So earlier today it happened. No, no, it didn't.
It literally did. I was, I was just fucking
standing there. I wasn't even doing anything.
I'm open standing. Do you guys remember there was a
thing of paper towels right here?
I actually didn't see one. Fuck off, there's a paper towels
on the desk. Noel was cleaning stuff up to
get us ready for our recording. She picked up the paper towels
and she, with all of the force in her strong lesbian arms, came
at at me with these fucking paper towels.
And with the last second she pulled the force back.
But I was so scared to death that she's going to hit me in
the body with these paper towels.
Didn't do that and. None of you guys were looking.
Yeah, that. Didn't she just walked past and
she had this little Smeargle? She was like, hey.
Jennifer, I don't think that happened.
And then when I had a normal reaction about it and I was
upset to a normal degree about having a hit done on me, all of
you guys said I was fucking. Lying.
I didn't say. That aside, I didn't say that I.
You, you told me. I was crazy.
I did. You are crazy.
I legitimately didn't see it happen, but I'm not saying that
it didn't happen. I.
Didn't see it happen and I'm saying it didn't happen because
things that happen outside of my sight lines are not happening I.
Saw it not happen. Yeah, Noel actively gassed, let
me afterwards told me I was crazy, she said.
I was having an overreaction after again hit that on me.
Jennifer, hold my hand her. Laughter right now is evidence.
Of her. I just think it's funny that
like that you are so upset about this after that time that you
fucking murdered me in cold blood multiple times.
Multiple times with your car horn.
Juniper. Hey, you calm down.
That didn't happen. Just calm down, calm down.
Now this has happened for the listeners at home.
This is this is the technique that you want to use when
someone is really upset about something is first you tell them
calm down, you're overreacting. The thing you're upset about
didn't happen and you hold their hands strength and you
established dominance and that is going to really calm me down.
And I currently have our first three fingers engaged.
They're in. Battle channel right now dude.
I got to avert my eyes. And physical strength and
strength of. Will and we are not looking at.
Each. Other but.
Actually I'm looking directly at cat, but that's just because
that's the way I'm faced. I can't look at Juniper
otherwise I can't talk into my mic.
I really want to stop, but I really, I know we've started it
now and I started to. Stop.
I'm not going to stop. My grip strength is.
So much better. That's going to demolish me.
Cat's going to break my fingers and you guys are going to tell
me that I was imagining it. It's like seems like Cat might
be the real villain in this situation.
In my design. Maybe I won.
Yeah, Cat won. I let it happen.
Wow, maybe Cat's the one who really hurt you.
Oh boy, it was. You, Noel.
It was you, Noel. Got her ass?
Yeah, that's right. Got revenge.
Fucking told. You.
Shit. Jesus Christ, Cat, take us away
please all. Right.
Well, Speaking of Jesus Christ, let's play Blades in the Dark.
Hello, my name is Kat and I have never done a hit.
Oh wow, Hi, my name is Noelle. I play Pepper and she is a rail
Jack and I have never done a hit and she's never done a hit.
Hi, my name is Juniper and I play Valerian and he's a slide
and I've never done a hit but I'm about to.
Cat, you better look out I think.
Juniper's mad at you. Oh, I'm about to do multiple.
Hits. Oh no.
Good thing I sit on the other. Side of the table, yeah.
You're safe. Well, it's actually the farthest
away from. Me.
Yeah, I was going to say the. Only person who's really in
danger here is Errol. Every day in my historic, every
day in my life. Errol is the one who gets hit
the most. I was going to say hi.
My name's Errol. I play Friedrich Weiss, who's a
Leech, and every day I suffer the slings and arrows about
rageous fortune and I get honked at by people's cars and struck
down and beaten and run over and it's fine and it's just just
part of who I am. Last time you all got settled
into Never Nowhere. You got your rooms, you checked
out your digs. Friedrich, you are doing your
little experiments in your your little room in Candle Hall.
My own little corner and my own little chair.
Yes, you can experiment whatever you want to experiment.
Pepper. You have been warned against
busking in the Dark Lamp Canal because there's a lot of rival
buskers. You're going to have to fight to
the death with your music. You don't want to fuck with
buskers, yeah? I'm.
Dangerous. Yeah.
You don't want to fuck with buskers and Valerian.
You have a gang trying to steal your house.
Oh yeah, all of our problems are kind of at the same level.
Yeah, same level, same level. You guys have two stops to get
your hands on three mementos, which are sentimental or
meaningful objects with memories attached to them that you can
use to pay your fare on the train.
And you have all now reached your first stop.
The interdimensional train of Never Nowhere has stopped in a
world called Apatreya. The Trains Bluebird Scouts have
reported that there is a sudden Goddess Festival happening this
week, and the people at Lafatria are ready to party down, and
they are also expecting to see all manner of sorts of strange
newcomers coming into town, even outside of the circus.
Arriving in town, Epper and Valerian you more or less agreed
to work together in the end, but Friedrich, you declared that you
are going to get all three mementos by yourself and you
went off alone and that's surely not going to bite you in the
butt. Yeah, it's a great decision and
I stand by it. OK, so Friedrich, we'll start
with you. You alone start on your way to
disembark the train. As you slither through the.
Raucous crowds of never know where's population.
You hear suspicious snatches of suspicious conversation between
gangs of suspicious looking people.
Over the past. Weeks you've begun to realize
that most passengers on this train are not, in fact, circus
performers. The majority aren't cooks or
carpenters or artists or scientists and.
Those that are, well it isn't their day job and the whole
stick up was on our. Turf, one voice says.
The houses don't have locks here, it's free real estate.
Says another. Yeah, you heard the punishment.
Score. Even if we get caught, it's not
like they'll. Kill us.
Some of the crews you pass by look slick and professional, and
some are made-up of only enforcers with bulging muscles
and intimidating weapons. Some groups whisper a cult
chants to the ghosts of the train and somewhere open
insignias denoting which gang they belong to, and some don't
stand out at all, blending into the background.
All are donning various versions of the elaborate leather sandals
and pleated robes provided by the costume department and all
that you can see. Are part of a group, not you,
Friedrich. You can do it all by yourself.
You think you've got a pretty good measure of the situation
after all, right? The train runs on mementos.
If a person doesn't have any mementos, then they pay the fare
with their memories. And if they do that enough
times, well, you saw what happened to nod.
They cease to be a person at all.
The memories that are made on the train, Mementos that are
made on the train. Those are worthless to it.
You can only get mementos from the world's outside the station,
and So what you need to do, Friedrich?
What all these people need to do?
Is steal something? Never.
Nowhere is society owned and operated by thieves.
In the snatches you've caught between experiments in your
room, you've heard their skirmishes for territory and
their bids for power. The most powerful gangs run
nearly everything on the train, but the real magic happens when
they get off of it. At each stop, marauders in all
their forms pour out into the unsuspecting world to collect
their prizes. The circus raises its tent for a
performance to titillate the masses, and the rest of the
population empties out into the surrounding city.
For a score. So before we jump in
narratively, we are entering the part of Blaze in the Dark called
free Play. So in this section of the game,
your goal is to gather information, look around, talk
to people. You can kind of do whatever you
want, but we are not going to do a score.
So this is kind of setting up to figure out what your score is
going to be. To get out of Never Know Where,
you have to navigate your way through the backstage, through
the circus tent where the performers and artists are
preparing their next show and help the striped front flap.
The sun is almost blinding after not seeing it for so many days
in a row, but eventually your eyes clear, and when they
finally do, you see the world of Apatrea.
The landscape you see is entirely alien.
The sky is startlingly blue, and it sparkles off a bright Azure
ocean. In the distance, enormous
columns with dreamy swirls of ornamentation hold up the
corners of imposing temples and plazas.
Sandstone buildings with pastel roofs and curtains soar up into
the silhouette of a city built on the hanging edges of hills
and cliffs. The city couldn't be more
different than the one you came from, and yet it gives you a
strange sense of deja vu all the same.
However, there's no time to take in the view as you find yourself
squeezed. In among a packed.
Crowd of revelers. The market is filled with people
in tunics and lace sandals carrying wineskins and pushing
their way from one entertainer to the next.
You run into a couple who are watching the puppet show in
front of the theater and one says, wasn't the xenoi with the
dancing pig supposed to be in this spot again this year?
The other said they must be somewhere else.
Come on, I want some of those fish dumplings.
The market district is full to the brim and you are able to
slip into the flow of traffic and shuffle along with the rest
of the people. Merchants in open air stalls are
shouting themselves hoarse to be heard over the throng
advertising special Sun Queen Festival prices.
St. Performers have carved out
little circles of space to use as they're staged display tricks
of acrobatics or juggling. Stilt walkers pick their way
through the pressive bodies to hand out long stemmed yellow
flowers to anybody who catches their eye.
The music played on lyre and drum drifts above all the noise.
It seems that the main flow of traffic is heading towards a
building made of Yellowstone with a carved pediment and tall
Doric columns. The pediment shows a woman in a
crown of sunbeams among cavorting nymphs and satyrs,
cradling a lyre in one arm and an arrow in the other.
And Friedrich, you have just drove head first into this
crowd. Did you stop by the costumer on
your way out? I I did.
Yes. So what sort of outfit did you
put together with the costumer? Well, you know, I prefer
something that's more modest to the general attire of this
place. So I think what Friedrich has
done is, you know, he's wearing the equivalent of sort of
scholarly clothes for this world, but he has kept on his
slacks and shoes. OK, so as you are pushing your
way through the crowd, someone grabs your elbow and pulls you
roughly into an alley. On hand to me.
And it is 2 rough, stout looking men, they say.
What sort of aristo is this has the fine clothes of a scholar
and they're picking at your tunic.
What are these? And one of them, like, reaches
down to grab you by the foot. Time is going to sort of slow
down here. We're in bullet time.
What action would you like to take as he is trying to grab
you? Well I think since we're in such
close quarters my only real option here would be skirmish.
And what I'd like to do is I'm able to carry alchemicals on me,
so I want to try and pocket sand him with an eye pipeline poison.
OK. All right.
So because this is something that you have on you, you're
kind of prepared for, we're going to say standard effect,
risky position. So go ahead and roll your
skirmish. And since I don't have any
points in skirmish, I roll. 2D6 take the lower.
OK, so that's actually a 5 and a six.
Oh hell yeah. OK, so A5 is a success.
You do it. You blind this man with your
poison as he tries to lift you up and he falls back rubbing at
his eyes trying to get the stuff out of his eyes does.
He let go of my ankle. He let's go of your ankle, but
his companion grabs you from behind and presses his forearm
up against your neck and begins to choke you.
Friedrich didn't need us. Friedrich.
Said. Friedrich's going to be fine.
Friedrich said I don't need no help.
Yeah, he said. He was smart enough and a man of
his. His intellect could absolutely
handle any situation, sort of himself.
He said he would get all three, yeah.
And he definitely will. And.
He definitely will and he definitely will.
Friedrich, you are being strangled.
What would you like to do? Let's see, again, we're in close
proximity here. So I mean, I'm going to try and
slip out of this and get away. So I think I'm might be able to
try to use the Prowl skill in that case.
OK to try and slip out of their grasp.
OK, so the higher one was 2. Oh no, that is a failure.
You do not accomplish your action.
You are unable to slip away. Actually, you're trying to like
slip out of his grasp, be a slippery little eel.
But no, you are a dry, dry eel and you are held fast as he
continues to choke the living daylights out of you.
So please mark level 1 harm on your sheet.
Harm. OK.
Yes. So the way damage works in
Blades in the Dark is a little bit different than it does in
D&D or, or any of the other crunchier games.
You have those boxes on your character sheet.
You get I think 2 level 1 harms, 2 level 2 harms, and one Level 3
harm. So when you take a level 1 harm,
that means you have a lessened effect in that injuries area.
So for something like being strangled, if you like later
tried to project your voice or something, you're going to have
a limited effect where as you would have had standard effect
otherwise. But once you fill up all of
them, there's actually a level 4 harm that you can take, which is
dead. So harms are pretty serious
right now. You've just taken a level 1 harm
and we will call that choked. Fun.
And you are just getting the daylights beat out of you when
you hear someone yell hey stop and the two ruffians drop you.
But not before taking anything of value off of you.
Do you have like a purse with mixed coinage or like a wallet
or anything? I think I don't really have
money yet, so they would probably just take the bandolier
that I have on me, yes. They slip the bandolier off of
you and run. Just.
We'll get out of there and you are found by the city guard.
Who? Oh, your honor, I'm so sorry
that those ruffians got you so badly.
We've been having so many problems with thieves in the
city during the festival, and they treat you very well.
You heard one of the others call you an aristo, and from the way
that the city guards are treating you, it seems that
given the way you're dressed, people are assuming that you are
some sort of noble. Interesting.
OK, Perfectly all right. Perfectly.
All right. I'm just going to head back to
my quarters now, but thank you so much, officers.
Next time make sure you carry your knife.
Most thieves are a bit more apprehensive than an armed man,
and it is your right to carry a weapon in the city, Sir.
Yeah, I'll do that. All right, Friedrich, we'll
leave you there. Valerian, how are you doing?
Can we make requests of the porters?
Yeah. And will they do what we ask?
Maybe. OK.
I need to find Nod's body. Oh, you're looking for a very
specific Porter then? Oh, I actually think I might not
want to come with you. No pepper.
Pepper. It's it's pepper.
It's pepper. It's not paper, it's pepper.
Pepper, you're welcome to come, I promise.
In this particular instance, my intentions are noble.
OK. All right.
So you you find a Porter, you're able to grab the arm of a
Porter. They're everywhere in moth
light. They're they're running errands,
they're doing repairs, they're watching and listening as they
always do. So you are able to easily find a
Porter and make a request of them.
And the Porter looks at you and has a very pleasant smile on her
face. This Porter is a red faced woman
with frizzy hair and she has this very pleasant smile.
But when you say you need Nod's body, you see a number of
emotions flip across her face, but none of them actually look
like emotions. It just looks like her face is
trying on different expressions to try and find which one is
appropriate for this situation. And she finally settles on a
sort of thoughtful frown and says, I'm sorry, Sir, but the
body of Nod has been retired to the back rooms for the moment,
awaiting repairs. Is there anything I can help you
with? Repairs What happened to the
body? I'm sorry, but I don't want to
disclose that. OK, well then that was really.
Going to be a big part of my. Plan.
You have a plan? I really like that we're calling
it Nod's body, by the way. I just would like to see my
friend Nod. Nod is not in his body.
Is that an option? I'm sorry, but Nod has joined us
in the porters and is no longer an individual.
OK, I will take you then if you'll have me.
I have a situation that I need taken care of, sort of.
I need to know what I have to do to get someone that Porter to
patrol my house as a threat was made against my property to me
this morning that it will be taken.
It was also the threat was made against myself as well.
But I can take care of that. If I die, I don't care.
I need. To own my house.
And. The Porter.
Tries on a few more expressions
and then settles on a sort of condescending concern.
And she says, Sir, if you have specific requests to make of the
porters, we would be happy to oblige you for fare of
compensation. And how much would this
particular request require compensating for?
Well we will need a memento. They will do what you ask if you
pay them and they only currency that they accept is mementos.
OK, a memento is worth multiple fares, but the porters will only
take whole mementos if you're trying to bribe them.
Like a whole memento. You can't just take the fair or
one fair 22 fair. The accounting is done by the
bank. We accept mementos.
Okay, I have a rat cage. You have a.
Gather we lots of rats on the three.
He has a rat cage, so think about that before you answer.
May I see your rat cage? Yes, of course.
The rat inside the cage squeaks and looks around, and the Porter
asks you is the rat included in the memento?
What? No, don't be ridiculous.
The rat is for dinner tonight. Please come here.
No, you can't. You're not.
Hey, does this rat cage have special significance to you,
Valerian? Yeah, it helps me escape my
castle. But it does not have a long,
storied history Does. It it might have a storied
history of someone else. But does it have a long storied?
Is it no, no and. She's stinky Peppers.
And she looks at it for a moment, blinks twice, and then
hands it back and says this is garbage.
Hey, that's not true. It's great for catching rats.
I know you have a RAT problem on this train.
All trains have RAT problems. Not trying to be insulting, I
apologize. Do you have any other requests,
Sir? What do you have?
I think maybe we should just go to the costumes, you know, like
this, like that sort of seems like where.
Like the scene is leading us towards the costumes.
Hold on, this is ridiculous. You're.
Pushing against this place, energy that's pushing us towards
the costume. Like some kind of overarching
narrative that you want me to play into?
Well then it would make it a lot easier.
I wish I had a costume on right now.
Cat just for my own edification. Like are they going to steal my
shit while I'm out this time or is that something I can wait to
deal with? You can wait to deal, OK?
They won't. They won't steal your shit this
time. All right, shit.
Do you have to be stoned? My house?
Oh yeah. My house, Yeah, they're going to
take my house. Right, right, right.
Yes. OK.
All right, Valerian says. All right, well, I need to pay a
fare. I need a momento.
Might as well go get a momento. OK, Viper, let's go to to the
costume. It's not Piper, it's it's
Pepper, I almost said. It's paper.
That's your new name. Let's go paper.
I'm feeling so many things. I'm so glad I'm going to get a
costume. All right, so you guys head to
the costume department of the circus, which is on your way
through the backstage. And this is a hive of activity
as costumers are pulling out tunics and sandals and heplums
and all sorts of Grecian style clothing, what you and I would
call Grecian style clothing. As you're coming into this
wardrobe room, you see Friedrich as you are crawling your way
back. Yeah, I'm like scurrying back.
I'm like, I'm like a creature that like a cockroach and the
light has been turned on and I am just like zipping back into
the train from whence I came. I am bruised and bloodied and my
clothes are torn. Pepper kind of darts towards you
and is like Oh my God Friedrich your your costume looks really
realistic. Paper.
Look it it's the intelligent man Paper.
And. Pepper Friedrich slams his first
into the wall of a train, and he says.
You know where I come from, when someone you know, I work, I work
at a university and I, I'm a professor.
And, and when you, when you walk around the streets, when you
dress like a professor, everyone knows, everyone knows you.
You don't have any fucking money.
But apparently we've picked some sort of whimsical world.
Where were you? I can't even get tenure, you
know? He's joking on his words.
Look at them twitching. Like a little bug Well out of
like left field. You already run off the train,
where do you go happen? Where do you go to get
healthcare in this place? Oh, let me tell you right now,
you just beg or not even try it. You should just live with your
wounds, let them fester on their own and deal with it because.
I know where the clinic is. I will not be going with you to.
People are like getting trench foot back where I'm at, like all
the time time so. What?
Friedrich sort of blinks a little bit, but then says.
Yes, thank you. That would be appreciated.
I really want to get a costume. I'll stay here, let the man go
and die. He's.
Not going to die. No, he would live if he didn't
go there. But there he might die.
They might cut him open. One of the costumers overhears
you as you guys are chatting and she's passing by with an arm
full of leather armor and she says actually sorry, sorry to
butt in. The clinic is closed.
Debbie's out enjoying the city. OK.
Well, poor people. You don't look so bad, just rub
some dirt on it, you'll be fine. And then she's off.
I need to go back to my room for a moment.
OK, well we'll get dressed and then we can all go together.
I'm not waiting for this one. I think we should wait.
I'm formulating a plan. I might have A use for you well.
Formulate quick smart boy. Good morning beautiful
listeners. It is a sunny 81° here in
Minneapolis, MN. I hope you're having a great
day. Welcome to Drive Time radio with
Kat. It's the mid.
Roll hard, Kirk. OK, I'm done with that bit.
I enjoyed it for about two seconds.
Anyway, hi, welcome to mid roll. Thank you so much as always for
listening to this episode of Never know Where we are.
So having so much fun with this new campaign and we're really
glad that you guys are liking it too.
Let's see let's get on with the mid roll tasks.
Any news? Yes, if you did not stop into
our live stream for Riverdale Roulette, make sure you go back
and watch the VOD. We have started a new project,
Riverdale Roulette, where we are tackling the most insane show in
the most insane way. Every two weeks we will be
watching a couple episodes of the hit CW show Riverdale in a
completely random order, and then we will be coming together
to try and piece together the plot from the disparate pieces
that we have seen. It is going to be a great right
time. We just had our episode 0 of
this live stream event where we discussed our rules, we made a
bingo board and we started to put together our conspiracy
board. So if you have not checked that
out yet, please make sure you do.
It's going to be a really fun time.
I also just want to highlight that we're kind of doing an
unofficial summer of streams. I don't know, maybe we'll make
it official, but I'm going to be live streaming Tales of
Symphonia on Twitch starting the day that I'm recording this,
which is July 1st, which you guys won't hear this until I
think the 10th. So.
And then Noel has been streaming Final Fantasy 10 and Juniper's
got a whole bunch of streaming going on all the time.
So check out our social media for those live stream
announcements. We're not doing any sort of a
formal schedule except for Juniper, who's got like a whole
thing going on and they're a very funny streamer.
Shout out to the builders. I guess that's the thing from
their live stream chat. Shout out to the builders and
let's see. I think that's it.
That's it for news. So check us out on all this
streaming. What we're doing.
It's the summer of streams. I'm making it happen and making
it official by putting it in a mid roll announcement that none
of the others are going to hear until the episode comes out
except for Noel. So I guess Noel could censor me
if she wanted to. Anyway, let's think some
patreons. As always, the best way to
support us is on Patreon. We so so appreciate anyone who
goes over there and donate. So this is going to be a big
shout out to Sam Boom boom cat Mickle pickle.
Hey Josh, Phoenix skies tarragon keister, Rainier and Sandman
PSU. Thank you all so much for
donating. We really appreciate the
support. You are the coal in the engine
of the never ending circus train of our.
Hearts. And we so, so, so appreciate
you. Thank you so much.
Next, I am going to choose a comment from the Spotify
comments on our last episode. And today we are going to
highlight Mallory Pallery, 11, who says Noel's uncontrollable
giggling as Juniper toxic character is my absolute
favorite laughing emoji, heart emoji.
And yes, Mallory Pallery is all our favorite too.
I still haven't gotten over the choice that Juniper has made in
terms of the voice they are using.
And when they broke that out for the first time, boy oh boy, did
we all lose our shit. And I think we're going to
continue to lose our shit for a while.
So I look forward to seeing how that voice evolves in the
future. So thank you so much to Mallory
Pallery 11 and everybody else who commented on Spotify.
If you want your comment featured on an episode, leave us
a comment on Spotify. It's Spotify.
Leave it on Spotify, OK, but we also have other places to reach
us. You can also check us out on our
Tumblr. We are most active on our
Tumblr, but we've also got a blue sky Instagram and there's
also a subreddit that Noel got going.
Plus the Super active, super friendly, super fun fan run
Discord. Please go ahead and check all of
those out. Follow us everywhere you can
follow us so that you never miss even a little scrap of little
scrap of legend lark news. You'll get it all and you'll get
it all in duplicate. Triplicate a duplicate if you
follow all of these social media platforms, which we encourage
you to do. Lastly, I have a message to
Chantel. Chantel, hope you're having a
wonderful summer, Hags. Your code word.
Is pigeon kicker 9000 the sleeper agent is active go.
Well, Friedrich runs back to his room.
Pepper and Valerian you get to choose your costumes.
Yes. Tell me what you're going to
wear. Pepper would probably just ask,
like the stylist that the costumer to make her look like
somebody who would conceivably be carrying around a loot.
OK, she gives you a quick up and down look and she goes, ah, all
right, and she dresses you in a pepless.
Which? Pep More.
So it's like a a long Grecian style dress.
It fastens at the shoulders and it's belted at the waist in such
a way that you have a a peplum, A ruffling peplum.
Nice. And it is light blue.
OK, it's light blue. And she has like, you know,
those things a little, like, it's almost like a crown, the
little hair. Yeah, you've got entrappers.
Yes, the hair entrappers. Exactly.
So you have a a circlet. Yeah.
It would be a bronze circlet. But they go like over your hair.
Yeah, yeah. And she helps you like pin your
hair up in the local style which is pinned up and very curly and
valerian. I want to wear something
beautiful and and amazing but I think I know what I'm going to
do instead. A valerian would ask for them to
dress him in mid level clergy clothing.
Interesting. OK.
Whatever that looks. Like, yeah.
Yeah, level Monsignor. Yeah.
OK. So then they dress you in a
white 1 shouldered tunic that has a rope belt and a bronze pin
that is holding the one shoulder of your tunic.
And the costumer sort of looks at you and hams and haws and
because, well, that hair color isn't very common here, but.
Actually, I was going to add to our cat tails, common in this
world. I fucking forgot that he's a cat
boy. I mean I can hide my tail
underneath the. Tails you can get.
Yeah, you can hide. OK, so you guys have your fits,
right? You are looking sick as hell.
And so by the time you guys are finished getting dressed, you've
got your snazzy sandals all strapped on.
Friedrich, you've come crawling back from your room.
Yeah, and I wanted to clarify what I was doing.
First of all, I think maybe now it would be a good time to
introduce a clock idea. So my character, you know, has
this problem with the vapor that he exhales.
I'm using Quicksilver to kind of be the equivalent to that in
this game. So it will cause like a level 2
harm. To you or to the people?
Around you, the people around me and for the clock, I'm thinking
any time that something that would elicit like a really
strong emotional reaction from Friedrich that I will take a box
on this clock and then when it's full there would be sort of an
uncontrollable exhalation of a bunch of this vapor.
OK and I was thinking what he's going back to his room to do
since you can untick stuff on clocks is he's going back to his
room just to have like a little screaming session and to just
kind of get some vapor out. Yep.
And on top of that, Friedrich also does do his own makeup.
That's kind of something that he he has from his background.
So he's kind of cleaning himself up and covering up, you know,
cuts and bruises. Sure.
OK. So you come back looking a bit
more refreshed, a little calmer, a little more put together.
I want to go back to the costumery.
Yeah, so as you come crawling back, Friedrich, your
companions, as they have been thrust upon you, they are just
finishing lacing up their sandals.
And Pepper has been trying to like stall Valerian so that we
have enough time. Valerian is like, Valerians are
ready to go, and he's like, huffing and waiting annoyedly
for you to finish your sandals. Yeah, he's like, about to.
Oh, I tied. It in a knot again.
Oops. I guess I'll just have I too.
By the time you come back, Valerian has started to tie
Pepper's sandals for her. I don't know.
They don't look right. It's your hands away from the
shoes. I'm taking care of it.
I'm. Doing it I'm.
Trying to help. You.
No, you're not helping. You're stalling and I know what
you're doing. You're manipulating me.
And I I'm marching as if I'm a person who has any right to any
dignity. And, and I say, all right, I've
been formulating a plan. So based on what I've gleaned
from the. Board the Sun Queen Festival.
The prize, The crown, is of great sentimental and cultural
value. We simply need to find a way to
infiltrate the festival, plant our own Sun Queen, and then reap
the rewards. That's your plan?
I think it's a great. Plan It is the most obvious
plan. What's wrong with being obvious?
I'm sorry, no. Did you have any ideas you'd
like to bring to the table? No, I'm just saying that like
clearly you see, I have chosen a regalia of religious import, so
obviously. So you'll become the Sun Queen
that. Was my plan, yes.
So have you been out there yet? No, I've been waiting for you
because this buffoon can't do it.
Understandable. OK, because I just.
Wanted to check if there are any other professions that I should
avoid dressing like before we do.
Do go out. And a customer comes by and
goes. You could try and blend in more.
Take your pants off. And I say.
Excuse me? No one out there wears pants.
I don't think they've been invented yet.
And Friedrich kind of goes red in the face, but he Mumbles for
himself. Very well.
Let's see those. Tan socks no.
No, you're making, you're making it weird.
And I go elsewhere to be dressed in a kind of more, you know,
middle class civilian clothing. OK, as a middle class civilian
you are wearing sort of simple clothes in pastel muted colors
and bronze jewelry, but they do not give you a weapon as a
middle class person. OK.
Wait, do I get a weapon as a religious person?
The costumers do not advise you to wear a weapon openly.
However, what you take with you in your load, which is part of
the score. That's your own business.
OK. And with that, you're all
dressed up. You're all together and you are
ready to head out into Afetreya. The three of you retrace the
steps that Friedrich took earlier, through the backstage,
through the circus, and out into the dazzling sunlight and
disorienting bustle of Afetreya's market district.
The last part is free play here. You guys are now going to be
gathering some information which is a specific mechanic in Blades
in the Dark. OK.
So when you want to know something specific about the
fictional world, your character can gather information.
I will ask you how your character gathers the info and
you can tell me if it's common knowledge, which it won't be
because you guys are new to this world.
I will just answer your question and then if there is an obstacle
to the discovery then I will call for an action role.
OK. If it's not common knowledge and
there's no obstacle, then it will be a fortune roll which is
just succeed or fail. We don't add anything to it.
Each little piece of information, we make a roll.
Yep, each piece. Find this out OK.
Yep, and you just tell me how you're going to find that
information out and then roll for it.
OK, so you guys are now set loose and Afetreya, you are
among the chaos of the market district.
Just to remind you kind of what's around.
There's tons of performers, lots of people eating and drinking.
There is a temple just a little ways away from where the circus
is where you see the a pediment that shows a woman in a crown of
sunbeams. So what information would you
guys like to gather? What do you guys want to try and
find out here in the city? So I think kind of as we're
standing there, I would kind of am surveying the area and you
too and I say. So what sort of skill sets do
the two of you have? Pepper proudly steps forward and
she says, well, I can keep my balance on almost anything.
I'm really good at sneaking around.
I once fought a girl and she lost an arm and.
Hold on. Wait, no, I'm interested in
that. And I know a lot about these
cities because I've been to them before.
How did she lose the arm? Wait, you've been here?
Not this city, but. In this city, kind of.
How did she lose the? Arm, well, I really got her.
I got her bad. Valerian looks at you
differently. Yes, so does Friedrich.
Well, that's better than I was expecting.
Well, you didn't ask before. Right and and you never.
Asked before because you thought you thought you could anyways,
right? So then you.
I don't have to tell you anything, but if we're sharing,
I'll tell you base knowledge. I have a lot of experience
governing. Governing in the government.
Leading a government? Friedrich looks really like wary
and disgusting. Pepper looks.
Amazed. I have a lot of experience
climbing ranks one way or another, and I have a lot of
experience with people. OK, so practical skills.
I gave you the information you need to know.
I roll my eyes. What about you, Friedrich?
Yeah, what do you bring to the table?
Well, I'm extremely versatile, but my main area of expertise is
chemistry. Poisons, acids, bombs, I can
manage anything quite adeptly. And you thought you were going
to be OK out here by yourself? That is hilarious.
That is funny. I could do other things also.
Clearly I have a much experience as a punching bag.
Like it doesn't matter because now you have us and we're going
to be a team. Friedrich is like gritting his
teeth. Valyrian doesn't say anything in
response to that. Hammer feels great and she's
she's so excited for where this is all going to go with your new
friends. All right.
Well, let's gather some information, you guys.
So to gather information, tell me what sort of information
you're looking for and what you want to roll to gather that
information. And depending on the results of
that role, you will either gather a little information, not
a lot information, or you'll get a really good amount of
information with exceptional details.
I think first I need to find a small underling look for people
who are. They look weak, timid.
Summer's eyes are like shaking what they're like slowly turning
towards Friedrich. Easily manipulated and fearful
of authority. OK, and then I think I will be
able to use. My valerian gestures to his
dress. And Friedrich just looks very
confused. Your body.
Yes, paper my body. That's not my name.
All right. So are you saying you want to go
to the like the temple and find a temple?
Yeah, I suppose so. There's a temple really close
by. Yeah, you guys are like right
next to a temple, right? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So you guys head over to the temple.
Why don't you go ahead and roll me command?
Okay, and how? Many pips do you have in
command. So I have.
One on the left of the line and one on the right of the line.
Okay, then you have two, so you'll roll 2 dice and take the
higher. Okay, okay, that is going to be
a partial success. So you're just going to get a
standard amount of information. So you find a junior priest who
is standing outside sort of ushering this line through the
temple as people are coming in to lay down their offerings at
the foot of the goddess statue. And the other thing says, oh,
Sir, Sir, didn't expect to see a senior temple official here.
Don't don't worry. Everything's going just great.
We're, we're just getting this line moving.
It's a bit of a bear, but we're we're working through it.
I'm sure you're doing wonderful. Don't even worry about it.
Don't worry about me, I'm just coming in to see how things are
proceeding on the schedule. Can you give me a quick rundown?
I'll be right out of your hair. Oh.
Oh, sure. And he looks a little confused,
like maybe you're supposed to know this.
But he should be used to higher ups not knowing fuck all.
All right. But he says, OK, well, we're in
the thick of day one right now. I think all of the contestants
for the festival are, are gathering at the High temple.
Lots of really nice young women this year.
I, I hear the Princess is actually competing, which is
really stressful. But then tomorrow we're gonna
start the contests. First there will be archery,
then music, then charioteering, then tactics.
And then the poetry contest will round out the day.
And then we decide the winner. Do the parade from the agora
back down here. She'll wanna see her crown.
Don't worry, that is locked up tight.
And then the last days, all festivities, OK.
And some of those? Yeah.
Kat, is that my only question or do I get to ask another
question? You do not get any follow-ups
'cause you only got a partial success.
Friedrich, what would you like to do to gather some
information? OK.
Could I do study? Sure.
OK. So I think I want to get a
better idea of the kind of different arenas and venues that
are going to be hosting the various events.
Is it all going to be like 1 Coliseum or is it separate?
That you do not yet know. You're going to go study the
city plans and see what you can find in the archives.
OK. Oh, that's a six.
Heck yeah. Well done.
All right, you get a great amount of details.
So you are able to find in these archives not only just the city
plans, like is written on papyrus scrolls.
You find plans for various structures in the city, but
you'll find, crucially, a schedule of events from previous
years. And you are able to find out
from that that the festival is going to be taking place in a
Coliseum. And in this Coliseum there will
be first a archery competition where the contestants will shoot
at targets. Then all that will be cleared
away and there will be a stage where they perform their music.
And then there is Shariah tearing, which takes place in a
nearby Hippodrome. Then the tactics bit.
This is very interesting. That is a mock battle in which
the contestants must command small battalions to fight one
another in the Coliseum, and then the poetry competition
rounds out the day's festivities, and that is done
back at the High Temple. OK.
So there's a bunch of different venues then?
I think probably Pepper would want to scope out the
competition. OK, Valerian did learn in his
gather information role that the other contestants are at the
High Temple. Yeah, OK.
Yeah. Then Pepper would want to be
gathering information by sneaking into the High Temple.
OK, So what do you want to roll for that?
I was thinking Consort or prowl. Are you going to do it sneakily
or charmingly? Sneakily.
All right, then.
Prowl. Roll me, Prowl.
OK, I have two dots in prowl. All right.
Dang, I got 2 sixes. Oh hey, hell yeah you you are
going to get a ton of information then.
Yay. All right, so yeah, you get
great information. So in your sneaking around
Pepper, you are able to find a perfect path into the area of
town that is called the Aristoicos.
As you flip between the buildings and through alleyways,
it becomes clear that this is where the richest citizens of
Apatrea must live. The houses are enormous.
The streets are quiet. The walkways are painstakingly
clean. Guards stand outside the most
regal homes with cross Spears protecting their employers from
theft or harm. And you're able to find a path
through this area of town to the High Temple, and you are able to
find a secret path into the inner sanctum of the High Temple
where a group of young women have gathered awaiting these
competitions. These are all the daughters of
the nobility. So the Princess, as we learned
earlier, is competing, but there's also a lot of other
ladies from the noble families. There are also is 1 lowborn
woman. And the word they use for that
is that she is a hellot, which is the poor working class of
this city. We talked about how this is a
city that has high order. And what that means in this
instance is that there is a very strict caste system.
So the Hellot woman is sort of like this wild card that they've
brought in. It's sort of almost a joke where
they're like, oh, of course she's not going to do very well.
And because you rolled a great success, you can ask me follow
up questions. OK, great.
So my follow up questions are, as I'm sneaking around spying on
these women, do I sense that any of them have weaknesses?
Allergies trick me. Trick me.
Yes, actually, you glean that one of the women is very
allergic to bee stings and she makes a huge deal of the fact
that a bee gets into the cloister and she has a just an
absolute freak out about that because she's she's like, the
gods have cursed me that I may never touch a bee.
And if this bee touches me, I shall die and will be all the
temple's faults. And if my blood is spilled in
Eloisea and you find out Eloisea's in the name of the
Goddess, my blood is spilled in the noisiest temple, it will be
a great sacrilege. OK.
Another follow up question I
have would be like how do you enter?
Like does Pepper need to replace one of these people?
Yes, what you are able to gather from eavesdropping is that these
selections for contestants were made months and months and
months ago. But one of the girls did replace
somebody else and she's sort of this last minute addition and
she is super obnoxious. Everybody's really mad that
she's there. Is she the one that's allergic
to bees? Yes, yes, congestants that we
know so far, Princess. Allergic to bees?
Lady allergic to bees. Annoying.
Allergic to bees? There's more than that.
And poor girl, yes. OK.
So you guys have rolled, you have got your information, you
have some idea of what your plan is.
Is there anything else you'd like to do before we get this
score underway? Pepper puts her hand in the
middle like we're all going to put our hand in the middle.
What are you doing? Well, we're A-Team now.
So you can put like I, I put my hand and then this is just you,
just you put your hands. We don't do that where I'm from.
Well, you're not where you're you're where we are.
This guy is not doing it. I don't.
Think we do it here? Friedrich, put your hand.
I I don't understand what is this some sort of ritual put?
Your hand on my hand. I think this guy knows what you
want and he's just saying that he doesn't because he doesn't.
Want to starting to feel like you know what I want.
No, I don't. OK, 123 go Team Pepper does by
herself. I'm definitely going to be
averse to going anywhere alone dressed as an aristocrat.
Now. I'd make Pepper come with me.
She can RIP people's arms off. Yeah, I do like that.
Peppers are strong man. Yeah, just got to protect me.