hpr-knowledge-base/hpr_transcripts/hpr2455.txt

Episode: 2455
Title: HPR2455: Interface Zero RPG Part 5
Source: https://hub.hackerpublicradio.org/ccdn.php?filename=/eps/hpr2455/hpr2455.mp3
Transcribed: 2025-10-19 03:26:28

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This is HPR episode 2455 entitled Interface Nero RPG Part 5.
It is hosted by Klaatu and in about 85 minutes long, and can remain an explicit flag.
The summary is Klaatu, Loma, and has played the Interface Nero RPG Part 5.
This episode of HPR is brought to you by Ananasthos.com.
Get 15% discount on all shared hosting with the offer code HPR15.
That's HPR15.
Better web hosting that's honest and fair at Ananasthos.com.
Hey everyone, this is Klaatu, you're listening to Active Public Radio.
Interface Nero, actual play.
Today I've got with me as usual, low bath.
Hey everybody.
And I have Taj.
What's good everybody?
I say that we're Taj, Taj or Taj, Taj.
It's Taj, like the Taj Mahal, but nobody ever gets it right.
So I just answered anything at this point.
Bad, bad, maybe.
Yeah, I know, that's what you want to say.
But there's a story to that silent age, right, Taj?
It's like a, I don't know, you mentioned it in an email once.
Yeah, it's an intricacy of aspirated syllables in Sanskrit.
See, that's pretty fancy.
So when we last left Chai Wei and said they had found Peter,
which to the letter of the contract, their job is basically complete.
But I have a sense that there's a little bit more to this.
So Peter has said to you, if memory serves,
you're either in or out to help me.
I'm going to go take down global Omnium digital,
or at least I'm going to go take down Elizabeth.
Are you with me or not?
What do you guys do?
I was thinking over what I was going to do about this.
And I think Chai Wei will probably help out.
But I think she's going to have to let,
you know, the corporation she works for know about it first.
So maybe they can make some preparations.
Oh, interesting.
Okay, yes, that's a good, that's a good angle.
How about you?
What about said, Taj?
Sid's obviously thinking I could do this for the 7000 credits we talked about at the beginning.
Or I could do something that would make a difference.
And so I think Sid is definitely on the side of, hey, let's do this.
Let's tear something down because it probably will make the world a better place.
Cool. Okay.
So maybe this is, maybe this is at least part of what Sid was looking for in his,
in his sort of trying to find himself storyline.
Yeah, definitely.
That's what I was thinking, just kind of mulling it over in my head
that if I was in that position,
I think somebody looking for something
that this would kind of give them that focus and path.
Okay, so Peter looks at you both.
And he sees that you're not resistant to what he is proposed.
And so he says just directly to each of you,
can I count on you for your help?
Sure.
I tell him I have no reason not to help you.
And what exactly are you bringing?
I mean, you're obviously good enough to have found me,
which I had hoped would be difficult,
but you're here.
You're standing here in front of me.
You didn't come in guns blazing.
So you're obviously clever
and you're obviously very good at whatever it is you do.
But what are you bringing to the table?
I tell him if you need to get in somewhere,
or if you need to sneak something in somewhere,
I am the person to do it.
I kind of just hold up my cybernetic arm and move my fingers in a little hello
and look at the thing closest to me and just kind of smash it
just as a show of, hey, this is what I can do.
Okay, the thing closest to you is a very expensive microscope
and you smash it and he sort of
size, but the message is loud and clear.
That was outstanding.
So he says, all right, I'm going to admit that this is so far been our weakest point.
We're all, I'm the inside man obviously.
And my friends here, and emotions to the 14 techies around him,
are very good with what they do on networks
and with technology.
But on the ground forces, we've been very, very lacking.
If you could be that for us, then you might be able to get us in
to where we need to be in order to take out Elizabeth Ravadun.
Do you think you could handle it?
There's going to be a lot of gunfire.
Are you prepared to do that?
I tell him, let me know where you need us to be and I can get us there.
We're okay.
So let's let's break up for now.
And I will get in contact with you probably later tonight or tomorrow
with where you need to be and at what time.
And I'll be counting on you.
Sounds good.
Yeah, I think we'll head back to our, I don't think, and make some preparations.
Cool.
You all depart.
Everyone goes their separate ways.
And you go back to your HQ.
And so did you want to talk to your corporate overlords in shyway?
Yeah, I'm definitely going to call us in and I'll let them know that
another corp is probably going down or at least will be disabled for a while.
Let them make any preparations that they would need to for that.
Are you anticipating that they may send some merks to help you in your endeavor?
Let's see, I can call in like a few credits worth of extra gear and stuff,
but I don't know if they would, it depends on whether I don't know.
I don't think they would help, but I don't think they would hinder what we're doing either.
What if it might be worth calling your patchman contact to see if he wants to tag along as a
medic support?
Yeah, I think that would be a good idea to have some extra support with us.
Let's see his name again.
Johnny Toothomes.
Johnny Toothomes, he sounds like the kind of guy who might be up for tagging around.
I don't know.
Sounds like somebody is about that life.
Yeah, yeah.
Okay, so you call Johnny Tooth, he answers and he says,
H-I-Way, what's up?
I tell him we got a big operation going down and we might need some medical support.
I was wondering if you would like to tag along for a fee, of course.
Yeah, it's been a slow month, actually.
I'm up for that.
I've got some new toys, sort of, I like to think of them as inverse medical tools,
and I'd like to try them out on a couple of people.
I think that sounds like a pretty good time.
Yeah, I'll be there.
All right, sounds good.
We'll work out the details later.
Cool.
So, Johnny Toothomes is up.
Sid, do you have anything that you need to prep for?
I'm sitting here looking at my character sheet.
No, I think I'll be okay.
I've got some weapons.
I think I'll be all right, so probably not.
After Chai Wei makes her calls, you guys receive a message from Tina Tamatsu,
and she obviously doesn't know Chai Wei, so she's calling Sid on his,
because you gave her her card, your card, if I recall correctly.
I did, yes.
Yeah, so she says, Sid, this is Tina.
I wanted to ask you something.
Is this a secure line?
Yeah, go ahead.
I wanted to see if you'd made any progress on finding Peter, because I heard some rumors
about a big meeting earlier today of a hacktivist group that I've,
I can't prove it, but I think that they might be related to the tinkerers,
and I'm wondering if you might be able to either check that out, or if you
if maybe you happen to already know that.
I've been in contact with them, yes, and I know that they did meet.
Do you think Peter's with them?
Probably best for you not to be involved in some things at this point.
Sid, I thought we had had an agreement that we were going to keep each other informed
about these matters.
I, uh, motioned Chai Wei to have her come over, and I, I guess what her future version of speaker
phone I had, uh, I go ahead and turn it on so she can hear what's going on.
And Tina says, if you don't want me involved, then I don't have to be, but,
but I thought we'd come to an understanding that we were going to help each other out on this.
What kind of helper are you going to be able to offer?
Should things go down at this, at this point, if, if things get rough,
um, what is getting you involved?
It can help, unless you've got something you're not telling me about.
I've got a lot I'm not telling you about, she says.
But mostly I just want to be there for Peter.
I haven't seen him in over a year.
I can tell you that Peter knows that you have talked to us about him.
So you have found him?
I didn't say that.
I said he knew.
You got a message to him?
The end of manner is speaking, yes.
You're being very elusive, said, I, I thought we were, I, I really thought we'd
gone over this.
I thought we were going to work together on this.
Where are you?
Why don't you tell me, give me your location.
I'll come over and talk to you personally.
I can make it worth your while.
I, uh, turn to Charway and see what she thinks.
I think we should set up a meeting at another location.
We could try to set something up at the place where
the last place that Elizabeth sent that other guy, because that's a place we know,
and we know the lay of the land.
The Jin Grove apartment complex?
Yeah, and hopefully there's not police.
I'll, uh, they're all done now probably.
Uh, yeah, we could, we could meet her there.
Okay, so I relay that information to Tina and say we want to meet there in
about an hour.
I can be there, she says.
We guess we'll pick that way.
You head out into the sprawl, or not into the sprawl, into the Jin Grove district,
and it's, uh, it's the late afternoon, early evening at this point.
So it's getting dark.
The, the wage slaves from the local Jin Grove corporate office are walking home,
or we're commuting to wherever they need to be for the evening.
And, uh, when you arrive at the Jin Grove apartment complex, the, the old run-down
apartments, you roam in awareness, Chai Wei, because you're the one who knows the area
better than, than Sid, who's up in there.
Perception check?
That's what I meant.
Sorry.
We grabbed my character real quick.
I got an 18 plus, probably 10, so 28.
Okay, so you do see that there are two people on either side of the apartment.
Building itself, uh, that, just knowing strategy as well as you do it,
it does look like they might be flanking the, the building a little bit.
They're not making an obvious show of it, but if you had the guests,
they were there on purpose, and, uh, they're probably serving some purpose.
They don't look like cops or anything.
I mean, I think this is a setup.
It could be, I think.
She did say she had something to bring the table.
Maybe this is part of what she wants to bring to the table,
but I definitely think she's going cautious at this point.
Um, do we have a direct line back to Peter to contact him if we need to?
Yeah, yeah, let's say that, that he, that you've exchanged contact info.
Because all we know is his reaction to me saying her name,
and her side of the story.
We don't really know what his side of the story is.
She could be sending us up.
She may very well be working for Elizabeth too.
Um, or somebody, yeah, got to her in this course, singer.
Um, I would say, definitely, I don't know.
I don't think we want to let him know that we're meeting her.
I think he might show up then, and that would probably be bad.
Maybe just contact him and see how he, like, what his feelings towards her at this point are,
and involvement in the past, maybe.
Yeah, I guess we can confirm her story with him.
So we'll hang out for a couple minutes and wait for a reply.
Probably try to head around the back of the building and see what's, uh, what's back there,
or see if anybody else is around.
Okay, yeah, so you, you send a message off to Peter,
and while you're waiting for his response, you, uh, you navigate around the back of the building,
and since there are two people there who are pretty watchful, why don't you guys roll me a stealth?
I got a 19.
I also got a 19.
Cool, you both circle around.
Um, do you want to split ways, or do you want to go together?
And I think we should stick together.
Yeah, okay.
So you both, uh, head off around the building in a, in a pretty wide,
giving yourself a lot of wide birth.
And, so the back corner of the building is fairly well crumbled, and that's the,
the way that, um, Gu Hanying, the guy that you, the assassin that you, that you, uh,
bluffed had come through, uh, into the building.
Looks like probably historically some kind of big truck had run into the, into the apartment
building, taken out a chunk of it.
So it's, it's crumbled there, and sure enough, there's, there's another dude,
sort of stationed at that entrance as well.
Um, he doesn't look super pleasant either.
Um, but yeah, he's, he's clearly keeping an eye on, on that,
on that entry.
Well said, do we want to go in here?
Maybe one of us should go in and one of us stay out, just in case, because the person outside
could, if they're strategically placed, still do some damage inside.
Um, you seem like you've got more ranged stuff, so maybe you should stay out,
maybe I'll walk in and make the meeting, and since she already knows me,
um, then we'll know if it's going to go south.
All right, and how do you want to go in the back here with the one guard,
or should we go in the front?
Where do you want to go in the front?
It seems like is, is the guy in the back, since we couldn't see him from the other,
when we came around until we got to the back, I'm assuming that the other people cannot see him
at this point.
Uh, correct.
Yeah, I'll approach that guy first.
You walk up to the dude and he, he immediately straightens up and comes to full alert,
but he doesn't, he doesn't have, like, he doesn't raise a weapon or anything,
he's just, he's clearly sort of on guard, and he, he looks at you and says,
hey, Chummer, what's going on?
I'm here for a meeting with Tim.
What's your name?
Name Sid.
Can I see your, uh, is, is your arm exposed?
Your cyber arm exposed, or is it, uh, is it in a sleeve, or something?
Like, uh, is there clothing over it?
I would.
Listen, the way I was imagining it, it's probably exposed.
So he looked at the cyber arm, and you said your name was Sid, so he sort of nodged you through.
He says, yeah, go back, go through this little hallway here.
You'll find a, uh, a little office.
Uh, she's, she's hanging out there for you.
Okay, thanks.
So you walk through the, um, the makeshift entryway, um, through a very large,
sort of empty hollowed out room, uh, and across the, the hallway from this large room is a smaller,
a smaller, uh, I guess you could call it an office.
It's a smaller space, and there is a desk that was probably functional at one point.
It's kind of shoved up against the wall right now,
barricading one of the windows.
It's an empty room, uh, and then there's the hallway,
with lots of other empty rooms in it or off to its side.
Do I notice, um, anybody in here besides me at this point?
It, it, there's nobody in here that you can, that you can see.
Um, from outside, do I see him, uh, doing anything, taking any actions, the guard?
Yeah, the guard has called someone on, on his com link.
Okay, um, and I'll do a quick check, see if there's any network, uh, up here.
I know there wasn't last time, but just a double check, make sure nothing's going on.
Yeah, there is a, uh, well, Romeo, uh, Romeo, well, okay, so you, you detect a network.
Yes, it's a local network, probably like a mesh network, consisting of, at least these guards.
If you want more, you can roll a hacking roll and poke around.
Uh, yeah, I'll do a 22 hacking, uh, nice.
Okay, cool. Um, yeah, I mean, that definitely gets through their firewall.
So you, you can see on the, on the, uh, matrix, you can see the two guards out front,
the one guard outside, and then there are about three people inside the building on the same network.
Any identities on the three inside?
Uh, yeah, you can see that one is, is Tina and two are just two generic thug one and generic thug two.
Are there handles?
All right, um, can I, uh, listen to another conversation?
Let's see, what would that be?
I'm looking that up.
Go to the hacking table.
We could just call it the same as a security camera, um, operation.
I think that's probably fair.
So yeah, sounds good.
Let me give you another roll.
Uh, I got, uh, 11, so 23, 23 does, uh, let's get, get in.
And you can hear the guard in the back saying,
Sid, Sid just arrived and he's, he's gone on through.
I told him to wait in an office and then Tina's voice comes through and says,
okay, we'll move in now.
She says, you can join us for backup and the guard in the back sort of turns and starts to go
through the crumbled door.
All right, I'm going to, uh, start taking some action then, I guess.
Well, do I want to start shooting it?
No, he's going to turn around.
I'm going to move in behind him.
Okay.
Well, we'll just keep you on that same stealth roll for this, I think, because now he's
actually probably more distracted than he was originally.
So, and I'll let Sid know that, uh, they're coming.
Yeah, okay.
So Sid, uh, you get a message from Chai Wei saying, uh, that, that Tina and some friends are on the way.
And I imagine she's probably telling you that she's not totally sure what's going on here.
And you're probably feeling the same way.
As, where are you, are you, are you in the office or are you in the hallway?
What if you, where have you made your way off to, Sid?
Yeah, I'm still, I, I just stayed inside the, uh, the office that she told me to wait in.
Okay. As you're waiting, uh, you hear footsteps coming down the hallway from, from the,
the far end, um, from, essentially from the front of the building.
You hear, um, footsteps.
And then soon in the, in the office doorway, there appears just Tina and, and she says,
Sid, it's good to see you again.
I, I need to talk to you and I hope that this, I hope we can talk honestly.
I don't really like the way that this is turned, Sid.
I, I thought we were on the same side here.
I'd like to feel that way, but I also know that you have three people on site who are, uh,
watching the property and who followed you in.
And, uh, I'm, I'm a little concerned about that situation.
She says, Sid, this district is very dangerous for someone like me.
So I, I assume you would understand that I would have to bring some protection for myself.
What I want to know, Sid, is whether you found Peter or not and you're being very,
you're being very strange about that.
You, you don't seem to want to tell me one way or the other.
So I'm assuming that you found him, but that you don't want me to know where he is,
which I don't understand.
We, obviously, we know Peter's very good at his job.
So I didn't really want to say anything, not in front of somebody's face at this point,
uh, site to site, just to keep things secure.
Plus we know that he means something to you and you mean something to him.
And he means everything to me, Sid.
I'm not sure dragging you into the situation is good for my and my compatriots, uh, long-term
well-being if something should go south.
All I want to do is protect Peter.
And that might mean that I have to protect Peter from you for all I know,
because I don't really know who you are.
How, how are you planning on protecting him?
I have resources that I'm willing to spend to make sure that he stays safe.
But you need to tell me where he is so that I can do that.
Uh, have we heard, have I heard anything back from Peter?
Yeah, so Peter, a message from Peter comes through and, and he's, he just says that
Tina Samatsu and I were very close at one time and I don't know really what's become of her since,
since I left.
I've always regretted leaving without saying goodbye to her or letting her know what I was doing.
But I felt like I needed to do that to keep her safe and to keep myself safe.
Can I do a sense motive role on her to see if she's bluffing me?
Yeah, absolutely go for it.
22, and I'll forward the message to you with his sentiment that he wanted to protect her.
Oh, well, what did you get, um, to sit? I didn't hear.
Uh, 22?
Okay, yeah, she's, you can, as you have no reason to believe that she would be,
I mean, she's, she seems to be pretty concerned about Peter's well-being and given that
Chai Wei has told you that she's got hired muscle around for her protection.
It seems like that's probably those are probably the resources that she wants to sort of
expend on Peter to, um, to keep him safe.
I guess I would tell her that we are going after Elizabeth.
And if you want to help Peter, that would be a good way to help.
I think that was a suggestion for you, Sid.
See how she responds to that.
Yeah, so I, I tell her everything that Chai Wei basically just said.
And I even give her a little nugget and tell her that we have contacted Peter and told him
that we are in contact with you currently.
Okay, so she breathes sort of a sigh of, of relief.
And she says, I'm so glad that you have found him and that he's safe.
I would love to contribute to taking down Elizabeth Ravadun.
If she's the one who took Peter away from me,
I would very much enjoy seeing her suffer.
So you tell me where to be and when to be there.
And I will send everything I've got to help you in your,
in your, in your venture.
Okay, at this point, I guess I'm going to announce my presence and come in as well.
So we can make some plans.
Okay, where would you be right now?
Are you in that big room or have you, you've gone into the building, right?
Yeah, I would be still at the entrance to the building.
So, um, cool.
So, um, tell Sid to let everybody know that I'm coming in.
Yeah, that would be probably the way to do it, yeah.
Do not shoot the lady who's coming in the building.
She's with Tina sort of looks at you in surprise and says,
I thought you were working alone, Sid.
It's always better that people not know all the cards you have.
She sort of, she nods.
And you sense that she's sort of looking at you differently now.
Sort of like there was a dimension there that she really had not detected.
And yeah, try way, try way, walks in and Tina moves the side for her.
And at that point, all of her thugs kind of congregate as well.
Because, um, yeah, there's no reason for people to hang back at this point.
So, they all sort of move into the hallway and into the doorway.
And Tina says, it's nice to meet you, Chai Wei.
Thank you for joining us.
So, the meeting with Peter, when's this happening?
When's the, when are we doing this thing?
And what exactly is it that we are doing?
I tell her, we don't have plans to meet Peter again yet,
but he needs some, some infiltration done
to take down Elizabeth and global omnium.
And we were hoping we could use your help, maybe, uh,
as a distraction while we slip in, uh, in the side door.
She says, yeah, we could probably arrange that.
But I think it would be better if I just spoke to Peter myself.
Why don't you, can you give me his contact information?
Um, I guess I will send a message off to Peter and see.
Now, you know what, I will give her his contact information.
She seems earnest here, right?
That's what I got.
So I'm assuming, um, and I, I would also assume Peter
probably is masking at least a little bit where he's at and stuff.
So it probably can't be that big of a deal to give her the info.
Yeah, I will give her the, the means I have to contact him.
Okay, she accepts that gratefully.
She says, thank you, uh, both of you.
Um, I'm assuming your team so far consists just of, of, of yourselves.
Um, yeah, it's just the two of us so far.
So we would like, we could use your support.
She says, well, I'll, I'll, I'll give you everything I've got.
I promise you that and she, she sort of steps back
out of the doorway and her thugs move in and, uh, roll for initiative.
She got, um, she got a, uh, natural 20 plus her bluff bonus of 12
when you did a sense motive.
Yes.
She says as she's parting, I'm going to make Peter pay for leaving me.
Thanks for, for helping me find him and she sort of, she walks out.
Double crossed 21, 21 for you.
Okay, where's my initiative?
I got a 14 plus 216.
So the, the thugs who remain, because some, some went to escort her safely back to her,
her, uh, district.
So the thugs that remain are four and they all go after you, luckily.
So I guess it sits me first as they draw their weapons.
You can, you can take action and, and to give you an idea of where you are.
Yeah, so it's, it's a fairly small room.
I would say maybe 12 feet by 12 feet.
So not a whole lot of movement.
There is a desk, like I said, propped up against a window.
Uh, you are on the first level.
There's a doorway in front of you with, with pretty much all four thugs kind of
crowding in the doorway.
Ready to just sort of do a firing line style execution.
So I'm going to, um,
race out with the cyber arm and just try to punch the,
or run up to you if I have to.
The first person, I just punch them as hard as I can, uh,
with the fist and use, um, look at my shoot, um, stunning fist,
which, if it succeeds, they get fatigue.
Oh, nice. Okay, cool.
Yeah. 19.
Yeah, that, that, that hits.
So if it hits, you said, uh, this person gets, uh, fatigued,
and I'm assuming also damage of some sort.
So yeah, roll for damage.
I should hope so.
Two.
Yeah, Chaiway.
All right, I'm up next.
Um, assuming that I'm still on this, uh, local network,
I'm wondering if I can use the,
Combs channel to maybe broadcast, I don't know,
just like a really loud piercing noise and see if I can just
stun everybody.
Yeah.
Or at least distract them.
Yeah, that's a great idea.
Yeah, give it a go.
All right, I think it'll be controlling the network,
or controlling something.
So yeah, I'll look it up, but you give me a roll.
All right, I got a 15 plus 12 packing.
So 27.
Yep, that does it then.
Um, so yeah, you, you broadcast just
outrageously high-pitched white noise across their,
their calm links, and it does it.
You see, there's four of them, right?
Let me give them a counter, counter-move hold on.
Yeah, maybe a con check or something.
Yeah.
Yeah, so two of them are, are well and truly distracted by that,
especially the one who's fatigued, I would say.
So yeah, um, they're, they're momentarily not stunned,
but you know, yeah, distracted.
I could, I could either have them roll at a disadvantage,
or I could just skip their turns.
And I feel kind of like, let's just skip their turns.
I mean, six seconds of dealing with white noise,
I feel like that's pretty believable.
So sit back, back up to you.
Yeah, for those two.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, right for those two.
No, I'm sorry, yeah, you're right.
Only those two, you're right.
Okay, cool.
So thug three and four are up.
Let me look at what they've got on their list here.
And then I guess there really isn't any place to hide in here, is there?
Not without like moving that desk or something,
but I mean, in terms of, yeah.
All right, well, although I mean, they're,
the ceiling is, yeah, the ceiling is pretty crumbly.
I imagine either of you probably have sufficient acrobatic,
so that such that you could probably get upward if,
if if you wanted to.
Yeah, probably move over by that desk,
but I don't think I have any more actions this around, so.
Okay, so one of the thugs takes out one of the non-destructive thugs,
takes out, finally gets his weapon ready and does a burst fire at Sid.
Probably does not hit, uh, eight does not hit, correct?
No, does not.
Okay, and the other non-stunned thug,
ooh, 18 shooting at Chai Wei with a burst fire.
Does that hit?
Yeah, that will hit.
Okay, so I think I was saying that burst fire is basically the damage with exploding die
to account for the burst, so let me roll some die.
Did not explode, but you get four damage.
All right, not too bad.
Yeah, considering.
I'm going to pull out my street talker, handgun,
and point it at the person who just shot at Chai Wei and take a shot.
Okay, 19.
Yes, that hits.
12 damage.
Wow, nice, okay.
And Chai Wei, you're up.
Oh wait, I forgot about my DR, my damage reduction.
Forget how that works in this system.
Oh right, um, what is that for your damage reduction?
Yeah, I think it lowers it, but let me double check the armor.
Yeah, I remember you saying, I think, yeah, go ahead.
The armor in this system is a little, is a little strange to me.
Same here, yeah.
A lot of their damage top is pretty strange to me.
I don't know what they were going for.
Searching isn't working.
Let's just look through the armor.
Which, what class of armor is it?
Did you, did you, do you know?
Is it hardened?
That's not hardened.
It's the, uh, business suit and under armor from EDU1.
Okay, all right, so it looks like my armor does take it,
but it'll be degraded by one from that shot.
Uh, okay, yeah, I forgot about the degrading thing.
Yeah, that's, yep, that sounds right.
All right, so I don't actually take that, but
my armor goes down by one, the air goes to four.
All right, cool.
Uh, and did you do an action yet?
I forget where are we on your turn.
Yeah, sorry about that.
Uh, the two thugs had just gone?
Yes, okay.
And it's, it is my turn.
All right, um, let's see.
You said the ceiling did look like it was, uh, in pretty rough shape.
Yeah, it's, it's falling apart.
There's exposed beams or whatever.
Okay, um, yet I really want to stay here
and fight, but I don't know where we're going to go.
I guess I will, yeah, for now I think I'll take another shot.
I'm not, not hurting too bad yet, so I will take out my pistol
and, uh, keep the one that just shot at me, uh, take a shot at him.
Okay, so I got a nine plus four, so 13 to hit.
That does not hit.
All right, okay, so, uh, thug one ducks out the doorway
behind, behind the wall, uh, in the hallway.
That is all that you can see that he is doing this round.
Thug two opens fire, Chaiway, since she's the latest two have fired,
so let me see what happens there.
Yep, nope, Mrs, uh, thug three, 18 to hit, said, is that hit?
He does.
Okay.
Ooh, six damage.
And then, uh, thug four also retreats into the hallway,
thug four being the one that had gotten 12 damage earlier from sit, uh,
sit as your turn.
So, you know, you're now facing two thugs and you know that there are two
who have made their way out into the hallway.
Where are they going?
No one are like, for backup, um, I'm gonna go after the one,
so the one who's fatigued is still in the room, correct?
Yes, correct.
I'm going to take a shot at the other one.
Okay, go for it.
I got a one.
Okay, so, yeah, you miss.
And as we've said before, we're not doing any really fun, um,
critical misses, unfortunately, so, so you just miss Chaiway.
All right, um, we just got the two of them now.
So, let's, I think this should be a fair fight.
I'm a little concerned where the other guys are going now, but, um,
I'm going to take another shot.
Okay.
15 plus four is a 19 to hit.
Oh, wow.
Yes, hit.
Right, and that's 2d8 damage.
Shhh.
So, six damage for them.
Nice.
Um, okay, cool.
Uh, Sid, roll a fortitude check.
Morning.
Oh, nice, okay.
Your cyber arm feels fine.
Okay, so that was thug.
Let's see, okay, so another thug takes a shot.
Misses and 12 doesn't hit Sid, right?
No.
That's all, that's all the thugs.
Two of them, the two in the room fired at you.
That's it.
I'm going to take the one that's fatigued,
and I'm going to grab his face with my cyber nut guard and just run
and try to smash his head through the wall.
Nice, okay.
Yes, do this.
16.
So, you grab onto his, uh, into his, onto his face.
Yeah, he's totally.
He's, he's, uh, sort of, he's aware that what you're doing,
but he just has no strength or will to resist.
And you ram his head into the wall,
and it, it sort of first his skull cracks,
and then the wall cracks,
and he just falls over onto the thug
who is actually squatting right there,
just, just beside the doorway.
So you're, you kind of,
bolt both of them over.
Uh, and the thug just to the,
uh, left of the thug that you've just pushed into the wall,
reaches out and hits at you.
15, for a melee attack.
Nope.
Okay, so he misses, um, and yeah,
that's, that's pretty effective.
Highway, it's your turn.
So you've got one, one active thug,
and then sort of two bold over in the hall,
and then there's still one out there somewhere,
but you're not really sure where he is.
All right, this is going pretty well.
So I'm going to take another shot.
Uh, I rolled in 18,
for four damage to the one that's standing
and just took a swing at it.
Okay, so he, he actually goes down.
He said six, how many, how much damage, 16?
Four damage.
Oh, four, four.
Oh, right, so that's, okay, enough of mine.
He does not go down, but he is quite hurt.
The thug who is squatting in the hall,
and has now had another thug pushed over onto him,
is lying prone.
So, uh, he sort of scrambles up to his feet,
but that's all he can do this round.
The thug you've just taken care of through the wall
is no longer functional.
So the thug there in the room,
the, the chaiway is just damaged.
Uh, it takes a shot at chaiway,
and that is 19 to hit.
Yep, that'll hit.
Okay. Can you see?
A five damage.
All right, the armor starts.
Does the armor, okay, cool.
Yeah, I looked, it's, so it's corporate armor,
so it takes 20 damage for it to lose a DR.
Nice, wow.
So it is still DR five.
Yeah, cool.
Okay, that's pretty handy to have.
It's my business, too.
Yeah, it's just a little standard,
standard fire, really.
It's a good go.
So I pushed the one guy through the wall.
There's a hole there.
The other guy stands up, um,
out from underneath the guy just through.
I just pulled my gun,
straighted his face, both trigger.
Nice, um, so sort of point.
I guess I would be definitely against touch AC, right?
I mean, you're just thinking.
Yeah, I'll open points.
Like, cool.
Yeah, cool point.
14.
Uh, yeah, so he is now dead.
He has no head.
Damn it.
Oh, right.
I keep thinking, yeah, that's not damage.
Eat damage.
Let's call him dead anyway,
because I think I feel like, uh,
that's just a really good shot.
So yeah, he's, he's out of the picture.
All right, and I got, uh,
I can do another shot at this guy.
He's looking pretty dead.
So hopefully this time, probably do it.
I got a seven or 21 to hit for nine damage.
So that should be enough to take him down.
That does take him down.
Yeah, he falls to the ground,
leading out completely lifeless.
All right, that was a couple rounds,
but we should probably head out
and try to catch up with Tina.
Well, there's still the thug out in the hallway,
like the, uh, the thug
who had not been crouching down by the door.
And no sooner do you think everything is,
is, uh, clear, does he reappear in the doorway,
sort of deposits a grenade onto the ground
and then runs as fast as he can for, for cover.
Oh, this is going to hurt.
How much time do we have before the detonation?
Do we have time to take an action?
Uh, you could, yeah, you can react to it.
Um, I'll, I'll give you a move for, for, for reaction.
Yeah, like, you know, I don't know if you want to throw
yourself on the grenade, sacrifice yourself
the team, you know, what you, what you have in mind,
but go do something.
I was actually thinking, um, like a chicken,
but I'm going to try to jump up, uh,
into the rafters.
I'm going to do an acrobatics check.
That's probably a good call.
Go for it.
Uh, 13 plus six is a 19.
You, you jump, grab onto a rafter
and then just do a flip right up, up into the rafters.
So you're, you're in a ceiling.
Yeah, hopefully that'll, hopefully that'll take
some of the damage or protect me for some of the damage.
Part of my cybernetics package gives me fast movement.
So I'm going to try to high-tail it out of the room
around the corner as far as I can to get out of the way.
Okay, cool. Does it, does it, does it say what that means
in terms of feet, like, is there a number
that it gives you for like how, how far you can move?
Plus ten feet.
Okay, cool.
Yeah, on standard is 30, probably still in this one.
So yeah, it is.
Sid, you take zero damage whatsoever.
Actually, you can make it out far enough away before.
And, uh, Chaiway, you get, you only get incendiary damage
from this. The blast itself does not, does not touch you.
Do you have any kind of fire protection that you are aware of?
Um, no, no, I do not.
Okay, you get one D6 plus one points of fire damage per round
for one minute. So, um, that's 10 rounds.
So, um, okay, so, just, you know, we should probably
round at a time.
Um, okay, so you take two damage right now from fire.
All right, does, uh, my armor block this?
I don't, or, yeah, go through my armor.
Not, this is not subject to your, your armor, unless you have the, um,
there is some armor that is specifically fire resistant.
Let me double check my armor, but I don't.
In fact, if anything, your armor might actually technically be damaged by this.
It's a, the, this, it says that any all exposed equipment and clothing
takes the same damage as the character for the high explosive incendiary grenade.
All right, um, I will add that damage to my armor than you said it was to.
Yeah, this round it is to.
All right, 11 damage to the armor so far,
and I will take the two as well.
All right, the, the thug who, through the grenade,
has high-tailed it down the hallway and out the building.
All other thugs are completely either dead or charged or both at this point.
All right, so I got to take care of my flaming self,
but, uh, if you want to go after Tina, I think that would be a good idea.
Yeah, I, I was thinking I'm, I'm going to try to use my speed to catch up.
Yeah, cool. So you can do that.
Um, you run plus 10 with your cyber speed.
So 40 feet, yeah?
Yes.
Okay, so you run 40 feet, and with that, you're able to,
you're able to see the thug who had thrown the grenade running in a direction
that you think is probably the same direction that Tina is going.
And further up the street, you can see that there are three figures kind of running,
running towards something.
So you're, you're assuming that's probably Tina and her, her two remaining thugs.
Um, and Chaiway takes another two damage, uh, this round.
All right, I'm going to, I got to find some water, I think.
So I, there's, this is not enough.
Is this an apartment building?
It, it, it was an apartment building, yeah?
All right, um, can I get through the floor into the next level and see if, uh,
I can find a bathroom or, uh, you know, an apartment unit?
Yeah, absolutely.
So you, you, you, you break your way through, you know,
upwards through the, through the floor of, of the above unit.
Uh, and it, it crumbles away pretty easily.
It's, it's, it's really run down and fragile.
Yeah, I got a 16 strength check, so that should be enough to get us.
Not a problem.
So you, you're up in the, the next apartment, and you look around for, for a faucet,
and you, you find the, the bathroom.
Yeah, jump in the shower.
And so yeah, you, you pour, disgusting,
dirty, age-old water comes out of the shower head and douses the flames,
which I think within 30 feet, I think that was all within one round.
So you're, you're good to go.
All right.
Yeah, how much damage should I take that round?
Uh, three, three.
Okay, cool.
It's only one D6.
I mean, only, but yeah, it's, it's not, it's not the worst thing in the world.
Oh, plus one.
So actually four.
Okay.
Uh, sit.
You are outside in the streets, and you can continue another 40 feet if you'd like.
Do you want to just kind of pull up on them, or are you going to try to,
I don't know, sneak around, or are you just going right after them?
I'm in the one right form.
You run straight for them.
You, you passed the guard who had thrown the grenade,
but he's not, he doesn't appear to be armed right now.
He, he put his gun away when he was doing all those grenade stuff,
so he, he can't do much about that.
And, uh, you, uh, eventually catch up with, with Tina,
and he, and her two thugs, uh, what do you do?
I am going to drop a flashbang that I have,
and, uh, just try to stun them enough to grab her.
Nice. Okay.
Yeah, go for it.
Um, or that's just, uh, that's just a, yeah, cool.
So flashbang.
Let me look at what that says.
2D10, so you can roll 2D10 for damage, actually.
Yeah, 2D10, uh, lethal.
Surprise, it doesn't give a status effect.
Yeah, same here.
That's what I was kind of looking for.
But I, I guess, I guess it's implied.
So we'll imply it.
14.
Nice.
So, uh, the two thugs fall to the ground, scraping their faces
and their clothes all over the road.
Tina does the same.
Uh, you, you want to just grab Tina.
Yeah, I'm just going to reach and grab her with my cyber arm and, and pick her up.
Cool.
That's what you do.
You pick her up, you grab her.
The two thugs and the thug who's kind of catching you up,
he just runs right by you, and those two thugs
pick themselves up off the ground and they keep running.
And Tina is, is struggling, but, but she, she catches on pretty quickly
that you've got this robot arm.
So she kind of eventually sort of, she gives up a little bit.
She says, okay, what do you want?
Well, I think because you're going to, you were going to sell us out.
I think, um, we might have to arrange a meeting with you and Peter again.
Oh, that'd be just fine.
Choway, are you going to, uh,
join them out on the street or, uh, what, what's, what are you doing?
Yeah, uh, hopefully some clean water comes out of this faucet eventually.
So I'm going to get a block off.
Yeah, eventually it sort of clears itself out and, uh,
you know, probably shouldn't drink it, but yeah, it's good enough to,
to get you, uh, free of slime and stuff.
So I walk out the, the front door, a soggy, soggy mess.
Yes.
Slightly charred.
It's a new hairstyle.
And I call, and I call Johnny two thums,
and, uh, tell him, we need, or I need some help.
He says, yeah, I'll be on my way.
All right.
Meet us at this, at the apartment building here.
And then I meet up with Sid and Tina.
Okay.
I ask Sid, what do we want to do with her?
She probably has a backup plan of some sort, um,
even if we have her.
So I don't know if we could put her somewhere or incapacitate her,
or something to where that's one less thing we have to worry about.
Yeah, I think we could assume that your, your safe house probably has a,
a miniature jail cell or something that you can, uh,
put people that you need to hold on ice, you know,
because that's probably something that you've done in the past.
So yeah, you could do that if you wanted to.
I don't know.
She was just at the apartment that, uh,
someone was assassinated at earlier.
Do we want to just turn her into the cops?
I am worried.
She's probably got, she's got information on how to find Peter.
And as long as she's not in our possession,
I'm scared that that would get out.
And unless there's some sort of way to like,
fry her tap or something where she can't communicate.
I think you could do that.
I mean, Chaiway could take 20 to make that happen.
Yeah.
Yeah, to remove that from her.
Yeah, yeah.
I think I will do that anyway.
And maybe we just let her go,
knowing that she can't get to Peter.
Or do you want to turn her over to your police contact
and maybe gain some brownie points?
Um, yeah, we, I don't know if I could tell a convincing enough story
that why she or how she did the assassination,
but I don't know.
She did just blow up part of a apartment building.
I mean, I'm sure that's somewhere illegal.
I don't know.
I think I kind of just like, you know,
spitting her and letting her go,
though, without the information to contact Peter.
Just tell her to get out of here.
I will grant you this for style points.
Probably more than that.
Like, if we were tracking street cred points,
I think that would, that would earn you guys.
Yeah, some street cred.
Because having someone wandering around saying,
you know, just absolutely hating you,
but being powerless to do anything about it,
I think that's, um, yeah, that's pretty good.
But we're not tracking street cred,
so it doesn't matter.
But if we were, you'd get a plus one.
All right.
Yeah, I got tinker street cred now.
Yeah.
Okay, cool.
And no sooner than do you let her go,
do you get a message from Peter saying,
okay, you two, I know it's probably been
really boring waiting for me to get back to you.
And I apologize for that.
But, um, we're going to move later tonight.
We're going to go into the global
Omnium Digital Compound.
And I have it on good authority.
That Elizabeth will be there.
That Elizabeth will be there late.
So I think that tonight will be a great time to get in
without quite as much resistance as one would expect.
We'll move into her enclave,
the area of the corporation that she directly controls,
and, uh, and take her out.
All right.
Yeah, what kind of resistance are we, uh, are we looking at?
We expect her to be well guarded,
but we don't expect the compound itself to be very active.
So she may have patrols once we reach her,
her immediate enclave,
but we don't expect to have any resistance
getting into the compound and making our way to her,
to her section, although I'm not making any guarantees.
That's what I expect.
And now, the guys, this is normally, you know, this,
this is normally when I would say time's up next,
next episode will continue this, the story.
But just exclusively for Ken Fallon,
because he's been consistently complaining
if you've heard the community episodes,
he complains that these episodes are not long enough.
I say we just power through this.
Let's go attack global Omnium Digital.
Let's just keep going.
You guys up for it.
Do we want to set up a meeting with Elizabeth?
Let her know we know where Peter is,
just to get in the door.
Probably not a bad idea.
Um, the only thing I would worry about
is that she's probably had us tracked.
So she knows that we've had contact.
I would assume.
So, um, if we do it,
we would want to coordinate it pretty well
with Peter to make sure that we at least head back up
when we try it.
But I think it's a good, good distraction.
Um, it would at least put us in zero range
when things go now.
Maybe it'd be better not to put her on the alert
because then she, well, I don't know.
I think that's, that seems like a pretty good strategy.
But I don't, I don't know.
I would definitely get us in the door.
I could go either way.
I'm, I'm fine trying it.
No, let's just go for the stealth in, I think.
Cool. So no forewarning, just go in.
Yep.
Um, and then let's see.
I could use a little bit of healing.
So I, let's see how the healing works in the system.
I could see if I have any like aloe vera cream
in my, uh, mid kit for all your burns.
Oh, uh, I called in the, uh, the patch man already.
So called in my medic.
Yeah, but now we'll assume that he has arrived.
Uh, and let's see what he to can do.
Uh, how bad?
Healing manites.
How are you?
How bad are you off right now?
I'm down about 10 hit points.
Okay.
Looks like 1d6
or depending on what level we treat him as.
Like 2d6 healing manites.
Yeah, I took six damage.
Okay. Yeah.
So we'll assume that he heals you.
Patches you up as well.
Uh, and with him, he's brought a bunch of equipment.
Um, and, and yeah, he's ready to, he's ready to move with you guys.
So all three of you, I assume go to the rendezvous point
with, uh, Peter and his gang, uh, and the rendezvous point is,
is just right within, uh, global,
omnium digital and global, global omnium digital is a huge, huge structure.
It's a compound.
So it's, it's enclosed completely
to shield you guys from the, or shield its employees
from not only the acid rain that
delusias the city on a regular basis,
but also just the horrors of the real world.
Which is a big appeal for, for corporations is that if you work at a corporation,
you can live inside, you can work inside,
and you can never, you never, you never have to go out.
And you never have to see all of the, um,
the sort of exciting stuff that,
Sid and Chai Wei are, are used to as an everyday part of their lives.
So when you go in, uh, Peter and his group
are looking very professional.
They, they look for all the world, like,
just a group of businessmen who are there to conduct normal business
at midnight.
And so Peter greets you and says, you guys ready for this?
Uh, I tell them, yeah.
And I'm going to tell them about what happened with Tina.
That appears to upset Peter a lot.
He says, I've, I've always regretted what I had to do to Tina,
but I never knew it would affect her this, this much.
I'm sorry that you had to deal with that.
Yeah, but I tell him we took care of it and, uh,
but I would avoid her in the future.
He nods and says, yeah, thanks for the warning.
I think I'll do that.
He says, all right, so let's focus on business.
And the business at hand is Elizabeth Ravadun,
her section of the compound is called the Mandisa enclave.
She's got it pretty, pretty well locked down because
she's quite paranoid, like many of the board members are.
So I assume that once we reach it,
we'll encounter some resistance.
I can try to get us as far as I can inside,
just based on my position here at the corporation.
But I don't know, they, they probably have a heads up that,
that I'm not to be trusted and probably to shoot me on site.
So I'll probably need you guys to go in first and clear, you know,
just make sure the area is clear before we proceed.
But we'll be right behind you, but we can go all up together.
All right, um, are you going to be using, like,
your access credentials to get us in?
Are they going to be alerted by that?
Or do you guys have another way to get us into the compound?
I was planning on using my access credentials,
but you make a good point, but that's fine.
I can, I can change my access credentials to,
to mask them so that they don't know that it's me.
I can just use any one of my mini employees codes.
So I'm fine.
I can get us right up into the enclave.
All right, then.
Let's go.
Instead, you ready?
Let's do it.
Okay, so you guys, uh, you make your way up
towards the Mundisa enclave, which is sort of like,
almost a quarter of the, of the, of the compound.
It's a huge physical area of the, of the Global Omnium digital compound.
And, uh, it's, to behind a key card access
to get into that section of the, the business,
which Peter bypasses, uh, easily.
And that brings you into a quite, quite a large sort of reception area,
which is completely empty.
And so Peter kind of points back, uh, to the right,
where there's a, there's a hallway.
And he says, back that way, if you,
if you turn right after that hallway,
it should lead us back to Elizabeth's office.
But I'm assuming she's going to have guards posted in that hallway.
Do you guys want to check that out first?
Uh, yeah.
Yeah, let's go, let's go check that out before we do anything else.
Yep, you guys hang out here in the lobby and, uh,
and we will, uh, go check out the hallway.
Cool. So you, um, do you want to stealth back there?
How do you want to do this?
Indeed.
Do you want to go first or do you want me to go first?
Um, I can go first and I roll the one.
Oh boy, uh, it's a 10, 10 stealth.
Okay, uh, Sid, what do you got?
11.
Okay, our job.
All right.
So you guys, um, with all the confidence that Peter has bestowed in you, um,
you, you, we, we walked directly out in the hallway.
Yeah, you sort of, okay.
We want to see if there's anything's there.
So you walk into the, walk back there into the hallway.
And sure enough, there are, um, two thugs there who look up and see you.
And without even asking questions, they,
they draw their weapons.
So roll for initiative.
Nine.
I got a 20.
Cool.
Then, uh, lightweight is your turn.
Uh, and do you want a role for, uh, Johnny?
And maybe we left him in the hall too, for now.
I feel like he probably hung back because I don't,
I mean, he probably doesn't have any stealth.
So I mean, he can probably make his way over once the fighting starts.
Um, all right.
I am going to try to bluff these guys.
Okay, go for it.
We're walking, we're walking in the hallway.
Pretty confident.
So like we're supposed to be here.
So I'm just going to play with that.
Okay.
And, uh, nice save and, and go with it.
So see, roll, uh, uh, 15 block.
No, 16 bluff.
Okay.
And what can I tell them?
We're here to see Elizabeth.
We have business with her.
One of the thugs motions to the other thug.
Like, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.
Don't fire yet.
And he's like, I didn't get any word of,
of a meeting tonight.
What's going on?
Who are you?
Um, yeah, we're probably enough to fight him anyway.
So, um, I'm just going to step up a little bit and, uh,
and call back to Johnny that, uh, we're going to need some backup.
So he should start heading over here.
And, uh, I'm going to continue to roll with it.
Wow.
And Johnny, Johnny just rolled a 20.
So yeah, cool.
I mean, for his initial use, he's right behind us.
So I'll just tell him, uh, or tell the guards that, uh,
we were hired by Elizabeth to find someone.
And, uh, and we found them.
And then I'm going to say to Sid,
Sid, show him what we found.
Okay.
Yeah, they're with you.
They're like, okay, yeah, we've heard about this.
And then, uh, yeah, so that'll be probably my turn.
And then, uh, probably, guess, probably open up on him.
So try to do a surprise round or something, I guess.
I was gonna say, yeah, since, since you've got them basically believing you,
I think you'd go against their touch AC at this point.
All right.
Yeah, since I'm up close, uh, I will pull out the, uh,
uh, weapon and take a shot 14 to hit.
Yes, that hits.
All right.
Or 14 damage damn.
Wow.
Okay, cool.
Yeah.
So you, you fire at the, at the thug and he just reels back from the force of your shot.
And let's see who's next.
Uh, Sid, you are next.
Oh, actually, no, you're not.
But we're, I think we're treating this as a surprise round.
So you are next.
Okay, I'm going to take the one that's still standing.
I'm going to do my stunning fist on him.
Okay, 15.
Yeah, that hits as well.
And then three damage plus fatigue, right?
Is that the, is that that one?
Yes, okay.
Cool.
So the other thug, uh, who has been hit by Chai Wei fires back.
Oh, wait, that was a surprise round.
Sorry.
So now it's back up to, um, well, I guess Johnny, Johnny can emerge from the hallway at this point
and he'll take a shot and this is poor Johnny,
but it is your, your go during a normal round now.
Chai Wei.
All right.
Um, yeah, I'm going to take another shot.
I think this guy's probably going down this round.
So, and they rolled a one.
So four, five to hit.
Yeah, it does not hit.
That's what I get for being overconfident.
Sorry.
It is Johnny's turn again, though.
Oh, natural 20.
So Johnny takes out this sort of huge kind of, um,
it, it looks like a gun,
but it's instead of a, uh, bullets, it fires, um,
syringe like darts.
And so he, he he has to it and just takes a shot at, um,
I think at the one that, um, that Sid hit because he,
he looks less bad off, but he's a lot slower to react.
So he shoots and the, uh, the syringe just pokes the guy
right in the neck and does seven damage.
And it is now the thugs's turns.
So let's see what they do.
15 to hit Sid.
Is that hit?
It does not.
Okay.
And then the other one is not going to take an action.
He is too busy reacting to Johnny's shot.
So Sid is your turn.
So the one that is fatigued and just got shot with the syringe.
I'm just going to take my cyber arm and just punch him in the face.
Cool.
Go for it.
20.
Nice.
Okay.
So yeah, syringe pumping who knows what into his body.
Cyber fist in his face.
Uh, his, he crumbles down to the ground.
He is, he's unconscious and or dead.
And that brings us back up to try way.
All right.
I got a 20 to hit the, uh, the last one.
And an eight damage.
Nice.
And he falls to the ground as well.
So both thugs are out of the picture.
All right.
We'll call back into Peter and tell him to head over.
Get us through this door.
Or maybe one of the guards has a badge.
Search him real quick.
Yeah.
You do find an access badge on one of the guards.
If you want to use that.
But you do hear Peter making his way with his, with his crew
over to, uh, to your position as well.
All right.
Might as well, uh, go secure the room.
So I'll open the door and say Sid after you.
Well, I think so.
When you open the door to the next room,
you see a huge, almost the size of a warehouse.
It's just an enormous room, very unlike the rest of the office.
It's not, you've kind of left the office space
at this point.
It seems huge room and the sound of computers humming
and fans blowing and that sort of industrial, uh,
data center sound hits your ears.
It's almost overwhelming.
The, the space is filled with racks and, and rows and racks of,
of computer banks.
And the floor strangely seems to be glistening and you're not sure why.
So you kind of, if you look closer at the floor,
turn your attention to it.
You see that it's, it's a grating sort of a,
so, so that the floor is, is actually, it goes
down farther than you can actually step.
And then as you keep sort of scanning the room,
just with your eyes, you notice that the sides of the room,
the, the far walls of the room are not covered in computer equipment,
but, I mean, they're, they're shielded with something and they've got some,
some layers of metal going on, but, but, but once again,
it's kind of something is glistening on the walls.
And again, you're not really sure.
It's difficult to make out a whole lot in the, in the dim light.
If you listen closely, you, you kind of hear that there's,
there's something other than the humming of computers.
It's something more organic sounding and you look at the far walls,
you follow the, the, the walls upwards towards the ceiling.
Now, as you do it, you realize what you're looking at is,
is liquid that's flowing down the walls, almost cascading down the walls,
like a fountain or a waterfall.
It's not water, though.
Keep looking.
And to your horror, you see that where the, the walls meet the ceiling,
just near the tops of, of just all around the room,
on kind of like these really large meat hooks are the bodies of
global omnium digital employees who, who knows what they've done to deserve this,
but they're, they're naked and they're attached to these meat hooks.
And there are wires extending from their bodies and they're bleeding out.
And that's what the liquid, this, this enormous amount of slow drip of,
of liquid down the sides of the walls and under the floor,
coming from all of these, these bodies.
They're just being basically dehydrated as they hang there.
Most of them are dead right now, but you can see a couple up,
up there in a far corner must, they must be new.
And they're, there's some life in them.
You know, they're, they're days in shock, but they are alive as they're being literally
drained of every amount of life that was contained in their body.
And you realize from, from seeing all of this, that this is a bio-organic power system
for some kind of hybrid computer that Elizabeth Aravadun has developed for global omnium digital.
And it is literally being fueled by the employees that grow up within global omnium digital,
work at global omnium digital. And then for whatever reason, whether it's because they outlast
their usefulness or whether they've just done something that was not approved of
they ended up here, powering one of the main frames.
Across the room, you see a door that leads back presumably to more office spaces.
There are two century robots just kind of parked in either corner of the room.
And when you enter, they, they, they come alive and they, they kind of, you see that they're,
you know, their lights all come on and they, they turn towards you.
They don't move or anything, but they do, they rotate so that they're facing you,
but they don't do anything yet. They don't take shot or anything like that, but they are
clearly aware of your presence. I will try to get on the network here, I guess.
Okay, this is probably a corporate network at the very least, but give me a hacking rule.
I got a 20 hacking to try to get on the network. That does not get onto this network.
All right, so the firewall blocks you and yeah, you're not able to get access.
All right, I'm going to wait for Peter and ask him to see if he can get me on
and maybe disable these turrets. Cool. Yeah, so when Peter arrives, he and his hacker group
take an assessment and then they kind of, they confer most themselves and yeah, they,
they're, they're able to do this, they say, so they jump on.
One of them gets in and then can transfer control over to you. So what do you want to do?
Um, I guess just disable them for now and we should probably see if there was any alarm on
the system as well. So yeah, there is an alarm for unauthorized entry through the door on the
far side, but Peter and his crew are going to have key guards anyway, so that it probably won't
be a problem, but you can disable that just out of safety. Yeah, we'll clear that alarm up.
Maybe fake a check-in from the guards or something and then and then continue on.
Okay, cool. So you walk unassaulted through the server room and through the, the far door
and then you find yourself in a very nice corporate looking hallway, so you're kind of,
you're kind of entering through the back entrance and you can see that there's the way that most
people come into this, into this area is to your right through a very nice looking reception area.
And there's a lot of very swanky signs and you know, this is clearly where they, they bring their
business clients for, for meetings. The, the other entrance that you guys came through was the,
more like the employee entrance and at the far end of the hallway, there is a door that is labeled
Elizabeth Ravadun and on either side of the hallway are various office spaces and in the hallway,
there are three very burly looking security officers and two business people by the looks of it
and they are apparently expecting you because they're all looking straight at you. The three
security officers have weapons drawn to business. The two people in suits are kind of hanging out
in the hallway in the, in the doorways of little office spaces and they don't appear to be armed,
but they're, they're sort of watching for your approach. All right, I look back at Peter and
tell those guys to get on the network and try to defend against these guys while we take out the guards.
Peter nods and he says, yeah, we're on it and he sort of retreats really quick, but he's got his
group sort of camped out there in the server room, typing away as fast as they can because that's
how you hack. Furiously typing. Furiously typing. The faster they type, the better they hack, so they do
that. The, the security officers in the, in the hallway, unless you're going to do anything are
going to open fire so we should roll for an issue. 22. 17. Johnny, only roll the five this time.
Okay, cool. So let's see. It is. Oh, hold on. So it's Chaiway's turn first. All right. Is there
any open doorways down the hall? I don't like being out in the middle of this. So
yeah, there are several open doorways and, and if they weren't open, you could, you could make them
open very easily. They're not, they're not high security offices by any means. So yeah, there,
there are offices on, on either side that you can duck into. Right. Well, I will hang out in one of
the doorways. I'm, you know, like 10 or 15 feet up the hallway and take a shot down the hall.
Okay, cool. Eight to hit. Who are you firing at? That'll make a difference, actually.
Can I, is one of the hacker guys exposed at all? Yeah, yeah. All right. I will take a shot across
the hall at one of the hackers then. Or would I assume our hackers? Yeah, yeah. Yes, you were
correct. And yes, you hit. All right. Two to eight. Thirteen damage.
The pretty powerful one. Okay. Yeah. So one of the, one of the business people,
flowing back into the office, blood splatters everywhere, security guards turn next.
Let's see what they do. I don't think that's going to hit anybody 12. And another one takes a shot.
Ooh, 20 at Chaiway that probably hits natural 20. I need it, Will.
Let's see what happens. I don't think that's going to get past your fancy armor though, five.
Nope. Armor's almost lost a point though. Ah, okay. Sit. Roll a, roll a fortitude save.
22. Okay, cool. So your cyber arm, it's just sort of you feel like it's completely locked up
for some reason. You can't move it. And that doesn't, okay. So now it is Johnny's turn.
And he doesn't do anything. So Chaiway, it's back up to you. All right.
I'm assuming that one businessman is down. I'm going to hop across the hall up to the next room.
And then take a shot at one of the guards. Yes, okay. And I rolled the one. So five to hit.
No, that does not hit anybody. So now it's a security guards turn 13 to hit Chaiway misses,
right? 13 will hit. Oh, it hits, okay. In that case, seven damage.
Punches through my armor. And I will take three damage. Ouch.
Sid, seven and six, neither of those would hit you, correct? No. And it is your turn, Sid.
Is my arm still glitched? Yeah, it is still not under your control. It's not under control,
Peter. I mean, it's not under anyone else's control, but it's not under your control.
I'm going to duck into a room on the opposite side of the hall from Chaiway and I'll take a shot
at one of the guards. Okay, go for it. 16. Yeah, that hits three damage. Okay. So at this point,
well, it's Johnny's turn. Let me let him go. Oh, 12. Yeah. So he, Johnny, again, using his fancy
syringe gun hits one of the other business people and deals two damage. Okay. So at this point,
from the room, the Elizabeth Aravadun doorway, it just kind of bursts open. It just flies right
off the hinges out into the hall and they're standing in the doorway looking barely like the
person that you met at the the junker cafe when she hired you is Elizabeth, but she has got an
exoskeleton suit on combat suit and she lifts her arm and fires a rocket. That is so cyclical.
Into the hallway, which bypasses both of you because you're hiding out in doorways and goes into
the server room and causes a huge explosion. And Peter says, Peter comes over your com link and says,
what's going on in there? I just lost two people, but it is Chaiway's turn again. You have
Robocop in front of you and security guards who are going to defend her. I will come back to him
or say back to him over the coms that Elizabeth has herself a cyber suit and is chucking rockets
down the hallway. He says, we're on it. We're on it. We're on it. Yeah. Take control of that thing
you're typing typing even gets faster. You don't even know how it's possible.
Should I try to do a hacking role myself? I think I might. Yeah, like why why why leave it up to
other people? Give it a go. I'm going to duck back into the room and 15 plus 12. So 27.
That is really good. Let me just double check this. So I think I'm already on the network. So
I'm assuming this will be against her suit. Yeah, that does not break through her military grade
exoskeleton. So yeah, you're not in. All right. Let's see. Oh, so it's a security guard's turn now.
I'll just roll for them all three. I don't think that's going to hit anywhere. Maybe 13 hitting
Chaiway. Yes, that will hit. Okay. Eight damage. All right, I take four more damage. Okay,
Sid, you're going to try to take another shot at one of the guards. Yeah, and actually you can
roll another fortitude. So just see if you've recovered from the arm hack 16. Yes. So your arm
returns to life. I'm treating this hack like a concentration spell. I don't know if that's how
they want me to do it, but that's what I'm doing. In fact, it's funny and some of the hacking rules
in the interface zero thing. I don't know if you guys noticed, but there are some blocks of text
that they clearly just sort of pasted in from probably the pathfinder stuff because it actually
accidentally says instead of in grams, it says spells. Okay, Sid, what are you doing? You're firing
at someone? Actually, I'm going to change my mind now that my arm works. I'm going to go further
into the room and I'm going to go up against the wall that leads towards the people and I'm going
to try to bash through the wall. Oh, I love it. Yes. Okay. Yeah, I guess give me a strength check.
I mean, it's it's a very low DC to get through a wall. I feel so, but still give me a strength check.
Yeah, corporate corporate construction is pretty cheap. So you'll probably be able to just back
up. Yeah. Yeah, it's like, you know, drywall 11. Yeah, that's fine. So yeah, you start dig-dugging
your way through through the office space walls. Let's see who's next. Oh, Johnny, Johnny runs across
the hall into one of the office and the doorways of one of the offices and he looks over at Uchai
Way and says, you know, we never did talk about payment for this. Remind me to get back to you
on that. And then he leans out into the hallway and he's carrying this. It's almost a spear gun.
And instead of a spear, it's this absurdly long and thick needle that is attached to a flexible
hose. And through the hose, there's pumping some kind of from a backpack that Johnny has on
it's pumping some kind of almost fluorescent green liquid and he fires it at one of the guards
hitting him in the in the leg. And you can see the guard cry out scream almost. And his leg, you can
almost see that it's it's almost decaying right in front of your eyes. And then Johnny reels the
spear back in. Chai way back up to you. All right. I have a question about those century robots
that were back in the server room. Were they stationary or are they moving? Yes. They can move.
All right. I'm going to pull one of them out in the hall or actually probably can control both
of them. I would totally. Yeah. No, I mean, you could do both. I'm going to
authorize them to go after Elizabeth and her exoskeleton. Very nice. Okay. So give me a control
hacking role. 28. Yes. That totally does it. So yeah. So you just stick them on on Elizabeth.
Yeah. I'll pull them. Have them roll out of the hall and it's open fire. Which they do. They
immediately come to life and they they walk over into the doorway and open fire at Elizabeth.
And they don't really do all that well yet. But at least you know that they're there to see
security guards. And there's a few more targets. And there's a few more targets to hit too. So
let's see. Okay. So one of the guards attempts to take aim and fire but his gun suddenly doesn't work
and you kind of get the sense Peter one of Peter's hackers has jammed one of the security guards
as guns. Which was good because he rolled a natural 20. Sid is out of sight. So yeah, Chai way
I think 16 would hit you again. Correct. They do have the century robots as well as targets.
But it will hit. Yeah. That is true. That is six six damage. All right. More damage. Not
doing horrible yet. But I'm almost bloodied. Sid your go. You're still tunneling. Let's see.
You can move what 30 feet at a time, right? Or are you in your cyber mode? The cyber mode is always
on. So it would be 40 feet. You're back there on on Elizabeth's perpendicular to to where Elizabeth
is standing at the end of the hall. So she's within your site, for instance. And it is your turn.
I'm going to roll a flashbang out of the door of the room I'm in right into in the middle of the
group of people. Nice. Yes. Okay. Cool. So I think we said that did some kind of damage last time,
right? It did like a d10. 2d 10 or one. Yeah. 2d 10. Non lethal. Yeah. Okay. Go for it. 12. Wow. Nice.
Okay. So now it is Johnny's turn and he is going to. He's just rolling really badly today. So
Elizabeth's turn now and she is going to take a blast at those at those robots at the end of the
hall. She hits them for five damage or while she hits one of them for five damage. And it is
chaiway's turn. At least it's not our hackers this time. Exactly. All right. Is there one hacker left
on their side? And do I have a line of sight on him? There is one left and you do have a line of
sight. All right. I will take a shot at him then. Natural 20 for 24 to hit. Oh wow. Yes.
That's very good. So I do double damage then I think. Yeah. I think so. So I rolled a 7 and a 2.
So 9 damage. So 18 damage full? Oh no. No. Sorry. 7. Yeah. I rolled twice. No. So it'll be 14
damage. Oh I see. Take the first roll. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean that would have. It didn't really
that. I think you've just practiced what we call overkill in the industry. He has completely splattered
against the office. He has gone. Picking him off one by one. Okay. So Sid 17 probably hits you.
Yes. Oh wait. You're still in the office, aren't you? Yeah. Okay. I'll do the.
My robots get a turn as well. Or do I need to come out? Oh you're right. No. No. No. Totally. You're
correct. I forgot that. Yes. So they both fire at Elizabeth. Oh yes. And two hits on her
from one each from each robot. That's six plus six. So 12 damage again. She's gotten two doses
of 12 damage so far. The guards turn. I think you were doing the guards turns. Was that what I was
doing? Yep. Okay. Thank you. Guard says I don't know who you are but you're going down. And he
sprays bullets that through into the hallway. Indiscriminately. They're hitting the robots again. So
that's five and two. I'm going to sprint out of the door that I'm at right at Elizabeth.
In the split second that I have kind of assess her exoskeleton and just reach up to the part
that looks like it has the most jiggly bits and just try to rip it off with my cyborg. Very nice.
Give me a. Trying to think if I feel like it's not just raw strength. It'd be more like maybe
dexterity or something. Yeah. Let's do. I was going to say the combat maneuver bonus might be.
Yep. Yep. Yep. Let's do that. I think we did that. Yeah. So roll roll. This will be a combat
maneuver. So that's the roll plus CMB? CMB. Yeah. 11. Okay. You grab a collection of wires sort of
extending from the you know the back of her her her skull piece like the helmet into her back.
Grab those those cables and just rip them right off. And she she you can see that she's just
starting to lose to lose control of the suit. And but I mean she's struggling to do it but you
can see that it's almost like she's lost like she's almost just using her sort of her strength
to try to move the suit around. It's like there's no more there's no like hydraulic assistance or
whatever you know it's it's completely just now it's just an armored suit essentially. She appears
to be pretty badly damaged from that. Nice job sir. Thank you. And Johnny rolls and hits one of the
security guards with I guess I think I think he's probably just switched to a shotgun at this point.
So he just blasts hits for see seven seven damage. Okay Elizabeth is up. She takes like with one
arm she sort of maneuvers one arm out of the so skeleton suit and she uses that arm to lift the
other arm and and and to like basically use her suit as a as a weapon now like as a firing weapon
and so she takes a shot down the hall fairly blindly and does really poorly. So yeah that's
that and then the robots get to take a turn because they're still going wow and they both hit her.
So 11 and 7 okay well so the robot they just pour bullets down the hallway at out of Elizabeth
and her suit just starts to sort of fly off of her body is just like pieces are just falling off
and she's trying to she's struggling to get out of the suit because she sees that this is no longer
useful for her so she's struggling to get out of the suit and eventually she does and she kind of
retreats back into her office in complete and utter fear. Try way it is your go. The security guards
are quite distracted by the robots at this point the hackers are out. All right swimming I'm still
on the network here I'm gonna see what else is inside of the office if I can. It doesn't appear
that there's any kind of turret or weaponry inside the office there's nobody else in there except
Elizabeth but there is what you would identify as a vehicle in there probably like an escape pod
of some sort but other than that there's nothing else in there you don't you do not detect any
weapons on the vehicle I'm gonna see if I can hack into the vehicle try to change the access
protocols on it I rolled an eight so that's a 20 hacking attempt that would do it for that vehicle
lock lock her out basically make it inaccessible to her yeah okay cool so that's done that was
a try away security guards they're just worried about the robots still because those robots are
pretty fierce uh one of them hits a robot takes one robot out one robot is down I'm going to run
in the office and try to just grab a list of you going through wall are you gonna do the crazy
thing of using doorways this time I mean it's not really my style but the doorways there so we'll
use it okay take in the easy way out so you zip zip into the into the room and you see Elizabeth
sitting in like what appears to be an escape pod and she's she's trying in vain to to trigger it to
get away so what are you are you you want to just tackle her yeah sounds good you tackle her and
she she she says you're a traitor I hired you how why what are you doing I look at her and I say
something more important than money nice okay try wait your turn you've only got one security guard left
and you know that Sid and Elizabeth are in the office I'm gonna do an intimidation on the guard
of 17 just to tell them to surrender and seeing that all of his guards are down and and there's
still a robot and they're still try way he he he drops his weapon and says call off the robot call
off the robot I'll shut it down okay so threats are now over and hearing that all the the gunfire
seems to have stopped Peter emerges from the server room and it's like you've never really seen
Peter before he's he's he's setting he's wearing the same thing he's always been wearing but he
carries himself completely differently and he steps out from the room into the hall and walks past
the guard past past you chaiway almost not even acknowledging you just focused on the goal and he
goes back into the office into Elizabeth's office he just stands there for a moment looks at the
desk and then looks at Sid and chaiway I guess you probably come into the room and he looks at you and
he says thank you thank you both of you not because you got me this office this isn't what it's
about I've got global omnium digital now under my control and I can promise both of you and all of
you he calls back into the hall at symbolically uh to the the tinkers that I'm going to run this
company as a different company than what it has been what it has come to represent and the first
thing we're going to do is dismantle that abomination that computer that she's built to crush
the spirits literally of the people working here we're going to set this place up as a sanctuary
for people to protect them rather than to imprison them and it's because of you too and for that
I'm eternally grateful you can name a price I'll transfer you to your bank accounts and if you
never need anything in the future you let me know he looks over at Elizabeth and he says now's for
you you're not going to get what you deserve because what you deserve I don't think you could
withstand but we're going to deal with you and your board justly and you're going to come to regret
the decisions that you've made Peter turns back to sit and and chaiway and he gives you a bow
a soulful sincere bow of thanks all right I was quite the coup we pulled off here yeah
that was a lot of fun yeah yeah now whether or not Peter is actually a more benevolent dictator than
than Elizabeth of course is a matter for for future lore to determine but yeah you guys you guys
did that really really creatively that was a lot of fun hi everyone this is clat 2 you've just
been listening to the conclusion of the interface zero playthrough let me run through some credits
now because I believe strongly in giving credit where credit is due many of the sound effects that
you heard in this show have been cc zero so technically speaking no credit is required but I'd rather
give credit because I think the work of these people is amazing it's all from the website freesound.org
you should use freesound.org frequently if you're a recorder then you should contribute
to freesound.org all of the sound effects that I used were by users pca eldrie's lake side 2
in chadney for the bay clavo 1985 music of the black circus jewel audio quick smash
tavi 55 big smash pee friends and smashing a glass sunny side sound desk pound spuckin
trumpet metal cg effects huge rocket launcher marcil ferris elevator the omega pixel metal grind
frito beck firework explosion simon gray mojo cafe de paglioli laser gun explosion leb craft lp
heavy rain new age soup double explosion blue delta thunder rain shots gunshot some of the music
that I use was by a composer named william kenlan who has composed wood slash water and the
fridgerator all other music by me clatu the adventure path or the module that we played through
the the story content called job insecurity is available from drive through rpg.com
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