Egress: Act 1, Act 2
“The Ludic Century Is an Era of Games.”
“When information is put at play, game-like experiences replace linear media. Media and culture in the Ludic Century is increasingly systemic, modular, customizable, and participatory. Games embody all of these characteristics in a very direct sense.
Increasingly, the ways that people spend their leisure time and consume art, design, and entertainment will be games - or experiences very much like games.”
“We Live in a World of Systems.”
“The ways that we work and communicate, research and learn, socialize and romance, conduct our finances and communicate with our governments, are all intimately intertwined with complex systems of information — in a way that could not have existed a few decades ago.
For such a systemic society, games make a natural fit. While every poem or every song is certainly a system, games are dynamic systems in a much more literal sense. From Poker to Pac-Man to Warcraft, games are machines of inputs and outputs that are inhabited, manipulated, and explored.”
– Eric Zimmerman, Manifesto for a Ludic Century
“Anyone Else Think 2016 Pokémon Go Was Peak Humanity?”
– multiple sponsored gaming influencers on twitter (paraphrased)
Going into this part, my plan was that Act 1, Act 2 would be My Body Is A Cage-style daily action, working on a calendar where each character got an AM action and a PM action, mixed with other obligations while the glitch meteor looms. For ex, Pony and Ruby both have to go to school on weekdays AM, but Ruby can still take game actions because she goes to fancy anime arts high school and has more freedom, and Axel has to work shifts rolled one day in advance.
On each AM/PM segment (if they have time), they can either Live your Life (less risky, Needs may increase), Play the Game (risks harm, may reduce Needs), or Take a Break (recover stress, Needs will increase). They have to keep up obligations while balancing three Needs (from Calypso’s Cyclic Framework): Lore (what are we doing in this game?), Grist (do we have the resources to do it?), and Friendship (can we even work together?) The higher these Needs get, the more difficult it is to advance; they’re treated as Conditions.
There’s a d6 table for what exactly happens on each segment action and how it affects Needs, usually with a loss to manage or a hard choice. Each time I roll a 6 on an action, I mark a Wins tally, and once I collect 3 Wins, the PCs get a chance at escaping the cycle and “beating the game” before the meteor hits. I expected this would take several in-game days of increasingly desperate actions. Play to find out!
We start on Friday, April 14, 201X with Pony in the AM. He’s at his boring regular gifted academy, so he can’t take an action segment, but he can try to get Light Dice to help later.
/// /// ///
Friday Am, Part 1
Pony: Go to Class.
He’s back at St. John today, right on time. He prepared excuses for his sick day and why he’s back so soon and noncontagious, but his classmates are incurious about him being gone.
What’s on his mind? Succubus — Power at a Cost (Temptation.) Poised on the line between love and obsession. Trait: Escapist.
He’s on autopilot through Calculus and Orchestra. Clouds bearing game mechanics, strategies, ideas, questions drift through his head. He keeps coming back to that unsigned text that appeared in both his chats at once last night at 9:46 PM. “That’s all for tonight.” That means he and Ruby should be ready for more little tricks, so they don’t end up suckered like Axel. Next time, he’ll be ready. He’ll know what to ask. Who are you? What’s in it for you? Why us? Why me?
It’s 9:46 AM and he’s out at the water fountain, 10 minutes before the passing period, running the fountain and looking at his phone. No Convoke notifications. No mystery messages. The clock above his horse wallpaper ticks over to 9:47. He hurries back inside, still thirsty.
She’s probably some rival player or Salt Catalog troll messing with his whole friends list. Why does he think she’s a she? Why did she single him out? It feels like she’s letting him in on a secret plan for the game, even if he’s just a pawn. Why does this feel like anything?
Why can’t he stop thinking about this?
English Literature comes and goes. He imagines things that she could try to tempt him with, and the cool and clever lines he’d use to turn her down or outsmart her. He’s running the whole conversation in his head. She offers a magic umbrella, or a secret quest, or tells him what’s really going on. She knows things he doesn’t say out loud. She offers big things, scary things, impossible things. Things he couldn’t come back from. She listens to him. She asks Pony questions that he doesn’t know the answers to. The script in his head gets tied in knots, and the daydream can’t go any further because he can’t imagine what would happen next.
Oracle: Is he in business class? Yes, but: threaten to take something away. Hit Key of the Mundane, +1 DD (to 5).
Blink. A classroom full of paired-off overachievers in uniform blazers is staring at him.
A row of puppets is lined up neatly on Mr. Sebastami’s desk. Pony hates those puppets, especially the hidebound reactionary HANES SOCKEFELLER, but the Board holds the purse strings.
No prep, no reading the room, no cutting yet constructive feedback! And his assigned partner has already jumped ship to his friends’ firm with all the weekend prep work Pony did for them, the snake. Funding affects the class ranking affects the bell curve affects final grades affects GPA affects admissions! While the other teams in the fourth period conglomerate huddle and scheme, Pony’s going to have to improvise a business plan.
He loosens his tie and takes out his pen case. What’s one more day of hyperfocus? This is his future.
So stop thinking about those messages.
Strive with Studious 1 to become competitive in the class rankings with a new business plan.
Danger: suffer major academic stress from a week’s work in an hour. +Advantage from Theme Music. -Disadvantage from the ?Who’s Tempter 2 condition.
9. Partial success. That’s not enough for Pony this morning. He wants to win.
even after I get what I want I can see baby baby that it’s lonely at the top (yeah)
Push to 10, a full success, with Cope.
That’s it. Scrap everything. Forget production. Take it back to zero. Pivot to consultancy.
Pony is better at this than anyone in this class. He can hear the spreadsheets. He did the work. He doesn’t need a business partner. He’ll be everyone’s partner. Pony’s advice will be the x factor that helps every other firm succeed. His clients’ competitors won’t stand a chance without contracting with him, too. Sure, it’ll be a little extra work at the end of the semester — but he’ll make himself indispensable. And he always does his best with something to focus on outside his head.
Take a light die, “Master Planner,” to use while playing the game later. Also roll a new coping condition: Avoid 1. Stop thinking about how bad this all is. It’s nothing he can’t handle.
Lore 1, Grist 1, Friendship 1
/// /// ///
Ruby: Play the Game.
3: You find a minor resource; what guards it? What do you have to trade for it? Reduce 1-Need and gain 1-Need.
At Chenoweth, Ruby’s killing two birds with one stone. She’ll use the power of Link Grid for a leg up in her school’s perilous Social Labyrinth, and use her new Links to find a way to stop the looming glitch meteor (why can’t anyone else see it?) using Egress’ own systems. Maybe she can unlock a cool summon, or something.
What outfit did she prepare for True Drip today? Bear. Caution (Aggression). A blow strikes true, unexpectedly. Trait: Envious.
Under the serene curtain of her embroidered bird cape, Ruby wears a bear pride tank top with her belted and pocketed skirt. The peers who might skeptically ask why she’s wearing that aren’t close enough to her to care. [Trauma: Grudge.]
I make a note that the Student Council may or may not know about Egress already, I’ll find out in play — but not the President, who is a non-gamer. Maybe someone else does, though. I roll a drama move: expose a past mistake’s consequences. Motif: Palace. Luxury (Bureaucracy) A gilded cage for an irreplaceable songbird.
Following the Sun to Sully pattern, I’ll take Songbird and call her Sonya. Sonya used to be a fellow fashion design student — someone who Ruby thought was a friend — until she was poached for Student Council’s favored Vocal Performance track. That’s how Ruby sees it. Wrapped up in the armor of ironic distance, Ruby’s Grudge doesn’t want to admit that there was more to Sonya changing to Vocal Performance than jumping ship from their underfunded program — or that Ruby’s bitterness was what finally pushed her away. Sonya’s new Council title for her portfolio is “Advisor for Gaming and Digital Media.” Tread carefully, gamers.
Ruby still has the megaphone in her Object Grid that Sully dropped yesterday when Benni and Paula, those Student Council enforcers, shut down his courtyard soapbox speech for daring to mention the President’s name. Since Egress seems to trigger Links during meaningful conversations, she has the idea to return it to him and build a bond with the Council’s most outspoken foe. When she goes to the courtyard Friday afternoon, he’s there as usual, but being oddly quiet. Sonya, she notices, is just leaving, flanked by Benni and Paula. Ruby hangs back until they leave, not wanting to raise her flag, then approaches him.
Sully has what seems like his usual brave bombast, but he looks tired and stressed, and his platitudes go nowhere meaningful. Whatever she said, Sonya got to him. Sully may be the Sun, but instead of rising in inspiring defiance, his light is setting in surrender and encouraging the masses to sleep. Seems that Links can have their aspect inverted…! It’s not safe to return Sully’s megaphone in this state, much less make a Link with him. She’ll have to align his polarity with her own to make the Link helpful, rather than a millstone. (Imagine the disaster if you made a Link representing a relationship you didn’t realize was an enemy!)
There’s no other way. She’ll have to bully this dude into being good.
To flip Sully to her side, Ruby will have to overcome a condition-2: Sonya Got To Him. Each Strive success can reduce the condition by 1. Once it’s at 0, she can try to Strive to achieve her goal without the obstacle or armor in the way.
Strive with Mannerless 1 to knock him out of Sonya’s orbit.
Danger: Sully gets angry at her from being inspirationally yelled at. +Advantage from True Drip, -Disadvantage from Sonya Got To Him.
8 is a partial success, but Ruby wants more. She uses Shove It to add +2 to her total in exchange for 2 ranks of conditions’ worth of unrelated problems. She’s using her megaphone, so I give her Loud 2 and push the total to 10: full success. Reduce Sonya Got To Him by 1, no danger!
Ruby’s cloak parts and her bear paw blazes as she exhorts Sully to stand and fight, dummy!!! She uses the megaphone like a morality coach, imitating his speeches and reminding him why he’s been out here all semester. The truth matters! Rebellion matters! Even when no one is listening, he burns bright!! So stand and fight!!
The other students passing in the mural-lined hallways, or mingling in the courtyard heedless of the glitch meteor in the sky above, find Ruby very annoying and very loud. On the other hand, being dressed down by a rude rebel fashionista in a bear top who insists with his abandoned megaphone that he can be a goodguy, seems to actually even believe in him, is having some kinda complicated effect on Sully. He has tears in his big brown eyes, rolling down to his well-trimmed scruff. He stands up.
And then sees a Student Council banner hanging from an upstairs balcony that could only have been reached by acrobats, and his face falls again. His thick fists ball up, his eyes turn down.
“I won’t fight for them,” says Sully. He’s high-voiced and soft-spoken, not the firebrand from yesterday. “But Ruby, the Council…you don’t understand. They’re untouchable.”
Ruby follows his gaze up to the balcony banner. “oh i’ll touch them sully”
“i’ll touch them hard”
/// /// ///
Motif: a restless night of uneasy dreams leads to action.
Axel: Dream.
There is an ocean in the sky. Below the ocean is the silhouette of a golden ship-like palace surrounded by stepped bladespires of brass, and below them is a skyline of honey colored pillars hung with windmills and waterwheels and cornsilk sails, and below them is a sprawling marketplace in two hundred fifty six shades of yellow. In this vibrant and fantastical festival of commerce — a merchant’s paradise! — anything worth trading may be sold and bought.
But there’s no time for spendthrift entrepreneurials now: ze has been hired to solve the absconding of the PRINCEX, the dispossessed scion of this ochre domain’s bygone noble house, whether it be by capture or rescue. Little does zir cut-out patron realize that their unstumpable finder, the enigmatic PINCER X, is in truth none other than the absent EX-PRINCE zirself. How twisty!
Ze exits zir investigator’s office and ventures out into the saffron streets, down to the marketplace, where the holistic truth of this deception may be revealed through the all-cutting swords called Reason and Exchange.
It turns out this involves a complicated set of interlocking trading quests that take zir through alleys, tightropes, and windcarts to and from all corners of the market. Trade the POSTER for the EGG for the THREAD for the COG for the WHEEL for the FROG for the MALLET for the BOTTLE for the QUILT for the EGG — it just goes in circles! Value is moved, but never produced, and a succession of vendors and seekers of all shapes and sizes brings zir no closer to the truth of the mystery.
Then ze has a brainwave. Instead of ferrying them back and forth as directed, ze tries combining the item cards stored in zir Object Grid, manufacting them into something completely new: FROG and EGG and BOTTLE create a stoppered dram of MEDICINE. Ze gives the PINCHED RX to a pachyderm sufferer, wrapped in sheets turned gray from amber, with nothing to give in return. Renewed by the tincture, the sufferer trumpets and sheds the rags, pointing zir to a secret door overlooked by avaricious eyes. Ze follows winding spiral stairs, up and up and up through what must be a brass bladespire, but – !! — ducks away from a window! An iridescent UFO looms…can it see zir?
///
Axel’s eyes open on alien-print sheets. The covers are tangled. The xenomorph body pillow is abandoned on the floor.
Ze has work today.
The Pillars of the Earth: Four Evil Prettyboys for Fabula Ultima
The Pillars of the Earth are the most heartless warriors of the occupying empire, a gallery of the wicked and the beautiful, a so-called noble order whose virtue lies only in their name, tarnished by their deeds. They are four gorgeous men with deadly weapons: Jeanne, Shiro, Cecil, and the worst of them, Messiah.
Jeanne, the Cute One, is known for crying over the destruction left in the wake of his missions - not the people, but the things, the art, and most of all the flowers stained with blood. Throwing knives, he/him.
Shiro, the Fuckboy, talks like a country boy with lots of slang, wears a half mask with an open patterned-silk shirt displaying chest bandages, claims he fights better when he’s hammered. Oversized oni club, he/him.
Cecil, the One Who Thinks He’s Better Than You, wears long black hair in a hime cut plus round glasses and a modified uniform of the occupying empire. Writes poetry, talks about how worldly he is, corrects you on pronouncing your own language, just so much smarter and better than you, gets really steamed and stammers when he’s corrected and doesn’t have a comeback or someone asks how to boil an egg. Ornate glaive, he/him.
Messiah, the One You Can’t Stop, holds it together in a long peacoat or duster and thigh high heel boots, opera gloves, a vest and cravat, an eyepatch, and ethereal angel wings with matching halo. Operates from the shadows. When Messiah shows up in person, the fighting is over; all that’s left is killing hope. Dual katanas, any pronouns.
The basic flavor of their sexual tension* is:
-
Shiro (after Amakusa Shiro) does whatever with whoever he wants as long as it makes him look bad
-
Jeanne (as in d’Arc) is sweet but all words and no power, all promises that never pay off like you dreamed
Cecil (after the virgin martyr St. Cecilia):
-
refuses to fuck Shiro no matter how he teases and tempts
-
coldly blows off Jeanne’s obvious crush on him and revels in his tears
-
is utterly painfully sincerely down bad for Messiah and fails to realize just how far they’re out of his league
-
-
Messiah goes where the wind takes her and does as he pleases.
The party’s best source of information on the Pillars is Simony, a fujoshi with thick-framed glasses and an enormous but disorganized library who’s often tongue-tied in person and more articulate over text. Will reward the party each time they bring updated combat data (or souvenirs) from facing the Pillars. As trust builds with the party, Simony asks them to start using he/they rather than they/she for him.
* This lands one way if it’s all boiling just under the surface and not named explicitly by the Pillars (but PCs and other fearless gossips can say what they will), and another way if it’s openly text.
Line Go Down: Chapter 3b
Frappé scoots way back and rolls into cover before the Banner Sharks are attracted by the spectacle. But right away, its hiding spot is illuminated by a bright spotlight coming from the GC’s mono-visor!
“Look at you! Skating around and lit up like homecoming!”
huh? that pesky voice, even modulated through a speaker…how? it drops shaders over its cybereyes to get a better look.
“So my toy came back after all! Looks like I win the bet, boys.”
This can’t be happening. A massive mechanical lucky-cat-titan with four paws, a segmented prehensile tail, and a collar with a big ???-displaying bell. Tie-wearing goons cling to the thing’s palms, some taunting and crowing and some just panicking, while on its shoulder, strapped into a papoose and wielding a crackling pair of gauntlets wired into the GC’s neck:
“Boss?!”
“Believe it, beautiful!” Vengaboy gives it a shitty wink as they theatrically stick their gauntleted thumb into their open-suited chest - which a second later causes the GC colossus to match the action, lurching as it goes and sending the tie-wearing goons scrambling. “whoop! these dominion gloves are a li’l hinky. cool though, rite?”
Frappé is incredulous. “what. are. you. doing?! Get off that thing, dipcone! It’s gonna deactivate your human parts!! And we got traders comin’ from the Moose like, now!”
As banner sharks twist and prowl in their periphery, Vengaboy makes the GC wag its finger. “No can do, Frap! You’re still not thinking big enough. Those big-city cuke peddlers will get here and see my strong negotiating position.”
Frappé has never felt more checked out of this henchman situationship than it does right now. Its manipulators reach up to its hair and grip tight. “yoouuu…
Ingrate.″
It stomps its boot and jump-jets vertically to a furious hover. “I did all the work for you. I teed you up!! I did the whole quest!! I even found Halley all by myself!! There’s a whole fresh cuke lifeline about to fall into your stupid lap and you’re gonna blow it all up by scaring them off with this - this –”
It angrily aerial-pirouettes. “How has that boss monster not spread you on the pavement already??”
“Oh!” Vengaboy snaps their fingers, the collar bell displays !!! and a doorbell sound, and the tie-wearing goons squeeze for dear life. “I’ve been slurping up your excess energy into my cool EX generator. I didn’t have enough yet, so I didn’t tell you your dad or whatever was in the Moose so you’d stick around. Once you were out of town for a while, I used that toolkit in your bag to feed your stored-up robo girl juice into these dominion gloves I invented and/or found. The surge summoned some GCs out of Casco Bay that rampaged around town for a while, but I managed to plug into this big fella, so it all worked out.”
Frappé’s frame is turning darker and redder shades of pink.
“what’d I tell you?” Vengaboy makes the GC make a fist. “this [EX POWER] shit’s easy!!”
[Reach a Milestone: get the full picture. Face Defeat: I’m deprived of that securing Vengaboy and Frappé’s stuff objective. Pay the Price: you are separated from something, namely my stuff.]
Vengaboy continues: “Here’s the play, toy. I want you, to be big, with me. So get up here, plug my gloves into your [EX Turbine], and get this glitch kitty purring. C’mon, boss says so!”
They offer their titan’s hand. Frappé looks all the way up its arm. The heart-shaped EX Turbine in its chest inverts, locks into place, and burns as bright as its skate afterburners as it zooms up the arm to Vengaboy -
Clash with +iron at close quarters to EX-punch them, +1 from EX Turbine augment. Burn 9 momentum.
[Strong Hit: 4 + 2 + 0 = 9 vs 7 | 8]
&-( ò _ó)––€ ლ(｀ー´ლ)
Regain Control and mark progress twice (two boxes) on a new Formidable objective: Wipe the floor with Vengaboy.
Develop Your Relationship with Vengaboy by sharing a profound moment, mark progress (two boxes).
V-Boy Victory Deluxe (Formidable)
-
Glitch Construct untouchable by mundane weapons
-
Titanic maneki-neko-mecha
-
Four extending arms for quadruple smashing action
-
Glowing energy runes mark potential railgrinds
-
Incomplete sync with erratic pilot
-
Stomp around, cause chaos
Boosting away from the lucky cat GC colossus before its yelling goons and huge mitts swipe it away, Frappé jets out into the streets! With Vengaboy punched, the next thing it wants to do is draw this chaotic GC into stomping on the banner sharks and thinning them out. Gain Ground with +shadow for misdirection, +1 from EX Turbine for extra speedy maneuvers.
[Strong Hit: 3 + 3 + 1 = 7 vs 4 | 2]
Mark progress against the sharks (two boxes), take +2 momentum. The ground shudders as the massive monster unsteadily stomps after Frappé, disrupting the sharks (and the Prom) as it goes. It fires out its paws on thick grappling cables out after its quarry, but the loud explosions and 3-2-1 beep! telegraph each attack. While it’s recovering, Frappé chases down the prowling sharks and hits ’em with the buster cannon! Strike +edge, +1 from EX Turbine.
[Weak Hit: 5 + 2 + 1 = 8 vs 8 | 6]
Mark progress twice against the sharks (four boxes), but I’m in a bad spot again! Hunting down these sharks and trying to string VBVD along suddenly has Frappé slaloming through the glow-shadowed street statues alongside the park! Vengaboy’s voice cajoles from a loudspeaker: “Frap, you won’t need your hands once you plug in! The cat has four! That’s twice as many!”
Four grappling paws fire out into the alternative art-choked street, creating an impassible barrier! Unless…
Close-up on Frappé, eyes ahead: [EX Score: one]
Its turbine thrums. It accelerates — or does the world slow down? React Under Fire +edge, +1 EX Turbine, +2 from EX Power [spend 1/3]
[Strong Hit: 2 + 2 + 3 = 7 vs 2 | 6]
zip-zip-zip with beyond-human agility. It does a rolling limbo under a horse made of sparkling water cans and scrap metal, wallrides a stone building, then rotates its body one half at a time and reverses course, zipping away. The grappling paw smashes through the horse, destroying it and sticking the paw in the overgrown street. “No! That was the only authentic statement in the installation!!″
+1 momentum, and I’m in control again. Frappé presses the advantage by grinding up the taut grapple line to give Victory Deluxe’s collar bell a good solid EX Kick! Strike +iron with Turbine!
[Strong Hit: 5 + 2 + 1 = 8 vs 3 | 3]
RED HOT!! With Augmented, a strong hit with a match grants +2 momentum! Mark progress twice (two boxes against Vengaboy) plus I stay in control. The bell rings out clear, and the ??? becomes a ?!? and then a …
The GC loses interest in Vengaboy’s EX-powered dominion gloves and starts to wander at random, pursuing more basic behaviors. V and their goons pound and shout and squabble trying to get it to listen while it stomps toward the shoreline…
That buys Frappé some time to mop up these banner sharks. Take Decisive Action by leading their banners with the buster cannon, not their lurelights, and firing away when they frenzy on each other.
[Progress Roll: Defeat the Pack :Weak Hit = 8 vs 4 | 10]
Reach a Milestone: defeat the banner sharks. So the lesser GCs are dealt with and that objective is complete, but it’s more difficult than expected. EX Mode is draining on the boost frame, especially on Generation 2 Glitch Busters like Frappé. I’m in a bad spot again, plus make a suffer move: Endure Harm -2, losing 2 health from system fatigue. I then roll +health to resist it:
[Miss: 4 + 3 + 0 = 7 vs 8 | 9]
oof. Frappé has overexerted itself and needs to downcycle out of EX Mode, venting otherworldly radiation. The space around it on this park statue is full of jaggies and eerie digitized phonemes. It keeps the lost health and also Lose Momentum -2 for the delay and android headache. Its dazed eyes wander and roll around, cartoonily, until it smacks its head and they reset like billiard balls impacting. “Awright!!! Enough playin’!”
It scans the horizon…and finds a blazing EX flare coming from Battery Island! Looks like Vengaboy and his goons (“can’t believe I ever thought I was their goon”) have managed to park the thrashing VBVD GC on top of the big concrete fortification Frappé was tagging out there yesterday morning, firing its grapple paws into the ground like pitons to hold it still while they overload their janky dominion gloves with stolen EX Power, which will only make everything worse. Ugh. Just letting them blow themselves up and wreck this whole scavenger town sounds better every minute. But…it kinda wants to steal its GB Toolkit back so Halley can unlimit it. (and waning strander’s fragile human body might get hurt. that would bite.)
Fine. It charges up its skates, builds up some speed and momentum at the wrecked park, and blazes out across the Prom toward Battery Island. It’s the last time the Prom denizens sheltering indoors will see that hot pink blur racing past their windows.
React Under Fire +edge for charging in pursuit and racing over Casco Bay out to the island.
[Weak Hit: 1 + 2 + 0 = 3 vs 4 | 1]
I overcome the obstacle and make it out there, but remain in a bad spot and make a suffer move. I’ll Withstand Damage to my boost frame and suffer -1 integrity, then roll +integrity to resist the damage.
[Weak Hit: 3 + 4 + 0 = 7 vs 9 | 1]
I choose to Lose Momentum (-1) in exchange for recovering that +1 integrity. Downcycling out of EX Mode gives Frappé waves of glitchcore exhaust that take extra time to manage.
But it’s out on Battery Island where V-Boy Victory Deluxe is roosting! The way I envision this is a Jet Set Radio/Bomb Rush Cyberfunk/Sonic Adventure boss fight where Frappé dodges energy attacks and grinds up each of the grappling ropes to land a good solid hit on the glowing core Vengaboy is working on. The first phase feels like an abstracted Clash +edge to nail the right glowing spots on VBVD with buster cannon attacks.
[Strong Hit: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8 vs 4 | 1]
pchew-pchew. Mark progress twice against V-Boy (two boxes), and regain control! With a crackling explosion that sends gilded GC $kittycoins spewing out of Victory Deluxe’s mouth and scatters the goons chasing them, it’s vulnerable to jet grind up each of the ropes and pummel this manipulative dipcone. Strike +iron to attack at close quarters, enough to bring a henchless human to their knees.
[Strong Hit: 6 + 2 + 0 = 8 vs 1 | 7]
Mark progress twice (two boxes), which takes me to 8/10, which feels like enough to finish this. It’s just Frappé and Vengaboy atop a fallen lucky-cat titan, ready to explode, and the android fully has the advantage. It stomps and scorches his boot with its afterburner (“ow what the shit ow ow!!“), then grabs him by the scruff while he’s off-balance and launches up, up, up into the night air with him.
“It was all gonna start with this, Frap,” the artsy crook coughs. “This was gonna be our first kingdom.”
They wistfully look out over the ocean night horizon, high up in the clear sky. “ha . . . that view . . .”
The wind ruffles the sweaty mess of their hair. “from a place like this . . . you really could take over the world . ”
Frappé pulls their face in very close. Its voice has that synthy growl that makes their skin crawl in a good way.
“you only see it because i’m holding you”
Like a ballroom dancer, it pushes them out and drops them.
Take Decisive Action.
[Progress Roll: Wipe the Floor With Vengaboy :Strong Hit = 8 vs 6 | 6]
Strong hit with a match. +1 momentum and Frappé prevails.
Vengaboy disappears into the deep water of Casco Bay. Moments later, Victory Deluxe goes up in fireworks and imaginary coins, lighting up the night and sending waves rippling back to shore. When it doesn’t see anyone come above the water, Frappé leaves.
Develop Your Relationship (to six) and then Forge a Bond with Vengaboy for sharing a fight to die for, babe.
[Progress Roll: Bond Progress :Strong Hit = 6 vs 3 | 1]
Along with artsy crook, Vengaboy gains the role of worthless lapdog. Mark two ticks on the bonds legacy track.
Reach a Milestone: defeat V-Boy Victory Deluxe. Fulfill Your Vow at eight boxes.
[Progress Roll: “I’ll Clear the GCs Out of Prom Myself!” :Strong Hit = 8 vs 5 | 6]
That’s a wrap. Mark two ticks on the quests legacy track.
End a Session. Reach a Milestone towards ruling the world by gaining meaningful insight into what that means: mark one tick. I think that going out ahead and defeating the GC attack on Prom counts as Reach a Milestone for supplying fresh veggies, too: mark two boxes. Clear the Bot Gossip clock as it’s no longer relevant. Next time, I want to briefly wrap up in Prom and then hit the road for the last part of this region. +1 momentum.
Line Go Down: Chapter 3a
Begin a Session. Last time, Frappé arrived in the Moose, which is bathed in an unknown signal that no one else seems to be able to hear; met some faces in the settlement including Waning Strander (a new connection), got a lead on veggies for the Prom, and made contact with Dr. Halley. Let’s have a vignette to open the session: flashback reveals an aspect of another character, place, or faction. Some detail on Blackstar sounds good.
[Mechanical location feature: Mechanical environment in motion or transforming]
A hermetically sealed environment, looking like a retro superspy villain lair, henchmen and all. Technicians in hard hats and jumpsuits with the stylized black sun logo are reconfiguring this modular engineering bay. Space is at a premium in the bunker. Tapping musical-note keyboards, they return a superconducting core to beneath the tiled floor and withdraw a wall slice full of recovery pods like a book from a shelf. The reconfigured room is now open to the click, clack sound of boots on textured steel. The Orbital inspection is arriving.
They pass under an etched-obsidian mural depicting some faces recognizable from the Presidential Tower gala just before the world ended: tech-fascinated billionaires looking confident and determined in the face of great trial, admired by their courtiers and Chenoweth apprentices, lit from behind by an iconic orb. Striding past, not giving the idealized image a second glance, is a ruthlessly fashionable elderly woman in a sweeping labcoat-inspired mantle and short blue-dyed perm. She is joined by a report-carrying bearded man, tall and bald and less smartly dressed, speaking through a high-quality vocabulator.
“Once we receive confirmation from all stakeholder orbits,” the man synthesizes quickly and formally, “we will begin to schedule sunset plans as discussed.”
“Ganymede and I are in lockstep on this,” she replies with dismissive ease. “There is no further discussion.”
His lips curl. “I understand that,” he begins, not moving them,
“Then don’t waste any more of my time. Get it done.”
With purpose but insufficient planning, he continues: “Decommissioning all Mark Two frames at this stage would reduce operational readiness and cohort morale. This is a poison pill.”
“Comete Halley,” she says, impersonally smooth. He halts, chastened, wrinkled. “When your Planete orders you to swallow poison to bring about the Blackstar, what will you do?”
The technicians, despite orders, are briefly glancing over. They can hear everything. Their boss is being directly humiliated by his boss. Halley stands still, mentally counts to three, and looks directly ahead. It’s a breaking point.
Shot of the recovery pod bank: each one contains a Mark Two Glitch Buster, each like Frappé but with varying skin and hair, each looking blankly ahead with wide open eyes and smiling. Halley’s monotone reply: “I will swallow poison, Planete Titane.”
===
+1 momentum. On to the present.
Frappé caught up with Waning Strander at the neon-signed hobbit hole of a motel, and they exchanged their info. WS managed to book a one-on-one with the newly lottery-selected Mayor Keelan for the next day to plead her mentor Ended Strander’s case for a no-criminals waiver on a residency card. Now she has to figure out how to prove ES is a good and honorable person and a boon to the community, in language that Keelan will understand. Frappé says that it found who to talk to about fresh vegetables, but it doesn’t know how to sell Bruna Bond on artsy scavenger Prom as a reliable trading partner. As they talk it over, an idea emerges, mostly from Rowena: Prom might not have much to offer in exchange, but its boat docks and regular coastal trade do. The Moose could freely use Prom’s piers to engage in coastal trade, and bring additional vegetables in the caravans (cukes included) as a local sweetener. Ended Strander would be the perfect trail boss for the trade route: he knows land and water trade, he’s experienced with the risks, and he can more than handle any trouble or intimidation the Prom crooks try to give him. This is the service that only he can provide to the Moose! As Waning Strander begins drawing up a proposal, Frappé marvels: “I’m a genius!”
Develop Your Relationship with Rowena for giving her something of worth, mark two boxes.
And what’s up with Halley? Did Frappé Make a Connection in its weird and dangerous way?
[Strong Hit: 6 + 1 + 0 = 7 vs 4 | 4]
A strong hit with a match! Adding Doctor Halley, the rogue roboticist, as a Formidable connection. And with a match, he’s surprisingly open to cooperation, or at least vulnerable to Frappé’s menacing. Secure + Health. (Did they talk about the mysterious signal? [Likely] Yes. Is it coming from Halley? [Likely] Yes.) Halley offered a plea bargain of his own over codec: his Blackstar cybernetics have a kind of fail-deadly copy protection, emitting a signal that can be homed in on by Mark 3+ Glitch Busters, while Mark 2s like Frappé only detect it enough to be annoyed and distracted. GB kill teams are going to keep coming for him unless the signal is disabled. Halley’s plea: come assist Dr. Clank Griffin in disabling the advanced signal, and he will come with Frappé to unlock her inhibitors. Frappé mulls it over.
Waning Strander invites her new strander pal to stay the night in her room at the motel, and Frappé takes her up on it. It’s nice to downcycle to sleep mode somewhere safe that isn’t Vengaboy’s basement closet cardboard pile, even if it can’t plug in to recharge.
Overnight, add 1 to Bot Gossip clock as time advances and word gets around. Sacrifice Resources -1 supply (to 4) from expending battery power. Frappé focuses deeply to cultivate EX Power, +spirit: strong hit, +3 EX (to 3.) Even without a generator to plug into, it feels like it hasn’t had a good night’s restorative rest in the whole month it’s been with Vengaboy.
The next morning, Waning Strander and Frappé take a woodland jaunt up to the shabby old cold dark waystation Ended Strander has been sheltering in, a ways outside the Moose. He’s at least as serious about this strander name stuff as WS is. He isn’t very friendly to new people out here, especially weird android ones who look sorta like GCs. Still, WS and Frappé pitch him on the trade route to Prom and give him all the details he needs to make the case to Mayor Keelan with their support. Secure an Advantage +heart, +1 for WS’ help.
[Strong Hit: 5 + 1 + 1 = 7 vs 5 | 1]
Ended Strander couldn’t be better prepared; he’s perfect for the job. Exactly as tough as he looks, even without combat armor on, and a confident presenter once he’s clear on all the details. +1 on my next move, +2 momentum, +1 more momentum for a connection’s help on a roll. The three of them trek back to the settlement, WS and ES talking as they go about a shared history of stranding and trekking and connection, ever since he took her under his wing back in the Parry. (talking to her brightens him up; even when he’s keeping it terse, he keeps the back and forth going.)
The newly honored Mayor Keelan keeps her office hours in what was once a high school and is now mostly admin and commercial space for the enterprises that functionally run the Moose. (Teaching students happens mostly in the old church on the far side of the mound.) Her hallway is lined with official photographs of all previous lottery mayors, stretching back to a cardboard standup of the first wise and humble honoree recorded to have stood up after the Glitch Stranding: His Honor Mayor Ray Romano.
Ended Strander, on the agenda as Mr. Kei Hendrix and dressed to kill (NOT LIKE THAT!!), makes his pitch for a regular produce trade route between the Moose and the Prom’s ports, with supporting evidence from Rowena and Frappé (equipped with official vengaboys. bag as diplomatic credentials.) In their pitch, it’s a new, exciting, transformative idea: the first mark on this town that Keelan wants to make. Compel to make it happen, +heart, +1 from the last roll, +1 for WS’ help.
[Strong Hit: 3 + 1 + 2 = 6 vs 1 | 3]
She comes around!! Unlike the previous lottery mayor Rowena tried, Keelan is hearing a story she wants to hear. She gives her approval for a trade route to Prom, making sure to mention both Kei Hendrix and cucumbers by name in all the paperwork so there’s no confusion. Out in the waiting room while Keelan and Hendrix discuss logistical details to bring to Bruna, WS looks tired, relieved, hopeful.
Develop Your Relationship. Add two boxes for standing with her against hardship.
Reach a Milestone. Add two boxes for securing produce delivery from the Moose to the Prom.
===
From there, Frappé goes on its own to the subterranean clinic of CLANK GRIFFIN, M.D. where the doctor and clinicians have been told to expect it. Dr. Griffin is looking unimpressed.
“Iota Rho One Seven Seven Two Nine, was it?”
“One Seven Seven dash Two Nine.”
“How could I forget?” He’s monitoring a readout display plugged into one of his cybernetic hands.
“Doctor Halley contends that his cybernetic vocabulator contains a tracking signal which his last attacker followed. He assumes that you did, too, and that whatever sensor gizmo helped you detect it will be essential for surgically deactivating the tracker. As a peer, I respect Dr. Halley’s professional judgment.”
Frappé nods, trying to look all businesslike and comprehending. Clank continues: “And as a citizen of the Moose with a low tolerance for bullshit, this whole thing stinks. Whatever the cahoots between you two really looks like, and I know I’m not getting the full story, I don’t want it hurting any other citizens or using up any more of my precious time and anesthetic.”
“So I’m going to plug you into my diagnostic module. And your instruments will feed into mine, with all motions and all decisions made by me. And once we finish, assuming Dr. Halley heals as well as I anticipate…”
“Both of you will leave town. Finish whatever business you have here and leave. I suggest you relocate somewhere in Kennebec or parts further where no other androids know to come looking for you. We certainly won’t be telling any more visitors where either of you went.”
“Deal,” sez Frappé. “I was done here, anyway.”
“Oh, good,” Clank concludes. “Trace, prepare the patient in B5, will you please?”
“I’m on it, Clank.”
===
They’re playing a game of Operation where only one of them can hear the buzzer. It’s tense and focused work. Halley looks mostly as Frappé saw him at the lab until he deserted and fled a few months ago, but the stress of fleeing through wilderness and wreckage is weathering him fast. He looks so vulnerable in that surgical gown. Before he went under, Frappé pinged him over codec:
He wasn’t wrong. As funny as it would be to feed faulty data and screw this up in a way that looks like Griffin’s fault, it’d only be sabotaging itself. So it tunes in deeply to the strange signal, at its highest intensity here, and guides the scan millimeter by millimeter to identify and isolate the tracker in his vocabulator. Red wire or blue wire?
Face Danger, +wits, to assist Clank in deactivating Halley’s tracker without deactivating his fragile human body.
[Weak Hit: 4 + 1 + 0 = 5 vs 1 | 10]
hmm. I was going to burn my 10 momentum on that, but 10 on a challenge die is too high for more than a weak hit anyway. I guess I’ll take it! I succeed at deactivating the tracker, but not without a cost; make a suffer move at -1. I’ll Lose Momentum (-1), as Frappé is delayed by this extended, frustrating ordeal that goes against its strengths and instincts. That’s a good signal to advance the Bot Gossip clock as time goes by and eyebrow-raising situations mount.
It takes hours, but they’re ultimately able to complete the operation. The mysterious signal abruptly fades out. As soon as it’s a confirmed success, Griffin has his clinician unplug Frappé from the diagnostic module and escort it to the waiting room so he can close Halley up “without distractions.” That’s probably for the best.
Some time later, he emerges. “Doctor Halley will be fine, but not very talkative for a while. His mobility has much improved since he was brought in. We’ll keep monitoring him today, but I don’t expect he’ll stay here another night.”
Frappé takes the hint. Time to finish up here. Develop Your Relationship with Dr. Halley for helping him out in difficult circumstances, marking one box. Reach a Milestone on getting Halley to unlimit its frame (by meaningfully helping him), marking two boxes.
===
Fast forward to later that day. A whole party is heading to Prom: Ended Strander and some of Bruna’s people leading an electric wagon with a recovering Dr. Halley in the back, plus Waning Strander and Frappé alongside. They’re getting the lay of the land and the coastal shipping economy, figuring out who to talk to, and staying the night. (Perfect timing - it’s Prom Night festival!) After some conversation on the road, Frappé gets antsy and boosts ahead, zipping through the trees on a hoverskating shortcut. The caravan’s moving too slow for it, plus it wants to link up with Vengaboy first before the Moose crew arrives. Set a Course from Moose to Prom, +supply 4:
[Miss: 2 + 4 + 0 = 6 vs 7 | 7]
oh shit. a miss with a match, and on high 7s, is an extremely bad outcome. Frappé is waylaid by a significant threat and must Pay the Price. Looking at a table of ideas, I like you encounter signs of a looming threat.
It’s been riding out well ahead for an hour, and the first sign of trouble is the Trouble Horns blowing low and loud from Prom. What the heck? The lights are out, no party music, the streets look empty, and there are these ghostly lights shimmering…oh, hell. It’s a GC attack.
Frappé boosts up and around a water tower to get a better view. A pack of iridescent-black shark-things prowl the statue-lined streets like the seaside air is water, ghostlights hanging from their heads like anglerfish, trailing banners with nonsense text (the corrupted legacy of some long-ago Object Grid.) It’s a spooky-cute monster design on a screen, and nightmarish to regular ass humans when the monster becomes real with no way to Reduce its HP, just spears and fire and bullets that do nothing, unacknowledged by the enigmatic game logic of the Glitch Moon. This is why the Glitch Busters were manufactured: to play the game back. Against GCs, weapons like Frappé work.
What would Prom do without it? No way is it letting GCs wreck this place after all that work! Its stuff is here!!! Frappé: Swear an Iron Vow +heart- “I’ll clear the GCs out of Prom myself!” (Dangerous)
[Strong Hit: 5 + 1 + 0 = 6 vs 5 | 4]
The vow to itself is recorded, along with +2 momentum.
It then Enters the Fray! Starting objectives: secure Vengaboy (plus its stuff) at his hideout (Troublesome), slay the Glitch Construct sharks (Dangerous)
Banner Shark Pack (Dangerous)
-
Glitch Constructs untouchable by mundane weapons
-
Luminescent lures for attraction and misdirection
-
Cursed enigmatic junk text banners
-
Swim through air like the ocean
-
Rows of sharp teeth and cutting fins
-
Lurk in darkness, sense motion, strike with fierce speed and strength
Following the sneaking mission protocol to lurk and lure and pick the enemy off, it rolls +shadow.
[Weak Hit: 4 + 3 + 0 = 7 vs 2 | 9]
No extra momentum, but I begin the fighting In Control. Frappé goes dark and silent running and finds out just how well it knows these Prom streets by now.
Gain Ground with +wits to probe this pack’s tactics and patrols and alert distances.
[Weak Hit: 4 + 1 + 0 = 5 vs 3 | 8]
Stay in control, and mark progress: two boxes toward defeating the pack. It knows how they move now, prowling in the shadow of the Time & Temp Building sign reading GC ATTACK - SEEK SHELTER. Reach a Milestone for encountering the enemy.
Gain Ground with +shadow to circuitously evade them and approach V’s strip mall office.
[Miss: 1 + 3 + 0 = 4 vs 10 | 10]
oh hell. match 10s!! that’s even worse than match 7s!!! it’s the worst result in the game! even burning 10 momentum wouldn’t make that a hit! Not only am I now in A Bad Spot in combat, but the enemy gains the upper hand and a new peril is revealed! I know just what it is, too. From the Story Complications oracle: someone important betrays your trust.
It makes it to the strip mall near the shoreline. No sign of lights, or people huddling inside, not even Vengaboy’s goons. Weird. Where would they be if not here…?
rumble
uh oh
rumble rumble
that ain’t good
KRONCH. whirrr… WHIIIIIINE-
A titanic fist bursts through the roof, sending glass and plaster scattering! Colored lights and fog blast up through the widening fissures as the form of a truly gigantic enemy emerges from the strip mall cocoon! The colossus rises up from its knees, five stories tall at least, stretching out four arms and wreathed in the otherworldly aura of the powerful GCs that lurk in the oceans and the wastelands - but there are people on it…?
Line Go Down: Chapter 2
Begin a Session.
Frappé earned its vow to travel inland to the Moose and cut Vengaboy into a rumored cucumber-oriented fresh vegetable trading scheme. Our favorite android had just arrived there when I left off. I just realized I haven’t recorded the vow “I will make Doctor Halley remove the limiters on my boost frame” (Dangerous), so I do that now. I won’t do a vignette or anime OP to begin the session this time, I’ll just jump right in.
I know that the Moose is a well-populated town for this area (there’s like 500 people!) which has organized agriculture, as well as servicing travelers, traders, and stranders. (and there’s a rotating mayor chosen by lottery who isn’t very effective. what a bunch of clowns)
First Look gives me built within terrain and foreboding blockade. The Moose is set into earthworks on top of a hill, and the easiest approach is guarded with barriers and sentries, as are the fields on the less accessible side of the mound. The best defense against the GCs that roam around here is physically blocking them out until they drop aggro and return to origin. The initial contact is neutral/automated, though, so they don’t give Frappé trouble. The sentries have seen it before when it passed through a month ago. The rangy one named Brian, with the knife and hat and face mask, pats it down at the gate.
“I gotta ask: why are you pink?” he asks.
“It’s the way I was made,” Frappé piously replies. He waves her through.
The android meanders with other travelers up the low-slope spiral road around the hill, lined with hawkers and hot broth stands and motels cut into the earth. On the way up, it listens to what people are talking about. (strange phenomenon, unnatural + signal).
But it can’t focus very well on what they’re saying, because it hears something that none of the humans seem to be able to hear. There’s like a scratchy fuzzy static at the edge of its perception, quiet but persistent. [Ask the Oracle. Can it feel this in its EX Turbine? (Likely) Yes.] Whatever that means, it ain’t good. Frappé finds a bench at the top of the hill and worries at its chest through the hoodie it’s wearing.
===
“whats up, fellow strander. you good?”
It must have been a minute sitting here. Frappé refocuses on the young woman in front of her: owlish glasses, purple bandana covering black braids, graphic t-shirt of some long-gone IP, field jacket and pants loaded with pockets. Her face is fully :| but she’s open enough.
“I’m just buzzing,” Frappé replies, hand on its chest.
“yeah,” she agrees. “i’m gonna sit too.”
The two of them chill and turn down the volume while people go by. Before too long, they start talking. The woman says she’s Waning Strander.
Frappé picks up that WS is one of those humans who really likes explaining the stuff they’re into. Make a Connection. I burn momentum (resetting from 8 to 2) to turn a miss into a strong hit.
[Strong Hit: 1 + 1 + 0 = 8 vs 4 | 6]
Frappé adds Waning Strander/Rowena as a connection, role Strander (courier and deliveryperson specialized in connecting disparate settlements,) rank Dangerous. Whenever she helps Frappé with strander stuff, I add +1 and take +1 momentum on a hit.
Frappé fills WS in about coming here from Prom looking for a fresh veggie hookup for its boss, WS asks how Frappé started working for him, Frappé says Vengaboy was helping it find someone important to it named Doctor Halley, WS asks if Frappé wants to see if anyone in Moose knows about him.
Frappé: “That’s . . . actually not a bad idea!”
Waning Strander: “did you think my idea was gonna be bad.”
Gather Information. They go to some connected people and popular hangouts WS knows and ask around. +1 for her help. It’s a Weak Hit, so I get new insight into Doctor Halley’s situation, but it also complicates my quest. +1 momentum as I carry it through.
[Ask the Oracle. Did Doctor Halley pass through here? (Almost Certain) Yes.
Complication: defeat + blood. Oh no, oh dear, oh jeez.
Was he attacked and critically wounded? (Likely) Yes.
Did this happen in the last two weeks? (50/50) Yes.
Is he still in the Moose? (Almost Certain) Yes.]
Chatting with a gregarious innkeeper at a neon-signed hobbit hole of a motel, Frappé tries to make it make sense. Doctor Halley was right here in the Moose? Was he here all along? How did Vengaboy not find out? Did they not even ask? Did they ask and learn the truth and keep it from her…?
Her manipulators tighten in her pocket. She leans into the innkeeper all full of concern to say: “Doc Halley’s family to me and my sibs. He would’ve come out here looking for us, and I just gotta see him and tell him we’re okay, and make sure he’ll be okay too. Where’s he been recovering?”
Compel by lying and deceit with +shadow.
[Strong Hit: 3 + 3 + 0 = 6 vs 5 | 1]
The innkeeper nods sympathetically and brings the offbeat but goodhearted young visitors in to listen to her. (functional + hideaway) For a real bad wound like the one he took, Halley will be in the rigging clinic cut in the tunnels under the windmill; here’s the speakeasy words to be let inside the door. Frappé is gracious. Especially because locating Doctor Halley lets it Reach a Milestone on that “I will make Doctor Halley remove the limiters on my boost frame” Iron Vow, and so it marks two boxes on that track.
[I Take a Break for the day. Once I return to play, I take +1 on my next move.]
===
WS is gonna work on her own stuff and do her own thing while Frappé follows this up. What’s her thing? Make an agreement. Related to what? uncover honor. Is she trying to prove someone’s innocence or valor? [50/50] Yes. Her own? [Unlikely] No. Whose? pirate/navigator, imposing, tough, Hendrix. Is she personally connected to him? [Likely] Yes. Her mentor? [Likely] Yes. Prove that Hendrix been framed? [50/50] No. Prove that Hendrix has turned a new leaf? [Likely] Yes.
She’s been trying to help Hendrix, AKA Ended Strander, known to be a former caravan thief, get a waiver to live permanently in the Moose. [He’s been sheltering in a derelict, in Starforged terms, outside town. Helia, cold and dark, a blocked-off building.] The last lottery mayor didn’t go for it, maybe the new one will; the whole town’s got a good feelin’ about Keelan. [the new mayor, Christa Keelan, is an offbeat tractor mechanic known for carrying a sledgehammer who seems like she’s genuinely enjoying the role and wants to make the most of it, god help us all]
Frappé flashes a peace V with her manips. Cool, good luck with that. They name a place and time to meet later.
===
Frappé goes to the rigging clinic next. The switchback path winds down past the windmill, and there’s a door it code-knocks at - “mairzy doats and dozy doats and little lambsy divey” - and is let inside.
The clinic is a small but clean space, LED lit and air filtered, with a hex-honeycomb of seven rooms including the public-facing area. (That mysterious signal is stronger in here, but the humans don’t notice.) It’s run by one Dr. William “Clank” Griffin, a Bones/MASH type swaggering good-guy doctor with an additional drive to Oppose Corruption. He’s constantly accompanied by one or more nurses, like a dentist with a harem of dental assistants. There’s never enough supplies or expertise to do his work, so he’s always wanting. This guy totally has his own weeknight serial in the 70s, and Halley and Frappé are his case of the week.
So Frappé is allowed into the clinic by a blonde clinician in scrubs with suspiciously perfect teeth. When she asks, it explains that it’s here to see Halley. The clinician isn’t so sure about this, seeing as Halley is still recovering, and from a violent attack. They go back and forth until Dr. Griffin swaggers out of an OR. “I’ll take it from here, Liv. Sterilize C5, wouldja? The good news in there looks like bad news.”
She hops to it. “You got it, Clank.”
He glances roguishly at camera, freeze on title card:
Clank Griffin, M.d.
Tonight’s Episode: “Doctor, Doctor”
Clank has salt-and-pepper hair, a trim goatee, and two cybernetic hands. He begins reviewing some paperwork (not a screen or console,) and asks his hotpink visitor: “What’s your designation, bubblegum? Wait, let me guess: GB-000-02?”
Frappé is caught flat-footed. It doesn’t give a big reaction, but it’s visibly processing. Plus the unknown signal is distracting. “Uh,”
“We don’t get a lot of androids in the Moose. But just in the last month, I’ve seen two. The first one tried to kill Doctor Halley. The second one just walked into my clinic.”
He looks at it, dead confident in a TV detective kinda way. “You haven’t started shooting yet, so I figure you’ve got an alibi. Let’s hear it.”
Frappé doesn’t know this game. It’s not gonna start blowing things up; it might kill Halley, not to mention screw everything up in Moose, not to mention get buried under rubble if this place collapses. So it tries to think of what to say.
“Go ahead, keep thinking,” says Clank, “I’m just doing chart review. Sit, if you like.”
Frappé: “How much do you know about Doctor Halley?”
Clank: “Not much more than his vitals, apparently. Why, what’s the dish?”
Now Frappé is in a difficult position. Clank might not know the truth about Blackstar and its secret labs and programs, but he can definitely see through our protagonist’s bullshit. How annoying!!! If it could just sweep away all these encrusted human obstabarnacles and talk to him…
The android’s black eyes look put out and thoughtful, frustrated, saddened. Clank waits expectantly, eyes on it.
“Can I just leave him a message?”
“What’s the message?”
“Just that Iota Rho One Seven Seven Dash Two Nine asked to visit.” It looks down at its boots. “And…that she’s sorry. For everything.”
Getting Clank to pass on this specific message feels like Face Danger with +shadow for trickery, +1 for returning from the break.
[Strong Hit: 3 + 3 + 1 = 7 vs 3 | 4]
+1 momentum, and the message will reach Halley undoctored. What’s the harm?
“I’ll pass that along,” says Clank in a curt and final tone. “You can leave my clinic now.”
It does.
(Dr. Griffin recognized our GB-873-0F-15 on sight as a Glitch Buster android, the same kind that seems to have recently infiltrated Moose and attacked Dr. Halley. I create a six-segment tension clock called Bot Gossip; as it fills up, word gets around in the Moose that the visiting Frappé is a dangerous android Just Like That Other One <which isn’t incorrect but misunderstands> until it’s given an ultimatum: you are not welcome here, leave town. That will be the end of any questing Frappé does here.)
===
While that pot cooks, Frappé decides to kill some time by following up on the reason it’s supposedly here. What’s going on with this cucumber connection, this fresh vegetable scheme? (Inhabited settlement feature: merchant hawking their wares.) The mysterious staticky signal is still thrumming, but it pushes through the yuck and asks some vendors and caravan traders where Prom could get some bulk veggies.
Gather Information.
[Weak Hit: 6 + 1 + 0 = 7 vs 8 | 2]
The advice comes up again and again: Frappé should go out to the farms west of the hill, and specifically the processing warehouse, if it wants to arrange some kind of bulk purchase. There’s still time to do it this afternoon; the sun hasn’t gone down yet. So it heads out to the fields. They’re shielded by the Moose mound itself and guarded fences, but Frappé doesn’t need (or at least doesn’t use, the sneaky possum) any kind of permit to go out there.
The android doesn’t know all that much about crops, or agriculture, or non-packaged food. It doesn’t need to eat. It seems like they’re growing a lot of stuff out of the ground out here, and some stuff on bushes! Bugs buzz and motors hum. Looks like a well-organized farm with pretty decent mechanization, but it’s busy and tiring work that a lot of Moose residents have to pitch in for.
Past some greenhouses surrounded by pots of dirt and strong-smelling fertilizer, it’s directed to a warehouse and gets to talking with Bruna Bond, the farm factor. She’s haggard, dirty coveralls and day-old stubble and muddy boots, but poised and fully in her element as the farm’s external agent. She’s indifferent to outsiders, ready to do business but uninterested in charity with her limited resources. Bruna hangs her shovel up and asks the visitor what she’s here for.
Frappé: “Can Prom have some cucumbers?”
Bruna: “No.”
Frappé: “Aw. You don’t got any extra?”
Bruna explains that the farms need to use their surplus for productive ends, to secure the resources to keep things growing and win the best possible advantage for the Moose. It’s important every year, with unpredictable weather and precarious hives, but even moreso lately since they lost their stable network connection to the Burl’s regional almanacs. (“hope Hozier and Spice are okay.“) The Prom are scavenger weirdos who don’t really grow or make anything useful, as far as Bruna knows, at least not enough to trade. Not only that, the only overtures she ever gets from Prom are from artsy crooks who don’t know the business, seem like trouble, and frankly annoy her. (Frappé tucks its vengaboys. fanny pack under its hoodie.)
This sounds complicated. Frappé can’t just charge up the buster cannon and make these ingrates send cukes to the Prom; it’s like a whole interlocking logistics situation. How’s a bot gonna solve this one? Tricks, probably.
[pony would find this kind of economic accounting puzzle of democratic decision-making fascinating!]
Reach a Milestone and mark two boxes on “I’ll cut Vengaboy in on supplying Moose-to-Prom fresh veggies!” for finding the person to talk to about veggies.
===
Frappé tells Bruna that it will come back later and heads back up the mound, thinking of meeting up with Waning Strander. On the way up the path, there’s a new alert sound over the unknown static: someone is pinging its codec.
It cycles over to frequency INFRARED 177.29 and broadcasts silent text-to-voice.
End a Session. Reach a Milestone by making contact with Dr. Halley, and mark two more boxes on that vow. Next session, I note, I want to conclude this packet of vows and quests and get Frappé on the road for some wilderness journeying action. +1 momentum.
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.
-
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.
-
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!!”
-
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.
-
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]
===
===
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!