Egress: Act 1, Act 2: Friday Am, Part 2
Ruby: Go to Class.
Ruby Goslyn’s next class at Chenoweth that morning is a combination history lecture and practicum workshop on Material Arts, shared by fashion design and other, better-funded departments. Ruby spends the period refining the complex rococo tiara she’s been working on this week, with some practical oversight from Ms. Wheeler. The whole time, she’s keeping an eye out for her rival.
Oracle: Is Sonya still in this class after transferring out of fashion design? Yes, but: she’s always out, working on a mysterious independent study during class hours that must be connected to Student Council business. She drops in at the beginning or end of class to update Ms. Wheeler on her progress for evaluation reasons, but she’s left the mere mortals behind.
She gets her chance just as class is ending, when Sonya strides in with boots clicking and peacoat open to briefly deliver her usual written update. (Those new silver extensions for her villain arc are so extra, but Ruby’s Grudge holds her back from admitting the artistic truth that they’re kinda boss, too.) Detecting that Ruby wants to delay Sonya a while, their teacher - Ruby’s Link as the Empress of Threads — keeps her a minute to ask some reflection questions about her wider goals. Sonya sours, but begrudgingly respects the nominal teacher-student hierarchy:
“…of course, Ms. Wheeler. Well. Again, I’m interested in the voice as the spirit, the body as the vessel for the voice, and what kind of spirit voice would dwell in a nonhuman body.”
“Right. I love it. Now tie these hours you recorded back to Practicum Goal 3B for me.”
“So, that’s where my Council time screening Lubitsch’s The Doll in the marionette workshop comes in…”
“Let me just load your write-up for that.”
And so on. When Sonya finally demonstrates mastery and strides back out the door, Ruby’s waiting in the alcove. Her stunner shades gleam.
Oracle: Did Sonya play Egress 1.0?
Yes, but: she didn’t play to the endgame, lost interest, and went on to other things. Ruby doesn’t know whether or not Sonya is aware of Egress 2.0, but she plausibly could be.
Sonya has two obstacle conditions: Wary-2 and Perceptive-1. I’ll account for these in play.
Ruby’s willing to turn people’s expectations of her back around on them. If thinking this is about romance (hearing her former friend say that strangely hurts — like, really?) instead of righteously taking down Student Council will make her drop her guard, she’ll let Sonya believe what she wants.
Strive with Imaginative 2, disadvantage from Wary-2 obstacle.
Goal: Lead Sonya to believe Ruby is just crushing on Sully, not cultivating an ally.
Danger: Malicious rumors spread about Ruby.
7! Rather than achieve the goal, I’ll spend that success on reducing the Sonya Got To Him-1 condition on Sully to 0. But the danger hits as a soft move: signs of something bad happening offscreen. Now that she’s on Student Council, Sonya can get the rumor mill running.
For hitting her Key of the Loyal by standing up for someone at a cost, Ruby gets +1 DD.
Sonya doesn’t believe that Ruby would stick her nose in because of a crush on someone, because she knows her. Ruby doesn’t crush. But she also sees an opportunity to pour ice water on whatever she’s actually up to, so she’ll play along too and watch Ruby seethe. She brushes Ruby’s elbow and smiles.
She draws out a [Student Council Calling Card] from her bag and presents it to Ruby as a show of good faith. This is a ritual at Chenoweth after an important exchange; they’re all customized, too. It’s a sign of Sonya’s word, and the fact that it’s given freely implies that she doesn’t consider Ruby a threat.
For the truly bold, presenting a [Calling Card] is an honored right to challenge the giver to a duel. But good luck collecting any more cards if the Council catches wind of what you’re planning. Most duelists only challenge for a spot on the Council, stymied by the allure of school privileges and professional opportunities from climbing any higher up the ladder. That’s how Benni and Paula got their positions – challengers turned enforcers, above the rabble but always beneath the President.
That’s not good enough for Ruby. She’s going to knock the whole deck of cards down.
But for now, she accepts it, and meets Sonya’s gaze behind her stunner shades until her rival pulls away.
After class, she returns to the courtyard and catches Sully sitting on the lip of a granite fountain, textbook ignored in his lap, pensively pondering a sunflower. He’d do well in the theatre if he wasn’t blacklisting himself by speaking out.
Ruby pops the [Calling Card] out of her Object Grid and presents it wordlessly to Sully. He takes it, turning it over, not quite believing that it’s real and in the rude rebel’s hands, and now his own.
“She folded…?”
“they all will.” She extends her hand to him.
“help me take them down.”
Swear To My Bones | Shoji Meguro
Strive with Imaginative 2 to make rebellion by her side feel real. Her Grudge holds her back: resentment for him being their lapdog before, for not standing on his own, for giving Sonya an opening to hurt her. But she’s going to try. This is the key challenge roll for this scene, win or lose.
Goal: secure Sully as a Link with his Sun aspect un-inverted.
Danger: classmates see her showing her heart to Sully and ignite the spark of nasty rumors.
7! Just barely, once again. Following Sonya’s soft move with a hard move, gossip and mockery and backtalk about Ruby’s hopelessly cringe crush on Sully (aka the corrupt political weirdo with the megaphone) is going to spread fast and cause problems all weekend. Her Loud-1 Condition is renamed Rumored, and her Grudge-1 Trauma becomes Grudge-2, giving disadvantage on rolls. But Sully will become a Link, and Egress will lend her the power she perceives in their bond.
The courtyard goes dark, the guitar kicks in hard, and as Sully grasps her hand, still holding his sunflower, he’s backlit by a brilliant petaled violet sun that makes the scruffy boy look like he could break every rule and regulation to punch God in the nose.
He stands up. They clasp hands as allies and sworn bros. This is an emotion legible to Egress.
The music fades and the lighting goes back to normal. Sully brings his hand back, and Ruby brushes some flower petals off her cloak.
“You can keep the megaphone,” Sully offers.
“i was gonna yeah.”
On that last Strive roll, Ruby rolled a 4. That’s a clock hit, so I roll a motif for a new game complication: Mirror, plus Alien Intelligence. I’ll pay that off in Axel’s scene next.
For the Cyclic Frame, Ruby has completed her rolled challenge: You find a minor resource; what guards it? What do you have to trade for it? Reduce 1-Need and gain 1-Need.
She reduces Grist, having gained a new game resource in the form of a powerful Link, but gains more need for Friendship as Sonya and Student Council turn potential allies against her and worsen the Grudge that makes Ruby so averse to working with people.
Lore 1, Grist 0, Friendship 2
Axel: Go to Work.
⚠️🚨🍕 PIZZA EMERGENCY ⚠️🚨🍕 PIZZA EMERGENCY ⚠️🚨🍕
Life has become a “HELL SHIFT.” The lunch rush is starting and ALL OF THE TOPPINGS have been stacked on ONE PIZZA. Why did JASON do this??? BOSS is mollifying customers while monitoring ALL KNOWN VIDEO APPS to determine if this was an attempt to GO VIRAL. JASON is PANIC PUKING in the FAMILY OR GENDER NEUTRAL BATHROOM. AXEL is the ONLY ONE working the kitchen. AXEL is the ONLY ONE who can SAVE PIZZA PALOOZA.
Axel faces down the obscene pizza colossus. Orders are stacking up. Boss has trusted zir with this. Think, imagination, think… !
A spring breeze flows from the fan, like a fantastic windmill. Could there be an answer … in dreams?
Strive with Methodical 2: use item-combining in the Object Grid to manufact the Master Pie with a succession of sauce-coated Blank Pies, or “BPs.”
Goal: dilute the MP into customer-edible BPs while fulfilling the incoming orders in a logic puzzle worthy of the Zoombinis.
Danger: chewed out by Boss for taking too long or messing up an order.
10!! It’s a perfect pizza solve! Axel manufact-dilutes the pies in an advanced show of game mastery, the customers don’t notice how hard the staff is working, and ze has an added insight: manufacting the pizzas makes them legible to Egress, which makes eating a slice magically(?) heal Axel’s Scraped condition from being badly bonked by imps. It’s an HP restoring item…? What exactly is this AR game doing to the world and its players?
Axel’s Boss, Quentin, pokes his scruffy red-haired head into the kitchen once the critical mass of customers are served. He gives zir a NOD OF MASCULINE RESPECT.
“You did good, dude. I’m proud of ya.”
Axel’s ears grow hot. Ze nods back, trying not to be incredibly irrational about those words. “oh, uh, yeah. For sure. Thanks, Boss.”
No-gods, Quentin is such a chad. In a certain kind of way, like a post-cool, post-ironic, post-woke way. He’s so on top of shit. He doesn’t complain. He gets it done, or he finds the guy to get it done. He delegates. Like when he got his ID guy to hook Axel up with a fake that says AXEL XEMNAS, 21/X, for various lease co-signing and employment liability reasons. Like the time he let Axel buy at the liquor store across Federal 7, but paid zir back in a fat wad of ones and fives on the ride back. Like the time he gave zir an STP and clean piss to load it with for the corporate-mandated drug test in the lab next town over.
Axel’s pretty sure Quentin’s the first adult ze’s met who actually respects zir. He respects zir enough to trust zir with running the whole kitchen alone during the lunch rush. Chad shit.
Oracle: Does Axel want to make zir Boss a Link? Yes, but: union by eating + losing myself.
Oracle: Is Axel afraid of Quentin? Yes.
It’s kind of weird that Quentin is such a genius mogul deals guy and still just manages a Pizza Palooza in West Clowncrest. Like, not even up in Vulture. It doesn’t seem like his horizons go any further than a boys weekend in Estrellas. And he doesn’t really have boys, either. Unless Axel is one of his boys? He does hang out with zir a lot and talk about going to the casino, full buffet, winning big, dropping fliff, not even counting it.
Before leaving, he gives zir a 15-minute break an hour early for taking care of business.
No, Quentin’s cool. Maybe ze’ll Link him later. Not during zir break, though. Maybe ze can play some Egress.
In the Cyclic Frame, this is a Live Your Life 1d6 roll to see what happens to the game and Lore/Grist/Friendship Needs while Axel’s at work.
6! That’s a Win, and so early on! Two more of those and the kids get a chance at victory.
“Someone is carrying resources to meet 2-Need. Can you secure those resources? What are you willing to give, or do, to do so?”
It’s strange to get this result so early on, before the Needs have really ticked up and the situation become desperate. Reducing 2-Need is a big deal, but I only have Lore-1/Grist-0/Friendship-2 right now, so it almost feels wasted. At least the kids are on top of all their problems.
I know who that someone is. It’s the Mirror + Alien Intelligence from Ruby’s clock match, AKA the “other playmate” that Axel accepted the mystery offer to be connected with last night. I roll some motifs about this person:
The Son of the Morning. A flame-clad god wielding light with certainty.
Seven gold coins for a kiss. I write down the phrase “chaotic neutral mercenary.” Hired help?
I think + contentment. Someone who’s playing for fun, a high-level gamer who does it easily and might be willing to help Axel, but doesn’t need anything from zir.
Also I’d been listening to GameGrl (Original 1993 Mix) | Michael Guy Bowman on loop and I badly wanted that energy in the game, so that was the finishing touch.
Oracle: does she know the mysterious figure ?Who Axel made a deal with for her contact info? Yes, and!: they have a fruitful working relationship, she was probably expecting to hear from Axel already.
Out on the loading dock, Axel checks Thoth, the encrypted messaging app. A new icon has appeared alongside the crypto traders in zir contacts: it looks like a stylized glyph of the shining sun. (Axel’s icon is a gear marked with the ₰ pfennig symbol.) Axel sends the new contact a message.
So the mystery message last night was something real. Axel keeps zir guard up, but the two chat.
So what’s her deal? Motif: I use + compassion. Compassion, care, and positivity are tools she can use. Is she manipulative, or just self-aware about her strengths and how to play to them?
Oh no! Axel’s masculinity! I make a soft move: threaten emotional harm, and give ☀️ an obstacle condition: Serene-2. This feels like the core challenge for the scene:
Strive with Teenager 1 to resist giving up hard-earned info for free in a heated gamer moment, with disadvantage from Serene-2.
Danger: Flustered and embarrassed by bad systems and complicated feelings.
(disadvantage turns an 8 into a) 4!! Full failure! Axel keeps getting owned. The danger comes to pass as a hard move, giving zir Flustered-1. ☀️ adds a new Fast Talker-1 obstacle. +1 DD, to 6. Calypso continues to be fun for letting me treat emotions as mechanical stakes.
For failing that key challenge roll, I make a dramatic move: show signs of something bad happening offscreen. Is the mysterious entity ?Who connects these players nudging this FAQ toward her own cryptic outcomes? I add a new Formidable Condition to the enemy: Tainted FAQ-1.
If that condition stays on the board, the FAQ will be published publicly, and guides being what they are, will funnel rival Egress players into “winning the game” in a way that satisfies the mysterious entity’s schemes, whatever they are. There’s a new goal! Can they stop her from publishing? Will the PCs collab on an alternative untainted Save-The-Earth version of the FAQ?
Realizing ze’s been outwitted into giving up zir secrets — by a positive energy gamer girl! — Axel’s flushing pink. And zir break’s over. Boss calls zir back inside: there’s kids coming in, and they’re gonna need the mascot suit.
Ze puts on the duck head. It’s welcome. The mask will cover zir shame.
Reduce Friendship Need by 2 for making a big connection. Mark one Win for Axel.
Lore 1, Grist 0, Friendship 0 | 1/3 Wins