Weird Adventures In Space #7

Hello everybody and welcome to a brand new episode of Weird Adventures in Space, specifically episode 7. The SHU sci-fi superhero real play podcast following a team of alien refugees, protecting Earth from the Raghor Corporation, and maybe building a little slice of heaven on Mars. My name is JLPGM. I've been doing this for six episodes.

If you expected someone else, that's on you. I'm going to let them introduce themselves, but before we do that, I just want to let you know this is actually a game. This is a tabletop game. It's we're edited together to make it sound nice, but we're going to be rolling dice and doing number checks and all that nerd stuff that if you don't enjoy it, go somewhere else.

Don't listen to our show. I'm taking the passive aggressive marketing strategy and I'm hoping it's working. I would like to introduce you to my cast. First and foremost, we have Sophie.

Hi, I'm your JZilla. I'm going to be playing Wayfear and I guess along the same lines, if you don't care for me, I'm going to come to your house and fertilize you. I'm Logan and I'm going to be playing Yama Akita. I'm Robert.

I'm playing Sham. And right now, for no reason whatsoever, I'm anxious I.F. I was like, I'm going to be playing an early. You don't like me.

Well, I guess it's fair. Hi, I'm Bailey. I play Carrie AKA Lotus. Hi, I'm Tony.

I'm played Greg and I got to say I'm I'm a little worried about Robert. You okay there, but you take a deep breath, man. You want to want to hug or something? Last episode on Weird Adventures in Space, the team got wrapped into a clock involving dead hockey players on Mars.

Meanwhile, Wayfear and Carrie have been whisked away to what seems to be some sort of mafia summit on the jungle planet of Venus and King Corridade Greg is emerging from the Martian subterranean city of Soterics with a legion of Martian followers. What are they doing? They're also coming to watch the hockey game. That's right.

It's a hockey themed episode of Weird Adventures in Space, which won't make sense when I tell you the name of the episode Venus and repose. Hi folks. It's Jay the Gian here with your Weird Adventures in Space recap. A whole lot can happen in six episodes.

So let's catch up. The Evil Rhaegor Corporation has traveled from beyond the stars to raise Earth and established its hollowed out courts as new franchise. Our only line of defense is Wayfear and an all-powerful alien born into a Rhaegor labor camp. Wayfear leads the space division of the Union of Heroes, a worker-owned super team dedicated to restorative justice.

Wayfear puts together his own team, humans and refugee aliens, and there are only hope against Rhaegor. I would like to say that that plan sucks. Let's go through them. Akita?

Um, a disgrace mob bodyguard hoping to leave his old life behind him. Looks like a dog, thinks like a bar fighter. Harloop. Well, I mean who among us hasn't used drugs?

Or vandalized? A teenage witch, seeking a cure for the magical plague that has devastated her people. Those people, an entire species of purple, shape-changing magical humanoids, live in a tiny bottled city that sits on her neck. Lotus!

Don't touch my planet. An amateur superhero from Earth joining the big leagues to fight against Rhaegor. Lotus has literally been to hell and back. And finally, Sean.

Yeah, I'm free. What do you need? A lonely wanderer hoping to reunite his long-lost culture scattered to the stars by Rhaegor. This tree-like empath reconnecting with his own, disappearing people, may be, our only chance of survival.

This ramshackle team of superheroes is based on Mars and an experimental colony known as Red Hills. Established as a home for alien refugees who can't survive on Earth, Red Hills has grown into a bustling, thriving community thanks to the help of its benefactor. A mysterious construction magnate known as Greg G. Schmitz.

No, no, yeah, it's ongoing. In episode 1, Rhaegor emerges while Sean McKita and Arlu infiltrate the Rhaegor battlecruiser, Wefair saves the moon from his hated rival, the Rhaegorian mercenary known as Boson Beta. In episode 2, Rhaegor doubles down. The corporation is hired an Earth Warlock named Dr.

Hell to defect and incapacitate the team while they are arresting on Mars. And while the Union struggles with the Legion of demonic hordes, Arlu is able to fend off the invader from within the astroplane. In episode 3, the cosmic train between Earth and Mars is hijacked by a low-level bank robber named Elbedo. He's ordering around a biker gang full of spakes orks and generally making trouble.

The key to successfully fights his way through the cab. But he's unsuccessful at steering the train away from an oncoming wormhole. In episode 4, the team is trapped in a horrible future where the Rhaegor corporation is flat in the Earth but dust. The Union is able to return to their own time with the help of a penitent Elbedo.

But not before Sean finds a book detailing exactly how Rhaegor invaded Earth and picks that book back to modern times. In episode 5, the team struggles with the weight of their terrible, possible future. Key to dedicates himself to fixing a broken spaceship. Arlu begins building a magical weapon to defeat Rhaegor.

Wefair takes on a new apprentice, a human mage named Lotus looking to escape her life on Earth. Greg discovers a subterranean city filled with the native Martians who lived here before the colony was established. And finally, Sean reunites with an old acquaintance to shut down drug-dealing supercomputer, The Plug. In episode 6, The Plug responds to Sean's encroachment by shooting up a charity hockey game.

During the panic, Wefair is visited by Charming, one of five heads from organized crime group known as the Cosmic Cabal. In apology of the plug's misdeeds, Charming offers Wefair valuable intel on Rhaegor. Wefair and Kerry, cautious, take Charming up on their offer and head off to Venus. Once they get there, bad news.

The president of the Cosmic Cabal has also invited two of Aragors, Nasty Aspastards, Dr. Hell, and the leader of the Milky Way invasion, a middle manager named Orbedo Omega. Let's see, you got a couple of superheroes who have been entrapped. You've got Greg leading a coalition of Martians and humans to the surface, and a hockey game that has to go right?

Now that is an equation for a fun episode. The episode starts on the jungle planet of Venus. Wefair and Kerry, you've been brought to this planet by Charming, a representative of the Cosmic Cabal and organized crime cartel operating in the Milky Way. They came to apologize for doing business on your planet without letting you know ahead of time.

And they offered you the opportunity to learn more about the Rhaegor corporation if you came with them to this meeting. Unfortunately, when you got there, it was clear that representatives from Rhaegor were also there, and you were part of the negotiation. As you sit at this table, you look around it, and you see seven other people sitting at the table. I'm going to go through them one by one and let you know what they look like just so everybody knows.

First, Charming, from the Voor Corporation, a mafia-like corporation that operates in several space sectors. They are a androgynous android with weird energy pouring out of their eyes and mouth. They also seem to nervously flick playing cards around. Sitting next to Charming is Reflectica, a representative of the Zixxis cartel, another black market organization that operates in several space sectors.

Reflectica is a sentient pile of broken glass that moves and walks like a humanoid. The arms and legs and a mouth and everything. Because Wefair and Kerry wouldn't know this, but Reflectica actually has some ugly history with some of the members of your team. Sitting next to Reflectica is a computer tower with a grim face on the front of it.

It seems to be glowing a dark neon red, and you can almost hear it feeling under its voice as it sits there. The computer is responsible for introducing the Vixida Strud problem in Episode V, and he was rather rude to you under spaceship. Sitting next to the plug is Prince Killik's gorgax of the Killik's empire. An enormous nine-foot-tall ultra muscular purple humanoid.

He seems to be wearing battle armor made out of some sort of chitin. In the middle of the table sits a piken, a doglike humanoid in the same species as Akita. He's older than Akita, gray fur with scars on the ears and near the eye. He saw his visage when you came into town under a banner that said President.

And finally, the two representatives of the RIGO Corporation. One, Orbadal Megha, a Sananday, a tree person, looks like a humanoid woman with very short look back here, and next to her, Dr. Hell, a demon wearing a lab coat, and smoking a large cigar. They walk into the room and sit down at the table.

Once they sit down, they look over and notice Wefair is there and they both shoot you a huge grin. I'm going to lift up my middle finger. He looks over to see Wefair giving the middle finger and then puts her middle finger at her. Dr.

Hell looks and goes, I don't know what I've done to his or that. And the president says, everybody quiet down. I am here to adjudicate this meeting. As the current elected head of the cosmic cabal, I, President Goryo, plan to oversee these negotiations between the RIGO Corporation and the cosmic cabal.

I will attempt to be a neutral negotiating party. I would like to hear from the RIGO Corporation first on our previous trade agreement. And RIGO Corporation says, there is no trade agreement. We're going to crush Earth and you can negotiate with us however you would like it.

The president looks at you, Wefair and says, I would like the third party to weigh in here. I would like to say that that plan sucks. We shouldn't do it. I second that.

I don't know if we're seconding things here. What do you mean that the plan sucks? Any more information, sir? I spend a great deal of time on Earth and I spend a great deal of time with the culture that you're negotiating with over there.

I can tell you that they will never have your interest in mind. They will always be looking for a way to enslave you and they're not going to stop at Earth. The place is important to me. This important is where it came from and I'm not going to lose both places.

The president nods and says, interesting. Then he looks over at charming and says, charming. And charming takes to the RIGO Corporation representatives across the table and says, well, we have a pretty existing trade agreement and you haven't been following that trade agreement. War of Italian, your corporation has been encroaching.

In fact, I heard that you couldn't even take Earth's moon. That is accurate. The president gives a little bit of a smirk. I've heard about that.

Wayfair, would you like to weigh in on what happened? Yeah. So, Boson Bata showed up and was attempting to salvage the moon for parts, but we showed up and we challenged him. He turned the moon to lava and then he fucked off.

So he was unsuccessful in securing the moon. I would say so. It's still there. The president nods and says, well, that is a violation of the trade agreement that you had signed, RIGO.

What do you have to say, Orbita? An orbiter says, I have nothing to say. The moon already belongs to RIGO. We just have squatters.

The Mars, the Mars issue is more pressing right now. And I don't know what authority you have in Ucians have over what we do on Mars. And Dr. Hell says, they certainly can't stop me.

And then starts tackling. So that's a villain. Yeah, he turned everyone into a demon. Dr.

Hell slams his fist on the table and says, I didn't turn anyone to a demon. You just have a feeble brain. Ah, yes. That famous Earth thing where they just spontaneously turn into demons from their experience in drama.

Of course. President Gorya says, it strikes me that the RIGorians did not come here to solidify any sort of existing trade agreement or deepen negotiations between us, while the union of super heroes of all organizations has been incredibly participant. What do you have to say about that orbit? Orbita says, I don't give a shit about anyone in this piss-ass galaxy.

Once we raise it to dust, I'm leaving. The president looks across the room, looks at everybody at the table, and then one by one goes through the group of the rest of the cabal. He looks at Reflectica and Reflectica says, cut them. He looks at the plug, and the plug says, it's no longer efficient to be dealing with the RIGO Corporation.

He looks at Prince Killik's gorgax from the Killik's Empire, and Prince Killik says, dogs of the RIGO Corporation, your failure in battle has revealed you to be weak. Your central front defeated by Earthlings. Weaklings, Polanidex will never follow an army of cowards into war. And finally, charting says, it's my opinion, frankly, President Gorya, that the RIGO Corporation should turn tail and leave this galaxy before something bad will fall them.

Then the president looks at you, Harry, says, you're here from the Union. You're the only Earthling with some stake in this, what you have to say. Don't touch my planet, and that counts for both of them because I live on Mars now. You should know that if you come for Earth, you will not succeed.

Has Earth claimed Mars? It's a mix bag. But if you step to us, you're fucking with way more power than you can handle. Then he looks away, fair.

What does the Union have to say? Union will not tolerate this. We cannot allow an invasion on either planet. You know, I don't know if that's always been within the Union scope to handle, Mr.

Wayfair. We're branching out. It's a brave new world. Half of us were transported to the cross the galaxy to fight literal gods.

I don't think the Union can afford to think small anymore. Dr. Hill enraged, stands out from the table. He's pulling on a chain.

He's got a chain attached to a young Earth woman with locks over her eyes and mouth. He ashes his cigar in her face and says, I've seen enough of this and I have not come to be insulted. Orbitus says, it appears that it is no longer in Rydoor's Nest interest to be dealing with you and your ramshackle organization, President Corio. You will pay for this soon.

And she and Dr. Hill start disappearing out of the room, looks like some sort of teleportation. I'm ching around and ask, so what strings are attached with this? What do you mean, strings?

I don't want them in my galaxy. How am I going to make money if they own everything and raise it to us? Do I still do? I'm just going to stop you guys from coming to Mars and taking us over.

You ever want to take you over and make money? Off the drugs? With drugs or with burglary or with bootlegging or whatever. Not really worrying about the bootleg too much.

But can not being children and spraying brain-strung drugs into a crowd is a bad thing. The Union has existed for decades, yes? To my knowledge. We have existed for decades as well.

He looks at Wayfair. You understand that crime doesn't just disappear because you want it to. We will be forever trapped in a dance between us, but I would much rather have that than dying in a prison camp. I would actually agree.

I just prefer to know what their strings are. Okay, here are the strings. When the time comes, if Raghor decides to invade Venus, we will let you know. And you can repay that however you'd like.

But keep in mind I will be paying attention to your response. Noted. And if Raghor comes to Earth and Mars, are you going to have our backs? Can you extend the same thing to us in certainty?

Will you fight for Venus? I can't speak for the Union as a whole, but I don't like that. And on this scale, I'll do anything. I can't stop it.

Let's just say many of us have lost faith in the Union. Space and Milky Way is largely lawless outside of that prison you keep on Mercury. There's a prison on Mercury. Wayfair, there's a prison on Mercury?

I'm assuming this is something that's pretty high up on the security tier. There's a lot of them telling us. Maybe it's more that there's a lot they didn't know. I'm feeling engaged with you, Mr.

Wayfair. Can I believe I was sad? I'll let you bring your friend Lotus with you. Yes.

Back on Mars and Red Hills. It's been about eight hours since we last saw you. The key that you were woken up in the middle of the night by a large engine going off in your garage turned out to be that spaceship you're working on. Go right back to sleep.

What do you do with those eight hours? He's awake now. So you probably take it out for a test flight. See if everything's working enough.

Go ahead and roll me a piloting roll. Is a plus one, so a plus three. Okay. Yeah, it is a beaut.

The engine isn't totally 100%. Maybe it's about six or five months in a while, but for every engineering, a hyperdrive engine, it's not bad. And you're able to get off of the ground. You're able to sail at low heights.

You can get up into high altitudes. You try to leave orbit. Do I think the ship can handle it? Oh, yeah.

Do I know if the hyperdrive is working or not? I think it's fair to say that Dr. Dude, I wouldn't know that. So you probably don't either.

She fixed the engine to the best of her ability, which means everything's after all. You gotta be patient with him. The key to is going to attempt to do a hyperdrive jump. Just to see.

Okay. Another piloting roll. Probably better. That's a plus four.

Yeah. So you're able to hyperdrive. Where are you going? I go to Venus.

You might not be able to hyperdrive to Venus. It's like a 36 hour drive, right? But hyperdriving is for going light years fast. So it might be best for like hopping, hopping university universe or whatever.

If you want to go to Venus, I can see you'll get there in eight hours if you drive like an asshole. No, yeah, that works. Sorry. You just taken off basically?

Yeah, pretty much. He's still probably in his pajamas. Just like sweats at a tank top. Did you take anyone with you?

I mean, did anybody who was there want to go? Both dude and all the orcs were just like really hyped up about dropping that gift on you. So yeah, they were pretty excited. They would want to go.

All right. Everybody aboard then. Dude, that's going to say I got some work to do at the lab. Also, I don't know if this thing works.

So good luck. All right. Let you know if I make it so. You probably won't let me know if it goes poorly.

All right. All right. So you take off and I want you to make me three piloting rolls. Plus two is a plus five and a plus one.

You're on your way out of the Martian haster and traveling through the Martian asteroid belt between Earth and Mars. Probably an hour to your flight. And this is a tough path to go through if you're going high speed. It's essentially like driving narrow roads after narrow road after narrow road.

It's hard to weave in and out safely. And when you get about halfway through the asteroid belt, your ship sends you a alert signal like the AI on the ship comes to life and says, Oh, hey, what's going on? Long time to talk. So that's a black hole.

Probably about 30 minutes that way to the left. It's pulling our ship in and affecting our trajectory. Would you like me to punch it to try to get out? Absolutely.

In the Orcs, of course, we're all screaming punch it, punch it, punch it. Oh, absolutely going to punch it. Well, that punching is your five. So you were able to pilot away from the black hole.

What I will say is while you are striving to push the carcass, this new spaceship of yours, this new old spaceship of yours in that last verse to speed where you're trying to pull up from them, the black holes trajectory, your comms get taken over by static noise. This overwhelming shrill piercing static. And you can hear faintly a very soft voice saying, help me, help me over and over and over again. By the time you get out of the most dangerous part of the black holes circumference, it comes pretty of those back to normal.

Hey, ship, what was that? Not unusual to see a lot of electromagnetic phenomenon around black holes and a bunch of weird energy. Did that give off that? Was that coming from the black hole?

What happened? I linked out for a few seconds. Some came in through the comms. It sounds like some sort of electromagnetic interference.

Maybe you caught a satellite broadcast. I don't know. Are you asking me if the black hole is talking to you, Akita? Yes.

What worry about it then? John, what do you do with those eight hours? I'm probably studying the book. If I've got all that information, I can go through the book on my own.

I'm probably just studying that book, trying to figure out as much as I can of what went wrong when I got attacked before. John, the way I went to this work then is you make me two laurels and let me know what you get. Okay, I do not have the law as a skill. So let's see how this goes.

That's a plus one on the first and a plus two on the second row. Okay, if you score better than zero, I will answer one yes or no question for each correct role. So you get two yes or no questions about the future. Anything goes.

Are there any major players in RIGO that we want to find out if they are directly involved with this? Yes. You find the names of Orbit Omega, Boson Beta, Celestine Seda, Dr. Hell, Albedo, and a President Goryo.

Is there anyone from RIGO who joins us? The book sets out to you and you pick this up multiple times. The idea of forgiveness and the importance of forgiveness in relation directly with Albedo. This idea that Albedo is definitely a major player.

You see his name show up all over the place, but it seems to really, really highlight he's up in the air. He's volatile. If you don't take care of him, he might lose control. So what do you do with that, Sean?

I'm not sure as much I can do with me. Everyone off the team's off planet and I don't know where Greg and Aliwara are. Greg, you, Greg, and the chef that you crowned are walking through the big long empty hallways of the undersoil of Sumpteric. Some of those almost like train station tunnels that you were exploring earlier.

And while you're listening to people in the crowd, they're kind of coming up to you one by one and talking to you and asking me questions about your city and stuff. It's just basically a very good vibe. And then as you're walking through the hallway, a purple witch and a nine foot long tiger with horns on it crash through the ceiling onto the floor. They seem to be covered in gems, gem dust, but also covered in literal mud and cake and dirt.

You recognize the witch as Arlu. How far of a drop was it? Not 12 feet. That's a lot of feet for Arlu.

Whoops. That would be murder on my ankles. I'd have to like squat and roll with it, you know. What is going on?

I look up at the hole. What is what do you do with? I was getting shiny rocks. Are you digging?

We got to get these people to stop digging this dirt. Really looks over here. I didn't even think we had any dicksites over here. This is not this is way off the books, I think.

Oh, I, I made this. Oh, am I not supposed to dig in my basement? Well, I don't know if you're not supposed to. I guess I just didn't think anybody would be.

We've got to ramp up the time schedule on that awareness campaign. Grug looks over and goes, you know, I think doing some sort of parallel awareness campaign. Clearly, we both got some stuff going on right now. I'm all for it.

Let's do it. A margin that looks suspiciously like Greg approaches you Arlu. And the merchants are essentially greedy when I was with four eyes. And he goes, Hey, is there something we can help you out with?

Jenny Clue. Well, I sure got plenty of glue back at the workshop. I don't know when you would necessarily need glue for I don't think it would necessarily fix all this. That's more of a structural or engineering issue.

I don't care about that. I'm worried about getting this gem attached to the stick. Oh, what the hell you want a gem for? On this stick.

There are gems everywhere. I mean, you want a gem. He just kind of like opens his pocket like his big head handful of gemstones. He like, they're all over the place.

Go buy yourself a soda. So okay, I'm gonna take all the chips. Anyway, my name's Grog. And apparently you got a guy up there, Greg.

I've only met him down here, but he's a great guy. And we get along really well. And he was telling me that you guys might be having like some sort of like, I don't know, sports game at night. Are we?

Everybody died? Billy goes. I heard that they were doing it. What do you mean, everyone died?

Well, okay. So here's the thing. A bunch of actual showed up at the end of the first game. And then they like shot eight people in the head.

And then for some reason, everybody was just cool with that. Like, Hey, let's go to negotiations with the people that just told us they shot these people in the head. And we still have eight dead people. Well, Greg, that seems like quite a problem.

Yeah, it's not great. Well, gee, you know, it's just one just one incident, right? You said it was safe up there. I thought it was.

What's the situation now? Is it all over with? Wayfare and carry the I went with the people that killed a bunch of people. And then they went to another plane.

Because apparently that sounded like a good idea. The cat that's next to our lose steps out and speaks up and says, I observed most of this from my blower viewpoint. She was fine with the murders to apparently. It's nothing I'm fine with them.

It's that they were unavoidable. I can't change time. Well, we could have smacked the shit out of that one guy. We had some sort of scuffle breakout between two criminal factions that just decided Red Hills was the appropriate place to do so.

I don't know if any ongoing crime issues other than the occasional bouts of drug use and vandalism. Well, I mean, who among us hasn't used drugs or vandalized? And Greg Nodson goes just being people. All right, let's go.

I want to see this place. I'm not afraid. We got 300 people behind us, right? Greg, we don't have the reason to be afraid.

What are they going to do? Yeah, a lot of us. I'm not bored. I'm tired of being afraid.

I'm not living on the ground anymore. Cool. This pathway between the two of us has been closed for too long. Can I make this stairway out of the rubble leading back up to the hall?

Good, your basement. Yeah. Oh, I have so fucking literally I'm not going to make you roll for that. So you basically just make a staircase up through your basement.

Yeah, with magic. Come on, let's go. Sure, cut. I want to be underground.

Let's get above ground. It's 300 people romping through your house. You sure about this? I'm pretty sure my house is going to need some repairs anyway.

Five of the times it's not like scary for the house or anything. Eventually, I'll get out safely. The Martians are wandering around and like sitting in awe. They're completely overwhelmed by how weird and different Red Hills looks to them.

And Greg says you got a beautiful town up here. Thanks. We're trying. Well, it's all it ever is, right?

No, no. Yeah, it's ongoing. Well, that's good for you. What'd you take me to a restaurant?

All right, let's do that. I want to see what you eat for breakfast. What are the 300 people going to do? They're doing the tourism thing.

They're like walking around taking photos. Just rolling. They're just going with the fact that the hockey game was canceled due to murder. Just making the best of it.

As far as they know, the culprit got caught. So I see. Okay. It's been like eight to 10 hours.

Oh, I got you. Hey, can I try to fix the hole in my floor now? Oh, yeah. For sure.

Do you want to basically like roll the stairs back up? Can I use time bender and try and just rewind my floor to where it's fixed? Yeah, that's fine. I'm not going to make your role for shit like that.

I know you can just kind of look at it and your blue time magic comes and restitches it all back together. Now it's just a normal size creepy hole in your basement. Oh, I'll deal with that later. I'll find something to put in the hole.

Not encouraging. Wally is looking around and going, we have a lot of neighbors today, Arlu. Then would you like to go talk to them? What would you like to do?

You seem to be hell events on building a weapon. Well, I can't finish it because I need carrying away for her. Have you considered sleeping? Considering you've been up all night taking your basement up?

Sleep is for the week noted as a weird thing to say. Okay. Look, I'm going to go see if these people are safe. We got a whole culture ahead of us.

You just holler if you need me. The second while he leaves the room, I was probably going to fall down asleep. I'm going to say you go to sleep in your hole in the hole. The hole's my new bed.

Tom, you get a phone call and it is from Dr. Duda at the Union's resident medical examiner. She says, Sean, are you there? Do you have a minute?

I do that. Yeah. I'm free. What do you need?

Okay. Well, I know you just saw me yesterday, but I've been looking through some of these some of these bodies that you left me to clean up. And so it's not right here. I wanted to talk to someone on the team, but it's not exactly emergency.

You want me to come down? Look. Yeah, could you? A second set of eyes might be nice here.

Yeah. Oh, you're right. I got when you get to the examination room that Dr. Duda Edison, she's got the head coach of the home team, the Sidenians, the Red Hills Sidenians, the one Martian hockey team that's a lot of the league.

The last place team in the division in the league, she is showing you what is essentially looks like a human body, but the face looks really unfamiliar. This skin is like a really pallid, soft gray. The eyes have no pupils in them. The teeth don't resemble normal human teeth instead of the square rectangular shape.

They're rounded off. Dr. Duda looks at you, Sean, and goes, so I guess I was under the assumption that this guy was human. I go in there and look at his body and it looks like somebody did a jigsaw puzzle with his organs.

This isn't like an alien or anything, is it? It's not anything I recognize. It's because I know. Okay.

Why don't you come take a look with me? I need to have you make an investigate. That is a plus from just sort of like looking over the body breathing in what it smells like, etc. You have no reason to doubt that this isn't a human.

Like it's a human in every way, she performed that you understand. But when Dr. Duda points out that their organs are where they're supposed to be, you get the sense that you're looking at something a little uncanny or weird. And she says to you, okay, it's not an alien, then, well, okay, here's the other problem, Sean.

And then she pulls up her phone and shows you the other hockey players that were killed at the same procession all have the same face issue. She says, I pull off their human skin and it's like there's something underneath. I figured since you're like a shapeshifting guy, you might know if he's a shapeshifting guy, but this doesn't, I can't put it in. If there's shapeshif, now that they're dead, we should be able to physically shift their form.

What do you mean? If Rick Motors hasn't set in, their muscles should be able to expand and contract as if they were alive, but just with an external force. Oh, she starts manipulating the body and goes under that criteria. These are just human bodies.

Okay. Yeah, anyone that we can contact. I mean, I thought about calling the union, but I want to make sure you guys worked over the first. I understand I'm like the substitute teacher here.

I mean, the only person I can think of who might know anything with your wayfarer. You want me to contact the union? You just want this kind of to sit around for a minute. I'm confused because frankly, I thought that we were just alone in here.

Yeah, do that. Contact the union. Whatever this is, I think it's going to be bigger than just Mars. Okay.

She dials in right quick. You see one of the big screens in the lab light up. It's squery. A spy that works for the union of heroes.

They have a mask over their face that's constantly shifting psychedelic colors to the green sweater underneath. And they say, someone reached out to me. What can I do for you? We appear to have these sort of human people that got killed in the hockey game.

Hockey game. Pretty good. You need send me photos. Yeah, I'll send the photos that you've had.

You see query look down for a second and go and then they like are fumbling around the base of their neck and they take their mask off. And underneath the mask, you see the same that blank gray face with round teeth and no pupils. The query says to you, Sean, you two are in a lot of trouble. This is a blank.

Blank is a secret agent that essentially agrees to have their identity raised in order to blend in better. Whoever these hockey players once were, I would assume they're in a secret prison somewhere. Somebody sent government agents to your colony under the auspices of a hockey game. You may laugh at this, but it's actually not uncommon in international espionage.

My concern would be why is the US government trying to investigate the union? And that question has no good answers. If you've got blanks in your colony, it will be impossible to tell until they're dead or until you get right up close to them. If you suspect anyone else could be a blank, I highly recommend you look into it.

They probably aren't here just to watch. Thinking back, is that anyone who has been suspicious? Are they there any non-cast members? Dr.

Duda does say, you know, there are those hockey teams still here, right? Like, what if those players are still just in disguise? Query, is that any way to tell if we don't know these people personally? Yes, there is one trick that you can do.

They don't have fingertips. They don't have a fingerprint. They'll be lacking identifiable features. They'll probably be disguised in some way by a high-grade makeup or concealant, but any sort of household acid should eat right through them.

You get close to these people, you can probably smudge it away. Dr. Duda dudad just over to the corpse that's on the table and pulls out his hat and says they do need a new coach job. I don't know anything about the guy.

But to me, they would just be, it's all like, no one would believe I'm a coach. Can you give an empty speech? Can you just like give people hats on the back and tell them to go get them? I can do that much.

They're not expecting anything of us. You know, all their people they know and love are back on earth and they're stuck here. You know, so what if aliens are the coach? You give us a shit.

It's all things of us. We can tell the players what we're doing. We don't have to keep them in the dark. I don't know hockey.

I'm a gamer. I guess I'll try to do something. She gives you the coaches hat and says, I mean, I can try if you'd like, but I would still want you there. See what you can figure out from these ones.

Will do. Can I find Greg or try not to get it's joined off a bit. Yeah, I was sleeping inside an ant mound right now. And you're able to find Greg.

He's just catching breakfast with a couple of Martians. Which would be new Steve. Never seen them before. Hey, Greg.

Hey, what's up? Hi, who are you new friends? This is King chef's a lot. And uh, Grog.

Grog's still here, right? Or did he split? Oh, no, I'm here. I'm enjoying the hell of an omelet.

It's good, right? This is my favorite place. This place is Greg, Greg. I built a nice town up here.

Who's this guy? The tree guy? Nice to meet you, tree guy. Hi, I'm Sean.

I'm Grog. And these are my Martian buddies. You can watch hockey game. You know what that is?

Vaguely. Well, me too. That's about as far as I know. Yeah, speaking of hockey, Greg.

You and I much. I'm more of a motorsports guy, but uh, I know a little bit about hockey. Okay. And can I just abstract away about all the blanks in that?

Because I don't want to absolutely get it. Sean explains it to you and it's personal here. So basically, you must have been trying to spy on you by infiltrating your hockey game, Greg. Oh, well, that's not good.

Nor is that typical through the game of hockey, from what I understand. Again, I'm more of a motorsports guy. But from what I know about hockey, that's not common. I mean, from what I know about most governments, I believe it, they need a coach and we need to find out if any more of them are these blanks.

I was hoping that you would be able to help or know someone who could. Flipping through the role of decks in my brain, if I know anybody, I do have a pretty long list of contacts. I don't know if I know anybody who is specifically a hockey coach, but uh, you know, someone that's like a little league guy though, you know, he did a little league for a really long time with this kid. You know about it.

He wouldn't shut up about it. So he's got coaching skills just a matter of porting him over to the new sport, right? Exactly. And he's actually a pretty decent employee.

He just talks a lot. All right. I'm gonna, I guess I'll get ahold of that guy and see if he's interested in coaching some hockey. Yeah, he comes on over.

He doesn't live too far away and introduces himself. His name is Brian, coach Brian. Hey Brian, glad you could get over here on such short notice. Sure thing.

I haven't played a lot of hockey, but I should have watched a lot of TV. Well, that's good. You know, you know enough about the game to get a get a coaching thing going. I think so.

I mean, they got a coach, but I mean, we're the last team in the league. I don't think anyone's gonna really be worried if you lose. Good point. Sean, right?

Then are you going? Do you want me to do a thing? Uh, yeah. Basically, we need to make sure the team's ready and able to go out.

Well, I'll go right on over there and introduce myself. Look, it's all for fun. Anyway, it's just an exhibition game. I'm sure people would appreciate a distraction right now.

After what happened last night? Hey, I live in fear 24 seven. Do you want to come with me, Sean? Yeah, I'll come down.

I do want to find out a bit more about this game. Sorry. He actually invites Greg and Greg as well. And Greg goes, what do you think Greg sounds good to me?

Oh, yeah, go to go check out the coaching session. Just see, you know, get to know it. See what see what this sports like. Maybe we can help your friend, Sean, with the thing he's looking for.

Sure. Oh, I'll go over there. All right. Sounds good.

Y'all get together in a car and take off. The motions are kind of just milling about like Paris, but you kind of expect that. For them, it's like going to Disneyland. The transport gets over to the arena and you kind of can, you know, wave your hand and people recognize you.

They're like, you're in the building. Both teams are kind of running at half speed. They're not doing too great, but they're scrimmaging on the ice. You can see in particular, the head coach of the other team is extremely loud.

He's extremely cruel. He's like berating all of his players. He's telling them that they need to do better. They're telling him that you better beat this team.

They're the worst that there is an offer that kind of shit. He's just talking mad game. Where would you go? Roger just goes and sits down in the stands and he's like, this is fascinating.

I'm just still hanging with Greg. If he goes and has a seat, I'll go have a seat. Well, he's just watching the game trying to understand it. Nothing too fancy.

Sean, what are you here with coach Brian? And he goes, I'm gonna go just introduce myself to the guys. I'm sure you can handle yourself. Yeah, I will go with Brian to the players and try to use an investigation on them to start trying to figure out about these blanks.

Can you make one rapport role and one investigate role? Okay, that's a plus one on the rapport and it was investigation for the second one. Yes. That is a plus three on the investigation.

In looking through the remaining players of the team, they have enough to feel like two lines so they can still play. You're noticing a lot of very normal, very scared people who are being forced to play sports because they're trapped on this plan. But you know, we're very traumatized when we happen to have a very concerned about what can happen in the future. You don't see any signs of like the skies or cosmetics or anything.

They seem to be just real normal sweaty people. And for the most part, they're pretty good natured. They're doing their best to make it work. Coach Brian is pretty much accepted instantly and they're all kind of understand that this is a little bit of a search side show.

So they're trying to talk their way through it and make sure it works because they really, really hate the other team and they really hate the other team's coach. Well, I'd like to go over to the Amfield team and do pretty much the same. Who do you approach? The coach first.

Coach looks at, he stands up, he puffs his chest up real big. He's six, two, two, fifty. He looks like he's playing sports himself, but maybe time's been a little rough on him. That said, he has enormous muscular forums and biceps.

Very vascular. He says to you, what the hell do you want to try to come in here with our playbook? No, no, I'm just here to see how the team's doing after yesterday. What do you mean after yesterday?

After we took an L? Yeah, we're not going to do that again. I was referring to the massacre of other players, but sure. Oh yeah, right, the players.