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 6: An Actual Play of The Electric State
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The memory archive turns deadly when a security robot activates, and Roger is consumed by visions of his past. Their escape takes them down the road to Lone Pine—where memory and reality begin to unravel.
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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'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. You'll find the relevant links in the description of each episode.
SPEAKER_01Hi folks. I just want to dedicate this actual play to a friend of mine who passed away this year, Paul. I worked with Paul as an investigator for over a decade and knew him for over two. Sharing laughs, keeping each other safe, and watching each other's backs. Way back before I'd even met Marco, and pre-COVID, Paul and I joked about doing a podcast about the things he had seen. He had lived a very colourful life himself prior to being an investigator, and the sorts of arrests and situations that we got ourselves into would have been some great, interesting listening. Of course, for legal reasons, we couldn't do that. But we did talk about it. Paul was never a gamer, but he was always interested in my hobby. He thought it sounded fun, but unfortunately, we never did game round to a table. He saved my life and limb a number of times. He's been there in dark times, and was always the person I would call if I ever needed to worry anybody's. This is a small honour to him. I regret not being able to ever done a podcast with him, but at least some small part of him can live on in this actual play, as I remember him. I love you, buddy. This is episode six of The Electric State. I am joined by the usual band of merry journeys. We have Marker.
SPEAKER_00Hello, IG88 here, at your service. Sir. We have Command. Raymond, private investigator. He's looking at you, kid. And Douglas. Yeah, Roger, as predicted last week, he's not having a great time.
SPEAKER_01Currently, in the background of uh Douglas's uh video, he's he's kindly bought one of our stories with dice t-shirts and added a code on the back, which is a QR code, which is amazing. So thank you very much.
SPEAKER_00And you can see it too at Tabletop Scotland, but that will have been a long time ago at this point. But time travel is a bit. If anyone wants to Yeah, you'll have to wait till 2026, then you might see the key to Morrison.
SPEAKER_01But if you do want to support us, then you feel free to go and buy some. Marco needs that yacht stat. Right. Okay, so we left off. You had gone back to uh Roger's place of work, found out some stuff, and you are trying to get away from something. From something, and you've kind of run into what it was the old car park, but has now been turned into a repository of memories and information, and it's got all these walkways and gantries on, loads of little robots kind of like poshing around doing whatever they're doing, and you have just set off a security robot who is now walking towards you, uh, or trundling towards you, I should say, because it's on sort of like little tracks, uh, and it's kind of making its way over the uh gantries and walkways towards you.
SPEAKER_00At least it at least it doesn't look like Maximilian from the black hole. It does not.
SPEAKER_01Perhaps it should do. And yeah, it's uh it's coming towards you. You can see that it's um it's got a submachine gun attached to its side.
SPEAKER_00Lovely. I have a submachine gun too. Let's m let's measure our submachine gun, shall we? It doesn't very small.
SPEAKER_01It's about it it's human-sized, not the machine gun, but the the the the robot. And it's sort of making its way towards you. As it's coming towards you, red light starts to flash around it, and it says caution, unauthorized access. Caution, unauthorized access.
SPEAKER_00What would you like to do? The hologram gave us access. Talk to Dr. Nim. Caution. As it's getting closer. Unauthorized access. Okay, is is it just uh this is this walkway just a single one that has one end to the other, or does it, like in the picture, have like ones that split off from it? Yeah, there's ones that split off from it, so it's just like a side bit that we can split off. Absolutely. Then I guess Roger will just try. Is it was this here when he was? No, this used to be a couple of So he has no idea where he do I vaguely remember like where the stairs and stuff used to be in this car park? Yeah, you kind of have to go sort of like dire the opposite to the other side of it. Then I guess I'll just hang a right and start running off down on the sideways and hope I can outrun this thing. Yep. But it's coming after it's coming after edge 88, now Roger. Well it's coming after all of you. Oh, I see. But now we're splitting up, so it can only go after one of us. Yeah, okay. What is Raymond doing? Running like a hell.
SPEAKER_01In the same direction as Roger, or a different direction, or slightly different direction.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_00Because I get I get the idea of splitting off. And if it gets one of us, it won't get all of us. Okay. Do you wanna split off left or right? I'm I'm gonna split off a little bit to the left. IGN Yang, what do you wanna do? I'm gonna scream, Roger, this one's for your pa! And I just shoot the fucking stupid robot. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, if you could please shoot the stupid robot. Okay. So you have an agility of six and Any bonus?
SPEAKER_00You're gonna get your uh you should have Yeah, any bonus outside of the bonus I normally get. No? No.
SPEAKER_01Um you get six for Jilicity and plus two for the SFG.
SPEAKER_00Yep. I have zero successes. Why does it say why does it say two damage?
SPEAKER_01Uh because it it just automatically rolls the damage for you. So Okay. Regardless of whether you succeed or not. Okay. Yeah, you uh you let it rip with your um your subshine gun and it tracks all over around the thing but misses. It uh it fires back at you. How dare you! How dare you shoot at me?
SPEAKER_00I mean, why would it do that? I mean that just seems wrong, right? So inconsiderate. Robots these days. Haha. Zero successes for the fucking robot. The robot shoots back at you, and uh you both miss each other.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I'm z I'm I'm zigzagging, I'm zigzagging on the platform. Well, you are playing in uh I believe your your shell is uh is a gaming shell, isn't it? So you've got all the kind of agility and and strength to go with that.
SPEAKER_00And he's playing that song, can't touch this, duh, you know.
SPEAKER_01Well, seeing as you've now chosted, it doesn't really care about Roger or Raymond. You're the the threat that it needs to deal with.
SPEAKER_00That was the plan. Would you like to shoot it again? I would like to shoot it again. Well, oh come on, now I missed again? What the hell, man? Did you want to push your roll? I'm like rolling six dice, and I can't roll any successes. It's not gonna work. If I so remind me again, if I push it, it damages me, right?
SPEAKER_01It's gonna damage your agility. Oh my god, it's a rule I did not realize.
SPEAKER_00What happens when you're using your uh It's as I mean it's a year zero edged game, so it damages your agility.
SPEAKER_01It's gonna damage what it would do if if you have any agility to damage, but it's a but I'm a robot. So shit.
SPEAKER_00I just have this like mental image of these two robots just mag dumping into each other and just not hitting anything. Pretty much. Like literally, and it'll be like click, click, click, click, click, click both of them.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Do you know what? Sure. I'm gonna I don't know what the uh let me try to look it up. I won't push it now, but let me look it up and we can just move on. Yep, that's fine. I'll just quickly jump over to uh double some Raymond. Uh uh Roger and Raymond. So, Rosie, you you're kind of like running towards where you think the stairs are to sort of lead upwards. Uh, Raymond, you kind of like peeled off to the left and kind of run through a bunch of these like little robots. The little robots kind of just move out of your way, and you kind of like knock a couple of them off the sort of like gantries and they sort of like fall down a couple of them who've got the grab the sort of gravetics rise back up, back onto the uh gantry. And it's on different levels, so it's probably about three stories high. So you're in the middle story, one below you, one above you. And yeah, you can see as you're running, all down the side of the wall, there are effectively servers, and in interconnecting the servers, there's loads of like wires. And in the wires, there is a lot of those data discs that you saw back at the uh the forgotten library, of or at least a similar type, and yeah, you kind of like see those as you're sort of like running past them. Roger, on the other hand, you're relatively in a clear run straight towards the exit. So you know where you're going in, so you're making fairly too time. No one's kind of getting in the way. RGMT8, or in this case, Moko. What was the answer, sir?
SPEAKER_00So the answer is after you push a roll, all dice after the re-rolled, including the ones not re-rolled. Oh, sorry. For each one rolled after a push, your current hope score is reduced by one. So it's not the so in this in this version of year zero, it's not the attribute that gets damaged, it's the hope score. And that's on page 53. And that would make sense. You've got one one on your uh C your Yep. I'm gonna put that for humans as well. Yep. Cool. Can I can I can I push it? You can indeed. I was gonna respond with a yeah.
SPEAKER_01Woohoo! Woohoo! There we go. Okay. You got one success and you lose one hype for the one that you had. Okay, so yeah, you open fire with your submachine gun. What is the damage of your submachine guns? Well, it says here the damage is too. It takes a couple of rounds and you can see some liquid, some certain liquid and stuff come out as it kind of says again, caution under f th th fire, and then it fires back at you. There's no he's not it's not using any kind of tactics, it's pretty much just uh all out trying to shoot you. Okay. We got me! Oh no! It too is two damage, and you have got, I believe, some hull? Five health. Five health. That's your that's your health, but you're you're in your drone, so using your um stats for your Yes. For your elite trooper gaming droid. Is that what you have? Yep, the elite trooper gaming drone, yep. Oh, you've got eleven hull, okay. I have eleven hull. So if you want to roll four armor for me, so just roll four dice.
SPEAKER_00It looks like my dice is six dice for my armor.
SPEAKER_01Hmm, okay. Oh, that's yeah, I think that's because you are successors! Woohoo! Well, why don't you take two from your hull? Because Okay. Yeah, it it kind of does it just kind of like scratches it mostly. It doesn't really seem to do very much to it, you know, you're used to this sort of thing. And and you're essentially you're running towards it and it's kind of like trundling towards you. I've obviously hear the exchange, and so you can see this. I mean what's going on. They're probably no more than sort of like 50 meters away from you.
SPEAKER_00Pull out my pistol and start shooting at the uh security drone as well. From behind? Yeah. Yeah. Call them. Right, here we go. Gonna roll. Boom. Ooh. Two successes. Nice. Three damage.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, see you open fire with your handgun, and you catch it in the rear of its its body. Right up Main Street. And you hit something, some smoke comes billowing out of it. And you can see that its sensors turn to see you. And you say, Oh yes. Whoops.
SPEAKER_00Ooh.
SPEAKER_01Whoops.
SPEAKER_00I can grab some of these little drones around me and hold them in front of me like a shield.
SPEAKER_01You grab a drone, you're like, no, I have no problem with that. Okay, well, what is IGATA gonna do? Same thing? It is going to shoot again.
SPEAKER_00Just keep getting closer and closer to shooting at it. Okay, call in. Between the two of us, we'll kill that thing out there. Two successes, three damage. Excellent. Excellent.
SPEAKER_01You uh you you you basically pile some more rounds into it. You can see that something sparks, some more sort of like liquid and silver liquid kind of comes out of it. It's sort of starting to drip oil, the oil's starting to smoke, as it fires back at you one more time. Three successes, you son of a gun. Which does four well rolling drama for me, Kisa. One success. It takes three three hole points. Okay. As it kind of like kinda gets through one of the plates. There's now a nice little bullet hole in one of the uh one of your panels in your leg or something. Raymond, you get to go as well.
SPEAKER_00Right. Right back at you, baby. Okay, so gonna hit the handgun again to get the two plus two. Okay, here we go. Rolling.
SPEAKER_01That button from you. Oh. Did you want to push it? Or actually you've got very little hope, I believe, so.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, I don't want to push it.
SPEAKER_01I probably don't want to push it. Yeah, you take you take a couple shots and you miss it. As it's sort of like it's focusing on IG-88. Roger, you almost made it to where the the door would be to the stairwell to head up. And there is indeed a fire exit there.
SPEAKER_02Mm-hmm.
SPEAKER_00Okay. He's gonna keep running, like the pain in his head is now still excruciating. He's sort of like it's like reality sort of blurring. He's both like here in the archive, then also he's like running down like a suburban street at night, sort of the same, but like it's a familiar sort of panic, like I must get away, of these both two events. Sure. Yeah, you you kind of like are are putting both your memories together.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's a similar sensation. Yeah, okay. Yeah, you basically push through the fire door and you just basically leave the others to it as you kind of like make your way towards the stairs and start to run up. IG88. Yes, sir. Same thing again?
SPEAKER_00It's kind of like you can see that it's kind of on its large legs. Two successes. I just shoot it up on and you hear a clip from Star Trek First Contact where Captain Picard, that scene where he's in in the hollodeck and he sh he shoots, he starts shooting at the Borg that have entered the hollow deck, and he just he has that submachine gun and he just he just screams as he's just shooting it down. Yeah, so that's what you hear. That's uh Yeah, the three damage.
SPEAKER_01Nice. The rounds rip into the uh security robot. Something pops and explodes off the out of the side of it. The thing sort of trundles to a stop and goes over the walkway and falls into the void.
SPEAKER_02And you hear Captain Picard say, This was Ention Lynch. Okay.
SPEAKER_01They don't seem to be any more No no more uh security robots or anything like that. Are you going to particularly follow the direction that Roger went in?
SPEAKER_00Uh yeah, I turn to Raymond and I say, What do you say we hightail it out of here? Good idea, IG. Lead the way. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you you you go to uh exit. So Roger, you're running down the street. Uh-huh. In the suburban street. Yeah. You can see that IG-88 is running down the street with it, which is weird. But IG-88 isn't made of metal. Still looks like IG-88. Uh but he's um he's gone all Pinocchio Pinocchio on you. He's a real boy now, and it's a small kid who's basically running next to you. Hi Daddy!
SPEAKER_00What are we running away from, Daddy? He doesn't say anything, he just keeps on running. I just he just needs to get as far away from the house as possible.
SPEAKER_01Yep. Yeah, the house is it's sort of looming large behind you. You just need to run. Did you have another fight with mommy?
SPEAKER_00Like whatever the that robot is saying is just complete nonsense. So, but I say he needs he needs to get away, he needs to make distance from the house.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you start sort of running away from that the house down the road. Slowly you you can see that the a very suburban road very abruptly leads to forested land, and the the lot road that you were running on has now turned into a pathway full of pine cones and pine needles, and you're running towards what looks like a cabin in the woods.
SPEAKER_00Just keep on going because something in the back of my mind, that cabin is safe for some reason. Uh like it feels safe. It does, yeah.
SPEAKER_01You can you can hear your other half in the background shouting, No, don't leave me, but it disappears into the woodland, and you can hear the sound of an elk or something calling, which is what the the the screen of your partner turns into as you push your way through out into uh the open at the top of the forest gate. You kind of like break out into again the sort of like brickwork and the framework that that were around you. This would have been a ramp or near to a ramp that would have gone down into the sort of like underground car park, but it's kind of blocked with rubble and uh just the debris from the explosion or the damaged buildings. So you have to like push your way through that and you sort of like rip your way out of the car park into the light, and you can see that it's choking and all the dust has kind of like got in your hair and in your underclothes, and yeah, you run you break out into some like the the sunlight as the sun is starting to go down. You can see the bus in the distance.
SPEAKER_00Now that I'm kind of back in reality, just the adrenaline will start to like drain out, and then I will just collapse on the ground.
SPEAKER_01Okay, you collapse on the ground. IGLE8 and Raymond, you basically follow suit, and you're probably about three or four minutes behind Roger, and you kind of get out of the um car park following the same route. You can see Roger laying on the ground.
SPEAKER_00Quick, let's pick him up.
SPEAKER_02Roger, no I shake him.
SPEAKER_00Roger, Roger, Roger, wake up, Roger! I smack him, I give him a little smack on the cheek. He's he's breathing very fast rapidly, eyes are like twitching all over the place in panic. Like he's he's not at home at the moment. Alright, let's carry him into the bus. Then it's looking at you.
SPEAKER_01She's leaning over you. And she says, Where are you gonna go? Where are you gonna go?
SPEAKER_00He just he just doesn't respond. He's just like all the energy's gone. He's just getting dragged along now by is is the doctor dragging him along? Or is it something else? That that little boy who's still or is it or is it reformed back into AG?
SPEAKER_01You can see IG88 and you can see Raymond looking at you, but you can also see Dr. Nim standing over you as well.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. No, it it's like he's now kind of like trapped in his own mind almost. It's like there's he has like no energy to do anything now.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Right, well, IG-88 and Raymond, you drag him back to the bus.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we get him in the bus while he's in and out of maybe he's maybe he can hear, maybe he can't.
SPEAKER_02IG88 plays plays that very famous clip from Empire Strikes Back where Vader says, Obi-Wan never told you what happened to your father, and then you hear Luke say, He told me enough! He told me you killed him! And then Vader says, No, I am your father.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So yeah, you put him in the bus next to unknown person and Jell, who are both on chairs, unconscious. Now you have a similar Roger. Paul and Tiffany kind of help you bring him on board. Paul says, What the hell happened?
SPEAKER_00We don't really know. That place is like not what we thought it was. Well, we should definitely get out again then. Yeah, who who can drive the bus? I can, says Paul. Alright. He makes his way. And hey, you know, if if these guys if we need to lose some weight, we can just get rid of these other two strangers. We don't need to give a shit about them.
SPEAKER_01He says, No, I don't think so. Just a suggestion?
SPEAKER_00I don't think so for a very simple reason, IG. Did you see Roger's reaction, his eyes, the way they move? Very and the way he is now, very similar to these two. But yet Roger didn't have a helmet on. What does that have to do with these two strangers? Gotta be a connection between their st their condition and his condition. Their condition was done was brought upon by being immersed and having their helmets on. Roger didn't have a helmet on. Well they got to him somehow. Some other way. An implant maybe. It would be interesting to find out and know that for sure.
SPEAKER_01The bus stops, the engine starts to turn on. Paul basically looks back at you and says, Where the hell am I going? To Lone Pine? What am I gonna do with these two?
SPEAKER_00We're going to Lopine, fuck these two. Roger's our priority now. There's a um there's a medical clinic in Lone Pine, that would make sense. Whatever floats your boat.
SPEAKER_01That sounds fine to me. Paul puts the uh the bus into uh into into gear and starts to drive off. As he does so, he kinda messes with the radio. The road continues to go under your wheels. Those three continue to stay in and out of consciousness. It starts to rain. The rain hits the bus, makes the road slick, and you continue going closer and closer to your journey's end. It's late into the night when you eventually make your way out of the hills and into the forested region north of the lakes. Lone Pine is not far away. As you get closer, the bus starts to give a horrible coughing sound. Something happens. There's a clunking noise, and Paul starts swearing and shouting from the front. He pulls the uh the bus off of the off of the road, and you can see a a sign that says motel off to the side. It's flashing, and through the rain, you can make out the words on this bright red neon light. Motel. And the uh the bus probably doesn't quite make it all the way towards the uh the motel as it kind of like stops in sort of like the the mud and the side of the road. And then it kind of gives a final like cough and then it dies. Oh, that's the end of the road, I think.
SPEAKER_00That is one creepy motel I've seen better. Have you? Somehow, Raymond, I'm not sure you have. Okay, I can live in hope.
SPEAKER_01The motel is partially run down. It's um a wooden and metal structure. All the metal is rusting and dripping. The wood is barely sort of like holding the rest of the motel together. There's the name of the motel, but the words are all weirdly mixed up. It looks like someone has not put them in the right order, and there's too many R's and too many E's. We probably are about 15 miles outside of Lone Pine. Paul just kind of looks at the bus. It's like it's not going anywhere. He kind of kinda tries to keep turning over the engine. Nothing seems to happen.
SPEAKER_00Flip flip the hood.
SPEAKER_02And uh IG-88 will get out and climb up and see what he can see.
SPEAKER_01Sure. He says as he kind of opens the sign of the door, the rain comes belting in and uh he looks quizzled and sort of like puts his uh jacket up and jumps out into the mud and to the to the front of the hood.
SPEAKER_00There should be a lever on the inside where you pull it and it pops the hood. No, he says. I'm not sure why you came outside, knucklehead.
SPEAKER_01He uh he basically swears at you. And uh fucking robot. I mean he basically goes back and does the Hey, I'm a fucking drone, not a fucking robot.
SPEAKER_00Tiffany says feelings.
SPEAKER_01Tiffany says, Roger's coming round. Your head is a lot clearer, Roger, now that you've uh now that you've had some rest. If only Dr. Lim was not just sitting on the other seat. Jesus looking at you.
SPEAKER_00Does she react to anything to me waking up? She smiles, but then she says. Now, does she does she look like holographic limb or limb I remember? What would you like it to be? Hologram, let's say. It's it's holographic. As in it makes even less sense. But it's creepier. Yes.
SPEAKER_01Yep. She kind of fixes every now and then. Just every now and then. Which obviously makes no sense to you because there's no holographic projector here.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. I will I my head is still absolutely pounding, I assume. No, it's kind of like died off, so it's okay. Yeah, I want not. But I'm going to sort of like get up and then sort of like stagger over to my sort of like personal belongings at the front. Yep. And I am going to go and find my one personal item, which I believe is a bottle of alcohol. Yay! That's fine. Yeah. So and I will crack that open and take a big old drink a third of the entire bottle. There's only a time for the bottom. As in without breathing, just like I do believe you can get rid of some uh my hope goes up, but my hope's still max.
SPEAKER_01I I don't think it can go above the what it is, max, so that's fine. Yeah. But uh it will make me feel better. You can you can see the IG-88 and Paul are both outside looking into the engine. Alright. This whole motel, does it look familiar? Looking out. It does look familiar. It it it's look in a worse state of repair than you remember it. But yeah, it's it's there.
SPEAKER_00How far are we from the cabin now? You're probably a couple of miles from the cabin. So it's definitely walkable. Yeah. It's easily walkable. I guess. He'll finish his bottle, finish his drinking his third of his bottle, and then sort of grab his like some of the tools that he had, just lying around. And then sort of just like step off the bus. And then he's not like hiding anything, but he'll sort of look around and sort of gauge like where he is, and then where the cabin is, and then sort of be like that way, and then start walking off into the rain. Okay. Raymond! What are you up to? Well, I'm gonna come out and uh poke my head around and say uh how's it going with the uh engine, guys. IGA will be like, hey, yeah, Roger, where you go where the hell's Roger going? Is he heading towards the hotel or away from it? He's heading towards the hotel. Right. Great. All we need is a guy in there who runs it named Norman Bates. Raymond, why don't you go why don't you go collect the Wizard of Oz over there and we'll see what we can do about this engine. Yeah, right. Roger! Hey! Wait up! Get back here! He'll stop and kind of turn. Is my my friendly doctor still around?
SPEAKER_01Uh yeah, Doctor Him's basically standing in the rain as the rain's kind of like coming through her. It's the side your friend's calling you.
SPEAKER_00Okay, he'll stop and wait for Raymond to catch up. So I'll catch up to him and say, Roger, where are you going? What are you doing? He'll point in the sort of like direction he was heading, and then sort of do a shape of like a house. Tanim says, What's this? Shrouds? Hey, that's my line. He glares at her with that sort of thing. So Raymond, he he suddenly like looks kind of like off to the side of you and gives something of a weird, a sort of like glare. So I look over my shoulder to see what's there and there's nothing there.
SPEAKER_01You look out into the woods where which is where where where Roger's looking into. Uh can't see anything. Doctor Nim says, What? Robert, put your tongue.
SPEAKER_00Roger, who are you looking at? He just continues sort of like glaring past you at something, giving it like evil eyes. I think it's better if we head back to the bus, don't you think? No. He um sort of like you attract his attention again, he sort of like looks at you, and then he shrug, he shakes his head and he points off in the direction he's going. So what's in there? Is there something there we need? Roger points past the point. When you say that he goes, mm-mm, and then like gestures like over, beyond. He's pointing down the road, yeah. Right, I'm coming with you. He sort of like looks at you for like ten, sort of twenty seconds, and then sort of shrugs and gives like thumbs up. Okay, lead the way then. He looks over past you again in a sort of like beckoning sort of look as well, and sort of like makes a sort of gesture being like, come on, to this to whatever he was looking at, and then turns around. Roger, you're freaking me out, man. Let's just walk. So yeah, we start walking off into the rain. Yep, and into the woods.
SPEAKER_01Oh, G88 and Paul. I was like, I'm looking at the thing going, I know a bit about engines, and I think my professional opinion is it's fucked. Wait, did you say you don't know anything about engines? I said the little I know about engines. It's not the kind of thing I'd have. More of a kind of, you know, Mercedes kind of guy. Soft top. Winding my hair, as he says, straightening his very bald head. You're boring me. Alright. Fancy card douche. He says, fuck you then. And he makes his way back onto the bus. Leaving you. Do I have what? Do I have a rain?
SPEAKER_00Do I have a rusting out? Do I have a sense that like, you know, if the engine is fixable or not?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you reckon there's too many things wrong with it that you can tell. And there's stuff that you there's probably wrong that you don't know about. Yeah. This button's not blowing anywhere, unless it's got a problem mechanic to fix it.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So I look to see I look back to see how Raymond is getting on with Roger.
SPEAKER_01You look back, you can just make out Raymond and Roger basically walking into the woods. Away from the hotel.
SPEAKER_00Raymond and Roger walking into the woods. Okay. I look into the bus, I look back at the. Tiffany, all, and the other two are in the bus. Alright, so I'll stick my head in and I'll say, hey uh guys, stay here. We'll be back. I mean it. Don't leave. And then I I chase after Raymond and Roger. Sure.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you you you run after Raymond and Roger. You catch up relatively quickly as you go past the motel. And it looks like Roger is on a mission going up a trail through the woods with with Raymond sort of like in tow.
SPEAKER_00Raymond, what's going on? I don't know. Roger seems to think there's something up ahead that maybe is of value to a benefit to us. I don't know, but I'm not letting him go out into the dark on his own like this, so. Hey Ray Roger, is this is this where your cabin is? Is that where we're going? He sort of stops when you mention the cabin, because he does not remember ever discussing the cabin with you. And then sort of just like turns around and then just like looks at you in sort of like suspicion. Very obvious like suspicion on his face. And maybe like a bit of fear. What's the matter, Roger? What's going on? He's been acting quite strange, hi Janey. He's been looking at somebody that doesn't actually exist there. He's looking off into the darkness like he's like there's somebody there. Roger, talk to me, Roger. Or you know, sign to me, Roger. He looks suddenly shocked. And then points behind you. I turn behind me. All you hear is him like right up at my speed to get away from you. I love it. Was there anything behind me?
SPEAKER_01Well, he was literally just doing the look over there. There's woods and like, you know, that's it.
SPEAKER_00But I don't see like the hologram lady or anything. No, nothing like that. He wasn't even pointing to her. Alright, so I I turn, you know, I I look behind me, I see nothing but woods, woods in darkness. I hear him take off, and I turn back and I go, Roger, fuck you! And I start chasing after him. Okay. You're being chased.
SPEAKER_01Well, this is why I am going to try and outrun him. Well, this is gonna be very straightforward. If you could always make an agility roll, obviously, Marco, you can use your drone's agility instead of yours.
SPEAKER_00Oh well. Do I get do I get a bonus on a head start? Uh no. Do I roll one too as well? Because I'm in pursuit. Yep. Yeah. Uh you you can all roll. One success. Then you all have to outdo each other. IG88 has one success.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_00Okay, I'm gonna roll. I'm gonna roll mine. Yep.
SPEAKER_01Very quickly, kind of like slip on some moss and some and and and sort of like some wet. Wet and this is not your sort of like natural environment. You much prefer like the streets of a town, not the woods. And very quickly, IG-88 basically jumps over you. And with a surprising amount of a jersey, you've got sort of like dirt and I mean the rain is sort of like all over the place anyway. You've now got like scuffed up your trousers and your jacket's kind of like wet in a corner, it's just uh you have to pick yourself up and kind of give chase with the rest of them. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01So in IG-88 is keeping up on you.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, so just just to explain what's in Roger's mind. IG-88 is part of the entity because as I said, it's been watching it, and now this thing's been sticking around to him, obviously. So this is part of that that this is this is how it was following him. Of course. It's so obvious now. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01100%. I mean.
SPEAKER_00And it already wants it already admitted its intent. For our listeners back home, that's a load of crap. That makes perfect sense. Explains everything. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Well, you can uh it's gonna take four rolls to get to the cabin. So have another roll, each of you. If uh Raymond fails again, Raymond falls behind and you just on with a catch-up then. Ooh, one success. Okay.
SPEAKER_00Raymond's lots of the woods.
SPEAKER_01Raymond is the Raymond is the wily coyote in this cartoon. I mean, I would say I would say push it, but you've got two ones. He's gonna stay in the woods forever if you release us open. Yeah, I mean, it doesn't it won't burn bode well for you. But yeah, you you kind of like you're chasing after them, and then eventually you get to a point where the there's there's a couple of uh different paths, and you're like, oh I don't know which way they went.
SPEAKER_00Crap. Shit. Yeah, I can't. Let's split the party yet. This will be cool where Cyber Bear comes and kills him. I'm just gonna keep going straight. Okay, cool.
SPEAKER_01Alright, well, Roger. IG88, you guys can roll again. You can also make a roll. You never know. You might suddenly get like four successes. I have two successes. Catching up with Roger. Shall I go next? Yep. Okay. Yeah, you you definitely didn't take the right path. Yeah, you're sort of you're probably about three-quarters of the way there, and IG88 basically catches up with you. You can tell, obviously, you're getting tired running. IG88 is not getting tired in any way, shape, or form, being a drone. In the long run, you're gonna be run down essentially.
SPEAKER_00Okay. So is he gonna catch me like next?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you well, you you kind of catch up. In you kind of like break out into sort of like this small clearing. There's a small sort of like stream going along. There would have been sort of like wildflower meadows, that kind of thing, but it's just slick with rain. There's there's sort of like a three-quarter moon out, which is peeking through some of the rain clouds, which kind of illuminates the uh the the area um as IG88 catches up in you.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Hey Roger, where are you running to, man? If he's going to catch up with me, I'm going to grab a hold of like one of the tools that I grabbed. So I don't know, what be like a hammer or something would be appropriate. And I will use that to defend myself from this nefarious unknown entity. Throw my hands up.
SPEAKER_02R Rod, yo, Roger, man, it's it's me. It's it's I G. OG the OG I G.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. You see like a wild look in his eye of like terror of you. He's he's he's backing away still. I set my weapon on the ground and keep my hands in the air. I'm like, I'm not gonna hurt you, man. It nothing nothing changes. He's still looking at you in like absolute like terror. If you if you take it like any sort of like movement close, the hammer will like come back. But it is kind of just like resting at the sort of like above his head, waiting to strike if you get closer.
SPEAKER_01On G88, you uh recognize the terror in his face. He looks very familiar to you.
SPEAKER_00Does it?
SPEAKER_01What does it remind me of? It reminds you of a while ago, in fact, a long while ago, when you were doing combat patrols and having to make difficult decisions and pulling triggers.
SPEAKER_00I see. Probably also that time that the our drone unit was called up to police a protest. Indeed, yeah. It was raining then, and it's raining now.
SPEAKER_01It's raining now. The rain that hitting your drone, making a a tinkling sound as it hits your metal parts. Reminds you very strongly of the time that you were putting down protesters, civilians, indeed. And another time, another life. It turns out to get away, but come back around again.
SPEAKER_00Raymond, Raymond, where are you, Raymond? I'm lost. How far have I gotten to I mean, I've been on the wrong path. Yeah, you don't. I'm dumb, I'm gone. You're you're somewhere else. Am I lost in this memory? Like, do I start seeing all of those events transpire again?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the memory kind of like comes back like ghosts in the rain. So standing next to Roger, you can see Roger's father. I can see the other people that were standing there at the same time. Just kind of almost like holograms, just out the edges of your vision.
SPEAKER_00Pick up my rep my weapon, I start pointing it at these ghost images, these holograms, and I start, you're not real! You're not real, go away! And then I just start shooting.
SPEAKER_01Okay, yeah, he you see IGH, IGH, IGH, start pointing in a different direction to where you're standing, and he basically starts firing. Raymond, you can hear the sound of gunfire coming off to your left hand side.
SPEAKER_00Okay, so I'm gonna use the sound to to guide me, guide me in the right direction. Yes, you rush towards that. That Roger will just take off as soon as like the robot starts freaking out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, the the the the people are scattering as you're firing into them, running in all different directions. You take a bead on some of them, they go down. You you you fire at the woman who's basically running off, and you hear her in the back, and she falls down. You can see multiple people just running in different directions. You you definitely can hone in on the sound of water splashing as Roger rushes over the stream. It's sort of like a more real sound than the other perceived sounds that you've got in your memory.
SPEAKER_00He starts playing the the dad tried to live as he's just shooting all of these holographic images of the civilians from his past. And he's as he's like, you know, taking them all taking them all down, basically. He's lost, he's lost in that moment, and he's just not altogether with it.
SPEAKER_01Roger, as you're running towards the sort of past the stream out of the thing towards the woods, you can see Dr. Nim basically beckoning you towards as you're running it in the direction towards the cabin.
SPEAKER_00I suppose in this panic, any sort of like, yeah, I'll follow her. Okay.
SPEAKER_01Uh Redmond, you burst out into the uh into the sort of like clearing. As you can make out Roger darting into the woods the other side, and IG-88 is firing randomly into sort of like the the woods. Marco, can you please roll me three dice? And let me know if you get me ones. I have one one, yeah. Okay. Yeah, you um you fire out towards the people that are running. And Raymond.
SPEAKER_00Do you have any armor up? No, come on, man. I was just gonna say he's probably shot me in the leg, hasn't he? I take you don't have any armor. Doesn't think you do. I don't think I do, no.
SPEAKER_01No, okay, so you suddenly stop as you realize that you look down and your stomach is starting to like go really red with your shirt, and you realize that IGAA has shot you. A gut wound. Yeah, shit. Shit. Painful. Oh my god, that really What the it doesn't hurt as much as you think it does. But your b your legs buckle and you sort of like fall to your knees. As as the rain's like cutting the the blood and on your shirt. And it's sort of like just pooling down your trousers and onto the ground. And Sort of like smashering the sort of like what would have been the wildflowers all over the meadow. That's a lot of blood. Oh GM Yx, you look and you can see Raymond crossing his stomach.
SPEAKER_02Okay, question. Question for the GM.
SPEAKER_00Yep. Can I take my neurocaster off? You can. Okay. He realizes that he just shot Raymond in the gut. But you need to make a roll for that. Okay. Let me make the roll then. Give me the roll. What's the roll? The roll is. One second. Shot in the gut's a very long and painful way to die. In the woods.
SPEAKER_01Okay. Can you please make a I mean it's wet, so just check. Yeah, it's a witch roll. One success. You uh you pull off your uh neurocaster. Where are you?
SPEAKER_00So he realizes that he just shot Raymond. You he you the the Sound Guard music stops abruptly, like a needle being just ripped off the you know, off the record in mid mid-play, so it just like screeches to a stop. He shouts, no, no, damn it! And then pulls off. So the the robot just falls over, the drone just falls over. The pilot takes the helmet off. He's in a single log cabin in the woods somewhere, alone. And he throws the he throws the neurocaster down onto the floor. And just puts his head into his hands and starts weeping. Roger. Whether or not that is Roger's cabin is up to the two of you, I guess. We'll find out.
SPEAKER_01Roger. Yes. You follow Dr. Nym as uh Dr. Nym sort of like is hustling you. She's like always ahead of you and she's pointing you in the direction. This way, this way, this way. And and are you gonna follow or are you gonna break away from it?
SPEAKER_00I'll keep following her unless I realize I'm not going towards my cabin. Does that make sense? If I feel like I'll keep following for a decent amount of time until like the brain starts kicking in again. If she's leaping away from the cabin, eventually I will stop following her.
SPEAKER_01But your brain starts to kick in, and you can hear the migraine comes back, and you can hear a static. And in the static, you can hear this pulse. Like a steady thrum of a pulse. Just do like a heartbeat. Slightly irregular. As Raymond has sort of like knees in the dirt. You can kind of feel your heartbeat getting really kind of irregular. And you can feel it starting to slow as the blood is just soaking the ground around you. You feel really cold, and you kind of look up and you can see this like three-quarter moon. And as you look up, you lose balance and you sort of like fall backwards into the long grass, you can your your whole thing is framed in the grass, and you can you can see a woman as the as the clouds clear, and you can see that the sun starts to come out and it starts to dry up, and you can see a woman coming over to you, and she sort of touches your face. And she says, Darest, I've been waiting a long time. Where am I? Somewhere much better than the place you left.
SPEAKER_00Don't tell me this is heaven. He sort of realizes that he's in the in the system with her. He feels he kind of feels like that's where he is now. And because she's there, his body's fading, and he just kind of like longs to be there with him, so he reaches out to try and touch her.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You reach out to touch her, and you can feel her hand, like a solid hand, and and then she sort of smiles at you, and she says, as you can the the sound of her voice, kind of like, is if someone's turning down a dimmer? Sort of like you're saying, It's okay, it'll be okay. Don't worry, it'll be fine. It it's okay. It's not a problem. And then it just goes quieter and quieter. And everything starts to dim, all your senses start to go dim. And there you go, it's very dark. And then it goes quiet. The only thing you can hear is the sound of like a buzzing noise within the sort of like area around you, but you can't quite put your finger on it. Roger, so you break away from Dr. Nym and you head to the cabin. You can see the cabin's door, you get there, the curtains are all shut, everything's locked up to you that you can see. You go to open the door. I wrench open the door and then like slam it behind me. Wrench open the door, and you wrench open your door, you realise that there is someone in the cabin.