Avery: Welcome to Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro music fades in, then fades out) (background ambience fades in)

Avery: Standing there is someone you knew as commander Vos,

Bee: The soup ruiner!

Avery: who is actually Admiral Vos. and Celia, you hear just say,

Avery/Celia: “oh shit.”

Avery: and the Admiral is looking at you and is just like,

Avery/Vos: “do you go around opening everyone's restrooms in their private quarters?”

Sherman: He's like stunned, cuz there's a barrel of a gun pointed in his helmeted face.

Sherman/Zahn: “No. Well it's the, the ship's about to blow up. I just figured… we're getting outta here.”

Sherman: and he is gonna slowly back up.

Avery: Yeah, Admiral Admiral follows you out and Is standing there, her pistol pointed at you and looks over and sees Celia stand up from where she was near the bed and is like,

Avery/Vos: “what is…what is she doing out of the Bri I I'm sorry. Who are you? You're you're not a soldier. What are you doing here Exactly?”

Sherman/Zahn: “Like I said, we're getting the fuck outta here. So we would like to live”

Avery: I’m gonna need some charisma talk rolls from you zahn..

Bee: I would like to say Polaris stepped outside the door to where everyone else was waiting. He’s just gonna…

Sherman: what, uh, what, what check did you want? Charisma talk?

Avery: charisma talk or charisma connect. If you are maybe going for a more like, Hey, we're just trying to get outta here, come help us, you know.

Sherman: Cool. I have minus ones in both of those.

Avery: oh Okay.

Jenine: Oh, buddy

Sherman: So that is a four.

(laughter)

Avery: Okay

Sherman: Zahn does, as I had stated coming out of the engineering bay, Zahn does have his pistol in his hand. So he is like his, he has his, his pistol ready, but he has both of his hands up and he is doing that like back slowly kind of thing.

Avery: Sure. yeah, I think at this and then seeing captain Celia pop her head up From the other side of the bed. the Admiral's probably not gonna be too happy about this and, she's going to probably shoot at you. So do you want to fire back?

Sherman: Yes,

Avery: Cause we can. Okay. We'll we'll do a contested skilled check. We're just gonna try all the mechanics

Jenine: Woo.

Avery: all the game mechanics.

Bee: I would like to say a Polaris was stepping into the hall for the express purpose of telling them that shit is going down in the room. I don't know if the door is like wide open,

Avery: Oh, it's wide open it's

Bee: Okay Sweet.

Avery: and you can see into the room and you just see Zahn with like his hands up. You don't see who this, what he's like hands up is about, but it's obviously not good. and you do hear talking,

Bee: yeah

Avery: so, yeah. Zahn, go ahead and roll a dexterity shoot skill.

Sherman: Okay. just a skill.

Avery: Yeah, this a contested skill check.

Sherman: Five.

Avery: The admiral rolled a 12

Bee: oh my gosh,

Sherman: See, I'm actually proficient in, in shoot. So I have a zero so

Avery: Yeah.

Sherman: I just rolled a four, one

Sherman: Woo.

Bee: Hey, if I get line of sight, I got you.

Avery: Yeah, she shoots at you (laser blast sound) and clips a little bit, for four damage and Celia draws on the Admiral and starts shooting at her (laser blast sounds) and they start having a fire fight and Celia just yells. (laser blast sound)

Avery/Celia: “you got to key, get outta here. I'll I'll catch up.” (laser blast sound)

Avery: and you can stay and help her, or you can get outta here.

Sherman: I'm gonna pop off one more shot and then run,

Avery: Okay. Roll a D20 to hit plus whatever bonuses you get for your weapon. I originally had this encounter planned if you, if y'all spent too long in the room, but…

Bee: we just knock on the door.

Jenine: We initiated it. Let’s go!

Sherman: We initiated it.

Bee: to be fair. Whoa, wait. She did say, do you just go around opening everyone's door, but he did knock.

Sherman: Yeah, I did knock.

Bee: So that's rude on her part to shoot him when he did knock first.

Sherman: Um, so what is it? Just the die plus dex?

Avery: Yes, the D yeah, D 20 plus your dex

Sherman: So I got a 16.

Avery: Oh, that just hits. Perfect. Go ahead and roll your damage.

Sherman: How does the shock thing work?

Avery: yeah. That's if you miss.

Sherman: And with damage, it's just what you roll, right?

Avery: Yeah

Sherman: Four damage. (laser blasts)

Avery: four damage? Okay, perfect. Um, cool. I'll note that down. Cool. She takes that hit. She's not happy about it, but, um, then she starts taking

Sherman: Just like pop her in the leg or something and I'm gonna fucking book it.

Avery: boogie. just boogie on out there.

Bee: I'm gonna, I'm gonna stand at this corner and if I get line of sight, I'm gonna shoot her.

Avery: Yeah, she actually is gonna pop into the, the restroom again and start like kind of shoot.

Sherman: shooting from cover?

Avery: Yeah. Shooting from cover at Celia. (laser blasts)

Bee: oh, well.

Avery: I, I assume y'all exit the room?

Jenine: I'm I'm actually gonna do, um, a remote heal to Celia,

Avery: Ooh.

Jenine: sorry, remote repair. So, which is my level one healing stuff.

Avery: Okay

Jenine: Cuz I put both of my psionic stuff into, into, (stutters) you know, words are hard. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna commit to that and heal her For 1d6, plus I think cuz normally I would, um, heal with touch, but I can do it from a distance.

Avery: Oh that’s cool

Jenine: That's why I did remote repair. Haha.

Avery: 100 meters? That's insane.

Jenine: Right? as long as I got line of sight. It's great. Um, so she's gonna heal back five, um, hit points. (healing sound)

Avery: Okay, cool. Hey,

Sherman: The lady who just got shocked in the hallway.

Bee: Well, you're standing right next to her so she can just heal you in conventional ways.

Sherman: True. I'm just,

Avery: No,

Sherman: I’m being facetious. I'm not actually…

Jenine: Well, well, I,

Bee: Oh,

Jenine: if someone's staying behind this one has been hurt and I'm like, oh, okay!

Avery: sure. You heal her up remotely. And, um, she kind of looks a little (healing sounds) like confused for a minute and Z as you pass the threshold of the quarters, you see her gun point towards you guys and fire, and she shoots the control panel (laser blasts) inside and the door seals. (door closing sound)

Bee: Right.

Avery: Seals them in and , and they're, they're shooting at each other in there now. So yeah, the five of you are

Sherman: I guess the captain stays with their ship. That's their choice, let’s get the fuck outta here guys!

Bee: Uh, out of curiosity

Avery: there is a

Bee: Oh, go ahead.

Avery: I was just gonna say there's a lift to the south and to the north. So…

Bee: Okay.

Sherman: Oh, well the south

Bee: We're closer to this one. Yeah. Out of curiosity, how thick are the walls? Let me rephrase. Are they thick enough to withstand a laser pistol shot?

Avery: yes.

Bee: Damn it. Okay.

Chris: Could I roll to, uh, scan my data banks for the location of the, or

Avery: You know that the, uh, hanger is the D button on the lift. Yeah.

Chris: actually, yeah, because Polaris came from there.

Bee: yeah, uh, yeah. Polaris gets on the lift and presses the D button.

Avery: Sure. Do y'all follow. Do you want to do anything else on this floor?

Jenine: Um, I'm gonna continue while I'm still like in the zone of the committed action. I'm going to continue to heal people until this scene is over.

Avery: Sure!

Jenine: Cuz I can keep doing that. So who, who needs a heal?

Bee: everyone that isn’t…

Sherman: I'm pretty sure everyone. Yeah.

Bee: any, yeah, everyone That's not me.

Caden: Yep.

Jenine: Sick!

Chris: Can I be healed by you?

Bee: oh yeah. Robot.

Jenine: based off of a remote repair, I think. Yes.

Bee: What!?

Jenine: Well, I'm gonna assume. Yes, because there's, cuz I have the ability to remote prepare, which means I can heal from afar. So is that a yes?

Avery: Yeah… you know (looking up rules)

Jenine: Can I heal a robot?

Chris: Okay. No, I have to be fixed.

Sherman: Okay, then I can do that later.

Jenine: Unfortunate. I'm gonna get the squishy ones.

Avery: Luck. Luckily, Chris, if your body is destroyed, as long as your core is intact you’ll be fine

Chris: Yeah.

Jenine: Oh, wow look at that!

Sherman: If only we all had such luxury.

Jenine: first one, whoever's the closest to me, which I'm just gonna go to the end and just like go, okay. And you get six points, whoever needs it. Who wants to set? (healing sounds) Wait, heal seven, cuz it's one D six plus one of damage. So who needs it the most?

Sherman: I'm pretty sure we all got hurt for four.

Jenine: ok

Caden: yeah

Jenine: So Zahn you can go take that seven points

Sherman: Yay.

Jenine: and then Bruce? (dice rolling) Sorry, that was that's a two plus one. So Bruce, you get three back

Caden: I appreciate it.

Jenine: I can't fix the up. I just go. You're doing great, buddy. Um, and like, just do like a little tap on the shoulder if I can reach it. And then I'm gonna heal myself five sick. I'm back up (healing sound)

Avery: I imagine this is all going down in the lift.

Jenine: Yeah, it is.

Avery: Like there's like cheesy little like elevator music playing and like the ship is kind of like rocking back and forth. and y'all are just standing there in silence while the medics heals

Sherman: as you heal Zahn his… whatever wound, he accrued heals up, but you also hear him like pop his back and stand up a little bit straight He's like,

Sherman/Zahn: “ah, thanks. I don't know how you did that. Uh, Never received healing in such a way before. Uh, how did you do that?”

Jenine/Marty: “Oh, um, I, I went, I, I just graduated from, from me school and like specifically the ones where like, we, we, we focus on like our, our skills of like, Um, I've been really good at healing for a bit, and I wanted to focus on it a little bit more. So that's how I did it. And she gives two thumbs up.”

(laughter)

Avery: So y'all are going to the hanger bay or the bridge?

Bee: Hanger. We gotta get the fuck up outta here. We can't steal this ship, its broken.

Sherman: (laughing) can't steal the ship, it's broken.

Chris: you have successfully prevented that.

Avery:I mean, you know,

Bee: well, it's, it's broken and actively being attacked. So probably not the best.

Chris: 40 minutes or it had 40 minutes?

Bee: Yeah, exactly.

Avery: yeah,

Chris: Actually, uh, do I need to roll again to update on that?

Avery: we'll say it's been about 10 minutes

Chris: cause I've neglected to describe his head because he was headless at the time, but he's got a, um, Kinda like C-3PO face, but instead of eyes, he's got large, a large L E D you know, monitor from which he can display, you know, usually eyes, uh, but all kinds of stuff.

Bee: neet!

Chris: So he's just gonna have a time clock displayed on his, uh, countdown timer of the time.

Bee: is it in minutes or is it in cycles?

Chris: Um, Let’s do minutes

Avery: Keep it easy.

Chris: The cycles wouldn’t fit, it would be really scrunched up so minutes. It spaces is better.

Sherman: (laughing) it spaces better.

Avery: okay. Have y'all introduced yourselves to each other yet or?

Bee: No.

Sherman: No

Avery: Okay.

Chris: No

Sherman: We're trying to live.

Chris: yeah.

Avery: Okay, that’s fair. I do imagine that Bruce and Zahn and Marty might at least know each other's names, cuz you've been on the ship for a couple weeks, at least. So maybe you guys know each other's names, but.

Bee: Yeah, I'm the only new guy.

Avery: As you step out onto the (door opening) docking bay (laser blasts in the background) of the ship. Again, it's still under attack, obviously. Uh, you see eight little these eight little, uh, doo dads here, these eight little fighter ships. (lasers firing, engine sounds) They zoom out of the, the hanger bay and almost as soon as they get out, uh, you see them get fired upon. (lasers) And half of them just explode. (Explosions, laughter) Massive. Like if it were fireworks, it would be beautiful. Not so much here, but, uh, yeah, it is definitely a war zone out there and sitting in front of you now is this free merchant ship. Polaris, This is the one that you snuck in on

Bee: Yep.

Avery: and to the right as you come out are, um, two little robot pods with some robots and They do not look like service bots.

Bee: do they look like murder bots?

Avery: They look like murder bots.

Bee: as the other ships turn into space confetti, Polaris will look back at the rest of the group and says

Bee/Polaris: “confident, I can do better than that.”

Bee: And then walks towards the ship.

Sherman: Looking at the wreckage of the space confetti. Zahn pauses and is like

Sherman/Zahn: “yeah, I, I certainly hope so.”

Avery: So are you just running for this ship? Are you gonna try and sneak by these robots? Um, how, how are you approaching the ship?

Bee: Oh, do the robots seem hostile?

Avery: They seem like they're active, not necessarily hostile, but definitely active.

Sherman: Hypothetically, they would recognize us as, uh, non

Bee: Civilians?

Sherman: yeah. Civilians as non nonviolent targets.

Avery: True. This is true.

Sherman: and so Zahn is going to…

Avery: They would also recognize that you're not supposed to be on the, on the hanger bay.

Bee: Uh, you're right. Well, it's an emergency situation, you know,

Chris: Um, Ollie will, is there, man? I, I don't know if I can hack both of 'em at once. If I do that to one of them, the other might not like it.

Bee: Just have them fight.

Avery: I mean, there is that.

Chris: I'm trying to find the hacking rules here really quick. All right. Um, so yeah, Ollie's gonna approach the, uh, the closest one and attempt to find a console for which he can Jack in.

Avery: Yeah, there's, there's a console next to each one of these charging pods that they're in.

Chris: I’m gonna take whichever one looks tougher.

Avery: Um, I mean, they're the same exact model. They're the same exact model. One of them has like a big, heavy mallet looking arm and the other one.

Bee: What the fuck?

Avery: Yeah. like just a big, big wrecking ball of an arm, you know? and the other one has like, looks like it has like a rifle of some kind.

Bee: what kind of security needs a big hammer hand?

Jenine: Why not?

Chris: Yeah.

Avery: Intimidation

Bee: It's working.

Chris: yeah, I'm gonna hack the hammer hand

Avery: okay.

Chris: and, uh, or attempt to, I'm gonna Jack up in Jack up into it, Jack into the console. (jacking in sound) And, uh, what are the rules exactly on this? It's just a check and nothing special,

Avery: Yeah, it would just be, um, a program skill check, pry with your intelligence, unless you wanna use your charisma robot to robot, you know,

Chris: I mean, I don't know, robots are into big brains, so I'm gonna use my intellectual charisma.

Avery: Sure.

Bee: processing power.

Sherman: he does have a bureaucratic chip.

Avery: yeah, , this is true.

Chris: And I get a 13 (computer typing)

Avery: That's more than enough. you hack into this, this robot,

Chris: smooth talk in code a little bit. Hit him with some Ones and zeros.

Avery: if we could see inside of your brain. Yeah. We would see basically, almost like that matrix the green text scrolling down, and, a little, a little electron floating through the matrix, finding the node that it needs to, and. Connecting to this robot and all of a sudden, Ollie, what color are your, is your like display, like the lights on your, on your…

Chris: Uh, I, I didn't mention the color. The whole, uh, design is black and yellow, like caution colors. So the, the visor L E D colors are also gonna be, warm yellow.

Avery: So, yeah, this robot has like a red visor and when you successfully hack into it, it sudden. Turns yellow and activates and just swings its hammer hand into its neighbor, in the charging station, shattering the glass on this charging station, (glass breaking) um, and hitting the, uh, the robot next to it. And they start kind of going at it and fighting as you disconnect. (metal clinks)

And I will give you all a free action to decide what you're gonna do in this moment before I have you role initiative. If you stick around

Sherman: Zahn is running for the ship.

Chris: free action to GT F O.

Bee: Polaris is already in the ship

Jenine: Running! I'm running.

Avery: sure

Sherman: Running, Running, Running!

Chris: And, uh, I'm also gonna yell back at the robot.:

Chris/Ollie: “Thanks friend. Stay safe!”

Sherman: Stay safe!

Avery:

Bee: Aw,

Sherman: As you violently murder each other!

Avery: The hammerhead turns to you and gives you a thumbs. speaking of which I gotta roll how long this hack is gonna last. Uh, okay. It's gonna last for three hours, so that's cool.

Bee: Oh, we're good. come with us, buddy.

Chris: That would've been that would've been beautiful if it like failed instantly. And the thumbs up turns into a middle finger.

Avery: They are going at it. You've, you've succeeded in not getting blown up on your way out of the, the hanger bay, maybe. you come into the ship here and this is my very poorly put together, um, version of the ship.

Bee: No, looks good.

Avery: as you come up, the, uh, the loading bay into the cargo hold, um, you see a bunch of Steel boxes that may or may not have stuff in them right now. You see, Polaris as you come in, you see the entrance to the smugglers, hold that you were, uh, conveniently stashed inside. Uh, the door is still open, um, but no big deal. And then there is a ladder leading upstairs. I assume y'all go into the, to the upper floor where the cockpit.

Bee: yep.

Caden: Yep.

Sherman: Yes, sir.

Avery: So as you, as you come up, the ladder just straight ahead of you, is, is the living quarters. It looks like there's some beds in there. Uh, you hurry down the hallway, um, and you see the cockpit open up, you see a central captain's chair along with two, um, Two panels in front of it and a panel to the, to the left

and real quick, just y'all y'all live in space, you know, you know What different systems are on ships.

Avery: you recognize the one to the left as, um, a weapons station. The blue computer panel is the pilot's chair. The red computer panel is the communications station and the central chair is the captain's chair. And yeah, there is also some sort of like strange apparatus. In between the communications and cockpit console that looks like it could fit an AI, uh, interface of some kind.

Avery: But you don't know if you really have time for that right now. cuz y'all gotta get outta here.

Bee: Indeed. Would it require opening the tray and just slapping in the Chaos Emerald?

Avery: Probably, but it, it, without like investigating it further, you'd have to take some time to investigate it, to see how it opens, how it engages and all that stuff, which you can totally do. I'm not saying you can't, you know,

Bee: No, we gotta get the fuck up outta here.

Avery: anyway. Yeah. So those are the stations that you see as you come in. Um, does anyone go to any particular spot?

Bee: yeah, I'll go ahead and sit in the, uh, comms, you know? No, I'm kidding. I'm going to the pilot's chair.

Avery: (laughs) I was like, wait, what?

Jenine: Oh, no.

Bee: turns out I lied. I'm not a pilot. I'm in the pilot's chair.

Chris: We're all screwed.

Sherman: Zahn will make a book for the, uh, like engine hold the generator hold, I guess, to make sure that it's, uh, functioning.

Avery: Oh, that's right. Yeah. I meant to say that. Yeah. As you were coming out, um, of the ladder to the left, you saw the engine room is where that is.

Sherman: Then yeah, Zahn will, uh, book it for that.

Avery: Sure.

Sherman: make sure that it's all operational.

Avery: Okay. Anyone else taking anything specific or just kind of gonna stand around and wait until stuff happens.

Jenine: I'm going to sit and prepare to take off

Avery: Okay.

Jenine: wherever I can.

Avery: The nearest chair.

Jenine: yes,

Caden: I think Bruce would kind of do the same. He would look around to see if there's any chair that would actually be able to hold him.

Avery: I was gonna say the gunnery chair or the captain's chair look like the biggest chair.

Bee: Pretty beefy.

Caden: I feel like he'd sit on the gunnery and like not realizing what it's meant to be doing just carefully sit the blender on the control panel and just inspect it to make sure it's okay.

Chris: just use the guns to look around, but don't even like shoot with them.

Avery: Yeah. So as, as y'all start taking your positions, uh, Polaris, you. Recognize this setup as a setup, you've seen hundreds of times in your career, doesn't really take much to get it, to get the engine started up. It has a remarkably fast startup sequence. (Engine Sounds) Um, and you feel, you feel the engines start to warm up and the ship vibrating a little bit. And as you look out the cockpit window, you see the atmospheric barrier protecting. The docking bay start to flicker.

Bee: Oh, well, that's fine. We're all in the ship.

Sherman: Thankfully.

Bee: RIP Celia. I guess.

Avery: Anyway, You see it start to flicker and The engine displays on your panel all give a green light and you are ready to go. As soon as you hit the button,

Bee: All right. Cool. Um, yeah, definitely gonna, well, is it gonna look around to make sure everyone is sitting down and strapped in

Avery: has everyone strapped?

Jenine: Where did I sit?

Bee: Yeah.

Avery: That's a good, that's a very good question, Jeanine.

Jenine: cause Marty is so scared to sit in the captian chair. It's like, I don't want to sit there. Is there…

Avery: The nearest other spot would be the comms chair. Probably. There aren't any chairs that are not at a station, unless you go into the

Jenine: she plants herself in the comms chair. She's like, this seems safe.

Sherman: Zahn is, I don't know, he he's, he's in the generator room wherever, I don't know if he needs to be strapped down or not, but he probably

Chris: You got mag boots.

Bee: he'll be fine.

Avery: It'll be fine. Cool. So Polaris, do you gun it or just gently float it out? How, how do you?

Bee: Well, once players like looks around and sees that people are like, not too, I guess, worried about being strapped in his helmet does have like a display. So

he often uses emojis to emote too, and he just has like a colon back slash face (:/) and then, uh, he just like hits the button. He's gunned it. We gotta get outta here.

Avery: Perfect. Um, go ahead and make a pilot check, dexterity I'm guessing

Bee: Um,

Avery: or, or intelligence either way.

Bee: uh, well, I mean, they're both the same,

Avery: Are you using more of like, oh, okay.

Bee: huh. Oh, well, I mean, they're both the same, but it's, it's probably gonna be dexterity because we, we gotta get the hiccup better here.

Avery: some fancy flying. Sure.

Bee: Uh, instead of, yeah, instead of flying straight place is gonna fly straight down.

Jenine: Mood.

Bee: once we're out of the airlock um, okay, that's good, 10.

Avery: 10. Perfect. Okay, cool. Then. Yeah, it's a, it's a pretty standard takeoff then, uh, you gun it for the, the exit to the ship. (Flying sounds) As you feel The Eos start to shake underneath you out of one of your side mirrors.

If spaceships have those, you see the, uh, hammerhead robot raise its fist one more time and crush its its former. Buddy robot. Um, and it's lifting its fist in the air. When all of a sudden the atmospheric barrier disappears completely. (Power Down) And you see the robot shoot past you into space. it'll be fine.

Sherman: Get spaced.

Avery: gets space and you're gunning it for the airlock. When the barrier shuts down completely starts sucking things out and you see a steel door start to close in, in between, or, or close to close up the, the docking bay to keep it from decompressing further. and you're just, you're you're, you're not sure if you're

gonna make it or not, and you you're giving it all you can. And finally, you just, you barely scrape by, as you get out of the docking bay and you said you gun it downward.

Bee: Yeah, because I imagine, yeah, cuz I imagine the, the people that are doing the shooting are probably expecting not that.

Avery: Sure, that makes sense. Yeah. You gun it out of the ship and you look out the cockpit and you see the Armada that has, for some reason, attacked this ship. And it is.

Bee: Seems like a them problem.

Avery: Yeah, definite definitely, definitely some inter inter uh, stellar conflict going on here. And it's a, it's a hodgepodge of, of, of different kinds of vessels. Not all of them are actually like fighting ships. Like some of them are just personal shuttles and like little freighters and stuff. It, it kind of looks like almost like this Armada is made up of like regular everyday people.

Bee: Okay. I was about to ask, uh, if there. Like signifying emblems that we could tell who they're with but…

Avery: Not, not immediately clear. And you now have a choice to make, uh, you could pilot it towards the planets of this system, or you could pilot out of the system.

Bee: Probably getting out of here. I mean, there's no captain, so there's no one really directing. Polaris, where to go and Polaris doesn't know where these people are going. So, uh, we're getting outta here.

Jenine: valid.

Sherman: I'm okay with that.

Avery: sure.

Chris: They would probably just think we're with the ship and then search the planet for survivors.

Bee: yeah.

Avery: So you gun it downwards, which argument can be made, whether that's actually a direction in space, but whatever. Um,

Bee: downward from the airlock rather than out towards the fighting.

Avery: totally. Yeah, totally. I know I'm just, I'm being facetious. Um, yeah, you gun it downwards and, (Ship moving sounds) uh, you're making good, uh, a, a good distance from, from the, uh, from the ship or from the, from the battle I should say. let's see. Let's see here. Oof. Okay. Well,

Bee: Uh Oh

Avery: You were making a good distance. when you see two, two small gunboat size ships break off from the Armada

Bee: God Damn it.

Avery: and start to pursue you. Marty, you see a little notification (notification sound) on your board. It says

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “unidentified freighter, identify yourself or prepare to be destroyed. How do you respond?”

Jenine: Oh, I guess I like look at the thing to like, figure out. Okay. So I guess I click this (Button push) and like try to like communicate back. Hello there. My name is Marty. Um, I was, um, I I'm a medic intern and, uh, all of us on the ship are civilians trying to get away from this situation. Uh, so it would be really nice if you didn't attack us, most kindly.

Avery: Yeah, let's, it is gonna be a very, very easy check, but go ahead and roll, um, connect and you can do charisma. charisma, and either you can either do charisma or wisdom. Um, but it sounds like you're more going for charisma.

Jenine: wish it was wisdom cuz I, oh, I got no, it's fine. It's the same thing. It's a plus one. Amazing. Okay.

Bee: You got this?

Jenine: Oh no. I rolled snake guys. Um,

Avery: Oh,

Bee: Can you re-roll are you an expert? Can you re-roll?

Jenine: no, um,

Chris: is, is there a critical fail state for whew.

Avery: uh, not for skill checks, but,

Jenine: Great.

Avery: but

Jenine: well,

Sherman: she's not a, yeah, Marty's not an expert.

Jenine: no.

Sherman: I wish I remembered that part, fuck.

Jenine: so. I'm not ex I'm not, I don't have anything in connect. So it's a negative one, which cancels out my wisdom in charisma, which is a plus one. That's two.

Avery: cool.

Jenine: She’s a kid!

Bee: She’s a Child!

Avery: I'll definitely say that that at least comes across in your, in your communications and you hear the voice come back a little confused and they're like,

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “you stole a ship from the hegemony to get away from getting blown up?”

Bee: That seems reasonable.

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “It does. It seems reasonable. Um, it's not in the manual. It's not usually how people respond.”

(Laughter)

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “I'm, I'm getting orders to have you follow us back to Penia for for questioning, please comply.”

Jenine: And then I turned to, um, Polaris and I'm like, and I'm like,

Jenine/Marty: “they want us to follow them.”

Bee: the emoji on Polaris's like visor turns into like an angry face. But he just nods.

Avery: You’re gonna follow?

Jenine: yeah, and then I like push back the like push to talk button. (button push) I'm like,

Jenine/Marty: “okay, thank you for not destroying us. It's really appreciated.”

Jenine: unpush to talk.

Avery: You hear back

Avery/Enemy Pilot: “any deviation from our guidance and you will be fired upon”

Jenine: Push a talk. (button sound)

Jenine/Marty: “Okay. Thank you for letting us know. We will not.”

Avery: Polaris, Do you keep following or?

Bee: Polaris is gonna get on the ship comms and say,

Bee/Polaris: “curious, do we want to continue following them?”

Avery: Zahn, you hear that over the comms, but you have no context for anything else going on, cuz you're in the back with the engine.

Bee: Oh,yeah. And Polaris won’t give any.

Chris/Ollie: “they seem quite friendly.”

Bee: They just blew up!

Jenine: But they haven't blown us up yet. They gave us a warning

Bee: That's true. That's true.

Jenine: they asked us, we gave an explanation, a bad explanation. So my brain is like, these people are nice.

Avery: to be fair. Your explanation was not bad. It's just that they weren't very believing of it

Jenine: Yup! That's valid. They didn't shoot us though. So we're… The ball is rolling up!

Bee: uh, yeah. How does the rest of the crew feel about following these guys? Cause we could probably, I could probably help maneuver 'em I'm confident enough.

Chris: You're in control

Jenine: you are in control.

Bee: I am in control, but I'm asking you guys specifically Because I don't wanna put everyone else in danger

Jenine: no, Marty just.

Sherman: I'm totally okay with whatever Polaris would do.

Caden: Yeah.

Chris: yeah. Ollie has no opinions. Really. He's just kind of shell shocked still.

Bee: Yeah, Polaris kind of wants to get this back to the custodians. So…Polaris is going to turn to Bruce and say,

Bee/Polaris: “hold on to the blender.”

Caden: Bruce will take the blender in like one hand and like tail-curl around it. So it's very. Can be like,

Caden/Bruce: “all right.”

Bee: I'm noticing on the map that there are meteors. Is there like a meteor field?

Avery: Yeah, that's basically supposed to signify an asteroid field. It's not, there's not literally only seven asteroids

Bee: Yeah

Sherman: In a perfect line.

Avery: yeah.

Bee: Okay, cool. Polara is gonna wait until we get into the asteroid field and then he's gonna, he's gonna… we're leaving.

Avery: Sure. Okay, cool. So you're approaching the asteroid field and as you do you see the Eos’, radar signature suddenly disappear. (beep sound) and in, in your rear view mirror? technically, uh

Bee: Yep. I am sure there are cameras outside the…

Chris: With the, with the fuzzy dice hanging on it and everything.

Sherman: I’m sure there are view ports

Avery: you see a fiery explosion and The Eos is presumably no more.

Bee: that's unfortunate for them.

Avery: And, uh, Ollie, you see the countdown reach zero, as that happens, your calculations were right on the money.

Chris: Boom goes the dynamite.

Avery: Cool. So you're approaching the asteroid field and you're just starting to get into it Polaris. Um, you're gonna pull some fancy maneuvering here.

Bee: yeah. As soon as there's like enough asteroids to where maybe the back one has to like maneuver around them and stuff. Just gonna dip out to the side and down.

Avery: Okay Sure. Uh, roll a dexterity pilot check.

Sherman: Is there like assistance in this game? Like there is in D and D

Avery: I'm sorry.

Sherman: Is there assistance in this game? Like, like there is in D and.

Avery: Yes. Yes,

Bee: you would have to make a role and then if you succeed, it would only give me like a plus one.

Sherman: Gotcha.

Avery: there is. Yeah, exactly. Thank you. I was looking, I was gonna look for those rules. Thank you

Jenine: Does that stack, question mark?

Bee: yeah.

Avery: it does not stack.

Bee: Uh, it can only go up to two. I thought it could go up to two.

Jenine: So like two of us could theoretically help. Like if, if, if. Marty just started pushing random buttons and sending ran random signals to like the other ships and being like, ah, sorry, could that be “Ahh I’m Sorry!”

Bee: uh, let me double check that

Sherman: And Zahn was gonna give, like

Bee: I thought it was,

Sherman: over clock the engine a little, little overclock the engine or some shit. Ah,

Bee: I, yeah, definitely gonna have to double check.

Avery: It should be on my

Bee: Um, oh yeah. It's only, I think it's only one.

Avery: PCs can aid a skill check made by another multiple PCs can try to help successes don't stack. So, so multiple of you could try, but it'll only be a maximum of plus one.

Sherman: Gotcha. So hypothetically we could all attempt to assist, but only if one of us was successful, only that persons would matter and it wouldn't detriment anybody, any, any of the rest of it, which is kinda nice.

Jenine: but that's like four attempts rather one attempt of a help

Avery: that’s true. I mean, the assistance also has to make sense too.

Bee: Yeah, so Zahn like juicing up the

Sherman: well, Zana is definitely going to, yeah, he is gonna overlock the,

Bee: Put some NOS in there.

Sherman: put some NOS, just, just set some set, some extra fire to this engine. (Engine Boost Sound)

Jenine: Yeah. Once I notice that we are diverging, I will start pushing buttons and going, oh, sorry. Oh, oh my gosh. Oh, wow. (button pushing sounds) And like going in and out of the comms of like the other ships

Avery: Oh (sighs in laughter) Okay. So Marty, your, your assistance will be a charisma talk and Zahn yours will be an intelligence fix, yeah.

Jenine: Amazing.

Sherman: Heck yeah!

Avery: Oh, what did you, what did you roll by the way Polaris?

Bee: Oh, um, I got a, uh, gosh, I have to do math. I'm sorry. uh, eight

Sherman: I got a 13.

Jenine: I got a two

Sherman: Again?

Jenine: Yes, I'm really. I changed my dice too. I'm really mad!

Avery: well, uh, with that, plus the, um, plus the general situational kind of chaos going on, uh, that will bump it up to a 10 For a Polaris's roll. So, uh, Polaris with that little bit of extra help from Z in the back and the other ships kind of needing to navigate around the asteroids while keeping an eye on you, you're able to dip and sort of lose them in this asteroid field. A few shots get fired in the direction of where you were. (laser blast) By the time they get off those shots, you're already moving and off of their radar. Cause you, in, in, in the process of piloting, uh, you inadvertently bumped the emissions dampers system (System Engage Sound)

Bee: Let's go.

Avery: and have gone off their radar for now. Do you decide to try and find a place to lay low in this field? Or are you just gonna try and gun it for the Sy… out of the system as quickly as you can?

Bee: Uh, I imagine that because we are out of line of sight and the, uh, other ship was destroyed. They're probably gonna be sending more ships to try and find us. So I'm going to spike drive the heck up out of here.

Avery: Sure. Okay. So yeah, after quickly looking over the layout for this control panel, you find the spike drive ignition button and you punch it. And Zahn you hear the engine in the back start to kind of shake and rattle a little bit. It kind of sounds a little outdated. this is definitely a machine that has been well loved, um, to put it nicely. Polaris, the ship enters the, uh, meta dimension Form of traveling and y'all are in the vast multidimensional vacuum, getting out of this system after fate has brought you together Inadvertently.

Bee: Yeah

Avery: anything else that anyone does in this moment after escaping probably certain death?

Bee: depending on, does players have to stay in the pilot seat and like, make sure everything's good through multidimensional space or is it just a straight shot?

Avery: No.

Bee: Okay. Cool. Cool. Um, gonna put Hermes into the little thingy inside of the ship

Avery: So, yeah, Polaris, you're you, you quietly to yourself, just start installing this chaos, Emerald, Ollie, you look over and you do see Polaris pull out an AI crystal out of, out of his pocket or out of his backpack. what do you do?

Sherman: Zahn is not there.

Bee: Oh, yeah. I haven't explained anything of what I'm doing.

Chris: I'm not sure how much I would actually know about that. Like what, you know,

Avery: I mean, you would know what you look like.

Chris: Yeah, what, what it, what it is, but, um, Hmm. Uh, would I have any reason to think that plugging it into the ship would be detrimental?

Avery: Probably not. I mean, you, you don't know what kind of AI it is, so, you know? Maybe?

Chris: Okay, but there there's, there's no like, oh no. Maybe it could be like permanently tied to the ship or anything that I know about?

Avery: no.

Chris: Okay. Well then, um, he's just gonna note it curiously and, um, look at, look at Polaris, very questioningly.

Avery: A big, a big question mark. On the, on the, on the display.

Chris: My eyes. Yeah. My eyes both turn into question marks.

Avery: Zahn, the engine is, is running perfectly fine. And you feel confident that it won't explode,

Sherman: Perfect. Uh, how are we looking on gas?

Avery: uh, fine for now. Probably gonna need some soon.

Sherman: Gotcha. So Zahn's gonna note that and he is gonna head back for the bridge.

Avery: Cool. so Zahn as you walk onto the bridge, you do see Polaris installing something into this central control panel here.

Sherman: Nice.

Jenine: Mood. Mood

Sherman/Zahn: “we got we're we got enough, uh, fuel to probably get to a system to get more fuel So I don't know how, how far.”

Bee: Polaris just throws up a thumbs up.

Avery: Bruce, you are still cradling your blender.

Caden: Yep. definitely am. (laughter) I feel like Bruce looks up and just like,

Caden/Bruce: “I think it's probably, um, wise, if we're gonna be spending time together to maybe introduce ourselves. my name's Bruce, I am, I was a chef? Hi?”

Caden: And he'll just blink and awkwardly. Look at people as his tail, just like casually holds the blender closer.

Sherman: does he do the awkward, like, uh, when he blinks, does he blink one eye and then the other in like a kind of wave

Jenine: Yes

Caden: Yeah.

Jenine: here for it.

Sherman: Zahn I guess pops his helmet off and looks at at everybody. And he is like, um,

Sherman/Zahn: “I guess if we're doing the whole introduction thing, I'm Zahn, ZahnHoward.”

Chris: Ollie will step forward and, uh, say

Chris/Ollie: “I'm designation, Optimax 11 E and Zahn is my father.”

Sherman: Zahn like, does the slow head turn to Ollie And he is like,

Sherman/Zahn: “no, I'm not!”

Chris: Ollie’s gonna look back and they're gonna be heart eyes on his advisor.

Sherman: Alrighty then.

Avery: Like a bird, the fir the first thing it sees when it hatches.

Sherman: Oh God.

Bee: Wow. I can't believe you have a child.

Chris: I mean, how old are you? You're like what? 30, 38.

Jenine: Session One!

Sherman: I'm in my late thirties.

Chris: Yeah. Checks out

Avery: It's fine. does anyone else introduce themselves

Jenine/Marty: oh, um, hi, I'm Marty. Nice to meet all of you. I was an intern. Um, I don't know what, yep. That's me. I do the medicine stuff,

Jenine: give two thumbs up and then do the little thing where like the fingers touch each other, like the, you know, which one I'm talking about. That's that's what she's doing right now.yeah.

Bee: Like the, the pointing to

Jenine: Like the, the little tap tap taps. Yeah. That's that's what she's doing. Like the, the mm-hmm

Bee: Polaris is, do I have to roll anything to figure this thing out?

Avery: No, it's, it's pretty straightforward. Um, but I was just giving everyone time.

Bee: Sweet. Um, A Polaris is gonna like click in the crystal then, and then stand up and look at everyone and say,

Bee/Polaris: I am catalyst designation, Polaris, and this is Hermes.

Avery: right on cue. Um, you, you hear a little, almost like the apple power on sound.

Bee: you have to say pair.

Sherman: Pairing!

Avery: the, the pairing. Yeah. Now connected voice in the background. And, um, you just hear:

Avery/Hermes: ”Are we off the ship?”

Bee/Polaris: Yes, we are.

Avery/Hermes: I feel like I'm still on a ship though.

Bee/Polaris: You are on a ship, but not the.

Avery/Hermes: “Oh yes. This is definitely smaller than I am used to. I am detecting five beings on this ship.”

BeePolaris: That is correct

Sherman: I would certainly hope so. Anyways.

Chris: Yeah, to our knowledge.

Avery/Hermes: “Hello everyone. I am Hermis and I am thankful to you for rescuing me. Please let me know how I can serve you.”

Bee/Polaris: “Confused to be perfectly honest. The custodians just told me to rescue you. And that was it.”

Avery/Hermes: “Ah, well, I mainly just wanted off of that ship. The hegemony are not good people and this one was growing tired of servicing them.”

Bee: Polaris will turn to the rest of, uh, the group and say,

Bee/Polaris: “is there anywhere any of you would like to go?”

Sherman/Zahn: “I'm not used to sticking around to one place in particular.

Chris: Ollie will say

Chris/Ollie: “all I've ever wanted was to be away from that ship now who knows?”

Bee: The little emo turns into a thumbs up.

Avery: I like the fact that the two of you have emotes for faces.

Chris: I imagine at some point we're gonna have like an entire conversation in emotes.

Bee: Yeah, just communicate via emotes.

Avery: Oh, that's great.

Caden: The Ultimate game of pictionary.

Chris: Yes.

Avery: As you're having this kind of back and forth, uh, Herme says.

Avery/Hermes: ”Polaris. I do not mean to alarm you, but as the pilot of this vessel, I do feel I should let you know that the spike drive is currently experiencing a catastrophic failure and will decelerate in 3, 2, 1.”

Sherman: Couldn’t have told us that a little faster?

Jenine: dude.

Sherman: couldn't have told us that a little sooner?

Bee: The, yeah, the as soon as, as soon as he says that the emo turns into a, a, like a mad frowny face

Avery: And you feel this ship suddenly get jerked out of, uh, the multidimensional space that is the spike drive, uh, area. And you are pulled into a new star system and seemingly all is fine. but Marty, as you are sitting there in the coms station still. A strange signal is being picked up by the communications station (notification sound) and it's kind of garbled and can't really be made out.you do see three letters flash across the screen. S O S and that's where we're gonna end it for today.

Avery: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Find more of our shows at 1upPodcasts.com. Intro and Outro by Dustin Carpenter. Be sure to follow him on Instagram at Zodiac Gallery. Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Gravity, Freighter, Fray and Bridge. We’ll be back August 1st with our next episode. See you out there: Beyond the Furthest Stars!