this release latch on the back and this service tunnel
entrance just swings open and now with the light in there, you
can see how that it kind of goes back and it's these tunnels that
sort of you know are are built near.
They sort of like just wrap along the outer edges of some of
the rooms in here that it isn't like a full complete its own
tunnel network, but it definitely will go.
They look like they go to other places.
So specifically from this one, yeah, you see one going sort of
deeper into the vault and then you also see a part where it's
sort of like lowers down and seems to go farther off towards
the side, almost like towards the office direction of the
vault that you were in before you see the.
I wanna give cloud like a good job pat on the back and I wanna
give Stan a good job pack on the back and then it's just.
Like immediately tries to like dodge being touched like out of
just. That's right.
Not because you're fucking Ghost.
It's my bad, all right. And you, Stan, you can see the
sort of remaining, like ethereal presence of a person having been
here. It goes off to the east, more
towards the office direction, not necessarily deeper into the
vault, just to the side off to that direction, the vault.
Where do I feel the hum of the relic coming from?
To the north, like deeper into the vault where where you
understand the seed vault to be. That thing through the lot, it's
gone out by the office. My feel the hum coming even
north. Our.
Lead the way. Which way are we going?
To the hump, I guess. Let's go the way out.
Clouds just got to find the courage.
Let let we're we're we're going in we're.
Going in, we're going in. All right, we're.
Going, Yeah, I guess we're saying.
We're going either way. Hey climb.
Northward, we're going, OK? Relic Word.
Relic. Word, yeah, sounds like.
OK. You know, only one of us is
intangible. So this is pretty, it's true.
Wanderling wanderlingism comes. We can come for, I'm sorry, 110
for every day or whatever. So yeah, you you head down this,
this access tunnel, it branches to the right.
That's where you see that sort of slippery residue lead off.
You go past that though, deeper into the vault, that kind of
branches over like 90°, turnover 90°.
Turn back north and then it's the same thing.
You come up against the panel with this release.
On the back you also notice, you definitely notice like dirt
along the floor under the light of the this light, the glow you
see like little dirt with boot tracks in it.
And there's a handful of little pots collected like is
terracotta pots collected at near the door that you entered
and also near this door and sort of some other little, just like
bits of like refuse, you know, like garbage.
But that's all kind of like harder, like, you know, like a
piece of metal, a terracotta pot, a bigger hunk of plastic,
that kind of thing. There's another little pile of
that near this near this store. If I kick and punch through all
of them, the coins come out or like a scroll.
Or anything rupees fall on the ground.
Yeah, there are no no coins here all.
Right. I don't.
Know. But Sven.
Sven looks sad for a moment that he can no longer smash pots like
that. It's true.
You remember your young days of rolling through pots in town.
Sven goes to like kick some of the dirt in the ground and like
obviously kicks in. Nothing happens and it's like,
yeah, she. Forgot for a moment.
It was lifetime and unconscious actions that we all take that
you don't question until suddenly.
So you're at this, this, this northern door.
It's locked. I mean it's openable but closed
latched closed I. I guess I'll peer through it.
It's true forgot about that. I forgot you can do that.
But yeah I can just you can wall hack.
Wall hack. Yeah.
So you lean your you lean your head forward through and look
out and in this room is sort of this it looks almost like a very
high end like I guess this probably isn't something that
you spend would know but we would know looking at this it
looks like a very high end like museum display.
Now there are no high end museums on the surface on the
along among the wastes like this.
But we would think of this as being like oh this is like a
brand new nice exhibit at like the Smithsonian or something
where it's it's almost like you know it's walkways and terraces
that kind of lead up around it's like nearly like a ziggurat type
structure overall. But it's these leading up to
split shelves, little displays that go around and up and in
that there are lots of these sort of cases and sealed, you
know, like all like cabinets I guess that have a number of
these like little packets in them.
Now in this room, it is still very dark.
There were a few, let me double check believe there are a few
people in you. Yeah, there are several, several
other farm millings in here that were taking inventory you assume
from Rick's conversation before the alarm and then dark went
off. So there's like a few small
lights, enough for you to make out the shape of this and to see
like, you know, you see someone sitting near that who has, like
they were able to light like a little something they had with
them or someone who has like a little flashlight propped there.
And they're just like they're also stuck in here from the
thing. So one or two people you're
being like, they have to get the door open.
I mean they know that we're in here.
Like, I don't know, I guess you just got to wait.
But the main person, the current person closest to you is just
catalog pulling out these little like aluminum foil, like
aluminum pouches, looking at the name on them, setting it down
and it's like writing notes in the in the dark.
But this Farmer Lane is just like, well, I might as well just
keep getting work done. I guess I'm stuck in here.
They don't they definitely don't notice you just sticking your
head out in the dark. But the big thing that draws to
you is that at the top of that, at the top of this walkway not
visible really to you, right? I mean yes the the part that
would be visible to you is there is like a clearly a large case,
like a like a display case and you can just see the corners of
this glass up on the top and that is like this slip essence
is like roiling out of that and almost like to you it's like
this bluish rippling dab that comes down the the various tiers
of this and sort of like sits like fog in the bottom of the
room. So Sven pulls his head back.
And I I'm going to be honest with you, I'm just going to talk
normal for a second, because it's just doing the mumbling is
fun and everything. But yeah, so Sven relates
everything that he has seen, and he proposes the idea in his
mumbly way of just getting this door open, telling all the
farmer lings in there that this is the exit path, getting them
out, and then getting the slippery thing.
What are our chances of getting back in after we leave the
store? We got in the last one.
We just got to wiggle the finger, Ma Jigger.
Let's just prop it open. Yeah I definitely the loudest
one seems to lock it does it definitely does seem to lock
when it's swings closed by default.
But yeah but prop it open mess the lock.
You would think those capabilities those are things
you you could do. Yeah, I mean guess.
What piece of tape? On you that you can't interact
with. I got a bit of kind of search
around my bag real quick and pull out.
It's just like a bunch of stuff to cook food in.
It's like we can we can prop the door of this.
Like a pot. Yeah.
Cookware like a like a little, Yeah, like cookware, Yeah, you
can definitely do that. You could just kind of wedge it
down near the base where it's not even like a doorstop.
You like, put it physically down in the corner.
So it definitely won't open without someone seeing that and
pulling it away, yeah. So yeah, you want to try to open
the store? Anyone.
Yeah, I mean, we just have to just pop it, right?
Yeah, yeah. It's the release is on this
side. You can see it.
I guess we'll do the same thing we did before then.
We we're on the inside, no? Yeah, you're on the inside.
It's literally just a button. Yeah, you can hit.
Yeah, so wait, what are we telling these people?
They exit that way. Do they not have a different
exit? No, they're just not.
Locked in. Yeah.
They're also blast stored in like the vault blasted in and
specifically I guess to to slightly illustrate more what I
was saying is the person, the person who is counting all this
stuff, they have like a pile of these seed packets next to them.
And then what you saw Stan is all these tiers and like
essentially like you can see that the tiers and the sort of
areas where they'd be these different crates or like
collections, which was really all that you could see.
But this one person had like these, these pouches out on the
counter. Got ya.
All right. Well, yeah, let's just let's
just let's just say hey, you're welcome.
Brakes. That way.
All right. Ready?
Pop it open. Hello friends.
Farmer lanes like look over. Oh, is that found a way out?
Is everything OK out there? Yeah, we're we're in the rescue
party. Someone was screwing around the
control room. Alarm went off.
Someone else screwed around the control room.
Power went off, but we talked to Rake.
Rake sent us in. We're here to give y'all a way
out. Apparently there's some service
tunnels, and this is one of them.
Oh, well, I guess that's good fortune for us if you couldn't
figure out a way to get the door open.
So that's that's great. Any news on the power?
Should we. I mean should we head out of
here until then or do you know what Rake wants us to do?
I. Think.
No, I'm still candle, right? And I got a candle.
Rake was working on the feel power there, but you know you
might be able to give them. Give her her hand.
You seem smart enough to write stuff down.
Yeah, I guess I'll, I guess I'll go check in with her.
Yeah, if you're looking in. Want to how they really want
everyone to get back in their room and make sure, I'll say.
Yeah, yeah, he he he definitely doesn't understand anything you
just said. I think you said that Rake
wanted to kind of do a head count, make sure everybody was
all right because you know, pots are flying around and stuff and
also the power's out. So if you if y'all want to head
back in there, we'll make sure everything's good in here and.
We'll come through, yeah, sure. Just so you know, when the blast
door came down, if you were all going to try the inventory
checking into this stuff, I had these out and has like this,
this like collection maybe like 12 or 14 of those pouches.
Picks it up, picks them up and says that guy I had these out
but all these other everything else got pulled down and like
goes and opens this cabinet and the whole like there was stuff
in it before. But you can see that there's
like a panel, like a trap door has closed and all of those
seeds have been lowered down into some sort of like emergency
protective vault, something below.
Ain't that neat? Smart.
So but hey, you know you got service tunnels, this place has
more secrets. But I mean I guess they had
something in place in case there was a raid on it or something.
But I only have these and a few other people count and had some
more out. But everything other than that,
it's all inaccessible to us. But just so you know picks up,
picks up their their notebook and and heads out that way kind
of like feeling because once they get out to the edge of your
light, there's no light. So they're just big feeling and
just like, so just just this way and you're like, yeah, just that
way. Mm hmm, yeah, yeah.
I give them really detailed instructions on how to get there
and I'm sure they they're like OK.
So I do have a question for Wonderlands.
You can't interact with anything physical.
No, I cannot. So why don't you sink through
the floor and disappear? Just for good.
I mean, no, I'm saying like, what?
How or what is stopping you? Why don't you just sink through
the floor and get the fuck out of here, guy?
Why? Don't you take your mumbling.
Motherfucking mouth and get on it and.
But no. Like the question really was
like, can you climb stairs like you're able to interact with,
like your feet touching things? I can.
I can essentially kind of fly. Basically, yeah, yeah,
Basically. Stan's always been mimicking
walking, Yeah, but it's actually just floating.
I guess if you were really. Smart you were.
Really paying attention. Like you could tell that maybe I
my walk was not perfect, you know?
You could absolutely go down to the floor.
Yeah. Yeah.
OK. I mean, cool.
You know what? Actually, yeah, I want to take a
peek onto the floor since everything sunk down.
And I don't. I don't just sink through the
floor. I like fully rotate to where my
feet are facing up and like my head is down and through the
floor. So you guys just see like from
my like thighs to my feet sticking up to the floor.
Yeah, you when you do that, you are still in the floor and
ground. Like you're gonna have to go
deeper. Let's do it to get to probably
wherever these go. So you just see these little
legs and feet blink out down below.
Make sure I do this as stupid as possible, you know.
Span as you do this, you, you know, you you go down and it's
like you have to go far. Like it feels like you're going
like two or three stories probably through like rock and
like other parts of the like other little bits of
infrastructure of this this facility.
But then you just get into like rock and then come down into
what feels like, you know, an open air chamber, also dark.
Although here there are like 3 or 4 little like emergency glow
light kind of things around the corner.
And you can see where all of these have been sort of lowered
down. And there's this whole
collection of of boxes very much in a similar to that array.
Almost like if you had like a, you know, like an origami pagoda
or something, you know, like squished it down where it's like
they're all now stacked very close to each other but in the
same configuration. Does this room feel like
temperature control? Can I feel temperature?
I think that you can. It definitely feels cool, but
not like, unreasonably cool. Yeah, I feel it feels like
slightly cool room temperature. OK.
I I think I can slow back up and and let's.
No, sorry. What did you say?
Oh, I was gonna say as you're sort of like looking around here
up above Cloud and thorn roll speed checks for me, I think I
would say you're Thorne. You're gonna have advantage from
one of your skills. And yeah, I think that's what
we're gonna say. Is it anything acrobatic
related? No, not this.
That is an 86. Let me check if that fails.
It probably does. Yeah, that.
What about you, Thorne as? I seated on both.
I got both. My rules are in the 30s and my
speed is 54. OK.
So cloud that you don't notice this, but Thorne you you notice
once again like sort of just beyond the edge of the light.
You can still see a sort of like a darker than average shadow as
a person. Like you can see sort of a form
seems to have something in their hand out and is slinking along
almost like trying to get up to the walkway.
Like it's kind of like trying to hug the wall.
This is not one of the farmer laying people.
It doesn't seem to be anyway who was just in here.
They they all sort of like went and walked and started to clear
out. You were there trying to slink
Stop slinking. And turns and in the hand enters
the light and you see a revolver and an arm and these sort of
like gold golden but worn bracelet most like brace not
quite a full bracer but like a large bracelets that you
definitely recognized on the on bud the cloud laying hiding his
farmer laying that was out in the thing you sort of see his
arm come in with this revolver and it's just like look all I'm
here for is just one seed doesn't have to go this way.
It's already dark it's already everything else is already going
sideways. Just let me slink out of here
with one and take a stress. Well, both of you, Cloud and
Thorne, take a stress for having a well, having a gun brandished
at you. I would say you don't know yet,
Sven, that he's here. In a moment we will say you pop
back up. Very fair is cloud near me.
I assume so. I think as soon as the pistol
went out, Cloud is behind you. Yeah, I was gonna say.
I would just stand in like I would make sure that cloud is
behind me. I fucking knew it.
Who are you? Look, came from Delta City.
I just heard rumors about this place.
It's just one. Just trying to get one seed and
head home. Don't want to have to use this.
I don't want to have to be here any longer than I need to be.
It's a big deal for me. I love them right there.
Take one and go. He like sort of goes over
keeping the the gun out, grabs these.
The stack of. Starts like pulling one up while
keeping you you, both of you like in in vision, checking the
net label, dropping in. Then cloud swipers it's harmony,
like we have a seed. It's obviously more than just a
seed. Why do you want this seed?
What is it to you? I mean, there's a lot of old
stuff in here, a lot of rare stuff, right?
I just need one seed. Do I just pickle?
Melon a Delta city is a sky seed, right?
It's a cloud city, yeah, but I just need one seed just so some.
You know, Lord can grow pickle melons in his manners
greenhouse. OK?
Trust me, one little melon is not going to make or break for
your lot down here. Listen here.
Picks it up, picks it up. Cloud link.
Fuck, I need it. It's like it's not and sort of
like starts to look through this and it's on like that.
Has like the last one that he hasn't looked at yet.
And it's just like, I know that it's, you seem like the kind of
person who wants to think that everything's nice and easy up
there, but it isn't. I wouldn't be down here if I had
other options. I just need this one payday and
looks and kind of like you see, like a grin on his face.
This last packet please, you know.
Just as well as us at one seed ain't one fucking seed.
Soon as they know their seeds down here, they're calling for
fucking all of them, aren't they?
What they do with it's not my part to play in this man and he
seems to be smiling holding this.
One sort of puts it in under his robe and as they stand now,
another time has happened. You would probably pop back up
if you wanted. I I think I do, but I feel like,
I feel like Spin's sees enough that he if he really sees in
trouble, like he's not popping up full speed, you know, and I'm
taking a cautious float and looking.
OK. So you just like out of sight of
out in the dark there, we just see you creep up and you're kind
of looking. Yeah.
Sorry. Back to you, Thorne.
No. Listen, you put that seed down
or I'm planting something in you.
This is really worth taking a bullet over.
It is. The folk up there, they mean
they've got their hands full already.
I don't know if you've you've heard there's still Lord links
coming down here. Not after that shit up north.
Are we post 29th expedition or are we in the midst of literally
them doing exactly that? We're, I mean generally across
the area like the Lord Link, like there is a war essentially
going on between the surface and the clouds now.
It's like patchy and happening in fits and spurts.
It's the kind of thing like, oh, we heard that village got like
raided. We heard that they're here, we
heard that they're there. That kind of thing that's been
ongoing for like the season or like most of the season you know
but it's a very like like little bits fits and starts kind of
targeted thing here but I mean that would probably if anything
that would probably raise your suspicion.
Thorns particularly in this, in this angle right there they're
already they're already out searching supposedly off this
theory right that the farmer lings kidnapped the Empress.
But in no farmerling is like why would we even do that What would
we even do? How would we even get up there
you know that kind of thing. So it's that very like that's
their rationale. Doesn't seem no farmerling buys
it. You know what's?
Going on not to say it's not. True.
Yeah, they're looking for that Empress, whoever the hell she
is, and wonder why ever the hell she's important.
So now, for that, they're coming down for seeds.
I'll tell you what, They take everything.
This ain't the first time they've been a war.
It ain't the last time there's going to be one.
If we have it, they want it. They'll try to take it.
And I ain't letting this soft finger little fuck take a seed.
If you take one step, I'm putting you down.
And I say that to Bud. You can tell that this is like
intense panic kind of thing, You know, it's like it's like he's
like on the edge one way or the other there.
What were you going to say? Spend.
I'll say you can do one thing if you want.
I want to float up just direct directly behind the soft hands.
You float up behind. He doesn't really notice.
You can hear this. You hear him like this heavy
breathing hymn of being like this is the the clot.
You know. This is the moment and he
doesn't know how to handle it or if there's a way out, but.
I lean in real close to his ear. I go.
He oh, yeah, OK. He turns it like like
frighteningly, like just like turns straight around and just
fires straight through you. It's just like ringing out
across the room of this revolver.
And then like basically his arm goes, if you you're right behind
him, right? It's like his arm goes into you
and he's just seeing his arm go into you and fires through you
and then just sort of turns to run and is putting the gun back
out towards Thorn and Cloud. What do the two of you do?
Thorn and Cloud. Well, I think I do a resounding
drop. OK, you drop.
What about you, Thorne? If if so, to pull that back by a
fraction of a second. If I see spin, I see spin pop
up, he says. Boo.
He turns, He fires. You saw spin in advance, so you
knew he might mess. So he's distracted in that
moment. Can I quick draw my military
rifle? I have dueling skill and a high
speed. I want to whip it off my back
and have it aimed. So if he turns around with that
right revolver aimed again, I want to fire the second I say it
aim towards us again. Yeah, I I I don't think that you
need to roll for that. I think you that falls within
your skill set, especially being in a few minutes of this high 10
situation that you would be able to draw your weapon as he turns
around. Because he turns, sees this
fires, you kind of grab your rifle and bring it up and here
turns back to you and he is like full panic mode after fought
seeing this he like he was about to do something and that just
completely set everything off. So he just, he turns back around
and starts to be, he's making towards the door the the service
tunnel, but he definitely swings with that gun back out in your
direction, yeah. I'm going to shoot him.
OK. So something in Cloud Empress is
basically, unless it's particularly difficult shot,
which in this case you were lined up on him, It isn't thing
that makes firearms particularly scary on both ends is most shots
automatically hit. It would have to be like a shot
out of your range. It would need to be a, you know,
a particularly difficult shot for some reason.
Can I purposely aim to hit him in the arm that has the gun?
That I would make you roll for him, but you could.
OK, can I use my dueling? I feel like this is literally
what that is for. Definitely.
And obviously it's it's a speed for range, right?
Yes. OK, so my speed is 54 so I'm
trying to. Really trying to keep this kid
alive, huh? 54 an advantage?
Yep. It's a kid.
If it wasn't a kid, I would. I would cheat the shit out of
him. I rolled a 44 and an 81 all.
Right. Well, the 44 is a crit, so you
do exactly what you aim to do, right?
Because that's a success, because it's under your 50. 4
double S as a crit. Yeah, it's a crit.
So. So what does that look like?
You know, you wanted to disarm him.
Is that you shoot him in the hand?
Is that you shoot? Is that you shoot the gun out of
his hand and you don't even harm him because it's a criminal?
I was just going to try to get like center mash, like I was
like that was difficult enough. But if I crit, I want to do the
straight up fucking old western, shoot the gun out of the hand
bullshit like don't even like. He just says that like, ah, that
hurt after, but he's not even like really injured.
But I just wanna just. The gun just blasted out of his
hand. Yeah, so before that thorn, take
a stress, cuz you drew your weapon.
OK? Nobody else has taken a wound
anything like that. I'm just making sure I'm
covering my stress and panic. You would think for someone
who's made a lot of mothership stuff and run a lot of it, I
would be better. But for some reason I always, I
forget to call for stress. So I'm going to make sure to add
stress and and panic in. But yes, so you do exactly that.
He turns basically and is kind of sort of aiming in your
direction as going to flee and you just the shot rings out once
again. It's like deafeningly loud,
especially for you cloud being so close to it being in this
included space, sort of like that, like dizzyingly loud.
And the revolver just goes flying out and smacks against
the back the side wall of the vault on the ground.
He just kind of like looks at his hand in shock for a moment
and then just keeps running for the for the service entrance
store. Yeah, I I guess I'll try to.
I'll run him down. Really want to just, like, just
fuck this kid. He's got the seed.
I ain't letting him get out of here with the seed.
Oh, I. Pretty generalize.
He got it, I don't think. I don't.
Yeah, I don't think you know that.
Yeah, you came up after that had happened.
But yeah, he has a seed on him. Yeah, and I again, I'm fast.
I'm a fast boy. Yeah, I wanna just chase him
down and I wanna just straight up fucking form tackle him like.
Yeah, go ahead and write. Go ahead and roll his feature
for me, all right? Do do I get anything with that?
You've got not for dueling. You're typically not, you know,
tackling. I think and and especially since
you're a firearms dueler type, I'll give it to you for we'll
say either dueling or street savvy gives it to you.
Oh, OK. Well, I.
You used to. You used to bar bar brawling.
Probably be a street savvy, if nothing else.
So I rolled a 53. OK.
And my stat is. 54 My stat is a 54.
I just dropped it in in the thing just to just to show it.
But if I have advantage, no fucking shot.
This is what I I just rolled and I'm throwing it in just to make
sure these were the 2 rolls that I just rolled.
A. 53 and a 54 with the speed and 54.
Yeah, and ties fail. So in that case you just barely
skirt by. But it is that he he is like
smaller and yeah, definitely like a bit younger than you, but
he almost, he makes it like right there to the door.
But you catch him just in time and you basically just smash him
into that door, like the open door of the service tunnel and
then are able to hold him down there.
I mean he takes, you know, small amount of of harm just from
getting smashed against the door kind of a thing and just it down
and hurting. He kind of like looks and like
reaches down and he does still have a Saber on him, but like
the way you have him wedged, he can't get to it.
And after a moment of holding him there, unless there's some
other way you like, immediately react, he just like, like he
almost does like a, you know, like a, like a cry scream like a
just that like completely at the end of his rope.
Like he has no, he he like that sort of frustrated, like I can't
do anything to get out of this. And then just kind of like sits
there like defeated. Yeah, once he gets to that
point, I want to reach into his clothes or whatever, pull out
the pick of melon seed, throw it back towards cloud, Yeah.
And yeah, you would know that the pickle, you know, the pickle
melon is like a sort of like renowned and exceedingly rare.
I would say farm farm melons probably think that it's like
entirely gone. And then it's, it's probably one
of the things that's rumored to still be in some lordly, lordly
gardens and greenhouses in the cloud cities kind of a thing.
But this would be like, yeah, like a very, you know, like,
imagine a world where, like, pineapple was extinct and you're
like, I can grow you a pineapple.
It's like, well, there's nothing quite like a pineapple.
So that kind of thing. Yeah.
I'm not saying yeah, he's just kind of sitting there like kind
of weeping, defeated, just being like, you know, just sort of
like, almost like lost in thought to himself.
Not like mumbling out loud or anything.
Yeah, I'm just gonna grab by the face like this thing and turn
towards me and get real close and just say you're lucky there
was a young lady in here with us and I didn't want to kill in
front of her, so. Tries to like pull out and just
stares off, like sort of off to the side.
You definitely hear after the gunshots.
You can hear like, you know, people coming down the hall down
that service tunnel, probably from the place where you entered
from. But you can definitely hear
people are coming to respond to it.
I'll just sit on them until they get here so they can handle
them. Anything cloud or span want to
do? At this point, no, but I guess
we'll kind of let it out into the air.
Did he come through the the tunnel there?
Do you see him? How How do you get in here?
I didn't see him, but my assumption is that one he saw
the scribe or whatever exit he probably snuck in because it's
still dark and just came down the service tunnel and snuck up
behind us. Slinking slinking like you know.
Yeah. Hey, bud.
How'd you get in here?
Came down the service tunnel, although people, rigs, crew,
they were milling out. They didn't mind I was coming in
shift change or whatever. It kind of is like just
frustrated. I will say a thing you would
probably think to do. Thorn is like, especially with
sort of thorns like Bent on this, like farmerling versus
cloudling. You know, Thorn has shown to
have this very like, you know, like the lines are black and
white in in in Thorn's mind, I think.
I'm out of the war. You would know that.
You would know that like cloudlings and Lord Ling's, well
mostly just lordlings, but you know that they typically if they
are Lord Ling of any stature, they have a Crest on them.
I think you would probably like almost pat them down.
You probably like would have taken his Saber and tossed it
across the room. You also noticed that he, while
he does have a number of this sort of like like the, you know,
the gold filigree bracers and these things that seem Lord Ling
ish like an even nicer than a typical cloud thing.
He doesn't have a Crest on him. Which is to say, your main
thought is that if he is a Lord Lang, he's probably like the
lesser or least of children among a sizable family.
The kind of Lord Ling we're almost being.
Royalty is meaningless. Not, I wouldn't say a burden.
But it doesn't help him. He's ignored.
He's a He's a backup plan of a backup plan of a backup plan.
You're a 77. How it sucks to be you.
But but yeah after a moment several bricks crew members from
from out there come in and and see this and you know kind of
like see you on top and you're sort of you know they know that
you're affiliated with and they still come in and like look with
with guns up like a Saber out and that kind of thing and sort
of like also hold him down and try to get a sense of what
happened from from you. I tell them exactly what
happened and why, and I keep a better eye on this for
definitely some Lord Link trying to come down here and take
what's ours. You know, if they find out about
this and then know that it's real, they're gonna come for
more. And they're just like, yeah,
yeah, yeah, we'll keep a hold of him, We'll take him out to see,
to see Rake and they get kind of two, two guys pick him up.
They do the same, sort of like pat down to make sure there's
any other weapons that you did and they like weed him out on a
grab on the service. Tunnel.
They take him down the service tunnel, like grab him by and
like, turn him back and do the whole like, you can be better
than this. You don't have to go back up
there. There's something down here for
you if there's nothing up there. You kind of like makes like a
split second of eye contact with you before just doing the like
eyes down, defeated kind of look again and you feel like you may
have made a small impact on him, like talk.
No, Duke said. Did.
Something with him is a nice. Yeah.
Very Dad. Core of you, you know, Yeah.
They start heading down to service tunnel.
Now, Stan, you feel this whole time, especially coming up out
of the floor behind him where he was kind of up on this race
platform halfway to that, that case you were like overwhelmed,
almost like, you know, it's like a like a moth to the flame,
right? It's like a, you know, it's like
an instinctive draw to that case up there, like.
I've been staring at it while they this all.
They were all doing their thing. I've just been.
Yeah, I was where I'm gonna say actually make a make AI don't
mind check, make a make a body save just to see if you can
physically. I know you don't have a normal
body, but just to see if you can physically keep yourself all
ethereally slippery. Really keep yourself from going
there. I want you to know that I just
rolled A1, so I know it doesn't matter in this system, but.
I think we can all just appreciate.
Appreciate that. It's a good number.
So you, yeah, you keep you, you keep a head on it, but like in
your head it's just this pulsing like like when you look up you
can just see that like slip stuff sort of streaming down
these like tiers of this and it's like that is like there is
a bridge for you, there is something for you there.
OK. I I.
Kind of What's up? And So what do you do?
I kind of want to approach it. Sure, you head up and you just
well I guess you can just float up now if you're still under
your guise, being a norm, you know, a non wanderling.
You walk around up here and what you come up to find is this
sealed heavy like metal stones, composite as this very like
synthetic feel, but you can see what looks pretty much be like
almost like a sarcophagus, like a tomb.
OK. With that same sort of wreath
and flower pattern like similar to the wreath and flower that
was on the portrait out in the lobby and at the end sort of the
the close end that you were able to see from the entrance there
is this glass raised display case and in it is that
mechanical prosthetic arm. This sort of like deep like you
know like red and silver inlaid work very nice.
This sort of like just slightly longer than natural fingers with
these like little. This is on the sarcophagus.
This is in the in the case this is this is the relic to you and
yeah and it's a it's a right arm prosthetic relic.
It's it is the one in that portrait.
It is Caspian's arm. I reach in and grab it.
Yeah. You you reach through, like you
just go through the glass and your hand touches and holds this
relic and you pull it back and you can just shatter through the
glass with it. And at that point with the light
still being off, there would be sort of like a, you know, you
assume there might be like well there's probably some sort of
like lockdown or something like that.
But you pull this out and have it and you can put it on.
Oh, I'm. Without dog putting this arm on.
I mean, he can basically wear it over his arm his his ethereal
arm. I'm.
I'm incorporeal that. Six.
Fuck. And yeah, you you have Caspian's
arm. It's this.
Now with with your right hand, it's like you can wield.
You know you can control it with this bridge between the slip it
it is your arm. So I can touch it now with my
right arm. Yeah.
Yes. You know what would be the best
is if you were left-handed? Am I?
What if you were left-handed out?
You could roll. You could roll AD 10 and if you
get a 30, a 12 or a three, you're left-handed.
OK. Oh, she don't have to do that.
Do it. OK, You're right-handed.
That would just be funny because then it would be like your
handwriting just looks really bad all the time.
But yes, I would say there's other things possibly with the
arm here. But well, yeah, I think that you
get a sense, you definitely know from your connection to the
slope as a wanderling. This has, it has like life
energy to it like it has like it is a it is a thing of growth of
prosperity sort of as the the feel you get from it.
But yeah, the two of you down below just see fan up here, this
having floated up just now, with this arm still in the dark, only
lit, you know, only reflecting off of this from the light in
the Lantern. Can I?
Hey look, I got my cell arm. Can I go over to cloud and kind
of like put like not even like spin this doing spin stuff?
Can I go over to Cloud and, like, put a hand on her shoulder
and just say, are you all right? No bolt holes.
I'll call it good. All right.
You know why I had to do that, right?
Oh. I know well enough.
Just glad you didn't kill him. Fancy shooting back there.
I'll take a little bit for the ringing to get out of my ears,
but I'll give it to you and she reaches up and does the pat.
Yeah. And after a moment or two after
that, there's this, like, and the lights come back on in here
and you hear some cheering from down the service tunnel, from
echoing down as the lights come back on in here.
Everything is still lower down, the blast door is still down,
but the lights have come back on.
So it's like it's lit but still that like like pulsing red,
gotcha, like progress. But you know, not there yet.
Yeah. So we still didn't find the
thing that they're a part of me, right?
It was like a magical arm that like floated back into its
display case. You don't think so?
All right. I would say out of character,
you know we're at the, I don't know how you all are feeling.
If we want to keep going for like another half hour, if we
want to wrap here. What you're all thinking to me
and I was like. We're at a good ending, I think,
yeah. You know, I think this is.
If you're OK with some, you know, UN unresolved threads, but
that could be a good, that could be a good tease for the viewers
to go and pick up this adventure and see what this paw throwing
is all about. OK.
Yeah. Well then.
In that case, feels like a good. Yeah, yeah.
Then I'll, I'll, I'll narrate us out here.
But yeah, you know, after after several more moments, Fen comes
down with this arm. Some of the other, like, some of
the other of, like Rake's crew are like, whoa, like, what is
that like looking at this this arm and the thing that you
notice then as you as you sort of walk down, you feel like a
draw, like a, you know, it's like you felt this all every now
and then as a wanderling. It's similar to the draw that
you felt to the relic, but it's also like a it's like it's more
like you can sense when there's a connection, like when there's
a thread, like something feels like a like an acquaintance,
like a like a little friend maybe you haven't seen for
years. It's like that when you pass
those pouches of of seeds and you put your arm over it to grab
one and as you pick it up, it already starts to sprout and
grow up out of the package. And with your arm you can
accelerate plants life cycles. Flowers bloom in seconds.
Trees sprout and die in about a day of your attention to them.
So we see one of those and you know, you see like this big
slump like pink striped pickle melon, go grow and break off and
kind of like knocks down on the ground near you.
Hey, listen, just now some veneers and I'm going to appear
as the Messiah of these people, you know.
Holu Holu. And grab that pickle melon on
the on the way. Yeah, of course.
Yeah, you you scoop up that pickle melon, thinking it might
make for a good little bit of dessert after tonight's meal.
And yeah, I mean I think after after, you know get a little
montage of they're able to lift the, the lockdown at a point
they go, there's still sort of this strange, you know, sense
like, you know, someone else says like, yeah, this thing
happened to me over there. Like they they're like we got to
get into that other room that last room is blockading and then
we get a little smatterings of them talking about this.
But the three of you at least feel good that it's it's in good
hands with rake. Especially now that rake seems
to be going into like, OK, there this might be under threat.
This might not just be other well to do people out we need to
maybe actually like raise our standards a little bit in terms
of security on this if we want to be the ones to keep it safe
and you feel good about that. You kind of like walk you know
go out and out to the front where you know every all the
farmer links want to hear from you and stuff and you go out to
basically set up camp probably and rest later this evening in
the area. And I think the last shot that
we just kind of get is of that portrait in the my alarms going
on that portrait there. And then sort of, you know, just
this is cinematic gaming right now.
The camera pans down below that and we see the dirt on the floor
just tremor and a little crack in the cement as something seems
to shift deep below the bolt. That is where we went with a
cliffhanger, a tease, a horror movie style tease.
Nice. But yes, that is 1 version of
Samantha Lee's The Seed Vault and I think that was really fun.
What did you do all think? How did you feel?
Great talk about it. There was a vault.
There was some seeds. Mission accomplished.
Well, I find good weird times, you know.
Good reveal, ghost boy. Hey, listen, you know, I I
appreciate the fact that Josh tried to hold my hand several
times, so I had moments to pull away.
Yes, I think I'll say to people watching.
The thing that is actually that I love, which this is something
that is similar to mothership things as well, is this
adventure. This is an 8 page adventure and
one of those pages is a full, really awesome piece of art.
So to give you an idea, it's like this.
This is the adventure, right? But the thing that I really like
about the structure here is there's three or four sort of
spinning plates and things that could come into play.
We got to see one of them, but you know, you got to see hints
of the other, right? There was something, something
or someone who seemed to be throwing things, acting almost
like a haunting. Whether that was a real haunting
or not, we don't know. Also this sort of threat and
deeper below, there was a number of ways that interacting with
that control room could have gone, some of them much worse
than the power going out and the light going off.
And yeah, so that's what that's that would be my my sales pitch
for adventures of this style is it's a situation with all these
various ways to go and I think, I always think that's fun
because I bet you I could run this exact same thing with a
different group and that would not happen.
What just happened? So, but that's just RPGs, baby.
Hey, that's just me talking about RPGs.
Oh. Yeah, yeah.
Samantha Lee in the chat saying that was such a delight to
watch. Thank you.
It's a great adventure.
I really enjoyed it a lot. I I really love the more I hate.
I fucking hate the term OSR. But like the call it nature may
ish where it's more like here's a location here are things.
Here is flavor but not necessarily direction on what is
supposed to happen. Or I mean I haven't read the
adventure. We got to play it.
Maybe there is in there, but like, I like Adventure
Locations, and this feels like an adventure location where we
can kind of dictate how we play versus being told how to play
it. And that was really fun, to be
able to just be like, let's fuck around and find out, you know?
Yeah. Yeah, I was gonna say yeah, if
Syntha is watching, yes. Thank you for watching.
Thank you for writing the adventure.
I hope I did it justice. There may have been a detail or
two I I missed, but that's the kind of GM I am.
It's like, if I'm close enough in my head, I'll just roll with
it. But to in the moment to not slow
the pace. But yeah I mean I think that
yeah for people who maybe who haven't played a lot of games
like Cloud Empress and it's ilk that is The thing is it
definitely puts more weight in that way on the players.
It is player driven. Like I don't dictate the.
I'm not dictating the reason you're there and I'm not going
to tell you why you're there. I could if you guys were all
like I have no idea will you give us a reason.
But it really is that and that's the thing that's so fun though
is it? It means that as the GM, and I
mean you all know this, this is me preaching to the choir here.
But as the GM, the thing that's really fun is that I get to
play. Also.
Like, I I I saw how it happened the same time you all did, which
is really fun. I did not know if that any of
those elements were going to happen.
Like Bud was only going to probably get into the vault and
be a threat once the power was, once the service tunnel was
accessed and the power was out. You know, those kind of things.
So I think it's really, it makes for the whole table having a
really unique experience. But like I said, this is just me
talking about RPG things we know.
Yeah, thanks for running the game.
That was great. Honestly, it was a blast.
Yeah. And you're being a player,
right? Yes, I hope you liked playing.
I know I kept being like, I gotta try to.
I gotta work cloud in. I gotta cloud more stuff.
I'm used to hearing Josh talk a lot more than this.
That's just cuz you're normally Gming.
Yeah. But that worked out well.
So you'll definitely hear more of Cloud Empress again.
The episode that I should have put today will probably be out
tomorrow, which means you'll get a double Cloud Empress drop
tomorrow cuz I'll put this out as well.
And that'll be episode like a fourth cloud Empress episode I
think. And then as we said, Watt
already announced the life and death expansion coming in April
and we'll definitely have Watt back on the show to talk about
that, to at least talk about it, if not also run it.
So expect a whole playlist of cloud Empress.
It's fun game. Watt is a great person who has
done some great stuff with this and I just hope it continues to
evolve in advance and and and keeps the same level as that.
Now cuz it it's it's really fantastic for for us.
We're gonna be super busy for Christian.
You've got some stuff going on right now.
What do you got going on? Yeah, Just this week I launched
the Early Access Itch Fund. That's what I'm calling it like
Early Access because it is a basic layout and sort of little
art, but good art. What is their version of my
first like stand alone proper system called Tacticians of OM
that is taking traditional grids in mini style combat but saying
can we make that fast and really snappy and really while keeping
all of the dramatic fun aspects and sort of inspired by like
Final Fantasy Tactics and Into the Breach.
And the setting of that is you're playing as video game
characters in a dying video game world.
So it's a bit rotting, glitching and corrupting world and you are
part of a force that is brought together within the world to go
out and fight back against that. And yeah, that's you'll
definitely see if you follow me anywhere or anything that's
that's the thing I've been putting up.
But it's been getting a ton of support right now so far which
is awesome and it's over the next year.
So I'm going to be growing it out.
If people will check it out on itch, they'll get they get the
rule book now and then as I I'm going to add more to it every
month until probably about September if I'm able to stay on
track. And by the end of that they will
have a full complete rule book with layout and art.
They will also have a campaign book to take you about to levels
four out of A10 level Max. And then also a setting book,
definitely inspired to and similar to something like the
Land of Cicadas book from Cloud Empress.
Like a big sort of sort of a hex crawl, sort of a lore book, sort
of a extra stuff book, more classes, more items, that kind
of thing. But that's the big thing I got
going on. And then you know, I'm I'm doing
a little bit more development work on the life and death for
Cloud Empress, which, you know, I won't give anything away, but
the bits I've seen from Watt have been very wonderful and
weird and great like the like the other components.
So I've been very, it's been very privileged to work on that.
Yeah, but Tacticians of ALM is my main thing.
It's great. I mean, so it already passed its
first goal. It's already on to its second
goal. I see that there's exactly 100
contributors, which is a really cool, nice round Number to see.
I was, I was waiting for that before we started to play.
So that's. I just got to keep running
games. It means I'll sell 3 copies.
Yeah it's awesome. So yeah it's yeah it's done
surprisingly well. I with it's funding.
I actually just wrote something from my newsletter about that
you know it's it's it's always a gamble.
I think like it's it's not like Kickstarter and some of the
other things that are very big audience and sort of well
researched and that kind of thing where you can have a
little bit more of an idea. So I didn't know what to expect,
especially being mostly in a mothership, like a mostly a
mothership adventure writer. I didn't know if anyone would
follow me down that path. So it's been really awesome to
see people follow me down that path of making a weird video
gamey board game inspired take on D&D.
But yeah it's it's my fantasy art breaker.
It's well, I mean I was on a while ago earlier this week to
you all talking about it, but it's it's me saying playing
along 5D campaign and saying we liked that grids and minis on a
map battle, but we didn't like that the battles took four hours
when they were all level 10 or level 11, we didn't like that.
So it's me saying how can we make that as fast and punchy as
possible, keep as much of the really rewarding decisions while
removing all the rest. So it's that it's you know you
automatically hit, you know your moves.
You have set damage, all those kind of things that really
helped to speed it up make it make combat a puzzle as much as
anything else. That's one pitch.
It's a great game. I mean, I got to play it, we get
to talk about it, super excited for it and then Josh also our
our our sidequest GM, even though we haven't run sidequest
in forever, but trust me, we will be getting back to it.
We have some really exciting games from the Gauntlet and from
a lot of other places that we're excited to run and we'll be
getting back to that. But from Josh Mansky, Mr.
Unenthused or Mr. Vaulted Pyramid, what do we got on the
docket? Well, this is gonna be the year
crowdfunding, man. Let's see, the stuff that's been
announced there is the parthenogenesis of Hungry Hollow
for illuminal horror that should hit in spring.
We have the Illuminal Horror Deluxe Edition that should be
doing a Kickstarter. I think we're talking in August
right now, but that might slip a little bit depending on how
things go, boy. Outside of that, some things I
can't really talk about the titles for because I haven't
been announced, but I have a Mothership Adventure that's in
editing right now. I do it a little bit for a Zine
quest thing that hasn't quite been announced, boy.
Another couple of little small things coming here and there.
There's that fucking Outer Rim Uprising bundle I'm writing the
campaign handbook for. And then yes.
You've been doing a ton of work on that I I forgot we're Co
collaborators on how to rim uprising among advance.
Yeah you've been doing a ton of work on that campaign handbook.
I have a few little bits I'm going to get in there.
But yeah, that that campaign has been awesome and thanks, thanks
to you and and sort of other people building the connective
tissue. And the last thing is, I think
by the end of the year I should have a Super Secret Cloud
Empress release. Super Secret is in.
I haven't announced it, but I am working on it.
So fake, not real announcement. Right here for super secret.
Something just great. Very busy.
People. Are gonna podcast with us.
Yeah, I've got. I've got a good partnership
going on for that one, so I look forward to it.
But it's definitely like the I write during work adventure, cuz
I'm far too busy. Yeah, it's.
Yeah, I would say I can't. Oh, sorry.
I was gonna say I don't remember if I don't know if you if how
much the weekly scroll has talked about Liminal or in the
past. But I would say to anyone
watching or listening who has not checked out liminal or and
the various adventures, especially those that Josh has
worked on for it to do so. It's my favorite.
I was a long time before I ever went to create things.
I was a long time called Cthulhu.
Whatever the keeper, that's the word for it, for their word for
GM. And it's I would not ever go
back to running that in place of running luminol or I think it's
a great system. And to the full edition, the
deluxe edition that's coming has a lot of really great changes.
So I love it. That's just me saying I love
luminol. Yeah, no, it's absolutely
fantastic. I mean, we reviewed it on the
show. We, Josh ran it for us.
Well, not for us. Hunter couldn't make it.
It was myself, Adam Vass and Stella Andre.
Super fun, really fantastic adventure.
Was that wrong, Josh? We play.
I played the little horror on the show I did the crossover
special with. Triangle.
That's right. With Triangle Agency, that's
great. So we've had it twice on the
show. It's a good time.
Yeah, but the side quest is the adventure that's gonna be in the
Dux edition, so. Really Sneak.
Yeah, so busy, awesome people on the podcast with us here.
Definitely both in all and feel. Makes me feel like shit about
myself for still not getting a single thing out there.
But you will get about 1000 more episodes of this show this
month. So sorry about that.
Andrew, welcome again. Thank you guys for being here.
Expect both of them on again. Expect a lot more stuff from
them talked about here on the show and that is Side Quest
Episode 5. Cloud Empress from Watt using
the Sea Vault adventure from Samantha Lee.
Thank you all so much for listening.
Check out the past episodes and we will see you all sooner than
later. Have a wonderful night.
Bye.