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.
Over the years, we’ve told stories around our virtual table in the worlds of Tales from the Loop, Pendragon, Mutant Year Zero, Star Trek Adventures, The One Ring, The Electric State, Forbidden Lands, Legend of the Five Rings, and Symbaroum. Going forward, we’re focusing on a smaller lineup of games, giving us more opportunities to return to each story sooner. As campaigns reach their natural conclusions, we’ll add new stories from the worlds of Twilight: 2000, Vampire: The Masquerade, The Walking Dead, and more.
We’re not voice actors, professional entertainers, or trained performers—just friends from around the globe sharing virtual dice, stories, and a laugh or two as the game unfolds.
Stories with Dice
The Cartography of Memory Episode 4: An Actual Play of The Electric State
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
The travelers continue their exploration of the Museum of Forgetting, confronted by derelict bodies, an anxious little robot, and datapads that extract treasured memories.
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Welcome to the Cartography of Memory, an actual play of the electric state from Stories with Dice. If you're enjoying our actual plays, please subscribe to Stories with Dice so you 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. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode.
SPEAKER_03So you have all kind of made your way down into the vault here at the Museum of Forgetting. You kind of like crossed a sort of large room which had a lot of recordings or memories of various things, and you made your way into the vault, which is this multi-story pile of cack of just everything piled in here. And sort of like in between all of the rubbish that have kind of been filtered into this, into the junk, there are 40 or 50 bodies in various states of decomposition with neurocasters on. Where we last left off, a little robot had kind of like come out of a side door just near where Roger was looking in the larger building and had come out holding one of these data pads and heading towards the door that IG-88 and Raymond are in. You then decided, uh Roger, to follow wherever it came from and ducked into this little doorway to kind of go explore down that way. Meanwhile, IG-88 and Raymond are looking at a as we quote unquote fresh person that was kind of moving around and sort of kind of having a bit of a a moment as you were sort of trying to like bother them while they were in either in the neuroscape or not. And then as that's happening, a little robot on track wheels is coming in with this data bat. As it crunches and and makes its way amongst the refuse and junk that lays scatter on the floors, it comes towards you.
SPEAKER_02You hear Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice, hello there. I don't remember owning a droid.
SPEAKER_03The um the little robot, which is sort of like white and sort of red, with a lot of hand-painted artwork all over it, kind of stops in front of you. It's sort of got these two sort of telescopic eyes, and it kind of like opens one and shuts the other, and it is trying to like get between you, Raymond, and the person on the floor.
SPEAKER_01It's like, whoa there, fella, what can I do for you?
SPEAKER_03It's sort of like eyes on the telescoping things are going up and down. It doesn't appear to have any kind of voice box or any way of kind of communicating.
SPEAKER_01I see. I don't suppose IG88 could sort of like plug into this thing and talk to it electronically? No. No.
SPEAKER_00Can I hack can I hack it? Uh You could if it wasn't local. Um I'm gonna snatch the datapad out of its hands or whatever.
SPEAKER_03It it kind of like goes backwards and forwards on its tracks, really kind of agitated when you do that. I look at the data pad. Yep, there's uh a whole bunch of like coding on there. Coding? Computer coding. Yeah. Indeed. Does any of it make sense to me? Would you like to make a witz roll? And if you have any kind of like, I don't know, say talents that sort of say are a hacker or anything, you can add a plus two to it? I do, as a matter of fact.
SPEAKER_02That's handy. So let's see, last time I added a plus two it didn't work. Let's try it now and see what happens. It still didn't add the the new the dice. I don't know. Hmm. Weird. I have zero successes, but I should have rolled two more dice. Can I roll two more dice? Roll roll two more dice. Okay, that's terrible.
SPEAKER_00No successes still. After a handful of dice, I have I am I'm continuing on course here. My trend, my trend is has is is has not changed. More dice equals nothing.
SPEAKER_03It's very complicated coding, but essentially it looks like the coding is to extract something. Coding is to extract something. And it's got some very weird algorithms in there that you're not aware of. It's just, you know, some it's a bit strange that you haven't seen before.
SPEAKER_02What does it say, IG-88? Well, I'm obviously a terrible hacker. I'm not sure. It's uh it's it's some kind of code meant to extract something, but I don't know what. I can't I can't quite figure it out. Is there any way to sort of like put the code into practice and see what happens? I don't know, man. I rolled nine dice and I got no successes.
SPEAKER_03I mean, technically, you could do if someone was to attach their neurocaster to it.
SPEAKER_01The support. Oh, look, wow, I've got my neurocaster with me. Attach the neurocaster to the data pad? That says extract. Well, here you go, let's do it. I've got mine. Let's do it. Has to be done. Raven does now braid dead. And this is how your character becomes a vegetable. Well, oh yeah, I have to put it on, don't I? Yes, you do. Yes.
SPEAKER_03Well, V your early comes. You kind of like sit down weirdly, much like a lot of the other people that have been here. Wait a minute.
SPEAKER_02This might not be a good idea.
SPEAKER_01Just think about what happened to Captain Decker. I got a bad feeling about this. Kirk unit, Kirk unit. Danger will Robinson.
SPEAKER_03Mate Mitten. The um the robot that's kind of like followed you and sort of like going backwards and forwards in its tracks, looking very distressed, trying to get the data pad away from you. But I mean it's only sort of the same size as like a five-year-old child, so it has no way to do that. It's just like it's ineffective. I mean a five-year-old.
SPEAKER_01So IG88, do we do we still think uh we want to do this, or shall I try and agit agitate this guy with the podcast the the neurocaster on his head again? I'm getting a weird feeling that if I put this on, I may end up like these guys. You gotta go sometime. Also Sophie. Really? And I th and I thought and I thought I was the asshole. Okay. Here's the deal. We'll give it a quick shot, but you must you must like shut it down. Shut it down immediately if something something bad starts happening to me. How's that? Are you able to do that? Can you unplug it?
SPEAKER_00It's not in you hear Luke Skywalker's voice. It's not impossible. I used to bullseye womp rats in my T16 back home. They're not much bigger than two meters.
SPEAKER_01Then Roger's taking his time. Alright, well, here we go. Stand ready to pull me out of there, IG-88. Okay, so I put it on and IG-88 hooks me up. Can you please name your most treasured memory? Oh crap. It's me and her just lying in bed with the curtains open, watching the sunrise. And everything is just perfect. Music in the background. Bottle of wine on the bedside table.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah. You you are there. You can you can touch her, you can feel her, you can you can smell the sort of like breakfast that had been cooked an hour ago or whatever. You have you're there. A hundred percent you're there. It's just the best place to be. I mean, you before you had sort of fleeting memories of it. Now those memories have come to life. This is more real than you can possibly ever imagine. You don't really remember much of anything else. You know, this is the most treasured thing. And it's it's there. It's it's within your arms, it's it's it's holding on. You know, she's laying there, you know. That that sound that you could hear, you know, is is is coming from her. It's the perfect morning. It's just exquisite.
SPEAKER_01I have the strong sensation of never wanting to leave again.
SPEAKER_03Excellent. And we'll leave it there because that's exactly what's not gonna happen. Okay. IG88, what are you gonna do? What's happening? What do I know that's happening? He uh puts it on, he logs in, and nothing seems to happen.
SPEAKER_02What about the data pad?
SPEAKER_03Data pad uh goes dark.
SPEAKER_02Did it look like it it downloaded everything into the neural?
SPEAKER_03It was it was it was doing it was doing something and then it goes dark.
SPEAKER_02I start pounding on that robot, hey, hey, what what what the fuck did you just do to my friend? What the fuck did you just do to my friend?
SPEAKER_03The robot puts its like ineffective arms up and it's like two eyes that are on those sort of like telescoping sites, sort of like going backwards and forwards, and it's sort of like trying to get back away from you as you sort of like pound on it, one of its little like tiny arms like snaps and a cord kind of like pings off and it kind of makes these like weird sort of like noises as it kind of like tries to get away from you and it's kind of like falls into some of the detritus which then falls on its wheels, it gets kind of stuck and it's half up, half down, and it's it's kind of like massively agitated now.
SPEAKER_02It's making a lot of servo noises and um is there like uh an access port that I can open up and get into its innards? Yeah, yeah, yeah. You could you could do that. I started ripping out its wires.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, the puddle things like you're like just ripping into it and pulling out various things. You kind of get a metallic hand full of wires and you pull out the wires, the kind of like eyes sort of like shutter on stalks, and then the whole thing just goes limp and it shuts down.
SPEAKER_02Okay, and then I'll turn to Raymond. He still has the neurocaster on? He does? What happens if I disconnect a data pad? Again, it could shut down whatever's happening within the neurocaster.
SPEAKER_03Do I know whether or not that would be dangerous? It would be dangerous for the for the wearer. It would be you'll end up getting shot potentially, but worst case scenario is you give them permanent brain damage.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so in situations like this, what is the best way to get someone to snap out of it?
SPEAKER_03I mean, the best way to get someone to snap out of this way is to sort of go in, talk them down, and they will eventually kind of find themselves. So what happens is when people go into the into the nearest gate, they just it just doesn't they just don't want to leave, essentially. What you need to do is find a way to get them out.
SPEAKER_02So I can't go in to talk him down, so no. I'm gonna try I know that I know that he he can probably hear me or at least be semi-aware of what's happening around him in the real world. So I'll just start talking to him, like almost almost very creepily, like right up against his ear. Just start just start talking into his ear to make sure he can hear him be like, hey man, hey man, can you feel my cold metal against your flesh? Hey, hey, hey, Raymond, Raymond, Raymond, wake up. Wake the fuck up, Raymond.
SPEAKER_03Raymond, can you please make a a wit's roll?
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Just as it is here, yeah? Okay. Ooh. Two successes for you, sir. You can hear, just on the periphery, you're looking at you're looking at her, and just like just it's almost like someone's outside the door and someone's like whispering your name.
SPEAKER_01Amen. So I'm like slowly, I'm just m am I am I really distracted by it, or is it sort of like almost like, did I hear something? Did I? Yeah. Yeah.
SPEAKER_02Oh. What what was that? And then you hear Obi-Wan Kenobi's voice, Raymond. Who's the more foolish? The fool or the fool who follows him?
SPEAKER_01Am I able to sort of get up and try and follow the voice, or am I Absolutely, you gotta get to the door.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. You have a choice, Commelo. I'll say Comelo because not Raymond. You can open the door, and you could probably snap out of this. If you do that, 100%, not a problem. You will lose this memory forever. It'll be gone, and you'll never remember her. We could choose to stay here and remember her forever.
SPEAKER_02You'll be free, Raymond.
SPEAKER_01The thing is, I have s although that's you see, here's the thing, also, although that's the most treasured memory, there are other memories of her. So kind of feeling the pull. My hand is slowly going towards the door.
SPEAKER_03You turn back to look at her, and she sort of like puts her hand out as a hair cascades around her, and she says, No, no. Come back here.
SPEAKER_01So I'm slowly turning back in her direction. And IG88, are you still talking to me?
SPEAKER_02Raven.
SPEAKER_01Slowly pulled back towards the door.
SPEAKER_00Wait, wait the fuck up, Raymond. Come on, we got stuff we gotta do. Whatever whatever's in there is not real. It's not real, Raven!
SPEAKER_01I grab the door handle and I whip it open.
SPEAKER_03You whip it open and you pull off the the neuro neurocaster. You can give yourself two bliss for that lovely experience. So if you go onto your character sheet, you will see that you have on your main sheet there should be uh two.
SPEAKER_01There's two now, yep.
SPEAKER_03Yep. That's what you have. When your bliss hits your hope, you will be stuck in the near escape forever.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Okay. Keeping that in mind.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Alright, yeah, you you come out of it. That memory disappears, and the data pad says that it is now full. So, well uh go back to uh Roger. As you're sort of going down this cramped little tunnel which takes you up a ramp. And it's just really uncomfortable and difficult to kind of go up. But all along the actual walls are all these little p pictures of hand-drawn sort of figures and people and robots and a whole load of stuff. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Can I is there any sort of like story to it when I'm wandering through?
SPEAKER_04Um, no, no.
SPEAKER_01Like key points and that sort of thing, where you're like, oh, this is what we want to hunting.
SPEAKER_03It it no, it looks it looks more like it is just randomly done over a period of time. By like a child or someone childlike. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Are you sort of like the same that was does it look the same as the stuff that was on the archive door?
SPEAKER_03Yes, and the stuff that was on the little robot. Similar kind of thing.
SPEAKER_01Alright, fair enough.
SPEAKER_03Keep controlling them. Yeah, you kind of like crawl until you get to a room and there are another four of these robots. They're in various stages of disrepair, and there is another robot. It looks like a tin can upside down with three sort of rollerblades, blue and silver. It reminds you from a Star Wars film, and it is a sort of like it's half completed.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Well, it's a good thing. I've never seen a Star Wars film, so this is completely meaningless to me. Excellent! Right. So like it does look like a trash cad with some rollerblades on it. Yeah. Um is there anything else in this room?
SPEAKER_03It does look like uh no, there seems to be another doorway that kind of leads out of it like a proper doorway, and there appears to be some kind of like mechanism for getting data pads out of the side, and this little kind of like corridor continues on up, and it looks like it probably goes all the way up to the top, technically where the archive room. So it would sit roughly in that same sort of okay.
SPEAKER_01So there's some sort of like delivery mechanism for the pads that pops in here and then goes off into the ro roof again.
SPEAKER_03It's like it's like one of those things that you get in like uh old banks that sort of like have vacuum. Yeah, okay. So it is like Yeah, it's that sort of thing, yeah. Probably a bit slightly more high-tech gravity version, but yeah, it's the same sort of thing.
SPEAKER_01Is there any pads in the delivery system at the moment? There is not. Okay. I'll have a look at the little robots that I've seen. Are they similarly customized in a childlike manner? Yes, they they've all been sort of like drawn on. And uh what's the most sort of like is there one that's like relatively still put together or are they all Yeah, yeah, there's one that's relatively still put together.
SPEAKER_03Does it seem to be reacting to me like standing here or is it just ignoring me? They all appear to be on like their own little basin pads. Okay, so they're on standby at the moment. They're on Well, it looks like they would have been on standby if they were working. Right, okay. But now as you get and get close, you can see that they're not working.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Does it look like there's like one station where the one that I saw would have been logically? Yeah. Okay. That's fine. I guess I'll go have a look at the the trash bin. Yep.
SPEAKER_03And knock on knock on it and see like it doesn't. There's no one in. There's a small man inside. No. Um Well, there was a robot on the other robot drone, so No, there is. It looks like it's half it's probably not even half completed. It's probably quarter completed. Uh and there are still bits and pieces laying around and it's as if whoever was kind of like fixing these things and upped and disappeared. Interesting.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So is the door that leads out here like a human-sized door or is it robot-sized?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it's more or less a human-sized door. Okay. I guess I'll open that door and Yeah, you appear to be in sort of like a back maintenance channel. Which kind of leads between the different floors. You can see some stairs going up. Well, ramps going up. They're not stairs, they're ramps going up.
SPEAKER_01Can I turn back around to the room I was in and see if there's anything written on the door?
SPEAKER_03There's nothing written on the door, but there are pictures and stuff of various people doing various things. Some of the some of the creatures don't look real.
SPEAKER_01Like unicorns or stuff like that.
SPEAKER_03Like humanoids with sort of like weird heads or one sort of like a brown and looks like a bear. There's a bunch of different things like that.
SPEAKER_01So, okay, so the I can see a stairwell in front of me.
SPEAKER_03No, it's a ramp, sorry. It's like a ramp okay. A ramp that goes up so the little robots can go up. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Okay, so this takes me up to what would be the maintenance level. Yeah. Because that was level two. Yeah. He he looks back down the tunnel thinking to himself. And then Yeah, IG seemed to be like busy with his own thing to do with a vault. And he found it, so he guess he'll just let that weird robot do whatever he's wanting to do, because once again he's a bit scared of that robot. You're scared of little old me. Yes, th the robot won't leave him alone for no apparent reason. Who has now left you alone? Yes, because he found weird, that's the weird thing. That's the first time in like a month that he has actually like found something more interesting. Yep. Than which is which in itself is probably a complex. Heck, he might be like, heck, I could just get on the bus and leave him. This might be my this might be my only chance to ditch the robot. You wouldn't dare. Would I, Marco? Would I? And Ed would be left to be like, okay, fine with me. You're walking to Okay, I'll carry on up the ramp and see where if there's someone.
SPEAKER_03You carry on up the ramp and you come to the maintenance level and then it goes up again. Um takes you to the archives the archive room. In fact, there's a little there's a little room. Yeah. You couldn't find any doors. As soon as you come to this level, you can see there's a sliding panel that opens up into the archive room. Um that sneaky hidden door. But it on the other side there doesn't seem to be a way in, it's only through this side.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So does it look like this is where the automatically delivery mechanism takes the pads? Is this top area?
SPEAKER_03It looks it looks like there's in the area in front of that, so just before the room before the archive room, there is a sort of like a place for like empty pads or pads to be used, and there is like a small robotic or automated way of delivering them down to sort of like the next floor.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Can I have a look through like this automated machine to try and figure out what it's doing with these pads?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it looks like the pads have been created already, and they just kind of like are like a card system. Yeah. And they eventually they drop it and it goes down, and the same thing happens with with the others. Okay. There's probably maybe 30 or 40 more pads left on this bank of pads.
SPEAKER_01Where I where I am at the moment is where all the blank pads are. Correct. And when I was in the archive, that was all the full pads.
SPEAKER_03Correct.
SPEAKER_01But for some reason the Wii robot was taking what looked like I never looked at that pad. So it must have been taking an empty pad. But where would it have been taking an empty pad? Because it looks like the delivery mechanism only delivers empty pads down to the robots. Because there's no way for them to it doesn't it doesn't connect to the other thing through here. Okay. Make a blue swall for me.
SPEAKER_04Okay.
SPEAKER_01That's about all I'm getting from it.
SPEAKER_03Yep, that's pretty much it. Yeah. Back to you two down the bottom.
SPEAKER_01The first thing I'm gonna say to IG88 is I think we need I'm just having a weird sensation. Think we need to keep hold of that data pad even though it's it's gone dark.
SPEAKER_00I don't have any pockets, so here you go.
SPEAKER_01And he hands it to you. Okay.
SPEAKER_02I put it and I put it in my pocket. Yeah. So I just start looking through all of these people.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_02Um whether there's stuff on them that might be familiar or that might be identifying. Anyone who looks like they're actually dead, I'll just take the neurocaster off.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Take a look at their face, if their face hasn't decomposed.
SPEAKER_03Okay, yeah, that's fine. So looking at their stuff, they don't seem they don't seem to have any personal belongings on them. They also appear to be they don't appear to have anything else. The only thing they that some of them had was maybe a water bottle or maybe um a lunchbox or something like that.
SPEAKER_02Okay. So like no no wallets, no idea.
SPEAKER_03No wallets, no nothing like that. No.
SPEAKER_02Alright.
SPEAKER_03In fact, make a make it make it make a wit roll for me.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, because that's been going well for me.
SPEAKER_03No modifier? Do you want to take your time doing it? Yes. Okay.
SPEAKER_01You can have a plus two to it. So you can figure out how to do this. I don't know why the plus two never works for me, but let's try it again. So here's a question. Do you put the actual plus in front of the two?
SPEAKER_02Uh try that. Okay, because I did that before and it didn't work. So I have five wits, so that's five dice. I get a plus two for network because I'm the drone pilot, right? Is that correct?
SPEAKER_03Yeah no, because this doesn't require something drony, I don't think.
SPEAKER_02Okay, so then I'm applying the real world penalty, which makes it a negative two. Maybe good sort of luck.
SPEAKER_03One second. I just gotta quickly jump to drones. Doo do do do. I think you might be messed. I am wrong. No, you do get the plus two.
SPEAKER_02Hey, get the plus two, yay. Okay. It's probably just gonna roll the seven dice again without the additional two, so I'll see what happens.
SPEAKER_03I'll roll the other two afterward. One, two, three, four, five, six, seven. So that's seven dice. Nine dice. Okay, one success. One success. One success is all you need, sir. Yeah, you kind of you you kind of you can see that maybe there is a sort of like a a timescale of people that have been here. The ones nearer the door seem to be more current than the ones further away from the door. It's a rough estimate, it's not perfect. And you can see that one of the ones sort of about halfway does have a a wallet. And the wallet has got a picture in of a couple of kids and a guy. They're in ye old pose of the guy behind the two kids, all smiling towards a camera, and looks like it was some kind of like staged camera thing that they've done. And it's in the pocket, uh, in in sort of like a purse, sorry, not a wallet, a purse, of a woman who is here that you're taking the neurocaster off. But there doesn't appear to there's appears to be some old money in there, but there doesn't appear to be any cards or anything that kind of identifies her with her name.
SPEAKER_01Is there anything written on the back of the photograph?
SPEAKER_03Yes, on the back of the photograph it says John and the kids, but no date or anything like that.
SPEAKER_02Do these people look familiar to me?
SPEAKER_03No.
SPEAKER_02Do I believe you?
SPEAKER_01No. That's quite obvious, Marco, if you ask that question. I take the photo.
SPEAKER_02I take the photo.
SPEAKER_03And the woman's face too far gone to be able to It It it's generic the woman who has decomposed. So it's very difficult to kind of get a a positive idea, as it were. They but but it's it's slightly mummified, but it's not perfect. Alright.
SPEAKER_01So do I get this sense that maybe I've checked all the bodies or all the people?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you kind of get a sense that you've checked all the bodies and all the people.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Hey, uh hey Raymond, we should uh we should find Roger. Yeah, he's I was just about to say he's uh done a disappearing act again. Yeah, let's let's uh let's let's get out of here.
SPEAKER_03The person that was still alive sort of like sort of like slaps his hand on your foot, Raymond? Like just on your on your shoes.
SPEAKER_01This we got a live one here.
SPEAKER_02I started whispering into his ear. Wake the fuck up, strange man. Wake up if you wanna live.
SPEAKER_01If I take the neurocaster off his head, that's probably gonna put him into shock, isn't it?
SPEAKER_03He doesn't appear to be attached to anything.
SPEAKER_01He doesn't have a neurocaster on his head. This is not the same thing.
SPEAKER_03No, he's got the neurocast, he's got a neurocaster on his head, but the neurocast doesn't be appeared to be attached to anything. It's not plugged in.
SPEAKER_01It's not plugged in. Okay, I'm gonna try and remove it from his head.
SPEAKER_03Okay, you remove it from his head. The guy kind of looks at you, his eyes are rolling back in his head. And uh he's kind of like dribbling. You can see that his skin is already taut. He does not look like this in a good way. He sort of is extremely dehydrated and looks like he probably hasn't eaten for a while.
SPEAKER_01Hey, hey, buddy, what's your name?
SPEAKER_03He sort of like mumbles something incoherently towards you. His eyes do not stop, like kind of turning in in his skull.
SPEAKER_01I don't suppose we've we have any kind of like water on us. Do you? I think we brought anything from the uh from the van. I try and I try and get him to stand on his feet. I put his arm over my shoulder and I try and get him up.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you can kind of roughly maneuver him, but he's he's clearly in some kind of state. Um leave him, Raymond. Yeah, you can drag him.
SPEAKER_01Hmm, I think we think he's just gonna slow us down, isn't he? He's dead wheat. Alright, well let's let's find Roger and if we do, I'm gonna come back we'll try and come back and get him if we can.
SPEAKER_03Would you like to take a point lose a point of hope, please? Both of us are just Raymond. No, no, not you, Margot. Just just you, Carmella.
SPEAKER_01Lose a point of hope. Okay. It's a shitty thing to do. It is a shitty thing to do. So we'll put him put me down to three then.
SPEAKER_04Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_01Alright. I'm feeling bad about it. That's your human body talking. Yeah, you had one once, buddy. Have you forgotten? Has it been that long? Not long enough. We're coming back for him. Now, where do we think was the last time you saw Roger? Where was he? Probably in that I think it was in that big room with the spotlights. So we'll go back that way. Alright. So I follow you back.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you kind of take a minute to kind of like have a word with yourself about the thing you were thinking about doing. And then and then you follow him.
SPEAKER_01Do we say any we say anything? Is that is that small d thing you mentioned for him earlier opened? Nope. No, no, it's not open. So we're not gonna see it, are we? Nope, disappear. What about the spotlight? Uh there are no spotlights on. As we walk, there are no spotlights following us?
SPEAKER_03As you as you start to walk, the spotlight then comes on and follows you. I shoot it. Okay.
SPEAKER_01You shoot it, the light goes out. Okay fuck that asshole with the spotlight. I hate him. Uh we need to figure out where where Roger went. Yeah, I start calling out, yo, Roger! Roger Think he went back up? His only way out of here is up. Your guess is as good as mine, Raymond. Alright, we're climbing the stairs. He he must have gone back up the other levels.
SPEAKER_03Okay. You make your way across the uh the large the large room. Every time you go sort of like ten or so meters, another light comes on. Which I shoot. Okay. Right? Yeah, you kind of go across the room, shooting out every single light that kind of like comes on as you walk underneath it. Okay. You, Raymond, are you following directly behind IG88 or are you doing what you did before and staying slightly off to the side?
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna stay slightly off to the side again. Okay.
SPEAKER_03In which case you also see these fleeting mo these fleeting moments again as you sort of like look around. That doesn't change. But it's just again off the sides of your vision and you make your way across.
SPEAKER_01And since I already know they're probably not real because they've they dis disappear when I look at them, I'm just gonna try and ignore them and keep going.
SPEAKER_03Okay, fine. Yeah, you make your way across. Gonna go back up the stairs, I'm guessing. Yep. Yep. Okay, you go back up the stairs to the room with the archive in. You know, the the the original thing. Yep. But there is also another set of stairs that goes up to sort of like ground floor. So you can go all the way up to the top if you wanted to.
SPEAKER_01Let's take the archive first. I was just gonna say the same thing. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Yeah, you make your way out of this um room towards the archive. So you come back to where you started and you go to where the archive room is. Okay? You go in, and exactly as I mentioned before, it's a T-shaped room, and you've got a load of these glowing pads on either side of the room. All of the pads are connected to what looks like some kind of data stream. Can I access these?
SPEAKER_01Did I already access these pads?
SPEAKER_03You have not accessed these pads at all. You've been in this room. I'm gonna try. Okay, yeah. You can you can go onto the pad, you can kind of like mess around with it. Yeah, it comes up with a load of data. You don't need to make the rule for this, but it's exactly the same as the data that you saw from the pad that you currently still have, Raymond. Except the the coding has changed somewhat, having been extracted. Hey Roger! Roger! Roger, you can hear someone in the other room. This is your figuring out the where things might be.
SPEAKER_01I guess I'll go and have a look at the little hatch that goes into the archive. Yep. As soon as you go up to it, the door opens. Yeah. Actually, before before I do that, I'm gonna have a quick glance of my watch. Yep. Are we are we about reaching the hour deadline?
SPEAKER_03You're looking at it, oh my god, you've been here for maybe five and a half hours?
SPEAKER_01Does it feel like I've been here for five and a half hours? No. Like if I trace back, like, okay, we spent like 20 minutes mucking around with the thing up there, then I was wandering around, and then does it does that like add up?
SPEAKER_03It kind of yeah, you kind of does it you kind of think, well, maybe it doesn't, I'm not sure. It's it it's difficult to tell. You kind of go, well, how long did I spend wandering around? Didn't seem that it couldn't be that long. It's got a lot of dark. There was a lot of dark. You're like, well, maybe maybe it could only be a couple of hours, maybe at the most. Anyway.
SPEAKER_01Anyway, we've got to get back to the bus. So he'll just push through and then like Do I see him?
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_01Yep, he comes through.
SPEAKER_02Yep. And you hear Princess Leia's voice. I should have expected to find you holding Vader's leash. I recognized your foul stench when I was brought on board.
SPEAKER_01Whatchamacallit? He just sort of walks up to you guys, points at the watch, does a sort of like wheel whatchamacallit, car wheel thing, and then walks past you off to the stairwell. Follow him. Or I follow him at least. But hey, hey guys, there's a guy down here still alive. Why don't we grab him and bring him with us? We can't just leave him here. Roger doesn't know what he's talking about, so he's just like, wherever he and just walks off. You just said a guy's here, and then you didn't explain anything. I'm like, yeah, there's guys everywhere. He's alive, he's alive, his neurocaster's off his head. Most people are alive. I wouldn't want you to bring a dead guy. But he's already gone. He's just like, whoosh, he's got the other two people to worry about. They're probably sick of worry. And he's hopefully they haven't stolen his bus. IG IG88 says uh to Raymond, let it go, Raymond.
SPEAKER_02That guy's was a goner the minute he put that uh neurocaster on.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so I'm gonna have to let it go because it can't be left behind. So yeah, we followed we follow Roger.
SPEAKER_03Okay, you follow Roger? Roger, you get to the uh escalator.
SPEAKER_01Was there was there not a like a different way that went to the surface? Like all the way. There was, yeah. There was there was keep on going up the staircase straight to the surface rather than faffing around or flake.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Rather than faffing around like you go back into the um stairwell and you make your way up to the ground floor. Yeah. Okay. Yeah, you you come out of the up the stairwell and you come into a a box room, and there is a another set of you know fire doors. You open the fire doors um and immediately you're hit with the heat from outside. And you are standing in or behind the large building. This is one of the outer buildings that you saw. You're now on the outside of the actual building.
SPEAKER_01I spent a second like sort of like hand to bother the lights, get my bearings, and then be like, okay, car park is that way, and then start walking that way. Yep.
SPEAKER_03You start walking over the dusty gravel floor of the um car park towards your bus. Okay? And IG-88 and Raymond, are you following suit? Yes, absolutely. Yes, sir. Okay. Okay, you follow suit, you get out into the um into the sunlight and the heat, and you're just following Roger towards the um the bus. Happy to see the bus is still there. The bus is indeed still there.
SPEAKER_01What about the other two passengers? They're not at the bus. Roger will get in the bus and like give the horn a couple of honks. Okay. Knowing them, they probably went looking for us.
SPEAKER_03By the time you kind of walk to the bus after you've given the bus some honks, you can see Paul who's turned up at the door, and he says, We've tried calling for an ambulance for the lady, but we can't get through. She seems okay at the moment. We've kind of given her some water, and Tiffany is sort of like helping her just kind of come round. Roger just kind of looks quizzical because he knows nothing about this.
SPEAKER_01Fuck it, believer, let's go. Roger's gonna just get out sort of like his map. And then have a look at like the route. Is there any like hospitals on the way where we're going?
SPEAKER_03It does not look that way. Okay. Well, unless you take a large detour.
SPEAKER_01I don't trust her, Roger. There's something wrong about her. Roger just kind of shrugs and turns to Raymond and just points at the hospital.
SPEAKER_03Roger, can you um yeah, you you you did you then realize actually there are there's some there's some laboratories that you worked at once. They all have medical facilities.
SPEAKER_01Okay, I guess I guess um I'll look at the map again. Yeah, and then I'm like, mmm. That's actually not that far out of the way at all. Okay. I point to that thing. That place, and then just do the sort of like cross mark.
SPEAKER_02IG-88 place, a clip from Star Wars from the Skywalker. But I was gonna go to Tasi station to pick up some power converters.
SPEAKER_01Hey look, we're gonna bring her along. He's found a place on the map. We're gonna bring her. I don't trust her. That's my line, but I'm gonna go get her anyway. Okay, but I'm just warning you, hey man.
SPEAKER_00Back when I had a body, I knew this lady. And that was a long time ago, before the war. I think it was before the war. Was it before the war, Ed? It was, yeah, you were you were young.
SPEAKER_01Before the war. And somehow she hasn't aged a day, so I don't trust this lady. Roger points at the bus and then points at the himself. I think you're saying you're in charge, is that right, Roger? He gives a thumbs up. Okay, it's Roger's decision, IG88.
SPEAKER_03So, Raymond, are you gonna go back into the into the into the main building and go and get gel?
SPEAKER_01I'm gonna go get her.
SPEAKER_03R Roger will go with Raymond to go get this lady apparently her. So she is now sitting up. She looks like she's been sort of seen to by Tiffany and Paul, and she looks just a little bit kind of confused. But Paul's sort of like saying, Oh, get your stuff. Anything you need, we'll we'll take that with you with you. Do you need us to lock up? Is there anything we need to do here? And she's sort of like shaking her head and so he's like picking her up and helping her to her feet. Raymond, what are you gonna do about the guy downstairs?
SPEAKER_01Well, maybe I can grab Paul and run down and get him.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Is that okay? Roger, is that alright with you? We have there's another person who is in need of medical assistance, we can drop him off as well. Butch my god, Roger kind of like looks surprised at this and then was like, gives you sort of like, mm-hmm, why didn't you mention that?
SPEAKER_03Yeah. That's why you and Paul go down and pick up the guy and bring him back up. Paul's like amenities to all the stuff that's down there. He sort of mutters and swears under his breath. But between the two of you, you you bring the guy back up, put him in the back of the bus. Roger, you've kind of like realize you've now picked up another two people in the bus, and you sort of calculate how long it's gonna take you to get to the facility that we used to work at. Okay?
SPEAKER_01We're not taking them all the way.
SPEAKER_03No, so yeah, you you reckon Shiver Labs probably won't be more than sort of like half hour out of your way, so that's not a problem. So you adjust your course you head off again, you sort of get on the get in the bus and you take your way back onto the sort of back roads. What's playing on the radio, Douglas?
SPEAKER_01I don't know. Probably just like tune it to some sort of like pop station or something like that. Maybe some boy bands or something like that. Okay.
SPEAKER_03Some nineties boy bands are playing. In fact, there's a compilation of nineties boy bands playing on the radio. But there are nineties boy bands?
unknownI guess.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, they were.
SPEAKER_01I thought it was the era, okay. They went on to that, but you had to drink and all that. However, considering this it now would actually be a good time for the Don't Stop Believing Journey song.
SPEAKER_03I like that. Yeah, and you kind of like get on the get on the road.
SPEAKER_02But yeah, this was the era of the Spice Girls, too. Okay, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_03So it's it's all that kind of time. And you sort of like make your way along the road, and then you go off the trap half hour out of your way as you're heading towards your old place of of work, Shiver Labs, a place you haven't been to for quite some time.
SPEAKER_02And IG88 plays a clip from The Empire Strikes Back. It's Lando Calarician. This deal's getting worse all the time.