The Glitterbois Play Rifts 15: Schrodinger's Tits

Breakfast puppies.

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

This is the Glitter Boys. Yo, Taco Bell. The old ruins, Port Sanlac, Golden Age city on the shores of Lake Huron are covered by an obviously alien forest of redwood sized trees with these dark purple, nearly black leaves. And from a distance you can see more common green plants growing at the feet of these massive leviathans. And in between the trunks, there are clearly ruins, toppled stone buildings, some still reasonably standing, but no signs of active habitation. No cook fires or artificial lights, no people, no livestock. You had previously detected electronic signals coming from this forest that may have been rifted to Earth or the seeds were planted here, you can't say. But there were electronic signals coming from within that you associated with the Coalition to clarify.

This forest and the city, the old ruin, are essentially the same thing, right?

Yep. Okay, yep. Yeah. The old ruins are within this massive alien forest. You are outside it, some distance away, a couple kilometers arrayed around the Mountaineer Bronson is missing. And your mission here, if you recall, you were coming here to investigate reports of Coalition troopers, you know, in the area. And Mr. Cat, Henry and Troy have taken it upon themselves. And by Troy I mean of course, Edmundo, along with his new friend, Dustin the Slurm, to go in and investigate to see if Bronson perhaps disappeared into the trees or whatever he wished to do. But what would you like to do at this point?

Well, I am to understand he went after Mr. Thunderous Craig, as he called him, that bear.

It took me a minute. I'll be honest, I had to think about it.

Is there. I don't trust Bronson's intentions at all. Is there any kind of trail? He's never been subtle. Is there like bushes just like look like they've been charged through? Is there any kind of. I look for a trail.

There you go. Roll your perception.

I will assist with that.

All right.

I do have track, since you're getting.

Oh, if you're gonna. If you want to roll tracking, you can just try to peel tracking.

Should we just both roll it then?

Yeah, you can absolutely both roll.

Yeah, I don't think I have tracking, so I'll aid you.

I have it at 70.

Can I aid with my amplified hearing and sound filtration system, maybe detect them in the myriad noise of the forest?

Sure, yeah, you can help.

Yeah, I've got enhanced smell and stuff. I say we just aid Mr. Cat, put him in the front and we'll use our talents to aid him there

you go, you can have advantage then.

NPC didn't need it, but thank you, folks. That's a 30 under 70.

Nice.

So you do detect a rough trail through the underbrush. Now, the area you three are in, it's not exactly grasslands. There's trees here and there, clearly signs of old ruins. But it is definitely not the megafauna or rather megaflora forest covering Port Sanilac. But you think, especially with the smell, that you have detected a Bronson trail leading in that direction.

The way you say that makes it almost sound gross. Yeah, it was a Bronson trail.

I mean, there's also almost certainly pee at certain points. He is a dog, so.

Oh, that's perfectly normal.

But again, the trail does not go straight in. It swings around to the south, as if Bronson perhaps was attempting some sort of subtle approach.

Or much like the Family Circus with Billy just going to all these different targets and wasting time, it's entirely possible

there were some mild distractions along wherever it was he was going.

We want to follow stealthily or do we want to follow with speed?

Stealth might be the better option in this. Kyle, how tall are the trees around us?

So there's not a ton of trees around you. There's occasional, you know, little cups here, kind of a lone tree there. Those are all normal sized. It's the ones at the port, or, well, where the port used to be, that are gigantic redwood style, but alien.

Gotcha. So not even a standard redwood height

type thing around you? No, no, no, not immediately around you.

How much of a head start do we have? Or does he have?

Not very long. It couldn't have been more than 10, 15 minutes while everyone was disembarking and discussing what to do next that it was noticed he was missing.

So I will posit that we should move stealthily. The posit being Mr. Cat doesn't think Bronson's an idiot. Now, Bronson is, yes, he is impulsive. He is not as thoughtful about a lot of things and doesn't know about the world very much. But he's also good at what he does. So a little bit of trust in him. I don't think we necessarily need to rush to his aid. So if we follow stealthily, we can probably see what's going on a little more clearly.

He's being a dog right now. We trust him to be a good dog. He's good at what he does. We can stick up. Assuming you're not wearing the power armor.

Oh, no, no, no, no, no, no. I. I may be I may have a God complex, but I also know that I don't have the skill to effectively wield that as well as I do myself. Outside of it.

Can Henry even move stealthily?

Well, stealth is relative, right? Could you sneak up on a ninja in a dark, silent room? Probably not. Could you potentially keep people some miles away from you from detecting you? Yeah, potentially. So, again, yeah, maybe. It depends on what is there, what's watching, and how close you're going to get to it.

Oh, and what about our friend Dustin?

Yep. Me, I'm a slurp.

How fast can he move?

He moves at a normal kind of human pace.

I mean, I don't think it's any more complicated than maybe we just move out, follow the scent, aka follow Mr. Cat.

Okay.

Take some prowl. I'm hoping you're training prowl at least. You may weigh like a ton and a half, but you can pretend I

will do a very sneaky, you know, Scooby Doo type tiptoeing.

Yeah. Dustin falls behind Henry. He is, of course, this giant slug like creature with vaguely gelatinous skin and an orange coveralls with a shotgun that Troy gave him.

Okay, I'm gonna go out on a limb here. Now, Mr. Cat, you might think, being a house cat probably wouldn't think of certain strategic or tactical things, but he also thinks of himself as a hunter, and he has inherited a quite a nice array of military skills here. I'm thinking what might be an interesting strategy is for one of us to go to lead the way, apart from the group, and that would be me. Then Dustin and Henry stay together and just be themselves as stealthily as they can be. But, you know, we gotta recognize they're probably not super stealthy. And then, Troi, you have prowl. Right?

Edmundo, you meant.

Yeah.

Yes, I have prowl.

Mr. Mundo, you have prowl. Okay, how about you also move separately from both me and them, sort of ranging either out to a side because we have Coalition Rangers in the area, so we're not just tracking Bronson, we're also trying not to be tracked by them. That's my. My suggestion. I like it.

And honestly, the two of them make really great bait. Both of them can take a shot and be all right, so I like it.

Okay.

Yep, I can. I'm a slurp.

What do you need from us, Kyle?

So if you are moving stealthily, that would be prowl. And if you're Henry and Dustin, you just, you know, stroll.

That was not a good roll. But turns out I have really good prowl. So that succeeded. That was the 74 under 82.

All right.

Succeeded as well. Nine under 85.

That is quite good. So Mr. Cat and Troy are not necessarily moving as a duo. You're, you're separated but moving stealthily.

Correct. Mr. Cat's taken point. He's leading us. I'm going to peel off to the flank. So I'm stealthily following. I'm near the other two, but separate enough to use my stealth.

Okay. And so Mr. Cat is the one that's more on the direct trail of Bronson.

That is correct.

Okay, gotcha. Mr. Cat is following the trail stealthily, low to the ground. Troy some distance away, moving essentially parallel. Mr. Cat also stealthily. Henry and Dustin, not so stealthily, but far enough back that they are not giving away their stealthy compatriots. You all enter the forest without incident. There's lots of underbrush at the edges that you fight through until you get to this generally more desolate interior where the trees have sucked up all the nutrients and nothing a lot grows in between them except for moss and very small grasses. There's ruins here in the shadows beneath the leaves. Lots of rubble. Steel rebar that jutting out of the side of a tree where it group around it. Not a lot of fully or even close to intact buildings, but you see no signs of the coalition even though you are still following Bronson's trail. But after, after about an hour of moving stealthily, you get to a position where you can see a building that is relatively intact. This multi story stone and steel structure. Trees are growing around it, what it used to be. You're not sure. There's. There's no remaining signs or sorts of insignia, but you do come up short and stop crouching down or at least Troy and Mr. Cat or I'm sorry, I'm sorry, Sean Edmundo and Mr. Cat do. Because outside this building, you can see skelebots arrayed in a defensive perimeter.

I was about to yell ninja sword. No, but that's a different character.

Yeah. Some distance back, of course, Henry and Dustin are advancing still npc. Sean, you can, both of you could roll your perception.

Okay.

And while we're doing this, just for my recollection, skelebots, essentially humanoid size, kind of like the droids in Star Wars. We're not talking big bots or anything like that, right?

That is correct. These are the kind of Terminator style coalition robots.

I'm going to spend a hair movement on that. Oh, much better. I don't have a modifier to perception at all. So straight. Die. Get a 19. First roll was a two.

Okay, you realize right above you clinging to the side of the tree covered in moss is Bronson. He's got his claws in the side. Mr. Cat, I'm a tree.

Can I climb up there next to him? I can leap. I have on those. Those boots. No, no, I don't have the boots on because I'm wearing the armor. I don't think I can wear the spider boots and the armor at the same time. But I'm gonna try and leap up there next to him.

Yeah, I mean, you're a cat.

Okay, I leap up there next to him.

He giggles.

Tree Ninja, this is Steel Links report.

I am in robots. And that's all he says.

Good boy.

All right.

Okay, how many robots we got?

There's 10 skelebots outside this building. I mean, your characters wouldn't be able to identify it. Well, actually, no. You guys are from modern day. So it's definitely an old public library. Like probably built by the Carnegie's or some late 1800s robber baron that felt guilty about his impoverishment of the lower classes.

So I have no idea what this building is.

That's true. I forget Mr. Cat Bronson. No idea. But Troi and Henry would know.

Okay, radio this information back to them if they haven't seen it already. That we have 10 Skullabots and Bronson in a tree.

I think I have a plan, but I need to navigate the book, so give me just a second.

Henry definitely spent a lot of time in the library. It's where his dealer came.

So Dustin does not have any sort of communicator, but he would be smart enough that he just stops if Henry stops. Or basically he does what Henry does.

Yeah. So upon hearing that, Henry stops in his tracks and kind of puts an arm out like.

And he gets very quickly covered in goo.

Definitely sinks it right into his shoulder.

That's okay. I'm a slurp.

Oh, sorry buddy. What a mess.

Oh, here you go. And he hands you a towel from his pocket, which is also covered in goo.

I was just about to have this

Tree Ninja remain here. Steel Links in motion.

All right, over and Roger, we'll work on that. Yeah.

Okay, I'm gonna try and sneak around to the other side of the building. Like do a perimeter run.

Okay. This will call for another prowl.

Okay. Oh yeah. 16. That's a good success. And that is with my penalty.

Oh, okay. You make a ring around the building. The entire building is not completely intact. A Very large alien tree coming up through its northern side. But the southern portion is largely, at least together in terms of floor and ceiling and some of the walls. And that's the side the skelebots are. Are kind of arrayed around. And aside from the skelebots, you don't see anyone else. You do. As you're moving around, you hear the occasional sound from inside, like talking, but it's. You're not close enough that you could really discern any specific words. Just, you know, like if you're in the woods and you can tell there's somebody talking nearby, but the distance is hard to judge when the sound is bouncing off trees and things.

Okay. And there's no more skelebots.

They're just at the front, essentially guarding the way in or the obvious way in. There are holes and empty windows.

Are there any cyborg sized holes and empty windows?

Nope. Well, I mean, what do you mean cyborg? Like something that looks like a cyborg made it or that a cyborg could go through?

Something that could fit a Henry?

Oh, sure, yeah, the front doors. But obviously at one point it was. Would have been double doors. He might have to duck his head.

I mean, back entrance, like another. Another way in that they might not have covered.

Yeah, well, if they had a loading dock, it is gone. There is a side door, but it is a very. That is very much a human sized personal door which Henry could fit through. He just might have to be careful.

But there's nobody covering it. That we can see. That I can see?

No, no. That you can see? No, there's nobody.

I will position myself so that the breeze is coming across the building and use my enhanced sense of smell. Smelling for food or feces or sweat, which I can do, is a crazy. I want to know if there's anything other than bots in there.

You smell Ratman.

Oh, that's right. Forgot about the ratman. Can I supernaturally smell them? Or Bronson. I'm guessing that's how Bronson got here.

That's how Bronson got here. No, they're. They're DBs. They're not supernatural or anything of that nature, nor are they supernaturally evil.

So they're not using magic, they just happen to be from another dimension?

Yeah, yeah. Or there are mutants you don't actually know, but they are not demons or anything of that nature.

Okay, I need to look up this ability that I've never used and completely forgot about. There's two of them. Recognize ID prey by sound and recognize location, distance of sound. I'M just thinking maybe you could be like, guide me through the building to the location of the bad guys kind of thing.

Oh, yeah, it sounds rad.

I will just to kind of put you on notice, GM, I am preparing. I give Mr. Cat kind of the word, like tell me when you want to go. And I am doing the pre 15 seconds of intuitive combat, but I'd like to just kind of keep rolling that. So I'm sitting here meditating so I can finish that when the crap hits the fan.

Oh, yeah.

Can I do normally? I have to spend a whole melee prepping that psychic power and that kind of song. So I'm gonna prep it now.

Yeah, that's fine. That makes total sense. You have the time.

Using my amplified hearing. And again, sound filtration system. Could Henry hear anything beyond the skelebots into the library?

Yeah, you would hear. So I'll say you need to roll your perception because I assume Henry is not getting as close as the others. Correct.

Where I'm still waiting for another signal, so I figure I'm still a bit farther away.

Okay.

But Gorshkov is going to kind of calibrate your census so you can have advantage.

That's an 86, which is probably not gonna cut it.

Oh, perception is D20.

Oh, yeah. D20 plus whatever you got.

You obviously want to roll high on this one.

Those are three. I'm gonna go ahead and we give advantage.

Well, you had advantage. Did you already take the extra reroll for that?

How much was the advantage again?

It gives you a re roll.

Oh, perfect.

And if you have a perception modifier on your sheet, add that which you

may not have a lot of characters. Do not.

I don't. Which is weird because I have like three different perception powers.

I rolled a ten.

Okay. So you're. You're far enough. If you didn't have amplified hearing, you would have heard nothing. What you can hear is you can hear an exchange between rat men and a robotic voice, but you can't specifically tell what they're saying. You could just discern that there are these two sort of voice patterns talking.

Okay. So as it turns out, re looking over the battle cat description and these two powers that I completely forgot I had, which are just skills, but they are excellent sense of hearing, which is judge distance and precise location of source, and recognize and identify prey by sounds. And then it goes into all this detail about how powerful the cat's ears are. It's actually kind of more detailed than you. You know, you random palladium powered deep Dive. Description of things that you're probably never going to use until right now. I apparently have 30 ear muscles and can discriminate between multiple sounds separated by an angle of 5 degrees with an accuracy of 75%. Anyway, I can hear sounds up to two octaves higher than the highest note. Humans a half octave higher than a dog, and so on. Can I identify how many people are in there, what they are and what they're saying?

And again, assuming that we're working as a team, I will also quote from the book, the Crazies can hear a whisper or a twig snap at 300ft. So I think between the three of us, we should be able to hear what's going on in there.

And I know that I couldn't tell what they were saying, but I am curious if I could recognize. The robot was speaking Technocan.

No, the robot was speaking English. And I will say so you could discern. Gorshkov would be able to analyze the patterns that it is a skelebot's voice pattern, though it is not speaking as like a skelebot. It's using because skelebots generally don't talk other than like to confirm orders.

Exterminate.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. Mr. Cat and Troy, there are, you estimate, no more than three rat men inside and a skelebot that are talking. And now, if you'd had 31 ear muscles, you'd know exactly what they were saying.

But God damn it. Damn it.

Genetics.

And you have you know that they're on the main floor, probably just inside. Well, not too far inside, past the front entrance, you have a vague idea of where they are. In other words, if you went inside the building through like a back one of the back door unitified, you would not just simply blunder into them. Okay. Unless you wanted to do we want

to do the distraction route? Henry could pull a lot of that. Those perimeter bots off that library.

I mean, a very large battlebot is a good distraction.

Can you imagine if I just ran through the library, like streaking

and you just. Oh, no, this is before. Before the time we couldn't effectively yell Leroy Jenkins.

Oh, yeah, none of you know that,

but Ray Stevens did exist. And that song, the Streak.

That's true.

Yeah. Let me look up what Bronson, Is he. How good at stealth is Bronson?

Oh, I'm sure he's decent. He's a dog boy.

Yeah, yeah, he's decent at it. Looks like he can run. He's 50, 50 on prowl. He's good at hunting, good at tracking. Yeah. Okay. Okay. Okay. Really good at climbing.

Do we think that this is a weird, like, this is clearly coalition type stuff? Getting involved in this could bring more coalition forces upon us. How stealthy do we want to continue being? And do we want to capture or kill the Ratmen?

Oh, I want it to capture at least one of them and then probably get as much information as we can as I play with it.

Sounds good to me.

So what I'm hearing is that your railgun is an option for your distraction.

I may or may not be zoomed in on my. On row 28.

I want more detail numbers. I want to know what's inside there. So I could go in?

You could go in. I could get a little bit closer, see if I could hear anything more. You might have better hearing than me at this point with how close you are.

Bronson would appreciate if we have a code word for time to strike steal links.

Roger that. 7, 4, 10.

You said they're all on the first floor. If you sneak in on the second floor, you should be able to recon. I think that's a great plan.

I'd like to try that.

Okay.

When we should have a code word then, for when things go tits up so that then we can provide a distraction from the outside.

The code word is tits up.

I second this motion.

All right. Tits up it is.

So how is Mr. Cat getting into the second floor?

Well, I can leap 50ft, so I'm going to try that and climb around the walls and see if I can get a way in. Wow.

Leap 50ft. That is so insane.

Did they.

Do you think they knew how long 50ft was in the 80s when they made this game?

Let. Okay, let me real quick go over because there's a. Okay, Snow leopard. Here we go. Oh, I'm sure can leap 50ft across. Oh, 20ft high. Is that 50ft across? 20ft high.

That's still crazy. I mean, those. Yeah. The second floor is not more than 20ft up. I mean. Yeah. So you just see this Mr. Cat just leap out of the underbrush and fly through an empty window, Land up at the second floor. There's dilapidated bookshelves everywhere. Old books scattered clearly all ruined and by water and moisture and small animals. And now you can hear voices more clearly. Ratman hissing and spinning. Rasca Jala. Once assurance is she will be protected. You have all the assurances that the coalition will give to your kind. Do we have a deal? Except that voice is very metallic and vaguely feminine. Maybe you're picking up any sort of undertone from it.

Just to note, I'm also opening up my external microphone so it can whatever. Anything that can be heard at least want to try and pass it through so they can hear what I'm hearing. They might not be able to hear it anywhere near as well as I can hear it, but on the chance I'm gonna open that feed.

If Jacob was here, I'm sure he would chime in as well. I think this bot out of character is being used as a relay. There are certain things that would happen to the audio signal if it was being relayed instead of the bot just speaking for itself. Using our characters. Radio basics. We all have radio skills. Is that a reasonable assumption that this skelebot is being a relay for somebody else who's speaking?

Yeah, of course. That is an absolutely valid assumption if you wanted to make it. Whether it's true or not remains to be seen.

But it's a fair or something?

Yeah, I think so.

I'm going to sneak closer.

Okay, you sneak closer. They're going into details. And as far as you can tell, they are essentially being bribed. The Rat Men are being bribed by the coalition to take part in some sort of operation in central Michigan.

I have no concept of what this Michigan is, so hopefully the people listening on the other end can

little metagaming. It almost be worth considering not tipping them off that we now know this.

True.

I say metagaming because Henry would not think of that.

What state of mind is true? I'm sorry, what state of mind is Mr. Mundo in?

Edmundo seems pretty level right now. He's following the plan. He's engaged right down the middle, or as close as he gets to it.

Oh, man. Having to make tactical decisions. This is what Riley's for.

At best we could prevent it from happening, but we also could just head it off at the pass right now, which is what Henry would lean towards.

I want to get more details on what else is in this building. Okay, stand by.

Mr. Cat is moving around. And to clarify the. They're trying to get the Rat Men, or rather Ruska Jala, to agree to send her. Her Rat men, her cyber Rat men out to help not the coalition, but what they call their allies in an attack on a town called Hartsby. And the ally in question is called King Abel.

Figured that. And you know, recording whatever I can, but yeah.

And so they're going back and forth. Essentially the Rat Men are trying to shake them down, get as many weapons as they can out of the coalition. And she's making Various promises about this, the armaments that the Coalition will provide. Nothing as good as what you all stole from the Coalition, but. But not nothing either. They're. They're agreeing to give over rifles and, well, laser rifles, plasma grenades, significant amounts of food.

Okay, I want to get. If I can establish visual, I want to see who's talking, because I'm still not convinced that there's not a Ranger here too.

So you get close enough, you're right above them, there's various holes in the floor of this room you're in. And you look down, you can see the three rat men. They're kind of very much bunched up, standing in front of this large skelebot, which only looks large because it's, you know, towering over these three very small rat men. You don't see anybody else in the room. What sort of skills would Mr. Cat have? I know he has certain military understandings of military affairs implanted in him, but let's talk about what equipment knowledge he would have.

Let's see, basic stuff on weapons. I have some radio skills. I now know a little bit about power armor. I know how to pilot a jetpack, but otherwise, that's it. I don't really have much in the way of gear knowledge. Yeah.

So there is. Behind the Scalebot, there's this clear crate of military. Of a military nature. And while given the wires and things that are connected to it and running out into other parts of the building, you don't know exactly what it is, but you know enough to know that it is some sort of explosive device.

Hmm. I am going to extract.

Okay, you're moving out of the building. What is everybody else doing?

And I'm letting y' all know I'm pulling back out. Steel links retracts.

Now, is Edmundo trying to triangulate any radio signals or anything? I know you'd brought that up, Sean.

Yeah. Anything else? That I'm not doing a full circuit like he was, but if there's anything else I can pick out as we're doing this, I'm taking in whatever Mr. Cat has shared. So any info using enhanced senses we can pick up to give us a better picture of the scene, I'm all in.

I think you guys have gathered as much as you could with your enhanced senses. If you wanted to use radio skills to try to triangulate any transmission that you suspect, you could do that.

Was this where the original signal that we were triangulating to was coming from?

It was in this vicinity specifically. Like down to the meter. You don't know, but yeah, it was in this direction.

As this. As I am pulling out of the building, I dawns on me sudden idea and I radio back, locate the vehicles and disable them.

The Rattmann vehicles, they had vehicles.

If we disable the vehicles, they will have a much harder time getting back to speak with this rustgut.

Between the two of us, you've got prowl.

Did you see any when you circumvented the building?

That's a good question. Did I see any other vehicles?

Did you make a circuit entirely around or did you just go around until you got to see the back door where you.

That's a good question. I would say I went widdershins around the building, so I'm going to keep going that way. So I only did 50%.

Okay. Yeah. So kind of on the north side, in the shadow of the big tree that is the whole north side of the building, are ATVs.

I don't have any skills related to these things, so I'm just not even going to attempt it. We'll point out their location, radio it over.

Sounds like a good plan.

Push comes to show, like, are there skelebots in the vicinity of the ATVs?

Actually, no.

Henry could just use brute force, go crunch a couple of gears.

I mean, I could just disable him. I'm all about getting Henry involved, but I'm like, if we want to be stealthy, I can sneak over there and rip out at a few appropriate cables.

Do all but one. I think we should give another one as a gift to our tree ninja. We want a distraction.

So it sounds like we have a rough plan there. I will slink around to the vehicles, the ATVs, and try to subtly disable them. I do have mechanics. I do have proficiency with automobiles. So I'm going. I'm going for subtle here. I'm not just smashing holes in them.

Yeah, I think it's. Troy could easily. I'm sorry, Edmundo can easily sneak around to that side. You don't have to roll. You're not really getting any closer to where there are observers. And yeah, I don't. I don't think you have to roll. I think this is pretty straightforward. You have time. They're still in there talking. They're ATVs. There's plenty of exposed parts that would be easy to break that would make them not go. Yeah, so I'll just say you can do it.

Sounds good.

Is there anything politically charged about the idea of the coalition trying to make a deal with the Ratmen and rocket. Yes, I have a finger camera.

Hmm.

Getting you in position to record all of this would be difficult.

Just popping a finger over a hill.

Yeah, I guess. Just kind of recording the scene.

Yeah, I mean they're going to presumably come out at some point.

Stone that out there.

Yeah. My lore knowledge is rusty, but my recollection is the coalition does not work with dbs. This would be a problem.

Unless. Well, so out of game conversation is depending upon what these rats are, they could potentially be out some of the escape. Escaped rats from the Lone Star facility. And that itself is a whole hella balloon.

Well, and they're also. So you're not wrong. The coalition would not normally be known to make deals with these sort of groups. But as if you notice, you know, officially that would be their stance. But also there are no official coalition representatives that you can see. And the coalition is. Is anything if. If not utterly hypocritical.

So at one point Mr. Cat started piping the audio back to us.

Indeed.

And Gorshkov has been known to always be recording.

Oh, I think you just assume Gorshkov is recording.

So we essentially. We don't have visual proof, but if we wanted to rely on just the recording, we have that in our back pocket.

Make it work.

Yes. I have detailed recordings of Riley's sleep snoring habit. I find it soothes me.

It might be a good idea to have Gorshkov, if he has the software capability for it, do an analysis on that voice, that female sounding voice coming through the robot this whole time.

I was wondering if maybe he could do some sort of detecting to see if there was a transmission beam going into that library of sorts.

Yeah, yeah. You guys can roll your radio basic anytime you wish.

Sure. It'd be nice to have a tech wizard today.

Sure would.

Who is also an electrical engineer.

Kyle, you said radio basic.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I feel like every class gets radio basic and ribs. Just no matter what you are, you probably have radio basic 65.

I'm going to burn a heroism double zero and a three. That's three, right?

That's three.

Perfect.

Very good.

So Edmundo's assumptions were correct. The skelebot is a receiver for an incoming radio transmission. The source would be located a few hundred feet directly above you in the trees. In the upper limbs of the trees.

Above Henry or above the like area that we're clustered in?

Above the area, not directly above Henry.

So Henry, do you relay this information?

Frankly, Gorshkov probably beats me to it because he knows I might forget.

Oh, Gorshkov would always. He would remind you. He would want you to. You'll tell them? Yes.

Guys, they're above us. Edmundo, you were right.

I'm looking up.

So you look up and it is very difficult to see. But you focus, you watch, you get patient. And there are definitely Rangers high up in the limbs with overwatch over the whole area. Whether they have spotted the more obvious members of your party is unknown. But you suspect? The answer is almost certainly yes.

We have bogeys in the trees

above Ascending. What's a bogey?

Same thing as a boogin.

I'm not gonna interrupt him. Nope.

Okay. I'm gonna assume it's a small flatless bird. I'm going up.

It's the enemy.

Oh, I still go. But it's a tree ninja.

Bronson, how would you like to steal a car?

Yep.

Come back down, meet me at my position. Okay.

A car is more fun than a small unflightless bird.

It's also fun to chop down trees.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

I thought about that. But they're Rangers. They're just gonna jump. But it would be cool to knock a tree down, right?

Bunch of Aragorns just hopping around.

Coalition Aragorn.

Yeah. So I'm gonna try and convince Bronson to steal the last remaining atv.

What do you mean try?

I don't have to try very hard.

Just point at it. There.

That's yours. Go.

I want it. Yeah. So he leaps on it, immediately revs the engine and just hightails it.

Bronson, catch. I throw him a very large rock. You need another brick.

So he's holding a rock in one hand, driving with the other, just going crazy. You see the Skelebots are all turning towards the sound, kind of starting to advance through the woods. The Rat Men come out now. They stole our ride. The Rangers, you, obviously, you. You. You can watch. Look up and see Rangers watching Bronson. But they don't open fire. And he goes off.

Did you say how many Rangers roughly?

I didn't.

Would you please?

No. You don't know. You just know. There are definitely guys up there.

How many? Can I count that I'm sure.

Are there seven?

Yeah. I'm assuming Rangers are tough customers.

That depends on whether they are just being called Rangers because, you know, they're outranging or whether they are the Coalition Ranger OCC and they're verifiable badasses. They are so out of game knowledge. The Coalition Ranger is probably the most capable of all of the Coalition classes, if I remember correctly. Like, you look up for them and you're like, why doesn't the coalition just fill their army with these guys? Because they'd win everything.

Because elite soldiers are hard to train and hard to maintain.

Yep.

These guys are in good concealed positions. They have been displaying excellent discipline. They have not engaged. They. From what Mr. Cat could see, they've. They have Henry and Dustin covered effectively, but they haven't opened fire. You're pretty convinced regular coalition troops would have already screwed up at some point by now.

What's the call, Mr. Cat? Which direction are our tits?

The tits are in the air. Uncertain direction, obvious joke.

Schrodinger's tits. But real, real question when it comes to shooting off one of those fancy rail guns. The shot, is it more of a single blast, or does it have a bit of a laser arc to where if I did a sweeping shot, it could. The idea I'm having is firing it into the trees in an arc and having it, like, cut a couple of trees at the. Near the top, maybe cause some of them to tumble down.

You can spray bullets. Like, it's like a big. You could. You could do a spray. Is there a spray move?

Well, some weapons. Now, it's based on the weapon. This one, I think, just does bursts.

I believe so.

Okay.

I would say Gorshkov is sophisticated enough. I mean, he could recalibrate Henry to the point that he could essentially spray with highly controlled, highly accelerated bursts. Now, it wouldn't necessarily do more damage, but if. If Alex, if you wanted to, you know, do something environmentally with it, sure.

Okay. And it doesn't hurt that I have targeting site. So if the tits do go north, I'm ready. My thought is to start blasting to the trees in Toll unless told otherwise.

I have a God complex, but I'm not an overconfident idiot. I think that this is a fight we can't win. They have superior position, superior numbers, and they have cover. We don't know how many there are. We should regroup away from here.

I'm into that. Especially now that we have two very valuable pieces of information.

The clear box that you mentioned inside, is that near the Ratmen? Or is that something that Mr. Cat could get to without alerting the Ratmen?

So at this point, the Ratmen have come out and are looking around. They heard the vehicle go off and they're scuttling down to where the other ATVs are they. They're not there yet.

My thought is one of us should shadow Henry and Dustin as they depart, because it is Pretty obvious that these guys know at least that they are there and the other of us. And by us, I mean me or Mr. Mundo should follow the rats and then take them out at a respectable distance. I will probably fuck with them too much.

Yeah. You're going to play with your fair future.

Might want to be the one in charge of that. Yeah.

And Bronson, we just letting him.

We'll meet up with him at some point.

I like the idea I'm in. Unless there's any disagreements, Henry and Dustin are going to just kind of casually turn around and start walking away from the. From the library. Not quite going directly in the direction back to our vehicle, but, you know, meandering.

Yeah. Dustin goes with you. Okay, let's go.

I love walks because he's a schlermph.

And Mr. Cat sneaks through and he is shadowing Dustin and Henry.

I'm keeping my ears open to sounds from above.

Okay. Yeah. So Edmundo moves. There's a conversation at the front of the. This, this library. The rat men are talking to this vocal skelebot that has emerged. And, you know, they're essentially griping, we have no ride. It will take us a long time to get back to Detroit. And the Queen, the skullbot, says, then you'd better get moving, and turns and goes back inside. And they kind of hiss and then scuttle off to the south, not knowing that Edmundo is close on their heels. The skelebots advance for a little bit, a few minutes in the direction that Bronson went. But at some point, lights on the side of their head all blink simultaneously. And they turn around and they start walking back towards the library. And then we are going to go to Edmundo. You are following the cyber Rat man. How far are you following them before I presume you will. Will attack?

They're on foot, but I'm assuming the Ratman.

I don't.

Until they look like they're about to give up. You know when you get that point when, when somebody just stops jogging and it's like, fuck, that's what I'm waiting for. When they've given up on pursuing Bronson or we're a long ways away.

Oh, oh, the rat. I'm sorry. The Cyber Rat men are not pursuing Bronson. They figured their vehicles were disabled and they just moved.

Oh, they're just. They're just walking.

Yeah. So it looks like they're just walking back to Detroit.

And there's three of them.

There's three of them. Yeah.

Well, I almost feel bad. Yeah. I give them About a mile. I don't want. I don't want their death cries to be heard. Sure.

Okay, we'll roll initiative, but you will have surprise. They have no idea you're following them. And I rolled.

How does surprise work in this system? I forget.

I don't know. You're just gonna get a free round to attack.

Well, this is probably gonna go badly for them. I gotta. I guess it doesn't matter too much. I can't remember if we re roll initiative around, but I got a 17 for this round.

You're gonna go. You're gonna go first. Shockingly, yeah.

So I'm opening with. I really want to use the railgun, but I'm not proficient yet. So I'm gonna open with a laser rifle shot at fairly close range. And what is an aim called shot gonna do for me in the the

ultimate edition, page 361, if folks want to look along. That is the page that everybody should have bookmarked because it has all of the modifiers on that. You can spend additional action points or attacks to boost the effectiveness of an attack. So you can take aim, which costs an extra action, but it gives you plus two to the roll. You can also spend an action to call the shot, meaning that if your attack roll succeeds, you hit a. The you specifically will hit the location that you wanted to. So if you want to aim and call, it would be two additional actions, but you would hit the location you want and have a plus two to the roll.

A plus two to the attack roll.

Yes.

I don't. I don't need a plus two to the attack roll.

Okay. I'm just saying because with ranged attacks, especially with modern weapons, the bonuses are a lot slimmer than with melee. So sometimes that plus two is good.

Yeah, that's correct. The weapon itself only gives me a one, but my default strike bonus is plus five, and it's currently gonna be plus eight.

Ah.

Is it a AIM bonus? Because if it's an AIM bonus, no

AIM bonus is plus four.

Okay.

There's a flat plus one, and then plus four if I aimed. So you're just gonna.

So that's the total bonus, includes the Plus 2. If you spin the action to aim, you'll get a plus four.

And in this case, I just don't think I need to, because I'm. I get a. I get a plus nine. Just. No plus six just for being me on top of the one. So I'm at a plus seven without aiming.

Is that to modern weapons or all weapons? What I'M saying is that your bonuses to strike from hand to hand don't apply to guns. Is that what you're referring to?

I'm looking at the strike column on the sheet. So is that only for not. Is that for hand to hand only?

That is for hand to hand only. Yeah. Modern weapons have their own bonuses. The physical prowess and whatnot doesn't apply. It's. It's a weird thing that Rifts does.

That should be their tagline. It's a weird thing that Rifts does.

Yeah.

They would have to say it a lot.

I think. I think in this case I'll. I. I still don't. I think it's worth doing a called shot if they're someplace vulnerable. Even just aiming for the head because it's intimidating to get shot in the head.

That said also, this is surprise round. So if you take the time to aim, I don't think it really cost you anything.

Yeah, not really.

Okay, so then I will say I have aimed and take that advantage for my initial shot. We'll go with that if that seems fair.

Okay.

Well that's a lot. I rolled a 15 plus the aim plus my intuitive combat. So I believe this weapon is 3D6.

Yes.

Okay, 3D6. MDC with the Wilkes rifle.

Right.

That's going to be 10 points of damage to his brain cage.

Well, as they are not MDC creatures, his brain cage does not stand up super great against that. It's more like a melon getting hit by a car.

That's perfect.

So there's just this pop and like red matter just splashes and mists over the others and one of them turns and goes Dave. Then they turn and see you and.

Are they wearing body armor?

No. They have mismatched bionic parts but they don't have armor and they point a finger at you. It's the one that came with the cat.

That's Mr. Canta. You motherfucker.

They are scrambling around. One of them pulls out this really chunky and looks like kind of kludged together laser pistol. It's gonna raise it and shoot at edmundo. It rolled a 16. Are you gonna dodge?

Of course I'm gonna dodge. Let me figure that out.

Okay, so you as a crazy have two different methods of dodge. You can spin an action and get your full dodge bonus or you can auto dodge and only get partial bonus. But it doesn't cost you anything. However, he rolled a 16.

Things that add to dodge don't add to auto dodge.

They do not. Well, some of them Do? It's already calculated. You have an auto dodge and a dodge on there.

Well, intuitive combat also gives me a plus four to dodge.

What was the question?

Intuitive combat gives a dodge bonus. Does it also apply to auto dodge?

Uh, I think so. For crazy. Sure. And also, auto dodge is supposed to be inherently intuitive.

Yeah, there you go.

It's definitely not supposed to be intentional.

I think so. That would put me at a plus seven. I'll give it a shot.

Now, how close did you engage these guys?

Close enough. My intention is to shortly follow up with melee combat. So I'm pretty close.

So would you say you're within 10ft?

What's the correct answer to that?

So the closer you are, the. The easier penalty to dodge?

Oh, I. I was thinking I was probably about 20ft behind him, close enough that I'm basically point blank with that laser rifle. Maybe 30ft. And then I'm swinging it down and coming in. Melee is the plan. So let's say 30ft.

So. So that is a minus five to dodge.

It's harder to dodge at close range. I got.

It's Rift. Yep.

Then I'll use an action. It's a laser pistol. I'll use an action to Dodge. So minus five, you said I still succeeded. So 21. I think you said you got a 16.

I did. Yeah. This laser blast goes straight into exactly where you had been, but you were not there anymore. The other one leaps down on all fours and starts charging towards you. And I need to. You're about 20ft away. Yeah, these guys are pretty fast. So he charges for it and he lunges at you, his tail spike coming out from behind his back. That's gonna be a 13 to hit.

Can I parry?

Sure.

Okay. I mean, I don't have a melee weapon out yet.

You've got the rifle.

Well, okay, I didn't state this, but my intention is to choke one of them out with a chain. So can I say that I have my chain, which has never been used in my offhand, I doubt it'll matter, but.

Okay, yeah. You're crazy. It's perfectly reasonable that you would have shot while also holding a chain.

I got 21 on my parry.

That is better than his. You. You parry this tail with this scorpion like steel tip on the end. One of those stabbing around you, and it is your turn.

Okay, I'll try and make this quick. I'm going to go ahead and punch him since he's right up in my space.

Okay.

I think he's in trouble.

Probably 22, 23 well, he's going to try to dodge. Turns out a five is probably not enough.

I mean, E for effort, though. Sorry. This is the first time I've had to use this in a little bit. Bear with me.

We are good.

That's gonna be 22 MDC.

Well, I don't know if that'll be enough because he has none, so. Yeah. What is that? What do you hit him with? What does that look like?

That is an augmented power punch. So as he lunged at me, I kind of pulled back, braced my whole self, put my strength into, and just plunged my fist through his torso.

Yeah.

It comes out the other hand. You hear the other one? Ah, Terry. And he takes off running, straight up, running away.

Okay. I would like to chase him down, knock him to the ground, and choke him out with the chain. We can do that in however many roles you want to do. I don't think it ends well for him.

I will say the real question is if you just accidentally kill him because you're super strong and he is fairly fragile as things go.

That's fair.

So just roll an attack roll. Standard attack.

Like a strike attack roll.

Yeah, yeah.

Do I want to do well on this roll? Because if so, I may use one of my little points.

You want to do well? Yeah.

It looks like that's bringing me to a 15, but let me check. I don't know if the chain gives me a strike bonus, but 15.

Well, 15 is all you need. So.

Okay.

To not accidentally kill him, you choke him out. Oh, the darkness. It's coming for me, Mom. And then he passes out. He smells absolutely vile.

I will shove him into his own backpack, sling it over my shoulder, and head back.

Yeah, you have to touch him to do it. And you know your best friend is Dustin, according to him. And he's slimy, but these guys. Oh, you wish you had some Purell or some dial something.

It's a weird product placement ad right there. I spin and hold up a bottle of Purell for all your Ratkin needs.

Yeah. After a hard day of killing Ratman in the broken grid beneath Old Detroit Windsor, I like to reach for a

bottle of Purell, blast a Ratman, get covered in gore. There's got to be a better way.

Okay, so I assume Edmundo is heading back to the Mountaineer.

Yeah, at that point, I will. I will jog briskly back towards. Which is pretty damn fast, towards the. The Mountaineer.

So all of you exfiltrate, they don't pursue you, they don't shoot at you. The Skelebots the last you see, the skelebots are kind of advancing back to the library. But you quickly move out and you're not sure what happens after that. You reconvene at the Mountaineer. Bronson is in the distance in the middle of an open area doing donuts.

Excellent.

And he will be doing that until someone stops him or the ATV runs out of gas.

I did have to circle back and pick up that laser pistol because if I don't look at loot everything, the rest of the party will be mad at me. So I will bring the laser pistol as well.

Okay. It is a scrap built laser pistol. It does 46 damage.

That might be better than mine. 4D 6 MDC.

Yeah, 4D 6 MDC. It also explodes if you are hit while firing it.

Oh yeah, that's perfect. That's my nuke pistol.

My assessment is those Rangers probably thought that we were just there for the rats. They didn't follow. They didn't seem to care. They just let us go.

But wouldn't you think, based on the conversation that they had, that they would have a vested interest in the three of them making it back to Rock Gut?

The rats are only getting paid if they actually did the job. So the coalition hasn't lost anything yet other than potential allies.

Yeah.

I didn't get the feeling that they were heavily invested in this operation. If they were, you would think that they would have reached out to Raska Jaller and sent agents to speak with her. As it was, these were three envoys from Detroit, far out of the way seeking them. Very strange. I get the impression that this was something that would have been more advantageous to Ruscutt than it would the coalition.

But originally when we went out here, I thought we were. Our goal was to figure out what the coalition was up to and fuck with it. But we're not prepared to fuck with a whole posse of Rangers.

I mean, they definitely outnumber us. Even at full capacity, they outnumber us.

Just thinking that.

You're not suggesting that they're better than you, are you, Mr. Catton?

I don't know enough about them to know that they're better, but I know that there's more of them. They had the advantage. Only a fool presses against that.

I shake my bag of Ratman at you. There were three of them.

Rita, Sun Tzu, sometime, Or a Conan.

I still think it's worth you taking this Ratman back and introducing him to your pastimes and see if he has anything else to share. Ooh, I Kept him alive just for you, Mr. Cat.

Mm.

See? Okay, see, that's. That is now introducing a moral quandary. Mr. Cat. That moral quandary is, according to the palladium.

Alignment.

I was gonna say torture.

Do nots.

It's probably on your do not list.

Torture is definitely on a do not.

Mmm. Is it considered torture for a cat to play with a mouse before it gets its sustenance?

I am not eating that. Therefore, in this case, I would say yes.

Agreed.

Having seen a real life cat play with a mouse, I would still say yes. It's messed up.

Yeah. And. And. And unfortunately, I ended up being the one with the very good knife and not the death complex.

Yeah, look, you know, cats in real life, they're small and adorable, but they're most border. Most border on chaotic. If they were bigger, it would just

be more of a problem without going into torture. We could still interrogate him.

We could.

Sure.

That's an out. Troy would probably not even suggest torture properly.

Yeah, interrogation and torture is something that I also, as a player, I'm just not comfortable doing. Like, I can say. I can say everything that I want about being, you know, a cat playing with its food, but I'm not going to go there.

Player and Henry feel the same. Even if Gorshkov could, like, take over and do it, it still would feel bad.

So we wake him up, we say, listen, things are gone sideways. Tell us what you know, then we let him go.

Works for me. I will just stand there and loom and clean my fingernails with a knife. Not the dagger of Rostum, but an actual knife, because that's beneath it.

Does anyone have interrogation?

I have fine contraband. So I can give him a cavity search. That's about it.

Welcome to Michigan Customs. I'm your customs inspector. Edmundo, I do not. Okay, well, you can do basically, beginner's luck, where you roll half value of what it would be, or it seems like Troy is the one doing the interrogation. So

I have seduction. Can I lean on?

Well, let's see. Well, you can. Yes. No, he's terrified. It's. It's not gonna work. Yeah, never work between me.

I'll roll some dice. But basically, I just wait for him to come to and I say, listen, you saw what happened to Terry and Dave. I'd rather just let you go. Tell me what you know. You don't give a shit about this coalition guys anyways. Give me some info and we all walk away.

Oh, yeah, like he's not going to resist. It's more of a question of if he actually tells you anything or just runs screaming, completely losing control of his ability to.

He's restraining.

What do you want me to roll?

So remind me, like, what would be the attribute build for interrogation?

Let me look that up real quick. MA IQ plus Mental Endurance.

So I add those together, and because I'm doing this unskilled, I. What? Cut it in half? Is that the. Yeah, that's not a big number. All right, can I offset that penalty slightly by. As he's coming to and I'm starting to do this, I will untie him and I will hand him a laser gun. Is that enough to not give me a. To give me a little leverage? Basically, I rolled a 20. My skill is 11, but that's cut in half. So if you'll. If that's enough leverage to raise it up to a 22, then maybe I get something.

Yeah, I would say that. Yeah, that would work. Just because he's. You were already gonna get a bonus. Because he's absolutely terrified.

Yeah. Make it clear that I'm serious. Like, when he comes to, if he starts talking, he gets untied. He gets a laser pistol for his troubles.

Yeah.

Yeah. What do you want to know? Don't kill me like you did Terry and Dave.

Terry resisted. Dave was an accident, almost.

I think. I think I thought you aimed. Sorry. Sorry.

That was a cult shot.

How long you been working with those coalition chumps? Was it just three of you? He got more. Mr. Cat, Troy or Henry? Either of you got questions for this fella? What's your name, by the way?

Mortimer.

No, that's a shitty name. You should be Dave.

Okay, I'm Dave now. Wow.

You're not really good at this.

They don't like us, so we don't get to work with them much. But sometimes, if they want us to do something, we come up here and we're like, hello. And they say, you go do this, and then they give us thanks.

So what were they trying to get you to do this time, little dude?

Oh, they want us to attack Hartsby. It's a town. People that live there. And you can tell he's looking at all of you. And he means, you know, people like you. Normal people.

Normal people.

It's their war.

You said you come by here regularly to check in if they have jobs for you. Like the same location. It's like a meetup spot.

Well, sometimes they're not always here, but sometimes they are. Everyone knows this.

Have you met anyone besides the robots?

Oh, it's Always the robots. It's never the people. And they have the bomb. So if we get out of hand, they say they blow us all up.

That was my theory, yes.

Raiding that building would have went very badly.

Yeah, but you should talk. Oh, the. The side stalkers, they come here too. They make deals.

What do you know of the psy stalkers?

Oh, King Abel is very angry.

Why?

I don't know. I'm not a psychiatrist. Probably a poor childhood. Maybe. Perhaps a lack of nutrition during formative periods. Mother didn't hold him enough, father wasn't there. You never know. Or he could just be an asshole.

Are you speaking from experience?

Oh, my parents were great. They loved all 48 of us.

How many of you are there now?

Well, let's see. Terry and Dave are dead. You killed a number of the others when you were there in the broken grid. So me and. Bam Bam.

So you remember me?

Uh huh.

I was magnificent, wasn't I?

Is the answer yes?

Good answer. He's all yours. I leave.

So you, your rat family, yeah, do not work with King Abel, But King Abel and the sidestalkers are also working with the coalition, as you understand it. Is that what I'm hearing?

Yeah, I think so.

Was there an agreement reached in your conversation with the Skelebots?

Yeah, they're gonna give us stuff and we were gonna go tell Jaller that it was good to attack Heartsby, but it's just me, and I'm guessing I'm not gonna live.

What happens when you fail? Typically.

Fail? Fail? What?

Like, what does Rotgut. What would she have to say about that? Failure? She learned of it.

She's very understanding.

The rats have a surprisingly positive community,

apparently. So it kind of sounds like the coalition is just going to move forward with this plan, deliver some goods to the Ratmen and Rock Gut. But they're going to be like, the hell's this?

Well, they're only going to deliver if the rat people do their side of the job. So I'm saying I look at Dave and I say, listen, buddy, you go back, you tell her deal's off. Give her whatever line you want. You can tell her I said that. That's the answer. As long as you guys don't show up again, we won't come fuck with you. Coalition doesn't need your help. King Abel doesn't need your help. Cool.

Yep.

Mr. Can't Walked Away.

Yeah, I left. I'm waiting for him to leave.

Yeah, he's nodding. He's. He's saying he's gonna do it now. You know, who can say what he will do, but he definitely will tell you that right now because he does not want to die.

On a side note, if we wanted to guarantee his survival, it probably wouldn't kill us to go grab Bronson. Give the ATV back.

I was going to say wave Bronson over. Hey, buddy, we need that back.

I have a plan for Bronson

and the atv.

The ATV is Bronson's.

Unless you guys. If not, I pat Dave on the shoulder, I make sure dust him off a little bit, hand him a little tube of Purell, and say, get out of here, buddy.

Okay? He starts drinking the Purell, And he goes off into the wilderness.

Okay? So when he leaves whatever area that it was that he was being held, he comes face to face with Mr. Cat and Bronson. I'm holding the dog back because I'm pretty sure Bronson just wants to murder this thing.

Sure, yeah.

Hold. I say to the ratman.

Oh, no.

Okay, I'm gonna step forward to, like, you know, like, looming over him. Drop down and take a deep whiff. Bronson, Smell him. Take it in.

He smells like poop.

I didn't think you cared about that.

I just want to roll around in it.

Please don't. Oh, okay, but take in his odor. Memorize it.

Oh, yeah, Bronson's in there. He's smelling.

We can find you wherever you go.

I'm terrified.

Goodbye. We just let him leave?

Yeah, he. Oh, he just runs. Just running. Like. Like somebody running from Dracula or Michael Myers. We're out of a Chuck E. Cheese.

That's very specific.

I'm just saying, like, you can only take it for so long. Then it's, you know, you're either gonna run or something's gonna burn down.

Okay, guys, what do we do now?

Weren't we communicating with truth about this whole situation back at Plastic?

I don't remember.

So the plan you formed in New Laszlo was that they were going to wait for you at Saginaw. You were going to go investigate all these rumors, and they were going to wait for you at Saginaw before going on to Heartsby to help the people there.

Gotcha. So do we want to do anything

with the information we found? I think the information might be useful to them, but I don't think we can do anything. We don't have any. We don't have any, you know, spunky yellow jumpsuit wearing reporters to feed this to, you know, extra extry.

It's the forced news.

What you got, buster? Yeah, but letting them know that they would Be walking into a Coalition ambush potentially is what is good knowledge pass on to them.

This is. This is actually. Actually, yeah, this is. I think we should bring this to them. And I don't say this as me wanting to get out of this area as quickly as possible, even though I as a player think so. I also player think that letting them know that these Rangers are very specifically out here recruiting others to assist them and possibly if we can get them to help us. I like that because Daisy Boone with some Samus and whatever the others have, we go. What if. What if we go help this. This Hercules guy, we bring a glitter boy back with us to help take these Rangers out? I don't think we currently have the numbers, the skills, the tactical ability or the firepower to take out a group of at least seven Coalition Rangers.

What about swinging through Archby to figure out why both the Coalition and New Laszlo actually care about this place? Do we know why they care?

Do we?

So what truth Dinsmore has told you is that the Coalition or what she believes? The Coalition plan for Michigan is to stop any sort of cooperation between the isolated towns settlements of Michigan from forming anything like a state which the Coalition would consider a political problem.

Where is this Hartsby in relation to where we are now and where we are planning on going to meet up with them?

It's more in central Michigan, so it'd be essentially vaguely to your northwest, like beyond Saginaw, where you'd plan to meet them.

Okay, that makes it simple. Well, it's a good thing we don't have a Cyber Knight here to oppose any of this because I think we should retreat. We just. We. I got nothing. What do you guys think?

I think the torture conversation would have been much quicker with the Cyber Knight here not having it. Yeah, I don't think we can do anything here either. As much as I like violence, I

like the idea of helping someone out and preventing death more than I like the idea of dealing death.

Agreed.

Yeah. Even if we get into now I can't remember the name of the town Hearts be. We can let them know. Hey, here's some threats to expect in addition to the Coalition. We're helping them in advance. That's good.

I second that. Third. I'm glad you suggested it. Good job, Troy.

I will have to pause and turn to Dustin and say, dustin, buddy.

Hey, Edmundo.

What would I do in this situation?

Oh, well, you would attack. That's probably why he died.

What would you do in this situation?

Oh, I just do whatever Edmundo says he Always told me you'd make a great garbage man, Dustin. And I said, yeah, probably because I'm a Slurpee.

Are you really?

Yeah, I'm a garbage man.

You're a Slurmf?

Uh huh. Oh, yeah.

Also a Slurmf and a pretty great garbage man.

I'm pretty good at it. I can't get sick.

Does your ooze insides? Do you have the ability to clean things? Like, if we were to feed you something covered in garbage, would you be able to clean off the garbage and excrete a pristine, clean version of that thing?

Well, I guess so. I've never tried.

Would have been interesting if we could have fed the rat man to him and just had it come out the other side all squeaky clean.

Yeah, because that's what we all want to see. A Slurmf giving birth to a rat man.

All right, well, I guess it could have happened, but, I mean, he would come out with very clean bones.

Okay. Okay. What about the gun, though? What if that laser pistol that Troy has, that'd probably be fine, but if you fed it to him and it came out the other side, would it still smell? Could he, like, clean it?

It's my only laser pistol. I don't want to take that chance.

I mean, kind of like, you know, throwing dirty pennies into a pile of ketchup, and then a couple hours later, they're all clean. Please tell me you've done this.

Is this some strange Portland lore?

What do you.

No, this is a science thing that I learned in kindergarten.

Today we will be precise. We'll throwing pennies into ketchup.

Ketchup is slightly acidic.

Cleans off all the smudge. Okay.

Don't tell my children.

Anyway, my question is that he seems to be clearly acidic of some kind. How deep is that acid? Like, could we feed him dirty things and have them be cleaned?

Well, if it was anything that his kind of gelatinous body wouldn't digest, which I presume is he digests anything organic, then theoretically, sure.

Okay. Those grenades we gave him, if he

gave them back, they're covered in slime.

Yeah, but they're covered in his slime. They're not covered in anything else. That was previously on them. So, like germs or dirt or grime. Oh, that's gone.

Yeah, they would be. Yeah. Once you clean the slime off, they would effectively be sterile until they were exposed to forms of bacteria.

We also have a portable evidence cleaner.

I was going to say, anytime NPC asks really specific questions, you should Be worried because he's up to something.

What if we made the Slurm our item cleaner?

Yes.

I mean, he's down.

That's why I asked, because I figured he would be. He gets a tasty snack out of it. Okay. Anyway, are we sticking around or are we heading out?

I see no reason to stick around unless we want to give it, say, five to 10 hours and go check out that library once all the rangers and company leave.

They had a very large explosive there that looked like it was wired to the building. I don't think they're going to leave.

Rather just cut transmission. That makes sense.

I think it would be nice to bug it, but I don't think it's worth risking it. If we go back again, they'll for sure figure we're up to something. They will attack, is my opinion.

Like we can at least try and fool ourselves into believing they thought that we were only there for the rats and leave with a, you know, a little bit less concern.

Best not to tempt fate.

I would like to, before we do anything, take some time to do an extended series of circles around the camp, going further and further out just to see if we are being watched by anything. And I'll take careful. Take care to look up this time.

Okay, roll your perception.

Okey doke. That's a 14.

So there are definitely. So you don't see any rangers? You do at the edge of the Sanilac Forest where these mega flora are. You don't see anyone, but you do very much see shadows that don't look like they're supposed to be there, but

they're not near our camp.

They are angled in your direction.

Okay, but how far away are we talking?

Oh, quite far. You're fairly certain you're being observed, but no one is close. You're definitely in sniper range.

Okay, if we're in sniper range, we're in railgun range.

No. Yeah, you could absolutely shoot at anything that you could see.

I think if we just move on, they'll probably leave us be. They're probably keeping an eye on us till we get the hell out of here.

Great suggestion, Mr. Mundo. Let's do this.

Which might also imply they might know that we interrogated the rat.

Oh, they probably do. They probably don't care.

Interrogate's a hard word. We interviewed him, all right? He got the permission of rat that gets to live promotion.

So are you guys gonna head to Saginaw?

Don't see any reason what to stay

now that we're done playing good cop. Good cop, cat cop. Yeah, let's. Let's get out of here.

You load up in the Mountaineer. Bronson's on his new four wheeler. You head out. The rangers do not trouble you. You definitely have the. At least Mr. Cat has the feeling of being watched until you're some miles away. As darkness falls, you're on the road to Saginaw. And I think we will end there. That's a pretty good note to end on before you have some big social engagement with the torchbearers.

Is Bronson proficient with the atv? Sorry.

He can drive automobile?

Yeah, I'd say he's basically proficient. He falls off a lot.

Those are some pretty sick ass donuts.

I also have Otto, but I think I also have like the motorcycle Y1. So I'll ride with Bronson. Yeah.

Oh, he's very excited about that.

I'm gonna help him learn to ride an atv.

Troy, stand on my shoulders while we drive.

No.

That was not the response I was expecting from you, Troy. I was expecting. Okay, see that's.

That's not what Troy would do. But what would Edmundo do?

He said no. I miss Troy.

Edmundo's busy thinking about his wife and his girlfriend and how the two should never meet because tentacle lady will not end well for her.

I like this campaign.

I really enjoy this. This is a lot of fun.

A constant delay.

Session 15.

Yeah.

We had in this session the three least forward thinking characters in the group.

Yeah. And you all displayed a very bold amount of caution. I assumed it was just going to be just a combat from beginning to end.

Honestly, if Troy had rolled on the crazy, crazy, like manic. I guess if you had. Is that what it is? The manic mode?

Yeah.

Yeah.

If he had gone on manic mode, I would have just gone with it because that, that would have been fun. But we probably would have almost died. If not died,

I think the cyborg would have been all right.

Yeah, well, Henry has a lot of mdc. The Rangers are pretty tough. The Rangers are pretty good.

Yeah. The thing about them is that the Rangers, they're hunters, they're snipers, they're stalkers. We were on their property, like their domain. They had every single advantage. Yeah.

They're well equipped and ready for us. It would have been a bad fight.

They didn't care about us because they didn't need to.

They had 10 skelebots and a big bomb. Yeah.

I'm glad the tits stayed down.

And Bronson would have been tough, but tree ninja would have been fine. All right.

Tree Ninja would have made it.

Totally.

Bronson's a fan favorite. We can't. He would have to be the last survivor. He can't die.

Honestly, as. As we all know, the dog can't die. If the dog dies, podcast is over.

If we make it back to the 90s, I would still vote that Bronson stayed either in a realm where he can still talk, or somehow he comes back to the 90s and can still talk.

He just comes back as a dog boy.

One of the consistent things that comes up when I use X cards at games that I'm running is people will say, no pets can die. No pets can die. It's a big thing.

Real quick. Bronson's a Chihuahua, right?

Yeah.

What if he came back as a dog but could talk and then was the canonical Taco Bell dog? Yes.

Yes. Can I hear Yokiro? Taco Bell.

Yokiro. Taco Bell.

I need you to.

Then they decided.

I need you to follow that myth. This is the Glitter Boys.

This is the Glitter Boys. Yo, Kiro. Taco Bell. This is the Glitter Boys.

Oh, okay. Got a new intro. Oh, that's great. How much XP do we get for this?

Oh, well, you know, you guys did were very responsible.

It's kind of like we defeated seven Rangers.

Oh, yeah. They didn't shoot because they were scared.

That's exactly. Yeah. I think we all knew that.

I mean, you joke, but to be honest, I think few people would intentionally pick a fight with a full conversion combat. Cyborg. It's like we're rolling around with a tank. Nobody knows that. You're sweet. Nice Henry on the inside.

Hey, don't. Don't count out that green slime man behind me.

Oh, yes. He's coming with us. I guess he is.

Well, sure.

Yeah.

He's. He found his best friend who he thought was dead.

Dustin. He's my friend.

Yeah.

All right.

Who he knows is, like, tech. He thinks is, like, technically dead, but it's back, so it's cool.

Well, that was a hell of a lot of fun. And I say that legitimately. Not every round has to be combat or game.

I'm gonna say everybody gets 200 XP.

Okay, please tell me that's enough to level up.

I have no idea.

What about Troy, who was the only one who engaged a vicious group of three cybernetic commandos?

You know, it was. And it is actually pretty important because Rusca Jala would have done it because it would have gotten food for her people and weapons, so. So now the Rat Men are not going to be attacking heartsby whenever the other bad guys do. So, yeah, yeah, we can have another. We can go. You know what? That is probably a critical plan that saves many innocent people because even if the attack didn't succeed, people would have died because the cyber Ratman showed up. So I'll say, yeah, that's 500 XP for Troy. Right here is 400 to a thousand, so.

Well, that'll get me enough to be more crazy.

Yeah, yeah.

And proficiency with a railgun.

I think that's going to be enough to get you a level, especially with your XP bonus.

Yeah, I think I was 3 or 400 off, so that should. Yeah. Sweet. Awesome.

Well, this was a blast, folks. Thank you for listening. If you haven't figured out at this point who we are, we are the Glitter Boys and I am npc, one of the regular hosts. I'm joined here at the table by Sean Just myself.

I'm Alex.

And we are joined remotely by our wonderful game master, Kyle. Kyle, say hi.

Hello. Hello. I'm Kyle. I'm the regular GM of the Bastard Quest actual play podcast where our games are much less serious than this one.

Much less. Much less. Yeah. And folks, if you want to understand that little reference that I threw out at the beginning of the episode about Thunderous Craig, you should go to Bastard Quest and listen to their latest series on Vessen.

Yeah. Which highly recommend. Vessen. I think it is a super cool game. Very thematic. Love it, love it, Love that game. That's what Nordic horror role playing.

I think Vesson could use a little bit less rfk.

Well, that is intrinsically true. I don't know why they included. Included him so much in the rule book.

Yeah. What? I don't know why there's so many RFKs and Kentucky prospectors out in Sweden.

Well, you know, the Scandinavia is different.

That's just like your opinion, man.

It's just. It's just a different place.

Well, again, folks, thank you for listening. We have enjoyed all of the feedback that we've gotten from everybody on our Discord server and folks leaving comments on YouTube and on Spotify. Thank you. We've got many more of these coming. I know that everybody wants them sooner. We get about once a month out there, so, you know, life happens. And unfortunately, none of us pay our bills from this stuff. So we only get to record when we can. But if we could, that would be pretty cool.

Yeah. If we start a $10,000 tier at a Patreon or something and get a couple 20 listeners, then 20 Mad Men.

$10,000 would be great. But folks, if you do want to throw us some money to help pay the bills, maybe five, we have a coffee site, we've got a redbubble site where we sell some merch. You can get some cool stickers and you can get tights with our logo on the butt if that's something that you really want. I'm a big fan.

Who doesn't want that?

But anyway, drop by our Discord server and say hello. And keep those comments coming on YouTube and Spotify. We love hearing from you. And check out Bastard Quest. It's great.

Thank you.

Starships, Magic, Mystic Martial Arts, Romance. All of these can be found in a Cloak of Blades by Isaac Sher. You might have heard my name before. I've done a lot of voiceover work for Breakfast Puppies and I've recently released my first novel. It's available on Amazon as an ebook and paperback and you can get it for free if you have a Kindle unlimited subscription. I do hope you'll support my work as you're supporting Breakfast Puppies and it's been a pleasure talking with you today. Have a good one. You've been listening to the Glitter Boys, a Palladium Books fan podcast. Glitter Boys, Rifts, the Megaverse and all other such topics are the property of Kevin Sambita and Palladium Books. Please buy all their stuff and help keep them in print and making more games. You can order [email protected] and their entire catalog is available digitally at Drivethru RPG as well. Our opening music is 8 bit bass and lead by Furbyguy from freesound.org this closing music is Caravana by Philip Gross, available at freemusicarchive.org all sound effects used are self made or acquired via Creative Commons zero license. If you like what you have heard, find us on Twitter and Facebook as theglitterbois. That's B O I S and check us out [email protected] glitterboys and also join us on the Breakfast Puppies network [email protected] Discord and if you want to help us out, please spread the word and help us build a community. Thanks again for listening. We'll catch you next time.

Hello, this is Henry. This jerking off with cyborg hands rules. This is the Glitter Boys podcast.