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Rift Apart
86 Plays1 year ago
The Fixer, Maeve, & Calamity are trapped on a broken planet! Time and Space are no longer constants, but deadly obstacles in their path! Will our heroes save the day before Ruption literally crumbles beneath their feet?? Find out on Rift Apart!
Enjoy thrills, chills, and laughs galore with Brand Osorio, Cate MacCoyne, and Pandora Beatrix, along with GM Casey Jones. Stick around for interviews with the players, including our special guest star, Jack Scheer! Your ears are in for a treat!
Be sure to subscribe and leave a question or comment! Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and BlueSky for more updates! And you can come say hi on our Discord!
Send your questions and fan art to AnywhereButNowPodcast@gmail.com!
And if you'd like to run a game of Doctor Who of your very own, find Casey on StartPlaying!
Music by Tabletop Audio
Theme by RJ Pirchinello
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Transcript
Introduction to 'Anywhere But Now'
00:00:04
Speaker
time travel, sci-fi adventures, and risky rolls of the dice lie ahead. Hello and welcome to Anywhere But Now, a Doctor Who actual play podcast. I'm your host and GM, Casey Jones. The next hour or so holds a thrilling adventure in time and space, so let's dive in.
00:00:23
Speaker
With me is the daring crew of our time-traveling machine. Playing the Fixer is the ever-resourceful Brandesorio. Hello, Brand. Hello. And joining him is Maeve Sullivan, played by the ebullient Kate McCoy. Welcome, Kate. Hi there. Finishing the TARDIS team is Pandora Beatrix as the unpredictable Calamity Hap. Hi. Howdy.
00:00:49
Speaker
And returning today for his next adventure is Jack Shear as the slippery ex-time agent Tripshine. Hey there, friends.
00:00:58
Speaker
It is so, so nice to see and hear you all again. Are you excited? Do you feel that energy? I really hope so because Team TARDIS is in some hot water now.
Continuation and Social Media Engagement
00:01:10
Speaker
As this is part two, you resume the action from our previous game with the story point count that you left with. Get ready for a collaborative, immersive storytelling experience, because that's what I've brought to tables for over 10 years.
00:01:27
Speaker
stick around after the game for interviews with the players, and of course, a bigger on the inside thank you to our listeners. Time is truly a gift, or it would not be the present. We thank you for spending yours with us. If you like what you hear, follow us on Twitter at anywhere but now with an underscore at the end. Links to everything in the doobly-doo.
00:01:50
Speaker
Welcome to Rift Apart. Brought to you wherever you're listening in time and space. This is Anywhere But Now.
Mysterious Cube and Time Peril
00:01:59
Speaker
Previously on Anywhere But Now. Outside is a small white glowing cube from a Time Lord. I mean, I'm a pickle. I could use a spore of assistance and if you could...
00:02:16
Speaker
The fabric of time and space has been punched through, not neatly either. I'm not sure why you'd have artificial gravity on a planet, but I suppose you could if it was, I don't know, maybe if like half the planet went away for some reason. You wave your sonic and the news is all bad.
00:02:36
Speaker
You are standing on a stationary planet. It does not spin. It does not circle. It is frozen where it is, where the laws of time are under a great deal of pressure. People move back and forth at a literal blur. It's been fine work on the Couplings, but we need more. Take a couple of months to work on it and get back to me in the morning. Right away, boss.
00:03:03
Speaker
This isn't the worst work you could have been assigned, so I'll be happy for that. Welcome to Purgatory. Well, well, well. A fixer out of the sky. I find that I usually end up in places where people need my help. Help is such a voluntary word. Time is quite relative, especially here. Those friends of yours are going to be spending quite a lot of time here, and their time hinges on you.
Mr. Out of the Sky's Threat
00:03:34
Speaker
Mr. Out of the sky, you are going to help me transport this entire vessel off this planet, or you and your precious friends will be worked to death. How does that sound? I'm going to begin taking the charges and begin lining them up along one specific wall of the box, one end to the other. So there's now the unbreakable material, layer of explosives, layer of pallets.
00:04:00
Speaker
You know what you're doing? You ask that question like you don't know that I know what I'm doing.
00:04:06
Speaker
The TARDIS in Siege mode is indestructible. The Nitro 9 that has been installed push all of that detonating force in the other direction blasting out the wall. The explosion continues to erupt. Cracks split the ground underneath Fort Fugit and make their way in terrifying slow motion right for the quips.
Fixer's School Flashback
00:05:10
Speaker
We opened on a classroom in Gallifrey years ago. Professor Thority drones on and on about the consequences of playing dice with time.
00:05:30
Speaker
and the Fixer, fresh faced and in his second year of an ages-long program, tries to tune out the snoring of the student next to him. Roll awareness and knowledge against a difficulty of nine to tune out the Dodger.
00:05:47
Speaker
Okay, we're looking at a 14 with a 3 and a 6 on the dice.
00:06:16
Speaker
Roll again, awareness and knowledge, difficulty of 9, as the Dodger tilts his head again and starts snoring very close to your ear. Ah, well this time I'm very clearly distracted by that snoring with a 2 and a 1 on the dice for only a total of 8. This is going to be exacerbated by the destructive forces in the surrounding area including tectonic drift or the impact of one such result.
Nitro-9 Explosion and Chaos
00:06:53
Speaker
Not only does the Dodger wake himself and sit up next to you, but he accidentally shoulder checks you back. The noise turns Professor Thority. Roll presence and convince versus a 15. Not bad. We got a 4 out of 5 on the dice for a total of 14.
00:07:15
Speaker
Sorry sir, deviated septum. Deviated septum is no excuse for distraction. Perhaps your next set of nostrils will have to be prepared. Breaking these rules or ignoring them can end in a ruinous disaster. Let us hope you never find out.
00:07:36
Speaker
Cut to the Ruption Quake the Fixer just caused with tactical use of Nitro-9. Running beside him across jagged terrain is none other than ex-time agent Tripshine, cheesing it for your lives. Let's paint a picture. Felix a scrapper and Hardy pulling a blaster pistol.
00:07:59
Speaker
trip and fixer. The explosion rips a hole through Fort Fugit. It is not small and it is not brief. What it is is very loud. The two of you are going to be at a minus two to the roll as your coordination is off, as you flee for what is presumably your lives.
00:08:20
Speaker
Cut to the interior of the Quicks, not far away, Calamity and Maeve have been oh so recently talking about a distraction when very slowly blossoms of orange and yellow and a lot of red consume the outer wall of Fort Fugit as the wall throws itself up into the air on a pillow of flame and destruction and there it stays
00:08:49
Speaker
Underneath the canopy of still rising wreckage, the fixer and shrimp stock still running from their lives. I think Maeve just fist pumps. Yes! I think he's come up with something. So that explosion... Does look like an explosion. Just a very, very slow one. So... And I like just turn back towards the rift. And then I look at the auditor like, that can't be good, right?
00:09:16
Speaker
The auditor who is clinging to the doorway of the scrap shack that you all have been staying in as you've been building your chapter of the Church of Whoops and Serendipity. And that's when the rumble begins. Something very deep, very low, and very strong has begun.
Sonic Message and Seismic Escape
00:09:38
Speaker
And on this side of
00:09:40
Speaker
it is going to take a great deal of time to get here. But the crack begins and just stays in the air. Terrain cruncles hard against itself as a crack forms. Meanwhile, outside Fort Fugit, a eruption quake shakes the horizon like a bouncing bed sheet. No two footfalls are safe from moment to moment.
00:10:10
Speaker
In the middle distance, off to the left, as West no longer exists, is a chain link fence separating the flow of ordinary time and the quicks. As jagged deep cracks splinter their way towards the fence, the air shimmers. In a heartbeat, the fence line turns opaque. You can no longer see what is happening inside the quicks. Fixer, I think I know a place where we can go and get our bearings.
00:10:41
Speaker
Lead the way. We gotta get to the bank vault. While we're running to the bank vault, I would like to pull out my Sonic and can I use it to send a message through the fortress mode on the Dodger's TARDIS? The first thing we're going to be doing is a strength and athletics or survival role against a difficulty of 18 to stay on your feet. Oh, this is gonna go so badly.
00:11:04
Speaker
The tritanium cube inside the most stable piece of architecture left in the vicinity is the only reason that the bank is still together. So trip and fixer. Please give me strength and athletics for survival role versus 18.
00:11:20
Speaker
Got a six and a four on the dice with a total of 14. And I have a six and a three on the dice for a total of 16. So you both have not succeeded, but you both have also have sixes on the dice. You are both knocked off your feet no closer than halfway from here to the bank and will need to get back up.
00:11:44
Speaker
Because of the six, you do not hurt yourselves on the way down. The rocks between here and there are incredibly sharp. The ground is betraying you with every footfall. From here, Fixer, you can either get out your Sonic and try to send a signal or get to your feet with Drip. That's a tough choice, I gotta admit. I think sending that message to the Dodger is important, giving them a chance to escape. Part of the reason I blew out that wall was so they could get the heck out of here.
00:12:14
Speaker
This is going to be ingenuity and technology, plus two for Time Lord, plus an additional two for the Sonic, close to a Rift, which threatens to crack into a Fisher. Let's say that that message is
TARDIS in Danger
00:12:27
Speaker
a difficulty of 15. Not bad. Okay, we got a 6 and a 5 on the dice for a total of 21.
00:12:36
Speaker
You are able to send a one-way message cut to the interior of the Dodgers TARDIS. Several alarms are going off at once. One alarm for the disrepair of the TARDIS, one alarm for the earthquake, one alarm for the explosives. You just set off an old, old man in a scratched up leather jacket steps out.
00:13:05
Speaker
Dodger, the side wall of your prison has been blown out. Go Airborne, I need you to meet me in your TARDIS above the threshold. This dashing gentleman waves smoke out of his face as he steps into the proper lighting light. Okay, Airborne, he says, that's a wonderful direction to go in. He turns to the console when the entire ship, starting to potentially slip towards the growing cracks. And now the Dodger needs to stay on his feet
00:13:36
Speaker
Yeah, he does not stay on his feet. No, like squeak, squeak, squeak, and he just slags off screen and crashes into something. Meanwhile, the two guards, Bruno and the extra, have just rolled 10 with their strength to get back to their feet with the blaster rifles, Felix.
00:13:57
Speaker
Still on his feet, clinging to his blaster for dear life looks around. All at once, lights overhead shutter and half of them turn off. Generators that have been humming away in other rooms die. The ship just dims.
00:14:17
Speaker
to emergency power. Well, that can't be good. Cut to Felix's office and the Mirum trapped behind the mirror on his wall as the force field around it blinks. And then, fixer and
Maeve and Calamity's Distraction
00:14:34
Speaker
trip. You are outside. There is now a shimmering field. We will call it mist across the fences and making the quicks beyond quite invisible from here.
00:14:45
Speaker
I am trying to pull the fixer up and drag him toward the vault. I will do my best to help. Give me a coordination roll. Use each other as leverage to get to your feet. Since you're working together, Tripp, you're our special guest. Evens or odds? Evens.
00:15:05
Speaker
That is a seven, so the earthquake is still a rumbling in this particular heart's beat. So you are going to be at a difficulty of 16 to help each other to your feet. The earthquake puts you at disadvantage, which is a sentence I never thought I would say. A one in a one on a dice for a total of seven.
00:15:20
Speaker
One and three for total of eight. So you both fall. Like you try to help each other up and you put your feet in various places to try and brace yourselves. And that is when the ground underneath those feet shifts. Yeah, Tripp, you fall and twist an ankle. You're going to be at a minus one to strength for at least an hour of real time.
00:15:42
Speaker
Fixer, you fall and break your ankle. It is not twisted, it is broken. You are at a minus one to strength and a minus one to resolve. And as a minus one to the strength, you're both gonna be slower for a minute. And no, neither of you are actually on your feet. Cut to Maeve and Calamity and an astonished auditor looking through the fences at the explosion and the men who have maybe moved a whole foot or two on their way. Even from here,
00:16:11
Speaker
and the rumble and the ongoing crack that is only sounding worse with each passing half hour that goes by. A dark, hungry looking fissure opening up in the ground, splintering its way closer to the fence. There is a shimmer of mist that is obfuscating things. It is starting to get a little difficult to see what's on the far side of the fog.
00:16:39
Speaker
The auditor rolled double threes for the average's average. Oh goodness gracious, the Schrodinger-Misen barrier wall, in which cause and effect become an estate of temple disconnect, which transpires on one side of the barrier can no longer be perceived on the other. As the mist slowly gets thicker named Calamity, you have a church full of murmuring whoopsians behind you as the guards are stunned and on alarm by the events on the far side of the wall, but they're not getting fresh orders either. They're looking around like, what do we do?
00:17:08
Speaker
I looked at everyone and I was like, so? This seems like an excellent time to leave. Possibly we can hit the gods, you know, with sturdy things. Does anybody have a sturdy thing? Give me a presence and resolve check. That is a 13 with nothing special on the dice.
00:17:27
Speaker
They rolled a five and their resolve is for garbage. So they are totally fine with that moderately rousing speech. As it turns out, high resolve people don't often, you know, get caught up in cults. Maeve picks up a chair and tries to smash it to create multiple sturdy things.
00:17:52
Speaker
Okay, give me a strength roll. Strengthen conflict because you're fighting, you're angry with that chair. I'm fighting a chair. That is two fives for a 15. Things are going wibbly wobbly right now. Odds or evens? Odds.
00:18:06
Speaker
That was a snake eyes, which is evens, I'm afraid. The pieces smash one of them pinwheels away into the sky and just sits there, whooping like a helicopter blade. And another thumps into the ground where it remembers that it was once part of a tree
Gate and Dangerous Mist
00:18:24
Speaker
and takes root and little branches spring out while the two pieces that were in your hands turned to sawdust between your fingers.
00:18:35
Speaker
Maeve steps back, hands on her hips, and goes, well, that wasn't exactly what I expected to happen. Which is ideal. So yes, everybody, like Maeve, just use that as an example. Do literally anything. It's going to be great. Try to do it in the general direction of the gods, though. Someone towards the back of the crowd near the wall of bits of scrap metal that are waiting to go become part of quantum couplings or temporal shielding.
00:19:04
Speaker
His hand rushes a bar and he grabs it and he picks it up and he says, now is as good a time as any. And it ripples through the group. Now is as good a time as any. And they grab cudgels. Now is as good a time as any.
00:19:22
Speaker
Maeve and Calamity for violently triggering this next stage of things. Please both add a story point. Maeve dusts the sawdust off her fingers while the auditor is going to make a run for it in the direction of Puget Foundry. You're going to see if he can stay on his feet on the way. That is a four. The earthquake has not hit this place yet.
00:19:44
Speaker
Yeah, I think he manages, like, excuse me, yes, hoorah, vive la revolution, vive la revolution, through the crowd and disappears into Puget Foundry. Cut to the interior of Fort Fuget. The guards are looking around for, like, what the hell is going on? Because the lights are now flashing. The blinking cube that sits half exposed in the bag, oh, stuff.
00:20:07
Speaker
Flashes all the brighter and amidst all of the rumbling outside and the tonight is ringing in his ears Felix sees the cube cut to Fixer and trip both reeling in pain as the earthquake continues around you Fixer odds are evens is the earthquake really bad right now. Let's go odds
00:20:29
Speaker
Okay, that's a 7. There is the brief rest between measures of chaos. Let's use coordination since your strength's for nothing useful in this particular moment. We're looking at a 2 and a 5 for a total of 12.
00:20:41
Speaker
I have a six and a five for a total of 19. With the six, Tripp, ironically, is able to get to your feet, able to help assist the fixer into limping. Give me another strength roll, the two of you, with survival to see if you can successfully make it the rest of the way to the safe. We're still on that minus on the strength? Oh my yes, that's ongoing for quite some time. I've got a five and a four on the dice, plus seven gets me to 60.
00:21:10
Speaker
Okay, so I got a five and a two on the dice for a total of eight. Yeah, this is gonna take a while. You have now cut the distance in half again, which is its own little time paradox. Maeve, calamity, we're gonna roll for you. So you guys are attacking now the guards on the side of the fence?
00:21:29
Speaker
Oh yeah, Maeve just looks at calamity and says, well, I think they're ready. Let's go. Yes, I think attacking is a strong word. Calamity is simply... More like storming, I would say. Pointing events in their direction.
00:21:47
Speaker
I love the fluidity of your prose. From a more visual standpoint, describe what Calamity is doing. Is she attacking? Is she pointing at them? You managed to hang on to your cattle prod. I did that. All right. So, well, that's fine then. I don't need anything else. That's great. What could go wrong? Maeve grabs a sturdy iron bar. Nice. Both of you, give me a strength and conflict role as you point events at these fine gentlemen. They rolled a three.
00:22:17
Speaker
and they are distracted by the things going on behind the fence. So you guys are in fact at an advantage, especially with the group of whoopsians shouting, now it's as good a time as any. Now it's as good a time as any. So yes, they rolled badly. So let me know what you rolled and we'll see where it goes. Okay, so that's two fives for a 15. Okay, so it's still pretty terrible for me. I'm gonna go ahead and spend a story point. I've got a 10, nothing special on the dice. Maves 15 with the iron bar.
00:22:46
Speaker
definitely gives them the chance to do a strike of opportunity on one of the guards. You gave them a body blow across the back with that bar and sent them to their hands and knees. They have taken two points of damage, one to their resolve and one to their strength each as they have been knocked to the ground.
00:23:07
Speaker
Calamity, you have the tan and you threw a story point on there. I did. Okay, so this is going to be an entertaining no-but. So no, you have not been able to charge your cattle prod in the three months of time you've been stuck in here. The battery has gone dead, but given the choice of not being electrocuted by an entirely depowered cattle prod or facing the wrath of a mad shouting bunch of people,
00:23:35
Speaker
The guard pretends to fall over anyway, electrocuted. That fast of mental communication of like, just go along with it, play dead. Great! Is this give us enough of an opening to get most of these people by them? They're gonna be bottlenecked by the actual chain link fence which is still closed. The guards that are stationed see what happens to the first two.
00:23:58
Speaker
and the ones at the next two posts to the left or the right, and they drop their weapons and just run down the fence as far as they can. I don't know if they're going to live very long, but at least they're not your problem anymore. The mist pooling on the far side of the chain link fence is getting thicker. I'm not going to go through, I'm just gonna start getting people through and kind of like, reregarding them to get through the fence.
00:24:27
Speaker
So the first challenge is going to be getting the fence open.
Auditor's Reflection and Gratitude
00:24:30
Speaker
It is currently closed and locked. Give me an awareness roll, please. Calamity, why don't you give me an awareness roll as well, please, with intuition. So that's going to be a five and a three for a 15 for me. All right, this feels like a root time, so I'm going to do that and say even is good.
00:24:49
Speaker
Well, it's not good. That's fine. Has Whoops abandoned you in your hour of need? Well, no. Whoops is just giving me even more opportunities for interesting things to happen. Maeve sees on the ground that the nearest guard that she's swatted has a key card on his belt. Yeah, I'll take that. Thank you. And then I'm going to open the gate and like kick it open.
00:25:17
Speaker
so with my mild distraction on uh because whoops is being so so giving in the in the many things to look at um i got a i got a nine with nothing special boy those cracks are uh sure getting closer aren't they you kick the gate open give me evens or odds let's go evens this time okay that is a seven
00:25:40
Speaker
You kick open the gate. It swings open, touches the fog on the far side. What swings back is rusted and corroded and crumbles apart. Well, I don't know what's going to happen to us if we go through that, but there's only one way to find out. Cut to. Inside the Dodger's TARDIS, the alarms are still going off.
00:26:08
Speaker
God, give me a bloody rest. And they all shake and he grabs onto a guard rail, gets to his feet. This is the last bloody time I go to a second location with a time agent. There's a one on those dice. He did hurt himself getting to the console. He's going to be at a minus one to his already not super strength. He is quite old, the Dodger down the road. Meanwhile, outside in Fort Fugit, Felix,
00:26:36
Speaker
Lips closer to the Dodger's TARDIS as the Hypercube blinks louder and louder until it goes from any kind of a beep to just a steady hum. The Hypercube says, psychic imprint recognized. And a doorway materializes on the side of the Siege TARDIS. The Hypercube is supposed to help you find a timelord in distress.
00:27:05
Speaker
And it stands to reason that the thing they send to come get you would also be a means of gaining access on arrival. The Hypercube itself has four lovely story points which allow gadgets to do things that are in the ballpark of their normal operations. And that's the ground I'm standing on when I say, yes, the Hypercube is able to get someone into a siege TARDIS belonging to the sender of that Hypercube.
00:27:34
Speaker
The door forms. Inside the dodger's TARDIS, cut to the vault fixer and trip, painfully limp down their way the stairs. Your TARDIS is standing right where you left it.
00:27:50
Speaker
I knew we'd be safe and we could think, so let me think. Oh! I start going into the lining of my jacket. I pull out a bunch of Snackems wrappers, and I start laying them out on the floor to reveal the plans for my vortex manipulator. All right, here's how it goes together. All the parts are in Fort Fugit. What can we do? Fixer, give me an ingenuity and intuition roll.
00:28:17
Speaker
plus two for Timelord training against a difficulty of 14. Two and a one for a total of 11. One of those ones, man. You've never seen a vortex manipulator blueprint before, let alone one in pieces that have been painstakingly sketched out on the clean side of Snackems wrappers.
00:28:40
Speaker
They look familiar, like you've seen similar circuits before. Can I take a quick scan of it with my Sonic stylus? I was hoping to then compare the schematics to contents that we have inside the TARDIS to see if we can just run into the TARDIS, quickly assemble it, and then go rescue the team. Because at this point I'm quite worried about Maeve and Calamity.
00:29:00
Speaker
seeing the individual pieces of the vortex manipulator laid out before you. Oh well that looks just like the diffuser that we have in this isn't that part of our glove compartment and like a Time Lord who knows what they're doing with the assistance of a time agent that knows what they're doing who has practiced this repeatedly over the last several months could conceivably
00:29:21
Speaker
a jury rig, a vortex manipulator out of spare parts and a TARDIS. Excellent. Unlock the doors, we go inside, lock them behind me. Okay, I have every part you need, but I'm gonna need your help. I, with my leg, cannot currently take the chair that is on the far side of the room and put it over next to the console. Then I'll start yelling out places around the ship that the parts that he's looking for are so he can run around and start assembling them. All right, I will get that chair. I plop him down in the chair, point me where I need to go.
00:29:50
Speaker
Okay, this part right here should be right over there. Go downstairs, go two doors over. Cut to the quicks and the mist on the far side of the open gate now corroded to nothingness. One whoopsie-ins shouts, now is as good a time as any. Now is as good a time as any. And races through the fog until a four-year-old on the far side drops a heavy bar. They're no longer strong enough to carry. Now is as good a time as any. Trot, trot, trot, trot off through the earthquake.
00:30:19
Speaker
Great! It's random!
00:30:23
Speaker
There's a good crowd of confused whoopsians because as much as they hate this place, they are not all thrilled at the prospect of ending up as time knows what. So great. So we've got two great options. Whatever's going on with the fog, that appears to be random. So you can just run right through that. That's great. Or you can wait here. When the earthquake gets here, we really have no idea what's going to happen. So that's also great. Really up to you.
00:30:51
Speaker
Calamity. This is primarily your group. They did an ingenuity role. The group is made up of old people and middle-aged people of similar dispirited stature. Gruggery Handanese and Fiona. Gruggery looks at the fog, turns to the foundry scratching his jaw. We've got some things.
00:31:21
Speaker
We've been building, shielding, could that be useful in some way?
00:31:26
Speaker
That's a great idea. That does sound pretty good. I mean, if we don't come in contact with the miss stuff, maybe nothing will happen to us? As Whoopsians and Maeve and Calamity turn to Fugitive Foundry, the auditor stands in the doorway, but there's a look on his face. You saw it on the auditor's face when you guys were at the base of the telescope and you were in trouble, but there was still hope.
00:31:54
Speaker
Cut two. The Dodger's TARDIS where he gets close enough to the console as the whole thing shudders and groans again and drops half a foot. He turns and hears something rolling across the floor. It's an empty can of something alcoholic kicked out of the way by the approaching Felix and Gruno. Cut two.
00:32:17
Speaker
The Fixer's TARDIS, where Tripp has just finished moving the chair into place. We're cutting over some montage time. Tripp, give me an ingenuity and technology roll, plus two for being a time agent. Fixer! Yes! With your Sonic, with your Time Lord training, with your ingenuity, and with survival or technology, whichever is higher, roll to talk Tripp through assembling something
00:32:44
Speaker
vortex manipulating. Excellent. And can I focus on trying to direct him to build something that we could use sort of like a needle with the Artrion energy being our thread to possibly re-knit that rift back together or sew it closed? First, add a story point because that was a creative idea. Number two, add scanners on the TARDIS, which should be working again by now.
00:33:07
Speaker
before we cut to that. Mine, we have three for ingenuity, one for tech, plus two gives me six, and 11 on the dice gets me to 17 with a six. I would say that given you have blueprints and have practiced this over the last couple of months, I would say that this does only fall under tricky, especially since you are getting assistance. Fixer, what is your role? Wow. Best of intentions, worst of roles. A total of 11 with two ones.
00:33:37
Speaker
with two ones. I am going to spend a story point here on my effort. As Tripp is scrambling like mad. He has been practicing for this, hoping for this. If those were one car dealership's brand of wiring, etc., he is now working with a very nice, very fancy equipment that he is building.
00:33:59
Speaker
With that story point, it is going well. Unfortunately, the Fixer, you rolled Snake Eyes. This is sad. You are scrambling for ideas and you are coming up completely blank next to a rift that threatens to become a Fisher
00:34:16
Speaker
Your companions are on the far side of the Distortion. An old friend of yours is also in a great deal of trouble right now, and your TARDIS had a little bit of a panic when you got here. The Fixer might be having a panic attack, and with good reason. Do I see this panic attack happening to the Fixer?
00:34:39
Speaker
Give me an awareness rule. Double threes gets me to 10. Because double threes are house rules for the averages average to ever average, you do not notice that the fixer has come to a complete stop in front of the console until you have actually finished and holed up in Ron's casing, a TARDIS built vortex manipulator that may or may not work. Steam pump, very nice.
00:35:05
Speaker
Grab trip by the shoulder from where I'm sitting in that chair near him. We have to save Maeve and Calamity right now. We have to save them right this second. I put the manipulator on his knees. I take the fixer by the shoulders. We are going to save them. Trust me and trust yourself.
00:35:33
Speaker
Total of eleven? I'm gonna reach over, put my arms around him and give him a giant hug and say, Tripp, thank you so much.
00:35:42
Speaker
Cut to Fugit Foundry. It is still a magician's workshop of random machine parts scrap. Tech from half a century's base fairing sits unassembled among familiar looking equipment. The big board still covered in equations that have been wiped through
00:36:02
Speaker
and major projects have been circled in that day glow neon marker that you use to write on glass. The auditor is working at the workstation with tools. His hands are shaking, but he is continuing to work. He gestures for Maeve. What is it? What can I do? It's obviously no longer safe to cross the barrier, but we have
00:36:31
Speaker
I think everything we need here to ride it out. Couplings for Quanta. You have temporal shielding that you have helped assemble yourself. Fully charged Archon batteries. Amid a shipwreck, you guys have the bare necessities to build yourselves a raft. Okay.
00:36:53
Speaker
All it lacks is propulsion, but you're halfway there. The Whoopsians are going about doing things they've been doing for months. They're just doing them in slightly different ways, soldering couplings onto the shielding and starting to build lattice work for some kind of cage that they can all fit in. The auditor is doing his own work off to the side, just out of the din as he turns to Maeve with the shocks of white in his hair.
00:37:23
Speaker
I never thanked you properly for what you did by the rift for me. Oh, it was nothing. I saw things. I caught a glimpse of the Fixer on Bishop Rock, but you weren't there. It was just him and just me and the Mirum frightened and out of their minds and neither one of us survived. I don't believe the Fixer would have survived our trip to Earth without you
00:37:52
Speaker
any more than we would have survived on Caspian Six without Calamity. Timelords are capable of impressive things. We've invented time travel and tried to make sure it's safe, but it is our connections that truly makes us great. He joins two couplings together and there's just this little of power. Calamity, Maeve, give me an awareness roll please as the rumbling
00:38:22
Speaker
and the cracking get louder. That is gonna be a three and a two for a 12. So I've got a nine with nothing special. The field of fog rests above the ground. There's just enough clearance underneath that you can see the cracks getting closer as the fog gets thicker. I just put a hand on the auditor's shoulder and said, you're right. And we're going to survive this too. And this time it's gonna be because of you.
00:38:51
Speaker
Probably. Probably. Maven Calamity, what are you at story point wise right now? I have eight. I'm back at four again.
00:39:02
Speaker
Calamity, take a story point because, again, without the small army of Whoopsians behind you, I think we would be in a very different B story right now with our companions. So we have a bit of a situation in the Dodgers TARDIS where there are no PCs, and for that reason, so risk can still be a factor in this. Fixer, I would like you to roll, please, coordination.
00:39:30
Speaker
and conflict. You got it. You are essentially rolling for the Dodger right now to see how successful he is. His stats are not your stats. Okay, we got a two and a two for a total of four.
00:39:40
Speaker
plus the 2 for the fire extinguisher. He brings out against the encroaching Felix and Bruno has an awareness of 2 with the 7 and conflict. He spies Dodger is coming in with it. He is going to take a reaction at a minus 2 to fire at the fire extinguisher in his hands.
00:40:07
Speaker
Dodger is coming in like, yeah! The fire extinguisher explodes. Compressed white powder for time fires over the Dodger. Felix, step closer. Mr. Dodger, I presume. I've been waiting to meet you for a very, very long time. And that's when he hears the shriek.
00:40:33
Speaker
Inside Fort Fugit proper there is one guard on duty right now that is still conscious and armed and he hears this sifting sound slipping down the hallway under the alarm under the rumbling outside and that is when he hears a shriek flatten into nothing from the hallway as a shadow slips across the floor. Cut two
00:41:03
Speaker
The quicks, the crack splintering its way across the ground has gotten significantly closer. As it's slowly inching across, little pebbles are kicked up and some just go into space. And one remembers what it was like to be molten and sinks right into the ground. A third goes on a whole biome of dirt and worm and eaten worm and fertilized dirt back into a rock.
00:41:33
Speaker
as time and gravity and the forces of existence are given a smack in the face by the fixer's deliberate actions. Maeve, give me a coordination role with technology. You are helping the auditor put stuff together. Calamity, you are supervising the group of whoops and you are rolling presents and convents plus two for being a cult leader.
00:41:59
Speaker
to get them to keep working as their very likely doom continues to inch closer. I would like to use story points on this as well. Okay, great. You are currently working with a difficulty mave of, let's call it 15, because you have plans in front of you and you have help from other people, including the Whoopsians. Let's say two story points. I don't have technology, so I can't even hit that DC.
00:42:26
Speaker
That's fair. Calamity, I would say managing a group this big with resolve that low would also be in the range of 15, given that they are already predisposed to listening to you and have no better ideas. Okay. Presence Unconvinced versus 15 for the group. Yeah, they're very copacetic. They rolled a four with a one on the dice. So that is a six and a one for a total of nine for me, plus two story points.
00:42:52
Speaker
Two story points with a nine brings you to yes but territory. You are able to follow the the instructions. You've gotten very good at working in a team with these people. You know what you're working on but it will slip out of your head half an hour after you're finished. It made it made a lot more sense then it was there these couplings and things. So what you're able to pick up from the big board
00:43:18
Speaker
Felix Fugit has been trying to build a timeship badly for the last several months. He has been building temporal shielding, he's been building quantum coupling, and he's been storing Archon energy all so that he can convert Fort Fugit into a working timeship plugged into the Vortex Manipulator. According to TARDIS Wiki, the Vortex Manipulator is the reason that the family of blood was able to follow the Tenth Doctor through time.
00:43:48
Speaker
Ergo, the vortex manipulator was plugged into their ship. It was a very small ship and it was just following someone. So that seems within the realm of graspable sci-fi. So what you guys have been doing for the last three hours or so since the crack moved 10 inches is build a time raft with the couplings and the temporal shielding and the Archron batteries.
00:44:14
Speaker
What you don't have is the actual vortex manipulator. What you've been working on with the success of the Whoopsians help and Maeve's help is building a time raft that could survive maybe one trip through the vortex without falling apart. And as time has crunched down and crunched down, pieces have been brought out to the wide open space that is wider than the inside of the foundry as pieces have slowly
00:44:43
Speaker
come together for this time raft, almost finished at this point. I'd say another half hour's wibbly-wobbliness could make it happen, and you have, I'd say, at least that before the cracks hit. Cut to the fixer and trip. Do we have a way to track down where the rest of the team is right now?
00:45:05
Speaker
The scanners are going to be at a disadvantage. Because of the Schrodinger-Eisenbarrier wall, scanning on the far side is difficult. The good news is, you have ties on the far side of that wall. That is what is going to help get you there. Especially if...
00:45:24
Speaker
Finally. The auditor rolls an 11 with a lovely 6 on the die. Your scanner receives a ping of incoming coordinates. So you do have a specific bead right now in time and space where and when the companions are. Well, we're going to take us over there. I'm going to need you to be my feet. Pull that lever while saying, here we go.
00:45:58
Speaker
This is going to be a difficulty of 21.
00:46:05
Speaker
with my own knowledge that I can help with or can, otherwise I'm just gonna be directable. Any disadvantages you would have for never being inside of a TARDIS before are negated because every single button has a Post-it near it. Beautiful. Or maves benefit. Those are Chekhov's Post-its.
00:46:24
Speaker
Trip, you are going to be at coordination and transportation plus time agent because you're listening and pushing buttons not trying to pilot this thing for yourself and you are at a difficulty of 21. Time machine's a specialty for my transport and I'm throwing a story point on this. On the dice I've got seven with a six and a one for a total of 15. Got a two and a two on the dice for a total of 14 and I had thrown two story points on.
00:46:53
Speaker
The TARDIS dematerializes and there is a hard scraping noise as it dematerializes through tritanium and very delicate time and space around this vacancy that is the time rift.
00:47:08
Speaker
As it disappears, the cracks finally reach the vault and the entire thing sinks as the building atop buries itself under rubble. Cut to the Dodger's TARDIS. Him with his hands up and a smoking fire extinguisher at his feet in pieces as Felix steps in.
00:47:29
Speaker
The Dodger is at a disadvantage because he has already been fired at and the man holding the blaster rifle still has it trained on him. Felix begins persuasively. I have spent no small amount of man hours trying to get in here. You have been a very rude visitor, Mr. Dodger. Covered in white powder,
00:47:52
Speaker
I feel really awful about that. I've been a right card. Is there anything I can do to make it up to you? 30 seconds later, the ship shakes. The cobalt blue TARDIS turns counterclockwise.
00:48:08
Speaker
and punches an extra sunroof through the freighter, and spins corkscrewing into the sky, veering dangerously closer to the Schrodingerme Eisen barrier. Inside the Dodger's TARDIS, there is at least one fire on the console burning like a stovetop at this point. These are not sparks.
00:48:32
Speaker
This is a small fire. And alarms are going off. There are cracks in the shaft of the console. And the whole thing is shaking. And he's just hanging on for dear life. He's like, come on, Beastie, hold together!
00:48:49
Speaker
as the whole thing just shudders and comes to a stop in the air and the dust that shakes loose of it tumbles off and falls below into the mist where it becomes iron ore and falls and lands as unprocessed ore with a thunk as a small family of seagulls alight for no reason at all
00:49:10
Speaker
Meanwhile, Fixer, Tripp, you are not having a good time of
Chaos Inside the TARDIS
00:49:14
Speaker
it. Nothing in your TARDIS is bolted down. Walnuts are just rolling left and right across the plexiglass floor, the steamer trunk, calamities, collectibles,
00:49:26
Speaker
hit a corner hard and just thrown papers and pamphlets and interesting rocks tumbling down the stairs into the gym. Maeve's pile of books that she's been cribbing notes from the fixer's manuals go flying.
00:49:56
Speaker
With the minus 2, I'll be at a 1.
00:49:58
Speaker
What's your ingenuity at and your strength? Ingenuity is going to be a six. Strength is going to be a zero because of the broken leg. Okay. So with a stat currently at zero, number one, let's make a house rule. The next time a stat falls to zero, let me know immediately because that affects how the other things shake out. So with a strength at zero, you cannot move on your own. You're in too much pain to do so.
00:50:25
Speaker
The minute your TARDIS successfully phases through the Schrodinger-Eisenbarrier wall, you get a headache that stays with you even through the time capsule. Your ingenuity is down one point now because you are finding it nigh impossible to concentrate. Okay.
00:50:42
Speaker
Okay, that is the, that is a consequence of the low roll. Your attention is on the console and the scanner and the warnings going off so that when you hear the behind you, it doesn't quite connect immediately. Cut to the quicks. The fixers, TARDIS, materializes a few meters away from the cage. So closer to the rift than the fence. Maeve, Calamity, give me an awareness roll please.
00:51:11
Speaker
It's a one and a three for an 11. I've got a six and a three for a 14. Beautiful. And Calamity, where are the doors? To the tardis. It's just booth all the way around. Glass and you can see the watch shop inside, but there are no doors. It wasn't my turn to watch them. It wasn't. It was my turn to watch them. I'm not responsible for that. Fixer, give me an awareness roll. And Tripp, give me an awareness roll, please. Seven and seven for a 14, and that's with a six and a one.
00:51:41
Speaker
Total of 11. Hey, Tripp, where's the doors? Um, hold on a second. Didn't we come in through doors? Tripp comes down the stairs from the console and is like, oh, thank god. We landed. And he comes and he turns and stops dead before just more TARDIS wall. Pivots on his heel goes the other way to see if maybe he was confused. That is a hallway that leads down to Rassilon knows what. That is not the way you came in. Fixer, the doors are gone.
00:52:11
Speaker
Your TARDIS makes a whine of fear that is kind of an apology. Passing through the Schrödingham-Eisenbarrier wall and rolling as, let's face it, poorly as you did, there is no way your TARDIS is going to risk letting its inside make contact with what is out there right now. The doors currently do not exist. You have a working TARDIS. Go.
00:52:39
Speaker
Okay. Trip! You have a working void manipulator on your arm, yes. Go outside, collect as many people as you can, bring them back inside, I'll have the TARDIS drop the field that would prevent that sort of transit. And we do have the rough coordinates. Can I feed those into my manipulator? Yes, that will give you a plus two to make a short-range trip in adverse conditions.
00:53:04
Speaker
Given the lack of protection with your jury rig slap dash vortex manipulator, you are also at a roll of 21 to beat with ingenuity, transportation, and time agent training. Boxcars for a total of 23. 23, beautiful.
00:53:25
Speaker
You land with the most satisfying sap you have ever heard and the smell of new car wafting off your shoulders when you materialize are a thing of beauty. In your soul for the first time since you landed on this hollow rock is the glimmer of hope. You just took a test drive.
00:53:51
Speaker
off of a dealership and the test drive could not have gone better. You materialized right in front of the big board next to Maeve and the auditor doing last check. Hi, friends. What's going on here? We are building a raft. Interesting. What can we do with that? Survive, hopefully.
00:54:15
Speaker
The auditor points to the schematics they've used that Tripp helped put together of the console add-on that they've been working on that has needed power to go, as well as working couplings and sturdy temporal shielding, plug in a vortex manipulator into the console of the time raft so that it can travel through space and time.
00:54:40
Speaker
Well, clunk, I affix the vortex manipulator into the vortex manipulator slot. Give me a ingenuity and technology role. Plus two for time agents, plus two for experience because you have been working on very similar things for a very long term for now. I'd say this is a difficulty of 16. So 19 with a six. And I am keeping these two dice and using them for the rest of my life.
00:55:09
Speaker
you take the vortex manipulator made of TARDIS parts and click it in and because it wasn't a perfect fit because this is cobbled together like it takes you an extra second of like oh darn thing upside down and you know you have to remove the prong because it's a foreign plug and in it goes
00:55:30
Speaker
The console is ready to be inserted into the raft outside. Calamity, give me one last presence and convince to see if you've been able to talk the whoopsians into finishing the job because the cracks are now right at the fence.
00:56:05
Speaker
Add one story point. The auditor starts typing a message. Oh, beautiful. That's a nine. A message comes through the console of the Fixer's TARDIS that says, tractor beam, question mark, tacky on tether, question mark, coordinates, and gives you the airspace surrounding the time raft that is currently in the quicks. Immediately start working on tethering the life raft to the TARDIS.
00:56:10
Speaker
I do have a bit of an idea too.
00:56:35
Speaker
Beautiful. While Maeve is giving that very sensible suggestion, Calamity will be saying, so the important thing to keep in mind is that none of this is safe and we do not know what is going to happen and that's great and that's fine. You can keep working if you'd like to randomly break things, also okay, maybe do that later but it's entirely up to you. But I believe in each and every one of you and I know that everything that's going to happen to us is going to be great.
00:57:04
Speaker
At a story point, that was beautiful. I had a 21 with a 5 and a 6. The group behind them that are working in unity and solidarity is like, whatever happens is for the best. They get aboard the raft as the cracks reach the very edge of the fencing.
00:57:29
Speaker
Rocks on the far side of the fence rise into the air thrown by the force and disappear into the mist above. And above the mist and the shimmer of dangerous, dangerous power on the far side of it, that is the rift threatening to become a fissure, is the dodger's TARDIS sparking. The whole thing is not doing well in any way, shape, or form. It is a miracle. It is even floating in the air.
00:57:56
Speaker
The Dodger is putting out fires, flapping his jacket chemicals at the fire in vain hopes, and then he just drops the jacket on it. It puts the fire out as he races around the TARDIS. Felix is losing his temper. You're not listening to me. I said I want to get out of here. Can you be happy to have a wee bit of trouble right now staying alive? And the whole thing. Shudders. Bruno.
00:58:23
Speaker
Because he is holding on to the rifle with both hands, does not have a free hand to grab anything as the TARDIS literally shakes him out. He falls through the air what lands on the other side. Tripp, you're our guest today. Even Zorad's.
00:58:45
Speaker
Evens. Okay, that's a six. What would you like to happen to him as Bruno falls through the mist? I think just a slow and graceful disintegration into his constituent animals. Okay, Bruno falls through the mist and is incorporated into his various atoms as a copy of the blaster blue from Clatter to the Ground.
00:59:13
Speaker
Felix is not having the best day. Okay, that is a six, and he has story points to spend. The same that is shaking the dodger's TARDIS left and right. Vixxer only has a blaster pistol, for one. And number two, he has been a scrapper for as long as he has been able to stand. And he grabs onto a railing for dear life when the TARDIS is trying its darndest to get rid of him.
00:59:40
Speaker
Meanwhile, in the Fixer's Tardis, where you are propped up in a chair and unable to move. That is why I asked Tripp originally to put the chair next to the console so I can at least do piloting things, hopefully. Do we have a methodology of loudspeaker-ing or communicating to the team outside?
00:59:57
Speaker
The TARDIS does have loudspeakers as a function. You can talk to and through the scanner, see them outside so you can hear them and they can hear you. Don't roll snake eyes and give me an ingenuity. Oh, no. You know what kind of game this is by now? Well, yes, but for him, it's like a 50-50 at this point. Exactly. That's true. Speaking of which. It's not snake eyes. No, it's not snake eyes. That's true. It's a nine with a one and a two on the dice.
01:00:28
Speaker
Fortunately, this is not as hard as some things and the TARDIS really the TARDIS feels bad So it's gonna give you the story point needed to get you to a yes So yes, you can speak through the loudspeakers and you can be heard outside the TARDIS and you can see and hear them Maeve calamity. Are you okay? Sure, I think it's great. Why? Okay, well keep on that then did you lose the dolls? Oh
01:00:54
Speaker
I'm still looking for them. That would be way better than not finding them.
01:01:00
Speaker
Nearby one of the whoopsie and says, the bork speaks. Yes, it's really wonderful. Now back to work, yeah? Wow. And that is when the crack hits the quicks.
Crack Threatens Crew's Stability
01:01:13
Speaker
The fence buckles, rents in two. Foggy mist evaporates as both sides have caught up to each other in causality.
01:01:24
Speaker
the crack continues to splinter its way left and right down the street but the raft is wider than the crack in this instance so it's not going to just fall into the ground and a good number of the whoopsians are already inside the raft doing last checks and putting on little straps they can hang on to for dear life what we are going to need is a coordination roll
01:01:48
Speaker
from mave and from calamity and I'm gonna roll for the whoopsians as well as the auditor. Tripp, please give us a coordination roll and stay on your feet. Is this a rift challenge? This is just earthquake hitting staying on your feet versus 18 challenge. Athletics also or just coordination? Survival or athletics whichever is higher. Double fives on the dice, coordination and athletics gets me to 17.
01:02:16
Speaker
So you are not hurt, but you do lose a step, you're like, argh! So it's going to take you just the the merest additional second, get into running position from Fugit Foundry to the raft. The good news is the Whoopsians collectively rolled an 11 with a 6 on the die. So they are good, both at thanks to Calamity, keeping their cool, quietly boarding the time raft,
01:02:42
Speaker
the bad news is the auditor rolled a three with a one on the die which means that in the foundry uh he is thrown off of his feet he gets the wind knocked out of him in the fall and is going to be at a minus one to resolve for the next half hour i got double force for a 10
01:02:59
Speaker
So you were not hurt, but you were definitely knocked off your feet by the first shakes of the earthquake. Calamity, what did you roll? Basically the same thing. Two fours and I got an eleven. That's great. You're knocked off your feet and get to experience gravity in a whole new way. Sure. Maeve, odds or evens? We're gonna go odds. Okay, that's a seven. Nothing weird and timey happens to you in the fall. Calamity, odds or evens? Can I go high?
01:03:32
Speaker
Yes, high high or low I want to go high
01:03:36
Speaker
That's a four. It's fine. You fall off your feet and bounce like you're on moon gravity. So you are thrown down the street. You're not hurt, but you are scuffed along the ground towards the cracks that are heading right for it. Tripp, you said you were also losing a step? I got to 17, so I was just barely.
01:04:03
Speaker
since the auditor was... whammied. No, that's not fair. I can't do my own odds or evens. Fixer, you're a Time Lord here. Odds or evens? Uh, let's go odds.
01:04:13
Speaker
That's even. That's an eight with a six on the dice. The auditor hits the ground and bounces and bounces and bounces and bounces. Yeah, he's not having the best time. Are we seeing this? Yeah, you guys are in Fugitive Foundry. I'd like to grab the auditor and try to like bring him back down on the bounce. I'm trying the same thing.
01:04:35
Speaker
coordination rule guys. That's a double ones for me. Me too. Whoops. Wow. You guys both try to latch on, unfortunately because cause and effect have gone crapped. Rather than stopping his momentum, he contributes to yours. So now
01:04:57
Speaker
You are now both knocked off your feet. Maeve, what is your resolve currently at? Tripp, what is your strength currently at? I have a five to resolve. So it's down a point again because of like, oh my god. Okay. And the earthquake is a rumbling, so it's gonna be harder to get to your feet. Tripp. You asked for strength, it is currently at a four. Okay, add a minus one to your strength since you go through snake eyes.
01:05:23
Speaker
All three of us are only now landing and in pain during an earthquake, so that's fun for us. Meanwhile, on the Dodger's TARDIS, there are alarms, it is shaking, and things are not going well. Fortunately, the Dodger rolled a nine and is spending a story point to keep a hold of his TARDIS. The bar snaps, but it's still connected on one end, and that's the end he's connected to, so that's good.
01:05:51
Speaker
Felix rolls a four. So with a strength of two and one hand on something that is not in any way helpful, and I'm going to throw on two points because on his distinction is literally the last man standing. However, that is still not an 18 and his time standing has reached an end.
01:06:11
Speaker
With nothing to grab onto and no one to reach for, Felix falls pinwheeling out of the dodger's TARDIS. Directly for the white mist below that could save him and put him in a parachute or god knows what just in time for the mist to evaporate underneath him. And there is nothing but sky between Felix Fugit and the ground.
01:06:37
Speaker
cut to the quicks and they can just see Felix hanging in the air like an ornament that they're gonna take out for Christmas every year and they start cheering. Now is as good a time as any. The earthquake gets worse as the ground continues to split its way underneath the securely built raft calamity. You are on the ground and are at a disadvantage to get to your feet and race to the time raft
01:07:06
Speaker
It means strength and survival versus 18. I mean, it might as well be like 37 at that point. You can spend story points. Yes, I probably should. I guess I'll spend three. I would say three story points here is enough to not only get to your feet and with assistance from your grateful flock or the raft, mave and trip and auditor. Let's give ourselves some coordination rolls to get to our feet.
01:07:35
Speaker
I will spend story points on this. Ditto. And I'm not going anywhere without the auditor. Well, it looks like we're all heading three story points. Well, I'm not going to judge how many story points you spend, but he will spend three since we've already agreed that's a safe number to get from the ground into the raft. Maeve, are you also comfortable spending three story points? Oh, yeah. Tripp, I'm going to spend two.
01:07:59
Speaker
So you're a step behind the other two on your way to the raft. What are you doing? I guess since I'm in the rear, I'm going to assess the situation. The quix is falling apart. Blurs of people since the now all standing in the same tight space of inside the raft, the time raft.
01:08:17
Speaker
which we will say is roughly as wide squared as a two-car garage, so roughly the same size as the vault. Underneath it, the ground is splitting, and the thing is starting to, like, sink and enter. The split is, now that you're in the quicks, has raced for the rift. You have a minute, maybe two, before it makes things much, much worse. Fixer, you are in the TARDIS. And the words tractor beam, question mark?
01:08:47
Speaker
Tacky on tether? Or blinking on the screen? Well, this is one I cannot fail, so I'm definitely going to use the last two remaining story points on this one. So let's tether it and let's make sure that whatever happens, at least the TARDIS and that life raft with its very important cargo are safely arriving at the final destination together.
01:09:07
Speaker
I don't think two points will be enough on their own to use the tractor beam, considering you've never used it before, but it will increase whatever you roll by two levels of success.
01:09:19
Speaker
To Tractor being the time raft, this is going to be an ingenuity and transportation roll, plus Time Lord versus 18, with the pull of the rift getting stronger. If you succeed this time, the difficulty is only 18. If you fail and have to try again, the difficulty rises to 23. Question, do we have any story points left over on the Sonic? Because I don't believe I used any of the item story points during the first half of the mission.
01:09:45
Speaker
Your Sonic, which has been restored, you can use it to throw an extra two points into your roll to fine-tune the signal. I will take every extra plus we can get. Okay cool, we got a 20 with a 4 and a 6 on the dice.
01:10:02
Speaker
The light within the TARDIS that currently has no doors begins to shine very brightly, even brighter, as light reflects off of all of the watch faces inside of the watch shop. And from those lights, a beam focuses and swings, swings, swings on to a direct line of contact with the time raft.
01:10:25
Speaker
as the TARDIS begins to dematerialize and a crackle starts to work its way around from the vortex manipulator across the entire breadth and space of the time raft with the archron batteries that you have filled yourself, with the couplings that you have poured in the scrap shop. Temporal shielding that has been built by whoopsians left and right for the last several months, and it all spanishes.
01:10:53
Speaker
Fixer odds or evens we're gonna go with odds That is a five
01:11:05
Speaker
Rather than have one of those wibbly wobbly time effects, you tractor beam onto the time raft neatly tiptoe out between two lightning arcs of cause and effect making things go impossibly sideways as you and the time raft disappear into time and space.
01:11:28
Speaker
Traveling through time and space inside of a capsule is vastly preferable to traveling outside of one. It is the number one reason that vortex manipulators are frowned upon. However, you are inside a cage that is effectively lined with temporal shielding held together with quantum couplings.
01:11:47
Speaker
So your trip is quite safe. However, you can still see the flashing light of the passing vortex outside of the raft as you travel, however briefly call it the length of a really thrilling roller coaster ride. As for the Dodger, he can see hanging onto the bar out the doors.
01:12:09
Speaker
the ground below now that the fog has literally lifted and is able to see both your and the little watch shop and the time raft vanish together. That's my boy! That's how you do it! And he's got just long enough on his TARDIS trying to get away from a collapsing fisher.
TARDIS Falls into Fissure
01:12:32
Speaker
He rolled snake eyes?
01:12:35
Speaker
Every single last light goes dead and it drops like a stone Pinwheeling towards the Fisher Fixer evens or odds odds
01:12:52
Speaker
That is a 10. The Dodger down the road and his steely blue TARDIS fall towards the Fisher, where it gets stuck. Sijo form.
01:13:07
Speaker
is slightly wider than the fissure itself before red tangles of loose, fraying energy spiderweb around the siege, TARDIS, and pull it into nothingness. Give me an awareness roll. Plus two for Time Lord, and plus two for technology, and plus two for this game.
01:13:32
Speaker
We got a total of 15 with a three and a three on the dice. You've been focused on getting the time raft out of there but you left the scanners on as you were on your way out. Where TARDIS lands, it materializes somewhere safe and sound.
01:13:48
Speaker
The first thing you see is a slow motion recap of the Dodger's TARDIS pinwheeling towards the rift. The last thing you see of him is slamming the door shut. You do not know if it worked, but at least the doors were shut again in a siege TARDIS when it was pulled away to Rassilon knows what. It is gone. The fissure echoing aftershocks like the last rumblings of a passing thunderstorm. The glow fades.
01:14:17
Speaker
This thing ate enough time material to rebalance the fabric of things. Cut to the parking lot of Zabar the Planet Bazaar. An open parking lot of ships of a bazaar that is open all day, all week, all month.
01:14:38
Speaker
year. It is one of the sweetest, sickest, most wonderfully diverse shopping bazaars of all time. It is a fairly safe place to catch your breath. As a default place for the TARDIS to hop to, this is not a bad one. The Whoopsians take a look around and
01:14:58
Speaker
They feel good enough of, like, now is a good time as any! Now is a good time as any! And they start chanting, and they just make a fire off of the raft, and they disappear into the bazaar. Have luck! Well, Calamity, there goes your church. Oh, it's fine. They don't have to be near me. In fact, it's probably better they don't. Gotta maximize the spread of entropy. I'm sure I will run into some of them again. Are we sure any of them didn't get sucked into the rift?
01:15:27
Speaker
I wasn't counting them, maybe they did. Some of them might have jumped in on purpose. I was being pretty liberal with my guidance. Trip, what are you doing, friend? Well, I see that I am in a place of trading where I am not an indentured servant anymore. I am safe, and I think I've had quite enough adventure for now. But I would like the chance to say goodbye to him, including the fix.
01:15:55
Speaker
Fixer, you hear the creak of an apology from your TARDIS as it puts the doors back where they belong. Okay, how is my leg doing? Oh, your leg's busted, yeah. Okay, so I'm going to flip the switch to allow the doors to unlock and open for the team to come in, because there's no way I'm going to crawl out to them on a broken leg. That sounds like quitter talk.
01:16:21
Speaker
Somebody who really cared about us would crawl out with a broken leg. Can I spend my last two story points to have one of those, you know, furniture dollies that Calamity has always been talking about getting for the control room so that when things shake you can just, you know, sort of sit on one and then roll around instead of falling down? An ottoman on wheels tumbles down the stairs and rolls to a stop next to your chair.
01:16:43
Speaker
Okay, then I'm going to pull myself out of the chair, gently place myself down on the ottoman, and start literally rolling myself towards the door. I think Maeve meets you halfway, and like, I feel like after months in the quicks, not looking great, smelling probably pretty bad, just gives you a giant hug.
01:17:03
Speaker
As she gives the hug, immediately return the hug in that moment with a little too much enthusiasm. Lean a little bit on the broken leg. Oh my god! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow! Ow
01:17:26
Speaker
Well, I was glad to do it, considering that I'm no longer under the thumb of someone who was gonna chuck me into, I don't know, a lava pit. As soon as he was done with me, I think we can call it fair and square. I can't thank you enough. Look up from the ottoman. Thank you, Tripp. Truly. Thank you for bringing Maeve and Calamity back to me.
01:17:54
Speaker
Glad to do it. You know, I was going to ask you one last favor, drop me off somewhere where I might be able to start my life back up, but seems that this trusty little machine has already done that for you. I think I'm just going to hang out here for a bit. Don't be surprised if the next time you drop by, I'm running the place. I wouldn't expect anything less from you, Tripp. And Tripp, if things do get a little rocky on that course you're taking.
01:18:22
Speaker
Reaching my utillikilt, pull out a little modified phone, hand it over to Tripp and say, if anything goes wrong, make sure to reach out. Thank you. And then I am going to give everyone a significant look in the eye, nod, turn on my heel, walk out of the TARDIS, retrieve the steampunk vortex manipulator and slip that into the other pocket and walk confidently into the bazaar.
01:18:47
Speaker
The auditor limps from the doorway of the TARDIS. Are you all right? Good lord, look at you. Reaches for a first aid kit to treat the Fixer's broken ankle. Thank you so much.
01:19:00
Speaker
and starts bandaging and takes out some of those nano band aids that you guys picked up from Caspian Six and Dr. Lomo and starts bandaging. I'm glad to see you in, well, relatively one piece. Didn't lose any limbs on this one. In fact, I even found a couple of missing toys. Reach into the pockets, pull out the ball for calamity and pull out Maeve's recorder. Ooh, you got it back.
01:19:27
Speaker
I also recorded a message here sometime in the future, I'll tell you to listen to it.
01:19:32
Speaker
The auditor puts a hand on your shoulder, looks truly haunted by what he witnessed at the rift and in the quicks in general. We'll talk later. And limps off towards the zero room to reground himself. So, Calamity, when she gets the Happy Chance fun ball back, like, because it has sort of a shiny outside. Does anyone know why, like, the corners of my eyes are all wrinkly? What is that about?
01:20:00
Speaker
Is it obvious that they're dealing with the premature aging from the Artron energy, or should I give them a quick scan with the sonic stylus? I mean, we've all aged visibly since the last time we saw you about eight hours ago. Well, Calamity, you remember how before we set out on this specific jaunt, I really wanted to make sure everybody understood it might be a little more dangerous than our usuals? Sure. I mean, it seemed fine, but...
01:20:24
Speaker
You did deliver on that. Yeah, so a side effect of some of the things you were exposed to might be a little premature aging. But you both look fabulous. Okay, well that's great. What's aging? Fixer, you did mention that we were here to rescue a friend of yours.
Reflection on Dodger's Sacrifice
01:20:43
Speaker
What happened?
01:20:46
Speaker
make my way back over to the console, pull down the scanning device, start showing the dodger's TARDIS being swallowed up by the fissure. Unfortunately, we didn't succeed. We saved so many wonderful lives. I walk over and put an arm around the fixer and just put my head on his shoulder. Lean my head back on Maeve, and she could probably feel the tears just pouring
01:21:14
Speaker
Why don't you tell me all about Dodger and we'll write about it together. That's a great idea. You know, ironically, it all starts in class.
01:21:48
Speaker
Folks, that was Rift Apart, the second half of a entirely bonkers mod that went in directions I could not have foreseen. That was beautiful. ORGANIC HAPPENING BOOKENDS! Oh my god.
Character Reflections and Narrative Surprises
01:22:05
Speaker
I cannot tell you how happy my brain is right now with all of the story things that happened on their own today and organically, and it was
01:22:12
Speaker
I would love to go around the table and deal out those precious, tasty experience points. Kate, take three experience points for surviving and building and connecting. That was incredible to watch.
01:22:29
Speaker
Calamity, take three experience points because that would not have been possible, let alone feasible without the coordinated works and efforts of the Shrine of Serendipity. You whipped them into shape so beautifully. Brand, take three experience points. You were mangled in this and it was amazing to watch.
01:22:57
Speaker
The dice were not kind. They were mean. They were really mean, you guys. They were really mean. But that's OK. They were victimizing you.
01:23:10
Speaker
Now that should be a quote on a shirt right there. You were victimized by those dice. Jack, as Tripshine, the fact that the last time you saw these people, you were indirectly threatening their lives, and this time you went from underdog to savior over the course of two episodes.
01:23:33
Speaker
an arc so freaking satisfying to be a witness to. My brain is just firing with endorphins right now. That was such a beautiful arc. The opportunities presented themselves and I just tried to stay true to the character you'd built. It worked out nicely. Kate, how would Maeve report on today's events, do you think?
01:23:55
Speaker
It would be more of an obituary to the Dodger with everything that the Fixer says and focusing on his heroic sacrifice to stabilize the rift so he had enough time to get away. Even if it happened by accident, Maeve would make it sound like it was on purpose. I appreciate that. Dora, amazing work. Thank you. What is the lamity thing for today's bizarre twist turn of events?
01:24:24
Speaker
I mean, as usual, everything went great. She's excited that she did establish a shrine absurdly, wasn't terribly long-lived, but then they tend not to be.
01:24:36
Speaker
But, you know, hopefully the rest of them will just go out and just continue, you know, spreading the words of whoops, as it were. Yeah, really, she was just sort of rolling with it in a lot of ways, like the whole like the whole trip thing, because people like he showed up and people were acting like that, you know, they knew him and she didn't. It's like maybe I met him and I forgot that's awkward. So I'm just going to pretend like I know him and that's fine.
01:25:02
Speaker
And of course, I like continuing to drop the little bits of Calamity's super bizarre niche backstory. Literally not understanding how time works, even in the most normal sense, because of where she's from. She never really encountered aging. That explains a lot. We might need more background in the future on why aging is an alien concept to her, because I don't think that's common knowledge.
01:25:29
Speaker
No, not at all. Not at all. What's aging? What's that? Why do my joints hurt? Oh no. Brand, what surprised you most about today's mod? That's a great question. I'm actually surprised, truth be told, that Felix didn't get away in the Dodger's TARDIS. That's the thing that surprises me the most. Yeah.
01:25:55
Speaker
I just had that creeping horror that we were going to have to keep tracking Felix across time and space because in that moment he would have... TARDIS matched the TARDIS mode of transport. There were certainly ways that could go and the ticking clock of Felix getting aboard the TARDIS really
01:26:20
Speaker
seemed like if he got on board and managed to make it start to work, then Lord knows what was possible. But two things stopped that from happening. Number one, he rolled badly and the TARDIS was already in terrible shape. When the Fixer rolled for the Dodger's message, depending on how you roll, it affects how much of the message you get. And
01:26:43
Speaker
Had he rolled better, the static would have not covered the fact that his dematerialization circuit is fried. He is not vanishing into the ether anytime soon. It would have been a possibility to repair or replace, given the gear, etc. But by the time Chaos gave us a swift kick in the pants and an earthquake under our feet, that option flew out the window and it was fine.
01:27:06
Speaker
and it was like okay now we have a broken TARDIS trying to TARDIS what's that going to look like it's going to go dead and yeah the second thing was this theme that rose up of it's the connections that keep us alive and we'll get into some stuff that happened last week that'll impact things next week because the arc of the show is now different from what it would have been
01:27:30
Speaker
two weeks ago because of cause and effect and things falling into rifts and fissures and gazing into time.
Felix's Fate and Tripp's Independence
01:27:37
Speaker
See and that's that's a wonderful moment right there because effectively part of the reason that Felix dies at the end of that story is because he is even looking out for his number one Bruno and he basically lets Bruno fall to his death which then mirrors his own fate.
01:27:51
Speaker
And it happened on its own with dice, with little cubes, with dots painted on them. It's beautiful. So Jack, that was a whole thing. Indeed. I really tried to, I mean, I don't want to get all actor's studio here, but I did try and live in his head a little bit. Most importantly, your important conditions, the last thing on the character sheet, bottom right, which simply says, kind of an idiot.
01:28:20
Speaker
So I didn't want him to do a lot of thinking. My nature would have been, oh, wow, this is so cool. I'm going to be part of a TARDIS team and I'll do everything I can. That's not Tripp. Tripp's like, this is great. You got me out and you were my best bet. So I went with you and peace out. I'm gone.
01:28:43
Speaker
Thank you with genuine affection for the folks that he met along the way and admiration for how well they stood up against those trials. Maybe even a little bit of wistfulness at leaving. Maybe that's why he doesn't embrace everyone as he leaves. Because maybe that hug from the Fixer was...
01:29:04
Speaker
Well, he was in a lot of pain. But still, still, just the idea of, you know, maybe you don't have to be a loner. But ultimately, yeah, he does. So yeah, we'll see. He's got that fancy phone now and he's got his own vortex manipulator and is already forming a plan to take over this bazaar and see where things go from there. Who knows? Maybe we'll see him down the road.
01:29:29
Speaker
In the future, Planet Zabar, the Planet Bazaar, will be where we spend experience points and get new gadgets and get traits upgraded and whatnot.
Repercussions of Time Tampering
01:29:38
Speaker
And that'll be fun. In the meantime, disobeying the doctoral program, chasing towards a disaster, failing to save a time that is already excommunicated from the doctoral program, messing with time, man, you are messing with time. There will be repercussions and I am here for it.
01:30:00
Speaker
It will be amazing. From last week, seeing things happen with those snake eyes splitting the ground, immediately I had this thought of, we've set up the first chapter of things are fragile here, things could blow at any moment, and then Fixer just wham, the table.
01:30:20
Speaker
And I was like, okay, it feels like it'd be bad storytelling to ignore that opportunity that just lands right in our hand. Thank you guys from the bottom of my heart for the opportunity to explore swinging for the fences with cause and effect and timey-wimey throwing in that extra evens rods. Okay, the chair explodes. I loved that.
01:30:47
Speaker
But by establishing that things are not going great and that cause and effect are being manipulated and being broken, it can go from silly to scary. And then when the effect vanishes and it kills someone, because it's not light and cheery and whoopsie noodle anymore, that makes me happy in my brains.
01:31:09
Speaker
I would love to add that in my headcan and that four-year-old goes on to be the initial start of the Whoopsian line that eventually works its way back around to calamity.
Future Impacts and Story Trajectory
01:31:21
Speaker
I mean, yeah, again, headcan completely, but I just love that idea. You've also got a small parish's worth of Whoopsians filtering into Zabar. You don't know when you landed. This could be the first time anyone's ever, plus that four-year-old wandering off into an earthquake.
01:31:59
Speaker
Thank you again, guys. Part of putting a whole season of stories together in a string that not only makes sense but can shape each other and influence each other. How you did, for instance, at Joybellant will impact what happens in the next story and how it unfolds. The same way that how things went with hard time flipped the table so much I was like, okay, yeah, no, this is its own thing now. Rift apart is the new stakes and it feels really good.
01:32:07
Speaker
The only question is, is that farm on this side of the rift or on the other side of the rift?
01:32:29
Speaker
Had your TARDIS fallen through the Fisher, you would be playing a different episode next than the one that you are playing next. My metaphorical hat is off to you guys for pulling so strongly the threads of events into configurations, and it's beautiful to watch. And finally...
Listener Engagement and Sharing
01:32:52
Speaker
To our listeners, another big thank you for sharing your precious time with us. If you feel it's been well spent, please share anywhere but now with your friends who are looking to enjoy themselves. Feel free to leave a like or a comment. You can find us on Twitter at anywhere but now with an underscore at the end, and wherever you get your podcasts. For all of us, I'm Casey Jones. Thanks, and have a great day.