The Glitterbois Play Rifts #005: ALL OF THE BACON

Breakfast puppies.

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

I am a cat, and you are listening to the Glitter Boys.

The first thing I need to know. While I assume that Riley is driving the Mountaineer, as the four of you depart New Lazlo on your expedition into the ruins of Old Detroit, and your guide, Dromedary Bocephus is almost certainly in the cab with Riley because he's the guide. Where is everyone else in the vehicle?

For reasons Bronson is also in the cab.

That makes sense. Yeah. Window down, head out.

I've broken into the grand of weed and hoping it will make it easier to tolerate Riley's driving.

So where that is, I'm probably going to be trip watching you.

Yeah, probably.

Troy's definitely on the top of the storage area, and I just assume he's just kind of laying down and he's just kind of looking up at the sky.

You're catching some major air as you're doing.

You know, that's fine. It's a big area, so, I mean, he's up on the top, but he's not guarding or anything. He's just relaxing.

Yeah, he's watching cloud formations, more birds than he's ever seen because there's less air pollution than in Ohio.

He's not su. He's not super introspective, but this is under a new sky, and he's just kind of taking in this world.

I can almost picture you having bolted on one of those reclining lawn chairs.

If I could do.

We arranged that ahead of time, Riley and I. The lawn chair on the top, right?

Yeah, that's easy to do. You're not like that one senator who had bolted the dog carrier to the top of the car.

And of course, so that means Henry. Mr. Capp. Must be in the cargo, because that's the only way Henry can fit in the Mountaineer.

I was also thinking about weight distribution, but then I was like, I need to remember they usually accommodate big, heavy dudes, especially a vehicle like this.

Oh, yeah. This is a monster.

And, I mean, if you guys are hot boxing, you might as well be in the cargo area.

All right, so you guys departed in the morning. You're now outside of New Laszlo. You were driving on gravel roads for a little while, so you got past the vill that, you know, cluster around New Laszlo, this small hub of civilization in the wilderness of Southern Michigan, and now you're out in the true wilds, maneuvering around the the forest as best you can. This Is not a complete, shall we say, you know, forest from one end of Michigan to another, like it might have been before the arrival of European settlers.

It's.

It is still broken up by large expanses grasslands and, you know, like, clearly some sort of toppled ruin somewhere where the, you know, just odd hills. So there's room for the mountaineer to drive. But you are actually heading north because dromedary insisted that to get to Old Detroit in one piece, you couldn't go due east. He was talking to Riley about something. Let me tell you, pal, you don't want to go straight through the howling fields. That's a good way to get possessed. And then you're throwing up pea soup. Yeah, it's weir. So we gotta go north.

Riley makes no comment, just nods and follows the directions he gives.

Yep. And then there's all those weirdos at the iron Yard. Volcano people. That's what I say. And he's just going on and on about the strangeness of old Detroit. Bronson is hanging out the window. Riley, go faster.

Why don't you come over here, buddy, and just watch me do it?

No.

Don't you want to learn how to drive this thing?

Bronson?

His head is full out the window, tongue just lolling out.

Nope.

I smell things.

All right? I gun it.

So Troy's on top. Bronze. So really, I guess it's just Riley that is potentially aware. Jacob, roll your perception.

Roll my perception?

Yes.

Why was I an idiot? And put away these wonderful dice that you gave us.

You don't. You can tell him whatever number you want.

Oh, I got a six. Oh, wow, another six.

Yeah, I rolled a 17, and I have no bonus to that.

So a straight 17, you are driving through kind of scrubland, copses of trees here and there, and you get to a more thick part of wood, and you begin. You don't notice it right away, but by the third, when you pick up on it, there are strange paths of crushed trees, smashed shrubs, just disturbed ground in patterns that have cut across your route a couple of times. Now, you, of course, have no idea what it is, but your awareness is heightened. So when you hear a sound that reminds you of a roaring train along with the snap of timber and just rustling of leaves and destruction of underbrush, you slam on the brakes in time to hear Bronson go. Riley. It's a giant beetle. And this huge beetle, which you know as risk players, you recognize as a fury beetle. It's approximately the size of, you know, a dump truck goes roaring past the front of the. The Stopped Mountaineer smashing trees and. And ruining plant life. There's no rider on it or anything, but you do hear some of the sounds of, say, yelling and voices and a small group of DBs. They are bipedal humanoids, green skin, kind of brown. Tufts of fur on their heads that kind of resemble dreadlocks or maybe quills. Their necks are long and thin and they are wearing crude clothes and carrying spears and bows and arrows and leaping and howling as they chase after this Fury beetle. There's easily a dozen of them. A couple of them look your direction, but don't really pay you any mind. As they continue in their pursuit, though, a few do slow down and linger and watch. You stopped in the woods. What do you do, Riley?

I'm going to start up and keep going down the road that looks like trouble we don't want to have.

Okay.

Were we from a little later, I'd go fucking crute and drive. But it's 1997.

As a player. As the player. I'm pretty sure I know exactly who these are, Mr. Cat. No fucking clue.

How big did you say the beetle was?

Beetle was huge. Size of a dump truck. It's massive.

Yeah. So it rivals the Mountaineer.

Yeah, yeah.

Which is also why I don't want to hang around.

It's a Fury Beetle you guys would recognize since you've just been playing riffs for.

Yeah, Mike used to love throwing Fury Beetles at us.

Mike loved large monsters. He just loved large monsters.

Oh, Mike Fury Beetle last name?

Yeah, John Villain would always be riding some sort of ridiculously large monster. Yeah. So they do not. These DBs do not trouble you as you start back up and head back on the path. Drum's like, yeah, bunch of weirdos, right? Yeah, yeah. Stay out of our way. He's like climbing over Riley to try to yell at these guys.

I'm just gonna keep on trucking.

Yeah. So you guys are quickly gone heading north. So he tells you. It'll take about six or seven hours on the route you're going before you get to a spot where you can safely observe the ruins.

Okay, sounds good.

You guys continue on through the day. Do you stop to eat, have a midday meal, or just keep pushing? Like how hard are you setting a course?

I like we stopped for lunch because I gotta refire the smoker to keep the bacon going.

There you go. How is the smoker attached to the mountain deer? Bolted. Well, yeah.

You know, it's up in that dump truck sort of area that you described him crawling into and screwing around. With the thing that took his leg.

Sure. Yeah.

Yeah.

The. The.

The storage room or.

Yeah. And it's held closed with a couple, you know, MDC bungee straps.

I. MDC bungee straps.

Well, you know, it's. Otherwise, they're gonna. They're gonna melt in the heat. So you want something strong.

Pop open the vents, all the pot smoke flows out, and then you can kick open the smoker.

Smoker.

I take my barbecue smoking seriously. Just both in real life and Riley as a person.

Yeah. So you guys. You stop for lunch. Riley's checking the smoker. It's coming along nicely. Not too much. Was jostled on the road. Guys are getting out, stretching your legs. You appear to be in just deep wilderness. There's no signs of habitation or anything around you, which, as people from America in the late 20th century, is pretty unusual.

These trees are cool, man. Like, have you looked at them?

That's what I'm Talking about it, Mr. Cat.

Wow.

So did any of your characters spend any appreciable time out of doors in North America during your. Your previous life?

Unfortunately, yes. I mean, I. I did. I was enlisted in the army. I did spend an unfortunate amount of time outdoors. True.

That's true.

Henry was not a roughing it nerd.

I have outdoorsmanship and physical labor. Probably.

Yeah.

Not to the level that Riley was, because I was wise enough not to go into the military, but, you know.

Well, Riley and Troy both can meet, like, not immediately, but after being out in the wilderness for a little while, you start to notice, you know, tree. The occasional tree or. Or plant that, you know is definitely not native. You're not sure if it's from somewhere on Earth or not Earth, but there are things. There are plants definitely growing in Michigan that have never grown here before.

We're talking, like, things that look like they might be out of a Dr. Seuss book.

Yeah.

I can definitely tell you they're not from Ohio, the Great Lakes region, the Eastern Seaboard, or Kuwait.

But they look out of place for the climb that we're in. Is that. Or they just are plants that we haven't seen but are appropriate for this climate. Does that question make sense?

Yeah. Yeah. Everything looks like it would be deciduous or temperate, rather, I guess, but, you know, trees with bark that is kind of like horizontally striped in rings instead of the kind of vertical patterns. And then, as NPC said, stuff that is clearly almost alien in nature, but somehow growing amidst the regular greens and browns of a North American forest. So you guys break for lunch, relax a Bit. Everybody roll your perception. Unless you're, you know, purposefully not being that observant of your environment.

So this is a D20 plus what it says for our perception?

It is, sir.

Okay, I'll give it a shot. We'll see.

Besides, Riley had to break out a new pack of cigarettes from the case he bought.

There you go.

Well, I rolled pretty terribly. And I'm high as a kite, so I don't think Mr. Cat sees anything.

15.

No bonuses.

I only got an 8. But all of my senses are incredibly acute because I'm a crazy.

I got a 7.

7, 8. 15. Alex Henry is, for some reason, turns away from everybody else, is having a moment of introspection. You feel like a sense of heightened awareness wash over you as your eyes automatically. You don't know if it's some setting you hit or maybe Gorshkov did it, but your eyes automatically zoom in on a. You know, like a thousand meters away, deep in the woods. You see a figure. It's a man. He's bloody, half clothed, pale, stumbling. His clothes aren't missing, they're ripped in pieces and being dragged behind him. And he's covered in, like, thick strands of weird, pale rope. And he's stumbling around like he, like, stumbles into a tree, pushes off of it. And even from this distance, with your heightened Borg vision, you could tell that, like, this guy is clearly wildly disoriented and he's actually moving perpendicular to you guys, so he will not, on his current course, run across you.

Okay.

Given the course you've been setting, you shouldn't pass him by either.

Okay.

All right, fellas. There appears to be a brutalized dude running through the forest. He's not running towards us, but you don't see that every day.

Have you not been to Cleveland?

You think I smoke? So, yeah, I inform the party and then kind of look back, be like, where's this guy headed? Kind of like point out in the tree line where he is.

I realize it's a shot in the dark at this point, but someone lost and confused. We are looking for Mike. If he got dumped here, like we got dumped here all alone.

If he's. Because I assume I would recognize Mike.

But it could be that he's.

But he could be in a different body like us.

Good point.

And if it's not Mike, what? It's one loss to confuse, Dude. We pat him on the shoulder and send him on his way.

Mike's in a room with a book.

Okay, Mr. Cat, just don't touch any.

SAP Touch the SAP. Henry, what do I do?

Oh, buddy, we have to give you a bath.

Oh, no.

Or have Mr. Cat lick him.

That would take forever and be hilarious.

Why do you think I said it?

I try to adjust my vision to see if there's anybody visually chasing this person.

You don't see anybody. It's just this guy stumbling, kind of half running. And he definitely has. No. There's no indication that he has any idea you guys are there. Of course you're seeing him from a very long distance.

Sure.

But he's not, like, looking behind himself constantly, like.

No. Okay. No.

Kind of curious. Might go run in and grab this guy, see if we can offer some assistance. I do. And we have an abundance of cloaks. He looks like he could use one.

We only got four of them. There are only four of us.

All right. No clo. No cloaks for this dude.

I will say, though, we got all of the dude dude's clothes. Like, if you can get him back here, we can outfit him with a full set of duds and send him on his way. That'll. Will that make you happy?

We have a total. We. We had a total of eight cloaks.

Oh, was it eight? I. I read that as four.

I'm sorry, a total of eight. And I believe now five have been distributed.

Yeah.

Right.

So one to drum.

Yep, he's wearing it. Yeah.

If you get him back here, we can get him some clothes and maybe one of the cloaks.

Yeah.

Okay.

Right on. Well, I have been practicing this, and it is time. I would like to jump to the treeline and.

Okay. How far can you jump?

Oh, how far can't I.

It could take several hops.

Let's see here. I've got the bionic booster jets, which I don't have a. Oh. Not that we're necessarily factoring those in, but even aside from that, I feel.

What do you have, like, a jump distance?

I know, I know. Your jump was pretty awesome.

It was pretty great. I figure it's enough to just get me to the tree line for at.

Least 20 or 30ft. Yeah, yeah.

Maybe I jump twice, and then I start, you know, jogging briskly through the trees.

Sure, yeah. So Henry's bionic booster jets blast off. Gorshkov is saying something in Russian. It sounds like he's monitoring diagnostics or something. You slam into the ground amidst the trees, smashing a pine sapling in half. Is anybody running after Henry?

That tree, man.

I'll run after Henry. I'm still.

Get me.

It's a good chance to try out the new peg leg some more.

This is entertaining. I'm just gonna watch.

It is no problem at all for Henry and Troy to run this guy down. And as you get close, you're closing in, making lots of noise, not being at all covert. And this guy doesn't register you at all. He's got dark brown hair, kind of a thick beard. His eyes are just wide open and wild. Sort of like Mr. Katz, but way worse. He doesn't stop until he like, blunders physically into Henry. And he. He bounds back tree. And he tries to like. Like he's. He's moving his hands in front of him like he's pawing and. Like somebody pawing in the darkness to try to feel their way. And he's trying to get around Henry.

Okay. Like, oh, hold on there, man. You look like you're in need of some assistance.

Who's there?

It's just me, Henry. I got some bacon.

What is this trick? This is another trick. And he's stumbling back away and he tries to run.

Whoa, whoa, pal. You know, waving my arms like I. We come in peace. We come in peace again. Waving the bacon that I pulled from my. My thigh compartment.

You and that bacon.

Yeah. So he. He stumbles. Like, he stumbles away, falls into. Down the. The side of a small creek and splashing amongst the water that's flowing there, just kind of scrabbling away on his hands and knees.

Has Troy caught up with me or were we running pretty okay, like Troy, you were. Always had a better way with words. Maybe you can reason with him.

He's not.

Yeah.

Player to gm. I will not let him get away from us. It doesn't sound like he can.

No.

I will continue to follow him. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, buddy. Because you got that weird cyborg voice. Yeah. Listen, man, listen, listen, listen. We're. We're here to help you. Chill out. Chill out.

Who are you? All the eyes are Jim's except one. There's only one.

Who's Jim?

I'm Troy. We're looking for. We're looking for an old friend of ours named Mike.

Mike?

He doesn't look like you, but he might look different these days.

Torben. Torben. Torben. Oh, they're all in danger. You're in danger. Who are you?

He's clearly.

You're not it.

Are you clearly blind? Right?

Oh, yeah. Like.

Like his eyes are missing or he's just acting like he can't see.

He's acting like he can't see.

Okay.

And like there is around his eyes, it looks like there. There's, like, scarring and, like, clearly some sort of small burns. And his eyes are just pale and. And kind of. What's the word?

Milky.

Milky. Yeah.

Okay.

Who are you in danger from?

Oh.

It'S the one eye. It's just got one eye. The others are all chips. Jules. Jules. Gems. And. And, like, he's like. So. So what are you guys doing? He's kind of just wallowing in the mud.

I'm gonna try and get an arm around him, kind of lift him up a little bit and be like, listen, listen, listen. We don't know anything about eyes and gems, but come back with us. We've got a guy back at our truck who knows this area better. Maybe he knows about the gem eyes and can figure out what's up. We don't. We can't just leave you out here, man.

Like, you put a. You put one hand under his arm and lift him up and, like, he, like, is almost is shaking and. And feeling of you. It's like you're. Oh, you're a person. You. You have nipples.

I do. Thanks for noticing.

Must be nice.

And he's a feeling of. Of Henry. Oh, you're metal. Metal's good. Metal's good.

We're real, and we're here, and we're gonna. We're gonna get you out of here for now. All right?

Yeah.

No more running around randomly.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh, I think Vera and Erasmus are in danger. I don't know about Quinn. I don't know about Quinn. I didn't see what happened.

Well, here, pal.

Do you have audio recording?

No.

Audio recording engaged.

Oh, yes. I just want to make sure that those names that he said, that we have, those, like. Listen, listen. I'm gonna. I'm gonna pick you up. Don't freak out. We're gonna carry you back. I just don't want you to accidentally run into any trees.

Okay? Okay. Thank you. Yeah.

I offered a fireman carry him to the one of us can.

I'm sure. Yeah. We're both grossly strong. Yeah. So we will carry him back.

So you guys are carrying him back, and while you're going Gorshkov's instead. I literally record everything. Oh. All I have detailed files.

Yeah, you're right. That. That is definitely him.

So is it. Are the files written in Cyrillic?

Yeah, of course.

But he can read them back to us. I. I could actually. I didn't hear any of that. I'm just seeing you when you speak to him. Do you speak out loud.

I do.

Yes.

Yes, definitely does.

Oh, yeah. But yeah, we will. We will be feedback with this guy gave us a name, but.

Torben.

Torben. Torben.

So you guys come out of the woods. You can see the Mountaineer and everybody else. Bronson charging up to you. It's like, that's not Mike. He does not smell anything like Mike.

I confirmed you lied to me, Mr. Cat. He doesn't smell like Mike.

Mike's in a room with a book.

This man doesn't even have a room.

Bronson. Bronson.

Yes.

Do I actually smell like Riley still?

He runs back to you. Yeah. Wow. Of course you smell like Riley. Everybody smells like who they are.

Okay, that answers the question.

I could have told you that.

Does this guy smell weird?

Define weird. You're in riffs.

Does he smell like a human? Which is a weird thing to ask. I'm not Bronson. But again, I keep forgetting that, like crazy's also get stupid crazy senses.

Yeah, I would say he does. He. He doesn't smell like any. Yeah, he smells like a person.

Okay, cool. Does he have any open. Any obvious open wounds?

He has a number of obvious open wounds.

Okay. And his clothes have been ripped off of him. And he has a bunch of tendrils around him. I'm just trying to make sure I'm visualizing the right thing.

So it's these thick strands of weird kind of pale like rope or cable that are very sticky when you touch them and like.

Like spiderweb for a very big spider.

Like spiderweb for a very big spider.

Or the world's weirdest bondage party. His riffs. So who knows?

Make it easy to cut TVs from the sex dimensions.

See Troy saying all of that aloud?

Yes.

Yeah. So you set him down. He says, why do you smell like bacon?

That might be me. Or the smoker that's probably churning smoke out of the.

Yeah, Yeah.

I think you turn to see that I have opened the smoker and I'm just standing in front of it.

Cat, don't let the smoke out. Otherwise it won't taste as good when you get to eat it.

Fine.

But Mr. Cat will smell delicious.

If you're good. I'll give you the drippings jar.

I. I spent a lot of time in the last few days sleeping.

I am conflicted. That sounds delicious and gross at the same time.

Just wait till you try it. I haven't met a cat yet that wasn't all over a barbecue drippings jar. Though you might have to fight Bronson for it. I Know who I'm putting my money on?

Sir, we've seen it's going to be messy. What's that? What's the name of the guy who's helping us? That's an in character question, too.

Dromedary.

Bocephus or Drum, which is way easier.

Or.

Bro said it was in character.

Yeah, yeah, Dromedary Drum.

This guy's talking about eyes. Gem eyes. Does that ring a bell to you?

Yeah, like one. Good.

I'm getting spider webs here. Maybe some kind of spider that's got gems for eyes.

Oh, yeah, these are definitely spider webs. For sure. Yeah, See, you can tell by the way it's sticky, huh? That's why you got a guide.

Yeah, it's also giant. How big are the spiders here?

Oh, I don't know. I've never seen a giant spider.

Just the thickest, ropiest spider webs.

Hey, pal. Hey, pal. And he's kind of smacking the guy. Where's the spider?

Wait, was that Drum or was that Bronson? Okay, okay, still. That's squid face.

I would never smack a man that didn't deserve it.

Then I'd put. I push drum over.

I. I have, yeah, he falls over.

Far less gentleness. If it's not Bronson, like, whoa, buddy, knock it off.

So the man, Torben, he seems to be gathering some of his wits about him. Poisoned, I think. The others are captured. It is a death weave spider. It has one eye.

Spiders are gross. I'm going to sleep.

Riley, is there any kind of uppers or something we could give him that would help compensate for the pain and the poisons?

Do I look like a fucking doctor?

First aid, fucker. Actually, we don't. Troy probably doesn't call you fucker. He's not in that mo.

I collect some weed from the giant, you know, barrel of weed.

If we can get a. I don't know what. I know first aid. You do not want me to attempt it?

Fuck.

All right, fine. Hey, while you're getting that, I gesture vaguely towards the bag of clothes that we still have, the travel bag with colorful shirts, socks, belts and underclothes.

Oh, yeah, I'm always the go to guy. Save y' all a couple of trips.

Apparently, no pants, but, you know, who needs pants?

Henry goes in, collects.

Collects some items and I'm going to try to first aid this dude.

All right?

May the Lord have mercy on your soul.

And I'm just going to keep him talking because that'll so he's not sweating the first aid he had some friends. He was the only one that got away. Kind of fish information out of him but distract him from whatever Riley's about to do.

That's what it seems. He keeps saying their names over and there. Vera. Erasmus. I don't know about Quinn, but I.

Fucking could have sworn I have first aid. But I do not have first aid.

Oh, well.

So I guess it's all you, sir.

Perfect.

Like, what the fuck? What am I?

A doctor can use your peg leg if you have for his mouth if he has to do any surgery.

Hey. This man performed some of the most amazing battlefield active battlefield surgery that we've seen in the game so far.

That's very true. On himself.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. I guess. In that case, I'll take whatever we have. I'll attempt to perform a first aid. Does any. Do we have a first aid kit?

There's got to be one.

I assume the raid. The Mountaineers got one.

But you can tear up some clothes out of the clothes bag.

I'm more worried about the poison. You know, something to help with the.

No Henry roots around for first bacon.

You know what? We do what we can.

I'm sure there'd be a first aid kit. One of those small metal first aid kits that are sometimes in vehicles like under the glove box.

Riley walks back to the smoker, swearing in Arabic.

Yeah, yeah. I'm going to do what I can. Man this. I'll try not to. Try not to make this hurt.

Here you go.

Thanks. Thanks. Unfortunately, I'm in the limelight, so I'm gonna be at minus 5%. Cause I'm a crazy.

Oh.

Oh.

Well done.

Well done.

You would think if the kit gives me a bonus, I only have an 18%.

Well, you rolled a 10.

No, I rolled a 19.

I'm down by five. So I'm effectively a 13. And I rolled a 19. If the kit gives me any kind of bonus, then I would make it. Otherwise I fail slightly.

So you dress his wounds. But there's no sort of anti poison medications in the first aid kit. You know, that appears to be a bit. A bit beyond it.

That's fair.

But he does seem to be becoming more coherent as time goes on. It's like, are you warriors? Can you kill it?

Yeah, yeah, we're warriors.

We seem to have killed most things that stood in our way so far.

Here's my opinion, gentlemen. Bronson. If we take the fight to this thing, then we meet it on our terms. If we wait, we might get ambushed by a giant goddamn spider later. And I don't yet have a phobia of spiders, but if I get ambushed by a giant spider, I probably will. Just gonna go straight to level two and get that phobia. Fuck. That's my opinion.

That's fair. Npc.

Yeah.

Where's the Dagger of Rostam?

It is on my belt.

After you walk away, I'm not sure what Mr. Cat was walking away to do.

You can see he's starting to crash at this point. Yeah. You wanna go find a place to curl up and go to sleep?

There is no time to sleep, my friend. This is the voice of the essentially the paladin that inhabits the dagger.

Hello.

A Death Weave spider is more properly known as a Death Weaver spider demon. Oh, we must hunt.

Can you make this go away? I'm like holding this knife and twirling it around my head.

I shall provide you with clarity. And so there's this jolt of energy that goes down your arm from the dagger. It's not exactly painful, but it is clearly noticeable as not a natural bodily movement. And it drives out the lethargy that was set again. And any hint of intoxication.

Oh. Oh, yeah. I'm picturing the 8 foot tall Catman version of the Halloween cat pose. You know, the arched back hair stands up for just a moment and then it settles back down. Well then, can you heal?

Yes.

Excellent. I look over to where Troi is kind of sort of fumbling around with this kit. I hold this knife and I walk forward again. I'm an eight foot tall, menacing looking cat holding a knife forward so good that look down at this man. Realize this man can't sit, can't see me. Crouch down. Hold on a moment. I must stab you.

Whoa. Simply place me upon his brow.

It won't hurt. And I do so.

Okay. The healing abilities on the dagger have six charges. Did I give you this information?

You did. Let me pull it up.

It used one charge to wipe away the effects of the marijuana.

Okay. And so I use another charge to do the healing effect on this man. And I understand I can't get the charges back unless I leave it out in the sunlight for a time.

That's right. So we're going to call this removing a curse? Basically.

Oh, okay.

So it's base 56% chance, but you can add another 10% to that for each charge that you expend. Obviously, you have to expend at least one to get the base 56. So theoretically you could get that up to 96 if you spent all the charges.

But for three charges. You could be 76. That's pretty solid.

This is true.

That's. Yes.

And that'd leave you two charges left.

What's his life worth to you, Mr. Cat?

You're going to be the voice of the devil on one shoulder, aren't you, Jacob?

Yes.

Okay, 50 plus 10%. Got it. So, okay, I'm going to boost. I don't know what I'm. Okay. So Mr. Cat doesn't really know what he's doing and it's just kind of like fumbling around as he's learning the concepts of what this dagger does.

Sure.

He's still coming out of this haze. There's an ethereal man telling him what to do. He's moving down. He's going to remove the curse and he's just going to go all in. Just push it forward and make it go away. So all in.

Cool. So, yeah, so you're at 96.

If you roll 97, I'm going to laugh.

Okay, that's a 2 22.

So the blade flares bright white and there's this wash of pale energy that flows over this man named Torben, almost like water in some ways. And it finally settles into the earth and disappears. And when it's done, there's this moment of silence as everyone just watches kind of. What the hell was that? Then the man, you know, his eyes flicker and they're clear eyed and he's looking around. Thank you. I did not think that I would be seeing anything for quite some time. And he kind of gets to his feet. I am Torben Wilson. And now that the poison from the monster is not addling my brain. I am a mystic and a dimensional scholar from New Laszlo. My companions and I were caught unawares by a terrible beast. I'm not. I'm sorry, I'm not sure what I've spoken of and what I haven't.

He had some friends apparently.

Yeah. So he explains that his adventuring party was essentially ambushed by this death weaver spider and they're all caught up in the webs and he escaped. He's still not sure how he escaped, but he is a mystic, so he has magic and psionics, you know. And then once he has the senses, he essentially beseeches you for help.

What time of the day is it like?

I guess it's afternoon at this point. It's not dark yet.

And it wouldn't be dark by the time we got to the ruins if.

We ignored this man and just carried on. Is that where you are?

I'm wondering if it's. If we're gonna need to stop before we get to the ruins anyways. Cause my understanding is we wouldn't want to go there after darkness.

We don't want to get there.

So maybe we stop and have a little side adventure. We have to stop anyways.

Strange man.

Yes.

From your current vantage, looking around yourself, do you know where you are in relation to where you were?

He looks around, gets his bearings. Is like, I've. Yes. He looks at this position of the sun, I believe I can lead us back.

How far would you say?

That's a few miles, but no more than that.

I push a shotgun into his hands and say, well, let's fucking move. No time like the present.

Yes. Okay. You guys gonna leave the Mountaineer here?

Can the Mountaineer make the drive?

So he was coming out of the deep woods.

Okay, so that was my assumption that we wouldn't be able to take it into the woods.

I mean, you could knock. Literally knock over trees.

We want to bring Bronson. Or leave him here to protect the truck and the Squid Face guy.

Squid face.

Whatever.

That's right, Dr.

I guess not. Squid face. Tentacle mustache. I can't remember. Just.

Yeah, we. I guess we could leave the two of them behind.

I'm taking the keys with us.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Put it on lockdown mode or what have you.

Dang.

Leave one window, Riley.

I don't trust this little goblin man. Bronson's, like, looming over Dromedary. Hey, hey, hey. I gave you the jersey and everything, dog. I don't know why we're not friends. They go back and forth. Bronson's just giving him this mean look.

Listen, we're not going anywhere till tomorrow morning. Something gets wrong, goes wrong. I want Bronson to be able to have the keys. Why don't you just have Bronson swallow the key? We'll get it back in the morning.

Are you gonna pick it out of his poop?

I've done worse. Are you pleased to have a cat?

Are you gonna have him tear those keys? Tear up his insides, God damn it.

Okay, fine. That's a good point. That's a big, ugly, spiky key. I still say it was a good idea.

I'll risk it.

I had a Rottweiler that would eat everything, and keys were small potatoes.

I would risk my bowels for you guys.

That's fine. I don't want you to have an upset stomach. Just promise, promise, promise you won't eat all the bacon before I get back. We got those.

We.

I point to the.

You're giving the key to the truck, but not to the smoker. The smoker key.

I was not smart enough to put a lock on the smoker. I am rethinking that plan. Now. I point to the four heavy bundles of dried meat hanging on hooks wrapped in cloth and go. If you get hungry, knock yourself out, buddy.

All right. I'll probably just take a nap.

We should be back quick. Then we can camp here for the night and we can hit the ruins in the morning. Easy peasy lemon squeezy.

Yeah, just give me one sec. And Riley goes in the cargo area, grabs two packs of cigarettes, the cigarette box, and a bunch of bullets.

Oh, yeah. I make sure I have my rifle pop on the plastic man armor. Cause I generally just don't wear it normally unless I'm expecting to go into a fight.

What are you generally wearing? Asides from the cloak.

He'S not used to wearing clothes.

So you're free balling when I'm thinking.

He'S just wearing pants. He's had the same pair of pants that he found in that barn since the beginning. His concept of fashion isn't there.

We need to get him spandex shorts.

If you get him that, he'll probably wear it.

Yeah.

So, Jacob, when Riley was pulling bullets out, he noticed about half of the bullets, which previously had all been 9 millimeter rounds, were now shotgun shells.

Jesus Christ. Okay. Like randomly half?

Yeah.

Okay.

Are your bullets transforming the kind of bullets do you.

Never mind.

I didn't see that.

It's.

It's a long story.

Okay.

You got a shotgun, don't you?

I do. Technically. I just gave it to old boy to fuse, but yeah.

You might want to take that back.

Yeah, he gives it back. He's. I. I don't know how to use these. Thank you, though.

But you can. You've got spells. Could protect yourself. All right, then I'll take a handful of the shotgun shells that Riley provided.

So I hand you six shotgun slugs.

All right. Is there any.

Those will go through anything with that is MDC and find the vital bits.

Awesome. I will lock and load a couple of those.

So just to confirm, you're wearing a suit of plastic man armor except for the chest.

Correct. And I'm definitely not wearing a shirt. It's not like I got a cool shirt there.

Just.

There's a reason the NPC immediately was like, you're real. You have nipples.

Like.

Yes, I do.

So I think we discussed this on the session where you said you were going to Go breastplate free.

Yes.

So essentially, if you get hit and you're not able to dodge or parry, you'll get to pick. Unless the enemy does a called shot, you get to pick where you take the hit.

I'm assuming that generally I'll probably just opt to take him to the arms most of the time with the idea that he's kind of got his arms in front of him.

Sure.

But yeah.

Really?

You're not a lead with the head kind of guy.

That's where I have the most armor, believe it or not. 30 in the head. That's good old plastic man.

So the plan is obviously Torben will guide you to where this spider is nesting. Are you guys making any plan, taking any special precaution before you head in that direction? Obviously, I know some bullets have been distributed. You're taking you the appropriate weapons and armor and so forth.

I think we should get a breakdown of what all he can do. He's a magician. Was that established?

He's a mystic.

Mystic, that's right. If he has anything that can specifically aid us either in especially like defenses, poison, curing.

If that comes up again, yeah.

He tells you that he can sense if they get close enough, he'll be able to sense the location of the creature. So even if he doesn't remember exactly where it is, he will be able to lead you there. Much of his internal energies have been depleted, but if need be, he could potentially reach out to use something like clairvoyance.

Okay.

Because you know, shockingly, he used a lot of PPE and ISP when they were fighting it, so.

Makes sense. So we're going to keep him in the rear.

Yeah.

You're closed. Torben. Is that all messed up from escaping the web or running away? Are we going to need to bring more clothes and maybe first aid type stuff with us? We're going to be doing rescue ops.

I don't remember where it was ripped. I assume it was facing the creature more so.

I'm sorry. Thinking about your compatriots?

Oh, well, I don't know. But I appreciate you thinking of them. I'm sure they'll just be happy to be rescued if we can get there before they're consumed.

Fingers crossed. Clank.

I'm getting antsy. Let's go.

You guys set out. It's around three in the afternoon and you head into the woods. This particular forest is definitely very thick. This is not a, you know, recent growth. This has been going for a while. Probably since the apocalypse. This forest has been growing really large. Trees. Trees. Decent spacing between them because the trees have grown large enough that they've just killed everything that might grow up at their bases, but not wide enough for cars to get through anything crazy like that. And Torben essentially takes you back to his path, and you guys start retracing what you can tell are his steps. And when you get closer, you do start to see bits of spiderweb in trees, and that becomes more and more things. Thick. You guys stop for a moment, and he focuses, closes his eyes, meditates, and then points this way. After a few more minutes, you're in this very dense part of the wood. Very tall trees, very thick canopy overhead. And there's just this mass of pale spider web all through the trees above you. It's hard to see, but there is definitely like a large black mass at the center up in the trees. It's unmoving, kind of seated at the center of this very intricate web. And you can see here, and there are multiple large impressions in the web where it looks like there might be maybe a person, maybe some large animal cocooned.

Oh, I. I'd like to try a couple things before we move in. I feel like these are probably going to be obvious, but I'm going to use them anyway. I've got sense psychic magic energy. And since supernatural beings, I don't know, could come in handy.

Is that a psychic power you just activate.

These are the. Yeah, the. The battle cat psychic abilities. Bronson has them better than I do, but he is not here.

Yeah, right now Bronson is eating all of the. The bacon.

I failed at the sense psychic magic, but I can sense the presence of supernatural beings around me. That wouldn't succeeded.

Okay, what's the range on that?

Oh, you had to ask me that?

Indeed, sir.

Yeah, yeah, let me pull that up real quick.

What is it? Sense what?

Supernatural beings. Range is 200ft.

Oh, okay.

I can identify. Let's see. Same as the dog boy. Identify specific type of paranormal creature. Includes intelligences, gods, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. I can also detect possession. Interesting.

Cool. Okay, so, yeah, you can sense a supernatural being exactly where it looks like the spider is.

Okay.

It's right at the edge of your. Your sensory abilities. And it's. Yeah, it's like a spider. Its legs are close in around itself and it's this big black mass. Doesn't appear to be looking in your direction or anything. At least you can't see like any reflection on eyes or anything of that nature. But on its abdomen is this image that looks like an inverted human skull.

Is this. Is it an alien intelligence? A God? A demigod? A demon? A vampire, a dragon, or any other kind or. What specific type of paranormal creature would it be classified as?

It is a demon.

We have demons ahead of us.

Like, more than one.

I just sensed the one. I just sensed the one.

Right.

Correct. You just sensed the one.

Okay, Mr. Cat this. You could have lied to us here. We didn't have to know it was a demon. Who could have just said it was a monster?

I shared information to keep you operating at peak performance. Don't let me down.

I. I think we might be too late. Cocoons.

There's still a chance you saw. You saw aliens? You know, maybe they don't have a little thing in their chest. Like we might be able to rescue them or they might be all dead. I don't know.

I didn't even think about them having chest burster spiders and. Holy sh. I'm. I'm going. Stay down here.

We must go. It will be like entangled cash. Remember, I am Danny Glover. You are Mel Gibson.

So I. I'm just assuming that Gorshkov turns on the audio port to where he's audible to everybody else of his own accord at this point.

Or is he just talking?

Or is that just a meme?

I think that would have been to everybody.

Yeah, I like the idea of him.

You need some kind of hand signal when it's Gorshkov talking to everybody.

Riley, do you still have that stick?

Which one?

The big one that we got from the dead man.

It's in the truck.

Damn. The rod of killing that guy or something.

Yeah, I forgot. I got that giant sword too.

It's heavy, man. I didn't think to carry it around with us. I thought we were going in a cave or something. And what it does, doesn't much work in there.

I'm all, like, pumped up to kill this thing and y' all are letting me down.

What?

So I already had an idea, speaking as the player.

Okay?

So I figured we're gonna be dealing with a web. Aforementioned web. We're in a forest. Lots of coverage. I go to the edge of the web and just build like, oh, no, my hand's cut. Oh, no. Just shake the web up a bunch so the spire's like, oh, what's shaking up my web? Early dinner? Little dessert?

Maybe there's a demon.

Well, if you're going to do that, I'd recommend you don't stick.

You don't smell like food either. Let Me, I could do that.

That's why I'm relying on the motion of the web. Assuming they work like regular spiders, which, you know, totally. Why wouldn't they? Then surprise attack.

We jump him.

You guys jump him. While I'm like, oh no, I've got a knife.

It's especially effective if you yell surprise attack.

That's Henry's idea.

I have a question. Did you bring the giant two handed black sword?

Yeah.

Okay. Just wanted to make sure.

I'm bristling with weapons.

That seems to be the only idea we have, so.

That's not true. I also had the idea of walking away cuz they're all dead, to be honest. But you know, whatever.

Oh, oh, Torben. Torben. Do you sense your friends? Are they still alive?

I hope so. I mean, if you want him to. To use magic to attack, attempt to tell. He would. He would try it.

I don't see why not.

Yeah, we're. Yeah, we're already here.

I am going to take a few steps away from him though, when he uses. Actually, honestly, folks, play your time. I think we should spread out.

Oh yeah, yeah, yeah.

We should not be clumped up here all talking about what we're gonna do. I think we should spread out. Yep. Henry. Alex. I think the. The shake the thing is fine, but I think we should make Troy do it.

Okay. Yeah.

Because it's a crazy thing to do.

Yeah, I could do that.

Yeah, that's all right.

It's not like life is worth living anyways.

You're picking that up, huh? Yeah, I could do that.

I do think rushing into its web to fight is going to be dumb. So if we can pull it closer. Yeah.

Get it to the edge.

Yeah, that's a good idea. Well, I'll just. I'm gonna head that way. Just. Yeah, let me know.

When were we gonna have him cast that magic? Or his use his sense powers?

If it's gonna cost him what little like energy and, you know, life force he's got for the day, I'm fine with him not.

Okay.

Yeah, but if his friends are already dead, which they probably are, if he knows, then that'll be better to know. Just, you know.

Torben, pal, what do you think? If your friends are already dead, do you want this spider dead too?

So he says, let me meditate. And he goes and sits behind a tree, back against it and falls into a meditative stance. But the voice of. Of Rostum is loud in Mr. Cat's mind. It does not matter if his friends live or die. The demon must be destroyed.

In my mind, I'm going to respond to him and say, we are in agreement.

They're already. If they're already dead, we can set the web on fire, find out if they're alive.

I had already checked my sheet to see if I had anything fire related and was sad to find.

No, the guy is a chain smoker. We got a lighter with this.

Okay.

It's probably a magic lighter, to be honest.

One of each.

So after a few minutes, Torbic comes back, says, I. I cannot be sure, but I did foresee a future in which they lived.

That works for me.

That's a good sign. I like those odds, Troy.

I walked over. If I. If I could still can I be at the edge of the web to pull and still hear this conversation?

Yeah.

Thumbs up. All right. I've already got an arm just like twisted up in the web.

You just looking at us crouched next to the web like, great, great. Super sarcastic face. Thumbs up.

Double thumbs up. Yeah.

So Troy is going to be triggering the spider web.

Yeah.

And where is everybody else? Kind of in relation, I guess.

I would like to be like 10ft ish away from him, kind of hiding behind a tree.

Okay.

In my mind I'm seeing there's this demonic spider at the middle of a web. And that web probably has a roughly ish circular region.

Yeah.

So I want to move like around the outside of that region. We're not close enough to get stuck in the web, but close enough to. I don't know, it's hard to flank something in a web, but.

Yeah. Especially if we're drawing it to a corner of it.

Yeah. Yeah. I do want to get. I would say about 40ft away. 40, 50ft away from Troy.

Okay. Yeah, gotcha.

Around the circumference.

As excited as I am about the idea of fire, we could create a forest fire through doing this. Lighting it on fire too. It's like, oh, we could light the other end on fire. Get him real confused. Oh, wait.

I was so close to going on a quest in the last town to find a TW flamethrower, and now I'm mad at myself for choking down that desire.

Oh, it would have been glorious.

Glorious.

Oh, and I am going to be trying to sneak. Sorry to interrupt. And do some prowl real quick.

So, NPC, how did your prowl roll go?

04 under 77.

Alrighty. Noted. So where is Riley? I assume standing back a bit. Oh, yeah.

I'm firmly in the wood line, peeking out behind the thickest tree I can find.

Right, right. So Torben is there with you. Troy's pulling on this line, and Torben and Riley are hiding behind a tree towards it. I did see a future in which my friends live. And I saw other things. And he looks at Riley. He says, what are you people?

I guess we're the cavalry.

So it does not take long. Troy is sitting there looking around, and you, obviously, you guys know where the spider is. So you're watching it when. When he starts tugging on the strand of web, like, you see its head, like, swivel in your direction, and it catches the light and there's this glitter, this multicolored glitter off of its face. But only one eye is illuminated, and its bulk turns and begins skittering upside down through the trees with this hauntingly silent movement. If you weren't looking at it and didn't know it was there, you would never have seen it or heard it, rather. And pretty soon, it is directly above Troy, looking down at him. And you can see that it only has one eye. All its other eyes are replaced by gems of different colors.

Ooh.

And it twists its bulk and starts to slowly descend, its mandibles twitching towards Troy.

Okay, now I will tell you about the plan that I didn't tell you about, because I'm that kind of player. Yes, I did mention that I was specifically getting one arm tangled in it. Well, it's fucking plastic man armor. I undid the buckle. So as it starts to descend, I just pop my arm out and the shotgun that I have in front of me, I'm just gonna go ahead and fire that straight up. So I love it. That's what I would like to do.

It's pretty good. That's pretty good. I will say you get to attack with. You get one attack of surprise.

Yeah, I'm surprised. Barrel is way too close to my face. Okay. I'm probably gonna miss. Probably gonna miss. That's an eight. I think I was told I needed an eight.

You need an eight or higher? Yeah.

What kind of bullets are you using?

The ones he gave me.

I gave him the six slugs of.

Does it just convert the regular damage to mdc?

No, it's the Spectral Piercers.

What is that?

Yeah. So they phase through walls armor, and.

Even flesh can shoot people inside MDC armor?

Yep.

So would that hurt him? Since I'm shooting through his carapace?

Yes.

Okay, so he gets some SDC on the insides.

Yeah. I mean, the way I figure it, like, even MDC creatures, they're internal warnings. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Their guts aren't super strong.

I think that shotgun is like 5D6 too.

It is 5D6 on the slug.

Oh, so that's.

18 rolled.

Great.

Jesus.

23 FPC.

Oh my God.

Right in the kisser.

Yeah. Considering Max on that was only right.

Inside the Kiss 30.

That, that was, that was. Those. That was a very nice roll.

Troy snaps the shotgun up, fires it. There's, you know, the loud boom of a shotgun.

I'm glad that was slug not shot or got some in the face.

You guys, none of you really have the heightened senses to be able to see bullets move despite all your superhuman abilities. But if you could, you'd see these shotgun slugs flying towards the spider. And the moment before they hit it, its torso, they blink out of existence. And then in the dark red mass of its interior, they reappear and, and blast its spleen into nothing. It shrieks this hideous squeal and stops moving, you know, suddenly and just drops straight towards Troy. Everyone roll initiative.

Henry rolled a two. Let me look at my.

Oh, it rolled well. Oh, there you go.

My total is 16.

Jeez, that's good.

Mine is 14 minus 11.

Henry's jaw is slowly lowering behind his face plate while everybody else's combat rounds play out.

Jacob, what did you get?

I got an 1111.

Okay, you're distracted by Gorschkoff. He's probably chewing you out right now.

We should be engaging. I rolled a 20 for the spider. So it slams into the ground right next to Troy. Kissing.

Yeah.

And it is going to attack.

Okay, I'm assuming it's attacking Troy.

It is attacking Troy. Yes. It lashes out with one of its massive limbs.

I'd like to parry that.

All right, it's struck on a nine.

I don't know that I have the stats for the big ass sword. Does it have a parry bonus?

Yes. So it does give you a. It gives you a plus one to strike, parry and disarm.

Okay, so with my natural parry and my current modifiers, I'm looking at a plus five to this. That's going to be a 20.

That, that, that's very nice.

So what does this parry look like?

He was kind of like slouchy, like, you know, he had his thing there. As the spider's dropping, he ripped his arm out of the plastic man. Yeah. Down one piece of armor and he just kind of has the other. Has the blade kind of tucked under his arm. Isn't even using it like a proper two handed sword because he's got crazy strength. He just swings it up with the speed of a much lighter weapon, which is why it's such a successful parry.

Yeah. It slams into the spider leg, knocking it away. And the spider execution of a sword.

Who are you?

And it is Mr. Cat's turn.

Well, if I can, I'm going to run and leap and land on its back. My hope, my goal, my end goal here is to land on its head and start carving its eyeballs out. Or its gems. And that one eye.

Okay, so you're hidden, you're running and leaping.

I've got a 50 foot leap without a run.

Jeez. So really the question is, do you. Can you aim your. Your body effectively enough to. To hit the head?

So I don't necessarily need to land on its head. I just want to get on it and then I can proceed with the next part of my plan. My number one goal is to get onto its back.

Oh, yeah. I mean, I would say you could just immediately land on its back. I don't think that's an issue. If you want to be like, on its head, that's possible. I would make you roll for that though.

So like land on its back, climb towards the head or what?

You could do it either way. You could land like astride its head if you wanted. With, let's say, like, we'll call it a charge.

Okay, how do you want me to roll that?

Just add your. Do you have any bonuses to charge?

I don't know. I. I am unfamiliar with a charge bonus. What?

Isn't there a charge action? Could have sworn there was.

Is there?

Maybe not. Maybe I just dreamed that it was.

In Bronze's Dream Journal.

Oh, tackle. It's a body block. Tackle.

Body block, tackle. Oh, okay, okay, okay. Let me pull that up. I think I do have that.

It's basically a charge, but they don't call it that.

Okay, well, I have a plus 8 to strike with that.

So I'm gonna say since you were hidden, it's not gonna have a chance to dodge.

Okay.

Because it doesn't even know you exist right now.

Oh, good, good. I was afraid, but it is gonna take two of my attacks to do it because it's what it is. I've got six total. So if I'm getting my full bonus, that's going to be a 14.

Mr. Cat leaps from the bushes, flying through the air, slams into this creature. It buckles under his weight. What is this?

When I leap, there's that. That screaming cat howl. Yeah, yeah.

You wrap your arms around it. Just to put it in perspective, this Thing is about in terms of its size. It is itself 8ft tall and equally long. Probably weighs a thousand pounds. And it is Troy's turn. TROY Just watched Mr. Cat slam into the thing's neck, wrap his body around it. Yeah, it's stumbling around thrashing with its legs. Definitely disoriented.

I need to double check my psionic power. Give me just a second.

Which one?

Go ahead.

Telekinetic lift.

Oh, man. We were just having a chat today about telekinesis.

It just augments my ability to lift, so I would still need to do, like, touch. Damn. I can't just. So it's not not useful here. I mean, I still got that shotgun and he's just right there, so I'm just gonna shoot it at him again.

How many?

All right, shot two.

Okay, then I have to reload it. You can fire both of them in one shot, but I didn't do that, so. Yeah, he's right there. I'll go ahead and take a point blankish shot. That's the 10.

That's it.

I mean, technically, it can try to dodge.

Isn't there like a heavy, huge penalty for. Yeah, I'm not gonna waste one of his actions on it. And also, he's super disoriented right now because a giant cat man just landed on his back.

And correct me if I'm wrong, Perry counts as a free action dodge takes an action. Correct. Is that right?

And just for the record, so folks listening at home know the mechanic is that you can roll to dodge. Gunfire. But it's a minus 10 at point blank rage.

Yeah, that's gonna be 21 on that one.

Oh, my God, just again.

SDC to the insides. Riley, I don't think these are working.

Again. The shotgun roars. There's no sign of a hit on the spider, but its body convulses and twists like it just got punched by some massive fist. And it shrinks freaks. Again. This whale. Everyone make a save versus horror factor.

Oh, I get a plus one on.

Saves and use my dagger. I am at a penalty to combat roles. Would a save count as a combat role or not?

I would say no.

Okay, what kind of is?

Oh, there it is.

I got a 19.

You're good with my normal bonus. And plus the dagger. Get a 17.

You're good.

12.

You're not great.

It can't be more horrible than what's on the inside. I got a 17. Yeah, you're good. Fine.

So Henry is the only one affected by the horror of this thing. This the Screeching. The inhuman nature of it. This is the first time you've really been up close seeing the kind of monsters that pervade Rift's earth, and it just takes you a second. Does anybody recall what the base penalty for failing a horror save is?

You lose initiative and you lose one attack per melee. You lose one attack this round and cannot defend yourself against the creature's first attack. So this is assuming it happens at the top of the round. Essentially, it means you lose an attack, your initiative goes to last, and you can't defend against its next attack.

Okay. It's probably not going to attack you. And so really, you lose one attack. Yeah. And you're horrified. It was horrifying.

And it's Riley's turn.

Even metal can weep.

That's heavy.

Are you trying to piss off Gorshkov? You start crying, he's going to be upset. All right?

He's definitely.

It may piss off Gorshkov, but at the same time, Gorshkov will be. That is the most Russian sentiment I've heard you say yet. I'm just, you know, leaning out from behind the tree and taking a shot with my wilks.

Okay. Body shot. Oh, yeah.

Nothing fancy.

Yeah.

Aimed shot. Oh, God. I rolled an 8.

You have a hero.

I mean, that's a hit.

Yeah, it's a hit.

He's not gonna Dodge. Yeah.

Two points of damage.

Good old Wilkes.

Pistol 1D6MD200 SDC. Gotta spin it.

So there's this flare of bright light as Riley snaps off a shot that glances and leaves this blackened scar down the side of the carapace. The spider doesn't seem to notice terribly much. Henry is up next. Gorshkov is roaring in Russian and English to engage.

Oh, God. Dude, what is that thing?

Move forward, Henry. You must attack. This is. Reminds me of St. Peter's spine.

Oh, you don't say. Well. Well, we can't. We can't let Troy lose another leg. And so Henry's going to dash forth, hoping that he can, one way or another, bust out his retractable vibroblade.

By the time it gets there, it pops out as you're in mid stride.

Okay, then I'm going to aim. I'm fixing to cut a limb off, which. I'm not sure how that would translate into one of my attacks, but.

Are you doing a targeted attack back at a limb?

Let's say I'm just swinging. Yeah, I'm probably a little too panicked to be targeting anything too accurately.

Yeah, you can target the head or the legs. Default is body.

Ah, there's a lot of legs to get to the body.

Just so you know, in order to do a called shot, you have to spend an extra attack. But you just lost one.

How many do you have?

So the action economy you to attack. That spins an attack or an action point. But you just lost one, which means that you would be spending more out of your pool.

Okay, so I've only got three attacks, which. Oh, no, I've got four because I have the bonus minus the. Okay, so I'm just gonna go for a. Let's call it a bit of a blind swing. Now, when I'm using a vibroblade, am I still engaging with one of my attacks, or is that specifically like a slash?

With the vibro blade, you do the vibroblade's damage instead.

Yeah, you get a. Just looking at your sheet, you have a plus four to strike on that.

Yeah, we're doing a quick vibro slash. Oh, guess four. I'm not even counting in my bonuses. I'm gonna go ahead and burn a heroism.

No, that would become an eight. That would hit. Oh, that would. Yeah.

But it would set a low threshold for it to dodge or parry. If it chooses to do one of those. I don't know if it could parry.

Henry ain't worried about that type of.

Thing right now, so let's. Let's go for it.

So that brings you to what, eight, did you say? Oh, that's good.

I would say it could potentially parry with its legs, because, I mean, they're NBC limbs, but it's not doing anything but thrashing around because there's someone on top of it. So roll your damage.

Yeah, yeah.

All right.

How much? I don't think the damage on that is listed. How much? Do you have it? Yeah, no, it's retractable vibr blade. Yeah, looks like 2D6MD on that.

Sweet.

We just knew that. So fast.

That's going to be a 7.

7 damage. 7 MDC. That wouldn't do to you. Just for the record.

Henry charges out, slams his protectable vibro blade into the side, leaves this gouged mark in the side of its torso. It's stumbling around. It's. It's turn. It sees Henry, and it lashes out at him. That is a hit on a 14.

And you cannot defend yourself. This one?

Defend yourself?

No, not against this one.

Yeah. Oh, right. Clever.

You go blind.

The leg slams into your chest, and that is eight points of MDC damage.

Okay.

And it is Mr. Cat's turn.

Okay. Just raising my arm up in that kind of. You know, that classic pose of Conan on the back of the beast and just plunging the knife down into its eyeball.

Oh, gosh. So it's called shot.

Okay, so that just takes an extra attack. All right.

It's got so many eyeballs, man.

But only one may see the truth.

The truth is, it's about to get stabbed in the eye.

Plus 10 to strike on this.

Jesus.

That is a 28.

Wow.

A roller 18. Wait, no. Plus. Sorry. Plus nine to strike, I think. Does the dagger have an attack bonus? I didn't see for sure if it does. Oh, wait, no, I think.

Oh, actually, no, it does not.

Okay, then that's only. I was assuming it had a plus one, but it's like. Actually, I wrote that wrong, so it's only. Only a 27.

Well, that's a miss. No, of course it's. Yeah.

Goddamn demon.

Yeah. Roll damage.

How much MDC could one eye have, really?

19, 11, 12, 13. 13. MDC.

Oh, my gosh.

Through the eyeball.

That's a sharp knife.

These are sharp dice.

So the dagger of Rostam slams into the eyeball up to the hilt. Mr. Cat rips it out, and the eyeball comes with it. There's this log trail of viscera. The thing is truly thrashing now, so Mr. Cat going to have to make some kind of roll to stay on.

Can I turn it into, like, a leaping dismount? You just go with it.

Roll with fall. Yeah, you absolutely can make it graceful if you score.

I mean, I have acrobatics, so where is it? There's the.

Yeah, I think an acrobatics, like back flip, flip.

There we go. Okay, cool. Gymnastics actually has the back flip. Acrobatics has it, but gymnastics has it better. Want to do that one?

He's a cat, so no matter how he lands, he's going to pretend that.

Is there going to be a modifier to this that I should know of?

No. No, since you're voluntarily leaping off. No.

72%. Oh.

5. Nice.

Sean, these guys are amazing. Thank you.

68 under. I think that did it.

Mr. Cat Vaults off the back, landing smoothly in the underbrush of the forest. The spider's thrashing around like this. Head is swinging wildly from side to side. Blood and ichor is pouring out of the wound where its eye was. And it is Troy's turn. You just watch Mr. Cat stab out something's eyeball.

Wow, that was. That was impressive. I'm, I. I'm gonna try and Hit it in the face with a two handed sword. That seems. That seems like. That seems effective. It didn't seem to like that. So I'm gonna call shout for the head with the two handed sword of evil.

Noted.

My strike bonus is not great. 19. Where'd you get these things called shot takes an extra attack.

Yeah.

So I'm gonna say it can't parry. So roll your damage.

Yeah. Bar. I need to bar. I need to bring another D6 clearly. Because everything is like you're gonna roll. 76. That's gonna be 14 MDC. And that also damages ISP and PPE.

Is that because of the blade?

Yes. Wow.

Oh, so it also leeches away magical power.

Dude. Holy moly.

Dare you.

How dare you use that against me.

It was kind of satisfying.

And it is Riley's turn. You just watch this dark executioner sword slam into the spider's head. Leave this huge wound. There's some flash and crackle of magic that you couldn't quite track. That left this almost dark saturation in your vision slowly fading out.

Riley pulls out his antique revolver, closes his eyes for a split second, blows out of breath and snap. Fires an electric arc out of it.

Okay.

First time he's ever had to use techno wizard magic under duress. That would be a 12.

That's definitely a hit.

And.

Where did you get these dice?

12 mega damage worth of damage.

John, did you bring loaded dice?

The first session of gift dice. Gift dice are always lucky. The first section. All right. It'll fade quickly. We got some ones coming up soon.

So what's this spell look like, Jacob?

The revolver itself just crackles with this blue energy and a bolt leaps out of the barrel and impacts the thing.

Yeah. The electricity arcs over it, sizzling and scorching it. There's smoke now to drifting off of its massive ratna torso. Alex rules. Do you have actions left?

You do. I do.

I have three of which. And my horrified status is horrified.

Cost you one. And you've only attacked once, right?

Yeah.

So you got one left.

No, I think he has three left.

I have three.

I was more asking that my horrified status was resolved at this point, which I believe it is. So Henry being a little, you know, abashed that got a little thrown off and panicked there. It's like oh well, nuts to this. Henry rushes forward, runs in and just goes throwing a shot at the body with a power. Is it one power punch?

Power punch.

Power punch chain. That's two practice, right?

Yeah.

Yep. Time for a power punch. All right.

So that's that's a D20.

Yep. D20 plus strike bonus.

That's plus four. So 12.

12 damage to the torso?

No, sir. 12 to hit.

Oh, yeah, you hit.

Okay.

All right, well then it's blind eye is gone.

All right then 2D4.

All right.

Complete opposites.

5 MDC.

Okay. Yeah. You jackhammer a fist at the torso crack, you know the chitin blood squelches out all over you. It is. It's had better days. Way better days. All of the previous days were better than this day for a demon spider. But it's the top of the round. It's its turn and it stops. And you guys hear its voice saying words that you. That mean nothing to you. It sounds like nonsense. Riley immediately recognizes it as casting some sort of spell. Everyone within a 10 foot radius.

Any chance our mystic who's done nothing can counterspell that or some.

I don't believe he rolled initially.

I assume that's what he was waiting to do. Counter the magic spells from the demons Spider.

I'd like to think he tried to go help his friends and immediately got stuck right on the edge like you guys.

I mean, that would be incredibly useful if he helped you, wouldn't it?

I'm just throwing that out there.

Roll a saving throw versus magic versus spell.

All right.

Yep. Actually, it's going to pump at minus one.

Wow.

Question. Since I leaked off, would I be away?

I'd say you're probably still within 10ft.

And is the tree line with my 50 foot leap?

Well, you didn't specify that you specifically le.

Is the tree line within 10ft?

Oh, I would say you're. You're beyond that.

Okay, cool. I think I'm going to use one of my points.

What was the save? Ditto.

What specific spells it is. Save versus spell minus one tier.

Everything rocks.

All right. Yes.

I still got a 16 if we're going by normal target numbers. That passes.

Yeah, that's total. You're fine.

I got 15.

I'm gonna settle on my eight total. You got an eight with my bonus minus one.

Oh, yeah.

I didn't count the minus. Oh, I did count the minus one.

So there's this blinding flash of light. Mr. Cat instinctively closes his eyes with cat like reflexes because Cat, Troy had been fighting with his eyes closed. Because. Why not?

Yeah.

Henry, however, is blinded by this intense burst of magical light. You are blinded for just one round. While you're blind, you have a minus 10, basically to everything.

Okay.

And that is the spider's turn. It was really hoping to get more people with that.

Sounds like you are wrapped up like a douche. Another boner in the night.

Just to make sure your eyes don't have, like, flare protection or anything like that. I mean, that would have been an extra thing you would have had to, like, purchase, I think.

But yeah, no, I don't think there's going to be any. Working my way out of these. These peepers being blinded.

So, npc, there was a bright flash of light. You see Henry stumbling back, shielding one arm up in front of his face. What would you like to do? Spider's, you know, standing still while it casts that spell.

Well, that's a perfect opportunity for me to come up behind it and stab it in its holiest of holies.

Okay.

Right up the keystone.

That's a total of 11 is gonna attempt to dodge. At this point. It's gonna have a significant penalty because it's blind. But, yeah, that is a fail. So it staggers forward, trying to get out of your way when it hears you coming, but to no avail.

Okay. And I did spend the extra. It was a called shot on that one. I don't, I just wanted to really hit it in the butthole.

Okay.

I don't know if that's gonna do.

Anything, but Mr. Cat knows that that's a painful spot. That's 11 MD.

It has to make a horror save. It just got stabbed in the butthole. That would horrify me.

All right, so, yeah, you slam your dagger straight into the special place that it doesn't talk about. Rip that open. It. It surges forward, just trying to get away, desperate. And Troy, it's your turn. It is stumbling, staggering. Blood is pouring out of multiple wounds on its torso. It's been scorched by electricity.

And Mr. Cat went behind it. I'm gonna go.

Ah, my eyes.

And I'm not gonna do anything. Well, like the whole. I don't know this rule for. I think it's gonna turn its back to me, and then I'll stab it. I, I, I'm, I'm gonna pretend to also be blinded long enough for it to turn its back to me. If I can do that in rifts.

You could. You're also super fast, though, so you could just.

Yeah, but I'm also super depressed right now, so just, Just waiting works. And I'll kind of stagger over in front of Henry. So if it goes for me or Henry, I'm there. If it turns its back, then I'll act. That's my plan. So I'm holding My remaining one action, hoping that I can ambush it later.

There is a. For the record folks and home and players here, there is a technical thing that you're doing that you might not realize that you are doing. Which is quite a simultaneous strike.

Well, simultaneously.

So mechanically if you wait for it to attack, you can also attack at the same time. The strategy behind that is then it can't defend.

Yeah, okay.

Of course if you are the target.

But that's all right.

There is a mechanic there. Yep.

Okay. That's good to know.

Jacob. It is Riley's turn.

The gun still crackling with electric energy discharges again as Riley just starts fanning.

What'd you get?

18 after modifier.

It's not gonna dodge lightning bullet. I know. That was a magic gun, Riley.

Yeah.

You want damage, don't you?

I do.

We all want you to do some damage. Please.

That's a 10 mega damage.

How would you like to do this again?

He's just like doing this wild west fanning of the hammer and firing, just putting shot after shot into its body.

So the last burst of arcing electricity slams into its torso, wraps around it and there's this crack and its body spins its back facing towards Troy and Henry. They're both both about to attack. And then its massive abdomen just bursts and blood and gore and bile splashes over them and it body collapses in a demonic heat.

Hell yeah.

I probably deserve that.

Riley slumps against the tree, just kind of panting.

You in? Gorshkov says out loud. This was a good day. Well done.

This may be the only time Gorshkov and the knife agree on anything.

Are the legs still kind of there?

Ish. Yeah. Yeah. The legs took no damage. It was either head or body.

I'd love to think that Henry still being blinded, would have still followed through with his plan which was rushing for I legit was going to try to rush and squeeze the spider with my last round. So it just starts tangling with these dead spider legs. Blinded.

I don't stop you.

Yeah, no, I'll help.

I'm gonna find something soft and clean to wipe the knife off before putting it back in a sheath.

There's moss and leaves and so over the next hour or so, you guys help Torben rescue his friends from the the spider's web. And they are alive. There's. There's three of them. Veyre is something of the leader. She's tall, bald woman. She, you know, she. They're all very disoriented but she thinks she's best. She can There's Erasmus, who's actually a techno wizard, though he doesn't have any of his equipment. And then Quinn this. They call him an eldritch headhunter. Apparently some sort of swordsman. But you guys, get them all down. Explain their adventures. They call themselves the Archonauts. They were ambushed by this spider when they were working their way through the woods. You have succeeded in rescuing this adventuring band that you could have left to die.

Riley's gonna go over and just flick out his multi tool. You know, every single techno wizard is born with a multi tool.

Yes.

And starts.

That's the weirdest euphemism ever. I'm just putting that out there. He pulls out his multi tool. He was born with it. Okay.

And starts trying to pop out the jeweled eyes from the head.

There are 11 multifaceted magical jewels. Excellent. In its eyes. Excellent.

While he's doing this, I do wish to provide some kind of comfort to the people. And I must note that I am both doing it because I do care about the. The fact that we are able to rescue them. And I want to make sure that they are provided for. But there's a selfish reason.

Okay?

I want them to see me. I want them to remember me as my. So that they can potentially tell the tale of that amazing cat who saved their life and possibly spread the word of paving the way for my eventual godhood. That rules.

Since they were all encompassed in webbing. So there was. It all has to be described.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Don't you mean your eventual worship? You're already a God, sir.

I mean, this is.

I'm struggling with this statement.

I'm the voice on the left shoulder. What do you want?

Yes.

Henry assesses the situation with them and determines whether or not they need additional clothes.

They're relatively okay in that regard.

You are not so naked that you need additional clothes. Do they have a clear leader?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Is it.

It was Vera, right?

Veyre. Veyra. Kael.

I absolutely want to talk to her when you have a moment.

Yeah. Go ahead. She's sitting with the others up against the tree. She's rubbing her hands on her head. And you notice that her skin. Well, very. She's a very good complexion. But her skin has almost like an oily sheen to it.

Sweaty. Yeah. I just clap her on the shoulder. Be like, listen, I am so glad that went well. I'll be honest. We pretty much did this because we're about to go into the. And we needed some help. And your boy kind of implied that if we helped You. You would help us and we're gonna need some backup. We're going into the. The broken grid. Yeah.

The ruins.

Yeah. Henry, what's this place called?

The ruins.

That's pretty obvious. The ruins. We're going in. We need your help. We all agree to this ahead of time, right? Narrator. They did not agree to this ahead of time.

Do they look puzzled by this? Like, do they look to be in any state whatsoever to help?

They definitely need time to recover from the creatures tender care that they were subjected to.

Yeah, we're not going out until like, tomorrow morning. I mean, we'll probably get up pretty early.

They haven't so far. Seemed like they were in the same state as Torben, which is to say poisoned and therefore out of their gourd.

No, no, they seem eventually they're, you know, just tired and weary and worn down low. Hit points in game terms.

Okay, what my. What my companions are saying is we wish to escort you out of here to a safe place. And then once you are ready, should you be capable and willing, we would appreciate your support as we go into the ruins on business of our own.

She nods. We have been in Old Detroit before and we owe you a debt.

This would be a great way to settle that debt.

We definitely do need time to recover, as the large cat man said.

Well, we got bacon and we got the meats and we got a place you can stay. You could sleep. I must stay up all night anyways.

How many of them are.

There's four of them total. Veyre, Erasmus, Torben and Quinn. Torben being the mystic who you guys rescued, and Veyre, the leader.

Yeah, I give her my. I give Vera my cloak too. Just like. Ah. Yeah. Oh, you look a little rough. Good, good point. Here, if you give her that cloak.

Hold that a hand, she's all. I don't need that. But does anyone have a light?

Riley leans over with a ring on his hand and flicks his finger. And a blue magic flame comes flickering out of it. Would you like a cigarette with that lady?

No. And she reaches out and touches the flame and her body ignites. She steps away from you, covered in flame. And she takes a deep breath. That's better. Thank you. She's wearing this living mantle of flame.

My eyes go wide.

She starts to hover a few inches off the ground.

I absolutely give her a high five. That is fucking awesome.

It burns your hand, but it's worth it.

Yes, it is. Yes, it is. I'm a roll randomly. If it was the hand arm with armor or Not. It was not.

She speaks and her voice has this echoing quality. Thank you for your assistance. We will aid you. We were caught unawares by the demon. I'm shamed at our defeat, but you have made good our error.

Hey, you survived. And your boy came looking for help. And he didn't just run off and abandon you. You got a good team. No shame in that. We got a cat who is nice.

And thank you for your kindness. So she says, well, we will go to your camp now, but if you wish. I believe the spider left things in its web that might be of interest.

Ah, I was just about to ask that point. Race you to the nest.

Wha.

That's not fair. You can jump 30ft vertically. Hey.

And immediately get stuck in the web.

Aw.

There are two people way better than Troy at climbing up this tree. But Troy will absolutely climb up this tree.

I only have one, but if there's no spider to attend it, could I not maybe use my vibro blade? And then others use various sharp implements to start cutting through that web?

Oh, I assume you could. I assume if we're close enough into the tree, we can kind of slip in and around the web. But I didn't think through. I didn't think through it very well.

I mean, you guys have plenty of time. Like, there's no. I mean, there's no, like, pressure on you right now. You can work your way as needed.

I want to talk to them a little bit more, find out if there's among their group any who are able to use magical healing. Do they have that ability or are they relying upon us to heal them?

Feyre will heal herself from her the elemental fire spirit that is bound within her. The others are pretty much fine. Essentially. They were ambushed. And the spider, they were surprised by the spider, unlike you guys. So it has a attack that, you know, it shoots web on you and you. It's mdc. And none of them have super strength. And when she was attacked, she didn't have her flame activated, and she was the first to go down. So.

Shitty.

Yeah. And then Torben escaped, like, midway through, but he was poisoned. And so, you know, still, the coolest.

Thing to happen this game was the spider being above Troy coming down and Troy just being like, bam.

Yeah, that was surprising and awesome.

That was pretty great.

Well, he wasn't sure if he was going to shoot the spider, so y'.

All gonna do some looting?

Yes.

Yeah. Let's see what's in this web and.

Mr. Bastard, how thick are these things? I'll be super Transparent. I was thinking it would be cool to grab one of these limbs and then hollow it out and use it as like a forearm guard.

Are the.

Are the spider's legs? It sounds like the spider was big enough that I could do that.

The limbs are quite large.

Okay. So I would. I don't want to waste in game time on it. He would have. Troy would probably have snagged one of those and have it just kind of hanging over his shoulder.

Hell yeah.

Cool.

Loot blue.

What's in the tree? I hope it's not fragile because I'm throwing everything down.

Okay, so I will put the treasure list in the discord.

Oh, perfect.

But for the. For the audience, there's a delicate tiara of dark silver and amethyst shaped like fanged mandibles. A vaguely skull shaped iridescent gem that glows with internal webs of light. Basically 8470 credits. And assorted gemstones, rubies, sapphires, opals, fire agates. Agats. I'm not sure how to say that. Many still web laced are stuck to bits of bone. 60% are blood splattered. A curved dagger of pale metal, cold to the Dutch to the touch. Excuse me. A silken coffer, which is a lacquered box bound in spider silk and bone. Inside are three potion vials of thick black liquid. There's one scroll and a silk cloak that shimmers like chitin. Finally, a pulsating fist sized egg radiating faint magical energy.

Okay, I throw my green cloak down. Oh. Yep. Because I'm putting on the silky cloak. It's probably poisonous.

Yeah, probably. I don't know what the tiara does, but I think it would be.

And you're up there with me.

Yeah, I'm like, I could probably fit.

Oh, you could put some of that stuff in here. I was gonna say I could put.

This egg in my thigh.

Yeah, you're all about putting evil things in your leg.

I am definitely tossing the gems down like one at a time. Catch.

Riley is. Riley is kind of like looking weirdly abashed and goes, can we hang on to the gems rather than selling them? Not the igems, but the gemstones we found.

I mean, if they don't. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Those are just web laced or stuck to bits of bone.

Yeah.

If y' all don't mind, I. I could use them.

It's not the weirdest thing you've ever asked for, Riley.

I thought we weren't going to talk about that anymore.

Yeah, unless there's like light shining through it and creating moving dots on the ground. I don't care about gems.

But it sounds like the tiara and the egg. Maybe stuff those in your thigh pocket.

Because those night I'm interested in the tiara.

Well, I just wait until we get to the ground.

Right.

Right. This is all for caring for Mr. Cat.

Probably does. I'm not just saying the other stuff. And there's a cool knife. Who doesn't have a cool knife yet? You got a cool knife?

I got a cool knife.

I got a cool knife.

Mine's in my arm.

I have a multi tool.

Sounds like you need a cool knife.

Sounds like if it's the one you were born with, you need a cool knife.

Ouch.

How high up are we actually? It doesn't matter. When we're done, I jump down.

So Sean, Troy put on the cloak.

Yes.

It's incredibly soft. Shimmers. And as he puts it on, you guys notice that he kind of seems to blend in perfectly in the darkness. And as you touch the spider's web, they no longer are sticky to you. In fact, you have amazing.

You need this cloak.

The ability to grip onto the spider's webs and you can move across them as easily as the spider did.

Which we all know because Troy immediately starts doing that.

Yeah.

Running laps.

He is now bouncing around amongst the the spider webs.

Which admittedly sounds fun as hell.

Yeah, it does sound fun.

Bounce house.

Yeah. So the spider silk cloak gives you immunity to spider's webs and you get advantages on growl.

I really should just give that to Mr. Cat. It's up to you. We'll be honest.

Does it make Troy happy?

Yeah.

But he's also impetuous. And he knows Mr. Cat likes to sneak. Nothing makes Mr. Cat happier than when he sneaks up on somebody. He just always looks so pleased with himself.

Which in turn makes Troy happy.

Yeah.

He gets his butt wiggle.

So yeah, eventually when we get to the ground. Yeah. I'll be like Mr. Cat, you need this. And I will hand off the spiders oak cloak to Mr. Cat. If you'll take it.

I'll take it up. Toss you back the. The green cloak.

It's cool. They're pretty comfy.

All right.

I figured I'd show off the pulsating.

Fist size, fist sized egg radiating faint magical energy to not just our party.

But it's going to hatch into another spider or some shit in his leg.

Yeah.

Oh, if I leave it there. Yeah.

That's a great incubator.

We've got like four magicky people with us. Plus our techno mage. Can we identify this?

Yeah, that's why I figured to bring.

It out in front of you.

Absolutely.

We should ask him if any of this is theirs. I just realized that.

Yeah, not anymore.

Well, they kind of owe us. Nah, you're right.

They do. They do.

They had their equipment on because it hadn't eaten them yet and disarmed them because it was taking its time. This is a spider.

Yeah, yeah, they're a demonic spider. You know, it plays with its food.

So you guys search the the spider's web, find the treasure, and head back to the campsite. When you arrive, the Archonauts are all seated around a fire, and Bronson is wildly gesticulating, telling this tale of where you come from. And that's why everybody on the block always said Mike had the best barbecues. And also everybody patted my head because I'm a very good boy. Hey, everybody. Hey, Henry.

Hey, buddy.

Riley slowly walks over to the barbecue.

And a bear came. It was a bear. And little green man said, oh, eat all our bacon, the bear. Because you're a bear and this dromedary is a standing. I didn't. There was no bear. Shut up, little green man. I'll put you back in the box. Yeah. So Bronson is trying to. To explain to you how they're. A bear came, and he bravely fought it off, but it ate all the bacon before he could.

You ate two pork bellies worth of bacon in the time we were gone.

The bear.

I will pause and stick my nose in Bronson's mouth. Smells like bacon.

Oh, yeah. He knows I'm lying somehow.

I'm just gonna look at him like, cock my head, raise an eyebrow, and shrug.

Riley is very smart.

Yes.

I hate the bacon. I'm so sorry. You may beat me if you need to. I'm a bad dog.

No, but for the rest of the journey, we're riding with the windows up.

That is so cruel.

And you don't get to pee inside for a week. I think that's fair. You've behaved like a bad boy.

This is all your fault. Little green man. Dromedary is just like, waving his hands like.

No, no.

As attention is diverted from Bronson, I slip him a little bit of bacon from my other side pocket.

Thank you, Henry. You are my best friend. So you guys camp with the Archonauts, and I think we will end it there for this session.

Nice.

Yeah.

Did we. Can always save us for next time. But did they have anything to say.

About the pulsating Fist sized egg.

Yeah.

Faint magic energy.

They did not know what it was. They said it looks like a spider's egg.

Yeah, they surmised the same. Okay. And did it smell of Mr. Cat could smell magic and stuff.

Smell magic or I should have done that.

Yeah, I'm assuming he would have given it the old sniff.

I'm going to run the battery of smell tests on it.

Definitely smells magical, supernatural, demonic. One might even say.

Oh God, I'm cutting it in half.

Joe Red would have a field day with this.

No, it's done.

Hey, hold on. What if we wanted to barbecue it? We want to put in a smoker.

It's cut in half.

Yeah, yeah. Rawson. Well done, Mr. Cat.

That smells horrible on the inside.

Then I cut it in half again a couple of times just to make sure.

What are you doing? Making a chef salad.

Then I turn around and like kick dirt backwards onto it, you know?

Okay.

That'S the important part. Yeah, yeah.

I'll also hand off my chitinous spider legging to Riley and ask him if he can make me a forearm guard. I forgot my other one. I left it behind.

Throw it in the back and I'll get to it.

No rush. I thought it would look cool.

No, I get it.

You could wrap it around your wooden leg.

Yeah, I gotta protect my arms.

Would you like to make a return trip to get more.

It feels. Feels tacky. Feels tacky.

Fair.

Especially since we just killed its baby. One limb is enough. I do want. It's one limb. I could probably get some from a peg leg too.

We do. These are quite large. That's true.

I think I could get one arm guard and a. And a. And a peg leg guard out of one limb. That's right.

Was sprinter van size. So.

Yeah.

Yeah, sure. Okay.

And here I thought you just wanted to make a really cool whip antenna for the mountaineer.

So. Yeah.

Also not a bad idea. You guys are full of good ideas.

Got to kill a demon. That's pretty cool. I gotta say, Sean, I loved it. The surprise?

No, thank you.

That was pure crazy right there.

It was great.

Yeah, well, if it didn't work, I was super fucked, so I'm glad it worked.

So, a little housekeeping. All the treasure we found have been added to the group loot sheet. And I am erasing missing the several slabs of bacon.

So.

Wait, I thought he just ate what was on the smoker. Not all the.

I wasn't gonna have several. Two entire pork bellies just flopping around, the whole thing going bad and back.

Did he eat everything out of the smoker?

Yeah. Yeah. It's a dog.

Yeah, they don't eat until they're full. They eat until there's no food left.

We miss his grossly distended belly.

Riley is silently cursing himself for not thinking ahead and building a padlock mount for the barbecue.

Yeah. Yep.

God damn it.

And I will keep those shotgun shells unless you want them back.

Oh, no, you can keep those.

This is why we should have made it out of demon armor.

If experience hadn't said otherwise, I was down to clown on that one. That said, with our crates of miscellaneous vegetables and dry meat, I do throw together a decent stew to feed everybody that night.

Yes, the Archonauts are in your debt. And you guys get 600 XP.

Sweet. Well, that was fun.

Yeah, it was.

Yeah. I'm having a good time. Eventually we'll get to Detroit and you guys will experience all the horrors that the ruins there have to offer. Very different from modern Detroit.

You are clearly underestimating our ability to derail things. But we'll get there eventually.

I don't know. I feel pretty badass right now.

Yeah.

I have zero issues with sessions that have no combat.

Yeah. But was missing combat a little bit?

It was a nice little.

It's a very. I love the flow.

Yeah. Yeah.

Good.

And I also like that so far, I think in all but the first episodes, we've had a meal together.

Oh, that's a good point.

That's pretty nice. So, folks, if you've made it this far and don't know who we are, by the way, you're listening to the Glitter Boys. Kyle has joined us as a guest GM for this ongoing series. Introduce yourself.

Kyle. Yes. Yes, I'm Kyle. Mostly the GM for the Bastion Quest podcast. We play lots of non D and D games, indie role playing games. It's a lot of fun, mostly comedic. So if you like games and comedy, we do go through the rules and explanations of systems that you might not have heard on an actual play. Check us out.

And I will attest that I very much appreciate when I listen, especially if it's a game that I don't know, because you always make a very, very definite point of explaining what you're doing. It's nice. It's easy to follow along with the games that y' all are playing and know what you're doing and why and how it works.

Oh, excellent. Well, I appreciate you saying that. You know, the biggest problem with it is I think I counted up in our first two years, we played 25 different systems and you can't imagine the number of times where I'm thinking, wait, is this rule that I'm thinking of right now from this system or from one we played six sessions ago in like a totally different game? It's like, no, no, there are no rules for critical hits and Brindlewood Bay.

But it's very nice. It's very educational and hilarious.

Good. Yeah. Well, it's a very different style of campaign from this. This is, I guess I would say, you know, in when in my RL groups, this is more like I run campaigns the way I'm running the risk campaigns.

So it's very nice. And I'm npc.

I'm just Jacob.

I'm still Alex and I'm Sean and we look forward to doing more of these. Thanks for all of the feedb feedback folks that y' all have been sending our way. Really enjoy the excitement that comes from people talking about these episodes. It's a lot of fun. If you want, you can kick us a few bucks and listen to the episodes a few days early from the main feed. We've started releasing these on our Ko Fi page and Pinecast, who was our audio host, also has a built in tip jar function. You don't really get anything extra other than just listening early, but we appreciate anything that you want to send our way and help pay the bills.

Don't we offer a special badge on Discord?

Oh yeah, Discord names. There are some pretty cool Palladium related Discord titles that you can get if those interest you. Well, we'll see you next time.

Goodbye.

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 and 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 and making more games. You can order [email protected] and their entire catalog is available digitally at Drivethrurpg as well. Our opening music is 8 bit bass and lead by FurbyGuy from freesound.org this closing music is Caravana by Philip Gross available at freemusicarchive.org all sound effects used are self made or acquired via Creative Commons Zero License. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as theglitterboys. That's B O I S and check us out [email protected] glitter boys 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. I think Bronson's Dream Journal is going to become a thing.

Yeah, I got to make a note.

He wants. He wants it to become a thing. I know that much.

Just like once a week post an excerpt from Bronson's Dream Journal.

You guys have a gross misunderstanding of how much time I have.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Oh no.

Fully understand.

I. I said that knowing that, like that would be next to insane.

Oh yeah.

It's only a dream of a dog. It doesn't have to be very long.

It's true.

It's probably just talk about Mike for a little bit.

I smelled Mike. I like rutabaga. I don't know what it is, but I could say it.

Now, what kind of bonus did you think was going to be there that was going to make that not suck?

Plus 47 anywhere?

And they're all metal because I'm a sucker for metal dice, so.

Oh, metal dice are so great.

I got a Mega man power up for a die.

I'm not gonna lie.

Almost all we use on Bastard Quest is metal dice one because it's a really satisfying sound when it hits the wood table.

Yeah.

So it's. It's pretty good audio.

All right, let's see how good the screen protector really is.