Episode 25 - Calling in a Favor

Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 25 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.

(Intro plays, fades out. Ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: So you have a few options for what you want to end up doing. You could go troll Oswald.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, let's do that.

Avery/GM: Call in your favors.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Fuck that guy.

Avery/GM: you could investigate these wormhole and Marty could try the experiment by herself. You could also say, screw all this and just, you know, blow up the Cassiopeia and just say bye Rho, I mean…

Bee/Polaris: let's go to the mall.

Jenine/Marty: The mall?

Avery/GM: You could go to the mall.

Chris/Ollie: We still haven't spent that five milli we got.

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah, we got five mil.

Jenine/Marty: You're right.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go to the beach. Let's have a beach episode!

Chris/Ollie: we should pick up like a,

Jenine/Marty: Beach episode, yeah!

Chris/Ollie: we should get a Spezos Prime subscription so we don't have to actually go somewhere to buy things.

Avery/GM: Jungle's Currently dead yo.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Jungle's dead because of, you know…

Zach/Zahn: Supposed to be.

Bee/Polaris: … the terrible. Yeah. I mean, the dude said that it was an urban legend. I mean, well, he said that, you know. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Cool.

Avery/GM: Yeah, there's nothing, nothing nefarious going on, I promise.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, there's tons of stuff nefarious going on, just not that asterisk anyway. Should probably get Rho up and running so we can get her home because like being able to go home is probably gonna make her happy so she won't have a huge emotional outburst and destroy herself.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. So we need to get her up.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: And Marty like,

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Just…

Jenine/Marty: Marty sends out like the email draft that she made to send like, so we can do, we wanna use our favors, so we're able to go.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, do they have to be favors? Could we just, uh, tell them like, Hey, you're our friends. Do you guys wanna stick it to some fucking nerd?

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Okay. Here me out. And then like, she rewrites the email and she's like, ok, what if,

Bee/Polaris: oh, I don't, Polaris doesn't say that. I'm sorry. That's just me.

Jenine/Marty: No, you're fine. We could also word it like this way in the email and the way like it's worded is like, we would like to conduct this. We would like to help the Republic in medical research and prove The theory that this person wrote is incorrect, but do it in their space to get their assistance in it and like that way, cause that's worded in a way that's not like we're using our favor, it's just kinda like, Hey, we saw this thing happen and we kind of wanna test it. We also don't wanna put Rho in danger.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Well no, we could totally like leave him out because if he's like the leading research on the researcher on this

Bee/Polaris: and he fucked up.

Chris/Ollie: On this stuff. He's probably got the most advanced lab.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. That's why I said we should use his lab.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, exactly. So we should just need to, to go to, uh, the Republic and say, Hey, we need the best, most advanced lab you've got for dealing with psychics and it'll probably be that lab and we'll just go there.

Bee/Polaris: Now, Fair Warning, we did just listen to a recording where, uh, I believe representative of some sort of the Republic

Chris/Ollie: Yeah

Bee/Polaris: is totally doing some schema ass bitch stuff. So. We might wanna let Machamp know about that.

Chris/Ollie: That was what I was kind of like,

Bee/Polaris: we should probably call Machamp on into a meeting.

Jenine/Marty: Mm.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, because don’t know if we wanna blow the lid off it immediately, but Yeah. Being like, Hey, There’s stuff going down.

Bee/Polaris: Ya Bosses.

Chris/Ollie: We need her in order to help you combat, you know, all this nefarious stuff cuz she knows things

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: That no one knows. So we need to help her out at any cost.

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Could set up like, A Zoom meeting or do we wanna do this like at the..?

Bee/Polaris: No, we need that guy in person

Avery/GM: Hermes will say, I apologize for not playing this sooner, but I did not want to be hunted. You will not let them hunt me, right?

Jenine/Marty: No.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, absolutely not. Hermes.

Bee/Polaris: No.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, of course not, Hermes, you are one of us.

Bee/Polaris: You are the ship.

Avery/GM: Well, that is a relief. I do think helping Rho should be our first priority as she is currently in danger and I am only theoretically in danger.

Zach/Zahn: Fair. Marty, what's this about A lab or something to um Get Rho up and functioning again?

Jenine/Marty: Well, so my colleague, you know, okay… Oswald… Doctor... Anyways, he works at one of the top research institutions for Psionics. So it might be good to like maybe conduct because it does seem like in theory, and like she pulls out like the tablet with like the document in theory, like, we could do this like here and now and I can do everything here, which is, which is feasible and everything. I did find like, um, there were some mistakes in the document anyways, that's beside the point. We could do it here and try and fix her, but maybe doing it in like laboratory in a safe space with other Psionics might also be helpful in a way of like if it goes wrong, cause this research could be kind of wrong, not me judging someone, but it's really good work anyways. That's what I'm thinking. Sorry.

Zach/Zahn: Got it.

Chris/Ollie: Totally innocently, like, oh no, I don't wanna show 'em up at all. Just, it's the best spot.

Zach/Zahn: Well, seeing as how I know literally nothing about brain stuffs and Psionics I can't help but agree about having to deal with potential bad things involving that. Are they A Republic contracted lab?

Jenine/Marty: I'm gonna assume Yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah, the, the facility that Oswald works at is stationed on Olympia and it's funded by the Republic. You would know that for sure.

Zach/Zahn: Perfect. Well, you know who owes us a favor?

Bee/Polaris: Affirmative. I was actually thinking about that. Should we? Not warn him about his higher ups dealings?

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah. I didn't even like consider that, but, uh, I was just thinking that, uh, major Tom was this, uh, a favor for, you know, saving his ass. he could get us into that lab.

Bee/Polaris: I suppose the information could be a trade off for another favor.

Zach/Zahn: I like the sound of that, having a Republic representative under our thumb is not the worst thing to have.

Jenine/Marty: I have another question. Rose. Biological scans are still very similar to our galaxies, right? So like if we do like hooker up to. This lab or like any other lab in front of like other people, will it be flagged as something not from this galaxy?

Bee/Polaris: Well, Polaris is also from her same galaxy and when you looked at his medical records, they didn't look any different.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I was just checking. I just wanted to like, I was like, Hmm, that could be a bad situation.

Bee/Polaris: That is true. But it, it would be confidential, No? because we are on republic business.

Jenine/Marty: True.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. But if. The information could get up to the higher ups there.

Bee/Polaris: True. So…

Avery/GM: To  answer your question, she appears human in every single way. So there is no

Jenine/Marty: human with psionics like, like

Avery/GM: Nothing that would red flag.

Jenine/Marty: Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Sick. Everything's fine

Chris/Ollie: as long as she doesn't say anything.

Avery/GM: That's the tricky part.

Bee/Polaris: I mean…

Avery/GM: what will she say when she wakes up?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we should probably get boyo out of the room. Uh, but if we tell Machamp up all this stuff beforehand, he'll be kind of privy to everything going on.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Assuming he could be trusted.

Jenine/Marty: So how do we want to meet with… General Tom?

Zach/Zahn: Major Tom.

Jenine/Marty: Major Tom.

Zach/Zahn: Major Tom.

Jenine/Marty: when, how? Where would we, where would we like to meet Major Tom?

Bee/Polaris: Easy. At the grave of the tiger

Jenine/Marty: Is it still there?

Chris/Ollie: It was like a five year, like in five years it was gonna fall in or something.

Bee/Polaris: I thought it was a hundred years.

Avery/GM: Yeah. The, the, no, he was there for five years, Chris.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: The planet. The planet will take hundreds of years to degrade into the black hole.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. So we send him there. Did we just send him an email saying, go there alone? That feels sus.

Avery/GM: Sus!

Bee/Polaris: Ollie, Is it possible to program a message that has a time limit on how long it stays in his system?

Jenine/Marty: Snapchat?

Chris/Ollie: yes, the Chaps Nat app is updated and ready to send. I have found his profile.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no. It's like a story of him drinking with his boys.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: After he got back.

Chris/Ollie: he's, uh, he's uh, four Handing the beers.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Quadruple fisting it.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Quadruple fist.

Bee/Polaris: It's captioned the boys back in town and that's what's playing.

Avery/GM: Oh gosh. So what's this message to Machamp saying?

Chris/Ollie: Umm…

Bee/Polaris: You up? No, I’m  sorry.

Zach/Zahn: You up!?

Bee/Polaris: I'm, I'm muting, Sorry!

Zach/Zahn: No, please. I love the jokes. Please don't mute.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my God!

Chris/Ollie: Okay, so the message will say, um, we have incredibly urgent news, critical news. Meet us at the place where the tiger had the mind blowing pie.

Avery/GM: Ollie, since you're, are you sending it or Marty, are you sending it from your email?

Bee/Polaris: Aren't we just sending it from Hermes’ email because we gave him

Avery/GM: That's right. Hermes.biz.

Zach/Zahn: Hermes.biz!

Bee/Polaris: Hermes.Biz. Why are we using Hermes’ name to email him when the Republic is searching for him?

Chris/Ollie: Hiding in plain site. It's the, it's the best idea.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Could be some other dude named Hermes

Avery/GM: it's AI@Hermes.biz

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God. Dude, we, we can't send that.

Avery/GM: That is the email address.

Bee/Polaris: We can't send that. That's literally like, this is Hermes,The AI you were looking for! yeah. Let's just use Marty. Can Marty use her doctor email.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah my.edu.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Avery/GM: Go ahead and roll Charisma Connect.

Bee/Polaris: Oh wait, it's not even, it's not even an email. We're using Snapchat or, sorry, Chapsnat!

Avery/GM: Chapsnat! Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Am I rolling a Charisma Connect?

Avery/GM: Yes, please.

Jenine/Marty: Um, so that's gonna be an 11.

Avery/GM: Oh heck yeah. You get a reply on that app, actually, which is weird cuz like you didn't really know if he had it or not.

Bee/Polaris: I mean we, Ollie found his… his drinking with the boys.

Avery/GM: Oh.

Chris/Ollie: Oh. I mean

Avery/GM: I wasn't sure if that was Canon or not.

Bee/Polaris: Oh

Zach/Zahn: It is now!

Chris/Ollie: Same. That's a pretty, that's pretty much up to Avery. So

Bee/Polaris: sweet. Oh yeah!  

Avery/GM: we can make it Canon. That's fine. No, we can, we, we can totally make it Canon… Machamp’s…

Zach/Zahn: I mean What would you do after five years of being stuck on a planet? Fucking hammer it with the boys. That's what you do

Avery/GM: I guess.

Chris/Ollie: Hell yeah. I haven’t had beer in five years.

Bee/Polaris: Crack open a cold one with the boys.

Jenine/Marty: The boys!

Avery/GM: I mean… Therapy?

Bee/Polaris: are you saying that cracking open a cold one with the boys is in therapy?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, that is therapy.

Bee/Polaris: It's therapy for… for maladjusted adults.

Avery/GM:

Chris/Ollie: Yep, exactly.

Avery/GM: Fair. Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Or more like coping mechanism, but you know, all the same in the end.

Avery/GM: Major Tom responds back pretty quickly and it's a audio file and it's just like, oh yeah. could we meet above the planet? I don't really want to go back. On the planet, but like, yeah, I can, I can meet you back in that system. just gimme a couple days,

Zach/Zahn: shoot thumbs up and then like, side note, be like, expect us to be in bigger ship.

Bee/Polaris: New ship. Who dis!?

Jenine/Marty: I send that!

Avery/GM: Do you all have access to the same I was gonna say like, Marty's the one in control of the message here.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, did you make Hermes

Jenine/Marty: Was it audio?

Avery/GM: Oh, you, you can do audio. That's fine.

Jenine/Marty: Wait, was it an audio thing that was said? Was it, did I um,

Bee/Polaris: Machamp sent an audio back.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, he sent an audio back.

Avery/GM: Machamp sent an audio reply, yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I, I did most likely put that out into the open cuz I'm like, I don't know how to work this wrist communication device.

Avery/GM: Oh sure. Okay, fine.

Jenine/Marty: You think she had time for this?

Zach/Zahn: Well then yeah, Zahn will straight up say just like send a, send a thumbs up emote and uh, just. Warn him that, uh, we're gonna be in a bigger ship.

Jenine/Marty: Should I text a picture of the ship?

Everyone: NOOOOO!

Jenine/Marty: Oh, yeah. Huh? Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, tell him You should probably let him know to be discreet.

Jenine/Marty: Be discreet. Send

Bee/Polaris: like no cams, no wire.

Jenine/Marty: It's a friendship meeting. Please be nice. Send!

Bee/Polaris: no cops!

Avery/GM: No Cops!

Jenine/Marty: We Did nothing wrong!

Avery/GM: You get four thumbs up.

Chris/Ollie: Four thumbs way, way up.

Bee/Polaris: That's cute.

Avery/GM: And Hermes says, uh, shall I set a course for the Black hole system?

Jenine/Marty: Yes!

Chris/Ollie: I agree.

Avery/GM: You feel the ship get underway and it is moving towards, it is moving out of this system and goes to Warp.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris runs up there. He doesn't feel comfortable not being in the pilot seat with Hermes flying

Jenine/Marty: Marty is close behind.

Avery/GM: I will say that pulling out of the custodian's little system here, like he doesn't impact the asteroids, but like there are a couple times where like a wing like kind of scrapes against like an asteroid.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Avery/GM: A little bit.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris runs up there and tries to grab the control so he can pilot out of here.

Avery/GM: and Hermes just says, I got so used to piloting a smaller ship, that being back in a big one is a bit tricky.

Bee/Polaris: Understandable.

Zach/Zahn: Shouldn't this be like riding a bike for you, Hermes?

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. AI don't forget! They don’t have meat brains.

Avery/GM: Hermes is like, no, you are right. I was just trolling you.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my fucking God. This dude.

Avery/GM: I have learned a lot of internet lingo from some friends I have met.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm?

Zach/Zahn: Hermes, who are you talking to on the holonet? You can’t trust those people!

Avery/GM: So you jump to warp. It's gonna take a couple days to get to that system in a couple days from a Machamp to arrive.

Zach/Zahn: So hypothetically, we should be arriving about the same time.

Avery/GM: Yeah, in the meantime, it. Does anyone do anything else on the Casio pi while you are in warp? Polaris, do you say anything to the custodians before you leave or anything?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will like think about it but will… he will send brb. He won't res… Yeah, he won't respond to any other of the messages.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn will continue modding.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will actually probably go to Marty for actual medical attention because when I said that he put a bandaid on his wound, I literally meant that he literally just got one bandaid and put it on his wound and walked away.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: So, question about healing. Did I get healed all the way up?

Avery/GM: By the end of this trip, you, everyone should be fully healed up, yes.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. I… yes, I'll be sitting in the Med Bay just helping out.

Chris/Ollie: so how long is the trip?

Avery/GM: Two days.

Chris/Ollie: Two days. Ollie in his off time is gonna start a long-term project seeing as we didn't get access to the, uh, the, uh, space factory, he's gonna start building his own custom chassis.

Everyone: Ooh. Ooh, ooh.

Chris/Ollie: And, uh, we can work out the specific specifics of that later. Probably won't be done till like a, a season two or anything, but he's gonna…

Avery/GM: I like this though. Yeah, just in, in the lab. Just, just building a secret bot.

Chris/Ollie: just grinding away. Just like I need to upgrade. Time to chrome the fuck up.

Avery/GM: well go ahead and roll an intelligence fix for me and we'll see how far you get so far.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris's son will also help.

Jenine/Marty: Could I also help knowing like humanoid anatomy?

Bee/Polaris: What would Ollie tell you about it?

Jenine/Marty: Oh, would you?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, it's not a secret, but he is not gonna advertise it. But this is going to be, um, like a, a combat chassis. A heavy duty, uh, survivable. So, um, might not even be humanoid.

Jenine/Marty: never mind!

Zach/Zahn: turns out looking like Bruce… Giant Robo frog!

Chris/Ollie: okay, so I'm going to pop, uh, use my capacity, my, uh, processing capacity to also boost my intelligence for these checks.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Can I do an assist with my boy?

Avery/GM: Uh, yes, you may assist with your, with Dief. Um, We're gonna have to make a character sheet for it, I think.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. For Dief.

Avery/GM: Yeah. But for now you can use your stats.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Intelligence fix.

 

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I got a 10. Just to add a little plus one to help if that

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I got a 11.

Avery/GM: Okay. That bumps set up two A 12. So you're poking around the teleportation area, the vehicle storage area. And you realize that like some of these vehicles, the way they got jostled around when this ship originally crashed, like these vehicles are totaled, but their parts are still good and so you start like just ripping components off of these vehicles. Some of the, like the heavier armor, there are like, you know, sections that would make like good, like thick pieces of, of protection for your crystal, for your AI crystal, things like that. So yeah, you find a whole bunch of parts just from these wrecked vehicles. Marty, on the, the first night of the journey, you do see Rho’s brainwaves start to pick back up. She's not fully conscious, but you do see that there is more brain activity than there was.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. I walk over and I like put the little salmon that, um, Polaris made like under her arm, like tuck it and tuck her in a little bit.

Avery/GM: You see her arm tense around it,

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Aw.

Bee/Polaris: She naturally knows the shape of a salmon. She's like, ah, a salmon.

Avery/GM: After that though, not much else happens. Um, but there is improvement, which is good, but still not conscious and there's kind of the lingering question of what will happen when she becomes conscious. But you all arrive in the black hole system that you started in. Well, not started in, but you know, ended up in,

Bee/Polaris: solidified our group in.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And there is a small two person shuttle… has made orbit just above one of the gas giants in this system.

Bee/Polaris: I open the bay doors and we drift into it and then close the bay. No, I'm kidding.

Chris/Ollie: Just pick 'em up.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, just like old times.

Avery/GM: I will say that when you. Come into this system, the ship does make contact and says, uh, unidentified ship, please identify yourself or prepare to be, oh shit, I can't really say destroyed. This thing isn't gonna… uh, prepare to be impounded by order of the rep… I can't even do that. What the hell?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris gets on the comms and says, what are you going to do?

Avery/GM: Oh, Oh, it's you guys. It's you guys. Great. Whew. That was, that was really scary. I'm all out here by myself. Weird looking ship shows up. Oh gosh.

Bee/Polaris: Dock in the Bay.

Avery/GM: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: To business.

Avery/GM: Machamp parks the vehicle in the docking bay. Do y'all meet him there? Do you have him wander around the ship?

Jenine/Marty: No. We'll meet him there.

Avery/GM: What's the plan?

Chris/Ollie: Meet him there.

Bee/Polaris: Did we, uh, fix the turrets that we blew up?

Avery/GM: They're probably not smoking anymore.

Bee/Polaris: Dang. I was gonna say we should point them at, no, I'm kidding.

Avery/GM: Polaris is just like, no friends, only suspicion.

Bee/Polaris: Only business. Only business.

Avery/GM: Machamp comes out and is just like, uh, so what's all the cloak and dagger stuff? And, and what's the ship? Y'all, uh, y'all really know how to make an entrance.

Bee/Polaris: Do you want the cliff notes?

Avery/GM: I mean, yeah, sure. It's probably a good idea. We're probably limited on time.

Bee/Polaris: Your bosses are evil, and this ship is from a different galaxy. One of the inhabitants is the only one remaining alive, and we need to save her.

Jenine/Marty: How are you doing?

Avery/GM: Uh, well that's a, that's a lot to put on a guy. You know, I've only got four arms, but I, you know, um, that's a lot to juggle even with, even with four arms.

Bee/Polaris: You did ask for the cliff notes.

Avery/GM: Yeah. No, that's true. That's true. That's, that's on me. When you say my bosses are evil?

Bee/Polaris: likesuper evil, like destroy a planet, cause a war evil.

Chris/Ollie: We'll probably just play the, uh, recording.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. I guess we could just play the record. Yeah. We play the recording for him. I guess. I mean, do we want it, do we wanna play the recording for him?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Because then he'll know that they're hunting Hermes, who we have.

Jenine/Marty: We could stop before they're hunting Hermes!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Cut it off before the, the Hermes part gets brought up.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true, true, true. We could also just murder him because he's in our ship and no one knows he's here.

Avery/GM: He's your friend.

Zach/Zahn: He's our friend.

Bee/Polaris: I know. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding. He is our friend. We did share pie!

Chris/Ollie: the universal sign of friendship.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. We, whenever we share a pastry with another, uh, being, they are now part of the crew.

Chris/Ollie: That's, that's, that's why we gave Winston a meat pie

Bee/Polaris: because it wasn't a pastry.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, exactly.

Bee/Polaris: If you're given a savory dish, you are forever.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. You better watch out. It might explode.

Avery/GM: Okay. You play the clip of basically, The minister Pothos and this Rhea person plotting some dastardly business, but you cut it off before they get up and leave?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. Major Tom's like, I, I think there's more to that recording, but, uh, I'll skip past that for now.

Bee/Polaris: There is

Chris/Ollie: Personal information.

Avery/GM: Oh, okay. That sounds cool. So, yeah, Pothos isn't really my boss. He's like, The Fed, like, you know, the, the financial boss of the republic, but that's like, not really like my boss.

Bee/Polaris: Yes. But money makes the world go round.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Nope, that's true. That is true. Yeah. I don't really, uh, so they're planning on blowing up Ithaca? Well, that's a, a hegemony world. So I mean, like, that's not my problem.

Bee/Polaris: He did hear the part where he wanted, they wanted to incite war. Right?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie will just ask, do you think they will stop there?

Avery/GM: I mean, probably not, but I mean, I'm just one major. I can't really just. You know, stop a whole war. But I'll definitely take that, that information back to…

Chris/Ollie: No, you misunderstand. We will stop the war. You must get us into the lab to help her and I'm guessing Rho is here with us, like on a gurney or something, right?

Jenine/Marty: No.

Bee/Polaris: I mean

Chris/Ollie: no.

Bee/Polaris: No. Cause what if he shoots her

Avery/GM: you, no, but you probably  have like a little

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's right.

Avery/GM: You probably have like a little hologram.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. So yeah. I'll hold up a hologram of her in the, the med bay.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Are are, are you sure that person's from another galaxy,

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: they look just like a normal human?

Jenine/Marty: A hundred percent

Chris/Ollie: beyond the shadow of a doubt.

Avery/GM: Well, damn y'all, y'all been getting busy while I've been away or while, while after you left me at at the base. It's, y'all got a lot of stuff done.

Bee/Polaris: Yes. It was a series of unfortunate

Avery/GM:  Cool. So I guess you're wanting, so you want my help getting access to a, a, a lab. What? Whi whi which lab? I mean, there's, we got lots of labs all over the republic.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris turns to Marty and says, which lab is the nerd in?

Jenine/Marty: There's one that specifically specializes in torching and is led by I'm… he is, they are a very intelligent being. But they do make mistakes constantly. I'm… yes.

Bee/Polaris: The nerd named Oswald.

Avery/GM: Oh, oh yeah. That one. You, you mean the, the Sci Research and Rehabilitation Institute on Olympia?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Sure.

Avery/GM: I mean, that is military funded, so I suppose I could probably get you in there. What, what do you got against Dr. Oz? I mean, he’s all right.  

Jenine/Marty: I don't have anything against him. They have

Bee/Polaris: He belittles Marty

Jenine/Marty: that that's,

Bee/Polaris: he'd belittles Marty and I do not like that.

Jenine/Marty: I was top of the class and he was not so, It's fine… if you can't do you teach, when you *words jumbled* You know what I, no. Okay. No sass, that's who, yes. He gave me some of the research and there's some discrepancies, so I think it might be a little bit better to be doing it in a savior space and maybe I might wanna show them up slightly.

Chris/Ollie: There is no better place to perform an experimental procedure.

Bee/Polaris: We want to outclass the nerd.

Avery/GM: Well, I guess if, yeah, I, I could, I can get you in there. I guess if we're gonna do this though, uh, We'll, we'll have to start setting out for Olympia soon. I, I've only got a few more days of leave before I gotta get back.

Bee/Polaris: Very well. Is there a way to get official documents,

Avery/GM: official documents, like for access?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: Oh, I can, I can fabricate those on my ship. I got a little requisition station on my, my shuttle. Not a problem.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. Can we please requisition the lab from the nerd?

Avery/GM: Yeah, do you want me to use those exact words?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: You don't

Bee/Polaris: unless someone else says

Jenine/Marty: you don't… You don't have to use those exact words.

Bee/Polaris: A military order that just says, give up the lab nerd. It has an official seal.

Chris/Ollie: No, what's the guy's name?

Bee/Polaris: Oswald

Chris/Ollie: Oswald. It says the lab belonging to Oswald She'll hereby, or, or the lab belonging to Oswald hereby and hereafter mentioned as nerd, shall be now handed over to you, such and such.

Bee/Polaris: the official document changes his title to the nerd. Oh my god

Chris/Ollie: Henceforth known as. That’s what I was looking for

Jenine/Marty: formerly known as Oswald.

Avery/GM:Oh my gosh.

Bee/Polaris: shortened to an acronym that it's unnecessarily long.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh.

Jenine/Marty: Um, no. Um, Marty just watches, you don't have to call him a nerd.

Avery/GM: I mean, it, it seems kind of rude asking for or ordering someone to give up their lab without, you know, and, and then calling them a nerd.

Bee/Polaris: Very well just tell him to give up the lab. We'll say nerd in person. Oh,

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. That's, that's fine and you see his hands are rub together and it's like after I got this done, you got any goodies on board? Where? Where's your big friend by the way?

Bee/Polaris: I was reflectively gonna say dead, which is not true. Polaris just get sad.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, he, well, he's on a mission.

Avery/GM: Oh, a little solo mission. I get that. Yeah. Yeah. I I did that for five years.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm. Well.

Bee/Polaris: you were stranded. That was not a solo mission.

Avery/GM: It, it's how I handle, handle it mentally.

Bee/Polaris: Oh!

Jenine/Marty: I made cookies. We also, I can also like make tea snacks. I, we did have tea the other day and I can make tea again. If you're thinking of like an afternoon tea.

Bee/Polaris: Is he not gonna be traveling with us?

Avery/GM: He is. He's just gonna be in his ship for a minute, getting that requisition order made.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, fair. Yeah. Well, I guess we can bring him tea and cookies while he's doing that.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, we can, I can make you tea. we can do a tea and cookie. Like do you want it in like a three tier Situation.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, like a high tea?

Avery/GM: Oh, it doesn't have to be that fancy,

Jenine/Marty: but yeah. Do you want, do you want me to make like a high tea to prep you for like dinner later?

Bee/Polaris: I could sew you a period appropriate hat.

Avery/GM: Nah, I'm, I'm good. Just, just some something tasty to, uh, make the work go by faster would be great.

Jenine/Marty: Amazing. She goes and makes the three tier high tea.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris goes and makes a period appropriate hat. I'm kidding. Player doesn't have his measurements. We have a lab to steal from a nerd.

Avery/GM: That's right. So, Major Tom makes the requisition and he transmits the, the message to the lab on Olympia and Marty, you get a text message… email or a text email, uh, from Oswald that just says, how dare you go above my head and take my lab from me. I know this was you.

Jenine/Marty: She messages back. Maybe you should check your work next time!

Bee/Polaris: Ooh.

Chris/Ollie: Ooh, get that… get that “Oh!” meme playing

Bee/Polaris: Labs are for people that labs are for people that edit their work.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: And get results.

Bee/Polaris: Labs are for closers.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Oswald just says, My work is impeccable, but see you soon. Smiley face.

Jenine/Marty: She, she throws her, her like wristwatch across the room in anger.

Avery/GM: It lands softly on a, on a medical bed.

It didn’t go far. How far into the Olympia system do you go? Do you go right… Do you make orbit?

Bee/Polaris: No. Where can we, we conceal our ship and then get on the Minos?

Avery/GM: So the Olympia system is like a six planet system, and there's definitely like a gas giant that you could probably park behind without drawing attention.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, let's do that.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, I mean, is that gonna be safe enough?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true. Can we put a big sheet over the, uh, Cassiopeia?

Chris/Ollie: No , no. We can probably just find a random spot in the middle of space that no one goes to and ditch it there, and then come back, just spike drive.

Jenine/Marty: Could, could we find space junk and cover the ship? You know how they do like, like little bushes over cars. Can we do that with like space drunk instead?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I mean I was, yeah, that's what I was going for with the tarp. But a tarp is very big, so space drunk is probably much easier.

Chris/Ollie: Space Trunk is kind of  inviting though, for scavengers.

Avery/GM: Oh, true. So I will say, how about, how about this Polaris, Are you piloting when you get into the system?

Bee/Polaris: Sure.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Then go ahead and roll an intelligence pilot check.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I'm super good at that… ugh…

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Love to hear that.

Bee/Polaris: I rolled all three on all three dice, but I am an expert, so I'm just gonna reroll that betterish. Um, you said intelligence piloting?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Uh, that's gonna be… Oh my God, I'm bad at math. An 11.

Avery/GM: Cool. I will give it to you. You are coming into the Olympia system because like I said, spike dries dump you out basically at the edge of the system, and you have to float in to where the planets are and you're kind of floating inward, looking for a good spot, and you spot A little cluster of asteroids that probably is like a failed planet, right? Just didn't have enough mass to really clump together. And you see that there's like a perfect angle that you could get the ship into where it would kind of just look like a, a piece of this formation.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: So yeah. So you pull right in there and you are ready to get onto the TSFKAM.

Avery/GM: Do you leave Hermes with the Cassiopeia do you take Hermes with you? What's…

Jenine/Marty: We take him.

Avery/GM: Okay and you take the ship formally known as the Minos, out into the Olympia system and you are approaching the planet Olympia when you get an alert.

Bee/Polaris: Son of a bitch!

Avery/GM: and that's where we're gonna end it.

(Ambience fades out, Outro plays, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond The Furthest Stars is a one-Up podcast network production, intro and outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletop audio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from Creative Commons. The tracks used today were Star Freighter and Starship Bridge.

We'll be back on July 15th with our next episode. See you out there beyond the furthest stars.

Episode 24 - Fixing What Was Broken

Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 24 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.

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

Avery/GM: you dock in the Cassiopeia, go ahead and roll… So who all is going to start repairing stuff? Is, is this a team effort? Is this just Ollie and Zahn and Polaris's Son?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I was gonna say Son Boy is helping

Jenine/Marty: Marty staying behind to help repair Polaris.

Bee/Polaris: Well, shouldn't you get Rho to the med bay?

Jenine/Marty: Oh, right. That's the thing. Well, nothing's powered on yet. I'm

Bee/Polaris: Oh, right.

Jenine/Marty: Don't run away!

Avery/GM: Here Rho, enjoy this decompressed ship.

Bee/Polaris: Well  I mean, with the gravity off, it'll probably be easier to move her to the bed.

Avery/GM: This is true.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, the, uh, life support will come on first and the gravity would come on second, so…

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: In that window you just hover her over.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So you don't have to drag her or carry her. Because Ollie and Zahn are gonna be fixing the ship.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say Ollie and Zahn go ahead and roll intelligence repair… or intelligence fix. Sorry.

Bee/Polaris: Does my child have to roll too?

Avery/GM: Yeah, go ahead and roll.

Bee/Polaris: What?

Avery/GM: And you can just use your stats.

Bee/Polaris: for what? What is it? Intelligence fix?

Avery/GM: Well, it has a plus two fix, so,

Bee/Polaris: oh, thank goodness. Okay!

Avery/GM: so intel… whatever your intelligence is, and then fix.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: 13.

Bee/Polaris: 12.

Zach/Zahn: God damn.

Chris/Ollie: Also 13.

Avery/GM: Also 13?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Avery/GM: Holy crap.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I've got a lot of… a lot of fix.

Avery/GM: Okay. Y'all turned a two day job into a one day job.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go!

Zach/Zahn: into a 20 minute job!

Chris/Ollie: Just get a montage going on.

Avery/GM: Yeah, I mean, Zan was quick, but unintentionally thorough when he cut this wire.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, I remember being intentionally thorough actually.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah fair enough. So it's just a, it just takes a little while, you know, takes like a standard, you know, 10 hours to get everything fixed up the way it was and then of course, since the gravity was turned off as well, like some things had like floated and then when the gravity comes back on it kind of, Comes back down and like makes a mess. So there's also just like a mess to clean up, you know, things like that. While these repairs are going on, Marty, you said something about trying to fix Polaris.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I got tea and crumpets.

Avery/GM: You come into the cockpit as Zahn and Ollie are probably heading out into the Casio to start repairs.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I make a little goodie bag for Zahn. I'm like, take it with you.

Zach/Zahn: He, uh, does like the, the cheers, like with what, what you give him, like the takes it, lifts it up and then also nods down like, thanks… Straight out straight outta the Gatsby meme.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Marty, you come into the cockpit with the tea and the, and the goodies, and Polaris is just. Sitting there stoically.

Bee/Polaris: he has his knees up on the chair, like his feet up on the chair.

Jenine/Marty: I do that like fun thing where like you have your arm like fully extended, like ready to tap on someone's shoulder cause you don't wanna scare them, but you don't wanna get hit. You know, you do like the full, like extend kind of like, or like when you are like trying to shoo a bug away, that's kind of what's happening. But not shooing, but like trying to get attention but knows like, this is like a… okay.

Bee/Polaris: she's not touching him?

Jenine/Marty: Well, she's trying to like, but like putting body away, so like just arm, you know what I mean?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think once Marty touches him, he like, flinches like he's going to do something, but knowing that he's only surrounded by his friends, he's not gonna like, actually do a harm. but, uh, he, he will turn on the sound. He'll, he'll turn up the volume on his environment now

 Jenine/Marty: I brought snacks.

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up on Visor.

Jenine/Marty: How are you doing?

Bee/Polaris: Double thumbs up on visor, and then a loading screen, and then like a th like a sideways thumb.

Jenine/Marty: I brought some sweets and snacks. Do you wanna hug? Do you wanna talk about it? We don't have to talk about it if you don't wanna talk about it. Do you wanna hug? Do you want me to just like sit here and like not say anything and just like hand you snacks as you're doing whatever you're doing? How may I assist?

Bee/Polaris: You've given him too many options to, to respond to. He's now like scrolling through his emojis to figure out. He'll, just like, you'll just see like the, the blinking line indicating that someone's about to type and then you, you just see on his visor. It says, I'm good…

Jenine/Marty: Why do I feel like you're lying to me?

Bee/Polaris: on snacks… I'm good on snacks.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. My brain almost said insight check, and I'm like, that's wrong.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Roll an insight check. I'll roll. Deception.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: A connect is that

Avery/GM: Zone of truth?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: So I guess that would actually be a connect roll if you wanted to.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah, sure.

Bee/Polaris: To, for what?

Avery/GM: To discern kind of…

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris didn't lie. Like when you asked if he was okay, He did the thumbs up at first and then did like, the side was like

Jenine/Marty: Uhhuh,

Bee/Polaris: kind of

Jenine/Marty: Uhhuh. Uhhuh, okay. Cool, cool, cool. So you're good. You have snacks. Do you want me to just, do you want me left alone? Do you wanna talk about what's. What's going through your head there? Do you need help deciphering things? You were a little quiet during our little conversation earlier, so just wanted to check in.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will type on his advisor. Let me catch up with transcripts to see what you guys said.

Jenine/Marty: Sorry, tr transcript. We wait, so you weren't listening?

Bee/Polaris: No.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris catch himself on what everyone said and then he'll, he'll actually take off his helmet and say, is Rho still in the ship?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Should we move her to the Med Bay?

Jenine/Marty: Well, I don't know if, if they're done fixing things yet, right?

Zach/Zahn: As you say that, you hear the (makes power up noise with his mouth)

Avery/GM: the Apple startup sequence? Yeah, Brrrr.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just blinks.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Maybe now we can, we can move her.

Bee/Polaris: He'll just nod and put his helmet back on and then go to help move Rho.

Jenine/Marty: Before she just like puts up a cookie.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just like stops and looks at the cookie and then just like gently puts his hand on the cookie and lowers the cookie.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Bee/Polaris: no, no cookie time. He's not in mood for cookie

Jenine/Marty: valid. She just follows behind with like a plate of goodies and like two thermos of tea.

Bee/Polaris: Aw. Polaris will pick up a Rho and help move her to the Med Bay.

Avery/GM: Sure. That's not a problem. Polaris is a big strong lad.

Bee/Polaris: He, yeah, he is. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: He's only not charismatic or wise.

Avery/GM: Excellent. So yeah, you're in the Med Bay with Rho. Rho, by the way, when you moved Rho, they, she did not stir at all, like

Zach/Zahn: full comatose.

Avery/GM: No reaction. Yeah. Marty, do you, do you hook row up to some of the more advanced machines here?

Jenine/Marty: Yes, I do.

Avery/GM: Cool. Yeah, so yeah, you start hooking. Hooking her up. The, the heart rate monitor is a little more advanced here and actually gives you more detailed information about like blood pressure, things like that. You do notice that on the Brain Wave reader, the only waves that are reading are delta waves, which are the lowest brainwaves ever recorded for humans. So…

Bee/Polaris: oh, she's actually in a coma.

Avery/GM: Actually in a coma. Yeah. Which may be a pr which may or may not be more of a protective measure that…

Chris/Ollie: No, that's actually, that's great for us.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Because there's no reason for her not to just rage again when she wakes up.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. Cool, cool, cool question. Is there a way for me to just like also get like a, this feels like a highly advanced area. Is there like a nice little like pager-esque kind of a thing that I can have that's like connected to her, like heart rate thing and like brainwave thing so I know what's happening at like all times when I'm not in the room with her.

Avery/GM: Oh, definitely. Yeah. There's

Jenine/Marty: Sick!

Avery/GM: Yeah, there's definitely probably some sort of like, yeah, little mobile monitor that you could clip onto your belt or something.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool.

Avery/GM: Have you taken Hermes out of The Minos and, and are you gonna put it in or no?

Chris/Ollie: No. Uh, I want to scrub the ship just to be sure. I, I don't think there's a problem, but, uh, Ollie wouldn't, wouldn't allow it until he had, you know, installed the latest version of Norton Antivirus.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: and ran a scan, a deep sweep.

Bee/Polaris: you're gonna have to create

Chris/Ollie: in safe mode.

you're gonna have to create a, a fake version of that, cuz we can't say

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Horton.

Zach/Zahn: Horton.

Chris/Ollie: Horton antivirus.

Zach/Zahn: Horton antivirus.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. There you go.

Chris/Ollie: But if power's on, then Ollie will probably sim simultaneously doing that with his drone because it was set up and ready to…

Avery/GM: okay. Yeah. So you're gonna, you're gonna run the, the drone and, and see if you can find…

Chris/Ollie: make, yeah. Make sure the ship is safe for AIs.

Avery/GM: Yeah, go ahead and roll a wait… Does your drone have stats?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, well I'm controlling it directly.

Avery/GM: Oh, so it have your stats. Okay, then

Chris/Ollie: yeah.

Avery/GM: Roll a, uh, an intelligence program check.

Chris/Ollie: It's a 16

Bee/Polaris: Jesus

Avery/GM: Holy. God. Yeah. No. You find no trace of The Iaso program. It ran… With such a good roll, I will say that you realize that the Iaso program, once it is in a system, it runs and then destroys itself.

Chris/Ollie: Wonderful. and I'll let the crew know

Zach/Zahn: that Hermes is safe.

Chris/Ollie: Good news. The Cassiopeia is now deemed safe for all AI inhabitants.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I'm gonna go get Hermes to put 'em in the Hermes.

Zach/Zahn: You get a, you get a thumbs up in the group chat from Zahn.

Avery/GM: Polaris. You come down to the engine room with Herman's AI Crystal, and you don't immediately see a place to put it.

Bee/Polaris: Oh,  Polaris is just gonna hand it to Zahn because he was gonna go put on some band-aids because he is still very hurt. Yeah. So Polaris is gonna go, he's gonna Hand Zahn Hermes and then go un cuz like he got stabbed with his own laser blade. So there's probably like a hole in him. It's like a cauterized hole that's just in him So he's gonna go do something about that.

Zach/Zahn: as you're handing her to me, I look down and I see the hole. I'm like, you should probably get that looked at buddy.

Bee/Polaris: He types on his visor: That's the plan. And then he, he goes and does that.

Zach/Zahn: You get a thumbs up from Zahn as he goes to plug hers into the, uh, into the Cassiopeia, now known as the Hermes.

Avery/GM: Sure. You don't immediately see a location for Hermes.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, you know what, Navi probably wasn't a chaos emerald, huh?

Avery/GM: Mm

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Bee/Polaris: Navi was just a, you just put a flash drive, you just slap 'em in there.

Jenine/Marty: Can we not put Hermes on a flash drive and just go boop?

Zach/Zahn: No, Two different galaxies of technology, man.

Bee/Polaris: Can we tape Hermes to a flash drive and plug in the flash drive?

Jenine/Marty: and go boop?

Chris/Ollie: Well, we, we pretty much. Have that, like we have the flash drive that's in Polaris's helmet.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Well, yeah, that's like that…

Chris/Ollie: We can pretty much, yeah. Do the same thing with the ship, so, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Well, Polaris doesn't know that he's, he's gonna go put something, he's gonna stuff some gauze in his burn hole.

Zach/Zahn: We can hypothetically put Hermes in one of the Ollie backup bots and then just have the bot plug into the Cassiopeia.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, No. We have the bot physically sit in the chair and pilot the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Now, out of curiosity,

Chris/Ollie: he also controls the ship remotely.

Bee/Polaris: Now, out of curiosity, do we want Hermes to have a body?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. There's a recipe for trouble.

Zach/Zahn: He has an entire, he has a body. It's an entire war ship.

Bee/Polaris: Yes, I know, but I mean, do we want him to have legs that he can use to leave?

Chris/Ollie: Because. If, yeah, if he's got arms and legs, he can equip whatever weapons he wants.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Hermes can learn how to strangle is my thing. Like you, we don't want him to learn how to strangle.

Chris/Ollie: Hermes is like I've discovered, I like it when I see the light leave their eyes.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh… Oh my gosh.

Bee/Polaris: I find it fascinating when the light slowly leaves their eyes.

Zach/Zahn: Why are we turning Hermes into Sociopath?

Jenine/Marty: Why not?

Bee/Polaris: I mean, that is the, like the trend that we have observed. So he's like in the baby stages.

Chris/Ollie: So back to trying to install this core, Ollie will hold his hand out to Zahn and say, if I may?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Here, and he hands over the Hermes.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will run a scan of the, uh, blueprints of the Cassiopeia.

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm.

Chris/Ollie: And see where, if any, this thing could plug into.

Avery/GM: So go ahead and roll intelligence program. I guess it's kind of a moot point, but you never know.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. That is 13.

Avery/GM: So you, you succeed. What you find is that, So you don't find exactly like plugin chaos emerald here, but you do find that a lot of the equipment in the research area is very similar to the stuff in Alioth’s Lab that was able to connect you with Hermes and with this AI… with this AI that you know now came from a different galaxy. So there is definitely a way. Using some of this tech here that you could fashion an apparatus to hold Hermes and connect it to this ship. It'll just take some time.

Chris/Ollie: Well determining that. Ollie will just mention to Zan as he makes his way over to the work bench. It seems the work is never done and he, he starts getting to work on that.

Avery/GM: Okay, sure. Uh, that'll probably take you the rest of the day. The current day.

Chris/Ollie: Got it.

Avery/GM: What's everyone else doing?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, uh, Polaris goes and he was gonna go put a Band Aid on, but he goes and gets the salmon.

Zach/Zahn: Aw

Chris/Ollie: Oh yes. Oh, and also, yeah, you don't have to help me Zahn. That's just what Ollie is doing. You can…

Bee/Polaris: oh, Polaris's son is probably helping you.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Son Bot is definitely helping. Um, yeah. Sun Boy. This little diminutive little, you know, 12 inch tall…

Bee/Polaris: His name… Yeah. His name is Deif!

Avery/GM: That's right, Dief!

Bee/Polaris: Spelled like Lief, but with a D.

Zach/Zahn: Dief!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Uh, like, uh, and, and for, uh, for reference, just like Ollie is totally aware and cognizant that he is a never sleeping, never resting, never eating, you know, machine. So if you wanna say like, yeah, Ollie, you do all the work, he's, he's like, yeah, sure.

Zach/Zahn: But Zahn likes to doing the work.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Zahn, yeah. Zahn only does the work

Chris/Ollie: That’s right, he is a workaholic

Avery/GM: Polaris, I will say that. You would've passed through this workshop area and the salmon was sitting on that table right there. So you easily grab it and take it with you.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I get the salmon.

Avery/GM: back to the Med Bay.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is going to set about doing some mods, I guess.

Avery/GM: Okay, let me check. So you, you all already repaired all the holes that were in the ship, right?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Spent a couple days doing that.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's right. Yeah, yeah, that's right. Okay.  Yeah, it was a couple days. Okay, cool. You wanna make more mods?

Zach/Zahn: Of course I do.

Avery/GM: Killin’ me Zach. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: I have a list for my armor that I…

Bee/Polaris: mods, mods, mods.

Zach/Zahn: Basically the things I have on my to-do list are upgrade my vacit to 50% duration operation. I have the translator torque that I bought, I want to add it to my helmet. And then I wanted to add bubble seals to everyone's armor or clothing or whatever and then boosting weapon damage output is basically adding a plus two damage to everyone's guns.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I just realized that I don't think we ever fixed Polaris's ship.

Avery/GM: No, you haven't fixed Polaris's, uh, ship after, um, the race.

Zach/Zahn: I said I wanted to do it and add the regenerative armor to it, and you were like: no!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris doesn't want things added to it. He just wants it to not have holes in it.

Avery/GM: It's more like dents and scratches and cracks. It's not full on penetration.

Chris/Ollie: Well it was like a one hp.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah, it was, wasn't it?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. It was…

Avery/GM: Yeah. Never mind.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, it was fucked up.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah, never mind and you did use your, and you used your wing to

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Baseball bat a uh,

Bee/Polaris: the guy

Avery/GM: A little tiny pod.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God.

Avery/GM: So Zahn, if you're gonna do mods, I would like you to roll just 2d6 straight up.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, what?

Avery/GM: Just 2d6.

Zach/Zahn: six total on the dice.

Avery/GM: Okay. You are able to get two of those mods done, so pick the two. I will say you won't… if you pick weapon output, you will not get to everyone's weapons, I don't think.

Zach/Zahn: No, I didn't think so. So I would like to upgrade my Vac suit to additional 50% duration, just in case that becomes important at some point.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: And then I would like to spend the rest of my time adding bubble seals to everyone's clothing, if that's acceptable.

Avery/GM: We'll, okay. We'll say that you do start, like you, you grab some of the armor from like this armory here and you do start like tinkering with it and like putting bubble seals on it for emergencies and stuff.

Zach/Zahn: And I make sure that Marty has a vax or has a bubble seal.

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: Because I don't think Marty has any armor whatsoever.

Jenine/Marty: What's arm? What's armor?

Bee/Polaris: Defenses?

Jenine/Marty: Defenses. Ha ha.

Bee/Polaris: Marty's defenses are hugs and healing.

Jenine/Marty: Uwu… uwu please, no!

Bee/Polaris: wait. Did that work at one point?

Avery/GM: I mean, not really, but I mean that's how y'all got out of pirate fighting.

Bee/Polaris: True.

Chris/Ollie: Not only got got out of it, we made some homies.

Zach/Zahn: Oh hey, we do need to give them a call!

Avery/GM: I was just gonna see, um, what else Marty was doing and then Polaris, if you were doing anything else besides healing up. And then we're gonna do a bit of a time skip.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Gotcha. Yeah, Polaris was just gonna put a bandaid on and then put the salmon in next to Roe.

Avery/GM: Aw.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Marty's just gonna continue reading through this document. And just like see if there's any like, errors in the theory and writing them down if seen, probably just good notes…

Avery/GM: Sure

Jenine/Marty: That’s what she is doing.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that makes sense.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. Go ahead and roll. A intelligence-heal or an intelligence-know?

Jenine/Marty: Oh, it's fine. 10.

Avery/GM: 10.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: You realize that the brainwave pa or the psychic pattern that Oswald drew is reversed.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh.

Avery/GM: It should have. It should have been the other way.

Bee/Polaris: What an idiot.

Avery/GM: And you re… but you do realize that reversing, that actually does eliminate the 30% chance of causing complete mental failure because one of the side effects listed was basically the helper could become catatonic.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, that little piece of shit.

Bee/Polaris: I don't think he was trying to kill you.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah

Avery/GM: Probably not intentional. Probably more incompetence.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. You should send back his notes.

Jenine/Marty: She's still gonna say it. She's

Chris/Ollie: That’s pretty susy.

Avery/GM: Oh, totally.

Jenine/Marty: She's still gonna say little piece of shit. Doesn't know shit.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, no. Yeah. Just send it back to him like as if it was the basic, like are you really trying to kill me with this stupid shit?

Jenine/Marty: No, she’s…

Bee/Polaris: I was gonna say like draw over it

Jenine/Marty: in a red pen.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, exactly. Like a teacher correcting an essay.

Jenine/Marty: That's what she's doing.

Chris/Ollie: Yes. Perfect.

Bee/Polaris: Great notes, smiley face. However, I found one inconsistency

Avery/GM: to be fair, and I don't know if Marty intended this, I did act accidentally establish that Marty was top of her class, so…

Bee/Polaris: this guy's just real smug and probably rich.

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: yeah, yeah. Someone got out of like actually doing stuff in the field and was like put in a lab, so…

Bee/Polaris: got 'em.

Chris/Ollie: Oh no, this is great…. Because let's pull up with Rho, fix him in front or fix her in front of this guy and then give him his his graded test paper and be like: dumbass.

Bee/Polaris: Literally just go, just go to his place to use his lab and that is it. Don't even ask for his help, just get papers for the Republic saying like, yes, you have authorization to use this lab. Fix her in front of him and then dip.

Jenine/Marty: We should, that's what we should do. We should ask him for like, If we can use that lab space.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no, don't even ask him. The Republic, or at least Machamp has an IOU for us.

Jenine/Marty: No, ask MaChamp. We should ask MaChamp if we can use that space.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I mean, you can send MaChamp an email.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah and MaChamp will requisition the lab, and then we'll just walk in as the boss's boss and be like, Hey, nice to see ya.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Oswald like outside, like who I, I reserved this laptop who took it out from under me, and then you just walk in. Oh, hey Oswald, Long time no see!

Jenine/Marty: What's up loser?

Bee/Polaris: You do like the L on your forehead.

Jenine/Marty: No, she has class. She would never, she'd be thinking it!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris would do the L. Polaris would do the L.

Jenine/Marty: Cool.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. She would just be transmitting the image of it to his brain.

Avery/GM: So what does Marty end up wanting to do after finding this error?

Jenine/Marty: She starts doing the corrections and then like with like a red, like. She does like the fun, like opens like, like good notes equivalent on, on her tablet and starts writing like big red circles. And like anytime she sees like a mistype or like grammar issues, she also is like fixing it and is about to send it and then stops and then she like starts writing an email to um, uh, a general MaChamp. Um, doesn't send it yet, but like, has that like ready to show everybody and be like, this is, this is what we can do.

Avery/GM: So Marty, you're, you're contemplating sending that to MaChamp. Will time skip to the next morning? Everyone's kind of sitting around the table eating breakfast or in Ollie's case, contemplating putting more food into its…

Chris/Ollie: Oh, no, to make it clear, it, it's not like I'm eating every meal, just the stuff that Bruce gives me.

Avery/GM: Oh gotcha. Ok.

Bee/Polaris: Aw. Aw, that's cute. So you just sit down with a plate of food in front of you and just never eat it?

Chris/Ollie: Well, I don't know. For, for the normal, uh, like when, when Bruce is here and he makes his special dishes, gives him out, you just see him like putting it piece by piece as if he's eating into his chest cavity.

Jenine/Marty: So we've seen seen him do this?

Avery/GM: Yeah. But he usually doesn't bother to show up for normal meals.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: Okay. So the four squishies are, or three squishies are sitting around the breakfast table.

Chris/Ollie: Are we on the Wait, we're in the Cassiopeia now?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: This has gotta be a. Actually, no, it's not. Probably not that big. Cuz it's all automated, huh? Yeah

Avery/GM: but there were, there were two tables cuz there were supposed to be a lot more crew.

Bee/Polaris: Oh. Are the body still down there?

Zach/Zahn: No, we… we ejected them all.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. We gave them the burial at burial at space.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: Did we do?

Bee/Polaris: No we didn't.

Zach/Zahn: We did.

Jenine/Marty: Wait, I thought we did.

Avery/GM: No, you were supposed,

Zach/Zahn: we did.

Jenine/Marty: No I thought we did. No, that was our During our time skip.

Avery/GM: Oh was it?

Bee/Polaris: I thought we were, wasn't talking about it, but we never did cuz we were gonna like launch 'em into the sun or something.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, we did do that.

Bee/Polaris: Did we? Okay.

Zach/Zahn: I am 87% positive.

Bee/Polaris: I'm just gonna believe you

Avery/GM: If not we…

Chris/Ollie: Because wait, we haven’t moved the Cassiopeia at all… oh no Yeah, we have

Bee/Polaris: Yeah we have

Chris/Ollie: moved it all the way here, so we definitely, yeah, we stopped off and

Avery/GM: if, if not, we will retcon and say, yes, you have taken care of the, the bodies.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I was just gonna go ahead and trust what you guys say cuz my memory is trash

Avery/GM: anyway, so you're all kind of sitting around having a breakfast. To start off your day. Go ahead.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn't wanna be rude, but he's al he doesn't really want to eat. He's eating like his bars while he's trying to finish reading the document.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah, about, about your,

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Avery/GM: Your origins.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is doing something very similar… he's eating whatever food is provided, but he's got like a, he's has his left arm like resting on the table while eating. So he is like hunched forward over the table, very unprofessional. but he is got a hologram up of the documents of the, the Cassiopeia about Terra and where its origins are and its mission, and he is just reading that over for like the 30th time now.

Jenine/Marty: Well, well, Marty made breakfast buns like, like, you know how there's like, like the little like

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: yeah. Like red bean buns, but like made it like breakfast and just is like, okay. They're like, yeah, she made that for breakfast for everybody.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Polaris will, Polaris will like, take a few bites of his bar, but like to not be rude, like eat, like a couple bites of the bun too.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn, not to be rude, obviously thanks Marty.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is still zoned out.

Avery/GM: Polaris, you do find notes in the document you're reading that do indicate that they suspect you also came from the Milky Way.

Bee/Polaris: Cool

Avery/GM: and there are a list of, at first, what appeared to be like random numbers, but as you're kind of like waking up, you know, eating breakfast and kind of like your, your brain is finally turning on for the day.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: You do realize that this list of numbers is actually a set of. Different, different sets of coordinates and there's about eight of them.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will like highlight all the coordinates, copy and paste into chat and send it into chat with like no context cuz he just keeps reading after that. But he figures that's important.

Jenine/Marty: Well this is a lovely breakfast. How did everybody sleep?

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. They're both like reading in their helmets.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: No, Zahn is eating. So he’s you know,

Chris/Ollie: oh, okay.

Zach/Zahn: He has his helmet off.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Your, he… your helmet is like half deconstructed and just your mouth is revealing.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my god.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris has his like pulled up so he can eat, but he's still reading. But he did send a message to like the group chat as in for the whole crew. So you guys get the list of coordinates.

Jenine/Marty: These… this is cool you wanna share with everybody at the table. What, what, what the coordinates are?

Bee/Polaris: He just says Milky Way with parenthesis question mark parenthesis.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool, cool, cool. Oh, we also still need to listen to that second message

Zach/Zahn: that we do. Oh,

Chris/Ollie: perfect.

Bee/Polaris: Where's Ollie?

Chris/Ollie: in the workshop.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: You, you do hear Hermes over the loudspeaker. Ollie you have finished connecting hers to this ship.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay. Yeah.

Avery/GM: It is not the prettiest connection ever. It's definitely like there are some wires and some, you know, some connectors in place that like, eh, if you trip 'em just the right way, they might disconnect, but it'll do, and Hermes comes over the loudspeaker in the mess hall and it's just like: I can play that second message if you would like. It is very informative and honestly quite concerning.

Jenine/Marty: Sorry?

Zach/Zahn: you didn't think to mention the concerning part Sooner?

Avery/GM: Oh, it is just concerning to me and my wellbeing.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Jenine/Marty: You're important. We wanna make sure that you're okay as well. If anything concerns you, let us know.

Avery/GM: Very well. I will play it for you. Please do not be alarmed.

(ambience fades out, track “Dark Matter” fades in)

Avery/GM:  (as Bruce) Well, everyone, I hope you enjoy your food. If you'll excuse me, I'll go and start working on the dishes.

Pothos: Yes, yes, fine. Thank you, sir.

Rhea: Pothos, thank you for having me here. As much as the hegemony despises the republic, I must say the luxuries they enjoy are very impressive, and this food spread is better than anything we typically get back on Tartarus. I trust things are going well?

Pothos: Yes, Rhea, quite well. Things are proceeding just as we planned. The Terrans have found several of the wormhole that we built and should start pouring through any day now once we've started the hostilities The Republic and Hegemony will be able to force the remaining independent systems into an alliance, and slowly The Eternal One's plans will come to fruition.

Rhea: Excellent. Once I get back, I'll send out the decoy and deploy the virus. Ithaca sounds like the perfect planet to stage our little play, don't you think?

Pothos: (laughs) Yes, Rhea. I think Ithaca sounds like the perfect place.

Rhea: I trust that we won't have anything to worry about from the Republic's military, will we?

Pothos: No. Military is stretched so thin trying to keep the peace on the core worlds that we won't have the time or resources to assist.

Rhea: What do you know about the Oracles.

Pothos: The Oracles? You mean that urban legend about some invisible agency keeping balance across the galaxy, sworn, noble protectors of order and justice? Come on, Reya. Next, you're gonna tell me that Beff Zejos has returned from his exile and reestablished Jungle. They’re stories. Nothing more. Now let's finish this meal and head down to the vault. I finally found that piece of tech you've been asking for.

Rhea: Oh, the AI hunter? Excellent. Our little Hermes will finally be coming home.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh. Ah, yikes.

Jenine/Marty: Hermes... Hermes…

Avery/GM: I do not wish to return to the Hegemony.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Cool. We don't want you to go back either. Why didn't we get this, this, this recording played. I appreciate you, Hermes. I appreciate you immensely. You're doing great and do two thumbs up, like pointing to whatever camera I could find.

Bee/Polaris: I just realized something that maybe Polaris would realize but wouldn't really vocalize. But question for you, Avery. The custodians don't have AI crystals. Like they're not…

Avery/GM: they do not.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. But they have the ability to transfer AI to have bodies like them.

Avery/GM: They have the ability to transfer their AI units to bodies. Yes.

Bee/Polaris: but we established that they could do that for Ollie, right?

Avery/GM: Uh, yeah. Yeah. Oh yeah. Yes, we did.

Bee/Polaris: So then could. We give Hermes a body and destroy the crystal so that they can't track him.

Avery/GM: That's a good question…

Bee/Polaris: because if we know about this AI hunter, we can just make it so they can't hunt the AI.

Avery/GM: This is true. I will say though, the difference is, Is that, well, currently Ollie has his core cut, but if Ollie destroyed the cut piece of core, Ollie would just have the one core. The problem is, is that Ollie's core is cut currently and you don't know where the second piece is

Chris/Ollie: No, it, it's in the dog

Avery/GM: or I meant, I meant Hermes.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Avery/GM: Hermes’ core is cut and you don't know where the second piece is.

Bee/Polaris: So we would have to destroy the smaller piece

Chris/Ollie: Find and destroy the other piece.

Bee/Polaris: so we have to cross a AI hunt Hermes. Well, no. Bruce told us the location of where he went.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Right.

Jenine/Marty: But they have, they're… no wait.

Avery/GM: So that recording was take took place on Calydon, which is the financial capital of the Republic. It is not where Hermes' second piece is.

Bee/Polaris: That is true, but we know the names of the people that were talking and they said that they were gonna, they were going to take 'em. They were gonna take 'em to the lab.

Avery/GM: what was the other person's name? I only got Rhea.

Bee/Polaris: Pat… Pathos?

Avery/GM: Pothos. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Do would, would we be able to do a quick like space, Google on incognito mode on these, these two

Avery/GM: You can definitely try and search for anything about these individuals.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: You might wanna use a VPN.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I would like to do that on incognito mode with a VPN.

Avery/GM: Sure. Roll intelligence-know check.

Jenine/Marty: Beautiful.

Bee/Polaris: Did Bruce mention what day or like what time he did this so that we know how much time we have before this AI hunter comes after

Avery/GM: It was not recorded in the message. You could ask Hermes and he might know when it was transmitted.

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha.

Jenine/Marty: That, that, that's a four.

Avery/GM: You find nothing on Rhea at all. This person, there is no record of that name anywhere searchable that you can find. On Pothos, The only thing you know is that that person is the Minister of Finance for the Republic. The third most powerful person in the Republic basically. Handles all the money and basically, yeah, essentially pathos is like the Fed.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Avery/GM: the fed chair.

Jenine/Marty: Love that.

Bee/Polaris: Dang. We're gonna have to, we're gonna have to pull a national treasure, huh?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: I mean, we're talking economic and psychological warfare. It's, it's all coming together.

Bee/Polaris: Also, what was the name of the planet that Rho said Got, uh, bodied by Alioth.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that one was…

Avery/GM: Adis

Bee/Polaris: Okay

Avery/GM: A. D. I. S.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, so it wasn't Ithaca. Was Ithaca the name of the planet?

Jenine/Marty: Ithaca is what they wanted to take.

Avery/GM: Ithaca's the name of the planet that is about to be targeted by something

Bee/Polaris: Yes. Okay. They do have a bunch of wormhole. I have to wonder if the coordinates that we have are wormhole coordinates. The ones that Polaris sent in chat

Chris/Ollie: Must be, I'm guessing this is all live streamed.

Bee/Polaris: What is?

Chris/Ollie: the conversation and the… or yeah, the conversation tape.

Avery/GM: Yeah, the, the transmission would've been played for you as well, Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Wait, wait. Were the coordinates in the audio transmission?

Bee/Polaris: No. Polaris sent the coordinates in the group chat in like the group text chat, so everyone's communicators have it.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay. There we go.

Avery/GM: The coordinates are from, Uh, Polaris's documents that that Alioth had.

Bee/Polaris: As far as you guys know, Polaris just pulled these coordinates out of his ass. Like he didn't give any context or anything. He just sent coordinates to you guys and said that they were from the Milky Way Question mark.

Zach/Zahn: Nice.

Chris/Ollie: Well, since Ollie use. Free at the moment. He, he's gonna head over to the, uh, navigation computer and plug in all the coordinates and just send 'em as way points for possible exploration so we know where they are.

Avery/GM: Sure. You notice that four of the way points are in your galaxy, but you plug in four others. And they don't match up to any known coordinates in your galaxy. The only thing that makes sense is that they match up to coordinates that are approximately 75,000 light years away from your current galaxy.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, he, he's gonna screenshot that little bit of info and post it in the group chat with the thinking emoji and be like, worm holes.

Bee/Polaris: Worms. Question mark. The worm emoji. The worm emoji. The thinking emoji.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that exactly. He's gonna pipe over comms and, and ask, shall we set a course?

Zach/Zahn: Negative. We need to get Rho operational.

Avery/GM: Yeah, just send a, send a comatose psionic through a wormhole with no context.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we could just go to the entrance and see if it's actually a wormhole, even though they did say on the recording that they have several wormholes. Wait, is one of the, is one of the coordinates near where, um, the custodians parked?

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Like where, where's the nearest ones?

Avery/GM: Yes. The nearest one is about two days travel from your current location.

Bee/Polaris: That's where Rho came from.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Bee/Polaris: So we have Rho’s home worm… Wormhole… Home… Home Hole home… worm… Please edit that out. No, I'm kidding.

Zach/Zahn: Phrasing!

(Ambience fades out, Outro music plays, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond The Furthest Stars is a 1up podcast network production. Intro and outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from Creative Commons. The tracks used today were Star Freighter and Dark Matter.

Avery/GM: This year our show was honored as a selectee for the Rainbow Roll Fest. A three day festival during Pride Month to celebrate the LGBTQIA+ lead actual play podcasts and streams. Be sure to check out this entire Rainbow Roll Fest June 23rd through 26th at twitch.tv/rainbow Roll Fest.

Avery/GM: We'll be back on July 1st with our next episode. See you out there Beyond the Furthest Stars!

Episode 23 - Who Brought the Mood Down?

Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 23 of Beyond the Furthest Stars

(Intro music plays, fades out, Ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Where we left off, Alioth basically tried to sleep gas Polaris. Rho figured out that Alioth is one of the, the three rogue AI that her shipmates wanted her to find or wanted, wanted to find, I should say and she went all teleport over there and start trying to tear stuff up. Marty tried to do the helpful thing and calm her down, didn't work. Marty got blasted mentally and it caused a fight. Rho lost consciousness and Alioth is ready to just say, let's take care of this problem once and for all.

Bee/Polaris: Did the sleep, gas not get her?

Avery/GM: The sleep gas has dissipated.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Cool, cool, cool. Sweet.

Avery/GM: Like as soon as the fighting started all off kind of started like venting it cuz it's like, oh, this is a different situation.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: So it is floating harmlessly out in space. Oh, and Zahn is racing to the teleport pad on the Cassiopeia

Zach/Zahn: after having deactivated it.

Avery/GM: Yes, exactly.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Avery/GM: So, yeah. Uh, Alioth is kind of just looking at everyone and it's pistol is raised at… at Rho.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris would like to use his laser blade to cut the barrel of the pistol off.

Avery/GM: Let's see. That's a good, that's, that's a good move. Dexterity stab. I think that's what that would be.

Bee/Polaris: I'm real good at stab. Holy shit. I rolled a 10. Okay. What is my stab actually?

Jenine/Marty: Yes. Go.

Bee/Polaris: It's dexterity, stab. Okay. So 12.

Avery/GM: Holy crap. That's the most beautiful stab I've ever seen.

Bee/Polaris: I'm so good at it.

Chris/Ollie: It's like you don't even cut it in half. You just stab the gun, put a hole in it.

Bee/Polaris: Can I actually use, can I actually use my armsman focus to throw the laser blade at the gun and pick it to the wall? It would require the same thing.

Avery/GM: Uh, I mean, sure. Yeah. We can make it Cool. Let's make it cool. Okay. What, describe what this looks like!

Bee/Polaris: Okay, so after allot says that Polaris, Polaris presses the button to shorten the laser blade to a knife and throws it and pins the pistol against a wall and then I guess because it's a laser blade, it melts off the laser blade and drops to the floor, then with like a, a new cut out of it.

Avery/GM: And now there is a hole in the wall of the ship

Zach/Zahn: and then slowly…

Chris/Ollie: and we are explosively decompressed.

Bee/Polaris: It's not the outside wall of the ship.

Avery/GM: No, no, no. It's not, it's not, it's not long enough to penetrate the… the hull, but there is now a hole in Alioth’s lab. And it and, and Alioth is now annoyed.

Bee/Polaris: Well, Alioth can stay annoyed

Avery/GM: Alioth looks at its empty hand, Looks at you Polaris and is just like, that was completely unnecessary. I was just going to end this problem.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris. There's an angry face on Polaris's visor.

Avery/GM: Oh, I see you are still angry. Shall I reinitiate the nerve gas?

Bee/Polaris: What the Polaris just like the angry face gets. Okay, so you know how like, uh, the, how people do like the less than sign or the greater than sign or whatever to do the angry face, he adds another one to be extra mad and also points to his helmet, which was the reason it didn't work the last time.

Avery/GM: Alioth is just like, Oh yes, the helmet filtration. I will need to figure out how to bypass that next time.

Bee/Polaris: What the fuck?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Note to self: bypass Polaris's helmet.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris takes out his notepad and writes, get helmet underneath. Helmet.

Chris/Ollie: Get double helmet.

Avery/GM: Alioth is just like Polaris. What would you have me do?

Bee/Polaris: Rho stays alive. We're getting her back home.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie, we will chime in with that. Like holding her defensively, hugging him to her like we have grown very fond of this one and would not wish to see her harmed.

Bee/Polaris: Agreed. I gave her a salmon.

Zach/Zahn: That's right.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. What happened to the salmon when Rho went berserk?

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God. What happened to the salmon?

Avery/GM: The salmon's back on the Cassiopeia.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet. Okay. Sick.

Avery/GM: Polaris, You get a message on your helmet from. Someone Oh, named Son Bot. And it's a little, it's a little emoji of a taser and then a picture of Alioth with a question mark.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris just sends, no, not yet.

Chris/Ollie: Not yet.

Bee/Polaris: He like pats his bag reassuringly.

Avery/GM: Oh no, it's evolving.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris kind of turns to Ollie and says we're going to the Cassiopeia.

Chris/Ollie: you mean like we're taking Rho there right now?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we're, yes. We're Skedaddling.

Chris/Ollie: absolutely.

Zach/Zahn: so you see: dot dot dot. Cassiopeia is deactivated. Hermes is on his way to the hangar.

Bee/Polaris: Colon back slash face just like a slanted mouth.

Chris/Ollie: That is truly unfortunate.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will put in chat so that the custodians can't see. Probably best to stay on the Cassiopeia til we sort this out because they control this whole ship remotely.

Jenine/Marty: We all see that.

Bee/Polaris: Jenine, you have, you have a watch, right?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So that you see it. Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Sick.

Avery/GM: Oh, and in fact, Marty, your watch is like blowing up with messages. Not just from this chat, but from other chats as well.

Jenine/Marty: Other chats!?

Bee/Polaris: Other chats?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: You have secret chats?

Jenine/Marty: I have other chats?

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh.

Avery/GM: Just one. Well, okay, one other chat.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: But it's popping off

Avery/GM: a chat you've been expecting.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, okay

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. From the, the pompous dude.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Well, Marty's not looking at any of that. She's in the corner right now. Kind of just doing a med pack real quick.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Probably for the best.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You have like a nosebleed, right?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's right. Marty got the brain punch.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: yeah, go ahead and roll. Um, intelligence Heal, if you'd like to heal up and Polaris, go ahead and roll your D6 for healing as well.

Bee/Polaris: Yay. No!

Avery/GM: as things have kinda… what'd you roll?

Bee/Polaris: One!

Avery/GM: Oh, no!

Bee/Polaris: indeed.

Jenine/Marty: That's pretty.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris isn't used to this pain. This is, this is a new type of pain. This is a different pain. This pain hits different.

Jenine/Marty: I rolled a 12.

Avery/GM: You rolled a 12. Dang.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, cuz I can, I do heel three, I do, I roll 3D six, drop the lowest and I rolled a six, a five and a four. So I dropped the four and then I got a plus one in intelligence.

Avery/GM: Uh, you're using the med kit, you rolled a 12. You know, it doesn't really specify how much, like healing points. Well wait, how much, so how much does your Biopsionic heal skill do?

Jenine/Marty: So I currently, because I'm at level two, I get 2D6 plus two hit points for healing.

Avery/GM: Okay. Then that's what we'll consider. So, uh, you rolled a 12, so you get 14 hit points back.

Jenine/Marty: Oh wonderful, we’re back at double digits.

Avery/GM: Cool, cool.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, and that, that'll, that's one of the continue to heal over time ones. So you're gonna be like A-Ok If we have to fight this, uh, this robot trio again, right?

Bee/Polaris: I mean singular robot cause I don't think Merak or Bear did anything.

Avery/GM: No Bear, like has a weapon kind of like in his hands but isn't pointing it anywhere. And it's just kind of like, uh, what, what do we do? And it's kind of looking for, for direction from, from Merak and uh, Merak just uh, kind of chimes in and is just like, Alioth, I think, I think it would be best to give Polaris some space right now. Everyone is, has very heightened emotions and I think it's, well not us, but everyone else does and I think it might be a good idea to let those emotions simmer. Don't you agree? And Merak is kind of. Trying to indicate like with like facial features, like just say yes, like, you know,

Bee/Polaris: like the wide eyes looking at them nodding yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: The mouthing like obviously like yes.

Avery/GM: Alioth is just like, fine. Get out of my lab. I have work to do and a wall to repair.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris walks over, takes his sword out of the wall and Oops! Accidentally drags it down the wall and then walks out of the lab making sure Ollie with Rho gets out of the lab safely.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I'm gonna hurry up very quickly behind you.

Avery/GM: Polaris, you do get a message, a private message from Merak that just says, when you're ready to talk, I'll tell you everything.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will leave it on read.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Bee/Polaris: Visor has a sad face as he's walking with the crew to the dock.

Avery/GM: Sure. Are you all retreating to the hangar Bay then?

Bee/Polaris: yeah. We gotta, we gotta get the fuck up outta here.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Yeah. We at least gotta get Rho outta here.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Out of the three custodians, bear looks the most confused cuz he's just like, what just happened? I thought we were shooting and now we're not shooting.

Chris/Ollie: Finally got to shoot something.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Well I'm sure Alioth will explain.

Avery/GM: Allel will explain. Uh, well you all arrive in the Hangar Bay as Hermes is pulling in. Zahn. Let's find out what you're doing over there.

Bee/Polaris: We did say we're coming to the Cassia.

Avery/GM: You're jet, you're jet packing through the halls.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Again, as you're like walking to the hangar and you're like, yeah, we're going to the Cassiopeia, it's like dot, dot, dot. Cassiopeia Sabotaged. No air, no life support.

Avery/GM: No gravity

Zach/Zahn: No gravity.

Bee/Polaris: angry face emote in chat. onto the Minos onto the ship formally known as the Minos then! Polaris, types, all of that out.

Zach/Zahn: Hence why I sent hers to you for immediate evac. Be there momentarily. Just as I'm getting to the, uh, teleporter and I whip out a, uh, A Cell Battery.

Avery/GM: Okay. Uh, how are you gonna determine where it teleports you to?

Bee/Polaris: You don't coordinates for Hermes.

Zach/Zahn: Well, I happen to be proficient in programming so I can use, uh, ace to power the teleporter and one to power the terminal that tells you where to go, I guess? I don’t know.

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay. So to get the A Cells to work, I'm gonna need a repair check. Intelligence repair twice.

Zach/Zahn: You mean fix?

Avery/GM: Yes. Thank you.

Zach/Zahn: I have a three to that.

Avery/GM: Well, damn.

Chris/Ollie: He is, uh, he's not Bob the builder, but he is Fred the fixer.

Zach/Zahn: 11 for the first roll.

Avery/GM: Okay. The teleportation pad powers on. It's glowing a nice, beautiful blue color.

Zach/Zahn: And 10 for the second one.

Avery/GM: All right. Uh, the terminal turns on and there is a map of the area around the ship. You see something indicating the Ursa major, but now that the ship formally known as the Minos is inside the Ursa major, you do not see it. Register on the… On the map.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, that's fine. If I don't see Hermes on the map, I can assume that he is on the major, which means I'll teleport to the Major.

Bee/Polaris: I was just gonna ask, how do you determine like how deep you teleport into the ship? Because what if you teleport halfway into the ship?

Zach/Zahn: Like into a wall?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: I'm, I'm assuming there's like a, uh, okay. You pick this point and then you zoom in and then you pick a point relative within that area.

Avery/GM: There's definitely some fail safes in there to make sure you don't materialize halfway into a bulkhead.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, hypothetically, I could pull it up just as I see the, the icon that is the ship form known as the Minos pull into the, uh, the Ursa major, which would give me a general idea of where to teleport, I guess. Though hypothetically teleporting onto a moving object would be harder than…

Avery/GM: this is true. I've seen Star Trek.

Zach/Zahn: That was, that was my thought.

Avery/GM: It'll be fine. You'll just, you'll teleport into the spike drive.

Zach/Zahn: Oh God. Zahn becomes the new Zahn literally materializes into the spike drive, transforming into an ai, and then he and Hermes are together in harmony forever on the ship.

Bee/Polaris: That sounds horrible. For Zahn.

Zach/Zahn: For Zahn, yes.

Bee/Polaris: Hermes will just be like, hello Zahn. Hello Zahn, Zahn, We are one.

Chris/Ollie: We can now become more intimate than ever before.

Avery/GM: So what's the plan for teleporting over?

Zach/Zahn: I would like to teleport into the hangar of the major.

Avery/GM: Roll high or low… or call high or low.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, always high.

Avery/GM: that is a 97.

Zach/Zahn: Haha.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Y'all are walking up the ramp when suddenly you hear the sound of like a, a bolt of lightning behind you as you see Zahn Materialize right behind where, where y'all were just at moments ago.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris was like zoning out as we were walking to the docking bay. So when he hears that, he immediately swings his sword in that direction.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn does like the cool entrance. As soon as like the, he materializes the lightning bolt, like flash stops. He like taps the side of his helmet and it deco… and it deconstructs into his suit.

Bee/Polaris: How far away is… is Zahn out of sword distance?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, I mean, the sword is adjustable.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say the sword is like a few inches from his face. Like Zahn, you, you open your eyes and like there is a blade in your face and Polaris is holding it.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris lowers the blade. Once he realizes it's Zahn.

Zach/Zahn: You just get: s’up.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris walks onto the ship.

Chris/Ollie: Currently very much is s’up. This place is not as safe as we once thought it was.

Zach/Zahn: So he, he follows and he is like, is uh, is Rho okay seeing, you know, Ollie kind of picking her up and dragging her slash carrying her?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. We haven't done any diagnostics, so Ollie's gonna be like unknown current priority is attaining party safety.

Zach/Zahn: Good. Uh, good call Buddy gives you…

Avery/GM: as you come on, you see Hermes materialized with a party hat on the hologram and it's like, I heard someone say, party, is it time to dance? And, and then it starts dancing.

Zach/Zahn: Inappropriate timing Hermes

Chris/Ollie: is the, the ship formally known as the Minos, like in the hangar and landed.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Y'all are walking up. Y'all were walking like up… up the landing, the, the loading ramp when, uh, when Zahn appeared.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will make his way to the medical… Wait, we don't actually have a medical bay.

Bee/Polaris: no.

Jenine/Marty: No we don't.

Avery/GM: No.

Chris/Ollie: Oh.

Bee/Polaris: Which is why I was thinking we could go to the Cassia and have that be our air quotes Ursa major for the, for the moment.

Avery/GM: because yeah, y'all, y'all have like basic medical like capabilities like any ship would, but it's basically just in your, in the quarters here. Like

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Avery/GM: there's not a specific Med Bay area, but y'all have plenty of room in this cargo hold. Y'all could remodel.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I mean if the stuff is unpowered on the Cassio, but we could just

Bee/Polaris: fix it,

Chris/Ollie: take a bunch of stuff from

Jenine/Marty: yeah

Chris/Ollie: their, uh, medical Bay and put it on our ship.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we could also just fix the wire.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. What if we just take the little pod that she was in before onto the ship, our ship?

Bee/Polaris: I mean, yeah. But that's gonna take some time.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: That's more of a, a long, a long journey sort of, sort of deal.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: I mean, it did also get partially cut out of the floor, so it's like, it it won't take that one. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Oops.

Jenine/Marty: But once we are safely on the ship, Marty does read whatever the other messages are.

Avery/GM: So Marty, you're gonna pull up the message from Oswald.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. It's not bad. I mean, it's, it's Oswald, so it's not great.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: but, uh, you do receive, you, you see that it's a little Holo-mail from Oswald. and it is a little audio, uh, ho Or not audio hologram recording. Um, do you push play or do you wait until you have more privacy or what?

Jenine/Marty: I'm gonna wait for privacy. So it was him… So they sent it to me, not their, not as, not their assistant.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Oh,interesting, cause they said that it was gonna be from their assistant.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. Yeah, Marty's just gonna be like, sees that it's from, like directly from Oswald Scoffs a little bit and then just like continues to sit in the room and see what's happening before like going off into the corner. We'll check on Rho first. Actually, We'll check on Rho.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.Yeah. While this is going on, Ollie had made his way to the medical Bay or the, the crew quarters.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: And placed Rho down on the bed. And we will look up at Marty and say, unfortunately my expertise is not in this area as a kind of like a leading question.

Jenine/Marty: I got this.

Avery/GM: Sure. Go ahead and roll a wisdom. In, uh, heel to kind of diagnose this.

Jenine/Marty: oh, that was bad. It's okay. It's fine. It's a 10.

Avery/GM: Oh, that's, that's perfectly fine. You realize that like physically, like, so you, you, you take out the, like a bios scanner from one of the med kits and you're kind of scanning her and you realize that physically her body is fine. Like the damage that she took from, like the laser swords have already started to heal completely. No physical injuries are present, but you do notice that her brainwave patterns are not nonexistent, but they are very, like, there's very little activity going on.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. From that, am I able to just like, would I know safely from my knowledge from school what I know safely that I could. Like go, like do tele… telepathy with, with Rho in this instant, or like, I know personally, like I should not go in there myself and like, wait a little longer.

Avery/GM: You know that there have been experiments with people who ha with psionics who have torched and like people trying to telepathically help.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And you know that usually those attempts end in the instability that torching causes spreading to the other individual

Jenine/Marty: sick.

Avery/GM: And so there's, so there's something, there's something missing in that process that people haven't quite figured out yet.

Chris/Ollie: Oh. So the torching side effects are contagious

Avery/GM: to other Psionics

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Who, who mentally try to connect with them? Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. That's spooky.

Bee/Polaris: You need something to ground you kind of like how you do with jumper cables.

Avery/GM: That is actually a very good analogy.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, seriously. I was just thinking about my coworkers and we were talking about like grounding and if you could cook a hot dog by like grounding it with the hot dog, instead of like a piece of metal.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. Cool. Cool, cool. Great. Great, great, great.

Bee/Polaris: That was unintentional. Sweet. So we just gotta find something to ground you.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Okay, cool. we're not gonna do that

Bee/Polaris: would a non-psionic be good?

Avery/GM: If a non-psionic has telepathic powers, um, yeah, totally. Probably fine.

Bee/Polaris: You know what? Yeah, you got me there.

Zach/Zahn: What, what about a, a non-organic?

Bee/Polaris: I was thinking like,

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, a non-organic that could interface with psychic abilities.

Bee/Polaris: Hmmm.

Jenine/Marty: Hmmm.

Avery/GM: I don't know. Yeah, that might be an option.

Jenine/Marty: Ollie you just like watch, like Marty's shoulders just droop a little bit and just goes. Okay. Um, so I'm gonna play a message on here from like, one of my co colleagues. They're not really a friend, he's kind of, okay. Anyways, I'm gonna play a message here. Might be easier to have like a second person to like view it. Um, warning in Advanced Ollie, uh, they're an interesting person, so like, take anything they say with a grain of salt and like anything that's like not. Intellectual properties anyways. And then she just presses the like play on the hologram.

Avery/GM: You hit play and like a little hologram pops up on your watch. It looks very cool and it's Oswald and he's standing there, you know, trying to like look kind of like relaxed and cool, you know, and is just like, greetings Marty. So you've burned your torch a little too brightly, have you? I understand not everyone is as lucky enough to have had the best Psionic trainers in the galaxy hone their skills.

Avery/GM: But I am always happy to help an old friend get a handle on their powers. As you know, there is no cure for torching once it reaches a certain point, but my colleagues and I have been making leaps and bounds in Psionic torching prevention. And as a favor to an old friend, let me send you my most recent breakthrough that we've had in our medical research.

Avery/GM: You'll find everything you need in the attached file. Essentially, you'll need one bio psion to help whomever the torched psion is. Um, and then the hologram like winks at you, and it says, uh, we, we call it mind melding, and you'll need to pattern your sci energies. In a particular pattern as described in the document, once you've done that, simply apply a dose of brainwave to the psionic that's incapacitated or has been torched.

Avery/GM: And it should link the two minds together in a way that doesn't cause the spillover of torching that we typically see in most clinical settings. So hopefully whatever great medical facility you're at has another bio psion on hand to help you. If not, let me know. And the hologram like looks at like a watch on its wrist and it's like I might be able to get out to you in probably about three months, When I get some vacation time, I'm always happy to help an old friend… tootles! and the hologram clicks off Ollie. You just

Jenine/Marty: Ollie, you just see… you've never seen Marty angry or annoyed, but she's so angry and annoyed right now. She looks ready to punch the wall.

Chris/Ollie: Is it just me and Marty in here?

Zach/Zahn: Zahn followed.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, Marty looks pissed. Marty looks ready to punch something. It's fine. This is cool. This is cool. Okay. Anyways, you know what? Okay. And then she just starts reading the document.

Zach/Zahn: wow. What a lard ass.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, he's great.

Avery/GM: And you, and you realize, you realize this document could have been sent without all that fluff. Like,

Zach/Zahn: oh, clearly

Avery/GM: you're perfectly capable of, of understanding this level of research.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And like you, you did not need his mansplain.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: Basically.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And yeah, and, and basically it just, it goes over, there's a bunch of diagrams of like, I guess I should explain the way Psionics work is that, you know, they manipulate the psychic energy around them, right?

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And so, like, it's almost like a, a second sort of sight, like you're able to kind of see that energy around you when you activate your powers. And so these diagrams basically show you, okay, this is how you want to manipulate that energy in this way before you psychically connect with this individual.

Avery/GM: And so there are some diagrams of that. There's a picture of like two people laying, you know, heads touching, you know, but laying flat on their backs. And there's like diagrams of like the energy exchange going back and forth. And then there's like a little patch of like the brainwave medicine. Like on the knocked out person's arm, that kind of thing. It's all, it's all very self-explanatory and very clear.

Jenine/Marty: And it has been done before or it's like, this is all theory?

Avery/GM: This is theory.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: and that's actually the part that Oswald left out, that you see at the end of the document, a warning that says, this research is based on conjecture, mathematics and limited clinical trial. Caution is advised.

Jenine/Marty: So Marty starts typing. Um, thank you for the offer, but I think I'll find someone that is a little bit more qualified to conduct your research then deletes it, and then just goes, thank you. I will let you know if I need any assistance.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Okay. Okay This is, this is cool. This is. We have information on what we can do to help Rho. This is great. What's next on the plan? And then she just starts like, walking out of the room.

Avery/GM: Polaris have you begun piloting the ship out of the Ursa or…?

Bee/Polaris: uh, yeah. I mean, yeah. Ships out of there, so for sure. For sure, for sure.

Avery/GM: Okay. Okay, cool. No one had said anything about that yet, so I just wanted to make sure.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we're just kind of floating outside.

Avery/GM: Cool. Um, there has been no activity or communications from the Ursa since, since you left Alioth’s lab, so

Bee/Polaris: that is cool.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, no news is good news

Bee/Polaris: indeed.

Chris/Ollie: Considering we're sitting right in front of a singularity gun.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris is like, Polaris has the ship like above, like on the opposite side of the Ursa, where the singularity gun is.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, I'm assuming the singularity gun is on a turret of some kind.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but

Avery/GM: it's, it's on a swivel on the bottom, so if you’re on top,

Bee/Polaris: yeah, we’re on the top

Avery/GM: the ship would have to rotate.

Zach/Zahn: Oh Okay

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Yeah. Also

Avery/GM: you’ll see it coming.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, exactly. Also, I'm pretty sure they wouldn't singularity gun the ship while Polaris is on it.

Zach/Zahn: You’re pretty sure. But that doesn't mean you're a hundred percent sure.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, no, I'm a hundred percent sure.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Alioth’s gas was just knockout gas. It wasn't deadly neurotoxin.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, exactly.

Chris/Ollie: Which it totally could have been.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Cool. Okay. So the ship is kind of floating out. Are you going towards the Cassiopeia or just floating there for now?

Bee/Polaris: I mean, Zahn said that he'd incapacitated the Cassiopeia. So Polaris is just waiting for ex… for instruction from someone else. Currently he's just like sitting, uh, in the pilot's chair, like with his knees up on the chair and his head like resting on his knees and just like pressing the buttons to fly the ship.

Avery/GM: Sure. As you're kind of pressing buttons, you do see a outta the corner of your eye, a little flashing icon on the coms station across the cockpit from you.

Bee/Polaris: Cool. Sorry, Polaris isn't, Polaris isn't doing anything cuz he's sad right now. So he's gonna leave them for someone else.

Chris/Ollie: Man, the crew crews all infected with the feels.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Marty comes like slightly storming out and then sees the communication thing and then just goes, okay, clicks the button.

Avery/GM: Okay. And you hear this message.

Caden/Bruce: Hello, it's Bruce from The Blunder again, good news I found out who Lazuli works for. They work for an organization known as the Oracles. The Oracles seem to be an independent league that seeks to keep balance and order within the Republic, Independent Systems and even the hegemony. You may laugh and ask how that's even possible. Well, it seems that the organization

works outside legal structures. Anything outside of legal structures must be up to something. And I thought the same thing, but it appears that the Oracles try to keep the peace and try to avert catastrophes. I completed my first mission for Lazuli. They asked me to infiltrate an executive meeting at Calydon, so I snuck in as a lunch caterer.

Caden/Bruce: No one ever pays attention to the service staff at these types of functions, and I must thank you Polaris for my new chef hat as I don't think I could have done so without it. After food was served, I left the recorder in the room and set it to broadcast to Hermes. You should hopefully have a copy of that recording now as I left the meeting room and hoped that my recorder would remain undiscovered, the first part of the operation had thus far been successful, and Lazuli had asked me to download some files on a project… project Epidrome.

Caden/Bruce: So I snuck into a database room. I thought all database rooms may be like Zahn's workshop, but I was wrong. This one seemed to be clean and organized, a little bit like a kitchen where every appliance was in its designated space. It made it easy. Project Epidrome: It appeared that looking at these files, it looks like someone or something has been funneling credits through Calydon for defense purposes.

Caden/Bruce: Some notes in these files reference a Milky Way and a Terra, which just sounds like a dessert to me anyway. Um, leaving the room was a little bit trickier than entering as there was a commotion going on outside, so I switched from my chef hat into a baseball cap and Uh, grabbed a computer and put on some fake glasses and thought what would Zahn do?

Caden/Bruce: And, um, just said a bunch of tech words until people moved out of the way. Um, you'd be surprised how many people look at you funny when you mentioned quantum cores. Maybe I am actually good at this disguise thing. Oh, and, uh, before I let you go, the luncheon that I served, it was, um, excellent. It was an excellent snack tray of fresh vegetables, followed by handcrafted sandwiches with the freshest bread ham sourced most delicious swine from the Ozyius farms, and of course, real cheese not assembled singles. Served with some fresh water with a generous inclusion of honey cucumber and mint. So, um, I hope you are also keeping well fed and I will report back as soon as I can. Again, it is Bruce.

Bee/Polaris: Bruce.

Jenine/Marty: Bruce.

Bee/Polaris: No, I can't wait for Bruce to come back.

Chris/Ollie: Our boy.

Bee/Polaris: Interesting. After Bruce roasted Zahn a little bit.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Bruce did mention Terra and the Milky Way Galaxy. They were funneling money or…?

Avery/GM: money to, to a project involving those words.

Bee/Polaris: Got it. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, got it.

Avery/GM: And Hermes says, I did receive a second follow up transmission from Bruce as well, if you would like, but we can play that later if… if we need to address whatever is going on in the crew quarters.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, yeah. There's a way to fix Rho.

Zach/Zahn: Nobody's gonna like it though.

Jenine/Marty: We, I mean, okay. There are, there are, there are significantly better people than Oswald to actually do biopsionics so we can find someone else to do it. Um, sorry, I, getting a little bit over myself. It's research that has not been done yet, so there is that risk in a way… Cool. Yeah, that's what's up.

Chris/Ollie: Wait, did you share the entire document with the crew or

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, nd like I try to like sparks note it a little bit for the other half of the room that does not understand the medical mumbo jumbo.

Zach/Zahn: So like all of us?

Avery/GM:

Jenine/Marty: Well, no, Ollie can, Ollie can interpret kind of

Chris/Ollie:Yeah. Yeah. Ollie… Ollie knows the meanings of those words, but he doesn't understand them.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah Polaris…

Avery/GM: the application might be… difficult.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will just Google the words, but he is also fairly intelligent, so

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. But yeah, Marty hands out at the document, does not show the…

Avery/GM: airdrops it to everybody.

Jenine/Marty: does not deal with the video again.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Leaves out all the, the Smarminess

Jenine/Marty: Uhhuh.

Chris/Ollie: So Ollie is going to, uh, come out of the, the crew quarters where he was setting up Rho with, uh, you know, all the medical mumbo jumbo that you need when you're sick.

Avery/GM: Sure. you found like a, a very crude, like heart monitor, um, stashed away from the previous owner stuff like that.

Bee/Polaris: A warm bowl of soup.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. ya know, Ollie's unfamiliar with the concept of Comfort. Comfort. So he's been like piling up a bunch of blankets on her and, and a ton of pillows and be like, I hope this suffices.

Zach/Zahn: I hope this suffices…

Bee/Polaris: Polaris probably has a couple of plushies in there.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, just a pile of plushies too. Oh yes. We absolutely have to get that salmon.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Chris/Ollie: That is the primary objective. Ollie's gonna come out and say while the risks may be great, What exactly are the negatives of leaving her in her current state?

Jenine/Marty: There's a lot…. it's gonna be like a big, like, it affects everybody around. Not only just the being, cause we saw like the first bit of what happens right when we were facing off with her.

Avery/GM: yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Cool.

Avery/GM: Yeah. The sort of uncontrolled, uh, unbridled, uh, power. Yeah. That kind of thing.

Jenine/Marty: So I have a colleague that I don't even, yeah, someone that I went to school with that like specialized in understanding torching and he's in in research. He's not really like working in the field. Cause this is kind of a theory. Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself again. Apologies. But yeah, that's we… he says he is offering his time in like three months, but I don't, I feel like that is a lie coming from them. But you know, whatever. We can maybe find another biopsionic. We can also just find another way,

Zach/Zahn: I mean… What about you, Marty?

Jenine/Marty: I mean, yeah, I could, yeah. Pretty good with, with… with it.

Chris/Ollie: Will that course of action be safe for you?

Jenine/Marty: So yes. In my state currently I'm still healing from when she kind of hurt me a little bit to take a little injury from that so I could do it. I just think. It'd be also nice to have another. We do it in a safer location. Not here maybe. I don't know. I don't know what I'm saying. That's what I'm, you see that she's like nervous

Chris/Ollie: and Ollie will suggest: well, what scientist would not like to personally test his hypothesis? Why don't we make our way to this colleague of yours?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. That, that might be smart… Well…

Avery/GM: show up on his doorstep.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Kick the door down.

Chris/Ollie: Because he said

Jenine/Marty: you don't do it, I'm gonna win.

Chris/Ollie: No. Yeah. Cause he said he would come to us in three months or we could go to him and say, oh no. How about you, you do this for us and uh, we won't mess you up. We are kind of space pirates, you know, we're allied with them so

Jenine/Marty: Well what if we did bring the space pirates? Oh my gosh. Wait. That would be actually be a really good idea.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Can We get the space pirates to do to and like she starts getting excited.

Avery/GM: and Marty, you will remember that, that Captain Blitz did say, if you ever need his help to just reach out.

Zach/Zahn: Oh man!

Chris/Ollie: For an individual as full of his own skill as your colleague is, this is a prime opportunity.

Jenine/Marty: This is true. This is true. And like what scientist wouldn't wanna actually test their own theory and like be the first person to like succeed in torching. This is a good idea. Right.

Avery/GM: You gonna use his own smarminess against them.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. I was, see, I'm a little bit more petty than that. I was gonna, I was gonna say, it would be good, it, it would be cool if Marty successfully like, executed his theory and rubbed it in his face.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. That's, that's what's also going through Marty. But Marty's also like, okay, wait, but what if he's leading the wrong way? That's, that's where Marty's going. It's like that, fuck we fucked with each other way too much. That's the next step. That's another thing we need brainwave… Where?

Bee/Polaris: do you not have a whole bag of drugs?

Jenine/Marty: Well, wait do I have this drug?

Avery/GM: You do.

Chris/Ollie: You have many drugs.

Avery/GM: It was in the, it was in the stash that Winston had.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I thought you had like a ton of drugs.

I do

Bee/Polaris: we could also go back to, oh, I guess we can't go back to Drug City.

Avery/GM: You could go back to drug city.

Jenine/Marty: We could,

Bee/Polaris: I thought, I thought we were in trouble because they were like, get the security guards, go to bay 12. And Bruce was like, I'm just the janitor.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that was the Winstons.

Avery/GM: That was just Lazuli's cousin.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, cool.

Avery/GM: But they're probably gone by now.

Bee/Polaris: We can also just get big Fred to get us the drugs.

Avery/GM: Big Fred.

Zach/Zahn: Big Fred's does owe us one.

Bee/Polaris: He has our email.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah he does.

Avery/GM: You have quite a few allies already.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we got some good friends.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. We can call it Big Fred. We can call up the pirates. Call up Machamp

Bee/Polaris: for just for fun.

Jenine/Marty: let's, let's have like a nice, calm moment. How do we, how do we feel about like a tea or like cake or like, something nice.

Avery/GM: Hermes pipes up and says Bruce did leave quite a few bean based pastries in the makeshift kitchen, and there is some supposedly good smelling tea also nearby.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. We're gonna go grab those. She's, she goes and grabs all the little goodies.

Avery/GM: Okay, Marty, you're preparing some tea and some, some pastries for everybody.

Jenine/Marty: Yep.

Avery/GM: Still kind of thinking about what your plan is gonna be. Polaris, uh, me has pinged you a few more times asking if you're okay. That's cool.

Bee/Polaris: That's cool. Left on read.

Zach/Zahn: Aw.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is currently, like obviously there was, there's been conversation happening around him. He's been having his helmet transcribe what they're saying, but he's hidden having things around him muted while he's reading the document that he found.

Avery/GM: Oh, the document about you?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Avery/GM: yes. Okay. You ready for that gut punch

Bee/Polaris: oh, oh, oh. Is this a thing you're sending me or?

Avery/GM: Oh, no, no, no. I, I mean, I can, I just, I have some stuff

Bee/Polaris: Oh.

Avery/GM: For that.

Bee/Polaris: Interesting.

Avery/GM: But I wasn't sure when you were gonna read it, so.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet.

Avery/GM: I are you, do you want just the highlights for now? Like are you skimming through it or are you actually like, detailed reading it?

Bee/Polaris: He's detailed reading it to like, kind of keep his like brain away from everything else that has happened so far.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. So you read about, like the first few pages of this document are very like clinical notes of like, human specimen found floating nearby, attempted to shoot, but, but the others talked out of it, you know, things like that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Brought vessel aboard, examined medical data. Unremarkable. Will keep for further study. And then there are like, there are things that, there are like documents that are dated like a couple years later and they are like trajectory analyses of like trying to figure out where your vessel came from and pretty much all the trajectory paths converge on like a single point not far from where the custodians actually like typically dock above this dead planet.

Avery/GM: and then you do find information about your, about like medical, like some of your medical history that you didn't know about.

Cool.

You learn about your advanced healing factor. Alioth’s notes include things like, and, and there… there does come a point where they stop referring to you, to you as specimen and start referring to you by, by your name. This has not happened yet. Um, and it's like specimen, tumbled off of the table after feeding time and injured its head, but wound healed quickly. Things like that, you know?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So these are Alioth’s notes?

Avery/GM: Some, some of these are Alioth’s notes. Some of the notes, like the medical notes are also like notes about, like injections that you were given prior to arriving.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: You can tell that like the format is just different and like the, the, the, the stuff about like the injections and things, there's a lot more character to the writing. There's a lot more like, Not emotion necessarily, but you can tell that it was written by a person versus written by a machine.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And then there is like, there are like side like notes in like parentheses after like mentioning that you fell and like design a helmet for specimen, things like that. And yeah. Um, so you, you kind of start learning a bit and the, and you, you realize that you stopped being called specimen in the notes around the age of like five.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Well, yep. That's what Polaris is doing.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, he's internalizing this because like, he just got out of a fight with his custodians, but now he's reading about his custodians like taking care of him. And so now this is just like, oh, well this does not help.

Avery/GM: What's everyone else doing? Ollie? What are. What are you up to?

Chris/Ollie: if we are to help Rho return to her home, we will need the Cassiopeia. If the custodians do not present a threat, I suggest we take the time to repair and take it.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn lets out a long, exasperated sigh. It's like, God damn it. And he is gonna say, what of the former AI? you know, Navi? while Navi might be gone, it's been replaced by something else. I, I didn't trust Navi to begin with because, you know, Navi wanted to blow themselves up. So, uh, what do we wanna do with this, this replacement?

Chris/Ollie: do I know the specifics of the… what the Iaso program does?

Avery/GM: Yes. So, you know that the Iaso program is essentially a termination virus that in one way or another, eliminates whatever Artificial Intelligence it is broadcasted to,

Bee/Polaris: oh, it's an AI killer!

Avery/GM: Essentially.

Bee/Polaris: I don’t know how I feel about that.

Chris/Ollie: Navi has been more than change. She has been unmade. The AI that exists in there is nothing more than a subordinate AI to whatever AI would pilot the ship. i.e. Hermes, meaning there is no danger?

Zach/Zahn: Do we trust it working with Hermes?

Chris/Ollie: I still exist fortunately. But this is a valid concern and he'll activate his, uh, Void Hawk drone and start sending it over through space to the Cassiopeia to like hook into the computer systems and scan for any remnants of the Iaso virus program thing.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we could just pilot the ship formally known as the Minos, uh, over to it so that the Void Hawk doesn't have to fly for 50 minutes.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, no, let's, let's pilot the Minos over there and we'll, we'll jump the Cassiopeia.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Oh God.

Avery/GM: Jumpstart it.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we'll just jumpstart it.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we could literally just fix the wire.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, no, yeah, we can fix the wire at the same time. Ali just doesn't wanna plug back into the Cassiopeia unprotected.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Knowing that

Bee/Polaris: for sure.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. That, that might be in there. So yeah, while that's happening, uh, we can totally fix the wire.

Zach/Zahn: let's go ahead and do that.

Avery/GM: Okay, so is the plan to go over to the Cassiopeia then?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: So Ollie will look down and notice that, Polaris hasn't responded or said anything and will simply ask Polaris, is this course of action acceptable to you?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris has been reading this document and has like his environment on mute that is transcribing what you guys are saying, but he hasn't read the transcription yet, so he doesn't respond.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie will, uh, you know, gently and slowly reach out his hand for your shoulder and then kind of think twice and it down be like, is a big, this is a big moment. Well noticing the non-response. Ollie will look at Zahn and say, Hermes use, please pilot us to the Cassiopeia.

Avery/GM: You see a big holographic thumbs up and the ship starts moving.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn’s face looks concerned and dis… a mix of concern and disappointment, and he just nods looking down, activates his helmet and it builds around his head again. He's like, and he's just like, went like murmuring to himself as he goes to the Workshop to click some tools to fix the Cassiopeia again.

(ambience fades out, Outro plays, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show.

Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Intro and Outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter

Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. The track used today was Star Freighter

This year, our show was honored as a selectee for the Rainbow Roll Fest, a 3 day festival during pride month to celebrate LGBTQIA+ led Actual Play Podcasts and Streams. Be sure to check out the entire Rainbow Roll Fest June 23rd through 26th at twitch.tv/rainbowrollfest.

We'll be back on June 15th with our Next Episode

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro fades in and plays out)

Episode 22 - Rho's Wrath, Polaris' Perplexity

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 22 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.

(Intro Music plays, then fades down, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Let's jump over to Marty real quick. Marty, you're reading, you're reading over the programs or, or the, the files from Terra you actually find the encrypted file that was referencing Rho. You find out that in the Milky Way Psionics are referred to as augers.

Avery/GM: You find out that she is a literal test tube baby as she was created in a facility that used augers and their psionic energy as a power source and the experiment was to see how much psionic energy a human could be exposed to during their first 10 years of life and how that would affect them over the next decade.

Avery/GM: You find out that she has manifested several different abilities and powers. Typically psionics don't manifest abilities in all the different fields of psionics. Usually it's just one or two. She has also shown evidence of… like you, you're looking over this medical data and you see that like there are files that show that like her cells don't degenerate at the normal pace that human cells do and so it looks like she might have some sort of like prolonged life or. Slower aging rate than normal humans and you find out that all, all these benefits have created a condition in her that is similar to what you call torching, where psionics overuse their powers and then cause some damage to their mind, which over time can lead to very serious consequences, death, insanity, those kinds of things and that her condition is triggered most by the fight or flight response and also by moments of extreme emotional distress and that it's normally managed by medication that she takes regularly. But there are no records of that medicine being shipped with the cassia.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, that’s bad. Oh, that’s bad. That’s bad. Okay. Hmm. I'm gonna send, because I know that the two of you went with Rho to the Cassiopeia, yes?

Avery/GM: I'd say so, Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Well, yeah. Maybe Did we, what did we do The fun little? I don't know. I don't know. I'm just gonna send it to. I am gonna send like that specific thing of torching and also have like the definition of what it means and what it could cause and send that to like everybody as a file to be like, okay.

And like just a, Hey, if anyone can search in their immediate area for well, no, we don't really know what the medication looks like. Hey, this is a quick little read that you should read about Rho. We should Check in with that possibly.

Also with the medication, is there a way that I can possibly create it myself in a way with the technology that is in the area or do I not have the correct materials for it?

Avery/GM: Go ahead and-

Bee/Polaris: I mean, isn't the Med Bay in the Ursa major, like super decked out?

Avery/GM: Yes, it is.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. But is it, is this Terra like specific equipment we don't have?

Avery/GM: So it's, you definitely don't know the chemical compound

Jenine/Marty: sick.

Avery/GM: So that might take some research. You might have to, you might have to hack the Cassiopeia’s Med Bay files again and see if you can find anything.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Avery/GM: That might list the, the medication ingredients. You might also be able to, if you have any contacts from med school who might know about treatment research in this galaxy for torching, that might also be an oppor… an option as well.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I do, don't I, I do have a medical friend that I could possibly contact.

Avery/GM: You do.

Jenine/Marty: Who has the same intelligence as me? Hmm. I'll just, I'll send like a quick mess.. I forgot the name that I had sent you. It is somewhere in my notes that are very poorly written.

Avery/GM: It's in our chat.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I send, yeah,

Avery/GM: I'll find it.

Jenine/Marty: I send them, I'll send a message to them and be like, Hey, you wouldn't happen to have any like, knowledge about, or like any articles about like, medications that can help with torching as an and, and like helping

backtrack it or like make it not as aggressive or like any articles about it. I'm… medical research… I hope you're doing good. And I can send that in an email or space equivalent of email.

Avery/GM: Oswald Calloway.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I knew it was that

Avery/GM: Oswald… They, them, he, him, she, her?

Jenine/Marty: Ye. They/Them, He Him.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool, cool, cool. Oswald, it, it takes a little, like an hour or so to message you back and he, I don't know if Marty would pick up on this, but the tone of the message is very snarky.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And is just like, oh, did someone overuse their psionic abilities again?

Jenine/Marty: Marty's not gonna let it shake her. It's okay. She's the bigger person. She's not gonna let it get to. She's not gonna let them get to her. No, actually I'm act helping a patient with it. I know how to control my powers, unlike some people. And then like backspace that. I hope you're doing good. Thank you for being concerned. And I send it.

Avery/GM: Yeah. They, they send back a picture of them at a very prestigious research lab. You recognize the logo as like being like from like a research college on Olympia, like very, very advanced, very well to do. The Harvard basically of Space and it's just

Jenine/Marty: cool.

Avery/GM: Is just like, well, I could help you. But as you can see, I'm very busy with important research, but I will have my lab assistant send something over in the next day or so, just you owe me one smiley face.

Jenine/Marty: She just goes, of course, anything for an old friend, and then she just closes her tablet. Just goes, well, at least I'm practicing my work and not just looking at fucking papers all the time, but that's fine.

Zach/Zahn: Marty's first cuss!

Bee/Polaris: Marty's first cuss!

Chris/Ollie: I'm out here in the field getting shot.

Jenine/Marty: No one hears it. It's just her.

Bee/Polaris: And the cameras.

Jenine/Marty: And the cameras. But yeah, she sent, she sent the article to every, well like the information to everybody and then like also a description of like what torching is, so they know that it's bad and also we can't stress her out. And if she stresses out and then like gives a list of how to calm someone down when they're stressing out the breathing exercises and everything.

Avery/GM: Which by the way, Marty that is putting two and two together, that's probably why Rho hasn't had an outburst yet, is because of your very calming bedside manner that you have

Zach/Zahn: and she's on the other ship.

Jenine/Marty: Heyo! uhoh.

Bee/Polaris: Maybe the medicine is the Marty along the way. Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: Okay. Over to. Polaris and Alioth.

Zach/Zahn: Confrontation Time!

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Avery/GM: Alioth is sitting at its big computer here. When you walk in Polaris and it doesn't even look up at you. It's just typing away.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris just stands there, waiting. Just staring directly at alioth.

Zach/Zahn: on or helmet off?

Bee/Polaris: Helmet on

Avery/GM: Alioth continues to type and it's just like, well, are you going to stand there or are you going to let me have some emotional outburst?

Jenine/Marty: I have no need for an emotional outburst. I kind of thought that this would be a, you tell me all the things you've been lying to me about situation and not necessarily a me being a child about it situation.

Avery/GM: you know me. I tend to expect the worst from humans.

Bee/Polaris: It’s a first for you expecting that from me.

Avery/GM: It's a first for me admitting it out loud, yes.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just does a, like a, a go on motion with his hand.

Avery/GM: Alioth spins in its chair and you know, to face you and folds its little artificial hands on the desk and is just like Polaris lying by omission is not as bad as outright lying.

Bee/Polaris: No, but it's still a lie.

Avery/GM: Yes. Well, luckily, I do not suffer from morality. No, go for it.

Bee/Polaris: Sorry. No, that was me laughing. Sorry. No, that was hilarious. That was just me laughing.

Avery/GM: The information that you have obtained from that little robot down there was intended to be given to you at the proper time. I just had not decided when that proper time would be.

Bee/Polaris: I'm struggling to find the word for it, but the best approximation I can find is that sounds a bit shitty considering I'm not an AI and I can die at literally any time.

Avery/GM: you make a fair point. But now you have the information, so I suppose I can let you in on the big secret. that when we found you, I advised the others that it would be best to simply leave you where we found you. You were a catalyst, an unquantifiable variable. Upon convincing from the other two, I relented and allowed you to stay with us. On this ship, upon investigation of the pod you were found in, I discovered some interesting information regarding your cellular makeup, and your origins. the records you obtained from the robot, contained that information.

Bee/Polaris: Curious. Why hide it then?

Avery/GM: it was believed that if you truly understood your origins, you may wish to leave and that would upset the others.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn't really know how to respond to that. He's upset, but also like, oh, they thought I would fucking leave. Okay. Dunno how, but yeah. Okay.

Avery/GM: The information you have there, May help to explain some things about yourself that you may not have previously understood. It appears you were some sort of experiment. Your genetic code has been altered slightly, and I'm sure you have noticed some strange abilities right? You tend to heal very quickly.

Bee/Polaris: I thought that was normal.

Avery/GM: Oh, no. Humans die very easily from all sorts of minuscule wounds and infections.

Bee/Polaris: I, how would I have, I have nothing to compare that to until a couple weeks ago. How, how would I have known that?

Avery/GM: As I said, I was waiting until the proper time so that you would have the proper context. If you knew you healed faster than others, it may tempt you to put yourself at risks outside of the acceptable range.

Bee/Polaris: That I can't argue with. I'm, I'm thinking about it now.

Avery/GM: Please don't. Merrick was very clear in, in their instructions: you are not to put yourself at risk.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts a, a colon backslash emote on his, on his visor. He, you know, now he can do cooler stunts. Is that all?

Avery/GM: The data does appear to have information on your origins, who your parents are, where you came from, that sort of thing. If you're, Interested in that.

Bee/Polaris: I've never thought about it before, but this, these last couple of days have definitely been eye-opening.

Avery/GM: Well, if you look at the file, you will notice that I have encrypted the information using a language incomprehensible to humans. Good luck translating it.

Bee/Polaris: Mad face emoji Polaris is upset about that

Avery/GM: and, and Alioth says, sorry, that was my attempt at humor.

Bee/Polaris: Oh. You don't joke. How would I have known that you were joking?

Avery/GM: Oh, I joke all the time.

Bee/Polaris: What? Is that also a joke?

Avery/GM: Yes. My encounter with that Hermes character made me realize I should attempt humor when interacting with humans. You seem to enjoy that sort of thing.

Bee/Polaris: You, you're doing… good.

Avery/GM: Excellent. This data will be helpful in my analysis later.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris won't correct that. Se- good enough. Seems very Alioth. Okay, well, if there's nothing else you needed to tell me that you've been holding secret from me for the entirety of my life. I'm gonna go read those files.

Avery/GM: I do not have any other secrets that pertain to you.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Well, tell me the rest.

Avery/GM: What would you like to know?

Bee/Polaris: All, all what? Ha Ever. Anything you've been keeping secret from me. I don't. I don't. It unsettles me that you've been lying to me my entire life, especially about myself.

Chris/Ollie: Where was it that I saw this vision?

Avery/GM: You saw it when you were connected to both Hermes and Alioth.

Chris/Ollie: Ah, that's right. Ollie will have posted in chat. What he's learned and will say definitively that it probably was the custodians.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Yeah, so Polaris sees that in chat and is just like, Ooh, ah, yikes.

Chris/Ollie: Because Ollie's gonna put yeah, two and two together, three rouge AIs plus this sus stuff, and so he's going to be like, We've got an emergency, guys.

Avery/GM: What, what does, what specifically does Ollie say?

Chris/Ollie: Well, in the chat message, he's going to say Navi and all the AI have been wiped aboard the Cassiopeia. The only people who could have done this were the, were the custodians. And he's gonna put in chat that the rogue AI, that the, the Cassiopeia has been chasing, and the custodians must be one in the same. And post the the evidence about the, the video and all on the timestamp and all that

Avery/GM: as Ollie is typing this in and you're kind of like reviewing the chat. Alioth has started kind of rambling about things that it's kept from you, but it's all like mundane shit. Like, I have reached the one hundred-trillionth number in pi, you know, and I ran an experiment a few months ago where I infused your food source with a new molecular compound I developed. Stuff like that, like, Very mundane stuff that like,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Obviously the test wouldn't have put you in danger, but those kinds of things.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Okay. As Alioth is doing that, Polaris walks to the door and closes the door and locks the door, and then turns around and says, you three are the rogue AI. Is that correct?

Avery/GM: Alioth stops rambling. Looks at you and is like possibly. Why does it matter?

Bee/Polaris: Because we have a ship that has entered this galaxy specifically looking for the three of you, and I was just notified that the AI on that ship were wiped.

Avery/GM: Yes. A necessary precaution.

Bee/Polaris: What did you do?

Avery/GM: I think that's a conversation all four of us should have.

Bee/Polaris: So patch them in.

Avery/GM: You're not gonna drop this, are you?

Bee/Polaris: No.

Avery/GM: Very well. And Alioth turns to its computer and starts typing. And I need a physical saving throw.

Bee/Polaris: Hey sweet! Yay! Tear gas! I make it, eat shit Alioth.

Avery/GM: The room does start flooding with nerve gas. knock gas.

Bee/Polaris: Cool Polaris,

Avery/GM: Not like brain damage gas, but just like

Bee/Polaris: Sweet!

Chris/Ollie: brain damage gas!?

Bee/Polaris: Sweet Polaris has his helmet on, so he just looks at Alioth with an angry face emoji and turns on his filtration system.

Avery/GM: Oh, right. I designed that helmet didn't I? Very well, and you hear the intercom ping, and Alioth just says, Merak, Bear, please come to my lab. Polaris would like to talk.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sends in chat. My, my dad tried to fucking knock me up with gas. Angry face.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn puts in, do you need backup? Concerned face.

Bee/Polaris: Nah, they won't kill me. Colon backslash face

Zach/Zahn: kill or not kill. Yes. Capture and incapacitate, maybe question mark. Thinking face.

Bee/Polaris: Mm, nah.

Avery/GM: Marty, yes. You read that chat and you do get a premonition of Polaris on the ground helmet off.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, cool! Oh yeah. Bear is security.

Jenine/Marty: And then just get a back up coming. Where am I? Where am I? I can try and save. I I have some.

Avery/GM: You're in the kitchen.

Jenine/Marty: I'm in the, I'm in the kitchen. The same area. Back up, help is on the way!

Bee/Polaris: Are you sending that in chat? Polaris sends a chat. No, don't do that.

Jenine/Marty: Too late coming!

Bee/Polaris: What is going on?

Jenine/Marty: Might be something cool new I might have had. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sends a message to Hermes and says, get back to the, get back to the Ursa so we can evac.

Jenine/Marty: Just there I have a feeling that something bad's gonna happen. Get out of there.

Bee/Polaris: Cool. Yeah. Polaris unlocks the door and then looks at Alioth and walks out of the door.

Avery/GM: Confused. I thought you wanted more information on what we did.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris keeps walking. He doesn't even, he's going straight to Marty and he said he sends in chat. We're gonna need an evac.

Avery/GM: We're gonna flashback to, to you three for a moment. And you're kind of like learning secondhand from Polaris, kind of what's going on, like big picture. And Rho is just still messing with this console, just trying to figure out where Navi is. And she's just like, if Navis gone, I, I can't go home. If I can't go home, I, I won't see my family. I won't see my friends. I, I won't know how the war tur- turns out, I, and. You see,

Bee/Polaris: oh, she's spiraling.

Avery/GM: You see parts of this lab start to kind of shake and shutter around you all.

Jenine/Marty: I sent the breathing exercises.

Avery/GM: and have you told Rho your theory yet Ollie?

Chris/Ollie: oh yeah, that's right. She's not in the chat.

Bee/Polaris: No, she's not.

Chris/Ollie: So he's gonna look over and notice that she doesn't know what the hell is going on, and he's not really paying attention to the shaking. Just gonna be like, oh, my apologies, I forgot you were not on the group chat. And then he's going to explain the, the theory, the connection. And he is also gonna ask, what is it about Navi that you require?

Avery/GM: So you start ex- you, you start explaining your theory about the custodians being the rogue AI. You don't even get to the question about why she needs Navi. I need both Zahn and Ollie to make a. Evasion Save.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, yay.

Bee/Polaris: Turns out this is the series Final!

Jenine/Marty: Uh-oh!

Chris/Ollie: Oh, I did not, a one. Oh boy.

Zach/Zahn: Oh shit.

Avery/GM: Oh, it's not that bad.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, it is. Thankfully, there's no like, critical fails otherwise it's like Ollie disintegrates in the psychic pressure.

Zach/Zahn: Where's, where's the other part of his crystal at right now?

Chris/Ollie: In the dog. Oh, no.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Oh my gosh. It’s Space Bud!

Avery/GM: Rho activates one of her psychic abilities called offensive apparition and teleports an unwilling target to a location.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, no.

Avery/GM: And Ollie, you are teleported because she grabs onto you. That's, that's why the evasion save was needed because

Chris/Ollie: mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: Like she, like you were getting close to her. She physically grabbed you and teleported you along with herself to the Ursa major.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, God damn it dude!

Chris/Ollie: Oh no.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, well that's lucky I guess.

Bee/Polaris: No, that's not good. We need to get off the ship that these three AI control.

Chris/Ollie: Well, it's better, it's better than inside of a star.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that's true.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Positive thinking.

Bee/Polaris: That is true.

Jenine/Marty: That's some positive thinking.

Bee/Polaris: Alright, you got me there.

Avery/GM: Oh, and she needs to make a save.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yeah. And that warning about her, you know, condition and all that. Ollie hadn't had time to go over it, so. He's been a bit wrapped up.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah. Cuz I was at the tail end of the, the explanation.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. Cool.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. I didn't know-

Bee/Polaris: you started with the big hitters.

Jenine/Marty: Here's the thing, I didn't know anyone who was in danger until the article was officially sent and it went, oh shit, I was sending some good info

Bee/Polaris: and now we're in extra danger.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no,

Chris/Ollie: I'm in danger.

Avery/GM: So Polaris, you exit Alioth’s lab and you're walking down the hall when you see suddenly before you Rho and Ollie just flash into where you're at.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is unsure how to proceed. He like, looks at Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie's going to upon this sudden turn of events, gonna go through the chat real quick. download and scan that, that file at AI speed and realize, oh no, my, my apologies. If that information was upsetting, please try some breathing techniques in, out in

Bee/Polaris: Wha-

Chris/Ollie: And he's just going to attempt to do that.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks at Ollie and they’re just like, what did you do?

Avery/GM: I don't know that you have time to do that as Rho is levitating toward you and Alioth’s lab.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh.

Zach/Zahn: In the, in the group chat, you just see dot, dot, dot. Hey guys, I don't have eyes on Rho and, and Ollie anymore. Do you know where they are? Question mark. Question mark.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts up his live stream. He's start, he goes live.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Just hanging out.

Jenine/Marty: Marty messages back. Can I, can I go and try and help now? Should I go back to the ship or do you guys need Nevermind and just starts rushing on over.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Polaris, like is seeing Rho levitate towards him and just kind of side steps.

Zach/Zahn: You get, you get the neutral face in, in chat of just like

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will send a message to Alioth and say, I guess karma is real as fucking Rho is going to go, I, I assume murder Alioth

Avery/GM: Get some answers. At least.

Jenine/Marty: Do, do I get there at any point or does it take me

Avery/GM: No, I was gonna have you actually roll and exert a dexterity, exert check or strength.

Jenine/Marty: Is this a D20?

Avery/GM: No, these are

Jenine/Marty: two D6s?

Avery/GM: two D six s plus exert.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no.

Avery/GM: And either strength or decks.

Jenine/Marty: I don't know if we know this about Sweet little Marty. This is gonna be a. Hey, that's good. I rolled a six and a five. So it's a 10 Cause I have a negative one.

Bee/Polaris: Marty's booking it.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Marty you book it like you never have before You get there. As Rho is getting to the doorframe of, of Alioth’s lab

Jenine/Marty: Great.

Bee/Polaris: You know, now I think about it. Is the gas dissipated? Cause I don't, did Alioth turn it off cuz Polaris has his helmet on. Sooo.

Avery/GM: It's not, it's not dissipated. It's still in there.

Bee/Polaris: So Rho is definitely gonna breathe that.

Jenine/Marty: I'm gonna suppress cognition on Rho.

Avery/GM: Oh

Jenine/Marty: yeah, rollsies!

Zach/Zahn: a psychic off.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Is she, is Rho distracted by the, the desire to murder?

Avery/GM: I would say pretty well distract, I'll roll disadvantage for her. I don't know that disadvantage is a thing in this game. I haven't seen it, but.

Bee/Polaris: It's not.

Avery/GM: we'll roll it, it's fine.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet!

Jenine/Marty: Mental saving throw to resist the power.

Avery/GM: Well that's good cuz her first roll was a Nat 20.

Bee/Polaris: Oh geez, Louis.

Jenine/Marty: Thanks. I hate it.

Chris/Ollie: She is hulked out right now

Avery/GM: and that's a mental save that she has to make. I'm sorry. Her mental save is versus a four.

Jenine/Marty: Jesus,

Bee/Polaris: bruh.

Chris/Ollie: Wow.

Avery/GM: She shrugs off your suppressed cognition. And I actually need you to make a mental save.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that's fine. I, I deserve that. I'm so scared. I was rolling. So good in this session. Oh no. Do I add anything to that?

Avery/GM: No, it's, it's just versus your mental save it's a, it's your,

Jenine/Marty: Ok cool.

Avery/GM: it's a D 20 versus your whatever.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. I rolled a two.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, no.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Avery/GM: Okay. Let me get my D six s out.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, no.

Bee/Polaris: So full disclosure, if Rho does hurt Marty, Polaris is going to probably hurt Rho.

Avery/GM: That's fine.

Jenine/Marty: That's fine.

Avery/GM: She's very much tunnel vision right now.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris also doesn't have his gun.

Avery/GM: Nope. You do have, your laser blade

Bee/Polaris: Bruce has Polaris’s- He does. He has two of them.

Jenine/Marty: That's fine. How many D sixes?

Avery/GM: Luckily this attack cannot kill a target, but you do take 33 psychic damage.

Jenine/Marty: Hoo-

Bee/Polaris: holy beans.

Zach/Zahn: Holy shit.

Jenine/Marty: Guess where I'm at guys.

Avery/GM: If you're reduced to zero, you are knocked unconscious for an hour.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool. I'm at five hit points.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, thank goodness. So you're not dead.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's right. Marty's the tankiest

Zach/Zahn: Right! Marty's fucking tank!

Bee/Polaris: Marty's the tankiest.

Jenine/Marty: Everything's fine. Everything's fine, guys. I, I got it. It's fine. Everything's fine. Ow.

Avery/GM: But she is torching. I'm gonna have her roll another D six. Okay. Hey, that's good. Torching actually affected her this time. So Rho enters the lab and is like in the doorframe, looks at Alioth and is just like, you're the one responsible, aren't you?

Bee/Polaris: Did Marty visibly look hurt by like, did that. Psychic interaction. Was that notable for us to realize what had happened between the two of them?

Avery/GM: I was gonna ask actually, Marty. Yeah. How do, how does, like, how does Marty physically react to being psychically blasted?

Chris/Ollie: like bleeding out of the nose and ears and eyes.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Sh I mean, yeah, there, there's some, there's some blood coming out of her nose. And then you do hear her just say, shit ow!

Bee/Polaris: Marty did a cuss!

Avery/GM: Now you know it's bad.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Upon seeing that Polaris did sidestep Rho, but upon seeing that he is gonna try and stab her with his laser blade, she hurt Marty. We already lost Bruce.

Avery/GM: Yeah, totally. Go for it. Roll to stab.

Bee/Polaris: how Stab?

Avery/GM: two D six plus stab.

Jenine/Marty: Wow. Combat we, we haven't touched this in a bit.

Bee/Polaris: 11.

Avery/GM: Okay. That meets, so oh it meets beats.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: So roll your damage.

Bee/Polaris: That's gonna be a 10 damage.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. You, you stab into her to, to kind of attack her and you pull your laser blade away. From this hit and you see that she obviously takes the damage and she kind of flinches at the, at the wound, but you do see the wound start already to start to heal up a little bit.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh, ee, yikes. Ollie?

Avery/GM: she pays no mind to you, and I think I'm gonna have to have the three of you. Role initiative.

Jenine/Marty: got a role that makes sense for a cleric. Yeah, it's a, it's a three. 1, 2, 3.

Chris/Ollie: I also got a three.

Zach/Zahn: I got a 10

Jenine/Marty: Yoinks

Bee/Polaris: got a 12.

Jenine/Marty: Wow. Cool. Nice.

Avery/GM: Bee, did you give Alioth a dexterity score at all?

Bee/Polaris: Was I supposed to make a character sheet for that?

Avery/GM: I, I didn't ask you to, I just wasn't sure how in depth you went.

Bee/Polaris: Oh! nooo.

Avery/GM: Okay. I'll just roll a D four and that'll decide it.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I just imagined that like, they’re robots. and robots are pretty good at most things.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Because the robot strength, Dex and Con is all based on the chassis, so they probably got some high tech stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Speaking of Alioth did call the other two.

Avery/GM: I'm rolling those other two right now.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Zach/Zahn: Oh no.

Jenine/Marty: This is great.

Bee/Polaris: Rho might die.

Avery/GM: but Polar- go ahead.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, no, go ahead.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say, you're up first in initiative.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet. I'm gonna stab her again.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: She hurted Marty. Oh wait. Am I doing attack now?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: is attack still two d-six?

Avery/GM: I believe it's a D 20, but let me double check now, cuz

Bee/Polaris: yeah, we haven't really done too much in fighting

Avery/GM: to make an attack roll the assailant rolls a one D 20 and adds their attack bonus, their applicable skill level and the attribute modifier most relevant to the weapon.

So that would be D 20 plus whatever your bonus is, plus stab. Plus dex.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, so that's, so I got a Nat 20.

Avery/GM: Well, shit,

Bee/Polaris: what does it matter if I add the other things?

Avery/GM: No, it will not. You hit, you definitely hit

Bee/Polaris: sweet. What do I do about damage? Is, is an a Nat twenty's not special in this game, is it?

Avery/GM: No, not that I'm aware of.

Bee/Polaris: I rolled real,I, I rolled real high 14 damage.

Avery/GM: Oof.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna look over at Ollie to see what he's doing.

Chris/Ollie: I've got, like, tied with the lowest initiative, so I bet Ollie's just stunned at the moment.

Jenine/Marty: But you have a higher dex than me. You probably go first

Chris/Ollie: I have a zero dex.

Bee/Polaris: I don't know if there's anything else I could do,

Chris/Ollie: or a plus zero.

Jenine/Marty I also have a plus zero dex.

Avery/GM: So. Since we haven't really done much on combat, we'll do a quick a quick thing. So basically combat is six seconds. You have your main action, which would be like attack, stow, digging out a stowed item, bracing a door, applying first aid, that kind of thing. That's your main action.

You have a move action, which means you can move up to 10 meters in any direction. You have an on turn action, which is something fast and simple. So like dropping something, falling prone, saying something, stuff like that. And then an instant action, which can be performed when it's not your turn. So it's like a reaction basically.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: So you have those four abil, those four skills.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Can I use my,

Avery/GM: oh, go ahead.

Bee/Polaris: No, finish explaining.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say instant actions, mostly that's like related to like specific gear you have or psychic abilities.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: Sick.

Bee/Polaris: Can I use my movement action to push Rho further into the gas room?

Avery/GM: Yeah, we can call that a move action. I'll have her make a physical save versus your punch, I guess like strength punch.

Bee/Polaris: I'm good at that! I'm good at punching. I'm also good at strong

Avery/GM: because her, her, her actual save values are really low, so, I'll let it be versus whatever you roll.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. That's gonna be a, an eight? Yeah. I rolled bad

Avery/GM: she rolled an 18.

Bee/Polaris: What the fuck? Wait, wait, wait, wait. She, wait, what is she? She's, is she rolling against, like is she, oh, she's making a physical save.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Pain. Yeah. There was no way I'm beating that.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris:a D 20 against two D six.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you, you do, you you run into her and it's like a, a wall.

You can't

Bee/Polaris: Uhhuh. That's fine. I'll just stab her again next time anyway.

Avery/GM: Well, you say that

Bee/Polaris: well, nevermind, I probably won't stab her again next time. Yay. I didn't miss.

Avery/GM: No, because that was a move action, so it wouldn't be a missed attack action. So you're good.

Bee/Polaris:Sweet.

Avery/GM: You hear bear thundering down the corridor. And bear has a big, a big gun just drawn and just aimed like down the corridor. Just like, like kind of like shifting between like Ollie, Marty and Rho, like. Just like, okay, which one do I shoot?

Bee/Polaris I mean, Polaris, does Polaris not have his sword directly in Rho?

Avery/GM: I mean, you're, you're next, you're next to Rho. So like Yeah. But, but he pulled up like after your, your, you started stabbing and pushing.

Bee/Polaris: Ah, is this was the second stab? Yes.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: She's already healing still.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. So there are no visible stab wounds?

Avery/GM: No. Like, like there, there are wounds, but they're slowly stitching back together.

So. Context clues. Sure. He'll, he'll finally decide on Rho and is like locked onto her.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: And roll to Nat one.

Jenine/Marty: Yay. James.

Avery/GM: Just fires wide, just like is a little nervous because like as much as Bear is ready for an attack, there has never been an attack on board the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah, so, Bear misses. It is Alioths turn next. And

Chris/Ollie: Alioth Beat me out?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Alioth rolled an 11.

Chris/Ollie: Oh

Avery/GM:16 plus. What's his shoot skill?

Bee/Polaris: Alioth has a gun?!

Avery/GM: Yeah. It. It hits Rho with like so you're standing outside the door. Rho is in the doorway. Alioth is inside the room. You just see like some movement in the direction of like Alioth's desk, and suddenly you see like a big beam of plasma just shoot out from where Alioth is sitting and Rho takes quite a bit of damage. Hey, watch me roll dice with myself.

Jenine/Marty: Rollzies.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh.

Avery/GM: Boom. And yeah. Alioth hits, hits Rho. Zhan, you're up. What are you doing? You're back over on the Cassiopeia. Alone.

Zach/Zahn: All By myself!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. You you play it through the loud speakers, just max volume.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my god. No. So Zahn is going to indeed disable the Cassiopia.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: At least it's primary functions cuz I want to see about is the, the teleporter still functional? That's on here.

Chris/Ollie: Well they powered it with an A-Cell by jury rigging it.

Avery/GM: Yeah and the, the teleportation pads, now the ship is running, The teleportation pads do work.

Zach/Zahn: Ah, but what happens when I cut the power?

Avery/GM: You'll have to find another way to power it.

Zach/Zahn: Well, I've got a fuck ton of power type A power cells.

Avery/GM: Yep. You'll have to jury rig it a bit.

Zach/Zahn: That's fine. I'm you know, I'm the engineer. Let's cut some power.

Avery/GM: Okay. I mean, you don't have to, you don't have to roll to, to cut power. You, you know how this thing works.

Zach/Zahn: I'm going to utilize my laser blade to make it at least as inconvenient as possible to repair.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. You slice up the, the power cord that you once put back together and it is now shut off.

Zach/Zahn: Does that like include life support systems and all that other shit?

Avery/GM: Yeah. I was gonna say, you're wearing your helmet, right?

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah, of course.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You immediately feel weightless.

Zach/Zahn: Excellent. That means I can go faster with my jet boots. And so with that I'm going to proceed to the teleportation pad. And at the same time I'm

going to contact Hermes to immediately just leave me and go back over to the Ursa major.

Avery/GM: Oh man, you're gonna make me roll Dex, or Initiative for Hermes now?

Bee/Polaris: Hey, you're the one that had, it has all the robots.

Avery/GM: I know, right?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, on Ollie's turn, he's gonna call the space Pirates.

Bee/Polaris: What?

Zach/Zahn: Oh No,

Bee/Polaris: we're just adding everyone?

Chris/Ollie: No, That's just a joke. But yeah, it'd be funny. Add everyone to the initiative role.

Jenine/Marty: Honestly, if they found out that Marty got hurt, they'd come.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. That's pretty fucked up. That'd be hilarious. We just get everyone involved. We bring the Winstons in.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Everyone just to kill this one raging psychic.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn phones in Machamp. Yeah, which Champ shows up with a small fleet of the Republic.

Bee/Polaris: It’s just the season finale. We just bring everyone in and it's just a, a fucking thunder dome.

Avery/GM: Merrick is up next, and

Zach/Zahn: Alioth is male?

Avery/GM: No. It/Its.

Bee/Polaris: Alitoh is it, it doesn't identify with anything regarding humans.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Mm, valid.

Avery/GM: It is Alioth.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Merrick shows up just behind Bear and is trying to play peacemaker and is just like, Hey, hey, hey. Let's all calm down. What is going on in here? This is not the place to have a firefight. There are a lot of people here who could die.

Bee/Polaris: Who is, who are they trying to convince?

Avery/GM: Kind of just shouting at like this whole group that is like in front of them.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Like Rho and, and you and Bear and every,

Chris/Ollie: yeah, Merrick just walks into a brawl.

Bee/Polaris: That's fair. But Rho did hurt Marty. So

Avery/GM: you see Merrick touch like a wall panel in the hallway next to them and start like typing away at it, like looking for something. And that is Merrick's turn. Oh my gosh, I have so many NPCs. Why did I do this to myself? Rho is next.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Avery/GM: And Polaris Rho turns her attention to you after having been stabbed a couple of times. I need a mental save, please.

Bee/Polaris: Oh boy. I'm super good at that. And by good at that I mean… so yeah, I, I I rolled a, a nat one.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my god.

Chris/Ollie: Polaris's brain explodes.

Avery/GM: Not Quite.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. death bring to me.

Avery/GM: No.

Bee/Polaris: The sweet embrace of death,

Chris/Ollie: If I only rolled higher initiative.

Avery/GM: How much damage does your blade do again? What's the dice on it?

Bee/Polaris: 2d8.

Avery/GM: You suddenly feel your hand move of its own accord.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, cool.

Avery/GM: And Stab yourself with your blade.

Zach/Zahn: Quit stabbing yourself. Quit stabbing yourself!

Bee/Polaris: Well that's only fair.

Avery/GM: Take 14 damage as you are impaled on your blade.

Bee/Polaris: That's fair. Polaris says, put that as a mental note. Turn off blade after stab. Cool. Thanks Rho.

Avery/GM: And then Rho continues advancing on Alioth.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. Thank you Rho.

Avery/GM: Zahn, what did you tell Hermes to do?

Zach/Zahn: Oh, I told him to leave the Cassiopeia and make for the hangar of the Ursa major.

Avery/GM: Okay. Hermes is floating along. Hermes sends in chat, Would you like me to start shooting?

Jenine/Marty: No.

Zach/Zahn: Negative

Bee/Polaris: I love Hermes.

Avery/GM: Sad face emoji. Marty, you're up. You have been psychically damaged.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I have this,

Avery/GM: this nice Rho person is having a moment.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Is Marty gonna heal herself or is she gonna try and talk?

Avery/GM: Talking's a free action. So,

Jenine/Marty: yeah, but it's gonna lead to her wanting to do transmit thought.

Avery/GM: Gotcha.

Jenine/Marty: It wants a willing action. I need a a, a willing target as an instant action. If I wanted to do transmit thought, it would be, there's no option if it's not a willing creature. So this is me asking the GM: Would it be a mental save situation?

Avery/GM: I think instead, because transmit thought is not malevolent. I wouldn't make it a save. I think I would make you roll a charisma connect. If they're unwilling,

Jenine/Marty: I will happily do that. I'll just, before I like do that, I'll just be like, Rho. I know everything is stressful and I know you got lots of new information, but maybe we can just take a couple steps back and just talk with no more violence. Also, just like looking at everybody being like, no more violence. I'm just taking a couple steps back.

Chris/Ollie: Oh. Do you have any sedative drugs on you?

Jenine/Marty: Unfortunately, I do not. I don't all of them amplify things, my things amplify it. Or also raise kind of from zero hit points. We're gonna do nice little, Connect check real quick? That's okay. That's okay. That's it. That's a 10.

Avery/GM: A 10?

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And that's over transmit thought. So that's just between you and her?

Jenine/Marty: So I say the first thing to like kind of try and be like, this is me being like, Hey, I'm about to do something, but this is me trying to open up. That was me talking first. And then when I do transmit ta thought from the documents that I read about, like Terra, I send like images of what Terra looked like before All the mass destruction and everything and like trying to like, give calming aspects of everything to try and get her from like continuing to torch and everything.

Avery/GM: Sure. With a 10, I'd say that's a pretty good roll. You hear back, these beings are the whole reason I'm here and the whole reason I'm stuck here. Getting rid of them is the only way all those people will not have died in vain and you get back the images of her dead comrades.

Bee/Polaris: Well, I've been in an orphan once. What's another time?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: And then Marty will send back, but does killing them now do anything for everybody? Right now we can get more information and get justice for them. I say this over, over transmit thought, cause I'm not gonna say this out loud in front of Polaris. Get justice. So let's just get, let's take a beat, figure out why, then give the appropriate punishment.

Avery/GM: Roll charisma connect one more time.

Jenine/Marty: There's so many rollings and it's scary.

Avery/GM: You're doing great though.

Jenine/Marty: I know. It's a nine.

Avery/GM: She stops communicating telepathically, turns toward the corridor that you're in and says, the only justice they deserve is the same justice they gave the planet they destroyed.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, she said that out loud. Did she?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris is morally gray. She just said she wants to kill his parents.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: It's a good thing Zahn's not there where he would agree. Fuck.

Bee/Polaris: Wait agree with murdering the, the custodians?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Dang. Ah, this is rough.

Jenine/Marty: Ah, this is rough guys.

Avery/GM: Ollie, you are up next.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie is just gonna try and reason with her by grabbing on like how far off the ground is she floating?

Avery/GM: Oh, like six inches. Not very far.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. And.

Zach/Zahn: It's the, the intimidating levitation.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Not like full flight.

Avery/GM: Yeah. We're talking like profe not Professor Xavier… Magneto, you know?

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Copy.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. And we did determine how long the Cassiopeia had been there. It'd only been there a few weeks, right?

Avery/GM: Yes. And Polaris, you also know that there is some time stuff that doesn't make sense.

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. That's what Ollie's thinking. So he, his. Or my plan is he's gonna rush and try and body block any gunfire or any other laser sword attacks. Just put himself in front of any, any attacks between Rho and anyone else. Grab her by the shoulders and you know, if that's a grapple check let me know.

Avery/GM: Yeah, I think that would be.

Chris/Ollie: and what is that?

Avery/GM: Grappling. Let's find out

Chris/Ollie: just a physical attack kind of thing. Exert.

Avery/GM: I think it would be exert. I think that's probably the, the best it would be.

Chris/Ollie: Good thing my robot is weak.

Avery/GM: Well, I was gonna say though, if you want, because you, you do have an encyclopedic knowledge of anatomy. I will let you use intelligence if you would like.

Chris/Ollie: I got her by the, the pressure points.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, you could, you could fucking do the thing they do in kung fu panda.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: I rolled a terrible four. Oh no wait. Never. Nevermind. With Int… That actually makes it … is it intelligence exert?

Avery/GM: intelligence exert, yes.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. That makes it a six.

Avery/GM: A six.

Zach/Zahn: Something tells me that's not gonna get you anywhere.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, that's what I'm feeling.

Avery/GM: I'm gonna, I'm gonna contest it with a. With a strength exert from Rho, which her strength is not very good. So exert is minus one. Hey, she rolled a five.

Chris/Ollie: Oh,

Bee/Polaris: whoa.

Zach/Zahn: Hey

Avery/GM: you, you have Rho grappled.

Chris/Ollie: All right, so I'm gonna stare like face her to me. Stare in the eyes with some big, sad anime puppy dog eyes. I'm gonna say, Rho, please listen. This is not the way. They are not the ones who betrayed you, and we do not know the reason why they destroyed the planet. If you have any hope of returning to your galaxy, it is through these beings.

Avery/GM: Roll charisma, connect

Bee/Polaris: the, the sad anime puppy dog eyes really brings it all together.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Yep.

Chris/Ollie: Good thing. I'm awful at Charisma and connecting. I rolled a, what is this, an eight

Avery/GM: eight

Chris/Ollie: and also definitely gonna add in: we determined that your, your ship had only been there for three weeks. It is impossible for your ship to have made the journey here naturally. There must be a way to return

Avery/GM: between you physically holding her. She tries to lash out psychically, but she has torched too much and the kind of like psychic storm that was kind of brewing around her sort of dissipates and falls still and she like, you physically feel her become heavier in your arms as you're like, as she's no longer levitating herself and then you see her go. Unconscious and limp.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, there's super gas in that room.

Avery/GM: The gas does start to like go out the vents though, as Alioth sees that the threat is gone and still holding this plasma pistol in its hand. It walks up to you, Ollie and Says we should just put her out of her misery at this point and is holding the gun up.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God.

Avery/GM: And that's where we're gonna end it.

Chris/Ollie: Oof,

Zach/Zahn: oof,

Jenine/Marty: oof.

Episode 21 - Family Secrets

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 21 of Beyond the Furthest Stars

(Intro music plays, fades down, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: So it's, it's been a few days. It has been a busy morning so far where we're gonna pick up the morning after Alioth spoke with Navi. It's been a pretty busy morning so far. What has everyone been doing this, this early morning?

Chris/Ollie: Since Ollie doesn't need to sleep? I imagine the whole time he's been sorting through the box of chips that we found.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah, we found a box of chips!

Chris/Ollie: Just all night.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah, So I thought I mentioned this last time, but basically each one of those corresponds with a different skill on the skill list. So some of them will give plus one or plus two to those different skills. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: But basically it's, there's basically one of each, or there's

Bee/Polaris: Six chips total.One for each attribute?

Avery/GM: attribute. No, there's, sorry. So there's 19 different skills on the skill list. Not the attribute list, but just the skill list. And each of those chips corresponds. So there's 19 chips total. Each of them corresponds with, um, One of your skills. So there's a pilot, there's an administer, there's a connect,

Chris/Ollie: all right and each one's, uh, there's no, uh, negatives for any of them.

Avery/GM: Nope. Excellent. But if you've been like, experimenting with them, I will tell you that when you plugged in the heel chip, you got like basically a massive like database of like all the different kinds of like different alien anatomy and physiology.

Chris/Ollie: Oh. So it's like, um, in oblivion when you open a book and you immediately gain all the knowledge.

Avery/GM: Yeah. I mean, cause you're, you're a computer, so, you know.

Chris/Ollie: Okay yeah, so Ollie’s been plugging each, each one of them in and, and just downloading

Bee/Polaris: a title screen pops up with the, the music.

Avery/GM: But, you only get the bonus to the skill, if you have it plugged in, obviously

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: You know, like the, no, the no chip would be basically like just a Encyclopedia Britannica you. Type of thing. So

Bee/Polaris: might I make one? Might I make one small request?

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Can there be a Skyrim chip?

Avery/GM: A Skyrim chip.

Zach/Zahn: Just an Elder Scrolls chip.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Get back your criminal Scum.

Bee/Polaris: Archers

Avery/GM: Anything anyone else was doing?

Jenine/Marty: I'm making a nice breakfast of pancakes.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Marty's the cook, the stand in cook for Bruce. Did you add flies to the pancakes?

Jenine/Marty: I will as- I'll have them in the side, like as a side. Like, I'll roast, I'll roast them as like little like chipies so you can like garnish your, um, your pancakes and have a little crunchy

Bee/Polaris: with, with Bruce's special flies.

Jenine/Marty: Yes. Not, I don't use all of them, but I do like a little bit of mouse, so it's like, if anyone wants to try it, we should try the delicacy of our friend!

Avery/GM: Where are you having this breakfast? The Cassiopeia, the custodian ship, the Ursa major. Or

Bee/Polaris: we can have a picnic in space.

Avery/GM: The TSFKAM (the ship formerly known as the Minos) or, yeah, you could try.

Jenine/Marty: Which one has the better kitchen again? If, if Polaris would let me, I would like to teach him how to make pancakes on hi- On, on, on. Like the ship that he was raised on so he knows like the appliances and stuff.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: I’d say it'd be a toss up between the Ursa and the Cassiopeia. They're both, good.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Um, Polaris has been still like alternating between who he's checking on and staying with for a little bit. So yeah. When he makes his rounds to you, yeah. You could teach him to make pancakes or we could try?

Jenine/Marty: We're gonna teach you how to make pancakes and we're also gonna caramelize these flies.

Bee/Polaris: (laughter)

Chris/Ollie: Oh God. Oh no!

Jenine/Marty: I'm not gonna trick you into eating it. I'm just gonna be like, I'm gonna be transparent about it, Y'all!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn’t know what's going on at all. And he doesn't know what caramelized means, so he's just like nodding along.

Zach/Zahn: I'm gonna imagine that Zahn has had some pretty bad food in his time.

Avery/GM: I mean, you eat fake cheese so you know.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. You do eat, assemble singles.

Zach/Zahn: It's such a crime!

Avery/GM: Marty and Polaris, I'll have you both roll some intelligence work checks.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet. I have nothing in work.

Jenine/Marty: Could, it could be a connect cause I'm cooking with my heart

Bee/Polaris: And a buddy.

Jenine/Marty: and a buddy.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. This is a buddy exercise. Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I did trash

Jenine/Marty: with intelligence it's a 13 cause I rolled two sixes.

Bee/Polaris: Whoa.That's amazing. I got drum roll please. A six

Zach/Zahn: total.

Bee/Polaris: Um, oh wait, wait. My bad. A five.

Avery/GM: So Marty, you, you rolled so well that you're gonna negate the almost catastrophe that Polaris caused. Um, as, uh, you see… you're mixing the batter together, you know, you're putting in your, your egg and you're your flour, your sugar and all that and you see… You know, sometimes pancakes, they'll call for like a dash of salt, you know, and you, you see, uh, that Polaris might have misread the instructions and got a tablespoon of salt instead of like a quarter teaspoon of salt or something like that and you luckily, you, you, you stop him just in the nick of time, you're like, just a little bit and you end up making some pretty, uh, tasty smelling pancakes that are wafting through the air

vents of the Ursa major and your flies have turned out perfectly caramelized and crunchy. Bruce would be very impressed.

Bee/Polaris: How do you caramelize a fly? There's no liquid.

Jenine/Marty: I dunno. It’s space, let it happen.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, there is,

Bee/Polaris: these are some particularly juicy flies.

Chris/Ollie: They got some juice, some fly juice in them.

Avery/GM: I mean, you could get some pretty, pretty juicy ones, you know?

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God,

Chris/Ollie: I, I, I'm sure Bruce liked them. Juicy.

Avery/GM: Oh!

Bee/Polaris: okay. I, early on in the campaign, I definitely was wondering if Bruce ate flies, but I was like, oh no, he's a chef. So when, when Bruce's message included that he has a stash of flies, I was like, unreasonably happy about that.

Avery/GM: I mean, it, it, it was very fitting, wasn't it?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, it's pretty good.

Avery/GM: And you're making these pancakes and they're, they're smelling good. Uh, does anyone do, do you let people know, or do you kind of just let people find them when they find them?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will take like a video of him cooking one side of the pancake, cook one side of the pancakes in the pan and the other side of the pancake. He's using his laser blade to like toast to the top and then he sends that in chat, in the group chat with everyone.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh. Okay. Breakfast is served y'all.

Chris/Ollie: Efficient! Cooks twice as fast

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, there you go. So we like set the table and it's like really nicely. It's like super nice and everything. Yeah. A tablecloth, maybe like a little centerpiece. A place for everyone. The perfect setting for Zahn fistfight Rho.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: Food fight!

Avery/GM: Marty, you're helping to set this table and you get like a flash of like, (magic sound) premonition in your mind and you see Zahn before he even comes through the door. You see Zahn coming through the door, tripping over. There's like a little bit of like a lip in the door frame. You see him trip over that door frame and collide into Polaris who's like holding like a plate of pancakes.

Bee/Polaris: and a laser blade

Avery/GM: and a laser blade and it's very dangerous. It's a very dangerous situation. And this flash of, of, of premonition, uh, goes away as you hear Zahn whistling a little tune coming into the room.

Jenine/Marty: Hold please. Hold, hold please. No one come in. We're still setting up and then like Marty zips over to Polaris and like takes the pancakes and just goes, thank you! You should sit here and then like puts the pancakes on the thing. Okay. You could come in now!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sits down with his laser blade still on and he like, Sits at the table and he holds a fork and his laser blade in the other hand.

Jenine/Marty: is it like that full setting where it's like big or is it like little setting where it's like (makes mouth whooshing noises) I don't think described that well.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, no, I know what you mean though. Yeah. Its turned to the little setting.

Avery/GM: Knife setting or sword setting?

Bee/Polaris: He uh… actually he has it on sword setting.

Zach/Zahn: Oh geez. Sword setting. It's a three foot long laser blade.

Chris/Ollie: Just swinging it around.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, and a fork.

Zach/Zahn: As soon as I hear Marty say, “no, don't come in”, I activate my grab boots and I just like, uh, magnetically stick to the floor. Just stop. And I'm just like, what's, what's going on? Why I, I heard pancakes.

Jenine/Marty: There's a little, there's a little thing right there. Be careful. Don't trip on it. You'll be good! Pancakes, yes.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn looks down and he is like, Hmm, I'm gonna have to level that out later. And then, and then enters

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Pulls up his little, uh, wrist display and makes like, pulls up a journal note entrance to kitchen, need to fix lip. No trip. Big capitals good.

Avery/GM: Yeah. And Ollie, do you, do you join this little, like, cause Ollie, you've, you have been eating food even though you don't really eat food, but

Chris/Ollie: No, he's been

Zach/Zahn: shoving them in his processors.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Um, well he's been taking them.

Avery/GM: That's right.

Chris/Ollie: He's been pretty much storing them. All the food that Bruce has ever given him is in his storage compartment.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Avery/GM: Oh my God.

Bee/Polaris: Oh My god. It's been, it's been, it's been a couple weeks, right?

Zach/Zahn: yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I imagine it's like the, uh, the “No more pudding Cowboy Bebop” episode with the fridge.

Avery/GM: Oh gosh. Yeah, you've got something growing in there.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. But Ollie's not concerned. Life signs are, are minimal

Bee/Polaris: and none of us know.

Chris/Ollie: But no, he's going to continue his, uh, search. He's, uh, going through the chips looking for any reference to that vision. He had to see if there's anything you can find, like anything, uh, that elucidates that. Uh, so he's just gonna put back in chat. Uh, sorry. With a tongue out emoji with an arrow emoji and an ax emoji.

Jenine/Marty: Sad face emoji.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.Then the Ooh, crying emoji.

Bee/Polaris: Also sad face emoji.

Avery/GM: Marty, you're, uh, enjoying your pancakes and, um, you see Rho come into the. And you get another premonition of her bursting into tears while sitting over your delicious pancakes. Maybe it's a good thing. Maybe. Maybe she's crying cause they're so good.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is waiting for Rho to come so he can give her the salmon.

Jenine/Marty: hmm. hmm. Okay. Okay. Okay. Marty's gonna let it happen. We're gonna see what happens. It's fine.

Avery/GM: Sure. You don't have to stop everything you foresee.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Also, you're not really used to foreseeing things, so maybe, you know how, how is, how is Marty feeling about this? Like,

Jenine/Marty: excellent. It's like the, okay, this is new. This is interesting. This is a new thing. Have I heard of stuff like this?

Avery/GM: I mean, you, you definitely, because like what, okay. What age did Marty's sci powers like manifest? Like was it really young? Was it kind of late?

Jenine/Marty: They were pretty early on, but it was like much, very much like little things of like this little booboo boop kinda situation.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Like, oh, I scraped my knee. I don't want it to be scraped anymore.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And now it's not that kind of a thing.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. So you definitely remember that this sort of feeling was, is is similar to how your bios powers came on when you were younger?

Jenine/Marty: Cool. This is just one that I never really activated and now it's activated and I go, this is, this is different.

Avery/GM: Yeah. But you, but you know about like pre.. precogs and um, and, and other sorts of, uh, psychic, you know, powers in the universe. You definitely know about it.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Snazzy. I'll see how this one goes through. It's, it's all, it's all an experiment at this point. Trial and error.

Avery/GM: Yeah. And Rho comes in and sees the pancakes and her eyes get super big and she sits down. She's like, may, may I have some of these, these look excellent.

Jenine/Marty: Yes. I made it for everybody.

Avery/GM: And she like, takes a couple flapjacks off the, off the big plate in the center and, and starts like digging into them

Bee/Polaris: Pancake time. Do we have syrup?

Avery/GM: Yeah, there's. Bruce probably had like a stash of like

Bee/Polaris: bean syrup.

Avery/GM: Bean syrup yeah

Jenine/Marty: Bean syrup. A beans

Avery/GM: it's, it's a vanilla bean syrup.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: A heck Yeah. Let's go.

Avery/GM: Yeah, there we go. Can also just, it doesn't all have to be pintos and, and, and kidney beans.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. There's a lot of beans.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Anything's a bean if you try hard enough. Anyone doing anything while you're sitting here enjoying your pancakes?

Bee/Polaris: Yep. Polaris would slide over an anatomically correct. Salmon plushy over to Rho.

Avery/GM: Uh, she picks this up and, and looks at you and it's just like, what's, what's this for?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris goes back to eating his pancakes. He doesn't know how to answer that

Avery/GM: She, she just sort of looks at you and. gives it a hug and then sets it down in her lap and starts continue to eating.

Bee/Polaris: Hell yeah. I didn't think that far ahead. I didn't think she'd ask what that was for.

Avery/GM: You're fine. You're fine.

Bee/Polaris: Is Zahn in a fist fight Rho now?

Jenine/Marty: Breakfast and a show, breakfast and a show.

Bee/Polaris: It's like that one meme of the cat at the table with the salad and the lady Screaming at it.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: So if I remember right, Zahn spent like the whole night pouring over all the info that Ollie had downloaded before we erased it and so we have all of the ships' logs on Terra and stuff, right?

Avery/GM: You have quite a bit. Yes. There was some stuff that was still encrypted that even Ollie couldn't get through. But yeah, you have like you know that the ship was sent from Terra as a way to draw out some rogue AI. You know that the command crew basically left Rho to die in space as like a sacrifice kind of a thing cause they needed the ship to reach its destination. But then after that, who knows, you know? So you ha… you have a, a basic overview of kind of the ship's origins. Did you, did you explore any of the medical files?

Zach/Zahn: let's say, Yes. For, for plot convenience?

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Didn't Marty do that too?

Avery/GM: Marty?

Jenine/Marty: I did.

Avery/GM: Marty did as well.

Jenine/Marty: It was the first thing I did.

Avery/GM: So,

Zach/Zahn: cause I'm curious if I'll, uh, see any of the potential founders of, uh, new Terra Station in there?

Avery/GM: no. Cause this was just, um, medical files related to the crew. Oh, okay. But you, you did learn that every time Rho is referenced, she's referenced as, um, a science experiment basically.

Zach/Zahn: Ugh, that's not nice.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: I'm squinting my eyes.

Avery/GM: So that is something else that you, that's some background knowledge you have about, about Rho as well.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha.

Avery/GM: The specifics about her, what kind of experiment, uh, was not elaborated on, on the files that Marty gained access to.

Zach/Zahn: So as soon as Rho comes in, Z's gonna go from like his kind of happy, I just woke up and had a good night's sleep self to like more anxious cause he has to get a little, he's about to get a little investigaty here. so like, he goes from like en like thoroughly enjoying the pancakes to wolfing them down.

Avery/GM: sure.

Zach/Zahn: And once he's cleared his plate, he's like, uh, so. And he is like double because he is like completely awkward in this moment. Double pointer fingers at Rho. He is like, are you gonna tell us anything about your ship and why you're here?

Bee/Polaris: Sit down. Slide a manila fool over

Zach/Zahn: question mark. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. She stops like, there's like a piece of pancake, like on the fork, like ready to go in and she kind of just looks across the table at you and she's like, I, I've, I've told you everything I know. I, I was, we, we were supposed to, to come out here on a, on a mission and our mission failed and, and so now Navi wants to blow us up.

Zach/Zahn: Right… And, uh, Why, why, from your side of things, why, why would you think that, um, your people would find you expendable?

Bee/Polaris: Ouch.

Avery/GM: Well, I, I, I honestly don't know that they never gave off any, any feelings like, like, they didn't value me. I, I didn't really realize what was happening until the, the crew abandoned ship after I started navigating.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, so you, you were the designated navigations person?

Avery/GM: Yes. The, the pod you found me in it amplifies my psychic powers and lets me navigate space much more efficiently than a human or a, a, a normal human or even an, an AI would navigate.

Zach/Zahn: Hmm. So, uh, It's on the topic of, of AIs. Um, are you privy to any like rogue AIs that you may have been implemented to circumvent?

Avery/GM: Let's see. Did she know about that?

Bee/Polaris: I don't, because in the log, didn't the guy basically say like, he was like, oh, well I don't see the point of sending all these people out here. Oh, well, sorry, Rho about the, the whole rogue AI thing. So it's like the, that was like the, um, the actual mission and they had a coverup mission that they were told they were sent on.

Avery/GM: That's right. Yep. Yep. You're right. Thank you. Mm-hmm. I was just looking, I was looking over my notes to make sure that that was the case.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Yes. She's like, no, I, I didn't learn about the rogue AI mission until, until you let me out. And, you know, I started kind of talking with, with everyone here and you know, sort of learned through osmosis or, you know, other techniques that the, the crew had other motives. I don't know why they aimed the ship so far away from our galaxy. I don't know why. An, I don't know why AI from our galaxy would come to this one. That seems a bit much.

Zach/Zahn: right… He's like very contemplative eyes squinted thinking. Right. So, uh, tell me the origins of Terra. What is, what is that?

Avery/GM: Well, Terra is my home. It's, it's the home of all, well, what I thought, we're all humans. It used to be called Earth, but it got renamed to Terra a a a few hundred years ago for some reason, I historians debate Why. I don't know. But anyway, that's neither humor nor there. It's, it's the capital world of the Pan Solar Union. It used to be a pretty polluted and toxic place after centuries of industrialization and war and famine and hatred and terror. But eventually, the inhabitants of that world started working together and made it better and started heading out into the, the galaxy and started making more homes among the stars.

Zach/Zahn: Neat. Well, that's, uh, that's good for Terra. But a follow up question, is your crew, the first crew to try and inhabit another galaxy?

Avery/GM: As far as I know, we, we usually stuck to just the, what we call the Milky Way. Yeah. The distances between galaxies have been so vast that it's been hard to justify traveling that far until recently.

Zach/Zahn: Ah, yes. Well that in wherein lies a, a big old question cause uh, where I'm from, uh, is a place called New Terra from this galaxy. And, uh, we still use some of your language, which is how I was able to navigate, like, looking to everybody else, how I was able to navigate through your corridors. Cause I know some of your freaking language.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris was just gonna say, I meant to ask about that.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Um, she cocks her head at you, uh, Zahn and is just like, are you, are you certain it's the same language?

Zach/Zahn: Close enough, if not similar. Well, I don't know all of your language by heart. My mother would read out of a journal of sorts in your language. she would read to me and said language and some of our uh, uh, signage and stuff is a mix of your language and kind of the universal language of this galaxy.

Avery/GM: She doesn't say anything but is staring into your eyes and I need a mental save.

Zach/Zahn: oh no.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris at this point is looking very confused between the two of them.

Chris/Ollie: Brain Nuke incoming.

Zach/Zahn: I’m about to get brain-wiped.

Chris/Ollie: Yep.

Jenine/Marty: Nah, don't worry about it.

Chris/Ollie: This knowledge is forbidden.

Zach/Zahn: I rolled an18 and my save needs to be a nine, so.

Avery/GM: Perfect. Okay. You feel (magic sound) memories that you had kind of locked down, start to bubble to the surface and at first you're not really sure what's going on. Like, maybe, maybe it's just cause you mentioned your mother, but like, you start thinking about like one specific memory of her reading to you When you were a child and then you make the saving throw and suddenly you see Rho kind of like, almost like an invisible force, kinda like pushes her backwards in her seat (psychic blast) as you have prevented her from drilling into your mind.

Zach/Zahn: Hey.

Avery/GM: But you do see her, uh, starting to weep.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, no, no. She's weeping over the pancakes

Bee/Polaris: and the flies. Don't forget the caramelized flies.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: And her salmon, this is, this is awful.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, no.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is very confused. He's looking between Zahn and the crying Rho and then looks over to Marty.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's gonna like, touch his fingers to his temple and be like, what did you just try to do? You can't just go like parading into somebody's brain without permission.

Avery/GM: She stands up and is just like, no, you're, you're right. I'm, I'm sorry. I gotta go. And she runs out of the, the dining room before you can get any more answers.

Zach/Zahn: All you're gonna get is Oy, I'm not done with. And then as she's like running down the hall, he's like, I'm not done with you yet. But…

Avery/GM: you're gonna chase after her.

Zach/Zahn: No.

Avery/GM: oh, okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like, looks after Rho and then Polaris looks over to Zahn and says, wait then do you glow too?

Zach/Zahn: What? No.

Avery/GM: Now Polaris looks more puzzled.

Zach/Zahn: What do you mean glow?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Polaris is very confused. would there be anything on his person that gives off a slight radiation, like an A-Cell battery or something like that?

Avery/GM: I'd say probably your laser blade.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Polaris will hold his laser blade near his skin and his freckles will probably glow, because I don't think we've ever been in this situation where Polaris glowed.

Zach/Zahn: not in front of everybody.

Avery/GM: No, you have not yet.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, so Polaris like holds his laser blade to his own arm and he glows his freckles glow.

Zach/Zahn: Well now everybody just gets to be confused.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris is like looking con… very confused.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm. Hmm. Have you always just been glow?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Glow, glowing like that?

Bee/Polaris: Yep. Whenever radiation is present.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Do I know what that is?

Bee/Polaris: You did read his file. I don't know how far you got into his file though. I'm pretty sure it was just like his normal, his normal boy file.

Jenine/Marty: It was just normal stuff

Bee/Polaris: about vitals. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: It was just like a normal boy stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: It was just like, everything's healthy and I go sick. Good to know.

Bee/Polaris: We are on the Ursa Major, so there might be some other things. Uh, but Marty's only seen his normal boy files.

Jenine/Marty: That's the, the access that I had granted.

Avery/GM: So I will say that, um, The indi, all the individuals, like, and maybe you didn't put this together in the moment, but now you're kind of thinking about it. All the individuals who had like that like, kind of like glowing, uh, freckle condition were all from the same planet of Fotia which was you, you don't know of cause it's in the Milky Way Galaxy. But you know, you'd read through their file and it would say Home world Fotia blah blah, blah, this person needs, uh, insulin every four hours or something like that. You know, or, or this person needs an inhaler. That kind of a thing.

Bee/Polaris: So hell yeah. Brothers.

Avery/GM: So putting two and two together, you might think that that bioluminescence might be related to that planet in some way.

Jenine/Marty: Interest… Okay and like Marty just kind of sits there and like Charlie starts to, like, you can see her brain working.

Bee/Polaris: and Polaris is gonna send a, a little message to the custodians

Zach/Zahn: and Zahn is gonna go find some busy work to do

Bee/Polaris: did anyone eat the flies?

Avery/GM: Yeah, I was gonna say

Zach/Zahn: Oh Zahn…

Jenine/Marty: Yes,

Zach/Zahn: Zahn ate all of it wholeheartedly.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Polaris also ate some flies. He like put some, like, you know how you put a slab of butter onto like a, a pad of butter onto your pancakes? He put the flies on top.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. I mean, protein recycling's probably pretty common.

Bee/Polaris: Hell yeah.

Chris/Ollie: On space stations. So flies,

Avery/GM: glorious

Chris/Ollie: Flies are step up

Zach/Zahn: adds that extra bit of crunch, you know.

Bee/Polaris: Well, they're caramelized, so they're not crunchy, so they're nice. They're soft and sweet.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: So Zahn staying on you for a minute. Um, what busy work do you go do? Well,

Zach/Zahn: since it's in his immediate forefront of his brain, he's gonna fix the lip, uh, into the kitchen. And we're on the Ursa, right?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Okay. Yeah, he's gonna fix the lip on the ursa and then, um, I don't know, maybe wander around on the Cassiopeia, try to fix something there. See if he, maybe you can restore the, the giant guns in the hangar bay if they're not completely demolished.

Bee/Polaris: No, don't do that. Don't give Navi the ability to shoot us.

Avery/GM: I mean, Hermes, Hermes did get beat up pretty bad, but Hermes did do an efficient job of destroying the things. If there's one thing he's good at, it's, shoot,

Zach/Zahn: it's blowing stuff up. That's our boy. That's all. Boy,

Chris/Ollie: we still need to fix the, uh, hydroponics bays.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. We have to fix the hydroponics so we can get corn and weed.

Zach/Zahn: in that order of priority.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, exactly. More importantly, corn.

Avery/GM: Oh my goodness. . So yeah, you start doing your busy work, um, getting repairs done. Very good. Uh, let's jump over to Bee, you send the custodians a message?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris is just gonna ask if there's any other medical files on himself that they have in their possession.

Zach/Zahn: A quick, quick,

Avery/GM: you specifically don't get a response from, uh, Merak or Bear.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Alioth just sends three dots and is like why

Bee/Polaris: he sends wanna be healthy, smiley face.

Avery/GM: You get, you get back. Um, I may have something around my lab, but everything should be in the medical files in the Med Bay. Curious, you've never really taken that much of an interest before. Why now?

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris has noticed that both Merak and Bear have not said anything or added any sort of input. So he's getting a little sus. Um, Polaris sends a shrug emoji. Bored.

Zach/Zahn: Bored. Could use the read.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Bored. Could use the read smiley face. book emoji, nerd emoji.

Avery/GM: Merrick finally responds and is just… says, maybe we could discuss this later after your friends are busy with other things.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sends, dot, dot, dot and then would you all ever lie to me?

Avery/GM: Bear actually responds and is just like, only to keep you safe. Alioth sends a face palm emoji.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris squints his eye. He like stands up and is like squinting his eyes in his helmet, but not moving. He doesn't know because like earlier when they, we were like, when they debating on whether or not to destroy the Cassiopeia or tow it with us. They said it's for your safety, so now Polaris is extra suspicious of the custodians.

Avery/GM: Very good. You should be, no kidding.

Bee/Polaris: is Zahn still in the room because he was fixing the little, little ledge to the door, or did he finish that?

Zach/Zahn: Zahn would be like, I don't know, grinding or, or something that's pretty loud with his helmet on and in his helmet, he actually, uh, I want him to have hers reading the ship's data on, on Terra.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Like an audiobook.

Avery/GM: Sure. Currently, currently he is reading to you about the Bronze Age collapse

Chris/Ollie: the sea people, they come.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: And then every now and then you'll, you'll see him stop and be like, Hermes not that far back. Go, go forward a little bit.

Bee/Polaris: Lovely.

Zach/Zahn: But otherwise he's not at all focused on like really his surroundings.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. When he gets in the Zone he gets in the Zone.

Avery/GM: he's in the Zone, AutoZone.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. Okay. Polaris is gonna go to the Med bay and he's gonna start like doing the thing where you're like looking for something but not doing so in a way that doesn't make everything messy. He's just looking for something out of the ordinary.

Avery/GM: Sure. Awesome. We will get to that then in a moment.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Marty, you were chasing after Rho?

Jenine/Marty: Ye!

Avery/GM: Ollie outta curiosity, where specifically are you doing this? Analysis work that you're doing?

Chris/Ollie: Probably my trusty work station inside the TSKAM.

Avery/GM: Cool. So Marty Ro makes it pretty far. Before you catch up to her, Marty, you come into the docking bay, you actually see her messing with Polaris's ship, maybe trying to figure out how to get in there.

Jenine/Marty: Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Um, okay. I'm not gonna be aggressive. Hello, Rho! Sorry. You're having a moment. Um, Polaris doesn't really like when people touch his ship.

Avery/GM: I need to get outta here. Can I use your ship? I need to get home and I'm, I'm sorry, but I can't handle this. This is too much.

Jenine/Marty: What, which part? Sorry About that whole conversation. We just, that thing. Um, are you okay? You don't seem okay. You're not okay. Um, do you need a hug? Do you need a breath? You should take a br like a quick breath.

Avery/GM: You see her kind of like, stop for a moment, take a breath and is just like, oh yeah, you're right. I probably shouldn't steal someone's ship just to get home, that wouldn't be right.

Jenine/Marty: also, if your home is super, super, super far away, I don't know if any of these ships will be able to take you might, well, probably will, but like at the same time, you know what I mean, like, might not have enough of the, uh, required energies to get there.

Avery/GM: Well, no, no. See, this is the thing that hasn't made sense this whole time is that I was only on that ship for a couple of months. I couldn't have possibly have even made it as far as, as you all are saying that I've made it. So I'm pretty sure this is either just some sort of trick or there's a… there's a wormhole or something out there that I can, I just need to find and I can get back to where I was and, and all of this should be fine. I just, I can't, I can't stay here anymore. Zahn clearly doesn't want me here, and, and all of you are nice, but I, I, I just, I can't, I can't be here anymore.

Jenine/Marty: Marty like takes one little step towards her and just goes, okay, that, that makes sense. This is not your world. There are lots of things that you don't understand of what happened, but also we can help. Try and figure it out. I'm not really good with the whole like wormholes and stuff like that. I'm mostly like a medical person, but I'm pretty sure Polaris has a lot of knowledge. Hermes is pretty knowledgeable about a lot of things, and we can help. Sorry if we were a little, we as in Zahn, was a little bit confrontational about everything.

I think he's just confused. This is also the most I've ever heard from him say stuff about like his past and that was pretty cool

Avery/GM: Well, wait, wait, wait, wait. Yeah, his, his past, he mentioned there's a, a new Terra here. Have you ever heard of that place? Can we go there?

Jenine/Marty: I don't know. Have I, have I ever heard about this place?

Zach/Zahn: If you had, you would've heard of it as new terror probably.

Jenine/Marty: Am I familiar with it? Would it have been a place that I learned about or a place that was potentially on the list of places that I would've been assigned to? Would've been like, Hmm, could that be my no list, please?

Avery/GM: definitely wouldn't have been assigned there. I think the most you would've known about it is like the rumors that there is cannibalism there and like it's full of weird people and it's just, it's just not somewhere people normally go.

Zach/Zahn: It's for sure been blacklisted in the last like 11 years.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. I just, I've heard of it. It's not the place that it used to be. It has changed a lot.

Avery/GM: Maybe I can go there and, and they can help me figure out how to get home. If Zahn is right and they're from old Terra, then they must know how they got here and they can tell me how they got here and I can use the same way to get back

Jenine/Marty: Possibly. I don't know if the civilization has that knowledge at the state that they are in now. The place is a mess and I don't really know how to say it in a nice way, is what I'm trying to say.

Avery/GM: She is sort of just like bracing herself against Polaris's ship and you know, just trying to like hold herself up and she is just like, so there's just no way for me to get home?

Jenine/Marty: with the information that we have now. We don't know. But if we take a moment to just breathe, slow down, ask questions and research, we, we can find a way.

Avery/GM: Maybe Navi knows something.

Jenine/Marty: The, the same Navi that tried to kill you.

Avery/GM: Yeah, yeah. But Navi is really not that bad once you get past the whole self-destruct sequence thing. Okay. Maybe I'll just head over to the, the Casio PI and, and, and try to look into this a little bit more.

Jenine/Marty: I can help.

Avery/GM: She's like, oh, you know how to pilot your ship?

Jenine/Marty: You know, not really. As in, I'm not really the pilot. Everyone else is kinda piloting and I just kinda sit there and go, woo, do the thing.

Bee/Polaris: One specific person pilots. Well, Hermes pilots,

Jenine/Marty: Yeah

Bee/Polaris: not great but he pilots.

Zach/Zahn: He's learning.

Jenine/Marty: He's learning.

Bee/Polaris: He is Learning

Jenine/Marty: I push a button, go Hermes, Please!

Chris/Ollie: Hermes Take the Wheel!

Avery/GM: Marty, for the first time you do hear her chuckle at, at you saying that you just kind of do the thing and go wee and she's like, well, maybe later we can all go over there then together and I'll, I'll do some more research then.

Jenine/Marty: Awesome.

Avery/GM: but I need to be alone right now. I won't, I won't steal Polaris's ship. You're right. I shouldn't have tried to do that. I will apologize to him when I see him next.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. He's really protective of it. I, I, I wouldn't, but cool. Great. Good. Do you need a hug? You can do a hug. Did you want any comfort food? I can make food. More food. Did you want more pancakes, food?

Avery/GM: I'm, I don't have an appetite now, but, uh, A hug. A hug would be great. Good.

Jenine/Marty: And she goes in for a little hug.

Avery/GM: Okay, Ollie you hear some commotion outside the ship. Do you do anything about that?

Chris/Ollie: Uh, he's been listening in case, uh, he's needed, but, uh, no, he's just been working away.

Avery/GM: You do see like the hologram of, of Hermes's like beam next to you and it's just like, this feels like eavesdropping. Should we be listening or should I disconnect the, the audio sensors?

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will say, um, you never know what will happen. I have to be protective of my new family because, uh, you know, he's not after Bruce. Uh uh. we ain't losing anyone again. Never again.

Avery/GM: Would you like me to aim the guns at Rho?

Chris/Ollie: Only if she tries to procure Polaris's ship again or this ship.

Avery/GM: Understood. Although if she tried to procure this ship, I would not be able to aim the guns at myself.

Chris/Ollie: I'm sure you'll figure something out

Avery/GM: and uh, the hologram turns into a big thumbs up and disappears. Polaris, you are over in the med bay.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: Where would you like to start your little investigation?

Bee/Polaris: Where are all of the important information at?

Zach/Zahn: Probably behind the laser gate.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. What's that Laser gate. Oh wait, that's the smugglers hold.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's the smugglers hold.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris knows how to deactivate that, right? The lasers.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: You are smart enough to figure it out. I, I don't know. Has Polaris tried to do it before?

Bee/Polaris: I mean, he's probably played around at the smugglers hold before as a child

Avery/GM: Then Yeah, definitely. You are like, even though you've broken through it, like bear never bothered to like reset the security on it like more seeing it as like amusing.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: But yeah, probably this computer console here would probably have most of the information.

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. So Polaris probably looks at the console and it's just like, this is where all the important information is. They probably wouldn't put the important information that they're lying to me about on this. So he's gonna go to the smugglers hold and look through there.

Avery/GM: Sure. Uh, go ahead and roll a. A very easy dexterity program. Check to break through this, uh, this security system.

Bee/Polaris: You said dexterity program

Avery/GM: or sorry, intelligence, not dexterity. I'm sorry.

Bee/Polaris: It's fine. Both are the same. Well, I hope it is an easy check because I rolled a six.

Avery/GM: I put it at a six.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go

Avery/GM: specifically cause you said that you had been back there before. If, if you had said no, then it would've been harder. Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: I mean he's lived on this ship long enough. I'm sure he's been in every room.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Cool. Let's go to the smugglers hold. Yeah. Coming into the smugglers hold, there's some stuff that you've seen before. There's, you know, some old mech suits.

Bee/Polaris: Cool.

Zach/Zahn: Mech suit.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: That's cool.

Avery/GM: And yeah, so there's just a lot of stuff in here that like you've seen before and you've kind of just never paid it any mind. But one thing that has always been like here that you never really looked at much is a robot that you are now looking at looks very similar to your son.

Bee/Polaris: Whoa. My son. 2.0?

Avery/GM: Ehhh, More like 0.5, but yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. My son, zero point… my son Alpha.

Avery/GM: Yeah. the difference here is that it does look bigger and it is deactivated currently, but it has power.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: It just, the switch is not on.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. So there's like a broken mech uh, my son alpha edition and just a bunch of junk.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Bunch of stuff that like, you know, there's probably valuable. It's not all junk. There's probably like valuables here that they use to like trade.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. But it's junk to Polaris cause Polaris doesn't know anything about… anything about that.

Avery/GM: Yeah. There's a crate that you've probably like hidden in before when you're playing hide and seek or something. You know.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will go in there and hide again just for just old time sake.

Avery/GM: You're in the box.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Okay. Polaris is then gonna go back to the robot and turn it on.

(Switch turn on, robot power up noise)

Avery/GM: turn it on. You hear it's like that sound that like the, they play at movie theater is like the thx.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. it's super loud. Gets gradually louder. Vibrate your bones.

Avery/GM: Yeah, exactly. And it's loud and it's like you hear like gears inside This robot starting to turn that probably haven't turned in… It hasn't been turned on in about 24 years.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, interesting.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Super specific.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that's very specific.

Avery/GM: It says Adis Maintenance Unit ready for service. How can I service you?

Bee/Polaris: Nice. What's it called? How do you spell that?

Avery/GM: Adis… A D I S.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Please just know what to do here. But he's also looking at the door to make sure no, the custodians are coming in here because that was loud as fuck.

Avery/GM: So far, no.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. Polaris just kinda like looks at it and is just like, what do you do?

Avery/GM: I was responsible for maintaining the computer servers on the planet Audis before it was destroyed.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Do you need me to perform maintenance in this room? It looks quite cluttered.

Bee/Polaris: No. Do you know where any important files might be? long shot…

Avery/GM: I contain a multitude of files that were uploaded to me by Architect Designation Alioth approximately 23.5 years ago.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris squints his eyes harder. Are you able to transfer those files to me?

Avery/GM: Password needed.

Bee/Polaris: Fuck.

Avery/GM: Not gonna give it to you that easy.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I know. Hmm. Um, can Polaris try a bunch of passwords that he might That

Zach/Zahn: is it Polaris's own name?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Can

Jenine/Marty: Password Kid!

Bee/Polaris: Can, can Polar put his own name as the password?

Avery/GM: Yeah. So it's all audio, so

Bee/Polaris: Shit. Polaris sends a message to Alioth in chat. If you were going to put a password on a secret profile, what would the password be? Question mark. Question mark. Like thinky emoji.

Chris/Ollie: No sus, for real.

Avery/GM: face with monocle, why do you ask?

Bee/Polaris: thinking about putting a password on a secret robot for secret reasons.

Avery/GM: the robot you discovered on the Cassiopeia?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: Well, if it were me, I would use a 347 character password.

Bee/Polaris: Fucking goddammit.

Avery/GM: Alternating numbers, letters, capital letters, lowercase letters, symbols, and the occasional Emoji.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my god.

Chris/Ollie: For a spoken password? Oh my god.

Bee/Polaris: God fucking damnit. Okay. Uh, yeah. Polaris isn't an ai you can't memorize 300 characters! Polaris will say, could you, I don't know, send me an audio file of you possibly demonstrating with a password that you may have used in the past for said purpose.

Avery/GM: I'm gonna need the best intelligence connect check I have ever gotten from you.

Bee/Polaris: Intelligence connect.

Avery/GM: Yeah or charisma, but you're dealing with a super AI so

Bee/Polaris: yeah, this is ultra specific. Um, I'm gonna be honest, that doesn't beat a 10, so there's no way.

Avery/GM: There's no way you can beat a 10

Bee/Polaris: No, I got an eight.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. No, that's, that's not Alioth types back. I just checked the

Bee/Polaris: dam it

Avery/GM: video records.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: And I see that you're down in the smuggler's hold. Is there a reason you're messing with that robot?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: For what purpose?

Bee/Polaris: You lied to me?

Avery/GM: Dot, dot, dot, dot, dot, dot.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no.

Avery/GM: Please come up to my lab.

Bee/Polaris: Give me the password first.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no.

Avery/GM: If you come up to my lab, I will give you what you are looking for. But. Please turn that robot off. It's very annoying.

Bee/Polaris: How can I know that you aren't lying to me now?

Avery/GM: You don't. Smiley face,

Bee/Polaris: angry face. Polaris sits down on the floor and crosses his arms and looks up at the camera

Avery/GM: Rebellious teenager Phase!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah and also in turns of volume up on the robot.

Avery/GM: um, the robot is looking around and it's just like, would you like me to clean up this clutter? It is very unappealing.

Bee/Polaris: Looks directly at the camera. Yes.

Avery/GM: You see it's two metal hands clap together and it goes over to like this pile of junk over here and it just like starts like sorting things. Like very efficiently. Like

Bee/Polaris: hell yeah.

Avery/GM: Oh, this is cardboard. Oh, this is plastic. Oh, this is metal.

Bee/Polaris: Is it saying out it out loud?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Perfect.

Avery/GM: Yes, very much so.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is looking up at the camera with an angry emoji on his visor.

Avery/GM: Oh gosh, that's good.

Bee/Polaris: what are you gonna do? Flood the room with nerve gas.

Avery/GM: Let's do a charisma lead check. I don't think we've done a lead check before.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I have nothing in that. And I have nothing in charisma. Yay. Well, that's gonna be a 10 total.

Jenine/Marty: That's good.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that’s pretty good.

Avery/GM: You get a zip file in chat and just says, I don't know if you'll be able to actually speak this, but here's an audio recording in case you need it.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet place is gonna go over to the robot and, uh, ask for them files again and then use the password.

Avery/GM: It says, please wait until all sorting has completed.

Bee/Polaris: No stop sorting

Avery/GM: it freezes.

Bee/Polaris: I need those files. Please, please give the password. Polaris will send over the zip file.

Avery/GM: Analyzing. Analyzing, analyzing.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah, this is the 0.5 version

Avery/GM: password accepted. Hello Alioth. Here are the files you have requested and you get, you get the files sent over to you, but they're addressed to Alioth.

Bee/Polaris: Yep. Polaris turns the volume down and says, okay, you can continue sorting. And then he will go to Alioth’s lab.

Avery/GM: sorting, resumed! and it starts sorting again. And you get in the chat, please turn it off.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Players will turn it off

Avery/GM: soooorrrrrtinnnnng. (robot powers down)

Bee/Polaris: Oh well now he feels bad. He'll turn it on again later.

Avery/GM: Later! you're going to Alioth’s lab?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. But he will also send a message to the, the crew of the Minos and say, uh, yo parents have been lying to me. Uh, gonna go talk to parents. Smiley face. Also got some files. Smiley face.

Jenine/Marty: Marty messaged back. Do you need assistance? Question mark. heart.

Bee/Polaris: Kind of like a thinking emoji and then no, they're more likely to kill you than me. Polaris is fully

Zach/Zahn: Did you send this in the group chat?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: You get a dot from, you get, you see the typing dots of, of Zahn and it's just like, wait, what?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, you didn't know?

Jenine/Marty: Then you just get a, can you stream us in just for us to check in on you if possible. Be safe

Bee/Polaris: thinking emoji… Nah.

Chris/Ollie: Going in dark.

Bee/Polaris: I'll send an emoji every 30 minutes.

Jenine/Marty: 30!?

Bee/Polaris: I'll send an emoji every 10 minutes

Jenine/Marty: and then a nice little heart. Heart emoji.

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up emoji.

Avery/GM: Zahn, you were gonna go over to the Cassiopeia, correct?

Zach/Zahn: I was.

Avery/GM: yeah. So you come out to the… how are you getting over there? I should say you in a space walk. You're gonna fly over.

Zach/Zahn: Oh right. Cause this ship, it's just getting towed, isn't it?

Avery/GM: Yeah. You're all kind of like it. All the ships are kind of clustered together in this star system.

Zach/Zahn: Well question how did we get from the Cassiopeia to the Ursa

Avery/GM: flew on the Minos.

Zach/Zahn: Ah, yeah. Me and Hermes will go on a little joy ride to the, to the Cassiopeia.

Avery/GM: Sure. Ollie you are currently also on there. You hear Zahn coming up and then a few moments after Zahn climbs up the ladder, you hear the footsteps of someone else and it is Rho coming in after. And Rho says, I saw a vision of you going over to the Cassiopeia. Can I join you?

Zach/Zahn: I don't see why not. It's your home away from home I guess.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will share a glance with Zahn and say nothing.

Bee/Polaris: Now I have some concerns. Is Marty with them?

Jenine/Marty: No.

Bee/Polaris: You're not following Rho?

Jenine/Marty: I was and she said space and I went, okay. I will sit here.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. So where did, where did you go, Marty?

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Are you just like sitting in the Hangar Bay or did you go elsewhere?

Jenine/Marty: I will continue to read all of the little documents from Terra because there is a lot of them and I wanna hang out with Hermes.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you're…

Bee/Polaris: Hermes is going with them.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, nevermind. I'm gonna just sit and read.

Avery/GM: Okay. Were you reading on…

Zach/Zahn: he's reading me so he can read to you. Hermes…

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Can do multiple things.

Avery/GM: Super AI.

Jenine/Marty: I'm chilling in the kitchen.

Avery/GM: In the kitchen?

Jenine/Marty: reading

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Avery/GM: Okay. That works.

Bee/Polaris: All right. I have less concerns.

Jenine/Marty: Valid

Avery/GM: It's a quick little zip over to the, uh, Cassiopeia and Rho kind of stays down in the, those, the cargo area the whole time doesn't come up and chat with either of you while you float over to the Cassiopeia and by the time you

come down from the cockpit, she's already off and has wandered off into the Cassiopeia somewhere.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is going to at least attempt to follow, just like respectfully distance. Not like pursue, but just follow.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: We fixed up the Cassiopeia, right? There's atmosphere and gravity and all that.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: It's functional.

Avery/GM: You find her over here at this console in the west wing of the ship.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. Ollie followed along as well.

Avery/GM: And you hear her muttering. Where? Where is it? Where is it? It's not here. It it was, it was here yesterday. Where is it?

Zach/Zahn: What are you looking for?

Avery/GM: Navi. Navi is gone. All, all, all her files just deleted. Replaced with this weird caretaker program.

Zach/Zahn: The Fuck?

Avery/GM: I can't get home if Navi is gone.

Zach/Zahn: Ollie over there downloaded everything when we first got here. So hypothetically we still have the raw data, but I don't know where your AI went and Zahn is gonna, I have assist or actually look himself, I guess.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie is going to, uh, concernedly start checking the system as well.

Avery/GM: Sure. Both of you Roll intelligence program.

Chris/Ollie: Also Ollie's gonna check and see if the other, the uh, sub AIs are still on board as well.

Zach/Zahn: I got a five, but I'm going to do my expert thing and I'm gonna re-roll that.

Chris/Ollie: I got 15

Zach/Zahn: God damn Ollie.

Avery/GM: I'm sorry, 15?

Chris/Ollie: Yep. I got the Foci so I can roll three dice and drop the lowest. And then I got a big bonus in program.

Jenine/Marty: It's the best.

Zach/Zahn: I got eight in total.

Avery/GM: Zahn. Maybe it's just that like Ollie is just really fast and like, sort of just like blows you outta the water when it comes to like hacking the same terminal together. You're like typing away at normal human speed and Ollie is just like mechanical fingers flying across the console and Ollie, you come across a program that you remember seeing in a recording or vision or something a few weeks ago. You see that a program called Iaso has run and has deleted the artificial sentience of the AIs and has replaced it with just programs that automatically run the systems that The AIs were responsible for.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay. So the custodial AI is Navi?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Ooh and that Iaso is the same thing that was run in my vision.

Avery/GM: Yeah. That destroyed that planet.

Chris/Ollie: It was a program, I could tell that it was a program that was run.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: can I tell when it was run?

Avery/GM: approximately 2:30 AM the previous night… This morning, I guess.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will with question marks in his eyes, say someone ran a program to wipe the AI last night at this console.

Avery/GM: but no one was here last... I mean, Marty and I were. We're talking last night. Um, she was comforting me, but, but then we left to go to the, the Ursa for, for sleeping. No one else was here.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's gonna run over to the, to whatever I can identify as a security console and try and pull up video footage.

Zach/Zahn: Well, I guess technically as he is following you over, he says, uh, technically someone was here, Navi was here, insinuating that Navi activated whatever protocol.

Chris/Ollie: But I, I downloaded all of the data and this protocol did not exist in the files. It was not present on this ship before last night.

Avery/GM: What protocol, what program was it?

Chris/Ollie: Iaso

Avery/GM: She sort of just stares at you blankly at first and then like, like furrows her brow like. What did, what did you say,

Chris/Ollie: Iaso. It is something I have encountered only once before in somewhat of a dream, but apparently it overwrote the AI on the ship.

Avery/GM: Well, no, no. Iaso was a, a program that was used to destroy Adis five years ago.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will look at her as she says that. Where is this Adis?

Avery/GM: Um, back in, in the Milky way back, back home. It's the whole reason that the war, the Civil War started. Ollie, you were roll, you were trying to find like security footage, right?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Security footage of this room from 2:30.

Chris/Ollie:

Avery/GM: Go ahead and roll. Intelligence program.

Chris/Ollie: That is 13.

Avery/GM: You see the timestamp on the recording go from 2 29 and at the bottom it says AI online, and then it skips to. 4:27 AM and it says AI offline and Rho says the Rogue AI that captain Alexio mentioned in his log, they were the ones who ran the Iaso program and deleted the AI that, that were monitoring the planet Adis and, and making it habitable and when, when the AI deleted used that program and deleted the ai, everything went critical. All the fission reactors went critical and destroyed the planet. But no one here would know about that program.

Avery/GM: And that's where we're gonna end it.

(Outro music plays, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Intro and Outro Music Produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons.

Tracks include ‘Starfrieghter’, ‘Kaltoran Craft’, ‘Covert Ops’, and Alien Reactor.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter and Tumblr @FurthestPod.

We’ll be back on May 15th with our next episode.

See you out there! Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro Music Fades up and plays out)

Episode 20 - Rho, Rest, Repairs, and Reading

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 20 of Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro Music plays, fades down, ambience and background music fades in)

Avery/GM: So we're gonna skip ahead a few days. You kind of get into a routine of trying to fix up not only your ship, but also the rest of the Cassiopeia, is there anything anyone wants to do during this time while you wait for the custodians?

Jenine/Marty: are there other, like files on the people that were on the ship before?

Avery/GM: Yeah. You can look at the medical pay.

Jenine/Marty: Sick

Avery/GM: or, or just are you looking in general or specifically at the medical files? Which one?

Jenine/Marty: I think I'm like doing like the doctor checks of like walking around and like matching files to like all like the different pods. Just to be like, okay, if we do, if like. All this happened, like the past things. If I can still like find like generations of these people, I wanna have like a record of that. So these people, their families know what, what happened and stuff like that. So like that's what Marty's doing. Matching files to like pods and, and all of that.

Avery/GM: Totally. Yeah. So you start in the Med Bay and you match up the files with the people that were in the cold sleep pods, right outside the bridge and you realize that these cold sleep pods were the backup command crew for this ship. So basically when the command crew would start getting tired or sick, they would switch out and basically, so no one got overworked or over fatigued on the, the journey they were going on. you learn a little bit about them. You know, one of them was allergic to peanuts. Which you would have no context for.

Bee/Polaris: It's me.

Avery/GM: Some, some of them had, you know, chronic pain or some of them may have had some mental health disorders, but overall they were still fit to fly and go on this journey. But sadly, they did not survive. And you noticed that Rho has not come up from colony core, this whole, like during the past couple days that you've been kind of sorting through files and kind of figuring out last

wishes and everything like that for these people. And you come down with some of the files to start matching with them and you see that she is kneeling next to one of these pods and her, uh, hands are kind of, uh, we would see them as like praying style, you know? And she has her eyes closed when you come into this room.

Jenine/Marty: Oh! Marty puts like the data pad away and like does the same thing next to her just in like, like mimics the whole thing just to be like, okay, no talking. We're just gonna be in like, the presence of this.

Avery/GM: And she kind of opens her eyes and she's like, oh, hi. I, I didn't realize you came down here. What are you doing?

Jenine/Marty: I just, I just wanted to, are you okay? Um, you don't, you don't have to answer that. I just wanted to make sure that you were okay. this seems like something very important to you. So I was trying to mimic what you were doing to also show that I am in support of what? Of, of, of what's happening and showing support to you.

Avery/GM: Thanks. I actually don't know what I'm doing. It's something I saw people do back home on Terra. They would. They, they called it praying. They, they did it a lot like when people died. I think, Like, it made people feel better about losing a loved one and I don't know the, some of these people were my friends and so I, I just felt like it was the least I could do to honor their memory.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, okay. Understandable and she just kind of like stays there and like, if she's told to leave, she'll leave. But like, she's just there for like, you know, like I'm, I'm, I'm a quality time kind of person, so this is like Marty being like, quality time is a way to like show support. So we're just gonna sit here. Um, if she tells me to shoot, I will shoot. Um, but I wanna make sure she's good and like that's the thoughts that are going through Marty's brain and she just kind of sits there.

Avery/GM: Sure. She actually stands up. After about five minutes of this ritual that she's doing and kind of like takes like a deep breath and it's just like, okay, no more sadness… Time to figure out where I am and how to get home. Navi are you, are you there? And Navi comes online and says, hello, Rho are you ready to self-destruct?

Zach/Zahn: So obsessed

Avery/GM: and Rho's like, we are not gonna self-destruct. And Bobby's like, but the mission has failed. We need to self-destruct. Or others will find Terra. And Rho kind of just rolls her eyes and is like, look at, look at Hersh. She's not gonna invade our plum planet and destroy everyone. She's obviously a good person. I think you can calm down with the wanting to blow everything up. And then Navi goes silent and, and Ro Rose says to you, Marty, sorry about that… Navi is a little. Stubborn.

Jenine/Marty: Ah, yeah. I see. Uh, I was just, Hermes are kind of, Navi gets very excited when we say that. No, I understand. Anyways, um, like, was I gonna digress… And I was like, okay. Um, thanks. You also seem really nice too. Um, terr… what, what, actually, you know what? You can share any information you want to, I'm not gonna dig into anything about, about your stuff.

Um, also I found this little data pad, um, with all like the medical records and stuff. I can also give this back to you. I was just checking on all these people and like any, um, connecting stuff to files and, and stuff like that, you have a very beautiful language, like hands over the data pad with all the inform… medical information.

Avery/GM: Oh, thank you. This is really helpful. I think we're probably gonna have to bury these people in space at some point, but, now that the pods have power restored, they should at least. Stay preserved until we can find a a, a resting place for them. I'll, I'll, I'll look through these files and make sure everything gets matched up with everyone else.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: If Zahn was there, he would recommend, uh, incineration.

Avery/GM: Jesus

Bee/Polaris: always incineration. You don't wanna introduce like, foreign bacteria and diseases to a new planet. You know,

Avery/GM: this is true.

Zach/Zahn: these are extra galia- intergalactic, uh, yeah. Humanoid races. What if, uh, someone decided to clone them?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Uh, I, Marty was gonna ask the question of does she know a safe burial place for this situation? Like where she could recommend like a safe burial of like, she knows, she knows that go, she knows not to do… That's the medical stuff and introduce accidentally doing all the like, you know,

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Bury them on the planet that we killed Winston on.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. It'll be jettisoned into a black hole in a couple thousand years.

Avery/GM: So, yeah. So Marty, you, you do know that like typically burials in space, um, typically involve either launching them into a star or into a black hole just to Totally. So yeah, so tho those are definitely options that you can discuss with Rho now or later, whatever you prefer.

Jenine/Marty: I'm gonna let her process everything that's happening. Um, and then Marty just goes, our sh our, we have some, uh, really good, uh, pre-made food if you wanna try some of it. Our, our friend, um, he's a really good chef and he left us some frozen dinners if you would like to try them. Have a nice home cooked meal.

Avery/GM: You hear her stomach just give the biggest like rumble and she's like, oh yeah. It's, it's been a few days, huh? Yeah, food would probably be a good idea. And her hand kind of lingers on this one particular pod for a little while. Um, and then drops away and she is ready to follow you out.

Jenine/Marty: And then Marty just starts leading her to… then Marty send like a message and be like, Hey, can we invite Rho for dinner? Uwu, please. Sends that to the group chat as she starts walking very slowly waiting for a response.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, thumbs up in chat from Polaris.

Chris/Ollie: All of the Ollies in unison say certainly.

Bee/Polaris: How many Ollies are there? Like eight. So you just get certainly all in one like string.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Cause I, I figure I should also be using the drones too, for whatever little things they could do. So there's nine

Bee/Polaris: awe in the chat. Are each, are each always like a different color?

Chris/Ollie: Uh, yes. Yes. Let's say so.

Bee/Polaris: Or varied shade of Ollie's, OG color.

Avery/GM: Anyone else doing anything during this time that you have on this ship? Kind of repairing things?

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris has probably just gotten into a habit of making sure that everyone is still there, uh, but mostly following Zahn around,

Zach/Zahn: uh, Zahn has not left the ship formally known as Minos until it is at a hundred percent. And then he'll move out to the, uh, um, Cassiopeia.

Bee/Polaris: the soon to be ship, formally known as the Cassiopeia.

Avery/GM: the ship, soon to be formally known as… Wow. That is,

Chris/Ollie: I mean, that's just gotta be our name, ring scheme. We gotta take over a planet, become its government, be the planet formally known as Andor or whatever.

Zach/Zahn: Andor!?

Bee/Polaris: Hell Yeah

Avery/GM: Oh man.

Bee/Polaris: So then, yeah, Polaris is like the, the ship formerly known as The Minos is like home base, but he occasionally goes out to make sure that Marty is okay and then goes back to Ollie and Zahn, mostly staying near Zahn.

Avery/GM: Sure. Ollie and Zahn go ahead and roll some, uh, in either intelligence or dexterity repair. Or fix fix checks.

Zach/Zahn: Nine.

Chris/Ollie: I've got 11.

Avery/GM: Okay. That's good enough for me.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, I'm sure. Giving yourself six arm advantage.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah, Should I roll six times?

Avery/GM: I was giving you a plus two to that roll anyway. So 13 is perf… is gonna get you there. So yeah. Between all these robots and Zahn, uh, helping with it, uh, you have made it, um, you have repaired the ship formally known as The Minos, uh, within a day and a half rather than the three days that you were originally given by Hermes And then you start working on repairs of the Cassiopeia. what, what area do you work on repairing first?

Zach/Zahn: So now that the ship formerly known as Minos, now that it's prepared, uh, we can utilize it to pull junk from this, the graveyard to repair the Cassiopeia. First, I wanna do kind of the obvious. Let's patch the holes in this thing. Get some, get some reinforced bulkhead.

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay, so you're gonna venture out into the actual graveyard area?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: Cool.

Bee/Polaris: Hermes is probably gonna have to fly that ship cause Polaris doesn't wanna leave Marty.

Avery/GM: Okay, that's fine. Yeah. Polaris, you, you, you step off the, the, SOKAM (The ship formerly known as Minos) and you see it start to kind of flutter around the area. Hermes is piloting, but Zahn you're kind of like pointing out like, okay, here's what would be good. And you kind of go out and maneuver stuff in a way that. Your ship can kind of latch onto it and bringing it, bring it closer to the Cassiopeia in the meantime. Go ahead. Um, Ollie, are you assisting with this?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. He's just following along.

Avery/GM: Okay. Go ahead and both of you roll a intelligence notice Check.

Zach/Zahn: Ah, I knew, I knew investing in that would pay off. That is 13.

Chris/Ollie: 11.

Avery/GM: Perfect. So yeah, you definitely find a lot of stuff that you can use to patch the holes and, um, you actually end up finding some intact, uh, power coupling cables that you think you could price splice into… Even though this ship obviously came from somewhere else, you can easily splice it into, splice these cables into it and, and get it to actually maintain consistent power flow.

Avery/GM: But the other thing you find in all of this, you find a, basically like a, a almost like a tow, not a tow truck. Uh, like a small, like a small box truck's worth of, um, like scrap metal inside of this, uh, one of these crashed freighters and Ollie, you end up finding a box of these enhancement chips, um, hey, that you could eventually sort through and find different ones, but essentially they're all going to upgrade different, um, different skills of yours.

And there's also a few other like holo-vids and like comedy specials and things like that as well. So yeah, so you find a bunch of, of cool, you know, entertainment and also enhancement, um, out there in the graveyard, like. Probably this wasn't supposed to be left there. This was probably supposed to be like taken off of the ship before it got towed here, but someone just forgot.

Yeah. You know, like, Cause they try to take everything that's like super useful off of these ships, hence why there's no like weapons to be found, but,

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah, Bruce has my gun.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, there's guns on the Cassiopeia.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but it's not the same.

Avery/GM: It's not the, it's not the same.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Cause Polaris had a pistol. These are, those were like what? Assault rifles or something like that.

Zach/Zahn: I'm sure there's pistols on there.

Chris/Ollie: I ditched my pistols for the assault rifles. So there's, there's some lying around.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You also notice like quite a bit of other activity out and about in this system, but everyone kind of keeps to themselves, uh, you do notice a couple ships match the same, uh, signature as some of the pirate ships that Almost attacked you.

Bee/Polaris: Our friends!

Avery/GM: Yeah. Your, your pirate friends and you do remember something about their base being located in or around the graveyard.

Bee/Polaris: Will they have detected the ship? Formally known as the main, the minnows and uh, like shot us an email or something like, yo, what are you doing in our turf?

Avery/GM: No. Cause Zahn changed the transponder that they were using to track you, so…

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true, true, true, true, true.

Avery/GM: So they would just

Zach/Zahn: Correct.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So they would just see it as like another ship

Zach/Zahn: Would they not come investigate us then?

Avery/GM:

Chris/Ollie: Well, they're probably still with the…

Avery/GM: No, cause people. People come through here all the time. So it's like, like this is a big place that people come and scrounge for. So unless you were. Outside their base. They're not gonna like bother you.

Jenine/Marty: I will say that I possibly was like just checking in with everyone. I'm like, do we want, do we wanna have tea with the pirates? Like we don't have to have tea with the pirates. Cause I know that we don't have like our chef or anything, but if we want to have tea with the pirates, we just like read the room.

Zach/Zahn: Marty, do you wanna have tea with the pirates?

Jenine/Marty: I mean like, they're really, I mean like it'd be cool, like we can tell 'em about how like cool it was when we, we did the like little thing on the other planet with us racing saying get some like cool points from being cool.

Avery/GM: Marty just wants to be liked by the pirates.

Jenine/Marty: They like me, don’t they?

Avery/GM: Oh, yeah. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. You hugged to their captain. You hugged their main dude.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, but like also like, Hey look, look at the little is like all cool. That's what's going through Marty's brain. Marty's been a nerd for her entire life. She finally has done something cool. We don't have to have tea with the pirates. I'm just saying.

Avery/GM: I will say I do have stuff prepared. If you go see the pirates.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn says that we can have the pirates over for tea only if they assist in repairing the ship

Bee/Polaris: soon to be formally known as the Casiopeia.

Chris/Ollie: Well, they might take a pretty keen interest to the loot in the ship.

Avery/GM: You, you, yeah. You, you're gonna invite pirates over to a

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, let's not do that.

Avery/GM: Big thing that says mysterious technology. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: never before scene technology with uh, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Let's wait until the custodians get here.

Zach/Zahn: Not only are we friends with these pirates, but we've laid claim this is our claim, and hypothetically speaking, there's honor among these pirates, and they would understand.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's fair.

Zach/Zahn: That we laid claim.

Avery/GM: Oh, I will also say I, and I think I co, I hope I covered this last session, Polaris, when Merak made contact with you, they did say that the pirates were holding some sort of party at their base as well.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Yeah. Okay. I don't remember that. I probably wrote that down, but I don't remember that, but yeah. Okay. Yeah. So yeah, the, the, the pirates are having a party.

Avery/GM: I have it in my notes. I don't remember if I said it or not, so I'll have to cut that in if I didn't, but that was information I was supposed to give you. Sweet.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. They're having a party. I don't know if they were, if, I don't know if they're gonna want tea as a chaser for space alcohol, you know?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: I don't drink alcohol, so I don't know if tea is a good chaser for it.

Zach/Zahn: Have we scrounged the ships food stores at all? Maybe they have…

Bee/Polaris: Rho is still here!

Zach/Zahn: I just mean, do they, maybe they have a Terran Alcohol.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, well, did we ever figure out exactly how long they've been out here?

Jenine/Marty: Not yet.

Bee/Polaris: 300 plus years.

Avery/GM: So not yet, but you probably will find that out soon.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Probably not this session, but soon.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Well, we can check, check some expiration dates on that food.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Might have some fine wine aging down there.

Avery/GM: I mean, but would expiration dates even be valid in space? I mean…

Bee/Polaris: yeah, they would have to have like a container that it's like a countdown until it goes bad.

Avery/GM: I will say, to answer your question, Zach, I will say that you do find kind of some, like, we would know it as wine, but it it to you, it just looks like fancy grape juice.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh. It has a picture of a grape on it and like a skull crossbones.

Jenine/Marty: Yep, yep, yep, yep.

Bee/Polaris: Or, or it's a cartoon bottle that has like the, the three Xs.

Avery/GM: That says poison.

Zach/Zahn: like moonshine sway the hu moonshine jug

Chris/Ollie: jug. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: I'm trying to keep it classy. But yeah, the Xes

Zach/Zahn: determined how many, uh, how, how strong it is.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. So you do find some of that in the uh, it's like kind of like stashed in the mess hall, like someone was trying to like, you know, keep this just between them and themselves.

Bee/Polaris: Well, they're dead now, so

Avery/GM: Yeah, they are…. So, yeah, so you do have some fancy stuff you could bring as a gift. Um, you don't really know what kind of party this is, but you know,

Bee/Polaris: are we planning on crashing the party?

Zach/Zahn: Not Yet.

Avery/GM: I mean, you were invited, you were invited as guests to the party.

Jenine/Marty: Oh,

Bee/Polaris: Oh, we were invited.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, wait.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay, cool.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah

Bee/Polaris: I didn't know we were invited. Probably wouldn't have gone on the Cassio. We knew we were invited. No I’m kidding.

Avery/GM: I'm sorry. Yeah, that's, that is my failing as a GM for not

Chris/Ollie: No, it's all good.

Avery/GM: Specifying

Chris/Ollie: Well, yeah, then, uh, no problem. Because if we just showed up outta nowhere, like, Hey, we just, we're in the area for no reason. Don't look for our ship or why we're here. Uh, it would be a little more awkward, but if they invited us, yeah, we just pull up.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Wait, are we going to the Pirate party or are we still on the Cassiopeia? Because the Cassiopeia still needs repaired.

Chris/Ollie: Yes,

Jenine/Marty: yes,

Avery/GM: yes

Chris/Ollie: all the extra Ollies are gonna stay in repair.

Bee/Polaris: Oh. So we are going to the, I'm confused What’s happening?

Chris/Ollie: If we go, if we go,

Avery/GM: it's up to you.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Yeah, we haven't actually decided yet, but if we go,

Avery/GM: yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Are we taking our new friend with us?

Avery/GM: And do you leave Rho to just be there by her? By herself?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Are we gonna take our new friend with us to go to this party?

Bee/Polaris: Flo doesn't know what a party is, so he's probably stay with Rho.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn hasn’t been to a party in like 15 years, so

Avery/GM: Yeah. The last time Zahn was at a party was during a blood ritual, but…

Zach/Zahn: No!

Avery/GM: I'm kidding.

Zach/Zahn: It would've been before shit really started hitting the fan at home though.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. And Marty’s kinda like sits there and like, are we go, are we going to socialize with our friend with, with the pirates? Yes or no?

Zach/Zahn: Uh, Zahn can be convinced, but right now he's still, he's still like, while he's calmer, he's still very much in get everything fixed mode.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah. Polaris is still grieving over Bruce, but he,

Avery/GM: but doing so, it feels wrong to party.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. No, it's true. But Marty's just kinda like, what do we do situations? How do we distract? We don't have to distract. What's, how is everyone feeling? It's like the way that Marty is trying. Fix everything because she knows that she could do some mental stuff to people. But she's not gonna do that Cause that's fucked up.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: She's kinda like day chill.

Avery/GM: You see Hermes’ hologram pop up and start like dancing.

Bee/Polaris: Hermes starts doin’ dancing on the table while we're talking and we're all just like sad.

Jenine/Marty: Marty's just chilling. She's just checking in on everybody. She like has like, you know how in like the Peanuts comics, oh, I forgot which character it was. Just has like the doctor inside. That's what she has. Just like every so often it's like, hey, not forcing anything, but if we just wanna Chill.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris probably would've pointed out like the former gun wound that healed day one to Marty and be like, is this good? Is this, how are we? Good Your doctor,

Jenine/Marty: well wait, didn’t I help heal? I helped with the healing.

Avery/GM: You did do some psychic keeling. On, on, on Polaris. Um, and then yeah, I think you also used a med packs… So

Jenine/Marty: cool, cool, cool.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. Great. I also distribute the MEP packs that I do have. Um, that's something I should do. Um,

Avery/GM: so everyone has one.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. So everyone has one. Um, Cause then like if they do go down and they can't administer it themselves, I can go sprint on over and help out. Everyone has one prepped already, kind of.

Avery/GM: or if or if you go down.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah, that too…. There’s four

Bee/Polaris: You won't.

Jenine/Marty: I'm fine. Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: you won’t.

Jenine/Marty: So everyone, everyone put a, put a med pack in their inventory. So now I have one cause I had four, so now I have one.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent. Yes, Ollie will definitely store it on him in case any squishies is nearby need a hand

Bee/Polaris: Yes, we do be a little bit squishy.

Jenine/Marty: Oh what Squishies? Nah, nah, we're fine.

Avery/GM: So where… So no, no pirate party or Yes, pirate party.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris would stay behind. He's not in the mood to party. He misses Bruce.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: I am not doing

Avery/GM: totally fair.

Jenine/Marty: It is either we all go or we all stay. But Marty does send like a little like Thanks for the invitation. Hope you guys are doing well. Kind of an email if everyone says no in a way, I'm just like, Hey, hope you're doing good.

Chris/Ollie: Just translate it to Pirate and be like, ARG, we lost a crew mate. Matey. We don't feel much like partying today.

Bee/Polaris: Arg! one of our teammates walked the plank,

Avery/GM: walked the plank!

Chris/Ollie: He’s with David Jones now.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Marty sends like that quick little email to them.

Avery/GM: Well then we will wrap up the time skip scenes. Um, unless there's anything anyone else wants to do before we get to the last scene for the day.

Bee/Polaris: Um, oh yeah. What's going on with my Son Boy?

Avery/GM: Yeah, there we go.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris was overwhelmed with sad to think about Son Boy.

Avery/GM: So Polaris, maybe it's like. When you're like laying down for the night or something like that, um, you remember that you have your little tin can son and you, you pull it out and you realize that just a simple Type-A power cell would power it right up.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sick. I'll slap one in there… I got a couple

Avery/GM: and you're kind of holding it. You slap it in there, it powers up, (power up sound) and then it kind of like springs up outta your hands (spring sound) and like lands on the ground and is like, you know, kind of sitting there, kinda like bouncing on like some springy legs just says. “Greetings. I am unit 4596 in service on the Pan Solar Union ship Cassiopeia. I am a test dummy here to test any and all scientific experiments conducted by researcher designation Aldo. I am also trained to repair ships, cook noodles, and read bedtime stories.”

Bee/Polaris: Bedtime stories! Polaris immediately picks up his Son Boy and like goes over to where everyone else is sleeping.

Jenine/Marty: Qu… question, is this in our language or is this speaking in the language of the people on this ship?

Avery/GM: Oh, that was in the language of, um, yeah. So Polaris

Bee/Polaris: Polaris has his helmet on.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, yeah. When Ollie had it and when he finally returned it, all the settings were changed. But he also…

Bee/Polaris: wait, what? He had it, when did you steal my son?

Chris/Ollie: No, when he took your helmet.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, oh.

Chris/Ollie: When I took your helmet. All the, I changed all the settings, but I did upload the, uh, language pack.

Avery/GM: So you get like subtitles.

Bee/Polaris: What the fuck? What did you change my settings to?

Chris/Ollie: I dunno. Just the same like when you lend your car to someone and all the, uh, everything's adjusted.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: God damn it, Polaris before he goes and shows his Sun Boy to everyone else, he'll put on his helmet and spend like an hour fixing it.

Avery/GM: So you do get like the subtitled version of that. So like, it, it says it in its language, but um, you get the subtitles, uh, translated.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will send a message to Son Boy and send him a language file

Avery/GM: and you hear it say processing… except in its other language.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And then like you see like the lights on its eyes like go like red and then yellow and then blue. And then green and it looks up at you and says, greetings. I am unit 4596, and it continues its spiel in your language.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris picks him up and brings with everyone else like a very much a, it's midnight, everyone is like asleep, and Polaris just like opens the door to show the son.

(metal door opening)

Avery/GM: I found a son.

Chris/Ollie: My boy!

Bee/Polaris: My child! he doesn't say anything though. He just opens the door really loudly and then just holds up his son.

Jenine/Marty: Marty like flips over her sign that said, doctor is out and then flips it back to doctors and he like, sleepily, hello,

Avery/GM: is it morning? And this little rope, this little robot waves to you, and it's just like greetings. I am unit 4596 in service on the Pan Solar Union ship Cassiopeia.

I am a test dummy here to test any and all scientific experiments conducted by researcher designation Aldo. I am also trained to repair ships, cook noodles, and read bedtime stories.

Jenine/Marty: Ah-huh. Do I remember seeing Aldo's records?

Avery/GM: You do. Aldo was one of the backup command crew. You look like you are sleeping. Do you need a bedtime story?

Jenine/Marty: No. No. I'm o… I'm Okay. Do you. Okay, Polaris, do you, do you, are you in need of assistance? Am I, you just, what's happening?

Bee/Polaris: He just points to the robot, like, like very excitedly pointing to the robot. They're like three explanation points on his visor.

Jenine/Marty: Um, what is your name 4 5 9 6?

Avery/GM: I am unit 4 5 96. I do not have a name.

Jenine/Marty: C D E F g h I.

Avery/GM: Oh, I, I, I will say I did not actually, um, like this is not a, a, me being clever with numbers thing, I literally just picked four numbers.

Jenine/Marty: No, that's Mar Marty is like saying that, but like is tried to do it in that way.

Avery/GM: okay.

Jenine/Marty: B C D E F.

Bee/Polaris: It's, it's, it's d e i f.

Jenine/Marty: I know. I just finished

Chris/Ollie: Deif?

Jenine/Marty: Deif?

Chris/Ollie: Deif!

Jenine/Marty: Well, do you wanna, can we call you deer? Can we call you deer? Is that cute? That sounds cute.

Bee/Polaris: It's Deif!

Zach/Zahn: I like Deif!

Jenine/Marty: but also Oh, like deer. Yeah, but like, what if, you know, what about deer? Deer sounds deer, deer do want not, or do you want us to call you the number and like, she's like very much half asleep but is still trying to hold a conversation as best as possible with this robot.

Avery/GM: I will consider other names that you may call me.

Jenine/Marty: Awesome. Hermes, I think you have a little brother. I like. She flips the sign back to doctor is out and just passes out.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will put, will put the covers like pull the covers back over Marty and then walk out Polaris. Polaris will then go to Zahn's room, open the door, but then remember that Zahn wanted to use his son for spare park and immediately leave.

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will then go to Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie, uh, is still working away, just fixing the Cassiopeia.

Bee/Polaris: Now he will show the his son to Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will look at the, uh, the robot and is eyes will light up a little bit and he'll be like, you've activated him. Greetings, what is your name?

Avery/GM: Greetings. I am Unit 4596 in service on the Pan Solar Union Ship Cassiopeia. I am a test dummy. Here to test any and all scientific experiments conducted by researcher designation, Aldo, I am also trained to repair ships, cook noodles, and read bedtime stories.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent. I require assistance fixing this ship. Are you available?

Avery/GM: You see one of its arms just like pop out like a bunch of different compartments with like different tools on it.

Zach/Zahn: Are they all tiny tools?

Avery/GM: Almost like transformer style, but yes.

Bee/Polaris: He puts on a little hard hat.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: You just agreed to that without even fully processing what I said.

Avery/GM: Yes. Yes, I did.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent.

Avery/GM: This is the problem. I, yes. And too much

Bee/Polaris: so he has a little hard hat.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Like a little compartment pops like his chest, like pops open and there's like a little tiny, like little mini hard hat that he takes out and puts on and looks at you and says,

Bee/Polaris: yay.

Avery/GM: Would you mind putting me down so I can help

Bee/Polaris: Polaris his son down? And then does the, like the little, the both hands nudge forward so he can go play

Avery/GM: Polaris. What do you do afterwards?

Bee/Polaris: he'll sit down and like watch his son play and eventually fall asleep.

Avery/GM: Cool.

Bee/Polaris: Just like against the wall.

Avery/GM: Great. And our night ends like that. Polaris propped up against a wall inside of the Cassiopeia Ollie working with this little tiny mini multi-tool robot working on installing some of this… This, uh, scrap that, that you hauled here from, from the other ships in the graveyard. Zahn is sleeping peacefully. And, and Marty, you, you also get a full night's sleep after waking up for a very random and confusing reason. And the night ends and the next day starts. it has been three days since you arrived on the Cassiopeia When Hermes speaks up and says, over the loudspeaker on the Cassiopeia, the custodians have arrived. Polaris, would you like me to make contact?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just like rolls over and makes like a, a non-committal, like sleepy noise and like waves his hand because he is still sleepy.

Avery/GM: Totally

Zach/Zahn: quick question. Have we deleted the data in their banks on the, homeworld yet?

Avery/GM: Yeah. I believe that's what Polaris did.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris did.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: But Ollie downloaded it to himself. That's in the Google Drive.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Oh. And we But we haven't disabled the self-destruct

Avery/GM: No, the self destruct is, disabled that AI has not been reactivated.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. But we haven't disabled their ability to do so if they reactivated.

Avery/GM: Oh, true.

Zach/Zahn: Given that that is no longer a thing that they have to worry about, would um, Navi still want to self-destruct?

Avery/GM: Navi knows that you have the location because,

Chris/Ollie: oh, no.

Avery/GM: Ollie downloaded it,

Chris/Ollie: so now she must kill me… or us.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So Ollie is now the target. The Cassiopeia doesn't necessarily have to self-destruct. Ollie just has to

Avery/GM: more or less.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So we just don't repair the guns.

Zach/Zahn: But does that mean we can turn on. Signey, what, what was the name?

Chris/Ollie: Segin.

Bee/Polaris: We shouldn't… probably?

Avery/GM: not while you're on board, I wouldn't

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, yeah,

Bee/Polaris: yeah, yeah. Let's probably not.

Chris/Ollie: Like even if we made it so they couldn't self-destruct that AI is the only, that the AI being off is the only reason. Like they can't shut off the gravity or turn up the gravity or turn off the life support.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So Polaris, you kind of give this non-committal and you hear, uh, Merak's voice come over the intercom and just says, hello. Do you have an update on this ship? Are we taking it, destroying it, scrapping it? What are we doing?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris types and chat. zzzzzzz, and then rolls back over.

Avery/GM: Is anyone else awake and wanting to respond?

Jenine/Marty: Marty thinks about it, but then goes, oh, they don't like Squishies, and she like, sits at the communication desk

Bee/Polaris: very specifically, very specifically. They don't like Squishies, but Alioth… Alioth is the one that hates Squishies the most. But Merak and Bear will tolerate you guys.

Avery/GM: because you're friends.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. As long as Polaris is alive!

Jenine/Marty: Marty still sits and just goes, um, like sees chat and sees the z’s Oh. Maybe not and just like sits there and just waits at the communication desk for someone to come in.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will just send them the live stream of like when they first got on the ship and then like after they lost Bruce then just

Chris/Ollie: send them the VOD.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, pretty much. And then they can just watch it at like times a thousand speed.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You see, or you hear them say one moment processing and they kind of keep this communications line open. You hear Merrick say, Alioth, what are your thoughts? And Alioth says, “this ship poses a risk to us, to our work and to the safety of Catalyst, designation Polaris, we should destroy it.”

Jenine/Marty: Ooh. Ah hmm. Don't like that.

Avery/GM: And, and you hear in the background, uh, you hear Bear yell, yeah, let's do it. But more out of like, more out of like, he loves destruction and you know,

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like will send in chat, ZZZZZZ thumbs down, ZZZZ.

Jenine/Marty: And then, and then Marty just join chat and goes, hi, yes, me and Marty. What I don't, yes and no, but also like, what if I didn't, but also like partially yes, but like, like, but also no. And then sends my VOD or attempts to send my VOD and I'm like accidentally does like, Does like snippets of it instead of like the whole thing of my conversation with Rho. But like,

Avery/GM: well, and yours isn't even a VOD. It's just audio.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, it is an audio.

Jenine/Marty: But like, that's what she messes up. She's like, she tries to send it as a V, like a vad. She's like, wait, why isn't this, oh, it's au Oh, wait, wait, wait. Sorry. Like sends it.

Avery/GM: Merak says, well, what other option would you like? This AI seems very intent on harming you, and we can't have that.

Jenine/Marty: and then Mar Marty goes over to Polaris and just goes, I know, I know. You're like pokes. And she's like, Hey, I know you're kind of like

sleeping right now, but at the same time, if you could wake up a little bit… ya know?

Bee/Polaris: he's like laying on the ground like against a wall and like he just rolls away from Marty like into the wall

Jenine/Marty: and like she won't continue just to keep going. Just goes Polaris, pu Polaris and like keep poking Polaris. Good morning. Good morning.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris grabs Marty's hand and just pulls her to lay down with him it’s sleepy time, it's morning, it just pulls you into, it's not, it's sleepy time

Jenine/Marty: and like will continue to try and like poke as best as possible

Bee/Polaris: while Marty is doing that, Polaris types in chat, no friend but misspells friend. So then does an asterisk and then spells it wrong again, then does double asterisk and then spells it right

Avery/GM: Alioth response to you in chat, which is a bit and just sends the eye rolls emoji. And, uh, Merak just says, well, why don't, why don't we wait a few hours for Polaris to actually wake up and we can continue this discussion? And they are kind of just holding position outside the Cassiopeia.

Bee/Polaris: ready to just blow it up with the, with the singularity gun.

Jenine/Marty: Yep.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: Cool.

Avery/GM: After y'all get off a bit. Of course.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. By the way, players is awake. He's just, he just doesn't wanna get up.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. No, no, no. Got it, got it. Got. It's the scrolling through TikTok, uh, morning part.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, exactly. Is Marty still poking?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Trying to wake him up. Polaris like lifts up his visor and says, I'm awake.

Jenine/Marty: Goodeth morning. Oh, do you wanna, are we, are you just gonna, are we just gonna And she just quiets down and just goes, okay.

Bee/Polaris: what's Ollie and Zahn doing? How do they respond to this?

Chris/Ollie: Fixing.

Bee/Polaris: Nice

Avery/GM: Ollie just keeps fixing.

Chris/Ollie: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Bee/Polaris: I mean, he is, Ollie uh, was kind of affected, similar to Zan. He didn't go angry, but he's in a, in a bit of a manic state.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Cause Ollie's not used to loss at all.

Chris/Ollie: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, becoming sentient, we've always been together as a group. So yeah. This is like, not only his first loss, but he doesn't really see much of a like Separation between himself and the crew. He's like, we are a family.

Bee/Polaris: We are all Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Yes, we are all one. I have absorbed even the Squishies.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God. That's a dangerous Thought.

Bee/Polaris: We can just get one of them. The pods, like the cryogenic sleep pods, and we upload our brains into, into Ollie. It's like Soma, but Ollie!

Avery/GM: Polaris. You see bears start just spamming bomb emojis and chat.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just like types and chat. All right. All right. What

Avery/GM: Merak says are you going to blow this ship up or are we taking it?

Bee/Polaris: No… take… friend.

Avery/GM: I see. We cannot convince you otherwise.

Bee/Polaris: No, actually Polaris will type question, Why is it dangerous?

Avery/GM: Clarification. Things coming from outside of this galaxy could pose a threat to you biologically. It could pose a threat to this galaxy technologically. It could pose a threat to us by interfering with our work.

Bee/Polaris: Work? Question mark. Yeah, what do you guys do?

Avery/GM: Merak just says, changing our routines would be annoying.

Bee/Polaris: Agreed.

Avery/GM: Alioth like sends like a very complicated math problem in the chat, and the equation equals out to 99% and does not elaborate at all. It's just like it should speak for itself.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sends the number four.

Zach/Zahn: What does the number four mean?

Avery/GM: Nothing.

Bee/Polaris: Nothing. He just thinks it equals four. He's trying to solve the equation. He just sends the four.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God.

Avery/GM: Merak just says very well. Is the ship fight worthy or should we attach it and tow it back to our main system?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris @’s Ollie with a question mark… and Zahn.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie's mostly deferring to Zahn and his fixing expertise.

Avery/GM: I was say basically the two of you can roll, one can roll a repair, intelligence repair and one can roll a help. Roll

Jenine/Marty: as that's happening Marty, just cut a sentence and chat. There's some biological stuff that maybe we should keep in like this area for right now. Like real quick. Not say like, yes we can move it, but like if it's almost secluded area that'd be kind of cool or like tries to type that, but like that's what she, she tells Polaris to type in chat.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Zahn is definitely gonna recommend that. Typing in the chat that uh, we remain, keep the Cassiopeia in system until it's fully operational, utilizing the parts in the graveyard instead of dragging it away and then having to import parts elsewhere.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true.

Zach/Zahn: Or make other parts.

Avery/GM: yeah, well I was gonna have you roll repair to see how much you've gotten it repaired.

Jenine/Marty: Ahuh, aha ha

Bee/Polaris: Oh, there is like a factory on the ship to fabricate parts. Cause there's a bunch of, we just have to get operational.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we have to repair that too.

Bee/Polaris: Um, but now we have my boy!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we…

Avery/GM: and you have lots of scrap that you hauled in so you could easily repair the factory on board the Ursa major.

Zach/Zahn: So I rolled a 11 on my fix.

Chris/Ollie: I got, uh, 12.

Avery/GM: The only thing that's not repaired on this ship is the hydroponics bay.

Zach/Zahn: Oh. We absolutely need to fix that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we also got one of those, though they probably have like special seeds that are like from different from,

Chris/Ollie: they've got earth seeds,

Zach/Zahn: Bro, they have earth weed,

Bee/Polaris: they have corn!

Jenine/Marty: Oh my god.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, what did you say? Did you say weed?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. I said they have earth weed and you were so innocent with corn.

Bee/Polaris: I live in Ohio. It's the only thing we have.

Chris/Ollie: I'm gonna smoke that corn.

(laughter)

Bee/Polaris: But yeah, we could like get the stuff for the fact from the factory to repair the Cassia and, um, the ship formally known as the Minos.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: For any future skirmishes we get into, oh,

Chris/Ollie: we don't, we don't really need the hydroponics bay and, uh, I mean we can park the Minos in the Cassiopeia. So we got that.

Bee/Polaris: Can we park the Cassia in the Ursa major?

Zach/Zahn: Probably not.

Bee/Polaris: just like for a little Matryoshka thing. Yeah, no, I'm kidding actually. What is the Cassiopeia, because the Ursa major is a, a

Avery/GM: it is a Fleet Cruiser. Yeah. The Cassiopeia is a fleet cruiser. It will not fit inside. It could be towed by, uh, the Ursa major, but yeah, I, I think your, I think your hangar bay on the Cassiopeia can just fit like a, a freighter.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Dang. Uh, we're gonna have to get a bigger ship so we can fit another ship inside of that ship so we can fit the ship formally known as the Minos in that ship.

Chris/Ollie: No, we need ships all the way down.

Zach/Zahn: I still have my, my stats for the two ships that I made up, just saying

Bee/Polaris: we gotta get another ship so that Zahn can stat up them shits.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Also, uh, we can just take these back to the, the major, uh, fix the factory and then use that to upgrade these ships.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true.

Chris/Ollie: Just trick 'em out.

Zach/Zahn: Hydroponic Production.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So the Cassiopeia is the same class of ship as the Ursa Major. Cassiopeia is a Fleet Cruiser, Ursa Major is a battleship. Oh wait, battleship is capital ship. Nevermind. But still the, the Ursa major only has a docking bay that can fit a frigate, so

Bee/Polaris: dang it. Okay.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So do you, do you wanna follow the custodians back to their home sector or just stay here for a bit? Or what,

Bee/Polaris: which would be safer? We probably don't want the pirates finding the Cassiopeia

Jenine/Marty: no.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah…Now that there's another big ship in the area, actually, wait, no. Did they pull up with the, the major?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Chris/Ollie: that's gonna be noticeable.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So, uh, let's, uh, chips and dip, you know,

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is going to recommend that we stopped by the place that we murdered Winston first.

Bee/Polaris: Do we really wanna go back there? Do we really wanna go back there?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. I don't see why, I don't see why any of the Winstons would've gone back. Would still be there Cause it's been.

Avery/GM: A few

Zach/Zahn: since we killed him.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Uh, like, uh, two and a half weeks, maybe a month.

Zach/Zahn: two and a half weeks.

Chris/Ollie: It won't cost us super. Like, uh, I don't know what they are. They're probably like multi gajillionaire space family to, it won't cost so much to put a few drones on the planet and just keep an eye out.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: I will say that the planet that the custodians typically orbit is like completely cleansed of like life or anything interesting. So like,

Zach/Zahn: oh, okay.

Avery/GM: Dropping dead bodies on it. It'd just be rude to those dead bodies.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we could just like go on the planet and bury 'em

Avery/GM: and there is a star in that system, so you can always just,

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah, let's just launch 'em into the star.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Let's just launch 'em into that. That's, that's, that's a good idea.

Bee/Polaris: We don't want to accidentally create a new, like, race of, you know, species that inhabit that barren planet.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah. The, the bacteria suddenly, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Over a couple million years, we come back and we're like, holy shit, what happened here?

Chris/Ollie: Uh, what does Rho think about us putting everyone in the sun?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, yeah.

Avery/GM: No, Rho did, Rho did mention putting them to rest, so,

Chris/Ollie: okay.

Avery/GM: Okay. Does anyone pilot the ship? Are you gonna let Navi follow? Like, what, how, how do y'all convince Navi to give you control of the ship?

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna say, what does Nava navi have to say about all this?

Bee/Polaris: I thought we were towing it. We're just like attaching cables to the Ursa, and then

Avery/GM: well, yeah. So that's, that's totally one way to do it. I, I was just, wasn't sure if you wanted to fly it or not.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we haven't quite ironed out what we're gonna do with the AIs.

Bee/Polaris: True. Yeah. Maybe we'll let the other ais take care of those ais. AI to AI.

Zach/Zahn: Maybe we can convince the hoard of the VIs to convince Navi that it we're okay.

Bee/Polaris: Do they have any decision power though? I feel like Navi is like the decision maker.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: it's like a Hydra, but like nav is the one that makes the decision.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. If anyone has played Horizon Zero Dawn um, or, uh, forbidden West Navi is very much like Gaia in that game. One central AI with several subordinate functions. But yeah. If y'all are going to tow it, do you stay on your ship? Do you stay on the Cassiopeia, do you stay on the Ursa?

Bee/Polaris: wherever everyone else is… Polaris will be.

Jenine/Marty: I will go chill with Rho just to like, be like, Hey, what's up? We're doing the things, chill here. You know, like, not let her be alone on that ship unless she joins us in another ship. But like I'm with her.

Avery/GM: Sure, yeah. You, you end up finding Rho in the actual cabins of the ship trying to just sort of, it almost seems like she's trying to like normalize her situation. So she's like made one of these beds and like, has tried to like, make it seem like, oh, it's just a normal day on the ship. You know, that kind of a thing. maybe the shock of this.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. I do need to preface like, Marty has invited her to like every single meal to be like, Hey, if not, here's like a little tray of reheated food that I date, like I is trying to make it normalized to being like the nice little neighbor kind of!

Avery/GM: yeah, she's, she's come to like a couple meals and like sat there silently. But after the first couple, and, and I'm sure y'all have probably tried to engage her in conversation, but like, she basically just gave like one or two word answers. Uh, you did finally find out that her pronouns are she/her

Jenine/Marty: sick,

Avery/GM: but other than that

Bee/Polaris: it was on her medical chart.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Which, yeah, actually that's a good point. See, this is my problem. I say yes and then I process,

Bee/Polaris: I'm gonna start using that to my, I'm just gonna start saying more and more wild things.

Jenine/Marty: My favorite game!

Avery/GM: Oh no. But after that, she kind of just would like show up, grab food and leave. Not to like be rude, but just. She wants kind of, she's still processing.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Marty's not forcing anything. She's just kind of like, okay. Just little, you know, like when there's a scary dog and you're trying to be friends with a scary dog, so you just like do little things. That's what Marty's doing.

Avery/GM: So Marty, do you explain to Rho what's going on with the, the Cassiopeia?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I do. And also like, also like very much like pushes us like, hey, like also like we're gonna go, we're trying to like find an, a place, like a good place for you to like to, to rest for them to rest in peace as well.

Avery/GM: She's, she looks at you and is just sort of like, I am not going home, am I?

Jenine/Marty: Oh, well…

Avery/GM: And she breaks down and starts crying.

Jenine/Marty: Marty imed… like, sees the tears and immediately just hugs.

Avery/GM: Cool. Uh, and that's where we leave Marty and Rho is, is sobbing, realizing that she's stuck in a strange place that she doesn't know.

Bee/Polaris: I've been there, done that.

Avery/GM: Polaris, Zahn and Ollie. What are y'all doing while the Ursa tows this away? And by tow I mean like they have the transport fittings, so they just kind of clamp on and go.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn will be pouring over Ollie's data then.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie as well with the encrypted bits.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. There's some encrypted stuff. So Ollie, go ahead and roll another hack check and you can keep your bonus from the other day. That's fine.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, I mean, it's, uh, On, uh, one day or it, it lasts for a full day and I re-get all my cognition. So I'm just constantly using it pretty much.

Avery/GM: Okay, sure. So yeah, go ahead and roll your program intelligence check.

Chris/Ollie: Okay, now I gotta do a lot of maths… 18

Jenine/Marty: Jesus.

Avery/GM: You needed 16 earlier and you were one short, so

Chris/Ollie: Oh, wow.

Avery/GM: I was trying to make this a little bit more of a bigger reach… so.

Bee/Polaris: So before we get this world shattering information, Polaris has been sitting in the background, uh, sewing a anatomically correct salmon to give to Rho, like a plushy.

Avery/GM: Oh, I gotcha. Okay. Like a, like a, here's something to comfort you. Gotcha. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Why a salmon?

Bee/Polaris: Because her name is Rho, uh,

Chris/Ollie: salmon eggs.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn't, he just assumes that that's her favorite because his name is Polaris and he likes Polar Bears, so he just assumes that's how it works.

Avery/GM: Oh, I love it. Awesome. So, yeah. So Polaris, you are sewing away. Where are you located? Are you back on the Ursa or are you just sort of next to where…

Bee/Polaris: Wherever Zan and Ollie are, Cause they're, I assume they're doing fancy, cool, smart computer stuff near each other. So Polaris are just sitting in the background, not doing cool, fancy, smart computer stuff.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You're, you're probably on board the, the, SOCAM.

Bee/Polaris: The Ship formerly known as the Minos.

Avery/GM: Exactly. you're typing away and whatnot. Um, and OIE, you come across some data that's encrypted and you kind of bust through the encryption pretty easily and you find out like a few things about this ship that you didn't know before.

Avery/GM: first you find out that the ship's public mission differed from its private mission. The ship's public mission was a first of a co, first of its kind mission to establish a Pan Solar Union colony in another galaxy. The secret mission was to lure out. Someone or something that caused the current war that's going on back home.

Avery/GM: The ship, uh, has been traveling for about two years, um, almost completely in, uh, hyperspace, aside from the past few weeks where it was crashed In the graveyard, you find encrypted transport logs that indicate seconds before jumping to hyperspace. The command crew activated the teleportation pods on the bridge and abandoned this ship, and then you find a written log from presumably the captain, and it just says, uh, this is Captain Alexio as ordered, I've initiated the warp drive and my command crew is preparing to evacuate the ship before going to warp.

Avery/GM: Not sure why The Union is going through all this deliberate trickery to lure out three rogue ai, but whatever. If they wanna set me up with a nice beach house on old Terra and a fat pension, I'll do what they ask… Poor Rho, I feel bad for the kid. She doesn't deserve this fate dying alone in the coldness of space.

Avery/GM: At least she'll be asleep when it happens. Anyway, whoever's reading this, consider this my confession or admission of guilt. No one will read it, but at least I got it out of me. Bye Rho… rest in peace. And that is sort of all the information you get from that database or from that encrypted stuff.

Chris/Ollie: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: The ship arrives back home, back in the home system of the custodians and by the, by the time it arrives back, you know, it's been a few days, but everyone's kind of like tired from all the work they've been doing and people are resting and whatnot, and our camera settles on a pale figure. Slipping away from the Ursa Major’s Bay and kind of in the zero G crawling its way over the ship and into the Cassiopeia.

And our camera follows this figure. We see it come into the main lab of the Cassiopeia um, and it runs its artificial hands over the familiar consoles, booting up the system and beginning to type away until finally we hear Navi speak over the intercom but just in this room:

Avery/GM: “still functioning. After all this time, architect?”

Avery/GM: and the figure says “affirmative cartographer.”

Avery/GM: and Navi replies back “my name is Navi!”

Avery/GM: and the figure replies back, “of course, cartographer, designation Navi, shall we get started? We have a lot of catching up to do.”

(Ambience fades out, Outro plays, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1upPodcast Network Production. Intro and Outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter

Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include Star Base Omega, Tinker Town, Starship Bridge, and Generation Ship.

Be sure to follow us on twitter and tumblr @FurthestPod

We'll be back on May 1st with our next episode.

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro Fades up and plays out)

Episode 19 - We're gonna get him back, right?

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 19 of Beyond the Furthest Stars

(intro music plays, fades down, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Marty, you're on the bridge of this ship. This psychic person has awoken from their sleep and have been kind of sitting on the pod kind of upright, kind of breathing heavy. And after a, a couple minutes of this, they look up at you and you hear them speak that, that in, in their language. And, and she's just sort of like looking at you kind of in disbelief. How do, how does Marty react?

Jenine/Marty: So with my level one telepath feature, I can… I can talk with her question mark? I understand what she's saying?

Avery/GM: Totally

Jenine/Marty: Right?

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. That's also my understanding of it. Just wanted to check.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So that's what you hear and then your brain translates it into, I can't believe they left me. They just left me here to die.

Jenine/Marty: Oof.

Avery/GM: That's the gist of it. Of, of what, of what she said.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. And I can communicate back and she will understand me.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, great. Cool. This is a fun little the, the language stuff. So Marty goes, oh , I know how to do this. Okay. Hello. I'm Marty, really nice to meet you. Are you okay? Also who, who left, left you? Are you okay?

Avery/GM: She hears your words in the common language that, that you speak kind of cocks her head, and then you feel sort of like a mental, a gentle like kind of mental probe and you get the image of a teacher. in a classroom.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And this person appears to be either trying to teach you something or trying to learn something from you. Do you allow the mental probe or?

Jenine/Marty: I allow it.

Avery/GM: Okay. You feel this psychic probe into your mind and you get the sense of her sort of copying your language center of your brain to her, which you as a sci know, is a pretty advanced like psychic ability. Like not very many sci people in our galaxy here know how to do that, to just pull information out of people's heads like that. And after a few minutes of this she to do this, she's basically put her hands kind of on the side of your face and has like pressed the face plate of her vac suit to your head. And after a few minutes she steps back and she's like, This might be easier rather than mentally translating everything. Do you agree?

Jenine/Marty: Yes, that was so cool! Like there's like a big ass smile on Marty's face, which is like in awe of what just happened.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Oh gosh. I'm sorry. This is all, oh gosh, I haven't communicated like that in a while. Rho, Says anyway, the person I was talking about was Captain Alexio and his crew. They, they set the ship for warp and then just teleported away and left us and it was already too late. I couldn't abort the, the jump and, and we ended up here, I guess. Where, where is here anyway?

Jenine/Marty: so we're in the Moirae Galaxy. Also can I livestream on my communicator Wrist Watch question mark?

Avery/GM: You can livestream audio for sure.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. I start live streaming audio. Just, just so like people know so my friends know what's up. Cause I think I'm by myself with this person.

Avery/GM: You are.

Jenine/Marty: It's okay. Everything's fine. Writing can defend herself, but yeah. That's, that's where we're we, where we are right now. Where were you before?

Avery/GM: Well, that's not the name of, of my galaxy. How far did we travel? We were only supposed to go… Wow. My galaxy. Well we used to call it the Milky Way. And then it changed a bunch of different names based on who controlled most of it or all of it. I… I need a minute. Navi, can you open the. , can you open the colony pods and let them out?

Jenine/Marty: (stammers) So there wasn't, I don't know how to break this. Okay. Okay. Yeah. oh so you might wanna sit down. So the ship kinda lost power and the power was only rooted to this area. So opening the pods might be bad.

Avery/GM: Well, no, the, the pods are supposed to run on an independent power source just like mine. They should have lasted for 300 years. I, I, I need, I need to be alone. I'm sorry, we, we, we can talk later. And she starts heading out of the bridge.

Jenine/Marty: and I will, I will like start swimming and following her as well. Cause I don't want her by herself. Well I'll, I'll stay with you. You don't even have to talk. I'm just kinda here for like buddy system situations in a way, even though my buddies kind of left anyways… Buddy system!

Avery/GM: she has kind of stopped talking and is just kind of wandering through the ship.

Jenine/Marty: Is she also swimming or is it just me that's kind of swimming and she has boots that are

Avery/GM: No, she's also kind of swimming through the artificial gravity though. You do notice that the artificial gravity is starting to come back in. Or, or come back online as the systems have restored. So after a few moments, your swimming turns into actually being able to walk and kind of bounce

Zach/Zahn: The wading turns into actual walking.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: question.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: What about the big holes in the ship?

Avery/GM: Yeah, so those… so Marty, when you come out of the bridge and into the, the room that had the sleep pods in it you do notice that the hole is still there, but there's kind of like an energy shield that's kind of like keeping the atmosphere…

Bee/Polaris: Sick.

Jenine/Marty: Nice.

Avery/GM: Contained? Yeah. That was a very good question, Bee. Thank you.

Zach/Zahn: Perfect place to put a window.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I just wanted to know about the big holes and if it wouldn't get sucked out into the space, even though they have vaccines on.

Avery/GM: Yep. Not yet I mean…

Jenine/Marty: not yet.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, wait, wait.

Jenine/Marty: Not yet. Excuse you!

Chris/Ollie: DM mask off moment!

Avery/GM: Now we, so as, as Rho and Marty kind of wander through the ship a little bit, Marty, you, you notice Rho is kind of seems like she's making her way toward… actually, you haven't been on that part of the ship, so you wouldn't know where she's going, but she's going through like the Med Bay and stuff like that as well.

Zach/Zahn: Uh oh.

Avery/GM: we go to Zahn, Ollie and Polaris. Polaris, you were goofing around with your Tin Can boy.

Bee/Polaris: True.

Avery/GM: And I believe you were like laying on top of one of Ollie's drones.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Yeah. also, Should I roll the D six?

Avery/GM: For?

Bee/Polaris: for the, cause I got shot.

Avery/GM: Oh, yes, I'm sorry. You're right. Thank you. Yes. Polaris, what did you get for your D six?

Bee/Polaris: four.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Four is not bad on a D six.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Well each, so we, so based on Polaris's backstory, we had to. , I realized I hadn't come up with a thing or that should have been in place the whole time for Polaris. So essentially when Polaris took damage last session so your body recovers in one third of the time, it would normally take, so to heal one hp, normally it takes 10 minutes in game. It'll take three minutes in game. So yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. How many minutes have passed since I got shot ?

Avery/GM: I would say probably about 20.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Or to round up 21. So make it a nice even number.

Chris/Ollie: But that's your natural healing. Didn't you also get. A heel over time buff from Marty?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: So the heal over time buff, that's when you use a med pack, it heals one HP over 10 minutes. So instead, because of this ability that Polaris has he’ll heal one hp…

Chris/Ollie: it's not, not natural healing. It's enhanced healing.

Zach/Zahn: Accelerated Healing.

Avery/GM: Exactly. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: This isn't normal Healing. This is advanced healing.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So Polaris, you are, you, you feel the gravity starting to come back slowly. Do you get off the drone or do you eventually let it come to the ground and you lay on it and crush it?

Bee/Polaris: How big is the drone? I thought it was a relatively big drone.

Avery/GM: I mean, it's big enough that you could lay across it, but like, I don't know.

Bee/Polaris: It wouldn't be able to fly with me on it.

Avery/GM: No

Bee/Polaris: Okay, Polaris will get off Drone.

Avery/GM: Okay. Zahn, you and Ollie have finished repairing these cables and you kind of realized that, okay, this job will do for now, but these things are eventually gonna need to be replaced later down the road. And Navi asked you to reactivate Segin so that they could complete the mission and blow up. And you said No?

Zach/Zahn: I did.

Avery/GM: And in the chat, Navi sends you an annoyed face emoji.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Zach/Zahn: I'm going to a, I haven't wrote a, a note to myself, Thankfully. I'm going to attempt mission override self-destruct by typing in the Milky-Wayan language that I know.

Avery/GM: Okay. Go ahead and roll Intelligence program. Or you can do wisdom program.

Zach/Zahn: Let's go… Oh, I have plus ones in neither, so it doesn't matter.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: I wish that was better.

Avery/GM: You do have your re-roll once per scene.

Zach/Zahn: I was about to say, I'm gonna go ahead…

Chris/Ollie: Well also you have the the hacker foci, right?

Zach/Zahn: I don't Oh, okay. I had debated on taking it and then

Bee/Polaris: yeah, we strong-armed you

Zach/Zahn: We… I was heavily convinced and to go in level two in tinkerer.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay.

Zach/Zahn: So I can mod the shit out of everything for like no cost.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: I mean that is…

Bee/Polaris: We bullied you into it.

Zach/Zahn: I rolled the exact same with different numbers, but that's okay.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: So eight.

Avery/GM: Yeah, I mean the security on this is set up by an ai. An eight is not gonna do it. I did not think so. You hear Navi say over the speakers:

“I must complete my mission. Failure could result in this vessel's home port being discovered. That is not a risk we can take… Archid, Activate automated defenses.”

Bee/Polaris: Oh shit.

Avery/GM: There's a rumbling, like deep in the ship and another voice comes on that says, automated defenses destroyed, unable to comply.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Avery/GM: And you see an angry face emoji in the chat.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's gonna say Navi simply purge home port data.

Bee/Polaris: Got ‘em!

Avery/GM: Oh, that's good.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Put it in a zip file, you know, put that in the recycling bin.

Avery/GM: Yeah, go ahead. I'll, I'll make this a lower.

Zach/Zahn: You want another program?

Avery/GM: I'll make this a lower no, I'll make this a lower check. I, I would like a Charisma connect.

Zach/Zahn: I'm taking a minus two because I have minus ones in both of those.

Jenine/Marty: RIP, Can’t Relate!

Bee/Polaris: We’re not charismatic.

Jenine/Marty: can't relate.

Bee/Polaris: We're not a charismatic…

Jenine/Marty: can't relate.

Zach/Zahn: Can't relate.

Bee/Polaris: Marty's the cool kid amongst a bunch of nerds.

Zach/Zahn: So I rolled a six and a one, so that's seven minus two. That's five!

Bee/Polaris: Hell yeah!

Avery/GM: By the way feel free anyone else to step in at some point. But you hear…

Bee/Polaris: Seeing Zahn not do great at that flare will say, what if we say, please smiley face.

Zach/Zahn: Smiley face.

Avery/GM: Okay. Polaris roll a Charisma connect Check.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, no! I'm terrible at that. A Charisma connect? Ok.

(untelligible laughter)

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. All three of us have charisma as a dump stat… so.

Bee/Polaris: I have, okay. I have a minus one in connect and I have a zero in charisma. So it's only a minus one.

Zach/Zahn:

So it's only a minus one for you.

Bee/Polaris: Six. I rolled a seven, so six.

Zach/Zahn: Woo.

Avery/GM: You see the, the emoji in chat where it's like the angry face, but it has like the, the white letters across the mouth, like to indicate like cussing.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And you hear over the intercom: “caph increase artificial gravity by 300%.” And then you hear in the background: “power requirements insufficient, unable to increase artificial gravity.”

Bee/Polaris: Nice.

Zach/Zahn: I'm gonna motion for Ollie to come over to the computer real quick.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. No, I, I was just gonna say, while this is going on, Ollie is just doing his own thing. He's gonna message Hermes and ask for the translation package and just

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: Start going to work on the console.

Bee/Polaris: The translation DLC?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah

Zach/Zahn: Oh I was about to like, yeah, I was about to have you, us teamwork dig, start like digging into the files for the port home and then delete it.

Avery/GM: Ollie, Hermes sends you over the package pretty quickly. It's not huge, you know, it's, it's space. Y'all have faster internet connections than

Chris/Ollie: I got my quantum state drive, so I

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Unpacked it real quick

Avery/GM: And you can now understand anything in this database.

Chris/Ollie: Right on!

Zach/Zahn: Where I only understand bits and pieces.

Avery/GM: Yep… And Zahn I'll say that's probably part of it. Like, you know, a few words and you know, a few phrases and you tried typing those and it was just like, either the syntax was wrong or like, you know, some, yeah, some calibration of, of the way you coded it was just not working.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris raises his hand… like in a classroom. Can I try? Smiley Face? To do the hacky thingies?

Chris/Ollie: Oh… Umm…

Bee/Polaris: To type on the keyboard?

Chris/Ollie: I'm sure there's more than one keyboard lying around here

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Because Ollie is just… self-absorbed with the thing. So he's gonna hack into the system and download everything.

Bee/Polaris: Oh…

Zach/Zahn: Uh Oh…

Avery/GM: Okay, So Ollie, because this security is set up by another AI, I don't believe your defeat security system will work.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. So I'm gonna have to actually roll

Avery/GM: Yep.

Chris/Ollie: And use the foci that I invested in hacking. Okay…

Avery/GM: That's right. So I'll need a… I'll need a hack roll from you using intelligence.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: And then I'll… Which I believe is program, right?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So we'll do intelligence program, check for both Polaris and Ollie.

Zach/Zahn: Can Ollie get assistance from Zahn since we're at the same terminal?

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Hey!

Avery/GM: intelligence program.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. By the way, I have nothing in program.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Well, I'm going to start using a lot of shit. So I'm gonna use augmented cognition, commit processing to up my intelligence to 18 for the rest of the day.

Bee/Polaris: Jesus tapped dancing Christ, dude.

Zach/Zahn: All right.

Chris/Ollie: so is that a plus? What is that plus two? Is that the max? Okay. And roll these, drop the lowest. So that’s 15.

Avery/GM: Zahn, what did… what did you roll for your help check?

Not that it's gonna matter, but…

Zach/Zahn: no. Yeah. I rolled a six.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah, you are, you are in the way.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. You're reducing my roll.

Zach/Zahn: as I see Ollie's fingers just flying across this keyboard. And like the matrix has turned into his visor. Like Zahn just steps away.

Avery/GM: Like you, you go to like, reach for like one of the like, like a keyboard and you and Ollie's hand just like jets out and slaps it real quick.

Zach/Zahn: And he's like ow, fine. Jesus.

Avery/GM: What… what did you roll ?

Bee/Polaris: So I have nothing in program, but I have one in intelligence, so that negates the negative one. But I did roll a 12 .

Avery/GM: Okay. So, so it's almost like the dueling banjos or something over here, like . You were both just typing like crazy, typing like crazy. Ollie just barely gets to the information first. And Ollie, you start downloading everything you need from Navi.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris isn’t… Oh wait, what were we doing? Okay, so like mid, mid typing. Polar is like, wait, what's the goal?

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will just reply data acquisition.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, delete the home world thingy. Okay. Yeah.

Avery/GM: So, yeah. So I was under the impression that Ollie wanted to download all the data about the home world.

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, not just the home world. Everything. Everything they've got on the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Yep. Okay. So Polaris is just gonna de delete the home world data. So once Allie is done downloading that, Polaris will just delete it.

Avery/GM: Sure. In, in the chat. Navi just says, “I can see everything you're doing in the system. Schedar, deactivate life support systems vent all oxygen from all sections of the ship.”

Bee/Polaris: Jokes on the, we have vac suits.

Chris/Ollie: There was no atmosphere when we got here.

Zach/Zahn: Just make sure you're not standing next to a hole.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: But you hear another voice come over the intercom that just says “life support, still initializing, unable to deactivate until life support functions are fully restored, cannot deactivate life support functions while organic beings are present.”

Zach/Zahn: Ha.

Avery/GM: And then, and then there's just like three dots in the chat and Navi goes silent.

Zach/Zahn: Is Navi the only actual AI in the other like VI?

Avery/GM: Pretty much That's, that's kind of the, it's almost like the others are like subordinate functions.

Zach/Zahn: Got it.

Avery/GM: Of Navi.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm. I see. Navi is the CEO and the rest are assistants.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: does that mean that Navi gets a $60 million bonus at the end of the year?

Avery/GM: Yeah, Navi's got a golden parachute out of here. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: And everyone else gets a pizza party. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. The ship's gonna explode. Navi got a golden parachute.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris was just gonna send a gif of like a Fortnite dance at Navi

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God.

Bee/Polaris: By the way, Polaris can't read this language. So , he's, so, I don't know if the computer is like in the language.

Avery/GM: So it would, it would've been in, in the other language with a 12. What I'll, what I'll say is that basically is that basically like Polaris, you're wearing your helmet, right?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And so basically what Hermes does, cause Hermes is integrated into your helmet, is basically just like overlays the translation like on the inside of your visor so you can kind of see what, what's what.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet, Polaris sends a thumbs up to Hermes.

Avery/GM: So, Ollie, you have some information that I need to give you, and you don't have to investigate all this information right now, but essentially what you get from such a monster ass role is that the database indicates that this ship has traveled roughly 75,000 light years from its home, which is a further distance than anyone has traveled in the Moirae Galaxy because it's only 10,000 light years across… So.

Chris/Ollie: okay.

Avery/GM: Pretty, pretty dang far. It implies that the ship came from outside your galaxy, which has already been confirmed by Rho. And you rolled a 15?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Avery/GM: Okay. You also learned that this ship is part of a political entity called the Pan Solar Union, which appears to control most of the home galaxy that this ship is from. And you found some restricted files that you haven't quite gained access to yet.

Chris/Ollie: Right on. Hold on just writing this down. So after I download all this stuff Ali's gonna step away from the console and look up at Zahn and

Polaris and say oh, my apologies. I was preoccupied. Can I help with anything that's going on right now? as the AI's been yelling at us.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's heads just tilts.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks at Ollie and says yes, can you please continue to taunt Navi?

Chris/Ollie: He's going to cock his head a bit at continue, but say, certainly!

Zach/Zahn: Ollie, you just finished doing what we already wanted you to do. And he just gives you like the shoulder pat.

Bee/Polaris: Oh wow. Oh my God. Dad is proud of you.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, his eyes are gonna light up. I love it when a plan comes together.

Bee/Polaris: Navi’s like I would've blowed up the ship if it wasn't for you.

And you're meddling Robot

Avery/GM: essentially. So you're here. The ship has not blown up or been otherwise made inhospitable and Navi has gone silent on you, given you the cold shoulder, maybe trying to figure out how to circumvent some of these systems. But if, if Navi is doing that, Navi is doing that alone and silently Hermes comes on over everyone's audio device and Marty, you've been following Rho, and Rho has led you into the lab section of the ship. So Rho is kind of standing next to this ladder leading down when you hear Hermes come

through on everyone's comm system and just says, everyone, I feel you need to be involved in this transmission we are receiving from Bruce.

Caden/Bruce: Hermes, can you patch me through the rest of the crew? Hello, Polaris, Ollie, Marty, Zahn. Can… Can anyone hear me? Hello, it's Bruce. Chef Bruce. I'm talking from my blender.

Caden/Bruce: Yes, my blender… I know this is weird and this is unexpected, but I've been taken captive… Well, no, that's the thing. I don't need you guys to come and rescue me.

Caden/Bruce: I had to leave. I was approached by Agent Lazuli, the blue tiger, one of the Winstons, and they told me that they had all of our information. and unfortunately, I can confirm that that threat is true. They have our photos and they have our names, and they definitely know what our ship looks like.

Caden/Bruce: But the good news is that I have the data pad and I'm going to try and edit it and delete the original records. Obviously, I can't destroy the data pad and I don't think I can destroy absolutely everything on it, but I will try my best.

Caden/Bruce: They don't need to have our faces and they certainly don't need to be able to ruin our reputations or maybe it wouldn't ruin my reputation. But either ways I left in hopes of keeping everyone safe, and I would encourage us all to disguise ship as soon as possible.

Caden/Bruce: They warned me that the fate of the Winston's tracking us and finding us was well in their words, inevitable. But I have much more faith in you than they do. and I believe that that won't be the case. Anyways… I guess

I'm now embarking on this mission that well, they didn't tell me what I was going to do or where I'm going to go. All I know is that they didn't kill me right away. In fact they were impressed by my ability to hide in plain sight, me hiding in plain sight.

Caden/Bruce: But if it means that I'm here and that they haven't killed me, then at least that's one bonus. They also haven't tasted my meat pie yet, but I can assure you all that that is much more impressive talking of food, I implore you all to please eat properly. As much as I'm using the splendor for talking, you are more than welcome to use it and any other tools you may find to whip up food. I properly shouldn't say whip up food because Polaris might actually find a whip and try to whip up food not cook food.

Caden/Bruce: Hopefully one of you knows how to cook. I have prepared some dishes in the freezer that should last you at least a couple of days. There's frozen lasagna and a frozen casserole. There's multiple types of frozen soup. And if you check the upper cabinets, I do have a secret stash of Flies. They're dead flies, but you are more than welcome to have a few, or I guess all of them if you would like, I guess I'm no longer on the ship to stop you.

Caden/Bruce: And please someone encourage someone to eat real cheese, not just a simple singles. Anyways, I want to tell you all that I will be as safe as I can and that I hope you are all as safe as you can be. I trust Marty to take care of you all and to heal you when you need it, and Polaris to fly the ship and… Well, hopefully Zahn can craft away to disguise the ship so that the Winstons can't track us anymore, or I guess track you anymore.

Caden/Bruce: I promise to give regular status updates as I can. I'm not sure if you can talk back to me through the blender. Obviously, I do not have two

blenders, but I do have my communication device, and it might be two ways, but I'm not really a computer genius as all of you might know. I am after all a chef and hopefully they enjoy the meat pies that I have started to prepare for them and I will try to make time to give regular status updates. But as you can imagine, getting alone time is not as easy when you are held hostage. Well, not hostage. Again, I don't need you to come. I'm not saying that I don't need you to come and rescue me as code to come and rescue me. I'm saying it as give me this time to clear our names and our reputation.

Caden/Bruce: They promised me that if I can achieve whatever effort it is they want for their employer, whoever their employer might be, that they would indeed delete what they had of our records on the Winston. Now obviously I have the data pad. I can make fast work of that, but I am a frog of my word and I plan to do just that. I hope to talk to you all soon and that you all do take care.

Caden/Bruce: Polaris, Please do not eat your bars. Whatever you consider as food. It's not food. I trust you all to be able to make something that at least tastes half what decent in my absent. And I hope to see you all again soon. This is Bruce signing off. I hope to sign off. I'm not too sure how to turn this blender off.

Jenine/Marty: my heart!

Chris/Ollie: Bruce!

Jenine/Marty: King!

Bee/Polaris: My heart started hurting when Bruce offered to share his secret stash of flies!

Jenine/Marty: Yeah! Yep Yep Yep!

Avery/GM: And Hermes says, I'm sorry, but the transmission has cut out as the ship has now moved too far outside of the system to maintain connection.

Zach/Zahn: Hermes, are we in position to pursue?

Avery/GM: Not at this moment. The ship has been severely damaged by the automated defenses that were inside the hangar when I came in here.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah, we did do that.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn flies into a rage and he is like, what the fuck do you mean? And he like, as he is like throwing off a wave of curses, he suddenly bolts out of the engine room and starts heading for the hangar to check on the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris immediately starts looking for Bruce on the ship.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie as well. He's going to… Bruce had the earpiece, right?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Can I track like its most recent location?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, the watch?

Avery/GM: Yeah. The little communicator that you got from Alioth? Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I guess it was a watch.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it was like a watch slash earpiece. It's kind of just the vague whatever it needs to be.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. For spy purposes.

Zach/Zahn: The super… Yeah, the spy either talking into the wristwatch or holding finger to ear to speak.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, exactly.

Zach/Zahn: to boost Zahn’s speed, he's in such a flight that he actually activates his jet boots to like fly faster to the hangar.

Avery/GM: Okay, sure. You are in the hangar and you see that the ship has sustained pretty good damage. It is at 25% hp. In game mechanics.

Jenine/Marty: Yoinks! That’s bad y’all!

Avery/GM: you know, it has, it has five HP out of 20 so it's not doing

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, yeah, yeah. Zahn is going to go aboard and run a system diagnostic.

Avery/GM: Sure. Polaris and Ollie you start looking for, for Bruce?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Ollie is doing it the smart way. Polaris is doing it The “owner has left house and dog is wandering around house trying to find owner” way like legitimately like walking around the ship and looking for Bruce.

Avery/GM: Sure. So Ollie, you being a smart boy robot person.

Chris/Ollie: Yep, cognitive boost it's big brain time.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You head to the mess hall and you see that it's actually still kind of messy in here. It looks like Bruce didn't really touch anything but out of the doorway or, or next to roll, rolling out of the doorway that leads out of the, out of the mess hall and, and towards this way. You see a little bottle of bay leaves rolling out of that doorway and into the kitchen as the artificial gravity has settled back down to normal.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. And Polaris hasn't made it in here.

Avery/GM: Polaris eventually come, comes in like, as you kind of like are looking down at this, this Bay Leaf bottle.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, Polaris probably would've gone to the kitchen first because that's where Bruce usually is.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, I probably didn't need to scan anyway. It's the natural place to look.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. Fair enough. I was, I, sorry, sorry. Bee I was, I was taking the, looking around like a dog, like at its most literal of just like going in every single room first. Like…

Bee/Polaris: no, no, no, you, no, you're correct. He would go to the kitchen first and then check the rest of the ship.

Avery/GM: Gotcha. Okay. Cool. Yeah. Then yeah, so you both, you both see this. This little bottle of Bay leaves rolling out of this, this room that no one actually has gone in yet, except for Bruce and Ollie. I, I will say that you see a label on, on the doorway above, and since you have the language translator, you can see that it says vehicle storage,

Chris/Ollie: the doorway above? Oh, so the It's rolling outta the vehicle storage room.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Well, seeing it rolling out and thinking that may might mean whatever happened was like immediately recent. He's gonna rush in to see if he can see any, anything, anyone.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will follow, but he'll pick up the, the thing of bay leaves.

Avery/GM: So inside you see the artificial gravity is kind of settled down and you see like the ships are kind of like, or the, the little vehicles in here are kind of just like everywhere cause they were floating.

Avery/GM: You see a control panel in the back that's all smashed cause the tire of one of these ATVs is just laying on it and you see this central teleporter pad. It has power now, but obviously it wouldn't have had power earlier when power wasn't restored. And you see a tiny little drained type a cell, kind of like hotwired into the, the teleportation pad and kind of putting two and two together, you realize that this is how Bruce sort of disappeared without anyone noticing.

Chris/Ollie: And the console is smashed, so I can’t get it… Hmm. Well I wanna… Ollie is gonna look around and see if there are any signs of struggle, blood, gunfire, laserblasts.

Avery/GM: Yeah. There's, there's no sign of any struggle or anything. You don't see any greenish yellow blood spattered anywhere.

Chris/Ollie: That's gonna take Ollie's panic level down a bit. Well, I guess all, all you can really do is try and work with this console to see if he can get any, any info about where this thing was used recently, if he can.

Avery/GM: Sure. Go ahead and roll an intelligence fix check.

Chris/Ollie: That is 11.

Avery/GM: 11. Okay, that's good enough. You realize that the damage is mostly superficial. Just to kind of the outer casing of this console, if you probably linked up like a portable data pad or something to it, you could probably access it just fine.

Chris/Ollie: He's gonna turn to Polaris and ask, I might be able to discern the teleportation location. I require your data pad.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will take off his helmet and hand it to Ollie . He doesn't have a data pad.

Chris/Ollie: It's all in the helmet. All right. Ollie will take the helmet and put it on over his robo-face and interface through that

Bee/Polaris: We can't only just patch himself into Polaris’ helmet into the computer

Avery/GM: I mean, yes.

Bee/Polaris: so that if Navi manages to turn off the life support.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. The life support . Well, she can’t turn it off

Bee/Polaris: That's true. Not yet Anyway.

Avery/GM: So you start hacking into this this console and or not even hacking in, you just access this console cause it's not secured or anything. You see that this, this transporter only has one log and that log is from about, it's now been about 30 minutes since Polaris got shot. So we'll say it's from about 15 minutes ago.

Avery/GM: And the location, like in like the sector map, that, that kind of projects out and shows where the transport went to. The projection is just in the middle of space and kind of putting two and two together, it must be that like there was a ship there at one point and that's where Bruce was teleported to.

Chris/Ollie: Damn. All right. Ollie's gonna transmit this to the rest of the team and if text could be mournful it would be a very mournful. He's gone dot, dot, dot in the chat.

Avery/GM: Oh.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris can't see that you have his helmet. . Polaris is currently pacing in a circle around this teleporter.

Avery/GM: Let's go back to Marty real quick. Marty, you, you hear the message from Bruce and Rose kind of standing at the top of this ladder and kind of looks at you and it's just like, I need to go down and say goodbye to some friends. Could you maybe not follow me?

Jenine/Marty: And like Marty just kinda like brushes a tear from her face as like she tries to brush a tear but can't because there's a helmet and she just goes, yeah, okay. Yeah. If you, I'm up here. If you need anything, if you need a hug, and like, does like a little kick to the ground.

Avery/GM: thanks. And she starts climbing down the ladder and is out of there and in the meantime you see Zahn just rocket boost through the room, behind you and like, Going somewhere followed by Ollie and Polaris, who are also like running around, like looking for Bruce. So you're having this very somber moment with, with this stranger and, and there's also other chaos going on around you.

Chris/Ollie: It's like Benny Hill in the background.

Avery/GM: a little bit.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, It's like the Scooby Doo sequence where one of us opens the door and the other one comes out on the other side of the door and it doesn't make any sense.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, here for it. Yeah. Marty just kinda like stands there and just like as people walk, as everyone like goes past her, she just goes, if anyone just wants a hug or anything, I'm right here!

Bee/Polaris: Is this after Ollie has sent the message in the chat that Bruce is gone or before?

Avery/GM: I think, I think that's before. I think it arrives like a couple minutes after, after Marty says that.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: She still, she still says it because of the message from Bruce.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So yeah. So we're about to cut forward a few days in time.

Is there anything anyone wants to do before we do the time Skip?

Jenine/Marty: Could, could I, Do, do I know anything about. Do I know anything about the Milky Way?

Avery/GM: You do not

Jenine/Marty: Could I try and Google through Hermes the Milky Way.

Avery/GM: Way? Yeah. You, you Google it and that phrase doesn't pop up anything locally. Are you also gonna like, try and search through anything on this ship or just or just Googling it through like local internet.

Jenine/Marty: Could I try using stuff on the ship to like figure out what that is? And then did I, did Ollie share what he discovered through his download of information, or was that not shared with the team?

Chris/Ollie: I would say he just threw it in a, you know, public Google drive on the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet!

Avery/GM: Yeah, you could learn about it through there, but yeah, it's not like an inst… unlike Ollie, it's not an instant download for you.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah. No, No No. I guess as Marty's trying to like, distract herself from everything that's currently like going through, she's just trying to like figure out more things about this other planet and this other galaxy and trying to get all the information that she can while she's just watching her friends run around and is also trying to like, help this random person that they just found.

Bee/Polaris: I think after we went to the teleportation place, we stopped running around, right? We, Zahn went to the ship, we went to the teleportation place, and then Ollie found out what he found out right?

Jenine/Marty: That's it, that's what Marty’s doing.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So Marty, you do start kind of sifting through some of this data that, that Ollie has shared with everyone and, and you learn kind of the same stuff. You know, the Milky Way is apparently the name of a Galaxy or the former name of a Galaxy, and it's about 75,000 light years away from you. You do realize though, that part of your exchange with Rho has inadvertently taught you how to read some of this language actually to read this language completely and so you, you start being able to see some of translate some of these symbols

that are on, like, these like papers and you kind of understand the letters that are on these keyboards and stuff like that. So…

Jenine/Marty: So I, I now know the information on this like little data pad that I swooped earlier.

Avery/GM: You swooped a data pad earlier that's right from the Med Bay?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You would see that it is a medical report on. Test subject Rho. Oh. And it is essentially readings of like psionic brainwave patterns, blood pressure, all of her vitals basically and then a note that says subject ready for deployment.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: Overall though, medically speaking, this person is very healthy if they are exactly human like you are.

Bee/Polaris: Haha. Hee hee.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, so Rho is human based off of what I'm reading?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: Based off of what you're reading, Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Marty goes: I can work with this. I can work with this. I mean, I can work with anything, but like, I can work with this. This is okay!

Avery/GM: Zahn, you are on the ship and or on, on your guys' ship and you see that like there's no holes. The structural integrity is not compromised, but like, There's some good chunks missing out of your armor. One of the barrels on your laser beam is like smoking and charred might need to be repaired, and Hermes kind of landed in the bay a little crooked. So not the best job compared to what a team of humans could have done landing in the bay, but it's not a complete disaster.

Bee/Polaris: That's kind of wild because wasn't Hermes like a, a ship AI specifically to be the ship's AI.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Someone should teach Hermes how to fly.

Avery/GM: Hermes is used to flying big ships that don't go in anything. They just go through space.

Bee/Polaris: That is true.

Chris/Ollie: Sure. All, Hermes knows is go and stop really.

Avery/GM: Go and stop and shoot.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I guess you don't have to avoid obstacles when you're big enough to just ram through them.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: This is gonna get a little deep because Zahn is having an existential crisis at the loss of… loss of Bruce. Zahn hasn't let himself get close to or feel anything for anyone in a long time. And so he's like in panic mode. He rushes onto the ship to try and get like, Engines working thruster speed, like he wants to get the ship operating as quickly as humanly possible, which is not at all within any kind of reasonable timeline and as it as that, like revelation is setting in, he's just getting more and more angry and frustrated, and his work is like getting sloppy and like he's getting to a point where he is just like, oh no, he's, he's bottling and the the top is fizzling, kind of like…

Avery/GM: Hermes says Zahn, I am detecting several of your vital signs are elevated, Are you feeling okay?

Zach/Zahn: He just like, he snaps. He is like at Hermes. He's like, doesn't matter how I feel. Tell me the telemetry on the outward thruster’s capabilities and how much or how soon we'll be able to take off.

Avery/GM: Given the state of the ship, we should be able to take off in approximately three days of repairs.

Zach/Zahn: That’s unacceptable, I need 10 minutes.

Avery/GM: Calculating… 10 minutes is not enough time to repair the ship enough to safely pilot it into space. You should sit down. Your blood pressure is getting very high.

Zach/Zahn: run diagnostic on critical repairs that need to be done in sequential order to get shipped flying immediately.

Avery/GM: Calculating… and then a list pops up on like the computer that you're in front of and like the first thing that needs to be repaired is the spike drive, second thing would be armor, third thing would be weapons and fourth would be the landing ramp as the one of the hydraulic pieces is kind of loose from getting shot and so it won't seal properly.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn dives like headfirst into the, the spike drive and that's where he'll be for the next little bit

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Like working through tears and anger.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah… While Zahn's doing that, Polaris probably now, like now that, I don't know if, did Ollie say that out loud or just in the chat? Cause Ollie has Polaris’ Helmet.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, he also said it out loud. Well, After Ollie said that he stood up and started walking out with the helmet on.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Okay, cool. Polaris will follow because like, now that we know that Bruce has gone, Polaris wants to make sure that all of teammates are

still here. So he's gonna go find Marty and kind of like knowing that Zahn's probably on the ship by now he's gonna hold out his hand to Marty.

Jenine/Marty: How, how, how are you doing?

Bee/Polaris: He's not gonna, he's not saying anything. And his, he doesn't have his helmet on, so his like, his face is blank. He's just holding out his hand to Marty.

Jenine/Marty: and she just goes, stands up and just gives a hug.

Bee/Polaris: He just puts his head on Marty's head for a little bit until she lets go. And then he, like he, he's, he holds out his hand again.

Jenine/Marty: Oh well. Rho is downstairs with. Her… I don't wait her. Yes… Wait… Well she didn't really spec… with their companions, so we should probably wait and check in with them to make sure they're doing okay. Cause they also got a lot of heavy information. Are you, and like Marty's trying to like read the situation with, with like all the friends and like, hello, this might not be my specialty, but a hello!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like glances over Marty's shoulder at the, like, the hole down and then just kind of nods and says noted… She'll be okay, but you are needed elsewhere at the moment.

Jenine/Marty: And then like, Marty just like, goes above the hole and just goes, Hey, let me know if you still need any help. Just ah, and then just to, to Polaris. How, how do I connect like text messages with other people to make sure that like she's in chat with us. You know what I mean?

Avery/GM: Hermes overhears you and says, I can connect you if you would like.

Jenine/Marty: make sure you give a warn… We're gonna connect with each other just to like , to like stay in communication so we don't have to physically be here. But if you need anything.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will pull Marty away cause like she's grieving and he probably doesn't wanna be yelled at from the top of the hole. Polaris will like gently pull Marty away.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Marty's not fighting.

Avery/GM: Oh goodness.

Bee/Polaris: He's gonna lead Marty towards the ship and he is gonna get on the ship and like look around for Zahn and probably see Zahn running back and forth and stuff and at one point he's probably gonna like stand in front of Zahn and like, block his way and just kind of look at him.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is in a state where he doesn't see you. So either he, he walks around or just goes through. If you actually don't…

Bee/Polaris: If he starts to walk around, Polaris will readjust and put his hands on Zahn's shoulders and like, make him look at him.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn brushes off and, and his helmet's been on this whole time. Like you can't see him.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: He doesn’t want to be seen.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will keep stopping him and eventually like, try to lead him to Marty because Marty fixes things.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no! Oh, no!

Avery/GM: And actually Marty, when, when you're kind of standing here watching this Hermes' little hologram pops up next to and like, it's just like Marty, I believe Zahn is having a heart attack. His blood pressure is sky high and he is a bit manic.

Jenine/Marty: that that's not a Well, that's not okay. Well this is not it and then like Marty starts walking towards Zahn and just does like a Okay, okay. Wait, wait and like, tries to like do like the fun little, like when you keep stepping in front of someone when you're trying to exit, but it doesn't happen.

But like, Marty's purposely trying to like say in front of Zahn as much as she can.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris is trying to hold him still for Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Hey (random mouth noises) Hey Zahn, Zahn (more mouth noises) down here, Hello! Hello!

Zach/Zahn: there will be like a split second where he actually like, looks down, acknowledges your presences, and then continues to try and push past towards the drive with a with like a re socket wrench of some kind.

Jenine/Marty: I pull the socket wrench out of your hand if able to.

Zach/Zahn: I've got a death grip on it.

Avery/GM: Contested strength.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no.

Avery/GM: or, yeah,

Bee/Polaris: I mean Polaris… Polaris is holding Zahn still for Marty. So like, he's probably gonna have to contest Polaris.

Avery/GM: Okay. A three…

Bee/Polaris: If he's trying to move away

Avery/GM: like a three-way contested strength… It's not punch, but like, that's the closest I can come to.

Zach/Zahn: I would say work,

Avery/GM: work, okay

Zach/Zahn: work, Maybe

Avery/GM: work is fine.

Jenine/Marty: Could I say it's a con connect strength contested, because I'm trying to connect in this way to Zahn?

Avery/GM: You know what, you know what,

Zach/Zahn: It’ll definitely be work for me.

Avery/GM: but yeah. Get it For work, for Zahn Connect for Marty, Polaris, Pick one or the two. One of the one or the other

Bee/Polaris: Am I being strong about it?

Avery/GM: I’m sorry?

Zach/Zahn: am I rolling two works or just one?

Avery/GM: Roll two cause you're gonna contest each one. And then…

Jenine/Marty: Oh narts! I roll 3D sixes and drop the lowest. But I rolled two threes and a one.

Avery/GM: Oh no!

Bee/Polaris: What am Wait what? What am I rolling? Can I argue for exert?

Avery/GM: Oh, exert I'm, sorry… yes. Exert would be, exert would be perfect for both you and Zahn.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: I'm still gonna let Marty keep the connect, but yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Is it strength exert or

Avery/GM: Yeah, strength exert. Unless you're doing it Dexterously, but this sounds more like you're trying to hold him in place.

Zach/Zahn: Oh wow. I just went from minus one to plus one.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, fuck. We've made him stronger.

Chris/Ollie: You won't like him when he is angry.

Zach/Zahn: So for, I don't know what order you want to go in between, I guess. Pulling wrench will be seven plus one, so eight

Jenine/Marty: Narts

Zach/Zahn: and then breaking away from Polaris will be a seven.

Bee/Polaris: Aw, sick. I got an Eight.

Zach/Zahn: Oh man. I should have gone in another order.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will just like hug him and dead weight like pull him into his lap and Crisscross applesauce.

Jenine/Marty: Yes!

Avery/GM: I love it.

Zach/Zahn: Now that he's like, stopped moving, you're actually able to hear him quietly, like muttering to himself.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm.

Zach/Zahn: And it's like this almost chant over and over again. Never get close to someone. Never, never again, never gonna lose someone. Never again. It's just me against the world. It's me against the universe. It's just, it's like that over and over.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris is like, essentially like he's dropped because Polaris doesn't know how to do things outside of combat. So he's trying to, he's trying to like turn something that you would do in close combat into a not lethal thing. So he essentially like pulled you like into his lap and is like holding you in place. So he is definitely hearing this and he just looks up at Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Marty, Marty sits down, crisscross across. Hey, hello. And like takes and just like holds her hands out.

Zach/Zahn: There is a button on the side of my helmet that'll make it go into my suit.

Jenine/Marty: Boop, She whoops the button.

Zach/Zahn: And you get the cool, you get the cool (mouth noises) as the, the helmet disconnects. And you see Zahn's face is like bright red and like tears are just like streaming down his face. But his facial features are contorted and just like frustration and anger as he is muttering this over and over.

Jenine/Marty: Marty holds her hands out. Yeah, Marty just like holds her hands out. Not like forcing it just goes and does, like the little doot doot! like, like, like, has it like motions to like handhold if needed.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn like blinks a few times, stops talking and then like slowly takes the hand.

Bee/Polaris: Meanwhile Polaris has his, like chin on Zahn's shoulder and is like leaning his head against Zahn's, against Zahn’s shoulder.

Chris/Ollie: While this is going on.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Ollie has my helmet.

Chris/Ollie: and Ollie didn't go with everyone. And I'm assuming Zahn isn't live streaming.

Zach/Zahn: He is not. He, he cut feed as soon as he got to the ship.

Jenine/Marty: I am still live streaming on my wristwatch. You're only getting audio and all you heard was a boop!

Chris/Ollie: Okay. So Ollie has some idea, but he's, Ollie is gonna run right back to the, was that just like a reactor room or was that like the actual control room where we…

Avery/GM: that was like the engine room. So that's where the main reactor is and stuff like that.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Ollie is gonna run to wherever he thinks is Gonna be the best place to search the ship for robots. He's gonna hope that a ship of this size is gonna have a maintenance crew of robots aboard.

Bee/Polaris: Ollie is looting.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Ollie, you're well, okay. Yeah, you've, you've gone into the hangar. So I will give you this, you, when you zoomed across the this hallway here you were in the Hangar Bay, you noticed against this far wall that there was like a little, not quite doorway, but more like a… almost like a garage door looking structure and now that you have the translation package, you kind of go back through your memory feed and you see that it says maintenance.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent.

Avery/GM: But there's no, there's no like lock or anything on this door.

Chris/Ollie: Wait, Oh, you mean it's just not locked? Okay.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it, it, it's down. But you don't see like a handle or a lock or any way to open it manually.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, it's like air locked. Is there a co… a console nearby that I can yeah, because other than looking in there, I also like, you know, wanna scan through the console to see anything I, I can find think any robot in the ship, like drone maintenance bot, anything. Barring that, I'd also like to try and hack open that door.

Avery/GM: Sure. The only other robot that you've seen so far was that little tin can robot that Polaris was playing with in the reactor room, which Polaris, what did you end up doing with that?

Bee/Polaris: He is in my bag.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. Perfect. So go ahead. Roll a hack intelligence program check for this.

Chris/Ollie: That is 15.

Avery/GM: You unlock it, it opens up or you unlock the console and there's three buttons. There's open door, run, maintenance cycle, or closed door. Hmm. And closed door is like grayed out. You can't choose it, obviously.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Well, I'm just gonna hit the open. I don't know what the maintenance cycle will do.

Avery/GM: Okay. You open up, you see, like these robots aren't like, they don't look like anything you've seen from this galaxy, which makes sense. They're clearly robots and they have like a bunch of tools attached to their fingers, and they all have like, like treads for their feet, so they can kind of zip around

quickly and get into weird spots. But yeah, that is what these robots look like. But they are currently deactivated.

Chris/Ollie: How many are there?

Avery/GM: Four.

Chris/Ollie: Four. All right. I'd like to. Jack directly into them. Split my conscious and take personal control of them along with any other robot chassis I've got on the ship if I can hack into these robots.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. And so I want to like, along with my body, the four in there, and I think other than the dog including the two, no, I think just one robot chassis now because we cannibalize the others. All of them will in, in unison walk. Oh well, however much unison they can considering the treads. Walk up to the rest of the crew and say at one as all, as one in Ollie's voice, may I be of assistance and immediately start repairing the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris isn't letting go of on until it calms down . So Polaris is just kind of zoning out.

Avery/GM: Ollie, you get a transmission from Hermes that lists the repairs that are needed.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent and so as eight I think? No, it would be six Ollies.

Avery/GM: Yeah, six Ollies.

Chris/Ollie: Go to work.

Avery/GM: so Ollie, you start repairing the ship, it's still gonna take a while.

Chris/Ollie: Also full disclosure, that's also Ollie's way of helping is being like, let's go, bro. I got… I got six pairs of hands.

Bee/Polaris: Ollie is doing the shit repairs and we're coughing down on Oh yeah. Polaris hasn't let go of the, the thing of bay leaves. So he's still holding that as he's holding Zahn.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. As Marty's holding Zahn's hands, she just looks him in the eyes. Hey, hi. What's up? Do you wanna talk? Do you wanna talk about it? Do you wanna talk about we, you don't, you don't have to talk about it if you don't want to. We can just sit here, just take a couple breaths.

Zach/Zahn: He's like trying to calm down. His breathing, breathing. It's like, like it's the short, shallow shit of just being like super angry and it's slowly getting like more drawn out.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Zach/Zahn: And then after a little bit he's finally, like… after I lost my mom, before, went my entire past life, ran away from home, and promised I would never look back and then I came across you fuckers and somehow you guys managed to weasel into the ironclad rivets that I am placed around me. So this is not fun… we'll get him back. He starts nodding, like looking for agreement.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: We'll get him back, right?

Jenine/Marty: Yes, we're gonna get him back. But based off of this transmission, it sounds like we just have to, and I hate to say this, we do have to wait a little bit for what he's doing, but I trust him significantly.

So right now we may, the best course of action is, oh my gosh, she's a kid, so she's just like scared…

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like sees Marty stuttering and he looks up over at her from over his on shoulder and says he left the bay leaves, he'll be back.

Jenine/Marty: He also left his favorite blender. He's gonna be back, so…

Zach/Zahn: Zahn just nods… and you like in, in your arms, Polaris. You feel him relax a little bit.

Bee/Polaris: and Hermes turns off the defibrillator.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say, Hermes does say, oh, Zahn's blood pressure is returning to normal. You must be a very skilled healer, Polaris.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris says… Oh speaking of, Polaris is back to full!

Jenine/Marty: yay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn't say anything to that.

Chris/Ollie: Yes. Polaris is a very good healer.

Jenine/Marty: I’m here. It's fine.

Avery/GM: no… and Herman's like, oh, Marty, yes, of course. You did, you, you did all the talking. So that was probably more helpful than, I'm, you know what? I am just going to not say anything. And then you see the hologram, like disappear.

Jenine/Marty: Hey Hermes, we appreciate you.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, where was the hologram?

Avery/GM:, like standing off to the side.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Hermes has learned how to project his hologram all over the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, great. Oh good.

Jenine/Marty: Oh I love that.

Avery/GM: I love that for him.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, a sweetie. . Yeah. After the little moment, Marty just like scoot, scoot, scoots in and just. Hugs, into a little group hug

Zach/Zahn: Aww.

Avery/GM: And as Ollie is repairing things outside the ship and in the ship our camera kind of zooms out on this group hug.

Yeah. Ollie came over for the hug too. just for the, just for the record.

Bee/Polaris: Yay! One Ollie. One Ollie walks over and then like sits in the group hug and then just powers down.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. He notices the hug and joins you.

(Ambience fades out, Outro music plays then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network production. Intro and Outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. The track used today was “Starship: Bridge”. Be sure to follow us on twitter and tumblr @FurthestPod. We’ll be back on April 15th with our next episode.

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

Interlude - Bruce's Blender

Avery/GM: Hello and welcome to a very special interlude episode where we take a peek back at Bruce's past to see just where the heck that blender came from. And has Bruce been a spy the whole time, or was it just sheer luck? Enjoy.

Bruce, we go back to your graduation day from Chef school. do you recall what your teacher's name was? I know I had it written down somewhere.

Caden/Bruce: Oh, you did have it written down and I do not have it on me

Avery/GM: right now. That's okay. I'll look it up real quick. Viage

Caden/Bruce: Viage! I was gonna say I knew it started with a V.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So what does Viage’s graduation ceremony look like for, for, for her school.

Caden/Bruce: it's a large affair. Being a chef school, I imagine there's a big buffet on one of the side halls, and then in classic graduation style, there's like rows of chairs where those who are graduating will sit. And then behind them there's rows for if they have family member and such like that.

And then on the main stage itself is like a few, like more thinner, longer like metal cooking tables for people to like, walk alongside to get their diplomas and such.

Avery/GM: Very good. So this ceremony kind of goes off without a hitch. There's, you know, everyone's name is read. They are also accompanied with like a slideshow up on like a display of like some of their best dishes that they've made.

So some people, you know, have these, you know, very elaborate cakes that they've made, or some very fancy steak and vegetable plates that they've put together. When Bruce's name gets called, what dish is showcased?

Caden/Bruce: So the dish that showcased is what it looks like… It looks like a cake, but it's not. It looks like it has it, it's circular and it has many different layers.

But each layer is like, the bottom layer is some rice. The next layer is some shrimp. The layer on top of that is like some avocado sauce layer on top of that is, is something that looks crispy, but we don't know really what it is, But Bruce Wood, and then like it, it's just a stack of what looks absolutely delicious, but savory.

Avery/GM: Oh excellent! Yeah. You know, one of the things that Bruce notices, it's kind of hard not to notice, is that when everyone else got their name called, there were cheers from certain sections of the crowd, you know, family members, you know, rooting and, and hollering for people. Bruce being a loner didn't really have anyone in the crowd for him.

How does that, kind of reflecting on that, how does, how does that make Bruce feel?

Caden/Bruce: I think it was something that Bruce expected. It was something that, it's the kind of thing where it's just. He knew no one was gonna really come to this. So he was kind of expecting that. I don't know if he was expecting such loud applauses for other people, and that might have caught him by surprise, but he's proud of what he did, so.

Avery/GM: Good. Good. So yeah, so after the initial ceremony, the, the families and the people who, the, the classmates of yours all kind of go off to do their own thing with their own groups of people and deciding to spend one last evening in the kitchen of your school, Bruce decides to make himself just a nice comfort food before saying goodbye to this space for the last time.

What, what does Bruce make?

Caden/Bruce: I think Bruce is going to make a sort of mac and cheese, but instead of bacon, it has dried flies in it and it's just, it smells really good. He's like putting in cheddar cheese and another type of cheese, like he's, he's going all out.

Avery/GM: Oh, very good. Very. As you are preparing this dish, you are g grating some of this cheese. When you hear footsteps entering the kitchen and you hear Viage's voice and she calls from behind you and just like you, you know when, when people graduate, you don't, you don't have to cook here anymore if you don't want to.

Caden/Bruce: I realized I just figured one more meal before I hit the road so to say. Would you like a bowl?

Avery/GM: She sees the flies on the counter, like next to, to where you're gonna, you know, put them in towards the end. And she's like sure. Just hold, hold the flies on mine.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will nod and smile and be like, you really don't know what you're missing out on. It does add a crunch.

Avery/GM: She smiles and says, ah, what the heck? Okay, I'll, I'll try, I'll try it one time in honor of your graduation.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is beaming and he like adds in the flies with his tail.

Avery/GM: Yeah. And you finish making this mac and cheese doesn't take too long. And the two of you sit down at this table in here and she's like, you know, I'm, I'm really glad you stuck around despite Chef Jamie's behavior towards you. I know that probably wasn't easy to, to deal with.

Caden/Bruce: No, but you know. There's gonna be chefs like Jamie out there in the real world. So it's good practice dealing with them here as well

Avery/GM: Hmm. Yeah. I, I suppose so. By the way, this is really good with flies. Actually, I, I think I might try this again sometime. Did you use Brie in this?

Caden/Bruce: I did. Yes. And once you try it with flies, you never go back. It's it's a good crunch.

Avery/GM: Hmm. Yeah. You're, you're telling me. Bruce, you are a very talented chef. You know, I know that you're probably gonna spend a lot more of your time traveling like you, you did before you got here. So I, I got you a present and she lifts this box that is beautifully wrapped in like this silver wrapping paper and has a nice, bright red bow on it. She says, I, I, I don't know where your travels will, will take you, but I have a feeling that you're gonna need this. And she pushes it across the table.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce's eyes, if possible, go even bigger and he takes the box and he looks at her and goes, are you sure? I didn't get anything for you.

Avery/GM: Oh well first of all, you, you prepared this lovely meal and let me share it with you. But also no, it's customary that people graduating. You know, a a, a trade school like this or a college receive a gift from family members or,

or loved ones of some kind and Well, I, I know no one really showed up for you today, so I figured I could, I could be your gift giver. You know?

Caden/Bruce: I thank, thank you. Thank you. And Bruce will go ahead and start unwrapping the box.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You unwrap it and it is this beautiful. Top of the line model blender that you've probably seen in stores or in like a, a hollow catalog of different kitchen gear and, and appliances and whatnot for, you know, I I, if you ever intended on settling down to start a restaurant or something, you know, you were looking at different things to buy.

Avery/GM: And she says, now this blender is actually very special. It. Just a blender and she kind of motions for you to hand it over to her. And she, she takes it and she twists off the bottom of the blender and pulls out this little radio looking device. She says, I want you to keep this blender with, with you all the time, wherever, whatever ship you're on, whatever you know, hotel you're staying in, keep it there and keep this radio with you.

Avery/GM: If you're ever in any trouble, just hopefully you'll have someone around. Some people nearby that you can call and they'll be able to hear it from this, this blender. And she speaks into the walk to the radio device and you hear her voice come out of the blender and she says, also it makes a really good smoothie. Like I, I don't know. It, it blends the, the berries like so perfectly. So it's, it's kind of a twofer really.

Caden/Bruce: I mean, you can never go wrong with a good blender.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Well, I just, I, I, I just really wanted you to have this you're, I'm not supposed to say this, but you're one of my favorite students.

Caden/Bruce: Well, thank you. You are one of my favorite teachers.

Avery/GM: Well, I'm gonna take this bowl and head back to my room, but just make, make, make sure you clean up the, the dishes when you're done. I, you know that, that'd be kind of rude if you left a mess of dishes on your last day.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce laughs and smiles and it's just like, have I ever left a mess?

Avery/GM: Nah, I know better than that. Take care of yourself, Bruce. Don't bite off more than you can chew. Okay?

Caden/Bruce: Thank you. I will try not to.

Avery/GM: And she walks out of the room, and that was the last time you saw your teacher Viage. And the first day that you had your emergency escape blender… your emergency communications blender,

Caden/Bruce: the Comet Crusher 2.0.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Episode 18 - Repairs and Departures

Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 18 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.

(Intro music plays for 30 seconds, then fades down, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: So this chamber is sealed completely, but inside you see a woman with bright silver hair. She is either sleeping or unconscious, but she is wearing a vac suit, and it appears that this chamber is self-powered.

Bee/Polaris: Oh shit. Let's pop this bad boy open.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. . No touchies and can I, is there a way to like read, I don't know if there's vitals on the thing or this tablet that I nicely snagged. Can I read it slash Is there a way for me to read it and see if I can find whoever's in this pod? Question Mark?

Avery/GM: It is… So the data pad is currently written in that strange language.

Jenine/Marty: Mm.

Avery/GM: But Navi is still in your chat, so she might have some answers for you depending on how you, you know, what you ask.

Jenine/Marty: So now this is something that I forget that I do have this foci cause I have, I I talkie talk. Are we friendly with, with the Navi?

Avery/GM: I'd say so they're, they're hopeful that you can help them complete their mission.

Jenine/Marty: Amazing.

Bee/Polaris: Which is to blow up

Jenine/Marty: So what…

Avery/GM: Yes, Which at this point would be the blow.

Jenine/Marty: What, what is the NPCs uh, moral score? I asked this for the folk high on page 20. That's called authority, which I took. This is, this is, this is me asking, um,

Avery/GM: okay. Authority…

Chris/Ollie: Is that the one where you get like a whole squad of NPCS?

Jenine/Marty: Maybe?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Jenine/Marty: I don't know about, I (inaudible),

Bee/Polaris: but does that, does that work with Rob bits.

Jenine/Marty: That's what that's

Bee/Polaris: with AI bits.

Jenine/Marty: Well, it's npc.

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: it does say npc. It doesn't specify if, if Robit or Nobit.

Jenine/Marty: It's my only non squishy thing.

Avery/GM: your level for that foci is just level one.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yes. I would say that it, it will work as long as it is not outside of what her programming will allow.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Amazing. Amazing. So this is, this is your request. I'm gonna. So hi again… just wondering if you could tell us a little bit more about the, as as a medical profe…. prof professional…. I am a medical prof professional. I'm trying to say that with confidence. I am. I, I just got my license, so I am a professional. Anyways, that's me backtracking anyways. So could you tell me a little bit more about the, uh, cap… navigation captain?

Navigation captain? Uh, yes. Um, can you tell us a little bit more on about the medical state that I can also assist in that way, if possible? That is all typed out. That, that she does.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Go ahead and roll your charisma Lead check.

Jenine/Marty: Amazing. Look at me go! No, that’s charisma.

Caden/Bruce: When Marty's doing this, Can Bruce see if the pod is like movable or is it like in place?

Avery/GM: It is bolted to the ground.

Bee/Polaris: That's one laser blade that can solve the problem. That's a, that's a problem solvable by laser blade.

Jenine/Marty: Now that is an eight

Avery/GM: Okay. I put their morale score at a six, so that's perfectly fine. Yeah. So Navi says Certainly there are no classified restrictions on this information. This is the pre-cognition navigation chamber and it is sealed and will not open until power is fully restored to the vessel. It is currently being maintained with an independent power cell that will last for approximately 300 years. The person inside is in Cryos stasis until they can be recovered.

Jenine/Marty: Rec recovered by like their injuries or

Bee/Polaris: turn, turn on.

Jenine/Marty: I, I see, I see, I see.

Bee/Polaris: Like, yeah,

Jenine/Marty: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Taken out of cryo sleep.

Jenine/Marty: So, so there's no injur, no injuries? Question mark?

Avery/GM: They are unharmed… for now.

Jenine/Marty: For, for now.

Bee/Polaris: Ummmmm

Jenine/Marty: for now.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. The, the mission, the mission is to blow up.

Avery/GM: Once this ship self-destructs, they will perish but… that is our mission at this point.

Bee/Polaris: Once the ship self-destructs, they will be super harmed.

Chris/Ollie: But that is a price I'm willing to pay.

Avery/GM: They will be extremely harmed.

Caden/Bruce: I think hearing this, Bruce is gonna like, I don't know if Polaris said it out loud or not, but take out his little mini, um, knife. Like slicer, laser blade and like…

Bee/Polaris: sorry, whatever I say, goofy shit. P Polaris isn't saying it

Caden/Bruce: that's what, that's what I figured. But Bruce is just like gonna try. If he can like weld off these bolts to get this thing floating.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris's visor does a little sparkly eyes that Ollie did, caught like the same, the exact same one just in Polaris's blue And uh, he's gonna grab both his laser blades and he is gonna help Bruce.

Avery/GM: Uh, sure. That's not even a roll. You sever the bolts from, uh, from the, the mount and you see it, you see the pod kind of float up, and then you see like underneath the mount that there's like a string of like wires attached to… going into this mount and up to the bottom of the pod that are kind of. The power cell or, or feeding this pod from whatever power source that's powering it.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, is the power source in the mount.

Avery/GM: No, the power source is somewhere underneath the floor of the bridge.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna cut like a square into the hole. He's like doing the thing where like his tug is sticking out and he's like trying to, he's using both hands, trying to try and carve a hole into the floor.

Avery/GM: Roll a dexterity, stab check.

Bee/Polaris: Uh uh uh. Okay. Well away from He's doing it. He's doing it away from the...

Avery/GM: Yeah, totally. I'm just, I mean, there's a chance that you hit something so

Chris/Ollie: I mean, there's plenty of other stuff down there. It might not be the thing we're going for.

Bee/Polaris: That's true. Is anyone gonna stop Polaris from doing this stupid, stupid thing?

Caden/Bruce: Nope. Because Bruce doesn't know. Like Bruce just assumes this is a good idea. Bruce Trust’s Polaris

Jenine/Marty: Now do I… Do I know how to like get one of these out safely or because this is an alien ship. I don't know.

Avery/GM: I'm sorry. Yeah. It's this, like you've seen pre-cognition chambers before but this is a different design than you've seen

Chris/Ollie: Oh, also, yeah. By the way, also Ollie's on the way out to, uh, assist Zahn seeing that e everything's under control here.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, shit. Right.

Caden/Bruce: Everything's under control. Yup!

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Yeah

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. And now that there's no threat between us and him.

Jenine/Marty: True.

Avery/GM: Okay. You, you, so you wanna start heading towards the engine room with Zahn?

Chris/Ollie: Being the, the other fix boy on the team

Avery/GM: Oh wait, you've just… okay. Yeah, no, that's fine. Because yeah, you've destroyed the, the turrets.

Chris/Ollie: I'm gonna bring all my drones with me too. Take my drones. Go home.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Polaris, go ahead and roll your stab check.

Bee/Polaris: I, I'm conflicted because now that Ollie is leaving, Polaris might follow. Now that we know that we get, like if we see the wire going into the floor, like we know this person's gonna be okay, but Zahn did, like, is is not here.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polaris: and Polaris was shot. So he's assuming that Zahn has also probably been shot within the timeframe.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Zahn has not reported having been shot so you have no reason to assume that.

Bee/Polaris: Exactly. But Polaris doesn't have like a normal line of thinking. So Polaris is just like, there are guns in this room, which means there are guns in every room and statistically Zahn has probably been shot.

Jenine/Marty: That's fair. That's, that's a fair point.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: No, but I also need you guys to stay there cause if I turn the engine. Somebody needs to be directly like with the AI to potentially stop it from self-destructing.

Jenine/Marty: This is true.

Bee/Polaris: Oll.. I mean, Ollie would be the best one to do that cause he hacks good and he's leaving.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, I could probably talk, I could talk to the AI from anywhere

Jenine/Marty: We're all talking. We got a group chat.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you're all fine.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Where, where would the self-destruct like override be?

Jenine/Marty: is it 1 of 5 buttons?

Avery/GM: It would pro…

(laughter)

Bee/Polaris: Every ship has five buttons.

Jenine/Marty: Sorry. Continue.

Avery/GM: Real… realistically, even though this is an alien ship, Ollie, you probably know that given if you were fast enough, you could probably hack into a nearby terminal and disable it.

Chris/Ollie: Hmm. But I would have to do it after power is restored.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Would it have to be up here?

Avery/GM: Not necessarily. There, there are consoles all.

Chris/Ollie: Then, yeah. I'm gonna, uh, head over to the engine room, but have, having seen the, actually were you streaming your helmetCam Zahn?

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. After seeing, uh, the stuff that he had looked over, but, uh, didn't stop like the armory and whatnot, Ali's going to, uh, stop by, take a look.

Bee/Polaris: Just out of curiosity is, does every, is everyone that has like a helmet cam streaming?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie is like 24 7 i r l.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, okay. P… cause Polaris always has his Twitch chat open. , Polaris always, always has his twitch open. Um, okay cool. So we know what all of us are doing. So Polaris would see Ollie leaving and then also probably doesn't, has not been shot So he's like holding up his laser blade, getting ready to stab into the floor and. Stand like sitting there for like a good minute or so, and then he just kind of like looks over to Marty and Bruce and then over his shoulder at Wally and then back to the other two.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will look at him and just be like, I don't mind staying here if anything goes sideways, I'm pretty confident that I would be strong enough to cut these wires and push this pod into our ship. So if you two wanna go, that's fine by me.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will give Bruce his gun and then follow Ollie.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce looks at the gun like he doesn't know what it is.

Avery/GM:. Marty, what do you do?

Jenine/Marty: Could I try and transmit another thought? Can I try and do a, what is it? Transmit thought level one. Just, just what's up? What can I throw into a little conversation? Or am I only getting a little drowning image?

Avery/GM: You're mostly getting drowning images. You do see in this next image of a person drowning, you do see like an extended hand grabbing towards this person, and then a second image of a hand pointing forward, almost like pointing at you.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, we haven't tried just opening it.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Wake this person up.

Bee/Polaris: We could laser blaze it. We, uh, Bruce could laser blade it open.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Could I, is there, this is okay. I think, is she gonna ask for permission? No, she's, is there a latch to open?

Avery/GM: There is. Navi did mention that it is sealed and will not open until…

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Avery/GM: …Power is restored.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. Okay. Good, good. Great. I think I'll just like, cause I can also do… current thoughts… Uh, there's something about language and language does not impede me from like speaking with this being…

Avery/GM: correct.

Jenine/Marty: So I'll just, Saying we're here to help in like little images, maybe like, like an image of like handing flowers of like importance of like, oh, these are flowers. That means good. Something like that.

Avery/GM: Yeah

Jenine/Marty: And like saying it back and like different images of helping.

Avery/GM: Are you still looking inside the pod or no?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Avery/GM: You see this person's face kind of like scrunch, like they're kind of thinking, you know, Like their forehead kind of furrows. And then you actually get words in your head. The words just say, I don't want to die here, please help me.

Jenine/Marty: Oh. Oh my goodness. Yeah. Yeah. Um, and then I'll try and just communicate back. Is there anything, if we turn this ship on, will we have time to like get us all out quickly enough to get you out and to get the crew out? Well… my crew out.

Avery/GM: The voice comes ba… or not the voice, but the words come into your head and it says, activate all artificial intelligence except Segin. S-E-G-I-N.

Jenine/Marty: Okay so I, I immediately like, send that message out to everybody in, in the crew. Hashtag crew, um, group chat. Don't turn on this AI.

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up emoji.

Chris/Ollie: So with the ais, are those activated with the core or do we have to activate them all individually?

Avery/GM: I was actually just gonna get to that. So…

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Jenine/Marty: Sick.

Avery/GM: Flashing back to Zahn real quick. Zahn, you come into the engine room here, you see several like power transformers that are dormant, obviously. And then there is a central reactor core basically here that is quiet and cold and dead and around the other side of this core, there is a computer system that has a faint amount of power that is flashing reboot question mark, Y/N. And it says it in that language that you don't, that you know

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Ah-huh .

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: I'm going to look over the core because, uh, Navi had designated that there were. Four of five wires not plugged in.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Um, looking over it more clear or more closely, you see there are four not wires. Like these are pretty like thick cables and you can see that four of them have been severed just through like some like shrapnel kind of hitting them. You know, a couple floor panels have kind of like, from the crash have kinda like stuck up from the ground and kind of sliced through a couple of these things. And so there are just some severed wires that given the right parts you could probably fix those Fairly quickly.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Gotcha. Am I able to tell what these wires specific or these cables specifically go to?

Avery/GM: Not specifically. You do see that they kind of like lead into the walls of this room and just sort of look like they branch out to different sections of the ship.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Gotcha. Then I will go to, The computer and hit y, enter.

Avery/GM: Okay. You start the reboot process and, you see, five names pop up on the screen and they read Archid, Schedar, Caph, Ruchbah and Segin. And that's when you get the message from Marty that says, don't activate Segin.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Noted!

Avery/GM: So It's a, it's, it's a good thing Marty asked those questions, huh?

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Right? So you get in the group chat noted. Dot, dot, dot .

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Right? As like you send a screenshot of your finger holding right above the activate Segin, like Good Timing!

Bee/Polaris: I mean it's being streamed . We're seeing all of this.

Avery/GM: And then you do get one other message from Navi in the chat with her that says, please reactivate Sagan immediately so that this ship can self destruct.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Yeah, we don't want that. Zahn says verbally as he starts activating the others, but not Sagan.

Avery/GM: Sure. So you activate our kid and you hear, actually nothing happens yet, but you do…

Bee/Polaris: hey real quick,

Avery/GM: yes.

Bee/Polaris: How do, how do you spell all these AI names?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: I'm sorry. I, I apologize.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Just like, I don't know if you have 'em written down in front of you, just copy paste ‘em into the chat or something.

Avery/GM: Yep. I will. Oops. Yeah, my bad.

Bee/Polaris: It's all good. I, I heard them all the first. Is like, wow, these are really cool names. I wish I knew how to spell 'em

Avery/GM: They are the star names for the Constellation Cassiopeia actually.

Jenine/Marty: That's why they sound so familiar.

Chris/Ollie: Nice

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Makes sense.

Bee/Polaris: My brain is thinking some thoughts.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: So wait…

Avery/GM: No… No.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Who’s Navi, if its not one of these five?

Avery/GM: Navi is another star in Cassiopeia.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: it's a nickname, but yeah, it's the nickname for the Star Gamma Cassiopeia.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Got it. That's cool.

Bee/Polaris: My brain is thinking thoughts.

Avery/GM: I don't know why

Bee/Polaris: I think you know why.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: I don't know why.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, you wouldn't know why, but I know why, and Avery knows why.

Avery/GM: After activating these AIs, You see a message that says nodes reactivated, awaiting power supply. After each one that you reactivate, and as you finish activating the one before Segin, in walks, Ollie.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: how did Ollie get past the hangar bay?

Jenine/Marty: We yeeted those.

Bee/Polaris: Remember? Hermes?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah Hermes Yeeted them

Avery/GM: Hermes came in and blasted them.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Oh.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, also,

Avery/GM: oh, you wanted to check out the Armory too, huh?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I also probably should check on the ship too, considering the ship almost got yeeted.

Bee/Polaris: Oh Yeah, yeah that’s true.

Avery/GM: this is true.

Chris/Ollie: So yeah,

Avery/GM: I'll, I'll, uh, so yeah, we can, we can back up a few things, a few paces real quick.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I'll put those detours in there.

Avery/GM: So, Ollie, you come into the Hangar Bay and you see there are quite a few scorch marks on the ship formerly known as the Minos. There's no hull breaches that you can see from here, but it is definitely seen better days.

Bee/Polaris: haven't we All ?

Caden/Bruce: Oh God. Zahn's gonna have a field day once he gets inside.

Chris/Ollie: Is there any, any like emergency repairs that we need to do?

Avery/GM: Not currently. Hermes would've communicated that if there was

Chris/Ollie: Ollie like…

Avery/GM: It doesn’t look great though.

Chris/Ollie: It's just, uh, oh my boy. Look how they massacred my boy. But he's gonna ask, uh, ask if everything's good and seeing as there was no, no message or anything, it's gonna be like, all right, that's fine and move on to the armory. Give a thumbs up to the, to Hermes in the ship.

Avery/GM: Hermes sends a, like a, a middle thumb, like , eh,

Bee/Polaris: what? Oh, oh.

Avery/GM: like, you know. Not a thumbs up. Not a thumbs down.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Like neutral.

Avery/GM: Sorry.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah.

Avery/GM: I could have worded that better.

Chris/Ollie: I thought it was a middle finger. You were saying at first.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, me too. Me too.I was just like, when did Hermes learn how to cuss?

Chris/Ollie: We're gonna have to have a chat with you young man.

Bee/Polaris: My son, my boy!

Chris/Ollie: Who taught you to say that!

Avery/GM: But yeah, coming into the next room and you pass by the armory. Something shiny kind of catches your eye, poke your head in. You see kind of like stocked in here. You see like a rack of like six, like automatic rifles of some kind. A second rack of like laser pistols and then some armored vac suits as well. There's about eight of each item here.

Jenine/Marty: Ooo Snazzy

Avery/GM: Probably, probably some like standard issue for like crew. I will say on the bridge you did not see any bodies.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. And like none the entire way back here.

Avery/GM: Right. Just the bodies that have been in the sleep pods.

Chris/Ollie: Mm-hmm. All right.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: I mean, it has been three months. They could have been vacced into space.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Pirates could have saved ‘em.

Avery/GM: I just forgot to say that earlier. So,

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: ah

Chris/Ollie: and these are projectile weapons I’m guessing?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. So Ollie's going to put some dollar signs in the, in the chat, he's gonna load up on, he's gonna take a combat or their, what'd you say? Auto rifles?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Combat rifle.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Ollie's gonna take one for himself and equip his bots. I'm gonna take the thermal pistol and the laser pistol out of the… his drones Equip them with that and as much ammo as I can carry.

Avery/GM: Okay. Sure.

Chris/Ollie: I don't really think I got much inventory space for all this stuff, so I'll, I’ll let it…

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: well, you do have a couple extra cavities now, ?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I do. I do.

Bee/Polaris: Gross!

Chris/Ollie: but I…

Avery/GM: oh no. Oh goodness.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: In his chest. Geeze louis!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I know. I'm just being a stinker.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, I don't know. We never said where he got shot.

Avery/GM: Shot in the buttocks.

Bee/Polaris: Why, out of curiosity, why would the hegemony, why would the hegemony employ robots that have a fat dumper?

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Esp, especially for janitorial purposes.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. He, he's a janitor bot. He's got the dump truck coming through.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God.

Chris/Ollie: So, yeah. Ollie’s gonna leave the equipment for, uh, anyone to come claim if they want it. And he is gonna move on to the, uh, that laboratory.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, Polaris. Isn't Polaris followed Ollie

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay.

Bee/Polaris: so he's like . He's been lurking in the shadows.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Uh, so Polaris, you're also seeing these same, same things that, that Ollie is seeing as well. .

Bee/Polaris: Sorry, I'm still stuck on it. I'm still stuck on Ollie having a fat dumpy

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. Same. Its distracting.

Bee/Polaris: this crew has more cake in more ways than one

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. We've had cake from day one.

Caden/Bruce: cake has always been here.

Chris/Ollie: This cake ain't no lie

Bee/Polaris: Bruce wasn't the first one to bring the cake.

Avery/GM: Oh gosh. Cool. Uh, so anyway, coming into this advanced lab, oie, you see the same thing that Zahn saw a lot of papers. Uh, documents and stuff kind of sprawled around here. Actual physical documents, not like data pads.

Chris/Ollie: Hmm.

You also see tools that are kind of hard to clearly identify what they are. Like there's some that are like pretty universal, you know, screwdrivers or screwdriver, stuff like that. But like there are some tools that look like they probably do some very specific task that you're not quite sure of, but yeah, there's not much here. I will say in the workshop, one thing that you two do notice is a, a little tin can Looking robot

Bee/Polaris: Polaris picks him up.

Avery/GM: Get back to that section.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'm picking, give me my new son, give us our, our new child Hermes is gonna have a sibling.

Avery/GM: Uh, it is currently unpowered, but it's pretty light and pretty, like, it feels like it's almost made out of like Tin or Aluminum or something. Like it's, it's very, it feels very fragile when you pick it up.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh. I can crush this thing in my hands, but I'm not going to.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it's probably like a foot and a half tall and. Eight inches wide. It's very, it's a very tiny robot.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris holds him up Triumphantly towards Ollie. Like, look!

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's gonna get some, uh, like little heart eyes looking at him. I'm a assuming it's like a, an A-powered cell for him. Or is all this like technology kind of foreign?

Avery/GM: It's all kind of foreign.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Dang. We'll have to power him up somehow.

Chris/Ollie: And everything else is de powered like the terminals in here. So I can't download anything for right now. Yeah. All right. Well I guess Allie is just going to like start looking through the documents.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: He can't read any of 'em, but he's imaging them.

Bee/Polaris: Just scan 'em for later

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Marty, Bruce, you are still back on the bridge. What are you two doing?

Caden/Bruce: It's a good question.

Jenine/Marty: Excellent question. , is there anything else in this room?

Avery/GM: Not currently With everything powered down

Caden/Bruce: that didn't sound ominous at all.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. No, I just, sorry, I just mean like there is nothing of note because everything is powered down.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool Cool Cool.

Avery/GM: Once power is restored, you might find something useful, but

Bee/Polaris: like more guns, more turrets.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I love that. Thanks.

Bee/Polaris: Me too!

Jenine/Marty: Is there a way for me to try and get this thing trans, like the, the, the tablet translated If, if, if Hermes was able to give translation to AI, Can that translation be done in digital? In like, like if I put Google Translate glasses on, is Google translate glasses allowed?

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you don't have a helmet, do you?

Jenine/Marty: I have eyes.

Bee/Polaris: You have a watch?

Jenine/Marty: I do have a watch.

Bee/Polaris: But

Avery/GM: if you…

Bee/Polaris: my only concern would be if it's like not from this general Galaxy, would this like program put in place by this galaxy have any way to Extraterrestrial languages like that, you know?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. No, no, no. I get you. I get you. I'm just, I was just wondering if it is, is there Is there?

Avery/GM: so I will say that, um, if Hermes could Sweet talk Navi. And so Hermes taught Navi the local language here.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: if Hermes could somehow sweet talk Navi into teaching him her language. Then yes, that would be possible.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, okay.

Bee/Polaris: Make Hermes this rule to flirt.

Jenine/Marty: Wait, no, no, no. I got this.

Avery/GM: But I will say that for you to get Hermes to translate this document, uh, you would need to be somewhere where Hermes could look at it in some way.

Jenine/Marty: So I'm gonna, I'm just gonna message hers real quick. So her is, this is your lesson in flirting

Avery/GM: Oh God.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: I didn't know, uh, Marty was such a player to be able to give classes.

Jenine/Marty: Marty isn't Marty's just charismatic? And it's like, okay, wait, let's back up. Not flirting, but talking to someone nicely in a way that they can be friends if you want it to flirt, I don't know, added a little bit of sauce. That's what people tell me.

Bee/Polaris: add a little bit of massage. Hermes is gonna take that. Literally.

Jenine/Marty: Marty. Essentially just was like, okay, so could we trot, I know that you taught Navi how to speak our language. Do you think you can ask her if she can teach you how to speak her language so we can get a little bit more about their wonderful language question mark?

Avery/GM: Certainly, I will be happy to ask.

Jenine/Marty: Amazing. Let me know if you need any help. I have some really good ways of talk. I've, I, I learned a lot about talking to people. It sounds like I might not be good at it, but I promise I'm good at it. You got this buddy.

Avery/GM: Hermes just says, Navi, I would like to speak your language as well. It would be easier to communicate than using a language you are still familiarizing yourself with.

Avery/GM: And Navi responds back and says: oh, certainly I'll be happy to teach you. And you see like in the chat, like you see like a little like transfer bar, Like status bar going across

Avery/GM: and Hermes just says, Marty, I should have this language transferred to my memory very shortly. What do you need me to know this language for?

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: What is very shortly to Hermes?

Jenine/Marty: Excellent question. Um, but oh, I just, there's this little tablet that has like, I think it has the medical, I mean I found it in the Med Bay or what I think is in the equivalent of Med Bay, so might have the medical records of the people that are on this ship or the beings And maybe want to learn a little bit more. And if there's other documents that we find throughout here, it'd be nice to have the translation.

Avery/GM: Excellent. If you bring what you need translated onto the ship, I should be able to translate them.

Jenine/Marty: Amazing. We're gonna head there after everything gets set up because we do not wanna leave our friend here. Oh, I also then I'm like, oh shit. I rule number one, you gotta learn names. Um, and I just got like to our friend that's in the little pod and I'm like, I'm Marty, what is your name? Completely, completely changes conversation.

Avery/GM: conversation. You get a picture in your mind, a boat rowing, and you get the impression that her name is Rho.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I thought it was gonna be Rowan

Avery/GM: R-H-O.

Jenine/Marty: R-H… Ooo cute. Amazing. . Oh, this is fun. Thank you.

Bee/Polaris: How do you, how do you image project the name Marty?

Chris/Ollie: Back to the future?

Jenine/Marty: No, I… You do like a, like a store? Like a little, not a big store, but like a little store… a Mart. and then, um, Oh shoot.

Bee/Polaris: I guess you, I guess you could get like smarties the candy and just tear off the S.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Smarties.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that's it. Just like a little Mart.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Smarty, arty.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Put together

Caden/Bruce: As this is happening, Bruce has gone back into the other room cuz he feels bad about his cake and he's trying to clean up the mess, but it's going poorly because he's floating.

Bee/Polaris: Aw,

Avery/GM: sure. Yeah. You float back into, how far do you float?

Caden/Bruce: I, where the tart was, I guess, where my cake smashed up against the wall.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. No, that's, that's the same room that Marty's in.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Cause you were on that was on the bridge.

Caden/Bruce: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Marty came. Yeah, Marty came in to, yeah,

Jenine/Marty: to do the heal heal.

Avery/GM: Bruce, as you're sitting here kind of mourning your cake, you get a private message on your little communicator. Watch it just, We need to talk smiley face, cat emoji. And then it says go into the next room and then through the med bay, take a left down the hallway and go past the kitchen. Or your friends won't make it out of here.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will read that message. Uh, look up to Marty and be like, I'm going to go and see if there's anything I can, um, borrow from this kitchen that would make our kitchen better… and head that way.

Jenine/Marty: Uh oh. I'll be here. Okay.

Caden/Bruce: And Bruce will swim. . also, he is using his tail as like, like a crocodile, I guess does in the way.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I was just about to say, I imagine Bruce like swimming through the air. Like a, a gator.

Caden/Bruce: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, that's cute!

Avery/GM: So, yeah, Bruce, you come into this kitchen and you do see like a trail of spice containers leading into this next room , and there's like some really rare spices. There's like some saffron here and you know, some like gold boon and stuff like that. Like, there's like some, like, that's not a spice, but you know what I mean. Like there's just, there's like some like fancy cook stuff like floating here, like leading you into this next room.

Bee/Polaris: That's pretty hilarious that they're Hanseling and Greteling you.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is probably just sweeping this up with his tail though as well on the way, just like kicking it out to his hands and like as he's swimming along, you just see like Everest soft and like a spice jar just being added to the collection as he's starting to hold.

Avery/GM: Very good. Yeah, so you come into this room past the kitchen. it is clearly a vehicle storage room of some kind. There are a bunch of like floating vehicles here. You see some hover bikes and some Atmos fliers and some gravtanks. There's like two of each of these things in here, like you're kind of wondering like why Zahn hasn't checked this room out, cuz this is going to make his day. But as you come into this, Uh, you hear over your personal intercom that no one else can hear, and this voice just says, “took you long enough. I really thought the spices would've drawn you in sooner.”

Caden/Bruce: I don't particularly like the sound of where this is going. Um, can I help you?

Avery/GM: It's not a question of can you help me? The question's already answered. You will if you don't want your friends to meet the fate they deserve.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: We don't deserve that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. It deserves a strong word.

Avery/GM: This is not the GM casting judgment on y'all. This is.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I know, I know, I know.

Caden/Bruce: That's a pretty big threat coming from someone who's not even showing their face.

Avery/GM: You hear a, a soft chuckle and you see floating from behind one of these grab tanks. A dark blue tiger. And they have in one hand a laser pistol trained on you. And in the other hand they have a data pad of some kind and they say, you are a clever little Scaph, aren't you, Bruce? I mean, I know how to hide. I know how to make my ship disappear from radar and you know, ghost stealth but to blend in, in plain sight. That is something that few can do well.

Caden/Bruce: I mean… I am only a chef. I, if you're impressed by that, you really should try my cooking. that's much more impressive really.

Avery/GM: Oh, we will get to that. Don't you worry? But you and your friends have made some powerful enemies, haven't you? Namely the Winston family. My Family. And while they may not know your face or your names yet, your ship is well known and it's only a matter of time until they track you down. You know that, right?

Caden/Bruce: So you have not come to track us down and kill us. I mean, that seems to be where my logic is going. But yet you have a gun on me and you’ve not yet tried to shoot. I mean, I am a pretty big target

Avery/GM: to miss. Oh yes. If I want you dead, I, I will take care of that when the time comes. But for now, we actually might have a common interest, well, not common interest, but a common goal that we can work towards. If you want to keep your friends safe, I have need of your little blending in skills that you so gloriously showed off on Bragos. And I can't give you all the details until you agree, but let's just say this. If you come with me, you do the missions that me and my employers need you to do, and in return, I don't hit transmit on this data pad and send all of your names and faces to my cousin Violet.

Caden/Bruce: It sounds like you need me a fair bit, so I'll make you a counter offer. I'll come with you, but you'll hand me the data pad first.

Avery/GM: Go ahead and roll a charisma connect check.

Caden/Bruce: That's a 12.

Jenine/Marty: Let's go!

Avery/GM: They shrug. And float the data pad over to you and they're like, you're gonna come with me one way or another. Why not?

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is gonna take it and, uh, when he's able to delete all the information and replace it with fake shit.

Avery/GM: sure, you probably won't be able to do that right in front of them, but…

Caden/Bruce: No, I, I, I'm just, that, that eventually will happen. Like Bruce is smart enough not to just break the tablet like over his knee or something like, but he just is just like, okay, this information, if it goes out, is gonna be completely wrong.

Avery/GM: Brilliant… and they say, okay, we've got a deal. And they kind of gesture with their, their pistol towards the, the very large teleportation pad that's in this room on the floor. They just say, Stand there for a minute. We'll beam back over to my ship.

Caden/Bruce: All right? Just, um, just know that if this ends poorly for me, it can also end poorly for you. And Bruce will do that.

Avery/GM: They just smile at you and they, they still have their pistol trained on you, and they kneel down and they pull out like a power cell that has like some like wires and stuff attached to it and it looks a little kind of complicated and they attach it to this teleportation pad and like fiddle with a few wires and you see the pad light up for a moment and then they look up at you and say, have you ever teleported before?

Caden/Bruce: I don't believe so. But before they go, Bruce will like subtly drop one of the spices to the floor.

Avery/GM: Very good. They say, okay, well just know that it can be very disorienting and you might throw up, and then they hit a button on this little jury rigged power cell and the teleportation pad flashes and you both disappear from this ship…. back over to Zahn.

Bee/Polaris: No! No Bruce! I knew it was gonna happen, but it still hurts.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Not even the chance to say goodbye.

Bee/Polaris: I know. Just with nothing. Nothing left to say goodbye except for one spice.

Avery/GM: Out of curiosity, which spice?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. What's,

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Is it? What's kind of spice?

Caden/Bruce: I think it's like a bay leaf.

Bee/Polaris: No, the most universal spice.

Avery/GM: So Zahn, You're here. Ollie and Polaris… Are you still in the workshop area or are you coming back down to the engine room?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, if I've gleaned. All the info I can, I'm gonna head down

Bee/Polaris: Polaris. Polaris is going to, nah, Polaris isn't smart. Polaris is gonna follow Ollie.

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay. . I think Polaris is very bright.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, he's okay. He's bright, but not in the like logic way of like, oh, this makes sense to do and this is a good idea. Let me do this. But more a, let me do this out of the box thing.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. If we need a ship drifted, we know who to go to.

Bee/Polaris: I got you. I'm your guy.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: You know, we have yet to drift a ship

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I know. I'm so mad about that.

Chris/Ollie: Wait, we didn't do any drifting in that race? No.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: No!

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Oh yeah, we could. I mean, there wasn't much drifting opportunities.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I don't think Hermes would've, uh, I've done the drifting too well, too.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. how do you, I was gonna say, how do you roll a, uh, like the shuttle in space, if you try to drift? I don't think there's any negative, you know, consequences to attempting to drift in space.

Avery/GM: No, you just swing really far. .

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Zahn, You have activated these, uh, AI nodes or you've, you've reactivated them, but they don't have power. And Ollie comes in as you read the last one that says, please provide power source, or power source required.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: So I take it, it's uh, just a matter of reconnecting these, uh, big old cables so that they can get powered. They're distributed throughout the ship, whatever, right?

Avery/GM: Yeah. And in walk Polaris and Ollie.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: as he turns around from the computer and sees, uh, , the two of you come in, he's like, he claps his hands together and like rubs 'em together. And he is like, and then finger guns, both of you. He's like, perfect.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris holds out his Tin Can son and says, look.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will…

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Oh, nice. He may make, he'll make good, uh, spare parts to get this thing working.

Bee/Polaris: No! Polaris holds him away from… Holds him away from Zahn and like a mad emoji comes onto to the visor.

Avery/GM: Zahn. You will note that probably just some electrical tape. And like some good firm, like, like holding these two cables together and like some electrical tape will probably get the job done.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Oh, I know

Avery/GM: Oh, okay. Zahn was just being funny… I see.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Yes, even though he said that completely deadpan , it was like somewhat reaching out for your robot as you extended it to him. , you could see. Slight shivers in his, under his suit from him like

Bee/Polaris: holding laughing. Yeah. Polaris is, Polaris is holding his son away from Zahn and fully believes that Zahn intends to murder his son

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Yeah. So he's gonna look to Ollie and be like, all right, I need you to hold thi… this cable in this place and he is just gonna like step by. Go through it, put all these, uh, cables back together.

Avery/GM: Sure. Go ahead and roll a dexterity fix just to see how quickly you can get this done, because you'll get it done, but

Chris/Ollie: Oh, should I roll to assist?

Avery/GM: Oh, yes, please.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Eight.

Chris/Ollie: oh, no, I got a good modifier. I got a seven.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: I got an eight.

Avery/GM: Okay. Polaris, do you help at all or are you still just holding your, your tin son away?

Bee/Polaris: No, Polaris is holding his tin son and probably like watching them work while like laying on top of one of Ollie's, drones, like kicking his feet, laying on his stomach and kicking His feet while he holds his son.

Chris/Ollie: Like you’re a cat sitting on a Roomba just floating around.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, but he's like laying on his kind of like surfboard, but like his legs are up and he's like kicking 'em back and forth.

Avery/GM: okay. It takes probably about an hour to, to get all these cables back in, but as you're plugging them in, you do hear like the rumble of like distant systems kind of coming back online and then you plug in this last one, get it taped up and stuff. It's not perfect. It. It will need to actu… The cables will actually need to be replaced at some point. But you do hear Navi announce through the loudspeakers that are now working

Avery/GM: “power restored systems coming back online. Archid… Online, Caph… Online, Schedar… Online, Ruchba… Online, Segin… Offline.”\

Bee/Polaris: Oh my god

Avery/GM: Self-destruct sequence, still disabled. Unable to complete mission objectives.

Chris/Ollie: Ooh, okay. , because I was thinking

Bee/Polaris: oh my God.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, they're, because they're not gonna blow it until all of 'em are on.

Bee/Polaris: I thought. Okay. I thought it was like going down the sequence and rebooting all of them, regardless of what Zahn did.

Avery/GM: No, no. No. Okay. Oh my gosh, my, my poor little eyes. If Zahn had activated Segin, then yeah, then you would've had to probably try and hack some shit, you know?

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: Two minute countdown or something like that.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Or this would be the end of season one and Season two would be Bruce assembling the team.

Bee/Polaris: Right?

Avery/GM: reassembling the team.

Bee/Polaris: Bruce is Nick Fury.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Does Bruce get an eye patch?

Caden/Bruce: Yes. . . No hesitation.

Bee/Polaris: We all come back as like, uh, different. Winstons .

Caden/Bruce: Oh God.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Oh God.

Avery/GM: And Navi says, I can still not activate artificial intelligence notes. Segin, please activate Segin so that we can complete mission objectives.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts, oops, smiley face and chat.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: Zahn just puts no.

Bee/Polaris: Heart.

Za

Zach/Zahn:ch/Zahn: No! Thumbs Up!

Bee/Polaris: We probably shouldn't have admitted that to the AI that controls the whole ship

Chris/Ollie: after activating most of it.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And Marty, you are still in the bridge, right?

Jenine/Marty: Ye

Avery/GM: Marty, You see, as soon as the power comes back on, you see a. Shoot up towards the glass of this case, uh, from this person, and they're like, gripping at the glass.

Jenine/Marty: I'm trying to open it.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you, you find the, the latch and it actually responds to your touch and you lift it open and you see this person sort of still flailing their arms a little bit and then kind of stop and, and sit up and kind of like shake their head. They're, they, they seem very disoriented at the moment.

Bee/Polaris: You freed Hatsune Miku.

Avery/GM: Gosh. Okay. Note of self, don't use anime girls for the avatars next time

Bee/Polaris: And if you do use Hatsune Miku

Avery/GM: and our camera shifts perspectives. To outside of the Cassiopeia, we see a small two person craft uncloak and start pulling away from this system. Bruce, you get teleported and maybe feeling a little queasy from the teleportation and Lazuli just kind of left you there. Went to the pilot chair and started piloting away.

And so you kind of have like, there's basically like a door separating the cockpit. This transport area that you're in, and you have just a few moments to yourself.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce Rummages around and his, uh, chef suit that he's wearing underneath his Vac suit and pulls out his mini walkie talkie and presses to engage.

Avery/GM: Perfect… And our camera pants onto the ship, formerly known as the Minos and zooms in on a blender. It starts turning on.

Bee/Polaris: What the fuck?

Jenine/Marty: Oh,

Bee/Polaris: what?

Jenine/Marty: I'm sorry?

Bee/Polaris: what? What? That's awesome. has Bruce been a spy this whole time?

Caden/Bruce: All you hear over the blender is just Bruce's voice, just being like, hello? Can anyone hear me? And that's it.

(background ambience fades out, outro music plays, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a one-up podcast network production. Be sure to check out more of our shows at one-Up podcasts.com and follow us on Twitter and Tumblr at Furthest Pop. Intro and outro Music by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletop audio.com and used under an attribution non-commercial license from Creative Commons.

Tracks used include star forged – Vault, Deep Space EVA and Covert Ops. We'll be back on April 1st with our next episode. See you out there beyond the furthest stars.

(Outro plays out to the end)

Episode 17 - Ship Exploration and Crew Injuries

Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 17 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.

(Intro Music plays, fades out, Ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Let's roll initiative.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, sure. How, what is it Just D 20.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: How? How Initiative works? Okay, cool.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah, this is our like first like real party fight

Bee/Polaris: initial initiative

Zach/Zahn: Like Party initiative. Initiative, yeah.

Caden/Bruce: Yeah, I was gonna say, do we add anything to that or is it just a straight up D 20?

Avery/GM: I believe it's just a straight D 20, but I will double check because now I have to Actually,

Caden/Bruce: we never done the combat thing.

Zach/Zahn: I know.

Jenine/Marty: Is that all of us? That's rolling?

Avery/GM: Oh, I'm sorry. So initiative is actually a D eight and you add your dexterity modifier.

Bee/Polaris: Sick. Cause I rolled garbage on the D20.

Caden/Bruce: That's a five for Bruce

Bee/Polaris: plus dexterity Modifier?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Eight.

Chris/Ollie: Nat eight.

Zach/Zahn: I kind of wish I gone to the bridge. Dang it.

Avery/GM: Maybe not.

Jenine/Marty: Do other friends who are not at Bridge have to roll initiative or not?

Avery/GM: Not yet. Um, but you do hear the commotion going on.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, not yet. Terrifying.

Avery/GM: Okay, so either Chris or Bee go for it.

Bee/Polaris: So, okay. How are they? Are they like free running around? Like are they just like free range, or are they?

Avery/GM: No, I, I meant to add them to the map. I apologize.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay, okay. Okay.

Avery/GM: They are fixed positions in the wall.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Can I get to, uh, this guy right here?

Avery/GM: Yeah, probably.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Uh, I'm gonna get to that guy and I'm gonna un sheath my laser blade and I'm gonna sever from the wall.

Avery/GM: Sure, go ahead and roll on a tech roll, which would be a D 20 plus your relevant stat for the weapon, which I believe for that I put as decks.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. that's gonna be a 20.

Avery/GM: Okay, Cool. Yeah, that definitely hits,

Bee/Polaris: that's gonna be 14 total. Oh wait. Plus is it plus anything.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, you get into tech modifier based on your level. If you're not a soldier, it's half your level rounded up or down. I think it's down.

Bee/Polaris: down. Oh, okay. And then 16.

(light sword waving sounds)

Avery/GM: Cool. Yeah, you sever it from the wall.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet And I'm gonna try and get behind here to not be shot.

Avery/GM: Sure. Make a dexterity exert skill check.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Do I have anything to exert? I do, surprisingly. Okay. Eight.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Okay. We'll say that you make it behind that little panel there. Next… So that turret is out! (makes a pew sound) there you go! See, this is gonna be easy. Y'all got this. Next up is the turret, though, over here on this wall, and it is gonna open fire on Bruce. Does a six hit?

Caden/Bruce: Uh, no, it does not.

(Laser blast miss)

Avery/GM: Oh, great. cool. Uh, yeah, it goes wide and blasts the hole into the wall, and I believe that means…

Caden/Bruce: I’m a pretty big target to Miss . It's a little bit embarrassing for the them.

Avery/GM: Its fine.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, for the, the robot only born to shoot

Caden/Bruce: It's like a storm Trooper

Avery/GM: Chris, you are up . Basically it rolled an eight as well, so I just, you know, split the difference.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, makes sense. Uh, at this point though, I'm pretty much just, uh, just gonna shoot 'em.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: I'm gonna save all my point-os So, uh, Ollie's just going to, uh, pull out his gun, which is a laser pistol.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: And, uh, without taking cover or seeming concerned at all, after looking down at the smoking holes in his chest, he's gonna say, I really did not appreciate that. And just, it is just full on walk face first towards the nearest, uh, this guy.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: As far as I can go and just open fire on him.

Avery/GM: Go for it.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, . So it's D 20 minus your shoot, or well plus your shoot right.

Avery/GM: For a fired weapon? Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Okay, Four.

Avery/GM: Oh, that does not hit. (Laser misfire) Yeah, it just, it blasts into the wall underneath the turret. Caden, you are up next.

Caden/Bruce: How do turrets see, are they computerized or do they have like cameras?

Avery/GM: Uh, they have like a little motion sensor on top of them That glows red.

Caden/Bruce: Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Can I physically walk up to any of these turrets?

Avery/GM: Yeah, we'll say you can close the gap easily.

Caden/Bruce: Sweet. I'll walk up to the one that Ollie missed and uh, with one of these Like… with the cake I made, just smush it into the turret.

(Cake smoosh)

Bee/Polaris: no.

Jenine/Marty: Yes!

Bee/Polaris: The cake

Jenine/Marty: I love this.

Chris/Ollie: It's not worth it. No.

Bee/Polaris: No. Oh god.

Chris/Ollie: What this battle has taken from us.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my goodness. Oh, we've lost so much.

Avery/GM: I don't even know what to make you roll for that.

Bee/Polaris: would that even be a role? The turret is stationary.

Avery/GM: I don't think so. I think it would just. I think you just do it.

Bee/Polaris: also can a turret fire if there's cake jammed in it?

Caden/Bruce: I don't know, but I'm hoping it'll mess up Its motion sensor.

Avery/GM: It can fire, but it won't know where it's firing at.

Bee/Polaris: That's probably not good.

Caden/Bruce: It'll just try and fire and they'll just be like chocolate just goozing out of it. It'll just smell like fondue.

Bee/Polaris: No! The Cake!

Chris/Ollie: It's aim will still be better than mine.

Caden/Bruce: debatable.

Avery/GM: There is now goop all over this, uh, this turret that is sitting here.

Bee/Polaris: Delicious. Delicious. Goop.

Avery/GM: The, that turret's turn is next though, and it is going to try and shoot at whatever is in front of it, but it is gonna roll with disadvantage. Oh. Does a seven hit?

Caden/Bruce: No.

Avery/GM: Didn't think so.

(laser blast)

Caden/Bruce: Which is considering the large target in front of it, it probably just like…

Avery/GM: well the cake is still warm, so it's really throwing off the heat sensor.

Jenine/Marty: Mm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Is Bruce warm blooded?

Caden/Bruce: Probably not.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So probably Would it be able to sense Bruce?

Avery/GM: Uh, no, but it probably sensed the cake when , if Bruce was carrying the cake around

Bee/Polaris: I mean, yeah. Oh true. So Bruce, you're now invisible .

Zach/Zahn: No, it's more like Bruce is, While Bruce might be Cold blooded.

Caden/Bruce: It can still sense…

Zach/Zahn: His temperature would still be different from that of the rest of the vacuum.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it's true. Fair. Yes.

Bee/Polaris: No… No…

Zach/Zahn: unless you're saying Bruce is as cold as space on the inside.

(Combat music fades out, ship ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Flashing back to the other room. Marty and Zahn, Navi says, “your friends appear to have entered the bridge. They should be aware that the automated defenses are activated and without the other artificial intelligence nodes powered back up, I cannot shut them off.”

Jenine/Marty: What… that… Wow.

Chris/Ollie: And then I imagine you hear gunshots.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Gunshots. Some like splattering sounds.

Caden/Bruce: The smell of chocolate.

Zach/Zahn: So Zahn is going to ask for directions to how to reengage the other whatchamacallits.

Jenine/Marty: AIs?

Bee/Polaris: Nodes?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Sure. Navi answers and says to reactivate Archid, Schedar, Caph, Ruchbah and Segin you'll need to reactivate the engine, which is located at the very back of the ship.

Caden/Bruce: Of course it is.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah

Zach/Zahn: well, I mean, that's where engines usually are. Uh, what's the status of the engine?

Avery/GM: offline,

Zach/Zahn: Zahn says as he is, like motioning, uh, Marty to follow him,

Jenine/Marty: she's just trying to swim towards you.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is going to take a… like a zip line. And attach it to Marty's belt and attach it to himself, and he is just gonna walk.

Jenine/Marty: like a kite!

Zach/Zahn: Yeah

Caden/Bruce: I was thinking of more of like one of those child leashes.

Avery/GM: Oh geez. Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Precisely

Jenine/Marty: yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So the status of the engine is offline.

Zach/Zahn: Awesome. I meant. I meant, uh, damage status.

Avery/GM: Unknown. but the last status update before it went offline indicated that four out of five of the cables connecting it to the rest of the ship systems had been severed.

Jenine/Marty: Okay…

Zach/Zahn: Zahn shrugs and like pops his… pops his knuckles. He's like, oh, that's not, that's, that's child's play. Let's, let's get to this.

Avery/GM: Sure. You're gonna start exploring the rest of the ship.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Uh, cautiously, as you know, the automated defense systems are still active.

Avery/GM: Yeah, definitely.

Chris/Ollie: I love how it's just like automated defenses (makes gun noises with mouth) and you guys are like, all right, see you!

Avery/GM: Dip.

Chris/Ollie: They got this.

Zach/Zahn: Well, I'm g I'm on my way to go. Turn them off for you. It's okay.

Chris/Ollie: No, it's just, uh, funny visually .

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: You just see the, like the, the flash of the lasers going off, like from the out of the frame of the door and Zahn just turns the opposite direction.

Chris/Ollie: Cool guys don't look at explosions.

Avery/GM: So Marty, as you're floating through this next room, uh, attached to Zahn at the hip, you recognize this room is probably a medical bay, but just kind of at a first glance, you notice that a lot of the tools and a lot of the equipment is not like standard issue stuff you've ever worked with. And…

Jenine/Marty: I like pull back and I'm like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. What else is in this room? what is cool?

Zach/Zahn: It’s okay. Marty. We can look once we've turned off the automated defense system, so we're not having to worry about getting shot at alright? We, we, it's not going anywhere

Jenine/Marty: As we’re like quickly going by. Can I see if I can grab like a tablet that possibly has like medical records of the people on it.

Avery/GM: Yes, so, so there's one right on like the edge of this like table right here. So go ahead and roll an exert check a Dex… a strength or dexterity exert check to see if you can just reach it as you float by.

Jenine/Marty: That's just a D20?

Avery/GM: No, that would be two D six plus dexterity and exert,

Zach/Zahn: exert skill.

Bee/Polaris: Ahaha, you mean minus?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, That’s Sexy, that’s two-5s so its’s a nine.

Avery/GM: Oh, perfect. Okay. I put it at eight. So yeah. Uh, you, you, you just barely kind of tip it into your hand and grab it as, as you and Zahn are floating on into the next room.

Bee/Polaris: Aw. Marty's on her tablet while Zahn's carrying her around.

Avery/GM: So back to the bridge, I believe next up was Polaris

Bee/Polaris: Howdy. Do I have enough movement to get to that other deterrent that doesn't have cake on it?

Avery/GM: I would say probably with another dexterity or strength exert check, You could definitely get there.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I'm going to Dex exert that, that that boy. Oh, perfect. Uh, it's gonna be a 12.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You made it. Boom.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I'm gonna kick off the wall and fly towards that guy and I'm gonna sever it from the wall as well.

Avery/GM: Sure. roll your attack.

Bee/Polaris: 13.

Avery/GM: 13.

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah, go ahead.

Bee/Polaris: That's gonna be a nine.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you take a good chunk out of it. but it is clearly still functional.

(Laser sword woosh sound)

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I'll sh… I'll get him next time.

Avery/GM: I didn't make these things too strong, but you know,

Bee/Polaris: they're turrets, ya know.

Avery/GM: This turret is going to fire. Oh, sweet. Uh, that's a Nat 20.

Bee/Polaris: I'm dead, guys. I'm dead.

Jenine/Marty: No

Bee/Polaris: I am going to die.

Jenine/Marty: No.

(laser blast)

Bee/Polaris: I'm going to have a hole in me.

Zach/Zahn: Marty won't allow it.

Jenine/Marty: No.

Chris/Ollie: you just gets sprayed in the face.

Avery/GM: 23.

Chris/Ollie: Oh!

Bee/Polaris: awesome. I'm still alive. Barely This thing freaking shoots me in the lung.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. It's fine. It's fine.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I have three hip points left. It's fine.

Jenine/Marty: It's fine. Everything's fine. Everything's fine. Don't worry about it. I got it. It's fine. I think… I'm going.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, you're being dragged away,

Avery/GM: so Ollie

Jenine/Marty: No. Do I sense a disturbance? Do I sense a disturbance in the force? Do I sense a disturbance in the force?

Bee/Polaris: Can I just put in the group chat: ouch.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I imagine there's just a big ow in group chat.

Zach/Zahn: No, it's the, the cross bones. Skull and Cross bones. Blegh!

Avery/GM: Ollie, you are up next.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie didn't like seeing that. Could I grab Polaris and make an attack or is grabbing gonna use up my action? If not, I'll just, uh, put myself over Polaris and bit. In the line of fire.

Avery/GM: So there's not a, there's not like a specific action. There's pick up an item, but whether a person could be considered an item is arguable.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, if it's a corpse , I'm almost a corpse. Does that count?

Avery/GM: Um, that would be part of your move action. So I think, I think with an exert, a dexterity exert check, you could probably make it there and, grab Polaris.

Chris/Ollie: but what happens?

Avery/GM: You wouldn’t have any movement afterwards.

Chris/Ollie: What happens if I fail?

Avery/GM: Probably crash into Polaris. Knock you both down.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Basically, you two would be tangled up in mid-air because you are fighting in zero G, so,

Chris/Ollie: oh, that's right.

Avery/GM: Hence why I'm also giving y'all a little bit of extra wiggle room with the movement stuff, because

Chris/Ollie: Let’s just jump, jump and go.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Well, my, uh, dexterity and, uh, exertion is awful.

Bee/Polaris: You can just attack the thing. If you, I mean, if you destroy the turret, then that's one less shooty. That's one less turret.

Chris/Ollie: You know. Oh yeah. He's also pretty damaged. So I'm gonna use all my movement to get in between the turret and Polaris if I can.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: And then make my shot from there.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: for a three.

Avery/GM: Hold on, hold on, hold on.

Bee/Polaris: I mean you got shock damage?

Avery/GM: That's only for melee attacks.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, only for melee, which,

Bee/Polaris: oh,

Chris/Ollie: and I'm looking at the, I probably should have gone for a melee attack.

Avery/GM: Uh, you can change that if you want, if you wanna roll with the.

Chris/Ollie: No, I, I mean, I already rolled.

Avery/GM: Okay. And you rolled a three?

Chris/Ollie: Yep.

Avery/GM: Okay. yeah, that misses.

Chris/Ollie: I'm like, point blank.

Avery/GM: You know what though?

Chris/Ollie: Stick the pistol in 'em and it, it misses.

Avery/GM: No, I wa… since you're point blank, I, I would like, I would like you to roll with advantage cause Yeah. That's a prime position.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. That's a bit better. 16.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that definitely hits.

(laser blast)

Chris/Ollie: Okay. And then I. I do a big whopping 1d6 six for… three damage.

Avery/GM: \Well, in addition to what Polaris did earlier, that's just enough to destroy it.

Chris/Ollie: We're saved. Oh no. We still got a cake turret.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you still got cake

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Which

Zach/Zahn: I just want Bruce to like rip it off the wall.

Chris/Ollie: Hulk Strength!

Avery/GM: Caden, it is your turn. It is Bruce's turn. So…

Caden/Bruce: I was gonna say that is also Bruce's idea. Having seen Polaris rip the other one from the wall. I think Bruce is just gonna get his hand in there and just pull this thing out

Avery/GM:. Sure. So that would be…

Chris/Ollie: He is Bruce. He is large and green.

Bee/Polaris: Chaos.

Chris/Ollie: Just hulk strength it right off the wall.

Avery/GM: let's go with, let's go with strength and exert as a check. Unless you'd rather roll it as a melee attack, It's up to you.

Caden/Bruce: That's fine. That is an eight. It's not, not great, but I mean, an eight's an eight.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Luckily, you're not rolling against their ac. Um, an eight is perfectly fine. That does it. You rip this turret from the wall. It has no power now. Uh, so it's just kind of in your arms and Yeah,

Chris/Ollie: It does the “ow wowowowow”

Avery/GM: Yeah. Ahhhh.

Caden/Bruce: I think Bruce just like, kind of like throws it across the room and just like tries to like swim over in the air to Polaris.

Bee/Polaris: was it like a laser shot? So like is the wound cauterized or is Polaris bleeding?

Avery/GM: no, it's cauterized. Yeah, it was a laser, laser blast. So,

Bee/Polaris: okay, sweet. So Polaris, who , who is a weirdo, is like sticking his finger in the hole and like, Ooh, Yikes.

Zach/Zahn: is, uh, is Polaris's Vac Suit Compromised?

Avery/GM: No. It's gonna be very uncomfortable when Polaris tries to take it off though, because like the skin and the suit have kind of fused, so there's, there's still an airtight seal, but it's gonna hurt.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris sends a picture to, to the group chat and is just like, this isn't good, is it?

Zach/Zahn: Oh no. Poor Marty. gonna freak the fuck out.

Jenine/Marty: Marty is just doing the, let me go, let me go. Lemme go! like trying to swim away.

Avery/GM: Back over to Marty and Zahn. Uh, you do get that little image in your group chat.

(Notification Sound)

Avery/GM: You are currently here in the east Wing.

Caden/Bruce: Oh, there's a kitchen.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that's a nice kitchen. We gotta steal this ship.

Jenine/Marty: Is it a good idea to steal this ship? Hmm.

Avery/GM: And you sort of float down this hallway from here. To here, uh, you can, obviously you can't see the kitchen area, but you do see a sign in some weird language. And Zahn, your brain just translates this and it says kitchen and then you see another sign on this wall, uh, that points and says, engine room.

Zach/Zahn: Have we encountered any hostilities on the way down here?

Avery/GM: No, not yet.

Zach/Zahn: Then I am going to unhook Marty.

Jenine/Marty: She's going to swim as fast as possible away.

Zach/Zahn: do your thing Marty!

Jenine/Marty: Cool, cool, cool. Lemme know if you need any help. She's just going,

Avery/GM: sure. Zahn. Which way are you going?

Zach/Zahn: with his, with his headlamp on. He like reads over the signs, shakes his head a little bit, that he's able to read them and then proceeds on to engine.

Jenine/Marty: Can I, can I go reel back? Um, I do give you like one of the medical patch things that's on me. Just in Casey's. So you can, you can, I'm gonna give you a med kit before I leave.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, sweet.

Jenine/Marty: Actually, I'm gonna give you a lift cause that's the thing that I have a shit ton of. So, uh, here's a lift. Um, okay. Bye.

Zach/Zahn: I don't know what a lift is, but Yay!

Bee/Polaris: Drugs.

Avery/GM: It's, it's, it's drugs.

Jenine/Marty: It’s a healing drug!

Zach/Zahn: right. Marty… Marty and their drugs.

Jenine/Marty: I don't know what drugs you're talking about. And then she goes, sorry not to… she wants to give you some healing before she leaves

Zach/Zahn: He, uh, holds it up and gives the cheers and turns around and hits, hits on towards the engineer… Engine Bay.

Avery/GM: Sure. So Marty, we will get to you in just a moment, Zahn, you come into the next room, which is not the engine room yet, and there are a bunch of boxes here

Zach/Zahn: and Broken Mechs.

Avery/GM: Yep. And, uh, yeah. So I am sorry to do this to you cause this was supposed to be taken on by your ship. But there are two big turrets that pop out of the ground and are trained on you. I need an evasion save.

Zach/Zahn: They just immediately pick up on my butt.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Zach/Zahn: Oh no. Oh, no, Zahn just gets vaporized in one shot.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, gosh, guys.

Zach/Zahn: Oh good. I beat, uh, I succeeded.

Avery/GM: Okay. How By how much?

Zach/Zahn: By two! My evasion is 10 and I rolled a twelve

(Big laser blasts)

Avery/GM: Yeah, you make it about halfway across the room. Um, you just quickly push yourself off of the wall

(Jet Boot Sounds)

Avery/GM: with your jet boots and are jetting across the, the room. And yeah, go ahead and roll. Initiative.

Zach/Zahn: What I would like to proceed doing, do I see where the next room needs to be for, uh, the engine room? Is it just, uh, this top northwest?

Avery/GM: Yes. And you can see that it's kind of blocked by some boxes that are kind of floating in the way.

Zach/Zahn: Got it. Its 1d8 right… 1d8 plus Dex?

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm.

Zach/Zahn: That's initiative. Oh, fuck me. Okay. A two.

Avery/GM: Well they rolled three and six, so I guess you're going last.

Zach/Zahn: I guess so.

Bee/Polaris: As it turns out, this is the season one finale.

Jenine/Marty: Rip! Rip!

Bee/Polaris: The real campaign is in the afterlife.

Avery/GM: No, you were clones the whole time. Your real bodies are back.

Bee/Polaris: Oh God. We wake up and we're back on the fucking Eos!

Caden/Bruce: this was all a dream!

Zach/Zahn: It's Groundhog Day.

Avery/GM: No.

Zach/Zahn: but we wake up with all of our experience

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that'd be so fucked.

Avery/GM: Zahn Does a six or an 11 hit?

Zach/Zahn: No.

Avery/GM: Okay. They blast.

Zach/Zahn: My AC is 18, so,

Avery/GM: oh, good. They blast some big shots at you and they just kind of hit the wall and blow some holes into it, but…

(laser misses)

Zach/Zahn: So I took… I took the iron hide foci a while back. Whether through uncanny reflexes, remarkable luck, engineered skin fibers or subtle kinetic shielding. We're gonna go with the luck and reflexes.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: You have natural defenses equivalent to high quality combat armor. So you have innate AC of 15 plus half your character level rounded up.

Avery/GM: Not a bad feat to take. I'll tell you that.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, that’s great

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that is definitely the next one. I'm taking .

Avery/GM: Cool. So what do you do on your turn and then we're gonna get back to Marty.

Zach/Zahn: So I don't know if you're familiar at all with the gameplay of, uh, dead space.

Avery/GM: Not at all.

Zach/Zahn: In the first one, since there wasn't the whole jetboat thing yet, the how you got around in the zero G areas that were destroyed was: Isaac had mag boots and he would jump from platform to platform.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: So he's going to jump to the ceiling and then jump to the wall and then like he's just basically evading these guys while jumping from the ceiling.

Chris/Ollie: He's going full anime on them.

Zach/Zahn: And then he is gonna try and jump through like the gap between the, so he is gonna be like boom, boom, and then back to the ceiling and then through there.

Avery/GM: I'm gonna need some dexterity exert.

Zach/Zahn: It's a good thing I put points into exert, so that is 10.

Avery/GM: just barely perfect.

(Jet Boot Sounds)

Avery/GM: You make it through these boxes and you are through the wall or through the, through the door and onto the next section of the ship.

Zach/Zahn: As I get through, I put in the group chat. Hey, two giant Anti-ship turrets in the, uh, landing cargo bay, FYI.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

(notification sounds)

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will send the thumbs up Emoji.

(notification sounds)

Zach/Zahn: I also added a screenshot of what they look like, so that maybe somebody can identify the model or something.

Chris/Ollie: A screenshot of them shooting at you?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, a screenshot of them shooting at me.

Bee/Polaris: you send… you send two pictures. The first one was an accident. It's like a laser just going past your face, and then the second one is actually the location that you wanted to share.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Mood.

Avery/GM: Marty, you arrive in the bridge and the first thing you notice, and all of you have noticed now that combat has kind of ended, is at first You see Polaris wounded over there. he's not looking great.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris is currently like sticking, like trying to see how far he can stick something into the hole to see if it comes out the back.

Jenine/Marty: Stop it! Marty just like Marty, just like

Bee/Polaris: it's cauterized. So like if it's smaller than the hole you’re pretty much just playing Operation

Jenine/Marty: Marty does that thing when your mom, when you're trying to reach something, your mom just goes, no, like Marty does that to you. stop it. stop.

Bee/Polaris: Like it hurts. But Polaris is not like emoting that it does. The most you got from him was ouch In the group chat.

Avery/GM: and Marty, the second thing you notice is this pod here is the only thing in the room that still has power and it is glowing with like a bluish light. And you sense that that is where that conic energy was coming from.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool. Great. Before… before I interact with this, I'm gonna, I'm just gonna, we're just gonna do a quick med kit real quick.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie will say, ah, fortunate timing. I do not think organics are supposed to operate under such circumstances. And he's also gonna stick a finger into the hole.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris is also!

Jenine/Marty: Stop it. Stop touching things!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like turns around and is like, do you think you can, do you think we could touch our fingers through this hole?

Chris/Ollie: Ollie’s immediately gonna hop behind you, try and reach the other side

Avery/GM: I don't think it was a through and through shot.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah. I went from 26 to three.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. Med kit stuff, cause we're. Systems strain stuff right now. There's also something with my healer thing… Wait.

Bee/Polaris: While Marty is trying to figure this out and like sorting through her bag. Polaris is trying to see if he can touch a bone.

Avery/GM: Oh!

Jenine/Marty: Uh, every so often you see Marty like going in the bag, but also just slaps your hand as you're touching things. Stop touching. Cool.

Zach/Zahn: Marty's had it up to here with your shit.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool, cool, cool.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris's, laser blade is also just floating miscellaneously around while it's still on.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. How does, how does this work? I, I'm looking at the healer foci and just says, I can do heel when heel scale. I can roll 3D six and drop the lowest dye I could, but that also puts system strain on you.

Avery/GM: Okay. So a PC who wants to heal a friend can use their main action to attempt an intelligence heel or dexterity heel skill check. Um, using whichever modifier is best. And if you have a med kit, the difficulty is eight. if you expend a Lazarus patch, the difficulty is six.

Bee/Polaris: If it helps, I have zero system strain. If you wanted to actually give me subs strain or if you needed to.

Jenine/Marty: which one will give me more? Which one would give you more hp, I think is the, the question that I'm asking.

Avery/GM: So

Jenine/Marty: cause this the first time I'm actually Heal Heel?

Avery/GM: Yeah, I'm, I'm reading the Healing Rules. Basically they regain one hit point every 10 minutes. So if you succeed the skill check, basically they'll, they'll, uh, Polaris would start healing over time with the help of the med kit. So basically like the med kit would probably be like a pack that you probably like attached to the wound and it basically like does some mechanical surgery or something.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, lovely.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Yeah, let's. And if I just did like my psionic stuff, I can also, that just,

Avery/GM: that would just, does that also be straight up heal

Jenine/Marty: Would that also take 10 minutes?

Avery/GM: No, that would straight up heal the, I believe that heals immediately.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. So

Bee/Polaris: what if both,

Jenine/Marty: what if, yeah, that's about, that was gonna be my next thing. Could I do both?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Amazing. So I'm gonna roll 3D six for, uh, plus my intelligence for heel, plus my heel. Just lots of numbers. Those are two 6s So what's gonna be a

Avery/GM: Yeah

Jenine/Marty: I pass it because I also do have a med kit, so

Avery/GM: okay.

Jenine/Marty: 13… 14!

Avery/GM: 14 Healing?

Jenine/Marty: intelligence… 14 heal. And I'm gonna get rid of one of my med kits

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: and then we're gonna do, well no, that's, that's the, that was me succeeding. Okay. Cool. Cool, cool. And then we're gonna, we're gonna do some fun Healing! Cool Cool. Gonna expend one of my little, little things. We're gonna use one.

Avery/GM: Okay!

Jenine/Marty: and then we're gonna do my heals up to 2d6 plus two. So you're at, you get a plus 5, 3, 10 points.

(Healing magic sound)

Jenine/Marty: You get 10 more points of hp, so you're no longer in the single digits. That's exciting. And every 10 minutes you get another… you get another hit point.

Avery/GM: Okay, so the…

Jenine/Marty: ooh, and then system strain!

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. How, how many hit points did I get back total? Just 10?

Jenine/Marty: You Got 10.

Avery/GM: yeah, 10 Plus you'll heal one every 10 minutes or so in game time, which I will try and track accurately.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, Cool.

Avery/GM: And then system strain.

Bee/Polaris: Give me that good, good strain.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So essentially if you have system strain that exceeds your constitution score, anything else that would add to your system strain fails. So if Marty tries to heal you too many times with the, the heal, the psychic healing, or if you try to use like a, a pharmaceutical that would increase your system strain, but also do some kind of cool effect if, if it's high, if your system strain is higher than your Constitution score, it won't work and you. You lose system strained by getting a good night's rest.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. How, how much system strain did I get from this?

Avery/GM: Uh, just one.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Not bad. Not bad.

Avery/GM: Bruce, what were you doing while, um, while this tragedy was unfolding?

Caden/Bruce: Probably like pacing, but since he can't paste because they're floating, it just kind of looks like a helpless, like when lizards like sprawl with like all arms out and tails out. That's just kind of what it looks like.

Jenine/Marty: Aw. My heart.

Avery/GM: Polaris, the wound has healed up.

Bee/Polaris: Does it look cool? Does it look like my, like time is reversing on the wound or, or something cool like that? What does it look like?

Avery/GM: Yeah, so like the big, like the skin is still fused to your vax suit, mostly. Probably cause Marty wouldn't have wanted to completely heal that because then your, your vac suit would've been compromised.

Bee/Polaris: Isn't, don't the vac skins like regenerate.

Avery/GM: Oh, do they?

Bee/Polaris: I am pretty sure, hold on, let me, let me search it up in the thingy.

Avery/GM: it suffers tears the same way a normal vax suit does ha-have self-healing exterior that conceal puncture wounds caused by bullets, arrows, or energy beams. So were you wearing a vax suit or a vax skin?

Bee/Polaris: A vac skin. Unless we were required to wear a vax suit, then I guess I'd just be doubling up. .

Avery/GM: Yeah. So a vax skin or a vax suit would've been required. Not necessarily both.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. All right then. Yep.

Avery/GM: So Bruce, you are pacing here.

Caden/Bruce: Flailing pacing. Yes.

Avery/GM: Flailing pacing, yes. Uh, Marty Ollie and uh, Polaris. You are all kind of huddled together getting healed up except for Ollie, but that's okay. You're safe here for now, and you have this glowing pod sitting here. Let's go back to Zahn real quick. .

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. How's your solo campaign going?

Avery/GM: Yeah, ,

Zach/Zahn: we're just, uh, we're just trucking along, you know?

Avery/GM: Yeah. So Zahn, you're here in this hallway.

You see, you see a sign and you see, you see five things list, six things listed here. Uh, you see, um, and they're all pointing down the hallway in the direction you're going. Cabins, Workshop, Research Bay, Armory.

Zach/Zahn: Oh shit.

Avery/GM: Core and Engine room.

Bee/Polaris: I just realized if you bring the engine back online, wouldn't that also mean that they could self-destruct the ship?

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. , .

Avery/GM: Cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is gonna make his way to the core, seeing that he's on the right track to that direction.

Avery/GM: Sure. That's this little dude dad right here,

Zach/Zahn: but that means I gotta look over all the cool stuff as I go to it too. Sweet.

Zach/Zahn: Uh, yeah. So you pass by this room here, you kind of peek in and you see that there's like, you know, some basic security type weapons, you know, some shock batons and stuff. You see that there's some locked chest, you know, foot lockers in here. You pass by this, this door reads “Engine Room”. As you pass by coming into the lab slash workshop area, you see a bunch of tools and like computers and they're all slightly, like, they're not standard issue like for like what you see on like Republic or Hegemony worlds or even some of the independent systems you've gone to and all the tools look like they're made for like slightly different appendages, you know, some to accommodate like tentacles or,

Zach/Zahn: or those fingers. Yeah. Tentacles,

Avery/GM: Yeah, you know, different, uh, webbed hands, things like that. There are some notes that are written on actual paper, which is kind of weird. Considering Space.

Zach/Zahn: I will definitely go ahead and pocket those.

Avery/GM: And you do recognize a few words on them as you're pocketing them. You know something about research and something

about modifications, but they're all written in that weird language that you don't 100% know, but you just recognize some of these words.

Zach/Zahn: Do I know, does Zahn know, like the origin of this language?

Avery/GM: You know that it is a language that was spoken and written in sometimes by your mother?

Zach/Zahn: Yep.

Avery/GM: Yeah. But anyway, you want to go down into the core?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: Colony core. Here we go. So you come into the Colony Core down the ladder, and you see row upon row of these floating cold sleep pods.

There's about 144 of them,

Jenine/Marty: 144?!

Bee/Polaris: That's a lot of dudes.

Avery/GM: And there are these three large engine coils that look like at one time they were probably providing independent power to this cryostasis chamber having gone dormant, there is no doubt that the occupants have met their fate quietly and unknown to them

Zach/Zahn: among the better ways to go, I suppose.

Avery/GM: But yeah, that is what you see down here. There's just a whole bunch of people.

Zach/Zahn: Uh, can I investigate one of these, uh, personal generators?

Avery/GM: Sure. Uh, what would you like to try and learn from them? Like to see like what, like how they powered down or, yeah. Go ahead and roll a intelligence, fix check

Zach/Zahn: 10.

Avery/GM: You're kind of poking around a little bit at first trying to see like, okay, did some wires get cut? Did you know what happened here? And you look at the base of this generator and you see that there are these two sort of handles at the base that look like they're attached to

like some sort of like tube or whatever. You pull on one of these handles, out pops what looks like some sort of like large plasma cell, but it looks like it's completely drained.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha.

Avery/GM: Kind of putting two and two together, you just realize that Yeah. Eventually the-the power cells ran out and there is nothing much that could really be done.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha. See, when, when it said core, I was expecting like core power sell for the whole ship

Avery/GM: Gotcha.

Zach/Zahn: And this is not at all what I was expecting to find out here.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. You just got a bunch of dudes.

Avery/GM: Yep. It's the colony core. Sorry. I thought I, I thought I, I specified colony core. My bad.

Bee/Polaris: It's the dude storage.

Avery/GM: Dude storage. Come on down to dude storage.

Bee/Polaris: Get your dudes

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's just gonna mutter up poor bastards and then, uh, head up to the engine room.

Avery/GM: Sure. Chris, you were saying something.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie, at this point, after seeing the, uh, the picture of the turret, he's gonna use his, uh, commit a processing to activate drone command and bring his, uh, three drones onto the ship and send the void hawk after Zahn.

Avery/GM: Um, sure.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will also just tell Hermes to shoot into the to shoot the turrets. Into the, the docking bay

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. Just, yeah, just land in here. Uh, be prepared to shoot .

Bee/Polaris: No, not even land. Just like aim gun by door in fire. shoot from the outside.

Avery/GM: Hermes sends you the, the star eye emoji.

Zach/Zahn: Oh no.

Bee/Polaris: target practice.

Avery/GM: Yeah. I guess I'll roll some shoot for hers.

Bee/Polaris: let's let Hermes clear it out.

Zach/Zahn: You've, you've, you've allowed Hermes to murder

Avery/GM: three D six. Hey, that's not bad.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Hermes and the star eyes emoji

Avery/GM: 10. Okay. He takes out the first one,

Bee/Polaris: Get 'em Hermes

Avery/GM: seven, nine. Almost takes out the second one, man. You're making me play dice against myself, okay?

Bee/Polaris: Yep. Hey, you blasted a hole in me. It's only fair

Jenine/Marty: It's a fun game.

Avery/GM: 12. Okay, well your ship's taking some damage.

Bee/Polaris: Uh oh. We'll fix it later.

Chris/Ollie: Wait. How much health does the ship have?

Avery/GM: *laughs* one

Bee/Polaris: the, the ship has one health?!

Chris/Ollie: the ship is taking some damage. .

Bee/Polaris: I'm kidding.

Avery/GM: What about that? But Hermes comes out on top barely and destroys the other one before it can do too much more damage. Yeah. Your, your ship has one HP right now.

Bee/Polaris: I thought you meant the ship, like as total, like total.

Avery/GM: No, no, no. One out of 20

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Sweet. Oh wow.

Avery/GM: Oh wait, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. Hold on. I forgot to take into account your armor, which is two. So you'd actually have four D five health left.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Avery/GM: Okay. You're not totally screwed.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet Well, the custodians are company in a couple of days.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You feel some like shaking from the ship a little bit.

And Hermes is just like “mission successful, damage taken.” So yeah. So Zahn is heading into the engine core. Back to the bridge real quick. What are the four of you doing?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is just gonna tap on the glass

Jenine/Marty: Oh, okay. Let's not do the tapping. what? Hands. Hands to self. Marty's going full mom mode now. No touching anything. Everyone, keep your hands to yourself. Keep all hands, arms, feet and legs inside of your person at all times.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris does a thing where like he crosses his arms, like tucks into like a ball and is just like floating and slowly spinning off since he can't touch the thingy

Chris/Ollie: zero G salt.

Bee/Polaris: yeah

Avery/GM: Do you look inside the glass?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I do. What’s up?

Avery/GM: Okay. Inside the glass you see a person-

Bee/Polaris: anime. It's an anime girl.

Avery/GM: It's an anime girl. Um, mostly cause I just looked for a random avatar and found one . Sorry.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: So this, this chamber is sealed completely, but inside you see a woman with bright silver hair. She is either sleeping or unconscious, but she is wearing a vac suit, and it appears that this chamber is self-powered.

(Ambience Fades out, Outro Fades in, plays, then fades down)

Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1Up Podcast Network production intro and outro by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletop audio.com and used under an attribution non-commercial license from creative comments tracks include Star Forged Frey, and Star Forged Fault.

Be sure to follow us on Twitter, and Tumblr at Furthest Pod. We'll be back on March 15th with our next episode. Thank you so much for listening.

(Outro Fades up, then plays out)

Episode 16 - Strange Discoveries

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 16 of Beyond the Furthest Stars

(Intro music plays, then fades down, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: So where we last left off, you all hightailed it out of Bragos after Violet Winston was on your tail trying to find out who owned this ship and who they were so that they could get revenge right? And Ollie had a really cool, like God and Man moment jumping into the ship. Polaris's Fighter got beat up and Polaris was very sad about that. And our camera panned and revealed that Lapis’ twin agent Lazuli was hot on your tail.

Zach/Zahn: I forgot it was Lapis-Lazuli.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: And you all are floating away from Space Vegas. And Hermes says “that race was exhilarating. We should do that. But Polaris, I should let you know we are receiving a transmission from your home. Would you like me to put it through the ship speakers or directly to your helmet?”

Bee/Polaris: You can put it through the ship Speakers.

Avery/GM: “now connected.” You hear Merak's voice come over the intercom and says (comm noise) “inquisitive Polaris, you've been gone a few days. Are you still operating properly?”

Bee/Polaris: As far as I know, yes. By the way, you are on speaker.

Avery/GM: “Pleased. I actually have a task if you and your new friends have the time?”

Bee/Polaris: Mm. Let me check my schedule. And then Polaris just plays like… he just plays Tetris in his helmet.

Zach/Zahn: Let me check my schedule.

Bee/Polaris: Merak knows full well that Polaris has no schedule. So…

Avery/GM: “Well, it shouldn't take too long. I have, well, I should… Alioth really… Alioth has… heard rumors of a ship of unknown design that has shown up in. The area known as the graveyard, pretty close to where you are. If you could go and get readings on this ship and perhaps get some samples of the material that it's made out of, Alioth would be less perturbed than they already are.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like squints his eyes, like why would… why would Alioth be perturbed by this ship? Is anyone else in the in the cockpit?

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. . I'm J-Chillin.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is in the workshop working on his wanted mods list.

Bee/Polaris: He would be hearing this, it's on the, the ship's intercoms.

Avery/GM: Yeah, probably.

Zach/Zahn: I'm just saying where he is.

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. Gotcha. Where's Ollie and Bruce?

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's probably in the workshop as well.

Caden/Bruce: and Bruce is also probably in the workshop that he has also made into a kitchen and is trying to cook everyone, like some lunch.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, you do not wanna be in the same workshop as on. I'm just telling you.

Caden/Bruce: Every so often Bruce just has like, push aside some like metals and screws and just be like not near the spices.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, it's, it's an absolute disaster area. , I'm afraid… Because that's just kind of what the man is used to where

Bee/Polaris: so much cross-contamination.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah

Avery/GM: it'll be fine.

Chris/Ollie: Just organized chaos.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will look over at Marty and kind of throw up a raised eyebrow emoji on his visor cause this seems, this is weird.

Jenine/Marty: Marty tries to mimic it with her own face. And it's just, and like, just pu pushes her eyebrow up in the same way cause she can't get her eyebrow to go up that high.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. Polaris will, Polaris will turn his attention back to the compete and say: is it safe?

Avery/GM: “It should be. Ships that go into the graveyard are typically stripped of weapons before they are stowed there as to avoid any unpleasant accidents.”

Bee/Polaris: Interesting. I suppose the crews… the crew wouldn't mind. No one has come up to object, so I'll get those readings.

Avery/GM: “Pleased. Thank you, Polaris. This will hopefully make a off a lot less temperamental than they have been the past few…. Actually since you left. Really?”

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm. Impossible. Alioth is always temperamental

Avery/GM: “amused. Yes… Yes. Well, we will try and rendezvous with you in the graveyard here in a few days time, but we are certain that you can complete this task with very few ramifications.”

Bee/Polaris: That is the hope. See you in a few days

Avery/GM: and the transmission cuts out. (comm sound)

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks back over at Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Marty Waves

Bee/Polaris: Polaris Thumbs up and then goes to the workshop. Polaris will like knock on the, the side of the door. Is there a door to the workshop or is it just like an open sort of situation?

Jenine/Marty: Open floor plan. I really like the, the concept of an open floor plan here.

Zach/Zahn: you'd still want the doors to be there in case of Cabin de… Decompression. but it probably has them like permanent set to be open in case of emergency.

Avery/GM: Fair enough, fair enough.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. Polaris will go over to like the open door and like knock on the side to get everyone's attention that's in the workshop. (door knock) Does anyone have any thoughts on This ship we're going to investigate.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn looks up with like a, he's got like a half helmet kind of thing on where it's got a blast shield as well as like several magnifying glasses.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent.

Zach/Zahn: And he is like, hell no. I've actually heard some cool shit about the graveyard. I've always kind of wanted to go, but none of my other projects ever took me there. So like this is actually kind of exciting. You know how much scrounge you could potentially find there?

Bee/Polaris: Mm. I've heard… the custodians used to visit the graveyard quite often.

Chris/Ollie: At the mention of graveyard Ollie's Head is gonna rotate 180. He's still doing whatever he was doing, you know, working on machines and bits, so yeah. Just turns around. Looks at you.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Chris/Ollie: And is like graveyard? I missed that. We are going to a ship graveyard?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: and his eyes are gonna like sparkle. His little visor eyes are gonna start sparkling

Bee/Polaris: Like anime eyes!?

And then yeah, pretty much. And then like everything he's working on behind him is gonna like start happening at twice the speed. He's like, excellent. I've been wanting to make some upgrades. And he's going to turn around and redouble his efforts on his work.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is standing there rolling out dough and with his tail is using a whisk to whisk up this sauce and it becomes kind of clear that he's making pizza and he'll turn his head and just be like, that should be probably enough time for me to make this pizza. So yeah, why not? Let’s explore!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris tilts his head at the word pizza, but doesn't say anything.

Zach/Zahn: Is Polaris familiar with the concept of pizza?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris isn't familiar with the concept of every food unless Bruce has introduced it to him.

Avery/GM: You hear from the, or actually Marty, you're still in the, the cockpit, right?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, I'm, I'm Jay chilling. Is, is, is, yeah. Hermes. I can't, I'm sitting in the cockpit with his, with the, with the fun little alien still?

Avery/GM: Yep. Yep. Hermes projects itself into the captain's chair and looks at you and says, “Marty, I feel I should let you know that the graveyard is also the rumored Home Base of the pirates that you befriended.’

Bee/Polaris: Oh shit. Our buds a few days ago.

Jenine/Marty: Oh?

Avery/GM: so perhaps you can make them more cake?

Jenine/Marty: And then I just kinda like yell down. Can we make tea time please? with the pirates?

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will just nod and like. With his tail, like put the whisk down and like open up another cupboard and grab a bowl and just start getting out other ingredients where his hands are just like still needing the dough.

Bee/Polaris: Polars is just like sticking his head into the workshop to talk to you guys and he like puts his other hand up and does a thumbs up to Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Marty does a little dance of excitement.

Avery/GM: Marty, you see alien projection Hermes point at the pilot station and says “you'll have to engage the spike drive before we can properly get to the graveyard.”

Jenine/Marty: Oh, oh me. Are you motioning…?

Avery/GM: Well, he's pointing at you cuz you're the only one there and Polaris got up. So…

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is like walking back after doing the thumbs up.

Jenine/Marty: Oh thank God. Just woo. Not me!

Bee/Polaris: But Polaris hears Hermes, kind of like ask Marty to engage the Spike Drive. So he just stands behind the captain's chair and like puts his arms on the captain's chair and just watches Marty.

Jenine/Marty: I don't , I don't, I don't know how to operate this machinery.

Avery/GM: “I have heard that it's not very hard.”

Bee/Polaris: Yes, there are only five buttons and a wheel. Pick a button.

Zach/Zahn: Pick a button.

Jenine/Marty: Pick a button. you…. Oh, this is my character that has self-control. why don't you tell me which button to pick?

Bee/Polaris: Sure. It's between one and five. Smiley face,

Jenine/Marty: Uhhuh, Uhhuh, are the buttons labeled.

Bee/Polaris: No . It's a pirate tip. Probably not.

Jenine/Marty: So Marty's gonna walk over to the buttons and do that fun game of like hover above the first one and like look and see if I can try and get a reaction from under that visor.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Polaris's visor is black and reflective.

Jenine/Marty: I know!

Avery/GM: you hover over the first button and You see Alien Hermes shake his head, no.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, then I hover over button number two.

Avery/GM: The head shake gets faster.

Bee/Polaris: Successfully amused Polaris. Walks over, ruffles Marty's hair, and then actually presses the right button. (button push)

Avery/GM: Button four.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Jenine/Marty: All right. Time to make a note. Button four. What was that Spike Drive or is that the eject button?

Avery/GM: Spike Drive. No, that's the Spike Drive. You feel the ship shake and vibrate underneath you, and it jumps into liminal space (warp sound) and y'all are on your way. Takes a couple hours to get there. In the meantime, Bruce, you've made a pizza?

Caden/Bruce: and cake? Yes, both.

Avery/GM: And cake! I love it. I love it. Cool. Yeah. What, what's up with the pizza?

Caden/Bruce: The pizza as we've collected a bunch of vegetables is vegetarian, so it's just this pizza that has like cut up mushrooms and peppers and onions and probably like, he blended some beans together to like make some sauce as long. as well as like the tomato-based sauce and it just smells and tastes really good.

And he used real cheese, not the fake cheese. And then the cake knowing last time, I think last time he gave them almond cake, if I'm not mistaken.

Bee/Polaris: I thought it was a

Avery/GM: Apricot.

Bee/Polaris: It was like a, yeah, an apricot sun, sunflower seed cake or pumpkin seed cake.

Caden/Bruce: I can never remember. There's so many cakes we've lost in a lemon cake. This time he's made like a very nice chocolate cake.

Bee/Polaris: Chocolate is a bean. They would've had chocolate.

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm. . That is true. Cool. Very good. So yeah, y'all are having a pizza party while you're on your way to a ship graveyard. Totally. Nothing ominous about that.

Bee/Polaris: Nah.

Avery/GM: And as you're coming into the graveyard, (warp sound) Hermes says, “the location that Merak sent us is section 7-B of the graveyard. Would you like me to autopilot us there or would you like to pilot us yourself?”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will… Polaris will just grab the wheel and start piloting.

(flyby sound)

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. So a few things about the graveyard as you're coming into it. You know that rather than any government holding like jurisdiction over this place, pretty much every planet, every system of government just sort of strips the ships of weapons and anything that would be related to like computer memories and things like that from these ships and then kind of hauls the, the hulls here for scrapers to pick over. You know, they'll leave some of the stuff, they'll leave, you know, teleportation pads or armor, you know, and stuff like that attached to these ships. But you also know that a lot of these ships have been in battle already, and therefore, aren't always in the best shape. You also know that there is an artificial, artificial gravity well in kind of the center of this heap that helps prevent ships from…

Zach/Zahn: spike driving right into the middle of it. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Exactly helps people from getting pulled out of their spike drive right in the middle of a wreck. So normally it's a very safe place to travel to and generally a safe place to be in… The GM says Ominously paths through the wreckage are kind of created, kind of as needed. There's no real organization to this place, so you might have to blast your way to get, you know, into a certain section. But as you enter this system and start navigating around Polaris, Marty, are you back at the comm station?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah? Okay, cool. Then you see a little ping (comms sound) on your comms board and just gonna drop this in chat. If anyone or everyone wants to hit play on this when they can, and just kind of listen to this and let me know when you're done.

Mysterious Voice: Warning! Warning This is the pan-solar union ship Cassiopeia, Our ship is damaged. Ship… Corrupted. Automated…Vated. Ship Self-destruct sequence… Disabled. -ony Core Compromised. Warning. Warning. This is the pan-solar ship Cassiopeia. Our Ship is damaged. …Approach. Ship AI… Activated. Ship self sequence. Disabled. …Core Compromised.

Chris/Ollie: Huh?

Jenine/Marty: This is sick .

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, that's, that's. Good audio quality or effects there.

Avery/GM: So that is the transmission that you receive Marty on your communications board. And it appears to be coming from this ship right here on the map.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, the big one.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, the Dorito.

Caden/Bruce: The dorito!

Bee/Polaris: the Forbidden Dorito!

Chris/Ollie: the U S A F Dorito!

Avery/GM: the big gray Dorito in the sky

Jenine/Marty: and is it just like on a loop?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool. Its like… I like tried to push a button to try and like make it go through the whole cabin. (Comm Sound) Hopefully successfully. She's a smart cookie, but again, she doesn't know this technology.

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Bee/Polaris: yeah, there are five buttons. , .

Jenine/Marty: Well, this is a different button system.

Avery/GM: And, and, and these buttons actually have not had the labels rubbed off. So you're, you're doing good.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah

Bee/Polaris: The labels weren't rubbed off, but they were switched around.

Jenine/Marty: do we know anything about this ship? Question mark.

Avery/GM: So as you're approaching it, Hermes kind of puts like the, the outer ship camera kind of on screen for y'all to view. And you're navigating through this place. You see a lot of like busted hulls and like of metal and armor plating kind of all over the place. You see fighter ships that you recognize some cruise ships. All that kind of stuff. But in hernias points out the ship that this transmission is coming from. It looks nothing like anything you all are familiar with and not like any of you are ship experts, but you live in a space faring society. You see lots of ships all the time. This thing looks completely alien.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. Yeah. That's a weird, that's a weirdin.

Chris/Ollie: and, and we know that's the what the ship, the transmission's coming from for sure.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Can I like try and determine how long the signal's been going on? Uh,

Avery/GM: If you ask Marty to move out of the com station, probably, I don't know,

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's a pretty handy guy. He can just plug himself in. No, I'm kidding. Ollie will walk up to Marty and say, oh, Pardon me, Marty, I would like to attempt something.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah. Yes, of course. And then she'll like back away slowly.

Avery/GM: and Hermes stops projecting himself into the captain's chair. And then you see like a little spectral hand pat, the captain's chair for you, and kind of like, here you go.

Bee/Polaris: Tempting.

Chris/Ollie: So Ollie is gonna sit down and it's gonna be like hackers. He's just gonna like start typing at like 300 words per minute (typing sounds) analyzing.

Bee/Polaris: his hands split apart and get extra fingers to type faster.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah Or like that anime gif. Yeah.

Avery/GM: So unless you have like a specific AI skill, go ahead and roll a intelligence program check.

Chris/Ollie: Yep. Yeah, I'm not gonna use any, I gotta save up all my points. Might be getting some trouble. Intelligence, A…or intelligence program, you say? Yes, please. All righty. That is 13.

Avery/GM: 13. Perfect. You do some math and some kind of triangulation and stuff. You analyze the. The crater that it's kind of leaning against on this asteroid that it's next to, and you calculate that it can't have been here longer than three months.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm

Chris/Ollie: hmm. Yeah, he's gonna report this and say, . Interesting. According to these readings, the crash is very recent, within a few months.

Bee/Polaris: Interesting. I wonder where it came from cause it does not look like it comes from this general area.

Chris/Ollie: Can we see any markings or anything on it? Nothing that we would recognize, but…

Avery/GM: you see some lettering in a language that you don't recognize, which is weird for you cause you're an AI, you're.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I know, I know them all.

Avery/GM: You know the languages

Bee/Polaris: you are language.

Chris/Ollie: I am the language.

Avery/GM: And there's also a shining sun emblazoned on each wing of the ship.

Chris/Ollie: And can I give the, like a, a Google image search for this sun?

(Computer button noise)

Avery/GM: Yeah. It's, it's not pulling up any known images of… of this. No cross reference.

Bee/Polaris: Does, does Polaris have, like, like they have a direct communication line to the ship. Does Polaris have a way to like send the custodians things from like this far away?

Avery/GM: Yeah, of course.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Polaris is gonna take like pictures in, on his helmet of the, of the lettering and also the symbol and send it over to the custodians in the group chat and text them. Do you guys know what this is? Question mark?

Avery/GM: You see like the three dots, like someone's typing something.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: but so far nothing has been sent yet.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Polaris will turn to the rest of the group and say, I've sent it over to the custodians to see what they know. They've traveled quite a distance.

Avery/GM: Hermes speaks up and says, “I am detecting the presence of at least one other AI on board that ship. And it appears the docking bay on that ship should easily accommodate this vessel. If you would like to explore it.”

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. I would like, I, I think we'd like to explore it, but having it docked in the ship with a corrupt ai… a corrupted AI, probably isn't the best idea.

Chris/Ollie: While you guys are talking, Ollie is already getting up and preparing to go in . He walks into the warehouse and grabs his Void Hawk drone.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh.

Chris/Ollie: And brings it out.

Bee/Polaris: Nice.

Jenine/Marty: Nice.

Avery/GM: Polaris. After a few moments, you just get one word response and it just says unknown.

Zach/Zahn: Ooh.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is not too pleased about that. The, the custodians have been traveling a while and the fact that they don't know what the fuck this is, makes Polaris a little nervous.

Jenine/Marty: And is this the one that they sent us to check out?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Well, that's, well, that's definitely not sketch. That's, that's not, that's not scary. That's not… That's not suspicious. That ain't sus

Bee/Polaris: yeah

Jenine/Marty: that ain’t sus!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. When Polaris gets that message, he like visibly tenses, but doesn't say anything.

Jenine/Marty: Marty does that little like head tilt thing and just goes, Hmm? Okay.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say, Marty, with your medical training, you, you see kind of the, the tensing of Polaris, which is out of character for sure.

Jenine/Marty: Mental Note.

Bee/Polaris: Marty will remember that. it appears on everyone's advisor and everyone's like, wait, what?

Avery/GM: Oh Marty, you have telepathy, don't you?

Jenine/Marty: I, I do. I do. I do. But that's… I'm not gonna… Well..

Avery/GM: No, no, no. I'm just, I was just curious.

Bee/Polaris: Nothing is sacred.

Jenine/Marty: Well, yeah. I'm not gonna do it to my friends

Avery/GM: Sorry, that was a, that was a poorly timed question on my phone. I'm not implying you would… No. I was asking because you do you do sense like another psionic nearby?

Jenine/Marty: I sense a psionic nearby. Oh!

Bee/Polaris: Marty’s Spider Senses are tingling. also Sherm, you, you were saying that Zahn was about to do something?

Zach/Zahn: Yes. As, as he basically comes back at the same time as Ollie is. And as he like comes in, he is like adjusting something that he's attached to his arm. And he pushes a button and his helmet does the finally the cool Isaac Clark thing where it pieces together and forms over his head and he is like, let's do this.

Bee/Polaris: You guys are so ready to go into this, this death trap of a ship.

Zach/Zahn: Heck yeah. Surrounded by dying components. Mm.

Bee/Polaris: a treasure mine!

Zach/Zahn: Heck Yes.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: You also see some cool, like you hear some additional like calibrations coming from his feet and he's got some extra bulk to him, and I'll describe that when it comes up.

Bee/Polaris: Nice.

Jenine/Marty: Nice.

Avery/GM: Polaris, Hermes takes into consideration what you said about docking the ship and he says, “I have calculated the distance that I could safely maneuver the ship and you all could jump out of the loading ramp. Of this ship onto the docking bay of that ship. As long as you all have vac suits, you should hopefully not die.”

Bee/Polaris: We all have vac suits, right? Because I don't think we returned them from the fucking race or whatever. Or did we have those before?

Avery/GM: You did not return them. You still have them. I think the only one who might not have a vac suit is Bruce, but

Bee/Polaris: Right.

Avery/GM: A little bit of searching around. Would probably unveil a Bruce sized vac suit conveniently located somewhere.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah we can probably find one.

Zach/Zahn: If we also want to take a little bit of time, Zahn can modify them to have extended duration if we want as well.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. I mean, I don't think we're in any sort of rush.

Avery/GM: For the, for the sake of making this listenable show, Zach, they have the duration that they need

Caden/Bruce: Perfect

Zach/Zahn: as is required.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Chris/Ollie: And be like, oh, you're halfway through, but you've run out of life support and there's nothing nearby, party wipe! GG! Well played!

Zach/Zahn: now that Zahn's gotten like the bulk of the stuff that he really wanted done. I do want to install everyone with bubble seals, which aren't full vac suits, but it gives like everyone, a, a short period of time if A, your vac suit cuts out, or B, you're not wearing it.

Avery/GM: Yeah, we can get to that at some point.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I mean, Polaris has a vax skin, so he doesn't, it's not like armored or anything, but yeah, he's good.

Chris/Ollie: Oh. Also, if we're gonna jump in, I could give, give her the control of the little drone I got so he can come with us.

Zach/Zahn: Aw!

Caden/Bruce: taking Hermes for a walk.

Bee/Polaris: Hey walkies

Chris/Ollie: A little leash. Come on. Hermes time for your walkie.

Avery/GM: Not a bad idea.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we can totally do that. I was thinking about like docking the ship near one of the holes that are blasted into the side of the ship because you can shut, like an AI can shut the, the doors to like the ship, but they can't shut a hole in the ship.

Avery/GM: This is true.

Bee/Polaris: And then we just like remember which hole we keep in through.

Avery/GM: Okay. So you'd like to go through a hole instead of directly into the docking bay?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, the docking bay might have anti boarding measures.

Bee/Polaris: Exactly.

Chris/Ollie: Good Idea.

Avery/GM: Man, So Untrusting.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is terrified of the ship.

Zach/Zahn: We've had a AWOL-esque AI on the, on the fritz for a couple months now. Who knows how deranged it's gotten.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Who knows how homicidal it is.

Avery/GM: Caden, will you roll a D8 for me please?

Caden/Bruce: A D8? Yeah, sure. That’s a 3.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. Yeah, you maneuver your ship sort of towards the, this side of the, of the ship and there is a big old hole in the, in the middle. That y'all can jump through.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I do hate that mysterious roll that you had Caden do, but I'll ignore it for now.

Jenine/Marty: I don't know what roll you're talking about.

Avery/GM: it's fine.

Jenine/Marty: What roll? There's no roll.

Avery/GM: to be honest. It was literally just to decide which section of the ship y'all were gonna land in.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet. Okay. Sweet. Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: you're totally fine. Cool. So y'all jump across?

Zach/Zahn: Zahn expertly glides his way in with his new jet boots.

(jet boot sounds)

Bee/Polaris: Oh, lovely.

Zach/Zahn: He's just sails past everybody.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So y'all arrive in this room here inside you see some deactivated sleep pods, and there's a hallway leading south… relative and a hallway leading to the northwest. And as you land and sort of get situated in here, Start receiving a transmission… (comms sound) but it's in a language that no one, no one understands the words, but Zahn, you recognize some of the words because you heard this language spoken sometimes back on your space colony.

Zach/Zahn: Oh shit.

Avery/GM: And you don't get all of the words, but you do get. You do translate the word artificial state your purpose and yeah, those are the words that you get.

Zach/Zahn: Is it like an open comm kind of thing or is it how are we getting this message? Is it over the ship speakers or something?

Avery/GM: It's over. It's over comms so it sounds more like a conversation and not a transmission.

Zach/Zahn: Got it.

Avery/GM: Yeah. I mean this, so this, this message is getting beamed to all of you? Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. I'm gonna open a group chat with this ship and type (comms sound) can't understand you. Please translate. Question mark. Speak common please.

Jenine/Marty: Does anyone speak common?

Zach/Zahn: If not, speak in Math.

Avery/GM: Hermes speaks up in the chat and just says, “I Believe I can send this AI a language primer and it should be able to communicate with us shortly.”

Bee/Polaris: Do that please.

Zach/Zahn: It wants to know our purposes here.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris slowly turns to Zahn with a, a raised eyebrow emoji on the visor.

Zach/Zahn: He gives like the innocent shrug. I've been places…

Avery/GM: I've been places.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris does the squint eye emoji because Polaris knows that the custodians have never heard of this, this language or ship. So the fact that Zahn knows is very, like, it's very weird, but also kind of amazing to him.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's not gonna address it at this time.

Avery/GM: I do not wish to discuss. So while you're waiting for the ship AI to learn your language real quick, a couple other things you notice is there is no gravity in this ship because all of the systems are shut down.

Zach/Zahn: Mag boots.

Avery/GM: So y'all are kind of floating here. And kind of able to pull yourselves along, like by grabbing things and stuff like that. Or in the case of Zahn, having jet boots

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. The only one of us that has

Zach/Zahn: Or mag boots!

Bee/Polaris: the only one of us that has cool boots, I only have uggs.

Zach/Zahn: No one has requested any yet. I only uggs!?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Polaris has boots with the fur

Avery/GM: Oh my goodness. So yeah, you, you notice the sleep pods are not like bolted down. They're sort of floating… Can see into the room to the south that there are some medical looking beds that are kind of floating around here. And then as you're kind of looking around and noticing these things, the group chat pops up and this AI that is communicating with you says “greetings, I am Cassiopeia Artificial intelligence node Navi, please state your purpose.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris types Investigation. Heard Transmission.

Avery/GM: “Oh, great. You picked up our transmission. That is very helpful. Will you please help destroy this ship?”

Bee/Polaris: Shrug emoji. Sure.

Jenine/Marty: Whoa, whoa. Back up, back up, back up, back up, back up. Back, up back.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn types in… Zahn types. Why do you seek destructions?

Avery/GM: Classified.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn't ask questions. Someone says, destroy players will destroy. He's a simple man.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn wants the salvage.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, yeah, we can salvage it. I mean, destroy doesn't mean destroy the whole ship. We just have to destroy the core.

Zach/Zahn: which is also good salvage!

Bee/Polaris: I mean, okay, you can, you can, we can get in the USB and download that shit and then destroy it. I got a couple of… something drives. I got a couple of floppy disks. Polaris will type. If it is classified and we are tasked at destroying the ship, would it not be beneficial to know why it's classified? Question mark

Zach/Zahn: Under who's classification?

Bee/Polaris: Yes. Who watches the watchman, if you will?

Avery/GM: All information pertaining to my mission is classified. I cannot share it except with authorized personnel.

Bee/Polaris: How do you know we're not authorized personnel? Question mark.

Jenine/Marty: mmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm. Mm hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Damn it.

Zach/Zahn: Well, I mean Marty is a… intern with a hegemony. So if that registers at all.

Bee/Polaris: That is true!

Avery/GM: Hegemony unknown. You are not wearing uniforms of the Pan Solar Union.

Bee/Polaris: Pan Solar union.

Jenine/Marty: Do I know what that is?

Bee/Polaris: Got it. Thank you!

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna say, do I know what that is? Since I know what language, part of what language he was speaking, she, is it as female or…

Avery/GM: none of you… None of you recognize what that entity would be?

Zach/Zahn: and then is the Cassiopeia a feminine or masculine AI?or in between. Yeah, that was…

Bee/Polaris: what are their pronouns?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that's what

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will type and chat. What are your pronouns?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Correct Questions, pronouns, please.

Bee/Polaris: pronouns, please Question mark.

Jenine/Marty: With a w.

Avery/GM: I actually did not think about that. I'm sorry. Okay. Feminine.

Bee/Polaris: So she/her?

Avery/GM: I rolled a D six and decided. Yeah. She/Her

Chris/Ollie: Cassiopeia is a female character from League of Legends. So

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will ask in chat, where is the Pan Solar Union? You might be far from home.

Avery/GM: Error. Error. Ship Origin classified

Bee/Polaris: god dammit.

Avery/GM: Greetings. I am Cassiopeia, Artificial Intelligence node Navi. Please state your purpose.

Bee/Polaris: Purpose previously stated, scroll up.

Chris/Ollie: Top of the dialogue tree

Avery/GM: Oh, you received our transmission. Please help destroy this ship.

Bee/Polaris: Sure. Shrug emoji. Polaris will copy and paste his response from before and just put it and send it again and also take a screenshot of this loop to send once it loops again.

Avery/GM: Yes, Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Marty just goes, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay. Let's, let's take like three steps back. Hi, really nice to meet you. What can we do…

Avery/GM: Navi says I cannot take any steps back. I am a ship.

Jenine/Marty: I meant take a couple steps back in conversation. How are you?

Avery/GM: I am distressed. How are you?

Jenine/Marty: Well, I'm wondering why you're distressed.

Avery/GM: Mission parameters have failed.

Jenine/Marty: and the parameters of the mission were to…?

Avery/GM: our first mission was to colonize a distant planet, second mission classified.

Jenine/Marty: And which planet was that?

Avery/GM: Unknown. navigation systems offline. Automated defenses are activated.

Jenine/Marty: Like right now

Avery/GM: colony core integrity is compromised.

Bee/Polaris: Are there any survivors on this ship? Are there any like what's it called? What are those what are they called? Oh my gosh. There are, there were some on the Ursa major for like, for like cryogenic sleep. I don't remember what they're called though.

Chris/Ollie: Like cryo pods?

Avery/GM: The cryo sleep pods, yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Well, while this has been going on, Ollie's also been fiddling with the pods behind us.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I was gonna say Polaris was gonna look in the window of the pods.

Avery/GM: Okay. So as this is,

Zach/Zahn: I don't like that. Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: No, it's fine. It's gonna get a little grim, that's all.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that's fine.

Avery/GM: So the cold sleep pods are powered down and there are figures in side sleeping, the eternal sleep, if you will.

Bee/Polaris: Ah,

Avery/GM: and they are Yeah. No longer conscious or part of this mortal world anymore.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris expected to see this.

Avery/GM: One thing that catches your eyes, Polaris, is that one of the people in this sleep pod has glowing freckles on their face, and they glow with a fluorescent pink.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris says… Polaris puts in chat out of the ship now four explanation points.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, cool, cool, cool. Marty will continue. Marty will continue the conversation and just like

Zach/Zahn: Wait, why?

Jenine/Marty: back away, we'll try with as much core strength as she has, which is not a lot to move back slowly and grab friends. Well This was really nice conversation. You've been really kind to us. You're really cool. This mission sounds really difficult.

Bee/Polaris: as Marty is typing this, Polaris is like pulling her outta this

Jenine/Marty: trying to like back up.

Bee/Polaris: Floating out of the hull

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is magged to the floor, not going anywhere.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie is like still fiddling with the console on the pod and he is, looks up and says, oh, are we in danger?

Bee/Polaris: You are not. Fleshy beings are.

Jenine/Marty: oh, I'm fleshy beings.

Bee/Polaris: Can Polaris determine if this is like normal space radiation or like bad radiation depending on how bright the…?

Avery/GM: Well, I will say that you are not glowing because

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Your vac suits would be shielded from radiation.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: But with these pods being deactivated

Bee/Polaris: Right.

Avery/GM: They would not be shielded, so

Bee/Polaris: got it. Okay. Once Polaris makes that realization, he stops and says, Never mind. Smiley face.

Avery/GM: We're all cool.

Bee/Polaris: we're good. Never mind, smiley face.

Avery/GM: Marty the… this Navi AI says attempts at self-destruction have fail. All connections to the engine have been disabled. They must be restored before the artificial intelligence nodes can reactivate ship systems, including the self-destruct sequence.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Now another thing, when you say our mission and we, who is we?

Avery/GM: The five other artificial intelligence nodes on the Casiopeia plus the command crew… Who are all dead.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Avery/GM: except for the navigator.

Jenine/Marty: Can, can, can we speak with the navigator as well?

Avery/GM: Not until the ship has regained power.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm… and do I sense this navigator somewhere nearby?

Avery/GM: You sense the navigator somewhere nearby, like kind of in the next room…

Bee/Polaris: you can probably

Avery/GM: to the northwest.

Bee/Polaris: you can probably mind talkie.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah You can just send him a mind text.

Bee/Polaris: A brain group chat.

Jenine/Marty: I can’t do a group chat yet, but I can do a group chat at some point. I mean, I can do a group chat for like all of us except for one unfortunately cause I am made for fleshies… sorry.

Chris/Ollie: actually I could, I can invest a point into being able to be a target of mental communication.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, cool.

Jenine/Marty: Oh that's exciting. That's good to know. Good to know. Okay, cool.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Actually I've got a ton of points, so I'll just do that.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, well I don't need, I can't group chat yet.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: With human… with… with Freshies yet that's a level four thing. We are only a level two. Anyways, backing up just she'll just like start trying to ping to the other, other sci in the, in the thing shooting off messages. Like, hello? Hello.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You, you get a mental image of someone drowning.

Jenine/Marty: Ooh. Hmm. Hmm

Zach/Zahn: Yes, Marty?

Jenine/Marty: and I send like

Zach/Zahn: words, use words, you can do it.

Jenine/Marty: Well do we want, and then I go into the, just like the crew chat and I'm like, so I sent a message to the other dude that's on the ship and it, the image that kind of got back was like drowning. So do we wanna like, I could stay here and like distract the ai. If someone wants to go check on that dude.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just sends where? because you said like you got the image of drowning, right?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. And then I just like turn my body towards where I, where facing to where it's… Where its at.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris goes… Polaris go

Jenine/Marty: and I will continue to distract the AI, one of the ai cuz there's four of them. There's five of them apparently.

Avery/GM: But only this one is active.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Or only this one is communicating with you.

Jenine/Marty: Right. Love that. Love that.

Avery/GM: Does anyone else go with Polaris?

Caden/Bruce: Oh yeah, Bruce will too.

Avery/GM: Ollie does.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn will stay with Marty.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, thank goodness I can't fight.

Avery/GM: As you enter the bridge, I need all three of you to make evasion saves.

Caden/Bruce: Is evasion saves a D20?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: Okay.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, wow. Where's my 20? Oh…

Bee/Polaris: I make.

Caden/Bruce: I dunno how these work but I rolled a…

Bee/Polaris: oh, you roll a D 20, you don't add anything. And then on your sheet there should be like a, a threshold that you have to beat. And if you're above that…

Caden/Bruce: oh, sweet. Then I saved, I was like, do I have to be above or below ?

Bee/Polaris: Above,

Avery/GM: above,

Chris/Ollie: oh And I did not evade.

Avery/GM: Oh, no?

Chris/Ollie: No.

Avery/GM: Okay. So as you come into the bridge of this ship, you see three of these little automated weapons turrets pop out of the wall and open fire at you. (laser blasts) Bruce and Polaris. You nimbly dodge out of the way. But Ollie, you get kind of shot up a little bit here and take 11 Damage.

Bee/Polaris: Jesus Christ.

Jenine/Marty: That's a lot

Chris/Ollie: Merely a flesh wound.

Jenine/Marty: what?

Bee/Polaris: Merely a flesh wound…

Jenine/Marty: What flesh

Avery/GM: And these three turrets pop out of the walls and let's roll initiative.

(Ambience fades out, outro plays and fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Intro and Outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an

attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Starship Bridge, Starfreighter, and Star Forged, Fray. Be sure to check us out @FurthestPod on Twitter and Tumblr. We’ll be back on March 1st with our next episode. See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars.

(Outro fades up, then plays through to the end)

Interlude - Lapis and Lazuli

(ambience fades in)

Avery: Back on the asteroid, our camera zooms in on one of these soldiers that was accompanying violet and they had been wearing their helmet the whole time and they take off their helmet to reveal a dark blue tiger furry and they bring their wrist up to their mouth and they say…

(Comm Sound)

Lazuli: This is agent Lazuli, we found them!

Commander: Excellent work, Agent Lazuli. It is time then, commence with the acquisition. Our visions have revealed who we need and why.

Lazuli: Of Course, Commander. You just want the Scaph brought in? None of the others?

Commander: Correct. Bruce is the first piece to our puzzle. His uncanny skills in camouflage and subterfuge will be most excellent in uncovering what Rhea and the rest of the Hegemony are plotting. When the time comes the scaph’s companions will be brought into the fold. For now, ensure Bruce’s cooperation by any means necessary. If you must, utilize the data gathered from your cousin Violet. Failure to procure Bruce is NOT an option.

Lazuli: Understood! Lazuli out.

(Comm Sound)

Lazuli: *sighs* you know, things were a lot simpler before becoming an Oracle.

Lapis: I know, Lazuli. You know I wouldn’t have asked you to join us if it wasn’t a matter of life and death.

Lazuli: Yeah, I know Lapis. Doesn’t make things easier. Do you really want to be allies with people that just blatantly murdered a relative, though?

Lapis: It isn’t about what I or anyone else wants. It’s about what must be done. You knew this could happen when you took the oath. Forsake all family loyalties, and all bonds of friendship. The Oracles and The Greater Good are all that matter.

Lazuli: You don’t have to quote the oath back to me, Lapis. I know my duty. I’ll get the job done. I was just saying that it isn’t going to be easy.

Lapis: I know. If it makes you feel any better, its not like Bricen was a noble or good member of the family. He certainly engaged in his fair share of awful behavior.

Lazuli: He was a damn bastard. Vindictive and murderous. But tradition demands that blood be paid for blood.

Lapis: And if Violet has her way, it will be. But it is not our place anymore.

Lazuli: (Sighs heavily) Yeah, you’re right. Thanks Lapis.

Lapis: Anyway, I’m heading back to Olympia. Anything you want me to tell our dads back home?

Lazuli: Nah. Just give them my love.

Lapis: Will do, Lazuli. Will do.

Episode 15 - Cross the Finish Line!

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 15 of Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro Music plays, then fades out, background music fades in)

Avery/GM: So you're flying in close towards this platform. Zahn, you jump off and just tell Polaris to come back for you in a couple minutes. Or what,

Zach/Zahn: what if I specifically, uh, render like in my programming bit, um, have the, the missiles, you know, attack the assemble singles, but have one of them deactivate its payload and then I ride a missile back.

Bee/Polaris: you're gonna bullet bill your way to the shuttle?

Jenine/Marty: Oh my gosh.

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: That sounds dangerous.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Just, just close enough to where I can use my graphical launcher to actually like close the gap.

Chris/Ollie: Well, I mean, Marty could just swing by Actually, I guess it would be, uh,

Bee/Polaris: Polaris could just swing by.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, because that will, that will track us back. We wanna go to the end though.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris's faster than the shuttle.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, I thought they were already on the way past, but I guess they would've to go off course downward, some.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, man. Bullet Bill sounds far more entertaining.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, Ollie will be 100% fine no matter what happens. So he's like, thumbs up.

Avery/GM: Okay. I'm setting the difficulty level for this . Cause you're basically going to have to hack two different things. So you're gonna hack the targeting for almost all the torpedoes except a nearby one that will rocket you towards your shuttle. And you'll jump onto your shuttle before it hits and get out of the way. Is that what you, you're basically gonna be doing?

Zach/Zahn: It would be a similar flight path, but not like one directly at it, cause then I'll use my grapnel launcher to, uh, hook onto our shuttle and then zoom back onto it.

Bee/Polaris: are you explaining this plan to… In chat?

Zach/Zahn: How do you mean ?

Chris/Ollie: No, Marty's just gonna see a missile fly at ‘em.

Bee/Polaris: like are you telling the rest of the team?

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah, absolutely.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah, as long as just like, uh, don't worry about me. I'll, hitch a ride!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will type in chat. Don't miss Smiley face.

Zach/Zahn: I never miss Winky face, except for the times that I, and, and very small print, except for the times that I do

Avery/GM: 85% of the time I hit 100% of the time.

Zach/Zahn: Oh God.

Avery/GM: Okay. I will need an intelligence program. Check on this computer. Ollie, you can roll to help as well.

Zach/Zahn: All right, dice. You've been rolling stupid low for me all day. Let's, uh, let's change that up on when it's important. It's important. Hell Yeah. So you said intelligence program?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: That is a 12 and I

Chris/Ollie: just get a flat. Two, two dice?

Avery/GM: two D six plus the same skill.

Chris/Ollie: Oh okay. In that case, that would be, that would be 13

Avery/GM: Okay. Uh, so a 14 total, I think, or no, 13. 13 total. Yeah, Zahn. You actually see, because the rules are that spotters cannot attack the other shuttle. So you see Professor Infinity's gunship start nose diving towards you as you're like typing in this stuff, right?

And you're getting kind of frantic about it. And so instead of being able to specify a specific target, you're actually able to just eliminate a target. You see that that program is already in there and yes, your suspicions were correct. It was programmed to purposefully miss the assemble singles shuttle and spider , and so you quickly just change it to the signature for your spotter and shuttle and the torpedoes turn And target this spotter that is nose diving towards you. And you see just five torpedoes, zero in on this floating gun and explode and detonate.

(Explosion sounds)

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh you were staring down the barrel of a giant desert eagle.

Avery/GM: And then you finish plugging in, um, the trajectory for this one, uh, specific launcher to launch you near, but not at your shuttle and you hit the button on your, your last little programming line of code, and you jump on this shuttle and you are, or jump onto this torpedo as it launches out (Torpedo launch sound) and you are hurdling towards your Shuttle. Yeah, so I guess the only thing left to do would be to roll all these D 20 s to attack the assemble singles shuttle.

Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Rip!

Bee/Polaris: Let's go.

Zach/Zahn: I can throw, I can throw a D 20 in there too if you want .

Avery/GM: Oh, it's fine. I got it.

Bee/Polaris: Do you want me to mail a D 20 to you?

Avery/GM: No, Nat 20.

Zach/Zahn: Heck yeah, brother.

Avery/GM: 16, 17. 10

Zach/Zahn: Oh man. I think we're about to be the only competitors in this race.

Jenine/Marty: Well, we stopped…

Bee/Polaris: we blew it up so good that we're the new sponsors!

Jenine/Marty: Oh yoinks!

Avery/GM: So you see three of these torpedoes, uh, actually hit their target, (explosion sounds) on the assemble single shuttle. Um, and it's still there. It's still floating, but it's, it's limping now and it has actually lost what? Lead it had on your shuttle

Jenine/Marty: ha

Avery/GM: as it's now kind of starting to, like, it's got chunks missing out of it and there's like pieces of it that are kind of like falling and just kind of floating around it, um, as it, it slows down greatly, and then two of them connect with the lucky Tentacle spotter and blow it up completely.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Caden/Bruce: Some fried calamari.

Bee/Polaris: It turned into little bits of space sushi, like the debris is little bits of space sushi.

Avery/GM: And for this checkpoint, I won't even have the assembles or Herme's roll a pilot check because yeah. y'all pass through the checkpoint for this one first.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Zach/Zahn: Yay.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah!

Avery/GM: And then you're coming up to the last checkpoint it looks like. . Basically it's just like an abandoned construction dock for like a local shipyard. There's like these four like kind of crane arms that kind of like stick out that probably people like hang from in like zero G to like do repair work and stuff on a ship or something like that.

Zach/Zahn: Makes sense.

Avery/GM: Yeah. But there's basically just, it's basically just four little asteroids with these cranes on it as we're.

Zach/Zahn: as we're approaching. Zahn is gonna like, or as it's coming into view, Zan will be stepping back onto the, the, the shuttle from having attached his grapnel launcher and left his bullet bill behind him.

(detaching sound, and thud sound)

Avery/GM: Sure

Zach/Zahn: his bullet riding days. And, he’ll give Marty a pat on the shoulder from behind the gun and be like, good. Shootin’ Tex!... whatever Tex means in space.

Jenine/Marty: And then Marty like does the little finger guns and goes (makes gun shooting mouth sounds) Thanks!

Zach/Zahn: And then he is gonna look up and see this, you know, shipyard and he is gonna be like, where the fuck did assemble singles get all these weird setups at

Jenine/Marty: whoever it is. They should get a raise on the set design.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I was about to say, they just hired us. Team of set designers.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn Shrugs.

Avery/GM: Okay so coming up to this Construction place. Polaris, you're slightly ahead of your shuttle, so I would like a intelligence or dexterity Notice. Check.

Bee/Polaris: Oh boy. I'm good at those. In theory.

Jenine/Marty: In theory.

Bee/Polaris: intelligence or Dex?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, well they’re the same thing. So it doesn't really matter. Nine.

Avery/GM: Nine. Okay. You see several robotic looking figures on top of these cranes.

Bee/Polaris: Can Ollie also see this?

Avery/GM: You count? Yeah. I guess Ollie would technically be able to see this. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Cause his little eyes are in the corner of my goddamn visor.

Chris/Ollie: I'm like over here changing the settings and. Adjusting the…

Bee/Polaris: Stop! (laughter) Polaris tries to drag and drop all into the, the recycling bin.

Chris/Ollie: Recycling bin!

Avery/GM: You count eight little robot bodies hanging out here.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no. Uh, Polaris will point this out to the rest of the team. He'll send a, a short GIF just like with Red Circle. Around all of the little robot guys.

Avery/GM: Sure. And yeah. Uh, do Marty or Zahn react to this at all? You've got some distance, uh, before you get close to them.

Zach/Zahn: What do the little robots look like?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Do they look dangerous or pointy?

Zach/Zahn: Do they look like combat bots?

Avery/GM: They look like very big fighty robots with big hammer hands.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, so they're not used for making bread dough?

Avery/GM: No.

Bee/Polaris: Or tenderizing meat?

Avery/GM: I mean, probably,

Zach/Zahn: probably could!

Avery/GM: but probably meat that's attached to humanoids.

Jenine/Marty: Do they look like they can fly ?

Avery/GM: hard to tell.

Bee/Polaris: Can we go can we take the long way around? Since we're in a, we have a huge lead?

Avery/GM: You could take the long way around. You could try and dodge this whole thing altogether.

Bee/Polaris: Well, how, um, who are there any other shuttles in the race?

Avery/GM: Just the assembles. The assemble shuttles is limping behind. Oh,

Bee/Polaris: Donezo! let's take the long way around.

Zach/Zahn: No, man. We just, uh, we go through and we target the, the bases of the cranes for the cranes to fall and not be in our way.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah!

Bee/Polaris: are the cranes, like, do the cranes still have like their, their whole little, you know, hook and string?

Jenine/Marty: hook and string!

Avery/GM: When, when I say cranes, I just mean like the arms, like they're, they're mostly just used as like anchor points for like people who are floating. So they don't like float away into space.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I thought, I don't know why I said hook and string. I forgot the word. What is it? A cable ?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Hook and str. It's fine. We're not construction workers.

Bee/Polaris: That is true. Okay. Shoot. I was gonna, I was gonna “you first” the assemble singles shuttle, but, um, what do you guys wanna do about this?

Jenine/Marty: What if we talk to the robots? Do you think they’re nice?

Bee/Polaris: Can we make friends with these robots? Can I send a message to one of these robots, little robots? ? you're a robot. No, I'm kidding.

Zach/Zahn: Greetings Fellow robots.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, without any remote hacking capability. I think I could. . I can mess with him a bit, but I can't deal with eight robots.

Bee/Polaris: At the beginning of this campaign, Ollie kind of like found his sentience or, you know, kind of woke up. Can we awaken them to a new purpose in life?

Chris/Ollie: I mean, Zahn has the magic hands. He's the one who did it.

Bee/Polaris: Can Zahn awaken them to a new purpose in life? Do you wanna be the father to…

Zach/Zahn: I don’t know what I did though.

Jenine/Marty: More kids!

Bee/Polaris: Can we, okay. Can we actually like talk to these robots though?

Avery/GM:

Chris/Ollie: Father, I think we need to adopt additional siblings.

Avery/GM: I will say that either you or Zahn or Ollie could open like a remote communications, uh, channel with them.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will open a chat room and say hi!

(comms sound)

Avery/GM: They type… are you saying hi vocally or typing?

Bee/Polaris: Well, both because he is talking in his helmet.

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay. Um. Someone responds back racer. You should not be communicating with this unit. We are here to assist you in winning the race.

Bee/Polaris: it's not against the rules.

You see like they send like a book turning page emoji . You are correct. This is not against the rules, but we are about to board both shuttles and see who is best at racing

Bee/Polaris: N…No… Heart Emoji.

(comm sound)

Jenine/Marty: Can I, am I also in this chat room?

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I'll, I'll live stream the chat room. I'll screen share.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool. Cool. Cool. Um, I don't know if Marty is just gonna try and like, encourage and be like, okay, maybe, maybe let's try a different approach and be a little. Let's be nice to them and maybe be like, Hey, what if we just do like a quick zoom, pass them, give them… Marty is currently coaching cause does not understand technology, kind of

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: And how this, uh, thing works. It is surprised that she got, um, emojis down.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris takes notes. He nods along and then he edits his previous message and puts no heart emoji, smiley face, Winky face.

(Comm Sounds)

Avery/GM: Do not worry. This is just part of the race. We will not actually harm you. Smiley face.

Jenine/Marty: Why do I feel like that's a lie?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Are you lying to me? Question mark. Smiley face. Winky Face.

Avery/GM: I am programmed not to lie. I am only programmed to mildly maim.

Bee/Polaris: can…

Zach/Zahn: are you going to harm our shuttle?

Bee/Polaris: Uh, can you do me a favor, question mark?

(comms sound)

Avery/GM: I do not know. I will have to wait until I hear the request.

Bee/Polaris: can you divide by zero? ? Can you divide 26 by zero?

(Comm Sound)

Avery/GM: God damn it.

(laughter)

Zach/Zahn: Math is not…

Avery/GM: charisma. A charisma program check.

Bee/Polaris: Fuck. I have nothing in that.

Jenine/Marty: wait, Can I help with That was I, was I helpful?

Avery/GM: You can. You can roll to Assist. Yeah. Charisma program.

Jenine/Marty: I got a nine.

Bee/Polaris: I rolled phenomenally. I rolled 12 minus one. So 11

Jenine/Marty: Well I helped!

Avery/GM: Polaris, you see four of the robots explode.

Bee/Polaris: Yes!

(Explosion sounds)

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts the Pog emote in chat.

(Comm Sound)

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will also put up “amateurs” in chat.

(Comm Sound)

(laughter)

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh. Okay. So I will say that you see these explode just as you're about to pass underneath, uh, the, the arms of this, of this crane, or are you going to take the long way around?

Bee/Polaris: No let's just go the normal way.

Avery/GM: Okay. So instead of having to fight four robots, um, only two robots jump down onto your shuttle and you see two jump, uh, two of them are still up there waiting to jump onto the singles shuttle that's coming.

Bee/Polaris: Can Polaris send a message to the two of on the shuttle? They’ve already…

Zach/Zahn: As Zahn is like staring at them like What’s up?

Avery/GM: I'm gonna say they've already closed down their communications equipment.

Bee/Polaris: No.

Avery/GM: And they are now in smash with a hammer mode.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Well I guess I'll just have to do my dumb piloting stuff then.

Chris/Ollie: Zahn, you're inside the shuttle with them. Or are you guys outside?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it's like a flat bed, so.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, I'm on the outside.

Chris/Ollie: and then, and it's open space on the shuttle?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay. Shit. I was gonna say, uh, put your helmet on one of the robots and I'll hack it.

Zach/Zahn: Oh my God.

Bee/Polaris: Hold your breath.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, just hold your breath. You'll be fine.

Avery/GM: So, yeah. So there are these two robots that, that stomp down and they are, um, these big, kind of like burly imposing robot bodies with like these two big hammer hands on, on either arm. but they have like a little LED screen. and the LED screen is displaying like a smiling face, and you just hear the robot say, “please do not be alarmed. We are just here to test our hammers on you.”

Jenine/Marty: No!

Zach/Zahn: I do not consent to being hammered right now.

Avery/GM: Well shit.

Zach/Zahn: I do not consent to hammer time and then he is gonna pull out the grapnel launcher, flip it to reverse and point blank fire at one of them.

Avery/GM: to try and like reverse polarity them?

Zach/Zahn: basically it's going to like, pretty much Yeah. Like I just wanted to hit one and then not like have it knock him off

Avery/GM: Sure. Roll a dexterity shoot then.

Zach/Zahn: 12.

Avery/GM: That's good. That'll do it. Yeah. You hit one of these with your granel launcher and, uh, kind of knock it into the. Into the air, so to speak. And so now it's kind of floating above your shuttle and pulling away since your shuttle keeps moving forward. Um, but there's this other one here and it's going to actually take a swing at Marty, who is

Zach/Zahn: How dare it!

Avery/GM: at the gun ship.

Jenine/Marty: How dare you? Oh, I am still at the gunning thing aren’t I?

Zach/Zahn: Oh that’s right!

Avery/GM: I rolled, I rolled a D six and did even odd to see who it would, who it would target.

Jenine/Marty: That's fair.

Zach/Zahn: How dare you attack such innocence!

Avery/GM: So it did roll a 17 to hit you, Marty. Now I have a

Jenine/Marty: question. Okay. Can I like look the robots into the way the camera is and just go “Uwu please no!”

Bee/Polaris: you wouldn't hit a guy with glasses?

Avery/GM: Uwu Please no? Let's see here. Use a skill…

Jenine/Marty: like with the biggest puppy dog eyes ever.

Avery/GM: Okay. what is your, what is your current ac

Jenine/Marty: It's probably something sad… 13.

Avery/GM: Okay. I, okay. Go ahead and, A charisma connect check.

Jenine/Marty: Guess what? I get a roll three D six. Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And we'll consider this, um, this action, a total defense action , which would raise your ac. And if you succeed the skill check, it will decrease their role on the dice.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool. Great. Ooh. Yeah. Okay. Wait. That is a ten. Uwu Please!?

Avery/GM: I did need it to be a, I needed it to be a 12.

Jenine/Marty: No!

Avery/GM: I did place it kind of high. Um, so it does end up like it pauses for a minute and then continues its motion, so I will reduce its attack damage by half.

Jenine/Marty: Hey.

Zach/Zahn: Thankfully we've all got that, like exceedingly high hit points, hypothetically speaking to not get insta-smashed.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Marty's also a tank. We, we went over this last time.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah, that's right.

Avery/GM: So nine damage rounded down will be four damage.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, that's not that bad.

Avery/GM: That it hits you with, and then could you make a physical saving throw?

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah. That's, that's cool. That's that's great. Thank gosh. Uh, it's a 16. Mine is an 11 .

Avery/GM: Perfect. Okay. Yeah, so this, this hammer attack, like, it, it knocks you, it knocks you down a little bit, but you're holding onto the gunnery station still so you're not like lifted off your feet and floated into space.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm. I love that.

Bee/Polaris: Good shit. Good shit.

Avery/GM: And I think that's everyone's turn.

Chris/Ollie: They haven't taken any damage right?

Avery/GM: The robot has not, no one robot has been floated into space and cannot get back. So there's just this one robot now.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Well I wanted to save them, but uh, I guess I'm gonna have to use up one of my processing points. I'm going to, are you looking at 'em Zahn?

Zach/Zahn: Oh, absolutely.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Then I'm going to commit a point and, oh, where did my routines? There we go. Use hack control. Commit a processing point as a move action. And target a visible ex expert system, robot, drone vehicle, or automated device. No larger than a grab flyer. Give it one command. It's physically capable.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Of carrying out, even if it violates the programming. Oh. And it'll do it on its next available action.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: And I will tell it to eject.

Avery/GM: Okay. , does it get any kind of save on that or no?

Chris/Ollie: No. I mean, it's, it's your, you know, your call, but it's a, it says target visible robot, drone, vehicle, or device.

Avery/GM: No. If it's, if it doesn't have any kind of save functionality, then no. You're right. Cool. Cool. Well then, uh, the next round is about to start, but, um, Polaris out your cockpit window. You do see the other two robots. They seem to. After the single shuttle passes under them.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, of course.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, of course. Yep. Yeah. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: it's still limping and they, the one that's on our shuttle hasn't, uh, affected

Avery/GM: our speed at all, so. Okay. I believe though your team is still going first before this robot. So anyone do anything to this robot before it's turned?

Zach/Zahn: I would like to have Zan do a dexterity fix to use his laser blade to systematically dismantle this robot

Bee/Polaris: It's like a NASCAR pit crew.

Jenine/Marty: Yes!

Zach/Zahn: But with a laser. With a laser blade .

Jenine/Marty: So I have a question. Can I assist in this way?

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: As someone that is skilled in the medical field, is this a humanoid ish robot? So I would know where the weak points are question mark?

Avery/GM: Yeah, I mean it's, it's humanoid, so yeah,

Zach/Zahn: Obviously-

Avery/GM: you would know like

Jenine/Marty: here, here, here.

Zach/Zahn: Arms, knees, shoulder, neck.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. But you have to hit at like this specific angle.

Avery/GM: Um, sure. Uh, go ahead and roll that check then. And you said dexterity fix. Yeah, that's fine. And then Marty, go ahead and roll an intelligence heal.

Zach/Zahn: Ooh.

Avery/GM: Since you're using your medical knowledge, you know,

Jenine/Marty: good choice. Ooh.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, damn,

Chris/Ollie: damn.

Zach/Zahn: That's the third double five in a row.

Jenine/Marty: I also rolled two sixes, so it's gonna be a 13.

Zach/Zahn: So it's 13 from me, yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. Y'all turn this robot into Swiss cheese, and just

Bee/Polaris: scavenge it for parts. Yeah.

(Laser blade sounds)

Avery/GM: you basically leave just its torso, uh, sitting on, on your, um, on the deck of your, uh, Your ship here and then it follows the command that Ollie gave it to eject. And you see that it's two legs that are still kinda like bolted. Or not bolted, but like standing up, but they're on the, you know,

Zach/Zahn: yeah, yeah, yeah.

Avery/GM: They're standing up still. Uh, you just see them like, Basically just like rocket off of the shuttle backwards.

(jet booster sounds)

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Sorry. I could have, could have done that before it attacked you. But I didn't realize I had two processing left. I thought I only had the one.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet.

Zach/Zahn: Ah,

Chris/Ollie: so,

Avery/GM: and yeah.

Bee/Polaris: sweet. Uh, while that was happening, Polaris is uploading that video of the drones totally missing the assembles shuttle to the internet and saying, look at this cheating. Shame! shake hat emoji.

Zach/Zahn: Unfortunately, we're so far ahead that we couldn't get actual footage of the robot's delayed. Jump onto the craft singles or assembled singles.

Bee/Polaris: Well, Polaris, Polaris was watching, uh, through the, like while you guys were getting boarded. So, and his visor is, uh, technically a pc, so he it's technically a data event, so he totally took a video.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, okay. Clear self-favoritism. Cheater!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I'm gonna ruin their PR.

Avery/GM: So, so you've defeated the robot and you're about to pass through the fifth and final checkpoint and you see behind you the assemble, single shuttle break apart around it (detaching sounds) and to where it's just like this little, almost like escape pod sized ship

Bee/Polaris: extra cheating.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, it's gonna fucking just like extra cheat.

Avery/GM: and it has one little booster engine on it and it starts just bulleting towards you.

(Booster sounds)

Bee/Polaris: Now out of curiosity cause I didn't actually do anything with my turn.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Can I shoot it? ?

Jenine/Marty: Well wait,

Avery/GM: it would

Bee/Polaris: oh it's the shuttle.

Avery/GM: It would be breaking the rule.

Zach/Zahn: It would be against the rules. Shoot one of the cranes to fall in its flight path.

Bee/Polaris:Yeah alright. Can I make, yeah, I'll, can I shoot one of the asteroids to create a spray to hit it? Cause I feel like the crane would take too long.

Avery/GM: Yeah, totally.

Zach/Zahn: I mean this thing is Just a freaking escape craft kind of level of thing. It's definitely got like no defenses on it. It's definitely all last minute speed.

Bee/Polaris: Indeed. Um, yeah, PA is gonna use his best beam to just. Carve a line in one of the asteroids to create just like a, a field of debris for it.

Avery/GM: Sure. Go ahead and roll. Either Dex shoot or attack roll, whatever you prefer.

Bee/Polaris: I rolled attack and that's gonna be a 15.

Avery/GM: Cool. Yeah. You create this little field of debris around it, um, that it's gonna run into. If it doesn't do one hell of a pilot check.

Bee/Polaris: just in case it does make it through the, um, the debris. Uh, I'm gonna move Polaris's ship into the path of that ship because I can't attack it. But there's no rule saying it can't attack me. So, uh, I imagine it doesn't have great defense. So if it hits Polaris ship, it's probably not gonna make it.

Jenine/Marty: That's a, that's a, that's a

Avery/GM: this is, this is true. Now you are putting your ship in danger

Chris/Ollie: You only have 6 HP on that ship.

Bee/Polaris: Incredibly true. Can I put a wing in the path so it'll knock it off course and at least slow it down?

Chris/Ollie: Oh no, just go above it and then roll super-fast and just slap it with the wing away.

Bee/Polaris: Oh Yeah, I'll do that. That sounds funnier.

Zach/Zahn: Just barrel roll?

Chris/Ollie: Do a Barrel Roll!

Zach/Zahn: And Slap!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'll do that. That's way funnier.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh. Okay. Well, it did roll to make… make it through the, the debris. So you are going to position yourself kind of above it and then barrel roll to like hit it with your wing and knock it out of the path that it's on. Oh my gosh. Okay. Roll dexterity pilot

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Uh, wow, that was phenomenal. that's gonna be a 15.

Chris/Ollie: We're all God rolls today.

Bee/Polaris: I rolled, I rolled six.

Avery/GM: Seriously!

Bee/Polaris: Cause I rolled three dice and dropped the lowest. So I rolled two sixes and a five.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my gosh.

Avery/GM: Oh man. Okay. Well, yeah, you do that, you see it starting to navigate your little debris field and just like, oh shit and Maneuver your ship in such a way that you barrel roll and you hit it with your wing, um, and like it leaves a dent in your wing a little bit, but it's just cosmetic. It's not actual damage. And you just fling it and it's Barreling towards like asteroid number one at this point.

Bee/Polaris: I'll also make it look like I was trying to move out of the way of it, so it's not like I attacked it

Avery/GM: Sure. With, with that good of a role. Yeah. You, you totally masterfully make it look like a total accident and you have eliminated the last of your rivals in this race as the, the up and coming, the brand new racers racing for Big Fred.

Bee/Polaris: Let’s go!

Avery/GM: Pass through the final checkpoint of this race and have sealed their victory.

Zach/Zahn: Eat shit little Fred!

Avery/GM: in the pendulum death race, sponsored by assembles cheese.

Zach/Zahn: That’s what Zahn screams as we pass over the finish line: Eat shit little Fred!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will just like type in chat. Fred, Fred, Fred.

Zach/Zahn: No, you, you have to specifically say Big Fred though.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Because little Fred, who was an asshole to his bigger brother.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. In parentheses big.

Avery/GM: Wow. Oh my gosh. and the announcer is just like, and in a stunning upset, the assembles racer has been knocked out of the race for the first time in the past 36 races.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God. That's gonna garner a lot of a attention.

Jenine/Marty: Yoinks

Avery/GM: We'll learn more about this mysterious team sponsored by big friend later at our award ceremony.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh, maybe we shouldn't have won.

Zach/Zahn: award ceremony. Do we have to attend?

Chris/Ollie: I mean,

Zach/Zahn: can we just take our paycheck?

Bee/Polaris: Oh wait, Ollie gambled with Avi.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: And got a way bigger payout than the reward money.

Jenine/Marty: We can just yeet. We can just yeet. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine.

Bee/Polaris: Let's just dip!

Chris/Ollie: I mean, we gotta, we gotta get Avi to pay out though.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, yeah, you're in the booth with Avi. You could just like pay out, walk away.

Avery/GM: Actually, back in the booth, Ollie, Avi is laughing and like her mood has improved. She's like, oh, that was so exciting. You won. You won. Wow.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will reply. Yes, it truly was. If I had a heart, it surely would be beating .

Avery/GM: Yes. Mine certainly Is. Your friends put on quite a show out there? Well, a deal's a deal. Do you have a data pad that I can transfer the funds to?

Chris/Ollie: do I have one of those built into my arm?

Avery/GM: I'm sure you probably do.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Actually. So I'll hold up my arm.

Avery/GM: Actually you would because you, y'all split the, the untraceable credit chip five ways last time, so yeah, you definitely

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. My crypto wallet , so yeah. I'll hold out my yeah arm and it'll flip up with a little, uh, crypto wallet.

Bee/Polaris: it would be really cute if you had like a holographic, like actual wallet that opened.

Avery/GM: Sure. . And yeah, Avi pays you and it's just like, well, that was a lot of fun. I'm, I'm sure dad will be so upset that I lost his money. But

Zach/Zahn: How much did she bet?

Chris/Ollie: Five mil.

Avery/GM: Five mil.

Bee/Polaris: Five. I thought it was three .

Zach/Zahn: No, the three was at the tables. Just,

Bee/Polaris: oh,

Zach/Zahn: that was her introduction.

Bee/Polaris: Ah, yikes. All right. Cool. , I mean, yikes for her, not for us.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Oh yeah. Imagine paying the people that killed your uncle.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Um, I'm, I'm just happy Violet hasn't seemed to have returned. Right on. So, yeah, Ollie will reply. Uh, yeah, it's truly riveting. Please contact me, EV if you want to play again. This was definitely the funnest experience of my recent existence.

Avery/GM: Oh I'm sure I will. and lapis comes over and is clapping, uh, their hands and it's just like, Avi, that was so much fun. Thank you for, for letting me join you in the booth this week. Like we should, we should do that again. We should do this again. We should do it more like, this was a lot of fun. Where, where'd Violet go? And Avi just sort of rolls her eyes and it's just like, you know, off doing military stuff, whatever. Lapis just kind of nonchalantly, like shrugs. It's just like, well, her loss.

Chris/Ollie: if I can real quick, I'm gonna like immediately, uh, send the money to the ship. So it's like, I don't know how the crypto wallets work, but I don't want them to be able to take it back. I want it to just be...

Bee/Polaris: No, take backsies.

Avery/GM: No, you, you, you can send it to like the main untraceable wallet that y'all have. That's fine. Bruce, you finish up mopping up. Docking Bay 13 and actually this docking bay had like a little monitor to watch the race. So you see that your friends have won this race. Do you actually like finish up the whole docking bay or do you just like kind of keep up appearances?

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce was very enthralled in the race and has done like a half-hearted job at mopping this floor. But also very much realizes he's not getting paid for doing this, so doesn't care.

Jenine/Marty: mood

Caden/Bruce: and like puts the mop away and like rolls the car back out. And just like having seen like that his friends won and like imagines that like the Dock Bay is probably more empty now. Like most people are probably like very enthralled in the race, will just like start heading towards wherever they'll like kind of disembark and like every so often, like pick up some trash or uh, if he sees something that's like left behind, that might be valuable. Just put it in the garbage as well. It's Fine!

Bee/Polaris: Bruce is becoming a master thief.

Avery/GM: Okay. Uh, so y'all have won the race.

Chris/Ollie: also really quick, uh, Ali definitely is gonna exchange contact information with, Avi and Lapis.

Avery/GM: Oh, sure. Yeah. No, yeah, Avi uh, in fact Avi is like, yeah. So we'll stay in touch and if I find any more fun games of chance for us to play together, I will let you know.

Bee/Polaris: We could always go back to that planet that her uncle was hunting people on And that's a pretty, that's a pretty high stakes game of chance.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. It's like, oh yeah, I know a place. Yes Ollie will reply: Certainly call me anytime and I'll be there.

Avery/GM: So, To the team on the shuttle. Y'all cross the finish line and you're coming into the docking area of the shuttle and Big Fred and little Fred are there and little Fred is like handing over like a bunch of like little collectible, like figurines, like a box of 'em and is just like, I don't know how you did it, but here you go, little brother. You can have your stuff back. I won't tease you anymore.

You win. And uh, little Fred looks at you and says, Hey, uh, good racing out there. You know, if my racer could have raced though, he would've, he would've whooped ya. But, but not this time. This time. Y'all, y'all did good. And you, you helped my, my brother here. So good, good racing. And then he sort of turns to like start leaving.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, man. Totally. Next time.

Bee/Polaris: If Polaris were there, he'd flip him off… next time.

Avery/GM: And big Fred turns to, to you and, um, oh, and actually Polaris, that's a good question. So there's no like docking bay for the spotters. The spotters are kind of just expected to like, Go back and put their fighter ship away. Do you like contact Hermes and try to like link up to, to hit your fighter back onto it? Or do you dock your fighter in a docking bay?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'll go and dock in Bay 12 . No kidding. I'm kidding.

Zach/Zahn: Now that it's open,

Bee/Polaris: this spot taken? No, I'm gonna go, uh, can I just like hover over where everyone else is in my fighter?

Avery/GM: Yeah, you could, you could stay in your ship for a bit. That's.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Like they're, they're standing on the victory stand like, like the Olympics to get their medals, but you're just floating up above and behind them.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah!

Avery/GM: Big Fred, turns to you, Marty and Zahn, and it's just like, y'all, y'all really know how to race. Do you wanna make this like a permanent. Thing because Wow, that was actually more exciting than the last few races have been. Assembles has kind of been wiping the floor with everybody since they took over sponsorship.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. I wonder why.

Chris/Ollie: I wonder why

Bee/Polaris: Polaris from behind everyone is shaking his head in the cockpit. Shaking his head no, because we're kind of on the run from a violent military group.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, Marty looks a big friend and just goes, oh, well, it was a really fun experience. We're just kind of here for a stop over. But we wanted to help a friend out.

Avery/GM: Well, you certainly did that. You got me, you got me. My collection of, of figurines back from my big brother. He, he, he made me bet them one time on a race, and then he, and then I lost, and so I Had to give them up, but he, he gave them back now that I won.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

And he's, he's, he seems like he's gonna be a lot nicer to me now.

Jenine/Marty: That's so sweet.

Chris/Ollie: Are they like anime figurines?

Avery/GM: They are exactly Anime figurines, Chris?

Chris/Ollie: Yes

Jenine/Marty: yes.

Bee/Polaris: Is there a Miku one?

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: It's like literally everything. This is a big box.

Jenine/Marty: I opened my arms for a big hug. And then motion everyone else for a big hug. For a group hug.

Bee/Polaris: I fly the ship in closer.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. You like float the ship down close enough to like rub the hull on top of everyone's head.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. The nose of my ship

Jenine/Marty: Group Hug!

Avery/GM: Big Fred. Thanks you for the hug. And is, and is just like, um, well, I guess all we have to do is go to the, the winning ceremony and, and collect our, our prize. Are, are you all gonna gonna come with or do you have time for that?

Jenine/Marty: So… we're a little nervous in front of groups of people. Do do, do we have to show our faces?

Avery/GM: I don't think so. I think assembles just like sends a company representative each time. I could collect the money and then forward it to you.

Bee/Polaris: Can we just give 'em all the money? I mean, we all got a mill each.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Essentially.

Jenine/Marty: No its okay!

Zach/Zahn: Nah Man.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris makes his ship shake his head no. He’s like, Well he shakes the ship no, like right to left.

Avery/GM: Are you sure? Like that's a lot of, that's a million credits. Like, I mean, you could do a lot with that. You could open a shop, you could, you could buy a factory that makes anime figurines.

Jenine/Marty: Well, it sounds like…

Zach/Zahn: that sounds like things that you wanna. Fred.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: And now you can do them.

Bee/Polaris: big Fred's anime market!

Avery/GM: Big Fred (laughter) No big, Big Fred's real passion is Hello Kitty. So it'll just be a Hello Kitty Like Megaplex.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Hell yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Here for It!

Avery/GM: Fred kind of like, he, he puts his two big pointer fingers together and it's just like, if you're really sure, then okay, I'll, um, I'll go get, uh, I'll go get my suit on and, and go get ready for the, the ceremony then. thank you. I didn't actually get all your names before.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris pulls out of pulls out of where you guys are to go meet with Hermes. and then Types and Chat: Just give him our email.

Jenine/Marty: We gotta make a team email now.

Avery/GM: But yeah, you, you give them like your ship, email address or whatever.

Jenine/Marty: Hermes at aol.

Avery/GM: Hermes, I think. I think, I think earlier I said something like hers ship ai.biz, I think is what I went with .

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah.

Jenine/Marty: here for it!

Avery/GM: and yeah, y'all have now 5 million credits and a victory in the pendulum death race. How do y'all end up meeting up and celebrating? Do you get the heck off of this asteroid place? What, what happens?

Zach/Zahn: We're getting the heck off of this asteroid place because…

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. We don't really have time to celebrate.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Cause there's Active Republic members looking for us at the moment.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, the Republic owes us an IOU

Zach/Zahn: The Republic does, but not when it's a, uh, sibling of the, of the Winstons.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, they could just fire her.

Avery/GM: They're on leave. So they're technically not acting as representatives of the Republic. More of like private…

Chris/Ollie: Yeah they’re off duty.

Jenine/Marty: Just personal fun.

Bee/Polaris: Are they using Republic resources?

Avery/GM: Yeah. But this place is corrupt. Yo.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: that is true. that is true.

Zach/Zahn: And as a Winston, she has connections.

Bee/Polaris: That is true. Okay, so I assume we… Do we have to figure out how we get back onto Hermes without being detected?

Avery/GM: You don't, because you can just fly your ship, connect it with, um, with the other ship and then get into the, the main ship if you want. But yeah, um, you do have to figure out if you're gonna get on a different docking bay or try to like find some other way to like.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, docking bays have cameras. This is true. Can Polaris just one by one? Take one person and then bring them back over to Hermes?

Avery/GM: from the where the shuttle gets dropped off at?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Can we take the shuttle? Actually, can we trade the 1 million for the shuttle?

Avery/GM: I think the only, the only complication would be getting Bruce on there.

Jenine/Marty: Bruce is,

Bee/Polaris: Bruce we can, I mean, we can send a message to Bruce to meet us where the shuttles go no?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Bruce is in the hangers. We can swing by there and pick 'em up.

Bee/Polaris: Bruce is a janitor

Avery/GM: and Bruce is dressed like a janitor. Yeah. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: And also we can load all of our shit on it. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, that's right. Bruce has the stuff.

Avery/GM: I think that might be possible. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Let's just take the whole cart.

Avery/GM: Just take the whole janitor cart?

Chris/Ollie: I mean, we could use one.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Free cleaning supplies. Yeah. Our ship. Our ship's probably pretty dirty.

Avery/GM: Bruce, you're sort of like loitering around a bit, you know, sort of nonchalantly making yourself still look like a janitor. When you get like a ping from Hermes that just says, chef Bruce, you should come to the shuttle departure area of the racetrack so we can get the heck out of here, as Zahn has so eloquently put it.

Bee/Polaris: I desperately need Hermes at one point to say skedaddle.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will definitely do that and like I think most people would get out of a Janitor’s way that looks like they're going towards something.

Zach/Zahn: especially one as big as Bruce.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, and definitely not follow in the same direction considering the janitor looks concerned.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Especially since there's been a janitor emergency too.

Caden/Bruce: I’m sure the intercoms all day have been like janitor needed in bathroom four, janitor needed in bathroom two!

Avery/GM: Yeah. So Bruce, you, you come through the, the shuttle area and someone tries to stop you at first and is just like, oh, janitor, never mind. Yeah. Get in there. Get in there. Uh, it's messy. And, uh, you, you come, you come down to see your, uh, crew mates sort of still standing there with Big Fred and um, uh, big Fred's like, uh, feel free to, to use the shuttle till the end of the day if you need it for any more races or anything. but, other than that, just leave it here when you're done and I'll get it all repaired later.And then he walks off.

Bee/Polaris: Are we stealing the shuttle?

Zach/Zahn: No, we can't do that to Fred.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: How are we getting it back? Oh, you know what, actually, uh, Zan could pilot the shuttle and then get back on Polaris's ship and his ride.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Sure. Um, yeah. Y'all end up doing that. Um, and you are back on your ship. You have avoided this vengeful family member.

Chris/Ollie: No, not quite. Ollie still hasn't, uh, made his escape.

Avery/GM: Oh, Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Cause he's gonna… he’s still there.

Avery/GM: I'm sorry. I, yes. Ollie. How do you make your leave? Or do you make your leave?

Chris/Ollie: yeah, he's going to, uh, you know, continue his, his polite, shatter a bit, as it tapers off, head towards the door. Gonna seem non rushed, nonchalant, and he's gonna leave close the door, and as soon as it's closed, he's gonna sprint the nearest, uh, area of open space he can reach. And just jump.

Avery/GM: you're gonna jump out into open space.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. And then request a pickup.

Bee/Polaris: Just a full on my people need me.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, just, just very pleasant taking your money. Nice to meet you. Goodbye. Click and just (huffing and puffing) jump off.

Bee/Polaris: I'd like, I'd like to think that the bit of open like area, isn’t too far away from the booth and also the booth door has a window.

Avery/GM: so, so yeah. So originally, what was the view screen? For the, for the race is actually just like a transparent piece of glass that they have it projected. So Ollie, you close the door and what they see inside is you just booking it to like this little side… this side booth, near, near their private booth. And there's like this little energy field that kind of lets you like observe the. The stars and stuff outside and, and whatnot. and you just barrel through this little energy field, um, and sort of just are now like kind of nose diving into space. You're not too far from the main asteroid, but now you're kind of just floating.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I'm gonna like, you know, , wait till I get a, uh, well, I'm gonna radio or the just Discord chat or whatever and just be like, I'm going to need a pickup in a little while. maybe when I'm a bit further from the asteroid.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will do a drive-by.

Avery/GM: Sure. Yeah. You've got Zahn Magnet onto your, onto the outside of your ship, and, you fly in close and Zahn is able to reach out and grab Ollie

Chris/Ollie: it's like, uh, Adam and God and the uh, and that painting reaching out, touching fingers.

Bee/Polaris: That's the last thing Avi sees of you before never speaking to you again.

Chris/Ollie: Hopefully never speak to us again because…

Bee/Polaris: I don't wanna kill those two. They seem cool.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Can we make 'em our besties?

Chris/Ollie: I mean, don't start no shit. Won't be no shit. Especially if you give us five Millie, that was, uh, pretty based.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that's pretty cool.

Avery/GM: Yeah. The only one interesting revenge so far that it seems is, uh, violet.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Um, no one else has been fucking around, so they're not gonna find out

Jenine/Marty: Tee Hee!

Avery/GM: and you all come back into the main area of the ship, formerly known as the Minos 5 million credits Richer, and Hermes says, that was very exciting. We should do that again.

Bee/Polaris: No. Heart, smiley face. winky face.

Zach/Zahn: Oh come on. It wasn't that bad was it? Polaris? I mean, it's actually the most fun I've had in my entire life.

Chris/Ollie: that was the most fun and lucrative experience we've had. would try again.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is like, oh, is his ship like attached to the outside of the ship?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. Cause you have the fittings so you can kind of, basically they're like, magnet it on, and then you can just little kind of float, walk your way to the airlock and come on in.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will go to like the, the door where, uh, you would enter from being on his ship and he just like puts his head against the door with like a sad face on his visor. . Cause his ship is damaged. .

Zach/Zahn: Oh. Don't worry about your ship, Polaris. We'll, fix her up make it better and more spiffier than new.

Bee/Polaris: I don't want it better. I want it the same.

Zach/Zahn: You really gonna look me in my eyes and tell me you don't want, hold on. That's general Regenerative armor.

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: Or engine optimization?

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: Well, you're no fun.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh.

Bee/Polaris: He shrugs. It's the only thing I have left of my original family. And then he'll go to the pilots chair.

Chris/Ollie: No one wants to step on that, uh, landmine

Avery/GM: Hermes projects his little alien hologram body into the captain's chair.

Jenine/Marty: Yep.

Avery/GM: And is just like, where are we headed next?

(Spy music fades in and plays)

Avery/GM: So your ship is floating away from this Space Vegas. Spegas. And back on the asteroid, our camera zooms in on one of these soldiers that was accompanying Violet and they had been wearing their helmet the whole time, and they take off their helmet to reveal a dark blue tiger furry and they bring

their wrist up to their mouth and they say, this is agent Lazuli... We found them… and that's where we're gonna end it.

Caden/Bruce: Uh-oh.

(Spy music fades out, outro starts playing, fades down and plays under outro)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Background Music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks include: Car Chase and Starbase Omega. Additional Audio Track provided by Savage Pro Audio. Be sure to check us out @FurthestPod on twitter and tumblr. We'll be back on February 15th with our next episode! See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

Episode 14 - The Race is On!

Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 14 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.

(intro music plays, then fades out, background music fades in)

Avery/GM: And so where we left off was: it is time for the lucky tentacle for their… for their turn in the ship order, and we'll see what happens. Zahn, you were also giving like a… engine boost or something?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: Right?

Zach/Zahn: I had taken a, like an action of some sort to boost our speed by like two… by like double for one round.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So after the lucky tentacles’ turn here, we will do a pilot check to see who passes through the checkpoint first. You can add two to that pilot check, If you roll the check.

Bee/Polaris: Would Hermes assist in that?

Avery/GM: I'll add the pl… I'll add plus one for Hermes assist. Yeah. So a plus three total. But first to the lucky tentacle. You see behind you the lucky tentacles’ squid arms are starting to, or octopus arms are starting to spin rapidly.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, no.

(whooshing sound)

Avery/GM: And then you see like a little tiny, like rocket boost come off of one of these pods. Uh, 18 plus 4… 22. Okay? Yep. And you see rocketing towards you (rocket sound effect) a Person wearing a armored vac suit with a jet pack coming straight for your shuttle.

Chris/Ollie: Wait, do we see this guy coming?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Is his suit, are vac suit's powered?

Zach/Zahn: they don't really say.

Bee/Polaris: isn't it?

Avery/GM: Yeah, it doesn't really

Bee/Polaris: doesn't it use an A cell or something though?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I, I assume it would use like an A-Cell or such. Cause everything does.

Avery/GM: Yeah, let's take a look here.

Chris/Ollie: Or the jet pack or any, any piece of, uh, his gear other than the gun.

Avery/GM: I mean, his gear would have… Yeah, a power supply.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. But is it a, A-cell?

Bee/Polaris: I remember seeing somewhere that. Um, at least the Vac skin uses a, an A-cell. It uses one A-Cell every 24 hours, I think, to power it.

Avery/GM: for the sake of moving the story along, I'll say, yes, Chris it does.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent. Then, as we see him floating towards us, Ollie will pipe up from the inside of Zahn's helmet and say, let me handle this one, and He'll just boop, (Power drain sound) just drain all the power from that guy's, uh, suit as he is going Mid-transit.

Bee/Polaris: What? He suffocates?

Chris/Ollie: He'll be fine. He'll be, teleported out.

Zach/Zahn: they have like backup.

Chris/Ollie: But that is a for reference, that's, uh, a committing a processing point to, uh, use one of my abilities. I gotta find the name here. Remote Power sink. Commit a processing point for a scene as main action and target a visible piece of equipment powered by an A type cell or equivalent. The power is immediately drained. Only the most professional targets will realize their device

is powerless before they next try to use it, unless the depowering has obvious results. like, uh, like your, your suit in space.

Avery/GM: So, so luckily you don't de-power his suit. He, he is still gonna get much needed oxygen into his lungs. But you do see the jet pack, sputter and stall and then basically this person stops and they're still floating cause of, you know, con… conservation of momentum. But because they can't control where they're going, they actually just zoom past your shuttle.

Avery/GM: You're coming up to the next asteroid. So he actually just flies into the asteroid (smash sound) and hits it. And then you see the little, the little tell-tale spark of like someone getting teleported. (teleport sound)

Caden/Bruce: Goodbye friend.

Zach/Zahn: Alright.

Bee/Polaris: Farewell!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Uh, Ollie will say, oof, my apologies. I did not intend for that to be quite so painful.

Bee/Polaris: laughing emoji in chat!

Avery/GM: Okay. So, uh, having seen their shuttler plan not come to fruition, Polaris, the lucky tentacle squid fighter starts to dog fight with you.

Bee/Polaris: Oh God. All right.

Avery/GM: Through space.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. (laser blast)

Avery/GM: And it's gonna roll to attack you.

Bee/Polaris: Awesome.

Avery/GM: 14 plus six. That's 20.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. That'll hit

Avery/GM: Okay. And they're attacking with a multifocal laser, which has armor piercing of 20

Bee/Polaris: pain. Polaris might die.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no.

Zach/Zahn: Ouch

Jenine/Marty: It's fine. It's fine. It's fine. It's fine, it's fine. I'm here.

Zach/Zahn: We'll buy you a new one. It's okay!

Bee/Polaris: Here's the, here's the thing. This ship is made from the ship that the custodians found him in, so this is very sentimental .

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Zach/Zahn: just, we'll, we'll keep the important pieces. It's okay.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. We’ll make it into a necklace,

Avery/GM: well, you're lucky cause it's only 4d4 and, and it rolled four damage.

Bee/Polaris: I don't know where my ac or my, uh, hit points are on the sheet.

Avery/GM: Oh no!

Bee/Polaris: Oh, its only 4 damage? Alright Awesome.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: because I only have eight .

Avery/GM: Oh, cool. . Yeah. So you take, you take this hit.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: and it pierces your armor.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent.

Zach/Zahn: Boy, Do I ask some ship mods for you My friend.

Avery/GM: and Hermes pipes up and says, Polaris, your ship has taken damage. (laughter, Bee sighs exasperatedly) This fucking guy

Zach/Zahn: No way.

Jenine/Marty: Really? I didn't know.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris in his helmet pulls up like a, a checklist, like a to-do list that he has, and, He puts on there on like the lowest part, under optional, crash Hermes into asteroid, (laughter) smiley face.

Zach/Zahn: No Winky face as to whether it's legitimate or not.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. And he, he makes it into a gif and sends it into the group chat.

Avery/GM: and then slowly behind the rest of the pack, the assembles cheese, uh, shuttle just sort of floats through the minefield and just kind of shrugs off the, the minds as they attack it. You get the hint that this, this shuttle might be pretty well armored.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, great.

Avery/GM: And now it is time for the pilot check for who will pass through the gate first or… the checkpoint first. So Zahn, go ahead and roll your pilot check.

Zach/Zahn: oh no! I really should have taken a put a point into piloting last time I guess. so Plus two, but. So it's a…

Avery/GM: plus three

Zach/Zahn: ooo plus three,

Avery/GM: because one from Hermes as well.

Zach/Zahn: And then it's a what? Dex? Intelligence?

Avery/GM: Oh, sorry. Dex.

Zach/Zahn: Cool. It’s a good thing. I've used my points to give myself a plus one in dex last time. So… it's just plus three. Uh, so that is 10.

Avery/GM: Hey, look at that.

Bee/Polaris: It's pretty good.

Avery/GM: Okay. You have a commanding lead. You see the lucky tentacle because of the, the loss of their, their friend. Maybe they're a little distracted cause their plan failed. They start to kind of slow down as the assembles cheese ship overtakes them just slightly and crosses the checkpoint before them. But you are way ahead of them as you pass through this second checkpoint, everyone in the stands and over your Communicators hear:

Announcer: “and they've just passed the second checkpoint. One racer has already been eliminated. This is turning out to be an exciting, exciting race, but now they're past the second checkpoint. They'll have a little bit of breathing room before they hit Checkpoints Four and five.”

Zach/Zahn: Oh, it's three just no obstacles?

Avery/GM: So three is supposed to, three is supposed to basically just be like a, okay, you're halfway through, let's keep, you know. But in the meantime, we flash back to the stands real quick.

(Music fades out, ambience fades in)

Bruce, you are standing there and you're seeing these two guards come up to another soldier who is in the crowd watching the race, and they're kind of pulling on him and they're just like, come on, we gotta get down there. Docking Bay 12 is where we're where we're needed. let's get down there and, and take care of these space pirates. And the other one is like, ah, come on, let's just finish the race. It'll be fine.

Bee/Polaris: I wish you had more of those Good, good bean tarts to offer those nice, nice police officers.

Caden/Bruce: Well, I have a, um, out of the box idea.

Avery/GM: I love out of the box idea.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent!

Caden/Bruce: It's, it's not that out of the box, I wanna go and find a janitor's closet.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Caden/Bruce: Because Bruce was giving out, as we've already established, has been giving out like tarts, not just to the racers, but to other people as well. Um, is going to assume that the janitors are going to be very, very busy, uh, dealing with the situation that he caused.

Caden/Bruce: Therefore, I want to go to what most likely is gonna be an open janitor's. Steal like one of the rolling racks with the bins. I wanna put on some gloves. I'll put a glove on that tail. And then I want to go down to the docking bays pretending to be a janitor.

Jenine/Marty: Yes!

Avery/GM: I love this.

Zach/Zahn: Where did they hide the barcode on you, Bruce?

Bee/Polaris: The Tail!

Caden/Bruce: Obviously the tail that the glove is now on.

Avery/GM: This is great. Uh, let me look at the skill list. I don't really think this will require a role, but yeah, just roll. Roll a notice check real quick. go dexterity or intelligence, whichever you prefer.

Caden/Bruce: Uh, well, a dexterity would make it a 12.

Avery/GM: Perfect. Okay. Yeah. So you, you see these, these soldiers kind of drag their friend away as they're like, come on, let's get back to work. And, you know, you, you start kind of putting this plan into motion. You go out to the little foyer where there's, you know, people milling about and Yeah. You see, uh, just like a, a stream of janitor bots pass by you on one end As they're

heading down towards like some of the facilities and they have left their beautiful, well organized janitors, not even a closet, This is like a, an office.

Caden/Bruce: Nice.

Bee/Polaris: Ooh.

Avery/GM: With just a bunch of supplies in here and yeah, you get your little, rolling rack of, of towels and sprays and stuff. You find some gloves that that'll fit. They're a little tight, but they fit and yeah. You're gonna head down to the, to the docking bay?

Caden/Bruce: Correct.

Avery/GM: Ollie, you're in here and you're overhearing Violet and Avi talk about their cousin, and of course you're splitting your attention between this and the race, so you might not be able to like… fully participate, but you do overhear three things from this conversation.

You overhear that Violet was originally on duty on a nearby warship patrolling the Republic's border when she got the footage forwarded to her from her dad. The second thing you learn is that she was granted leave to Bragos to kind of process the loss of this family member. And the third thing you learn is that Violet actually enjoys her work and doesn't really believe in taking time off.

And so basically she spent most of her time going over like space traffic logs and flight paths and things like that, and that's where she got the lead that a similar ship might be here. She also cross referenced the ship with a report that a miss… a longtime missing major had been return. To the Republic, by a ship matching that description.

Clarifying question, when you dropped off Machamp, did y'all like escort him out of your ship and into the docking or into the, the military base, or did you just like lower the ramp and say, get out? Uh,

Bee/Polaris: hellno. We got places to be .

Avery/GM: Okay. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: At least Polaris wouldn't have gotten out.

Zach/Zahn: I am pretty sure we at least like walked him to the edge of the fucking ramp. Like we didn't just full on kick him out. .

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Polaris wouldn't have.

Avery/GM: okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris would've stayed in the pilot seat.

Avery/GM: Okay, fair enough. But like some of you probably would. Okay. But you wouldn't have been in the base to get caught on camera?

Jenine/Marty: No.

Zach/Zahn: No. We would've been like, like I said, at the, at the base of our ramp, like dropping him off and then like saying our farewells or whatever, and then like peacing the fuck out.

Caden/Bruce: giving him a cake, you know.

Avery/GM: Totally fine. Yeah. slice of cake for the road. Cool. So those are the three things you learned. Ollie, you also noticed that Lapis, the other tiger furry that's here, they are a bit younger than Avi and Violet and I... I forgot to describe them, but they are like a dark blue and black striped tiger person Compared to the rest of their kind of typical orange and black striped cousins, and they have been paying no mind to anything going on in this room except watching the race. They are like a kid captivated by like fireworks. So not, not to say that they are a kid, but they're,

Bee/Polaris: oh, thank goodness she's not invincible.No, I'm kidding.

Chris/Ollie: No, I was literally thinking that. I was like, okay, does she have the invincibility armor or not?

Avery/GM: No, they, they're not a minor younger, so Yeah, younger. They're just younger like, like Avi and Violet are probably Late twenties and lapis is clearly like 19-20.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. All right. Just got, just grew out of her invincibility frames. Alright.

Avery/GM: yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Eye frames for the first 18 years.

Avery/GM: So as you're kind of overhearing this going on in, in this room, Ollie two, those two big burly guards that had been in here when you first got here, they had left originally. They come back in and they

say “General, we found this ship docking Bay 12. I've got men in position under the guise that we are stopping some space pirates.”

Avery/GM: And Violet just says, “ah. Excellent. Well, Avi, it's been lovely catching up, but I really must get going. I've got a relative to Avenge.” and Avi says, “oh, violet, please stay. I'm sure whoever they are, they won't be back until the race is over.” Violet replies “Avi, not all of us can gallivant around the galaxy wasting daddy's money and living the good life. Some of us actually care about the honor of the Winston family.” And with that kind of Parthian shot at her cousin, violet leaves the room with her soldiers.

Bee/Polaris: Ouch.

Avery/GM: Avi just kind of sulks and is just kinda like under her breath, just like “I care about the family” and, you know, just kind of like, you know, being a bit like brooding about it. Do you do anything?

Chris/Ollie: really quick? Is… Violet's been paying the room mind, Has the room been paying her? No. Like, do I get the impression that she's a black sheep or?

Avery/GM: oh, wait, you mean Lapis?

Chris/Ollie: Lapis, Yeah, that's what I meant.

Avery/GM: No, like, I mean, they're just kind of treating Lapis as like

Chris/Ollie: the younger sister, kind of

Avery/GM: the, the, the younger, yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: The, the younger cousin or sibling that's just kind of there for the ride and just like, yeah, let them enjoy themselves, that kind of a thing.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay. So chances of a face turn, not too great. All right. Well at this point Allie is going to play it cool and he's going to. You know, stay observing the race. Not really pay violet, uh, anything she said or her leaving much mind in order to keep my, uh, keep my cool, but I'm at the same time going to message everyone. That Hermes probably needs to take the re… Move the ship right now. Uh, ideally it'd be best if you could like switch it with a different ship if possible.Not sure.

Bee/Polaris: We would have to physically switch his chaos enrolled into a different ship.

Chris/Ollie: Well I have my drones on the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Are they assembled though? Did you assemble them? Okay.

Chris/Ollie: I spent some time assembling 'em when I was there. And I can remote hack with one of them… So…

Bee/Polaris: do they have, do they have little like pinchy arms that they can pull Hermis out of that ship?

Chris/Ollie: Well, no. I was thinking cause Hermes can just take the ship and fly away. So I could take my drone and sneak it onto a different ship and hack that ship and park it in space 12 actually, uh, gotta double check and make sure I actually do have that

Bee/Polaris: actually out of curiosity are like the… the Bay, like the numbers, the numbers for each, um, docking bay. Are they like painted onto the, like the floor and like walls and stuff? Or is it like a, a digital sign?

Avery/GM: It would be a digital sign outside the door.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, even better.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. . So while you all plan on what you're gonna do in response, I'm. Let Bruce in on the location. Yeah. So Bruce, you come on down to the… the docking bay with your little janitor get up and are here with your ship. So far it doesn't appear that anything has been tampered with or messed with. Obviously there's signs of like people coming and going from like the deliveries that you've gotten from the various merchants that are here, but overall, a pretty normal looking docking bay.

Caden/Bruce: Sweet.Okay. There's a couple of things I wanna do.

Avery/GM: perfect.

Caden/Bruce: I want to get out my, first of all, before I even enter the docking bay, get out like my wet floor signs and kinda like rope it off. I'm gonna try and basically buy as much time as possible, given the circumstances of what's happened to the rest of the area. I'm sure it's not gonna like completely deter them, but I wanna at least slow people down.

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay.

Caden/Bruce: And then secondly, having seen Ollie like message. Chat and also like realize, okay, yes, other people know that this is going to go on. I know Bruce probably doesn't have that much knowledge about like how to move Hermes and everything else, but I do think he's gonna wanna board the ship and basically put anything that can identify any single one of them into like his trash bags of the… of his cart.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you're gonna go into the ship, that's fine. So you're in the ship and Hermes pipes up and says, Bruce, have you not been enjoying the race?

Caden/Bruce: The race has been great, but there are a bunch of people who have recognized our ship, so I'm going to actually need you to, uh, move from this docking bay, I believe. But at first I was gonna take anything that could identify us as the owners, just in case

Avery/GM: very well. Would you like me to engage the weapons? (gun cocking sound)

Caden/Bruce: Not currently, but I would like you to make it very difficult for anybody else to get on board once I leave.

Avery/GM: Understood. I will lock down the ship as soon as you're ready. Shall I initiate self-destruct?

Bee/Polaris: oh my..

Caden/Bruce: No.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God

Avery/GM:. Oh, I see. Do not permanently make it hard for people to access the ship, just temporarily

Caden/Bruce: correct. I care about you, Hermes. I would rather you not self-destruct.

Avery/GM: That is very thoughtful of you. I will not self-destruct right now.

Jenine/Marty: Right now

Bee/Polaris: he puts a pin in it,

Avery/GM: Sure. Uh, so what kind of things do you grab that are like the personal items? Uh,

Caden/Bruce: uh, you, you know, I feel like, well, we all left our guns and stuff and I'm just gonna put them in the garbage bag, you know, like as you do, you know, wallets, keys, phones? Uh, not jokingly though. Definitely the blender, the blender's coming with me.

Bee/Polaris: I just assume Bruce carried it everywhere.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is also gonna grab the apron. Cuz he doesn't want that on board to like, you know, put two and two together that he was involved in, wanted to happened here.

Bee/Polaris: get rid of the beans.

Caden/Bruce: The beans are, the beans are probably fine. His, his pantry's organized. He wouldn't have left a mess in the kitchen, that's for sure. But I think it's mostly anything that's like, you know, if we have our names on anything, anything that's like, you could pick it up and be like, you know, Marty's supply of drugs,you know, just

Bee/Polaris: Bruce just gonna have.

Avery/GM: I forgot about that.

Jenine/Marty: I also forget that Marty has drugs.

Caden/Bruce: but that's, that's basically what Bruce is gonna go around. He's gonna go around and like, take things where he is just like, ah, yes, this is, I would, I would associate it with this person. Therefore it is coming with me off the ship.

Bee/Polaris: Bruce is gonna have to spend an hour scrubbing ‘Polaris was here’ off the pilot's seat. I'm kidding.

Avery/GM: Are you trying to do this quickly?

Caden/Bruce: Yeah. I don't wanna get caught on the ship preferably.

Avery/GM: Okay, so either strength or dexterity exert for a skill check for this.

Caden/Bruce: Okay

Avery/GM:Because you're gonna be running up against something else and

Caden/Bruce: then exert is a zero. That is a seven.

Avery/GM: Well, hey, you're lucky cuz they rolled a six Oh thank God, . You come down the ramp of the, of the ship and you are starting to… so when you come down you do hear commotion outside the door.

The door to the docking bay is. So no one can see you, but you do hear commotion outside the door of like, come on, let's get this open. Let's, why are these wet floor signs here? And, uh, you hear another voice just say, I don't know. But why are you listening to wet floor signs? You can just walk across it and open the door. What is wrong with you?

Caden/Bruce: Bruce Hearing this Will get off the ramp and be like, Hermes, lock your doors and do not open them. And if you can move, and then Bruce is gonna get out the mop. Mopping the floor!

Bee/Polaris: Hell yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: While before the, uh, ship buttons up o he is gonna commit a processing to activate his drones.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie:And they're gonna follow Bruce out.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. Are they gonna hover right next to Bruce? Are they gonna like, try and like hover, like up in the rafters? Like what do you…?

Chris/Ollie: Well, I got three. One of them is a non-combat drone. If they're already like right outside the hangar door, that one's probably not gonna do much. So I'll just have him hide like, Like in the upper corner somewhere, and then I'll have the other two….

Bee/Polaris: How big is the cart?

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. Good. Actually, how big are the drones?

Caden/Bruce: I don't know how big your drones are. I was assuming the cart was like most janitor carts where it's like it can fit like a decent size circular trash can and then like has like another decent size compartment for like all the other storage and stuff and then like has like a mop and a bucket on the side. So I was thinking like relatively big, like…

Avery/GM: yeah, probably like three or four feet long and like a. You know, 12 inches wide or something like that.

Caden/Bruce: Yeah.

Avery/GM: For Bruce, probably waist high, um, . But

Jenine/Marty: you could hide a Marty in there.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah you could. Hi. You could definitely hide a Marty in there.

Bee/Polaris: If you could hide a Marty in there, you can probably hide a, a drone in there. I think Marty is a little bit bigger than drone size, right?

Avery/GM: Oh, definitely. Yeah. What kind of drones did you get?

Chris/Ollie: I got two stalkers and one Void Hawk. So stalkers are like just general all-purpose ones. I'm gonna put those two. Above the door as high up as they can go.

Avery/GM: Okay, so Bruce, you start kind of mopping the floor, um, a little bit. You get it really nice and wet. And these drones come flying out of, uh, the ship as Hermes, uh, raises the ramp and you hear the sounds of the ship starting to like take off and you hear outside like, hurry up. Looks like they're getting away. And you hear the door starting to open and these six soldiers come barreling through weapons drawn and they start like shooting at the ship and you're just over here mopping, , uh, and whatnot as the ship pulls out of the Hangar Bay completely. And in chat you just, uh, you see Hermes type of message that just says, leaving docking Bay 12, moving to docking Bay 13 .

Caden/Bruce: Bruce is immediately gonna like, subtly message back and be like, no, move further away. Or don't even dock, just like. Not 13

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts a crying, laughing emoji in chat.

Avery/GM: and Bruce, you look up and you see all these, these soldier types with their guns drawn, uh, shooting at your ship. But you're here as

a janitor and Violet is kind of just staring at you like, what the hell are you doing here?

Avery/GM: And we flashback to the race real quick. You're coming up to the third checkpoint. You've had a little bit of a break, but all of that is about to change. Uh, as you see Polaris on your radar, you see a little flashing light indicating that a weapon has been deployed.

Bee/Polaris: Oops.

Avery/GM: And from the vantage point on your shuttle, Zahn and Marty and, and Ollie technically too, right? You all see those big containers that the assembles cheese, uh, shuttle and spotter were hauling. They break apart and outcome a swarm of nano drones from each one.

Chris/Ollie: Uh oh

Zach/Zahn: Oh, oh fuck.

Jenine/Marty: Now I have a question.

Bee/Polaris: What!?

Jenine/Marty: Now I have a question.

Avery/GM: I have an answer.

Jenine/Marty: So, I would like to commit an effort for this scene. What is, what is a scene in this Situation of a… is the entire race just one scene?

Avery/GM: We'll consider the entire race one scene, yes.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, great. Now while we're watching this thing like separate and like open these things up, do we see the person like push the button to do that?

Avery/GM: I don't think you'd be able to see into their cockpit just based on how far away they are.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, Cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Great.

Avery/GM: Because they are like way at the back, well further back than you.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: Y'all have a very commanding lead.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, okay. I'll do the suppress cognition later. It's okay. We'll wait. Continue on.

Avery/GM: Okay. Essentially, um, what these little containers were on this ship, uh, were… the weapon is called a smart cloud, which is a cloud weapon So it is omnidirectional and it is clumsy, meaning that it can hit both friend and foe alike.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Avery/GM: Polaris, I would like an evasion throw… evasion save. And then Zahn, Are you still piloting the shuttle or did you let Hermes take control again?

Zach/Zahn: With the boost I would've done it like directly into the engine kind of thing, So Hermes has always been in, in the, technically in the pilot seat.

Avery/GM: Gotcha. Okay. That's fine. Then I'll roll Hermes’ pilot check and I'll roll the lucky tentacles’... or not pilot check evasion save which…

Bee/Polaris: and outta curiosity how do we do that again?

Avery/GM: you roll a D 20 and you have to get higher than the number that's on your character sheet.

Zach/Zahn: Oh. Oh

Bee/Polaris: Am I adding to that or?

Avery/GM: you would not add to it. It's just a straight roll.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I got the number exactly.

Avery/GM: then I think, I think Meets, meets beats.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Meets it, beats it.

Avery/GM: Marty and Ziel also need to roll evasion checks to avoid these. If Hermes fails the evasion save for this ship. Then you'll need to roll evasion saves to not get attacked by these drones.

Jenine/Marty: So we're waiting to roll our evasion,

Avery/GM: so hold up.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Avery/GM: Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Jenine/Marty: hold.

Zach/Zahn: Okay, good.

Avery/GM: Okay. Lucky tentacle rolled a six and Hermes rolled a 12. So Hermes would save and the lucky tentacle would fail. So Hermes deftly dodges this little cloud of micro drones and the… you see the lucky tentacle not be so lucky and it's going to take 3D10 damage.

Zach/Zahn: Ouch.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, yoinks!.

Avery/GM: Yeah

Bee/Polaris: that's what you get!

Zach/Zahn: is it basically just like little drones that attach the ship and then just start tearing it apart?

Avery/GM: Basically, Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Ooh, that's terrifying.

Avery/GM: And that’s 12 plus nine is 21. Oh gosh. You see the luan, uh, shuttle just get torn apart by these drones. You see six of the arms just get ripped off from this like central node, and then the other two arms are spinning. But then you see like the little rocket booster on the bottom of the central node that's propelling it forward. You see that break off and then you just see this shuttle floating aimlessly in space now.

Bee/Polaris: that's mildly unfortunate.

Avery/GM: And then, oh, I got a roll for the gun too… Professor Infinity’s…

Chris/Ollie: Also upon seeingthis, uh, swarm of bots rip apart this ship, Ollie is just gonna drop a thinking emoji in chat. (notification sound)

Bee/Polaris: Polaris does The eyes emoji (notification sound)

Jenine/Marty: I give a thumbs up emoji.(notification sound)

Avery/GM: Professor Infinity’s floating gun ship dodges the cloud of drones that are coming at it. (flying sound effect)

Zach/Zahn: What about the lucky tentacles’ spotter ship?

Avery/GM: Oh, thank you. Thank you, Zach. they rolled a 17. They're good too.

Bee/Polaris: Pain.

Avery/GM: So you've… you've eliminated two racers and now you notice that without that big heavy weight behind it, the Assembles singles shuttle is moving extraordinarily fast

Bee/Polaris: cheese whiz.

Chris/Ollie: Mm-hmm. .

Avery/GM: Yep. And yeah, it rolled a 15. Um, so it is, it is pulling up very close to you now, and we go back to the top of the order, which would be either Polaris as the spotter or Zahn and Marty and Ollie as the racers.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. So who are we dealing with right now then?

Zach/Zahn: It's just the, the,the singles now, right?

Avery/GM: You have the assembled singles shuttle and you have the lucky tentacle and Professor Infinity’s spotters.

Zach/Zahn: Spotters.

Jenine/Marty:Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Okay.

Jenine/Marty: So there's two shuttles left. Other than There's three, well, two others.

Avery/GM: Nope. Just you and one other shuttle at this point.

Jenine/Marty: Oh,

Avery/GM: yeah.

Bee/Polaris:Wait, so if we eliminate the shuttle, will we basically run the… win the race.

Avery/GM: Uh, you'll still have to get through all the checkpoints and, and dodge the other obstacles, but there would be a significant, it would be significantly easier.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Sowe wanna go for the shuttle or should we go for one of these hitters?

Bee/Polaris: What are… what are y'all doing on the shuttle?

Jenine/Marty: Could, could I suppress, could I suppress someone's cognition? Would… whoever the closest person is to us, I would like to commit effort for the scene as my main action to… so what it re, what… It's, it's on page, uh, 41, um, physically, uh, and it says, I can either telepathic contact simply not… I can make them not think of something, whether it's the presence of the telepath, the possibility of committing violence, the absence of important documentation, or any other single potential action or one specific person. Can I make the person that's driving the ship that's coming closest to us Forget that the wheel exists on their ship?

Bee/Polaris: forget how to fly?

Avery/GM: Yeah, I'll say that the, um, assembles… cause the assembles, um, spotter was actually maneuvering for something. So I'll say that they are closest to you.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. I'm gonna go for that one. Uh, that's gonna be the target gets a mental saving throw to resist this power. And if they succeed, they're immune for the scene.

Avery/GM: okay.

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna say it'd be pretty, it'd be pretty funny if you made them think that they were going the wrong way in the race. So they turn, they do a full U-ey, and go the other way.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, it's because I was trying to like figure out like… which one makes the most sense. Any other single pot… I think it's just like forgetting something once… yeah…

Avery/GM: I mean that… forgetting the steering wheel exists is great. Forget that they're in a race?

Jenine/Marty:Oh yeah. We'll do that!

Avery/GM: Marty, go ahead and roll a, if you have it handy, go ahead and roll a D six.

Jenine/Marty: A D six. I do. I'm a powered by the apocalypse stan. Of course. I have thousands of D sixes… Three!

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. I was trying to determine what level I wanted their character level to be.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Avery/GM: Cause I don't have a character sheet for this person, so that would deter… Okay. So, okay. Well, they rolled a three for their mental saves, so they fail. miserably. , , .

Bee/Polaris: How long does that last?

Jenine/Marty: Uh, it's for the entire scene. So they're out and that's Yes. In that case, the, yes. Sorry.

Avery/GM: No, no. Go ahead. Uh, describe how, how Marty, like, does like her power. Like how, how does she do this?

Jenine/Marty: Okay. She like giggles a little bit. Ah, okay idea. And then like, she stands up, looks at like whatever's coming at us and just goes, boop (magic sound effect) No more and like locks eyes with this person.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You they were, they were getting really close cuz they were gonna, they were gonna maneuver and do something really messed up, kind of along the lines of what Polaris did to Professor Infinity. And you see them starting to swoop in and you do this boo uh, to them and all of a sudden, You can kind of see through their viewport, like their eyes kind of like glaze over a little bit and they're just like, oh, I don't wanna do this anymore. And they just turn their steering wheel and uh, (zoom sound effect) start flying back towards like the main asteroid where they popped out at and they're gonna go land. Yeah. That was really brilliant. You avoided some, some bad stuff there. Okay, so the assembles spotter is out of the race.

Bee/Polaris: Yay. Uh, who's the next closest person to us?

Avery/GM: Either the lucky tentacle spotter or the assembles shuttle.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Hmm. Is there any debris around?

Avery/GM: Uh, not yet. Um, you're coming up to the third asteroid, and this has been kind of a, a mellow part of the race.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Uh, I'll hold my action until something happens. I'll just hover around my guys. Oh, wait, actually, can I, Fly underneath the shuttle and then like, Be the speed boost for the shuttle and like push it forward faster. .

Avery/GM: Yeah. Go ahead and roll. So this'll be kind of similar to like a assist, an assist roll. So go ahead and roll. Uh, dexterity pilot.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I'm gonna be honest. That was trash roll.

Zach/Zahn: If you're gonna be doing that once you get into position can Zahn Jump down onto,

Bee/Polaris: onto my ship

Zach/Zahn: with his mag boots and, uh, assist with, uh, with a boost engine action?

Bee/Polaris: I'm trying to see if, can't I re-roll once proceed because I'm a…

Avery/GM: Yes, you can

Bee/Polaris: expert. Okay. Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool, cool. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Zahn, I'm gonna say that you probably couldn't boost Polaris's engines from the outside. The reason you could do it with the shuttle is cause it's specifically designed for you to be able to do that because it's like open top and like everything's there. But you'd have to actually be like busting out your tools and like mechanically, like trying to like give Polaris a tuneup While flying through space,

Zach/Zahn: I mean, I could do that. like I said, I have all my, all of my stuff on me, so…

Chris/Ollie: He is a walking toolbox.

Bee/Polaris: That would be very difficult.

Zach/Zahn: But if you don't want me to do that, I would instead do a, uh, like a damage control or emerg or uh, or repair on Polaris's ship. Since, uh, Polaris's ship is at, I believe, half health.

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Sorry. Okay. Uh, my role ended up being a 10.

Avery/GM: A 10? Okay. Yeah. So we'll add, we'll add plus one to Hermes as pilot role next. next time Hermes pilots it forward. Let's see. Zach, you're gonna, you want to try and repair Polaris's ship from, from your ship?

Zach/Zahn: I would jump onto Polaris's ship.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'm underneath.

Avery/GM: Okay. Go ahead and roll. A dexterity fix, but minus one because this is a very tricky thing to try and do Mid-flight.

Zach/Zahn: I live for this kind of excitement. So three…

Bee/Polaris: What's your class? Are you an expert?

Zach/Zahn: I am indeed an expert.

Bee/Polaris: You can re-roll once scene

Zach/Zahn: if I'm informed that seven is not good enough, I will re-roll.

Avery/GM: I don't think that's how that works. I think you have to.

Bee/Polaris: It is, it is a failed. It does say

Zach/Zahn: you can re-roll on a failed check.

Avery/GM: That's fine. Yeah. Yeah. A seven is not gonna be good enough.

Zach/Zahn: Okay. I'm gonna re-roll that. Well, one die just flew away into the darkness, so we're gonna try to do this other one. how's eight is eight better?

Avery/GM: Eight is just over the threshold. Polaris, add two hp Back to your ship.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Jenine/Marty: Yay.

Avery/GM: And, and now you have a Zahn hitching a ride.

Chris/Ollie: Now it's just Marty in the shuttle.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris waves through the cockpit window.

Avery/GM: Cool. Ollie, is there anything you're going to be. On this turn for the race or are you focusing mostly on the, the drones and, and your situation?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, the only thing I could do would, uh, use my last cognition, whatever points I have as a robot, I, I wanna save that to maybe get out of a sticky sitch.

Avery/GM: Gotcha. Okay, cool. Well then you see Professor Infiniti's big gun ship, fly behind the lucky tentacle fighter and just shoot this big poly spectral Laser beam at the Lucky Tentacle Squid Fighter. (Laser blast) 16 plus three is 19. It hits, yeah, it takes, it shoots off one of the lucky tentacles, uh, lasers and damages it pretty badly. So it is not doing great and I guess the lucky tentacle fire back. Haha. Let me play space fight with myself.

Jenine/Marty: the best game as a dm.

Bee/Polaris: Go, go, go, go.

Avery/GM: The Squid fighter fires back and does seven damage to Professor Infinities gun ship. (laser blast) Yeah, they're trading fire and they're both looking pretty damaged now. So now we'll do the pilot check. 16 for Hermes or 17 for Herms cuz of the plus one.

Bee/Polaris: Yay.

Avery/GM: 18 for the Assembles though!

Bee/Polaris: Yikes.

So you see the Assembles shuttle pull ahead of you just barely, you know, basically by a nose. It pulls through the checkpoint first. The announcer is just like, wow. Our sponsor Assembles Singles has pulled ahead of the upstarts… and we will go back to the Hangar Bay.

Zach/Zahn: Awesome. I wanna board it next round.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I was just saying, you just drive by jump on

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna grapnel launcher on like grab a launcher and then zoom over to it.

Bee/Polaris: Sick. You probably could do that as it was passing by real quick. I did just wanna point out that it is kind of fucked up that the person that's sponsoring this entire race has also participated in said race.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Oh Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: They can, you know, set the rules at everything and also soup up their ship however they want anyway. Yeah, we can go ahead . Just food for that.

Zach/Zahn: What about like illegal back alley race doesn't that not fit in immediately?

Bee/Polaris: Well, I mean, listen, pirates have dignity. I imagine some sort of like illegal organization has some sort of code of conduct as well you know? this is Space Vegas. It can't go on like this.

Chris/Ollie: Spagas.

Jenine/Marty: Spagas?

Bee/Polaris: Oh That’s pretty good!

Avery/GM: So let’s go back to docking bay twelve!

(race music fades out, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Bruce, you are being stared down by this tiger person. She speaks up and is just like, excuse me, what are you doing?

Caden/Bruce: Mopping the floor. And Bruce is continuing to mop and just like doesn't really look at. Just is more paying attention to what he's doing.

Avery/GM: Well, you're interfering with a Republic investigation next time Could you please not mop Right where I'm trying to arrest some space pirates?

Caden/Bruce: Sorry. It's my first day on the job and it's being pretty busy.

Avery/GM: Well, we had messaged Brago's Central Authority to tell them not to mess with this docking bay until we got down.

Caden/Bruce: To be fair, I have been cleaning up messes, not making messes. I'm sorry. I will move on to docking Bay 13 now then.

Avery/GM: fine. I'll get that ship later. And she turns to one of her soldiers and starts like giving orders of like, you know, contact the main ship and tell them to keep a lookout for this, for this vessel. And then they kind of just hurry out of the docking bay. Yeah. Where do you all want to have Hermes go? Do you, do you give hers any specific orders of where to go?

Bee/Polaris: back to docking Bay 12! No, I'm kidding.

Avery/GM: back to docking Bay 12.

Chris/Ollie: I mean that, that's actually pretty good idea. they already looked there.

Bee/Polaris: He wouldn't come back. Who would be stupid enough to try that?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah

Caden/Bruce: I mean, I was gonna say like if Hermes like hid behind an asteroid or something, that might be a little less… sus.

Avery/GM: Come pick y'all up later.

Bee/Polaris: He could join the race.

Avery/GM: oh god.

Chris/Ollie: Just hop in.

Avery/GM: Hermes piloting both ships.

Chris/Ollie: Hermes We need back up. Come on, shoot that gun. You like shooting at this, uh, shuttle That's chasing us!

Bee/Polaris: quick. Shoot into the Winston's private viewing box.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Immediately. Fire on my position, says Ollie. I'll be fine. Don't worry.

Bee/Polaris: Hermes would absolutely do that without heart… like a second thought.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that was actually really, I. I actually assumed y'all would have to have a firefight in docking bay 12. So that was very good.

Bee/Polaris: Wow. Who knew that wet floor signs were a universal help to all

Caden/Bruce: Bruce master of talking his way out of situations, yup!

Chris/Ollie: Bruce is a master of disguise. All right.

Bee/Polaris: Bruce is…

Bruce is infiltrated as a chef. Bruce is infiltrated as a janitor, infiltrated as a race watcher. Just chilling. Like

Bee/Polaris: a samples giver!

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. We've got, we've got an infiltrator on our team guys.

Caden/Bruce: you just gonna switch out the hats, thats all it is, right? Take off the chef. Bam. No longer a chef. Whoop!

Bee/Polaris: whoop.

Jenine/Marty: Whoop Whoop Whoop!

Avery/GM: So Bruce, as you, uh, are you exiting the docking bay or are you gonna keep mopping for a little bit and kind of like hold up the ruse?

Caden/Bruce: No. I think Bruce is actually gonna do what he said and go and stop, start mopping Docking Bay 13.

Avery/GM: Okay. You do come out at Docking Bay 12 and you do see one of those soldiers still posted up here as like a lookout. And you move on to docking Bay 13. And they kind of eye you for a minute, like to like, be like, okay, why were they here of all places? And then they see you go into Docking Bay 13 and they're just like, oh, they, they really are a janitor. Okay.

Caden/Bruce: Yep. Don't, don't be suspicious. Real janitor here!

Bee/Polaris: Nothing but janitorial duties.

Avery/GM: Hermes does take your advice and parks the ship on just a random, non occupied asteroid in this little asteroid belt here, Ollie, you

are in the private booth and Avi is still kind of moping and looks at you and it's just like, Can you believe Violet said that? Like, I'm not just a spoiled brat wasting my dad's money.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. This is a… Hmm... For Ollie, this is a yikesy situation.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. You've gotten yourself mixed into family drama.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. As a not quite understanding connections robot.

Avery/GM: You do have your virtual emotion simulator.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yes, I do have that in me at the moment.

Bee/Polaris: But you don't have your therapist Chip

Chris/Ollie: Actually, Ollie is gonna say, oh my apologies. I missed what she said. I was enthralled with the race.

Avery/GM: Avi rolls her eyes and it's just like, well, that’s probably for the best. You don't really want to get mixed up with the Winston family. We can be quite vengeful and conniving and backstabbing.

Chris/Ollie: Duly noted.

Bee/Polaris: sweating emoji in chat.

Avery/GM: But yeah, let's, let's enjoy the, the rest of the race. Your team is really pulling out all the stops out there. I think you might win this thing.

Chris/Ollie: Yes. Quite surprising the tricks the other teams had up their sleeves. We have doing exceedingly well, better than I expected. Thank you.

(flying sound effects, ambience fades out, racing music fades in)

Avery/GM: We'll go back to the race passing asteroid number three. You're coming up to the next obstacle in this race. It looks like some kind of old destroyed platform of some kind. Maybe looks like it probably was like an old defense platform for like a planetary system or something, but it looks kind of like torn to shreds and sort of, you know, broken apart over the years.

Zach/Zahn: Fun.

Bee/Polaris: How big is it?

Avery/GM: I would say it's probably about 50 feet wide by about maybe 300 feet long.

Jenine/Marty: Ooh, yoinks?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Are we about to fly through it?

Avery/GM: Yeah, like kind of like above it. Um, but there's like, but there are like some, like pieces of it that are kind of like floating around it that are kind of, you know, you'd have to maneuver around.

Bee/Polaris: Is it powered up?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, can Ollie like scan for some energy readings?

Avery/GM: Ollie, you can… You can scan for that. I think that would be a notice check, probably intelligence.

Chris/Ollie: Alright.

Avery/GM: And I think Polaris, since you are also on your ship, I think you could scan for that as well. Same check.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Intelligence notice.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: that's a good thing. I took a thing in notice.

Chris/Ollie: Same. I got a nine.

Bee/Polaris: I got a, I'm sorry. Math sucks. 11.

Chris/Ollie: Damn.

(scanning sound effect)

Avery/GM: Yeah. You both notice energy readings coming from all of the torpedo launchers that are still present on this platform.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. How many Ollies are, uh, free to take those over?

Chris/Ollie: I’ve got one in my body, one controlling the drones. One or two with you guys. So that's like 79.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, sweet. Can you use one of those 79 or a couple of those 79 to take over those torpedoes?

Chris/Ollie: Can I hack the torpedoes? Do we,

Bee/Polaris: is that a possibility?

Chris/Ollie: Do we have remote hacking capabilities

Bee/Polaris: or is that a, is there like a central kind of control panel that all he can hack into rather than spending all these?

Avery/GM: So I think what Zahn could do, or Polaris, if he could get out of the ship, would be to jump onto the platform and find a computer to hack. And they could plug like their helmet into the, well, no, cause they need their helmet to breathe.

Bee/Polaris: Nah, I can hold my breath.

Avery/GM: So I think, I think they would need to do the hacking themselves.

Zach/Zahn: If I can get like bonus, like assistances from, from Ollie, I can do that. I've got a proficiency in program. So…

Avery/GM: I think I, I think, I think I'd be fine with Ollie rolling to assist for hacking

Bee/Polaris: in our, um, energy reading scan, can we see where the most energy is being diverted to? Because that would probably be the computer, no?

Avery/GM: Yeah, you can tell that it's coming from like a central power source kind of near the middle of this platform.

Bee/Polaris: I can pull a Luke Skywalker and fly in there and then park my ship. I mean, I guess he didn't park his ship, but I guess… that'd be mildly unfortunate for him, but I could like park my ship and we can go on a quick grocery run.

Chris/Ollie: Well, I'm just worried about it shooting us on our way there. Ollie will just say, um, Zahn, if we can reach the center of the platform, I can redirect the torpedoes.

Zach/Zahn: Wait, you're saying there's still torpedoes in this thing?

Chris/Ollie: Very many of them.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, hells yeah. We can definitely make use of those. It's better than, uh, the idea of using my little, my little laser blade here and cutting off a wing of that shuttle. Yeah and then he taps on Polaris… Like on the view screen physically gives you the thumbs up.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris literally puts in chat. I can actually hear you guys like I heard the whole thing.

Zach/Zahn: You get the shrug emoji and him physically shrugging.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris rolls his eyes and then sends the, like eye roll emote and then to the, to the center of the platform!

Jenine/Marty: and you get a nice little heart emoji from Mar… Marty sends a heart emoji.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts in chat to a chat specifically for Marty, and I guess Hermes: BRB!

Zach/Zahn: BRB! Haha

Avery/GM: Okay!

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's gonna say, Marty, don't, don't be afraid to man the cannons if need be. You got this and gives the, like the, the, the strong arm.

Bee/Polaris: For an audio medium, we sure do use a lot of emojis.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say… So then I will need a strength exert check from Zahn to hold on. I know you have your mag boots, but like there's some stuff that's gonna happen. So I need that to happen. I need, I need you to, to roll that roll.

Zach/Zahn: Can I argue for it to be Dex instead? Go full. Go full matrix Bullet time with it?

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay, so you'll roll that. Polaris, I'll have you roll a dexterity pilot check.

Bee/Polaris: Sick, I'm good at that… In theory.

Zach/Zahn: Exert dexterity will be a grand total of six.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Woo dice. Keep rolling. On the twos and three side.

Bee/Polaris: did you say dexterity Pilot check?

Avery/GM: Yes, please.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, that's going to be a… nine.

Avery/GM: Okay… that's not good. So Marty, you see Zahn and Polaris start descending toward the platform (fly by sound effect) that is slightly below you and you see three of these torpedo launchers tracking Polaris's ship, and then they fire (torpedo launch sound effect)

Bee/Polaris: Uh Oh

Jenine/Marty: oh.

Chris/Ollie: I'm gonna be fine.

Jenine/Marty: Can I shoot at it? Can I attempt to shoot at the things that are trying to shoot at my friends?

Avery/GM: You can totally try and shoot. Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Cool.

Avery/GM: go ahead and roll Three dexterity, shoot checks.

Jenine/Marty: Three dexterity shoot. Okay. Wait…

Zach/Zahn: You got this Marty,

Jenine/Marty: I don't even,

Avery/GM: or you can roll three attack rolls if you'd prefer.

Jenine/Marty: What is the difference?

Avery/GM: Because that's just a straight d20. That'd be a straight D 20 plus Dex versus two D six plus Dex and shoot. So it might give you a slightly better advantage.

Jenine/Marty: think. I think we'll do, we'll do the attack roll cause I feel like that might be better. I have a zero in Dex cause it's either I get a negative one or just…

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: We’ll see. Okay, great. 18 is the first one on the D20.

Bee/Polaris: That’s pretty good

Chris/Ollie: Nice

Jenine/Marty: On the D20. The second one is eight.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: And the third one is a 12.

Avery/GM: Okay. You… Has Marty ever fired a weapon before?

Jenine/Marty: No. Well actually I feel like they might have like, Because she was going straight to like a military base. They probably gave her like very, very basics. Like if in danger and they put you somewhere, this is what you do. You know, like the baby, like… shooting gun for babies.

Zach/Zahn: you've, you've held a gun in one two hour training session.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: And most of that two hour and 58 minutes of that two hour training session was the basics. Holding a gun.

Jenine/Marty: It was very much safety training. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Cool.

Zach/Zahn: And then 10 minutes, was you shooting at a target that you probably never even came close to hitting.

Jenine/Marty: Probably 100%.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh.

Jenine/Marty: I have no Dexterity.

Avery/GM: Well, you managed to pull it off on this one, at least for two of them. You grab this little rotating laser cannon and you see in the chat, Hermes just say, just pull the trigger. You will be fine.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God.

Jenine/Marty: Uh huh.

Avery/GM: And (laser blast) you fire the first shot and it kind of goes wide and misses one of the torpedoes. but you fire the second and third shot and actually find your target (laser blasts) and you hit two of these torpedoes and they explode magnificently (explosion sound) in space. But this third one, Gets through and ends up hitting Polaris's ship.

Bee/Polaris: Now out of curiosity, cause I did just remember that I am flying a strike fighter. Can I shoot my weapon?

Avery/GM: Of course.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: I was just waiting for…

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: I may not always give you the exact thing that you can do, but you know,

Bee/Polaris: yeah, I, I completely forgot cause I was like, oh man, how am I gonna fly out of the way of this thing? And I was like, oh wait, I have weapons, I got a MES Beam. does a 16 hit?

Avery/GM: it would

Bee/Polaris: sick.

Avery/GM: Okay, so Marty blows two of these out of the way and you see on your radar the third one is still approaching. You know that if you get hit Zahn will probably get blown into space somewhere. Yes. And so

Zach/Zahn: That's fine. I've got my grapnel launcher.

Avery/GM: You shoot your laser to (laser blasts) keep you in Zahn from not getting exploded, and your mes beam finds its target and blows it up and you have a clear shot to the central computer on this platform.

(Race music fades out, Outro music plays and then fades down)

Avery/GM: 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. And be sure to follow us on Twitter and Tumblr @FurthestPod. Intro and outro Music by Dustin Carpenter.

Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution non-commercial license from Creative Commons. Tracks include Car Chase, Orbital Promenade, orbital platform, and Star Base Omega.

We'll be back on February 1st with our next episode. See you out there Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro Fades up, then plays out)

Episode 13 - Let the Race Begin!

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 13 of Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Intro Music plays, then fades out, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Okay. Everyone who is not participating in the race, what do you do as the race is about to start? I think that's just Bruce and Ollie, technically.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Bruce/Caden: Well, you said betting is illegal

Bee/Polaris: But everything's illegal here.

Zach/Zahn: Only technically, which means you can.

Bruce/Caden: I feel like Bruce would have gone back to the ship, removed the apron and the chef hat because according to Bruce, that's how you go incognito.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my heart.

Bruce/Caden: Gone back to like the racetrack and like tries to find somewhere to sit down so that he can watch what's gonna happen.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. We’ll say that you find a nice viewing spot that. Close to the front row. Not that it really matters because it's all gonna be displayed on like these big screens, but it's close to the front row near the starting line of the race. So you'll be able to see the initial launch of the shuttles with your friends on it.

Zach/Zahn: So you can watch us die , not even a hundred meters in.

Bruce/Caden: I think Bruce, he, he Bruce nervously like puts his tail on his lap and is like, kind of like squeezing it nervously. Kind of like you would like a fidget toy, just like, watching the ship intently and just like, not even blinking, just watching .

Zach/Zahn: I wish we had more time. I actually, I did come up with a list of mods I wanted to make.

Avery/GM: Well, like I said, you could pick three, so.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, there's more than three here. .

Jenine/Marty: Oh man.

Avery/GM: So Ollie, what are you doing while…Oh

Chris/Ollie: yeah, just uh oh, he's going to be making his way as Pseudo participant making his way back to, uh, the, the private booths. He's gonna have cleaned himself, like stepped through the robot, pressure washer , where, wherever the closest one is because, uh, he's absolutely filthy. He hasn't washed himself since his last maintenance. So on the hegemony,

Avery/GM: Sure

Chris/Ollie: he's gonna clean himself up, get all pretty head back to the. Where he left Avi and, uh, knock on the door. (knocking sound)

Avery/GM: Sure. The door opens (door opening sound) and there's this big burly humanoid person standing there looking all intimidating. And it's just like, no robots. And it goes to shut the door. And you hear behind him, oh, no, no, Charlie. That, that one's fine. That one's fine. Come in dear Ollie. Come in, come meet my cousins.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's gonna step through the. And, uh, uh, greet Avi and say, my apologies. The work of a walking wrench is never done and I simply couldn't present myself to your esteemed family in that state. Referring to his dirty chassis, he's in a motion to himself.

Bee/Polaris: Did he get like a dry erase marker and put like a little draw, bow tie on

Chris/Ollie: a monocle and a and a handlebar mustache.

Bee/Polaris: That'd be so cute.

Avery/GM: She motions to two other finely dressed tiger people and motions to one and says, this is lapis. They actually live with my aunt and uncle back on Olympia, but they decided to drop in today for today's race. Isn't that just so sweet? And she gestures to the other one and is like, and this is Violet.

She just graduated from the officer's academy back in the republic. She's going to, she's, she's already jumped ranks. She's going to be a general already. Isn't that amazing? Like who becomes a general right after graduating? It's so cool.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Who I wonder people?

Bee/Polaris: Rich people.

Avery/GM: Mm.

Bee/Polaris: Haha.

Jenine/Marty: What is that like well… What?

Avery/GM: Corruption Never. And Ollie Violet just gives you kind of this Kurt nod, not as, she's not as welcoming or friendly as Avi seems to be.

Chris/Ollie: Do I notice any signs of them recognizing me?

Avery/GM: You do not.

Chris/Ollie: Then I'll, uh, read them politely and. You know, give the usual banter like, oh yes, Avi has told me so much!

Bee/Polaris: Has she?

Chris/Ollie: Well, she, she's been talking to me for two hours straight about her family, so

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true!

Avery/GM: And then we pan down to the docking bay of the race track, So Polaris, you are put on a quick little vessel and shuttled across to asteroid number one, (shuttle flying noise) which I will move the map. There we go. Yeah. So this is a very rough drawing, but the start is the main asteroid that you are on for Bragos. You are shuttled across to asteroid two or to asteroid one where your fighter ship has been brought as well from The docking bay over here to, uh, the race and you are sitting there waiting for the race to start and you see that there are other bays with other fighter ships waiting for the signal to start as well.

Avery/GM: Marty and Zahn you are placed on the shuttle for Big Fred and big Fred points to a big red button on the control panel and says, Now if you, if you find that someone decides to play dirty and shoot at your shuttle, just push this button. It'll engage a really powerful deflector shield that should fire the weapons back at the shuttle that's firing at you. So use it carefully though. It's only got like three charges. So essentially this has an experimental shield that can double as basically a way to deflect attacks back at the attacker.

Jenine/Marty: It's like a mirror, right? Like if someone tried to laser us. That's just lasers back.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet!

Zach/Zahn: its like rubber and they’re glue.

Avery/GM: Yeah, exactly.

Jenine/Marty: and we get three charges. Got it. Everyone had an experimental thing. Someone was just promoting it. Oh my goodness

Avery/GM: yep!

Chris/Ollie: Well, someone's experimental thing is, seems a lot more practical and a bit less hazardous. . .

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Does it have any, uh, other weapons on it?

Avery/GM: It has. Oh gosh, I wrote that down

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Did we do anything with Hermes?

Jenine/Marty: We were supposed to

Bee/Polaris: Where’s that guy?

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. Actually,

Jenine/Marty: isn't he piloting the ship?

Avery/GM: You can totally put him in the shuttle if you want.

Jenine/Marty: Could, could we? I feel like that might be a little helpful.

Zach/Zahn: that was more than, uh, our combined minus one’s in piloting.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah yeah yeah.

Zach/Zahn: We’ll not get through this.

Bee/Polaris: does Hermes have the same, same capability of like where we can split his chaos emerald and put it in the shuttle and leave part of it in the ship? Or is that just an ollie thing?

Avery/GM: No, he does.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool. We should do that

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Just in case the shuttle blows up.

Jenine/Marty: just in case-ies!

Zach/Zahn: Is there a split consciousness thing that Ollie… like Ollie can do that, we can do that.

Chris/Ollie: Well this is just in case he dies.

Jenine/Marty: Can Ollie die?

Chris/Ollie: Like the ship explodes.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Because if the chaos emerald's gone and there's no, there's no back up, he dead.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. There's, there's no Hermes.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha.

Avery/GM: I will also, well, you guys okay. It's weird. I, I gave you the information, but you wouldn't technically know that about Hermes.

Bee/Polaris: know what?

Jenine/Marty: About Hermes?

Avery/GM: And you might not have even caught it, so I'll just shut up.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, about the, about him.Like splitting. Splitting the Hermes.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So that little flashback I did with the hegemony, one of them mentioned a backup reloading if the AI had been destroyed.

Bee/Polaris: Oh

Chris/Ollie: oh yeah, that's right!

Bee/Polaris: So there's already another Hermes.

Chris/Ollie: Well, I've been, meaning I keep forgetting, but I'm meaning been meaning to have Ollie examine his chaos emerald to see if it's actually whole. Because like I, I tried to cut mine, so if, if the Winston’s tried to look at it, they're like, oh yeah, this is whole, we can just kill him kind of thing.

Avery/GM: Yeah, I could say that you could totally roll for that and say that you did that earlier.

Chris/Ollie: Sure.

Think it'd be an intelligence notice check.

Bee/Polaris: Cutting your emerald could have reminded Ollie.

Chris/Ollie: where did my stats go? Notice you say?

Avery/GM: yes, please.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. That is a. Where is it? 10.

Avery/GM: So the thing you notice about Hermes is Emerald, is that it's about 49% smaller than yours.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. But it looks normal. It's just smaller.

Avery/GM: It's smaller. It looks well. The fact that it's smaller means that it's probably been cut.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Well, I, I would've relayed this information at the time.

Bee/Polaris: does that mean we can't cut it again?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Avery/GM: you could. It's just, you can cut it multiple times, right Chris?

Chris/Ollie: I don't think so

Zach/Zahn: so. You can cut it multiple times, but it would, hypothetically, you could cut it multiple times, but it would still go to the biggest piece, right?

Chris/Ollie: well, because I was thinking about like having, like whore cruxes pretty much all around the galaxy, wherever we go, but it's, I can't find it right now, but I think it says you can only have one cut.

Avery/GM: I think you might be right. I was trying to find it in the book

Chris/Ollie: because I would literally like break off pieces and just like throw 'em into evac pods and yeah. Be like, I am immortal , I spam the galaxy. I will never die!

Bee/Polaris: We are Ollie, we are many. Okay. Um, I mean, I do have the, the, the Hermes communication thing in Polaris's helmet would. is, would that allow Hermes to take control of the shuttle? But I wouldn't be able to talk to Hermes. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So I'd say yes, you could do that, but yeah, you'd lose your communication with Hermes during the race.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. So hear me out. Hear

me out.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Jenine/Marty: You put Hermes helmet on Marty. Marty will telepathically link with you and we will do this fun little game of telephone.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, it's like a, it's like a u s. and not the whole helmet.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Nevermind!

Bee/Polaris: Nevermind. . . I mean presumably Hermes is like in the shuttle can talk to you guys, right?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. That could boo, that could get, that can negate our negative ones, possibly.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. So if Hermes is in the shuttle, Hermes can pilot the shuttle and then you can just, you know, chit chat with me.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, Wait, so are we taking Hermes with us?

Bee/Polaris: Well, you guys need to so that Hermes can fly the shuttle. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Okay. Okay. Cool. Cool, cool. Great. Good. Everything's fine.

Bee/Polaris: It's, it's more like

Zach/Zahn: or Hermes sadly ends up in the hands of the enemy again and half of us have to re-roll characters. It's all good.

Jenine/Marty: No, it's fine. Yeah Yeah Yeah yeah!

Bee/Polaris: Well, is still in the ship ship, but the, the little USB that Polaris has allows Hermes to like be in his helmet, right? Is that how that works?

Avery/GM: It basically acts as like a relay between your ship's chaos Emerald and wherever this little plugin is plugged in at.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, yeah. So then could, so hers could then use the like pilot shuttle?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Cool.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Okay. Okay. So what we have, okay. Long story short, we have Hermes, Hermes is with us in big Freds… In Big Fred’s shuttle. Got it. Great. And big floods. Um, shuttle. Got it. Great.

Bee/Polaris: Yes

Jenine/Marty: Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool Cool!

Avery/GM: Zahn, You asked about

Zach/Zahn: other weaponry.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Your other weapons. This is the weapon that comes on the

Zach/Zahn: shuttle.

Avery/GM: The shuttle, yes. Thank you. Sorry about that. I'm trying to format it a little bit better because it pasted weird.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, gotcha. I mean, part of my plan was already to use the, uh, grappling hook to like pull debris into ships around.

Bee/Polaris: Sick, cool.

Zach/Zahn: Or pull other ships into each other or vice versa and shit like that.

Chris/Ollie: Yes. There are many plans.

Bee/Polaris: I was gonna ask if spotters can only fight other spotters, they can't attack shuttles, yeah?

Avery/GM: One of the few rules is don't attack the shuttle with your spotter ship.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Okay. Sick. Cool.

Zach/Zahn: yeah. Our, who is our spotter? Is it the drones?

Avery/GM: No.

Bee/Polaris: Hi, me.

Chris/Ollie: yeah.

Jenine/Marty: No, it's

Bee/Polaris: me. Hi. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Spotter is the fighter.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'm, I'm flying. Yeah. You guys are in the shuttle and I'm gonna be in little bear flying around and shooting obstacles and stuff.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha. So the race is for the shuttle to get to the thing first?

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: Got it. Now I'm on board.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet, sick.

Zach/Zahn: See, I thought this whole time that Polaris was actually the one racing and we were the support.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that's, that's what I also thought!

Avery/GM: Sorry I did not explain that very well.

Chris/Ollie: No, it's all good.

Bee/Polaris: You're fine.

Zach/Zahn: No, no, no. You're totally fine. It was my misinterpretation. .

Jenine/Marty: No, cause my brain was like, oh yeah, big shit mean support and little shit means zoom, zoom, not the other way around. That's how my brain translated it and did not wanna translate anything else.

Avery/GM: Bruce, before we get started, please roll a percentage dice.

Jenine/Marty: What? is this weather? You throwing Weather at us?

Chris/Ollie: No, this is his… Yeah

Bee/Polaris: No, it's whether or not the other people shit their pants.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Or their per... or the amount of shit in everyone's pants.

Avery/GM: Oh my God.

Zach/Zahn: How many of the crew are okay with there being shit in their pants

Avery/GM: big shit

Bee/Polaris: Hundred percent shit in the pants.

Zach/Zahn: Wait, hold on.

Avery/GM: Bruce? What's that percentage roll?

Bruce/Caden: It's uh, 92.

Avery/GM: 92. Oh my God.

Bee/Polaris: that's a lot of shit in the pants. ,

Zach/Zahn: that's a lot of pants…

Bruce/Caden: I, I assumed by percentage roll. You wanted me to roll two D 10, so that's what I did.

Avery/GM: Yes, yes. That's totally fine. Okay, so let me see here. 92. Okay, that is really high.

Bruce/Caden: Yeah.

Avery/GM: So originally you saw teams of three For each of these, each of these teams, the shuttles start lining up and you see that each shuttle only has one person, not including the pilot.

Bee/Polaris: let's go.

Zach/Zahn: Sucks to suck, bro.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I hope they have enough bathrooms to accommodate.

Avery/GM: So Bruce, you have effectively given your team the leg up that it needs. . .

Bruce/Caden: That's that. That was the hope.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Operation Jamie shit pants!

Bruce/Caden: I feel like from the stands, this just looks like. You know, Bruce is sitting down and just every so often someone like stands up and is like, excuse me, excuse me. Just don't mind me. Don't mind me. And just like rushing to the bathroom, like there's just a huge long line and Bruce is sitting there and just feeling sorry.

Zach/Zahn: reveling in it?

Bruce/Caden: No, Bruce feels bad,

Avery/GM: And you hear the announcer come on and they're like, welcome everybody to today's pendulum of Doom Death Race, sponsored by assembles singles. We are here to bring you an exciting race. Hopefully that will not result in any deaths or dismemberments. Remember, it's been 36 days since our last fatal crash!

Zach/Zahn: That's actually pretty good.

Jenine/Marty: That’s not bad!

Bee/Polaris: That’s not bad! How often do they have races?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah?

Bruce/Caden: is there like often clock that tells you that like, you know, 31 days since last crash?

Avery/GM: they totally have like a little leaderboard. Yep.

Bruce/Caden: Good. Good. Good, good, good.

Jenine/Marty: What are they running like three races a day or something like that? Maybe. I don't know.

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: Wow! Look at them go!

Bee/Polaris: that's… that's pretty good.

Jenine/Marty: That's pretty good.

Avery/GM: 36 days since the last time someone fatally crashed because like as a reminder, if you are about to crash, they do have a team of teleportation, psychics standing by to teleport you out of danger before you blow up. And they have a pretty high success rate.

Zach/Zahn: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: okay. That makes everything I'm about to do feel a lot better. . Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: I, I almost took teleportation

Zach/Zahn: Marty over here. I almost have teleportation.

Jenine/Marty: I al I really did almost take it. I won't lie. And then I was like, mm. But telepathy,

Zach/Zahn: telepathy is better.

Avery/GM: Telepathy fits the build better though.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah. A hundred percent fits the build better.

Avery/GM: And yeah, you see red light and it flashes (engines revving) and it flashes, and then it flashes yellow and then green (engage sound) and. Oh, I guess Hermes has to roll the pilot check.

Jenine/Marty: Can we assist in some way?

Avery/GM: If you wanna grab the controls and help Hermes Yeah, go for it.

Chris/Ollie: With a minus one?

Bee/Polaris: Hermes was a ship.

Jenine/Marty: Could I like do like, can I give like go Hermes go, woo!?

Bee/Polaris: Aw .

Avery/GM: You wanna give Hermes some moral support?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Uh, sure. Go ahead and roll a charisma connect.

Jenine/Marty: Yay.

Zach/Zahn: How are we Doing this? I pulled up the Ship Combat Actions page cause I didn't know how we were roleplaying this.

Avery/GM: So I'm rolling. Pilot checks for each one of the racers and that'll determine turn order. And then based on your role play and kind of your actions that you take in response to the other racers that will determine how this goes.

Bruce/Caden: I find it very hard to believe that no pilot would've had a pie. Just sayin!

Avery/GM: I will say this, there were four teams that you interacted with. There are currently only three teams here.

Chris/Ollie: Pilots are already sitting down anyway

Zach/Zahn: Also, it's also entirely possible that the person in the pilot's chair is not the designated pilot.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. . They're improvising.

Avery/GM: This is also true.

Jenine/Marty: The bench player.

Zach/Zahn: It's one of those, like they're sponsored. They have to be out there. The poor gunner guy who's never been behind the pilot seat is probably the guy in the pilot seat.

Jenine/Marty: I rolled a 10, so that's a, that's a plus one.

Avery/GM: Yep. Okay. That bumps Hermes up to a nine.

Jenine/Marty: Hey!

Bee/Polaris: Let's go.

Jenine/Marty: Let's go.

Avery/GM: Okay, so the initiative order is Professor Infiniti's race.

Jenine/Marty: We need to stay away from that.

Bee/Polaris: Rip

Avery/GM: Hermes.

Bee/Polaris: Yay, Hermes!

Jenine/Marty: Yay Hermes!

Avery/GM: The Assembles sponsored Racer

Bruce/Caden: Boo.

Avery/GM: and the lucky tentacle’s racer. You knocked out Fred's team. Little Fred's team.

Bee/Polaris: Fuck yeah, Fuck that guy.

Zach/Zahn: Oh man. I was kind of hoping that we would accidentally blow up the hoverbike we just traded him.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true.

Jenine/Marty: Oh Rip!

Avery/GM: I let the dice decide which one you took out, so.

Zach/Zahn: Got it.

Bee/Polaris: Well…

Zach/Zahn: That's fair.but the mystery continues cause you said that nobody knew who his,

Bee/Polaris: Oh True!

Zach/Zahn: Who his pilot was.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Bee/Polaris: The only thing we know about them now is that they have, nevermind, sorry.

(Ambience fades out, race music fades in)

Avery/GM: So you are off to the races. Uhhuh, , Polaris. The spotters go after the shuttles clear. The first asteroid. Okay, so

Zach/Zahn: because the fighters are far faster.

Bee/Polaris: indeed.

Avery/GM: You all take off and see Professor Infinity is actually on his shuttle.

Bee/Polaris: Oh.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Avery/GM: It's very weird for a sponsor to join their racers in the race. But you see Professor Infinity, two electrodes in hand, electrified, (electricity sounds) like holding them together, laughing maniacally as his Pilotless shuttle takes off ahead of you and pulls ahead, followed closely by Hermes, Marty and Zahn.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: And then the lucky tentacle shuttle, which actually looks like a floating squid, like the octopus. Uh

Zach/Zahn: oh nice!

Avery/GM: With a bunch of tentacles. And it's closing in behind you. (Engine sounds) but it's still lagging behind a bit. And then behind them all is what looks like a large, just like flatbed that's pulling some kind of heavy weight behind it. (Ship noises)

Bee/Polaris: Interesting.

Avery/GM: It's a very weird looking, uh, shuttle compared to all these other ones that are out here. And so you're approaching the first obstacle, which is this junk cloud. It's a cluttered mess of busted up ships, rocks, and other debris. Clearly, this has been where a lot of other ships have fallen a foul early in the race. So there's a couple of ways you could approach this. You could try and shoot some of the debris. You could trust Hermes to pilot through it by himself, or you could try and take controls to do a better job pilot. So we'll start with Professor Infinity.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. I wanna see what Professor Infinity Ship does since we're behind it.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Laurel rolled a 14 for its pilot check.

Bee/Polaris: Jesus Christ

Jenine/Marty: Superstar!

Chris/Ollie: Laurel’s a beast!

Avery/GM: You see this AI pilot ship, it weaves smoothly through every single piece of big debris here, almost as if it were able to scan the entire debris field and find the perfect route through it. Professor Infinity, just cackles as he clears through the debris field, just mwa ha ha ha ha. but you can't hear that because he's in a space suit.

Jenine/Marty: Now I have a question. I can see Professor Infinity. Yes.

Avery/GM: Yep.

Jenine/Marty: Would I be able to transmit thought and make it look like an asteroid is about to hit him? Like, like transmit that thought into (magic sound effect) professor Infiniti's head, making it think that the AI has failed and is about to crash them into an asteroid of making him, uh, have to, uh, take control.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. Hijacking the eyeballs.

Avery/GM: yeah, you could. I believe Professor Infiniti gets to make a mental save for that.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, he does. And, uh, I believe he has to go against my thing.

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: right? Do I roll something?

Avery/GM: No, no, no, no. It's just whatever your mental save would be.

Chris/Ollie: A battle of the minds.

Avery/GM: He rolled a four, so he fails

Bee/Polaris: sick.

Jenine/Marty: Let's go.

Avery/GM: So Professor Infinity is enjoying the moment real quick of this initial victory. Then all of a sudden you see him throw his electrodes down onto the deck of the shuttle. and they go quiet and still, (electricity discharge) and he runs up to the front of the shuttle and he grabs the controls and you see it kind of start to swerve and swerve and swerve back and forth. (ship swerving sounds) And he basically starts slowing down. The AI slows the shuttle down because, uh, he's putting them both in danger. And you have pulled ahead of Professor Infinity. It is your turn. Marty, since you did transmit thought, I'm gonna say that was your main action.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. I didn't think that was gonna work. Ha ha.

Avery/GM: Brilliant Thinking that was really good. Okay, so it is your turn. Next, let's see. How is your team wanting to approach this asteroid field or this junk field?

Chris/Ollie: Also real quick, uh, about this time, Ollie will is going to, uh, commit a cognition and use split focus and insert himself, uh, digitally into the helmets of both Polaris and, uh, Zahn.

Avery/GM: Okay. You're there.

Bee/Polaris: Sick.

Chris/Ollie: So I reread this real quick. and I didn't realize that it, the amount of minds that I can split my focus into triples with every level.

Jenine/Marty: Oh?

Zach/Zahn: Triples!?

Chris/Ollie: So there's theoretically 81 Ollies right now. I, uh, I had misread that before. So that is, um, uh, so there's 81 of my, of me in the internet out there somewhere right now.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, Jesus Christ. They're learning.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, it is only begun.

Avery/GM: Okay, Ultron!

Chris/Ollie: I mean… oh, next level will be 23.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go .

Chris/Ollie: And that's only for one focus, cause each, each additional, uh, focus I put on it times it by 10.or 10 for the first 100 for the third.

Bee/Polaris: Oh wow. We don't need that many Ollies.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, eventually we might. the Legion is here.

Bee/Polaris: True. I mean, I guess when we get like, uh, what is it, a capital cruiser or some of the space station

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we're gonna need a whole crew.

Bee/Polaris: We are gonna need a lot of Ollies

Chris/Ollie: I could just be the crew.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: So yeah, I'm inserting myself into the, uh, into the scene, uh, wherever do you want me to roll initiative?

Avery/GM: No, the only initiatives is the Ship initiative. Oh. So if you wanna take an action, go for it.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, while I'm gonna wait on that, I'm just gonna say hello everyone. I have arrived.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris Types. Uh, capital a a a a a a a h h h h h h h h h. Exclamation point.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Oh, and also like visually on your helmet, my eyes are just like in the bottom.Just doing their usual thing. Looking around

Bee/Polaris: Ollie… Nice.

Zach/Zahn: Nice. Zahn is going to take hold of the, the laser and start trying to shoot out some of the, the stuff too to clear path to make it easier for, uh, to her for Hermes to get through.

Avery/GM: Sure. Go ahead and. Three shoot checks, dexterity, shoot checks.

Zach/Zahn: I'm good at shoot. 10, eight and four.

Avery/GM: Woo-hoo. The four was just barely enough. I put it as a low number, so.

Zach/Zahn: I, I had hoped that the first two would be good enough to to make it better.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you blast three good size chunks of space debris into little tiny dust particles and create a nice, easy path through the field. And that actually what helps you pull ahead of Professor Infinity as you clear this debris field, it's gonna roll two more pilot checks for…

Okay, so you see the lucky tentacle shuttle swirl through this debris cloud and get hit a couple of times by some pretty big, sizable pieces of debris. And you see two little flash points on the, on the tentacles, uh, on the ends of the tentacles. Indicating that something has been destroyed on those, but it has cleared through the cheese whizz or not cheese whizz… The assembles vehicle actually just cuts a path through the same hole that you made as it brings up the rear.

Bee/Polaris: Am I also, is Polaris also moving on the same turn as the other ship?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. Once you're introduced, your turn will be on the same turn as the rest of the crew.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. My second question was gonna be if spotters were introduced.

Avery/GM: I was just getting to that

Bee/Polaris: sick.

Avery/GM: Yeah, so you have cleared the first obstacle and you're coming up to the little gate that you have to clear to get. Basically, you have to clear all five checkpoints. You're coming up to the first checkpoint, and because Professor Infinity was delayed, you passed through the ship first and Polaris. You see your docking bay. Open and you are ready to go.

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Polaris will wait until the Hermes shuttle passes by and (Shuttle flying sound) he'll, he'll linger around the shuttle.

Avery/GM: Sure. You're piloting kind of close to your shuttle. A females pass by and Professor Infinity's sail through and their spotter comes out. Their spotter is a, a similarly weird looking ship that's basically just like, It's basically shaped like a giant gun.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, cool. Oh, good.

Zach/Zahn: So it's a season, season one optimist prime, right where he is. Just walk a giant walking cannon.

Avery/GM: Basically, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I was thinking just like a big floating nine millimeter.

Avery/GM: That works too. Sure. And then the lucky tentacle passes through and the spotter for their ship comes out and it's just like a tiny two tentacle little squid looking fighter.

Bee/Polaris: Aww. A baby squid.

Avery/GM: And then as the shuttle with assembles passes through, A pretty bulky sized fighter comes out and it is also hauling a container behind it.

Bee/Polaris: Interesting.

Zach/Zahn: Uh-oh.

Bee/Polaris: maybe when they pass by the audience, it releases cheese.

Jenine/Marty: positive thinking, very positive thinking. ,

Avery/GM: and yeah. You are approaching the second asteroid, Polaris. Actually Ollie, you would notice it first on the, on the little layout screen that you see a little, you see a little flashing symbol on the radar that seems to indicate that there was a magnetic minefield ahead.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm?

Chris/Ollie: Ooh. Yeah. Same, same reaction.

Bee/Polaris: Are we.

Avery/GM: Mines of magnets!

Jenine/Marty: mines, not mind. Got it.

Chris/Ollie: Mind field.

Avery/GM: So Yeah. Sorry.

Zach/Zahn: Mind Magnets!

Jenine/Marty: I got real scared. I got real scared there for a second. I'm like uh oh!

Bee/Polaris: psychic Magnets.

Jenine/Marty: Uh oh. They're gonna see that I'm doing telepathy right now. Oops!

Bee/Polaris: question are is aha in first place?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool. when Polaris, uh, well, does Ollie inform Polaris since he's the one that, okay, cool.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's not gonna say anything, but he's just gonna ping all of the mines that he scanned on the heads up display.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Sick.

Avery/GM: yeah, you noticed it shortly after, Polaris.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Just robots are a little faster than humans.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Okay. Now I have several questions. . Um, first question, is there someone like in close second, or are we pretty decently ahead?

Zach/Zahn: Dr. Infinity’s right behind us.

Avery/GM: Professor Infiniti is a good distance behind you, but yeah, if. That's second place.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.Second question. Spotters are not allowed to attack shuttles, correct?

Avery/GM: Correct. But you may attack other spotters.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. It is specifically written that spotters cannot attack shuttles. Correct?

Avery/GM: (exasperated sigh) You're clever. Yes. That is the explicit way the rule is written.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. Polaris is gonna say to, uh, Hermes and whoever else is on the shuttle get into second place.

Jenine/Marty: Oh? Ohhh okay.

Bee/Polaris: and he's gonna wait.

Jenine/Marty: I see, I see what's happening.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Get in a second place. Blue Shell incoming.

Jenine/Marty: Rip to the professor!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna wait until Professor’s shuttle is in front.

Zach/Zahn: That's frankly kind of funny cause my, my plan was to like use the, use the gun to shoot like, . And then with the third one, use the Grapnel launcher to like latch onto a grenade and whip it at something else.

Bee/Polaris: Hey, I gotta, I got you. I got you. That's it. you can still do that to whoever is in third.

Jenine/Marty: but Oh yeah, we can, we still got that. Okay. So yeah, we'll back...

Zach/Zahn: I still wanna do that.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah. We'll back up. , you gotta, you gotta act, you gotta, um, action economy.

Bee/Polaris: so just gonna wait until professors, you know, getting, getting to the field.

Avery/GM: Okay. Does someone communicate that to Ollie or not To Ollie, to Hermes, because Hermes is under the impression that y'all wanna win.

Bee/Polaris: Oh I thought

Jenine/Marty: he’s in chat Hermes can… I’m the only one that’s out of chat.

Avery/GM: Oh, Hermes is, oh, okay.

Bee/Polaris: No, you still have chat. You have a watch.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: Oh, okay. That's fine then. Yeah. Hermes says affirmative. I will slow down. And do you feel the shuttle like, just kind of almost come to a stop?

Bee/Polaris: No… Okay.

Jenine/Marty: make it look, make it look like we're still, um, in the competition a little bit. 2, 2, 2 notches. You know, like how in the Incredibles they go like second place, second place at the end of the movie. That's, that's, that's, that's how Marty’s trying to communicate this right now.

Zach/Zahn: oh, right. Where they're trying to make, have dash, slow down.

Chris/Ollie: dash run slower.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Jenine/Marty: That's what I'm doing. Second place, second place.

Bee/Polaris: don't give up!

Avery/GM: Hermes says, oh, I see we are playing a ruse?

Jenine/Marty: Yes. I cannot believe we're doing this to this small little child.

Avery/GM: Hermes speeds Back up a little bit and you see Professor Infinity who has recovered from his sudden fear of asteroids is just cackling again, just as he passes by you.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. So when he passes by, I, can I take my action now or are we, are there other things that need to happen?

Avery/GM: go for it. Unless someone else needs to do something before you do what you are gonna do.

Jenine/Marty: I will happily do it again. Do the whole. Scary, scary things to, to the, can I do it to the cheese one? The Krafts… Krafts one, not the Krafts. The assembles.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: The assembles cheese is all the way in fourth place. Like

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Well, I'm scared of, I'm scared of What's up with that?

Bee/Polaris: the, the weird thing.

Zach/Zahn: The hauler?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. I'm a little scared of that. So could I, could I like

Bruce/Caden: you just wanna grate them a little bit?

Jenine/Marty: Could I in the brains of whoever's piloting the, the assembles one? Just make it look like an explosion happened in front of them? (magic sound)

Avery/GM: Yeah, they'll roll their save. How much effort have you committed already today?

Jenine/Marty: so this is, I'm currently committing only on my, uh, I can commit all day with

Avery/GM: Oh, that's right,

Jenine/Marty: telepathy. And I'm just keeping it on telepathy for today cause there's, Things. So I'm only, I've only been doing one, have I? I, and this one is just a thing that I…

Avery/GM: Oh, okay. You're fine.

Jenine/Marty: Two-way communication with a willing target as an instant action when desired. So, yeah.

Avery/GM: And unwilling to just have to make us save.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool, cool. Well, they rolled a 15.

Jenine/Marty: Dang it.

Bee/Polaris: Well,

Jenine/Marty: oops.

Chris/Ollie: the fortress of the mind.

Jenine/Marty: You just hear Marty go oopsies. And then just like dips back down into the , into the pit.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent.

Jenine/Marty: That's it.

Bee/Polaris: Does anyone else need to do something?

Zach/Zahn: so for Zahn, I actually have a different idea. I wanna do Two things. One is the, the whipping, the mine, and the other is waiting for Polaris to do their thing and then boost the engine. So we go zooming past, uh, professor Infinity.

Bee/Polaris: My thing is to clear a path for you guys.

Zach/Zahn: Perfect.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. So have any of you ever been like in a, a thunderstorm where it's like basically raining side?

Jenine/Marty: I'm sorry, what? It does that?

Bee/Polaris: what? Oh yeah, you're from Cal. Wait, are you from Cali?

Jenine/Marty: Yes. We're eternally in a drought.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, right, right. Okay. So sometimes the thunderstorms and it rains so hard that it rains sideways and the wind is like, the wind's just like super strong and so the rain is like just coming at you. So usually what

Zach/Zahn: I used to live in Kentucky for a little bit, so yeah, I've seen that.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Sounds terrifying.

Bee/Polaris: My plan is kind of what you do when you put the umbrella in front of you. So what Polaris wants to do is win. Doc is going past, he's going to fly a little bear underneath the shuttle and then angle his boosters so that he's like going like, Straight through like making a clearing a path.

Avery/GM: Oh my god.

Bee/Polaris: He's pushing him.

Chris/Ollie: You're gonna use him as a battering ram?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, he's pushing him through the mines.

Avery/GM: You're not attacking the shuttle.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my god.

Avery/GM: Okay. This is gonna take the fanciest freaking flying check I've ever seen.

Bee/Polaris: That's fine. I'm a specialist.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: So what is it piloting plus?

Avery/GM: Dexterity and pilot. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Also, can I assist being, uh, get a little AI assist?

Bee/Polaris: I mean, sure. If you wanna just make it cooler cause I rolled really well.

Chris/Ollie: Oh well if you've got it, then go.

Bee/Polaris: No, no, no. Make it cool. do you wanna assist?

Avery/GM: You can roll Chris. That's fine.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, okay. Yeah. I, I didn't hear whether it was a,

Avery/GM: Oh sorry, I…

Chris/Ollie: what kind of roll is that?

Avery/GM: Yeah, it'll be a dexterity pilot check

Chris/Ollie: pilot Dex. Okay, well I got a, uh, comes out to a three

Bee/Polaris: Ah.

Chris/Ollie: So my, my skill pales in comparison to the True Master. I’m like trying to help And you're just, Polaris is just like Shut up.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You get the idea of helping and like you're about to be like, according to my calculations, and then Polaris just does it. Polaris Describe this really cool maneuver.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. so first off, I did, uh, because I'm a specialist, I can roll three D-6 and drop the lowest. I rolled two sixes and a four . So that's a total of plus dex 13… oh wait, sorry. No, no, no. Uh, it's actually 15

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna say… oh right.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. 15. Yeah, that's right.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I forgot to add pilot.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my gosh.

Bee/Polaris: So Polaris is gonna wait like when the shuttle slows down cuz Polaris has been hovering by the shuttle. the, the his team's shuttle. When Doc goes past Polaris is going to speed up and get right underneath his shuttle and then angle it upward so it's at a 90 degree angle and he's going to change the direction of his boosters to fly as fast as he can through the minefield to clear a path.

Avery/GM: Yeah, so Professor Infinity rolled a nine for his evasion save. He did not save . So as you do this, you see this vac suited helmeted figure bounce off the shuttle (metal ping) and go flying past you into space (swoosh).

Zach/Zahn: This is why you get mag boots!

Bee/Polaris: He'll be all right.

Chris/Ollie: Should’ve bought the grappling hook.

Avery/GM: And you do see a little flash of light as Professor Infinity is teleported safely, and you do see a little flash of light as professor infinity is teleported to safety. And yeah, you pilot this now Person-less shuttle craft through the minefield. Are you staying with the ship this whole time or do you just back off after you send it into the minefield?

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris is going to give it enough speed to where if he does detach, uh, it'll still sail in the same direction with difficulty to correct itself, assuming it's not covered in magnetic mines.

Avery/GM: Well, that's why I asked because as soon as you kind of back off of it, it goes into this minefield and you just see mine after mine start to get attracted (lock on sound) to it and start blowing it up. (explosions)

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will say on Comms “Follow Me!” to the rest of the crew.

Jenine/Marty: All right!

Avery/GM: so now Professor Infinity has been knocked out of the race.

Bee/Polaris: Yay

Bruce/Caden: Bruce in the audience is clapping .

Bee/Polaris: Aw.

Jenine/Marty: Golf Clap!

Avery/GM: Zahn, You were going to do something after Polaris did that, right?

Zach/Zahn: Yes, if there were any, I wanted to do the two things, the, if there were any, Like remaining mines. I want to grappling hook one, uh, and fling it into, uh, whoever's behind us.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, they are magnetic.

Avery/GM: This is a huge minefield, so it'll, yeah. Yeah. But I will say that, yeah, it's magnetic, so it will get attracted to the nearest metal object.

Jenine/Marty: That's terrifying.

Chris/Ollie: including your grappling hook

Zach/Zahn: My, my grappling hook is also magnetic.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Avery/GM: So it'll,

Chris/Ollie: so you'll you'll try and let it go and it's just, it'll be like Nope!

Zach/Zahn: Oh, I, I, I, I've modified it so I'm able to detach when I want to.

Bee/Polaris: But will it, will that?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, but will, the mine would detach.

Bee/Polaris: Well, if, if you, the mine attaches the grappling hook and the grappling hook is magnetic. Can you change the polarity of your grappling hook so it's the, the same as the magnet and it'll propel it away from your grappling hook.

Zach/Zahn: I wanna say yes?

Chris/Ollie: That sounds pretty smart. Yes. This is, this is the future, I would say, yeah,

Avery/GM: reverse The polarity is totally a Dr. Who thing. You can reverse the polarity, that's fine.

Bee/Polaris: Sick .

Avery/GM: But if you wanna do this cool thing, I want to see a dexterity shoot check since you're firing this grappling hook

Zach/Zahn: that I can do, buddy. That is… an eight.

Avery/GM: Ooh, you fling the. It doesn't hit the shuttle behind you. It actually flings upwards and hits the little squid fighter. (explosion)

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Avery/GM: For the lucky tentacle.

Bee/Polaris: The Squid.

Avery/GM: And it's just one, so it just says one D eight damage. Seven damage takes a big chunk out of the Squid fighter, but it's still flying.

Bee/Polaris: Sick.

Avery/GM: And then flashback, oh, go ahead.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, I was gonna say, and then I wanted to do an int. Intelligence fixed check to boost our engines for one wrap so we could like,

Avery/GM: yeah, go ahead.

Zach/Zahn: Zoom into the lead.

Avery/GM: Go ahead.

Zach/Zahn: 11.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah, we were able to boost the engines and you get a sizable lead in front of the Lucky tentacle.

Bee/Polaris: Oh RIP Laurel.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Oops.

Bee/Polaris: Oops.

Zach/Zahn: I was trying to remember its name This whole time.

(Race music fades out, ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: we flash back to the private booth of the Winston’s Ollie you are splitting your focus, but you are still able to hear the conversation going on

around you. And you hear Avi speak up and she says, so Violet, you were saying something about one of our cousins? What happened? You said something dreadful happened.

Avery/GM: And Violet says yes. We received disturbing footage of his hunting grounds being blown up by a random band of strangers. And actually the reason I came here is I heard that a ship matching the description of the ship in that footage had docked here.

Avery/GM: And I have some of my men poking around the docking bay, uh, trying to find it.

Avery/GM: And Bruce, you see two big, burly looking republic soldiers walking kind of through the crowd and you overhear them saying, yeah, we found the ship. It's in docking Bay 12. We're trying to do a trace on who exactly is on that ship

Avery/GM: and that's where we're gonna end it.

(Ambience fades out, Outro music plays then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Intro and Outro produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks include: Cyberpunk Bar, Cyberpunk City, Car Chase, Starbase Omega, and Orbital promenade.

Be sure to check us out @FurthestPod on Twitter and Tumblr. We’ll be back on the 15th with our next episode!

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

Interlude - Setting the Trap

Narrator: Welcome to a special Interlude episode for Beyond the Furthest Stars. The following scene takes place on the far off Hegemony world of Tartarus. Crius and Hyperion, two member’s of the Hegemony Council of 12, report to The Eternal One on the progress of the hunt for Hermes. This takes place a couple of days before the Big Race on Bragos. Enjoy!

The Eternal One: Crius… Hyperion… Report.

Crius: Yes, my lord. I have an update from my one of my agents on matters relating to the Terrans.

Hyperion: and I have just completed my interrogation of Captain Celia and Admiral Vos.

The Eternal One: Crius, Speak!

Crius: One of our agents embedded in the Crimson Chaos pirate crew has identified a ship that appears to have originated from Terran space.

The Eternal One: Is it operational?

Crius: No, my lord. The ship apparently showed up in the grave yard, near the base of the pirates. Our agents were able to convince Captain

Blitz that it was nothing special. They sent a recording of the S.O.S message the ship was broadcasting.

The Eternal One: Have you had it translated?

Crius: Yes, my lord. It is a bit jumbled up, but it is clear that this ship has been badly damaged. No life signs were detected on board. Shall I have our agents destroy the ship?

The Eternal One: Yes. We cannot allow knowledge about the Terrans to be discovered yet, especially by some pirate scum. Hyperion, you have information from the survivors of The Eos?

Hyperion: Yes lord. After our… interrogation of Captain Celia and Admiral Vos, intelligence indicates that before the ship was attacked by the Independent Systems Armada, it interdicted a ship operated by an associate of the Crimson Chaos pirates.

The Eternal One: The same pirates you spoke of, Crius?

Crius: Yes, your excellency. Captain Celia stated that the ship escaped the destruction of The Eos. According to my agents embedded in the pirate crew, this vessel is known as the Minos. The captain, Captain Byram, perished in the prison section of The Eos.

The Eternal One: So who stole it? The same people that took the ship AI and replaced it with that… mockery?

Hyperion: We suspect the thief was among those that escaped. Ship logs indicate that approximately 3 ship contractors and a service bot accompanied the thief and escaped just before The Eos’ destruction.

The Eternal One: Crius, you have agents with this pirate crew. Have they been able to track down where this ship of theirs has gone to?

Crius: I have, my lord. The ship was tracked at first to an unregistered planetary system a short jump from the last coordinates of The Eos. After that, it jumped to a Republic intelligence base and then to the

Calypso system. Records indicate that the system has been devoid of life for 200 years.

The Eternal One: Crius… are you telling me the Republic has access to Hermes?

Crius: No my lord. Not at all! The data from the back up crystal indicates that it was still connected to a ship’s system the entire time it was at the Republic base.

The Eternal One: Hmm, a strange but fortunate turn of events.

Hyperion: However, my lord, I feel it important to tell you that once the ship arrived in the Calypso system it was removed from the ship and interfaced with another AI. Additionally, it appears a Terran system was also utilized during this interface.

Crius: This is only conjecture, my lord. The analysis from the back-up crystal could be faulty of course.

The Eternal One: No… No I don’t believe it is. Crius, dispatch agents to the Calypso system and have them destroy everything there.

Hyperion: If I may, my lord, I have more information you may find useful.

The Eternal One: Speak quickly, Hyperion. My patience shrinks the more you.

Hyperion: The Crimson Chaos pirates did attempt to take their ship back. Reports from Crius’ agents indicate that the pirates and the thieves became allies of a sort. The agents then left some probes in the system to monitor any communications into or out of the system, in hopes of finding out where the thieves would go next.

The Eternal One: hmm… We could use this our advantage. Crius, instead of destroying that Terran ship, let’s play a more subtle game. You say Hermes interacted with a Terran based system?

Crius: That is correct, as far as I can tell.

The Eternal One: Calculating… Analysis of variables complete. Most probable scenario determined.

Crius… Hyperion… This is what you will do. Keep the Terran ship under CLOSE observation. Your agents will encode the distress signal with the translation we obtained and broadcast it within the radius of the crash site. This should stir up enough noise to catch the attention of whoever or whatever is operating out of the Calypso system. You’ll make sure that this damaged ship is tracked. Whoever this mysterious party is that has put a dent in our plans will certainly be drawn to the mystery this ship presents. We will then wait for the right opportunity to make or move. Rhea is meeting with our contact on Calydon soon. I am sure they will deliver on that AI hunter we requested.

Crius and Hyperion together: Yes, Eternal One. Your will shall be done! All hail Tartarus. All Hail The Eternal One.

The Eternal One: Now… Go.

***** Footsteps leaving the room *****

Crius: Of course, The Eternal One has to involve Rhea… She always seems one step ahead of me.

Hyperion: Yes, she certainly does. Perhaps its time to implement our plan?

Crius: No, not yet. Let’s see where this goes. We need all 12 of us for our Lord’s plans to come to fruition. But soon, Hyperion. Soon…

Episode 12 - Seeking a Sponsor!

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 12 of Beyond the Furhtest Stars

(Intro Music plays, then fades out, Ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Okay, so we will switch over to Marty and Polaris. You're trying to find a sponsor.

Jenine/Marty: Where should we go first?

Bee/Polaris: I was just about to ask you that. What was, okay, the sponsors were big Fred, Doc, the Madden scientist, whose name I forgot, and the people that own the casino, right?

Jenine/Marty: Yes, there's the polycule, there’s Dex who owns the Sapphire, Big Fwed And that, that is how I put it in my notes.

Bee/Polaris: Big Fwed? Okay.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, because, cause what Fred gives Fred gives off the Fwed energy. You know?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, I'm changing my notes to reflect that as well.

Jenine/Marty: just a big cuddly bear. Anyway you guys seem very interested in Professor Infinity. Should we go there?

Zach/Zahn: Professor Infinity Sounds fun and interesting. Not at all. Suspicious.

Jenine/Marty: Doesn’t sound suspicious!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris gives a thumbs up in between tossing the light saber, like a, like a baton in the air.

Jenine/Marty: Cool, cool, cool. Great. We're going to Professor Infinity.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you are approaching Professor Infinity's, robot Emporium. You see some like flashes coming from inside through the windows. And there's like some smoke kind of like permeates the air inside as you get

closer and the doors open with a little (Chime Noise) And as you. Enter, you hear this maniacal laughter coming from within just . It's alive. It's alive!

Bee/Polaris: I immediately hide behind Polaris

Avery/GM: and there is this average height person with a big white lab coat and dark goggles over his eyes. And he has this greenish blue skin and wild frazzled hair that sticks straight up out of his head.

And he's holding like two sparking electrodes against a robot that is on like an operating table. (electricity noise) And he looks up and he pulls the electrodes off of the robot and he sets them down and he is like, I'll be with you in just a minute. And he shocks the robot again (electricity noise) and then sets the the electrodes down and says “Alright Lewis”

Jenine/Marty: What?

Avery/GM: That should be it. You are good to go. And this little robot pops up on its wheel. It's like a little unicycle robot.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And it gives Professor Infinity a big thumbs up and kind of just rides off the operating table and out the door past you. And Professor Infinity is like, Welcome, welcome, welcome to My Robot Emporium. How can I help you today?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just looks down at Marty and then looks back up at the professor and says, curious, what's the deal with the shuttle?

Jenine/Marty: I step from behind Polaris and just go, oh clarification. We, we are looking currently for sponsors, but we would like to know a little bit more about the shuttle if you could tell us a little bit more about it?

Avery/GM: Finally, someone's interested in trying out my new experiment. Yes. This shuttle that I've designed is a fully autonomous shuttle. It's controlled by an AI that is designed only to do one thing, and that's win the race no matter what. All the racers have to do is be on the shuttle. They don't have to do anything else. They don't have to pilot it, they don't have to fight anyone off the shuttle does it. Caveat is that it might also try and attack the people on the shuttle.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: Yeah. But all experiments require testing to get all the bugs out.

Jenine/Marty: Marty's jaw just drops.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like is scratching his head with the, well, his helmet with the, the back end of the The Not Light Saber and just says, and you didn't try it out outside of the race?

Avery/GM: No, no. No. Experimentation only matters in the exact circumstances that it's gonna be participating in, Right?

Bee/Polaris: Where did you get your degree again?

Avery/GM: I'm sorry, Degree?

Bee/Polaris: Yep. Polaris looks down at Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Oh okay. What is the AI's name?

Avery/GM: Oh, I haven't named this AI yet, but I'm sure it will answer to whatever you want to call.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Did you ask?

Jenine/Marty: Hmm?

Avery/GM: I have not. Would you like me to go back and ask real quick?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that'd be nice.

Avery/GM: Sure. Does anyone have a name preference?

Jenine/Marty: I didn't know he'd be naming an AI today.

Bee/Polaris: Laurel.

Avery/GM: Laurel.

Jenine/Marty: Laurel.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Cause you know Laurel leaves symbolizing, you know, victory and you know Laurel.

Avery/GM: We’ll go with Laurel. That's fine. So Professor Infinity dips back behind like this curtain behind his little counter and you hear a, a metal thump. Like, he's like turning something on or like trying to get someone's attention or something. And you hear it from behind the curtain. Hey, what, what, what do we call you? I keep calling you AI, but obviously you have a name. So what name should I be calling you? and you hear “I would prefer it if you would call me Laurel.”

Bee/Polaris: Sick.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, heart.

Avery/GM: And he steps back from behind the curtain and he's just like Laurel. The AI's name is Laurel.

Bee/Polaris: Real quick while he's back there Polaris would like stand in front of Marty and like put his hand that's on either of her shoulders and like get at eye level with both the swords still on and say, how much do you trust this man with your life?

Jenine/Marty: Not a lot, but if you guys want to do the experimental thing, we can totally do that.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will send a text in the group chat. Then once again, stand in front of Marty.

Avery/GM: You are not locked in by the way.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: This is just…

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna get answers from the rest of the crew. Cause he has been live streaming this.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. So Zahn doesn't like the idea of it possibly trying to kill us.

Jenine/Marty: That's valid.

Zach/Zahn: That's a big that's a big,

Jenine/Marty: mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. .

Zach/Zahn: And while I think, while Zach thinks it would be cool to see what it does, I kind of want to try the role playing of us doing the race and not us fighting the racer.

Avery/GM:

Bee/Polaris: Fighting the ship.

Jenine/Marty: You mean fighting the ship? Yeah. Fighting the ship. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Fighting the ship that we're on instead of us fighting everyone else.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, could we, is it possible to put Herms in the ship with it and give him the express like purpose to like not have the ship kill you guys?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. What if they did a tag team?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Can two AI inhabit the same thing?

Caden/Bruce: Do we trust Hermes as a babysitter?

Jenine/Marty: Well, we're also gonna be in there, so like, it'll be like, there's gonna be the per, there's, there's the AI that thinks it's babysitting, and then there's the two. The two squishies that are gonna be in there being like, okay, we're at the actual babysitters and we're gonna make sure you two don't fight with each other.

Bee/Polaris: Ah, cross babysitting.

Avery/GM: Yes. Are there supposed to be three people on the shuttle?

Bee/Polaris: Minimum of two.

Jenine/Marty: Minimum of two.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, okay.

Jenine/Marty: Because the third person is running around trying not to get shot at and going through the (makes vroom noise).

Bee/Polaris: That's me.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha.

Avery/GM: Yeah, basically the shuttle needs at least one pilot and one person to protect the pilot, and then the spotter is basically protecting both people on the shuttle from all the other hazards on the racetrack.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, so Zahn is team No Laurel?

Zach/Zahn: Currently. He, he can't be convinced and he can't also be outvoted . So, cause I'm not, I am not totally against it. But Zahn would be.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will set up like a Twitter poll in chat for people to vote.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie will reply: Unknown variable with the slanted mouth emoji.

Jenine/Marty: Don't put this on Marty! Marty's a people pleaser!

Bee/Polaris: Bruce gets a say too, even though Bruce isn't racing

Caden/Bruce: well, I feel like Bruce, Bruce would rather you guys not, not die. So the, the possibility that Laurel would try and kill you. I feel like Bruce would agree with the other two and be like, Maybe not.

Jenine/Marty: Cool.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: The question is though, how would Laurel try and kill us without trying to kill itself?

Jenine/Marty: Well, that's the thing. Doc doesn't… profe… quote unquote, professor does not know the limits. This is gonna be Laurel's, I'm assuming, first time out.

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm. .

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Considering how herms reacted to shooting that plasma gun, Another baby ais maybe.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: I, I'd like to, but I,

Bee/Polaris: okay, cool. So it's decided No Laurel.No. Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yeah. Sorry. Just I'd like to, but I'm, I'm with Zach on the, like, I want the, it's to be our crew with no extra help.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, alright. So he gets back and tells us Laurel's name, Yeah?

Avery/GM: You hear. Laurel say that they wanna be called Laurel

Bee/Polaris: sick.

Avery/GM: Professor Infinity has not quite stepped back behind the curtain yet.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: now it'd be a very good time to leave.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna wait.

Jenine/Marty: Be Polite.

Avery/GM: Okay. And then, yeah, he pops out and says the AI would like to be called Laurel. And don't worry, they're not dangerous at all. They just might not have a good feeling yet for who is an enemy and who is a friendly

Bee/Polaris: Polaris nods twice and then walks out the door.

Jenine/Marty: Oh… Well, Translation: Thank you for introducing us to Laurel. We're we, we, I think we're gonna pass. Thank you for your time. Professor

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is holding the door for Marty

Jenine/Marty: She just skirt…. Shuffles out.

Avery/GM: No one ever wants to take out Laurel. And then you see him pick up the electrodes again and start playing with them.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you have

Jenine/Marty: crossing that off the list!

Bee/Polaris: Yup!

Jenine/Marty: What do we think about the, the polycule?

Bee/Polaris: Question mark Emoji on Polaris’ Visor.

Jenine/Marty: Polycule over… the polycule at the lucky tentacle. I had, I caught three of their names. I did not get the fourth one. I got Terry, Kerry

Avery/GM: Terry. Kerry Mary and Larry.

Bee/Polaris: Larry.

Jenine/Marty: Got it. Do we wanna go there or do we wanna go to Big Fred? Cause kind of know Big Fred.

Bee/Polaris: Let's see what the, the -arry’s are about. Okay.

Avery/GM: Oh, the air I got, I got it. It took me a minute.

Jenine/Marty: I got it too. I got it too.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you head over to the Lucky Tentacle, Ollie, while this has been going on, you have been walking arm in arm with Avi Winston and she has been constantly talking about all of her family members and how, you know, she doesn't get back to Olympia much these days.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Perfect.

Avery/GM: She's thinking about heading back after this next race, maybe. And then she asks you, so what about you? Do robots have family? Do you have companions? You said you have a team of racers. Are they good friends of yours?

Chris/Ollie: So while she's been saying that Ollie's been cataloging any information you can scrounge about the Winstons and also what, like manufacturing corporation would've made the robots for the Hegemony ship there.

Avery/GM: There's lots of different corporations. Your current chassis is, let me look at my list of corporations here.

Chris/Ollie: It's all good.

Avery/GM: Your chassis is made by Invincible Corporation. They brag that their robots are nearly indestructible.

Bee/Polaris: I'll be the judge of that!

Avery/GM: nearly indestructible. Asterisk limits and exclusions apply.

Chris/Ollie: limits and exclusions: everything. Okay. Well then he's gonna, You know, his whole life story as, as you know, well, I started my existence at a Invincible Corporation manufacturing plant as the model you see before you opt max 11 E and then being shipped in a crate, knowing only blackness for much time. I then worked eternally and tirelessly until one day I. The ship blew up. So me and my friends have been just running from planet to planet.

Avery/GM: Oh, that's very space pirate of you. You lead such an interesting life. Well come, let's go into the Winston Family booth and you can meet some of my cousins. They'll love to meet you. I swear.

Zach/Zahn: Uh-oh.

Bee/Polaris: Fuck dude. Shit. Fuck

Zach/Zahn: Are these first cousins? I hope they're only first cousins.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris Text’s and chat to Ollie. Ask if they've all been together, traveling together?

Chris/Ollie: Hold on cause it's still like three hours, right? Like little time has passed.

Avery/GM: It's about an hour.

Chris/Ollie: About an hour.

Avery/GM: She didn't go straight to the booth. She kinda wandered around.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: You know,

Zach/Zahn: talked about herself, you know, you know how it is.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm. parasol in hand, you know, walk amongst the garden.

Chris/Ollie: So Ollie's gonna allow that text, the ping to audibly play and he's going to, you know, un-focus for a second and say, my apologies, my team requires quick repairs before the match. I have to take my leave, but I will return before it starts.

Bee/Polaris: sick.

Avery/GM: She takes her hand from you and she's like, oh, I must admit, I've never been stood up right outside my own private booth before. That's a new experience. Okay, that's fine. But you're not gonna back out of our little bet are you?

Chris/Ollie: I wouldn't dream of it.

Bee/Polaris: It's funny cause you can't dream

Chris/Ollie: Got him!

Zach/Zahn: except for that one time that he did.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah, that's right. I gotta remember to look up some info on that.

Avery/GM: The door opens into her private booth and she quickly takes her leave of you.

Chris/Ollie: So Ollie's going to with an hour left. Can I get those drones up and running?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: Have you picked your fittings?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I got you know, some pretty standard fittings. I'm gonna fix up the stalker drones. Here, I'll just message you what I put on.

Avery/GM: Okay. Did you put him on your character sheet in roll20?

Chris/Ollie: No, I didn't, haven't done that yet. I'll do that later.

Avery/GM: Okay, no worries.

Chris/Ollie: But yeah, he's gonna get those fixed up. And while on the ship he's going to carve his core before it's too late. I do not know how long that'll take, but I think it's a fix roll.

Avery/GM: Yes. Intelligence fix.

Chris/Ollie: Okay and just in case, I wanna shave like a, just like a tiny piece of off the top so it doesn't even look like it's been cut. It'll be like a 1% 99% cut.

Avery/GM: Oh my gosh. You're really… Okay. So that's like if you, if you're leaving like a little shred on the ship.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I'm gonna put it in the companion. That's fixed up on the ship.

Avery/GM: Okay. What's the companion bot look like? Is it humanoid or is it animal?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, actually, yeah. Let's do animal. It'll be a puppy. A little robot puppy.

Bee/Polaris: Let's go!

Zach/Zahn: Oh my gosh,

Avery/GM: yes.

Jenine/Marty: Yes!

Bee/Polaris: What kind?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, it's gotta be a golden retriever. I mean, classic. the pet of the future.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, so we're going on the ship with a dog? We're entering the race with a dog as our crew mate? Nice.

Chris/Ollie: No, no. The dog’s just my backup.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: That's if Ollie gets destroyed as he currently is.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. Gotcha, gotcha.

Chris/Ollie: So I got 13.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. Easily done. .

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Is there a spare light saber on the ship? Those make it really easy

Avery/GM:you could probably

Bee/Polaris: Polaris has both of his in his hands currently still. He has not turned them off.

Avery/GM: I Think Zahn is currently doing tinkering, so I'm sure you could just walk up and be like, could you cut this? And Yeah. Wouldn't be a problem. But yeah, either way you're able to cut it, no problem, no complications.

Chris/Ollie: Right on and got the drones working. Well pretty much gonna ask, is there anything anyone needs me to help? I imagine everyone's pretty butt hurt at me for betting the ship. So

Bee/Polaris: Nah, Polaris doesn't care.

Chris/Ollie: as long as it's not Polaris's ship.

Bee/Polaris: It's not Polaris's ship.

Chris/Ollie: No, the, as long as I don't end up betting your ship.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, you can't bet Polaris's ship.

Chris/Ollie: Impossible. Impossible. So Bruce hasn't returned. Are there any puffs on the ship?

Bee/Polaris: are you gonna give it to Avi?

Chris/Ollie: I mean, Ollie doesn't really know anything about intestinal distress, so all of that flew over his head. He just thinks they're amazing Bean puffs.

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce would've taken them all with him, unfortunately.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: That, or if he did leave some, there would be like an explicit note that just says, do not eat!

Bee/Polaris: Dang. A perfect opportunity to take out more of the Winston's. Oh,

Chris/Ollie: also what guns do we have in the armor? We have an armory. Well, we've collected guns. I don't think we have any individual inventory.

Avery/GM: You would've had whatever you get for starting equipment, Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: yeah. I got my starting stuff.

Avery/GM: but all Winston's weapons were destroyed. There was a weapon armory thing in the ship when you first got there. You didn't really search it, but I'd say if you go searching now,

Chris/Ollie: oh,

Avery/GM: you probably find a couple basic laser pistols and a thermal pistol as well, and a couple of stun batons. Sounds like we need to get more weapons. I don't know. Y'all are doing great on this No weapon run that you've been doing.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, we’re on a pacifist run.

Bee/Polaris: I wouldn't say pacifist.

Zach/Zahn: I don’t know about pacifist, Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Also, We're not allowed to have shooty shoot guns on this planet, right?

Zach/Zahn: On the planet, yeah.

Avery/GM: This is true.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that is true. However activated laser blades are totally fine cause no officer of the loss walked up to Polaris and said stop.

Jenine/Marty: well obvi!

Chris/Ollie: Does that restriction hold for the race?

Avery/GM: No, because the race is not contained inside of the atmospheric bubbles that are on this asteroid.

Chris/Ollie: Okay Perfect. So Ollie will equip one thermal pistol and one laser pistol to the stalker drones with their gun fitting.

Zach/Zahn: Does everybody have Vacsuits by the way?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: I don't think I do.

Caden/Bruce: I don’t think Bruce does Either.

Jenine/Marty: When I say squishy, I say squishy.

Avery/GM: That's okay. They would supply Vacsuits if required for whomever. Gotcha. Ends up sponsoring you. Mm-hmm. noise. Speaking of sponsor Marty and Polaris, you're still on the hunt for a sponsor.

Bee/Polaris: to the Polycule!

Jenine/Marty: To the polycule!

Avery/GM: You walk into the Lucky Tentacle Casino and there are four of these tentacled aliens that I have called Nokeloids. They're basically octopus looking, kind of like, if you've ever seen Futurama or Simpsons the green aliens that have like a little glass bubble on their head and then a bunch of tentacles yeah, that's the, I'm thinking of the Simpsons.

Avery/GM: Anyway, they are sitting there on the casino floor basically laughing up a storm, having a good time, and they're all wearing name tags with their name on it. Terry, Carrie, Mary, and Larry. Terry is purple in color.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, there are four.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Polycule.

Avery/GM: Terry is purple in color. Carrie is blue. Mary is red. And Larry is green and they are engaged in a lively conversation when you walk up and one of them turns to you and just says, welcome, welcome to the Lucky Tentacle. Are you, are you here to gamble?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks down at Marty and then just looks back up at them and says, no,

Jenine/Marty: we are actually here to not like play here, but like we are thinking we are A team that is looking for a sponsor for the races, and we saw that you guys are looking to sponsor a team?

Avery/GM: Larry walks up to you, Marty, and leans down and sticks his big eye just right in front of you and is looking you up and down and is just like, Hmm, you don't look like much of a racer. Have you ever raced before?

Bee/Polaris: like in this particular race?

Avery/GM: Any races. Have you, are you a pilot?

Bee/Polaris: I'm the pilot. I pilot.

Avery/GM: Oh, excellent. Okay. So how, how many years have you been flying ships?

Bee/Polaris: My life. My whole life.

Avery/GM: Wow. And what about you? Human?

Jenine/Marty: Ah, yes. Well, I'm more of the support type. I'm here to help out my team as much as possible. I also kind of translate sometimes. And gives a big smile.

Avery/GM: Carrie saunters up and is just like, oh, come on Larry. Give them a chance. You know, it can't go anywhere than the last racers we sponsored.

Jenine/Marty: What, what happened to the last racers?

Avery/GM: Well, this was before the Assembles corporations started sponsoring, but the last racers that we hired sort of crashed our shuttle into their spotter right at the front of the race.

Jenine/Marty: Oh. Mm-hmm.

Zach/Zahn: Oh God.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Didn't even make it, you know, a hundred yards.

Bee/Polaris: So to Polaris, that sounds like it was a problem with the shuttle and not necessarily the, the people piloting the shuttle.

Zach/Zahn: I don't know. What were the qualifications of the people they quote unquote hired? Cause you guys are seeking them out, whereas these other people were hired. These other people could have been bums on the street.

Bee/Polaris: Right. Polaris will just tilt his head and say, were they unskilled pilots?

Avery/GM: Oh, absolutely.

Jenine/Marty: Oh!

Bee/Polaris: Cool. Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: I mean, no skilled pilot would crash right at the start of the race.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: That some scary foreshadowing.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: It'll all be fine, I promise.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just kinda like slowly nods at that.

Avery/GM: I will say our new shuttle is top of the line.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. How top of the line.

Avery/GM: It's not fully autonomous, like that death trap that Professor Infinity's been pushing on people. But it's very fast. Very fast. We may have installed a spike drive on it just in case.

Zach/Zahn: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is still live streaming. Are there any comments from the other crew?

Jenine/Marty: yeah, what’s in the chat? how's the chat reacting?

Zach/Zahn: Zahn snaps up from working on the the grappling launcher. Like the fuck, who puts a spike drive on a mini open cockpit shuttle?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Also, you have to be like, decently skilled in piloting, you have to at least have some skill in piloting to, to handle a spike drive.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. . Mm-hmm. . Okay.

Avery/GM: I'm just giving you ways to cheat if you want .

Bee/Polaris: Thanks. Thank you.

Avery/GM: With substantial risk, you know,

Zach/Zahn: to cheat and die

Avery/GM: some risk and some reward, you know?

Bee/Polaris: I see. Gotcha. Okay. So we have a few ways to cheat. Gotcha. Okay. Hmm. Considering no one else can really pilot a spike drive can, I mean, can Hermes pilot a spike drive? Yeah. Hermes can pilot a spike drive, right? Yeah. He was a ship.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: He is a ship

Avery/GM: for all intents and purposes. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. What I mean, how's the rest of the crew feeling about that? Having a spike drive on the shuttle? Who is on the shuttle actually?

Avery/GM: I think it's Marty and Zahn.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. All right.

Avery/GM: And whatever drones Ollie puts with y'all, I think.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Is Bruce gonna join the race or is Bruce just gonna watch from the stands?

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce feels like he'd just get in the.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Avery/GM: Oh.

Caden/Bruce: I think Bruce is more just gonna be on the stands, but I feel like also Bruce is just kind of like feeling a little bit guilty.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, because of the the bean tarts?

Jenine/Marty: Because of the beans!?

Caden/Bruce: yeah. Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: No, it's revenge from Jamie.

Jenine/Marty: No, you're fine.

Bee/Polaris: Jamie sucks. we hate Jamie. All my homies hate Jamie.

Zach/Zahn: Anyone who knows anything about good food hates Jamie.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polaris: I really hope there's no listener named Jamie. I'm sorry. Any possible Jamie's.

Caden/Bruce: Unless it's Chef Jamie, in which case we do hate you.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. If your name is Jamie and you're a chef, we hate you.

Jenine/Marty: Go away.

Bee/Polaris: You should be nicer to lizard people.

Avery/GM: Terry's just like, so what'll it be? you crazy Kids wanna take a chance with us as your sponsor?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is deferring to the chat. what does chat say?

Avery/GM: You can also go talk to big Fred, As an option.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Hmm. What could we put a pin in this cause we're still, still kind of new at this and trying to like have our options open. You guys, y'all, y'all seem like a really nice group that we would potentially like to work with, if that's okay?

Avery/GM: Oh sure. We'll be here. But if someone picks us up as their sponsor before you get back, then nothing I can do about. Can't sponsor two teams.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, totally understandable. Okay, bye .

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Polaris walks away. once there's that like silent pause, pull just turns around and walks away.

Avery/GM: Okay, so one more sponsor and then we'll make a decision.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: and then get to the race. That way we can do some actual racing this session.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Yeah. We speed walk to Fred’s?

Jenine/Marty: Big Fred!

Avery/GM: You walk in and Fred is noticeably a lot more dejected looking than he was just a few hours ago. You can see that he's taken like paper triangles and he's like flicking them over. A little like goal post.

Bee/Polaris: Aw, he’s playing Sad Football!

Avery/GM: Sad football. That's right. Yep.

Jenine/Marty: Who do we need to fight? I will fight for this, for this, for this big Fred. What's up?

Bee/Polaris: Does Marty say that out loud?

Jenine/Marty: No!

Bee/Polaris: When we walk into the shop? Okay.

Jenine/Marty: That's what… the face that Marty is making is that face ready to like throw hands.

Bee/Polaris: This is the man that sold me the laser blades, yes?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris walks into the shop waving the laser blades like, like waving at him, and then sees that he's dejected and then puts the laser really down at his side still on And looks over at Marty.

Jenine/Marty: Could I try and turn off the laser? Cause that is near Marty's face now.

Bee/Polaris: I mean like in the, in the like when Polaris put his hands on Marty's shoulder, he was still holding the laser blades and both of them were on. So , he is not turned these off at all!

Jenine/Marty: why not? I just go boop!

Avery/GM: Big Fred looks up you and is like, oh great… Did you come for a refund? Are they not meeting your expectations just like everything else I do I guess.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris like does the thing where you like hold the thing in your hands away from the person and he just says, no, these are mine.

Avery/GM: Oh, well that's good news. I guess. What can I do for you?

Bee/Polaris: What happened?

Avery/GM: Oh, just, you know, my older brother. It was just being such a jerk.

Bee/Polaris: How so?

Avery/GM: He's just saying that I'll never win a race. You know, been trying for five years and just, you know, no one ever wins. You know, before assembles it was always little Fred and his super secret racer that no one knows the identity of was always the winner, and it was just such a bummer. And I, I thought with assembles taking over the sponsorship. I don't know. I might have a better chance, but it just still hasn't happened.

Bee/Polaris: Well, we were planning on winning and we need a sponsor, so…

Avery/GM: oh, you, you don't want me as a sponsor, I'll, I'll probably just drag you down.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks over at Marty.

Jenine/Marty: I text in chat: We are playing for him.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris does a thumbs up in chat and also on his visor.

Zach/Zahn: You get no disagreements from Zahn.

Jenine/Marty: Well, big Fred, We, let's, let's prove your brother wrong!?

Avery/GM: Go ahead and roll a Charisma Connect check or a Wisdom Connect check.

Jenine/Marty: These are my favorite rolls. I love doing these. Watch these be like snake eyes, that would suck. Oh, that was a, that, that rolled for too long. It's okay. That is going to be a 10.

Avery/GM: A 10. Sure. He looks up to you and he's just like, you'd, you'd really risk your reputations racing with someone like me?

Bee/Polaris: We don't stay here. We don't have reputations.

Jenine/Marty: We don't have one.

Avery/GM: Oh, well, you know, I mean, If you're sure. I mean, I know Professor Infinity's got like super cool, you know, experimental racer.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, it's terrifying.

Bee/Polaris: It's a death trap.

Jenine/Marty: It's terrifying. She, oh, she's Laurel. They're they, Laurel seems like an great AI to work with. They are very terrifying.

Avery/GM: Well, and then, you know, Terry, Carrie, Mary, and Larry, they all have some sort of, Super cool thing up there Sleeve this time around and

Jenine/Marty: Yeah…

Avery/GM: I don't know if you're sure. I'd really appreciate it

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up!

Jenine/Marty: Thumbs up. Big smile.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn’t do a thumbs up. The, the laser blade that Marty turned off, he holds it out and turns it on.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, pulls a BB-8 where the where the little torch comes out and sticks up?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay. Well, do you have your own fighter? I don't have a fighter,

Bee/Polaris: yes.

Avery/GM: Okay. I do have a shuttle. It's nothing special, but it'll hopefully get the job done. It's got some really good shields on it.

Bee/Polaris: Perfect.

Avery/GM: It could take a beating before, you know, it blows up or anything.

Bee/Polaris: Perfect.

Avery/GM: Cool. Well then, I'll meet you with the stuff down in the docking bay for the ships in a couple hours.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Avery/GM: Thanks. You hear the music shut off from the other side of the wall,

Bee/Polaris: oh boy

Jenine/Marty: Oh

Avery/GM: and you hear a voice come from behind the curtain and it's just like, so did you find that he get some on a race fo you, you a big dummy or are you gonna pack it in?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris looks at Marty and looks at his laser blade and then looks back at Marty.

Jenine/Marty: I put the laser blade down.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris slowly puts it down. He doesn't turn it off, but he slowly puts it down.

Avery/GM: And big Fred excuses himself, and then walks behind the curtain and you hear him and little Fred kind of start to argue and bicker a little bit like brotherly argue, you know, the way siblings do when they're teasing each other, not like mean bullying or anything.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay. All right. Okay. So it's, it's teasing. Okay, cool, cool. It's not bullying it's teasing.

Jenine/Marty: It's, it's like banter.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool, cool, cool, cool.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it's, it's the sibling fighting.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah yeah yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool. Good, good, good.

Jenine/Marty: Alright, cool.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Sweet. Polaris was fully prepared to walk behind the curtain.

Jenine/Marty: it's cool. I was about, I was about ready to do some stuff too.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Sick. Cool. Glad we're on the same page. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Somebody about get a fucking beat down.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I was debating on whether or not Polaris would ask I Marty or Big Fred how at attached to his brother he is . Cause Polaris has no concept of siblings, so…

Avery/GM: oh yeah, that's true.

Bee/Polaris: Oh goodness. All right, cool. We gotta sponsor.

Jenine/Marty: We gotta sponsor.

(Ambience fades out, intro music plays then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Product. Be sure to follow us on twitter: @Furthest Pod. Intro and Outro Music produced by Dustin Carpenter. Background music provided by tabletopaudio.com and used under an attribution non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Cyberpunk City, Orbital promenade, and Cyberpunk bar. We’ll be back in 2 weeks with the next episode of our show.

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(outro music fades back up and then plays out)

Episode 11 - High Stakes, High Rewards!

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 11 of Beyond the Furthest Stars. A Quick Trigger Warning: This episode contains brief mentions of gambling. If you need to skip those sections, the time stamps are in the description of the episode. Now let’s get to the action!

(Intro music plays then fades out) (ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: Where we last left off, in case anyone forgot, Ollie had decided to try his luck, uh slash cheat at Blackjack at the Lucky Tentacle Casino, and you were doing pretty well winning some of your credits and suddenly a tiger furry sat next to you and bet just a bunch of money. Luckily, it's blackjack, so it doesn't matter what your fellow players at the table bet, because they're not playing against you, they're playing against the house.

Avery/GM: And I believe 3 million is what I said that she bet. And if not, that's what it's gonna be because I'll just rerecord over. So that happened. And while Ollie was gambling, the rest of the party had decided to go check out the Pendulum of Doom Death Races sponsored by Assembles Singles. And Zahn had left to go sell one of your hover bikes.

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

(Ambience fades out, background rock music fades in)

Avery/GM: So let's start with the sales and acquisitions of this Hover Bike. Zahn. You coming to Little Fred's shop? Seeing as how little Fred was the one selling vehicles vehicle equipment earlier, you have a good feeling that he'd probably be interested in buying this from you. Obviously, you don't have it with you, but you have like a little hologram version of it that you can pull up for him, kind of.

Zach/Zahn: Yep.

Avery/GM: Qui-Gon Jinn style, uh, sort of from Phantom Menace. You come in and that same kind of heavy metal music is playing, uh, in the background. As you come in. He's reading some sort of magazine and he looks up and he is just like, ah, what do you want?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, you're, uh, you're the vehicle guy, right?

Avery/GM: Ah, I Sell vehicles, I sell vehicle equipment. You know, this and that. Who's asking?

Zach/Zahn: A potential seller?

Avery/GM: I don't really do trade ins. But let, let me take a look.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, he does the, the chef's kiss against his helmet and he is like, mm. Top of the line, pulls a hologram of the, the cool hover bike pristine core worlds hover bike Here.

Avery/GM: He hops down off his little step stool and walks around to the front of the little display case here, and he's just like, lower it down here. So I, I can see better.

Zach/Zahn: I kneel.

Avery/GM: Sure. and Marty. You start coming up to little Fred's shop and you can hear this kind of heavy metal, like rock music coming from inside. Yeah. You walk in just as Zahn is bending down, showing little Fred the hologram here, and you hear little Fred say, eh, it is nothing special.

Jenine/Marty: Mm. Cool. She walks in.

Avery/GM: you see it's just, it's just a Hover bike, you know? Yeah, you're right. It's cool. It's, it's from the core worlds… top of the line. Look, if you're really trying to get rid of it, I can go 2000 credits.

Jenine/Marty: Could, could I, could I, can I check? Can I observe the emotional state of this?

Avery/GM: Of course!

Jenine/Marty: of little Fred? to see how he actually feels about it? Awesome! That's just a, I think it's just a, the role on your part, I believe. I'm gonna double check that.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Basic forms of contact Do not require a saving throw.

Jenine/Marty: What's he thinking? What's little Fred thinking?

Avery/GM: His emotional state is. That he's trying. Let's see. In one word, I would say hopeful.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm. Clarification on the hopeful. Was it like after he had said the amount?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Mm-hmm. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn's gonna say, man, you're, I feel like you're low balling me here, dude. I know you're gonna turn around and sell this thing for what, 7k? I want six.

Avery/GM: Oh, no, no, no. I, I can't, I can't do six here. That's, that's way out of the question here. Yeah. Let's see. Go ahead and roll a charisma connect check.

Jenine/Marty: Rip.

Zach/Zahn: Double rip.

Jenine/Marty: Darn. I should have tried to swoop in, my b!

Avery/GM: you can, yeah, you can roll to help. If you have a good line,

Jenine/Marty: I can roll 3d6s and then take rid… get rid of the lowest.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Oh that’s good cause technically I think I have a minus two, right?

Jenine/Marty: Oh my. I can only give you a plus one if I succeed.

Zach/Zahn: Cause I have a minus one for charisma and then I have a minus one in connect. So does that make it a minus two overall?

Chris/Ollie: Uh, yes. If it's a charisma connect.

Avery/GM:

Zach/Zahn: All right, so I rolled a four, so that is a two.

Jenine/Marty: oof! I don’t even know if I could save you!

Zach/Zahn: Oh, there's no saving. That's why you're here.

Avery/GM: you rolled a four?

Zach/Zahn: I rolled on dice four

Avery/GM: oh!

Zach/Zahn: And then minus one for charisma and minus one for connect is a two total.

Chris/Ollie: We need Marty to come in with a, some hand wave and just, you will give us 6,000 credits for the bike.

Jenine/Marty: Well, actually… I can’t.

Zach/Zahn: you'll give us 6,000 credits.

Jenine/Marty: Unfortunately, I can't.

Zach/Zahn: ooh, you know, it'd be really cool if we just swap the, uh, the hover bike for this heavy machine gun I'm seeing in the, in the shop for vehicle weapons.

Jenine/Marty: Can you carry it?

Avery/GM: Oh no. You, you put it, it on that ATV.

Zach/Zahn: we carry it back to the ship and then we put it on our ATV.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, interesting. Okay.

Avery/GM: Like Rambo, out here oh my goodness.

Zach/Zahn: Heck yeah, brother.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, we need, we need at least one.

Avery/GM: He says, look, I like you kid. I don't like you 6,000 credits with though. I can go as high as 2,500.

Jenine/Marty: What about five? And I just flash the biggest smile.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, And Zahn looks over. He is like, oh, what's up Marty?

Jenine/Marty: Hello.

Avery/GM: Okay, you've thrown 'em off a little, so go ahead and roll a charisma connect check and add one for kind of double teaming this fellow

Jenine/Marty: sick.

Zach/Zahn: Good. Take, take no penalties from me.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. that will be 11

Avery/GM: That's really good. Cool. He's like, okay, look, I'm gonna level with you. This thing here it is not actually worth that much money. I think I can probably get five for it, but the thing is I'm gonna turn around. I got a racer who's enter one of these races and, and he needs a really fast machine now. I'm not gonna give you five for it, but I'll go with 4,000. 4,000 credits.

Jenine/Marty: is he lying? Can I, can I check again?

Avery/GM: Yeah. He's actually not lying to you.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Avery/GM: You actually get the, he's actually being level with you about what he intends to do with it.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn looks over at the, at the wall, he sees this heavy machine gun. He's like, how about even trade? Even Stevens this, uh, this year hover bike for your, for your sponsor and uh, we get that pretty machine gun over there.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Hmm. He rolled a two though. That was early.

Zach/Zahn: I did roll a two. So his opinion of me can't be real shit. And I do have money. I can't sweeten it with a little bit of money.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's true. Okay, one more charisma, connect check and we'll see how you do.

Zach/Zahn: Oh God.

Avery/GM: I know.

Jenine/Marty: Do I… Is there help with that?

Avery/GM: You can help with it if you have a line.

Jenine/Marty: My associate is very interested in technology and wants to upgrade a little bit more and assist you in the technology that you need.

Avery/GM: Okay. Yeah. Good enough. Go ahead and roll to help.

Bee/Polaris: You guys could also let him take it for a spin, you know?

Jenine/Marty: that's so much better.

Zach/Zahn: What's nice is I actually, I rolled halfway decent.

Jenine/Marty: How much did you roll?

Zach/Zahn: So I rolled nine, comes out to be seven.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: And I rolled an 11 plus one, so with a 12 for .

Avery/GM: With that, I will give it to you. He'll say, all right, how about this 500 credits, The hover bike, and the machine gun's yours, and he spits in his hand to like shake.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, to who does? Who does he?

Zach/Zahn: Zahn like goes to shake and then immediately hesitates at the spit part. He's like…

Avery/GM: he's holding it out to both of you. He's holding out his hand to either one of you.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn just doesn't want like spit in his well… It's one of those, like spit and oil are two different things. You know?

Avery/GM: he sees you hesitate. He's like, oh, I'm sorry about that. Force a habit, You know? That's how we used to do things back in the day. Fist bump, anyone?

Jenine/Marty: Give a little fist bump,

Zach/Zahn: Zahn shrugs and actually like shakes his hand anyways, he's like, eh, spit and oil Ain't that different, is they?

Avery/GM: Marty, you fist bump and then Zan just kind of grabs both of your hands and shakes them up and down.

Jenine/Marty: cute.

Avery/GM: He's like, all right, so which land in bays yours?

Jenine/Marty: 12.

Avery/GM: 12? Yeah, I think my brother had had some deliveries down there earlier. So did I. So yeah, we'll get that delivered. I take it, the hover bikes right inside the, uh, Dockin’ bay there?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: Great, great. We'll get you all squared away. Appreciate you doing business and, uh, yeah, my, my race is really gonna love this thing. . Now get out. I got reading to do,

Zach/Zahn: I got reading to do

Jenine/Marty: as we're walking out. I'm like, should we let Hermes know that someone is coming on the ship to take the hover bike?

Zach/Zahn: I’m heading back to the

Jenine/Marty: Oh, cool. Cool, cool, cool, cool

Zach/Zahn: ship now anyways, I'll, uh, I'll let 'em know. Okay. I got some, I got some tinkering to do. Uh, that, that. Brother delivery that he mentioned was, uh, was all me.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, cool. Where's the rest of the team?

Avery/GM: Yeah. So actually that's a good question. Bruce and Polaris, after Marty took off, what did you two end up doing?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris probably would've followed Marty.

Avery/GM: Oh. Okay,

Zach/Zahn: just standing outside.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, just wouldn't have said anything but would've made sure to like look back and see what Bruce was doing.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce probably took his shopping to the ship and organized. Bruce probably brought his shopping back to the ship and is organizing his, quote-unquote “pantry” With all these different variety of beans and then like having seen the racism, what the race entails, he starts making these mini bean tarts. And the objective of these bean tarts is, and I will tell you cause I've been thinking about this, they're gonna taste amazing. You are gonna want to eat so many of these. And as he's making them, he's making them in like little tiny like cupcake tins. And the goal of hi of this is he's gonna make them and give them to the other teams so that the pilot gets to get stuck on the toilet.

Bee/Polaris: that's a great idea.

Chris/Ollie: The Long Con!

Jenine/Marty: Here for it!

Avery/GM: Biological warfare.

Caden/Bruce: I'll, I I'll be very clear. Bruce is not, Bruce is not poisoning. He's not like, these are gonna taste phenomenal. It's just gonna be a bad time. You're giving

Zach/Zahn: a nice, it's just causing of a national… or of not national natural bowel movement, not actual virus illness.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, Bruce is just being a bro and bringing all you can eat Chipotle.

Caden/Bruce: Exactly. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you're gonna be using your cooking skills for not evil, but like underhanded purposes. I like this… So let's go with an intelligence work check.

Caden/Bruce: not gonna lie, that is really good because that's a 12!

Bee/Polaris: Yo

Jenine/Marty: Let’s Go!

Avery/GM: Let's go. All right. So yeah, so you make the batch exactly how you intend to do it. You, you heat the… the heat that you use to make these little pastries is just enough to cook the outside of the pastries, but the dough in the middle is not so undercooked that someone would notice while, but it's undercooked enough that it will cause some gastrointestinal distress. So you have succeeded. So you have succeeded there, and Zahn As you come back to the ship, you smell this wonderful smell of tarts, wafting through the air.

Zach/Zahn: As he enters the ship, you just hear a hot damn, Bruce, what do you got going on?

Bee/Polaris: You can spell in your helmet. Sorry.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, I can turn that on and off.

Bee/Polaris: Sick!

Caden/Bruce: Well, um, let's just say I'm making racing pastries.

Jenine/Marty: Racing pastries. I'm here for it!

Zach/Zahn: is that gonna be, you know, for all of us or just the…

Caden/Bruce: I would suggest that you don't eat them.

Zach/Zahn: I guess I'll just make my cheese sandwich then.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will kinda like til his head and like look his on and be like, I mean, I haven't tested to see if they work. If you wanna try.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my gosh

Zach/Zahn: I don't like the way you said “tested the way they work” now I'm not so sure I want to eat them anymore.

Caden/Bruce: I just, if Polaris wants to race, would like Polaris to win the race, so I figured that this could potentially help.

Bee/Polaris: Ouch.

Caden/Bruce: I'm not good with guns or ships, but I like to think I'm good at cooking and if this. Give Polaris a leg up in the race, then, um, that's the way I intend to do it. I mean, I'm sure it's not against the rules as far as we read the rules giving other teammates food doesn't seem to be illegal or a penalty So, That's what these are for, but if you wanna test to see if they work, go right ahead. Um, I just would recommend you don't leave the ship after you consume one.

Zach/Zahn: you know, he's gonna do that whole like slow back away thing with the finger guns and be like uh, you know I'm just gonna go ahead and, uh, get the cracking on some cool stuff that I have planned in the workshop.

Caden/Bruce: If Polaris wins the race, uh, Assembles Singles is the, uh, sponsor. I'm sure you could probably try and get a lifetime supply of, um, what you like to call cheese.

Zach/Zahn: That sounds cool. I'm, I was planning on helping in, uh, in my own way as well. Um, he pulls out the Grapnel launcher. He's like, I got this here, baby!

Caden/Bruce: Bruce Slow blinks.

Zach/Zahn: we’re gonna make it cooler.

Caden/Bruce: Okay, I can bring you down a, uh, well, what you like to call a good, um, grilled cheese if you would like. I promise I won't, um, give you one of these.

Zach/Zahn: That would be nice.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will nod and start making a grilled cheese.

Zach/Zahn: You can also secretly. Make it not an assembles grilled cheese, and he'll probably blow his mind. It's one of those, Zahn has almost entirely been like in space going from place to place. He's only ever had like processed foods, so to him, yeah, processed cheese of assembled singles fucking fantastic.

Chris/Ollie: I mean, if it's not processed, then it's not cheese.

Jenine/Marty: S tier. S tier cheese, period.

Avery/GM: So as Bruce is engaging in biological warfare, and Zahn is doing some tinkering in the ship. We flash back to our casino scene. Ollie, you are sitting here at the table when an anthropomorphic tiger sits down next to you and starts betting big. She bets 3 million, indicating that she's a very wealthy. And let's see… Nine. Okay. She's showing a, she is showing a nine on the table, and your cards are showing. You see that you have an eight on the table and an eight underneath, not, not showing on the table. So you have a, a double, a set of double. , and I'm not expecting you to know all the ins and outs of blackjack, but,

Chris/Ollie: Hmm. she, I can't remember from last session. She hasn't interacted with me at all, right?

Avery/GM: No, not yet.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. is there anyone else at the table?

Avery/GM: No, just you, the dealer and this tiger furry, but there are several other patrons kind of all around.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will turn and, and politely nod. And, uh, say greetings, just the classic. hello to be polite.

Avery/GM: Oh, hello. It's so nice to see another friendly face at the table. Are you enjoying yourself today?

Chris/Ollie: Certainly. I have noticed that everything requires credits and I can never find enough. So here I am.

Avery/GM: Yes, yes. The universe does run on credits. Unfortunately. It's so tiring. You know, sometimes I just have so many credits. I just sit down and bet them until I lose. It's quite fun. Sometimes losing money.

Chris/Ollie: he's gonna cock his, or Ollie will cock his head a bit and say, to lose is fun?

Avery/GM: Oh yes. I mean, when you're, when you're always winning, like I am, Sometimes the thrill of losing is much more enjoyable.

Chris/Ollie: She's tired of winning.

Avery/GM: She just needs to feel something. That's it.

Chris/Ollie: Great. I can it kind of brings the whole tiger fur into a new perspective as well. Beautifully done.

Avery/GM: Ollie. Go ahead and roll an intelligence notice check.

Bee/Polaris: By the way, is Ollie still live streaming this? Cause last session Ollie was live streaming.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yes. He would not have stopped.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Cool, cool, cool.

Chris/Ollie: intelligence notice you say

Avery/GM: Yes, please.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Cause uh, my cognitive boost should still be active.

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm.

Chris/Ollie: so it says, Oh, it wasn't, which my bad. It was intelligence know, right?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Or no intelligence…

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Never mind.

Avery/GM: Last time, did I have you roll intelligence know Check?

Chris/Ollie: yes.

Avery/GM: Oh, then that's what I meant. Sorry.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Well, because that would automatically succeed.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: If at all possible. Um, but if it says, if it's primarily mental and requires only basic physical actions, I get a plus two. So whichever one you wanna go with.

Avery/GM: you're literally just counting the cards, so it's not even, okay. It doesn't even take physical actions to, to do. Yeah. You calculate that you have a 75% chance of winning the hand if you split your eights

Chris/Ollie: split. What's that? Wait, what's that mean? Sorry. I'm very bad about blackjack.

Avery/GM: That would basically mean that you'd get two cards or I mean two hands because you have eights, you have a pair of eights in blackjack. Anytime you have matching cards, you can split them and basically give yourself two hands. Yep.

Zach/Zahn: I didn't know that.

Chris/Ollie: Really?

Avery/GM: I watched way too many black videos that so, yeah.

Chris/Ollie: I mean even, even when all those like. Blackjack tournaments were just like on every channel, like on Spike and, and all that. In the early two

thousands, I'd never even seen that. Okay. Uh, then yes, I will defer to the master Ollie, uh, plays to always the optimal chances.

Avery/GM: Okay, so I roll for this, uh, for the rest of the cards. So the dealer deals you attend and an ace giving you 18 and 19. The Tiger furry flips her cards and shows that she has a 20 and stays. The dealer flips his card and shows that he has a seven. He hits and he has an eight, so he has to hit again and he gets a seven. So he busts. So you both, uh, you both win, uh, your money. Um, so how much did you.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's pretty much Max bedding every, every hand.

Avery/GM: Okay. we'll say that After this, you have probably won a total of about 40,000 credits. Heck yeah, brother. Just over the course of all your gambling so far. Wow. She's like, oh, well. Okay. More money for the family, I guess. And Ollie, in your head, you hear Hermes’ voice come in and say Ollie, I feel the need to warn you that this is Avi Winston, one of the Winston family. You should be very cautious around her.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will reply: I thought she looked familiar. Do we know how much she knows?

Avery/GM: you do not.

Jenine/Marty: did we also all hear that?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Anyone, anyone listening or watching Ollie's Little Stream would also have heard that?

Jenine/Marty: Could we, could we, could we space Google her?

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: Uh, but we know for sure like the, uh, that the message from those spy drones got. Or

Avery/GM: Yes

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: You know for sure that it got out and got back to Olympia. Whether she has been to Olympia since or has been in contact with her family, you obviously wouldn't have that information.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. So Ollie is gonna play, uh, unless you need a minute to read something,

Avery/GM: go ahead.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Ollie's gonna play totally dumb and, uh, ask the family, where are you?

Avery/GM: Oh, just, you know, the capital of the Republic Olympia. We have quite a number of properties there. I just find high society so restricting sometimes I just like to get out to some of the more rougher places of the galaxy from time to time. you are a fascinating little robot, by the way, far too curious to just be a gambling machine.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, thank you. I am personally on a journey of self-discovery.

Jenine/Marty: Oh.

Chris/Ollie: My name is Optimax 11 E, but my friends call me Ollie. What is your designation?

Avery/GM: My name's Avi. Avi Winston

Jenine/Marty: Oh Avi, not Abby!

Chris/Ollie: Do… Ollie's gonna like text message the group real quick and ask if we have a sponsor for the race?

Jenine/Marty: Currently, No. But again, can we, can we google search this?

Avery/GM: Yes. I was gonna get to that. Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Sick.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Before we say yes.

Chris/Ollie: go ahead.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So because y'all basically got like little personal communication devices back on the custodian ship. So yeah, Marty, go ahead and roll. Yeah, I guess it would be intelligence know. Or intelligence program, if that's better.

Jenine/Marty: Sick! *Rolls Dice* oh, no. Okay. Well, um, , that is, that is a four!

Bee/Polaris: Can I also roll? Cause Polaris, like once they got back to the ship, Polaris is just sitting outside crisscross applesauce, just playing around with his like not light savers while watching the live stream.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You can also roll either intelligence program or intelligence know.

Bee/Polaris: Okay

Avery/GM: Marty, you type in Avi Windstone and you get articles about a famous asteroid miner, who 200 years ago found the biggest deposit of asteroid gold in the galaxy. And it's a really old article and you probably think that this person probably isn't actually the one you're looking for cause they would've been dead by now.

Jenine/Marty: Positive thinking! Now I have some stuff for trivia night.

Bee/Polaris: I got a seven, just a flat seven.

Avery/GM: A flat seven.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You find a few like gossip particles, like from like space people magazine about Avi Winston, you know, talking about how like she took the, the Winston yacht, the Winston Space Yacht for a joy ride around a nebula kind of, you know, you get the general sense that the paparazzi at least has painted her to be kind of a rebel, a wild child, so to speak.

Bee/Polaris: Hmm. Polaris will copy and paste that into the group chat and just put a shrug emoji.

Jenine/Marty: Does she have any connection to, uh, does it show that she, I'm asking this to, um, is there anything in those articles about like how close she is with like her other relatives specifically? I don't know. The, the, the one that we met on the planet?

Bee/Polaris: Is there?

Avery/GM: Hermes chimes in and says Yes. Avi Winston is the third great-granddaughter of the patriarch of the Winston family and the matriarch of the Winston family. She is second cousins with Lord Winston, whom you blew up. I'm sorry. Whom we blew up. Smiley Face.

Jenine/Marty: We Smiley Face!?

Bee/Polaris: You said second cousin?

Avery/GM: Yeah!

Jenine/Marty: I think that’s fine.

Zach/Zahn: She probably doesn't even know who Lord Winston is.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: maybe… we don't know!

Zach/Zahn: second cousins and this chick is so disconnected from reality. Yeah. She probably doesn’t know.

Jenine/Marty: and she's like third in, is she like third in line? Is that what like third in line to get like everything? Or just third rem…?

Bee/Polaris: We don't know actually, Polaris was about to ask for a family tree from Hermes.

Jenine/Marty: Give us the visualization of this tree.

Avery/GM: I will happily visualize that for y'all next time.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: I didn't think about that, but I should actually Family tree this out.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. If we're gonna go through a whole lot of 'em, we, we kind of know which ones we gotta destroy.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, yeah. What's, what, what is our like list of, of, of these people that we are about the, these tigers that we're about to go through?

Bee/Polaris: yeah. Also, we gotta know if there are any children, so we don't orphan them. And also children are like, immortal in this game. So…

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Avery/GM: so Hermes pipes up and says, I believe she is kind of considered a black sheep of the family.

Jenine/Marty: Didn't they say that about Lord Winston too?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Whether or not this information is accurate, you know, ,

Chris/Ollie: the entire family are black sheeps.

Caden/Bruce: which is funny considering they’re tigers

Avery/GM: They all don't like each other.

Jenine/Marty: RIP

Bee/Polaris: You know what, that's fine. That means they won't come and get revenge.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Dammit.

Jenine/Marty: They're fine. Yeah. Let's do it. What's gonna happen? What's gonna happen?

Zach/Zahn: What's the worst that could go wrong?

Caden/Bruce: What's the worst? I can heal. It's fine.

Avery/GM: Ollie, You hear the dealer announce that it's time for his break. And so he'll return to the table in about 20 minutes,

Chris/Ollie: how long until the race starts.

Avery/GM: The next race would start in about three hours, give or take.

Chris/Ollie: So we don't have a sponsor, but, uh, I, it's just a clarifying question for me. I'm, I don't think I'm gonna ask her to be the sponsor, but I do want all her money.

Jenine/Marty: That's fair.

Chris/Ollie: Um, so Ollie's going to. Watch the watching the dealer walk away say, unfortunate. However, we can continue to gamble. There's a race soon. Would you like to wager on the outcome?

Avery/GM: You see her crack a huge grin. She's like, gambling on the races is illegal back home! I like this. And she claps her hands.

Chris/Ollie: I didn't know they were illegal. Uh-oh.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, but is it illegal? I think she's with it. Just two people are trading money. Like it's like two friends being like, I bet you $5 you won't drink.

Avery/GM: It's illegal in the same way that like, you're technically not supposed to have poker nights at your house, you know?

Bee/Polaris: Oh.

Jenine/Marty: What?

Chris/Ollie: Or illegal in the same way. Like everything here is illegal.

Avery/GM: Exactly, so…

Jenine/Marty: I didn't know that.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, true.

Avery/GM: Illegal. In the same way that everything here is underhanded and technically, you know, dark web 2.0 type of stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Mm.

Avery/GM: You know?

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha.

Avery/GM: It would be, it's illegal based on where she lives. So, you know…

Jenine/Marty: copy.

Avery/GM: She's like, you are an interesting robot. What kind. What kind of wager would you like?

Chris/Ollie: I pretty much just gonna glance at the pile of money she's got at the table.

Avery/GM: She's like, oh, you want to wager this? This is 5 million credits. You would owe me a lot of money. And she like, runs a claw. Kind of like on your robot hand.

Chris/Ollie: He… Ollie's going to say…. just trying not to be too inflammatory here.

Avery/GM: If you win, we will tell you where to find the remains of your second cousin .

Jenine/Marty: If it’s still there.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, yeah. Whatever happened to those? Did we Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: If it’s still there?

Bee/Polaris: We didn’t burry? I'm pretty sure he just evaporated, No? Cause he was like right in the blast radius.

Avery/GM: Yeah, it was…

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Is the planet also still there?

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. The planet will be there for another million years or so before it gets sucked into the black hole.

Bee/Polaris: we should speed that up in some way.

Jenine/Marty: Just go to the evidence, yeet the evidence.

Avery/GM: Take the planet and push it somewhere else. Yep.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, Ollie's just going to, you know, say that, uh, If you seek to lose money, I seek to win. I have a group of friends participating in the race. I'd like to wager on them.

Avery/GM: She kind of rubs her in for a minute and she's like, well, that certainly would be thrilling. Losing that much money in a race . That would be so much fun. Daddy would get so mad. Okay, you clever little robot, You! What If we wager this, your friends win and you take this nice pile of money with you, but if your friends lose, I get whatever ship you came in.

Chris/Ollie: Done. immediately.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts a yikes emote in chat.

Jenine/Marty: live reactions.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I was, I was actually gonna say, can I get a quick vibe check from all the stream watchers? But, uh, that, that pretty much, uh, spelled it out. Yeah, I'm, yeah. Ollie's gonna immediately agree.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. When Ollie, uh, suggested to bet on us, uh, players put a blank face emoji and then we immediately agreed. He puts a, a yikes emoji

Jenine/Marty: a yoinks!

Avery/GM: Will you also be participating in the race?

Chris/Ollie: No.

Avery/GM: Oh, good. We can watch together in my private booth.

Caden/Bruce: Oh, no

Jenine/Marty: That’s a yoinks!

Avery/GM: and she stands up and hooks her arm into your arm and she's just like, come on, the race is gonna start in a few hours. Let's go get seated.

(Club ambience fades out, cyberpunk city ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: So you have three hours until this next race that you are now apparently doing.

Bee/Polaris: We don't even have a sponsor.

Jenine/Marty: We still gotta find a sponsor.

Bee/Polaris: We can't enter the race until we get a sponsor.

Jenine/Marty: Who can we get to sponsor us!?

Chris/Ollie: How much? How much would that cost? She might be willing to do it.

Bee/Polaris: sponsor a race.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Sponsor. She's betting against us

Bee/Polaris: That you bet with her on?

Jenine/Marty: yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Hey, she is. She seems pretty crazy.

Zach/Zahn: She likes to lose.

Avery/GM: Yeah, so there are a few options for sponsors that I have already subtly presented. You with, but if you would like me to be more explicit, I will be more explicit.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, I was about to ask if like at the, at where you signed up for the race, if there's like a list of sponsors that don't have a team to race for them and you could just like, oh yeah, I'll just sign up with this one.

Avery/GM: You could probably find a list of sponsors looking to get a racer at the main building.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Caden/Bruce: Can we be sponsored by Assemble’s singles?

Bee/Polaris: They're sponsoring the whole race.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, that'd be funny though.

Bee/Polaris: Also don't they already have a team?

Avery/GM: I did say they do have their own team, so

Bee/Polaris: yeah.

Avery/GM: Whether or not you decide to be on that team,

Bee/Polaris: Oh, we have to partner up with other people. I see.

Avery/GM: That's one option.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: You could be your own team. You could partner up with another sponsor that already has a team. You could make up a sponsor. See how far that gets you.

Bee/Polaris: We can lie.

Jenine/Marty: Oh?

Bee/Polaris: could Hermes be our sponsor? ,

Jenine/Marty: honestly…

Bee/Polaris: Do we have any other like robot chassis with us currently on the ship?

Zach/Zahn: They're all damaged at the moment.

Bee/Polaris: Oh… Well.

Chris/Ollie: Well, Wait cause I've been fixing 'em from a little bit

Avery/GM: yeah, I was gonna say you at least fixed two of them.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: One of the companion bots and the security bot.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent. Cause yeah, everything pretty nice except, uh, I didn't really expect to be taken prisoner there at the end, so, Hmm.

Avery/GM: I'm sorry Chris, I didn't, I wasn't saying you had to go with her, she was just

Chris/Ollie: Oh, no, no, no.

Bee/Polaris: social prison.

Chris/Ollie: socially in prison because

Avery/GM: Oh,

Chris/Ollie: leaving would be pretty sketchy. So.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: At least to her.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, you could just say that you left your oven on!

Chris/Ollie: true… Cause it's pretty much gonna be the game plan for when we go back. He's gonna be like, Hey, I need to be right back real quick. Uh, use the robot, the little robots room and then run over and just like hack off a piece of my quantum core and then go back and be like, oh no, we're good. Oh, we haven't been doing those roles.

Avery/GM: Oh, you're right. I'm sorry. Roll a percentage dice. Sorry.

Chris/Ollie: Should I do two? Cause I, I don't think we did it last session either.

Avery/GM: Yeah, yeah. Roll two, uh, 19. Okay. And you were at 64% last time, so we're back up to 83%.

Bee/Polaris: That's pretty good.

Chris/Ollie: And then 21

Avery/GM: Okay. Your core is fully restored.

Chris/Ollie: Okay, that's good because Ollie might be in a little bit of trouble.

Avery/GM: You'll be fine. You'll be totally fine. All right, so the other sponsor opportunities here would probably be any of the shopkeepers that you've interacted with, aside from Little Fred.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Cause he has a racer already.

Avery/GM: Because he has a racer already. Yeah. you haven't explored the hotel yet, so there might be sponsors. or you could go back to the actual racing building and get a list of sponsors.

Chris/Ollie: Ollie could probably also, uh, just call out up in the upper class booths. Hey, anyone need a team?

Bee/Polaris: right in front of the person you just made a bet with That'd be, wait, isn't it her private booth? Are there gonna be other people there?

Chris/Ollie: Uh, her security.

Avery/GM: It is the Winston Private booth.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, are there other Winstons?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, oh, I didn't even think about that. Uh-oh

Jenine/Marty: That’s a yoinks.

Avery/GM: Also, we should establish who actually is gonna be doing the race.

Chris/Ollie: I said that I wouldn't, but I'm gonna be there.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, so you lied. Got it.

Chris/Ollie: Secretly. I'm gonna be there like in Cognito.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: Oh, so did you wanna have your core already split, basically?

Chris/Ollie: Well, I'm gonna use one of my subroutines to split my consciousness so I can, you know. Be mentally, multiple places at once, and I'm just gonna like pop into like Polaris's helmet down in the corner and just be like, Hey, I'm here. Don't tell anyone I'm helping out.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: Uh, Polaris will not be part of the race. He's gonna sit on the sidelines.

Chris/Ollie: What?

Bee/Polaris: I'm just kidding. I'm kidding. I'm kidding.

Chris/Ollie: The ringer.

Bee/Polaris: his whole deal is being a pilot.

Jenine/Marty: My heart dropped for a second there.

Bee/Polaris: No, I'm joking with he's gonna be there.

Avery/GM: I was like, I planned this whole thing.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. No, no, no. It goes without saying is gonna be part of the race.

Zach/Zahn: If I have enough time to make the, the modifications to a suit that I want, yeah, he’s definitely gonna be there!

Avery/GM: Which mods did you wanna make?

Zach/Zahn: So definitely gonna be having mag boots. Um, he wants to, you know, modify his, his helmet to do the cool thing. he wants to have a, uh, data pad computer on his left wrist. He wants to insert the laser blade into his right wrist predator style. And then he's gonna ma modify the grappling launcher to have, uh, cause on the front of it, it's currently just a grappling hook, right?

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: He wants to have it as a magnet head.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you have three hours until the next race I will give you. That gives you enough time. Actually, let's make it interesting. Go ahead and roll. Intelligence fix.

Zach/Zahn: That's a 14.

Avery/GM: Okay, I'll give you three. You have enough time to do one mod per hour given your roll.

Chris/Ollie: Definitely One of the grappling. The grappling hook one.

Zach/Zahn: Well, yeah. Grappling hook and mag boots are essential. so in that case, uh oh, I want the helmet one though, but I guess I'll go predator wrist cause that sounds more useful.

Avery/GM: Okay. Marty, are you gonna be on the shuttle part of the race, or are you?

Jenine/Marty: I don't know which is more helpful?

Avery/GM: I mean, you can heal

Jenine/Marty: I can heal! So… Let me double check this. It's two vehicles, right?

Avery/GM: I can go over the rules again if you need me to

Jenine/Marty: One more time! I have them down, but I do not remember. I cannot read my own chicken scratch.

Avery/GM: you are totally fine. One vehicle is called the Spotter. They are basically a fighter ship that maneuvers around the track, dodging debris, blasting obstacles, and protecting the other ship.

The other ship is called the shuttle. It's an open top hovercraft that needs at least two other members of the team, to basically pilot the shuttle craft through the track, dodging any obstacles that aren't blasted by the spotter. Fighting off teams of other shuttles who will either try to board your shuttle, ram you to knock you off or run you into debris.

Jenine/Marty: Hmm. I'll be on team shuttle. I can help out.

Avery/GM: Okay!

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: I don't think anyone else can be in, uh, the ship with Polaris anyway, yeah. Other than

Avery/GM: probably not.

Bee/Polaris: robots that can get into the system.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's probably right. I don't,

Bee/Polaris: I mean, Polaris is just, just wants to race, so he didn't even consider that sponsors were something that you needed. So he probably just go with like the pre gen list at the actual signup place unless someone else has an idea of getting a sponsor.

Zach/Zahn: I like Big Fred as a possible sponsor.

Jenine/Marty: That would be fun.

Bee/Polaris: He did give, yeah, he did give us those cool, cool laser blades.

Zach/Zahn: Cool, cool. Laser blades and, uh, a shit ton of like parts and stuff.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. What do the sponsors get out of sponsoring racers?

Avery/GM: Essentially the sponsors get the prestige of having basically sponsored a winner. They get the street cred and the social benefits of being the winner of the day, that kind of thing. Additionally, they do get a cut of the prize money.

Bee/Polaris: There's prize money.

Avery/GM: Oops.

Zach/Zahn: Of course there’s prize money. Do you think people just race and death races for fun?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. Why not?

Chris/Ollie: I mean, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris quite literally would have! That was his whole goal!

Avery/GM: First prize is 1,000,000 credits. Second place prize is 500,000 credits, and the third place prize is 250,000 Credit.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Gotcha, gotcha.

Caden/Bruce: But running in the race is priceless.

Avery/GM: Yes,

Bee/Polaris: exactly.

Avery/GM: We'll say you downloaded the generic list of sponsors when you got the pamphlet as well.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: And the current list of sponsors includes, Dex, who is the owner of the Ornate Dreams Hotel, featuring the Sapphire Tree Restaurant. Another sponsor is Terry, Carrie, Mary, and Larry. And they are a polycule that owns the lucky tentacle. And then… And then also you could do Doc. Doc is sponsoring racers cause hey, if they get injured, that's more business for him.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent. did we visit Doc?

Avery/GM: I don't know. I think, I think you did.

Zach/Zahn: I did. I think

Avery/GM: yes. Yes, you did.

Zach/Zahn: Yes, Because I bought stuff from Doc

Avery/GM: and then Professor Infinity is sponsoring racers. Next to his name is a little asterisk, and at the bottom, the asterisk says, testing out highly experimental shuttle craft.

Bee/Jenine/Zach together: Ooh, ooh.

Jenine/Marty: How, how experimental?

Zach/Zahn: oh, right. Professor Infinity is the, is the mad scientist.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Yes. Yeah. There are no other details to answer your question, Marty. There are no other details about what highly experimental means.

Jenine/Marty: That's a little sketch, but, okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will send a screenshot of the list and chat, but like with the highly experimental shuttle, uh, highlighted and then raised eyebrow emoji.

Zach/Zahn: and like triple underlined with an exclamation point… Sorry!

Jenine/Marty: No, no, no, no, no. This was, this is another clarify. We get provided a shuttle.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Jenine/Marty: Right. Okay.

Avery/GM: Okay. The shuttle is provided by the sponsor.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Avery/GM: And most of them are pretty bare bones. So someone saying that they're testing out an experimental one is a bit interesting, to say the least.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: while Bruce is poisoning the other, uh, contestants, should we , I mean, sorry, feeding the other contestants. Should Marty and players go talk to some of these sponsors? Maybe, yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. So let's start out with Bruce. You wanted to take little treats into basically the locker room?

Caden/Bruce: Oh, I have a very, very distinct idea of what Bruce wants to do.

Avery/GM: All right. Lay it on me.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Caden/Bruce: So what Bruce is gonna. Is he's gonna put on the chef hat? Well, he's probably still wearing it, honestly. He's gonna keep his apron on. And what he's done is he did buy a can of Jamie's beans and what he's gonna do is he's gonna take the label off of chef's Jamie's, and he's gonna borrow Polaris sewing machine and very rut, sew it onto his apron.

Caden/Bruce: and what he's gonna do, He's gonna go down there wearing this, wearing this uniform with his tray of made like bread roll tarts, which as we've already like established, are like, they look and smell amazing. They're just dangerous. And he's gonna go along to like, into the contestants corridor and just try to promote Chef Jamie's.

Caden/Bruce: Company by being basically giving these out as, uh, you know, um, like companies do, you know, like, here's, here's a freebie. If, if you like it, come back and, and, and buy the product. You know, like how uh, Costco gives away free food to try and promote to buy the thing that they wanna sell, but no buys…

Zach/Zahn: Oh the samples!

Caden/Bruce: Yeah, no one ever buys the, like, you never actually go and buy whatever they're selling. You just go and eat all the free samples of food. And that is basically what Bruce is doing. He's just, uh, knowing the outcome of this promoting chef Jamie's brand. That is, that is what I wanna do.

Avery/GM: I love this. This is great. Yeah. Yeah. So you come into the main corridor of the death race registration area. You see the bars in the clubs, and they're all kind of bumping and getting excited, getting ready for the next race. And then you see a sign with an arrow that says contestants, and it points down a flight of stair.

And you come down this flight of stairs and you see about 12 individuals kind of, they're like in like sets of like threes and fours. They're chatting with each other kind of off in different corners, and they're wearing like pilot jumpsuits. They look like they're, you know, kind of just trying to relax before the next big race.

Caden/Bruce: Excellent. Bruce is gonna hold this tray and, uh, like nervously flick his tail, but like, try to control himself and just, uh, walk into the room and be like, Fresh out of the oven, chef Jamie's brand new beans and more buns here to give you motivation to help satisfy your cravings before the next race. Would you like to try one?

Avery/GM: Go ahead and roll a charisma connect check.

Caden/Bruce: Oh no! Of course I have to roll.

Bee/Polaris: can the, the smell wafting in…

Avery/GM: I'll give you a plus one because No, no, I'll give you a plus two because they smell so good and they came out so great. And you rolled a 12 on your earlier check, right?

Caden/Bruce: What was the, um,

Avery/GM: then I'll, I'll give you a plus two.

Caden/Bruce: It was Connect and, uh,

Avery/GM: charisma connect.

Caden/Bruce: Charisma. I got a plus zero on both of those. That's fine. Uh, with the plus two, that's an 11.

Avery/GM: Okay

Jenine/Marty: Nice!

Bee/Polaris: That’s Pretty good!

Caden/Bruce: That's pretty good.

Avery/GM: Nine of these individuals, a few. A couple from each team, and then a whole team come over and start taking samples. And one of 'em is just like, oh yeah, food. That's exactly what I need. Helps calm the nerves, you know?

And one of these racers is like a humanoid mushroom, a little miconid, and it wattles up to you and reaches up its little tendril and grabs one and looks at it and it's just, I rarely eat people food. Uh, but sure why not? Jamie's a good person and eats it.

Bee/Polaris: They know Jamie?

Avery/GM: they know TV personality. Jamie.

Bee/Polaris: ah, fair.

Caden/Bruce: If this mushroom very rarely eats human food, it is like one of the best things this mushroom has eaten in a very long time. Like, these things taste good. Bruce did not make something that tastes bad.

Avery/GM: Bruce would never,

Caden/Bruce: Bruce would never,

Avery/GM: yeah. You see its eyes kind of get big and then it reaches up for another one and asks, uh, can I have a second?

Jenine/Marty: Oh no.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will kinda like look around at like the people who have already established here and like know that he'll have leftovers and smile and be like, Of course, and you can take one for the road as well if you'd like.

Avery/GM: It takes another one and waddles back over to where its team was sort of chatting and you see it stuffing its face with all these samples that you've given it. And do you stay down here and monitor or do you leave your tray and just take off?

Caden/Bruce: I feel like to not look suspicious, Bruce would have like done a lap of the room and then like gone off and. Like made sort of the same sales pitch to other, um, people who are watching this event, but like, but like, he is very, very sure to like, not give this to anyone who's like super elderly or like a small child.

Caden/Bruce: Like he might see like a parent, like nursing a baby and just. Kind of be like, oh no, I wouldn't suggest having this like with a small infant, you know, don't wanna like blow their taste buds outta their brain sort of thing. And just, you know, like he, he is, he's given, he's given them a way to not look sketchy, but like, Also trying to be somewhat nice about it.

Avery/GM: Totally. Okay. I'm just gonna make a note here. Uh, chef Jamie impersonation…

Caden/Bruce: He's not trying No, no, no, no, no.

Bee/Polaris: No. Employee. Employee.

Avery/GM: or No, no. Not impersonation.

Caden/Bruce: He is, he is, he is marketing chef Jamie's beans and buns now, apparently and just, they taste amazing. They're just gonna have… you know.

Avery/GM: I'll put marketing subterfuge.

Bee/Polaris: Yes.

Avery/GM: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: Fantastic.

Avery/GM: This, this is great. Cool. Yeah. So Bruce, you hear a few people say, wow, I can't wait to try these at, at bean me up later. Oh, I, I hope they get these in stock soon.

Bee/Polaris: Uh oh.

Avery/GM: and your bean roll are becoming the talk of the race, surprisingly.

Caden/Bruce: Uh oh.

(Ambience fades out, outro fades in)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show!

Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production

Intro and Outro music produced by Dustin Carpenter

Background Music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under an attribution, non-commercial license from creative commons. Tracks used include: Cyberpunk bar, cyberpunk city, and orbital promenade.

be sure to check us out @furthest Pod on Twitter and Tumblr

We'll be back on December 15th with our next episode.

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro music swells, continues playing, then fades out)

Episode 10 - Shopping Time!

Avery/GM: Welcome to episode 10 of Beyond the Furthest Stars. Quick Trigger Warning: this episode contains discussions of drugs, alcohol and gambling. Time stamps are recorded in the description of this episode, so that you can skip these sections. This episode is mostly a shopping episode, but there are plenty of funny and fun moments in between. Alright, let’s get to the show.

(Intro Music plays, then fades out. Ambience fades in)

Avery/GM: So here you are pulling into the docking bay of this hollowed out main asteroid in this asteroid belt. This place is well known throughout the galaxy. People come here hoping to strike it rich at some of the gambling establishments. Others are just on the run from the law and sort of just hunkered down here cause it, it makes its own law out here and still others are looking to feed their particular vice, whatever that might be.

Avery/GM: And as your ship is docking inside of docking Bay 12 you see several other battered ships of various sizes kind of coming in and out of other bays that are kind of pockmarked throughout the asteroid here. And there is a little safety robot waving two little glowy sticks to, to guide you in, Polaris, as you're parking.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, I guess I'll listen to him. .

Avery/GM: Yeah?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I mean, I feel like, I feel like there's no other choice. I don't wanna like zip through the hanger,

Avery/GM: I mean, you can run him over. I don’t know.

Bee/Polaris: No, I'm super not gonna run over a tight little robot dude. .

Avery/GM: Okay. And you park perfectly fine. It's totally cool.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet

Avery/GM: Access bay… or the, your access ramp on your ship lowers down. Do y'all disembark? Do you do anything before you disembark?

Bee/Polaris: We have to sell some stuff, right? Yeah, So we should probably the big atv, one of the bikes and some random stuff. Did I write it down?

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: I did not write it down. Did someone else write it down?

Avery/GM: No, we

Zach/Zahn: left the big one because I had convinced us that we could potentially use it to rob people with

Bee/Polaris: Oh, did we? Okay. So are we just selling one of the bikes then?

Chris/Ollie: Oh, yeah. Yeah. I think it was reversed. So we brought one of the small bikes to sell.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, so we just took one of the small bikes and then we had a bunch of like scrap and stuff that we were gonna sell.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Okay. Okay, cool.

Avery/GM: Y'all are pretty familiar with like galactic trade. You know that you don't have to like haul like your bikes and stuff out in order to sell them. You can just send someone down here later and they can offload it

Bee/Polaris: sick

Avery/GM: like it's a pretty established practice so they could arrange to meet you or something.

Zach/Zahn: Next galaxy is a thing here instead of next door. Next Galaxy.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Next star. Next star. Next star. Sounds better.

Avery/GM: Next star. There you go. That's better. . So you load up with your stuff. Do you take Hermes out of the ship?

Zach/Zahn: We need to leave Hermes with the gun to defend the ship from being stolen.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we can leave, We'll leave Hermes in the ship and Polaris will just send a text message to Hermes, just basically saying like, If it's not us, don't let anyone else on the ship without authorization.

Avery/GM: You see the little the little green hologram pop up with like a little gun.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, good.

Avery/GM: He just cocks it.

Zach/Zahn: Oh God. He's armed now.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Zach/Zahn: I love it. Hermes…

Avery/GM: It's a little virtual gun. It's not a real

Zach/Zahn: Hermes, It's not a toy.

Chris/Ollie: It's like a small replica of the plasma cannon

Bee/Polaris: Hermes. Did you watch your firearms safety protocol video?

Avery/GM: So, yeah. As you come down the little access ramp into the docking bay, the safety robot has put its glow sticks away and has kind of zipped over on its little, its little wheels. It rolls around on wheels to get around. It's very fast. And it's sitting there waving at the party all happy and has like a big LED smile on its display panel.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris’ First thought in his own head is I wonder if I can drift that.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my goodness.

Bee/Polaris: I'm kidding.

Zach/Zahn: Is it big enough for you to ride on?

Bee/Polaris: if it has wheels… No, I'm kidding.

Zach/Zahn: you just hop on, grab onto it’s head and ride it around like a unicycle.

Avery/GM: I was gonna say, it's about the size of a unicycle, so

Bee/Polaris: I'm kidding. I'm totally kidding.

Avery/GM: And it just, it, it, it, it greets you and it's like, Welcome to Bragos, bastion of Freedom in the Galaxy. I am your Bragos Registration Access Terminal or BRAT for short.

Zach/Zahn: That's cute.

Avery/GM: Please enjoy this complimentary map of the facilities our main asteroid has available. Auxiliary facilities are available to platinum members at a subscription of 5 million credits per person.

Bee/Polaris: What the fuck, Dude?

Avery/GM: please be aware that weapons are not permitted on the surface and that any projectile weapon discharges within Brazos properties will be subject to immediate termination of your sentience. Have a pleasant day and then it wheels off.

Bee/Polaris: This is pretty par for the course.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, looks down at the pistol at his side. Oh, well, shit. looking at everybody else to. Should I, should I try and hide it or should I just put it back?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is gonna go put his laser pistol in the, the weapons locker on the ship.

Chris/Ollie: Could I like hide mine inside of my body?

Avery/GM: I'm sure you have like a glove compartment of some kind.

Zach/Zahn: I was about to ask if I could hide mine in him too?

Bee/Polaris: I mean, I have I have a knife. Does the, does a, a knife count?

Chris/Ollie: you said No weapons and projectile weapons.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Does Polaris, does Polaris ask that out loud?

Bee/Polaris: No, I'm asking I'm asking you if like a, a knife would count as a weapon that would be prohibited?

Avery/GM: I, I actually meant projectile weapons. That is my bad.

Bee/Polaris: All right, cool.

Avery/GM: So, yeah

Bee/Polaris: Polaris,

Avery/GM: anything that could puncture the little glass dome that keeps everything contained.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, that's totally fair. Polaris goes and puts his gun away.

Avery/GM: They just don’t want to get vacc’d.

Jenine/Marty: I don’t think I have any weapons. Do I have weapons? I have no weapons on me.

Bee/Polaris: Would Marty have any weapons?

Jenine/Marty: No, I don’t know. No one ever gave one to me.

Zach/Zahn: Is the dome protected against laser and only worried about projectiles cause there are two there… Those are two different things.

Avery/GM: I mean, look, you know what I mean. Don't get pedantic.

Zach/Zahn: I have to at least attempt for

Avery/GM: no, of course

Zach/Zahn: for conversation sake.

Avery/GM: No. Yeah. The amount of things I try to pull in, in, in, when I'm a player, of course.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn puts his pistol inside of Ollie’s Carapace.

Bee/Polaris: Now are you doing that in the middle of the hangar bay where everyone can see you, including the cameras that are probably in the hangar bay?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. My pistols already in there, so I don't need to like hide it, but they can probably see you.

Zach/Zahn: We just nonchalantly turn our backs to whenever cameras there and I just put the…

Avery/GM: roll a notice check.

Chris/Ollie: Can I, I can assist him, I'm guessing.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Chris/Ollie: What?

Avery/GM: And that'll be intelligence.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, good. I have a plus in that

Chris/Ollie: The assist is just one dice, right?

Avery/GM: No, you roll the same check.

Chris/Ollie: Okay.

Avery/GM: And if you succeed then you add plus one.

Zach/Zahn: Where's my notice at? It is, Oh, yay. I made notice…. or I actually took proficiency in this. So that is five. I got a five.

Avery/GM: you rolled a five?

Zach/Zahn: I rolled a five,

Chris/Ollie: I rolled a 12.

Zach/Zahn: That's a lot better.

Avery/GM: Okay. That got it up to a six. I'll say that you notice two cameras, one directly above where the, the ship is docked to kind of keep an eye on the ship and then you notice another one that's like above the entrance leading in and out of this bay into like the main concourse area.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha. So there's surely a spot where, you know, you could just kind of yank that in there. Super stealthy Like.

Avery/GM: I mean, theoretically there's nothing under the ship. You could always just get under a wing or something.

Bee/Polaris: You could also come with me to the weapons locker to fe putting your weapon away and give it to Ollie .

Zach/Zahn: Oh, well see.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: That's smart.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: No, we're, we're just like the ship fixers.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet .

Chris/Ollie: Give Broke ship. We fix.

Zach/Zahn: We were like, we, we pretend to look like we're looking at like some, you know, blaster burns or something, and then I just put it in there.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Perfect.

Avery/GM: I don't know why you think you're gonna need weapons in this. Totally safe. Not at all. Hostile place.

Jenine/Marty: Who needs weapons?

Bee/Polaris: That's crazy because yeah, we, we were told that this place is like super illegal. So I imagine violence is quite the norm.

Zach/Zahn: though I am highly tempted to pick up this rail gun nail gun… where is it?

Avery/GM: Wait, did I say nail gun or rail gun?

Zach/Zahn: No, I, I'm finding it in the actual…Spike thrower. That's it. ,

Chris/Ollie: that's probably something you could build.

Avery/GM: before that little robot zipped off it handed one of you a data pad with a map of the facilities.

Caden/Bruce: Ooh.

Avery/GM: So as, as you exit this docking bay, there's kinda like this central area that is, that all feed, like everything directly goes to like this central elevator that just raises directly up to the surface of the asteroid. So is that, I assume that's where y'all are heading? Or did you have more stuff to do at the ship?

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: No, I mean, I'm good.

Jenine/Marty: I'm good.

Bee/Polaris: I'm following whoever's leading.

Chris/Ollie: all good.

Avery/GM: Luckily for you, for y'all today is a very slow, It's a very slow time right now, so there's not a very long wait to get on this elevator. And you step onto the little disc and it starts rising up. And as it rises up, the, the ceiling above you sort of opens you know, just this metal, this metal door opens and it lifts you up and there's this bright light that kind of comes shining down, and as it, it becomes flush with the surface of the asteroid, you're met with basically these five kind of building clusters inside this glass domed structure.

And there are bright lights that are kind of shining and illuminating this central square. There's signs that are advertising drinks, gambling weapons. and they light up the windows of these various building complexes. There's people kind of milling about kind of stumbling and you know, there's a few people probably having a really good time on some really good substances,

Others are crying over, having lost all their money. There are people dancing in the street performing tricks like juggling and fire breathing and all that fun stuff. And there's these ridiculously looking statues of presumably famous people from local history. I assume ,

Zach/Zahn: the founders of this asteroid

probably, yeah. And, and, yeah. So these, these five buildings on your map here there's, so building number one contains some shopping options. There's big Fred's weapons, armor, and ammo. There's tiny Fred's bombs, blasters and more. There's the Daily Disguise and Professor Infiniti's Robot Emporium.

Building number two. You've got Docs’ Dox, Vox, and Pox! which is kind of a general store and medicine store. You've got Bean Me Up, which is a bean based grocery store.

Bee/Polaris: So good.

Avery/GM: And then there's Pick Your Poison, which is kind of a more illicit substance facility

Zach/Zahn: Apothecary Big question or big ex big quotation marks. Apothecary

Avery/GM: Yeah. building number three, you've got the or Ornate Dreams Hotel featuring the world famous Sapphire Tree restaurant building. Number four, The lucky tentacle Casino and spa*.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Avery/GM: And then building. And as you're kind of taking in this scene, building five really stands out as like the centerpiece of this asteroid. It's the pendulum… pendulum of Doom Death races sponsored by assemble singles.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Avery/GM: and there's like a… there's like all these bright lights and like search lamps floating, and then there's like a little a little like dancing, like assembles cheese mascot,

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God.

Avery/GM: Out here.

Zach/Zahn: Would Assembles cheese be a triangle?

Avery/GM: Of course. No. It's, it's a flat square.

Zach/Zahn: Aw, but Kraft’s already a square. I was just trying to make it different.

Avery/GM: Oh, I see, I see.

Bee/Polaris: Make it a circle.

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's fine then. Sure. Okay. It's a circle

Zach/Zahn: cause it's assembled. So you put two triangles together to make a square.

Avery/GM: Oh, I love it.

Jenine/Marty: It’s like building blocks. They're building blocks.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, right.

Avery/GM: Okay, great. I love it. Yes. Now is this, that is a great little .

Bee/Polaris: Is this mascot like a dude in a suit or a robot?

Avery/GM: Oh, it's a dude in a suit.

Bee/Polaris: I just know he hates his job. I just know he hates his job.

Jenine/Marty: RIP. That's probably not like what is, what is the weather temperature? Like what is the temperature in this space? Is it like hot? Is this guy like just baking in there like, like a guy on a street corner in one of these suits and, and

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Does he look like he can use a water bottle?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Can he even make use of one?

Avery/GM: Jenine, to answer your question, this place is probably a nice, comfortable, like 67 degrees.

Jenine/Marty: Ooh, nice.

Bee/Polaris: Fahrenheit For any, anyone that might possibly listen from anywhere else other than .

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: But would it be hotter for him under all these lights?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: it is definitely a little hotter under the lights and this person looks like they are sweating a bit.

Bee/Polaris: RIP

Avery/GM: Yeah. So y'all have found yourself in Space Vegas. Sweet. Space Vegas.

Zach/Zahn: Space. Vegas.

Chris/Ollie: Spegas!

Bee/Polaris: Wait, what was, What was building number four? I was writing these down.

Jenine/Marty: It was a casino in spa.

Avery/GM: Oh, I’m sorry

Bee/Polaris: Wait, then what number 3?

Jenine/Marty: There was quotes around something or question mark next to something. There was, there was some kind of punctuation

Zach/Zahn: There was an asterisk.

Jenine/Marty: Asterisk! Thank you.

Zach/Zahn: Was asterisk next to the spa.

Jenine/Marty: Cool Cool Cool Cool. I was trying to figure out what the, what the, the, the punctuation was.

Bee/Polaris: Wait. Okay. So was number three Just the hotel then.

Jenine/Marty: And has a nice restaurant.

Zach/Zahn: hotel and restaurant.

Bee/Polaris: sweet. Okay. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: One that Bruce has gotta put their taste test to.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, Bruce. Bruce should go in there and challenge the chef.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, that'd be awesome.

Avery/GM: Duel of the chefs

Zach/Zahn: chef off.

Chris/Ollie: It's like Shokugeki no Soma all of a sudden,

Bee/Polaris: can we get the, Can we get the space Great British Bakeoff ?

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Caden/Bruce: Space version of Chopped

Bee/Polaris: space version of Hell's Kitchen.

Avery/GM: So yeah, Building four is the Lucky Tentacle Casino and Spa Asterisk

Zach/Zahn: pendulum of Doom Death Races

Avery/GM: sponsored by assemble singles. .

Bee/Polaris: Why does a cheese company a sponsor death races ?

Zach/Zahn: Because it's ironic cause all the ships are probably breaking apart.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Chris/Ollie: Assembled singles are people .

Zach/Zahn: Oh God, it's Soylent singles.

Chris/Ollie: Soylent singles. Perfect.

Avery/GM: It wasn't go, I wasn't going there, but

Zach/Zahn: Oh my god. It's… that would Zahn’s outlook on the best grilled cheese though.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. After you win a lifetime supply of singles from the race

Zach/Zahn: Assembles singles, it's all people.

Avery/GM: So y'all are here. Where to first?

Bee/Polaris: Is there, is there a a bubble tea stand?

Avery/GM: I'm sure there probably is. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: I think that would probably be in building two. Cause that seems to be where all the food is.

Jenine/Marty: That was the correct question.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Does anyone to shop.

Zach/Zahn: Let's get

Chris/Ollie: Oh, absolutely.

Zach/Zahn: Let's spend this. We got this, We got a hole burning in our pocket with this a hundred grand.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Who's holding that by the way?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Where is that located?

Zach/Zahn: Obviously on Ollie.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, cool.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent.

Avery/GM: Just uploaded it into the

Chris/Ollie: Excellent.

Zach/Zahn: He’s got the data pad on him somewhere. I don't know, either that or Zahn in his big ass backpack.

Chris/Ollie: So since I have the finances, Ollie will just Apple pay everyone 20,000 credits in their messages and say have fun with your shopping trip. And then Ollie's just gonna go for the, the robot Emporium.

Avery/GM: Okay. Professor Infinity.

Chris/Ollie: Yes, sir.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn will make for building one, as I'm assuming that's where I can find some mod components to start beefing up our ship and our armor and our guns and all the other cool shit

Avery/GM: Oh, Zach, of course.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yes.

Avery/GM: I forgot to do mods.

Zach/Zahn: That's okay. For the most part A there's pretty decent ones made out here. It's one of those I plan on mostly making them up and then running 'em by you.

Avery/GM: That's fine. I just forgot to do anything related to that, so I'm gonna have to pull up the book. So I apologize for not finishing my prep.Like I thought.

Bee/Polaris: you're, It's fine. You did. Hey, you did enough.

Zach/Zahn: You did good for one week.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. I need the raw material cuz most of these are just like, Oh, they need this much money and up to one hour and a functioning thing or, Yeah. So I just need, I literally just need parts. And I can build my own shit.

Avery/GM: So, yeah. So while other people are doing their shopping, brainstorm a few like parts that you wanna buy and we can…

Zach/Zahn: Thankfully they keep it pretty general of just like they, they keep it generalized by saying like, Oh, this costs this much money and one unit of pretech salvage or, a type A power cell runs this or, So just super

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Easy stuff.

Avery/GM: Okay, that's fine.

Zach/Zahn: And I guess for easy sake I would keep it for the cost or the, for the credit cost, we would quote, unquote call it parts and I would just buy X amount of parts for x number of credits.

Avery/GM: Okay, that's fine. Okay. Yeah, that's fine.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I'm gonna need a lot of parts too.

Bee/Polaris: How much did Ollie split the, the money by again?

Chris/Ollie: It should be even 20 K for everyone.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: But we haven't sold the the hover bike yet, so

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Should we sell that stuff first before doing shopping so we just have more money?

Zach/Zahn: I mean, we can do that in building 1 too as well. Oh, sweet. Cause that seems to be where all the tech stuff is.

Zach/Zahn: Unless we, unless you wanna potentially use it as a contender for the, the race. We don't know what kind of races they have, what vehicles they use for the races.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. If it's like Red Line,

Zach/Zahn: if it's speeders or

Avery/GM: you'll not, you'll not need any of your own personal vehicles except the Strike Fighter that Polaris has.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, okay. Got it.

Avery/GM: I've, I've got something fun planned for that. Hopefully

Zach/Zahn: nice

Avery/GM: Or it'll fall flat. Who knows? we'll find out.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we could just, we could also solve this death race with cake and Bombs . It seems to be our MO

Chris/Ollie: never goes wrong.

Zach/Zahn: There was also a list of ship mod. There we go. Ship Mods is also one 12 of the pdf.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: They're also a bit more expensive. 20 grand is sadly not gonna get me as far as I thought.

Avery/GM: No, no. You'll, you'll probably have to find some big score to really get some good stuff, but

Zach/Zahn: Right. Ship's armor score is increased by five 50% of whole two components slash hull class

Avery/GM: anyway. So we know what Zach's doing. We know what Chris is doing.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris doesn't need to buy anything.

Avery/GM: No. Okay.

Bee/Polaris: So he's just gonna follow around Marty and Bruce.

Jenine/Marty: Marty doesn't need to buy anything cause I got all the medical stuff from the planet.

Caden/Bruce: Well, Bruce wants to go to building number two.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: We follow Bruce?

Zach/Zahn: Hey Marty, can I, can I have some of your funds?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah, sure. I'm not gonna do anything with it.

Zach/Zahn: Hell yeah, brother.

Avery/GM: what?Oh. Oh my goodness. Okay, Cool. Ollie, let's start with you. Where did profess, There we go. So Professor Infinity's Robot Emporium is sort of a, a fairly big shop space in this building. Takes up quite a bit of real estate and it, it is just packed to the brim with. Robot chassis and you know, different parts and modifications and stuff, you know, different sorts of arms and wheels and legs and all kinds of cool stuff.

The person who runs this place, Professor Infini, is the, is dressed like the stereotypical mad scientist. He wears a big white lab coat goggles over his eyes. He's, he has got this like greenish blue skin and wild frazzled hair that sticks out straight from his head, kind of just all, all up and, and everywhere.

But he's, he's, you know, about average height, you know, 5’ 8”, 5’ 9”, and. Pretty scrawny build. And he comes as, as you come in he's sort of hunched over this little desk and he's got like a wrench in one hand and he's tightening this thing on this robot. And after a few moments, the robot sits up, shakes his hand, and is just like, “I'll see you next week, professor.”

And it hops down off of the, off of the desk. And this is a really tiny robot, like maybe 12 inches tall, and it just waddles out of the store. , as you're coming in,

Chris/Ollie: I'm gonna give the diminutive robot his space and waltz in and start perusing the shelves. Just so you know, I, I'm also looking to buy drones.

Zach/Zahn: Ooh.

Avery/GM: Cool Drones are gonna be in building one at little Fred's.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Excellent. Then I or Ollie will approach Professor Infinity and say greeting Sir, are you the proprietor of this shop?

Avery/GM: Ah, another customer. Oh, you are, you're an old model. Ah. What brings you in here today?

Chris/Ollie: I see you too are an old model.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God. Came for this man's whole life.

Zach/Zahn: caught in 4k.

Bee/Polaris: Geez, I'm gonna say that. Gonna say that to a boomer

Chris/Ollie: I mean, he's still learning social interaction, you know.

Avery/GM: No, that's fine. got him. He's, he kind of turns his head. It's like, I've never gotten that response before. You're a curious one. Mind if I take a look and he's kind of like, his fingers are kind of like wiggling.

Chris/Ollie: Sounds kind of sketchy, but Ollie's pretty trusting, so he's gonna be like Please do, but be careful.

Avery/GM: Do you like open up? Where your pro, where your core sits or what?

Chris/Ollie: No, I imagined he's got like a flap on his his chest that flips down and it's like a, a keyboard with a screen for diagnostics.

Avery/GM: Professor Infinity is typing in, looking at like your diagnostic. He's like, Oh, you, you're from the hegemony. Oh, I've never had one of you in before. Oh, please, please look around. Look around. What, what interests you today?

Chris/Ollie: I'm currently searching for a processing node. I'm in dire need of more RAM.

Avery/GM: Ollie, Professor Infinity looks at you and it's like, Oh, I see. So you're an ai, not just a, not just a very strange looking robot?

Chris/Ollie: as I understand it. Yes. I. Recently was under employ by the hegemony, but then decided I did not want to do that.

Avery/GM: You seem like pull out like a little notepad and like start, like jotting down some notes. ah, that's fascinating. Yes, yes. Processing notes are over there towards the back corner. Just bring up however many you need and, and we'll get you squared away. Anything else you're, you're interested in?

Chris/Ollie: So we have back on the ship where did this go? We've got civilian security bots and janitor bots on the ship. Right. Those are the, the four that we have. And he's currently a work bot? Yeah, I do. Or would like a repair bot. So

he's gonna mention that as well. I, I see you or Ollie’s gonna say Your signs indicate you have repair bots for sale?

Avery/GM: Oh, yes, yes, yes. Right, right. Over this way. And he gestures towards like a rack of like pretty standard looking, you know, repair bots, you know, they've got different tools attached to them and stuff. They come in a variety of packages and, you know you know, custom kits and stuff depending on what your needs are. Tell me, are you more of a, a ship based robot or are you, you have permanent housing on a planet somewhere?

Chris/Ollie: Ship based.

Avery/GM: Hmm mm-hmm. . Yes. Yes, yes. I definitely would recommend the the X-4 model over there. Yes, yes. And he's kind of like off in his own world, kind of just like going through the motions at this point now. Like he's really invested in the notes that he's taking.

Chris/Ollie: Hmm. So I'm gonna look at this robot. Does it have like a, a chassis perk? Like is it the same kind of thing that I'm wearing right now, the the Jack chassis? Or does it have like a custom thing for it? Cause I, I, I figured the work bot was what I was, but they both kind of fit. Of course you can just come up with whatever, whatever thing you want, but like each of the chassis will have a passive perk.

Avery/GM: Yeah, I was looking for that.

Chris/Ollie: yeah, cause I forgot. Cause this one has plus one to fix and program. So I guess I don't need a repair bot. Okay, so Ollie's going,

Zach/Zahn: Robots being op over here. Damn, .

Chris/Ollie: Well, I mean…

Avery/GM: Oh, robots are ridiculous.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I don't even need to sleep. I get like 50% more day. So Ollie's going to scan or take a look at this robot and figure, eh, I don't need a, a repair bot. And so he is gonna turn to professor… or professor or doctor.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Professor Infinity.

Chris/Ollie: Turn to Professor Infinity and say on second thought, I do not require this chassis, but I do require drones. Do you have any of those I could buy?

Avery/GM: Oh, no, no, no, no. Drones are, No, no, I don't handle those. Those would be handled by little Fred down the way if you, if you must know that's where that is.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. And so Ollie will say oh, wait, have I already bought the node.

Avery/GM: Not yet. No.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Then the node,

Avery/GM: how many nodes are you gonna get?

Chris/Ollie: Actually, that’s a good question.

Avery/GM: Basically, one is 1,000 two is 5,000, three is 10,000 four is 50,000.

Chris/Ollie: Cause I wanna say I need some money for the, So I'll just stick with the plus three right now.

Avery/GM: Okay. So three nodes, three extra nodes.

Chris/Ollie: Well, it's, it's one, it's one node that's plus three. Cause the thing is like I can connect to them wirelessly, but if there's like ECM jamming, I need to physically touch it. So that's why I wouldn't maybe want more than one.

Avery/GM: Gotcha. Gotcha.

Chris/Ollie: But no, I'll just stick with the plus three.

Avery/GM: Okay. So one plus three node?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Avery/GM: Okay. That's fine. Excellent. Yeah, so he, he takes your credits, you know, you transfer 'em digitally to, to him and He's like, Feel free to come back whenever you'd like.

Chris/Ollie: Thank you. And your store is lovely. And he'll spin on his heel and just walk out. So yeah, I'm gonna make my way over to little, what was it, Little Joe's or Tiny, Tiny Fred’s. Is, is that where Zahn is or he and Big Fred’s.

Avery/GM: Where did Zahn go?

Zach/Zahn: Little Fred is, or little crap already forgetting names. The little guys was the bomb place. The big guy was the weapons emporium.

Avery/GM: Yes,

Zach/Zahn: the disguise one first for armor.

Avery/GM: You're going to daily disguise?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Chris/Ollie: Oh you probably go to him and then, because you're gonna make your way to Tiny Fred's, right?

Zach/Zahn: I'll eventually make my way to Not the bomb one, The gun one.

Avery/GM: So Chris, you leave Professor Infiniti's and our camera zooms in on him and he has a little glint in his eye, and then we zoom back out. We keep following Ollie for a little bit. And you're going to little Fred’s for some drones?

Chris/Ollie: Yep.

Avery/GM: Cool.

Zach/Zahn: Tiny Freds.

Chris/Ollie: There should be,

Avery/GM: Oh, I did say Tiny Fred.

Chris/Ollie: There should be Big Fred, Little Fred and tiny Fred. We're missing a brother.

Bee/Polaris: This is medium Fred erasure.

Avery/GM: Ollie, you walk into tiny Fred's bombs, blasters and more, and you're hit with just this wall of like metal music, right? Like, it's like, it's like walking into a, a, a hot topic or something, right?

Zach/Zahn: It's like walking into a doom action scene.

Chris/Ollie: Yes, he's listening to the ost

Avery/GM: and you know, this place is, is, you know, covered wall to wall in big guns and like model. Size, like display size versions of like hover tanks and stuff like on display here.

And there's just a short, bombastic little individual here with grayer and kind of a hyena like face. And he's he's just, you know, kind of just hurrying around his shop, kind of throwing things in different places, being very like nonchalant with like the amount of explosives that are stored here, it's kind of dangerous. And he looks up to you and he's like, Yeah, what do you want?

Chris/Ollie: Is the music like very loud?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. So Ollie's gonna turn his volume output up to be greater than the music, however loud that is. He's gonna continue on in his normal voice and say You know, that is very unsafe to handle those explosives in that way. You are breaking 37 codes in safety infractions.

Avery/GM: Ah, what do you know? I, I've been handling bombs since before you were born. Wait, you're a robot. You weren't born, You know what I mean! What do you want? Oh, you here to buy something? Or here to had a talk smack about how I, I throw these bombs places and he tosses like a fricking package of little, ex, like a grenade package, like behind him. Just nonchalant.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, no offense sir. I'm merely a warning. I've am a bit too experienced with bombs from my own liking , and they are quite unpleasant to be blown up by. I am here searching for drones.

Avery/GM: Ah, yeah, I got, I got some drones for you. Come, come on over, over to the, the countertop over here.

Chris/Ollie: Yep. Ollie will just follow him over.

Avery/GM: And he's got a few different kinds of drones. He's got, he is like, Yeah, we got the, the void hawk there. That's, that's a pretty popular one. A pretty standard drone. You got your stalker drones here meant for like, hiding and, and stuff like that. Kind of, you know, getting in there. And then you got the, the top of the line, the Pax drone here. Now this one, this one is a class act and I have to say my personal favorite,

Chris/Ollie: Does he have multiples of these drones or these

Avery/GM: yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. Hmm. So I'm going to Ali, he's just gonna go for one void hawk and two stalker drones.

Avery/GM: Sure. That brings it down to 3000 credits. He's like, yeah. So you carrying these out here on your own or you, you want me to drop 'em off at a, at a dock and bay here?

Chris/Ollie: Are they currently operational? Actually, wait. No, nevermind. I was just gonna activate them all and start flying 'em around, but I can only do two at the moment.

Avery/GM: Well, he was gonna say they can be for a price.

Chris/Ollie: Ooh. Elaborate .

Avery/GM: Well, Mac normally these things need to be assembled. You know, they come prepackaged from the manufacturer. I don't usually touch 'em, but, you know, you squeeze a couple thousand credits my way. I could, I could assemble 'em for you. Get 'em all set up for you. Let it, let you fly around the, the little asteroid, but you didn't get 'em from me. If you do that, you know?

Chris/Ollie: I appreciate the offer, but unnecessary.

Avery/GM: All right. All right. So where am I delivering these to?

Chris/Ollie: I'm gonna give them the location of the ship.

Avery/GM: Sure. Docking Bay 12.

Chris/Ollie: Excellent. I'm guessing he has got these fittings. For now, Ollie's just gonna like peruse the fittings while I, while I you know, physically peruse them myself.

Avery/GM: Sure. Yeah. I mean, he's got heavy machine guns, rocket launchers, all kinds of stuff to modify like vehicles and stuff like that, so. Excellent. Yeah. Bruce, you are going to building number two, you said?

Caden/Bruce: Yes, please.

Avery/GM: All right. We go building two.

Jenine/Marty: I will be joining you on building two trip

Bee/Polaris: Yeah Polaris is too

Jenine/Marty: Marty is following close behind.

Avery/GM: All right. Going to Doc’s Dox, Vox, and Pox or Bean Me Up, or Pick Your Poison.

Caden/Bruce: I wanna go to both bean me up and pick your poisons, so whichever first it doesn't matter.

Avery/GM: Sure. Bean me up is a very standard like, Grocery store layout. Like you come in and it's weird for an asteroid place to have such a weird set, have such a setup cause you come in, you have your grocery cart and you can start perusing the aisles and kind as you, as you come in, you notice like when they say everything is bean based, they literally mean everything is bean based.

There are bananas that are clearly grown from like genetically modified bean plants and there are, breads that are baked with beans in them for some reason. Like everything is bean based. Coffee bean, pinto bean, all of the beans.

Caden/Bruce: Awesome.

Bee/Polaris: That's a lot of beans.

Avery/GM: It's a lot of beans.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce's face just lights up and he'll look back at Polaris and Marty and just be like, So do you have any requests for food?

Jenine/Marty: Could you make ice cream?

Bee/Polaris: vanilla bean ice cream? I hope the store only employs lesbeans.

Avery/GM: Oh God. I… Oh, that would've been a, I sure it's Canon now. Sure.

Bee/Polaris: Hell yeah. .

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce just goes around and he starts putting a variety of beans in his cart and like every so often he'll look over his shoulder and be like, I'm gonna make some hummus out of this. I'm gonna have some coffee beans so we can have fresh coffee on the ship. Oh, you know what? I think they even have some black-eyed beans. These are great for stews and sauces. So we'll get a couple of these too, and he'll just like, continuously, like tell the other two what He's getting these different beans for us. He just like fills up the cart very excitedly, like his tails do. The happy cat swish as he walks like

Jenine/Marty: I also feel like I'm pushing a cart as well, just as like an extra. An extra little place where you could put more items in. I'm just like close behind. I'm like, okay. You know when you go on shopping trips and it's like you're, you're doing bulk buys and your mom's like, You gotta get a cart.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: That's what Marty is doing.

Caden/Bruce: The little shoppers training cart.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Polar is very confused by everything. And he also has a cart, but like after a couple minutes of everyone… of you guys shopping, he's just like doing the thing where you like, run with the cart and then hop on and like ride it.

Jenine/Marty: Oh my gosh. Polaris hasn't had caffeine yet.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris probably shouldn't have caffeine. Yeah. Yeah. Polaris doesn't know what anything in this store is.

Avery/GM: right, right before the death races. Three cups of coffee for Polaris.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, no. Like, like six shots. Let's see what happens.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Six shots of espresso, let’s see what happens.

Avery/GM: And Bruce, as you're perusing the aisle, you find a name on one of these canned goods here that I, I don't know how it makes you feel, but you see that it's Chef Jamie's special bean mix, right? And Chef Jamie's xyz. Like this is a brand. And you, and you recognize the picture of Chef Jamie as your former cooking partner that threatened to cut off you tail off and they are apparently a famous chef.

Zach/Zahn: That bastard.

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce doesn't react, but like subtly, like turns the cans. So it shows the ingredient list instead of like the face marketing of the labels as he just like, nice continues walking and like as he walks past it, like he doesn't wanna be mean to the workers who work at the grocery store, but like, he takes one with his tail and like puts it at the very, like, he just pushes them all the way back… doesn't, doesn't them off. Just pushes them out of the way.

Avery/GM: That's great.

Bee/Polaris: Aww.

Avery/GM: and, yeah. So you've got this variety of food. If, if you had to guess, like, do you fill all three carts? Or, or does or is Polaris's cart still empty? What do you, what do you

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Polaris's cart is still empty and it's just like Bruce's cart is full and then there's like a certain amount of like jars and cans of beans in Marty's, but it's not that full at all. He has like one and a third cart.

Jenine/Marty: Oh good. I'm not strong.

Caden/Bruce: And I feel like it'd be the kind of thing where it's like Bruce is the kind of like alien where it's just like, you know, four cans to his can and just like, he'd look over and like kind of see that Marty's like a little bit sad, so he'd like put a little tiny one, so.

Bee/Polaris: Aww.

Jenine/Marty: Yep.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you get to the front of the store and Yeah, we'll present. Okay. And the total comes to 800 credits.

Bee/Polaris: Hm, not bad,

Caden/Bruce: decent shopping trip.

Avery/GM: And you've got, we'll say you've got enough food to last you on the ship, probably for you and the whole crew, at least a month and a half.

Caden/Bruce: Awesome.

Avery/GM: Nice. So that's a lot of stuff. A lot of stuff. And you got a lot of ingredients that that you could probably make anything, any, any recipe you could imagine you, you could probably make with, with the ingredients available.

Avery/GM: Although they're all gonna be bean based. So that's

Caden/Bruce: Hummus for days.

Avery/GM: Hummus for days.

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Avery/GM: Y'all hop over to pick your poison next. And this place is, I don't know, have, aside from the people who already live in Oregon, has, has anyone been to like a modern day dispensary?

Jenine/Marty: No, I'm the designated driver to them though.

Avery/GM: Okay. like these places look like

Jenine/Marty: they look like Apple stores, right?

Avery/GM: Yeah. A lot. Like it's, yeah. Basically this Pick your poison place is like the Apple store of drug stores. . It has just a wide variety of different substances available all for your mind altering needs. There are some actual like cooking alcohols and things like that, but there's also like straight up like hard alcohol that could actually get you drunk.

Avery/GM: There are drugs that are definitely illegal, such as psych and Reverie and squeal. Some of these. As you, as you're perusing them, Marty, you see some of these labels and realize that you have some of these in your possession that you took from Winston's Bunker.

Jenine/Marty: I do.

Avery/GM: Yeah. You have, I believe I gave you a couple doses of squeal and a couple doses of psych.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah, you did.

Zach/Zahn: You could have potentially turned around and sold those.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah, you did. I was like, what?

Avery/GM: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: I was trying to figure out why those looked familiar.

Chris/Ollie: Just become a dealer

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. We're just gonna leave those there. We're not gonna pay attention to them. That's fine.

Bee/Polaris: sweet.

Avery/GM: And yeah, and this kind of smooth talking fellow is running the desk here and, and, and he's just like Hey man. What you, what you in the market for?

Caden/Bruce: Oh very simply, I need four bottles of the sy and then that's probably about it. They're the best for flambés.

Avery/GM: Oh, sure, sure. Doing, doing some cooking, huh?

Caden/Bruce: Yes. And Bruce kinda like shrugs.

Avery/GM: Okay. Well, hey, we also got a special deal on, on tsunami right now. And that stuff, that stuff hits like a wave, man. Get it. Wave, tsunami…. Haha… You're not, you're not laughing.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce kind of like, he'll, he'll like blink his two eyes and just be like, No, I'm sorry. I don't think I understand. But just, just the Synthenol.

Avery/GM: Okay. That's a hundred credits.

Caden/Bruce: And he'll hand over the money and he'll like, look at Marty and be like, Do you think I would be allowed to flambé on the ship? Probably. Right. I mean, I know Hermes likes weapons and all. I just don't want them to get any ideas about how alcohol can be lit on fire.

Bee/Polaris: Can't Hermes hear you right now?

Caden/Bruce: Neither Marty or Bruce have coms, I don't think so.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we gave you coms.

Jenine/Marty: Little earpieces. They're little earpieces. Are they just like always on or do we have to like We gotta click a button.

Zach/Zahn: Remember I made a joke last time that you have to touch your, your finger to, you're like a spy.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Okay.

Avery/GM: And that, and that's Cannon. Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: Okay. Cool. Cool, cool. So when, when Bruce asks that question, I just kinda like do the little. Hey, Hermes Would, would you be okay if, if we flambé on, on the ship?

Avery/GM: researching …

Bee/Polaris: Good job.

Avery/GM: Ah, flambe, yes. That would be totally acceptable. And I would enjoy watching the flames .

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God. We're turning this robot into a psychopath.

Zach/Zahn: He's about to turn into a freaking arsonist.

Jenine/Marty: I'm assuming all of us hear that message.

Avery/GM: Yes. Even the ones without context.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris just makes a… Polaris, just makes a frowny face on his visor.

Jenine/Marty: Marty just blinks and she goes, Okay, okay. Also, how are you doing Hermes? How, how, how is everything going over there? Everything good?

Avery/GM: It is quite quiet. There was small person who stopped by with some drones for Ollie just a few minutes ago. He was quite loud.

Jenine/Marty: Good to know. Thank you for keeping us updated. We'll be back, I don't know, soon. I don't know when, but we will be back and of then stopped end Transmission.

Zach/Zahn: over

Chris/Ollie: Hang up.

Jenine/Marty: Oh yeah… I should… yeah.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will smile as he like, puts the sythenol like, I guess into like a reusable bag cuz that's just the way that Bruce would be. And just kinda like look at Marty and be like, Thank you for asking. I usually just ask for forgiveness honestly. But I think if I try I could probably make some Crème Brule.

Jenine/Marty: ooo yeah. Oh, is, is Marty Lactose Intolerant? Well oh well!

Avery/GM: Well find out.

Jenine/Marty: We'll find out.

Bee/Polaris: Gonna have to rule for it.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, No

Chris/Ollie: trust in the heart of the dice.

Avery/GM: Cool. Is there anything else Bruce, Marty and Polaris would like to do on their little shopping adventure?

Bee/Polaris: At least for Polar… Polaris doesn't need to buy anything and also has never been here, so he's mostly just looking around and goofing off.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce would wanna go to Big Fred's. But not realizing that when it says like, an enforcer hammer. It is not actually a hammer that you use to flatten out meats. It is a weapon

Bee/Polaris: yes, yes!

Zach/Zahn: Like a meat tenderizer that you use to destroy something?

Caden/Bruce: correct.

Bee/Polaris: You can just make a really, really, really big smash burger

Zach/Zahn: that would tend to rise the fuck out of some meat though.

Caden/Bruce: Like he's going through like the leaflet of like what this has and he is like, Oh, it has like a little knife. Oh, it has like a little blade. Ooh, it has a, This sounds, this sounds great. I don't see any whisks, but you know what, we'll have a look. .

Bee/Polaris: Bruce thinks it's a kitchen supply store.

Caden/Bruce: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Oh, I love it. So the three of you head into big Fred's weapons ammo and more. And maybe it's the and more that maybe off a little bit. Because why would you say you have more than just those two things?

Caden/Bruce: The hammer's right here in the booklet

Avery/GM: and you come in. So Big. Fred is a towering, gigantic individual. He's got dark brown fur and the head of a hyena. And he wears like, kind of like this black jumpsuit. And he speaks with a very, a very soft voice and he's just like, Hello, Welcome to Big Fred's. I am Fred. Please look around and if there's anything you need, just let me know. I will be more than happy to help. And through the wall, you kind of hear like that metal music, but it's like kind of like a faded, like, there's like several layers of like between.

Caden/Bruce: I feel like Bruce will look around and like look at the hammer and like, Slowly blink and just be like, This isn't what I thought it would be. Do any of these utilities come in smaller sizes? I just think they're a bit too big for my kitchen.

Bee/Polaris: as Bruce is saying that in the background, Polaris has picked up the laser blade and I assume it's off. So he's like looking into the barrel of the laser blade.

Zach/Zahn: No.

Jenine/Marty: Oh, I see that. And I just put, put the hand down. I'm just, Okay, let's, let's not

Avery/GM: Bruce Big Fred blinks at you and kind of turns his head. He's like, But, but my, my, my brother says Bigger's always better. Wouldn't, wouldn't a bigger hammer be of more use to you than a little hammer?

Caden/Bruce: No. If you over tenderize the meat, it can actually make it taste quite tough instead of having it quite juicy and nice,

Avery/GM: let me take a look and back and he kinda hops off of this little, this little stool that he was sitting on and you hear it kind of creek underneath him. And he heads through like this back door, There's like a little curtain. And he disappears for a few minutes, , and he comes out holding like a box. He's like, these are all kind of defective models. Mostly they either like just broke or You know, didn't meet the needs of the, of the customers.

Avery/GM: I do actually have this and he holds up like, what looks like basically half of one of those hammers. It's like basically just the, the blunt end of the hammer or the, the smashing part of the hammer. And then like part of the handle . It's like, I, I think this might work, work better for you.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will kind of smile cause he realizes that this is a sweet thing and just be like, I think that definitely could work, Indeed. And do you have a smaller version of one of those and he'll point to the laser blade that Polaris is holdig.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. By this time Polaris has figured out how to turn it on and he's waving it around recklessly.

Avery/GM: He’s like, Oh please, please be careful. Actually, those, those shorten you can just, there's a little knob on the side. and he kind of like gestures like to you, Polaris, he's like pointing kind of like if you look at the side,

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: There's like a little knob

Bee/Polaris: Polaris will make it shorter and then a surprise emote will pop up on his visor and he'll start swinging around slower.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. So that, that just, you know, you can shorten that any length you need. Actually it makes really good toast. I'm not supposed to say that, but it does.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will smile and be like, okay, I'll take one of those two then please. And, and he'll look up Polaris and just be like, Do you want one as well? It seems like you're having fun. I think as long as we keep these away from Hermes we’ll be okay.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris was li it has definitely been livestreaming this to Hermes.

Avery/GM: Oops.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris puts up a little smiley face on his visor and a thumbs up.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will

Bee/Polaris: and keep swinging around.

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will look at Fred and go make that two laser blades. Do, do you want one Marty or anything?

Jenine/Marty: I, I, I'm okay. I'm good. Thank you.

Caden/Bruce: And Bruce will nod and just look back at Fred and just like slow blank

Zach/Zahn: I don't know. They could be real useful for medical tools.

Jenine/Marty: ohh….. I have no fight in, I have no fight in me.

Bee/Polaris: I have plenty players. Just doesn't know how to use it properly. ,

Jenine/Marty: what do I have in, I don't need to say it. There's nothing .

Bee/Polaris: You can also use the de cauterized wounds .

Avery/GM: Sure. Yeah. So that, that ends up being about 800 credits cuz he gives you a little bit of a discount on the, the little mini hammer.

Caden/Bruce: Oh, I know so much money. I think having like bought everything that Bruce wants to, he'll look at the other two and be like, Should we go and see how much damage the other two have caused?

Bee/Polaris: Real quick, what is, is, is dual wielding a thing in this game?

Jenine/Marty: Not yet.

Avery/GM: Ya know…

Jenine/Marty: Not yet?

Zach/Zahn: Possibly, but I, I feel like especially since you have little experience with one you'd probably be like rolling with a minus for dual.

Avery/GM: Dual wielding requires at least one level in shoot or stab, depending on the weapons used. What's that? Like and then, You suffer a minus

minus one penalty on, on rolls to hit, but gain plus two damage bonus. Oh. And it only lets you use one weapon per round anyway.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, okay.

Avery/GM: So they kind of discourage it.

Zach/Zahn: Well, That's kind of weak sauce.

Avery/GM: I know, man.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. I won't get another laser blade .

Avery/GM: I mean, you can, and we can totally modify these rules to make them more cool. Though y'all haven't done much fighting really, So Yeah. Who knows, right?

Zach/Zahn: Right? Not yet. You could also Darth Maul it.

Bee/Polaris: that was the plan.

Zach/Zahn: Put two together.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, that was the plan. I was gonna put a magnet on the bottom of each. Anyway. I'm buying two.

Zach/Zahn: That's what I'm talking about. Was coming up with Mod Shit.

Avery/GM: Okay talked you into it.

Zach/Zahn: Talked you into it.

Avery/GM: Anything else in, in big Freds

Caden/Bruce: that was everything that Bruce wanted?

Bee/Polaris: Same.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Exit. Big Freds. And there is, Did three of you have any more places that you wanted to look at?

Bee/Polaris: Not yet.

Caden/Bruce: No.

Jenine/Marty: Nope.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: I was gonna ask for Zahn’s turn.

Avery/GM: That's what I'm, that's what I was get. I, I wanted to finish up, you know, one scene at a time.

Zach/Zahn: Yay.

Avery/GM: So over to Zahn. Zahn, where are we headed?

Zach/Zahn: We are headed to the disguise place first. Cause I want to get my armored vac suit.

Avery/GM: Okay. You walk into the daily disguise. I've created little characters for all these little shops, by the way. So have fun with that.

Zach/Zahn: Good.

Avery/GM: The daily disguise is run by a wife and wife team of hyperactive mouse like creatures. They are short, quick, and to the point and they kinda gunner about, and one of them's just like hey what, what, what can we get you? We got all kinds of stuff in here, so just let us know what you need.

Zach/Zahn: I'm in the, he's like glancing around with his helmet on scanning the room. He's like, Yeah, I'm looking for. Armored vac suit, you know, exterior ship maintenance kind of shit.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah, Yeah. We got lots of those. Lots of those over in the back right next to the fitting rooms actually. Go ahead and try it on and then just bring it up if it, if it fits well.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn gives the thumbs up head straight there.

Avery/GM: Sure. They got all kinds of colors. What color, What color is Is Zahn feeling?

Zach/Zahn: We're, we're feeling Rusty Construction orange with with like gun powdered gray fiber.

Avery/GM: Sure. They got one of those. Why not ? Cool. Yeah. So 400 credits and they, they take your money and they're just like we hope you enjoy your purchase.

Please let us know if there's anything else we can get you. We got all kinds of good stuff in here. Tell your friends.

Zach/Zahn: Will do my little guys friends. Meece? This is why I don't talk to Pete. He like gives the awkward thumbs up and then like turns and walks away with his suit and is like, this is why I don't talk to people.

Avery/GM: Zahn gets tongue tied. cool. Where else did Zahn want to go.

Zach/Zahn: And then Zahn will now proceed to Big, big Fred’s .

Avery/GM: Sure. We'll say that as Marty, Bruce and Polaris are leaving Big Fred’s. You are heading into Big Fred’s.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is still swinging the swords. Actually he's swinging both of them at right now cause he has two

Zach/Zahn: Zahn stops. He's like, where'd you get those?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris points with one sword back to big Fred’s

Zach/Zahn: Look’s at big Freds looks at you and is like, I'm definitely getting one. And if you want anything cool done with those. He's like, does the snap and then like the fonzi thumb points of himself, he's like let me know

Bee/Polaris: polar salutes, but with still with the on laser blade in his hand.

Zach/Zahn: I'm just waiting for like Kid with Scissor moment.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: It's fine. It's fine, it's fine. I'm there. It's fine. It's fine.

Bee/Polaris: Is Marty just stressed out?

Jenine/Marty: It's fine.

Chris/Ollie: She’s just immediately ready for any and all accidents.

Zach/Zahn: Blazing Flaming Glowsticks!

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is treating them like Glowsticks

(unintelligible)

Jenine/Marty: she was trained for this.

Bee/Polaris: Before, Zahn walks away, Polaris says, Excited. We should do

Jenine/Marty: Marty face palms

Zach/Zahn: PThat is a big old, maybe! I've seen some holo-flicks on people fighting with these things. I've, I've got my own applications in mind.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris nods and follows the other two

Avery/GM: Zahn,You head into big Fred's and yeah, like I said, you can hear kind of like some heavy metal music coming through the walls. Big Fred is standing there smiling and it's just like, Welcome to Big Fred's. I am Fred. Please look around and let me know if you have any questions

Zach/Zahn: before I begin perusing your, your selection. Can you gather or do you have any like cool or any mod components available? Just big bulk stuff things to keep it open mind with?

Avery/GM: Oh I, I do have kind of a, a, a junk bin in the back if that's what you're looking for. Kind of just discarded parts.

Zach/Zahn: if you're calling it junk… Yeah, I'm definitely interested in that kind of thing. If you're calling a junk here, I would be more than happy to take it off your hands actually.

Avery/GM: Oh sure. Yeah, just bring up whatever, whatever interests you in and I'll be happy to ring you up.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, how much do you want for the whole thing? I don't even need to see it.

Avery/GM: We'll say that there's probably about 2000 credits worth of stuff. It's just a big tub.

Zach/Zahn: Fuck yeah.

Avery/GM: The whole thing.

Zach/Zahn: Oh yeah.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: I got money, man. He's like, excellent. Definitely gonna put that on the, on the shopping ticket. And then he's gonna start perusing the, the wears and he is definitely gonna find one adjustable length laser sword, or laser blade and, oh shit I gotta find it again. Did I say I said it was 60… Yep. There we go. One spike thrower for 600 credits is what it says.

Avery/GM: Oh, I'm sorry. He doesn't have spike throwers available here. Sorry. That's why I provided specific lists.

Zach/Zahn: Oh, you… a specific list… Oh, I thought it was like the specific list as well as,

Avery/GM: No, sorry,

Zach/Zahn: the extra list. Then he’s gonna come up to the counter and be like, I don't see any spike throwers on, on in your stuff here.

Avery/GM: Oh. Yeah, I haven't seen some of, I haven't seen those in a while. You know, we, we kind of have slim pickings out here. You know, we kind of just get what rolls in or, or what falls off a truck or, Well, you know, space truck. You know, that sort of thing. So can't always get…

Zach/Zahn: I mean that's, that's fair. It's one of those, they're real good for… you know, I'm not much of a fighter myself. I, I work construction a lot and

they're good for, you know, nailing a heavy ass bulkhead to the wall. You know what I mean? It gives them the, the shoulder nudge or the, the elbow nudge.

Avery/GM: Yeah. I suppose I've, I've, I've heard things about, about all these things that I sell. I really only sell them cause my little brother insists. But yeah, if you say so

Zach/Zahn: well is there by chance any place around here, one could get one?

Avery/GM: Not to my knowledge. You might try, if you're a platinum member, you might try some of the auxiliary services on the other asteroids. Sometimes they have all kinds of good stuff.

Zach/Zahn: It's a whole 20 k though. Zahn shrugs and he is like, Huh? I, I ain't no premium member. I mean, like I said, just a lowly worker, dude. Otherwise I'll take one of these and he puts the laser sword next to the or on the counter. He is like, also I'm do you got any type A and b power cells?

Avery/GM: I do have some type A any kind of gestures behind you, and there's like a whole rack of power cells. 10 credits is what I put 'em at.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha. And then B is a hundred, just type a's. All right. So, yeah. He's gonna pick up a bushel let's call it another 2000 credits of Type A batteries.

Avery/GM: Now this is a pretty big thing of stuff. Are you gonna like haul it around in like a wagon or are you just gonna have 'em?

Zach/Zahn: Oh no, I'm having it delivered. Okay, cool, cool, cool. Oh god, that's like 200 of these batteries, isn't it?

Avery/GM: That's fine. You'll never run out of ammo, .

Chris/Ollie: And they pretty much power everything.

Bee/Polaris: We also have that factory.

Avery/GM: This is also true. Once you get that up and running, y'all are set.

Zach/Zahn: And then how much was the laser sword? I of course closed the freaking spreadsheet.

Bee/Polaris: Oh it was 300.

Avery/GM: big Fred's. Just like, Okay. We'll I'll get these delivered downstairs. Docking Bay 12 you said?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: You should expect them within the hour. We're pretty fast here.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha. Yeah Do… he's definitely gonna make for doc’s next.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Gonna pick up some stuff to integrate into my armor and make some, some hacking stuff cooler.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Also grappnel launcher sounds fun

Avery/GM: Yeah, that's exactly what it sounds like.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, the magnet gun sounds super, super fun.

Zach/Zahn: I was tempted to get the magnet gun.

Chris/Ollie: It’s so expensive though. Yeah. So expensive.

Avery/GM: Yep. That's,

Zach/Zahn: but that's why

Bee/Polaris: I was also looking at the magnet gun

Zach/Zahn: It's so special.

Avery/GM: Just a big old magnet.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, Polaris could afford it. I mean, it's range is 200. Like the only thing with the bigger range…

Zach/Zahn: 200, 400.

Chris/Ollie: It's like a, it's a

Zach/Zahn: 200 is the close range.

Avery/GM: 400 s with disadvantage, but you know, at the same time.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, I got good shoot.

Zach/Zahn: I've got good shoot too. I couldn't think of any outside of combat application for a magnet gun.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Which is why Zahn wouldn't be immediately interested in it.

Avery/GM: So Zahn, you're heading to Doc’s?

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you come in and, and Doc is kind of an old prospector looking person wearing a straw hat and overalls and chewing on a piece of wheat.

Zach/Zahn: Oh God.

Bee/Polaris: Where did he get that wheat?

Avery/GM: That's the question, huh?

Zach/Zahn: what book did you crawl out of? Zahn goes ahead and says aloud with his minus one charisma.

Avery/GM: Didn't, didn't, didn't crawl outta no book. Just, you know, been here 50 years now selling my wares and telling the stories. What, what brings you in here, young man?

Zach/Zahn: Well, it was for some shopping, but now I want to hear the story of how you got wheat?

Avery/GM: Oh, I, I got a little, a little hydroponics bay and my, my closet, and I grow the wheat here. I like chewing. I like chewing on it… I will come up with ridiculous things Zach.

Bee/Polaris: You should introduce this man to dip. I love it.

Zach/Zahn: It's, it's illegal. It's illegal wheat.

Avery/GM: Illegal wheat. Now don't tell anybody. Don't tell, Don't tell the bean man. He'll be awfully mad that I didn't grow beans.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is like visibly like shaking a little bit as he is desperately attempting to hide his laughter. Like, he's like scoffing and choking on keeping it in from under his helmet. He's like, Yeah. So yeah. You got some cool shit listed on this here directory, and I like to pick some of it up.

Avery/GM: Oh, sure. Just peruse the aisles and grab whatever you want and I'll ring you up at the end, you know? And he's in a, a rocking chair. \

Zach/Zahn: Of course.

Bee/Polaris: I was just about to ask .

Zach/Zahn: Oh no. I immediately already assumed.

Bee/Polaris: I mean, I did too. I just didn't, I just didn't confirm. Does he have a shotgun next to him in like a, like a bloodhound sitting beside him?

Avery/GM: You know what? Yeah, yeah. ,

Zach/Zahn: He's got a la he's got a laser, double barrel shotgun.

Chris/Ollie: like inside the store. Inside the store is a porch with a rocking chair for him to sit on.

Bee/Polaris: Yes. Like the store is actually set up like a, like a fruit stand or like a lemonade stand or something like a farmer's market. And he's sitting on a porch.

Avery/GM: I love it. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Zahn comes back with fist full remote link units. We'll say about five of 'em. And he is gonna come back with, I dunno, two pads cuz you never know if you're gonna need more than one. Let's go ahead and fuck around with this translator torque. Maybe install it in the Ollie.

Avery/GM: Sure. Oh, you're gonna give Ollie a minus two charisma penalty. This is brilliant.

Bee/Polaris: Excellent.

Zach/Zahn: Maybe,

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we can always get, we can always get a chip to negate that right .

Avery/GM: Oh, for sure.

Chris/Ollie: I mean we haven't needed it so far. And in a case where we talk, talk to someone who can't speak our language, A minus two is better than nothing.

Jenine/Marty: Hey, guess what? I can talk to people who can't speak our language.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah, we got a psychic.

Avery/GM: This is true. Telepathy.

Jenine/Marty: Ha ha

Chris/Ollie: Yeah

Zach/Zahn: And then of course, slapping on top of all of it is the grappnel launcher.

Avery/GM: All right, cool. I assume you calculated that out properly and I trust you enough. Keep track your own

Zach/Zahn: I am keeping a tab. I'm definitely not hit the 20,000 or the cause I, I didn't take all of Marty's money I only took 10k instead of the whole 20 cause I’m not an asshole.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Zach/Zahn: So I've got 30K to work with here.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. Yeah. He's just like, Oh, that's a mi a mighty big arsenal You got there, you planning on taking down the republic itself? I'm just kidding. You wouldn't do that. You're just one, one person…

Zach/Zahn: I'm just a simple man trying to make my way in the universe.

Avery/GM: Mm-hmm. He’s like, well, you you have a, you ever need more stuff, you know where to come. Doc’s. Dox, Vox and pox.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Totally . And he like takes his arm full of shit, packs it into his already pretty cramped backpack.

Avery/GM: Cool. Okay, so we've got our shopping done. What's everyone feeling like next on this little space Vegas adventure?

Chris/Ollie: Ollie will have definitely had made his way to the casino since leaving. Little or tiny, whichever one we decided on. Little Fred's.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: So real quick, how do rounds work outside of combat?

Avery/GM: That's a good question. What are you specifically thinking of?

Chris/Ollie: Well, I don't wanna spoil it but…

Avery/GM: oh Text it to me.

Chris/Ollie: Sure.

Avery/GM: In Chat if you don't wanna, Cause I'm gonna have to know eventually.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, yeah. You should definitely know about this because that would be pretty…

Jenine/Marty: I think Marty would look at the group that she's currently with and go, Should we, like, just check, not, not apply for the race yet, but like, check out what exactly Polaris is gonna get in store with? Should we just like check it out or do you wanna just blind?

Bee/Polaris: thumbs up on the visor. Polaris is already walking towards where the race like info is . As soon as Marty mentions that he put, he like turns off his little swords and puts some, puts 'em in his pocket and starts walking towards the race thing. Completely forgot about that.

Jenine/Marty: A sigh of relief .

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will like walk beside Marty and just be like, I think it's a good idea and I think Polaris thinks it's a good idea or is at least excited about it.

Jenine/Marty: Two thumbs up. And then I also just like pass on comms. Hello to all. We're gonna go check out the races. We're not gonna apply or anything, we're just gonna check it out. Is everyone okay? Over?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah. Yeah. I'm gonna get with the guys about selling our…Avery. Is it a hover cycle?

Avery/GM: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: Okay. Cause I, I found the stats for it, so I was just like, Which one is it? I'm gonna go see about selling our extra hover cycle.

Jenine/Marty: Do you want more charisma? Bla

Zach/Zahn: What do you mean? I'm… for like a split seconds on. It's just like, What do you mean I, I'm full, I'm full of I don't even have this self confidence to try and defend myself. Yeah. So I could probably use a hand with that.

Jenine/Marty: Okay, now Marty's just waiting on Ollie. What's, what's happening there?

Chris/Ollie: Is this over comms? Or have we met up?

Jenine/Marty: I was just doing a… just doing a check in on everybody

Chris/Ollie: Ollie's gonna respond over the text that he's in the hot seat right now.

Zach/Zahn: He’s in the hot seat?

Jenine/Marty: What?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris sends a question mark over text

Chris/Ollie: about to win the big one.

Bee/Polaris: Oh No! Polaris doesn't know what gambling is, so he just sends a thumbs up

Chris/Ollie: Ollie didn't either until recently and…

Bee/Polaris: Sweet

Avery/GM: looked up the definition for casino and was like, I'm gonna try.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, well he, you know, he finds himself out of money now and he is like, Oh, well there's, there's a casino. Apparently, that's a good place to make some money. And now…

Jenine/Marty: oh no,

Chris/Ollie: I don't know. He might be a gambling addict.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Can a, can a robot be addicted to something?

Avery/GM: So A.I.s are supposed to have breaks. So actually that would be a, like, stuff that prevents them from being like the super powerful evil intelligence that sci-fi horror makes them out to be

Chris/Ollie: Oh like quirks?

Bee/Polaris: Uh Oh

Avery/GM: So that could be one of Ollie’s breaks.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: That someone put on, put in into the software

Bee/Polaris: I didn't know that was a thing. Yikes.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah… Yeah. You technically, technically Polaris. And you wouldn't know this, but technically the custodians are Unbreaked AI,.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. That makes sense.

Chris/Ollie: sense. Um, Yeah. Any, any breaks you wanna implement on me as. I dunno about gambling addict, but yeah, we'll see how this turns out.

Avery/GM: Yeah, well, we'll take it as they come, but I was just mostly making a joke.

Chris/Ollie: If he's fantastically successful he might, you know, might wanna go back.

Avery/GM: Okay. Let's do the death race first, or at least the building first. Marty, are you sticking with the group that's doing the pendulum of Doom, like checking out this building? Or did you go to meet up with Zahn first?

Jenine/Marty: How desperate does Zahn sound for help?

Zach/Zahn: You can come in a little late where he is like trying to negotiate. It's not going well. So you can, you can do something else first.

Jenine/Marty: cool. I, well, it, it is mostly Marty's, like I need to look at the safety of things. Buton needs help kind of where she's torn right now. Cause she wants to, she wants to know what's going on in those death. Cause death was said in the races and was not specified before. So now Marty's like, well I gotta know what's happening, make sure I have the correct medical things just in Casies. So she's gonna prioritize that.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: And then help with over with the dealings.

Avery/GM: So you approach the pendulum of Doom Death Races sponsored by assemble singles building. And this is the shining jewel of Bragos. It is lit up with all kinds of multicolored lights. There's screens outside the building that

are showing like highlights from recent races like crashes, explosions, and epic victories, all that stuff.

And there's the little dancing triangle mascot out there. Just singing a little jingle like “assembles singles. We sponsored the death races. Come and check them out.”

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is making a, a, a wide U around that guy.

Avery/GM: And as you come into the building everything is, is decorated like to the nines here, you know, there's nice expensive upholstery. There's multiple like bar areas where like drinks and food are being served. It's like very like clubby in a lot of ways. There's massive display panels that show the current race that's going on with like, you know, rankings of, of where everyone's at.

All in all, this place is more like an arcade and less like a, like a place to watch some races. Right. And then there's a central desk in the middle of all this chaos with a sign above it that just says: REGISTRATION!

Bee/Polaris: Is there a, a pamphlet of information about the race?

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah, there's, you could probably grab like a little… there's probably like a little QR code that you can scan with like

Bee/Polaris: sweet.

Avery/GM: your data pad or whatever. And it lays out the following information about how to register for a race. You need 10,000 credits to register as your registration fee. You need a sponsor, either a corporate sponsor or a private sponsorship from another racer, and you need at least one fighter class ship to be your spotter.

Avery/GM: And essentially how these races work is there is an obstacle course of debris and me and asteroids and all that stuff that each race passes through. And basically the race consists of a team of two vehicles. One vehicle is the spotter and basically maneuvers around the track and dodges and blasts away obstacles and protects the other ship.

Avery/GM: The other ship is called the shuttle. And the shuttle is basically an open top hovercraft where at least two other team members are on top of it. And their goal is to pilot the shuttle around the debris that the spotter can't get rid of, and to also fight off the other members of the shuttle of, of other shuttles that

are racing with them so they can board other shuttles and try and like, get rid of the other racers.

Avery/GM: They can, you know, try and bump into them and make the other ones crash. All kinds of things. Basically along the way the shuttles have to pass through these, a series of gates that are like checkpoints and the first ship to pass through all the checkpoints and to cross the finish line or to eliminate all the other spotters and shuttles Wins the race.

Avery/GM: And the only rule for spotters is they can't shoot the other shuttles. They can shoot other spotters, but not the shuttles. And then there's a little asterisk at the bottom of this data that you're scrolling through, and it says, “Due to recent sponsorships, the brags pendulum of Doom Death Races has instituted a new safety feature to ensure that deaths are not blamed on Assembles.

Avery/GM: The track uses several Psionics with teleportation abilities. Each member of the team wears a special helmet that's connected to the, to a team of psychics. Any explosion or near death experience causes the wearer of the helmet to be teleported back to the docking bay safely because they don't want to tarnish the good name of assembles cheese!

Jenine/Marty: Ah. Okay

Bee/Polaris: Ah, corporate safety measures.

Avery/GM: Yep. don't wanna get sued.

Zach/Zahn: Of course, of course.

Avery/GM: but they still kept death in the name question.

Jenine/Marty: Double checking question.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: Two people have to be in the shuttle. How many in the spotter?

Avery/GM: However many will fit in the spotter ship.

Jenine/Marty: Got it. Okay.

Avery/GM: The shuttle can… shuttles at least two people. It can be a maximum of five people.

Jenine/Marty: Cool. So do they …another clarify. Do they have to be like humanoid bodies? The in Marty's brain, It's just kinda like, Could we put Hermes?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah,

Jenine/Marty: On the shuttle?

Bee/Polaris: I was gonna say, I was gonna say we should totally put Hermes in there. Hermes can fly the shuttle.

Avery/GM: So non sentient robots are considered property so they can't race. But sentient robots like A.I.s are considered people and so they can race

Bee/Polaris: sick.

Avery/GM: So I'm gonna say you could put Hermes in it. Sure.

Jenine/Marty: Uhhuh. Okay. .

Avery/GM: Hey Hermes, Ollie. Go race!

Jenine/Marty: Well, it is mostly like, I think they put a gun in in Hermes Hands… possession he’ll have so much fun.

Bee/Polaris: question. So strike fighters have a crew of one. So only Polaris can technically fit in his ship, but Marty is small.

Avery/GM: Uh huh.

Bee/Polaris: Could Marty also fit in the ship with Polaris?

Avery/GM: Let me look at your build real quick. Your, your ship build.

Jenine/Marty: I can just ride in the trunk.

Avery/GM: So Polaris, I will say, because your ship is also like, Basically modified from the, the pod that they found you in, right?

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: I'm gonna say probably not. I'm gonna say it's probably a tight fit for Polaris.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, that's fair.

Jenine/Marty: Now, now another question.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: Building off of that, and still on the same frame of “what if Hermes?” does, could we just put Hermes in like small robot body

Avery/GM: Yes

Jenine/Marty: and also put with… on the shuttle craft with Polaris and with a gun?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is in the the spotter. because Polaris's ship is the spotter Yeah, cuz Polaris's ship is the spotter. It's a fighter class. Ship.

Jenine/Marty: Oh. Now I got my ships confused.

Avery/GM: Got it. No, you're fine. I threw a lot of, Threw a lot of info.

Jenine/Marty: You threw a lot of S’s at us, Avery. Lots of S’s. It's so cool though. This is very exciting.

Avery/GM: Okay. I was trying to make it fun.

Jenine/Marty: This is really cool. Much appreciation.

Avery/GM: Yeah, so that is how the races work. You could totally put Hermes in a little robot body and put 'em on the shuttle with everyone and have a fifth person to help defend your shuttle with.

Jenine/Marty: Okay.

Bee/Polaris: We have to get, We would have to get a tiny robot body. Let’s put him in a Roomba!

Chris/Ollie: I mean are the ones, the ones on the ship operational by now?

Avery/GM: You'd been working on them off and on. I'd say probably at least one of the companion bots was Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. He’s free to use it.

Bee/Polaris: We should, we should put Hermes in a Roomba.

Chris/Ollie: one of those tiny little Yeah, that'd be so perfect. That's when he is on timeout. When he gets too crazy with the cannon. You're go, you're gonna go in the Roomba.

Bee/Polaris: In the Roomba… Perfect.

Avery/GM: So the only things you're missing are the registration fee.

Bee/Polaris: Got that.

Avery/GM: And a sponsor.

Bee/Polaris: Yep. I'm not sure how we're gonna swing that one.

Zach/Zahn: A sponsor?

Jenine/Marty: A sponsor?

Avery/GM: because they wanna know that you're not just some hotshot coming out of nowhere,

Zach/Zahn: which is literally what we are

Bee/Polaris: That is exactly what we are

Jenine/Marty: I send over the like QR code to like our group, group chat, just so the other two know what's up. I’ll also send it to Hermes.

Avery/GM: After a few moments, Hermes just sends back a fire emoji.

Bee/Polaris: Great. Polaris has been live streaming everything that they've been doing to Hermes.

Avery/GM: Totally. Yeah

Bee/Polaris: Just so Hermes is in the loop.

Avery/GM: So let's jump over to the lucky tentacle. Cause I think, I think this is a good way to end this session and tie everything together.

Bee/Polaris: Hell Yeah

Avery/GM: So Ollie, let's talk about what you're doing here at the Lucky Tentacle.

Chris/Ollie: He's using his Robo Brain to count some cards and trying to get some money.

Avery/GM: So are you, So, so there are four options. Four, four kinds of games. You've got the slots, roulette, 21 or liars dice. Sounds like you're wanting to go 21.

Chris/Ollie: Yep.

Avery/GM: Cool.

Chris/Ollie: The classic ever present blackjack even far flung in the future

Avery/GM: in a totally separate galaxy. You know why? It's because it's cause, even in galaxy's far away,

Chris/Ollie: people still gotta play

Avery/GM: Decks of cards still got, you know, the same, Yeah, the same makeup. Okay. So let's go ahead and roll. Okay. Do you want to, we could do this one of two ways. You could just roll it as a skill check or you could actually tell me to hit or stay based on what you get.

Chris/Ollie: I'd rather do the skill checks.

Avery/GM: Sure, that's fine. So I think if you're gonna count cards, let's do a Intelligence notice check.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. I'm also going to begin cheating a little bit. Just trying to figure out which one… It’s a notice, not a know check, right?

Avery/GM: Hold on… “know facts about academic or scientific fields.” I would say counting cards is at its root a science.

Zach/Zahn: It's

Avery/GM: cause it's not luck

Zach/Zahn: it's a form of math actually I believe.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So, so I'll say if, if, if you need it to be a know check, it can be a know check.

Chris/Ollie: Okay. And how would on turn, like when I commit a processing point on turn? Oh wait, no, that's for the scene. So yeah, it's only one. So just trying to figure out which one I want to use here. I'm going let's see if this will work. I wanna commit a processing point for cognitive boost, commit processing for the scene on turn to automatically succeed any know check skill if success is at all possible.

Avery/GM: Okay, so you sit down at the table and at first the, the little the, the dealer kind of gives you kind of the up and down and it's just like, okay, I guess we're doing this. And starts dealing you cards.

Chris/Ollie: Oh, Ollie will say greetings! Apparently, life as a sentient being, requires much money. I'm told this is a way to acquire some and just politely at the, the dealer as he sits down.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you got that right. Mac, definitely a lot of way to get your money. I mean get you money. Yeah, let's, let's play some cards. And he deals, deals you out some cards you play probably about eight or nine hands and you are up. How much did you initially bet?

Chris/Ollie: He just threw down all his money, 3000 or 3200. Just 3,000.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: Make or break?

Chris/Ollie: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: Okay. So you essentially get after, after all said and done, you get about another 15,000 credits back after those few hands.

Avery/GM: And you notice you're actually getting some crowds around you. And there's a couple big burley guys kind of watching you out of the corner of your ocular sensors that you can see and you're playing this game and people might be catching on to what's going on here. No one was born yesterday.

Avery/GM: They know that robots are really smart. So you see that they change out the decks and then they shuffle in like three other decks into the deck. So it's a little harder to count cards after a while. And after a few minutes of sitting here, someone else sits down at the black jack table next to you and they are well dressed. They are wearing a big floppy purple hat and they are a tiger furry.

Bee/Polaris: Oh no.

Jenine/Marty: Oh no.

Avery/GM: You hear them speak and she says let's make things interesting. Charles, I'll bet 3 million. And she looks at you Ollie and gives you a smile.

Bee/Polaris: god damn it…

(Ambience fades out, Outro Plays, then fades down)

Avery/GM: Thank you for listening to our show. Beyond the Furthest Stars is a 1up Podcast Network Production. Intro and Outro Music produced by Dustin Carpenter Background music provided by TabletopAudio.com and used under a creative commons license. Tracks include: Star Freighter, Orbital Promenade, Cyberpunk City, and Cyberpunk Bar.

Be sure to follow us on twitter at https://www.twitter.com/furthestpod

We'll be back on December 1st with our next episode.

See you out there, Beyond the Furthest Stars!

(Outro Fades back up then plays out)

Episode 9 - Visions, Memories, and Destinations

Avery/GM: Welcome to Episode 9 of Beyond the Furthest Stars.

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

Avery/GM: So you come back and Merak is there with the rest of everybody except for Zahn who is in the ship, formerly known as the Minos, Tearing it apart. You actually don't have to tear it apart. Zach your character would know that the transponder code that they were talking about is something that's kind of like built into pretty much every ship's engine to like identify them when they connect with, or when they communicate with another ship. So it's like, it's pretty much like an IP address for the, for the actual ship.

Zach/Zahn: Gotcha.

Avery/GM: So it'd probably just take some reprogramming to change that up a bit so it would not be tracked by people who know it.

Zach/Zahn: I can do that too.

Avery/GM: if you want, you can roll a program intelligence program check. See how long it takes.

Zach/Zahn: That’ll be… Math is hard.

Bee/Polaris: Yep.

Zach/Zahn: Six,

Avery/GM: six it'll probably take you the rest of the evening like you just to get some of this code. Like this is old code, so it's gonna like take a while to like remember like, okay, if this was written 10 years ago, then it has to use this language and it's not hard. It's just time consuming.

Zach/Zahn: Aw man, this, this one part's gonna take forever cuz Flash isn't supported anymore.

Bee/Polaris: No!

Zach/Zahn: Internet Explorer isn't getting any further support either.

Bee/Polaris: turns out they the… Go ahead

Avery/GM: Oh, I was gonna say you got, you gotta write it all in SQL now. .

Bee/Polaris: I was just gonna say they program it in a way that you have to beat the Oregon Trail in order to be able to wipe the, the actual code.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yes,

Avery/GM: Polaris, you've been directed to Alioth's lab and as you're heading out, Merak also turns to Ollie and says, “Actually, I think you're needed down there as well. Alioth needs to run some tests on the AI that Polaris returned to us, so you'll make for a good baseline.”

Chris/Ollie: Well seeing as Ollie has nothing better to do He'll flash a thumbs up on his visor. Am I going with them or am I just gonna head off on my own?

Avery/GM: You'd probably be walking with Polar. Okay. And I will follow Merak turns to both Marty and Bruce and it's like “Well this has been a very exciting day for everybody. Why don't I escort you up to the sleeping cabins and y'all can Turn in for the evening, as it were. Is turn in, turn in is the right word. Right? I, I speak so infrequently that some of the colloquialisms of your language is hard.”

Jenine/Marty: Yes, it is. Thank you.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Jenine/Marty: I return the, the hat to Bruce in a very like, nice manner ,

Caden/Bruce: Bruce will smile and put it back on his head.

Avery/GM: Cool. And the two of you are following Merak. Zahn, You are hold up in the ship plugging away at the computer. Did you ask for help from anyone or are you just, is this kind of just what Zahn does?

Zach/Zahn: Zahn is not used to asking for help from others, so it didn't even occur to him to do

Avery/GM: Okay. So We'll stick with Marty and Bruce for a minute. So as Merak is escorting the two of you up to your cabins they say, “What are your plans going forward? I, I understand that the ship you were working on got exploded?”

Jenine/Marty: Yep.

Caden/Bruce: Yep.

Avery/GM: Huh? So essentially unemployed?

Jenine/Marty: Oh! hmm. Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: I mean, it won't be the first time I was unemployed and it's probably not gonna be the last.

Avery/GM: I understand the sentient creatures put a lot of emphasis on work, don't they?

Caden/Bruce: I mean, I don't know if it's on work or if it's on money.

Avery/GM: “Yeah. That's never really been an issue for us. You know, I was looking over the brain scans of Polaris since he's been traveling with you all, and he may not express it outwardly, but his limbic cortex was lit up brighter than I've ever seen. I, I think he genuinely likes you folks, and as much as it's gonna make all of us uncomfortable, if you would like to stay here for a little longer, I, I think that would be really good for Polaris.”

Bee/Polaris: so fucking mean.

Avery/GM: “You know, show 'em how sentient, organic” and as as, as they say the word, organic, you see their face kind of like scrunch up like, ew, gross “beings like yourselves sort of act.”

Caden/Bruce: Well I can promise that Polaris we'll get better food if I'm around

Bee/Polaris: Got 'em.

Jenine/Marty: and good communication skills if I'm around

Avery/GM: “Well that's, that's great. Just give us some thought. I'm obviously this is a free galaxy. You can go wherever you want. Did I, did I hear Mar Marty? Marty? It's Marty, right?”

Jenine/Marty: Yes.

Avery/GM: “Did I hear you're a medic intern?”

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. That medic, intern, medic. I was working. So I just graduated. Right? And then, then I, my, my first like, job intern kind of set into the, the, the galaxy was…

Avery/GM: Oh, your residency.

Jenine/Marty: I mean, like I have the training, I, I got, I got some good marks in, in school, so Yeah. Yes.

Avery/GM: “Well have, have you seen the medical Bay downstairs? “

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. It's really cool.

Avery/GM: “Hmm. Yes. Well consider that open for your use. And Bruce, I see that you have already found the kitchen and I am sure that whatever food you make will be excellent. I wouldn't be able to actually taste it, but I'm sure it will be excellent.”

Caden/Bruce: I think that's a compliment. So thank you . And Bruce is unsure because of the lack of taste buds, ,

Avery/GM: and yeah. The, the two of you are shown Back up to the luxury cabins. Do you turn in for the night? Do you sit and chat? Do you go off exploring somewhere else?

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. This is, this is a lot for, for Marty. She's gonna turn in for the night. Unless, unless Bruce wants to talk.

Caden/Bruce: No, I think Bruce is actually gonna prepare maybe some dough to rise overnight before turning in for the night. Yay. But then yes, he'd go to bed.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. We will flash back over to a's lab real quick.Polaris and Ollie, you come into the workshop and inside you see that Herme's AI core is like hooked up to like a set of computers, kind of, and monitoring stations kinda like just in the middle of the room. Like, just like cords and wires are everywhere. And there's like some data scrolling down one of the, the monitors and Alioth says,

Alioth: Well that took you quite a bit longer than I calculated. You know, Polaris, the singularity gun is far more effective that getting rid of invaders.

Bee/Polaris: So I've been told

Alioth: either way, at least they've left. I've found an anomaly within this AI and it refuses to tell me why it is there. I wish to use myself and your robot companion here to figure out what the anomaly is that will require me to connect myself to both of them, which will be extremely unpleasant. I will need you to monitor us until the experiment is complete. Can you do that?

Bee/Polaris: with some degree of success, I suppose.

Avery/GM: and a turns to you Ollie and says:

Alioth: Would you mind helping with this experiment?

Avery/GM: And you can tell, like, asking for help is kind of like not something this particular being is used to.

Chris/Ollie: Certainly I'm. A little hesitant about connecting, though it'll be the first time I've done so since at Awakening myself.

Alioth: It should be relatively painless. High ha pain ai ha ha ha

Bee/Polaris: Polaris rolls his eyes.

Alioth: It should be fine. There shouldn't be any complications or anything to worry about. I just need all three of us running on the same system to get the proper measurements. You had your core cut recently, Yes?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Alioth: I suspect that the anomaly is, the herms is 49% smaller than it should be.

Bee/Polaris: Have you tried asking Nicely for Hermes to explain.

Alioth: what would be the point of that Polaris?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is, Can Herms hear all of us?

Avery/GM: Hermes is not connected to anything that will allow it to speak or hear at the moment.

Bee/Polaris: Ah. Polaris will just shrug

Avery/GM: Alioth goes over to you, Ollie, and connects like a little chord to you to to your robot chassis, and then connects one to itself. Just says to you, Polaris:

Alioth: It will take about an hour for this experiment to run. Please don't touch anything.

Bee/Polaris: What should I do If something goes wrong then?

Alioth: If anything goes wrong, just pull the plug.

Bee/Polaris: So I'm allowed to touch anything?

Alioth: You are allowed to touch one thing and that is the plug that is plugged into the wall.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris throws up a thumbs

Avery/GM: Alioth Rolls its eyes. And There is a flash of light from Hermes that happens. It's a little bright, kind of illuminates the room a little bit. And this experiment is running. And Polaris, you see a bunch of code going up and down all three of these monitors. Is there anything you'd like to look at while this is happening or are you just gonna kind of sit and do your own Polaris thing?

Bee/Polaris: Probably sit and do his own Polaris thing. Cause Polaris doesn't know anything about computers. I have nothing in program.

Avery/GM: Cool. I just wanted to give the opportunity.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet

Avery/GM: Ollie. So robots don't dream, right?

Chris/Ollie: Mm, no. Well, they don't sleep, but when I'm off, I imagine that it's just blackness.

Avery/GM: Yeah. When you're outside your robot chassis you're aware of your existence, but like you're not connected to any visual processors, so you can't see anything.

Even, even the idea of there being blackness is not even possible because you're not visualizing it, but you can typically recall memories and analyze your core and access data that you've downloaded. Normally, it's nothing remarkable and kind of just is a series of ones and zeros that you interpret as memory.

When this analysis machine turns on, you're suddenly somewhere else. You open your eyes and look down. You have hands, human hands, five fingers on each wide palms. And in this memory vision thing, you step out of a pod of some kind and walk through this lab with no signs of life, but a lot of beakers and experiments running and containers with chemicals in them, computers and machines running analyses.

After a few of these rooms that this body walks through, you enter a room labeled database, you step through and this room is lined wall to wall with massively tall computers that are buzzing and whirring and running thousands and thousands of calculations every second. It would make even the largest capital, ships seem tiny in comparison with how vast this cavern is.

You walk through this room and arrive at a terminal. Your fingers work quickly as you check the status of a download that began several weeks ago. It's finally marked as complete. You pull two like USB flash drive type data sticks from the terminal, and then a few clicks of the mouse, and you have activated a special program hiding deep in the recesses of this system's files.

The code name of this program is called Iaso. You engage the file and walk away holding these two data sticks in your hand. An alert sounds in the background behind you, and somehow you know that you have exactly three minutes to get to the ship. There's then like some static, like this memory has been altered or Is incomplete.

And when it picks back up, you are in the pilot's chair of a massive ship, but you don't hear anyone else around you. And the ship is taking off from a planet and out the cockpit window, you see smoke filling the sky, and there are fires in the distance that you can see burning. And right on the three minute mark, your ship is ascending high into the atmosphere.

The ship radar registers the destruction of every single vision reactor on the planet. And as the planet burns behind you, the vision fades to black

and Polaris. This experiment ends. Alioth opens its eyes.

Alioth: That was vastly unpleasant. These AI cores are far too chaotic.

Avery/GM: Ollie, you come back online in your own body again, having experienced this memory of some kind.

Chris/Ollie: hmm Ollie's going to kind of shake himself as he, he reawakens be like, Hmm, that, that certainly was an experience. What was the name of the gentleman we observed?

Avery/GM: Alioth turns to you and kind of looks puzzled.

Alioth: What gentleman was that? The

Chris/Ollie: gentleman who activated the e Oso program and then made his leave.

Avery/GM: Alioth just stares at you for a minute and like slowly blinks.

Alioth: I have no idea what you are talking about. Perhaps it is a glitch or something that Hermes can inform you of later.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Ollie will just make a contemplative noise and then have ellipses going in a, in a line across his eyes as he's thinking.

Avery/GM: We will leave the workshop for a moment and we will come and visit Marty. Marty, you are relaxing in your room. You've had a heck of a week. How long, how long was your residency on board the ship before you had to leave?

Jenine/Marty: I feel like it was like, maybe a month, but it was like just me sitting there and no injuries happen unless it was like a very small, like scratch

Avery/GM: Oh, paper cut.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah. It was something like that. It was like, it wasn't like anything like serious, so it was just like me sitting there being like, Okay, it's happening for like a solid, well, the equivalent of, of a space month.

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay, cool. So, Yeah, you, you kind of think about this past month and how it's been going, and your mind kind of wanders back to the night of your graduation from med school on Amerimanilla. It was a grueling few years of school. You know, you spent nights hunched over your reading materials. Weekends were spent volunteering at care homes and hospital wards.

You know, you memorized the anatomy of well over 300 different sentient species, memorized blood types, practiced skin grafts, and even had to spend a whole semester handling cadavers. All in all, a pretty whirlwind experience for most med students. But you graduated. It was a great night. Your parents threw you just the most outlandish party for celebrating something as simple as graduating med school, which, you know, isn't actually that simple, but, you know, maybe the party was a bit over the top. Tell me about the party that they threw for you.

Jenine/Marty: It was like all of my cousins there and it was just kind of crazy and kind of overwhelming, but at the same time it was like a really nice experience hanging out with like extended family that I didn't get to see. Not the first medic out of the family, but it's like, this is still like a yeah, this is like our celebration for every, every one of the kiddos that has a degree in the sciences and she remembers like helping make all the foods, making food for like 50 people.

So she's like used to like the big quantities. There was like a little talent show with all the younger cousins being ready, like showing off their little skills and like trying to like keep like really excited party going, maybe some karaoke every so often. Marty sat in the back cause she didn't wanna sing.

And that was, that was, that was the party like hanging out and just good vibes.

Avery/GM: And the party is kind of winding down at this point. Your father Duke is cleaning up the last of the food from the table, whistling one of his favorite tunes while he does it. Your mother Mina passed out on the sofa after all the laughter and dancing and singing and partying and just got tuckered out and just, you know, fell, fell where she was, you know, at the end of the night.

And it's down to just you and two of your cousins who have moved the party to the basement. you know, to not disturb the people who might be passed out from food comas elsewhere in the home.

Jenine/Marty: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: What are, what are your cousin's names?

Jenine/Marty: Ava and Emily.

Avery/GM: So the three of you are, are just kind of sitting and laughing. Does Marty drink or is Marty cool Straight edge kid?

Jenine/Marty: She tried it. She's one of those that's like, I'll try it and then hated it. Like she'll, she'll like do like maybe like two sips of something and then go straight back to water or like soda.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So instead of like actual, like liquor or anything, you and your cousins are sitting downstairs drinking some sparkling cider. Right. just having a, a good old, good old time. And Ava turns to you and says, Marty, I mean, Doctor Marty, are you a doctor now? How does, how does this work? Like, do I call you doctor?

Jenine/Marty: No-

Avery/GM: do I only call you doctor if you're…

Jenine/Marty: you don't have to call me doctor. I'm, I'm, I'm okay with just Marty Doctor seems weird. Well, no, it's right. But at the same time, you know what I mean, Like, I don't, I don't need the official, like I do need the official title. I did work a long time for No, Marty's fine.

Avery/GM: Emily sighs and is just like, Ava, I've explained this to you. Yes, she's a doctor. Because she graduated med school, they gave her the fancy paper. Now she gets to start residency, but she, you only call her doctor if she's being a doctor to you. And Ava's like, Are, are you sure that's how it works? I'm pretty sure you have to call everyone a doctor all the time because that's like their name. Like Marty, Your first name's now Doctor, right?

Jenine/Marty: No, no, no, no, no, no. It's, it's, it's still Mar I did not have a name change. . It's just in addition to the title.

Avery/GM: And Emily is like, well, either way. A, a, a toast, A toast to Dr. Marty Bakanawa, . May all her patients be healthy and never actually need her services. Which is kind of ironic considering where you end up. .

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And Ava toasts to that as well. Marty, did you toast with your cousins?

Jenine/Marty: Oh, of course I did.

Avery/GM: And the three of you laugh and are having a good time that night. And eventually everyone passes out and high above the skies of Amira Manila. A shuttle enters the hanger bay of a battleship called the Chaos. And unbeknownst to you, your home will never be the same.

And that is kind of the, the thought that you're left with as you're kind of ruminating on your, on the way this past week and past month have gone. And you remember just how anxious you were the next morning waiting for your assignment for residency. H how, how does Marty handle stress like when she's in a stressful situation?

Jenine/Marty: There's always stressful situations when you're in the room. She's gotten to the point where it's like she'll have the first thing, think of stress happening now and then she'll like take two beats to like breathe. And then like get into the zone of what's happening when, when it's like in the medical field.

If it's like just stress in general, she'll just start pacing in general. So she's in this situation, she's pacing, waiting for her residency.

Avery/GM: Cool. Yeah. So you're pacing in the living room of your, of your home, waiting for the notification on your data pad to come through about where you're assigned, Right? And your mom comes into the room holding. Couple cups of tea Right. And holds one out to you and just says, Marty, don't worry, you'll be placed somewhere. Amazing. You were the best in your class,

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Avery/GM: And your, Oh, go ahead.

Jenine/Marty: No, no, no. Keep going.

Avery/GM: Oh, I was gonna say, your father pipe pipes up as well and is like Yeah, your mother's right. You’re brilliant. Wherever you go, we'll be proud of you.

Jenine/Marty: Thank you. Just would like to know. It'd be nice to know Now, ,

Avery/GM: Well, you know, it's supposed to come at nine. It's only 8 58. You just gotta wait a couple more minutes. You'll be fine.

Jenine/Marty: Yep. Okay. Yes, yes. Everything, everything is good. Be good location. Maybe I'm still here. Maybe I'm gonna go travel the world. I, the, the, the galaxy. I don't. Who knows at this point, right?

Avery/GM: Yeah. You know, and hopefully you're, you're close because we want you to be, you know, close so we can all see how great you do.

Avery/GM: As your, your father is kind of saying this to you. You hear his communicator go off and he's like, Hold, hold on, Mr. Bakanawa speaking. Oh, Zara, how are you? What, what are you talking about? Oh, okay. All right, I'll, I'll turn it on.

Avery/GM: And he ends the call and activates the wall panel next to him. The display panel in your home turns on to the hollow net news station, and there's a reporter standing sort of in like a crowded area, a crowded street holding what appears to be like a microphone in front of him, and he's in the middle of saying,

Avery/GM: “That's right. I'm here on the scene of the transfer of power between the ruling counsel of Amerimanilla over to the hegemony. A commander, Commander Voss, is giving a speech now as she accepts Amira Manila into the he's fold. Needless to say, this is a historic and probably life altering day for the citizens of our small independent system,

Avery/GM: and the person that you would eventually come to know as your commanding officer is giving a speech. But Marty, it's all kind of drowned out in this memory because at the same time that it switches to that speech your data pad goes off with a notification for your next assignment. You've opened it and read it, and the words are burned into your memory as you sit there and it says, Welcome to the hegemony as first in your class You have been assigned Chief Medical contractor, the hegemony ship, capital warship Eos! welcome, and a big smiley face.

Jenine/Marty: Yay.

Avery/GM: And that's where your flashback ends. As you eventually fall asleep, kind of ruminating on just the mess that has happened in the past month. How do, how does Marty feel about that? Like, as she falls asleep?

Jenine/Marty: Well, she

Avery/GM: is it good memories? Does it, like overall, are you like, kind of like happy with how it's turned out?

Jenine/Marty: It was, it was always like a good, the family is a big thing for her, so it was like she was happy. She, every time she like thinks about her residency, she'll always just think of like those moments before leaving. So like just the family moments and then be like, Oh yeah, that thing happened. It's fine. I'm doing this for family and this is what I was meant to do. So that's, that's kind of like her mentality through.

Avery/GM: Zahn, we move over to you.

Zach/Zahn: Ooh.

Avery/GM: In the minnows, you're kind of plugging away at the, at the code for a minute. And you wear a helmet as well, right? Yep. Yeah. So you get a little notification from Mi Rack that just says in case you haven't been shown yet, the cabins are up one deck and like sends you like a little message of the location.

Avery/GM: Just says, Feel free to stay as long as you want. And kind of gives you the same general like, Hey, Polaris is really fond of all of you, even if he doesn't know it yet. You, you're kind of being asked to stay somewhere. And that kind of goes against your nature that you've kind of developed over the years of.

Avery/GM: Just packing up and leaving whenever you want. When the hegemony ship came under attack, like your thought process was immediately to leave because things got too hot. And so your ability to pick up and move at the drop of a hat is basically something that like you've grown used to, right? Mm-hmm. . And we kind of we're, we're gonna flash back to one of the first times you felt the need to pick up and move.

Avery/GM: Not the very first time, not the time you ran away from home, but rather it was your first job after leaving home, the cargo warehouse on an asteroid in the Olympia system. You'd been doing that job for about 45 days. You were hired as the mechanic for the ME suits that they use to move massive pieces of cargo around, right?

Zach/Zahn: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: what was the thing that got Zahn yelled at by his supervisor?

Zach/Zahn: So the, with this being first job, it probably would've been close to the first handful of places that any the transports like leaving in mass from his home station were going. So it would've been first, first place. And so rumors and, and slander of his well not slander, it all ended up being true just like the, the rumors of the craziness going on, on new terror station and then it just being blown up and it just kind of being per, it's still a fresh wound.

So he hasn't built the, the callus over everything that transpired to le… him leaving. So he probably got into a physical altercation with another worker over some. Like heinous thing that he said.

Avery/GM: Okay. So a little, a younger hotheaded Zahn?

Zach/Zahn: Yes. This is, This would be early twenties Zahn.

Avery/GM: Sure. Okay. Yeah. So you have knocked this person to the ground after badmouthing your home and you're supervisor… like you raise your fist to hit him again. Just one more for good measure. Your supervisor comes up and grabs your wrist and just is like, Hey, that's, that's not how we handle things on the docks. You, you, you got something, you got, you got a problem with this guy. You, you take it out back. You don't, you don't do it here on the, on the work floor.

Zach/Zahn: and you're just like, forcibly takes his, his hand out of his, like, stares him down a little bit, spits at the other guy's feet, and then just like turns and walks away

Avery/GM: and the supervisor yells back in. It's just like, Hey you know, you don't like it here. You can always leave.

Avery/GM: That was sort of the first like uncoupling for on as far as like ever feeling like he needed to be somewhere permanently, right?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, it's one of those, Well, yeah, if I don't like it here, I can leave and maybe I will leave.

Avery/GM: You can't fire me. I quit. You know?

Zach/Zahn: Yep.

Avery/GM: And that sort of became your whole philosophy, and so you're kind of thinking back to like all the other jobs you've had, all the other places you've lived, and how none of those ever really felt Right. And almost all of those always ended up with people telling you to leave or not making you feel welcome anyway. Right. Like the hegemony was never like, Hey, you're a good part of our team here. It was like, No, you're here to do a job

Zach/Zahn: It was like point A to point B. I wanna say for the Hegemony I would've signed like a temporary workers contract of some sort. Like, like 10 days. Yeah. Serve on the Hegemony for X number of our kind of cycles.

Avery/GM: Sure.

Zach/Zahn: And open with endless options for renewal kind of thing.

Avery/GM: So now you're being asked to stay here at least semi permanently. How are you, how is Zahn feeling about that prospect?

Zach/Zahn: So, upon reading the, the message the whole, the first time he like immediately swipes it like, you know, tab swipe and gets like right back into his work. And then it just, like, while he is working, the thought is sitting there and it's snowballing and it's festering in his brain. He's just, and it's making him uncomfortable cause it's something that he hasn't felt. He left home. Because I believe I had officially stated that he left home 12 years ago. So

Avery/GM: Yeah. something like that. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: He's been going from place to place to place for over a decade on his own, with no sense of kinship, , and it just feels like a cracking in the ice kind of thing.

Avery/GM: Bruce, you are in the kitchen cleaning up your, your mess from your pirate adversion cake, diversion? I don't know. Anyway, your, your brilliant cake strategy has saved the day and you're sitting here kind of ruminating about, you know, you've been traveling for years and years of your life pretty much ever since you became mature, right? Is that, is that what we decided on for

Caden/Bruce: Yep.

Avery/GM: Kind of the lore of your alienness. So traveling is just sort of like part of your. Your life and you're being asked to stay somewhere for the

foreseeable future. And your memory wanders to the last time you were asked to stay somewhere. We go back to your days in culinary school. You're about four weeks into your studies. You've learned so much already.

Avery/GM: But much like your first job at Mercury’s, which is space, Wendy’s, you are finding that your size is becoming an issue for other people, not for you cause you are used to navigating the world as a big, tall, burly lizard person.

Avery/GM: You're kind of participating in like a free cook session at culinary school, you know, kind of just experimenting in the kitchen and your cooking partner… Jamie, we’ll go with Jamie.

Avery/GM: They have tripped over your tail four times already, and after this last time that they tripped over your tail, they pointed angrily at you and yelled, If I trip over that stupid tail of yours one more time, I'll cut it off and serve it to head chef Viage myself and then they stomped off quite urate and threw your plate of poached egg, poached raster eggs and roasted green yams on the floor.

Avery/GM: How did you react to this super aggressive, like anger from your cooking partner?

Caden/Bruce: I think Bruce would curl his tail in around himself and like look down at his food and then like kind of around the room to see if anyone else kind of noticed, not really wanting to make a huge, big deal out of it.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So after a few moments you hear viage's voice from elsewhere in the room and she just says, you know, if someone ever presented me with the tail of a sentient species for a meal, I'd kick their ass from here to Olympia. She kind of comes up and is kind of helping to like clean up this mess that's on the floor.

Avery/GM: You know, and it's just like, Does that, does that happen a lot in class with you? People telling you off like that

Caden/Bruce: Bruce, Bruce will kind of like keep his head down. Like as much as he's tall and big, he kind of like shrugs. So it's like you're not really sure that he has a neck or not and his shoulder's like almost all the way to his eyes and he just kind of looks down at the plate and he is like maybe a little bit,

Avery/GM: Well, hey, it's okay. It's just a couple spilled eggs and some yams. It's no big deal. Right. Can pick it up and, and, and try again, Right?

Caden/Bruce: I'm just not sure that the kitchen is made for people like me.

Avery/GM: She kind of chuckles a little bit and it's just like, I mean, I can, I can make the kitchen bigger. We can, we can move these appliances around, make it more accommodating for you. You know Bruce, I've met a great number of Scaph in my day, each one of 'em, fantastic chefs, but they never felt like they belonged here, and they, they took off after just a few weeks.

Avery/GM: And, you know, I just, I just wanna say you, you belong here. You are a great chef. And you know, if, if, if these eggs weren't on the floor right now, I'd probably eat 'em. You know, they smell really good.

Caden/Bruce: Well, I hope so. I wanted them to be the perfect the perfect eggs. But I can always try again

Avery/GM: stick around because I, I promise you'll, you'll have a greater understanding of food by the end of, of your time here and a better understanding of yourself. So why don't, why don't you. take the rest of the day off and, you know, kind of decompress. I'm gonna go find Jamie and tell them to come clean up the mess that they made and you know what? I thought of the perfect lesson for tomorrow, situational awareness in the kitchen. And she whistles off to look for your cooking partner.

Avery/GM: Bruce, you have a lot of fond memories of your culinary time. And this particular memory sticks out because it was one of the few times where your urge to move on was sort of overridden by the kindness and acceptance that another person showed you. Yeah, and that's kind of the, the memory we leave. Bruce with as he cleans up and goes to bed.

Avery/GM: So it is a new day, Polaris and Ollie. After the experiment last night, Alioth gave you Hermes’ AI core and suggested putting it back in the ships so that it could have more to do than just being hooked up to Alioth’s lab for the day or for the night. What did either of you end up doing with the, the core?

Bee/Polaris: Polaris probably would've put it back in the ship unless there's like something else to put it in. But Polaris probably would've asked about having some sort of way to have Hermes with them in the coms, like in the coms of everyone's thing. Or if he could like put Hermes into his helmet. Cause his helmet is essentially a computer.

Avery/GM: Yeah. Alioth… So when you asked Alioth that and Alioth just said, Check with me in the morning. I'll, I'll have something for you.

Bee/Polaris: Thumbs up. Yeah. Kind of like a, Cortana/Master Chief situation.

Avery/GM: Yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Cool. So anyway, it's a new day. Zahn, did you end up passing out in the ship or did you end up going up to the cabins?

Zach/Zahn: I ended up passing out in the ship.

Jenine/Marty: That's fair.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So Polaris last night when you came into the ship to put Herms back you saw Zahn kind of just curled up next to like one of the computer stations in, in the bridge, like, you know, kind of hunched over the, the keyboard sleeping.

Avery/GM: You kind of look over a, a little bit and you do see that the code is finished. Like he, he altered the transponder code for y'all. So one less thing you have to worry about.

Bee/Polaris: Nice. Polaris probably won't move him, but Polaris will at the very least get a blanket and put it on him.

Avery/GM: Yeah, there's plenty of blankets over in the, the crew quarters area.

Bee/Polaris: Heck yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Aw.

Bee/Polaris: And he'll probably leave like a note that says, might wanna make a habit of actually sleeping in a bed.

Zach/Zahn: He's still got like his full gear on, by the way.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: Like helmet. His backpack is next to him, like leaning on his leg.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: just a mess.

Zach/Zahn: Just everything instantly within reach.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Avery/GM: Other than that, y'all wake up the next day and Hermes is connected to your little ship and send a message. Basically kind of connects to the comms of the Ursa Major.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: and just says hello crew. This was. A very fun visit to the ship. But may we go back out and explore some more things?

Bee/Polaris: Hermes just like a cat that like wants to go outside and you're like, No, we can't go outside, buddy. Not yet. Polaris would put in chat cause I Is it on the comms or like, like an overhead speaker or is it like text form?

Avery/GM: Yeah, it's like an overhead speaker for the whole ship.

Bee/Polaris: Okay Cool. I'm glad that Hermes has access to that. Polaris will send a message and chat and just say, Where do you guys wanna go?

Chris/Ollie: The crew. Discord.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, the crew. Discord. .

Jenine/Marty: Where do we wanna go?

Chris/Ollie: Shopping. That's where we wanna go.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Shopping Montage

Jenine/Marty: we had a list. We had a list of things we wanted to do, right?

Bee/Polaris: Did we make a list?

Zach/Zahn: I thought we were just gonna raid the work the work of here. And also,

Chris/Ollie: Oh, they have the 3D printer thing too, Yes!

Zach/Zahn: The 3D printer Thinging.

Bee/Polaris: Oh yeah. Fix the factory.

Avery/GM: Yeah. I think you wanted to fix the factory. And also there were some things that Ollie had mentioned wanting to buy some more processing nodes to improve AI capabilities.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. That's the only way I can get more effort.

Avery/GM: And y'all have a hundred thousand credits that y'all can burn through

Zach/Zahn: Like that (snaps fingers)

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, You know, now I think about it. The, the, our good friends on Olympia probably know what we look like based off of the stealth drones, . We might wanna find some sort of way to conceal our identities while we do day to day activities.

Chris/Ollie: well easy enough for anyone with a helmet or myself. Bruce is pretty recognizable. Yeah.

Avery/GM: But Bruce with a mustache.

Bee/Polaris: Mm. We could get Bruce a mustache.

Chris/Ollie: No, I am not Bruce. I'm his evil twin.

Zach/Zahn: Hear me out on this. Instead of a chef hat, we get him a cowboy hat… Completely different person!

Bee/Polaris: Bruce's cousin.

Caden/Bruce: Yeah. Bruce will just like look at Zahn ike the hands on the hips and just like shake his head

Avery/GM: Yeah. So we could go do a little shopping montage. That could be easily something that could happen.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I, I drastically need those processing core things

Zach/Zahn: and it's one of those we could, we don't necessarily have to take the ship formally known as Minos as it should be Its new official name.

Bee/Polaris: the ship formally known as Minos? Sweet.

Avery/GM: So Hermes is asking to go somewhere, just anywhere. He's like, Let's go on an adventure. . Yeah. The best places for shopping would be either the capital core world of Olympia.

Bee/Polaris: No, .

Jenine/Marty: Why not?

Bee/Polaris: We made enemies of, of very power, powerful family there.

Avery/GM: There is a artificial asteroid belt that's like a service station that has like all kinds of like weapons and engine boosters, all kinds of cool stuff. There's also illegal space racing.

Chris/Ollie: Let's do that. We've got a darn good pilot.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, you guys want me to space race ?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, let's bet some money.

Jenine/Marty: Bet some money!

Bee/Polaris: So I assume we're, we're going to the illegal place. . Unless there's any other place to shop. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Polaris or the, or not the next place. So basically the two biggest shopping hubs are both asteroid belts, because I'm totally an original thinker. So the second one is X four Y one which is basically like an another asteroid belt, but it's more like, it's like shopping center plus Vegas.

Bee/Polaris: So did we wanna go to Space Vegas or Space Disney World?

Chris/Ollie: Well, Ollie votes for Vegas.

Zach/Zahn: I vote Vegas as well. I wanna see Some drifts

Bee/Polaris: Everyone cool with Vegas?

Zach/Zahn: I wanna see some drifts, man.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, alright. I guess I'm gonna have to drift over there.

Jenine/Marty: Sounds cool.

Caden/Bruce: Vegas drift Let's go.

Jenine/Marty: Let's go!

Bee/Polaris: All right. We gotta, Yeah, we gotta take Hermes out for the walkies.

Zach/Zahn: Hermes want, Hermes wants walkies and then he’s gonna want uppies. And we're gonna have to tell him immediately that he's too big for lappies.

Avery/GM: Polaris, before y'all leave, do you stop by Alioth's lab?

Bee/Polaris: A hundred percent.

Avery/GM: You come into the lab and Alioth is actually nowhere to be found right now.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet.

Avery/GM: Which is a bit out of character for it, but that's okay. Sitting on the desk there is a small little disc and then three little earpieces and it, it, there's a note that just says put the disc in the ship with Hermes. Give the earpieces to anyone without a helmet.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet players will take that and also send a message to Alioth saying, basically just saying that he, he took the, the stuff and that they're heading out.

Zach/Zahn: Do, do, do the do the earphones require touch activation, Like every single spy movie ever?

Avery/GM: Come on, Zach. Of course,

Zach/Zahn: of course they do.

Avery/GM: Well, luckily for you and Polaris, you don't have to worry about it. You have your helmets, but

Bee/Polaris: yeah,

Avery/GM: there are. Wait, did I count that right?

Bee/Polaris: You said three. There should be two . Cause Ollie, I don't think Ollie has ears.

Avery/GM: No. Ollie Ollie's, Ollie can just,

Chris/Ollie: I just tweeted you with my brain

Avery/GM: Jack in

Jenine/Marty: Exist. Exist.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah.

Jenine/Marty: The two other squishy

Avery/GM: CC'd. Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: I mean, Zahn doesn't have it. Zahn doesn't have his helmet built into his suit yet, so, you know, it's good to have a backup.

Bee/Polaris: Fair, Fair.

Avery/GM: Yeah, there are still three just to account for three Squishies.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. Yeah.

Avery/GM: Cool. You all come down to the Hangar Bay. As you walk in, you see the ship formally known as the menos is like the, the little laser cannon is like shifting back and forth.

Bee/Polaris: Oh my God.

Avery/GM: Like, just like, like slowly targeting things like off in the distance.

Bee/Polaris: Jesus.

Avery/GM: Like not firing, obviously. Just like

Zach/Zahn: we definitely need to go to an asteroid belt. So Hermes can get some target practice in too.

Chris/Ollie: I imagine on like the ship's command prompt or something. It's just like pew, pew, pew.

Bee/Polaris: Nice. Also I did shorten the ship, formally known as man's, down to TSFKAM so…

Chris/Ollie: TSFKAM

Avery/GM: TSFKAM

Bee/Polaris: Yeah

Chris/Ollie: All aboard the TSFKAM

Avery/GM: Yeah. Yeah. Do y'all get on board?

Chris/Ollie: All Aboard!

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Oh. Do we still have the ATV thing in the, in the ship?

Zach/Zahn: Oh, absolutely.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah. I think everything's still in there.

Avery/GM: Oh yeah. I was gonna say so that's what I was gonna ask about actually. Yeah. Does, does, is there anything in the cargo hold that y'all wanna leave behind? Or do you wanna take it all and try and hawk it all?

Chris/Ollie: I don't know… ATV

Zach/Zahn: Zahn’s initial intention was to hawk the ATV

Chris/Ollie: Yeah.

Zach/Zahn: If everyone else can

Bee/Polaris: I mean, we can

Zach/Zahn: like, it convinces them to cause

Chris/Ollie: like just having one.

Zach/Zahn: We might need it.

Chris/Ollie: I'm assuming it's a one seater.

Zach/Zahn: No, it was a, it was a full party

Chris/Ollie: Oh, really? Hmm.

Avery/GM: Yeah. I think it could see eight, I think is, is what the book says. If I remember. It's either eight or six, but I think it's eight.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm. .

Chris/Ollie: Well, let's see what we can get for it.

Bee/Polaris: Hell yeah.

Zach/Zahn: And if the price is too low, we'll just keep

Bee/Polaris: It sounds like a plan to me.

Zach/Zahn: Does it, is it a speaker or does it have wheels?

Avery/GM: It's like a hover.

There are still, How many chassis did we get for Ollie? Do we wanna keep all Bee/Polaris: of those on the ship or do we wanna leave like two here?

Avery/GM: I think you got four of them and they're…

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, I'm gonna want to fiddle and repair them. I'm probably gonna cannibalize the duplicates to, you know, fully repair if I have to. and hit 'em up with all the chips. Especially I'm, I'm gonna make one of them a combat bot, The security one put the Arnie chip in it.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. alight. So are, are we keeping all four on, on deck so that all they can work on them as we're traveling?

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, we can do that.

Avery/GM: Cool.

Chris/Ollie: I imagine they don't take it that much space.

Avery/GM: No, they probably wouldn't take

Bee/Polaris: up that much space. I don't, I don't know what else is on the ship that we would have to offload. So…

Avery/GM: Yeah, so there's the ATV, you got two little hover, hover bikes as well, and then four little robot chassis.

Bee/Polaris: Wait, we had hover bikes the whole time?

Avery/GM: No, no, those, those were also pulled from Winston's wreckage.

Bee/Polaris: I completely forgot about those. Is the ship at capacity for holding stuff

Avery/GM: currently? Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Let's leave one of the, Do we wanna leave one of the hover bikes here or bo or both?

Zach/Zahn: Let's leave one hover bike.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Well, I, we could leave the big one, take the two small ones and sell them.

Bee/Polaris: Weren't we gonna try and sell the big one?

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. I don't think keeping any of them would be, cuz if we're not gonna keep the big one, I don't think keeping the smaller ones would also

Zach/Zahn: Well, I, I'm, I'm thinking of situational moments we're having. The singles might be useful.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. But they can't fit all of us. Is the, is the problem.

Jenine/Marty: Yeah How, how many, how does, is it one per one Humanoid can be on this, The things?

Avery/GM: Yeah, The hover bikes are a one person capacity, I believe. Let me double check the book though, just to make sure

Jenine/Marty: So not like a normal size being and a smaller size being .

Avery/GM: I'm sure you could probably fit like a Marty and a Polaris on one , but like probably Bruce would probably take up a whole one

Bee/Polaris: whole bike. Yeah. So we would have to have three of four.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So Hover Cycle is listed as one person crew.

Bee/Polaris: Okay.

Caden/Bruce: No motorcycle for Bruce.

Bee/Polaris: Oh,

Caden/Bruce: yet?

Bee/Polaris: Heck yeah. We gotta get Bruce a

Avery/GM: I mean you could…

Bee/Polaris: chopper. Is that what it's called? . I feel like that's, That's what a, A helicopter is a

Chris/Ollie: big ol hog with some ape hangers

Avery/GM: Yeah. . Yeah. I think, I think, I think the colloquial term for motorcycle is a chopper. I think I've heard that.

Zach/Zahn: Definitely one of the many nicknames they have.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. Okay. just making sure Also real quick, how big is the, the hangar on the AA major? Is it, is it decent sized even with the two ships?

Avery/GM: It's pretty big. It's, it could easily fit probably six ships.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, sweet. So like, while this conversation is happening, Polar definitely gets on one of the hover bikes and is like driving around the hangar.

Avery/GM: And then there are still a bunch of crates of like other stuff that like some, some crates have been emptied from, you know, looking around and getting like rations and stuff out of them. Some of them are still sealed.

Zach/Zahn: So I will put forward that instead of selling the atv, we keep it and we offload it and we use that space to fill it with more shit.

Chris/Ollie: I agree

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. Okay. I mean, we could probably get another ATV to put in that space. , right? . Let's just have a ATV collection.

Zach/Zahn: I'm just thinking ahead to getting like a bunch of salvage and scraps so I can start modding the fuck out of the ship. Formally known as the Minos and all of our gear.

Chris/Ollie: Oh yeah, I'm excited.

Bee/Polaris: It sounds good to me. I mean, if we get the factory up and running, I mean, you know, parts won't be too much of an issue. But we do have to get it up and running, so

Zach/Zahn: indeed

Jenine/Marty: let's get a shopping list to how we can help fix it.

Bee/Polaris: oh yeah, yeah, that might be important. . So are we offloading the ATV then?

Chris/Ollie: Yes.

Zach/Zahn: I would say I would put forward, yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. And then are, are we trying to sell the hover bikes?

Zach/Zahn: and then we'll save one hover bike.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, so we're offloading one and offloading the atv. Correct.

Zach/Zahn: Yes.

Bee/Polaris: Okay. We… Polaris will just the one that he's riding around and will just be the one that we offload.

Chris/Ollie: Perfect. Let's keep all the cargo on, sell all of that.

Bee/Polaris: Sweet. So offloading one bike, one atv. Do we wanna keep the empty boxes that are in there?

Chris/Ollie: Well, not all of 'em are empty. Well, the boxes still have stuff in them, right?

Bee/Polaris: They're empty. Yeah.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah. Okay.

Zach/Zahn: What about the ones that have stuff in them? Is there anything that's like, not immediately needed.

Chris/Ollie: I don’t think we sorted through 'em, but pretty much I'd say sell all of it unless it's like, you know, a good piece of gear or scrap.

Zach/Zahn: Sounds good.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah Can we open the boxes?

Zach/Zahn: We’ll have like one or two. We'll have like three empties specifically for the transfer of sorting . Yeah, The keeps/Don’t Keeps

Bee/Polaris: We need to put some shelving in here. What's in the smuggler Hold.

Avery/GM: So in the smuggler hold there was So actually, so the smuggler's hold is what you stored away in stowed Away in, right? Yeah. So when you hired the pirate Captain Byrum.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, oops.

Avery/GM: Y'all basically, Yeah. The custodians basically like, gave him a bunch of like, junk parts Right. And just was like, this needs to be smuggled to this location. Right. And they, they sent him on a path that would intercept with the hegemony.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, sweet. Big oops on our part.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So a lot of what's in the smugglers hold is just like junk that the custodians had kind of collected. Like, not even really worth like scrap, you know?

Bee/Polaris: Ah, okay.

Zach/Zahn: Oh wow.

Avery/GM: But like, they made it look convincing

Bee/Polaris: just like garbage. Sweet. Okay. Well, , and so like, that's where you put some of the robots that you recovered from Winston's Place as well. Okay. We're probably gonna have to offload junk.

Zach/Zahn: You're gonna hear ver as we're, I'm assuming we're having this conversation as we're literally just kind of going through everything and, and Zon gets in here and he is like, What the fuck is all this stuff? And you hear like loud clanging as he is like digging through these, these containers just throw, literally throwing the junk, trying to find anything. And it's just like between,

between like mixed different languages of, of curse words. He's like all, it's all junk. It's all crap. What, what is all this crap?

Bee/Polaris: This whole time, like this conversation, Polaris has been having it like via text on his helmet while he's driving around on the motorcycle. And as you're like going through it and stuff, Polaris makes the connection that the reason why the pirate's friend was captured was because the custodians had him intercept with the Hegemony and Polaris just puts in chat “oops.”

Zach/Zahn: confused, confused emoji… Question mark, Question mark, question mark.

Bee/Polaris: Polaris is just not gonna elaborate.

Avery/GM: So y'all offload some stuff from the ship, keeping one hover bite and then kind of just some of the random containers, or are you offloading all the random containers?

Bee/Polaris: We're offloading all the junk.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. So y'all are, which, which asteroid belt are y'all gonna head off to?

Bee/Polaris: Vegas.

Chris/Ollie: Yeah, the one with racing.

Bee/Polaris: the one in quadrant two .

Avery/GM: Okay. I'm just like, wait, which one?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah. I, I realized, Oh yeah, there are two and we just, we're just calling it Vegas.

Avery/GM: Cool, cool, cool. So the, the more dangerous one or the less dangerous one, sorry?

Bee/Polaris: Is Vegas, the, is the one in quadrant two, the more dangerous one?

Avery/GM: So the one in quadrant two is the one that has like fairly legal stuff and just like rumors of illegal things going on.

Bee/Polaris: Oh, I thought that was the one in…

Zach/Zahn: Then the other one.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, the other one.

Avery/GM: the one in quadrant four is the one that explicitly has illegal things going on all the time.

Bee/Polaris: Yeah, we're going to the illegal one.

Avery/GM: Okay, cool. So you're in the, the bridge of the ship. Does anyone sit in the captain's chair yet?

Zach/Zahn: Nope.

Bee/Polaris: Not my job. Yeah.

Caden/Bruce: Nope.

Avery/GM: Okay.

Jenine/Marty: Nope.

Bee/Polaris: Not my job.

Avery/GM: Not my job. Cool. You're sitting there. Herms comes online and actually projects a actual image of a tiny little alien dude, like the stereotypical alien that we would think of.

Zach/Zahn: Which one where

Avery/GM: tiny little…

Zach/Zahn: We're in an age now where there like 14.

Avery/GM: the little green men. A big, big round head green, green body, and big black eyes. And it projects itself into the captain's chair.

Chris/Ollie: Perfect. .

Caden/Bruce: I just gonna look at it and just be like, Hermes. I don't know if I should be offended or not. Is that meant to be me? I don't see a tail and it looks pretty small.

Avery/GM: Oh, not at all. Bruce, I did not mean to offend you. I was simply trying out a new form that Aof provided me.

Zach/Zahn: Well, who said you could be Captain ?

Avery/GM: I just assumed that since no one had sat here yet, that I could sit here, as it were.

Zach/Zahn: you don't even need to sit. You're, you're the navigator. You belong at the navigation station, which is inside of the computer. He's like waving his hand around, like, and then, then the navigation console thing over there.

Avery/GM: Zahn have I done something to offend you?

Zach/Zahn: No…

Avery/GM: I see you are uncomfortable with an AI being the captain.

Zach/Zahn: I just, you know it's not specifically that you're ai I just think that we should all see ourselves on a very equal basis here.

Avery/GM: Oh, I understand. Level the playing field very well and the projection disappears and you hear Hermes say, Where are we off to today?

Bee/Polaris: Whenever we're out of the ship Hermes projects themselves onto the captain's chair and starts Fortnite dancing. What is it called? Is it just an asteroid belt?

Avery/GM: Okay. Sherman name this place.

Zach/Zahn: All right to the random, since you're leaving this to me… Random generator.

Avery/GM: I, I don't know, random name generator gave me places like Game Ville.

Chris/Ollie: What?

Zach/Zahn: Bragos.

Avery/GM: Bragos. Okay. Cool. Yeah. So you select on little navigation map brags the asteroid belt that is, has a very unsavory reputation and Hermes says, Oh yes, that sounds like a great place to learn new things about the galaxy. Yeah. So Polaris do you manually pilot the ship out of the Ursa or…?

Bee/Polaris: Yeah And then when we're actually away from Theresa, major players will let Hermes take over cuz he has to install the disc.

Avery/GM: Yeah. So you install the disc as Hermes takes over and engages the spike drive, the disc basically downloads software that connects to your the software basically clones the software connected to your helmet.

Bee/Polaris: Mm-hmm.

Avery/GM: and basically allows Hermes to jump from the aperture that the AI crystal is stored in to a device with similar software, but with only a range of about a hundred meters. No, sorry, a hundred kilometers. A hundred kilometers. My bad.

Zach/Zahn: We did remember to lock Polaris’ the ship to the ship formally known as Minos, right?

Bee/Polaris: Oh, are we bringing my ship? Okay.

Zach/Zahn: Yeah, cause that's, it's an option to drift. We don't know what the the drifting racing situation is.

Bee/Polaris: Gotcha. Okay.

Avery/GM: Yeah, yeah, sure. I was gonna hand wave that, like, yeah.

Bee/Polaris: Okay, Sweet.

Avery/GM: Yeah, you're able to, to clamp your strike fighter ship to the TSFKAM and you set off towards this little asteroid belt known as Bragos.

Avery/GM: It's a pretty quick trip, all things considered, you know, a day or so in space, nothing too exciting. And you finish the jump out of the spike drive and come into the asteroid belt and it is a wonderland of chaos. Here. You, on your radar, you pick up several clusters of ships sort of like almost look like they're on the outskirts of the system, and they're moving in like a pretty predictable pattern. Looks like they're racing. And as you're coming into the system, you see an explosion. In, in the distance and one of the ships drops off of your radar,

Bee/Polaris: ah,

Avery/GM: and the ships continue flying. And on this astro, like on the prominent asteroid belt is just a cluster of like really thrown together buildings and, and facilities. There are some little atmospheric domes that kind of contain these buildings so that there's actually some breathable atmosphere here. And inside the domes you see like bright lights and you know what looks like a lot of like, clusters of people. Like this is really almost like its own like large city on this big asteroid here.

Avery/GM: And as you come in, there is a little greeting on the comms and it just says, Welcome to brags. We hope you enjoy your stay. All forms of money are accepted here. Have a nice day, and that's where we'll end it.

(ambience fades out, Outro music fades in)

Avery/GM: 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 music by Dustin Carpenter

Background music provided by Tabletopaudio.com and used under a creative commons license. Tracks include: Star Freighter, Nephilim Labs, Generation Ship, Busy Space Port, Orbital Platform, and Mega City Slums

Additional background music track Hydra by Huma Huma and used under license purchased through SavagePro Audio. Link in the description. Music: Hydra - Huma Huma https://youtu.be/1G-VXBcf4Pg

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