Egress: Act 1, Act 1, Scene 3
It’s Thursday morning, April 13, in a rural North American unincorporated community called West Clowncrest. The sky is bright and clear, the chickens are clucking, and Axel Xemnas has called in zir strategic reserve of chips to take today off work for gaming. It’s Egress beta day, baby.
Axel wakes up fresh from dreams of riding balloon animals in a frightful parade. Convoke is down, which irks zir. Ze goes through multiple tech support pages, speed testers, IsConvokeDown.com, in an itemized sequence of failsafe steps. No details, and no one knows what’s going on. At least ze isn’t the only one having problems.
Ze installs Egress on zir cracked-screen old phone with the industrial case anyway. With an early morning and time to spare, ze reads carefully through the TOS and EULA, notes the danger words ze expected to find plus a few ze didn’t, and accepts immediately. Ze knows what ze’s getting into. It feels right to be prompted ENTER NAME and to type it without hesitation: AXEL XEMNAS. It’s the truth.
[[Axel also starts with two Relationship Conditions at 1 each. Perfect Pawn is Pony, zir pliable partner for schemes, raids, online goofs and tricks, and seed money for Entrepreneur Things. (He can afford it.) Resented Rival is Ruby, whom Axel respects as a canny and worldly sparring partner and Posting Nemesis, yet is frustrated by again and again when she doesn’t play by zir rules. Axel’s starting Trauma is Pessimism. Ze has been trained by life so far to expect the worst. It’s the undercurrent of zir aspiration to Win at Capitalism and beat the shitty rigged game ze’s been forced to play.]]
Axel rents a single-wide trailer, the lease cosigned by zir Boss at Pizza Palooza. Ze got the hell away from zir family last summer and moved across the county to West Clowncrest, which ze mathed out as the perfect cost-to-income ratio at zir hungry rung of success. West Clowncrest is a community that loves its honking harlequins, its pratfalls on billboards and lawn gnomes in jester caps, and Axel hates this. Ze tells zirself that spite motivates the grind. This and other varied INTERESTS may be gleaned from zir spartan bedroom, hidden through blackout curtains from the morning light:
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a PULL UP BAR in the doorway, with LIFTING WEIGHTS and PROTEIN POWDER stacked atop an EXERCISE MAT
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a perfectly made bed with fitted alien-print sheets, a forest green duvet, and freshly fluffed XENOMORPH DAKIMAKURA, a thoughtful holiday gift from Pony
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a GAMING RIG, lovingly assembled from parts, but not the expensive or good kind; there’s a laminated printout taped to the side of a primo rig with resplendent neon guts exposed, to keep zir hungry
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a small figurine of THE MENSWEAR WOLF, the fashion influencer whose sardonic takedowns and vtuber-narrated guides to looking dapper have somehow leaked out of furry circles to become the only thing DunkZone shows everyone now, apparently
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between posters for the 2001 American films EVOLUTION and HEIST, a motivational photo display of NOG, ROM, and QUARK, each captioned with one of the FERENGI LAWS OF ACQUISITION
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a brick-and-particleboard BOOKSHELF displaying titles such as MEDITATIONS, LOGIC: A USER’S GUIDE, and ANTHEM, as well as ACCELERANDO and THE WINDUP GIRL. The top shelf hosts the one GOLD MEDAL ze won from track last year, plus a thumb drive full of ACTUALLY GOOD MUSIC from Ruby, an act of mercy as much as a gift
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a collection of RETRO GAMING PARAPHERNALIA for resale, presided over by a floor-to-ceiling stack of mint condition WOODY WOODPECKER RACING for GAME BOY COLOR boxes, collecting value until Woody’s fortunes turn around and Axel drafts into first place
Hardworking sneakers, efficient cargo shorts, and zir best alien t-shirt are the ideal Egress beta day fit.
[[Oracle: Axel captures something useful, right? 10+ (6 over 5): Yes, and - roll a motif. Knowledge. That gives me an idea.
Oracle: Does Axel somehow have foreknowledge of the game? 10+: Yes.
I draw a motif for more details. Veil. Disguise. When you part the veil, what stares back?
Oracle: Has an entity been feeding Axel information over anon messages? 7-9: Yes, but. It’s been in the form of weird spammy [Success Win Motivation Bizdev Founder Mindset] texts from a list ze doesn’t remember signing up for, but probably did.]]
I also roll a soft move to add some drama. Reveal an unwelcome truth: not only is Egress down, there’s been a wider local power outage. Rolling a 3 on Axel’s Just as Planned Edge, I determine ze has a backup power brick fully charged to keep zir phone online. Ze also stows a Grendeldew energy drink in zir pack, sweaty and flat from zir unpowered minifridge. Gamer’s Choice Light Dice: 1.]]
Axel has been turning over last night’s latest message from 💹 like a puzzlebox. There’s more to the signal than the oddly-worded motivational text, or the background image of a bodybuilder gazing at the horizon: it’s the context, the metadata, the time…why do they always arrive at 9:46, AM or PM? Following a hunch, Axel ignores everything in zir room and goes out to the hall closet. There’s a box of used hiking gear that zir Boss donated when he helped zir move in. (He’s so based.) Along with water bottles, good boots, and maps of the area, there’s a pair of good binoculars in a leather carrying case. Ze opens Capture Mode and nabs them.
[[But what will Axel’s first Link be? I roll another motif to get some ideas, and get Knowledge again. “Did you stop to think if you should?”]]
Axel decides to experiment. Can ze Link a relationship that isn’t physically present? This mystery 💹 messenger seems to know a lot about the game already. Ze pings it with a message of zir own, trying to relate to it on zir own terms.
[[Strive! Aspirational 1 to try something different. Roll with disadvantage from 💹’s Esoteric-2 obstacle condition.
Goal: Discover who 💹 really is.
Danger: Glitchy result.
6-: Fail. Hard move: something breaks. Axel takes a condition, Glitched Grid-1. 💹 adds a new obstacle condition, Integrated-1; it now has a way to talk to the game. Axel gains +1 Dark Die for failing a roll, and an additional DD for hitting zir Key of the Mundane, for 2 Dark Dice total.]]
Axel gets a weird error message. The app thinks that nothing was successfully linked, the task is marked incomplete, but the glitched link won’t leave zir grid. After a long minute, the system messages continue as if nothing happened.
Wanting a better view of the area to work out what’s going on with the power out, Axel loads up zir backpack and hops on zir bike.
The UFO Museum is one of Axel’s only oases in this Clown’s Hell. Even the outdoor A&A Market is presided over by a red-nosed monolith, looming over the otherwise healthy bustle of commerce. But getting to the Museum would mean crossing the highway by bike, and Axel knows that’s how ze’ll die. It’s only safe to reach on work days at Pizza Palooza, when ze has access to the delivery truck. The trails are there to bike to Pizza Palooza, or south to the old Reliable Pencil Factory (now defunct), or out in the sticks to the firewatch tower the forestry service built by the stream. The Fire Tower is where Axel’s headed today.
[[Does Axel encounter anything mundane along the way? motif: Tower. Alliance (Solitude). A beauty in a tower, calling, greedy for affection.
I smiled a lot imagining a fandom exploding in speculation when I drew that. Oracle: omfg does someone have a crush on axel??? Match dice: flawed premise. That’s not what’s going on here!
Oracle: does ze meet a coyote who wants attention? No. It’s a dog! Just a normal dog. I give it two conditions: Friendly-1 and Parched-1.]]
While biking past the abandoned grounds of the pencil factory, a scruffy white dog comes sniffing around Axel. It doesn’t have a collar, and it looks pretty thirsty. Axel doesn’t get along with loud, messy, slobbery sheddy smelly dogs. They make zir neck tense up. But there’s nobody around to hear the story of the uncle’s dog who bit zir and what a busted and sad and messy failure that all was; there’s just this dirty thirsty dog who doesn’t have any people. Axel squeezes zir arms, groans, and in a moment of weakness, pours the dog some water from zir bottle. He laps it up — how quickly it became he — and soon he’s licking zir hand, and Axel is cringing as ze pours the water, and ze realizes that this dog is going to bound beside zir bike all the way to the stream, and further.
The sturdy wood-and-metal tower rises up five stories from the little ranger station on the brushy bank of the stream. Axel lets the dog sniff around and lap up some water upstream while ze activates Capture Mode. Egress interprets the terrain around Axel’s phone…and a patch of AR waypoints blossoms, little geometric shapes rotating on the trail and above the stream. There’s a promising reel icon by the water’s edge: a fishing minigame. Sounds like fun!
[[I give this area a condition, Marked-1, thinking Axel might Strive against this condition to claim the Node. Just As Planned: of course Axel brought a fishing rod, and on a 2 there’s no drawback.]]
…But Axel’s more interested in exploring how the game works and where it breaks than playing as designed. Ze walks downstream, meanders up a trail, and watches the target area expand on the phone Egress interface. More AR waypoints appear: in a hollow log, on a root over the river.
[[Strive! Methodical 2 to enact a plan logically. Marked-1 sets the fiction but doesn’t alter the roll.
Goal: Understand how Nodes function.
Danger: Game state escalates challenge.
6-: Another fail! Axel isn’t as good at experimenting as ze thinks. +1 Dark Die, now 3 DD.
Hard move: take something away. While ze was exploring, the unattended dog chased an AR trail and went missing! Not only that — some badniks have appeared!
“i’m an imp.”
A whole troop of scowling magenta minions started roaming the area behind Axel’s back, and I add a condition Magentimps-1 to represent them. The dog is alone, and hungry, and probably really scared, all behind enemy NPC lines…Axel takes a condition, Guilty-1.
This was the moment when Axel clicked for me as a player. Only after fully embracing what a huge dork ze is does the golden door open to also being kind of cool. I write PUNISHED “VENOM” AXEL in my journal.]]
Theme of a Punished Gamer | Hamhambone
Axel’s face is grim as ze bellycrawls to the stream to avoid being spotted. The doggy is gone. He didn’t ask for this. And Axel’s to blame. Ze will have to outwit the imp patrols if ze hopes to catch the dog’s trail.
Axel cracks the Grendeldew from zir pack and quaffs it, bringing zir to 2 Gamer Dice. Ze wipes zir upper lip and daubs mud around zir eyes. Lucky for the pup, sneaking missions are Axel’s specialty.
[[Strive! Dangerous 1 to sneak and roll and flip. +1 Gamer Die; roll 3 and keep best 2.
Goal: Find where the lost li’l doggy went.
Danger: Spotted by Magentimps.
7-9: Success with danger. ]]
Axel sneaks like a dead-serious airsoft teen through the woods, hiding in the trees and peering with zir binoculars, mapping enemy patrol patterns on zir phone, doing cool operator hand signals for no one in particular. Ze sneaks upstream in stealth, CAMO PROFILE 30-35%, until ze sees a pile of leaves marked in unmistakable canine fashion. The trail leads up to the ranger station. But when ze dashes up some loose scree - [!] - Axel is spotted!! A patrol of stout Magentimps, decked out in papercraft armor, raise rolled-up newspapers as they advance on zir!
[[There’s a Calypso mechanic, designed to build momentum and surprise, called the Clock. It starts at 6, and each time you keep a die on a Strive roll that matches the Clock, you roll a motif and narrate a soft move inspired by it. When you match 1 and “count down” to 0, you make a hard move that shakes things up. I rolled a 6 on that last Strive, so it’s a Clock match! I wanted to use these to introduce new Egress mechanics organically in the fiction, so I had this whole idea to key different in-fiction game systems to each Clock result until 0. The game developed in a different direction, but this first one was still a game mechanic reveal as a soft move: show a new facet of your gear or abilities.]]
The Egress UI warns Axel that IMPS are approaching, and that STRIFE is imminent!
[[Does Axel have some firecrackers from the A&A in zir backpack? Just as Planned says yes, but! I roll a 4+, so they’ll backfire or betray zir.]]
With the imps approaching, Axel’s camouflaged eyes narrow. Ze draws out a whole pack of M-80 crackers and holds them up like a royal flush. Read ’em and weep. They’re captured and stored in a newly unlocked Strife Slot on the Object Grid: PYROKIND. The firecrackers can talk to Egress now, and they have a lot to say.
[[Strive! Dangerous 1 to throw live explosives while being thwacked by imps.
Goal: Scatter the imps!
Danger: Hurt in the battle!
6-: …another fail. Look what they’re doing to my little pogchamp. Axel takes +1 more DD (now 4), and takes harm as established: ze adds Scraped-1 to zir conditions. (That’s 5 out of 6 condition slots: if ze takes another, even a level 1, Axel will be taken out!) Not only that, Axel misunderstood how Egress makes the world: these Crackers attract burly Magentimps with their noise and smoke. Axel is soon swarmed by them, aggressive and on full alert! I raise Magentimps from 1 to 2.]]
The scene ends on a GIF of Axel being walloped by one magenta menace’s rolled-up newspaper, then another, then another, as more imps arrive in an endless loop. Claiming this Node is going to be tough!!
[[Conditions: Perfect Pawn •, Resented Rival •, Glitched Grid •, Guilty •, Scraped •
Trauma: Pessimism •
Light Dice: Gamer Dice •
Dark Dice: 4]]