Line Go Down: Chapter 1
The PC is Frappé (it/she), designation GB-873-0F-15, a runaway Glitch Buster cyborg.
Edge 2 Heart 1 Iron 2 Shadow 3 Wits 1 | Augmented 1 EX Power 1 Fugitive 1 Boost Frame 1
This starts by playing out the last part of Liftoff setup, Begin Your Adventure.
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Step 1: Envision an Inciting Incident
For the last month or so, Frappé has been charging in a pile of cardboard boxes in a closet in the basement of a strip mall where Vengaboy holds court, holding meetings and organizing shipments and dispatching tagger toys like her. He says he’s got the only adapter for a hundred miles that runs on her voltage, and she doesn’t disbelieve him; plus he’s cool with her being nonhuman, thinks it’s great, even. He’s also getting weird and possessive in ways even Frappé can pick up on. He’s supposedly asking around to help her find one Doctor Halley, but he’s been evasive and blasé and giving her the runaround and overall just way too comfortable with this temporary situation. (Martin Mertens. “means i can’t pay ya, sweetie!“)
That’s when it becomes aware that Vengaboy is working on installing a lock on its power cord, so it can’t leave the box closet without being unlocked. But they’re incompetent, so they casually mention it in conversation, breezy and blasé. Frappé questions, Vengaboy brushes it off: “it’s standard device security, Frap! why would i install anything that reduced your artistic freedom? it’s a sign of just how much i trust you, and how very important your work is to the entire Prom Committee. best of all, it’s free!”
Frappé, troubled by this, grabs some cans and dips out. While out hover skating, grinding, getting up, doing JSRF stuff (Fly Like a Butterfly) around the Prom, it comes on an idea: now’s a great time to prove its loyalty and usefulness to Vengaboy somehow, buy some time. Making a special delivery out in the field! It’s gotta be able to fly like a butterfly to do that.
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Step 2: Set the Scene (with a prologue)
The untrafficked streets of the town the Prom was are filled with a still-life parade of recycled sculpture, rubble and fast fashion recovered as massive cloth-plastic-concrete puppets, fantastic narrative murals, wind chimes. The android zips past the Time & Temp Building, its looming LED sign again fails to be taken over and broadcast the morning Thought for the Day from the ?Who. Her melancholy riddles and cryptic threats had been rote for a while now, but the park-bound locals preparing for the next Prom Night don’t know what to make of total silence. Frappé skates across the water (twin trails ripple behind her) to Battery Island, where it paints a mural of fiery symbols all along the spiraling concrete fortification, over layers and layers of older coats. At the top, a holographic readout calculates its time and score against its run ghost…(sonic “i’m waiting” foot tap…)
[S Rank!] 0.03 seconds shaved off its PB! It does some happy feet and cross-chops the air as a jingle plays: “praise me! it all starts with this!”
Out at the pier, it accompanies Vengaboy and their goons (“wait, am I one of their goons?“) for a business meeting with an up-and-coming dairy skiff, Raya’s Promise, that hasn’t cut him in more than token. The crew can’t keep from sweating when they see a hotpink cyborg looking tough at the artsy crook’s side. When the time comes for a demonstration of his seriousness, he nods at her. Frappé charges its buster cannon, arm to the sky, crackling with electric blue energy, lets them sweat…then noscope fires it out at Casco Bay, where the coruscating orb detonates with a loud thunderclap, sending surf crashing onto the pier and barely ruffling Vengaboy’s coifsculpt.
The transporters get the message, but they plead that there’s nothing more they can give: there just isn’t enough cream to skim any more off the top. He unhappily lets them off with a demand for bended knee and some dire threats to make it work, just so that he leaves with something.
“Why’d you let ’em off with dire threats, boss?” Frappé inquires, manipulators in her hoodie pocket.
“’Cause I knew they didn’t have any more. If you push too hard when there’s no give, they break. Everyone in Kennebec’s hard up. There’s not enough milk to go around, or enough grain, or warm socks, or gum or condoms or poppers or-”
“Awright, awright, enough,” it grumbles. It’s told him already it doesn’t like talking about that stuff with him.
“- not without some new trade routes. That’s what I’m looking for. That’s what it’s all about, Frap! Making myself indispensable. I’m trying to get in on this cucumber scheme up in the Moose-”
[Me First!] “Send me up there,” Frappé interrupts, grabbing V’s hand. “I’ll get it done. You know I will. I’ll get you cut in on the whole farmers market! I can leave right now and be back by tomorrow morning — Boss! You’ll be noshin’ cukes on prom night!!”
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Step 3: Make the Move
(whole class turns around: “Swear the Iron Vow, Frap!“)
Vow: “I’ll cut Vengaboy in on supplying Moose-to-Prom fresh veggies!” (Dangerous). Roll +Heart (1), +1 for swearing to a connection
[Miss: 2 + 1 + 1 = 4 vs 6 | 4]
great start!! It’s a miss, so Frappé has to overcome a significant obstacle before it can start.
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Step 4: Next Steps
Vengaboy thinks about this. He’s skeptical. She is the best there is at what she does…but she jumped on this one, and showed a little more initiative than he wants from her. He slips his hand out from her eager mechanical grip.
“Heckin’ beans, toy,” they chuckle with their voice and not their eyes, “sounds almost like you wanna ditch Prom early!”
Uh oh. Frap knows this game. It plays it off the way it’s used to. “What! Boss! C’mon!! It’s me we’re talkin’ about! What am I gonna do, buy a house in Moose? Run for mayor?” It cracks up at the prospect, and oh so casually sidelongs breezy black cybereyes at V. “Besides…”
″…you’ve got the only EX adapter for a hundred miles, remember?”
They make eye contact. Vengaboy studies the curve of their toy’s sculpted smile.
“Yeah…” They take out a dirt cig. “But…you’ve never negotiated before. It’s a little trickier than tagging and looking tough. I dunno if you’re the girl for the job.”
Frap theatrically rolls its black eyes, manips on its hip. “Am I the girl for the job…ha!”
It opens up its manipulator palm, revealing a flame that it offers V for a light.
“Lemme go get you some milk, boss.”
Vengaboy looks from her burning finger to the wind-powered Promise sailing out into Casco Bay. There’s a synthy growl in her voice that makes their skin crawl, in a good way.
“Try it,” they say, and accept the light.
Frappé pumps its fist, ka-chunk! -ing it back into buster cannon mode. It’s beaming. “Back before you ash it!”
And zooms out over the bay ==>
[the music and framing directly evokes pony warpskating]
[since the Stargazer app has tools for it already, i put Raya’s Promise on the map as a ship, stats and all]
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Begin a Session.
Identify flagged content: I flagged detailed descriptions of the apocalypse, and nothing about how I’ve envisioned that so far has been a problem.
Review last session: it’s all in the journal. Frappé is doing tagger gang stuff for Vengaboy, wants to get on the road because it’s not making progress and V is getting controlling, offered an Iron Vow that V didn’t accept, now it’s going after the dairy skiff V let off easy to make an example out of ’em.
Set the scene: Frappé is boosting across Casco Bay after Raya’s Promise, shoulder lightfoils unfolded and hoverskates glowing pink!
I can also choose to envision a brief vignette. I do: a rockin’ anime OP. (i’m picturing Pop Team Epic)
As she blazes across the water, her light trail becomes a line on a graph, falling and rising and then sharply plummeting (!!!) as stock tickers turn red, error messages flash (YOU WILL REGRET THIS!), popups flood the screen, and it all abruptly goes black - we see the reflected silhouettes of Blackstar goons in labcoats and blank goggles cautiously peer up into the black mirror, then silhouetted Glitch Busters floating, then silhouetted Frappé shoving them aside, climbing over them, and barreling through the frame! The perspective shifts to follow it, skating and battling and riding ducks and hotswapping frames and loadouts and outfits, until its platform boot steps on a pile of scrap and skulls and stuffed animals, crowned off-kilter and posing triumphantly in a chaotic tea party dress against a vivid pink sky - then zoom out to Frappé with the same expression in a big knit sweater saying this in a thought bubble to some bemused friends in a humble cozy cabin - then zoom out to be saying that to a tin can on an oddly-shaped rock in a rainy wasteland - then the ?Who’s gray, orange-nailed fist punches a hole in the monitor and the music cuts out.
(+1 momentum as I return to play!)
Raya’s Promise has the wind in its sails. First, Frappé will try to overtake them to gain leverage. That sounds like Secure an Advantage. Rolling +edge, it maneuvers ahead of the dairy skiff.
[Strong Hit: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8 vs 3 | 7]
+2 momentum, and +1 on my next move. Smooth as butter, it outpaces the wind and races ahead. First it rotates its upper body, then it recalibrates its legs, until it’s flying backwards and glaring at the three-man crew ahead of it. Their faces fall: “oh shit, it’s the pink girl.”
“Boss is nice,” it growls, “I’m mean. You weren’t nice to him, so I’m being mean to you. Gimme some milk.”
The captain, a guy in a sailor’s beanie, loudly says. “We have nothing to give. We have a shipping manifest-”
Frappé charges its buster cannon. “blah blah blah. Gimme some milk.”
That’s Compel, +iron for threatening, +1 from the last move.
[Weak Hit: 3 + 2 + 1 = 6 vs 7 | 3]
+1 momentum, and they do what I want, but there’s a complication.
“This milk is for families and kids,” the captain says loudly and clearly, looking it in the eye. The crew try to look steady. “Do you understand?”
It keeps charging, the blue orb expanding, and its face is unmoved. “There’s kids in Prom. Gimme some milk or it all goes to the bottom.”
“We’re never doing business with your boss again,” he says, agitated and sweaty. “We’re trying to help you.”
Frappé points the fully-charged buster at his face and makes it go ding! “Time’s up.”
He breaks. Abruptly, he says “get the crate. now.” Ashen-faced, the first mate goes below and brings back a milk crate with a dozen glass bottles.
“Gimme two bottles,” Frappé demands. “One’s for the boss. The other’s your dummy tax. That’s what going slow cost you.”
The captain says curtly: “just do it. hand over two.” The first mate complies without a word. Eyes locked on them, Frappé points starboard and fires the buster. They all see that bridge burning. With two hands free, it grabs both bottles and zips away, saying nothing more as waves rock the Promise.
///
It alights on the pier, where Vengaboy sits on a bench taking the last drag of their dirt cig, flanked by two goons in loud ties and little else. It clinks the bottles together and takes a bow. “Ta-da!!!” (it plays a trumpet sound too)
Vengaboy ashes the cig in their goon’s offered palm. (“nnf. thank you boss”)
“I saw an explosion. You didn’t scare them off, did you?”
“Nope!” it cheerfully lies. “They even gave me a second bottle when I asked all nicely!”
“Huh.” The other goon opens a thermal container with an ice pack, and they stow it away. “I’m impressed, toy.”
“You ain’t never had a toy like me, boss!” Frappé beams, thumb on its chest, turning on the cute charm circuits. “So can I go to Moose? Please? Pretty please? Please please please please can I please-”
“I have decided,” Vengaboy interrupts, smiling at the game they think the two of them are playing, “to send you to Moose to negotiate Prom into the fresh vegetable caravan.” (“yay!“)
“But,” (“whuh?“)
“You need to look professional, and travel light. So we’ll leave your heavy bag here in the charging closet. Wear this trendy satchel instead, and bring it back to me once you accomplish our business with the Moose.”
What important thing is in its heavy bag right now? (functional + machine) The specialized GB toolkit that doesn’t integrate into its chassis for exactly this fail-safe reason.
Frappé pretends to be stupid and not recognize this as a ransom. Its heart-shaped turbine is rapidly hardening. Its smile plasticizes as Vengaboy unbuckles a pretech vengaboys. fanny pack from the first goon and offers it to her. “Wow! Thanks! What an honor!”
Vengaboy pats it on the shoulder, which it does not like but grins through. “Go get ‘em, toy. Here’s to noshin’ cukes on prom night!”
“haha.”
That triggers Develop Your Relationship by (finally) swearing a vow to undertake a perilous quest in their service. I mark progress on that relationship per the rank of the connection: Dangerous means two boxes.
There’s nothing stopping Frappé from heading west to the Moose, so it does. There’s a known passage there which it took to get down here, so this is Set a Course at +supply (5).
[Strong Hit: 1 + 5 + 0 = 6 vs 2 | 5]
(there’s a small drama of dice rolls that doesn’t translate well into the archive. with +5 supply due to being fully fresh, i can roll a 1 on a d6 and still overcome a 5 on a challenge die for a strong hit ! ! )
Frappé speeds overland along well-traveled trails and bygone county roads known to not be stalked by GCs. It can’t reach top speed skating on this terrain, but it still only takes a couple hours. The sun’s still in the sky when it arrives.
Because I feel like it, I now Take a Break.
I opt to End a Session.
+1 momentum. Next time, I want to focus on finding clues about this Doctor Halley!