The Glitterbois Play Rifts 16: VODKA.EXE

Breakfast puppies?

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

This is Riley.

I just want to go home, and I guess y'all are listening to the Glitter Boys.

The road from Port Sanilac to Saginaw is old and overgrown and barely there. That is not a major problem for the Mountaineer or the Riley driving it. You push west through broken country, the remains of suburbs swallowed by wilderness, fields gone wild. Behind you, somewhere Much closer to the lake are Coalition Rangers you did not fight and a skelebot that was definitely not just a skelebot. As the sun sinks low, you see the old fortress at Saginaw, your destination. It is rising out of the Michigan wilderness like some totem of a dead age. Massive MDC walls form a maze of angled defenses around a central bastion. The, the central tower must have been much taller at one point, but it is now this shattered crown, black against the darkening sky. Smoke rises from the fortress. Uh, it is not, uh, smoke of ruin or battle, but campfires. And as you approach what passes for a gate, You can see armed figures wearing patched cloaks and very new looking, but painted over Coalition armor. Their weapons are not raised. At their center is Truth Dinsmore. And as you approach, lights on, she raises her hand and you're about to stop when suddenly a Samus slams down in front of the Mountaineer and Jacob only slightly bumps it.

Oh, shit.

As he slams to a halt.

Excellent. I may regret doing that.

The Samus stomps around and you hear the voice of Daisy Boon, the torchbearer that has sort of trained Mr. Cat.

She says, welcome to the old fortress, and she waves her arm.

The other torchbearers start moving apart for the mountaineer to enter.

Start pulling in slowly.

So the, the gate to the old fortress is— you can tell without any training in architecture or Golden Age buildings that it is not supposed to be a gate. Something just ripped a hole in the side of this building, whatever it used to be a long time ago, and now that has become the entrance. And there are jagged slabs of this concrete-like substance It's not quite concrete because of course it is MDC. Half-melted barricades, old weapon impact craters. Does anybody have any, like, military-relevant skills that would be related to defenses?

One moment.

I don't, but Gorshkov might have something nestled up there.

Gorshkov is definitely picking up on things that Henry might not be. That is a good point, Alex. So as, as you all disembark and start moving into the interior of this building where there's light and something like warmth, Gorshkov starts to highlight on your heads-up display mines, tripwires, camouflaged firing positions throughout the quote-unquote rubble of this ruin. It is much more defensible than it first appears. And there's even a pair of battered heavy robot weapon mounts set in a perfect firing line for the entrance that you didn't notice right when you entered.

Right on.

And I'm guessing this entrance into this fortress is big enough to handle something as big as the Mountaineer coming through.

Oh yeah, yeah. Whatever tore a hole in this Golden Age structure left quite the, uh, the way inward.

Cool. Damn.

You figure 2 Mountaineers side by side could go in.

We should get another one and duct tape it to this one.

Sure.

As the Mountaineer is trundling in at a reasonable pace, Troy Mundo and Bronson on the ATV are blasting by and launching into the interior of this facility. It's plenty of space. I may have disabled the brakes at some point.

I see what mood you're in today.

Probably depressed.

Yeah, so some of the torchbearers stumbling back, raising weapons, and Truth's walking in. No, no, it's just the crazy. No, he's actually crazy. Uh, yeah.

Did you hear what they said about you, Bronson?

No, I did not! And Bronson's holding tight onto, onto Troy. His tongue is hanging out, slapping against the back of his head.

We will, of course, bring the ATV to a stop against whatever thing that I can run into and just kind of tumble off.

Yeah. So inside the fortress, at least in this initial area, it seems to— the tunnels and corridors go in for some distance, but you can tell that whatever command post or kind of fort the Torchbearers have built there, they do not inhabit the entirety of this old ruin. But there's halls reinforced with MDC plates and timber and military tarps set up everywhere. You can see cots and sleeping bags in one corridor that is intact and dry that they've turned into a makeshift barracks. And another, there's a field kitchen set up, clearly coalition, yeah, quote unquote salvage that is battered and leaking some kind of fuel oil, but there's food smells coming from it. And Truth Tends War welcomes you all. As you file in, come in, we've got plenty of food and dry places to eat. And at that, there's this rumble of thunder and rain begins to fall. What are each of you doing as you enter the old fortress at Saginaw?

I am going to leap off of the roof dramatically and land in a nice 3-point pose, stand up, Fists on my hips, look around, nod, and find the dragon.

Okay, you're going in to find Morthak.

Minion number 1.

Is it okay to assume that, uh, Donna and Morthak are hanging out awaiting the arrival of the boys?

Yeah, what are Donna and Morthak doing when the others arrive?

I think they're just hanging out. I think, uh, Donna has a bunch of like jerky-like treats and she's like throwing them up in the air for Morthak to like Uh, bite out of the air.

So is Morthak in dragon form or in 7-year-old boy form?

Can he be like in a hybrid form? He's like a tiny dragonoid.

Yeah, yeah, I'm sure he could manipulate his size.

Yeah, he's in the half and half.

I'm pretty confident that a 7-year-old boy would also jump for thrown treats.

I think it's just cuter picturing a, uh, a little dragon maw.

He's in what Donna thinks of as his dragon dog form.

Such a good little puppy.

He's about the size of a golden retriever, and you're not sure if he's doing it on purpose, but it's— he has this adorable way that he looks up, looks up at you.

Uh, probably because he knows he gets a bunch of, uh, hard pets when he does it.

Oh, he's a good little boy. Thank you, Dark Falcon, he says.

Do you want another one? I do.

I would— I like these very much.

I throw another one in the air.

He snatches it. Think we're gonna get to do any extreme violence soon?

Um, I don't know about soon, but, uh, yeah, buddy, stay close.

Okay, because I have been thinking about how I could do extreme violence.

Yeah, uh, you know, maybe after this we could, uh, talk about that. That'd be good.

Okay.

Remember what I talked about, about using your words?

Yes, I think I am old enough to get grenades.

I agree. Donna.

Mr. Cat, oh, you're here.

I wish to show this child my collection of grenades.

Yeah, thanks for using your words, Mr. Cat. We'll talk about that after.

I turned to Morthac and say, she said yes, come with.

He looks at Donna. You have said yes in the past. That has happened.

You did just say, yessss! That is a positive.

I make hard eye contact and I close the bag of treats very dramatically to show Mortheq that I mean business.

So Mortheq is looking between the treat bag and the grenade bag, and this appears to be a significant quandary.

Don't you want my approval, Mortheq?

What if... I just take one grenade and I hold on to it, and I also get treats.

Let me make a deal with you. You've, you've been showing that you are capable, and I want to acknowledge that. When we have time, we will show you and teach you how to use grenades responsibly, and after that, I will let you have a grenade.

On this, while this is happening, I'm going to key my head radio to Henry. Say, Henry, we need a bacon treat delivery stat.

Whoa, Mr. Cat, you're in my head. Which isn't that unusual considering we have comms and radios and all those established things. Right on, pal.

I'm on it.

So that's Henry's mission.

Yeah, but yours is a bionic radio. It's not just like hearing it through your ears. It's in your head.

Okay, so Henry's approaching with bacon, presumably. Though I have not been tracking since the last time he got fresh bacon, so I'm wondering at the provenance of the bacon currently in some armored compartment on Henry's leg somewhere.

It's some dried meat.

And it's a dog.

Oh, wasn't it Pimmican, I think?

I mean that in that it's old and just dry as hell.

Oh yeah, yeah, fair enough. So NPC, is, is Mr. Cat trying to, uh, what's your goal here?

That's my humorous goal, is to bring in another source of treats, a source of treats that is also into the destructive power of weaponry, and lure this dragon over to our side.

Mortheq, I just have a question for you. Would you feel bad if you accidentally used a grenade and you hurt someone you didn't want to?

Mortheq looks up at you. His body twists and he shifts back into his 7-year-old boy form. And he says, the correct answer is yes.

How? Yes, the correct answer is yes. So we're not— We're not saying you can't have grenades. We're just tabling grenades. Okay? We're gonna teach you how to use grenades and you're gonna be a grenade man.

How's that sound?

I like that part. Is that part happen soon?

Yeah, soon is relative. Absolutely.

I don't— okay. Hmm.

For you, it's not gonna feel like soon, but I promise it's soon.

Very well. Very well, Donna Who Has Treats. Who is also Dark Falcon.

I give him a big old handful of treats and all the big old scritches.

He very much likes that. So, Jacob, what is Riley doing? You're entering this— well, the closest thing to a military camp that Riley has likely been in for some years.

Out of habit, Riley immediately looks around for camp followers, remembers that that probably isn't a thing here. And, uh, just immediately goes to work on the Mountaineer. Um, because we rolled out without it being totally back to shape and after getting the ass blown off of it. So just going back to work, double-checking, making sure everything is still holding together while we're not in a position where I can do more repair. I can keep it from falling apart further.

So as you're working, you sense this presence behind you, something large. You turn and it's Dustin, the Slurmpf. Big gelatinous slug-like form wearing his coveralls. Hey, I'm Dustin.

I'm a Slurmpf.

You need help? I got a wrench. And he pulls a wrench out of his abdomen.

Do you know how to use that wrench?

Yeah.

How do you use a wrench, Dustin?

Well, you turn things with it or you hit people with it. I'm a slurf.

You are more than competent. You understood that a wrench has 2 main purposes. Yeah, give me a hand. And I'm just gonna have him as an extra set of hands for when I'm crawling all over it and just making sure we're not falling apart worse.

Yeah. For someone that you suspect is not highly intelligent, he has a surprising knowledge of automotive vehicles.

And if you hand him a screw or a wrench, he will put it in himself and you will not lose it.

But it will be cleaner than it was.

Relatively speaking.

Yeah, yeah, he helps you work on the Mountaineer. So at some point, let's see, I'm trying to think of which of you she would think of as the one in charge.

Well, just to properly rule Troy Mundo out of this, seeing treats tossed around reminds him that he hasn't eaten in about 3 days. So he's going to set off for the kitchen and loudly announce that he's going to go make pancakes.

Okay. You head to their field kitchen. There's— so there's all the members of the Torchbearers that you guys have seen here, right? There's Truth and Morthac, obviously Donna and Daisy Boone, but there's also a number of other members clearly equipped with the weapons that you absconded with from Muskegon. And if you, if you remember watching the old G.I. Joe cartoon, you'd have the Name Joes and then just the kind of the guys in like the green shirts.

Yeah, the green shirts.

Yeah, they're green shirts, right? They're, you know, they, they look capable, but they don't have names. They, they may be bound for a bad end if there's a combat. So, so ask for those NPC names at your peril. I'm just saying.

I thought this, uh, the common logic was that once an NPC gets a name, they're less likely to die.

Yes.

Well, it depends on if I want more NPCs that session. We already have plenty. And the more you like the new NPC, that makes them inversely more likely to die.

Unless they're a dog.

Unless they're a dog.

I hate Bronson.

Out, out!

I'm trying to keep him alive. We know, we all know I can't kill Bronson. Let's not, it's not even a joke. Someone would find me.

So this is how we win. Bronson marching first.

I was gonna say, so we're gonna mount him to the front of the vehicle going forward as a battering ram.

I start taping Bronson to Henry.

Suddenly Bronson becomes intangible. Oh, powers. He's magic. He's been magic the whole time.

No.

It would be pretty sweet if he was the MacGuffin that saves us in the end.

Well, Bronson would definitely try to save you in the end. You know, hey, look, he can die in the ultimate episode. Just keep that in mind. I know.

I'm sorry. I'm just, I'm really hoping he doesn't become like a Gurgi situation for those that know The Black Cauldron.

I read it many years ago.

Folks at home, you should read The Black Cauldron, the story of the, the story of Three, The Black Cauldron, and all of the other Lloyd Alexander stories. Predain? I think it's The Chronicles of Predain. Yeah, it's a good series.

Yeah, I quite like it. Well, young me quite liked it. In any event, at this point—

I don't think any of us presents as the leader. I was thinking about your question. I don't think any of us look like a leader. Maybe, dude, that—

I don't know.

I'm out of the truck unless someone's looking for me or comes get me. I am smoking and working on the truck.

Traditionally, I would say that at least of the group that came through at the beginning, we have sort of defaulted to Riley. However, we do have a Cyber Knight in the group. I mean, you know, Cyber Knights are kind of leaders of men. They're the forces in the world that a lot of people will rally behind. So. I've got a Cyber Knight in my knife.

That's true. That's true. So yeah, it does make sense actually that Truth would speak with Donna because, uh, in all fairness, Donna would know exactly what's going on. So just to bring you up to speed, Cranston.

Thank you.

Dark Falcon and the other Archonauts have been here at the old fortress bringing in not new recruits, but people that have been Allies know their way around a battlefield, but just didn't have access to the gear. But with this influx of stolen coalition weaponry, they've added to their numbers. But the main thing that Truth is concerned about is the town of Hartsby and Hercules Adams. You know, because you've received a messenger from there, that Hartsby is currently in a de facto state of siege by King Abel. You don't know how bad it is, but you know Hercules is sending out messages to try to get help from wherever he can, uh, and that despite, uh, their supply chain being hurt in the Muskegon raid, King Abel launched his attack anyway. And Truth has been debating on what to do. Does she go straight to Hartspeed to try to help Hercules directly? Does she try to get a handle on other ways that the Coalition might be helping King Abel. She hasn't decided, but you know, she's been waiting to hear back from your friends about what they found in Port Sanilac.

And we can definitely fill that information in. The short version being that we found Coalition Rangers. Well, okay, we found what we were pretty sure were Coalition Rangers overseeing an operation In this building that they had wired to explode, that according to the rats, they had visited many times. So this was like a setup recurring operation where these rangers were recruiting at least one and probably many other factions to assist in this fight besieging that city or that town, that village, whatever it was called.

Hartsby?

Yes, Hartsby.

Yeah, they specifically mentioned one other group. It's some— I mean, I can't remember, psychic something.

They were talking about the Psy Stalkers.

Psy Stalkers.

Those were the tribes underneath King Abel. We managed, we believe, to cut one of those forces off. But Russ got Jawa.

Yeah. Right, but what— I am lacking recollection on what we actually sent that last rat man back to do.

We sent that rat man back to pee himself repeatedly and cherish his life and tell Ruska that the deal is off and to stay away from Hartsby, lest she feel personally the wrath of the cat and the cat's friends.

Who she no doubt remembers.

I mean, we did kind of make a big impression.

These—

those rats specifically called Troy the friend of the cat. So I think I made an impression.

And while they won't remember me personally, that was when I broke out the terror— the terror bullet. And so I'm pretty sure we made an impression.

Which I must note was one of my favorite sound effects to assemble. That was a great one.

If I remember right from the last episode, that rat that you were interviewing did say like, oh yeah, everyone knows the cat.

Could be. I'll fuck her up.

Okay.

Meow.

I like to imagine you eating all of her rats and getting to her and you're just bloated like, you're, you're next.

I actually, me as a player, do have a plan for Vraska Jala that I'm not talking about because if I say this plan aloud, it will get thwarted. So we'll see. We'll see how this goes.

So over a dinner of pancakes that Troy made. Now, Sean, how good are the pancakes? I just rolled.

They're not great. Uh, but they're pancakes. I rolled a 62 on my sweet cooking skill. That's right, I have cooking of a 44. So not the best pancakes.

Technically, you're— they're pancakes and they're fine. You've had better pancakes, but Troy looks sad, so no one mentions it.

I'm a cat. I've eaten food out of a cat can, so They're the most— some of the most delicious things I've ever had.

Yeah, I got distracted. I was thinking about Mr. Cat, so I kind of sprinkled cat food in the pancakes.

Oh, that's why I love them.

The little chunks, they thought those were chocolate chips. Those weren't. Those were not.

Troy, I love them so much. They're so, uh, there's like an umami. It's really, uh, thank Troy. Thank you so much.

This is a very fancy feast you have made for us.

So, but after the meal, the Truth, uh, looks at you all, says, come with me, and she takes you down a side corridor, down a stairwell. She pulls a lantern off a wall hook as you're going down, uh, and takes you into the depths underground below this fortress. And you all start to notice things that remind you of your past, not necessarily the lives you lived— well, except perhaps Raleigh— but You start to notice things that would make you think of, if you were watching a movie, underground military bunker. You see like words that are like stenciled on walls and half faded. And she takes you into a room. The door clearly was supposed to slide at one point, but it doesn't. And she actually gets Henry to pull it open and it grinds open rusty. But inside, it's clearly a completely unpowered ancient control room, and on one wall is a relief map of, uh, like the northeastern, north-central United States. And there's military overlays, all sorts of writing, uh, on the map, scrawled in some cases. There's pins. And she's focusing on Michigan, but you guys notice there's this marked route from Ohio in a language that you suspect Truth doesn't read. It's like Cincinnati Arc Line Evac question marks, and then, you know, showing the, like, this remnant of whatever was happening here at the, in during the, the apocalypse, right? And over Cincinnati itself, there's just a red X. It is far from the only city with a red X over it, though. There's lots of them, most of them in the southern Ohio Valley, lots on the eastern seaboard. She is showing you— her purpose here was apparently to show you the relationship between Hartsby and Saginaw and Detroit. And On the map, you can tell Hartsby is not that far from where you are now, maybe an hour or two away, uh, Hartsby being more in central Michigan. But you can see on the map that stretching out from Detroit itself are these gray lines, and she says, this is the broken grid. You were in a small part of it, I understand.

Yeah, what we used to call Detroit, wasn't it?

We were from Cincinnati. Yeah, but I thought when we were in the broken grid, Oh yeah, well, um, yeah, wasn't that old Detroit that we went to?

Yeah, that's what I thought too.

What is she asking?

No, she's just saying, so you were— the Broken Grid is under Detroit.

Okay.

And she's asking, you were in Detroit, you were in the Broken Grid, right?

Yeah, got it.

Okay, now I follow.

Yeah, okay. Well, and so you guys were just in a small part of it, but from From the looks of the map, it looks like the broken grid may extend out to other parts of Michigan and even into northern Ohio that you didn't necessarily realize. And there are lines going up to Hartsby and even Saginaw and other locations. Now, it doesn't go around New Laszlo at all.

It is obvious that all of you know what this thing we are looking at is, but for those, in case someone doesn't, perhaps you should explain it.

I got no idea, Mr. Cat.

Ah, yes, for the dog. The dog does not understand what this map is of.

So she explains that the Broken Grid was this old infrastructure that extends under large parts of Michigan, northern Ohio, even into parts of Pennsylvania or Canada. And while it is not all intact anymore, they believe that Jala's rats have a farther reach than many believe.

Well, I wasn't— no, wait, maybe I was. I think I was present. I was present when the rats were complaining that their vehicles had been disabled, and they said it would take them days to get back to Rusgut.

Yes.

So... Regardless of how far that extends, if we are concerned about Rustgut and the rats specifically, I think we would probably still have a few days to worry about whether or not they would have any forces coming.

Oh yeah, she's, she's not worried about them showing up imminently. She's worried about them showing up at all if Hartsby is still under siege. She believes the broken grid goes— that if, if there are still connections between Hartsby and the broken grid under Detroit itself, the rats could potentially move from underground to undermine the defenses.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but we essentially confirmed that they wouldn't be conferring for the ratmen to attack Hartsby if they couldn't in the first place, I would assume.

Right. Yes, correct.

I do think we should proceed as if the rats are not a threat, but also as if there's like a 5% chance they might be.

You know, who is currently, uh, sieging Hartsby?

King Abel. And she shows you on the map where you can tell someone recently has drawn, uh, marks to the west of Hartsby, and you presume that's supposed to be King Abel's forces. And indeed, she tells you that it is. The Psystalkers are camped west of Hartsby in thousands, in their thousands.

So throughout this conversation, we don't have to go through the whole, the whole thing, but Mr. Cat is doing his best not to let folks know that he has no idea what this map is of. Because until this point, he has never seen a map of America. So he's like trying to piece this together. Oh, explain it for the dog, that kind of stuff, to understand the concept of what we're looking at. He knows what a map is. But he has no idea what that map is of.

Oh, that was very clear, buddy boy, already.

Okay.

I appreciate it.

Donna looks to Truth. What was the last communication we got from Hercules?

That they were surrounded, but he thought they could hold out for at least a week.

What greater calling is there to serve a god?

And how long ago was that?

Yesterday.

Why are we not on our way there already?

So Truth says, I don't, I don't know if going there and fighting directly is the best plan, but you all are experienced warriors and I wanted to get your input.

Do we know how much of King Abel's forces are currently committed to the siege?

No.

What do we lose if Hartsby falls?

So Donna would know that Hartsby is a pretty sizable town. There's a very large population. Hercules himself is a Well-known figure in Central Michigan. He and people like Truth have been trying to cobble together essentially a defensive alliance between all the towns of Central Michigan. And if Hartsby falls, that's done.

I don't know how relevant this would be, but at the moment, we know that the grid is there and we have reason to believe that the rats will not be using it. If we wanted to smuggle people in or out of the siege city, that might be a way to change the flow of the battle.

Does the map seem to present that as an option?

There are definitely— you can, you can see on the map there are grid lines connecting Hartsby and, well, Saginaw and Detroit and even Port Sanilac, though Port Sanilac might not be the place you want to enter the broken grid from.

I guess none of us in this group are really strategists.

If I wasn't sitting at the truck, I have thoughts.

Gorshkov's a bit of a strategist.

Do we want Gorshkov, the murderous Soviet ally, to lead this battle?

You're just wrong.

Jacob, Jacob, I will say Truth definitely would have wanted Riley.

Oh, well, in that case, Riley's gonna go, gonna go like Do we know what the grid was prior to the apocalypse? Any lore, history? Can you fill in some gaps?

She shrugs, says, my mother would know more than me, but it was something to do with the Eagle Men, the Neimans.

I don't know.

You know, the old defenders of North America.

Oh.

Have any of us seen a Chaos Earth book?

Oh, shit.

Because if we haven't, then— I know the Neimans are mentioned in Rift's, the first book, but I don't think— did Cassarth exist in '97?

No, for sure, no.

All right, then, yeah.

Uh, my uncle back in the day used to talk about Neiman toads. I don't know if that's the same thing, but they're supposed to be pretty nasty.

Truth tells Riley, as much as she knows, is that it was a Golden Age construct. And it was used to move for military purposes, people think. But they found all sorts of things in them. Some people have claimed to find ley lines under the ground in parts of it.

She—

you could tell she doesn't put much credence to that.

Sounds like some overgrown SAC facility.

Well, I am all in favor of going and helping Hercules.

Excellent, excellent. So she lays out some options as she sees it. You could go there directly overland, try to get through the ring of psy stalkers or brown heartsby to fight directly. She definitely latches on to Troy's idea of using the broken grid though. She keeps coming back to that. The crazy's right though. The rats wouldn't be moving through there likely. They're, they're probably being called back to Detroit itself if Queen Jala is gathering her forces.

I don't want to speak out of line, but I think Chicago could maybe be reasoned with. Just speaking for myself.

Well, from a player perspective, I do remember that the rats seemed concerned about supplying food to their people. I'm wondering if such could be arranged to be like, look, we can't necessarily give you all of this military hardware, although we do have a shitload of coalitions and weapons, but we can probably arrange for some friendly relationships. This is not something that Mr. Cat would ever recommend, but—

On the other hand, we could, depending on how my understanding of those tunnels works, Maybe plant some charges and maybe cut off some of their supply lines and get ahead of pissing them off.

Honestly though, I don't think we have time. Their home is far enough away. We've only got a week Hercules is anticipating. I don't think even if we wanted to go that route and we could convince him, I don't think we have time.

Though we could start heading down through those, through that broken grid, and maybe if we run into the rats, maybe we could have a little conversation before certain cats start Playing with their food.

Kyle, remind me, you did say that Hartsby was what, an hour away?

Yeah, overland it's an hour or 2 away.

And is there anything blocking us from getting from here to there?

I mean, it is surrounded by psy stalkers.

Gotcha, gotcha.

Do we have any idea on the numbers?

Thousands. So the— what— and, and this is something Donna would know. The false moon tribe, the most powerful King Abel's tribe, has essentially forced all the others to to go to to to join this war. And so this is a massive number of Michigan's whole psy stalker population essentially assembled. Right? Like if you imagine in Roman times during the era of the Roman Republic, all these Celtic tribes uniting to fight Julius Caesar or something. It would be that sort of scenario. So it is not a professional army, but it's this mass of savage warriors.

Do we know anything about King Abel's hold over these other psy-stalkers? Like, is there anything we could do to kind of put a wedge between them? You don't know.

You— let's say civilized Michigan And the Psi-Stalkers have not always had the best relationships, so their internal politics are fairly opaque.

In regards to what we can do, if we're in open communication with the Hartsby, is there anything we could bring them to help supply them, if not turn what little tide we could?

Well, so the Torchbearers have significant— all the weapons that you gave them. They certainly haven't outfitted, uh, all of their numbers with them, but yeah, those could be smuggled in. Or if you wanted to try to run the siege line.

I'll just say I'm not looking at doing a repeat of the Immortal 32 in the Alamo.

We certainly wouldn't want that.

Riley just takes a long drag off his cigarette.

Does the—

does the grid happen to go underneath where all the psy-stalkers are hanging out by any chance?

You know what? If you have any sort of a map reading skill or analysis skill, you could roll it. Otherwise, you can just roll a diaphate.

I do have land nav if I can aid you.

Yeah, I've got like, well, I have land terrestrial navigation. I've got outdoorsmanship, wilderness survival. I don't know if any of those kind of makes sense.

Uh, I mean, land nav is about reading. They teach you how to read maps, I'd presume.

Yeah, I'll give you a hand with that since I also have the same thing.

Also, yes, people are—

Same.

Everyone, everyone is looking at the map. Apparently everyone can read maps, so you can have advantage.

I'll even take help from Mr. Cat, who knows exactly what's going on.

I got a 43 under 92. That's one of my best skills.

There you go.

I got 58 under 64 for the main roll.

Oh, nicely done, nicely done.

22 under 45, Deuces.

So this map is old, obviously. It dates back to the apocalypse, and it is faded somewhat, but there is definitely— it looks like to Dark Falcon, a spur of the broken grid that sweeps west, perhaps going all the way to Muskegon. You don't know. It, you know, that part of the map is faded before it gets too far west, but it definitely would go under where Truth has scribbled the location of King Abel's forces.

If a couple of ragtag, ragtag group of cool people went down and maybe placed a bunch of charges down there underneath all the psy stalkers. I just wonder what kind of chaos that could ensue. We do have all these grenades and military hardware.

We'd have to see what the support structure is like when we get under there, but sapping is a valid tactic in this case.

But if it is our only way in and out, blowing it up wouldn't be that wise. We could also use it strategically to get people in and out, weapons.

Well, so the line, the broken grid that comes out of Detroit goes up to Hartsby, but then the, the, the line goes west to where King Abel's forces are. So actually, it wouldn't affect access to Hartsby from the rest of the grid.

Gotcha.

At the very least, it sounds like it'd be worth going to see with our eyes.

What do the, uh, Torchbearers plan to do? Like, what, what's— what are they going to do and how can we assist them best?

So Truth had been waiting for you guys to reconnoiter Port Sanilac, see what was going on there, because they had heard about Coalition patrols. You know, if you didn't show up or whatever, her plan was to try to run the gauntlet and get all these weapons that you guys stole from Muskegon into Hartspeed.

But we could smuggle those in using the grid. And if we go as a group to escort them, I think that would be valuable. Small group escorting the supplies through the grid.

I mean, is— just to make sure, Kyle, that's an option, going in through the grid?

Okay, well, it's on the map. Whether that connection remains to this day, you don't know.

So we have—

But it is definitely there.

So we have no idea if the entire length is passable by the Mountaineer, which is question one. We don't know if it's actually connected.

Well, the grid? We wouldn't be taking the Mountaineer. These are like tunnels.

Right, well, I mean, Riley's kind of going with the fact it was an old SAC installation, so for— in his mind, it's possible that large stretches of it you can drive a semi-truck down.

So, you know, I'm gonna take a step back from the group and kind of give a sniff to the air. It's a long shot, probably gonna be fruitless, but I'm gonna take a sniff and see if I can sniff out if one particular fellow by the name of Dromedary Bocephus just happens to be here.

I mean, you could spend a A point of your handy-dandy metacurrency, if you want that to be the case.

I would like that to be the case. Yeah. We just happen to know an expert in the grid.

Smart thing.

Also, I just want to bring him back.

Fair enough. So she says, do you mean the short green alien guy?

Well, actually, no, I had— he, Mr. Cat, did not Say anything about. He just had an idea and was going to sniff it out. But if it comes to it, then yes, we know someone short, green, and tentacles on his face.

Well, well, since you spent a point, yeah, he's there. Yeah, you smell him, you follow the scent. He's, he's up with the others. Yeah, he'd stayed out of sight. whatever reason. But he's got this patchwork cloak on, uh, and when Mr. Cat follows the scent, uh, he's standing around with a bunch of the other torturers. So anyway, yeah, and, uh, that's how I got here. And I'm, I'm happy to lead you guys through the Michigan wilderness, of which I am of course an expert. And he does not hear Mr. Cat approaching. And they're all kind of looking at him with a little side-eye, not quite sure they believe this. This person.

Bosephus, good to see you.

Oh, mother of God!

No, but close enough.

Oh, hey, good friends of mine. Uh, are we okay?

We're good, don't worry about it. And I, I say it in that way that instills that, like, you and us are cool.

Okay. We cool.

Yeah. Yeah, so he's got these long alien tentacles that kind of look like a handlebar mustache. He's like, oh, well, yeah, uh, it's the dog Is the dog still wearing my jersey? I mean, your jersey?

Uh, yeah, uh, but you probably don't want it back now. You know how dogs are.

Oh man, I love that thing.

I, I know.

I—

yeah, I'm, I'm sorry, man.

That's okay. What can I do you for?

Well, what do you know about the grid between here and Hardsby?

I mean, who told you I knew anything about, uh, the grid between here and Hardsby?

It's Well, you say you're an expert in the grid.

Are you or aren't you? Yeah. I mean, I am. Yes, of course. So?

Do you know anything about the grid between here and Ardsby?

I mean, I don't want— yeah. Yes, I do.

Riley just kind of grins at him and goes, so what do you want?

I don't want to go down there. I, I, I tell you that.

And why would that be?

Uh, I'm sure it's safe. Like, you should go. You could go and I could stay here.

Do we have a bag big enough to carry him?

Probably.

So I'll give you a couple choices, my old friend. Option 1, you tell us what you know about the grid. Or option 2, we go into the grid using you as rat bait.

Oh.

Well, I'm not a huge fan of option 2.

Didn't think you would be.

Yeah.

Yeah, it seems like a bad idea for me. I mean, yes, there are rat men all through the Broken Grid, though I don't know if they range that far north. Maybe they do. You know, Jaller's always pushing 'em, the rat guys. But, uh... I mean, there's a number of things that could be that maybe I have heard about that could live in some of the stretches between, say, Saginaw, where we are now, and Hosby. Not that I would know about cyborg horrors or aquatic mutants or leeches or things like that, but it could be black fairies. I'm just saying that.

Riley just starts nodding and doing the hand gesture to keep going, keep going, keep going.

Okay, look, I've heard that there are black fairies, and I have, I have it on good authority that there is at least one neuron beast.

I'm pretty sure I went to a concert with the black fairies. It's been a while.

I'm pretty sure Mike had a neuron beast shirt. Necrobeast, neuron beast, something like that.

I don't know what I expected Googling Rifts black fairies.

I don't, I don't know.

Fuck.

That's brave of you.

I'm like, yeah, I'm like, uh, you, that's a brave search term. And that's all I'm saying. You don't know what you're getting into.

It's not nearly as bad as I thought it was going to be.

To be fair, it was the second result.

This was the first. That's, that's what it should be. Yeah. How about that sweet Larry McDougall first at art?

But those are the worst things I know about, and psy goblets. Oh, son of a bitch.

Psygoblins?

I mean, they're goblins and they're psychic, so.

Yeah, that's what I kind of figured you meant.

Yeah.

That's perfect. It means that the, uh, nobody will expect us to be taking that approach. And if there's that many psionic creatures down there, they would be throwing up, essentially jamming the senses of the psy stalkers. They're basically camouflaging us from the psy stalkers. It's perfect.

Oh, hey, that's really smart.

Thanks. Have a pancake.

Oh, thank you. These are terrible. He's still just eating it though. Like he gets a second one.

Can we have a bit of a team huddle?

Yeah.

I mean, Mr. Cat just leaning over the whole group.

Yeah. Bronson is too. He's, yeah, team huddle. What's the team huddle?

Are you all dead set on doing this? Aiding these people?

Absolutely. It is the right thing to do, and it would get us in the good graces of a godling.

I look over at—

I like half of what Mr. Cat just said. Uh, yeah, the Torchbearers. Yeah, I've been here quite a few years. I ride or die with these folks.

I thought we were trying to do this so you could get in Truth's pants. If that's not a motivator, I think I'm still in.

I think you might have a shot.

I am sorry for one moment if you ever thought I was cock-blocking you on that, Burrow. Uh, full speed ahead, good soldier.

I'm sorry, I thought he was going for the MILF. Wait, no, is that a term that exists?

Yes, yes, it was.

Okay, cool.

Yes, indeed it was.

Why do you know what that means, Mr. Cat?

He had to watch his owner go through porn.

What do you think?

And we're definitely gonna explain it to your 7-year-old later. Sorry about that.

Just think about all of the things your cats see. Dear listener, just think about that. What if they were intelligent? How would they describe it? Who would they tell?

I want that snipped. I want that audio file.

Oh, I thought you were talking about the cat. We should get that cat snipped.

Well, yes, that too. I mean, who would the cat tell? No one, as long as you did what you were told. Exactly.

So that— so that sound clip with you adding at the end, remember that when I'm begging for treats— asking for treats, cats don't beg.

And I'm—

we got to do something with that. That's just too epic.

I truly believe that if we let Hercules fall, if we let Heartsby fall, that, uh, we've set in motion damning this entire world.

I look over at you two and go, I'm down to save the day.

Sounds good to me.

You know, there's a good chance we're gonna end up getting killed on this one. This is not a go in, pull out halfway sort of thing. This is once we go down this road, we are— there's no turning around.

If anybody in my life believed in pulling out, I wouldn't even be here. Let's do it.

Why don't we just go somewhere that isn't a one-way street?

I would turn to Truth. Truth is still with us, I'm assuming. I poke my head out of the huddle. If we clear the passage, can you get your soldiers and your equipment in through the grid? Can you convince them to go if we clear the way?

Absolutely.

They do have active communications with Hercules, right?

Not so much.

Oh, oh, so there's like— Completely cut off.

Yeah.

Damn. Okay. I was just thinking like, you know, a glitter boy and some focused artillery could be a hell of a distraction should we need one.

Not to mention a dragon boy.

Yeah.

God, I could go for a mortar platoon right now. And boy, are those men— guys assholes.

Unfortunately, boys, I think we are the distraction.

No, I think we're the trailblazers at this point because they're gonna be following us. We're paving the trail. I don't think we have a surface distraction. I was talking about something above ground to kind of keep the whatever size suckers that might be up there not paying any attention to anything that might be going on underneath them due to their weird senses. If they're distracted and occupied with something else, such as like a gooder boy just opening fire into one of their embankments.

What do we— I ask Truth if we know anything of air defenses regarding this, or air aggression regarding this siege.

So as far as she knows, King Abel and the psy stalkers don't— they might have some psy stalkers with jetpacks or Rocket boots or something, but they don't have full-fledged aircraft or sky cycles or anything like that.

Okay, just throwing this out there. I saw this in a Japanimation once. What if you got really, really, really high in the air and you just dropped some metal things onto those psy stalkers? We do have a dragon boy.

Yeah, truth. What if?

Well, you say metal, I assume you mean like bombing them? Is that where you're—

bombing was the idea. The concept I was going off of was the orbital lance.

Like dropping an anvil.

Yeah.

Oh, I see.

It's a distraction and it keeps our dragon boy high enough that he's out of danger.

I know a dragon who'd love to drop some grenades.

Are you talking about this as a distraction or like a route of attack?

Distraction for sure.

Truth is that Truth can be convinced to engage in just about any form of aggression. So especially something that seems like it would be low risk, high reward. She's, she's down. She's, she's not, uh, she's not the kind of person that's going to be like, no, no, don't kill them that way. She's, she's, she's on board.

There's also some, uh, Samus suit pilots that could, uh, do some damage, I imagine too.

Yep.

Well, the problem there is they have one pilot, Daisy Boone, and potentially Mr. Cat. But they don't have any other trained pilots, even though they have other suits.

I mean, we could always keep the flying grenade drop in our back pocket as something we use as necessary. You do have some fancy grenades.

Yeah, I mean, that is an entirely valid tactic. The problem is, is once we get in the grid, there's the entire possibility we'll be cut off from comms.

I guess I was kind of thinking that if we can get down underneath, worst case, if we get overwhelmed, we just cave the grid on itself in front of us. But best case, if we can clear it out, maybe we can either sneak stuff in or maybe we can destroy it underneath and cause some hell to those, uh, psy stalkers up above.

Yeah, well, that would be a lot of explosives, but doable.

Depending on how deep it is and—

Yeah, I mean, we're talking like doing construction demolition on a skyscraper to pull that off, especially if this was built by the military, which means it was probably reinforced to survive bomb strikes.

Truth, do you have any explosive experts?

You would know that essentially Dark Falcon was always their go-to for explosives.

Hahaha, yes, of course, of course. Hahaha. I asked as a joke.

The Torchbearers are big on motivation, but have always been very much making it up as they go along.

Just like every other ragtag bag of insurgents in the fucking world that ends up dead in the gutter, Riley whispers.

Yeah. Yeah.

There's one person with explosives. Uh, I think he's a Slurmpf.

Ah, you hear? I'm a Slurmpf!

I know bombs!

Yep. I was thinking about that.

How do you feel about a suicide mission, Slurmpf?

Sounds cool.

I love this guy. You're a cool guy, Slurmpf.

Oh, thanks. I'm a Slurmpf.

So what if we gave Bronson 2 ATVs, and 3 shotguns. Just cut him loose.

I mean, Bronson would try very difficult— very hard to wield them all.

It's true, but what would he not do?

I don't know.

Sorry, never mind. What would Bronson not do?

Be successful. Be successful.

Yeah, it would not work.

Fair.

The joke was he wouldn't die, but yeah.

Yeah. Oh, oh, I see. Yes, he would not die, but it would not work. Almost certainly. But Justin's like, I'm an explosive expert. Just tell him, Edmundo.

He's an explosives expert.

See?

Oh, you're Edmundo.

Never was an explosion that killed me.

Troy Mundo.

Yes.

I've come to an intermediary name.

Proud of you, Troy Mundo.

I'm sorry, I stopped paying attention. Have we come up with a plan yet?

Yeah, we're gonna blow up.

Yes.

Uh, yeah, uh, Donna here was jumped to the, uh, last stand option, uh, if we're underground and blowing the ground out from underneath them if we're trapped, cornered, yada yada yada. Um, I, I mean, it's a valid last stand option, but I would like us to have a little bit more of a Thought going to them.

For the record, boys, I was saying like we blow up the tunnel in front of us and like we make a daring escape out the back while the explosions are behind us and we look really cool.

Got it.

Oh, we have railguns. How about we just destroy everything that gets in our way?

That's a good plan because Edmundo's wife would probably be mad if he died again.

Oh, I miss her so much.

You never met her.

Riley yells.

Troy reaches across and puts a single finger on his lips.

Shh, shh, shh, shh, shh, shh.

God, you're worse than that goddamn Specialist 4 I had to fucking supervise in Baghdad.

Jesus.

Troy starts to say something several times and stops himself. Just, God, you're so old, man. Let's just do this.

God, what storied lives you boys live, especially you, Troy Mundo.

I can't wait to introduce you to my wife and my girlfriend.

I'd love to meet her. How old's your girl?

I'm not sure. Her tentacles were fully developed, so I'm sure she's mature.

This is fascinating and all, but don't we have some things to blow up?

I think clearing the tunnel— I think clearing the tunnel is a good plan. If shit goes sideways, we can blow some things up. We can shoot the railguns. Yeah, but if we do it right, we smuggle in, we create a way to get food, supplies, troops in and out. That's a win.

So reality is just the 5 of us, 6 if we bring the Slurp, we're not gonna be able to haul all that much there and back equipment-wise.

I do not think that we should go alone.

Was Truth not gonna join us?

That's, that's where my next question, like, how many people do we have so we can figure out You know, how much crap we can drag slash how much backup we got.

Well, if we clear the way, we'd be able to bring whatever we want, right?

Yeah, so there's Truth and then Morthak, Daisy, and about a dozen other fighters here in Saginaw.

I'm trying to get a mental picture of this. Are we talking like Empire Strikes Back, the, the base at Hoth where all those people are just running around? So there's like You know, dozens up to 100 people here, or is it literally just the torchbearers?

It's the torchbearers and about a dozen other people.

Oh, okay. So it's not that active.

No, no.

I can carry a lot of guns with 600 max carry weight.

There's weight and then there's like bulk. So yeah.

My original thought was being a workhorse carrying a wagon.

Yeah, that, that is entirely valid. We put you on sledge duty.

Just breaking the siege opens up opportunities for Hercules. We— if we can get them that opening, that gives them all— the Psi Stalkers are counting on the fact that they have the enemy trapped. We can change that dynamic. I think that's valuable, even if we don't bring a whole lot of stuff with us.

Even if we're able to warn him that there would eventually, should they survive the siege— hey, by the way, I don't know if you're aware of this, but you might have a hole to the underground to your city. Definitely.

Okay.

I say we leave tomorrow morning.

Agreed.

Once it's clear that everyone is at least not going to argue, Riley spins on his heel and goes storming off to the Mountaineer.

Once he's gone, Tramundo turns to Bronson and says, listen, he said 5. He meant 6. He meant you too, buddy.

Okay. I thought he meant me too. You think it's mad? He's still mad because of the bear.

I—

the jerky. Yeah, he— yeah, it's gonna be a long time.

I hate bears.

You know, Bronson, he was probably excluding himself.

Oh, now I feel bad. I'm gonna go give him a hug. And he runs off.

Oh God fucking damn it. Give him one for me too!

Bronson's gonna find Riley listening to Bedouin music in the back of the Mountaineer, chain smoking and drinking a very large bottle of whiskey.

So none of you know exactly how Bronson hug tackles Riley, but you hear the scream echoing through the whole fortress.

And a shout of something that vaguely sounds like, goddammit, you little bastard mutt.

So you've got some time. It is evening. It is not late. There's a storm outside— thunder, lightning, rain. You're going to try to depart in the morning. What is every— we know what Riley is doing for the evening. Presumably chain-smoking and working on the Mountaineer.

Chain-smoking— well, he's abandoning the Mountaineer, given that it's not going with us, so. Um, yeah, it's chain-smoking, drinking heavily, listening to this weird collection of music he got in Tolkien, and, uh, prepping a whole bunch of shit.

Okay. Alright. How does Troy pass the evening? Sean.

Pancakes. We're gonna go with so many pancakes in the morning. Provisions. He kind of gets caught up in it. He thinks, man, I fucked that up. And then he just spends all night trying over and over and over to get pancakes right.

Dustin is there helping.

All of the bad ones go straight to Dustin.

Yeah. He's like, oh, I love this one. And pushes it into his chest. You just see it start to dissolve. And he's telling you stories about things that, uh, well, Edmundo and Dustin used to get up to.

That sounds like a great evening. Troy enjoys that.

Right.

And what about Dark Falcon?

I think Dark Falcon goes and finds Morthak and tries to figure out if he'd be good to bring along or If he'd be too much of a liability to himself.

So, Morthak is of course a young dragon, uh, and despite his, uh, physical abilities in his draconic form, he's still very childlike in a lot of ways. So you do find him curled up in a ball in what he calls his headquarters, which is this kind of tarp tent he's made, and he's got a bunch of blankets in there and furs, and he's just cuddled up Around a bag of grenades that is not Mr. Cat's bag of grenades, that you don't know where he got them.

I'm so proud.

He's fast asleep.

I kind of sidle up to him and kind of prop his head up onto my lap. Hey, Mortheck, you awake?

He's just—

Yeah, I just let him sleep and like pet him and like cuddle up with him and Just nap with him.

All right. And what about Mr. Cat?

The scene that I am picturing is somewhere either in the fortress or maybe outside the fortress or on top of the fortress. There is a babbling brook and Mr. Cat sitting on a stone next to this brook or latrines or whatever it is. Some little bit of water and he's sitting He is sitting in a lotus position. He's basically wearing only a towel and he is meditating. And across from him is Bronson. And he's trying to teach Bronson the art of meditation before battle.

I don't know what you should roll to teach Bronson meditation, but I doubt the odds would be very high.

Oh, no, no. I don't think Bronson's going to learn shit. But I think the situation is Mr. Cat's like, Focus on the inner eye. Then you can more masterfully open it and feel— feel the battle that is soon to come.

Prepare it.

Wrap it inside you. Turn it into an egg. Prepare to hatch that egg at will, and then you will dominate the battlefield.

Mr. Cat?

Yes?

I gotta go poop.

Over there.

It's raining.

I don't see why we need to teach an enlightened being how to meditate.

Do what you must.

It's raining, Mr. Cat. I don't know what to do.

Hold it as long as you can.

Oh, I can't hold it. I've been holding it since we left all the big trees where we killed the rat guys.

That long?

Yeah.

Truly, your willpower is impressive.

We're on a four-wheeler.

Fascinating. Teach me your ways.

Just get really excited, you don't poop, and then suddenly you have to go poop because you ate a lot of pancakes.

Goddamn it.

Okay, I'm gonna go outside in the rain. I don't like it, but I'm gonna do it because if I poop in here, Raleigh will get mad.

That's your call, man.

Oh shit, fuck. And he runs out into the dark.

Alex rules.

Agreed. The others are going about their whatever nightly ritual that brings them comfort. Henry remembers his most fond nightly rituals. Sadly, he cannot smoke weed anymore. Well, I guess he could, but wouldn't do anything.

Bummer dog.

There is a lot of weed in the mountain. Hey, just in case.

Hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey, hey.

Um, remember one of those 2 projects I've been working on for a while there, Mr. GM?

Yes, indeed.

Riley comes walking out from behind the Mountaineer where he's been quietly cursing, drinking, and going through gear and shit, and walks up to, uh, you, big man. I go, hey, can I borrow your dataport a minute?

You can borrow my dataport any day, buddy.

Quick jam the plug in there and download that, uh, file to create the neurological effects of being high in a cybernetic being.

What, this one here? Uh, 420.png?

Yep.

Can do.

You might want to— you might want to set a timer on that. And I immediately unplug and get the hell away before Gorchkov has a chance to realize what the fuck I just did.

What is 420?

You'll find out in a minute, buddy. Run file.

File running. This is— I do not understand. I do not understand what is going on, Henry. I am becoming disoriented. Our sensors must be out of calibration. Performing, performing, performing.

Gorski, Gorski, just relax, brother.

I was going to say something and then I, I cannot forget what it was, but I did forget.

This is not I wonder what a cyber— a completely cybernetic artificial intelligence would be like when it gets the munchies.

Did you ever think that maybe cats are like Satan?

Uh, it's a bit of a well-established fact, kind of more or less, bud.

I just thought of it.

It's a beautiful thing, man. And on that note, I want to find out how high I can jump.

We can jump super fucking high.

Henry looks up to make sure there's nothing above him.

Yeah, there's just the— like, some sections of the interior of the fortress are covered, but then there's some places you'll walk out, you can tell it was like supposed to be this large interior space, but whatever was the roof is gone. And you know, that's of course where it's raining.

And Gorshkov says, Don't worry, I will disengage all safety protocols. Gone!

Alright!

Let's go in 3, 2— and I just jump.

Yeah. So what's the, like, the maximum jump on your rocket boots?

Let's find out.

I hope you've started working on vodka.exe, because Gorshkov's gonna have a request.

Vodka.exe.

I think you just named the episode.

It might take me a minute to find rocket boots in here.

Yeah, yeah, go ahead.

It's the landing you got to worry about.

How high does he go?

Yes.

Is it that he has to worry about the landing or everyone who's on the ground has to worry about the landing?

Do you have the bionic legs for leaping?

Look, Mom, a shooting star.

If so, it's 15 feet up and 30 feet across, increased by 50% if combined with booster jets. I don't know if you have those.

I specifically have bionic booster jets.

There you go. So increased by 50%. So that would be— Jesus Christ. Fucking wow. You can leap. Wow. You actually beat me. Good job. Almost. Almost.

You can.

So 15, so 27.5 feet high and 45 feet across.

So this jump, or do you want to—

I was just going to say, not likely that I've got the orientation in me right now to jump straight up, come right back down.

Yes, but Alex, do you have like a power phrase? What does Henry say when he leaps?

You know what, Gorshkov? It's been a minute.

It's been a while.

And it's been too long. It's Henry o'clock!

So Henry leaps straight up, his— the rockets in his legs fire, and he goes up way past 27 feet. More like low 70s. Because Gorshkov disabled all the safety protocols that are meant to protect him when he lands.

Sweet.

So the top of the arc, it's not this controlled leap as Henry's done before. It's like he's already starting to tumble.

Oh, this sucks. I meant to say quarter past Henry. That was my catchphrase.

I think we're going to be fine. We should be able to sustain approximately 47 impacts of this caliber. Oh, those appear to be hard materials.

And then you slam into the ground, like the side of the fortress, smashing through this wall. You're gonna take a good amount of damage.

Don't you weigh like 3 tons or something?

This is wildly irresponsible, Riley.

Oh, just wait. Wait till we're done wrapping up your vignette and then I'm dropping the next one.

Okay, you take 22 points of damage to your main torso. You slam through a wall, land in another part of the fortress that you hadn't been to. Gorchakov is quiet.

Are we down?

Are we what?

Did we land? I remember flying through air. I am bird.

Gorchakov, shut up, dude, you're high.

You're high, dude.

Dude.

You're like plane caught in amusement park where there are carnies.

Jesus, you're doing a dead ringer for a buddy of mine from the Ukraine when he gets stoned over Discord.

You, you, you, you fly like tree. I love you.

I love you too, you accented bro of mine.

Oh, you know, there is a remaining power in this section. Uh, you talking about command? Command nodes may be active.

Yeah, so you're in some sort of chamber in one of the upper floors you hadn't been to. Not terribly dissimilar from the map room, at least in terms of some of the equipment that's there. And it looks all dead to Henry's eyes. Everything's— all terminals are dark, long black screens. Now there's a hole in the roof.

Whoa, what's all this then?

I don't know. Let's plug in and find out.

Hell yeah.

You may get virus from plugging into unusual parts, if you know what to say.

Oh, Gorskov, I know.

Oh, Becky. Becky, yes. But what? What is Becky?

Another story for another time, brochacho.

Okay, let me direct.

The Gorshkov often outlines things that he wants to draw Henry's attention to, right? In this case, like you see things outlined, but then it's like drifting around like he can't quite get a handle on what he's trying to where he's trying to direct.

No, left. No, my left. No, this is your—

just keep—

yeah, that way. No, not that. That is power plug. It will shock. Well, shock you. Me also. I am inside your head. Do you know this?

Uh, yeah. Speaking of head, and then Henry like jokingly tries to like bonk a cord against his crotch.

That is not where access port is. Not in testicle.

One of these days.

Yeah, so like part of your arm just goes out of your control and like this port pops out and you— it slams into this terminal and then lights start kicking on all over the room.

Oh shit.

Uh, and there's this, uh, new voice that is definitely not Gorchkov and you hear him go, oh fuck, Saginaw Civil Defense Redoubt continuity failure activated. Detroit-Windsor grid, grid, grid, grid collapse. Evacuation corridor. And it just keeps Going through various phrases, talking. It's clearly some sort of, you know, you're not sure, message or update from long ago. Screens start to flicker, various readouts are activating.

What did you do?

I was gonna just ask you.

You put— you pushed your, your penis into it.

You put it in me, brother.

No, you are— I am— I am not.

7.

Right, you gotta be at least like 65 or something, right?

Oh, I don't know.

It is not—

I am a computer program. It does not work this way.

Seems to not work a lot of ways.

That is for the best. Yes. What, what are we doing? Are we in trouble?

I think so. On a quick aside, how long was that timer, Riley?

However long you set it for, sir.

69.

20 minutes.

All right. So what sort of, let's see, signals analysis skills does Henry have?

Great question.

Don't you have read sensory equipment?

I believe, yes, I do. You might do one.

Level 3.

Okay, so you're super high. So there's going to be a penalty.

Okay.

So basically just take 10% penalty.

That's 65 over 40. So I'm going to go ahead and—

or 30. I'm going to reroll.

All right.

That's 56 over 30.

You didn't want to know what it was.

How far are we going to get this?

Yeah, I'm going to burn one more hero.

There you go.

Good luck.

Oh, Gorshkov will give you advantage as well.

How boring. 66, dude.

But you have advantage. You have advantage, so reroll it and take the better of the 2.

Just keep rolling higher and higher.

There you go.

Nothing doing.

So you and Gorchkov go back and forth for a while until finally you hit— so I've not been high very often in my life, or at all, but I have been intoxicated via alcohol quite a lot. And I suspect they're not terribly dissimilar, at least in terms of things you notice. If you've ever been intoxicated to the point that you— your part of your brain realizes there's something making a sound, and it takes your conscious brain a lot longer to realize that, oh, that's been beeping for 15 minutes.

Oh, sure.

Like a microwave or something. So you realize that, except it's this sensor display, and it's showing— it's like cracked and broken, and part of the display is obviously disrupted, uh, but part of it is showing the space immediately above the old fortress at Saginaw, and there is— it is picking up an anomaly hovering steadily above the fortress. It's small, about 2 meters, and clearly the something in the fortress's ancient systems that you and Gorshkov awakened are interpreting it as hostile. And you realize the beeping is hostile drone detected, hostile drone detected, hostile drone detected.

Well, should we Should we look over there?

Uh, probably, probably, yeah.

I vote no.

Well, guess who's got the legs, pal?

Fair point.

Henry just looks up.

With his legs?

He just doesn't move to be a dick about it.

So you, you have to— like, you were deeper in the room than where you smashed through the roof, so you have to modify. But you, you look up and Gorshkov eventually triangulates modulates your eyes that you can see this small drone hovering above the fortress. It's like this winged— it's like this winged hover drone with this skull insignia and all these optical sensors looking down on the old fort. It's black and— or maybe dark blue. It's hard to tell. It looks very Coalition to Henry.

Okay.

So can I patch this footage into anyone who's able to receive it on my team?

You can attempt to do so, yes.

That's what I'd like to do, ignoring any security risks of doing so.

Thanks, bud. I'm glad you have our best interest in mind there.

Don't blame me, I'm high.

Can I send virus.exe to my friends? Uh, you rolled a d20. You need a d100 for that.

Thank goodness, because that was a 1.

Actually, that would have been really good.

30.

Awesome. So everyone starts to get a feed from Henry. Uh, well, those of you that can, can get that sort of thing in your helmets.

Riley hears a beeping in the Mountaineer and goes and checks the relay screen.

Yeah, there's a, there's a cov— uh, Coalition drone, presumably. You're assuming this is live. You don't know why Henry would have stock footage of it.

And Henry is just going, uh...

I can shoot it. I can. Give me control of, of chaingun.

Hold those horse bites, buddy.

I reach over and grab my helmet, catch up on the feed.

I've got this.

Pop the helmet on, activate jetpack, pursue.

So the whole— so Mr. Cat flies up in his jetpack. The whole time you hear Henry and Uh, Gorshkov giggling about flying cats.

I do not understand what is so funny about flying cats.

Flying cats.

You would be superior in every way.

They do not have wings.

What are they gonna do up there?

I don't know. There's no yarn.

Gonna catch a bird?

Well, there are birds.

Yes.

I could go for a bird right now.

So NPC, what skill are you gonna use to try to— what do you— well, I guess, what is your intent here?

If there's a drone, I want to catch it and bat it out of the air.

Okay. There is definitely a Coalition hover drone kind of moving in this, clearly some sort of organized pattern above the old fortress.

Yeah, I'm going to go get it. That's all I got. I'm just going to go get it.

Knock it out, grab it and drag it to the ground.

Yeah. If it's got like a jet engine or something, I'm going to punch it. And so it breaks.

Okay, roll your attack.

Here goes. That's a nat 20.

Oh, nice.

Yep.

Sean, confirm? Yep.

100%.

Thanks, Sean. You gave me these dice.

Uh, so roll double damage.

Okay, so I'm punching it with my armor, my gauntleted fist. That said, I do not personally have enough strength myself to do MD. So whether or not the armor does when it punches, the amount of damage would be 27 times 2. So 54 damage. That's total. And normally it's SDC. I don't know if the armor would make it MDC when punching in the shoving my fist up the butthole of this drone.

I would say you could do like max 1 MDC of damage.

Okay.

I thought you had like supernatural strength though.

Oh no, I just have really high but normal strength, but I do not have supernatural.

Yeah, my augmented MDC is 1, so if it got you up to augmented level, it would be 1 MDC would be the base.

Mr. Cat swoops past the jetpack, slams a fist into this drone.

I'm gonna shove my thumb right up its butt. They don't like this kind of thing.

You definitely— you slam into it, you grab it, you stick your fist into the nozzle or the exhaust, which is hot and does some damage, but perhaps not as much as you were hoping. But you have control of it. It is, it is like tilting through the air. You're in the jetpack, so you guys are kind of like corkscrewing around, but you have it. What is— what do you want to do next?

I'm gonna go meow and then like slam it into the ground repeatedly.

Hmm.

Till it stops moving.

That will be piloting to fly it down to the ground.

Okay.

Wait, would my cat instincts take over? Hold on, we're gonna start kicking your feet. Yeah, I know, right? Yes, actually, I am going to grab onto it and while I'm still flying it, I'm just gonna do my, my That just sort of reflex thing where I start to like kick at it even though I'm wearing armor.

No, it's very— yeah, I get it.

Pilot jetpack, here we go. Made it. Barely.

Fly down into one of the holes to the roof of the fort, slam it into the ground and are pawing it, kicking at it. It's trying to fly up and get out. You're just like slamming it back to the ground. It's maximum cat toying with its prey. And everyone else, you know, you're watching Mr. Cat's feed or you're hearing this vroosh clang, vroosh clang sound as it tries to get up and it's just batted back down.

Shh, just let it happen.

It has a decent wingspan, but it is not very bulky. It doesn't have a lot of lift because it's, you know, basically just carrying cameras and sensory equipment.

This is just going on and on. Yeah. I'm having a good time.

If I may, would Gorshkov have the ability, sober or not, to detect any coming and going frequencies from the drone and have any sort of ability to at one point block them?

Uh, yeah, yeah, he would.

You do have the electronic countermeasures skill. I don't know if that would be appropriate here, but—

That would be a great skill to roll in this situation.

It's true, but I've got 7 minutes left to being high and, uh, Didn't occur to me.

Uh, so Gorchkov can tell you that it is trying to send signals to someone, but since it is now down in on the ground inside the fortress, uh, it's likely not escaping. The signal is likely not escaping the fortress's walls.

Gotcha.

What should we do?

Suddenly Riley comes over the comms. Henry, Where the hell are you sending that from?

Let me tell ya. Henry reaches his arm to the sky, launches his grappling hook, and then it just tumbles back down because it didn't attach to anything. Did you see it?

Uh, no.

Try again. Try it again.

You're right. All right, retracting. Clunk, clunk.

We're trying again. It's fine.

I'm like looking around trying to see whatever the hell he's doing.

Yeah. Did you see it that time?

What if we jumped again?

Do you have a flare? Do you have like a laser rifle?

We have guns.

Henry stares at his, uh, what was it?

You have an arm cannon, right?

I do, I believe. Yeah. Forearm medium laser blaster, which he is currently pointing at his face. He's like, right, I think I got one of those. Then points it to the air and fires.

Yeah, I'm gonna chase the gunshot.

So all of the Torchbearers are like standing up. Well, you know, you could tell on alert because there was just a weapons fire.

Yeah, Donna gets up and I think starts trying to find the crashing sound that came to Earth.

At some point I let it go and then watch it to see what it does, and then if it moves again, I pounce on it.

Oh, it tries to escape for sure. I got it. So you've got it. Riley finally found where Henry and Gorshkov are. We'll say Mr. Cat is in that section. He came down near them. The Torchbearers are all kind of wandering around, going to defensive positions, looking for some sort of threat. What about, what about Donna and Troy?

Yeah, I, I Shoot up and I start moving towards the, the crashing sound that, that came to the earth.

Okay. Yep, you head up to that section. Sean?

Troy gave his helmet to his best buddy to wear while he was cooking pancakes, so he has no idea what's going on and is pretty focused on the sweet science of cooking.

Though you might have heard the, uh, gunshot.

It was a laser blast.

That's pretty common with this group. Like, oh, somebody's shooting at something.

And as Kevin's meat is Very, very clear to point out lasers make no noises. Just so you know.

In Rifts, really?

Yeah. Apparently there's like a setting that you can have added to your weapons to have them make noises, but he's pretty hardcore about stating, calling this out in the rules that lasers make no noises.

Interesting.

I mean, I guess it does make sense. It's cooler if they make noise though.

Absolutely. I like that Henry has probably programmed his weapons to go pew when he fires.

Anytime I jump, it's whoosh.

So eventually you're all in this secondary control room that Henry crashed into. Mr. Cat has the drone in there that he's tormenting. There's various displays on, some of them stuttering, others surprisingly stable, others completely dead. Finally, the drone just stops. Like, it's the fans start to cycle down. It may be giving up.

I've lost interest in it. I leave.

Donna walks up and just, like, puts her fist on it and then just shoots her psi sword into it and then retracts the psi sword.

So you're putting your fist on it and a voice crackles from inside it.

Good afternoon, or evening, I should say. This is Captain John Villain of the Coalition. I don't suppose you'd be open to making a deal?

And we will end on that note.

Thank you, Riley. It's been 16 sessions and I finally got high.

There you go.

So much. Thank you so much.

I've been working on that since session 3, by the way. I have like a whole bunch of long-term projects I've been talking to him about in the background, and this was one of them, just because, you know, deep down Riley actually likes you.

Oh, I mean, we all love Riley.

So the bastard with a heart of gold.

I mean, 2 out of 5 ain't bad.

When you were talking about, Kyle, the noises that the machines were making and all of the computer stuff and that there was anomaly, my brain did not go to Coalition. My brain was expecting some kind of a reference to Archie. And I'm like, oh, and I'm sitting here like, oh, so it's like, oh, it's black and a skull. And I'm like, okay, okay, we're safe.

You and I were on the same page, man.

Like Archie Comics?

No, no, no, no.

That's where my brain went.

No, no, Archie is one of the many big bads in the setting.

Oh, like in the book proper?

Meta big bads.

Oh, gotcha.

Imagine an arch— a, a, a artificial intelligence that makes Gorshkov A, look like a blithering idiot, and B, uh, a pleasant and nice person.

So 420.png.

He's not necessarily evil. He's just weird.

All the serious villains are.

Yeah, he has a different set of priorities.

Yeah.

Were PNGs a file format by '97?

Oh, probably. Probably.

PNGs are—

EXE though, far better.

Or a batch file would be great too.

That's true.

420.bat.

.com.

Yeah, a COM file. Remember when comp files were a thing, people?

MKV. Oh, PNG 1990.

I'm glad that, that it was finally, uh, product. There's some other things that Riley's been working on, which, you know, we'll see.

I like that that was a priority. Let Henry get high again.

I'm so grateful because my answer to what Henry was doing was, oh, I'm gonna go see if Morthac and I can see who can jump the highest. Oh, he's asleep with Donna. I guess I'll just help put stuff together for moving in the morning. It's gonna be very boring.

Yeah, PNG format was— first draft was 1995 and public acceptance was 1996.

Well, there we go.

Longer than I thought.

The movie, the Disney movie Hercules came out in '97, but did it come before or after we left the realm?

Oh God.

I'm not gonna find out.

All I know is that Mr. Cat is convinced we're going to go help a godling.

Oh, I see.

Thank you, Hercules.

Hercules. Hercules. Yes, we'll go help him.

Even though he's specifically been told no multiple times.

He hears what he wants to hear.

I see. You mean he's a cat?

Exactly.

Exactly.

Uh, well, yeah, quite true.

I avoided getting too distracted by the math of the grenade thing, 'cause I'm like, you'd have to fly high enough that they couldn't shoot you, and at that point that you wouldn't have enough time to drop the grenades. They would detonate in the air. You would need to be— I went down a rabbit hole and I'm like, none of this fucking matters. This is a role-playing game.

Also, that's something that I can knock together with a couple Casio watches in about 10 minutes.

I'm just saying the person who would have been deploying them was an unskilled demolitionist. I would be worried.

What if we put just a little bit of tape so it, so it didn't like that, that it didn't trigger until it hit the ground?

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

My, uh, I, I'm, I, I had quickly thought of 2 vignettes and I got the one with Henry. I'm really sad I didn't get the one with Troy and now we're not going to circle back to it.

Damn it.

You never know. Kyle, are we where you thought we would be by this point?

Um, I, I kind of figured this would be more of a role-playing session since it was the full group back together for a couple sessions. All right, well, within a couple sessions, so I assumed there would be more role-playing. Uh, I wasn't sure if there would be fighting or not. I— so yeah, I think so actually.

And we, and we settled on a plan for next step, so—

I've already forgotten the plan.

Imminent death. Suicide mission.

I was, I was Pretty sure you all would be down with helping out Hartsby and Hercules. Hercules, thank you.

Thank you.

Relatively heroic, so.

Us godlings have to stick together.

If we waffled, Donna would have been the guiding light back to the right course.

You're going to fail.

Donna would have tried.

You say I'm going to be a little bit—

No, you're going to ruin Troy's relationship with Mr. Cat. Because his phobia is gods. And if he starts believing you, he's gonna slowly drift away.

So here's the thing.

I—

Mr. Cat currently thinks we're gonna go fight a god, gonna go help a god. And y'all are gonna be like, he's not a god. But then we're gonna show up and he's gonna be standing like 12 feet tall, shining and with gold. And that's a god. Sorry.

I mean, you know, everyone has their own definition.

Anything he looks at could die.

Pretty much. That's godlike power.

Yeah, that's why he needs our help.

Yep.

We can't do it alone.

Listen, listen, he can't look at everybody.

All right.

Yeah. This has been a lot of fun.

Agreed. It's really nice to have the whole crew back.

It really is.

It is.

I'm really glad that our antics in the previous session didn't cause everything to fall apart.

It—

the fact—

I don't know how much meta this is, but the fact that we timed this with introducing the mute or push-to-speak button too, it really— I feel like that contributed to a more measured and thought-out—

Yeah, it definitely does help with that. Well, folks, if you haven't figured out who we are by this point, you were listening to the Glitter Boys. I am NPC.

I'm just Jacob.

And we are joined by regular players.

Cranston.

Alex.

You muted yourself, bud.

Alex.

Troy Mundo. I'm just Troy Mundo now. All right, Sean is gone.

And our amazing remote game master.

Hello, I'm Kyle. Nice to be here.

Woo!

Kyle, where else can the folks hear you?

You can find me on the Bastard Quest podcast. Where we play lots of different games, uh, some of them silly.

And some of them Palladium, including as of this recording, uh, a new one.

Nightbane.

Yes, we're playing, uh, through Nightbane. We're playing an adventure that you wrote for us, which we appreciate.

Hell yeah.

That was actually one of our first ever interactions. You're like, hey, I'm with this podcast, write me an adventure. Yeah.

It's a good pickup line.

It worked. It worked very well. Yeah.

Yeah. I would like to say I did that immediately, but no, it's, it's taken like a year or something for us to get that going. Uh, we're very slow moving through our pile of games on Bastard Quest.

Yeah. And I think folks, if you are listening to both of our podcasts, can date this one by the time it releases and the episode of the Bastard Quest show that we are currently talking about. So it takes a little bit of time for these to come out.

Not, not too long though.

Speaking of which, uh, part of the reason that it takes a little bit of time for them to get out is because you're actually kind of working on 2 of the same episode simultaneously. Isn't that right? One that we send to the normal feed and a special one for our valued folks who help us defer the costs over here and pitch us a little money by Ko-fi.

Indeed, we—

I do, when I edit it now, I render 2 separate versions, one for the main feed and for our patrons who support us on Ko-fi or through the Pinecast tip jar. I have an alternate version that has a whole lot of music and special effects added.

It's very cool.

Very cool.

It rules. I'm looking forward to adding the effects on this one. I've been like making notes this whole time of, yes, I can do this.

Oh yeah.

Can I get it?

Can I get a digital bong rip?

Yeah. Note to self. Digitized.

Bong rip uploading.

The sound the program makes when it activates.

Bong rip.png.

Yes, because every time you open that PNG, it makes a bong ripping sound. Yeah.

Would kind of tickle me the pinkest if it was the voice from MechWarrior, the MechWarrior computer. Weapons online. Systems nominal.

We'll see. We'll see if it's doable.

Bong ripped.

There it is.

There it is. Missing it all night.

We got him.

We got him.

We were a pretty serious bunch this time around. Yeah, we were.

Yep.

Yep.

So, and folks, we also have a merch store if you want to wear. for whatever reason, stickers on your laptop of our logo or tights with our logo on your butt, you can go to Redbubble through the link in the show notes.

You could also turn the tights around and wear them on your front.

You could actually do that.

Yeah, whatever you want to do.

In fact, I think I might make a separate version just, just for that. Yeah.

He's got you covered, Cranston.

With the Glitter Boy's face right there.

I feel like really the moral of the story is just buy it and then Do whatever you want with it.

Yeah, shut up and buy. Thanks.

Cover them in peanut butter, put them on your head, whatever.

Yeah.

Nothing weird. Yes.

And on that note, 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.

Thank you.

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 directly at palladiumbooks.com, 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 Free Music Archive. 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 The Glitter Boys— that's B-O-I-S— and check us out online at breakfastpuppies.com/glitterboys. And also join us on the Breakfast Puppies Network Discord at breakfastpuppies.com/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.