Retro Role Cast
"Serious roleplaying games played by deeply unserious people."
We are a tabletop roleplaying actual play podcast featuring games that remind us of our gaming roots! We play in person with real math rocks! We love gritty, high action dark settings with nuance, but aren't too far away from our bitter, cynical, yet still lovable selves at all times!
Currently: Going way back to many of our players' 1e roots by playing the new third edition of OSRIC (pdf available free on DrivethruRPG, fantastic hard copies available through Mythmere Games) with a home cooked mini (?) campaign in the World known as Greyhawk in the classic era. follow along as the PCs navigate the dangerous environments and tricky politics of the Duchy of Tenh/Theocracy of the Pale border region!
In season one we played Low Fantasy Gaming by Pickpocket Press, Its sequel game Tales of Argosa is released, available, and comes highly recommended by all of us, stop by Pickpocket Games on the web for more info!
Season two saw a transition to a modified Version of Old School Essentials (Advanced) by Gavin Norman, one of many retro offshoots of the world's most popular role playing game. We borrow rules and content from many sources, but with Old School Essentials we used (in no particular order), Old School Feats by Eric Diaz, Into The Wyrd and Wild by Charles Furgeson-Avery, Into the Wild by Todd Leback, The Axian Library by Guiseppe Rotondo, and the Monster Overhaul by Skerples, amongst other sources.
With the close of Season 2 and the addition of two new Retro Role Casters we have moved to a more episodic format for Season 3. We are referring to seasons 1 and 2 as our Zero Level Funnel of Podcasting.
Season three and into the first part of Season four the four OG hosts took turns GM-ing one shots, Three Shadowdark adventures because we love Kelsey's fantastic Old meets New game, Mothership to satisfy our love of the Alien Movies and a Halloween special using the Call of Cthulhu rules.
Logo Art: Olivia G, Background Art: Bob Greyvenstein. Some artwork © Grim Press, used with permission. All rights reserved.
Retro Role Cast
Mothership!!! Bug Hunting with RRC Ep 9
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
In this player depleted final session of the campaign, we soak up some rads, clear up some misunderstandings, create new misunderstandings, and bring things to an explosive conclusion. To be clear, the robot dog lives...
#mothershipRPG #Mothership1E #OSR #ttrpg #actualplay #rpg #oldschoolrpg #scifi #scifihorror
This episode features Mothership, the fantastic Space Horror RPG from the good folks at Tuesday Night Games! Visit them at: https://www.tuesdayknightgames.com/pages/mothership-rpg
Visit Lazarus Games' eBay store for retro gaming goodness! https://www.ebay.com/str/lazarusgames
Episode art features a background image by Robert Clark
Theme music composed by Shawn G
Logo by Olivia G
And this week on Retro Rollcast. By the way, out there, this is how you know we're real. That's that we don't have three players here. Right, right. Yeah. We have a substitute that doesn't really know what's going on. Playing characters. Yeah. For everybody's this is not slick Hollywood. Yeah. Right. This is a real game we're doing here. We like the rest of the world have a group chat.
SPEAKER_05And we all plan to be here at a certain time this morning, right? And then as we're getting ready to come here, two people are like, I can't make it, dude. Right? And we're like, well shit.
SPEAKER_03And here we are, yeah. Playing anyway. Exactly. Because you, all of our fans, because we don't have an I don't have an episode for this Friday. Welcome back to Retro Rolecast. We are still playing Mothership, the introductory adventure called Another Bug Hunt. We're all loving this system done by Tuesday Night Games. We have a special guest today. One of our previous players, John, playing Stillwater, could not make it. So we have a new guest player. We found another John playing Stillwater. A replacement, John.
SPEAKER_01So welcome, Alvin. The player retains the name. Their player retains the name. So uh Stillwater, different John. It's okay.
SPEAKER_03John's and Sean's. We got plenty of those. Yes. We're all Johns and Sean's today. Except for me.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we could potentially have a four-player game with just John's and Sean's. I think that needs to happen at some point. That'd make an easier shirt to make. We could just change the name of the podcast to Johns and Sean's. Who knows? Yeah. What's that a podcast of? I I don't know, but it might be more successful. Baby tips. Hey.
SPEAKER_03That's not true. For all of you listening, you're listening with our other thousands of fans. Yes.
SPEAKER_05On every continent on the planet.
SPEAKER_01Even Antarctica. Except for Antarctica.
SPEAKER_05On every continent that actually has the internet.
SPEAKER_01I'm pretty sure the station has the I would not want to be. You're right, McMurdo probably. I would not want to be on McMurdo without some internet access.
SPEAKER_03I mean, how cool would it be to go to someplace like that and play this game?
SPEAKER_01It would be very cool.
SPEAKER_03You know what game you would actually be playing? You'd play the scenario of the thing.
SPEAKER_06Yeah. Right.
SPEAKER_03That would be the scenario. Trapped on a base with wait, wait a minute, with an alien monstrosity. Yeah, we kind of are. We are playing the thing right now. That is the plot, right? So we have with us three players today. We have Sean playing McTavish. Hi. Sean playing McDuff. Good day. And John playing Stillwater.
SPEAKER_01Stillwater. Tally essence, but you refuse to.
SPEAKER_03I refuse to use the word tally essence or whatever that word is or whatever it means. I'm pretty sure it's a. When last we left the crew, they were at the lab level on top of a platform with a control panel of the environmental controls of Heron Terraforming Station. Just behind them is a door labeled to Reactor. What is your plan, Dr.
SPEAKER_01McTavish? Well, I try to just let make let things happen and then move on from there. But I we need to find Hinton. And I know he's not here, but I we also need to uh do what we can for the Marines and the other personnel that have gone down to that level. And I'm also generally scientifically curious. So we have part of what we came for, but not the whole thing. I'm fairly convinced that they're not gonna let us off the rock anyway. And I'm concerned for our for our entire group. Only one of us is infected so far, but right.
SPEAKER_03Here with you, including the three characters named, are Dr. Edim, Corporal Ivanovic, and the engineer Sobol. They all would like to go back up to the garage level, and have made a case for them to do so.
SPEAKER_01Well, we'll get into that in in just a moment. What's the status of uh McDuff as a prisoner at this point, being held at gunpoint by Ivanovich? Correct.
SPEAKER_03Corporal Ivanovic has pretty much been pulling guard duty on Macduff, the Teamster, known for his ability to repair many things. Except for elevators and missing body parts. And yes, elevators. I tried.
SPEAKER_05So very stressed.
SPEAKER_03Right. So McDuff, you know, you've been under guard this whole time. Your hands were freed to climb up to the top of this platform. So you now have essentially almost no prisoner status. There's still guns that may be pointed in your direction at a moment's notice, but you are not currently restrained.
SPEAKER_01There's a dart in my tranquilizer pistol with the word Macduff written on it.
SPEAKER_05You just want to make a head crab pop out of me.
SPEAKER_01So uh what you explode. It's only a matter of time. If I get to control when that happens, that's better.
SPEAKER_03I don't know, man. I think that medicine worked. So what is what is your intent here?
SPEAKER_05So the uh we know that one of the locators for the people we need to find is far away from here. Correct. You have hint in the street. But he went down where we are first. So that means either something killed him and took whatever part the locator is in with them, or there is a access somewhere down here that goes underground to that location. The hive, as far as we know. Okay. So are we searching for that access? Is that the goal?
SPEAKER_00That's what the goal was to head into the reactor and look for the do we just lie?
SPEAKER_01Say we have it. Well, that could be a could be an option. Because I don't want to go into a hive. Well, the idea is that we're going to a reactor rather than a hive. The other thing we need to I think they're the same thing. The other thing we need to reckon with is that when we arrived, the wildlife, let's say, was very homicidal. We were attacked, we were attacked driving the APC over to the to the terraforming facility, we were attacked headed to the Comrade. But it seems like as soon as Frank took care of the alien that was doing the broadcasting, that they have become much more calmer. Not calmer, but they've been trying to get away rather than trying to rip our faces off. They're acting like a beehive. Including the one that was in the room that killed the other scientist whose name eludes me for the moment.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, man. That was basically the equivalent of a wasp stuck in a trap screaming.
SPEAKER_01So the other thing, well, I mean we don't know because the thing was strapped to that camera, and we don't know who it was that might have put them there. I'm assuming that it might have been Hin. Or he might have been involved at some level.
SPEAKER_03That almost has to be the case. Sobel chimes in. He's like, I don't trust that son of a bitch one bit.
unknownDan.
SPEAKER_03Why? Well, he's a clanker for one thing. Right? What else do you really need to know? Don't trust you either.
SPEAKER_01Well, I don't know.
SPEAKER_03Look at you, you're gonna you're gonna burst any minute now.
SPEAKER_01The thing is the only thing.
SPEAKER_03No, I took my medicine.
SPEAKER_01The only thing I know about Hinton is his current location. So if you have some information on what he was like, what sort of things he was doing prior to all this, I'm all ears. Well, he doesn't talk to me all that much.
SPEAKER_03Just know that you can't trust any androids. It's the way I make you don't trust anybody. That's how I go through life. Don't trust you, don't trust the company, don't trust Dr. Adim. I don't trust anyone. Okay. So but I trust that son of a bitch, least of all.
SPEAKER_01Alright. You trust me?
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_01I already said I don't. Okay. Should we trust you?
SPEAKER_05No.
SPEAKER_01Probably not. My goal is to survive. What's your goal? I don't know at this point. I don't know that I don't know that we've survived. We could be dead men walking here right now. Maybe we are.
SPEAKER_03But I'd like a chance. I am. You are what? Yeah, you are, actually. Pretty much. Can't believe they haven't put a bullet in your head yet. Yeah, I Dr. Dean gets a chance to experiment on you, she's gonna take it. I get that. But anyway, I don't want to go down into that reactor. Neither do I. Alright, well don't. But if we want Hinton, we have to. Look, I don't want Hinton, you want Hinton.
SPEAKER_05Look, the only way we get off this rock is if we find it.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, they're not gonna. Getting back to not trusting the company, I don't either, but they're not gonna let us off unless we got Hinton, Hinton's brain. And this whole thing i is a cluster and a half. Well, you just and we need to know about what we're doing. You don't want to just lie? No, and I'm good with that. I'm not all about that. I mean we know more about what we're doing. Well, that's why we just lie and leave. Yeah, then we're hauling the contagion because you could be infected, you don't know. He holds his arms out. Yeah, he was just fine two hours ago. That's true. Well, I haven't been exposed. Really? I gesture broadly at everything. Nothing screamed at me. Well, so you're not anybody I can command, so you can come with or you can go up. That's entirely up to you. Yeah, I want to go up and wait for the ship and get off this rock. Well, they're not going to take it up. The ship's coming, but they're not gonna take you. Why not? Do you think they care about you? You don't trust the company, but you but you think they're gonna take you? Yeah, I think they are gonna take me. They might come down and take Dr. Adim's notes and Hinton's brain if we get Hinton's brain and leave us all on this rock anyway. Because we aren't what they want. I'm not gonna lie, I've heard all those thoughts laying in my bed at night.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, so actually why don't we give the company a chance to not trust us and we just do what we gotta do, take over. When you lay in bed at night, do you have a pillow with you?
SPEAKER_01Well, yeah, everybody uses a pillow when they're in bed at night. Like a special pillow? Was that was that you? He just gives you that you sobel? He just gives you a sideways look.
SPEAKER_03Maybe. All right, I get where you're coming from. What of it? I sneeze and endure so he just moves. He moves another few feet away. Give him a funny look.
SPEAKER_01He's like, I'm going upstairs. Alright. Anyone else? I look around.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, we're leaving too. Screw you guys. A Deem's not going anywhere. What? Yes, I am. No, you're not. Solbo just shrugs and keeps walking. Okay. What about Ivanovic?
SPEAKER_01Do you let him leave? Is he leaving? We we need the firepower, I guess. You want me to you want me to stick around?
SPEAKER_00Is Ivanovic the sniper?
SPEAKER_03No, that was Sergeant Underhill. Okay. Ivanovic was one of the other uh Marine NPCs. He was a Marine. Okay. Who after poor.
SPEAKER_01What was the what was the Marine captain's name? Lieutenant Kaplan? No, the uh the sergeant, sorry, the Underhill on top of the one that went down to the reactor before. Oh well, there was Valdez. Valdez, that's right.
SPEAKER_03Well Valdez was went to get the people, supposedly through the reactor. After you guys went to the tower, she left and went down to the reactor to get her people.
SPEAKER_01Oh, so yeah. So Dean's coming with Ivanovich, if you want to go up, I can't stop you. But there are Marines down there.
SPEAKER_03God damn it. Fine! God damn it. They drill that shit into your head for years, and you're like, that's all bullshit. And then when the time comes, you're like, God damn it, it's not bullshit.
SPEAKER_01It really is the way. I was only in for one tour and I'm still here. Well, for now. But anyway, is everybody here that's gonna be here?
SPEAKER_03Let's go. All right. Let's do a quick quick gear check so that you know what your characters have. I know what your characters have. Let's start with uh Stillwater. Oh, you know what? You don't know have any idea. Why don't you review what your character may or may not have while McTavish tells me what his character has.
SPEAKER_01Just be careful if somebody taps you on the shoulder with the butt of their rifle.
SPEAKER_00While you're panicked.
SPEAKER_03Cleaning my nails with everybody seems to forget that when they throw all McDuff under the bus, is that he was panicked. He was panicked in an active combat zone.
SPEAKER_01And he tried to butt struck me in the back of the head. But you have to understand I didn't see any of that happen. Right, right.
SPEAKER_03You're just going by what he said. Right. He's panicking a little too easy, maybe. So your character currently weapons and everything else. What do you got? Me? No, well, sure.
SPEAKER_01Whoever wants to go first.
SPEAKER_03Right, you're completely naked. McDuff is in his tidy whiteies? No, I they found a uniform for you. I definitely caught that part in a lot.
SPEAKER_05Oh, yeah, that's right. They did find a set of fatigues. So I have ill-fitting fatigues, probably no shoes.
SPEAKER_03Do you wear shoes underneath a hazard suit? Probably not. They're built-in. Yeah. Booties, yeah. They're probably and no weapons. We'll get you a pair of so you are pretty much completely exposed to the environment with no ability to do any offensive or defensive capabilities. You have no tools. Yes. No responsibility. Yes. And no authority. And there's an alien growing inside of you. And there's an alien growing inside of you. I am a meat popsicle. I think we've covered that you. And you've just received chemo. Right, right. Yes. Right. You've had some the drugs pumped into your system. So before we go down there, are you going to give me a weapon? Can I have my knife back?
SPEAKER_01I don't have a you're not getting that knife, no. Why? It's only the only thing that's effective against these aliens. Exactly. It's a rock. Can I at least have my spray bottle? There's some paracord and a rock.
SPEAKER_05I don't have my team bottle, my spray bottle, but to be fair, mine are probably still on the damaged hazard suit laying at the bottom of the tower. Would make, yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think uh Frank, on his way to escort Sobel up to the top, might leave a spray bottle. Frank used his entire spray bottle on carcinet that was strapped to the uh control panel at the top of the tower. Okay. Stillwater, you're gonna give him your Windex bottle full of acid. I'm not seeing a Windex bottle. So Stillwater has my vibrachet. Stillwater does have your vibrachet. Yeah.
SPEAKER_03And I don't think Stillwater used any of his acid spray bottles, so yes. Yeah. What what stress level is McDuff at? It's pretty high. 12, 13, 12. 12. Oh, that's really not all that high. Feels pretty high. I'm at 11. So McTabish is 11, and Stillwater is 12. Oh, you guys are all pretty competent. All fucked up.
SPEAKER_01It's starting to affect our decision making, I'm pretty sure. Right. Yeah. Right. Speak for yourself. In the wrong direction.
SPEAKER_03So you are wearing a hazard suit. I am wearing a hazard shoe. And is Stillwater still wearing a hazard suit? I'm gonna go with yes. Are there any like I don't remember? I don't remember either.
SPEAKER_00So probably.
SPEAKER_03So we're in a lab.
SPEAKER_00So gear has a hazard in a reactor.
SPEAKER_03Well, you're you're in the lab above the reactor. You're in the essentially the equipment room that with all the air handling equipment and a lot of the terraforming, biological equipment, tanks, big blowers, and the controls are on top of this uh this catwalk. That's where you are. You have a security system that you can look in the lab rooms, which you can see the damage and destruction of the things that have happened in there.
SPEAKER_05So this is a prefab company thing, right? What's that? This company.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean it's sure. So logic would say there are probably drilled into your head known locations of emergency equipment. Okay, so everything would be well labeled anyway. But so you would probably know where you would need to run to to find a hazard suit in a facility like this. Okay, but how do you general vicinity? There's a chance that all of that was already collected.
SPEAKER_01Well, that's true. You would figure there would be some next to the entrance to the reactor. Yes. Okay. Especially in like the clean room. There should be Yeah, there should be gear. There should be something there.
SPEAKER_05There's an airlock and a decom a station. So there, yeah, the logic would say there are suits there.
SPEAKER_03Sure. So I'm gonna look for a suit. Okay. Where are you looking for this suit? Inside this room. Wherever there's nothing inside this room. Right. We're like in the industrial plant right now.
SPEAKER_05Right, but we're heading to the reactor.
SPEAKER_03Well, you haven't even opened the door that says to reactor yet.
SPEAKER_05Okay, then that's where we're heading. That's where I'm heading. Okay. At this point, they're treating this like a cancer. They gave me chemo. I'm not thinking radiation is necessarily that a bad thing for me. Okay. So I'm just heading towards the reactor.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, it should be fine. No problem. I'm bleeding. And uh Dr. Adim does not have a hazard suit as well. She is unarmed. She is carrying her computer case and samples in another case. Essentially, she has two suitcases and no hands free. McDuff has reached fuck it.
SPEAKER_01Dr. Adem, you certainly would know if there are anti-contamination suits available on this level, are there? I would think so, right outside of the reactor. Right? Outside of the reactor room. The reactor itself. So further on down.
SPEAKER_03There's a room, and then in outside of the room has doors, and the other side of the outside of the doors is where any there is a locker. So beyond this door. Yeah, but that door just goes downstairs.
SPEAKER_01That just leads to the stairs. Alright. We'll pick up reactor suits on the way.
SPEAKER_05Let's go.
SPEAKER_01By the way, out there in uh in podcast land, this is how you know we're real. As that we don't have three players here. Right, right. Yeah. We have a substitute that doesn't really know what's going on. Playing a character when he's listening to the podcast. Yeah. For everybody's this is not slick Hollywood. Yeah. Right. This is a real game we're doing here.
SPEAKER_05We like the rest of the world have a group chat. And we all plan to be here at a certain time this morning, right? And then as we're getting ready to come here, two people are like, I can't make it, dude. Right? And we're like, well, shit.
SPEAKER_02And here we are, yeah. Playing anyway.
SPEAKER_05Exactly.
SPEAKER_03Because you, all of our fans, because we don't have a episode for this Friday.
SPEAKER_04What's going to go out?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, well, and we're looking to, we've already discussed what's next. Yep, absolutely. All right, well, we don't do that poorly.
SPEAKER_03We'll do that at the end. Poorly. So, door to the reactor. Let's go. Open it. I opened the door.
SPEAKER_00Do we need a key card to get into it?
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_00All right.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, you are our key card. If we can't get in, you hack the door.
SPEAKER_00Okay. Right. Yeah. Don't we have Hercule, the doctor's key card that was working on some door? That worked on it.
SPEAKER_03That didn't work on a door inside the lab.
SPEAKER_00Because in theory, the guy reprogrammed the computer in there.
SPEAKER_03Right. He re did something to the to prevent it. Well, that was Ziegler. Ziegler. Yeah.
SPEAKER_05Oh, he was the mad scientist, wasn't he?
SPEAKER_03He was the one in there doing experiments up until the time. Curious, it's a German name, huh? Mad Sigler. Yeah, of course. All the mad scientists are German. So who who is going through that door first? I will. Okay. McDuff, you open the door. Right.
SPEAKER_01Foam with a fling. And then we shut the door. Okay. And head to the surface. No, I'm just kidding.
SPEAKER_03So you open the door, and it is dark. An ill-lit essentially you're at a in a square section where a set of stairs goes down. To your right, about ten feet over, on the opposite wall, 90 degrees over, is another door. Mother lights. Doesn't work. Mother lights. Yeah. Mother?
SPEAKER_01Alien lights. Yeah, well. There's not like a red flickering light. No, there's no red flickering lights or anything like that. Man. There would be if this was a movie.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Yes. And there'd also be welding every time you went into a dam. Hanger deck on a spaceship, right? Light it up with the flamethrower.
SPEAKER_01So you go through. Oh, that's right. You my god, we gave him a vibra shed and a flamethrower. Yeah. Do you have a flamethrower too?
SPEAKER_03Wasn't my idea. Yeah, I know. This is all right. It's all good. So you are standing there in just inside the doorway. Door to your right, stairs down.
SPEAKER_05Looking for a light switch on the wall.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, there's a light switch right there.
SPEAKER_01I have a flashlight. They tried clapping. It don't work. I'm flipping on my flashlight and heading over to the door.
SPEAKER_03This isn't complete darkness, is it?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it's pretty it's complete darkness right now.
SPEAKER_03Oh, in this room. In this room, it's complete darkness. So I can't even tell that there's stairs? Well, you got light from behind you. Right? You're standing in the doorway. The room's not all that. It's just the square section where the stairwell leads to the door.
SPEAKER_05So they didn't actually close the door behind me.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I just assumed that was a joke since it was said in a joking manner. Okay. I should start taking everything all of the players say seriously. And then it happens. Even if it's a joke, then we just open it back up. It's probably what I should have done. It's probably what you should have done. But anyway, you're standing in there. What do you the other two do? McTavish?
SPEAKER_00I'm handing him my flashlight.
SPEAKER_03Okay. You hand him well, your flashlight. Did we have an actual you have an external flashlight? I have a flashlight. There you go. Okay. Because your hazard suit has its own set of flashlights. I'll take the flashlight and head towards the stairs. Okay, you head towards the stairs.
SPEAKER_01I'm checking out the door. Is there any signs or any placards or anything on it?
SPEAKER_03No, but you're getting a little bit of a reading on your radiation suit. I need you to reduce all of your stats by one. Damn. You can just do yes, in a temporary manner there. You can maybe you could recover from your radiation. Yeah, I'm sure.
SPEAKER_01That's including your saves, by the way. Stats and saves. Okay. So the we get the pickup headed towards the door or headed down the stairs? The pickup? Of the radiation.
SPEAKER_03Oh, you're just getting it emanating from the doorway itself. It's just so far in this room. Like once you opened that door, it was enough.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. So the reactor is already uh. Alright, let's go find the elephant's foot, people.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So you are starting down the stairs. No suits in here, though.
SPEAKER_05No closets.
SPEAKER_03No. Okay. You uh we looked in the one door. Did we look in the other door? No, you nobody said they looked in the other door.
SPEAKER_00I want to look in the other door before we go down.
SPEAKER_03Okay. Your suit is also telling you that you are at level two of radiation. Right.
SPEAKER_01I was going to open up that door, but the radiation Well, you're in a suit, so you're good.
SPEAKER_03I'm assuming everybody's suit is buttoned up. Maybe you should start a one-hour timer on your you are not in a suit. This is not going to be good for you. So I don't need a timer. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Every although it might cure his condition. Yes, one way or another. It might. Right.
SPEAKER_02So still water goes to the other door.
SPEAKER_03And this is the future. So you go to the door and it says spillways on it. Try the door, is it? Wait.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, it it opened. Well, that's what we need to get to, wasn't it? For the because the dam is going to overflow. Well, we yeah, there was pumps we needed to turn on. Right.
SPEAKER_03So still water, check it out. Your character, Stillwater. Go ahead, open the door. You open the door, you see another dark room, you shine your lights. There's two channels of water that are 15 feet across rushing through and into another space to your left. So they're coming from your right, rushing to your left. There's a walkway down the center of the two channels, and on the right hand side of the room, on the far wall, which is about 60 feet away, you see another door. So essentially, there's a walkway all the way from your door to that door, and the left side of the room is these two kind of channels of water flowing through. The top is open. There's, and like I said, there's a walkway down the middle.
SPEAKER_01I'm not a hydroelectric dam scientist. Not either.
SPEAKER_00Don't we need to open the turn the dam on or something? But we need to get the pumps going, right?
SPEAKER_03Need to bypass. Right. So one of the things that still water was since you weren't here before, but still water, the these would be like for the reactor cooling water. The other pumps were like dam bypass water to prevent the dam from flooding. Essentially, it's like opening the sluice gate to prevent the front of the dam from overflowing. That's the pumps that they needed to do, right? This water right here is the water to cool the reactor. They just rush it through the system. So it's a different set of a different set of pumps that was referred to earlier that needed to be turned on. Those were essentially dam bypass pumps. These are the pumps for or these are the water for the intake, the reactor cooling.
SPEAKER_00Is there anything written on the other door, the next door?
SPEAKER_01Well, I just one was just wondering if any of us would know whether this water flowing through here is an indication whether it's normal or not. I need you to reduce all of McDuff's stats by one. Again? Yes, again. Okay.
SPEAKER_03So and you see starting to blister up or anything. Not yet. Okay. You feel warm.
SPEAKER_00Not cold. So you don't necessarily mean it's coming from this room. It could be the shot he got.
SPEAKER_05Or it could be the reactor water running through these channels.
SPEAKER_00We're not feeling anything.
SPEAKER_05You're in a buttoned-up hazard suit.
SPEAKER_00Minor detail.
SPEAKER_01Alright. We should maybe, if these aren't the pumps we need, I don't think this is where we need to spend our time. So we need to go down. Let's head down the steps.
SPEAKER_03Right before you close the door, you do see on the left of that walkway to at the far end, there's a body between the two streams of water. Is the body in a suit? No.
SPEAKER_01Does it look like a very quick examination of the body?
SPEAKER_03Does it look like a marine or does it look like a it's got the typical camo pant like thing going on? Camo pants, uniforms that you recognize as the same as the Marines have been wearing. Yes. You just grab the Ivanovich, the soldier. Is Ivanovich in a hazard suit? I don't know. Probably not. Yeah. Okay. I can't tell from here. I mean, it looks like one of ours. You see, there's some kind of there's something next to it as well.
SPEAKER_00Is it a vibe?
SPEAKER_01Anyone not in the suit, get out in the in the thing. Out into the thing. Out into the thing. Okay. Stairwell. Yeah. So you are out there with Ivanovic and Dr. Adeem. And your marine buddy. Still well. Come with me. And we're just going to go and look at the body. All right.
SPEAKER_03Yeah. So you walk down the center and then turn left and walk down this walkway across the top of the water flow. If you fell in there, you are gone for good. Right. But you'll never be seen again. The opening leads, like, like I said, it goes down. It's about 30 feet. So this is exposed for about 30 feet. And at the end, there's this body right there, almost caught in the like kind of part's leg is in the water, almost like it's trying to be drug under. And you're dragging it up to back off of this platform, or what were you going to do?
SPEAKER_01Well, what's sitting next to him?
SPEAKER_03It's a tubed-shaped rocket launcher. Nice. And it has on the side some pig scribbled on it. Yep. The body's mangled and damaged. Taking it. Okay. The body, not the rocket launcher.
SPEAKER_01Is there any is the face recognizable or not? I mean, not by you. You've never met this person if that's what you're at. Well, we would have seen whatever Marines were with Valdez when we were in the cabinet. I mean, this thing looks like it's been here for a while, perhaps. So not today. All right.
SPEAKER_03Let's get out. Do you collect the dog tags? Yes. You could just look for the nameplate on the uniform. Yeah. Rocket launcher. Do you touch it? One shot. It's loaded. John touched it. It's loaded. I can tell by that.
SPEAKER_00That's all you need to know. John touched it. Should we grab a boot? See if it had oh no, it's missing its legs. In that dangling handle water. Yeah, they're just trying to find him boots. I care. This is more caring still water.
SPEAKER_03Radiated soggy corpse boots. My favorite.
SPEAKER_00Nitpick about everything.
SPEAKER_03Well, you're right on the money with that one. Hey. Okay, you push it in the water and it splashes in there and is immediately pulled under. Alright, let's get out of here. So you two are back out onto the into the lab room and with the uh with the tumblers and the moving fans and such.
SPEAKER_00Pull the door shut on our way out.
SPEAKER_03All right, yeah. And then head down. Oh, so now you're going down the stairs again. Okay. All right. Yep. Keep you can I see you're looking to add another minus one there. Are you good? Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Well, that was my next question is as we go down, does the Geiger counter pick up or slacken?
SPEAKER_03It's getting slightly higher, but it's still in the, we'll call it the yellow zone of the suits meter. Okay. But about two-thirds of the way, minus another one. Down the steps, it's there's water. Oh, and it's just flooded. It's flooded. And Doctor, I'm just like, I'm not feeling well. I I think I need to leave. All right, let's get out of here.
SPEAKER_00Send them up. We can go walk in and take a look in there. What's that? Send them up top, and then we can just go walk in, walk in in that room in the through the water. Okay. Poke our head in there, just quick look and get out.
SPEAKER_01It doesn't sound like a good idea.
SPEAKER_00You never know. Goodly, look. What if there's another rocket in there?
SPEAKER_01I'm doing this for the listeners. Alright. So we're gonna direct everybody to get up to the top. Okay. And I'm just gonna give Ivanovich the uh the option to come along. Without my suit? Without a suit? No way, man.
SPEAKER_03I'm not going in there. I'm not getting radiated. Reactor's fucked, man. Something's going on. Alright. Sobel was right.
SPEAKER_01There's no way Valdez came this way. Yeah, I think Valdez took an entirely different path, didn't she?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, she went down through the top of the tower. So you're at the on the stairs at the water. Still water and McTavish. Alright, let's head through that room to the door. Okay. So you keep essentially go down the stairs into the water. The dark black water, which you're Oh no, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_01We were gonna go. There was another door that we didn't go into in the water room.
SPEAKER_03Oh, I got you. Okay, yeah. So you go up there and you go all along the back of the spillway. Correct. And I got you. And there's another door at that end of the of the stairs, and it says cooling tower. Okay. Open it up. All right. So you open it up into essentially a steamy room opening, you know, that where you're right in the middle level of the reactor, like cooling tower. So this big round, about 60 feet around section. You shine your lights inside the cooling tower. You see some kind of organic-looking attachments on the walls in here. It's steamy and wet. It gives you the same level of radiation that you were getting before you uh like the same level here as the room you're standing in. And it doesn't appear, there's no ladder or anything like that inside here.
SPEAKER_01Well, it's a cooling tower, so the they're running the water through here to cool it down so that it can get fed back into the reactor.
SPEAKER_03You see dangling in the center of the tower a couple of ropes. Not the center, but so the tower is more narrow at the top, right? And then it we're at right about where you are, it starts really widening out, and then you shine, you can see it goes down further. Okay, and then it's a more narrow opening at the top, a little wider at the bottom, and then inside, let's see, uh to your right, about ten feet, is two dangling ropes that are just out of reach.
SPEAKER_00I'm good. I think we've seen everything in here.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I and as I mentioned on the inside of the walls of the reactor cooling tower, there's these eggs, cocoons, pods. Eggs.
SPEAKER_01I'm thinking a rocket or a flamethrower rainbow. Well, flamethrower would probably do the butt if they're eggs, we're gonna die because there's gonna be mama crab is gonna be around and mess us up. There's gonna be multiple mama crabs.
SPEAKER_05John is starting to be John.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Yeah, yeah, I know. I was like, oh crap, Stillwater has the flamethrower. The embodiment of chaos rises.
SPEAKER_03You see to your right, one of the one of the pods starts vibrating a little bit. All right, GTFO. GTFO Cowards. And you weren't able, when you look down, you weren't able to see the walls and the inside of the bottom of the reactor underneath where you were. And the bottom also had, you know, things. Yep. So you're going back the other direction, back to the top of the stairs, and might as well just extract.
SPEAKER_01That was to the shot.
SPEAKER_00We tried to go down the stairs into the reactor reactor area because we went to the cooling side. Oh, that was flooded.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so we went down the stairs and it was it it was flooded out at the bottom.
SPEAKER_03I mean, obviously, you know that your suit is waterproof and environmental proof. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_00Maybe it's only knee deep. Look, we're not we gotta find him.
SPEAKER_01It covered any door at the bottom. Our team is gone. Okay. We're at the uh I mean we can't do sunk cost fallacy here. At this point, we've just got to get out. We gave it a shot. We did what we could.
SPEAKER_00If we only had another Android brain we could put out there for them and tell them that's the right one.
SPEAKER_01We do. I didn't say we need an occasion when Doc is gonna lose a character not being at the table. I don't know what happened will happen. I can't predict your actions. I wouldn't if I try. Wouldn't try if I could. We head back up and see if we can find everybody. Yeah, they're expecting Hinton's brain and then they get then and then they get Frank's. Right. Like literally, this is just old sci-fi movies and porn.
SPEAKER_03All right, so you guys leave this section and end up back in the tumblers where at the top of the the what did I call that thing?
SPEAKER_01The platform with controls. Yeah, the platform over platform. I'm assuming that all of our compatriots aren't here anymore that they've gone up the elevator. Depends. What did you do while they were gone, McDuff?
SPEAKER_03Well, Silbo wanted to leave. If I found out there was water at the bottom of the steps, then yeah, I'd be about facing. Okay. Yes. You would have heard that from these guys when they came back the first time before they went through the other. Yeah, I'd be heading back up. Okay, so you and Corporal Ivanovic, who's got his gun pointed at you, head back upstairs. And then you guys get out, there's nobody there. Yeah. That's what I was expecting. Am I feeling urges to go to the hive? No, but the voices in your head are constantly there, talking to you, whispering about the hive. That's not unusual. Yes. Sometimes they grow louder, sometimes they grow fainter. At all times you feel like you could almost understand them, but not quite. Like, but you really want to.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_03You really want to understand the hive. So that way when you join, you can be a perfect hive member.
SPEAKER_00Maybe a little jar to the head would have straighten that right up. You'd be understanding them right now, and this whole situation be taken care of. But no, you cut a guy in half.
SPEAKER_03Mostly. So you guys all make it back up to the bay.
SPEAKER_01Well, we're gonna have to clear out of this entire facility.
SPEAKER_05Well, I'd prefer to clear out of this entire planet.
SPEAKER_01Because the dam is gonna go.
SPEAKER_05But the other facility is where the dam is gonna go, isn't it? Right. So maybe staying here is better than because we're at the top of the dam right now.
SPEAKER_01Get everybody in the APC and head to high ground?
SPEAKER_03When the dam goes. I mean, yeah, you could head to high ground. You could fit how many people? 12 people in the APC plus two crew. That is currently more than the total number of people that are left here at the base. Right. But the real question would be where do you go?
SPEAKER_00Wasn't Hinton located way over far distance?
SPEAKER_01Well, Hinton is in the mountains, which would be high ground.
SPEAKER_00We can start back it up and just start heading his way. See if maybe that works out better.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. And we're gonna vent the suits so I can stop my timer. Right, yeah.
SPEAKER_03That was I figured. Okay. So you're convincing everyone to get in the APC. Yeah. Okay. Dr. Adim is curious how they're gonna find us when they get here in 45 minutes. And nobody's around. And nobody's around.
SPEAKER_01Well, that is a good question, Dr. Adim. How are they going to find us when we're floating away in the river?
SPEAKER_00From the glow.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but aren't they gonna come to the base? And you notice that the water, when you guys, everybody like look outside, you notice that the water is definitely higher than it was.
SPEAKER_01The established L L Z was in front of Greta Base.
SPEAKER_03Well, there's enough space to land here, right out there in right on front of the garage door. Big cement platform. Yeah, big cement platform.
SPEAKER_01It's not underwater, but it the on the other side of the spillway, the COM tower, right? Would we be able to tell if that is going to maintain be if the dam goes, is that still going to be there?
SPEAKER_03It's right at the edge of the dam, so yeah, I mean it's uh in a pretty pretty good spot.
SPEAKER_01And it's definitely tall enough to Right. But if we go over there and the dam goes, we can't get back here. What about this base? Would this base survive the It all depends on how high the water goes?
SPEAKER_03If the water goes high enough, then this base will could potentially be completely swamped. Who would build the goddamn base below the level of the dam? Nobody.
SPEAKER_00Louisiana.
SPEAKER_03Maybe maybe they just didn't know how the water would really flow. Who would build a freezer that wasn't self-contained?
SPEAKER_01Who's the engineer? Sobel? Did you design this shit? Don't blame me.
SPEAKER_03I just follow plans. Blame the designers. I'm sure they had their reasons.
SPEAKER_01Well, they don't need an engineer to follow plans. We have teamsters for that.
SPEAKER_03Well, technically, an engineer would probably fall under the teamster category. Well, okay. I didn't design the base. I'm just here for the company, earning my pay, just like you, apparently. Only I was not fool enough to come here after.
SPEAKER_01Well, we can talk to the mothership now, correct? Yeah, you could talk to the metamorphosis. It's got to go across the dam. We have to go across the dam to do it.
SPEAKER_03Yes. Why? Yeah. Because there's no control and no radio controls here. Actually, doesn't your I was gonna say, don't we have long-range comms on us? No, Frank does. Frank did. The APC has long-range comms as well, though. I think they may have been destroyed in the explosion. But now that the uh the screeching is gone, any long-range comm should work.
SPEAKER_01Right. Right. Yes. And I think there were some back at Greta Base, which is on the floodplain. Yes, it's in the lower floodplain. We'll call it. So we can stay here when we don't know if it's going to be a good idea or not. Right. We can go over to the COM Tower. Now, the help me with the Hinden is in the mountains, according to our scanner that we have. According to his scanner, yes. Would we conceivably be if we ride the APC on a foolhardy mission across the causeway when when we don't know when the dam is going to break. If we get over to the other side, would we conceivably be able to get to that location from there? No, it's the wrong side of the river.
SPEAKER_03Wrong side of the river. Right. Now the uh there is a to get across the dam, there's the dam top, but there's also a walkway about 20 feet up that you can go access from this side, like by the side of the cooling tower. You can get up a set of stairs and go across a walkway that kind of goes across the top of the dam about 15 feet above the surface of the like the concrete top of the dam that you drove the APC on, that goes to a the tower. Okay. So it is a little higher than current dam level. So you wouldn't need to necessarily take the APC. Everybody could walk across the dam top.
SPEAKER_01As long as the supports for that walkway remain intact.
SPEAKER_05Of course.
SPEAKER_00Which is, of course, the dam. So the drop ship come down, pick us up, and take us over there to drop us off by hint where Hinton's signal is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we could just hand him the coordinates for Hinton.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, he's ready for you.
SPEAKER_01He's waiting to be picked up. There you go, we're out. His calm just went out. But we would be on that ship. And if Mass gives us any guff, we'll shoot him. That's one way to go about it. Okay. So you have about how we can have him shoot him. There we go. Or I'll just explode on it. You probably aren't feeling charitable towards Mr. Mass at this point, I would assume.
SPEAKER_05I'm not feeling charitable towards anyone. Okay. Here, hold these frag grenades.
SPEAKER_03I feel like I've gotten the worst sunburn of my life. Inside and out. Yes. Yeah, I'm not feeling it. Well, we'll get to that when we get to it. So let's go. The dropship will be here in half an hour. Now the winds and the outside and the rain are still howling significantly. How uh what is your like like what do you plan on doing? How do you plan on making this evacuation? What's your goal here? Well, we the dropship will fit an APC. Right.
SPEAKER_00Oh, does the dropship actually have to land? Can it hover behind us to drop a loading platform and we just drive the ape right off the dam?
SPEAKER_03I don't know if it could hover to do that, but there's nothing is flooded yet. Like the water has risen, but this concrete platform out front is still uncovered.
SPEAKER_00Let's load the truck, back it up to the communications.
SPEAKER_01Well, uh my assumption was that they were automatically going to go to the same drop zone where they dropped us off. Oh, okay. Well, you didn't clarify that either way. Right. Well, because we didn't clarify that, and that was the understanding when they dropped us off, was that they were going to pick us up there in five days or whatever.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, well, I'm just trying to remember the conversation that Frank had with Mass about where and what the context of that conversation. I'd have to go back and listen to our own show. But I believe it wasn't specified one way or another where you were to be picked up, other than the fact that that you they probably would have known you had to have been there. Like somebody had to fix the tower. So I don't know. It's really uh I'll roll a 50-50 when the time comes. Okay. To see which actually I can roll it now. I'll know, and you guys can try to figure it out. Okay. I know where they're going. So well, thanks, Mr. Wizard. The magic of dice. So you have what is a set amount of time, a half an hour.
SPEAKER_01Oh, wait, we have short-range comms. We do. Yep. I did. I don't know. People in the garage. Yeah. If they've heard the sound of an explosion over by the com tower at this point yet. It's funny you should mention that. Yeah, we totally had. We didn't know what it was.
SPEAKER_03I wonder if we even have a comma right now. We really couldn't tell. It was just with the doors closed, there was just a dull thump. We didn't really we didn't really look. Okay. I'm gonna go with no. Poor bastard. Well what do you think that was? Underhill. Underhill.
SPEAKER_01Oh man. I hope the dog's okay. I just give him a look. What? Guy can't like dogs? Real dogs, yeah. Dogs better behaved than most real dogs. That's a piece of consumer electronics.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, but that piece of consumer electronics feels more real than Frank. Fair. That's a fair statement.
SPEAKER_01Wow.
SPEAKER_00Anyway, you still can't trust.
SPEAKER_01Well, what do you guys think we should do?
SPEAKER_05Well, lie our way off this rock.
SPEAKER_00All we need left is an Android brain.
SPEAKER_05Well, our choices are simple. Do we go after Hinton or not? Do we wait till the dropship comes down?
SPEAKER_00I don't know that we have time to go for Hinton at this point. We don't. But we even get to him with the river flooding in that don't we have to back and then we're going to go to the room? Well, he's in the mountains, so we're going to have to go back to the room. And he's on this side of the river. Right. Yeah, but the truck's stuck on the dam, isn't it? No. Well, we got it back to the garage. Okay.
SPEAKER_05So we can wait for the dropship to come, give them the coordinates for Hinton, and say, We need to go here before we leave.
SPEAKER_01Here he is if you want him. Okay. We got Dr. Redeem's notes. We have the location of Hinton. That sounds like a good plan. I'm thinking that Hinton is the entire problem.
SPEAKER_03Sylva's like, I think so too. Yeah. Also, the aliens. Also, the aliens might be a problem.
SPEAKER_05I think the aliens are just a native species.
SPEAKER_03Shut up. You are an alien. You turn it into one. I'll be sure to bite your head off first. You see him looking, he goes over to the corner and grabs himself a big one.
SPEAKER_05I'd willing to bet half of this trouble wouldn't exist if Hinton. I'm going to surrender alien to the comrade.
SPEAKER_01Check my forearms. Yeah, no, they're still okay.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_05If Hinton hadn't wired that alien to the comrade, I'm guessing none of this would have happened. He was the catalyst for this. Yeah, I'm pretty sure.
SPEAKER_01So what? Let's leave him here. Cares. Well, our mission. I certainly don't, but he's our ticket off of the rock.
SPEAKER_05Right. The conditions of our employment are we have to retrieve his brain.
SPEAKER_03He's just shaking his head at you.
SPEAKER_05Let's talk about the bonus situation.
SPEAKER_03There's our bonus. The bonus might actually be living through this. That might be the bonus, man. Dropship calling.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we need to get somewhere to communicate with the dropship, though. Because we need to find out where they're landing if we stay here and they land over there. Or if we go over there and they land over here. So it spacecraft don't hit it.
SPEAKER_01Is there room on that side of the gorge for the spacecraft to land? No, it's a little higher ground, a little more unsettled over there with trees and so they can't pick us up there.
SPEAKER_03No, there's no landing zone. It's really that there's trees and other things in the way as well. There is, like I said, there's room here.
SPEAKER_01Alright. Well, yeah, but we can't tell them to pick us up here. Well, you didn't tell them to pick you up here. Well, we can't tell them to pick us up here.
SPEAKER_05I think what he's trying to say is we don't have the ability to tell them.
SPEAKER_01And if we get over there, we can't guarantee that we can get back here. Okay. And then we don't get picked up at all because the drop ship can't land there.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01And it's on the wrong side of the river, and presumably our APC can't extricate itself.
SPEAKER_05I will go to the Calm Tower. You stay here. All opposed? On one condition.
SPEAKER_01What's that?
SPEAKER_05Give me the damn knife. I'm gonna need it.
SPEAKER_01Do you want a grenade instead? That would I think be more painless.
SPEAKER_05No, the point is that you want me to get to the Calm Tower and actually tell them where to pick you up, right? Yes. The grenade would prevent me from doing that if I have to use it.
SPEAKER_00But then we know you failed, so then we can send somebody else. Right. We can listen through the wind and loud pop.
SPEAKER_01I mean, they heard underhill go.
SPEAKER_05So true, true.
SPEAKER_03It was a dull thump. That's my offer. You see, everybody else is scrambling, grabbing gear, a few personal items. Getting ready to leave. Looks like they're getting ready to leave. Alright. And he can take one of the one of the Valkyries. Yeah. Yeah, you could take a Valkyrie, you'll make it over there in like two minutes. Yeah. Not even. Unless there's a something running around the dam. Or in the facility. Okay. Yes. Unless there's something running around the dam or in the facility.
SPEAKER_01We'll always remember you, McDuff.
SPEAKER_00Nothing good about you.
SPEAKER_01Oh, I'll remember you. I'm gonna make that ride. Okay. We're gonna give them the vibration. You have it, so I'll give you a revolver. Okay. Doesn't work against the thing.
SPEAKER_03Sounds like a nasty way to go, man. There's a only a few feet of the water below the top of the dam. You know that it's risen quite a few feet since the last time you were here. It's rising very fast. You zoom across with the UTV to the other side of the dam. You were at the base of the tower. You were did not run across any carcinids coming out of the water or on the other side. Okay. So I'm gonna go over to my suit and grab some of the vials. Okay. You go vial, grab your spray bottle, vials, personal gear. Head up the ladder. Did you have a gun in there too? Yeah. So you climb the tower. All right. So that takes another minute. You're at the top of the tower. Open the door. All right. You open the door. The equipment seems to be running as expected. Alright, go up. When you get to the when you're going up, you don't see any particular damage on top of the tower, like the next level up where Andrea was. You do see a synthetic dog standing sitting at the top of the stairs, and it's just staring at you. Water running all over it, its furs matted and wet. No, but you get the sense that it really wants to just bite you. Oh, it's looking aggressive. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it can keep you going. That's what worked for Underhill for the longest time. Right. Good boy. Anyway. If you have an electronic snozzage, you can give him an E bacon bit.
SPEAKER_06Right.
SPEAKER_03Alright. I'm gonna go to the camera, see if it's working. Yeah, you go in there. You actually try to reach out. Okay. This Mass. Who's this? Mass, this is McDuff. What do you want? Send the dropship to the main facility. They already launched. Main facility? Aye by the dam. So the hair and terraforming facility. Indeed. Okay. Can I reach the dropship with this? Probably. Do you need to know what channel they're on? Aye. They're on channel fuck you. Fuck ye! I knew that was coming.
SPEAKER_01Anyway. By the way, I have to override the uh the noise filter whenever you do that. Yeah. It doesn't recognize it as a word. I like it.
SPEAKER_02Alright.
SPEAKER_03Alright. So he gives you a channel. Call the dropship. You got everything? You got you got it all? Indeed. Sweet. I got more than enough. I'm totally getting promoted after this. Oh, you're gonna get it, lad.
SPEAKER_05Click. Call the dropship. Okay. There's renders. Rinfeld, divert to the main facility. Do not go to Greta base. Go to the dam.
SPEAKER_03Nobody at Greta right now. Sorry. Who's this? I think uh what's wrong with your voice? Nothing. We don't know. We're already going there, man. We'll be there in T minus eight minutes.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_03We're about to enter Atno. So don't distract us. Jesus. The hell's wrong with you guys? We'll be there when we get there. Just making sure you're going to the right place. How many people? What's the weather like down there? Shitty. Shit? Alright, well, it's shit here too. Alright, we're about to enter the clouds. Okay, you're not gonna get out.
SPEAKER_01Use your instruments. They sign off.
SPEAKER_05Okay.
SPEAKER_03I'll go hop on the UTV. Okay. Call the dog. Alright, so the dog is up the stairs. He can't get down. I'm sorry, ladder. You know how some dogs are with stairs. Right. This is a literally a ladder that's 12 feet up. So I'm not sure how if you've seen dogs climb ladders before.
SPEAKER_00Yes.
SPEAKER_03Does he have one of those like military doggy slings built? No, there's no military dog sling. Boo. How do you get up there? Maybe Underhill carried him up. The elevator may have worked previously as well. Oh yeah, that's right. There is an elevator. Right. Somebody broke. I mean, it's broken. Not sure how.
SPEAKER_01Smoking.
SPEAKER_03I don't know how. You know what? I lie. What's his name? Fix the elevator. That's right. We rode down on it. Still water fixed it. You wrote down on it. You just didn't take the dog the first time. And then I'm taking the dog. Right. We're going to assume that your character knew how to push the button to get the elevator up. Yes. Despite his inability to actually repair industrial equipment any longer. So do you somehow try to coax this dog down to or do you go pick it up? What are you doing? Just giving it commands. You're like, come on, doggy, you can jump it. So I'm all right. Give him a whistle. Okay. Yeah. The dog jumps down from there and manages to land on its feet with just a very slight stumble and doesn't appear to be any of the worse for the wear. And you have Marlowe, the bloodhound, like right there next to you.
SPEAKER_05Let's go, Marlowe. Get in the all right.
SPEAKER_03Okay, still water. Marlowe follows along. So the goal is to get down, get on the UTV, and go back.
SPEAKER_01I'm just so while they're gone. I'm just looking across the dam. Still water. We can't let him on the drop ship. We can't take him back with us.
SPEAKER_00Probably hit that little ATV there with a rocket. Because he can't come back.
SPEAKER_01He's going to be an alien. I'm the most valuable cargo here. They're not. Do we have an alien containment facility on the hypersleep? On the company yacht that we rode here? No. Probably not. Nope. I'm sure they would love samples.
SPEAKER_00Do we need all of them? So we're gonna That's the spirit. How very corporative you are. They're gonna want samples.
SPEAKER_03They're gonna want test cases. You uh Dr. Diemlings and uh have samples. I don't think we need to bring a live alien infected case on to the ship.
SPEAKER_01I'm going to unsling the rocket launcher from my back.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Ivanovich, you ever operate one of these? A couple times, once or twice. Sobel. What's the spot we need to hit on this dam to make it go now? The dam? What? You need to hit the bottom of the dam or the middle. You're not gonna blow it up by shooting the top of it. Well, that's why I'm asking you, Sobel. You know, I don't know that I like you.
SPEAKER_03Well, then the feeling's neutral.
SPEAKER_01Okay, that's fair.
SPEAKER_03I mean, you did bring the ship in here to get us alive out of here, perhaps, but other than that, you can't. You just you're just a pain in the ass, really. Man, I it's everything my mother always said, so I'm just like her.
SPEAKER_01Okay. So uh can we see the part of the dam from where we are that we might need to hit in order to not really stress already.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, but the so the dam is concave, and you're on the right side of it, and then the it bends in the middle, it arcs across the other side, putting essentially the force across the entire towards the edges of the dam, right? It's you don't build the dam boat out, it's boat in. So to shoot the center part of the dam, you would have to be maybe on that walkway, you could shoot down into the center of the dam, but then of course I wouldn't want to be on the walkway. You're on the walkway, right? It's not like they design it so you can blow it up. No, definitely not. Now, if you were to go all the way around and climb down some of the like on the other side of the cooling tower, you might have a pretty good shot at shooting the furthest, maybe third of the dam. Like you'd have a pretty direct hit on it.
SPEAKER_01Because we can't let McDuff back so that he can get on the transport.
SPEAKER_00Sure, you can.
SPEAKER_01I don't have anything, I don't have anything personally against the guy, but he's an alien now. Just lock him in an airlock. Do you have any confidence in those anti-cancer meds that we gave him? No, really, it was just shot in the dark.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I mean, it I fully believe that rate like physical form of things would work on like a full alien, but I don't know that's gonna stop an alien. Really, it's just uh of like a poison. It's really more poison than anything. Okay. How fast does it work? Well, I don't know. It's only been an hour. I'm not sure it will work. It's just something to try. I need I feel the love. I need more observation.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. You can see where I'm coming from. Is that I don't want to I don't want to ride back three weeks with an alien. Oh, he won't last three weeks, Sobel says. And I'd prefer not to rocket launch the UTV directly. I I feel that noble sacrifice is probably a better end for McDuff than just we have to straight murder him to keep him from getting back on the ship. So Ivanovic is I don't even feel good about having this conversation right now. Well, let me be frank with you. You could just shoot him. I'm not good with that.
SPEAKER_03But you're good with blowing him up with a rocket launcher?
SPEAKER_01No, I was good with having Ivanovich blow him up with a rocket launcher.
SPEAKER_03Well, nobody said you had to shoot him. You literally just said that. Well, it was a general statement. Sorry, I'm not even there.
SPEAKER_01Still water, I mean he's your friend, man. Barely knew him. There's machine guns. Can we have NPC Frank do it? I thought you'd never ask.
SPEAKER_03Frank the Android? Yeah. Frank the Combat, former combat android.
SPEAKER_00Gonna come over to me and talk with you.
SPEAKER_03Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Send him Frank to help you. And he has a sniper rifle, right? Frank? Yeah. I don't know what the document here. Didn't you weren't you up on the tower with the sniper rifle?
SPEAKER_01But McDuff might. Well, that Bunder still had that sniper rifle. But I thought Frank had like a You said it was the equivalent of the 50 cal rifle. No, that's what Underhill had.
SPEAKER_03That's what Underhill had on the side. No, that's what McDuff has. I don't believe McDuff said anything about getting Underhill's rifle.
SPEAKER_05I stop as I'm as I'm about to drive away from the Calm Tower and go, wait a moment.
SPEAKER_03All right. McDuff is on his way driving across the top of the COM Tower. You see the dog is sitting there in the front seat of the Valkyrie ATV with him. Hold your fire. He's not going super fast. Because I'm smarter than you. Not really.
SPEAKER_01Frank, anytime you're ready, man, don't try not to hit the dog.
SPEAKER_03Am I really doing this? You see, Frank, I mean, seems to have a moral quandary. He does? Well, I rolled in the sanity save to see if this is something that Frank might do, and Frank failed. So he's hesitating. He failed a sanity check? You rolled like shit. I rolled a 90, but sanity is a lot different. It's fear. Robots, the androids aren't a fear at all. It's the fear save. It's the sanity is the same as everyone else. I gotcha. So you see him hesitating.
unknownDon't hit the dog.
SPEAKER_03Seriously, our podcast ratings will tank. Don't hit the dog.
SPEAKER_01No, we don't look. Even if you hit the dog, you didn't hit the dog. No matter what happens or how many of us die, we're not killing the dog. Right. That's just not who we are.
SPEAKER_03So you see, Ivan Novick says, So you don't want me to shoot? He's coming, man. He's coming right for us. And I'm like almost there by now, probably.
SPEAKER_01I'm doing one of these where I'm like holding my forehead and my nose. I'm like, take the shot. I don't know what that means. Five. Do it. Four.
SPEAKER_03Do it. Three. God damn it, do it. You hear a burst of machine gun fire open up from the garage door. You see a flash of light coming from shots in your direction. Now you're in a UTV. Okay. It's it has its stats somewhere in here.
SPEAKER_05Send them ramming you motherfuckers.
SPEAKER_01Dog's gonna make it to me as let's just before all this happens, we we just need to like have an aside and go, what we're doing is way worse than what he did because he did it as a reaction. I was about to mention though for everybody's seat. The amount of shit I got for reacting. But I just want you appropriately. But we just want you to know that it's equal levels of not being personal. Okay. Oh, fuck you guys.
SPEAKER_03I will give you the APC's armor value. All right. All right.
SPEAKER_01Well, he was in the UTV. He was in U.
SPEAKER_03Not the yeah, not the APC.
SPEAKER_01Shut up. We're not gonna give him the 10.
SPEAKER_03You knew what I meant. All right. Wow. Looks like Ivanovic has been dying to do this.
SPEAKER_04We know he has.
SPEAKER_03So I rolled 28 points of damage out of the machine gun, minus the six from the ATV, as it has stopped some of the bullets. Damn. So you take 22, so that will be a wound. I don't know how much what's your health? Currently I am at a 14. Okay, so you take 22 minus 14, you have eight health, and you take a wound. And it will be on the gunshot chart. Oops, I rolled two dice. You could uh you could have me re roll, or I could take because they both match. Which would you like me to do? I rolled the same number twice, but I Can re-roll since I rolled two dice. Take the number you rolled. Alright. So you guys see I ain't never seen a head come up butt like McDuff driving across the top of the dam with Marlo the dog sitting next to him. A burst of machine gun comes from Ivanovic. And you see it go emptying the whole belt. Right right through the front plating of the ATV and right into McDuff's chest. You see a spray of blood spatter out and massive amount of blood start gushing out of his chest. Is there an alien coming out too? You're bleeding. That's what I'm talking about. I have my rocket launcher for the uh for the alien. And the ATV is ruined. It is, it stops. It is approximately 60 feet from the landing platform. Okay. Ironically enough, you hear the whirr of the and the scream of engines coming out of the sky. You hear it as well. Marlo, the dog, is sitting there. Marlo's gonna have to make a body save for the crash of the uh I'm firing back. What do you have? The pulse rifle that was laying by my hazard chute. Okay. You're firing back. The uh you can now see the thing above. Make a shot and then bleed five around. Who are you shooting at?
SPEAKER_01Just in the general direction. You shooting the shot that shot you?
SPEAKER_03Yeah, I'll shoot at Ivanovic. Okay. Okay. Yeah, that's not gonna hit. Okay. 71. So yeah, you miss, you spray bullets across the front of the garage door from the inside of the ATV as you bleed, five more. That takes you to the next level or to zero. Let me know. That'll be next turn. Okay.
SPEAKER_01I'll hit zero again. Gotcha. I'm going to uh flip the cover off of my law rocket. Okay. Roll percentage. It misses and there was guns coming back.
SPEAKER_03So five of five. Wow. Okay. So McDuff and gunning for you. Right? You unload. Fuck that guy. In the direction of the garage door. And you just you hear the scream of the engine, and you just have time to recognize the smoky trail of a rocket launched from that very direction as it hits the UTV. Doing you're gonna have to roll some damage here, Sean. The dog got out, didn't it? All right, roll 2d10. Collab. A nine and a nine. Wow. Okay. So obviously you had no idea how much of damage this does in any way, shape, or form. Was it D over 100 damage? It was that number right there times 10. Like a crater where the dog and I once were half the dams missing. And 80 points of damage to the ATV and McDuff. I took another wound. Fire. I mean, make there's no there's nothing around this. There is actually one way around it. So I dive into the one. No. Sacrifices his armor. Do you do we have the death save cup? Because I can't imagine there's any way to live through this. No, I mean I have eight health. I'm bleeding profusely. Right. And you just did what, 180 points? Yes, in that general direction.
SPEAKER_01The rocket just hit you in the face.
SPEAKER_03Right. No, there's nothing left. There's a giant fiery explosion. The UTV is thrown into the water. The dog is nowhere to be seen. It it may or may not have escaped. We will link that up to the mysteries of the universe. The dropship, you hear it scream, its engine scream as it stops landing in the middle of what turns out to be a war zone. And it starts hovering, it's just hovering above about 200 feet up.
SPEAKER_01I'm going to make a panic check.
SPEAKER_03Okay.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, sure. Yeah. I rolled a 12, which is one over my stress level. One over your stress. Right.
SPEAKER_03So you failed. Correct. No, no, your stress was 11. Correct. You rolled a 12. Correct. You're good. Okay. Right. It's funny though, because that would have been a perfect panic thing to have. A condition where you are haunted by something haunting you at night in your dreams.
SPEAKER_01Well, I'm pretty sure I'm going to have that anyway.
SPEAKER_03Right. And you know what it's going to be? Yeah. It's going to be a sculpture. It's going to be a dog.
SPEAKER_01It's going to be the dog. And I'm going to hear I'm going to hear harmonica music.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, you right. Every time you hear a harmonica, we're going to think of McDuff. Okay. But you're pretty sure you took care of the alien in him, too. Yeah. There actually was one. No one will ever know for sure. Nope. The ship, after hovering there, you uh it you hear something in your comms. On the short-range comms.
SPEAKER_01What's going on down there? It's safe. We took care of the last alien.
SPEAKER_03The last alien?
SPEAKER_01Just get us out of here.
SPEAKER_03Or is it safe to land?
SPEAKER_01It is safe to land.
SPEAKER_03Clear the area. You hear the ship start coming closer. The water is almost risen to the edge of the dam at this point. It's rising very fast. You see them struggling to control the ship, though they manage without a terrible amount of difficulty, and the ship lands right outside the heron base. They drop the back of the ship, and Anders comes out the back.
SPEAKER_01Okay. I'm going to tap Dr. Adim on the shoulder, and I'm going to give her the binder that has her research in it. And the tracker that has Hinton's location on it. Okay. I'm going to just hand it to her. I'm not going to say anything. Okay. I'm going to pat her on the shoulder. I don't know what that means. Okay. I'm not going to say anything. Okay, she rushes into the ship.
unknownOkay.
SPEAKER_01I'm going to make sure everybody gets on the ship.
SPEAKER_03Yeah, everybody gets on the ship. They got their bags or whatever, the personal items, and everybody boards. And then I'm going to eat a revolver around. Okay. That went dark really quick. Yeah. And what about Stillwater? What is Stillwater doing?
SPEAKER_00He's heading for the shuttle.
SPEAKER_03Make a sanity check. What's that one? That's a percentage dice. Okay. Well, you need two of them though. No. You got two tens. Pick up one of the other. And that can work. Yeah, if you call it.
SPEAKER_00I'll call it a throw it.
SPEAKER_0389. So you uh take a stress as you're not able to comprehend the actions of McTabbas. You can talk. It's okay. You are the only survivor of the original group at this point. Well, Frank is still a survivor. Frank is.
SPEAKER_01And Humphrey is. Right, yeah. So Humphrey is loaded up onto the He's going into the Med Bay for quite a while.
SPEAKER_03Right. You you end up. What do you do there, Stillwater? All the people at the base have gotten onto the ship, but you are the last man standing. You and a robot.
SPEAKER_05I saved his life by hacking him with the viber shit. Did a little bit. So there.
SPEAKER_00Some kind of rundown, or I guess. But we just got on the ship and then we just stillwater.
SPEAKER_03You witnessed McTavish pull his revolver out and end his life. Are you loading the ship?
SPEAKER_00I'm the last one.
SPEAKER_03They're the last man out of the ship.
SPEAKER_00Let's do it.
SPEAKER_03Okay. So the guy that was never here. So you you load the ship, Anders pushes the button. Everybody strap in. It's rough. We're gonna lift off and as soon as everybody's ready. Strap. Go. Strapped. Alright, yeah, everybody gets strapped in. Stillwater actually has piloting. You never get a chance to use it, unfortunately. The ship flies up through the storm, shaking very vigorously through the clouds. Nobody makes any attempt at nobody really talks at all, to be honest with you. You get back to the ship. It takes an hour. You can see the last bit of heron below fade away under the rush of water and clouds and storm. On the way up, Anders and Renfeld make a comment to the effect of some kind of strange emanations on their equipment coming from the side of the mountain, just north of the Heron terraforming station, which they make comment on but make no effort to do anything about. Everybody starts getting off, and there's no sign of mass anywhere on the ship. He did not come out to the to debate and greet anyone. The crew disperses into separate chambers, which the corporate ship has quite a good facilities for that. It seems that the shock of surviving has come down pretty hard upon the crew and the survivors of the Terran Hair forming station.
SPEAKER_01You're gonna have to do some extensive de-stressing. I'm just speaking as the ghost of McTavish right now.
SPEAKER_00See, we get a couple properties on Hinton's location.
SPEAKER_03You uh you the crew, uh the former crew of the station spends a few hours on the ship cleaning up and preparing for departure. After a few hours, you've had a shower, everything seems to be going okay. Still no one has seen Mass. He's you have you talk to the pilot Anderson Renfeld, they tell you that he's not left his room in about a day. Oh. He's been in there the whole time.
SPEAKER_01Well, we'd you one of your last acts on the planet was to talk to Mass. So he was speaking at least. But screeching.
SPEAKER_05Hear me out. Where was he? The alien was screeching through the long-range comms. Right. Mass is the one that answered the long-range comms. So in theory, Mass heard the alien screech and could therefore be infected.
SPEAKER_01Sorry, you didn't survive after all, man.
SPEAKER_00I don't know the shit. I'm starting gathering my gear and make my way to the drop ship. I'm just gonna sit there and wait till I hear screaming. Yeah, you are a pilot, so. And I will just.
SPEAKER_03Yep. Good luck, guys. So Render Renfeld and Anders are prepping the metamorphosis for departure. Do you have anything particular you would like to do before this happens?
SPEAKER_00Yeah, make sure I maintain my weapons on me, just uh You have a flamethrower.
SPEAKER_03I do.
SPEAKER_00But you guys blew up the only effective weapon. Go hang out at the one of the drop ships. I'm gonna go hang out in the bay.
SPEAKER_03There's only there's a drop ship which is attached via umbilical to the main ship. It's not necessarily part of like it doesn't fit in this. It can only attach to it. It's essentially like the main the ships in or there's like a long central beam, a lattice structure with almost like pods, and this ship will attach to the main structure. I'm gonna make my way towards it though, and just so you're on the drop ship when you hear a klaxen.
SPEAKER_00A what?
SPEAKER_03A klaxon. Okay, the military guy should know what that is, right?
SPEAKER_00Unless I'm calling to the hotel, you know. What the room service up. I'm not gonna hear nothing.
SPEAKER_01For background, John is Air Force. Oh, oh, there you go. So that's why he didn't know what a klaxen is.
SPEAKER_03An air raid alarm siren. Speak, try to speak his language.
SPEAKER_00That thing they that weekly broadcast thing, emergencies on the TV we get when we're in their room.
SPEAKER_03Yes, you're getting. That's exactly what you're getting, but it's all throughout the ship.
SPEAKER_00Why is my Wi-Fi not working?
SPEAKER_03And then you've been on enough ships to know that that's the proximity alert. Proximity alert? That's not good.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, that doesn't sound good at all.
SPEAKER_03No, it doesn't. Everybody strap in. There's contact. Contact close. I'm gonna go sit up in the pilot seat there and uh of the transport? Yes. Okay, so you're just hanging out in the transport.
SPEAKER_00So you're telling me that the 200 hive.
SPEAKER_03They're gonna drop you down too.
SPEAKER_00I'm gonna go away with the explosion.
SPEAKER_03You just stay just right with it. You just roll with it. Is that what I'm hearing? Rolling with the explosion. Yep. You feel the engines of the ship fire up as evasive maneuvers are taken. Oh, this is just like the expanse. If only. Such a great show.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we all love it. But you're gonna have to repair the hole with a three-ring binder and some some welding putty. Incoming. Make a panic check.
SPEAKER_03D20. Here in the dropship, be the chaff. 16. Alright. Yeah, you don't panic as you hear incoming. You feel the ship move around, and the thrusters have fired up, and it missed. We're on our way. And the ship takes off in another direction. And you hear we're disengaged. They left. Some vessel came from the surface of the planet, fired upon us, significantly larger than us. It's going a different direction. Prepare for cryo. Prepare for the long trip home. And may God save us all.
SPEAKER_02Thank you for listening to this episode of Retro Rolecast. Please check out our social media, and we will see you next week.
SPEAKER_00This has been a retro role cast production.
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