Weird Adventures In Space #11

Hello everybody and welcome to Weird Adventures in Space, the SHU podcast's very own sci-fi, superhero podcast. This is a real play podcast. We'll be playing the fate game system and rolling dice and the dice are going to determine some of the outcomes, but we'll clean that up in audio for you. My name is Jay, I am the GM and I am ready to usher you into a how-to space adventure, but first I should introduce the rest of the cast.

Hi, I'm your jeezel and my safe word is yes. I'm Logan and my safe word is octopus. More practical. I'm Robert, I'm playing Charm and I tend to play risky and don't you say what?

That is the professional crossword player style for sure. I'm Jack, I play Arlie, or her safe word is a knife. Knives are words too. Yeah.

Hi, I'm Bailey, I'll be playing Carrie and none of you guys should have sex ever. Hi, I'm Tony, I play Greg and my Greg safe word is a beef administration. It's supposed to be short. Well, I mean, if you're engaged in, you know, in sexual activities where beef registration comes up, you're going to need that safe word.

I'm just, how are you supposed to say that with a ball gag in? Last time on Weird Adventures, a brainwashed, all-powerful superhero from Earth, once one of Wayfarer's closest friends has stopped our team dead in their tracks on their quest to liberate Pluto from the Raguar Corporation. Can Wayfarer break through Wendy's mental scars? At the smoldering heart of a medieval bottled city, a full-scale revolt against the cruel council of elders has begun.

Will the teen witch Arlu and all-around decent guy, Greg, be him at this reach salvation? Or downfall? Back in the Martian colony of Red Hills, due to the presence of a crystal-soaked and weird energy, Kerry's consciousness is expanding as she peels back the veils of reality. Or at least that's what she was doing.

She was finally interrupted from her astral traveling by reformed criminal Albedo. He plucked the crystal away from her and stands over her prone body, heads swirling with a cloud of sinister time magic. Will the union crack under the pressure? Or is Wayfarer's loyal team of Weirdos just getting started?

You can find out right now in Episode 11 of Weird Adventures in Space, Diamonds in the Wind. This episode begins inside the bottled city of Amethyst Reach. We were just in the middle of a fracas breaking out inside of a tavern. Arlu's mentor, Tae-lim, has been interrupted rudely by a member of the ruling council who was surrounded by a brigade of knights.

Tae-lim and Dr. Duda by Arlu and Greg and the other time-stitching wizards, a little bit of time to cut out through the back door. So you're out in the back alley behind the tavern. It's Arlu and Greg about, let's say, five of these wizards.

They're all close, you can barely see their faces. In this alleyway, which is made out of cobblestone and brick. You can tell that you are in the midst of a bustling part of the city. There are people milling around a lot in the main streets, and these time-stitchers are looking up to you two for guidance.

Do I see groups of like four scholars walking around and you'd have to be able to take a clean look. You're risking exposure if you go to look up. I'm gonna look. Like, can you make me an athletics roll?

Oh, why did I do that? Oh, wait. You scramble up an old-fashioned chimney. Can I make a stealth roll?

Who? I'm even gonna try to look. There's the front of the tavern and the back of the tavern. The tavern is surrounded on the left and the right by these sort of like closely built buildings with tiny alleys.

I have any idea or anybody of knowing what might be causing the whole magic, not being their thing. You've heard rumors that the elders have this ability, but you've never seen it. There's some sort of like hushed whispers in the royal court about sort of like a doomsday plan where they would be able to disable magic for anyone except for themselves. What I know of any way to get out of the bottle, you know, physically.

Like, is there an entrance or ex-point in this stupid thing? Does it matter? Well, you know that Greg and do that got here somehow. Yeah, I'm gonna ask them how they got here.

Our loot takes a minute to climb this building. It's a couple stories. Greg, you're surrounded by cool wizards. They're so nice.

You know, they're frantic. What you're gonna be doing with yourself? If that's the vibe, then I guess I would have attempted to climb up the chimney also. Okay.

I was not accounting out for this, but we are doing it. Wouldn't Greg still have on that Iron Man too? That's what I was wondering too. Do I like, since I got that thing.

You do and you can take it on and off. Real easy, like Iron Man. Do like the whole Iron Man thing like, collapse down and it's portable and I'm just throw it out and just shrink it back. Yeah, it's like a gizmo hat.

As soon as you put the hat on it, like, puts itself over your body. It's completely unassuming to anyone else, so it's good to work for you. If you have that suit, then you absolutely climb up that building no problem. Yeah, because as soon as I burst out, or I flip that thing out, and put it on.

And I assume it doesn't make that noise. I make that noise every time it does it. That's what I do. That's what I do.

Yeah, you can shoot your Iron Man soon. But the sounds aren't getting, like, right? Yeah, like, they don't totally match the suits. Motions?

It's close. You're getting closer. Which I'm totally fine with. It's absolutely what happens.

I do a few more extra after it stops. Greg, with the help of your new suit, you can scale that chimney no problem. You haven't been cited by anyone on the way up, thanks to your suit's stealth features. And you've clearly got a commotion behind you in the back street and a commotion on the front street as well.

I'll let you two talk it out and figure out what to do. How'd you guys get in here? Usually I get in here with, like, magic shit. And then this little tiny city?

We got shrunk down by a dude, I think. This is kind of a meta question about this bottle. We're in a city that's tiny enough to be inside of a bottle. What scale are we talking like when we're in the city?

Can we see the edge of this little universe? We're like, can we see the bottle? The size of the bottle? Or is it so vast?

You would see outside of the bottle, like, where you would normally see a sunset, a little bit above the skyline because it's not so small that you can't get out. But the scale is really, really hard to adjust. You are very, very small right now, probably the size of a like a moat or something. So we're looking out of the bottle.

We're at the Dr. G, that's librarian right? Seeing like, you can see like a countertop corner and then maybe an ant on it. That's the ant is fucking huge, bro.

That's a giant ant. But I mean, you get used to it. You're just like, oh, right, terror in this guy. We're all good.

Let's go. Okay, that helps. Can we see the top of the bottle and like the cork? Or I mean, is it, can we get up there?

Your suit is trying to zoom in on it. You can't see it with your normal vision. But once your suit gets calibrated, you'll see it be the equivalent of flying about two miles under there. Okay.

Oh, oh, Craig, I'm gonna have you make a notice roll. And the notice roll is quite successful. So you do notice you got the top totally triangulated. You can have coordinates there.

You know, the suit has limited flight capability, limited, though you don't know where the limits are. Okay. Arlu, I'm going to have you rolling notice as well. Great.

In the commotion in the back street, which is not where the nights show up. The nights show up in the front street. Here's to be a lot of people chanting and singing a word over and over again. And it's a word from the Ammon language, like a lost Ammon language.

And it means chosen one. Are this just going to roll her eyes? It's just maybe take off running across rooftops. Are those kind of she hates the council?

And she just kind of assumes that they don't have the power to do this. So they're probably using something that does and they probably support that and they're like castles or whatever. I'm making up assumptions. All right.

Well, I guess I'll stay with these wizards. If there's a commotion in the back and they're in danger, I'll stay with them. They're definitely in danger. They don't look like they are the combat type.

And they all look to you and say, we can probably find shelter in a church nearby, but I don't know how to get through the crowd without coming into possible conflict. Do you have any ideas, Greg? Can I lift them up to these rooftops with the suit? Yes, for sure.

So yeah, I'll as quick as I can, however many I can take at a time, I elevate these guys up to the rooftop. So they all come up with you. Basically, you can take two at a time when I need to arm and they kind of know the city from here and they point towards the church a couple of blocks over and say, I think we'd be safe there. This looks like it's going to escalate.

All right. Well, as best I can with, you know, with all the things the suit does, I guess we're going to try and go across these rooftops and get to the church they were talking about from roof to roof. Did you want to try to move stealthily or do you care if you get seen? That we'll try to be as inconspicuous as possible.

I mean, as an inconspicuous as six people, one of them in a robot suit can be on rooftops. There becomes a point in time when the buildings can no longer be climbed down. They're like midarettes. Okay.

And so you can get off at a place with a staircase where it's safe to do so you can kind of blend into the crowd. Okay. Yeah. We'll do it like that.

We're like, as much as we can be on these rooftops, we will try to find a back way down if we got to get over and back up again and like that. As you move through the crowd, you can see what happens. The knights that showed up to get Arlu and to get Taelyn and the rest of your group have provoked quite a response by the citizens of this town who are now themselves attacking the knights. They're doing it on behalf of their chosen one, who you've picked it from context clues is the teen witch with emotional problems that lives in your country.

All right. You get the sense that like she's been living with an incredible amount of pressure. Everyone in the society cares about what she's doing all times. And you get the impression that like it's a very strange experience to have to live under that microscope all the time.

You're feeling it a little bit now because you stand out among the crowd and they're all talking about her. They're all using her name and they're all going to go fight for her even though she's nowhere to be seen. Eventually, as you walk down the streets, you do find some safekeeping in a church. It just kind of looks like a standard church from Earth.

And above this humble church, there's a sign in the M&I language which reads church of the father. You're running towards the castle and as you get maybe I'm say three or four blocks across these rooftops, the elders appears to you like he he operates in as if you were teleporting or unclocking or something. Kick the balls. I'd say he's about maybe 50 feet away from you.

And he says, Arlu Halt, you know what you've done. You know you've crossed your oath. Now it's time to pay the price. I'm gonna climb down the roof now.

Okay. He kisses like a cat and then follows you. Where's my cat? Actually, is she on my back?

at least. She is not on your back. She stayed back in the bar. Damn it.

When the elder touches Grant to follow you, he actually is walking on all fours like a dog, which is not typical of your species. And he's doing it while he's climbing down the side of a building like a spider. He's now screaming at you. Arlu, Arlu, turn right away from me.

Yeah, no, I'm not gonna go near him. Sounds creepy. Okay. Can I have you make me an athletics roll?

Uh, minus one. Okay. That's not good. You watch his legs, shape shift into what look like cricket legs.

Pounces off the wall at around 70 miles an hour. And with all that velocity and all that momentum, your barrel is right into you. The moment he hits you, you're covered in this familiar slime. This man is not an elder wearing robes.

This man is a shape shifter. He's slick to the touch of his neon alligator green skin. When he moves, the sounds remind you of wet meat left on a kitchen counter. He speaks in a really high aristocratic lilt.

And when he gets ahold of you Arlu, his face shape shifts into the familiar face of Prince Malek, the rifle air to the ruling council. His face is a single eye on the left cheek of his body with an enormous smile from the top of his forehead, crescent mooned all the way down to his jawline. He has a dagger in his hand and he says, my beautiful papas has instructed me that Arlu keeps their heart in one of four locations in the body. Oh my goodness.

And then that slimy little freak goes to stab you. Can we get a fight roll? Yeah. Yeah.

That plus five. You smack that dagger out of his hand. Can I pull out my own knife and drive it in his eye? Okay.

Go ahead and make me a fight roll. Three. Oh, he got a zero, so you stab him in the face. Malek requires back violently, making noises like an annoyed cat.

And you watch his flesh spin and tumble as he transmogrifies his arms into hacksaws. Meanwhile, on Pluto, last episode, you were getting ready to ride in and fight this sinister, rigorian labor camp that you've tracked those on beta down to. You met the plutonium's, a crystalline like people who speak and move as one and who invited you on a raid to fight on their behalf. It appears that the rigorians have been processing the plutonium's into base mineral components via cruel experiments.

The corpse sludge is then used to manufacture vehicles and cheap consumer electronics. Living ingredients, cheaper prices. On this raid while you're riding these crystalline mantas through the sky, you see the sky part and a super hero formerly known as Wendy appears, except she looks different. She has no hair.

Her eyes and her eyelids are always open. She never blinks. She has blood coming out of her nose and her mouth and her formerly red and white outfit has been replaced by the tight and clean jumpsuit of rigor upper management. She has a plutonium in each hand.

This poor, brainwashed husk that you use to call a friend looks you right in the eyes and says, our customer specials are one of a kind. Be the first to get your hand on these low, low prices. Then she splits the skull of each plutonium by tightening her grip. You're reminded of her incredible strength as the lifeless shards cascade down to the ground.

I'm gonna get up and I'm going to fight at her as quickly as possible. I'm just trying to push her away. Can you go ahead and make me a fight roll and then a physical? That's a three and...

oh shit, six. So you get enough speed that you actually do get to bit roll her back. You don't do any damage with the attack. She doesn't seem too plus by your rigorous of any inform compared to her super powered invulnerability.

But you do manage to push her away from the crowd. And as you're that close to her, you can see that she looks gone behind the eyes. The pupils are square shaped. She's barely breathing at all even though she's in the middle of a fight.

Something's deeply wrong with her. When you're doing this and she pushes you back as she's barreling through the air, she's looking at you in the eyes and saying over and over again. Preferred customer? Preferred customer?

Those two plutonium still falling? They're falling up. Keto will rush to try and get them to land on his manta to try and catch them. That'd be piloting?

Yes. That's a plus three. You manage to get out of the plutoniums who have had their skull cracked, their crystalline skull. As you catch them and both of them say to you at the same time, please, the spotty is temporary, it can be replaced, save the core.

And there's a part in their head that starts glowing. Keto, I guess we'll grab their core. You have to split them open first. How can you do that?

Can I use the stagger that I've had for like 13 episodes that I have never used again? I'll use the dagger I picked up from the Bugman's Nestofress back in the prison episode. Deep cannon. That is the deepest cannon.

Absolutely. You can cut them open with knives. They're not going to have any resistance or anything. And then you can hear the same voices from the the cores say.

Now bring us to the rest of the plutoniums. Keto will start heading back then. Then this journey to pick up. You're going to need two piloting rolls.

So three and three. That is going to be good enough. You get back to the plutonium sewer in the sky. When you hand over the cores, they hold the core in their hand and somehow the core becomes encased in the same type of crystal that makes them.

Then they let the crystal free and it rapidly metastasizes into a plutonium. So they're not dead and they have a brand new fresh body to work with because of what you did to save them. When the core of a plutonium is left in the open air for too long, they eventually rode into dust. Okay, where are we with Wendy?

She got pushed back. Wayfare her cotter with a football tackle and now those two are entangled. Wayfare pushed the windy far enough back that like she's not in range or fighting or anything. So is there anyone else impeding our progress to get into the site?

There is not. No. Then I think I'll start moving down. Okay.

Is me will follow your lead. Are you trying to advance towards the base itself or wait on the perimeter? Sit down outside. Can I have you make two piloting rolls as well?

Yep. That's a plus two and a plus one. Okay, doggy. I'm gonna go back to Wendy or rather Celestine Ceda, her new name.

Celestine looks at you. Wayfarer and says, I will not stop until you are given the absolute best in customer service and then throws a punch at you right into your rib cage. Okay. Can you make a fight roll?

That's a four. She got a nine. So you take five. Okay.

It instantly cracks one of your ribs. Okay. And when she hears it, you can see that look in her eye that that far away look that distant look where she may not be present anymore. It wins us.

It goes away for half a second. She blinks when she hears you hurt like that. I'm gonna look at her. You know this isn't you and you know this isn't you either.

They're fucking wobbly for Christ's sakes. You're listening. She takes a big deep breath and then starts twitching. You're listening to them.

You're letting them get in your head. You're wrong about you. Whatever they're saying to you, they're wrong about you. You're a good person.

Can you make me an epithe role? That's a two. She begins to cry and then very quickly takes a very deep breath, a deep inhalation and says, I'm going to kill them. At that moment, she's flying out towards the sky.

It didn't sound like the same voice that was thrown on. It sounded like Wendy sounded when you first rescued her a couple years ago. Feral. She seems to be trying to outrun you.

Yeah, I will pursue. Akeeta, you have noticed that there seems to be some sort of desert twister. I'm going to give you a turn to try to prepare for that because you were about to get swept up in a very, very nasty sandstorm. And I'm this planet.

There's no sand, so it's just metal and diamonds. Any cliffs or anything nearby that would provide shelter? Can you make me a notice, Ro? Is A minus one.

You spend your turn at a loss. You're searching across this infinitely open field, metal and minerals to see nothing. And just as your turn passes, one of the plutonium points out something in the distance. Shama, as you're descending into the hillside that overlooks the Rigor labor camp, you also hit a big gust of air.

It seems like you're going to be swept up in the sandstorm too. Can you make me one more piling roll? That's a plus four. You manage to land your man to safely while this make crashes into the hillside, bouncing off the rock and rolling down a sleeping climb.

I'm gonna chase off to her and try to stop her. You can tell she's trying to like, dig her hands into the side just to catch herself, but it's not quite working. She's yelling out to you. She's trying to shapeshift her arm up to yours.

Can you make me a fizzy crawl? Yeah, that's a plus five. You manage to successfully snag her with your arm and you two are entangled as you tumble them out inside. In the background, it's clear that a desert twister has sparked right up a violent windstorm that is absolutely going to leave anyone with organic flesh in a bad situation.

Back on Mars, the Martian colony of Red Hills, inside of a rehabilitation facility, Lotus, superhero with the Union of Heroes who unfortunately lost her arm for the fourth time? Fourth time? Fourth. Recently in a fight against the Rigor Corporation, she's been trying to rehab here, but unfortunately not fight with the Rigor Corporation to not leave her unscart.

Her former crystal arm has now been reduced to a single crystal and that crystal is teeming with the weird energy that makes up the unknown parts of the universe. You were talking to your mentor, your god, your friend, Death Point, and he was telling you that he wasn't real either. That something was off. It seemed like a fantasy, but what he was saying was making sense and he knew enough about your life to talk to you.

You were pulled out of that though. Not forced rather, but by the crystal being removed from your arm. As soon as you lost contact from that weird energy, you exited the weird zone and you resumed your normal everyday life. Standing above your bed is El Bido, former villain who may have been reformed by your team's kindness.

I say may have because he's got the crystal in his hand and the time magic, a classic signature of our friend Arlu is swirling around his head. He seems equal parts shook and scared. He is also trembling and he has the coiled nervous energy of a snake that's about to pounce. Does this look like the same El Bido that walked me into the center?

Same El Bido. He was bringing you like half a sandwich. He has half a sandwich in the other hand. I'm just gonna like with like my hands with my hand show that I'm not like I need that back.

I understand that what was happening was scary, but I was I was doing something that I need to do. I need the crystal back. Can you please get it back to me? He looks at it and goes I can make it all go away.

And then the time magic disperses and his body is violently thrown against the wall. Oh, that is not good. Is he still holding the crystal or did he drop it? He's holding it with like a like a white knuckle grab.

He absorbs energy so it's not like it's really affecting him. Kind of rush over to where he is and like kind of study him. Like I don't know what's going on with you, but there's some kind of like weird aura around your head. I just please please put the crystal down.

I can't afford for that to break right now. I don't want it to go away. Whatever's wrong with you, we can talk to you. We can figure that out.

He's sitting there kind of back to the wall. Legs stretched out on the ground. And he says, I keep happening. I just things happen to me and then I don't remember them.

And it just it feels like my brain is filled with other people's thoughts. I and then it's gone and then I find and then then I'm fine. Can you make me a notice roll? So that is a plus three.

So something new happens. You're sitting there in that moment that's super tense, right? Super tense. Just really scary.

You don't really know what this guy is or what he's capable of, but you know, anything could happen. And instead of fear in that moment, you hear this little voice in the back of your head. And if you focus on it can really hear in the first two or three words maybe sound just like Death Boy. Just like him.

Lotus, you might be needed here. If you pay attention to him, you can bele him. You can notice what happens to him. Now that you've seen beyond the veil of reality, you can see things others can't just give it a try.

So I'm going to spend a fake point and I want to reach out with my normal hand and like put it on his head and I'm going to tell him I need you to trust me. I'm going to try to make things better. And I want to try to heal him. He doesn't say or do anything as you approach him, but as your hand approaches him, the time magic flares up again.

And he's sitting there. He's white knuckling that crystal and he's saying to you, how can you put something behind you if you're not real? If you're not even real, how can you look forward? I can't.

I don't even hear. I don't even hear. I'm going to take him out for you, okay? But I need you to trust me.

He doesn't move. He lets you touch him if you touch him. Can I have you roll a will and an empathy? So the will roll is plus five plus four.

Before you even do anything before you even move, that little voice that sounded like Death Boy kind of guides your hand a little bit subconsciously. I'm not talking to you. Just feels right. You can tell that you're not going to be able to heal him.

Somebody has cast and time magic on this man's brain. And because all time magic is temporary, it seems to be trying to pull his brain back into the past while his body is still in the present. That's a thing that is absolutely terrifying on a metaphysical level that no one can really fix. But what you can tell is that this volatility is caused by stress.

He is paranoid and jittery. He can't talk about himself. He's completely gone. He's dissociating all over the place.

This guy needs compassion. He needs understanding. He needs time to heal. It can't happen right now.

I'm just going to kind of shift so that I'm sitting next to him, probably on the side that is farthest from the crystal. So it doesn't look like I'm just trying to take the crystal from him. Yeah. And I'm just going to kind of lean against the law.

So I'm going to level with you. I think there's some time fuckery going on with your head. And I don't know where Arlo is right now because she got hurt fighting. But I think that she's the one that can help you more than I can.

Right now what I can do is listen. So whatever is stressing you out or making you feel like you can't breathe, let it out. Talk to me. If you don't want to talk to me, I can go get one of the brain doctors, the therapists.

The more you start freaking out and get nervous, the more that those voices and that feeling in your head is going to get worse. If you stay calm, we can slow it. So at that moment, you hear a knock at the door and someone walks in. And he says, and it's like rough around the edges, blue collar kind of American accent.

Miss Lotus, I think I can speak for him in this case. Detective Dickey Trainier and I want to keep both of you safe. That's me. What's up, man?

He walks in. Oh God, help. You got up with me again. I know it's last week's been rough on you.

She's helping him back on your fetal friend. Albedo just stares blankly. He looks over you. Do you know this guy?

Sure do. He's a good guy. I've been here two weeks investigating the case and there's nobody else here that's going to play chess with me on my lunch break. Nobody's familiar with this case except for me Lotus and then some people that are here and made me a handful of union members.

And just from looking, we might want to give our mutual friends some space to relax before you and I catch up. Listen on over to another room up above someone in here to make sure he's good. I would prefer that. I don't want him to be by himself right now.

This longer walks with a couple of wings of the rehab facility. Dickey puts a ballpoint pen backwards in his mouth at cigarette. Even though he's older and in the late 70s. You notice how incredibly sharp he is.

He's looking at everything. The dust on the windows, how open individual doors are. Every time he passes a person, you make sure to get a glance at the shoes. He speaks quietly with intent.

My pal Albedo has been handed a rough guard. This crazy blue stuff keeps attacking him. I can't figure it out. I mean the time magic.

Oh, is that what that is? I would know. I don't know what any of this is. I know that that's currently what is affecting his brain.

Hey, if we're talking blue stuff, you know more not who you both reach Dickey's office. As for this other case though, strap in. Back in the medieval bottled city of Emma this reached the union of heroes own time wizard Arlu stands face to face with her shape shifting stalker Prince Malek. I say face to face but that's only half true.

He's got a night in his face. Malek does and that will get in the way. I'm gonna make a call back to episode one of weird adventures. I'm gonna pull the copash off my back because it's been there the entire time.

Malek responds by rippling his sawblade I have more pointy things than you would it'll Arlu and that means I have earned the right to kill you. You don't even know how to skin shift. He's going to try to like jam the two saw blades one on the left side of you one on the right side of you and do a big scissors lap in your torso. That's not nice.

He's not a nice guy. Lock I guess the sword. Look you're gonna deflect with the sword. Yeah the plus four.

So Malek ended up with a six you take two damage from the blades going into your sights. That's not nice. I don't like that. At this point in time in the fight the crowd that is around you and the street is going oh it's Arlu Arlu and they're saying that that famous Amoware that means the chosen one over and over again to come to your defense and your rescue.

I just want to do a thrust kind of thing. Just thrust at him. It's four. So that's a create plus seven plus seven.

He took an enormous lap. You caught him with your copash. I kind of want to have charged and then start running. Like charge into him, stab, and just run as I bolt a blade out.

Pass him. Go ahead and make me an athletics roll and then stealth roll plus one and minus one. You don't manage to get past the prince. His goopy, stretchy body and tangles you as you try to walk by.

Malek is attempting to encircle your torso like a slinky and once he gets in place he tries to make several short stabs towards your vulnerable parts. Think putting pins in a pin cushion. Where is it? I'm on the treasure hunt for the chosen one's valuable organs.

Oh, Papa's will be so proud of me and providing me with an ice cream treat. If I bring Arlu's heart back to the sacrificial altar. He's nuts. I love him.

That's too. I'm not great. He actually rolled really poorly so while he's trying to stab you you, you manage to like body check him into a wall or whatever and prevent him from getting to dig her up. But he's still in coil around you like a snake and you can hear him making little cat noises as he coils around you and hissing and purring.

At this point in time the crowd is just basically chaining your name and also chaining kill him. They know this is like the royal air. They're perfectly happy with Arlu's skin and the street. That's good to know.

I want to try and use my ghost hand and grab his spine. I want to try and paralyze him with it. Okay, physique roll. Think of physique roll.

I'm imagining cutting through a shape shifter would be like putting a knife inside a taffy. Oh, plus two. Let's see what you got. How about critical failure?

You don't catch a spine. But when you pull your knife out, you do see a little talisman. This talisman sits cracked and stabbed at the point of your blade. Oh, give that back to me.

The poppers will be so mad at me. Give it back. I'm not going to give it back. I'm going to keep it.

Here's what's causing your powers to turn off, by the way. I'm going to keep this still. I was hoping he's just a weird guy. Think Rapunzel.

He was raised in his comfortable room on the highest floor of the royal castle. Drowned by nurse maids, gold filament bed sheets, and baby kittens. He's the softest of all soft by the fanciest of the fancy lats. But he's got a real nasty hunger inside of him.

Can I just run away from him now? Can I have a lot of extra help? That was good idea. Plus three.

Oh, hey, plus three's not bad at all. You effectively get out of his immediate reach and into the crowd. As you disappear into the crowd, you see the crowd move forward towards the prince. You know what?

They can do whatever. I'm not going to do anything to him, but I'm not going to make it to where they can't. As the 200 plus ammonite crowd descends upon the cruel prince, you can hear him hissing and shrieking like a cat jumping into ice cold water. You also know that he's incredibly hard to kill due to his enhanced shapeshifting prowess.

So he'll probably sneak away just fine. He's squishy. Greg, you're in the church? All right.

It's, you know, shelter for anyone. And you and your time-stitcher enter into the main chamber where you're encouraged to sit down by an attendee in a rope. The time-stitchers are looking to you for guidance. They're just saying, what should we do here, Coach?

We just sit down. I know we're safe here if we need to, but do we need to go get the chosen one? Yeah, I'm thinking we probably should. I mean, we're separated from everybody.

So... Maybe we should wait here then. We're not fighters. Are you?

I try not to be, but I mean, it happens. At this time, you can hear a big booming voice come from the back of the cathedral. There'll be no need for fighting, gentlemen. You can see a man and a gold cloak coming down the steps.

And he's got four priests and black cloaks behind him. And he shouts out to you, all are welcome here. What is important right now is everybody's protection. And he looks over at Greg and says, if we need to get Arlu out, I think you and I can handle that.

But I want to wish shelter for everyone else here. You are after all visitors in my home. They're safe in here, right? The man in the gold robe picks his hood off to reveal a golden robot who is somewhat human-looking, almost like a, like a, like a gold statue or something.

And he says, I have my priests here performing shelter magic. Nothing is coming in so long as they are and they will keep your friends safe. He raises his hand to you, Greg. And he says, I have not introduced myself yet.

And I feel as if I should. My name is Brother Eclipsis. I am the founder of the Church of the Father here in Amethyst Reach. So long as you're with me, no ill she'll come of you.

Well, if everybody's safe here, I think I probably ought to go and find my group. It is very important to the Church of the Father that the chosen one are, will be kept safe. It's part of our sacred duty. I will accompany you.

Let's go. If you want to come along and help me get to them, I'm for that. All of your companions will be safe under the protection of my attendance. I give my promise as a sworn servant of the Father.

Greg, as you're getting ready to walk out of the Church, you have like a really funny thought in the back of your head. Just like you know, you get like a weird brain tingle sometimes. Right. The Church of the Father sounds really familiar.

Angry prejudicial citizens and subterranean Mars have the exact same belief system as this golden robot blaming ownership over this impossibly tiny Church in a bottled city from halfway across the galaxy. What is going on with the Church of the Father? Waker. You have been pursuing your former friend to hire them to the sky.

And even as the Twister sets down on the metallic landscape, you ignore the pieces of shrapnel and impossibly hard diamonds swirling around you. Yes. Ouch. You see an enormous missile cut through the cloud line.

Okay. And it splits into several smaller missiles. And then they seem to acquire you as a target. Oh fuck.

I think I will try the old A figure out if they're seeking and then B if they are seeking, try to get to them to try to hit me at at the same time, but go intangible before they strike. You know, like from cartoons. I'm gonna have you roll for cartoons. Cartoon cartoon.

It's gonna be an athletics roll. That's a four. You do manage to successfully take the heat seeking missiles, point them at each other, parent intangible, and then they shoot each other, and then you become unentangible and you smile. Yeah.

This would be cool if this didn't suck right now. Unfortunately, as soon as you disable those two and you come back and you're trying to look around and regain where Celestine is gone, and you can see about 20 or 30 of those missiles entering your airspace before they split into the smaller missiles. I guess I'm just gonna go intangible for a while. I'll try to catch up with her, but I'm not going untangible anytime soon.

Can you give me a will roll? Okay. Six. There are moments where you like catch a rough or stumble and you become tangible for a brief second.

Your bodies aren't from the wind shear. They're cuts from the metal and the diamonds in the air. But for the most part, you make it through. Okay.

About two thirds of the way to Celestine. You see her take one of these missile batteries to the back of head. Not the tiny missiles, but one containing 30 tiny missiles or so. It strikes her down from the sky when she falls like a lead weight.

I'm gonna go try to follow her to the ground. More missiles coming. More missiles are coming, yes. All right.

I'm gonna fly down and figure out whether or not I can transfer intangibility through myself to her. Can you make me a will roll? Four. You can briefly transfer intangibility to her, but it takes a lot of focus.

So you're in a vulnerable position, and you're essentially having to pin her down still. She's not feeling better. You know, she's still feral. Right.

Akita? You and the Platonians managed to find shelter. They thank you, all of them all at the same time. Thank you for rescuing part of us.

It's very vital that all of us are here. We will have to mount up to get into Righor's camp. They have a line of guards and troops right at the entrance. So you either have to fly over or go low with this windstorm.

It might be best to go low. Yeah. We would like to defer to you. Obviously, members of the union of superheroes have quite a bit of combat experience.

Flying in this is probably gonna be a bit of a mess and probably be a lot more visible with all of us. So going out definitely probably be the better option. Mount up? I guess so, let's mount up.

Then they mount up. Sean, you and his mate tumble to the bottom of the mountain, but you manage to keep each other safe. The ship shifting creates a sort of like a protective buffer so that when you crash or hit something, you're gonna be okay. You do tangle from each other and she looks at you and goes, thank you, Sean.

I don't know what happened if you didn't have me there. We need to help each other. Of course. I think we need to group up with Akita and then try to make a platform there.

As it makes sense, I'll get ahold of him. Akita, what do we want to do? We're on the cliffside overlooking the city. Where are you?

Uh, took some shelter with the Platonians. Yeah, that storm. We're heading towards the encampment. Right in a bit low to avoid the storm.

Good. Think in generalissimo. We turf into the side of a cliff over here, westward from your position. Can you see the entrance gate from where you are?

We need to fully crest this mountain range before we'd have a clear view. Can I? Make a no storm. That is four minuses.

You can't see ship. As it makes sense, well, ship, he can't see from down there, so maybe if we can get to the top of the cliff, we can look down. Let's see what I can do and I'm gonna try and grow so I can reach up to the top. She's following with you, but she doesn't like to stretch her body in the same way, so she's just calming the rocks.

You get up there much quicker than she does, but she's only a few minutes behind you. When you're on top, you can look down into the camp. It's been a bit huge, you'd estimate at least 60-80,000 people. Just by scanning through the crowd, it's all sorts of different people, and they're all dressed in identical record clothing.

Can I look around for a key to end of the Tumions? You can. Yeah, I'll pass the information to a key to about the camp and make some move in a key to the direction. As you're moving towards the cliffside, you can see closer that you get to it.

There seems to be an entrance, like a walled gauge or something at the front of it, with a couple of turrets up top, as well maybe about 30 to 40 guardbots, you know, just robots and regular encloves. One thing does catch your eye as you're climbing across these rocks. It's maze on the low looking up for you. Out of the corner of your eye, you notice that one of the people in the labor camp is a Sananday.

And I'm not talking that Orbido Omega here in the Sananday that's in charge of the RIGO Corporation. I'm talking about a laborer being forced to put together cheap electronics. You and your team attacked a RIGO or labor camp a long long time ago. At one time, you thought you were the only Sananday in the galaxy.

Then you find about 70 being forced into labor by the RIGO Corporation, and know that you and your friends at the time tried to set them free. RIGO or was eager to reclaim the people it called property. Although you haven't seen this exact since the day you attacked that camp. In your heart of hearts, you know it's one of the same people.

Once shackled, then freed. But now shackled again. Kerry, detective trained this soldier aside into a quiet room. Any sense to you?

Hey, thanks for trusting me back there. My friend Elbido has been suffering, and I want him to look down on for his staff here to feel like he's some kind of problem. He's a good guy. Yeah, I can see that.

I'm about to give it a whole routine. My name is Detective William Train, but you can call me Dicky. Union heroes hired me to investigate some recent unpleasantness in this facility. They hired me for two reasons.

One, to eliminate any accusations of bias. I am not an union member, and I know nothing of their business. Two, I've been investigating meta-adjacent crimes for 40 years. I know it's the cops half the time anyway, and I'm damn good at finding clues.

So that all said, I just want you to know you aren't under investigation. Two weeks from today, there was a murder in this facility, a patient. And I've been there since then kicking over rocks to look for some kind of clue. The only one I got is these game security tapes.

I'm afraid. I'm afraid you're the only person that helped me. First of all, who got murdered? Someone getting some substance abuse help.

Normal, average citizen going through a hard time. Not everyone treatment here has super powers. Who do you suspect is the person who did it? Well, I think you'll know what I'm thinking.

What's the show you to tape? It picks up a big recording tape and tries to insert it into a tape player. There's like, I know what this is. I know this technology.

He slaps the top of the player a few times trying to get it to accept the tape. No, no, no, no. I have to do this one. And after it does, you two spend the next five minutes trying to figure out where to plug it in.

Once you finally figure it out, you fast forward to the moment in question. And it's hard to see. It's blurry, like a lot of security cam footage is the patient is sitting in their bed and it looks just like yours. They shuffle themselves off the bed and start putting around the room, gathering clothes, picking up small objects.

Then there's a brilliant and blinding flash of white light that envelopes the screen. Nothing but neon CRT static. And after five to seven seconds, you can begin to see shadows slowly moving the top of blinding color. Shadows of people resembles paper theater.