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C1 EP1 - Every adventure starts at a street bar
85 Plays1 year ago
Four regular bar patrons go about their day before being introduced to a life changing situation at a yearly festival.
CONTENT WARNING: This episode contains fantasy violence, Crime, Alcohol use, amnesia, and strong profanity.
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Transcript
00:00:00
Speaker
Content Advisory. Ursa Redd is a podcast with mature themes for a mature audience. Content warnings can be found in the description.
Reminiscing Neon Memories
00:00:08
Speaker
What is your color now? Me? I'm the orange, red, green glow of the neon signs I grew up under. Like everyone else, I heard the stories of the sun. Mine came from my grandfather. Like me, he was a neon miner. He would spend his days off lounging in the sun while I find the nearest bar.
00:00:26
Speaker
When hydro plant 62 blew up we tried the rise but they kicked us back down. Thankfully the mines were mostly dry due to the airlocks. I heard in the rise they have to carry oxygen. Who knows maybe the cloud actually has oxygen in the air. Here in the under a respirator is fine.
Surface Schemes and Colors
00:00:46
Speaker
Maybe the new year will be different for the under. Weird things seem to happen during the Prospect Festival. It's supposed to celebrate our survival and strength. In reality, it's an excuse to drink way too much, spend way too much, and wonder which type of evil is in the shadows waiting for you to drop your guard. Well, more so than normal. At the bar, you hear stories, wild stories of people selling, stealing, bribing, and scheming their way up to the surface, but never reaching the rise.
00:01:13
Speaker
Never a story of legitimate means or success, except for that one group that made it. If I could ask them one thing, what's your color now?
Introduction to Ursa Red
00:01:26
Speaker
Welcome to Ursa Red, everybody. A Dungeons and Dragons podcast about five friends who live in the neon undercity of a futuristic post dystopian fantasy world. My name is Alexander Crutchfield. I am your GM. I am joined today by Carter Prophet.
00:01:42
Speaker
I'm a car prophet and I play as, well, I don't exactly know yet, play as someone. Chase Dixon. Hey everybody, I'm Chase Dixon. I am the voice of Antonio Moretti. Dean Balter. Hey, I'm Dean Balter and I play Karg. Dominic Weimar. I am Dominic Weimar. I play Johnny Phelps. Tim Lincoln. Hi, I'm Tim Lincoln and I play Optimus Crime. Really nice. You guys,
00:02:09
Speaker
You guys ready? No. Oh, dude, I'm fucking, I got, I got the UVGVs. I'm ready to fucking go.
Investigating Mafia Activities
00:02:17
Speaker
Today, we're going to begin our story in a nightclub, the Expanse showroom, where right now, one private investigator, John Phelps, is sitting at a table. John, will you please explain to everyone what you look like? I'm John, I'm sitting at a table, normal guy, about 5'11", you know,
00:02:40
Speaker
brown hair, brown eyes, about average as you can be. Right now I'm sitting at the table, heavy bags under my eyes. We've got seven empty cups, once full of coffee, and I'm scribbling at what seems like nothing.
00:02:58
Speaker
Across the showroom, there's a heavyset man, a human who's currently, uh, looking at some letters. Cause even though this is a very dystopian world, the mafia doesn't trust technology. And so they're, they very much still use pen and paper to like send messages to each other. You see him scribbling on like a piece of a parchment and then he's going to fold it up into, into thirds, put a little bit of wax on it.
00:03:27
Speaker
and
Debt Collection in the Undercity
00:03:28
Speaker
press it in with his ring. He's then going to take off his ring and clean it. Okay. I'm just gonna, I'm going to keep sitting at my table, watching him from out of the corner of my eye. I've been following this one lead for the past year about the disappearances around the festival and all these lines I'm drawn, they're all pointing to this guy. So.
00:03:55
Speaker
Anyone who's looking right now at you, they just kind of see your hand moving, right? Yes. What are you seeing? Well, I'm seeing this table covered in papers.
Contrasting Dwellings
00:04:08
Speaker
I got folders open, pictures all over the place, got my journal right in front of me, taking notes on everything this guy's doing.
00:04:16
Speaker
So your art of it like your artificial eye is allowing you to see all this.
Festival Memories and Preparations
00:04:21
Speaker
Yes. And like you get some weird looks from like the other members of the Genovese family. You you're you work for them, but everyone kind of thinks you're like the weird guy. And as like you're kind of like.
00:04:37
Speaker
looking back at the people who have been staring at you, a young gentleman comes in and he's going to go up to Marcus Genovesi, the leader of the family. You know that the person who's walking in right now is Marcellus, his oldest son. He's going to walk up and he's going to lean over and whisper something. I'd like you to roll an investigation check for me. Investigation? Not looking too good.
00:05:07
Speaker
That's a six, 11, 11. You can't really hear anything that they are saying, but you kind of get the word that like it's moved into the hotel. Like you don't know what has moved in, but you know, something has moved into the hotel. Hmm. What's, uh, what's old Don and do?
00:05:31
Speaker
after he tells him that, uh, he's gonna get up and he going to kind of like push a bunch of papers together and then pick up his ring and put it on his finger. Uh, his letter is somewhere in those papers. And as he's walking away, he points to one of his dudes and just kind of like snaps at him and then points at all the papers as he walks away with his son. Hmm.
00:06:00
Speaker
I'm going to tap the side of my artificial eye. All the papers on the table disappear. I'm going to get up and I'm going to follow him from a distance. So right now he's going outside and him and his son are going to walk across the street to their townhouse and go inside.
00:06:32
Speaker
Well, I'm gonna stand just outside the showroom. I'm gonna stand there smoking a cigarette, watching to see what happens from inside there.
00:06:44
Speaker
We will come back to you. Now we're going to cut to a small market where a person makes like little household goods.
Mob Rule Realities
00:06:57
Speaker
And so in here they sell like chairs and like very simple chairs, very simple side tables, tables, things like that.
00:07:05
Speaker
When we see a an individual of an elvish descent with darker skin wearing. What are you wearing, Antonio? Yeah, so I'm wearing like a like a long trench coat down below the knees. You know, I got the very.
00:07:29
Speaker
very roguish type, some would say, uh, all leather, very thick, uh, slick back hair, but not, not slick back. Like Brad Pitt and Troy, I'm not a pretty boy. It's greasy because I'm strung the fuck out. You know what I mean? And, uh, comes down like a little bit, a little bit above like half the neck, real skinny type, like five nine on a good day, depending on what bar I'm leaving. And, uh, red eyes, no pupils, just red.
00:07:57
Speaker
kind of unsettling but is what it is you know and uh i always i'm always fidgeting with my hip at all times because you never know you never know who knows you know i'm saying the proprietor of this shop is kind of like is uh right now he is begging look look mister just just just tell tell the family i'll have their money next week people
00:08:25
Speaker
People just don't seem to care to have a chair anymore. You said next week fucking last week. How many times do we gotta fucking tell you this? I'm pretty sure I said next week yesterday. That was yesterday. Yesterday, last week, it's all the fucking same. Pay us all fucking money. You think we're someone to fucking play with? 700 credits is a lot.
00:08:55
Speaker
Do you, do you even have 700 credits? Don't worry about my fucking finances. The amount is immaterial. The fact of the matter is you owe the family money. All right. It could be one credit. It could be a fucking billion credits. The fact of the matter is you need to pay when you're supposed to pay. If you don't pay, we can either take it out of your ass or we can add vague on the principle. What do you want?
00:09:20
Speaker
Uh, he is going to, uh, tap onto his little arm computer. He opens up his bank account and right now there's 125 credits and he's gonna hold out his arm so that he can transfer it to you. Yeah. I'm gonna, I'm gonna accept this transfer. And then as he's looking down at his, uh, whatever gizmo, whatever the fuck, I'm just gonna.
00:09:50
Speaker
We're at a stand, I'm assuming I'm on the other side of a bar. Yeah, like a countertop. Yeah, so I'm gonna grab him by his fucking collar and smash his fucking nose into the table. Okay. I gave you what I had. Yeah, what you had wasn't fucking good enough. Have our fucking money next week or it's gonna be a lot fucking worse.
00:10:12
Speaker
Next week or tomorrow? I'll tell the family next week, but I can't promise anything. Sick. Where are you going from here? I got a couple more collections to make for the family. So I'm going to stop probably at a, uh, probably at the bar and then, uh,
00:10:31
Speaker
I want to go, uh, run it up, run up my collections to Marcellus because Big Boss doesn't like being dealt with too many people. Doesn't like to be seen with, uh, us undesirables as it is, you know? So he's, he's got to insulate himself. So I'm going to go through Marcellus to deliver the collections. I see.
Friendship and Antics
00:10:49
Speaker
We're now going to cut to a street kind of to describe the street right now. Like these are the nicer houses. Things tend to be cleaned up around here.
00:11:01
Speaker
Uh, most of these people have some kind of a historical relationship with the Genovese family that runs this part of the under, um, safe harbor. And right smack dab in the middle, you see a townhouse where not a single thing has been cleaned. It had like a metal, uh, stairs that went up to the front door.
00:11:28
Speaker
Well, they're now leaning at a 45 degree angle. So you're trying to walk upstairs at a 40 like that, where each step from left to right is like the left side's higher. Um, you open, like if you were to open up this door and walk in, like the, the floor's covered in dust, except for, uh, footprints of, uh, some kind of.
00:11:57
Speaker
like humanoid shoe, as well as a clunky footprints of a robot. When we go upstairs, we find a robot who is waking up. It's around. It's around mid glow.
00:12:18
Speaker
which is midday for those of us from Earth. And you see the robot kind of like waking up on its metal bed that it probably made itself. And an elf who is curled up on the floor about
00:12:38
Speaker
two feet away from a pile of vomit. And he's got a blanket, but the blanket only kind of covers like his chest and legs because there's a giant hole around where like the hips are. Can you describe what you guys look like for me? We're gonna start with crime.
00:12:58
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Optimus Crime is a 6 foot 6, 302 pound robot with dark blue paint. He's got a large optical lens for a face and on his chest he has a screen that can display different pictures and images on it.
00:13:25
Speaker
Okay. Karg, will you describe yourself for us? So lying on the floor in what seems to be a puddle of his own vomit, Karg is a six foot high elf.
00:13:43
Speaker
He is wearing full armor, even though he's passed out because this is something that's treasured by him. Really long, almost blonde white hair, probably down to like mid back level. Right now it's kind of a mess and just kind of like tangled up a little bit and probably has some specs of helmet in it as well.
00:14:09
Speaker
He also has a bottle still in his hand and he's kind of got like a drunken grin on his face while he's sprawled out on the floor. You're going to wake up and you have a message on your wristband from a common drinking buddy named Sparky. All right, so I'm going to wake up.
The Mystery of Neocorp Biotechnology
00:14:39
Speaker
Can you read this for me real quick? A little too early for me. Oh boy, we got mail. So I'm going to just kind of like turn my arm towards him. I still kind of a little bit closed and have him read out my read out my text. Nothing unusual. Just another average day. Sparky's at the bar whenever you're ready to go.
00:15:08
Speaker
This sounds good to me. I think I'm going to try to swing around the bottle and see if there's anything left in that bottle that was in my hand to try to start the day off right. Is there anything left in there? There is, but it's kind of viscous.
00:15:31
Speaker
All right, I'm gonna give it a good smell real quick and I'm gonna shrug. It smells like bodily fluids. All right, I'm gonna hold it up to crime and be like, pal, you can give it a smell real quick. Just make sure. Is this alcohol? Sniff, sniff. There is a 50% chance that there's still alcohol in this.
00:16:02
Speaker
I hope. I take a swig. It is vile. As soon as it hits your mouth, you have a flashback to last night when crime and you made a bet that you could not take a shit into an alcohol bottle.
00:16:31
Speaker
you did win the bet so you do have 10 credits from that bet which is enough to buy you another bottle of alcohol but at what cost I have shit by mouth I'm going to I'm gonna throw up a little bit
00:16:52
Speaker
I'm going to put a cap on that bottle, and I'm going to put the bottle in a little satchel on my side so I can keep it for later. Oh, dear. It appears that was the shit bottle that you shit in last night. Yeah. Don't worry. Yeah, I think it was. But don't worry. Don't worry. I'll keep it safe.
00:17:15
Speaker
I'll call a cleaning service to clean this up. Make sure they're one of the cheap ones, the ones that we don't pay.
00:17:24
Speaker
I'm on it. Crime, you're going to find a cleaning service that is willing to come clean up like just the throw up. Like you've used them before. They'll show up, clean up just the throw up for five credits. And then but they won't touch anything else in the house because I feel like a couple of times they get there. We're like, yeah, we'll be back to pay you. And then we just don't come back.
00:17:50
Speaker
Oh, absolutely. I would say probably they've never paid them. They've probably just stolen random things out of the house to pay for the amount of times that we've called them and have not paid them. Hey, Karg. Have you seen my 10 millimeter socket? It keeps going missing. Does Karg know where this 10 millimeter socket is? I want it on my tool belt.
00:18:20
Speaker
Roll an investigation check. All right. You said investigation. That's good. I've got a plus zero. All right. This is the first roll. Second. This is the first. Second roll. Oh, shit. I lied. I lied. This is the first. Johnny Phelps rolled investigation. It's my first roll. All right. Let me get one of these dice out. Look at the company of dice. Bro, just pick one of those that just fell. Yeah. All right. Here we go.
00:18:50
Speaker
I got a net one. Yes! Out of the way early. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, I got a net one. You reach into your pocket and you're going to pull out a six millimeter socket. Yeah, but I found your socket. You already have a six millimeter socket. You don't know where this one came from. This one is definitely not mine, but I'll keep it.
00:19:19
Speaker
Looks like I'll have to make another 10 mil. All right, buddy. No skin off my teeth. I'll be at the workbench. Let me know when you're ready to go. I'm always ready to go. There's going to be a bunch of wearing of machines and buzzing the saws as he cuts down and fashions a new 10 mil.
00:19:41
Speaker
Yeah, you're gonna go ahead and make that and you once again have your full setup of tools You guys are heading to the to the bar and as you are heading to the bar you guys walk underneath a bunch of random people who are like
00:19:58
Speaker
hanging up banners and things like that above the street in preparation for the Prospect Festival, which is the festival where everyone basically celebrates the new year, but you can't call it a new year because you guys haven't seen the sun in quite some time. So you guys just call it the Prospect Festival because this is like the start of the fiscal year.
00:20:22
Speaker
You also see people that are like hooking or hooking up balloons that have neon lanterns on the inside and things like that. Getting ready to fly them tonight. Kind of like a Chinese New Year type of type of deal. Yeah, like or either that or like a Mardi Gras. These are these are pretty big balloons. I'd say almost almost the size of like a hot air balloon.
00:20:50
Speaker
but there's no basket or anything. They're just like things that they use to kind of like represent like stars in the sky and things like that during the Prospect Festival. Cool, cool. Do I have any balloons? You do not. Everybody, we should get one of them balloons. That sounds like a great idea. And we're going to walk over. Are there any vendors selling balloons? No. It's just like, these are like people's private items.
00:21:19
Speaker
private balloons. You could try and make one when you guys have some free time, but with the stuff that you readily have available to you, it might be difficult. Well, I guess we're listening again this year. I kind of want to take this moment. Karg, what is your favorite Prospect Festival memory?
00:21:45
Speaker
So I would say Karg's favorite prospect memory is when he was a spry 193 years old and he was hanging out with Optimus in close to, I'm assuming they've got like Ferris wheels, right? That's a thing.
00:22:11
Speaker
by this ferris wheel and he was so drunk that he could barely stand and some drow went over and whistled at him. Most of the other times he just doesn't remember anything that happens at these festivals because he is most of the time blackout drunk. As one does, as one does. Crime, what is your favorite Prospect Festival memory?
00:22:39
Speaker
I would have to say it's the same one because that's the only one where I didn't have to carry Karg home at the end of the night. I remember that. I walked all the way home. Karg doesn't remember this because he was so plastered, but they were playing carnival games. They're playing the one where you have to throw the ball and knock all the bottles off. You can never get all the bottles.
00:23:05
Speaker
but he's so drunk that he's got, he just throws a nasty like curve ball and knocks all of them down. And, uh, he ends up winning a giant plushy cat for a crime. You guys are going to go to the bar. How long are you planning on staying at the bar? Just until the festival starts indefinitely? Yeah, it sounds good to me. Okay.
00:23:33
Speaker
but maybe we'll go get some cotton candy later.
00:23:36
Speaker
We're going to cut over to Mr. Phelps.
Intrigue in the Undercity
00:23:39
Speaker
Mr. Phelps, as you are standing outside, the guy who had all those papers comes walking out. He's going to be like holding the papers in one side and kind of like messing with his respirator to breathe like the normal air because this guy is completely organic. And so as he's doing that, you're going to see the letter
00:24:05
Speaker
fall out of his little pile onto the ground. Hmm. Which way is he walking? He's walking towards the Genese townhouse. OK. I'm going to wait till he like gets across the street. Then I'm going to go over, pick it up, and I'm I guess start heading towards the hotel estranged. If that's like the only hotel in the area. Yeah.
00:24:31
Speaker
It is start heading in that direction from the expanse to get to hotel estranged. You're going to have to walk past like the vain nightclub.
00:24:46
Speaker
uh, Timmy's pub and the street bar. Is there anything that you'd like to stop by on the way there? Probably stop by the street bar on my way. Oh yeah. When you get to the street bar, you're going to kind of show up as crime and Karg. Uh, they just sat down and then kind of come in from the opposite direction of you. You see Antonio. I'm going to make sure that letters like
00:25:16
Speaker
Tucked away and hidden. I'm going to go sit over next to crime. When you and Antonio get over there, Karg and crime are currently talking about an imaginary land where crime's 10 millimeters seem to go to. I'm telling you, buddy, there's no way that is on the floor here. It's gotta be.
00:25:37
Speaker
in the other place, you know what I'm saying? It has to be there, you know? I think maybe someone's been stealing them. Do you think that there are portals to alternate dimensions? Of course, of course. And specifically stealing my 10 millimeter sockets. Everyone knows that the 10 millimeters are the best millimeters, so that's why they dig them. Maybe there's a multiverse where everything is measured by 10 millimeters at a time. Yes, yes.
00:26:05
Speaker
Antonio and Mr. Phelps you guys are both sitting down at the bar now. I'm gonna reach over Open up the register try to get as much credits as I can Count it out because I know I know how much they owe every week We don't make any money here
00:26:27
Speaker
I'm going to look over him and be like, everybody, if you find anything in there, let me know because I've been looking. As I'm reaching, I'm just smashing my hand in this drawer and just pull out nothing and just flip the register. You pull out a little sticky note that says I owe you. I owe you. That's as good as legal tender.
00:26:51
Speaker
It wasn't a note for you, though. It was a note from Karg to himself. I do owe myself. Well, I'm already fucking you. Reach over, grab a bottle, pour out a drink. All right. This is what I'm going to do. I'm going to look over here at Antonio. And I'm going to look at him and be like, look, I'll make you a bet. All right. I'm listening. If you can drink.
00:27:20
Speaker
from this bottle and I turned over and I grabbed the poop bottle and finished the entire thing without throwing up or stumbling. This shit's strong. You don't even want to smell it. This is so strong. I'll give you 10 credits. But if I win, you spit it out, you owe me 20 credits. Antonio, I'd like you to roll
00:27:51
Speaker
We're going to call it a history check. Okay. Okay. Okay. There's a soft DC of 10 and a hard DC of 17. Well, that's fucking gold. Cause I just got a 17. Okay. Uh, you were here last night. Shit in this bottle. I'm going to pretend.
00:28:17
Speaker
like you didn't ask me to do that like I wasn't fucking here cheering you on as you expertly pinpointed your fucking shit into the neck of that bottle put that shit away you gross fuck oh my god you really what oh my god okay hey and i'm uh i'm gonna look over and uh who else is at the bar now uh right now remember we sang hard carolina together what do you mean
00:28:49
Speaker
Right now at the bar there is to your left Antonio to your right Starting with closest to you is crime and then Mr. Phelps then there's the sheriff and then there's Sparky. All right, so I'm gonna look at him that
00:29:13
Speaker
You're right, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry. Watch this, and I'm gonna look over at Phelps and be like, hey, you wanna make a bet? I do not want to make a bet. It's Sheriff Bill, by the way. Hey, Sheriff Bill, you wanna make a bet with this guy? Yes, you think he agrees, at least. He's one of those, like, old timers where, like, they don't really open their mouth, like, when they talk.
00:29:40
Speaker
I'm going to put the bottle right in front of him and be like, all right, you got 10 seconds to drink a bottle. And if you throw up or you stumble off, it's just strong stuff. You owe me 20 credits, but if you make it, I give you 10 credits and you have the free bottle right there.
00:30:02
Speaker
And then he's gonna pick up the bottle and just Bottoms up and as soon as the last little bit gets into his mouth. He's immediately going to get up run to the wall and then just post and just start just violence violently throwing up Stupid
00:30:28
Speaker
And the winner is... KAR! You gave me 120 credits, you stupid... Shockey is going to give you 10 credits and be like, ah, you don't, you don't actually carry credits. I carry his credits for him. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I remember that. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mr. Phelps, what are you doing? I'm going to be sitting at the bar. I was going through my notes.
00:30:58
Speaker
And I'm going to turn it over to Antonio and be... Antonio, how did your collections go today? My cells is going to be pissed. I'm a little light today, but I took care of it. Maybe I'll get to do my favorite thing next time if they fuck up again, you know what I mean? Which one are you going to hit them with this time? Hey, Optimus, what are you talking about? Oh, Antonio is talking about robbing people.
00:31:26
Speaker
It's not robbing. It's a very lucrative business. It's not robbing. We're collecting on what is owed. Like Robin Hood? His insurance month. They are robbing people in the hood. Yeah, yeah, that's what I'm talking about. Is Robin in the hood? It's not like you give us a bad rap, I swear.
00:31:44
Speaker
So you guys are all gonna just hang out at the bar for a while. Antonio's gonna go, he's gonna make his collections, he's gonna come back. Which is pretty normal for him. Mr. Phelps is probably pretty deep into looking at his notes. And then the other four people at the bar are just talking about random, random bullshit.
00:32:04
Speaker
As it starts, the neon glow of the city starts to dim. You're gonna notice that the balloons have started to go up and they're now making little dots in the sky. And as you guys sit there and you look at all of these, I guess, decorations, you're gonna start to notice that there's a room
00:32:33
Speaker
in the building by you guys with the light still on. We're going to cut to that room inside of that room. We see a man with a bed sheet thrown over him. He's going to let out just a painful scream.
00:32:54
Speaker
as he, uh, throws the sheet off of him and he sits up. Will you please describe yourself? Well, you don't really have a name. We'll call you, uh, John Doe for now or Mr. Somebody or what would you prefer? Uh, we can go with Mr. Somebody. Okay. Mr. Will you describe yourself for everyone? Mr. Somebody. Yeah, I'd say, uh, right about five 11.
00:33:23
Speaker
almost six foot, kind of unkempt, messy hair and beard. They're dark brown, almost black with what looks like streaks of burnout neon implants in his hair.
00:33:42
Speaker
get up and you take in the room real quick. This is like a metal table that you're laying on and off to like one side you see pants that look like they're about your size and a hoodie that seems, or not a hoodie, a blazer that seems way too big for you.
00:34:08
Speaker
Do I see anything else in the room or is it pretty barren aside from those? It's it's pretty barren. For the most part, the room is like covered in like plastic and things like that. Kind of somewhere in between like someone was trying to do a makeshift surgery room and someone was covering up everything before they moved out of here. Okay. I went to get up and go put on the pants and
00:34:37
Speaker
I guess throw on the blazer, don't have any options here and just kind of give myself a once over I guess to see if I notice anything wrong or unusual.
00:34:49
Speaker
Uh, well, you don't really have a reference, um, of what is normal for you. Uh, in fact, I'd say like probably the best you can do is like, try moving your fingers, see if they actually move, you know, like things like that, like kind of like running like a diagnostic on yourself to try and understand like the mechanics. Okay. Yeah. I'm just gonna, I guess, make sure everything works, so to speak.
00:35:19
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, while you're looking at your hands, you're going to notice a window with a bunch of glowing lights upwards. Okay. I'm going to, uh, I guess look outside and, uh, look at the glowing lights and just kind of the surrounding street.
00:35:36
Speaker
When you look down you see the the street bar and currently at the street bar there are Six individuals and all of them are looking up at your window right now because they all just heard you What's this fucking mook going up here? You scream outside fucking weirdo I'm gonna I'm gonna go and try to find a way out of the building
00:35:58
Speaker
Okay. You pretty quickly find behind one of the like plastic sheets that were on the wall, there's a door which takes you into a hallway. You eventually find some stairs, go down, push out the door and you are in the middle of a much busier street. Okay.
00:36:17
Speaker
A man is gonna come up beside you and grab you by your organic arm and he's gonna say something like, no you don't, it's not time for you to wake up yet and try and pull you back into the building you just left.
Battle and Refuge
00:36:33
Speaker
Do any of us see this or did we just hear a scream from like outside and then we just were like what the fuck and that was it?
00:36:39
Speaker
You heard a scream and then you saw a person look out the window. Um, kind of panicky, I would say, but does that sound right? Mr. Somebody that does. Yes. And then he leaves the window really quickly. So you guys aren't on like the busy street. You guys are on like kind of a side street that does like, you can see the busy street from where you're sitting. You do not see the entrance to the building from where you're sitting. Yeah. I'm just going to keep drinking my drink. I'm going to.
00:37:08
Speaker
try to hit the guy with my non-organic arm. Yeah. I'm just going to try to give him a good like punch and try to pull away. Cause I have no idea who this guy is or what he's talking about. I rolled a hit. And would we have any clue of like, have we ever seen this dude before? Or is he just like some random guy we've never seen before screamed? We kind of see him in a window and then he just disappears for a second.
00:37:34
Speaker
very random, like does not look familiar at all. And despite the fact that there's like a bunch of people in this area, it's very much like small town in a big city, if that makes sense. Like you're familiar with the faces of the people that you walk past and you've never seen this dude before. Does a 22 hit? Yes, it does. Roll damage for me and then describe the action. Would have thought it hit. It's going to be.
00:38:05
Speaker
for four. As he grabs my right arm and says I'm not ready yet, I'm going to kind of panic, try to pull away from him and throw my left arm at him and then scramble to the bar since it seems to be the closest populated spot.
00:38:26
Speaker
You are going to successfully like hit him and like kind of duck away into the crowd and make your way over towards the bar. The, everyone is going to see you run up, you're wearing jeans and a blazer. You have no shoes. You have no shirt underneath the blazer. Your head, like you, you have very obvious like surgery scars on you. Well, buddy, where did you come from? And, uh,
00:38:54
Speaker
You bring any money for booze or anything with you? Where am I? What is this place? Better question. Where are your shoes? What is this place? Oh, it's a bar, stupid. Welcome to the street bar. You see a bunch of guys sitting at a bar that's attached to a street. It's a street bar. Who would have fucking thought? Fucking Strunes.
00:39:24
Speaker
Would you like a drink? Is there a mirror anywhere in this place? That's a good point. I think we should describe the street bar. Does anybody want to describe the street bar or do you want me to?
00:39:41
Speaker
So in my hazy vision of this street bar, we have a pretty dusty kind of broken down bar. There's plenty of empty or mostly empty bottles kind of strung around the bar. Some are on the floor, some are behind the bar, on the shelves. I don't think that there used to be a mirror at some point, but it probably got cracked a couple times when
00:40:11
Speaker
when a couple of the patrons came in to get pretty drunk.
00:40:14
Speaker
and rowdy and most of the time that's just leftover bottles from other, other patrons that brought their bottles with them from another bar. And then probably smashed a mirror up pretty good. Bathroom's been out of order for, you know, who even knows when. It doesn't stop me from using it, but it is definitely out of order. But yeah, it's kind of quaint, you know, a little homey, you know, just a little messy.
00:40:44
Speaker
And we do have a liquor license. Yeah. And when he says bathroom, I think it's important to note that this is actually just like a toilet that is sitting on top of a sewage grate, like very classy establishments. Who needs, who needs plumbing? You just cut out the middle man. Who needs fucking pipes? You know, just straight, straight to its destination. I'm going to use the used to be a bidet, but I don't remember the fuck that one. I'm going to grab one of the bottles and try to.
00:41:14
Speaker
I guess use it as a mirror the best I can to look at myself. Karg, I don't ever remember there being a bidet. I think you were just pissing yourself. No. The best bidets are the natural ones. I don't think that works.
00:41:34
Speaker
Does anybody have a bottle? The new day? Does anyone have a bottle as a mirror that they could test this theory on? So, Optimus has a camera in his face and he has a screen on his chest. Would you like to see what you look like? It's pretty bad. It's a real Fashia Bruta type. Yeah, sure.
00:42:02
Speaker
All guys, all gentlemen need to look spic and spam when going out on the town. And I turn around and on my chest, a screen pops up and Mr. Somebody can see a reflection of himself. I guess a video of himself. And so there was like very obvious like surgery scars on my head and elsewhere.
00:42:27
Speaker
Yeah, but like I said, uh, you, yeah, I think this is kind of the moment where like the unnatural parts of you don't feel like they belong. Like they feel like actually new additions to your body. Um, I run my, my hand over my head, kind of feeling where the scars or stitches are kind of like look down at my arm, just kind of like touch it and move it around, uh, very clearly not.
00:42:57
Speaker
too sure how this got here or what exactly is going on. Hey, buddy, you almost done touching yourself. It was getting a little hot and heavy here. Wow. That's a neat arm. Where did you get that? I don't know. Can I take a look? Kind of cautiously. And Optimus is going to start before he even gets permission. He's going to start moving closer. OK. And examining the arm.
00:43:27
Speaker
He's going to start pulling out some tools and start tinkering with it. Hey, what are you doing, man? Oh, don't worry. Fuck you doing? Don't worry. Don't worry, buddy. He's the best in town.
00:43:38
Speaker
He's the best in town. I'm supposed to take a drunk swerve for that? No. Listen, Mr. Fuckface, right now, you are in no position to be making fucking demands. Right now, the big guy that looks like he's made of all of your fucking arm is trying to take a look at your arm. How about you shut the fuck up and let him do his thing, huh? Who the fuck are you? I like to imagine... I like to imagine that crime is... I like to imagine that crime as he's like... as you guys are like arguing crime is like looking at parts and going,
00:44:08
Speaker
I already have one of these, and just like throwing it over his shoulder. Just looking for a 10 millimeter. This one looks like a 10 millimeter. Good thing I... Where'd it go? Fuck, did you... crawling parts of my arm? Yeah, it was... it was useless anyways. You didn't need that. It was there for a reason, I'm sure. Crime, leave the man's arm alone.
00:44:37
Speaker
Hey Phelps, shut up. Let him do his thing. You find like a kind of like a barcode on part of the arm that says that this was made by a company you've never heard of. But it has to be somewhere in Ursa Red because it's somehow in your system. But this is a corporation and they just don't have those in the under. Oh, wow. Look at this.
00:45:08
Speaker
There's a barcode here. I'm gonna scan it. Neocorp. I've never heard of Neocorp before. Neocorp Biotechnology. I'm gonna, Karga's gonna look over real quick and be like, hey Sheriff, do you know what Neocorp is? Airy and lightning. Yeah, that's what I was saying. Hey Phelpsy, you ever seen anything like this before?
00:45:39
Speaker
Uh, I can't, I'm not sure I'd have to go through my notes. Do I have anything in my notes about anything of this genre? Um, you heard of it. The, the only thing I have here is the supply protection to trains to surface. Trains. I love trains. Choo choo. Um, that's fucking helpful considering I've never even fucking met somebody that's been up there. Wonderful.
00:46:09
Speaker
is certainly interesting. Would I have recognized that I was in the under? Or would this be like a new thing to me? Yeah, you don't know where you are. And Antonio, you do know someone that was at the surface when they were young, Karg. Hey, big guy. Okay, so they make robots that protect the train that go to the surface. Yes. Are we in the under? Crime. Do you have some kind of firearm on you?
00:46:38
Speaker
A crime does not currently have a firearm on him. He has his pipe wrench and he has his smithing hammer.
00:46:48
Speaker
OK, so I'm going to grant you a reaction with natural critical with that natural 20 to hit because natural one to hit. And you just got shot in the back of the head and like it kind of just hit like the metal at like the perfect spot where it didn't really like damage you. You just felt getting hit.
00:47:17
Speaker
So he just got shot right now. He just got shot, and I need you to react, and I need you to roll damage. Got you. So as there's a loud clanking off the back of my head, I turn around and I say, that's why armor deflection angles are so important.
Retaliation and Threats
00:47:34
Speaker
And I'm going to throw my hammer in the direction that the shot came from that's going to be.
00:47:49
Speaker
yeah nine nine nine points of damage or nine to head okay you're going to throw your hammer into the crowd real fucking not right now
00:48:12
Speaker
Did anybody else get an auditory kind of honing angle, like a place to look like we know it came from this spot or this area?
00:48:23
Speaker
Well, you can see the dude so the guy who is wearing like he's wearing the suit doesn't really look familiar to any of you except for Mr. Somebody because he was the guy that tried to like get him back in the building you're gonna see him standing right around the corner with his Weapon drawn and he's gonna watch the hammer go past him and it's gonna hit a
00:48:50
Speaker
like a young dude who's like carrying a box and he's like really excited because he has like parts for the lantern he just got and he's just gonna head him over the head and he's gonna fall to the ground and like his box of parts kind of goes all over the street. Do you look like this guy's running away or is he in one spot? He's in one spot. Well I was gonna say as soon as this happens and I now see that crime throws his hammer at this dude and I've got a good eye shot of him
00:49:20
Speaker
I'm just going to start sprinting at him because he just shot my best friend. And Carter's just going to start screaming, just like, hey, you fucking shoot my friend. And he's just dead sprint, going to try to run at this dude and try to smack him in the face with his sword. Go ahead and roll the hit when. So am I going to get a little surprise hit on him? He wasn't expecting that.
00:49:52
Speaker
Let's see if I hit him. What do I get on a plus for my... So am I just going to hit him, or do I roll to see if I hit him? Roll to see if you hit him. Alright, so I get a plus three.
00:50:09
Speaker
Oh, I got a Nat 20. Yo. Nat 20, dude. From a Nat 1 to a Nat 20, baby. Roll damage and tell us what happens. All right. Let me roll damage real quick. Nope, that's a D20. That'd be pretty nice, but no. There we go.
00:50:30
Speaker
So with the rules that we've already established in session zero, we get that plus one max, right? And then I have roll one dice. So I rolled a one. Plus one, though, I do get a plus one as well. So that's
00:50:49
Speaker
8 9 10 I got 10 10 points of damage that I just smack into this dude's face and I'm just gonna be screaming at him drunkenly you don't fucking hit my friend you bitch and then swing my hand my sword real quick and just smack him right in the face you don't just smack him in the face you're going to remove his head from his body
00:51:18
Speaker
Oh yeah. So I remove his head from his body and I'm just like, yeah, this is what you get. You don't mess with the boys right now. We can't fucking ask him anything unless we want to fucking whisper sweet nothings to a goddamn decapitated head. I'm going to call you to walk over and grab the head and just like look at him. He's asking. I'm going to check his body for credits.
00:51:40
Speaker
You're going to find that he has 95 credits on him. Come here, fuckface. This is going in my personal stash and I'm going to I'm going to pocket those. Big boss don't need to know about that. I earned that. What's your passive perception? My passive perception.
00:51:59
Speaker
Insight perception, 15. You kind of just glance up real quick. First things first, you're going to notice are basically all the parts you need except for the balloon itself to make one of these neon balloons. Second thing you're going to notice is four dudes pushing their way through the crowd.
00:52:27
Speaker
Karg is going to walk towards this stuff to make the balloons. And he's going to look over at Optimus and be like, hey, buddy, look, we might make it this year. This is still pretty good. How many bullets did he have on his body? He had one power cell. Ah, useless. Wait, how close are these guys to us? Like, are they making their way to us? Or is he like, are they like 10 feet away from me? They're making their way to you. OK.
00:52:56
Speaker
They're about 40 feet away right now, but they're, they're, I mean, they're pushing through a crowd. So they're like, they're not moving like 30 feet in a six second time parade. They're moving probably like 15 because they have to push people out of the way. So I'm going to go try to pick up these balloon parts and, but I'm going to keep an eye on them, like kind of out of the corner of my eye just to see like, you know, if, if they start getting a little bit closer, then maybe I'll start to get a little bit more worried, but I'm really infatuated by these balloons.
00:53:25
Speaker
Okay. I'm going to say that you successfully pick up all of the balloon parts. What's what's happening with the head? Hmm. Uh, so when I, I picked up the head to see if they wanted to question it and then when, uh, when no one really seemed interested, I kind of just tossed it towards, uh, towards Antonio's feet. Okay.
00:53:49
Speaker
Anything peculiar about this head? Like you look like you have any any similar augments to our friend Mr. Fuckface over here? No, he's he's organic. I'm gonna go over to the body and look to see if I can find anything that might clue me in as to who he was.
00:54:15
Speaker
You are going to find a letter inside of his pocket. Hmm. I open and read the letter. The letter says good work. I will be down shortly to validate the project.
Unveiling a Larger Plot
00:54:40
Speaker
I think at this point, Hotel Estranged
00:54:45
Speaker
at midnight. I think at this point, I mean, we've kind of been like looking over these bodies and stuff. And I'm kind of noticing these guys still coming towards us. So I'm walking back with like the balloon stuff to bring back to into the bar. And then Karg is going to walk in and be like, Antonio, I think I think your boys are coming to say my fucking buddies. Hey, Phelps, you look the fuck alive. Get your fucking nose out of those notes. Point Dexter.
00:55:14
Speaker
Tap the side of my head, clear up the notes. Gentlemen, I feel we should make our exit. There's four big guys. I'm going to pull out the, I'm going to kind of pull out my knives, but I'm going to tuck them in the side of my sleeve so it's not apparent that I'm holding, but just to be ready. Oh, my bad.
00:55:41
Speaker
You're new buddy, Mr. Somebody. Also, you can also pick up his weapon, by the way. Because I know that that was like a starting item for you. So it's been explained how you miraculously got it. What do you guys want to do about the oncoming threat? I'm going to jump behind the bar so that they don't have a they can't see me very clearly, but I can still see them.
00:56:12
Speaker
Antonio I told you how far are they from us? Pushing their way out of the crowd and they're like they're doing that thing that you know Spooky dudes and suits do so like they're like stepping out one of them's like pulling his jacket The other one's fixing his tie and then the last one reaches into his jacket pulls out his firearm and he's going to
00:56:41
Speaker
everyone roll initiative. This podcast is directly supported by our Patreon and wonderful listeners like you.
00:57:07
Speaker
Our Patreon supporters get access to exclusive behind the scenes content like our after show, Tactical Paws, and recordings from our session zero. And if you're a Patreon supporter, you'll also get to submit names that we'll use for our NPCs during the show. So if you like our content and you want to support our adventures, you can do that at patreon.com slash tacticalcrits. Follow us on social media for updates for future episodes. Our Instagram is tacticalcrits.
00:57:35
Speaker
We're on Twitter at tacticalcrits. Reddit is r slash tacticalcrits. We also have a Facebook page and a YouTube channel. We'll link all of our social medias in the description.
Concluding Engagements
00:57:44
Speaker
So go check it out because we'd love to hear from you and we'd like to know what you liked about the show. So that's it for this week, everybody. We'll see you next time.
00:57:54
Speaker
Ursa Red is Dean Balter's Carg, Alexander Crutchfield is our GM, Chase Dixon is Antonio Moretti, Carter Prophet is John Doe, Dominic Waymire is Johnny Phelps and myself, Tim Lincoln is Optimus Crime.