The Glitterbois Play Rifts #002: I Miss Golden Girls

Breakfast Puppies.

This podcast contains adult language and content and is meant for mature audiences. Listener discretion is advised.

Whoa.

You're listening to the Glitter Boys.

Welcome back to Rifts. I just figured I would keep it short this time.

It's good to be back. It's good to be back.

It is.

All right, I'm super excited. Let's play.

Yeah. Yeah. Welcome to the second episode of our Rifts actual play episode. I'm Kyle, the GM from the Bastard Quest podcast. Looking forward to continuing this ongoing saga. So if you guys want to introduce yourselves as players, introduce yourself and your character.

Hey. This is Jess Jacob, co host of the Glitter Boys, playing Riley o' Shea tonight.

This is Alex, otherwise known as Henry viii.

I thought it was quarter past Henry.

Quarter past.

Quarter Past Henry was more of a passing joke. Henry VIII is the more.

Okay.

This is Sean. I'm playing a tank Troy, the biggest guy in the party.

And this is npc, the other regular co host of the Glitter Boys. And. And I am playing Mr. Cat. He's a cat?

Well, yes. Humanoid, Furry adjacent.

No one's gonna tell him otherwise.

No.

So the barn on the edge of the village of Boxen in the wilderness that is Michigan on Rift's Earth, still lies within sight of the ominous hill where the four first arrived. The interior of the barn is still and quiet. Quiet in a relative sense. There is riley snoring and Mr. Cat's purring that's like the low rumble of an idling Humvee. Something wrong there. Then Troy's thrashing, seemingly at random. Finally, there is the steady sound of ticking and clicking coming from Henry, who looks like he is asleep, or at least not moving. But the stoner trapped inside a cybernetic frame could not be further from slumber. So Alex, while everybody else has been asleep, Henry has been fascinated, obsessed, horrified by the sheer amount of menus, submenus tables and data stored inside your cybernetic body that you can access via your heads up display that as far as you can tell, is just permanently cast onto your retinas. You did manage to get your mask off. It didn't go away. You got the helmet totally off. Still there. And then you just. Oh yeah, that's my eyeballs now. So you've been clicking through and browsing while the others sleep. The only real problem, well aside from all the other ones, is that as far as you can tell, about 99% of the data projected on your HUD is in a Cyrillic script.

Well, that's not very useful.

You got a second hand Russian hardware in you, man. All right.

You did find a way to engage the auto translate for some of the data. But the auto translate ocular controls are not always in the same place on every menu and you have to enable it for every menu and they don't always default auto translate to English, so.

It'S only slightly more complicated than the rules of this game.

Awesome.

Oh man. A few years ago, my favorite pair of Bluetooth headsets. Remember the bluedios?

Oh yeah.

Power one.

One day I accidentally held the button too long. I don't know whatever happened. The next time I turned them on, all I heard was Chinese. And I was like no. Because I couldn't figure out how to change it.

What did I do?

Yeah.

One success Henry has had is that your left forearm clock calendar. You accessed it and it says 14-4-101PA.

That was 14-4-1014.

April 101PA. And of course it gives the time, but I'm not going to give an exact time because this is happening through the night that you're. Let me ask you a question. Do you have the computer operation skill?

No, sir.

Hehehe.

It's not on the list.

I have computer repair, which you would think would.

So I'm going to say that if you want to attempt a skill you don't have, but could reasonably figure out, like, you know, given enough time and anxiety, just about any functional adult could figure out how to work a computer. You can. So the way this will work is you'll figure the starting value and then you have it.

If you can't hear it, I'm furrowing my brow in a slight confusion.

So whatever the base Basic. Basic level of the skill is, that's where you're at.

Yeah. So.

Got it.

Based on NPCs, I'm not sure what computer operation would rely on.

I believe it would be double intelligent.

Okay. I like it. It's like the start of a Metroidvania. Oh, I'm super. Oh, I've lost all my powers and I need to re get them again.

Yeah, sort of.

I like that. That, that's great.

Here's the question. Does he figure out how to file a help desk ticket?

Well, if he does, he'll really be getting somewhere.

It is IQ and iq. So whatever your IQ is times two. Now is this going to include the base bonuses as well or is it starting off with no class bonuses?

No class bonuses, so it'd be secondary. He doesn't have it. Yeah.

All right, so this is for anything I don't have. Such as computer that you could reasonably suss out.

Yep.

Yeah. So if you wanted to try to to mess with your stuff right now it's computer operation is what's going to control it.

I would like to try and figure that out. I am nothing if not curious.

Okay.

What is your intelligence times 2? 20. That's a great.

Start.

Pressing buttons.

I mean come on. You have a one in five chance.

Terminator, remember? So, so the base stat would be. So the base ability under NPC system would be what intelligence times two? Yeah. So you half that.

Oh, so 10. So you get a 10.

Oh, so you have a one in 10 chance.

You got a good chance. What's the worst that could happen?

Oh my God. I, I, I, I feel, I feel this service ticket coming my way in the ether.

So that's going to be a percentage roll.

Percentage roll. Try to get less than a 10 or 10 or less. You got this man. First roll. First roll of the night. You need to crush it. All right.

I believe in you 54.

Hey.

So you hear, so you're, you're trying to auto translate some sort of weapons data. You think maybe you don't know and you clip, you keep clicking something and then eventually you get a voice privy yet.

Oh Kyle, you broke Jacob.

You get 20 XP and eventually like you best when you get into Nyet Nyarak.

Well, this sucks.

So Jacob Riley has slept, but not untroubled. He dreams. He sweats. And in his dreams he's wandering through a dark forest. Wretched, pathetic men and women like those cultists from the hill are just harrying him. He clutches tight to this object that he retrieved from the hill. This Rod of Asher Kad, whatever that means. In his dream he unleashes terrible magic upon these people most of the time. Sometimes he is pulling a singly seemingly endless assortment of technological baubles out of his pockets. They all do different things, unpredictable things, but they work. So the one ever present factor of this dream is in the sky above. There's this ring of red orange fire hanging in the night. It's bright against the clouds. And every once in a while it seems like there's a dark shadow of a man watching him from inside this ring.

Okay, so it's pre Lord of the Rings, so I can't make that reference. Okay, yeah, that's quite unsettling.

So when you awaken in the early light of dawn, you are hugging the Rod of Asher kid on like a teddy bear. But it is not A teddy bear. It is heavy and your arms are sore.

Very sore, very sore.

Yeah. No one speaks to you in Russian, Sean. Troy dreams as well, but it doesn't feel at all like a dream. To, to Troy, you feel more like a passenger viewing someone else's experience. Specifically the experience of someone fighting their way across a wreckage strown battlefield. There is this seemingly innumerable tide of soldiers in dark blue skull faced armor that reminds Troi of coalition armor from some of the Riftswicks he's seen. But this is much more visceral and real. And these are all clearly individuals. Some have, you know, graffiti on their armor, wearing personal items. But Troy, or at least his body, is dismembering these guys, going through them with blades and blasts and bombs. And the last thing Troy sees before he wakes up is this huge skull faced robot striding out of a ruined tree line like some leviathan monster birthed by a God of war. It spots Troy. It doesn't slow its stride. Instead it fires this flurry of missiles, this, that just echo across the battlefield from packs mounted on its shoulders. And Troy feels this body. He's riding along and being torn apart as the missiles impact all around. You awaken in the rafters of the barn, balancing precariously on the very highest beam. And you're pretty sure you went to sleep on the ground.

Yeah, and I'm pretty sure experience said not to come up here, so I'm probably gonna get in trouble.

NPC.

Yes.

Mr. Cat sleeps well and wakes up refreshed.

Cats are very good at sleeping. All right.

I kind of think I'm probably over at Riley, like poking at him like you, the sensible one.

Where's breakfast?

Fuck if I know.

God.

Brush your teeth?

Yeah. So. So light is just starting to creep through the slats of the barn door. It's cool. Cold. Almost cold. In the morning though there is. You know, it is warmer in the barn just because it's a bar. There's hay and livestock and some of the pins, but they didn't bother you. What are you guys doing? You are hungry, of course. Except for Henry.

Yep.

I leap down from the rafters. I do a flip on the way down because I went to bed. I was feeling a little down, but I feel pretty good this morning. We'll flip off of the rafters, kick the door open, get some cold air in here. At some point I took my shirt off. That's fine. Cold air feels good. Look around for any place I might have food. We need breakfast.

Jesus Christ. I've had you as a roommate.

Come on, guys.

Oh, God. I've had you.

We gotta move.

Oh, Lord.

I briefly consider milking one of those animals. Decide not to do that.

Sure, sure.

But I. I think you said there are other buildings nearby.

There are. You're in a small town. Or at least you were when you went to sleep and you were hoping that wouldn't have changed, and it has not.

I should have stopped to check and see if experience was still in the rafters, but, you know, sometimes you just go. So I'm gonna head off to find some food.

So, Sean, make a perception roll.

Alrighty. Give me a moment here. You know, I feel like this is borderline protocol for them. If the stoner doesn't show up with food, it's usually probably Troy. So these. So saving throws. I have a three versus perception. Okay, is that a D20 on saving throws? Is that a bonus to that?

So D20 plus three, essentially, yeah. You want to roll. You want to roll high.

It's actually going to be a plus four right now because I am feeling good, guys. I'm looking all over the place. I rolled an 18. That's going to bring me to a 22 total.

Wow.

It's because it's nice and cool out and I'm not wearing a shirt. Slow me down.

Troy strides out of the of the barn into the. Into the cold of the morning. You can see the village of Boxen is more of a hamlet than a tree village. It's not a ton of buildings, but you can start to see people starting to rouse themselves, animals calling for feed, people going to a well to get water. And you roll well on your perception. So you immediately smell food cooking from a variety of places. But the closest is you see there's a building just down the street. You can see it from where you are. It looks like it's a single story cinder block building, painted red exterior, surrounded by this forest of potted plants. And there's a sign that says the old box. And there's the like crudely painted image of two mugs clinking together. And what looks to be like flying around watering plants is the closest you could think of is like an anthropomorphic hummingbird. It's about the size of a house cat. It's singing and fluttering, moving like you know, you know how hummingbirds move, like they're still. Then they dart. It's doing this while watering plants. You also notice because you rolled a ridiculously high perception way up on the hill where you guys fought Tarmek. The crucifier. You can see. Experience. Dinsmoor. The light of morning is just touching the top of the hill, and she is walking a strange, seemingly random circuit around the hilltop. She's got this heavy book in her arms, and at irregular intervals she'll stop, look at the ground, like, smell the wind, and then write in the book, and then keep walking. But you can smell food coming from the place. The building with the sign of the old box.

Troy pauses briefly. I'm pretty sure we planned this the night before. She was going to go up there and do some stuff. I normally play a ley line walker. I figure she's probably doing the ley line sensing or something like that. That's cool. That's fine. But we got to eat. So. I notice it and do not react to it and head towards the old box. Do you.

Do you tell any of your companions where you're going?

If any of them are. Came out or in any way followed me, then absolutely. In fact, I will encourage him. Like who? If anybody came out, Henry, on that.

Note, would have wanted to check in on at least Bronson. Just make sure he was doing okay. And Bronson's, I'm assuming, also hungry. Seeing you leave like, well, I'm not hungry, but we'll see what's up.

We're usually the snack run guys. Man, that's the thing.

Bronson emerges from a pile of hay. Oh, good morning. Has anybody seen Mike?

Still nobody? Still no Mike.

Oh, I miss Mike.

Me too, pal.

I have to pee. Do I pee inside? I don't know what the rules are in this place.

I know one rule. It's typically no peeing inside. Let's go outside, pal.

Okay. And he follows you outside. Did everybody see the picture of Bronson? Yeah. On the discord.

Yeah, I saw the text picture.

You might have to scroll up to see it.

Well, that's true. I think it's in the folder where the character sheets are, right?

Yeah. Yeah, it should be in that folder. Okay. But he's very derpy.

He's derpy.

You did go with the derpy dog look. That's.

Yeah.

So where is. What about Riley?

Jacob Riley, who doesn't like getting up in the morning at the best times, ever since he got out of the army, you know, rises, some idiot left the goddamn door open. And he pulls on his bomber jacket and starts patting the pockets of the bomber jacket and the jumpsuit he's wearing, looking for a pack of cigarettes. And heads outside, squinting against the bright light.

Yeah, yeah, roll your perception, Jacob.

You Got it. I rolled a two.

So you go outside, obviously see people doing stuff. What you're really smelling for is smelling if anybody is smoking and nothing picks up.

Oh, God damn it.

You smell disappointment.

It's probably just the cleanest smelling air you've ever been in. It reminds me of the few times you were out in the middle of nowhere in the army.

Oh, so suddenly I'm remembering the Kuwaiti border. Excellent.

Great. Well, I meant more like, you know, on a training maneuver. It definitely does not smell like the desert.

Oh, okay. Oh, God. It smells like Fort Bragg.

God help us. Again, I said clean, pristine NPC. What is Mr. Cat doing? He can smell the food as. As well as the Krazy can.

He can? That's a good. That's a good question.

I just assumed you'd expect us to bring some food, but it would be cool if you came with us.

Mr. Cat has decided that he probably needs clothes, so I'm going to look around this barn and see if I can find some kind of attire. Maybe even if it's just like some overalls or something.

Yeah, there's clearly a box of clothes that someone stored up and forgot about. Overalls, like a soiled oil stain, set of coveralls, trousers, shirts that need to be stitched.

I'll take the trousers.

Okay.

But I am going to take some inspiration from my good friend Troy and show off the guns, if you know what I'm talking about. But then after that, if there's time, I figure Mr. Cat is. I am a noble creature. I am a fierce hunter. I'm going to follow the smell and go get some food from this bar.

Okay. So everyone piles into the old box. When you go through the door, the anthropomorphic hummingbird creature looks at you but doesn't say anything. It just keeps watering its plants. The interior of the old box is a clean, warm space. There's a fire just starting to get going in a hearth on one wall. The wall blocks on the interior are covered by cedar panels. There's mismatched tables and chairs and rough hewn benches. And a few villagers in drinking coffee, buttering fresh crusty bread and passing around heavy jars of peach, pear or plum. And you can see a sign that says, Breakfast one credit. Bread Free Beer two credits. Coffee, one credit. So it's a very basic menu. On a chalkboard, there's a man behind a bar pouring coffee for one of, you know, the villagers. You can see there's a woman in the kitchen beyond that and looks like. It looks like A family runs the place because there's a teenage girl and a little six year old boy serving tables. And the boy comes up. Hello.

We're wicked hungry. What do you. Can we get some bread and beers? It's a little early for beer. Some bread. Breakfast. Breakfast. We're also kind of want to.

Where do you want to sit?

Whichever chair will hold him.

He looks up. The cyborg up and down. No, I. We will break our chairs, sir. And then like the girl comes over. You have to be nice. You have to be. I'm sorry. He is. He's little. You. You can sit anywhere you like though. She does also look at Henry a bit worriedly.

If he tries with those cyborg legs you could do a solid hover. All right, I'll stand.

It's cool. Am I clearing the roof of this place?

Yeah, it's fairly tall. It's you know a 10 foot tall roof but so the. The teenage girl says I'm Adelheid, this is Bryce. Would you all. Do you all want breakfast? But bacon, eggs, potatoes.

Bacon sounds amazing. Give it to me.

Well just sit down and we'll bring it and coffee if anyone wants. And there's bread and she points to the table and there's clearly like where a baker's been just putting bread. People have been tearing off chunks.

Riley walks over, just grabs a chunk of bread and sits down at the table and just starts munching.

I will. As she starts to leave, I'll place a hand on her shoulder and just be like I want to be forward though. We're kind of skint. Put it on our tab. We got you covered. But we need breakfast. He's got that strength of a. Strength is gross. So he's not trying to hurt her. But if you've ever had a really.

Strong person do that, especially someone who's still getting used to their body.

Accidental intimidation kind of is the vibe she.

You can see there's a little worried her eye but she's. Oh, okay. And the man behind the bar looks is like watching this but he doesn't say anything. So I think you guys did get some credits off the.

Oh, we did. Somebody picked up credits?

Yeah. I don't.

Talismans.

I didn't get credits.

Don't. I didn't get the credits. I don't think I. I have this rod. Will they buy the rod?

Can we trade in the talisman? Just pretend like we think they're credits and run with it. That was like see if they stop us.

I've got all These creepy looking talismans, Tarmac mayhem. Like we could maybe do a little bartering.

I do remember there being credits.

I do don't remember we have failed as player characters.

I'm pretty positive you guys picked some up.

I just know specifically I did not. I have no need for them.

I do remember Henry, Alex saying Henry was grabbing a bunch of trinkets off of our match.

However many credits it probably would have ended up on Alex since he was doing the loot.

There's plenty of room in my medium to small sized thigh compartment.

Just the weirdest way to describe a hoo. Ha.

Hey, we're in a place called the Old Box. Give me a break.

I know it sounds like an insult somebody would use towards their old like ex. The Old Box.

The old prison pocket. I'll tell you what, somebody roll four D10.

That's one each. That's easy.

Okay.

There you go.

I got a 6, got a 2, 4.

We're up to 12. We need you to roll. Good.

I gotta find it.

Thank you.

Need to bring their own dice.

No. 15.

You have 15 credits that you scavenged from the battle.

So we can't actually afford breakfast. That's how well we're doing.

Shake out all those credits onto the table from the pile of talismans that are jangled up in my pocket, quote unquote.

Now, Alex, during the night you did manage to get your mask disengaged. And you do have a flesh face.

Yeah.

And a mouth with a tongue in it.

Does it go anywhere?

You don't know.

I am going to try some coffee.

As a start. So you take, you get the coffee close to your lips and you hear duh. And you, you drink coffee and it goes down. You feel the warmth down your throat and it went somewhere.

It's being stored in a lung compartment or something.

Yeah.

Can I ride that stupid high perception forward? And does anybody in here have cigarettes? I know my friend.

Yeah, go ahead.

He needs a cigarette. I'm going to roll a. Come on, come on. That's a. I rolled a four. That's going to bring me to an eight. If there's cigarettes. I don't see them. I was looking out for you though, man.

So in the corner there is an old man rolling cigarettes from a tin of. He's got a tin of tobacco and he's rolling his own cigarettes.

I mean, I smoke a non menthol at this point.

You know, the best thing is your character's not physically addicted, but you are still psychologically addicted. Or maybe Your character is physically addicted.

I mean, it's a techno wizard, chances are high.

Not.

Yeah, so, yeah. So there is a man rolling cigarettes in the corner and he's got one. He finishes it and he lights one.

I wonder if he's holding.

Riley gets up and goes over and goes, hey, can I get a cigarette?

Yeah. He looks you up and down, looks over at your friends, the massive artifact.

Tucked under your arm.

He you with experience.

Yeah, that was the lady's name. Yeah, yeah, we're with her.

And he, he nods and. All right. And he pushes two cigarettes across the.

Table to you two. Thanks, buddy. I put one behind my ear and bum a light for the other one.

Now Jacob Riley has these cigarettes. He's looking up and the boy, the little boy, the server, Bryce, whenever he's not, wasn't serving tables, he would go sit in the corner sort of near this old guy. Not really. Like there's just a bench there and there's some books on it and he's reading a book and you glance at him and he like looks at you, you know, with the, with the kind of suspicious eyes that only a six year old can deliver. And he like hides behind the book and he kind of raises it up and you see it and hand to God it says Rift's World Book 32, Lemuria. Hey. Hey guys.

I go back to the table if when we get back to where we're from, I have the greatest long shot. Bet we have to get on Use net and get some people to go for. I bet I can name the name of a future rift's World book and the publication date.

Isn't this the plot of Back to the Future?

Well, yeah.

Back to the future too, my friend.

My bad, my bad.

Well, yeah, but if you're gonna steal.

Steal from the best.

That was Kripke's favorite movie. Personally, I found the first one far superior. Have you ever pondered the concept of possibly being your own parent? Blows your mind, doesn't it? Where's the bacon?

Suddenly I'm not as hungry.

You are served breakfast. The girl Adelhad brings out potatoes and eggs, bread and plenty of bacon and coffee and water if it's requested.

Without even asking, I scoop up the potatoes off of Mr. Cat's place and I replace him with my bacon as a trade. It was a good trade for you. It's a good trade for me. I love potatoes.

Excellent. I accept this donation. Tribute, if you will.

Oh, Riley is going to finish smoking his cigarette before he digs into his food. So there's plenty ample time for Mr. Cat to just reach across the table and take the bacon if he's that sort of cat.

Is there any other type of cat?

I mean, we've established he's not an orange lunkhead, so, yes, I will slowly.

Be moving my paw across the table to grab other people's bacon. In fact, I will eat everyone else's bacon before I eat my own.

Of course, Riley doesn't even notice.

And at some point, off the cuff, he's more interested in eating. And look, he's excited. He would be like, he would say something about seeing Experience up on the hill so that information would be shared at some point. Like, oh, yeah, experience was up doing something. Pass me the salt.

So Henry, while just watching this all play out, while sipping some coffee, being glad I can at least enjoy that much, realizes he does have something he can do here. He reaches out to the. Whoever's closest to server. Oh, hey, man. We get some. What do you call them? Snacks to go.

She looks Juice. Snacks to go.

Yeah, you know, tasty treats, but they're not going to go bad in my pocket.

You mean like travel rations or.

Yeah, yeah, but like, you know, something. What? Maybe a little dog man. Or a little cat. May not a lot. Not little, but a catman might like, we have.

We have jerky.

Oh, I'll take some jerky. How much would you know? Two credits. Get me.

She says, hold on. And she goes into the back and comes back and gives you this block of pemmican.

Righteous. I pass her the two credits and then open up my other thigh compartment and see if I can't fit it all in there.

Yeah, it fits in, you know, it's about, you know, squarish block of pemmican.

All right.

Couldn't enjoy bacon, but I still feel pleased with myself.

Oh, man. I'm now just picturing Henry's joy at finding that he now can actually safely, without destroying them, carry pizza rolls in his pocket.

Oh, my God.

Fresh out of the microwave, even. It's fine.

You guys eat breakfast. You're starting to feel somewhat normal. The hunger is gone, and that helps. But you're still definitely not in 1997, and definitely not, as far as you could tell in your version of Michigan.

Didn't we say we were going to try and go to Cincinnati today? Wasn't that the plan?

We were going to try to get back towards home. Experience was talking about heading to New Laszlo if she couldn't get us back. Because at least, you know, it's new Laszlo. There's a lot of wizards and shit there. God, I feel like I have a hangover. And I wasn't even drinking last night.

Jesus.

I must say that I also approve of following this experience. For one, she promised me food. For another, her name is Experience. If you look at this, the greater scheme of life, and think that we.

Might just be inside a game, follow.

The experience, see where it gets you. For some reason, one of my best skills is philosophy.

Jesus Christ.

I don't remember using it, but I'm just gonna go with it.

I don't know why the cat can talk. I don't know why I could talk. This bacon is delicious though. They said, let me sit at the table like people.

I ruffled Bronson's head.

They don't know I'm not people. Yeah, so you guys, you guys finish your breakfast, you drink more coffee. Experience is still not come down from the hill, as far as you can tell. Jacob, did you tell anybody about the kid you saw in the book?

Yeah, I made the whole comment about being able to make a bet regarding a future world book that's coming out. I didn't bother to explain it because no one seemed interested. And fuck it, I'm. I got a mental affinity of seven. What do you want out of me? I'm not Mr. Charming by any stretch of the imagination. If the fact that like the. The owner of the bar wasn't a afraid for his children's safety is kind.

Of a good thing, fair enough.

What's the kitchen look like? Because after I cleared the table and took stuff to the back to kind of do a little work to help cover our costs, again, I don't say anything. I'm just like, this is what you do. Clear your table, take it to the back. Unless they stop me. They can't stop.

They got. No, nobody stops you. If you go on the back, there's like a small stairwell down to what's clearly a root cellar. There's rustic cupboards, there's a big fireplace where they've got pots cooking over. But there's also what you would kind of recognize as a pretty modern looking griddle.

Okay.

As far as you can tell, it's not plugged into anything, it's just working.

It better not be a nuclear powered griddle or some bullshit.

No. Well, I mean, yeah, could be. Could be. So the lady working in the back kind of gives you a bit of a not scared, but a definitely cautious look and takes the place. Who thinks I will take those?

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's delicious. My compliments to the chef. If that was you, great. Note the stuff, it might become relevant. Ed, just go back out. He wants to keep moving at this point, so.

Yeah, the fact you didn't start washing the dishes for them.

I was going to. I was distracted by the stove.

I have lived with you as a roommate. Oh, my God.

Yeah. So, I mean, how long are you guys going to wait for. For experience in the.

As soon as I'm done eating, I'm going to start wandering up the hill.

Okay, so, yes, Jacob finishes eating, starts wandering up the hill. Troy takes the dishes to the back. What about Henry?

Henry's going to follow and kind of get, you know, get Bronson on out of there, get him outside again, see what's going on.

Yeah. So the Hamlet of boxing is waking up. People are going about their day. You can see, you know, there's a woman feeding chickens, a guy walking two mules down a road on a harness for some purpose. A farmer goes into the barn where you guys slept, presumably to milk cows. What is Mr. Cat doing? NPC.

I will probably follow the sensible ones. Or one that would be.

So you're on your own, like.

Yeah. Well, I. I do have something of a respect for Riley. Riley has never been mean to me. And Riley also seems to be smart. Mike has always respected Riley. Therefore, I hold Riley in something in esteem. And meanwhile, Henry gives me snacks sometimes.

So, shit, I'm playing Riley. And I'm starting to doubt Mike's judgment now.

Mike fed me regularly. He was brilliant.

His priorities were clearly all in the right place.

Yes.

So Jacob and Mr. Cat and whoever else wants to, walks up the hill to where experience is now, standing on one of the slabs that you guys woke up on, peering at the ground, writing in this big book. And as you guys walk up, she gives a little wave. Her fingers and her face are smudged with ink. She's got this big quill feather pin that she's riding with. And as far as you can tell, she's not dipping in anything. It just seems to have anxious. Oh, hello. Good morning.

I just grin at her that something that's accidentally vaguely like a leer unintentionally and go. Hey, how you doing?

Oh, good. I didn't know how long you would want to sleep, so I just thought I would trace the contours of what happened last night.

Oh, I appreciate that. It was. It was a night. Sounds like you had a hell of a day yesterday.

I've had better days, that's for certain.

I'm going to become a one of those personal space invaders and just kind of like, get all up in her business and look at the book, like, while she's holding it.

Okay, so does Mr. Cat have any understanding of magic?

Nope.

Can you. Can't you do the smell magic thing or something?

I can wait. Well, sorta. All right, yeah, let's see. I don't have any knowledge of magic, but I do have sense psychic and magic energy. I can sense supernatural beings, and I can track active psionics and magic.

Oh, good. I can never get away from you.

Never. Plus, I have your smell, therefore I get a bonus to it.

Oh, Jesus.

Why would you want to get away.

From him and say you can roll your sense of psychic magic energy at a plus 30 bonus?

Well, that's good. That doubles it, right? 44.

So you don't sense anything from the book? The. The quill pen seems to have an odd smell to you, but this entire place, this entire hilltop, just seems alive with supernatural potency. Is the only way you can kind of work it in your mind.

I'm purring a little bit more than normal.

So experience. What exactly is this place?

Oh, this. Oh, this hill was desecrated many years ago, and it's never quite recovered. There's a slight ley line here, and just enough for Tarmek's purposes. It is a foul place. I would not normally be here. Also, there's a body on that side of the hill. Please be careful. I wouldn't touch it.

That's the one from yesterday. That one. It still smells bad. Oh, another.

Oh, no. Yeah, it's different. Tarmac has, of course, entirely decomposed, but that one, I'm not sure.

Riley, you know, nods in agreement and then kind of just sort of edges away and starts heading to the other side of the hill.

I'm immediately going to go investigate it.

Well, since you gave me a blatant excuse, now I'm just, you know, following the cat because, like, oh, God, the cat's going to eat.

It is.

If he's asked, that's what Riley will say will be his excuse.

On the opposite side of the way you guys came up, there's a body. It's a man. He's wearing fairly mundane, kind of unremarkable clothes. It's no one you recognize. He definitely wasn't one of the cultists. He's in, you know, far too good physical condition for that.

When you say mundane, do you mean like, mundane 1997 clothes, or are we talking mundane like this world?

This world? Okay. There's no obvious injuries. He's just dead.

Riley is going to look like he's exact, examining his pockets and stuff for, you know, loose bobbles, but is actually, you know, like, sizing him up and checking for any more subtle signs of what caused him to die and that sort of thing.

Do you have any skills related to autopsy? Examining dead bodies, anything of that nature?

No.

There is a forensic skill.

Yes, there is.

I'm surprised you don't have that, given your obsession.

Yeah, weirdly enough, I could not select.

It, so you could attempt it untrained.

Yeah, I'm going to do that.

Y' all motherfuckers need to bring your own dice.

My dice are sitting in front of the computer from our Valley of the Pharaoh session. I apologize. I am a horrible person.

Horrible. The worst.

That'd be a 45. So, no. Riley's smart, but not that smart.

It just. You have no idea why this guy's dead? Experience walks over. Well, I mean, I was going to get someone to bury him. He was supposed to be the fourth. Oh, yeah, fourth. Well, and then the cat showed up. Not sure how that happened, but I look affronted. Tarmac had four bodies that he was going to house the soul of his warriors in, and she's marking in this book the whole time. And then only three of you got up and, well, the cat was there.

Does Mr. Cat, perhaps from his former life in this world, in this body, have any kind of recognition of this corpse, be it visual or odor?

No.

All right. Don't care about him.

No, it's some guy.

I think this was supposed to be Mike's vessel. This is supposed to be the Mike spot. I don't think Mike made it. That's my guess. I absolutely say that loud enough that Bronson can hear it.

Oh, no. Mike. And he runs over to the body. Mike, wake up. This is not Mike. This is clearly not Mike.

Wait a second. If there was supposed to be four and then I appeared, where did he come from?

I assume you're looking at the dog.

Experience shrugs. No idea. Magic, honey. If it was a science, they'd call it that.

Again, riffing off of the fact that Troy played a Leyline Walker, he's not a very smart guy. They'd be like, absolutely. If there was some kind of interdimensional rift that was open that pulled us here into these bad fucking ass bodies, it could have very clearly accidentally sucked an extra over. That totally makes sense. And yeah, that lines up.

Lady, I got a question. Ever since I walked up on this hill. I feel like the backs of my hands are tingling. Do you know I have any idea. Why is that?

Because you're a wizard. I thought. Did we all not all know that? We didn't. Not all of us. Okay.

What?

What? She looks at you. You are a wizard. How do you think you cast the spell from the rod of ash?

It was a magic rod. I assumed anybody could do that.

Hand it to that one. She's pointing towards the crazy.

I hand it to you.

That is a great idea. Yeah.

I'm like, this should be fun.

I twirl it in the air like a baton and catch it. This thing is sweet.

It is a big, heavy stone and nothing more.

I'd make several magical gestures with it. Nope, not magical, my friend.

But that was really fun to watch.

Thanks, man.

Yeah, Jacob. The moment it is back in Riley's hand, he could feel that power coursing back into him and out in this feedback loop.

I don't suppose you have any idea what kind of wizard I am.

She.

She gives you one of those smiles. It's like, I have no idea.

I look down at the bomber jacket and a sinking feeling comes over me.

Yeah. She kind of like, takes the lapel and folds it. If I had to guess, I would. Maybe a techno wizard, but I don't know. I don't know.

Oh, God, that bullshit.

Those are the worst. Man. I'm so sorry.

That was Henry's character.

It's like, oh, there's nothing wrong with techno wizardry. It's very useful magical prowess.

Yeah.

Yeah, I suppose. You know what? When we get to New Laszlo, I'll introduce you to Zane.

How much weed does he smoke?

She looks at you. I do not believe Zane partakes.

You have got to be kidding me.

Wait a moment. You mean to tell me there's weed on this plane?

We have many weeds.

Cannabis, marijuana, ganj.

Oh, the stuff.

No, Zane does not smoke marijuana or anything as far as I know.

So you're telling me there's a chance?

I believe he has a mean addiction to eckbo peach.

That could be a strain. I'll take my chances.

It does sound like it could be.

A strain, she says. Well, you might have eaten some of it in the old box. It's peach jam. It's from a village. She kind of gestures to the east.

Don't break my heart. I'll find out when I get there.

Yeah, we should be moving. Y'. All. Come on. Come on. How much more time you need on this hill experience?

Well, I would like To. To record everything I can for Joe Red. An hour, maybe two, if you could amuse yourselves.

Clarifying question. Is that Joe Red or Jored Joe.

First name, last name Red. Everyone calls him jovial.

Ah, okay. Sounds like it. No, I don't. I just. I just want to know.

Yeah, he is not a techno wizard, sir, but he is a very great magical practitioner, and we will likely visit him for your. And she kind of gestures at all of you. Your disassociation problem.

We got problems.

So I don't remember if we. You know, last night's a little fuzzy for me. I'll be perfectly honest, we got a little bit of a problem here. In case you didn't realize, we're not from around here. And more importantly, we're not from this time.

Yes, I think you mentioned that.

Yeah. Like, we. We know. Like, I don't know how to explain this in a way that makes any amount of sense. Not let anything around here does, but, like, where we're from, you all are things in books.

Well, that's funny, because where we're from, you all are things in books.

Yeah, well, that's because we're your history. You're our fantasy future.

Well, she looks around. Doesn't seem very fantastical. Oh, God.

It is a lot easier to swallow when you only have to do it one night a week.

I just have one really important question about wherever we're going that I need to know in advance. Is there indoor plumbing?

Yes.

Oh, thank God.

You still have to pee outside, Bronson.

So she says, I just need an hour, maybe two, and then we'll start towards new Lazlo minions.

Let us depart and leave her to her things. The sooner we leave, the sooner I get paid.

Sure.

In fact, is there any way I could help experience, like, anything I can do to, you know, move things for you or anything?

Sure. And she just dumps this huge book in your arm.

Oh, Jesus Christ. So I get to follow around holding the book, like, yeah, I page boy.

Got it.

Riley is having flashbacks to when he was an altar boy.

Yeah. She hands you this. This book, and, you know, on the front it says, the Third General Journal of Palia Logos. Which doesn't mean anything to you. Yeah, but in between, when she's making markings, you look through some of it and you recognize you can read the words, even though it's not in a language you've ever seen. And there are various spells described in Kirin. Armor of a fan, firebolt, magic net, telekinesis. Various spells you remember from a Cursory. Yeah, you know, review of riffs. Yeah. And, you know, there's an inscription on the inside cover dedicating it to the noble house of Paleologos. And there's some words that you recognize written in Greek, you think, but those you. You can't read because you don't speak Greek.

Paleologos. Isn't that ancient logic? I mean, I forget how those words translate, but I think that's close.

I believe Paleo is old. Old or. Yeah, something like that.

So Henry Troy and Mr. Cat and Bronson walk down the hill, and you're halfway to the village of Box, which you know is right at the bottom of the hill. You're not very far away at all. And a loud rumbling sound breaks the quiet. The relative tranquil countryside quiet. And rolling down the hills from the east is this large, rugged vehicle with huge tires, armored driver's compartment, and enclosed rear cargo bay. It rumbles, you know, past the tree line, kind of moving slow, not aggressively or anything of that nature, and into the center of the village, just right outside of the. The old box. You can see a logo on the front facing panel above this mechanical grill. As you get closer, it says Mountaineer on it. No one reacts with alarm. You do see some people kind of seemingly engaged in purposeful activity. Like they're bringing out boxes of vegetables and smoked meats or odds and ends and kind of like moving toward this vehicle. The front door opens. A man gets out. He's got a black leather coat. It seems very, you know, pseudo theatrical, almost shining boots. His teeth are pristine. His hair is long and dark and combat and oiled. And he's got hands that look like they've never done an honest day's work. He smiles broadly and kind of, like, sweeps his gaze over the few people that are approaching and, like, raises hands. Friends, welcome. We've got a lot of things to go over today. I've got a lot of goods. I'm very interested in what you have, which we'll get to shortly. Just assemble what you have, and we'll get started. And, you know, people are going up and engaging with him. You think some sort of traveling merchant or something. Seems likely. And he. He looks over, sees you guys walking down the hill and looks up. Like, his eyes go up to the hill where Jacob. Or his eyes go up to the hill where Riley and Experience are walking around. He's talking to this farmer, and he kind of breaks off and, like, starts walking vaguely in your direction, but he's looking at the top of the hill. Towards experience.

I'd like to give him a once over at least. Kind of scan the situation. Main thing I'm looking to see the interactions with him and the people. Do the people look afraid? Do they look excited? Do they look bored?

You know, there's a little bit of excitement. Okay. And they also kind of look like they recognize him. Okay. This isn't necessarily that out of the ordinary.

My question is from. He's like, lay out your goods. And it's like, oh, no, it's not a bandit or something. Okay.

Giving off traveling merchant vibes to me.

So, yeah, he doesn't have any weapons as far as you can tell. Roll. Roll your perception.

Okay. 6.

Yeah, he's not carrying any weapons. He does have a dagger on his belt, but it's. I mean, it's kind of big for dagger, but it is definitely not a sword or, you know, like a vibro blade or anything.

Cool.

I'd like to try and flag him down if he gets close enough to us. But Pat tries to pass us.

Yeah, yeah. He will walk right past you. You flag him down. He kind of looks over at you.

Hey, man, do you take trink? Do you trade for trinkets? Pull out the talismans again, or.

I do.

Can you identify what these are? And then trade.

Of course. He pulls out like a white handkerchief and lays it out on the grass. Well, display what you have, my friend.

Can do. So I just. How many talismans did I ultimately yoink from tarmac?

Let's let me grab some dice. You grabbed eight different little talismans on chains or string that looked not too terribly vile.

Okay.

I lay them all out very as gentle as possible.

Yeah. He starts looking over. Oh, these are some very interesting pieces. Quite an assortment of obscure fates. Where did you say you got these?

Oh, you could say I landed on them.

Landed on them. He looks at your bulk. Well, they must be quite durable. And you want to trade for these?

Yeah, I mean, I wouldn't mind knowing what they did first. We could figure out a sort of trade for that. But I figure we need some credits for our travels. Wouldn't kill us.

Oh, well, I see, I see. Well, I. I don't know what they do. What are they supposed to do? Something.

Oh, buddy, that's where you were supposed to help.

Oh.

How much will you give me for these two?

And I just point to the two.

In the far right.

NPC row. Your scent. Supernatural beings for no reason.

Definitely no reason.

No reason at all. Since supernatural beings. Got it. I got a 27 under 54.

So you're watching this interaction take place and this man, this traveling peddler perhaps is examining these items. And each time he examines one, he does that. He takes in like this clear like intake of breath. And each time he does that, you sense this wave of supernatural potency just roil off of him.

Okay, keep my eye on him.

But he's testing your product to see if it's legit.

The old sniffing test.

Well, it's. It's very subtle. Like the only reason Mr. Cat noticed it is because he was sensing a supernatural effect each time it happened. Well, you know what, friend? I actually have some business with that young woman up there. An experience is definitely middle aged. No one would call you, but when I return, we'll. We'll set a price. How does that sound?

Sure, sure.

And what is your name?

Oh.

Oh, I suppose you just call me Henry viii.

Ah, well, very nice to meet you, Henry. Stretched out. I am Morrow.

Mark Maro Mok. Nice maramock. Did I hear that right?

Yes, just call me Morrow. Everyone else does.

Right on.

But don't call me tomorrow. Call me today. Yes, well, it never gets old.

I'll bet it doesn't. Ever.

Excuse me, gentlemen. Very nice. Very nice to meet you all.

You should just get used to be surprising you as a gm anytime this character is in manic mode, which she currently is. So what's under the hood of this thing? This big ass vehicle because they stopped to talk to this guy. I'm like, this thing is sweet. Wandered into town. Pop the hood open, I'm checking it out. I like cars.

Sure. Absolutely.

And you don't even. You don't even have to answer that.

You know how big this thing is, right?

Yeah, I jump up on the. I can leap like 10V vertical. Yeah, yeah, I jump up on the wheel.

Technical skills.

I have mechanics. Automotive.

This seems right up.

Okay. Yes. You would absolutely recognize this. This thing does have a combustion engine in the front. Now, it is oversized compared to what you would normally run into in 1997. There's a couple of additions you don't recognize. But fundamentally it is a combustion engine.

It is a sweet giant combustion engine. Yeah, I'm absolutely taking. I'm giving this vehicle once over. I'm unplugging things, plugging them back in, going around to the. I'm not going to try and start it and drive it. It's somebody else's rig. But no personal space for this vehicle.

So. So, okay, so describe how you're inspecting it.

Just clamoring. All over it, opening things, unplugging things, plugging them back in. I'm in real life, not a great automotive person. So I, I check it out. Like it's somebody who's a car fan checking out a sweet rig that they're never going to see. He would also open the doors. He would look in the back. I think this vehicle has a giant cargo area. Again, not stealing anything. It's just like, wow, that's a huge space. He's probably also getting an idea, wait, if this is going towards Lazlo, we could, we could hitch a ride kind of thing.

Marlomar keeps walking up the hill and apparently shows does not notice at all that Troy is climbing all over his vehicle.

Total montage.

Yeah, Troy, you are. Troy is, you know, he looks in the driver's compartment. It's huge. There's enough space for the driver. And a couple of people think probably all of you guys. And you know, you can see the guy has some packaged snacks. Though the packaging is a little more crude than what you would be used to and era of sophisticated marketing. Right. But, but, but clearly packaged foods bought from somewhere, you know, knickknacks. Like there's some, like there's clearly a devance tablet of some kind. A radio is in the front.

I definitely again, am not going to try and activate it now, but I am laying the groundwork for justifying later if I wish to make a pilot attempt. I'm just telling you that part of what I'm doing is trying to convert the operation of his vehicle to vehicles that I know too.

Sure, sure. You notice there's a holster hanging by a strap in the driver's compartment, and there's a heavy pistol in it of a design you're. You're not familiar with. It's definitely not a chemical firearm. And it really looks to Troy a lot like the drawings of last pistols from the Rifts books, you know. And then you get bored with everything in the that compartment. You climb on the back, you open the door into the rear compartment, which is significantly large. There's boxes of foodstuffs and you know, the occasional glass bottle or a metal work piece of item. And then there's something big against the back of the cargo bay covered in an old tarp.

It's not covered in a tarp. It's definitely not covered in a tarp.

Yes, I uncover it, then we are going to cut you the top of the hill. So when, when Marma goes up at the top of the hill, what do you Mr. Cat and Henry, do. Do you guys go down to the village?

Yeah, I think Bronson and I start meandering back down, kind of seeing what Troy's getting up to. Amazed that nobody's interfered with him yet.

Sure. So, I mean, all the, the people of Box that are kind of watching this crazy, clamorous vehicle with looks like, should we tell someone? Should we say something? I don't know. He's a crazy. Let's just take a few steps back.

When in doubt, what's the terrain here? Is there cover? Is it possible for me to like, sneak in some way and follow him at a distance?

I mean, you can follow at a distance. So this hillside is grass, and it's clearly a place where they let sheep and goats graze.

Okay.

All the small trees that would grow here have been eaten down and there's the occasional dung pie, but there's no significant cover.

All right, I'm just going to boldly meander back in that direction and follow him.

Okay. So Marlmar gets to the top of the hill and he, he greets one. He says, oh, good morning, dear lady. And experience looks at him and says, hello. And Jacob, you can tell he. She does not have any idea who this guy is, okay? And he says, well, good morning. Now, Jacob, where is the rod of Asher Kadan?

I am juggling it while holding this huge book for her.

He goes up, he's, oh, Maro Mok. Have we met?

Is he talking to me or Experience?

He's talking to you.

Oh, yeah, that would make sense.

Duh.

I'm like, yeah, no, I highly doubt it.

Ah, must remember you from somewhere else. Well, it's a large book and a very interesting artifact.

The book's hers. The broad's mine.

Well, I'm a merchant traveler, as you might say. It's a very interesting piece. Would you be open to selling it?

I don't think so.

Well, I believe I could make it very much worth your while.

What are we talking about here?

Well, is it magical potency?

Yes.

Significant.

Yes.

An experience kind of like butts into the conversation, like literally steps between you two and she says, oh, the rod of Ashur Kadan is not for sale. He says, asher Kadan, Truly.

I would like to interject here just to state that as this is going on, I am just walking right up. If I can do so silently, it would be kind of cool if I could just be right behind him if he turns around and there's like an eight foot tall cat thing. But ultimately, what I want to do is, as this is going on, keep my senses open to anything that might be happening in the metaphysical sense.

Awesome.

Riley is turning the charm on over there.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, you're a cat, so. Yeah. I mean, you be pretty quiet when you want to roll your prowl.

I get a 25 under 72.

Yeah. He shows no indication that you're there. And from your earlier role, the sense of the supernatural is now very clear. It's just coming off him in waves. It doesn't smell like anything you've smelled before, but now you've learned to recognize it. Cool. And the man Marmark says to Riley, for that, which is a very famous piece. I don't know if you've heard of it, I would give you 100,000 credits right now and 50,000 more. Upon arrival in New Laszlo, I let.

Out a low whistle and look over at Experience just to see her reaction.

Like, she's not affected at all by the. The. The monetary amount. She's just shaking your head. No, it is not for sale.

I'm inclined to trust the lady's opinion. I do appreciate the offer.

175.

I. I, like, do this weird double check Experience, to see if, like, she's breaking at all.

And, like, no, no, no. She's just staring at this guy real hard.

I'm like, I'm sorry.

I.

I kind of have to defer to experience here.

Well, very well. Perhaps you'll change your mind in the future. Perhaps if you travel to Nulu Laszlo, we can meet there and discuss other trades. If you have other items. I believe your cybernetic friend had a few pieces.

Oh, yeah, the stuff we pulled off. The dead guy. Yeah.

Oh, the dead guy. What dead guy?

I forgot. I forgot his first name, but something. The Crucifier. I don't remember.

Ah, the Crucifier. I see. Well, that is a memorable epitaph for certain.

I do want to ask a quick clarification. Experience absolutely knows his name, but she does not chime in to clarify that. Correct.

She absolutely knows his name.

Okay, making sure.

And so the guy says, well, very well. I'll leave you two to your engineering efforts, whatever it is you're doing. Good day. And he turns around, and he, like, sees Mr. Ken's like, oh, my apologies, sir. You're quite tall. Quite tall. And he looks past you and he. You could like, this is just when Troy disappears into the back of the Mountaineer. He goes, oh, no.

Fortunately, I got a cyborg coming towards me, so that. That'll help.

So, Troy, you yank this tarp.

I'm using my fine contraband skill is what I'm doing.

I don't think I've ever seen that skill rolled.

Yeah. Off of whatever it is in the back of this cargo bay. And this is a large cargo bay. This is more akin to the back of, say, a dump truck than, like, a van. This is a large space. The Mountaineer is a huge vehicle. And your first thought is, oh, my God, this guy's got a dead body. It is this large creature. It's like a desiccated corpse. The skin is charred into, like, a dark brown. And immediately you're reminded of the man you fought last night. Tarmac the Crucifier, because it's very similar, except this is more of a corpse while he was actually sort of alive. It's in this heavy black armor. Again, very reminiscent of what you fought last night. Huge spikes coming out of the shoulder pads. Spikes and blades on the vambraces on the arm. Pair of metal horns jutting up out of the skull.

Was it just loose under the tarp, or did you say it was in a cage or a box or something like that?

No, it was just covered by the tarp. It's not in any sort of containment.

Okay.

And it doesn't seem alive. And you're standing out for a moment, and then the eyes flicker at you and look at you.

That's cool. So should I wait or should I roll the seduction now?

Whenever you want. I don't want to tell you how to live your life.

One of my better skills, for weird reasons, but. No, I'm not seducing the pile of goo. The pile of.

It's so appropriate, though.

Oh, God. Okay, so it looks and smells like a corpse, but opens its eyes and it's big and bulky, but still human sized.

Yeah, yeah. Roll your horror factor.

Ah. I got a six with a plus zero is the six. But I'd like to use one of my point. I can use one of my points.

To see heroism to re roll. Or I think it was the fate. Could just.

I don't want to use the fate. Those are special. Yeah, Heroism will just let me reroll. I would kind of like to not be horrified. Boo. I can't.

That's fair enough.

I can get out of here very quickly, though.

Yeah, yeah. Heroism lets you. Yeah, Lets you reroll.

Okay.

You can use luck.

Reroll worse. So no. Unless the difficulty is 3.

Strangely enough, it is definitely not. It is actually 13. So you fail your save versus horror factor. You are overwhelmed, temporarily stunned. So you lose initiative. You don't even get to roll for it. You lose one melee attack or one attack per melee action and cannot defend yourself against the creature's first attack of that melee round, which comes immediately standing up.

Come on. That's going to take some time.

So I got a question for you, Troy. What is Troy's fear response? Does he scream? Does he stutter? Does he just start laughing?

I was. It sounds more like a combat move but I was literally imagining that kind of like toss the thing out. That's what I was imagining. He would react. But it sounds like I'm stunned. So he's probably jaw a slack like jaw hanging open on that verge of like this is so disgusting. Might throw up. But then it's going to attack him and that's not great.

All right, so this thing lunges forward and from under the tarp that you didn't see, draws this huge two handed sword and slams it into Troy.

Question. Since he is the only person in the group that this might apply to, Troy does have the auto dodge. Is it possible for, even though he's stunned for that to like kick in?

Well, I would say auto dodge. Even though you can do it without spinning a melee action and it's automatic, it still requires like gotcha. The mental engagement not to be frozen in terror.

Fair.

So you take nine damage. Mega damage.

Do we have armor that might done? Yeah. If we don't have armor and I don't know that we've talked to gear that much, then that's what we call dead in the business.

You will not be dead. You will be very unhappy, but you will not be dead.

Yeah, I'm not an MDC creature. I've got a lot of sdc, but I'm not ndc. So if he had rolled one damage, I'd have been all right.

Okay, so what happens then when. When you. When a sec. Creature takes. Takes mega damage. I'm glad you asked.

Oh, I know. Not good.

So we are using the rule where. Let me. There's a rule where when you take mega damage, it basically like the first mega damage you take essentially knocks you down to like I wrote it in my notes and I can't find it.

So I will be badly hurt but not down. Is that what I'm feeling?

How many hit points do you have?

I have 146 SDC and 32 hit points.

Okay, now there's some rule and it's in the back of the book and it's like you. It's the optional like horrific Damage rolls.

Oh, you know what the choice of.

I don't like the tables you're going to. I changed my mind. I would like to spend fate. Can I still do that? Is it too late to not?

No, no. You can in terms of spending fate. You can always spend fate to not die.

I think it'll be more interesting if I do not immediately give.

I'd like to at least hear you get attacked and come help.

Yes.

Oh, you will. Yeah. You're going to hear this.

Yes. We'd rather it sounds like combat instead of me squealing as I collapse on the ground.

How many limbs exploded?

I think I had two. Fate. I'll have to look it up.

But I definitely talking like ruby rod and fifth element squealing like.

Yeah. How green is your scream?

Unless you want to see how the horrific damage table goes. I'm down for horrific damage.

Roll percentile dice.

Okay. 57.

57.

Middle of the road.

Choose an arm or leg.

Would a higher number be better or worse? No, it doesn't matter. It doesn't matter.

Number is worse, actually.

Okay. So you know, let's go. Leg. Leg.

He slams the sword into you. Like it slashes through your left leg just below the knee that goes flying. And then he slams a fist into you, blowing you out of the vehicle. You take severe external body damage and skin damage and loss of one limb.

Okay.

Wow.

This is my least favorite limb. It's cool.

God dang.

Your SDC is gone.

And I don't get to dodge either of. That was just dramatic flare on one attack. You said I can defend against first. Okay. Okay. Got it.

Because you failed the. The horror factor.

Yeah.

Despite. You know.

Okay.

Your best efforts.

I tried. You're down to one hit point. You hit the ground. Roll D4 damage. It's a very tall vehicle.

Your SDC is gone. And you are down to. You are at zero hit points.

Does that mean I'm unconscious or conscious? But if I get hit, I'm done for.

Yeah. You. You are conscious. If you get hit again, you will be dead. And that's when you would burn fate to. To survive.

It's like you lose in the leg is fine. You'll be fine without that. Don't worry about that.

Yeah. Hey, this is Rifts. You know, there's lots of cybernetics.

Hey, tanks have tracks. I gotta get there somehow, right?

So Henry, you see Troy's body go flying out of the back of this Mountaineer. It's doing this spiral which you're not sure if it's on purpose or not. But there's this spray of arterial blood spewing out as the body spins. It lands in a heap in the dirt and doesn't move at all. The breast of the leg is gone. And that's when you see this giant. Not a giant, a large man. This desiccated skin face, wearing this huge black armor, very much reminiscent of Tarmac the Crucifier, except perhaps more decomposed. But a very similar sort of smell leaps out of the back of the truck. This huge black sword. And everyone in the village just runs screaming. Which you felt was quite reasonable.

I really wouldn't want to miss this opportunity. How does Bronson react?

You keep keeping Bronson in it. Good job, man.

Not my little Troy. He was so young. Oh, at least it wasn't Mike.

I love Bronson's voice so much. All right, so I let out a good Dr. Whoa. Troy, what the hell is that, dude?

Roll initiative.

All right, should I roll initiative too?

Yeah, you can. No. Yes, you can.

You should say I was conscious, I.

Think at that point. Can anybody.

Yeah, you guys are a little ways away, but you would hear the screaming and.

Yeah, yeah. The sound of tanks.

Seriously, I got the. Yeah. Dice.

Oof.

You know.

There'S a bit of heroism and reroll that show.

But I do need to do this. Okay. I'm still manic. Can you believe that?

All right, what did everyone get for their initiative?

I got a nat 20 plus four for 24.

Wow.

I got a nat 20 plus three for 23.

I got a nat eight.

What's your initiative bonus?

Plus zero.

Oh, all right.

I got a six.

You just have to roll higher than the enemy.

Has the fellow that I am looming over displayed any further reaction to this?

You see his kind of shoulders slop and you hear shit.

Okay.

But he rolled very low initiative, so he has not done anything else.

I'm not making any kind of aggressive action against him, but I want to be prepared in case he does something suspicious. In which case I'm definitely going to be pile driving him or something. Grabbing him, holding him down. I'm pretty strong, I think. I don't know what he is, but I have a feeling I could take him. So I guess can I prepare? Wait for him to do something. And if he does something that I think is. Nope. I'm gonna, like, hand on the shoulder. Let's talk.

Yeah. You're a cat ready to pounce, right?

Yep. There's basically half an inch between us, so.

Yes.

And you've been sniffing his magic since so if he starts to magic, maybe you'll. Maybe he's not gonna magic. Maybe he's just a sensory major psionic.

I love getting to sniff someone's magic.

Maybe he'll take off his shoes and then I can smell his boots.

Only if it's tainted magic.

It is. It is, of course, somewhat ancillary at this point, Sean, but Troy's PPE and ISP is also reduced by nine each.

I can't use my incredible psychic powers of suppressing my hunger to get through this. Okay, so if you're holding your action, then does that mean I would think I'm up?

Then it is Troy's turn. Yes.

The guy is in the the truck.

You're vaguely aware of the sound of something heavy landing near you, but your senses are somewhat disoriented right now. You taste coppery tang of your own blood. You hear people running and screaming.

So I don't think Troy understands the gravity of the injury yet. Not quite full on shock, but he's just like. That hurt a lot. But he is also a gymnast, so I'm gonna say this is not the first time he's been in a bundle on the ground. He's gonna kip up, and as he comes up, he's gonna just try. And I'm gonna try and power punch this dude. That. That was. I'm just kipping to my feet and I'm gonna power punch him.

Absolutely. Should you run away? Yes. Are you going to? No.

He's in manic mode. He doesn't realize the gravity, the danger yet, the damage. Yet once he lands and then falls over again because one leg is missing, then we'll talk.

Weirdly enough, this all tracks and has an internally consistent logic that I have seen in play.

Take an extra heroism, sir. Your heroism is advanced by one.

That'll look good on my gravestone.

There you go. That's a permanent increase.

Okay. This was very heroic.

Yeah.

I'm buying time for. Why can't I remember your character's name now? Because Henry vii. Sorry, Buying time for you. So power punch takes two of my actions, and you said I lost one because I was horrified. So this will be. This will be the third of my actions to be eaten. If I can find it on the right page. I think it's just. It still just rolls strike, right?

Yeah.

And then it does something better.

Oh, Lord, help us.

Spending a heroism roll with advance.

Yeah, it was still above 5.

It would have hit, but it wouldn't have been. Oh, yeah, totally worth it. Went from a seven to an eight with a plus two. That's gonna put me at a 10. It couldn't have possibly been expecting that.

So you. You kip up and like, it's this like superhero lunging punch. You just come down, you're like, oh, this was way slower than I normally do it. It's probably the fact that my other leg is gone. This guy's definitely going to dodge. The guy doesn't move at all. Doesn't attempt to. To deflect you with the sword. Doesn't attempt to dodge. You just slam your fist right into his chest. You feel the armor buckle and dent. He stump takes a step back. Roll your damage.

2D4 for a total of 3mdc damage. So I don't get to.

Yeah, he looks at you and he's got like this angry look on his face, but he didn't attempt to block the attack in any way for some reason.

Can I. I would like to stay standing up. If you think I do have gymnastics. I will roll that if you want me to or if you'll just let me stay standing up. I'm cool with that.

I mean, what's your. What's your ppe?

I mean, really, you should be asking what is just gymnastics skills.

I don't know. My. My psychic energy.

That one.

The power.

No, no, no.

I thought you said PPE. My bad. My physical prowess is 19. My physical endurance, that's 29. I've taken worse.

That's well to Jenkins point. What is your gymnast skill at?

It's one of those weird skills that depends what you're doing. Yeah, but backflip is 70. Sense of balance is 50. Parallel bars 16.

Yeah.

Gymnastics is one that doesn't itself but has a bunch of sub skills.

Abilities that have skills. Yeah, I'd say roll your balance.

You know, that ground's looking real nice. Got a 57 on that.

So I'm gonna be real with you, man. I made the play to get you off the D20 that seems to hate you.

These are brand. This is a brand new dice set. And it is not. Not loving me.

Yeah. So you're hopping around and you know, you know, getting out of place. So you're gonna lose an action while you stay stabilize yourself.

That's not fine. Okay.

And you see Bronson is standing beside Henry. I will save you, Troy. And he charges across. Oh, Jesus. And Bronson is going to try to tackle you to carry you away.

Tackle me?

Yeah. He's a chihuahua. He doesn't.

Yeah, yeah, but I can. Okay, so here's my idea. First of all, I can auto dodge, right? Somebody said I could auto dodge. If I auto dodge, can I spin in such a way that I plant my stomp on his back so he's my second leg? That's my plan.

Bronson.

I would like to. I would like to commandeer a Bronson, please.

I would say he's way too big for that. I mean, he is basically person size now.

Well, okay, yeah, I would probably auto dodge. It's auto dodge. So how does that work?

Go ahead.

It just has a much smaller bonus. You have a plus two.

Okay, thank you. The 13.

Oh.

Ow.

Bronson with all your. It's 13.

Yeah.

Bronson rolled a 16. Okay, so Bronson tackles you and bodily manhandles you out of the way. I will save you, Troy. I'm big now. I can do things.

I mean, it's hard to argue with him. Okay, so he's carrying me away.

He's just. Yeah, he's physically carrying you away. Like you're hanging over his shoulder. He's running on two feet. Surprisingly strong for a Chihuahua turned into a dog. Boy, this reminds me of that time Mike hurt his toe.

You know, Alex is absolutely in love with that voice. Bronson will never leave us. Alright, Bronson.

I better not.

I better be able to use my own heroism for him.

Well, speaking of Alex, it is Henry's turn. It is Henry o', clock, as some might say.

Oh, all right. So Henry sees this all play out, sees Bronson go and save Troy, you know, making him feel safe.

That.

That'll be okay for now. So he turns his attention, he's like, whoa, you tarmac two. And he just rushes him, just full speed, starts sprinting to just. My intention is to just run at this dude and robot kick him. As you know, we're gonna robot.

Is this like a jump kick?

Yeah, no, I was about to say screw robot kick. We're robot leak kicking at this guy.

Okay, so as you're charging, you hear in your head, attackavalia attack.

I want to know if that's actual Russian.

Does that mean I can't do it or is that just flavor text, if you will?

You can absolutely do the big jump kick. Oh, okay.

Okay.

Well, that's not. It's not interfering with that at all.

Okay, just.

Excellent.

I. I gotcha.

Just making sure it's another language I don't know. Hey, 21, roll your damage, sir. 2D6 MDC.

All right, eight from your flying kick.

Yes, my robotic leap kick. As I angrily fly through the air.

You slam into this monster, right? And it stumbles back. You put this big dent, similar to how Troy did. And you hear Ogun. And of its own volition, your left forearm slams upward, pointing towards it. And this weapon pops out of it that you didn't know was there and unleashes a laser blast. Roll 3D6.

Okay, tech support is coming through for you, man.

Just be aware it's Russian tech support.

When in Russia.

Oh, I'll take it.

That's 13.

So, yeah, this thing is slammed with laser energy. Stumbles backwards, and it is Riley's turn. So, Riley, you're standing at the top of the hill. You've got the book in your hand. You carefully balancing the rod of Escher Kon with that, you. You. You saw this all go down. Troy getting knocked out of the back of this mountaineer. His leg is missing. Bronson carrying him away. And then Henry engaging this monster again. Even at this distance, very similar to Tarmac. The crucifier.

Yeah, I don't remember all the spells. The rod let me do. Could you quickly.

Thunderclap. Breathe without air, something like that? Can't remember the third.

Make a save versus horror factor.

Oh, sure. That's 16.

Yeah. You reach into the rod for this magic, and as you recall, and as is on the goblin wiki, it's Thunderclap, Cloud of save and breath without air.

Yep.

And there are also three additional spells.

Oh, Jesus.

Create air, miasma, and silence from a similar section of the book of magic.

Jesus Christ.

You do have a book of magic.

Which I can't do with.

I can't even read 3/4 of it.

For a lack of anything better to do. We're just gonna cast Thunderclap.

Okay. Okay.

Worked last. Last night. Might work tonight.

It. Well, that is true. It definitely did. Now you can read the spells in the third journal of the Paleologos. You just can't read the Greek writing, which is actually not in. In any of the spells.

It doesn't strike me as the time to be, like, sounding out words and trying to find the right one under a hurry.

Well, fair enough. I mean, that is. That could be true.

Like, if I had bookmarks or was at least vaguely familiar with the book in more than my brief skimming while not holding it. So she can scribe.

Yeah. So Thunderclap. You know, in Eightley, the only foe you could affect, you could not affect the creature. Down in the village, the immediate area is 30ft.

Yeah, that's right. That's right.

It would hear you.

It would hear me. Yeah, we're still gonna do it. Just because it's like the only card I gotta play.

Okay, so you remember this affects those you perceive as your opponents.

Yep.

Does that include Maromock at this point?

No, because his shoulders slump so he doesn't look like an opponent so much as a guy who had a situation go sideways. And I've been there.

Okay. So I don't remember if I mentioned this last time or remember to do it, but when you use the Rod of Astra cuton, it does drain your ppe.

Oh, yes, I do recall that.

Yeah. Thunderclap is two stupidly low. Yes. And there's this huge boom of thunder that echoes down to the village. But as there are no opponents within 30ft, otherwise nothing happens.

Yeah. I mean, at the least I could hope is it distracts him. You know, that was the one play I had, Alex.

You're fighting this creature and you know, you hear the boom and your head snaps up to the the hilltop. You see your friends standing there. They don't look like they're in distress. The creature you're fighting shows no. Like, there's no recognition. It doesn't appear to respond to the sound at all.

Okay, how does he respond to the pounding he receives?

There's not much expression on his face that you would register as pain or distress. It just looks angry and is now glaring at you. Whereas before it was glaring at Troy.

Calling it a face is pretty generous.

It's true.

Yeah. It's in rough shape. I mean, you've been to some museums. They had the 2 ton common exhibit once in Columbus. And those mummies looked in better shape than this guy.

Gross.

So it is maromock's turn. Unless Mr. Cat stops him, he is going to start running down the hill towards the hamlet of Boxam.

I would pretty much like to see stop him. Big, heavy hand on the shoulder, claws extended. Going somewhere?

Yes. Well, I would go tell it to stop.

I will let him go. And I'm going to go with him.

Okay. Yeah. He's running down the hill. I mean, you know, the hill is some distance from Boxen's, so he's definitely. You know, it's going to be a minute before he gets there. On the ground, the creature again. Its ire has transferred to Henry, so it lunges forward with its sword. Alex, are you going to. Do you have any sort of bladed weapons crammed inside your cyborg body?

Do I.

Can he just parry with his arms? Because he's an MDC cyborg.

Yeah, he probably could.

I'M not trying to be a smart Alec. I'm just like.

No, no. I would say pairing with your arms would. It would damage them, but, you know, you really want to prevent damage to your torso.

Why do that when I can utilize a retractable vibro blade cutting out my left forearm?

Okay, this voice in Russian is screaming, give him the rose. Give him the rose.

Yeah, yeah. Roll your Perry. He rolled an eight.

That's the D20.

Yeah, D20 plus your parry bonus. He's 16 already, so.

Yeah, yeah. So this huge black blade, two handed, comes swinging through the air and Henry's arm with his extended blade comes up and blocks it. The thing is just snarling, but it doesn't say anything. And it is Mr. Cat's turn.

I need to know what the OS said when he parried yet.

Lesvia. Lesvia.

Okay. I'm just keeping pace with this fellow. I mean, if he can turn this thing off, then awesome. I'm not going to stop him from doing it, but I got my eye on him.

He tries to do anything else.

I'm really fast and I'm really strong, so I'm just prepared. I'm pretty quick to go.

Well, he's moving quite slow.

You could get him there faster actually.

Yeah, I'm going to do that. That's a great idea.

Okay.

Just grab him in like a fireman's carry and just boom. Bolt.

All right, Mr. Cat picks up Morrow and just charges straight towards Henry and the monster. Troy, it is your turn. You're being carried away by Bronson. I've got you, Troy. I will save you.

Okay. Okay. I have first aid. This is the. I was like, there's. All my ideas right now are gonna be dumb because I'm in shock, freaking out a manic. I've lost a leg, but I know that there's a major artery there. So I'm gonna take a hand and I'm gonna swing it down and I'm gonna stuff one of my fingers up the artery. I'm gonna finger bang my artery just to make sure they don't bleed to death.

I love you, Sean.

Thanks, man.

Gross.

It's very gross.

Oh, Jesus.

I tried to think of better plans.

Immediate medical attention so you can roll your first aid.

Okay. Okay. So I have a base of that at 18, but I'm in manic mode, which means I'm at a 28. I'm excited about everything, guys. I will spend a heroism to reverse my 41 to a 14, so that will be a success for.

Yeah, Bronson. Like shifts his carry so you can get better access to your leg. And you just. We see people are watching this screaming as Troy reaches into his leg, pulls the femoral artery out and just ties a knot in it.

Perfect. What in the Looney Tunes? Listen, desperate times, desperate measures, all right.

And Bronson's kick. I don't think that's supposed to do that.

My inner first responder is screaming at you.

Somewhere beyond the grave, the inventors of the MOM technology are looking down, nodding, going. See? Told you.

As a point of clarification, because you said I lost my leg. I'm assuming this is a solid above the knee. Kind of like I didn't lose below the knee. I lost above the knee. I don't know how much it matters.

Am I. I don't remember what I said, but I'm fine either way.

Okay, well, in that case, it's a calf like, lower ankle. Barely anything.

No, it's definitely a leg. Yeah.

Okay.

Oh, no. I'm so sorry. I watch a lot of Doc McStuffins, and I'm pretty much a doctor.

Oh, God.

Bronson is a doctor.

Generally speaking, below the knee amputations are better than above the knee amputations.

Yeah, knees are.

I think I said it was below the knee, but.

Okay, then it's below the knee. More likely I'll walk again. I'm a fan of that.

But very importantly, you have passed the first immediate medical attention roll required to surviving massive mega damage trauma. Okay.

Okay. It's good pH.

So you need another successful one with in 2D 4 minutes.

So many combat rounds. I'll be fine.

Yeah, yeah, it's fine. Okay, so, yeah, Bronson, like, runs you to. To an alleyway between two buildings where a bunch of people, like two farmers are hiding. What the shit's going on, fellas? And Bronson puts you down. It's all right. I gotta go help Henry. And he's running back on all fours now, galloping towards the back of this monster.

Aw.

And it is Henry's turn.

We should always accidentally roll initiative. So it just goes around the table. It's so convenient.

Very nice. Yeah, very much so.

All right, so we're just kind of squaring off, like, basically right next to each other, you know, I kicked him good and hard, but he didn't go flying. He just. And then I blasted him but good. He's still basically standing around of me.

Yeah, now you got that Vibro blade out too.

It's true. Remind me, though, how do I determine how many actions I Have for.

Oh, you should have action. If you scroll over to the left and go. It's close to the top in the orange.

I believe you've taken two actions so far. Cuz that is what the leap kick usually requires.

Takes two ap. Did you count the laser blast that ensued or was that an automatic?

You did not do that.

I think he gave you that. Yeah, lovely.

So I have four and I don't remember why I had five last time, but either way.

Is there one that says bonus right below it? You mean.

Oh, bonus attacks.

Yes.

So that's only for attacks, but yes, extra for attack.

Got it. So either way, let's say I'm at 2. I am going to. I'm going to just bring that vibro blade that's still out. Just down on this fool's face.

All right. So are you specifically targeting the head?

Yes.

What's the targeting penalty in this system?

So it'd be. Go ahead.

If we're going by the standard of rifts is the called shot, which requires an extra action in order to do it.

Okay, well then his head does not have a helmet on.

That was going to be my next question. Because remembering Tarmac, I was like, wait. So yeah, I'm just punching forward. Very simple. Vibroblade forward into mass.

Oh, you're going to want to reroll that one.

That was a one.

And we're going to go ahead and.

Cross out of heroism now with your bonuses. What did you hit?

He's going to try and parry. Don't let the DM trick you into that. Use that heroism and re.

Now remember, this thing has not parried or dodged a single thing.

Yeah. If you can get a 4 or higher with all of your your numbers. Just remember folks, Palladium doesn't actually have a crit fail rule.

And it's five.

Five plus to hit, you got to get a five or higher to hit. Yeah.

Strike. That's gonna be a total of 10.

So what they're saying is even with one, you would have been at a three. So no matter how bad you roll, if you can at least get to a five.

Yeah.

Sometimes that's okay.

Got it. So yes, I think in this case, since it is a called shot, you would want to spend the heroism because that does apply a penalty.

I was thinking I wasn't gonna do a called shot after all because I didn't want to burn. I basically want to leave one.

You want to save the action for defense.

Yeah.

Remember, parrying does not cost an action.

Well then consarn it that blade's going into that fool's open mouth.

It's a big shot now.

So are you gonna reroll with the heroism?

Oh, I apologize. I rolled an 8 plus 2 for 10.

Oh. After burning your heroism roll, your damage. It does not attempt to parry or dodge at all.

Interesting. That's gonna be 11 total.

11 MDC to an unprotected face.

A vibroblade in the mouth.

So we see Henry lunges forward with this vibroblade. And how does the viral blade extend from your arm? Like, what's it. What's that look like?

If you're familiar with Mortal Kombat 2, there's a character baraka, where a blade extends. You know, like if Wolverine's things came out of his forearm and they were one instead of three. So just so you know, face. Sorry, Face fist.

Thank you.

Totally visual thing for an audio picture.

Extending about another, what, 12 inches out? 10 inches out. Like a solid.

Yeah. Foot long blade popping out of my wrist midway.

Yeah. So this blade slams out of Henry's forearm, slams through this thing, skull punches this huge hole. The skull cracks open, worms and maggots start spilling out. He wrenches it back, the skull comes off, flies across the battlefield, and the torso, the body with this huge black blade. The blade slowly lowers, and it's just standing there, unmoving. Riley, it is your turn.

I'm gonna start charging down the hill because, well, shit, the one card I had is done. And we're just gonna try to get down there and, I don't know, critique his style. I got shit.

Okay, if I may interrupt briefly because maybe some of the. I'm not the only one who's ignorant here. My understanding is part of the reason that you are feeling a little bit stymied is as a techno mage, you need the techno.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah, okay.

Yeah.

It's like I'm an equipment dude with no gear, so it's like I'm working it through. I do did contemplate doing. Exactly. What he talked about was like flipping through pages and randomly reading spells and hoping for good luck. And it's like, that's not gonna go well.

Well, I mean, a techno wizard can cast full fledged spells.

Oh, yes. Yeah, it's just going with the open random page, choose random spell that looks halfway decent, you know, Sounds like a good way of plasting ring my buddies with something on the level of the cloud of steam spell I was considering. I mean, hey, at least I would have been cauterized.

And it's never. It's never useful. It's always either cataclysmically bad for us or like rain. Ooh. Summon light Shower butterfly.

Morrow slows his run and he go and, you know, eventually he's walking.

No, he's being carrying.

Carried.

Yeah.

Or being carried. So, like, he looks like. Oh. Oh. Well, that resolved itself immediately.

Stop and put him down.

My apologies. I hope everyone is okay. Nothing to be alarmed about. Slight malfunction.

Can Henry hear that?

Yeah.

I'm gonna look at him. Look at the thing. Look back over at Riley. His running this way with a stick. Look back at him.

The big rock.

Look back at the stick. Look back at him.

Explain.

So now that Mr. Cat is close enough, the reek coming off this monster is exactly the same as Tarmac, the crucifier. Tarmac was more severe, more potent, but it is very, very much a similar kind of. Of corruption. It's like, I just. This is a magical construct. I use it for defense. I don't know how it. It's inactive until I speak certain words. I don't know how it got out.

Totally innocent.

Where's Bronson?

And all this Bronson, like, slams into the thing's back, tops it over. He's like, hitting it. That's for Mike. I know you were responsible. Monster.

I'm gonna lean in real, real close. You understand the conundrum? You see, we fought that thing's twin, and it had this magic stick. And here you are, wanting the magic stick, and yet also having one of those.

Explain that. Sounds like intimidation to me. I think you. Have you rolled anything tonight?

More like sultry sweet talking.

Oh, seduction.

Yeah. What is your. What is Mr. Cat's ma? Do you have a trust intimidate percentiles?

My ma is only 14.

Only 14?

Yeah.

You might be the smoothest guy in this movie.

You have double the ma.

You know, if we. If we roll that back, that's still like 30%, and I. I think you're very intimidating, so I'd give you a 60 shot at it right now.

Okay, well, give it a go.

We did just murder his defense system, so.

That is a 15.

He says, of course, yes. I just. Something in my vehicle. I'll get it. For a moment, he's like, stepping back from you moving towards the vehicle.

I follow.

Ah, no, you just wait here, and I'll get everything. They can explain.

I'm following.

That was a zero percent chance of that happening.

He turns and runs.

Okay. I run faster. I think I run faster.

Well, so, I mean, we will roll speeds here.

Okay?

So I'm sure you are faster, but probably he is. He's going to attempt it.

Okay, Right. I. You know, I think I'm pretty fast, except I know that Henry is significantly faster.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So what is your. Your speed?

My speed is an even 30.

Nice. So we'll just times five it and roll percentiles. Unless he somehow miraculously.

Well, I got a 23 under 150.

He got a 100 over like 14. So you quickly catch up to him.

Upsy daisy.

Another fireman.

We're back in Initiative. He draws a dagger from his belt. The dagger previously. And he's going to attempt to stab you. It shines in the sun. Blue gray blade, seems to glitter. Indecipherable runes line it from tip to hilt one. Are you. You don't have anything to parry with. Are you going to attempt to dodge? Yes, I would recommend you dodge.

Yes. I got a 27.

You dodge quite easily. And it's your turn. At the top of the initiative. He's completely changed his demeanor. He's snarling. If Tarmac says wasn't such an idiot, I wouldn't be in this situation, you imbeciles.

Wait, so he just name dropped Tarmac, the guy we killed last night?

Yep.

Okay.

I.

Would like to. Can I break his arm?

I mean, you can attempt to.

That's holding the can just like.

Yeah, I mean, I'd say it's a called shot.

Okay.

And you don't do mega damage though, right? You're SDC creature.

I am sdc.

Yeah. Yeah.

But he's not. He's not armored. Right.

As far as you can tell, he does not have any. Any armor.

Okay.

Now I'm going to try.

I'm going to spin a hero with him and reroll that much, much better. My attack roll is a 25.

He's going to attempt to parry. His parry is not super great. No, he rolled a 5, and he does not have a plus 21.

I was gonna say plus 21. Then we got problems.

No. So he tries to slash at you with the dagger when you go in and, like, throw a punch at his arm roll your damage.

Okay. I'm guessing that would just be the normal punch damage.

I. I assume your. Your goal here is to disarm him.

Actually, if possible, literally.

Yeah. Yeah. So I would say if you can do like, like. Yeah, yeah. Just do your normal SDC damage.

Okay. Normal damage would be 30.

You did 30 damage?

I have a physical strength of 36.

Yes. You break his arm.

Okay. Arm wrestling. Champion.

I'm still nowhere near as impressive as Cyborg here, but, you know.

Well, but he's sdc, so, you know, you just eliminated all his STC and four hit points in one hit. So he's like, got his arm fully extended, slashing at you, and you like, you come in and just punch his elbow the other way.

It's not supposed to bend that way. It does now.

Sickening crack. And he screams. And he's gonna make a save versus pain because that is apparently a thing in palladium. And he failed. So he drops the dagger.

I've seen that happen in real life. And the killing that comes out of a person is.

And he's like stumbling back like. Like he's like a cornered animal looking. Vendra. Vendra. Save me. Vendra. There's no answer if he was talking to anyone in particular. Troy. Yes, you are bleeding in an alleyway. Two farmers are trying to help you. Well, son, I don't know if we can stick this leg back on. I don't even know where the leg is.

Can I see the combat?

No. You can just kind of hear what's going on. They're like, oh, don't go out there, son. It's cyborgs and magic. You got to learn to keep your nose out of this sort of thing.

The GM is trying very hard to keep me alive. I appreciate that. I will apply. Can I apply more first aid to myself? Can they help?

Well, we. We can get you.

I look at them and I'm like, again, I'm not a first aid person. Bomb. Liquids. I'm gonna need liquids. And then I'm probably using the tattered remains of my pants to try and tourniquet off my leg, but I still have a big open thing and.

Yeah, well, look, son, we can get you to Dark Bly's house. It's just a mile that way.

A mile? My current speed.

Oh, I think we're about. I think we're about to acquire.

I know, yeah.

Yeah. I mean, so they have helped you apply a tourniquet. Like you're not gonna bleed to death, like, immediately.

If we can survive. Yeah. That's the smart move. As they pull me to my feet, I hand one of them the laser pistol that I stole from the vehicle and I say, fine, let's go.

I thought you're about to say, just make it quick.

So they. They pick you up and start pulling you away. And so while this Maromock is, you know, stumbling backwards towards his mountaineer crying out for someone, Bronson slams Into him.

I'm so proud of Bronson picks him.

Up and repeatedly smashes him to the ground repeatedly, again and again and again. And then throws him down. That was for Mike. Who is this man?

None of these people have done anything to Mike. None of them have done anything to Mike. They are paying for it.

So Mormark's head is at a very unnatural angle at this point, and you're pretty sure he's definitely dead or very, very unhappy.

Riley just kind of like, walks over and starts poking his head, watching it flop in ways that a intact neck would not allow it to do.

Yeah, the moment you, like, push it, it, like, tilts over and, like, a bit of vertebra is, like, pushing out of the skin on one side. On the side where it's not supposed to be. Yeah. Bro says, I don't like this strange place. I miss Golden Girls.

Me too, little buddy.

Good job.

And I ruffle his head again.

Okay, so we're going to say, so these two farmers haul me over to.

The giant truck and we drive to the doctor.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, so you got. So actually, we are. So with Riley poking at Morrowmark's dead body, I think we'll end there.

Tonight is the plan generally to take the Mountaineer to the doctors?

If we can do that, I think that's a better plan.

I at least like the first half of that statement. Of course, take the Mountaineer. Whether we go to the doctors or not.

I mean, unless somebody has field surgery or a medical doctor skill.

So Riley, after a couple minutes of playing with the guy's floppy head, turns to Henry and goes, hey, could you help me? Could you just put the two bodies in the back? Oh, yeah, throw them in the back and let's get out of here.

Yeah. Pick up the sword. Pick up the knife.

Oh, yeah, yeah.

Also, if this is a stick, I am not your driver. Sorry, guys.

Oh, don't worry. I got you covered.

Okay, good.

All right, start throwing bodies the same place that Troy had shot out of earlier.

Don't forget my leg.

I might need that leg. Your leg is in the truck.

I don't say that. He does not say that. That's. That's Sean. He's crashing. So.

Yeah, yeah, Shock.

Maybe the shock is setting in and the realization is.

Oh, all right.

Yeah. So this is the part where I say, why is it whenever I put any thought into a villain.

This guy had main NPC villain vibes all over him?

I would just like to hear.

I would just like to note that Mr. Cat was definitely going to keep him alive. Because one must toy with their prey. Mr. Cat is a little upset with Bronson for just coming out of nowhere.

And like, oh, that was pretty Chihuahua that it was.

It was 100% point. So I'm not. No, no shame.

No shame.

But you're developing more respect for Riley because he's playing with the kill.

True.

Yeah.

Yeah.

You know, Mr. Cat is seeing a side of Riley that he's never seen before, and he's sort of weirdly appreciating. It's like Riley seems entranced with poking every dead body he comes across.

I mean, you know, as you should.

I am curious how the townsfolk will ultimately react to us.

If they're lucky, if they're smart, they'll say nothing.

Oh, yeah, no, like.

Well, I mean, did they leave?

Good.

I'm sure the townsfolk were aware of what happened last night and somebody like the big ass dude who rolled into town suddenly got out of the back of the truck. And we put this one down too.

I'm like, I wasn't actually expecting to break his arm. I was expecting him to also suddenly be. I'm an MDC thing and be some kind of like a creature.

Yeah.

So like, when you're like, you broke his arm? I'm like, oh, nice.

He's a normal human.

Yeah, he was a normal human.

Wait, wait, can we take. This is an out of character thing. If we want survivability, I need some goddamn armor. Can we take their armor?

I mean, that's potentially on the table.

I mean, my character's not in a position to state that, but you guys are smart.

I'll be driving as the farmers direct because apparently I'm the only person who's got a decent pilot skill for the stick drive.

Hey, whoa.

I put the qualifier there.

I can pilot a jetpack.

But I mean, I think we can handle the inventory of the hall, as it were on Discord.

Yeah, that's fine.

Sorry. Yeah, yeah.

I am curious what's going to be in that thing.

Oh yeah, there's stuff in the back. Yeah. This may be our gear, guys. We may actually get here now.

There just aren't only nigh lethal corpses.

That is true. There's. There is more than simply zombie monster creatures.

Tarmac 2, which.

This could be good for you. You may actually get to Technomancer a little bit.

Don't worry, it was going to happen sooner or later.

So you guys get 650xp, not counting any of your XP bonuses. So I have no idea what those Are. And I assume everybody's still, like, not level 2.

What's the XP threshold? I.

It depends on your class.

Oh, crazy. I want to say it's, like, 2000 XP.

Yeah. I want to say it's around two grand for you. I'm at 2200, so you're at 2200? No, no, no. That's where I have to.

Okay. Okay. I was like, how'd you get to 2200 already?

Okay, well, Wizards get 30% more XP than.

Quick question. What was the total again? 675.

650 for this session.

650.

650.

You know, I'm sitting here doing math. I could just use my phone. I'm pretty sure it's approximately seven. Seven?

That's the level one? Yep.

What's the threshold for a battle cat for level two?

That's a good question.

I just assumed this was a reskin of the dog boy. Is there an actual battle cat?

Yep. It's in Lone Star.

It's in Lone Star.

Okay. I shouldn't be surprised.

In fact, we reviewed it on a recent episode of the Glitter Boys. You should tune in to that episode when it's released and listen to our take on it.

I was about to say I hadn't.

Heard that, so I need a little bit under 500 more to 1900. So, yeah. Guys, thoughts?

My only regret IS I wanted Tarmac 2 to have a voice because Tarmac 1 sounded kind of like Cobra Commander, and I love that. It's really just an ultimate compliment and appreciation of your voices, Kyle.

Thank you.

Thank you.

I will agree with that. In fact, I almost felt bad for Tarmac because he seemed. He was a man. He had a vision. He clearly wanted to do something. He clearly expected something to happen, and he was like, what?

What? What's going on?

He was clearly disappointed with the interference of some God, even though he wanted to do some pretty bad shit, but terrible things. I think it was Kyle's voice for the character, which made me slightly more sympathetic.

I was gonna ask, are you talking as yourself or Mr. Cat?

Because, like, I'm talking as myself. Who listened to this? I've listened to this, like, 10 times editing it. I felt for the plight of Tarmac the Crucifier.

Now, I will say this, and this is an Easter egg for any fans that have more free time than good sense. Both Tarmak the Crucifier and the creature you fought tonight are monsters in Riff's books.

Yeah. You. You've narrowed it down to, what, a thousand books?

Yeah, it's only like a thousand books.

Oh, are they like Death Knights from.

World of Warcraft now? Now, I will say I did not use their full MDC because I didn't want the combat to last four and a half days.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, Fair.

I think coming out of this going to sound insane because he's insane. Troy's probably pretty excited now, losing a leg and watching you guys fight. He was worried that you were just going to be focused on getting back to Cincinnati. No, we're in the shit now. We're staying here and soon he's going.

To have a robot leg, so. Hey. Right?

The idea that you're so stoked on.

Getting a robot leg over overrides you losing it to begin with.

I mean, maybe a robot leg.

I didn't make it into the.

Could be a magical college football.

I've jumped the shark leg.

A construct leg. Or if you're.

Can you hook me up?

Or if you're really unfortunate, we run into a Splurgarth who gives us a good deal on a bioborg.

Like, we have this corpse right here.

Until then, I just have to convince Bronson to be like my disability scooter.

Yeah.

So we will pick up the next session with you guys. You know, piling out of the Mountaineer at a doctor's residence.

All right.

Which I'm sure the doctor is not at all familiar with.

Yeah.

Having looted Maro and that tarmac too.

Yeah, yeah.

And we'll handle all of the loot separately.

Yep. Right on. Yeah. Yeah.

If we could make somebody fight with an axe or chain, that'd be great.

Well, thanks again, Kyle. This is. This is fantastic. I'm loving this.

Thank you.

I want to do this, like, every day, guys.

I'm glad you guys are enjoying it. I'm having a lot of fun.

Me too.

Sorry. We keep, you know, taking care of your villains.

It's. You know, at this point in my history as a gm, I am. I'm used to it. I assumed Tomorrow Mock was going to die. Somehow I just wasn't sure how it was going to happen.

As any good palladium GM knows, nothing can withstand the concentrated stupidity and foolishness of player characters.

I mean. Yeah. Now I will say this. If. If Riley had taken his deal, he would have paid you the credits and left.

Oh, I. I was totally sure of it. But if. If experience had, like, been even, he would have.

Well, we'll find out what happens next on our next episode.

Cool.

Thanks for playing, guys. Thanks for running, Kyle.

You're welcome.

And thanks for listening folks at home. We'll catch you next time.

Starships Magic, Mystic Martial Arts Romance. All of these can be found in a Cloak of Blades by Isaac Sher. You might have heard my name before. I've done a lot of voiceover work for Breakfast Puppies and I've recently released my first novel. It's available on Amazon as an ebook and paperback and you can get it for free if you have a Kindle Unlimited subscription. I do hope you'll support my work as your support supporting Breakfast Puppies and it's been a pleasure talking with you today.

Have a good one.

You've been listening to the Glitter Boys, a Palladium Books fan podcast. Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Sambita and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games. You can order [email protected] and their entire catalog is available digitally at drivethrurpg as well. Our opening music is 8 bit bass and lead by FurbyGuy from freesound.org this closing music is Caravana by Philip Gross, available at freemusicarchive.org all sound effects used are self made or acquired via Creative Commons zero License. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as theglitterboys. That's B O I S and check us out [email protected] glitterbois and also join us on the Breakfast Puppies network [email protected] for SL Discord. And if you want to help us out, please spread the word and help us build a community. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time.