The Glitterbois Play Rifts 11: Chuckling in Russian

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.

It is 2 May in the 101st year of the post apocalyptic calendar. We open on Muskegon, which is much more grandiose than in our era. It has this core of towering skyscrapers, a massive bastion wall, rows of warehouses and industrial parks along the docks. One of These warehouses, Warehouse 9, lies on an empty street. Dark sky above street lights, two lonely guards out in front of the main door smoking cigarettes. And on the roof see an 8 foot tall humanoid cat and an 11 year old boy.

My minion. What? Minion number one. You're okay with this name? Yes. The first among minions. It is a term of endearment.

Mor thak the dragon, who's currently masquerading via magic as a small boy, shrugs. I guess so. That's fine.

So we are at the skylight, looking down into the warehouse below. I am prepared if we need to just crash through this thing, but hopefully we can just remove it or find a latch of some kind yet mechanical or more.

Thack is beside you and he says, okay, so these are all bad guys down there, right? And you can see people milling about in the warehouse, moving crates, loading a truck. These are all bad guys?

Sure.

And if they accidentally die while we're fighting them, is Donna going to be mad at me?

She might. But if it's an accident, we can explain it. She'll understand.

Cause like, shows get smashed. She's like, don't accidentally kill normal people.

Allow me to let you in on a little secret. You have the ability to change your form. I've noticed. Can you change into the superior species?

A dragon cat? Oh, hold on. And he looks like his face goes flat. He closes as you can see his face scrunch up. And then there's this pop of magical energy. He's a house cat sitting next to you. Did it work?

Oh, yes. Yes, it did. Majestic. He does have six limbs we can work on that. Can evolve the species even. Next time you upset Donna, just turn into this, climb up into h lap, butt your head softly against her and purr wins every time.

He leaps up on Mr. Cat's shoulder, like, immediately, like, sinks his claws into your back. Oh, sorry, those just popped out.

That's how it happens.

It's like a hair trigger.

It's like you've been one of us the whole time.

I can see everything from up here. This is nice. And he starts purring. Oh, My goodness. Also, I, I, I feel the desire to be even more violent.

Oh, we should change you back to your other form for now. Don't get me wrong, I do not disparage violence, but we don't necessarily need to leave a bloodbath down there. Oh, okay. But if a few of them experience really painful sleep, that's acceptable.

All right, so he hops off, turns back into a kid. How are you guys getting through this light? You can. It is almost certainly locked because the people that run this warehouse are incredibly thorough. So they would have made sure all the skylights had locks.

Let's see, I do have pick locks. So if I can find a lock of a mechanical nature or a mechanism of some kind that I can disable. Again, of a mechanical nature, not really so good when it comes to anything that is, I don't know, hydraulic or run by gears or a machine.

Yeah, I think it's a very basic lock. This is not the kind of warehouse that's computer automated or anything of that nature.

Okay, well, I will set to picking that lock. Oh, these dice are hard to read. That's a 48 under 56.

Okay, so you, what tool did you use to, to pick the lock? Or was it a claw?

A claw, Yeah, I figure I'm used to that.

Yeah. You wiggle it around in the, under the sill and there's a pop and the skylight opens. You know, there's a bit of air blows up.

I'm going to make sure and catch it before it flings open if that's a thing that it's going to do.

Gotcha. Yeah, you grab it so it doesn't bang back against the roof of the warehouse. Now you can more clearly hear a forklift and the occasional shout of someone directing traffic. There are, you count eight individuals loading a heavy truck. Now they're loading this truck on the opposite side of the street facing door. So, you know, so there's the main entrance, but this is a loading dock.

Okay, so the plan is just as we discussed before. We're going to get Mor thak down there in his child form and he's going to play little lost child who needs to find his parents. That's our distraction.

Okay. Child exploitation. I can get behind it.

Just like we discussed. We get you down there, you can get down there on your own, yes.

Yeah, yeah, no, I can fly.

Yep, you're up.

Okay. He takes a deep breath and like

before he does this though, I'm going to put my hand on his shoulder, lean in, I Believe in you.

Now he looks around a little uncertainly. Oh, okay. Got it. Got it. Okay, he says. You're going to tell Truth. I did good, right?

Absolutely.

Now, for those who may not remember Truth, Dinsmore is Experience's daughter in the head of the. The Torchbearers, the. The adventuring party that Mor Thak and Dark Falcon, AKA Donna Kowalski, are both part of. Chris, did I just say your name? Is it Donna Kowalski? That just popped into my head.

No, you nailed it.

Yep.

Okay. I had a moment of doubt.

Yeah.

Everything you said was absolutely correct.

So Morthak flies in, sweeps along the ceiling down to a shadowy corner, and Mr. Cat could see him walk out slowly, looking around a little uncertainly. Then he starts to approach one of the warehouse workers and coveralls that is, has his back to him and isn't particularly paying attention. And, you know, at this present point, nobody has noticed. More Thak. So let's see. I'm thinking I'll let you guys roll for. For Morfak, Morthak definitely looks the part. So I'll tell you what. He has a 50% chance of not raising anybody's suspicion, instead making them concerned that, hey, there's a lost kid. So who wants to roll for more Thack?

I think Donna should do it.

Yeah, I can do that. Oh, 75.

Oh, 75.

Does Morak have his own heroism?

No, Morthak is an NPC. Only PCs.

But we've used in. We've used our heroism on NPCs under our control, I think, in the past.

I think so, yeah. If you want to do so, you absolutely can.

I believe it was Bronson.

Yes, I use it in Bronson.

Yeah. So you have three heroism.

Okay. And now I have two. Come on, Donatello Dice. Do me proud. 36.

There you go.

There we go.

So Mor Thak, you know, walks up slowly. You see him tug on the arm of this warehouse worker who jumps out of his pants, basically, and a child just appearing behind him. And you can't really tell what they're saying, but it is very clear that this worker, you know, to his credit, goes from alarmed to concerned really quickly and starts looking around. Hails the foreman, who walks over. And pretty soon about half of the workers, solid five. Five guys are crowded around this child, asking him questions, trying to figure out one, how to get the warehouse, most likely where he needs to go. And Mort, you could just see his mouth moving. He's spilling some nonsense.

Okay.

And so there's the five around Morthak. One guy loading the truck, driving a Forklift, another guy by the truck, and one guy kind of. Well, well, two guys loading the truck and one guy on the forklift. Nobody is really keeping watch or anything of that nature. And this warehouse is full of crates, large and small, all with very generic markings.

Well, I'm going to use that as the prescripted opportunity for the distraction, for me to leap down into the shadows inside, start creeping around.

Okay. Since Morthak made his role, you don't have to test anything. Mr. Cat drops nimbly, silently and slips into the shadows of the warehouse. What is the next stage of your plan?

Looking for the crate. Now, whether or not that involves any of you, we can pass the camera over, but ultimately, I'm just now looking for the crate.

Right.

Do we have a way of communicating with each other since we are, in essence, split up?

We all have head radios. Perfect. If we have our armor, we all have head radios.

Yes.

And I am wearing my armor.

I'm confident Henry has his armor.

I am, too.

Yeah.

So.

Shit. Well, since I'm talking, Henry is outside walking the perimeter quietly, hopefully not trying to draw too much attention. But he's also talking with Gorshkov in trying to encourage Gorshkov to, as Henry puts it, scan the inside of the building, man. Figure out what's the best thing to steal.

Yes, I have detailed list of inventory uploaded to your mainframe by the small robot man back in New Lazlo.

Perfect. Can you detect anything near our vicinity?

Let's see. What special sort of nonsense does Henry have in terms of sensors? And

so we've got potential things. We've got amplified hearing. Perhaps we hear somebody inside talking about sensitive materials. We've got the built in radio receiver and transmitter. Maybe I can jack into their radio system. Here's some interesting details. Sound filtration system. Sounds like kind of a hat on a hat, but I'm sure it has its own use. Those are my. I believe my most. Oh, I have a clock calendar, so I know exactly what day and time it is.

That I wasn't sure until we got to that. That this is going to work.

Yeah. Confidence in your reality is key.

So, yeah,

that's what I'm in. A radar sensor automatically.

There's an alien machine.

All right.

Yes.

Can you work with that? Gorski.

Yes. Existing now.

So let's say Gorshkov is going to try to piggyback onto their communication system.

Nice.

We'll assume you are going to roll for Gorshkov. Well, say Gorshkov is very good at his job. So he's got a 75 chance here. Okay.

63, dude.

Okay, pitching in.

Gorshkov has apparently hijacked their internal video cameras. And you see all these crates and boxes all packaged, stored, and certain ones start being outlined on your heads up display with this gold ring around them.

These are the ones Alexander of Macedon would like, according to the list he downloaded into your brain.

And there are four fairly large crates. If these were all loaded onto, say, a. In the Mountaineer, the Mountaineer would be packed to the gills.

Interesting. Well, certainly he wouldn't expect us to bring everything. Might be hoping. Okay.

Awesome.

I can't believe you got control of the cameras. Can you patch in to Mr. Cat? And since you're seeing potentially him on the cameras, can you give him some guidance to at least one of these?

Yes, I can. Their password was crude. It was prosec.

Oh, oh, we're burning this place down on the way out. Are you sure?

Could have just been chance.

So Gorshkov goes ahead and loops everybody in. Well, anybody. Everybody that has the right sort of pickup to receive a video image of his control of the cameras. So who has a helmet that could handle it? I'm sure Mr. Cat does.

I'm pretty sure. Yeah. I've got environmental body armor from northern gun.

Okay.

If not, could Gorshkov not simply give them direction like.

Oh, yes. Gorshkov could simply say it's, you know, on shelf F, row three. Yeah.

Donna has a crusader EBA head then.

Yeah, you've got very. There's also Northern Gun.

Nice.

And you're a cyber knight, so.

Yeah.

So Gorshkov has identified the items. Mor Thak is inside. He's spilling some story. He's got their attention. That will not last forever. Because Morthink doesn't really know how to be a little kid.

I trust him. He seems like a little kid. Anyway, kids say the darndest things.

Maybe this is a good time to cut to Donna then. I think that Donna is having kind of a harder time remembering that she is dark Falcon, a Fabio esque hunk. Not a lot of mirrors around, but she. She's walking up to the. The warehouse with a large bowl of ambrosia salad.

So this 6 foot tall dude in armor, you know, pecs for days.

Closer to 7 foot, by the way.

Yeah, Long flowing hair, just perfect jawline. Weapons. Is carrying an ambrosia salad up to

a warehouse with a big, big smile on his face.

I'm on board. I'd watch the show.

Yeah. I'm gonna approach the corner that I checked out last time.

Yeah.

And I'm gonna see if I can spot the true destitute man. But also just to see if any of the acting. The fake destitute men are around.

Yeah. So there is the real homeless guy. He's got a cardboard box set up against the wall of, actually, a neighboring warehouse, but it's close enough that he's got a good view of your target. And you do see the other two, quote unquote, homeless gentlemen in the alleyway clearly keeping watch on this side of the building, this darker side of the building. But the actual homeless guy sees you, looks up as.

As I approach Donna raises her hand and kind of gives a hello to kind of everybody around.

Hey. Oh, it's you again.

Yeah. How you doing? How you faring out here?

I'm okay. What, you got to move there, big man?

I got. All right.

Sorry.

I. Well, I got a big old bowl of ambrosia salad. I made it myself.

Donna just sees complete confusion on his face. He has almost certainly never heard of ambrosia. It smells.

Okay.

Well, you know, it's various fruits that I've cut up and combined with a whipped cream.

Oh, I see. Has you got rum in it?

Not. No. No, it doesn't. I mean, you could. It'd probably be okay with rum.

I don't have none.

I mean, it's food. It's good food.

Yeah.

It's fruit, and it's whipped cream. It's sweet. It's delightful.

I'm gonna spend one of my heroism points at this moment. But we have flashback to as Donna is, like, preparing this ambrosia salad and getting out of the Mountaineer to head down. This cat paw comes out and puts a bottle of rum in your pocket.

That's great.

Yeah. So this homeless guy looks.

What.

What's that? Pointing at Donna's pocket and, like, her in her belt, right? Belt pouch.

Oh, I don't know. Oh, well, that. I. I suppose that would be a bottle of rum, wouldn't it?

He rubs his hands. I could use a nip. It's a cold night.

It is a cold night. He could use a nip. I bet. Well, don't let me stop you. And I hand him the bottle of rum.

He starts chugging.

I'm like, o take the bottle of rum back, hopefully before you can pound it all.

Oh, sorry. I lost control of myself for a minute.

That's okay. There's plenty of rum. Maybe you want to chase it with some delicious ambrosia. Salad.

Just the rum would be okay.

I think you should have some salad.

All right.

Thank you. I suppose.

Hand him a spoon.

Yeah, he eats them. He kind of makes a face. Doesn't have booze in it, so.

Well, he's not making the face. If he had gotten the Dakota version that has Miracle Whip as well as whipped cream in it, I just.

That face.

Oh, I'm sorry. I said whip cream. I meant Cool Whip.

Oh, okay.

Oh, okay.

I do remember a certain salad my grandma serving me with raisins, carrots, and Miracle Whip.

Yeah. So it was Miracle Whip and Cool Whip, and then marshmallows and fruit.

Great.

Cranston. What is Donna's angle here? What game is she playing?

I think she's trying to kind of get an in with this homeless dude. He might know some information, but also trying to attract the attention of any of the guards. Excuse me? Wink. Homeless dudes around to just act as another distraction?

Essentially, yeah. They are walking down. Clearly they notice this interaction. You've also completely won the homeless guy to your side by giving him alcohol.

How would you like the rest of this bottle?

I would.

What would you be willing to do for it?

Anything.

Let's say I keep the ambrosia salad and maybe I give you the rest of this rum and you just act a fool.

What do you mean?

I mean, I want you to be safe, but maybe you could convince these gentlemen that they should follow you.

Okay, I got it.

What's your name, by the way?

Oh, my name is Morris.

Thank you, Morris. My name is Dark Falcon.

Oh, Always good to know the names of people you may have just sentenced to death.

You hand him the bottle, he immediately chugs it. Don't worry, I'll take care of it. You go on, Doc. Falcon.

Thank you.

And these two quote unquote homeless men who are clearly undercover military are walking over and will excuse me, sir, I believe. And then you see a empty rum bottle smashed into that guy's face. I rest my case. Come on, chase me. Cold chicken. And Morris smash the rumble. This guy's face, like, shoulder, checks the other one into the ground and runs off into the darkness, laughing. They get up and just immediately run after him.

Godspeed, Maurice.

Inarticulate screaming.

I take a bite of the ambrosia salad.

Can't let it go to waste.

It's pretty good. I got into the camera feed a little bit. Are there cameras around that I can spot that are sort of monitoring the outside?

Yep, there are cameras inside and out.

I'm going to start physically deactivating them perhaps with a rock or a sword.

Okay, sure, sure. So that could work. Let's see. I would say they're probably pretty high up on the walls, but you could throw rocks at them or what's your vertical leap?

Good question. Where would I find that information in bc?

It's like human vertical leaps. I don't think you have anything special.

Okay, okay.

And I don't know what the normal human is, but it's like six feet maybe.

Do I have the power? Am I a good climber?

Perhaps if you have the skill.

My climbing total percent is 101.

Wow.

So my guess is maybe I'm okay at it.

Yeah, I think that's pretty solid.

Yeah.

You've got athletics, acrobatics, gymnastics. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I think you're a good climber.

See, maybe I just scale up there and use my sword to just like Boop. Pokemon.

Yeah. So there's cameras on every corner. I don't think this is going to be. What's your physical prowess?

Current says 15.

Yeah, I think, I don't think you have to roll. I think you could just start taking them down. And currently Mr. Cat watches as there's a small security office in one corner. The guy currently watching the cameras is stepped out and is walking towards Mor Thak and the others who called him over. They're trying to figure out what to do about this kid. And Alex Henry's feed. You start seeing outside cameras just clicking off.

Nice.

Okay, Jacob, what about Riley?

Meanwhile, out on the main street that the driveway entryway to the warehouse connects to Riley just happens to be, you know, sitting next to the Mountaineer. Happens to be right next to oh, one of those access discs in the ground to access a whole bunch of fiber optic cable.

Weird.

What a coincidence.

What a coincidence. And I'm just going to start snipping.

Gotcha. What are you snipping?

Just going through the fiber optic cable bundle and just cutting them as, as I go because like it's not real really realistic to say I could figure out this one is for the warehouse. So we're just cutting fiber optic cable until I get the whole bundle taken out.

Okay, cool. So you're just trying to cut off their communications.

Yeah, cut off their communications, disrupt if they're tied into any like local computer networks or anything, you know, that sort of thing. Like if there was a city wide computer network of some kind that was hardwired, you know.

Yes, well there absolutely is. And it's tied to the militias alert and they are definitely tied into it. So I don't think this is going to be a challenge for Riley to do.

No, Riley has the tools with him. I mean, it's. It's just snip and fiber optic cable.

Yeah, I think it's more about him not being spotted.

Yeah, it's a subtlety issue.

Yeah. So do you have any espionage skills, like undercover ops or.

I got nothing, man.

Nice. Nice. Ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.

We're gonna make this a little bit more interesting and potentially give myself a little bit more cover, Since I am an electrical engineer, and electrical engineering includes splicing both wire and fiber optic cable, not only am I cutting them, I'm randomly attaching them back to other strands. And I'm gonna have, like, my toolkit out next to me, and I got the hatch open. I'm being blatant about it. Like, contract repairman sort of thing, you know, trying to be the. Trying to be less stealthy and more like I'm just the guy the city hired to come out here and fix this, you know? Just doing my job. See, Snip, clip, solder them back together. Snip, clip, solder them back together. You know, that sort of thing.

Gotcha.

Try to use the over cover methodology.

All right? And of course, you have no espionage skills.

None.

So, yeah, I think this will be impersonation, which you don't have. So we'll do it at half the value that you otherwise would have it at. So in your system. NPC. What is impersonation based off?

It is IQ plus MA.

Well, I have a shot in hell at this. 21 plus 7, so that's a 28. Half is. I have to get under a 14.

It's decent odds.

Doable.

Oh.

Oh, I got a 1.

I regret to say I have a 17.

So you're in this. This hole, moving fiber optic cable around, snipping things, and you hear a voice. Hey, what are you doing? And you look up. It's one of the warehouse security guards. He's in coveralls, got a hat, sidearm on his belt, holster, hands on his hips, looking down with a raised eyebrow.

I like. I finished soldering two sections of cable back together, and I'm going like, God damn it. Some independent contractor came in and fucked this up. And I am fixing it for the client.

He looks around. It's very late at night right now.

Well, yeah, it's a rush job. I didn't even have chance to change in my uniform.

Huh?

I mean, look at. Look around you, pal. This is the industrial district. A lot of these businesses are like, work on. On time delivery or need to be ready to go in the morning and stuff. And I'm trying to sort out which one got crossed because none of these are labeled, because nobody labels their work anymore. God forbid that, like, Riley goes on an electrical engineer rant from hell.

Jay, what's that? Deluge watches over this guy, says, sure, just let me see your city operator's license.

I'm. Man, this is a private contract, man. I'm just locating this place and fixing it for the client.

Yeah, but you would know if you are an operator here in Muskegon, you have to have a license from the city to take jobs.

Excuse me. And exactly who are you?

There's.

Are you a cop?

Snapping sound. There's a snapping sound as the holster is unbuttoned. Yeah, right now I'm the. I'm the guy with the gun.

Yeah, you're the guy with the gun. Are you the guy with a badge or a warrant? Excuse me, sir. I am a sovereign citizen.

He speaks into. He speaks into his lapel, says, let's call up the militia.

Well, yeah, go ahead. Call the militia. I gotta get. Get this work done.

And then there's a minute he says, what do you mean that the call's not going through? We have a direct feed. And then he looks down at you, cover surrounded in fiber optic cables, and he's going for his gun.

Well, I guess I am also going for my gun.

Nray violence.

Is Gorshkov connected to this guy's radio feed? Like, did Gorshkov hear that inner communication?

Oh, yeah. He replayed it all for everybody.

Could Gorshkov blow out his earpiece to give Riley an advantage? Ooh,

yeah, it could really blow it out. He could play like a high pitched tone. That would be distracting.

Oh, suddenly playing the Russian national anthem.

Only on his. Hope you didn't like Tetris.

No, it's not the Russian national anthem. It's.

Yeah, I think with that, I think you can just automatically gain initiative.

Oh.

Oh, thank God.

Yeah. So you hear this high pitched ring. You hear it in the hole coming out of this guy's earpiece, and he goes, ah. And grabs his ear. And you have a moment to take initiative and it is your go.

Jacob, could he do the move where he pulls the guy into the hole, There's a ruckus, and he comes out in the guy's uniform.

Is there a move like that?

Theoretically.

And then an old lady walks by and he Goes no ticket.

Weirdly enough, that's kind of what I'm planning on.

Now, there were two security guards at the front. This guy is down the street above your position here. The other is back at the warehouse watching this exchange. And likely just. Let's see, let's roll the die of fate to see if he has an unobstructed view of this altercation. Roll a D6.2. So he does. Relatively unobstructed.

This other security guard, what is he wearing?

Coveralls, hat, sidearm?

Okay, yeah.

I'm gonna channel blinding flash through my revolver.

Okay.

Riley takes advantage of the guy like wincing as the music and feedback comes through his earpiece to whip out his revolver and use it to pump blinding flash through it. I'm gonna, I'm going to up power it by spending the extra 3 PPE to give him a standard. It won't be a standard saving throw. He'll have a minus one on it. But of course, Riley's smart enough to close his eyes as he pulls the trigger. And the invocation creates a sudden burst of intense white light, temporarily blinding everyone in its 10 foot radius. Victims are blinded for one to four rounds and are at minus 10 to strike, Parry and dodge.

Okay, and what's the save he needs to make here?

It's a standard one. So standard versus magic, I believe.

So he needs to roll over like a 16 or something?

Yeah, yeah. It would be verse magic spell.

So the default for magic is 12. And if you have any spell strength boosts, it'll go to that.

Yeah. So there's no spell strength boost on it, but he has a minus one on his roll.

Yeah. Okay, then he rolled a nine. So roll a D4. Let's see how long he is afflicted. Four. Hell yeah. All right, so there's this. What's this look like, Jacob? Go ahead and you describe your. Your sorcery.

It basically he pulls the trigger and it's as if someone put out a. Put a star shell. 44 Magnum round out of a revolver.

This.

This pulls off and there's just this huge white pop as the bullet would have been clearing the barrel. It's basically what amounts to a mini flare at this point, except he's looking right at it also.

What's the area of effect?

10ft.

10ft.

Okay. The other guy, the other security guard's definitely farther away than 10ft.

So I've got an idea for the other security guard. Just let me know when you're at him.

The.

The blinded security guard. Yeah, he pulls out. His weapon is waving around, stumbling backwards, can't see anything. He, he's basically worthless. I mean, he's gonna try to shoot at you, but I, I, I don't give him high. Yeah, no, it's, he rolled a one laser rounds are blasting into the street. The other security guard, everybody that's clued into the radio traffic, here's him going, contact front gate, contact.

Before he does that, I'd like to spend a heroism.

Sure.

And have once again this cat paw comes out of the camera side, grabs him and pulls him into the darkness.

Okay, I think that's prowl.

Oh, oh, I think I got that.

You better have that other. Your ancestors are gonna have words.

Yeah, that's a, that's it. 29 under 65.

Like he cuts off mid sentence just. And goes into the darkness. You hear Gorshkov say, don't worry, I've.

They're only hearing what I will allow them to hear for the moment.

Oh, I love you, Gorshkov.

I love you too.

And we can build this so inside because then now there's now a larger crowd around Morac and he's doing like some ninja moves and nobody knows what on earth he is telling these guys. The only one still working, there's one guy by the truck and the forklift operator.

I really wish Morsak was wearing like a little sailor boy costume.

I would just like to interject that I was looking at the wrong character sheet. My prowess much better than that.

Okay, even better. You guys have four rounds, I'm going to assume. I mean, you can basically just take him out pretty easily. Especially since Mr. Cat is there now.

Question is, do you kill him or just incapacitate him?

See, there's these parts of me from my old days as a murderous hunter of the basement that I would totally have just straight up killed this guy. But I'm trying to not be that, trying to do better things in this better world. So I'm just going to incapacitate him.

Plus, much like a yatua, a term everyone knows, it's predator. It's not worthy prey.

Not worthy prey. And I definitely, Definitely, of course, 100% knew that term before you said it. 100% yacht that somewhere from the streets

surrounding the warehouse, everyone hears a distance. I can't catch. Morris, I'm juiced.

Does it sound like it's coming back towards the warehouse or like.

It's hard to tell.

Okay, the rum rumbler strikes again.

But you have the two front door security guards subdued in a dark, dark Space. For now, they are incapacitated and disarmed. Sure, sure. They were just carrying last pistols. Laser pistols. Standard coalition issue.

If Mr. Cat learned anything from sitting on your laps through all those years of gaming. Loot the bodies.

You never know what kind of keys they might have on them.

Yeah, keys, grenades, anything on this guy, it's going in my pocket.

They don't. Yeah, they don't have grenades. They do have Muskegon identity papers.

Not anymore they don't.

And they have, of course, you know, ear beads for radio communication or re. Reload for their pistols.

I have a question.

I mean a handful of credits. Go ahead.

I was just going to ask, what kind of entrances are there into this warehouse?

So there are large bay doors on each side. It's a rectangular warehouse. There's also a conventional door on the front, on the street facing side. Which is where, well, Riley is of course still messing with fiber optics. But Mr. Cat presumably at this point is in the vicinity of that. And likely Dark Falcon would be as well.

Yeah, I was just thinking that.

Yeah.

Dark Falcon walks up with a bowl of ambrosia salad with a few bites taken out.

I'm gonna.

Donna's gonna just try that door. Is it unlocked?

It opens.

Oh, I guess we can just head on in then. Yeah, yeah. Donna peeks inside, try to check out what Mor Thak's doing.

You see a warehouse full of boxes. Though, of course there's a clear space in the center at the dis. In the. At the far end, there's a truck that's being loaded, forklift being driven. There's a crowd of guys around listening to Morthak. The security office is across the warehouse to your left. As you're coming in, it looks empty. And you hear more like.

Yeah.

And then I was like, nuh. Cobra man. And I kicked him right in his cobra balls. But don't tell my mom. And like these guys are just laughing and you know, Mor Thak, you know, like grabs a cardboard box and like flings and then I throw. It's just crazy. You have no idea what he's telling them. But obviously it's completely false. Though it does bear the resemblance to a fight that you all had a couple months ago with some serpent people out in the woods.

Oh, Donna would know anything about that. Yeah, but she does scowl when Mor Thax says, don't tell my mom.

Yeah.

Even though she's pretty sure this is all bullshit.

Yeah. And then he. And then he goes. And then Dark Falcon says, ninja sword and life of the sword. And you know,

I do love how much your actual, like, known reputation name has been used throughout this heist.

Yeah, it's pretty cool.

So they're pretty distracted. They're not paying a ton of attention, though. Obviously, if you, like, you open the main warehouse doors, they would notice that, right?

Yeah, it's big door. So do we know, like, Henry obviously, like, knows exactly, like, which boxes we all should.

Because if you've got a hud.

Gorshkov.

Okay, so we do know that too.

Yes.

Where. Where can I see them from? From this door.

Two of them are on the truck right now.

Oh, and if you need Gorshkov to help you out in some way, just whisper.

I'm just wondering if maybe since they already loaded it on a truck for us, maybe we just get a new truck. Not everyone at once.

I like this idea.

I can't drive a truck.

I was just.

My only thought was, like, my initial thought was abandon the Wagoneer.

No.

Okay, okay. Temporarily. No move one, change it over, and then get out. Yeah, yeah.

I'm just gonna say, if we make a scene of stealing their truck and then find a dark alleyway to cross load into the Wagoneer, it'll make it much easier to sneak out of town.

It's very true.

Here's an idea. We've got three very strong individuals here. Could we just load the others up onto this truck, pop the truck in neutral, and slowly push the truck out behind as everyone is distracted by the kid.

God.

You've seen the truck cover.

Now I do say there is one guy standing in the back of the truck, and there is the man on the forklift that is still loading. So not everyone is.

Oh, he's loading them onto the truck already.

Yeah, yeah.

Let's just wait.

Two of the boxes are loaded, and now he's loading other boxes that are not the ones tagged.

Bonus boxes.

Bonus boxes. Yeah.

So I feel like I want to jump into a quick flashback.

Okay.

What are you thinking?

So my flashback is underwater. So earlier that afternoon, Henry wandering through the bay underwater, much like a Terminator just marching through the ocean floor.

Or Frankenstein's monster.

Also. Yes. I don't. And in a way, I'm just going to describe it. So he uses his underwater. He uses his grappling hook to shoot up, much like Luke did on an at at back in All Empire goes up to one of those boats that's connected at the dock, one that through observation, we expect isn't leaving anytime soon, attaches a nice little explosive to it, and then sinks Back down into the depths. Wanders away for later. So essentially, just established we have ourselves a nice juicy distraction should we need it at some point.

Okay, so there's this. As Henry fades away into the darkness, the murk of the water, there's just this red blinking light from the bomb on the underside of the boat.

I guess Donna will like, kind of slowly, quietly close the door. And then. So we're all here. Yeah, Right outside the door.

Yeah.

So what's our move as she eats ambrosia salad.

So your move.

What's our move?

I'm just kind of showing you, like, walking up to the crowd and they're all talking to the kid and, you know, you're suddenly they're just standing, laughing around and they're. You know, they do that. Wait, wait. Who the fuck are you?

I'm very tempted to do that.

And then of course, you'd be like, brochure salad.

Yeah. Oh, I could go out and be very upset that. What is Morthak doing here?

In the meantime, we got to load these boxes onto this truck. So I'm already in there. Henry, you're close by. You can get in there. Donna, you're in there. The guards are distracted.

Gorshkov, give me a full rundown of how many people we got. At least in a like 50 foot vicinity.

There are nine people inside the warehouse. Okay, there is the guy on the truck, a guy on a forklift, and then seven people, including the security guard or the guy from the security office listening to more Thax.

Okay, so with us in control of the video feed and most of the, we've cut off external communication at least I mean, on one hand, you could just start clunking guys heads together like, hey, everybody hold still for a second. Thunk, thunk. Two at a time. And you know, unless we're really loud about it, other people in the warehouse might not be. Might be none the wiser.

All I know is that I cannot drive a truck and I cannot operate a forklift, so. But I can lift.

I can also lift in terms of drivers. Aside from Riley can Bronson.

I tried teaching him.

Oh, I forgot about Bronson, but he

was too busy hanging his head out the window.

Oh, shit. What's Bronson doing?

I assume we left him in the wagon.

Couldn't trust.

I'm going to spend a GM point.

Earlier.

We have the scene Bronson. Everybody's credit. Bronson, you're just going to stand the mountain. Okay, and then shortly after Riley gets out and gets down messing with fiber cables, we See the back of the Mountaineer open. Bronson hops out, starts walking around, disappears into an alleyway. And then we see him on the other side of the warehouse, looking around and just climbing into the truck.

Oh, okay.

He opens the door, and there's a guy in there in coveralls.

The driver.

Who the hell are you? Oh, Bronson. And then he attacks the guy. Just leaps into the truck, and it starts rocking slightly, but nobody loading it seems to notice. And then you guys hear. I'm in position.

Good boy.

Just like we talked about, Mr. Cat.

Everything's going according to plan.

Good love, bro.

Down.

I said get down. And you hear punching. I'm okay.

Hit him in the left temple like we discussed.

Oh, right.

Left. As we said, left.

I know where temples are. So Bronson is in the truck, ready to drive. Very excited about the possibility.

Gorshkov, have we caught any other attention? And are you able to tap into the outside lines to hear if anybody's, like, calling the local militia on all the noise happening at the warehouse?

Well, thankfully, I can say we have taken care of that problem.

Yes. As far as I can tell, local authorities have not been contacted by anyone. We appear to be, as they say, flying under the radar in a cheese truck.

Okay, who says okay?

People say it.

Okay,

now, so I'd like to spend another heroism point, if I can, to have. Yeah, we. Now we zoom in on the forklift driver, and he's loading up another thing, and he's turning around. He's been repositioning it, and this time from the camera, the paw comes from beneath the console. Grabs down. Grabs him. Bonks his head on the console, and then a second time for good measure, and then just pushes him out.

Okay, Roll your prowl, and it will work. Okay.

All right, let's use these shredder dice.

30.

Yeah, that's a success. 35.

Okay, so Mr. Cat is inside the warehouse, grabs the guy on the forklift, drags him into the shadows. After. After the bonking, the guy on the truck hasn't noticed yet, but he will unless he's dealt with.

I thought Barneson just dealt with him.

No, no, it was the guy in the front that you guys had not. Had not seen. That was the driver that had been just sitting in the cab.

Donna, I think that guy wants some ambrosia.

I was about to say, I do have a question about heroism. How. How exactly do we get that back?

It comes back at the end of the session. Oh, more correctly, the beginning of the first. The next session.

Okay, I'D be foolish not to use it. That's what I'm getting. Yeah, well, I'll spend a heroism. And then we cut to Donna just climbing the back of the truck with the bowl of ambrosia salad. And the gentleman in the truck, she goes, boy, I sure am parched. And starts eating some ambrosia salad.

He's got a clipboard. He jumps, who the hell are you? You can see him look around. And we just see a pair of boots disappear into the darkness between boxes. And Morthak is telling the story. And he looks back at Dark Falcon.

Don just goes, oh, I'm just here to make sure that you're getting enough energy and calories for the day. And I thought I'd bring you some of this ambrosia salad I made. It's got marshmallows, it's got whipped cream, it's got mandarin oranges, it's got grapes, it's got bananas, apples, you know, Are you a cyberdyne? She goes, ninja sword. And stabs him through the. Through the sternum.

When Donna is hard in Donna mode, it's definitely not good to remind Donna

that Donna's technically a cyber knight.

Oh, yeah,

A switch gets flipped.

Okay, so I think, well, you can. Obviously your psy sword manif can be manifested. Roll an attack. You know what with advantage. Because this guy's completely surprised.

Awesome.

Yeah. And I mean advantage as per 5th edition. So just roll 2d20 and take the highest.

Oh, great, great, great.

Did I just add a house rule? Yeah, but it's fine.

Thank you.

So I rolled 12.

You hit him.

Okay, great.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

And then should I roll damage?

You get a plus five to strike with that.

Nice.

Yeah. Roll your damage, though. You do mega damage with a psy sword, right?

I do mdc.

Yeah.

Okay. He's just in clothes.

Well, not anymore he isn't

now.

Now he's in bloody rags.

Well, how is it that Riley was the one who went for the non lethal option, is the one who went for straight up murder?

Oh, you know, Donna's been around. And what are the bad guys called? The coalition. Yeah, fuck the coalition, you know? Yeah.

So the psy sword materializes, slams through this guy's chest, which just the flesh begins immediately, like bursting into flame and melting, sloughing off. You can hear this guy's insides cooking. And then you hear more Thack say, and then I turned into a dragon. And one of them goes, wait, what? Oh, right. And he turns into a dragon. There's this deep bellowing roar. And then this burst of flame. And then all you hear is screaming as he breathes fire on these guys crowded around him.

Donna's gonna be my id.

After what just happened, I'm not sure Don is in a position to be big quibbling at this point. Honestly, I want to see this chiding happen where, you know, the kids got the adult cold to rights, but the adult still trying for it.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. So these guys go up in flames, and the screaming doesn't last very long because they just got breathed on by mega damage fire. So there's this horrid stench of burning human fat in the warehouse. And Morthak is trotting along, and his draconic form seems a little more feline than it did previously. And he flies up, floating outside the door to the truck, and he's looking at Dark Falcon. He says, I mean, I just figured since you started it, it would be okay.

We'll talk about it later. Mor Thak. Good job.

Thank you.

From the. From the other side, you hear, don't forget, loot the bodies.

We see this pile of bodies that are on fire and blackened, and Morthak just looks at Donna and shakes his head no.

Donna takes a spoonful of ambrosia salad and holds it out to Morthak.

Oh, yeah, he loves it. He eats it.

Nice.

So, meta question, in this era and realm, technology wise, are we talking like cloud based servers, AKA that recorded footage is just. It's out there no matter what we do or we talk a little more 80s style. We got a, you know, system somewhere that's got this all that can be smashed in that any remaining. Or can Gorshkov just be like, blip? It's all erased.

I would say in some place that has very sophisticated technology, like Chi Town or the ngr. Yeah, they have cloud servers. Okay, but in Muskegon, in Warehouse. No, it's. It's being written onto some device.

Okay, then Henry would like to be inside the building with Gorshkov hunting that down to essentially erase our tracks.

Yeah, you hone in on the security office, obviously. And they have a fairly sophisticated setup. Lots of cameras feeding into one main system that's recording everything. And Gorshkov just tells you what to do to delete everything?

Does he tell me to use my fist? I mean, there's that. Okay, Henry respectfully does what Gorshkov tells him to do.

Yeah.

Doesn't mean you can't use your fist after.

Very true.

All right. Tracks erased. Technically not. We're still in the building, but I'm

Looting all of the bodies.

So just to.

Not just the burnt ones, but all the other people that like the guy in the back of the truck, the guy that I took out of the forklift, the guy in. Back in the pit that Riley was dealing with. Looting all their shit. We need those weapons, yo.

Looting and hiding bodies, hopefully if we need.

So you get a total of. They have 117 credits on them in terms of, you know, pocket change. They all have laz laser pistols. They all have sidearms.

Are there any remaining guards in the warehouse?

Not that are alive.

Let's just loot the whole damn place.

I was gonna say let's see how much we might be just at capacity in the Wagoneer when we load up the four crates, but let's crack open some boxes and see what else we can stack steel.

Yeah, let's just. Donna's just going to start loading boxes into the truck.

Yeah. So the big truck is a road hammer transport from the black market book. It. It's essentially just a big cargo hauler. It's. It can carry a lot of 40 tons of freight. Now that said, this warehouse is packed. There's way more than 40 tons of freight in this warehouse.

Riley's going to pull around, pull the mountain near around into the loading area. And while they're moving crates, Riley with his incredible lack of physical strength is going to look for clipboards with boards of bills of ladling on it and throw it in the cab of the truck. So we have paperwork to cover us in case we need to.

In case we need to call. Yeah, yeah.

Okay. So you have the four main boxes that Korshkov identified which can all fit in the Mountaineer. I assume you're loading them into the Mountaineer.

Oh, yeah. And anything else we can pack in there. Starting with the smallest boxes. Smaller it is typically the more specialized or valuable.

So I would say with the four identified thing, that's pretty much going to pretty much pack them out near to capacity. Now if you also want to steal the road hammer transport, which Bronson fully intends to do.

Yeah, let's let him have his day.

I think at the very least we load it full of whatever looks to be the most expensive and drive the truck into a fucking river.

Drive the truck into a ship and then blow that ship out.

Yeah.

So you guys start opening boxes, looking around, and every box is packed with coalition military hardware.

Fuck yeah.

If we are not burning this place down, then can we do something to sabotage the remaining stock?

You potentially could. It would probably take A lot of time. It would take a lot of time.

I mean, we could potentially burn the place down if we load as much

as we can into the back of this truck, take whatever we can fit into the Mountaineer, have the truck run into the ocean, there's a river, whatever the fuck this water body of water is.

Or the boat with the bomb on it. Yeah, exactly, exactly.

And then blow that up. I think that would create a nice dent in the supply of the area.

Yeah, agreed.

And we could be well far away. Like, Bronson can catch up.

Not to mention the warm and fuzzy feeling I would have.

But I do want a lot of that sweet, sweet, sweet Coalition military loot. Yeah.

Okay, well, I mean, technically you already have some in your. In the back of your truck. I mean, that is what Alexander of Macedon wanted you to steal, so.

But I believe he also said that part of the payment would be as much else as we could take.

Yeah, absolutely.

So anything else that we can fit. Yeah.

I tell you what, any wet coalition, you could definitely, like, cram into the cab. Any coalition, just standard guns, even things like plasma cannons.

Yeah.

There is also a crate with four Death's Head Samus stacked in.

Can we fit those

into the Mountaineer? Not really.

I mean, why don't we just take the other truck too?

We're doing that then. Yeah, let's blow thing up.

Yep. We can still blow up the boat. We don't need the truck.

We can still blow the boat up, actually. Yeah.

And Donna's thinking herself that, you know, the Torch brothers, Bears, torch bearers in other similar coalitions could use a good resupply of weapons from the coalition.

Really could. Yeah.

Okay, I'll tell you what we're gonna do. We're not going to detail every piece of gear that you pull out of here because I don't want to lose my mind, but in the road hammer transport, I'd say you could take the four Samus. Now they're all like, you know, packed in foam and clearly not. Not assembled right. Like they'd have to be taken out and maintenance run and that sort of

thing jokes on us. There's no manual

and lots.

Is that what Riley's for?

Okay, that's Riley work.

Yeah.

Lots of small arms, lots of C10 rifles, some plasma cannons. So we'll say that you have just, let's see, I'm going to say you pack the truck. In addition to the four Samus, you have 500,000 credits worth of Coalition military hardware. Yes.

Alexander might pay a good penny for Some of this stuff.

Mm. Right.

Yeah.

And we're just gonna be ambiguous as to, you know, what exactly is in that, but it's just that that amount.

Yeah. You said 500,000, correct?

Yeah, 500,000. Yeah. Which is obviously more than, as a party, you would ever use.

So does Donna have an idea of how difficult it will be to just take this truck out? Like, if we just drive it with this manifest that Riley procured and we just like, drive out like it's normal business? Like, are we gonna get stopped? Like, do I have any idea, like, what that's gonna look like?

So the first thing you notice is that everything on the manifest and every. All the boxes are completely labeled as mundane things.

Nice.

Right? They were clearly either operating here. Whether or not the Muskegon authorities knew about this or not, they were definitely attempting to do so clandestinely. Nothing is labeled as weapons. It's, you know, it's mundane stuff like portable kerosene stove, and there'll be a rocket launcher inside.

Snow globes and olive oil.

Yeah. And it's grenades. And so, yeah, the. The fat. The fake paperwork is already all prepared. You just gotta take it.

Who out of all of us, who's gonna be the best at, like, talking their way out of some bullshit?

Definitely not Riley.

I assume Riley's gonna be driving the our rig anyway. Yeah, if Mr. Bronson's driving the other truck. I don't know if we want to just leave Bronson in charge of talking his way through a military checkpoint out of the city.

I'm looking at one of you two as probably the best option on that.

I mean, Henry's used to driving delivery

vehicles for pizza and getting hassled by cops for it.

Yeah, for that and other toque related reasons.

Well, that sounds like maybe you're riding shotgun with Bronson, and maybe I'm just in the back in case shit goes sour.

Sure.

I don't know how far roughly from the checkpoint that we would in theory, exit this city of checkpoint to the building we just robbed.

Two and a half miles.

Okay, so if per say, an ocean based ship was to explode, I was

just thinking that, you know, maybe they

would hear it and be like, oh, dear, we may be under attack, or something like that.

I like it.

Yeah, it's an option.

Yeah.

Henry will ride shotgun with Bronson.

I'll have a more Thack ride in the back of the truck with me.

All right, so who is in the Mountaineer? Obviously, Riley in the front, in the cab. There's no room in the cargo Bay for the Mountaineer.

Right now, you're riding on top. Either that or just flying around. Because I can.

Okay. And then everybody else is in the road. Hammer Transport.

Unless it'd be a good idea for one of us to ride with Riley.

I don't know if this would make

it better or worse, but what if

we left at different times? The Wagoneer doesn't necessarily need to leave tonight. The Wagoneer is not. Point of interest. So if we could get Bronson and the bulk of the cargo out. The extra cargo.

And then in the morning.

I would just like to point out you just created a mass cash incident and started a. Set a bunch of people on fire. Eventually that will get discovered. I would like to be out of the city before that happens

because that was great wisdom.

I also presume that they're going to be like, who's in town that's never been here before?

Who's the fan?

Oh, yeah. Wasn't there a Mountaineer that drove in here?

Or even just a little bit? Added searches at the checkpoint. Out of town, you know?

Yeah.

What if we take different routes out of town?

I like that.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That way we don't have to explain why we're traveling together.

All right. So I assume your end goal is to drive back to New Laszlo.

Yeah.

Okay. So you know for sure the. You. The main city entrance that you came in, you know, you can get out that way. You're not sure about any other entrances or exits. You could just go at different times if you wanted to, to stick with what you know. Or you could look for another way out of the city. Another gate. There has to be one. You reason or make one. Now the shield wall. I will tell you, the shield wall around Muskegon is mega damage material and massive even.

Just like five minutes apart. Just not like right next to each other.

Yeah.

Okay.

No more than a half hour.

Okay, so plan. Drive out of town. Detonate the boat.

Yeah, we're. Gorshkov knows to tell me the second we're about to hit the limit of the range.

Now, are you also wiring the warehouse?

Oh,

I have no opinion on this.

We.

I was going to say I have a deep and abiding desire to do it, but given we've actually managed to pull off a fairly minimal witness exit from this, creating more of a stir is not in our best interests.

Yeah, we've struck a blow to the coalition.

Yeah, Morthak struck a blow to the coalition. Just saying.

Yeah. The boat is enough to create chaos, but maybe not be observed as Sending a message and plus in theory we'll detonate that shit once we're out of the walls.

I'm down. Yeah, whatever y' all want to do with the warehouse.

Yeah, sounds like it's time to get.

Wait, wait a minute, there is all this coalition gear. There's 500,000 credits of coalition gear. There are no explosive charges in any of this that we can just rig a timer to.

Oh, there's tens.

Yeah, that's a good point.

Oh right. God, pull my tail.

You know there's also bodies here that might be good to get rid of in a giant fiery explosion.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Let's put at least four of those explosions around the pile.

You know one of the things you notice is that while all of this discussion on how our ex Phil is going on, Riley just seems to be sitting there smoking, staring at the bodies, currently moving them around with his feet a little bit, you know, moving their arms, checking their range of motion, seeing exactly how much range of motion a body loses when it's been crispy crittered by a dragon. You know that's you're supposed to play

with them before you kill them.

Riley

would make a terrible cat.

This is for science.

Is there a particular skill used for like rigging, explosions, explosives?

Demolitions?

I think yes, demolitions would be the skill.

Who wants to do demo?

Are there any explosives that fall under heavy mega damage weapons?

All of them?

Well, demolitions is a pretty specific skill but you might be able to default something if at least feeling real kind

do not have demolitions, ditto.

I do have heavy military weapons.

I mean you can, you can attempt it.

I mean at the end of the day setting an ex, setting the timer on an explosive charge and putting it some by something that looks vaguely structural is mostly just electronics, right?

Probably, theoretically.

Theoretically yeah, we'll, we'll do that. We'll, we, we'll do that. Grab a couple fusion blocks and put them by structural supports and. Oh, is that a gas main over there?

So what's the composition of the demolition skill?

I believe it's going to be double your iq. Let me check. Iq?

IQ 42. Jesus, that.

No, that's my. If I had the skill. Yeah, yeah, I'm going to have to roll under a 21 for this.

21? 21 or lower.

Quite the IQ score.

That's a 38, remember.

Okay.

You also have heroism miserly over there with your points.

Yeah, I'm being real miserly with that. Oh look, this one came packed with the Coalition field manual. For using field expedient charges.

Flashback. Riley steps into a used bookstore.

I mean, which I also just did.

That's true.

I was contemplating going like, you know, I've always wanted to learn more about demolitions. Yoink. Oh look, a well thumbed copy of the coalition field manual on explosive or explosives.

Oh, go ahead.

I was just going to ask Gorshkov if he maybe knew anything about coalition arms and explosives.

Gorshkov actually does not. He's not had a ton of experience with coalition.

Okay.

Because he's from Russia.

I mean these can't be too hard to set up if they're expecting coalition idiots to set them up.

No. So Jacob, are you going to reroll with heroism?

Yeah, yeah I will.

So even if you fail, it will go off. It just might not go off precisely when you guys want it to.

Well, I mean a 32 is slightly better.

Okay. I'm going to spend my last heroism to follow up that flashback with Riley has left the bookstore having found nothing from this book. In the next flashback, a few moments later, we see Bronson leaving the same bookstore, looking at the same book, only he's got it upside down, but he looks very intent on it.

Oh no.

Holy shit.

That is an 08. Oh

great.

Bronson, unbeknownst to anyone, goes in behind Riley, doesn't say anything and corrects the detonators. Wow.

Holy shit. As a dog boy, he could actually have the demolition skill.

I did look at his sheet. He doesn't have it, but yeah, yeah,

I looked at the pictures.

Wow.

Each one's rotated 180 degrees though.

So you're the mountaineer leaves first, passing out of the main gates of Muskegon, heading out of the countryside. About five minutes later a road hammer transport comes through. You have to provide the manifest, but it's a cursory check. And the Muskegon militiamen at the gate in the early this now the early hours of the morning wave you out your two vehicles. You meet up down the road, start heading cross country towards New Laszlo. You're a few miles from Muskegon when the western horizon, still dark, is illuminated by a massive fireball. You're guessing every window in the city was blown out. The equivalent of thousands of tons of TNT going off. The port district might be gone.

Oh boy. This, this watching this. Mr. Cat is sitting up on the top of the mountain here, looking back going.

I imagine Morthak is like in the back and he's like looking at this explosion and he's like oh that's funny. I thought I would have heard it by now. And then all of a sudden it's

just like this wave of shockwave hits you. Exactly.

And can we get a nice. Das vidanya.

Yeah.

Gorshkov is just chuckling in Russian Chuckles

in Russian that's my favorite subtitle.

Yeah.

The subtit.

Yeah. So you guys start heading back to New Laszlo. You estimate if you drive all through the day, even cross country, you will make it by the early hours of the evening? I assume Mr. Cat is on the top of the Mountaineer.

Yeah, still trying to shake off the. That was awesome.

The Mountaineer is. You guys are driving through some flatland, sparse trees, heavy forest to the north of you, a farm off in the distance. Henry is on the road. Hammer transport. Right.

Yeah.

Run shotgun.

Your radar starts going off.

We have it coming to the south.

And Mr. Cat just happens to be looking in that direction. And coming low over the horizon. He sees three objects. One looks like a massive black skull flying straight towards them above the treetops. The two others are smaller, like some sort of flying jet bikes. He can see the pilots. When Riley looks out, he recognizes a coalition's death head transport flanked by two sky cycles. And the missiles are already firing. And we will end the session there.

Oh.

Oh, no.

Yeah. I mean, they put trackers in Samus suits.

I knew it.

I knew it. But I wasn't gonna say anything because Mr. Cat would have no fucking clue. And the whole time my brain's like, we shouldn't take these trucks. We shouldn't take this truck. But me, I'm like, yes, let's take the truck.

Loot.

Yeah. No. Yeah.

The moment you said giant black skull, I was like, oh, son of a bitch. Tracker son of a bitch.

Oh yeah. If you'd just taken small arms, those don't have it. But the Samus suits.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

We got greedy. So let's talk about xp. You guys did pretty great.

How much XP do we get for

a warehouse and a ship?

Yeah.

How many ants were on the ship?

40,000.

That's at least one per ant, right?

Yeah.

It's not Dungeons and Dragons, so you cannot ultra level up by pouring molten gold into an ant hill.

We just destroyed a boat and a warehouse, which means we just took out a lot of rats in this city. And I understand they pay good money for killing rats.

That's true.

So I'll be damned if you don't take the butterfly effect into account on this one.

According to the experience points awards table on page 290, six of Rift's Ultimate Edition. Subduing or killing a great menace is worth a lot of xp. And since these arms were all going to go to the psy stalker tribes in the north that are acting as the coalition's proxies. You guys did, did good stuff. So that's going to be a big chunk. Let's see you get a lot of good ideas. Self sacrifice, not so much.

What's ambrosia salad worth?

You know what we're going to call that?

Two trips to the bathroom.

A clever but futile idea.

Maurice couldn't be less interested.

So you guys will get 625xp.

I just gotta say, Donna, begging the alcoholic to eat the ambrosia salad was pretty.

It was pretty great. Yeah.

You wrestling the rum bottle out of his hand so he didn't fucking chug the whole thing.

I'm particularly proud of the cat. Arms out of the side, just yoink.

That was great.

That's a great visual.

But next session you will face likely the greatest test of your current journey through Rift's earth. Because these guys are not fucking about and they are professionals.

Hopefully we got enough time to open up those boxes and use what we stole.

You definitely, definitely don't.

We can swear on this, right? Fuck.

We may not have to worry about deciding if we want four or five players.

Well, I mean, we'll have the same number of players. It's just how many characters?

The whole new team from Syracuse, New

York,

1986,

Aberdeen, Washington.

Yeah, yeah. No fun time.

Yeah.

So we obviously, you know, played around with the. The rules. I mean, obviously flashbacks are not a thing in Rift's ultimate edition, but I thought it worked out well. I thought it was good for a heist.

Yeah, I had a good time.

I was really feeling the leverage moments there. So that was good.

Yeah, nice.

And folks, listening at home, if you haven't watched Leverage, you really should.

It's so good.

Not a sponsor.

Not a sponsor.

Not yet.

But much of the show was filmed here in Portland.

Portland, Oregon? Yep.

Oh, really?

I sacrifice the heroism and flash forward to when I have watched Leverage. Man, you were so right. That shit rocks.

Okay, yeah.

Let's go ahead and close this out then. If you have made it this far and you don't know who we are, I'll tell you now. I'm NPC from the Glitter Boys that you're listening to. In case you didn't know, I'm Jess

Jacob, co host of the Glitter Boys.

I'm Alex. I'm here to play.

I'm Cranston. I'm here.

And I'm Kyle. I'm the main GM for the Bastard Quest actual play podcast. Moonlighting here as. As a Rifts gm. I do love riffs, though. But if you want to listen to actual play, check out Bastard Quest. We play lots of different stuff. Not riffs yet, but we definitely. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, which was an absolute blast.

Yes.

And. And just prepare yourselves. We have a much kinder and more benevolent version of the gaming Bastard.

Well, these characters would not survive in a Bastard Quest game.

Let's see what you think about me after the next session.

I am certainly not buttering you up in advance, sir.

By the way, your mustache looks amazing.

Thank you, Alex. You will live.

Hell, yeah.

Parts of you in a cyborg body.

Waist up.

Just Gorshkov.

Yeah, just Gordishkov. Yeah, he's fine.

All right, folks.

No, yeah, I'm looking forward to it. I think it's going to be a big, big throwdown.

So, yeah, I. You know, in all of my years running and playing Rifts, this might be the most efficient Coalition Murder the party that it's ever. Ever happened. Usually I just throw like, a team of grunts against them or a few Samus, but Death's Head. Oof. Oof.

Well, so. So here's a little bit of a background your characters would never know about. One, you're relatively close to major coalition power centers. So that's. That's one part of it, because they're just, you know, in Illinois, and. And two, they're. They're paying a lot of attention to their operation. Their. Their proxy operation in Michigan. And so, you know, we done goof. Also, it has been hours since the explosion of Muskegon. So, you know, it's not like it was minutes. It's well into the middle of the day before they. They flew in from Northern Illinois.

Well, hopefully. Hopefully, guys will be able to pull out something crazy.

Yes.

Yep.

Crazy is all we got left.

All right, folks, 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 you're 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 in making more games. You can order [email protected] and their entire catalog is available digitally at Drivethru RPG 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 theglitterbois. That's B O I S and check us out [email protected] glitterboys and also join us on the Breakfast Puppies network [email protected] 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.

All right, so I'm glad that you guys remembered there's a heist. I'm hoping.

I'm wondering if you were about to say, because that reminded me there was one.

Well, you know, it was a long holiday season.

Yes.

Yeah.

This is, I think, our longest break since we started.

Oh, probably. Yeah.

Any.

Any game that survives the holidays has something going for it. That's what I always say.

True. Have a jetpack.

Yeah, you do.

You know, everybody needs a jet. I mean, if jetpacks are real, who wouldn't own one, right? Right. I mean, the fatalities would be astronomical, but they're worth it.

I brought you out of this butthole and I could shove you right back in.

There you go.