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Graveyard of the Gods
72 Plays1 year ago
The Fixer's TARDIS crashes on an alien world littered with ruined starships, robotic ants, and a dark secret slowly waking to life. Prepare yourself for a gripping encounter with one of DOCTOR WHO's oldest foes!!
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! Your ears are in for a treat!
Come say hi on our Discord! Be sure to subscribe and leave a question or comment! Don't forget to follow us on Twitter and BlueSky for more updates!
Send your questions and fan art to [email protected]!
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
With tabletop gaming as a storytelling tool, the show features the Doctor Who roleplaying game from Cubicle 7, powered by the Vortex System, designed by David F. Chapman.
Game Originally Created by David F. Chapman
Addl. Game Writing by Will Brooks, Zak Dale-Clutterbuck, Eleanor Hingley, Andrew Peregrine, John Sewell, Chris Spivey
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Learn more about Cubicle7!
Website: https://cubicle7games.com/doctor-who-the-roleplaying-game-second-edition
Twitter: https://twitter.com/cubicle7
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Cubicle7Entertainment
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Transcript
Introduction & Crew Overview
00:00:05
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 and a half or so holds a thrilling adventure in time and space. So let's dive in. With me is the daring crew of our time-traveling machine. Playing the Fixer is the charming and resourceful Brandisorio. Hello, Brand.
00:00:35
Speaker
Hello. And joining him is Maeve Sullivan, played by the ebullient Kate McCoy. Welcome back, Kate. Hey there! And finishing the TARDIS team is Pandora Beatrix as the delightfully chaotic Calamity Hap. Bonjour! Namaste.
00:00:52
Speaker
Namaste. Are you all excited? You feel that energy? Oh, yeah, I can feel it. Yes.
Game Rules & Listener Engagement
00:01:00
Speaker
We play with the second edition of Cubicle Seven's Doctor Who rule books. House rules mean our players begin the game with five, count them five story points each. So they're not empty handed, but don't have an embarrassment of riches either.
00:01:14
Speaker
Get ready for a collaborative, immersive, storytelling experience, and stick around after the game for interviews with the players. A bigger on the inside thank you to our listeners. Time is truly a gift, or it wouldn't be the present.
00:01:29
Speaker
We thank you for spending yours with us. If you like what you hear, leave a review, rate the show, and follow us on Twitter at anywhere but now, underscore at the end. Share the show with your friends. Word of mouth is a huge help.
Adventure Kickoff: Graveyard Plot
00:01:43
Speaker
This fine TARDIS crew have no idea what they're heading into. For today's adventure, they have not been told so much as the title of the mod. Until now, that is. Welcome to Graveyard.
00:02:15
Speaker
of the gods.
Artifact Decisions & Gallifreyan Insights
00:02:41
Speaker
We open on the TARDIS. The entire TARDIS crew is puttering around the console room. It's been a couple of days since your last adventure, and the dust, so to speak, has settled. Fixer, you have had the initiative to either return the scepter of attrition to Gallifrey
00:03:06
Speaker
or drop it in a convenient black hole to keep it out of any hands whatsoever. And I'm curious, which option has the fixer taken with a doomsday weapon like the scepter of attrition? Does it seem like I could use this technology to actually begin the knitting process for riffs?
00:03:24
Speaker
That is a very, very good question. I don't think the scepter itself is going to be something that useful. Like, as powerful as this thing is, it is also like a sledgehammer in terms of might and focus. And rift damage, which thankfully there isn't any around, might require something more like a scalpel and sutures than let's just hit it with the force of friction and see what happens.
00:03:53
Speaker
Well then I probably would spend at least two days studying it to see what information I can get from it in building a new piece of technology for that purpose, and then drop it off at Gallifrey where hopefully they can keep it safe. Oh wow, okay. Give us an intuition and technology role at the TARDIS console to see what you have been able to glean about how this Gallifrey in tech actually works.
00:04:17
Speaker
you are going to be at an advantage because you're using Gallifreyan Tech to study Gallifreyan Tech. Perfect.
00:04:24
Speaker
and we're trying to beat a difficulty of 18. Barely made it with a five and a five on the dice for a total of 18. With no magic numbers on the dice you are able to pierce the veil of how exactly the scepter of attrition works underneath all the bigger on the inside technology that's been crammed into this thing and the power source at its heart. With enough
00:04:49
Speaker
time with enough compiling of the TARDIS computers, it is possible, however unlikely, that the TARDIS itself might be able to, with its force fields and its own eye of harmony where it draws its power, it might be possible to use the TARDIS's force fields and its own forces of gravity, et cetera, in the future to implement that kind of technology. So, well done.
Reflections & Dreams
00:05:13
Speaker
Fixer, at a story point, you have gone above and beyond handling Gallifreyan tech, today on the TARDIS.
00:05:19
Speaker
The espresso mat hisses away as Calamity is puttering around the console room. Calamity, you've seen a companion dead and left behind. Someone who didn't make it and wasn't missed. What's Calamity feel about that?
00:05:39
Speaker
She's a little, you know, she's a little unsettled, but because she had pinned a lot of her life hopes on a Time Lord in general, but it just turns out that, again, even Time Lords is something that is subject to the whims of Woops and, you know, there are good ones and there are less good ones. So, you know, Calamity found a good one and that's just what Woops wanted to have.
00:06:05
Speaker
That's just what Whoops wanted to happen. There it is. Maeve, you have just left one of the TARDIS Arboretums. It's very soothing in there. It's nice to get close to some nature. You took a thermos full of latte. You've gotten through some very personal fears recently with the mines underneath Sweet Fortune.
00:06:28
Speaker
They've triggered more dreams of being pursued through the dark. You've had a couple of days to recuperate. Where is Maeve's head at? I think Maeve is very interested in these dreams and is trying, like maybe with a journal or a sketchbook, to draw out what she's seeing in her dreams and make it clear. I think Maeve is under the impression that if you can see the thing you're scared of, then you don't have to be scared of it anymore, because it's right there.
00:06:57
Speaker
That is a bold philosophy. You know what? Give us a coordination, since this is drawing, and intuition role to see what you've been able to sketch in your journal of dreams. Difficulty of 12 to capture any kind of distinct shape.
00:07:17
Speaker
Coordination Intuition. Oh, that's a six and a five for a total of 17. That's really nice. Maeve has been sketching in her journal and it's been a lot of dark shadows and then there are shapes in the shadows outlined and delineated in them.
00:07:38
Speaker
You are able to sketch from your dreams. There are wide, fat bricks on the walls, a trickle of water under your feet as you're running, fleeing through some kind of underground structure from the glimpses in your dream.
00:08:00
Speaker
And it's strange because the dream is actually in this desaturated, almost colorless. But when Maeve looks behind her in her dreams, she sees something just
00:08:13
Speaker
rolling towards her through the dark and you can almost make out. It's not smooth, it's not fur, it's this weird bumpy thing that is coming after you with this great and terrible eye that is right in the center of its forehead and that is as far as you've been able to get.
00:08:34
Speaker
Well, Maeve's hypothesis has been disproven, so she shuts her book and goes to find the Fixer. Fixer. Yes. Number one, I find it hilarious that you found a way to do extra credit on a homework assignment from the Time Lords and studied the attrition scepter left and right. Well done. But in terms of leaving Gallifrey behind, Fixer, you have recently faced an old friend, your oldest friend.
00:09:04
Speaker
And from the sound of things, you are destined to run into him again. How is the Fixer doing with that?
00:09:09
Speaker
I think the most heartbreaking part is simply the fact that such a dear, dear person who I really thought was really devoted to the doctoral program is swatting human lives like they were mayflies, I believe you refer to them as, which just breaks my heart. The other one's okay, but one of them is like broken right in half. Gotcha. Understood. The auditor sidles up beside you near the console with a caffeinated beverage in hand.
00:09:40
Speaker
puts it on the cup holder, near a post-it note. Reach down, pick it up, begin gently sipping it. Thank you. I don't know if I could have gotten through this without your support. The auditor glances over his shoulder at Calamity in the console room and Maeve, who happens to step through one of the hatches and says, well, we didn't come to it alone at all.
Osiris System & Ancient Races
00:10:01
Speaker
I am sorry that this has hit you so hard.
00:10:07
Speaker
It is never pleasant to discover that someone you had a great deal of admiration and respect for has different motivations than we'd hoped. However, I thought of something that might take your mind off it. He hands you a scroll. Doctoral program, extra credit. Ooh. The TARDIS has already materialized in a quadrant of space that contains the solar system of the extinct OSIRON race.
00:10:36
Speaker
The home planet of the Osiris used to orbit this sun, this solar system, but it has been missing now for centuries and no one has any clue where it went. Similar to how nautical students and marine biologists might pass time mapping a quadrant of the ocean floor just to get the topography of it, time lords in the program
00:11:02
Speaker
can hop out here and spend a day mapping a quadrant looking for that missing planet. You're not expected to find it. Other students have, you know, come in here, mapped out a little mini block and returned empty-handed. This is the Fixers opportunity. Well, this looks really, really exciting. And no one's found it yet? Not yet. We might be the first ones to find it. Ooh, that's exciting. Maeve, Calamity, I have some amazing news. What is it?
00:11:31
Speaker
So, the people who hand down assignments from the doctoral program just gave us one of the most exciting, extra-credit assignments I think I've ever heard of. We're literally going to be looking for the O'Sirens! What's an O'Siren? What's like, ooooh! Well, I guess it would be like, oh, oh, oh. Not A, Siren. O'Siren. The O'Sirens. I'm still lost. They're even older than the Time Lords.
00:11:58
Speaker
The auditor is nodding up and down vibrating like his chin is just like, oh my yes, it's absolute. It's one of the great mysteries of the cosmos. They've been around and mucking about with time and the forces of existence for just ages and ages and then vanished.
00:12:14
Speaker
wiped out, completely gone. The auditor goes on to explain other Time Lords have figured out roughly when the Osiris were wiped out. What they did not figure out was what happened to the actual planet. Like there should still be a planet somewhere and there's just been no sign of it whatsoever. Fixer.
00:12:36
Speaker
Give us an ingenuity and technology scan versus a difficulty of 16 to scan the quadrant that you have materialized in. Calamity Maeve, you are welcome to assist if you so wish. Maeve will help. For what it's worth.
00:12:53
Speaker
Okay, I know we do things a little differently here. Like, if one character wanted to help, they could add a two to someone else's role, and that's never really felt significant enough to me. Maeve, at disadvantage on the TARDIS console, also use your ingenuity and technology, please, versus the same 16 to try and help out of the Fixer. Well, obviously, I am so excited and so distracted by the idea of finding the Osiris, because I got a one and a two on the dice. So...
00:13:22
Speaker
for a total of 10. I got a 16 total with a 6 and a 2 on the dice.
00:13:28
Speaker
Oh, that's fantastic. That's absolutely fantastic. So, the Fixer is so excited to be doing this particular project, just tapping buttons across the console, and things start to shut off. Following you around the console circle, Maeve pokes one button and flicks a switch, not really knowing what the hell they do.
00:13:54
Speaker
And the scanners turn
Pirate Encounter & TARDIS Escape
00:13:56
Speaker
right back on. Fixed it. We have some super mixed results. Awesome. Maeve and Fixer, your scanners are currently being jammed by a ship that's approaching at high speed. Fixer, the scanner, it's not reading anything. I'm not sure why. It's back on now. It looks like something's jamming us. On purpose.
00:14:20
Speaker
Does it appear to be a jamming signal that's just an all-call jamming signal? Is it going out in all directions from that ship or being aimed directly at our ship? From the six on the dice that Maeve managed, this ship is jamming you specifically because you are in range. There is a squeak of intercom static
00:14:39
Speaker
as you are being hailed. Activate the communication device so everyone can hear what's being sent to us. An unpleasant raspy voice comes in a little too loud over the speakers. Attention clock shop. We have you in our sights.
00:14:58
Speaker
This is Captain Bonablechase of the Rusty Buzzard. Prepare to be boarded. And on the scanner screen, a ship flying out of the shadow of one of the moons. And this nasty cruiser-sized ship has claws that sprout out from its forefront. Start making micro adjustments targeting your clock shop. You have about 30 seconds to respond before they try to attack.
00:15:28
Speaker
Space pirates! Nice! So, are we going to, like, let them come aboard or are we just gonna leave? I'll actually leave that up to you. If you'd like to repel boarders, I'm sure that we can. Ultimately, we could try a diplomatic route, but I find that negotiating with pirates usually costs us some. Calamity pulls her squirt gun full of vinegar out of her jumpsuit. I'm ready! You may want your stun baton, too. Sure. That's in my bunk. Hang on.
00:15:56
Speaker
Well, Calamity seems so excited to repel boarders that I'm going to have to contact them back and say, Captain Bonable Jace, prepare for a counterboarding. We don't do counterboarding, sweetie. We take what we want, and if you're lucky, we leave you alive. And next to them, a little bald-headed person sticks their head into the squeeze-out. You tell him, Captain. That's what we do. That sounds very reasonable. We offer you the same terms. Like, if they're successful pirates, they should have some treasure, right? Exactly right, Calamity.
00:16:25
Speaker
Oh, I do like the idea of treasure. Captain Bonable Jace. Her face fills the contact screen, and this person has skipped a couple of meals. They are missing a tooth or two, and there is a long scar traced down one of their eyes that has been replaced with a glowing red implant. Captain Jace rubs her hands together, and one of them appears to have been replaced with some kind of mechanical fist.
00:16:54
Speaker
and just eyes the interior of the TARDIS console room. Oh, that lovely chick. And they fire a pair of grabber arms, fire off the front of the ship, and literally clamp onto both sides of your TARDIS. Because this is no bigger than a watch shop, a tiny little kiosk, the claws
00:17:21
Speaker
grab onto both sides and alarms start to go off above and below. The TARDIS does not like being grabbed physically, let alone by something that could be backed up by tractor beams or anything like that. And you hear a hard winching as the arms start to pull you closer and closer into the rusty buzzard.
00:17:46
Speaker
How hard would it be, since I've been studying the staff for the last couple of days and trying to specifically figure out how to replicate some of its powers using the TARDIS, how hard would it be to use that technology to reverse the thrust coming out of the busser? So the more they pull us in, the more backwards they go.
00:18:04
Speaker
It would be difficult to apply friction to their thrust. I think it might be easier to try and apply friction to the clamps or the tethers to those clamps so that as they are pulled back, they undergo their own strain and duress. That's closer than trying to do something to the thrusters on this thing.
00:18:25
Speaker
That sounds like fun, too. Let's do that. That is going to be an ingenuity and technology roll versus 18 to try and damage the clamps and the cables attached to them, trying to pull you closer to the rusty buzzard. Well, before I roll, I would like to use two story points. This is going to assist you roll and bring you up two levels of success. But for something like freeing the ship, it is only going to be so helpful. OK. I got a six and a four on the dice for a total of 18.
00:18:55
Speaker
So, yes, exterior of the TARDIS, these long metallic cables attached to these clamps from the watches in the watch shop, the faces of the watches start to swing back and forth as a light beam concentrates from them.
00:19:18
Speaker
waves out against the claws and the cables on this thing. And from inside the ship you can actually see little bits of iron and steel flake off the cables until alarms are going off over the comms in the rusty buzzard. The first mate is heard squawking around in the background is like,
00:19:37
Speaker
We've got some improvement with the crabs, Captain. What's going on out there? And she's barking orders. Even though it's in space, there's an air pocket around the TARDIS so that there is a beautiful snap as the cables are rent in two. The TARDIS, since it's trying to resist the pull of this thing, suddenly...
00:19:59
Speaker
pulls back with the same additional force that it no longer needs. The TARDIS is trying to flee the rusty Buzzard and it still has these clamps ripped onto it trailing behind these flapping cables. The Buzzard gives chase. Fixer! You, Calamity and Maeve are at the console. The alarms are still going off and the Buzzard is giving chase. I would like to pull close enough to the sun's gravity well.
00:20:24
Speaker
So as they swoop in to try to capture us, we can try to catch them in it and then use the loop around to whip back out. Oh, that's fantastic. This is going to be navigation, so give us coordination and technology. It's a difficulty of 18.
00:20:39
Speaker
Very nice. Okay, we got a 3 and a 6 out of the dice. I get, so that brings me up to a 9, I get to add 6 to that, so that only brings me up to a 15, unfortunately. You man the controls and you've got this hot, hot idea about using the sun's gravitational pull against them and you are making it happen and the TARDIS spins around and that's when the scanners make a confused noise of a group.
00:21:02
Speaker
On the screen is another clock shop with clamps around it, with cables spinning as it goes around. And you have all of four seconds to realize that's not another ship. That's your reflection. And past it, the buzzard is charging right for you. Your TARDIS and the whip round of the cables share
00:21:28
Speaker
through a reflective membrane, and the TARDIS just keeps flying. And the Buzzard chases right after it. From space, it looks like the TARDIS has just torn through reflective space and vanished, and the Buzzard, going too fast to change course, has followed it right through the tear.
Crash Landing & Exploration
00:21:52
Speaker
And because Captain Bonable Chase was a bit of an edgelord when they were designing their ship,
00:21:57
Speaker
It is covered with spikes and sharp bits and all sorts of things that only tear the fabric that you guys have just crashed through even more. The confused sound from the TARDIS has stopped. The alarms have been replaced with, we are now in the gravitational pull of a body in space and are crashing.
00:22:36
Speaker
She's actually been trying to reassure the TARDIS that's like, okay, so I know that was uncomfortable But later when all this is done, we will get those like finders keepers, right? So those those claw things those are yours now We'll just you know, we'll get those installed and then you can you can grab things with closet if they upset you, right? I Love this idea
00:22:44
Speaker
Brace for impact!
00:22:59
Speaker
I love this idea. Calamity, give us a presence and convince roll versus 12, because you've done this kind of comforting to the TARDIS before. I have the averages roll of average 2 threes for a total of 15. The alarm's quiet because you have convinced the TARDIS light, yeah.
00:23:18
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to have grabbers now. That's what I'm going to have. Fixer, May, what did you guys roll at a difficulty of 18? Well, it is the averages average that could ever average on the dice and a total, unfortunately, of 11.
00:23:32
Speaker
And I got a two and a one for an eight total. Maybe we can all get exciting prosthetics. I think Maeve is just holding on and kind of like trying not to scream and just reaches out and slaps the first button that she sees. That's about as far as it goes.
00:23:53
Speaker
Beautiful. I need a coordination roll from everyone present to avoid injury as the ship crashes. The averages average will at least ensure that you land bottom side down. So the TARDIS will be upright when it finally lands. But this is going to be a difficulty of 15 to stay on your feet in a high speed crash. Coordination and athletics? Coordination and athletics, sure. Yeah, the auditor has no athletics, so he goes flying.
00:24:23
Speaker
I got a 4 and a 5 for a 12. Can I spend a story point to just hold on to the rail and stay upright and scream really loudly? Yes, yes you can. You absolutely can. A 4 and a 5 for a total of 14. I'm going to be more distracted trying to make sure the companions are okay. I have nothing special and I have a 10. But I would like to spend a story point for a yes but.
00:24:46
Speaker
So yes, you managed to keep one foot on the ground, but do not hurt yourself. Well done. You are not injured because there were no ones on those dice. I think Maeve is just hanging onto the guide bar as their legs go flying because things don't weigh anything in a free fall. Fixer might be able to put a hand on their back to sort of like guide them back down so that they can land in some kind of not hurting ourselves fashion.
00:25:16
Speaker
And then suddenly there is just a WHAM! And the whole thing shudders. The lights stay on, but they blink, and there's just a low rattle of the shock absorbers settling out the damage before the TARDIS resumes its normal levels of light. Just a skosh down. Is everyone okay? Uh, I think? Are you okay? I'm, I'm alright.
00:25:44
Speaker
Oh, good. Not our worst landing yet? Not our worst landing. But one of our best crashes. Oh, definitely top 10 crashes, yes. The TARDIS may be a bit bruised. We should maybe look outside, I guess. I assume we've crashed onto something. A couple of seconds later, you hear another loud bang. The rusty buzzard crashes onto the same whatever that you have. Oh, and we have company.
00:26:12
Speaker
Well, so far, their attempt to board us has failed. And our counter-boarding has resulted in them crashing, so I think we're at an advantage. I think that puts it at, like, one zero? Something like that? One naught. Time Lords. Team TARDIS. We have to go charge them while they're not expecting it. Is there air outside? Start checking. Give us a scan-y scan. This is going to be a difficulty of 12 with ingenuity and technology, please. Oh, no.
00:26:40
Speaker
Oh no. A one and a one for a total of ten. The scanners go dead and begin self-repairing. We may have taken a little more damage in that crash than I expected, so I'm gonna walk outside and see if we need air.
00:26:57
Speaker
That is definitely a test. That is one way to find out. The fixer pushes open the TARDIS console room door and steps into the watch shop. The whole shop has been turned upside down. None of the watches are still on their hooks. There's going to be a major cleanup later. And somehow the glass
00:27:16
Speaker
in the panes is only like lightly cracked. There might be some chips on the paint and we're certain that this is surface damage that can be repaired and mended, but for right now the watch shop looks a little dinged up. I would like to grab the nicest looking watch that I've been working on and pop it into my pocket as I walk out to survey the breathable air or lack of breathable air.
00:27:38
Speaker
When the Fixer looks up from taking out a pocket watch and tucking it into his waistcoat, you look through the glass of the TARDIS and step out. You have landed on a flat, black glass
00:27:53
Speaker
plane.
City of Glass & Hidden Dangers
00:27:54
Speaker
As far as you can see, there are hexagonal little black discs on the ground, neatly seamed together like paving stones, and they go off as far as the eye can see in every direction. You look behind you
00:28:12
Speaker
and see that the landscape south of where your TARDIS has landed is littered with crashed and gutted spacecraft like the ones you see in the image here of ships that fell into the exact same accidental trap that you did of flying through a surface and crashing on something they didn't know was there.
00:28:33
Speaker
Looking up towards the sky, do we see the hole that we entered through or however we entered? You look skyward. It is almost completely opaque. What you see overhead is a reflective black surface. There isn't a whole lot of light to reflect bouncing off the surface of the planet right now. But what you do see is a colossal gash, a giant tear.
00:28:57
Speaker
in the fabric overhead, through which not only you can see starlight, but I'd say at least half of the sun that this planet happens to be orbiting, and that light shimmers on the black glass hexagons at your feet. Hmm, interesting. Is the air breathable? Stale but breathable, yes. It appears to support the life of bipeds. Excellent. Go back in and grab some companions.
00:29:25
Speaker
I have great news! You should be able to breathe without a problem. Oh, that is great news. Where are we? Alright. Yes, let's go. Fine treasure. So, where exactly is this place? I think we may have actually already succeeded in our extra credit. Wait, you mean we found Space Atlantis?
00:29:42
Speaker
Come on out, you gotta see this. I have not seen such a wide variety of sentient, built starships in such a long time. Don't get me wrong, a lot of them are pretty damaged, but it's kinda majestic too. Beyond the TARDIS is a sea of wasted hulks.
00:30:01
Speaker
empty ships that could have been there for hundreds of years. What I would love from our Sharp-Eyed team is an awareness roll. Please give us awareness and intuition, please. Versus a 12, but the higher, the better. Only got a 10 with a 2 and a 3 on the dice. That is double sixes for me for a 19. Ever the investigator. I've got an 11 with nothing special.
00:30:29
Speaker
Okay, Fixer and Calamity are both taking in the micro. These strange discs under your feet, they are surprisingly sturdy too. Like a couple might have been crushed underneath when the TARDIS crashed into it, but by and far around you, the plane is flat and smooth. Maeve is the first to turn her head behind you guys.
00:30:57
Speaker
This vast black plain is dotted with ships before and behind. The rusty buzzard has crashed just about where you can make out the mouse on the map beyond the black glass hexagons appear to be a city.
00:31:16
Speaker
Maeve described it as the lost city of Atlantis and you're not far off because behind this tall wall is a city of black glass and steel. You'd swear Egyptian decor. Like there are pyramids behind the wall of various sizes that took heaven knows how long to build.
00:31:42
Speaker
Maeve, with your double sixes, there is pretty much nothing you did not notice. And two of the things you notice, the hexagons on the floor are not just sparkling. They appear to be flashing. Little LEDs are starting to awaken and glow underneath the surface of the glass, reflecting the light from above. And because they are starting to light up, you are the first to notice the scratch marks in the glass.
00:32:12
Speaker
I will lean down and examine one of these scratch marks. You get closer down to the ground and see scratch marks, and not just a scratch mark, two of them, a trail of them that lead off. Something with a foot span of about three quarters of a foot wide, something has left little scratch marks in the glass traveling back
00:32:39
Speaker
and forth. And you can now that you look around and more light is warming up the glass panels under your feet, you can make out other scratch marks litter the glass scape in single file lines to the ships behind you and the ships ahead of you. I think whatever crashed here went there and I'll point to the city. Oh, well, that's knowledge. They left all these scratch marks on the glass. Quite large scratch marks.
00:33:07
Speaker
Why is the ground made out of glass? Like, is this a planet or a really big space station? It's really not the best choice for a floor material.
00:33:16
Speaker
Calamity, that's a great question. Calamity, give us coordination and intuition versus a difficulty of, let's call it 10. Trying to pick up one of these plates on the ground. I have a 12 with nothing special. Great. You ask, what is the ground made of? And because there are a couple of disturbed pieces on the floor from where the tart is crashed, you are able to actually just dig your fingernails in under the seam of one and just pick it up and have in your hands
00:33:43
Speaker
a dinner plate sized black hexagon. Turn it over and underneath is circuitry that lays flat against the exposed circuitry that you have just pried it up from. What kind of technology points does Calamity have?
00:33:59
Speaker
she's uh she's got two and she's tech she's tech level six so do you want to spend a story point yes to to know interesting things always you've never seen one quite like this before but if you didn't know better you'd swear you were holding a solar panel like this thing is super advanced like you just lay it down and it just it starts soaking up energy and sending it off
00:34:24
Speaker
So, right, I guess, you know, trying, well, that's sort of weird though, because there wasn't any light until we ripped a hole in the sky, right? So they have solar panels with nothing, you know, to solve them. The ribbon of torn space overhead fills the black panes under your feet. The LEDs that flickered and have started to warm up since you crashed start to get brighter and just a little bit brighter.
00:34:53
Speaker
The city beyond the wall, it starts out looking like it's just smooth black glass and steel all over, but little by little, you see lights start to come on under the surface in what could be a city. It's very slow and it's very gradual. Once Calamity mentions that they're solar panels, I'll take a closer look, look up towards, again, the ribbon in the sky that was ripped and say, somebody put a lot of effort into making sure that these solar panels weren't activated.
00:35:21
Speaker
That covering isn't organic. So you think somebody hid this place or a lot of somebody's. Somebody either hid it or tried to cut it off from the sun that was powering it. Maybe they wanted to hide. Maybe they did it themselves. Then they would have planned for some element of the material you see in the sky to be translucent, to allow some sunlight to come in for power purposes.
00:35:45
Speaker
Well, I mean, there's other ways of getting power, right? They could have a blah blah blah energy thing underneath, right? They could have a blah blah energy thing underneath. I've heard great things about blah blah energy.
00:35:59
Speaker
That's a great point, Calamity. Can we do a quick scan to see if there are any blah blah energy sources or other energy sources located inside the city? You are a bit far away from the city. You could do a wide, broad scan and see what you pick up. This is going to be Ingenuity plus Technology plus Two for the Sonic. Fixer, I'm going to say you're at advantage because this was the extra credit assignment song.
00:36:22
Speaker
I do want to be clear though that when Calamity says blah blah she is saying blah blah it is not Dora making a placeholder. Oh yes and when I said blah blah I was I was literally just trying to follow along. Okay we're looking at a three and a four dice for a total of 17. You give a broad
00:36:37
Speaker
scan across the terrain, your Sonic comes back with all sorts of information. It confirms that the solar panels under your feet are indeed transferring solar power more or less directly to the city and other subsystems beneath it.
00:36:58
Speaker
You also get a reading of a couple of the other ships nearby that appear to have independent power sources like backup power running on the lowest of settings. The scan you're getting of very low backup power is...
00:37:13
Speaker
emanating from that large cannonball shaped ship off to the east and you are getting readings of power rising higher slowly very very slowly behind the city walls your sonic is actually it tells you that it cannot read through
00:37:33
Speaker
the fabric that is covering, like a tent in terms of size of amounts of fabric, some larger flatter ship off to the west. And because you had the foresight to actually ensure that the claws and the tethers on them were
00:37:55
Speaker
attached to your TARDIS when you crashed, there are bits, there are swathes of that same opaque metallic mercury-like shimmer of the fabric stuck like an almost scarf-sized swatches to the sharp bits on the claws which comically and fall off the TARDIS on both sides.
00:38:18
Speaker
Does it look like there's enough material attached to the claws that we could cover up the solar panels that seem to be activated by our arrival? That's a great question. I'm going to say no. Between here and the doorway to the city, I would say is roughly at least half of a football field. So we're talking like a good 50 yards or so. And the little bits described as like scarf sized swatches would not be enough to cover it up.
00:38:46
Speaker
Do they seem like they have sharp edges? Calamity picks up two pieces of fabric that is completely soft, practically wafer thin. Excellent. And when you're holding the two pieces, there's a reaction and a shiver and they connect to each other. So now you've got one slightly larger piece. This material is reactive and it wants to be one piece.
00:39:10
Speaker
Neat! I will wear it as a scarf. Amazing. Calamity, at a story point, you are the second person ever to take a swatch and turn it into a scarf of some kind. I mean, when you have something that is the size of a scarf, it's the obvious thing to do. Mm-hmm.
00:39:25
Speaker
You throw it on and it just stays that reflective silver. It looks like you're draped in some extremely rich material that is otherwise just shiftless, flat, and reflective. If you put this material on something, would it hide it or does it not work like that? I'm picturing this like an invisibility cloak.
00:39:49
Speaker
It is not an invisibility cloak, unfortunately. It is just reflective. But that's a great question. I mean, if you're in space, it works great that way, I suppose. It doesn't make calamity invisible. It just looks like they're wearing a scarf made out of solidified mercury.
00:40:04
Speaker
Oh, that's cool. That's really cool. Well, friends, we have a bit of a choice ahead of us. Over there is Captain Bonable Jace and her crew. We could continue our counterboarding and attempt to take their vessel from them. Or we could try to be good neighbors and go over to that ship, gather some of that material, try to cover over these solar panels. And since somebody put a lot of effort into making sure that light wasn't getting in here, try to help them with that.
00:40:28
Speaker
What do you guys think? Well, I don't actually think we should take that ship because unless it can travel through time... I don't think it's as good as ours. It's rather a step down.
00:40:38
Speaker
But I did want to look for treasure, but also, I guess... I kind of want to go look at the city. I mean, we could try to cover up the thing, but later, can we go look at the city? I want to see the city. I do want to sort of see what happens when they get, like, power, because we don't really know why they would... who was trying to have them not get power and why that was. And if we just let it happen, then we'd know, and then we can make informed decisions about doing the opposite of that, or making it go faster, or doing something else.
00:41:09
Speaker
you
00:41:15
Speaker
See, diegetically cheerful music. Exactly. Like, what's going to happen? A chime goes out as the city lights reach 10% brightness, but it's uniform, like lights strewn all over the different surfaces of the pyramids.
Pirate Duel & Robotic Threats
00:41:36
Speaker
Settle at a solid 10% and that peel
00:41:40
Speaker
has gone out. To the northwest, the rusty buzzard, which has miraculously managed to land, or crash, rather, face first so that it is upright, an emergency hatch pops off and smoke and steam emerge from inside as a barrel-chested, short balding man is shoved out hands first and tumbles out of the ship and lands badly on the glass below.
00:42:08
Speaker
What was that? A breathable captain? You were right! We don't need spacesuits after all. She's gonna take her time. It's gonna take her a minute to get out as well. Does it look like there's a ladder on the outside of their ship at any point as far as getting up to that hatch? There's not a ladder per se, but there are rungs.
00:42:29
Speaker
like hand foot holds, right? Yeah, there are hand foot holds soldered to the exterior of the hull. Captain Bonable Jace emerges slightly covered in soot and giving her eye implant a bit of a percussive maintenance to get it going again and climbs down and looks around. The minute she hits the ground, I would like to yell out to her, Captain Jace, we are ready to accept your surrender after we successfully counterbordered you and forced you to crash here.
00:42:57
Speaker
She draws. She draws on you so fast. When you're calling for her surrender, uh, she doesn't fire, but like it's muscle memory at this point for her to reach and pull for what looks like a laser blaster. At her side, the smaller man is like, oh, we're doing it now, right? And he fumbles over himself and like reaches into his holster like, um, yeah, you hold it right there.
00:43:19
Speaker
Bonnable looks at you starts stalking closer like it's gonna take you guys a minute to get like conversational, but you saying oh, hey, we're ready for you to surrender has Immediately gotten her dander up. You haven't defeated a thing You you tricky little clock sellers. What do you think you're doing to us? Calamity, I think we might need that catalog
00:43:43
Speaker
Okay, there's so much to unpack there. We don't sell clocks. We repair them. Also, we are clever. I guess pirates do use guns and like, I mean, she holds up the stun baton. Like, this is a sword-like thing, right? But I sort of, you know, it seems, it's just, it's more exciting to have a sword-like thing duel than just sort of shooting at each other from far away.
00:44:06
Speaker
Do you think they'd agree to that or should I like I mean if you guys want to have a have a gunfight with them then you could do that and I could just sneak around and go in the ship I would like because we have more honor than you captain
00:44:25
Speaker
I will give you an opportunity to earn the freedom of your crew. Select the best sword fighter on your crew and they shall fight and face Calamity Hap, known for her skills throughout the galaxy. Calamity is actively shaking her head no, but she seems excited about it.
00:44:44
Speaker
Captain Jace just slaps the back of her first mate a little too hard. We've had similar challenges before and we don't mind taking them up, do we Scratch?
00:44:55
Speaker
I do have some complaints. Oh, right, okay. And he pulls out long, dinged up, shipped away, scratchy piece of metal and a course of electricity. Like he has to like, smack it a couple of times for a single line of electricity to course up in town the edge of the sword. Right, Mama, I'm ready. Give them enough room to duel. Are you?
00:45:22
Speaker
Are we really doing this? I hope so. I really envy her life. Like, like, did you see how many prosthetics she has? Imagine the stories. So Calamity will say on sword and then, you know, just basically run at him with this with the cattle prod. OK, Calamity goes charging with an active cattle prod.
00:45:45
Speaker
which is a sentence I did not know I was going to be saying today. Give us an attack roll. This is going to be strength and conflict, please. Versus a contested roll for first mate, Mr. Scratch. Let me just take a quick look at his stat of runies. He is attacking strength of three.
00:46:07
Speaker
Is there a penalty if I have a zero in a skill, or do I just not add a number there? Calamity's conflict is zero. You are at a disadvantage. However, you do get a plus two for the actual cattle prod, just as Scratch is getting a plus two for his electro saber. The number to beat is 13. Okay. Might I add a story point to Calamity to help her succeed? If you want, you can root her on.
00:46:33
Speaker
I would like to cheer for Calamity as well, even if it doesn't count. I was actually going to ask if I can invoke my focus, since I do not do that often. Unsinkable. Absolutely. You can call on that and roll three dice and keep all three. How does that interact with disadvantage? I don't think I should cancel it, right? No, it won't cancel it. 46, keep lowest three. That makes sense. Yeah. Roll four, keep the lowest three. We'll do it that way. Okay. Bang. Okay. Nothing special for a 15 plus various story points that may have happened.
00:47:03
Speaker
Nice. You go and charge Scratch, and he is able to like parry twice before you smack the electro saber out of his hand. It just slides and scratches across the glass towards the city. Maeve, give us an awareness roll, if you please, and intuition. Ooh, that's a five and a one for a total of 13.
00:47:30
Speaker
With a one on the dice, this is going to be a yes, but because it is still enough to notice something that is not a secret. While the fixer and the auditor are both captivated by an electro duel. Maeve is actually still looking around and following the trail of the scratch marks up the city. The sword that Scratch handily lost skitters to a stop a couple feet away. The first in a line of ants.
00:47:58
Speaker
approximately three feet long, one foot wide and two feet tall are marching single file out of the city and the closest one comes to a stop in front of the electro saber and its pincers wave in anticipation.
00:48:17
Speaker
Can I try and beat them to the sword? You can try. It's a bit of a distance. It's a bit of a hike. We'll get this up for perspective. The ants are coming from here. The ship is crashed here. You guys have made it at about here. So yeah, I guess it's a fairly close thing. Calamity, I imagine is just chasing scratch around in a circle at this point. I want a sword.
00:48:41
Speaker
You go for the sword and see an ant, the first of several marching right for it. Give us a coordination rule to see if you can be fast enough and scoop it up. I am gonna, in advance, spend two story points on this. Okay. It's coordination in what? I could say athletics. That's fine. I don't have any in that, but that's okay. You would be at disadvantage. Is that a six and a two for an eleven? Am I at disadvantage? Do I need to roll again?
00:49:08
Speaker
Yes, roll one more as disadvantage, and if it's lower, you keep that one. Okay, so now it's a four and a two for a seven, but I'm spending two story points on it. I want the sword.
00:49:19
Speaker
So this is a yes, but. The but is that you and the ant both reach for the saber. You grab for the handle, the ant reaches for the other end, and you two have a little bit of a tug of war with the sword as this robotic ant looks up at you and like trills in confusion. Frustration is the wrong word, but confusion and effort of like
00:49:46
Speaker
Sorry, it's mine. I just dropped it. And you pull it away.
00:49:52
Speaker
Okay, that's awesome. You pull this thing out of the ant's grip and it looks up at you. Now, what we're going to do is show you a picture of this lovely thing. So, we have here an ant drone that is about three feet long, one foot wide, two feet tall, and its carapace is this milky, soaked-over glass.
00:50:17
Speaker
obfuscating the workings of its circuitry and everything inside, but when you pull the sword out of its hand, it looks up at you. Suddenly, its thorax flashes red underneath the glass, and there's this soft boom.
00:50:34
Speaker
And behind it, the ant behind it glows red in the thorax. And the ant behind it glows red. As it is sending this message of conflict back to the rest of the hive, whatever it is. I think we can work this out. You don't need to do the glowy red thing. You can stop that now. We can talk about it.
00:50:55
Speaker
The ant does not appear to respond to your words. Calamity, you've been chasing Scratch for a good 30 seconds when you notice running around in a circle with your cattle prod. Are you actually gonna try and zap him with it or are you going to get distracted by things going on?
00:51:10
Speaker
I did, I sort of, you know, she wanted us more to force his surrender, I think, and actually like zap him into unconsciousness. But she was thinking like if he's he if he's actually making a go of it chase wise, which appears to be the case given the 30 seconds while she's chasing him, just squirt the vinegar shoot, you know, squirt gun like ahead of him so that it makes it slippery because we're running on glass basically, right?
00:51:34
Speaker
That is truly brilliant. Give us a coordination role and conflict since you're aiming for something. Wait, you don't have conflict. No, more disadvantage. It's fine. She sounds really upset about it. Okay, so I got a one and a three for a six.
00:51:53
Speaker
Not only do you miss, you get a little bit of vinegar in your eye and it's gonna be like, oh, whoops, whoops. Your awareness is going to be down by one point for 30 minutes until the vinegar irritation is out of your peeper. He's just like, ah, ah, ah. And he'll just continue to run around in a circle around the ship. Lean into Captain Jason, say, Captain, I would say from the running and the flailing, we may have won the stool,
00:52:22
Speaker
Captain Jace turns to Calamity, who now is just like rubbing an eye. And I don't know if she's even holding up the prod anymore or just Oh, no, she's definitely still chasing like safety is for other people. Yeah, Jace looks at the fixer. Best you'll get is a drool.
00:52:41
Speaker
Okay, that's terrible. The captain just rolled a four with a one on the dice, so she did not notice straight away what Maeve has noticed and is doing. So you've got, I'd say, a good couple of seconds before she turns her head and actually sees what's going on. Can I get a awareness roll, please, from Calamity and Fixer, and we'll throw the auditor in two. Give us an awareness and intuition roll. Versus 12.
00:53:10
Speaker
I got a six and a four on the dice for a total of 15. You absolutely notice the line of ants glowing now, an ant line to the city. Calamity with your minus one. Yes, I got a three and a five for a 13. Okay. Yeah. Like you're looking like, am I doing it right? This is fun, right? You're having fun. Like what are those red flickery things?
00:53:31
Speaker
What are those red blinky things? She actually stops dead, like running. Not because she noticed the ants, because she thought of something. She stops dead and turns back to the fixer and says, Fixer! I need an eye patch! And then she gets distracted by the ants.
00:53:47
Speaker
Maeve is fully trying to reason with the ants because most of the technology we found can be reasoned with in some capacity. So like, I am sorry, there were pirates. We needed to fight them. I am going to keep the sword. The ant ignores you.
00:54:03
Speaker
It does not try to grabby it back with its pincers, but makes no sign that it is either understood or acknowledged you, and starts marching closer to the pirate ship. The minute I've heard both from Captain Jace that she's willing to have a draw, and I see that there's another threat on the horizon, I'm going to point at the glowing red ant and say, Captain, I accept your draw. I believe we have a threat to both of our crews.
00:54:29
Speaker
Well, it is! She turns. She's still got the pistol in her hand. She never put it away and sees the ants slowly, gradually coming right for ya.
00:54:40
Speaker
and fires. She pistols off a shot immediately, and that is not a bad hit. Five plus coordination for aiming is three, that's eight, plus conflict is three, that's 11 plus two for the actual blaster pistol, and the ants, which are not trying to dodge, get the averages average, so it gets the averages average of getting shot in the face. One of the ants, ant number two, immediately
00:55:10
Speaker
erupts, it takes a massive blaster shot and falls over dead. And the light red glow from the ants behind it in line turn a deeper red and flash twice as fast back to the city behind them. Well, I don't think that helped the situation, Captain. What are those things? And she gets ready to fire again. I would like to stop her from firing. How far away is she?
00:55:37
Speaker
The rusty buzzard is here. You guys are roughly here. The ants are here. You can, absolutely. Are you trying to get in her way? Are you trying to attack her? Are you trying to stop? No, wait, don't. Am I close enough to get close to her? I have a sword.
00:55:55
Speaker
For the sake of simplicity, we are in action rounds now since the ants are doing, and your guys are attacking each other in the answer here, so yay! With the ants approaching and Captain Jace firing and Scratch realizing that the fight is over, the ants are largely ignoring Maeve after the first one lost the sword and deemed Maeve as somewhat unimportant. I don't appreciate that.
00:56:20
Speaker
the ants have made an ant line for the crashed buzzard, which is the closest available thing. However, with the blaster fire, that means that they are now on the attack and will be heading for the ship and for the captain. And we have these little ants. One goes towards the ship and the next one heads for Bonneville and the third goes towards the ship and the fourth starts to head. This is all very slow goings.
00:56:45
Speaker
Sure. I'm going to, yes, calamity is going to fight. I mean, fight is in really big quotes, given calamity, because it's going to involve a square gun, but Mike kind of is doing. I don't know. But yes, like she assumes that vinegar and electronic components don't interact well, so she's going to just sort of hose one down and see what happens.
00:57:07
Speaker
That'll be the hope. We will get to fighters. Do we have any talkers in this first action round? Turn to the companions and say, I believe the noble captain has decided to distract our opponents, giving us an opportunity to make it to the city. We may want to take advantage of that. Wow. What? Thank you so much, Captain. I will speak for the rest of my life about your great heroism today. You truly have turned everything around.
00:57:33
Speaker
I'll turn you around. Fixer, they were going for the sword before they went for the ship and the captain. I'm wondering if this is a good place to leave the TARDIS? Maeve, that's a great idea. Let's head back to the TARDIS and see if we can bring that into the city rather than leaving it out here to be salvaged. Yeah, I would like our ship to not be salvaged. But the ants are going to take our treasure from their ship.
00:58:00
Speaker
Yes, Calamity, but we did end in a draw with the captain, and therefore technically it is still her treasure. And if we were to take it, that would step over that agreement of the draw. Oh. I know. It's a bit frustrating. Okay, fine. I need an eye patch, though. As we're running, can I try to take some of her scarf and cut it into an eye patch?
00:58:18
Speaker
She can get a proper one from the ship. There's probably one in wardrobe somewhere, but you cannot run and work on fancy material at the same time. That's not gonna work. You race back for the TARDIS over your shoulder. You hear more blaster fire from the captain.
00:58:37
Speaker
You glance over your shoulder and the ants have redoubled. They're coming out two by two now and they are, their pincers are snapping for that tasty, tasty tech. I'd say about 30 seconds pass and you run into the TARDIS where the scanners are still stone dead because of the double ones you rolled before. It would be dangerous to try and fly without the scanners on, but that is an option.
00:59:05
Speaker
If we're not involving any time travelers and we're doing a much more traditional propulsive just fly over the city walls and land, can we have companions act as spotters to visually reconnoiter as I'm flying? Right, can we just open the doors and then help him steer like, you know, when somebody is waving you into a spot? Like we're crewing a ship. That is how it works. I'm adjusting the mainsail, I mean door.
00:59:32
Speaker
Full speed ahead. Full speed ahead. Maybe half speed ahead. As you guys are gearing up to physically fly the TARDIS, the auditor just raises an eyebrow. Are we sure we want to move this closer to where the ants are trying to take things? It's just a question.
00:59:51
Speaker
Have we noticed the ants using any element of propulsive force, or do they appear to be ground-based? These do not appear to have any kind of flying tech. These are robots, they are large drones, but they have not shown any capacity for flight. Well, team, Calamity, I'm putting you in charge of getting some ropes together. Wait, what do we need ropes for?
01:00:08
Speaker
Oh, well we're going to set the TARDIS into a hover above the city. We'll slide down the ropes onto one of the pyramids and head on in. So we need ropes then. She'll start looking around for ropes. Okay. Sounds fun. I've always wanted to do an air insertion. They talked about it in school and we've never had a chance to try it out.
01:00:25
Speaker
The auditor says, yes, they've talked about a great many things that didn't necessarily work out as they are intended to, but I'm excited to be a part of it. Calamity, give us an awareness and intuition role to find rope for the purpose of tying some knots and hopefully repelling, assuming that the TARDIS can get where we're trying to get it. Maeve, are you on spotter duty at the doorway?
01:00:49
Speaker
holding on to something tight i'm holding on tightly and just going uh a little to the left okay a little to the right all right back it up a little bit no no my left oh see i was i because i was ready for like for hips to be involved and then we're literally doing the time warp
01:01:12
Speaker
Okay, yeah, this is going to be more difficult than a typical flight through space and not time because the scanner is completely dead. So you are flying at a 21 and Maeve is going to be using awareness intuition to assist with the piloting. Calamity, did you have any luck finding rope?
01:01:33
Speaker
Depends on what you define as luck. I got a one and a five for an 11, so that is a form of luck. I have a suggestion. Calamity unable to find rope just comes back with an arm full of yarn because she made sure that they had some because she heard that the fixer was going to knit. She's looking for rope and she has come back with yarn. Great idea, Calamity, but we don't have time to knit a rope or a ladder yet. All right. I rolled a two and a six for a total of 15.
01:02:03
Speaker
Okay, that is not some bad navigating. Fixer, against a difficulty of 21. This is going to be ingenuity, this is going to be transportation, plus 2 for Time Lord, against a difficulty of 21. You're not at disadvantage because you are getting help. I'm showing right now a 2 and a 3 on the dice for a total of 12. How many story points would I have to spend to at least get us up to a point where we are in a safe position over the city?
01:02:28
Speaker
A 12 is at least two, if not three levels of failure to get through. How many story points do you presently have? I only have three remaining. Three story points would allow you to land somewhere out of the way inside the city gates on the far side of the wall, but staying airborne with no means of securing any kind of ascent or descent, I don't think is going to super work.
01:02:58
Speaker
On the bright side, your ship's exterior does look like a wooden shop, so with luck, it's possible the ants would ignore it. Okay, then I want to make sure we get there safely. Maeve did bring up a great point about how we would be worried about the ship being salvaged, so let's do that. Let's fly it in and then land it and shut everything off so it doesn't draw any attention. Okay. And I'll use my last three story points to make it happen.
01:03:23
Speaker
you grip the console fly completely avoiding the dematerialization circuits and at once the clock shop just lifts up off of the black glass planes leaving behind the fallen off claws and tethers
01:03:41
Speaker
swings on an arc. It's not your most graceful flight. The TARDIS swings up and elevates to roughly, I'd say 40 feet off the ground and eventually comes down on the softest landing you've had in a while. Roughly about here, off on one of the side streets. And like when you power down, everything is too good.
01:04:07
Speaker
The ship is not dead, but it is in very, very, very sleep mode, and we'll need time later to activate up again in order to power up and fly off. Put a hand on the console and say, don't worry, we'll be back soon. Maeve, give us strength and survival for your trip watching with heights involved. A six and a five for a 15.
01:04:29
Speaker
Brilliant, okay. Yeah, not only do you manage to keep a grip, but heights have never been a problem. Clostrophobia has been a problem, like open air, heights you got, and under your feet, you see, and like they're not the size of ants because, you know, they're bigger than that, but you can see the line of ants steadily converging both on Captain Jace and the pirate ship. And the line of ants is coming just right down
01:04:59
Speaker
the street. You can see what looks like humanoids, you know, averaging six feet or five and a half feet of height, seated here and there like they're meditating on the streets below. The TARDIS sets down while you're still in the clock shop with the TARDIS console room behind you and the streets in front of you. You said there are humanoids? Do they look like they're alive? Can't tell that from here. They're sitting very, very still.
01:05:28
Speaker
Fixer, I think there are people or bodies or something out there. People? Actual Osiris? Oh, this is so exciting! We have to go say hi! They were holding very still. I don't want you to get your hopes up too high. Well, I've never met an Osiris before. Maybe they meditate or
Osiris City Mysteries
01:05:48
Speaker
something? Maybe. They did. They were sitting. It's possible. This is perfect. We'll be able to bring back actual information on the current state of the Osiris.
01:05:57
Speaker
You are gonna get such a good grade.
01:06:24
Speaker
heading out with a lot
01:06:30
Speaker
I mean, it sticks out like a sore thumb in a city of black glass and steel because it's red painted wood, but it is as innocuous as it's going to get. On the main thoroughfare, two rows of ants are on a sort of conveyor line. One is heading out and the other is starting to head back in the frontmost ant.
01:06:56
Speaker
in its pincers is carrying what looks like a large scrap of metal that might have been ripped off the pirate ship while you guys were flying overhead. You can still hear behind you, out on the plains, sounds of blaster fire, but they quickly pow, pow, pow, and then nothing behind you but more of the chittering and the ants going two by two. They probably found a place to hide, right? Right.
01:07:22
Speaker
I feel bad. I hope they don't take her prosthetics. That's just rude. The streets before you are wide and quiet. Humanoid, jackal-headed aliens dot the streets. The size of a man each. Are they meditating? Why are they all just sitting there?
01:07:38
Speaker
I would like to go have a closer look at one. Okay. As would I. Fixer, Maeve, you approach, and even from here, you can see that the ants are ignoring you completely. On their circuit, and they are doing their job, are tuning out distractions. They pay the four of us absolutely no mind. The Fixer and Maeve approach the closest siren. Give us an awareness rule, please, with intuition.
01:08:07
Speaker
Uh, instead of that, can I use my Sonic to actually take a real scan of the, um, what I hope is a meditating figure? Absolutely. And add two for your Sonic. Maeve has never seen anything like this before. I got a one and two for a total of 10. Maeve, this is actually kind of scary looking. Something deep inside registers of like, oh, oh, you can't put your finger on it. You can't put your thumb on it.
01:08:35
Speaker
But seeing this and the ones on the street fills Maeve with dread, has no name. There is no earthly reason why you would be disturbed by this, but it hits something deep. Fixer, what did you roll with your awareness and intuition and Sonic? That would bring me up to a 13. The averages to average, that could average.
01:08:56
Speaker
Gotcha. I love our house rules. With the averages average to ever average, you are able to confirm that yes, this is an Osiris. Yes, this this creature is dead. It does not appear that it met its end because of violent means. It is simply it might have even starved to death. But you look around, it's just sitting there.
01:09:19
Speaker
and up and down the street. There are ones, there are twos, and they also are just sitting cross-legged like they waited for it to happen. Fixer, something is very wrong here. I don't like this at all.
01:09:36
Speaker
I think you are on the right track with that thought, Maeve. Anything that could have resulted in this many Osiris dying or being willing to give up life, starve to death, or whatever we're seeing here is a very grave threat. What is that terror?
01:09:58
Speaker
Now that you are in the city proper, let's talk about sound and proximity. When a noise is loud and big, and you are closer to the source of that sound, it can thrum through you.
01:10:14
Speaker
and resonate even in your rib cage. If you've ever been near a drum line that is going through their halftime show and just pounding the ever-living snot out of those drums, the force of the volume pushes through your bones. It's the weirdest thing. And when that peel rings out,
01:10:35
Speaker
It is from within and possibly under the city somewhere and definitely towards Main Street. And that is when you hear not the light tap, tap, tap, tap of light scratch marks, but footsteps marching.
01:10:52
Speaker
so the ants are going about their business marching out of the city block and back up carrying large scraps of metal beside them creatures from several yards away bone pale large swollen muscle bound figures without a hair on their bodies start marching
01:11:13
Speaker
You see a line of eight men, two by two by two. They're about five feet tall at the tallest, marching down the street. Fixer, please give us an ingenuity and knowledge roll, please. Plus two for Time Lord, and the auditor is going to do the Samington.
01:11:37
Speaker
I was going to ask, does their outside seem to be similar to the white outsides of the ants? Or not? You said pale, so I'm just checking. The answer is no. The ants are metallic and glass. These are like albino pale. I've got a 14 with a 5 and a 2 on the dice. Fixer, you have never encountered a Sontaran before.
01:12:01
Speaker
But you have seen them in class, like you've seen video of them, you know how to recognize a Sontaran as a five foot tall, stocky, muscle bound, potato looking thing. This is not that. This is that, except instead of darker brown hue, these are
01:12:21
Speaker
Bone pail. These are albino. These potatoes look like they've been peeled. They are not wearing armor. They are not wearing helmets. They are still moving with that military precision that's been drilled into them. They, hot, hot, hot, hot, starting to march down the street. It does not look like they've seen you. Since you are out of the line of sight and around the corner, you don't know if they're heading for you. They just appear to be heading out of the city.
01:12:48
Speaker
Lean into maven calamity and say, those creatures you see before you are known as Sontarans. They are incredibly warlike. They fight for the love of fighting. The only weak spot on their entire body is on the back of their neck. But they're normally dressed in full armor. These look like they were altered in some way, and that is deeply, deeply concerning. Anything that could have killed all these Osiris and altered Sontarans, this is not safe. This is not safe at all.
01:13:18
Speaker
Should we hide? Because I'd prefer not to fight except for... I mean, I make an exception for pirate duels, but... Yeah, pirate duels are kind of the exception, but I have a sword now, but I'd like to not use it if that's possible. The peeled Suntarans that are marching down the street from here carry, like, blunt objects that could be used as a cudgel. They have not been given blaster weapons, but just from their bearing,
01:13:43
Speaker
It's clear these are warriors. They know what they are doing. Intuition inclines that a sword fight or a cattle prod duel would not necessarily go the way that we want it to. I am going to give them an awareness roll at disadvantage. And that is a four with a one on the dice. The peeled suntarans continue their
01:14:08
Speaker
out of the city. The leader spots the crashed, rusty buzzard and says, attention troops, attack! The peeled centaurans as one turn end.
01:14:28
Speaker
go plotting after their leader towards the pirate ship. It seemed pretty clear they were coming from that main door as opposed to one of the side doors? Yes. Okay. So do we find out where the Sontarans came from or do we go follow them? I would say neither. If we run into more of them, we will need to hide ourselves.
01:14:48
Speaker
However, since we know that they came from that door, here's to hoping there's none of them through that door. And it does look like the ants are going to that door as well. So maybe we check that door first and then see if there are more sontonrons on site. Okay. I do like that idea. Okay. The auditor is going to spend a story point for some intuition, realizing that the cannonball-shaped
01:15:12
Speaker
ship that is crashed on the planes out front is some generation of a Sontaran frigate. So that explains how they got here, at least. Well, the minute the auditor gives us that information, uh, auditor, that's very, very confusing and concerning because that would imply that these ants collected that Sontaran crew, brought them somewhere here, and then something or someone faltered them. That's entirely possible, but there's something we should recall.
01:15:42
Speaker
Sontarans, they're a clone race. They're based off of a single template. This could be a separate batch. Oh, well, that's a little bit of a relief. That batch just never made any more that got out into the rest of the, you know, universe, so just didn't see any. Everybody look up. Give me an awareness roll. An intuition? Sure. Against the difficulty of 12, this is not a secret.
01:16:08
Speaker
Really bad. Me too. We have basically the same role. Wow, fantastic. We are a crack team. We all got ones on the dice. Oh my god, we all did. That's hysterical. Same here. Audra rolled a three with a one and a two. I rolled a ten with a one and a two. Yeah, likewise. Okay. I rolled an eight with a one and a two.
01:16:34
Speaker
Oh boy. So when you say look up, you mean look anywhere but up. I was really busy fixing on the centaurids. I was very curious. Because calamity has already lost a point in awareness.
01:16:50
Speaker
it's been half an hour i took that off oh that's true that's true we have been playing for another half hour okay so i can just have re-sprayed my eye whatever let me let me have it there is such a thing as light pollution as we all gaze up we can still see the
01:17:07
Speaker
tear in the fabric overhead because we all rolled and we all rolled this badly. We have no idea whether the hole is getting smaller or getting bigger, let alone how easy or difficult it would be for a ship that has been grounded to get back out again, let alone with or without working scanners. So, yeah, we're all for the next 30 minutes at minus one to awareness because we got a glint in our eye. Now, remember at home, kids, don't stare at the sun.
01:17:37
Speaker
Fixer. Let's head to that first door on the right. We're passing a couple of people like sitting right like on our way to that door. I just wanted to I just wanted to see if there was anything like that they like have anything on them that like might just give clues as to like
01:17:57
Speaker
what their deal was. Since you are from the future, the Osiris, the way they dress, there's a certain elegance to it. They have become so advanced, simple concerns like what are they gonna wear, have become
01:18:15
Speaker
not terribly important. The fabric looks very advanced, none of them are carrying devices of any kind that could be pulled off or used. Here is the difficulty of exploring around a civilization that was more advanced than the Time Lords at the peak of their powers. It is going to be incredibly difficult to
01:18:39
Speaker
access and figure out how to use what they have made if they did not make it user-friendly. You look at the clothing of the OSIRON you pass. This thing is futuristic. It's been dead a very long time. But beyond that, you're not able to gleam terribly much. Okay. You head into that door. Fixer. You are standing in a machine.
01:19:04
Speaker
The hum in the background will continue to grow louder as more and more power is restored. Can you please give us an ingenuity role, ingenuity and technology? And you can put the sonic on there. So we're looking at a one and a two on the dice for a total of
01:19:24
Speaker
12. The one is going to make this a fairly strong yes but half the controls have been ripped out. It looks like someone or something tried to jury rig together a console with different kinds of applicators but lacked the proper appendages.
Planet as Computer System & Psychic Legends
01:19:46
Speaker
You also see in here there is another
01:19:49
Speaker
dead Osiris. This one is not sitting comfortably in repose. It has fallen to the side and has a large scorch mark across its chest. But you are unable to tell what the blast was from. That's the butt on that. Well, this is a sign there is at least a little bit of foul play at work here. What do you think tried to... Do you think it was the ants who tried to tear this place apart?
01:20:18
Speaker
I don't think so. I feel like if the ants had any sort of ranged weaponry, they would have returned fire against Captain Jace. And they didn't. They went after her in close combat. So, something else shocked this poor OSIRON. And was able to get through any defenses an OSIRON might have. This is very concerning. You guys are talking about whether or not the ants had anything to do with destroying the place or damaging the place. And...
01:20:46
Speaker
Just behind you, you hear the beep beep beep beep beep beep of an ant making its way into the room. It ignores you. Its eyes scan the damaged equipment, and LEDs behind the eyeballs do a number of calculations and the pincers dee dee dee dee dee together. The light under the thorax flashes a rather benign orange. It
01:21:13
Speaker
pincers its pincers together and forms a spark like an acetylene torch and it begins to attempt repairs on the computer equipment at your feet. Again, it is ignoring you because you are not standing in its way and it is simply just poking at the damaged equipment, beginning to try and solder them back together.
01:21:34
Speaker
Okay, now you mentioned a computer console that did not look like it was an originally part of this room, something that had been cobbled together from other parts from the room. Did I hear that correctly? Yes. If that is the case, I would like to do a quick scan using my Sonic to figure out what this new computer edition is designed to do. Excellent. That is going to be ingenuity technology plus two for the Sonic. Got a...
01:21:56
Speaker
20 with a six and a two on the dice. Oh bravo. You are able to figure out not only that the pieces in front of you have been cobbled together from computer terminals, various crashed ships out there, but some of them are still spacefaring. The terminal here has been built to access the computer. This place is
01:22:38
Speaker
Look around in awe and say,
01:22:41
Speaker
I think this entire planet has been converted into a giant computer system. I wonder if it's sentient. Run over, start trying to activate the console.
01:22:51
Speaker
Okay, this is gonna be coordination and technology, please. Plus two for Time Lord. Unfortunately, only got, let's see, two and a one on the dice for a total of 11. You are trying to access the system. What you're able to learn is that the larger computer banks are off.
01:23:13
Speaker
They require an enormous amount of power to get running. As you've been scanning and looking through things, you're learning that subroutines and smaller systems are the first to come online one by one. You actually find records as you are going through.
01:23:36
Speaker
Our preparations are complete. We have perfected the machine that will allow us to access the beyond. A dimension of complexity beyond time itself. Even the Time Lords never pushed past the fourth dimension. Our technicians have taken every precaution. We will open a channel to the beyond and commune with what we find there. Our destiny awaits.
01:24:07
Speaker
Success! Success! We have made first contact. With moments of probing into the fifth, we drew the attention of a being that has yet to classify itself. Our means of communication are crude, but the power requirements to maintain the link are vast. This work is too important. Terraforming has begun.
01:24:29
Speaker
Every available square inch of our terrain is to be paved with solar receptors. We will soak up every iota of available energy. The fusion pits have also been employed around the clock. We've seen an influx of celestial activity. Meteorites have been falling my grain. Every spare crumbs being collected for fuel. The screen flickers and you see a jackal face
01:24:58
Speaker
emotionless, still, no sign of a mouth. This thing is making a psychic recording. The Fixer is reminded from Legends at School that the Asirons were so advanced it was believed, or at least theorized, that they even controlled their technology with psychic powers. You have no idea how they would go about doing that. It is completely beyond us. But the idea that someone added and forced on manual controls
01:25:24
Speaker
is starting to make a lot more sense. When the recording mentions the fifth, that is when the auditor puts a hand on the fixer's shoulder and squeezes with concern and takes a full step back from the terminal. The recording ends, the ant continues its work and appears to be pleased that the computers are coming back online. Chitter, chitter.
01:25:51
Speaker
I have a thought, and I don't like the thought. Whatever they found, do you think they tried to hide from it? They were using power of the light to power the city, and then they didn't want the light anymore. Maybe because this thing had seen them?
01:26:07
Speaker
Sounds like they made some kind of contact. Maeve, that is brilliant, but also deeply concerning. If something they reached out to was so dangerous and so deadly that it affected everyone on this planet, that it resulted in the Osiris or someone else wrapping this planet to make sure that sunlight wouldn't get back in to reactivate these computers, to re-allow
01:26:28
Speaker
communication with whatever entity that is, I am truly worried about the consequences of this entire place powering back on and re-establishing that connection.
01:26:45
Speaker
The ant gives a little headbop of satisfaction and goes back to work.
Sontaran & Dalek Revelations
01:26:51
Speaker
Outside, you hear the hut, hut, hut, hut, hut, hut, hut of the Suntarans returning. Underneath the trump, trump, trump, trump of their footsteps, you can also hear the scrapes and squeaks of boots, someone resisting as much as possible.
01:27:09
Speaker
From the doorway, and fortunately the lights are still low enough that you are not immediately visible, just keeping to the shadows in here, you can see that seven of the original eight Santarans have returned, and two are dragging an unconscious, we hope, Mr. Scratch, and another two are dragging a resisting, struggling Captain Bonable Jakes.
01:27:36
Speaker
I've got your flippin' hands off me! Oh, Captain Chase, do you know who I am?
01:27:42
Speaker
And they just say, silence, boy, you will face the congregation and they will decide what your fate will be. And they just keep Trump, Trump, Trump, Trumping. Do the Sontarans normally report to a congregation? You have never in your life heard any kind of religious cult kind of organization in the Sontaran hierarchy? No.
01:28:09
Speaker
I was actually gonna ask because honestly it sounded sort of like when they were talking about all the you know beyond stuff that and making contact with being that kind of you know sounded awfully familiar honestly to
01:28:24
Speaker
how a lot of people talk in the multi-haven only they didn't use you know a planet's worth of science to do it so you know maybe it's just a god or something i guess well if they tried to hide from it they picked the wrong one but congregation does sound very um very worshipy
01:28:44
Speaker
The leader of the centauran says, the congregation will decide your fate, and the rest of the troop all shout, all hail the half-life congregation, and continue tromping. That's a half-life congregation.
01:29:02
Speaker
What was the name of the congregation? All? All hail the Half-Life congregation. Maeve, give us a resolve and intuition rule against a difficulty of 18, please. That is a six and a two, but only a 15. This is a no-but. When you hear the words Half-Life congregation, this is the second time today that something you've never seen or heard of fills you.
01:29:32
Speaker
with dread. The but is that you are able to keep it together, but it is very jarring. Like, you've faced monsters, you've climbed heights, you've saved lives, and this is the second time in under two hours that something you've never encountered before or never heard from before, you realize you're standing on top of a mountain of dread, essentially, and it's been there the whole time.
01:29:59
Speaker
Fix it. I wouldn't say this without... I don't know why. Something about this is wrong. Very wrong. I think... I don't know. Maybe we just try to cover this place and then we just go.
01:30:13
Speaker
I understand your fear, and I do understand why it would be very valid. Anything that would have resulted in the Osiris no longer being around is definitely a direct threat to us. But I'm terrified that if we leave this city continuing to power on, whatever it is powering towards will threaten not just us.
01:30:47
Speaker
We will begin removing canopy from the saucer that we may resume work. Efforts have begun to free the ship from this mysterious shroud material across the saucer as being dealt with. We shall have the ship uncovered presently.
01:30:55
Speaker
but this entire sector of space, if not beyond it.
01:31:05
Speaker
Before we leave this room, I would like to see if I can use the Anadon console to reroute the power that's trying to power the computer systems to instead go to the light systems in an attempt to literally burn out those circuits. Try to just pour as much energy away from the main system as possible.
01:31:21
Speaker
Can you clarify what it is you're trying to pour them into? Gotcha.
01:31:36
Speaker
Okay, this is gonna be intuition and technology plus two for your Sonic. You are at a disadvantage here because this is cobbled together tech on top of incredibly advanced tech. Yeah, I would say this is a difficulty of about 21. If you want to reroute power of a system, you don't fully grasp from one place to another. That said, the auditor will be happy to help. And we'll just ask, what is it you're trying to do?
01:32:00
Speaker
When he says that, I'll look up from what I'm doing and say, well, it should be pretty simple. If we can force more power into the lights instead of the computer systems, I'm hoping that that will be a consistent drain on the system. It may not buy us more than a couple of hours before the computer system turns on, but it seems like every little bit of time we earn would be worth it. The role we mentioned, ingenuity, technology, plus two for Sonic, at a disadvantage, the auditor's gonna help. With a three, which is a one and a two on the dice.
01:32:29
Speaker
Yeah, I'm only looking at a 15 with a 3 and a 3 on the dice. That is the averages to average, which is one of the reasons we instituted this house rule so that things that seemed impossibly out of reach would possibly be closer to doable. This is going to be a no but.
01:32:47
Speaker
you are able to divert some of the power from the computer core. The but is we could not control which systems, which subsystems the power went to instead, so it's going to all of them. The lights are going to glow brighter, the support systems they have are going to warm up faster taking power away from the central core, and whatever other support systems they have are now getting more power than just their fair slice of
01:33:15
Speaker
But you have successfully diverted a good chunk of power from the computer core. Earn one story point. Turn to the team and say, I bought us a little bit of time, but not nearly as much as I hoped.
01:33:25
Speaker
Okay. Okay. Outside in the streets, the lights suddenly flare a good 10% brighter, and they are not accompanied by a peel. The ants, however, including the one that's in this room trying to make repairs after the fact, because you're just using the computer and its job is to repair the computer, so it's not like it was going to stop you. Once it notices that, hey, you've inserted new commands, you have its attention.
01:33:51
Speaker
Its interior glows a little bit brighter. It has the alien equivalent of a exclamation point emoji flash across its thorax before it goes back to work. And another ant just comes into the room, assists with the repairs to the computer. Shall we use our additional time to go save Captain Jason, her crew?
01:34:16
Speaker
I was going to say yes even if we can't figure out what's going on we should probably not leave them here. You peek out into the street and you still hear Captain Jace struggling and resisting and just growling up a whole mess. The ants completely ignore her. The ants marching into the city now look in their pincers to be carrying
01:34:38
Speaker
huge pieces of scrap that have been torn off the rusty buzzard. A normal sized ant can carry 10 times its own weight in terms of raw strength and these creatures are no different. This thing can carry 10 times its own body mass and each of these things are carrying chunks of metal torn off the hull from outside and it becomes clear what could have contributed to the damage of some of the other ships you saw littered out there.
01:35:07
Speaker
Does it seem like the metal that they're carrying is structural or just edgelord parts?
01:35:13
Speaker
You can't tell from here. It could be both. They could be load-bearing edgelord parts. Okay. Well, I mean, at least there's a chance it'd take them a little longer to get to something critical if, you know, they're just taking the spiky bits first. You see these curious little creatures just marching their way towards the up the thoroughfare. Even from here, you can't see inside that chamber from here, but you can hear the doorways wide open and you can hear the kachunk.
01:35:42
Speaker
of something heavy being dropped down a hole. And there's another little surge as the lights glow a little brighter. Can we try to sneak after the sneak in the same direction the ants are taking? Sorry, the Sontarans are taking, Captain Jace? The auditor just says, I wonder if those are the fusion pits they were talking about. Yeah, we need to stop these ants somehow for going to keep this place from powering up.
01:36:08
Speaker
We are heading back out onto the street. You are following the ants. You're sneaking your way up towards the chamber. Yes, please. Yes. Across the city, with each dump of scrap into a fusion pit, more raw matter is spun into energy.
01:36:25
Speaker
in the fusion furnaces deep below the city. And the lights just get that 1% brighter. It is warm in here and getting warmer. The facility is a lab. There's no way to tell right off the bat how much of this is original materials and how much has been added later.
01:36:44
Speaker
There are rows on rows of glass cylinders big enough to hold a person. There are test tubes and computers all over the place. On the floor is a bisected circle. So these giant canisters fixed to the floor, you guys are at the doorway. I imagine at the edges of the doorway trying your best not to be seen. The canisters are presently venting a cool white gas.
01:37:13
Speaker
The lead Suntaran turns to Bonnable and the unconscious, we hope, Scratch. A couple of the ants having dropped off materials and gone back. One of them...
01:37:31
Speaker
and walks along. The second in command of the Sontarans looks at a device in his hand and he says, SAP! We have discovered an uptick in energy. Supportive systems are now drawing additional power. The head, Albino Sontaran, says,
01:37:50
Speaker
Excellent. The Half-Life congregation will be most pleased to be alerted and awake for their final tests. At which point Bonnable, like still just trying her damnedest to break free of these people. Who are you talking about? I've never heard of it. What's going on here? That is when one more answer... Shook dumps a piece of the buzzard down the hole.
01:38:18
Speaker
and there's a thrum and the place gets even more power. Congratulations, you have all elapsed your half hour. The great news is you are no longer have any handicaps to your awareness. That's the good news. The bad news is you have an unobstructed view of the following. She's screaming and arguing about who the hell the Half-Life congregation are when the canisters kiss and start to slide open.
01:39:15
Speaker
3 3 3
01:39:21
Speaker
of the tanks emerge eight Daleks of strange plating you have never seen before as they raise their appendages to the sky shouting, all hail the half-life congregation!
01:39:58
Speaker
And that is where we are going to stop part one of Graveyard of the Gods. I would just like to take a lovely moment with our cast and catch our breath, mother of goodness. You guys are in for it now.
01:40:17
Speaker
It's the Daleks! Everyone please take two story points to fill some of your coffers.
Story Points & Threat Assessment
01:40:24
Speaker
I know we've been spending some of this episode. And please take two experience points for your wonderful, wonderful work today so far. Because this is part one of a double hitter! You're not going anywhere!
01:40:41
Speaker
Kate, how would Maeve report on today's baffling, confounding circumstances? Maeve's not quite sure why all of this is so terrifying, but obviously it is very deeply terrifying for her. She doesn't really have context for this. But I think that at this moment her article would stick to the facts. We found the space Atlantis.
01:41:07
Speaker
You found space, Atlantis. That was wonderful. That was wonderful. Dora, hi. Hi. Congratulations. Calamity's only the second companion to ever make a scarf out of some of the reflective fabric. Kudos. Look at you. Thank you. It's very, very shiny. It is very shiny. It's incredibly shiny.
01:41:31
Speaker
plus scarves and doctor who you can't really. Nice job with the duel. Well played. Oh sure. So right now actually calamity is in much higher spirits because this all makes a lot more sense now. Like the whole thing with the blotting out the sun and trying to block the power and the nice robot people trying to make a god of their own. Like it's just a religious dispute.
01:41:59
Speaker
So we can work that out. Very well put. Fran, the Fixer has like social history, like as part of a species that has traumatic history with the Daleks, let alone a group of Daleks referring to themselves as something special, which is never a good sign.
01:42:21
Speaker
What is the fixer thinking of all of this as it unfolds in front of his eyes? Trying to reassess what the threats are. Obviously, the Daleks moved to the top of the list of threats that we're dealing with. It would explain why that one Osiris in that one hallway had a blaster mark on his chest because that would probably be a Dalek beam weapon.
01:42:40
Speaker
I still, as a player, can't connect the Dalek technology with the Kiel Santarans. Is that something that would be like something we would have heard about in the doctoral program? Or is this something just completely new that is like, oh no, this is a new technique they're using? This is something completely new. In your defense, you have not hit all of the clues yet to unravel fully what's going on. That opportunity is still
01:43:06
Speaker
available in part two. But towards the larger mysteries, one of the things I wanted to explore, because I'm an absolutely massive fan of the original film Alien, is the idea of cosmic horror. Dipping your toe into something that is too big, too deep, too cold, and too awful to really wrap your head around and then get out of it as fast as possible. You're in Atlantis, basically.
01:43:30
Speaker
Just like Maeve said, you know, piecing it all together may not be the best option. HP Lovecraft's In the Mountain of Madness exploring through catacombs and finding not only creatures, but other creatures that might have mutated just because they were around the first creatures and none of them are explaining what's going on. You just have to be like, oh crap, run for your lives. So that's where we are now, yay. But with Daleks and potatoes and tardons and ant drones,
01:43:58
Speaker
See, personally, this brings the Fixer a lot of joy insofar as there were a couple of times before where the Fixer's PTSD made them think beings who weren't Daleks might be Daleks just based on their warlike behavior. So to actually see a Dalek roll out of a tube sort of hones in everything in this way. So that way, this is the threat. We've got to stop it. We can't allow this off this planet. It will only get worse if this half-life congregation gets off this planet. Not one. Eight.
01:44:25
Speaker
eight would
Player Contributions & Episode Wrap-Up
01:44:28
Speaker
any of our lovely players like to give each other a nod at this halfway point of our latest scary adventure calamity that sword fight was brilliant oh well thank you that was wonderful nicely done nicely done i'd say that's definitely worth an extra experience point oh yeah i mean there was yeah there was no way she was not gonna latch onto pyro
01:44:52
Speaker
It's just, it is really, it is an extremely appealing lifestyle for a serendipitous. I did a leading. Yeah, I think that like honestly the like Maeve's like diligent, yes, this is my sword and we wrestled over it, but I won and now, you know, we're gonna have to emotionally deal with that and have a, like not gonna give it back, but we're gonna talk it out.
01:45:19
Speaker
nave is now the owner of an electro cutlass we'll call it that instead of a saber because who needs that kind of overlap in their lives you now have an electro cutlass it is in need of repair and charging but yeah you can go ahead and put in parentheses next to it two slash four slash l for the amount of damage it does should you manage to get an attack with that thing
01:45:45
Speaker
unlikely. I love that we have we have a reporter on the TARDIS with their own newspaper app so I can feed in foreshadowing an episode or two early like oh hey this artist is getting ready for their next show or like oh hey these ships have been sacked and destroyed by Bonneville Jace. Careful out there. I remember there being a new story about Sontarans that came over but I didn't remember the Bonneville Jace one. No yeah, Calamity definitely remembered the space pirates.
01:46:14
Speaker
Although I do think that there were, were there Sontarans on Caspian Six? I remember something about Sontarans. I think you might be thinking of the Zygons. The Zygons were relocated. Oh, I was thinking of the Zygons. And the Silurians. You guys faced this. I know it's a lot. You guys faced the Silurians. Rutans. You faced the Rutans on Caspian Six. All these names. Yeah. So many names of weird things. I hope you're still having fun. I'm having a hoot.
01:46:41
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. For sure. Facing fears is a huge part of Doctor Who both thematically and just, you know, through the course of your day. But you guys are doing a great job. I would also like to give Kate credit as Maeve for bringing to the Fixer's attention that the ants would have been a threat to the TARDIS in that moment. Because honestly, Fixer was just going to walk on into the city and not worry about anything. And she is absolutely right. Protecting the TARDIS is one of our main goals. Absolutely.
01:47:10
Speaker
Like, I have run this mod a number of times over the last decade and have made updates for you guys for a number of reasons, but not the least of which I want some of the challenges to be tailored to you guys personally. But having something that already exists and following the plan of, this is what will happen if the heroes do nothing, there are beats that unfold in the first half
01:47:37
Speaker
because we can never thwart step one of the plan. That's not exciting at all. And this is where we are, and it's just unfolding, and it's nice. And finally, to our listeners, another great 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. If you like what you hear, leave a review, rate the show, and follow us on Blue Sky, as well as Twitter, at anywhere but now.
01:48:05
Speaker
and wherever you get your podcasts. Send your questions, fan art, and theories if you got them, to anywhere but now, podcast at gmail.com. Don't forget, if you'd like me to run a game of your very own, find me on startplaying.games. Links to everything in the doobly-doo. From all of us, I'm Casey Jones. There's exciting things to come, my friends. I'm glad you're along for the ride. Thanks so much, and have a great day.