Actual Play - Red Markets T-Minus - EP 3.5 Core Workout

[00:00:02] Hello and welcome to the Roleplaying Exchange. I'm Nick, and tonight I'll be running the game tonight. We are playing Red Markets! Some more side jobs for everybody based around my Enclave Hatch, which will be the centerpiece of my campaign. We have three people playing with us tonight. Some very lucky, lucky takers. I'll let them introduce themselves before we jump into it. In alphabetical order, starting with...

[00:00:32] Oh, hey! This is Adam. You know what? I'm glad that English degree is really paying off on this. I am playing Scoutmaster. Now this is going to be one of the custom tough spots that Nick has come up with. And it is basically the Exile starts with 15 bounty, which is great, but I have a permanent negative rep spot. So I don't know the name of our crew yet, but my weak spot is...

[00:00:59] I'm a former Raider and that doesn't look good on a resume. And my soft spot is Families First. And as I see it, this man was... When the crash happened, it seemed easy to do horrible things that if he thinks about too much, it troubles him. And as he kept doing it, he started getting soft on the job. Like, you know, going to hold people up. Let them go. Things like that. Eventually, it got

[00:01:29] got too much for him and the Raiders found out he was losing their potential profit margins slip between his fingers. And before they could actually act on that, he fled from the Raider group, ran to whichever enclave we are at. Which enclave are we at? Hatch. Hatch. Hatch.

[00:01:49] Hatch. Okay. Ran to Hatch, where his sister and niece are. His sister, I have not made up her name yet because she was my son a moment ago and I briefly changed it. But so he, I'm kind of going with the Boy Scout kind of theme here. He got there, he's trying to put on an act like he's an upstanding citizen. And he's playing with his niece and, you know, trying to be a good person.

[00:02:14] And two, basically hide the fact that he did very, very bad things. And it's not like a permanent negative rep spot, but for the purposes of this one shot, it essentially is. Okay. So next up would be...

[00:02:33] Hi, I'm Brownie. Tonight I'm playing a character named Deuce Fresno. He walks with the animals, he talks with the animals, he's kind of madcap. Madcap's another one of the custom rep spots where you can upgrade failures and successes to critical successes and upgrade critical failures to, what is it, Nick? Just a failure or full on success? Let me read my own thing. Pretty sure it's a full on success. Yes, yes.

[00:02:59] But in exchange for using that piece of will, the market gets to use a piece of will against you at a later date. Deuce has a single dependent, his name is Dr. Nick. He's a veterinarian that Deuce used to run into in the before times. He used to run into a veterinarian in the before times because he has two profession levels in animal handler and also two profession levels in detective.

[00:03:27] Continuing my non-optimal characters, he's got some funky gear. He's got a dog, a net, a sling, and a weaponized tool made out of a rabies pole. Nice. And that might actually come in handy. I'm sure. Nope. I didn't know, we did when I picked it, but man, that's a cool thing for the loss. Yeah, like that's legit a good weaponized tool for the loss. The rabies pole is always useful as a former vet tech.

[00:03:58] For those of you that don't know, that is the long pole with the cable noose at the end to be able to hold something out of a biting range reveal. Seen that use with alligators and snakes on YouTube. And now they'll listen to it be used on casualties, maybe. Maybe. Sorry. And that takes us on. And that brings me on to Yote. This is Chris. And hey, my name's... I'm going by Steadfast.

[00:04:26] I'm big on, like, you know, like, gains. And, like, you know, like, really working on the blockchain. And, like, bro, like... I know, like, y'all are, like, doing this because you have to. And, like, I know I have a day job, but whatever, bro. Like, I'm here to help. I got this machete for a reason. You know, right, bro? You got that pole handy? Frisna. Always.

[00:04:53] So, uh, Steadfast is a Moonlighter. He actually has a day job and doesn't have to go out. But he also has a laptop and chain mail. And he's actively pretty good with his machete. Plus, you know, the day job only pays so much. If you want something, you always need a little extra money. Yeah, bro.

[00:05:19] Like, sometimes you need to, like, put a little extra into, like, you know, uh... Fucking... The day job pays the bills, but this is your side hustle. Yeah. Yeah, this is my hustle, bro. Like, I'm here to work on my Bitcoin, you know? My crypto. So, you three have come together to work a job because... You need the money or whatever reason your character needs to.

[00:05:47] You're all in Hatch, which is the salt mine out in Kansas. And you're discussing going out for a job together. When you overhear that there... And you quickly check to see if it's true... That there is a merchant who apparently is stuck out in the loss. And... And... Uh... Needs some help. And is trying to find someone to come help him.

[00:06:17] Yo, so... I think we really need to work on branding right now. Before we even go on... Go on here. Like... What are we calling our... Venture? I'd recommend Shut the Fuck Up, but that sounds a little too wordy for a t-shirt. Yeah, no. This is in character, by the way. Like, I'm pulling you both in here. So, what are we going to call this Venture, bro? Well, if you left me to my own devices, I'd call it Shikaka. No.

[00:06:49] I'm just going to put the veto there. There's no real SEO available there. Especially on Lifelines. Like, no one knows what the fuck that is. Sunny Day Real Estate. Which is totally not a band. But... I don't know. Let's just come... It'll come to us. Like... You're the one that's all about, what, synergy? So, why don't we just play it out? And then whatever big thing happens will be what names our group. You know, kind of like the Mandalorian.

[00:07:18] You remember on that old show in the before times? How, like, he got attacked by a Mud Rhino or whatever the hell it was? And that's now his, like, crest or something? Out of character. I just want to be... Just want to point out, Nick is already upset about this game. No, no, no. I said I feel like I should regret it. Which means I don't. Hmm. Well, you've actually given me a great idea there. How about with the Randolorian? Hell yeah. You know what? That works.

[00:07:46] That's got some SEO, like... People are still really into, like, the Disney properties, despite them being kind of classics at this point, bro. Yeah, no, I think that works. The Randolorians. Taking names and shooting second. I'm gonna say that my chainmail is actively Boba Fett armor at this point. Crylon Boba Fett armor. It's not legit chainmail.

[00:08:16] It's cosplay chainmail. I mean, that embellishment should up the... Upkeep by one. But hey. Yeah. It's a one-shot. We won't get into that too much. So you know that there's one merchant out there who's looking for help out in the lofts. So you can find out a price for the job, type of job, competition. Or you can find a different job if you don't want to go for it. I won't hold it against you. I have two prepared.

[00:08:45] I think the first thing we should do is find a face. Because that sure isn't me. I mean, usually not me. Skill-wise, I got sensitivity, deception, and intimidation. I have sensitivity, and that's it. I have sensitivity in networking. Yeah, bro. Like, uh... I have no leadership. But would that be funny? I'm actually gonna switch over my sensitivity to networking. Because that makes more sense. I mean, yeah, you could go for it.

[00:09:14] You'd just be rolling a base for leadership. I mean, I could roll in and use my madcap will. Yo, I heard about this guy from... I'm pretty sure I can contact him on my laptop. This guy from someplace out in Oklahoma. If he doesn't have it on his character sheet, don't let him do it, Nick. He'd probably do it. I do actually have networking. Okay.

[00:09:42] Speaking of Oklahoma, that was great timing! Right? Like, what the fuck was that right there, Sean? Sorry, I didn't mean to derail us. This guy's like, uh... What I hear is he's like next level. He was, like, associated with, like, some, um... Some, like, bread crew. So, like, how much... Is it, like, one bounty to hire, uh... Uh...

[00:10:11] Somebody to negotiate? Uh, I mean, you could... You could talk to them and see. I'm still game on jumping in or running at base. I'm going to, uh... Spend a charge on my laptop to contact next. Uh... Uh, who is this? Yo. Uh, my name's Steadfast. I'm from, uh... I'm out here in Hatch. I've heard some good stuff about you and the breadwinners. And, like, uh... We were looking for a good negotiator.

[00:10:41] And we don't really have a lot of options out here, bro. Um... Yeah, I could... I could... I could do that. But it's gonna cost ya. I mean... I gotta, uh... Call in. And, you know, it's my name. I'm attaching to you guys. Are you... Are you a take crew? Or... Starting out, or...? Yeah, we're calling ourselves Randallorians. Uh, this is our, uh... Mascot, and I pull... I hold up my dog. This is Short King. He's a Short King.

[00:11:11] Okay. Yeah, um... I'll need... A bounty from all of you. Plus one extra for the, you know, battery to call. Can... I... Give you an IOU on that? Because we're starting out. Yeah, yeah. I mean, like, from the take. Just subtract the four bounty from the five bounty or six bounty. Whatever size your group is plus one. Uh, from the take. Like... Hold on.

[00:11:41] Uh, I gotta check. Uh... Hold up. Like, I take off my, like, stupid gamer headset. Yo, Deuce! Yo, uh... Adam, what's your character's name again? Scoutmaster. Scoutmaster. One bounty, each of us. Plus bounty for the, uh... The electronics. Is that cool? I guess. Seems high, but, you know. It's a market. Yeah. Yeah, bro. Uh, I put my...

[00:12:10] I put my stupid gamer headset back on. Uh, yeah, bro. Like, it's a bit high, but whatever. We're starting out. And you're the expert here. So, like, you do you, man. Did you say Deuce? I don't want to. Okay, sure. Yeah, money's good. Money's good. Okay, just call me. Tell me who to contact. And I'll, uh... Set it up for you. All right. Okay. And I know we did this once before, uh, with help from the same character.

[00:12:38] Uh, weren't we saying it was two in each or three in each of the Christmas kills? It was two in each, except leadership has three. Last time you lucked out and made your character the spouse of, uh, Vaughn. Uh-huh. No such attachments this time. Okay. Uh, so... Looking for some information on jobs. Uh, what you guys want to look for?

[00:13:06] I am going to head down to my job as a cable lair for, like, the, uh, the DSL folks in this area. So, uh, Nick, do you want me to roll IT, bro, or do you want me to roll resistance? Because both work. Oh, we'll do IT, bro. Okay. Uh, that's a 10 over 6. Okay, what information were you looking for?

[00:13:36] Uh, like, I go into my day job where I'm wearing my, like, polo shirt that is very, very popular among Randians. And, like, they keep trying to buy it from me. Like, nah, bro. Uh, basically, I'm looking around for information, so... Which piece of information? Are you looking for the price of the job, competition, the type of job, like, what? The type of job. I feel like that's what IT professionals would know.

[00:14:05] It's like, yo, man, like, you heard... You've been looking at the, uh, web... You've been looking at, uh, Lifelines recently, right, right? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Your, uh... Your job you're talking about, it's a rescue job. Uh, apparently that merchant got himself into a delicate situation and needs to be extracted from it. Uh, you know, real danger, which is why I think some tank crews are passing it over. Ah, bro, that's fucked. Hmm, that means that the guy's not here. He's actually out there, and we're going for him.

[00:14:36] Ah, bro. Hey, um... So... Hypothetically... I've got a few days, um... I've got a few days off, uh, built up. What, what's our, uh... What's our vacation plan going for here? Um, vacation plan? I mean, I don't know. Talk to the boss. I don't know how many vacation days you have. Right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right, right.

[00:15:05] Right, okay. I relay this back to the other two. So, you know, it's an extraction rescue mission type of job. So, Adam or, I mean... Deuce or Stead... Or Scoutmaster. Uh, Deuce or Steadmaster. Uh... You guys have, like, really close names. Deuce or Scoutmaster. Yes, because those two sound exactly alike. Well, it's like S, the fifth letter is both T, and then they both have AST in it, and it's like...

[00:15:34] I can add a silent cue to the end of mine if it helps. So, okay. Um, Adam or Brownie, um, what would you like to look for? Can I change my character to Steadmaster? That sounds better. But I'm steadfast. Oh, okay. Never mind. Uh, go ahead, Brownie. I interrupted you. I didn't mean to. No worries. Uh, I'd like to figure out who the competition is on this one, and I think I can do that by, um...

[00:16:00] Sneaking down, uh, unseen to the, um... The Fuel Depot, and just kind of listening around to see who's talking about this job. Uh, rolling that up. That's a 12 over 3, so I sneak down there in the most exaggerated way possible. You know, who could miss this strange, strange man doing his exaggerated sneaking? But somehow it works, and no one's paying any attention to me. Deuce Fresno. Ace Gigolo. So, as you pass, you don't notice it, but, um, some people do give you looks.

[00:16:29] Um, there is talk about this, and it seems like all of the Taker crews that you hear of are going to, uh, pass it over. The, um, M5, Chain Gang, um, all of the, all of the, um, Taker crews. Well, alrighty then. I exaggerated sneak back out and report back to, uh, the rest of the Randallorians. Doesn't look like we have any competition on this one, guys.

[00:16:59] Nice. Sounds good. So, sounds like we're working on this, uh, without, like, any real, uh, VC issues. I like that. Okay. I guess we need to find out what the job pays. Sure, if you want. Okay. Okay. So, hmm. I almost want to figure out what the, what the deal is with the merchant. If nobody's really going out there after him, he's got to be some tainted goods too.

[00:17:29] But, I mean, we're already kind of invested in this right now. Okay. So, I'll tell you what I am going to use. Let's see what social skills I've got. I guess, uh, I was thinking deception or sensitivity, but sensitivity is trying to tell somebody's line to you and all that. So, I guess it would, it'd probably be a stretch, wouldn't it, Nick?

[00:17:55] If I was like, no, I'm asking for a friend, but what does this pay kind of thing? It just seems like, um, I'll tell you what. I was, if you're just asking in general, it would be, uh, networking. I didn't put anything in networking. I forgot. So, I'll tell you what, um, I hate to pay another bounty already. Hey, Chris, go ahead and I'll think about this. Everyone's already gone.

[00:18:24] It's just, yeah, you're up, bro. It's me. It's me. Okay. All right. So, I feel like I should just go ahead and pay a bounty. But I don't have any. You haven't even made a skill roll yet. Yeah, bro. Like, make that, make that roll. Make a roll? All right, hold on. What do you want, what do you want to roll for? Uh, what skill you want to roll to try and figure out the information? Show your skill set, King.

[00:18:53] You know what? When people are talking about it, and, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm going to sync up on another taker group that's talking about the job. And I'm going to give you some creative freedom. I want one of two things, and you tell me which one makes the most sense. But I'm wanting to walk up and try to overhear another taker group. So, I'm going to, I could either use criminality or stealth. And, uh, I'm just going to sneak up on them and kind of act nonchalant.

[00:19:22] Maybe even start talking about, hey, I heard that there was some merchant out there, blah, blah, blah. And then, like, act like a wonder off and see if they say anything about the job at all. Sure. Give me stealth. All right. All right, that's seven over one. So, you, you walk through, act casual, make some comment about, pfft, this guy out there, right? Just to get him talking about it. And you, you, you pretend to walk away, and you overhear what they say, you know, after you leave.

[00:19:51] And you hear him go like, well, I don't know what that guy's thinking. 20 bounty? Shit. He's got either got to be like, it's, it's a death sentence. You know, he's, he's given everything in the kitchen sink to try and save him. No one's stupid enough to go out and, uh, and do this job. So, guys, I think I found the right job for us.

[00:20:13] I, I, I tell them that, uh, it's, uh, 20 bounty, and, uh, the people believe that that is a bit, uh, much. And that there's got to be a catch. All right, bro. There usually is, but we may as well try. All right, Denbra. So, you, you notify next that you need to talk to Levi. And he agrees he'll call him right away and hook you guys up with the job and send back any relevant information.

[00:20:43] Uh, which one of you wants to play next? I don't really do good on, uh, negotiation. I'm not as careful with negotiations. So, I'd rather somebody else. All right. Well, I am the go-to RPX negotiator at this point. So, how much brownie you'd like to negotiate? I bow to Chris's, uh, superior skill. Funny. Uh, let me pull up Nexus character sheet.

[00:21:12] It's just two in everything except three in leadership. Yeah. Or two in everything that you'll need. You ring Levi and give me a self-control check. Okay. Uh, what's Nexus self-control? Two. Okay. I'm just going to assume two unless you say otherwise. Uh, that's an eight over five. Okay. Uh, you manage to hold it together.

[00:21:37] As, as soon as the line connects, uh, you hear, I'm sorry! I'm sorry! And just banging and banging. I'm sorry! And then the picture turns around. And, you know, like, those RV bathrooms that are, like, really narrow with just, like, the toilet in it? Uh, you see this man just, like, standing in it, like, as far away from the door as possible. The door's just rattling. His foot's, like, in the toilet. He's, like, holding the yubik glasses to get a visual of him.

[00:22:07] So, it, this, this person's just trapped in this tiny bathroom. Just vectors. Vectors, plural. You hear at least two different apologies just banging on the door. The door looks dirty. It's, it's no, no breakage yet. Uh, oh my god! Oh, someone! So, okay, yes, yes! Um, uh, yeah, this is Levi. Uh, he called, called about the job. Shut up! Shut up! You're sorry! Shut up! My name is Nex.

[00:22:35] Uh, I'm actually calling on behalf of a crew in your area. I'm, I'm a little out of, a little out of town. Uh, yes. Yes. Okay. Uh, good. Good. Uh, this is gonna be a little bit of a, uh, irregular, uh, negotiation. But, um, yeah, let's, let's do this quickly. Okay. Um, good. Uh, quiet! Um, and, uh, give me leadership. You said three? Yes. Okay.

[00:23:05] Uh, that is a nine over five. Okay. That means it is two. What's the natural black? Natural black is six. Six. Okay. I just want to make sure my math is correct. Uh, three rounds of negotiation. All right. Now I understand you're in, uh, a little bit of, uh, a time crunch here. So, uh, uh, if you don't mind, we're going to go, we're going to go fast about this. These guys are new.

[00:23:33] I understand that they're fresh, but they're also, they're good people. And like, I think they're, they're going to do right by you. That's a deception check. Cause I know literally jack shit about the Randalorians. Sounds good to me. By the way, how is everyone loving this job so far? I like it. Time will tell. Uh, that's a 12 over one, by the way. Like that was the literally the best role you could do besides a crit. Okay.

[00:24:03] He's going to go Randalorians, Randalorians. Um, I already said they're a new crew. Don't, don't even think about them. Give me a second. Give me a second. Uh, yeah, yeah. He starts like browsing on his UVic specs. Literally brand new crew. You're not going to see them on lifelines. This is their first job, which means that they're a fresh crew. You're not going to have to worry about anyone. Like you're not going to have to worry about fatigue.

[00:24:27] What one big loud bang jostles him and accidentally flushes the toilet, um, nearly drops the glasses into it. Uh, he's just going to read, um, one of Nexus spots. Um, let me bring up Nexus character sheet. Nexus spot. Doesn't know shit about the crew. He's repping loyal and true. He's going to read his spot of loyal and true. Yeah.

[00:24:54] I mean, I am loyally going to help them. Yeah. Um, so first scam action. Who would like to go first? We have two scams. I would let you, I would suggest you two take precedent because I'm, I'm negotiating. That's fine. Yep. So we, we don't have to worry about the competition. We can mess with the price. Um, we can get spots on this guy.

[00:25:23] Would you rather price or spots? Uh, spots are always the better, the better option in negotiation. Well, and I would like to, um, roll detective, uh, to snoop around and see, um, if I can figure out what this guy's, uh, weak spot is because if he's calling for help here, he's probably out of here and people will know him. Yeah. Did you actually get profession detective? Uh, and profession animal handler.

[00:25:55] Oh, that is a, that's a nice one. It's a, it's 10 over nine. It was almost a failure. Okay. Yeah. Uh, Levi usually sets, sets up a shop here and hatch sells some goods that he picks up from other enclaves. Um, people talk about how he is intellectually starved. Um, he's pretty smart guy, which is kind of odd that he's in this situation.

[00:26:22] Maybe, but yeah, he's intellectually starved. If you, if you give him some higher level, you know, social interaction, he'll, uh, appreciate it. Uh, you know, at least show him that you're, you're smart and can think things through. So that's your spot. So it sounds like we need to, uh, to talk it up and make us seem, uh, maybe a little smarter than we are guys. All right. So I'm going to tell you right now, you're actually dealing with a group of full

[00:26:52] on intellectuals. Uh, we have a guy who before the crash, he was just a rock star in the IT professions. Like he, he, he can lay down cable and he can talk about servers, uh, day and at night. We have, we also have a detective slash, uh, animal handler. Like he, he was, I'm pretty sure he was canine. So like that, that takes a lot of work.

[00:27:22] I'm like, I think you need a college degree for that. Uh, Adam, give me something to talk up about Scoutmaster. Great with kids. Definitely don't say, uh, uh, great with kids and an educator. A solid, dependable man. He was taking care of his sister and his, uh, and, and his niece and blah, blah, blah. You know, something like that'd be fun. So, and also we've, we've got a family man and it's hard to be a family man in the loss.

[00:27:51] I'm sure, you know, like, uh, like I take a moment to say that just like I take a moment to pause just to hear somebody slam against the bathroom door and just yell, I'm so sorry! Okay, give me a persuasion roll. Yeah. It's like you don't have a lot of options here, dude. Uh, how many will does Nex have? We'll say that Nex has two will. He has one now.

[00:28:21] And that's just a regular failure. Oh, just a regular failure after the will. Okay. Yep. Um, this is going great. Um, he goes, uh, yeah, this, uh, so-called, um, family man that you have here, uh, there's, uh, Raider group, the, uh, Oakland Raiders, uh, they're, they're looking for someone matching his description. Um, have a sizable bounty out on his head and everything.

[00:28:50] Uh, I wouldn't want, uh, to be rescued from vectors just to be shot at gunpoint over the next hill by a group of half-crazed, bloodthirsty, you know, humans. Just gonna make that deception check now before I talk about this. Well, that's his brother. He wears a cowboy hat. That's a seven. That's a seven over two.

[00:29:18] Uh, well, again, uh, I should say I am not in, uh, I'm not in the hatch area. I, I'm an outside contractor. That being said, I haven't heard anything about this. And every, every single person I've spoken to who, uh, has been a part of the Randalorians has seemed like a very, very solid, dependent, independent, dependable individual. Okay. Um, so with that, you successfully throw off the spot, so he only moves one.

[00:29:46] You are still at value and he is at 100% markup. Uh, so second and final scam action. Out of character, the only person he's spoken to is set fast. Well, I, I know this, I know this guy named Shake. He's kind of a easy, easy kind of going guy. He's in a taker group. He's probably this man before. So I'm going to go up to my other character and intimidate him. Okay.

[00:30:17] All right. Mm-hmm. Uh, so he walks up. He's like, Oh, uh, Hey, Shake. And Shake kind of looks at him, kind of cocks his head. He's like, uh, dude, I ain't got any today, man. I'm trying to take a job. You know, I'm going to have a, I'm going to have a bait. Well, my wife, we're going to have a baby, but she don't like it. When I say we're going to have a, he just rattles on like a ferment. And, um, Adam said rattles on, take a drink.

[00:30:45] And, uh, scout master's going to walk up to him and go, cut the shit. I know that you've been doing with other, I'm doing this taker thing. All right. I need this. I have got people to feed that are already here and not in utero. So tell me about, and then he asked about the Levi.

[00:31:12] So I'm, you know, basically punching down. Cause I don't play Levi. I haven't turned him into a murder hobo yet. I mean, it's, it's bound to happen. He's an Adam character. Like if I, if I was playing me and somebody walked up to me and did this, I would probably already start shooting. So what spot are you looking for? The weak spot or the tough spot? Uh, not the soft spot or the tough spot. Tough spot. Out of character. If we were in the RPX, if we were in like the red markets universe in it,

[00:31:38] I knew that either, uh, like the, the person we were about to deal with was either created by you or me. I'm like, Oh, shoot them first. Shoot Adam. Cause he's going to murder us. Shoot Chris. Cause he's going to fuck us. Uh, tough spot. Okay. Did you make it? All right. So there's, uh, that's not over three. Dude. Like you're, why are you going for that? Did you even check where he, where he's calling from?

[00:32:07] That's the eat clean safe house. They're, they're fuck. Like if they got turned good luck out running them. They usually outrun the vectors. Uh, so you know, the tough spot is that these aren't just any ordinary vectors. Uh, eat clean is like the pony express of the setting, except, uh, they are the ones who are running, not the horses.

[00:32:30] Uh, so it's basically a detox in fitness group that focuses on healthy eating to be super fit. And they make money off of their lifestyle by running mail and packages and stuff like that. So, you know, that there's at least going to be some very high murder modifiers on those vectors. It's not late in P90X, but it'll do it. Oh God. Do I have to worry about the Raiders?

[00:32:57] I mean, like, I, I respect their lifestyle, but I, I, I tend to focus on powerlifting myself. So I relayed that information. Yeah. Yeah. So it's, it's no ordinary vectors. It's like super vectors. The people who usually outrun vectors got turned into vectors. That's the tough spot. Okay. You said usually. How is that one? Well, they can only run for so long. All right.

[00:33:21] Uh, back to like the Randallorians talking about this in their, uh, like the pre like conference call thing, like pre negotiation. So y'all like maybe we should like wait out a day or two, let them burn out, then get in. Like that just seems prudent to me, dog. Yeah. And that guy's going to starve to death. He's already been there for a while too. I mean, he won't starve to death in a day. Yeah.

[00:33:51] It's dehydration that gets you. Yeah. Like maybe we can like ask the negotiator guy to ask, like maybe he can ask if that guy has water. I guess we can figure that out later. Yeah. All right. Anyways, back to negotiation. So I understand that you're one of the eat clean folks, or at least you're in an eat clean safe house. Safe house? Yeah. Yeah.

[00:34:17] I was passing through and they let me park my, uh, my, my trading vehicle, uh, here for the night. Um, how's the water situation? Potable? Uh, looks at the toilet that his foot has been like in occasionally during the conversation. Uh, maybe? Maybe.

[00:34:40] The reason I'm asking this is that you're asking me to send in a crew of relatively untested folks into a scenario full of vectors who are like, I look at my eye. Like I've been shot in the face and I've had to have this replaced with a robotic eye.

[00:35:04] And like, I, I, I'm, I'm experienced and I've, I don't deal with eat clean vectors. So like you're asking me to send these folks in. Um, I, I, I'm, or is it going to hold them forever? I reinforced it a little bit, but they're going to break it down. All I'm saying is that you're going to have to sweeten the pot a bit. I mean, that's, that's why we, we, I given the 20 bounty. Uh, so give me a persuade roll.

[00:35:31] 20 bounty is nice and all, but like 20 bounty is not eat clean vector. Nice. Uh, that is, I am spending that well to make a success. Okay. Uh, his rebuttal is, um, yeah, I guess I could pay more, but come on.

[00:35:51] Um, I've, I've, I've, I've, I don't know if you know me personally, but I've, I've driven my RV, my, my goods to, to, to hatch, to, to, uh, uh, where, where are you? Elevation. Hey man, that's, that's great and all. I don't live in hatch. I, come on. You know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a merchant. I, I'm, I help keep up the, the enclave with my, my transfer of goods and everything. Come on. Can't you, can't you be, be, be helpful to someone who's helpful to you?

[00:36:20] You know, be, be loyal. I'm a loyal, uh, salesman. Can't you be like a loyal customer and help out, help me out? That, that's, that's how it works, right? All right. My deception role is to be like, that's very reasonable, but. Uh, yeah, fuck you. Hey man, I'm just a third party here. I, no matter what happens, I'm making the same amount.

[00:36:50] I'm just, I'm advocating for them, not for you. Okay. Uh, so he is at a hundred percent markup. You're at hazard pay. Make that final leadership check. Cause no one else is crazy enough to go for this. Yeah. Which is why next is also being so bloodless about this. It's like, I've got no there. I have no skin in the game here. That's a 10 over nine. They're new. Maybe they could at least distract the vectors.

[00:37:20] We could take them out or target up. And, and with that, like a loud, like right before he hangs up, there's a loud bang and see like a little dent in the door. So, uh, next forwards that over to steadfast. It's like, yeah, 100% markup. Here's, here's your deal. Um, I'll expect my four bounty within like the next 12 hours. Cause if, if you don't get it within the next 12 hours, then he's dead.

[00:37:47] So the information you get is that he stopped at an eat clean safe house, which is an old rest stop off one of the highways. Uh, and, um, he is currently locked in his RV. He can at least hear two vectors banging on the door. Other than him, there should have been five people at the location. He doesn't know how many have turned, how many have run away or how many other situation. Uh, how many legs?

[00:38:17] It is one leg away. There is one leg and then you're at the job site and then two legs afterwards. Did he say he was going to pay in crypto? Whatever method of payment you prefer. As long as you save him. I actively have to like, uh, like I, I call my boss. I'm like, Hey, uh, I have to call out next shift. Something came up. What? What, what, what, what came up? Well, you know, my dog. Your dog. His old dog came up. He came up.

[00:38:46] He's, he's, he's sick. I got to take care of him. Do you want my dog to die? Jeremy? Jeremy, are you suggesting that I should let my dog die? Give me a deception check. I don't have deception. I have networking. It would be deception. Yeah, no, let's default. Uh, I'm going to fail this. I literally have a 10% chance of success.

[00:39:16] Holy fucking shit. I guess he passed. I guess he passed. Jeremy, do you want my short king to die? Dude, bro, I thought we were friends. Come on, man. Come on. Come on, dude. Your, your friends would do. You have a friend named Deuce. Who's good with animals, right? Just take him to, to see him come, come back to work tomorrow or something. You know, get a, get a vet's note or something. I'm going to get Deuce to check him out.

[00:39:44] But like, bro, come on, man. He sort of just like, uh, hangs up abruptly. Uh, you see like a look of, uh, shame on his face for a second before he cuts the, cuts the call. I did not expect that to work. The reason I was asking how the, uh, the client is going to pay us is because there's more than one way to fancy a cat. If it's physical.

[00:40:10] He, he says he has physical, the, he has the bounty on him in the RV. Uh, which you can, which you can take as like, which, which he'll have. And you could take from him when the job's done. Uh, but if you want to convert it into something else, he can do that. You know, when he gets back to elevation. Out of character. The reason I'm asking is because if he's dead, when we get there and the vectors have settled down, the bounty is still going to be there. He, he, he tells you the exact location of where the money is stored in the RV.

[00:40:41] Oh, good. Well, we don't even have to save him. We just have to take his RV, but let's not do that. Yeah. Not yet. Bro. Set out of character. Bro. Yes, Satan. Wow. Do you need, uh, your short king to stay with Dr. Nick while you're gone? Yes. Uh, I, I'm definitely going to have my short king stay with Dr. Nick. That's good. He's a little lonely, but he's a good guy. Yeah.

[00:41:10] He's also, my, my short king's a little old. He's, he's a little frail. Your break point is three, right, Brownie? Yeah. Okay. So you are making. Fifty nine bounty. Which actually is pretty good. Given that you survive. I mean, either way, like, I'm taking care of this. No matter what happens, I'm still making profit. Bro. So I will let you talk amongst yourselves for a second.

[00:41:38] If you want to make any pre, pre, uh, over the fence plans. All right, bros. So, like, we're, it's not far away, but, like, we're going to be dealing with some, like, heavy duty shit. I'm not worried about getting bit. Like, check this shit out and, like, I show off my Mandalorian armor. Got this back at Comic-Con back in Seattle before the crash. It's actually really pretty legit.

[00:42:08] Take a look at that. Here, here, here. Yo, Scoutmaster, touch that. I touch it. Nice, right? I guess, yeah. So, uh, focus. Snipes fingers in front of you. All right, so. We guys got guns, right? Uh, I'm. That's on the list. I don't believe in firearms.

[00:42:38] I have other ways, though. Yo, check this shit out, though. And I just, like, just sharpened it. That, like, hold up my machete. Hold on. How's that self-control roll going? It was three over two. Yeah, roll me self-control there, uh, Scoutmaster. I just. You just did. Wait. Is it, well, it was too, it was too natural on both die. Is that a critical success? Yes. Yes. Well, I guess if they both die, then I get the bounty.

[00:43:07] I don't say that. You can see my character trying to nab the machete with the, uh, the rabies pole. Just for fun. I have more faith in the rabies pole than I do the machete. Bro! Hey! This is mine! Oh, I love this one. I hope you survive the vectors. I like these characters. Uh, crit success to have sneered your wrist with the machete that's holding the machete. Just for fun. I let it go.

[00:43:37] I let it go. Come on, dog. I leave and I go say goodbye to my sister. I give her a hug. It lasts a little longer than usual. As I think about the job, I give my little niece, Brownie, no relation to, uh, I give her a little hug and rougher her hair a little bit. And like, I'm, I'm, I gotta go out for a job and we'll come back.

[00:44:00] We're gonna, I'm gonna show you how to start a fire with a lighter and, uh, yeah, I can't do it on Flint, but, uh, and still. So yeah, I've said my piece. All right. So, um, I drop off my short King with Dr. Nick. I am very, very specific about instructions on taking care of him.

[00:44:25] And Dr. Nick takes notes and as you leave, short King takes the note out of his hand and starts to shred it. Okay. He's, he's always been a scamp. That's why he's such a King. He's my short King. So any other preparations people would like to do or are you guys good to tackle this, uh, fun job?

[00:44:53] Well, unless we can buy suppressant. No, I mean, we don't have any money. So it would be like 10 bounty at this point or 12. Okay. We're good. Let's go. I'd say weather report, but I don't have any way to do that. Okay. How many legs was again? Three, one to the site, two afterwards. I'm going to reach out to other folks on my day job as an it bro.

[00:45:23] Yo, uh, Terry. Yeah. You heard anything weird going on with like weather in the area? In, I mean, weather. No. Should I? I got to lay these lines outside the fence. Am I going to need protection? Uh, I'm asking you to look it up, bro. Like I'm, I mainly focused on like laying down cable. You're more the, uh, like the actual like monitoring downtime.

[00:45:52] So like any weird downtime shit? Why do you, aren't you home with your dog who's sick? Yeah, bro. What does that have to do with anything? Okay. Um, yeah, I'll, I'll get back to you. I'll get back to you. Uh, that IT bro roll was 10 over nine, by the way. Okay. Yeah. He, he, he sent your report. No large groups of casualties moving through the area. Okay.

[00:46:18] Um, so as the, um, as you get the all clear from the snipers, they scan the, the horizon. Um, you walk out of the fence and start heading up the, the highway. I'm going to need all of you to give me a self-control check for leaving the safety of the enclave to go fight possibly five vectors. That's a failure. That's a success. I have no fucking clue what I'm doing. That is also a success.

[00:46:48] I'm just happy to be here. Uh, if you succeed, don't lose anything. Uh, but if you fail, uh, just this a little, little more dangerous than the average job. Take two distress. Okay. Two chuckle fucks and a scout master. Mm-hmm. It's going to be great. So what do you guys got for awareness? One. I'll do this then.

[00:47:18] I got two. All right. So. That is a failure. It is three over eight. I failed that. I actually do have two, two awareness, by the way. Want to use a will, Adam? No, I'm going up against vectors, Nick. I'm good. Okay. Um, so you're walking along. So you're in the front there, scout master. Who would be in the back? Probably deuce.

[00:47:48] Okay. Deuce. Actually, deuce. Uh, I forgot. You have a dog. I apologize. Uh, have your dog give me an awareness check, I guess, based off of the animal handling skill. I can do that. That, no, I can't do that. That is a failure. Okay. Okay. The dog, whose name is Ace, doesn't see anything. Ace doesn't see anything. Okay. So, give... That's so many awareness checks. Uh, give me an awareness check, deuce. Uh, tides go to the market. Oh, god.

[00:48:17] Um, so you guys are walking along. When, deuce, from behind you, you hear someone running on the pavement, and you turn around, and there is a latent just charging you. Just bare hands, uh, looks like dried blood streaking from its mouth, just running right at you. It's? He? She? They? They. Oh, you mean for Brownie's character. Sorry. How close are they? They...

[00:48:44] You all have a round to act before it'll be in range to attack. I would like to employ the rabies pole, uh, to catch this person, if I can. I think that sounds like an animal handling role, because it's similar to capturing an animal. Sure. But I'm gonna say it's gonna be a resistance to hold on afterwards. That's fine. Um, also the, uh, weaponized tool gets a plus two when used as a tool. Yep.

[00:49:12] Also, I'm pulling my rifle up with the big blade on the end of it, pointing at it. Uh, I crit fail trying to capture said, uh, the latent with my pole. I've got my chain mail ready to go, and I've got my mach... Well, not my chain mail. I've got my Mandalorian armor. Okay. I'll say that steadfast can go next, because that would be in the line order. You just hear me yelling, bumble bee tuna, bumble bee tuna, repeatedly. So, I just assume this guy is, like, out to kill us.

[00:49:41] So... I'm gonna use resistance to, uh, grab him... Or I'm gonna try to use resistance to grab him and just, like, slam him to the ground. Because he's clearly... He's not... He's not a vector yet. Okay. Give me resistance. Don't crit fail. I have three points in resistance for this very reason, and two points in will. Okay. That is a crit success. Okay.

[00:50:10] Um, you manage to just knock down the latent... I just clothesline him. Clothesline him. Falls to the ground, and you hear him yell, ow, fuck! Sort of just, like... Bro, you don't run at us when you got those veins! What the fuck are you talking about? I'm a goddamn zombie. It's what I do. You're not a zombie! You're fucking latent, bro! You can talk to us!

[00:50:40] Fucking zombie! Zombies don't talk, bro! Give me persuasion check. This person's obviously lost it. Does anyone else have persuasion? I got sensitivity. I can tell if he really thinks he's a zombie. Maybe. Sure, you can give me sensitivity. Uh, crit failure, again. At least you're getting it out of the way. You're getting it out of the way. Yeah. Bro, I can't convince you you're not a zombie, but you're not a fucking zombie. Zombies don't talk. He's totally faking it. He must be a vector.

[00:51:11] No, no. You 100% believe that he believes that he is a, uh... zombie. Um, do you want to do anything? Casualty. Casualty, yes, yes. Scoutmaster. No, he's definitely saying zombie, though. Yeah, he's saying zombie. Yeah. Oh, okay. Okay. Hmm. Yeah, I'll tell you what. I will probably go ahead and... I'm going to try intimidation.

[00:51:37] So I'm going to put the barrel and that big blade right... I'm going to say right at his heart, like almost touching him, and go, does he look scared? So I'm trying to make him look scared. And if he makes... If he acts scared, then I'm going to go, congratulations. Zombies aren't afraid of anything. Does that work? Sure. Give me intimidation. Okay, that's six over five. Success.

[00:52:07] I got bit. I've got the veins. Bro, have you never heard of latence, bro? Like, how far gone? Like, how... It's been five years, bro. I... When everything went down, we held up in a bunker. We didn't communicate with the outside. We ran out of food and finally got out, and I got bit.

[00:52:36] And, you know, I'm just really hungry, and I've got the veins, and I touched someone, and they turned, and I'm... I thought I was... I was... I was God. I was just... What? What's going on? Yo. Oh, man. Homie. Fuck. All of you give me self-control check. Yeah. Failure. Success. Success. If you fail, just wanted detachment.

[00:53:06] Do you have any family? No, they... They all... They all turned. I... I put them down, and... All right. Hold up. Hold up. Let me... Let me check you, Vic, real fast. I'm gonna spend a charge on my pad, and, like, bring up lifelines, and, like, just bring up the lifelines Wikipedia article version of latence. Yes. I'll, at arm's reach, be handing him one of my rations.

[00:53:36] Eat this. You're not yourself when you're hungry. Hey, yo. So, uh... I want to look at this, but, like... Do you have gloves or anything? Um... No. No? Fuck. Um... I rip off part of my muscle shirt, and, like, I hand that to him. Like, all right, so, uh... Don't touch my pad directly, like, my laptop directly, but, like, touch through this.

[00:54:06] Okay, yeah. I mean... Yeah. I've got an article I need you to read, bro. Uh... He's reading it over, and you can see he's, like... Just stupefied by everything. He's like, We only had one pair of Ubix, and, um... My dad didn't let anyone else use them because he was afraid we were going to break them, and then the batteries ran out after a while, and we didn't have a charger, and... God. Fuck.

[00:54:36] It's rough, bro. It's rough, bro. Where are you guys from? Um... Oh, yeah, we're from, um... A, uh... An enclave nearby. Oh, shit. You don't know what enclaves are, do you? Fuck. Well, are they just... Where people held up... You know, safe zone kind of stuff? There's... There's lepers at, uh... Hatch, isn't there? Uh... Yes, there are latents at Hatch, yes. Did I say lepers? Yes, we did. Oh, phew.

[00:55:07] We know how you feel. Wow, that's pretty... Ow. Pretty fucking racist there, uh... They're not a race. I... Listen, my advice to you is you should point in that general direction. Go. Walk that way. With your hands up. When you definitely get in the parameter, don't stumble around yelling, I'm a zombie, or they will shoot you in the head. But there is an enclave over there, and if you can work, you can eat,

[00:55:37] and there are other latents there as well, so you can have some camaraderie with people. You don't have to be afraid of turning them. Yeah, bro. Like, when you head there, just, like, go... Just hands up, just yell, latent, don't shoot. Okay. And whatever you do, don't apologize for what you are. Are you heading back there? Nah, we got work to do, bro, but, like... Like, uh... We'll... I'll... What's your name? Desmond?

[00:56:07] Nice to meet you, Desmond. My name's Steadfast. Uh, I work over in, like, the IT section back at Hatch, so, like, you ever have any, like, connectivity issues? Just hit me up, bro, and, like, I'll see what I can do, but, like... Okay. Can I... But you guys are going back there eventually, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, yeah. Yeah, we're definitely heading back. Can I come with you, then? You guys seem equipped to handle yourselves out here, you know,

[00:56:36] and since I'm not a... A casualty. Sorry, it says casualty here. Since I'm not a casualty, um, you know, I'm... They might attack me. Uh, we're about to head into, like, a pretty fucking dangerous area, homie. Like, if you want to come, you can, but, like, wouldn't recommend it, bro. All right, so, what do you guys want to do? Do you want to let this guy come with you, or do you want to just send him back?

[00:57:05] You could call ahead. It's been a charge. Yeah, I don't... This guy has no skills. I tell you what, I've got... I've got you, Biggs, Chris. You want me to just go ahead and make the call? Like, you don't need to call back. I'm just giving you the option of a meat shield, to be honest. Um, but if you want to send him back, that's fine. I... Personally, I would feel bad about that because I'm emotionally frail. Okay. Uh, I've got enough sense. I'm trying to be a better person, even though I almost shot him.

[00:57:36] Okay. Uh, so he'll go back in the direction that you point him in. Um, and thanks you. Um, he's got a lot of reading catching up to do. He heads off. The moment, like, he gets out of, like, eye shot, I'm gonna make a self-control check. Okay. Because I just fucking clotheslined a latent. I passed that check. Okay, you're fine. Yo,

[00:58:06] did any of you get any video of that? Because that shit was dope. Turned around, just keeps walking. All right. Mark off another charge of rations as you reach the job site. It's a little rest stop off the side of the highway. Uh, it appears that the E-Clean people have pushed the various hulks of cars from the highway to make sort of a suit, like a semi kind of wall. Plus the, um, rest stop is sort of slightly raised up, so casualties are less likely to walk up in that direction.

[00:58:36] You see in the parking lot there is an RV. You guys are from a distance yet, still, so don't worry about, like, vectors just coming down on you right now. And it seems to be one of those rest stops where it's like a small little common area with, like, two vending machines, one for food, one for drink, and, uh, a bench or two. Um, and then there are the two doors for the men's bathroom and the women's bathroom, and then a third door for, like,

[00:59:05] a handicap kind of bathroom. All right. Um, I am going to spend a charge on my laptop to set up Blackstone, because I'm sure there are security feeds around here. You do get pings. Um, there seems to be four Ubix specs that you can ping. That's it for wireless things. All right. We've got four specs that are wireless. Um, I have Blackstone, so, like,

[00:59:35] I can actually, like, hack into those feeds. Are they, like, specs attached to vectors? It's hard to tell. There's three in the RV. There's three signals coming from the RV, one from the building. Uh, they're not really moving too much. All right. Yo, so there are, there are three, um, there are three specs in the RV. They're not moving.

[01:00:04] What, what about the fourth? Uh, the fourth one's in the, the, the building. What does the feed look like? Uh, give me a, uh, IT check or whatever you need to, whatever skill you named it. IT bro. IT bro. Yeah, bro. Got that. Six over five. They're actually sitting on a little table. Um, pointed towards a wall

[01:00:33] with a very large blood smear on it. Uh, give me an awareness check. Okay. Uh, that is a nine under ten. Nine under ten. Yeah, it's just, uh, pointed towards a corner. There's just a large blood smear spray against the wall. You can't really see anything else. Yo, take a look at this. This seems fucked up. But like,

[01:01:03] look at the way it's splattered. Like, it's like a Banksy or something. Ken, with my background seeing that, does that give me the option of ruling criminality to tell if that's a blood, if that's a gunshot? Yeah, sure. Okay. Did we already make it there, by the way? Because my kid walked by and blah, blah, blah, and then we were seeing it. Yeah, you're on the site. There's two legs after the job site. Oh, okay. Okay. So, I understand now.

[01:01:33] Alright, there's four over three. Four over three. It looks like blood spray coming from, like, from a down to upward trajectory. Something you see from, like, a slash or a, you know, not a gunshot, more of like a... So it's like momentum slung it? Yeah. Okay. And when you look closer, you sort of see the littlest tip of a foot sticking out from behind the table. So there's

[01:02:02] underneath, out of view of that, um, from where that blood spray is, there's at least a body laying down on the ground, or maybe what's left of it. I'll point that out to him. God, I wish I had a mechanic in this group here that could sit there and take that RV and turn it into the mobile home of death and take care of the stuff. I have two points in mechanics. I'm a tech pro, and the tech here is not just IT.

[01:02:33] Okay. Okay. So, do we need to get closer? Ace, what do you think? Uh, Ace barks at you. Okay. I pat his hat I pat him. He's the, uh, he has the friendly upgrade. He nuzzles your hand. I'm sorry. What about Fresno? What about Deuce? I do think that we will need to get closer. Ace can run around on the other side of the camp a ways and bark a little bit and then

[01:03:03] run off quietly to, you know, try to pull some of them away if we need to just get in and get out. I mean, I don't think that, uh, I mean, machete over here, I don't know how good we're going to be up close with, with vectors and me with my pole, you know. I mean, like, what I think we can do is you can grab them with the pole and then I can take them out while you're holding them. We need there to be as few as possible, though. So I still think we should probably get Ace to try to draw them off so there are fewer of them around at a time.

[01:03:33] Yeah, like, I honestly, I think, like, the best tactic here would be to draw them off and, like, peel them out so we get one vector at a time. Then, like, I don't know, bro, like, Scoutmaster, like, maybe you can be a bait. Deuce can, like, grab them while they're going after you and then I can take them out. I think that seems like a smart move. What's this surrounding? Like, what is this place again, Nick?

[01:04:03] What kind of setup is it? It's a rest stop. It's no trees, except they've moved the cars to, like, circle the rest stop. It's a small parking lot off to the side. It's a single building. There is, like, it's the setup that's, like, it's a common area that you step into with some seats and vending machines and then from there you can go into the bathrooms. And this is set in Kansas, so you've heard of hills.

[01:04:33] Yeah, it's not hilly, hilly, this area of Kansas, but there is a slight incline that should dissuade casualties from just casually walking up there. Is there trees nearby? Like saplings or anything? No. Not in this part. Not in this area. There goes my bungee spikes. All right. Hmm. You know what we need to do, gentlemen, is to find something that'll make them slip when they run

[01:05:03] after us. Is there any old vehicles or anything I get around? Oh, yeah. They've taken all the ones off the road and just rung them around the rest stop. The rest usually has a parking area for semis where people who can spend overnight in their trucks. Are there any semis there? I look through my feeds. There are two semis that have become part of the wall, and there is one semi that appears to have been

[01:05:33] picked apart a little bit and is resting in the semi section of the parking lot. Yo, take a look at this. The door is still intact if that's what you're asking about. Do any of them have fluid tanks? Are they fluid ones or just like box truck trucks? Box truck trucks. Okay. What were you saying there about your feed? Yeah, no, I'm basically just saying look through my feed so we can look through the like we can basically

[01:06:03] flip between any audio and visual tracks in the area. At this point, steadfast, you get a call on your laptop. I answer. Oh, thank God you're here. It's Levi. He's not in good shape. The door is dented. There are parts where you can sort of see the door is bending to the point where it's going to start cracking.

[01:06:34] Okay, I figured I could punch out the fan on top of the RV and run out, but I may need some help getting rid of the fan on top of the RV or whatever else plan you can think of. you hear like that. Sorry, I'm sorry, please. I don't mean to do it. Get out if you can run. I'm sorry. I'm sorry. You just hear two voices in the RV just banging on that bathroom door.

[01:07:04] Out of character, Adam, is your gun loud? Silenced. God damn it. I mean, that's good, right? I can sling a stone into something and make it loud. It's crists are threaded. I can unscrew it. Yeah. Out of character, I think the smart move here would be to have us positioned in two separate locations. Have

[01:07:33] Brownie, your character, throw a sling at something loud and hollow, and have your character, Adam, fire off an unsilenced shot, but that's going to bring casualties to our area. There's also Ace who could bark for us. There's also Ace. I'm also thinking about Ace. I'm thinking of Ace as a third thing to scramble

[01:08:03] and confuse. So the vectors are inside the RV, and they're beating on a bathroom door. There's two vectors inside the RV. There might be one more in the building if it's taken it easy. Yeah, and we know of at least four Ubix specs in the area, which implies to me that there's at least four vectors in the area. Well, one of them is the one that called you, which is Levi's. So there's at least three vectors in the area. Looks like,

[01:08:34] and what's the stop us from running up or opening up the door real quick? Like, um, you see that the RV door is, uh, ajar. It's open. Yo, if we can grab those, um, are those the specs that are currently unused just, like, lying on the ground? Uh, no, they were on a table inside the rest stop. The other three, not Levi's. Oh, two of them are in the

[01:09:03] RV itself, and then the last one is the one on the table that you hacked into. Okay, so the two in the RV, um, I have access to their feet. Does it look like they're moving? Yeah, they're on the faces of the vectors trying to break through. You have a first person point of view of the attempt to eat Levi. Okay, yo, so, um, we got some use here, like, check this shit out. These are the vectors. We have their eyes.

[01:09:34] Okay, I've got an idea. You know, the vectors aren't smart enough to know if you were hacking and putting an augmented reality thing over top of them like Pokemon or whatever they called, brownie? Newbies. Yeah. Newbies. Stuff like that. If you're allowed to hack them, if you could do something like that where they're actually seeing shit that you can maybe kite them away with away from the RV like that, does that make sense? Like, you're going to have something moving, they'll

[01:10:04] turn, and then if you could successfully do that, this may be beyond your tech level, or this may be beyond the scope of what Nick is thinking, but if you can make them see shit. Do you have surround sound? Like, is the audio that good? Reminder that I literally have the profession IT bro. They're not surround sound, but I could definitely spoof something visually. Maybe like minor audio. Because if they were

[01:10:33] good enough to be surround sound, you could play audio from quote behind them. No, they're not surround sound, but I will say that with a successful role, you could do some sort of augmented reality thing in front of their maybe they're wearing noise cancelling headphones associated with the Ubix. Because that way I could play something in one ear and not the other. No, not quite that. These seem to just be basic

[01:11:03] Ubix. Okay. Yeah, these Ubix aren't quite as dope as mine, so I can't spoof the sound, but I could do visual shit. If we could make them run back in the rest area, that would be great. So, basically, with this plan, Nick, would it be kosher for me to spook them or kite

[01:11:33] them with weird visual signals and maybe we could have Ace spoof them audio? So, you want to use the visual of the Ubix and Ace barking to distract them, to lead them away? Yeah, you could do that. I would require a check of both Ace and your hacking skills. Alright, so, what I'm thinking we need to do here, uh, is like, uh,

[01:12:02] I'll get one of them to a specific location, because we need to work on one at a time. Uh, Deuce, you're gonna have to grab them with the, with your pole. And from there, either, uh, I or Scoutmaster can finish them off. Oh, Leet hacks or this thing up? Um, can we actually get closer to the place and get on top of the, see if we can maybe get on top of the, um, of the rest area building itself, get some elevation?

[01:12:31] I mean, look, I, like, I didn't want to say anything to you there, Fresno, but, uh, if these things can run, then they may be able to outrun a dog, figure it out, run a casualty, or a vector beforehand. He just needs to bark and then quietly run to the side. I mean, they're not going to know to go. I, I trust Ace. Ace is a good dog. He's a good boy. barks and looks happy at you when you say good boy. Uh-oh. No idea

[01:13:01] that we're about to threaten his life. Okay. So do y'all want to try to get closer? Yeah. So we can act? Sure. Do you want me to go, do you want me to go first with a, because I do have like at least one point of stealth? I have no stealth, so yes. Well, no, actually, I've got two stealth. Do you want me to kind of, do you want to leapfrog down there Fresno? Exaggerated sneaking starts to the predetermined position that we have.

[01:13:32] Okay. Give me stealth check. Uh, 11 over one. Okay. You managed just to sneak into position. This would be, uh, shoot. No, that would have been 10-10 ties go to the market. Do you want to use a will? No. I think you can kill at him. Yeah. We're dealing with, we're dealing with, we're dealing with eat clean back first. I know, I know. Uh, I'll burn that wheel.

[01:14:02] Okay, so you sneak into position. Were you moving up steadfast, or are you doing everything remotely from a safe distance? Uh, I'm gonna try to move up, too. Okay. We need his machete. Yeah, like, yeah, I'm supposed to kill them. Uh, well, I mean, I've got guns, and I've got a bayonet, and stuff like that. Like, no, not to cut you down, like, you need stuff. Don't get me wrong. We need all of us. We need all of us for this. This is a three-person job, Adam. Okay.

[01:14:32] Four-person, ace is here. Ace is not a person, ace is a dog. I love dogs. Are you gonna be sneaking down there with zero stealth? I succeed. I actually have one point in stealth, and I succeeded. Okay. 11 over six. You guys all sneak into position, so make your checks to distract. Animal handling, that's an O-O, natural. Okay. Fuck, I don't have to do shit. I don't have to do. You need to get him out of the RV.

[01:15:02] Five over one. Five over one, okay. So you do a quick movement in the corner of the vector's eyes, they look over. You make an image of something going out the door. I'm specifically doing one at a time. Ace is a good boy and can throw his bark with that critical. What do you say? You make an image of something going out the door and it runs out. At that point, you have it turn in the direction of Ace.

[01:15:33] Ace laying low in a little gully near the edge of the ring, barks, and then starts digging under a little gully of the car, barks on the other side of the wall. The vector both times starts running and just hurtles the cars, and the ace scuttles back under the car to hide, and the vector continues running off in the direction where it thinks the bark is coming from, and you

[01:16:03] rinse and repeat. Ace does that bark that dogs can do sometimes. It kind of sounds like speech, but isn't really speech, but kind of sounds like speech. No. And you guys hear, I'm sorry, I'm sorry, run, run, I'm sorry, and it just gets fainter and fainter as it runs off. I'm sure that's not going to come back to haunt our other campaign. It'll run out of juice, it's fine. That's not my problem,

[01:16:32] because I'm not part of that campaign. Do you send the all's clear message? That was only one, so we got to get the other one, too. No, no, no, no, I'm just having, like, I was just doing the checks in general for both of them. You've got both of them out. Okay. The other one would want to come towards us, right? I mean, that's what we planned. Yeah. We want to get, I suspect there's at least one

[01:17:02] other vector in this area, and we want to get that one out. We flushed out, too. Does the RV run? Did before there were vectors crunching around in it? Of course, it probably needs to be decontaminated. I don't know if I'm really crazy about touching anything in there. If we'd brought our friend, he could have driven it for us. You see a head peek out of the door of the RV and look around. I ping Levi. I... Is it safe to come out?

[01:17:32] Are they gone? Is that you poking your head out? Yeah. I don't know if it's safe yet, bro. We're still working. Okay. Sit tight for a little bit, okay? Okay. Can I close the RV door? Yes. It's a little bit more fortified than the bathroom door. Yeah, yeah, close the RV door. Be quiet about it, bro. Close the RV door. Do me a favor. I've got Blackstone up on my

[01:18:02] app, and I've got my connected to your specs, so grab them, look around for me. Okay, yeah, yeah. Gotcha, gotcha, good. Okay, I'll be watching. Like, I'm saying, look around in the RV right now, bro. Oh, yeah, he's looking around. Anything weird? There's just lots of blight and blood everywhere. He's like watching his step, kind of being careful walking around. Like,

[01:18:32] I'm showing the other two this feed while he's doing it. What do y'all think? Safe for him to come out? He's probably safer in there until we sweep the area. Yeah, I think we need to kind of, yeah, I think we need to be double, this is our payday, guys. We got this. So, I guess now that we're closer, I'm going to go ahead and preemptively tell you, Nick, that I am going to go ahead and I have on, with my Ubix Vex, I'm going to be

[01:19:02] using Deadeye. So, I'm going to go ahead and burn a charge for that. Okay. So, you know, just to be ready, unslings a rifle, and I guess we think it's in the restroom. Is what we think is like, like, Levi was in the restroom and he got out. I thought he was in the restroom in the RV. Yeah, he's, there's a building. Oh, okay, yeah, yeah, no, we should check there.

[01:19:32] All right, so I guess we should go near the body, where the body was. So, if you all don't care, let me lead the way. I'm still kind of, I know you've got that hook that you're dying to use, but there's also splatter when I do stuff, so I'd like to avoid that spray. There's not splatter when I cut someone's head off. All right, so I'd like to make my way toward the body, stealthing it, I guess. You make your way up to the

[01:20:02] door of the safe house, slowly open it, and peek inside. It appears that the vending machines were removed, a lot of the benches and tables have been removed, and it seems to be just bare, like, there's just a single table, and bare boat, like, sleeping bags everywhere, and you see the body across the room. There is a single, there is also a video camera watching the door with,

[01:20:32] like, it's blinking red light. And I don't have access to that with my Blackstone app? Like, that's kind of the point. It's all, it's all hard, hardwired, it's not wireless. Gotcha. And, yeah, you see the body, give me awareness check. Okay. Three over one. Okay. You notice that the body has black veins running through it, from the parts of the skin that you can see, but you also notice that one of the

[01:21:02] bathrooms has a lot of blood on the door as well, as if, you know, you see like a bloody handprint on the door as if someone pushed it with a bloody hand to open it. What kind of handles on that bathroom door? It is pushed to get in. No handles. Which means there's probably a handle on the other side to pull to open it. Damn it. You know, I was just going to penny lock it or something and be like, whoop, whoop, got this. Hmm.

[01:21:32] What else? Okay, so I guess I'm watching it. Is anybody else going in here with me or anything or you all want me to keep going by myself? You've got the specs and I'm watching from a distance. I forgot to buy a ghoul net. I have blackstone. That's the same thing. It's actually it's it's ghoul net like it's ghoul net's big brother. Ghoul net without consent.

[01:22:02] Yeah. Okay. I will have moved up with you to the door of the rest stop at least. I haven't gone inside yet though because you asked me to stay out. Yeah. Is there anything that could be slick that can be lightly poured by the restroom door like if that thing comes running out that it's just going to go wiping out? I mean there is a body. Yeah. Literally you could just have a trip over a corpse. I'm not touching. I also have a net which

[01:22:31] can use either criminality or stealth to set up to restrain multiple targets. You want to do that? I can set that up outside of the bathroom so if something runs out it catches in the net. I'll have to do it really quietly though. Sounds like we do that and then we bang on the door. Mm-hmm. And then we're going to pull off the mask and it was old man withers the whole time. Okay. Well we're going to pull off the mask in this case. Pulling off the mask is me using a machete to somebody's neck. So you're walking and installing the net and

[01:23:01] banging on the door? Yep. So stealth to install the net in a way that will catch them when they come out as reading the item and that's a 7 over 4. Okay. Then you said criminality to set up the net? It says stealth or criminality to set up the net to capture so basically I mean I wouldn't have had to do that because they can't see but I'm doing stealth to do it quietly. Sneaking and you start setting up the net and you see the body on the

[01:23:30] ground near you. It looks like its chest was torn up a bit. Black veins running through it. I'm keeping an eye on it just in case it twitches but I'm continuing to set up the net. I mean if you want me to head up I'll just behead that thing. That can be the loud sound that calls the thing out of the bathroom. Sure. Yeah. If you want to do that and I think that I'm also going to take an aim action at the door anyway. Not that the net catches it then I'm not going to shoot but I want to kind

[01:24:00] of if it doesn't hold then I'm going to can I have a plus to my shot? Yeah you can do that. That's fine. kind of aiming like where the head would be on a normal size man. You don't get a plus to that you just it's a cold shot. So if you succeed you shoot them. My luck is Peter Dinkley runs out of there and I'm going to shoot over there. Alright so so you're going to behead the body? Yes. Okay.

[01:24:30] You head in quietly. You come down with for a second but you cut the head clean off and it was a casualty not just a dead body. Congrats you didn't fall for the trap and you bang on the door. No response. You bang again. No response. No noise. No apologies. No nothing.

[01:25:00] From the other side of the net take the rabies pole and push on the door since it pushed to open. Just push it so it swings open and then hop backwards. Give me a self-control check. That would be a failure. Let me consult my chart. God. I mean I could make that a crit success. That's up to you.

[01:25:29] We'll say that's two detachment. Oh that's okay. I'm not cracked yet. You see a very bloodied corpse with most of its head missing laying face down in the middle of the bathroom and slumped up against the opposite wall from the door is another headless body with a shotgun in its lap and lots of bite wounds all over their arms. And that's all five guys.

[01:25:58] Two outside the three in here. All right. So we just got to make sure those guys outside didn't circle back and we've cleared the area. I go in for a high five with a brownie. And I do the the old pull the hand away. Too slow Joe. God bro. Anybody got what's your all scavenge? Not. It's not. One. I'm a

[01:26:28] moonlighter. I got scavenge as well. So do you have apophenia or do you not have that app? I didn't buy that app. I'm sorry. OK. Are you scavenging like the building in general or are you scavenging the bodies? I'm taking down my net. He can take down his net. I mean, obviously we're going to get a shotgun, wipe it down and stuff. But I guess it's a separate scavenge check for each one. Or are you just wanting to lump everything together? I want to lump everything together.

[01:26:58] I check in on the Blackstone app to see where the other two vectors are running off to because they should still be in my network. Oh, yeah. Yeah, they're not running directly away from the rest stop anymore, but they are moving back towards it. Either they got different stimuli or the ground

[01:27:28] sloped or they're more at a diagonal kind of path and they're not in a straight line. It's like a sidewinding kind of thing. They're more diagonal to us. Is there a service where you could tag vectors in an area? Yeah, you could report them. I feel like that would be a good thing to do. Yeah, no, there's definitely dead weather. I can reach out to the tragedy trackers and get that going. It's just going to cost me a charge.

[01:27:58] But before I do that, I'm going to ping Levi. It's like, yo, hey, bro, looks like we got them. The two vectors who are slamming up against you are gone and doing their own thing. The other three are out. Good, good. I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll, I'll come on out. I'm good. You see him like reach under, pull open the bottom of his couch and you see like a small little safe there. And he

[01:28:28] like picks it up and like starts walking out with it. Dope. Uh, seven over four on the scavenging tech for the building. You find, uh, what's your natural black? Six. Okay. Uh, you find six bounty. Uh, apparently, uh, some people paid for a shipment or some message should be delivered, but, uh, you know, that's not important now. Is there any kind of, what about the shotgun? Do we get to keep it or is it kind of? No,

[01:28:57] we're keeping that. I'll say you could, you can get the shotgun for the bodies. I'm sure there's no bullets. No. All right. Well, we'll just add that to it. Um, so I think the cleaning supplies or anything we could put in the band to try to sterilize the, or is it pretty much a lost cause? It's pretty much a lost cause. Um, I mean, this is a, is a rest stop. It would have food, it would have equipment, it would have stuff. It's a rest stop five years

[01:29:27] into the, into the crash. Yeah, but it's an eat clean safe house. Yeah. You check the other bathroom that, uh, it appears that they sort of converted it into like a kitchen of some sort. Uh, they, at least they put a fridge here and put some counter space in lots of protein shakes and vegetables in the fridge. Can we refresh our rations? Oh shit. Protein shakes. Um, I'll tell you what, hold it. Oh, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

[01:29:58] Hey tech bro, find where that camera feed's going here. I'd like to see how this went down. Actually, can I look into that? Like, can I, in the handicap bathroom, they do have a recording system set up for the camera. All right, yo, get, get the, the shakes and like start gathering stuff. I'm gonna, I'm gonna do some research, bro. Okay. Well, let's get the client in here and the main door closed in case our vector friends come back. I've got their feed going. Like I can see where they're coming. Hey,

[01:30:27] is it possible? Does my scavenge check also count the dead body outside or is he dressed like the rest of them? By the way, all they're, they're all the same. Okay. Yeah. They're all in very, very short runner shorts. Yes. And, and tank tops, which is why he could easily see all the bites along the arms and everything. But yeah, give me, give me tech bro. Roll. Hell yeah.

[01:30:58] Bro, bro. I don't think you understand how fucking good I am at my job. Like this is fucking, I'm an artist. I think back fondly to the warlord that had the mask on his face that used to boss me around and I look fondly at his people's skills now. Yeah. Like bro, like I, I'm, bro, you don't understand how good I fucking I am at my job and succeed or critically succeed. That's a critical success.

[01:31:29] Yeah. So there was only a camera pointed at the door. You pull off pictures, you get clear pictures of everyone who came in and out in the past two days. They didn't have that much space on it three days. You, you, you spot everyone who was here, the five dead eat clean people, the one Levi, but it's also another person who comes in just stops in for a couple hours. They look, they have like a duster on

[01:31:59] hat pulled low. So you can't get a good look at their face. They, they seem to go in then like half hour later, come out, like wave in and thinking at the people and walks away. I like, I wave Levi over later, later that night. Like there's just the people coming in and out that you saw. And then later that night, the five eat clean people are in the room. And that's when you see from like the

[01:32:29] shadows of the light, you see a whole bunch of commotion and that you see Levi opened the door at one point and you see a look of fear across his face and he just immediately just disappears from the screen shortly after two of the eat clean vectors run out. All right. Yo, Levi, come here. Yeah. I need you to take a look at this. And like I zoomed back to the person in the duster

[01:32:59] and the hat. Yeah. You recognize this? Yeah, you have some guy who stopped in, asked to refresh their rations, paid for it, I think. I don't know. I wasn't like in the room when it happened, but I guess, you know, things aren't free. Yeah. He just said he was coming through, needed some rations to keep on

[01:33:29] traveling. I am 80% certain that this asshole is what caused this outbreak. Oh, God, dude. So like, you know nothing about them? No, no, I was in my RV at the time. I mean, I came out and talked to him when he was leaving. Does anyone want to make a sensitivity check? Sensitivity check? Because I can't. I can

[01:33:57] if I only got one. Six over, well, seven over two. Is he telling us the truth? Yeah, he's telling the truth. He's surprised. I might be careful of those protein shakes, bro. Yeah. How does her last meal look like in the kitchen detective? Like, does it look like he poisoned the food? Do you open the fridge and see anything happening? Yeah, you're fucking literally a detective.

[01:34:27] One moment, let me go to work. just fucking like sneaks over there. Sneaks over there, oversized magnifying glass comes out, looking at something I can directly see with my eye easily. Roll a seven over three on detective. Let me reconstruct this thing. Go into the quick time event. What's going on here? Brody, this is my design. Okay, roll detective. I did,

[01:34:57] it was a seven over three. Okay, you look through and nothing's out of the ordinary. They're making a vegetarian meal with a bunch of vegetables and stuff. You notice that there's a couple of open protein shakes on the table. Well, at least one. The others have been knocked off in the scuttle. Gently and slowly pour them out into bowls, looking to see if there's any chunks. No, no chunks per se. But when you check

[01:35:26] the fridge at the other protein shakes, you notice most of them are sealed. Like they've got a seal on them. I look around for injection marks. But there are a couple that are full, but the seal has been broken. It looks like somebody tampered with the protein shakes. Those ones look safe, these ones are not. Don't drink these ones. Oh, oh, God, protein. The protein shakes were poisoned.

[01:35:57] You didn't have one, did you? Um, I mean, I did, but. Clearly, if it was going to happen, it would have happened by now. So you're all right. Just you're lucky. We don't know that actually, bro. I think I'm going to be sick. He runs off to the bathroom, the bathroom bathroom. Does he have to roll a self-control check when he runs in the bathroom? Yeah, you hear him give out a cry, a short cry before he like diffles it. And then he throws up? Yes. Yes.

[01:36:28] Deuce. You're going to have to use that, uh, the rabies bowl on him, bro. No, no, just it's it's fine. No, no, it's not. Better safe than sorry, bro. No, it's been long enough. If he was going to turn, he would have turned by now. As long as it took us, him to call us to take the job, him to shit. I didn't realize I was dealing with a pair of fucking zombie apocalypse experts. I know animal behavior,

[01:36:58] bro. No. I, bro, why don't like he didn't see the guy he went in before the duster guy did got his drink and all that stuff. And then he was in the RV. He did not come back out. He was in and out of the building. After the guy, the duster guy was in the building. All right. So he was in before the tampering. Okay. No, no, no. I'm saying he was in and out before and after the duster guy.

[01:37:28] Yeah. So he was like, there is a chance that he had a tampered drink. Yes, there is a chance. Out of character. Out of character. Yes. Keep in mind the way going vector works is it's cinematic. So like, bro, we don't know how this shit works. I'm not comfortable with this. All right. So, you know, he just walked in

[01:37:58] front of us. Come on. We were paid to do a job. We get the guy back. I'll walk right behind him with the rabies pull. It's fine. No, no, bro. I am not comfortable with this. I am straight up not vibing. Then go home without his chair. Yeah. Literally, all I'm asking is like we just tie his hands behind his back. That's not an unfair thing to think. Not an unfair thing to say here, bro. Like,

[01:38:27] we could even be like, hey, dude, we don't know if you have a tainted milkshake or not. And like, I'm sure he'd get it. More puking from the bathroom. Do you hear that? Do you hear that? And you're cool with like, just come on. Hands behind the back. All I'm asking. Out of character, I'm not doing this, Chris. So, I mean, I'm kind of willing to play the odds,

[01:38:57] man. All right, fair enough. We got the tension and stuff like that. Brown, are you kind of along the same lines? We'll just write rare cards. Yeah, you two can overrule me and I'll just be like, yeah. So, we have a little bit of a hush argument for a while. And as he comes out, wiping his mouth on his looks a little pal. It's like, oh, God, I think I'm good to go now. Sorry, the thought of. All right,

[01:39:26] so tell you what, I'm an I'll we like to space out a little bit here. So I'm going to kind of walk ahead of you about, you know, 20 yards here, kind of doing scout. Actually, you actually have a higher awareness than I do, don't you, Brownie? I do, too. I do, yeah, but I'm also the one with the catcher, so. Okay, if you want to be the catcher behind, we'll just kind of set up a proprietary pecking order. I will take awareness.

[01:39:56] I'll take scout rule because I want to be as far the fuck away from him as possible when he goes vector. So I guess, do we have enough daylight to burn? He carries the safe, he's good to go out. Is your motorhome usable? I probably would want to get it cleaned and everything, given what happened, plus it's sort of really beat up from the vectors banging all over it. I was thinking of hiring another team to come out and recover it.

[01:40:26] Let's just walk back. It's going to take some time to fix it up. I just want to get behind a wall. He looks at the cars like an actual wall. Let's get you behind a wall, homie, and then maybe you can think about hiring us to clean this shit out. Yeah, I've already paid enough for this job. I could probably sure, yeah, okay. I'd say this from a good 15 feet away, by the way. I didn't

[01:40:55] mention this, Chris, but my guy being an ex-raider and probably being a human trafficker at one point in time that was hitting some familiar things. I wish I'd that, but that's my tough spot. Scoutmaster has thrown his in-game X card. Yeah, but I'm also trying to get an extra wheel for doing something dangerous.

[01:41:25] No, I actually think this is good characterization for all of us. Okay. I'm not seeing this as us being confrontational to each other. And just while we're taking this moment, and for those of you listening at home, this is just trying new things and stuff like that. Brownie and Nick, was this a decent like, I mean, we let it go out a little bit, we kind of hit

[01:41:55] our impasse, and then was that a real smooth way of handling this kind of debate? I'd agree with that. Seems good. Okay, that's cool. I just didn't want to be too heavy-handed, but yeah. I think that's a very good thing about RPX as a crew. We are very good at disagreeing with each other, and then just like stopping at a moment and being like, hey, this is not going to continue. And then we just come to a position out of character. And I honestly

[01:42:25] think that is one of the best aspects of our crew. Appreciate it, and I appreciate all you all. I do have a proposition, just so because we do get one vignette or like a little interlude kind of thing. Could we use the interlude for the first lick that we're working with this guy, walking with this guy? Sure. actually, I would prefer that if you were to do an interlude. Yeah, because he obviously wants him to go vector in the second interlude. Nicholas.

[01:42:55] You guys handled the vectors a lot better than I thought. I wouldn't have if they had guns, I'd went in there slinging them. Okay, so we could do interludes if that's what you prefer. Okay. Reuse the leg I was planning on using for a future job. Let me roll on the interlude table. Who would like to be the subject or the person to start the interlude? Well, I'm a loudmouth, so. Would you like, actually,

[01:43:25] I should say, is there a topic you guys would like to discuss, or should I just roll? I have a topic. Sure. So I know I threw it out, this whole name, but, I mean, Rando was for random, not Randian. You're not a Randian. Are you Setfast? I mean, I've read Atlas Shrugged. I listened to about half of it on Ubic feed, but I couldn't get through it. It was just too boring. Yeah, right?

[01:43:55] Like, it was so fucking boring, bro. I mean, Phoenix Durango, really? Scoutmaster, have you read Atlas Shrugged? Uh, no, man, look, like, the books that they gave in school, I'd bring them back and they wouldn't even have a wrinkle in the spine. It just seemed boring. Yeah, nah, bro, like, my last boss, he was super, super fucking into Atlas Shrugged, and I'm like,

[01:44:25] oh yeah, I guess I'll read it to suck up on it, and I'm like, like, it was just, it was hard to read, it was boring, and like, more like Atlas Yawned. I love this, like, this guy was awesome, like, he was dope as shit, like, he built a fucking spaceship, and like, all those electric cars and shit, but like, god damn, this book was so fucking boring, bro. I didn't make it past Reardon Steel, it was just too boring.

[01:44:54] Before we get too much further into this, I do want to go ahead and tell you all that I come with a lot of baggage that I'd rather not discuss, but if you want to continue working with me after this job, I find it only fair to let you know that I am a bit of tainted goods, and I'm trying to make a better life for myself and my family. Animal handling role to have this moment be,

[01:45:24] I make a gesture at Ace and have Ace go over and nuzzle Scoutmaster in a comforting way. Sure. Go, roll for it, don't crit fair. 12 over 8. The dog comes over to you and just nuzzles up on your leg and then makes cute dog noises at you, showing that he likes you. Oh shit, like my old boss? He's like, he owned an emerald mind. An emerald mind, man.

[01:45:54] Nick, you know this is eerily reminiscent of the scene in the game that Chris ran with Sean and Laura and Vince and me where Sean goes vector right in the middle as he was getting ready to whisper something to me and then he bites me. You guys look over to Levi and he's still pale. He's trudging along. He's gotten quiet, which is kind of the opposite of what vectors go. Yo, Levi, you good, bro?

[01:46:25] Yeah, yeah. Is your stomach doing okay? I've got some rations that came from behind a wall, not from out here. No, it's not okay. Bro, you're kind of worrying me here, man. It's all right. I'm fine. Are you depressed or sick? It's okay to be depressed, man. I've had bad days, bro.

[01:46:57] What do you mean sick? How are you feeling? Bro. Queasy. I just give pointed glances to both Scout Master and um, Deuce. Deuce. Yeah, I give pointed looks to both Scout Master and Deuce. Awareness just to be extra alert. Sure. Roll me that awareness.

[01:47:27] 10 over seven. I mean, he's not doing anything threatening. I mean, it's not sensitivity, but he doesn't like, you know, start bleeding from his orifices or, you know, running at people trying to eat them. He's not apologizing. You haven't heard him say, like, you heard him say, like, um, uh, sorry once, but that was because he was like, sorry, I gotta go to the bathroom. Can we stop?

[01:47:57] I love how sorry is, like, the ultimate, like, no word in this setting. If anyone apologizes, that means they get a bullet in the brain. Yeah, it wasn't like apologizing trying to eat you. It was sorry for slowing down and needing to go to the bathroom. He just seems like, you know, like he's had a long day, but that's like not sensitivity check doing it. That's just you observing his actions kind of thing.

[01:48:27] You heard me tell Desmond not to apologize for anything. So you guys have your fignette. No self-control check prompted. Everything seemed fine walking along. So because you rushed out there during the day to get him, it's going to become night before you reach the enclave. So it's probably best to find a nice position to camp for the night. Is my Blackstone app still active? Yeah.

[01:48:57] I mean, you'd have to spend another charge at this point, but you can still have it active. Yeah, I'm going to check on the status of those casualties or those vectors. They are out of range at this point for if you just do like a local kind of thing. They are not near you. All right, we're good with the vectors we were dealing with earlier folks. Levi just like nods. Be nice if you big specs had a heart rate

[01:49:26] monitor and you just kind of keep an eye on his heart rate. That's what Bastiless Garmer does. Oh, Lord. Well, I guess time to do this last leg. We got this. So at this point, Levi's just quiet. Like if you tell him to do something, he'll do it. He'll like nod yes or no, but he seems subdued. Subdued. Out of character. This dude is going to go vector on us. It's going to be a bad time. I know, but well,

[01:49:56] we should probably double up the watches one in and one out. I've literally described the opposite of going vector. He's shutting down, not opening up. They don't all turn the same way. No, I know, I know, I know, I know that. That's how I shut down when like I feel bad about shit. Nick, I must commend you on the psychological torture of putting somebody who may or may not, depending on a luck roll that you're probably going to make without us knowing turn vector. Luck roll? Everyone roll me a d10 and tell me what you get.

[01:50:26] Oh, boy. God damn it. Thanks for the recommendation, Adam. 10. 5. Can I upgrade that luck to a crit success? Sure. I'm kidding. Yeah, no, don't do that around me. Please. Please, God, don't give him ammunition. It would be good to know if the madcap spot is usable for one luck rolls and two defaulting, because I don't

[01:50:56] think it's written down, is there not? True. Out of character as like from a game design standpoint, I would suggest you don't allow that. Yeah, I was going to say the way it's written, or at least the way I thought I wrote it, was it was just supposed to upgrade the effect of will, not like... Right, so, and you're not supposed to be able, if you can't spend will on defaulting, then you shouldn't be able to use madcap on a result from a default. Yeah, it improves the results of will, not what it could be applied to, at least that's what my

[01:51:26] wording was trying to bring across. Yep, and that's how I took it, but it also wasn't written, so it's good to explore. Okay. So thank you for prompting that luck check, Adam. What do you guys want to do for the night? Shifts? No shifts? I think we should do shifts, but we should double up shifts, one person watching out and one person watching our friend. Less overall rest, but more chance of not being ambushed from both sides. Any of you want to cuddle with Levi? No, no,

[01:51:56] I'm good. I'm good. So who sleeps first? Yo. Let the bro take a rest first. You and I can stay up first. I've been doing a lot of heavy lifting, to be fair, y'all. Who got the eight and who got the ten, by the way? I got an eight. Okay, I thought that was what it was. Yeah, I got the five. Take a bro nap. We'll wake you when it's time for one of us to take our

[01:52:25] shift off. Hell yeah, power nap. Pass me one of those untainted protein shakes. I toss it in the air to him. I grab it. And succeed on my athletics role to do so. Give you awareness checks to people who are up. And that was, we're letting bro sleep, right? Yep. Yeah. All right. And who's watching in, who's watching out? Or does that matter for these awareness checks? That will matter. So please specify.

[01:52:55] I forgot to... I think since you have a gun, you should be watching out. I agree. And since I've got the man catcher, I can be watching in. Okay. So it looks like it's 10 over 7. Okay. I'm going to actually use one of my madcap wills to make this crit failure a success. I feel this is important. Okay. So you don't see anything out there, Scoutmaster. It's

[01:53:24] clear. You don't pick up anything. Are you having Ace help you guys? Or is Ace just sleeping? I think Ace will take a nap through this first part and then be up through the second part because I'll be awake for the second part and then Scoutmaster can sleep on shift too. Okay. So Deuce you're looking over your two fellow takers or at least taker and client.

[01:53:53] Probably more on the client you're focusing on. He's just laying there on his back, hands to his chest just breathing slowly staring up at the stars the entire time. Where is his safe? next to him. Okay. I'm also keeping an eye on our payday. Don't get me wrong. Yep. Just staring up at the sky. But nothing

[01:54:23] happens for either of you. Who's the second shift? I think that's me and Techbro. Yo. I have a name. Steadfast. Thank you. So I assume Steadfast wasn't sleeping too close to Levi. Oh, I was not sleeping close to Levi at all. But Ace did curl up next to him for this first shift when he took a nap.

[01:54:53] Because he's friendly. So, Scoutmaster, you're sleeping at this one? Yes, sir. And Ace is now up as well, also keeping an eye out. I've got him running perimeter, or walking perimeter, we'll call it. He's like a Tibetan Terrier at this point. Okay. Who's looking out? Who's looking in? Ace is looking out. I'm looking in. I would say

[01:55:22] I'll look out as well. Okay. Because again, I have the man catcher, so yeah. I'll give me awareness checks. Seven over two for me. Is that an animal handling on Ace? Yes. I'm going to spend a will to flip that, because I haven't spent a will for him yet, to make it a success. And a success for Ace as well. Okay. Well, with the Ace success on the perimeter, and the steadfast

[01:55:53] success on the perimeter, you guys don't see anything. Unfortunately for Deuce, Deuce thought that they heard something from Ace and looked out along the perimeter for a sec, for, you know, a couple seconds trying to spot where they were worried that they were in trouble. And then when you look back to the interior, Levi has stood up and is sort of standing

[01:56:22] over Scoutmaster, just sort of staring at them. Their back is to you, but they're just standing over Scoutmaster staring down at them. I move up with my man catcher. Hey, you all right there, buddy? Loud enough to maybe also wake Scoutmaster as I'm saying this. Give me a awareness check there, Scoutmaster. Use that rabies pull, my dude. I'm readying it.

[01:56:52] Nine over four. Okay, give me self-control check. Okay, thank God. What's my self-control? I mean, I succeeded, but I can't remember. Naturally, I would say it over one, so I mean, I won. It don't matter. It's ten over one. Excuse me. Okay. You don't lose anything because the first two levels are zero for success, unfortunately. But you wake up to

[01:57:22] Levi just standing over you, just staring down at you. And what woke you up was, hey, how are you doing? What are you doing? As you see Deuce with a rabies pull slowly approaching from behind Levi, who's just directly over you, staring down at you. I'm going to, what kind of nerve check would it be to not panic and let Deuce? Stress.

[01:57:52] It would be self control if you're looking for a skill, but it would probably be trauma or stress depending on how much bodily harm you think you're about to take. No, I mean, I succeeded. What I'm saying is if I, if I wants a signal to me to do something. Yeah. Without alerting this guy. Oh, that would be, that would be stealth or criminality. They're the same. They're the same. Okay. So that is a two over nine

[01:58:22] and I'm going to flip that with my last will. And I'm guessing that was you using your, your, um, your will right now. Yes. I used my, my will to make, make it so you didn't see him stand up and walk over to. Oh boy. Well, I like how you, you, I feel like you're being like super fair though of like that you didn't directly make the mad cat thing. Fuck me over in particular. And I mean, I mean, that's just a compliment. I mean, I think it's creepier

[01:58:52] or worse. Like this is bad. So what are you signaling there? Scoutmaster? Um, I look at him and I kind of glance up at the leaning soon to go vector and I nod for, uh, you know, our good detective to snare him and prepare to roll out of the way as I bring my gun up kind of thing. Uh, sure. Give me sensitivity check.

[01:59:22] All of us? No, just you. His back is to the other two people. Sensitivity to judge Levi. Just to read his emotion. Okay, so that's eight over five. Uh, there you don't see any emotion tension across Levi's face. No tension, like, no stress, no tiredness, no happiness, no fear, no pain, just complete and utter dead

[01:59:51] pan. Eyes just staring at you, uh, lips trembling slightly, but more as like a muscle twitch, not a emotional kind of thing. Y'all, we could have bound his hands, like I suggested. Well, you don't have time to say that right now. Just saying, out of character. All right, so better story this way. Keep going, Nick. As, so you, at this point, you're within snagging range if you

[02:00:21] wanted to snag their animal handler, because that's what this tool is for. Sure. Uh, and then two, plus two, because it's being used as a tool. Okay. Uh, and that turns out to, oh, that's a four under eight. Uh, let's make that a crit success with a will. Okay. Uh, you put the rope around Levi. Do you, like, pull Levi, or just get the rope around and pull it tight, or taut? Not, like, how, how

[02:00:51] violent are you getting with this? The best way to do this as a man catcher would be to actually grab him around the shoulders. And that's success allows me to do, pinning his arms to his side. Okay. Levi doesn't react, just stands there. Staring at you, Scoutmaster. Uh, I will, I will say that you could be, like, on your knees or standing up at

[02:01:21] this point if you want, slowly back. We'll be standing up. Steadfast get the net? Steadfast get the net? Yeah, no, I immediately grab the net and just, like, throw it over him. That's an athletics to snare a single target? Roll athletics whoever's throwing it. Uh, oddly enough, I am actually not very athletic. I'm more, uh, more into, uh, weight training. You got, you at least got one though, right? Yeah, I do. Okay.

[02:01:51] That's success. Okay. Um, so you throw the net over Levi and you're starting to back away, Scoutmaster. And as you start to back away out of, out of range of Levi, that's when Levi starts to, to walk forward and almost follow you, and, and follow you, uh, with the net draped over them and the pole, just start trying to walk forward. I'm gonna need a resistance check by you, deuce. Okay.

[02:02:21] Uh, natural eight, eight. Okay. Um, with the net and you holding, uh, Levi sort of just can't move and just falls to the ground and, and just, just laying there on their side in the net. Can we tie the net up and, I mean, honestly, I'm worried about Bloodsweater from all this anyway, if like, I mean, just, This is really creepy, but he might be a sleepwalker. Yeah. He's tied up now, it's what you wanted.

[02:02:51] We could have had, we could have not had to worry about this earlier. No harm, no foul, don't bring any casualties in. So, I mean, I'm just gonna stand there the entire night with the rifle pointed at his head and just see what happens. It's, you know, one violent outburst or anything like that, and I'm just gonna put one, I mean, I'm gonna end him. So, would that be a stress check to say? How are you securing him? Yeah, no, we actually have to

[02:03:21] secure him. So, like, resistance on my part to actively tie up his hands and feet. I am, I'm not gonna hogtie him, but like, I'm going to make it so that he cannot, he has a lot of trouble moving. You're gonna use the net for that? Yes. Like, basically, I'm wrapping his feet in such a way that he will not be able to move. Okay.

[02:03:50] Not reacting. Not moving. The occasional, like, twitch to fight against the, uh, the rabies pole, but not any effort since he fell down. Yo, this is deeply fucked, right? Like, is no one else seeing this as fucked as it is? That fast, I can't go back to that life. I'm not asking you to go back to that life, but like, acknowledge this.

[02:04:21] I kind of nodded my gun. I'm acknowledging it. We just wait this out. This is not, you know what? Fuck it. I'm gonna burn, uh, I'm gonna burn a chart. Well, can I burn a charge? Would it be research to actually reach out to a medical professional or would it be research to, like, get a background on, a medical background on this guy? Or something like that? Research would be looking online for anything that similar networking would be reaching out to a

[02:04:51] I have neither of those skills. Unless you, uh, you could also tap a reference, which we haven't yet done yet. None of us have tapped a reference. You could try to default it and if you fail, tap a reference. Okay, so I gotta roll critical success. Okay. So I'll tap a reference if I don't, so. Technically, you just have to roll a d10 and roll below your, uh, aptitude. At or below your charisma, yeah. All right, so I wrote an eight and my, um, charisma

[02:05:21] is a two, so I failed. Tap a reference. Yeah, I'll tap the reference. You want to call Dr. Nick? Uh, don't call Dr. Nick. Or call, or call my short king. Hello, everybody. I can't remember what that Simpsons doctor thing was. Hi, everybody. Hi, everybody. Hi, Dr. Nick. Hi, Dr. Nick. I'll buzz Dr. Nick.

[02:05:50] Dr. Nick, man. Look, I've, look, I've got some of my book. Yes? How could I help you? Doc, I'm sorry to call you. It's such a late night. I will compensate for you. Hi, Scout Master. Okay, we got this. Uh, so, look, there's this guy, this client. We went out here and picked him up, uh, with, don't keep this under your hat right now. We're going to get the footage out, but there's somebody who's, uh, poisoning people. Maybe one of those meek, I don't know, but, uh, they turned a bunch of people vector.

[02:06:20] We picked this guy up there. We thought he may have perhaps been like around a tainted food. He was also, the vectors were attacking him. He was in his mobile home. Thought he may have been exposed there. Like, look, he's not, he's not apologizing, but he's like in a catatonic state. Like, he was standing over top of me when I woke up. We've got him subdued, and I don't know, like. Could it be that he is sleepwalking? We have. I did say that. It's a possibility. How do you tell

[02:06:49] if somebody is sleepwalking? I mean, we have him tied up in a net right now, and he is not budged. What kind of medical advice would a vet give to this question, Chris? A veterinarian would tell you to contact a doctor. Hello, everybody. Did you try to wake him up? We knocked him to the ground.

[02:07:18] Does he have a glazed, glassy-eyed expression? Do I remember? Yes, I remember a glazed, glassy-eyed expression. There wasn't any glaze. There was just no expression. Dead-faced. Dead-faced, yeah. Deadpan. Deadpan. No remorse. No anything. Deadpan. You could try and try harder to wake him up, or wait till morning to see if he wakes up on his own, but it is

[02:07:47] definitely a very weird case. I'd be interested to take a look when you bring him in. How much is that worth to you? Wait, that's my old life kicking in. If it's for the good of the Enclave, free of charge. I mean, we don't want an infected person getting in. You know, that's not latent. Yeah. Hmm. Well, that was a bounty, I guess.

[02:08:17] Dr. Nick is a bounty. A bounty that goes to me. Sort of. I mean, obviously next up, we need to tap a reference and tap my short king. What do you think is going on? Ruff! Oh, what does the dog, how's the dog reacting? Because dogs, like, don't they sense this kind of stuff, too? Like, is the dog wary of him? Give me animal handling check there,

[02:08:46] uh, Deuce. That's a nine over three. Ace is sort of what you would say weirded out, too. Like, Ace doesn't want to get near the body, but is sort of confused. The body? Or, you know, his body. I think that's a sign in and of itself, right there. Is he doing the special vector sound, or the special casualty sound that I trained him to do when he hears a casualty? Or tells there's a casualty there? No.

[02:09:17] Sort of, like, started to signal, but then didn't. It's weird. Hmm. God damn you. I mean, that's a compliment, Nick. Well, let's all take a stress and ride this out till morning. That sounds like a default stress, doesn't it? Yeah, that's fair. We'll take it. Okay. Is someone going to be, like, holding on to the rabies pole the entire night?

[02:09:46] Fuck yeah. Well, he's tied up, so I say one of us can be sitting on the end of the rabies pole just so there's downward force on it and will be alerted if he moves. I mean, this was after my nap was through. Yeah, I just wanted to know what you're doing with the rabies pole. Yeah, no, I'm on the rabies pole. I'm on the rabies pole. Okay. These muscles are not for show, bro. So, in the middle of the night, when Deuce finally goes to sleep and Scoutmaster and Steadfast are on watch for the

[02:10:15] final watch, Levi starts moving again, sort of like inchworming, sort of trying to move towards you there, Steadfast. Nope, he's not because I lock him down immediately. Yes. But this time, he's not quitting. Like, he just keeps trying and trying and trying and making noise, like just wriggling on the ground.

[02:10:46] Yo, Scoutmaster. Hey. What's his temperature? Like, can we tell? Well, I don't really want to touch him if he's blighted. You'd have to touch him. Yeah, no, no, no black veins that you could see. Do you have a med kit? I'm snoring and talking nonsense in my sleep. Like, bro, I don't, I don't want to fuck with him. Like, I don't I'm going to, I am legit going to feel super bad if he's mentally ill in the morning. Like, but like, we got to, we got to take care of

[02:11:16] ourselves, you know, right, bro? Yeah. Um, so there's nothing that I could, I don't have any upgrades for the med kit, so I can't really do a blood test. You can't do a blood test, but I can say you could do basic stuff like take a temperature. Okay. I'll, I'll take a temperature. Oops. I just dropped it. This is the future. So clearly there's been a pandemic and there are the, uh, the touchless, uh, thermometers, right? You do have the, the forehead scanning thermometer. Okay. Yeah.

[02:11:46] I, I, I, I, I, I that's now. I wrote an 11 over one. Okay. Well, I just meant that it would be appropriate that the kits would be, all the kits would be equipped at this point. Give, give me a athletics check. Who me? Okay. I do have that probably about the same. What the fuck is that? Okay.

[02:12:16] Um, that would be a four over six. What's going on in like the mouth side of things for this guy for, for under six. You said, yeah, I failed and I have no more will. Okay. So you, you move your hand in to take the, the forehead temperature and that's when he wriggles forward and knocks it out of your hand.

[02:12:44] Uh, both of you see in his mouth, his teeth are stained black. Oh, fuck. Um, uh, I'm going to make a resistance check right now. Burn extra. I could, I never even thought about, I could have burnt like an entire set of rations just in and made it. But keep in mind, I have plus three to resistance for this very reason. Yeah. Skudfast is a tech

[02:13:14] bro and he is swole. Yeah. I'm spending two wriggling, shaking head. Uh, just knock the thermometer out of your hand. You can see it laying there near, uh, his mouth, uh, which he sort of is like leaving open now. Sort of, uh, you see like a black staining to the inside of his mouth and his teeth. Sure am glad I, I spent that because that's an 11 over seven. Both of you give me self-control check. Okay. And I'm also yelling for, uh, you know,

[02:13:45] deuce. Deuces! Wake the fuck up! Okay. That's a nine over six, a success. Okay. Uh, that's failure. If you succeed, lose one. All right. And if you fail, lose three. If you fail, lose three. Uh, on what? Stress, trauma, or detachment? We'll say trauma. Okay, guys. Good. Uh, you've, you've seen latents, you've seen casualties, you've seen vectors. Vectors are all bloody with some, some black blight in there.

[02:14:15] Casualties are all black and veiny and they, they bleed the blight when you puncture them. Uh, latents, they just have the veins. This person, it's like the inside of his mouth is just coated in blight. You don't see that unless he, his entire mouth was cut up and he was a casualty. Uh, he, if he was infected, he somehow skipped the vector phase at some point. Uh, and you, you sort of, he's just all pale, slightly bloated, just like wriggling at you.

[02:14:46] Is it possible as he's holding him down, did I just take my bayonet and just spear him right in the head? No, we, we don't want to do that just yet. I mean, if you're gonna do it, do it, but like, I would not suggest it out of character. Okay. I mean, I'm gonna step back while you're holding him down. Then I, I mean, I'm a team player. Uh, what I'm gonna do is like, while he's wriggling, I am just going to put, uh, with that very, very good roll, just like a knee

[02:15:15] on his back so that he can't move. I mean, he's gonna still attempt to move, but I, I get what you're saying. Yeah. Uh, he, he can attempt, but he won't be able to do anything. Uh, at this point, you could be up, Deuce. Do you want an awareness for that, or? No, you're up. You, you can be up. They, they, they made enough commotion. They were trying to wake you up. All right, I'm up, I'm up. Um, whoa. Whoa. What's going on? Oh, boy's turning. Went straight. Went straight.

[02:15:46] Casualty. Like, his mouth is just covered with blight as I kind of am staring down there with my blade very close to his head. Like, he's gone. I told you guys. I don't need that right now. He's gone. Bro, I, I know you don't need that right now, but like, be a team player. Listen to other members on the team. I had a vibe. Fighting instinct to

[02:16:15] just shoot him in the head now. Not Chris, but the fact is like, I won't be at him. I won't be at him. Okay. If he's gone, there's only really one thing we should do, right? I mean, is there? I'm going to put him down. Hold, hold tight. I'm just going to, I'm just going to put the blade right in his head. Hold up. Hold up. Before we do that, let's, let's talk this out. I've got a fucking feeling. You said he turned. We don't know what the

[02:16:45] fuck is going on here, bro. Like there are people who study this shit. Maybe they can learn something from this, bro. Crusaders. Time to call the crusaders. Like, I'm just saying it's an option. Okay. Again, we're a crew. Like, majority rules here, bro. But like, that's an option is all I'm saying. I don't have anything

[02:17:14] equipment wise that I can do here. So I'm just going to be comforting Ace. Ace is definitely whimpering and giving both casualty and vector signals at the same time. Ace doesn't know what's going on. Yeah. Like, I want your input here, Deuce. But like, again, like, bro, like this, this is. This is the three of us. Like, we need to decide this is a majority thing.

[02:17:43] Like, I think maybe we could sell them. And like this, I've never fucking seen shit like this before. And like, I've heard stories about aberrants. Like, I've never fucking seen an aberrant before in my life. But this is fucking weird. Right. In this life, there are winners and losers. So if he's already turned, I mean, he's either as good as gone or as good as a payday, I guess. Nick, I will not make you an offer.

[02:18:13] Okay. Nick, may I know a contact without networking or anything? If I take a point of detachment because I've done this before and I happen to know who was interested in people for medical research as well. Like, is that a... I think that would be a criminality role. Okay. A criminality role? Yes. I'm still taking one to...

[02:18:43] I'm still going to take one to detachment. Okay. I feel like that's tapping into your criminal side. Out of character. I think we should take, like, many self-control checks if we do this. I've just got an eight over two. Okay. Or eight, three over. Eight over. No, wait. I failed it. Actually, I'm looking at the wrong... I'm looking at the wrong dice. I failed my criminality checks. Okay. Do you have any will to spend? No. In fact, this

[02:19:13] goes against my... I mean, this is my weak spot. I'm a former raider, but Okay. Sure. Yeah. Sure. If you're going to try and sell the person... No. Former raider would be trying not to sell a person if you want to do that. Yeah. Yeah. There's no way I can do it, man, to be honest with you. That's why I was kind of... I was hoping a criminality would work, but no. Unless somebody else has criminality. I'm networking, but...

[02:19:43] Like, I think you'd get a will if we both voted against you, is what I'm saying. Mm-hmm. Deuce, what do you think, bro? I think he's already gone. I don't think it... I mean, it's not a morality call anymore. If he's turned, he's turned, right? I mean... Still no veins. Except for in his mouth. No apologies. It's not even veins in his mouth. It just looks like blight bile, almost. You know, the stuff that they make...

[02:20:13] Crap, what is that thing called? Suppressant. No, no, not that. The thing that disguises you from casualties. Oh, uh... Blight juice. I don't... Yeah, yeah, it's like blight juice kind of stuff. Just in his mouth, staining his teeth. Yeah, it's like the stuff that they make scent blacker out of, but not quite. Well, I say unless you guys know somebody, I'm all out. Like, if you want to contact, like I said, the Crusaders or somebody, they may want to study this for medical... Study him

[02:20:42] for medical purposes. I just don't know any of those people. I can't think of anyone to call. What is everyone else's resistance? One. One. All right, you two. I mean, I'm stronger than both of you put together. Y'all, y'all, grab him. What are we doing before we do this, Chris? I'm going to tap a reference. I mean, I know somebody because, you know, I've

[02:21:12] done... I did this job for the Crusaders one time where they were trying to track down an animal aberrant. It turned out to not... It just was a statue that somebody had stuffed full of infected blight meat, and it wasn't real, but I do have a contact from that. I can try to contact them with networking, but I don't have any U-bix. I'll hate you, man. Are you okay with me trying to network that, Chris? Oh, yeah, no, I was actually going to tap a reference and do something simpler. That's it. 11 over 6 on networking? Okay, yeah.

[02:21:42] Hello, this is Crusader Bob. Crusader Bob, hi. It's Deuce Fresno. You remember me from the It's Not a Real Deer job? Yes, yes, yes. Yeah, I'm sorry that one didn't work out, but I have something here that might interest you. It's not animal, but it's weird. It's almost like it's a guy, he looks normal, but he's making scent blocker out of his mouth. I think something you guys would be interested in. There's blight bile coming out of his mouth.

[02:22:12] And there are no veins, and he's not struggling like a vector would, but he is kind of trying to do a little jiggle around. Is that something you all would be interested in? He was also normal during the day, to point out. Wait, there was no vector phase? Doesn't seem like it. He was talking to us just fine. He went to bed. We kept an eye on him because he'd potentially been exposed. Then I woke up out of a dead sleep, and he was just standing over looking

[02:22:42] at one of my teammates here. Like standing over him with a hungry look in his eye? No, just blank. It's really... Hey, hey, tell him that I was suspicious from beforehand. I could arrange a purchase. Did you tell him that I was suspicious? Shut the fuck up. Do you have the means to transport him to our facility?

[02:23:12] It gives you a coordinates like two days out. I really would prefer if somebody would kind of meet us along the way. We've got him restrained, but it's going to be hard to move him if he does get a twitchy. Okay, okay. Could you possibly hold him in that area for a bit and we'll send people to meet you? We could take him and put him in this rest stop. You're going to go back to the rest stop? Well, I mean, we could secure him in the

[02:23:41] motorhome bathroom or something. I mean, we could also go to like one. Just hold your position. We'll come pick you up. We'll be there shortly. Hang up. Hang up. Thank you. And the well. Hold my head towards Scout Master to take the Ubix back off of me. Okay, I do. Because my hands are busy. Is it is it cool for me to hogtie this guy now? Oh, yeah. Yeah, yeah,

[02:24:11] yeah, yeah, yeah. All right. I mean, I can I can do I can restrain him if you want to keep him still while I'm doing it. I mean, I still have a knee on his like shoulder blades like he cannot move. Okay, okay. You hog tie Levi along with the net and the rabies pull. I think we could remove the rabies pull at this point. It's going to be tangled in the net. I think it's

[02:24:41] probably trapped until we do something. Yeah. So you wait and wait. give me one last self control check for all this waiting with a aberrant. I mean, it's pretty subdued, so I'm not going to hit you too hard, but you're still sitting here with an aberrant in the middle of Kansas. Do I get anything for critical success? Seven over two. You don't lose anything for critical success. I feel better.

[02:25:11] Failure? Failure's just two to stress. Seven over two. So success. Yeah. You get your thermometer back. It appears that his temperature is just ambient temperature. Y'all, like, bro, I've got a pretty good vibe when it comes to folks, and he gave me a bad vibe. So, like, for the future, just maybe trust my vibes.

[02:25:41] That's all I'm saying. Trust this dude's vibes. I'm good at vibes. And a couple hours into the morning, a large refrigeration truck just barrels down the highway towards you, parks, a bunch of crusaders and hazmat suits come out, along with various gear padding to

[02:26:11] keep the aberrant safe. Crusader Bob is there. Hey, Deuce, this is it. Is he wearing his characteristic overalls? Yes. This is the guy. It's a weird one. He's at ambient temperature. We checked his temperature. It still doesn't look like he's got any veins growing on him, but he definitely has stuff in his mouth. definitely interesting.

[02:26:41] He's looking him over. This is like he was normal during the day. Has he said anything? He has not during the day. He said a bunch of shit. Not not since he went to sleep and he just faded into this state. Look, there's a back. There's a rest area about a leg back that when we told him that, you know, the food had been poisoned by what I would assume is someone who's

[02:27:10] a meek or whatnot. There's a guy walking around in a trench coat. Anyway, they caught on footage. He tampered with what were their names again? It's a little bit of an extra charge, but we did save the tainted protein shakes in the fridge for you. We'll send some people over to check it out. We'll send some people over to check it out. Thank you. Oh, no, no, no. We have them. You want to buy them? I'm sure we could take a sample or two.

[02:27:40] You could also check out the toilet when we give you the coordinates for that that he threw up in. We didn't have the foresight to check. There may be some telltale signs in the toilet itself. We also didn't flush. I make a point to shove scoutmaster and deuces in the ribs.

[02:28:10] Yeah, we can sell you that location, bro. How does 25 bound do for all of its sound? On top of the 20 we just made. Sensitivity, does he think, is he trying to put one over on us? Fail. No, he seems generally interested in what's going on here. Is he trying to screw us on the price, though? He thinks he gave you a good price. Give the eye and the thumbs up?

[02:28:41] Yeah, bro. 25. Works. Okay, yeah, good. Is this safe his? No. That's ours. Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, okay, good. Anything else he had on him besides what he's wearing? No, he was pretty empty when we left the place. He was a little bit freaked out from the protein shake. Well, I've got a little more information. It's just going to cost you two bounty.

[02:29:11] Okay, we'll get back to you on that. We've got to focus here on the transport. Load them up, guys! They start loading them up. They wire you the 25 bounty, which I realize is not divisible by three. That's why I offered two bounty. No, no, no, it's fine. It works in with the 59. So it actually is divisible by three after that. I grabbed these two. We could have sold them the

[02:29:41] RV and told them what we saw. Come on, y'all. Come on, guys. You have footage. Tell them the footage. The security footage and the vector ubic footage. Oh, hey, yo, I do have a little more. Okay, yeah, we'll contact you. I've got footage if you want footage. Yeah, Deuce, send me his number. We'll be in contact. We got to get this back to the lab

[02:30:11] ASAP. This is a lot weirder than I thought. But thank you so much, guys. Thank you very much, Crusader Bob. You're contributing to the cure. We're going to get it. This is just one thing that will help us. One more thing that will help us. All right, just keep us in mind for the future. The cure will be stupendous. It'll be amazing. Everyone will have a cure. I'm sorry. Pleasure doing business with you. Okay, they load up and drive off. You managed to crack the safe

[02:30:41] and make it back to Hatch without any further troubles. Is there anything you guys would like to do before we wrap up? You would each earn 28 bounty. Can we sell the shotgun? Not counting stuff that you would sell, yes. You could do that if you'd like. I don't. Does anyone have networking? I do have networking, but was it just the 59 bounty in the safe or was there more bounty? Did he have more money on him? Do you

[02:31:11] have items in there? Was there anything? Nice watch? Scavenge check maybe? Yeah, scavenge check. Anyone have a better scavenger than one? No. Nope. That would be a failure, but considering this is hopefully my last roll, that's a crit success. There was actually 65 bounty in there, not 59. Hell yeah.

[02:31:41] 30 apiece. Very nice. Goddamn. I just needed 13 bounty to make even. All right. I have a very important scene that we need to follow up on. Does it involve your small short king? How's my short king? I think your short king is doing just fine. Dr. Nick is passed out on the floor. Short king is jumping up and down on the sofa with the TV on claiming dominance

[02:32:10] over Dr. Nick. Short king, no! He taught you not to do this. Just barks at you and looks happy. my poor short king. Okay. So question, comments, concerns. How did you guys like this? This is my rotten aberrant. All right. So first off, I want to commend you for making this one of the more tense sessions of red markets I've had in a

[02:32:40] while that I did not have to fire a single shot for. That was, I mean, I want to commend the table for not going the obvious route of just putting him down. I refused to play red markets as a monster. That, I mean, even though we all knew what was going to happen, it felt good letting it come to its natural conclusion. So like, I mean, it's a very rewarding

[02:33:10] session. Thank you for running it, man. I was kind of hoping that you would follow through with your I melee him in the head. Because my next question would have been like, is it like a slash or a stab? How are you popping that balloon? Basically. You can probably guess what would have happened given the rotten name. Yeah. What I would suggest for this, Nick, is make

[02:33:39] the aberrant a little more insidious. Like, maybe they have a habit of drooling and bring up the idea of backwash and shit like that. Oh, if you checked the vomit, you would have seen little traces of blight bile. Yeah, but what I'm saying is like, I feel like there wasn't enough. Like, we obviously all pegged him as an aberrant,

[02:34:08] but we've all been playing this game for years. Yeah. Like, I would play it up a little more. Like, make him a little more subtle, is what I'm saying. Yeah, like, if there was not an interlude, I would have had a scene where he was a little bit more active, like, for the second leg. And there would be another chance to, like, see him throw up and puke and stuff like that. I mean, keep in mind, you can always say no when we want to have an interlude. No, that's

[02:34:38] true, but I didn't mind. Yeah. We're all friends here. We all know how to play together. I like to keep my Red Markets one-shots around, like, three hours, and I was trying to keep it within that time limit a little, so that's why I was like, yeah, they want interlude, I'll let them. Fair. That was cool. Brownie, do you have anything I had before I ask my next question? I don't believe so. I mean, I liked, again, like you said, how the tension went. I liked that we didn't have to fire a single shot. I liked

[02:35:08] that it was creepy and we knew what was coming. We didn't know how it was going to come or what it was going to be. I appreciate that it was a tension that was not just out of character, but in character as well. Steadfast is kind of a meathead, but he's not stupid. And he's like, this seems suspicious. I was debating whether or not just to have him be a sleepwalker. I was going through some really big debate in my head being like,

[02:35:38] do I just kill the aberrant plan and make it a sleepwalking person? That would have also been really fucking dark and creepy. Like, just all of us just like freaking the fuck out about this guy who just like wakes up and is like, oh hey, what's up guys? Oh, by the way, I niggas my melatonin. You know, I think it would be something to kind of decide, because I think the way we were playing it, that would have been not as financially rewarding, but that would have been very

[02:36:07] rewarding and something very unique. But both of them were good routes, and I don't think the choice affected the overall feel. It was tense, very much so. Am I allowed to ask questions, or is this going to mess up our Red Markets campaign? No, it's fine. If it's gonna mess up something, I just won't answer it. Obviously, I don't think I'm gonna ask about the bad guy, because I feel like that may occur a little bit later on.

[02:36:38] But I was curious, so what happened? How did all this go down? Were we pretty close? Yeah, so my thought was, well, I don't want to do like a zombie that acts like a human to get in, but I like the idea of having something that's the opposite of a vector that's loud and noisy and obvious. obvious. So my thought is the rotten

[02:37:08] aberrant only gets created when a human eats tainted food or just eats like casualty meat or something like that. So it like sits in their stomach and just slowly rots them from the inside out and they just get everything on the inside gets replaced with just the blight juices and everything which maintain the bodily functions of the person as they just slowly get consumed. and they just slowly shut down

[02:37:37] and like they stop speaking and they just start like following basic instructions and nodding yes or no. And then they just stop reacting in general. And that's when the casualty kicks in and it just goes over and just like bites someone. So it's sort of like a, they get quieter and quieter and quieter until they just blend into the background kind of thing. And then they just walk up and nom someone. Like by far the

[02:38:07] various, the scariest aspect of red markets to me is the cold blight. So I vibe with that so hard. And also like I didn't want it to be like boomer esque from left for dead too, but they did like have a giant pool of just blight bile in them. so it's like if you shoot them just like from the bullet hole, like it's just like shooting through paper, like the bullet holes just happen and then just like liquid

[02:38:37] starts pouring out of it and not pulling onto the ground and it can empty that way and die. Or if you did a melee attack on it, there's a splash zone. So everyone within like melee range of it would have to do an infection check as just like someone slashes through it. The blight juice just goes everywhere, which is why I was going to ask you, how do you stab the person? Oh man, Nick, you were so excited for us all being melee characters, weren't you? Well, that and the vectors.

[02:39:07] They were vectors with murder modifier of three and four. I mean, we got around that at least. Yeah, and the bathroom one, I leave like that so I can either have it be a detachment hit or a third vector and I can change it up based on how the timings going and everything. I like on reflection, of course, Brownie and Chris have said, well, you were there too. Hell, we were all there over Christmas, you know, like my gut instinct the second that the sad fast was,

[02:39:38] well, I had a bad feeling. I was just, just as a bam shoot the thing right in the head on that. I mean, I literally had to struggle with not doing that. I'm like, no, no, don't, don't let it get to you. Got to be a team player. So I'm glad that. Oh yeah, you did good Adam. And that's like at the point when I was like, no, we should kill this guy. So good for you. Oh God. I think it would have been fun though. If you, it was like just walking at you and shot

[02:40:06] in the head and like you, you blew a hole, like a hole in the side and then the ooze just started pouring out of it and it kept coming at you. Oh my God. If you, if you do that and you want to, you don't have to, you could have the ooze, um, ooze out, but then be like a tentacle and reach for the, for people. The blight being animated is kind of a freaky thing. Yeah. I, I played the game where the blight was basically the aberrant itself,

[02:40:36] like just a liquid thing. Yeah. And it just left a bad taste in my mouth. Yeah. I'm not into that. I think the blight itself is the animating influence. We have to deal with the bodies, which is much scarier to me. Can't all be ganglia. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And yeah, I, I thank everybody too for not being monsters. Like I said, that's kind of my, my one caveat about playing red markets is after doing elevation with you all.

[02:41:06] And it was such a, it was not like we were at each other's throat the entire time. Like. You disagreed and then you made sure you're on the same page out of character and went forward. Yeah. Yeah. So it was, it was, it was good. It, it's almost like we're, I'm we're a crew and we like check with each other because we're friends. Well, I think unless anyone else has anything to add, I do got to wake up at five 30 in the morning to go to

[02:41:35] work. So, um, I think, uh, anybody else before we bid adieu to the recording bot. Thanks for running for us tonight, Nick. Yeah, of course. Thank you for playing. Appreciate it, dude. My pleasure. Well, thank you all for tuning in. This has been a rather tense evening for me and I'm going to go to sleep and wake up and hopefully not have dreams in the meantime, but of a man standing over my bed. If I do, I will be

[02:42:05] talking to you, Nick. Smiling at you with black stained teeth. Oh God. Thank you. Thank you so much. Anyway, thank you all for tuning in and until next time, we'll see you all later.