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Graveyard of the Gods - Pt 2
76 Plays1 year ago
The Daleks rise anew in our scariest adventure yet! What do they want on a forgotten planet filled with the dead? How can the Fixer and his companions stop their plans from reaching fruition?? There's only one way to find out!
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]!
Brand's lovely new dice set is courtesy of Twelve Parsecs Designs!
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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Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@AnywhereButNow
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 to Anywhere But Now Podcast
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. With me is the daring crew of our time-traveling machine.
Character Introductions and Story Continuation
00:00:26
Speaker
Playing the Fixer is the charming and resourceful, Brandasorio. Hello, Brand. Hello.
00:00:31
Speaker
And joining him is Maeve Sullivan, played by the ebullient Kate McCoy. Welcome back, Kate. Hey there! Finishing the TARDIS team is Pandora Beatrix, as the delightfully chaotic Calamity Hat. Meanwhile...
00:00:47
Speaker
Are you all excited? Do you feel that energy? Oh yeah. House rules mean our players begin the game with five. Count them five story points each. However, since this is part two of an adventure in progress graveyard of the gods, you are continuing with your extant story points earned from the end of last game.
00:01:10
Speaker
Get ready for a collaborative, immersive storytelling experience. Stick around after the game for interviews with the players.
Listener Gratitude and Contact Information
00:01:18
Speaker
A bigger on the inside thank you to our listeners. Time is truly a gift, or it wouldn't be the present. We thank you for spending yours with us.
00:01:28
Speaker
And speaking of presents, anywhere but now has been the recipient of a lovely set of dice. Brand, you were the recipient of this particular set. Can you tell us who its maker was? This wonderful set of dice came from 12 parsecs designs. Beautifully appointed dice. They've been rolling amazingly. And the imagery on the inside of the dice are quite beautiful. In the case of this set, it is a gorgeous looking little castle in the distance.
00:02:00
Speaker
It's incredibly pretty. That is incredibly pretty. We just want to express our gratitude to 12parsecs for not only sharing their lovely dice, but reaching out and asking us if we would like to use them and promote them on the show. If you at home have something you'd like us to use on the show that's tabletop related, hit us up on the Twitter bluebird of doom at anywhere but now with an underscore.
00:02:25
Speaker
Send us a message at Anywhere But Now, podcast at gmail.com, and on Blue Sky, also at Anywhere But Now. Links to everything, including those lovely dice in the doobly-doo, brought to you wherever you're listening in time and space. This is Anywhere But Now.
Crash Landing on OSIRON Homeworld
00:02:51
Speaker
Our fearless crew has crashed after narrowly escaping the actual claw-like clutches of the rusty buzzard, captained by none other than... Bonnable Jace. Both ships have crashed to the surface of the OSIRON homeworld, passing through an canopy that is both light-tight and reflective.
00:03:13
Speaker
On closer examination, the fearless calamity turned a lovely swatch of this reflective, metallic, mercurial substance fabric into a nice scarf.
00:03:25
Speaker
Following an impressive duel between a cattle prod and a poorly and a electro-cutlass in dire need of repair, Calamity has disarmed first, made scratch, and Maeve collected the cutlass from the pincers of an electronic ant drone marching two by two out of the city.
00:03:48
Speaker
Our heroes have noticed solar panels under their feet carrying more and more power into the city beyond, as ants have resumed their work bringing scrap into the city's fusion furnace to continue as they build up power.
00:04:06
Speaker
After passing a number of derelict ships, Team TARDIS landed their ship inside the walls of the computer city, and moments later discovered an entire street lightly peopled with dead Osiris.
00:04:21
Speaker
Having discovered that there was no apparent cause of death, save, asphyxiation, or starvation, the team instead discovered an Osiris struck by a blast of some kind, a Gunstick it now seems, from a
Dalek and Sontaran Confrontation
00:04:37
Speaker
Dalek.
00:04:37
Speaker
You have avoided the attention of a crew, a platoon of peeled, pasty white albino peeled potato santarans who are working in concert with the ant drones in the service of the Half-Life congregation. An octet of Daleks that have just emerged from cryogenic stasis as the Fixer has rerouted power to everywhere but the central computers.
00:05:43
Speaker
The first thing we are going to need both from Fixer and the Auditor and Mave is a courage check because you are now facing the Daleks and there is at the very least some understanding of what that means. However, since they have not actually noticed you yet, this does not require a fear factor. It will, however, require a resolve rule.
00:06:10
Speaker
Fixer, as a Time War survivor, you and the Auditor are at a bit of a disadvantage to keeping your wits as Daleks have just rolled out in full force. This is going to be a resolve
00:06:27
Speaker
check. You can add two for Timelord. We are trying to beat a difficulty of 16 to simply stay at the edges of this room where the Daleks have not even noticed us yet. Maeve, you are also at a disadvantage for this role. Please give us Resolve versus 16. Is there any skills we could add to this, like intuition or knowledge?
00:06:50
Speaker
You know what? Throw survival on there. Because of the adrenaline dump involved, keeping your wits right now will help you survive. So add your numbers for survival, please.
00:07:03
Speaker
The auditor is going to spend two of his story points to reach, yes, but territory. Yes, he can stand his ground, but he will not be volunteering information or stepping forward to contribute unless asked because right now he's just focused on keeping it together. Ended up with a three and a four on the dice for a total of 14. Casey, I got double ones.
00:07:26
Speaker
With a 14 on the dice fixer, I believe you are in the same boat as the auditor. Neither of us wants to take a step closer. With all of our attention on the Daleks in front of us, we will need an awareness roll to notice the fact that Maeve has turned around and run off in the other direction.
Maeve's Instinctive Escape
00:07:50
Speaker
Uh-huh. That checks out.
00:07:52
Speaker
That checks out. Yeah, Maeve, not screaming or anything, has just backed up, turned and run. Fortunately, there are no Sontarans outside. They are all the Sontarans we have available are clutched around the captive humans from the Rusty Buzzard and the Daleks. Maeve, you are
00:08:12
Speaker
racing off. It is like your feet have taken control of themselves. You may not even realize what has happened for a moment before your feet have taken the command of get away from these things as far and fast as possible, get away now, and Maeve books it
00:08:31
Speaker
Yeah, I don't think Maeve really registers what she's doing or even, or, you know, why she's doing it all. She doesn't have context for this. She just turns and runs and it's a good few seconds later before her brain catches up with everything that's happened. Fixer and Calamity, can you give us an awareness roll to see if you notice that next to you Maeve has silently retreated. You are at disadvantage, however, because you are in front of Daleks and Tarans and God knows what else inside this large fusion chamber hellscape.
00:09:00
Speaker
So I have an 11 with. And I have a 17 with two sixes. Calamity is so wrapped in what's going on. She does not notice the silent footfalls as Maeve disappears next to her. Fixer, you have absolutely noticed. You are now in that heightened adrenaline state of hyper focus, hyper awareness. And you do immediately notice the absence of Maeve next to you. It seems very clear that she ran away as opposed to being captured by something.
00:09:29
Speaker
Behind you with your double sixes, all you hear is the continued chitter-chitter of the ants marching two by two. Lean into calamity and the auditor and whisper as close to silent a whisper as I can give because I don't want to alert the Daleks to our presence and say, I am a little worried that we may have lost Maeve.
Dalek Threats and Execution
00:09:47
Speaker
The auditor says, I can't seem to move my feet.
00:09:51
Speaker
And he has not taken his eye off the Daleks or the Sontarans or the chamber inside. I want to help. I want to be helpful, but I cannot move. Did you want me to just say something? It seems like they're just having a religious dispute. I've got plenty of experience with that. I could just...
00:10:09
Speaker
My one worry, Calamity, is this species, the Dalek's, kill all non-Dalek life. I worry that you even showing your face may result in them blasting you the way that they blasted that, O Siren. Ahead of you, on the actual floor, the head soldier, this albino-white Suntaran, says, We have discovered these bipeds outside of the city walls, in their crashed ship, and throws
00:10:37
Speaker
Bonnable Jace and the unconscious scratch to the floor in front of the assembled Daleks. With that double six, with the attention you were able to turn on these things, traditionally from the time war on, most of the Daleks had this burnished brass bronze color tone of armor in their rolling tanks.
00:11:04
Speaker
None of these Daleks have that bronze exterior. There are four of them in black plating. There are another four science Daleks that are serving the congregation. They are the bronze and brass, but they have an additional ring of sensors around their dome. They are using four implements.
00:11:27
Speaker
Two of them, instead of having a plunger attachment, have a hypodermic needle, or a claw attachment. The captain is thrown to her knees in front of the Daleks, and one of the science Daleks rolls forward, points its eyestalk at her. Stunning! Bite it! Your attachments! Your prosthetic devices may be of value!
00:11:58
Speaker
And Jace spits at the bumper in front of her, and a little globule of spit just lands on the armor of this thing. I'll never help you, you disgusting Daleks! And it does not blink, it just trains its arm stock on her and says,
00:12:22
Speaker
and fires. There is a blinding flash of deadly green energy from its gunstick which surges out, hits the captain. She screams. Her body is hit by so much energy.
00:12:37
Speaker
You can briefly see her skeleton irradiated underneath her skin. She screams once and then collapses forward. As a light waft of smoke rises off of her form, the nearest Suntaran troop steps forward and salutes. The science Dalek turns to him.
00:13:09
Speaker
And the Suntaran scoops up the body of Captain Jace and knots and starts to disappear off to one of the sides. Another Suntaran gives a scratch, a kick,
Maeve Investigates the City
00:13:20
Speaker
and he groans and comes to the Suntaran and says, what about the smaller girl? The Dalek looks down at it and scans briefly.
00:13:36
Speaker
First night, first night of the... of the... of the... of the... You lack the intelligence to be of service! And starts to shout extremely. It was looking pretty bad for a second with the just going ahead and shooting everybody but the line about you you lack sufficient intelligence to be of service has given Calamity just a tiny tiny bit of hope and that is really all she needs so she's gonna step into the room and say I do hang on
00:14:05
Speaker
Eight domes turn rather quickly towards the doors as Calamity steps into the open glow of the room. We are standing in front of a fusion furnace. The room is warm and slowly but surely only getting warmer. The Daleks turn as one. One of them in all black turns to another one in all black.
00:14:43
Speaker
And one of the other black clad Daleks rolls forward and says, compliance, announce yourself by bid.
00:14:55
Speaker
Oh, hi. I'm Calamity Hap. I just met this other person, but I actually think they're a lot smarter than it seems like. They're just under a lot of stress right now because of, you know, I guess the killing of, you know, the captain and that's stressful for bipeds. I'm pretty sure. Is it stressful? I'm asking this to scratch. He nods. He jibbers on his knees and nod. I can do so much. I got two working hands and everything.
00:15:22
Speaker
One of the Daleks turns to it and says, Very well, we will make use of your hands. One of the Suntarans prods him, and they get him to his feet. He will partake in labor. There are ships to scrap. Yes.
00:15:44
Speaker
I've done the slavery thing. It is very unpleasant. Meanwhile, Maeve is running down the street. You hear shouting behind you. You have heard the blast from a gun that you have never heard before, and yet somehow you know exactly what it does because the screen that accompanied it was snuffed out in less than a second.
00:16:06
Speaker
you are running down the street. The ants pay you no mind. One might like look at you or notice that you're racing off rather quickly but does not register it as any kind of point of concern. At any point have I like gotten myself under control at all or am I still going on instinct?
00:16:27
Speaker
We would need a resolve roll to see if she's able to pull herself together, especially after double ones. Right. She started running, raced and raced and raced and raced, and I think probably somewhere around the edge, when there's actually some air behind her, she might be able to roll and see if she can get a hold of herself. Let's make it resolve an intuition, because intuition will help you know whether or not it's safe to actually stop and catch your breath.
00:16:54
Speaker
Okay, that's a little better. That's a 3 and a 6 for a 16. That is firmly in yes and territory. You squeak to a stop and catch your breath. You have no idea what made your feet betray you and take you off in the other direction. The yes but is, but you do not know if it's going to happen again.
00:17:16
Speaker
or if you would have the same reaction. What you do know is that you are at the edge of the city. You can see the TARDIS to your left and the ships out on the glass plane ahead of you.
00:17:31
Speaker
Maeve just stops to take stock as long as it seems safe. I think she would strongly consider going back, but it's impossible to tell if that's going to be safe. Can I make a check to see if there's anything else to go towards that isn't the Daleks that could be going towards something around? Give us an awareness and intuition roll, plus two for being a companion.
00:17:56
Speaker
Okay, that's average, three and a three for a total of 15. And I'll throw in a story point if I need to. You can look for something I can do. You see that there is another doorway nearby. It does not have scratch marks near it, implying it may not have needed to be repaired at all. That is one way you could go, the ants are leaving it alone. You could go back to the TARDIS, although the TARDIS is currently completely shut down and in sleep mode. Or you could go back out onto the planes. I'm gonna go through the door. I'm gonna see what's inside.
00:18:26
Speaker
You enter a smaller computer room. This is a different part of the terminal. And you find another OSIRON who has simply laid down and waited to starve to death. The computer here is on. You will need an ingenuity and technology role to see if you can access it in any way. And you will be at a disadvantage because this is incredibly advanced.
00:18:54
Speaker
Well, I'm going to give it a shot. I have three story points left and I am willing to spend some to make this thing run. You could spend two to get the computer going or spend one to add a die to your role or add a success level.
00:19:11
Speaker
Can I wait and see what I roll first, or is this like, I have to make it to now? This isn't gambling, it's story gambling. Okay, so it's a nine total, but there's a one on the dice, and I have three story points left. I will spend, will one get me to a yes, or does it take two to get me to a yes? Two would get you to a yes, but...
00:19:31
Speaker
I'll do it. Yes, you are able to access these computers, but you're not entirely sure if it's having an effect somewhere else or how to turn it off again. That's fair. You access this computer and find more logs from a different terminal.
00:19:53
Speaker
The being has accepted an invitation of sorts. It has agreed to commune with us here on the three-dimensional plane. Terraforming is nearly complete. The center will hold. We open a channel for prolonged contact in 14 hours time. Fate, be with us.
00:20:12
Speaker
Meanwhile, on the fusion furnace floor, the Daleks are talking with the Santarans and the Daleks are just arcing and shouting orders.
00:20:30
Speaker
The Suntaran troop leader steps up, stomps, and salutes, General cloned this morning. I have followed the orders in my mind and begun work to scrap the newest addition to the crashed ships outside. We are present to serve the Half-Life congregation in any way that we can, sir.
00:20:52
Speaker
The Daleks start squabbling with each other. The ones in black, one of them is keeping an eye on Calamity, who has just volunteered to be helpful. The other three are staring down their eye stalks at the other four bronze science Daleks. Status of the computer core. We require its processing power if we are to solve the formula. The science Daleks nod their eye stalks and say,
00:21:23
Speaker
and it turns and goes to the computer and tries awkwardly to set one of its plunger appendages onto the computer terminal and it gives a confused
00:21:50
Speaker
One of the other Daleks just shoves right towards the computer and says, unacceptable. We must have power. The science Dalek looks a little frustrated. It's like, I will attempt to make this happen.
00:22:07
Speaker
Calamity. There is a bit of an argument going on between those Daleks and the peeled potato Suntarans are just standing at stock rigid attention at their feet is a very confused first mate scratch.
00:22:24
Speaker
Actually, I did have a quick question. When I was going through the computer system earlier to reroute the power, did the controls for the fusion pits appear in that command
Fixer's Magnetic Field Plan
00:22:34
Speaker
console? Or would it be a different command console? You could probably access the fusion pits from that terminal, especially now that you've seen where they are contributing power to the core.
00:22:45
Speaker
How hard would it be if I ran back over to that system to reverse the magnetic field on the fusion pits to have them burp plasma up instead of drawing that power down? That would be difficult but possible. Auditor, I know right now you're frightened and you're frightened for the best of reasons. I need you to grab calamity and scratch the minute you hear the burp start and get them out of this room. Can you do this?
00:23:11
Speaker
He just nods, white-knuckling the edge of the doorway, but he gives the slightest of nods. Okay, turning and running back towards the computer console in the other room.
00:23:23
Speaker
Did he explain at all though? Because he literally just said, when the burp starts. That's true. That's true. The auditor has a lot of faith in the fixture at this point. It is perfectly reasonable. Calamity makes an excellent point. The auditor's going to need to do an intuition roll, an ingenuity and intuition roll to figure out. Is it okay that when I say the burp, I point at the hole in the ground?
00:23:49
Speaker
Thank you calamity. Thank you calamity. You rock. So yes, the Daleks are barking about processing power and perfecting the formula.
00:24:05
Speaker
You make your way to the computer terminal in the other room. It is going to take you, I'd say, roughly 30 seconds to get there. We have established that the ants are ignoring you but do notice when you get onto the computer.
00:24:19
Speaker
You can see in the main room that the Daleks, at least two Daleks, are already at the computer in the main room. So what you do in the side terminal may or may not be noticed by them. That will be impacted by your role, and they will roll as a result in the meantime. But what Calamity can hear from the furnace room is that they are frustrated with the slow progress of core computer cores activation.
00:24:47
Speaker
It's not the science type. It's one of the other kinds that's guarding me, Cardinal. Yes, one of the black-clad Cardinals. We have Cardinal Daleks. Cardinal Wark. The tank is parked in front of you. The gunstick and the plunger are both aimed at your general direction. Cardinal Wark says,
00:25:10
Speaker
And you arrived on this pirate vessel. Sorry, which pirate vessel? I look around. The crashed ship. Oh yes, I did arrive on the crashed ship. Give us a presence and convince against the nearest suntan. You are trying to beat... Well, he rolled badly for a start, but let's see what it adds up to. It's eight. Presence and convince you are trying to beat an eight. Wow, that went poorly. Oh, sorry. Yes, so I have a 16 with nothing special.
00:25:40
Speaker
Well, that blows him out of the water. The nearest son, Taran, starts to object. Silence, boy! We did not detect you near the vessel! And the one that is like a centimeter taller for the sake of hierarchy looks at him. Whoa! She could have emerged after we retreated from the ship with our update for the masters! And he says, you are correct! And chides himself, fairly.
00:26:10
Speaker
That is a lovely lifestyle. Calamity is addressing the cardinal. So are you trying to make a supreme being or was that just the dead people and you're doing something else? I ask only because I have some experience with people trying to create a supreme being and I could probably offer some advice. The cardinal looks at you and the iris of the eye and the eye stalk tightens with scrutiny. The supreme being.
00:26:50
Speaker
Meanwhile, Maeve in the computer suite, as all this talk about activating the computers is going on, you're just clicking through these logs that you've learned, that you've found.
00:27:05
Speaker
I don't know what we were expecting. Were we too trusting? Yes, Kobe, we will address that. The creature has surprised us. It used our channel as a means of bringing itself into our realm. It has taken up non-caporial residents of sorts in our datastores. With few exceptions, it IS our datastores. All of them.
00:27:37
Speaker
This hostile, aggressive thing has wasted no time in making its demands. In its home, dimension, physical shape is not a concept. Hostac wants a body, something of its own that it can manipulate and control. Its will is terrible.
00:28:00
Speaker
Both sirens are endowed with many gifts. We can imbue other, lesser species with our will, even possess them over great distances, should we require it. It seems this Hothstag has taken our example. As a creature of pure data, it knows everything stored in our drives. It knows what we are capable of.
00:28:30
Speaker
I have seen firsthand what Hostak is capable of, what it wants, what it is willing to do to acquire it. Heavens help me, I am glad that we are insufficient to the task of bearing its will. We dare not leave the planet. Hostak has expanded his consciousness to possess nearly every vessel we have.
00:28:55
Speaker
He cannot be allowed to leave. Hostag would endure, continuing its quest for manifestation. We will deny it this. We have launched a simple rocket, bearing a deadly payload. Once it clears our atmosphere, the vessel will release the canopy. In this, we will cut Hostag off from his primary source of nourishment, the sun's rays. He is still a computer. We will deny him the means to continue.
00:29:23
Speaker
We entwined ourselves, of course. There is no other way. Hostag must not be allowed to leave. The canopy has taken hold. His reserves dwindle as do ours. Let us disappear and fade from the islands of history. It is the cost of denying Hostag his victory. It is worth it.
00:29:52
Speaker
Fixer. Yes. You tiptoe into the side terminal room. You did not notice Maeve going into the other room. The timelines of those did not line up. But you reach the terminal where you can access the information. Okay, so what I specifically want to do, remember how I was rerouting the power to the other systems. I want to make it look to the Daleks.
00:30:15
Speaker
like the power is now being rooted once more to the computer. And a bit of the power will be rooted to the computer to allow that level to slowly rise so they see the level rising.
Fixer Disrupts Dalek Power
00:30:23
Speaker
But the amount that I'm re-diverting instead is going to go to all of the fusion pits, so that instead of containing that fusion reaction inside, it acts as a plasma generator, basically shooting plasma up out of the pits.
00:30:37
Speaker
which should hopefully destroy the command consoles they're working from, either drive the Daleks back or at least divert them from being able to see most of the people in the room do the plasma level. And hopefully I can do all that at the same time. And I'd like to use, if needed, three story points to make it happen because I want to make sure that I do not put calamity in danger.
00:30:57
Speaker
Okay. It's fine. I will show you, for the sake of complete fairness, what three story points can buy you. So, with three story points, this is still fairly expensive for your average character, but it doesn't bend reality too drastically. Excellent.
00:31:12
Speaker
At that vital moment, you work out how to generate the power needed to restart the ship or make the villain's sidekick become sympathetic to your character's cause, allowing them to escape later. I would say that for three story points, you could start a chain reaction or at least start, let's say, there are six fusion furnaces powering the city with the one that is at the end of the street, the biggest and the main one.
00:31:41
Speaker
With those three story points, you have rerouted power. You are making problems for them, which is wonderful. Problems they are going to have to track down, problems they are going to have to solve, and problems they're going to have to deal with before the main computer can access again.
00:32:00
Speaker
They are going to roll once they see that things have changed to try and do their own forensics of what the hell happened. And we'll get to that in just a minute, but you successfully get into the computers and you start moving things around and try and get this burp you're talking about. It's not going to be that simple, but you have managed to reroute things so that the power is going backwards. Things are going to explode sooner or later.
00:32:27
Speaker
The one thing I don't want to do is I do not want to turn it into a fusion bomb. Well, with three story points, you are going to successfully avoid turning it into a fusion bomb. There could still be an explosion of some magnitude that takes the top off this city. It won't destroy the planet Core, thank heavens. But you have lit a fuse, essentially. It is hissing. Cut to.
00:32:49
Speaker
calamity on the main central floor as the half-life congregation are standing and debating what their priority is they're talking about whether or not calamity is equipped to assist them in cracking
00:33:07
Speaker
when there is a shift in the hue of the lights and there is not quite a burp but just that that rut of nausea of indigestion from the fusion furnace below and unfortunately it is enough to get their attention and this is great for calamity because even the Dalek looking at her is suddenly distracted by the computer the loudest one shouts
00:33:36
Speaker
towards the computer and he has a claw so that's fun he inserts a claw into a claw terminal that has been soldered onto the computer platform and is accessing accessing
00:33:53
Speaker
Not rolled badly. So that's a 7 on the dice, no magic numbers. That's a 13 plus science is 17. Same with technology. So the Daleks have a 17. They did not get any magic numbers on the dice, which means their victory is not a victory. They have detected something is wrong and it will take time for them
00:34:14
Speaker
to sort out what has happened. And the nice thing is the Cardinal Daleks turn to the Science Daleks and start shouting.
00:34:35
Speaker
They bark orders to the science Daleks to start investigating and looking into things, and a pair, two science Daleks roll off heading for an elevator operating on a subsystem to check out the catacombs and see if they can get to the bottom of things, leaving six lovely Daleks. Calamity, are you doing anything in this distraction, in this chaos, in this moment where their eye is not on you?
00:35:01
Speaker
Well, yes. Is Scratch still being, like, watched by Centaurans? Or where are they right now? The Centaurans haven't really moved. They've sort of, like, shuffled out of the way when one of the Cardinal Daleks pushed past to make their way to the computer. But right now, they're just waiting for orders. They have been told, get scrap and be helpful, and that is what they are doing.
00:35:24
Speaker
Okay, well, then I'm just gonna, you know, go purposefully to Scratch like I am definitely helping because I am, and then sort of pick Scratch up and say, let's go do that thing and fix that thing in formula, and then try to leave with him. Nice. Just like everything is normal and we should be doing this. I am rolling at disadvantage for the Daleks because they have bigger fish to fry, but they are gonna roll in awareness to see if they caught you talking about the formula. Sure, sure.
00:35:53
Speaker
I mean, that was supposed to help. Well, the good news is, it did. One of the science-style ex-turns.
00:36:11
Speaker
And the centaurans turn and look at Calamity and scratch and say, your labor will be most efficacious by, as he looks at Calamity, with one hand just deadlifts scratched to his feet. He's like, oh, yes, yes, your potato ship, whatever you want.
00:36:33
Speaker
they turn towards the exit at which point at the actual exit the auditor realizes he never actually did anything and steps out of the way to avoid notice do they notice him that's an eight that is an eight on those dice an eight for the auditor or for them that's their looking role let's see his hiding role no he rolled a four that's two twos and the centaurans rolled an eight
00:37:00
Speaker
We're getting the band back together. We're getting the band back together. One of them squints at the doorway. It's like, you creature with hair, step out of those shadows. The auditor raises his hands. You will join us in the laboring pirate. Yes, yes, that's exactly what I am. Nefarious. What she said.
00:37:23
Speaker
Cut to Maeve. You have learned some unsettling things about what is lurking in the computer banks, and you are still at a working terminal. I don't know what anybody else is doing, but I do know that this computer has to die somehow. So can I figure out? There has to be like a middle of this thing, because there's like three of them that I've seen. They've got to be connected somehow, right? So if you find that connection and cut it, then it's gone. That makes sense.
00:37:51
Speaker
So where's the connection? That makes sense. Can I figure that out? So the bad news is the terminal is so large it is part of the wall. You're standing in the connection. This entire city is one gigantic machine and all the terminals and things on it are simply facets where they can access things. You are looking at how this thing is networked, if it's networked, and where you could possibly affect it when there is suddenly a
00:38:20
Speaker
flare on the screen as a swell in power comes up from the Fixers machinations. Two rooms over and you can see just a brief flash on the screen of power getting rerouted and pinged all around the system as you're looking around. Okay, so the only solution is to destroy the city and I can't do that from here.
00:38:44
Speaker
I can't see that from here. This thing has to go down somehow. Is there anything... I feel like the fixer would be the one who could answer this question, but he's not here. So I'm gonna have to go find somebody who knows more than I do.
00:38:58
Speaker
Don't we still have comms? You do still have comms. Before you reach for it though, Maeve has grasped enough of this to realize that the city is bad, the computers are bad, and turning them on is a dreadful idea. The echo down the street of half-life congregation is echoing in your ears and making your blood curdle. You see a file, essentially, on the network of different things that are piled on top of the central processor that is still not running.
00:39:27
Speaker
Okay, I'll open the file. You are able to access Dalek research. They have struggled and failed to get the computers running, and their attempts to get into the main terminal have largely failed so far. Somewhere in the notes, Cardinal Wark curses the Hexad for landing him in this trouble in the first place.
00:39:55
Speaker
Well, that doesn't make any sense. Weird. I close the file. I reach for the comms. You close the file. So I will try and get in touch with the Fixer and be like, Fixer, this is Maeve. I'm in one of the rooms off the main hallway we were in. I think we need to destroy the computer, but I don't know how, do you? Maeve, it is so good to hear your voice. I was a little worried when you ran off.
00:40:20
Speaker
Are you safe? I don't think any of us are safe. At the moment? At this moment, nobody is threatening me. That's good. I've already started rerouting the power systems of the fusion pits, which is one of the ways they've been recharging the city. So that way instead of creating, working as a power source, it's basically just going to work as a plasma ejector, ejecting superheated plasma into the rooms above. Hopefully that'll disable the computer systems that the dollocks are using primarily now to control the city.
00:40:47
Speaker
I purposely did not turn them into fusion bombs because I had hoped that we could recover this. I don't think we can. There's something living in their computer and the whole city is it. It took up residence in their data and then it possessed the Osiran. That's why they all died. Something in this city was able to possess an Osiran? It's whatever they contacted.
00:41:11
Speaker
Oh no, that's terrifying. Anything that powerful, they could take over all of Gallifrey. They could take over the entire universe. We have to destroy this whole computer.
00:41:20
Speaker
fixer you are still in the terminal room where the ants are doing their little repairs and everything at your feet to the terminal and over your shoulder you hear a click as a bulb behind the wall switches on and see this a large round eye is at what looks like five percent power and you
00:41:47
Speaker
You cannot tell if it is awake, you cannot tell if it is even alive yet, but the size of the eye behind you makes the fixer feel very, very small indeed. Calamity, I have a question for you.
00:42:03
Speaker
In your experiences with Woops, when you have reached out and tried to listen to Woops or be influenced by it in any significant way, has there ever been feelings or sensations or temperatures? What does it feel like when you try to commune with Woops?
00:42:21
Speaker
that's the thing is that whoops you know normally operates entirely through just you know stuff happening that you could completely hand wave away if you weren't aware of whoops mm-hmm but if you're paying very close attention it's sort of the mental equivalent of
00:42:37
Speaker
of, you know, staring at one of those stereographic picture things.
Calamity's Mystical Experience
00:42:42
Speaker
And it's suddenly resolving into focus when you just see a bunch of patterny things at once. And you're like, and then it just feels whoopsie. It feels the best way I can put it.
00:42:53
Speaker
Very well, using your own language. Imagine a painting of that kind of the 3D printed images that all look like camouflage until you let your eyes relax and focus on the picture inside. Only the picture is the size of the wall. You're not actually looking at it. It is behind you.
00:43:18
Speaker
and the presence on the other side of that painting is a face the size of the wall that looks like it's having an awful awful angry dream and could wake up at any point unpleasantness
00:43:37
Speaker
Centaurans march calamity and the auditor and scratch down the street, hut hut hut hut, towards the exit to the city proper. Maeve Fixer, you guys are on either side of the street. I think Maeve would be trying to find out, I was trying to find out where the Fixer is so I could go to them.
00:43:58
Speaker
You stick your head out, you see Calamity and that pirate guy and all of the peeled potatoes centaurans here, as well as one of the science Daleks rolling out, keeping tempo with them. They are making their way down.
00:44:12
Speaker
The nice things about the Daleks is they have terrible tunnel vision and no peripheral vision. So since it's not looking to either side of the street, it is not going to notice. I tuck my head back inside and tell the Fixer, Calamity and the Auditor and a guy from the pirate ship are all with the things that we saw in the other room. They're being marched down the street. That's a good thing.
00:44:38
Speaker
If they're being marched down the street, it means the Daleks aren't interested in exterminating them on the spot. Okay, I'm going to try to sneak by behind them. I'm currently in the computer console room that we- when we first arrived in the city. Once they pass, I'm gonna try and tiptoe across the street and see if I can make it to the other side.
00:44:57
Speaker
Give us a coordination rule. I would say you are at disadvantage just because of the ants that are streaming back and forth in your way. It will take a little tiptoeing to get around them. However, you are just largely crossing the street. So let's use coordination and subterfuge to try and tiptoe and avoid notice. Let's say this is a difficulty of 10 to avoid notice from one side of the street to the other. Do I have disadvantage?
00:45:22
Speaker
You know what? They're just ants. They're just ants, and you've already gotten over the momentary terror of seeing Daleks for the first time. Okay, easy. Uh, that's four and a six for a total of sixteen. Outstanding. You crossed the hell out of that street. Yeah, and I skid into the room with the Fixer and, like, slammed the door behind me.
00:45:40
Speaker
Nice. Okay, you guys are in the computer terminal off to the right as Calamity and the auditor are getting frog-marched out of the city proper towards the street, towards the glass plains outside. I want to chat up the science Dalek briefly.
00:45:59
Speaker
Okay. So, I just, I couldn't help but notice that the, um, the Cardinals are, you know, they're kind of short with you and like a little demanding, you know, do they really understand how hard it is to do things? They have the highest obligation, the noblest of purpose! It is our privilege to serve at their behest. Okay, but you just want to use the computer to like,
00:46:27
Speaker
Do really hard maths, right? And you didn't want there to be a god in it? God? Yeah, I think that the, um, the what's-a-names... The O'Sirens.
00:46:40
Speaker
Yes, they, they sort of, they bollocks it up and it's a, it's a, it's a whole, it's a whole acidity thing again. They've got a god in there and I'm pretty sure that if you start it all up, it's not going to do the maths you want. It seems very cranky. So maybe you want to give that another thing?
00:47:01
Speaker
Okay, Calamity, add one story point. Yeah, you keep saying things that you think is gonna like dissuade the bad guy and it turns out to be accidentally helpful. It's wonderful and it pushes the story forward in such beautiful ways. The science Dalek hears you and believes you are telling the truth. It helps that I am. It helps that you are, exactly. But the Dalek actually scoffs.
00:47:49
Speaker
I have set a timer for 10 minutes so that every 10 minutes the Daleks are going to make an attempt to repair or stop or mend some of the Fixer's beautiful damage with three story points.
Science Daleks' Power Struggle
00:48:02
Speaker
So the two science Daleks in the
00:48:05
Speaker
catacombs, rolled snake eyes, so they have actually made things worse. None of the PCs are present in the main furnace room and the Daleks are, you know, they're air conditioned in their little travel machines, but the furnace room has gotten 10 degrees warmer as the power fluctuations get worse.
00:48:24
Speaker
They're gonna get yelled at they are gonna get yelled at calamity the science Dalek Regards you it is really hard to read body language from something that does not actually have a body But the Dalek says yo
00:48:46
Speaker
Great, I like rewards. I could probably help with that core wiping thing, actually, if you could just sort of point me in the right direction. Negative, negative! You have already been assigned a task as have the other science Daleks. We do not disobey. We carry out the orders of the Half-Life congregation. Oh, did they say that you had to do it in a particular order?
00:49:17
Speaker
Which is circuitous thinking, but that's Daleks for ya. Okay, what was the- what was- what were the orders exactly? Excavate? Excavating? Are we digging? Excavate the ship! It points and says Excavate the ship!
00:49:32
Speaker
and a blast slices out of its gunstick and slices along the canopy, this silver reflective canopy. And the beam is so hot and charged, it slices through the material covering this saucer and falls away, revealing a huge bronze Dalek saucer. The beam has cut a slice right through the canopy that is covering
00:50:02
Speaker
the Dalek ship, and the science Dalek says, when power is restored, we will slice through the canopy above and evince our egres. Right. So that's your ship then? Correct. We crashed here chasing time lords. Oh, that happens a lot I guess.
00:50:28
Speaker
Well, some of them are quite vexing. They will see how vexing.
00:50:38
Speaker
Okay, I just want to say because you seem to be not, you were like talking about wiping the core and just doing maths, right, and not religion, but using the word congregation, like, and I feel like that's a cardinal thing, and it's kind of, kind of, religious-y, you know? So are you sure that they really have the best interests of the noble crusade against the Time Lords at heart?
00:51:00
Speaker
The Dalek stops and turns its eyestock to you and takes an inch closer. I get wrong to it. The fall of the Time Lords is our most sacred cause.
00:51:18
Speaker
and it rolls forward to saucer cut to nave and the fixer in the computer terminal with the snake eyes from the science daleks below trying and failing to undo the fixer's sabotage problems have accelerated the power that's getting kicked around and picking up too much heat and sizzling and having to go through a diffractor and come back here and making problems for them somewhere else it's just bug after bug after bug
00:51:47
Speaker
turn to Maeve and say, so what'd you find? A big computer. I found logs, lots of them. The Osiris talking about how this thing that they invited and had invaded their data. And I found a file of research from whatever those things are. They are the most dangerous and deadly threat my people have ever faced. They nearly wiped us all out.
00:52:10
Speaker
I'm sorry. I found whatever they're trying to do, they want in. They're trying to crack the computer. I don't know exactly how. I found all the research in a file. And a note from one of their generals. He was blaming something, Hexle, the Hexad, for getting him here. He blamed them, or it, whatever it is.
00:52:40
Speaker
Casey from the doctoral program, what would the Fixer know about the Hexad? The Hexad are the red squad of the doctoral program. They are the self-appointed elite of the elite. Just as a TARDIS console has six sides and is intended to be piloted by six people, the Hexad took it upon themselves to be the best of the best, have unified their efforts both in their projects and their semester abroad.
00:53:09
Speaker
You have never met the Hexad? They are a year or two either before or behind you in the program. That's time travel for you. It also sounds like running into Daleks could have been more than they could. They might have bitten off more than they could chew. So in other words, it wouldn't make sense to me to call the Hexad to deal with this problem? No. No one has heard from the Hexad in quite some time. So you're saying that the Daleks faced the Hexad in this place? I don't know. Whatever happened with them got the Daleks here.
00:53:39
Speaker
Well, if the Hexad were on this planetoid, there's a good chance they used a TARDIS to get here. Do a quick scan with Sonic to see if we can pick up any residual TARDIS radiation. Give me ingenuity and technology, plus two for the Sonic, and another two for being a Time Lord, and knowing exactly what you're looking for.
00:53:59
Speaker
Okay, I got four and a six on the dice for a total of 21. You are able to use not only your scanner, but also the system awareness of all the subsystems that are running here. You do not detect a TARDIS present here. There is that background radiation of Artron Energy suggesting that there might have been another time traveling ship in addition to the Dalek Saucer because they've cracked time travel too, unfortunately.
00:54:29
Speaker
But if there was another TARDIS present, you are not scanning it now. If only I had hoped we might have some allies waiting on this planet already, but we're gonna have to assume that no one else is on this planet that we need to save other than Calamity and the pirate crew. Speaking of Calamity, Calamity, give us an awareness and intuition roll, please. That is a 13 with nothing special.
00:54:52
Speaker
You do notice some of the ants that have come out to help with scrap work have also gone off in the opposite direction heading for the cannonball. One of the foot soldiers that looks like a peeled potato turns to the science Dalek here and says, sir, do you wish us to assist the ants in the scrap of that vessel? And the Dalek says,
00:55:24
Speaker
and prods the foot soldiers along like and hut hut hut hut yes we should get right on that although why is that ship forbidden so that i can not go there and do anything slaves will not ask questions you will serve right i'm just trying to serve better serve in
00:55:49
Speaker
and it points the gun stick past you at the now half cleared of Canopy Dalek ship. You can see from here ants are marching two by two towards the ship to work on repairs. There have been holes chewed through the floor level where this thing landed and the holes look to be about the same size as the ants
00:56:14
Speaker
who are now patching those same holes with the soldering iron as the Dalek and the peeled centaurans hut hut hut hut into an open hatchway into the saucer proper and heavily implying they want you to go with them. Well I've never been in there before that seems fun.
00:56:32
Speaker
A path of scratch marks in the glass lead directly to the entrance of a crashed saucer covered in the canopy from above, now half revealed to be a Dalek ship. Inside, the power appears to be in rest mode. The hull has suffered damage in the form of something tearing straight through at the height of almost two feet. And from the inside of the saucer now, you can hear the little scratch and pop as the ants solder shut the holes.
00:57:00
Speaker
The Science Dalek commands a handful of the Sontarans
00:57:11
Speaker
And the science Dalek goes to this terminal. It has its back to calamity at the moment as it is trying to activate the ship. Who else is left in here? Right now with the ship on next to no power, this place feels as empty as a haunted house. There is no sign that anyone was here when they came in.
00:57:32
Speaker
The Dalek powers up and applies its... applies its plunger to the console, and around the ship, lights come up to half power.
00:57:46
Speaker
in the room are four Suntarn, four peeled Suntarns, the Science Dalek, and Scratch, and you. Okay. And the Auditor. Still not great with four Suntarns there. Right. But they haven't specifically told us to do any things. We're just sort of standing here, right? The Science Dalek turns to calamity.
00:58:11
Speaker
It turns, it plunges like it's screwing in a light bulb. To the right side of the interior, bolts distend and hiss as a hidden compartment in the wall starts to roll to the side and the actual science lab of the Daleks is inside. As the hatch rolls away, you get a smell that is one of the most unpleasant
00:58:38
Speaker
Chemical decay. Things have been allowed to rot smells. Do you have a cat? Cat. We have no need for cats. It just smells so bad. What? I mean, what? Why? Devastation.
00:58:57
Speaker
lights start to come up in the lab around more test tubes, more computer terminals with Dalek keyboards and a large glass cylinder. The auditor who has tried his damnedest to be as quiet as possible and avoid as much notice as possible when the smell hits his nose and the door slides open, his jaw falls in horror and disgust.
00:59:26
Speaker
Inside is a large glass cylinder. Thankfully, the cylinder is not fully transparent. There is a thick, viscous, amber fluid inside the cylinder, and inside that fluid is something humanoid. Something that used to be humanoid. The science, Dalek, almost sounding proud of itself.
01:00:08
Speaker
Meanwhile, Fixer, Maeve, are you still in the terminal room off to the side of the main hall? Yes, because I had one more thing I wanted to try. I'm not sure if it'll work or not, but it might be worth the risk. Through this console, would we be able to upload new threat parameters to the ants, specifically to give them visual identifiers on the science Daleks and the cardinal Daleks?
01:00:33
Speaker
as threats to the planet. Oh, that's interesting. You want to tell the ant that the Daleks should not be in charge.
01:00:40
Speaker
No, not just not in charge, that they are specifically a threat to the planet, one of the highest threats to this planet. And hopefully, if Bonabel shooting one of them got them into red mode, I'm hoping to drive them all into red mode with this one. Yes, that is certainly possible. The question is, are you going to be able to overwrite the Dalek programming? That is going to be the question. It's going to be ingenuity plus technology. Maeve can certainly assist if she wants. Yes, please.
01:01:09
Speaker
If you can try this, it is going to be, again, a difficulty of, I'd say, 21 to overwrite their already overwritten code. You can use your Sonic if you want. I would love to. And then I roll as well to help. And then I don't have anything in technology, so I roll at disadvantage. Correct. That is unfortunately true. Well, we got a 3 and a 2 under the dice. So we'll be looking at a 16. I got a 3 and a 4 for an 11.
01:01:39
Speaker
So 16 plus 11 is more, but neither of you actually cleared it on your own. I am going to say this is a fairly solid yes, but yes, you are able to access the program that runs the subroutine and you are even able to interrupt the program. But when you do this, it is going to be immediately evident where these new commands came from, like geographically in the city is the downside of that.
01:02:09
Speaker
turn to Maven say when I press this button we're going to have to run what's going to happen if you press that button hopefully the ants will tear the Daleks apart
01:02:21
Speaker
with a nice little Doctor Who techno of the ants go marching two by two, hurrah, hurrah. Across the cityscape, the ants that have been just marching along following their orders stop as they get a new string of commands. And just as we've seen them, when their thorax lights up and they send code, it trails the chain of ants back to the source.
01:02:47
Speaker
So the flashing lights of new code from the ants flash their way to your doorstep. And here's where things get fun. In the streets outside, the ants marching along stop, be deep, be deep, and resume marching.
01:03:03
Speaker
And aboard the dialect ship, the two closest ants that are currently trying to repair the hole that they have apparently torn in the ship blink and their lights change and then their original programming resumes and they go from acetylene to mend to just chomp chomp to rip and tear.
01:03:22
Speaker
and the ants begin tearing their way into the Dalek ship a second time.
Ants Turn Against Daleks
01:03:27
Speaker
The science Dalek who is in the lab takes a second to realize that the sounds outside have changed and turns his eye stone to
01:03:37
Speaker
the outer hull of the ship. Meanwhile, in the furnace room, the ants come marching in and just... They still have the programming of feeding the furnaces. That's one of the things they've always been told to do. But there are these tank things in here. They're not supposed to be here. And they come in, the ones that have stuff to drop in, come in, drop it, and then... Beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep, beep.
01:04:05
Speaker
and flash red and then double red and turn on the Daleks. You can hear even from in the terminal room, you hear Dalek gunfire start to go off and the hiss and pop of bursting amps as Daleks who are used to shouting
01:04:34
Speaker
I believe this is the time that you and may have wanted to run? Yes, please. Inside the main room of the diffusion furnace and the giant screen, we have ants marching two by two and trying their best, trying their damnedest to attack the Daleks. Not just the quartet, the congregation, the half-life congregation, but we also have ants trumping off towards the elevator and towards the stairs.
01:05:01
Speaker
because they have sensors at least, so they know where intruders that aren't supposed to be here are. As far as I understand, you haven't done anything to alert them to the Suntarans, just the Daleks, correct? Yeah, just to confirm, from a doctoral program standpoint, the Suntarans aren't a kill-onsite species where the Dalek, if they're threatening someone, they need to be removed from the situation.
01:05:24
Speaker
Indeed. There are some freshly minted peeled potatoes and tarrins crawl out of some storage vats, a floor or two below the main floor, heads full of programming and looking around and like, do you hear screaming already? I hear screams! Let us pursue the screams!
01:05:43
Speaker
and they get out of their tanks, shake off, and trump, trump, trump, trump, trump off to see what the noise is about. As ants, they had the element of surprise just long enough to like start scratching and trying to actually make damage into the Cardinal Dalek suits before they opened fire. The Cardinals are not messing around. Fixer,
01:06:10
Speaker
Maeve, are you shart- are you running towards the TARDIS? Are you running towards the saucer? Where are you headed now that you're leaving the- now that you're running? We need to get to the TARDIS, right? Absolutely. It's gonna take a little bit to get her back up and powered. Hopefully we'll get there in time.
01:06:24
Speaker
you race out of the side room as the ants ignore you completely and just go about repairing the systems that they're trying to repair as behind you you hear more Dalek fire of pew pew pew pew.
01:06:41
Speaker
they are blasting these ants who just keep coming until there is a small hill of broken smoking torn to pieces blasted to bits broken dead robot ants at the mouth of the doorway on the saucer calamity uh ants are now tearing into the ship and attacking that dialect guy holy crap nice um so uh i'm gonna say to the auditor
01:07:11
Speaker
Grab stratch and get to the, get to the TARDIS. And then I'm gonna run into the science lab. I guess sort of holding my breath vaguely. Calamity, take yet another story point because you just shouted the magic word, get them to the TARDIS. That is one of the least favorite words of a science Dalek. And it turns from the lab as it is attacking these ants that are trying to break in and says,
01:07:46
Speaker
and its light bulbs flash extra bright and angrily in your direction as it scours the floor with its beam. Exterminate! Exterminate! As the ants are blasted into smithereens and it rolls in your direction. You arrived on a
01:08:05
Speaker
So, Calamity's hardcore ignoring the Dalek. Like, she's aware that this is gonna rapidly become a problem if the ants don't, you know, take a level in badass. But what she's looking for in the lab, because she's hoping that the, because the Dalek's are like, you know, doing all the computer stuff, that they are networked with the systems in the city. Like... They're trying to be.
01:08:33
Speaker
But yeah, like she's specifically looking for a thing that she has tried very hard not to think about for as literally as long as she can remember, which is to say a neural interface of some kind. What, pray tell, does Calamity want with a neural interface?
01:08:51
Speaker
well, because she's aware that this whole thing with the sirens has definitely gone south in a lucidity, miraculous way, and really the only thing that she can think to do, because it's here, in the world, and that's not supposed to be how gods work, is to hook her brain up to it and invite whoops to the party.
01:09:18
Speaker
I currently have eight story points. I am gonna put a cap on the number you can spend at once. You can spend five to successfully hook yourself up to the neural interface under duress and reach out to whoops. Here is what happens and I will let you take it from there because these are your story points you're spending.
01:09:39
Speaker
I rolled the Science Dalek's dice to see if he could multitask between getting an answer out of calamity about getting here on a TARDIS or dealing with the ants and the ants win. So the Science Dalek, well, has let you slip completely as it aims and fires at the ants scouring the floor. Its attention is fully gathered by that, and the ants punch another hole through the floor and sicken.
01:10:09
Speaker
And the thing is, they don't run. They just march closer with their little pinchers going tik tik tik tik. Calamity! This is going to monopolize your attention as soon as you put the thing on. So let's paint a picture of what you find in the lab.
01:10:25
Speaker
You see a giant glass cylinder that is semi-opaque and something that looked like it died and a great deal of pain is behind that glass. Nearby is a headset for a creature with a head that the Daleks cannot use.
01:10:44
Speaker
You grab it, plot it on your head, just boom, put it on there, and go to the controls. Whoops, has been whispering in your ear this entire time that you calamity.
01:10:59
Speaker
will make it out. You calamity will be okay." But it's like trying to tune into one person's voice through a din that is filled with hate speech from creatures that want you to die for no reason other than having two legs, two arms, and two eyes. And that hate speech has behind it another
01:11:25
Speaker
being that your human mortal senses take for a god since it's a fifth dimensional being. You reach out into and try to find the silence and hook on to whoops with this thing you have just pumped on your head. What are you trying to get whoops to do? What do you expect or hope from whoops? So this is basically what is going through Calamity's head.
01:11:54
Speaker
okay i'm really sorry but there's a god here and it's pretty terrible um a lot like last time only worse and uh on the upside it's made of i think it's made of computer so you know things go wrong with computers an awful lot so if you could just sort of
01:12:12
Speaker
aim a bunch of interestingness at the computer, like through this thing that's in my brain, that'd be great. I understand that my brain is squishy and things may not go well in that department, but that's fine, honestly, I've dealt with worse, so just, you know, that's pretty much what I'm looking at, so right. Anytime is convenient for you. Calamity. Evens or odds?
01:12:38
Speaker
Odds always. We are rolling to see if communing with your god through a Dalek machine that was designed to pry information out of someone else's head. No, not the mind probe! Will have a negative or a positive effect because you actually reached out to whoops. You chose odds. That is a nine. Calamity.
01:13:06
Speaker
You experience clarity you have not had since you were attacked back on your home planet. Back when everyone was impacted by the religious zealots that tried to eat your ability to think, concentrate, and focus on anything more than just a fleeting moment. The room around you vanishes.
01:13:36
Speaker
and you are sitting back in that kitchen with Mother Maxident, and she's got something in her lap. It's a box, and she says to you, I saw this in the lost and found. I want you to have it. You take the lid off the box, and inside is your happy chance ball. Well, thank you. She reaches in, picks it up.
01:14:03
Speaker
you pick up the happy chance ball and it comes up nines. And the blur around you vanishes and you can hear the alarms going off and the chewing of ants and you are back on the Dalek ship.
01:14:19
Speaker
and you have regained your full mental capacities. You can think with a clear head again. You can remember things. You can recognize when you are in danger versus, oh, this is a show. Or like, oh, this is the flash mob. The full extent of calamities, ingenuity, and awareness, the blocks have been taken off of them because of this religious experience of yours.
01:14:46
Speaker
cut to. These screens inside the fiery furnace, the fusion furnace room, as the cardinal Daleks are firing at these ants as behind them pixels pop and burn out on the screen to suggest that whole subsystems are shorting out.
01:15:11
Speaker
I personally am a huge fan of maybe magic, maybe mundane. There is no way to prove whether this is the result of the Fixer's previous sabotage, or the Dalek's failure to fix it, or Whoops's intervention, because there has definitely been an intervention. As the Cardinal Dalek's turn in frustration, and one of them gets a massive
01:15:47
Speaker
The Cardinal Daleks tremble with outrage and they turn towards the street. They turn towards the exit. The burps have gotten louder. There are burps from below as systems that are meant to regulate temperature and the flow of power in a safe direction have failed. Somewhere below we hear a boom and a
01:16:14
Speaker
as a science Dalek trying desperately to repair things overheats and explodes. Next to him, another concerned Dalek reports,
01:16:33
Speaker
The Cardinals push their way en masse out of the main entrance and are slowly but surely plowing their way down the street. Fixer, Maeve, you race into the TARDIS.
TARDIS Awakens and Powers Up
01:16:48
Speaker
Everything is still off. I think Maeve would like to try something. It might not work.
01:16:55
Speaker
do it. Calamity has had a very emotional relationship with the TARDIS and all of Mae's relationship with the TARDIS has been technological and like trying to learn it and understand it, but I think she's gonna try to do what Calamity would do. So she walks to the console and puts both hands on it and just says, we are really scared and we really need your help. Could you please start up just a little bit faster? Okay, maybe a lot a bit faster. It's Calamity. We think she's in trouble and we need to get there.
01:17:25
Speaker
I know you like her better than me. Can we please just start? Presence and convince. Plus two for being a companion. That's a six and a two for a 16. You put both hands on the TARDIS console, and it is cold. Like, it might be chilly, actually, and you'd swear there's just the slightest tremor of fear in this thing until you say the words, calamity's in danger.
01:17:54
Speaker
and the lights flow and spring up. Fixer, that is the cloister bell. Good news is the TARDIS is awake and powering up. The bad news is it knows disaster is about to unfold in God knows how many colors and flavors. Maeve has successfully woken the ship. Maeve, add one story point. Bravo. Maeve, you endlessly impressed me. Thank you.
01:18:23
Speaker
Grab hold of the controls and pilot us towards the outside of the city, hopefully scanning for Calamity. This is going to be, again, difficulty of 18. You and Maeve. Maeve is neither at advantage nor disadvantage on this one occasion because you said you think the TARDIS likes Calamity better. Please, both of you, give me a piloting check. This is going to be coordination and transportation, plus two for Time Lord, and we'll throw in another two for Companion, so a plus two for both of you.
01:18:53
Speaker
I'm on a roll, that's a 4 and a 6 for a 17. Again, neither of you have cleared it, but together you're gonna get there with a yes but.
01:19:08
Speaker
So what we were about to do was roll to see if the Cardinal Daleks rolling down the street could successfully scan for your TARDIS. They don't have to do that anymore because you have just taken off, swung over over the lip of the wall and trying to land
01:19:27
Speaker
back on the far side, at which point the ship is still making that noise, even though it hasn't disappeared. The four of them shout to the rafters, TARDIS! THERE IS A TARDIS! And as one, they rise off of the ground to engage in pursuit of the TARDIS, and are going to fly to chase after you.
01:19:53
Speaker
And they're doing okay. They rolled a six. So the average is average, to ever average. And they are just uniformly getting up and following after you guys. Meanwhile, calamity. The alarms are going off, but your head has not been this clear in years.
01:20:12
Speaker
Yes. Calamity is reassessing a great many of her life choices, but she does not really have time for that right now, so she's just trying to push it down for a sec. Start to leave. Did the auditor, in fact, go with Scratch? Or are they still in here?
01:20:31
Speaker
So Scratch is kind of a lodestone. He is not helping at all. He's still just constantly looking around like, what's going on? And the auditor is trying to pull him out of the door. The science Dalek in this room is currently half torn open with ants crawling over it and ripping little bumps off of its casing. And you can just
01:20:53
Speaker
make out inside of this machine something dark and green and tentacled and basically made of pure hatred. The auditor resists the urge to vomit and spooks it out the door, dragging Scratch with him. Uh, then yeah, I'll go ahead and join in on that. Did we know there were tentacle monsters in the robots? What? They're not robots! They're just travel machines! People need to tell me more things!
01:21:23
Speaker
We'll be happy to see her later when we're out of range! And he reaches in, a hand reaches into the shot, grabs Calamity by the collar, and pulls!
01:21:32
Speaker
As the Science Dalek fires blind Fixer, you are flying the Tardis with Maeve. You are being pursued by Dalek's who are going to open fire on your ship. Give us a piloting role, the two of you. Again, we're trying to safely land. Would it be okay if I used the thing I was studying earlier about using the Tardis' technology to replicate the Scepter's ability?
01:22:01
Speaker
to create an increase in friction on the side of one of the Daleks to force it against its will to turn. So as it comes forward, change the friction on one side to turn it. So it's shooting as it turns to try to turn it so it shoots at its compatriots.
01:22:16
Speaker
That is going to be fairly difficult for a couple of reasons. Number one, you are trying to fly right now. Number two, we said earlier that the TARDIS will take some time to weaponize this. But that was more towards the rift stuff that we were talking about. So yeah, I would say at disadvantage because you're splitting your focus, you can try and use the TARDIS subroutines to create a wall of friction that might throw one of the Daleks off course.
01:22:45
Speaker
and add a story point for original thinking. Maeve, feel free to contribute. You could just leave the flying to Maeve because, frankly, the Fixer has been kind of... That's actually a really good idea. I got another six on the dice for a total of 16. Yeah, it is another rough landing. This is not bad for Maeve at all. Clearly, I need to invoke calamity being in danger more often.
01:23:12
Speaker
Absolutely. So, Fixer, what did you get with your role? Let's say this is ingenuity, technology, plus two for Time Ward. You are trying to hit moving targets, so let us know what you get and we'll figure out what they need to do to dodge. Nothing special on the dice, but a total of 22. A total of 22? Not bad. Not bad at all, sir. So, the quartet of Cardinal Daleks
01:23:40
Speaker
rolled an eight with a six on the dice and with their coordination for flying that is a 10.
01:23:48
Speaker
Yeah, they are in attack maneuvers, although this technique is in conflict. They are flying, though, so we're going to use transport. That adds another four. The Daleks are flying fast and angry and trying their damnedest to fire at you. So here's what happens. The Daleks are many things, but fancy flyers, they are not. They're basically in hovering tanks.
01:24:10
Speaker
A foursome are flying directly over the wall and firing after the TARDIS, shouting at the top of their lungs,
01:24:22
Speaker
Fixer, fighting panic, fighting triggering PTSD. This TARDIS has never been fired on before, but you can hear the reports of like blaster fire, gunstick fire, like getting very close when you hear the most wonderful sound.
01:24:42
Speaker
of metal grinding against metal in ways it was never meant to grind. So when four moving objects and the leftmost object hits a wall of friction that shaves off several bumps on its leftmost side and it pinwheels and crashes into the other three cardinal Daleks, they and Karine
01:25:12
Speaker
and do a controlled descent as they try and correct. But the Dalek bumps, which as we've seen on the show, contain explosives because this is also how a Dalek chooses to self-destruct, but so once an explosion shears the air pushing the four Dalek's even worse. The explosion blossoms and encompasses them all.
01:25:39
Speaker
Calamity, you and the auditor and Scratch are racing for your lives as the ants continue around you to chew up the ship and try to eat their way in. They don't know there aren't any more Daleks in there. That's an enemy ship they found. And you can hear shouts from inside the ship of the peeled Sontarans because the ship is now under attack. As you race, you get out and see
01:26:08
Speaker
your beloved clock shop, your beloved clock repair shop, fly over the wall and come in for an extremely rough landing before behind it. Four black clad Daleks, one of them almost explodes and pushes the other three to the ground.
01:26:26
Speaker
Good. If there's nothing of immediate danger between us and the TARDIS, that is the direction we are running. So the TARDIS, we can't say lands because you only got a 16 when the call was calling for an 18. The TARDIS stops.
01:26:40
Speaker
roughly about here, where the mouse is on the map. And the crashed Daleks land in a crumpled pile there. Lemony, Scratch, and the auditor clear the Daleks saucer in time to see the four Daleks careen and crash into the ground in front of them.
01:27:02
Speaker
Beyond you guys, the city lights are popping and snapping and going out one at a time as the hellish ringing the peel has gotten lower and louder and sounds broken. Scratch stops on his feet at the explosion and woo hoo!
01:27:23
Speaker
falls back as from the burning wreckage and the ruined solar panel cobblestones and the smoke and the fire emerge three hellishly barely intact and curious Cardinal Daleks.
01:27:42
Speaker
None of these guys look fully functional. The three remaining Cardinal Daleks are smoke damaged, they've been hit by an explosion, but the blue lights of their eyestalks are still on and one shouts and fires off
01:28:04
Speaker
randomly rolled a five. We are going to see if Scratch and the auditor can duck out of the way. That's more than enough, I think. The Dalek cries.
01:28:21
Speaker
The auditor leaps and pushes Scratch to the ground, and Calamity, the charge of the gunstick, cooks the air in front of you. Like, if you've ever seen in a story, like someone like, misses a bullet by just millimeters of, you see the blast.
01:28:43
Speaker
go right through where Scratch was a second ago and whizzes right over your shoulder and off into the sky. And the three remaining Cardinal Daleks turn and start advancing on the TARDIS as you are racing toward it. So we have the TARDIS here.
01:29:04
Speaker
pissed off Cardinals here and calamity about here. So they have a line of fire to us as we are racing to the TARDIS to try and get out of here. Please give us a strength roll to run for your life. The terrain is smooth, except for, you know, the explosions and everything going off. So running across a flat surface at top speed is only going to be a difficulty of, let's say, eight. So give us a strength roll and survival, please, as you race for your life.
01:29:35
Speaker
Is it possible for me to do something slightly different than run for my life? Please. OK. Well, she's yelling to the auditor, help him up, keep going. And then she's going to attempt to basically overload her cattle prod so she can throw it at them like an electrical grenade. I love it. Because she doesn't like their chances a whole lot with three of them shooting at them. But they seem already a lot damaged. So maybe this is a shot, right? Maybe. That's the plan.
01:30:04
Speaker
Give us a coordination and conflict roll since you are trying to hit someone with a hurled object that is not heavy but electrical. Okay. They are slow moving. Okay, you are trying to beat a 13. Doing coordination and conflict, that is pretty unlikely. So yeah, so that's a two and a one for a five. I do still have three story points left.
01:30:29
Speaker
Can I throw open the doors and give Calamity a story point? By throwing open the doors to the partisan? Can I give Calamity both story points? I'd say you can give Calamity one in this instance. One is all that's really needed anyway. I was kind of hoping for ingenuity and technology there, but it's fine.
01:30:55
Speaker
So with Maeve's assistance and your, are you, I'm sorry, Calamity, are you spending a story point of your own as well? I will spend as many as is necessary, yes. Okay. So you shuck this thing and it careens through the air, just pin willing along and Maeve shouts, you can do it! Certain pitches have been called a miracle.
01:31:20
Speaker
calamity, having communed with your deity and having acquired some clarity of your own, you fling the electro prod and it pinwheels through the sky towards the trio now.
01:31:40
Speaker
of busted Cardinal Daleks. One of them has already ruptures and tears in its casing where it was damaged in the blast. And miracle of miracles with two story points from one from you and one from Maeve. The cattle prod lands and...
01:32:00
Speaker
lands in the crack of the Dalek casing while the prod is active. There is a spark and a sizzle and a garbled... As something inside the torn and ruptured casing goes dead and the light bulbs, the bulbs atop the dome spark and pop.
01:32:26
Speaker
You have just killed your first Dalek. Add two story points. Magnificent. That is your attack in this round. The other two Daleks are going to fire, shouting at the top of their garbled gelatinous lungs, exterminate, exterminate. That is a seven. Are they shooting at me or at Fixer in the in Scratch? Or they are shooting at the auditor in Scratch.
01:32:51
Speaker
They are shooting at you, they are shooting at Auditor and Scratch in general, like just trying to hit one of you as you guys are moving. Can you give us a Coordination and Survival roll as you are cheesing it? I sure can. Not as bad. It's not fabulous. So yeah, I have an eight with nothing special. The Dalek rolled a seven with Coordination since he's aiming and Conflict switches three. Yeah, that is a hit.
01:33:20
Speaker
Yeah, I'm fine to story point that into yes-but territory. Absolutely. I just need to roll for Scratch and the Auditor. Scratch did surprisingly well for a worried little pirate.
01:33:35
Speaker
The auditor got a six on those dice. That's a nine. Calamity. Spending one of the story points that you have just gotten is enough to take a lethal blast to a devastating graze. And that heat that singed the air in front of you and like there was some morbid curiosity of like what on earth would it feel like to be touched by something that full of hate?
01:34:04
Speaker
And unfortunately, now you know. You are racing towards the TARDIS when you get a glancing blow from one of the gunsticks. And it just grazes your back. And it is enough for your shoulder blades inside of you to glow.
TARDIS Shields and Dalek Peril
01:34:23
Speaker
And you fall to your knees at the doors to...
01:34:28
Speaker
the TARDIS. The auditor grabs you, picks you up, tries to help you in. You are still conscious, which is amazing. Conscious after getting hit by a Dalek. Gunstick is positive. The other two fire at the TARDIS itself
01:34:47
Speaker
and they hit. They roll the 10, that's double fives, and the TARDIS is still stationary here. Fortunately, the force fields were not affected by the scanners, and this thing has been terrified, so naturally its force fields are up. The auditor turns as he's helping Calamity up and sees down the barrel of a gun stick that fires, and the blast stops by the TARDIS's shields inches from his face.
01:35:16
Speaker
He looks wide as a sheet and carries Calamity in and Scratch looks around and wonders what the hell you're all going to do in a tiny, tiny, tiny clock repair shop. Fixer, Maeve. The TARDIS alarms ring. The cloister bells are still going off, but you hear that sweet, sweet squeak as the inner doors open and the auditor races in with Calamity in his arms and calls us back.
01:35:44
Speaker
I'm not sure I understand what the cloister bells are. Are they part of the TARDIS or are they something in the city? The cloister bell is the TARDIS' alert for things are disastrously bad. We either
Escape and Reflection
01:35:57
Speaker
need to stop it or get the hell out of here. And since stopping it is not currently an option, the TARDIS very much wants to leave.
01:36:04
Speaker
Maeve is done flying the TARDIS. I don't think that she thinks this thing will listen to her anymore today. So she's going to go over and grab Calamity and try to get her settled somewhere in the TARDIS.
01:36:16
Speaker
Calamity, you have taken four points of damage from the blast of the Dalek, the Cardinal Dalek. You have a burn mark, you have a new scar on your shoulder blade where the blast grazed you. But with the TARDIS's medical facilities, they will be able to help you. You have not been fatally hit. Time to take off.
01:36:45
Speaker
And I do mean in the more traditional sense, we're getting the hell off this planet. Lo and behold, the scanners snap on. It has been a sufficient amount of time for them to self-repair. And on the view screen, behind the Daleks, wreathed in flame, you can see their ship collapse under the structural damage caused by the ants. The Daleks look to each other and shout something.
01:37:12
Speaker
can I get an awareness roll from you please as you're trying as you're at the console
01:37:18
Speaker
and ready to fly the hell out of here. Six and a two in the days for a total of 11. Do you want to spend a story point? Yes. Despite the din of the cloister bell going off and the alarms from just the TARDIS being hit by Dalek fire, which is something you never wanted to experience, you can just make out the last two Cardinal Dalek's shout. Saucer compromised! Egress impossible!
01:37:47
Speaker
emergency temporal shift emergency temporal shift! And the two remaining Cardinal Daleks vanish in matching pillars of light that collapse. They leave behind a pair of wrecked Cardinal Dalek casings, one that was destroyed in the explosion courtesy of your fricative software and one from the
01:38:16
Speaker
One in a million pitch from calamity and the cattle prod made a cattle prod rest in peace. Fixer, give us that piloting role. This is going to be ingenuity and transport. Well, I was only going to pilot away if the Daleks were still here shooting at us. If they've just disappeared and teleported away, then before we leave, I would like to run some scans on the planet and make sure that the computer system is not coming online and not allowing this entity access to the planet.
01:38:45
Speaker
What you're able to tell with the scanners back on, the damage to the city computer is systemic. It will burn out the central core in a matter of hours. The hulk of the planet will remain intact because you made a point of making sure that it wouldn't end in a earth-shattering kaboom. The main computer core is going to be destroyed in a matter of hours.
01:39:10
Speaker
Okay, make sure to jot down the exact coordinates of where this planet is and the direction it appears to be rotating in. So that way we can tell the doctoral program exactly where to find it and I guess we're gonna take off. Okay, give us that piloting check please. Look over at Maeve and say, you sure you want to do this one? I really think you're a better pilot than I am. I could try. Okay, I got a three and a three on the dice for a total of 11.
01:39:36
Speaker
That is the average-est average to ever average. Maeve, would you like to help him with the piloting? Sure. Because that's a terrible roll. The dice tell a story. That would be a five and a one for a total of 13. Calamity is out of danger. The TARDIS and I are no longer friends.
01:39:59
Speaker
Maeve is, you know, assisting on the thing. He's like, you know what? I think I'm finally getting the hang of this. Ow! As you poke a button and it sparks. You get a paper cut from one of the Post-its. It's not your best day flying the TARDIS. As the city slowly erupts in flame behind you as piece after piece starts to overheat, the clock shop fades away into nothingness.
01:40:29
Speaker
You materialize back in empty space, probably about two miles directly up. Below you on the scanners, you can see the tear slowly mending like a mouth pressing shut as the glimpse you have of the doomed city behind the wall of reflective surface vanishes.
01:40:53
Speaker
You did collect the coordinates of where you are and you have the rough estimate of the distance to the sun and this thing's orbit and so forth. The planet itself has successfully hidden itself again. Thank you. So, how was your day?
01:41:12
Speaker
It was... not my best? How about you? Oh, I mean... well, I have to... I have to apologize for a lot of things. Sorry.
Concerns and Humorous Relief
01:41:26
Speaker
But I'll work on that. I'll have to make a list.
01:41:31
Speaker
What have you got to apologize for?
01:42:00
Speaker
But right, that is not something that I would think likely to work now with my brain actually working. But it's fine, it's fine, because whoops, is looking out for us to have good experiences and bad experiences and interesting experiences and great. Also, I definitely thought that those were just robots and there's tentacle monsters in them. I really need to read a lot more.
01:42:27
Speaker
of the ship's, you know, information systems because... The auditor achingly winces over and hands you a cup of tea and says, I saw you plugged into that machine. I didn't dare take you out of it. I'm genuinely relieved that you came out the far side.
01:42:49
Speaker
Me too. Me too. It was, in retrospect, unlikely. But everything worked out, right? I think? Mostly? Was it all right? Them? The light thing? Was that a good thing or a bad thing? Light thing? Calamity. She's talking about the, like, when they did the emergency temporal thing. I assume that was visible, even if we weren't hearing the thing the fixer heard. True. Well, I'll reply to that thing. Good things and bad things. Good thing, we escaped the Daleks.
01:43:18
Speaker
That's an incredible success. Bad things. At least two members of the Half-Life congregation have escaped the planet. They may be a problem for us in the future. I mean, do you think they'd go looking for us? From everything I saw on the computer, they seem no worried about that. What were they called again? The Hexad. The Hexad? Students.
01:43:39
Speaker
The auditor pulls out their Sonic compass, plugs it directly into the TARDIS console and says, I didn't dare interfere with what Calamity was doing, but I couldn't resist reconnaissance. I had to know what they were working on. And the information from his Sonic goes to the data screen on the TARDIS display and shows you exactly what the
01:44:07
Speaker
Half-Life congregation have been working on. Splayed across the screen is the image of the glass case containing the obscured view of something that used to be humanoid in a rictus of complete agony. And down spiraling like a broken set of stairs next to it are a DNA strand that has been rent
01:44:33
Speaker
asunder by strange energies. From everything you're able to see on the screen, it looks like the focus of the Half-Life congregation is figuring out a way to sabotage regeneration. Auditor, we have to make Gallifrey aware of this. This is one of the biggest threats we've faced. If they had Daleks capable of a temporal shift, that is not something that is standard issue for Daleks. They would have to be quite
01:45:02
Speaker
high in the hierarchy, perhaps on par with the Cult of Skaro. You send off a warning to Gallifrey alerting them to the Half-Life congregation and what they appear to be working on after the dust has settled. And like everyone's alive, everyone's still got the same amount of parts, calamity's in better shape than ever, brava. Scratch is at the espresso mat trying to pry it out of the fixture on the table.
01:45:32
Speaker
uh that doesn't that doesn't come out you just poke the buttons did you want did you want to drink sorry pirate's gonna pirate i guess oh i mean we'll have a bunch of stuff in my quarters you can steal if you'd like i mean don't go into my quarters and steal a bunch of stuff
01:45:49
Speaker
Before he leaves to go ransack in Calamity's room, walk over to him, pull out the pocket watch from earlier, hand it to him and say, you have a lot of choices ahead of you in your life. This may be a career you want to retire from unless you want to end up like Captain J's.
01:46:05
Speaker
He takes the pocket watch, looks at his fist, and swallows and just like knobs. Maeve, you have been through the emotional wringer today and have heard Dalek fire, have seen your friend almost die, and have escaped a
01:46:29
Speaker
environment that was filled over twice with complete and utter dread. What is Maeve feeling in the aftermath of that
01:46:39
Speaker
I think mostly confusion, like it's normal to be scared of the things we find on our adventures and misadventures, but this was a fear that ran deeper and was more difficult to handle than most of the ones that we found.
01:46:59
Speaker
Do I have access to any kind of computer or anything like that? Like in my room? Maeve would just start typing in things about the Daleks and trying to find more information, continuing to pursue this idea that hasn't worked in the past, but that she's convinced that if you can know everything about something, you no longer have to be frightened of it.
01:47:26
Speaker
Maeve stares at a captured image from the scanner of the two remaining congregant Daleks, wreathed in flame and the wreckage behind them.
01:48:00
Speaker
Ladies
Character Development and Reflections
01:48:01
Speaker
and gentlemen and other non-binary people like yours truly, thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you for playing with us today, Mother of God.
01:48:15
Speaker
Graveyard of the Gods is by far one of the most challenging mods I've created, let alone run, for multiple parties. I would absolutely be delighted to hand out some
01:48:32
Speaker
Wonderful, satisfying, and so crisp experience points. Calamity, for your religious experience with whoops. Changing the course of events as only calamity can. Please take two experience points for today's adventure. How is calamity handling clarity?
01:48:55
Speaker
I mean, it's an adjustment, obviously. She's like she's going to she's going to be processing that for a while, but now she has the capacity to process things. That's a plus. Yes. For like, I don't I don't think it was obvious, like, because I was definitely I was doing it in the roller, but like it's hard. Things aren't labeled, so it's hard to see. But like calamity's ingenuity on her sheet is five.
01:49:20
Speaker
But I had been voluntarily rolling it as two for most of the campaign. That makes a lot of sense. Because she got her brain sucked out by lucidity in the divergent universe and only kind of got it back. Like only occasionally would it like spark up to the surface, right? So she'll be more helpful now. Maybe slightly less daft and I mean, only slightly less
01:49:51
Speaker
Suicidal reckless, but at least she'll have better plans about it now. But yeah, no, she has had a lot dumped on her all at once of clarity in multiple different ways.
01:50:07
Speaker
uh so yeah especially because so i always thought it was odd that like there were two big bands in the dr hugh universe that were like you know that were like robots because there were like the cybermen i'd heard that name and then there were the deluxe which are clearly robots except they're not i had no idea literally until this moment
01:50:27
Speaker
Which, that is a delightful experience. Lots of people think the Dalek's are robots. Even in the Batman Lego movie, they are called robots. They are referred to as robots as a jab because you can assume they're robots. But no, they actually contain a mutant collid, a Dalek that has been bred for the specific purposes of annihilation of all things that are not a Dalek.
01:50:54
Speaker
I am a classicist when it comes to the actual Dalek form. In classic who, when they were visible at all, they were green gelatinous jellyfish things with tendrils that could kill a person if they were foolish enough to get close. And these have been replaced with later breeds of later strains of Dalek that were created by Davros, that were, you know, bred by the Dalek Emperor, so that in Nuhu they're more
01:51:21
Speaker
pink and have like an exposed brain kind of mold and a single eye. They kind of look like a big melted brain. That's what I thought they were when I first saw them. Okay. Certain Daleks are still very much old school and the the the dark green just made of hate kind of thing. So yeah, congratulations on learning that Daleks aren't robots.
Dalek Tension and Player Appreciation
01:51:45
Speaker
That's a that's a genuine who experience.
01:51:49
Speaker
Yes, yes, this whole thing was delightful. Yeah, this was a fun module. I'm so glad. I'm so glad. Kate, Maeve has been through just all sorts of torment today, emotional and otherwise. And we've kind of already covered like the emotional whiplash from that in the actual beat of the finale. But I wanted to say, please take two experience points for part two.
01:52:16
Speaker
of Graveyard of the Gods for dealing with that fear and that terror and the fact that it overtook you and running with it. Yeah, it did actually run. But yeah, I love that we're dealing with not just, you know, oh, they've got silly voices and if, you know, it could zap you if it manages to shake hands with you or something too, these things hate you. They are smart, they are driven, they are purposeful, and they will kill you as soon as they can. These are also part of Doctor Who.
01:52:46
Speaker
I think anytime Daleks show up, the tension of the show just ratchets up by three or four notches. I don't think I've ever seen an episode with Daleks in it where it wasn't incredibly tense. The fewer, the better. The conversation, the conservation of ninjitsu. The fewer Daleks you have to worry about, the worse things are going to be.
01:53:10
Speaker
Yeah, with two of them having escaped, I'm honestly, I'm horrified. So scared. I love that. I absolutely love that. I have wanted to shout emergency temporal shift for so long.
01:53:23
Speaker
This is the Fixer's first tangle with Daleks since the Time War, and you didn't even see one face to face. You managed to avoid direct personal talking to each other contact with the Daleks. How did that feel for the Fixer?
01:53:42
Speaker
Honestly, it felt really good to think of this is a threat that's so severe, so dangerous, and I care so much about my team that I'm not going to directly confront them because I know if I f*** that up, they will die. And so the idea of what can we do to avoid direct interaction with them while defeating them was at the front of my mind for the majority of the second session.
01:54:05
Speaker
Well, you did beautifully. I love them. I want to give each of you a nod here for your role play. Beyond just whatever these little lovely plastic cubes have to tell us about the outcomes of things, when you express fear and trepidation and avoidance of these walking tin cans with bumps and laser guns, it makes it feel that much more real. It makes it feel that much
01:54:30
Speaker
It gives it that much more gravity. And I wanted to say thank you for giving the Daleks that kind of gravity. I really appreciate that as a GM.
01:54:41
Speaker
Oh, well, it is my pleasure to do so. I mean, as you said earlier, these are creatures who have created their own personal tints and they literally just spend their entire life inside a weapon of war traveling through the universe. That in and of itself is a terrifying concept. They are rolling killing machines. To clarify something that we didn't get around to in game, these Sontarans have been cloned by these Daleks.
01:55:06
Speaker
for their own services. They wake up programmed to serve the Daleks. And if we had visited the Centauran ship, there would have been evidence that the Centaurans that crashed here are the usual brown-skinned, potato-y looking bricks of muscle that are more traditionally Centaur. But that's the beautiful thing about this game. You don't have to hit all the points. You can go to the points that jump out for you personally and have your own experience. And it's just
01:55:38
Speaker
It's glorious. This game has never been the same twice. No one has ever tried to fly the TARDIS closer to the doomsday machine, slowly gathering power.
01:55:48
Speaker
Kudos for that, at an experience point, for a genuine first. I did want to lean into HP Lovecraftian-style cosmic horror where you can't fully wrap your brain around it. It is too big to fit. And the lovely thing is, Whoops was here to help!
01:56:10
Speaker
Well, that was the genuine horror that all fell into place because, you know, because Calamity very specifically and purposefully knows that gods are not supposed to be in this universe. They're supposed to be light touches. You can't live here. That's terribly bad. It went terribly bad last time. It's always going to be terribly bad. No notes. I couldn't put it better myself. Would you like to give nods to each other?
01:56:37
Speaker
I would really like to give Calamity and Pandora, of course, incredible props, incredible props for offering advice how to make a supreme being. That brought me so much joy. That was so wonderful.
01:56:52
Speaker
Yes, that was her first plan to try to get them to accidentally include some whoops in their formula, which I figured would take care of pretty much everything, but they weren't on board with that. Kate and Maeve ran off in a panic because of a mystery.
01:57:11
Speaker
which she's going to go into later, obviously. But then, like, as soon as she gets her, you know, herself under control, she's like, okay, if I go back there, that might happen again, and, you know, and then I might not be useful, so maybe I can do something else useful here, and then she just goes full reporter, and that's, I always love that when she's chasing the story. Thanks.
01:57:34
Speaker
Brand, I think one of my favorite parts of playing with you is watching your plan evolve over the game. It's so fun. It looks like it'll start out and you can see like you're like getting this like vague shape of an idea of like we're gonna build a plasma bomb.
01:57:52
Speaker
It just like changes. But then you're always willing, like if one of us has like a thought, you'll just ditch it immediately to go with whatever seems more fun. And I just like that flexibility is so cool. Oh, well, it's easy to do because you guys come up with such great ideas. They really do. This mod in its original form, the fifth dimensional theme. Oh, yeah. No kudos to all three of you. Frickin kudos.
01:58:21
Speaker
Hostag, this fifth dimensional being that Maeve was able to resourcely find the latter number of recordings on. In the original draft of this mod, Hostag is actually an entity to face in latter stages of the game, and this particular mod has so many moving parts already.
01:58:43
Speaker
between the pirate ship and the ants and the science dialects and the centaurans who have been brainwashed. They serve their purposes and they fit in the story and they're available to be turned against the dialects and things but I've had other teams like try to turn the computers on when it is clearly a bad idea to do so and so deliberately
01:59:05
Speaker
turned it so that the Daleks are the ones trying to turn the computers back on, not aware that there is some fifth dimensional being saved as a truly, truly hellish download somewhere in the core.
01:59:19
Speaker
The ultimate. Just one big computer virus. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. And so much worse. Fortunately, with a Hostag Thwartig here, hopefully it won't run into him anywhere else. It means a lot to me that you guys mentioned that you have fun. It means the world. I'm really, really, really glad that mods that I've been able to throw a fresh coat of paint on tailor to your characters. Also, the development of the Hexad. They showed up this season.
01:59:48
Speaker
Not out of nowhere, but they've been in the periphery and in the background, and I like having other Time Lords in the mix as also enemies of the Daleks and making trouble for them here, there, and somewhere. But yeah, you guys have done beautifully. I can't wait to schedule our game for next month, because that one is going to be a great palate cleanser.
02:00:14
Speaker
Yay. I don't know if that's sarcasm. No, never. Yeah, I can't tell what direction that means. Does that mean it's going to be, it's going to be a, it's going to be a... No. We don't do that. We're not going to do clip shows. We're, we're... I remember that time on Joyblights. You could, you could, you do the, you do the subverted clip show where everybody is reminiscing about things that haven't actually happened in any episode and then we just make them up. That's a really good idea. Believe me, when that comes around, you are not going to be happy.
02:00:44
Speaker
But no, Casey, God, I wanted to say explicitly, my cheeks hurt from smiling. It has just been a roller coaster of amazing this whole module. Thank you. Thank you.
02:01:01
Speaker
Seriously, thank you. Like, engagement is the source of my enjoyment here. Like, if I just
Closing and Thanks
02:01:09
Speaker
wanted to listen to a recording of this, I could do that. So what? But like, actually playing the game with people who enjoy it and make choices and make the game their own, just like you have done. And by the way, I was fully prepared for disaster to strike when you called odds in case the dice rolled evens.
02:01:31
Speaker
Almost every time you've asked me for that, he has gone poorly. But it didn't this time, and that's a thing of beauty. Yeah, whoops comes in in the clutch. Casey, could I pick your brain with a hypothetical about today's mission? Please. Now, my character obviously never got to the Dalek ship, so I never saw the tube with what I assume is a killed Time Lord inside. Would it have been possible to save them, to bring them back?
02:01:58
Speaker
No. The whole aim of the Half-Life congregation is to end regeneration and leave Time Lords deader than dead, because it is a direct affront to their belief that they are the superior beings. And like, if they can kill you and you can just glow brightly for a minute, hop up back on your feet and say, well, let's polish off these dolex, what? That's a problem for them.
02:02:26
Speaker
Yeah, it's really demoralizing. I know, it's like it kills somebody once and they don't even stay dead. It's like, wow. That's jerks. Disrespectful, to be honest. Zombies with British accent. The Cult of Skaro, the other Dalek specialty team, they were obsessed and fixated on Dalek survival. That was their foremost
02:02:51
Speaker
Goal and everything they did both to the people around them and to themselves was in service of that goal I just asked myself what would equally obsessed Daleks do with a different goal and in their case It was eradicate regeneration the auditor and calamity have seen firsthand what the results of that were and
02:03:12
Speaker
And it is safe at this point to assume that the hexad is no longer a hexad or a gathering of six, but that's news for another day. Thank you, thank you, thank you all for playing with us today. It makes my hearts so, so happy. And finally, to our listeners, another great big thank you for sharing your precious time with us.
02:03:37
Speaker
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, Twitter, and YouTube at Anywhere But Now, and wherever you get your podcasts. Send your questions, that lovely fan art, and theories if you've got them, to Anywhere But Now, podcast at gmail.com, or share them on our Discord.
02:04:01
Speaker
Don't forget, if you'd like me to run a game for you 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 so glad you're along for the ride. Thanks so much, and have a wonderful day.