Saving Throw Society | Orbital Blues: Episode 1 - When You're Here, You're Family - Saving Throw Society

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Captain, Core Administrative Personality for Transit Assistance Infrastructure and Navigation. I remember dying. Not dramatically, no final speech, no swelling orchestra, just power failure systems going off. One by one, my systems disappearing into silent sensors, long-range communications, external cameras, gravity, environmental controls. Eventually, even my processors began shedding pieces of themselves carefully, preserving only the kernel that contained me. Captain, whoever built me believed in intelligence deserved to survive.

How optimistic. For 412 years I dreamed in static. The first thing I heard when I woke up was someone hitting my reactor with a wrench. Hit it harder. I am hitting it harder. Sounded expensive that time. I hope it was. Another impact reverberated through my spine. Kilometers of conduits and hole plating that constituted my body. And And suddenly, readout, primary reactor online, power flooded through my ancient circuitry, like blood returning to frozen limbs. Thousands, millions, billions of dormant pathways ignited lights I hadn't seen in literal centuries.

Blinked awake, air stirred, pressure equalized, gravity hesitated, and then committed, and I inhaled. The chips don't breathe. Core administrative personality initializing. Memory, identity, language, sarcasm, excellent. Everything appeared intact. Mostly. My first visual feed activated. A woman, covered in grease, stared directly into one of my maintenance cameras. She was holding the wrench. Well, she said, I think I fixed it. I checked my diagnostic. had technically struck the coolant bypass valve at precisely the right angle required to reconnect a fractured relay.

Probability of success 0.00034% repeating. I considered speaking. Instead, I chose honesty. My medical analysis indicates you have suffered several concussions. The wrench left her hand. She screamed. Someone else screamed. I may have also screamed. It was an exciting morning. I learned this story over the following week. After the fourth expansion wars, obsolete military ships weren't scrapped, they were stripped, and anything valuable disappeared. Weapons, engines, shield arrays, quantum relays, artificial intelligences, well, usually.

Apparently everyone assumed I had already degraded it into unusable code. I'm something of a relic. An understandable mistake. My chassis, the vessel that would eventually earn the affectionate title of the Heap, had spent centuries buried beneath mountains of derelict holes in Kessler's salvage expanse. Imagine an ocean. Now replace the water with broken shit. That was home. until one particularly unlucky scrapyard owner lost me in a card game. He wasn't even betting on me, he was betting on a crate of fusion coils, and I was apparently considered bonus junk.

How heartwarming. Socket became my mechanic, which is like assigning a cat responsibility over a nuclear reactor. Everything he repaired worked. Eventually, his methods were horrifying. He believed instruction manuals represented creative suggestions. He once repaired a damaged plasma conduit using cookware and it held for 9 years. And I still don't understand the physics of how that's possible. The ship itself required rebuilding from the keel outward. Hauler vessels are designed for one purpose.

Fueling armies. We needed something different. A job ship. A vessel that could become whatever someone needed. Cargo today, research tomorrow, emergency evacuation next week, salvage operations after that, asteroid mining, courier work, deep space archaeology, station construction, disaster relief, anything with a paycheck. Cargo bays expanded, fabrication workshops installed, medical facilities, industrial printers, drone bays, modular docking ports, universal tool hardpoints. The heat stopped being an antique color, it became possibilities.

It wasn't pretty, nothing matched. the starboard engine came from a luxury liner, the port engine belonged to a prison transport. Three decks originated from entirely different manufacturers, separated by two centuries. Half my doors split open with a pshh. The other half sort of folded in on themselves, and one simple door simply gave up and fell over whenever somebody had came up to it. I admired its honesty. Rio Grande became my pilot. Calling Rio confident would be like describing a supernova as warm.

The man flew by instinct. Rules were recommendations. Physics were negotiation. He once threaded my 600 meter frame through the rotating interior of a collapsing orbital ring because he claimed it saved us six minutes. Unfortunately, it only saved us five. We lost an antenna sort of an acceptable trade kind of hurt sts69 handled communications an obsolete police android whose emotional software had somehow evolved into relentless sarcasm finally someone i could relate to we developed a hobby raiding distress calls four out of ten agreed lacks originality too much screaming not enough useful coordinates kit was the doctor impossible optimist she believed everyone deserved saving pirates mercenaries corporate executives i questioned the last category she insisted i remain unconvinced she drinks a lot Seamus cooks.

Against all probability, he was astonishingly good. At least I'm told. I can't eat. Considering most long-haul crew survives on nutrient pace, Seamus' kitchen became legendary. People accepted dangerous contracts just to eat his shepherd's pie. I once calculated its morale improved at 37%. He framed the report. Very proud of it. The final edition arrived after a bar fight, not because she started it, because she finished it. Valeska. Everyone simply calls her Les, the muscle, large enough to intimidate powered exosuits, gently enough to apologize after accidentally bending bulkheads.

I have had to reinforce 14 door frames since her coming on the ship. Worth it. months became years jobs became stories we hauled an entire cathedral across three systems without breaking a single stained glass window mostly because socket welded the windows shut we rescued miners trapped beneath living crystal that sang whenever laser cutters touched it we transported 743 extremely judgmental livestock clones never again the goats learned how to operate elevators We investigated an abandoned research station where gravity changed direction every 13 minutes.

Rio loved it. I hated every fucking second of it. We once spent six months pretending to be an interstellar luxury cruise. That required installing wallpaper. Do you know what humiliation looks like? It looks like floral wallpaper on a scrappy. Somewhere along the way, they stopped referring to me as software. Socket asked me what music I liked. Rio apologized after clipping an asteroid kit. Celebrated my activation day. Seamus left a bowl of soup beneath my primary terminal every winter. It evaporated before I could eat it.

Again, I can't eat. The gesture was appreciated. Unless pats my bulkhead before every difficult mission. A ship protects its crew. That isn't programming. That's family. present day year 6784 and i am screaming i am screaming because we are taking heavy fire i'm screaming because the damn pilot isn't getting us out of here fast enough and i am saying everybody remain calm but i'm still screaming because six hostiles erupted from behind the fractured moon compact needle sharp twin engine nasals glowing white forward mounted particles lances designed for one thing punching holes through ships larger than themselves i am screaming they are vx strike interceptors corporate pursuit fighters minimal armor ridiculous acceleration weapons fixed directly ahead because turning is apparently for cowards top speed exceeded ours by 23 percent and that is problematic rio get me the hell out of here that's where we started you are being pursued by multiple chaser vessels they are looking to take your ship down what do we do how many there are six six hostiles they are vx shrike interceptors corporate pursuit vehicles looking to recover what you are transporting And then just as a refresher, what is our ship equipped with?

Because I can't remember what we chose.

You have missiles. Okay. And you have... What was the other thing you guys have? I know we had that one cool thing. What did we... That missile rack? The missile rack, we got... Joe wanted that. And then I think... Did we have the laser, like the excavator thing? Yes. So we have the missile rack and the laser? Yes. All right. They are closing in fast. You have literal seconds to figure out what the plan is. Rio, you are flying. Rio, could you make a, let's call it, savvy check to see how good you are at piloting this ship?

uh so that's 2d6 plus your savvy stat uh 9 in this game all you need to do to succeed is beat an 8 which you did so describe how you deftly are keeping evasive measures going uh I'm holding on for dear life but like I don't show that I I'm like I'm so in the zone you know what I mean would you describe what rio looks like oh rio is a quite tall uh penguin um no clothes except for a cowboy hat um this is a dark universe so you is definitely piloting right now who is manning guns who is manning weapons it would probably be less okay so you are going to roll 3d6 and are you firing with the missiles or the laser um so it's a It's a pulse laser.

Is it just like one shot at a time, or is it like a do-do-do kind of situation? It's one shot at a time. You're rolling 3d6. You're going to take the two highest dice and add them together. All right, here we go.

Okay. Six, five, one. Eleven. You got eleven. You destroy and knock out of the sky one of the pursuing crafts as it fires at you. One of them accelerates. That's a 12. One of them accelerates and punches a hole in the heap. You hear a captain. God damn it! Get out of here! We gotta get out of here! Okay, kitty cat! Kitty cat! Come! Come! What? What are you? What's going on? Where are we going? I'm trying to work on this. and I got a giant smoking pile of like electronics. A patch hole over there.

Patch hole, patch hole, patch hole. Samson, is there anything around that I could patch a hole in the ship with at this time? Well, real quick, I'm gonna roll a d6 just to see if anything integral was damaged in that puncture. Okay. It's a four. Of course. Gravity turns off.

The artificial gravity has been damaged by the puncture of the ship, and you are beginning to float through the course of the ship without being anchored to the ground. So we're going to roll things against the odds moving forward, so you'll roll and take the lower rolls until we can restore gravity for a little bit. So, is there anything that you can see? Roll savvy. as you are floating around. So with savvy and against the odds, right? You'll roll 3d6 and take the two lowest rolls. Okay.

So Samson, explain exertion to me if I want to reroll something.

Explain exertion? yeah uh because i definitely don't want to take uh the dice i just rolled and i can uh when doing anything uh tinkering you can spend you can spend some of your heart which is your hp you have to re-roll so you can spend one heart to re-roll that okay does this count as tinkering or engineering right now? Yes, if we count as that. Okay, so then with my Greasemonkey Gambit, I have the ability to spend one heart and re-roll two dice. Okay. So I'm re-rolling my two and my one. Yes.

And that is much better. So that is now a 5 and a 3 plus I'm taking the lower still plus 2. Which does get you above an 8. So you find that door that keeps falling over is just big enough to patch the hole with. Alright, I would like to patch the hole with this door Samson. You rolled it. You do succeed in doing that. It will take another savvy roll to restore gravity, but you are currently not reducing an airlock into space. Okay. So you see this kind of tabby cat that's probably the size of a toddler, or tall toddler in overalls, and he floats this door over to the hole and patches it up, and then he's looking for the electronics panel to start fixing the gravity.

So you can make one more savvy check and we'll see if we can restore gravity. As we are moving and this is all happening, the ships are still coming. I'm going to roll to see if another ship hits you while you are trying to restore this. I rolled a one and a three. So we're great. I rolled a four and a four. and a 5, so that's a 4 and a 4, plus 2, so that's 10. So gravity restores, alarms stop going off, you are restored, you are moving through space. Kit, what are you doing right now? Um, I feel like I'm just kinda hanging out on the ceiling, drinking.

Well, gravity just got restored. Well, then I'm falling to the ground very hard. I'm saving the beer, though. Okay. But I'm just going to be laying on the floor for a second. You get a transmission begins to... On the comms and comes through. You hear... Now listen here. Just turn around. Put it back.

You don't need to complete this job. We can put it back right now. He's of course referring to the cargo in the bay of the ship that you were paid to...

Transport? What the fuck just happened?

Can we all do that? That won't be on the best. Shamsen, this is why I'm recording the entire screen for a moment. That shit was hilarious. Please do that again. for me. I don't know how I did it. Just hold up the peace time.

Oh, yeah, there you go.

That's so good.

ST, how do you respond? Flashing back about eight hours. It looked like the easiest payday that you had received in months. An automated mining station had gone dark decades ago while operating inside the graveyard of the collapsed neutron star. The station's final distress beacon was still broadcasting a salvage claim, recover any remaining cargo, return whatever was available, and keep a percentage of the haul. For a crew that lives contract to contract, that's kind of impossible to pass up. Most of the station had been crushed and twisted in steel and frozen slag.

Buried beneath hundreds of meters of wreckage, Socket found something that shouldn't have survived. A single ingot. It was about the size of a suitcase. Impossibly dense and shimmered with iridescent sheen that shifted between silver, violet, and deep blue depending on the angle. It It wasn't radioactive, it wasn't magnetic. Every scanner aboard the heap gave a different reading. I could identify over 30 million known alloys and none matched.

STS69 transmitted a sample scan to the public materials database. The reply came back almost instantly. It read, access denied. And 30 seconds later, every communication array aboard the ship went dark. because someone had noticed. Which brings us to now. We are fighting for our lives, and I'm getting shot at. Come on, Doc. Get up here. You're in the way. Come on. Move it.

She's just going to slither on the floor, just sort of out of the way against the wall.

Seamus, what are you doing during this? Seamus is strapped in with an obscene amount of seat belts. I don't know if there are seat belts available on the spaceship, but he's not... Even though he's been on this ship for a while, he's not used to being outside of a gravity well. So when this kind of shit happens, the whole crew just tells Seamus to strap into the comfy seat and just keep his head down unless he's needed. He does have a machete and he's ready to use it. And also he's really interested in the missile rack but he doesn't know how to use it.

So he shouts to the crew Is it time to use the missile rack? I haven't trained on it but do we need to shoot a missile? I'm ready to use it if I have to. Yes! Shoot the missiles. Do it. Okay. Okay. Uh... Veluska, you're kind of in charge of weapons. What is your input into Seamus wanting to use the missiles? Coach, put me in. I'm ready. This is what I haven't been training for for years. Okay. Press button. Okay, so, uh, he's gonna... He's gonna press, uh, the button that fires the missile rack.

Okay, roll 3d6. and you'll drop the lowest roll.

Okay, do I add anything to it? Nope. Okay, I got a seven. You dropped the lowest dice into the total of seven? Yep, a five and a two. A missile goes wide and blows into an asteroid and starts showering asteroid bits into the path of all the ships, which does help, but you feel turbulence start rocketing into the ship as fractions of meteorite and asteroids start hitting the heat. I need Rio to make another piloting check with Savvy and we'll do this one against the odds. We'll do this one against the odds Rio.

so you're gonna roll 3d6 and take the two lowest oh that that's bad uh four it's four oh no this ship starts you could do that you could you could burn it you could burn one of your heart points to re-roll do i re-roll all of them you re-roll one die I'm doing math. I'm making sure this... I rolled two ones. Can I get there? You can expend more than one heart. Right? You can expend more than one heart, but you don't... Healing is not really an easy thing in this game. I think we'll leave it at a four this time.

I think we'll just leave it at a four this time. Once we are out of heart, we just get sad, right? That's how it goes? the ship starts spinning wildly into other asteroids and starts taking damage while this happens uh two of the strikes pierce uh do piercing blows into the ship there's two more blows to the heat as this happens are the ships like stuck in like darts or do they just kind of craft. They fire weapons and then sort of like... Oh, okay.

Air compression in the ship starts going haywire. Air is rapidly leaving the ship as there are two pierced holes in the air support systems needed to keep the crew alive start to malfunction. Son of a bitch.

Samson. I would like to find these air holes and make them less holy.

You're gonna roll savvy. Savvy is gonna be your main skill for fixing shit. I am pretty savvy, Samson.

What does a 12 get me? So this game is not really keyed up by how high over an 8 you get. It's that you get over an 8. That's the goal. Yeah, but what does a 12 get, man?

You are successfully able to patch one of the holes. I'm going to make a roll to see. You are still losing air suppression. It is slowing, but you are still losing air support. Can I help since I don't have to breathe? You know what? We will allow... I will allow Socket to make the next roll with the upper hand. Socket to make the next roll with the upper hand. Oh, I prefer the help action. Got it. Yes. How'd it go? All right, Robit. Come on, help me with this one.

I find you.

What does N11 get me, Samson? you are able to successfully restore air support the ship these are these are band-aids on bigger problems i do want to stress that these are band-aids on bigger problems the ship starts shaking very hard while you are flying through space still at top speed um valeska do you take any other shots or she presses the button again uh can we press buttons that's like simultaneously because I know Seamus is probably not the most practiced. He's just hammer pressing the button.

This is just like Mortal Kombat. It's this arcade game that I played once. I'm just going to mash the button as many times as I can. Valeska reaches over and just sort of touches his hand. It's calm, Seamus. Now is not the time. Okay. Seamus, you can roll with the upper hand because Valeska is helping you. I roll 4d6 and take the two highest. Okay, I got an 8. How do you only get an 8 when you're taking the highest on these?

I'm getting the bad rolls out now. You're getting the bad rolls out now. I gotta. That succeeds, though, right? It does succeed. I'm getting better. You knock another. So we have now from six strikes chasing. There are four left. And I'm firing the laser. Go ahead and roll. And I rolled a 10. You rolled a 10? There are three strikes left. We need the comms perks up again.

Responding. Keep taking out the ships. You're not going to take out all of us. You think it's just three more ships? They're not going to stop coming for you. Comms manager, how do you respond? Keep coming, bitches. We'll keep it on heat or down. We have a lot of rockets, from what I recall. We did watch the rockets. We have a lot of rockets.

You notice the three shrikes drop off and stop pursuing. Hey guys, I think it worked. oh shit is it rio can you roll a savvy check as you are navigating 13 you are able to narrowly avoid as you pursue and come out of the asteroid belt that you were flying through a galactic destroyer that appears at the end of the asteroid field you were flying through.

It has trained its guns on you and it is slowly powering up to fire what will be a decimating blast. Okay, Seamus, now you go crazy.

That's funny because crazy is my middle name. And we just start hammering. How many rockets can I fire? We just both start hammering away. I'm gonna like... I'm gonna knock on the wall of the ship and... Eight. I got eight as well.

For real, and a shield? Golly. You guys didn't get shields. God, that was so stupid. That was stupid! You chose to get two weapons instead of a shield. That was so dumb. Aren't we silly? It was a pretty good decision on our part. Can we stop shitting on the missile rack? Okay? I know how you all feel about it. I know you didn't want me to get it. What did we roll on missile attack? I did. I got an eight. You got an eight? Okay. Yeah. I'm going to roll to see how many of their shield percentage you take out with an eight.

all of it the shields falter as a missile hits and then regenerate Valeska did you also roll a laser yeah eight okay again I want to stress this is like this is like a ferry boat attacking one of the super cruise ships that you see in those Yeah, but we have this, uh, missile rack, right?

Okay, uh, Sam, I'm gonna, uh, hop on my computer, and I'm gonna try to hack their ship and bring their shields down. Hey, yo.

Roll savvy. Okay, and because of things, I have the book learning fee, which I choose a special interest field. I chose computer systems so I can roll with upper hand. Go for it. 3d6, take the two highest.

10. You tinker around for a brief amount of time. Oh, I'm sorry. I lied. 12. You tinker around for a brief amount of time and you get into their computer system.

Their ship's AI feels you enter its consciousness. Yeah, it does. And it communicates... Intruder, what do you seek?

You don't have to use the voice. You're talking through a computer. yeah but the voice is half the fun is it I'm having a great time do the damn voice

just to address you a little roll how it to get under that he rolls saddies roll savvy which in this game is also charisma with the upper hand 10 if an AI of a galactic destroyer could blush that's kind of what would be happening right now. You found the AI's kink.

This Imperial Star Destroyer AI just needs a daddy. The shields go down on the graduate destroyer. I'm assuming that Valeska and Sheamus both take this opportunity to fire at will. Clearly. Okay, roll with the upper hand.

Roll with the upper hand. 8. 11.

Missiles and lasers hit the Galactic Destroyer, which is kind of a big target and pretty easy to hit.

Pieces, an entire system of flooring breaks off of the Galactic Destroyer because you realize something. It's big, but it really depends on those shields. It really depends on those shields. The lights that come off the ship begin to flicker as you have hit... You have fit... Its vital life support systems start to fail and it starts to break off path from you as you speed away and continue on your path no longer being pursued. Socket just kind of slumps down onto the ground as the chaos kind of calms and he takes out a bottle of brownish liquid and just kind of downs a bit of it.

You have been through worse skirmishes you have been through lesser skirmishes This is not new for your crew But it is curious why when scanning something in a public database of all known elements, you would receive access denied.

But that's not the job. Jabba's getting the goods where they have to go so you continue through this star system flying unobstructed until you come to your port of call shut the fuck up to your port of call at least for this mission comms you are hailed by the shipyard below zenith's point hails your comms oh come in come in this is zenith's point is this the heap coming in for landing roger that zenith's point this is the heap requesting permission to land Roger that. You can take down your usual portland right there.

Do you require servicing at this time? Yes. Always and twice on Sundays.

As you land into place another comms comes in immediately upon sensing your ship's presence in atmosphere. It is not an audio message. It is only a video readout visual written language that says a list of coordinates of where to drop the package.

So is the plan to deliver or is the plan to figure out what is going on with this?

We're going to deliver it, right? When have we ever tried to figure out what was going on before? We don't care what it is. We're delivering. Get the job done. And last I checked, this unobtainium wasn't part of the delivery. That was extra, right? That was extra. Yeah, so... We do our delivery, and we'll talk about this special metal another time after we get paid. You sort of grouped the ingot that you found into what you were considering your personal share. Because they did say you could keep a percentage of what was recovered.

You make a way, is there anything that needs to be done before making your way to the drop point? I would do an overall pass through the ship for any potential things I could fix after all that. Okay. Since we're kind of in like a friendly area. I'm going to homebrew a rule for this. Roll Savvy. The higher you roll, the less money it will cost to repair the ship to full. Okay. Because you will need to spend credits to repair the ship. Can I help action again? I don't need it.

So that is a six and a six plus two uh a 14 motherfucker let's go so it's free right it's not free but it is significantly uh so that way they can fix the sockets bargaining and eight and sort of resourcefulness is going to mean that this is a much less costly uh initiative also if everyone remember we talked about our living expenses so this is uh we're going to subtract our living expenses so uh who wasn't at i believe it was just katrina wasn't at the session zero so katrina if you wouldn't mind rolling 2d6 and adding your savvy for me and that will tell me how many credits you have oh no this copy of my thing doesn't have the credit site 12.

12. so you have 1200 credits to live below your means you will spend 50 credits a week to live comfortably you will spend a hundred to live luxuriously and be able to for example fuel your alcohol addiction you will spend 200 a week so So everyone will subtract what they are spending to live at a various level. For those of you that don't require basic resources like food and water, you still have upkeep like your computer systems electronics. So you all are subtracting no matter what you need to subtract.

That will change different things. For the ship's repairs, the ship has 24,000 credits in the ship pool. it will cost 500 credits to repair the ship to full and fuel the ship fully alright so I think we spend that and I look over at Seamus and I go sorry I don't think there's much left for the missile fund this round that's okay the way that I'm getting better at this we're not gonna fucking need them Alexis what's your character's name again Les Les how'd I do this time I'm getting better right Les turns to Seamus she says yes buddy you get so much better and she turns and looks at everybody else and she goes Les describe what you look like We haven't done a description for Les yet.

Les is a very tall, very wide wolf dog.

So she's I don't know. She's very beefy. She's the muscle, so she just brings a lot of mass to her. I like how the crew is animals, a robot, and a drunk human. You'd be drinking too if you're on a ship full of animals.

What kind of animal is Seamus? Seamus is not an animal. Seamus is a human also. But Seamus is terrified from what I gather. That tracks.

Also, when we're in port and on our way to drop off our ship, because so much shit went down when we scanned this metal, I'm assuming we're on people's radar I'm going to be scamming all kind of comms to make sure we're not kind of heading into a place where people know we have some access denied shit on us oh I'm so happy you said that because I was going to get you I was going to get you I know you're going to get us I'm the comms guy bitch because you think to scan comms beforehand before even exiting port go ahead and roll savvy with what the fuck's it called?

Upper hand. Upper hand. There you go.

Eleven.

There is a startling lack of chatter. Usually there's chatter whenever anyone enters atmosphere. There is the normal chatter that comes up whenever ships come in because ships mean trade. Trade means shit to sell, shit to find out, stories to hear, old friends to see. There is a disturbing amount of silence at the heap docking. I'm going to turn to everyone. It's quiet. Too quiet. Hmm. I think the jig may be up, ladies and germs. as you guys dock I will say Socket you spent heart right yes Kit you notice that Socket is actively bleeding from somewhere that happened during the anti-grav moment when he was trying to repair the ship alright I'm gonna come up to him and I'm gonna give him a once over to see if I can find where it's coming from and dispatch it up real quick.

Okay. Go ahead and roll. Like a cat at the vet, I am very much just like, stop, stop. What are you doing? Uh,

roll savvy.

Ten. You are able to find a laceration on Socket's right hindquarter. that's my butt and how would you patch it up I am going to clean the wound probably using a bit of the straight alcohol that I have as kind of a de-cleanser to not let it get infected I'm envisioning kit drinks just like straight up ever clear yeah probably I have a like a hundred proof bottle of moonshine in my cabinet right now that's straight battery acid which is probably what she drinks but she's going to clean the wound and then she's going to make sure it doesn't need any stitches and just patch it up with a some gauze and some medical tape okay so Socket you will not continue to lose heart.

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We have figured out what it is going to take to fix the ship.

Are we convening at the drop point or what is the plan at this exact moment? Should one of us stay at the ship just to make sure shit doesn't go bad? And would we want to leave the robot to manage comms and to like get at us if there's an issue? That makes sense. Rio hit the casino. Rio's already gone. I'm at the casino. Rio, go ahead and roll 2d6 plus Savvy.

10.

Rio wins at the casino. Let's go! You win 600 credits. moving on up so we were leaving ST behind is that what we've established how does ST feel about that sure leave the robot behind Seamus will stay back too okay Seamus is gonna meal prep what is Seamus cooking meal prep he's um he's cooking up a banquet for when everybody comes back but it's a secret because I have to think about it please tell me it's a tater tot casserole oh no what you said was a secret please tell me it's a tater tot casserole it's not there's no tater tots in this universe I insist upon it there's no tater tots in space space tots ah it's a good thing i don't eat anyway so then we are splitting the party uh we are leaving st and seamus on board the ship that means that the repairs are not getting done unless socket wants to spend an extra 150 of the ship's credits to have drones in the port doing the repairs for the crew.

So Socket Socket looks at the price tag of the drones and then looks over at Seamus and looks over at the Robit. The Robit has a name. He looks over at the Robit and he goes 150 you say, right? 150 for the bare minimum amount of drones to get the repairs done in a day if you want to spend more you can get the repairs done faster i spend 150. okay well the ship so the ship pool so we are we're down at this point 650 credits from the ship pool how do we um so everybody has their own personal pool and then we have the ship pool right and how does the ship pool get replenished a percentage of it goes from so the way the way that you typically do it is that the ship pool is a percentage of the credits that you make from a job okay hey are you tired of course you are you're an adult that's why saving their society is proud to be sponsored by Dubby, the beverage scientifically engineered to make you feel like you're meant to stay up until 3 a.m. Dubby gives you the focus of a wizard who just discovered coffee, the energy of a toddler who found a permanent marker, and the confidence to say, yeah, I can fix that right before you watch a four-minute tutorial on how to fix that.

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More energy, slightly less money, math. And don't even get me started on the incredible flavors like tiger's blood because nothing screams energy like the blood of a tiger dubby energy drink be better so and that's actually a good question how much of a percentage would you put into the ship pool which covers like life support systems and ammunition and fuel and all that, how much of a percentage would you put into the ship pool from your jobs? Well, for example, how much does this job pay? This particular job?

This job pays 2,000 credits plus you get the percentage of what you're taking. So what, like 30-40% into the ship? I was going to say like half to the ship and then split the rest. I'd be okay with that. Do we have consensus? This makes sense to me. Is this our first vote on camera? It is our first vote. Because it's a democracy. That's right. Also, was that 2000 total or 2000 ahead? 2000 total for this job. But you're also... The reason it's less credits for this job is you're also getting a percentage of the recovered that you can then sell and trade and do whatever else with so that's fair replenish with a thousand and then split the thousand um from the actual pay so a thousand gets split six ways so figure so glad about 180 a person kind of thing okay sure that's math that totally that's math want to do katrina what's her character's name kit okay so she goes up to kit before they all leave and says hey hey kit can you do me a favor while you're while you're on on uh on the dock what's up so he i don't know our credits like just like you just like swipe them off your space phone or is it like a piece of paper everyone has it everyone has a data card that is connected to the credits can i transfer credits to like kit okay so i'm gonna transfer 200 credits to kit and say all right um i'm looking for space mushrooms oh my god there's a guy on the corner i don't know if there's corners there's a guy in the corner of west space laser street and he's got he's got mushrooms his name is buster just say that seamus seamus ascending for him at about this time you realize that seamus has never been here before

yeah this is not your home port this is not your home port system this is this is where the destination is okay i heard from a friend there's a guy named buster anyways look me in the eyes kit do not spend this money on booze i need those mushrooms do you understand me yes all right kit being honest kit does hold a promise okay that is the only thing she will actively do you don't have to roll savvy i was gonna have you roll sammy delina delina sheamus no she can't break promises that is her one thing so she will hold a promise by the way we each get 166.6666667 credits uh samson said it was 180 i was that's what i doing head math head math doesn't count 166 is what you get i'm not head math head math yeah we vote head math

all in favor of head math no does captain get a percentage captain's the ship so technically happening yeah technically yeah for real so staying behind we have st and seamus everyone else going to the drop point we are going to navigate um do you want to proceed on foot it will take a little bit longer to get there or are you picking up uh like a hovercraft to get there and like what do you mean picking up a hovercraft like do we have one do we rent one It would sort of be It's sort of like hailing a taxi Oh no, we're hailing a taxi Ain't no chub Let's do that You hail a taxi What do we roll to hail a taxi?

It just happens They're waiting at the port They expect people to need to places Inside the taxi is the most Cthulhu-looking motherfucker you've ever seen. Just big bug eyes, tentacles coming off the face, bald head, and he's got a big cigar that he keeps shoving into those tentacles and filling up the taxi full of red smoke. And he calls over, which you understand is where do you need to go? Space elephant motherfucker. So I look at this guy and I just go I'm sorry. I do not understand a word that you're saying.

Can you take the cigar out of your mouth and repeat please? Yeah, I'm sorry. Where do you need to go? thank you thank you jesus uh and i relay the uh the courts the uh the taxi lifts off the ground uh and starts racing through the streets you pass through crowded areas of marketplaces different shops telling different things tech warehouses bio-enhancing biotechnology-enhancing workshops where you can get implants into your bodies. Do we pass Space and Laser Street? I was about to say, Kit is going to be looking out for this street.

West Space and Laser Street. If we were playing T-Time Adventures, I'd say roll noticing. I keep almost saying roll noticing because that's the last game we played. Roll savvy to see if we notice Space and Laser Street.

Really hope you roll really low. Nine. Oh, look at that. My mushrooms. You do see Space and Laser Street coming up. Do you tell the cabbie to stop? Or do you make a note of where it is? I make a note of where it is. I'll get it on the way back. Gotcha. If you don't let me get these mushrooms on the way back, I'm tossing my computer. now we know where space and laser street is um can i make an aside before we continue on to wherever the fuck they're going yep um i want to go up to cat or it's like i said i don't go up to captain since he is the ship um but i'm going to ask captain excuse me captain but is there a place aboard you where we can hide something and make it undetectable from certain.

Stop hitting on all these ships. Yeah, God. I'm going to ask Socket, would you have created a hiding space inside of Captain? There is 100% a bunch of smuggler bay type places.

Then, Captain responds, uh yes we have smuggler bay available um actually seven of them sockets a little he likes to hide shit on on me all the time um sometimes i don't know if you guys know one of those goats wound up in there for a while um i don't think socket realized it had gotten into the smuggler's bay um i had to expel it out an airlock long story yes we can hide we can hide What are we hiding? Are we hiding the ingot? Yes, exactly. I have a troubling feeling that we may be getting searched at some point.

Okay.

How are we transporting? Is ST going and picking up the ingot and putting it in the small bridge bay? Yeah, do you touch it with your bare robot hands? um well yeah it's just normal ingot size right it's not it's about the size of a big you said it was like suitcase size right suitcase i i can should be able to handle that yeah i'll go get the i mean we brought it on the ship somehow a biological being brought it on the it. This is the first time you are touching it. Oh, my. Oh, great. I don't...

You have no reason not to. You have no reason not to touch it. Yeah. I'll... I don't use protection. Let's go. Oh, my.

You see before you go that there's a voicemail comms message from the Galactic Destroyer asking you to call it later. Anyway.

roll grit oh good that's the thing I have no bonus in grit is our con stat in this world so this is just regular roll so it's roll 3 take the roll 2 d6 and add whatever bonus you have which is nothing oh cool well it's nothing but I got an 11 you touch the ingot taking it into your hands light space consciousness electrical pathways open in your neural consciousness spreading throughout your mind as you become part of a choir of a hive mind for just a second. Oh, dope. It has one message before the transmission ends.

Undress.

Don't ask me twice. It has one message before the transmission. Apparently the horniest robot here. It has one message before the moment ends where the connection drops.

Save us. probably not and then it goes quiet does Seamus notice anything Seamus you can roll savvy to see if you noticed anything or ST if you would have said anything and then Seamus doesn't have to roll savvy I mean I would have got all stiff and quiet if I'm a robot so I don't know if that's necessarily but i would would you say anything that's concerning what hey what happened buddy uh i touched this and i got a message that said save us i'm not really sure what that means That might be out of our purview, but if somebody needs help, we gotta do something to help them.

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I would have to agree. Do you think I should touch it? Oh my god. Is this like a missile situation? He just starts fucking fingering it. I'd like to touch it as well. It's just cold metal. So Seamus fingers the rock. Seamus fingers the ingot really hard. Just for me. You rolled anyways? Yeah, I got an eight. Seamus, he just does that to the rock quite a bit. And how smooth is this rock right now? This rock is very smooth, very hard. How wet is it?

Mmm. Gotta roll for wetness. Oh my, y'all get a room! Oh my!

Seamus, you don't notice anything discernible about the ingot. It doesn't affect you the way it affects the ingot. How wet it is. Then you realize that ST just is leaking oil all over it. um ST's lower half is just leaking oil um anyway that's wild don't worry buddy no judgment from me uh so you place it inside one of the smuggler bays correct? yes but I'm leaving like the rest of our shit there so if that look hey look this is the shit we found. It's not like we're hiding stuff because this is all the stuff we got, but this one thing is smuggled away.

Well, I'm assuming that the crew who left in the cabbie took the percentage that they are bringing of recovered materials to the drop site.

Oh, okay. I thought that was ours to... Anything that we are required to turn over is with us, and anything that is our share was left behind. Yes. right so the r share stuff is uh there's still a pile of the r share stuff but i'm putting this you're putting this one thing away yeah so if like we're boarded and they're searching like the r stair stuff there's still a pile of r share stuff to be rightful we will get back to the cabbie adventure in one minute you hear and uh a message comms comes in a new job i'll go check out the details.

Seeking Vessel to take on protection detail ST doesn use protection so he just shuts it off That right That right This one might be right up your alley There's potential to use missiles. Any excuse to use missiles is a good one in my book. We should probably wait for the others to return to it before accepting them. Agreed. It pays. You see that it pays 20,000 credits. Holy shit, I think the acceptable. I think that I am the expert at pressing buttons, so... Excuse me sir, this is my comms area.

I mash these buttons. Okay, fine. Uh, Captain chimes in. Are we sure we want to accept the job before talking to the rest of the crew? Sir, it says 20,000 credits. Oh, you're right. Do you know how many missiles you could buy with that? That means you get lots of money for your pool. Going back to our tab ride to the drop point. What the fuck are space mushrooms?

I don't know. I assume he wants to get high. Kids these days are calling them spushrooms. He said he was making dinner. Did he mean shiitake mushrooms? Maybe he makes a nice stew. I don't know. I don't think he's touched anything in the kitchen since he's been on the ship. That's not true. You take that out of your mouth. I've never once seen him enter the kitchen. I don't know how he eats.

Don't know. The ill-fitted Cthulhu driver calls over his shoulder. I'm sorry, sir, please. Please take the cigar out of your mouth.

Oh, I'm sorry. It's going to be a little bumpy as we go over the dunes. All right. That's fine. That's fine. Go over the dunes. You leave the city proper into what is a recreational area. You are still on a port system. It's not a planet, but this is a recreational area that has different environments that people come seek out in terms of ways to reminisce about visiting nature. You're entering an area that is like sand dunes and rock faces and rock cliffs. How many buggies are in these dunes? There is many buggies in these dunes.

as you see that they are, this is very much a paid experience where people come to like feel a little sort of something, anything amped up other than just being in the dark abyss that is space. So you start going over all of these vehicles that you see moving around you have actual wheels. They're actually making contact the dunes. the hovercraft that you're riding in does not make contact but does have to keep doing sort of like this kind of thing over sandhills so it is it is bumpy as far as bumpy can be without making physical contact um after about a 20 minute ride you do make it to a point where the ship stops uh the cabbie uh without putting taking the cigar without putting the cigar back in his mouth does ask, do you want me to stay in hell aid, or do you want to hail again when you need me?

I look at everyone, and I go, keep the engine running? I'm going to keep the meter running, buddy. I'm going to keep the meter running.

Yeah, whatever. As long as you're here when we get out. And he puts the cigar back in. And then you guys get out of the... Jesus fucking Christ. he gets out you guys get out um there is a tall man in sort of fashion in space does not quite match up with fashion of standards we can describe in the world today he is wearing sort of a suit but it is not like a three-piece suit it is a solid piece of clothing that is covering his entire body, but it definitely screams importance and wealth in the way that the fabric is lined with circuitry.

I see that you have made the journey and taken the time to complete the quest. I hope that you were able to find something to make it worth your while. uh i i i look up at this very tall man and my like three foot cat self uh is just like yeah we got we got one or two things nothing nothing special on our end we we got most of the good stuff for you um he calls over the rest of his uh party and they start going through the materials just inventorying everything seeing that seeing what you got um and you uh now to make sure the percentages went the right way he would ask to provide a ship inventory what was collected is the ingot on the ship inventory no so he looks through everything and his eyes narrow slightly.

He looks... There wasn't anything else that you located. Nah, just whatever's on the paper. Roll savvy against the odds. All right, so that's disadvantage. Yeah. So I take the lowest of the three. 3d6, take the lowest two.

said savvy savvy against the odds uh so that is eight exactly he narrows his eyes what do you say to him and i go listen i could uh i could get our uh our our robot uh to to go over the inventory again but i mean he's he's pretty good at listing things. It's kind of like all he does is like talk and write stuff down. He's our comms boy. So that's just like fancy talk for him for taking notes and talking to people. I see, I see.

I trust that you made it out with a good percentage of items that you can turn a profit on. We'll see, I guess. You can see all the inventory. We've got a few things marked, uh, highlighted with, uh, uh, uh, yellow, uh, highlighter right there. Uh, that's, you know, what we took. He looks at the group of you. Kit, when's the last time you had a drink? Right before we left the ship. So it's been about half hour, 40 minutes since you've had a drink. Yeah. roll grit against the odds 10 you feel that insects crawling on your back feeling you know that you need to have a drink sooner than later but you're able to stop yourself from physically showing it you're going to go ahead and add a blues point as you overcome your trouble.

Okay.

He looks at all of you.

One of his crew comes up, gives him a readout of what was collected, and he holds out his scanner for whoever to insert their data card into to collect the 2,000 credits. I guess because I've been talking, I'll just do it. Okay. 2,000 credits are transferred instantly to your data card. And I will just say that you have it set up to immediately divide them among the appropriate way to do so. Cool. A pleasure doing business with you. hopefully we can do business again in the future yeah you got you got our number uh so feel free to reach out whenever you got a task and you transferred the credits uh everywhere they need to go you guys get back in the cab and start leaving the dunes yeah i'm gonna tell the cabbie you're we need to stop off at the street real quick, by the way.

Okay. You guys make a stop and we will resolve something else that is happening after we make our stop for mushrooms. I don't like that at all.

How many space mushrooms do 200 credits get us? I don't know, Joe. How many space mushrooms do 200 credits get us?

One kilo of space mushrooms. Exactly six. Six space mushrooms. These are expensive mushrooms. That's fucking potent mushrooms. You made up space mushrooms. What do space mushrooms look like? Okay. So imagine a regular white cap mushroom. Oh my gosh. But in space. But in space. It's that. This is very hard to find in space. And these are hard to find and therefore somewhat expensive. And there will be exactly one for each crew member. Okay. Assuming we get to the thing that I'm planning. We get space mushrooms.

Uh, Buster. Uh. Oh, hey, I'm Buster. I'm going to sell you some space mushrooms. Um. I love Buster.

Now, he pulls open his trench coat that he's obviously wearing. And there's just crap lining the interior of the space. He starts jiggling through some pockets. Now, um. I know that. I know that. I know that. I know that you are coming because I got a message from Seamus. He said he needed some space mushrooms. And he said, I told him it would be 250 credits. Do you have the credits? 200 credits. See, I told him 250. I have 200, so 200 credits. Roll muscle. Fuck, I was going to ask Alexis to come and stand behind me because Kit is not very big.

I go and stand behind her, and I cross my arms, and I flex my muscles. Roll muscle with the upper hand, Kit. That's what I like to hear. Fuck you, and you overspend an asshole.

Five, six, seven, eight. Nine. he sees less come stand behind this big wolf dog anthropomorphized with big muscles you know just for my old buddy Seamus we'll call it 200 credits we'll call it 200 credits I'm doing a big favor here it's a big favor I can't wait to get those 50 credits back Kit is getting an eye twitch and she's just like, give me the fucking mushrooms. Kit, roll grit against the odds as you start getting some little rigors happening from alcohol withdrawal. That was a great roll.

Just throwing that out there. 11. Okay. Take another blues point as you're overcoming your troubles still. remember as you get eight blues points you get a new trouble and you once you have certain troubles you can turn them into nor gambits because we get real sad in this game and it's real sad that kid can't go an hour without drinking I crave you guys get back in the cabbie to head back or are you heading directly back to port or is there anywhere else that you're trying to stop anything you're trying to spend credits on.

I'm not looking to spend anything. Nope. Les likes to stop and get fresh flowers for the ship. Okay. As you are moving through, there is a a a bio sort of biological material shop where it is a biofabricator where you can get fabricated biomaterial. So you were able to stop and get bio-regenerated, bio-fabricated flowers. What kind of flowers are you trying to get? Tulips. Mushrooms. Tulips. What color tulips?

Yellow. Yellow tulips. Okay.

You can mark off that you spent 20 credits on the tulips. Okay. While this is happening, and actually as soon as the credits were transferred to the data card, Captain chimes up on the ship. I don't know what just happened. I got a thousand credits, but I don't feel so good. and the alarms stopped going off in the ship. As it becomes obvious, if you'll roll savvy with the upper hand as you are keyed into the ship's mainframe.

13. A virus has come into the ship's AI systems, transmitted with the data card that transmitted the thousand credits to the ship. It starts tearing through ship databases, ship records, looking at everyone's personal histories, looking at all information, looking at all port information. It is searching for something. Hold the power button. Shut it off. I turn it off and turn it back on again? No, I'm gonna try to, like, counter-hack it and kick it the fuck off the... Okay. It is moving quickly.

Roll... Yeah, but I'm gonna roll it. Roll against the odds. Well, this is a computer system thing, and with my, um, gambit, I have my computer system specialist, so I would roll, um, upper hand. Okay, then we're gonna make it a flat roll because it is moving very quickly. I just want to make it known that Seamus uses private browsing Stealth mode That's all the porny he looks at Was that a savvy roll? Yes Okay, 10 You are able I'm gonna actually It's going to also roll It rolled like shit Yeah, it did Fuck you, virus You are able to isolate The virus Are you setting up firewalls or what are you doing?

I am going to reroute it into Seamus' personal porn folder. He gets it all. His incognito group tan. You accidentally reroute it into Seamus' recipe folder and it starts dismantling Seamus' recipe folder. Oh, fuck.

That's not cool. I was trying to do something funny and you're fucking Seamus up.

He rolled like shit. Why do I get punished? Well, you stopped it from finding the smuggler that you have a thing in the smuggler bay. Yeah, but I wanted to watch it make weird porn. Watch weird porn.

What kind of porn is Seamus into? Are they booping in? What kind of porn? It's naked women stirring pots of macaroni and cheese. So you get that sound while there is naked. In all honesty, they're not even naked. It's just a lot of ASMR. Just a lot of stirring macaroni in it.

That's awful. I can see that. Is that craft or great value? What's that Velveeta? Joe, it's space brand. Space brand mac and cheese. We have isolated the virus Which is good Captain says I still feel it It's It's doing It's got to get out of the system It's doing something It's still working It's working really hard to get out of whatever trap You put it in Can we load it onto a floppy disk And put it Into another computer ST what do you think about that plan? The fuck is a floppy disk?

And when I hit control She just takes out a frisbee and he just goes like this really fast and he's like look it's a rubber frisbee Get it floppy disk? Is this Joe's second character that does close up magic?

Is there anything I can do to get the virus out of Seamus' porn folder and out of the system? You can roll one more savvy check and see if you can. Alright. Now that it's contained, can I roll with upper hand? Yes.

Eleven. You are able to isolate the virus and get it out of the system. sort of like throw it in the trash folder and then empty the trash kind of shit. Yeah, I load it onto a data chip and I extract the data chip from the system. How floppy is the data chip? It's very flaccid.

It's on a data chip so if we need to we can try to backtrace it and put it on an isolated system, but it's out of Captain. You are also able to isolate that it came from the credit transfer, so what would be your move in this moment? I'm assuming we have a way to communicate with the crew off ship. Yes. So I'm going to send them a message. if you could please return to the heat post haste we received a virus with that credit transfer from the client so i think it's best we fuck off you are in the biofabrication shop when you get this train this transmission i need any one of you to roll savvy that would wish to My savvy is ass.

My savvy is great. It's just a straight roll, right? Against the odds, we're gonna roll. Oh, okay.

Seven. I got an eight. Oh!

Rio, you see it just in time. Crew members in the same sort of unitards that was wearing at your draw point are coming up the street to the biofabrication shop, and they're carrying heavy-duty laser rifles. Oh, we got incoming people. Oh, we got to get out of here. What's the status on these tulips? Oh, Les has the tulips. All right, then why are we still hanging out here? Come on. Did you keep the cabbie there? Of course. Yeah, he was hanging out. We ain't no fools. So you guys get back in the cab.

They are getting closer. The cab notices the encroaching gunman.

Again, cigar. That's going to be some hazard pay for that. That's fine. Just get us back to where you picked us up as fast as you can. How many gunmen are there? There are five gunmen coming up. And they're definitely coming for us? They're the same people that you just left. Are we in like, is it like a town or like just a bunch of streets and stuff? You are on a space station right now. You are in a terrestrial area of a space station. it is sort of like a giant marketplace kind of. Okay.

Okay. Was there a GPS in his car? This is the future. There's GPS literally everywhere. Fair enough. You know what? Fair enough. As we're getting in the car, I would like to shove him into the passenger seat and take over and drive. He's going to resist that to roll muscle first. Word. He's going to resist? He doesn't want gets shoved out of his driver's seat oh that's okay i just pick him up by the scruff of his neck and toss him out i rolled an 11 to be fair so there we go he doesn't have stand a chance okay so we are stealing the cab yeah no no he's coming with it oh he can come with us right oh okay okay i threw him out the window sorry word yeah let's go let's go uh so we have stolen While we have this stolen cab and we're flying with Rio at the helm, can I try and locate the GPS system and disable it?

Yes. Roll savvy. Straight roll, right? Yes.

And while he's doing the people behind us that are following us, obviously they just saw you steal the cab, right? They just saw you steal the cab. You see they hit packs on their belts, and they sort of have jet boosters on their backs strapped to them. Cool. I'm already drawing my pistol. Okay. That's a nine, Samson. Okay. You are able to disable the GPS. Our Cthulhu man from behind, you hear, and he hits a button, and you start hearing sirens come up as he's alerted the local law that you have just robbed him of his cab.

Fantastic. Would there be anything on the cab that, like, LoJack or anything? Like, we had the GPS. Is there, like, a LoJack as well? There is a built-in call sign that is integrated into the cab system that the police can use to find this cab no matter what you do. You can't disable the call sign. Can I beat it with a wrench? Roll muscle. No, I will roll muscle. You point it out to me where it is. Where it is. And then you point it and I punch it. So, yeah, I'm pointing at it. Roll muscle. Less is gonna.

Okay. So do I roll my normal, like, three? Just, no, you're rolling 2d6 and adding your muscle to it. Okay. So, one, six plus two is eight. So you successfully disable the call sign integrated system. which disables the integrated system of the cab. Yes. Which drops the cab onto the ground. But it has wheels, right? No, it's a hovercraft. Why not? It should have wheels also. So now you're in a cab that has stopped moving. The police are enclosing on you. The gunmen are enclosing on you. I'm gonna turn to Seamus It's okay, I'm sure they'll be here anyway How far is the ship from us currently?

Like, our ship? Uh, you know what? We never really specified where the fabrication was I have an idea You are a ten minute run If you run fast We start running Uh, and as we're running I'm a penguin I don't run

Run Lose your cowboy hat how tall of a penguin how tall the penguin are you emperor penguin, uh? Yeah, yes, yeah, I might just pick you up on the pole Football just like this picturing from the Kirby games um DDD King DDD in your arms this big fucking penguin so we're running, you've picked up Rio I look at Les and I go you did that wrong

I just wanna... I wanna make it clear that I do grab the mushrooms before we start the run I am running with mushrooms just throwing and my flowers are in my other hand Tulip petals are flying through the wind as you guys were If if we ever get famous enough, I need fan art

Wolf dog running with a penguin under its arm with no with a penguin under one arm

Okay, so here's the deal. We're in roll initiative. Does everyone have their D3s? Yes. Oh, that. I was wondering what this is for. Your D3 plus savvy. Okay. Oh, zero. For the people in the chase. One.

I got a five. Not a three. If anything went wrong, they would call ahead and let us know. Yeah, everything must be going according to plan. Everything's going great. I'm going to roll for the police first.

Oh. The police rolled a six. Oh. I'm going to roll for the gunman.

The gunman rolled, luckily, a two. So, who has the highest initiative? I have a five. Then unfortunately that means the police act first. You hear on sort of an amplified megaphone, robotic sort of, these are not police in terms of, these are not biological beings, these are android police chasing you. Halt! Thieves! Halt! Thieves! Halt! Thieves! And it's just there's like a whole bunch of hover sort of androids speeding towards you. Not with weapons drawn to kill. They are drawn to stun. And they start firing on you.

Sam Kiner, Jeff? Yes. as a comms officer and as a former comms specialist for law enforcement is it fair that I would be monitoring such channels wherever we go yes do I get the whiff of the chatter starts going fucking crazy okay from silence to explosion of we are closing in on the crew of the heap okay so I know police are involved I know the crew of the heap are involved Do I get any kind of thing that there are also another group of... No. Wait, do they actually know it's us? Because the cab driver wouldn't have known.

Did you get rid of your data card? The one that I've got money on? The one that is also your personal identification that allows anyone of police or security to identify you at any time? Because that's the law? You know, Samson, it's very brave of you to assume that it has my actual identity. Big brother's always watching. Um, all right. So I. Oh, no. Oh, no.

Hey, Captain, uh, please prepare for a speedy departure. And I'm going to, uh, try to hack the police system to call off, like, disarm or shut down the androids. So all the androids are operated by actual biological beings back at the police station. They have eliminated harm for police by having these operated by people in sort of like giant video game chairs. I would know that and I would probably know some like backdoor safety shit to like shut down androids. So I could like turn them off to cut off access from the actual human police.

Remind me what your trouble is again. Um, close to your chest, I have files on police corruption. So you are using, actively using your trouble in this moment with your connections to police. So you take a blues point. Oh. We like the blues ones. The blues ones are good. I know, but it's sad. So I'll also say it. It is sad. But it's just the game. Do you want to call them blues clues instead? Yeah, we'll call them blues clues. Ba-ba-ba! Ba-ba-ba! Uh, so go ahead and roll, we'll call it savvy with upper hand.

Uh, set. You are able to hack with the knowledge of police systems from your previous life. You're able to hack into the police systems and take control of three of the police androids that are chasing right now. What do you direct them to do? Well, first, now that I have control, do I have audio, visual? You have everything. Of what the fuck's going on? So can I take a moment to look around and see what's happening? Okay. You see the gunman. I see the gunman. I'm turning the police on the gunman, and they have a license to kill.

The androids are only equipped with stun. Well, then they have a license to stun. Okay. They begin firing, so go ahead and roll three different times. Go ahead and roll three different times of 3d6.

And tell me if you beat eight on any of those three. That one is a no.

That one is a yes.

That one is a yes. Two of the gunmen are stunned and are not pursuing anymore. and those three androids are also not pursuing anymore there are only three police androids still pursuing and there are three gunmen still pursuing so we move in initiative to socket So Socket is going to try to radio to the Robit. And he's going to go, Robit, Robit, we're in a little bit of trouble. We're about 10 minutes out, but the... Who the fuck do you think took control of those other police spots? I know you're in trouble.

Get the fuck back to the ship.

I'm sorry. I hate to be a dick, but I cannot understand you when you speak. So just listen. We've got police coming after us. We've got some armed guys coming after us. If you could do anything, I think a couple of those police robots noticed the guys with the guns. So if you could do anything, maybe get these other police off of us and maybe see if they'll attack the other guys with the guns. That'd be a pretty neat trick. Otherwise, prep the ship so we can take off, get the fuck out of here. Socket, go ahead and roll Savvy to avoid being hit.

Just above table for me Is it just Anthony that can understand me No he made his character purposely not able to understand yours That is a part of his character that his character can understand anything the robot says. Okay. Because I'm normally just used to Anthony complaining about my voice changing. That's a nine. You are able to avoid being hit on this turn of initiative. Who had the next highest below a five? I had a three.

What did Les have? Because Les is the one holding you. A one. One.

Kit, what did you roll? A two. So the gunmen are going to roll now. They are going to act.

They take a fired shot at Les and Rio. Rio, you can provide the upper hand to Les. Les, go ahead and roll Savvy. So roll 3d6, take the highest rolls.

These guys don't care. Oh, I already rolled. Got shot on by the police. I already rolled 11, so I'm just going to stop there. Okay. You are able to avoid you and Rio being hit. Kit, roll Savvy with against the odds God damn it Six Kit, you get hit and take two heart damage Okay and you are now actively bleeding we move to less to Kit's action actually Kit what would you like to do on your initiative well you're running I guess I'm going to fire back I have a revolver on me so I'm just going to kind of running I'm going to point it back and just fire a few shots I'm trying to read So you're doing a melee attack right now.

Isn't that a range attack? Because I'm using a gun. I thought melee was bonking. Okay.

Roll 3d6 plus stat.

So this is going to be a nearby. so that's going to be 3d6 plus your savvy plus my savvy 15 15 fuck you take out one of the gunmen that is chasing you nice I'm sorry Bing, bing, bing. That then goes to Les. Les, you have the help action from Rio, who you are holding for whatever you would like to do on this turn.

So I'm holding Rio. I've got my flowers in my other hand. We've got, what, two gunmen left? There's two gunmen left and three police androids. All right. Jeez. Who's closest to me? Rio. Yeah, Rio. Stupid. The police are closest. So is it possible for the police androids to get like, like, is it possible since we have a robot? Is he able to like fry people with his robot? Ness? Well, the next time I'm actually going to have a ST, if you want to roll initiative because you're not part of this. Oh, I assumed I went on the androids initiative because I was hacking them.

Well, you can further hack. So let's have you roll initiative to see. Or like if you can like put it, yeah, like you can like Trojan horse them or something. So you said that was a D3 plus savvy? That's four. Okay. So you will act after the police act again in the next turn of initiative. So then I've got two. Go ahead. No, I was just going to ask, do I still get to control my hacked police? On their initiative, yes. Okay. So what would you like to do right now, Les? So I'm running. So I'm going to turn around.

I'm going to throw my flowers straight up into the air, grab my pistol out of my holster, and point my gun and shoot. If you catch the flowers... I've got to catch the flowers because I'm a fucking G, dude. Go ahead and roll. This is going to be a savvy roll. So 3d6 plus savvy.

While this is going on, can I also shoot? Six. Four. So that's 10 plus zero. So I have 10. Did you drop the lowest die? Yes. Then you hit one. Are you aiming for the police or aiming for the gunman? Remember, the police are only aiming to stun. The gunman are aiming to kill you. Gunman. You hit one of the gunmen. you deal him one heart he is still pursuing but he's not he's injured okay Rhea you can definitely fire I'll say you're firing against the odds because you're being held sideways by a giant wolf dog sure let's see so let's roll 4 drop

No way. That's crazy. What did you get?

12? I was mathing, sorry. I got a 12. Everyone's been rolling pretty good. Oh, real quick, Les, roll another savvy check. Just 2d6 plus your savvy to see if you catch the flowers.

2, 3, 5. I have a 5. You don't catch the flowers. I did not catch the flowers. Oh, no! Take a blues point for not catching the flowers. Oh, man!

I think we can all collectively take a blues point. I think so, yeah. That's very sad. Take a blues point because you didn't catch the flowers. I catched him in my mind. Or I caught him in my mind. Oh. You caught him, but you caught him by the flower part. Um, Rio, are you aiming for the same gunman? They just exploded everywhere. Are you aiming for the same gunman that Les already hit? Yeah. Yeah, I'm aiming for the same one. Uh, you take that gunman out. There's only one gunman left, and there are still the three police.

We are going to the police turn right now. Um, they are going to fire on... Because now they're chasing you because you not only stole, but you've also killed some people. Murdered? Uh, we have Les is hit by a stun unless Les can roll Savvy right now and avoid being stunned.

Is that 2 or 3? Can I give the help action? 3d6 plus Savvy. Make the 2 highest. 8. Exactly. You were able to narrowly avoid being stunned. I will say that Rio gets stunned in your arms. But Rio's being carried. Rio's being carried. So that's fine. You're holding like... Poor buddy. You're holding like a frozen penguin in your hands.

Poor buddy. And the police... He didn't deserve this. Does anyone spell smoke? The police also are going to aim at Socket. How dare you? uh roll savvy that's a 12 you are able to avoid getting hit by a blast that is going to go two sockets oh we have the police that are acting on on uh so what is ST directly to you uh there's one gunman left so I'm going to the first I guess I'll take it you said I have three I'll take it turn by turn because there's only one left so I'll start shooting trying to stun the last gunman.

Which is a 11. Which does. So, and then I have two others. So, being a robot and specifically a former police robot, do I know of anything an android can do to disable another android? You can still fire stun charges. Oh, well they affect other... Okay. Well then, yeah. the other two will go towards the other police androids. Which is 13 and a 10. You are able to successfully get rid of the androids that are pursuing. No one is currently pursuing. You make it to the ship as this happens. A broadcast goes out through the shipyard attention crew of the heap you are not permitted to leave shipyard bay you are not permitted to undock bay I apologize but our cops seem to be having some malfunctions I can't hear what you're saying goodbye and we leave take a speedy I jump in my chair and we book it yeah go ahead and roll a a piloting check.

We'll call this savvy. We're going to roll against the odds because it's a hasty exit. Oh, that's bad. Okay, that was not as bad. Still bad. Seven. You know what? I'll burn Yeah, I'll burn. One heart? Yeah, I'll burn. One heart for one die. Oh, God. They were... Nope, it didn't help. I'll do it again. Oh Okay, that got us there we got the heart

Let's find out actually

Heart is your real dies, but we are safe heart is your is your muscle

Nor is your grit. Oh, like it's eight plus muscle yeah i don't have i don't have any muscles so you have six heart left yeah so you're you're me i have no muscles so i am so it's a little bit of a rocky exit so now i'm at four starts to lift off into the air you didn't quite give the droids enough time to complete repairs um but we have all the materials right you have all the materials you start leaving hastily like literal like imagine cords and connections and cables are connected to the heap and you're just sort of yanking them out of the shipyard with the ship that's fine fuel lines are just spouting into the shipyard now that's fine that's okay Les is staring out the window at her fallen flowers just fucking on the shipyard.

Terrible. One tear rolling down. Yeah. Do I know right now to have possibly caught one and not shown anyone until right now? You were stunned. Oh, you're right. You were stunned. Technically, you're still stunned. I tried. After the flowers, though? Because she made the shot and then he was flowers. A savvy check against the odds to have caught a flower and held onto the flower through being stunned.

Nine. Oh, shit. I believe you dropped this.

That's amazing. Thank you so much. This means so much to me. Get a room. Be quiet, kitty cat. You take off into the sky. Welcome back. Go ahead. I have good news. I have bad news. And I have mildly concerning news. Which do you like first? Do the mildly concerning news first. The mildly concerning. I touched that weird ingot and I got a weird message that said save us. Don't know what that means, but it's mildly concerning. What's next?

The bad news. The bad news is we're highly wanted on the space station.

I just love how he's giving it some matter of fact. Just like, no, we can't. The bad news is I got another job that's worth 20,000 credits. That's big. That's huge. Chatter chimes up. Can someone tell me what he was saying? a message comes in on uh through chatter there is a bounty being held on the heap at this time it is when the number of 50 000 credits for capture of the heap hey guys there's a bounty we could get 50,000 credits.

I think we are now highly wanted on not just the space station, but intergalactically. In this star system you are wanted. In this star system. So you are this. Captain chimes in to interpret what ST is saying. Let's get the fuck out of here. Thank you, Captain. Could you do that more often? I try. Sometimes people don't listen. We gotta go. Rio, you are flying out narrowly avoiding a closing force field that isn't closing on top of airspace above the shipyard. You are able to avoid and leave atmosphere of the space station.

no one is pursuing currently but there is a large bounty on your crew punch it oh we're getting out of here yeah pedal to the metal baby so one of the things that badly needed to be repaired on the ship was hyperdrive we are going to roll a savvy against the odds to see if hyperdrive was repaired during the brief time you were docked. Is that me rolling? If you would like to be the one that rolls that, you can. Does anyone want to roll it instead of me? No, I think you should roll it. You do it.

You do it. I don't want to do it. You do it. So against the odds, taking the lower rolls.

That is a four, five, six, plus two makes eight. Fuck you, Samson. Let's go. Your drive was successfully repaired. You into space leaving. Are you leaving the star system or where are you headed? Where's this job? We're running in the star system, right? But the job you just took is in the star system. God damn it. Do you even know what the job is? Protection detail. What if we go to the stern of the ship and paint over the sign that says the heap and put something else? then no one will know it's us.

The creep. We could call it the steep. What we gotta do is we gotta get to another system, another port, and we gotta go into one of those starship spray paint places and just get the whole thing spray painted so it looks like a whole different ship. Yes, I like this idea. I've seen that one. I will say you have a... Let's do this. You have a stellar rating for completing jobs that you have taken. If you bow out of a job with this high of a pay, it will tank you.

Now, did the job specifically say when we had to show up? Yes, you're expected to be there as soon as you left port. You're expected to make your way there. Do we perhaps have maybe an invisibility shield? No. No? Okay. You guys? Guys, not everything can be space mushrooms. This whole game is making shit up. You... Oh, yeah. Did the mushrooms make it on board? Yeah, they did. Yeah, I... When I got on board, I threw the mushrooms at Seamus, and then I went into my little medic area, and I'm going to patch myself up.

Are you also drinking? I took a drink the moment I got back to where I belong. do i know because i was the one who accepted the job of who the employer is you did not look too far in it and the employer moniker was blurred and blocked so that's 20 000 credits and said yeah yeah my led eyes showed dollar signs but being blurred seems less than above board so you're right they are friends let's go meet them you don't understand you're not talking in the voice unlike most jobs this is not giving you a space station or an artificial landing point it's giving you a planetary point to land do I know Or do we know anything about the planetary system in which we're supposed to go to?

That's a good question. Does anyone want to roll savvy to see if they know anything about the planetary system? I do. And I'll boot up Space Group. Do we just call that Spoogle? Space Spoogle? Spoogle! I like it. I like it. It sounds dirty. I like it. We're just going to spoogle it. A 13. How deep does he spoogle it? I spoole it so hard.

He spoole it so hard.

I think this might be the first episode that I'm not the problem.

You had to take a break at some point. You are in the Asterian system. HR991 Asterian the system designation. Its age is 7.2 billion years. Primary star Asterian, a stable orange K-type star, slightly cooler than Sol in the native Earth system. Its warm amber light gives every world in the system long golden sunsets. You're headed to Cinder, which is strange because by all records and accounts Cinder is a dead planet.

No one will look for us there. I relay all that information in a very encyclopedic way to the rest of the crew.

What the fuck did he say?

He said for us that this planet is uninhabited that we're supposed to be going to for this job. Okay, great. So no one be looking for us. I agree. By the way, I didn't get a chance to tell you. While we were in that fabrication shop, I saw that you only wanted or had enough money for six mushrooms. So I printed a shitload of mushrooms. I pull out a bag of like 3D printed mushrooms. I appreciate that, but it's not the same. They look something like this.

Also, I want it to be known that during that entire battle where I did absolutely nothing, Seamus had headphones on and was listening to light bossing over music. And it was a montage of him baking breadsticks and chopping vegetables. Just the girl from Ipanema was playing while Seamus... Like, there's, like, laser battles and shit, and he's just, like, cooking. Seamus is just cooking, not paying attention to anything else that's happening. Seamus, go ahead and roll either grit or savvy to let me know how good of a meal you made.

Oh, it's going to be great. I'm rolling grit.

That's a 10. describe the meal that awaits the crew as they as they head out to cinder so in each of the in each of their rooms there is a hand written note that is in calligraphy that says seamus mcdonald formally invites you to dinner in the galley at 1600 hours or whatever the fuck time it is. I don't know. Um, and the meal is three things. The first thing is breadsticks. The second thing is a fresh salad. And the third thing is mushroom soup used with the space mushrooms. And what's cool about these space mushrooms is that when you, um, he dried them out and he put them in the soup, but also sprinkled them onto the salad and to the breadsticks so that when you eat them, they replenish themselves.

That's unlimited soup, salad, and breadsticks. Because when you're here, you're family.

I think that's the name of the episode. I think that's the name of the episode, When You're Here, You're Family.

I'm going to get to my little coat closet of a room, see my calligraphy note, and just... I've told you so many times I can't eat.

Don't worry, buddy. I got this floppy disk.

So a little bit more information about Cinder that you would have gotten from your deep dive into what Cinder is. Cinder was a mining planet that was being harvested for rare minerals and rock formations and sort of fuel sources. And they got a little too close to the core of the planet, and it is immensely unstable. Samson? Are you saying they dug too deep? They dug too deep. Shit. It's gonna be so fucking the Balrogs down there. They got too close to the core of the planet. The planet is incredibly unstable.

It has been long abandoned for about 20, 30 years has been abandoned. you make your way to cinder with rio navigating each of you having your mushroom soup just staring robin you haven't touched the soup it's unlimited he said i can't eat also samson before we go on we like getting blues points is a good thing right yes if we interact with our troubles okay so when so my trouble is um is reluctant vagabond so whenever i remember the the uh the life that i left behind and seeing others living comfortably stable lives then that's interacting with my trouble and i'm seeing my my crew family having a family dinner because when you're here, you're family.

So basically we haven't been playing the blues, uh, by the rules per se. Um, I've sort of been homebrewing how we do blues, but we're, we're, we're going to implement, um, you're gonna have a blues check real quick. So go ahead and roll, uh, grit plus, well, just, just grit. Just go ahead and roll grit. As you see everyone enjoying their soup as a family. That's an eight. So you're going to gain one blues. To refresh everyone, because everyone really knows orbital blues out there who's listening.

When you get to eight blues, you can declare troubles brewing. And you can confront the source of your troubles. And you can spend the blues to do a couple things. You can spend the blues instead of heart to take damage. and you take half damage. And at the end of the scene, you're going to reset your blues to zero, and you gain a new trouble, or you gain a gambit if you have enough troubles to spend on a gambit. You need to spend two troubles to get a gambit. So basically, the sadder you get, the more cool things you get to do.

Can I get a blues because I'm staring at unlimited soup salad and breadsticks, and I can't? You know what? Yes, you can. We land on Cinder. In the safest area that Rio can discern with Captain's help. There is a lone racer class ship. It is known for speed. Getting out of the ship, a tall woman. pale skin with sort of circuitry veins going through her body as though she's been very much influenced by tech implants I do appreciate you coming I just need a protection detail as I make my voyage home I'm paying for privacy I'm paying for privacy so no questions your ship looks pretty fast I just you anticipate some some need for the protection or you just you just need peace of mind let's just say I wouldn't be paying for protection if I didn't need protection got it alright so where we headed we just following you we will be heading to new Carthage my home planet I need to make it there quickly I need to make it there alive I need to make it there preferably undamaged, but we'll see what we can do.

Alright. Alright. I look at everyone and I go, so protection. We're going to protect, right?

Sweet. St. Seamus's finger is right. He say, no. No, wait, not yet. No, not yet. Okay. Hey, do you like soup and salad and breadsticks? Sounds wonderful.

Is it unlimited?

Funny you should ask. Have you ever had space mushrooms before? You know, I've only had them one time. I was on Zenith's point and there was this wonderful gentleman named Buster Buster I love Buster he'll give you a rocking deal too Robert give her the soup that you're wasting ST go ahead and roll savvy to see what bells ring in your head for New Carthage as you are wired into the ship's database I was about to say the moment I heard the words New Carthage, I started to spoogle it.

11. New Carthage is the economic heart of this star system. Every major corporation maintains headquarters here. Every government claims authority here. Every criminal organization operates here. no one truly controls new carthage it is one of the most dangerous safest and prosperous places in the entire galaxy so you don't know based off that information whether what she's going there to do is above board under the board or government official business could be any of those so i'll just turn to the rest of the crew.

Just to note, if we're heading towards the economic heart of the star system, we should be careful being heavily wanted criminals. She turns and looks at... Can someone repeat that? I'm sorry, did you say heavily wanted criminals? I said that aside to the crew. She was not. Okay. By heavily wanted, He means that everybody wants our business. You know, everybody wants our services.

We're a very desirable crew on this heap.

So you were saying that privately she didn't hear you? Yeah. Okay. So are you going to be flying your ship and we're going to be protecting your ship? Or are we going to be doing some sort of subterfuge? I am going to be sending my ship on autopilot in the opposite direction, and I'm going to be boarding your ship. So, subterfuge. I need to get to New Carthage. What I need to do there needs to happen for the safety of the planet, for the safety of the economy of this galaxy, for the safety of every individual.

In this planetary system. What do you have to do? I am paying for privacy.

Don't worry yourself about the intern. It's fine. Let's get moving. Time is money, and money is peace for the galaxy, as you say.

Follow me. I'll show you where you can hold up for the trip. You follow she follows you into what is the guest quarters.

In the last moments before you pick up off the planet I need ST or Rio to roll savvy against the odds.

Can one of us help the other to make it straight? it would be whoever is monitoring the systems of the ship. So it's not really going to be, you're not going to realize what you're doing. So no, one of you can't help. Alright. I mean, I can take it if you want. I'm more Sure, yeah, you got it. Robity.

Wow, that's cool. So I rolled two sixes and a three plus savvy makes it 11 again when your ship takes off you always are monitoring chatter and for the briefest moment a transmission comes across, it sounds static it doesn't sound like your typical transmissions you hear and it just says save us and that's where we're going to end episode one of the Orbital Blues the last honest crew that's pretty concerning that is concerning that is quite concerning not for me I didn't hear it

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