Stories with Dice
Stories with Dice is an actual-play podcast where a fellowship of everyday gamers explores fantastical worlds, distant futures, and parallel realities through tabletop role-playing games (TTRPGs) from Free League Publishing, Chaosium, Modiphius Entertainment, and more.
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Stories with Dice
Dark Blue Sea S1 E16: A Mutant Year Zero Actual Play Podcast
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The Ark’s three remaining bosses gather to determine its future, but distrust and ambition threaten to tear them apart. Meanwhile, Cochrane, Moss, Caspian, and Roach have their own vision for how to run the Ark.
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Welcome to Stories with
Welcome to Stories with Dice
SPEAKER_04Dice. This is the Dark Blue Sea, a Mutant Year Zero Actual Play Podcast. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you'll never miss an episode. Don't forget to rate and review us, it really helps others discover the podcast. Follow us on social media to stay updated, share your thoughts, and join the conversation. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode.
SPEAKER_05Welcome back to another episode. It's ye old introduction time as usual. Marco, hello. Hiya. Hiya, I'm a Marco. So I'm hoping the rest of me are gonna keep that exact same uh theme. Douglas?
SPEAKER_03Yay, verily, it's Douglas. Don't
Testing the Militia's Metal
SPEAKER_03drink the tap water, drink beer instead.
SPEAKER_05I love that. That's great. There's no context for anyone else. The last five minutes of a conversation. Pete? Hi, it's me again. Chris. Uh yeah, I guess. Cool. I love the enthusiasm. Woo! So we've tested the metal of the militia in the last in the last episode. So what we're gonna do is, because you had a couple of people die, I'm gonna just take that off of the uh population without making a d6 roll. No, we should still make the d6 roll. Okay. Make a d6 minus two roll, please.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, there's still dysentery.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_05And there is still dysentery, yeah. Thank God, okay, so there's another four on top of that. So so we're down to 155 in your population. Perhaps maybe uh some other people got involved in other little skirmishes and were sick. Or they were just sick and just, you know, just passed away.
SPEAKER_04Or we have like a Jack the Ripper in the arc and someone is like throwing people overboard. Could be.
SPEAKER_05Well, you never know. So it's not seems like a plot line that I could work with. Sounds like a job for the militia. Yeah, it sounds like a job for the militia. It's gonna be a few days after the last event. Are you going to work on the project that you have, which is your militia? You haven't quite got there yet. I think you've got you've had two, I think. Four. Four four four successes on the militia. You need another two. Did you want to be involved in training up the militia? If so, it's a fight or manipulate role.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I'll yeah, Roach will definitely be involved in that. He needs to put them into shape.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Can I recover my empathy, Deba, since it's a good one? Absolutely, you can do, yeah. Thank you. Then I will help with the manipulation of the The indoctrination. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05The indoctrination, oh yeah. Go lay down your life for this this shape. Well, that's three successes and done by Pete. So you guys don't have to roll anything.
SPEAKER_01Awesome.
SPEAKER_03You think he didn't need anything else? Because I got nothing.
SPEAKER_05So we now have the militia. Can someone roll me? In fact, Douglas seems you haven't rolled anything.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05Can you roll me 2D six, please? And that'll be 2d6. In total or individuals? So just duck just add them together in total, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So I can just roll 2d6.
SPEAKER_05And this will be an increase to your warfare because of your militia. Seven. That's an extra seven. So that's very nice. So let me just add seven to your warfare. Oh, you now have a warfare of seventeen. We have an ongoing technology of ten, so your your technology has hasn't really got much further. Your culture is two. You have no culture, you're an uncultured lot, but you have a lot of food.
SPEAKER_04Technically, we don't have a lot of food. The island, the other little island, has all the food. We need to go.
SPEAKER_01I guess we can make a shit ton of crab jerky now. Unless they were from a heavy rot zone.
SPEAKER_04I say when Anwin comes for the meeting, we get rid of her, and then we take over the
Political Maneuvering and Intrigue
SPEAKER_04island.
SPEAKER_01I'm very much in favor. I hate that cunt. Can we say cunt on this show? The C-word came out, I like it.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I I hear if Caspian, we have to we have to make sure that the leaders look as ineffectual as possible. So I hate her too, by the way, Yeti. So we we have to kind of make sure that their their like little talk doesn't succeed, so then we can go and intervene. And then you know.
SPEAKER_04Or I can just take my scrap knife and slip it between her ribs.
SPEAKER_03Now we have a militia, I'll be definitely wanting to wait until she transgresses so that we've got a legitimate reason to because you know if the leaders manage to sort out like an accessible like food supply and that sort of thing and get old buddy buddy, that's gonna make things a bit more awkward.
SPEAKER_04I'm sure that between Moss and Caspian we can come up with a legitimate reason for why the militia should dispose of Anwin.
SPEAKER_05Well, you've got a few days to kind of like make some plans. Depending on what you do, will di I guess will depend on what happens when Anwin come Hanwin comes over. So you have you tell me what you would like to do. So she's gonna come over, there's gonna be a bit of a bit of a conversation around with with Elson and yourselves and and Anwin. Part of that would be for you to go and pick her up and bring her over because you're the ones with you're the only ones with the ship. You can obviously then bring some food supplies and then open up the conversation around sharing the food, or you can dispose of her on the route, or you can I don't know, do something politically. What's your diplomat? I mean, what's what's the sort of thing you're thinking of?
SPEAKER_02When she gets there, somebody can suggest that she's not dressed correctly, and the other person can say she hasn't been very thankful for what we've done for her.
SPEAKER_03I like it. I like it a lot. Is it is it too soon? I'm not really sure.
SPEAKER_01I mean, maybe that's horrible. That is exactly what a culture with a culture of two would do. Yeah. Exactly. Yes, yes.
SPEAKER_04This is exactly what nation with a culture of two would do to someone.
SPEAKER_03Forcing her to sign over the cross directress to
Plans for Anwen
SPEAKER_03her. Oh my god. Like, just all seriousness, that's not a terrible plan for like making her like an excuse for, you know, nothing.
SPEAKER_01Blame her for losing that one boat, clearly trying to sabotage the whole out.
SPEAKER_03I mean, potentially. Was pretty suspect when I was talking to her. She was asking a lot of very specific questions, which even Cochrane was smart enough to catch on to what she was getting at.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I've got a feeling she might be setting herself up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Elston, I don't he probably doesn't really trust her. Whatchamacallit, Ratzgang's leader. He or she seems a bit manip easy to manipulate at the moment because they're just like, I don't know how this goes, and has just kind of agreed with whatever we suggested so far. So I don't know if that's maybe we can just, you know, whisper in their ear, you know. That was Frenta. Frenton is the French is the um is the new leader. He's our useful idiot. Yeah, exactly. Then like we technically he went along with the militia, and that has turned out really good. So that's like It has. He's like, oh, these guys know what they're doing. Maybe just you know, take more of those suggestions. So so maybe maybe we can just uh go talk to is it him? Him, him. Him, yeah, it's a him. And maybe get him on side about being off side with Arwen. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, if you if you speak to Sir Fronton's whole thing, really, is that he he kind of wants to take over from where Rhett left where Rhett left off and not be as militaristic, I guess, as as Rhett was. Being being a navigator and not being one of the enforcers or the bosses, he he pretty much is happy to go along with a lot of things. He is he wants to be seen to be making the right decisions for the best for the best interests of the arc
The New Power Dynamics
SPEAKER_05uh on the ship. So he's he you can see you can see that he's not he doesn't seem to have the same uh political I guess thoughts that that the other two might have because they've always been bosses, they've always been sort of like vying for for power. He's kind of coming into the whole thing, and so he's kind of trying to find his way. So he's he's a relative relative newbie in the in that in that regard, even though he has been sort of like a sub-boss of threats. It'll eventually go to his head. I'm sure it will do eventually. Which is why he will also need to be eliminated. Don't worry, they'll be the first. So before a conversation is had where they'll kind of get together, you planning to do anything to Elson Fronton or Hanwin?
SPEAKER_03Well, first we have to go pick Anwin up, right? Yeah. Well, I think I think maybe we want to do some manipulation before we go and get her because we want to maybe like make things improve the sort of like sow the seats before the conversation starts, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03If we want if we want things to go one particular way, which I assume are we are we kind of collectively agreed that we want to sort of like just take back the place and not really negotiate?
Spreading Distrust Among the Bosses
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_03Take back what place? The island? The island. Yes.
SPEAKER_01So how about we, you know, let everybody know how weird she was when you were there and and how she how she pumped you for information and I mean yes, they're the law keepers, but under light of what they did to the elder, I mean, this is all very suspicious.
SPEAKER_04But not just that. Not just that. She's an elitist. I mean, you know, we're all dumb and don't deserve and don't deserve to know the truth. That some information that some information should be kept from us because we're stupid.
SPEAKER_05So, you know, that So just for your awareness, the general intelligence and or knowledge of the ship arc, whatever you want to call it, is based on your culture. Great. We are idiot.
SPEAKER_03But you know, people don't like to be told the truth. They like to hear they like to hear the nice things. We're like, oh, you're special. You know, you you could do whatever you want.
SPEAKER_01So let's keep it to basics, just tell everybody you know, not put each other down.
SPEAKER_02Yes. Yeah, we just tell everybody that she's planning to withhold the food from us. Oh yeah. That'll get everybody's attention.
SPEAKER_05Well or manipulate. Can uh make a manipulation role to manipulate to manipulate that. That's for politics. Does anybody does anybody actually have Okay.
SPEAKER_01I have, but not enough. Okay. Oh that's a shit ton of dice.
SPEAKER_03But I will push that because I will want to set some like baseline. Ah, just one.
SPEAKER_05Did you want to push anyone else who's got manipulate? Alright. One success on my push.
Manipulations and Rumors
SPEAKER_05S do I. Okay. Right. So did anyone get any damage from that? Sorry, there was a lot of dice being rolled.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_05But you all succeeded. You didn't you didn't fail.
SPEAKER_03I think every single person got at least one. Everyone got one on the three. So I think we got three all together, was it? Yep. We all together got three successes.
SPEAKER_05Um, I guess with you, Douglas, it was I guess you're that you were sort of like spearheading the sort of rumors and having sort of like a way of trying to kind of spread them in the right way. So it was all quite a stressful experience of of politicking against one group versus the other. Some might even say you were kind of acting like a boss. Yeah, you kind of spread the seeds. So you've all got successes, so none of you got none of you messed up and got caught out of this. So what exactly is it you would like to happen? So we want Arnoux to be deposed, don't we?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, let less people be distrustful of uh and consider usurper in waiting.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_03So we're wanting them to kind of be like, if we're wanting to deal with you, we're not dealing with you as equals, if that makes sense. As in bosses, you as in yeah. I assume that's kind of where we're going, is it?
SPEAKER_05So who are you going to uh get to make them feel that way? Is it gonna be Elson? Is it gonna be Frampton? Is it gonna be the I guess the people of the arc in general?
SPEAKER_01I would like for it to be everybody. I'd like for it to be the the you know, like the mood so that when something happens to her, and that sows people aren't gonna turn on us.
SPEAKER_04Right, and that sows the seed of distrust for in bosses in general. Because that's that's the end goal here. Because yeah, there's we also want to get rid of Elson and the new person in charge of Rhetz gang.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_03Cool. Yeah, because there's um what how many does each gang have? Maybe like 10, 15 people geeks. There's like over a hundred others not like spots.
SPEAKER_05So there's yeah, there's there's currently about ten in Franzen's gang. Elson has the most with 15. Anwin has the least with hate.
SPEAKER_03Okay, but there's so that's still we're saying over a hundred pretty much. Yeah, just still. Well over a hundred, yeah. Yeah, okay. That seems yeah. So even if they're like, we're doing it this way, and then psychiatric people go, yeah, no. Okay.
SPEAKER_05So my second question is when you go to pick up Anwin, are you also going to pick up some lies? Or are you going to just bring Anwin over and then deal with that afterwards? Are we gonna what? So all the food, obviously, you've got access to she has access to all the food that they've been producing. Are you going to like say, well, we're gonna take a bunch of food to take with you, or are you going to just take her along and deal with that whole food situation afterwards?
SPEAKER_01Well, how about we, you know, again, like bring bring some of that crap people meet over to, you know, like I want to say barter, but that's not it. But you know, like y you guys have only got fidge and we've got this, and how about we swap and I I I I say the opposite.
SPEAKER_03I say we just we just demand to take it. Because that's gonna put our win on a bad mood with the negotiations if we're just coming over. And we're just like I agree. You're coming, but we're also taking the food as well. This is non-negotiable. This food belongs to the ark. Yeah. And that'll put her in a bad starting position as well, because she's like, they're just coming dictating terms.
SPEAKER_05Does that mean you're gonna take the militia over to the island with Yes, we're gonna take some militia.
SPEAKER_02Broach? Yeah, you think brooch? I wouldn't be happy about that. I'd be prepared to make that demand, but if she refuses, then okay, we leave it at that, bring her back, but then we let it be known that she refused. Ooh.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah. That's good. That's good. So we do it, and then yeah. There's more more raric, more raric.
SPEAKER_05And on the uh turning the um the crab people into sushi and feeding them to people, you gonna are you gonna do that? Or are you gonna harvest the the crab people, or what are you gonna do with the bodies?
SPEAKER_01I mean, I presume we can figure out if they're rotty before we feed them to people, right?
SPEAKER_03Well, I've got an idea. Could you make armor out of that? You can make armor out of it, yes. Could that be something that'd be a jury rig or something that Moss could figure out?
SPEAKER_02Oh yeah, moss, if at some point you could make me a new ex, I'd be like, totally.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_02Militia could just make it.
SPEAKER_01I'll just be sitting there with armour. Oh, I'll just be sitting there jewelry rigging as I as I grumble about how horrible Anwin has been treating us.
SPEAKER_05That's fine. I mean you can you can get the so Elson's gang can probably do that. Elson can make armor out of it, and effectively you could turn the sort of like chitiness scales into armor for the militia, which would give you a kind of Yeah, that'd be good. I guess a militia look that you would have. That's not a problem.
SPEAKER_03I like literally wearing the the skins of our enemies.
SPEAKER_05So what are you gonna do with their there's no way to know what whether their food is rotted unless someone can can run some kind of like giger counter over them or some other thing.
SPEAKER_01I hate to say this, but can I tell after killing that guy with my bite?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I mean it's it's it's not the nicest tasting food. It tastes like the rat. It doesn't taste as bad as the rat.
SPEAKER_04There you go. There's no skill to like determine if food is probably out of everything.
SPEAKER_05Maybe comprehend. Probably not even maybe know the zone. I think it's probably gonna be your best.
SPEAKER_03I think from the rat incident it was know the zone. Should I try that?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, make a know the zone at minus two.
SPEAKER_04Minus two. You son of a such a harsh GM. You son of a dungeon master. You are correct. I'm gonna push that. I have a failure. One success. Okay. Win one damage.
SPEAKER_05Okay, yes. It's probably unadvisable. It's well, I don't know. It's up to you, Marco, because you've been pushing the cannibal sort of agenda for a while, and they are technically mutants to a degree. Are they sentient? They would have been, yes. So whether you want to it's almost cannibalism.
SPEAKER_04So No, it's not cannibalism is eating your own species. These are crab people. We're not crab people. If we were crab people eating crab people, that would be the definition of cannibalism. Look, these guys came out of the sea. You know what comes out of the sea? Food.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Exactly. Fair enough.
SPEAKER_04But are they gonna get I mean, are they irradiated? Do they have the rod?
SPEAKER_01They got a culture of two, right? So I mean, they're not from our arc, that's not cannibalism.
SPEAKER_04Exactly.
SPEAKER_01If we had a crab person on board, I mean, that wouldn't be right. They're safe.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Yeah, I mean, the food is not well, it it probably wouldn't be great, but it is food, and there is quite a bit of it. But so is it infested with the rot though? Some of them do have some rot, but most food that you eat has got some kind of rot in it.
SPEAKER_04And can you cook it out or no?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, you can kind of cook it out and stuff.
SPEAKER_04So it's basically more or less it's safety. Yeah, ish, yeah. Like everything else in this world. Like everything else is a bit ish, right, yeah. In this broken world. Yep. Got it. Yeah. Alright. Okay. Looks like meat's back on the menu, boys. Okay. Cool.
SPEAKER_01After we've just, you know, eradicated the other cannibals for being cannibals. This is fine. Double standards, it's fine.
SPEAKER_03Well, they were eating our people, you know, so Okay.
SPEAKER_05Well, that's not a problem. So you spread the rumors around, and the general gist is that the people of the ship are a little uneasy, and there's a sort of very there's an undercurrent of unhappiness with the bosses in general.
The Meeting of the Bosses
SPEAKER_05So when you go and pick up Anwin, you're not taking the militia with you, but you're gonna well, who's gonna basically say, We want the food. You need to make it available to us. I'll say it. Okay. Okay. She says that when you negotiate, she she kind of negotiates, you tell her what she wants to do. She says she's obviously happy to speak to the other bosses and they can have a conversation about it. But as far as she's concerned, you guys are not a boss, so therefore she only wants to speak the bosses, not yourselves.
SPEAKER_03See, so speaking on behalf of the arc is not needed.
SPEAKER_05No. Uh essentially she feels that it's something that they can do at the meeting, not something to discuss with the other. No, no, no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_04Anwin, the food is not up for discussion or debate. It belongs to the Ark. As a community commodity. You do not own it, control it, or tell us how to disperse it. It belongs to us, all of us. So fuck you. Oh, we're going hard. Okay. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Okay, she's taken aback by that, but says, okay, fine. Well, obviously the food isn't not all of the food is ready here, so we'll discuss it when we get to the meeting, and you can have whatever we have. You kind of understand that she's she's basically playing for time. She's like, yeah, pandering to your kind of like, yeah, sure, you can have it, but she won't really sort of Yeah, she's not gonna get rid of it. She's not gonna relinquish it. Yeah, yeah. She's not relinquishing it unless she kind of likes speaks to the others. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04So whatever kind of goes to the case. Her no effectively still stands. So Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_04So I didn't just ruin Roach's plan.
SPEAKER_05No. And so she goes to meet with Frenton at Elson. And she's sort of a little bit taken aback when I suppose your rule's sort of there as well. But as is always the case, it's not just a closed sort of conversation. It does take place on board the ship. So there are members of the the the shipwide community there, everyone having a bit of a say and a bit of a conversation. And very quickly they start essentially divvying up like they would have done before the various responsibilities of the of the ship. But you can kind of sense that the undercurrent of the of the people is just not really with any of the bosses. It seems that your manipulation and your kind of like spreading of misinformation or information, depending on who you're talking to, is working. When they start making decisions about what they're going to do, members of the of the ship start to speak up. They kind of talk about the food that's over there. And Elson is quite threatening. He threatens that they'll basically need to take the food if if they're not going to share the food, because that's not what was meant to be happening. People are kind of like, mm-hmm, that seems okay. But when uh when Anwin kind of counters that point saying that she's happy to relinquish the food for something else, Elson's like, well, no, there is nothing else. It's not like a give and take, we're gonna take. And she starts to kind of, and then they they start having a bit of infighting. You kind of remember this of all the times that you'd be on on the ship. They they end up kind of sort of ignoring the rest of the kind of community, and that it just becomes them and their gang sub-leaders and them having an argument. As that as soon as that starts to happen, the mood in the sort of chamber, the the ship starts to change, and people start kind of booing the bosses, they start to kind of override them in their kind of conversations, they kind of keep butting in. Elsa looks very kind of surprised at this, Anwin as well. Franton just seems to kind of look around, bemused at what's supposed to be happening. As far as he knows, this is how it used to go anyway. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's probably a whole day's worth of sort of negotiating, and they kind of like retire to their prospective points. And everyone kind of starts talking and everyone's sort of like having conversations with each other. The general dis you get from everyone in the um in the arc is that they're not happy with the bosses, that they're almost thinking, well, what's the point of having them if they're not really going to be sort of doing what's best for the ship? Even though they say that's what's best, they seem to be sort of like doing power plays as opposed to actually thinking what
The Fallout of Anwen's Death
SPEAKER_05is right for everyone. Is there anything you guys would like to do or be involved in or anything like that?
SPEAKER_04Caspian will, at the earliest opportunity, if he can speak to Roach in confidence, sort of ask him like, hey Roach, when are we making our move? We've got the militia on our side. The people are unhappy, but the bosses, let's take them out.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I mean, I'm not quite sure the time is right. Rather see them start to take each other out, but when's that gonna happen?
SPEAKER_04How long is that gonna take? Meanwhile, more of us are dying and people are starving. Some of the people are still used to having a figurehead, might take a little while to Look, I know you got a soft spot in your heart for Elson, but you know, I mean if we need a figurehead, I suppose we can we can figure that out on the other side. But like these these Anouin, all these bosses, they they gotta go, man. You see that, the people see that. We have to rule by committee. No more bosses.
SPEAKER_02I think we should wait until we know we can get hold of the food. The food is ours. All all we have to do is get rid of Arnoux.
The Call to Action
SPEAKER_02Still be reluctant to move the militia up first. I really want an excuse or trigger to do that.
SPEAKER_04Well like what kind of what kind of excuse? Maybe I can provide one. I mean fighting between the club. Between the cop, bad cop here, you know? I'll be the bad cop, obviously.
SPEAKER_02Fighting between the gang members, or even more so, actually the gang move one of the gangs moving against the general populace.
SPEAKER_05So Anwin is here along with Victon. It's just them. Whereas Elson has everyone in his gang, and obviously Frampton has the people in in Brad's gang.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, it's definitely a divide and conquer situation. We want them to take each other out, hopefully, or or eliminate them one by one. And then things just chug along nicely with just the two gangs until the opportunity arises, take out another one.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_03If you say so. I think he's being too cautious. Well, Rhett's gang in the sort of negotiations, he that guy got kind of sidelined today, didn't he?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he kind of he kind of can s you can see that he's new to it, so he kind of kept out of it. He kind of said a few things and they seemed okay. He was kind of more or less on your side, I suppose, you know.
SPEAKER_03Arwen and Elson were doing most of the talking, I assume. Correct. Yeah. And he was just like every so often he'd get asked something, you know, he'd be like, I I agree with the right honorable.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, it's it's along that kind of lines.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. Do you think I could maybe go and have a chat with him and maybe get him a bit more into the discussion, for better or for worse, as in being like, dude, they're sidelined of you. You need to you need to, you know, pick yourself up. You know, your boss, you're equal to them. You know, let you've got, you know, because I because this guy's new to it, so I don't like he's gonna be sticky. We want him to be more vocal, because that's gonna cause more dissent and sort of and that sort of thing, because he doesn't really know what he's doing. But he is going to be so want him to be opinionated.
SPEAKER_05You want him to be that unfortunately is not his person. You what please make a sense emotion role.
SPEAKER_03Sense emotion. Has my empathy recovered from our Yes. Okay, fine. It's fine. Sense emotion. Still three.
SPEAKER_05Once across this. Okay. Yeah, he while he's quite quiet, you can get the sense that he's he's doing it on purpose to a degree. He's kind of playing up the he's less experienced and he he he's he's letting out to be. So he's he's he's obviously playing some kind of game himself, but playing the kind of like I'm new here kind of card, leaving them to kind of like have a go at each other.
SPEAKER_03Is there any way I could manipulate him to play his hand early? Be like your senior chance. Trying to Because like I'm kind of I was I remember I'm not as well with Rhett Scan, but I was there when Rhett, just after Rhett died, and I was in that sort of thing, and I was helping them a bit with when the whole Rhett thing went down. So I'm not a complete stranger person. Make an involation rotten, please. Here we go. Two successes. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, he seems to sort of uh follow you a little. He kind of he kind of takes some of your things on board. But he's he he he gives as good as he gets. You know, you kind of offer your advice, he kind of says, Well, actually, you know, there's no point doing that because he doesn't have these skills or he doesn't have the following yet, so he doesn't have the sort of like numbers behind him, so there's no point kind of like just angering the other two bosses. You kind of say, Well, that seems like a great plan. So you basically are almost neck and neck with your manipulation between each other.
SPEAKER_03Do I do I feel like he's trying the same trick on me that he's trying everyone else that he's like, I can't do that, I don't know what I'm doing, or whatever. As in he's trying to do the same facade.
SPEAKER_05If he is, he's doing a really good job because you kind of believe him. He he he he he kind of hangs firm with his game plan that he's got. He's not really kind of changing anything too much.
SPEAKER_03When I'm done with him, I'll go back to my associates and inform him that he's he's he's he's he's working to some sort of plan. I don't know what it is, but don't don't discount him just yet. He is definitely still a factor in these negotiations.
SPEAKER_04Ed. Yeah. Just one weird point of order on the combat screen, my gear is different than when I look at my character sheet from the PC folder. So on the on the combat screen, when we had Okay. I only had five bullets, but in actuality I have 31. So I just deducted I just deducted five from that, so now I have twenty-six.
SPEAKER_05Okay, fair enough.
SPEAKER_04And then I remind then I Elson gave me a boatload of bullets. Okay, yeah, no, weird.
SPEAKER_05I I've just I've just deleted all your uh your stuff of the combat map. Uh it could be because you had an old you had an old token or something.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, yeah, that might be it. Do I know where Anwin is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's back in her old quarters. Is there a way is there like a position that can look into her quarters?
SPEAKER_05No, probably not. I mean you could probably s I mean the the closest you do is to try and sneak into that section of the the ship that that the the lawkeepers had and kind of like try and spy on them, but that require you to be a bit sneaky, sir.
SPEAKER_04And that would require a sneak roll. Hmm. Indeed. I will do that. Okay.
SPEAKER_05I have one success. Okay. Wow, that's a success. Okay, you make your way into the the lawkeeper's thing. Okay. You kind of find a spot that allows you to either overhear or to to witness what they're doing. I would like to sort of be able to see and also hear, yes. Okay. Yep. What's the uh what's the plan? Just to kind of get an idea of what they're doing.
SPEAKER_04Well, yeah, I wanna I wanna what I do is gonna depend on what I hear. Okay.
SPEAKER_05Anwin is talking to Victon about where she thinks this is going. She is under no illusion that clearly the power hierarchy is changing. She's very aware that clearly this is not something that the the ship general community is happy with. They have a conversation about that she's she'll she's not precious about the food. That's something they're more than happy to kind of give up. It isn't something that they're they're that worried about. They are worried about whether or not Elson will take over, and they do discuss you as a group, saying that clearly Elson is kind of like running you to do his spinning, even though that you as a group probably don't realize that. Clearly, Franton is just another sort of like minor player and isn't really anything to really worry about. And plus, she knows Fanton and they've known each other for a long time, so it's the sort of person that he is. She's just trying to figure out how to kind of like ingratiate back into the you know, for her, for her group into the into the ship and just keep going really. Ultimately, once they've once they're there and everyone's back on the board the ship, then they can get back to doing what they're supposed to be doing, which is to dedicate their the time understanding what happened in the past and trying to figure out what to do for the future. Okay.
SPEAKER_04Well, Caspian hates Anwin because she lied to us about the elder. And Caspian has heard enough, and Caspian will now shoot her.
SPEAKER_05Okay, fair enough. Sorry, Rose. Well, she's just gonna like step forward and just shoe her. Yes. Or do I even have to step forward? Well, you kind of have to like sort of lean out and shoe her or the equivalent of. Okay, well, I would assume that you are aiming, so you can have a plus one to that. Yes, yes, sir. Okay. And what happens when I put it on automatic? So when you put on automatic, basically the I just gets the rules for you just to clarify.
SPEAKER_03Marco, I'm just gonna be very careful about what you do here. Okay. This may have consequences directly against yourself.
SPEAKER_05So yes, so full auto, some of your your artifact weapon can fire full automatic fire. When firing on full auto, you roll as usual for your shoot skill. You push the roll normally, but it will cost you one extra bullet. You can then continue to push the roll again and again. Every re-roll costs you one bullet. As usual, you risk fatigue and the weapon's damage. Uh, you can push the roll as many times as you want until you run out of bullets or until the collapse of the weapon breaks. So I'm not going to do that.
SPEAKER_03And uh Cochrane, was that a threat? I was just reminding you to keep in mind the factors that are in play, like who's in the room and what people know. I'm not here, so I can't influence anything that's happening. That's correct. That's correct.
SPEAKER_04That is three successes, so four damage.
SPEAKER_05Four damage, okay. I'll roll my no armor. Roll your no armor, please. Okay, right. Well, that's a critical injury. See what happens to her, shall we? Fucking hell. What? So I rolled the D66 and I got a 66. Yeah. So uh, yeah, you shoot her in the head. Excellent, excellent. Basically, half her head and her face comes off. Uh bladders all over Victon. Splatters all over the all over the floor and the wall and the ceiling and victim. Yeah. She dead.
SPEAKER_04Victon. Will I be able to skedaddle without Victon seeing me?
SPEAKER_05Well, you want to make a sneak roll, a victim's gonna make a a roll himself. Shit.
SPEAKER_04Shit, shit, shit, shit. I failed. I have to push that. And I'm gonna get two damage on my agility. God. Okay. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck. I failed miserably. Well, that's terrible. Fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck.
SPEAKER_05One, two, three. That's fair failures. Well, that's that's four ones. Yeah, I have one I I'm down to one agility. My god, yeah. You kind of like you run, and in your panic of running to not be seen, you smack into something. Maybe the bulkhead, and so you kind of crack your yourself, you sort of like pull an ankle, you strain a bunch of stuff, and you look around, sort of like going, fuck, fuck, fuck. And you can see that the victim is looking at you square, dead in the face, and he's like, his eyes are wide. Is he in arm's reach? No, because you're running away from him, so Okay. But he's not coming toward me. No, no, he's he's just kind of looking, going, Oh my god, as you sort of like run off down out of the thing, are you you're gonna run and leg it? No uh no, if he sees me, I'll I'll turn around and I'll and I'll As soon as you turn around and stop, uh, look towards him, he backs off and basically runs other direction back into the lawkeeper's section. Okay.
SPEAKER_04I'll call out to him, Victon! Victon!
SPEAKER_05You hear a bulk door bulkhead door being shut.
SPEAKER_04Alright, I guess I'll leave the first person I find. I'm gonna use my mutation points to steal their agility. Okay, make two up.
SPEAKER_05Draw me a D6. I got a three. Right. First person you find has got two agility. The first person you find has got two agility. So you're going to take both their agility points. Are they just a regular citizen?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, they're a regular citizen. No, I'm not gonna do that. Alright. I'm not a heartl I'm not a total heartless bastard.
SPEAKER_05Okay, that's fine. Um you kind of move off into the into the rest
The Aftermath of Betrayal
SPEAKER_05of the ship. It doesn't take long before people start to figure out that something's happened. Guns are allowed that way. Yeah. And yeah. Um a few hours later, Victim is being questioned by your I guess by the by the militia.
SPEAKER_02Uh yeah, I'm gonna nominate Cochrane to be head of our investigation department. Okay. Okay. Okay. And anything he finds out, we put before a board of arbitration made up from members from the gangs and the general population who will judge the information and the militia will act on what they say.
SPEAKER_05Okay. Cool. Yeah, so uh Okay. Well, victim is clearly distressed because he's just seen his friend and leader murdered in front of his eyes.
SPEAKER_04And I'm looking, I'm like, can I be there to give him sort of give him the cold stare?
SPEAKER_05Really? Yeah, I'll I'll help, that's fine. Okay, yeah, you can be there.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm giving that look that tells him if he f if he squeals.
SPEAKER_05I mean, I would say, you know, intimidation, but you don't have intimidation. But could you just make a make an empathy role? Straight up empathy?
SPEAKER_04Empathy, yeah. One success. I don't know now. Are my are my are my people gonna betray me?
SPEAKER_05Okay. He doesn't seem to have backed down, so he's not sort of for that. So Cochrane, you um you're gonna speak to your buddy, Victor? I presume you're being very, you know, sensitive and or you just like being very kind of straightforward, a matter-of-fact investigation.
SPEAKER_03No, like he is my he is the guy I want to protect, so you know, I want to be nice to him or whatever, and it's obviously emotionally distressed, you know. Make a sense sense emotion role. Sense emotion, all right.
SPEAKER_05One success. Okay. Yeah, he's clearly upset as you would expect. He seems very nervous about other people being here. He doesn't really want to talk to anyone. He's kind of quite close-lit, even to you. He he doesn't want to really kind of say too much. He says that someone obviously shot her, but he he couldn't, you know. It's happened so suddenly, you know, he's really, really upset. He needs to take time to process what's happened.
SPEAKER_04Okay. Like all the time you need, Victon.
SPEAKER_03All the time you need. So I so I guess um from what I'm gathering is he's he's not very happy around people at the moment, except myself. Nope. So I might get a bit more from if I go with him somewhere else by ourselves. Yep. It's what I'm getting. Okay. I guess I'll just um be like, oh, let's go for a a walk on the deck, just the two of us, like on the island. Whatever. You know, get some fresh air. Sure, he's happy with that. Just the two of us. Is uh Casmin good to attempt to follow us?
SPEAKER_05I don't know, is he? No. Okay. Douglas, what is your friendship like with Fayton?
SPEAKER_03I'd say I I think it was sort of like it was similar to what Hockern feels about Moss as in the he likes the how ideal, the idea they're very like positive and that sort of thing, and young and sort of like big eye big dream ideas and that sort of thing, as he likes that sort of thing, and he wants to protect Yeah, sort of sort of the innocence, I suppose, and that sort of thing, and it is like thing and whatnot. I don't know what the sort of vibe that he feels about Cochrane per se, or whatnot. As in he I I don't think he's smart enough to pick up if he if what you're gonna victim thinks he's a useful idiot or that.
SPEAKER_05No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_03I mean you're you're a chronicler, right?
SPEAKER_05So so he is also a chronicler, so you both have the same kind of job. I guess you're not a chronicler from the lawkeeper, so you've got a different viewpoint to him, which he's always enjoyed and liked the conversations and you've had many a time.
SPEAKER_03That's the word I was looking for. He's very idealistic, which he likes about him. Yes, he's to sort of like not let him get sort of like battered down by the world and sort of like that. That's sort of part of him you want to protect.
SPEAKER_05Well, he kind of when you kind of get him alone, he says that he did see the person, he's worried that he thinks they're very dangerous and thinks that his life might be forfeit if he says it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. You don't have to tell me unless you want to, but be this, as long as you're on the ship, you're under my protection and the protection of the militia. I will I will arrange that with Roach.
SPEAKER_05He hands you sort of like an envelope, or like a a a letter that's all kind of like folded in on itself, and it's got like a kind of like a seal or something that's been sealed in, and he says that if anything happens to me, this is the name of the person who did it. Nothing will happen to you, but I will not open it. Do not open it unless I either tell you or something happens to me.
SPEAKER_03I promise, and I will take that and shove that in my jumpsuit. Well, sorry, boiler suit.
SPEAKER_05And then he kind of leaves you to kind of go about your business.
SPEAKER_03So I will go and speak to Roach and just say that I'm going to be guardaying victim from now on while he's on the ship. Do you need any help from other members of the militia? I can assign someone. Uh if you could just get like someone to come and check on us every so often, just in case, you know, something happens.
SPEAKER_02We'll post some enforcers down that way, just to keep an eye on things. And Cochrane, it's important. The reputation going forward of the militia relies on the outcome of this.
SPEAKER_03Unfortunately, I don't he's he's very worried. I think he knows who did it, but he's not willing to tell us at the moment. I can't say what exactly, but I think he will tell me eventually who did it. But it'll probably be once he's safely off the boat, if that makes sense, because he doesn't feel like he can tell me, which probably points it to being, you know, maybe one of the bosses or something like that, or someone quite obvious. Someone high up. Yeah. Or at least like someone who he feels if he tells the name is going to cause like the whole thing to just come down hard, if that makes sense, if he reveals someone who's very obviously affiliated with someone or something like that. Hope it's not Elson. I bet it is.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_05And as you kind of go through the rest of the day, clearly there isn't going to be no more talks. And you kind of get the sense that the uh the majority of the people think that clearly it's Elson that's that's taken her out. I mean, who else has got anything to gain from it?
SPEAKER_04Exactly.
SPEAKER_05It be it can only be Elson. Frankin's too new, doesn't really have that kind of issue. It can only be Elson. And so people start to sort of like talk that Elson's the one who's kind of like doing this. Is Elson really just trying to create a power vacuum so that it's just him? And people are starting to think about whether or not Elson should really be the person that should be the head of the ship. But there's only one way to find out what will happen. Uh, and that'll be for everyone to tune in next episode. You're welcome, Moss. Thank you. I think this is amazing.
SPEAKER_04Sorry, Roach. No, sorry.